The Time Pacer: An Alien Teen Fantasy Adventure (The Time Bender Book 2)

by Debra Chapoton

  “This is too much to take in. I don’t feel so hot.” She shivered again and rubbed her arms. “Okay. I think I understand.” A time-stopper. Unbelievable. “Promise me you’ll come back and get Alex after you hide me away. I’ll trust you.” She looked up into those eyes that once upon a time had held more than her attention, eyes that had also reflected symbols of doom. “I have to trust you. What choice do I have?”

  “Well,” Marcum dropped his eyes, “you could agree to go with the Gleezhians. We’d have a treaty. There’d be peace.” There was something else he needed to tell her. “But, ehk,” he looked into her eyes, “there’s another option.”

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  MARCUM BLURRED AGAIN. What the heck was the matter with my eyesight? I felt, rather than heard, that same rumbling that happened when the ships latched together. Marcum then leaned forward, dropped his arms and announced in Klaqin, ending in English, “First Commander, I agree with Alex. We need to sing acapella.”

  Perfect. That ridiculous response meant he was with me. I turned on the time-pacing full force and rushed through the little crowd. Marcum, however, wasn’t really with me. He caught my arm as I tripped over pointy spines that bristled from the floor, swung me into Coreg, and in a flurry of overlapping seconds turned my little escape plan into crap.

  But at least Selina was gone and didn’t see my failure. She’d slipped through the tunnel and now Coreg, Payat, and Hagab held me down. Cotay demanded an explanation and Marcum made up something about my being susceptible to episodes of weightless-induced amnesia that were called “fugues” on Earth. His musical pun was not lost on me. Maybe he was on my side after all. There was quite a bit of back and forth between the Gleezhian and Cotay and then Coreg noticed that Selina was absent. He leaped from my back and slithered through the opening, returning at once to announce that Selina was not on the Intimidator.

  Marcum winked at me. At first I thought he had something in his eye, then I hoped to high heaven that he’d learned that signal on Earth and he was hinting that Selina was safe. But I couldn’t fathom how he would know that.

  “Let me up.” I punched at Payat and gave Hagab a kick. Commander Cotay ordered them to stand down and turned to Coreg.

  “Fifth Commander Coreg, what do you mean the time-bender is gone? She is either on this ship or the other.”

  “I checked the pods and the storage bays,” Coreg answered as he watched me stand up. He glanced around the Fighter Five and finished, “but she’s not there. I’m not familiar with this craft though it seems less likely that she could find a spot to hide in here.” His eyes settled on me again and I felt a tingle right where his boot had so recently marked my back.

  The Gleezhian dude reacted then and threw a gruff command at Cotay. Cotay’s subservient response revealed who this symphony’s conductor really was. Cotay spun his thumb ring with a frantic urgency. He whipped it off his hand and shoved it into a space below the screen and tapped out something on the display. Schematics of both ships filled the screen. The seven of us dotted the center of this craft in glowing green symbols with several smaller red dots blurred together in what I suspected was the Fighter Five’s processor, where dead stuff was transformed into galactic lard. The Intimidator’s blueprint lacked any green symbols at all, but in its tail-end it showed five red dots bunched together, reminding me of the Gleezhian corpses Coreg had put there to ferment. If Selina was in either ship I couldn’t figure out how she was hiding and why we didn’t see a green dot for her.

  Cotay looked like he was going to burst into flame. He screamed for Coreg and Marcum to check the processors. I watched their dots on the screen as Marcum moved to the back of the Fighter Five and disappeared through a hatch and Coreg slipped into the Intimidator. His green dot stopped short of the jumble of red dots that I imagined had to be pretty stinky by now. Marcum reappeared and I got a whiff of something worse than oily lard.

  Coreg returned too and both of them gave negative reports. Everyone’s confusion was made worse by the dissonance of three conflicting languages. It was like Battle of the Bands in super-decibels. My eardrums weren’t bursting, but my heart was. I sank into the pilot’s chair, not caring if I was breaking rules or protocol. Where the heck was Selina? Had I sent her into the Intimidator to be sucked out into space? I couldn’t pace myself past such a horrible thought.

  But apparently someone else was doing a little time-pacing of his own.

  Out of the blue I was standing again. Coreg and Marcum held my arms behind my back and that awful Gleezhian aimed a bristling-looking weapon at my chest. Not a single snippet of song lyrics came to mind.

  And then, without warning, I felt a burning sensation from my toes to the top of my head and especially along my arms where their tight grips started to loosen.

  “Don’t let go.” Marcum’s command to Coreg included me too since he ran his fingers down my arm and clasped my hand. Coreg did the same and there we stood, three dudes holding hands in front of Payat and Hagab and a Klaqin Commander and a Gleezhian negotiator with death in his multi-fingered hands.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I lied. I looked from Coreg’s scowling face to Marcum’s. He was smirking, the edges of his lips quivering. He squeezed my hand. Dude, that was weird. But at that second, or Klaqin time unit, everything changed.

  “Come on. To the other ship. Don’t let go.”

  We moved in a crab-like shuffle toward the linking tunnel, but I balked when I saw that the two dudes and the Commander and the Gleezhian stayed motionless in a stop-action freeze frame. Not even their eyes followed us.

  “Come on,” Marcum said again, “keep moving. We are outside of their time experience. This is a fixed instant for them. It will seem like we disappeared when they reach their next moment in time.”

  I glanced at the clock under the screen, the one thing on the panel I could understand, and saw it flipping through Earth seconds. Somewhere, back home, time was progressing despite whatever Marcum did here.

  I still had no music in my head.

  CHAPTER 13

  ♫ … Hello … ♫

  “HOTAH,” SELINA SAID to her hosts after she interpreted their slow clucks and syllables. They offered her a place to sleep. She accepted not because she was exhausted, though she was, but because Marcum had forewarned her on their escape trip that his family put a premium on eating and sleeping. They stubbornly refused to accept modern advances in Klaqin science. No specialized liquid nourishment for them. And no fleeting sleep cycles. This last bit of information he whispered to her right before he said goodbye.

  Marcum’s quick departure unnerved her. His promise to return for Alex was little comfort knowing how unpredictable everything had been to this point. Sleep seemed the perfect evasion. She’d made a habit of avoiding new people and new situations her whole life due to the physical consequences she experienced and her inability to cope.

  Marcum’s mother, Krimar, a tall, pale yellow-green beauty with the same blue-black hair as Marcum, ushered her into an interior room of their home. It was small and windowless and though not damp like a cellar, a musty smell hung in the air along with an oily bio-metal odor. For light the floor glowed in muted shades of red and the walls shimmered. All the objects in the room were plainly visible, in that flat dream-like way of seeing things without their being registered or catalogued in the conscious mind. The single piece of large furniture was a long bed that looked extremely comfortable. Selina thought how her brother, Buddy, would have leaped onto the bed and started jumping and giggling. She was not tempted to do the same. The mixture of longing for Earth, her recent kidnapping, the jolt of standing outside of time with Marcum, and now the full realization that nobody in the universe other than Marcum knew where she was hit her full blast.

  Then, from somewhere, she managed to slap a grateful smile on her face and nod at Marcum’s mother. She stepped toward the bed as the alien woman closed the door and Selina was alone.

  The bed proved to be as soft as it loo
ked, but sleep eluded her in the strange, murky-red room with walls that wouldn’t stay still. The only sounds were her own jagged heartbeats pounding in her ears. She played the most recent events over and over in her mind.

  “You could agree to go with the Gleezhians. We’d have a treaty. There’d be peace,” Marcum had told her as they stood on the spaceship in time 2, “but, ehk, there’s another option.”

  “Another option? What? Can we go home?”

  “Well, yes. That is, I can take you to my parents’ home. It sits in the middle of the farming region of Klaqin. It’s naturally protected from Gleezhian ships because of the magnetic forces there. You’ll be safe until I can work out a few things.”

  He hadn’t told her what the few things were and she hadn’t asked. She’d said okay and before she could change her mind Marcum unlatched the ship and they flew like lightning to the center of the sunny side of Klaqin. She’d stepped out of the ship into a daylight ten times brighter than what she and Alex had paraded through at their arrival. Yet with the sun directly overhead there were the smallest of shadows, if any.

  “My parents speak only Klaqin, but you seem to know a few words of it already. Krimar will want to feed you and if she thinks you look tired she’ll have you sleeping for a double-moon.”

  Marcum’s words had barely put her at ease, but meeting his mother and then his father, Pauro, went well. Then Marcum abruptly left.

  Now Selina tossed and turned, squeezed her eyelids tightly closed, and tried to relax. Nothing ever worked out like she planned. If she thought life couldn’t get harder than being an outcast in high school, she changed her mind now. Hundreds of slowing heart thumps later she dropped off.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  “HOLY CRAP,” I said, “what the heck’s going on?”

  The three of us stood, still clasping hands, now in a circle like some small intimate prayer group, and I could not stop the replay of Marcum’s stunning revelation.

  Outside of their time experience.

  What the H did that mean?

  “How long did it take you to figure out you could do this?” Coreg asked.

  “A month on Earth,” Marcum replied. “I quite suddenly figured out what your TS theory was.”

  “Commander Dace knew. He wanted me paired with you in battle for when you discovered your power. He trusted me enough to tell me he suspected you were a time-stopper. Our Gleezhian infiltration and the trip to the Fringes of Plickkentrad were supposed to spark a reaction, make you time-stop involuntarily, to prove you had the power.”

  I looked from one to the other, imagining the time-stopper power in Marcum’s hand, and noticing the cold, awkward sweat in Coreg’s. Not about to let go of either of them.

  Marcum nodded. “I have it. And that’s how I got Selina to safety.”

  I was super glad to hear Marcum say that. “You took her out of here? She’s okay?”

  “She is somewhere that no one will find her. I promised her I’d get you out of here next.”

  Coreg dropped my hand and waved his in front of Marcum. “Hold on. We need her. She’s mine. Did you forget why we went to Earth to begin with, sunny?”

  I didn’t like Coreg’s ‘she’s mine’ comment. Sounded like he was obsessed with her. Of course, that’s how I felt about her, but in a good way. Marcum dropped my hand. Apparently he could keep time stopped around us without touching us anymore.

  “We were manipulated,” Marcum said. “And you can stop calling me sunny. It doesn’t bother me anymore.” He continued on in Klaqin, clucking out an outline of what he’d learned in a few time-stopping forays into the rooms and offices of Dace, Cotay, Gzeter, and others. I understood enough to realize that the whole Gleezhian War period was based on lies, treason, and an intricate plan to get both civilizations ready to invade Earth.

  “So it’s not really the Klaqins against the Gleezhians, but rather a Klaqin-Gleezhian alliance against holdouts on both planets?” I glanced at Coreg as I summarized. His face darkened. He looked angry but not surprised. He’d already picked sides. Obviously Marcum had gone rogue. His time on Earth, his devotion to Selina … yeah, maybe he’d fight for Earth.

  Marcum nodded at me and reverted to English. “Both planets are dying. The resources needed to get most of our people across the universe are running out and they need more time. That’s where Selina comes in.”

  Coreg snorted. “I told Dace you’d mess up. I should have insisted on teaming up with Payat.”

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  SELINA AWOKE WITH a start. She had no idea how long she’d slept, but the floor’s crimson glow had changed to soft yellow. A tray of colorful foods was on the floor near the door.

  She stretched and scooted to the edge of the bed, not ready to get up yet. She hung her legs over the side and stared at the food. She didn’t feel hungry and the items on the tray were not in the least appetizing. Except for a round fruit. It looked out of place, as if someone had brought it from Earth.

  She smiled and thought of Marcum. Had he brought an apple? She remembered how much he liked her mother’s pie.

  She slipped off the bed and knelt down at the tray. Would she be breaking some custom if she sat on the floor and tasted each thing? She picked up the apple and got it almost to her lips when she heard the unmistakable blasts of an arc-gun.

  The door burst open and Marcum’s father and mother stumbled over the tray, avoided stepping on Selina, and in a hurried, well-practiced drill scooped her up and thrust her toward the opposite wall. Without a word they pushed her through a door that opened downward and she slid between them on a dry but slippery expanse of metal.

  Her scream warbled through two or three English vowels as their bodies skidded to a thump at the bottom of the chute. She still clutched the apple, but let it drop when she used both hands to help Marcum’s mother to her feet.

  “What’s going on?” Her frantic question was met with furrowed brows and shaking heads. They couldn’t understand her.

  Krimar held her palm up to Selina’s mouth to quiet her, gave her a seriously maternal scowl, and whispered commands that fell within the basic Klaqin she had learned.

  Be quiet. Be still. Wait.

  Selina slowed her breathing and looked around. They were in a five-sided room, the size of a small bedroom. A solitary glowing disk on the second wall illuminated the space. The floor resembled a single flat rock, like slate, with small pits, and ridges, and bumps. The walls were unnaturally smooth and curved to the top where more rock made up the ceiling. She expected stalactites, but the only things hanging from the ceiling were tags with Klaqin markings.

  Marcum’s father twisted his thumb ring and the chute receded.

  Selina stared at them both, struggling to remember certain Klaqin words. She moved her lips silently, forming the beginning of her question, but giving it no voice. Marcum’s mother pressed her hand briefly to Selina’s lips and shook her head once again, though with less vehemence.

  The two parents locked eyes and Selina detected a sadness in Pauro’s eyes as he nodded at Krimar. He took a deep breath and then gave another twist to his thumb ring. A dull explosion followed, far away, like thunder in a forgotten dream.

  Krimar dropped her hand and turned to the third wall, motioning for Selina to follow. An opening grew where the woman touched the wall and Selina assumed it was formed of the same bio-metals as on the spaceship though there was no oily stink. As soon as the opening was large enough to pass through they entered a humid labyrinth of caves and vines and Klaqin tags.

  “What this?” Selina asked in halting Klaqin. Plants, carefully tied with threads of different colors, hung neatly in rows overhead. She was too short to reach the ends, but Marcum’s father lifted a hand to brush them lightly, expelling a fragrant dust into the dank air. He moved forward and began to explain in short, concise speech the underground workings of their farm.

  It calmed Selina to listen and concentrate on the unusual things she saw and heard, but as he explained she c
ouldn’t stop wondering what had happened above, and why they had hustled her out of the room. She thought they might have blown their own house up. Possibly there were enemies above and she had nearly been discovered.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  “SO YOU KNEW all along I had this time-stopping power?” Marcum’s eyes lasered into Coreg’s.

  I hoped this didn’t get us into a fight. Time-pacing vs. time-stopping. We might mess up the universe. Might be like a rapper trying to compose a musical piece with an ancient Japanese Shinto zither. Polyphony … cacophony … chaos.

  Coreg didn’t breathe, didn’t move, then started in Klaqin and switched to English, “Hotah, but the First Commanders determined that time-stopping would not help us. We needed a time-bender. And you were expendable.”

  “Hold on. Hold on,” I said. “This is getting too bizarre. Marcum, what’s your plan?”

  “He doesn’t get to make the plans.” Coreg’s face puffed up around the cheeks. He looked a little greenish, too, seasick maybe.

  Marcum stood straighter. “I do as long as I’m stopping time. Your time-pacing won’t work now.”

  I thought Coreg’s skin would burst. I couldn’t help but try a little pacing myself, but nothing happened and I felt as bloated as Coreg looked.

  “He’s right, Coreg,” I said, letting the air out of my lungs in one long breath. “I think we’d better listen to Marcum.” I couldn’t believe that came out of my mouth. I was ready to trust Marcum, a guy I’d stalked when I’d seen him spying on Selina. A guy that had made me wish I’d finished my martial arts training. A guy I hated because I’d seen him kiss Selina.

  Coreg took a quick jab at Marcum, but Marcum blurred before my eyes and Coreg’s punch missed his face and caught nothing but empty air.

  “You will never best me again, Coreg. Now listen to my plan.”