Part Two: Side Trip
The next morning, I was awakened by the doorbell. As I put on my bathrobe, I heard Chisame-san (apparently, her youth potion had worn off overnight) answer the door. "Hello?"
"Hello, miss. Is this the Kelk residence?"
"It is..."
"Sign here, please."
A moment later, I heard the door close. "Rob-san, there's a special delivery letter for you!"
"Thanks, Chiu-chan! I'll look at over breakfast."
After grabbing a quick shower and getting dressed, I joined the ladies at the breakfast table. "A letter? What is it?" I asked Chisame.
"I'm not touching that straight line, Rob-san," she replied as she handed it to me.
"Oh, you're no fun," I complained as I opened the envelope. Inside was a letter thanking us for the wonderful performance we had staged at NewYearCon, and four tickets for an all-inclusive white-water rafting holiday. "That's odd..." I muttered, then I noticed the fake IDs for my guests and the hand-written postscript on the letter:
Rob, if you don't take the girls on this trip, you lose the medium challenge. Bill M.
Needless to say, I had a bad feeling about this. "Looks like we're going on a vacation, everyone..."
I set off for the local scout shop and bought four backpacks, then headed to a hardware store for a solar power recharger. Meanwhile, the ladies packed everything (Yomiko's books, Chisame's electronics, my spare glasses, everyone's clothes) in separate resealable plastic bags, then packed the backpacks. It may have been a while since any of us had done any wilderness camping on purpose, but I still knew the drill.
Then we headed for the airport.
Nine hours later, we were in Denver, transferring to a private plane that would take us to the white-water rafting base. Chisame had a bit of trouble with that leg of the flight, having never flown in a small aircraft before, but we helped her through the difficulties. (My pilot relative had taken me up in a four-seater more than once, Yomiko was used to flying in her oversized paper airplanes, and Sakura could Fly on her own.)
I still had a bad feeling about this. We arrived at the camp, were fitted for drysuits, and slept in the tents we'd be taking with us on the trip -- I was in a one-man tent, and the girls shared a large tent of their own.
The next morning, we headed off. Three hours into the trip, we went over a waterfall. Which we shouldn't have -- I've done enough white-water rafting in my day to know what a waterfall sounds like, and I didn't hear one before we were upon it. Damn you, Bill, was what I thought my last living thought would be...
Then I opened my eyes to discover I wasn't dead.
Neither were the others. We were lying on a riverbank, under the shade of some tropical trees of some sort. I heard Chisame moaning. "Damn it, why am I in this kind of mess again? It's not fair..."
"Yomiko-san, Rob-san is awake," whispered Sakura. "Please be quiet and stay on the ground, Rob-san. Are you all right?"
"I'll tell you in a moment, Sakura-chan," I replied as I tried moving slowly. No aches, no pains, no blurred vision when looking at the jungle, and no slurred speech -- that added up to no broken bones or concussion. My landing was a gentle one. I almost sat up, then remembered she had told me not to. "I'm fine. Does anyone know where we are?"
"We're not on Earth," answered Yomiko quietly. "When I woke up, I saw three moons in the sky." Why did that sound familiar? "And there's a Coelophysis in the nearby trees. Sakura's got an Illusion up that makes us look like rocks on the beach, so be quiet and don't move until it leaves." Why did that sound familiar?
Without quite knowing why, I said "Spot?" out loud. The Coelophysis stepped out of the undergrowth and stopped in front of me. "You can drop the illusion, Sakura-chan," I said at a normal tone of voice. "This one's practically tame. I think."
"You know where we are, Rob-san." Chisame's tone made it clear she wasn't asking.
"It's the setting of a story that was on TV when I was younger than Sakura is now," I replied. "It was called Land of the Lost. I only saw a few episodes, and I don't really remember them very well, but they were about a family that was trapped in an extradimensional realm where dinosaurs from various eras were still alive." I got an entire package of freeze-dried beef jerkey out of my pack, opened it, and tossed the meat just past Spot; he devoured it quickly.
"A family," said Chisame, almost as flatly as a computer voder.
"Oh, my. And here I thought you wanted to live with me instead of going home."
"You convinced me otherwise, Rob-san. Remember?"
"I remember." Her reaction meant I wasn't about to mention the possibility that we might have to become this world's Adam, Eve, Eve, and Eve... and with that thought, I realized I was too old to have a harem. Especially one with two underage girls. We had to find a way out of here.
"How did they get home?" asked Sakura.
"I never saw the end of the series," I answered. No point in telling her that TV shows of that vintage were designed to have no ending, so they could stay in perpetual re-runs; the family probably never got away. Except that, if Spot was wandering around alone, they obviously did get out.
Or they died here.
"Do you remember anything else about the show, Rob-san?" Yomiko-san looked like she had reached the same conclusion I had, but kept the worry out of her voice.
"Let me think... Oh, yes -- there were pylons scattered throughout the land, that maintained the environment and sometimes opened gateways out, depending on how some crystals were arrayed on the control tables inside them..." I grinned. "Chisame-san, you can hack any sort of computer, right?"
"With my digital assistants, I can."
"And those control tables are just overgrown crystal computers. This means we need to find a pylon. Sakura-chan, --"
"FLY!" And she was off.
"-- would you... never mind."
A few minutes later, Sakura was back. "There's one just over that hill, past the really big dinosaur."
"What really big... never mind," I finished as a Tyrannosaurus Rex poked its head over the hill. "Yomiko-san, a little help, please?"
She opened her backpack, pulled out some of her blank paper, and formed it into a ball larger than the T. Rex's head. Then she tossed it to one side, bouncing it off of a tree and into the dinosaur's head. It turned and charged at the tree.
We quickly slipped past it while it was distracted, although I noticed Sakura had her Shield card out. Reaching the pylon, I turned the key on its side, and we stepped inside.
"It's bigger than I expected," commented Chisame as she pulled her laptop and pactio card from her pack. She passed the latter to Sakura, who invoked it with her own magical energy. Then Chisame put her hand on the control table, thought for a few moments as vaugely pokemon-shaped balls of energy floated around her, then said, "I'm in. Where and when do you want to go?"
"We can go anywhere?"
"Only on Rob-san's Earth, Sakura-chan." Chisame looked a bit annoyed at that; knowing that the end of this year's Challenges meant she'd be going back to a world not her own explained her displeasure at not being able to return to her own home. "But we can go any time from the middle of the ninteenth century to fifteen years after we left."
I made a decision. "Back home. My home. I'll get a friend of mine who lives in Colarado to cash in the return tickets."
"When?"
"Two days before you arrived for the Challenge. I was out of the house all day that day."
She nodded, and a few minutes later a portal opened in front of us. As I was about to thank her for the good job, I heard something fly over the pylon and hover there. I didn't have to look up to know it was a skylon. "Oh, shit -- the repair bot's already here to undo Chisame's tampering. Let's move now!"
We literally dove through the portal. Chisame was the last one through, and she lost half of a heel of the drysuit she was wearing when the portal closed abuptly behind her. "That was too close!"
"Let's get changed out of these drysuits, and go get a hotel room, then we'll buy you a new pair of shoes."
"Why can't we just stay here?" asked Sakura.
"Because we weren't here when Rob-san was here tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that," answered Yomiko. "You didn't see yourself when you arrived, did you?"
"Oh, right." Then Sakura looked thoughtful. "But I didn't see who was in the audience when we put on our play. Can I go see it? Please?"
I didn't want to risk a temporal paradox -- I had planned to stay in a hotel room with the ladies between now and the day we left for the white-water rafting trip -- but I just couldn't say no to that cherubic face... so I caged two one-day passes from my friend on the NewYearCon committee. I told him I'd be sure to repay the favour once the girls arrived, as long as he didn't say anything about me owing him one. (And I would. Or rather, I already had.)
A few hours later, as I checked into the only hotel room still available on New Year's Eve, I realized my hindbrain was doing my thinking for me again -- I had managed to get Yomiko to share a hotel room with me on New Year's Eve. At least Chisame and Sakura were along to chaperone us... and I still can't decide whether that's a good or bad thing.
-Rob Kelk
"Actually, my goal is to write neat stories. The money just makes it possible for me to write them faster and then buy neat toys."
Ryk E. Spoor, 7 November 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
The next morning, I was awakened by the doorbell. As I put on my bathrobe, I heard Chisame-san (apparently, her youth potion had worn off overnight) answer the door. "Hello?"
"Hello, miss. Is this the Kelk residence?"
"It is..."
"Sign here, please."
A moment later, I heard the door close. "Rob-san, there's a special delivery letter for you!"
"Thanks, Chiu-chan! I'll look at over breakfast."
After grabbing a quick shower and getting dressed, I joined the ladies at the breakfast table. "A letter? What is it?" I asked Chisame.
"I'm not touching that straight line, Rob-san," she replied as she handed it to me.
"Oh, you're no fun," I complained as I opened the envelope. Inside was a letter thanking us for the wonderful performance we had staged at NewYearCon, and four tickets for an all-inclusive white-water rafting holiday. "That's odd..." I muttered, then I noticed the fake IDs for my guests and the hand-written postscript on the letter:
Rob, if you don't take the girls on this trip, you lose the medium challenge. Bill M.
Needless to say, I had a bad feeling about this. "Looks like we're going on a vacation, everyone..."
I set off for the local scout shop and bought four backpacks, then headed to a hardware store for a solar power recharger. Meanwhile, the ladies packed everything (Yomiko's books, Chisame's electronics, my spare glasses, everyone's clothes) in separate resealable plastic bags, then packed the backpacks. It may have been a while since any of us had done any wilderness camping on purpose, but I still knew the drill.
Then we headed for the airport.
Nine hours later, we were in Denver, transferring to a private plane that would take us to the white-water rafting base. Chisame had a bit of trouble with that leg of the flight, having never flown in a small aircraft before, but we helped her through the difficulties. (My pilot relative had taken me up in a four-seater more than once, Yomiko was used to flying in her oversized paper airplanes, and Sakura could Fly on her own.)
I still had a bad feeling about this. We arrived at the camp, were fitted for drysuits, and slept in the tents we'd be taking with us on the trip -- I was in a one-man tent, and the girls shared a large tent of their own.
The next morning, we headed off. Three hours into the trip, we went over a waterfall. Which we shouldn't have -- I've done enough white-water rafting in my day to know what a waterfall sounds like, and I didn't hear one before we were upon it. Damn you, Bill, was what I thought my last living thought would be...
Then I opened my eyes to discover I wasn't dead.
Neither were the others. We were lying on a riverbank, under the shade of some tropical trees of some sort. I heard Chisame moaning. "Damn it, why am I in this kind of mess again? It's not fair..."
"Yomiko-san, Rob-san is awake," whispered Sakura. "Please be quiet and stay on the ground, Rob-san. Are you all right?"
"I'll tell you in a moment, Sakura-chan," I replied as I tried moving slowly. No aches, no pains, no blurred vision when looking at the jungle, and no slurred speech -- that added up to no broken bones or concussion. My landing was a gentle one. I almost sat up, then remembered she had told me not to. "I'm fine. Does anyone know where we are?"
"We're not on Earth," answered Yomiko quietly. "When I woke up, I saw three moons in the sky." Why did that sound familiar? "And there's a Coelophysis in the nearby trees. Sakura's got an Illusion up that makes us look like rocks on the beach, so be quiet and don't move until it leaves." Why did that sound familiar?
Without quite knowing why, I said "Spot?" out loud. The Coelophysis stepped out of the undergrowth and stopped in front of me. "You can drop the illusion, Sakura-chan," I said at a normal tone of voice. "This one's practically tame. I think."
"You know where we are, Rob-san." Chisame's tone made it clear she wasn't asking.
"It's the setting of a story that was on TV when I was younger than Sakura is now," I replied. "It was called Land of the Lost. I only saw a few episodes, and I don't really remember them very well, but they were about a family that was trapped in an extradimensional realm where dinosaurs from various eras were still alive." I got an entire package of freeze-dried beef jerkey out of my pack, opened it, and tossed the meat just past Spot; he devoured it quickly.
"A family," said Chisame, almost as flatly as a computer voder.
"Oh, my. And here I thought you wanted to live with me instead of going home."
"You convinced me otherwise, Rob-san. Remember?"
"I remember." Her reaction meant I wasn't about to mention the possibility that we might have to become this world's Adam, Eve, Eve, and Eve... and with that thought, I realized I was too old to have a harem. Especially one with two underage girls. We had to find a way out of here.
"How did they get home?" asked Sakura.
"I never saw the end of the series," I answered. No point in telling her that TV shows of that vintage were designed to have no ending, so they could stay in perpetual re-runs; the family probably never got away. Except that, if Spot was wandering around alone, they obviously did get out.
Or they died here.
"Do you remember anything else about the show, Rob-san?" Yomiko-san looked like she had reached the same conclusion I had, but kept the worry out of her voice.
"Let me think... Oh, yes -- there were pylons scattered throughout the land, that maintained the environment and sometimes opened gateways out, depending on how some crystals were arrayed on the control tables inside them..." I grinned. "Chisame-san, you can hack any sort of computer, right?"
"With my digital assistants, I can."
"And those control tables are just overgrown crystal computers. This means we need to find a pylon. Sakura-chan, --"
"FLY!" And she was off.
"-- would you... never mind."
A few minutes later, Sakura was back. "There's one just over that hill, past the really big dinosaur."
"What really big... never mind," I finished as a Tyrannosaurus Rex poked its head over the hill. "Yomiko-san, a little help, please?"
She opened her backpack, pulled out some of her blank paper, and formed it into a ball larger than the T. Rex's head. Then she tossed it to one side, bouncing it off of a tree and into the dinosaur's head. It turned and charged at the tree.
We quickly slipped past it while it was distracted, although I noticed Sakura had her Shield card out. Reaching the pylon, I turned the key on its side, and we stepped inside.
"It's bigger than I expected," commented Chisame as she pulled her laptop and pactio card from her pack. She passed the latter to Sakura, who invoked it with her own magical energy. Then Chisame put her hand on the control table, thought for a few moments as vaugely pokemon-shaped balls of energy floated around her, then said, "I'm in. Where and when do you want to go?"
"We can go anywhere?"
"Only on Rob-san's Earth, Sakura-chan." Chisame looked a bit annoyed at that; knowing that the end of this year's Challenges meant she'd be going back to a world not her own explained her displeasure at not being able to return to her own home. "But we can go any time from the middle of the ninteenth century to fifteen years after we left."
I made a decision. "Back home. My home. I'll get a friend of mine who lives in Colarado to cash in the return tickets."
"When?"
"Two days before you arrived for the Challenge. I was out of the house all day that day."
She nodded, and a few minutes later a portal opened in front of us. As I was about to thank her for the good job, I heard something fly over the pylon and hover there. I didn't have to look up to know it was a skylon. "Oh, shit -- the repair bot's already here to undo Chisame's tampering. Let's move now!"
We literally dove through the portal. Chisame was the last one through, and she lost half of a heel of the drysuit she was wearing when the portal closed abuptly behind her. "That was too close!"
"Let's get changed out of these drysuits, and go get a hotel room, then we'll buy you a new pair of shoes."
"Why can't we just stay here?" asked Sakura.
"Because we weren't here when Rob-san was here tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that," answered Yomiko. "You didn't see yourself when you arrived, did you?"
"Oh, right." Then Sakura looked thoughtful. "But I didn't see who was in the audience when we put on our play. Can I go see it? Please?"
I didn't want to risk a temporal paradox -- I had planned to stay in a hotel room with the ladies between now and the day we left for the white-water rafting trip -- but I just couldn't say no to that cherubic face... so I caged two one-day passes from my friend on the NewYearCon committee. I told him I'd be sure to repay the favour once the girls arrived, as long as he didn't say anything about me owing him one. (And I would. Or rather, I already had.)
A few hours later, as I checked into the only hotel room still available on New Year's Eve, I realized my hindbrain was doing my thinking for me again -- I had managed to get Yomiko to share a hotel room with me on New Year's Eve. At least Chisame and Sakura were along to chaperone us... and I still can't decide whether that's a good or bad thing.
-Rob Kelk
"Actually, my goal is to write neat stories. The money just makes it possible for me to write them faster and then buy neat toys."
Ryk E. Spoor, 7 November 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012