Across a Sea of Stars

by Michael E. Gonzales

  "Captain Salazar?"

  "The same."

  "I—I'm sorry." He pressed a button and in a few seconds, a crew of five emergency personnel rushed in pushing and pulling a lot of equipment. They began to open Capek up and started connecting all the devices to him.

  A much older Portigalweg man entered the room. He looked at Cris, then down at the gurney. He moved quickly to it and examined the readouts on the various pieces of equipment.

  He looked up and said, "By the Son of the Father, what happened to Capek?"

  "He was shot, Doc." Cris was still very much distraught and upset.

  "I see that, gimba."

  The man from around the desk whispered into the older man's ear, he quickly straightened up. "I beg your pardon, Captain gimba. How long ago was he shot, with what, and on what setting? I need details, man!"

  Tarnus jumped in. "He was shot with a hand-held rama, a Fuldar type. I'd guess the setting at one or two."

  "You guess?" He looked closely at the hole in Capek's chest. "Definitely a two, by the depth of the penetration. How long ago?"

  "Two hours ago, perhaps a little more."

  "Two—what took you so long to get him in here?"

  "Sorry Doc, I was a little busy, I had to kill Caval Du Mal," Cris replied.

  "What, again? Did you not get it right the first time?"

  Tattie could see Cris losing his temper, so she took Cris's hand and interrupted. "Can you help Capek or not?"

  The man made a gesture and the technicians wheeled Capek off through some wide doors. Then he turned to the trio. "I will try," he said in a calm voice. "Knowing Capek would be coming back to me, I had ordered enough spare parts to build another Da Nee, third generation of the fourth model. All except his intelligence generating and conducting capacitor assembly."

  "His what?" Cris and Tattie asked as one.

  "His brain. If his brain continues to receive power, or is holding a charge, there is a chance, a slim chance, that he's still in there. I'll go to work and let you know. Now get out of here. I don't need angry aliens and bleeding Geldneth here while I work."

  "Bleeding Geldneth?" Cris and Tattie turned to look at Tarnus. Most of his injuries were bleeding again because he'd torn the stitches loose. He also had several new wounds. Tattie rushed to him.

  "Uncle," she said, oddly using the English word, "I'm so sorry not to have noticed that you are also injured."

  "Don't be foolish, girl. We have all had our flesh tested this day. Look at Cris, there, and you—you're a sight!"

  Tattie pushed her hair back and shot Cris a quick glance, clearly worried that she did not look her best.

  Cris leaned in and whispered, "A sight I want to see every day for the rest of my life."

  Tattie turned and smiled at him, and Cris felt warm and renewed.

  "You take Uncle Tarnus to the House of Healing. I'll wait here for Capek," Cris suggested, and kissed Tattie.

  Tarnus turned to Cris and said, "Where's that bladder of Geldneth Nordthok when it is needed?"

  "I'm afraid it went down with that big ship."

  "A pity, that. Exceedingly rare stuff, you know." Then Tarnus and Tattie headed toward the door.

  Two hours later, a Geldneth woman approached Cris, who was drowsing on a long seat. "Captain Salazar?"

  At first, Cris thought it was Tattie. "Ah, sorry. Yes, that's me."

  "Of course it is, all in the spinning worlds know who you are." She handed Cris a small silver cylinder, a centimeter-and-a-half in diameter and two thick. He took it and looked at her blankly. "You have a communication, Captain."

  Cris looked at the cylinder a moment then held it to his mouth. "Hello?"

  The woman took it from him and held it to his right temple, and it stuck there. Instantly, he heard Tattie's voice as if she were inside his head. "Cris, hello, Cris?"

  "Tattie? Is that you?"

  "Yes, have you any news of Capek?"

  "No, not a thing. How's Tarnus?"

  "He's a terrible patient, as usual. The nurses all hate him. He can't keep his hands to himself."

  Cris laughed. "Darling, I'm going to stay here until I hear something on Capek. I'll be right here."

  "All right Am Eka, be safe. I love you."

  "Tattie?"

  "Yes, Cris?"

  "I love you, too." The words seemed to free Cris from some unseen bonds; he felt liberated, and a part of a greater whole.

  Minutes later, Cris was fast asleep on a sofa that looked like a sausage that had been split down the middle.

  He slept deeply. The last time he had slept he was in Tattie's arms in the old fortress.

  Cris dreamt…

  He was flying a Rapna at a great altitude and at tremendous speed, skipping over the tops of clouds and hurtling downward through depthless halls of air. He pulled up just in time to miss the mountaintops near Narrowdep. He glanced over at his co-pilot, who he assumed to be Tattie, but found Mag'Osnik there instead. "There you are—where the hell have you been? You missed the entire war!"

  "Oh, no, my boy, I most certainly did not. While you and yours conducted your—special operations, I was the organizer and leader of the Infantry formations. Unbeknownst to you, several great battles were fought on the ground at several locations on Nazer, Kalob, and every moon around the demi-star of Zuluth. We were victorious—mostly. But it was your twin victories over Bruckna then Caval Du Mal that ended the war and brought about peace. You and your friends are true heroes of the first order."

  "Mag—I learned in my war back on Earth, the only heroes are the soldiers who go home in boxes. Every moment that passes, I seem to learn of just how costly this win was. I hope it was worth it."

  "Cris, ask your children's children that question. I have seen the future. There is peace, and full lives on worlds that abound with beauty and plenty. There is only one small problem remaining."

  "Now, what?"

  "That will have to wait until I see you outside of a dream."

  "Dream?"

  "Well, yes, Cris. You're dreaming all this."

  "So…none of what you just told me is true? It's just a dream?"

  "Oh, no, it is true. You're dreaming everything but me. I am actually here in your dream."

  "Right. Tell me the truth: have you been in my dreams before?"

  "Yes, I have, Cris. How do you think Capek knows so much? I learned from you and planted the information into him. You should know, however, this is the only time I have intervened."

  "You saw my dreams of my war on Earth? And…of Danny?"

  "Many of them, yes. You suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Cris, and you know it. Tattie will cure you of that, I assure you."

  "Did you—see my dreams of Tattie?"

  "Cris, I am a gentleman! Oh, watch out for that tree."

  "What?" Cris had gotten quite low and was heading for an immense tree. He swerved just in time to miss it. "Wow, that was close," he exclaimed, but Mag'Osnik was gone.

  Chapter 29

  Apollo 20, August 16, 1976

  "Captain—Captain Salazar." The Geldneth woman was at his side again.

  "Yes?" Cris sat up quickly. "What's the matter?"

  "The work on Capek is completed."

  "Is he all right? Can I see him?"

  "Not just now. He is in a power re-supply station powering up his new reactor."

  "Was it a success? Is Capek okay?"

  "We won't know until he comes out of the station in eighteen hours."

  "Eighteen hours?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Cris left the Videkanica Maintenance Facility, and caught a platform for the House of Healing. On the platform were a great many people from the many worlds, all very happy, some slightly intoxicated. As he stepped aboard, the jovial merriment died down and a low murmur began as the people began to whisper among themselves. Cris knew it must be his appearance that caused the change. He was filthy, exhausted, bleeding from a couple of small lacerations, and he was certain he mus
t smell terrible.

  A young Portigalweg woman gently touched his arm. "Your pardon I ask sir, but are you not Captain Cris Salazar?"

  "Yeah—ah—yes, ma'am, that's me."

  A huge cheer went up and it seemed everyone on the platform wanted to touch him.

  A Parenmerian couple tugged at his pant leg, he looked down. The little fellow had to shout to be heard. "My father and mother lived in Gala, they are safe in Chalderia now. I can never repay the debt—" Tears filled his eyes and the eyes of his wife.

  "It's okay, my friend," Cris said, placing his hand on the man's shoulder. "Now, it's up to all of you to become one people and keep the peace. There is strength in unity."

  "Our name is Sonderclap. Come to our home, we will feed and bathe you, my wife can treat your hurts."

  Cris smiled. "Thanks, but I'm on my way to take care of that right now."

  An older Geldneth woman leaned in to shout to him, "Is it true you are mated to a Geldneth female?"

  Cris blushed and avoiding her eyes he said, "We are in love, yes."

  "And you a Portigalweg?"

  "No, ma'am, I'm from Earth. I'm a Solar."

  "Then the two of you will live among the Geldneth, is that not so?"

  "No, ma'am, we will live among Nazerians."

  The platform stopped and Cris exited at the House of Healing. All aboard the platform cheered him again as it pulled away.

  He entered the lobby, and there stood Mag'Osnik. Cris paused a moment, then went up to the old man and hugged him. Mag'Osnik was taken aback.

  "I thought you were in love with Tattie?" Mag'Osnik quipped.

  "You said there was more to be done."

  "When?" Mag'Osnik gasped.

  "In my dream."

  "In your dream—whatever are you talking about?" and he turned to lead Cris down the hall.

  Cris's lips parted and his eyes grew large.

  "Just kidding, my boy." Mag'Osnik smiled briefly.

  "So, you were in my dream?"

  "Yes, of course. We'll discuss what need be yet accomplished with Tattie and Tarnus in his room. Let us go."

  In Tarnus's room, Cris found the old warhorse sitting up in bed and telling jokes to an attendant. Tattie sat in a chair in the corner, fast asleep.

  "Then he hiked up her trouser leg and said—" Tarnus stopped as he spotted his new guests. "Mag'Osnik! I thought you dead."

  "Whatever gave you that notion?" Mag'Osnik asked.

  "Why, you said so yourself!"

  "Then, it must be true."

  Tarnus stared at him, slack-jawed a moment, then shook his head and addressed the attendant, "Carst, would you excuse us? Family matter, you know."

  The young attendant bowed and departed.

  "Cris," Tarnus spoke softly but firmly, "what news of Capek?"

  Tattie awakened at the mention of Cris's name and flew to his side. Cris kept one arm around her as he explained Capek's situation to everyone.

  "So, there are sixteen-and-a-half hours remaining before we know anything," Cris concluded.

  "But—he will be fine, will he not?" Tarnus asked.

  Cris glanced down quickly, then said, "I'm sure he will be." A moment passed, then Cris announced, "Mag'Osnik has information to share with us."

  "Mag'Osnik," Tarnus said, "this business of you being dead—"

  "My friend, you make the mistake of assuming that death is finality. It is not. Now, as Cris has mentioned, I have news."

  "I seldom see you that you have news which brings joy to the heart," Tarnus growled.

  Mag'Osnik pulled up a chair near Tarnus's bed and sat down. "I will not disappoint you today, then. However, this problem will be simple to resolve, again, thanks to Cris."

  "What did I do?"

  "The hidero mas angia, what Cris's people call a singularity, that anomaly through which you arrived here Cris, is growing much larger and more violent. It threatens both our plane of existence and that of your home world, Cris. It must be ended."

  "And just how do we do that?" Cris asked.

  "I will let the Great Mind tell you all that. You will have questions that would be best answered by them."

  "When can we have audience with the Velka Mislay?" Tarnus asked.

  "Just as soon as you are released from the healers' care."

  "Tattie, get my clothing. I am ready now!"

  "Uncle, you will injure yourself again!"

  "I will be careful, child. Besides, the fighting is ended."

  An hour and fifteen minutes later, Cris, Tattie, Tarnus, and Mag'Osnik were again walking down the long hall that led to the room where they had sat and conversed with Cris's mother in her Tulsa kitchen. The Velka Mislay, of course, knew they were coming.

  When they entered the room at the end of the corridor, instead of Cris’s mother’s kitchen, they entered the flight operations and control room for Eagle Squadron eight back on Earth's Moon.

  "What is this place?" Tattie asked.

  "This is where I lived and worked back on Earth's Moon."

  Tattie walked through the dimly lit room over to the bank of large windows that looked out onto the lunar surface. She crossed her arms, and as Cris walked up beside her, she said, "This is a dark, lonely place Cris, devoid of color and cheer." She turned to face him. "It is of little wonder that you were so unhappy when I first met you." Then, she threw her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. "I promise, Cris, you will never be unhappy again."

  Just then, the doors from the hallway opened and through it entered Major Selina. "Well done, Captain. I want your AAR on my desk by 07:30 tomorrow morning."

  "Hello, Velka Mislay," Cris replied. "Let's cut the theater crap and get to it, shall we?"

  At the far end of the room from the windows was the conference table, the Velka Mislay, in the form of Major Selina, led the way back to it. Everyone took a seat.

  "Captain Salazar," Major Selina began, "have you ever heard of Apollo 20?"

  "No, the Apollo program was canceled after Apollo 17 back in December of 1972, I believe."

  The major smiled. "All these years later, and the cover story still sticks, remarkable." The major leaned on the table. "Cris, in the summer of 1971, Apollo 15 made its trip to the Moon and took a very unique series of photographic images of the Moon's surface as part of the early lunar mapping survey. One image stood out, it can still be seen in the Apollo Image Atlas as AS15-P-9625. It is this picture." The image appeared as a hologram in the center of the table.

  "This," Major Selina went on, "is the crater Izsak on the Moon's far side, just inside sector five. Look here, just east of the crater. Do you see that little shard, looks like a discarded toothpick? It is, in reality, a spacecraft. Your scientists came to that conclusion in the early months of 1972.

  "Apollos 18 and 19 were, basically, reconnaissance missions prior to the August sixteenth, 1976 launch of Apollo 20.

  “The two astronauts and one cosmonaut took these photos and this film footage of the ship on the moon. Look familiar?"

  The images on the holograph revealed a huge cylinder that tapered down at both the bow and the stern without coming to a point. The hull of the thing seemed to be etched with deep grooves that formed patterns all over the hull; it was pock-marked with holes and craters from countless centuries of being struck by meteors. The stern was hidden in shadow or perhaps buried in the lunar soil.

  "It looks like Caval Du Mal's ship," Cris said.

  "Exactly, but it is quite a bit smaller, being only five hundred meters in diameter and three thousand seven hundred meters long; whereas, Caval Du Mal's ship was—"

  "Big," Cris interrupted, "I know. Are you trying to tell me Caval Du Mal sent a ship to attack Earth?"

  "No, Cris, not at all. It was one of three Nazerian arks sent to populate Earth many millennia ago. That ship suffered a catastrophic failure and was forced to crash land on your Moon. The other two made it safely, and their cargo of Portigalweg set down on the Earth's surface. Then, the remai
ning arks did as they were programmed to do. They flew into the sun.

  "There were survivors on the ship that crashed on the Moon. They knew they could never get to Earth from where they were, but it was possible to return home to Nazer.

  "As you have, no doubt, already concluded, they did not fly to your Earth following a straight line one hundred fifty million light years long. They generated a massive hidero mas angia, a singularity, and flew through it."

  "An Einstein-Rosen Bridge," Cris said, "sometimes called a wormhole."

  "Yes, they may also be referred to as Lorentzian wormholes or as Schwarzschild wormholes. Regardless, the damaged ship on the Moon still had the ability to generate a wormhole. The original idea the survivors came up with was to manifest a small event horizon inside the vessel. But few systems were functioning as designed, and to be honest—our math was faulty. The wormhole appeared nearly halfway around the Moon from our location."

  "Our location?" Cris interrupted.

  "Yes, Cris, we are the survivors of that damaged vessel."

  "Please, go on," Cris said softly.

  "We then had to build a transport that would get us to the site of the wormhole, a vehicle stable, secure, fast, and able to carry all of us and the air we would need for the journey across the Moon. It took us years of cannibalizing our ship to build the transport.

  "In that time, the power sustainment cells and their corresponding regulators began to malfunction. This caused the wormhole to flux, coming and going without much regularity. And its secondary field of influence began to expand outward from the event horizon. We had to move quickly in order to arrive at the site of the wormhole before the secondary field of influence grew so large that we would neither be able to drive nor walk to the wormhole. Once at the event horizon, we would have to either drive our machine in, or if the effects of the wormhole should stop it, we would have to dismount and jump before it completely dissipated.

  "As luck would have it, we were able to drive directly into the crater. All but two of us survived the plunge. Our faulty math, though, doomed us to another life that we never dreamed possible. We ended up back on Nazer Cris, but we returned out of phase; thus, you cannot see us directly, you see only the images we project into your minds."