CHRYSALIS Page 4

  “Everything all right, Tom?”

  “Everything fine, Professor,” Tomas a'Borgia answered without looking up. “As soon as I get the portal programmed and the recorders on, we'll be all set.”

  The Institute had been studying Alternate Universe 14LQ638 for two years now, ever since it was discovered. Thorstenssen had finally worked his way through the bureaucratic red tape and gotten permission to send a portal down, the first step in sending down a team of observers. Universe 14LQ638 was of interest to Thorstenssen because it was remarkably similar to his own. The major difference was the year was 2008 on 14LQ638, while the calendar on his world read 2410.

  Professor Thorstenssen's area of study was the great North American urban civil disorders of the early to mid twenty-first century. The discovery of 14LQ638 presented the opportunity of viewing, in depth and in real time, the social conditions of the American homeland before they happened, assuming the riots occurred on 14LQ638 as they had on his own world. Even if the riots did not occur on 14LQ638, a comparison of the history of the two worlds might lead to an understanding of why they did, or did not, occur.

  He had chosen the city of Cleveland, Ohio, for his entry point, because it was in Cleveland the riots had begun. The plan was to send a portal down to a deserted section of the city, somewhere along the lakeshore. Once the portal was established and thoroughly checked out for safety and location, observer teams would be sent down to fan out through the city, gathering data. The procedures were well established, for 14LQ638 was not the first alternate universe to be studied, but it was the first for Thorstenssen and the Institute, and everyone was understandably eager to see it done properly.

  “Almost finished, Professor.” Tomas quickly punched in the rest of the program codes, set the coordinates, turned on the recorders, and sent the portal on its way.

  Thorstenssen watched anxiously as the repeater board blinked through its verification program, and smiled in satisfaction when the green lights came on. “I’ll lock up, Tomas,” he said. “See you on Tuesday.”

  “Goodnight, Professor. Have a good holiday.”

  Thorstenssen took one last look at the console, turned out the lights and locked the doors. Tuesday promised to be exciting, for the portal's remote camera would be recording all weekend. Tuesday would also see live, real-time pictures of 14LQ638. Pictures of an alien world! And after that, a few days perhaps, someone would be sent down the portal, to walk an alien planet. Whistling softly to himself, Thorstenssen left the Institute.

  Behind him, in the dark control room, a bank of amber lights came on, announcing the camera was in position, locked, and recording. In the empty room, the monitors dark, recorders silently stored a series of pictures, the first a scene of two men, working steadily in the rain, burying a large, black dog.

  10

  “Mississippi River,” the pilot called, “home safe and sound.”

  “Have a present for you, sir,” Jimmy Shallcross grinned. He reached into his blouse pocket and pulled out a small green emerald on a gold chain. “Grabbed it off the table.”

  Simon recognized the emerald as the one the white haired man had shown him. He looked at Jimmy Shallcross for a moment, trying to decide what he should do. He held out his hand, and Jimmy placed the pendant in his palm. The faint green glow lit his hand, and he closed his palm over the emerald, squeezing it tightly. Something passed between Simon and the emerald, something unseen, something felt deep within, at the molecular level. Energy flowed from the stone through his hand, and he began to feel himself gaining strength, gaining awareness. His power was coming back. He felt it returning, felt it flowing into him, like the incoming tide, washing over him, filling every interstice, every nook and cranny of his being. With the power came awareness. He knew who he was and where he’d been and why he’d been there. He knew he was receiving but a fraction of the emerald's power, for the emerald acted principally through Old Bo, and through Old Bo to him. He knew he was still vulnerable, and would be until he rescued the hound. He stared intently at the green aura spilling out between his fingers, suffusing his hand with emerald light. He tore his eyes from it long enough to see Jimmy Shallcross grinning broadly.

  “Thought that would do the trick, sir,” Jimmy said happily. “And when we get Old Bo back you'll be your old self again.”

  The memories came back. He remembered now, remembered the sharp crack and brilliant flash as his aircar came apart around him. He remembered getting her down, into an Illinois cornfield, remembered the crash and the grinding noise. He now knew who Gaeton Thon was, a political hack, the Director's handpicked Governor of Illinois, and not a man to be trusted or taken lightly.

  “It's good to be back, Sergeant,” Simon said grimly. “I see you and Corporal Pearlman are still teamed up.”

  “The best one-two punch in the Corps, sir.”

  “What's our ETA, Corporal?” Simon shouted to the pilot, and Jack Pearlman shouted back, “Touchdown in ninety three minutes, sir!”

  “Very good,” Simon said, and stood by the window, watching the dark landscape flash below him, lightly tinged now by the coming day. They’d crossed the Mississippi some twenty minutes past, and Pearlman had the ship in a long, easy climb, gaining safe altitude now that they were over friendly territory, over Iowa and heading west for the Rockies and home. They came up out of the ground clutter, up into the new morning light, the tiny red sliver of sun coming up behind them out of the flat Midwestern plain. Simon put the pendant around his neck, inside his blouse. He looked out the window, unseeing, lost in thought, and wonder.

  He had two sets of memories, one set belonging to Simon Pure, who lived in a world containing Marykate, Dr. Richard Guyton-Brown and an old woman with a black dog in her brain, and another set of memories belonging to Tal Avenger, who lived in a world containing his faithful hound Old Bo, the evil madman Dr. Kosh, and the luscious, auburn-haired Marianna. He wasn’t sure who he was, or what was happening. He knew he was Simon Pure, knew it with every molecule of his body, but he also knew he was Tal Avenger, the last best hope of the world. Dark evil was abroad in the land, a cunning, malignant force named Dr. Sariot Kosh, self-styled Director of the World Federation. His wicked and villainous empire had spread outward, enveloping the earth, the wealth of the world accumulating in his treasury, the population of the world prostrate at his feet, with none to say him nay. None, that is, but Tal Avenger.

  He remained at the window a long time.

  “Did you say something, sir?”

  “I said, Sergeant,” Simon said, not turning from the window, “that I seem to be trapped in a comic book.”

  11

  The weekend had not gone well for Professor Thorstenssen. Not only had he and Amanda not come to any agreement, but her brother Juan Marie had arrived, an invitation Thorstenssen had quite forgotten he’d extended. Nonetheless, he was filled with anticipation. He arrived at the Institute earlier than usual, to find Tomas a'Borgia sitting at the console, preparing to run the weekend's recordings.

  “Good morning, Tomas,” Thorstenssen cried cheerfully. “How was your holiday?”

  “Not bad, Professor. I spent three days wishing I were here, looking at these pictures.”

  “In due time, Tomas. Let's go right to a live shot. We can look at what we got over the weekend later. Keep it recording, though.”

  “Of course, Professor.” Tomas pushed a few buttons, looked at a series of readouts, and said, “All set, Professor. First live camera shot of 14LQ638 coming up!”

  The big monitors burst into life, all showing the interior of a small bedroom.

  “Good Lord!” Thorstenssen exclaimed. “How did we get inside a house?”

  On the floor of the bedroom, the scene shimmering as in a heat haze, lay a man, on his back, at an angle to the camera, visible from the knees up, the bottom part of his legs out of the camera field. Eyes closed, he showed no visible sign of life.

  Superimposed over the figure on the floor flickered a transpare
nt image of human figures, and as they watched, the superimposition changed to another picture, another set of images, as if someone were showing slides.

  “Any ideas, Tomas?”

  “A convergence, Professor?” Tomas said slowly, clearly unwilling to commit himself.

  “A convergence is entirely possible, Tomas. In fact, a convergence is the only explanation that presents itself.”

  On the face of it, it was apparent that another universe, Thorstenssen had no idea which, had somehow drifted into 14LQ638's field, or 14LQ638 had drifted into its. He stood a good chance of losing the whole thing, perhaps never to be recovered, with two years work down the drain.

  “I think it's an Out-Time, Professor,” Tomas a'Borgia said, his voice rising in excitement.

  An Out-Time was theoretically possible, and much discussed, but so far no one had ever found one. Parallel universes occupied the same space, but they did not occupy the same time. Time was an arrow, advancing into the void of nothingness. But time was more than one arrow, time was an infinite number of arrows, each arrow a universe, the advancing arrows forming an undulating, three dimensional wave-form. Each universe, therefore, was positioned in time according to the position of its arrow point in the waveform. All universes were positioned in time either ahead of or behind all other universes, which is how a twenty-fifth century Professor of Time Studies could view a very close approximation of the past of his native country without actually traveling into the past. What Professor Thorstenssen was seeing on his screens was not the past of his universe, but the present of Universe 14LQ638.

  Out-Times, on the other hand, in theory and if they existed, would be the opposite of the parallel universes everyone knew. An Out-Time would occupy the same time as a standard universe, but not the same space, and Professor Thorstenssen was entirely uncertain what the result of an interaction between the two types of universes would be. He had the sudden and chilling thought they might react like matter and anti-matter, canceling each other out, perhaps violently and catastrophically.

  “We’re losing them, Professor!” The screen turned milky, as if someone had drawn sheer gauze across it. Through the gauze they watched the two sets of figures, the two universes, interact with each other, time and space intermingling, apparently unaware of each other, a shadowy, flickering transparency.

  “Get me slow motion on that,” Thorstenssen snapped, “and separate audios if you can!”

  “Sorry about this, Professor,” Tomas a'Borgia said contritely. “I don't know what could’ve happened. Is the portal in Cleveland?”

  “I’ve no idea, Tomas,” Thorstenssen said. Now that the initial consternation had passed, he saw that he and Tomas might be the very first to see a new kind of universe, perhaps even the sudden deaths of two universes. The scientist in him felt a surge of anticipation.

  “An interesting day, Professor,” a'Borgia said.

  “Very interesting, Tomas,” Thorstenssen smiled. “Very interesting.”

  12

  “How could you have been so incredibly stupid?” Dr. Kosh raged. “To have him in your hands! Weak and helpless without the emerald!”

  Trembling, eyes closed, his belly shaking with fright and tension, the white haired man knelt on the floor, sweat beading his round, red face.

  “What should I do with this fat slug, Ellysia,” Dr. Kosh asked mildly, a look of pained exasperation on his face.

  His wife shrugged. “He deserves no consideration. He has failed you.”

  “Have I not raised him far beyond his allotted station?” Kosh asked rhetorically. “Have I not made this tub of offal the Governor of the State of Illinois? What is your name, slug?”

  The kneeling white haired man whimpered, his face in his huge, ham-like hands.

  “Well?” Kosh demanded. “I have asked you a question! Do you dare refuse to answer your leader?”

  “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” the man whispered. “My name is Gaeton Thon.”

  “Louder!”

  “My name is Gaeton Thon, Excellency,” the man cried.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Dr. Kosh said softly. “Do we know anyone named Gaeton Thon, my dear?”

  “Not that I recall,” his wife said languidly, rising from the silver brocaded settee and leaving the room. “Please don’t be overlong, dear,” she said, “our guests will be arriving shortly.”

  “I beg of you, Your Grace,” the man whispered. “For the sake of our old comradeship, I beg of you.”

  “You have failed me,” Kosh said sternly. “Because of you the Avenger is still at large. Because of you the plan has failed.”

  “You still have the hound, Excellency,” the man whispered, braver now, and hopeful, for the Director had allowed him to live beyond the expected time. “The hound is still entrapped, and the Avenger must assay another rescue.”

  “Exactly,” Kosh mused, playing with the man. “He must try again, in the full knowledge that we’ll be waiting for him. Therefore, we must use deception.”

  “If I’m put down on the Iowa shore, Excellency,” Gaeton Thon whispered, “the rebels will find me. They’ll have no reason to disbelieve my story that I fled Your Excellency's wrath after the escape of the Avenger. I have no doubt the Avenger will believe the Governor of Illinois, an old comrade of the Director, will prove useful.”

  “And no doubt you would,” Kosh said dryly. “But I’ve a better idea. Permit me to relate it to you.”

  As he did so, the great, quivering bulk of the former Governor of Illinois shivered in despair, for the Director had a plan, a plan for seizing Tal Avenger, and it involved the unfortunate Gaeton Thon.

  13

  The Rocky Mountains loomed ahead of them, majestic in the early morning light, snow caps sparkling in the rising sun. The aircar swooped low, dodging the peaks, skimming past the tree line, following the contours of the valley, heading for the hidden entrance to the Avenger's impregnable fortress, dug deep into the granite heart of the mountain. United States Air Force Base Denver it was called formally, Tal Mercury informally, and from here the swift aircars with the bright white star and winged foot emblem sallied forth to do battle with the despot.

  The aircar sped unerringly through the valleys to the entrance, tripping the electronic warning devices as it went, the final leg a hair-raising run straight for the side of a mountain. The mountain opened at the last moment and the aircar disappeared through the large camouflaged entrance doors, which closed swiftly and silently behind it.

  The hangar was vast, many acres of concrete floor space. The high vaulted ceiling, carved out of the living rock, was nearly obscured by the maze of ducts, pipes and lights running in all directions forty feet above the hangar floor. Along both sides of the hangar floor stood aircar bays, yellow rectangles painted on the floor, each rectangle containing an aircar, most of them being serviced by swarming ground crews.

  Pearlman and Shallcross followed Simon onto the hangar floor and the ground crew swiftly moved the car to its assigned rectangle, with barely a nod to Simon and a “Welcome home.”

  “Affected nonchalance, sir,” Shallcross grinned. “They're glad to see you though, right enough.”

  “Plus Air Force guys are always overawed in the presence of us Marines,” Pearlman said, and it was Simon’s turn to grin.

  They walked swiftly toward the operations enclosure at the far end of the hangar, behind an aircar taxiing down the center runway in front of them. The big, black aircar stopped in the center of a large red circle, one of a series of large red circles evenly spaced the length of the runway. After pausing briefly, the aircar turned ninety degrees, lining up on a broad, painted red line. The rock wall parted, letting in the mountain daylight. The pilot grinned and waved, and the aircar suddenly shot down the red line and out the doors.

  The operations officer was expecting them, and he rose, a broad smile on his face, hand extended.

  “Welcome home, sir! Plain bad luck on the shoot down, but thanks to some great teamwork we h
ave you back, and mighty pleased we are to see you!”

  “Thanks, Bob,” Simon said. “Give me a chance to get a hot bath and some food and we'll do the debriefing.”

  “Time enough, sir,” Bob Johnson smiled. “Give Neal a ring when you're ready. He'll be waiting.”

  “Will do.”

  They left the Ops room and turned down a small corridor.

  “We’ll be leaving you here, sir,” Shallcross said. “We’ll be in the flight crew ready room if you need us, getting a little rack time.”

  “Pleasant dreams,” Simon smiled. He continued down the corridor toward the elevator. He was aware of the familiar sound of the air-handling units, of the muted sounds of activity from the hangar deck. The smells were familiar, the sights were familiar, but he was puzzled. His memory was not all-inclusive. There were things he didn’t know until they were upon him. The emerald, apparently, had not given him full memory, or at least hadn’t filled in all the details. The operations officer was Colonel Bob Johnston, US Air Force, but he had no knowledge of it until he’d actually seen him. Nor had he known anyone named Neal. Yet when the name was mentioned, he knew Johnston was referring to the Intelligence Officer, Colonel Neal Hernandez, though he wasn’t aware of knowing that before the name was mentioned.

  The elevator arrived and he pushed the button for Level E, not knowing he was going to do so. The car stopped and he got off, into a small anteroom, and he remembered a name the emerald had given him, Marianna, and a face, and auburn hair. The door at the far end of the anteroom burst open and she was there, dressed in an Air Force one piece blue coverall with the flaming sword patch over the right breast pocket. Her eyes were wide but all she said was, “Trashed another aircar, did you?” and then she was in his arms, holding him tight.

  “I'm going to blubber,” she cried softly. “Whatever must you think of me?”