Mobius (25 page)

“This should do the trick,” I said, sliding the tool under the tight fabric of my sleeve. “They better keep their snouts away from me.”

I grabbed at my heart as I felt a strange emptiness. I realized my wife’s necklace was missing. Thankfully, I found it among the surgical tools. I held it tightly in my hand, hesitating to put it on. I looked to Allienora who currently argued with Morion.

My feelings for her are growing,
I thought.
Am I being unfaithful to Cassandra?

Orsteen apparently noticed my preoccupation. “You must move on with your life, Theron. Would Cassandra want you to mourn forever?” Orsteen tilted his head toward Allienora. “Be happy in the moment. There’s enough room in your heart.”

I admired her for a moment and then tucked the necklace into my pocket.

As Orsteen nodded in approval, the walls of the room drained of their electric-yellow light, quivered momentarily, and then vanished. We now stood in a large room, surrounded by many thick marble columns that seemed more decorative than functional.

I walked out on an attached balcony, which afforded a panoramic view of the ocean. In the distance, I saw the cliffs of the peninsula we had stayed on two hundred days ago. I corrected my perceptions.

It was only yesterday.

From an arched doorway came the two Oryxes. Instead of their armor, they wore smocks of a delicate white cloth. At first, I thought they were in a calm mood, with snouts long and relaxed. But as they neared, something in their round emerald eyes conveyed intense emotion.

“You’ve been quite frustrating,” said one of the Oryxes. “The proverbial bug in our bed!”

“The same could be said of you,” I replied.

I contemplated the moment.
They stand without their armor. I’ll move fast. Pull the surgical tool from my sleeve and get my revenge for the Brahman Station.

“Your trap in the cave was wickedly ingenious,” continued the Oryx. “Poor Bergus never saw those stalagmites coming.” He let out a sad snort, like a sob. “Before we entered, I advised him to engage his head armor, but Bergus was a stubborn fellow.”

The other Oryx gave his snout a passionate tug. “Our friend wasn’t deserving of such a meaningless end! Your ignorance killed him!”

I threw up a hand in protest. “You accuse us of ignorance! Who are you to judge? Your attack on Earth is why we’re here. We merely tried to stop you.”

“Your efforts were too ambitious. Your companions didn’t succeed at destroying our vessel with their weapon. We were able to contain the spatial disturbance when it was detonated. Your friends, unfortunately, didn’t survive, and like poor Bergus, they too died a needless death. You must now understand that we’re not the hostile force you believe us to be. We’re not planning to harm you or anyone on Earth.”

“Ha!” I scoffed. “Over five hundred crew members and guests aboard the Brahman Station died from your act of sabotage! You may inform their families of your pacifism!”

The two Oryxes began snorting and grunting in an awkward laugh. “You’re mistaken. Your friends weren’t killed when the Brahman Station fell into Jupiter. And, the Brahman Station wasn’t destroyed.”

Is it true?
I thought.
Are they still alive?

I grit my teeth. “We saw your replica of the Brahman Station. You can’t fool us twice.”

“You’re right, it
was
a replica. The real Brahman Station and its passengers are... somewhere else, safe. This, I promise you.” The two Oryxes engaged their armor, which appeared from nowhere. They held out their hands. “Come, it’s time to show you how the universe has come to be.”

I hesitated. “Where do you plan to take us?”

“Back to our vessel near Earth,” said the Oryx.

I looked to the others, who appeared no less confused. I then reluctantly accepted the Oryx’s hand. The rest of the company gathered around.

Everyone shifted through space.

DECA-HELIX

I was baffled by our new surroundings.
We stood in a comfortable living room no different from one found in a human home. It was furnished with oversized couches, wooden tables, and gaudy lamps that lit the room in a pale light. Paintings of alien landscapes hung from the walls and statues of unusual animals were positioned randomly about.

“This is the alien vessel near Earth?” I asked.

“Yes,” responded one of the Oryxes. “This is the sphere ship just outside your solar system. We’re in the Impresario’s personal residence within Central City.”

“Central City?”

“A city at the center of the sphere, where all the forest channels intersect.”

“And who’s this Impresario?”

“The Impresario is the administrator of this sphere. You’ll find your answers with him. If you’d excuse us, we have other things to do.” Without pause, the two Oryxes vanished.

While we waited for the Impresario, we snooped around the room. I approached a set of tall shelves crowded with leather-bound books and oddments, noticeably ancient. Among the shelves sat a cage, perhaps for a bird. From it, a faint voice emanated: “Bring an end to my dismal existence. Show me mercy. Smother me in a clenched fist, or cast me into space for the journey into cold eternity.”

I approached the cage for a better look and found a pathetic creature, no more than a foot tall. With feeble fingers, it gripped the bars of its cage, pushing and pulling its body back and forth, struggling with its confines. It gazed up with weary eyes. “You! Large fellow! I beg you—bring me relief.”

“Are you held against your will?” I asked. “I’d be glad to free you from this cage.”

It heaved a profound sigh. “This measly, wretched, constricted, corporeal state is my cage. This body is my burden. My mind desires freedom. It seeks a higher plane.”

Perplexed by the miniature character, I could only stare in curiosity as it opened the door of its cage and hopped to a nearby shelf, where it sat on edge, with elbows on knees and head slumped into palms.

As we marveled at the sad creature, we noticed an intense light spilling from around a corner. We turned the corner and found a giant archway that led to a brightly lit room. A group of aliens sat at a table—all unique in physiology. They were obviously in conversation, but we couldn’t hear them talking. One of the aliens with a fantastic horse-head looked at us for a moment and then returned to the conversation. I suddenly became disoriented as I looked out the large window of the other room. I saw a beautiful city of glass buildings. Alien air-cars flew by. In the distance, a bloated orange sun sat on a horizon. The archway must have been a dimensional gateway, but one that allowed you to see the other side. Just a step away was an alien planet. I grabbed a book from a nearby shelf and tossed it through the gateway. It landed on the other side and the entire table of aliens looked at me with something like annoyance. They went back to talking and I started to step across the threshold of the archway.

“Stop! I wouldn’t do that!”

I turned and found the little creature from the cage.

“You don’t have any shielding and you’re a double-helix species. You’d require a lot of genetic repair if you step through that gateway. Only deca-helix species with self-repairing genetic strands can tolerate the amount of radiation on that planet.”

“Why can’t we hear them?” asked Allienora.

The little creature looked at Alleinora as if she were joking. “Sound can’t travel across a dimensional threshold.”

“How far away is that planet?” I asked.

“Please no more questions,” said the little creature. “I don’t have time to babysit the four of you. I was just about to kill myself, and need to get back to it.”

A moment later, the alien with the fantastic horse-head walked through the dimensional archway. He spoke in a deep voice. “Greetings, travelers! Sorry to make you wait, but I had an important meeting with some other Impresarios. Big events are upon us.”

We stood there in awe of him. He had an exquisitely shaped skull, two great hollows for cheeks, and a large jutting jaw. Blue velvet garments draped from his body. His lofty stature and upturned chin gave him a regal appearance.

“I see you’ve met Stimple. I hope he didn’t bring you down. He’s been a bit sad lately. Once every thousand years, he suffers a fit of depression. It’ll pass in a year, maybe two.”

“You’re the Impresario?” I inquired, staring in wonder at the alien’s fantastic horse-head.

“I am. You may call me Fandoral.” Fandoral inspected each in the company, rubbing his massive chin.

His gaze was oddly joyful. I wondered if there were cages somewhere for us. Was Fandoral planning to add us to his collection of curiosities and miniature men?

“It’s a favor of fortune that the four of you have arrived here, and now.” Fandoral applied his attention first to Orsteen. “Ah... Orsteen Hunn of the Mercury Miners—unrefined, hard-working, and loyal.” He stepped to Allienora, examining her soft features. “Allienora Chang, Prime Minister of Earth and the last of royalty—elegant, beautiful, and mysterious. Morion Morpheme, Prime Elitist of Mars—a connoisseur of fine living, verging into gluttony, vainglory, and excess. And, finally, Theron Mobius—”

“Enough!” I protested. “What’s this all about? What do you want from Earth?”

“This will take some time. Come, have a seat.” Fandoral gestured to a low table surrounded by couches of a heavy, green fabric. We sat in awkward silence.

Fandoral remained standing. He cleared his throat and adjusted his blue velvet garments. “The things you’ve seen in the Guardian Sphere are not what you think. My people, this place, and the Obelisks we’ve sent to Earth, are not related to the Fume and his presence around Earth.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

“It’s true,” replied Fandoral.

“What of the sabotage of the Brahman Station?”

“Also the Fume. It was his human minion who planted the devices on the Brahman Station, not us.”

“The Oryxes assured me the crew and passengers of the Brahman Station are unharmed. Does this mean you saved them from the Fume’s sabotage?”

Fandoral smiled. “No. In a sense... they weren’t saved.”

“Then what happened to them!” I yelled. “You and the Oryxes speak in circles!”

Despite my outburst, Fandoral’s smirk remained. He raised and whirled a thick-jointed finger, and a node rose out of the table in front of us. It projected a holographic image of perfect clarity.

I jumped to my feet when I saw Atticus. He was alive. His face was drawn and withered, but he was alive.

The hologram became animated and Atticus spoke: “It’s been hard times, to say the least, since the sabotage of the Brahman Station two years ago.”

I looked to Allienora and the others, confused by the stated interval of time.

The image of Atticus continued: “I’ve decided to create this log to document our experiences. Hopefully, it’ll someday be found and our times here won’t be forgotten. When we first arrived here through the dimensional fissure, the Brahman Station was greatly damaged. We had suffered over a hundred casualties. Currently, we’re adrift, a thousand light years beyond the rim of a galaxy on the other end of the universe. Earth is so far away. The crew has become restless. I don’t know if we’ll survive this. People are losing their minds.

“Sensimion and I have come to believe that the devices planted by the Fume’s human minion were intended to destroy the Brahman Station. But, by some miracle, we were instead sent through an unstable dimensional fissure, and our lives were spared.

“We spent months analyzing galactic orientations, attempting to figure out our new location in the universe. We soon realized that the Doppler shifts of the galaxies were off. At last, it became obvious why we were having trouble deciphering our location. We had traveled back in time at least twenty-one million years and the galaxies here have yet to orient themselves as we know them.” Atticus looked up in reflection. “If my boy, Theron, were here, I know he’d be excited by the discovery of time travel. I wish he were here. He’d probably have some brilliant idea to get us home.” Atticus began to cry and the image dispersed.

“Holy Shit!” I said, realizing what I just heard. “Time travel?”

I stared inward, trying to hypothesize the mechanism, the equation, or the force that would make such a fanciful notion possible. “And your people found the Brahman Station, twenty-one million years adrift?”

“No. The Brahman Station’s crew and passengers didn’t die on the cold edges of some distant galaxy.” Fandoral pointed a large finger upward. “They rose up from hardship and saved themselves, ever since thriving.
We
are the descendents of the Brahman crew and passengers.”

“Everyone?” I said in astonishment. “The Oryxes, the bio-mechanical beings with backward-bending knees, the many aliens gathered around the replica of the Brahman Station?”

“Yes, all of them,” said Fandoral. “We’re the product of twenty-one million years of human evolution, beginning from the four hundred and one survivors of the Brahman Station. To relieve your earlier confusion, the replica of the Brahman Station was a commemoration of our beginnings. There are now over a million worlds throughout the universe inhabited by the descendents of the Brahman Station’s survivors.”

“And why only
now
have you returned?” asked Allienora.

“When you tamper with the universe, as time travel does, she becomes a volatile thing. You see, the totality of my existence and the existence of the rest of the people descended from the Brahman Station’s survivors has been teetering for twenty-one million years on the edge of oblivion. Our fate has rested on the unaltered reoccurrence of a single event caused, unknowingly, by the Fume. Simply put, if we had interfered with the sabotage of the Brahman Station, we would’ve ceased to exist.”

“This is all too unbelievable,” I said.

“Unbelievable, but true,” said Fandoral. “It was your companion Sensimion that laid the foundation for preventing paradox. His foresight and ingenuity has kept us all safe. I’ll allow his words to convince you further.” Fandoral again whirled his thick-jointed finger, activating another hologram.

An image of an old man appeared. His gray beard was so dense that it seemed capable of smothering his every breath.

“My name is Sensimion,” he said with surprising energy. His eyes were no longer hyper-blue synthetic spheres—they were now forest-green and real. “One thousand-nine hundred and twenty years have passed since the Brahman Station was sent back in time twenty-one million years. I’ve lived so very long. All the original survivors of the Brahman Station are long since dead. I don’t know why I’ve lived so long. I sometimes wonder if my treatments in the sanitarium caused this unnatural longevity.” He paused, looking out a window. “After the Brahman Station was sent back in time, we spent years repairing the dimensional gateway. We were eventually able to travel to a planet we named Brahman. At first, the atmosphere proved mildly noxious, but the second generation—those born on Brahman—were genetically engineered to tolerate the atmosphere. Since then, our civilization, a population of now thirty million, has ascended to a technological era comparable to where Earth was.” Sensimion laughed. “Or will be.

“The present is a peaceful time, but it’s the future I fear. Our population grows restless, longing to explore the universe by means of the dimensional gateway technology, which has lain dormant, since the construction of a new society has taken precedence. This inherent need for man to explore and spread to new frontiers has motivated me to create an army of protectors—guardians who will protect the Brahman descendents against obliteration. For if during the next twenty-one million years, there’s contact with primal Earth or the Fume, we may hypothetically cause a paradox. The repercussions of such an event can hardly be fathomed, for the science of time travel is still a mystery.