The Encounter (33 page)

              She stepped in and the opening disappeared. "You're on an Inter-galactic Star Ship sitting behind Earth's moon. You're home, or at least close to it." She walked over, sat down beside him and laid down his clothes. "What happened?  We won."

              "We won? I don't even remember the fight. Then I take it we're back in our time?"

              "Yes."

              He leaned against her. "Good, cause I don't feel much like Luke Skywalker and it's all I can do to just hold onto this sheet."

              She began to explain. "The weakness and stiffness comes from being stunned. It left me conscious, but it knocked you out. The bounty hunters picked us up."

              "Both of us?"

              "Yeah, well, they had something really special planned for you."

              "Never mind, I don't wanna know."

              "Before they could do anything, my brother showed up."

              "Your brother?"

              "Yeah, my brother. The Vergon realized they couldn't win in an open fight against my brother’s ship so they tried to bargain their way out using me. At first they were told the orders were to prevent my capture even if it meant my life."

              He rose up. "That’s pretty hard core. Sounds like they been taking lessons from the Israelis."

              "Shuuuu... To make a long story, very short, they finally came to terms..."

              "Your people made a deal?"

              "Yes. The Vergon put us back where they found us and left.”

              "They got away?"

              "That’s the way it works, sometimes. That's pretty much it. Now", she looked him over, "how do you feel?"

              He stretched forward and put his hand on the back of his head. "Like shit”

              "There’s something we have to talk about."

              "Wait a minute. Let me get dressed." He looked under the sheet. So did she. "I'm feeling a little disadvantaged. If you know what I mean."

              She passed over the clothes. He dropped the sheet, picked up his underwear and pulled them on.

The feeling had returned to his feet and hands. He slid off the bed to test his legs. They were shaky but he managed to get his pants on without falling. He sat back on the side of the bed and put on his socks and shoes.

              Nothing was said. Margaret just sat and watched. When he was finished she stood up. "Come on. Let's go to an observation area. I'll tell you the rest of it."

              They walked toward the wall. The opening appeared.

              He stopped. "How does it do that?"

              "I told you, magic. Well, technological magic anyway. I'll explain it later. Right now, we have to talk about other things."

              They stepped through the opening and the piece of wall reappeared.

                                                        ***

              They stood on the observation deck. A view of the moon's surface filled most of the view port. A tiny piece of the Earth was visible.

              They had passed several crewmembers on the way there. The men were very large and a couple of women looked like they could take care of themselves as well.

              The clothes Margaret had on, had the same regimented look, but not as much like a formal uniform. Her race was caught up with blue. He'd never seen so many shades of it. No one seemed to take much notice of him. They greeted Margaret like she had some kind of rank. Their language seemed to be one long line of gibberish without word or sentence breaks.

              Lawrence looked at the Earth. "If we can see them, can they see us?"

              "No. We're cloaked."

              He looked at her. "There has to be a reason you haven't taken me home yet."

              "Yes, there is... Remember, I told you about our laws dealing with unauthorized contact with someone like you, by someone like me."

              "I remember, but don't whoever
they
are, understand the circumstances that caused this."

              "Yes, they do now. That's why we've been waiting here so long... A decision had to be made."

              "Wait", he interrupted, "How long was I out?"

              "Seven days."

              "Seven days! That's great. "My partner's probably got the FBI looking for me by now. Not to mention my parents."

              "Now, I told you there's a lotta things goin' on down there and I know how you feel about that. For now let’s just say, the disposition of your world is still being discussed"

              Lawrence started a slow boil inside. “Wait a minute, the disposition of something is decided by its owner and we’re not owned by you are anyone else.”

“Bad choice of words, how about this, there are forces outside this solar system that will take what they want with
no
say by you. We don’t want that to happen. This whole episode with the portal and the timeline has caused a complete reassessment of a lot of on going research... It’s too dangerous for me to stay here, and I did ask about you.”

“I take it
no
was the answer?”

She nodded. “I just don’t know what’s gonna happen. Believe me, if I knew I’d tell you.”

              He held out his arms. She went to him and they hugged each other.

              "They're not gonna beam me down or anything like that are they?

              She leaned back from him. "No, they’ll take you back tonight... Actually we
can
do that with inanimate objects, but not with living beings. The body arrives intact, but the life energy inside, doesn't. The beaming process looks too much like death. It's like; you get back a working car with no driver. Incidentally, that's how the doors work. A device above the door is designed to breakdown a section of the wall, and then reassembles it after you pass through. It's triggered by your body's electrical signature." She reached into a pocket, and came out with a device like the one she had been carrying. "Here, keep this. When it lights up, I'm home."

              He reached into his pants pocket and felt around. “It’s gone.”

“The box? I have it. Thank you for not letting me lose it. It was a gift from my little brother. It’s very special to me.” She leaned over and kissed him. "Come on back to my quarters. We've got a couple of hours yet. Then I want you to meet your brother-in-law." They started out. "Let me warn you. The custom of shaking hands is a human custom. Don't offer to shake his if you want to keep yours. He's not used to dealing with humans."

              "Is he that much stronger than you?"

              The opening appeared. "Well", she took his hand, "the last time I messed with him he held me down and spanked me."

The opening closed behind them.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The next two hours, and the trip back to Earth, passed much too quickly for Margaret and Lawrence. A cloaked shuttle carried them back to an isolated open field. A hatch opened and he and Margaret stepped out into the night air. The hatch closed. They just stood and watched each other for a moment.

              “Wait”, she said and stepped back inside.

              He stood and watched.

              After a few moments she stepped back out and the hatch closed. She had his cowboy hat. “Here, something to remember all this by.”

              He smiled and took the hat. “Thanks, but I don’t think there’s a chance I’m gonna forget.”

              They stood for several moments in silence. She broke the silence. "Well, don't just stand there. Say something." Her eyes began to tear.

              "I can't think of anything to say that would keep you from leaving or would convince anyone to take me along."

              He knew this was painful for both of them. He held out his arms to her. She stepped in and they hugged one another.

              She leaned back and looked at him. “I have to go, but I promise I'm coming back." It was a clear night. "Look", she pointed to a section of the nighttime sky. "I'm right there. Just keep an eye on the stars and that little black box."

              He looked to where she was pointing, and then he turned her toward him, took her in his arms and kissed her. The kiss lasted until the hatch reopened.

              She pushed away and glanced at the opening. "I gotta go. Hey, you might as well move into my house. It's paid up for the next six months." Her eyes never left his. "I love you."

              "I know."

              She slowly stepped back into the ship. She stood with tears running down her cheeks as the hatch closed. He felt a surge in the night air and he knew she was gone. He looked around. He never felt so alone.

                                                        ***

              Moving into her house turned out to be something he couldn't do. The police still had it sealed. She was still part of an investigation centered around the building where she worked. The papers were still carrying the story. She was still considered a missing victim along with the dead security guard. Her house was checked but only to confirm she wasn’t there. It was just standard procedure to seal the home when the only person living there was the one missing.

What the papers didn’t say was anything about her car and what had happened to it. The damage could not be explained and the DNA found on the door matched nothing found in the human evolutionary chain.

It was to Lawrence’s advantage that the security cameras located on every level of the garage had been down while an upgrade was being installed in the control center. A few witnesses remembered an unmarked van but on one got the license plate number.

Edward Crocker headed up a small obscure government agency that looked into events that, shall we say, fell just outside the mainstream cases investigated by the FBI. He had ways of confirming information, but none of it would be admissible in a court of law or anywhere else.

His interest was peaked when all he could find out about Margaret O’Donnel was documented proof of her existence. What he couldn’t find was what he referred to as “living proof”. Other than the people who worked with her, he couldn’t find one other living human being who knew her.

His team went back to her house and this time they extracted DNA samples. They also removed several items they couldn’t identify. When the samples came back as unknown, she became his only case.

                                                       ***

              Lawrence had no way of knowing what his alternate reality had been. Both the physical and the abstract had changed. Their interaction with the past had changed his personal timeline. It was just luck that they met at all.

              A month before he was to enroll in the paralegal program a car wreak almost cost him his right leg. His long time involvement with martial arts had instilled the discipline he needed to get through what followed. During the month in the hospital, and over the nine months of rehabilitation that followed, his interest changed. He got hold of a book entitled, BUILD YOUR OWN PC. With nothing but time on his hands he set about doing just that. When he finished and it worked, his future was set.

              He worked as a service technician for two years, and then he met Jeff Link. A year later they founded their own service company.

              He was trying to run down a problem with the law firm's computer network when Margaret showed up for her first day. They worked in the same office and kept eyeing one another. He asked her to lunch that first day, but she turned him down. The next day he was back. He hadn't been able to get her out of his mind all night. He asked again. She couldn't fight off what she felt inside, and accepted. The rest you could say was history.

                                                        ***

Jeff, and his family, had both filed a missing persons report. The reports were closed the day after Jeff picked him up on the side of the road.

              The story he came up with for his partner, and family, was a thing of beauty and simplicity and not far from the truth. After he finished at the law firm he stopped off for dinner. It was dark before he got back on the road. He lived in Baytown and was traveling toward highway 146 when the ignition in his van died. He coasted to a stop and got out to have a look. There was a heavy rush of air and a flash of light and that was all he remembered until he woke up in a field off Interstate Forty-five, several days later.