“Well,” the tactical officer added, “we will have to make it work. The Zelinites are returning, six ships off our port on an intercept course.”
“Acknowledged,” Tamika said. “Helm, continue on present course and enter slipstream.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
The Crytore did her best to keep up with the Telenian as the two ships entered into slipstream space. After an hour had passed, the Telenian began to pull away as the injured Crytore struggled to keep up with the Telenian’s V-5 engine upgrades, which outpowered the Crytore.
“Panru, we are having trouble with our main drive engine. You will have to reduce speed,” Tamika said over the open com channel.
“Affirmative. I suggest that we drop out of Slipstream and regroup so you can make adjustments to your core output,” Panru replied. “I think we have traveled far enough away that the Zelinites will not be any threat for a while.”
“Agreed,” Tamika said with confidence. “Helm, prepare to leave slipstream space and come to a full stop.”
The Crytore crew began to reduce speed and dropped out of slipstream. As the ship slowed and returned to normal space, there was a tremendous noise that made a cracking sound that echoed throughout the entire ship. The Crytore shuddered and shook violently from side to side from the resulting shock wave.
“What was that?” Tamika shouted.
“Captain, we have a situation down here! We have a hull breach and are venting atmosphere down here. The explosion caused one of the injectors to fuse open and has created an imbalance in the reactor core.”
“Scram the core, shut it down!” Tamika ordered with panic in her voice.
“I do not know if we can. The reactor is pumping power through that injector into the engines, and it is wide open.”
“If you cannot stop it, we may have to dump the core!” Tamika shouted.
“The main engines are on runaway now. Our speed is increasing. We are approaching critical velocity in normal space,” the engineer officer answered.
“Captain, the shields have failed. We are continuing to vent atmosphere,” the engineer said. “We are going to have to jettison the core before it blows!”
“All hands,” Tamika ordered, “stand by. Prepare to abandon ship.”
* * *
Chapter 8 – Ensuing Paradox
Earth
Year: 1983
The four looked on at Helen in amazement.
“Yes, that is right, if you and Jhahnahkan do not have a child, I will never be born,” Helen said once again.
“Is that not already a paradox?” Jhahnahkan asked. “How could I have been here now and have a child with Kate that eventually will become the offspring that causes you to be born if—”
“Do not try to think of these things in the limited capacity of linear time,” Helen interrupted. “Those thoughts will make a person crazy.”
“Still,” Kate said, jumping into the conversation, “how do you explain it then. It is a paradox.”
“One has to first understand what time is,” Helen answered. “Time is most often thought as being linear.”
The five of them ventured outside and gathered under the stars around the back of the old woman’s shack. There was a fire pit and some wood half stacked in a pile. Jhahnahkan gathered some of the wood and placed it in the pit while Helen grabbed some matches and paper for starting the fire. After the fire had been built and began to roar, they all sat together in a semicircle and absorbed the heat of the flames.
“Now,” Helen began, “time is relative to one’s experience. The time it took to gather the wood and start this fire for instance. Let us say that gathering the wood is one cause and setting the fire with the match, another cause. The resulting flames are the effect of the cause of gathering the wood and setting fire with the paper and lighting it with the match. This is all thought of as linear time. The effect, the flames, cannot occur before the cause of gathering the wood and setting it with the match. Now there is also physiological time. This is referred to as how time is perceived by a person. For instance, if you grabbed and held on to one of those red-hot rocks for ten seconds, it would seem like a lot longer than ten seconds. If Kate kissed Jhahnahkan for that same amount of time, it would seem like it was a lot faster than it really was. It is all how we perceive that time.” Helen continued. “The old saying is ‘A watched pot never boils.’ But if you look away for just a moment, it boils over.”
Jhahnahkan, nodding his head, said, “Yes, that makes sense to me. But that does not explain how your being born cannot occur before the cause of Kate bearing my child if you are already here now. How can my child being born cause your birth when you are my grandmother?”
“That is because time is not only linear but it is both linear and it is circular,” Helen said with a smile.
Glenda scratched her head and said, “You’re givin’ me a headache listening to this. I really don’t understand... what is circular time?”
Helen stood and slowly walked around the fire in a circle and then stopped where she began. “Right now is the end of all that has been,” she said, pointing behind her. “Right now is the beginning of that shall be.” She continued as she then pointed in front of her. Then she faced the group and pointed down to the ground with both hands pointing at her feet. “Right now is the beginning and the end.”
“Wow,” Glenda said with awe, “that is really heavy.”
Helen returned a smile at Glenda and continued, “Time, as we experience it, is a straight line. But time, being also circular, occurs all at the same time. So your brother and sister are living in one point in time while, at the same time, we are living here in this time. They occur simultaneously, but we experience it like an arrow being shot at a target. We perceive ourselves at some point on the path between the bow and the target.”
“So the crystal that John brought back with him is the means to travel to another point in the circle,” Rex said as a matter of fact. “Just like when you walked around the fire in a circle.”
“Ah, Rex,” Helen said, looking at the old man, “you understand. You are very smart if you can grasp this concept.”
“Ah shucks, ma’am,” Rex said with a slight blush, “I ain’t all that.”
“Don’t be silly, Rex,” Glenda said as she patted him on the back.
“Listen to what your friend says, Rex,” Helen said. “You have and will have an impact on the outcome of this quest.”
“I don’ know what ya mean. I’m just an old drunk that wasted his life on just doing nothing,” Rex said, looking down at the ground. “I’ve only done things for myself, never for others.”
“You will, Rex,” Helen said, looking deep into the old man’s eyes, “you will.”
“Helen,” Jhahnahkan started, “if time is circular and all things are happening at the same time at some point in the circle, how can those time events be changed?”
“Changing an event has never been done before,” Helen answered. “But we have to try. Our very existence depends on it.”
“But changing an event in the circle of time,” Kate said, “may cause even worse results, couldn’t it?”
“There is that risk, honey,” Helen said to Kate. “But enough of this talk. It is making me have a headache now.” She said this while looking at Glenda, giving her a half smile and a wink.
Helen took the crystal shard out from her tattered garment and held it out before her, closed her eyes, and concentrated on the piece of crystal. The crystal began to glow a bright green color that shimmered in the moonlight. The gleaming light started to create the sound of shimmering harmonics so familiar to Ackturra but foreign to Earth.
“Ooh,” Glenda and Rex said almost simultaneously.
“That sound is so nice,” Rex added.
Glenda held Rex’s hand and closed her eyes. “It’s beautiful.”
Kate and Jhahnahkan held each other in their arms and soaked up the soft resonances caused by the power crystal frag
ment.
“Now,” Helen said in an almost trancelike state, “I need each one of you to help.”
Helen stood and moved a few feet away from the fire. “I need each one to gather around me and join hands. Jhahnahkan, you stand before me and face away.”
The four followed Helen’s instructions and gathered beside her. Glenda and Rex stood on her left while Kate stood on her right.
“I am going to open up a vortex for Jhahnahkan to step through. I need everyone to help concentrate and help Jhahnahkan focus on where he dropped the crystal. Once you step through, I will have to close the vortex.”
“Kate looked over at Helen. “I know what you are going to do,” she said. “You are going to destroy that fragment.”
“Yes, Kate,” Helen said while continuing to focus with her eyes closed. “He is going to have to find the pure crystal and use it to return to us, but we cannot risk infecting the pure crystal by exposing it to this fragment.”
“But he had the fragment all along. Wouldn’t it be already infected?” Glenda asked.
“It is possible,” Helen said, answering Glenda. “But it was only exposed for a very short time while he traveled back in the vortex.”
“No, I will not let you destroy it. It is too beautiful,” Kate said, looking over at Helen.
“Do not worry, Kate. It will be okay. It is the power of the corrupt crystal that is making you feel that way.”
“No, it is alive. We cannot kill it. That is wrong,” Kate said as she welled up with tears.
“Kate is right, my grandmother,” Jhahnahkan said. “We will use the pure crystal to heal the infection. I know we can. I can feel it within me.”
“Two crystals would be better than one,” Rex said.
“Ditto,” Glenda said in agreement.
Helen continued to focus on the crystal before her. “I am sensing that this fragment understands. It is telling me that it feels our empathy. It understands what is wrong. It wants to be whole again. Very well, little crystal, we will try to make you better,” she said as if talking directly to the fragment.
“I want to go with Jhahnahkan,” Kate said. “He may need my help returning.”
“No, Kate, he will not need help. That crystal is much more powerful. He can create the vortex on his own. Do not go with him. I sense danger.”
As Helen concentrated on the vortex to open, the sound of rushing wind began to intensify. The area began to shoot lightning, and claps of thunder sounded, and the wind rushed past them as the vortex opened up before Jhahnahkan. The swirling cloud that surrounded the black opening spiraled inward to the center of the vortex ring, seeming to never end. The force of the vortex pulled on Jhahnahkan, and he began to walk toward the opening. As he stepped through the vortex and started to become enveloped by its force, Kate leaped toward Jhahnahkan, grabbing his waist.
“No!” Helen cried.
She tried to reach out and grab Kate to stop her from entering the vortex, but the two of them disappeared through the whirlwind as it collapsed and vanished almost as fast as it had appeared.
* * *
Earth
Year: 1983
Sheriff Matson stumbled through the dark field, leaving his broken squad car behind. He was dazed and confused, wondering what he had just seen that caused him to veer off the road. He was miffed that his fugitives had escaped his pursuit. He felt like crying with sorrow or screaming with anger and didn’t know which one would make him better accept the fact of where he was right now—alone and walking aimlessly under the night sky. He didn’t even know if he was going in the right direction but continued to move, thinking he would run into the road soon. He thought to himself that it can’t be that far back to the road, but being already confused of the events that unfolded, he pressed onward.
The sheriff walked for over an hour and continued to stumble and trip on the uneven ground beneath his feet. He stopped for a moment, thinking that he heard something out in front of him. The calm of the night was soon interrupted by a great rushing wind followed by the opening of a vortex just a few yards from where he stood. He watched as two people fell through the opening. One stumbled, and the other was holding on to his waist. The two fell to the ground and rolled over on top of each other, and then the vortex closed behind them.
Sheriff Matson crouched down and hid below the tall grass as the two gathered themselves back on their feet. He pulled his gun and aimed it at Jhahnahkan and then stood up, showing himself to the pair.
“Freeze!” Matson ordered. “One move and I’ll put a hole in ya.”
The two froze and turned toward the sheriff.
“Oh crap!” Kate said. “Sheriff, where did you come from?”
“I don’ know who you are or where you come from, mister,” the sheriff began, “but you’re not getting away from me this time.” Matson began to make his way closer to the couple. “You’re a pretty strange one, makin’ them things appear and disappear, and I’m gonna find out what you are if it’s the last thing I do.”
The sheriff tripped on a rock, causing him to go off-balance. Jhahnahkan took advantage of the moment and reached out in front of him. The crystal that had been lying on the ground flew into the air. He grabbed the crystal in midair and swung around to point it at the sheriff when Sheriff Matson’s gun shot at Jhahnahkan.
“No!” Kate shouted as the gun fired. She could feel her heart beating out of her chest with adrenaline as she leaped in front of him as if to shield her lover from being hit by the bullet. The bullet from the gun pierced Kate in the lower abdomen, and Kate fell to the ground and started to bleed from her wound.
The sheriff paused in shock as if he had never shot his revolver before. Jhahnahkan looked up at the stunned Matson, and with anger in his eyes, he tightly squeezed the crystal in his one hand and lifted his other arm out in front of him. A wave of energy left his extended arm and shot out at the sheriff, causing him to hurl backward into the air for several yards. Matson eventually landed flat on his back; he continued to roll backward head over heels, which knocked the breath out him.
Jhahnahkan knelt down beside Kate’s bleeding body and picked her up in his arms. With tears in his eyes, he concentrated on creating the vortex and focused on the group’s location. The vortex opened, and he stepped through, and the two exited back to where they left moments before. The whirlwind closed behind the two.
Glenda, Rex, and Helen all rushed over to Jhahnahkan. Glenda gasped in terror, seeing that her friend Kate had been shot.
“Come on,” Helen instructed. “Bring her inside and let us have a look.”
She lit a lantern to illuminate the small shack while Jhahnahkan set her on the table.
“Can we use the crystal to heal her like you did with John’s ribs?” Glenda asked.
“Healing ribs is one thing. Healing internal organs from a bullet is yet quite another,” Helen answered with skepticism.
She took the crystal from Jhahnahkan and passed it over Kate’s wound several times. “There,” she said, “the bleeding has stopped, but the bullet is still in there. She is going to need to have surgery to have that taken out.”
“No,” Kate said in a weak voice, “you cannot risk taking me to the hospital. They will ask too many questions.”
“Shh, now, Kate,” Jhahnahkan said with a comforting tone as he stroked her hair.
“He’s right, honey,” Glenda said. “That wound is in a very bad place. If it’s not fixed, it could prevent you from having children.”
“The paradox has occurred,” Helen said with a shock. “This is what I was trying to say before she went in. This is the paradox. I do not know how much time I have left before the effects of this catches up to us.”
“I will take her to the hospital,” Jhahnahkan said. “There is still time to prevent the paradox.”
“Go then,” Helen instructed. “We shall all stay here and wait for your return.
* * *
Earth
Year: 1983
Jhahnahkan carried Kate in his arms as he ran through the emergency room entrance at Phillmore General. This was a fairly small hospital that had served the community for many years. There was a staff of three nurses on the night shift and one country doctor that had only treated the latest influenza as being the most severe case he had seen in many weeks. He can sew up a tear in someone’s flesh from a farming accident but has never seen a bullet wound.
“Please help us!” Jhahnahkan cried out in a frantic voice. “She has been shot.” He tried his best to hold back his tears.
The nurses took action and brought out a gurney for him to lay her on. They wheeled her back to a room, and as Jhahnahkan followed, one of the nurses turned and pressed her hand on his chest.
“Hold up there, cowboy. Only immediate family can go back with her.”
“John,” Kate said faintly, “do not leave me.”
Jhahnahkan placed his hand on the side of the nurse’s temple and said to her in a comforting voice, “It is all right. You can let me back.”
“It’s okay, you can go back, sir,” the nurse said in compliance.
Jhahnahkan made his way to the room where Kate was. The country doctor entered the room and took a look at the way Jhahnahkan was dressed.
“You just come from a costume party or something?” he asked as he looked at Kate. “Well, what happened here? You two running from the law? How’d she get this bullet wound?”
“Just fix her up, Doctor,” Jhahnahkan said as he touched him at the same place as the nurse. “Do not ask questions. Just take care of her.”
“Well, she is going to need surgery,” the doctor said. “Afraid I’ve never performed that kind of surgery.”
“Can you do it?” Jhahnahkan asked.
“Let’s get an X-ray to see where that bullet is first,” the doctor ordered.
The doctor turned and placed his hand on Jhahnahkan’s shoulder and let him know that he would need to go into the waiting room while they took the X-rays.
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