In the version of the past that Quasar remembered, the Goobalobs had enlisted hordes of mercenaries—starfaring pirates, no less—to hunt down the Magnitude and exact their revenge. The toll they'd originally demanded for Quasar's trip through their space increased exponentially due to the recompense required for the loss of a relatively new toll enforcer (their term for battleship) and its entire crew complement. Installing the near-lightspeed reactor had been the Magnitude's best bet at staying ahead of their adversaries, and it had worked well to a point—even as members of the crew started to vanish without warning, ending up in a limbo-like near-death experience that Captain Quasar hoped to avoid at all costs. Even though a black hole eventually brought his crew and the ship back to the land of the living, they ended up on the other side of the galaxy, five hundred years in the future.
But right here, right now, Captain Quasar had a chance to keep all of that from ever happening. And it would begin on Carpethria. Despite the dangers of not installing the cold fusion reactor—leaving the Magnitude unable to escape the impending rash of Goobalob-paid mercenaries—his crew would remain intact, and they would remain in the current century.
But there was also the matter of the Magnitude's self-preservation mode to consider. The program had to be removed. Quasar knew this, but he had to wonder if the ship would allow it. Would it see the removal of this program as an attack on its own safety? And if so, how would it respond to the Carpethrian engineers tasked with its removal?
Quasar leaned forward in his chair and shut his eyes briefly, squeezing the bridge of his nose. Turning toward Commander Wan, he said, "You have the bridge. I'll be in my quarters."
She nodded, her expression devoid of the concern she'd displayed earlier.
Chin held high and spine erect, the captain left the bridge and made his way straight to his cabin. He needed peace and quiet, to take a break from thinking things through.
What he found instead…was the Amazonian Asteria sitting on his bunk with a broad smile on her formidable face.
Episode 36: An Unexpected Visit
Captain Quasar's first thought was, I'm hallucinating again. As the door to his quarters swished shut behind him, he shook his fists and tugged at his well-kept blond hair. He stomped the floor, jumping and growling every foul curse word in his vocabulary. But when he finished his tantrum, winded from the exertion of it all, he found that the woman seated on his bunk had not moved. She was now chuckling deep and hearty like a sailor.
"Hey there, Barty." She gave him a wink. "Glad to see me?"
"You're not real," he muttered, stomping over to his fold-down sink to splash some cool water on his face. "You can't possibly be here." This was the past, for crying out loud!
"And yet I am." She rocked her crossed legs as she had done in her quarters, once upon a time, when they'd both been as naked as the day they were born. At least she had her uniform on now, as skin-tight and reptilian as he remembered. "Go figure, huh?"
Quasar leaned over the sink, the muscles in his arms tightening as he hung his head and blinked down at the drain. Was he seriously losing his mind? It was already more than he could take seeing Steve the gaseous entity pop up whenever he least expected it, but now he had to contend with Asteria as well—in addition to the incomprehensible trips backward and forward through space-time? It was more than even a starship's captain could bear!
And to think that once, not so very long ago, he'd never thought anything was beyond his capabilities.
"We don't have long, Barty." In the mirror before him, he could see her rise from the bunk and run her large hands down those thick, solid thighs of hers as she approached him from behind. "The Grace will soon be out of range."
He frowned at that. The Amazonian ship, the Formidable Grace, was pursuing the Effervescent Magnitude in the future—his present tense, from what he recalled. So if Asteria was actually here right now, magically sent from her ship through the hull of the Magnitude and into the captain's quarters, did that mean Quasar had returned from the past to his own time?
"I know we didn't—" He cleared his throat and wiped the residual water from his face with one hand as he turned toward her. "We didn't part on the best of circumstances."
Her smile dimmed. "You left me in a freaking airlock."
"Right. About that—"
She swung a fist at him before he had the presence of mind to duck beneath what was sure to be a jaw-breaking wallop, one that would send more than a few of his pearly whites flying across the cabin. But what happened instead was enough to make the captain's jaw nearly drop to his chest: Asteria's hand passed straight through him.
"Oops." She chuckled sheepishly. "Forgot about that." She looked at her hand, turning it over before her eyes. For a split-second, she seemed to flicker out of space-time only to return as extra-large as life.
"You're a hologram." Captain Quasar narrowed his gaze at the projection. "You're not really here."
"Only in spirit, my cute little man." She winked at him again. "Your vessel is somehow managing to pull ahead of us—don't ask me how. Unless that furry carpet-creature of yours did something to our engines, there's no way your ship could possibly outrun ours."
Had Hank interfered with their power cells? Quasar wouldn't have put it past the intrepid helmsman. Just the thought of the very hairy Carpethrian at his post instead of that whiney Elliott was enough to put a smile on Quasar's face.
"So you've managed to project an image of yourself into my quarters. How special. I assume you must have some sort of message for me then, to have gone through so much trouble?"
She shrugged her massive shoulders. "No trouble, really. My commander doesn't even know about it. If she did—" Asteria shook her head as if the consequences would be far from desirable. "She doesn't like it when I fraternize with our conquests."
The captain shook his head. "You haven't conquested us yet. And I highly doubt you ever will."
"Which is why I have to make sure you return to us."
Quasar laughed. "Good luck with that." He walked straight through her, heading for his bunk. "Now if you will excuse me, I haven't been getting much sleep lately—any at all, if you must know—and I could really use a few hundred winks."
He wouldn't let her know he thought of it as his beauty sleep. Starship captains never used such terms. But he'd seen how haggard he looked in the mirror, and his shoulder and chest wounds had returned from the future/present. A few hours of deep sleep would restore him to perfect health. His body was, after all, like a fine-tuned machine.
Asteria flickered again as she rotated to face him. "When we transported you to our ship—"
"How did you manage that, anyway?" Tugging off his boots and uniform, Quasar set them beside his bunk and climbed under the covers. Nothing in his life—at that moment—had ever felt as good as sliding in between those cool, wrinkle-free sheets. He yawned pleasantly. "Some sort of matter-to-energy conversion by means of a tractor beam?"
"In rudimentary terms, yes. When I overrode your transport to bring you straight to my quarters instead of the brig, I also took a sample of your cells: all of the DNA I would need to impregnate myself with your child."
Episode 37: Soul Mates
Captain Quasar froze. "You can't be serious." She had already attempted to stop him in his tracks back in the airlock, when she'd claimed to be with child—his child. But he knew for a fact now, having lived through that awkward nude encounter in Asteria's quarters, that there had been no physical consummation necessary to create such an unwelcome consequence. Little had he known that the transport device of the Formidable Grace had the capacity to abscond with one's genetic material as one was kidnapped from one's ship without warning. "You've tried this before, if you remember. I didn't believe you then—" Not entirely true. "—and I don't believe you now!" Also a falsehood.
"Believe it, Barty." The hologram's eyes narrowed to emerald-glinting slits. She towered over him with her large hands on her shapely hips. "I haven't un
dergone the procedure yet, but I will if you don't turn your ship around. I—" She bit her lower lip as it began to tremble. "I need you here with me."
He blinked up at her. What was this? Was she truly infatuated with him? Not that he could blame her—he'd slain many a lady in much the same fashion over the years, sometimes with little more than a glance and a flash of his perfect teeth. But in this situation, with the gender roles of Amazon Theta Six so very different from Earth, how could Asteria possibly find him attractive? Was she a lone oddity among her kind? Did she actually prefer the company of a handsome, well-built Earthman?
Or, more likely, was this just a ruse to lay hold of the Effervescent Magnitude—the Amazonian commander's way of ultimately getting what she'd wanted in the first place, which Asteria caused her to lose? The Magnitude, its weapons, and its crew for the purpose of slave labor—that's what Commander Luscenta of the Grace wanted more than anything. And now she was using Asteria to get it.
Quasar slid out of his bunk and stood before her in his white tank and undershorts. Crossing his muscular arms across his chest, he eyed her coolly. "You said it yourself. We're almost out of range." Already, the hologram flickered erratically. "There's nothing you could say or do to make me turn my ship around. Not when your commander made it so clear that—"
"She's no longer in command," Asteria blurted out. "I have assumed control of the Formidable Grace. It's my vessel now." She squared her shoulders and crossed her own muscular arms, standing a full head and shoulders taller than the captain. "You need not fear her intentions any longer. Whereas she wished you harm, I only wish—" She trailed off, biting her lip again. "I wish you could understand how much you mean to me."
"What?" Quasar cleared his throat in a moment of awkward silence. "I mean, it's not like we knew each other for very long."
"A woman can tell when she meets her soul mate. For most Amazonians, it's another woman, of course. But for me—as soon as I saw you, I knew it, Barty." The hologram took a step toward him. "I knew it more than I'd ever known anything in my life."
"It?" His eyebrows arched upward.
She shrugged, holding her brawny arms out to him as if awaiting his embrace. "I don't understand it, and I know it's weird, but I'm so incredibly attracted to you. It's like nothing I've ever felt before. And when you disrobed yourself in front of me—"
"Yes, well," Quasar cleared his throat again—louder this time. "I'm afraid your signal is beginning to cut out. Your image is deteriorating, and I'm sure the sound quality of my voice isn't getting any better. So how about we say our farewells and so-longs and both be on our way?"
"You don't understand." She shook her head sadly. "I meant it before, when I said I couldn't live without you."
He recalled the moment clearly back in the airlock. He'd thought she intended to keep her helmet off and die when the Magnitude uncoupled from the docking bridge connecting their two ships.
"I won't ever give up on trying to find you, Barty." Tears glistened in the hologram's eyes. "And I'll bring you our child when the time is right."
"Listen—" He tried to soften his tone as well as he could, but it came out just as harsh as he felt it needed to be. "You kidnapped me from my ship and stole my DNA, and I'm supposed to…what? Fall in love with you or something? Believe me, many a female on many a world has attempted to snare me in much the same beguiling net, but they soon realized this is one stallion that will not be broken!" He raised a clenched fist in defiance, even as his abdomen tightened with remorse. But as much as he pitied this woman, he could not stop the words from issuing forth once they started tumbling out: "If your ship comes within range of my vessel, I'll blow you apart. I don't care if you're carrying my child or whatever else you decide to do with my DNA. Clone me for all I care." He regretted saying that immediately. "See what good it does you. There is only one Captain Bartholomew Quasar in this galaxy, and he's not for sale!"
Asteria frowned slightly at his words, either because the transmission had indeed begun to lose cohesion, or because the words themselves lacked a certain coherence that could only be attributed to the captain's serious lack of sleep in recent days.
"Barty—"
"Enough with the Barty! No one in their right mind would call me such an insipid nickname! It's awful!" He shook his fist one more time. "Now begone! I am utterly exhausted, and I have no more patience for you."
Episode 38: The Future Mrs. Quasar
"Is that any way to speak to the mother of your child?" Steve materialized in a corner of the cabin behind Asteria's hologram. "Pardon my intrusion, of course. I couldn't help myself."
Captain Quasar shook his fist at the gaseous hallucination. "Begone with you, too!"
The flickering Amazon woman half-turned to glance back toward Steve's general vicinity. "Who are you talking to?"
"Uh—" Quasar had no response to that.
Steve smiled broadly and performed some sort of medieval bow, leaning on his oaken staff and tipping it toward the hologram as if part of an elaborate ceremonial greeting. "We are noble gases hailing from the Epsilon Seven Star Cluster, but here we are known only as Steve."
"Barty, you're really breaking up. Audio and video transmissions are failing." She faced him as if to make one final plea. "Turn your ship around, and we can talk face to face, as we should about an important matter such as this."
Steve stepped forward. "I'd have to take the lady's side here, Captain. You are failing to see reason. I for one do not believe for an instant that she hasn't already implanted your DNA into her innermost parts—"
"Gah!" Quasar shook his head forcefully. If only he could blow his nose and be done with the old wizard! But if Steve was correct, and the quartz dust particles from that planet had already seeped through Quasar's nasal cavity and into his brain, then there would be no removing the hallucination without major surgery. And the last thing the captain wanted was to go under the knife, only to find himself whipped to another point in space-time.
Asteria winked at him and said something else before her hologram flickered out of existence, but her words were lost on the captain.
"Goodbye," he found himself murmuring in her absence.
"Fancy that." Steve shrugged good-naturedly. "I think you might actually like her."
Quasar frowned at the prospect. "She's not my type."
"Perhaps not. But this I know as surely as I'm standing here: that woman is carrying your child. No bones about it. You might as well face facts."
"On your word alone."
"Captain, I've been in this galaxy for millennia upon millennia. Trust me when I tell you I know a thing or two."
"Have you ever had any sort of contact with Amazonians?" Quasar raised an eyebrow.
"Women are women—and when they're in the process of gestating young, I don't care if they're four-armed Carpethrians or two-headed Snyckrons. You get to recognize a certain look in their eyes and a special glow to their features."
"It was a hologram. Of course it was glowing." Quasar cursed under his breath. "You don't know anything. You're just a damned hallucination!"
"It's probably too soon to think of her as the future Mrs. Bartholomew Quasar, but I wonder…will your child be as tall and strong as her mother?"
"You can't possibly know its gender!"
"So you agree there is a child on the way." Steve's eyes twinkled like a kind grandfather's.
Quasar pointed at the door, as if that was how Steve had entered. "Get out."
Narrowing his gaze, the cloaked wizardly hallucination approached the captain with what looked to be concern etched into the crags of his almost-corporeal face. "You need to get some rest, Captain. I'll go, but don't you forget. That woman is the mother of your child—"
"Not by my choice!"
"Regardless. Fatherhood used to mean something where you're from."
"Earth?" Quasar couldn't help the sneer in his tone. He was, after all, completely exhausted. "Haven't you heard? We're five centuries in the fu
ture. I'm sure times have changed."
Steve nodded grimly. "I'm sure they have." And with that, he vanished from the captain's cabin as if he'd never stuck his phantasmal nose where it didn't belong.
Clenching and unclenching his fists, Captain Quasar collapsed onto his bunk. The tight muscles in his body began to relax, sinking into the thick foam mattress as if pressed down by the cares of the universe. Blowing out a sigh, Quasar surrendered to the sleep that had eluded him for so long, mostly due to the fact that there had been no opportunity for it, and within moments, he was snoring louder and drooling more than he ever had in his life.
Until the intercom bleeped and Commander Wan's voice came from the wall-mounted speaker: "Captain to the bridge." With it came the clang of something solid striking the hull, reverberating through the plasteel exterior plating. "Captain Quasar, you are needed on the bridge."
He sat up with a start, wiping his mouth. How long had he been asleep? It felt like no more than a few seconds, but judging by the drool pool on his pillow, it had to have been much longer. Staggering toward the wall, he punched the intercom and cleared his throat.
"How's that?" he managed, feeling the cabin capsize around him. Had he gotten up too fast, or was the ship careening side to side, forcing the artificial gravity inducers to overcompensate? "What's going on?"
"You'll want to see this, sir." What was that in her tone? Foreboding?
"On my way." Nodding to himself and grumbling incoherently, he tugged on his uniform and boots and checked himself in the mirror. No, that wouldn't do at all: his blond hair, usually with no strand out of place, had taken on a life of its own. Quickly, he smoothed it down with a few gobs of carbon jelly, then made his way to the bridge.
As soon as he stepped on deck, he froze, staring in wide-eyed wonder. There, filling the viewscreen in all their glory, were the magnificent rings of Saturn.
Captain Bartholomew Quasar: The Space-Time Displacement Conundrum Page 12
