Justification For Killing (73 page)

“
Captain,” began Lonnie
Joe, “I have something to say.”

“
Yes,
LJ, hurry say what you must to Clem and Penelope we must get
aboard,
Pegasus
is getting ready to leave.”

“
I’m... I’m... not going
back home with you! All my life I have been in and out of one crazy
adventure or another, but I never met anyone I thought I could
settle down with. I believe I have now. I want to stay here with
Penelope. That is if she will have me.” Penelope grasped Lonnie
Joe’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

“
Yes, Lonnie Joe, yes!!”
Penelope said lovingly looking up at LJ.

Captain Scarburg did not
try to talk Lonnie Joe out of staying, all he said was, “Well old
friend, the time has come for me to leave. That hatch will only
stay open for a few more seconds, and it will close automatically
for good, my time is almost up. I hope you have a wonderful life,
and I will remember you always. Good luck LJ, you have always been
a good and trusted friend. I pray life will be good to you and
Penelope. So long Clem take care of Lonnie Joe and Penelope. Only
one thing I have to remind you of Lonnie Joe – thirty minutes after
we leave you, Penelope and Clem will never remember we were
here.”

“
Captain,” said Penelope,
“I’m skeered, what if’n y’all don’t make it back to your world of
the future?”

“
Penelope, you and Clem are church going, God fearing, people
just listen to those bagpipes playing that beautiful old gospel
song ‘
Amazing Grace’
and just remember these words:

♪
Thru many dangers, toils
and snares, I have already come;

‘
Tis
Grace that bro’t me safe thus far, and Grace will lead me
home.
♪

“
We’ll be fine Penelope –
until and if we meet again, goodbye and good luck.”

With this last
farewell, the Captain started to step from Clem’s wrecker through
the open hatch into the interior of
Pegasus
, but he hesitated, turned,
“Lonnie Joe”, he said handing one of the Army .45s to LJ, “Take
this it might come in handy some day. It was manufactured during
World War II, so no one will ever know I brought in here from
2012.” Captain Scarburg quickly turned and leaped through
the
Pegasus’s
hatch.

The internal valves
were beginning to hiss allowing the automatic hatch to close when
without warning Lady, the beautiful little dog, jumped from the
wrecker through the hatch, and into the time machine following
Captain Scarburg. It was too late for her to return, the hatch
closed. A safety feature of this marvelous machine - on takeoff
once the hatch closes and seals it cannot be opened until the
scheduled flight has taken place. In this case, the hatch will not
open again until
Pegasus
arrived back in Washington D.C. or regrettably,
where ever it was going. Captain Scarburg was still not one hundred
per cent certain Mr. Ryan Rousseau had not sabotaged the guidance
computers before
Pegasus
left the launch facility at SCAR
Headquarters.
That scoundrel,
thought the Captain,
what could he be hiding?
What is it
he does not want us to find?

The Captain had
taken one final look out the closed hatch window before
Pegasus
left. Standing
in the snow waving goodbye were Clem, Penelope and Lonnie Joe.
Lonnie had one hand holding Penelope the other was grasping the .45
caliber Colt pistol. Clem was wiping the tears from his eyes with a
big ole handkerchief.
I wonder if I will
ever see them again
, he thought. Waving
through the window, the Captain softly said, “So long my friends, I
wish you well.”

The time was noon,
Saturday, November 23, 1963.

WE HAVE A
PROBLEM

The hatch had barely
finished closing and locking when Captain Scarburg, sitting at the
control console, glanced quickly around the cluster of gauges. “Oh
on!” He said frantically. “Bud, Lou did you or Rocky pay any
attention to the “
DEPARTURE
”, “
ARRIVAL
” or “
RETURN
” gauges?”

“
I’m
afraid not,” answered Bud, “we thought Mike had programmed the
destination and arrival time on the Texas School Book Depository
building correctly. What’s wrong Captain we arrived just as
scheduled on top of the Book building Thursday morning. And
Pegasus
left Friday
evening just as we had discussed, and it returned here to the cow
pasture. Is something wrong?”

“
Wrong? Wrong? Bud wrong
is not a descriptive enough word, for the do-do we are in, and I’m
not talking about that cow stuff lying around outside in the cow
pasture. We have a problem, a big problem!”

Captain Scarburg
continued, “
Pegasus
arrived on the TSBD building at exactly 9:00 a.m. on Saturday
November 23, 1963 as you correctly stated. The departure time back
to our cow pasture was also correct.”

Bud replied, “That seems
fine, then what’s the problem Grandpa?”

“
The “Destination” and the
“Arrival time” at the Destination, are both wrong.”

The Captain stood up
and pointed to both gauges to show the SCAR personnel how the dials
were indicating the wrong numbers. Putting his finger on
“
DESTINATION
” he
explained that the GPS coordinates shown were not for Washington,
D.C. but for the cow pasture where they were now sitting. Moving
over to the “
ARRIVAL
” indicator. The date the Captain told the group, was
supposed to show their arrival date back in Washington as Wednesday
December 7, 2012.

“
Okay, Grandpa,” Bud
responded, “that sounds right, but what are you trying to tell
us?”

“
This arrival indicator is
set for Wednesday December 7, but the year is not 2012.”

“
When Grandpa? What year
does the dial show?”

“
The year is... is 1812!!
The first two digits have been changed. We are getting ready to
dematerialize from this Parallel Universe in 1963 and will reappear
exactly where we are now sitting, but two hundred years
ago!!”

“
This sounds really bad
Grandpa, but you can fix it, right? Right?”

Before Captain
Scarburg could answer there was a brilliant flash of blue light,
smoke obscured the front porthole and everyone inside the control
room of
Pegasus
was rendered unconscious. They were all lying around on the
floor unable to hear the melodious sound of the bagpipes sounding
out the finishing notes of the beautiful rendition of
‘
Amazing Grace.’

The time was 12:01 P.M.,
Wednesday December 7, 1812.

Chapter
Fifty-Four

ARE WE HOME YET?

Within a few seconds,
Captain Scarburg began to regain his senses. Stumbling to his feet,
he was aghast at the scene in front of his porthole window. No, it
wasn’t that swamp in Africa, in fact, it wasn’t Africa at all – it
was his cow pasture. An abundance of trees were growing everywhere
and off to his left he could see what Clem had called the Double
Pond Lake; however, those pesky ole beavers had not yet transformed
the one large lake into the two smaller ones that Clem
remembered.

On the spot where the
large cow pasture and old oil wells will be in the future, now an
immense forest of primeval hardwood and pine trees intermingled
with an abundance of mesquite flourished. Among the trees and close
to the edge of the pond Captain Scarburg saw a faint hint of smoke
rising up into the air. Glancing around the area, he saw not only
one trail of smoke, but several. Were the woods on fire he
supposed? Turning his attention from the changed scenery of his cow
pasture to his unconscious crew he began trying to revive
them.

Olive Marie was the first
to awaken. “Grandpa! Grandpa! What happened? Are we home yet?” She
groggily inquired.

“
Hon, I’m sorry! No, we
are not in Washington, unfortunately, you might be right. We MAY BE
home! I was hoping I was wrong, but I believe we are indeed in the
same cow pasture but by the look of things outside its not 1963. I
believe it is many, many years in the past. Try to get the others
awake, I’ve got an idea.”

Turning his attention back
to the control console, the Captain flipped on the switch to Mike’s
Tachyon transmitter/receiver. Removing his Iphone from his pocket
he touched the App labeled “Tachyon” and waited. Nothing happened.
He pressed the glass screen again… and waited… again nothing… what
is that noise? A slight crackling sound was coming from the phone.
Holding the black Iphone to his right ear, the Captain believed he
could hear something that sounded artificial. It was not static or
background noise.

Rocky, now awake, noticed
the peculiar attention Captain Scarburg was paying to his Iphone
and inquired, “Captain, what’s happening?”

Noticing the same thing,
Bud, Lou, Olive Marie, Forrest and Rocky all crowded in closer to
the Captain seemingly trying to assist him in any way they possibly
could.

“
Back up
guys! Give me some breathing room… I am attempting to contact Mike
back at the lab. I do not believe I told you all before, but Mike
has developed a method to talk, not only between cell phones within
a five mile radius of
Pegasus
as we have been doing while in Dallas. But on my
first trip, once inside
Pegasus,
I was able to talk to him from this very same cow
pasture. I’m trying to do it again.”

“
Grandpa, have you gone
crazy? I thought you said we were destined to a Parallel Universe
over two hundred and fifty years in the past – the year 1812 to be
exact. How can you talk to Mike?”

“
I like to admit it when
I’m right, but this time I wish I had to eat crow. I believe we are
indeed in nineteenth century Texas, twenty years before Texas
became a state! I think I can talk to Mike using something called
Tachyons – don’t ask, I don’t know what they are either, but they,
somehow, allow communication across time according to
Mike.”

The Captain
explained to them the beaver pond he saw off in the distance and
the unusual smoke he saw rising above the trees, but he had to
explain also the finality of their voyage. They were in the year
1812, probably caused by the hand of Ryan Rousseau. He explained to
them the terrible news: there was no way to fix the incorrectly
programmed computer. He continued trying to contact Mike back in
SCAR’s lab. If anyone knew there was a way they could repair the
improperly sequenced pile of silicon chips, processors and hard
drives known as the
Pegasus
master computer it would be Mike. He reasoned if
Clem Ruby could change the computer setting once, it might just be
possible they would be able to do it once again.

“
Okay, Grandpa, we
understand. No, that’s not right! I don’t understand anything you
have said, but quit talking and start working your cellphone and
get Mike on the line,” demanded Olive Marie.

The frying noise emanating
from the Iphone quickly changed to a dial tone, which as quickly
changed to a voice, “Hello… hello… is someone there?”

It was Mike Watkins!
“Mike! Mike! Is that you? The Captain screamed into the phone.
“Mike, come-in, come-in… over, come-in... over.”

Forrest quietly turned to
Olive Marie and whispered into her ear, “Where does Grandpa think
we are – in a World War Two bomber?”

Before the grin on his
face faded the voice had answered, “Captain? Captain? Talk to me...
I can hear you. Where are you?”

For the next couple
of minutes, Mike and the Captain conversed back and forth. The
Captain explained how the “
ARRIVAL
” gauge had been changed from
2012 to 1812, but the “
DESTINATION
” was still set for the
cow pasture near Celina, Texas. “Is there anything from your end
you can do to help us,” asked the Captain? “We are at your mercy
Mike, please do something – we need to get out of this 1812 cow
pasture here in Texas.”

“
No, I do not have any
ideas readily available, but let me take a look at the original
alien construction drawing that we used to build the time-machine.
Maybe I can see something I might have missed before. I will get
back to you as soon as I know something. Over and out.”

“
Grandpa, I’m scared! What
are we to do?”

“
We will think of
something, don’t worry. First let’s take inventory of our food and
water supplies. We may be here for a while.”

The Captain passed his hat
around the group accumulating what few food items the group had:
one Baby Ruth candy bar, a roll of breath mints, a package of
chewing gum, some cheese crackers, a peanut butter sandwich.
“Whoa,” said the Captain as he removed the items from his hat, “who
had the peanut butter sandwich?”