Linkage: The Narrows of Time

Chapter 25

Relics





Kleezebee woke upslumped over in the captain’s chair with the right side of his facebeing showered by salt water pouring through a rupture in thebulkhead above the bridge. A salmon-sized fish smacked his cheekbefore glancing off his thigh and sliding across the deck platinginto a pool of water near the communication officer’s station.

The only equipmentactive on the bridge was the emergency lighting system; everythingelse appeared to be offline, including the main viewer, which washanging off the wall, slanted to the left. He could no longer feelthe judder of the pulse drive engines through the floor, meaning theywere running on battery reserves.

Bruno was sitting tohis right but moving sluggishly. The rest of the bridge crew laymotionless near their duty stations.

“We need to evacuatethe ship,” Kleezebee said, helping Bruno off the deck.

“Do you think we madeit home, Skipper?”

“We’ll soon findout.”

Nellis was toKleezebee’s right, on the other side of Bruno, lying on her backwith her legs twisted to one side. Her chest was expanding andcontracting. “See if you can revive the lieutenant.”

Bruno nodded.

Kleezebee sidesteppedhis way around debris to the other side of bridge where he foundBlake lying on his left side with his feet submerged in the wateraccumulating around his station. He slid Blake’s body uphill,dragging it away from the rising water level. He checked Blake’svitals, finding a pulse, but it was accelerated, possibly due to theburn injuries sustained earlier. He shook his communications officer,then rapped him on the cheek. Blake finally opened his eyes.

“Easy does it, Chuck;you took a pretty good jolt. How do you feel?”

“The pain’smanageable, sir. I’ll be all right,” Blake replied, holding uphis burned arm as Kleezebee helped him up.

“Sound the emergencyevacuation alarm. We need to get everyone off the ship.”

“Aye, Captain,”Blake replied.

The general alarmsounded with Stella’s computer voice telling the crew to abandonship.

Heller was face downwith his head and left shoulder lying under a toppled station chair.Kleezebee uncovered his helmsman and rolled him over on his back,only to find that Heller’s face had been badly disfigured from theelectrical burns. “Dave, can you hear me?”

There was no response.He checked Heller’s vitals— no pulse, no respiration.

He tilted Heller’shead back, pinched his nose and covered the officer’s mouth withhis own. He blew twice into Heller’s mouth, but his chest didn’texpand. He put his hands on Heller’s sternum, rapidly pushing downthirty times in succession, before blowing air into Heller’s mouthagain.

“Bruno, find Dr.McKnight. Dave’s non-responsive,” Kleezebee said, continuing CPRon Heller.

“I’ll go,” Nellissaid. Bruno had revived her. She ran past the powerless jump pad,opened the emergency hatch, and climbed down the exit ladder to DeckTwo.

“Is there anything Ican do?” Blake asked.

“Both of you, grabwhat you can and get to the escape pods. I’ll meet you on thesurface,” Kleezebee said, continuing CPR on Heller.

“Captain, I shouldremain here with you,” Bruno replied.

“No, you need to go.That’s an order, Commander. Make sure Chuck gets off the shipsafely.”

Bruno nodded, helpingBlake to one of three escape pods along the rear wall of the bridge.He pressed a red, flush-mounted switch on the wall to the right ofthe pod, raising its hatch. Blake took a seat and Bruno strapped himin.

The egg-shaped pod wasjust big enough to accommodate two adult passengers and a seven-daysupply of battery power, air, vegetarian ration packs, and water.Each pod was equipped with an on-board navigation system, short-rangecommunications, two EVA spacesuits and a portable toilet that thecrew affectionately called a bumper-dumper. There were noweapons.

Bruno turned around,unlocked the cabinet below his weapons station, and retrieved allthree stun guns plus the four extra energy cells. “These might comein handy,” he said, handing the energy weapons to the injuredBlake. He hurried over to the science station, opened a sliding paneldoor, and pulled out the removable data drive before returning to thepod. He handed the data core to Blake. “Keep this safe. As soon asI close the hatch, press the green button to eject the pod.”

“What about you?”Blake asked, looking at the open seat next to him.

“I’ll take the nextone,” Bruno said. “When you reach the surface, use the nav-systemto locate the nearest shoreline.”

“Then what?”

“Use the pod’sthruster assembly as a boat motor. Just be sure to sample theatmosphere before popping the hatch.”

“How will I find theothers?”

“Hone in on theemergency beacons. They activate automatically as soon as a pod islaunched. Now go,” Bruno said, lowering the hatch until it latchedinto place. Moments later, he heard the pod eject.

“I thought I told youto evacuate,” Kleezebee said, dragging Heller’s body away fromthe rising water.

“I know, sir, butyou’re going to need my help with Heller.”

“Did someone call adoctor?” McKnight asked, climbing out of the emergency hatch,carrying a med-kit.

“Good to see you madeit, Doc,” Bruno said.

“Damn, I should havebrought my swim trunks,” McKnight said on his way to Kleezebee,high-stepping through a portion of the water filling up the left sideof the bridge. “What do we have here?”

“He was hit by anenergy discharge from his station. I’ve been administering CPR, buthe’s been unresponsive for about five minutes.”

McKnight held up hisflashing medical scanner, passing it over Heller’s chest and headseveral times.

“I’m not detectingany brain activity and his lungs have been thermalized. I’m afraidthere’s nothing more we can do for him. He’s gone, DL,”McKnight said, after scanning Heller’s chest.

Kleezebee squeezedHeller’s hand gently, then bent down close to his ear. “Goodbye,cousin,” he whispered, thinking of all the times they’d playedUltimate Rummy together in his quarters. “And just so you know, Inever once let you win a hand.”

“Captain, we’rerunning out of time,” Bruno said, seeing the water level risingdangerously close to their position.

“Where’s LieutenantNellis?” Kleezebee asked.

“She’s helpingevacuate the crew on the lower levels,” McKnight said. “We’retaking on water all over the ship.”

“All right, then, tothe escape pods. Let’s hope the bugs in engineering can’t swim.”

* * *

Kleezebeefelt the bottom of the escape pod scrape along the ocean floor, rightbefore the capsule leaned forward and came to a dead stop. He openedthe hatch, feeling the blistering rays of sunshine on his face. Ahand appeared through the open hatch from the outside.

“Good to see you,Captain,” Bruno said, helping him out of the pod.

Kleezebee was standingon a rocky beach in the middle of a makeshift camp. Stacked up aroundthe site were corrugated containers, dozens of ration packs and watercontainers, two bumper-dumpers, one quart-sized glass containerfilled with the gooey nebula substance, and a portable communicationunit. “How many made it out safely?”

“Sorry, Skipper. Onlytwenty-four of our ninety-nine made it.”

Kleezebee looked backat the ocean, through the fourteen empty pods pushed up on shore,hoping to see additional capsules bobbing their way across thewhitecaps. There were none. He took a moment to collect his thoughts,then said, “Any sign of the bugs?”

Bruno shook his head.“I don’t see how they could have survived the swim from that deepin the ocean.”

“Have you determinedour location?” Kleezebee asked, looking at the crescent moon low onthe horizon. He wiped off the sweat dripping across his brow.

“It looks like wemade it home,” Bruno said, handing him an empty, rusty tin can ofMaxwell House coffee, though the label was in Spanish. “There’smore trash like this along the beach.”

Kleezebee wassurrounded by Lt. Nellis, Chuck Blake, and Dr. McKnight, plus sevensecurity team members, two astrobiologists, one geneticist, twoensigns, two nurses, one chef, the barber, two machinists, and oneengineer: Lt. Roddenberry, whose nickname was E-Rod. He’d knownE-Rod since his first year in the Science Academy. In all, sixfemales and eighteen males had made it out alive.

“Are we picking upany radio chatter?” Kleezebee asked Bruno.

“Nothing on standardFleet frequencies. But we’re receiving several broadcasts on thelower AM band. Most are in Spanish, but we did find a faint signal inEnglish.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Bruno played thebroadcast on the portable comm. unit.

“. . . more followingtoday’s top stories. Casino Royale’s premiere makes asplash with Sean Connery at the helm. Surveyor 3 successfullylands on the moon after historic three-day trek. Violent war protestsbreak out in San Francisco over recent U.S. bombings in Haiphong. TheBeatles sign a contract to stay together for ten more years. Twothousand Red Sox fans burned alive when gas main erupts and levelsFenway Park.”

“That’s enough,turn it off.”

“What do you think,Skipper? You’re the history buff.”

“You’re right,sounds like we’re on Earth. April, ’sixty-seven by the sounds ofit. I would say we’re probably in Mexico, given the excessive heatand the Spanish broadcasts.”

“Nineteensixty-seven?”

“Perhaps when theKrellians fired on the rift’s event horizon, their weapons somehowruptured the fabric of subspace, sending us back in time,” Nellisanswered.

“I thought timetravel was not possible,” Bruno said.

“It’s not. It’ssimply a myth started by a few over-imaginative science fictionauthors of the twentieth century. Einstein was proven wrong intwenty-one eighty-seven when E-121 was first discovered and we usedit to power our engines to close to light speeds. Time does not slowdown when you approach light speed, it simply shudders, like athree-legged table in an earthquake. What has already transpiredcannot be undone.”

“But the radiobroadcast?” Nellis asked.

“It may be a fake,”Bruno said.

“Or we’re not evenon Earth,” Nellis added. “It could be that we’re picking up anancient radio signal that has traveled from Earth, arriving here fourhundred years later. However, that would also mean someone went toall the trouble to fake the rubbish along the beach, too. That seemsunlikely.”

“What do you think,Skipper?” Bruno asked.

Kleezebee bent down andpicked up a crumpled sheet of heavy-bond paper buried in the loosesand. He wiped off the paper and read its contents aloud, “Playboy. . . February, nineteen sixty-seven . . . Kim Farber . . . Playmateof the Month.” He tossed the paper aside. “I don’t know how,but I’m pretty damn sure we’re on Earth. But a couple thingsconcern me . . . David Niven was the star of Casino Royale,not Sean Connery, and I don’t remember reading about a deadly gasexplosion at Fenway Park in nineteen sixty-seven.”

“Orders, sir?”Nellis asked.

Kleezebee waspreoccupied with the 3D holo-cell of his wife and son at the GrandCanyon, now buried deep at the bottom of the ocean under a mile and ahalf of water. He didn’t respond.

“Captain?” Nellisasked again.

Kleezebee snapped outof his trance. “Let’s set up camp for the night and see if anymore survivors make their way here. We’ve got about an hour or sobefore sunset, so let’s get to it. In the morning, we’ll headinland for the nearest city.”

“Aye, sir,” severalmembers of the crew said in unison, before walking away.

Kleezebee grabbed oneof the security team members by the elbow. “Lieutenant, establish asecure perimeter at fifty meters, and rotate your guards inthree-hour shifts. Pull in some of the other men if you need to fillshifts.”

“Roger that,” thelieutenant replied.

“E-Rod, do you have amoment?” Kleezebee asked, looking to the rear of the crowd.

The engineer steppedforward.

Kleezebee put his rightarm across the back of Roddenberry’s shoulders. “Eugene, I needyou to scuttle the pods before we leave tomorrow, so make sure you’vecannibalized whatever you can from them tonight. We’ll also needthe emergency beacons deactivated. We don’t want any unfriendliessalvaging our equipment.”

“You got it, DL.”

* * *

Justafter sunrise the following morning, Kleezebee woke up to the soundof a donkey braying. He rolled over in the sand, sat up, and lookedinland. A short Hispanic man wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, adirty, long-sleeved shirt, and gray slacks, was leading a pack muledown the dirt path that led directly to their base camp. Hisdark-brown face was almost as weathered as his prehistoric leathersandals, looking as though he had spent every moment of his lifeunder a heat lamp.

“Hola muchachos,”the man said, grinning from ear to ear.

Kleezebee sprang to hisfeet and rushed over to the visitor. His security detail was only afew steps behind him. “Do you speak English?”

“Sí,se?or. I speak very much Englesh.”

“Can you tell mewhere we are?”

“You are on a beach,mi amigo.”

Kleezebee tried not tolaugh, but couldn’t stop himself. “Not what I meant. Is there acity nearby?”

“Sí.Very much close,” The man held out his hand palm up. “For fivedollars American, I will take you.”

One of Kleezebee’ssoldiers pressed the barrel of his stunner pistol to the Mexican’stemple. “How about you just tell us where it’s at.”

The man pointed inlandto the north. “Chicxulub. Two kilometers.”

“Thank you.”Kleezebee pulled the guard’s hand down and away from the visitor’shead. “What’s your name?”

“Jose Cesar EnriqueHumberto Ramirez,” the man answered, pulling out a colorful Mexicanblanket and a necklace from one of his donkey’s packs. “You needblanket? Only two dollars.”

“No, thanks.”

“I like you, Gringo,how about one dollar?” The peddler pressed the blanket close toKleezebee’s face. It smelled of donkey and sweat. Kleezebee rolledhis eyes, pushing it away.

“What about thisnecklace. It was mi esposa’s. Real turquoise. Good deal.Only one dollar.”

“No, but I’d beinterested in your donkey and packs. We’ll need them for our longtrip home. How much?”

“For you, miamigo, one hundred dollars,” Jose said. “I give you blanketand necklace.”

Again, the soldier putthe stunner to Jose’s head.

“How about tendollars,” Jose said without hesitation.

“We don’t have anymoney. How about a trade?”

Jose pointed at thesoldier’s weapon. “Sí, se?or. Thepistola?”

“Pick something else.We have food, water, and supplies.”

“I very much like thewatch,” he said, staring at Bruno’s wrist.

“Deal.” Kleezebeemotioned for Bruno to give up his watch. Bruno handed it to Jose.

“Gracias, se?or.”Jose slipped his hand through the twist wristband. “Muy Bueno.”He stood silent for at least a minute, playing with the orangebuttons around its perimeter.

“You should probablybe on your way now,” Kleezebee said, ushering the man gently withhis hand.

Jose smiled, took offhis straw hat, bowed quickly, then turned around and walked back downthe path, leaving his mule, trinkets, and packs behind.

Kleezebee sat next toBruno and E-Rod near the campfire, rubbing his hands above theflames. “We’re going to need cash, if we plan on surviving inthis time period.”

E-Rod flicked a coalover with a stick. He pushed it to the middle of the crackling fire.“I suppose a rescue is impossible.”

Kleezebee shook hishead. “Nobody knows where we are—or when we are, for that matter.No, I’m afraid we’re stuck here for a while until we can figureout a way home.”

“Orders, Skipper?”Bruno asked.

“First thingtomorrow, you, E-Rod, and I will walk into town to see if we canbarter for transportation or additional mules. It’s a long way hometo the US.”

“Where we headed?”

“Tucson should work.Might as well see what home was like a few hundred years ago.”

The donkey let outseveral snot-filled brays just behind Kleezebee. The animal nudgedhim in the back of the neck, twice, with its soggy nose. “Anybodyknow what we’re supposed to feed this thing?”

Bruno laughed foralmost a minute before answering. “I don’t think the ration barsare going to cut it, Boss.”