Chapter 4
Jimmy stepped out of his car, pausing to lock the door before closing it. He tugged at the bottom of his suit jacket and smoothed a couple wrinkles before stepping around the front of the car to let Dona out. He took her hand, helping her out and closed the door behind them. He opened the back door and let two small girls wearing neat pastel dresses out and the whole family walked, each child holding one of her parents hands toward the church.
The interior of the building was impressive, as if the designers had wished to merge the traditional arches of a cathedral with post war modern design. Above the marble alter was a great golden statue of Christ, with one hand raised in blessing over the congregation.
There was the usual blur of congregation members greeting them, sometimes shaking hands, sometimes gently hugging. All sorts of fuss was made over the two girls and how pretty they were in their Easter dresses. The deep tones of the massive pipe organ tried to sound festive and spring-like, managing still to be overpowering.
The hymns were sung, the liturgy read, all in an accustomed blur as if it all was done by rote. Finally, the time came when the couple left their youngest daughter sitting respectfully on the pew and the rest of the family made their way to the black iron rail in front of the alter. Jimmy knelt first, followed by Dona and then their older daughter. The pastor made his way along the line of worshipers, offering the communion to each of them and sometimes muttering a quiet prayer.
He said a special prayer over the girl. It was her first communion, made even more special by the fact it was Easter morning. He gave her the wafer and the tiny cup of wine, which she touched to her lips but didn’t drink, as they had been told was appropriate for a child to do. The offering of the Eucharist was then offered to Dona in her turn. Despite having long been a Lutheran just as her husband, the Catholic upbringing of her mother still could be seen as she crossed herself and bowed her head in prayer.
The pastor finally came to Jimmy. He looked up as the pastor placed the wafer on his tongue. The Man of God was wearing the usual course woven white robes, with the bright white sash, representing the purity of the rebirth. He looked into the tall man’s black eyes with sudden recognition.
This man was not the Pastor he had known for so long. He had long, flowing black hair and a neatly trimmed black beard with just a few flecks of gray starting to show. He smiled down on Jimmy, and suddenly they were alone. The assistants were gone, the congregation was gone. Even Dona and the girls were gone. It was just the man in pastor’s robes and Jimmy.
Realization of what was happening slowly dawned on him. This man wasn’t his pastor. This wasn’t even his usual church. It was the church he had gone to as a child with his parents. It was something from another time, another memory. They had arrived in a car! It wasn’t the flying personal transport he knew as a car now; it was the old blue Chevrolet Lumina he had left at a trailhead seemingly a decade ago. All of these images were memories of what he had left behind in the year 1999 when Dona, his friend Murky and he had stumbled onto a hidden starship on that trail and ended up almost five centuries in the future.
He had not seen the face that was smiling down on him for almost ten years now. He had first seen it when the mysterious stranger had delivered a seemingly odd set of rings Dona and he now wore as wedding rings, and again over the next few months in a series of extremely vivid dreams. He remembered the strange name that went with that equally strange face.
Arcus Oray.
Was this a dream? It certainly had to be. Did this building even still stand? It seemed unlikely that it did, but now it bothered him that he had never even thought to check. It slowly dawned on him how the church had been so full, from the front pews, all the way back into the large balcony, and now the two of them were alone. I also dawned on him that he was still kneeling and looking up at the supposed mage.
“I have told you before of your strengths, Argus. Do not forget them, and the fact that chief among them is your love. There is more strength in that than you can even comprehend.” He gestured to one side, and there, once more, was Dona, with their daughters at her sides, holding her hands.
“Remember this during the coming days of darkness. Remember your faith.” He indicated the church with a sweep of his hand. “Remember your skills. Trust them, for you have been prepared well by many people. Trust what you know, and trust what you think you know. Trust your insight when you know in your heart that you must.”
“What do you mean?” Jimmy asked. It was no use. He was suddenly completely alone in the sanctuary. A chill swept over him and there was a sound. It was like a continuous thunder, accompanied by the sound of creaking, complaining metal as if it was being rent by some unseen force. The towering stained glass windows that flanked the golden statue suddenly went dark, as if a dark cloud suddenly covered the bright sun outside. The rumbling intensified, and suddenly, with a final snap, the statue crashed to the ground, smashing into the alter and splintering it in a shower of marble particles. The stained glass shattered, the shards falling to the ground in a dark, multi hued cascade as something battered down what was left of the wall above the ruined alter. A great-clawed hand clad in black, segmented armor swept the gilded cross aside in a final act of desecration as that strange apparition was fully revealed to him.
It towered above him, fairly oozing belligerence and hatred. He looked at it directly, but he could not be certain of the features. His eyes were not impaired, but it was as if he could not look upon the creature directly, even though that is exactly what he was doing. The black claw suddenly reached for him as the thing screamed an inhuman hiss.
Jimmy woke with a start. He blinked his eyes a few times in the darkness, trying to reconcile the dream and where he actually was at the moment. As they often did, the dream was fading quickly into his subconscious, becoming as distant and unclear as the darkened room was in the faint light of the tiny moon.
The faint snoring beside him meant that Dona had not been awakened by his apparent nightmare. Despite the cool, salty breeze drifting in from the open window, he could feel the sweat on his body. Almost absently, he looked at his left hand.
It was there. It was no trick of the miniscule light. His wedding ring was actually glowing. He didn’t recall exactly why he looked at it then, only that he had not imagined this when it happened before. It was slowly fading, much like the images of his dream.
Disturbed without even knowing completely why, he gently slipped out of the futon bed where they lay. He pulled on a still slightly damp pair of shorts and let himself out onto the deck outside their room. He sat down on one of the old looking wicker chairs and looked out over the ocean. Several improbable clouds passed high overhead, just missing obscuring the tiny point of light that indicated the diminutive rock that could barely be called a moon. He stared at it for a time. It was only slightly larger than Phoebus, the larger of Mars’ moons and only slightly more round.
An acrid smell assailed his nostrils. It was only the tiniest whiff, but he knew what it was. The sudden red glow from nearby, followed by the sound of a puff confirmed what he already knew.
“Can’t sleep either?” Murky said, tapping a long ash off his cigar.
“Just a mild nightmare. I’ll go back to bed pretty soon. You?”
“Just wanted a smoke. I didn’t want to wake up Susan.”
“If you get too close to our room, Susan will be the least of your worries. We left the windows open, and that thing reeks.”
The tip of the cigar glowed once more, barely lighting the other man’s face for the briefest of moments. “Well, let’s get away from the house. You decent?”
“Like it matter to you two?”
“Hey, I resemble that remark. I’m dressed.”
“Amazing. I thought by now the two of you would be parading around in your altogether.”
“Nah. I don’t want sand getting some places. Here, stay close to me. You’re not wearing sandals and you don’t want to get a sand spur.”
Jimmy realized that meant Murky was wearing those damned sunglasses still. They actually were much more than that. He had a pair of them himself, but he didn’t often wear them. They had special, light intensifying lenses that could allow a man to see at night, albeit faintly. They were not made for military applications, but they were handy to keep you from tripping in the dark.
Murky plopped down on the beach and took another drag of his cigar. Jimmy just stood there, watching the descending moon with his hands in his pockets.
“I’m going to report you for insubordination.” He said between puffs.
“What?”
“I know you. You’re not relaxing. Your mind has already skipped ahead to what you’re going to do with an older battleship.”
“Oh. No, that’s not it. I know the NC pretty well, so that’s not the problem.”
“Then what is it? You bummed because you haven’t been able to have any more kids?”
Jimmy looked at him, though he couldn’t make out his face in the dim light. In all honesty, that upset Dona a lot more than it did him. “No, well, maybe. It’s more about what I thought my life was really going to be like. You know, what I had planned and such.”
“Jimmy, face it. All your big plans were to marry Dona, go to college and have some brilliant career doing who knows what. If you really look at it, that’s what happened.”
“I know. It’s just, I remember little bits and pieces of the dream I just had, and part of it was that I was back home.”
“What, your apartment in Miami?”
“No, I mean back home, back in the early twenty first century rather than the middle of the twenty fifth. It was almost like a what if.” He sat down beside his friend. “Do you have another one of those?”
Murky chuckled. “Always.” He pulled a fresh cigar from his shirt pocket. “You actually gonna smoke it? Or do you just want to gnaw on it for a bit?”
“Smoke it.”
“Well, here then. I don’t have my clipper with me, so bite the end off. Here’s my lighter. Now, don’t put it in your mouth just yet. Use the lighter to toast the end, just a bit. Don’t quite let the flame touch it. Now, put it in your mouth and draw it in. Let it pull the flame in, don’t just hold it up to the tip.”
Jimmy pulled a long draw on the stogie, and immediately collapsed coughing and gagging. He spit a couple times before he sat back up.
“I forgot to tell you. Suck it in, don’t inhale it. Just hold the smoke in your mouth. This ain’t no cigarette, and you’re just a beginner.”
“Now you tell me.” Jimmy rasped. He took another couple puffs, trying to decide why Murky enjoyed this. “Let me guess, this is an aquired taste?”
“Just like coffee. You ought to try that too.” Murky grinned, knowing his old friend utterly detested any sort of coffee, and didn’t even like to be in the same room with his strong personal brew.
“Bleh!” Jimmy spat. “Before long, I’ll be just like the rest of the officers in the command center, puffing syntherettes and swilling nasty coffee constantly.”
“Yeah, right. Mister clean, the boy scout commander with coffee and a cigarette. Like that would ever happen.”
Jimmy tried to blow a smoke ring, realizing he had utterly no idea how it was done. The sensation of smoking the finger thick cigar was actually rather pleasant, though it left an unholy taste in his mouth. “I’m now going to have to take a shower before I get within twenty feet of Dona.”
“No shit. She’s still gonna kick your ass.”
Jimmy shrugged, and took another puff, sitting there in silence and letting his mind wander.
Dona rested her head on her friend’s shoulder. “I wonder what they’re up to?”
“If my nose isn’t lying to me, Mill is off smoking one of those damned things.” Susan always called her friends by their proper names rather than their nicknames. Murky’s first name was actually Millard, and he finally convinced her to at least shorten that. She would not refer to him by his nickname. She positively detested it. “If he was off with any other man I know, I’d suppose they were sitting there, getting drunk and smoking cigars. I know Jimmy doesn’t do either.”
“Well, he’s not a full on tea totaller. He’ll drink a glass of wine now and again. He learned a long time ago he didn’t like being hung over.”
“Wine doesn’t count. No, they’re probably over there talking great war secrets. James will pump Mill for details of what old Tova’s up to and Mill will run on and on about how if he told him, he’d have to kill him.”
Dona snickered at their private joke. The expression hadn’t survived the ages, and when people heard him say that, they actually took him seriously. In reality, there was an awful lot about Murky that she knew better than to ask about. He was a good friend and would never do anything to hurt them. Well, almost anything, she told herself.
“What did he say to you this time?” Dona asked.
Susan took a long sip of her own wine. “He didn’t this time. Barron did. He told me some cock and bull story how Mill was shmoozing that girl, and there wasn’t really anything to it. Hmph, like there’s any reason he should have to canoodle with a little twenty-eight year old chippie to do his job.”
“Hey, I’m twenty-eight!”
“Yeah, going on sixty. Different kind of twenty eight, honey.”
“Well, I don’t think he’ll ever stop. It’s part of who he is.”
Susan stared into her wine glass, as if the answers to all of her problems were right there on the surface of the dark liquid. A sudden shout from over the dune drew their attention.
“What the… Murky! Put me the hell dow…” There was an audible splash, followed by the sudden appearance of the tall man bounding over the dune, followed closely by Jimmy. Once they came into the range of the porch light, it was apparent that he had been dumped in the surf. “Dammit Murky, I was starting to enjoy this!” He held up the soggy cigar, before disgustedly tossing it into the scrub.
“At least he’s starting to relax.” Susan said, and then took a gulp of her wine.
Jimmy slept like a baby after that. He had taken a shower; washing his hair twice to get the smoke smell out. Some of the tension in his body finally melted away, and if he dreamed, it was nothing so unpleasant to wake him again.
Murky and Susan took the ship on a sub orbital hop to one of the coastal resorts, leaving them alone for the day on the remote island. They made the most of their time alone, entwined in each other’s arms, confident that here they were truly, absolutely alone. They were a couple miles from the house, wrapped only in towels when they heard the Valkyrie returning.
Murky was a better pilot than he had been before. It didn’t matter, really, since the ship had automated systems that would let almost any of them use it as basic transportation. His friend wasn’t the natural that he was, but had learned the art passably well. A slight bobble of the wings as he descended to the pad indicated that he was piloting it himself, instead of using the computer.
Susan was grinning from ear to ear when they finally arrived. Murky was carrying a stack of take-out trays. No cooking tonight, Dona thought.
“Making love on the beach, I see.” Susan leered at them.
Jimmy blushed, but Dona just hummed a lilting tune as she led him inside.
“Those two are just like teenagers.” She muttered to her husband as the disappeared.
“Maybe we need to send them away for a day.”
“Like I care if they happen to see us.” She grinned like a Cheshire cat as he put the food on the dining table. She motioned for him with her finger and skipped out into the sandy soil as he pursued her.
It only occurred to Susan, later that night as she lay curled up with her husband, ‘This is too nice. When is the other shoe going to drop?”
©2003 Intergalax.com