Fan Fic and More

~ Stories by Island Breeze ~


Altered Time Series

1. Destiny In The Stars
2. Life In The Stars
3. Children Of The Universe
4. The Night The Dreams Died
5. The Four Faces Of Rath
6. Sliding Into Antar
7. Codename: TABASCO

Star Trails To Antar
(Short Stories culled from the Altered Time Series)

Departure – By Another Route
(A challenge response short fic)

Buffy Goes To Antar
(A Crossover challenge response short fic)

The Fall Of A King
(A one-part Dreamer fic… and no, all is not as it seems at first!)

Darth Maxwell
(A one-part fic about Max’s son Zan, now 14, and how he perceives Max)

The Mystery Of Sandy
(Sequel to Darth Maxwell, two parts)

Swamp Witch
(A Halloween Dreamer special, one part)

Goodbye
(A one-part Lamptrimmer challenge fic)




Awesome artwork by cosmicdream
http://cosmicroswell2.homestead.com/fanart.html


In the months after Max, Michael, Isabel, Liz, Maria, and Kyle were forced to abruptly flee their graduation and Roswell to avoid being slaughtered by a hastily revived government assassination team bent on killing them at their graduation ceremony, Liz and Max were finally married. But their happiness on the run was brief… and incomplete. That would never be possible until they could once again stand together with each other and with the families they had been forced to leave behind… until they could live their lives freely, unfettered, and unhunted. But would this dream ever be possible for them? The coming months brought desperate flight, a secretive visit back to Roswell, and… the end of the world, thanks to Kivar. This story begins a year or so after Kivar set up a chain reaction in Earth’s core with a device intended to kill Max and the remaining royals, but which instead resulted in Earth’s total destruction.

This is not intended to be a sad story (I'm a sucker for happiness, and Dreamer / Candy / Stargazer Insurance is provided); however, parts of the story do refer back to painful and sometimes devastating memories. These are largely responsible for Max and Michael, now living on Antar, trying to figure out just what went wrong. They decide to build a bigger and better granolith that will take them back to Earth's past… before it all ended. Max believes that his future self, "Future Max," altered the timeline when he returned in the original granolith, skewing the timeline and changing what should rightly have been a different future for him and for Liz, as well as for Michael and Maria… and for the world.

Max and Michael hope by going back to Earth’s past to be able to save Liz, Maria, and Isabel and bring them back to Antar, but what happens winds up being more spectacular –and dangerous- than they had hoped for or expected! Look for lots of surprises… and for Alex to help save the world.

Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars should be enjoyed by Dreamers, Candy Lovers, and Stargazers alike. It is probably YTEEN or TEEN rated… about like the TV series. And, naturally, Melinda Metz and the creators of Roswell, the TV series, Jason Katims, et al, deserve the credit for the characters from the TV show and for whatever mention, if any, there might be of any event that occurred on the TV show. For better or worse, all other characters and storylines are mine.





Altered Time
Destiny In The Stars


That Haunting Past

Chapter 1

I


It was one of those warm, blue and rose-colored afternoons, and Max looked out over the Antarian landscape from the upper window of the spacious and comfortable living chambers of his palace. He did not see the pleasant dwellings of the nearby city, nor were his eyes enjoying the view of the calm golden sea just beyond… his mind was a million light years away from this pleasant Antarian summer day. As he stared lost into the space beyond, a gentle touch caressed him from behind. Max turned, smiled, and embraced Liz. Their lips touched… lightly at first… then passionately. Max pulled Liz more tightly against him, enveloping her in his arms. He felt her left hand run up through his hair, caressing the back of his head; her right hand was against his chest, as though to feel the beat of his heart. Max's heart was full and happy. Time, it seemed, could not encroach on this moment. Then the image of Liz began to fade. Soon, like the morning's mist, it was gone. A tear coursed slowly down Max's cheek… He was alone again.

"WHAT GOOD IS ALL THIS!"

Max didn't care that he was shouting, his voice betraying the pain and anguish he had been holding back for so long… much too long.

"It's all so freakin' wrong…"

As if just waking, Max realized that someone was knocking at his chamber door.

"Enter."

"Is everything alright, Max? I heard yelling!"

It was Michael, Max's best friend, confidant, and General of his armies. Michael and Max had been friends since childhood, had shared secrets, knew each other's hearts and souls like no one else on Antar ever could. They were far more now than friends and closer than most brothers.

"Michael," said Max hesitatingly, "Do you remember when Liz told us about being visited by a future me. You remember that the future me told her that she had to turn me away, because our being together would keep me from marrying Tess and my powers and Tess' would both be needed when it came time to save the Earth, and that the Earth was being destroyed in his future timeline because I had married Liz and not Tess… you remember what I'm talking about?"

"Yeah," Michael volunteered cautiously, wondering where this was all going.

"Well, of course, Tess and I never married; you know why. And after graduation, Liz and I eventually got married anyway."

"Yeah." replied Michael. He laughed, but it was hard to tell if it was an amused laugh or an "Okay-spill-it-what's-this-all-about” kind of laugh.

"Well," Max started slowly, judging the effect of his words, "I think I know you better than anybody, and you know me better than anybody on this planet."

"Yeah. That's a fact," said Michael.

Max continued, "I've been noticing that since, well, since Liz and Maria haven't been in our lives, you know, there’s just no ‘joy’ in our lives anymore. We saved Antar, but what about our own happiness? Am I making any sense to you?"

"Yeah. I think you are. You know I do."

"Well," said Max, "It just seems to me that instead of saving the world, everything just kind of went wrong after that. Earth isn't even there anymore! Maybe my future self was right and Tess' not being with me was the reason Earth got destroyed; maybe it was something else. But when our enemies destroyed the Earth, everything you and I lived for died that day or was already dead: Liz, Maria, Isabel… every freakin' body! Cripes! You almost didn't make it out alive either!"

"Don't remind me, Max! I'm not likely to forget! I almost didn't live long enough to adolesce out of adolescence!" Both Michael and Max laughed, but it was a subdued laughter affected by a long sadness of heart.

"I know! Sometimes, though, I wonder if we did ourselves any favor by escaping."

"Come on, Max, I know how you feel. I loved… LOVE! …Maria as much as you've always loved Liz, and we always will… we both know it… but Antar wouldn't be here now if we had died there!"

"Yeah, we saved Antar," agreed Max, “But we only saved one person from Earth… besides you and me, I mean… one person out of the whole frikkin’ planet. And we lost Liz and Maria… and Iz… and everybody else we ever cared about. Michael, listen, I've been thinking… You know the granolith, the machine my future self used to go back and warn Liz to stay away from me, not to marry me."

"Yeah…"

"Well, think about this… what if we built another one, went back to before Earth was destroyed, and saved the Earth… or at least Liz, Maria, and Isabel… Do you think it's possible, Michael?"

Michael was silent. Max expected him to say that he was dreaming, that the past can't or shouldn't be changed, or more likely, that he couldn't put himself into harm's way like that. After all, Max was the king of Antar, and his whole future and the future of Antar itself hung in the balance. Max couldn't just run off acting with reckless abandon on a whim! Michael was ever faithful, but he was also blunt, and most of all, he was very protective of Max.

"Do it! Yeah, let's do it!" Michael blurted uncharacteristically, revealing far more emotion than Max remembered ever seeing in him. This sudden lack of caution caught Max by surprise… caution with Max's life, that is. With his own life, Michael was known to be reckless and bold. He was a good soldier… an excellent soldier… and an excellent friend. Yes, above all, an excellent friend!

"Mikey! What's that on your cheek?"

"My eyes are just a little… you know, these Antarian summers. I'm still not quite used to them… freakin' rose-aromaed humidity makes my eyes water. And don't call me that! You know I…"

"Yeah, you hate it!"

Both of them laughed. It was a refreshing laugh, a heart-cleansing laugh that seemed to wash away some of the depression both of them had been holding in.

"Uh, Max, tell me you’re not thinking of going back and changing history by marrying Tess to save the world," said Michael.

Michael ducked quickly as all six pillows came flying in his direction from Max's oversized Antarian sofa. "Bite your tongue, Michael! I said save the Earth! Some things are worse than death!"

Both of them laughed again! It was a good day, a fine day! Max breathed in the freshness of the Antarian rose-aromaed light misty summer breeze coming through his open window, and his heart felt joy, something he had almost forgotten. Michael felt it, too. Michael turned and walked briskly to the door. "I'll see what I can find out about the granolith. Maybe the plans for it are here on Antar somewhere. I think I know where to start looking, too!



tbc

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



The Trip Ahead

Chapter 2

II


Michael took the blindfold off of Max’s eyes and motioned toward the finished ship. He really needn’t have bothered to point it out, though. The new ship took up most of the space in the huge space works building. It would have been impossible to miss it even if Max had tried.

"Wow!” Max said softly, surveying the ship from one end to the other, as far as he could see with his eyes. “It’s frikkin’ enormous! How big is it, anyway?”

“Big enough to take our families for a cruise anywhere in the galaxy,” Michael said proudly. “At least… when we have families to take on trips.”

Max smiled approvingly and looked back again at his best friend. “You really are confident about this trip, aren’t you, Michael? Have you even considered the possibility that we might not find Liz or Maria… or that something might not work out exactly as we planned?”

Michael shook his head and smiled a lopsided smile. “No.”

This wasn’t true. The fact is that Michael had considered every possible angle and every possible outcome at least a thousand times. But he wanted to be upbeat and positive about the chances. And in all honesty, he did feel upbeat and positive… probably for the first time since coming to Antar.

Max surveyed the huge ship again and nodded. “Michael, you're a genius! I don't know how you found the original plans, got a team together to work on it, and got it all done in just eight months!"

"I aim to please, Maxwell! You know me!"

Max smiled. "It's hard to believe that just eight months ago our whole world was so different… You know what I mean? I know for me, it was like I had nothing to look forward to, no plans, no hopes… But hey! Look at it! This ship is going to take us back to Earth, back in time, and then bring us back here and back to our time again… with Liz… and Maria…"

"You got it, Maxie! Hey, it better! I'd hate to go to Earth the way it is right now and not go back in time or something… We'd just run into an asteroid field of Earth debris! But trust me, these guys are the best engineers and scientists on all Antar! You know that motorbike I got that can break the sound barrier in 14 seconds and disappear and reappear a thousand miles away in less than a minute, Max?"

"Hunh! Do I know! It's the only one like it on Antar! I don't think those longhaired shebble herders in the Chanesio Division will ever forget it either! After you came out of hyperspace or whatever the shifuzzle it's called on that bike of yours the first time in that mountain pasture, the royal accounts department spent a considerable sum of money to recompense all the shebble herders for all the hair their shebbles lost!"

"Yeah," Michael snickered, grinning. "Well, I've learned to control it a little better since then. Cripes! Who knew that the wind rush from reentry would blow all the hair off of a shebble! That was an awesome sight, though, Max, a whole field full of shebbles, all of them bald and pink as a newborn baby's butt!" Michael and Max both were laughing. "But the shebble manure market in that area was flooded with an oversupply for weeks afterward," Michael added.

At this, Max and Michael both collapsed in hysterics.

"Yeah, well, that was quite some gift!" Max said, wiping his eyes, after regaining some of his composure. "They gave you that bike for your work helping to restore Antar's university system of linked science laboratories, didn't they?"

"Yep! Well, Max, these are the guys that invented that bike and built it. I'd say these guys can do just about anything they put their minds to!"

"So how soon can we go, Mister genius… Michael?"

"Any time, really, Maximilian, your Kingliness," Michael replied in kind, with a bit of friendly sarcasm and a touch of smugness. "All our affairs here are taken care of. We could get a good night's sleep, have a good breakfast, and hit the road, as they say… if you want to!”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that! We’re bachelors.”

“Yeah… unless this all goes right, huh?”

Michael shrugged and grinned. “I was tired of being a bachelor anyway, Max. It’s over-rated.”

Max nodded understandingly, and his eyes seemed to light up, as he looked at the ship and thought about the possibilities that lay before them. Then a grin spread across his face like a wildfire racing through dry grass. "Awright, Michael! You know, I've got to tell you, this is kind of awesome! I feel like… like a kid going to Disneyland or something. I can’t remember when I’ve been this excited about anything!"

Michael smiled and nodded… in total agreement.


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It was 5 AM, a half hour earlier than Max had planned to get up, but he was ready as he would ever be and didn't want to wait any longer. As he walked into the dining room of the royal residence, he found Michael already there.

"Couldn't wait, either, huh?"

Michael didn't answer… just poured another quarter of a bottle of Tabasco sauce on his Antarian blue hen egg omelet… "Next to Maria, the best thing about Earth," he mumbled with a mouth full of blue hen egg omelet and Tabasco sauce, as he held up the bottle. "Thank God and McIlhenny!"

"What's that you say?" asked Max.

"Nothing. Just that I'm glad I had these cases of this stuff stashed away on the ship before we left! I would be frikkin' in withdrawal right now! We both would!"

Both Max and Michael laughed for several minutes. Clearly, the atmosphere in the royal residence was a changed atmosphere, a happier more cheerful one all around. Even the maids, the cooks, and the other royal residence staff seemed more cheerful seeing Max happy again. It had been a long time.

Having finished breakfast, Max said goodbye to his staff, promising to return before they even missed him if their ship and everything worked the way it was hoped. But just in case, he left detailed secret instructions with his trusted Chief of Staff on what to do in the event of his failure to return to Antar.

“I’ll put this in a safe place, Max. I’m sure I won’t ever need to read it,” the chief of staff replied, placing the neatly folded piece of paper into his breast pocket. Later, in his own chambers, he took the paper out and placed it on a shelf. Then he set his little Buddha statue on top of it.

Michael and Max walked together down the tree-shaded lane from the royal residence toward the nearest linked science lab, where their ship was waiting for them to board it for the flight. For a time, neither one spoke. As they passed a light blue and red-wine-colored pond on the right, Michael noticed a couple sitting under a shade tree kissing.

"You know, I've missed Maria a lot…" said Michael. "I can't wait to bring her back here and show her all the things on Antar! She'll freak!"

"Yeah." Max nodded his agreement. "I'm looking forward to bringing Liz here, too. You know, Michael, Liz belongs here. She was such a great student of physics and science and space and all that. She just belongs here with me! Don't you think?"

"I do," Michael agreed. "Maria, too. I mean, Maria wasn't all into physics and stuff or the honors science student like Liz, but she was, kind of, you know, a free spirit, a sort of explorer, looking to find her space. Well, now I can give it to her!"

Max chuckled. "Yeah, but you're really going back because the Tabasco sauce is about all gone, aren't you?"

Michael grabbed Max in a playful bear hug, threatening to throw him into the blue-wine lake they were walking past. Both of them laughed as they acted like two high school truants skipping a day of school.

"That, too," Michael admitted honestly. "That, too. But I wouldn't trade Maria for all the Tabasco sauce on the planet Earth."

Max looked at Michael and smiled. He knew exactly what Michael meant, exactly what he was feeling. They walked on for a while, passing the far edge of the lake and the quaint little houses at the edge of town. They walked down the old cobbled Valdresina Street three blocks to Shebblefieldtree Lane. Four blocks down Shebblefieldtree Lane they arrived at the Jantoo-Bandy Science Lab Space Works building, part of the Jantoo-Bandy University system and by far the largest open-interior building on Antar. The door opened, and eight men in smocks stood inside.

"Come in," invited the elderly man who had opened the door. "Come in. We've been expecting you."

"Thank you," Max said politely as he and Michael stepped inside.

It was beautiful. The ship stood in the middle of the huge hangar-like lab. It shone a bright gold with silver trimmings on the inside of the window's edges. It somewhat resembled a classic flying saucer in shape, but it sported multiple decks like a cruise ship. It had no landing assemblage. Instead, it relied on an anti-gravity lock system that held it solidly in place without any part of the ship actually touching the ground. The interior lights shone through the windows with a bright white light, accenting the silver interior trim of the huge fore window and the gold of the outer plating. The propulsion system emitted a soft purring hum. It seemed perfect in every way.

“It’s beautiful!” said Max. But it’s nothing at all like the original granolith.”

“New and improved, Max… not your father’s Oldsmobile.”

Max looked at Michael. “Michael, you watched way too many commercials on Earth. Didn’t your TV remote have a mute button?” Max and Michael both laughed, then they boarded without further delay.

"How long to reach Earth in the timeline we’re returning to," Max asked Varec, the chief scientist.

"We figure seventeen days, three hours, twenty minutes, and three seconds, but that's an imprecise calculation.”

"Yeah, right!" Michael whispered to Max. "He means it could be three and a half seconds or maybe three and a quarter seconds…" Max and Michael smiled a knowing smile at each other. They knew that they could bet their lives on these guys… and they were! Once in the pilot and co-pilot seats, Max and Michael powered up the propulsion system to one third, enough for a gentle lift-off. One of the engineers pressed a button that opened the roof of the lab as though it were the astrodome… which it actually somewhat resembled… and they lifted their craft out of the hangar, up through the atmosphere of Antar, and off into the void of space. They were bound for Earth. Eight uneventful hours later, Max decided to get some sleep, and Michael took the pilot's seat. "This machine flies itself!" said Michael. I don't think it needs either of us." Max laughed his agreement and soon had gone off into dreamland.



tbc

<center]> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



The Island of the Jah-ee

Chapter 3

III



Max was almost to the river. If he could make it there, he might be safe. The dense, deep forest of Nan-torel on Antar was not a friendly or pleasant place to be in the hottest part of the Antarian summer. In fact, it would have been downright dangerous even without Kivar and a few dozen of his mercenary soldiers close behind bent on putting an early end to Max's short life. He had been on the run for five days, hiding wherever he could in the deep forest, always staying one step ahead… just one step ahead. His body was covered with welts from encounters with the ever-present poison Guma plants that abounded in the Nan-torel. On three occasions, Max had had to fight off wild pawgors, a large, cat-like predator that hunted in the deep forest. At night, Max slept covered under deep piles of Ama leaves from the Ama trees. Not that he was worried about Kivar's mercenaries finding him at night, but this was the only means of protection from the bat-like rob-jeta that descend on any living thing in the night like flying piranhas. The rob-jeta can devour a shebble down to the bones in under three minutes, attacking the shebble as it sleeps. Fortunately, shebbles -and most people- do not normally venture into the deep Nan-torel at night.

It was day now. And it was hot. If Max could get to the river, he might escape downstream before Kivar's mercenaries found him. Max hurried through the trees, jumping over logs, leaping nimbly over obstructions, occasionally looking back to see if he was still alone. That's when it happened. As he jumped over a large log, it rose off the ground several inches, enough to catch Max’s foot. "Cripes!" thought Max as he sprawled forward and headed toward the ground. He had tripped over an inoffensive Wiffer, a large turtle-like animal that had decided to move just as he leapt over it.

It might have been a bruising fall, but Max never hit the ground. Somewhere in mid-fall, he felt something tighten around his body like a vise, and he saw the ground start to go down… No, he was going up! There was no denying now that the vise-like object gripping his body was a talon, a bird's claw… one large enough to go all the way around Max's body. But no bird on Antar was so large! The only bird near this size was the jah-ee, also known as the lightning hawk, the last-sight vulture, or a dozen other names in various Antarian mythologies. But that's just what the jah-ee was: A myth! Max looked up. It was a huge bird, black for the most part, with a head like an eagle's. All the mythologies said that the jah-ee was black… but Max noticed that the feathers underneath the huge wings were a rainbow of colors, as beautiful as any parrot's plumage. Of course, this would not be common knowledge, as anyone who had ever seen the underside of a jah-ee's wings had likely just seen their last sight ever. Max remembered another fact about the jah-ee that most mythologies shared: it's talons were hollow, and deadly poisonous… One scratch was fatal… always! No medicine, no herb, no cure known existed that could change that. As the jah-ee rose upward for the sky, Max reached up with his hand toward the treetops, and a large branch fell toward the bird, striking it on the left wing. The bird plummeted, with Max still firmly gripped in its right talon. As they hit the ground, the jah-ee lost its grip. Max got up to run, but he couldn't.

Pain… in my wing.

"My wing? I'm losing it!" Max thought. "The poison from the talons has affected my mind." Max put his hand over one of the scratches made by the massive poison talon. A greenish light glowed briefly at the sight of the scratch. The scratch was still there.

Pain! Sadness! Liz!

Liz? Liz had flashed in his mind. What was that all about?

She's sitting at home with the children. She'll be devastated when I don't return. Sadness! She'll die. She won't leave the nest to eat or drink until I return to guard our children. Can't now… Wing… Pain… Broken…

Max sat down on a nearby log and shook his head to clear it of the poison's effects. He tried again to use his healing powers to heal his poisoned wounds, but it wasn't working. "I'm losing it! I'm really losing it," he thought out loud. Then Max slowly raised his head and reality began to dawn on him. He looked at the jah-ee. The jah-ee lay on its right side with its massive left wing outstretched. This one wing must have measured 30 feet in length, Max judged. And Max could see that either the tree branch or the fall had broken the wing near the middle.

Pain! Sadness!

"Yes, I understand now,” said Max. “These images and sensations in my mind… I thought I was thinking them, but they're coming from you, aren't they? But how do I talk to you? Can you understand?"

The jah-ee did not respond in any way to Max's question.

"No. I guess you wouldn't understand my words, would you? You seem to communicate with images and emotions. It’s only in my mind that they’re turned into sentences. Let me see…” Max closed his eyes and concentrated. He created a series of images and emotions in his mind: Liz… love… sadness… loss… danger… escape… enemies… friendship. That one was a little hard. How does one communicate the desire for friendship to a bird?

The jah-ee stood up on its feet and seemed to be searching Max's thoughts.

Help.

Max nodded. "Yes. I think so." He approached the massive wing at the point where it was broken and placed both of his hands on it. The broken area began to glow with a greenish aura. After a few moments, Max removed his hands. The jah-ee stretched its wing out to its full length, then its other wing, too, testing the breeze under them. The jah-ee then folded both wings back against its sides.

Gratitude. Joy. Happiness. Urgency.

Urgency? Max placed an emotional image in his mind: Confusion!

Talons. Death. Scratches. Max. The images flashed through Max’s mind.

"Me? You’re telling me that I'm going to die?”

The bird didn’t say Max’s name, of course… It didn’t “say” anything. But in a way, it spoke… by projecting a rapid series of mental images… images of its own talons… of death… of the scratches on Max… and something else…

Talons. Death. Scratches. Max… Waterfall.

Max again responded with "Confusion."

Fly. River. Waterfall. Scratch. No scratch. Urgency.

The poison was beginning to affect Max significantly now, and he was having trouble thinking, much less communicating. He tried to stand up but it was impossible. He could not move a single muscle. The world around him began to spin and then everything faded to black.

When Max awoke, he found himself again in the claw of the jah-ee, and the jah-ee was flying high above the golden sea… on its way to feed him to its babies he guessed. Oh well, nothing he could do about it now. Max was totally unable to move so much as a little finger. This poison was powerful. Two little scratches! That's all he had received from the jah-ee's talons. And he was totally paralyzed. Max relaxed his mind and determined that at least he would die without fear. He was unable to speak or move and could not form a coherent image in his brain. Max could only watch as they flew across the golden sea and later across an island… then another island… and two more. Finally, the jah-ee began to descend toward a far away island on the horizon. As they approached the shore, Max saw the beach, then trees, then a large plain. At the far end of the plain, the jah-ee finally alit upon a huge branch high up in an enormous tree. And a very large tree it was, too! In fact, Max noticed that all around them there was a forest of these massive trees that reached hundreds of feet into the sky above. In some way, they reminded him of the giant redwoods in California, some of which are big enough to drive a car through, but he thought that these might possibly be even bigger. At least, from high up in the tree’s top, looking down, as he was at the moment, it certainly seemed so.

"I'm in the claw of a giant bird on the limb of a giant tree at least 300 feet above the ground… totally paralyzed and about to be eaten." Max tried to laugh, but he couldn't even do that. His giddy mind saw humor in the ridiculous situation he was in.

The jah-ee edged toward a large hole in the tree at the base of the branch it had landed on. Then it went inside, carrying Max in its claw. Folding its wings back, it leapt into the hollow inside the tree and plummeted straight down headfirst.

"Awwww-riiiight!" thought Max, giddily! "Roller coaster!" But it seemed like it took a bit long to reach the bottom, even if they were 300 feet up. They continued to plummet for what must have been close to a whole minute. Suddenly, the inside of the shaft disappeared, and the ground opened up, revealing a whole different world below. As the jah-ee dropped out of the hollow shaft, it spread its wings out to their full majestic 60-foot span and settled into a graceful glide above a blue sea, something unknown on the surface of Antar, where the sea has a golden tinge. Max could not see the ends of the cavern… if that’s what they were in… but there was a whole new world here. They were underneath the island of the jah-ee.

The jah-ee swooped gracefully across the underground sea and soon arrived at the far side, where it turned in the direction of a large cliff. On the edge, near the top of the cliff, was its nest… a nest as big as a house! And its mate was there with three baby jah-ees hungrily bobbing their heads up and down.

"Supper time, children! Come and get me," Max tried to say, laughing giddily. But he could only think it. He couldn't even form a coherent picture in his head now. The jah-ee did not stop at its nest, though. It flew right over it and on another thousand yards to the edge of a high underground cataract. Perching deftly, as though it weighed no more than a feather, on a ledge by the falls, the jah-ee released Max from its claw and nudged him toward the edge. Max felt the water splashing on his face. Soon, he felt it on the rest of his body, too. At first, this seemed insignificant, until he realized that, moments before, he had been unable to feel anything. The water was counteracting the jah-ee's poison!

Max may have lain under the edge of the underground waterfall for two hours, or it could have been three. It was impossible for him to tell time here under the ground. He felt great well-being here! The water of the falls had been miraculous! Max felt like his old self again. There was no pain left, no stiffness, nothing. Even the welts that the poison Guma plants had made on his body had healed. The jah-ee stood watching nearby. His mate and babies were in the nest a thousand yards back. "Funny," thought Max. "I'm far underground in some kind of cavern, but it’s light." He realized that the walls of the cave were giving off a significant amount of luminescence, providing light throughout the cavern.

For the next 30 days, Max remained with the jah-ee. He learned to communicate with it and with its mate quite effectively with mental images and emotions that often were clear enough to be considered almost as sentences. And the jah-ees shared with Max their knowledge of the islands and landmasses of Antar and many secrets of this underground world never before seen by any Antarian.


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"Max… Max! You were dreaming again." Max felt something shaking him, and he opened his eyes. It was Michael.

"Oh… yeah… I guess I was, wasn’t I… I was dreaming about my first encounter with the jah-ee back when we were fighting Kivar's mercenaries in the battle for Antar.”



tbc

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time- Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>




Travelers in Time

Chapter 4

IV


Max and Michael headed to the galley to get a bite of breakfast. Michael had actually been quite accurate when he had said that their ship could fly itself. It was programmed to arrive at the place and time desired, with or without their assistance. As pilots, Max and Michael were only needed for emergencies, changes in plans, or some unforeseen glitch that might arise.

In the galley, Michael and Max settled into comfortable high-backed leather-styled dining chairs at the table and placed their breakfast requests with the onboard diner droid. This "droid" was not meant to look like an Antarian or a human. In fact, it was really utilitarian. The top of what might arguably be called the “head” somewhat resembled a flat console with a recessed area used to transfer meals from the place where they were prepared to the table. The droid rolled quietly over to the table, and Max and Michael both told it what they would have for breakfast. The droid was capable of taking verbal commands, preparing the meals, returning with them to the table, and placing each order in front of the person who ordered it.

"I'll have an Antarian blue hen egg omelet, toasted pashita bread, a cup of Earth-style coffee, and a bottle of Tabasco sauce," Michael told the droid.

Max ordered two Aluzian golden eggs, scrambled, with grits and Earth-style coffee. "I'll share Michael's bottle of Tabasco if he can spare some," he added.

A small red light on the droid blinked, and the droid intoned, "Unrecognized. Please specify. Grits."

"Aw, cripes!" Max laughed. "That's it, buddy! No tip for you!" Michael and Max both laughed. "Uh… southern food, kinda like… I don't know, mushy, white, little bits of corn or something…"

"Southern Chanesio Division?" queried the droid. "No such Chanesio food has been programmed into my memory."

"Not Chanesio… New Mexico, Texas, Georgia. Forget it, I'll have a taco with my eggs."

The red light blinked.

"Don't tell me! You aren't programmed to know what a taco is!" said Max.

"Southern food?" queried the droid.

"Real southern!" said Max. Max and Michael both laughed. "Muy, muy southern! …Forget it, I'm sure it's not in your memory banks. I thought these guys that made this thing were geniuses, Michael?"

Michael shrugged and chuckled. "I guess I might have forgot to tell them some things. Looks like we'll just have to make our own tacos. I don't think we've got anything like grits onboard, though. Sorry, Maxwell!"

"Just bring me two Aluzian golden eggs, scrambled, and whatever Michael's having with his blue hen omelet."

"Thank you," replied the droid courteously, as it turned and rolled smoothly and quietly toward the food preparation area.

Max and Michael settled back in their high-backed chairs.

"Michael, the timeline that we are going back to in Earth time… it's one week before my future self appeared to Liz, right?"

"Yeah. That's what was programmed into the ship's data banks."

"So… we haven't planned out how we’re going to change what happened on Earth really. We just stated what our goals are."

"Yeah, to bring Maria, Liz and Isabel back to Antar with us so they’ll be safe and so they'll be with us."

"Yeah, but hopefully, to save Earth from destruction, too, if we can," added Max.

"And if we can't, to bring Maria, Liz and Isabel back to Antar," insisted Michael.

Michael's assessment of their goals wasn't intended to exclude the possibility of saving Earth. Michael was single-minded in setting his goals and determining the goals' positions on a list of priorities. He saw goals as just that, a highly prioritized list. It was the mark of a good general. Max looked at the goals in a broader sense, not really different than Michael's prioritized list, but perhaps with a broader starting perspective. In the final perspective, the two friends were really of like mind on this, as they were on most things.

Michael had grown since they had left Earth. Oh, he was the same size as he always had been since he had reached the age of fifteen. That hadn't changed an ounce or an inch. But in confidence, emotional makeup, and leadership he was almost totally a new Michael now. He was a true and confident leader in every sense. Though he still had not reached his twenty-fifth birthday, he was already a general, an accomplished and decorated one, in the Antarian forces. And not just any general, but the number 1 general of all Max's armies. He had come a long, long way from the boy who had been raised by a no-account drunk in a trailer in the woods of Roswell, New Mexico; the boy who had grown up being beat, abused, cursed at, and emotionally trampled; the boy who had built an emotional wall around himself in order to just survive; the boy with a good heart who had fallen in love with Maria and loved her more than life itself but always seemed to find the wrong way to say it or show it. No, Michael was confident now, successful, and a true leader in every sense. But he was still Michael, too. And he and Max were still capable of acting like a couple of truants who had just ditched school. The king and his general! A couple of highly decorated, highly experienced cut-ups! They could be that, too! Oh, yes! That they could!

"So, Michael, what do you think?" asked Max. "Have you given it any thought?

"Yeah."

Michael was not one for excess words, but the truth is, he really had given quite a bit of thought to how they might save the Earth from Kivar. Michael was a thinker and a planner, and a top-rate general, he just didn't talk about it much… unless he was prodded.

"And?" Max queried.

"Well… we will have the advantage of surprise, " Michael offered. "Kivar will not be expecting us to know about his plans. I figure we can end his plot by compromising it at two critical junctures: when he set us up with that FBI guy, what was his name? 'Dumb Ass,' or something… and then when he used the excitron device to wipe out the army. I don’t think Kivar realized that the excitron device was going to set off a chain reaction in Earth's core and result in eruptions, tidal waves, and natural disasters that would blow Earth apart. I mean, not that he cared, you understand. Except for losing a lot of his army and a few dozen ‘skins’ that were faithful to him."

"Have you thought about HOW we might compromise his plans at these junctures?"

Michael just gave Max that what-do-you-think look.

"Sorry, Michael! I shouldn't even have asked!"

"Kivar betrayed us to the FBI, which took us out of action without his having to deal with us. So we can use that to our advantage. We know that he set us up to be discovered by the FBI guys, so we can set him up first. We know where he's going to be and where they're going to be. It shouldn't be that hard. That's step one. Step two is for us to find and destroy the excitron device before he or any of his people can use it. Advantage, us, here, too, because we know when he is going to use it, what it is, and what it will do. We don't know where he had it hid, but at least we will know what to look for this time."

"You make it sound easy."

"Don't count on it, Max. But it will give us a fighting chance."

The droid had returned now and was placing their orders on the table. Michael picked up the Tabasco sauce and poured some onto his Antarian blue hen omelet. Just to be sure, he poured a little onto his plate as well, then handed the bottle to Max, who mixed a little in with his scrambled Aluzian golden eggs. Both of them washed this down with synthesized coffee, which actually wasn't too bad. Before leaving the table, Michael took a little swig from the Tabasco bottle then put the cap back on. Max looked at him and just grinned. "One for the road," said Michael.

Back in the control room, Max and Michael stood looking out into space through the large fore window. It really was beautiful out here in its own way, stars streaking by in the distance, an occasional comet, here and there a planet. One could watch this and enjoy it, especially with some music.

"Music! That's what we need!" said Max.

"Got it covered, Max, my man," replied Michael. "Had 'em put in the best system available. It'll play any of the three types of Antarian crystal rings, and… ta da! CD's!"

Max laughed. "No joke? CD's! You're kidding, right?"

"Not at all, my king, sir!" Michael added with some friendly sarcasm in his voice. "Not at all! You remember about six months before Earth blew up, Maria signed a deal to cut a CD for this major recording label. Well, I just happen to have right here her CD. And I'm dying to listen to it again! Haven't heard her voice since we returned to Antar.

"Put it on, Michael! I don't believe this! Earth is destroyed and you save two things: Tabasco sauce and Maria's CD. Incredible!"

"Well, I had already placed them on the ship well before the end came. Of course, I'd have brought Maria if I could have found her," said Michael forlornly.

"I know, pal. And I'd have brought Liz… if… and Isabel, too. Put the CD on. Let's hear it!"

Michael and Max stared out at the passing stars as they listened to Maria sing eight songs that she had written and four that Alex had written. The CD had been dedicated as her tribute to Alex.

Not so long ago
That a heart could not remember,
Like a spark in drying timber…
Or a rose no longer grow
In the garden of a soul…
I always find you in my heart
Through shadows holding us apart…
You're the river that can never cease to flow.

Max and Michael listened to the CD twice all the way through and quietly watched the stars and planets zip by in their celestial brilliance.

"Max," said Michael after the second playing, "If you don't need me for awhile, I think I'll go to my room and be alone."

"Sure, Michael. No sweat. I'll be here."

Michael retired to his private room. For a time, he lay on the bed thinking of Maria. He didn't realize that he had embraced his pillow tightly against his chest. Soon, he had dozed off.




tbc

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time- Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Betrayal

Chapter 5

V


Maria's body felt warm… and soft, as Michael embraced her passionately against his heart. She held him, too, embracing him with both arms around his neck, each hand interlocking with the opposite arm. Her blonde hair was soft, and Michael liked the feel of it against his face. And he adored Maria's big brown eyes, the way she would look into his eyes with that look that could always just melt him away. Their lips touched. It was the touch that Michael hoped would never end. And for a very long span of time, it didn't. Somehow, Michael felt that if he could hold Maria there long enough, she would understand… she would feel what he felt coming from his heart. God knows… Michael hadn't been able to express it with words! By some wondrous and fortunate miracle, Maria happened to be one of the very few people who really could, and did, feel what was coming from Michael's heart, though. She was able to see through the walls Michael had built around himself. She was able to leap the hurdles that Michael had long ago placed there to keep anyone from getting this close. Michael would tear the wall down now, get rid of the hurdles, if he could. But that was the rub. He had tried, and it just wasn't that easy. Michael wasn't raised with the love and affection that Max and Isabel had received from their adoptive parents growing up. It was hard for him to deal with such emotions. But one thing he was sure of: one way or another, he would, even if it killed him. Somewhere in his heart and soul, he needed it; and he knew, too, that Maria was the one. Of this, he was absolutely certain. He could feel Maria's heart beating against his and its pace quicken as their lips touched. He felt feelings he had never felt before Maria had come into his life but now needed as much as life itself. The world would cease to exist for Michael when Maria was kissing him. He was merely floating somewhere in a vacuum. At these times, the universe was made just for him and Maria. Nothing else existed or mattered.

An explosion. Michael barely heard it. Then another, closer this time. Michael's instincts came back to him. "What was that?"

"Awful close is what it was," replied Maria. "Maybe we better check it out."

As Michael and Maria ran outside, the ground heaved and chunks of pavement from the road thrust up into the air. A great roar was coming from the distance.

"I've gotta get Max," said Michael. "I've got a bad feeling about this! Stay inside, Maria… stay down, and stay away from the walls!"

"Screw that! I'm going with you," Maria replied. It wasn’t a request, and she didn’t wait for an answer… or expect one.

Michael looked at Maria for a very brief moment and smiled. "On second thought, why don't you come with me!"

"Good idea! I think I'll take your advice," said Maria. They were already running toward the CrashDown Cafe, where Max had last been seen with Liz. The Earth around them was gyrating like a hula dancer, at the same time making strange growling and rumbling sounds. Michael ran into the CrashDown with Maria right behind. Max and Liz were running toward the front door from the back of the CrashDown, trying to avoid the chairs and tables sliding across the floor all around them.

"What in the name of Earth and Antar is happening out there?" shouted Max at Michael, as they all ran out the door. The rumbling was subsiding now. So was the heaving of the earth. Things were returning to normal except for the huge chunks of pavement standing upright against each other. And a number of buildings had suffered extensive damage. People were pouring out into the streets to see what had happened.

"I don't know," said Michael. "Maybe an earthquake. I just thought, you know, that Kivar might have done something. But…" Neither one spoke for several moments; they just surveyed the scene around them.

"I think that's something we need to check out," said Max at end. "Come on. First, we’ve gotta check on the spaceship. Then we call on Kivar."

"You know where he is," asked Liz.

"Not exactly, but I think I know who might."

Forty minutes later, the four friends arrived together at the desert hiding place of their spaceship. They had acquired it a few months before by "confiscating" it from some "skins" who were faithful to Kivar. In any case, these particular "skins" weren't likely to be needing it anymore. They were dust now. Kivar isn't particularly forgiving of those who lose his spaceships.

The ship was still there, right where they had hidden it, and undamaged.

Back in town, a little over an hour later, the four met up with Sheriff Valenti. Actually, to be accurate, Valenti was the “ex-sheriff” now; but Max, Michael, Liz, Maria, and Isabel still considered him the sheriff. And in a real sense, he was. Whenever anything significant happened, it was Valenti who stepped in and solved it or fixed it or set things back right. The guy who had replaced him as sheriff was a nice enough guy, but as the sheriff, he was a joke. He wouldn't have been able to see an alien if it waved in his face. Michael knew that for a fact! He had done it!

Valenti had long ago learned the secret Max, Michael, and Isabel had never shared with anyone but Liz, and later Maria… and Alex. To Sheriff Valenti's credit, his honor was more important than outing a trio of teenaged aliens so that the special ops guys could dissect them to find out what made them tick! Sheriff Valenti became the protector and a sort of father or big brother figure to the three Antarians and their friends. It was this fact that had led to his dismissal as sheriff. Although he had solved an attempted murder and rescued the victim from her kidnapper, he was unable to reveal certain facts that would have compromised Max, Michael, and especially Isabel… facts like, how he knew where to find the victim. He could not reveal that Isabel's visions had helped him locate the victim in an underground coffin prison and saved her life. For withholding information, which his superiors never did learn the whole truth of, they fired him.

"Whoa! Where are you guys going in such a hurry," asked Valenti. "I'd like to ask you if you know anything about this…" he gestured in the direction of the slabs of street pavement standing upright in the air. "But I'm hoping it was all just a really bad earthquake."

"We don't really know ourselves," replied Max. "But we’re going to find out right now. We're on our way over to Ben Johnson's house."

"Ben Johnson's? Weird stuff goes on over there… or so I've heard. There's something strange about that place. What would you guys be having to do with Ben Johnson?"

"Yeah, you got the right guy, sheriff," said Michael. "Johnson's… uh…” Michael looked at Max, and Max nodded.

“Johnson's a skin,” Michael said.

"Okay. What's a skin,” asked Valenti.

"Britney… in her new stage outfit," Liz whipered privately to Maria.

"What was that?” Valenti asked, overhearing the whispered comment. Liz just smiled an impish smile and shook her head slowly. Maria quietly snickered but also said nothing.

"Skins are aliens, probably from Antar, we’re not sure,” Michael said. “They weren’t born here and can’t survive here except by growing a biological skin that they’re… well, put into. We call them 'skins' because they’re always peeling and losing bits of skin everywhere. They use a lot of hand cream and makeup and stuff to try to hide their peeling, or prevent it. Most of the skins here on Earth are loyal to Kivar, but a few are not.”

"And Ben Johnson's one of these… 'skins?' How long have you known this," asked Valenti.

"A while," Max said, joining the conversation with Michael. “We didn't want Johnson to know that we knew what he was, because we've been watching him. I think he can lead us to Kivar if Kivar is here on Earth."

"I'll go with you," said Valenti.

The five piled into Valenti's Ford Explorer. Ten minutes later, they were standing at Ben Johnson's door. Max knocked, and the door opened. Ben Johnson stood in it. His face was dour but otherwise devoid of most expression. He looked at (or was it through) the five companions without changing his expression at all.

"Come," Johnson said after a moment. Nothing more, just, "Come."

Ben turned and walked slowly and deliberately back into the house. Max, Michael, Liz, Maria, and Sheriff Valenti followed.

Maria shuddered. "He gives me the creeps," she whispered to Liz.

"Yeah, me, too," Liz agreed.

Ben walked slowly through the living room and into a back room of the house. The five companions followed. When the last of them had passed through the door of the back room, the door closed. They looked back, alarmed; that prickly feeling of impending disaster was coursing through each of them and growing stronger by the second… And not without good cause! From behind a floor-length curtain that had covered the west wall of the room, seven special ops agents stepped out with guns all pointed directly at the five companions. From the other side of the room, a smaller figure who had been sitting in a chair behind a dresser stood up and stepped into the light.

"Nicholas!" exclaimed Michael and Max, almost as one.

Nicholas made a shallow and transparently smug bowing motion toward Max,

"In the flesh… more or less."

Turning to the special ops agents, Nicholas said, "Gentlemen, I have delivered as promised. These are the aliens you were looking for; they're also the ones who caused this morning's, mmm, shall we say, catastrophe. And… they have a spaceship hidden in the desert. I'm certain that you have methods that will convince them to tell you where it is."

Recognizing the danger they were in, Michael and Max reacted as one, each thrusting his right hand out, releasing an energy bolt that blasted all seven of the agents backwards into the wall. Three of the agents were knocked out by the blast. The other four recovered quickly. Max and Michael again released a bolt of energy, this time blasting the back off of the house in the process. But the agents had split up, two of them diving behind the dresser. Sheriff Valenti pulled out his own gun, which he still carried for protection, and kicked open the door to the living room, yelling at Maria and Liz to run. They did. But it was in vain. Ben Johnson stood in the living room, his shotgun pointed at their hearts. He fired. Maria's heart stopped for a moment… maybe several moments. She checked herself, then rechecked, to see where she had been shot; then she turned around to look at the others. The agents and Nicholas were gone. Sheriff Valenti lay face down in the doorway of the back room. Maria ran to Valenti to help. She started to turn him over. "Don't," said Michael, laying his hand gently on her shoulder. "It's too late." Indeed, Valenti had taken the full blast of Ben Johnson's shotgun. He had no pulse. There was nothing that anyone could do. Unless… Max…

Maria looked around the room then looked at Michael, even more alarmed…

“Where’s Max? Where’s Liz?



tbc

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time- Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



The White Room… Again

Chapter 6

VI



Michael woke up suddenly. He was covered in sweat. How many times had he dreamed this dream? How many more times would he dream it before he would be free? Maybe he would never be free. But if there was any hope at all, it lay in this journey that he and Max were undertaking. Michael decided to take a quick shower, then he returned to the control room.

"Those dreams again?"

"Yeah."

Max had always been able to read Michael like an open book. If it were anyone else, Michael would be seriously concerned… and seriously annoyed. But he had learned to accept this from Max.

"Which one?"

"When Nicholas set us up and Valenti got it and you and Liz disappeared…"

Max's heart quickened; he grimaced.

"I'm gonna get a cup of coffee," said Michael. "You want one, too?"

"Yeah, sure. I'd like that, Michael. Thanks!"

Michael left and went to the galley to get the coffees. Max stared out the control room window into deep space, but his mind wasn't seeing the stars. He was remembering that day, the worst day of his life…

… … … Max had regained consciousness slowly. His head was killing him. That wasn't surprising, considering that the back of his head had been deeply grazed by a bullet fired from one of the agent's guns. He almost certainly had suffered a concussion. He wondered how long he had been unconscious. To add to his pain, his back was peppered with some stray buckshot from the blast that had killed Sheriff Valenti. Max realized that someone had removed all his clothes. He tried to get up but found that his arms, legs, and body were strapped down. He looked around him. Then he laid his head back down on the gurney and groaned. He recognized this room. He had been here once before. It had not been a pleasant experience.

The door opened… a technician entered pushing another gurney… something covered with a white sheet, except the sheet wasn't white… it was bloodstained. Max looked away. The technician left, and a special ops agent came in. Max recognized him. It was Dumas Zwolinski. Agent Zwolinski had pursued the Roswell trio since, well, since Pierce had “disappeared.” They didn't know Zwolinski was even still in special ops.

"It's been a while," Zwolinski said smugly, looking as satisfied as a cat holding a mouse by the tail, "Too long, I'd say. But that's alright. Everything comes to those who wait. You're mine now, and I'm going to enjoy taking that alien body of yours apart piece by piece. Don't worry, though! I'll let you watch! We'll find out everything there is to know about you. You see, some of us here are patriots, and we don't especially care for alien garbage.

You know, I could have retired three years ago! Yeah! That's right! Full pension… everything. I could be sittin' in some nice bar in Baja with some cute little Mexican señorita… or dancin' with the hula girls on Maui… or lyin’ on a beach drinkin' a beer in Tahiti. But I'm not. Want to know why? Because of you! That's right! Yeah! You! Somebody had to save this country. Somebody had to save the world.

The president… he's a dimwit… just like all the people around him. But there are a few of us who are patriots… Real patriots!… the kind who stay until they get the job done… whatever it takes… until all the trash is bagged up, booted out to the curb, and dispatched to the dump. You see, boy, that's what you're lookin' at… a real patriot!"

Max grimaced and looked toward the wall. The technician came back and wheeled Max into the operating room. Max noticed that the room had been heavily damaged and things appeared to have been put back in place hurriedly. There were large scorch marks on two walls, and some equipment had been destroyed by what appeared to be some kind of blasts. Above Max was a mechanical arm-like gizmo with a small, rotating saw at the end of it. On the table beside him were a number of scalpels of different sizes and shapes. At the foot of the gurney was some kind of reciprocating saw… and a powerful taser gun. He also noticed an X-ray machine and various other specialized pieces of equipment. Much of it, Max had never seen before. One machine had what appeared to be an arm bone held between two clamps. On a table by the far wall were various large jars containing organs in alcohol or formaldehyde… a heart, a liver, lungs… a hand?" Max shut his eyes and shuddered involuntarily. He turned back toward Agent Zwolinski, who was installing a new rotating blade in the saw arm. "The other one got a little dull this morning," Zwolinski commented dryly. Max knew that, barring a miracle, his organs and bones would be in similar jars and machines very soon, just a few new trophies for some rogue perverts in uniforms.

Agent Zwolinski centered Max's gurney under the saw blade and turned on the saw. It sounded like a dentist's drill. Max shuddered again. Zwolinski motioned to the technician to leave. The technician, who had been extremely nervous, seemed oddly relieved and quick to comply. Then Zwolinski began to lower the saw. As he did, he felt compelled, somehow, to explain to Max just what it was he was going to do to him. "This saw will open you up from the collar bone down to your belly button. You do have a belly button, don't you?" Zwolinski glanced at Max's naked body on the gurney. "Yeah, I guess they gave you one; didn't want you to look different." As Zwolinski lowered the blade to Max's chest, Max turned his right hand over so that it was palm up, but he discovered that his hands had been heavily wrapped and bound in asbestos. He would not be able to use them to blast Zwolinski with a power wave.

Suddenly, the room exploded with a blinding bright light, and the ceiling collapsed inward into the room from the force. Max looked up at a gaping hole where the ceiling had been only a moment before. A face was looking down from the roof. It was Michael… and Kyle was with him!

Agent Zwolinski, who had been knocked to the ground by the implosion, jumped to his feet and made a dash for his gun, which was in his uniform on the table by the wall. Michael didn't give him time to get there. A strong bolt of energy smashed Zwolinski against the wall. Max heard several bones break, then Zwolinski crashed hard to the floor. He would not be rising again without a lot of help. Michael leapt from the roof into the room with Max, and Kyle followed him in. Someone else was coming in, too… It was Maria.

Michael released Max from his constraints, and Max had just managed to wrap a white sheet around himself when Maria appeared through the opening, dropping through the hole as nimbly as had Michael and Kyle. Michael was impressed, but he wouldn't have admitted it. Maria looked around the room. Michael and Kyle were busy preparing the knotted rope that they had dropped through the hole in the roof to climb back out with, when Kyle heard a muffled sound, like a gasp or a sob.

"Where did Maria go?" Michael asked.

They all ran into the room Max had been held in when he was still unconscious… before he was brought into the operating room. Maria stood over the other gurney, holding the bloodstained sheet in her hand. Her face was contorted, pained, colorless; then it went to bright red and finally dark ashen. Tears were flowing freely, like waterfalls, down her cheeks.

"Bastards! Stupid, bloody, dog-eating bastards!" Maria sobbed, as loudly as she was able, but she could barely speak. Then she sat down on the floor, cupped her hands over her face, and sobbed convulsively. All the color had gone out of Max's face, too. He put his hand against the wall to steady himself, because he felt sick to his stomach and dizzy. Kyle stood motionless, as though struck by lightning, then quickly left the room. Michael came in holding one of the large jars in his hands. He was pale. He put his hand on Max's shoulder and spoke quietly, "I'm sorry, Max. I'm just… so sorry, you don't know."

Max took the jar from Michael and read the hand-scrawled label, "heart, female, L. Parker Evans, Determination: human-alien hybrid."




-------------------End of Chapter 6

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time- Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



A Time for Everything

Chapter 7

VII


Max stared at Liz's face. She was so beautiful… even in death. Her dark hair was shiny and soft. Her face was angelic. He thought that she must be sleeping, but he knew better. What had been done to Liz was barbaric. Max wrapped her in the sheet that had been over her and gently, lovingly, lifted her into his arms. He kissed her lips, still and always the most beautiful lips he had ever seen. Max followed Michael and Maria from the room, cradling Liz in his arms. As they reached the rope, Max noticed Agent Zwolinski lying on the floor. Zwolinski was begging for help… and compassion. Max lifted the palm of his right hand, no longer covered with heavy asbestos wrappings, from under the sheet that held Liz's body. As hard as it was, he fought the desire to vaporize Zwolinski. Instead, he turned and started to climb the rope. Suddenly, a shot whizzed by Max’s ear, missing by a scant centimeter. Zwolinski had managed to get his gun after all. He had been feigning wanting their help only to get them to come near him, because he couldn't go after them. As Max climbed the rope with one arm, holding Liz cradled in the other arm, Zwolinski lifted his gun again and aimed it at Max’s heart. Already half way up the rope now, Max was helpless to avoid Zwolinski's shot. Zwolinski aimed carefully… and his finger squeezed the trigger… but before he could finish this action, a bolt of energy left nothing where he had been but a pile of ashes. Michael, at the top of the rope, lowered his hand and reached down to help Max.

"Come on, buddy. I'll give you a hand."

"I think you just did, Michael,” Max replied somberly, “I think you just did."




-----------------End of Chapter 7

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time- Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Paradoxes and Parallels

Chapter 8

VIII



“Here’s your coffee, Max. What were you thinking about so intensely just now?”

“Thanks, Michael! Just why it is so important that we make this trip… and that we succeed. You know, besides Liz and Maria… and Isabel, there’s another person that we need to be sure to bring back with us, too.”

“Sheriff Valenti,” said Michael, with a nod.

“Yep. Kyle’s been our friend since we were kids. He’s a great chief of staff, too! How do you think Valenti’s going to take it, Michael?

“Take what?”

“Oh, you know, when we just casually lay it on him that his son has been living on the planet Antar for the last five years!”

Michael snickered and almost snorted his coffee. “Well, I’d say I’d like to be there to see that, but I guess I will, won’t I!”

“Yeah. It should be interesting… You know, Michael, I have done a frikkin’ lot of reading at the capitol library on Antar about physics and space-time continuums and all, and I have a theory about why everything seems to have gone to hell on Earth after my future self showed up.”

“Why’s that, Max?”

“Well, I believe that the future me upset the timeline. He didn’t mean to and probably never even knew that he had done it. But I believe he altered time, as it were, when he came back to our time. Here’s why I say that… the granolith that existed at that time traveled through time in a linear fashion. That’s the only way anyone knew time existed back when that machine was built. But now we know that time is not linear. The universe is constantly traveling in a huge spiral, and timelines follow the spiral. It's like aiming a spaceship at another planet and flying in a straight line toward where you saw the planet. By the time you get there, the planet may be a light year away from where you arrive at. You have to figure for that and calculate a corrected trajectory. By going back linearly, as it were, the future me, I think, altered time as we knew it. Literally, our whole future became skewed.”

“Interesting theory, Max! If that’s true and your theory is correct, won’t our going back skew the timeline and alter time further?”

“No, because our scientists worked the universal spiral algorithm into the equation when they programmed our ship. That’s the difference in what we know now compared to what we knew back then. And that is why we must return to Earth before the future me arrives. Only by returning before he arrived will we be in our own true timeline, the one that we were supposed to be in. And another thing, Michael… The future me said that Earth was being destroyed in his timeline because I had married Liz instead of Tess and Tess’ powers were needed together with mine to save Earth. But that might never have been true. It became true, because he altered time in our timeline and redirected our timeline into a different space, which in turn altered the time that he would experience in his future, resulting in the catastrophe for Earth that he referred to.”

“Whoa! That’s a mouthful, Max! If I understand what you’re saying, though, then the very thing ‘future Max’ came back in time to prevent only occurred at all because he came back in time. Whoa! Paradox!”

Max laughed. “Yeah! Just whatever you do, Michael… never, ever, ever ask me to repeat what I just said!”

Max and Michael both laughed for a good minute. It was refreshing to be laughing again. The coffee was good, too.

“Put on some music, Michael! What have you got there?”

“Let’s see, Max.” Michael placed a crystal music ring on the spindle, and the name of the ring and artist appeared as a holographic lights display above the spindle. “This one is by Luvain Soongo and the Gungi Boys, Vui Gungi Chombos. They’re kind of an Antarian N’Synch. Gungi means "New Wave" or something like that.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard ‘em. What else is there?”

Michael put another ring on the spindle, and the holographic lights display read, ‘Jarfelle Sereli.’

“Sereli is Antarian for spears. You don’t think Jarfelle…”

“…means Britney?” Michael laughed. “Not a chance! Jarfelle is more like… well… let’s see… She’s more like Diana Ross… her style is kind of like… early Motown music… only Antarian, of course, not Motown! She's good! I love it. It rocks, Max!”

“What else you got?”

“Um, let’s see… ‘Daneela Varel.’ I’d say she’s like our…”

“Dido,” offered Max. “I’ve seen her on the HoloVision Screen. She could pass for her easy!”

“Yeah, but she sounds more like Sheryl Crow, I think. Nobody sounds quite like Dido. She's pretty unique. Okay, let’s see… we’ve got ‘Vui Zoombor J'koozzeen Chombos.’ Come on, Max! What group would they be like back on Earth?”

“Hmmm… Let me think. How about…” Max thought a moment, “Oh! Oh! You know who? ‘The Beach Boys! Remember 'California Girls,' ‘Fun, Fun, Fun,’ ‘Surfin’ USA,’ ‘Help Me Rhonda?’ Beach stuff!”

“Yeah, I could go along with that. They sing a lot of songs about the j'koozzeen -the beach- and about wave-riding and zoombor boards, so Beach Boys is good…”

Michael put another ring on the spindle. The holographic display read, 'Maryk Varsno.' “Play song,” Michael said.

As one, Michael and Max both yelled, "Sense Field!"

"Yeah," added Michael, "Sounds kind of like 'Save Yourself.' Awesome! I like this one!"

"Here's one for you, Maxwell!" The holo-display came up, 'Var Juma.'

"Oh! I know Var Juma,” said Max. "You remember the song, 'Edge of the Ocean?' …Ivy! That's what Var Juma sounds like. That's another good one!"

Michael put another ring on the spindle. The display said, 'Terenlucit.'

"Coldplay," said Michael before Max could answer. Sounds like 'Brothers and Sisters.' Remember that one? Kind of a little like 'Ash,' though, too… in a totally different way."

Michael put another crystal ring on the spindle. The display read ‘Vui Chanesio ShebbleOnessinje.’ Both Max and Michael were silent for a few moments.

“Come on, Max… Whozit?”

“I don’t know, Michael. 'The Shebblegirls from Chanesio?' Have I ever heard them?”

Michael said, “Play song,” and a song from the ring began to play.

“Dixie Chicks!” Both Max and Michael shouted as one. Max laughed so hard that he snorted his coffee and had coffee dripping from his nose. "You (sniff)… you remember… (~trying to sing~) cough… There's your trouble… There's your trouble…" This amused Michael so much that he fell off his chair laughing. Both of them excused themselves to go to the bathroom and throw some water on their faces. Just the king and his general… A couple of royal cut-ups!

After a ten-minute break, Max and Michael both came back to the control room, and Michael chose some music. It was Maria’s CD.

“Good choice, Michael,” said Max. Max and Michael were feeling good. They were happy. The music was great. And Max had got them both refills on their coffee while he was out. They sat back and watched the stars streak by, listened to the music, and just smiled for the next three and a half hours.


Gonna find my way
To a sunny day
Though the rain may fall
Or skies be gray…
Climb every wall
And laugh and play…
Through it all,
Like butterflies in May.
On a rainbow tall…
Gonna find a sunny day.



--------------------End of chapter 8

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time- Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Jaht-Roo-Antar

Chapter 9

IX



After dinner, Max and Michael played a game of Jaht-Roo-Antar, an old Antarian board game that might best be described as a cross between checkers, chess, and battleship. "Jaht-Roo-Antar," in Antarian, means, "Antarian Galaxy Board." The board vaguely resembles a checkerboard, but it has three times the number of squares. The regulation playing pieces are disposable miniature flying-saucer replicas. Each one is slightly larger than a standard checker, and the pieces are actually baked in a mold before the game from an extremely light Antarian sugar dough that shreds when it receives a good puff of wind. Alternatively, some players bake playing pieces that look like wild animals, oceanic vessels, or mythological monsters. The possibilities are limited only by the players' imaginations.

Each side begins with sixteen UFO’s. As in checkers, the goal is to be the last one left. In tournament playing, there is a small laser light under each square, but that is only for the special effects. The stringy sugar used in the pieces makes a rather spectacular high whooshing flame when it is laser-blasted, and this always draws plenty of "oohs and ahs" from the tournament spectators. Max and Michael’s board, like all regulation non-tournament Jaht-Roo boards, used air blasts instead of lasers. Each square has a ‘pinhole’ in the center through which a blast of air is directed from below. Before the game, each player programs sixteen spaces on the board to be "mined;" eight of these can be programmed to be "safe" for the side programming them. A beginning player might program his or her squares in a simple circle or star pattern. A more advanced player will program his or her spaces to move around, either changing patterns or according to a programmed sequence. Tournament players program their blasts according to complex algebraic and trigonometric formulas.

Any spaceship that reaches the other side is designated a "Galaxy Ship," which is immune to enemy fire and can travel both ways on the board, like a “king” in checkers. And moving one's ship to any space directly next to an enemy ship is deemed a "crash," destroying both ships.

Max won the toss and made the first move. He moved ship number 4 (4th from the left). A blast of air from below immediately destroyed that ship, blowing it into several shredded pieces. Michael snickered and tried a bit futilely to keep a “poker-player’s face.” The General was not at all bad at strategy; in fact, it was one of his strong suits! It was now his turn to move. Michael moved the ship on his far left, ship number 1, forward right one space. It was safe. Michael knew that it would be. He had designated this as one of his “safe” spaces, which would make it safe for him even if the other side had designated it as a “mined” space. Most players try to use their “safe” spaces further away from their own territory, where they expect to feel the most threatened, but Michael preferred to maintain his “strength” at the start and take chances when the enemy was weakened. Not that he put all of his safe spaces here, but he always started with at least a few near his own territory.

It was Max’s turn again. Max moved ship number 7 (the second from the right) forward left. It was safe. Max smiled slightly. He had been studying Michael’s strategies and had designated this as a “safe” space for his ship. Michael did not fail to notice the change in Max’s usual pattern, and he made a mental note of it. It was now Michael’s turn again. He had designated the space forward right of his third ship from the left as another “safe” space, but because of the formula he was using, three-six-three-five-three-four, with a spiral pattern, that "safe" space would now be located three spaces to the right and three spaces forward of where it had been. However, the “safe” space that he had designated three spaces forward left of his number 3 ship should now be located directly forward left of his number 5 ship. He moved that ship. It was safe.

Max studied his options. He had used a moving and changing pattern strategy. With each move, the pattern of “safe” spaces would change, alternating from a small rhomboid to a large five-point star to a wide oval, then to a small eight-point star. Following the expected pattern, he should be able to move ship number 7 forward left. But that one had already been moved. He would have to choose another move and take his chances. He decided to move ship number 2 forward right. Another blast of air; another ship shredded. Now he had fourteen, and Michael was looking pretty confidant. Max thought Michael seemed to be getting just a little too much enjoyment popping the shredded sugary pieces of Max's ships into his mouth and commenting how tasty they were.

It was Michael's turn again. He decided to move a ship out of his back row. He had already moved number 5 out of the front row, so he could now move another ship into that space from his back row. He moved number 12. A blast of air shredded it, catching Michael so by surprise that he nearly flung the shredded pieces into the air. He had not expected this space, totally inside his own territory, to be "mined." In fact, it would have been impossible for Max to "program" a blast to occur inside Michael's personal territory. Max had taken advantage of the protruding characteristic of the arms of a star, one of the patterns he was using. As the star moved, rotated, and changed size, any of its arms might potentially penetrate a vacated space in the enemy's territory, and this is exactly what had happened. Max smiled that slight wisp of a smile that he was somewhat famous for.

At the end of a little over an hour, Max had lost thirteen of his sixteen ships; Michael had lost twelve. Thirty minutes after that, Michael was down to only two ships. Both were Galaxy Ships. Max was down to one Galaxy Ship. Immune to enemy fire, the only way any these ships could now be destroyed would be for the "enemy" to force them into their own non-safe designated fire or for the player to make a mistake and miscalculate where his own booby-trapped spaces were… or to provoke a deliberate "crash." With two ships to Max's one, Michael might be tempted to do this, Max knew. Max would have to be alert.

Michael was ready to put an end to chasing Max's ship all around the board. Max had a photographic mind and was extremely sharp at calculating his safe moves. It was unlikely that he would make a mistake. It was almost equally unlikely that Michael would make a mistake. Michael did not have Max's photographic memory, but he more than made up for that in tenacity and planning. Michael planned to position his two Galaxy Ships behind Max's ship and force him toward the corner with each successive move. Then he would provoke a "crash," sacrificing one of his ships to end the game. It was a simple and usually successful strategy in this type of situation. Michael moved the ship on his left forward to block Max in. Then Max moved his ship forward, placing it directly to the right of Michael's two ships. In checkers, this would have been suicide; in Jaht-Roo, it normally would be, too, albeit for a different reason. By placing his ship in the square directly next to Michael's ship, Max had provoked a "crash," something Michael never expected Max to do, since Michael should then have been the winner with the only remaining ship. But what happened was totally unexpected. All three ships were destroyed in a chain reaction. Michael sat mute, somewhat studiously gazing at the board, trying to figure out just how this had happened… and what it meant. By placing his ship in the space beside Michael's two ships, Max had somehow provoked a "crash" of all three ships.

They would have to get out the rulebook. Both of them poured over the rules for anything that would address this situation. It was there, on page 31: "In the event that a "crash" occurs, any ship in an adjoining space will also be destroyed by the "crash" if any of the rival's "mined" spaces is simultaneously located underneath that ship. This applies to all vessels." Well, that explained why it had happened. Obviously, one of Max's roving "mined" spaces had just happened to rotate under Michael's adjoining ship at the same time as Max moved his ship up beside Michael's other ship. Michael wondered if this had been coincidence; but knowing Max, he had a gut feeling that it hadn't. Further along in the rulebook, on page 54, they found, "In the event that a game ends with multiple (more than two) ships being destroyed as the result of a single move by either side, the game will be declared a statistical tie, with 'advantage' to the side having had the greater number of ships at the end." This meant that this game was officially a tie. If they had been playing in tournament play, though, Michael would have enjoyed 'advantage,' meaning that he would have received the accolades afforded to a winner and would then be able to choose who went first in the next game of the series. Michael was satisfied. It had been a tough game.

Max wiped off the playing board and put it away…

"I guess we had better catch some sleep, huh Michael? Tomorrow's gonna be a big day for us!"

Michael nodded… then broke into a grin… "Yeah! That's right! If all goes as planned, we'll be sayin', 'Hello, Earth!'"




----------------End of Chapter 9

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time- Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Back to The Blue Planet

Chapter 10

X



Max walked into the galley relaxed and refreshed after his morning shower to find Michael just arriving, too. They enjoyed a breakfast of scrambled Aluzian golden eggs with pashita toast, synthesized coffee, and something that they had thrown together that did somewhat resemble tacos, made of shebble meat, Ama leaves, and Tabasco sauce. After breakfast, they hurried to the observation room at the top of the ship. Michael sat in the observer’s chair and pulled the remote viewing goggles down over his face. After scanning the vast regions of space for several minutes, Michael focused on one area and sat up straight suddenly.

“I see it! A little blue dot at about two o’clock!”

Max sat down in the companion chair and pulled on his remote viewing goggles. He rotated the observation deck to the right so that it pointed directly ahead; the tiny bluish dot now lay directly ahead of the ship, exactly where it should be.

"Well, that's a good sign," said Max.

"What's a good sign?"

"Earth appears to be there. We won't be coming out in the middle of an asteroid field or a bunch of Earth debris. It appears that we actually did go back in time."

A smile slowly stretched over Michael's face. Visions of Maria were flooding back into his mind… he could feel her hair against his face, smell her perfume, hear her voice, see her eyes looking into his. He allowed himself to be drawn into his “daydream.”


… … … Michael hadn't known where else to turn. He had climbed through Maria's window, shaking, distraught, half in tears, after being abused and beaten by his foster father again and wanting so badly to do something about it… but not being able to. Maria jumped out of bed. She started to say something, but one look at Michael's tormented face told her all she needed to know. She asked no questions, just held him, caressed his face, gently laid him down in the bed beside her and hugged him as they slept through the night. It had all been very innocent. In the morning, Maria's mother had walked in and turned on the light. It was not a sight that she had been prepared for. Michael had been forced to make a quick exit out the window through which he had entered. Maria had had to do a lot of quick explaining. Michael could laugh about it now, but the memory of Maria understanding him without even speaking a word had endeared her forever in his heart. He would never love another girl the way he loved Maria.

And then there was "Snowflake." That had been Isabel's idea. She had given Maria the name. Liz was an elf, too. Her name was "Candycane." And two more adorable elves there had never been! Of that, Michael and Max were quite certain! Isabel had coordinated the Christmas festivities and had drafted Liz and Maria to be elves. Michael had never really participated in Christmas events himself; his foster father didn't celebrate it. But he loved Maria and loved being around Maria more than anything in the world. And more than anything else right now, Michael wanted to be the Santa Claus in this year's festivities. Isabel relented only after Michael begged her, but Michael told Maria that Isabel had begged him. Maria couldn't get over Michael as "Santa." But there was no denying, looking at Maria, that she thought Michael was the cutest Santa she had ever seen.

After talking to some of the children, "Santa" sent his "elf" (quite against the "elf's" wishes) to get him a Snapple. When she didn't return right away, he went to check on her. Then, inside the privacy of "Santa's play house," he kissed her. It was only meant to be a quick kiss, but Michael's Santa belt became entangled on Maria's elf costume, and the two wound up on the floor together, much to the delight of one young boy who peeked in and then ran around screaming that Santa was "doing it" with Snowflake. An embarrassed Isabel had had to find a new Santa and a new Snowflake.

But not all the memories made Michael smile. His thoughts jumped ahead to that day… the fateful day they had left Earth for Antar… The special ops men of the FBI were finally onto Kivar. They were tracking him day and night. To rid himself of them, Kivar had just unleashed his super weapon, the "excitron device," on the army. The results were disastrous for the Earth. Earth's core melted and initiated a fusion reaction. The ground began shaking violently. Gaping chasms began to open up everywhere. Michael, Max, Isabel, Maria, and Kyle realized that there was no time to get back to town, so they took Max's jeep into the desert, avoiding the chasms that were opening all around them. They could feel the heat of the flames shooting out of the Earth's bowels through every newly-opened fissure. There could be only one salvation that they knew of now, the spaceship they had hidden in the desert.

Arriving at the site at last, all the companions jumped from the jeep running, and Max climbed quickly into the ship. Michael and Kyle followed. Maria was right beside them. They turned to look for Isabel, but she had been trapped by a flaming fissure that had opened up between them. Maria and Michael ran back to help, but they could not get around the fissure. Then the ground opened up in a huge chasm. Michael was running toward Maria as fast as he was able to run, but Maria and Isabel both disappeared. Michael climbed over the edge of the chasm, looking into it, screaming, crying out for Maria, for Isabel, for anyone to answer. But there were no answers. Max and Kyle hurried to Michael's side.

"Michael…"

"I've got to find them, Max! I've got to! You don't understand… I've got to!"

Michael tried to climb down into the chasm, but it was too steep, too deep, and too hot.

"Michael…"

"No! Max, No! I'm not leaving them,” Michael cried in agony, but he knew it was futile. He would never be able to find Maria or Isabel. They were gone. Max and Kyle gently helped Michael back to the spaceship. They took one last quick look around for Maria, for Isabel, for the Earth they had known all their lives… They weren't here. Max closed the door to the spaceship, climbed into the pilot's seat, and placed his right hand over the control panel. The instruments glowed and the ship lifted off the Earth… bound for Antar… and whatever futures awaited them … … …


"My God, Max! I never realized the memories Maria and I have made together. And after all that has happened, before the sun sets tonight, I'm gonna see her again! Alive! Smiling! Happy… It's… It's all just too totally awesome!"

Max grinned, "And I'll see Liz again." The smile faded, "God, Michael! After what Zwolinski did to Liz -because of me- how can I even ever face her again! Tell me that! How do I ever get that out of my head, Michael?"

"Yeah, well, just remember, Maxwell, none of that has happened yet in the time in which we’ll be arriving. And we must make sure that none of it ever does happen!"

Max nodded his total agreement, and both of them smiled. Max flipped his remote vision goggles down over his face again and peered into space ahead. It was definitely there, about the size of a pea now -a little bluish pea- as seen through the remote vision goggles, but still too far away to see with the naked eye. In the nearer distance, he could see Saturn and its rings quite clearly. Through the remote vision goggles, Saturn, including is rings, was about the size of a bottle cap. Jupiter, still further away than Saturn but many, many times larger than any of the other planets, had already become visible even to the naked eye. Yes, it definitely would not be long now! Max leaned back and closed his eyes.


… … … "Okay, I have one Sigourney Weaver. That's for you…"

Max looked over at Liz, who was bringing an order to a young couple attending the UFO convention going on in town. "…and one Will Smith," she said, placing an order in front of the first tourist's companion. "Can I get you guys anything else? Green Martian shake…?" She was so cute, even dressed in that hokey waitress dress with the alien face on the apron and wearing alien antennae on her head… but so cute. Maybe it was her smile. Liz turned and went back toward the kitchen. Two men at another table began arguing over a debt. One of them swiped all the dishes off the table, breaking them. Liz turned and looked back. The man stood up, took out a gun, fired… He missed the one he was shooting at. But Liz fell, bleeding, to the floor, wounded fatally. Max rushed to her side, looked into her eyes. He knew she had only seconds to live. Max had to do what he had to do. He and Michael and Isabel had all agreed that they would live normal lives, never reveal their powers to anyone, never use them… but… Max ripped the dress open and placed his hand over the bullet wound. A greenish light glowed under his hand. When he removed it, the bullet, and the damage it had caused, were gone. Max hastily broke a bottle and poured ketchup on Liz's dress.

"You broke a bottle when you fell, spilled ketchup on yourself. Don't tell anyone… please."

Max smiled at the memory of how it all started… of Liz… and her wonderful journal entries.

********* "It's September 24th, I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. But then the really
amazing thing happened. I came to life." … … …



"I said, I see a light!"

Max shook his head. "Huh?"

I see a light!" said Michael, excitedly. I can see Earth without the R-V goggles on. Look! It's that little, really tiny dot right… there!"

"That's awesome, Michael, but look over here on our left!"

"Oh yeah, that's Jupiter. We passed Saturn a little while ago. "

"Look at all the moons around Jupiter, Michael. How many were there supposed to be?"

"I don't remember, 14 I think, but I counted 43… just that I could see! That's a lot more than we were taught there were when we went to Roswell High."

"Some of them are really small moons! You know, Michael, if I weren't in such a hurry to get to Earth, I could really enjoy taking a break and exploring one or two of these little moons!"

"Cool idea, Max! Maybe on the way back, huh? You and Liz and Maria and I could explore one!"

"Mark it on our social calendar, Michael," Max said, with a touch of irony.

Michael laughed, "You got it, Maxwell!"

"We're 483.6 million miles from Earth. That's… let's see… about what? 25 minutes?"

"Well, we'll have to slow down a bit before we get there, so about 35 to 40 minutes I'd say, Max."

"We'd better start getting ready! You know?"

"Yeah!"

Max and Michael took the glass ascension chamber down four levels from the observatory, which was on the top level, to the control room on the third floor from the bottom. Max sat in the pilot's seat, and Michael took his place in the co-pilot's seat. Both of them pulled remote vision goggles down over their faces. With the R-V goggles on, they could almost read the highway signs on Earth now. As they passed Mars, Max followed the instructions programmed into their computer and throttled back on the speed, slowing the vehicle to about half of it's interstellar cruising speed. He also engaged the light-warp accelerator, which afforded at least a partial invisibility to the ship by distorting the light so that it passed around the ship instead of bouncing off it… a sort of advanced "light" stealth technology. Eight minutes after they passed Mars, Max cut the speed back to one-fortieth cruising speed, and the ship skimmed across the top of Earth's atmosphere. Coming in over the Atlantic Ocean, the ship entered the atmosphere and rapidly approached the coast of Florida at an altitude of approximately six miles. In Homestead, Tampa, and Pensacola, alarms were going off like crazy, jets were scrambling, men were running, trying in vain to see anything on their radars, looking up into the sky. But there was nothing to be seen. After a brief time, the jets were recalled, and the higher-ups-in-command ordered a complete overhaul of the alarm system.

The new granolith sailed as gracefully as a gliding pelican in over Florida, across the Florida Everglades and Lake Okeechobee, across the Gulf of Mexico, over the lower tip of Texas at Corpus Christi, then made a wide right arcing turn up across Coahuila and Chihuahua, Mexico, into New Mexico, circling to the right toward the southeast and Roswell. They brought the ship down toward the Pecos River northeast of Roswell. As they glided down to an altitude of about 3,000 feet, they were surrounded by fighter jets. The pilots were talking a lot and seemed to be looking in the sky all around them for something that they could not see.

"Uh… red leader, this is Pitbull. I don't see anything here on my radar… or in the sky. Do you have a fix?"

"Copy that, Pitbull. No, no fix here either. Anyone else out there see anything?"

"Negative, red leader. Nothing over here. Swordfish, over."

"Base control! Come in! Any word down there? What's happening with those alarms? You got anything on the radars yet? Red leader, over."

"Nothing, Red leader… come on home… bring 'em in. Over."

All right guys, let's go home. Red leader out."

"Copy that, Red leader. Swordfish out."

"Copy that, Red leader. Pitbull out."

"Copy, Red leader. Weasel out."

In the new granolith, Max and Michael were watching the fighter jets all around them very closely to make sure that they did not collide with any of them by accident. They dropped down another 2,000 feet to an altitude of 1,000 feet.

"He, he! That was close, huh Max? They were right there beside us and couldn't see a thing!"

"Yeah! You were right, Michael! The scientists who built this ship really are the best on Antar… maybe in the galaxy! I’m really impressed! I gotta tell you… I thought those fighter pilots would see us for sure! Cripes! I could read Swordfish's control panel!"

"I could read the names of all of them on their helmets! That's close, Max! Too close!"

Max brought the new granolith down over the Pecos River and gently set it on top of the water at the widest spot in the river he could find. He moved his hand across another control on the board, and the ship submerged but continued to cruise beneath the water. Minutes later, Max found what he was looking for, a deep overhanging ledge with a submerged cave-like crevasse beneath it. He guided the new granolith carefully under the ledge and into the crevasse then set the ship down on the bottom.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Max announced, in his best imitation of a commercial pilot, "Welcome to Roswell, New Mexico. We have arrived at the gate and will be disembarking shortly."

Michael snickered. Both of them gathered up what they needed and took the glass ascension chamber down to the first floor. There, they went to the room marked, 'Underwater Pod,' which contained a small submarine. Although watertight, the UPod room could be flooded and the submarine piloted out through a tube in the bottom. As Max and Michael boarded the submarine, Max noticed that the name “Maria Mia” was etched onto its bow in bold lettering. He smiled… and nodded understandingly.

The “Maria Mia” was small for a submarine but large enough for maybe a dozen people to cram into it… half that many comfortably. There were six seats, but each was almost double width. The two front seats were individual, bucket-type seats and were for Max and Michael, the pilots.

Max engaged a coded sequence in the computer, and the submarine and pod room both sealed themselves tight, then water began to flood the room. Soon, the “Maria Mia” was afloat. Max engaged the engines, and the craft moved forward through the pod tube, emerging into the waters of the crevasse then out into the river beyond.

"Sheez, Max! Look at the size of that catfish," Michael mused, looking out the forward window. I heard that flathead… or ‘yellow catfish…’ could get that large, but I didn't believe it. That sucker's gotta be seven feet long!" Max grinned and nodded silently.

Ten minutes later they surfaced in a bay near a dock. Max recognized the place where they were. He had been here before… with Liz. He tied the “Maria Mia” up to the dock, gave the surprised dock-keeper two twenty dollar bills, and asked him to keep an eye on the sub for him, explaining that he was a college student studying marine engineering sciences and that the submarine was his team's entry in the small submarine races that are held yearly off Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

"You think he bought it?" Michael asked, after they had reached the road.

"Yeah," Max said plainly, "I think so. Let's get us a cab and go find Liz and Maria."

"Right behind ya, Max!"




----------------End of Chapter 10

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time- Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Old Haunts

Chapter 11

XI



“Here it is, right up here on the left… the CrashDown,” said Max, handing the taxi driver twenty-five dollars to cover the $21.75 tab. Max and Michael got out, and the taxi left.

“Well, what now, Max? You just gonna walk in and say, Hey, I’m here! Future Me II, at your service, Liz?”

“Very funny, Michael… No, I told you I’ve been studying up on time continuums and all in the library on Antar. According to the most eminent theorists from Antar and the other planets in our galaxy, if we are in the right timeline, I will be me and you will be you. We’ll be… well… sort of instantly upgraded to the new and improved versions… or something.”

Michael chuckled, “Oh, yeah? And if we’re not the only ‘us’ here, how are we going to explain it? It’s the ‘or something’ that worries me, Max.”

Max winced but managed to keep a fairly good poker face… “One thing at a time, Michael. And, by the way, I would be future me I, not II; the other future me isn’t supposed to get here until tomorrow night.”

“So how come future Max II, or the original, or whatever he is, didn’t take your body or something when he came the first time, Max? And how do you know he won’t take your body when he gets here this time?”

“Well, like I said, I think he was in the wrong timeline. The original granolith went through time in a linear fashion, you know. At this point in time, right now, the timeline hasn’t been corrupted yet, so we should be in our own true timeline… and in our own true bodies.”

“You look the same as before to me, Max.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t changed in the last five or six years.”

“Um… Okay…”

Max opened the door, and the two of them walked into the CrashDown and sat down at the corner table where they had been sitting the day Liz was shot. Liz was waiting on a couple at another table. Looking up, she noticed Max and Michael and smiled. Max returned the smile. Liz put the order in and then returned to Max’s table…

“What are you guys doing hanging out here? I thought you were going out to the reservation today to do some fishing with that guy… what’s his name? Eddie… River Dog’s friend.”

“Yeah, well… we got finished a little early,” Max fibbed, trying to cover for himself with a smile. “You know how I hate being away from you anyway, Liz.”

Liz grinned. “Well, I’m off right about… now! So why don’t we go for a walk, Max. I need to talk to you about something.”

Max looked at Michael.

“Hey, no problem, Max! Go! You guys get out of here! I’ll be fine. I’ll hang around here for a while and check out… whatever. You guys go!”

Liz removed the apron and antennae that were part of her alien waitress costume and hung them in the back… then she and Max left the CrashDown. As they walked along the river’s edge, minutes later, Max noticed that Liz seemed to be looking at him intently.

“What?”

“What do you mean, what?”

“Nothing… just… you’re looking at me like that,” Max said.

“Well, I don’t know, Max, it’s just that somehow you look a little different or something, kind of like you aged a year or two since yesterday. Anyway, you’ve been staring at me, too… almost as if you hadn’t seen me forever! What’s going on, Max? Are you, like, changing or something? Is this some ‘alien’ thing I need to know about?”

Max smiled. “Naw… well, yeah, I guess we’re all aging, aren’t we? But no, I’m not changing all of a sudden. Liz, I… I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you…”

Liz looked puzzled. “Tell me what, Max?”

“I… I’m not… well, I am… but I’m not the Max you know, Liz.”

“Oh, thanks for explaining that, Max! I feel so much better now that I, like, totally understand! You want to have another go at that? Lay it out for me in English?”

Max took a deep breath. “It’s like this, Liz… I’m… well… I came back in time from almost six years in the future… from Antar.”

Liz stared at Max in silence for a moment then looked at him closely.

“No… I’m not buying that, Max. I mean… even with the ‘alien’ thing and all, do you realize what you’re saying? I mean, you do look a little older, maybe a year… or maybe… I don’t know. But…”

“Liz, a year from now, we wind up having to leave Roswell suddenly… you, me, Michael, Maria, Isabel, and Kyle… because the special unit guys found us and were going to shoot us all… murder us… at our graduation.”

Liz stopped, and a look of alarm crossed her face. “Why?”

“We’re aliens,” Max said, shrugging.

“But Maria’s not… you know… or Kyle…”

“Yeah, well… you don’t know it yet, Liz, but… How can I say this? There were some side-effects from my saving your life… same with Kyle. Nothing terrible… just some minor… powers… that you develop…”

“Kyle and I are going to get 'alien' powers?” Liz exclaimed, shocked, “When does this happen, Max?”

“Well… I don't know really… exactly. Anyway, it does… or will… we think. The FBI didn’t know about Kyle, but after you started exhibiting powers, he figured that he would, too, eventually, so he came along with us, too. Kyle’s Dad, Sheriff Valenti, helped us get to Arizona, and we headed north from there, then you and I got married…”

“Whoa! Whoa! Stop right there, Max! You’d better repeat that!”

“It was a beautiful wedding, Liz! Michael, Maria, Isabel, Kyle… they were all there.”

“And Dad… and Mom?”

Max swallowed and looked at the ground then shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, Liz. They couldn’t… We couldn’t risk letting anyone know where we were. Our lives depended on it. But you sent your Dad your diary and a message to explain everything so he would understand.”

Max looked back up. Tears were streaking Liz’s face, and she was shaking. “Do… Do I ever see them again, Max?”

Max stared at Liz in silence for a moment then started to speak, but Liz interrupted him, “I don’t think I want to know, Max! Is this… Is this ‘future’ unchangeable?”

“That’s the reason I’m here now, Liz! You see, one year after we got married, Kivar unleashed a weapon on the Earth that… that destroyed the Earth.”

Liz listened silently, unable to force her mind to accept what she was hearing.

“Liz, we want you and Maria and Isabel to go with us back to Antar.”

Max looked into Liz’s eyes for the answer he so longed to hear, but she shook her head slowly…

“Max, I… I’ve got to think about all this. It’s so much information… it’s more than I can handle right now.”

Max nodded silently, and some of the air went out of his lungs. “I’m sorry, Liz… I didn’t mean for this to happen… you know that.”

Liz gazed at Max intently; then, unexpectedly, she stepped forward and kissed him. Stars streaked through her mind… galaxies swirled… and she stepped back and looked at Max again…

“It is you… I had to know.”

Max nodded.

“I’m off tomorrow, Max. Can you meet me… in front of the library… at about noon?”

“Yeah… sure.”

“Okay. Walk me back to the CrashDown?”

Max smiled then nodded again.

After Liz had disappeared inside the CrashDown, Max turned and walked to his old house. He arrived to find that his parents, Philip and Diane Evans, were out, and no one was home, so he went to his room and lay down on the bed. It had been a long and very tiring day, and very quickly, he was asleep.

In the morning, Max awoke with an uneasy feeling, as though someone were watching him. At first, his sleep-fogged mind ignored it, but at some level of consciousness, the warning only grew louder and more persistent. Unable to sleep, Max opened his eyes and saw that he was facing the wall. He lay very still, listening intently, but heard nothing. Nevertheless, the uneasy feeling had become almost unbearable by now. He was not alone anymore in the room, and he knew it. Carefully, Max rolled over. Then, in the blink of an eye, he jumped up from the bed and faced the intruder, who was sitting quietly in a chair.

“Oh cripes! It can’t be!”

The intruder sat silently for a few moments, looking Max over, then spoke…

“What are you? Are you a shapeshifter or a mindwarper? Why do you look like me?”

Max grasped for words and realized that he had none.

“Well, you’re clearly not Goldilocks,” the intruder said with a touch of sarcasm, “Even if you are sleeping in my bed. And you’re not me. So where does that leave us? Did Nicholas send you? Or do you go higher up? Kivar?”

Max from Antar winced and closed his eyes, trying to think of something… anything that he could say to explain. It wasn’t going to be easy. Eventually, though, through some miracle, he managed to convince the intruder that he was his doppelganger. Or was it he who was the doppelganger? He wasn’t sure really. It was a question that might have kept theorists arguing for years. Max then explained to his double about his and Michael’s mission. When he had finished, both Maxes stood looking at each other.

The younger Max reached up and pulled a small hair from Max of Antar’s head…

“What’s this? You getting white hairs already? You not taking care of my body?”

“That was a fluke… it’s the only one! Of course I take care of myself! Liz thinks I only look about a year older than you, but it’s been almost six years since I was… since I was you!”

“You’ve seen Liz already?”

“Yeah.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“Jealous of yourself? I’ll leave that to the philosophers,” said Max of Antar, with a half smile.

The younger Max’s eyebrows rose a bit. “What about your Michael? Where is he?”

Max from Antar turned visibly pale momentarily. “Oh my God! I can only guess! We didn’t think there would be two of each of us. I need to get over to the library to meet Liz then try to find Michael and tell him.”

Both Maxes quickly piled into Max’s jeep and rode over to the library together. They didn’t have to wait long. Within minutes, Liz arrived and walked up the steps. Max from Antar was waiting at the top; the other Max waited back in the shadows.

“I have something else to tell you, Liz…” Max from Antar said, as Liz reached the top of the steps… “and I don’t know how you’re going to take it.”

Liz took a deep breath. “After yesterday? I don’t think anything could surprise me anymore.”

The younger Max stepped out from the shadows, and again, Liz was momentarily speechless. But she quickly regained her composure.

“Okay… I stand corrected, Max. You’ve done it again. I’ve got a headache now! You want to explain this? Which one of you is real?”

“We both are,” said Max from Antar. “I’m just him six years in the future. Michael and I thought… well, I thought… that there would only be one of me and one of him here, but I see that it didn’t work that way.”

“I’m glad you noticed,” said a voice behind him. It was Michael. Actually, it was both Michaels. But which one was which? Max from Antar wasn’t sure. And Maria was with them.

Max looked at both Michaels then at Maria.

“That must have been some explaining you did, Michael! I would love to have been a fly on the wall and heard it! But I’m glad I didn’t have to help you explain it! Once was enough!”

Michael smiled smugly. “Aw, thanks heaps, your kingliness. You’re a real pal! Yeah, I’m not gonna let you forget this… Count on it! So what happened, Max? Did we screw the timeline up like future Max did?”

“I don’t think so, Michael. There was another part to that stuff that I was reading in the library on Antar. Some of the theorists speculated that the time-traveler going back within his own timeline would appear in the body of his or her former self, but there were others who believed that the time-traveler might only replace his or her other self if the other self were to die or be at the end of their natural life.”

“Well, don’t go getting any ideas,” said the younger Michael.

All of them laughed. This had the effect of relaxing the atmosphere substantially, but fearing that the longer they remained where they were the more likely they would be to draw unwanted attention to themselves, they decided to take Max’s jeep and drive out to the desert.

As Michael from Antar was getting out of the jeep, he bumped the younger Michael, knocking him off the side of the jeep. It seemed innocent enough, but the younger Michael bristled.

“Watch what you’re doing, you stupid old fart!”

“I don’t look a day older than you, punk!” Michael from Antar shot back. “And that’s what you are, you know… a punk! I know you better than anyone. Maybe somebody SHOULD knock you off.”

Max’s mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

“Hey! Hey, guys! Stop it!”

“Don’t bother hanging around on Earth long,” the younger Michael said to his older self, “I’d stick you in an old folks’ home and have done with you!”

“Yeah, well I’d turn you over to the sheriff for being a smart-assed, no-good punk!”

Both Michaels grabbed each other and fell to the ground, rolling and struggling in the desert sand. Max was literally beside himself.

“Stop! Stop! You can’t do this. This is not going to work! We have a mission, Michael!”

After a couple of minutes of this, the two Michaels stood up and brushed themselves off, laughing and slapping each other on the back like the best of friends.

Max was perplexed… then red-faced.

Michael of Antar grinned smugly. “I told you I would get you back, Max, for what you put me through having to explain all this to Maria and… and this guy… all by myself! He and I cooked up this little show for you.”

For a moment, Max didn’t say a word. Then he nodded solemnly…

“Michael, you’ll never change! I can’t even tell which one of you is the old fart and which one is the young punk!”

Everybody laughed, then Liz walked over to Max of Antar and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his sculpted chest and muscles. She did the same to the other Max and ran one hand over each of their chests then looked over at Maria and winked…

“I don’t know, Maria… I think this could be fun!”

Maria’s lower jaw fell about three inches.

“Kinky, you mean!” Then she looked at both Michaels…

“But on the other hand, Liz, I can see your point!”

Both Maxes and both Michaels looked at each other uneasily, the expression on their faces asking, ‘What have we done?’




--------------End of Chapter 11

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Reclaiming the Timeline

Chapter 12

XII



Max and Michael, together with their doubles and Liz and Maria, arrived back in town late, well after suppertime. The CrashDown was closed, so Liz and Maria sneaked the guys into the back and fed them. They managed to scrounge up some hamburgers, fries, and tacos… and the all-important Tabasco sauce, a bottle of which was quickly consumed by the four guys. Liz also brought in a couple of Snapples apiece for each one. After they had eaten, because it was already so late, Liz sneaked the guys and Maria out the back and then went upstairs to the apartment her family had over the CrashDown. The others left… but they did not go home…

The younger Max had privately confided in Max of Antar that he had something planned and still had every intention of carrying it out, so the group stayed out of sight in the shadows and watched. After a short time, a small Mariachi band arrived and spoke with the younger Max. Then they took their positions under Liz’s balcony and began to play, as Max sang along in Spanish. Hearing the music, Liz came out onto her balcony, and the younger Max threw a bouquet of roses up to her, turning the roses white after throwing them, when he remembered that Liz preferred white roses.

Suddenly, Liz’s father appeared in the doorway…

“What’s all the racket out here? Do you have any idea what time it is? Is that you, Max?"

Seeing the Mariachi band and realizing that Max was serenading Liz, Jeff shook his head and smiled… “Aw sheez!” then turned and went back into the apartment.

Max and the Mariachi players began to walk away, too, still singing, and soon disappeared into the shadows as they had come.

With the serenade over, Max rejoined his companions. Then the group waited.

It wasn’t long before they saw someone climb onto Liz’s balcony. Michael threw a small pebble that bounced off the intruder’s right shoulder, and the intruder turned and looked at the five companions below. Though clearly surprised and puzzled by the unexpected appearance of two Michaels, two Maxes, and Maria, the intruder realized that this would require his attention, even if it was not part of his plan; and after pausing to assess the situation, he climbed down again to the ground and faced the five companions.

It was future Max. He had come to convince Liz to reject Max so that he would marry Tess… for the sake of saving the world. But Liz had been in the back of the CrashDown with Max and Michael and their doubles and had not been in her room. So future Max had lost his chance to confront her before the Mariachi group appeared, as he had planned to do. Then when he had tried to climb onto her balcony after the serenade, he had been pelted on the shoulder with a small rock.

Liz, meanwhile, had quietly let herself out of the house and joined the others outside, walking over and standing beside Maria.

Maria looked at future Max, then at the younger Max, then at Max of Antar…

“Now that’s just soooo not right, see! That makes three for you already, and I only have two.”

Liz grinned, “Who’s counting, Maria? Who’s got time?”

“Well, obviously you don’t,” Maria snickered. “I’m gonna have to start wearing dark glasses when I’m with you so people don’t recognize me! You’re bad, girl!”

Max of Antar raised his hand to get everyone’s attention then stepped forward and faced the new Max from the future.

“I know this must seem strange to you…”

Future Max interrupted him… “Why did I not know it if there was another set of us besides the dupes up in New York? This should be part of my past, too.”

“Well… that’s really why we’re all here, you see,” Max from Antar said. “And this is all the more reason why I believe that my theory about you screwing up the timeline is correct.”

“New York dupes?” the younger Max asked, puzzled.

“You’ll find out very soon; you don’t know about them yet,” Max of Antar said. Then to Future Max, he added, “And no… we are not dupes; we are time travelers like you… but we returned from Antar in the future, not from Earth in the future.”

Max went on to explain to Future Max why they had returned to Earth and why he believed that the original granolith that Future Max had returned in had skewed the timeline and may actually have been the cause of the Earth’s destruction instead of saving it. Future Max listened in silence.

“It’s a paradox, huh!” Michael of Antar said. “Earth is being destroyed in your timeline. You come back to save it then find out that your time travel may have been the cause of its destruction.”

“It sounds crazy,” Future Max agreed, nodding solemnly… “But it could be right. In any case, it’s clear to me from the information you’ve given me that my mission here will not succeed… And that means that the wisest thing for me to do would be to go home and develop an alternative plan… if there is still a home for me to go home to.”

“I think the longer you’re here,” Max from Antar said, “the greater the chance that you will alter this timeline… and who knows how that will affect all our futures.”

Future Max nodded slowly. In some way, he actually seemed relieved, as though he had just had a great weight lifted from his shoulders …as though he had been carrying out a mission that was ripping his heart out… had been on the verge of selling his soul… and had just been given a reprieve. He seemed oddly at peace now… even happy… as he looked at Liz. “Liz, I want you to know… our marriage has been the single best thing that ever happened to me. I’ve loved you more than life. If my world comes to an end now and that’s to be my destiny, it will not have been in vain, because I have known your love. You are and always will be my everything.”

Liz’s eyes teared up. She took Future Max’s hands in hers and kissed him lightly on the lips. Though it was only a light kiss, she saw stars and galaxies. She knew in her heart that this was her Max, just as Max of Antar was her Max and the younger Max was her Max. They were, somehow, some way, all one and the same. She felt this strongly and with great certainty.

“Go, Max. Go back to me in your time. I need you there. You’re my life, too… my everything. I know that if our world is ending in your time and if that is the way it is to be, I… my future self… does not have any regrets either. You can believe in that, Max. Please believe in that!”

Future Max nodded, smiled slightly, then turned and walked away into the night.




---------------End of Chapter 12

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Good-byes and Decisions

Chapter 13

XIII




“I hope he makes it back okay,” said Liz.

“Why wouldn’t he?” asked Maria.

“Well… it’s just what Max said about the granolith traveling in a linear fashion but time not being linear…”

“Yeah,” said Max of Antar, “but going back is kind of like… well, returning to a point of origin. It’s like one of those paddles with the little balls that are attached with a long rubber band. If you move the paddle up or down after you hit the ball, the ball is still drawn back to it…”

“But sometimes it misses,” Maria said.

Everybody looked at her.

“Well… it’s just that sometimes it does, you know…”

As they spoke, a shooting star passed over their heads in the night sky, and the companions all looked up to watch it.

"I've got a feeling he's going to be just fine," said the younger Max.

Max of Antar turned to Liz. “I have to know now, Liz… I have to know from each of you… are you coming with us? We need to leave soon.”

Liz remained silent for a long time, as they walked along. Maria watched Liz to see what she would say.

“Max, I… I can’t. We have our graduation next year… and what happens to our Max and Michael here? What happens to my parents, Max? I mean… you said that the world doesn’t end until a couple of years from now. Is it right for us to, I don’t know, like, just forget those years… leave everything behind? Max, I love you… well, I love my Max… and I want to be with you in some future, because you’re him in that future, but we have to consider whether or not we’re doing the right thing. I mean, consider this, Max, what if by our sending Future Max back and my not breaking up with you… that is, with Max here… we may have already changed the future? What if the world isn’t going to end now at all? We don’t know the answers to these things. We only know that we have… at least, hopefully… changed the things that were not supposed to have been part of our timeline. But we don’t even know what all of those things are for sure.”

Max thought for a few moments then nodded…

“I expected you to say that, Liz. I really did. I wouldn’t have expected anything else. That’s why Michael and I spent a great deal of time during our journey planning some alternative options. Michael and I will return to the new granolith and travel forward in time to a year after our graduation, to the day before our world, this world, ended. Will you do one thing, Liz? Will you return to Roswell on that day and meet us here… all of you… together?”

“Meet you where, Max?”

“You remember the dock where we went swimming one night…”

Liz turned slightly red. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Can you… that is, would you… meet us there when that day comes? I… I’ll understand if you don’t.”

“I’ll have to talk to the others, especially Isabel… she's not here to speak for herself. I’ll try, Max. Really, I will. But I have to be sure.”

Max smiled… “That’s all I wanted to hear."

"You know I'm not going to let anything bad happen to Liz," the younger Max said. "If going with you is the right thing to do at that time, we’ll all go. You know you can count on me… You can count on all of us."

Max of Antar nodded, "Yeah, I know… somehow I feel like I can trust you almost as much as myself!" Max grinned slightly at his own little joke.

"Michael and I have to go now. You two…” Max pointed at the younger Max and Michael, “We’re going to need you to come with us somewhere.”

Liz sneaked back into her house, and Max and Michael of Antar and their doubles escorted Maria home.

At the door of Maria's house, Michael of Antar took Maria's hands into his, looked into the beautiful brown eyes he had missed for so long, then put his hands gently on each side of her head and kissed her. Maria put her right arm around Michael's head with her hand on the back of his neck and submitted to the kiss, perhaps a little more readily than the younger Michael was able to accept, even if it was, in some strange way, himself she was kissing…

"Ahem…"

"Ahem!"

"Ahem! Cough! …Hadn't we better be going if you guys are gonna get where you're going?"

Michael of Antar released his hold on Maria. Slowly, gently, his hands slid down her arms and over her hands as he pulled away. For a moment he gazed into her eyes, trying to get enough to last for a lifetime of memories. Maria, too, seemed unusually captivated by Michael's eyes. They seemed almost haunted… yet so gentle and kind. She choked back a slight 'bye,' her eyes misty, then she turned and went into the house.

Max and Michael and their doubles left Maria's house and drove together in Max's jeep to the house of Sheriff Jim Valenti. Max knocked on the door.

“Who’s there?”

“Me… Max Evans.”

“Max? It’s 1 AM! …Just a minute; let me throw something on.”

The door opened, and Sheriff Valenti stood in the doorway. He looked at the two Maxes and the two Michaels…

“Okay, I’ve gotta stop staying out so late dating younger women… I’m seeing two of each of you.”

Quickly… cautiously… Valenti glanced around outside then hurried the group inside and closed the door…

“Sit down… Coffee?”

“Sure,” Max of Antar agreed. The others nodded. Valenti returned momentarily with four coffees.

“Just on the chance that you guys split into four people or went alien schizoid on me and I’m not totally smashed or hallucinating, I brought four cups.”

Max smiled.

“I assume there’s a story behind this, Max; so what is it?”

Max told Sheriff Valenti everything, from the start. He explained who they were and where they had come from. He told him about their having been with Liz and Maria earlier and what he had asked them to do. He explained to Valenti some of the things that were to come: the end of the world, graduation, Ben Johnson, and Nicholas’ betrayal of them.

“Oh, and there’s one more little thing,” Max said. “It’s Kyle.”

“Kyle?” Valenti sat up straight. “Kyle’s asleep upstairs. Does something happen to Kyle in the future, Max? If it does, I have to know!”

Max smiled and shook his head. “He’s fine, actually. He’s my chief of staff on Antar… has been for the last five years…"

"And a darned good friend he’s been, too!" added Michael.

Valenti rubbed his face with his hand, then he rubbed his brow, then his eyes, as though he thought he might need to wake up from a strange dream.

“You’re serious? You’re not bull-shittin’ me? Kyle went to Antar with you guys… in the future… and he’s okay? I mean… can humans even survive on your planet without gas masks or something? Is Kyle happy living there?”

Max chuckled. “Yeah, he’s happy; but he would be a lot happier if his father were alive… You know what I mean? And if his father could be there with him.”

Valenti swallowed then nodded. “So this is all supposed to happen what… a little over two years from now, the end of the world and all?”

“Yeah.”

Valenti ran his hand through his hair and shook his head in disbelief.

“Alright, Max. I get your meaning. You can count on me.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. I knew I could! Michael and I will have to be going now. We’ll expect to see you in two years.”

“I’ll give you guys a ride to the dock,” Valenti said. “Our Max and Michael can get home in the jeep you all came in.”

Forty-five minutes later, Max and Michael of Antar stood on the dock. They shook Valenti’s hand warmly, thanked him, and climbed into the ‘Maria Mia.’ Soon, they were back on board the new granolith. Max programmed the computers, and the new granolith’s engines purred as they came to life. Seven and a half minutes later, the computer indicated that their travel had ended. They had skipped quietly through time two years into the future.

“Are you ready, Max?” asked Michael, “…to see if they show up?”

Max appeared pale.

“Yeah, Let’s go.”




----------------End of Chapter 13

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



The Great Escape

Chapter 14

XIV



The ‘Maria Mia’ surfaced and edged gently up to the dock, which appeared to be deserted except for a drunk sitting on the end holding a bottle of wine underneath a tattered old overcoat. Surprised by the unexpected appearance of a submarine, even a relatively small one like the ‘Maria Mia,’ the drunk took out his bottle and looked at it then looked again at the ‘Maria Mia.’ For several moments, he teetered at the edge of the dock, and it appeared that he might drop the bottle into the water. But instead, he took another swig then put the bottle back under his coat, apparently deciding that the ‘Maria Mia’ had not been the creation of his wine-sotted brain… or more likely, that his drink was worth a few hallucinations.

Max and Michael climbed out of the sub, and Max secured it to the dock then looked around quickly to see if anyone was there. Seeing no one there but the drunk, the pair began to walk toward the road. They had almost reached it when they rounded the corner of the boathouse and, suddenly, a vehicle appeared in front of them with red and blue lights flashing. Max and Michael froze, each with one hand raised, ready to defend themselves, as the door of the vehicle opened and a figure stepped out. It was Sheriff Jim Valenti…

“Welcome to Roswell, gentlemen.”

“Sheriff!” Max exclaimed, relieved to see Jim again as much as he was that it wasn’t the FBI… “I see you survived Ben Johnson’s trap!”

“Yep! That I did! Thanks to you, Max… and…”

Valenti unbuttoned a couple of buttons on his uniform shirt, exposing a heavy-duty bulletproof vest underneath.

“What about Liz?” Max asked. “Is Liz okay?”

Valenti smiled, “I made sure that they didn’t get any of you this time, Max… I had Liz and Maria in a safe place. And I had a few deputies waiting outside to back me up when I went in. Forewarned is forearmed, you know what I mean? Nicholas escaped anyway, but the agents found out that Ben Johnson was an alien… one of them ‘skins’ as you called ‘em. Anyway, they were pretty happy to get themselves a bona fide alien, and I was able to get you and Michael out of there safely… And myself, too, of course, as you can see.”

“How’d they find out about Ben?” asked Michael.

“Oh, I dunno, they might have got an anonymous phone call, I guess,” Jim said with a grin.

Normally, Max and Michael wouldn’t have wished Ben’s presumed fate on their worst enemy, but considering that Ben had blasted Valenti to death with his shotgun in the previous timeline and helped Nicholas and the special agents to capture Max and Liz, and… what had happened to Liz in the white room --Max couldn’t even bring himself to think about that-- neither of them was very inclined to dwell on Ben Johnson’s fate. And now, finally, Max could be free of that memory. What had happened to Liz in the white room… never happened. They had changed history.

Max smiled.

“Where is everyone?”

“Well, Max, we’ve got a little bit of a problem.”

Max’s smile disappeared. “They didn’t come, did they?”

“Oh, they’re here all right… all of ‘em. They came, Max. It’s just that they’re… well… hiding, because things here have been very, very hot just now. Hot for them and hot for…” Sheriff Valenti paused without finishing his sentence.

“For whom, Sheriff?” Max prodded.

“For Jeff… and Nancy… Liz’s parents … and for Philip and Diane, your Mom and Dad, Max.”

Max appeared stunned. “But… What could the FBI or the army want with them? They’re human… just… like everyone else.”

“Yeah, well, it seems that some agent on that alien task force, the one that ‘doesn’t exist,’ decided that if he couldn’t get the aliens he was after, he’d dissect the people that raised them and see if they had been changed by being around the aliens… like Liz was. They know about Liz’s powers, Max… some agent named Zwolinski.”

Max turned pale. “Have they done anything to them, Sheriff… Have they hurt them?”

“Not yet, Max, as far as I know. They’ve got them over on the base. There’s still some kind of debate going on over there between those that think that killing humans is taking it a bit too far and those, like Zwolinski, who think everything is part of the game, I guess.”

Max closed his eyes for a moment. “Sheriff, can you take us to Liz and the others?”

Valenti nodded. “Get in the car.”

Max and Michael climbed into Sheriff Valenti’s Cherokee, and Valenti drove off toward the desert. They hadn’t gone two miles, when they spotted a blockade ahead on the road.

“Lie down in the back there, guys… and cover up with that blanket.”

Valenti turned on his red and blue lights and slowed to a stop then leaned out the window…

“What can I do for you, gentlemen? I’m kind of in a hurry… got a call about a bad accident over on the other side of town.”

“Get out of the vehicle, Sheriff,” the agent said, waving his gun in Valenti’s face for emphasis.

“Well, now, I think you’d better tell me just what it is you’re lookin’ for, agent. I told you, I’m on official business here, and I’m in a hurry,” Jim retorted, adopting his most serious tone of voice and official air.

As he spoke, Zwolinski stepped out of one of the vehicles that was blocking the road and walked up to the Cherokee with a smug look on his face. “You ARE what we’re looking for, Sheriff. I just found out something real interesting. Someone over on Elm Street saw a kid about to get whacked with a big limb that broke off from a tree a couple of weeks ago. Funny thing is, he said the Sheriff happened to be there and saw it, and he put his hand up and the branch fell somewhere else. Now I don’t know about you, but I call that downright suspicious, Sheriff, so I did some checkin’ up on you… found out you got shot once and one of them aliens healed you or somethin’. So I just put two and two together and figured you’re like that Parker girl… you got some kind of alien powers now. I’m takin’ you back to the base with me, Sheriff. Get out of your vehicle.”

Valenti exhaled dejectedly and acted as though he were about to open his door; then as Zwolinski relaxed, he quietly put the Cherokee into reverse and pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor, backing away fast and spinning the vehicle around to head back towards the river. Both agents opened fire, and at least one shot struck the Cherokee, blasting the windshield out. Jim didn’t think this was the time to obey speed limits. Within sixty seconds, he had the Cherokee up over 110 miles per hour, bouncing over the holes in the dirt road. As they arrived back at the dock, they all jumped out running.

“Get to the sub!” Max yelled.

The three of them ran quickly down the dock. Michael untied the sub, and all three jumped into it and quickly closed the hatch. Max already had the sub in motion, and he pulled away from the dock as the hatch was closing. Zwolinski and his agents appeared around the bend at that moment, dirt flying from the road, as they raced to catch Valenti before he could escape.

“There’s no time to submerge,” Max said. “They’ll shoot us out of the water.”

Michael reached over and inserted a small crystal into a recessed space on the console. The sub rose out of the water about ten feet, trailing water from its fins and propellers as it shot off down the river at a remarkable speed.

On the dock, the old drunk sat stupefied as the sub rose from the water and flew away. Then he pulled the bottle out of his coat, tossed it into the river, and tottered off, as agents swarmed onto the dock past him. But they were too late. The ‘Maria Mia’ was gone.




--------------End of Chapter 14

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



A Rescue to Remember

Chapter 15

XV



After they had gone about three miles, Max set the ‘Maria Mia’ gently down on the water and submerged beneath the river, traveling to the bottom and another quarter of a mile downstream underwater. Arriving at the ledge, Max guided the ‘Maria Mia’ into the cave then up through the pod tube into the new granolith. The ‘Maria Mia’ came to rest on the floor inside the underwater pod chamber, and Michael initiated the command for the room to be cleared of water, sealed, and reoxygenated. Then the hatch opened, and the three stepped out of the sub into the new granolith.

Sheriff Valenti whistled and shook his head in amazement… “This is incredible. I thought I’d seen about everything in my life in Roswell… but a submarine that flies and a spaceship that parks itself in a grotto under the water…” He shook his head in wonder. “I’m gonna have to forget all the laws of physics I ever thought I knew!”

Michael smiled. The three companions left the underwater pod room and took the glass ascension chamber up to the control deck on the fourth level. They showed Valenti the control room, then the three of them had a bite to eat in the galley dining room on the second level and discussed plans.

“Zwolinski’s agents are going to be waiting for us back at the dock,” Valenti said with certainty. “They’ll have men posted, so there’s no going back to the dock now. We’ll have to find another way.”

“General Guerin,” Max said, addressing Michael, “You’re the expert on strategy. What are your suggestions?”

Michael smiled slightly. “Well, let’s think about this logically; first of all, we have to consider that now that they know that we escaped down river, they’ll be combing this area looking for us.”

“You think they’ll find us under here,” asked Max.

“Probably not, but it wouldn’t be safe to take the submarine now. The ‘Maria Mia’ doesn’t have invisibility capability like the new granolith. There is a significant danger that they would see us, and then they might eventually find the new granolith, too. But even if they didn’t, we can’t leave in the ‘Maria Mia’ without in all likelihood being spotted. That means that an alternate plan is called for. And if we can’t take the sub…”

“We take the new granolith.” Max completed Michael’s sentence for him.

Michael nodded.

“Where are Liz and the others hiding,” Max asked, looking again at Valenti.

“In the desert, where you had the original granolith hidden before.”

“Then that’s where we go,” said Max.

Michael agreed. Valenti nodded, too. After another half hour of planning, the three left the galley and went up to the control room. Max and Michael took their pilot and co-pilot’s seats, and Valenti sat just behind them. Max moved his hand over the console, and the new granolith purred to life. Michael initiated the invisibility factor and placed his hand over the console, too. The computer screen displayed a message in Antarian, confirming that the pilot and co-pilot’s identities were recognized and the new granolith was ready for departure. Max took it out of the grotto and up through the water to the surface. As the new granolith rose above the surface of the water, Max, Michael, and Jim noticed several boats converging on the area.

“Well,” said Michael, “This is a good thing, I’d say. If we keep them looking over here, they won’t be as likely to be looking where we’re going.”

Max raised his eyebrows but then smiled slightly, seeming to get a spontaneous brainstorm. Without commenting, he took the new granolith back under the water then rose underneath one of the boats, capsizing it and throwing the agents into the water. Unable to see anything but a huge bubble of water rising up from below, the agents were convinced that there was something hidden below the water that had caused the bubble.

“That should keep them here for a while,” said Max.

Michael nodded and grinned. Then the new granolith rose into the air and turned in the direction of the desert.

Arriving at the place where the original granolith -and later the spaceship that they had taken from Kivar- had been hidden, the team set the ship down gently on its anti-grav repulsors beside the rock formation that had surrounded the original granolith when it had been there. They left the invisibility factor engaged in the new granolith for protection and walked down the forward ramp to the desert below.

Sheriff Valenti knocked out a short code with his flashlight on the rock formation. Shortly, the rock opened. The younger Max stood in the entrance. He motioned them in, and they walked to the back of the room and around a corner. Liz, Maria, Isabel, Kyle, and Michael all stood there, smiling, as Max and Michael of Antar entered with Sheriff Valenti.

“Well, we’re all here,” said Valenti, “And Michael’s got some pretty good ideas for saving the hostages. So you guys listen up… here’s what we’re going to do…”

One hour later, after all the discussions and questions were finished, Max and Michael of Antar went back onboard the new granolith to remove some equipment that they would need. As the others watched, a rather sleek-looking car appeared and drove down the ramp to the desert below. It was metallic blue and looked like one of the new Corvettes, except that it was slightly longer and more roomy… a sort of Corvette mini-limo. Liz and Maria shook their heads, incredulous.

“Max! What the heck is this supposed to be,” asked Liz.

“What does it say on the side,” asked Max.

“Corvette,” Liz replied, but I’ve never seen a Vette like this one.”

“Okay, well… we had the guys on Antar make this one. It’s a little longer… for practical reasons.”

“Uh… I didn’t know GM had opened a plant on Antar, Max,” Maria quipped.

Max nodded, without so much as a hint of a smile and seeming totally sincere, “It’s right across the street from the ‘Starbucks.’”

For a moment Maria was silent. Then she breathed out deeply…

“Now you’re pulling my leg, Max… aren’t you?”

Everyone laughed.

Max got into the driver’s seat of his ‘Antarian Vette,' and the younger Max got in on the passenger side. Then they drove off in the direction of the base.

It was a fairly uneventful drive. Much of the army and most of the special agents were down at the river where they had already called in special divers and even brought in their own small submarine in a C-130 cargo plane. Max drove up to the gate of the base and was stopped by a single guard at the entrance, who demanded to see his ID. Younger Max turned to look out the window on his side so the guard wouldn’t see his face. Max put his hand in his hip pocket, as though to get a wallet, then brought his hand out palm up, knocking the guard to the ground and temporarily stunning him with a mild energy bolt. Younger Max jumped out and tied the guard up quickly; then they drove off toward the ‘white room’ complex.

At the complex, they found surprisingly little resistance. Max had to subdue three guards. He didn’t find any agents present. Entering the building, the two Maxes made their way to the holding room and yelled, “Move away from the door!”

Max counted to five then blasted the door open.

“Max!” exclaimed Phillip Evans and Jeff Parker almost simultaneously, as Max stepped into the room. Diane, Max’s adoptive mother, rushed to him to hug him. Liz’s mother said nothing, appearing to be in mild shock.

"Thank God you're here!" said Amy DeLuca. Then they noticed the younger Max standing in the doorway. For a moment, all four captives seemed to be at a loss for words; but then they seemed to simply accept that the unexplainable was probably going to be the norm in any future life that they might have.

“I guess you’ll explain things when you can,” said Phillip, looking back and forth at his ‘two sons.’

Max nodded. “Let’s go… quickly… I have a car waiting.” The five ran outside and jumped into Max’s special Corvette, which had gull-wing doors that were waiting in the up position, but as they started to drive away, a van appeared in front of them, moving fast. Six special agents, heavily armed, jumped out and immediately began firing. Both Maxes directed energy bolts at the van, destroying it, but the agents rushed them and managed to pull Liz’s mother, Nancy, from the car.

Younger Max quickly dispatched four of the six agents with an energy blast, but the two holding Liz’s mother began to drag her back toward the building. As they did, Jeff Parker jumped out of the car and tackled them, catching them by surprise and knocking them to the ground. He yelled at Nancy to get back in the car, then he yelled at Max, while keeping the two agents pinned to the ground…

“Go, Max! Get out of here! I said get out of here! Go! Now!”

Max started to get out of the car to assist Jeff, but three more vans of agents were arriving fast. Max jumped back in the car. He knew Jeff was right… For the sake of all the others, he would have to leave Jeff Parker there… even though he didn’t know what he would say to Liz…

Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion, like a sonic boom, and a motorbike shot out of a wormhole then slid over beside Jeff Parker.

“Jump on,” yelled Michael.

Jeff Parker glanced up for a scant second then quickly obeyed, jumping on the bike behind Michael.

“Hold on tight. I mean, REALLY tight!”

Jeff Parker had a feeling that this was excellent advice, and he took it. Michael spun the bike around and ran straight toward the oncoming vans. Suddenly, the bike disappeared into a tear in the fabric of space, as though the sky had just opened up a hole for it to rush into. The resulting sonic boom, as the bike went into alternate space, blasted all the windows out of all three vans. The agents tumbled out, falling over each other, trying to find which end of their guns they were supposed to be holding. By the time they were able to recover, Michael and Jeff Parker were gone… and so were Max and the others.




-----------------------End of Chapter 15

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



The Last Day

Chapter 16

XVI



Exactly two seconds later, Michael Guerin and Jeff Parker came out of alternate space in the desert, approximately two hundred feet from the new granolith, then they rode over to the still-invisible ship. Sheriff Valenti quickly escorted them onto the ship.

The younger Michael had not yet returned, nor had Max, with the rescued parents, so Michael and Valenti waited on the lower level, with the ramp down. Thirty-five minutes later, Max and his younger double arrived with the rescued captives. Max drove straight up the ramp and onto the ship, parking the vehicle at the back of the room beside Michael’s bike. Everyone emerged from the car and looked around at the inside of the cargo bay on the lower deck of the new granolith.

"Where is Michael," asked Max, referring to the younger Michael, who had not yet returned.

"He went out when you did… didn't say where. He hasn't returned yet," said Maria.

"I think I know where he went," said Max. "Michael, lend me your bike. I'll go get him."

"Uh, Max… I don't mean to sound ungrateful and all, pal, but you've never ridden this bike before. You sure you can handle it?"

"You did… the first time you rode it! Why shouldn't I be able to?"

"Yeah, that's true, but I also seem to remember something about a field full of bald shebbles that were as butt-ugly as those bald chickens somebody created here on Earth. You haven't forgotten about that have you, Max?"

Max smiled. "I'll be careful."

Mounting the bike, Max started the engine, drove smoothly down the ramp, then put it into hypergear and accelerated. The fabric of space split, swallowing the bike with a bang. Six seconds later, Max brought it out of alternate space. The bike skidded to a stop on a long, wide sidewalk that appeared to go around a lake. He looked around but didn't immediately recognize the place. It certainly wasn't Roswell… and it was certainly teeming with people… A LOT of people! And Max quickly realized something else… He had just become the absolute center of attention.

Max looked around at all the people who were gathering to get a glimpse of Michael's amazing bike and its mysterious rider. He grinned a sheepish sort of grin, straightened up slightly, and nodded silently. It seemed that most of the guys in the rapidly growing crowd were totally blown away by Michael's bike and wanted to get a closer look at it, but an equal number of the girls seemed to be more interested in its handsome rider.

"I think I overshot my target slightly," Max said quietly, almost shyly, with a little grin. “Ladies, if you'll excuse me… I'll just be on my way.” Max smiled at one of the girls standing closest to him, then turned the bike around and roared down the walk. The crowd parted to give him room and applauded wildly as the bike disappeared spectacularly into a hole in the fabric of space with an awesome bang.

"That's the first time I ever saw that here," said the girl Max had smiled at.

"Yeah, me too! I think the show at Disney’s International Lagoon just gets better and better every day! Omigod! Did you notice he looked straight at you and smiled? Didn’t he look kind of familiar?”

"Did I notice? Was he hot or what! And yeah… he looked just like my first husband!"

"I didn't know you were ever married before, Nina?"

"I wasn't!"

"Oh!"

<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

Back at the new granolith, the group watched as Max came out of alternate space and rode up the ramp onto the ship… a half hour after he had left.

"Did you find Michael," Maria asked.

"Sure," said Max. "Piece of cake!" He handed Michael of Antar back the bike. Michael looked at him but decided not to ask.

"I found Michael at the CrashDown. He should be back very shortly. There was something he had to get."

Ten minutes later, the group heard something coming; it sounded like a truck…

It was a truck! It drove straight to the new granolith and up the ramp into the ship.

Maria gasped, "A Snapples truck, Michael?"

"Hey, that's not all I got in the back there… there's also thirty-eight cases of Tabasco sauce and five cases of grits… Oh, and some taco fixings… that's besides the forty-nine crates of Snapples."

Michael of Antar walked over to his younger double and slapped him on the back. "You're a good man! Yes, sir! I think I might just get to enjoy having you around!"

Max and Liz laughed… then everyone began to laugh, even Maria. She walked over and kissed Michael and gave him a playful slap. "You're incorrigible, Michael!"

"If you don't mind my asking," said Jeff Parker, "Where'd you get the money to buy all this?"

"Well," said the younger Michael, "We kind of cleaned out the back of the CrashDown, then when the guy with the Snapples truck showed up, I offered to buy his truck from him with the money in the register."

"There wasn't that much money in the register," said Jeff Parker.

"I know, but he accepted credit.”

"Whose credit, Michael? …Never mind.”

"I found a couple of your credit cards in the safe. Didn't think you'd mind… I mean, you won't be needing them anymore."

This, at least, was true. All of them knew that they would have to leave Earth or go into deep hiding and be on the run for the rest of their lives, and each of them had already made the decision -and stated- that going to Antar was their choice. And besides, this way, they could see their children whenever they wished and they wouldn’t be always on the run from the Special Unit. They had seen what the Special Unit guys had in mind for them! There was only one thing that they needed to wait for now… to see if the Earth was going to end or if they had succeeded in changing the future.

“Michael,” Phillip Evans said, “You said that the world is supposed to end tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir, we’ve tentatively scheduled it for tomorrow…” answered Michael.

“What!” Liz’s mother exclaimed.

With his most serious look, Max said, “Michael, I’ve told you about teasing the earthlings.”

“Sorry, Maxwell.”

Everyone laughed. They knew that Michael and Max were both joking. All of them were doing whatever they could to ease the nervousness of not knowing. They were leaving Earth… but nobody wanted the Earth to come to an end tomorrow.




----------------------End of Chapter 16

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Cornucopia: The Reunion Feast

Chapter 17

XVII



Max and Michael of Antar escorted all their guests to the glass ascension chamber, which they rode up to the living quarters on level three. There they assigned each couple or individual a room. After an hour and a half break so that everyone could freshen up and take a much-coveted shower or bath, they all met back on level two, in the galley dining room. Sheriff Valenti, his son, Kyle, and Jeff Parker were the first guests to arrive in the dining room…

“What do you think, Jeff? Pretty awesome, huh,” Jim said, slapping Jeff on the back jovially.

Jeff nodded his head slowly and smiled. “You know what’s really awesome, Sheriff? Seeing Liz again… after thinking I might never see her again. That’s awesome.” Jeff took a deep breath and then smiled. “And so is this ship and all the crazy things we’ve been through lately, but nothing has happened or ever will happen that will compare with getting my Lizzie back again.”

Sheriff Valenti smiled, and his eyes misted up. He knew exactly what Jeff Parker was feeling. He felt exactly the same way when he saw Kyle again. It was a life-altering moment.

As fate or luck would have it, Liz walked into the dining room with Maria just in time to hear what her father said, and she walked over to him and hugged him tightly, putting both arms around his neck. She didn’t speak, but Jeff could tell by the sniffs that she felt the same way, too.

Isabel was next to enter the dining room, and with her were Phillip and Diane Evans. All three were smiling broadly. Liz’s mother, Nancy, came in right behind them.

A couple of minutes later, Max and Michael entered with their doubles, and everyone applauded.

“Hear! Hear!” said Phillip Evans. “Let’s have a toast to Max and Michael… and uh, Max and Michael!”

Everyone laughed then held their glasses up in the air for a moment…

“To Max and Michael!” everyone said as one.

“Let’s order,” said Michael of Antar as he and Max and their doubles took their seats. Michael was slightly embarrassed by the unexpected attention… But at the same time, deep inside, he loved it, too.

The diner droid rolled over to the guests and asked Mrs. Evans what she would like for dinner. A bit surprised by the appearance of the droid and at it’s having spoken to her, Diane gazed at the little sentient machine curiously…

“Oh… uh… well, I don’t know… What have you got,” she finally managed to ask, somewhat unsure if she should be addressing a robot directly or not. Several of the guests chuckled.

“There is fillet of shebble,” The droid said, answering her question, “which can be served flame-broiled or wrapped in Ama leaves. There are blue hen eggs, which can be served poached, fried, scrambled, or in an omelet with a sauce of detoxified guma fungus with pashita toast. There is Grelligo soup, which is the specialty of the Grelligo region on Antar. There is fillet of Golden Sea rosy pargi, a kind of fish, or there is a platter of broiled Golden Sea pink-ringed crustaceans, called jarlagos-droozeen. With any of these entrées, one can have…”

“Never mind!” Diane interrupted. Just bring me whatever you think is good… maybe the ‘JarJar goes drooling’ things you mentioned. That sounds kind of like shrimp maybe… at least, I hope that’s what it is.”

The droid noted Diane’s request then went around the table taking orders from each of the other guests in turn.

“What’s a shebble,” Jeff Parker asked when the droid came to him.

Michael answered… “It’s kind of like a weird cross between a longhorn steer and a yak, but it has really long hair that reaches almost to the ground, and you don’t want to know what a field full of bald pink-skinned shebbles look like.”

Max turned his head away from the table, because he was afraid he might start laughing and snort the drink he had just taken. Jeff just nodded and indicated to the droid that he would have that. Liz’s Mom, Nancy, said she would have whatever Diane Evans was having; Maria's Mom said that she would, too. Isabel chose the blue hen omelet. Liz decided to try the Grelligo soup, and Maria asked for the rosy pargi fillet. Max and his double both chose the fillet of shebble, and Michael and his double both chose pargi fillets. Sheriff Valenti chose the shebble broiled in Ama leaves. That left Kyle…

“What have you got that’s vegetarian,” asked Kyle.

“Fried or baked bada tubors, harlat spears, detoxified guma fungi, green orb gojos, boiled crushed Ama leaves, kernels of Een-Gelish Yyers, and purée of japo-bala,” the droid replied.

“Uh… huh…” said Kyle. “Just let me try a little of each one, I guess.”

The droid turned and glided quietly back to the food preparation room.

“Well, we just have one more mission,” Max said, “Then it’s off to paradise… and I guarantee you, it is paradise where we’re going! At least, it will be now!”

“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “It is! But to give the Earth a little extra needed insurance, Max and I are going out tonight to try one last time to find and destroy the excitron.”

“Isabel… where’s Jesse?” Max asked, turning to face his long lost sister. “He didn’t come with you? Did he take that job in Boston or wherever it was?”

Isabel looked at Max, puzzled. “Jesse? You mean that guy I dated a couple of times… the guy who was a lawyer or something?”

“Yeah, sure,” Max said. “What happened to him?”

“I don’t know, Max. I don’t keep up with everyone I ever dated… I haven’t even seen Alex, and we used to always stay in touch.”

Max sat bolt upright. Michael suddenly showed more interest, too.

“Alex is alive?” Max asked, surprised. “Tess didn’t kill him?”

“Max, what are you talking about,” replied Isabel in a puzzled tone. “Alex is fine! And Tess… well, nobody knows where Tess went or what became of her; but right after our graduation, there was a big explosion on the base, and there were rumors that they had shot an alien. We… well, we always wondered, you know…”

“But…” Max stammered, trying to make sense of this apparent change in history as he knew it… “I know Alex didn’t go with you guys after graduation… when you had to leave Roswell?”

“No. We never saw him after we left Roswell,” Isabel said, “And we haven’t heard from him either, of course, because we haven’t been in touch with anyone… for their safety and ours.”

Max was silent for a moment, then he nodded. “Michael and I will pay Alex a visit tonight when we go to look for the excitron.”

At that moment, the droid returned with the dinners. All the dinners were stacked inside the core of the droid, where they were kept warm. As each dinner was removed from the top, the next one would come up, then the droid would pick it up, place it in its proper place on the table, and say, “Enjoy your meal.”

“Looks like you’ve got labor problems licked on Antar, Max,” said Phillip Evans. “Does this little guy belong to a union?”

A few people laughed. Max just smiled. “Yeah, well, there are some things droids and robots are good for, but most work still requires people, even on Antar.”

“Polite little bugger, too,” Max’s father added. Then he turned to the droid… “Listen, little guy, just remember, if they don’t treat you right, I can help you start a union. I’m a lawyer.”

There was more chuckling from the others.

“Thank you, sir,” the droid replied. “What’s a union, sir?”

Phillip Evans began to explain it to the droid, but his wife, Diane, interrupted… “Phil! You are talking to a robot, you know!” Phillip stopped, seeming slightly embarrassed. “Yeah, of course, Diane! I was just joking around!”

“You were explaining law to a robot!”

Everyone laughed, and Jeff patted Phillip on the back. “That’s okay, Phillip! I always brought my work home with me, too. Heck! The CrashDown WAS my home!”

One by one, each person tried his or her entrée cautiously. Before long, they were all eating hungrily as though these had been their favorite recipes their entire lives. Without an exception, each guest had nothing but compliments for the food… and for the little droid that had prepared it. Diane Evans proclaimed it the best shrimp dinner she had had in her life. Maria and Liz’s moms were in total and complete agreement. Jeff Parker had nothing but praise for the shebble steak. Sheriff Valenti told him he should try it wrapped in Ama leaves, which were delicious.

“You know, I’ve gotta tell you, Max,” Liz said, “this Grelligo soup is pretty awesome! It tastes kind of like French onion but with something more that I can’t quite put my finger on… It’s just really good!”

“Well, I don’t know what I ate,” said Kyle, “but whatever it was, I recommend it. I think it was kind of like a mixture of potatoes, asparagus, mushrooms, peas, turnip greens, corn, and creamed spinach all mixed into a kind of… sauté or something -really big on the ‘creep factor’- but surprisingly delicious… I’ve gotta admit it!”

"Yeah, well, you guys don't know what's really good till you've tried the rosy pargi fillet!” Maria said enthusiastically, “Oh my God, was that ever delish!"

“There’s nothing like a good rosy pargi fillet,” Michael agreed.

“What did you have, Isabel?” Phillip Evans asked.

“The blue hen omelet… It’s delicious, Dad! You’ll have to try it!”

“Maybe for breakfast.”

“Okay, listen up, everyone,” Max said. “I suggest that, since all of you have had a very long and grueling last few days…”

“Last month!” Phillip Evans corrected him.

“They had you locked up that long?” Max shook his head in wonder. “Anyway, I think most of you would probably appreciate the opportunity to just relax and get some rest in a real bed tonight, so any of you who wish to may return to your rooms for the night. We also have an arboretum, a small arboreal park, on level six. It’s a great place to take a relaxing walk. The trees in the arboretum supply all the oxygen needed for our interplanetary travel. On level five, we have the gardens, where many of our vegetables are grown. You may also visit the gardens at your leisure. Besides vegetables, you will find some beautiful flowers and walking paths there. Level three is where the living quarters -your rooms- are. At the end of the corridor on level three, there is also a lounge with games and other things that you might find enjoyable. Level two is the galley dining area, where we are now. The only levels that I would ask you to not go to -at least for now- without Michael or me present, are level four -That’s the control deck- and level one, which is nothing but storage and the off-ship vehicles… Oh, and the underwater pod room …nothing there of interest to anyone. Besides, if you accidentally engaged the pod room’s systems and the exit tube were to open, you would be sucked out into space.”

“Okay, that’s one level I’m avoiding,” Liz’s Mom said.

There was some laughter and a lot of agreement. Then everyone said goodnight to each other and went to their rooms.




-----------------------End of Chapter 17

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Alex and The Excitron

Chapter 18

XVIII



After everyone else had retired for the night, Max and Michael of Antar went down to level 1 and unloaded the Snapples truck. Then they opened the bay and drove the truck down the ramp and away in the direction of town. They had decided that the Snapples truck would be the least conspicuous way for them to get around in Roswell. Their first stop was to be the residence of Alex Whitman.

As they arrived at the house, they noticed that the light in Alex’s bedroom was on, so they parked the truck a few houses down then quietly made their way back to Alex’s house and stood beneath his open window. It was 11:30 PM, and someone was playing a guitar…

“Alex!” Max called out softly through the window.

Alex continued playing, apparently lost in his thoughts and the music.

“Alex!” Max called out a little louder.

This time Alex looked around. Seeing Max and Michael at the window, he smiled slightly and set the guitar down.

“What are you guys doing here?”

“Can we come in?”

“Yeah… yeah, sure,” Alex said, hurrying to help them through the window. Both Max and Michael were in, however, before Alex could reach the window.

“Max, it’s not safe for you and Michael to be here… in Roswell, I mean. The feds are looking for you guys like big time! And people have been disappearing -getting arrested, and no one knows where they’re taking them… your parents -I guess you know that already- and Liz’s dad and mom. They even arrested Maria’s mom, just because Maria and Liz were like best friends, you know? I mean… a couple of us maybe knew that Liz was getting some kind of powers during the last year… but Maria… Her Mom was really freaked out when they came for her. She didn’t even know that you guys were (Alex looked out his window both ways briefly), uh… Czechoslovakians, you know? And she sure didn’t know about Liz; nobody did but you and Michael and Isabel… and me and, I think, Kyle and Sheriff Valenti. That’s it. I think Liz may have told her dad after you guys all disappeared right after graduation… he seemed to know something after that, and so did your mom and dad.

Oh man, Max, but that was just the weirdest graduation! They won’t be forgetting the class of 2002 I don’t think… ever! It’s already like a legend or something. I mean, agents bursting in with machine guns to kill you guys… and Michael getting you out of there just in time on his motorbike… the lights all going out just when you went up there to speak. Everything! It was just like so majorly weird and outrageous! We had UFO freaks from all over the world around here for at least six months after you guys left. I guess it was great for business… but really, really weird!”

“Yeah, that’s what we heard,” said Michael.

“Alex,” said Max, “What I’ve got to tell you is going to sound even more weird. You might ought to sit down.”

Alex looked at Max then at Michael quizzically, then he sat down.

“After we left Roswell, a lot of things happened. We came back to Roswell secretly after fifteen months to try to see our parents, and the special unit guys got Liz and me, and… they killed Liz. Sheriff Valenti got shot to death. Our enemy from Antar, Kivar, used a device called ‘the excitron' against the army, and the excitron set off a fusion reaction in Earth’s core that destroyed the Earth. Michael, Maria, Isabel, Kyle, and I tried to make it to a ship that we had hidden in the desert, but Maria and Isabel didn’t make it. Michael and Kyle and I have been living on Antar for the last five years.”

Alex looked at Max in silence then just kind of raised his eyebrows.

“You’re right, Max… that was weirder. Assuming I believe all that, as crazy as it sounds, and I'm not saying I do, how do you explain that it’s only been a year…”

“Fifteen months,” Max corrected him.

“Yeah… fifteen months, since you guys took off and left Roswell. And… and… how do you explain that I’m still here, and you’re here, and the world out there (Alex gestures out the window) is still there?”

“We traveled back in time to try to save the Earth and the people closest to us. That’s why we’re here now, Alex, to ask you if you want to go with us. Liz, Maria, Isabel, Sheriff Valenti, Kyle, Liz’s Mom and Dad, my Mom and Dad, and Amy DeLuca are already on the ship.” Max didn’t think that mentioning his and Michael’s doubles would help right now.

"Oh, wow," Alex said softly after a short silent pause. So you're saying that the world is going to end tomorrow?"

"Well, we aren't really sure now, because we've already changed some events that happened in the other timeline. The world may be going to end tomorrow; it did before… or it may not this time."

"What's this 'excitron' you mentioned? If you find that and destroy it, will the world still end?"

"No… I can almost guarantee that it wouldn't, in that case, at least not right now."

"Then," said Alex, "Let's go find us an 'excitron,' whatever the hell that is! Do you have any idea where it is?”

“Unfortunately, not a clue,” said Max, “but we figured a good place to start looking might be around the military base. Kivar used the excitron, in the other timeline, to wipe out the army, and we think he may have done it from within the base itself.”

Alex made a slight whistling sound, “That’s going to be some feat, getting onto the base with them looking for you guys and all.” Alex picked up his guitar and set it in the corner; the strings buzzed slightly as he set it down. He waited for the buzzing to stop, but it didn’t.

“That’s odd,” said Alex. He moved the guitar to the other corner of the room, and the buzzing stopped.

“Well, lead the way, Max!”

They started to climb out the window, but Michael paused then walked back over to Alex’s guitar and picked it up. He turned it in the direction that it had been sitting before; the buzzing returned. He turned it around in several other directions, but the strings didn’t buzz. He turned it again toward the southeast, and the strings once again began to buzz.

“That’s odd,” said Alex, “It never did that before.

“What’s in that direction… southeast?” asked Michael.

“Not much… mostly just fields and woods, I think,” Alex said.

Michael and Max looked at each other. “What are you thinking, Max?”

“I think maybe we just found a better starting place to look,” said Max. “The excitron has to be primed for twelve hours before it’s used, and the resonance waves that it would give off might very well cause the strings on Alex’s guitar to buzz. Alex, bring your guitar with you.”

Alex picked up the guitar, and the three of them climbed out the window and quietly made it back to the Snapples truck together. Then they turned the truck around and drove off in a southeasterly direction.

“Turn your guitar until you hear the buzzing,” said Max. “Then tell me what direction it’s coming from. We’ll follow it like a homing signal.”

“Cool,” replied Alex. “I always thought my music was destined to go places, but I didn’t figure on it saving the world!”

Max and Michael laughed. “Alex, if you only knew! Your music has already been to Antar and back… on Maria’s CD!”

Alex looked momentarily stunned. “…Wow! That’s… that’s, like, mega-cool! I’ll have to put up a banner whenever I play now that says, ‘The Music of Alex Whitman - totally and really out of this world!’”

“You do that, Alex,” Michael said with a laugh.

“Whoa guys, look, the buzzing is coming from that direction now.” Alex pointed to the right. Max turned right at the next street he came to. “Now it’s coming from… straight ahead… no… it’s moving around to the left a bit.” Max turned left onto a dirt back road that was coming up.

“Uh, Max,” said Michael, “You do remember what lies up here in this direction, don’t you? …Ben Johnson’s old place.”

Max nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right, Michael. We’re coming at it from a different direction than the way we know, but that does appear to be where we’re headed.”

Five minutes later, they arrived at the edge of the woods they had been driving through for the last ten minutes. Max stopped the truck and turned off the lights.

“There’s Ben’s old place right up there. Let’s leave the truck here just inside the edge of the woods so they won’t see us if anyone is there.”

The group carefully sneaked up to the house and around to a back window. Peeking inside, they noticed two people working with some kind of machine that looked quite a bit like a huge, fancy telescope. It sat on a computerized base, and the top almost reached the ceiling. Its length was almost twenty feet, and it occupied most of the back room of the old farmhouse. It was painted entirely black. On the side, it had a fair-sized laser pointer that was being tested as they watched.

Max and Michael could feel the resonant vibrations coming from the machine now that they were this close; and they knew with absolute certainty that what they were looking at was none other than the infamous excitron -the machine that had once destroyed the Earth… the machine that was now being primed to destroy the Earth again. Michael and Max didn’t have to speak. They already knew what they had to do. Max nodded to Michael, and the two stepped back several steps and raised their right hands toward the back room of the house, palms out. Alex, too, stepped back… much, much further back. Then a powerful blast of energy blew the entire back of the house apart.

Pieces of what had been the infamous excitron rained down from the sky along with pieces of what had once been the back of Ben Johnson’s farmhouse. But before the trio had any time to celebrate their success, more men -undoubtedly more of Kivar’s ‘skins’- began pouring out of the front of the house. Michael counted a dozen before the three companions made a hasty retreat back to the woods and their waiting truck.

Kivar’s soldiers were not very far behind. They had all run to waiting vehicles that had been out of sight on the other side of the house. Max drove as fast as the Snapples truck would go. He had a fair head start, because Kivar’s men hadn’t spotted him yet and still did not know exactly which way he had gone. It did not take them long to figure it out, though. Within five minutes, four SUV’s loaded with over twenty of Kivar’s most elite soldiers, were hot on the trail of the three who had just deprived them of their day.

Max drove quickly back to the main road then headed in the direction of the desert and their ship. Before he had gone two miles, Kivar’s soldiers had caught up with the truck. One of the SUV’s pulled up beside the truck on each side; the other two blocked him in from behind. Max had a very bad feeling about this, but there was nothing he could do about it now but drive… as fast as he could. Michael prepared to blast the SUV on his side with an energy wave, but suddenly, the SUV’s began to drop back.

“What the heck just happened,” asked Max.

“I don’t know,” said Michael. “I was ready to smoke one of them when they all started dropping back.

Max looked in his rear view mirror and saw the reason for the sudden departure… military vehicles were coming up fast behind the SUV’s. It looked like half of the army.

“Yeah! Saved by the army!” Alex exclaimed excitedly.

But as the SUV’s split up and fled in different directions, only two of the military vehicles pursued them. The rest of the army stayed behind Max and his companions… and now they were firing on them.

“Well, that’s gratitude for you!” Michael said, “We save their mangy asses from being scalded tonight and this is the appreciation we get!”

Max drove the truck off the road into a dry creek bed then turned the lights off and drove using only his vision, which was somewhat more acute that the average person’s. Very soon, they were in a rill between two bluffs. Fifteen minutes later, they emerged into the open desert. They had lost the military… for now.

Arriving back at the New Granolith, Max drove the truck quickly up the ramp and onto the ship. Michael initiated the systems retracting the ramp and closing the bay doors, then all three went quickly up to the control deck. Max placed his hand over the console. Michael did the same, and the New Granolith purred to life; the invisibility factor was already engaged. Max lifted the ship into the air just as the army vehicles appeared in the distance, churning up a huge cloud of desert dust behind them. Because of the ship’s invisibility, the soldiers and special agents would be unable to see the New Granolith as it departed and would likely continue searching in the desert for the rest of the night… and perhaps even for days if not weeks to come.




-----------------------End of Chapter 18

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Around the World in Forty Winks

Chapter 19

XIX



Max took the new granolith gently up into the sky above its former desert hiding place and headed off in an easterly direction. It was now almost 4 AM on Earth, Roswell time.

“Alex, we have to talk,” he said, turning to Alex and giving control of the ship to Michael. “We have to know if you’re okay with coming with us back to Antar.”

“Gee, Max… I don’t know what to say. I think someone’s probably going to wake me up and I’ll find out that this has all been just a dream, anyway, you know? But… seriously, well… I figured I was on the ship with you guys kind of by circumstance, because we had to escape here and all, and I was going to Antar one way or the other; so why, like, fight it, you know?”

“But are you cool with it?” asked Max. “Is it what you want? I mean… the others don’t really have a choice. If they stay here, the FBI Special Unit guys will eventually find them, and their fate then will be worse than death; each one of them knows that, so each one of them has stated that leaving and going to Antar is what they want. But the Special Unit guys aren’t after you.”

“Yeah,” said Alex, “and the world isn’t going to end tomorrow -I mean today- now either, since we just saved it. I’m… I don’t know, Max. One part of me wants to go with you guys… you’re, like, the best friends I’ve ever had; but another part of me isn’t ready, you know? There’s my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and their families, my pals from the band… I would be leaving all that behind. But on the other hand, how many kids from Roswell High get offered a free vacation to Antar, huh? So… gee, what do I say, Max?”

Max nodded, “I say we give you a little while to think about it and let you make your decision… ‘cause once it’s made…”

Alex nodded. Then he picked up his guitar and strummed it softly; it seemed to relax him and help him think, losing him in another world, one that existed only inside his own mind.

From the large fore window of the ship, Max and Michael watched the sun rise over the horizon as they drifted east. They had not seen any jets this time, at least so far, perhaps because the alarms were still being overhauled. Max suggested that they all go down to the galley dining room and get breakfast; the others would probably be waking up and coming down about now. He took the new granolith up into Earth orbit, just in case any jets did come snooping around, so that they wouldn’t accidentally collide with the new granolith.

Michael, Max, and Alex walked into the dining room and found Mr. And Mrs. Evans and Isabel already seated at the table. Isabel looked up and saw Alex and almost choked on her coffee. In a fraction of a New York second, she was out of her seat and had her arms around him.

“Alex! Omigod, when did you get here?”

“Well, I don’t want to seem immodest, but I had to save the world first,” Alex chuckled. “Some of us had to earn our tickets on this ‘E’ ride.”

Max and Michael grinned, and Isabel just looked at them quizzically.

Just then, Maria walked in with the younger Max and Liz. Maria rushed up and gave Alex a hug and a kiss. Alex hugged her, too, but he kept looking back and forth at Liz’s Max and the Max he had been with all this time.

“What’s going on here,” Alex asked. “Why are there two Max’s?”

The younger Michael Guerin walked in at that moment with Jeff Parker, Kyle, and Sheriff Valenti. They all said ‘hello’ to Alex, who by now firmly believed that if this wasn’t a dream, he might ought to have himself thoroughly checked out as soon as possible.

Max and Michael of Antar laughed. “When we came back in time, Alex, we met our… uh, ‘doubles,’ here in this time. We couldn’t just leave them here could we?”

Alex just shook his head in disbelief. “So which one of you is the real Max, and which one is the real Michael?”

“I guess we both are,” said Max. “This is all new to us, too. We don’t really know what to expect. We only know that it’s sort of me, only in two separate times that have come together. Don’t try to understand it, Alex! We stopped trying!”

The rest of those present all laughed.

Maria escorted Alex to a place at the table. By now, the rest of the group had arrived and were also taking their places at the table.

Just then, the little galley diner droid appeared. Around its middle was tied a skirt and an apron with an alien face on it; a pair of antennae had been attached to the top of what might pass for its head. Jeff Parker turned immediately toward Liz and Maria and gave them that ‘look.’ Liz and Maria snickered and slouched down slightly in their seats, covering their mouths to avoid laughing out loud. Isabel saw the droid and sprayed coffee half way across the table before she could get her hand over her mouth and choke the rest of it down.

“Your CrashDown uniform, Lizzie?” exclaimed her Dad, who in spite of himself, couldn’t help but smile, too. He just shook his head. “Aw sheez!”

“The little guy looks embarrassed,” said Mrs. Evans.

“It’s just a robot, Diane,” Phil chided her, “Remember?”

The little droid went around the table and took each person’s order in turn. When it got to Philip Evans, it paused momentarily, “Sir, would you tell me again about joining a union?”

The entire table erupted in hysterical laughter; almost no one was dry-eyed. Amy DeLuca was wiping tears from her eyes with a napkin. “That’s priceless!” she laughed.

Even Alex was laughing, “I guess this is going to be one of those things that you just had to be there,” he said. “But who would ever believe me, anyway?”

When all the guests had settled back down, they finished ordering. Isabel highly recommended the blue hen egg omelet with pashita toast, so most of the guests asked for that; however, a couple of them asked for their eggs scrambled, and Kyle asked for his to be poached, saying that they were healthier that way.

When the little droid returned with the breakfast orders, it placed each one in front of the person who had ordered it and politely said, “Enjoy your breakfast,” as it always did.

“I love that little guy!” said Maria.

After breakfast, Max of Antar, the younger Max Evans, Liz, and Isabel took Alex up to the gardens on level five. They walked down a winding path that was lined with flowers along both sides, including some that looked like roses in various hues of red, wine, yellow, white, pink, salmon, and gold. After a short walk, they came to a clear pool under a waterfall. They sat on the bank beside the falls and talked.

“Have you given it any thought, Alex,” asked Max.

“Yeah.”

“And…?”

“I love it here, Max… and I know that I would love living on Antar; it has to be Paradise… But, I’ve been thinking about my parents, my grandparents, my band pals… you know?”

“Maybe you could bring them, too,” said Isabel.

“No… I thought about it -just for a moment- but that’s not really realistically possible. My mom and dad… and my grandparents… they don’t even know about ‘Czechoslovakians,’” he said, making little quotation motions with his fingers. “It would freak them out. And besides, they wouldn’t have any reason to want to come. Nobody’s chasing them, the world’s not going to end, they don’t really know any of you except for seeing some of you with me a few times. There’s just no reason they would want to go to another planet.”

Max nodded understandingly. “Then we’ll drop you off before we leave. We’ll miss you, Alex, but I do understand. I’m just glad you could help us save the Earth.”

“And I want to hear all about that before you go,” Isabel said emphatically.

“Okay… sure,” Alex agreed, grinning.”

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Max said. “When you’re ready to go, Alex, I’ll be in the control room.”

Alex nodded, and Max left the gardens, leaving Isabel and Alex alone together by the falls. Two hours later, Alex came back to the control room. Max glided the new granolith down close enough to the Earth so that they could see Paris, the Alps, China, and the islands of the Pacific as they passed over them then over the open Pacific, California and Arizona, and on to Roswell, New Mexico. He brought the ship to a hover over Alex’s house.

“Well, here you are, Alex.”

Alex shook Max’s hand… and Michaels; then he hugged and kissed Isabel.

“Drop me an email or something sometime, Max… Do you have AOL on Antar? If you don’t, maybe you could try ‘Earthlink.” Alex chuckled at his own little joke.

“Cute, Alex,” said Isabel, shaking her head but smiling.

“Love the curbside service, Max! How do I get out?”

Max smiled and motioned to Michael to show him.

“Stand right over there in that other glass pod,” said Michael. “Don’t forget your guitar.”

“The ax that saved the world!” Alex mused to himself more than to anyone else in particular. Then he stepped inside the chamber. Max raised his hand to say goodbye. Isabel and Michael did likewise. As Alex raised his hand to wave back, a bright light came on inside the chamber. In a second, he was gone.



<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>


“Alex! Where have you been? Is that you in your room?”

Alex looked around. He was standing in his room, and his guitar was still in his hand. “Yeah, Mom! It’s me.”

“Dinner’s ready, Alex. I would think you’d be hungry! Have you had anything to eat? Where have you been all day?”

“Just saving the world, Mom.”

“What?”

“Never mind, Mom! I’ll be right out!”

A couple of minutes later, Alex walked into the kitchen, hugged his Mom, and gave her an unexpected kiss.




----------------------End of Chapter 19

<center> <<<<<>>>>>Altered Time - Destiny in the Stars<<<<<>>>>> </center>



Straight On Till Morning

Chapter 20

XX



If Alex’s surprised mother had looked out the window at that moment, she might have seen something that looked quite a bit like a shooting star or a comet passing over her house then off into space beyond. That would have been the new granolith. Invisible though it was, when it moved fast, the ship left an impressive atmospheric “tail” like the tail of a comet or the vapor trail that flows off the wingtips of a fighter jet… and Max was heading home.

Onboard the new granolith, Max and Michael had invited everyone who wished to to come up to the observatory and watch through its 360 degree clear dome as they left Earth and passed by the other planets of Earth’s solar system. They watched, as the ‘Blue Planet’ grew smaller and smaller. In less than ten minutes, they were forty-eight and a half million miles away and approaching Mars, the ‘Red Planet.’

Liz looked over at Max… “Max, what’s happening to you?”

“What do you mean?”

You’re… you’re like, glowing!”

Everyone looked at Max then at the younger Max. He was glowing, too. Younger Max walked over to Max of Antar and touched his hand cautiously. The hands seemed to shimmer then merge together… then both Maxes began to merge into one.

“Max…?” Liz queried, her voice reflecting her shock and uncertainty. “Are… are you…?”

“It’s okay,” answered Max, “It’s still me.”

“Which you,” asked Liz.

“Me,” answered Max. “I understand now! There never was but one me… one Max Evans or Zan of Antar. I was just living in separate times. Now those times are coming together into a single future.”

“So… uh, Max,” asked Liz, “Do you remember our graduation and us getting married or do you remember Earth being destroyed and living on Antar without me?”

“Both,” said Max after a moment’s reflection. “I experienced our graduation and marriage twice, once as Max -or Zan- of Antar and once as my other self after we came back. I remember it all! …and something else.”

“What’s that, Max?”

“I remember coming home to you and holding you and kissing you and both of us crying with just this amazing joy because I had not had to marry Tess and destroy the happiness that we had together.”

Liz gasped. “Future Max! You did make it.”

“Yeah… thanks to your love, Liz… thanks to our love! …and a couple of guys from the future.”

Max held Liz in his arms and kissed her passionately …until he remembered that they had an audience. He looked around. Everyone was smiling, then they began to applaud. Both Max and Liz turned slightly red, but both of them had smiles that would have taken ten lifetimes to erase.

Approximately 342 million miles and just over an hour later, they were approaching Jupiter. Liz, always keenly interested in the universe and physics, pointed out that Jupiter, the largest planet of Earth’s solar system, lies 483.6 million miles from the sun and has an equatorial diameter of 88,729 miles, compared with Mars, which has an equatorial diameter of only 4,222 miles… and Earth, which has an equatorial diameter of just 7,926 miles and lies 92.9 million miles from the sun.

Max shook his head. “Liz, you’re amazing! I don’t know how you keep all that information in that cute little head!” Liz just smiled.

As they approached Jupiter, the ship slowed. Max called down to the control room to Michael, who was at the controls.

“Michael, are we slowing down?”

“Yeah! You had me put a memo on our social calendar… remember?”

Max thought back and realized that some of the events of the last hour or two had indeed taken his mind away from other matters…

“Uh… by the way, Michael… Did anything… uh… unusual happen to you down there around the time we were passing Mars?”

“No, like what?”

Max was silent for a moment.

“Michael came back over the intercom nonchalantly, “unless you mean that little thing of my double starting to shimmer all over and then acting like ‘Revenge of the Body Snatchers’ or something… other than that, nothing I can think of, Max. But don’t worry… You know me… I always manage to pull myself together.”

“Yeah, that,” said Max, “That’s the little thing I was talking about. Now what about this memo on our social calendar…”

“On our way here, you said that you would like to explore one of these little moons with Liz. Well, we might be able to accommodate that request.”

“Max? What is Michael talking about,” asked Liz, “Did Michael say, ‘explore one of these little moons!’”

“Oh… when we were on our way to Earth, I mentioned that it would be kind of cool to explore one of these little moons… you know, you and I… and maybe Michael and Maria or whoever else wants to. Michael said he would put it on our social calendar, but I figured it was kind of a joke really. I still think it would be a cool idea, though… Don’t you?”

“Well…”

“I can think of maybe a few things,” said Kyle, “No air and we die, no atmosphere and we die, it’s freezing and we die, it has a poison atmosphere and we die, it has no gravity and we float away and we die! Do any two words there seem to jump out at you, Max? Because they do to me!”

Max laughed. “Well, first of all, we’ll look for a moon that has the best possible environment… at least a tolerable temperature and some gravity… and no poisonous atmosphere… if we can find one. As for oxygen, that’s not a problem. You take one of these little capsules and swallow it for each three-hour period that you will be in a non-oxygen atmosphere. The capsule has time-released oxygen that is absorbed directly into the bloodstream. You won’t even need to breathe.”

“Ew,” Maria moaned, “I don’t know about that!”

“Thank you, Maria!” said Liz.

“Well,” said Sheriff Valenti, “I think it might be pretty awesome. I would do it!”

“Yeah, I guess, so would I,” said Jeff Parker.

Kyle looked at them in amazement, “Alright… count me in, I guess. What the heck! After all the things we’ve been through, I guess a little moon walk should be a piece of cake, huh?”

“Maria and I will go, too,” said Liz.

Maria’s eyes opened wide, and she looked at Liz as though she had just lost her mind.

“Alright! Alright! Hey, what the heck! I guess if you guys want to kill yourselves, I’ll just jump off the cliff with you. We might as well all lose our minds together.”

There didn’t seem to be any other takers. Liz and Maria’s moms said no way, no how! Philip and Diane Evans also declined. Isabel decided she would just read a good book. They all said that they would enjoy just watching from the observatory dome atop the ship.

Michael dropped the new granolith into Jupiter orbit and they checked out several small moons as they passed by them. The first one had subfreezing temperatures and a methane atmosphere. Another appeared to be mostly gaseous. Still another looked promising until they discovered that it had an unstable crust and a highly volcanic core. After forty minutes of orbiting, they found a small moon that seemed to have all the necessary requirements. It had a light gravity, about one tenth that of Earth’s. It had a molten, volcanic core that kept the surface temperatures at a constant 78 degrees. The ground crust was solid and stable. There were no poisons in the atmosphere, although there was also almost no oxygen; but this was the one factor that was not a problem. Michael brought the new granolith in and set it gently down just above the surface of the little moon on its anti-grav repulsors.

“Okay,” announced Max, “Everyone going out take two of these.” He handed capsules to Liz, Maria, Kyle, Sheriff Valenti, and Jeff Parker. He took two himself and gave two to Michael, who had just walked in the door after coming up from the control room. The group took the glass chamber down to the first floor cargo bay. Michael sealed the bay off from the rest of the ship, opened the bay doors, and lowered the ramp to the surface. Then he turned around and smiled…

“Folks! Let’s go exploring!”




-------------------------End of Chapter 20