Author's note: This chapter contains a couple of mild swear words that are allowed under a "PG" rating in the UK. I am not sure about America, so if you feel the use of these words needs a "PG-13", let me know and I'll change it. NorthernStar
Four - Forever More…
Andromeda had barely time to change into something more formal to meet the Tellan transport. She doubted any of the government would be on board but creating a strong and positive front wouldn't be possible if she allowed anyone from the planet's authorities see the ship in a less than orderly fashion.
The air lock opened and a small party stepped out. A tall, stern faced Tellan woman with broad shoulders and large black eyes. Beside her was another woman, a human woman with cinnamon skin and darkly shadowed eyes. And behind them both, two huge bodyguards.
Rommie put on her most dazzling smile. "Welcome to the Andromeda, the foremost ship of the New Commonwealth."
The stern woman gave her a withering look, "the only ship of the New Commonwealth." She said tersely, "where is the captain?"
"He's been detained for the moment. If you'll follow me I can give you a tour of the Andromeda and then I will escort you to the bridge where Captain Hunt will-"
"You will take us to the bridge now."
Rommie fought down the need to strangle this woman, "if you prefer."
"I prefer. I have no interest in your ship and to be honest, I have no interest in your commonwealth. But the president doesn't share my view."
Her tone was decidedly frosty and Rommie considered lowering the temperature of the room to show this woman what frostiness she was capable of. But her human aide gave the AI an apologetic smileand she realised the rest of the party would suffer the cold too.
"If you'll come this way…"
Seamus Zelany Harper rolled out of his bed and trod on something hard and sharp. He let out a howl, grabbed his sore foot in his hands and hopped to keep his balance. He succeeded for about 10 seconds before he came crashing down among the junk that littered his quarters.
"I gotta reprogram one of those droids to do some cleaning in here."
Rommie's hologrammic form appeared beside him, arms crossed, "do your own dirty work Harper."
"Rommie!" He flashed a grin and lay a hand over his heart, "in my quarters. This is all so sudden!"
"You've been awake for six minutes and your mind is already in the gutter. I believe that's a new record."
"Only cos you put it there, baby." He smiled, "and hey, come by tomorrow and we'll see if we can get it down to four minutes."
He got to his feet and stumbled through the bits of machinery, clothes, data transparencies and tools towards the bathroom. He disappeared inside and she heard the distinctive sound of water running. His head popped round the door with a cheerful leer on his face, "wanna join me?"
She didn't even dignify that with an answer and moved further back into the room to give the man some privacy while he showered. Dylan had asked her to occupy their Harper while they questioned the future Harper and tried to make sense of everything. The captain planned on getting the engineer down on Tellan and off the Andromeda as soon as possible, but until then she had to keep him from discovering that there was now two of him on board. Send him on a wild goose chase down the Slipstream Drive exhaust chasm if nessicary, but on no accounts was he to be told there was another him on the ship.
She listened to Harper singing, surprisingly well, in the shower and she fought down her annoyance at the government co-ordinator her android self was escorting to the bridge. And she was running through Tyr and Rev's data to confirm their findings. And about a million other ship wide operations too.
After nearly fifteen minutes, Harper emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and using another to scrub his hair. He grabbed a white T-shirt from the 'clean' pile by his bed and went to pull it over his head. He noticed Rommie was still there.
Before he could say anything, she got there first; "I'm detecting a glitch in my central slipstream processors." She lied. Tracing through those systems would take days.
"I just upgraded 'em last week!"
Rommie frowned, "then it is possible that my self diagnostic perimeters have become corrupted and need realigning."
He sighed, "gotta stop by the med deck first," he tapped his throat, "gettin' a cold." He was putting his underwear on as he spoke and he jumped when Rommie snapped, "NO!"
"Relax, the towel's staying on 'til they're up."
Rommie's eyebrow's shot up.
"I meant," she said coldly, "that the realignment should take priority. Without proper self diagnostics, I am vulnerable."
"It'll take five minutes," he protested, "c'mon, Rommie, this festival we're goin' to is, like, the biggest party in the twelve systems, I can't miss it cos I'm sick! Where's that heart I gave you?"
"I will tell Trance bring you some anti-virals."
"Rommie, I gotta go past the med deck on my way down there, I could just-" He stopped and she knew she was in trouble. "You're stalling!" He accused her.
"No."
"I gave you that face and I know when its lying to me!"
She stared him down; "Trance will bring you the anti-virals." She repeated.
Trance made her way down to the Slipstream Drive chamber, glad of the chance to get away from the med deck and the future Harper. She had been nervous in his presence, fighting down the urge to both beg him to tell her the truth and talk about what was going on inside her head right now. It wouldn't matter anymore; her secrets were nothing now.
Harper knew them anyway…
That he would know them one day somehow didn't surprise her. His curiosity about her was nothing new and their close friendship, her trust in him, was already lighting the way to that truth. But he wasn't ready to know them now.
She wasn't ready for him to know them now.
She transferred the hypo of anti-virals she carried to her other hand and reached out to open a door. She wasn't going directly to Harper, there was somewhere she needed to go first.
She stepped through the doorway into the darkened cargo hold where Tyr and Rev had taken the lifepod for storage. She let her eyes adjust to the gloom, not wanting to activate the lights and alert Rommie to her presence in the bay. Gradually her eyes grew accustomed and she was able to make out the shape of the lifepod sitting in the middle of the huge and otherwise completely empty cargo bay.
The pod's blackened surface called to her and she walked towards it. Faint outlines of words peeked through the scaring. No one would ever be able to read them… even if they had have been whole and undamaged.
But she could…
"Light," she read, and a little further on, "souls."
That was all she could see. The rest was too blackened to make out. She knelt down and looked into the little compartment. Something glittered in the dull light. Trance reached out and picked it up. It was a bracelet…
The bracelet…
She stared at it in horror and flung it across the bay. It clanked against the wall somewhere and fell to the ground.
It couldn't be…. It couldn't be….
Dylan debated whether to delay the meeting with the Tellan party and question the future Harper or leave that conversation for later. He decided that Harper could wait and barely made it to the bridge himself when the doors opened and the Tellan party walked in. Two men, obviously bodyguards, and two women who he guessed where the representatives of the government.
He stood to greet them and held out his hand. "Welcome to the Andromeda Ascendant."
The human woman smiled; the Tellan did not. And unfortunately, it was the latter that replied.
"My government sends you its greetings." She said, "I am Tinn'Marr, chief Co-ordinator of the Darva Celebrations."
"Captain Dylan Hunt," he smiled ignoring the acid in her voice. "I'm honoured to meet you. My crew and I have been looking forward to the festival."
She indicated the human woman at her side. "And this is my aide, Kell'Lee."
The human smiled, "Kelly Long." She corrected, "on behalf of the human population of Tallen, welcome to our world."
Dylan smiled in reply, momentarily lost in her warm honeyed voice.
"Captain Hunt," Tinn'Marr interrupted, "we have been delayed long enough. I was instructed to escort you and your crew to the Palace and have been treated most rudely."
"I apologise."
"Accepted," she replied in an icy tone. "However, if you'll follow me…"
"You'll have to forgive me. I'm afraid some of my crew will be detained a little longer. Only my first officer my chief engineer and myself will be attending the presidential dinner tonight. The rest of my crew will join us as soon as possible. Hopefully this situation will be resolved before the Viv-En-Tor ceremony."
"My government was under the impression this was an organised ship of the line. What could possibly take up so much attention in orbit of our world?"
"Just a few minor difficulties."
"I see." Her eyes narrowed, "Now if you allow me to escort you to our world, captain."
Beka groaned when Rommie's holoform appeared in front of her and instructed her to join Dylan at the landing bay. With everything that had happened, she'd forgotten the Andromeda's mission here…and the looming prospect of being paraded, in full formal wear, before the Tellan's media. In a toss up between that and having her nails pulled out, she knew she'd be less concerned about doing the latter. Still, there was now a reason for bargaining…
"What about him?" She shrugged her shoulder in the direction of the doorway. It led through to the small bay where the future Harper was taking a shower. She tried to sound as casual as possible.
Rommie wasn't fooled; "I will watch him."
Beka looked surprised.
"From here." The hologram added.
"Rommie, I know Harper better, I think I should be the one here."
"And that has nothing to do with having to dress up for the President's dinner tonight?"
Beka sighed, "what'll I have in common with a bunch of pompous in-bred…" she saw Rommies look, "…Tellans?"
"For Dylan's sake, I hope it's more than you think." The AI replied, "Tellan has great influence with the surrounding systems. If they sign the Commonwealth agreements, the other governments will be more interested in following suit."
Beka had heard all that before and it still didn't make her happy about having to dress up and make simpering small talk with boring politicians.
Rommie watched her go, uncomprehending of her dislike for these things. A few minutes later, the future Harper came into the room. He was wearing a High Guard uniform that Trance had found out for him and his hair clung damply to his forehead.
"Hey, Rom, long time, no see."
"Trance told me you're well enough for questioning."
"Ooo, 'questioning', don't you mean interrogation?"
"No. We mean you no harm. If you are who you claim to be, you should know that."
"So when's Dylan comin' up to give me that thumb-screws?"
She ignored his comment; in fact, his familiar joking tone took the edge off of her nervousness. "Dylan will be off the ship for a few days, I will be talking to you."
"Lemme guess, Tellan Three?"
Rommie hid her surprise.
"I overheard you talking to Beka."
For a split-second she wanted to ask him if the government would sign the treaty. But that knowledge could change their actions here, change the future. Whatever else happened here, the timeline had to be preserved.
Didn't it?
Something like a smile curled his lips and she wondered if he knew what she was thinking.
"Party with the animals." He murmured.
Harper tossed down the spanner and sniffed back yet another trickle from his nose. Where the hell were Trance and that hypo? He'd finished realigning the diagnostic controls just as Dylan's voice had sounded over the comm, telling him to get down to the docking bay. He'd forgotten about the Festival after his bizarre conversation with Rommie in his quarters. As he'd suspected, there hadn't been anything wrong with the controls. She was stalling him… But why?
He hadn't been able to get anything else from her and their conversation had descended into the usual, but, and the memory made him grin, enjoyable quips.
He sniffed again and decided he couldn't wait any longer. He climbed to his feet and began walking in the direction of the docking bay. Fortunately the route would take him near the med deck. He would just pop in there for something and be at the Tellan transport along with everyone else, pumped full of antis and ready to party.
He chuckled at the thought. "Party with the animals," He muttered to himself.
Trance reached the engineering alcove that Harper was supposed to be working on. She looked around and saw the tools he'd been using laying haphazardly on the floor. That boy never did clear up after himself.
"Harper?" She called hopefully as a nameless dread crept over her and a thousand possibilities presented themselves like thread in a tapestry.
Footsteps behind her and she turned, "I brought you…Beka!"
"Where's Harper?" She asked, "Dylan wanted me to make sure he didn't see… himself on the way to the docking bay."
"He's not here."
Beka's heart rate leapt up, "you don't think…?"
The pair turned and ran for the med deck.
Harper strolled through the main medical bay, heading towards the bio-systems area where the purple alien spent most of her research time. "Trance?"
He entered the main diagnostic area and saw Rommie in her hologrammic presence just standing there. Her face was determined as she walked towards him, but he thought he recognised a touch of agitation in there too. That surprised the hell out of him. He didn't know what was going on, but already he didn't like it.
"Trance has gone looking for you." Rommie told him, stopping in his way.
"Great." He walked past her. "Guess I saved her a trip. Long way down to the Drive."
"No." Rommie's hologrammic image blipped out and blipped in again, switching position to stand in his way once more. "You should go back to engineering."
"I haven't got time. The Festival, remember? Besides, I know what I'm looking for." And he stepped around her again.
She again blipped into his path. "NO." She said firmly.
He stepped around her, "Rommie…"
"I forbid you to go in there." Her hologram was back in his way.
This time he stepped through her. "Look I only wanna cold cure…"
"I will put up a force field."
"Over a cold remedy? Rommie, friendly advice, stick to decaff from now on, OK?"
"Hey Rom," another voice came the doorway, and Harper felt a cold shiver down his spine. "Gotta say hello to me, y'know."
Harper stared at the man in the doorway. It was like looking in the mirror…no, not an ordinary mirror but one of those warped and bubbled mirrors in fairgrounds. The ones that made you fat or thin, short or tall.
His other self walked towards him, "Seamus Z Harper!" His voice was full of delight and Harper found himself matching his grin, more through shock than anything else.
The man put a hand on his neck and gave him a friendly shake, "God, look at you…at me!" He inspected his younger self; "I was such a skinny arsed bastard." And he ruffled Harper's hair.
Harper found his voice, "you're….you're…. ME!" So this was what the other's were hiding.
"Yeah," the other him grinned, "killer, ain't it?" And gave him a 'all lads together' type friendly punch in the stomach.
Harper doubled over, more from surprise as pain. He straightened up slowly, frowning at his other self in confusion. He took his hand away and time seemed to grind almost to a halt. He heard Rommie call his name and he felt his eyes go wide with fascination at what he saw slicked across his palm.
Bright hot blood trickled down his arm, tracing delicate lines and dripped to the floor.
Then his eyes fell away from his hand to look down at the huge red stain spreading across his shirt. He frowned and he looked up at his doppelganger, not understanding. "Why…?" He whispered.
And then everything went black.