I Will Wait For You

 

 

The Dragonfly is back in the hanger, although you’d never know it. After all it’s still invisible.

The transport bubble shimmers into existence.  The bubble pops with a soft sigh, and six people emerge chattering about digital processing and tape saturation simulation. Just your average conversation.

 

Jimi, Janis and Paul continue on down the hall at Zero 1 Mars base. Dee and Jim stop at the elevator door.

 

Dee, “So, can you explain to me why Paul looks so young? I’m assuming this isn’t the current Paul, but Paul from the past.”

Jim, “Well, that’s correct. We had quite an adventure picking up Janis. I’ll tell you about it another time. In the process we sort of accidentally ran into Paul. Janis let it slip that we’re having this jam. Paul wanted to come along, and here we are.”

Dee, “But, I met him years ago. If you’ve picked him up from an earlier time, that means we must take him back sooner or later. Which also means, looking at it logically, that he should have known me already when we met at Air Studios.”

Jim, “True. Maybe he did. After we’re finished jamming he’s going back to the very moment we picked him up and take his own place again.”

Dee, “Huh, say what?”

Jim, “He knew you but also knew you won’t know him. So he pretended, or will pretend, not to know you, so you won’t know that he knows you. Simple?”

Dee, “Right. I’m sure glad I was asleep! Sounds a bit too much like an excellent adventure to me. As long as we have a great jam, and I can’t think of anyone I would rather have as a guest! Let’s get up to the surface, I want to show you the studio.”

 

 

The studio is part of a Time Bubble complex on the surface of Mars. Dee and Jim arrive in an elevator, which is clearly a cylindrical Time Bubble. The door shimmers translucent blue as it opens.

They enter the studio, which is a half sphere of Time Bubble protruding from the surface of Mars. The view is spectacular. The surface of Mars is wild, cold and untamed while inside the bubble it’s safe and warm.

A drum kit, amps, guitars, and even a grand piano are spread out under the alien sky clearly waiting for a Cosmic Jam.

A rotating orb floats serenely near the ceiling. Beyond that the Earth is softly glowing in the cloudy Martian dusk.

 

Jim, “Nice studio, but where are the microphones and cables?”

Dee, “There aren’t any! Well, not exactly. The orb up there, is a 16 dimensional microphone.” It continuously samples the air in here by creating microscopic Time Bubbles and retrieving them, measuring the air density within and turning that flow of data into digital audio. It can be programmed remotely to provide as many channels as required, picked out of the air from any location in the known universe, including of course, this room.”

Jim, “So, the engineer can choose to mike anything anywhere.”

Dee, “And they can choose from thousands of classic digital microphone simulations and pick up patterns, even mikes that have never existed. You can create your own if you want.”

Jim, “Doesn’t that make recording more difficult? Too many options?”

Dee, “Well, I leave those things up to the computer. There are no cables because all the equipment is wireless, again using a digital stream of encoded microscopic Time Bubbles. Wires are not required.”

Jim, “In your wildest dreams could you ever have imagined, even a few years ago, that you’d be standing on the surface of Mars, preparing to participate in a jam with some of the greatest pop music icons of all time, even Jimi?”

Dee, “No. But sometimes life can take a direction you never expected.”

Jim, “That must be one of the greatest understatements ever!”

Dee, “Only Time Will Tell.”

 

Jim sits down at the piano.

 

Jim, “Speaking of Time…”

Dee, “If you’re wondering about Tara’s sister-in-law, I think we can help. I think we must help. Now that we are pretty darn sure of where she might be found, we could choose when to pick her up.”

 

Dee’s Notes:

 

It was almost eight years earlier that the first attempt to reach a distant star left Earth on route to Alpha Centauri. On board, one person, willing to risk all and suffer through years of loneliness to achieve greatness. The story had touched the hearts of many. She was not only leaving behind friends and family, but also her husband. The trip was expected to take roughly fifty years, but because of the relative nature of the Universe she would not have aged more than a few years. The age difference between her and her husband would be great, but they had accepted this fate, and made their peace. It just so happens that her husband is Tara’s brother. The public never knew her name. Her name was Sarah.

At the time it was a great mission, our first attempts to reach out into the Universe. The ship was built and launched from a base on Uranus. Sarah and her husband lived there for several years, and devoted a large part of their lives to the project. After discovering the Time Bubble, the project seemed like a shockingly futile effort.

 

 

Jim, “If, and it’s a big ‘if’, we can calculate her most likely location in space, at this point in time, we could zip over there in the Dragonfly and pick her up. My guess is she’d be thrilled to get a ride home! And she’s only been gone about eight years by our reckoning.”

Dee, “Why not pick her up a few years in the future, just when she arrives at her destination. Then she gets the satisfaction of completing her mission, and her ‘age difference’ problem will be reduced to only six or seven years.”

Jim, “I’ll meet you at the Dragonfly in one hour.”

Dee, “Cool!”

 

On the bridge of the Dragonfly, Dee, Jim and Jimi are discussing the plan. They’re hovering in space near Uranus. On the view screen is a close view of the planet, dark and mysterious.

 

Dee, “This is where her journey began. They built a base on Uranus to launch the star ship. The atomic drive would have caused some pretty nasty radiation when it was first fired up. As it moved through space faster and faster, until it reached the speed of light, it would have run more efficiently as the speed increased.”

Jim, “The computer has plotted a likely course, taking into account the acceleration characteristics of the craft. Shall we?”

 

The scene on the screen, changes instantly to show an alien planetary system.

 

Dee, “We’re here!”

Jim, “And we’re about at the right time to pick her up, if everything went according to plan.”

Jimi, “And if it didn’t, we’ll have to go around and try again, right?”

Jim, “True.”

Dee, “We’re in luck the computer has located her. Right there, near the third planet from the sun.”

Jimi, “Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful.”

Dee, “Exactly. Let’s pick her up. I’m going to move in.”

    

They move so quickly that in a moment the view screen is filled with a small space craft. It’s immediately obvious that it’s not in very good shape. The hull is scarred and there are several visible holes.

 

Dee, “Oh no! That can’t be good.”

Jimi, “Stoned.”

Jim, “It does look like it’s been hit with a meteor shower, or attacked.”

Dee, “We’re bringing it aboard.”

 

Soon they are standing deep in the belly of the Dragonfly. Sarah’s ship is beached on the floor of the cavernous warehouse. It’s a small ship, but still very large when you stand next to it. Maybe four times the size of a transport trailer.

    

Dee, “I want to see if we can find out what happened to her.”

Jimi, “Are we going on board?”

Dee, “The computer shows no life on board, and no sign of Sarah. It might be best if we sent in a probe bubble.”

Jim, “Or just go in a bubble ourselves.”

 

Dee pulls out his card, and presses the edge. Moments later the bubble hovers inside the bridge of Sarah’s stricken craft. There is no sign of life. There is however, a message faintly burned into the dead control screen.

 

Six minutes.

 

Back at Zero 1 Mars base, Dee, Jim and Jimi are standing in the media room. The view screen shows two guests arriving in a Time Bubble. It swoops sedately in through the roof as if the kilometer of rock and sand above the ceiling doesn’t exist. We can clearly see the occupants, one is holding a guitar case. They are both smiling and are clearly having a great time.

 

Dee, “Cool! Ken and Michele are here. I’m hoping to head on up to the studio soon, that’s where the party will be tonight.”

Jim, “And what about Sarah?”

Dee, “Well, I have a theory.”

Jimi, “Aliens took her, and left a recipe for over boiled eggs?”

Dee, “I think I left that message.”

Jim, “How so?”

Dee, “Remember when the teenager on Earth said that I’d Been Here Before? I think he was talking about more than the CD title.”

Jim, “You think you’ve actually been there before?”

Dee, “Well, there’s no reason why not. The Time Bubble lets us go anywhere, anytime. I’ve been around the entire Universe quite a few times now, so have you. Who’s to say we won’t go there again, but arrive a bit earlier? One thing I would like to avoid, if possible, is meeting myself.”

Jim, “How very Star Trek of you!”

Dee, “Hey, it seems like each day I get older, I just don’t want to meet myself. The mirror is quite enough, thank you!”

Jimi, “I thought the Universe would end or something like that…”

Dee, “Nonsense. If I’m stupid enough to go to a place and time when I’m going to run into myself, I’ll just run into myself. There’s no paradox there. You’ve not had the benefit of seeing hundreds of sci-fi movies and TV shows that involve time travel. I’ve seen every scenario possible.”

Jim, “Maybe not. So what are we supposed to do?”

Dee, “Go back to six minutes before the time we already went forward to! Pretty obvious isn’t it?”

Jimi, “Won’t we have to be careful not to cross our own path? That’s not much time difference. And what could have happened to her in six minutes?”

Dee, “I have no idea, but there’s one way to find out.”

 

Dee’s Notes:

 

Although there seems to be no classic time paradox, and no obvious dangers from travelling through time, there certainly is a danger of forgetting the way home. To avoid this potential disaster, I have been mapping the Universe with remote probes, a complex task that requires far more than the standard 3 dimensions.

During this process, probes were often sent out beyond the edges of our Universe. For the most part the video probes recorded nothing but endless black Ether. However, I was able to retrieve a few faint images of other Universes, distant and not connected to our Universe in any way. I have not attempted to explore them, there is no easy frame of reference, and getting home would be very difficult.

 

 

Back on the bridge of the Dragonfly Dee, Jim and Ken are staring at the screen. Uranus fills the screen but this time the view is just a little different.

 

Ken, “Hey, a jam sounded like a good idea, but this is way more fun!”

Dee, “It’s a really nice view, but we have a job to do. At the moment we’re hiding from ourselves. We should be just the other side of the planet right now. Jimi didn’t want to risk meeting himself, if we wanted to do that we could do it right now!”

Jim, “Why not go straight to the Alpha Centauri system six minutes ahead of ourselves?”

Dee, “We will, I just wanted to get a reference. This should do it.”

 

Dee presses the keypad. Instantly Sarah’s craft appears on the screen. It is just as badly damaged as before.

 

Dee, “This time Ken and I are going. Jim, please stay here. If anything happens and we don’t return right away, I hope you’ll come after us.”

Jim, “Right. I hope so too!”

    

Dee and Ken are in the belly of the Dragonfly. Sarah’s ship is still lying dead on the floor.

 

Dee, “It’s really strange to think that the very same ship is outside right now.”

Ken, “Sure is, but hadn’t we better get moving? We only had six minutes and two are gone.”

Dee, “And away we go…”

 

They are swept out through the wall into space by a soft green Time Bubble. Both let out a gasp of air, as the surroundings transform from the interior of a warehouse to the vastness of space.

The bubble zooms up to the dead space ship, right through the walls and into the control room. There is Sarah, lying on a mattress, close to death.

 

Dee, “There’s almost no air in here. We can’t go outside the bubble and grab her, but I can easily snag her with a bubble.”

 

In a few seconds Sarah is surrounded by a newly formed Time Bubble. It rises into the air carrying her through the walls of the larger bubble containing Dee and Ken. As soon as Sarah is safely aboard, Dee leans over as if to press a key.

 

Dee, (hesitating) “One moment, the message.”

 

Ken, “Sarah’s computer is still on, but the power is fading rapidly. You might still be able to send a command to it.”

 

Dee presses a few more keys, and they are whisked from the room into deep space again.

It is no less of a shock to the senses the second time, but they are through the walls of the Dragonfly in a flash. Jim sets the controls of the Dragonfly and moments later they are home.

 

Back in Sarah’s ship the power is about to die. On the screen the message appears.

 

 Six minutes.

 

The screen grows very bright, much too bright, until something sparks and the power goes completely dead. There on the screen is the message, burned into the blackness just enough to read.

Outside the Dragonfly is arriving.