part 7

"Dr Janus, how nice to see you again." He walked slowly into the room, his hands clasped behind his back, looking around him and nodding his head. "I can't begin to tell you how delighted I am that you are still among the living. I must confess I was of the mind that you had perished in the unfortunate episode that occurred after our last meeting. You really must tell me sometime how you managed to effect your escape. For the present however, my interest is consumed by the circumstances in which we find ourselves.”

Adam spoke. “Still pontificating I see.”

Pike ignored this as he looked intently at the time machine.

“My, you have been productive these last five years! I hesitate to think how productive you might have been under my patronage, but nonetheless, it appears you have completed your mission without it, and you are to be commended. Compensated as well, I will see to that."

He looked at me. "Ms Vorta, permit me to introduce myself, I am Roland Pike, perhaps our young friend has spoken of me. I must say, you are indeed as beautiful as I anticipated, I understand why Dr Janus is so captivated."

I said nothing. Adam spoke again.

"How did you find me?"

"I try to leave nothing to chance Dr Janus, and I have access to considerable resources. As you will understand, I have long been curious about the events that occurred after I left your company that fateful evening, but some have occupied my interest more than others, such as why the passenger seat in your vehicle was covered with broken windshield glass and the driver's seat was not.
“As a consequence, however remote the possibility you might have escaped that unfortunate incident, I elected to have Ms Vorta's telephone monitored, just to be sure. Did you think five years would be enough time to see us abandon our scrutiny? Really, telephone surveillance is a trifle and I had arranged for it to continue as long as she remained alive, or I did. You see how my attention to detail has been rewarded? And I must thank you for the delay between the time you made contact with Ms Vorta and the time you departed, otherwise I might not have had adequate opportunity to arrange to have you followed here. I have only just arrived myself, though I boarded a jet within twenty minutes of your call to the young lady."

He had made his way closer to the machine and leaned over the console.

"I take it this display indicates your intent to travel to a time one hour in advance of this present moment?”

There was no reply and he continued as if he expected none.

“Impressive. Most impressive. The word awesome is much overused in these times, but I must say it certainly applies here. This does indeed inspire awe. An actual, working time machine. Dr Janus, once again I must offer you my congratulations. This is a triumph of stunning proportions. This may be the most magnificent achievement in the history of the human race, and I do not exaggerate. Next to it, manned flight, the telephone, the automobile, are toys. No, there is nothing this important in history," and he laughed, "for with this tool, a man may shape or reshape history itself."

Adam spoke. "You're too late, Pike."

"Too late?" Pike turned his head.

"I've gone public with everything, it's already done. All my data is in the hands of a hundred other people. I can prove it, you can get on the phone right now and verify it yourself."

Pike chuckled. "Dr Janus, I am now the proud owner of a device that will permit me to travel in time. There is nothing that has ever occurred that I cannot arrange to have occurred differently."

Adam took a step towards him. "You can't do it Pike. It doesn't work that way."

“I’m sorry?”

Raising his voice, Adam answered, “It’s a time machine you idiot, not a spaceship!”

Pike approached Adam and stood directly in front of him. He was visibly agitated by Adam’s challenge and his insult. “Yes of course, Dr Janus. Neither is it a stagecoach nor a battleship,” he sneered. “That is the distinction you have worked so brilliantly and so hard to achieve, is it not?”

Adam leaned forward and shouted in his face, “That’s right you stupid fuck! The problem is, you don’t understand the distinction! It displaces time, not space!"

Pike erupted. He grabbed Adam by the front of his shirt and pulled him close as he hissed into his face, “Don’t patronize me Janus! I am not a fool!” then slapped him hard across the face.

This sudden physical contact seemed to ignite Adam and in some primal eruption his hands shot out and grabbed Pike by the throat. Even as Pike broke free of his grip, a shot rang out, and for a frozen moment everyone was still. Then Adam put a hand to his chest and fell, the other hand raking futilely along Pike’s suit as he slipped slowly to the floor. .

I jumped up, but was held from behind.

Pike reached towards him, but Adam rolled onto his back, blood gushing from a hole in his chest, and lay still.

I knew immediately he was dead, and as I looked at him, something died inside me as well. If I hadn't been held up I would have fallen. My captor eased me back into the chair. This time there was no screaming. I was numb, so stunned that it all became a dream again. Helpless, I watched the nightmare from which I would never awaken.

Pike turned toward the man who had fired the shot, "Take him!" He ordered.

Another man turned to a subordinate. “Get a medical team in here right now!"

“Fuck that,” Pike snapped. “Look at him! He’s already dead. The bullet went right through his heart."

The man who shot him spoke up. "I'm sorry sir, I was just trying . . ."

"Shut up!" screamed Pike. He stepped briskly to where two men were holding the shooter, arms behind his back. He turned to another, "Give me your sidearm," he ordered.

"Mr Pike sir, please" begged the shooter.

Pike put the pistol to the man's forehead and pulled the trigger. The bullet went completely through his head and through the window behind him.

"Fuck!" screamed Pike and threw the pistol against the wall.

"Fuck!" he shouted again. He paced for a few moments and nobody moved or spoke. The two men continued to hold up the limp and lifeless body of the shooter as blood poured out of his wound.

"Alright, goddamn it," barked Pike at last, "here's what we're going to do. Curran, get outside and get the rest of the gear in here. Sergeant, I want these bodies in front of that opening. Then take the clamps off that plexiglas and get it out of the way. We’ll deposit these two right on this spot ten thousand years before any human ever set foot here. That’ll give some pissant archeologist something to chew on. Then we’ll move on to securing the site. Does everyone understand?"

The others assented in unison and Pike fell into a discussion with a man in uniform who seemed to be his second in command. I wasn't paying attention to anything he was saying. Everything around me seemed dreamlike, as if it were taking place far away. I watched the tableau of Pike and his confederate, surrounded by activity, while beyond him and before me amber lights flashed silently on and off, on and off . .

I slipped my hand carefully into the recess in the console and grasped the handle once again. It brought my mind back to what Adam had said. “It’s a time machine . . not a spaceship.” What could it mean? What was the secret he had been waiting all these years to tell me, the surprise he was saving for this very moment?

Not a spaceship. Not a spaceship. I shook my head. It was pointless, this was physics, there was no way I was going to understand it . . .

Then suddenly, in an instant, as if someone whispered in my ear, the pieces of the puzzle simply fell in place before me and everything was clear. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I sat, my whole body shaking, buffeted by equal parts elation and despair.

It was so simple!

I embraced the cascade of emotions that washed over me, feeling them, yet free of them. I seemed beyond the boundaries of my body, watching myself as one more character is some preposterous mockery of human events.

I looked up. The acrylic barrier had been removed and I saw Pike framed in the center of the open portal. He continued to pontificate, his every word and gesture calculated, contrived, a continuous performance for a captive audience.

They had forgotten all about me.

I smiled inwardly as I reached into the recess with my other hand and grasped the handle with them both. I closed my eyes and spoke.

“Mr Pike?”

He was focused on his exchange with his lieutenant.

“Mr Pike?”

The soldier behind me addressed him more emphatically. “Mr Pike, sir.”

“What is it corporal?”

“The lady wishes to speak to you, sir.”

Pike turned and waved off the reply of the man he had been speaking to. “I see. The schoolmarm has something pertinent to say?”

I flexed my fingers around the soft, rubber surface of the handle. “Yes, Mr Pike, I do. Sir.”

The man next to him spoke with contempt, “Just tape her . . “

“Shut up!” snapped Pike, “Look at her. See that smirk? She either knows something or thinks she does. What is it Vorta?”

I squeezed the handle tightly with both hands.

“I know what it means, Mr Pike. Sir”

“You have some feminine intuition into our little mystery?”

I took a breath. I began to roll my wrists and apply steady rotational pressure to the handle. Slowly, smoothly, it started to turn. I shook my head gently. “It’s not a spaceship, Mr Pike, sir.”

“I believe someone quite close to you gave his life to establish that little insight.”

I was beyond provoking. The handle turned silently.

“It’s a time machine, Mr Pike, sir, it moves in time, it doesn’t move in space.”

“Get to the point or I’ll take his advice and tape your mouth shut.”

I applied more force and the rotation began to accelerate.

“Mr Pike, sir, you’re using the wrong frame of reference.”

“I see. An error of perspective. Please enlighten us.”

“In an hour the portal will open right here, Mr Pike, sir, on exactly this spot. On, um, these exact coordinates.”

He said nothing but I could feel the heat of his stare. The room was filled with the sounds of purposeful activity.

I was moving the handle faster now, past halfway to vertical.

“But there won’t be anything here, Mr Pike, sir, we’ll be gone, far, far away.”

“She’s hysterical, sir, she’s babbling non . . “

“I said shut the fuck up! Where are we going Crystal? Why won’t we be here?”

My exhilaration rose as the handle neared its destination. I opened my eyes and looked into the fierce and brutal stare of Roland Pike, centered in the dark, open maw of the time machine.

“Don’t you know Mr Pike, sir? We’re on a cosmic carnival ride. We’re on a big iron ball, spinning on its axis, free falling in an endless ellipse around a medium yellow star. In an hour we’ll be thousands and thousands of miles from . . “

“Stop her!” he screamed and leaped towards the console.

As I was grabbed from behind I felt the solid, satisfying click as the handle reached vertical and locked into place.

The blinking amber light turned red.

Showtime.