The Perfect Moment in Peril

by Kenneth Preston

  “And the anomaly, or wormhole if you prefer, is just outside of our solar system. It would take us less than a day to reach the wormhole, a few minutes to travel through the wormhole, provided we actually make it to the other side, and approximately one day of travel at warp from the other side of the wormhole to the Kepler system.”

  Deanna threw a hand up. “Wait! Hold up! I don't even know where to begin. Just so we're all on the same page, this wormhole is just a theory, and just to clarify to David as I don't believe that Emily needs any clarification on this issue, no one, as far as we know, has ever traveled through this so-called wormhole.”

  David lowered his eyes to the floor, contemplating his next words. “Why? I mean if the wormhole theory is, or was, widely accepted, why didn't NASA send a ship to investigate?”

  George said, “Until Encounter, until our little mission to Eden, we had never traveled outside the solar system. When we built Encounter, the wormhole was on our long-term radar, but it wasn't a priority. Eden was our top priority. NASA threw everything it had into that mission. The wormhole was put on the back burner. We were in the preliminary planning stages of an expedition to the wormhole sometime after Eden, but, well...you all know how that went.”

  “Well, we have one quick way of determining whether or not it's a wormhole, don't we?” Deanna said. “I mean, I'm not the only one thinking it am I?” She leaned forward to look past Elexa and David. “Emily, we could use a little input. Would you mind conjuring up your super-duper, radical, extraordinary powers of perception and telling us if this thing is a wormhole or not?”

  “I can't. As I was telling David earlier, we in the Great Community have a bit of a conundrum on our hands. We can't see the outcome of this mission.”

  “But you're all seeing, all knowing,” Deanna said, her voiced laced with cynicism. “If you can't see the outcome of this mission...” She lifted her hands, palms up, and shrugged her shoulders, inviting Emily to fill in the blanks.

  "Well, first off, we're not gods," she clarified with a chuckle. "Let's just get that little misconception out of the way. Yes, without the filter of the flesh, our powers of perception are significantly enhanced, but we're not all-seeing and all-knowing. We can't possibly know if the anomaly is a wormhole because we neither see within the wormhole nor have we ever known anyone or anything to travel through the anomaly. And of course, therein lies the conundrum. Our knowledge is vast, stretching like an elastic band through time. As I've communicated to all of you, everything that has and will happen is happening now from our perspective...with the exception of this one event. And that is troubling, to say the least."

  “You'll forgive me, Emily, if I have a little difficulty wrapping my brain around this non-linear concept,” Deanna confessed. “Any chance your antenna's busted?”

  Richard said, “What do you mean it's not happening? I mean, how far into our future, our concept of a future, do you see?”

  Emily sighed and said, “Well, I don't see any of it, but I know what you mean.” She paused, sighed again and continued. “Knowing about your concept of a future is a lot like knowing about your concept of a past. It's like a memory, a memory of events that you have yet to experience. However, this particular memory is like a redacted document, and perhaps most troubling of all is that this redaction covers everything that you have yet to experience. This may be difficult for you to hear, but I don't see a future for you.” She looked around the room before locking her eyes on David. “For any of you.”

  Chapter 8

  The silence was palpable, so thick it was stifling. David had foreknowledge of the grim news that Emily had just dropped on the others, but the bleak manner in which she had just presented it to the group, saying that she didn't see a future for any of them with her eyes locked with his, terrified him. Did she have to be so morbid? Surely the somewhat hopeful message she had given him earlier, her belief that the uncertain future was due to more than one possible outcome, would be conveyed to the group with the same conviction.

  “So you're saying we're doomed,” Deanna remarked cynically. “Is that what you came here to tell us?”

  David instinctively shook his head as if attempting to will the answer he wanted from Emily.

  “No, of course not,” Emily responded, the tone of her voice lifting just enough to convey a sense of optimism. “As I was telling David earlier, an uncertain future may be due to more than one possible outcome.”

  David breathed a sigh of relief. Exactly what he wanted to hear. Bring on the hope, Emily!

  “An uncertain future is unprecedented for the Great Community,” she continued. “It is our belief, and our hope, that our choices going forward will clear things up a bit.”

  Like her First Officer, Elexa couldn't help but feel a twinge of animosity toward Emily. Emily and the Community of Light were responsible for robbing her of nearly everything and everyone she had ever known and loved. The Community of Light had taken her husband, her children. Sure, if Emily were to be believed, her family had joined the Community of Light of their own free will. They were very much a part of that glorious light. They were very much alive within the Community of Light, but she couldn't see them. She couldn't touch them. She couldn't hold them. She had been left behind. She was separated from them, and she was bitter, every bit as bitter as her First Officer, but unlike her First Officer, she didn't wear her emotions on her sleeve. She kept them in check like a good captain should in times of uncertainty. She was a captain, a leader, a diplomat, and as such, she addressed Emily diplomatically despite her pent-up anger.

  “Our choices,” she said, her tone soft but authoritative. “Our choices will clear things up for you. Is that correct?”

  Emily was well aware of Elexa's feelings toward her, regardless of the fact that she kept them at bay. Her bitterness was understandable. Her family had joined the Great Community. From Elexa's corporeal perspective, it was a lengthy separation from her loved ones. Emily had done everything in her power to convey that the separation was but a sliver of the time that existed for corporeal beings. Once she was reunited with her loved ones in the Great Community, she would look upon the seemingly lengthy separation as insignificant. She had done her best to convey this same message to each of Encounter's crew, but even her extensive powers were limited. There was only so much one could convey to an aching heart.

  “Our choices going forward will clear things up for all of us, Elexa.”

  Elexa smiled diplomatically and said, “With all due respect Emily, you have been less than forthcoming. You've been keeping a lot of information from us. I assume you knew that there was a gap in the genetic code?”

  “She did,” David responded, looking at Emily and taking her hand to assure her that his response was not intended to be critical.

  Emily looked into David's eyes, smiled warmly and squeezed his hand. She shifted her gaze to Elexa and said, “I did, and I, along with the Great Community, have been withholding information from you with good reason. As I've explained to you all several times, this is your path, and you must walk it on your own with as little interference from us as possible. I'm sorry. I know this is difficult for you, for all of you, to accept.”

  Elexa said, “'We will work together.' Those were your words, Emily. You say that our choices going forward will clear things up a bit. You are here, and I assume that you're here for a reason.”

  “And it's not just to snuggle up to David,” Deanna scoffed.

  David glared at Deanna. Emily met Deanna's remark with a smile.

  “Yes, Elexa, I am here for a reason, and no, Deanna, it's not just to snuggle up to David.” She laughed and looked up at David. “Although I do love it so,” she said, attempting to bring a bit of levity into the tense discussion.

  David attempted to suppress a grin that was pushing its way up to his cheekbones. He was on her side, but didn't want to appear to be on her side. In reality, he didn't want to be on anybody's side. He didn't want them to be divided. H
e didn't want sides chosen among them. He wanted the entire team, his entire family, to be on the same side with their current predicament on the other side. They were on the cusp of an unprecedented challenge, and they weren't going to get very far if they were at odds with one another.

  "The reason I am here," Emily continued, her eyes sweeping across the room, finding each of her former crewmates, "is that our initial plan to send the five of you off into the great unknown to find the gap in the genetic code and bring it back to Earth isn't going to work."

  “We didn't even know that was the plan,” Deanna said.

  “Well, it was.”

  Richard said, “I had assumed that would be the plan upon decoding the information in the DNA and discovering the map, but now you say it's not going to work. I assume you and the Community have some kind of alternate plan?”

  “Oh, you misinterpreted my statement, but I was just getting to the slightly revised plan, and this is precisely what I meant when I said that we would be working together. As I said, the plan was to send the five of you off to find the missing data in the genetic code. The plan has been revised to include a sixth member to your illustrious crew.”

  David immediately perked up, making no effort to suppress the smile that made its way to his eyes. He was ecstatic.

  Richard mirrored David's smile. His relationship with Emily may have changed. There was a distance between them that had begun when she rejoined the Community of Light. The distance had continued to grow in the ensuing six months. But she was still his surrogate daughter, and he loved her every bit as much as he ever had, perhaps more so, as the separation between the two had created a longing within him to recapture those fleeting perfect moments in the months after she had become aware, the fleeting perfect moments in which he had grown to love her as only a father could.

  “You're going with us,” Richard said whimsically.

  “I am, papa,” she confirmed, meeting his warm smile with one of her own.

  "Oh, goodie!" Deanna mocked. "Because that worked out so well for us last time."

  David turned his attention to Deanna and furrowed his brow. "Must you always be such a Debbie downer?"

  “I'm a realist, my friend. Take a look around you. Look at the predicament we've gotten ourselves into.”

  Elexa placed a hand on Deanna's shoulder. Deanna took the wordless hint and dropped her eyes.

  “Whether it appears to be the case or not,” Emily said softly, “it did work out...for all of us. And the fact remains that you―”

  “We chose this path for ourselves,” Deanna interjected, her head bowed, hand on her forehead. “Yes, I know. I'm pretty sure I've heard that someplace before. You're starting to sound like a broken record, Emily.”

  “Well, I'll have to get that record fixed, or get a new record perhaps.”

  “Yes, please do,” Deanna said, suppressing the hint of a smile that was forming at the corners of her mouth.

  “All right!” Elexa exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “We have ourselves a plan! When do we leave?”

  Emily shrugged, palms up. “No time like the present.”

  Her suggestion was met with silence.

  Emily said, “Why put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today? Or tonight, in our case?”

  “Tonight,” Elexa said skeptically. “As in tonight tonight.”

  Emily smiled. “We ain't getting any younger,” she quipped.

  The irony in her statement brought smiles to the faces of her former crewmates, including Deanna who momentarily bit her lower lip in a futile attempt to suppress the smile before allowing it to rise to her cheekbones unfettered.

  Elexa sighed and placed her hands on her hips, the all too familiar sign that she was about to address her crew in a tone that reflected the seriousness of the situation they were about to face.

  “As your captain, I am responsible for the safety and security of the crew under my command. You all know the potential hazards and pitfalls that await us. First and foremost is that...thing.” She jabbed her finger in the air for effect. “The anomaly that may or may not be a wormhole.”

  “And even if it does turn out to be a wormhole,” George chimed in, “the hazards and pitfalls still exist. As far as we know, no human has ever traveled through a wormhole. Until relatively recently, wormholes were theoretical. We can't predict, with any degree of certainty, what kind of effect traveling through a wormhole will have on us. We can't predict, with any degree of certainty, if we will even survive such a trip.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk, Uncle George,” Deanna quipped.

  “My pleasure,” George quipped in response.

  “George is right,” Elexa continued. “This is, to say the very least, a risky mission.”

  “Well, what choice do we have?” David queried.

  “Well, we have two choices,” Elexa replied. “Stay here and live out the rest of our days in relative safety, just the five of us corporeal beings with Emily and the Community of Light, or risk it all, risk everything on a toss of the dice. We head for the anomaly, hope that it's a wormhole, and if it is indeed a wormhole, hope that we make it through unscathed. Those are our choices.”

  David's question had been rhetorical. Elexa knew that. But she was, first and foremost, a woman that cared for the well-being of the only family she had left. Secondly, she was a captain that exercised diplomacy and democracy when it came to decisions that affected her crew. She was in charge of any and all missions, but she was not about to put the lives of her crew at risk without giving them a choice in the matter.

  “I put it to you,” Elexa continued. “One person, one vote. Majority rules. Aye, we go for it. Nay, we stay here...with each other in the warmth of each other's company. This is an all or nothing deal. We don't split up. Whatever we decide, we're all in this together. We're all we have left.”

  A wall of silence replaced Elexa's voice. Each member of the crew knew which way they would vote, but each member of the crew was reluctant to cast the first vote.

  David penetrated the wall of silence by clearing his throat. All eyes turned to him. "I said it before, and I'll say it again; what choice do we have?" He looked around the room confidently, optimistically, his eyes meeting those of his crewmates. "Aye."

  “Aye,” Richard said enthusiastically.

  “Aye,” followed George.

  They all looked to Deanna, the most vocally skeptical member of the crew. Deanna lifted her right index finger and placed it beneath her right eye. She smiled. “Eye. Get it?”

  A chorus of groans was followed by a smattering of chuckles. In a matter of moments, the mood in the room had lifted considerably.

  “Well, we already have a majority of ayes, but in the interest of solidarity, I might as well add mine. Aye.”

  Elexa looked to her right. “Emily, do you want to make it unanimous?”

  Emily smiled. If David didn't know better, he would swear that she blushed. But that wasn't possible, was it? She was a non-corporeal being who had adopted a corporeal form for appearance's sake.

  “I get a vote?” Emily replied.

  Deanna smiled and said, “Well, you're a member of the crew, aren't ya?”

  The room fell silent as all eyes turned to Deanna. Her question sounded sincere. But surely they were mistaken. Surely Deanna's cynicism failed to reach the tone in her voice.

  No, Emily felt it. She felt the sincerity in Deanna's question. It was genuine acceptance, and she was moved. “Thank you,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

  David could swear that she was on the verge of tears, but that didn't make sense. She wasn't a corporeal being. She didn't have tear ducts.

  “Are you about to get all blubbery on us, Emily?” Deanna teased. “I didn't think that was possible for a non-corporeal being.”

  Emily chuckled, but she appeared to be fighting back tears to the confusion of her former and current crewmates. "No, I'm good."

  Deanna shrugged. “Well...do you hav
e an answer for us?”

  “Oh, right. Aye!”

  Emily's vote was met with a round of applause.

  “Well, that makes it unanimous,” Elexa proclaimed. “We're all in agreement. Every member of team Encounter is on the same page.” She smiled. “That might be a first. And...uh...it looks like we have a little journey ahead of us.”

  Chapter 9

  She felt human. No, she was human. In her non-corporeal state, immersed within the Great Community, she was a human being―a highly evolved, non-corporeal human being. She was a being of pure consciousness who had thrown off her physical shell, but she was still a human being. She felt corporeal. That would be more accurate. Every moment separated from the Great Community, she felt more and more like a corporeal being. That was her dirty little secret, the one she had done a poor job of keeping from her corporeal family.

  It had been agreed upon that she would not bridge that gap, that she would not allow herself to become fully immersed in the role of corporeal being, that she would not allow her emotions to manifest themselves physically. Fully immersing oneself in the physical form would only make the transition back to the Great Community more difficult. As such, the Great Community had frowned upon her continuing relationship with David.

  She was the emissary. She had made the case that her physical form was necessary for maintaining her personal and professional relationships with her corporeal family, with David, and her relationship with David was non-negotiable.

  She had done her best to keep the physical manifestations in check, but her best wasn't enough. She was certain that the others had noticed her subtle emotional display. They were probably confused and with good reason. What they had witnessed but didn't comment on was a contradiction to much of what she had told them about her existence. She was a non-corporeal being, incapable of the involuntary displays of emotion common to corporeal beings. Wasn't she? Quite frankly, she was confused about the matter herself.