Unpleasant Realities
Chapter 47
XLVII
Maria walked into the suite that housed Zan's office and several other government offices and smiled at the receptionist.
"Is Max in his office?"
"He's busy at the moment, Maria. Can I let him know you're here?"
"No. Don't bother. I'll just go on down to his office."
"Maria, I don't…"
It was too late. Maria was already half way down the hall. Reaching the door to Max's office, she stopped to check herself over quickly then reached for the handprint on the door. It had long ago been encoded with her DNA. Like the rest of the group, Maria was authorized to enter at will. She started to press her hand to the handprint, but she heard someone talking inside…
"Zan, that's my last one! Have a heart!"
The voice sounded familiar. Maria stopped and pulled her hand back for a moment to listen.
"You'll get over it."
"I won't. This will do me in. If you do this, it's all over for me, Zan. I'm begging you."
That sounded like Rayylar, Tess' husband.
"That's the way it goes," Max's voice said.
"But you already have seven,
Zan. Let me just have this one! Just one?"
"Can't do it, Rayylar. It would destroy my reputation."
"As a despot?"
"Call it what you will."
"What gives you the right to take them all?"
"See that crown? I'm a king."
Maria's mouth dropped several inches, and she inhaled with a gasp.
"Just give me one more chance, Zan. I can get out of this slump, I'm sure of it."
"Bring some more dough, Rayylar, and I'll think about it."
Maria gasped, then she placed her hand on the handprint quickly, and the door slid open. She was prepared to give Max a scathing earful. Maria didn't know why he was being cruel. It wasn't like Max… at least not like the Max she thought she knew.
Max and Rayylar looked up from the table… and both were smiling.
"Maria! Come on in," Max said.
Maria looked around, perplexed. Then she saw the strands of sugar dough all over the place… on the table… on the chairs… on Max and Rayylar.
"What's going on here," Maria asked, a totally baffled look on her face.
"What do you mean," Max asked. "Oh, you mean the sugar dough? Max reached up and pulled a strand out of his hair.
"We were playing Jaht-Roo," Rayylar answered. Zan took my last star ship. He has beat me seven games now. No one can beat him!"
"Bring some more sugar dough tomorrow," Max said, "and I'll give you another chance… to lose again."
"You're heartless, Zan," Rayylar said with a smile. "If you hadn't had that double deck star destroyer, the one you keep referring to as a 'king,' I could have beat you this time."
Max smiled. "But I did."
"One of these days, Zan! One of these days I'm going to beat you."
"Keep thinking that, Rayylar. They say delusions are good for some people."
Rayylar grinned and shook Max's hand in the Antarian fashion.
"See you tomorrow, Rayylar?"
"Count on it!"
Rayylar smiled and left the office.
"Maria! We can talk now. What brings you here?"
Maria stammered for a moment. I… I forgot. Jaht-Roo! You were playing Jaht-Roo?"
"Yeah…"
"I… I… Oh! Yeah! Liz said to tell you that Durj'ori is at the palace."
"Oh! Good," Max said, jumping up quickly and wiping more sugar dough off his clothes and out of his hair. "Liz and I asked him to come. It's about the baby."
"Jeffy," Maria nodded. "Liz told me. Do you think you'll find him, Max?"
Max shook his head sadly. "I don't know, Maria. We're going to exhaust every effort trying. We'll find him… or spend our lives trying. You can be sure of that."
"I know," Maria said softly. "I've talked to Liz. She's being really brave, but I can see in her eyes that she's hurting. I know I would be."
Max nodded and swallowed. "I want him back, too, Maria. It's been two weeks since Liz remembered Jeffy when we were at the Valenti's place, and we still don't know how we're going to find him. We spent eight days together doing nothing but looking for him and trying to think of some way to get him back. The sphere can't take us to him, because –according to the Drax-ta-Kiya- that timeline was just a bubble and doesn't exist at all anymore. We're talking to Durj'ori today… to see if the Nogi-K'ya can do anything."
"I hope they can help," Maria said. "I really want to see that little guy."
Max swallowed hard, and his eyes misted up. "So do I, Maria. I want to see him again, I mean."
"You remember him, Max?"
"Yeah. As soon as Liz said his name at Jim and Kath's place, I knew what had been missing. Let's go to the palace. You coming with me?"
Maria nodded, and the two of them left quickly together.
**********
Liz closed her eyes and wiped them with the backs of her fingers, then she looked straight at Durj'ori…
"You were able to pop in and out of that bubble whenever you wanted to, Durj'ori. All your people were. What's keeping you from doing it now?"
"The bubble isn't there now," Durj'ori said softly but firmly.
"I understand that. But your people can go backward and forward in time. The bubble was there at some point in time. You can go back to that point in time and find it."
Durj'ori shook his head. "You don't understand. The bubble has no past. It has no future. It was a 'bubble,' not a timeline. When it ceased to exist, it ceased to exist… forever. There is no past for it. I'm… sorry."
"You mean even the Nogi-K'ya can't find it?"
"We cannot find what does not exist."
"But it does," Liz said with absolute conviction. "It does exist. I don't know where. I don't know how. But I feel it, Durj'ori. I feel Jeffy!"
"Those are the instincts of a mother, Elizabeth… the feelings of a mother… maternal instincts. They are powerful… but sometimes they are only that."
"No, they're more," Liz said firmly. "Jeffy is there… somewhere. I don't know where somewhere is, but I know he's there. I will find him."
Durj-ori looked at Liz and then looked at Max. Then he looked down. The unpleasant reality was that there was nothing more to say. Neither he nor any other Nogi-K'ya could find Jeffy… even if they would be willing to, which was a big question mark as it was. Usually, before a Nogi-K'ya would intervene in time matters, their board had to do extensive studies, studies that took longer than humans –or Antarians– with their more limited life spans, could wait.
"I left that bubble," Liz said after a few moments of thought. "and I have memories of it. Max has memories of it, too… just like we all have memories of the alternate timeline. Is it possible to have memories of something that never existed, Durj'ori?"
"I can't answer that, Elizabeth," Durj'ori said. "If you have memories then the answer must be yes. I would not think that it was possible, though."
"Exactly," Liz said. "I'll find Jeffy, Durj'ori. With or without your help… I'll find my baby."
Durj'ori just nodded. "I wish you luck, Elizabeth… and Zan. I am truly sorry that we could not help you find the baby, but I have explained our reasons. We are powerless to help. We would at least study the possibilities for you if there was a hope of our finding your son… but…"
"Alright," Max said, waving Durj'ori off, acknowledging the finality of Durj'ori's decision. "We'll work on other angles, Liz. We haven't exhausted every possibility yet, Hon. Don't give up."
Liz smiled, and her eyes misted up. Then she gave Max a quick kiss on the lips.
**********
At the home of Michael and Maria Guerin, it was dinnertime, and the family sat together around the table. The main topic of discussion, unsurprisingly, was Liz and Max's lost baby.
"I don't know, Maria. Liz never mentioned her relationship with Max in the 'bubble' or whatever it was when we were together. She left and she came right back. I know how time works, but it's really hard for me to grasp that she could have spent a whole year there and got pregnant and had a baby… and I never even suspected anything when she came back. I know it's possible, of course. It just seems so… incredible."
"Well, obviously she did it, Michael. Both of them remember it."
"Yeah. I'm not doubting her memories or her word, Maria. It's just that it's… so incredible. I mean… she left me one moment… She returned like a minute later… and she had had a baby."
"Yeah." Maria smiled. "I'll have to ask her how she did that."
Michael smiled, too. "Well, we know that it really happened and Jeffy was real. Max and Liz both are sure of it, and I trust them, no matter how bizarre or incredible the story may seem."
"Besides," Maria added, "the Nogi-K'ya guy, Durj'ori, confirmed that the bubble did exist… once, and that they were there and Jeffy was there. It just doesn't exist now… anywhere in time apparently."
"Well, see, now that's just odd, too," Michael said, taking another bite of grelliats with Tabasco sauce. "If something once existed, for it to have no past now…"
"It's possible, Dad," Kryys said.
"How?"
"Well, it's kind of like you said. It was a displaced, capsulated, and isolated time event."
"I said that?" Michael asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Maybe not exactly, Dad, but yeah."
"So what does it mean," Michael asked.
"That it has no lasting past or future. When it's gone it's gone. Poof! No more."
"Then how is it that Liz can still feel Jeffy?"
Kryys shook his head. "I don't know."
"Is there something more to time than just time, Kryys?"
Kryys looked at his father. In some way, he actually understood what Michael was getting at.
"There is a place… beyond time," Kryys said. "It's beyond the reach of the Nogi-K'ya."
"What is it? Like… Heaven or something?"
"No… not exactly. Not that far. It's more like when you delete something on your computer. It's gone, but it's still compressed somewhere in the computer. Nothing is ever really gone."
"You mean their baby might be compressed somewhere?"
"No! Of course not! I guess that wasn't a good analogy, Dad. It's more like… everything is made up of atoms. Their baby was made up of atoms. Those atoms still exist. Atoms don't disappear or go away. But the atoms no longer have the forms that they once did. They're scattered now."
"Like when you do your swirly thing…?"
"Yeah… Only I control them and bring them all back together. Jeffy can't do that, so his atoms are no longer in the form that used to be Jeffy."
"So where are they? Spread all over the universe?"
"Maybe. But somewhere… beyond the realm of time… the essence or aura of Jeffy still may exist… and a pattern of who he was. It's not impossible to believe that that could be found and his atoms retrieved and reorganized."
"A pattern… you mean, like an actual blueprint?"
"Well, not like you're thinking of, Dad. More like a sort of resonance in time… a cosmic displacement of sorts where he once was. Like music that came from grooves on what you used to call a record on Earth, Dad. No one had to be there singing, because the grooves produced a resonance that precisely recreated the music. The universe and time are like the grooves of a record. Jeffy would have left an imprint on the universe, and that imprint would produce a resonance… the music. We all do. It might be possible to find it. If it can be found, it could be used to reassemble his original atoms… to reassemble Jeffy."
"Could the Nogi-K'ya do this?"
Kryys smiled. "Not a chance, Dad."
"Could the Drax-ta-Kiya do it?"
"Maybe. I don't know. It's more in his realm than in the time realm that the Nogi's deal with."
"Could you do it?" Michael asked.
Kryys was silent for several moments. "I think… maybe… I'm not sure."
Michael looked at Kryys, and Kryys smiled. "I'll be right back, Dad."
Kryys' body began to glow then dissolved into billions of shining atoms that swirled upward… then through the ceiling… then into the sky above.
"Great," Maria said. "He forgot to wash his hands and face again."
**********
Kryys' atoms reassembled themselves next to the River of Time, and Kryys looked up the river… not with the eyes of a mortal but with a non-mortal awareness. After a time, he saw what he wanted. Dissolving into atoms again, Kryys reappeared somewhere on the other side of the river. It was an odd place… not really anything at all… just… nothing. It was beyond time and mere reality. It was here that Kryys expected to find Jeffy's residual pattern… or resonance… if there was one. Not his actual aura or his soul… those would not be found here… but a sort of pattern of who he had been. It didn't take long. Kryys dissolved into a whirlwind of atoms once more then began to add other atoms to his own. After several minutes, he reappeared at the edge of the River of Time.
Holding out his arms, Kryys summoned the cosmic winds to him. The winds began to blow… faster, then faster, whipping past Kryys' outstretched arms, slowly "building" a small form… one atom at a time. When they were finished, Kryys looked at the figure in his arms. It was a dark-haired baby with an angelic face. It looked back at him… and it smiled.
Kryys smiled back at the baby in his arms. "You are kind of cute… for a baby, I mean."
Kryys held the baby to him and dissolved once more into a whirlwind of atoms, reappearing in the dining room with his parents. He looked at his arms, but Jeffy was not there. Without a word, he dissolved again and reappeared on the edge of the River of Time.
"You tried, Kryys. It didn't work, did it?"
Kryys didn't need to turn around. He knew who it was. "What happened, Master? Where is Jeffy?"
"Where he was. You cannot bring him back, little Sundrop."
"Why not, Master Drax?"
"Ah, little Sundrop! It is one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. Man can do all manner of things to others when they are men… but once they are in this realm, only they can make the decision to leave here."
"But Jeffy's a baby, Master Drax. He can't make any decisions for himself."
"I know, Kryys. And that is why he cannot come back."
"It's not fair, Master Drax. Jeffy would want to be with his Mama if he knew how…"
"But he does not know."
"So there is no hope then, Master?"
"Well… I didn't say that, Sundrop. You have found him. That is something. Now you must find out how to return him."
"Can you tell me, Master?"
"No, Sundrop. It is not because I am unwilling. It is because I do not know. If this is to be done, it is something that powers beyond my own will have to accomplish."
"I must find the way?"
"You must find the way, Sundrop."
Kryys nodded. Then he dissolved and reappeared in his own home.
tbc