Sliding Into Antar
Friends In Strange Places
Chapter 3
III
It was getting to be dinnertime on the New Granolith, and the next sliding vortex would not open until the following morning, so Max and Liz led their guests to the dining area on the second floor, where some of the others were already beginning to gather.
No one in Quinn's group had thought much about eating until now, but the mention of food brought out that empty feeling in their stomachs and made it suddenly the topic of the moment.
"Our food is a bit different than you might be accustomed to," Liz said, "But it's good. I'm sure you'll like it."
Rembrandt laughed. "That's okay. I don't care what it looks like. If it can be chewed and it fills the empty place in my stomach, I'll eat it. I just realized that we missed lunch today, and I'm definitely hungry. Cue Ball, you've really got to calibrate that thing to dump us out in Micky D's after each slide, man. It would save so much trouble."
Quinn smiled but didn't reply.
Max motioned toward the large dining table…
"Sit wherever you'd like. There are no assigned places."
"Right here looks fine to me," Wade said, starting to sit down. Professor Arturo politely pulled out the chair for her then sat down himself in the seat next to her. Quinn took the seat on the other side of Wade, and Rembrandt sat next to Quinn.
Once they were all seated, the little diner droid came in. It looked around momentarily then rolled over to the Professor…
"What would you like to eat tonight?"
Professor Arturo seemed amused, as he looked the little droid over. "Well, I'm not quite sure, my good fellow. Your food is a mystery to me, as I have not yet had the occasion to try any of it. Would you mind running down the list for me?"
"He wants to know what you've got," Rembrandt said with a grin.
"It's a robotic entity… a machine," the professor said. "It does not require exhaustive explanations, as some PEOPLE do… I will spare you the embarrassment of mentioning any names. I am quite certain that it understands proper English."
Rembrandt chuckled, and the droid proceeded to reply to the professor's question… "We have boneless rib of shebble, which can be served flame-broiled or wrapped in Ama leaves. We also have blue hen eggs, which can be served poached, fried, scrambled, or in an omelet with a sauce of detoxified Guma fungi with pashita toast. We have Grelligo soup, which is the specialty of the Grelligo region on Antar. We have fillet of Golden Sea Pargi, and we have Jarlagos-Droozeen. Some of the members of this crew call them Golden Sea pink-ringed crustaceans. With any of these entrées, you can have jir-bada, sereli-harlat, detoxified guma fungi, min-jaht-gojosh, boiled crushed Ama leaves, kernels of Een-Gelish Yyers, purée of Japo-Bala, or golden grelliats."
The professor thought for a moment. "What do you recommend?"
"I do not eat food, so I am not capable of making a recommendation, but I have been told that it is all very good… and nourishing."
"Well, there you are then," the professor said with a smile. "Bring me… the Golden Sea crustaceans."
"Very well, sir," the droid replied courteously. "What would you like with them?"
"Just bring whatever seems… appropriate… with Golden Sea crustaceans."
"What's a shebble," Rembrandt asked.
"It looks like kind of a cross between a longhorn steer and a yak," Max said. "It's big, but it has really long hair that reaches almost to the ground."
"Can you make hamburgers then?"
"I can bring you pashita bread with boneless shebble rib," the droid replied.
Rembrandt nodded. "What are jir-badas?"
"Bada tubors. I have been told that they are not unlike what you call potatoes."
"Oh! Okay, I'll have fries then."
"Fried what, sir?"
"Potatoes… jir-badas."
The droid moved over to Wade.
"My turn, huh? Okay, I'll have an omelet with those eggs you mentioned? And a bowl of the Earl Grey soup."
"Grelligo soup," Tess said, correcting Wade with an amused but friendly smile.
"Will that be all?" the droid queried.
Wade nodded.
The droid rolled over to Quinn next.
"Oo-kay! Let's see, you said boneless rib. I'll have that. And I haven't the slightest idea what any of those veggies are, so bring me the detoxified guma things and the golden grelliats. I'm adventurous."
"Ooh, when did that start," Remmy asked, his voice abounding with teasing but apropos sarcasm.
The droid went around the table and took everyone else's orders, then it turned and glided quietly back to the food preparation room.
Quinn watched intently, with a keen curiosity, then he turned to Varec…
"An artificial intelligence life form! Did you build him?"
Varec smiled humbly. "I had a hand in creating him. My colleagues at the lab assisted me."
Quinn shook his head in wonder. "I'd give anything to have enough time to discuss him with you. Artificial intelligence is so amazing."
"Yes, there is hope for Bennish after all," the professor deadpanned.
Wade closed her eyes but smiled.
"Conrad Bennish, Jr. is a prodigy," Quinn insisted, in defense of his unconventional friend back on his own world. Both Bennish and Mallory had taken classes with Professor Arturo.
"Genius or not, he's defective," the professor asserted with great certainty. "I said it before… if I ever get back home, I'm going to dedicate my life to isolating the gene that makes him so obnoxious, and I will destroy it."
"You don't like the guy much, do you," Isabel chuckled.
"He and the professor don't get along very well," Wade said, "They're fire and ice."
"THAT is an understatement, Miss Welles."
Everybody laughed.
"So, Quinn… Mallory, is it?" Alex asked. Quinn nodded, as he took an approving bite of pashita bread. "You invented this device that takes you to different dimensions?"
Quinn nodded again. "Yeah. But we always end up in L.A… except this time. Anyway, always before, we landed in L.A., just in a different dimension."
"I guess you've seen a lot of things then," Alex said.
Rembrandt laughed and nodded emphatically. "You ever been on a planet that was in its new ice age and had to run from a gigantic ice tornado bigger than anything you've ever seen before, but you find out that you don't slide for another hour?"
"That happened to you?" Tess asked.
Wade nodded her head, as she raised a spoonful of the Grelligo soup that the droid had just put in front of her to her mouth. "Mmmm! This is good! Yes. We did go to an ice world once. I think it was our first slide. We climbed into Remmy's car with him to try to get warm, and he couldn't figure out why it had got so cold all of a sudden and his car was locked in a snowbank in L.A., because he didn't know anything about the timer or us. He was just driving by Quinn's house on his way to sing the National Anthem at the half time show of a ball game, and he got caught in the vortex with us."
"I did try to warn Mister Mallory that he was using too much power," the professor said.
"Did you meet your doubles on any of the other worlds you've been on," Liz asked.
"The professor got to work with Bennish on one of them," Quinn said with a grin.
"And he was every bit as obnoxious as the original," the professor said, taking a drink of jubish. "By the way, I must compliment you on this wine. It is quite good. It has a pleasant taste… and a very pleasant bouquet."
"Thank you, on behalf of Antar," Max said.
"You should have tasted Farj," Michael said quietly.
"What was that," Professor Arturo asked.
Michael chuckled. "It was supposed to be a soft drink… I think. We found it on Antar when we got there. It tasted like old, stale root beer."
"But it was better than Hargoch," Max said, grinning.
Michael laughed and nodded. "Hargoch is the Ghors' 'premium' wine. It has a reputation among the Ghors for tasting as good the second time you drink it as it did the first time."
Maria slapped Michael on the arm and put her hand over her eyes.
"It's true," Max said, agreeing with Michael.
"I know," Maria conceded, "But you didn't have to say it."
"We had some," Michael said, "Max and I did… on the Ghors' planet, Ghorbidfael. We were on an undercover mission."
"I still haven't forgiven Shag for that either," Maria said.
"What else have you seen that's unusual," Isabel asked.
"On one planet, Wade won the lottery," Rembrandt said.
"Really?" Maria exclaimed. That's great! How much did she win?"
"The winner was awarded the honor of being the next person to be executed for the benefit of population control," Professor Arturo said. "It was presumed to be a great honor."
"Omigod," Maria exclaimed, shocked, "That's awful! I guess you left that world quickly."
Quinn shook his head. "We had to rescue Wade. It didn't look very hopeful for awhile."
"Oh! And there was this one world where Remmy was bigger than Elvis," Wade said. "The people practically worshipped him."
"I'm surprised you didn't stay there," Michael said.
"Yeah…" Rembrandt sighed, remembering his moment of greatest fame fondly. "I almost did. But there was this one little catch. I was supposed to be dead on that world… like the king, you know? When I showed up, all alive and everything, there was all this celebrating, and it was great for a while. Then we found out that my double from that world wasn't really dead. He was just hiding and pretending to be dead. And he wanted to stay that way. That meant getting killed again. Guess who he had in mind for that."
"Didn't you ever go to some dimension and find a world that just seemed perfect and want to stay there," Liz asked.
Wade nodded. "One world seemed really perfect, but the timer only gave us one day there. We didn't know enough about it to make a decision to stay in that short a time. On another world, we really thought we were home. Everything seemed the same. The professor went back to work at the university. Everybody was happy. But then there was this one little thing that let us know it wasn't our world. The Golden Gate Bridge was actually gold colored. We thought about staying there anyway, but… well… Then on another world, we thought we were home again, and Quinn was eating breakfast with his mom when his dad walked in."
"What's wrong with that," Maria asked.
"Quinn's father is dead."
"Oh."
"But he could have stayed there with his mom, and his dad would be alive again. It seems perfect," Isabel said.
"But what happens if my double from that world ever comes back," Quinn asked. "It's his world, not mine. That's the point really. It's not mine."
The others at the table all nodded, understanding Quinn's feelings.
"What were YOU doing out of your own dimension," Wade asked Liz. "I'd like to hear what brought you guys here."
"It's the first time for us," Liz said. "We never traveled between dimensions before. We weren't even sure that other dimensions existed until my younger double appeared to my daughter in some dreams and seemed to be hurt. Then she and Alex's double came through to our dimension somehow using the orbs, and they told us that they needed help. So that's why we're here. We came to help them. It's a long story, but at their high school graduation, their Max, Michael, Isabel, and Maria… and my double, Liz, were shot by special agents from a secret FBI unit who hunt down aliens and then dissect them in cooperation with a shadowy army group."
Wade looked pale. "You mean… this happened on earth?"
"Yeah," Liz said, nodding. "We all grew up on earth. Well… except Varec and Rayylar. They were born on Antar. Max and Michael are half Antarian. So are Isabel and Tess."
"I knew they weren't like us," the professor said, "When they changed their pants like that."
"Well, actually, some of us are only from earth," Liz said. "I am. So is Maria… and Alex… We just married little green aliens." Liz gave Max a playful but endearing smile.
"I was abducted," Maria said, taking a sip of Grelligo soup.
"Really?" Wade asked.
Maria smiled. "Yeah. Okay, Michael abducted my heart. But I have to go where my heart goes, right?"
Wade nodded and cast a quick sidewise glance at Quinn, then she smiled and took another sip of her soup. Liz smiled, too, noticing the look in Wade's eyes. It was clear to one who could recognize it, even if it was undeclared.
"So were you able to help your doubles," Remmy asked.
"Yeah." Michael said, "We were."
"That's good. I guess you guys had to hide from the FBI, too, huh?"
Max nodded. "We kept our secret very close, you know what I mean? We told no one."
"Until Max went and saved Liz's life after she got shot by a common thug in her dad's restaurant," Michael said. "At first, I was kind of pissed. Well, scared would be more accurate. I know that now. I felt like everything was going to come down around us right there."
"It must have been really hard trying to live like that," Wade said.
"It was sometimes," Isabel admitted. "But we all survived it. We went back to our planet, took it back from the tyrant who had taken it from Max before, and put Max back on the throne. I can't complain…" Isabel looked at Alex, who had reached over to hold her hand under the table, and she smiled. "We all got something good for our experience and time on earth."
Wade looked back and forth at Isabel and Alex, Liz and Max, Michael and Maria and the others, and she smiled.
"Have you met a lot of weird aliens from other planets," Rembrandt asked. "You guys look just like us. Do little green men really exist anywhere?"
Max smiled. "I don't remember any little green men… unless you count Frebel-Ish, but he can make himself anything."
"But we've seen a lot stranger," Michael said. "We rescued these kids who were little puffy gas balls and some others that looked like ferns and just floated in the wind. The Ghors had kidnapped them."
"You mentioned the Ghors before," Wade said. "What are they?"
"Nasty," Maria said simply.
Liz laughed and nodded.
"They're nine-foot tall reptilians," Alex said. "Some of them have hair and scales, others just have tufts of hair here and there on their scales. They're grayish, ugly, and incredibly stinky."
Liz nodded vigorously, and Maria smiled and nodded her own agreement.
"The Ghors were slavers," Jim said, joining in the conversation for the first time. "It was how most of them made their living… kidnapping children throughout the galaxy and selling them."
"For slaves?" Wade asked.
Jim nodded. "Slaves… exotic pets… exotic foods…"
"Omigod," Wade whispered, recoiling at the thought.
"Well, we don't have to worry about the Ghors anymore," Liz said. "Shag sent them and their whole planet to a place so far away in the galaxy that they couldn't get back even in a hundred years at the fastest light speed."
Quinn looked up, his interest suddenly piqued. "This guy, Shag… he can move a planet?"
Liz nodded. "He used the sphere of the portal. The spheres were his to begin with… before I got them."
"So… does that mean you could move a planet," Rembrandt asked.
Liz thought about it. "I don't know. I wouldn't want to. Shag didn't want to either, but the Ghors gave him no choice. It was the best solution to the problem, so he did it. Shag isn't really his name. It's Zasharn Shaqor Niseel Vredis Davor. He's the king of his planet, Xarius. Zasharn means king. His first name is Shaqor, so Maya, his wife, nicknamed him 'Shag,' and we usually call him that, too, for short."
"Good thinking," Rembrandt said.
"Shag and Maya are over ten thousand years old," Maria said, taking another sip of soup.
"But they don't look it," Liz hurried to add. "They look about forty maybe. People on their planet age slowly."
"I'd like to know their secret," Wade laughed.
Liz smiled and nodded. "It's in the genes, I think."
For the next hour, everyone in the two groups enjoyed themselves and got to know each other over dinner; and there were many compliments on the food, which everyone agreed, was superb. Max and Michael weren't quite sure why they had opened up so much to these relative strangers, but somewhere, deep inside, they both felt that they and their unexpected guests shared a lot in common… Both groups were now interdimensional travelers with problems that most people could only imagine… Both groups had met and dealt with strange peoples and customs… Both groups had escaped dangers and lived in peril for their lives. The only thing that was maybe different about them was that Max and Michael knew how to get home; their friends didn't.
But Max and Michael never imagined how alike their fates could become.
tbc