The Khyber Connection (TimeWars 6)

He turned and saw a large bay window. The landscape outside was rocky and desolate. It was also vermilion. He could see nothing but desert and rocks for miles. And he could see three moons.

“Doc?”

He turned around. Darkness looked drained. He walked over to a large reading chair and collapsed into it.

“You can move!”

“Of course I can move, you imbecile.”

“I mean, you can walk like a normal person!”

The scientist made a wry face. “Thank you. I assume you meant that as a compliment. Yes, I can indeed move about like a normal person, as you say, when I am not in transit in my translated state. In other words, I do not violate the Law of Baryon Conservation when I am home.

“Home?” said Phoenix. “You mean … this is it?”

He glanced quickly back at the window, at the three moons in the sky. “Christ, we’re not on earth!”

“Your powers of deduction are truly overwhelming,” Darkness said. “There is a bottle of scotch on that sideboard there. Be so good as to pour me a glass. And help yourself as well.”

The scientist looked exhausted. Phoenix swallowed hard, then moved to comply. “How the hell did you do … whatever the hell it was you did?”

“The scotch, Phoenix, the scotch.”

Phoenix handed him the glass and Darkness tossed it down. “I won’t try to explain how I did it, because I don’t feel like talking for six hours. What I did was to extend my tachyon field for a brief interval and drag you into it. I discovered I could do that, briefly, without altering the molecular structure of objects, but it depletes my energy severely. It’s quite an interesting phenomenon. Didn’t know that I could do it with people.”

“Wait a minute,” Phoenix said. “You mean I’m the first person you ever tried that with?”

“Well, I’ve never had occasion to attempt it with a living being before,” said Darkness. “The principle should be the same … the structure of molecules is, after all … you do feel all right, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. How would I feel if my molecules were out of whack?”

“That could be painful,” Darkness said.

“Very funny. How do I know I haven’t become like you?”

“You could never become like me. But I assume you’re referring to an alteration in your molecular structure. Rest assured, it would take a great deal more than a brief exposure to my energy field to tachyonize your own molecular structure. However, if you find yourself leaving to go somewhere and arriving before you’ve left, I would say you may have some cause for concern.”

“Just where exactly are we?” Phoenix said.

“We are in another galaxy,” said Darkness. “That’s all you need to know.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. However, if you can manage to contain your incredulity, we have some things we need to discuss. Apparently, the situation is a great deal more serious than I thought. With Lucas Priest dead, I have no way of finding the adjustment team. He was the only one of them who had one of my symbiotracers. And since your agents have all disappeared without a trace, I must assume the worst.”

“Drakov had Fox and Sable killed,” said Phoenix. “My cover was blown when he recognized me.”

“Drakov? How does he fit into this?”

“He’s leading the Great Jehad as Sayyid Akbar,” said Phoenix, then quickly brought the scientist up to date on what he had learned. “The only reason he didn’t have me killed was that he wanted to turn me over to the soldiers from the other timeline. Doc, according to Drakov it’s an almost identical alternate universe. I wasn’t able to learn very much about it, but Drakov claims it’s enough like ours that he couldn’t tell the difference at first.”

“Interesting,” said Darkness. “That may explain a great deal. I was wondering why the confluence effect did not manifest itself more profoundly. Perhaps it has and we simply haven’t noticed it.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, think of colors, for example. Imagine a flowing river of red. Now imagine another river that’s yellow. If they flow into one another, you’ll have an orange river. But if both rivers are red to begin with, only of slightly different hues, you might not readily observe a graphic change in color as a result of the confluence. Similarly, given parallel timelines of an almost identical nature, the points of confluence between them might not be readily apparent. Small wonder I haven’t been able to pinpoint them. I’ve been searching for dramatic fluctuations in temporal energy. Wrong method entirely. I should have been looking for anomalous inertial surge, instead. Of course. It seems so obvious, it should have occurred to me before.”

“Doc, you’re losing me again.”