It Doesn't Take A Rocket Scientist, Charlie Boone! - 5. Chapter 5

"Scan forty-six. No results."

Charlie paused, a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth, and nodded. "Thanks, Murcha."

They had reached the center of the void known as the Kyrtma the day before, and begun searching immediately. Murcha would drop Lollipop into normal space, take a quick infrared scan of a section of the space around them, and then pop them back into the Cooee while he analyzed the results. While it was a far faster process than could have been managed with the less developed technologies back on Earth, it was still not the speediest of searches.

Brown dwarfs were very difficult to locate. Averaging in mass between five and twenty Jupiters, they were simply not massive enough to have triggered the process of nuclear fusion necessary to make them full-fledged stars. Brown dwarfs generally possessed only the heat they were born with. That could range from less heat than the human body produced to about that needed to cook a pizza in the kitchen oven. Not much heat at all, and nothing even remotely close to star standards.

The entire electromagnetic spectrum was observable with the right equipment, and the sensory arrays aboard the Moth scout were excellent by anyone's standards. But in the case of what they were looking for, the energy involved was relatively small. The difference between the temperature of a brown dwarf and that of the background space was minimal by cosmic standards, and at light year distances the target presented by a brown dwarf was actually quite small. Added to that was Murcha's assurance that, while the Kyrtma looked totally empty, it did contain some measure of cosmic dust, which itself emitted in the infrared, thus somewhat diluting any signature offered by a brown dwarf. The upshot was that their inspection had to be made very carefully in order not to miss their target. It was Murcha who had suggested they go to the center of the Kyrtma void and then just do a careful, globular scan of the space around it. That was what they had been doing so far.

In light of the fact that they basically now knew the area of space in which to look for the missing ship, Charlie had directed Murcha to place the sifting of Pacha's lost empire data on hold. Murcha had already made one pass through the data without finding anything of use, which told Charlie that the information they needed - if it was actually there at all - was of such an oblique nature that it might make no sense to Murcha, even if he spotted it. One important ingredient missing from their ability to strain the data was the unique perspective and experience of Pacha'Ka, which Charlie now felt was the key that would make a map out of otherwise apparently random data.

Charlie had felt better the next relative day after speaking with Mike and the others aboard their stricken ship. His old strength had returned. Kippy had watched him carefully until he was sure that Charlie would be okay, and Charlie was pretty sure he'd received more kisses in the previous twenty-four hour period than he had in the week before that. It made Charlie smile. Kippy could be a handful at times, but the love he had for Charlie was as strong as it came. Sometimes Charlie felt unworthy of it, even. But that it was his, and his alone, he was certain.

He tried to give back as good as he got. Kippy was easy to love, and even easier to let know that he was loved. Charlie has been returning every one of the kisses he'd been given, and Kippy had been glowing with the power of them. Ricky and Adrian had been smiling at them a lot lately, and Charlie understood it was because they could see the strength of what Charlie and Kippy shared. The love their two friends shared together was by no means a dim second, either. It had grown into a bond that was just as strong as the one the Charlie and Kip shared. It was more than worth a few smiles of their own.

Eating aboard the Moth scout was easy now. Murcha had made a point of getting samples of Earth food from the boys in the past, and could now replicate any of it. He even made a fair pizza, according to Kippy.

Charlie finished his breakfast and smiled at his boyfriend, who was across the table, sipping fruit juice, and watching him. "Don't you get tired of that?" Charlie asked.

Kippy knew immediately what Charlie meant. "Never."

Charlie laughed, and got up from the table. "Come on. Let's go see what the others are doing."

The control center of Lollipop was normally one open space. Murcha and Max both had assisted with arranging some privacy for them all, so that they wouldn't be right in each other's laps for the whole journey. Charlie and Kippy had initially smiled at the curtains seemingly hanging in mid air, sectioning off parts of the larger room, which were in sharp contrast to the opaque dividers that Murcha had seemingly extruded straight out of the deck in other places. The result was an interesting patchwork of little hallways and rooms, which had quickly become the norm, and soon just unnoticed in their oddness.

The area around the central console, with its ring of stand-up pillar rests - the moth equivalent of reclining seating - was still their main meeting area. They found the others there, engrossed in an experiment, it seemed. As they entered, Ricky waved a hand at them, and Adrian held a finger to his lips, indicating a need for silence.

The bulkhead displayed a view of the space around them, the stars seeming unusually distant simply because there were none nearby. To one side of the display, near the bottom, a more pronounced ribbon of light marked the denser pack of the spiral arm, above the plane of which they were currently exploring. Murcha was still conducting his scans, dropping momentarily into normal space to take an infrared scan of an area around them, and then returning to the Cooee to analyze the data. To keep the view from constantly flickering between light and darkness, Murcha had simply frozen the display on one scene from an earlier drop back into normal space.

Charlie and Kip eased down beside their friends, and Kippy leaned close to Adrian and whispered, "What's going on?"

Adrian leaned back, and Charlie could just barely hear his reply. "Just watch."

Max, Ragal, and Casper were standing nearby, motionless, their eyes closed.

"Can you see it?" Max asked.

"Yes." Ragal nodded. "It seems to work. The image is quite clear in my mind."

"How about you, Casper?" Max said next.

"No. I don't see anything from Ragal yet. Just what is visible in your mind, Max. And I can't make anything out of that!""

The elf frowned. "You have to tune me out. You need to get the image from Ragal. It has to be a continuing chain, okay?"

The small alien gave a circular nod of his head. "I'll try."

There was a full minute of silence, and then Casper smiled. "I have it now. Just from Ragal. I found I can block what comes from you, Max. I didn't know I could be so selective."

Max grinned. "Learn something new every day, huh? Same with me." He nodded. "What does it look like?"

Casper made a small, indecisive sound. "Different from what I saw in your mind. This looks more real. It looks like a corridor."

Max's expression looked pleased. "One you could walk into?"

"I think so."

"Great." Max turned slightly towards where Charlie and the others were seated, but didn't open his eyes. "Now, can you project that as an illusion the others can see?"

Casper swallowed hard, and frowned, but gave his head another circular nod. "I think so. I usually sample a mental image and then broadcast a reply in sequence, but never at the same time. I've never tried it before."

"Just do your best," Max offered. "Won't know until you try."

Casper's expression firmed, and he also turned towards Charlie and the others, without opening his eyes.

Kippy gave a little gasp. And then Adrian...and then Charlie felt an odd sensation come over him even as an image began to form, seemingly right before his eyes.

"Wow," Ricky breathed.

It looked like a corridor. A long one, stretching away into eternity. It was taller than it was wide, but not precisely rectangular because there seemed to be no corners. The walls and floor and roof of the corridor blended together in small, precise curves, eliminating any true angles from the joins. The image firmed, took on a slight bluish coloration, and then sort of clicked into a state that Charlie felt was reality, even though he knew that no endless corridor could suddenly exist here inside Lollipop.

An illusion, he realized. Casper was showing them an illusion.

"I see it," Ricky said, giving his head a small, wondrous shake. "It looks like we could walk into it."

"It's so real," Adrian agreed, nodding.

"Wow," Kippy offered, smiling. "That's great, Casper!"

Charlie had to agree. "I'm impressed. But...what is it?"

It was Max that answered. "You're seeing a representation of a teleport."

Charlie and Kip exchanged glances. "What does that mean?" Charlie asked.

Max nodded to himself. "When I go to teleport someplace, I get a certain feeling inside my head. I can't explain that to you, because none of you can teleport. Just call it a 'movement feel'."

Charlie smiled. "I get that. Sort of."

"Well, when I go to teleport, I get this special sense, right before it happens. A sort of foreknowledge of going, if you know what I mean."

"What's that have to do with this hallway in front of us?" Kip asked.

"It's not a hallway." Max smiled, obviously delighted. "What is happening here is that Ragal, with his wonderful ability to understand foreign concepts and languages, is seeing the moment before teleportation inside my head. I am making like I am going to teleport to the other side of the room, but stopping the action before it actually occurs. I'm initiating, but not following through. But Ragal can still see the moment, as if the teleport was still going to happen. His ability to understand is translating that moment into something his mind can better comprehend. And Casper is seeing that translation in Ragal's mind, and is showing that to the four of you."

Charlie's eyes widened, and he gazed at the corridor with new interest. "It's like a visual metaphor for a teleport, then? I can see why it resembles a corridor going someplace."

"Yeah." An excited grin covered the elf's face. "I want one of you to try to walk into it."

"Oh, me!" Kippy said, jumping to his feet.

Charlie and the other's laughed, and Adrian gave Kip a little nudge forward. "Go do it."

Kippy grinned, and approached the corridor, which still looked as real as could be. "It won't cause me to explode or anything, will it?" he asked, tossing Charlie a grin over one shoulder.

Max laughed. "It shouldn't. But if it does, we'll try to keep it small. Don't want to wreck the ship!"

Kippy huffed and rolled his eyes, but grinned again and moved slowly closer to the corridor.

Or not. Charlie was watching, and it seemed like Kippy was walking away from him, but that the corridor was also moving away with equal speed.

"I can't get near it," Kippy said, stopping and frowning. "It moves away from me when I step forward."

Max grunted. "Adrian, will you try?"

"Yes." Adrian took Kippy's place, but the result was the same. The corridor seemed to move away at the same pace that Adrian approached it.

"It doesn't work," Casper said. "And I'm getting tired."

"It is a strain," Ragal acknowledged.

Max nodded. "Okay. Quickly, Charlie. You try it."

Charlie stood up and moved towards the corridor. But unlike with both Kip and Adrian, this time the construct seem to remain in place. "I'm almost there," he said.

He reached the opening. "Should I go inside?"

Max shook his head, strain now showing on his forehead. "No. Try putting a hand inside first."

Charlie nodded, and reached out with his hand...and then gasped. At the point where his hand would have crossed the threshold, it stopped. His fingers touched something invisible, something that gave, like a giant, invisible rubber membrane. He moved his hand around, but it seemed the entire entrance to the corridor was barred by this invisible obstruction.

"I can't get in," he said. "Something's blocking the way."

Max frowned, but took a breath and relaxed. At the same time, both Ragal and Casper sighed, and opened their eyes. And in that second of time, the corridor simply vanished.

"What happened?" Charlie asked.

Max scratched his head, and gave a little shrug. "I'm not sure."

"What were you trying to do?" Ricky asked.

Again, Max gave a little shrug. "I'm not sure." He looked over at Charlie. "When you touched it, did you sense anything?"

Charlie considered that. "Well, it gave, like it was made of rubber."

"Not a solid wall, then?"

"No."

Max brightened at that. "That's a good sign. It resisted you, but it didn't block you completely. You just didn't have the power to overcome that resistance."

Kippy looked from Charlie to Max. "What would have happened if it hadn't resisted him?"

"Well ---" Max smiled then. "I think he might have teleported across the room."

"What?" Charlie simply stared at the elf. "I can't teleport!"

"You would have if you could see the moment," Max returned. "You don't have the talent to create the moment on your own." He winked. "At least, not yet. But if that moment was created for you...you might have done it."

Ricky laughed. "Oh, is that all?"

Adrian nodded. "There was a reason for this experiment?"

Max's smile slipped away. "Yeah. I'm trying to figure out what we're gonna do when we find the others."

Kippy shook his head. "We just land and rescue them, don't we?"

"I don't think so." Max looked grave now. "I've been talking to Murcha about the damage to Pacha's ship. Murcha got readings from the data stream Illia was sendin' - enough to give him an idea what happened, we think."

"Not good, I'm feeling," Ricky stated quietly.

"No." Max sighed. "Them ships is built tough, you guys. The Kifta use metals we don't have back on Earth yet. They're strong. And a sphere is by nature one of the strongest hollow objects you can have." Max looked pained now. "Well, Murcha was doing the math, using the acceleration and deformation numbers he got before the data stream died, and he thinks that as much as fifty million tons of ice fell on the ship."

Charlie was stunned, and simply sat in silence, along with the others.

"Million --" Kippy whispered.

"--tons," Adrian finished, shaking his head.

Max nodded. "Pacha is holding that mass back from crushing the final space inside the wreck completely." He winced. "If this was all happening in real time...they'd be dead now."

"You remember how tired you got, keeping your presence open to them, for just over a minute?" Ragal asked. "Even with Kippy and Adrian boosting your power?"

Charlie nodded.

Ragal shook his head. "Pacha is an immensely gifted Ka. Very powerful. But his ability to hold back this sort of mass for any extended length of time...is not possible."

"How much time has passed since it happened?" Charlie asked. "I mean, for them. Do we even know?"

"I estimate a half hour," Max said. "Maybe a little longer."

Charlie's heart quailed at that. "Could he last that long?"

Max considered that. "He's not keeping that entire mass at bay. Just what is trying to compress the space they're in. It still has to be a considerable load." He nodded. "But I'd say I could do it, and Pacha is as strong in the things he can do as I am in the things I can do. He may even be stronger."

"But time is running out for them," Ragal continued.

Max nodded. "Yeah. And there's the rub. Once we locate this planet, we're gonna have to come out of the Cooee to land there. And when we do that, the clock starts running again for them, with no more interruptions."

Kippy licked his lips. "Can't you do something once we get there? I mean, magical?"

Max forced a weak smile. "Yeah. Say we found them and landed right away. Then I'd only have to move a few million tons of ice to get at them. That would take time. A lot of it."

"How much time?" Charlie had to ask.

"A few hours, probably."

Charlie gasped, seeing now where this was leading. Pacha could not possibly hold back the ice for several more hours. Charlie had not considered that at all. Somehow, in his mind, he had equated finding the others with rescuing them.

It left him grasping at straws. "Well...what if we summoned that help you mentioned earlier? Like 100 tough elves, or something? Once we landed, all of you could clear that ice a lot faster, right?"

Max cocked his head to one side, and then gave it a small shake. "No, Charlie. I don't think that would work."

"We have to do this on our own, remember?" Ricky asked, watching Charlie carefully. "Just the seven of us."

Charlie rubbed at his forehead, seeing no way out. "I don't know why. It seems smarter to get as much help as we can."

"Something would go wrong," Ragal said then. "I think we have already been handed the decision. We either do this ourselves, or...it doesn't get done."

Charlie swallowed hard. "You mean...our friends will die."

Ragal looked terribly sad, but nodded. "Yes."

"Are we being tested?" Kippy asked. "Who is doing this?"

Ragal looked thoughtful. "No. This is not a test, except perhaps in spirit. I think we have actually been guided into doing what will most likely result in a favorable outcome. As to who, or what, is guiding our fates...I don't know. It may not even be an intelligent entity as we think of it. It may be a simple, primal force in the universe, one that thirsts for positive outcomes. So much of what happens in the universe seems negative, Charlie. We as intelligent species pay more attention to the bad things that happen than we do the good ones, because it is the nature of observant beings to focus more on those circumstances that may cause them trouble than those that will not."

Adrian smiled. "News travels fast. Bad news travels the fastest."

Ragal returned the smile. "Exactly." His gaze returned to Charlie. "I believe what happened to Pacha and the others was an accident, a pure whim of fate. But I believe our response has been guided in some fashion, so as to produce the most positive outcome possible. The rescue of our friends."

Charlie nodded. "It just seems like...like there's no way to do it."

"We have to find the way," Max said. "There must be a solution."

Kippy nodded. "That's why you were working on the corridor thing. You're trying to figure out how to do something, aren't you?"

Charlie realized that his boyfriend was right. "I see. A combination of powers, somehow. Something each one of us adds to the mix."

"Then I don't have any idea what my part is in all this," Ricky put in. "I don't have any powers that I know about."

"You said Charlie needed you, even before we knew what happened," Adrian countered. "You knew something had happened, just as soon as I did. And you knew that Charlie needed you."

Ricky considered that, and nodded. "I did feel that way."

"Then you are right where you belong," Ragal told him. "All of us - all seven of us - are right where we belong."

"But we don't know what to do." Charlie reminded.

The room fell into silence as each of them considered the magnitude of the problem. Pacha's ship was buried under unimaginable quantities of ice. To simply dig them out would be the most direct method. But that would take time, and if they took too much time, Pacha's strength would fail, and the small hollow he and his friends were currently surviving inside would be crushed.

All of them would perish in an instant. Charlie's heart quailed at the idea of losing his friends. And in such a violent, horrible manner!

He closed his eyes, unwilling to even imagine such an end to their mission. It seemed an impossible task. The clock would work against them no matter what they did --

The clock.

"Can't you slow time for them, or even stop it, as soon as we landed?" Charlie asked, without opening his eyes.

He heard Max grunt. "I can do it for us because I know where all of us are. I don't know where they are. Even landing nearby, I would only have a general idea. It might work - and it might not. We can't risk the might not."

Charlie nodded, even as a new idea was coming. He opened his eyes and looked over at Max. "We have to do the rescue from inside the Cooee."

The elf frowned at him, and nodded. "What do you have in mind?"

Charlie managed a small laugh. "Well, I didn't really have anything in mind beyond the idea that going into real time to perform a rescue will probably cause us to fail."

Ricky nodded. "We don't have time to spare on trying a lot of different things." He cocked his head at Max. "That thing you were just doing with Ragal and Casper. With the corridor. Would it work on Charlie?"

Max smiled. "I was kinda thinking along those lines when I came up with the test. I can't teleport to where Pacha and the others are, because it's now a new location. I'd have to be there one time by normal means before I could ever teleport there." He turned his gaze to Charlie. "Charlie can go there in his second presence, but I can't tag along for some reason. A lot of magics are complimentary, and additive, and can work together. But apparently, not this one. It makes me think it's because teleporting and split-presence are on the other side of the coin from each other."

"What does that mean?" Kippy asked.

Max nodded. "It's just an analogy guys. But...suppose you have a giant coin. Big enough for everyone to stand on. All the teleporters are in a group here, and all the locators are in a group there, and all the time manipulators are in another group over there. All these groups contain elves - or anybody - that are good at one kind of magic. Their best magic, let's say."

"Makes sense," Charlie said. "But there's more, I take it?"

"Yeah. No elf does just one magic. Everyone can do lots of magics, but they're usually really good at only one or two" -- he grinned -- "or three or four, of the harder magics. So all these groups kinda rub shoulders with the groups that contain other magics they can also do. The result is that there is just one big crowd that covers the whole coin, with areas of people that all kinda mix because so many people can do several of the bigger magics. You see?"

"And the other side of the coin?" Adrian asked. "What does that mean?"

"Uncommon magics," Max said, nodding his head at Charlie. "On the other side of the coin, there is a much smaller crowd of people, just a few, and they do magics that few others can do. These groups are usually separate, not close to each other, because very few people can perform more than one uncommon magic. And because the coin is between them and the people on the other side, these uncommon magics are not complimentary. I can teleport, among other things, and Charlie can send his other self places. But our magics are on opposite sides of the coin, and can't work together."

Charlie nodded. "Oh. That's what you meant before, when you said you couldn't ride along with me."

"Right. All I need to do is get to the place where Pacha and the others are one time to be able to get the location and teleport them out of there. I don't have to go there physically. If I could do split-presence, I could send my other self there and get the location. But I can't split my presence like Charlie can, and our magics won't work together, so I can't tag along with him."

Adrian looked excited. "So you are hoping that Ragal's ability to translate concepts, and Casper's ability to generate imagery in people's minds, can somehow find a common ground where your teleportation and Charlie's split-presence can work together!"

Max sighed, and looked pleased. "I love you guys. You make everything so easy for me!"

Everyone laughed, and Ricky put an arm around his boyfriend and squeezed him. "That's my smart guy!"

Adrian blushed, but looked happy himself. "But will it work?"

Max held up his hands. "That's what we have to figure out. Just because Ragal can sense my moment before teleportation and translate it into a concept that Casper can project, doesn't mean it will work with Charlie's moment when his presence splits. I wanted to try it on me first, because if it failed there, it was probably no use to try it with Charlie."

"But it worked!" Casper said, delightedly. "It worked very well!"

"It did," Ragal agreed. "But as we saw, Charlie was unable to enter the corridor that was Max's teleportation moment. The resistance was still there to the two concepts working together."

Charlie shook his head. "Yeah. But I didn't sense that I was being kept out. I just felt like I didn't have the power to push through whatever was stopping me."

"You're still new at this," Max said. "It will take time to build your power. Time we don't have. Even if we hung out here in the Cooee for a relative year, it would probably not be enough." He smiled at Kippy. "Fortunately, there may be an answer. Kip and Adrian seem able to boost your power. Their skwish is very strong, and they both seem to be good at channeling that energy to you."

"Because we care about him," Kip said, leaning up against Charlie. "I've already learned that the power of skwish is boosted a lot when you're using it for something dear to your heart."

Max smiled at that. "Well put."

Charlie nodded, understanding now. "I get you. You want me to be able to go back to Pacha's ship, and take you along with me."

"That would work," Max agreed. "Or if the path was just open, so that I could follow on my own. If I can get my presence there, I can get them out."

"Then we need to work on that," Charlie said. He frowned then. "The only thing is, I can't seem to direct this thing well. So far, I've visited Mike and the others without intending to do it. I just don't know that I can go to them at will."

"That's something I can help you with," Max returned. "If you was in an elf school growing up, you would have been taught the concentration needed to direct your talents. You'd be good at it by now. But I can teach you that."

"Then we should get started," Ragal suggested.

Charlie nodded, and looked at the overhead. "Murcha? Anything yet?"

"Not yet, Charlie. But I am coming into a search area that seems thicker in gas and dust. This would seem to be a more appropriate location to find a brown dwarf, so I have hopes that we will see results sooner than later."

"Okay. Keep us in the loop."

Charlie took a deep breath, let it sigh outward, and smiled at Max. "I'm ready, whenever you are."