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Time To Go..                               A Captain Jarvis Story

4/23/2024

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“You'll find it. Look for the shoes." Whoever sent the note scribbled that cryptic line underneath an address and a “Please Come” typed on a note delivered to me at the dock by a courier.  
 
“Okay,” I muttered to myself. The address written on the paper was in a seedy section of Miami. That area of town was a maze of old derelict buildings and run-down tenement houses where a once upscale neighborhood existed. The underbelly of the city where people barely survived, subsisting on whatever meager handout they could get.  
  
As I approached the building, a cool, early spring wind blew down the streets. My contact said the apartment was on the right and to look for the shoes. I exited the van, looked around, and finally spotted several pairs of shoes hung over a power line. Looking directly across the street from the shoe, I noticed one window cleaner than the rest, all encrusted with grime and pollution. That would be her apartment. As I entered, the front door creaked and moaned when it opened. I knew the trek up the stairs would not be pleasant in this dilapidated building, so I steeled myself. 
  
A dim bulb hung from the ceiling to light the hallway and the landing to the stairs. The smell was as oppressive as the dinginess and darkness of the stairs leading to the next floor.  
 
Eventually, I made it to her floor. Every so often, I could see a hint of the former glory of the building poking through the grime and grit that had accumulated over the decades. It was as if to say, “Hey, remember me, I used to be grand and glorious and something to behold.”  It knew it had a history but had succumbed to its present fate. 
 
Arriving at her door, I knocked lightly to avoid disturbing any critters sleeping nearby, be they two or four-legged. The door opened on the first light tap, and she waved me in. The walls of the apartment showed their age. The paint peeled, and mold grew in the corners. “This place is going to kill you.”  
 
"No worries, I neutralized it decades ago. I’m Margo.” She waved a hand in the general direction of the mold on the walls. 
 
Neutralized or not, I still didn’t dare touch the walls. ‘You have a report for me?” 
 
“We have visitors coming. I noticed a faint trail a while back but didn’t want to say anything until I had a visual of them. This is the data I have collected.” She handed me a thumb drive, which would appear empty to anyone else, but I knew how to access its information.  
 
“And Captain, I’d like to get out of here.”  
 
I nodded. “You have more than enough years in to retire.” 
 
“No, not just retire, go with you.” 
 
“But I’m not going anywhere. I’m retired.” 
 
“You’re here picking up a delivery anyone else could have.” She put her hands on her hips and looked at me defiantly. Looking closer at her, I could tell she was struggling to hold her human form. The tells were there if you knew what you were looking at. I also knew she had sent the note because she wanted me to come.   
 
“How long have you been here, Margo?” 
 
“Sixty years since I set up the telescope and radio on top of the building.” 
 
I had once stayed human for five hundred years in one stretch. I don’t recommend it. These days, being human for only a few days at a time was more than I could do regularly. 
 
Margo had been on Earth far too long, and the physical stress started showing. The last thing the Space Council needed was a shapeshifter losing control in the middle of the city, not to mention increasing the chances of someone discovering our equipment.  
 
“Margo, I’ll talk to them, but for now, you must try to stay in form and out of sight.”   
 
She leaned against the nearest wall, let her arms fall to her side, and uttered a resigned sigh. 
 
Sometimes, the Space Council did stupid things, like letting an agent stay in one place too long/ They should have recalled Margo twenty years ago, and someone new sent in to monitor the equipment on the building’s roof.  
 
I could feel myself starting to need to return to my natural state already, and it had only been a few hours since I became Captain Jacob Jarvis, retired spaceship Counciler and traveler of Earth’s waters. I told her I would be in touch and left.  
 
I hurried to the van and drove as quickly as I could in the horrid city traffic. I relaxed but couldn’t return to my normal state because I still had to get from the van to the schooner on a dock filled with humans. I felt better reaching the docks and holding my shape long enough to get to our boat. 
 
We left the dock and anchored the schooner in the bay outside of Key Largo. The Caribbean Club wasn’t far from where we moored, and we could hear the nightly rebel rousing drift across the water. I had been here once before, in 1948, when they filmed the exterior shots for my friend, Humphry Bogart, and his movie Key Largo. While the building was still pretty much the same, the surrounding land had become an overpopulated tourist mecca. 
 
Deidre relayed the information on the thumb drive to the Space Council who would decide what to do with it, but I still had to deal with Margo. She needed to get out of her assignment. However, what she said about coming with me was a problem.  
  
I understood her wanting to retire and stay on Earth. But it hadn’t been as easy. Space Council's reluctance to allow me to remain on Earth was understandable. I was a liability, but I had also been here longer than all other  
shapeshifters combined, and I understood humans as much as any creature can. Older now, I couldn’t hold my human form for long, so I adjusted. Adjustments wouldn’t be possible without Dedrie and my daughter Lynn, both shapeshifters. One can be in human form while the others rest. Getting the Space Council to agree to let me retire here was difficult. I found I couldn’t maintain my body or shape for long. 
 
So, I spent more time below deck in the special cabin outfitted so we could return to our natural forms. We took turns below deck in the cabin, but lately, I spent the most time there, followed by Deidre, who was as old as I am and couldn’t hold her form as she used to. The idea of adding Margo to an already crowded schooner and her needing the special cabin was not good. But I knew she couldn’t stay on Earth independently as she became unstable. 
 
I rested after returning to the boat and thought about Margon. Something bothered me. She was tired and scared about losing her ability to maintain shapeshifting. But something else scared her. I could feel it. I remembered the shoes hanging outside and could see them from her window. I researched hanging shoes and found they often meant drugs and gang activities. More digging told me that at least two gangs were active in the neighborhood.  
 
That's what was scaring her. She knew they were watching the building and saw me come and go. She was afraid they’d track me. I rushed out of the resting room and quickly changed into human form. Dedrie and Lynn were reading on the deck. When Dedrie saw me, she shook her head. She knew the look.  
 
“What’s wrong?” 
 
“We’re going back. Margos in trouble.”   
 
Dedrie looked at me questioningly but rose. “Then we go back.”  
 
Lynn untied us from the mooring buoy as Dedrie put books and drinks away. Under engine power, I drove us to the dock.  
 
On the road, I told her about my theories and what I’d found on the computer, topping it off with the official police files I’d just read about the local gang activity and that building. 
 
It took about an hour to get to the once lovely area of Miami. Dedrie and Lynn refused to allow me to see Margo alone. Leaving Lynn in the van, we climbed the stairs and, in the hallway, outside her door, we heard voices—Margo’s and a young man’s. I caught bits and pieces of what he said, but enough to know he was threatening her with a gun. 
 
We couldn’t go barging in from this side. He was probably pointing the gun at her. So that left the bathroom, which I’d noticed was on the outside wall to the right of the living room. I told Deidre we needed to shapeshift into the bathroom, and I would distract him. 
 
Space Council has rules against shapeshifting on non-native planets. They don’t like it. At the moment, the only way I could get to Margo safely was to get into the bathroom, and the only way to accomplish that was to shift. So, we shifted through the wall. I hadn’t done anything like that in a long time, and I’d forgotten how much energy it used—pulling ourselves back together into the bathroom. I tried to compose myself, but Deidre stayed invisible. I could see her, but no one else could.  
 
“Ready?” I got a nod from her in reply. 
 
I opened the bathroom door, walked into the living room, and stood beside Margo. “So, are you ready to go to dinner?” The man looked startled, but Deidre rushed and knocked him to the ground before he could react. I retrieved the gun that went flying.  
 
We tied up the kid, and Margo called the police, who, after questioning us, took the kid away on a home invasion charge. We had to get Margo out and decided to take her to the boat. Margo drove because neither of us was in any condition to drive from the shapeshifting, which used much of our energy reserve to stay in human form. We would need to use the cabin when we returned to the boat. 
 
We exchanged formal introductions once we were on the schooner. After we’d rested, we had dinner at a local restaurant. The subject of Margo and what to do with her was back up again. 
 
While she had managed to stay in human form the entire day, we could both tell it was too much for her. There was no way she could stay here. I reviewed her service record and found she’d served as long as I had on Earth. She was one of the first groups sent to Earth over 500 years ago and had held her shape for the entire time, through a dozen lifetimes and periods. No wonder she was tired. Even I hadn’t stayed in form that long at a time for a continuous stretch. 
  
I started making arrangements for her to return home. But there was another problem. The apartment building where the radio and telescope were housed was still a derelict and all but deserted tomb of a building, but more importantly, the next shifter assigned to the equipment and building would have to deal with the drugs and gangs. That was a problem I couldn’t turn away from as I’ve seen more than I want to recall about what happens when gangs and drugs are allowed to run amuck.  
 
The Space Consuel wasn’t happy with our report about rescuing Margo or our proposed course of action. The array on that building was integral to the entire network, so they had to go along.  
First, an anonymous tip gave the local police the information they needed to break up the gangs. Meanwhile, we started investigating the building, which had been sold to the city for back taxes and then to a shady landlord. I realized that restoring the building would help gentrify the neighborhood, bring in business, and drive out the gangs.  
 
Space Council didn’t want any part of my plan at first. It was too much interference with the local ecosystem and population for them. However, I prevailed and convinced them to fund venture capital to revitalize the old building and the neighborhood. It turned out that a shapeshifter, assigned to monitor the planet’s financial systems, agreed to become the project developer and secured the funds. Aware of the telescope and communications array on the building, he would maintain its secrecy. Lynn joined the project as general manager.  
 
Margo stayed with us on the schooner for several weeks until she was well enough for space travel, and arranged to return her to our planet. Deidre and I enjoyed a quiet summer off the Keys, going from one island to another and fishing in the many bays and harbors that dotted the Keys. 
 
With the project underway and Lynn happy in her new role, I told Dedrie it was time to sail the oceans we both loved. A sail to Down Under was in order so I could visit a dear, old friend, Kathy, from another life. We headed off to follow the summer sun to Australia. I love this planet called Earth.  

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The Stench of Mushrooms

10/28/2023

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The long hall channeled the smell of frying mushrooms directly toward me when I stepped off the elevators.  I was reminded of my hate of mushrooms. Even the smell turned my stomach, much less the eating.  Trying to ignore the smell emanating from the end of the hall, I checked the numbers on the doors, looking for the number fifty-five. It was the door at the end of the hall where the vile mushroom aroma wafted.
I held my breath and tried not to think about the smell as I knocked on the door.  After a couple of light knocks on the door, it opened. The lady was short, and the bathrobe she had wrapped around her tightly looked older than her. 
“Yes?”  She barely opened the door enough to peek out to see me standing in my blue pinstriped suit and my ID in my hand. My fedora was pushed further back on my head than usual, as I wanted to appear harmless, which I was not.
“Ma’am, my name is Jacob Jarvis. I’m looking for Claudine Freedman. I was told she lives here.” I showed her my PI ID as I spoke. She glanced at it, looked me up and down, and sighed. 
“Yeah, right, you better come in.” Straightening up, she pushed the door open more and stepped back to let me into the small apartment. The mushroom stench was overwhelming, and I tamped down a gag.
“What's happened now?” She leaned against the wall next to the stove in the tiny apartment, barely moving.  I quickly looked around the room as I slipped my ID back into my jacket pocket, noting the strange-looking mushrooms in the pan and raw ones lying on the counter. Ugly white mushrooms with inky black gills that produced a nasty smell.  
“Ma’am, I was hired to find out where she is and, if possible, bring her back home.”
“Well, you're looking at her—I’m Claudine Freedman. They finally came to their senses, eh?” She seemed to know who I was talking about and expected me or someone like me to show up eventually.
“Not to be blunt, but you’re not Claudine.” I pulled out the picture I’d been given to go by. I handed her the small black-and-white picture of a young girl who was tall and thin. The lady in front of me was anything but tall and skinny, and her hair was all wrong.
She looked at it in the light from the front window and then handed it back to me. “Yeah, that's my sister, Carol. She was the pretty one. I was always the short, fat one no one wanted around.” 
“But why give me the wrong picture?”
“Because they don’t like acknowledging that I exist, and they probably didn't have pictures of me. I was never one for taking pictures. It’s been years since I was home, and frankly, they don’t miss me. And I don’t miss them.” She seemed to get more comfortable with me as she talked.
“Coffee?” She offered as she poured herself a cup from a pot on the stove. I said yes, and she handed me one as she came by me to sit on an old chair in the sun. I took the hint and sat in the nearest chair with a small table next to it. Once we were seated and facing each other, and I waited for the coffee to cool down, I pulled my notebook out and found my fountain pen.
“Claudine, you need to start at the beginning and tell me what’s going on.” 
She scrunched herself in the chair, pulling her legs around her and letting the bathrobe drape where it landed—several minutes passed as she stared into her coffee mug. I waited. Most of the time, people talked, given enough time, and I wasn’t in any hurry.  
Claudine was not the “pretty one,” as she put it, but she wasn’t the “ugly one” either. I had to admit that her sitting old chair wrapped in a bathrobe didn’t do her looks any good, but I’d seen much worse. I kept my assessment to myself while she thought some more. Somewhere in the living room, a clock was ticking softly, magnified much louder in the room's silence.
Rearranging herself in the chair and pulling her knees up so she could rest her chin on them, she took her coffee from the table next to her and sipped it.  “Carol married a senator from Virginia back before the war while I went to work in the plane factories.”
“The family knows where she is?”
She nodded yes and took a sip of coffee. “But she’s too good for us now. Never calls or writes or comes back.”

“I see.”

“They must know where you are?”
“They don’t care. All they do is brag about Carol and her senator husband and how important he is. Me?  They don’t talk about.”
As I questioned her about her sister and parents and what really happened, I noticed a slight change in her appearance. Her face started shifting, and her body started sitting more upright. She is losing control.
It's hard work staying in human form.
Once convinced that it was who I was looking for and noticing her cooking the unusual mushrooms humans never eat, I shifted tactics.  I set the coffee down and stood, straightening myself to my full height and letting some of my natural appearance through the suit.
“Claudine, You're under arrest for crimes against the Time Continuum.” I pulled out my Time Police ID and showed it to her.
In seconds, the homely woman became a tall, agile creature with long legs and a reptile-like face, and the calm, apologetic demeanor became belligerent and almost hostile. We stood facing each other in an old tenement building in LA.
I broke the silence. “Theft of the Time Codes and the keys to the time lock are serious offenses and carry serious punishment. Hiding out in LA in the nineteen fifties was pretty good, but you could have picked a better neighborhood.”
Claudine, now in her natural form, sneered at me and paced around the small apartment. “Yeah, it wasn’t my idea, but it was all I could do after the idiot who gave me this ID. She was the poor outcast sister, and this is where she wound up.”
“That's what happens when you deal with unreliable crooks. The Time Codes and Time Lock Keys?”
“I was going to sell them.”
“But no one wanted them.” I finished her thought.
 She shook her head yes. “Most of them didn’t know what they were. If they did, they didn’t want any part of them.
“I don’t blame them.”
Claudine handed me a small box with an inscription and a symbol I recognized on it.  I placed digital cuffs on her wrists and spoke into my communicator. “I have her and the Time Cods and the Time Lock Keys.”
As she and the stolen items faded into the transport beam, she yelled. “Turn off the stove, will you.”
I complied and quickly left the stench-filled apartment and out into the fresher air on the street—time to go home.
I had retired to Earth decades ago after my health had deteriorated to the point I couldn’t shapeshift regularly and hold a human form very long.  Occasionally, Space Command would ask me to do small jobs for them.  My schooner was already off the coast of California, so when the case of Claudine and her Time Code theft came up, and I was feeling a little better that week, I volunteered to arrest her.
While tiring and physically exhausting to stay in Human form for a few days, it had been a pleasant change, and I would have a great to tell Dierdre when I got back to the schooner. She could cook me some real food, and the stench of the mushrooms would be gone. 


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The Waters of Oricum

8/28/2023

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​The mist rose above the canyon, hiding the dangers that lay beneath it. The mystical section of the planet that was off-limits to the colonists but had always drawn him to the brink of venturing into the mist, but he’d never entirely gone—until today. He had two days off, and he decided to explore. Hauling his backpack on his shoulders and adjusting the straps one last time, Randy Robertson stepped into the deep curtain of mist that lay before him.
Planet PX-150, as Space Services officially named it, served as a mining facility and outpost for Earth and its explorations. Earth explorers visited the planet over one hundred years ago to discover ancient ruins of a once-advanced civilization that once roamed the stars. They also discovered an ore that could be used to power intergalactic spaceships. A catastrophic tremor severed communications with Earth, and when a team eventually arrived to check on their fate, they learned of the ore discovery. The small colony grew into a thriving mining settlement after that.

However, one area of the planet remained untouched for whatever reason. Records of the colony's first years had been lost after the quake, leaving no official records of why the area had been marked as forbidden. Randy had been assigned to the planet as a mining geologist to conduct exploration and protect the planet’s environment from the impact of the mining operation. He questioned his superiors why they had not ventured into this part of the planet. Still, no one would give him a straight answer—only telling him that this corner of the planet, the “Lost Zone,” was off limits to terraforming and exploration. 

Randy rechecked his maps and GPS to mark his location should he need someone to find him. After sending two drones behind the mist and losing contact with both, he suspected his GPS and other tracking equipment wouldn’t work once he ventured into the fog. 

Luckily, he had brought personal drones that were lighter and more maneuverable with him. He hated the heavy and clumsy ones Space Services issued, so at least he wouldn’t have to explain their loss. However, losing both drones was enough to make him aware of the dangers of relying on technology to keep him safe and get him back to civilization. He took it upon himself to learn bushcraft and how to leave a trail so he could backtrack and find his way back again. Today was the day he put it all to the test.
The temperature plunged as he passed through the misty portal. Within seconds, he couldn’t tell where he had entered. He marked an X where he stood with a chalk stick, then drew an arrow directly behind him.
He had brought a mechanical compass, which spun wildly as he tried to get a reading of where he was. After a minute, it settled down and pointed to the north. Or what he assumed was north from his geological observations of the planet. Shifting his pack to rest better on his back, he began walking deeper into the Lost Zone.
The ground was uneven, rocky, and full of crevices that could easily swallow a man.  After nearly two hours of traversing a misty forest floor covered in fern-like plants and tall leafy trees, the mist cleared, revealing a sunny sky and open fields covered in knee-high grass.
The sound of birds cawing filled as he made chalk marks on trees every few yards. He recorded the coordinates from his compass and notes about the woods, sights, and sounds in his notebook as he walked. It was late afternoon when Randy decided it was time to camp for the night. He wasn’t sure how far he’d come into the Lost Zone, but he judged it to be several miles at least. 
The afternoons hiking had reminded Randy how out of shape he was. The backpack was heavy, and the walking and climbing had been much more intense than he had anticipated, thus tiring him out much sooner. Sitting on a fallen log, he checked his compass and got his bearings. If he was right, according to the maps he had stolen, he should be almost in the middle of the Zone. But there was no indication of what was so important there that Space Command had forbidden colonists to enter. The woods were like those he’d explored on Earth in his work as a geologist.  Scribbling some notes and coordinates in his notebook, he decided to go further until he found an excellent spot to camp for the night.

The pain in his legs started slowing him down some time ago. He stopped every so often to rub the calves of his legs and take the backpack's weight off his shoulders, taking more out of him than he anticipated.  He had made many trips like this over the years, but supplies and equipment were usually carried on transport devices. He wasn’t twenty-something anymore. Age and soft living from technology was fast catching up with him.
He was ready to rest when he found a clearing to make a camp for the night. He built a fire, warmed coffee, and munched on rations that he brought with him. It was colder than he anticipated, and he worried if he would be warm enough in the sleeping bag and small tent. But it was all he had, and exhausted, he crawled inside the tent for the night.

Waking up, Randy shivered from the cold air seeping into the tent. He untangled himself from the sleeping bag and crawled out to find a sea of thick fog had settled over the campsite.  
He checked the pad he brought, but the electronics weren’t working. Fortunately, he found an antique watch that worked and noted the time as half past eight in the morning. He only knew the sun was coming up because the fog became brighter.  He couldn’t travel until the fog lifted, so he built a small fire, thankfully, finding dry enough wood to ignite, warmed up his leftover coffee, and nibbled on crackers. He packed the tent, sleeping bag, and cooking utensils as it grew lighter. He doused and buried the fire when the sun finally peeked through the fog.  He had no idea where he was going, so he kept to the heading he had taken the day before.
The sky had cleared, and the temperature had grown warmer when Randy reached the foot of a mountain. He had heard rushing water from a distance for some time and had taken a path toward the sound.

The narrow valley before him was covered in rocky outcroppings and sheer drop-offs, but it also held a large waterfall. The sounds of water rushing and crashing into itself echoed through the valley and drifted up to the other side of the valley where Randy stood. Mist lifted from the pool below that quickly evaporated as the sun came out.

Randy feverishly took notes on the different types of rocks, wishing his pad worked so he could record images of the unique rocks. The mountain was old, with striation after striation of rock revealing the area's history. All the time he was working, he felt a connection growing. Something or someone was out there.
Randy trekked across the narrow valley to the waterfall and sat on a flat rock.  He couldn’t shake the feeling that something wanted to communicate. It was faint and unclear, but there was another presence with him.
At first, he thought the sounds were just the sounds of water splashing and the breeze blowing, but as he listened, Randy began to make out words coming from beyond the waterfall. He concentrated, blocking out the sound of the rushing water as best he could. Then he heard the voice.

“Why have you come?” 

“To try to understand why this place has been left alone.”  It was the only answer he could come up with, as he wasn’t sure why he had come. “Who are you?”  

“I am Achelous, The ruler of this world.” The reply was thunderous as the water in the pond below him rose violently and just as suddenly became calm as it eased its way back to the levels it was a minute ago.  The sounds of running water over the waterfall ceased suddenly and began again. All within the space of a few seconds. “You are the interloper.”

“Why do you say that?”

The voice from the water boomed. “You came and threatened to divert our water from the sacred pool. The water that sustains my kind. I rained down on your people, flooding their camps, begging them to leave. They refused. I sent more flood water their way until they placed explosives at the sacred pool and threatened to destroy this waterfall. That is when we revolted, and many on both sides died. When they realized we would not surrender, a wise one of your kind came to me with the idea that the most sacred of our waters be off-limits to humans. We agreed. They were to leave the sacred waters alone but placed a stasis field around the sacred pool to confine us.”
The accusation was true. Randy knew he wasn’t just talking about him but about humans on the planet. As the last word echoed off the sides of the hills, Randy stepped back from the cliff's edge. He had never considered humans to be interlopers on an uninhabited planet.  Except, maybe this wasn’t uninhabited.    
Randy chose his words carefully as he stood and faced the waterfalls.  “Achelous. I admit we have shown less respect for native life forms than we should have. However, many of us did not know of your existence. For this, I must apologize for how humans have treated you and your people. I am sorry if we have intruded on your world.”
The falling water paused once again before Achelous spoke. “Apology accepted. For now.” The last two words scared Randy, but he didn’t say anything. “Why did you come here?”  The voice from the water seemed calmer than it had a minute ago.

“I came to learn why this area was off limits and not mined like the rest of the planet.” 

“Now you know.”

“So, you live here, and we have the rest of your planet? That's not fair.”

“No. It is not.” The ruler agreed. 

“Achelous. I must return to my people before they miss me. I have a job to do, but I will be back. I want to know more about you and this place.”

“You may return.”

With that comment, Randy felt that Achelous had left. He picked up his backpack and headed back down the trail in the direction he’d come. Only this time, instead of mist and fog keeping him nearly blind and making his walking almost impossible, the trail was sunny and warm. His trek back to the misty veil took far less time.

Randy returned to the main settlement by late evening and headed to his small apartment in the residential district.  Achelous’s phrase, “You are the interlopers,” kept replaying in his mind.  The words bothered him more than he expected.
Thinking back to some other planets where he’d worked, he wondered what other creatures or beings had been subjected to the same treatment or worse. What if no one had been told that there was native life on the planets that had been destroyed for the sake of profit or science?
For the next several weeks, Randy went about his job. His expertise in exogeology, engineering, and computer programming served him well, as much of his work consisted of maintaining the systems that allowed humans to mine the ore from the planet.  A catastrophic failure would cost millions of dollars and the loss of lives.
He often lay in bed at night thinking about Achelous and how he had been bullied into giving up most of his planet to humans so they could mine the ore so vital to them. It was all well and good to talk about intergalactic cooperation and respecting other cultures and beings, but he knew the reality. 
Human came. Humans saw. Humans took.
 
It was several more weeks before Randy could return to the Lost Zone and the waterfalls. The trip back to the waterfalls was much easier this time, both because of his notes and directions, and once he was in the zone, the sky cleared of the fog and mist surrounding the zone's edges. While he didn’t know how much Achelous knew about what happened in the human zone or the planet, he suspected that he knew more about what happened than he let on. Either way, Randy was glad the going was easier this time.
“Achelous, I came back.! Like I said I would.” Randy stood at the waterfall, hearing silence except for the rushing water. He sat on the rocks, pulled a thermos from his backpack, took a long swig of water, and waited.
“I had begun to think you weren’t coming.” The voice rose from the waterfall that stopped mid-stream as he spoke.

Randy stood. ‘It took me a while to find the time to come. They keep me pretty busy at work. I was also trying to learn more about the original settlement and what happened back then.”
“And what did you find?”

“Not a lot. There had been some early accidents when they first started drilling. From what I can tell, there was an extensive and deep tremor, and the main settlement was destroyed. The data collected to that point was lost. We know from Earth data when the first colonists arrived, but information from then on was not sent back to Earth. We knew nothing until investigators were sent here to find out why they lost contact with the settlement.  After they arrived and found the surviving colonists, Earth sent more people and equipment to increase mining.” Randy paused, taking a breath. “Something’s been bothering me. There used to be more of you?”
Achelous answered. “Yes.  There were millions of us at one time, and we traveled throughout the solar system, as you call it. We call this planet Oricum. It was a center of commerce for the entire system at one time.”
“And now?”  He was almost afraid to ask.

“We were part of a collective, joined by our consciousness regardless of where we were.  Over the eons, more left our planet to settle elsewhere. We were once corporeal.  While we evolved to a non-corporeal state here, many of our descendants may have retained solid form.”

“Why the connection to water?”

The waterfall slowed before it stopped. “Water is life. Without water, we would cease to be as our consciousness is contained in the water. When we agreed to the treaty, those of us remaining dwell only in the sacred pool.”

“I see.”

Randy had read a great deal in the past weeks about human enslavement. The plight of Achelous and his people mimicked the history of what his ancestors had done to Native Americans on Earth centuries before. “What would you do if you could have your world back? To be free to roam your world as you once did?”

The waterfall roared, then fell silent as the water stopped flowing. “You can make that happen?”
  
 “I don’t know.” Randy paused, “I’m not sure if I should try. Even if I try, I’m not sure I can pull it off. It was just a wild question.”

“To make humans leave?”

“It probably wouldn’t make them leave, but it would force them to come to terms with you. It would probably be a disaster for the planet and us. I would have to leave. I’m not even sure it's doable, and I’m not sure the planet could survive it.”

“You would do this for me and my kind?”

“Not just for you, but for humans and other species treated like you were. To make them understand what they’re doing to the planets they colonize or, in some cases, take over.”

The waterfall ran slowly and quietly as Achelous pondered the human’s words.
Randy sat quietly and fiddled with a small twig that lay near where he sat on his backpack. The enormity of what he’d just suggested began to sink in.  Sabotaging the mining equipment and forcing his superiors to abandon the planet or learn to co-exist with the native population was preposterous, but he’d said it.  As he thought about it, sabotage seemed more and more like a good idea.

The meeting with Achelous opened Randy’s eyes to see what he had deliberately missed. The impact that mining had on a planet and its indigenous life. Being a geologist specializing in mining on extraterrestrial worlds, he had always assumed that their work to reclaim the planet's terrain was enough. He knew that in some cases, it had made a difference, and in some cases, as with barren moons, it hadn’t mattered. But it mattered here, and the impact, regardless of how many native trees and grasses they replanted, clearly wasn’t enough. 
He saw no path to convincing Achelous or the leaders of the mining colonies to co-exist. He realized that his thought about sabotaging the mining operation was the only way out. Now, he had to figure out how. He made mental notes about where he could adjust to shut down the systems as he went about his duties. It had never occurred to them that someone would want to sabotage the systems and shut them down, and security was lax.  
With his inside knowledge of how things worked, Randy found the one system that would render the whole mining useless if shut down, as it would require millions of dollars to rebuild. The ore veins were diminishing. It was only twenty or thirty years before the ore was depleted. He knew they wouldn’t spend that money as the ore had been found on other planets.
It took several weeks of studying the system and the intricate programming to learn where he needed to change the code in the computers that ran the mining equipment. He had to keep operations within nominal ranges as he slowly rewrote the code. It had been simple—create a looping code that gradually eroded the programming until it crashed entirely.
Randy had been surprised at how easy it had been to shut the system down. He had doubted that it would work. But it did.

Over the next several months, officials from Earth, the colonies, and companies involved in the mining operation rushed to the plant to investigate. But no one would agree on who would foot the bill to bring the system back online again.  Most of the miners were transferred to other mining operations. It was decided that the outpost that served as a waystation for colonists on the way to establish new colonies would remain open. Randy felt Achelous would be comfortable with the colonists as no mining would be done.
Randy was thankful that despite their efforts, the computer forensics team never traced the code changes back to him. As the mining operation closed and he was scheduled to be reassigned, he slipped off to the Lost Zone again.
As he approached the former boundary of the zone, he realized that his electronics worked. Achelous and his kind were reclaiming their world.
He approached the waterfall, sat on a rock, and waited.  After several minutes, the water flow ceased, and Achelous spoke.

“Welcome, my friend.”
“I wanted to tell you I will be leaving on the next ship.”

“Do they know what happened?”

“No.  They still think it was a bug in their program.  I never mentioned you, and they never mentioned the Zone once. It was as if you didn’t exist, but it's enough for me to know that you are getting your planet back. They are leaving the colony here, and others will visit on their way to their new homes, but they will not take your land or water. Maybe now you can find more of your kind again. I hope justice was served. They know you’re here. That's why the Zone was off-limits to humans. So, we wouldn’t find you and…”

“Return our planet to us?”

“Or try to destroy you. It was a real possibility that, in some circles, your very existence would threaten them. There are still a lot of species out there that have no tolerance for anything or anyone who isn’t like them. But now it doesn’t matter as the planet is yours again.” Randy rose to leave.

‘I will miss you, Randy.”

“And I will miss you.”

Years later, after retiring, Randy Robertson returned to planet PX-150.
As a planetary geologist, he led a movement towards more humane and equal treatment of ingenious and native life forms when humans contacted new life forms. His work started after he returned to earth and spoke up about how life on XP-150 had been treated in the past and pushed for a renewal of talks with the Achelous and his life forms.

The result was that the planet became a favorite spot for the burgeoning tourism industry. Colonists spread the word about its beauty, and now inhabitants from all over the solar system came to view the crystal waters.
Randy sat on the same rock he’d sat on decades ago, relishing how beautiful the sky, forest, and vegetation were.
The waterfalls looked the same, but the sun that beat down on him was much brighter, and the winds that blew the trees and grass on the mountain seemed different than he’d remembered them. More vibrant was the only way he could describe the subtle differences.
Achelous spoke first. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Neither did I.”

 “You look old.”

“I am old, at least by human standards.” 

“You saved this planet.”

“Nah, all I did was change a line or two of code.”

“It was more than that. We knew our planet was dying, and so did your superiors.  They knew the ore was running out, and you didn’t know that the operation was losing money. Your code change gave them the excuse they needed to shut the operation. They knew what you did, but they kept quiet.”

“How do you know this?”

“It was long after you left. An old one from the time of the treaty came to me. He admitted that they used you as an excuse. They hadn’t expected that people would wish to visit our beautiful world. The old one told me that what you did changed everything and allowed them to profit now, which they will do without interfering with our world.

“I always thought it was too easy, but I am glad it has worked out this way.”

“We owe you a great deal. Our home is thriving for the first time in centuries. I would like you to meet someone. We had little energy to manifest ourselves to you before. I was barely able to muster enough to speak to you. But now, I want you to meet my mate, Eridia.”

A waterspout sprang from the center of the pool of water below the waterfalls, and a melodious voice rang out. “Achelous has told me so much about you. It's a pleasure to meet you.”
​
Achelous spoke again. “You have done even more for us. Descendants of our race who left for other worlds are finding their way home. Making pilgrimages to the Sacred Pond. Our gratitude will be eternal.”
They spent hours talking about what had occurred in the years since they met, and when Randy left, he felt he may never be back with his friend.
He was wrong. He spent the remainder of his life exploring and learning about new worlds, but when he died, he’d left a request that his ashes be returned to the Sacred Pond so he could spend eternity with his friend. 

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Home Waters

6/30/2023

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Picture
 
The gentle breeze eased across the deck while the tide below rocked the boat gently on the water. Lying in a chaise lounge, his eyes closed and seemingly dead to the world, lay Captain Jacob Jarvis. In one hand, he held a signed first edition of The Old Man and The Sea, and on the deck next to the lounge chair, an open bottle of hundred-year-old scotch. 
Captain Jacob Jarvis had retired from active duty from the Space Council and had fought hard to live the remainder of his years on Earth. The last mission to Earth had been problematic.  Rush missions usually are, and, in the end, he stayed than intended to ensure the true nature of his visit remained hidden.  
At the time, he’d decided he wasn’t ready to retire. But soon after he returned to his home planet, he found that he could no longer shift and return to his natural state as he had been able to.  His doctor told him that it was time to retire. Shapeshifters do live extraordinarily long lives, especially compared to Earth years, but they are mortal.  Jarvis knew he had fewer years ahead of him—time to enjoy them.
Arrangements were made for his retirement from the Space Council. His affinity for Earth was well known, and he found that after so many years of taking human form, it was the most effortless body for him to maintain. He requested to return to Earth and live out his remaining years as a human.
His ship had been outfitted with a cloaking device, loaded with provisions, and prepared to stay in space indefinitely without support. He said his goodbyes to his home planet and embarked on one last journey. 
Jarvis parked the main ship in a LaGrange point outside Mars and loaded his shuttle with his things. The ship would remain parked in place in the gravity-neutral well. He shut everything down and, without looking back, departed in the shuttle.
He had chosen a tropical location on the seashore to make his home. He landed on the beach at night, unloaded his belongings, and then hid the shuttle deep in a swamp far from human habitation.  Sensors on the boat would alert him if anyone came near. He walked several miles until he came to a community where he had stashed a human vehicle and headed to his boat, where he chose to live.
On board the boat, he stared at the small locker he had allowed himself to bring. Most of his memorabilia remained on the ship, and he had to admit that he would miss being around all the items he had collected over the centuries.  He brought small items he couldn’t part with, including the old map and swords from Diedre’s time—his most precious keepsakes.
He took a sip of scotch and let his mind drift to Deidre, who he met when on his first assignment to Earth His time here had spanned from the sixteen hundreds until the mid-twentieth century, and he had loved many women overall those years, all redheads. But his heart was and always would be with Diedre, a pirate, and a woman to be reckoned with. Their adventures together had become the stuff of legends both on Earth and in his world.  She was the true love of his life.
 
Jarvis had fallen asleep when something bumping against the boat roused him. Startled, he sat upright in the lounge chair and swung his legs over the side.  The book slid to the deck, and the bottle of scotch almost spilled as he rose. Seconds later, a voice drifted above the swish of the water slapping the hull.
“Ahoy there. Permission to come aboard, sir?”  A female voice called cheerfully.
By now, Jacob was standing and facing the back of the boat. “Eh, yes, please come aboard, mam.” He managed to speak as he hurried to the back safety gate to unlock it. His old legs wouldn’t move as fast or steadily as he liked, so she was almost up to the safety gate when he got there. He unlatched the gate, and she strode past him.
Standing on the boarding deck was a beautiful redhead. Her long red hair blew in the sea air, framing her face in a blur of red. Shaking his head slightly as if to shift his eyes from the sun, Jacob blinked twice to refocus his eyes. Deidre?
“Follow me.”
The boat gently rocked under the extra weight and movement on the deck as they climbed the stairs to the top deck.  Steading himself, he waved his free hand, inviting her to sit. She moved with ease into the middle of the deck.  He took a deep breath and forced himself to talk.
“I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
 She faced him and took his hand, and grinned the grin he knew so well. His heart pounded in his chest.
“I heard you were back, Jacob!”  She pulled him into a kiss and hug. Centuries of memories flooded his mind as he returned the kiss.
“Deidre!” He managed to stutter when she finally broke the kiss and stepped back.
 Jacob stood staring at her as Deidre nodded yes.
“But how? You died centuries ago.”
“As did you several times, as I recall.”
 He shuffled his feet on the deck and looked down.  “Yeah. about that...”
“Never mind, it's ancient history.’” She looked serious. “You don’t look good, Jacob.”
 That’s when it hit me. “You—you’re like me?”
She nodded. “Yes. The Space Council also sent me to Earth. I was there on another assignment when I met you.”
She sat down on a bench.  Jacob offered a glass of his scotch, which she accepted. And began to tell him her story.
 
The moon hung low over the bay, casting weird shadows over the water as the boat bobbed in the water. The changing tide causes it to shift slightly around its anchor.  After several hours of talking, comparing lives, and telling tales of their various missions all over the galaxy, she put her glass down and looked serious again.
“You need to shift again.” It was more of a statement than a question. He nodded yes and pointed to the hatch leading to the lower deck.
“I use a small stateroom as a shifting room.”
“Don’t let me stop you. Do what you need to.” She motioned to the hatch. “I’ll hang out in the living room and keep watch for aliens.”
 Jacob reached over and kissed her before he passed through the hatch.
 
~~~
 
In the past, he had been able to take a desired form and persona and maintain it for an extended period without having to return to his natural state. Often, he had stayed in one form for several decades or even centuries without a problem.  He was also aware that the differences in time between his natural world and the world he was in made a huge difference in how long he could stay in character—the slower Earth time always affected him when he came back. 
The last mission to Earth had shown him that changing and staying was getting more challenging for both bodies. His earthly body was much older and worn out, and his natural body showed signs of degeneration and the effects of the many changes over his lifetime. The doctors told him that staying human too long would wear out the human body faster.  His body needed to rest best in his natural state. When he came back to Earth for the last time, arrangements were made for him to have a place to return to his natural state as needed. He knew he would eventually be in one state or the other when he finally gave in to his fate.
His love of the sea and being on the water had made the idea of a boat seem natural. When the idea of his having to change regularly was discussed, a boat appeared to be a natural place because the chances of his being observed were slighter on the water than on land near people.  He selected the catamaran boat because it was stable and more manageable for him to handle by himself and blended into the places he wanted to visit.
As he closed the door and prepared to make the change, he considered not changing again. It was tempting to stay human, but the afternoon and the shock of seeing Deidre had tired him. He needed to rest.   
As he went through the transformation, questions about Deidre filled his mind. While he was more than glad to see her again, why hadn’t she contacted him before, and where had she been all this time?
 
~~~
Several hours later, Jacob emerged from his stateroom.  While his body felt better, his mind now wrestled with new thoughts and old feelings. He had long ago made peace with the fact that he was dying. Or at least until late yesterday afternoon, he had been. 
The sun had risen when he came up on deck. Deidre sat in the chaise lounge chair, drinking orange juice and munching on a bagel.
 “It's a glorious day!” She proclaimed as she held up her glass of juice.  The sun reflected through the orange liquid in the clear glass and glinted against her red hair.
Jacob found himself at a loss for words as the rail. The sight of Deidre’s red hair blowing in the gentle breeze of the late morning reminded him of their many adventures centuries ago.  Looking past her and at the waters beyond the boat, he considered what was next.
Deidre joined him and wrapped her arms around him. She kissed him, and he responded, wrapping his arms around her and reliving something he thought he’d never experience again.
 The boat gently rocked as they sat on a bench. Deidre brought him orange juice and a toasted bagel, and coffee for both from the tiny galley kitchen below deck. Jacob sat back, munched the bagel, and took in the new reality. Many questions still rattled around in his mind. But he said nothing for some time. 
“So, tell me, what's the plan?” He finally spoke. It had occurred to him that her being here was more than random. There was a reason she was here.
He understood why she had never revealed her true identity to him when he met her back in the sixteen hundreds. But why was she here now? It was more than just moral support and rekindling an old flame. Both of which were fine with him. As much as he wanted to know the truth, a bigger part of him didn’t want to ask.
Deidre leaned back on the bench and stared at her coffee for a minute before she answered. “Jacob. It's our seventh great-granddaughter. She is ill and needs our help.”
He leaned back in his chair, speechless. He knew that he had children here.  Much had been made of their relationship at the time. But no one had ever hinted that Deidre was more than another human at the time or afterward.
Deidre pulled a tablet from her bag. She tapped the screen and then turned the tablet around to face him.
“This is our family line. From our child, Lauren, to today. Seven generations of humans. Only not quite. You and I knew the rules about mixing with the natives.  There are good reasons for them.” 
Jacob nodded yes, transfixed by the chart and names on the screen.
“You remember the stink it caused when I became pregnant with Lauren?”
Again, he nodded yes.
“There was another reason for it besides the obvious. A shifter had never mated with another shifter in alien form. They didn’t know what would happen. Usually, when we mate with an alien species, the baby dies soon afterward. So, while tragic, it ends the possible line. But Lauren lived.  Thus, creating a whole new problem—a human born with alien and human DNA. The Council didn’t know what to do with me then, so they left me here to raise the child and watch it for signs of our DNA. Which I was glad to do. Eventually, my human body died, and the Space Council closely watched her. She never exhibited any symptoms of our DNA. So as far as she knew, she was human. She had kids, who had kids until now. They were all watched closely.   No one ever showed any signs of our DNA. Fortunately, shifter DNA didn’t show up in Earth’s test, so there was no indication they held extra DNA.”
“Until Now?”
She tapped the screen on the tablet and brought up more pictures.  Detailed reports from doctors appeared on the screen. Finally, a picture of a young red-headed woman appeared.
“This is Samantha, your seventh great-granddaughter.”  Jacob took the tablet and looked at the picture closely. He could see the resemblance between Deidre and him. The shape of the face and the features said she was his.  Her red hair sealed the deal. “She is an orphan. Her parents, her mother was also our descendent, were killed about six months ago. She was injured and in the hospital for several weeks. As she is fifteen with no other family, she was released to foster care but became ill.
“So, she’s sick. What’s wrong?”
“They don’t know what's wrong or how to try to treat her. Everything they’ve tried so far hasn’t worked.”
“And The Space Council thinks it's because she has shifter DNA in her?”
“Yes, from the test they’ve been able to conduct from their labs and the evidence that Earth’s test shows.  For some reason, our DNA is trying to assert itself and take over her body, which is treating it like an infection and attacking it.”
“What am I supposed to do? I’m not a doctor.”
“I know. We need to see her and tell her the truth. She is sick because she has alien DNA, and maybe take her back with us.”
The rule had always been that no human could be brought back to his planet for several reasons.  One important reason was that they wouldn’t survive on the planet due to the atmosphere.  Jacob knew this was different. This human had shifter DNA in her and was part alien, but he had seen what happened on other planets when a new species was introduced. It hadn’t gone well. 
Deidre filled him in on all the details of the generations before.  One thing that had always puzzled the Space Council was why none of the others had been affected, especially in the earlier generations. The only reasonable conclusion that they could draw was life expectancy. Until the last several generations, the average life expectancy had been much shorter.  Samantha was now older the any of her previous generations had lived. The other consideration was that environmental factors played a big part in awakening her alien DNA.
 While the discussion had focused on the possible causes of the girl's predicament, The more immediate problem was what to do about her. To that end, it was agreed that they would meet with her, see the situation firsthand, and go from there, to tell her everything eventually.  Several times, Jacob mentioned that she might be unable to handle the new information mentally.  He questioned if telling her everything would do more harm than good.  Deidre agreed.  They had both seen what humans with mental issues could do or be like and the results of a mental breakdown. 
While Jacob didn't have any direct communication with the Space Council, as he was officially retired and not working, Deidre did. She had been in constant contact with the Space Council, updating her on Samantha’s condition and what the doctors were doing. The last report said that she was showing signs that her body wasn’t responding to treatments being tried.
***
They pulled up the anchor the following day, opened the sails, and headed out of the bay. It would be a full day of sailing to get to the town where Samantha was.  If the strong wind died down, they’d use the engines.
Jacob felt a pang of homesickness as they left the bay heading north. He had been anchored in the same bay when he met Deidre in the sixteen hundreds. This time he was leaving the bay, possibly for the last time. Deidre was feeling nostalgic and said she’d miss the bay as they rounded the entrance into the main channel heading up the coast. 
The winds died down, and after hours under engines, fuel was getting low by late afternoon, and they stopped at the next marina, refueled, and bought extra supplies.  Jacob noted a crowd of young people on the far end of the docks milling around an old schooner moored there. He asked about it, and they told him they were considering buying it and restoring the schooner. 
Back on his boat, he wrote down the name of the old ship and the location.  Deidre asked him about it. “Just an idea.”  The old schooner had put a gem of an idea in his mind, and he hadn’t fully worked it out yet, but it would have to wait until they had dealt with Samantha’s illness before he could even think about it. But it was still good to have ideas, no matter how far-fetched. 
After sunset, they arrived in the coastal town close to where Samantha lived. The rising moon reflected off the water as they found a slip to dock in and found the Harbor Master, checked in and paid for rent on the slip. 
Fortunately, Deidre had all the necessary paperwork to rent a car. Jacob had some identification but not everything needed for such things. They rented a van, which allowed them to put in what they would need when Jacob had to change again, which would probably be soon.  They knew shapeshifting in unusual and unsecured places was dangerous, but Jacob’s condition made it likely that he would do so soon.
The rest of the night was spent driving the van inland to the nearby city. The early morning traffic was light but starting to get heavy as the sun rose and the city woke up. By then, the GPS in the van had pointed them to the hospital, and they parked in the visitor garage near the hospital. 
The next step was to figure out how to get to see Samantha. The Space Council had furnished Deidre with all the reports, room numbers, doctor’s names, and even the names of the technicians and nurses who worked on the floor. But it didn’t tell them how they would get to see her as they would have to figure it out on their own. As nonfamily to all involved, they had no reason to be there. 
Jacob took the lead when they approached the main desk in the lobby.
“I’m Jacob Jarvis, I’m Samantha Brown’s great grandfather, and this is Deidre Smith,” the name on her driver’s license. “She’s her aunt. We’ve just heard about Samantha and rushed here to see her.” 
The young lady behind the desk took their information and gave them forms to fill out, which they did and were eventually pointed to the nearby elevators and told what floor she was on. That was easier than they expected. The three-minute ride up the elevator was the longest ride either of them had taken in centuries.
The elevator doors opened with a ping, and a soft female voice announced what floor they were on.  The wide hallway felt eerily empty.  Glancing at each other, they worked their way down the hall past several doors that were opened, showing various people in beds with machines hooked to them. Signs next to the doors proclaimed various restrictions, from diet to safety precautions such as masks and the like.
About halfway down the hall, they found Samantha Brown's room. Stopping in the middle of the hall, they hesitated for a moment. Jacob squeezed Deidre’s hand, and they entered the room.
The array of machines hooked to her was dizzying. Several machines beeped regularly, and at least one showed her heart rate, temperature, pulse, and oxygen levels. Several IV bottles hung from a couple of poles at the headboard. Their clear plastic lines ran to needles taped to both of her arms. Wires snaked their way out of the loose fitting one size fits all hospital gown that covered her, leading to the various boxes on stands beside the head of the bed.
They knew that she was sick from reading the reports. But seeing the physical evidence and the equipment needed to keep her alive was another matter. They were both stunned by the amount of equipment crammed into the small room.
They hesitated, standing in the doorway. Samantha perked up a little at the sight of strangers who weren’t doctors. 
Approaching the bed, they introduced themselves as they had downstairs.  She asked how they knew about her. They said that they had heard about a girl being extremely sick and that doctors couldn’t figure out what to do with her, and when they checked, they found she was related to them, and they came as soon as they could. Samantha seemed to take the story at face value. 
Deidre sat on the edge of the bed next to Samantha and took her hand. Gently holding it, she traced the lines of her hand under a finger and realized that her hands were soft, squishy, and had no natural substance. Her human bones were gone.
“Tell me, Samantha, what does your hand feel like?”
“Oh, I don’t know, it's hard to explain. It's like it's there, but it's not there.  I can feel sensations like you touching it. But when I try to use them, they don’t work.”
Deidre nodded and looked up at Jacob.  He pulled a chair over and sat so he was facing her directly.
“Samantha, we have something to tell you. I know it's going to be hard to understand or believe. But It's true and explains why you are sick, and your body is changing the way it is.”
She nodded, and he continued. “I know this is difficult to comprehend, but I am not human. I am from another planet and was sent to Earth to gather information as part of a planet protection program. Many centuries ago, back in the early sixteen hundreds, I met your great-grandmother, seven times removed. We fell in love, and things happened as they will, and another line was started—your material line. I believed her to be human, but she was not. She was of my kind. We are shapeshifters who can take human form or almost any alien form.  Because we were both in human form, the baby born was human, and we did not expect that the human baby would carry alien DNA.” I stopped for a second to see if she was comprehending.”
“Go on, tell me.”
Samantha, you are part shapeshifters, like us, but for some reason which we haven’t figured out, our DNA has never created any issues until now. But this is what is happening to you. Your body is trying to fight the new genes asserting themselves and why your limbs and hands feel like they do, and why you're so sick.”
She tried to sit up in the end but only managed to rearrange herself in a less comfortable position.  Deidre helped her move pillows and get more comfortable as we waited for her reaction.
“So, let me get this straight.  You both aren’t human, but you take the form of humans here on Earth. You’ve both been here before, in the past, and you two screwed back then as humans. So, your kids are all human, with a bonus DNA gene floating around in us. Which until now, as far as you know, hasn’t been a problem.”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” Deidre confirmed her summary.
“But you came back now because?”
“I came back to Earth to retire. I spent much time here and am very fond of the planet and its humans. I’ve been here several times over the centuries. Deidre has been here, but not as often as I have. We were both here, back in the sixteen hundreds. I was on a mission to study your water supplies, and she was on a different mission. We met and fell in love. Neither of us knew the other was anything but human. It wasn’t until recently that we discovered we were both shapeshifters.”
 “Sooo…  How old are you two?”
“It's hard to explain. Our planet’s time is very different than it is here. Let's say that we’re way older than we look.  In Earth years, probably about a thousand years old.  Deidre is a little younger, but not by much.”
Diedre spoke. “Our people have been tracking all the descendants from my child back in the sixteen hundreds. None of them have shown any signs of the problems you’re experiencing. This led us to conclude that something triggered our dormant DNA to assert itself.  We don’t know yet what it is.”
Samantha closed her eyes as if trying to take in the new information. We waited quietly. I kept glancing at the door expecting a nurse or doctor to show up any minute.  The hallways were too quiet. I barely heard any movement outside of the room. This began to concern me.  I’ve been in hospitals for centuries and rarely is a floor this quiet.
“When is the next nurse due in to check on you?”
“They pretty much leave me alone most of the day. I think they’re scared of me. I heard some nurses refuse to work with me.  But they come in every shift change and do a check and see if I need anything. THEY COME when I ring the bell, but I don’t think they like it.”
Jacob shot a glance at Deidre—time to get to the details. Deidre sat straight on the bed and looked Samantha in the eyes. “I need to ask you some questions, and you must be honest with us.” In turn, Samantha nodded yes and swallowed hard.
“How do you feel? Can you walk and go to the bathroom by yourself?” We wanted to ask her many questions but had to see if she could travel first.
“I can walk a little, but I need help. My hands and arms mostly don’t work right, and I feel weird. My breathing is off too.  As for the bathroom, at this point, I can do most of it by myself, but it's not easy with my arms and hands not working right.”
“Okay. We don’t know what's next for you or how to help you, but we think you should come with us. If you're becoming what I think you are, we are in a better position to help you deal with it than the doctors are.”
“You mean, I’m turning into a...”
“Shapeshifter. Like us. Yes. Your hands and arms are beginning to become more like us in our natural state. Your body will eventually follow suit. The doctors here have no clue what's happening or how to deal with it. We don’t either, except that we already know about shape-shifting and how to change forms, which is what you're doing. Don’t get us wrong. The doctors here have done a great job of caring for you, but they’re way over their heads.”
Samantha sat straight up in the bed and pushed back the covers, which revealed that her hospital gown was barely covering her, and the wires and IV lines ran from her arms and upper chest.
“You have clothes here?” She nodded towards the small closet on the far side of the room. Jacob retrieved the clothes and other bags from the bottom of the shelves. Nodding to Deidre, he closed the door behind him as he went out to the hallway.
Twenty minutes later, the door opened, and Deidre nodded for him to come in. Samantha sat on the side of the bed, wearing a light top, blue jeans, and sneakers. Her red hair was still messed up from getting the op on, and she was trying to brush it with a small brush. The machines had all gone wild when they unhooked the wires from her IV needles which lay on the tray next to the bed, their valves shut off.
 “Let's get out of here before they come looking,” Deidre insisted, and Jacob didn't need to be told twice. 
The doors to the elevator closed just as they heard a nurse scream for help as she entered the now-empty room.
It took them some time to get out of the hospital and get to the rental van. But they made it without being caught. They stopped several times to let Samantha rest, walk, and try to eat before they made it to the dock where Jacobs's boat was moored.
The late evening moon found them sailing out of the harbor. Jacob needed to change again, and Deidre took over the boat while he rested. She sat with Samantha and explained more about their lives.  Eventually, Samantha fell asleep on a bench in the main cabin.
It was early morning when Jacob came out of his room. Still not feeling as well as he’d like, he did feel better. The two ladies sleeping in the main cabin brought a smile. He made his way to the deck. Checking the navigation system, he found they were on course to return to the bay where they started. Diedre did love it as much as he did. As he made coffee and a bagel in the galley kitchen, it occurred to him that decisions would have to be made soon. Jacob was eating on the main deck when Dedrie came from the cabin.
“How soon can we head back home?” Sitting across from Jacob, she took what was left of his bagel.
“I don’t know.  It would take a day at least to get back to my landing ship, from there to my mother ship.”
 “She's not good. I couldn’t move her this morning.  I barely got her into your shifting room. She’s shifting faster than I expected. “
“Shit.” was all he could get out. “Is she awake?”
“Yes, but not coherent, and her temperature is up. She needs a proper changing room.”
“Can she change here?” 
“She may have to. I’ve talked to the Space Council doctors, who say her chances of surviving her first shift are slim, especially here without support.”
“Okay, let's do this. I’ll head for the landing ship, you take care of her, and if she shifts before that, we’ll deal with it.”
They needed to get back to the bay to get to the landing ship. This would take time, and this boat was a little slow, even with the engines.
Jacob was at the boat’s helm two hours later when Deidre called from the cabin.
“She’s changing!”
Below deck, they helped Samantha change from a human into a creature no one on Earth had ever seen. Fortunately, with their help, Samanta survived, and over the next few days, they could transmit data to the Space Council. It was determined that a newly developed antibiotic contained a chemical trigger that caused her alien DNA to activate. The good news was that in discovering how Samantha changed, the Space Council scientist discovered how to rejuvenate the shifting process. The new compound would give Jacob his strength back and the ability to shift less often.
Jacob and Deidre taught Samantha how to shift back into her human form, and then Jacob and Deidre had a chat with her.
“Sam, we are both going to stay on Earth. We have come to love it, and it has given us you. I have decided to purchase a schooner I saw a couple of weeks ago and sail the world. As you have no family, we would love for you to join us.”
“You would?”
Deidre smiled and hugged her. “We would.”
Six months later, they set sail on a moonlit tide aboard the newly christened Shifter III. With Dedrie and Samantha beside him, Jacob felt at peace for the first time in centuries. 
He finally had a family and was sailing on the waters of the home he loved. He would die on earth a happy man.







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The Ship

4/20/2023

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I hadn’t been back to the lighthouse since its construction. In the spring of seventeen-eighty, I was among the first to sail from the local port to the new worlds. My schooner was fast and light, and I made the trip in record time. I didn’t tell them I had advanced weather maps that helped me catch the jet streams and sail much faster. That would have made them wary of me and none too popular either. In some circles, people treated my name, Captain Jacob Jarvis, with disdain. Now two hundred and fifty years later, I was back in Florida at the Lighthouse I had helped build.
I’d been to Earth in many different time frames, but I never ceased to be amazed at the changes they could make in a relatively short time. While some changes had been for the better of mankind in general, most, I feared, were going to prove to be a problem at a later date. The area imminently around the Lighthouse was much as it had been before, but the vegetation was lusher.
I recognized one tree. I had sat under it when it was much smaller, and as I relaxed under it today, I let my mind wander back over the centuries. In the last several hundred years of Earth time, I’d been here on at least four occasions in four different times and places. I’d also made some brief unscheduled stops that hadn’t entered my official logs. The galaxy of planets that monitored Earth and the planets surrounding it had sanctioned this trip. This time, I would have to tell them the outcome.
The sea and the breeze brought memories of Deidre and her flaming red hair floating into my consciousness. I’d met her on my first trip here a few hundred years before. The female pirate had captured my heart. Over the centuries, I’d met and loved many ladies, but none would ever replace her.
Pushing the image of Deidre from my mind, I focused on the task at hand. I scrambled to get myself back on my feet as I saw some people approaching the lighthouse from the far end of the beach. Dusting sand off my jeans as I walked up to them, I pulled my old well-worn Panama hat down to keep the sun from my eyes.
They looked like the pictures of beach bums I had seen while preparing for this trip. Floppy hats, cut-off shorts, and raggy t-shirts completed the look, along with the fishing poles and basket. Ambling toward them, I shook my head at the heat and sun.
“Catch anything?” I pointed vaguely toward the fishing poles.
“Nah, there ain’t nothin’ biting ‘round here anymore.” One complained.
I nodded in sympathy. “Seen anyone around here in a while?”
“Nah. Not since they closed the lighthouse and stopped all the tours. No one comes around here.”
“Closed up the lighthouse?” I turned and looked up toward the lantern at the top.
We were standing in the direct shadow of the building. I noticed the shaggy bushes growing around the base and that the gravel path to the door looked unused from the weeds growing between the rocks. Turning back to the fishermen, I gave them goodbye and wished them luck in their fishing endeavors.
Turning my attention back to the lighthouse, I slowly walked around it. Indeed, it had been abandoned. The grounds were overgrown, and sand blown off the beach piled up in front of the wooden door.
The beach was as clear of unwanted eyes as I tried the front door. To my surprise, it was the original heavy plank door that I installed two hundred and fifty years ago. The brass lock and latch were there, but a modern padlock secured the latch. I could easily unlock the padlock, but the door’s original lock couldn’t be jimmied as easily. The door and foundation were as solid as I remembered them being, with no cracks or other signs of decay. The windows were too high to reach without a ladder, and I wasn’t about to get a ten-foot ladder and carry it across the beach. 
No, I had to get the door open, preferably without destroying it. Luckily I had remembered an old ring of keys thrown in a drawer in my quarters on my ship and had decided to grab them before I took the shuttlecraft to the surface.
As I left my quarters, I glanced at the old pirate map and pair of crossed sabers in the main room. They reminded me of my first time on Earth and my favorite redhead Deidre. And our adventures together while I studied the waters of the planet. Those memories left me grinning, but time to attend to the task at hand. I could remember later. 
I picked through the large ring of ancient keys., choosing one key that didn’t work. I found another that looked the correct size and slipped it into the keyhole. It slid in with considerable resistance, but it went in after some sliding back and forth and jiggling. Eventually, I got it in, but turning it was another matter. I tried not to force it for fear of breaking the key off in the lock. The sound of the works finally giving way made a loud click. The door squeaked sharply as I pushed it open.
Leaning against the doorframe, I realized I hadn’t taken a breath until the door swung open. I collected myself and took one last look around the beach. The moon had risen over the water beyond the lighthouse. Satisfied that no one had seen me, I slipped into the lighthouse and shut the door behind me, plunging the lighthouse into total darkness.
Closing my eyes for a long moment, I thought back to what it had been like two centuries ago when I had been here building the lighthouse. The remembered smell of wet bricks and the musty odor created by the humidity took me back to those days.
I had been instrumental in the building of the lighthouse. Citing a large number of ships wrecked or nearly wrecked and the large amounts of cargo that now sat at the bottom of the bay, I had pushed for the building of the lighthouse. It had also helped that a local businessman lost a son in a shipwreck due to the bay’s shallow water, strewn with large boulders and rocks that had skewed many a hull over the years.
Meanwhile, I had to focus on what I was back here in an abandoned lighthouse two hundred and fifty years later. Light from my flashlight helped me get my bearings, and I started the long climb to the top, hoping the stairs would not give way, despite some evident repair work. After a bit of a slow, tedious climb, I pushed the trap door at the top and caught my breath for several minutes, then took the final step onto the walkway.
I was here. Someplace that I’d never thought I’d be again. I turned off the flashlight, allowing the moon to illuminate the ocean. I was reminded of nights like this that I’d spent on ships looking over the night ocean. So calm and peaceful, but I knew that was an illusion. What may have appeared calm on the surface hid a raging anger that could never be predicted or accounted for. 
As I continued to breathe hard from the climb, the thought occurred to me that I was getting too old for this shit. As a shapeshifter who had to create a new body every time I visited a planet, I had shifted thousands of times over the centuries. In Earth years, it had been well over 500 years of becoming Jacob Jarvis. On other planets, I had a different shape and identity, but I had to admit that Jarvis and the humans were my favorites, even though they had caused the most problems over the centuries.
Each shift cost me a little of myself, and my return to my natural state was harder each time. It might be time to consider retiring, but there were other factors to consider too, but that decision would have to wait.
As I had expected, electricity now powered the beacon lantern, its controls now covered in dust. There had been little about the lighthouse in the archives that I had read before I returned to Earth. There was no mention of abandoning the lighthouse or why. It was now a curiosity from a bygone age, but I had to get this old relic back to life. 
As I expected, someone had the power to the lighthouse disconnected. That would have been too easy. The next thing was to find the original lanterns. Hopefully, they had just put them into storage somewhere in the building. I wasn’t looking forward to trekking back down the rickety stairs to the tower’s lower floors, but off I went.
A quick survey of the tower told me that they hadn’t moved anything more than they had to. I found one of the old lanterns in a cardboard box, but three large lanterns should sit on the rotating table in the center of the glass top. I didn’t have much time to look for the other lanterns or redo the turntable, now modified for electric lanterns. I needed to get a light coming from the lighthouse soon, so the one lantern I found would have to do.
Now for some fuel for it. Kerosene was the traditional fuel for lanterns, but I knew there wouldn’t be any around here anymore, so I had to improvise. I needed light to guide them.
An emergency distress signal had reached the Space Council of a ship in distress that needed to make an emergency landing. Earth was the nearest planet, and a quick calculation told us it would probably land in the ocean near Florida.
I was unprepared for this trip back to Earth, but when is any creature prepared to deal with humans? The Space Commission had decided that I should go because I had the most experience on this planet. Lucky me.
My superiors selected this stretch of the beach as a landing site because the craft we expected needed water to land on. That the area around the beach was largely unpopulated was a plus. The craft’s cloaking system would keep it off the radar of Earth’s satellites’ watchful eyes, but It needed the lighthouse to guide it without hitting the coastline or the submerged rocks.
Once I dragged the lantern back up top, I set the lantern on the table between the electric lights. The moonlight streaming through the wind-worn glass windows gave me enough light to see without my flashlight. The moon had shifted, and the lower angle cast more light into the room. 
I’d set a timer on my ship, and the transmitter I carried beeped. I had ten minutes of Earth time before the ship was due. I climbed back down the stairs to the lower levels of the building, stopping to check each storage closet on the way, hoping to find something to use in the lantern. It wasn’t until I got to the ground floor that I found a couple of kerosene cans in the back room. The size and shape of them told me they were old. One was empty, but the second one was about half full. Grabbing it and an old rusty funnel I spotted lying nearby, I headed back up the stairs.
By the time I reached the top, I was winded again, but I didn’t have time to rest. The beeping on my transmitter was becoming closer and louder. The ship was approaching fast. Scrambling, I  got the can and funnel up on the turntable next to the lantern.
It had been centuries since I messed with an oil lantern, but I managed to get most of the kerosene into the bottom of the lantern. Watching the sky over the water with one eye, I lit the wick with an igniter I carried. The wick didn’t want to burn at first, but after soaking it in kerosene and reinserting it, th flame lit, giving a bright yellow glow. 
By now, the transmitter was beeping non-stop. The incoming ship’s arrival was imminent. I sat the lantern in the window facing the water and watched the sky for the telltale signs of an incoming craft.
There was nothing else I could do until the ship landed. I just hoped one lantern would be enough for the craft to land without crashing into the shore. The full moon would help, but no one knew their landing capabilities and how well they could control the landing.
No cloaking system could hide the sound of the sound barrier being broken as the ship entered the earth’s atmosphere. I was scrambling back down the stairs as the first sounds reached me. By the time I got to the door, the bay was shaking with the impact of the ship as it skidded along the top of the water, barely missing the lighthouse and shaking it to its core as it plowed into the sand not far from the ancient building. I rounded the building to the side of the water just as it settled into the sand. The ship was bigger than I imagined. It was going to be a challenge to make it disappear. 
My small transport fit neatly into an abandoned boathouse nearby, but hiding this large ship was another thing. I knew what humans would make of it. I’d seen their reactions to small extraterrestrial objects found over the centuries. This would blow their collective minds. 
I’d figure out how to hide the ship later. Right now, I needed to find out who and what was inside. Locating what appeared to be a hatch of some kind in the front hull, I headed for it. Carefully. While the passengers were supposed to be non-threatening, I knew better than that. Not all creatures were as docile as reported.
I usually use whatever weapon the planet I’m on uses which generally works well. But I wasn’t dealing with humans, so this time, I brought my planet’s weapon, which is far more powerful than any gun on Earth. It was within reach as I approached the hatch.
The hatch opened slowly, pushing against the sand that built up on the craft as it plowed into the beach. I was ten feet from the door when it was fully open, spilling a yellowish light from inside. The contrast against the black sky made the light seem even brighter.
I waited, not sure what to do. I hadn’t handled an emergency like this before. I knew what the creature inside was supposed to be, but I’d never met one before. After a minute, a small figure appeared at the door. Framed by the yellowish light behind it, It looked almost surreal.
 
Holding out my hand, I slowly walked to the open hatch. “I’m Captain Jacob Jarvis. The Protectorate sent me to help you.” We decided to use my earth name, as it was simple and easy to say. Using my real native name would only confuse things even more. 
“Ah, Captain Jarvis, I’ve always wanted to meet you!”  He grinned what could only be a toothy grin and held out his hand—or what passed as a hand. I shook it. Not entirely sure what to make of him.
“I’m Loomis. They told me they were sending you to rescue us. It was worth the crash to meet you.” This was not what I expected. A small, plump creature that knew who I was and was glad to meet me. 
And what a crash it was. The ship had burrowed into the sand several feet deep at the front. The smell of charred metal and fumes from their engines filled the air. I knew we were running on borrowed time before the humans in the area would come looking to see what they heard. I had to get them out of there quickly.
“Loomis, we don’t have much time before this place crawls with humans. Come with me quickly.”
The mention of humans got his attention, and he turned back inside and hollered something in a language I didn’t know. Within seconds, several more creatures like Loomis appeared behind him.
I swore to myself. This was a problem. I didn’t have the space to carry this much of anything. But right now, I needed them not to be here when the humans arrived.
Staying just on the water’s edge, I lead them away from the ship. Once we were a reasonable distance from the spaceship, we turned up at the beach and headed toward the boathouse. Hopefully, the tide would wipe away the footprints from around the ship.
 
We were no sooner in the mangroves near the beach than the sounds of humans arriving drifted to us. Loomis had secured the hatch just as we left so they couldn’t get inside, but finding the ship was bad enough. I could see a crowd gathered on the beach around the ship, and it had their full attention, so we were safe for now.
I led them into the boathouse where my small transport ship sat, and we decided what to do. There was only one thing to do, and although Loomis didn’t want to do it, he gave me permission to order his ship destroyed from space.
Within minutes of contacting Space Command, the earth shook as the crashed ship vaporized in front of a crowd of people. It took several seconds for it to disappear completely. All that was left was the furrow it had plowed into the sand. 
The moonlight bathed the silent crowd as the water continued lapping at the sand, unperturbed by the sudden disappearance of a strange craft that, minutes before, skirted over it.
My experience with humans told me they would look for us in earnest by daylight. We needed to get out of here before then and preferably off Earth.
I had minimal information before I left. I didn’t know what species Loomis and his kind were, much less why they were traveling or where. Not having a lot of time to sort out details, I focused on getting us out of there before all hell broke loose.
I made in advance in all of the other trips I’d made to Earth, and I could slip into a time and place almost unnoticed. But this being an emergency, I was given a craft and coordinates of where they anticipated a landing and literally dropped in to deal with it.
I had to get us out of here now. The fact that the Earthlings had seen the ship and now it was entirely gone would leave them confused and scared. Scared humans were not something I wanted to deal with.
It would be tight inside with all the extra creatures and weight, but we could handle that. What worried me was that my flight path to get out of the atmosphere was almost directly over the beach we’d just been on, with a crowd of gawking humans prowling all over it, looking for anything that didn’t belong.
They would see us, but there was no choice. We couldn’t stay here.
Opening the boathouse doors, I opened the hatch and got everyone inside. I touched the power relay, and the engines came online. Telling everyone to hold on, I nudged the craft out of the boathouse. A final check and sensors showed the people on the beach and several large vehicles heading towards it. 
In a few minutes, our flight over the bay would only add to their confusion, but I could do nothing about it. I had to take the same path out as I’d taken landing. With a command to Loomis and the others to hang on, I pushed the throttle forwards, and the small craft took to the air.
Within less than a minute, we were approaching the bay where Loomis’s ship had been. Fire trucks and police cars were pulling into the parking lot just off the coast as we passed over them. The roar of our engine got their attention just before we were in sight of the beach.
I pushed the power as far as it could go, and within several seconds we were out of sight of the bay. Only the trail of our engine exhaust was left in the clear night sky as the moon calmly lit the night and the humans standing in shock on the water’s edge below.
                                                                              ***
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                                                                           Epilogue   
My emergency return to Earth had far-reaching consequences, as I had feared all along.
On Earth, videos of the spaceship, its disappearance, and my flight over the beach raised worldwide concerns. The event brought on a renewed search for extraterrestrials and an interest in expanding Earth’s space program.
As for Loomis and his crew, I later found out that they were diplomats from a newly contacted planet on their way to the Space Council to present a case for the admission of their world to the Council.
Their planet contains minerals and other materials desperately needed by Council member worlds. They were in a position to help, but they also needed help. One of the planets near them had been trying to invade them, but they knew they couldn’t hold them off forever and sought the support only the Space Council could give them. 
En route, their enemy attacked and damaged their ship, forcing them to land on the nearest planet. Their distress signal had barely reached the Space Council, who dispatched me upon finding out who they were.
Once I could return to my natural state and have time to reflect on the adventure, I decided I wasn’t ready to retire. I glanced again at the image of the old map and crossed swords. It always made me smile as I knew Deirdre would have approved of the latest mission. 

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The Bridge of  Time

2/9/2023

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The cold wind that blew across the bridge made me feel as ancient as the structure I was standing on. Leaning against the stone rail, I closed my eyes, imagining the clunk of horse hooves striking the stone, the rattle of chains, and the shouting over the clatter made by wheels of the chariots as they came across the bridge. I opened my eyes, but there was nothing to see but the distant horizon. I looked down at the roadbed at the grooves from hundreds of wooden wheels covering the same ground day after day for centuries.
A distant clatter caught my attention. I gazed about, but I was alone on this bridge. There it was again—but more distinct. I remembered the same rattle when I had the vision a few minutes ago. No, it couldn’t be. The days of Roman chariots were long gone, but that didn’t explain what I heard.
The sound became louder as the minutes wore on. Something appeared at the far end of the bridge, and even at that distance, I could make out the shape of a horse and chariot with rider. It occurred to me that I had no weapon or way to defend myself if I had to, but it was too late to worry about that.
I watched, transfixed, as the figures came towards me. Time stood still as the horse and chariot made their way to where I stood. I hadn’t moved a muscle in the entire time. The horse’s whinny, the chains rattling, and the wheels clattering across the stone echoed down the river. I could see the chariot driver, but I didn’t recognize him. There was no reason for me to know him. I wasn’t alive back then.
The horse stopped a few feet in front of me, whinnied, and nodded his head up and down. I admit I was frozen in place, shocked at what I saw. Instinctively I reached to pet the horse, who lowered his head for me to rub his forehead.
The man spoke. “He likes you.” The white horse continued to muzzle my shoulder while I rubbed his face. “You are Captain Jarvis?”
I nodded, not sure how to respond.
“We’ve been looking for you.”
“Looking for me?”
“We have.”
The captain and I assumed he was a captain because the plume color on his helmet seemed oblivious to the fact that I was wearing a modern dress.
“If I may ask, Who is looking for me?”  I rubbed the horse’s head as he seemed to enjoy the attention.
“I’m not at liberty to say, sir. Please come with me.”
“I see.” Letting go of the horse, who nudged me one more time for a final rub on the side of his face.
The back of the chariot was open, with only a chain strung across it to keep the rider from falling out the back. He’d unhooked the chain, and I stepped up into the chariot. I grabbed the handles mounted along the front panel. There was barely room for both of us. Once situated, the driver gave a sharp command, and the horse turned on a dime. The chariot’s wheels barely moved as the cart spun around quickly, and we faced the that he had come. The chariot bounced over every rock and pebble in the road, and I felt every bounce of the small wooden wheels. I concentrated on staying upright and ignored the route we took.
It had been decades since I’d been back to Earth. Earlier trips had me investigating several problems the planet always seemed to have. Each time I stayed for extended periods, often hundreds of years, but I had always stayed in whatever timeline assigned.
I am Captain Jacob Jarvis. While I’m qualified to fly anything from a bi-wing plane to the space shuttle, and I’ve flown most of them at one time and another, I’d never been on a contraption like this.  Space travel had not prepared me for a ride on a Roman chariot. 
In between bounces and jounces, I studied my companion. He looked like the Roman soldier my research had said he should be. Several questions surfaced as I held on for dear life. He’d known my name and, by extension, probably knew who I was, and he hadn’t been surprised to see me standing on the bridge.
Of course, how I got on that bridge was another matter entirely.  But at the moment, I was focusing on staying alive to find out where he was taking me.
While I’d spent many centuries on Earth in multiple times and guises, I’d never been here during the Roman empire era, so my knowledge of the time was minimal. We arrived at a city that didn’t look like any Roman city  I’d read about or seen in a movie.  Tents resembling a cross between dome tents and various styles and shapes I’d seen in my travels over the centuries sat on the outskirts. A glance around told me the people populating them were equally varied as their shelter.
Something was going on. How could people from many centuries live together and not notice their differences in clothes and speech? Given what I know of humans, they rarely tolerate others who are different from them, especially ethnic differences. 
The chariot passed the tent town and continued to the center of the village or town. I wasn’t sure what to call it. The buildings were more substantial, made of adobe, stone, and wood. There didn’t seem to be a general theme or style in any of the buildings. There were carts and wagons of various sizes and shapes from different eras.
No one seemed to take a second notice of a white horse pulling a chariot with two differently dressed people in it as we passed through the streets. I wasn’t sure whether to be troubled or relieved by the lack of attention. We pulled up to a large adobe building, sunlight bouncing off the smooth sides. A large canopy stretched over the main doors giving some shade from the heat of the afternoon sun.
The earliest I’d been here was in the sixteen hundreds. Thinking about that time reminded me of Deidre, her flaming red hair, and her passion for life. I smiled to myself at the memory. I didn’t have much time to dwell on past adventures as the captain escorted me to a large meeting room.
Several people sat at long wooden tables scattered around the room. The table furthest from the door appeared to be the head table. The low hum of conversation halted the second we entered the room as all eyes looked at me.
“Sir, Captain Jacob Jarvis, sir.” The Roman guard announced very formally. With that, he turned on his heels and disappeared the way we’d come.
Taking what little I knew of the situation into account, I took a deep breath and walked toward the head table.
“Sir, Captain Jacob Jarvis, reporting as requested.”
I wasn’t sure who I was reporting to, but I thought it best to continue the tone that Captain had set when he announced me. It was then that I had a chance to look around. At the head table sat several familiar faces.
To the far left sat the roman general Augustus, and next to him was a face I knew too well. Zoman. I’d heard rumors that he might be involved in the situation on Earth. Like everyone else in the room, he wore clothing from his time period. As I looked around the room, I realized that a historian would love seeing the various time periods of a planet all in one place.
I waited for someone to call the room to order. People were sitting around talking in small groups and milling around. The weirdest thing was, as I watched a man dressed in a nineteen-thirties suit talking to a man from the seventeen-eighties, neither seemed to notice the others’ clothes or the other differences in their appearances. In some ways, this was good. I could imagine the situation if they started acting like normal humans, who generally don’t trust people who are different. But the bigger question was what was going on. How did all these people get here? And why?
I glanced at Zoman again. He knew who I was, and he knew I knew him. Who had summoned me and why?
A minute later, there was the dull thud of banging on the head table. Silence fell over the room, and everyone sat down. I stood where I was.
“Captain Jarvis.
“WE understand that you’re an expert on these matters.”
“Ah, sir, an expert would be an overstatement, but I do have some experience with this kind of problem.”   I didn’t tell him who I thought started the whole thing—Zoman. Or that the solution was to restart the Earth and essentially reboot the space-time corundum in this sector of space. Even then, I wasn’t sure it would work. I’d only seen it done once, about a thousand years ago.
Many other questions came to mind as I tried to figure out how to restart Earth without killing everyone on it. Why did we land in the Roman Empire, and what were the ramifications of that alone? It also worried me about the long-term effect on space and time. 
Something like this doesn’t just happen without a lot of help. I knew Zoman was behind it, But I wasn’t sure why, although I had my suspicions—having run into him before and bested him several times over. This was personal. Most of the galaxy knows my affection for planet Earth and my exploits here. There were gigabytes of files on my interactions with humans, particularly several redheaded females with whom I’d crossed paths in my times here. So, this was an easy target to get to me. Well, he got to me. I would deal with Zoman after I figured out how to save the planet.
Several hours later, I was back on my ship. I convinced them I had a way to reverse the time warp that had taken over the planet. The truth was, I had sort of an idea, but even that was worth a try.
After studying the planet and the moon’s rotation, I found an anomaly that made it spin faster than it should, throwing everything into a tailspin and out of time. It still didn’t explain a lot, but it was a start. It was more than possible. I couldn’t thoroughly explain what was happening or why to everyone, but that was a problem for another time. I needed to return the Earth to its correct time and place. Stopping the Earth’s rotation was a huge undertaking, and I couldn’t do that with the equipment I had onboard my ship. I observed the Earth’s core and realized it spun erratically and at different speeds and directions. The time warp was the least of the Earth’s problems. At the rate the core changed direction and speed, so erratically, the Earth would soon explode into a fireball of smoke and gasses that would send the crust and everything on it into a blazing wall of life and death instantly into space. And the Earth would no longer exist.
Now that I identified the core issue, what did I do about it? Using the scanners on my ship, I looked for any unusual magnetic forces that hadn’t been here before. Comparing the data from my previous trips to Earth, I found a new force affecting the Earth and its moon, causing it to deviate from its time-honored path around the planet. After several trips around the Earth and the moon, I located a rogue satellite in a far orbit around both.
Locking onto the satellite, I prepared to destroy it but hesitated. I didn’t know what would happen to the planet when the satellite was not affecting the core. Would the core return to its proper rotation, or would it continue to spin uncontrollably? I had no choice but to fire. It took several blasts from my defensive weapons to destroy the satellite. Eventually, it went up in a ball of fire, quickly extinguished by the lack of oxygen in space, resulting in a floating pile of debris.
I was almost afraid of what I’d find when heading back to the planet as quickly as possible. Coming back from the back of the moon, I was relieved to see the small blue world still where I’d left it. It hadn’t exploded but rotated as if nothing had happened. I scanned the planet, and nothing seemed any different than before, and radio communications were routine as if nothing had happened. I had expected that. 
I watched the reading on the core, and it seemed to slow down to normal behavior but was still somewhat erratic, but the moon had returned to its original orbit path. I had expected that it would, but the Earth’s core was a problem. I need to stabilize it into its normal churning behavior. Another magnetic force change could do it, but it also could make it worse. I quickly dismissed that idea. Playing with large magnets was not a good idea. I decided to wait and see what happened. There was little I could do anyway. Either the core would stabilize and resume proper rotation on its own, or it wouldn’t, and if not, the outcome would likely be catastrophic. Either way, my next stop was back to the planet.
There had been no set time or place to return to the planet. I headed for the coordinates that I had landed at initially and once again, stood on the same stone bridge that I had stood on earlier. 
But this time, there seemed to be a different feel to it. The same bumps in the road I had noticed before were there, but new marks on the stones were visible on the stones—tire tracks from a modern vehicle. I was undoubtedly in the right place, but was it the right time? I could only hope. If time and space were now normal, there was little else for me to do here, except—except for Zoman. I had to deal with Zoman.
It was almost dusk when a lone figure appeared at the end of the bridge. I couldn’t determine who it was until he came much closer, but I suspected who. In the bright sun, I realized that it was indeed Zoman. He had finely chosen to confront me.
He wore the robes he’d worn when I saw him earlier at the roman conference. A new adornment was a belt with several objects hanging from it. 
I was still wearing the casual button-down shirt and slacks of modern dress. Of all the clothing I’d worn over the centuries that I’d been here this was by far the most comfortable and easiest to wear. But no time for worries about comfort as I watched him cross the bridge to meet me in the middle. I sure wasn’t moving to meet him. He’d caused this mess and now was his reckoning time. There was no need to stand on ceremonies anymore. I faced him squarely in the middle of the bridge.
“Zoman.”
“Jarvis.”
We stood a couple of feet apart and faced each other. I could feel his breath as he waited for me to act.
“This is about Deidre, isn’t it?”
He glared at me. “She should have been mine.”
I remember he was obsessed with her at the time. He’d been my backup on this mission, but I didn’t call on him. He knew my feeling towards her. Hell, the whole galaxy knew my feeling for her. I’d caught heat from my superiors over my relationship with a human and the ramifications of it. But it had worked out eventually.
But Zoman didn’t take her rejection of him well and had sworn he’d get even. My repeated visits to the planet over the centuries made his resentment even more personal. He had planned to destroy the Earth and everyone I loved on it and me along with it.
“You knew they would send me. You wanted me dead and didn’t care if you took an entire planet out with me.”
He nodded yes.
“And you were prepared to die right along with it.”
“Yes, if that meant you knew I was responsible.”
I pressed a button on my wrist com. “You get all of that?”
The tiny speaker squawked. “Yes.”
Within seconds, a cadre of armed personnel appeared from nowhere, took Zoman into custody, and disappeared into nothing as they beamed aboard a ship waiting in orbit.
~~~
I stayed on Earth for several more months, monitoring the core and the moon’s orbit to ensure I was ready in case of any lingering issues.  Over time the Earth’s core returned to normal, and the time-space continuum was restored.
I could rest easy that the descendants of my precious Deidre’s great-grandchildren were safe on Earth, my second home.




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The Lights

11/19/2022

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The winds swept across the open fields, at times slightly changing directions. The dark green moss surrounding the pillars that dotted the landscape squished somewhat under my feet as I shivered in the wind. “What in the world am I doing here?” I muttered to myself as I paced around the tall pillars that initially seemed to stick up randomly from the ground. The question is less than about the Moors but about this place.
Though here for many years, the constant wind and cold continued to bother me. The longer I was here, the more I realized there was a pattern to the weather, which surprised me. My home was in a warmer climate, where weather extremes were non-existent. Assigned to this God-Forsaken place had been but another nail in my professional coffin. At this rate, my personal coffin too, and that made me bitter.
                                                                         ***
A phone call from the station in the middle of the night had brought me out of my nice warm house into the early morning cold. Something was going on at the old landmark pillars, and I drew the short stick. Even though I am the sheriff, dispatch informed me that everyone else was on a call. I drove across the rugged roads through the Moors to reach the mysterious landmarks. Villagers had reported strange lights in the area, which was probably nothing, which was why no one else wanted to go.
Whatever the villagers had seen overnight was gone, and I returned to the warmth of my Land Rover. There was something comforting about the slam of the steel door against a steel frame—strong and substantial. Much stronger than I felt. I shivered and cranked the heat as high as it would go. I opened the thermos left in the front seat early that morning, needing caffeine, but the coffee in the thermos was lukewarm and undrinkable. I cracked open the door, dumped the remaining coffee, and shut the door quickly to keep out the wind.
The drive to the village was tedious. What passed for roads out here were little more than ruts and paths, and the early morning dampness and moisture made them slippery. Fortunately, the old Land Rover was up to the task. Twenty tedious minutes of navigating the road away from the moors brought me to the main road leading into the village. Once I got onto a decent road, it took no time to get there.
***
The Bears Claw Pub had just opened for the day. The fire in the hearth was inviting, and I sat at a table near the roaring fire to thaw. Lucy, a plump middle-aged lady with black hair in a loose bun, came over with a coffee cup without asking. Lucy had been one of the few bright spots in the age-old town that still believed in ghosts and goblins. They would probably burn me at the nearest stake if they knew my true identity and origins.
I thanked her and held the warm cup in my hands while I tried to figure out exactly what I’d seen last night. The steam from the cup of liquid life wafted to my nose. The smell of coffee helped bring me back to life and warmed up my cold, tired bones.
While I was too late to see what the villagers saw on the horizon, I did see something, and a nagging thought fluttered in my mind, but I didn’t allow the thought to form.
Lucy returned and sat across from me, leaning forward, her ample bosoms resting comfortably on the table, shielded by her hands which held a large cup of coffee. She grinned almost childlike and finely burst out.
“Well?” She sipped her coffee, waiting, eyes wide open, for my answer.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see anything.” That is not strictly true, I didn’t see anything, but I sure felt something was different. I wasn’t going to tell her that.
“You didn’t see anything?”
“NO. By the time I arrived, whatever it was gone,” I sipped my coffee as an excuse not to say anything more.
Lucy sat upright and swore under her breath. I didn’t blame her as I’d done some swearing this night too.
“Want breakfast?” She changed the subject like last night hadn’t happened. I nodded in the affirmative. She smiled. “Eggs, toast? “
“Biscuits if you got them.”
 She nodded, rose, and disappeared into the kitchen. Lucy had always been friendlier than necessary. In some ways too friendly, and I suspected a small fire burning for me under all that plump exterior. I never did anything about it, although the thought had crossed my mind a few times.
I sipped my coffee, now cool enough to drink. I had seen something out among the old carved stone pillars, but I wasn’t sure what. I couldn’t even tell myself what I’d seen, much less the likes of Lucy. She was a fixture of the old village. Her family had run The Bear Claw Pub since the beginning of time. No one remembered when it had opened. It had always been here. The more I thought about it, Lucy herself had always been here. She was always fun to be around, joking with the customers and childlike in her wonderment of all things unexplained.
 When Lucy returned with my breakfast and a pot of coffee, my coffee was half gone. She slid the plate to me and again sat across from me.
“Tell me more.” She prompted as she poured more coffee for me and refilled her mug.
I busied myself rearranging the food on my plate and munching on biscuits for a few minutes because I was hungrier than I thought and, well, as a stall.
“Not anything to tell. I drove out where you all had seen the lights, and nothing was there. Except for freezing wind and darkness.” I shoved eggs into my mouth so I wouldn’t have to talk anymore.
“There was something there!” Lucy insisted.
“Whatever you saw, it was gone when I got there.”
In between bites, I elaborated on the weather and the pitiful excuses of roads in the area, none of which interested Lucy. Finishing the last morsel of scrambled eggs and a third biscuit, I pushed my empty plate toward her.
“Look, Lucy, I don’t know what to tell you or anyone else. I know you all saw something. I don’t doubt it for a second, but whatever you saw was long gone by the time I got there. Everything looked the same as the last time I was there.”
She nodded as if to say okay, but I knew she didn’t believe me. Hell, I wasn’t sure if I believed myself either, but I wasn’t going to say that.
 “Thanks for breakfast, Lucy,” I stood and laid some money on the table in front of her. She glanced at and collected it.
“That’s too much.”  She tried to hand me back some of the money.
I waved her off. “Keep it. Put it toward next time.”  an
Once outside the old pub, I took some deep breaths and let the freezing air work its way into my lungs. The fire had been nice for about five minutes and then became too hot. I knew the cold would be nice for about two minutes, but by the time the cold was too cold, I was inside my Land Rover. I cranked the heat again after I started it.
I’d been to the Moors before and spent many hours exploring the mysterious ring of stone pillars. I knew exactly how many pillars there were and how far apart they were, even photographed them from the air. But last night was different as if another presence was there. 
I drove to my small cottage on the far side of town, where I showered, and then headed to the station to write the official report of my visit to the Moors. Official? I didn’t even have an unofficial report. 
***
My report was short and vague—only a half-page long. I stated what happened from when I got the call until I left the Moors and what I’d seen there, which wasn’t much. At least not that I could explain to myself or anyone else.
It was a slow day, as it always is in this sleepy town, so I decided to return to the Moors. I filled a thermos with coffee, rummaged through the station refrigerator, and made a couple of sandwiches. I stopped at the local petrol station and filled the tank. As I was paying for the petrol and some snacks, I noticed the old man behind the counter looked like he’d been awake all night. 
“You see the lights last night?”  I asked while paying for the petrol.
He nodded yes and counted my change.
“Yeah, what time? “
He looked up from counting and seemed to look past me toward the Moors in the distance. “Can’t say exactly, but it was late. I know that.”
“You remember anything else?”
“I’d seen them before, but never this bright or as long. They seemed to stay for a spell.”
“You’ve seen them before. When?”
“I don’t know, a few times over the last few years. Usually, they don’t last, flash on and off. But last night…” his voice trailed off.
I finished for him. “They stayed on a long time..” He nodded yes, and I asked. “Who else saw them?”
“I don’t know, probably everybody awake. They were pretty bright.”
I thanked him and headed for the Rover.
                                                                               ***
The drive to the Moors was just as bad in the daylight as last night in the dark. The only difference is that I could see to avoid some of the worst potholes and ruts in what passed as a path on the outer regions of the land.
I quickly found the same place I’d been to last night and parked in the same tire tracks. The fog had started to lift some by the time I got there. The stone pillars looked just as lost and forlorn as they had last night, and the ground was still as soggy and damp as it had been last night. My footprints still showed in a few places. Shivering in the ever-shifting winds, I wandered around the site again.
In the dead of night, with only my headlights and a torch to look around, I couldn’t see much. Even in the daylight and with the ever-present cloud cover, it wasn’t easy to get my bearings.
I couldn’t find an obvious source for the lights seen from the village miles away. My phone barely had any signal out here, but I could pull up text flooded with pictures of the lights. The photos were pretty much useless. 
Pulling my binoculars from the back of the Rover, I stood where I could make out the village through the fog that hung over the area as a blanket to keep the sun from warming up the region. It had been foggy last night as well.
Scanning the horizon, I found the church or, rather, the steeple of the old church. I steadied the binoculars by resting my arms on the hood of the Rover and could barely make out tiny shapes moving in the fog. A glance at my watch told me it was time for the morning confessional. Many villagers would undoubtedly be in church to confess what they’d seen last night to the priest.
Villagers saw lights coming from here. What could make lights bright enough to cut through the thick fog and be seen a few miles away? There was nothing here that hadn’t been here all along—just the tall stone pillars with strange markings on them. The marking had been copied long ago and studied. They resembled Gaelic letters or, perhaps, another dead language.
The ground was too soft to hold any heavy equipment without at least leaving a deep imprint or mark. So, nothing was brought In, and there were no other footprints than my own from last night.
But I had seen something. The mist diffused my headlights and torch in the foggy darkness, so I couldn’t be sure what I had seen. Yet, I knew something had been here with me last night. I vaguely remember movement in the distance, just out of reach of the headlights.
I worked my way out from the flat area surrounding the pillars into the grassier land that was the fields that made up most of the ridge. Looking towards the village with my binoculars, I saw no more than I had before. I turned to head back to the Rover when I caught movement up by the pillars. Something was up there.
My heart pounded as I ran on the damp uneven ground, but I made it back to the pillars as fast as possible. Panting from the exertion and excitement, I caught my breath as I approached the clearing.
He was leaning against the front fender of the Rover, hands in his pockets and a hat pulled down low over his face to keep the wind off.
“It’s about time.”
Between breaths, I managed to speak. “You could have called. I thought we only used the lights to scare the people on this planet.”
“Yes, but then I wouldn’t have all the fun of watching them.”  He nodded towards the town across the valley. “I used the cover of the lights to drop in, but you didn’t see me before I got pulled away. The lights were stronger because they kept trying to pull me out, and I kept moving out of the beam’s reach.”
“What you want?” I leaned against the fender next to him, panting.
“My, my, you’re out of shape. You are getting too soft on Earth.” He observed. I glared back at him. “I didn’t dare call. You know how they like to scare people.”
I nodded yes. “Yes, I knew they used the lights to keep people from coming here, as this is the easiest place to beam on and off the planet. I never realized they were using the ancient pillars for their amusement.”
He laughed. “Had you fooled too.” He became serious. “I just got word there’s another attack coming. This one is a doozy, Going to kill many people.” 
 “You can’t stop it?”
 He shook his head no. “Too many variants and impossible to track until it hits.”
“Then whatever is going to attack is already here?
“That it is. Give me your arm.”
I held out my arm, and he slid my sleeve up and pressed the steel injector against my upper arm. “That should protect you, and it won’t appear on their test.”
“What about you?” I rolled my sleeve back down.
“I’m leaving. I got a new assignment.”
“So, you’re just going to leave me on this planet alone?”
“You won’t be by yourself, and someone will check-in. We need you to catalog the invasion. Good luck.”
 With that, a flash of light blinded me for a minute, and my friend was gone.
                                                                            ***
I spent the next two years recording the effects of Covid and reporting the results to my home planet. As observers of Earth, we were not allowed to interfere. A pity as many died, for my friend was right. This one was a doozy. 




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All The Water In The World

8/23/2022

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​Old swords and maps always brought back memories. This one brought memories of a lifetime ago—several lifetimes ago, to be exact—and with it, the face of Deidre with her roguish ways, fiery red hair, and fierce independence. 
She was as dangerous as she was beautiful. Theirs had been a love that had blossomed in the torment of the seas. Her ship was one of few of his equals, but time and the sea had not been kind to either of them. The sea took her away from him. 
He’d memorized the exact location where her ship had gone down. As he muttered the coordinates to himself, special memories returned. Easing back in his worn leather chair, Captain Jacob Jarvis folded his hands together and let his mind wander back over the centuries to 1638. He had just boarded the Spanish ship as the early morning sun streaked across the water and greeted the ship’s captain.
The Spanish ship had fought bravely against his much bigger galleon but inevitably surrendered her crew and cargo. The swords now hanging in his cabin had been taken from that captain. 
That had been many centuries ago. He relaxed in his quarters, staring at the twinkly stars through the large porthole as he recalled more recent events. The year was 1939, and the ships he once sailed had evolved into steamships and ocean liners that now crossed his path. He remembered as a young lad crossing the wake of the Titanic on April 12, 1911, and marveling at how big and beautiful she was. Her lines seemed to glide across the water. To be the captain of such a ship would be the perfect ending to a sea-faring career. He sighed. History recorded the fate of the Titanic only a few days later. The Titanic holds a mysticism that few other ships have today.
Jacob let his eyes roam his quarters. Pictures and trinkets he had collected over several lifetimes covered the walls and shelves. A small black and white photo hung not far from a news clipping about the Titanic sinking. In it, a face framed in short curly hair smiled at the photographer. The leather jacket and headgear she wore were recognizable now. Amelia Earhart. He’d meet her briefly on a small island in the Pacific not long before her final attempt to fly around the world. He smiled at the brief encounter. Even as busy as she was and under pressure, she was warm and funny. He had followed her route by sea and discovered her fate, but he would never reveal it. He and his crew were never supposed to be there, and he swore them to secrecy which they never broke.
Each life Jacob lived had changed him ever so slightly. With each reincarnation, he’d sensed himself becoming older faster. At first, he hadn’t noticed. He had been so busy living each life, throwing himself into the throes of his adventures. Another picture caught his eye. His old friend Humphry Bogart and his lovely wife Betty, as he called her, but the rest of the world knew her as Lauren as they stood on the deck of his sailing yacht, Santana. Jacob had sailed his schooner into the harbor and joined the Bogarts for the evening. Soon afterward, Bogart sent him a copy of the photo with the caption, To my sailing friend, fair winds, and calm seas.
More than two hundred years later, that photo and many photos of redheads hung in his cabin. It seemed he always had a thing for redheads since the beautiful Deidre. Redheads always captured him in some way. They were strong, independent, willing, and able to meet any man head-on and win most of the time.
His eyes caught Helen’s photo taken in the early nineteen forties, during World War II. He’d met that beautiful redhead on a dock in New York City as she disembarked a transatlantic ship bringing refugees from war-torn Europe. He’d been working with the merchant marines and escorting allied ships. His ship had docked to resupply before returning to duty, and he was standing on the dock when she appeared.
He remembered the war years fondly. In some way, it had been the most exciting life he’d had. The danger and possibility of being killed had given him a rush he hadn’t had since he’d boarded a Spanish Galleon three hundred years before. And Helen? Coming home to Helen had also been a thrill of a different kind. But like every other woman he loved in his lifetimes, she wasn’t to be with him long. She passed before he renewed again. Aching from losing Helen, he vowed never to let a woman get that close again. But then, he knew his history. Ladies liked him, and frankly, he needed them.
Jacob pulled a couple of old logbooks from the shelves and began to read the details of all his lives that he had recorded. The evolution of his handwriting over the centuries amused him. It had been large and flowery at one time, the words filling more pages than they should have but easy to read. A logbook from a hundred years later showed how he’d developed into writing smaller and cramming more onto a page—most of the time making it harder to read. He laughed to himself. No one read these things, but Jacob knew someone would eventually read them. He never understood his reason for being, yet he had a strong need to write about his life and his lust for adventure and danger. Both of which he’d chased many times over.
He laid the logbooks on his desk as a feeling of déjà vu swept over him. He always sensed the time for his renewal was close. His life was always different, but his passion for sailing and exploring never waned. But alas, Captain Jacob Jarvis knew his time as a sea-faring captain and pirate was winding down. He could feel the age in his bones and a new age dawning on the sea-covered planet he loved so much.
As he had many times before, he would be reborn and become a new Jacob Jarvis with the memories and experience of the Jarvis of old. And history would record his new adventures. As he slipped off to sleep one last time, the ship swayed as it altered course, heading for port to be re-outfitted. A port he never reached.
                                                                              ~~~
Captain Jacob Jarvis leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. Memories tugged at him as he reflected on the early days when he had begged and stolen enough money to finance a small rocket-powered ship. He started running freight for the early space stations and soon returned to his old pirate ways. Battling and boarding space freighters had differed from his sea-faring days, but the adventure and challenge kept him alive.
Now, in his current life, he was more than a pirate. After several centuries on Earth as a sea captain, he had learned all there was to know about the Earth’s water, the creatures that lived below it, and the ones that sailed it. That experience had become essential.
“Captain Jarvis, nice to have you back with us.”
Jacob Jarvis grinned at the image on his viewscreen. “Nice to be back, Commandant. It was quite the experience.”
What seemed like centuries and several lifetimes had been a very short time in his native timeline. The crisis facing his people was severe, and they had devised a plan to send him back in time to Earth to learn all he could about the oceans and the ecosystem. The time jumps took him across the ages until they had gathered information.
“Captain Jarvis, what is your final report on Earth’s water supply? Can we mine enough to save the planets in need in our system?”
“Sir, no, I don’t think so. Not now, anyway. When I first arrived, the waters were free and clear, but now so polluted, and with the severe drought they have suffered for decades, the humans, as they call themselves, monitor every drop of water taken from the oceans. There’s no way to mine the water without them finding out. The sad thing is that soon it won’t matter for them either. They’ve ruined their seas and waterways, and the damage to their ecosystem is unrepairable. We condemn them to their fate even sooner if we take water from them. We need to look somewhere else.” 
The commandant nodded. “Let’s hope some of your colleagues in the search program in other systems have had better luck. Perhaps with enough luck, we can save Earth as well. Good work, Captain.” The screen went dark.
A sharp pain tugged at Jacob’s heart as he reported his findings. He had enjoyed being Jacob Jarvis, Earth sea captain, but it was time to return to being Jacob Jarvis, spaceship captain. Before leaving his quarters to return to the bridge, he looked at the memories hanging on his walls.
He was going to remember those redheads.

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The Incident

11/28/2020

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The car skidded sideways, its rear end swinging to the right as he hit the brakes.
John sat panting, catching his breath. Whatever was in the road was not from here.
It had appeared almost in front of him. With no room to maneuver out of the way, he slammed on the brakes, and at seventy-five mph, it had taken a bit of road to stop. By the time he stopped his car, what he had seen and tried to avoid had vanished. As if it had never been there.
He closed his eyes, willing his breathing to return to normal. It was there all right. He’d seen it. Opening them again, he looked around the flat desert landscape that seemed to go on forever. There was nothing there.
John exited the car and stood, hands on hips, wondering what had just happened. He had seen an object the size of a large horse, but it was not a horse, but something else. He’d only seen it for a few seconds, just enough time to register that it was in front of him, and he was about to hit it. When the car stopped, he was well past where the being would have been if it had still been there. Which it wasn’t. No body of a large being—no blood or other signs of a car at extreme speed, hitting a creature of any kind. Nothing but a deserted road and acres of sand and scrub brush around him.
He got back into the car and jumped when the door slammed shut. No blood or other signs of a creature of any kind struck by a vehicle at extreme speed. Starting the car, he maneuvered back into the correct lane and pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator. The speedometer quickly climbed back to the speeds it had been resting at before the “incident.” That’s what he’d call it to himself. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever tell anyone else about it as they would never believe him. The skid marks on a deserted desert road proved that something had happened, but he was unable to explain it to himself, much less anyone else.
As he drove away, he failed to notice a glint of the sun on a pair of binoculars in the distance. Nor did he see the small stone moving on its own toward the side of the road.


                                                              ***
At the same moment, a mile or so behind John, the captain stopped his car just short of the wood barriers that blocked the road. The sign attached said, “Road Closed.”
Old habits die hard, and he glanced around as if there were anyone who could see him in the outer reaches of a desert. It took barely a swing of the wheel to maneuver his car around the barricade that blocked the road. But the captain knew that the road-closed sign was misleading. The road was missing.
And he knew why.
The captain had seen the other car almost hit the alien that strayed too far from its crash site. The scare had caused it to regenerate spontaneously, and it became a rock that skidded into the gravel when the car stopped after barely missing it. He’d seen the whole thing. The guy got out and looked around. Even from his vantage point a mile away, he could tell the encounter had shaken the man up. He didn’t blame him.
The captain changed his form to match the parameters his computer gave him back at the crash site. He then “borrowed” a car from a farmer’s driveway several miles away. It had taken him a few minutes to learn to drive such a primitive contraption, but it was the standard way for natives to travel, so he assimilated as quickly as he could.
Now it was time to see if he could get his crew and his ship off this godforsaken planet.
He stopped the car near where the native had nearly killed his crew member and turned it off. He wondered if he could get it started again. Machines had never been his thing, so fixing this mechanical monster would be out of the question if it didn’t restart.
“You okay?” He spoke in his native tongue as no one was within a hundred miles.
The small pebble regenerated itself into its former size and shape. “Where did THAT come from?”
“It’s called a car. They use them for transport. I borrowed one, so we could travel without raising more suspicions.”
“What are you doing?” The younger eyed his captain’s strange form. “You look very uncomfortable in this thing.” He motioned to the car.
“I changed shape to a native form, so I wouldn’t scare the natives—like you just did.” He opened a back door. “Get in.”
The younger one stared at him as if he were crazy, but the captain nodded yes. Following orders, it shrank down small enough to fit in the back of the car and slammed the car door.
The captain turned the key. They both jumped when the engine roared back to life.
“This is loud!” the younger one complained.
As the captain had become accustomed to his new form, he found he liked the mobility of legs compared to his natural state. He knew that keeping the form for long would quickly drain his energy and cause his thinking to slow down. He needed all the energy he could get as long as he could.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the road closure sign. The captain eased past the closed-road sign that he had generated when he realized that he had crashed on the road, and his scans showed frequent travel. It looked real enough but would soon disappear into the subspace as the structure broke down.
He didn’t have long to get his ship off the planet. His cloaking device wouldn’t last long, and his ship would be visible to the natives. His limited research had already told him it wouldn’t end well for anyone.
At the crash site, the captain stopped the car, and he and his young passenger exited. He regenerated into his natural form, but the sun and heat were already slowing his reaction time in his natural state. Regenerated, he’d have to work fast.


                                                               ***
John was only a few minutes down the road when he remembered the “road closed” sign on a side road. He had passed that road late yesterday, and there was no sign. He mused to himself. “So, what closes a road this fast? There hasn’t been any flash flooding, no earthquakes, no construction in this area.” He hit the brakes hard for the second that morning, and the car skidded to a stop, it’s rear end halfway across the ribbon of pavement.
John eased the car around and headed back the way he came, but this time not so fast. He slowed further as he approached the spot where his incident occurred. He stopped and exited the car. Standing next to the front fender, John could see the fresh skid marks, tire tracks, and make out the gravel’s skid pattern that blanketed the edges into the pavement.
He hopped back in the car and continued at a slow speed retracing his path. He watched the side roads that opened up at odd intervals along the main road. Some came in at wild angles almost parallel to the main road. A couple came up from ravines and appeared only as patches of gravel along the main road.
He was looking for a regular dirt road, relatively flat and level with the local ground. It should be on his right traveling in this direction. Yep, he was right. There it was. A road closed sign just as he remembered from earlier.
He stopped the car in the gravel along the pavement and exited the vehicle. He looked around, but there was no one in sight. He walked up to the sign
Getting out, he looked around. There was no car in sight.
Walking up the gravel along the road, he stopped short. There was a tire track leading around the barricade. He got back in the car and made a wide berth around the road-closed sign as he drove around it.


                                                             ***
At the crash site, the captain was busy. He and his younger subordinate set up a perimeter cloaking device that made everything appear as it should be.
Inside the cloaking field, he was busy assisting his crew. Most were fine, but a couple had spontaneously regenerated into forms they couldn’t reverse. Those were a problem, but not his biggest problem.
He was fortunate his ship was undamaged, but he needed to power it up again, and that would require more energy than he was able to generate here. The ship was running on auxiliary power, and life support and main computers and sensors were working for now. He needed power, or the ship would be dead on a random planet he didn’t know existed. Sensors indicated a power source located not from the ship, but how to get the power from where he needed it?

 
                                                              ***
John hadn’t been on this old side road in decades. About a mile or so down the road, he slowed down, sensing that something was amiss. A chill came over him as he approached an old, abandoned farmhouse on the right. Stopping the car at the mouth of what had once been a driveway up to the main house, he got out.
He shivered as he slammed the car door shut. He knew the temperature should be into the upper nineties, and he should be sweating even after a brief time standing in the sun. But the chill continued. He walked up the worn-out driveway muttering to himself. “Why did I stop here.” Something was not right, but he was clueless to tell what it was.


                                                              ***
At the crash site, a sensor beeped. The captain stopped what he was doing as he read the display panel. It indicated a presence at one of the outside perimeter stations. And something else, the ambient temperature of the air around the perimeter was at least twenty degrees cooler than it should be. He had seen a similar reading other times he’d used the cloaking shields.
The data told him the intruder was a native from the height, weight, and body mass recorded. He wondered if it was the native he had seen almost hit his crew member earlier in the day.
The captain paused for a second, considering his options, but he didn’t have any. He needed help. This native appearing on the sensors was the only higher life form showing in the area. He had to try.


                                                               ***
John glanced at his watch and realized the second hand wasn’t moving. What the…? It was a new automatic watch. The rotor inside spun around a pivot whenever he moved, thus winding the mainspring constantly. As long as he was moving, the watch was winding. It should be working, but it was not. The second hand hadn’t moved.
Something was wrong. He was shivering from the cold air that shouldn’t exist, not with the sun beating down in the middle of the day. He was cold. Looking around, he could see the sun shining directly above him. And his watch didn’t work when it should.
He walked back toward his car. Standing about where he was before, he looked back toward the house and realized there seemed to be a haze surrounding the driveway and the land surrounding it. The air away from the house was clear to the distant mountain range.
What was happening?
 

                                                               ***
The captain decided what he was going to do.
Rechecking his scanners to make sure there were no other natives around, he transformed into a native form. The effort would deplete his limited energy, but he needed help.
The captain pushed a couple of buttons on a panel near his ship’s main hatch, stepped out, and walked toward the perimeter of the cloak.

​

                                                               ***
In the distance, John thought he saw a movement. Standing very still and covering his eyes from the sun, he observed as he detected movement coming from the old farmhouse. A figure came toward him and passed through the haze, which appeared to part then close behind the image.
John stood silently, barely breathing. Someone or something was walking toward him when he should have been alone. On the other hand, after this morning’s incident, anything was possible.
The figure was at least as tall as his six-foot frame but thinner, and his clothes seemed to be a hodgepodge of assorted styles from different eras. He wore a fedora and horn-rimmed glasses from decades ago. The rest of the outfit looked like it was scavenged from a thrift shop somewhere.
John was mostly fascinated by the figure’s face. It seemed to be familiar. It wasn’t until he was close enough to see the figure’s face that he realized who it was.
“Roger?” John whispered almost to himself.
“John?” The captain had no idea that the form he took looked like a form he’d taken decades ago.
“You’re the captain of the starship Galaxy Chipper?”
“How did you know that?” John’s face slowly came into focus to the captain.
Then it came to him.
“John, Johnny Starr...?”
“Yes, and you are Roger, Roger Major, we met back on Earth’s Mars a few decades ago.”
“Yeah, right. Now I remember. What are you doing here?”
“I got assigned here to try to keep them from blowing themselves up.”
“Yeah, the paperwork when a planet blows up is a bitch.”
“How’d you get here?”
I crashed, actually ran out of power, and landed back here.”
The captain gestured behind him to the old farmhouse.
“Yeah, I thought I recognized the signs of a cloaking device, but it’s been so long I’d forgotten. What do you need to get going again?”
“Power.”
“Power I have. There’s a substation not far from here. We’ll give you a jump. Oh, I must have almost hit one of your crew this morning.”
“Yeah, no problem. He’s fine, but I have a couple that shifted into odd shapes, but nothing I can’t handle.”
It took a couple of hours to transfer enough power for the captain’s ship to break through the atmosphere. As the ship faded from his view, John felt a slight longing to go with them.
However, he had a mission here to complete.
Returning to his car, John continued on his journey to Washington, D.C., to hopefully save the planet.

​

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Fly Me to the Moon

7/27/2020

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Picture
The sky was clear. Blindingly clear.
The sun hid behind what few clouds there were.
 Without direct sight of the sun, he couldn’t get a fix on which way he was going. The dunes had long ago started to look all the same to him. Sand dunes and mountains often changed their shape or completely disappeared over time. Using one as a landmark was a newbie trick, and he was far from a newbie.
He was down to rationing water and food. Suppose he didn’t find civilization soon. It wouldn’t matter which direction he was going. He wouldn’t be going in any direction—ever again.
He didn’t want to become one of the many sets of bones found by travelers decades later with only a few small bits of clothes or leather to identify them. Investigators referred to them as “Desert” bones and stored them in a special section of the capital city morgue, but unless he found help soon, he would become what he feared.
His compass said he was going in the right direction, but compasses can be wrong. Magnetism and other factors could cause the needle to fluctuate. Being off even by a little can be enough to put you in the wrong direction or to miss a destination. Without direct sight of the sun, he couldn’t use his watch to confirm which direction he was going.
***
The mountain of sand loomed before him. The shade that it offered was tempting. The bright glare of the sun on the brown sand brought back memories of snow in the mountains when the white glare of the sun on the packed snow blinded him. Shade would be good.
He felt compelled to head for the mountain of sand, but he knew the dangers of the dunes. If the sand were loose, one wrong step and his foot could become buried and trap him. He didn’t know what it was drawing him to the Sand Mountain. He only knew he needed to get there.
 It took him some time to eke out a path to the dune. He was lucky as the wind had packed the sand around the dune, and he could walk on it. He headed for the side that had the shade. Occasionally he’d place a hand against the sand to steady himself as he picked his way over the small crevasses that the wind had dug into the base as it wound its way around the dune, which appeared to be several hundred feet high.
He was near the shade when he touched the sandy wall, and it was cold and hard. He stood still, shocked. A very slight breeze of fresh air caressed his face. But where did it originate? Cautiously, he moved his hand toward the wall again and felt the coolness reached his hand even before touching the sand. The wall should have been hot, but it wasn’t. The longer he kept his hand against the sand, the colder it became. The chill traveled up his arm, cooling his skin from the effects of the glaring sun and heat. While it was noticeably cooler in the shade, this was completely different. His arm seemed to generate the source of his drop in body temperature.
He walked a few paces until he was in full shade. Shifting his footing, he turned toward the wall and placed both hands against the surface. The sand was colder, and the cold started to work its way along his arm. Within a couple of minutes, his arms felt cool, as if the chill emanated from inside his body. He stood there for some time, not moving. The reason he found himself in the desert faded from his mind. At this point, it didn't matter. All he knew was he was tired. Muscles and joint that he didn't realize he had called to him. He was plain tired and had no idea exactly where he was. But at the moment he didn’t care. He was comfortable again. For that, he was grateful, but how and why?
Slowly the chill worked his way over his body. First, his arms then his shoulders, and upper chest, eventually down to his feet, still wearing the leather chukka boots he had on when his adventure had started. He wanted to lie in the shade and rest. He was careful as he stepped away from the wall not to disturb the sand and cause an avalanche that would bury him. When he found a suitable spot, he laid down and quickly fell asleep.
***
It was dark when he woke up. His watch said it was almost midnight. When he originally sat down, it was only to rest his legs and enjoy the coolness of the shade and the sand. Not to fall asleep for hours. It occurred to him he wasn’t cold. The desert is known for its wide temperature swings. In the day, it can easily reach more than a hundred degrees, and at night, as low as thirty degrees. He had left without a blanket in the meager supplies he had with him. Standing up, he walked around to get his legs and arms moving again. For several minutes, he realized the further away from the dune the colder he got. Whatever was in the sand was keeping him warm, just as he had cooled him off earlier today.
Standing where he had been earlier in the day when he’d put his hands on the wall and felt cold radiating from the sand, he placed his hands in the same. He immediately felt the warmth of the sand ebb through his hand’s arms, and into the rest of his body.
 He tied several other places along the same wall. He got the same results. The warmth of the sand engulfed his hands when he laid them. Looking up into the sky, he saw the dots of stars as far as his eyes could see. The moon cast a long reflection from the sun over the desert, thankfully lighting up what the dark desert night. He could see dunes in the distance, their dark sides casting eerie shadows across the landscape. At least he was warm here, so he stayed put. He stayed put.
 **
Morning came all too quickly. As the sun worked its way up over the desert, the heat soon increased. The shadows of the dunes changed direction dramatically throughout the early morning, and he was no longer in the shade.
He knew he couldn’t stay next to the dune forever. No matter how cool and warm it kept him. He had to get back to civilization soon. But he wasn’t in any hurry to start his trek across the remainder of the desert. Especially since he had no idea how much more he had to go.
“Do not go.”
He stopped short and looked around, not seeing anyone. He scanned the terrain, no one. But he’d heard it as clear as day. The voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. He spun around and looked at the wall of sand he had been preparing to leave.
“Please, do not go.” The voice spoke again.
“What? Who are you? Where are you?” He managed to get out. As he hadn’t spoken a word in several days, his mouth was having trouble remembering how to work.
“Come closer.”  The voice seemed to come from the sand itself. He stepped back deeper into the shadows and touched the grainy surface.
This time, along with the coolness, he felt something hard, just under the outside layer of sand. There seemed to be something else. Something that wasn't sand. He brushed the sand a little with his hand, expecting more sand to replace it instantly.
 It didn't.
Brushing more, he saw the sand slide down to the ground. It formed a small pile next to his feet. Over a minute or two of brushing lightly, he revealed a structure hidden just under a layer of sand. A large metal wall of some kind appeared as he continued to sweep the covering away.
He stood staring.
“What the Hell?” The only words he could muster. On the metal wall was a familiar symbol.
 It took a minute, but he remembered seeing it in a museum years ago. It had been in a display of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. He had no idea why he remembered that particular symbol only to find it in the middle of a desert some twenty years later.
He touched the surface and found it was cool. Just as the sand that had covered it had been. For lack of any ideas of what to do, he knocked on the panel. To his sunrise, the panel moved.
He jumped back slightly as it slid to the side—the door burying itself into the sand that covered the rest of the object. The sand above the door dropped to cover his boots. He shook the sand loose and, taking a deep breath, stuck his head inside the doorway. There was a room, but it was hard to tell how large the room was from outside.
“Come in.” 
He stepped inside as invited to do and noted several things. A long couch strewn with many pillows sat along one wall. A counter of some sort sat beyond the couch. He found it difficult to see in the dimly lit room.
He paused, trying to take in his new surroundings. The sound of the door almost silently closing behind him barely registered in his mind as the voice spoke again, his attention drawn to the far side of the room.
“You are safe here.”
 
He turned towards the sound of the voice, and without thinking, approached the figure sitting the glow of light that seemingly came from nowhere.
The human-looking man with the soft voice, and dressed in long flowing robes, stood to greet him. He extended his hand, and the man hesitated, then took it. He wondered how this person living inside a mountain of sand would know of modern protocol, but then he was unsure exactly what the protocol was either.
“I am Erron.”
“Who? Where did you come from? How?”
“Please relax. Sit, as I will explain in time.” Erron stood up and steered him toward one of the couches. As he sat down, he tried to form words and questions, but nothing came out. Erron put his long finger to his lips and schussed him, then sat next to him.
“You must be hungry.” He nodded. At the mention of food, he realized how hungry he was.
 Erron rose and walked to the other side of the room, where an array of machines sat. Punching a code into what looked like a microwave, he returned carrying a tray with several dishes on it. A table appeared out of the floor right in front of him.
“I hope this is to your liking. I am unsure what people eat as it has been eons since I have had a guest.”
As he ate, he found the food was excellent, although he wasn’t sure what some of it was. He knew better than to ask. Sometimes you were better off not knowing what it is. A lesson he learned years before. The drink served was a coffee-like that seemed to satisfy the need that coffee would fill back at home. Home—he hadn’t thought of that in several days.
As he finished the last of the food and sipped the drink, he leaned back on the couch, more comfortable than he’d been in many days, perhaps even weeks. It dawned on him that he was too comfortable, but at the moment he didn't care. His belly was full, and he was neither too hot nor too cold. And for the moment, he didn't feel like he was in immediate danger of death from any number of venues, including mother nature or other forces. He relaxed.
“Okay, Erron, tell me what's going on?”
Erron cleared the tray and returned with a cup in his hand. He sat back down across from him and appeared lost in thought for a moment.
“You never told me your name.”
“You didn't ask. It's Robert, Robert Manning.” He didn't feel like explaining how he had wound up in the middle of a desert. He only had a vague memory of people wanting something from him and that he had fled. Instead, he changed the subject.
“Better question is who you are, what are you doing here?” Now he was full, he felt the brain fog lift and was able to think.
Erron appeared perplexed as if he were trying to form an answer to a complicated question.
 “I was exiled to Earth several eons ago. I expected to die here before I served my sentence. Sometimes I wished I had. However, in a cruel stroke of fate, I survived and learned to adapt to this planet. He waved a hand around in front of him, gesturing towards the room as a whole. “This is all I have left. I have lived here for the last several hundred years, alone. I have had an occasional visitor to the dune. Some managed to uncover the door, and I watched them trace the symbol. I have monitored your communications, but no one seemed to give this place a second thought.”  Erron rose and walked to the far side of the room. Robert followed him.
“I saw that symbol in an exhibition years ago. For some reason, I remembered it.” Robert paused then asked the question he wasn’t sure he wanted Erron to answer. “Uh, why were you exiled?” 
“Because I stood up for what was right, and the powers did not like it.”
“Powers?”
“Yes, the Council of Planets did not like that I wanted to run my homeworld fairly and honestly. They were only interested in what goods and profit they could get from my world. They didn't care what happened to the inhabitants, and that is when I stood up to them.”  He lowered his head. “They drove me from my world, and I have been here ever since.”
“Can you go back?”
“I do not know. I have never tried it.”
 “Maybe it's time you went back and reclaimed your world, Your life.” Robert couldn’t believe the words that just came out of his mouth. A day ago, he had wandered in a desert close to dying. Now he was telling an alien being he’d barely met an hour ago at most, to go home again.
“You are right. I should go back. I have outlived the length of my sentence.” The change in his voice was startling as he no longer sounded dejected or forlorn.
“I’ve been here on earth studying it for longer than I can remember. I know more about how to govern then I did before. I am going back, and you are coming with me.”
“Me? I can’t go planet-hopping with you. I have a life here.”
“No, I am sorry. I should have told you this, but as soon as you stepped inside, your time on earth ceased. This capsule is not only a space vessel but also a time chamber. Time does not exist here. I can see what happens in the world, but I cannot affect it. However, once home, I can implement the things I learned here. Do not despair. To your world, you are just another missing desert walker, lost and buried in the sands like the others I’ve watched die here over the eons.”
Robert turned away. Overcome at the idea that he no longer existed in his world, but he considered how his life had been up until today. His marriage was over, his kids never spoke to him, and it occurred to him, there wasn’t much to like about his life. Besides, he remembered why he was in the desert. He owed gambling debts, and the goons dropped him in the desert with little food and water and told him if he survived, they’d forget his debts, then laughed. Last laugh was on them. He was dead, and he’d survived. How about those odds. He sighed. In short, he had no reason to stay. He turned back to face Erron, the song “Fly Me to the Moon” playing in his head.
Robert stuck his hand out. Erron took it.
“Okay. When do we leave?” 








  




 







 





 






 


 
 

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