fore! I can remember!"
"Please,
Juliet," said Frank, "Don't get excited again. You always do
this."
It
was more than Juliet could bear and she sobbed uncontrollably. "You
always do this! You always say that! What the hell am I supposed
to say?"
"Juliet,
you're getting hysterical again."
"Of
course I'm getting hysterical again! I can't stand it! This
never ends and Lynne just sits there on her goddamned stinkin’ ass and
does her goddamned fuckin’ countdown as if we could miss the explosion
of a sun and you just sit there calm as shit, you son of a bitch!"
With
a touch of regret, Frank replied, "I can't be a son. I don't have
a mother. None of us has."
"Two
minutes," said Lynne.
"How
do you know we don't have mothers! What the hell's a mother!?!
I can't remember that far back! And if we don't, where in hell did
we come from? Answer me that, you piece o' shit!"
Frank
sat unperturbed, watching his instrumentation.
"An',
come right down to it, why can't we have kids? God knows I've offered
enough times, but oh no, not here! Not now! Mr. technician
Frank's too good for that! Where would we do it? Jesus!
Why not do it on the goddamned floor. Lynne never sees anything but
her goddamned stinkin' clock anyway, so who's to notice? Aw, come
on Frank! If we had a kid, at least it might break the cycle!
It'd be a new variable! Something'd have to change somewhere!"
"One
minute," said Lynne.
"Receptor
on line," replied Frank.
"You're
not listening!" shrieked Juliet.
"You
know we can't," said Frank. "We have to go back or we'll roast when
the sun explodes."
"It
ain't enough!" sobbed Juliet. "It ain't enough. Two hours ain't
enough. There's gotta be more to life than this."
1
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless
pit and a great chain in his hand.
2
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and
Satan, and bound him a thousand years....
—Revelation 20
|
The
sun exploded. Enormous energy poured into the receptor, which drank
it greedily. Only during such an abundance of energy was it possible
to do what was intended. So intense was the fall of energy that it
would have melted the capsule, had the receptor not channeled it to a more
useful purpose. Beyond a certain limit, it would have melted the
capsule anyway. Lynne monitored her instruments, cautious of that
limit.
Inside
the capsule, Frank operated the enigmatic machinery that channeled the
energy, machinery that he didn't understand, machinery that no one within
living memory understood. Lynne waited as long as she dared, watching
receptor temperature. At the last critical instant before it began
to melt, she initiated the time push and shoved them back into time.
Once, Lynne had refused to act, determined to end it all. That time,
some unexpected overload device had done it for her. Since then,
she had never failed to perform and, as always, she performed with superb
skill. She waited for the accumulation of every bit of the energy
that could be captured, to traverse every possible instant into the past.
The capsule vanished.
As
always, Juliet watched with numb horror. She knew that, again, they
would move back 2.16 standard hours. They couldn't go any further
because the receptor couldn't collect any more energy. She knew where
they would land. She knew how many times they would bounce.
She knew that Frank would leave the capsule first, that she would follow,
to be followed in turn by Lynne. She knew that Lynne would, unprompted,
begin removing debris from the sunward side of the capsule, and call to
them for help. Again, as she had so many times before, Juliet determined
to change something. This time, she tried to get to the door before
Frank but had difficulty with the buckle on her safety belt. It had
worked perfectly before but jammed briefly and would not let her loose.
As always, she got to the door before Lynne, but after Frank.
"Well,
I did the best I could," said Lynne. She waited while Juliet followed
Frank out the door and then she followed Juliet. "Let's get busy."
A
sense of resignation overcame Juliet. When she stepped from the capsule
she was calm again. "Well," she said, "we made it."
"Yes,"
said Frank, "we made it."![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
June 2014 |
Frontiersman,0c/o
4984 Peach Mountain Drive, Gainesville, Georgia 30507
http://frontiersman.org.uk/ |
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