D5 The
Daniels family lands in Melbourne after a 20
hour overnight from Los Angeles. They are exhausted and check into a hotel
with pool where Scott and Chrissie are soon splashing and sunning. Bill gets on the phone and within an hour
three men from the government have come to call. Bill goes with them for a meeting with the
Prime Minister. Sylvia will stay with
the kids.
“Welcome to Australia, Mr. Daniels.”
“I offer the regards of my President,
sir,” says Bill.
“Gentlemen, Mr. Daniels and I need to
speak privately,” he says to the subordinates and they leave, closing the door
behind them.
“I’ll be frank with you sir,” begins
Bill, “I am here with my son and his fiance’ in an effort to survive. I know you know.”
“Quite,” he says, “We are going to
evacuate our seaside communities on a tsunami warning. We’ll announce an undersea earthquake; that
sort of thing happens and hope for the best.
Care for a whisky?”
“I certainly would, sir,” says Bill.
“What do you think about the
atmosphere?”
“ I have no idea,” says Bill, “I’m not
a science guy.”
“Too bad,” muses the PM as he settles
back with his glass.
For ten minutes they compare notes on
American and Australian politics, laughing over stories. A light flashes on the PM’s phone. He picks it up saying, “Um, Um, one moment.”
“I see you are busy,” says Bill as he
stands. The PM stands and nods saying,
“Yes, but when this is over come and see me if you are going to stay. We can use
a man with your talents and experience.
I’m sure we’ll have reason to learn more about America
regardless what happens.”
“Certainly,” and thank you.
Bill is taken back to the hotel and
tells Sylvia he has a job when the emergency is over and she is greatly
relieved.
Meanwhile the giant C5 military
transport is lumbering through a refueling operation on the verge of a stall as
two pilots work to keep the planes together.
Dr. Fogsten and Charlotte feel the anxiety in the air and she adds that
to her discomfort after six hours on this plane. She feels like a pig and is dreaming of a
warm shower.
“OK, honey,” he says to her.
“No, but I’ll fake it,” she says being
a good sport. “When will we get there?”
“I hate to tell you this, but it will
be eight more hours.”
“I’m not going to scream. I am not going to scream,” she says in a
rising voice.
“Honey, we are saving our lives and
sometimes it means discomfort.” She
nodded that she understood and he put his arm around her as the plane disconnected
from the tanker and climbed to cruising altitude noisily.
They slept through most of the last
eight hours of the trip, exhausted from the noise, discomfort of the rather
spare, low bid, military seats.
In Area 51 Defense Secretary Panola is
meeting with Colonel Buller.
“I’m glad the President is finally
going to deal with this thing.”
“Thing?” asks Layton.
“Yeah, the Big Enchilada. I suppose you want to see it now.” At this point the Secretary has not a clue,
but senses the opportunity so he agrees.
The Colonel leads him from the office to an elevator, go up to the
ground level and walk to a hanger with guards at the door. They wave through and are in a darkened
hanger. The Colonel goes to a nearby
switch panel and throws a big switch.
“What the Hell?” says Layton as he sees a 30
foot diameter disk UFO before him.
“OK, Mr. Secretary, I’ll tell you
everything we know about this craft, but it ain’t much.
“My God!” says Layton as he approaches the craft asking, “Is
it OK?”
“Sure, go ahead, put your hand on
it. It’s OK,” and Layton gets a cold metallic feel of the
perfectly smooth craft.”
“Where is it from?”
“The real question is, “When is it
from,”” says the Colonel.
“You mean these things are time
machines?”
“That’s the story. As much as we can get from him.”
“Him?
You mean you captured the pilot.”
“Sure, I thought you knew.”
“Did the President know about this?”
“When you showed up I thought he did.”
“No, I’m here to protect my
family. An asteroid is supposed to hit
Earth on the 13th and I know you have deep earth facilities here,
all kinds of emergency stuff and food stored.”
“Well, I’ve just put my butt in a big
wringer,” says the Colonel.
“Not by me,” says Layton, thinking of his best moves. He needs this guy a lot more than this guy
needs him. He has to make him an ally so
he adds:
“Look, I’ll do whatever I can to help
you with this, but we all have a much bigger problem now.”
Like a flash it hits him! If the pilot is from the future then there is
a future! Mankind survived!
“Is this guy here?”
“Sure, you want to meet him? He’s kind of a funny little guy.”
“Little?”
“Yeah, he’s only three and a half feet
tall, 42 inehes. And he only has three
fingers, no little finger.”
“And he talks?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“You hear him in your head and you
think back to him. It takes a little
while to get the hang of it.”
Colonel Buller leads Layton out of the hanger and into a long
hall.
“We have him set up in a nice living
quarters and he understands that he can’t leave until we can get his craft
fueled. He needs a lot of helium 3 for
his fusion reactor and we are having a hard time getting enough of it, but
we’re working on it.”
“Have you learned anything from him?”
“Oh yeah, a lot, but so much of it
involves exotic materials we have not made yet we’ll have to gear up a lot of
technology to use it. It’ll make the Manhattan project look
like a pizza factory; that’s the problem.”
“And why would we want to navigate
time?” Layton
asks. The Colonel looks at him like he’s
nuts.
“Sir, with all due respect that UFO is
the greatest weapon of all time. We
could go back in time and kill one man to prevent World War II.”
“Then what?”
“Then what would happen?”
“We don’t know…”
“That’s the problem.”
They arrive at a door and Layton is shown into a
complex of rooms first meeting a room with three guards and two computer
terminals. They all stand and salute the
Colonel who introduces the Secretary.
Then he is taken into a living room with a giant TV screen showing a
film and Layton
hears a voice saying, “I feel someone new in my space,” and a tiny man rises
from an easy chair.
JoRan is grey in color, his skin and
clothing are a blue-gray that Layton
has never seen. The tiny man puts out a
three-fingered hand and Layton
takes it in a welcoming way. Then he
hears:
“You are an important man,” and he
thinks back,
“Some say that, but you are more
important than I. Why are you here?”
“I am a soldier in uniform on a research mission
to find the when of the great extinction.”
“Then it is true,” says Layton, “Most of humanity
will die as a result of this.”
“Yes, but we have never been able to when
it precisely. That is my assignment.”
“It is going to be in two days on
April 13.”
“Then I must be gone or I will die
with you and I have important information for my time.”
“Why is knowing when so important?”
“Because we are evolving and must
learn how to control it.” He held up his
hand. “You see we have lost our little
fingers. Is evolution turning back and
taking us back to simpler forms? Can we
stop it?”
Layton
expresses, “But how does this…”
“I don’t know. I am a soldier. My mission is to return with the
information.”
“Colonel,” Layton says to the man, “What’s the story on helium
3?”
“Come outside,” he replies and the two
men leave the time traveler.
The Colonel takes Layton several hundred feet away saying, “I
think we’re safe here.”
“Safe?”
“I don’t want him to hear me.”
“You have it, don’t you,” accuses Layton.
“I uh,” the man fumbles, “we didn’t
know what to do with him! I’ve been
trying to get to the President, but there are so many people between and nobody
ever wants to make a decision. That’s
the problem with all this stuff.”
Layton
can sympathize with the man, but he can see this is a much bigger problem and
action is needed.
“OK, we have the helium 3. I’ll sign off on it. We may just be saving the human race in
7,000,000 AD.”
“What about us?” wails the Colonel.
“I don’t know. We can hunker down and hope. That’s about it.”
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