The Fire Crystal (14 page)

She was all too aware of the difficulties that they faced. The gravity waves they would meet on the trip back were unpredictable. That’s why the navigation was so far out on the first trip.

She had to find a way back to their own time, and asked Jalwath for help.” You have
no idea of the computing power in the area had said,” waving to the airlock. He went on to explain that despite this power their computer was still only a machine and could only give answers, if it had input to work on. They knew nothing about the geometry or strength of the gravity waves, so had nothing to feed into the machine for calculations.

He went on. “Guesses, however good are not good enough.

As I explained
, our people are forbidden from developing anything to do with time travel, and we cannot even work on your machine. Suppose we damage it. There is no telling what would happen. When you travel in your machine again, you must navigate ‘on the fly. Meaning that she would have to make new calculations as they encounter the gravity waves, and then adjust the controls manually.

In other words don’t rely on the computer, but steer the thing herself.

The day came for them to leave, and Jalwath showed them into a small room, built where the grass joined the forest. “You don’t have to walk back to the machine, this will take you there,” he said smiling kindly.

Before leaving he hugged all of them, and wished them luck.

“You may be a projection, but you’re very real to us,” Amber told him.

They said one last goodbye, and
then entered the room and closed the door.

There was no sign that anything had moved. As one door closed another one opened on the other side.
They had been told by Jalwath that they must wear their suits, so stepped through into the Martian plain, less than ten meters from their own craft.

They all entered the machine
, and waited for its internal pressure to adjust. Amber sampled the air and said nodding, “it’s good.” They shrugged off their suits.

She knew the difficulties that she would face now. First they would travel in time, and if or when she could get that right, they would jump in hyperspace and finish the
journey home.

“If this trip is successful Calvan, and in all honesty I don’t know if it will be,” Amber said, “you’ll have to spend some time on Two Stars, but if I can get permission, we’ll eventually make one last trip in the time machine, and take you home.”

“Why not just take me back in a space ship?” Calvan asked.

“We probably won’t get the
time
exactly right when we jump to Two Stars,” she explained. “If we use the time machine we can get you back, so that that no one knows you were gone for long.

Calvan was looking confused.

“In other words in the right place, and at a
convenient time also
,” she added for clarity.

“What happens if the Elders say it’s too dangerous to make another trip?”

“I think that I can persuade them, but they’ll want to know it’s safe; we’ll have a lot more work to do on the navigation first, she answered.”

He really didn’t understand any of
this, but would trust Amber with his life – he already had!

She had worked
for three days now, tapping away on that pocket computer.

Kind of boring Tom
and Calvan thought. After all the excitement they’d expected a quick departure. “When are we leaving Amber?” Tom asked yet again.

“Soon maybe, but if it takes the rest of my life, we won’t be leaving here until I’m sure I can get this right
. This is life and death stuff, and if I don’t get the navigation right then none of us will be going home. Maybe we’ll just blink out of existence. Is that what you want?”

He face softened “Don’t worry boys,” Amber was her cheerful self again now, “I think I’ve nearly worked through it, and just need to finish the double checks.”

Another day passed, and Tom decided that he’d don his suit and take a walk outside. Amber set the controls, and activated the outside door.

Nothing happened.

No one had thought to take a look outside the machine since returning. Amber keyed in some instructions, and an outside wall appeared. It was covered by fine dust that showed almost to the top of their screen.

Amber realized what this meant. “There’s a dust storm on the plain, and we haven’t felt a thing. This could topple us over,” she said.  She thought for a few seconds.
“OK, there’s no time to finish my checks. Stand-by to leave right now.”

Calvan admired her decisiveness, and dragged Tom back through the inner door, closing it quickly.

“What are you doing?” He asked Calvan angrily.

“I though you might like to leave with us.” he replied.

Then it was done. Behind the scenes the onboard computer would have already clocked in the trillions of cycles needed to navigate the jump, but they still both expected Amber to be struggling with the controls and making adjustments. Instead, to their surprise, she stood back and watched.

They were both looking at her.

“That was it boys,” she said. “There’s not anything to do until we’re in the middle of the jump.”

Three viewer walls had turned blank, and then fell away into a blur. “Warped space will drive you mad don’t look
!” Amber told Calvan.

He jumped back with surprise.

“Hey, I’m only joking - but it may give you a headache,” she laughed. Tom laughed with her.

“I’m glad we have time for jokes,” Calvan fired back.

Amber was serious then, and held up her hand. “There’s something you guys should know. I’m going to make two jumps to get us home, first in
time
, but remain still in space – “
not move
,” she said for emphasis, and added, “It wouldn’t be wise to attempt a jump in both
time
, and
space
together. It’s too complicated at the moment.”

“OK
,” Calvan paused, “I think that’s fine with us professor.

“But there’s something else,” Amber
told them. “I said before that everything in the universe is on the move, a bit like one big massive clock. Well we’re going to end up a long way from here. We may get to the right
time -
but the place.” She paused now, and let them take this in “I’m not sure where we will emerge.”

There was a deathly silence; they both recalled the conversation about dropping out from hyperspace in the middle of a supernova by accident. Nobody thought this was funny anymore.

“The gravity waves make this trip unpredictable, but we should be OK. Sorry that’s the very best I can do,” she added.

Calvan declared, “We trust you Amber.”

“Lets hope this is our lucky day,” Tom said. No one spoke after that for a while.

Then an alarm broke the silence, as the computer warned there had been a shift in the jump. Amber punched something into her personal computer, and the control panel changed
to rows of figures, clocks and control wheels. Amber turned these backwards and forwards, by swiping a finger over their image. Numbers shifted rapidly on the display, and the clock hands spun of their faces. It reminded Calvin of a video game, back in his own time. Then Amber stood back and breathed out slowly as the alarm suddenly stopped. Everything seemed back to normal.

“I had to adjust the settings, nothing serious,” she told them.

“OK that’s good,” Calvan managed to reply with a swallow. Tom just nodded.

A few more minutes passed, and the suspense mounted.

“Time to drop back into normal space,” Amber announced. “I’ve calculated for a galactic shift of around one and a half-light years.”

They hadn’t got a clue what that meant, and it showed.

“This should be a happy place,” she told them. “We’ll be clear of the Solar System, but nowhere near the closest star. There will be lots of lovely empty space - if I’ve got the date right.”

Tom started to speak, but decided that some things are best not said. They were
all grinding their teeth now, and Amber was clenching her fists so tight that his knuckles were white. This was unreal. All of them felt it, but no one spoke.

The walls cleared again. Then they saw it on all the three viewing walls
– space. They were hanging serenely within it, not a supernova in sight.

“Well done Amber,” they both said, clapping hands, “You’re a genius.”

“Don’t thank me, this thing is worth its weight in fire crystal,” she said shaking her pocket computer.

“I’m thanking
you,
” Calvan said in admiration.

Amber had persuaded the Elders of Two Stars to abandon the time travel project. It hadn’t been difficult. Only a select few of the Higher Elders
, including Tom’s father knew of the project. These were wise people, and they had already voiced their concerns, before the first test even.

It was hard to get permission to use the machine one last time, but she had managed it.
They walked into the room again, and entered the time machine. The calculations had been made this time by a powerful super-computer within the building. And the machine was preset.

“
This is a short hop, but we have to get it exactly right,” Amber explained to both of them. “We’ll get you back home in time, few weeks after you left Earth Calvan,”

“
That sounds good,” he replied.

“
Yes, as we discussed before, it means you wont have to explain a long absence,” Amber reassured him.

Once the mission was complete, Amber was to jump back and arrive in
the outer part of the Two Stars home system, a few days out from the present time. She would use and escape capsule to transfer to a waiting craft, and the time machine would then be blasted to atoms. Once she was safely back home, all records of the project would be destroyed.

Tom of course was sworn to secrecy again, and for his troubles was given a junior officer rank within the Deep Space Expedition Corps. He wore his uniform with pride, and both Amber and Calvan wondered good-naturedly if he even slept in it.

Calvan had said his goodbyes, and was sad to be leaving, but looking forward to being back home again. He wouldn’t believe it until he walked back up the path from the cave, and back to his house.

Amber
made a few adjustments and nodded. “Lets take you home Calvan.”

They had jumped again. The walls cleared and f
ell back. First there was the usual blur of hyperspace, and then the view cleared to show a blank wall of rock. “Perfect,” she declared. “We’re in the cave. Now to check the date.”

Amber worked quickly, and big smile started to spread across her face. “Not bad,” she remarked, “a short time into your future
, Calvan. Everything out there should look just as you left it.”

He
’d left the machine as Tom and Amber had said their quick farewells. Maybe that was for the best he thought, feeling a mixture of happiness and sadness.

The calculations must have been slightly off, and they had arrived a bit later than expected.

And then he wondered. How would explain to his parents where he had been - for almost five weeks?

Tom and Amber watched from their craft. They were just on the outer limit of their home star system now, and had made the jump back from Earth uneventfully.

The rendezvous took only a few days
, and the ship that arrived to collect them carried no crew. There was one job left to do now.

Amber had backed off three thousand miles, and then locked the
energy beam on target. “Well good- bye machine,” was all she had said, turning a key in the weapons control panel.

A
light on the panel had turned green, and started to flash.

“Target locked,” the computer announced.

She pushed the ‘FIRE’ button. For a few seconds nothing happened. Then there was bright flash, far away in the distance. They watched it fade on a monitor screen. She glanced at the scanner screen. It was showing a hot spot. Cooling vapor, drifting in deep space she knew. Now it was done. The machine was gone forever.

“Lets go home,” Tom said

“I wish Calvan had been here to see this,” Amber replied.

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