Battle at Zero Point (26 page)

He saw scatterings of an ancient grain called
oats
.

He eventually reached the cockpit door. It, too, was smashed and twisted, but he was able to squeeze his way through to what was left of the flight deck.

There was a body strapped in the pilot's seat, wearing a tattered green flight suit and helmet. Hunter froze. Did he really want to do this? Only compulsion pushed him on. He made his way up next to the body to find it was a skeleton.

Its hands were still locked in a death grip on the plane's control yoke. Its mouth was open, almost as if it was caught forever in a devilish laugh. Hunter felt he had to find out who this person was—or used to be. Very gingerly he reached into the skeleton's breast pocket and found a piece of heavy paper inside.

He removed it and unfolded it.

It was a photograph of a woman.

Hunter felt like a lightning bolt had hit him in the chest. A sizable portion of his past lives had come back to him during this bizarre journey, but at that moment he was suddenly aware of another, much deeper truth. He'd lived lives that a million other souls combined could never hold a flame to. He'd flown faster than humanly possible, he'd invaded a titanic empire, he'd led huge armies and fought gigantic battles. He'd been to Heaven and back, for God's sake. And through all these things, the excitement, the absolute tidal waves of adrenaline, and whatever the hell else was running dirough him, had peaked and peaked again, to the point that it seemed he was
always
in the middle of some kind of body rush.

But nothing was like the body rush he was getting now. Because the picture he was holding in his hand was the same as the photo he'd found in his pocket when he woke up on
Fools 6
that day so long ago. The photo of the mysterious woman that had made the transition along with the tattered American flag.

But this photo was not faded and worn like his. In this photo he could see the woman's face clearly.

And for the first time since coming here, he knew who she was.

Her name was Dominique…

The absolute love of his former Me.

"Hey mister," he heard a voice from below the cockpit yell. "Wanna go see her?"

They were quickly back on the road, he and his driver and the station wagon.

They had driven out of the forest, had returned to the highway, had passed around the mountain, and were heading back into the beach terrain again.

And this time Hunter was being very vocal.

"Go faster!" he was screaming at the kid. "C'mon, boot it!"

And now it was die kid who was looking concerned.

"This thing wasn't built to go that fast, mister!" he yelled back at Hunter.

The driver had simply told him he would bring him to see the woman in the picture, and at that moment Hunter wanted to do nothing more in his entire life. He was caught up in some preposterous game here, some kind of incredibly elaborate charade just to see if he could keep a secret. Well, yes, he could keep a secret. But that didn't even matter anymore. He knew every time he had looked at that faded photograph that the woman behind it would hold more to the key of who he was and why he was here and more important, where he had come from than anything he could find or be tempted with here, be it his airplane again, or even an alternate, better life.

He had to see her.

"If you people are so scary smart," Hunter was badgering his young driver, "why didn't you send the Corvette to take me to this point? This piece of crap can barely do fifty miles an hour!"

The kid was always too busy driving to reply. He just kept telling Hunter over and over, "Just calm down, mister. We'll get there soon. Just calm down!"

They finally did get there. They climbed a beach road that led up a hill and eventually broke out into a small cliff. Now Hunter could see the water—finally it was an ocean. A real ocean. He could hear the waves breaking; he could smell the salty air.

They drove up to a small house—smaller even than the other house on the hill. Hunter knew immediately where he was. This was
his
house, way back then, way back in that other time and place. It was his farm. His hay farm. He'd lived here with Dominique.

It was called Skyfire.

He jumped out of the station wagon even before it stopped moving. He hopped the gate and ran up to the front door. He went inside. Everything looked just as he remembered it He walked through the living room and into the kitchen. Everything still familiar. He walked to the screen door that led out to the backyard.

And that's when he saw her. She was outside in the garden, picking herbs.

He stood at the back door for an eternity of moments just watching her.

She was beautiful. The photograph did not do her justice. She was wearing a long white gown and a wide-brimmed hat. Even working in the garden, faced smudged a bit, she was gorgeous. The gown was low cut, and he could see her unencumbered breasts. She had long blond hair, delicate hands, delicate bare feet. She was smiling, singing to herself. She did not see him.

He felt his chest become filled with pure emotion. The circle had been completed. Here she was, and here he was. End of chapter. End of book. End of series. He wanted nothing more than to swing mat door open, walk out onto the porch, and call her name.

Screw the battle against the Fourth Empire.

He wanted to stay
here
with
her
forever.

His thumb was on the latch of the door. His boot was up against its bottom; he knew he would have to give it a little kick, because it stuck every once in a while.

Her name was on his lips—

But then he stopped. Stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Stopped thinking—except about one thing.

He couldn't do it.

He believed this was real and that he could stay here and live with her and never have to fight in a war again.

But a buzz in his brain told him no. He started walking backward, out of the kitchen, turning only when he reached the living room, and then quietly leaving by the front door. He did not want her to see or hear him.

He staggered back down the front path and went through the gate this time. It was loose on the hinge, and he remembered that he was always meaning to fix it.

Too late now
, he thought.

The station wagon was gone. He made his way back down the road, walking quietly until he was out of sight of the house. Then he slumped to his knees and put his head in his hands.

What kind of life is this?

No matter what he did, he could never be happy, never be free of worry. Never just be.

Why him? Why had this mantle been handed to him? He had one talent: he could fly machines that went very fast. So what? Why was he involved in all this other cosmic crap? He had bare memories of him having to save the world back in one of his former lives. Now, it was up to him to save the whole freaking Galaxy? And in order to do so, he had to first go through all this heart-wrenching past-life regression. Why?
Why was he doing this again
?

He found his hand go to his left breast pocket, digging for the other thing he always kept there. Not the faded photograph but the tattered American flag.

He took it out, unfolded it, and ran his fingers along its stars and stripes. He felt a surge of electricity go through him—and then he had his answer. After more than five thousand years, this flag still meant something. Not just on Earth but in the vast Milky Way as well. It stood for basic freedoms and basic truths. It stood for heroes past. It stood for the kind of life where every person has a right to be themselves, to do what they want, just as long as they didn't infringe on anyone else's right to do the same thing. To be a good American was nothing more than that. And the simple understanding of this basic belief was worth defending, worth dying for, so that others could be free, too. That
was
America. Way back then on Earth, and now, all across the Galaxy.

Why was he doing all this again?

He held the flag up to his face.

"Oh yeah," he thought aloud. "
This
is why—"

He walked about a mile down the road before he heard another vehicle coining up behind him, It was not any kind of car; it was a truck. Old, battered, cracked windshield, with yet another kid behind the wheel. He stopped a few feet from Hunter and stuck his head out the window.

But Hunter already knew the drill.

"Yeah, I want a ride," he told the kid.

He walked around to the other side of the cab but found the door was locked. Hie kid just looked at him and then gave him the thumb, indicating Hunter had to sit in the back. He hesitated only a moment, then walked to the rear of the truck and climbed aboard.

The rear was filled with boxes made of very thin wood. Hunter took a seat among them, then looked inside one of the boxes.

They were packed with turnips.

They rode for a very long time.

The road never changed, but the terrain did. From the beach, to the mountains, to the long, straight fields again. It was a bumpy, uncomfortable ride, but Hunter could have cared less.

He was beyond worrying about his own personal comfort now. He just wanted to get to the next stop, because he was convinced it would be the last in this long charade.

The kid driving the truck acted more like he was driving the Corvette. He was moving at high speed and never met a bump he didn't like. They were approaching a mildly steep hill when the truck hit a pothole so violentiy, Hunter went airborne. The truck and its contents went one way, and Hunter went the other. He was thrown from the back, landing hard in the roadway, a broken box of turnips smacking him on the head.

The truck driver never even looked in his rearview mirror. No brake lights. No downshifting.

Nothing.

He just kept on going.

Hunter picked himself up, dusted himself off, and started walking up the hill.

He reached inside his back pocket and found the remains of another apple. It was crushed and mostly mush, but he ate as much of it as he could. It tasted awful but, he supposed, it was better than eating a turnip.

He reached the top of the hill, only to find the road dipped and then led up to another hill, this one even steeper. Hunter stopped, scratched his head, and wondered if he was going in the right direction.

He turned around and was astonished to see an enormous blue screen had appeared right behind him.

Now this froze him to the spot. When he took part in the Earth Race, part of the competition was to pass through huge blue screens—huge as in infinite. The screens were part of an elaborate mind-blowing obstacle course. Passing through one screen meant that the next obstacle was coming up, each one matched to the personalities or the fears of the individual contestant. For Hunter this included everything from saving a girl from being assaulted to trying to get his craft through the teeth of a gigantic set of jaws.

On the other side of each screen was something that was always crazier than before, until that is, he broke through the final one. The strange thing was, they'd been popping up every once in a while ever since.

Now he was looking at this one, and it really did go in all directions. He didn't want to pass through it, especially since it was behind him; only something unpredictable could result. If in fact this thing was real.

But Hunter worked off instinct, and his instinct was telling him that he should at least try to understand what this thing was and why it was here. So he stuck his hand, then his shoulder, and then finally his head through the screen. What he saw was astonishing. He was looking at the barren landscape of
Fools
6
, the planet where he'd been found by Erx and Berx two years ago, the planet where he'd suddenly woke to find himself in the far-flung future.

But there was something strange here. He was about a mile away from the very familiar mountain where he'd found himself in a house he didn't build. But the house wasn't there. This could only mean he was looking at
Fools 6
not only before he arrived but before the house had been built as well.

What the hell does that mean?

Suddenly, he found himself falling through the screen to the dusty road below. The screen had disappeared so quickly, he wound up hitting the road hard, with a mouthful of dirt to boot. He lay there for a moment as the vision of
Fools 6
, still burned on his retinas, slowly faded as well.

Then he picked himself up, wiped his clothes off, and found himself wondering if the screen had ever been there at all.

He walked down into the dip and up the next hill.

It was getting hot again, and he was perspiring by the time he reached the top of the hill. Up here, off to the left, was a country road, little more than a path.

Hunter turned on to it. Impulse, instinct, whatever it was, he knew this was the road to take.

It passed through a group of trees and then to a wide clearing. Here was a bright green field. A small rise.

At the top of the rise was a small cottage. Nondistinct. Except there was a flagpole outside.

Flying from it was an American flag.

He walked up the bare pathway leading to the cottage. As the small house was built on a hill, the higher he climbed, the larger he realized the grassy fields beyond it were. They seemed to go on for miles now.

He reached the front door and stopped. He could hear some movement inside. And the sounds of something mechanical, pumping, running. Breathing.
Wheezing
.

He knocked once, but in doing so, the door slowly opened. He stepped inside. He still had his gun, but he did not take it out. It had stayed in his holster since he'd climbed into the limo. He knew he wouldn't need it here.

He walked into the hallway. Again it looked more like something from his emerging previous lives than anything in the seventy-third century.
Quaint
was the first word that came to mind. The place was a bit dark, a bit subdued, but smelled of fresh flowers and some kind of spice. There were paintings of children on the wall, and an ancient time-keeping device called a grandfather clock in one corner. In his modern battle suit and his oversized crash helmet, Hunter felt very out of place.

What was awaiting him here? Another test of his will to conceal? He didn't think so.

He followed the wheezing sound to the first room on his left. The door was open. Hunter peered inside. It was a bedroom. An ancient four-poster bed was set against one wall. There was still a label on it that read, Sears Roebuck. On its mattress another label read, Sealy. There was a small table next to the bed and on it a tiny radio with the letters RCA emblazoned across its dial. Next to the radio was a small white machine, with a black liquid dripping into a pot underneath. A coffeemaker.
It
was making the wheezing sound.

There was a person lying on the bed. It was a man, presumably, dressed in a spacesuit, one that looked thousands of years old. A thick helmet was covering his head; on his hands were Velcro-lined gloves. His feet were shod with bulky, self-heating magnetic boots. On his left shoulder was a patch bearing the letters
NASA
. On the right, an American flag.

The man was an astronaut.

Literally, an ancient astronaut.

How did Hunter know? Because on a shelf above the bed there was a small digital clock—made by Timex. Its readout had been modified to count in hours, days, years. At that moment, it read 5,248 years, 14 days, 13 hours.

Now, this is strange
, Hunter thought—and not just because of the dichotomy before him. Back on Earth, he'd been told the legend of a man living somewhere out in the Galaxy who could not die.

Someone who was hanging on to life without the benefit of Holy Blood, the fuel that kept the Fourth Empire going. But the story of the eternal man was just that: one of millions of tall tales that floated around the Milky Way like so much Stardust. Or so he had assumed. Could this be the man in that legend?

More important, was this the person Hunter was here to see?

He stepped into the room and realized there were two women sitting near the end of the bed, hidden behind the door. They were both wearing short white dresses and strange white caps on their heads.

They both had large, outrageous hairdos but were very pretty in other ways. They were both reading magazines and chewing gum.

Nurses
, Hunter thought.

They barely looked up at him as he walked in.

The astronaut, on the other hand, acknowledged Hunter right away. He let out a long breath and moved up a bit on his pillows.

"Well, I see you made it through all of our security rings," he said, his voice sounding very mechanical coming from behind his helmet's front visor. Hunter could not see his eyes or face.

"Are you the one I'm supposed to talk to?" he asked him.

"I am," the astronaut replied confidently.

"How do I know for sure?" Hunter asked.

"Because we have a mutual friend," the astronaut replied. "Pater Tomm sent you—and he and I have been
amigos
for longer than I can tell you. We haven't seen each other in centuries, though. Is he well, I hope?"

"Last time I saw him, he was," Hunter replied.

The astronaut indicated that Hunter should sit in the chair next to the bed.

"It must be something very important for you to come here," he said. "And to go through what you did."

"I can't disagree with you there…"

"OK, then," the astronaut said. 'Tell me everything. Start at the beginning."

But Hunter hesitated. This was probably the guy Tomm wanted him to see. Either that, or he was a hell of an actor. And God only knew how he'd wound up here, in the old spacesuit, in a house right out of ancient America, ticking off the years like other people ticked off seconds. It must be a hell of a story, Hunter was sure. But there was a huge battle looming on the horizon. And the campaign to restore Earth and the Empire to its rightful owners was at stake, as were hundreds of thousands of lives. Weird planet or not, how could this man do him any good? And why should he tell him anything at all?

Then again, what other choice did he have? Here he was, stranded at the end of the Galaxy, with no way to get back to where he had to be. There was actually a good chance he'd be stuck out here forever. So why be coy now? Why not let it all out? And even if this was another test to gauge his ability to keep a secret, if he flunked it, at least
something
would happen. And something was always better than nothing.

So he told the ancient man his story. Waking up on
Fools 6
, being rescued and brought to Earth, winning the Earth Race, the search for Planet America, the invasion of the Two Arm. While he was speaking, one of the nurses retrieved an ancient martini shaker, mixed a huge potion of gin with a bright orange powder from a jar labeled Tang, and gave it to the astronaut, running a straw from the shaker under his helmet to his mouth.

Hunter concluded his tale with the most recent chapter, how he and the others had escaped to Paradise and then felt compelled to return to the other side again.

At the end of this part, the astronaut laughed.

"So you and your friends really think you were in Heaven?" he asked.

Hunter nodded, but with uncertainty. "You mean, we weren't?"

The astronaut sipped his Tang martini but did not reply. He changed the subject instead.

"I can see why Tomm sent you above others, Major Hunter," he said. "You've certainly lived an interesting life so far. After all these adventures, do you have any idea why you are here, in the seventy-third century? Have you figured it out yet?"

Hunter just shrugged. "Not completely."

"And why not?"

Hunter shrugged again. "I guess I've been busy with other things."

The astronaut laughed. So did the nurses.

"But don't you see?" the astronaut asked him. "Those 'other things' are
exactly
the reason you are here. I think it's fair enough for me to tell you that."

Hunter was puzzled, and it showed. "Please explain," he said.

The astronaut sat up a little. The other nurse adjusted his pillows.

"Well, let me guess: you've been too busy to think about yourself because you've been doing these 'other things,' like saving all the unfortunates of the Milky Way?"

"Well, trying to," Hunter replied. "I mean, it's been a full-time job."

The astronaut laughed again. "I'm sure it is, and that's
precisely
why you are here. You weren't just dropped out of the sky, out of time, for no reason, or as a fluke, my friend. This was no small thing, your coming to the seventy-third century. It took very powerful forces on many astral planes to pull off such a feat. It might have seemed like a random event, and it
was
intended that way. But don't disparage it as such. Nothing is random in this universe, and certainly not in this little speck of a Galaxy."

The astronaut raised his primary visor and, for the first time, Hunter could see his eyes. They looked old but they were twinkling. And Hunter could tell he was smiling.

"Simply put, you are a savior, Major Hunter," he said. "One of several chosen over the ages. You are here to save us. Save us all—from them. From evil. From tyranny. From the Fourth Empire. Hell, when they write the book on this, it might be titled
Hawk Hunter Saves the Universel
Hunter just stared back at him. Was he kidding? On one hand, the ancient man seemed so cool, so calm. And
so
American. And he really gave the impression that he knew what he was talking about—and that in a strange way, he couldn't be wrong. About anything. But on the other hand, there was no getting around it. He was an old guy in an old astronaut suit. He could be a
maccus
, a clown, for all Hunter knew.

"But how do you know this?" Hunter finally asked him. "How would
you
know that I was brought here to do these things?"

The smile left the astronaut's eyes. He was quiet for a long time.