Children of the Universe


"The Rise to Power of President Kryys Guerin"

Chapter 35

XXXV

On the planet Alyendis, once known as Earth, it is the year 7,278, and Max, Liz, Michael, Maria, Alex, Isabel, Kyle, Jeliya, Tess, and Rayylar are there, in the future, searching for their missing children. Kryys Guerin, now 53 years old, is president -not of the USA… the USA, as such, doesn't exist any more- but of the World, Alyendis. They have just learned that Lieutenant Jasper killed Mareeya, Taz, Jiba, and Drel forty years before, shortly after bringing them to Alyendis. Still in shock from this revelation, they learned that when Kryys replaced the threads of time around the planet, the deaths of their children were probably reversed; but Kryys has no idea what became of them after that. He knows that their graves are no longer there, and he suspects that they may have returned to Hosk's hands.

After recovering somewhat from the shock of these revelations, the group had many questions for Kryys. If it seemed odd to Michael and Maria that Kryys was older than they were in this time, it didn't seem to matter. Michael thought about it and realized that age was irrelevant. Kryys was -always would be- his cherished son. Nothing could change that, least of all age or years. Maria had already come to the same conclusion, not that either of them had considered even for a moment any other possibility. They simply realized that it was so.

"So… how did you become president, Kryys," Maria asked, "…if it wasn't because you saved the World from the disaster that Lieutenant Jasper created?"

Kryys raised his eyebrows slightly and opened his hands in an I'm-not-sure-I-really-know-myself gesture… "I was just twelve or thirteen when I put the threads of time back like they belonged, so I couldn't be president. And putting the threads all back in their original places had consequences. Everything Lieutenant Jasper had done or owned reverted. He wasn't rich anymore. Rhode Island wasn't his personal estate. Everything he had done changed back to the way it had been before he changed it… and, of course, he didn't kill Mareeya, Taz, Jiba, and Drel."

Tess leaned over and kissed Kryys on the cheek. She whispered, "Thank you," then gently wiped the tears she had left on his cheek off with her fingertips.

Kryys smiled back and nodded knowingly.

"Lieutenant Jasper, when he saw what had happened, ordered me to put the threads back the way they had been again."

Maria gasped. "You didn't… right?"

Kryys shook his head. "I escaped from Jasper and ran. Without money or connections, he had no resources to search for me. I decided not to reveal to anyone that I had been responsible for Alyendis being saved. It wouldn't have mattered. Nobody remembered it being messed up except Jasper and me. Jasper left the planet while I did what I had to do. He didn't want to be there if I destroyed the Earth with what I was doing. Since he wasn't there, his memory somehow wasn't affected by the changes that occurred when I fixed it, but all his riches and former actions on Alyendis were wiped out."

"Where did you go," Michael asked.

"I just ran at first. I got a little money doing odd jobs for people… raking leaves, shoveling snow, mowing grass… you know, whatever I could do and not look suspicious. I earned enough to eat. I slept where I could.

Maria gasped again. "Oh, Kryys!"

Kryys shrugged. "I survived. I did have a little bit of an advantage, though. There are some muggers who could vouch for that." He grinned.

"I want to hear about it, Kryys," Michael said. "What happened?"

"Well… I had been raking leaves and mowing grass all day, and I had seen these four thugs watching me. They knew that I didn't have a home, and they followed me back to where I was staying. They surrounded me and started shoving me back and forth between them, demanding I give them my money and laughing. Then one of them pulled out a knife and plunged it into my heart."

Maria's eyes went wide, and she would have gasped again, but her breath caught in her throat.

"What happened," Rayylar asked, leaning forward in his seat, his eyes almost as wide as Maria's.

"I changed into molecules. Then I sort of took him apart molecule by molecule and released his molecules into the air. The others watched for a few moments then ran for their lives. I never saw them again."

"They're probably still running!" Kyle said. Alex grinned and nodded.

"Omigod, Kryys, that's so scary!" Isabel said. "Weren't you scared?"

"I guess not, really," Kryys said. "It was more of an annoyance. I knew I could defend myself, but I was annoyed at being treated that way and didn't like it."

"Who would?" said Tess.

"Anyway, after that, I realized that I was going to need more than just the ability to survive, so I turned myself in at the police station and told them that I had been kidnapped from another planet and taken through time and didn't know how to get home."

"Did they believe you?" Jeliya asked.

Kryys nodded. "I guess so. Alyendis had been trading with other planets for over a thousand years already by then, so it wasn't beyond the realm of believability. I told them about Lieutenant Jasper, where he was, and that he was the kidnapper. And they arrested him."

"Did you tell them what he did to the Earth," Maria asked, "…or what you did to save it?"

Kryys shook his head. "No. I kept that to myself, and Jasper never mentioned it, either, for obvious reasons. But it turned out he was wanted on a number of warrants already for other crimes, so the authorities were glad to get him. They just added kidnapping to his charges."

"Good!" Maria said. "I hope he got put away forever!"

"Pretty much," Kryys said nodding. "They had a lot on that guy."

"What happened after that," Alex asked.

"Well… I went into a government home for orphans for the next five years."

Maria put her hands over her face, and tears welled up in her eyes. A huge lump caught in her throat.

"It wasn't so bad, really. I studied, went to high school, got a scholarship to Harvard…"

"Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Just a minute!" Michael stopped him. "You got a scholarship to Harvard?"

Kryys nodded. Maria beamed. Michael seemed initially bemused… then he grinned. "Well, I guess you do take after your old man."

Maria nudged Michael in the ribs with an elbow, smiling. "Get real, Michael! Roswell High may still remember you, but I'm sure it's not for academic skill."

"I was a pretty good artist," Michael corrected.

Maria kissed him. "That you were… and are… And you were smart enough to marry me, so I'll give you that." She grinned.

"So you went to Harvard, huh?" Michael said to Kryys. "Did you… you know… do okay?"

Kryys shrugged. "I guess so… I was Valedictorian."

Maria, already sitting on the edge of her seat, fell off with a thump onto the floor. Michael helped her up.

"What happened?"

"Sorry," she said, turning slightly red.

"He was Valedictorian," Michael repeated in case Maria had missed it.

"Do you even know what a Valedictorian is?" Maria asked.

"It's the person who gives a speech at graduation… so?"

"And how does that person get chosen?"

"Everybody votes, I guess… like most popular…"

Maria nodded, "You made my point."

Liz, always the studious one, the one who once said she wanted to be head of the molecular physics department at Harvard when she grew up, sat with her mouth open, unable to think of anything to say but, "Way to go, Kryys!"

"After graduation, I started my own law firm, got married, sold my law firm after a few years, then ran for Governor and after that for President…"

Maria stopped him this time. "I knew when I saw your son that he had to be… you know… he had Michael's eyes."

Kryys smiled and nodded. "I always said he had my Dad's eyes.

"Where's your wife?" Isabel asked.

Kryys smiled slightly, as though appreciating a memory. He looked down at the floor then up… "She died fifteen years ago." Kryys stopped for a few moments to swallow a lump that had come into his throat. "The sad thing is, only two years after she died, we found a cure for the Vorian flu."

"I'm so sorry," Isabel said, "I didn't know."

Kryys shook his head. "It's alright."

"Vorian flu?" Liz questioned. "What is that? I never heard of it."

"Way after your time," Kryys said. "…in your future. It's an insidious, virulent form of influenza that began on the planet Vorus about twenty-five years ago. It killed hundreds of thousands of Vorians and spread to several hundred other planets before we found the cure fifteen years ago. Now it's no more serious than a mild cold. But the toll it took before the cure was found was terrible."

Kryys wiped the corner of his eye with the back of his index finger.

"To tell you the truth, except for my son and his family, I would give everything up to get back the life I lost, the chance to grow up at home with my real parents, my brother and my sister. Those are the things that matter in life. The rest is just… I don't know…"

For a couple of awkward minutes, no one spoke. No one quite knew what to say.

"Well," Kryys said after some time had passed, "that's pretty much the story of my life. There's not much more to tell."

"I'll bet there's a lot there that you could tell," Alex said. "You've been through a lot, and you don't even think of it as unusual." Alex smiled at Kryys, seeming to understand what lay behind the dispassionate face across from him.

Kryys motioned toward the inside door… "I asked my staff to prepare a special dinner. I hope you'll join me."

Maria and Michael both nodded. They looked at the others; they nodded, too.

"I can't think of anything we'd rather do," Michael said with a smile.

Kryys led the group to the White House dining room. For the next two hours, they talked about Antar and about Kryys' rise to the presidency. It wasn't nearly long enough for Maria… or for Michael. But it filled both of their hearts with a joy that they had not imagined. It would have to do. They still had to find the other children. Kryys, perhaps more than anyone, understood that only too well.

--------------------------End of Chapter 35