Not a super long segment here, but time enough for tea.

You know by now that Music Matters, right…but do you remember Oliver? As in Good Morning Starshine? If you were kicking around in 1969 this just might bring a smile on, and if you weren’t, well, this is one of those songs that defined ‘the Age of Aquarius…’ – whatever the devil that was. Have a listen to some Genesis on your way, to Driving The Last Spike, to get you all the way.

5.10

‘Well, this sure hasn’t happened before,’ Callahan thought, now feeling more annoyed and put-out than scared – or angry. 

He was inside a bare sphere, and it didn’t look blue – or even red or green – because he simply couldn’t tell. The interior surface was bare and yet it was completely translucent, so clear he immediately understood he was outside the Earth’s atmosphere, but then in the next instant that same nauseating shimmer returned.

Bright sunlight flooded the inside of the sphere, and by the time his eyes had readjusted he realized he was back on Earth. He looked around and saw the water, then the bay, and that iconic slab of a mountain by the water’s edge that defined Rio de Janeiro, then he saw his sphere was hovering high over…another yacht. Men were loading a missile of some sort in what had to be a launching assembly, but why on a yacht?

‘Of course!’ he thought, ‘Titanic! They’re going to sink Titanic. But…why?”

He closed his eyes and held out his left hand and in effect played the closing bars of Schwarzwald’s Fourth in his mind, and in the next instant he was inside one of the yacht’s staterooms. A woman was hunched over a stack of charts; there were books beside the charts, too, and he moved closer to see what she was reading.

The first book he saw was C. S. Forester’s The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck, the second was The Battle of the Atlantic by Samuel Eliot Morison. One of the large charts on the woman’s desk appeared to cover the area between Iceland and Greenland and, sure enough, he found ‘Denmark Straits’ printed on the lower right corner of one folded chart, and moving closer still he saw the tracks of several ships plotted in red lines on the chart. The two most obvious, at least to him, indicated the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen…because…and obvious because he remembered watching a movie about these ships when he was a kid. What was it called? He saw their faces…Kenneth More and Dana Winter? Wasn’t it called Sink the Bismarck? The two German ships were steaming southbound about 50 miles west of Bolungarvik, just west of the sheer cliffs on the rocky northwest coast of Iceland, but they had been shadowed by two British cruisers. And sure enough she had the Norfolk and Suffolk labeled on her chart, too.

That left the two other ships, The HMS Hood and at least one other ship. He couldn’t remember the name of that one, but he remembered the Hood and her escorts had been trying to intercept Bismarck. Coming due west from their base in Scotland, their course taking them south of Iceland, then the small task force turning northwest when Suffolk radioed in Bismarck’s position.

He moved to the woman’s side, tried to see her face.

Then he felt sick to his stomach all over again. What was she doing here, now? And why did she have all this stuff about Bismarck…?

The shimmering returned, disorienting pins and needles as the sphere reentered quantum discontinuity – and within the span of a single heartbeat he was inside another ship. A large ship, and it looked like he was on the hangar deck inside an unusually large and very modern aircraft carrier – yet he was still inside the sphere, apparently hovering above a gray metal deck.

Only there were no recognizable aircraft on this deck. He saw something that looked very much like a very sleek space shuttle – only much smaller, and it wasn’t the only one here. Crew were swarming all over, and under, another shuttle – and Callahan saw obvious battle damage on this ship…

‘Battle damage?’ he muttered under his breath. ‘What’s going on? Who’re they at war with?’

But as he looked around he saw signs and warning labels on walls and above doorways and all these notices were in English, and the numerals on the shuttles were the same numbers he’d learned in kindergarten, right down to the same blocky black and white font he’d seen on naval aircraft since the 60s.

The conclusion he reached was the obvious one, yet he continued looking around the hangar deck – fascinated –  trying to make sense of these strange looking machines. He knew that form almost always follows function, at least that had proven to be the case with all the Hueys and turboprops he’d flown, and as he looked around he found himself extrapolating the various functions he saw. Ablative re-entry shovels, so no more heat shields. Weird looking clusters of thrusters. Then he saw two men approaching him, and one was Admiral MacKenzie – the other he didn’t know – and they weren’t walking, either. No, they were floating, drifting on unseen currents, and coming to his sphere.

Mackenzie nodded to someone behind Callahan and the sphere he was in vanished; Harry instantly realized that he, too, wasn’t standing on the deck – he was floating several feet above it – and then the next realization hit. ‘I’m not on Earth,’ ran through his mind, and as suddenly his stomach was struggling to accept this new information.

“What the Hell happened to you?” MacKenzie sighed as he floated up, looking at Callahans clothes. “Wait…what in the…Callahan, is that…barf?”

“Yeah,” Callahan moaned – because about a minute ago he’d been in the head aft of the bridge on Amaranth, heaving his guts out, “and hello to you too.”

“Jesus, Harry…”

“Turner called the storm an ETC, I think,” Harry sighed, realizing that zero gravity wasn’t exactly agreeing with his stomach any more or less than riding out a minor hurricane on that fucking boat had, and he felt the bile rising in his throat again.

MacKenzie’s eyes widened with alarm. “You still feeling it?”

Callahan nodded. “I feel dizzy, too,” he added. MacKenzie turned to the other man, who called for a MedTech to come to Hangar Deck 2.

‘There are two of these on this ship?’ Harry thought. ‘If so, this thing has got to be huge…’

“Harry,” Spudz began anew, “did you recognize the woman on the other yacht?”

“Well hello to you too, Admiral. Like…long time no see?”

Mackenzie grinned. “Sorry, things are moving fast up here right now. This is Denton Ripley, and we’re on Hyperion, his ship.”

“Ship?” Callahan said, nodding his head and biting his lip sarcastically. “If you say so,” he sighed as he took Ripley’s hand.

“Harry, sorry, but what about it? Did you recognize the woman?”

Callahan nodded. “Yup. Deb Sorensen.”

Sudden recognition flashed in MacKenzie’s eyes. “Ted Sorensen’s daughter? Really? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. And she’s got charts and books about the Battle of the Denmark Strait all over her desk.”

MacKenzie seemed taken aback when he heard that. “Uh, you mean Bismarck and Hood, that Denmark Strait?”

Callahan nodded, suddenly wondering what would happen if he barfed right here in zero-G, and in front of all these people. “Yup. Uh, hey, either of you got a barf-bag handy?”

A door hissed open and a technician in red coveralls careened off a wall and came his way but she was carrying way too much velocity, then Harry saw little thrusters on the soles of her shoes and she came to a stop right next to Callahan.

“You’re feeling nauseous?” she asked as she rummaged around in a small fanny pack.

Callahan swallowed hard, trying to stifle the coming eruption. “You could say that, yes.”

“Pull up your shirt, please.”

He did, and she held up a little device that hummed over his skin for a moment, and then he felt the sharp pinch of an injection – and within seconds he felt much better. 

“Patty, would you take our guest and get him cleaned up?” Captain Ripley asked.

“Aye, Captain. Sir, would you come with me, please?”

Callahan held up his hand then turned to MacKenzie. “Spudz, she’s got a cruise missile onboard that ship, and they were docked at a sub base in Rio de Janeiro. The techs working on the launcher had those radiologic dosimeters on their uniforms.”

“Rio? You’re sure it was Rio?”

“Yessir. Sugarloaf is kinda hard to miss.”

Mackenzie nodded. “It is that,” he sighed, even as he turned his attention to the medical technician. “We’ll be in the EOB for now. Get him back here as soon as you can.”

Harry watched as Spudz and the other guy, the ship’s skipper, hit controls on their wrists – and as simple as that they both turned and puffed their away across the vest hangar deck, their tiny, boot-mounted reaction control jets seemingly on autopilot. 

“Hang on to the loop above my belt,” the med-tech said.

“Okay, got it.” 

And with that they puffed across to an automatic door, then out into a bustling corridor. “If you get lost, this is called Main Street, and you can get anywhere on the ship if you can find your way here. Both hangar decks are amidships, engineering is aft, the med-bay and the bridge are forward. We’re going to change direction now, so pull yourself close and keep your arms and legs in tight.”

“Right, I think I get it. It’s all velocity vectors and angular momentum up here, right?”

“Pretty much, sir, unless the ship is under acceleration. If that happens while you’re here, have someone help you into an acceleration couch or onto a gel-bed.”

“Is there a war going on?”

She hesitated. “Sir, we’re not supposed to talk about this stuff when you guys are up here.”

“You guys?” Callahan sighed. “What does that mean?”

“Sorry, sir. You’ll need to ask Captain Ripley.”

“Understood. So, do you have a name?”

“Patty, sir.”

“I’m Harry, by the way. So, how long have you been up here?”

“Me? Most of my life, in one way or another. I’ve never been to Earth, if that’s what you mean?”

“Never?” Harry said, completely stunned. “Where’d you go to school?”

“Sorry, sir. We’re not allowed to discuss specifics.”

He shut up after that exchange. She led him to a unisex bathroom and showed him where to put his soiled clothes, then where the towels and jumpsuits were. “The showers are pretty straightforward, sir. Close the door and hit the red button inside. That pressurizes the chamber and seals the door, prevents leaks. That’s the shower head, there, handing on the rod. It’s more like a high pressure mist with a surfactant in it; the spray kind of wets and cleans the skin, and a really high pressure suction pump pulls the water back into the recycler.”

“Recycler?” Callahan said, clearly not amused. 

“Water’s a pretty precious commodity onboard, sir. Everything onboard gets recycled.”

Callahan looked at her, his eyes somehow registering both revulsion and panic. “Everything?”

She nodded. “The water is pre-set to 102 degrees Fahrenheit, and yes, that is a drain up there, in the ceiling. Anything the shower head misses gets sucked into that, so don’t…oh, right, you don’t have a washrag, do you?”

Harry patted the pockets on his khakis sarcastically. “Gee, no. Not on me.”

Patty smiled. “The coveralls are a stretchy material. How tall are you?”

“Six-three.”

“Right. Okay, so that’s a 190 to 200 suit, and I’ll leave it for you here. Your clothing will be ready to go in about a half hour.” She moved to the far wall and hit a button, and when a bench folded out of the wall she sat and waited expectantly for him to disrobe.

“Uh, any such thing as privacy on this tub?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, sir, but this is a warship and you’re a stranger. It’s either me or someone from security.”

Callahan shook his head and sighed. “Well, at least you’re cute,” he muttered under his breath…

…and she smiled. 

“Thanks, sir.”

“And the name is, again, Harry.”

“Sorry, sir. Word is that, well, that you were an officer, and I’m not…so you know how that goes.”

“Well,” Callahan sighed, shaking his head in dismay, “I still think you’re cute.”

Callahan smiled as she blushed, then he peeled off his shoes and khakis, amazed that there were still traces of garp on his clothes, so he delicately unbuttoned his shirt and slipped out of it, then his boxers too, depositing everything in a plastic bag which, as soon as he was naked, disappeared with a wump-whoosh down a vacuum chute. He stepped inside the cubicle and closed the door, and when he hit the red pressurization button his ears popped. He picked the shower head off its mount and tentatively hit the blue activation button.

A high pressure mist that smelled vaguely of pine trees jetted out the head and before he moved it closer to his skin he watched the mist consolidate before it ‘fell’ up into the drain, and if that wasn’t disconcerting enough traces of his nausea returned and he choked down another tide of rising bile. He hurried and finished up, then hit the blue water button again. The door didn’t open; instead, a hot, hurricane force wind blew through the chamber and he spread his legs, let the air do its thing, and after a few  more seconds, the roaring wind stopped and the cubicle door hissed open.

“I feel like I’ve just been through a car wash,” he muttered as he stepped out.

“Sir?”

“Oh, right. Never mind.”

“I pulled a different kind suit out for you, sir. Captain Ripley wants you in an EVA suit, so you’ll put on an under-liner first.”

Callahan shrugged. “You say so. What about socks and underwear?”

“Uh, no sir. The suit’s fabric breathes, and if you get cold it can activate a heating circuit.”

“Callahan nodded. “I hate to say it, but I’m already feeling a little nauseous again. I think watching the water flow up got me.”

She looked at a gauge strapped to her wrist. “I can give you another dose in 70 minutes, sir. Any sooner and you might just feel worse. There are blue dispensers along every corridor onboard, and there are disposable bags you can use if you need to. Now, let’s get you back down to the hangar deck.”

“MacKenzie mentioned the EOB…what is that, exactly?”

“I’m not sure, exactly. That area is off limits most of the time, except when we’re at battle stations.”

“So, you won’t be going with me?”

“That’s not up to me, sir.”

“I see,” Harry said, though in truth he didn’t. At least he was beginning to understand that life on this ship was a very tightly regulated affair, and he was beginning to understand why.

“Okay sir, if you’ll follow me…?”

“Mind if I hang onto you again?”

“No sir, of course not.”

“I guess old men like me, well, we don’t…we’re not much of a threat to young gals anymore, are we?”

“Sir? You’re not old.”

Callahan froze. Then he looked down at his hands. 

No age spots.

He bent over and saw two intact legs.

“Is there a mirror in here? You know, maybe a hair brush and a tooth brush, all that stuff?”

“Yessir, in there…”

While he finished slipping into the jumpsuit and getting the slippers on he realized his body wasn’t fighting him anymore. His hips and knees felt good, and the big bunion on his right foot was gone. When he made it into the ‘washroom’ the mirror confirmed it. He looked exactly as he had when he’d been flying Hueys in ‘Nam.

“Well, fuck-a-doodle-doo,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. His hair was thick again and as he ran his fingers along his scalp his hair felt soft, not brittle. But…where were the toothbrushes? “Uh, Patty? Toothbrushes? Where are they?”

She popped into the compartment, opened a medicine cabinet and pulled out something that looked like a mouthpiece. “These aren’t disposable so you’ll want to put it in this case and keep it with you until they assign you quarters. You just slip this in your mouth then hook up this tube to the port there. Same principle as the shower. A dental spray, under pressure, gets the teeth and gums, and at the same time the fluids get suctioned out and recycled.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Oh, no sir. You select the flavor you prefer on this panel, here. Mint or cinnamon, or my favorite, coconut-ginger.”

“I’ll try that one.”

She leaned across him to make the selection for him and suddenly he was acutely aware that this was a woman and he was a man and she was indeed cuter than hades. “Can I help you get it inserted, sir?” she asked.

“This is a trick question, right?”

“I go off-shift at 1400,” she said. “In case you want to make a little free time?”

+++++

“Well, Callahan, where the hell have you been?” MacKenzie said, still in the hangar deck, though he was grinning now – and still with Captain Ripley by his side.

“I guess you could say I got my clock cleaned, Admiral.”

“Yeah? Well, good for you. Knocking down a few loose cobwebs never hurt anyone.” MacKenzie looked at Harry all the while, grinning too. “Anyway, you look a little pale, but the age must suit you.”

Callahan nodded. “I didn’t realize just how much arthritis had slowed me down. If you don’t mind my asking, how come you…you’re not, well, younger?”

“Not necessary to the mission, Harry. Not this time, anyway. You, on the other hand, will need to be in shape. You’re going to spend a few weeks up here getting ready, then you’re going…well, no, we’ll go over all that with the Old Man.”

“How come…well, I’ve never been…able to…alter my own age before. So…?”

“Yeah, I get it; you can slip through time but your age always stays the same, right? So how did your age change? Is that what you’re asking?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t ask me, Callahan,” MacKenzie said, his smile getting wider as he pointed away from Harry. “Ask him.”

Harry pushed off Patty and turned, then followed MacKenzie’s pointing finger…

…and then he saw nothing but pure white skin. Abdominal skin. He looked up then, and…another wave of memory hit.

“I remember you,” Callahan whispered. “From the desert, in Nevada. But that was years ago?”

“Hello, Harry,” Pak said. “It is good to see you again.”

And once Harry was over the shock of seeing the alien again, he finally realized that Sara was with Pak…

…but no…now there were four of them. Four iterations of Sara, and each appeared almost identical to the other.

“Hello, Harry,” one of them said, stepping closer yet still keeping her distance, letting Callahan come to terms with this new revelation.

Callahan pushed off Patty, moved away from the panic he felt building inside.

“It’s alright,” this new woman added. “I understand.”

“Oh? You understand?” Callahan said. “Well then, why don’t you explain it to me.”

Pak stepped closer to Harry. “You must come with us. You must get ready.”

“Get ready?” Harry barked. “Get ready for what?”

A door hissed open far across the hangar, revealing a bright white ship beyond, in what appeared to be yet another hangar bay.

“We must leave now,” Pak repeated, and this time Callahan heard urgency in the alien’s voice.

Then all four women and Pak strode off towards the airlock, and a confused Callahan looked at MacKenzie – who was still smiling.

“Patty,” Captain Ripley said, “would you help our guest to the shuttle?”

“Yessir.”

Even in the heavy EVA suit, Callahan’s body lifted and gently began moving towards the airlock, and as they drifted along he could see several people were already inside the shuttle, all of them looking at him, and all apparently waiting for him, too.

The four women streamed inside the shuttle, but Pak turned and jetted forward, to what had to be a crew entrance, leaving Patty to herd him to the shuttle’s entrance…

“Hey, Pud-knocker,” he heard one of the men inside the shuttle say…

‘No…it can’t be…’ Callahan thought.

But Frank Bullitt stepped out of the shadows and took Harry’s bewildered hand and pulled him inside the shuttle. “Heard you puked all over yourself,” Frank sighed. “Damn, Meathead, get it together…stop actin’ like a fuckin’ rookie, okay? You’re embarrassing us in front of the aliens.”

Harry looked at Frank, saw the same familiar face-splitting grin, noted his friend was wearing the same white EVA suit everyone else was wearing. “What are you doing here?” he asked Bullitt.

“Same thing you are, Pud. We’re going to war.”

“War?”

One of the women came over now. “You must sit now. We will be under shifting acceleration, and you may find the experience unsettling. Put the helmet on when you’re ready,” she said, handing him a bulky helmet.

“Yeah, war,” Frank said, “and guess who isn’t sitting next to you?”

“What?” Harry sighed, now completely bewildered.

“Not me, Pud. Not if you’re going to do the Vesuvius thing.”

The strange woman shook her head and helped Callahan into his seat, then got him into the 5-point harness before she sat between him and Bullitt.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked the woman.

“To Pak’s ship.”

“And then?”

She didn’t reply, and in fact she hardly acknowledged the question.

“Could I at least know your name?”

And once again she ignored him, but…just then Callahan felt another presence in the shuttle and saw Patty sitting across from him, smiling almost knowingly at his confusion, almost like she was in on the joke, yet he wondered why she was coming too.

The airlock doors hissed shut and his ears popped – again, and he felt a blast of cool air washing over his face. Sure enough, there was an overhead air vent and he twisted it until the air fell off a little. He put the helmet on and then the airlock slammed shut, and more nausea hit him. He didn’t feel anything unusual but saw a view port on the far side of the hull and for a moment he saw the shuttle leaving the hangar deck – then, the infinite blackness of space – only there was no sense of acceleration, in fact, no sensation of movement at all. He leaned forward against his harness, saw Frank talking to someone he couldn’t see, then noticed all the usual warnings and signage – about harness use and the locations of the nearest heads – were in English, French, German and Italian – which struck him as odd…if this ship belonged to Pak’s people.

So he turned to the Sara-ish woman by his side and asked “Is this one of our ships?”

“Yes,” came her monosyllabic reply.

“Can I look around?”

“Not yet, but after the jump we can go up to the cockpit if you like.”

“The jump? What’s that?”

“I suggest you lean back and close your eyes,” she said.

Harry noticed everyone else was now doing exactly that, even Frank, which meant that he’d been up here a while…

…and then the pinpricks, the weird sensation of everything stretching, but then…a constricted, heavy feeling in his chest…

“Something’s wrong,” Harry said inside his helmet.

“What’s wrong?” he heard Patty say through a tiny speaker.

“My chest…pressure…I think…I feel like I’m having a heart attack…”

With those words, both Patty and the woman seated by his side sprang into action. 

Harry felt pressure building in his chest, saw an oxygen mask being fitted over his face, and then the world started spinning, turning white, and suddenly he knew that this was it. That he was dying.

‘How odd. This doesn’t make sense. Well, at least the pain’s stopped, but hey, what a way to go…getting laid and then kicking the…’

 © 2024 adrian leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites. com | this is fiction and nothing but, plain and simple.

Let’s close out with Civil Twilights Letters From The Sky.