ALTERNATE TALES OF THE STAR FORCE
STAR BLAZERS
FIXING A HOLE
Being the second part of THE RIKASHA INCIDENT
By: Frederick P. Kopetz
------------------------------------------------------
ACT TWO-MAGICAL MYSTERY
TOUR "Roll up, Roll up for
the Mystery Tour, Step right this way…"-1967-John Lennon & Paul
McCartney
I. LIFE ON A BENCH
A Bench in the
Along
Thursday, June 22, 1967
6:49 PM, Eastern Daylight
Time.
Captain Derek Wildstar awoke lying on a bench in a large room. He was partly covered with an old newspaper.
Damnit, where am I? he thought irritably as he felt his cheeks and felt an evening's growth of beard on them. I thought I shaved. But if I'm just waking up, I wouldn't have shaved. But, I can't just be waking up; I was on the bridge of the Argo, wondering where Nova went.
Wondering where Nova went? I must've gone somewhere. Yeah, the last thing I saw, Venture was giving me a really weird look…..
Then, Wildstar pulled away his
newspaper, and gave himself a weird look.
In place of his Captain's jacket, ascot, and Star Force uniform shirt, Derek was wearing a plain white T-shirt with a blue and red "P" in upper case on one breast. In place of his Star Force slacks, Derek now wore old blue jeans with ripped knees and a torn pocket, and in place of his uniform boots and socks, he wore beat-up white sneakers and no socks. All of his clothes were also somewhat dirty.
He looked at the newspaper; it was a copy of the Hazleton Standard-Speaker for April 5, 1967. It looked as if it had come out of a trash pile somewhere.
Derek didn't get to look at the headline on the newspaper because an office door opened and an old man in a black uniform came out.
"Damnit, you kids!" he yelled. "You have a little dope, and you crash out anywhere you want! How long have you been there?"
"I dunno," muttered Derek, who was feeling around for his Astro-Automatic. Of course, he didn't have one. "I just got here."
"Well, you're gonna have to get going," said the old man irritably. "At least soon. The King Coal is about to pull up in a few minutes, and although we don't get many passengers here anymore, we get enough so that it'd look bad if they saw you sleeping here. So, get up."
"Okay. I will."
"Hey…kid, are ya hungry?"
"Hungry?"
"Got some soup here if you want it, son. Come here and we'll have it in my office. Name's Ronnie, kid. What's yours?"
"Derek," said Wildstar, not daring to state his last name.
"Whatever your name is, you're welcome to soup. C'mon in and we'll rap, like your generation says."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wildstar took up the stationmaster's invitation and talked for a bit as he sipped something like chicken soup. The garrulous old man, perhaps to avoid calling attention to his young friend, spoke largely about himself.
"Name's Ronnie Hartmann," he said. "Been workin' for the Reading Company since about forty-nine, before they retired the steam locomotives. Was in the mines before that, but they went kaputt."
"Why's that?"
"Derek, kid, don't
they teach you kids nothin' there at the
Well, at least I know the significance of my uniform…now, thought Derek. Seems I'm supposed to be a college student. Maybe he'll give me some other clues as to why I'm here? Probably not. Maybe I'm dreaming this. Yeah. Maybe I'm still in warp, and this is a really sick dream.
"I don't know much about why the coal mines closed up," said Derek. "Sorry…I'm just twenty-one."
"Just old enough to get soused, huh?" chuckled Hartmann. "Well, the mines shut down because they mined all the hard coal out of the hills…most of it, you see. The furnaces all went to heating oil, not much of a market for this crud anymore. The day it all goes bust, the railroad will just lose the mail contract, like we was supposed to in 'sixty-three, the year they killed that Kennedy guy, and the King Coal will be makin' her last run, kid. Goodbye Reading Company, good-bye my job."
"Can't you do anything about it?"
"In my place? Hell no.
Too damn old, anyway. You kids, maybe, can change it…but don't know if ya can
or not. Given the world you're gettin', with these nuclear bombs and Castro and
Ho Chi Friggin' Minh and
The phone beside Ronnie's old roll-up desk rang a second later.
"Yeah, Fritz? Delay? Lemme guess, another RDC engine went? Shit. Where'd it go? Just short'a the yard? The Railway Post Office car went, right? Right. Well, the mail's shit for late for Shamokin again. Ya hooked an RS-3 up to it? Good. Least the old Alco'll get 'em there. What else? Ya saw a girl in like capri pants walkin' around? And she was actin' liked she was stoned...outta it, lost? She sell ya any dope?" wheezed Ronnie. "Okay, was she cute, or did she look like Joan friggin' Baez? Hey, ya know I'm shittin' witcha. She's blonde? Okay. Looks kinda lost and was walkin' down the tracks….right?"
In the distance, Derek heard an insistent bell going off. The low, mournful blast of a solitary diesel horn sounded in the distance as a small plume of smoke appeared. Derek looked out at the platform, noticing a sudden, bright blaze of light in the distance that dazzled his eyes. He guessed it might be the train's headlight.
He turned his stunned eyes back to the surroundings at hand. He vaguely made out the outline of a young woman coming down the platform, looking in at a door that seemed to be locked.
"Hello? Anyone in there?" asked a mellow young woman's voice that Derek immediately recognized…and thought he might never hear again.
"NOVA!!!" he cried, dropping his paper.
"Derek?" said Nova, puzzled. Then, as Derek ran out, Nova's puzzlement turned to a wide smile, and she ran up to her husband, calling out his name just as the King Coal pulled up. Now, its silver (formerly) self-propelled cars now being pulled by a filthy dark green diesel road-switcher that was puffing a plume of black smoke since the train's engines had failed out on the road. .
Derek and Nova embraced, tenderly whispering each other's names, oblivious to the stares of the disembarking passengers as they got off the train, which would soon be heading north.
As Derek and Nova kissed, touching each other passionately, yet with as much decorum as they could muster with the awareness that they were in public, Ronnie Hartmann went back into his office, looked out the window, and dumped out Wildstar's abandoned cup of soup.
"Guess he won't be
needing this with his girlfriend around," said Hartmann laconically.
"She'll probably buy him all the food they need. They could use it. Too damn
long-haired and underfed, both of 'em," he chuckled. "Kids.
Of course, Ronnie Hartmann (a distant forbear of Laurel Hartmann of the Star Force) had no reason to know, or guess otherwise. After he sold a few late-comers tickets to Shamokin and the train left, he saw no sign of Derek or his "girlfriend" around. Just as he expected.
As he began to close up shop (with no more passenger trains coming through until tomorrow morning), he saw a friend of his from the local Tamaqua Borough Police Department around.
"Hi, Mick," he said to the cop.
"Hey, Ronnie. What's up?"
"Hippies."
"Here in town? What the hell do they wanna do? Protest the war? Buncha Commies."
"College kids from Philly, I guess. Up for the summer. A boy and his girlfriend."
"If ya mean those two
that were gigglin' and ticklin' as they went down
"Yeah," chuckled Ronnie. "These kids. What the hell is Tamaqua turnin' into, anyway?"
"Well, your train line sure ain't goin' Eight Miles High, bud."
"Aaaa…shaddap!"
II. THE VAGABOND
Somewhere Along
The Vicinity of
Thursday, June 22, 1967
8:13 PM: Eastern Daylight
Time
A young man carrying a backpack hiked slowly down the shoulder of Route 309, ignoring pointedly most of the cars that went past as day turned into dusk. For the drivers of those cars, this seemed to be a good thing. The wanderer looked like a complete creep and didn't appear to be hitch-hiking. He looked like Totally bad news, as people of this time would say. He was dressed all in faded blue denim, and wore badly beaten cowboy boots and a yellow button with a moronic little smiley face on it. This talisman wouldn't be introduced until the next decade, but he didn't much care about that.
The man's hair was very, very long, and
his face…even here on Earth, with his face rendered as a more normal, albeit
pale, Caucasian Terran hue, Shardovan Gralnacz, evil lost wanderer in time,
along with his Technomugar space fortress, still looked like a cross between a
very strung-out, half-balding hippie…and Death warmed over.
At the moment, he was in a
shadow under a tree near a house on
"I don't want a ride," he muttered. "I want to find a way to demolish the society of these primitives so I'll get them out of my hair, and out of His Lordship's reckoning."
"Let's see," he said out loud as he watched a car going past, oblivious to the stares of several people passing by in the two-year old Rambler Classic in aqua. "What I need is a means to terrorize the Earthers. The Earthlings. The dirtlings. Yes. The people of dirt."
"Hey, buddy!" yelled a portly man as he walked up to Gralnacz. "You been watchin' too much Star Trek?"
"Star Trek? A form of entertainment?"
"It's a TV show, Dr. Spock. Or should I say Dr. Timothy Leary?"
"Those names are of no relevance to me, ape-descendant."
"What are you, some kind of NUT?"
"No, merely superior to you," said Gralnacz with a tight smile. The Technomugar general abruptly slammed a thin hand onto the portly miner's shoulder.
"What…the…heck?" gasped the miner as a wave of pain ran through his body.
I am inside your feeble mind, Terran, thought Gralnacz in silence with a smile as he psionicially merged with the miner. Unfortunately, for you, we do not have long to speak. I merely need your memories, your hopes, your fears, your thoughts. Your body will fall down like a dry husk when I drain your life-force, and then I will use your body for my purposes. You, of course, will be dead, thank you.
"Buddy…Doctor Spock…I've got kids…a wife…it hurts! Stop it! God…stop talkin' in my head. GOD! It hurts! You can have our world! I'll take you to the President…to our Leader…whatever the hell ya…"
Oh, shut UP, thought Gralnacz with a wicked grin. I have all I need from you. Then, I will go to the drinking establishment known as Butala's Bar, where you were going, for the rest from the barkeep. As for your corpse….
The miner's body fell to the ground, with his eyes fixed upon Gralnacz. His heart had stopped, along with his pulse, breathing and brain waves. He was quite dead…and he suddenly looked over a hundred pounds thinner, and very shriveled.
"Let the local authorities deal with your putrid remains," murmured Gralnacz out loud. To make sure he was dead, he kicked the body, and then spat upon it for good measure as he walked over it, laughing softly.
They were alone. But, Gralnacz's spit was already burning holes in the corpse of the miner. It was heavily acidic.
Gralnacz walked on, ignoring the cars going past. He thought that perhaps he'd sample the local brew they called "beer".
Gralnacz thought that a "Rolling Rock" sounded good. Then, what would he do? Perhaps he'd go back to his ship and vaporize this village for fun? Then he'd look for the Argo?
No…he thought. I have a better idea. His children liked this rock combo called "Beatles"? I wonder what I'd do to the Earth's future if I decided to exterminate Beatles on live media, announced our invasion plans, and then sat back and watched the chaos? Watching martial law break out and watching the end of the society might be fun. Perhaps then the Argo would fade away like a bad dream since the circumstances that led to its construction never would have happened. Then, His Lordship and I could deal with Desslok in our time at our leisure, neutralize Pellias, take my treasonous daughter, and then walk back in and take over the miserable society this Earth would become. Too easy. Almost like…practice. But, enjoyable. Yes, I need to laugh about something…
Gralnacz laughed to himself and left. He decided to enjoy his…beer.
In the meantime, Melvin
Seadragon had a conundrum of his own to solve back in Tamaqua. As Von Schwein
slept off his beer, the old man staggered out into the junkyard. Walking past
the wrecks of several cars, he sat down near the remains of a '51
"So what should I do?" he muttered, looking up towards the endless stars. "I'm here, they're here, and we're gonna meet soon-like. I ain't ready for that meetin' and I ain't ready to throw my hat in the ring against His Gadmungsness and his stooge, Gralnacz, either. If yer' out there, YOU tell me what to do. C'mon, God, conscience, what ever ya are, in me head. Please talk t' this old intergalactic stew bum, huh?"
Looking up at the stars, the answer whispered as a thought deep in the hybrid alien's heart a moment later. You know what to do. Part of your predicament is yours, though.
"What do you mean?"
I gave wine as a heart's delight. You turned it into a mockery again, my friend.
"Wasn't drinkin' wine. Was drinkin' my own Rotgut."
You know what I mean. You've clouded your mind when clarity was needed.
"Okay, Big Guy. I'm sorry, all right?" he sniffed. "Blame it all on old Melvin. Strike him down dead, wouldja?"
You know that's pointless. You shall not depart until your purpose is finished. You know what you are to do; deal with Gralnacz and help the young ones. And also… aid your fellow "Lord" in saving the time stream.
"It's too hard, Big Dude."
Nothing is too hard. You know I was once there Myself. I had less than you and I accomplished what had to be done. You can do the same. Just be true.
"To what?"
To what you know to be the Right. And to Me..
"When can I take out His Gadmungnessness?"
That is forbidden to you. He and I, and he who toys with the Dark Lord behind the scenes have much to accomplish before this ends. You know warriors shall not work the Dark Lord's end alone. And the end of he who is his evil genius was wrought in My Counsels before Time even began…before the corrupt Musician even wrote his first song.
"Then what shall I do?"
Do what you were called to do, as all of the others were called to do. It was said by one that "…there are great powers in the Universe, unknown, and unseen. I am just a small part of that great Life Force." Recognize your part in the great play, my friend. Walk onto the stage and play the part the Author has set forth for you.
"But what about my drinkin'…the other things? I'm so damn weak!"
If you have an ear to hear with, then hear!
At that, the still, small voice in the old man's heart went ineffably silent. And, at that, Melvin Seadragon began to weep.
To the ears of the Tamaqua Borough policeman who walked past the board fence on his nightly beat on foot the sobs he heard were but the cries of a broken-down old drunk, and the weird alien song the old man sang softly were but the mutterings of a lunatic.
Well, the old fart's
drunk on his own property, namely
What he didn't know was that
Melvin Seadragon was no ordinary drunk…
III. VENTURE'S LATEST
DILEMNA
Space: Between the Earth
and the Moon
Space Battleship Argo
Commander Mark Venture's
Cabin
Thursday, June 22, 1967
9:12 PM: Eastern Daylight
Time
"So, what do you call this, Mark?" asked Holly Parsons as she sat on Mark Venture's bunk in his cabin. Mark sat at his desk, while Stephen Sandor sat at a chair near a round table. To his right sat Lieutenant Commander Patrick Orion, who was lighting up a pipe, illuminating his snowy white mustache and beard a little as the tobacco blazed to life.
"An informal conference," said Venture. "This isn't a briefing, this isn't a formal meeting, this is what you might call a gathering of friends."
"I think we know why," said Sandor.
Mark nodded sadly. "Guys…I could use your help. I've had a responsibility drop itself on my head today, and it's heavier than ever, because…"
"Because the Captain's not here?" said Holly quietly.
Mark simply nodded again.
"Now ye must know how Derek felt when Captain Avatar fell ill," said Orion sadly.
"I feel worse…" said Mark. "Sandor, remember that time when you and the Captain…were on that Gamilon Magnetron Space Fortress on the way to Iscandar…eight days away from Balan?"
Sandor remembered immediately. "Yes. The time when we had to stop the vibrations or risk losing the ship. As Captain Avatar said, time was important, and there was a chance that this ship would've been badly damaged then if you had to warp and leave us behind. However, for the good of the mission, I knew very well you'd have to risk that if time began to run out so that the Argo could warp on schedule and still make it to Iscandar without being damaged by the magnetron wave. We were both prepared to live with the decision you would have had to make, but we had to risk that mission to that fortress."
"What are you saying?" asked Holly, horrified. "Are you saying we might have to leave the Captain and Lieutenant Wildstar down there on Earth? In the past?"
"Yes…we might have to," said Mark.
"You can't! That's…that's the most damn cold-blooded thing I've ever heard of!" cried Holly. "What the hell are you?"
"The Deputy Captain of the Argo, with the lives of over four hundred crew members at stake, and the lives of hundreds…thousands…at stake in our own time on that cruise ship!" retorted Venture. Then, Mark shut his eyes. After a long silence, he said, "Holly…Steve…Pat…I remember the way I felt then when Captain Avatar gave us the order to prepare to warp. I heard the crew take deep breaths of horror, and I still remember Nova crying out at her post, but I knew I'd have to obey Captain Avatar's order to warp out and leave you and Wildstar behind, Sandor. I couldn't think of anything worse than obeying that kind of order. Well, now I know what's worse…"
"Givin' the order itself, right lad?" said Orion.
"Yeah. But, for the good of the mission, I'd have to do it, and do you guys know what the worst part of this is?'
"What?" said Parsons.
"You've been with us before, Holly. The hardest part of this is knowing damn well that if Derek was right here now to for me to ask an opinion of, you know what he'd say, don't you?"
Parsons sat in thought for a moment, knowing there was but one answer. "Yes. For the good of the mission, you'd have to leave him behind."
"Nova would say the same thing, too, in regards to herself. Perhaps even in regards to Derek, if she was here, although you know it'd sicken her, Parsons. Still, I know her. If she had to live with that kind of decision, she'd live with it. Maybe, if she were in my shoes…she'd make that kind of a decision herself...maybe she wouldn't," sighed Mark.
Parsons shook her head. "Not about her own husband?"
"Yes, she would. Remember, she's an officer, too," said Mark. "That's what I've got to be…an officer, in charge of… my command," said Venture as his voice choked on the words. "For the good of the mission…I've got to be prepared to leave Derek and Nova behind down there if I have to. I'm the Deputy Captain!"
"Yes…if… they're down there, that is" said Sandor. "If they're even alive. If that was some sort of aftereffect of that warp….they may not even be here, anymore. They may not even be in this dimension, or be in a dimension where humans can exist. If that's the case, let's hope to God they died quick deaths."
"But, Sandor," said Orion, "If they're down there, wouldn't they affect history? I mean, they have different disease microorganisms in their bodies, and if one of the military powers of that time got a hold of them and shot them up with some kinda' truth serum, wouldn't they spill their guts about everything and change history? Heaven forbid it if they're in the hands of MI5, the KGB, the CIA or the Mossad right now!"
"What was the Mossad?" asked Parsons.
"The old Secret Service agency of Israel," said Sandor. "If they felt anyone was a threat to their country or came from one of the then-enemy Arab states that encircled them, they could use horrendous methods to make someone talk. The same thing applied to the other agencies you spoke of, Orion. Remember, we're in the height of what the old history books called "The Cold War." Then, there were many, many secret agencies and secret agents, and many ways of gaining information, particularly about one's enemies, or perceived enemies, who had weapons of mass destruction. In those days, those agencies would be merciless with their captives. They saw it as a matter of sheer survival, just as we and the Gamilons have had to be merciless with each other, and for the same reason. Survival."
"So what do you think?" said Venture.
"I think that if we can by any means find out, we should find out if Derek and Nova might be alive down there, and, if we have time, try to pinpoint their presence…and mount a quick rescue operation. We can't afford to have their knowledge alter time, if at all possible. But, on the other hand, we can't waste time, either. We have a window of about three days. If, in about two and a half days, we can't find any sign of Derek and Nova, we should consider them lost to us, and we should then concentrate solely upon getting back through that warp window to our time before the gap closes," said Sandor.
"There's billions of people on Earth in this era," said Parsons. "We could scan for them…our sensors could pick them up…"
"Only if we knew what we were lookin' for," said Orion. "Right? And how do we get in close enough to make those kinda scans? We can't exactly fly the Argo over the nations of this time like an airship, could we?"
"No, we can't, Sandor," said Venture. "Ohhh…this is hopeless."
Venture huffed out a deep sigh, and, without protest, Parsons walked over to his side, sat down in a chair beside him at the desk, and held his hand.
"Sorry I yelled at you before," she said. "I know this is a tough decision for you, Mark."
"Tell me about it," snorted Venture. "Sandor, do you think this is a lost cause? Are we just tilting at windmills?"
"No…I don't think so," said Sandor.
"You don't?" said Parsons.
"Yes…I think I have an idea…but I'll need to match wits with Doctor Sane. Is he…functional…right now, Venture?" said Sandor with a sly smile.
"I think he is."
"Good. Now we're accomplishing something. But, remember, we can't forget our primary objective, Mark. And that objective is getting the Argo back through that warp hole in three days…and then back home again so we can save that liner and continue on our mission."
IV. SUMMER IN THE CITY
Near A Trailer in a
Junkyard
Along Pennsylvania Route
309
The Vicinity of Tamaqua, PA,
USA
Thursday, June 22, 1967
9:13 PM: Eastern Daylight
Time
Unknown to Venture, Sandor, Orion and Parsons as they weighed whether or not they might be alive, Derek and Nova Wildstar were alive, and were walking down a road near the northern edge of Tamaqua, Pennsylvania even as the officers of the Star Force mulled over their fates.
"What I don't understand is how we got here, Nova," said Derek. "I don't think we traveled in time…"
"But we sure traveled in space! And how did we get these clothes?" she asked. "I don't even own clothes like these, much less have them on the Argo!"
"Yeah, me neither," said Derek.
"Wrong. You own blue jeans!"
"But not with three rips in them," protested Wildstar. "And my sneakers look like something the cat dragged in!"
"Did you ever own sneakers like that?"
"Yeah …when I was twelve, that is," smiled Derek. "What about you?"
"For a while, in the underground city, half my sneakers were like that when they wore out," said Nova. "And my mom used to say then that I was lucky to have sneakers." Nova then shivered, remembering a period of time underground when her shoes wore out, causing her to have to go barefoot briefly until a new allotment came in.
"You probably were," said Derek. "First order of business. Are you hungry?"
"Yes, I am," said Nova.
"Well, to buy food in this time, we're going to need money. You know, what they used to call oldbucks."
"Not Federation credits," added Nova. "Right?"
"Right. Now, what can we sell to get a little money?" said Derek as they began to walk past a long board fence about a hundred feet away from a gas station. In the distance, a car went past, its lights shining in the dusk as it continued up the road north, which, as far Derek and Nova could vaguely see in the dark, seemed to continue on up into another ridge of old, small mountains. Nearby, they could see a billboard that seemed to read something like "BLUE COAL." A bit further away, on one of the ridges to the north, there seemed to be a rock with the word "JESUS" sloppily spray-painted on it in white paint.
"Our ..wedding rings?" said Nova. "They're gold…we can get others…and we'll need to eat to keep up our strength."
"Guess we could part with 'em," sighed Derek. "But where can we find a jeweler open late at night?"
"Anywhere, if we were in old New York. Certainly not here, Derek."
"Where do you think we are?"
"Well," thought Nova as she stopped by the fence. "If I remember my history correctly, I think we're in Pennsylvania, in the old United States…because we saw trains that belonged to the old Reading Railroad. I think Aunt Louise…or Aunt Yvona…said it used to go through Allensburg, which they called Allentown then. I'd guess we're within a hundred miles worth of Allentown, or maybe a hundred and fifty away from Philadelphia. The mountains kind of remind me of Colorado, though. Funny."
"Did Boulder look like this?"
"No, said Nova pointedly. "This looks more like Leadville, or Silverton or something. Looks like a town that's beginning to die." Nova stopped, stumbling a little.
"You okay?" said Derek.
"Something caught in my sandal, that's all," said Nova, stopping to pick a rock out of her open shoe. "Hard…dusty…black…left kind of a stain on the side of my foot…wonder what it is?"
"It's COAL, ya jerk!" growled a voice from the other side of the fence.
"HEY!" cried Derek. "Who the hell are you, talking to a woman like that?"
Suddenly, part of the board fence opened inwards, and a dirty hand shot out towards Nova, grabbing her arm.
"HEY!" she yelled. "Let GO of me! Derek!" cried Nova as the blunt, hairy hand pulled her roughly inside the gate, with its owner using his other hand to catch Nova in a rough, smelly bear hug.
"STOP THAT!" yelled Derek as he picked up a stick and wheeled around to meet Nova's assailant.
"Ya hit me, ya hit her, first," said the old man as he held Nova in front of him like a human shield.
Shifting position rapidly, Nova prepared to thrust an elbow into his solar plexus so that she could then trip him up in an Aikido move and get free of his smelly hands, but, a moment later, everything around them disappeared….
…and the three of them reappeared inside a filthy old structure that Derek and Nova recognized as a sort of prefabricated house….
"What's this?" said Nova in shock, forgetting for a moment that a filthy old pervert had her in his arms.
"A trailer," said the bearded old man who abruptly let Nova go, half shoving her on her face into a counter. Shocked, it was Nova who got hit in the solar plexus as she fell into the counter's edge.
"Derek," she coughed.
"Nova! Are you okay?"
"I'll…live," she gasped, as she staggered against the counter.
"All right, you, why the hell did you decide to play games with us, whoever or whatever you are?" demanded the Argo's Captain as he held up his stick. "Talk, or so help me, you'll get this stick up against the side of your…"
"What stick?" laughed the old man. "Or are you gonna hit me with that broccoli you've got in your hand?"
"What?" yelped Derek as he looked at the bunch of vegetable in his hand. "What are you?"
The old man just began to laugh. "I'm a weirdo…a goon with some freaky powers."
"Good or evil?" demanded Derek as he held his wife, making sure she was all right.
"Good, I think," laughed Melvin. "Might as well introduce m'self, buds. Name's Melvin Seadragon. I'm a part-time junkyard owner, part-time Time Lord, part-time wizard, and full-time rummy. Sorry 'bout my breath, and sorry 'bout the games, Nova. Hadda get yer attention somehow."
"You…you know my name?" said Nova.
"Yeah. Know him, too. He arrested me once. Or, he's gonna. Sorry. When youze is a Time Lord, even a half-breed, time kinda goes screwy after a while."
"So you dragged us here?" demanded Captain Wildstar.
"Yeah. Good thing I got ya first. Otherwise, that cretin in the space fortress who followed you here woulda got ya. He's lookin' for ya, wants yer hide, woulda dragged ya here himself, but he woulda done a lot worse to yer wife than grabbin' her by the arm and screwin' up and makin' her fall inta a counter. Sorry again 'bout that. Drunk. It's the Rotgut!"
"Why did you kidnap us?" demanded Nova.
"To help ya get home, to give ya the information to help me do so, and to keep that enemy guy from interfering with this time period. He's gonna, ya know. Unless he's stopped, that is."
"Okay," demanded Derek. "Time Lord…Melvin…or whoever you are….how do I know you're telling the truth?"
"Two ways to prove it," said Melvin as he walked up behind the counter and banged on a button on his old-fashioned cash register. A loud DING filled the room, and the tag NO SALE came up in the glass window in his ancient brass cash register as the till popped open.
"See this?" said Melvin as he pulled out a wad of bills. "This is fer you, and this is fer her. So youse two can eat in the mornin' without sellin' your wedding bands. Will two hundred bucks each do ya?"
Nova stood surprised as Derek said, "Guess it will. What else do you have to show us?"
"Thought ya'd be difficult, Cap'n," laughed Melvin as he got out a key and undid a padlock on a very dirty old door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY with a faded old sign that seemed to be purchased at the local Spillanes' 5 and 10. "Come in here and I'll show ya? Ya think this is just a trailer? Well, the part yer in is. This sure ain't."
Derek and Nova skeptically looked through the door into a dark space…and then, their eyes went utterly wide, and they began to feel slightly cold with sudden sweat.
In a mixture of awe and fear, Derek and Nova Wildstar walked together into a vast, huge space that was most certainly not the inside of a house trailer!
"It's a Type 42, kinda old, it is..." Melvin said as he walked behind them into the vast control room, which looked like it was bigger than the junkyard itself.
The vast room had something that looked like a high stone ceiling, held up with huge wrought-iron pillars that looked both strangely Victorian and strangely modern all at once.
The pillars arched cathedral-like under the huge roof, and met over a massive glowing crystal column that seemed to go straight up into the ceiling somewhere. The huge column ended in a vast eight-sided structure covered with lights, gauges and computer screens that looked like a control console.
"What is this?" gasped Nova, forgetting the pain in her stomach as she looked fascinated at the vast room.
"Ain't ya ever heard of a TARDIS before?" chuckled Melvin.
"TARDIS?" asked Wildstar. "What is it?"
"TIME AND RELATIVE DIMENSIONS IN SPACE," said Melvin helpfully. "It's kinda a term adopted for it by an old friend a' mine; Theta Sigma we used to call him in school. To be more precise, this is a Type 42 Time Capsule. It's way bigger on the inside than on the outside because now we're in a different dimension within space relative to the one outside. All we do to move around in time and space in this baby is switch the dials," said Melvin as he walked over to the console with Derek and Nova following momentarily stunned behind him. Then, Wildstar relaxed a little…but just a little.
The controls and dials on the console didn't even look as modern as those on the Argo. A lot of the controls looked strangely…19th Century. There was brass on the console, carved walnut, huge dials, levers, and wooden telltale signs of some kind in windows on the console that read 20th CENTURY: HUMANIAN ERA Relative Date 52341.110.
However, a computerized readout read: THURSDAY 22 JUNE 1967 AD 9:29.05.00.67.89.999 PM, with the digits for the millionths, tens of millionths, and hundreds of millionths of seconds whizzing by so fast that they were a mere blur.
"Our chrono only goes to five places below the decimal, Derek," gasped Nova in awe. "If he could beam this reading to the Argo…if it's accurate, he could reset…"
"All your instruments and getcha on yer way home," he grinned. "Cap'n Wildstar, don't bother squinting at that screen next to it; it's all in Gallifreyan…ya could never read it. The only time this clock ever goes wrong is if ya have a Critical Timing Malfunction, and that almost never happens with the Type 42's and up. The old Type 40, on the other hand, ya sneeze, and ya have a critical timin' malfunction with that sucker in two shakes of a rat's tail."
Nova recoiled a bit as something scurried over her sandal-clad toes. Looking down, she went "Yeeeccchh!", as she saw the tail of a large rat scurrying over her foot as the slimy black-furred creature squeaked and ran off under the console. "Go away, you! " yelled Nova as an afterthought.
"You have rats on this thing?" demanded Wildstar.
"All ships have rats on 'em, don't ya know that?" laughed Melvin. "Rats and ships go together. They even go with time ships. Yer ship's got rats on it."
"I beg your pardon, sir!" said Derek. "We keep a tight ship on the Argo."
"And a clean ship," said Nova. "Anything we don't catch, Mimi gets," she insisted. "Why don't you get a cat, Melvin?"
"Don't want one. But that's beside the point. Now, have a look at this…"
Melvin flicked a switch, and a column of light shot up out of part of the huge octagonal console. "Holographic image. First, yer ship, to show ya I'm not nuts…totally, anyhow…"
Derek and Nova saw a 3-D image of the Argo appearing in the pillar of light a moment later. Well, he can't be a total liar, or from this time, thought Derek. At least he knows what our ship looks like…no one else from this time would know that…or be able to teleport us around like that…
"Yer ship, see? It's out between the Earth and your Moon right now…"
"Fine. Take us back there," demanded Derek.
"Not yet. I'll help ya…but ya gotta help me, which will also help you, even though ya can't see the sense of it….You're here…" said Melvin as he made a graphic of the solar system appear above his console. "And, your enemy's ship…ships, really, cause there's two a' those fortresses….are out here…," said Melvin as he made an image of the Technomugar space fortresses appear in his massive shaft of light, followed by another map….
"Ohhh! The enemy fortresses that chased us in our last battle! They're out by the Jupiter area," said Nova. "But coming in pretty fast by the looks of it, Derek!"
"Not that fast. His drive's out for the moment, too. Ya got about two days before he gets near here, even at his full sublight speed…least what he can make right now. The battle royal, with his ships…would be Saturday. You should be back by then. In the meantime, we have to stop the enemy commander himself. The same guy who attacked you, bubbaleh! The guy who got ya in this predicament!!"
"He's here?" said Derek. "On Earth?"
"Yeah. Said so before, but ya either didn't hear me, or believe me! Damn cyborg! He can do the teleportation trick, too."
"But how?" asked Nova.
"Long story, and you'll hear a better version later from someone else, I think. But, there ain't much time to stop him. He's nearby, and he's got to be brought down. And I can't do it meself."
"Why?" asked Derek.
"I'm not allowed to. Not this time. Long story. But, I can help you bring him down. If ya don't, he's gonna begin to pull your history apart eight ways from Sunday, Derek, buddy."
"Where is he, then?" asked Derek, who glanced at Nova. Nova immediately knew her husband's mind was made up…and it seemed like a fair, but strange, bargain somehow. Help out this…Time Lord…who wanted to help them in their war against the new enemy who had attacked Earth, and he'd help them get back home.
Or was it too good to be true?
"Just…arrrr…..less than….fifteen miles away. It's to the north. I'll show you where the town is. Findin' him's another matter."
"What does he plan to do to ruin the flow of time?" asked Derek.
"Just kill these guys on live worldwide satellite TV for a start…and make everyone think the CIA did it…"
At that, Melvin switched to an image of a 20th Century rock band from a recent film. Derek didn't recognize them at first, but, after a moment, Nova did.
"Derek!" she cried. "Our enemy is planning to kill The Beatles!"
"If that doesn't begin
to change your history…I don't know what would," said Melvin.
Here ends part two of Fixing a Hole
To return to the Introduction to
the Rikasha Incident Please click here