Biological Families

by a-delacroix

*!* COMPLETE *!* Clark, Lana, and Whitney travel to 1936 Nazi Germany to save their friends. Special Guest Stars: Dr. and Mrs. Indiana Jones and Var El of Krypton. Note: This is a sequel to 'The Portal'.

16. Biological Families Chapter 16

Updated on 9/18/05

Biological Families – Chapter 16

Part 1

"Miss Lang! Miss Lang!" shouted Sarah Gardner, as she raced up from where she had been playing with the Buchanan brothers.

Lana reined in her horse at the girl's approach. This was the first human voice she had heard, other than her own, in almost four months. She wasn't certain she was ready yet to return to civilization or what passed for civilization in Ennis, Montana, population eighty-seven. At least eighty-seven had been its population when she had departed for the high country back at the beginning of June.

But ready or not, she had felt the weather start to change four days earlier and knew the short summer season was ending. If she hadn't departed when she did, she might have been trapped by the heavy snows and she wasn't properly equipped for a winter in the mountains.

As she waited for the girl to reach her, Lana wrapped the reins about the pommel of her saddle and pushed back her battered old cowboy hat. Then she stood in the stirrups to stretch her legs and see if she could catch a glimpse of the town. She could make out curls of smoke rising from a number of spots in the distance, but she was still several miles from the edge of the town and the buildings were little more than a blur. Reseating herself, she took a moment to enjoy the simple things of her life: the creaking sound of her saddle, the rustling leaves of the nearby trees, the slow gurgling of the stream, and the smell of the sweat from her horse. Although, as much as she loved her horses, after three hard days in the saddle and four months of bathing in a frigid mountain stream, she was definitely looking forward to a hot bath. Even if the only hot bath to be found in Ennis was at Sally's Brothel and Bathing Emporium.

"Miss Lang, Miss Lang," panted Sarah again as she reached the spot where Lana was waiting on the trail following the east bank of the Madison River. "It is so good to see you."

Lana looked down at the ten year old girl in her much-patched blue dress and tattered red wool sweater, both probably hand-me downs from her older sister Jenny. Then she looked down at her own attire of coarse flaxen pants, a dark gray work shirt, a faded light gray vest, a dark green short coat, and, over it all, a heavy leather duster. At these lower elevations, where the afternoon temperature was still in the low sixties, she was starting to feel a little warm. But looking back to the girl, Lana knew she was going to miss the freedom to dress as she pleased when she reached the town and would have to once again start dressing like a respectable woman.

Lana removed her hat and took a moment to wipe her brow with her kerchief. "It is good to see you, too, Sarah. How was your summer?"

"It was okay," began Sarah. Then her eyes brightened. "When is school starting?"

Lana gave a small smile. She was the closest thing to a teacher this remote community deep in the Beaverhead Mountains of southern Montana had ever had. This had been her fourth summer enjoying the healing solitude of the high country where her only companions were the horses she loved so much. And now she was about to begin her fourth winter in Ennis teaching the local children. It had been during her first winter that she had agreed to take on the teaching assignment in exchange for the use of the room at the back of the school house and a winter's supply of firewood.

Lana felt the first laugh she could remember in a long time bubble to the surface. "Couldn't you wait until I at least reached town before asking?"

Sarah had always been her most enthusiastic pupil and she saw this hadn't changed over the summer.

"I'm sorry, but you promised us Pride and Prejudice when school started and I have been looking forward to it all summer. And it has been even harder waiting the last six weeks since the Jane Austen book arrived with the rest of your order of books on the stage coach from Denver."

"I am glad to hear the books arrived safely. Where are they?" asked Lana. It would be good to have some new books to explore as it seemed like she had almost memorized the three she had taken with her for the summer.

"Mr. Clark is keeping them at his store," answered Sarah.

A small feeling of déjà vu passed through Lana at the mention of Jim Clark's name. She didn't understand it, but for some reason the name Clark struck a strange resonant chord deep in her soul. It must have something to do with the vast yawning chasm of her missing memories. Everything before her arrival in Ennis four years earlier was just a blank. Certain words like 'Clark' seemed to have some association with her former life, but no matter how hard she tried, her memories stubbornly remained inaccessible. Some horrific event, either physical or emotional, must have been involved.

"What day is it?" asked Lana. In the high country, it didn't much matter what day of the week it was, so she didn't bother to keep track.

"Saturday."

Great, thought Lana. I would arrive back on my least favorite day of the week when all of cowboys, ranchers, and farmers will be in town to get liquored up.

"Since you are so anxious, we might as well start school on Monday. Will you help get the word out?"

"Of course," nodded Sarah. Looking past Lana, she continued, "It looks like you made a good haul this year."

Lana turned in her saddle to look back, too. Stretched out on a long tether behind her were her two pack mules and sixteen partially broken wild mustangs. None of the mustangs were quite ready for the saddle yet, but she had at least reached the point where they would accept the bridal and follow docilely along on a lead. That was good enough to get them down here to the town where they would fetch a handsome price from Mark Parker, the local blacksmith and horse dealer.

"Yeah, it has been a good summer. But now I am really looking forward to a nice long hot soak at Miss Sally's. Please say hello from me to your parents and I will see you at church tomorrow."

Sarah grinned, gave a little wave, and raced back over to where the Buchanan brothers, Tim and Jacob, waited a couple hundred feet away under a small group of trees. They were a lot less excited about the whole school thing, which was why Lana wasn't surprised they hadn't come over to greet her.

Turning her attention back toward the town, Lana lightly dug her spurs into Mr. Ed's flanks to get her little train of horses in motion again.

- + - + - + - +

Leading her horses at a steady ground consuming pace, Lana reached the town in another thirty minutes, late in the afternoon. The mostly clear sky she had been traveling under most of the day was now filling with rapidly moving dark clouds. Looking up, she estimated the bad weather would reach the town in a couple of hours, certainly before nightfall. It was still warm enough here that it might just be a miserable cold rain, but she knew the snow would already be falling back up in the high country. Just like every other year, she had managed to time her departure for the last possible moment.

Passing the 'Welcome to Ennis' sign with the population 87 painted over to now read 103, Lana picked up the pace a little. She definitely wanted to take care of the mustangs, get Mr. Ed and the mules boarded at the stables, get a bath and some dinner, and be back at her room behind the school before the weather broke.

As she moved at a steady pace down the main street of the small town, she gave a polite nod to the many residents scurrying about, many of whom also appeared to be trying to complete their business before the rain arrived. Before long she had reached the center of town and its most important asset, Clark's General Store. The store was the lifeline of the community to the rest of civilization. In addition to carrying the standard staples of everyday life, as the territorial post office it was also the local delivery point of the recently established Montgomery Ward Mail Order Service. Staring at the fancy brocaded dress on the dummy in its front window, Lana hoped she would have time amongst her other tasks of the afternoon to stop in for her shipment of books. In some ways she was just as eager as Sarah Gardner to read something new. She had specifically ordered Pride and Prejudice and a few others, but she had also requested that the book dealer in Denver include a few new releases that he thought would suit her tastes based on her other selections. In some ways her annual shipment of books was the closest thing she had to Christmas.

Turning her attention back to the street, she started to angle across to the next left side street, which led to Parker's stables. Trying to get her head into the proper mindset to haggle horse prices with Parker, she was startled to hear a woman's voice shouting her name. Looking across the street at the last building before her turn, Lana saw Sally standing on the second floor balcony above her saloon waving energetically.

Momentarily reining her smallish caravan to a halt in front of the saloon, Lana looked up at the woman. Sally Amundsen was of obvious Scandinavian stock, standing five-nine with long blonde hair. With thick makeup and well rouged lips and cheeks, her age seemed relatively indeterminate. But in one of those weird juxtapositions only possible in small frontier towns, the madam who ran the whorehouse and the school teacher were the best of friends. And it was because of this friendship that Lana knew Sally was the spry old age of twenty-six.

Lana looked up at her old friend standing there in her usual attire of white satin pantaloons and a burgundy bustier, her one concession to the fall weather being a heavy shawl thrown across her bare shoulders. But as she leaned over the railing to look down, the shawl did nothing to hide her famous ample cleavage.

"Hello, Sally, how's business?" called Lana as she looked from Sally's soft creamy skin down to her own hard callused hands with the dirt seemingly permanently engraved under her nails. A nice long soak until her skin was all wrinkled and soft was starting to sound so good.

"Better than ever. A new silver mine has opened ten miles west of here up in Grover's Canyon. That means twenty more men looking for that special attention. And how has your summer been, Lana?"

Lana was about to respond when a couple of the mustangs began to whinny in a tone she recognized to mean they were getting spooked. Quickly turning in her saddle she saw how more and more of the horses were showing the whites of their eyes as they darted from side to side. None of these horses had ever been around any people besides her. While they had been moving they had been okay, but now stopped they might quickly get out of control. Hurriedly, she turned Mr. Ed towards the side street.

"Sally, I have to get these horses down to Parker's before they panic. Can you squeeze me in for a bath in say forty-five minutes? And then perhaps we can have a nice cozy chat."

Sally followed along on the balcony until she was standing at its corner where it overlooked the side street. "Yeah, there are several miners soaking in there at the moment, but a couple of the girls should be free soon or if not, I will find some other polite way to kick them out."

Lana was almost to the end of the block when Sally called out one final time. "Meet me at the bar!"

Lana waved back at her and then turned her attention back to the upcoming haggling session with Parker.

- + - + - + - + - +

Lana stepped onto the wooden sidewalk which ran along the side of Sally's Saloon from the dusty street she knew would soon be a muddy quagmire once the rains began. Her spurs jingled quietly as she swung her Winchester Model 1897 pump-action shotgun up until the barrel rested lightly on her shoulder and her right index finger was visibly resting just outside the trigger guard. This blatant display shouldn't be necessary here on the eve of the twentieth century, but Lana had learned not to take any unnecessary chances walking into a saloon on a Saturday night. Oh, she had never had to discharge the shotgun here in town, but she had had to use it to club more than one drunken cowhand.

As she pulled open the front door of the saloon she felt like she was almost assaulted by the overpowering smell of cheap beer and tobacco in combination with the loud noise of the player piano and the lively crowd. The sun hadn't even set yet and already Sally was doing a booming business.

Four or five of Sally's girls were making the rounds of the tables; a couple of them were delivering drinks, but the others were clearly flirting and looking to drum up some more private business. Sally herself was leaning over the shoulder of old man Higgins, the biggest landowner and current mayor, where he was holding court at a card table in the back corner. Four other men were at the table holding cards, but even from the doorway, Lana could see how all of their attentions were instead concentrated on Sally's bosom.

Sally looked up, caught Lana's eye, and tilted her head towards the bar before turning back to Higgins.

Lana strode over to the bar, stopped in a space between two groups of cowboys, and lowered her shotgun until it dropped lengthwise onto the top of the counter with a satisfying thud; clearly defining that four foot section of the bar to be her own.

Almost instantly Joe, Sally's long-time bartender, seemed to appear almost by magic directly in front of her. "Welcome back, Miss Lang. It is good to see you again. Can I get you anything?"

"Hello, Joe. It is good to be back. I'll have a whiskey and get one for yourself and Sally, too."

Joe, who had to be pushing sixty, gave her a wide smile. "Thank you, Miss Lang."

He pulled out three fresh shot glasses and filled them to the brim. He raised his and said, "To your health, Miss Lang." Then he downed it in one long gulp.

Lana raised her own glass in salute, but only took a small sip. As the alcohol burned its way down her throat she felt a little of the weariness from the past three days on the trail start to work its way out of her body. And after four months of drinking nothing but water and coffee, the whiskey seemed like a special treat. Not that she ever let herself over-imbibe; one was her strictly imposed self limit. Ennis was not a place where she would risk getting drunk and end up letting some cowboy or miner take advantage of her. No, she had no desire to end up like the women who worked for Sally.

Nursing her drink until Sally arrived and they could retreat to the more private baths, Lana turned around and inspected the crowd. Close to thirty men already filled the room. Of course, there were no women present other than Sally's girls. No god-fearing, good Christian woman would be caught dead in this place. Sometimes it surprised her that the other women would allow her to teach their children since she had been in this saloon more than just this once. But since she didn't flaunt it in their faces and had clearly demonstrated her fluency in classical Greek and Latin as well as French, Spanish, Art, History, Math and Science, the other women generally turned a blind eye. They would occasionally ask her if she had studied at one of the great women's colleges back east like Smith, Wellesley, or Bryn Mawr. But all Lana could ever do was shrug, where she had learned the many things she knew was just one more item that fell into the giant void that had displaced her pre-Ennis memories.

Turning her thoughts away from her memory problems, which seemed to be more on her mind today than usual, she forced her attention back to the crowd. Sitting against the side wall was Sarah Gardner's father, David, and her two older brothers. The three of them were sitting at exactly the same table playing cards with the same two other men as the last time she had been in here right before her departure for the high country. Did they ever move? Or had they been playing the same game for four months?

As Lana was musing how things never seemed to change in a one saloon town, Sally joined her.

"Hi, Sally. The place is really hopping early today."

"Yeah, although I think it is largely due to the weather. I would be will to bet a gold eagle that things are going to quiet down earlier than normal today, too. Several of the regulars have already come and gone so they could return to their ranches before the storm hits," began Sally before she paused to pick up the shot glass Lana had slid in front of her. After downing half of the drink in one swallow, she continued. "If you are ready for that bath, Sue Ling and Mary Chao should have the room ready by now. I need a few more minutes with Higgins and then I will be up to join you. I want to expand my operations to include a laundry service, but he seems to have some problem with me spreading beyond the 'sin' trades. I think he is afraid that in five more years I will be running the whole town."

Lana grinned. She had to agree with Higgins on at least this one subject. Sally was a surprisingly good and effective business woman. Four years earlier when she had first arrived in town, Sally and two other girls had been sharing an old cabin on the edge of town. She had steadily expanded until her brothel had moved to the center of town with at least eight girls. Then she had added the bathing portion of her business. Finally, she had bought out James Polk and taken over the saloon. In another five years it certainly seemed possible she could be running the town. And, who knows, thought Lana, the town might be the better for it.

"Well, I am sure you will wear him down." Then making a point of looking down towards Sally's chest, Lana added. "Everyone knows how much he loves 'the girls'."

"These 'girls'?" asked Sally with a big grin as she brought up her hands to clasp her own breasts. Then once she was sure she had the attention of every man within fifteen feet, she gave them a firm squeeze before adjusting the bustier so that the exposed portion of her large breasts bulged even further over the top.

"I think that is enough of a free show for these gents. If they want more, they are going to have to pay for it," said Sally, as she picked up the glass with the remainder of her drink. "I should get back to Higgins. I will see you upstairs in a few minutes."

Lana nodded and then watched Sally walk away with an extravagant roll of her hips. Picking up her drink with one hand, Lana hoisted her shotgun back to her shoulder with the other. Heading to the stairs in the back left corner of the room, she took a less than direct path to give the tables a wide berth. If she got too close, someone would certainly try to grope her and she wasn't in the mood to deal with it today. No, she was still in a good mood from the better than expected offer Parker had made for the mustangs and she was looking forward to a nice relaxing bath. She didn't want to break her tranquil mood by having to put some lonesome cowboy back into his place.

Once she reached the stairs, Lana proceeded up at almost a jog; the long awaited hot bath was almost here. At the top of the stairs, hallways led off to the left and the right. To the right was where Sally and her girls entertained their gentlemen 'friends'. It was the hallway to the left that led to the baths. Without hesitation, Lana took the hall to the left; this wasn't the first time she had used this entrance to reach the baths.

The door at the end of the corridor led into the largest bathing room, the one with the three large porcelain claw foot tubs with custom gold leaf trim that Sally had specially imported all the way from Chicago. If the two of them were going to have a soak and a chat, Lana knew this is the room Sally would have selected.

Lana knocked once at the closed door and couldn't have waited more the five seconds before it was pulled open by the most beautiful young Chinese girl she had ever seen. And young girl certainly described her, Lana decided. She couldn't be more than thirteen, fourteen tops. Before Lana had time to finish her thought, the girl bowed her head and then gestured for Lana to enter.

As she stepped into the room a second girl, who could have been the first's twin, was stepping from the small stairway at the back of the room. Like the first she was wearing a thin, sheer white muslin wrap which in the heat and humidity of the bath was completely transparent. Lana saw the barest hint of developing breasts on these girls and wondered briefly if Sally had them working down the right hallway yet. Certainly a portion of Sally's clientele would prefer the 'little girl' look.

The first girl whispered to the second in Mandarin Chinese, "She is even more beautiful than Miss Sally said." Before turning to Lana and saying in halting English. "Welcome, Mistress. I am Sue and this is Mary. The water is ready. May we help you undress?"

Lana was surprised she understood the girl perfectly when she had been whispering in Chinese. Before that moment she had no idea she knew the language, obviously it was one more mystery from her lost past. She pondered once again what her life had involved before arriving here. How had she come to learn all the languages and other things she knew?

After hearing just this one small sample, she immediately knew that her Chinese was better than the girls' English. Therefore she answered them in that language. "Please, call me Lana. And if you have some free time this winter while I am in town, I would be happy to help you with your English. Perhaps we can work on reading and writing, too."

The two froze and just stared at her. It was obvious from their expression they had never come across a non-Chinese before who was so fluent in their language. Finally, they both tried to start speaking at the same time.

"Yes, Mistress, ah, Lana," began Mary, taking the lead after they stopped giggling over their overlapping words. "We would greatly appreciate your help with our English. Now, may we help you into the bath?"

Lana paused for a moment imagining how it was going to feel stripping before these girls. Previously, it had always been old, matronly Mrs. Gunderson who had filled and refilled the hot water in the tubs. And never once had she offered to help Lana with her clothes. No, on her earlier visits there had been a small folding privacy screen in the corner and Mrs. Gunderson had always contrived to be facing the other way as Lana had discreetly made her way to the murky water. But now Lana noticed the old privacy screen had disappeared and the water in the partially filled tubs was unusually clean and crystal clear.

She had always thought of herself as a shy person, yet suddenly it felt like she had been through all of this before. It was sort of like the way the name 'Clark' tugged at her lost memories. Where had she been through a similar bathing situation before, she wondered? But knowing she must have experienced it before somehow made it easier and she found herself nodding to the patiently waiting Mary even as she turned to lean her shotgun in the corner and set her drink on a small table.

Before she had even turned back from the corner, she felt feather-light fingers start to gently pull her duster from her shoulders. As the weight came off, she realized how much it and the rest of her clothes stank of horses and the trail. God, she hoped Sally had some cleaner clothes she could borrow until she got back to her room at the school house, as she couldn't imagine putting these things back on after spending time in the bath. Although she allowed herself a moment to fantasize about letting Sally 'tart' her up like one of her girls, Lana knew she would never let herself do it for real. No, if Sally couldn't scrounge her up a respectable dress, she would just put her own clothes back on.

While she had let her mind drift to thoughts of bustiers and pantaloons, Mary had proceeded to remove her short coat and vest. By the time Lana again focused on her surroundings she found herself sitting on a chair while Mary worked on removing her well-worn boots.

Once the boots were removed, it was but the work of a few moments to discard the remainder of her clothes and then step quickly into the waiting bath. The porcelain tub did a good job of retaining the heat of the water and Lana could feel her body beginning to relax as she sank into the water which reached halfway between her navel and her breasts. Almost instantly Mary was scrubbing her back with a large sponge and Sue had reappeared on the stairs from the boiler room below with another bucket of steaming hot water.

Setting the bucket beside the tub, Sue asked, "May I wash your hair?"

Lana nodded and leaned forward until her long black hair obscured her face. It was always a special treat to have someone else do her hair.

"How long have you girls been working for Sally?" asked Lana.

"Only about two weeks," began Sue as she worked shampoo into Lana's hair. "We and our families were traveling up to Canada on our way to the Klondike. Our fathers intended to set up a laundry business there to cash-in on all of the arriving miners in the same way their grandfathers had cashed in during the California Gold Rush fifty years ago. During a stopover in Three Falls, they ran into Miss Sally and she convinced them there was a good opportunity here without needing to travel another two thousand miles. Our fathers were set on going to Alaska, but Miss Sally can be very persuasive, so we ended up here instead. When the laundry is up and running, Mary and I will probably work there instead of here in the baths, but I think I will miss this job."

As she finished speaking, she picked up the bucket and dumped most of its contents over Lana's head to rinse out the shampoo. Then she retreated down the stairs to fetch another bucket of hot water.

Lana pulled one of her hands free from where Mary was working on the dirt under her fingernails with a brush. Then just as she was using it to push her wet hair away from her eyes, the door to outside hallway opened and Sally stepped into the room.

Lana glanced over and then settled back a little deeper into the tub. "Sally, these girls are a real find. Mary was just telling me about their families' involvement with your proposed laundry business. She said she and Sue expect to work there once it is in operation. However, I think you need to work out a deal where they can continue to work here, at least for a few of your 'special' friends like . . . well . . . like me."

As soon as she had entered the room, Sally had dropped into one of the chairs and started removing her shoes. By the time they were off, Sue had returned with another bucket of water. She quickly set it by the adjacent tub and moved to help Sally out of her bustier.

"Lana, you seemed to have learned a lot from these girls in a few minutes. How did you do it? Every time I need to get more than the simplest idea across, it always seems to devolve into a game of pantomime."

Lana couldn't help but glance over at Sally as the bustier came off. She had seen the woman naked before, but she was still amazed at the size of her breasts and how little they sagged. But then surprisingly, for a woman of her age and in her occupation, Sally had somehow avoided the normal pratfall of children, which certainly had to be a major contributor to her still impressive physique.

Trying not to stare too long, Lana responded. "Remember how I am good at languages like Greek and Latin?"

Sally nodded, as she worked on the draw-string of her pantaloons.

"Well, when I entered the room, Sue and Mary were chatting in Chinese and I discovered I could understand them. More than just understand, because as soon as I heard it, I simply knew I could speak it and even read and write it."

"You can speak Chinese and never realized it?" Asked Sally, as she eased herself into the adjoining tub.

Lana shrugged and noticed the pleasantly erotic feeling as her nipples briefly broke clear of the shimmering water. "It was certainly startling to me. And it makes me wonder what other languages and things I might know but which I just haven't been in a situation to trigger yet. It also, once more, raises the big question of where I learned all of these languages before I lost my memory. And exactly what I was doing before I showed up here?"

Sally let out a long slow sigh as Sue started shampooing her hair. "Yeah, Lana, your past is certainly the biggest enigma I have ever run across."

Mary interrupted quietly by leaning close to Lana's ear and suggested in a whisper, "Swing your feet up over the edge and I will work on your toes next."

Lana did as the girl requested and then tried to imagine old Mrs. Gunderson giving her a pedicure. A slight surge of revulsion passed through her at thought of her old, stubby fingers trying to caress her feet the way Mary was currently doing.

"Sally, could you spare these girls for a few hours during the day? They are not much older than some of my other students and I would like them to join my class so I can help them with the reading, writing, and arithmeticcing of the English language."

Sally looked over at her. "Have you developed a soft spot for these girls already? I have known for a long time that you are a pretty soft 'touch', but this time I think you have set a new record."

"I guess you can call it being a soft 'touch', if you want. But I see it as just doing my part to improve the lot of the citizens of Ennis. And since Mary and Sue live here now, they fall into the same category of people I would like to help in gratitude for everything the town has done for me down through the years."

"Well," drawled Sally as Sue briefly left her side to retreat down the stairs to fetch another bucket of hot water. "Since you put it that way, how can I refuse? I can probably spare them for a few hours in the morning."

Lana grinned. "Good, let me tell Mary."

As Lana was explaining in Chinese, someone began rapping on the door through which Lana and Sally had entered the room. Mary quickly broke off their conversation with a polite nod and then scurried over to the door to see who was there.

Not knowing who was at the door and suddenly feeling very exposed, Lana turned and lean over the side of her tub in the direction of Sally's tub. Reaching down to where a towel was resting on the floor, she quickly stretched it across the top of her tub until her body was hidden from casual notice from her neck almost to her knees.

Then Lana watched as Mary opened the door no more than three inches to find out who was disturbing their session. Mary stood there listening to the person on the other side for ten or fifteen seconds. At first she had a very shocked expression. But then after her eyes flicked towards Lana for a moment, her face suddenly broke into a grin and she started addressing whoever was on the other side in rapid Chinese. She was speaking just softly enough that Lana could only make out that she was speaking in Chinese, but not the specific words. And she couldn't even make out that much of what the person on the other side of the door might be saying.

At first Lana had felt a slight twinge of fear that was exacerbated by being naked and feeling helpless. Her eyes had already glanced to where her shotgun stood in the corner when Mary suddenly started to grin and talk animatedly. Lana could just start to feel some of the tension draining from her body when Mary swung the door wide and gestured for the person in the hall to enter.

Lana quickly looked the stranger over. This person, who Lana couldn't ever remember seeing before yet somehow seemed achingly familiar, was a very attractive woman with short, wild blonde hair. She was wearing a relatively nondescript green dress, nothing flashy but also not worn and repaired like the dresses of so many of the town's women. At first glance Lana thought of her as a woman, but with a second closer look, she decided that wasn't quite right. Oh something about her eyes made her seem older, but otherwise she could easily pass for a girl of sixteen.

For a moment Lana thought the stranger must be another of Sally's girls, as what other woman would be in this establishment? But she certainly wasn't dressed like the typical whore or wearing the overdone makeup. And as she strode across the room directly towards Lana's tub, the biggest smile Lana could ever remember seeing broke out across the girl's face. When she stopped right next to Lana's tub, she abruptly stuck out her hand in greeting.

"Hello, Lana. I have been waiting a very, very long time to see you. Do you remember me? My name is Chloe Sullivan."

Just like the name Clark, the name Chloe seemed hauntingly familiar. Lana stared into the other girl's green eyes for almost a minute hoping some lost memory would return, but nothing came. Finally, she shook her head.

"I'm sorry; everything before I arrived here four years ago is a blank. Do you know me? Do you know what happened to me? Why I am here? I have all of these unusual skills and knowledge and I don't understand where they came from."

As Lana wound down, she watched a frown pass across Chloe's face. That didn't seem like a good sign, she thought to herself.

Chloe let out a slow sigh. "I was hoping after all of this time your memories would have started to return to you."

"You do know what happened to me," stated Lana, feeling both excitement and more than a little fear. "Perhaps if you explain, it will help me to remember."

Chloe nodded. "Okay, perhaps it is time. But it is sort of complicated." She paused for a moment and then inclined her head towards the unused third tub. "Do you mind if I join you?"

Lana glanced over at Sally who gave a brief nod; she was obviously almost as curious about Lana's past as Lana herself was.

"Of course, please do join us," said Lana before turning to Mary and continuing in Chinese. "Mary, would you go help Sue with some more hot water for the third tub?"

Mary nodded and turned towards the stairs. Before she had moved three steps, Chloe interrupted her.

"Mary, while you are down there would you please look in the lowest right hand cupboard? You will find a special box of bathing salts there. I would appreciate it if you could bring it back up with you." When Chloe realized the girl hadn't been able to follow all of her words in English, Chloe quickly repeated them in perfect Chinese.

Lana wasn't sure which intrigued her most, that Chloe also spoke Chinese or that she knew the location of a box of bathing salts downstairs. She decided to pursue the former first. Although to test Chloe a little, Lana addressed her in Greek rather than Chinese.

"Chloe, how is it we both know so many languages? And do you know how many I can speak? I mean, I didn't even realize I knew Chinese until ten minutes ago."

When Chloe responded, it was in still another language Lana didn't know she knew. She didn't have any easy cultural references like the Chinese with Mary and Sue, so she didn't even know its name. But somewhere down in her gut, she simply knew this language was very, very old; so old it would have been long forgotten when the pyramids were new.

"Oh, the number is the easy part, one hundred seventy six. The 'how' is more difficult; I am not sure it is the best place to start our conversation."

Lana's mind boggled. How could one person possibly know one hundred seventy six languages? Were there even one hundred seventy six in the whole world?

"That number is almost impossible to believe. But if you don't think that is the best place to start, start where you would like. I will admit I am more interested in why I can't remember anything before arriving here than I am about the whole language thing."

Chloe nodded. But before she could respond, Sue returned with the first of several buckets of hot water. As Chloe began to disrobe, Sally rejoined the conversation.

"Chloe," began Sally, dragging the conversation back to English. "How do you where things are located downstairs? I am certain you have never been in my establishment before."

Lana watched as Chloe paused in undoing the small buttons down the front of her white petticoat to look at Sally for a moment. "Sally, I'm afraid it is difficult to explain in terms you will understand. For now, let's just say I am very good at magic."

Magic? Wondered Lana. Did she really just say magic? But magic is not real, everyone knows that. Oh, she remembered when the cardsharp passed through town two winters ago and the amazing things he could do with a deck of cards. But it had been just 'sleight of hand'. However looking at Chloe, Lana simply knew she was not referring to anything like that.

"What do you mean?" asked Lana as her questions about her past were momentarily forgotten.

Chloe had just finished the last button and shrugged her shoulders so that her final garment slid off and fell to the floor in a pile around her ankles. As she stepped clear, she tilted her head to one side and looked at Lana.

"I guess this is as good of place as any to start. This place," Chloe swept her arms around to encompass the room with a motion with caused her breasts to sway in a most intoxicating way. "Is very special. While we are here the two of us have very wonderful powers. The problem is that you simply don't remember them just like you don't remember all of your language gifts. Maybe if you regain your magic, it will help you on your path to regain your memories."

Chloe paused and cast her eye around the room. Just then Mary was returning up the stairs carrying a heavy pail of hot water. As she walked over to add her bucket to the water already in the third tub, Chloe with a gesture motioned her to halt.

"Here, I can at least start by helping with the hot water, so Mary and Sue can focus on more fun, I mean important, things like scrubbing our backs or giving massages."

Chloe nonchalantly waved a hand towards the third bathtub and as Lana watched, the water level quickly rose until it was near the brim and small tendrils of steam began to rise from the surface. Chloe gracefully stepped over the side and lowered herself until she was completely submerged. After about fifteen seconds she raised her head above the surface and swept her wet hair back from her face with her fingers. "Ah, it feels like it has been days and days since I have had time to soak and relax."

Lana stared at her but didn't see any of the erotic beauty on display. No, all she saw was the image in her head of the tub filling with water all by itself. And all she could suddenly hear was Chloe's comment that 'they could both do magic here'.

"How did you do that?" asked Lana. "And you say I can do it, too?"

Chloe raised one finger to tell Lana to wait and then she once more sunk completely below the surface of the water. This time Lana had to wait at least thirty seconds before she once more broke the surface. And the whole time the thought 'I can do magic?' looped around and around in her head.

Once Chloe had again swept the hair clear of her face she looked over at Lana and grinned. "Sure. All you have to do is think really hard about what you want to happen. Maybe at first it will help if you close your eyes. Go ahead give it a try. Start with something simple like turning the water in your tub a different color. Say, hmm, how about a very metallic gold color like you were in a tub filled with a million dollars worth of melted down gold."

Lana couldn't imagine it would work or be as simple as just thinking about it, but she closed her eyes and tried to picture the tub filled with liquid gold. For a moment she had this sudden mental image of woman's naked body covered in gold and stretched out on a bed. Along with the picture of the woman had come a word, Goldfinger. Lana had no idea where that word had come from since it didn't seem to mean anything and if it was in reference to the image of the woman, then why not Goldbody instead of Goldfinger?

Were the image and the word some part of the memories she had lost? She tried for almost a minute to see if any other images, memories, or whatever would come to her, but nothing did. Finally, she went back to focusing on making the color of the bath water change.

After another thirty seconds she decided either it had worked or it hadn't. Opening her eyes, she was completely shocked to find the tub was actually filled with gold. Quickly she pushed aside the towel that had been hiding her nakedness and then watched the gold oozed around with a consistency more like really thick paint than water. In utter fascination she rose to her feet and felt the thick liquid sluggishly flowing down her body. Looking down, she almost didn't recognize her body under the nearly inch thick coat of gold.

"I really did this?" asked Lana looking over at Chloe.

Lana saw Chloe's eyes had been running up and down her body and watched Chloe give a guilty start as she realized Lana had seen her.

"Ah, what was your question? Oh, right. Yeah, you really did it."

What she had been able to accomplish with this 'magic' or whatever was so unexpected and startling, for the moment it didn't really sink in. No, all that really registered was the hungry look on Chloe's face as she stared at Lana's body clad only in the gold liquid. Lana looked back down at her body and watched the gold ever so slowly flow back down into the tub. The feeling, she suddenly decided, was less like paint and more like thick maple syrup. And as soon as that thought crossed her mind, she wondered if it would also taste like maple syrup. She thought about it for a moment. Then she reached down plunging her finger into the golden substance just above her navel. Slowly she ran her finger upwards until it crossed her sternum and then continued traveling up between her breasts. Once she had a large globe on the tip of her finger, she raised it near her mouth and extended her tongue to have the smallest of tastes.

Even as the maple taste registered, she heard a small sharp gasp from Chloe. Innocently mistaking the sound of lust for a noise of concern, Lana said, "It is just maple syrup, not real gold." Then she slid the finger into her mouth and hollowed her cheeks as she sucked the finger clean.

Lana continued to watch as Chloe's hands, which had been resting on the upper rim of the tub, abruptly disappeared below the waterline. For a moment Chloe's eyes seemed to start glazing over, but then with a small shake of her head as though she had just forced herself to make a difficult decision, her hands once more appeared on the tub's rim.

Lana had been watching Chloe smile for a few seconds when she realized she hadn't heard anything from Sally in a while. And Sally should have made some comment by now about Lana's golden transformation. Lana had known Sally for a long time and while she might have been struck mute momentarily by the shock of what she had just experienced, it wouldn't keep Sally quiet for long.

Looking back over her shoulder, Lana had imagined many things, but what she saw was not one of them. Sally was frozen in place with a look of shock on her face and her hands raised half way to her mouth. And not only was she frozen, but even the water dripping from her arms was hanging stationary in mid-air.

As she swept her eyes back towards Chloe to find out what was going on with Sally, her eyes saw Sue and Mary also frozen in place. Once she finally got her attention focused back on Chloe, Lana asked. "What is going on with Sally and the girls?"

She watched as Chloe's eyes briefly flicked away from staring at her and looked at the other women before returned to her.

"Ahh," began Chloe before she paused briefly to lick her lips. "I felt it was best we discuss things in private for now." As she once more paused, Lana watched Chloe's eyes traverse over to Sally again. "They are merely frozen in time and when we are ready, I will restart things for them."

Lana felt a small shiver run through her body. Although she wasn't certain if it was due to the sudden understanding that the 'magic' went way beyond simple tricks with water or if it was the realization she was standing there naked and steadily more exposed as the gold drained back into the tub.

Suspecting the latter as much as the former; Lana sank back into the tub of gold before addressing Chloe. "What is so special about this room that all of this 'magic' is possible?"

There was a real look of regret on Chloe's face that the show was over for the moment as she responded. "This room? What are you talking about?"

"You said in this place we could do magic."

Chloe shook her head. "I didn't mean this room. I meant this whole place. . . ah, this whole world for lack of a better term."

"What do you mean this whole world?" Asked Lana. "You said that as those there are others."

"It is somewhat related to your lost memories and I guess it is time to start explaining," began Chloe before she paused to raise her hands from edge of her tub. Immediately, a bottle of champagne appeared in her right hand and two glasses in her left. "Would you like some champagne while we talk?"

Lana knew what champagne was, but had never had any during her four year sojourn in Montana. And when she tried to imagine its taste, nothing came to mind. Had she ever had it in her mysterious former life? If so, nothing was coming back to her. However it might be interesting to try. Hopefully, she wouldn't have a bad reaction from mixing it was the half of glass of whiskey she had already consumed.

"Thanks, Chloe. A glass might be nice."

Their tubs were about five feet apart; too far to reach without someone moving. Chloe rose to her feet from the clear water without bobbling either the bottle or the glasses. Quickly, she moved over beside Lana's tub where only Lana's head, upper shoulders, and arms were visible above the glistening gold surface. Chloe poured Lana a glass and handed it to her. Chloe looked back down at the shimmering surface and once more licked her lips. "Lana that gold looks very inviting and the tub looks big enough for two. Could I join you while we talk?"

Lana was startled by this unexpected request. She almost retorted that Chloe could just as easily fill the other tub with gold, but a look at the expression on the other girl's face made her hold her tongue. There was something in Chloe's eyes beside the lust she had seen earlier. Oh, the lust was most definitely still there, but so was something else. This something else said that Chloe might need the morale support of having her close before this explanation was finished.

To make some space at the other end of the tub, Lana pulled her knees towards her until they broke the surface. "Sure you can join me if you like."

Chloe smiled her thanks before slowly stepping into the tub without raising more than the smallest ripple. Once she was seated, she poured herself a glass and then set the bottle on the floor next to the tub.

Turning to Lana, Chloe raised her glass. "To best friends."

Lana raised her glass and clicked it against Chloe's before taking a small sip. Hmm, the bubbles fizzing in her mouth were different from anything else she could ever remember drinking. As far as the taste itself, it was vaguely reminiscent of the wine she had shared several times before with Sally, yet it was also distinctly different, too.

Lowering her glass, Lana asked, "Best friends? As in you and me?"

Chloe took a sip from her own glass before responding. "Yeah, we were."

When Chloe hesitated, Lana said quietly, "It's okay, just tell me what happened. I think I am strong enough to handle it."

Chloe looked her in the eye for a moment and then nodded. "Okay, there does seem to be something different, stronger about you now then four years ago. I hope you can handle it."

"The hard part is figuring out how to start this without it seeming crazy to you," began Chloe after she had paused for another small sip of her champagne. "In the 'other' world, the 'real' world, we live about one hundred years in the future. In that world we go to high school together and have know each other for three years. Anyway, there was this accident; your boyfriend and another . . . ah . . . friend were very seriously hurt."

Lana tried to understand what Chloe was saying. How could there be another world? Everything here seemed so real. If this was real, could it be the same world just a different time? Lana intended to ask Chloe that question, but when she opened her mouth a different question popped out. "Is it Clark?"

Chloe looked at Lana and Lana could read the confusion in her face. "Clark?" Chloe repeated.

"Is my boyfriend's name Clark? Since I have been here, every time I hear that name it seems to ring a bell."

Chloe shook here head. "No, Clark is not your boyfriend." Chloe saw the look of disappointment in Lana's eyes. "Oh, there is definitely a Clark. He is a good friend of ours and is part of the rescue mission we are on, so I am sure that is why his name is familiar."

"Then what is my boyfriend's name? Why is Clark's name the only one which triggers a response with me?"

"Have you run into anyone in the last four years named Chloe before I walked through the door?"

Lana shook her head.

"Well, your boyfriend's name probably hasn't come up either since you have been here. So there's no reason for it to have been triggered from your memory."

Lana looked at Chloe and then lifted an inquisitive eyebrow as she tilted her head to once side.

"Okay," began Chloe now breaking out into a small grin. "It's Lex. Lex Luthor."

Lana felt a shiver run through her body at the mention of the name Lex. She knew that name! For an instant it seemed like she could even visualize a face to go along with the name. But when she tried to focus on it, the image remained elusively beyond her grasp.

It was another useful tidbit and perhaps with a few more her memories would start to return. Slowly she leaned back from her upright position as she continued to roll the name around in her head. Lex. Lex. Lex.

Her back had just reached the wall of the tub when she realized the name had triggered more than just a response in her head. Looking down, she saw that by reclining at this angle her breasts were now just below the golden surface. And two small peaks existed in the otherwise smooth surface where her suddenly hard nipples tried to push through the pudding-like texture of the thick golden liquid.

At first Lana felt embarrassed at her body's obvious response to the mere mention of the name Lex, particularly with Chloe's face barely three feet away. However when she looked at Chloe's face, she knew Chloe had noticed, but didn't seem shocked. Not only didn't she look shocked, no, she gave the impression of someone who had seen similar things many times before.

Lana raised her glass for a small sip as she worked to get her thoughts away from the word Lex and back onto the other things Chloe had said.

"Ah, Chloe, what do you mean by rescue mission? Are we part of the military or some other governmental agency?"

Chloe shook her head. "No. Nothing like that, but here is where the story starts to get a little weird."

"Should I be getting a little nervous when people who can make champagne bottles appear out of thin air starts talking about things getting weird? And why is the word 'wall' suddenly associated with the word 'weird' in my mind?" asked Lana. She was mostly kidding about feeling a little nervous about what Chloe was about to tell her. Mostly kidding.

Chloe grinned. "Talking about things IS starting to bring back a few of your memories. Back home I have this wall where I collect articles about all of the weird things that happen in Smallville – that's the town where we live."

Smallville. Suddenly it was as if some word association game was being played inside her head. "And The Talon?" she asked.

"The name of the small coffee shop you and Lex own back home."

"He is only my boyfriend, yet we own a business together?"

"Actually, the business came first, your relationship developed much more recently."

Other strange connections started to form in Lana's head. Egyptian Motifs. Roman feasts. Tornados. Mighty warships.

But none of fragments floating around in her head seemed to be inclined to mesh together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. So after a handful of seconds of staring at Chloe's face without really seeing her, Lana tried to pull them off of blind tangents they had been pursuing and on to the real reason Chloe had shown up today.

So, Chloe, what is the 'weird' thing you had to explain about this rescue mission?"

"As I said, we are not working for the government or anybody like that. We are just working for ourselves. However a small group of us – you, me, Clark, and Lex – managed to get control of a time machine. We had some hints a cure for what is attacking Lex might be found back in time. You, Clark, me, and one other used the machine to go back in time.

Lana rolled the concept of time travel around inside her head. More short glimpses of her former life flashed briefly into existence and then were gone. "Is that how I ended up here in Montana? Is what we are looking for here?"

"No, we went to Germany at a point in time about forty years in the future from here and about sixty years in the past from our own time. How you ended up here in Montana. . . well that is something else entirely."

"So what happened in Germany? Did we find what we were looking for? And how did I end up here?"

Chloe paused to reach over the side of the tub to retrieve the champagne bottle and refill their glasses before she spoke. "No, we haven't found what we came to find, at least not yet, but there is still time. As to how you ended up here – you and I got separated from Clark and the others. I guess you could say we got kidnapped by the 'Bad Guys'. We were, actually still are, in a very bad, life-threatening situation. I have a gift that works in the real world. It does not make me nearly omnipotent like we are here, but my gift is still pretty scary."

Chloe closed her eyes for a moment and took a couple of deep breaths. When she opened them, Lana saw they were now bright and shiny like Chloe was almost fighting back tears.

"With some people, I can, just by touching them, reach into their minds and really fuck with their heads. I can make them see, hear, simply experience anything I want. And over the years I have learned how to use people's biggest fears or desires to bend them to my will. I did this to several of our captors to force them to help us escape. Witnessing it pushed you over the edge mentally. To protect yourself and to cope with the shock, you mentally retreated to somewhere you felt safe. Although why you felt the best place to go was late 1890s Montana is beyond me. To the best of my knowledge you have never been to Montana in your life. And certainly not back here."

"I don't understand," began Lana and now the nervousness she had been vaguely experiencing earlier was starting to come back big time. "How could simply watching you do that push me over the edge?"

Chloe sighed, reached up and slowly ran her fingers through her short blonde hair. "Things are way more complicated between us then I have been able to explain so far. I am not sure I can even truly explain it until your memory returns. Let's just say there was an accident some time ago involving us and it left our minds sort of linked together. Now we sometimes experience each other's thoughts. Unfortunately, when I was working on our captors' minds was one of them and you experienced some very, very dark and scary things."

Lana knew she should be paying attention to what Chloe was saying, but her attention had become focused on Chloe's hair. The hand she had run through it was the one which had disappeared below the golden surface shortly after she had entered the shared bath. Now her hair was matted with the thick viscous fluid and a large glob was about to ooze down onto her forehead. Abruptly, Lana couldn't help but giggle at Chloe's appearance.

Chloe looked at Lana and obviously didn't understand what Lana suddenly found so humorous when they were in the middle of an important, serious discussion. She tilted her head slightly to one side, which only seemed to accelerate the movement of the liquid in her hair, and asked, "What?"

Lana's giggles turned into a full-blown laugh. Oh, Chloe's appearance wasn't that hysterical, it was more a reaction to the whole situation. For the last four years her life had been simple and everything had been within her control. Now, in a bare few minutes everything she thought she knew had been turned on its ear. Was that what Chloe had been driving at? Had she retreated here because her real life had gotten out of her control?

After a few seconds Lana had her laughter enough under control to respond. "Sorry. Your hair is full of this golden stuff and it just. . ." and Lana's words trailed off into another burst of giggles.

Chloe instinctively reached up to feel her hair and only managed to add another handful of the stuff. This time she couldn't help but realize what she had done as some of it started to run down the bridge of her nose. When she went to stop it with her fingers, she only managed to smear it around even further, which set Lana to laughing harder.

Lana watched a look of consternation cross Chloe's face, but saw a certain twinkle in her eye as the champagne glass in her one clean, dry hand abruptly vanished. Chloe made as though she was reaching towards her face to wipe it when the hand dipped into the liquid and joined the other in pushing a big wave towards Lana. Before she could react, the wave crested over her upraised knees and hit her full in the face.

Lana dropped her champagne glass over the side of the tub and used both of her clean hands to wipe at her eyes. Just as she opened her eyes, a second wave caught her in the face. This time her mouth had been open and she was almost overwhelmed by concentrated maple syrup taste.

By the time she got her eyes clear the second time, Chloe was laughing almost as hard as she herself had been earlier.

"Two can play this game, you know," said Lana. Then with a moment of concentration she made a five gallon bucket's worth of the golden liquid appear about two feet above Chloe's head. In a fraction of a second, Chloe completely disappeared under a giant mound of the slowly moving fluid.

Quickly, the room was reverberating with their laughs and giggles as waves of the substance went splashing everywhere while the tub was magically replenished from the ether.

In five minutes, everything within fifteen feet looked like it had been dipped in wet gold. And the girls themselves were so thickly coated it was impossible to tell who was who until Lana finally spoke.

"God, I haven't had this much fun in the whole four years I have been here."

Chloe nodded from where her head lay mere inches from Lana's. When their little game finally wore down, they were both stretched out on their sides in the tub facing each other. Under other circumstances their position would have left their naked bodies touching along almost their entire length, but the thick fluid acted as an unseen barrier to keep things on a more sisterly level.

Chloe reached over and gently wiped at the liquid covering Lana's face until enough of it was removed to she could read her expression. "It has been a long time since I had this much fun, too. I'm afraid the last couple of times we were together things were a little tense between us. It is nice to just kick back and have a little fun."

Lana returned the favor of wiping most of the golden liquid from Chloe's face. With a more serious tone she responded, "If, ah, when I return to the 'real' world, what happens to my memories of this place? I mean it has been four years."

Chloe sensed the conversation had turned back to more important things and leaned her head back against the side of the tub. "Oh, based on my personal experience I would say you will remember all of this."

"You've been through something like this yourself?"

"Yeah. Our brains are wired a little differently than everyone else. We can retreat to places like this and years can pass for us while only hours pass in the 'real' world."

"Doesn't that leave you, us, sort of disconnected from our friends? I mean, after four years here, I am sure I have changed, maybe only in subtle ways, but still even without my memories I know I am a different person."

Lana could see a wistful expression cross Chloe's eyes and face as she tried to figure out how best to respond.

"Yeah," began Chloe. "I think 'disconnected' is a good word for it. There have been times when some friend sees me two days in a row and doesn't understand why my reaction at seeing them the second time can be so extreme. I mean from my perspective it may have been years and I have missed them so much I let my excitement at finally seeing them get away from me. Other times it is the exact opposite; the other person is happy to see me and can't comprehend that for me it has been years and during that time my interests have moved on to other things. It can make it very difficult to maintain normal relationships with people or see things with the same perspective as everyone else."

Lana nodded, but she wasn't sure she really understood the implications yet, although it would probably be a lot easier if she could remember her past. At the moment, her memories of all the time she had spent here in complete solitude were so clear; it was hard to feel excitement for any boyfriend let alone one she could hardly remember.

Chloe reached over and tilted Lana's head back until her eyes were once more fixed on her own. "So, Lana, are you ready to return to the real world? I think that will help restore your memories."

Lana's eyes widened in shock at this abrupt suggestion. These mountains and her horses had been her whole life for the last four years and on the whole, she realized, she had been happy. Now, someone, who she didn't really remember as more than a name that sent a tingle down her back, shows up and tells her the last four years were barely more than a dream and it was time for her to wake up. God, why did things have to be so difficult?

"Lana, are you okay?"

Lana shook her head. "This is such a shock. I don't know if I am ready to face what you call the 'real' world." With a desperately pleading tone in her voice, she added, "Does it have to be now?"

Chloe got a far away look in her eyes. After a couple of seconds, her eyes refocused on Lana and there was something in them that the old Lana would have recognized. Unfortunately, the new Lana didn't have her memories of the earlier Chloe or her alter-ego Laura and didn't understand how close to the edge Laura, who had been masquerading as Chloe to keep things simple for Lana, was getting in her battle with her own personal demons. "No, it doesn't have to be right now, but it should happen soon, say within the next six months. After that, I am afraid it will get more difficult for you to break free from your existence here. Plus I think I am going to need your help back in the 'real' world."

Lana felt a wave of relief pass through her that she wouldn't have to do it right this minute. But then the slightest hint of panic set in as the full implication of what Chloe said sank in. Was there a time limit before she would be struck here permanently?

"Thanks for giving me some time Chloe, I think I need it."

Laura nodded, but again she had a far away look in her eyes as though most of her attention was focused elsewhere. "Lana, I am afraid things are going on back in the 'real' world, which need my immediate attention. I will try to stop back when I can so we can continue to work on your memories."

For a moment Laura's full attention was back on Lana. "This has been the most fun and pleasant time I have had in a very long time. Please come back to me soon." Laura managed to keep her tone light, but if Lana had been looking closely she would have seen how much effort it was suddenly costing her. For while Lana had retreated to this place of safety to avoid what Laura had needed to do to try and save them; Laura herself was slowly losing her fight against the additive power of controlling others' minds.

Lana had barely started to nod her head and was about to state her agreement that it had been the most fun she had had in a long time too when abruptly Laura leaned forward, gave her a small kiss on the cheek, and was gone. And with her went the golden liquid filling the tub. And suddenly Sally was in the middle of saying something to her and it was apparent she had no recollection of the other girl's visit.

It quickly started to feel to Lana as though the conversation with Chloe was the dream and this the reality. Trying to convince herself she wasn't losing her mind, Lana's eyes darted around the room for any evidence Chloe's visit had been real. And that was when she saw the champagne bottle standing on the floor on the opposite side of the tub from Sally. Leaning over the side, she also discovered her discarded champagne flute lying on its side next to the bottle. Lana reached down and grabbed the flute. As she raised it, she concentrated and then abruptly, no, miraculously the glass was suddenly filled with pale champagne and streams of tiny bubbles rising to its surface.

Chloe's visit hadn't been a dream.

Part 2

Clark slowly eased his powerful grip on Var-El's hand until finally they broke contact. Clark took half a step back until he was once more standing amongst his friends. While Gretchen took the lead to introduce herself and the others, Clark continued to stare at this stranger, who, based on the similarity in the basic design of their ships, had to be from the same place he was.

Var in turn was also continuing to stare at Clark. He had been momentarily surprised by the strength of the kid's grip. Then he remembered the tribunal's enhanced men; they too were incredibly strong. But a quick glance with his x-ray vision had asserted the kid was not wearing one of the braids, although surprisingly the two men with him were. It had been his understanding that only a limited number of the braids existed and he thought he knew all of the humans possessing them.

However the gift of superhuman strength the braids bestowed on the person carrying them didn't interest Var much. He had had some dealings with those men recently and it had quickly become obvious that the abilities he had developed since arriving here were at least several orders of magnitude greater than what these enhanced men had. And that was just comparing simple physical strength and ignoring all of the other abilities he had discovered over the past two years. Abilities these enhanced men had nothing to match. Not that Var had let on the true extent of his abilities to any of these humans since his nearly disastrous arrival. No, it hadn't taken him long to realize these 'Nazis' were not the people he wanted to make 'First Contact' with, in regards to resettling the Kryptonian populace on Earth. However from a quick survey of the available technology the planet had to offer, they were the ones most able to supply the materials he would need to fix his ship.

And the repair of his ship had been his main concern. Finally, after nearly two human years of hard work, it was almost fully functional. Well, at least as good as it was going to be, working with the primitive resources available here. Some of the ship brain's higher functions could not be restored without a return to Krypton, but at least a return to Krypton should be doable with some jury-rigged manual controls.

However, now, when he was finally ready to do a serious test of the ship, there was the sudden enigma of the young man standing in front of him. If his strength wasn't from the braids, then what was its source? Var wasn't aware of any other techniques for enhancing the strength of these earth men, but if there was one way like the braids, there might be more. Or there was the other possibility: the boy was also from Krypton. At least a simple test for that was possible and it didn't even require revealing any of his own carefully guarded secrets.

"Are you also from Krypton?" asked Var in fluid Kryptonese. Well, after not speaking the language to anyone except the ship's brain for two years, it felt a little less fluid than it should.

Var knew he shouldn't have been surprised at the blank stare Clark and the others returned, but he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. It had been a very long time since he had spoken to anyone from home.

Still, there was something about this 'Clark' that was jangling something in the back of his mind and he couldn't force himself to just throw these intruders out of his makeshift lab. Maybe it was as simple as the poor fit of the uniforms on these three men. If there was one thing he had learned about the Nazis, it was their fanatical sense of order. He hadn't yet met an officer who didn't wear custom tailored uniforms.

So perhaps this group wasn't just intruding in his lab, but perhaps they were intruders into the overall base as well. Var hadn't spared time to learn English, but he had recognized a few of the words the others had shared. And from what earth news he had followed, as part of his self-imposed task of evaluating the Earth's potential to shelter some or all of the Kryptonian people when their own planet became uninhabitable, Var had a sudden hunch that these men were from America.

Therefore, getting no response to his Kryptonian overture, Var tried again by asking, "Amerikanisch?"

Clark quickly nodded, as he had heard this term often enough over the past few days at the Olympic Village to understand it without waiting for someone to translate.

"Gut, kommen Sie mit mir, bitte," said Var-El and then, just to be sure, he motioned for them to follow before turning and heading back towards the ramp leading into the large alien ship.

Clark, Whitney, Indy, and Gretchen shared a look that said, 'what do we do now?" The last five minutes had changed everything. They thought they were here in Peenemunde looking for clues to the whereabouts of Lana and Marion, but now they were suddenly confronted by a giant alien spaceship, a ship that shouldn't be there and whose mere presence might sway the whole outcome of the Second World War.

After a few seconds, Clark spoke up quietly. "I have to follow him. The rest of you can wait here if you want, but I must do this."

Whitney didn't yet understand that a connection existed between Clark and Var-El, but he immediately understood the implication of the presence of this ship on the future as they knew it. "Clark, I'm with you."

Clark looked at Indy, who nodded. "I did always want to play Buck Rogers."

Clark shared a glance with Whitney as they both wondered how Indy knew about a character from an old TV series they had seen in reruns of the Sci-Fi channel when they were kids. Oh, it had been old to them, but they knew that meant the 1970s, not the 1930s that was required if Indy knew about Buck Rogers.

Indy saw the shared glance and interpreted it to mean they didn't know who Buck Rogers was. But how could anyone from the States not know about the first syndicated comic strip or the subsequent radio serial? This was not the first time Indy had seen Clark or Whitney give an odd response to a common, everyday situation. Who really are these guys and what are they really doing here? Wondered Indy.

"Let's go," said Gretchen, deciding it for everyone by immediately heading off after Var-El.

They started moving at a brisk pace for the first forty feet as they crossed the open floor of the hanger. But as they passed under the edge of the broad saucer section, a slight hesitation entered their stride. Oh, it wasn't as though they had to duck their heads; the underside of the saucer was at least twenty-five feet above them. No, it was the immense feeling of weight the ship projected; a very different feeling than any airplane they had ever been around.

And the feeling of weight, strength, and power became even more profound as they made their way up the entry ramp. Indy, who had spent more time around naval vessels than all of the others combined, quickly pointed out how the roughly thirty-six inch thick hull was far greater than any battleship's.

Feeling a lot of trepidation, the four of them found Var-El waiting for them at the top of the ramp.

"I think things will be much easier, if we proceed to the control deck," said Var in German. After waiting for Gretchen to translate, Var again gestured for them to follow him and then proceeded deeper into the ship.

They found themselves in a broad corridor paneled in a raspberry-sherbet shade of wood none of them had seen before. Between cross-corridors and doorways, the walls were filled with works of art. Mostly landscapes and cityscapes, it was quickly obvious none of these vistas occurred anywhere on earth. The skies were all done in varying shades of green. The buildings appeared to tower miles into the sky. Several showed large cities located under what looked like protective domes. One appeared to show a giant volcano spewing rivers of molten gold. Finally, at the end of this hallway was a large mural showing a giant crystalline structure sprawling along the top of a rugged ridge with large craggy mountains in the background.

Something seemed to draw Clark to this particular painting and he paused to look more closely. Soon, he was slowly tracing his fingers bare inches from the surface along a graceful spire located near one end of the beautiful structure.

Var noticed the others had paused and turned back to see what had attracted their attention. "That is my ancestral home," he explained. "It has been the seat of our power for almost ten thousand of your years."

While Gretchen was translating to the transfixed Clark, Whitney wandered across the hallway and peeked through the crystal window of a closed door.

"Holy shit!" exclaimed Whitney. "You guys have to come and look at this."

Indy and Gretchen hurried over while Clark lingered for a moment longer by the painting. But when he heard gasps from both Indy and Gretchen, his curiosity got the better of him and he followed the others.

And when he had his turn at the window, he quickly understood their response. The room was filled with robots. He couldn't see the whole room from this window, but in this portion, it had to contain at least fifty. They looked like they were the leftovers from every sci-fi movie of the 1950s, with a few thrown in from the 1960s and 1970s for good measure. From where they stood, no two of the robots looked to be exactly alike. Most were roughly man-sized, but the number of visible appendages ranged from two to at least ten. If the ship's design alone hadn't been sufficient proof of its alien origin, then this large collection of robots, any one of which would have taxed early twenty-first century design limits, would have quelled any remaining objections to that theory.

"That's the robot storage area. They were suppose to do most of the maintenance work on the ship, but unfortunately the ship brain that controls them was severely damaged during my rough arrival. They can be programmed manually, but, while I have been here, it has generally been easier to let the Germans do most of the maintenance," explained Var.

What have the Germans learned from all of this hardware? Wondered Clark. Even if much of it wasn't functional, it had to provide a lot of new ideas and shortcuts.

After allowing them a few minutes more to explore the view of the robot storage room, Var gestured that they should be on their way. Clark could have spent the whole evening staring at the contents of that room, but he quickly remembered they were on something like a tight schedule. They were on this base looking for leads on the location of Marion and Lana. Plus while their 'borrowed' uniforms were reasonably effective for chance encounters in the dark, these uniforms were unlikely to hold up in broad daylight.

Var led the way down the next corridor until they reached the grav-shaft. He paused to tell the ship brain to take the five of them to the upper control deck before turning back to the others. "This is my equivalent to your elevators," Var explained in German. "I have already instructed it to take us to the control deck. Just step into it one at a time and when you reach the highest level just step out of it normally."

Gretchen again translated for Clark and Whitney, but none of them understood exactly what Var meant, particularly since Gretchen didn't know the English word for elevator. So they were all watching with interest that quickly turned into a queasy sort of fear as Var slowly rose up the shaft without any visible means of support.

For a short second Clark thought Var-El was simply flying and he knew the secret of doing it without using 'speed mode'. But he immediately threw that theory out as he would hardly expect the four of them to fly.

Once Var had disappeared from view up the shaft, the four of them exchanged glances. Whitney, Indy, and Gretchen all wore expressions that said they didn't believe what they had just seen and none of them looked too excited to go first.

Finally, as the quasi-leader of the group and the only one who wasn't at risk of being hurt since he could simply shift to flying mode if the system failed, Clark stepped into the shaft. Reaching the center of the nine foot diameter shaft, Clark paused expectantly. In less than a second he felt himself rising. Well, he actually didn't feel himself rising; no, it felt more like he was standing perfectly still and the shaft was sliding down around him. And more than sliding down, it seemed like the whole shaft, and by extension the whole ship, was slowly rotating around him until by the time he reached the top it had rotated one hundred eighty degrees and he was facing in the opposite direction from where he had started. It had been one of the strangest feelings he had ever experienced.

When he reached the top, after passing three other intermediate openings, he was facing the open exit onto the command level. The doorway was about four feet away and before he started moving, he looked down. Big mistake. Nothing visible was supporting him and it was a straight drop of almost sixty feet to the level from which he had started. Even with all of his recent flying experience, or maybe because of his flying experience, Clark felt his body reflexively starting to shift into 'speed mode' as the first step towards starting to fly. Intellectually, he knew there was no real risk of falling or Var-El wouldn't have led them this way. So with an act of will he stopped the shift to 'speed mode'.

Carefully taking a step towards the opening, he found it felt like he was walking on an invisible surface, like a sheet of glass. Then suddenly the scene in the last Indiana Jones movie where Indy had to make 'the leap of faith' and step off into the abyss came to mind. He was definitely going to have to figure out how to ask Indy about that scene without giving away how he had heard about it. Of course, as he reached the threshold and stepped clear of the shaft, Clark wished he could figure out how to do the equivalent of throwing a handful of gravel to make it easier for the others.

It seemed like Clark had barely turned back towards the shaft when Indy's head was already rising into view. As Indy's upward motion came to a halt, Clark quickly called out, "Hank, don't look down, just walk towards me."

Gretchen came next and Clark repeated his warning. Whitney brought up the rear and as he came into view they saw his head swiveling all around looking left, right, up, and down. When he reached the top, he came bounding out.

"Clark, that was the most fun I can remember since I rode 'Freefall' at the Six Flags down in Dallas when my family was on vacation two years ago," said Whitney, his eyes still bright with enthusiasm.

"Six Flags?" asked Indy with a questioning expression on his face.

"Ah," responded Clark quickly in an attempt to cover Whitney's faux pas. "It is an amusement park similar to Coney Island. It was named for the six different flags that have flown in Texas down through the years."

Gretchen shook her head. "I have never understood the thrill of scary rides. I didn't enjoy that at all. I hope this place has stairs somewhere."

Indy took one more look at the gaping hole and nodded his head in agreement.

Getting past their first encounter with truly alien technology, the four turned to take their first good look at this 'command level'. They found themselves in a forty foot wide semi-circular space which filled half of the upper sphere of the ship. The grav-shaft they had just arrived in was located in the very center of the ship and therefore the space in front of them felt vaguely like the Omni Theater at the Metropolis Science Museum which Clark and Whitney had both visited when they were younger. This space had the same curved surface and looked ideal for displaying 'Omni' style movies.

The space was surprisingly empty compared to all of their preconceived notions from the movies. A single seat, which was obviously the command chair, was located in the center of the space on a six foot raised platform facing away from them and towards the large curved wall. The chair had several small monitors and control panels attached to its arms, but nothing obstructed the view forward. Since the room didn't have any windows, Clark assumed when the ship was in motion that images of the external view were somehow projected on the currently blank pale green surface. After a moment's thought Clark realized the color of the walls/ceiling were similar to the shade of the sky in many of the art works they had passed on the lowest level. Was this the color of the sky on his home world? Clark could feel his excitement surging. He had waited so long to find out about where he was from and now, deep in Nazi Germany, it looked like he was finally going to get some answers.

The only other furnishings in this space were to their right, along the wall which separated the two halves of the sphere. And the relatively normal looking couch and two armchairs were still being lowered into place by four robots. As soon as they were in position, three of the robots retreated through a doorway in the wall while the fourth remained and listened while Var-El gave it additional instructions.

The four of them hesitated to intrude or even move from the grav-shaft entrance until Var looked up and motioned them over.

"This is Unit Seven," began Var with a nod towards the robot which quickly inclined what passed for a head toward them. "It acts as my butler and takes care of my personal needs. I have asked it to provide refreshments. Is coffee good for everyone?"

After Gretchen had translated, they all nodded and the robot moved off without any further directions from Var. As it headed towards the same door in the wall used by the other robots, they all watched in fascination. It stood about six feet tall and walked on two legs, but there the similarities to a real person or C-3P0 from Star Wars ended. This robot had six arms. The longest upper pair were each about six feet long and made up of five segments allowing almost unlimited freedom of motion of the end grippers which had two fingers and an opposable thumb. The middle pair which much shorter and thinner and ended with a cluster of almost twenty digits each. Obviously the center pair were designed for delicate work. The lowest pair looked the most human; at least they were about the right length and ended in hands with the normal number of fingers. And the differences weren't just limited to the hands; the legs had three segments and the resulting double knee joints lent it a strange fluid motion not seen on any earth creature.

Once the robot disappeared through the doorway, they turned their attention back to Var-El, who gestured towards the seats.

"Please, take a seat," began Var as a small frown crossed his face. "This having to pause to have everything translated is very inconvenient. Please wait here, I will be back in a couple of minutes."

As Gretchen once again translated, Var strode over towards the command chair and ascended the ten steps. Once he was settled into the chair he reached in a drawer in one arm and pulled out what looked like a headband. After settling it on his temples, he pressed several control buttons before leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

The four watched for a few seconds, but nothing else visible happened. Finally, in his excitement and forgetting the whole 'Vulcan' cover story, Whitney whispered, "I can't believe we are on an actual freaking spaceship."

Since Whitney had never seen Clark's own spaceship, Clark was very tempted to tell him that not only was this a spaceship, but it seemed very likely to be from his original home planet. But Clark was still hesitant about letting Indy in on too much of the real situation and potentially disrupting the timeline. Not that this ship in Nazi hands didn't already put their future in extreme risk. Still, he felt it was best to wait on letting Indy in on the whole truth until they found out more of Var-El's story.

"Yeah," responded Clark also at a whisper. "Hearing Spock's stories about his ship and being in an actual functioning one are two completely different things."

Whitney stared blankly at Clark for a moment and then the cover story reference sank in and he gave the smallest of nods to let Clark know he understood.

"So is Var-El from Vulcan?" asked Indy.

Clark shook his head. "No, he doesn't look Vulcan. In fact, I have no idea what race or planet he is from. None of the races Spock has described to me look exactly human like Var-El does." This comment once again brought to mind the question that had puzzled him since his parents had told him about his true heritage nearly nine months earlier. If he had been born on an alien planet and had all of these amazing gifts, why did he look exactly like an earth-borne human? Perhaps he would finally learn the answer to this question from Var-El.

As Clark was pondering this question and the many others he would like to ask Var-El if they got some time alone, Unit Seven returned carrying a tray with five cups in one of its lower hands and a coffee pot in one of the longer upper hands. Using its free upper hand, it deftly lifted the first cup from the tray, filled it from the pot in the other hand, and presented it to Gretchen. After that, it filled and handed out cups to the three men in turn. When Clark received his cup he was surprised and a little disappointed to see a Nazi Swastika emblazed on the side. Once more he had to wonder about Var-El's relationship with the Nazis. Was he in league with them? Was it going to be up to them to stop Var-El from destroying their future?

Clark took a sip of his coffee. It was the typical dark, bitter variety they had found everywhere during their travels in Germany. It had been only five days, well almost six, since they arrived, but he was really starting to miss the coffee at The Talon. Oh well, at least it was a change from the ale and watered wine he had consumed during the three weeks they had spent in the Roman Empire.

As he was taking a second sip, Clark watched Var-El raise his hands and rub his eyes for a moment before removing the headband. Clark wondered what the whole deal with the headband was about as Var-El rose from the chair, descended the stairs and returned to where they were waiting.

Taking the cup the robot offered, Var-El responded with a 'Thank you, Unit Seven," before dropping into the remaining vacant seat.

It took a moment before it sank in with Clark and the others. Var-El had just answered in clear, accent-free American English.

"You just learned English?" Clark gaped.

"It seemed like it would make things easier, if we didn't have to translate everything."

"But how?" asked Clark. None of the 'special' gifts he had developed to date, like the strength, speed, heat and x-ray vision, or flying, had involved enhanced mental abilities.

"Fortunately, the ship's brain has been monitoring all radio broadcasts for the two years I have been here. It has built extensive databanks on all of the major languages. I just hadn't bothered to download them, as German was all I have needed until now."

Clark tried to imagine downloading an entire language into his mind in a matter of a couple of minutes. It seemed like something Chloe or Lana could do with their nanobot' enhanced minds and the right interface. But how was it possible without that kind of enhancement? Or did Var-El have something similar? Not understanding his birthright was going to drive him crazy.

And Clark was tired of feeling that way. Here was the first opportunity to find out about his past. Or if not his personal past, then at least something about the planet he was from. But it wasn't going to happen unless he revealed the truth about himself. Well, maybe it wasn't necessary to reveal the truth to Indy and the others, but he definitely needed to reveal his heritage to Var-El.

Even though Chloe and Lana and to a lesser extent Lex and Whitney knew his secret, it was still difficult for Clark to talk about himself after a lifetime of hiding the truth. Before he could chicken out, Clark accelerated his body up into 'speed mode' and moved over next to Var-El.

"Var-El, there are things we need to talk about. Is there somewhere we can talk in private?"

Var-El had automatically shifted into 'speed mode' as Clark began to blur and move. And seeing Clark accelerate finally answered the question raised by his powerful handshake.

"Please, call me Var. Calling me Var-El is like always addressing you as Clark Kent." When Clark nodded, Var glanced over to Clark's three companions who all appeared to be frozen in place. "Do they know who you really are?"

Clark wanted to say he didn't even know who he really was, but instead responded. "Whitney knows some of the truth, but not the others. And it is probably safest if we can keep it that way."

Var nodded and he understood. There had been plenty of times he wished the tribunal didn't know as much about him as they did.

"Okay, Clark. Let me give them the standard 'light show' I have done for some of the Germans. It will keep them occupied for a few minutes while we move to my quarters and chat."

Clark nodded his acceptance. With a big grin on his face about the likelihood of learning about his home world in the next few minutes, he moved back to his seat before dropping out of 'speed mode'.

"I came to Earth from my home planet of Krypton on a mission of exploration as well as a test flight for a new drive I have been developing," began Var deciding to stick to the basics for now. "This drive has the ability to fold space so my ship can transition across light-years in an instant." Var paused to look at their faces. "Am I going too fast?"

Indy and Gretchen had nodded quickly. Clark was just staring blankly at Var while repeating the word 'Krypton' over and over in his head.

Surprisingly, it was Whitney who spoke up. "What you're saying is if we drew two marks on a piece of paper to represent Krypton and Earth, then a straight line between them would represent the shortest path light would travel through 'normal' space to get from one to the other. But if we fold the paper in half so the two marks are only separated by the thickness of the paper, your drive would be like a pin pushed straight through the paper allowing you to get from one point to the other without traveling the long path required by light."

Everyone stared at Whitney for a moment. Var had never heard anyone elucidate his basic concept in such clear and simple terms. Indy and Gretchen assumed his knowledge came from his and Clark's interaction with the Vulcans. However Clark was the most surprised. Frankly, he had always pegged Whitney as the stereotypical 'dumb jock'.

"What?" said Whitney to all of the stares he was receiving. "It is a theory Asimov and many others have been writing about for a long time."

Var, of course, didn't truly understand the reference, nor did Indy or Gretchen, as Isaac Asimov was still a young, relatively obscure writer in the recent scientific offshoot of the more mainstream pulp fiction genre.

"I would like to meet this Asimov someday to discuss his theories and see how they compare with my theories and implementation," responded Var. Then taking in Clark's impatient expression, he continued, "However, that can wait for another time. Anyway, at the start of my test flight, as I was about to switch from normal anti-gravity flight mode to teleportation drive, my ship suffered a mishap. Well, I am sure you all saw the giant gash blown out of the underside of the saucer. It only happened a fraction of a second before the transition and it was impossible to abort. So when I arrived at the Earth, most of my anti-gravity system was not working and I crash-landed here."

"Here as in Germany?" asked Clark beginning to understand why Var might be dealing with the Nazis.

"Here, as in this exact spot. My ship weighs, in your units, about seventy-five thousand tons. With the anti-gravity system off-line, it would be virtually impossible to move it with existing Earth technology."

Clark seemed to remember World War II vintage aircraft carriers and battleships weighed around thirty to forty thousand tons and ran to eight or nine hundred feet in length. He had seen the great thickness of the hull of this spaceship, but it still didn't seem sufficient to support Var's number, which was almost double. If Var hadn't screwed up the translation, the spaceship must be made of some extremely dense material.

"So," asked Gretchen, "your ship wasn't brought to this base, but rather the base was built around your ship?"

"Yes," answered Var. For a moment his mind flashed back to that horrifically scary day. The twin timers measuring the time to impact of the incoming weapon and the time to the availability of the teleportation drive had been counting down in perfect synch. At zero, he had been thrown about violently and everything had gone black. When the emergency lights had come on, he discovered he had been thrown from the command chair and was lying on the tilted floor on the far side of the command deck. The safety web built into the chair had been rated for over twenty G's, more than enough to kill him. Plus he was pinned under a control console which had to weigh a thousand pounds. Yet he was unhurt and had easily lifted the console free. That had been his first experience of his new-found abilities which seemed to have spontaneously developed with his arrival on Earth.

"I have been exchanging technological information for materials, fabrication support, and labor to get my ship working again."

Hmm, thought Clark, so that is where all the Nazi wonder weapons came from during the Second World War. The Germans hadn't been scientific geniuses; they had had outside help.

"Now," continued Var, "would you like to see some footage of Krypton? My ship, Wegthor's Shadow, named after one of Krypton's moons, was an intercontinental passenger liner before I converted it to be my test ship. Stored in the ship's brain are the flight records of the countless journeys it made during its two hundred year career. Well, in Earth years that would be more like two hundred eighty years. Anyway, the ship can project the view from any of its trips. Would you like to see a little of Krypton?"

All four of the others quickly nodded their heads vigorously. Even Clark was almost wishing he could postpone his conversation with Var until later. And this became even truer once Var got things rolling.

"Ship!" began Var in the special tone that would let the ship's brain know a command was about to be issued. "Please provide the visual records of one of your voyages. Also provide commentary in English with English units for distance, time, etc. And answer any security category three or lower questions these people may ask."

+-+ Confirmed.+-+

The lights in the room quickly went dark and then just as quickly came back up. Only now it was as though they were sitting outside on a brilliantly sun-lit day, a perfectly normal day except the sky was a pale green and the sun a deep ruby red. The view stretched from horizon to horizon only blocked in part by the raised command chair. To their left a giant crystal dome stretched for what looked like miles. Through the dome they could see a forest of skyscrapers that put the recently completed Empire State building to shame.

The view of the dome held still for only a moment before they experienced a sense of motion and the dome began to slide backwards in their peripheral vision.

+-+ This is the start of my fifty thousandth loop between the capitol city of Kryptonopolis on the continent of Lurvan and Argo City on the continent of Urrika with stops at Kandor and Xan. The distance from Kryptonopolis to Argo City is sixty-two thousand miles with a typical travel time of twenty-seven hours at Mach 3.2. Although for this special commemorative flight, pure speed had not been the goal. Rather this flight took a more circuitous route to pass many of the historically and ecologically important sites on the planet.+-+

Clark remembered from Geography class that the Earth had a circumference of about twenty-five thousand miles. If these cities of Kryptonopolis and Argo City were on the opposite sides of the world, Krypton had a circumference of at least one hundred twenty five thousand miles. The planet was huge. If the planet's density was similar to Earth's, what would be the force of gravity at its surface? Did this start to explain where his great strength came from?

The city dome of Kryptonopolis started to recede into the distance as the ship began to pick up speed. The view they were experiencing was so clear and life-like, it seemed like they should have been feeling the wind blowing through their hair.

Suddenly, four giant streaks of emerald green came shooting down out of the ruby sun. In a moment, four giant creatures were flying in loose formation with the ship.

"What are those things?" asked Gretchen as she felt her body try to worm its way deeper into the meager protection of the couch. Whatever the creatures were, they were certainly the meanest, most vicious looking things she had ever seen. And also they were by far the largest. Gauging them against the visible saucer section of the ship, these creatures had a wingspan of at least one hundred fifty feet and a total body length from the tip of their snout to the barbed tail of two hundred feet.

+-+These are examples of one of the smaller species of flame dragons found on Krypton. The mountain variety grows to approximately three times this length.+-+

My god, thought Clark, that would be even bigger than this ship.

"Why are they called flame dragons?" asked Whitney as he watched in fascination.

+-+The dragons can spout a very powerful flame from special organs located in the walls of their throats. This fire can burn through a six inch thick plate of Kryptonillium in five seconds. Fortunately, after the dragons produce a five second burst, it takes them approximately six minutes to recharge. Generally, I can outrun them before they can get off a second shot.+-+

The dragons had now been holding the formation for over two minutes and it felt like the ship had been accelerating the whole time.

"How fast can they fly?" continued Whitney.

+-+The dragons can maintain a cruising speed of mach 1.8. However they have been clocked during dives at mach 4.6.+-+

Clark was starting to understand why the ship had a thirty-six inch thick hull. Krypton was beginning to sound like a pretty scary place to live.

Just as the dragons began to fall behind and a mountain range started to rise above the horizon, Var moved over to Clark and touched his shoulder.

"Clark, how about we go have that talk now?"

Clark had to struggle to tear his eyes away from the panoramic view and look at Var. On one hand he wanted to stay and see more of his home planet. But on the other hand, he needed more than just this travelogue and he wouldn't get that without talking to Var privately. Plus, he needed to remember the real reason they were back here in Nazi Germany; it was to find some way of saving Chloe and Lex. They had come in search of some mysterious device that they still didn't understand or know how to use. But now the perfect opportunity to find out more had been thrust into his lap. Hopefully, if he explained what had happened to them, Var might understand and be able to help.

"Yeah, let's do it." Clark responded. Then he raised his voice a little to get the others' attention. "Ah, guys, Var and I are going to talk. We will be back in a few minutes."

Whitney, Indy, and Gretchen all just nodded and continued to watch the wild country unfold before them. They were so engrossed, none of them even wondered what Clark and Var needed to discuss in private.

Clark rose to his feet and then swayed for a moment. Their apparent speed through the air was sufficient to momentarily confuse even Clark's incredible sense of balance. But by focusing on the blank wall behind them rather than the aerial view in the other directions, he was quickly able to get his touch of vertigo back under control.

It was only a trip of fifteen feet to reach the spot where a doorway in the blank wall slid open. It took a moment after they stepped through and the door slid shut for Clark's body to grasp that they had been on solid ground the whole time and the sense of motion and flying had all been an illusion.

After passing down a short hallway with several doorways which Var said led to storage and maintenance areas, they passed through another door that led directly into Var's onboard quarters.

The room they entered looked to be a combination office and sitting area. The entire wall behind the desk was one large display which at the moment was showing a life-size image of six people. Since one was Var and the others were a woman his age and four younger people ranging from mid-teens to early twenties, Clark guessed they were Var's family.

Clark walked straight over to take a closer look at the display. All of the people in the shot were dressed in tunics, which were subtly different than anything Clark had ever seen before in real life or the movies. Still, even without ever having seen anything like it before, he had the immediate impression that this was formal attire for some special occasion. Or perhaps it was the expressions on their faces that gave it away.

"Var, is this your family?"

Var, without conscious thought, began to stroke his fingers over his crystalline wedding bracelet as he looked with longing at the giant photo. "Yes, Clark. Standing next to me is my wife, Salva. Beside her are our oldest son, Zim, and his new wife, Byma. On the other side of me are our daughter, Kayla, and our younger son, Jor. This picture was taken at Zim and Byma's wedding which was just two days before I left Krypton."

"It must be tough to have been away from your family for so long," said Clark with a hint of sympathy and understanding in his voice. His recent three week adventure to ancient Rome was still fresh in his memory. It had been the longest he had ever been away from his family and for much of that time he had had no idea if he would ever make it home again.

"Yes, when I left, I never expected to be gone this long. Hopefully, if the remaining system checks go smoothly, I will be on my way back soon." Var paused for a moment; this was not the time to get maudlin.

Forcing his attention away from thoughts of his family, Var turned his attention to the young man standing in front of him. Although young man seemed almost to be stretching it, as he didn't look much older than Jor had looked before Var's departure.

"So, Clark, how is it you are on Earth and don't speak any Kryptonese? Before meeting you, I thought I was the first person from Krypton to visit Earth in recent memory."

Clark hesitated for a moment. How much should he tell Var? He was still worried about disrupting the timeline, but the risk didn't seem as great with Var as it was with Indy. No, if Var was returning to Krypton soon, his knowing a little about events on Earth more than sixty years in the future shouldn't bring too much danger. And since Clark knew nothing about Krypton before meeting Var, he could hardly say anything about Krypton that would risk its future.

"Well, it is a little complicated. Oh, not why I don't know the Krypton language that is pretty straight forward. No, the more complicated part is what I am doing here. But hopefully, you will be able to shed a little light on that."

Var raised his eyebrow as much in wonder about where Clark was heading with this conversation as he did to indicate for Clark to continue. He had been stranded here for two years without any contact with anyone from home and then suddenly a kid from Krypton shows up apparently looking for his help.

Taking a deep breath, Clark decided to jump straight to the heart of the matter without a lot of hemming and hawing. "I will arrive on Earth fifty-three years from now at the age of three in a tiny ship just large enough to hold one child. I will have no memory of Krypton and will be raised by an Earth couple in America. I have never had any idea where I was originally from, but as soon as I saw your ship I saw the basic similarities of design and shape between it and my ship. That is why I guessed you might be from my home world and tested you with the handshake."

Var stared at Clark for a moment. This was not at all what he expected to hear from him. "You're . . . from the future?"

Clark nodded. "Yeah, a good friend of mine, well actually she is my girlfriend and her name is Chloe, she designed a time machine. However I am afraid the scientific details of how it works is beyond my current understanding. And how the time machine works is not immediately germane as to why I am here."

Clark turned and walked over to the nearby couch and dropped into its deep soft embrace. The material of the couch had a different feel than any material he had ever touched before. But whatever the material, it simply felt manmade rather than natural.

Clark was now facing the wall opposite the family portrait. At first he thought it was covered with a very detailed photo of some very rough and tumbled terrain, but after a few seconds he noticed small traces of movement: bird-like creatures flying, clouds moving, and off in the distance what looked like a waterfall made completely of fire. This was definitely the projection of some movie clip or a very realistic looking computer simulation.

But after a few second of staring at the view, Clark realized he needed to continue his story.

"I wasn't there when it happened, but my ship effectively attacked a good friend of mine named Lex. Well, it might not have been trying to attack him; I think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the net effect is the same. Actually, I think I was the intended target, but I suspect it wouldn't have had the same debilitating affect on me."

Clark could see from the expression on his face that Var was not really following what Clark was trying to say. So he tried starting again. "My ship crashed when I arrived at age three like I said. My adoptive parents hid it away in an underground room near their house so my secret wouldn't be revealed. Being so young when I arrived, I didn't have any memories of the ship or my arrival as I grew up. I didn't find out about the ship until about nine months ago. Since I found out about it, and ever since it landed according to my parents, the ship has always been completely inert.

"Apparently, the ship has been missing a small piece ever since the crash. This piece is an octagonal shaped disk with some symbols inscribed on the surface. Symbols I now assume are in the Krypton language. Anyway, some people who work for Lex found it recently. Through a long involved sequence of events that don't really matter at the moment, Lex ended up leaning over the disk as it was placed in the mating slot in the ship. According to my Mom, who was present, the disk immediately released a powerful beam of light that struck Lex in the face. The beam was so powerful it lifted Lex into the air for several minutes. My Mom said she had a really strong impression the beam of light or energy or whatever was more than that and that it was transferring massive quantities of data.

"When it was over, Lex was left in some kind of coma. My Mom called me. When Chloe and I arrived, Chloe touched Lex and something happened to her." Clark paused for a moment. Chloe's nanobots weren't really relevant to what had originally happened to Lex; at least Clark didn't think so. But it was hard to explain why they were back here without describing Chloe's data from whatever had attacked her.

"Var, I need to deviate for a moment before I can explain the rest of what happened. Do you know about nanotechnology?"

Var felt he already had an inkling of what had happened to Clark's friend Lex, although that wouldn't explain what had happened later to his girlfriend, Chloe. It was probably best to hear what else Clark knew before discussing any preliminary theories.

"I'm sorry Clark. That word doesn't mean anything to me. Is it a word that would exist here in 1936?"

"Oh, good point. Your English is so good; I forgot it is all based on the English of the 1930s. Nanotechnology is the science of building things down on the atomic level. Things like miniature machines which consist of only a few thousand atoms."

"Ah," nodded Var. "I follow now. Our word for it is 'cvikota'. It is the basis for my ship's brain and the brains used for controlling much of the infrastructure of our cities. Additionally, there have been some applications in the material sciences, but most of that is still theoretical."

"Good," said Clark. "Then hopefully you will understand the next part. Chloe's body is saturated with nano-scale machines. I think she told me once it is on the order of fifty for every cell in her body or around four quadrillion in total. These miniature machines can repair any physical damage to her body almost instantaneously. They also keep her in perfect health so her body never ages. More importantly for the immediate situation, all of these machines act together as a massive three-dimensional computer array."

Var looked at Clark almost in shock. He didn't remember ever reading about any research to use cvikota in the field of medicine, but know that Clark had mentioned it, it seemed so obvious. And the computing power of what Clark had just described was almost unimaginable.

As Var's powerful brain extrapolated other potential results and applications, Clark continued his explanation. "Some of Chloe's 'bots, which is what we call the nano-machines, were introduced in Lex's body on an earlier occasion. I believe he has just as many in his body as Chloe, but due to safeguards built into Chloe's 'bots, the 'bots in Lex's body are supposed to be dormant except when Chloe touches him.

"I think whatever was in that beam of light which struck Lex got into the 'bots in his body. When Chloe touched him, whatever it was, jumped into her system, too. Chloe said it was trying to take control of her, but she had been able to glean some information from it while fighting to retain control of her body. In particular, she said she saw a device with more alien markings being handed by a German officer to Henry Jones during the opening ceremony of the upcoming Olympics. She couldn't explain what the device was or how it worked, but she had the impression that somehow the device could counteract whatever was happening to her."

Some of the fear Clark had know for the past week returned to his voice and eyes as he finished. "She said the invader would overwhelm her 'bot system in less than fifteen minutes and then it might be too late to save her. So Whitney, Lana, and I quickly used the time machine to come back here hoping to find the device and figure out how to use it before the window to save Chloe and Lex closes."

"Lana?" asked Var as this was someone Clark hadn't mentioned before.

"Lana Lang. She and Henry's wife, Marion, got separated from us two days ago when we were trying to rescue Henry from some of the fucking Nazi Gestapo guys back here. Actually, it is because of Lana and Marion that we are here at Peenemunde. The one, who took them away, a Major Biberach, is part of a special 'Todeshauptgottnachfolger' branch of the Gestapo, which is headquartered here. We hadn't been able to discover where he has taken the women, so we came here to search their records for any clues. It was while we were doing that search that I sensed your ship powering up."

"Hmm, I have actually met Major Biberach before," said Var, his expression adding he didn't hold the Major in too high of regard. "But I have no idea where he is at present. I will, of course, keep my eyes and ears open for any information about him or your friends.

"However, in regard to your friends, Chloe and Lex, I think I have an idea what happened."

Clark stared at Var with almost a sense of disbelief. He had been struggling so hard for the past week to find an answer for Lex and Chloe's condition. Was the solution about to fall into his lap?

Var ran the numbers in his head one more time. Clark said he would arrive on Earth fifty-three years in the future – fifty-three earth years. Factoring in the two earth years Var had been here, that would be just under just under forty Kryptonese years after Var had departed Krypton, and also forty years after his disastrous meeting with the Supreme Council. If the analysis he had presented to the Council had turned out to be true, catastrophic failure of the Krypton eco-system would have occurred in about forty years. So, if Clark's tiny ship had used a propulsion system similar to his own teleportation drive, its departure from Krypton would have roughly coincided with the death of the planet.

If Var assumed that scenario was correct, then whoever sent Clark to Earth would have known it was going to be a one way trip. And if that was the case, the ship might have been intended to perform additional functions besides simply transporting him to Earth.

"Clark, how old are you?"

"I turned sixteen about six months ago. Well, I am not absolutely certain of the date. My parents didn't know my birthday, so they selected the day they found me to be my birthday. Since I looked about three at the time, that's how I ended up thinking of myself as sixteen."

"That's close enough, Clark. I do think the beam of light from your ship which hit your friend was intended for you." Var paused and ran his fingers through his thick black hair for a moment. "I guess you're going to need a short Kryptonian history lesson to understand this part."

Clark eagerly nodded; he was excited to learn anything he could about his heritage.

"About eight hundred years ago, well, eight hundred Kryptonian years, not that it matters at the moment, lived one of the greatest Kryptonian scientists, Garf-Og. He discovered a method to greatly enhance the mental abilities of the Kryptonian race. This technique increased the analytical abilities of adult Kryptonians by about a factor of three and also provides near photographic memory abilities. This combination makes things like learning a new language in a few minutes possible. Anyway, the technique involved is a two stage process. The first stage occurs before birth and involves a complex series of genetic and hormonal treatments and immersion in specific electro-magnetic fields over a number of months. This complicated regimen is not possible or practical in a Mother's womb, therefore for the past eight hundred years, fetuses are brought to term in artificial wombs in a place we call the 'Hall of Gestation'."

Clark felt something akin to queasiness. Growing up on a farm, he had been around the natural progression of pregnancy and birth for cattle, horses, even cats and dogs, all his life. Now to find out he had been given birth by some cold, sterile machine was sort of disquieting.

"The second stage of the process," continued Var "occurs on a child's twelfth birthday, which in Earth years would be at about age sixteen and a half. This portion of the procedure, called 'Purl Nous', involves stimulating the recipient's brain with a massive, fast jolt of data. The pre-natal treatment results in roughly an order of magnitude increase in the neural pathways in the brain; however at birth these additional pathways are mostly dormant. It is the brain's effort to protect itself from information overload during Purl Nous which 'flips the switch' and turns on all of the Kryptonians' extra mental abilities.

"Clark, I think your Kryptonian parents, or who ever it was that sent you, expected your trip to Earth to be a one-way voyage. I assume you had the normal pre-birth treatments all Kryptonians receive. So, since you wouldn't reach an appropriate age for the 'Purl Nous' until long after you arrived on Earth, I think the ship was designed to perform the 'Purl Nous' treatment on you once you reached the prescribed age. At least what happened to your friend Lex sounds similar to the Purl Nous procedure.

"I am going to take a wild guess and say either the crash damaged the ship or the missing piece made a difference. Either way, when the disk was inserted into the ship, it must have activated some timer mechanism. And once the ship realized the date, it performed the Purl Nous procedure on the first available recipient without first ascertaining whether that person was you."

For a moment Clark just sat there almost in a daze. Although it wasn't clear, even to him, whether the biggest contributor was revulsion over the treatments the Kryptonians where willing to submit themselves to in the name of progress, or excitement that if he went through this 'Purl Nous' procedure, he might have mental abilities to rival Chloe's.

It didn't take long for excitement to win out. "Var, can you perform the Purl Nous procedure on me?"

Var quickly shook his head. "I don't have the necessary equipment. When I left Krypton, I expected to be gone for a couple of weeks, perhaps a month tops. And I wasn't traveling with any children. Therefore I didn't even think about installing the required equipment. Sorry, Clark."

Clark nodded. It would have made things so much simpler if he could have undergone the procedure now. But since when had his life ever been simple? Never, to the best of his recollection.

So it looked like he was going to have to catch up to his own tiny ship and figure out how to have it perform this 'Purl Nous' procedure.

"Var, when I get back to my time, do you have any idea how I would get my ship to initiate the 'Purl Nous' procedure for me?"

Var paused to think for a moment before answering. "I am not certain. This octagonal disk sounds like the key. You said it has symbols on it? Perhaps if I knew what they said, it would help me to understand. Do you know what the symbols are? Or can you at least draw them for me?"

Clark shook his head. "Sorry, I have never seen the disk myself. However Lana has seen it and she has a photographic memory like you talked about. Hopefully we can track her down and you can get her to describe it."

Var nodded in turn; he did really want to help Clark. But Clark's whole story had some very scary implications. Was he, as an infant, the only person to reach Earth when the cataclysmic end finally overtook Krypton? What happened to the rest of the populace? Did they evacuate to some other planet? Or was Clark the only survivor of their whole race?

If Clark was the last of their kind and he didn't even have any knowledge of his heritage, Var felt duty bound to provide what information he could.

"Clark, I hope we can find your friend Lana soon, so I can see if I can help with understanding what is going on with your ship. In the meantime, are there any questions about Krypton I can answer for you?"

Clark's mind almost boggled at the challenge of picking a first topic from the hundreds of things about his home he had always wanted to know. But since Var wasn't from his own time, he wouldn't know anything about the most important question – who were his mother and father and why had they sent him to Earth alone.

So if questions about his immediate family didn't work, what was the next most important question? Certainly things like trivia about the history of the planet could wait for later. Then thinking about the planet reminded him of the flight across Krypton Whitney and the others were currently witnessing. And that in turn brought to mind the comment the ship's brain made about the size of the planet. Hmm. . . .

"Var, the ship's brain mentioned the distance from Kryptonopolis to . . . ah . . . Argo City? The distance it described would indicate the circumference of Krypton is at least five times the circumference of Earth. Now, unless Krypton is made up of material with a much lower density than the Earth, the gravity at the surface of the planet must be many times the gravity on Earth. Now this may, in part, explain our tremendous strength," and Clark paused for a moment until Var nodded for him to go on without saying Clark was headed down the wrong path. "From what I have read, Earth scientists theorize a species developing on a high G planet would be short and squat with thick bones to support their apparent weight. And with all of our other gifts like the speed mode, the flying, the x-ray and heat vision, and all the others, how is it we look exactly like earth humans? Evolutionary theory says we should look radically different. So why not?"

"Well, Clark, to start off, the density of Krypton's core is actually higher than the earth's since it is mostly composed of Kryptonillium, which is much higher on the periodic table than iron. However, our extra strength on Krypton is perfectly balanced against the higher gravity. I mean when I am there my apparent strength is normal human. In my prime I could bench-press just a little over my body weight. I certainly didn't have the almost unlimited strength I do here. And all of the other special abilities you mentioned? They don't exist on Krypton either.

"The only significant difference I can see between Earth and Krypton, well, ignoring the gravity field issue for the moment, is the sun. Krypton's sun is an older red giant while Earth's is a much younger main sequence yellow. I don't see why this difference in the suns would have this kind of effect on our abilities, but I can, I think, explain why we look exactly like these Earth people."

Clark found himself sitting up a little straighter, almost leaning forward in his seat, as Var continued.

"Our race is not native to Krypton." And here Var stopped for a minute to let the words sink in. "All archeological evidence of Kryptonians starts about 12,500 years ago. Hmmm . . . that would be a bit over 17,000 Earth years."

It felt for a moment like Clark's heart missed a beat. Chloe had been born slightly over 17,000 years earlier. Could those two dates be merely a coincidence?

Var didn't notice the expression on Clark's face as he continued. "Krypton has gone through several dark ages since then, so all records of those times have long since been lost. But recently, archeologists have uncovered evidence that an alien race was also present on Krypton during the first few hundred years of our presence. Most scholars now agree the Kryptonians were brought to Krypton by these aliens, whom we refer to as the Marvaders. We have also surmised they 'seeded' humans on numerous other worlds throughout this area of the galaxy as well. This is based on a starmap we found. We have identified six worlds the map indicated to have human inhabitants and we have found humans on all of them. These worlds have pretty diverse environments, yet the people always look human. So it appears the Marvaders were genetically altering the people to survive on the selected host planet."

Clark had been only half listening as his thoughts kept turning to Chloe and her original civilization back before the last ice age. There must be some connection between that civilization and Var's story about the first appearance of Kryptonians on Krypton.

"Var, archeological evidence of humans on the Earth goes way back, at least several million years."

Var nodded. "I suspected Earth was the source of humans, too. Kryptonians are not the only species that abruptly appeared at the same time. Dogs and monkeys also appeared then. Now when we searched the indicated planets with our telescopes, we found many planets with one or two of the species. But only on Earth did our telescopes see all three. And that is why I selected the Earth as the destination of my first test flight with my teleportation drive."

Satellite photos of the Earth he had seen on the internet came to mind for Clark. Oh, he hadn't had any trouble picking out the family farm or Smallville High in these photos, but the resolution wasn't high enough to see or recognize any individuals or even the species. So how could the Kryptonians make out that kind of detail when they were observing from many light-years away rather than from just a couple of hundred miles up?

"Var, how could you possibly see anything as small as people or dogs with your telescope? I mean we are talking about seeing across light-years of distance."

Var gave a small shrug. "In the way your adopted people are very good with nanotechnology; my people are good at manipulating gravity. We have been able to use non-physical gravity lenses with an effective width nearly equal to the diameter of our solar system. When your telescope has lenses that measure about thirty light-minutes across, you can achieve some pretty remarkable resolutions even across many light-years."

Clark nodded. If the Kryptonians could build anti-gravity drives capable of levitating this incredibly massive ship, a solar system spanning gravity telescope didn't sound impossible. Of course, his adopted people didn't have nearly the nanotech expertise Var was assuming. What nanotech did exist was mostly leftover from Chloe's original civilization. Could Var also be exaggerating their gravity telescope capabilities? But if the grav-telescope was just smoke and mirrors, how had Var known to come to Earth? No, what Var said must be the truth. Why should he lie?

Clark was about to continue their conversation when abruptly Var swung around and stared intently off in a northerly direction as though he was seeing or hearing something. Clark followed his gaze and cranked up his x-ray vision. With an extreme effort he could penetrate all the way through the thick outer hull of the ship before ultimately being stymied by the lead based paint of the hanger.

Assuming the lead must be having the same effect on Var's vision, Clark turned to his other senses to try and discover what had caught Var's attention. The only sense he possessed which would penetrate the hanger wall was his most recently acquired one, the ability to directly sense electro-magnetic fields.

Scanning the nearest area, he could detect a number of signals he had come to associate with the generators in car engines, but they didn't seem to be converging on their current position. So that couldn't be what was causing Var's reaction.

Expanding the range of his senses, Clark next picked up the two powerful radio broadcast towers he had noticed earlier. One was still broadcasting in what seemed like Morse Code while the other was broadcasting at a different frequency with a signal Clark couldn't help but associate with music. However these towers were about twenty degrees to the left of where Var was staring.

Focusing in the exact direction Var was looking, Clark could make out a handful of overlapping signals which all felt like Morse Code. However Clark was unable to make any sense of these signals.

Finally, Clark couldn't hold his patience any longer. "What is it, Var?"

Var held up a single finger motioning Clark to wait as he continued to stare fixedly to the north. After thirty seconds, Var lowered his finger. But when he spoke, it was not to Clark but to his ship.

"Ship, please display a map extending one hundred fifty kilometers in all directions from our current position. Highlight our current position and a location at thirteen degrees fifty-three minutes east longitude, fifty-four degrees forty-two minutes north latitude."

Almost instantly the panoramic view being projected on the wall in front of them was replaced by a large map. At the extreme bottom edge of the map was a spot labeled 'Berlin'. At the center of the map was a symbol labeled Peenemunde. Due north of their position was another symbol labeled with the map coordinates Var had requested. This spot was located out in the Baltic Sea about one third the distance from Peenemunde to the edge of the map. If the map extended one hundred fifty kilometers like Var had requested, then the spot was about fifty kilometers or just over thirty miles from their current location.

"Var, what is it?" repeated Clark.

Var stared at the map for a few seconds more before turning back to Clark.

"Clark, I just intercepted a message from your Major Biberach. He is on a ship at those coordinates. A ship he identified as the battleship Hitler. His message is very strange. It says most of the crew had been subverted by two women and he and the few remaining loyal men are barricaded in the radio room. Then he keeps demanding over and over that the ship must be destroyed to prevent these women from escaping back into the Fatherland."

Var paused to stare off to the north again for a moment before shaking his head. "The message just keeps repeating, but I can almost feel the hysteria creeping into the radioman's cadence. Clark, does this message make any sense to you?"

If Biberach was talking about two women, it must be Lana and Marion, Clark realized. He felt a momentary surge of relief that he once again knew where the girls were. It only took a moment's thought about the comment that these women had subverted most of the crew for Clark to remember a conversation with Chloe at her palace in Rome shortly after the events in the arena. In that conversation she had admitted to using her 'bots in her past to control entire armies and then use them to subjugate empires. If Chloe had passed the technique on to Lana, it was possible she could have gained control of the ship.

"Yeah, I think it does," began Clark. "When the girl's were abducted, Lana left a message saying Biberach was taking them to Hitler. But none of us had heard of a ship with that name, so we assumed she meant 'der Fűhrer'. However that version didn't make a lot of sense either, as he was out of the country and isn't scheduled to return until the night before the Olympic opening ceremonies."

"As far as the other part of the message, Lana does have some 'gifts' of her own. Oh, they are very different from our 'gifts'. But given some time, it is possible Lana could subvert enough key officers and men to effectively control the ship."

Var slowly shook his head. Clark and Whitney seemed like little more than boys and he suspected Lana would turn out to be of a similar age. Yet they had traveled back in time to a place where they didn't even speak the language and still they were managing to hold their own against the entire Nazi regime. How did one girl manage to take control of a warship with upwards of two thousand men in less than two days? And this other girl, the mysterious 'Chloe', had developed a time machine. For someone lost on a strange world with no knowledge of his true heritage, Clark had managed gather a very unique and powerful group of friends.

"Var, how exactly did you intercept the message from Biberach?"

"I monitor all of the Morse Code transmissions within my range, which is about two hundred kilometers. I do it mostly as a mental exercise to keep my mind sharp as there isn't a whole lot of true mental stimulation around here. You should try it too; you never know when you might come across a useful tidbit like this. Oh, right, it is probably a lot more difficult if all the transmissions in the area are in a language you don't know."

Damn, thought Clark, once more wishing he knew more languages besides English and Latin. If they were going to end up on more missions like this in the future, he hoped he could get his ship to perform this Purl Nous thing on him and then acquire a device like the headband Var had used to learn English.

"Has there been any response to Biberach's message?" asked Clark, as he remembered Biberach's request. With more than a hint of concern in his voice, he added. "Do the Germans have anything in the area which is capable of destroying a battleship if they believe Biberach's message?"

Var was just beginning to shrug his shoulders in response to Clark's question about the Nazis local weapons capabilities when they both felt it. A powerful surge of electro-magnetic force was building nearby. The only thing Clark had ever felt like it before was when Var's test of his ship's anti-gravity drive had first awakened his newest ability. Somewhere nearby an anti-gravity drive was coming online and it wasn't Var's ship. Both their heads immediately swiveled to the south, but once again their x-ray vision was blocked by the lead paint of the hanger.

In less than a second after they first became aware of this new power source, Var was on his feet and moving out of the room in 'speed mode' with Clark in hot pursuit. On their way to the grav-shaft exit from this level they passed briefly through the control room where Whitney, Indy, and Gretchen were still watching the ship's travelogue of Krypton. In his peripheral vision, Clark noticed the ship was currently circling an enormous volcano which was pouring forth what looked like streams of molten gold in place of normal lava.

Var dove into the grav-shaft without bothering to use its levitation function. Instead he switched to flying as he dropped its sixty foot length. At the bottom he switched back to speed running, which was faster in the confines of the ship.

In less than a second Var and Clark were running down the ship's extended ramp and out onto the floor of the hanger. They passed through the door Clark and the others had entered through only an hour earlier. Once outside, they raced along the side of the building until they reached the edge of the long concrete runway where they finally had a clear view of this power source.

As they paused, they saw brilliant lights shining in another hanger about six buildings further down the runway. Moving steadily out of this well-lit hanger and into the dark shadows of the night was another giant ship of the same general configuration as Var's ship. However this ship had been painted a bright, vivid red with large black on white swastikas adorning the upper and lower surfaces of the saucer section. Whoever had dreamed up the paint scheme didn't want to leave any doubts as to the ownership of this magnificent machine.

Unfortunately, this new ship diverged from Var's ship in another way besides its gaudy paint job. This ship was bristling with easily visible weapons. The top of its central sphere had gun turret with two fourteen inch guns; the whole assembly looked like it had lifted straight from some existing battleship. The lower portion of the sphere had two side-mounted turrets with another pair of fourteen inch guns each. And in addition to this heavy hardware, Clark could see a series of smaller five inch guns ringing the perimeter of the central sphere. Finally, he could also make out countless batteries of anti-aircraft guns. This new ship was a true flying battleship. And with its anti-gravity drive, its hull was probably as thick as or thicker than any existing waterborne counterpart. With hardly more than a glance, Clark knew this was by far the most powerful weapon ever built on the Earth as of the middle of the twentieth century.

Clark glanced over at Var. "Does your ship have any weapons that can stop that thing?"

Images of giant lasers, phasers, tractor beams, and force fields from every sci-fi movie he had ever seen danced through Clark's head until he saw Var slowly shake his head.

"No, Clark. My ship is just a converted old passenger liner that I bought cheap when it was on its way to be scrapped. I never expected to be running into a combat situation." Var shook his head again. And this wouldn't even by its first combat situation, if he counted his run-in with the Kryptonian Security Forces.

As they stood there and watched, the Nazis' flying dreadnought quickly cleared the hanger and accelerated briskly off to the north as it climbed to altitude.

"Come on, Clark. We need to hurry, if we are going to catch it."

As he spoke, Clark sensed that Var intended to just fly off after the mighty ship.

"Var wait. We can't just fly off and leave the others. Besides one of the people up on that battleship is Hank's wife. And Lana is a good friend of mine and Whitney's. They deserve to come with us. Plus they can be a help if we have to mount a rescue mission to the Hitler."

Var remembered the braids he had seen around the waists of the other two men. They might be useful in helping the girls on the Hitler while he and Clark tried to deal with this flying juggernaut.

"Okay, Clark. Get the hanger doors open while I prep the ship."

Clark nodded and in a blur the two men raced off in opposite directions.

End of Chapter 16

Author's Notes:

I hope you enjoyed this extra long chapter. The Lana/Laura section was of sufficient length in my mind to be a full chapter. But after the previous chapter had already been off the main storyline, two in a row felt like too much. (Of course, in my mind they were both necessary to introduce some key plot points.) So this time you got two chapters worth for the price of one – Oh wait, these are all free, I will just continue to think of them as priceless rather than free.

I have heard from several sources that for whatever reason, ff dot net is clamping down on writers including individual feedback to reviewers' comments within the chapter notes. It doesn't make sense to me; readers have made a number of suggestions which I have incorporated into the plot which I think have improved the story and I like to be able to say thanks. But it is their site and they can impose whatever rules they see fit. If you haven't gone to my author's page lately, I have added a link to a homepage where I have been posting a 'chapter in progress' for those who would like to experience my creative process or who don't care to wait for the long time it takes me to generate a complete chapter. Anyway, I am adding something to that page where I can give readers feedback to comments or questions posted in their reviews until the dust clears as far as intentions in this area.

Well, I think that is all for now. Stay tuned for the next chapter, I think it is going to be THE big action sequence of this story.

Thanks again for all of the positive comments,

Duane