“Next time, ask, bro. I'd rather tell her no and have her mad at me, than you tell her no and have her mad at you.”
“I will, Rob. And, thanks.”
“I can't seem to locate the transponder,” Cleo said, shaking her head.
“That can't be right,” Robert replied, glancing at the monitor. “It should have come on the moment the pod left the ship.”
“Well, apparently, it didn't.” she pointed out.
“Morgan, hail the pod.”
“Yes, Sir,” he replied, pressing several buttons. “Nothing, man. It looks like the pod's comm system is offline.”
“Oh, good,” Robert replied, shaking his head. “Hopefully, she'll eventually notice that the transponder is offline and turn it back on.”
“What if she doesn't?” Azure asked.
“Then, we'll do our best to track her down. If we can't do that on our own, we'll contact Never Never Land, figure out where she ended up, and go get her.”
“I'm sorry about this, Rob,” Vox said.
“It's not your fault,” the traveler replied. “As the captain, it's my responsibility to keep an eye on morale.”
For several minutes, the crew sat in silence as Robert paced back and forth across the bridge.
“It's back on!” Cleo cried, smiling at screen in front of her. “She's a little more than three thousand years in the future but, fortunately, she's still on Baumkuchen.”
“It would have taken her weeks to get anywhere else,” Robert asserted, “the escape pods aren't exactly what you'd call fast.”
“What could she be doing?” Doc asked. “Why fly into the future here?”
“She may not know how to control the time-drive,” Robert speculated. “Did you happen to teach her, Vox?”
“No, but, it's not like it's difficult and she's seriously clever, you know?”
“I do,” Robert nodded. “But, on the other hand, trying to get some personal space by running away to the future doesn't make much sense, does it?”
“I guess not,” Vox replied with half a smile. “Especially when you're the guy who's going to be coming after her.”
“She was probably just trying to make a point.”
“Maybe,” Vox said, shaking his head. “That's not like her, though.”
“Well, all the girls have been acting a little squirrelly this morning,” he whispered before once again raising his voice. “Miss Zelbizarre, set a course for where and when she is plus five seconds.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, the ship was invisibly setting down in a small clearing in a small wood, several miles beyond the outskirts of a small city. Fortunately, the current technological level of the Baumkuchenians wouldn't allow them to detect a cloaked vessel. Plus, according to the scanners, there wasn't a living soul within a five mile radius. As a result, the entire crew decided to walk the short distance that stood between where the ship had touched down and where the escape pod had landed.
As they moved through the woods in the pale light of a nearly-full red moon, Cleo tried to slip her hand into Morgan's as the two of them strolled along at the back of the column Robert was leading. The first time she did it, he simply pulled away. The second time, he gently slapped her hand and asked her what was wrong with her. In response, she whispered something about him smacking her in a somewhat different context. This caused him to increase his pace and insert himself between Robert and Azure. For some reason – that Morgan didn't want to try to understand – the blue maiden seemed almost glued to the side of the traveler.
“I don't like this,” Robert said, as they drew near the escape pod.
“There's a lot going on that I don't like,” Morgan observed.
“Sure,” the traveler said dismissively, “but, something's wrong.”
“What is it, boss?” Vox asked.
“The pod's primary power is off.”
“Celeste probably just turned it off to keep from attracting any local attention.”
“Maybe,” Robert said, “but, we need to stay on our toes.”
“Be prepared is one of our mottoes,” Morgan reminded him.
“Good point. Morgan, take the girls...”
“No, Sir,” the young man interjected.
“You're right again, Chief Security Officer,” the traveler bluffed. “Doc, take the girls back to the ship and grab a few guns and personal shields.”
“We want to stay with you, Rob,” Azure said in a tone of voice that made Morgan want to punch Robert in the head.
“Captain Hood, in this situation, Ensign. Now, do as you've been ordered. Hesitation can cost lives.”
“Yes, Sir,” she sighed.
“I'll be right back, Rob,” Doc asserted.
In the brief time that Doc and the girls were gone, complete silence prevailed amongst the three remaining companions as they sat in the woods keeping an eye on the small craft. As soon as they were all armed and shielded, they approached the pod. The vessel was obviously running on minimal power, as not one of its external lights were on. Robert walked slowly up the short gangplank and cautiously knocked on the door. There was no response. He then attempted to open it, but it was locked.
“I'm liking this less and less,” Robert said softly.
“We need to get the door open!” Vox replied vehemently. “Celeste could be hurt or something!”
“I agree, bro, but, we also need to be careful. Doc, Miss Zelbizarre, Ensign Holiday, spread out and be ready to give us cover fire if we need it. Mister Harker, go back to the ship and change into a red shirt.”
“Just open the door, Rob,” Morgan demanded, holding his pistol at the ready.
“Captain Hood,” Robert replied as he began pressing buttons on the panel near the portal.
Fortunately, it had been locked using its default pass-code.
“Celeste?” the traveler said rather softly as soon as the door was opened.
“Celeste!” Vox cried several seconds later.
“Follow me,” Robert said, lifting his energy pistol. “And, be ready for anything.”
The escape pods weren't large craft but, they were a lot bigger than the car. For one thing, they were each meant to carry two people and, as Robert had pointed out, they weren't exactly fast. That being the case, they had to carry all the necessities a crew of two might need to last them, in extreme cases, two months or so. They also had full bathroom facilities. Who would want to be trapped in an escape pod with Morgan for two months when he couldn't even take a shower? Not Robert.
In any event, the fact that the escape pod was only about the size of a largish Winnebago made the search for Celeste very easy. She wasn't there.
“She isn't here,” Morgan observed, much to the surprise of nobody.
“Rob, man,” Vox said, his voice almost shaking, “where could she...”
“One, sec,” Robert replied, pointing at a flashing light on one of the consoles. “We need to see what that is.”
With a number of button pushes, Robert got the lights turned on and a video message fired up.
“Alright,” Video-Celeste said, pulling her hand down from what appeared to be the corner of the screen. “Hopefully, this is recording. I guess I'll find out in a minute. Either way, I want to start by saying that I'm sorry, love. Now, I'm not sorry that I'm doing this and I would certainly do it again if I had to. However, I am sorry that it's going to upset you. On the other hand, I know you'll forgive me, Vox, because this is just something I have to do.
“I've already had ten days to cool off and I'm very sorry that we spent the last few days we were together fighting. This is especially upsetting for me because I don't know when I'll see you again. Although, you'll probably get to see me again in just a few hours. I can't tell you where or when I'm going because, if I do, Robert will just figure out some clever way of stopping me.
“However, as soon as I'm done, I'll get in touch with you, one way or the other. I think I have a way to contact
Never Never Land. If I can't do that though, I'll just do something to the time-lines that Rob will be sure to notice. I may have to live out the rest of my life again before you manage to find me but, I know you will.
“And, Rob, I'm not mad at you any more, either. For one thing, I'm beginning to see how exciting this time-travel/outwitting your adversaries thing is. For example, If you're wondering when I recorded this message, it was just minutes ago. I don't know exactly how long it's been, of course, but, I turned the transponder on by remote right after I sent this to the ship. So, knowing you, it hasn't been an hour ago.
“I really wish I could see the look on your face right now. Anyway, I love you both and you'll see me soon. Oh, and, explain it to Morgan, Rob. It took me a while to work out how to get away from you. I'm sure he'll appreciate it.”
There the video ended.
“She is very... very... clever,” Robert said with a sigh.
“What's going on?” Morgan asked.
“She's here.”
“Where?”
“Now.”
“What?”
“I mean,” the traveler explained, “that she is in the same time we are but, in a different place.”
“So, let's go get her.”
“We don't know where she is.”
“We know where she was,” Morgan pointed out.
“That's right, Morgan. So, what can we do with that information?”
“We can go back in time and catch her here ten days ago,” the young man explained. “She slipped up when she told us how long it had been.”
“Mmmm,” Robert hummed. “How do we know she was here ten days ago?”
“She just told us in the video,” Morgan pointed out.
“The video she just made minutes ago, you mean?”
“I guess... If she was telling the truth, that is. No offense, Vox.”
In reply, Robert pressed a number of buttons on one of the computer consoles.
“The transponder was turned on by remote forty-three minutes ago,” he said. “The video was sent forty-six minutes ago. So, Morgan, if we go back to ten days ago, and catch her while she's still here...”
“She won't make the video,” the young man interjected, nodding his head slowly, “she won't turn on the transponder, we won't know where she is, so we won't be able to stop her...”
“It's a paradoxical trap. And, she just caught us in it.”
“Celeste!” Morgan cried, shaking his fist at the ceiling.
“Don't shake your fist at my wife, man,” Vox said.
“It's not like she can see me,” Morgan pointed out. “And, I was just joking.”
“I know,” Vox chuckled. “Me, too.”
“What do we do now?” the young man asked.
“Take the pod back to the ship,” Robert replied, “find her, and stop her. She's been really clever but, I am next-level clever, my friend.”
“Oh. I know.”
Robert got the rest of the crew on the pod before getting the pod back on the ship. This done, they headed back in time to an hour before they arrived.
“Miss Zelbizarre, you'll have two chances to locate the source of the signal,” Robert asserted. “I expect you to do it with the first one.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“What are we doing, Rob?” Morgan asked.
“We're finding out where Celeste was when she sent us the message.”
“That won't create a paradox?”
“Nope.”
“Okay,” Morgan replied thoughtfully. “I suppose it won't because, we're not stopping her from sending the signal. We're only using it to find her. Then, we can go pick her up after she's sent it. It will have been ten days plus for her but, only an hour or so for us.”
“Bingo.”
“Alright, that makes sense, I guess. So, as clever as she was, leaving us the message and turning the transponder on so we could find it was where she messed up.”
“No. That was actually the best part of her plan.”
“How so?”
“What would we have done if we hadn't been able locate the transponder?”
“You said we were going to contact Never Never Land.”
“We would have. She might be able to hide from us. She wouldn't be able to hide from the history department. Meaning, we'd have been able to show up just as she was stepping off the gangplank. What she did, was offer me bait. Bait that I readily took because, following the transponder was a lot easier than dealing with the history department.”
“Okay... But, something still doesn't make sense.”
“What is that?” Robert asked with a wide smile.
“Time runs at the same rate wherever it is, right?”
“Basically.”
“She's been here ten days.”
“Basically.”
“Why did we only have to wait minutes before we saw the transponder?”
“The answer to that is simple: I don't know, exactly.”
“What?”
“The transponders on the escape pods tell the ship where and when they are using a communications system similar to the one we use to contact Never Never Land. Under normal circumstances, the pods are synchronized with the ship. If you turn them off, however, as soon as you turn them back on, they'll try to reconnect to the ship as close to the time they were turned off as they can. Which is why it only took us a few minutes to find the signal.
“Now, since she had it turned off for ten days, we can assume we didn't get the signal for about that long. When we did get it, however, we got it in the past, which kept us from having to wait to find it.”
“So, we may have lived out ten days looking for her that were just undone?”
“Possibly.”
“That is crazy!”
“Try living out two years that end up undone,” Cleo said, shaking her head and gazing at the ceiling.
“Is there any way to find out what happened?”
“Not unless we contacted Never Never Land during that time,” Robert pointed out. “Which I'm basically positive we didn't do. I was willing to spend at least a month looking for her before we called in outside help. I didn't want to have to explain this to the council and I figured we'd find her. Which we did. In this time-line, if we ever spent ten days looking for her, we haven't now.”
“Time travel is completely insane.”
“I keep telling you that.”
“One last question,” Morgan claimed, although it certainly wasn't anywhere near true.
“Yes?”
“Couldn't we wipe our memories and escape the trap?”
“Seeing as how undoing paradoxes is basically our main gig, Morgan,” the traveler nodded, “yes, we probably could. But, just tracking her down will be a lot easier. At least, it will be if she doesn't cause any major time problems. For the moment, we just need to adopt a wait and see policy.”
“I take your point.”
“I've got it!” Cleo exclaimed. “She's on a ship.”
“What ship?” Robert asked.
“It's an old Baumkuchenian exploration vessel,” the green maiden replied, pressing a number of buttons. “It looks like it was decommissioned around fifty years ago and abandoned in a ship graveyard orbiting the moon. I don't think anyone's even noticed that it's gone and she's been in transit for at least a day.”
“How can you tell that?” Azure asked.
“Where she is,” Cleo pointed out, “and the fact that those ships have to drop out of non-space for about an hour every twenty-four hours or so to recalibrate their engines. It looks like she waited until the last possible moment to send the signal. She was almost out of the maximum range of the transmitters that ship uses.”
“For a woman of her background,” Robert said thoughtfully, “this is next-level genius. No offense, Vox.”
“None taken, brother. I was thinking the same thing.”
“She's back in non-space,” Cleo asserted.
“That's alright,�
�� the traveler smiled. “We know where she is. We'll catch her at her next stop. Did you get a bearing, Miss Zelbizarre?”
“I did, Sir. I believe she's heading for Duck à l'orange.”
“As I expected,” he nodded. “From where we are, it would have taken her months to get there in the escape pod. With that ship, she can probably do it in three days. That gives us some time to work with. Ensign Holiday, get this bird back in the sky.”
“Yes, Sir,” the blue maiden replied, immediately obeying the order.
“Mister Harker, I need to speak with you in your quarters.”
“At once, Sir,” the young man said with a salute.
The pair made their way to the young man's room, went inside, and locked the door behind them.
“Alright, Morgan, we need to have a talk,” Robert said.
“I know.”
“Having had a few minutes to cool off,” the traveler said with sigh, “I’m not nearly as angry as I was.”
“Same here,” Morgan nodded.
“Under the circumstances, I think we need to be totally honest with each other.”
“Do you think you can be?” the young man asked.
“I can try,” the traveler chuckled. “You?”
“I know I can be.”
“Good. So, Cleo kissed you?”
“She did,” Morgan said with a nod.
“Azure kissed me.” Robert asserted.
“So I gathered.”
“Do you feel completely innocent?”
“I am completely innocent,” the young man assured him.
“I almost am,” Robert said, rotating his hand back and forth. “However, the fact of the matter is that I didn’t manage to get away from her as quickly as I… I was going to say would have liked but, in the spirit of complete honesty, I’ll have to make that: as quickly as I wanted to.”
“I'd like to amend my last statement,” Morgan replied.
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid I was also a little lax in the getting away from her department. As such, I want to alter my plea to: almost completely innocent. The spirit was very willing but, the flesh was very weak.”
“I understand.”
“Her saliva tastes like honey,” Morgan pointed out.
“We probably shouldn’t go into details,” the traveler suggested. “For instance, what you just said makes me want to punch you in the face. On the other hand, I do have to admit that they both know what they’re doing.”
Bad Behavior (The Last Time Traveler Book 3) Page 16
