“It will be okay,” he said, smiling warmly. “There is very little that can go wrong. The Brotherhood will never see us coming. And even if they did, there’s nothing they can do to stop us.”
“I know.” She punched him playfully on the shoulder. “The Kuth scared me, and yet we were able to rid the Wasteland almost entirely of them. Even better, you’re not going alone this time.”
A large, spherical transit portal shimmered vibrantly where it rested in a vacant corner of the hangar bay, a soft electronic humming sound emanating from its center. Swirling patterns of multi-hued golden energy rotated across its surface, thousands of them flaring briefly into life and then vanishing back into softer shades of yellow. This time, however, it wasn’t just a standard Point-to-Point gateway leading to a distant location. This particular transit portal in front of them would lead President Kaufield and the Roh brothers directly into Earth’s past. Adam studied it closely, noting that there was very little difference in its appearance when compared to all of the other wormholes he had studied over the years.
Standing there with his wife, the fingers of their hands linked together, they watched a small gray metallic orb emerge from the portal. Instantly telemetry from its memory system uploaded into the Lexington’s central computer system, delivering fresh information to anyone with an implant. President Kaufield was standing next to Noah and Admiral Henry, and he read the newly received data scrolling across his eye HUD with interest. The small electronic probe, with green and gold lights on its surface blinking softly, floated slowly across the bay until it dropped gently into Noah’s palm. Wordlessly, the Proteus alien deposited the object into a pocket of his flowing silver robe.
“It’s night time on the other end,” he stated aloud to politely keep those without access to the central computer fully informed. “According to the alignment of the stars and major constellations, we have direct access, via this Point-To-Point portal, to Friday, June the 30th, in the year of your Earth, A.D. 2119.”
Thomas concentrated for a few seconds, transferring a new set of data to his wrist chronometer. “That’s just a month or so more than twenty years ago,” he nodded in acknowledgement. “It should be perfect for our needs.” He leaned over toward Noriana and hugged his sister-in-law tightly. “We’ll be back soon.”
“I know you will.” She moved past a row of officers standing in a line and paused next to the Admiral, her eyes sparkling with an inner fire. “Good luck to all of you, and please bring the iron fist of justice crashing down hard upon the Brotherhood of the Dragon. They’ve certainly got it coming.”
Dr. Karen Simmons, along with Glen and Mary Fredericks were also on hand to see them off. Old friends from the original Pathfinder Project, the trio waved at them and smiled. All of them were planning on assisting Nori with Sentinel duty, so the thoughts of many of their key friends and loved ones would be with them on the dangerous, critically important mission. Of their core group, only Thomas’ wife Kari had remained behind so that all of their combined children – his and Adam’s – would have at least one familiar face around during their absence. That thought dawned on Thomas as he, Adam and President Kaufield paused one final time in front of the evanescent energy portal.
“Kari isn’t looking after all of our kids, is she?” the skinny young scientist wondered suddenly. “I don’t think that I could do that even on my best day.”
“Janney Stox and Arte Kasik are going to help out,” Adam told him. “I made certain that the two of them, along with Arte’s wives and children, would be around to assist.”
Nori actually found this prospect significantly more stressful to consider than the imminent mission. “I hope those Wasteland friends of yours aren’t planning on clunking around in our house,” she hissed at him in a cautioning tone. “They’ll wreck everything we own, and I won’t even begin to comment on the fact that they never seem to bathe.” She wrinkled her nose in mock disgust at the thought of Adam’s wartime allies.
He winked back at her. “We moved everyone to temporary quarters at the Science Lab,” he told her reassuringly. “Everything will be fine. Thomas left Kari’s implant functional, so she can contact us if anything… odd… arises.”
“Nothing had better,” snapped Nori, causing Noah and the Admiral to chuckle at her reaction.
Waving one last time, the pair of Roh brothers, accompanied by President Kaufield, turned and walked directly into the center of the energy gateway. The three of them vanished inside the pulsating bright light almost instantly while everyone else stood watching the shimmering, transient energy.
“Good luck,” whispered Nori calmly, her annoyance vanishing entirely, instantly replaced with concern.
“Transport confirmed,” announced Noah with a small smile. From everyone else’s vantage point, it didn’t appear as if the Proteus alien did anything other than speak the pair of words. Nonetheless, the radiant golden PTP portal suddenly shrank down to a small dot and disappeared.
President Dennis Kaufield was still standing there helplessly with a stunned expression on his face.
“What happened?” wondered Admiral Henry, equally puzzled. “Why wasn’t the President transported too?”
Noah glanced toward Glen Fredericks with immediate concern. “I’ve just lost my implant communication signal with Thomas and Adam,” he pointed out. “The President’s comm-link, however, is still active and accessible. Not at all surprising, giving that he is still here.”
The tall, burly Glen Fredericks nodded affirmatively. “My access contacts match yours.”
Noriana Roh closed her eyes and concentrated. “I can’t communicate with Adam or Thomas either,” she informed them. “Did they arrive at their intended destination? Why is Dennis still here?”
“For now,” observed Noah, “it appears as though President Kaufield was somehow denied transit.”
One of the alien scientists nodded. “They didn’t go back twenty years,” he reported grimly. “It looks more like two thousand years, based on a preliminary analysis.”
“How… what the devil went wrong?” Nori was obviously upset by the unexpected negative outcome and growing angrier by the moment. “This technology has been tested, over and over again, for years!”
“I believe I may know something about what happened,” admitted Noah. He appeared genuinely apologetic, even though he obviously had nothing to do with the unexpected outcome. “Even before your people began experimenting with time travel, I have long suspected that there would be some kind of incident similar to this one in our dealings with Earth. The only thing I didn’t know was specifically when the event would take place.” He smiled dryly. “I’m not surprised that our technicians can find no errors. Normally, there shouldn’t be anything that could go wrong. The transport processor confirmed that all three people arrived at their intended destination, and yet two of the three implant micro-wormholes aren’t readable. For Adam and Thomas, either their wormholes were deliberately turned off…”
“Unlikely,” insisted Kaufield, moving quickly to join the rest of them. “Neither of them would do that.”
“Then I think they went somewhere else,” guessed Noah. “Or, more likely, as my scientists believe, someone intervened and redirected the transport wormhole to an alternate location. In that case, we’ve pretty much lost contact with both men unless they find a way to use their departure coordinates as a way to reestablish contact. Thomas knows where we are… he just might be able to do that.”
“What do you mean, you believe you know what happened?” demanded Nori suspiciously. “Where are my husband and brother-in-law, Noah?”
The Proteus alien smiled at her in what he hoped would be a reassuring manner. “For what it’s worth, I don’t believe they are in any immediate danger,” he replied calmly in response. “I suggest that President Kaufield call immediately for a new strategy meeting in the command and control center. There I will reveal to you everything that my people know about the possible causes of this
incident. This will also allow our specialists to continue searching for the Roh brothers while I do so.”
“Why wouldn’t your people have shared this knowledge with us before?” Nori took an aggressive step forward but hesitated as soon as she noticed Kaufield hold up a cautioning hand.
“Please, we must all regroup in command and control. There, I promise to explain everything I know,” persisted Noah firmly. “We’re wasting time here.”
Wordlessly all of them stood there for a moment, wondering just what, precisely, had caused a malfunction with the normally reliable transit process.
PROJECT EARTH
Pathfinder Series: Book Three
Chapter III: Brothers Born For Adversity
Planet Earth, near Bethany, approximately A.D. 27
Seated comfortably on the edge of a well-traveled walking path, Thomas Roh did his best to ignore his brother’s impatient pacing. After the two men’s arrival at so unexpected a time and destination, they had removed a powerful laptop computer from the invisible knapsack that was strapped to Thomas’ back. Then the younger Roh had powered up the device – which originally was supposed to be their portable, recording control center – and used it in an effort to determine just what specifically had gone wrong with their transit from the Lexington. Adam was never one used to waiting for answers, so having no choice but to stand idly by for hours on end with nothing to do was taking an obvious toll on his nerves. Around them it was still night time for another half hour or so, but the first rays of an early morning sun were beginning to peek above the western horizon. Bright light from the computer screen played across his brother’s face, intermixing with odd shadowy patterns.
“How did you determine for certain that we moved back through time almost two thousand years?” Adam wondered, pausing for a moment to re-evaluate the precious few details they had managed to uncover.
Thomas smiled wanly and glanced up at him briefly, then back at the computer screen on his lap. “The first thing I did was to verify the connection of this device to our implants,” he replied after a few seconds. “Then I used a mapping function to link your implant to mine. According to the constellation and star alignment above us, we are quite literally standing on the Earth that was – almost two millennia before we were born.”
“You can be that precise?” Adam scratched his head briefly while watching his brother type. Above him, the dark moonless night was perforated only by shining stars that glittered like finely cut diamonds.
“In terms of years we traveled into the past, yes.” Thomas sighed and shook his head. “However, the calendar and date combinations from all of the various writings and artifacts of this era make it impossible to pinpoint a specific year. I would speculate that we are standing on the Earth that was, about A.D. 27.”
“Good grief,” gasped his brother in response. “This is when the modern world, as we know it, was born.”
“Exactly,” Thomas nodded back at Adam. “I assisted Noah with the final calculations for that transit portal myself. This is no accident. Someone deliberately altered the portal’s time-shift parameters so that we would end up here instead of our planned destination in the year A.D. 2119.”
Adam threw up his hands, clearly disgusted. “Who would do that?” he asked with mild outrage. “What could they hope to gain?” He resumed pacing nervously, his boots leaving fresh footprints in the soft, sandy dust of the road. Turning toward his brother thoughtfully, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I wasn’t even aware that someone could travel back in time this far – wasn’t it supposed to be theoretically impossible?”
Again Thomas smiled in reaction to his brother’s words. “Theoretically, transiting a starship instantly across millions of light years was once purportedly impossible too,” he noted calmly. “Whoever did this knows more than we do… that’s all. We’ve run into quite a few advanced life forms since first entering the Proteus galaxy.” The sporadic sounds of insects chirping and the occasional scurrying of small animals penetrated the cold nighttime breeze. Nervously Thomas craned his neck, briefly glancing around in all directions and carefully looking for signs of human life. “Remember, if someone from this era shows up, we need to vanish. We could inadvertently alter the future if someone gets even a glimpse of our technology. It will look like magic to them.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Adam shot back at him crustily. “It’s not even five in the morning yet.”
“Are you sure?” Thomas’ face was draped mostly in shadow, but Adam caught the mischievous wink.
He crossed his arms and glared at his brother. “If you want to make me angry, you’re doing a pretty good job of it.” He laughed scornfully. “I wouldn’t worry about altering the future. We couldn’t even hold a conversation with the people of this time, not without the proper language files that would allow us to communicate with them, anyway.” He paused, thinking. “What were people speaking these days?”
“I’m not taking any chances,” countered Thomas, touching a key on the laptop with a small flourish. “I’ve made contact with Noah’s people in the Proteus galaxy and submitted a request to their central communications hub asking for databases that will allow us to speak ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and Koine Greek. There are also a couple of dozen other dialects from this period that they may or may not have available for us.”
Walking over toward his brother, curiosity fully aroused, Adam studied the small screen over his brother’s shoulder. “How can you do that? The Proteus galaxy is countless light years distant, and its people don’t even know about us yet.” He cleared his throat, mind racing. “Well, they know where Earth is and were studying its inhabitants at this time, but they don’t know about you and me.”
“They do now,” said Thomas triumphantly. “My long distance handshake has been accepted and the appropriate files are currently downloading into our implants.” Breathing a sigh of relief, he temporarily closed the laptop’s lid and rested both hands on top of it. “As long as we have the language data, everything will work for us using the same protocols that you employed in the Wasteland. The implant does most of the work. What we hear will be intercepted and auto-translated in our thought process. When we speak, the words we think in English will be encoded similarly and our mouths respond in another language. The implant controls what we end up saying, which matches the language of the person we speak to. It’s a near perfect, instantaneous universal translator.”
“Wait a minute,” protested Adam. He held up a cautious hand. “We can’t stay here, Thomas. This is two thousand years in Earth’s past! You said so yourself; if we speak with anyone we could alter Earth’s future.”
“Normally I would agree with you. The farther back in time we travel, the easier it is to alter the present.”
“Then why are you downloading language files?” Adam demanded with obvious frustration. “You said so yourself – Noah’s people were watching this planet during this time frame. You probably just freaked them out beyond belief by using micro-wormholes to communicate with their database.” He shook his head negatively. “They might even come to investigate how someone on Earth during this time period could send that kind of a message to them… certainly no one should be able to.”
“They won’t come,” replied Thomas confidently. “They will be content to observe in order to learn who sent us here.”
“And just who exactly sent us here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Thomas studied his brother’s expression thoughtfully. “Someone deliberately arranged for you and me to end up here… in this particular place at this specific time. There is only one sensible reason why that someone would send us to the time of Jesus Christ. They want us to approach him and talk to him. I can’t remember whether he is still a man or returned as the Holy Spirit during this year, but this is definitely his old stomping grounds. Geographically, we’re right smack dab in the middle of Judaea.”
Adam’s laughter was nervous this time. “Are you out o
f your mind?”
“Think about it, Adam,” Thomas insisted emphatically. “We came up with the idea of traveling back through time to a point twenty years in Earth’s past in an all-out effort to avert the nuclear war initiated by the Brotherhood of the Dragon. Instead of arriving at our planned destination, we were mysteriously rerouted here.” He pointed his right index finger toward the ground in a sharp, stabbing motion.
“You can’t be serious!” Adam stared at his brother, completely stunned. “You actually want us to go walking around this place in this time period and find Jesus Christ?”
Nodding affirmatively in response, Thomas grinned. “And then we talk to him.”
“About what, specifically?”
“I don’t know yet.” Around them, the sky on the horizon was beginning to lighten and the shadows on the younger Roh’s face were inexorably fading away. “But admittedly he is the one you’re supposed to ask when you need a miracle.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” declared Adam while watching his brother rise to his feet. Thomas held out the laptop and raised his eyebrows expectantly. Still chuckling with utter disbelief, Adam tucked the portable computer snugly back into his brother’s backpack. Once he finished zipping it closed, he slapped the blaze orange fabric lightly, just once with the tips of his fingers and watched the pack fade away from sight as its stealth screen reengaged. As planned, he wore similar supplies that were also invisible to the eyes of anyone without the necessary detection equipment. “Why in the world would you think we have any right to do this?” He exhaled slowly. “At minimum, we should first determine who sent us here.”
“I already know who sent us here.”
The statement caught Adam by surprise. “Really?” he asked in a taunting manner. “Santa Claus perhaps?”
The Pathfinder Trilogy Page 87
