Feels like whiplash to me, this bouncing back between stories. You think you get confused? It’s so much easier to sit and concentrate on just one story, but Time being time and all (somewhat finite) sometimes, when the muse sings, I just have to spin off into a new circle. So…a new, small piece of the puzzle today, and maybe time for tea – but I doubt it.

A little less music in this part of the tale, too, but I ran across a track a few days ago and the vibe just seems to fit this sequence of Harry’s life. Circle of Hate, by Hypnogaja, also just might be the anthem of the current moment, just as it may best sum up Harry’s predicament in this part of TimeShadow. At any rate, please do give it a listen, but I will warn you straightaway, this is not an easy piece to absorb – Hypnogaja’s music rarely is. YouTube’s audio quality is also not up to the demands this track places on most systems, so I’d recommend trying it out on a good streaming service. I’d also like to point out the change in structure at the 2:50 mark. In OutBound I spoke of raw power in music, and I can think of no better example of that than what you’ll experience in this last stretch.

First You Make a Stone of Your Heart

5.11

Pressure. Pressure everywhere. Implosion morphs to explosion – mind tries to grasp atoms flying apart, time bending and shapeshifting – time rushing by like telephone poles beside a highway – all form dissolving and bending in speed and time.

Then, nothing. Black, everything everywhere is black, then shimmering white, and Callahan is conscious enough to recognize inrushing death – but then – is it death, or undeath? The feeling is in an instant anything but death, everything except the entombing nothingness. The pressure returns and the sensation of speed is overwhelming…then it is as if atoms coalesce and order returns…

Then he is standing in a dank, cavern-like corridor, the curving walls glistening with seminiferous secretions, the smell putrid, gut wrenching, and Callahan tries to cover his nose with his hands but everything feels wrong here. His hands weigh so much he can’t even bend his arms.

And that’s when he realizes his hands are transparent, and when he understands that Pak is with him – inside his mind, pushing him to move, here to guide him.

‘This way?’

‘No, old friend, behind you, and do not touch these walls. They are alive and I cannot protect you.”

Callahan can hardly turn his head but he manages to peer into the walls; he sees twisted, snake-like malevolence lurking inside layers of hidden chambers. Gestating things take shape beyond, like leathery eggs being laid by an insect that must be fifteen feet tall. He thinks it looks like Hell inside a nightmare and his mind does not want to accept what it perceives.

‘Follow the corridor,’ Pak advises. ‘There is a control room ahead. I need you to enter, to approach the being inside. I need you to study this being’s features, tell me what else you see, then you will return to my ship.’

Callahan tries to take a step but his leg hardly moves. ‘What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I walk?’

‘Be patient. The gravity here is immense, the force too much for my body. I am sorry to ask this of you, but your body will repair itself. Mine will not.’

‘Good God,’ Callahan thinks as he struggles to lift the heel of his left foot. He slides the ball of his foot forward then plants it firmly on the slippery black surface, then he makes the same lift-slide step with his right foot, and then he recognizes the dead weight of his prosthetic right leg and with a sigh understands his body is old once again. 

Another step, the muscles in his thighs burning now, even just standing still. His mind struggles with this reality, then he realizes he isn’t breathing. “I can’t breathe,” he cries, as panic wells up, and as tunnel vision sets in.

‘Be patient, old friend, it is the dilation. You are doing well.’

And Harry realizes that, yes, he feels fine when he relaxes, aside from the pressure and the burning in his muscles, so he pushes ahead. There is no time reference in this place, and he cannot sense the passage of time, only that he is getting closer to the control room Pak told him was just ahead. He is aware that the muscles in his thighs and lower back are cramping, and one spasm runs from his left calf all the way up to his groin and he wants to quit…

‘I don’t quit,’ Callahan tells himself as he remembers the physical agility courses he ran day after day when he was in academy. He remembers the pain, the unknown consequences of quitting. In a combat situation if you quit you die, simple as that, so you never quit. Now, lift your foot, slide it forward and transfer your weight, take the next sliding step…

‘You are almost there, old friend.’

‘I don’t see a door…’

“In this state you will pass through the wall, but you must observe quickly – because as soon as you enter his space the being will begin to sense your presence. The being will react, and as soon as it does you will be in great danger.’

‘Okay. How do I get out?”

‘You must tell me, old friend, but I also must warn you. When you see this being react to your presence you must act quickly. If you fail to communicate instantly, you will not survive. Old friend, again I warn you. What you see there may overwhelm your senses.”

‘I don’t quit,’ Callahan thought as he pushed on.

‘I know, my friend. This is why you are here. This is why I summoned you to the desert.’

A minute – or a million years – passes,  then he is at the wall; Callahan thinks the material looks odd, like it is alive. He leans close, his face inches from the surface, and he sees the surface is alive with tiny black organisms, respirating organism, and he wonders what they are…

‘They clean the atmosphere,’ Pak said, ‘and at the same time they regenerate the respiratory compounds the being needs to survive.’

‘Like air?’

‘The purpose is similar, yes, but the mechanisms are different.’

‘What should I do now?’

‘Gather your energy. You must step through quickly. The organisms within the wall react to intrusions. This reaction will alert the being inside.’

‘I understand.’ Callahan looks ahead, steels his nerves, then pushes through the thick wall. He feels the organisms within move away, feels an electric charge building…

Then he is through.

The space looks nothing like a control room. Huge conduits snake out of another organic wall and drop perhaps 50 meters away; they feed into a large sphere. The orb is surrounded by lasers that are firing onto the sphere’s surface and Callahan thinks it looks like pictures of fusion reactors he’s seen – but then a translucent black sphere emerges from within…

Callahan feels the being before he sees it. It is brownish-gray, short, squat, and utterly malevolent. And – two humans? – are with the being. They are in spacesuits, gray-green spacesuits, and their backs are to Callahan. More human astronauts drift around the sphere – in weightlessness.

Then the being is slowly turning to face Callahan, while the ‘humans’ have yet to react.

Callahan knows what he must do.

‘Can I do it?’

He closes his eyes, focuses, and in the next instant he is on the far side of the room.

And he can see the humans within the spacesuits. ‘Ted Sorensen. That’s Ted Sorensen…’ His mind revolts as his…

… eyes move to the other human – and as he peers inside the helmet this other human is instantly recognizable.

‘Oh God, Ted. What have you done?’

“What you could never do, Harry,” Sorensen said, now staring directly at Callahan. “You had neither the strength nor the stomach for what must be done.”

He felt something foreign reaching for him. Some kind of energy. From the being…

Then the stretching and annihilation, time bending and squeezing, and then he feels something solid under his back. Pak’s people are standing over him. Strange looking instruments. In there. Hands. He feels his heart hammering in his chest and in his temples. He inhales explosively. A mask slips over his face. His eyes close as cool oxygen floods his lungs.

+++++

“I never thought they’d reach out for him here,” MacKenzie sighed, shaking his head in disbelief.

“That was pretty much a clear treaty violation,” Nimitz said, looking to Ray Spruance for his opinion. “So, now we know they’re willing to use a capability they promised they wouldn’t.”

“But they’re willing to use it now, aren’t they?” President Roosevelt said, shaking his head. “Well, Chester? What do you think now? Why now?”

“We need to talk to Callahan first,” Nimitz started to say.

“Maybe,” Spruance grumbled, “or maybe not. I think their intent is crystal clear, Mr. President.”

“War?” Roosevelt asked, turning away from his admirals, looking through a window at the hive of activity on Hangar Deck 2.

“Yes, Mr. President,” Spruance sighed. “They’ve decided to act – now. We need to get ready.”

“Why does it always have to end this way? Hasn’t anyone, anywhere learned anything?”

A view screen flickered and came alive; Roosevelt and his admirals turned to watch the incoming message, but no, this looked like a live-feed. From Pak’s ship, from a medical facility inside Pak’s flagship. Pak was standing beside Callahan’s bed – Harry was propped up, looking at the display on his end, and MacKenzie thought Harry looked just about dead.

Roosevelt stepped forward, turned his attention to the homicide detective on the hospital bed. “Sorry we had to meet under these circumstances, Detective.”

MacKenzie smiled when he recognized the dismayed disbelief in Callahan’s eyes, so he stepped forward. “You recognize me, Harry?” MacKenzie asked.

“Sure, Spudz, but is that who I think it is?”

“Unless you’re a complete moron, yes,” MacKenzie nodded as Ray Spruance came up to his side.

“Uh, son, we need to know what you’ve learned.”

“What happened to me?” Callahan asked. “I mean, I was just sitting in the shuttle and then…”

“We don’t know the reasons yet but, Detective, this use of this technology represents a de facto act of war. The fact that the Grays knew of your presence on Hyperion, and that they were willing to conduct this operation while you were onboard our flagship, speaks for itself.”

“Detective,” Roosevelt said, clinching his fists as he spoke, “we need to know what you saw onboard that ship. And the sooner we know, the better.”

“There was some kind of machine, huge, really huge, and a black sphere emerged from the machine while I watched. I saw about a dozen heavily armed astronauts moving around it. There was a short, weird looking alien and two humans in spacesuits standing beside the alien.”

“Humans?” MacKenzie said, surprised. “With the alien?”

“Yessir. I recognized Ted Sorensen first, before he recognized me.”

“Sorensen? That bastard was up there?”

“Yessir.”

Spruance hesitated, then stepped forward a little before he spoke. “Callahan? Did Sorensen seemed surprised to see you?”

Callahan nodded. “Yessir.”

“You said two humans,” Nimitz said. “Did you get a good look at the other one?”

Callahan nodded, but now he seemed reluctant to speak.

“Harry?” Spudz said. “We need to know.”

Harry looked away and shook his head, then he turned back to MacKenzie, obviously upset.

“Harry? Who was it?”

Callahan took a deep breath and nodded as he exhaled. “Hitler.”

“Well, damn,” Roosevelt sighed – as his shoulders collapsed under the weight of this latest revelation, but then he turned and left the room.

Pak stepped forward to address the admirals. “Harry can return when the decontamination is complete. Perhaps ten hours. Then we bring on shuttle.”

“Thank you, Pak. We’ll talk then,” Nimitz said, and a moment later the screen went back to black.

“Where’d Roosevelt go?” MacKenzie asked.

“I see a three martini night in our future,” Nimitz said, smiling.

But not Spruance. Not the architect of Japan’s defeat at Midway.

“You don’t see it, do you?” Spruance asked, now even more angry.

“See what, Ray?” Chester Nimitz sighed, clearly exhausted by the day’s ordeals.

“Pak. You missed it. Pak said he could track Callahan through displacements within the continuum, that he could get Callahan back for us.”

“Yes. So, what of it?”

“Sorensen was surprised. Callahan said Sorensen was surprised to see him, so am I off base in thinking that Pak yanked Callahan from this ship and sent him over there, to the Gray’s ship – to find out who the Grays are forming alliances with?”

MacKenzie crossed his arms protectively. “But that would mean…”

“Yes it would, wouldn’t it?” Spruance growled.

“Sun Tzu,” Nimitz sighed. “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

“Okay,” Spruance said, “but what does that make Pak? Is he our friend, or our enemy?”

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