Romance On The Dimensional Rift
Chapter 61
LXI
Max set the controls on automatic and sat back to relax for awhile with Liz at his side. The fact is, Varec had preprogrammed the ship to traverse the dimensions and find earth in the dimension that he had named the "Y Dimension" automatically. However, Max still preferred to be at the controls… if for no other reason than to monitor the ship's progress and make sure that everything was on track and running smoothly.
There was a time to monitor the ship's progress, though… and there was a time for more personal pursuits. With everything on track and running like a Swiss watch, Max leaned back and smiled at Liz.
"Everything okay?" Liz asked.
Max nodded. "With the ship it is."
Liz sat down on Max's lap and kissed him.
"How about now?"
Max gave Liz a half smile, "Yeah… I think some additional systems just came on line. You want to try again?"
Liz put her lips against Max's and opened her mouth slightly, savoring his lips and mouth as though they were her favorite candy… which, as a matter of fact, they probably were. At the same time, she unbuttoned his shirt and ran her hand over his chest. She placed the other hand behind his head, enjoying the feel of Max's hair between her fingers as she allowed herself to be lost in the passion of their kiss. After several minutes, Liz stopped and looked at Max again with a smile…
"How about now?"
Max nodded and caught his breath. "Oh Yeah! Now everything is up and running! All systems are now… definitely operational! You can count on it! Whew!"
Liz smiled and put her arms around Max's neck then pressed her lips to his again. Outside their window, the stars flew by in the darkness of space, as Liz pulled Max out of his seat onto the floor with her.
"How about the warp drive, Max? Shall we test it out, too… just to be sure?"
In other parts of the ship, things were also going well… perhaps monotonously well. Michael had finished playing a game of Jaht Roo with Jim and had beat Jim handily… again. Jim was actually getting pretty good at playing Jaht Roo and was able to give Michael a real run for his money these days. It was a tribute to Jim's expertise that Michael would play him at all. Still, Jim had never been able to beat Michael at the game. Only Max… and occasionally Varec… had ever been able to beat Michael at Jaht Roo.
Michael had taken to the strategic elements of Jaht Roo like a fish to water. It was his game. But in spite of this, he still could only beat Max or Varec about half the time. Max had a sharpness of concentration and ability to make fast mental computations that made him hard to beat, and Varec had a scientific mind that lent itself to complex computations and unusual gambits… ways to win that no one else had ever thought of before and that were therefore hard to defend against. Michael had spent a lot of hours dissecting and analyzing Varec's unusual "moves." More often than not, though, Varec himself did not remember exactly what he had done. He simply responded to each move as a new challenge, coming up with radical and new responses each time. It was this fact that made him so hard to beat.
"Looks like I'm gonna need to change my clothes," Jim said, standing up and wiping some of the light sugary dough off his shirt.
In the game of Jaht Roo, the players make strategic moves with small "space ship" playing pieces made of sugar dough. If a player miscalculates and lands on a claimed or mined space, his ship might be blown up by a puff of air from beneath the table, usually resulting in someone… or everyone… getting candy-cottony jaht roo strands on themselves.
Michael smiled a satisfied smile. "Yeah, you got kind of blasted when I blew those last ships up. But if you don't want to have those clothes washed, you could probably just eat 'em now… They're sugar coated."
Jim stuck his finger in his mouth and nodded. "Yeah, maybe I'll do that. Good idea!"
Michael grinned. He knew Jim was kidding, but the image of Jim eating his shirt made him smile anyway.
Walking in the door just as Michael and Jim were finishing their game, Maria sat down in Michael's lap and kissed him.
"How'd your game go?"
Michael gave her that patented half grin that meant, "What do you think?"
"I take it you won."
Michael nodded. "Was there ever any other possibility?"
"You might lose someday."
"To Jim? No way! He's good… but he'll never be as good as me. D'you see his clothes," Michael asked with a chuckle.
Maria reached over and plucked a small stray sugar strand from Michael's face then stuck it in her mouth and closed her lips slowly over her finger. "Mmmmmm. Too bad you didn't lose. I could have helped you get some of that sugar off."
Michael's smile disappeared. "Well… you know… yeah… now that you mention it, I think I did get some on me." Michael quickly dropped some strands of the cotton-candyish sugar dough on himself, hoping Maria wouldn't notice…
"See… right here… and here… and…"
"Maybe we'd better go clean that off somewhere more… private," Maria said.
Michael nodded and swallowed. "Yeah… yeah, I was thinking the same thing, too."
**********
Michael knocked once on the observatory door then grinned. "Looks like we're in luck! Alex and Isabel haven't got here yet. It's all ours."
Maria smiled, as Michael quickly scrawled, "Observatory closed for temporary repairs" on a piece of paper and stuck it on the door. Then he picked Maria up and carried her inside, laying her down on the oversized Antarian sofa by the back wall. The observatory had long been a favorite "make-out" place for several of the couples, but especially for Alex and Isabel and for Michael and Maria, because the huge dome gave a feeling of oneness with the universe. From inside the observatory, one could watch the bright stars go by in the darkness of space with no visible roof overhead.
Michael laid himself down on the sofa beside Maria and kissed her, enjoying the moist, soft warmth of her lips on his and the soft feel of her hair as it caressed his face.
Maria looked up at the stars rushing by overhead and sighed.
"I've missed this place. You know, Michael, sometimes I wish no one had ever found those spheres. With them, we never get to go anywhere in the ship anymore. I really love this ship!"
"Yeah, me too…" Michael said,
running his hand gently over Maria's face and up into her hair. "It's like the
Love Boat of the cosmos or something… it's a vacation just being onboard."
Maria smiled and pressed her face against Michael's hand, enjoying his gentle touch. "Yeah… I guess that's it. It's relaxing." She kissed Michael again. "And it's romantic."
"Well… you've gotta have the perfect partner, of course," Michael said with a grin.
"Of course," Maria agreed, smiling. "That's why it's so perfect for us."
Michael grinned and kissed Maria again.
"Now where were those strands of jaht roo sugar you got on you," Maria asked playfully. "I'm feeling like some candy… and I've got a real sweet-tooth coming on. I'm afraid there might not be much left of you after I get through, Michael."
"It's a price I'm willing to pay," Michael said breathlessly, "to keep you satisfied, Darling."
Maria placed her lips over one of the strands of sugar dough that Michael had dropped on his clothes and ran her tongue in slow circles over it, removing the sugary substance; and Michael closed his eyes and ran his hands down Maria's back, locating and releasing the most immediate impediment to his desires. Then he took the matter of Maria's happiness into his own capable hands, as he caressed her body with kisses.
**********
Alex and Isabel arrived at the observatory to find a hand-scrawled note stuck on the door. Isabel pulled it off and read it.
"Oh, great!"
"Well, if it's out of order, we can go somewhere else," Alex said.
"It's not out of order. That's Michael's writing. He's in there with Maria."
"Well, let's go to the arboretum then… or the gardens," Alex suggested. "Let Michael and Maria use the observatory for awhile."
"Oh! You don't understand, Alex."
"What's to understand, Iz? It's a public place. Anybody can use it."
"Yeah but… it's our place, Alex… That's always been our personal love retreat… Michael's turning it into a… a… a Nookie nook!"
Alex laughed. "What's that?"
"You know…" Isabel said… "He's just in there for… a little nookie."
"Yeah… so?"
"We come here to enjoy our love together, Alex. It's totally different. If they're gonna use it all the time, we might as well put a sign on the door that says, 'Guerin's Nookie Nook! Enter at your own risk!'"
Alex nodded. "Well, I'll tell you what, Iz… There's a deep, warm pond up in the gardens with a nice waterfall… and I think it has Alex and Isabel written all over it."
Isabel smiled. "Yeah… Yeah! It does, doesn't it!" Then her smile disappeared again.
"Wait a minute, that's the pond Michael and Maria were swimming in… naked."
"That was on the last trip, Iz… It was a long time ago. They changed the water since then."
Isabel smiled again. "Yeah! Okay! Let's go there then." Isabel and Alex got back into the glass ascension chamber and headed for the gardens.
**********
Isabel stood on the rocks above the waterfall and dropped her skirt seductively behind her, watching Alex, as he watched her from below. Then, wearing nothing but the smile on her face, she dove over the falls into the pond.
The garden pond was at least half again as long as an Olympic swimming pool and easily twice as wide. It had a sandy bottom that tapered off naturally to a depth of about thirty feet near the falls. The falls themselves had been created by directing the flow of water over some large rocks from a height of around fifteen feet. Behind the falls, Michael had discovered a sandy nook, like a small cave, that provided privacy and shelter from prying eyes, in case anyone came in unexpectedly. Isabel and Alex, however, were unaware of this niche, and Michael had not mentioned it to anyone else, preferring to keep it as his and Maria's little secret.
Isabel swam beneath the water to the rocks where Alex was sitting. One moment, Alex was relaxing with his feet dangling in the warm water… the next moment he was being pulled in with a hand around his ankle. Alex sputtered and made his way back to the surface.
"I still have my clothes on, Iz! Now they're soaked."
"I guess you'll have to take 'em off and let 'em dry then," Isabel said with a twinkle in her eye. She helped Alex strip out of his shirt, then his pants, tossing them onto the rocks where Alex had, until a moment ago, been sitting. Then she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her lips to his. Still holding the kiss, Alex wrapped his arms around Isabel in turn, as they sank slowly together to the sandy bottom below.
**********
Meanwhile, on the ship's bridge, Max and Liz were still "testing the warp drive" (just to be sure). Liz never knew why she opened her eyes at that particular moment… maybe she perceived a shadow… maybe it was a feeling she had… maybe it was merely coincidence. But what she saw was not what she ever expected to see. The room was filled with stars. Well… not real stars… Real stars would have been much too large to fit inside the room. But something was floating all around the room with them, rushing in through the walls from the front of the ship and out through the back.
Liz tried to get Max's attention, which was a bit of a challenge, as his mind was running full speed on one track at the moment. Persistence paid off, though, in the end.
"What? Is something wrong?"
"Max, I'm seeing stars."
Max smiled. "Yeah? Me, too."
"No, Max, I mean like real stars… or something. Not real stars, but… there's something in the air in here."
"Did Jim bring some of that turkey onboard?"
"Get real, Max. Look! See for yourself!"
Max turned over and looked around the room. At first, he almost wasn't sure where he was. The room seemed to be full of little bright stars flying by… and the walls seemed to be… dissolving.
Max jumped up quickly, his mind suddenly returning to full duty as the adrenaline began to pump.
"Call Varec up here, Liz… on the com. Something weird's going on… This doesn't look right. Varec never said anything about the ship disintegrating around us on this trip."
For a moment, Liz stood there, eyes wide, watching the stars float around her; and to Max, for just a moment, it appeared that Liz was outside the ship, in the vacuum of space. But then Liz suddenly jumped and ran for the com.
"What the galaxies is happening, Liz? The ship is just disappearing! Liz?"
Max looked back. Liz was gone. So was that entire side of the ship where Liz had been. Max was staring into open space, as tiny starry lights rushed by him. It might have been beautiful… if he could have thought of beauty at this moment.
In the gardens, Isabel pushed away from the rocks at the side of the pool and swam back towards Alex under the water. For a moment, she had a feeling that the water was rushing by her, escaping to somewhere, and that she was being carried with it to wherever it was going. Looking through the haze of the water, Isabel would have sworn she saw Liz reaching for Max, then that she saw Jim Valenti, with a look on his face that strongly suggested that he was seeing something totally unexpected, too. As the stream continued to carry Isabel along, she thought she saw Michael and Maria in the observatory. But she couldn't be sure, because the water distorted her vision. After almost a full minute, the stream began to subside, and Isabel swam to the surface. To her great relief, Alex was there on the rocks looking for her.
In the observatory, Maria opened her eyes to find Michael lying beside her, his eyes wide, looking like he was in shock.
"Michael? Michael! Snap out of it! Hey, I know I give mind-boggling love, lover boy, but wake up here!"
Michael shook his head and blinked his eyes several times.
"Michael, what's the matter with you?"
Michael pointed upward, still in shock.
"I just saw Isabel swim by… naked."
Maria's mouth dropped open. "You were thinking about her while you were doing it with me!? OH! God, Michael! That is just so… Oh! That's like… incest or something! For God's sake, Michael, she's almost your sister!"
Maria was whacking Michael, but he didn't seem to be noticing.
"No, Maria! GEEZ! Get real, Maria! ISABEL? No! No way! No! I wasn't, like, thinking about her. I saw her! She swam by right over us… and she was naked as a bab…"
"Oh!" Maria jumped up from the sofa and threw one of the pillows at Michael. "You can't even make up a good story, Michael! If I was too much for you, you didn't have to make something up to get out of it!"
Michael was shaking his head emphatically. "No, really, Maria! I love you! I didn't want to stop. I just lost my concentration. If you'd seen what I saw, you would have, too. Believe me, Maria, I love you… just you… always." Michael wrapped his arms around Maria. "You're everything to me, Maria. I could never get tired of you." Michael kissed Maria lovingly, and in spite of her misgivings, she found herself melting into his arms again.
"Dammit! Isabel! She must have put that image in my mind somehow… with some kind of dreamwalk or something!"
"Why would Isabel do that?"
"Because we got the observatory before they did maybe. I don't know! I just saw her swimming over us, and… and… I lost it."
Maria gave Michael a pouty look. "Well, I can help you find it again."
Michael laid himself back down beside Maria. "Yeah… yeah… She's gone now… Hell, maybe I did imagine it all. Am I going crazy, Maria?"
"My love has been known to do that to men," Maria said with a pouty smile.
Michael smiled, too, knowing that Maria was teasing him. "Oh? And how many men would that be?"
"Oh, I don't know. I don't count anymore…"
Michael pounced on top of Maria. "Well, I'll have to make sure you don't forget ME then, huh? You won't, you know!"
"Prove it," Maria said, smiling again.
**********
The anomalies on the ship had by now subsided, and everything quickly returned to some semblance of normality. Max and Liz immediately consulted with Varec about what had happened, but for the most part, life on the new granolith returned to its usual pace. That evening, everyone gathered in the dining room for dinner as usual, and it was almost as though nothing had ever happened. Almost…
"Did anybody else experience anything… unusual about four hours ago," Max asked. "Liz and I saw little stars all around us."
Alex smiled knowingly. "What were you doing at the time, Max?"
"Don't get ahead of me, Alex. It wasn't like that." Max looked over at Liz. "Well… maybe it was, but that wasn't… I mean… there was something else going on. The walls seemed to dissolve and disappear all around us, and Liz looked like she was floating away in space."
"Do you know what caused it," Michael asked.
"We think we do… We're not sure. Varec said it was the result of passing through a dimensional rift into a new dimension at an improper angle. He's doing some recalculations."
Varec nodded.
"Did, uh, did anybody else see anything… unusual…" Isabel asked cautiously.
"Like what?" Michael asked.
Isabel smiled. "Oh, nothing. If you didn't see it, I guess there was nothing else to see."
"I guess not," Michael agreed. "Did you see anything, Jim?"
"Me? No, I didn't see anything… unusual."
Michael looked at Varec. Varec shook his head. "No… No, I didn't see anything."
Isabel breathed a sigh of relief and smiled then picked up her spoon and took a sip of her Grelligo soup.
"I'm curious, though," Varec said to Isabel. "Are many earth girls born with a picture of a little rose right here?" Varec pointed at his rear.
Michael snickered. "Is that what it was? I thought it was a birth mark."
"Naw, it was a rose," Jim said. "a little, tiny tattoo… Couldn't you tell?"
Isabel's head sank slowly down onto the table. Well, maybe it wasn't so bad. She could always kill everybody. And failing that… she could probably still eject herself from one of the air locks.
tbc
Coming up: A message from earth