Trance lay sprawled on the floor of the hydroponics garden, brushing
artificial soil from her hair and clothes. "Harper, what's going on? I feel
like I've been picked up and shaken by a giant Magog!"
There was no answer from the engineer. Trance quickly glanced around the hydro garden. All she saw were her plants--some upended on the deck, some tipped precariously in their holders, looking as if they were hanging on with little leafy hands to keep from falling. "Rommie, what just happened here?" Trance asked in a bewildered voice. The hologram Rommie appeared in front of Trance as she got to her feet shakily.
"We were pulled into a super-gravitational side channel of the slipstream. I am slightly damaged, but Harper should be able to repair everything quickly. Speaking
of Harper." Rommie frowned as her sensors swept the hydroponics garden. "I'm not reading any of his life signs since the incident." She looked inward to her sensors throughout her warship self, then looked up at Trance with astonishment, "He's no longer on board the Andromeda."
Trance gasped and took a step backward. "Oh, no! I didn't know we were so
close or I would have warned Dylan to steer clear of this sector!"
"What are you talking about, Trance? Do you know where Harper is?"
"It's not where he is, although I do know that--it's when he is that's the problem." Trance heaved a great sigh. "I guess I'll have to tell Dylan and everyone else. Please ask them all to meet me on the command deck."
Five minutes later, Trance stood before Dylan, Tyr, Rev, Beka, and Rommie. She could not meet their eyes as everyone looked at her expectantly. Finally, Dylan could stand the silence no longer. He reached out and gently cupped Trance's chin in his hand, tipping her head up so she was forced to meet his gaze, "Trance, if you have something to tell us about what happened to Harper, please get on with it so we can work at getting him back."
"It's all my fault, I should have seen this coming and done something to stop it!" Two golden tears shimmered in Trance's eyes but she would not let them fall. "It was supposed to be me! I don't know how Harper got dragged in and I got left behind." "Harper got dragged into where?" Dylan was struggling to understand Trance's broken story. "Into the time/space vortex that was created when my world imploded 300 years ago. My race is very secretive" Trance ignored the xasperated sighs of her shipmates.they knew all to well how closely she guarded information about herself. "After the fall of the Commonwealth, an outcast pride of Nietzscheans happened upon our 'well-hidden' planet. The Nietzscheans came and enslaved everyone on the planet. Since our species is not a warlike race, the high elders decided that the only thing they could do to defeat the Nietzscheans was to blow up our planet and the ubers with it. You see, our elders were very powerful thinkers but very weak physically."
"Okay, but what does that have to do with Harper? C'mon, Trance, give us the whole story and quit beating around the bush-we have a Harper to save!" Beka was almost beside herself with anxiety and worry for her engineer.
"Our elders lived for thousands of years and were able to develop their minds in ways I don't even understand. They were able to focus all their considerable mental forces upon the very planet that they stood on, creating a sort of mind bomb that destroyed the planet and killed all the Nietzscheans. The elders used the last of their vital force to try to save the people who had survived the Nietzschean occupation. They weren't able to save all of us, but were able to use the vortex that was created during the implosion and send a few of us ahead in time to where we would hopefully be safe."
"And you were one of the people they sent into the future?" Dylan was astonished at Trance's story.
"Yes, but if any of us get within a certain distance of the vortex, it sucks us back in and sends us back in time to our old world." Trance's lips curved up in a small smile at a memory, " Speaking of old worlds, just before we went through the vortex, Harper was remarking on how different the plants I grow in the hydroponics garden are from what he grew up knowing on earth."
Rev Bem laid a heavy but gentle hand upon Trance's shoulder. "My dear, forgive me for speaking my mind and heart, since I am only a visitor here today, but do you think that Harper was taken by the vortex because he was thinking so strongly of his past life...and you were left because you have changed so much since that day your world ended?" "That's all I can think of, Rev. But the question is not whether he got drawn into the vortex, but where it took him. I don't know if he was sent back in time to my world . . . or his!"
There was no answer from the engineer. Trance quickly glanced around the hydro garden. All she saw were her plants--some upended on the deck, some tipped precariously in their holders, looking as if they were hanging on with little leafy hands to keep from falling. "Rommie, what just happened here?" Trance asked in a bewildered voice. The hologram Rommie appeared in front of Trance as she got to her feet shakily.
"We were pulled into a super-gravitational side channel of the slipstream. I am slightly damaged, but Harper should be able to repair everything quickly. Speaking
of Harper." Rommie frowned as her sensors swept the hydroponics garden. "I'm not reading any of his life signs since the incident." She looked inward to her sensors throughout her warship self, then looked up at Trance with astonishment, "He's no longer on board the Andromeda."
Trance gasped and took a step backward. "Oh, no! I didn't know we were so
close or I would have warned Dylan to steer clear of this sector!"
"What are you talking about, Trance? Do you know where Harper is?"
"It's not where he is, although I do know that--it's when he is that's the problem." Trance heaved a great sigh. "I guess I'll have to tell Dylan and everyone else. Please ask them all to meet me on the command deck."
Five minutes later, Trance stood before Dylan, Tyr, Rev, Beka, and Rommie. She could not meet their eyes as everyone looked at her expectantly. Finally, Dylan could stand the silence no longer. He reached out and gently cupped Trance's chin in his hand, tipping her head up so she was forced to meet his gaze, "Trance, if you have something to tell us about what happened to Harper, please get on with it so we can work at getting him back."
"It's all my fault, I should have seen this coming and done something to stop it!" Two golden tears shimmered in Trance's eyes but she would not let them fall. "It was supposed to be me! I don't know how Harper got dragged in and I got left behind." "Harper got dragged into where?" Dylan was struggling to understand Trance's broken story. "Into the time/space vortex that was created when my world imploded 300 years ago. My race is very secretive" Trance ignored the xasperated sighs of her shipmates.they knew all to well how closely she guarded information about herself. "After the fall of the Commonwealth, an outcast pride of Nietzscheans happened upon our 'well-hidden' planet. The Nietzscheans came and enslaved everyone on the planet. Since our species is not a warlike race, the high elders decided that the only thing they could do to defeat the Nietzscheans was to blow up our planet and the ubers with it. You see, our elders were very powerful thinkers but very weak physically."
"Okay, but what does that have to do with Harper? C'mon, Trance, give us the whole story and quit beating around the bush-we have a Harper to save!" Beka was almost beside herself with anxiety and worry for her engineer.
"Our elders lived for thousands of years and were able to develop their minds in ways I don't even understand. They were able to focus all their considerable mental forces upon the very planet that they stood on, creating a sort of mind bomb that destroyed the planet and killed all the Nietzscheans. The elders used the last of their vital force to try to save the people who had survived the Nietzschean occupation. They weren't able to save all of us, but were able to use the vortex that was created during the implosion and send a few of us ahead in time to where we would hopefully be safe."
"And you were one of the people they sent into the future?" Dylan was astonished at Trance's story.
"Yes, but if any of us get within a certain distance of the vortex, it sucks us back in and sends us back in time to our old world." Trance's lips curved up in a small smile at a memory, " Speaking of old worlds, just before we went through the vortex, Harper was remarking on how different the plants I grow in the hydroponics garden are from what he grew up knowing on earth."
Rev Bem laid a heavy but gentle hand upon Trance's shoulder. "My dear, forgive me for speaking my mind and heart, since I am only a visitor here today, but do you think that Harper was taken by the vortex because he was thinking so strongly of his past life...and you were left because you have changed so much since that day your world ended?" "That's all I can think of, Rev. But the question is not whether he got drawn into the vortex, but where it took him. I don't know if he was sent back in time to my world . . . or his!"