The Space_Time Displacement Conundrum Read online

  Quasar almost smiled at that—and he would have, had his own life not been flashing before his eyes. Good ol' Hank with the stones of an ox.

  The Arachnoid leader stared at the Carpethrian for a moment, and it was clear the creature had a decision to make. But it did so quickly enough, tossing the rifle-spear back to its soldier and releasing the captain.

  "What are my options then?" Its eyes panned the walls where racks of various bladed weapons stood at attention.

  Captain Quasar frowned as he leapt to his feet. There had been no reason for the creature to release him or to obey Hank's command—unless the Arachnoid was enjoying itself. Didn't spiders like to toy with their prey, after all? String them along, in other words?

  Quasar swallowed at the thought, eyeing the massive creatures warily. Were they enough like the spiders of Earth to be able to spin webs of their own? He shuddered involuntarily, imagining himself, Gruber, Davis, and Hank suspended from the high ceiling in cocoons with spider eggs gestating in their bowels.

  Fists clenched, he found himself actually hoping for another space-time displacement to occur.

  Episode 55: Fight to the Finish

  Hank pointed out the weapons along the far wall of the training center and named them in words Captain Quasar's translator couldn't begin to guess at, so it remained silent. The Carpethrian tongue was low and guttural; the only Earth comparison that came close was a cross between German and the growl of a grizzly bear. As Hank approached one of the spears with a serrated blade at each end, the Arachnoid chattered eagerly.

  "Yes, I would like two of those." It held out its upper limbs expectantly. Adding the battle ax, it would have the captain's single broadsword outnumbered three to one.

  "As would I." Quasar flexed his pectoral muscles. "But make it one. We don't all have four arms around here."

  "No. You do not, little Earth Man." The Arachnoid chittered with laughter. "It appears you were left behind on the evolutionary curve."

  Hank gave Gruber and Davis a direct look that made his meaning clear—stay put—as he took the weapons down from the wall. He tossed them to the Arachnoid, who began to whirl them in a graceful, albeit terrifying, countermotion.

  "Perhaps." Quasar caught the spear Hank sent his way. "But as advanced as you apparently think you are, I still have you beat."

  The spider-creature's mandibles clicked once. "How so?"

  Broadsword in one hand and spear gripped tightly in the other, Captain Quasar prepared himself for battle, his gaze never leaving the horrifying monster on the training mat before him. "I would never kill an unarmed man without provocation." The rage swelling within him narrowed his vision so that all he could see was his opponent in a haze of crimson.

  "Have I provoked your wrath, Earth Man?" The Arachnoid's minions laughed out loud. "Will you try to kill me now? I certainly hope you make this interesting."

  The creature advanced on Quasar with both spears whirling and the ax poised to strike. Quasar hefted the spear in his hand and drew it over his shoulder like a javelin.

  "Go ahead. Toss it." The Arachnoid stomped toward him without fear. "Allow me to whittle it down to a proper size for you. A child race, you humans, worse than these walking carpets. At least they have proper technology. Once I slay you, perhaps we will pay your planet a visit. I hear it lies in a neighboring star system."

  Instead of throwing the spear, Quasar hurled the broadsword end over end with a hoarse battle cry. The blade flashed in the light of Carpethria's twin suns streaming through the wide skylight above. Deflecting the weapon with both its spears, the Arachnoid sent the captain's sword to the mat—but in so doing left its right shoulder exposed. Quasar sprinted to meet his opponent, thrusting the spearhead straight into the spider and piercing the jumpsuit with a splash of black and purple, the thing's life juice. The blade skewered the Arachnoid easily; beneath the fuzzy membrane of its thin skin, there appeared to be only a mushy pulp. Quasar pulled the spear free without effort and whipped it upward, slicing off one of the creature's arm-limbs, causing the monster to screech in a most undignified manner.

  Gruber and Davis cheered, then ducked for cover as the Arachnoid minions started firing their weapons, sending pulses of energy flying in all directions. Quasar jammed his spear under the Arachnoid's head, pricking the surface and causing a trickle of purple to join the thick yellow saliva dripping from its mandibles.

  "Order them to stand down!" Quasar gave the blade a twist, and the creature shrieked. "And drop their weapons. You too!" Not the clearest set of commands, but they did the trick. Trembling and chattering, the Arachnoid leader released its hold on the two spears and the ax, and its soldiers crouched low, setting their rifle-spears on the floor. "Get your police in here—you have police, don't you?" Quasar glanced at Hank.

  "Uh…" He nodded toward the motionless Carpethrians on the floor outside.

  Gruber and Davis had already moved to collect the Arachnoid weapons, pointing them at the spider-creatures and ordering them back toward the doorway they'd blasted their way through earlier.

  "Kill me quickly, Earth Man," the leader hissed, straining its head away from the blade but failing to avoid contact as Quasar maintained pressure. "End this humiliation, and the reactor is yours."

  "It's mine anyway," Quasar said in a low tone. "I've seen the future, you miserable bag of purple pus. And all that thing does is get me into trouble."

  "Careful," Steve urged from the sideline. "You've contaminated the past enough already, don't you think?"

  The captain ignored him—something that was becoming easier. "You know what? I never got your name."

  The thing's mandibles ground together furiously, but it said nothing.

  "So it's the silent treatment now." Quasar narrowed his gaze. "You're just a big bug, you know that? A big bug missing one of its arm-leg-things." He stepped back from the creature all of a sudden. "Take your buddies and get the hell out of here. And never come back. If I hear about you or your kind skulking anywhere near Carpethrian or Earth space, I'll pop you myself, you understand?" He jabbed at the creature's swollen abdomen with the blade, just enough to make a little more of its juices trickle out.

  "You are leaving me in disgrace." It stared at him without moving.

  "That's about the size of things."

  "You refuse to kill me."

  The captain nodded. "As much as I'd like to. Where I come from, we try not to repay evil with evil."

  "Then you are weak."

  Davis let out a sudden scream, echoed by Gruber. Hank only growled ferociously as the Arachnoid's minions covered him in their silky spider webs, spinning him into a tight cocoon.

  "Finish this," the Arachnoid hissed. "End my disgrace, or your friends die!"

  Episode 56: A Life for a Life

  It was just as Captain Quasar had feared: even without their rifle-spears, the Arachnoids were incredibly dangerous, able to spin webs faster and thicker than any spider he'd ever seen back on Earth. Davis, Gruber, and Hank struggled against the strong fibers, wriggling as the sticky silk strands wound round and round them, covering them up to their necks.

  "You will not leave me like this," said the wounded Arachnoid leader, pressing the thin flesh of its belly against Quasar's spear. "End me."

  The captain jumped back a step, shouting, "Sing, Hank!"

  Ceasing to growl and curse in Carpethrian, Hank paused to frown at Quasar, confused and then enlightened in the span of a moment. It was quite the expression for the very hairy biped to manage, but he pulled it off.

  "You might want to start running." Quasar winked at the Arachnoid leader. "You won't like what you're about to hear."

  The giant spider's mandibles twitched, producing a fresh gush of acidic slime, but it said nothing. It glanced over its shoulder as Hank cleared one of his throats, then the other, whirling around as the webs encased him. The Arachnoids hadn't slowed their cocooning.

  "Carpethrians do not sing," the Arachnoid leader hissed.


  "This one does. Apparently it's some kind of rare gift—only one in a few thousand has this amazing ability." Quasar gripped his spear at the ready. If the Arachnoid charged him spewing that acid, he would be ready for it. But he would not kill it outright. To do so would make him no better than this monster; and besides, after destroying that ship of Goobalobs, he'd had his fill of killing aliens for a lifetime.

  The Arachnoid turned all eight of its eyes back to Quasar with contempt. "Our sense of hearing is much different from yours, Earth Man. We do not recognize your music."

  "Good. Because this isn't even close."

  Throwing back his head as if in agony, Hank's twin sets of vocal chords erupted with the most dissonant, ear-splitting, shrieksong the training center had ever witnessed, and his solo performance quickly became a duet, then a trio, as both Gruber and Davis wailed in a primal reaction to such horrendous sounds. The Arachnoids spinning their webs froze for a moment as if they had been turned to stone—as did their leader. Quasar found himself cringing, wincing, doubling over as the room seemed to quake beneath the noise. He later deduced that it must have had something to do with his sense of balance as Hank's awful song entered Quasar's inner ear and wreaked havoc.

  Just when it seemed Hank could no longer carry the note, he leapt up an octave and then down again, causing the Arachnoids to screech and smack their heads with their upper limbs, thrashing until their leader clambered past them as fast as it could, clicking and chattering wildly, gesturing for them to follow. Within moments, the giant spiders had left the premises, and Hank's singing ended abruptly with him clearing his throats again, one at a time.

  Gruber and Davis pitched forward in their cocoons, out cold. Captain Quasar wiped away the blood that trickled from his ears and approached the Carpethrian with a broad grin.

  "Well done, Hank." One swipe of the broadsword, and the very hairy biped was freed of his sticky silken bonds.

  "Humph." Hank retrieved another sword from the rack on the wall and returned to help the captain free his crew members. "Didn't think I had it in me."

  "I had every faith in you." Quasar knelt beside the unconscious Lieutenant Davis, carefully disentangling loose threads from her uniform.

  Hank cast him a sidelong glance. "How did you know?"

  "Well, I've heard there are certain Carpethrians with that special ability—"

  "One in three thousand, eight hundred sixty—"

  "Then it's a good thing you were that one." Quasar winked.

  "Humph."

  The Carpethrian chancellor appeared at that moment with his two bodyguards. Frowning pensively, he surveyed the damage wrought on the training center and the bodies of his police force. Then he focused his deep-set eyes on the captain. What appeared to be the makings of a smile lifted some of his very hairy facial features.

  "Captain Quasar, we could not have hoped for a better outcome. The Arachnoids have abandoned our planet and are leaving orbit, and our forests remain intact. We would ask how to repay you, but that has already been settled. The cold fusion near-lightspeed reactor you were promised is in its final stages of installation aboard your star cruiser." The chancellor shuffled close to where Quasar knelt beside his weapons officer. "Where is your third crewman?"

  Hank stepped forward. "It's my fault. I slew him."

  "Not intentionally," Quasar was quick to add. "It was an accident. My sword caught his ax—"

  "I'm sure you would be whistling a far different tune if it had been Lieutenant Davis with the blade imbedded between her breasts." Steve materialized beside the captain. "And I doubt you would have shown as much care in removing the residual spider webs from Ensign Elliott's uniform."

  Quasar stood to face the chancellor as the Carpethrian growled deep in both his throats, "Hank, you know the penalty for such an act, whether it be intentional or not. You know the consequence must fit the crime."

  Hank nodded, his gaze fixed on the polished floor.

  "Very well." The chancellor met Captain Quasar's gaze. "It is the Carpethrian way: a life for a life."

  "No—!" Quasar lurched forward in protest.

  The chancellor patiently held up a furry hand, and the captain froze mid-step, mouth agape.

  "Hank, you must take the fallen human's place aboard the Effervescent Magnitude." The chancellor sighed sadly. "A life for a life."

  Episode 57: Left Holding the Bag

  Captain Quasar blinked, realizing the meaning of the chancellor's proclamation. Hank the very hairy biped would become the Magnitude's helmsman after all. He would not be executed for accidentally slaying Ensign Elliott. But by Hank's demeanor, it was unclear whether he thought this to be any less of a punishment. With a short nod, he shuffled a step closer to the captain, standing between the unconscious bodies of Gruber and Davis. Without a word, he hoisted them both up in his strong arms and looked to Quasar for his orders.

  "Yes." The captain blinked at his friend who had yet to become his friend.

  The first time around, Hank had been the last to leave the Magnitude after the installation of the cold fusion reactor, and when the Arachnoids had attacked and Quasar had been forced to high-tail it out of Carpethria, the blasts had taken out both Ensign Elliott and Lieutenant Davis on the bridge. Without a word, Hank had assumed the helm, and he'd been there ever since.

  Even then it had seemed that Hank's service aboard the Magnitude began as a sort of obligation. But it had evolved into so much more over the years, and Quasar couldn't think of his ship without thinking of Hank. Whereas the ship's self-preservation mode had kicked in under Elliott's hands at the helm, the Magnitude seemed to recognize the calm, steady confidence of the very hairy biped, and ship and helmsman had bonded with each other almost immediately.

  Quasar could only hope the same would happen in this alternate version of the past he was living through now.

  At a signal from the chancellor, one of his entourage broke formation and produced a transparent receptacle from his fur flab—a natural pocket for any Carpethrian. With great care, he scooped Elliott's remains into the plasticon cube and sealed it shut, handing the ashes to Captain Quasar with a solemn bow.

  Quasar returned the gesture as he took the makeshift urn and cleared his throat. "Is my ship ready, then?"

  The chancellor nodded. "We took the liberty of disabling its self-preservation program. It would not have been possible to install the reactor otherwise. If you would like, we—"

  "Great." Quasar gave him a thumbs-up with his free hand. "It's been nothing but trouble, anyway." So much for his internal monologue regarding Hank's close relationship with the ship. "Then I suppose we'll be on our way."

  The chancellor nodded regally, and in that moment Quasar half-expected to whip forward through time to the future/present. Unfortunately, he remained where he stood in awkward silence, holding the obnoxious ensign's remains.

  "I, uh, wish there was something we could do about the mess." He nodded, glancing at the destruction and lives lost due to the Arachnoids. "It's our fault they showed up, after all."

  "It was only a matter of time before they came demanding the reactor. It is their way to take what does not belong to them and to start fights and stir up trouble. I am sure they will be back in time." What looked like a smile crept along the thick fur on each side of his mouth. "But with the mineral deposits you brought to us, we will be better able to defend our planet from the likes of them, and all without the ugliness of strip-mining our own planet. For this we thank you, Captain, and we look forward to a long-lasting partnership between our two worlds. With your new reactor, it will take you no time at all to return to Earth and create other propulsion systems like it. Then your freighters will be able to bring us all the minerals we need." The chancellor nodded as if this arrangement was set in stone, some sort of foregone conclusion.

  "Right. About that." Quasar narrowed his gaze. "We're kind of on a journey of exploration at the moment. But as soon as we get back to Earth, we'll let our superiors know a
bout your offer." He already knew how they would respond: What's in it for us? The obvious answer was even greater technologies, but Chancellor Frank hadn't made that exactly clear.

  "Of course." The chancellor nodded. "The minerals you have given us should last well over one of your Earth years." Another nod. "We will be in contact."

  "Yes…we will." Quasar left unsaid the fact that the Magnitude wouldn't be back this way for five hundred years. Such foreknowledge would have made him seem like some sort of wizard.

  "Interesting," Steve mused—speak of the devil. "They say the Arachnoids are known for taking what doesn't belong to them, and yet this furry fellow is willing to take your planet's minerals to avoid spoiling his own jungle paradise. Seems to me that all of you corporeal beings are only concerned about getting what you want, despite the costs." Steve's gnarled finger extended to tap Elliott's urn. "Besides, I don't understand why you still want that reactor. Didn't it make over a thousand of your crew vanish?"

  Quasar had planned to jettison the cold fusion reactor into space and destroy it once they'd outrun the Arachnoids, but now it appeared the spider-monsters had fled from Carpethrian space, and the captain was left holding the bag, as it were: a bag filled with near-lightspeed technology he couldn't even begin to fathom, much less explain how it had caused 1,490 of the Magnitude's crew to disappear from space-time without so much as a blip of sound or flash of light.

  Would he be able to keep it from happening this time around? Or did it have to happen, so that the ship and its crew ended up in that limbo-void for five centuries, and so that Quasar could see what Emperor Zhan had done to the Earth—or would do, if allowed to?

  Oh, how he despised time travel!

  Episode 58: The Unwritten Past

  Once aboard the Effervescent Magnitude, Captain Quasar saw to the arrangements for Ensign Elliott's memorial. Leaving his first officer in command of the bridge as the docking portal closed and the massive star cruiser eased out of the Carpethrian shipyards under Hank's four capable hands at the helm, Quasar faced a blank computer screen on the desk in his quarters. Collecting his thoughts, he prepared to record a message every ship's captain knows he is responsible for, just as he is responsible for every life and death aboard his ship.