STARSHIP OF FOOLS - (C) 1986 Jerry Kindall and Rex Crossley

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"One should never place confidence in the future -- it doesn't deserve
it."
                                                       - Paul Chamson

          THERE IS SOMETHING IN OUR PATH, I THINK
          I'M PRETTY SURE NOW
          YES, SOMETHING IS POSITIVELY IN OUR PATH
          IT IS BIG
          IT IS VERY VERY BIG
          IT IS NOT AN ARGELLIAN TREE-SMOKING BABOON
          IT IS NOT A GOODYEAR BLIMP
          IT IS NOT A GIANT GOLFBALL
          IT IS A SPACE-TIME VORTEX, the computer printed on the Pac-Man
screen.  Then my game of Pac-Man re-appeared on the screen and I was so
surprised that I immediately scored ten thousand points.
     Rhye straightened up.  "What happened?" she asked.  Then she
suddenly noticed what she was doing.  "Hey, my arthritis is gone!"
     "How you doin', Donald," said Chester, the sparkle back in his
eyes.  He reached out and slapped Melvin on the back, sending him
flying.
     "I'm not Donald, I'm Melvin," cried Melvin as he reeled.  "Yaahh!"
     Donald had his foot caught in Snort's pocket.  He was covered from
head to toe with something yellow and slimy.  Finally he freed himself. 
"Excuse me," he said, "I think I'm going to throw up."  With that
cryptic remark, he hurried off the bridge.
     Snort sneezed, but not as violently as he had before whatever had
happened, had happened.  He looked for something to blow his nose on. 
"Hey, where did by spudge go?"  He frowned, perplexed.  "Ad what was
Dodald's foot doig id by pocket?"
     Something had happened, that much was for certain.  All the black
cats had vanished and the alarms had stopped blaring.  The only question
was: What had happened?
     "I think," I mentioned casually, "that it was a space-time vortex."
 This was sure to impress them, since I was the only one who had seen
the message flash on the Pac-Man screen.
     "Of course!" exclaimed Zot, hitting himself on the forehead.  "I
would have thought of that, given enough time."  He had just emerged
from the elevator, with Zordoff close behind.
     "And where have you two been?" Melvin demanded.
     "We thought we were bookends," explained Zot.
     "Oh," said Melvin, and decided not to press him for details. 
Instead he said, "What's this about a... uh... whatever Matt said?"
     "Space-time vortex," Zot said.  "A simple phenomenon, actually. 
Objects that pass through such a disturbance jump instantaneusly through
space and time."
     Melvin goggled.  "Did we?"
     "Did we what?" asked Zot, swiveling his middle eye around to blink
at Melvin.
     "You know.  Jump.  Through space and time."
     "Yes, of course.  I thought that would be clear."
     "How far?" I asked.
     "It is hard to tell," said Zot.  "We must take star measurements
and have the computer calculate our position and the date."
     "I'm way ahead of you, guys," remarked FILBERT.  "Not only can I do
integral calculus faster than all of you put together, I'm faster on the
uptake, too.  We're in the vicinity of Triagulon Beta, and the staryear
is 3395.  That means we've moved seventy two thousand light-years
spatially, and plus nine years timewise."
     "Nine years into the future," mused Zot.  "This means we have
effectively skipped our seven years of bad luck."
     Melvin had the feeling he was going to be sorry for asking, but he
had to know.  "How did you know about the bad luck?  I thought you were
a bookend."
     "I was, but not a deaf bookend." replied Zot, confirming Melvin's
suspicions.  "And by the way, you left the PA system on."
     Melvin scowled and switched off the microphone.  He picked up the
now lukewarm beer that he had opened and chugged it, then burped
crudely.
     "Let's see what we can find out about the year 3395," suggested
Rhye, activating the communications console and tuning in to a news
broadcast.  "Listen."
     "Good evening, lifeforms everywhere.  This is Jud Riphausen with
your 24-hour news bulletin.  Making BIG headlines tonight, galactic
emperor Jordann has proclaimed that the Arcturus star system, home of
the unpopular nerds, is a menace to the good taste of civilized beings
everywhere and must be destroyed.  The destruction is scheduled to begin
right about now.  In other news..."
     All the color drained from Melvin's face.  "It's even worse than I
imagined.  He's going to destroy our entire civilization."
     Snort glanced at his watch.  "Actually, it's probably over by dow."
     Upon hearing this, Melvin passed out, resisting all our efforts to
revive him.
     Donald returned to the bridge and gave Snort a murderous look.  He
had taken a shower and run his clothes through the laundry.  "You egg! 
Young fry of treachery!" he said to Snort.  "I ought to kill you, but I
won't give you the pleasure of dying."
     Snort took a step backward, frightened.  "What did I do?"
     "Do you remember that sponge you found?" Donald snarled, advancing
on him.  Snort nodded.  "And blew your nose into?  And wiped up the
floor with?  AND WRUNG OUT?"  Snort kept nodding while trying to become
part of the wall.
     "That was ME!!!" cried Donald.  Snort closed his eyes, trying to
imagine how what Donald was accusing him of could possibly be true, and
fearing the worst.
     Donald continued his frenzied shouting to our amazement.  "One
moment I was a perfectly miserable Eternal, the next I was a perfectly
miserable sponge.  Then you came along and BLEW YOUR NOSE ON ME!!"  He
shook Snort by the shoulders.
     "It was ad hodest bistake!  How could I have knowd?" Snort babbled
helplessly.  Then inspiration struck, and Snort struck back.  "Chester! 
Help!"
     Chester, happy to oblige, came over and joined Donald in shaking
Snort.  "Why, thank you, Chester; that's very thoughtful of you," said
Donald, his furious expression returning to something resembling normal.
 "Can you keep doing that for a while?"
     "No problem," said Chester, a grin spreading across his face.  This
was the most fun he'd had in recent memory.
     Donald walked over to join the rest of us.

                                 * * *

     "The problem is," said Melvin, after he had finally come around,
"how do we defeat Jordann?  I mean, there's no question now, we have to
defeat him, right?  For vengeance."  We were in the conference room
(Melvin wasn't about to make the same mistake twice).  Snort wisely sat
on the other side of the room from Donald, who kept glaring at him from
time to time.
     I thought Melvin was handling the loss of his home planet better
than I would have.
      Melvin looked around at us, searching for a comment, question, or
an opinion.
      Zot was thinking hard.  He suddenly snapped out of it.  "We go
back in time," he said.  "We cannot defeat Jordann now; he is too
strong, too powerful.  Our only hope is to stop him while he is a
relatively minor threat."
     Melvin's eyes widened.  "We can go back in time?"
     "Yes, of course."
     "And my home?" he asked, hardly daring to hope.
     "Will never have been destroyed."
     Melvin leaped out of his chair and began dancing around the
conference room.  "We can go back!  We can go back!" he sang.
     "What about the bad luck?" Donald asked.  He glanced sharply at
Snort, who was cowering in the corner.
     Melvin stopped dancing.  He hadn't thought of that.  Seven years of
bad luck wasn't so great, especially after the taste of it fate had
blessed us with earlier.
     "The bad luck has been exhausted," Zot said.  "Traveling backward
through time will not restore it.  We are rid of it."
     Melvin resumed his dancing, and this time Donald joined in.
     "So how do we do this?" I asked.
     "Space-time vortices are reversible," he explained, gesturing
vaguely into space.  "We simply go through the other way."
     "That's all there is to it?"  Melvin was incredulous.  "There are
no catches?"
     "Well, off the top of my head," he began, "I can only think of
three.
     "First, we must go through in the proper direction and with enough
velocity to avoid Oorlon's sun.  The vortex is very close to it.
     "Second.  Time is passing there at the same rate that it is here. 
The time we spend here is lost there.  This is a law of nature and
cannot be changed except by trying very hard.
     "And finally, we must hurry.  Time vortices are notoriously
unstable, and this one could disappear at any time."
     Melvin came to a decision.  "Let's do it."

                                 * * *

     Zordoff set the navigational controls for the return trip.  His
fingers really looked like they knew what they were doing as they danced
across the control panel.  The air was filled with tension as Zordoff
backed the Glorkwinkle up so we could get enough speed to escape the
gravity of Oorlon's sun.
     Zordoff shrugged his shoulders, as if to say "Here goes nothing,"
and nudged the thrust levers forward.
     The spaceship moved forward with the sort of easy grace that
spaceships move forward with.  The stars became streaks outside the
viewport.
     "We are approaching the space-time vortex," said FILBERT. 
"Estimated time to vortex six seconds."
     Six seconds later the ship turned into an exploding mass of
superheated particles.
     Just kidding.
