Authors: S D Taylor
Doug felt a sudden pang of fatherly worry about what young Vikings might have in mind for his daughters. He decided he would have to understand all that better, but he let it go for now.
Alannah jumped in. “Uncle Arny is really nice. He used to bring us Viking toys made out of wood when we were little. Mom and Dad taught him some English so we could talk to him a little. He also tried to teach us his language. It was pretty interesting.”
Doug thought about his Viking friend and was glad to hear that he was still around, helping out the family as they all tried to survive here. The Vikings knew a lot more about living the natural life than he and Erin would have. They would have been a great help. He wondered if the future Arny was also in this timeline now. He would like to talk to him.
“Sometimes we get eggs from the birds if we can’t catch enough fish. But we hate to disturb their nesting. Mom told us how people in the future are always disrupting wildlife and causing a lot of problems. And that there are climate changes that are causing problems. We have tried hard to keep this island as nice as we can.” Katelyn was clearly hoping that this new, younger version of her father would approve of the life that she and Alannah were leading.
Doug felt a sense of fatherly pride in these girls. “It sounds like you have had an interesting life and the family has been up to the challenges of living out here in the wilderness. Did your folks find a way to have school lessons for you?”
He tried to imagine what he and Erin had done to educate these girls in this world devoid of books, libraries and computers. Both he and Erin had a few books in their luggage, so he hoped the girls had been able to learn to read and write.
Alannah sighed. “Mom was really strict on the school work. We had to learn reading, writing, math and history. And music. Mom loved to sing.”
Katelyn corrected her. “Loves to sing. We will find her. We have to find her. . .” She stood up and walked out of the tent, clearly upset at the thought that her mother might be dead.
Doug, Alannah and Ying looked at each other as she left, and they were shocked when they suddenly heard Katelyn shout, “Oh my God! Look!”
Doug’s legs were still not working, so he was left sitting there as Ying and Alannah jumped up as one and ran out of the tent.
“Who are they?” He heard Alannah shout. Then Katelyn shouted, “Mom? It that you?”
Doug realized that Tom and Megan must have returned. He realized that “even weirder” was about to take place. He hoped they all crowded back in the tent so he could share the fun. He assumed that from a distance, Megan would have looked a lot like Katelyn’s mom.
Tom and Megan found their way back to the camp after their clothes drying interlude and several hours of hiking through the forest. They were nearing the tents when they saw someone they mistook for Erin suddenly come running out of the tent on the end of the row.
She turned and looked at the two strangers walking towards her and suddenly realized they were the exact image of her mom and dad as she remembered them when she was a little girl. That’s when Katelyn started shouting.
Megan and Tom looked around and then realized that the commotion was for their arrival. And the woman by the tents wasn’t Erin. It was somebody who looked a lot like Erin. And then Ying and a younger woman that also looked like Erin joined the first one and they all ran towards Tom and Megan.
“Something tells me this is going to be interesting.” Megan was trying to get emotionally prepared for what she was about to find out about these girls who looked so much like her.
“No kidding. If they aren’t younger versions of you, they must be close relatives who came to visit. From somewhere. Or sometime. They could almost pass for our daughters.” Tom choked slightly as he said that, realizing that he may have gotten it right with that last comment. He caught the sideways look of shock from Megan. “Ah, if we had daughters.” Tom added quickly
The two girls ran faster than Ying and arrived together, stopping a couple of feet away from Tom and Megan.
Katelyn did the talking. “Hi. I am Katelyn and this is Alannah. You guys look just like our mom and dad. You must be Aunt Megan and Uncle Tom.”
Tom stepped forward and hugged Katelyn without a second thought. “Hi, Kate. You’re correct, but I don’t know how you know that unless you have been talking to Doug. I am Tom and this is Megan. Hi, Alannah. I am very pleased to meet the two of you.”
Megan was speechless, so she was glad Tom took the initiative. She hugged each girl in turn and hoped that her weak “Hi” and smile was enough to get by this initial meeting. The girls looked at her and Tom as if they were looking at ghosts. But they hugged her like she was a long lost friend. Or their mother.
“Where is your mom?” Megan thought it was best to clear up that question immediately.
“From what Daddy told us, ah, I mean Doug, the future people took her. Just like the Erin from this time.” Katelyn hoped she had it right. She had no idea that she would actually meet these two people. Her mom had told her they disappeared before she was born and were never heard from again.
Tom turned to Megan. “We have to get them back somehow. If for no other reason than to see the two of them having a conversation.” Megan’s look indicated she was less amused by the prospect than he was.
“I have to quit asking if this can get any stranger.” Megan put her arms around Alannah and Katelyn. “Let’s go see your ‘dad’ and see how he is doing. At least this younger version of your dad.”
Katelyn sighed. “This is the only version of our dad we have left. In our time, he died two years ago.”
Megan didn’t know why but when she heard that news she started to cry. By the time they got to the tent, all three women had tear-stained faces. Ying and Tom brought up the rear of the group, displaying more emotional control.
Doug saw them all enter his tent and laughed. “I guess you all got a chance to get acquainted. I am sorry it isn’t going better.”
Alannah answered him. “It is going just fine, Daddy. We are just feeling sad about the time you died.”
Chapter 16
Erin felt a sense of complete hopelessness as she sat by the railing of the future people’s boat and looked back at the island. It seemed like she would never be able to return to it. Dara had explained the two insurmountable facts of the situation. The people that gave the orders, the Yir-Lak Command, believed that the only way to save their future world was to pursue this murderous temporal cleansing policy. And Dara and her team, as well as the other teams, were going to follow those orders without question or any moral concerns. Erin’s only hope was to escape or overpower her captors, neither of which seemed even remotely possible with the security technology they employed.
“When do we leave for your world?” Erin wanted as much information as possible.
“Soon. We will go as soon as the hover vehicle returns. Somebody fired a missile at it today and we need to return home for better weapons to fend off this new threat.”
“How do you go home? What happens?”
Dara stood up and motioned for Erin to do the same. “It is quite simple. We take a heading at half speed, open a vortex in front of the boat, and simply move through it. The return to our world only takes a few seconds.”
“And you can return here if you choose to? To this exact time and place?” Erin took one last look at the island and said a silent goodbye to Doug. She wondered if it would be possible to get out of this one.
“Yes. In fact, after we get the weapons upgrade we will be back here to pick up the rest of your party. Or kill them in place. We won’t have too much time for capture.”
“Why can’t you just capture all of us and take us back to your world? Once we were there, we couldn’t cause any more problems.”
Dara looked at Erin and shook her head. “Begging for your life is unseemly. Just accept your fate with grace and goodwill.”
“Would you do that? If you were scheduled for execution, would you be all grace and goodwill?” Erin wasn’t expecting the answer she received.
Dara smiled. “Yes, I would. I am scheduled for execution in thirteen months. In our world, we all have fixed limits on how long we can live. Like most people in my world, I am allowed thirty six years.”
Erin suddenly felt something akin to sympathy for Dara, even though she could not understand why. The thought of living in a world where you had your life’s ending scheduled like a dental appointment was almost too horrible to imagine.
“Why? Why is it done that way? Does everyone have those rules?”
Dara for once looked wistful. “It was implemented about a hundred years ago, when it was clear that the earth could no longer support growth in the number of people. The Yir-Lak Geostability Council ruled that there would be mandatory limits of thirty six years for all midlevel functionaries who had no negative life credits.”
“What is a negative life credit?” Erin had a pretty good idea, but she wanted to learn more about this world that Dara came from.
“They are any negative findings against you after the age of twelve. Each negative finding results in a six month reduction in life. If you receive more than ten, you are considered for immediate termination. There are a number of criminal offences that carry more than ten negative life credits. We have no prisons since it is pointless to house deviants when there are already too few resources to support the population.”
“So that would explain why you wouldn’t want to take us back to your world to live permanently. We would simply be more mouths to feed.” Erin could begin to see Dara’s logic on this, from the future world perspective. What a horrible place to live.
“Exactly. You understand now that we must all do our part. And for the two of us, our part is to die gracefully when we are asked to do so. Neither of us has much time left. Of course, there is a possible loophole. Recently, there are discussions that the thirty six year limit should be elapsed time in our world, rather than age. If that ruling sticks, you will have thirty six years from the time you arrive to live. So you will grow older than the rest of us.”
“How can that be fair to you? Your world seems to be controlled by people with strange perspectives on life and the fundamental rights that people should enjoy.”
“We enjoy the time we are allowed. We make the most of our time. Whatever your lifespan, it is finite and you have to make the best use of the time you have.”
Dara had a point. Erin hoped that she could continue the discussions with her to better understand what she was getting into. But she realized that these chats with Dara were for understanding only. Dara had no more ability to control the outcome than she did. And even if Erin could point out some possibilities that Dara may not have considered, it was unlikely she could convince Dara to change her mind.
“You said that this boat’s vortex capability can take you to any time and place, correct?”
“Within limits. We have to have a temporal signature as a target. Why do you ask?” Dara looked intently at Erin, wondering where she was going with this question.
“If you can go to any time where you can identify a target, you could take all of us to somewhere that it would not cause you any problems in your time. And we could all survive to live on in a new world.”
Dara laughed. “You are certainly the most clever lab rat I have ever had. I believe we could do what you ask, but why would we want to do that? How would that benefit us in any way?”
“It would let you sleep at night, Dara. Somewhere inside you must have a conscience that tells you what you are doing to me and my friends is wrong. Very wrong. And completely unnecessary. You can save resources and effort by simply depositing us in the distant past. How could you argue against that?”
“I don’t have to argue and I don’t have to agree. I am only required to follow orders.”
“Then you should ask for those orders to be changed.” Erin wished she had one of those high priced lawyers she worked with to help her with this closing argument.
Dara laughed again. “I have never asked for an order to be changed. You don’t know the people I work for.”
“Then you should quit commenting about lab rats. You are no better if you silently go to your fate and don’t even try to save yourself. You know, instead of taking us to the future, you could just stay here with us.”
“That point was not lost on me. What you don’t realize is that the people in the Yir-Lak Command can track these temporal visits and they would simply come get us. We would only delay the inevitable. Our world is much different than yours.”
“Not so different as you think. We all end up dead in the end. I think that is the point you were making a minute ago.” Erin could only hope her comments had registered with Dara. Planted a seed of possibilities.
Dara laughed. “You are correct. I cannot argue with that. I am glad we had this talk. I hope you can die more comfortably now when your time comes.”
Chapter 17
On the second day after the future people captured Erin, Peter and Gaby, Doug began to regain the feeling in his legs. The temporary paralysis that resulted from the energy pulse was receding. Doug assumed that Insect Man used the pulse to disable prey or opponents that he planned to capture or at least keep alive for later. If he ever ran into him again, he would have to be a lot quicker on the draw. Or figure out some defense against their weapon. Anything short of some insulated armor seemed unlikely to work.