Aardvarks to Planet X

by Chris Troman

hurried over to his books and started pawing through them, to eliminate even more sequences. Finally after an hour of fevered work, he sat holding a sheet with his un-deciphered fate on.

  "Now if only I can persuade that Dawcy to run it through his machine." Money wouldn't do it; "he's rolling in it with that set up." Besides Sam funds were too low. He didn't hold much hope of appealing to his better nature, given their previous encounters. Sam would just have to brazen it out, perhaps appeal to his scientific curiosity.

  Locking up, Sam approached Dawcy's lab door. Then he tentatively knocked. "If only he's in, he did say he had wasted a nights work before." The door swung in. "Hello" Sam called out. All was dark except the apparatus chattering away. He stepped in; there was no one there. "Perhaps he's popped out for a coffee", thought Sam. "I'll wait."

  It was then that he noticed the computer screen. It displayed "translation complete, next please Y or N." A pile of sheets lay neatly stacked by the printer. This was too good to be true. Trusting to luck Sam glanced round, and then fed his sheet in. He pressed the Y button, like a naughty child expecting to be apprehended at any moment. Not much happened. "That's computers for you", mused Sam.

  He stood in front of the screen, but facing the door. Least the true owner of the process should return. "Beep." Sam spun round startled, as the screen returned to its original message. Then the printer sprang to life. It seemed an eternity to come out, but with a final whirr Sam stood looking down at greatness or doom. With reverence his eyes scanned across his fortune. "For heresy of the highest order, and gross perversion of the lords works. Yea shall learn the very machinations of his ways, yet still be mocked all your days as a charlatan you be. The archangel of the lord casts his pronouncement of your doom."

  A tear dripped onto the page as an aquatic full stop, as Sam stood transfixed, held like a condemned man before the noose. Then "whack." Sam flew forward, as an assailant hit him from behind. Reeling he stared wild-eyed at Doctor Dawcy. "What the hell are you doing in my lab?" Dawcy shouted. Enraged by this attack after such a pronouncement of doom, Sam was soon at Dawcy's throat. Then the two reeled round the lab, like drunks trying to dance. Dawcy suddenly went stiff. Sam realized too late, that his nemesis had crashed into the cooling fins. A spark flew and Dawcy was on fire, a human torch. Lurching forward he fell on Sam, who screaming fought to get him off. Smoke and flames billowed all around, and swooning Sam passed out.

  "I thought we’d lost you for a while, your friend was not so lucky." A figure above Sam indicated a zipped up body bag. "Quite some blaze. Must have been ten fire trucks there, when you were dragged out." Sam started to babble about how it was an accident, and what his work could prove. If only he could get his notes. "The world had to know, I'll be famous." The paramedic gave him a funny look, and then noted something down on a clipboard. "You just relax, it's going to be all right."

  Doctor Natas stood before the inspection window. Only on this side it was mirrored. As he adjusted his tie, he listened to the final words Sam intoned. Turning to the psychiatrist, Sam noticed his identity badge in the reflection. "Of course doctor Natas, a man needs all the friends he can get." "Yes,” agreed the doctor. "I know a few fellows with the same point of view."

  A girl can’t help herself

  My tale is nothing new. It has been told countless times over the ages, with different characters and varying scenes, but still the same story. As if it was a universal truth that cannot be denied. The important thing now is I am telling you my version, and you can be bothered to read on.

  Caren fingered the gold ring. Gold formed in a supernova, ripped from the earth, and shaped to fit her podgy fingers. It wasn’t particularly expensive as rings go, but she’d not paid the monetary value. Just the more expensive cost in commitment; to a man she had nothing particularly in common with. Just the fact that they had shared there DNA, and made yet another member of the human race.

  That had been quite some time ago, and he had led a campaign to subjugate her. A protracted pogrom of her will. Until the initial infatuation that brought them together; a mixture of pheromones and alcohol, had dissolved into a long downward spiral to oblivion. She no longer loved him, and Caren suspected him incapable of ever loving her. Just an animal urge; followed by societies customs, and their unwillingness to just let go.

  Her son was now a man, at least in body and urges. He lacked the animal cunning of his older self, but was not present just now. His presence lingered in an ashtray. A vice Caren had long ago foregone; still able to temp her senses, but not her resolve.

  Temptation was the one thing she could resist. A long and painful lesson learnt. Now she was progressing to resolve. A career as a carer; was hardly the future she had planned for herself. Cast into this roll left her many times alone, while her wards were away.

  Then a chance brush with temporal theory changed Caren's outlook. A program on time travel caught her attention, and finally resolve crystallised. A vague dream she’d had for an eternity; formed in her subjugated mind. Soon she read all the material on the subject, and then she started experimenting. She would go back in time, and change her life before she became this drudge.

  How she managed to make the world’s first time machine; this tale doesn’t tell. That’s for a chapter on great inventors of the 21st century. After a few blind starts, and a lot of subdued genius. Combined with a bit of blind luck, saw Caren stood in the basement ready for the trip. I’d like to say the machine was an impressive mixture of a bicycle; and several computers propped up with oil drums, but in the end she got it all in a shoe box. It had a few dials for control on the front.

  “Right deep breath Caren.” She set the date etched in her memory like a brand. A crimson sheen spread out from two handles she held onto, and enveloped her like a body suit. Then with an unpopping, the basement was empty. Twenty years ago she popped back into the same basement, luckily it had been built then.

  So tonight was the night; the twentieth anniversary of caring, but for her two decades reversal in the fourth dimension. She crept out, and luckily found on one at home. Then Caren headed off to the pub she always regretted going to. Now he’d get his, before he could get her. Caren came armed, nothing too dangerous, just enough to land him in casualty. That would do.

  She turned into the street the pub was on, and just then she noticed in an ally a crimson sheen and a popping sound. Too much of a coincidence to ignore she approached the alley. It was only then that Caren saw a mixture of a bicycle; and several computers propped up on oil drums, next to a very old and wheezing form.

  “Don’t do it“, pleaded her older self. “He’s not worth it. He just marries someone else and makes her life a misery.” Was this some trick? Sensing Caren's question, “no it’s not” her elderly self replied. “If you could invent a time machine once, then why not again but twenty years earlier. Especially with the money you got from selling your house, yes I know.” Caren instinctively reached for her bulging pocket. “But it took me a lot longer, so don’t waste your life. My life's been spent chasing a time machine you’ve already got.”

  As Caren saw the possibility a change happened. As with any resolved paradox, her older self shimmered into nothing before her eyes. Leaving only the possibility in her mind, and a plan in fruition. The next day, but twenty years later, Caren walked out of a bank miles away from him. She had just withdrawn all the money from a two-decade-old account. Under her arm Caren carried a shoebox size bag. Smiling Caren hummed to herself, as she ducked into an alley. "Sometimes a girl can’t help herself." Then there was a crimson sheen, and an unpopping sound.

  Another century of British rule

  He drank for medicinal reasons. Proclaiming that dangerously high levels of blood in his alcohol stream; could lead to bouts of lucidity, a fearful condition. I couldn't fault his reasoning; prescribing to the same course of medication. Thus we saw in the new millennium.

  My drinking buddy and me eventually sobered up enough to finish our degrees. He got
a job with a big financial consortium, and I took a position at the patient office. This was how I got in at the ground floor as it were of the greatest discovery of our time.

  I had been working in the Clapham office for a year, and had settled into the job nicely. Mr Faversham could be relied upon to provide tea at the drop of a hat, and Ted Rothby would dish out the cigarettes in an endless chain if I let him. The only downside was the occasional crackpot inventor; who would tarnish the government-sponsored holiday I was living.

  It was on a Tuesday I recall. The whole week stretched before me, and a light drizzle smeared the windows. I had just finished my eleven o'clock tea break, and was busy doing the crossword. "Excuse me sir, is this were you come to register inventions?" The shaky voice came from behind my newssheet. I folded it down and removed my feet from the desk. "No sir, this is the patient office, we register patients." The sight that greeted me was of an elderly gent in a thick coat and bowler hat. An unusual item of apparel in this day and age, but I persevered.

  "Do you have a patient you wish to register?" I suggested. He smiled weakly and placed a case on the desk. "I have here the prototype of my probability matrix field generator." My stare