It Doesn't Take A Rocket Scientist, Charlie Boone! - 7. Chapter 7

They had all slept, and eaten, and were ready to make the attempt to rescue Pacha and the others. They returned to the sofa in the control center and made themselves comfortable. Kippy and Adrian took places on either side of Charlie, feeling that the ability to touch him would add emphasis to the power support they intended to give to him. Ragal, Casper, and Max sat in a line, also feeling that touching would add strength to their missions. Ricky, after giving Adrian one more kiss, was the only one standing, ready to position himself near the forest path analog when it appeared.

"This is gonna be very straightforward, fellas," Max said, looking around at his friends. "Charlie, you let your other self out and send him to Pacha's ship. The moment you do, Ragal, you pass that moment to Casper, who will open the forest path. I'll be ready to step into it to go with Charlie. Rick? You just wait at the entrance. If we call for you, come as quickly as you can. But also - and this is important - if you feel for some reason that you are supposed to go at any given moment, you go. You need to trust your instincts here, okay?"

Ricky took a breath and nodded.

Max turned to Charlie. "Whenever you're ready. Good luck."

Charlie nodded, and closed his eyes. The moment was easy to initialize now, and he did so, and felt his other self start out. Charlie was immediately surrounded by darkness, and once again felt as if he were swimming through the black depths of the ocean. A distant pinpoint of light appeared, and he started for it.

Max appeared beside him then, the other Max, slightly transparent looking, that Charlie had seen in their test experiment.

"Can you hear me, Max?"

"Yeah." The elf pointed at the distant point of light ahead. "Is that where we're goin'?"

"Yes. Let's go."

Charlie moved off, and Max stayed right with him. The darkness passed around them like a fluid, but left no impression upon them. The pinpoint of light grew, became a circle, and Charlie's excitement grew. He could feel the twin warmths of Kip and Adrian somehow beside him, feeding him extra energy that gave his movements an ease he had never experienced before now. They had also increased in ability!

The circle of light grew, and soon became a window. They neared it, and Max suddenly slowed.

"Something's wrong, Charlie. The resistance is increasing. I'm almost to the point where I can't move against it."

Charlie turned, and extended his hand. "Grab hold."

Max nodded, and Charlie felt the elf's hand within his own, even though he knew it could not possibly be there. He took a breath, sensed their unity, and formed a desire for them to move as one. Then Charlie started off again, now able to feel a little of the resistance that was holding Max back. At first it seemed moderate, and he was able to handle it. But then, seemingly with each step, the resistance attacking Max's movements grew. Charlie started by leading Max, and then pulling him along as the resistance increased, and then soon was dragging him forcibly.

"We're almost there, Max!"

Charlie could see through the window now, it was so close. Beyond, the four spacesuited figures were huddled together in a tiny confine now, the walls almost upon them. Charlie gasped, realizing that the moment of Pacha's failure was near!

He pulled as hard as he could, and reached the window, and stepped through. "Mike!"

One of the suited figures turned his head, and the Aussie boy's tired eyes gazed out at him. "Charlie! You came back!"

Bobby also turned now, looking haggard beyond his years. The smaller, spacesuited figure of Pacha'Ka, was nestled between the boys, motionless. "Do something, Charlie!" Bobby pleaded. "Pacha is almost done!"

"I brought Max," Charlie said.

Mike shook his head. "I don't see him."

Charlie turned, and realized then that his arm was still pulled back into the darkness. He could feel Max's hand in his, but could not see the elf behind him. "Max! Come through!"

"I can't, Charlie," Max's voice came back, sounding exhausted. "I can't breach the barrier. I can't make it."

No! Charlie turned back to Mike again, shaking his head, now totally at a loss for what to do next. There was something they hadn't done, something they had missed. He could feel the place where the missing piece belonged, but try as he might, he could not put a name to it...

Kontus raised his head, and nodded. "It was a valiant effort, Charlie. Whatever it was you tried to do. I feel the power of it, somehow. I am only sorry it did not work for you. And for us."

Charlie turned, and pulled harder. He heard Max gasp with pain, and knew then that the elf was stuck beyond the window, at a point just before he was actually inside the ship itself. Now Charlie was tiring too, gasping for air, his chest heaving with the effort of holding Max with him. Some force seemed to be hauling the elf back, attempting to pull him from Charlie's grasp.

Charlie closed his eyes. Kip! We're stuck! Adrian! More power!

He felt the boost then, a surge that gave him his breath back. And with his breath, came clarity...and the solution.

Rick! We need you!

Somewhere to their rear, Charlie sensed a reply. He gasped, holding onto Max with every bit of strength he had left. Time seemed to stand still a moment as forces Charlie barely understood played fearsome tug-of-war games with each other...and then he felt something give. At the same moment, the strain on his arm relaxed. There was movement behind him, and then Max and Ricky appeared beside him.

Inside the ship.

"Now, Max!" Charlie yelled, even as the startled faces of Mike and the others registered in his mind.

Max looked exhausted. But he nodded, and closed his eyes ---

Mike, Bobby, Pacha, and Kontus disappeared from before them, and a fraction of a second after that, the space they had occupied imploded, and simply ceased to exist.

The window and the light vanished, and Charlie felt himself propelled backwards. Somehow, he managed to hold onto Max's hand, feeling the elf being pulled away from him, back along the path they had traveled. Someone else was there, right beside him in the darkness, and Charlie knew it had to be Ricky. He reached out with his other hand, touched an arm, followed it downward, and clutched Ricky's hand.

They slowed, and finally stopped.

"This is the equilibrium point," Ricky said then.

Charlie shook his head. "The what?"

He heard his friend chuckle softly in the darkness, and then, magically, could see his face.

"Balance," Ricky said, smiling. "Remember Max's analogy of the two-sided coin? He was more right than he imagined. Your magic and his are not just different. They flow in opposing directions, Charlie. They have different charges. We forced them to meet in the middle. But at either end, they still go their own way."

"So that's why Max was getting dragged backwards? He had come over into my magic, from his?"

"Uh huh. Where they meet, there's turbulence. Both mixing, and opposition. Max was able to enter there. But the further he moved along your side, the greater that opposite flow of magic worked against him. He got weaker instead of stronger. At the last there, he didn't have the strength left to take the final step onto your side."

Charlie shook his head. This was Rick talking? "How do you know all this?"

"I...I learned it. As soon as I came in here, it was like I could see what was happening. I could see the way the magic works. This must be my ability."

Charlie shook his head. "I don't think it's just that. Max couldn't make the last step. And I couldn't pull him through."

"You could have pulled him through, Charlie. But it would have hurt him badly. And because you couldn't hurt Max, you couldn't pull hard enough to get him there." Ricky looked a little awed now. "I could actually see the turbulence between your two magics. The flow pulling him backwards, and your strength pulling him forwards. You were fighting against yourself. I saw that Max needed a push, in addition to a pull. So I just did that, and we were through."

"How did you push him?"

"Um. I don't really know. In my mind I just got behind him and pushed with my hands. But I think it was more complex than that."

Charlie nodded. "I get you. I only know a little bit about what I'm doing, too. I think it's going to take time for us to learn about this stuff."

"Geez," Max said then. "And I thought I was the big magic guy!"

"Are you okay?" Charlie asked.

"I could sleep for a month, but yeah, I'm good. Now I just wanna get out of here."

"Did we do it?" Charlie asked then, squeezing Max's hand. "Did we rescue them?"

"Yeah. We got 'em out. They should be back on Lollipop now."

Charlie closed his eyes, relief flooding throughout his body. Ricky came closer then, pushing the limp form of Max before him, and he and Charlie hugged, while the elf made little sighing noises between them.

"Okay!" Max finally said. "We're happy! Now back up some so I can breathe!"

Charlie laughed, but the bright cheer he was now feeling could not be dampened. "Max, do you have any idea how we just did what we did?"

"Some. I'm gonna need to talk to some people when I get back home. They may wanna come see you guys."

"Us?" Ricky looked amazed. "Why?"

"'Cause both you guys seem to be on the other side of the coin. Both of you are using uncommon magic. And what's more...you guys are complementary, and additive."

"You know what I did?" Ricky asked, sounding surprised. "Because I sure don't!"

Max blew a small breath out. "It sounds like you're a magical analyst. Someone that can actually see the processes of magic. That's a hell of talent, because the more you can see of how magic works, the more you'll eventually be able to do yourself."

Charlie grinned. "Like a magic mechanic, huh? Why am I not surprised?"

Ricky laughed. "That is kind of like it was. Like I could see how what was happening was put together. It was the only way I knew I had to give Max a push."

"That's another thing," Max said. "Seeing what's wrong is one thing. Fixing is another. You have more going on than just analyzing." He shook his head. "I'm too tired right now to think about all this. I need to talk to some people, and then we'll go over this some more."

Charlie sighed. "I've actually had enough magic for today, I think. Come on, Rick. Let's get this big guy home."

They hefted Max between them, and Charlie allowed his second self to dematerialize. The darkness about them faded, and the control center of Lollipop appeared around them.

Charlie was still seated on the sofa. Kippy immediately squeezed him, and deposited a kiss to his cheek. "We did it!"

Charlie nodded. "Where are they?"

"Murcha opened the dispensary," Adrian said. "They're all in beds by now."

Ricky was standing before Charlie, looking about as happy as a guy could look.

"You saved the day, buddy," Charlie said.

Ricky watched him a moment, and then shook his head. "It was all of us, Charlie. Every single one of us was needed. I just didn't know my part until it hit me squarely in the face. When you called to Kip and Adrian for more energy, I knew it was time for me to go. I was already on my way when you called me. But I didn't even know what I was supposed to do, until I was right there at the end."

"You did it," Charlie pointed out. "That's what matters."

"Yeah, you did," Max added, from his seat farther along the sofa.

Charlie leaned forward and looked at the elf, and was shocked to see how tired he looked. "Maybe you could use a little dispensary time, yourself," he said.

Max smiled. "Nah. A nice, big meal would help, though."

Charlie nodded, but felt a small and unexpected twinge of surprise. Things had changed, somehow. Max had always occupied a pedestal in Charlie's mind, as someone that was all-powerful and wise. Now he could see that the elf was indeed gifted, indeed wise. But he was also a person, not omnipotent, not unable to fail. Without all of them working together just as they had, not even Max could have pulled this thing off.

Charlie got to his feet. "Help me, Kip."

Charlie and his boyfriend went to Max, who smiled up at them. "What now?"

"Bed for you," Charlie said. "You can eat later."

"Aww."

Charlie bent and grasped Max by an arm, and nodded at Kippy to get the other one. Together they hauled him to his feet, and helped him back to his canopy bed, removed his shoes, and put him to bed.

"Thanks, fellas. I guess I owe you one now."

"No," Charlie said, shaking his head. "You don't."

"Thanks, Max," Kippy said, dropping a hand to touch Max's arm. "Thanks for being there once again."

The elf's eyes went from Charlie's to Kip's, and back again. "It's always my pleasure, fellas, to do anything with you guys. I gotta thank you, too. If we had not done this just right... we'd have lost those guys. We'd have lost our friends."

Charlie nodded. "How about I come back and wake you in a few hours for dinner?"

"Works for me," Max said, smiling. He turned onto his side, arranged the pillow more comfortably beneath his head, and sighed.

Charlie took Kippy by his elbow, and they closed the curtains on Max's bed and stepped away from it.

Kippy came into Charlie's arms then, and Charlie held onto him, and nuzzled his face, and they cried together, just a little, for their friends and their ordeal, and for the wonderful fact that they were now safe.

* * * * * * *

"Geez, what a mess!" Max said, eying the valley below them.

They all wore spacesuits, necessary due to the thick layer of mostly hydrogen gas that served as the atmosphere for Antariluma. It was cold, too, though not the kind of cold one might expect on a planet that circled no sun. Antariluma was still thermally active, and the thick atmosphere tended to retain some of the heat generated by the planet's interior fires. A thin breeze was even evident, audible as a whisper in their external sound pick ups.

Above them, a jagged mountain peak glittered in their spotlights, the raw face of the wound in its side plainly visible. There, the leading edge of a glacier had shorn off during the planetquake, dropping unimaginable tons of solid ice into the valley below. The valley where, it so happened, Pacha's ship had been planeted. That valley was now gone. A vast field of massive, jagged chunks of ice, some the size of icebergs back on earth, had filled it to a depth of over nine hundred feet, bringing it level with the mount they stood upon now.

"It is quite untidy, isn't it?" Pacha'Ka agreed. "And an untimely addition to our explorations here, as well."

Charlie smiled at that, and became aware that Mike was smiling at him, too. "Pach is a very practical guy," the Aussie provided, gazing fondly at the smaller, spacesuit-clad figure he held in his arms. "He just sees this all as an inconvenience."

"In the extreme," the Kifta agreed. "We have to get the resources back here now to disinter my vessel from beneath all this ice. Illia must be wondering what has become of us by now."

The disaster had happened so quickly that none of Pacha's crew had been able to secure the artificial intelligence from her place in the ship's main control column. But the repositories the Kifta supplied for the intelligences that ran their vessels were formidable constructions, designed to survive even if the entire vessel was destroyed. In the event of a total catastrophe like this one, the enclosure activated a stasis field, which completely removed the repository from the influence of outside forces. Unfortunately, that same field would prevent Illia from communicating with the outside world. But Pacha seemed certain that Illia had survived the disaster, and now was intent on retrieving her from the wreck.

"I will assist in any way I can," Murcha said then. "We must rescue her. I also feel she has survived within her womb."

"We'll get her," Charlie reassured.

Ricky gazed up at the shattered peak, and shook his head inside his helmet. "Wonder what set that off?"

"Gravitational stresses, I would imagine," Pacha answered. "Antariluma is in the process of being captured by the brown dwarf, and her bulk is shifting constantly under the new gravitational strains."

Charlie turned and looked the other way, and shook his head again at what he saw there. A city, but one that stretched away to every horizon save the mountainous one at their backs. And a sealed city, too, designed to protect its inhabitants from the atmosphere and low temperatures outside. The city of Taraqua covered over half the planet's surface, a monumental feat of engineering in any culture.

The story of this world, they had learned from Pacha and Mike during their recovery period. When the Juacarvo had fled whatever peril they had fled in the next arm of the galaxy over, they had been far too numerous for their relatively small fleet of vessels to handle. So they had converted their planet into a worldship for travel, and simply brought it with them across the vast gulf that separated the two spiral arms.

While possessing a drive that allowed their ships to enter the Cooee and travel to the stars, the planet itself had no such capability. But the Juacarvo did have some ability with time, and had slowed the passage of it enough about Antariluma for their planet to cross the nearly 10,000 light year gulf between spiral arms in a mere thousand years of subjective time. Far more time had passed within the real time of the galaxy, so that by the time Antariluma arrived within the Orion arm forty thousand years past, the peril they had fled from had ceased to exist.

By that point the population was restless, and as they neared the stars of their new home, their ships began to explore, looking for new worlds to call their own. Even as Antariluma was just arriving in this arm of the galaxy, Juacarvo colonies were springing up on worlds in a small cluster of welcoming suns, and more and more of the population was leaving the original home planet. Before too long, there were more Juacarvo in the colonies than on the home world, and the influence of the original government waned.

And soon, the world was simply abandoned, as the last of the population moved to the colonies. Antariluma would forever be a world without a star, and none could prefer her cold and darkness to the lighted warmth of lands basking beneath hospitable suns. The planet had continued onward for thousands of years, until encountering the void of the Kyrtma. There, one of the strange and wonderful dramas that the universe so loved had played out. The planet had encountered one of the few brown dwarfs to inhabit the dark void, approached it at just the right speed and distance for a favorable capture to ensue, and was even now taking up an elongated orbit around the dwarf that would be millennia in arriving at stability.

But Antariluma had found a new home, if still a dark one.

"There's some amazing things in this universe," Bobby said, gazing off at the city himself. Mike leaned up against his boyfriend's suit, and the two exchanged warm smiles through the clear globes of their helmets. Pacha, between them now, gazed up at one boy, and then the other, and then offered a tchik-tchik-tchik laugh that made Charlie grin.

"I have nearly been squashed once, my lads. Let's not let it happen again."

Mike and Bobby laughed, but did not push themselves apart.

Kontus came over to Charlie and Kip, and dipped his head inside his helmet. "Again, I wish to thank you for our rescue. I was wondering which of my nephews would get my collection of ancient empire texts, and hoping that it was Ergor 2Rowf and not his brother, Heimor. Ergor would at least recognize it's value, and not sell it too cheaply."

Charlie smiled at that. "They can both just dream on now. You just keep those texts to enjoy in your old age."

Kontus offered them an alarming, toothy smile. "I have yet to cease being amazed by the things your group does, Charlie Boone."

Charlie felt a mild bit of embarrassment, but nodded. "We have been learning some new things lately. I'm just glad it all worked out."

"You fellas wanna see the inside of the city?" Mike called over the suit com. "It's really quite a sight."

"It is that," Kontus agreed. "The Juacarvo appeared to have been even larger than me. Their interiors are rather, um, spacious."

"I'm up for it," Ricky said, putting an arm around Adrian's shoulders. "How about you, sweetie?"

"Sure. I'd love to see the place."

Max grunted and pointed at them. "You kids be careful what souvenirs you pick up, okay? I get some really strange signals from this place."

"Hear that?" Ragal said, leaning down towards Casper. "Be careful what you touch inside."

"I will!" Casper cast a quick smile at Charlie, and rubbed his small gloved hands together.

Charlie laughed, and threw an arm around Kippy. "See the sights with me, Kip?"

"Oh, Charlie. You say the sweetest things. Just remember that we have to be back home in time for the fireworks."

"I haven't forgotten!" Max called. "I'm really good with time, remember? Sheesh!"

"Just one thing first!" Mike said then. "Everybody look up!"

Charlie and Kip looked skyward, but nothing seemed to happen.

"That's your cue, Murcha!" Mike called, laughing.

"Oh!" The ship mind's voice came over the com. "Sorry!"

From the direction of the grounded ship, a host of trails raced skyward. They disappeared above, and in a moment a terrific blue fire lanced across the dark sky, popping and billowing, and filled with arcing sparks of many different colors.

Kippy gasped, and then cheered, and Charlie also laughed and gazed in amazement at the light show above. The great blue glow was the hydrogen atmosphere burning, he realized, but it gave a magnificent background to the colorful sparks that danced and paraded about inside.

"It's beautiful!" Kippy called, laughing.

"Just for you guys," Mike said quietly. "With our thanks."

"Amen," Bobby echoed.

"Indeed," Pacha added. "Thank you all."

"It was harder to get them to burn in colors in this atmosphere," Kontus confided. He seemed slightly embarrassed as he patted each of them on the shoulder. "But the results are most pleasing, I think."

"Yes, they are," Kippy agreed, nodding. "Thanks, guys. I know that came from the heart."

Kontus looked pleased, and turned to rejoin Mike and the others. As soon as he was there, Mike and Bobby started off towards the city, Pacha still held between them. They heard Max sigh over the com, and then he and Ricky and Adrian fell in with them.

Charlie leaned closer to his boyfriend. "As good as the fireworks at home?"

Kippy sighed. "Better."

Charlie smiled, and squeezed the suited form of his boyfriend against him. "Ready?"

"Yes, Charlie. Take my hand?"

Charlie slid his hand down Kippy's arm, and clasped the other boy's gloved hand. Even through the non-conductive material of the suit, he could still feel the warmth of his boyfriend's heart. He squeezed Kippy's hand, and felt him squeeze back.

Mike turned and waved at them to come on, and they hurried to catch up, while the brief scatter of artificial stars in the sky above them slowly dispersed on the winds.