Roswell Fanatics

The Four Faces of Rath



Not in a Million Years

Chapter 10

X



Michael took one last look at the CrashDown. He didn’t see Maria or Liz, and he didn’t wait to find out who else might have come to the party. As soon as no one was looking, he moved into a side alley…

“Portal!”

“Ask.”

“Take me to the year, uh, 1999… in Roswell.”

The portal appeared, and Michael stepped quickly through it. He stepped out on the other side and walked back onto the main road. The UFO Museum didn’t look much different… and the CrashDown was the same as he had just left it except for a new coat of paint in a different color on the sign outside. Michael walked over to the door. The CrashDown was open… and fairly busy it would appear. He started to enter but then changed his mind. As he turned, he noticed a group of tourists leaving the UFO museum wearing various garish mementos of their visit. Michael walked quickly across the street then went into the museum. When he emerged, ten minutes later, he was wearing a UFO hat that tilted over his left ear like a crashed spaceship, alien-eyes sunglasses, and a T-shirt that said, “I was abducted in Roswell.”

“What’ll it be,” Liz asked, smiling at the sight of the new customer. Michael noticed Maria behind the counter giggling and shaking her head. He was sure that they couldn’t recognize him. “It must be this stupid UFO crap,” he thought to himself. But he wasn’t going to take it off; the whole purpose of wearing it was to make them think he was someone else.

“A cherry Coke… Monster Crashburger… Alien Fries, and…” he looked around, and not seeing any on the table “…a bottle of Tabasco sauce.”

Liz looked at him suspiciously then glanced back at the cook in the kitchen. Michael looked to see what Liz was looking at. It was him… well, his 1999 counterpart anyway. Liz looked at the new customer again and decided that any resemblance must be a coincidence. Clearly, this guy was older than Michael… and a lot less picky about what he wore. Liz grinned again and took the order to the kitchen.

“Order, Michael!”

“Yeah, yeah! Just give it to me.”

“Take a look out there, Michael. You see that guy at table three?”

Michael glanced through the door. “The one with the UFO crashed on his head?”

“Yeah. That could be you in… say fifteen years.”

Michael looked at the man with the alien-eyes sunglasses, the crashed UFO tilted over his left ear, and the “abducted” T-shirt.

“I never knew you had that cruel streak in you, Liz.”

Maria snickered.

“Well, he does look like you… maybe a few years from now…”

Michael glanced at the customer again. “Only if I lose my mind and my last shred of dignity between now and then… and if that happens, promise me you’ll shoot me before anyone else sees me and I totally ruin my image, okay?”

Maria lost the battle for self-control and had to leave the kitchen, laughing and waving her hand as she walked out the back door. Michael plopped a burger onto a plate with some fries and handed it to Liz.

“I don’t think it’s done, Michael.”

Michael waved his hand over the burger quickly, making it well done.

“Satisfied now?”

Liz carried the order to the stranger and placed it in front of him on the table. Michael tasted the fries approvingly then bit into the burger. He quickly spit it out.

“Is something wrong, sir,” Liz asked.

“Wrong? No… yes. This tastes terrible!”

“I’m sorry, sir. You want me to have the cook make you another one?”

Michael knew full well exactly what was wrong with the hamburger. He had long ago learned that “cooking” the burgers with energy from his hand imparted a strange taste to the meat… the same taste he was tasting now.

“No… let it go. Wait… On second thought, let me talk to the cook.”

Liz started to object, but Michael was already up and walking toward the kitchen. Half way there, he decided against it. He looked back at Liz and returned to his seat, put the burger back on the plate, and handed it to Liz. “Just tell him… uh… the meat will taste better if he cooks it slowly… Tell him it was cooked too fast… must have been a power surge or something.”

Liz nodded and took the burger back to Michael in the kitchen.

“Too fast?” he heard Michael exclaim in the kitchen. “I could set one outside in the sun for him! It’s probably hot enough out there! Maybe in a couple o’ hours, it’d be just right…” Michael plopped another patty on the grill. “I think that UFO damaged his brain when it crashed onto his head,” he muttered to himself more than to Liz.

A few minutes later, he finished cooking the new burger. Maria, who had just come back in, offered to take it to the customer.

“Here you are, sir. See if that’s okay for you.”

Michael tasted it and nodded. “Just right,” he said. “Thank the cook for me.”

Maria suddenly realized that she was staring at Michael. He seemed to notice it at the same time.

“Oh! …Oh! I’m sorry,” Maria said, “It’s just that you look so much like our cook! I can’t get over it.”

“I do?” Michael asked. “Wow! How can you tell with these sunglasses and this hat? Oh! I’ll bet your cook has some just like them!”

Maria’s lips broke into a slow smile then she began to laugh, shaking her head. “I don’t think so. No… I’m sure he doesn’t have any like those.”

“What a shame,” Michael said. “Well, I could give him mine. I could get some more!”

“Oh, no… no! Don’t bother,” Maria said. “I don’t think he… needs them.”

“Okay,” Michael said, finishing up his meal. “But if he wants some just let me know. I have a cousin who’s a wholesale distributor, and he can get them for me real cheap.”

“I’ll tell Michael you offered,” Maria said, nodding and trying hard not to giggle. Michael paid his bill, put a tip on the table, and walked out. Liz watched him walk down the street then she and Maria both broke into hysterical laughter.

Michael looked out of the kitchen. “What’s so funny? Geez! Don’t you two have anything to do?”

Maria made a little flipping sign with her hand, and the two of them started cleaning off the tables, which had mostly cleared out by now.

“He’s bringing you a hat and some specs like the ones he had on,” Maria yelled to Michael. “His cousin sells them.” She winked at Liz.

Michael came back to the door. “Don’t even imagine that you girls’ll ever see me in that get-up. Not gonna happen! You’d have to put that stuff on my dead body!” He started to go back to the grill then turned back around again and added “…and if you do that, I swear I’ll come back and haunt you for as long as you live.”

Maria and Liz both laughed.

Down the street, Michael ducked into a side alley and called for the portal.

“Take me back about six months… just to before I started working at the CrashDown… I want to speak with my past self… but a little further back in time. Not here.”

Michael thought he was being very specific in his instructions, but with the sphere, it is always a good idea to be clear as well. The portal opened, and Michael stepped through. As he stepped out on the other side, he fell into a sitting position… in the back seat of a car.

The passenger in the front seat was Maria, and she was yelling at the driver, who appeared to be his younger self…

“You’re telling me to get out of my own car? This is my car, Michael! Well, actually, it’s my mother’s car, and if anything happens to it, life as I know it will be over. So wherever this car goes I go!”

“Suit yourself. You had your chance,” the driver said.

“Oh my God! You’re kidnapping me! No… you’re abducting me!” Maria exclaimed in utter disbelief.



tbc

Coming next: “285 South Plus One”

The Four Faces of Rath



285 South Plus One

Chapter 11

XI



When Michael stepped through the portal, he asked it to take him to his younger self in a slightly earlier time. He did not specify under what conditions he wished to speak with or be seen by his alter ego… nor did he specify that his younger self needed to be alone when they met. That was his mistake. The sphere cannot be expected to know these things. Even so, Shaqor, the sphere’s original owner, had long suspected that the sphere of the portal had a certain “warped sense of humor.” Now Michael found himself in the back seat of Maria’s mother’s car headed south on highway 285 with his younger self driving –at 90 plus miles an hour- and Maria protesting vigorously that he was abducting her. It’s not exactly what Michael had had in mind.

Spotting her cell phone on the seat, Maria pressed Liz’s number secretly but continued to talk to Michael, trying to give Liz clues about which way they were headed and what was happening to her, but Michael noticed and threw the phone out the window. Maria turned to try to grab the phone as it sailed out the window, and, at that moment, she noticed the other Michael in the back seat… still wearing the alien-eyes sunglasses and UFO hat. The scream that followed was loud enough and long enough to leave both Michaels partially deaf for at least the next few minutes.

“Who the hell are you,” the younger Michael yelled as he brought the car to a screeching stop off the side of the highway. “Get out!”

Michael took off the UFO hat and the alien-eyes sunglasses. “About time that I dumped these… and good riddance! Sorry, guys, but the T-shirt’s stayin’,” he said. “I’m not doing a striptease here.”

Maria gasped, and the younger Michael stood with his mouth open for almost a minute.

“Who are you,” he asked again.

“And why do you look like Michael,” Maria added. “What’s going on here?”

“Long story,” Michael said from the back seat. “Let’s just say I’m from… well… the future sort of…”

“Sort of?” Maria said. “Sort of? What does that mean? You’re from the future? So… what you’re telling me is that you are Michael?” Maria had put the clues together quickly. She was fairly shouting now, and her tone had risen more than a few decibels in pitch as well. “Omigod! I’m being abducted by two of you? I knew I shouldn’t have got out of bed today. Mom’s going to kill me! Ohhhh… maybe she’ll never see me again.”

“Maria!” the younger Michael exclaimed.

“What?”

“Shut up!”

“I can’t help it. I talk a lot when I’m nervous.” Maria fumbled in her purse for her cedar oil.

Michael in the back seat was watching the scene in the front seat play out with a distressed look on his face. As the younger Michael pulled the car back onto the highway, a police car appeared, and the policeman stared at Michael and his companions as he drove by.

“Well, it’s a good thing for you, I guess, that you pulled off when you did,” Maria said. “You would have just got a ticket for speeding. Besides, I told you you can’t drive this car over 80… the engine won’t take it.”

“You had your chance to get out, Maria. You didn’t, so stow it.”

Michael in the back had heard enough. “You… in the driver’s seat…”

“It’s Michael,” the driver exclaimed, exasperated.

“Yeah, that’s what I said… You!”

The driver grimaced and glanced back at his future counterpart.

“What?”

“Why are you yelling at her? You’re the one who stole her car?”

“Borrowed it!” Michael exclaimed from the front. “You should know that! Didn’t you say you were me?”

Michael in the back seat started to speak but thought about his younger self’s words. He was right, after all. He knew it was himself speaking to Maria. But somehow he didn’t like it all the same.

“Treat her with a little respect,” Michael said from the back.

“Thank you,” Maria muttered, almost too shocked to believe she had heard it.

The younger Michael looked at his future self. “Man, what is it with you? Did I get brain damage or something in the future that I should know about?”

“Stop being a frikkin’ horse’s ass!” Michael said from the back.

“Alright, that’s it!” the younger Michael exclaimed, pulling off the road again and opening the doors,

“Get out!”

“Get me out!” Michael said from the back seat.

The younger Michael glared at his future self, unsure what he should do. Finally, he closed the door back, apparently realizing that in any fight with himself the loser had to be him… on one end or the other. He started the car up and drove back onto highway 285, quickly pushing the speed back to 92 miles per hour.

For a while, no one spoke. Then there was a “clunk,” and the engine began to smoke.

“Oh, great,” Maria said. “I told you you couldn’t drive over 80. Now you’ve blown the engine!”

“Maria!” the younger Michael started… then he glanced at his future self in the back seat.

“What?” Maria asked.

“Never mind… I’ll fix the stupid engine.” He got out of the car, slamming the door behind him.

“You may need my help,” Michael said from the back seat.

“I doubt it, Grandpa. I can handle it myself.”

“I seem to remember that you blew the engine up the last time you tried to fix it, junior.”

The younger Michael bit his lip and turned around. “Alright, so what would you do?”

Michael got out of the back seat and opened the hood. Both Michael’s bent over to take a look at the engine.

“Well, the last time, you touched this thing over here and fried it. What you should have done is this…” the future Michael reached into the engine and laid his hand on the carburetor. Instantly, the engine erupted in flames. The younger Michael grinned then started to laugh.

“Great, Grandpa! You fried it again! I’m impressed!”

“Shut up and help me put out the flames,” Michael said.

Together, the two managed to put out the fire before much damage was done.

“I can fix a space ship, and I still don’t understand a damned prehistoric internal combustion engine,” Michael grimaced.

The younger Michael was still grinning. “Well, don’t look at me. I’m more of an artist than a mechanic. You need Kyle or somebody to fix these things.”

“Doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere tonight,” future Michael said.

The younger Michael nodded. “Nope! I’d say not. I’ll take…”

He started to say, “the back seat,” but future Michael was sitting in it again… and Maria would need the front seat. He sighed and turned to walk toward a small motel across the road.

“Where are you going,” Maria yelled.

“I need some sleep,” Michael answered, “and I’m not going to get it out here.”

“Well, you’re not leaving me out here by myself,” Maria said. “I’m coming with you.

“You’re not by yourself,” the younger Michael yelled back. “Grandpa’s there.”

Michael got out of the car and opened the door for Maria. “Come on! We’ll go inside, too. It’ll be alright.”

Maria looked at Michael appreciatively. “Are you sure you’re really him? You’re so… different.”

“You mean old?”

“Nooo… of course not… Anyway, you’re only… what? …ten years older than Michael… our Michael… that Michael… you know what I mean. It’s not that. It’s just that you’re just more, I don’t know, gentle… kinder.”

Michael smiled. “Well, don’t let it get around. I’ve got my reputation you know.”

“Okay, you are him,” Maria laughed. “But you’re still nicer.”

Michael smiled. “The time I come from is actually eighteen years in your future, Maria.”

“Oh. Well, you look a lot younger… Oh God! I don’t mean that you’re like, you know, old or anything. That’s not what I meant. You’re still young. I’m talking too much again, aren’t I?”

Michael laughed. “No. I find it kind of endearing, actually.”

Maria smiled. “Do you think you could do, you know, like, some kind of alien mind-meld thing like Spock does and make my Michael more like you?”

Michael grinned. Maria had called the younger Michael “her” Michael. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip. They hadn’t known each other for very long yet. But something seemed to be there already.

“Are you married… you know, in the future,” Maria asked.

“Yeah,” Michael answered.

“Oh. Is she… nice?”

Michael smiled. “Very. And she’s beautiful, and she’s the most wonderful girl on all of Antar.”

“Oh,” Maria said softly, her smile fading without her realizing it. “You went back to your planet? Is that the planet you came from?” She swallowed hard but then managed a smile again. “That’s nice. I’m… happy for you. Any kids?”

“Three. Zorel… He’s nine. Kryys is seven, and Jayyd is six.

“Are they, like, aliens, too? Oh! Of course they are! I don’t know why I asked that. Never mind me. I babble when I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be nervous,” Michael said taking her hands in his. Maria felt a tingle go through her body, and her legs felt weak. She closed her eyes momentarily then opened them again.

The younger Michael, watching from the window of his motel room, frowned.



tbc

Coming next: “Aladdin’s Palace”

The Four Faces of Rath



Aladdin’s Palace

Chapter 12

XII



As Maria took Michael’s hands, she suddenly felt weak in the legs. She turned loose of his hands, and Michael reached out to hold her so that she wouldn’t collapse.

“Are you all right, Maria?”

“Yeah… yeah, I think so,” Maria said.

“What happened?”

Maria shook her head, trying to regain her perspective.

“I saw something… in my head. It was like a flash of lights then planets or stars or something floating in space. It was beautiful. And something else…”

“Something else?”

“Yeah… only it wasn’t a thing… It was more of a feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?”

Maria looked straight into future Michael’s eyes. “Your feelings. I felt your feelings about your wife. You love her very much.”

Michael seemed surprised by Maria’s revelation, but he nodded. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

“She’s a very lucky woman,” Maria said. “…to have someone love her like that. If someone ever loved me like that, I’d…”

“You’d what?”

“I don’t know. I can’t even imagine it. Well, I can imagine, but…” She reached out and touched Michael’s face gently with her hand. “Nobody will ever love me like that.” She smiled and wiped her cheek.

“Come on,” Michael said. “Let’s go in. It’s chilly out here, and it looks like my junior half has us a room.”

Maria giggled. “Yeah. I saw him watching out the window.”

Michael and Maria walked over to the motel room, and future Michael opened the door for her.

“That was locked,” the younger Michael said.

“Would it have kept you out,” future Michael asked with a grin.

“No, of course not.”

“Well?”

The younger Michael didn’t answer.

Maria looked around the room with her mouth open.

“It’s like a porno version of Aladdin! It looks like Larry Flynt’s dream house!”

“It’s shelter,” the younger Michael said.

“I’m not touching the sheets on those beds,” Maria said, shaking her head. “You blew up my mom’s Jetta, and now you expect me to spend the night in… in… Aladdin’s Pleasure Palace with you?”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather be watching an opera on PBS myself,” Michael said.

“You would?”

“Sure. That way at least I’d know that a whole lot of other people were suffering with me.”

Maria ignored the comment. “What’s so important about Marathon, Texas? They’ll put you away, you know, when they catch you! There are laws…”

“You wouldn’t understand, Maria. You don’t understand anything about us,” Michael said, turning away. “This could be the most important day of my life, and all you care…”

What do you mean, the most important day…?”

“Forget it.”

“No. You said it. I want to know why it’s so important. Convince me.”

“See this place?” Michael showed Maria the picture in the flap of the book he was carrying. “It’s the first real connection we’ve ever had to finding out where we came from, and it’s in Marathon, Texas.”

Maria looked at the picture in the book then at Michael. Something inside her understood. She wasn’t about to say it… exactly… but she did have a strong feeling that she understood his motivation better than before. Michael, after all, did not know where his roots were or anything about his real people. Maria imagined that that must be painful for him. She nodded.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

So okay… we go to Marathon in the morning. Mom can only kill me once, right? She’s gonna kill me already anyway.”

“Logical,” Michael said.

“Thank you, Mister Spock! You could show a little more concern, Michael! I’m going to be grounded till I’m too old to find real love, and you don’t even care.”

“I don’t suppose we could share the bed…” Michael said.

“Not if you were the last alien on Earth.”

Michael sighed and tossed a pillow onto the floor beside the bed. Then he looked at future Michael.

“So where are you sleeping, Grandpa?”

Future Michael took a pillow and put it on the armchair beside his younger counterpart.

“I’ll sleep on the chair.”


Max and Isabel, traveling with Liz, had been following Michael and Maria since the earlier phone call Maria had made to Liz. For the last hour or more, they had been blocked by a tractor trailer rig that had jack-knifed in the highway. But as the night gave way to daybreak, Isabel noticed Maria’s mom’s Jetta just down the highway in front of the motel. The three drove around the crashed rig on the swale and pulled in at the motel. Max checked the office to see what room they were in. Liz quickly found the room and started to knock.

“Don’t bother,” Isabel said. She reached out and unlocked the door with her hand. Hearing the door opening, Maria leapt up from the bed and fell on top of the younger Michael on the floor, knocking future Michael’s chair over at the same time. Future Michael, dumped out of his chair, landed on top of Maria and his younger self.

Liz stood in the door, her mouth open about as far as it would go.

“MARIA!”

Maria quickly extricated herself from the pile of bodies.

“No! No, Liz! Don’t even think… I mean, that is so unreal! Omigod! Tell her, Michael!”

Michael smiled.

Maria gasped. “No, Liz! Don’t even think it!”

“It’s okay,” Liz said. “I believe you, Maria. Now what in the world ARE you doing in this place with Michael?”

“What I want to know,” Isabel said, stepping over to face the future Michael, “is… Who is this?”

“Hi,” future Michael said, smiling sheepishly.

“Who are you,” Max asked pointedly.

“He’s Michael,” Maria offered for him “…only from the future.”

“The future?” Isabel echoed unbelievingly. “What future? How… where…”

“I’ll tell you,” future Michael said. “I’m from eighteen years in your future.”

“Why are you here then,” Max asked him.

“I… needed to find out some things… It’s personal.”

“We’re taking it personal,” Max said. “So tell us.”

Michael winced slightly. “I’ve been going back in time to learn who I am.”

“I thought you said you were Michael,” Max said unamused.

“I am Michael. I’m just from your future.”

“So tell me,” the younger Michael said. “What are the lottery numbers going to be tomorrow?”

“Michael!” Isabel exclaimed. “We’re being serious!”

“So am I,” Michael said.

“I couldn’t tell you if I knew,” future Michael said. “And I don’t.”

“There you have it,” the younger Michael said. “The man comes from the future and he won’t even help me make us rich. I don’t know why he bothered to come back. That’s all the use he’s been… a big, blank zero!”

“I told you. I came here to find myself.”

“Yeah, sure…” the younger Michael said, shaking his head.

“No… No, Michael, I understand,” Maria said. “He’s you, right? You’re looking for who you are. That’s why you want to go to Marathon. And this Michael, in his future, is looking to find out the same thing, only on a more… I don’t know… personal level, maybe. That’s all. You want to know where you came from and who your people were… or are… Well, he wants to find out who he is inside, who the real Michael is, now that he knows where he came from and all.”

Max, Liz, and Isabel all stood looking at Maria with their mouths open.

“What?”

“That was amazing,” Liz said. “…what you just said.”

“What,” Maria asked, looking from person to person.

“You really do understand us, don’t you,” Isabel said.

The younger Michael nodded, with a shocked look on his face. “I guess you understand more than I gave you credit for, DeLuca.”

“Michael! Was what I just heard an apology,” Isabel asked. “Because if it was, I’m not sure I can take all this shock in one day.”

Michael didn’t answer.

Max walked over and faced future Michael. “If you are from the future, you can tell us what we’re going to Marathon to find out. You must already know the answers.”

The younger Michael looked up suddenly at Max. Hearing Max admit that he, too, wanted to find out the secrets that Marathon might hold somehow gave him a good feeling inside. Then he looked at his future self to see what he would say.

“I’m not sure how much I should tell you,” future Michael said at end. “It’s probably important that you go to Marathon. I mean, it happened that way before, and if I change too many things like that…”

Max nodded and held his hand up. “I understand. You could change the future as you know it. Is there anything you can tell us… about ourselves… about our people?”

Michael thought about it. “Well, just that everything will work out in the end. Don’t ever give up, Max… you either, Michael… Isabel. Sometimes it will seem like giving up is all that’s left to do, but never quit. Never give up hope. From where I stand, everything will work out just fine.”

“That’s good to know,” Isabel said. “We’re not quitters.”

“I know,” future Michael said with a smile. “You never gave up on me.”

Max and Isabel both smiled.

“Our people are a very fine people,” future Michael said. “They’re not so very different than the people here on Earth. We all share the same goals, the same feelings, loves, desires, pains… You will find them one day. That’s all I can tell you.”

“That’s enough,” the younger Michael said. “I take back what I said about you being useless, man. You’ve been a big help.”

“Oh, be still my heart,” Isabel said dramatically. “I don’t think I can take any more.”

“I may keep it up just to see you fall over,” the younger Michael said to Isabel with a coy grin.

Liz looked at Maria and noticed that she was crying silently, tears streaming down her face. She touched Maria’s face gently with her hand and carefully wiped off the tears. “What’s the matter, chica? Huh? Why are you so sad?”

Maria smiled. “It’s nothing, Liz.”

“I know nothing when I see it, Maria, and this isn’t nothing. Now come on. Tell me.”

“I just know something I wish I didn’t know.”

Future Michael suddenly realized that Maria’s knowing he was married but not knowing it was to her was upsetting to her. She actually cared for him. He had never realized that she actually cared this early on in their relationship. It was probable that she hadn’t even realized it herself. This put a new light on everything. He started to tell her but thought about it and decided to consider all the ramifications and consequences first.

Maria solved the problem for him…

“I know how it turns out for you, Michael,” Maria said to future Michael. “I just wish…” she choked up then reached up and kissed him quickly on the lips before he realized what was happening.


Flash!

Michael pulled Maria tightly against his body and felt her soft hair against his face, smelled her perfume, felt her lips pressed to his…

“Maria, hold out your hand,” he said. Then he got down on his knee in front of her, held her hand in his, and asked,

“Maria, will you marry me? Will you be my wife when we get to Antar?”

“Yes! …Yes, Michael! You're the only one I ever wanted or ever will want to marry,” she heard herself reply happily.

Michael turned Maria’s hand over and placed something in it. She opened her hand to look. It was a rock… No, it was a large uncut diamond.

“Michael!” Maria gasped, “Where did you get this?”

“I spotted it among those outcrops back there and picked it up as we were walking here. I’ll always remember this little moon, Maria! It will always be where I found two of my greatest treasures... where you said that you would marry me and where I found this diamond that I give to you for your ring.


Flash!

Michael had just returned from the jeweler with Maria’s diamond… beautifully faceted and mounted in a ring that was absolutely and utterly breathtaking. Maria had no idea how many carats it was; she only knew that it was beautiful… and big! Michael placed it on her finger… it fit perfectly. As he did, he again asked, “Maria, will you be my wife?”

Maria didn’t answer… she just threw her arms around Michael’s neck and kissed him as though she would never let him go.

“I take it, the answer is still yes, then,” Michael managed somehow to say after a couple of minutes.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! A million times, yes!” said Maria. She beamed, and again she kissed Michael passionately. He reciprocated happily.

“We’ll have to set a date,” said Michael at end. I was thinking maybe next month… it’s the beginning of the summer in Antar, and well… because you warm my heart…”

“Aw… Michael, sometimes you can be such a sweet puppy dog… so cute and lovable,” said Maria.

“Well, just do me a favor and let’s keep that to ourselves, okay, Maria? I wouldn’t want it getting out that I’m a cute little puppy or something! Reputations, you know!”

Maria giggled, “Sure, Michael, just between me and my cute little puppy!”


Flash!

Maria found Liz in the palace living room… on Antar. She walked by her several times, holding her hand slightly out away from her body. Liz saw the ring, but at first pretended not to.

“Maria, you seem awfully wound up! Why don’t you sit down and stop pacing! Is something wrong with your hand?”

“Hmm! Hmm!” Said Maria, holding her finger and the amazing ring out where it could be appreciated.

“Mariiiiaaa…” said Liz, “That’s beautiful… it’s gorgeous! So Michael got it mounted… that’s the ring from the moon?”

“Yep.”

“You must be absolutely thrilled!”

“Well… maybe a little happy… Oh, of course I’m thrilled! What do you think! Liz, I can’t wait to show it to everybody! They’re gonna freak! Have you ever seen anything like it?”


Flash

Maria’s hand was on Jim Valenti’s arm. She was dressed in a long white and light blue gown that just reached the floor. She was too beautiful for words. Slowly, Jim led her down the aisle to the front. Maria’s face seemed to glow. Her Mom, Amy, was wiping tears from her own eyes with a handkerchief and trying bravely but unsuccessfully not to cry… it was all so beautiful! This was far and away beyond anything she had ever imagined for her daughter even in her grandest dreams.

Behind Maria and Jim Valenti came the bridesmaids… then, from the back of the SyyKolyva, a man entered wearing a long dark blue robe over a red vest. The robe had gold trim around the collar and around the wrists. The man had a gold sash trimmed in red hung loosely over his left shoulder. This was the Jalesek, who would be performing the ceremony.

The music stopped, and all eyes were on Maria and Michael. The Jalesek took a small book from his vest pocket and looked at it quietly for a moment.

“Michael Guerin (He spoke in Antarian), of the line of Varkor Sarvael, you have come here today to tell all those present and the world that you love and cherish this girl, Maria DeLuca, and that it is your wish and desire that she be your wife now and for as long as you both shall live. Do you profess to Maria your eternal undying love; and is this your wish, Michael?”

“It is!”

“Maria DeLuca, of the planet Eluymer, you have come here today to tell all those present and the world that you love and cherish Michael Guerin and that it is your wish and desire to take him as your husband now and for as long as you both shall live. Do you, Maria, profess to Michael your eternal undying love; and is this your wish, Maria?”

“It is!”

“And who gives this girl away?”

“I do,” said Jim Valenti. He took Maria’s hand from his arm and placed it on Michael’s arm and took Maria’s other hand and placed it in front of her with the palm up. Then he took Michael’s other hand and placed it on top of Maria’s.

“Then,” continued the Jalesek, “How shall you show this love that the two of you share?”

Michael and Maria closed their hands, intertwining their fingers together.

“Then I say for all to know that Michael and Maria are joined together as mates of the soul and of the body for the rest of their lives… May they know only happiness and joy forever!”

The entire SyyKolyva stood and applauded briefly but enthusiastically, in the Antarian tradition. Then they took their seats again.

The music resumed, and Michael and Maria walked arm in arm back down the aisle to the foyer as Michael and Maria Guerin.


Flash!

Some lady was holding up a blouse for Maria’s approval.

“Is this darling or what?”

“I approve,” said Maria. “Very chic!”

“I just wish I could find one in a pastel green instead of this bright green, but it’s still too darling to pass up.”

Maria grinned, “Jayyd, honey? Would you mind?”

Jayyd grinned from ear to ear and waved her hand. The blouse changed color.

“Better!” said the lady, “Much better!” Can you make it just a little lighter, Dear?”

Jayyd waved her hand again, and the color changed slightly.

“Oh! That’s perfect!” said the lady. “That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for!”

Jayyd was grinning. She loved nothing better than using her power and getting praised for it!

Zorel rubbed Jayyd lightly on top of the head and smiled,

“If you can use my services, Mom…”

Maria and the other lady both laughed, “Thanks, Zorel! We’ll keep that in mind, Honey… but right now, I don’t think that any of the clothes would be helped by power blasting!”

“Except maybe that one,” snickered the other lady, pointing to a ridiculous fluffy tutu-like culotte that no Antarian or Earthling -well, maybe except Howard Stern posing for a Hooters billboard- would be caught dead or alive in.

Zorel started to lift his hand, but Maria was too quick, after eight years of experience, and stopped his hand before he got it up.

“She was kidding, Zorel!”

“Oh.”


Maria pulled away from Michael the moment she kissed him. Everything that she had just seen was transferred to her brain in less than a second. And yet she remembered… everything! She stood there at first, shaking, her mouth open in utter amazement and awe. Then, slowly, she began to smile.

Future Michael looked at Maria. “That wasn’t supposed to happen, Maria. I don’t know what consequences this could have for the future.”

“How could it be bad to know,” Maria asked, smiling. “I’ll get over the shock.”

“What did you see, Maria,” Isabel asked.

Future Michael shook his head, and Max cautioned her, “It might be better if we don’t know, Iz… If Michael from the future thinks it’s better not to tell us, we should listen to him.”

Isabel frowned. “You’re no fun, Max. I can’t stand secrets… when someone else is keeping them.”

“Yeah, that’s what I know,” Max said.

Max looked out the window. Kyle was driving up to the motel. He had probably seen the jeep and Maria’s mom’s Jetta. It would be a while before he found out what room they were in, but not long enough.

“Kyle’s coming,” he said to the others.

Future Michael looked out the window. “I really have to be going.” He looked at Maria. Maria smiled. Michael took her face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead. As he did, he quietly placed a block on the memories of the flashes she had just seen… and the fact that he had said he was married.

“Good bye,” he said, and he called for the portal. A light appeared, and Michael stepped into it, as Max, Liz, Isabel, and his younger self watched in awe. Then he was gone.

Kyle burst in just as Michael had left, wanting to know what was going on. When he became insistent on dragging Liz away, the younger Michael threw him across the room and shoved him out the door.

“I don’t know you,” Kyle said to Liz. “Whatever you’re mixed up in with these people… I don’t know you anymore, Liz Parker.”

Michael shut the door behind him.

“So, Maria…” Isabel started, “What was all that about?”

“What was all what about?”

“You know… the secret you and future Michael know.”

Maria looked perplexed. “Secret? What secret?”

Max smiled. “Too bad, Iz! It looks like Michael took his secrets with him.”

Isabel frowned. “Damn! How’s a girl to ever find things out? Just my bad luck!”

The younger Michael smiled at Maria, and Maria smiled back. Isabel noticed.

“Who knows, Michael… You and Maria may wind up together some day… married.”

“Not if she were the last girl on Earth!” Michael said.

“I have to agree with Michael on that one,” Maria said. “For once, he’s a hundred percent right.” She held out her hand, and Michael slapped it as a gesture of his agreement. As his hand touched Maria’s, Maria collapsed. Michael caught her.

“What happened? Sheez! I didn’t hit your hand that hard?”

Maria looked at Michael, and a smile slowly crept from ear to ear. Then she kissed him on the lips, passionately, leaving Michael, Isabel, Max, and Liz all with their eyes wide and mouths open.

“What was that for,” Michael asked, smiling in spite of himself.

“Nothing,” Maria said. “Let’s just say it’s for the memories.”



tbc

The Four Faces of Rath



Heat Wave

Chapter 13

XIII



Speaking directly to us, the readers, Liz smiles and says… “So future Michael put this block on Maria’s memories before he left so that she wouldn’t remember the flashes she had received from him. Then he blocked her memory of him telling her that he was married, too, so that she wouldn’t think that she and Michael didn’t have a chance. From future Michael’s perspective, that was probably the smart thing to do. It guaranteed that those memories wouldn’t somehow affect his future… the future he knew. But when our Michael slapped Maria’s hand, his energy released future Michael’s blocks… or some of them at least… and he didn’t even know what he had done. But Maria did. Hmmm… I don’t know if her touching Michael’s hand released all the blocks or just some of them, but that kiss she gave him… Omigod, if that didn’t set a fire to any memory blocks left… and make some new memories, too, I don’t know what ever would! It sure sent a heat wave through the room. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go outside and cool off. I think Max is using the shower. And Isabel… well, she’s still standing there with her mouth open. Poor Isabel. Too many shocks in one day… and then that kiss! I think she’s having a meltdown!”


tbc

The Four Faces of Rath



Multiple Exposures

Chapter 14

XIV



Kyle answered the door of the royal palace. It was Maria… and with her were Zorel, Kryys, and Jayyd.

“Hi, Kyle! Is Liz here?”

“I think she’s available for you, Maria,” Kyle said with a smile. “Hold on. I’ll go get her. Make yourself at home.”

Maria walked into the foyer and sat down on the oversized Antarian sofa, spreading her legs out comfortably. Zorel, Kryys, and Jayyd ran to the gardens, one of their favorite places to play.

“Maria,” Liz exclaimed, walking into the room a few minutes later. “How are you? Don’t bother to get up. I saw Zorel, Kryys, and Jayyd heading for the gardens. I imagine you need the rest.”

“You’re a saint, Liz,” Maria said, sighing. “I love this big, soft sofa! But if it was in my house, no work would ever get done!”

Liz laughed. “How’s Michael’s trip going?”

Maria smiled and took out the sphere of visions she was carrying in her purse…

“So far, he hasn’t changed the future… we’re all still here. Oh, and he’s only let one other girl kiss him while he was away… and she was me.” Maria slapped herself a couple of times, and she and Liz both laughed.

“Where’s Michael now,” Liz asked.

“Well, that’s the question,” Maria said. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure?”

“No. The sphere of visions can’t always see things that are not in its own time.”

“Yeah, I know,” Liz said. “That’s one of the problems we had when the kids were missing.”

“So far, I’ve been able to see Michael,” Maria continued, “but now… the sphere can’t find him, and I’m not sure where he is.”

“I’m sure he’s okay, Maria. It’s got to be simply a time… continuum… thing or something.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. But I was wondering if we could use the sphere of the portal and maybe just, you know, check on him, you and me…”

Liz grinned. “Ooh!” She thought about it a moment then smiled again… “That sounds like it could be a lot of fun, Maria! Yeah! We could do that! I wonder though…”

“What?”

“Yeah, why not! The palace staff can watch our kids… and Max will be here, too. Sure! We can do it!”

Maria grinned from ear to ear. “You know what, Liz?”

“What?”

“I’m really glad you’re my best friend!”

Liz smiled and hugged Maria. “Yeah, me too! I can’t imagine anyone else being my best friend but you, Maria!”

Liz hurried to inform Kyle and other staff personnel of her plans to leave for a short time, then she and Maria hugged their kids, and Liz called for the portal, asking it to take her and Maria to Michael. The portal opened, and Liz and Maria stepped through hand in hand.

The scene that met them left them both stunned. Michael appeared to be fighting with himself. Both Michaels were rolling on the desert sand. A third Michael was leaning against Max’s jeep with a smile on his face. And there were two Maxes! Liz counted them again! Two! On top of everything else, Liz and Maria’s younger halves were there.

Assessing the scene, Liz and Maria realized that two of those present were the Max and Michael who came back from Antar years before to save them and take them to Antar. The other two were the original Max and Michael who lived here. And the Michael leaning on the jeep, laughing… well, that could only be Maria’s Michael.

One of the Maxes was yelling at the two who were fighting… “Hey! Hey, guys! Stop it!”

“I’d stick you in an old folks’ home and be done with you,” said the seventeen-year-old Michael to the one he was fighting with.

“Yeah, well I’d turn you over to the sheriff for being a smart-assed punk,” the other Michael retorted.

Liz and Maria couldn’t tell which one was which as they tumbled.

“Stop! Stop! You can’t do this,” one of the two Maxes pleaded, beside himself now. “This is not going to work! We have a mission, Michael!”

After a short time, the two Michaels stood up and brushed themselves off. They were laughing and slapping each other on the back. Max was perplexed… then red-faced.

“I told you I would get you back, Max, for leaving me to explain to Maria and… and to this guy (He indicated his younger self) all by myself how it is that there are two of us! You said there would only be one of each of us… We were supposed to appear in our other bodies… instantly ‘upgraded,’ you said.” Well, I wasn’t expecting to come face to face with this guy! It took a lot of explaining! And poor Maria! So to let you know how much we appreciated that, we cooked up this little show for you… to get even.”

For a moment, Max didn’t say a word. Then he said,

“Michael, you’ll never change! I can’t even tell which one of you is the old fart and which one is the young punk!”

Everybody laughed.

The seventeen-year-old Liz walked over to Max and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his sculpted chest and stomach muscles. She did the same to the other Max. Then she ran one hand over each of their chests and looked over at Maria…

“I don’t know, Maria… I think this could be fun!”

Her friend Maria’s lower jaw fell about three inches.

“Kinky, you mean!” Then she looked at the three Michaels…

“But on the other hand, Liz, I can see your point!”

At this point, Liz and Maria from Antar decided that it was time they stepped in.

“Girls! Girls! Let’s not be greedy. There’s enough here to go around it looks like,” Liz said to their younger selves.

“Who are you,” seventeen-year-old Maria asked, her mouth open with surprise.

“I think you already know,” Maria answered her younger self. “I’m you.” She turned to Max… “New and updated, Max? What was that all about?”

Max grinned sheepishly and turned slightly red. “I made a mistake. I thought when Michael and I came back to the past that there would still be only one of each of us… we would just be… you know… ourselves here… sort of new and upgraded. It looks like I was wrong. The question I have is where did you two come from? You don’t exist in the future that Michael and I just came from… not yet anyway.”

The third Michael, leaning on the jeep, walked over and put his arms over the shoulders of the other two Michaels. “You see, Maria, these guys are Max and me when we came back the first time to save you and Liz… and the other two are… well… the originals.”

Maria and Liz had already figured that out. They had been here, after all, when it all happened the first time… as their younger selves. Maria from Antar walked over and took the seventeen-year-old Michael by the arm. “Come on, Michael, let’s go home.”

Michael who had been leaning against the jeep watched, at first amused, then somewhat unsure… “Wait a minute, Maria… That’s… That’s not me.”

“Of course not,” Maria said. “This is my Michael.”

“No, he’s not! I’m your Michael!”

“Come on now! You said this was the original, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t take no knock-offs. I only accept the gosh-darn real original.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Michael said. Maria grinned… then started to laugh. Then everyone started to laugh.

Liz from Antar looked at the two Maxes with their shirts open… “Well, as long as we’re shopping, Maria, can I take one of these home? My younger self here wouldn’t know what to do with two of them.”

Maria’s jaw dropped… “Liz! You are bad, girl!”

“Speak for yourself,” the seventeen-year-old Liz said to her future counterpart. “I have a great imagination!”

“Liz!” exclaimed seventeen-year-old Maria.

Both Lizzes laughed and winked at each other.

“I’m getting a headache,” Michael of Antar said, leaning against the jeep again.

“Come on, honey,” Maria said, releasing the younger Michael and taking her Michael by the hand. “I’ve got something at home that will cure that.”



tbc

Coming Next: “Reflections”

The Four Faces of Rath



Reflections

Chapter 15

XV



Michael stepped out of the portal with Maria and Liz into the palace reception area. As they passed a large mirror on the wall, he stopped and looked at his reflection for a moment. Without a word, he turned the mirror backwards to the wall and continued into the foyer. Maria gave him a little push, and he plopped onto the oversized Antarian sofa. She sat down beside him and threw her legs over his, resting her head against the plush armrest, then she reached up with one hand to rub Michael’s shoulders and back.

“You trying to pin me down to keep me here,” Michael asked with a slight smile.

“If that’s what it takes,” Maria said.

“Well, you know I still have one place I have to go.”

Maria frowned. “I know. But I don’t like it. And I know you don’t look forward to it either.”

Michael shook his head. “No, I don’t… but I have to go… It’s drawing me there.”

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, Michael.”

“Yes, I do,” Michael insisted. “I do! It’s more than just finding out who I am… I don’t know why yet, but it is.”

Maria gave Michael that little pouting look.

“Well, maybe I don’t have to go right now… right this moment,” Michael said. “It could be tomorrow… or the next day.”

Maria smiled a little. “That should give us time, I guess.”

“For what?”

“For me to cure your headache.”

Michael smiled.

As they were talking, Liz walked back into the room with Max at her side and a glass of Cherry Cola for each of the “guests.”

“Hey, Michael! How goes the search… and what’s with the mirror,” Max asked, noticing the mirror turned to the wall behind Michael.

Michael grinned. “I thought I’d seen enough of my face for a while, Max. Do you know what it’s like having three of me running around all at once… all with my face?”

“I thought it was adorable,” Maria said, squeezing Michael’s face and shaking it playfully with one hand.”

“Well, I’m happy enough to only see one of me in the mirror each morning, thank you,” Michael said. “I think I learned some things, Max. Of course… I still haven’t faced my biggest demons…”

“Rath? And Kivar?”

“Yeah… and all that that lifetime meant… you know?”

“So what did you find out on Earth?”

Michael breathed out a sigh. “I’ve always wondered, I don’t know, if maybe I was supposed to be more like Rath and maybe would have been except for how I grew up… you know… with Hank and all.”

Max looked at him questioningly.

“Yeah, well, you see, Max, when you and Isabel and I were found out in the desert when we were six, you and Isabel went to live with the Evanses. They treated you decent, and you grew up with… you know… nothing negative pressing on your mind… keeping you from being whoever you were supposed to be. But I grew up with Hank. Not exactly the social butterfly of Roswell… You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I get your drift. But how would that keep you from being who you were supposed to be?”

“That’s what I had to find out, Max… did it keep me from being the Rath that I once was? And is that who I really am but just don’t know it because that part of me was repressed or something by Hank… maybe still is? I don’t want to do anything someday and hurt Maria or something because I’m not who I… who she thought I was.”

Maria gave him a gentle poke on the arm. “You would never hurt me, Michael. You may not know it, but I do.”

Michael smiled slightly.

“Repressed how,” Max asked.

“Well… Wouldn’t it just be a bitch, Max, if the only reason I’m not an exact copy of Rath is because of Hank… if I found out I actually owed Hank some kind of debt for treating me bad… repressing the fierceness of Rath by abusing me the way he did?”

“Did you come to any conclusions after seeing Hank again?”

“Yeah. I don’t think Hank made me who I am.”

“Well, I’d say that’s definitely a good thing, Michael,” Liz said.

Michael nodded. “Yeah, it is. Hank abused me, and I didn’t even realize it was abuse till I was older… but the feelings I had… the way I reacted… was always me. It was just me. Whoever ‘me’ is. It was never Hank that made me feel that way. Maybe he made me stronger… gave me an edge or something… but he didn’t change who I was… you know, inside. The part of me that he affected was all on the surface. Hank made me frustrated, angry, hurt… all those things sometimes, but he didn’t make me who I am. Something else did that. I realized it when I watched that little boy… me… in Hank’s trailer. I had to see it from a different perspective. No matter how much Hank pushed him around or abused him, that kid still had spunk.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, he could have caved, you know… become a total basket case or, worse, become a copy of Hank to survive. But he didn’t. He never cried. He never showed any emotion. It made Hank furious. Hank never could get to him… He could hit him, beat him, belittle him… but it was like spitting into the wind… It always just flew back and stuck to him.

Max nodded. “We’re glad Hank couldn’t make you into a copy of himself.”

Liz nodded her agreement. “Michael, we always knew you weren’t anything like Hank. You might have been different in some ways, but not like Hank. And I agree that Hank didn’t make you who you are.”

“Yeah, I was different. I cut my hair different, I skipped school all the time, I got into trouble…”

“And you were a hell of an artist,” Maria reminded him. “I don’t think you got that from Hank or Rath.”

“That’s true,” Michael said. “I didn’t get that from them. Hank couldn’t draw a stick man without a picture to copy it from… and Rath… I don’t remember Rath ever being artistic. He was a soldier… like me.”

“But you’re a soldier with a heart,” Liz said.

“Well, Rath had a heart, too,” Michael replied. “It was just more hardened. I think he had seen too much killing… too much pain. But he was always loyal… He was loyal to the very end.”

“And you haven’t seen pain and killing, Michael?” Max asked him.

“Well, yeah… I’ve seen some things and been through some stuff, you know, but maybe not like Rath. I don’t know.”

Max nodded and smiled. “So now you know that you don’t owe Hank any kind of debt for making you not turn out as a carbon copy of Rath, and you know that Hank failed to make you into a carbon copy of himself or make you who you are. What about the other timelines you visited?”

Michael nodded. “I wanted to see if maybe my deprived childhood was a factor in who the real me is… not Hank directly, but indirectly, you know. I saw Maria, Kyle, and Alex at Liz’s party when she was six, and at first I felt hurt. I mean… how could Hank’s kid from the trailer park know someone like Liz Parker? But then I realized that it didn’t matter, because Max and I got you and Maria in the end… We were the real winners.”

Maria smiled and kissed Michael on the lips. Max took advantage of the break in talk to kiss Liz at the same time. “Michael’s right, you know, Liz. I am a winner,” he said, as their lips finally parted.

Liz smiled and kissed him again.

“I watched my younger self in the CrashDown and in the Jetta… and then at the motel… and in the desert, and the only thing I could think of was that I was glad that I’ve changed since then. He was me, but he was too rude to Maria sometimes… and also… I don’t know… too immature.”

Max laughed out loud, and Liz and Maria both grinned.

“But the important thing was that he wasn’t a copy of Hank…” Michael continued. “…or anything like Hank, and he didn’t seem to be ‘repressed.’ Whoever he was inside, Hank hadn’t been able to extinguish his spirit.”

“I can attest to that, Michael,” Max said.

“So there you have it, Max. I guess you think it’s kind of stupid… I mean… you don’t need to go lookin’ for who you are…”

Max shook his head. “No, Michael, it’s not stupid! You may have to find out for yourself what the rest of us all think we already know about you, but you’ve been nothing if not a good and fast friend to me and to Liz and to everyone on Antar. The scientists named you, “Father of Antarian Science” for your work in rescuing them and rebuilding Antar’s Linked Science Lab network…”

Michael laughed. “Yeah, I should have taken that certificate and medal back with me and shown it to Mister Bergen, our science teacher at Roswell High. Wouldn’t that be a kicker! He failed me in science!”

“You worked tirelessly to rescue all those children not so long ago. Kiraugo loves you like a father.”

Michael smiled in spite of himself and nodded.

“Who else would have rescued all those Dragon children, Michael? The Dragons were our enemy. Now they’re our friends and allies. You had a lot to do with that.”

“Okay, Max, I get your point. So I’m sometimes Mister Good Guy.” He shook his head. “I guess I realized that, too, in a way, back on Earth. Now I just have to face Rath… and my first life.”

“Why,” Max asked. “If you found out that you’re not a copy of Rath or of Hank… and that Hank didn’t make you who you are, what’s left to find out?”

Michael looked at his reflection in the glass he was holding, and he pointed it out to Max. “Look at the glass, Max. What do you see? How much of Rath do you think is in me? Am I Rath… just with different life experiences, but with the same potential to become… what Rath became? And would it be wrong if I did? Maybe Rath is who I’m supposed to be… not the Michael that you know. Am I going to change some day because of some genetic link to a past I barely remember?” Michael took a couple of swallows from the glass, and he and Max looked at it again. It was still Michael’s face, but it looked different now. With the glass only half full, the face that looked back at them appeared to be split in the middle. “Don’t forget the dreams, Max. Those dreams were real. They were telling us something.”

Max turned visibly pale. Deep inside, he had the same gut feeling…



tbc

Coming Next: “A Storm in the River of Time”

The Four Faces of Rath



A Storm in the River of Time

Chapter 16

XVI



“Master, look at the river.”

“Yes, Kryys. There is something about to happen… like a storm brewing in time.

“Is Antar in danger, Master Drax?”

The Drax-ta-kiya was silent for a few moments. “Antar will be Antar, ‘sun drop.’ It will be whatever it is meant to be, as will we. What do you see in the river, sun drop?”

“I see… confusion… the eddies of time are becoming juxtaposed on top of one another. It is… as though a great storm is coming.”

“Yes. That is what I see, too.”



:::::::“Many Antarians have no powers… many others do,” Maria explains, reminding us of how Kryys came to be where he is. “Until Kryys was almost six, he had no powers that we knew of. Then in a time of great need, he saved Jayyd’s life. He literally brought Jayyd back from the dead and healed her after Agent Zwolinski… Excuse me.” Maria wipes a tear from her eyes then continues… “After Zwolinski shot her with a machine gun, almost tearing her little body in half. There was nothing Max could do to save her, and even the amazing healing waters from the island of the jah-ee couldn’t help. So we were in awe when Kryys suddenly turned into a million tiny, fiery particles and swirled through Jayyd’s damaged body, mending it one molecule at a time. We later learned that Kryys was to be even more –much, much more- than we had ever suspected. The Drax-ta-kiya of Jeroglasst took Kryys under his wing as his protégé. When Kryys is with the Drax-ta-kiya in the river of time, he is ageless and wise as the eternal span of time; but when he returns, he’s just our Kryys again. He barely remembers what happened in the river of time, and he’s like any other seven-year-old. Here… the best way to explain it is just to show you. Let’s go back to a little over a year ago.”
Maria motions, and we follow her into her memories of the not-too-distant past:

[The Drax-ta-Kiya knew that the time had arrived. The river of time told him so… Not with words, as we know them, but it spoke all the same. The Drax-ta-kiya had only to feel the eddies and currents at the edge of the river. Each one had its own special motion… its own particular dance in the stream. They were different today. Some time during the night they had changed. It was nothing that most beings would notice. Most beings were not even aware of the river of time, much less of some small change in an eddy or current. But the Drax-ta-kiya wasn’t most beings.

The old man stepped out onto the front porch of his house on Jeroglasst and stood with his face toward the beautiful valley below. His white, pupiless eyes saw nothing, but he saw everything. A smile appeared on his face, as the morning sun warmed him. Looking toward the sky, the Drax-ta-kiya spread his arms, and his body began to shimmer. At first, it looked as though his clothes were being whipped by the wind as the sunshine danced on them. But then the “sunshine” began to spread out, as streams of bright light -billions of tiny molecules- escaped from his body into the air then into the sky above, leaving the place where he had stood only moments before empty.

On Antar, there was another who felt the change. Though only six years old, he felt the knowledge of the ages at times… times when he would allow himself to also join the stream, not as a mortal, but as an eternal. He had learned what few in the universe knew… how to transform his mortal body into a stream of immortal molecules and join the eternal river.

Kryys Guerin had changed during the night. He had somehow become six again as he slept. He no longer remembered being fifty-three. He no longer remembered being the President of future Earth, “Alyendis.” He no longer remembered the events of his other childhood, growing up alone as an orphan, learning to live on his own, struggling to make a life for himself. He only knew that he wanted to play hide and seek with his best friends, Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx Evans and his sister, Jayyd, and brother, Zorel.

Even at the age of six, Kryys had been more than six. Now, as he played hide and seek with his brother, his sister, and their friends, Kryys felt something… something in the stream… something in the wind. The feeling that he was being “called” grew stronger and stronger. Finally, Kryys answered the call. He didn’t think about it. He didn’t debate it. He didn’t wonder about it. He just answered it… as naturally as answering his mother’s call to come and eat. Kryys began to change. First, his hair and clothes seemed to wave in the wind, then the sunlight appeared to sparkle on him, then he seemed to come apart, as streams and streams of molecules made their way into the atmosphere above Antar to join the eternal river of time that flows through the universe.

As Kryys joined the river and flowed with it, he was met by the one who had called him…

“Kryys. I am happy to see you. I knew that you would come.”

“Yes, Master. I have much to learn.”

“And I shall teach you. Your powers are great. There is no other in the universe with the potential that you possess. I have known this for a hundred years. You are the one.”

“I am only six, Master.”

“The river is time, Kryys. In it, there is no beginning… There is no end… There just is. I have seen you here. Now it is time for you to learn and to fulfill the potential that was given to you.”

“I understand, Master. I wish to learn.”

“Yes… You are everything I believed you to be, Kryys! Your power is enormous… And your being is pure. You will use it well.”

“Thank you, Master. When shall I begin?”

“You already have, little sun drop. You are learning even as we speak.”

“Master, will I one day again become the President of Alyendis? Will I meet the girl who would become my wife again? Will my child be born?”

“You see, sun drop? You thought that you were only six, but you remember them. In the river, everything is revealed. You have only to open your eyes. Look! What do you see?”

Kryys looked into the river, and he smiled. It wasn’t a corporeal smile, for indeed he had no face, no body, no hands or feet, no mouth to speak with… but he was speaking… and he smiled.

“Do you see, sun drop?”

“Yes, Master, I see.”

“Excellent! Return home now, Kryys. I will call for you again. Each day, you must learn something.”

“Thank you, Master. It is a great honor to be taught by you.”

Kryys reappeared slowly behind the tree.

In the river, the caller drifted on, then he, too, began to rematerialize. Soon, he was once again standing on his porch overlooking the beautiful valley below. He held his face up to the sunlight…

“No, Kryys… It is I who am honored… to teach the one whom you will become.”]


Now the Drax-ta-kiya again waded the river of time with Kryys at his side.

“You must be prepared, little sun drop.”

“For what, Master?”

“You will know when it comes. Then you must act quickly. If you do not, the river could be permanently changed… enough to alter that which is.”

“I understand, Master Drax. I will be alert.”

The Drax-ta-kiya smiled. “Yes. I know you will, sun drop. I have seen it all in the river. You are very special.”



tbc

Coming Next: “The Age of Rath”

Be here! Meet the real Rath… up close and personal!

The Four Faces of Rath



The Age of Rath

Chapter 17

XVII



Michael awoke refreshed, feeling ready to face whatever the future might hold for him. He found Maria in the living room of their home in the Antarian countryside rearranging some small decorative items on a shelf, and he put his arms around her, pulling her close. “I’ve been thinking, honey… If you don’t think I should do this… if you want me to stay here… well, I think I can live with that. I’ve got you to help me get over any doubts I might have. Maybe I still feel like there’s something more to find out, but I know you can help me cope with that, because the most important things in my life are the things I’ve already got… you… our kids… and our friends here on Antar.”

Maria smiled from ear to ear. “Do you mean, that, Michael? You’d really stay here… for me? Michael, I… I don’t know if I can take that away from you.”

“You wouldn’t be taking, Maria. All you’ve ever done is give to my life… You’ve given it meaning… you’ve given it happiness… you’ve given it purpose… What more can I ask you to give?”

Maria smiled again and kissed Michael. As their lips touched, she saw stars in a beautiful blue sky. And she could clearly feel the warmth and love that were coming from Michael’s heart. Then, suddenly, something struck her with the force of a cannon ball, knocking her violently away from Michael… something very powerful… and dark.

“Maria! What happened,” Michael exclaimed, rushing to her side.

“I don’t know, Michael! I started to see stars and things like I always do when we kiss, and then it all changed into… something different… something dark and angry. Then I felt like I was being repelled. It felt like I was hit by a lightning bolt.”

“I didn’t mean to, Maria! I don’t know what happened! I swear it!”

“I know, Michael. It wasn’t you. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t you.”

“Are you sure you’re alright, Maria?”

“Yeah… I’m fine, just a little shaken. I’ll be okay, really.”

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Maria!”

“Michael, you don’t owe me any apology. It wasn’t you. Stop blaming yourself! It was just a freak thing.”

“Yeah, me! I’m the freak!”

“No, Michael! You’re not! You’re a loving, caring, warm, wonderful man, and any girl would be lucky to have you!”

Michael shook his head. “No, Maria! Hank was right! I’m a freak!”

“Michael, I’ll show you that you’re worrying about nothing. Kiss me again.” As Maria’s lips started to touch Michael’s, Michael’s eyes suddenly sparked with an angry fierceness that Maria had never seen before, and he shouted at her in a clearly threatening tone…

“Ja-Stak a’il dak Krat-ax-an!”

Maria backed away quickly. She wasn’t totally sure that she had heard what she had just heard, but her Antarian was fairly fluent after having lived on Antar for almost ten years and raising children there, and it sounded like Michael had just used an older Antarian vulgarity that translated, roughly, as, “Get out of my face, bitch!”

Maria stared at Michael with shock and great fear in her eyes… for him more than for herself.

“What… what was that, Michael?”

Michael’s eyes returned to their normal shade, and his face softened.

“What did I say, Maria? What’s happening to me?”

“I don’t know, Michael. It’s almost like… there are two of you in there… and the other one doesn’t like me at all!”

Michael looked momentarily confused… almost lost. Then he yelled for the portal. A bright light appeared, and before Maria could stop him, Michael leapt into it headlong, shouting his destination as he dove through the opening.

The sphere of the portal was not supposed to be a carnival ride. It was a doorway from one place to another… a portal. One passed instantly through it, they didn’t “ride” to their destination. But this trip was anything but normal. As Michael leapt into the portal, he got the sensation that he was sliding down a chute… a chute with a lot of bumps and a few loop the loops. It probably lasted no more than ten seconds, if even that, but by the time Michael was ejected on the other end, he felt like he had been in a tornado, a minor detail that didn’t slow him down for more than the few seconds it took him to get his bearings. Hearing someone coming, he ducked behind a large tree.

“But Kivar, if Rath catches you with me, you won’t live to become the king.”

It was Vilandra… and Kivar was with her.

“Then let’s make sure that Rath doesn’t catch us,” Kivar replied with a smile. “Come on, Vilandra, just a small kiss… for old times sake.”

“Kivar, you’re a scoundrel,” Vilandra said teasingly, but she turned away, denying him his kiss. “I am promised to Rath, you know. I don’t want him thinking I’ve been unfaithful.”

“Are you going to intercede for me, Vilandra? Are you going to help me get into the city? It’s the only way, you know.”

“I know, Var… I know. I really don’t know what my brother’s problem is. He knows you only want to discuss your rightful place in the royal family… so that your rights will be recognized in the line of succession… but alas! My brother is too dense to understand. He has forbidden your entry into the city, and Rath has placed guards everywhere to assure that his mandate is obeyed.”

“But I only want to get in so I can speak with him, Vilandra… explain to him that I mean him no harm. He has no heir yet, and I am descended from the royal family, too. It is natural…”

“I know, Var. But my brother, Zan, is stubborn. A team of yeggs could not dissuade him once he has made up his mind. He believes that your intentions are to depose the royal family.”

“Vilandra! How is that possible? I myself am of the royal family!”

Vilandra giggled. “Well, just barely maybe. The royal family doesn’t usually acknowledge your kind, Var.”

“So my mother was a shebble girl.”

“Who was all of thirteen,” Vilandra reminded him. “It may not sound fair, my dear, Kivar, but Zan’s great uncle never confessed to being… uh… your father, you know.”

“Well, he was. Everyone knows it.”

“True. Everyone does. It’s not really a secret. But acceptance is everything, Var. And my brother will not accept you. He will not let you into the city.”

“I could change his mind if I only had a chance, Vilandra. Help me sneak into the city with my… entourage… just a few servants who carry my things.”

“Kivar, you’re hopeless. I’ll help you. I know a way to get you in. My brother will be furious, but when he sees that you only want to reason with him, maybe he’ll forgive me. I doubt it, but I don’t care. He’s stubborn as an ancient yegg!”

As Vilandra and Kivar moved on, Michael emerged from behind the tree to look around. In some strange way, everything looked vaguely familiar. He knew that the palace was to the left, about four tarins away. How he knew this, he wasn’t sure, but he was certain of it. Michael turned left and walked toward the palace.

About two tarins from the palace, Michael came across four of the guards Vilandra had mentioned in her conversation with Kivar.

“Halt! Identify yourself!”

Michael looked up and turned to face the one who had spoken. He was holding some kind of weapon up as a barrier. Seeing Michael’s face now in the light, the guard appeared to pale, and the three who were with him backed away, leaving him out in front alone.

“I’m sorry, Rath. I didn’t see your face in the shadows! Forgive me!”

Michael waved at the guard dismissively and continued walking in the direction of the palace.

Once he had reached the palace, he sat down on a bench in the gardens to think about what it was he was going to actually do there. As he pondered this question, he was jolted from his thoughts by approaching footsteps. Michael looked around quickly for a place to hide but saw none readily available, so he decided that he would merely let them think that he was Rath… as he had done with the guards. Michael stood up straight and authoritatively faced the arriving individual.

It was Rath.

Rath stopped to assess the person in front of him. He walked slowly around Michael, looking at him from all sides. Michael tried to imitate Rath’s motions, walking around Rath at the same time and observing him. He figured that if anyone was watching them, it was best if they could not be sure which one was the real Rath.

“Who are you,” Rath asked. It did not have the sound of a question that was to be ignored. Something in Rath’s tone demanded one’s total attention and an immediate answer. Even Michael felt uneasy in his presence.

“I’m Rath,” Michael replied.

Rath responded with a feigned left hook that took Michael by surprise, followed by a definitely unfeigned lightning fast right jab straight to the jaw. Michael was instantly knocked off his feet. Rath placed his arc gun against Michael’s head. “Now let’s try that again. Who are you?”

Michael rubbed his jaw, moving it back and forth to see if he might need to relocate it. As he moved it, he heard a click. He tried to open his mouth and was surprised to find that he could. Apparently, the jaw had fallen back into place.

“My name is Rath.”

Rath raised his arc gun again, and Michael raised his hand in an effort to fend it off, but Rath spoke instead of firing.

“You look like me. I want to know how that’s possible. Too many things are turning sour here lately.”

“Sour?” Michael looked at Rath questioningly. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll ask all the questions, Rath said. “Are you a shape-shifter?”

Michael shook his head.

“No… I didn’t think so,” Rath said slowly. “My form cannot be reproduced by shape-shifting… just as Zan’s cannot. Yet somehow, you look like me. How is that possible?”

Michael seemed surprised by this revelation. He made a mental note to ask about it later… when he might have more chance of receiving an answer that wouldn’t dislocate his jaw. He sighed and looked Rath in the eyes. “Have you ever heard of the river of time, Rath?”

Rath shook his head.

“Well, it exists. Let’s just say it seems to be the inner workings of the universe… It’s hard to explain, but I think something has happened to upset its natural balance. This time that you live in and the time I live in seem to be moving together somehow… like two ponds that have overflowed their banks, and their waters are mixing… becoming one.”

Rath was silent for several moments, apparently thinking about what Michael had just said.

“Yes, there are a lot of unexplained things happening recently… too many. When I went to hold my lady, Vilandra, earlier, I saw the face of another woman… I thought it was a shape-shifter who tried to take Vilandra’s body to get close to me! I gave the shape-shifter the welcome that it deserved… It abandoned my lady’s body, and my lady returned, but the Krat-ax-an tried to return again, and I drove it away finally with a threat.”

“A shape-shifter cannot appear in the body of another,” Michael said. “A shape-shifter can only make itself look like another person.”

“There are those who can do both,” Rath said with assurance. “Now, are you going to tell me who you really are,” he asked Michael again.

“I am you, Rath, from a future time.”

“I exist here! now! Not in a future time,” Rath exclaimed with irritation.

“But when you die here, Rath, your DNA is taken to another planet and combined with DNA from other beings. The result is… me.”

“Why,” Rath asked simply. “Why would anyone do that?”

“To assure the continuation of the royal family.”

Rath looked suspicious… “But if I were dead… Zan could do that without me… unless… Zan dies, too, before his time.”

Michael looked down at the ground. “I think I’ve said too much already. I cannot tell you any more, Rath.”

“You don’t have to. You’ve already told me what I need to know, even if you do not know it. I’ve heard reports that Vilandra has been seeing Kivar secretly. I didn’t believe them. But now… I think that I might be wise to have her followed.” “And as for you…” Rath added, “…if I find out you have lied to me, I will kill you… even if you are me.”

Michael swallowed hard. He knew that Rath was not speaking rashly. He absolutely would follow through on his threat.

Rath started to leave but then seemed to change his mind. He turned to Michael and motioned… “Come with me.” Michael hesitated then decided that wherever Rath was taking him, it would at least keep them together for the moment, and that would give him more time to figure out what he was going to do now that he was here.

As they walked back towards the palace together, Rath and Michael were surrounded by a dozen smiling young women who seemed to come out of nowhere. Michael started to smile back in a friendly way as they walked by, but he noticed that Rath was watching them intensely. And he was not smiling. Suddenly, the girls seemed to shimmer. Immediately, where the girls had been standing, a dozen well-armed soldiers appeared. Rath stood very still. He showed no emotion whatsoever except for a certain intenseness. It struck Michael that Rath looked rather like a hawk or an eagle dispassionately sizing up its prey. But Rath was only one… well, two, if Michael helped him. Michael looked at the soldiers again. Okay, it was two against twelve. He had Rath’s face. The chance that they would spare him was basically zero. Besides, in some strange way, he felt a kinship with Rath.

Two of the shape-shifting soldiers, one from each side, attacked. Then, suddenly, all of the others rushed into the fray at once. Rath easily sent the first two sailing through the air, their necks broken. It appeared that Michael might not need to help him after all. Then the shape-shifters shifted again, turning themselves into creatures with which Michael had had more than just a passing experience… Dragons of Drago. These were not real Dragons, however. Of this, Michael was quite certain. Real Dragons religiously avoid all weapons. They believe that any Dragon that cannot bring down its prey or enemy with its own formidable teeth and claws is better off taken out of the gene pool. These were not Dragons. However, as long as they were taking the shape of Dragons, perhaps they might have the same weaknesses… the same Achilles heel.

One of the Dragons managed to rake Rath with a large, claw-like spur, opening a two-foot-long gash in his left arm. If Rath felt it, it was hard to tell. He showed no awareness of the pain. But clearly, his left side had become more vulnerable to attack now that his arm was injured. Rath had already managed to kill one of the fake Dragons and had wounded three others, but he was tiring under the Dragons’ formidable assault, and all the pounding he had given their heads seemed to have had no effect.

Michael went on the attack. He rushed the nearest Dragon, which had its back to him, as it went after Rath. Michael jumped, landing on the Dragon’s tail, and the Dragon roared and swung around, raising its tail suddenly and tossing Michael over its head. Michael grabbed onto the head and hung on, holding the snout closed with both arms around it. The Dragon began to show signs of suffocation. After a few moments, it flipped over and fell at Rath’s feet.

“Nice! They do have Dragon physiology,” Michael said to Rath. “They have to be able to open their mouths to breathe. Also, you can hit ‘em in the upper snout, right over the third tooth. It’s their nerve center. Their brain is attached to it. You could pound them in the head all day and not hurt them. There’s nothing in there. Go for the snout.”

Within minutes, Rath and Michael had incapacitated or killed all but three of the shape-shifters. The remaining three, seeing that the Dragon thing was no longer working for them, shape-shifted once again, this time turning into large birds, but instead of attacking, they flew away. Rath flung a pointed, light-weight, metal spear called a “bartaka” at the fleeing shape-shifters with his still-functional right arm and managed to bring one of the birds down. But the other two were, by now, gone.

“Go on! Fly back to Kivar and tell him of your defeat,” Rath yelled after the birds.

Looking around at the dead and injured shape-shifters, Michael thought about the real Dragons. The real Dragons were his friends… ever since he and Max saved the Dragon children from the slavers on Gadyslar… and little Kiraugo, a Dragon child, totally idolized Michael. But somehow, Michael didn’t feel any remorse over having killed these. They weren’t Dragons. In fact, Michael actually felt, in a way, offended that these shape-shifters had chosen to use the forms of the Dragons for their traitorous plot.

Rath slapped Michael on the back and smiled. Michael hadn’t seen Rath smile before, and he found himself oddly shocked to see that he actually could.

“Turn around, my friend,” Rath said. “We have company.”

Michael turned around to see that Zan had come out to meet them. He had been watching the final part of the battle.

“Rath,” Zan said, looking back and forth at the two for a moment, “how did you manage to do this? Even I did not know that you could replicate yourself this way.”

“I can’t take credit for any new power, Zan,” Rath replied. “My friend here is… a time traveler. He goes by the name…”

“Michael,” Michael said for him. “I go by Michael.”

“Well, Michael,” Zan said, “You must certainly be descended from Rath. You are an exact copy!”

Michael nodded. “I am a descendent.”

“Rath, you and your “descendent” must come in. Ava is having a special feast prepared for the two of you as we speak.” Zan looked at Rath’s left arm. The two-foot-long gash made by the Dragon’s spur went all the way to the bone, but Rath had not even mentioned it. Zan placed his hands over Rath’s arm and concentrated. As they watched, the arm began to heal. Then, slowly, the wound disappeared.

“Come!” Zan said. “You must be famished after that fight! Let’s go in.”

Michael had to admit that he actually had worked up an appetite. He nodded then grimaced slightly, as he felt the pain in his jaw. Zan noticed.

“Did something happen to your jaw, Michael?”

Rath smiled.

“Ah! I understand! You met Rath!” Zan started to place his hand next to Michael’s jaw.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Michael said cavalierly and more than a little untruthfully. “It’ll be okay.”

Zan smiled. “Ava will be offended if you do not enjoy the feast she has prepared for you… You would be wise to accept my help.”

Michael nodded. Zan held his hand next to Michael’s jaw for a moment then removed it. Michael moved his mouth around and smiled. “Yeah! Yeah, that is better.”

Zan and Rath both grinned, and the three men went into the palace, as the palace guards carted off the dead and injured shape-shifters.



tbc

Coming Next: “Jibo-E’yya and A’yako”

The Four Faces of Rath



Jibo-E’yya and A’yako

Chapter 18

XVIII



Michael savored the over-sized Jibo-E’yya chops on his plate, as a smiling Rath shoved a large pot full of something that smelled divine in his direction.

“Try this, Michael! It’s a specialty reserved only for the greatest warriors of our kingdom. You’ll like it. Ava invented it for Zan, and the recipe is a closely-guarded palace secret.”

Michael put some onto his plate then tasted it. As he let it swirl around his tongue, he smiled appreciatively.

“Pretty good, huh,” Zan said.

Michael nodded. “More like great, I’d say! What is it?”

“We call it A’yako,” Zan replied. “It’s shredded yegg and jibo fixed in a stew with several secret ingredients. Ava won’t tell even me what her special ingredients are.”

Zan and Rath both laughed.

“This is the first thing I’ve ever tasted that doesn’t need any Tabasco,” Michael said.

“What’s Tabasco,” Rath asked.

“It’s a special ingredient that was created on the planet Eluymer in the seventh galaxy.

“I’ve heard of Eluymer,” Rath said. “Some of our exploration scientists went there a couple of years back. They reported that the inhabitants look remarkably like us… more than most of the distant species we know of. But I never heard of this Tabasco.”

“I guess the Eluymerians kept it a secret,” Michael said with a grin. Zan and Rath both laughed.

“Well, I’ll have to have our scientists bring me some of this Tabasco if they ever go to Eluymer again,” Zan said. “I, for one, would like to see what is so good that it can compare with Ava’s A’yako.”

“Well, I didn’t say Tabasco was as good as this,” Michael laughed. “If I’d had A’yako, I would have eaten nothing else at every meal. It’s just that Tabasco is the closest thing Eluymer has to the ‘special ingredients’ in Ava’s A’yako.”

At the other end of the table, Ava smiled.

“Rath,” Zan said, “These shape-shifters that attacked you today… are you sure that Kivar sent them?”

“I can’t prove it, Zan… not yet anyway… but I am certain of it.”

Zan sighed. “It’s just that Vilandra is convinced of Kivar’s benign character. She’s after me day and night to talk to him… let him into the city.”

“Don’t do it, Zan! Kivar may have deceived Vilandra…”

“Or?” Zan asked, looking at Rath’s face. “Rath, I know you. The way you say that Kivar may have deceived Vilandra leaves unsaid, ‘Or something.’ There is something else that you suspect. What is it?”

“I don’t suspect Vilandra, Zan… but… there are sufficient reasons for caution with her. I am not accusing her of any disloyalty, only saying that she should be watched… for her own safety as much as for ours. Kivar is a treacherous man, and Vilandra was once close to him.”

“Now she is betrothed to you, Rath.”

Rath nodded and put another spoonful of A’yako into his mouth.

“But look, Rath,” Zan said, “We shouldn’t be boring our guest with our problems.”

“I’m not bored,” Michael insisted. “In a way, your future and mine are connected… since I’m Rath’s descendent…”

Zan smiled. “So you’re a time traveler… You’re obviously also a great soldier. What are you… in your own time?”

“General of the Armies of Antar.”

Rath grinned broadly.

“I knew it,” Zan said, “A great warrior like Rath… his descendent was bound to be a great warrior and a loyal defender of the kingdom!”

Michael smiled. “I guess we are alike in some ways.”

“How do you travel through time, Michael,” Zan asked. “I’ve never known of anyone who could do this.”

Michael thought a moment then decided to answer. “There is a device that I use… a sphere from a very distant planet. It will take me to any place I ask… in this time or any other.”

“That’s incredible,” Zan replied.

“Yes… it is,” Rath agreed. “But shouldn’t you keep such information to yourself, Michael? Are you not afraid that someone might steal your sphere?”

Michael smiled. “I thought about that… but the truth is, I wouldn’t be able to use it myself except for a good and trusted friend who authorized me to use it. I don’t have the sphere with me, and no one else here can command it, so no one would be able to steal it.”

“Logical,” Zan said. “He’s a thinker, Rath… I’ll have to give him that.”

Rath nodded. “Are you also betrothed or married, Michael?”

“Married… yes, and I have three children. I believe you’ve seen my wife, Rath.”

Rath looked surprised. “I don’t remember meeting any other time travelers. I would remember that.”

“No,” Michael said, shaking his head. “When my wife kissed me earlier today, she was repelled by some unknown force acting through me. When she tried to kiss me a second time, the words…” Michael stopped and glanced at Ava… “Well, some words that I had not said came from my mouth. You mentioned seeing a different face when you kissed Vilandra. I believe the problem we were discussing… of time being out of balance, overlapping… caused us, you and me, to become one for a few moments. That’s actually why I came here… to find out what happened and how we can fix it.”

Zan looked concerned. “This happened again, Rath?”

Rath nodded. “I think I must owe you and your wife an apology then, Michael. I hope you will convey that message to her for me. You must understand that we’ve had problems with the shape-shifters here for some time now. They’re loyal to Kivar almost to the last one. We do not know why. But when unusual things are seen in the kingdom, we always suspect the shape-shifters.”

“For very good reasons, though,” Ava said from the other end of the table.

Zan and Rath both nodded.

Rath smiled and offered a conciliatory observation…

“I should have known she was no shape-shifter, I guess, Michael. The transcendental shape-shifters –that’s the ones who are able to move a small section of time aside for a moment and replace a person with a copy that is actually themselves- have little artistry in their craft. They are as likely as not to create a face that would look more attractive to a yegg.”

Zan and Ava laughed.

“But your lady, Michael, is far more beautiful than any transcendental shape-shifter can replicate… that I have seen.”

“I’ll tell Maria you said that,” Michael said. “She’ll be pleased to know that she’s more attractive than a yegg.”

“I meant that she is more attractive than any shape-shifter is able to master… that I have seen. That is a compliment, Michael.”

“I took it as such… and on Maria’s behalf… and mine, thank you.”

Again there was laughter from the others, this time including Rath.

“That does bring up a question that I had, though,” Michael said. “You said something about the shape-shifters not being able to replicate your form or Zan’s. I was wondering why that is.”

Zan nodded and answered for Rath. “The shape-shifters are a different species than we are, Michael. They –the non-transcendental ones at least- are quite talented at changing their forms, but they have some limitations… and we have out secrets, too.”

Michael nodded. “I understand. If you can’t tell me, that’s okay.”

Zan and Rath looked at each other, then Zan looked back at Michael. “I see no reason not to tell you, Michael, the broader aspects anyway. The shape-shifters are, as I said, a different species than we are. We discovered that their vision is also different. They have a different range of vision. They can see far more than we can overall, but within a portion of the spectrum, a very tiny portion, there is a range within which they are basically blind. We see it but they don’t. Because of this discovery, we were able to have our scientists create a masking feature –a cream that is applied to one part of our faces. It shifts that portion of our faces to within that range of the spectrum that the shape-shifters can’t see. We see ourselves as we are… you see us as we are… but they see our faces distorted, and they recreate what they see. They do not know that we have this ability, and they do not understand how we can always spot their copies. You can understand why we limit this masking feature to just Rath and myself. If it were widely used, it would not be long before the shape-shifters would find out our secret and make corrections for it.”

“That is a wise decision,” Michael agreed. “I have to admit that I know very little about shape-shifters. I know they exist… I knew at least one myself. But I never heard of a transcendental shape-shifter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of them.”

“They aren’t very common, Michael,” Zan said, “But if you ever saw one, you probably didn’t know it. There are only about ten thousand shape-shifters, that we know of, in our galaxy, and of those, only perhaps a thousand are in this section of the galaxy.”

“And I think all of those have been recruited by Kivar,” Ava said.

Zan nodded. “It would seem so. Of the one thousand shape-shifters that we try to keep track of, only about thirty are transcendental shape-shifters… a very small percentage overall.”

“But a troublesome bunch for their small numbers,” Rath added, lifting another spoonful of A’yako toward his mouth.


Far away from Antar, somewhere in the distant cosmos, Kryys and the Drax-ta-kiya walked together along the edge of the river of time.

“Master, the river is still rising, and some areas in time already have merged together. How will I know which waters to leave there and which waters to take out? The waters that I remove will become a part of the past.”

“Yes, Kryys. That is correct. But I cannot help you. Only you can make this choice. You are the one who must decide. Are you prepared to do that?”

“I must study the river for a time, Master Drax. I do not wish to make a mistake.”

“You are very wise, little sun drop. Study the river. Then you must decide.”



tbc

Coming Next: “Night Of Terror”

The Four Faces of Rath



Night Of Terror

Chapter 19

XIX



“Michael, do you have a place to stay,” Ava asked. “…while you’re here, I mean?”

Michael hadn’t thought about it, and Zan sensed that he was caught off guard by the question. “You should stay here at the palace, Michael! You’re one of us! Any defender of the kingdom who is also a descendent of Rath’s must stay at the palace. I will not accept any other answer!”

Michael smiled and lifted his glass of jubish in a semi-toast. “Then I guess the answer is yes.”

“Excellent!” Zan said. “Ava, will you see that Mayrna chooses a good room for our guest and prepares it for him?”

“Of course, Zan. Michael, I am very pleased that you will be staying here.”

“Thank you.”

“There is one thing that you must do, Michael,” Rath said. He reached into a small box that he carried and removed a small container similar to a jar but made of something that clearly was not glass. He removed the lid and dipped a finger into the jar.

“Come here.”

Michael leaned over, and Rath applied a thin layer of cream to Michael’s eyebrows and nose… then to the tops of his ears.

“This is the cream that distorts your features?” Michael asked.

“Yes,” Rath replied. “This cream has a refractive coefficient that falls within the infinitesimally small range that the shape-shifters cannot see, so anything covered with this cream is invisible to them. To the shape-shifters, we appear to have a flat face with only a small nub for a nose, no eyelashes, and ears that are flat on the top. It is enough so that we can easily recognize their fakes.”

“Amazing,” Michael said. “I can’t see the cream on you at all.”

“To us, the cream is simply translucent… invisible, and we see right through it as though it weren’t even there. But the shape-shifters see nothing where the cream is applied. It blocks light refraction to their eyes. Their brains try to compensate by creating a false flat image where the cream is. They see skin, but it is featureless, created by their own brains inability to process the lacking data. That is the only weakness in their vision, though. Except for that, they see more than seven times as much as we do. To put it into perspective, we see from here to here in the light spectrum…” Rath held his hands a little over a foot apart. “The shape-shifters see in a range from here to here…” Rath moved his hands out to arms length… “with a defect area that is no bigger than a pinhole in the middle.”

“It’s amazing that your scientists were able to discover it,” Michael said.

Rath nodded. “They are very efficient sometimes.”

“Come, Michael,” Zan said. “Allow me to show you the palace, then I’m afraid that we must retire for the night. As the king, I have to rise early, though sometimes I wonder what for.”

“Zan has continued the reign of peace for our people,” Rath said. “And he has worked tirelessly to improve the welfare of the people. The scientists and researchers that he brought together have cured the last diseases that existed on Antar; and under him, the people have greater prosperity than ever before. But he doesn’t listen to me when I tell him that he needs to get out and see what is going on… what the people are saying… who may be an enemy…”

“That’s what I have you for, Rath,” Zan said. “Besides, I have done only good works as the king. I’ve offended no one. Why would anyone want to harm me?”

“Kivar…” Rath reminded him.

“Kivar is one man… and he is disgruntled, because he wants to be the king. He’s a deranged individual… and the shape-shifters aren’t Antarians. Kivar brought them here.”

“Perhaps,” Rath said. “And how many other deranged individuals may there be out there who want to be the king? I’m telling you Zan, you cannot be complacent about this. You must show more than your good works. The people must see your strength.”

“I surround myself with strength, Rath… I have you… and my army that you head. I am a peaceful king. I want that to be my legacy.”

“I’m just afraid that your legacy may be seen not as peaceful but as weak by those like Kivar. It is something for them to exploit.”

“Your admonition is duly noted, Rath… and I appreciate it. I know you have my interests at heart. That’s why you’re the leader of my army and my closest friend.”

Rath smiled and looked at Michael. “You see what I’m up against here, Michael? Well, perhaps he is right. Maybe I am acting like a mother hen, and maybe the people will appreciate his peaceful legacy.”

“Peaceful people will appreciate it,” Michael said simply.

Rath smiled. “Very well-said, Michael! I see you understand.”


Michael looked out the window of his room in the palace at the stars and three moons above. He breathed in a deep breath of fresh air then closed the window, locked it, and climbed into bed. He was tired. It had been a rigorous day. It was hard to believe that he had come here, fought shape-shifters masquerading as Dragons, had his jaw dislocated by Rath, then dined in the palace and been accepted by Rath and Zan… and all this had happened today. Somehow, some of it seemed like it was already in the distant past. But when Michael rolled over, his sore muscles reminded him that it had been today. Within minutes, Michael was asleep.


… … … … …Michael spread his wings wide to catch the breeze coming over the top of the mountain. He felt the lift of the wind under his wings, and he let it carry him up… above the little green valley below. He looked for Maria, but he couldn’t find her where she usually was. Michael looked down at the swift river below. Liz was usually there, skimming the surface of the water and making little eddies with the tips of her fingers. Liz liked to feel the cool spray over her wings and body on these warm summer days.

“Strange,” Michael thought. “Maybe Max arrived before I did and they flew up into the east winds.” Michael glided over the river and between two small hills; then he brought his wings down with powerful strokes, lifting himself upward into the high east wind. Here, he settled into an easy glide, allowing the powerful winds to support him. He looked as far as he could see in every direction, but he could not see Maria anywhere. Nor could he see Max or Liz.

Suddenly, Michael sensed that someone was beside him. He turned, expecting to see Maria…

“Kryys! Where did you come from? Where are your wings?”

Kryys smiled. “I don’t need wings, Dad.”

“Have you seen your mom? I’m looking for her.”

Kryys shook his head, and his smile disappeared. He looked sad.

“Are you looking for her, too,” Michael asked.

Kryys didn’t answer. Instead, he dissolved into a billion tiny bright molecules, sparkling against the sun, and disappeared as mysteriously as he had come.

Michael felt a stab of something like fear… or foreboding. He wasn’t sure what it meant. But he would have given anything right now for the comfort of Maria’s presence next to him… her smiling face… her gentle touch… her warm body… Michael turned and flew back the way he had come. Perhaps Maria had returned home, he thought to himself. … … … … …

Slowly, Michael realized that there were voices around… loud voices. He rolled over and tried to block them out… then suddenly he sat bolt upright in his bed. It was Ava’s voice… and Zan’s, and several that he did not recognize. And judging from the tone of what he had heard, they appeared to be in trouble. Michael threw on his clothes quickly and opened the door to look out into the hall. He heard more yelling and some screams from outside. Michael ran quickly to the throne room. He arrived to find piles of bodies near the entrance… soldiers… but not theirs. It appeared that they had all had their necks broken or died of wounds from some kind of knife… or dagger. Michael remembered his and Max’s dreams about Rath. He ran to the closet and opened the secret passageway behind it; then he ran toward the gardens that Vilandra had led them to in the dreams. As he emerged into the gardens, he was met by Rath.

“Rath! I’m so glad…” Michael looked at Rath closely. He had no eyebrows, no ears above the middle, and his nose was too small. Michael brought his hand up, and a blast of power incinerated the imposter, leaving only ashes where it had stood. As Michael turned around, he was confronted by Kivar, carrying a large, unfamiliar-looking weapon. Kivar pointed the weapon at Michael and smiled. Before he pulled the trigger, however, Nyykto appeared.

“Kivar, don’t! I have plans for this one!”

“What plans, Nyykto? We finish him off now… get it over with… then Zan and the others will be a simple matter to finish off.”

“I need to extract some information from him before we kill him,” Nyykto said. “And I want him to think that he betrayed and killed Zan and the others… It’s my revenge for his meddling.”

Kivar thought about it then nodded. “Very well. I admit it will be good to know that he suffered before dying. I can use the TAZIER on him after he has suffered the humiliation of thinking that he betrayed Zan.” Kivar kept the TAZIER gun pointed at Michael. “Do your mind crap now, Nyykto, while I have him covered."

Nyykto walked up to Michael and placed his hands on Michael’s head. Michael felt a jolt of intense pain stab through his head, as though his brains were being sucked out through a small hole. He tried to fight the pain, but he grimaced then screamed. Nyykto smiled... but only briefly.

“I’m not getting the information I wanted,” Nyykto said. “It’s as though he’s filled his mind with different thoughts… almost as though he were a different person. This isn’t one of your shape-shifters is it, Kivar?”

“Of course not, you idiot. They wouldn’t try to deceive me. Have you rendered him harmless for now?”

“Yeah… yeah… You can put the gun down. I can handle him now.”

“I’ve got things to do,” Kivar said. “Let me know when you’re done with him.”

Nyykto nodded. Michael was unable to move at all since Nyykto’s mind extraction. He felt as though the knowledge of how to move had been removed from his head.

After Kivar had left, Nyykto walked around Michael, looking at him carefully. “What secret are you keeping from me, Rath? No one has ever been able to fight my mind extraction before. Why can’t I see what I’m looking for?”

“Maybe if I knew what you were looking for, Nyykto, I could tell you.”

“Yeah…” Nyykto chuckled. “Sure you would, Rath! After you had slit my throat or broken my neck.”

Michael shrugged. “Suit yourself. Get it your way if you can.”

Nyykto pressed his hands to Michael’s head again, and Michael felt a stab of such intense pain that, for a moment, everything went white, and he almost lost consciousness. Nyykto threw his hands down in frustration.

“You’ve found someone who has the power to fill your mind with useless drivel that I can’t use… stuff about a whole fake life… to keep me from finding what I want. Well, I’ll get around your blocks… your manufactured information. Trust me, Rath.”

“Trust you, Nyykto? Now there’s an oxymoron… ‘trust’ and ‘Nyykto’ in the same sentence.”

“You seem somehow different,” Nyykto said… “faster wit but slower reflexes. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say that you weren’t you.”

“Well, what can I tell you, Nyykto. What you see is all you get. There’s a lot to me that you don’t know about. I guess I forgot to keep you in the loop.”

Nyykto scowled. “So it would seem. Okay, then, let’s see how much of that useless information I can extract and how much I can replace it with. I wish I could hang around and watch your agony when you think that you killed Zan and Ava, but I have other things to attend to… Somebody needs to kill them, you know. Oh, yes! You should be able to move your arms and legs in about ten or twenty jodarish.” Nyykto pressed his hands again to Michael’s head. “By then, you will have forgotten that you saw me, and you’ll realize that you have done something terrible. You have betrayed your king and killed him and the rest of the royal family…”

Michael struggled mentally to block Nyykto’s thoughts from entering his head or his own from being removed.

“Well, what’s this?” Nyykto said. “Who would have guessed that your mental ability would be so strong! I expected to find a weak, pathetic fool… all brawn and soldier, no brain, you know? Who’d have guessed? Don’t worry, though, I’ll break your defenses. You’re no match for me in this area.”

As Nyykto concentrated harder and harder, Michael concentrated harder and harder to block him. Michael felt that he was reaching the limits of his ability. He had no idea whether Nyykto was reaching the limits of his or not, but he hoped this would not go on much longer. It was all he could do to hold him back now.

Suddenly, a blast of power struck Nyykto from the right. Injured and surprised, Nyykto spun around to face his attacker. It was Zan. And with him was Rath. Nyykto turned pale. He started to react, but the blast he had received from Zan had had its effect. Nyykto collapsed to the ground unconscious.

“Are you alright, Michael,” Rath asked.

Michael nodded groggily. His movement was just beginning to return.

“What did he do to you,” Zan asked.

“He tried to remove my memories and replace them with false memories of killing you… and Ava. I was able to block him successfully… but I don’t think I could have for much longer. You came just in the nick of time! How… How did you escape from Kivar and his soldiers?”

“Rath took care of them. They seemed not to be expecting him. He caught them totally by surprise as they attacked Ava and me. Between Rath and me, it was no trouble to mop up the likes of Kivar and his band of traitors.”

“He’s dead?”

“Not dead… unfortunately. But the loyal guards have placed him in confinement where he will not be any further problem.” Turning to Rath, Zan asked, “Have you found Vilandra or my parents yet, Rath?”

Rath shook his head.

“Maria!” Michael shouted, jumping to his feet suddenly. “I have to find Maria!”

Zan looked at Rath.

“Maria is his lady,” Rath said.

“Was she here,” asked Zan.

“No,” Michael replied. “She’s in the future… in our time. But I have to get to her… make sure that she’s okay.”

“Then you must go now. Will we ever see you again, my friend,” Zan asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Michael said. “Portal!”

Michael turned and looked at Zan, Rath, and Ava, as he walked into the portal. “Goodbye, my friends! Portal, take me back to my own time… to the time and place from which I left.”

Michael stepped out on the other side into the palace. He looked around. Everything looked okay.

“Michael?”

Michael spun around. A man had just entered the room. It appeared to be Max, but he was older… much older.

“Michael? Is that really you,” the older man asked.

“Max? I returned to our time. How… How did you get so old…?”

Just then an older lady walked into the room and took the older man’s arm.

“I told you he would return someday, Zan!”

“Yes, Ava, you were right.”



tbc