Moebius Strip

I guess you can call me a wonderer, a muser maybe.  My mother labeled me “a free spirit” and my father thought I was a troublemaker.  I could never stay long in one place; I could never decide what to do with my life. Correction, I knew what to do with it; I just couldn’t make up my mind on location and duration.

So all this uncertainty and indecisions had finally got me here.  Where is here -- somewhere in the mostly snowy part of Europe where the Institute of Quantum and Temporal Mechanics took residence several years ago.  I am their physician.  I was their best field medic until I messed up that mission.

The Rule is cast-iron – no interferences or interactions of any kind with cultures or people. Dura lex sed lex.  And I ignored it.  I still carry the scar from the wound – the price of my disobedience.  I am not allowed on the field any more, but I am still the best surgeon they have.  And besides, I know so much it is dangerous, for them and for me.  And here I remain, almost against my will but not entirely. My consolation is that I still get to practice medicine and the fact that this place has the best stables in the whole wide world.

*  *  *

It is snowing for the third day in a row.  I am beginning to get stir-crazy, I can’t go riding or walking and I am bored out of my wits already.  My Irish Setter D’Artagnan, or Dart for short, is not a happy camper either. I walk out on the terrace of the second floor and just stand there, looking out into the white vastness of the snow-covered meadow. 

Suddenly I see a dark spot moving in the direction of the chalet.  At first I think I am so bored I am seeing things, but the spot gets bigger and bigger and now I can see that it is a man. And he is walking strangely, like he is drunk, stumbling and tripping, almost falling a few times.  I get my binoculars and I can see now that he is almost naked, the only articles of clothing on him are a pair of ripped pants and some sort of gauntlets on his forearms.  And he is bleeding.  I grab my parka and a blanket and run outside, Dart following close behind.  Suddenly the man falls and I loose the sight of him. It isn’t good, he obviously needs help and soon.

*  *  *

This boy is going to drive me to insanity!  All I wanted to do was to get to my quarters and take a shower!  Instead, I ended up almost blown out of the ship.  And I hate Perseids!  Finally the doors are locked and after I make it clear to Harper that I do not particularly care to be a subject in his experiments.

I walk out of the machine shop and again I see the temporal and special shifts, I hear Dylan’s voice from somewhere, he is shouting, “I am tired of this cut-and-paste ship!”

 I want to see what is wrong and take a step and – I feel the air swooshing around me, it’s getting dense, I can’t breathe, I can’t move and then I feel that I am falling. It’s cold, freezing cold, and I keep falling until I hit something hard.  I feel like a million sharp claws rip through my skin, tearing it into shreds.  I can’t find my balance and fall to the ground, but it gives under me.  It’s not actually ground, it is a wooden platform that apparently rotted through and can’t hold my weight, and I tumble down and slam on concrete-like surface.

I guess the fall rendered me unconscious.  I am trying to assess the situation and it does not look good.  It’s dark and my eyes are not yet adjusted to the lack of light, so I use my other senses.  I fell cold, the surface I am laying on is wet and it feels slimy.  I can smell coal, soil, wet and rotten wood, rats, human waste – it is a mine.  I am in some sort of a mine.  Suddenly memories flood my consciousness, jumbled pieces retained deep in the recesses of my mind.  Xochital diamond mines, the terrors I had to endure…

 ‘Stop it!  Stop it this instant, Anasazi, this would not aid your survival!  Get up and get moving!’  I order myself and attempt to follow my own orders. The second I try to move white-hot pain shoots through my chest and I fall flat on my face.  My next attempt is much more cautious and I finally succeed.  After what seems like an eternity I make my way to the surface.  All I see around is snow, vast white expanse without a single sign of life.  Where the hell am I?

I start walking, I have to find a way out of here, and I have to find some means of communication with Andromeda.  It is freezing cold, I am bleeding and my body seems to be refusing to adapt to the sub-zero temperature, but I keep moving. I know if I stop I will die and that is unacceptable.  I will not die in the snow in the middle of nowhere; it takes much more then that to kill Tyr Anasazi! 

The snow is falling, large white flakes, so soft and pretty and yet so dangerous.  It is so tempting to lie down and let them cover me with soft downy blanket, but I know that this blanket will become my shroud and I keep walking, leaving bloody trail behind me. 

I don’t know how long I have been walking but suddenly I pick up a new scent in the air.  Smoke, dogs, horses – people!  Or whoever the inhabitants of this place may be, at least I have a hope of help, willing or unwilling.

I can see it already, a small house, what one calls a chalet, smoke coming from the chimney, a horse tethered at the fence.  I see a figure standing on the balcony, a woman, and then she disappears.  A short while later she is running towards me, followed by a dog. I divert my attention from the path in the snow and suddenly I trip and fall.  This time I can’t get up and the reality slowly fades away.  

*  *  *

“Dart, seek!  Go, boy, find him!”   I order D’Artagnan and he runs, sniffing the snow, and soon I hear a loud bark.  I carefully make my way there and see Dart sitting next to the figure on the ground.   The first thing I notice is the two sets of bone blades on the man’s forearms.  I stop cold in my tracks.  A Nietzschean! Why?  How?  Fifteen hundred years before the creation of his species – what is he doing here?  Someone must be messing up with time and space big time!  Now I don’t know what to do.  Is he hostile? Would he try to kill me?  Rape me?  I saw what Nietzscheans are capable of.  My thoughts are interrupted by Dart’s barking again.  He is nudging the man with his nose and licking his face.  Well, if Dart thinks he is ok, so do I. 

I come closer and see that he is unconscious. He is stunningly good-looking.  His skin is dark-gold, the color of buckwheat honey, long hair braided and tied back with a woven leather thong. Even through the dark skin I can see the blue tinge around his lips; he is hypothermic. The fact that his only clothing is a pair of ripped-up leather pants doesn’t help. I come closer, kneeling next to him.

I run my hands over his neck, shoulders and ribcage feeling for injuries. His skin on one side is ripped to shreds by what could be barbed wire; the lacerations are bleeding pretty badly.  When I turned his head I saw a gush above his left eye, that’ll have to be stitched.  I feel two ribs move under my fingers. This is not good, not good at all. 

I really can’t say how but I manage to get him into the house.  I take care of his wounds and wash the coal dust off his face and body.  The only place that has coal dust around here is the abandoned mines about ten miles due north from here.  I can’t imagine anyone walking ten miles barefoot and shirtless and with injuries so severe, but nevertheless, he is here.  The big question is -- what am I going to do with him?

*  *  *

I open my eyes slowly.  I am not sure where I am and what had happened to me.  I feel that I am cocooned in something soft and warm.  Too warm, hot, I feel trapped, I try to move whatever I am wrapped in, I can’t move, I feel that my bone blades are bound, I am about to rip the bindings when someone comes and touches my shoulder.

“Easy, easy, you are okay, you are safe, let me help you.”  It is a woman, I guess the same woman I saw looking at me and running to me. I don’t know who she is but somehow I believe her and allow her ministrations.  She removes the covers and takes off the bindings from my forearms.  She talks to me in a steady, quiet voice:

“I am sorry but I had to bind your arm spikes, you were delirious and I was afraid you’d hurt yourself.”

“What… happened to me?”  I ask, almost sure that she wouldn’t have an answer to that. 

“Well, I am not entirely sure, but from what I see I think that you had fallen, probably into the mine.  You have two broken ribs, you hit your head pretty hard and looks like you went through a barbed wire fence.  Somehow you managed to get out of the mineshaft and walk almost ten miles to my house.  You lost consciousness about a hundred yards from my gate.  I brought you in and treated your injuries. You were unconscious for almost twenty-four hours.”

“Can…” It’s hard to talk but I push myself to continue, “Can you tell me where I am?”

“I think the first question you should be asking is ‘when’, not ‘where’.”

“Explain.” I am beginning to suspect that the damned Tesseract machine had gotten me in more trouble then I thought it did.  

“This is 21^st Century. You are on Earth.  In your timeline it equals approximately the beginning of the eighth millennium.  It has been over two hundred years since Nietzsche’s death. Your sub-species will not be created for another fifteen hundred years or so.”

“Are you telling me I am almost three thousand years in the past?”  

“Yes.”

“How do you know then what are my sub-species? How do you know my timeline? And why do you think that Nietzsche is a good landmark for me?”

“I know you are Nietzschean, okay?”

“How?” What is going on here?  If what she is saying is true, how does she know about Nietzscheans?

“Could we talk about it later?”

“No!  I want an explanation and I want it NOW!” I yell and try to get up.  White- hot agony sears through my body and I fall back, a hair width away from loosing consciousness again.  She looks alarmed and comes closer, cool hand on my shoulder; her voice is quiet and steady:

“Please, if you don’t calm down you will hurt yourself even more.  Let me look you over and I will explain everything to you.  Everything I know, that is.” 

I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath.  The pain subsided but just a little and it is difficult to breathe.  She pricks my arm with something and seconds later the agony stops.  I saw the instrument that she used – a very primitive injector, I only saw a picture of it somewhere.  I take a look around and I see ancient, pre-historical technology everywhere – digital and mechanical clocks, something that looks like a radio-receiver, other gadgets I don’t know the use for.  It is either a really deep backwater world or she is telling the truth and Harper really messed up time and space on a very large scale.  Her voice interrupts my thoughts:

“Would you tell me your name?”

“Would you tell me yours?”  I ask in response.  She smiles and her smile is beautiful.  She is a very beautiful woman. For a human that is. 

“Alexandra.”

“Tyr.” Somehow I don’t think my family name and lineage would matter to her.

“A fitting name for a warrior.  If I recall correctly, Tyr was mostly revered for his kindness and self-sacrifice.”

I laugh a little, “I don’t think that kindness is one of my predominant traits. Neither is self-sacrifice. I am a Nietzschean after all.”

“So you are.  Are you one of those fittest who always survive?” I growl at her, but stop myself when I see fear in her eyes.  She couldn’t have known that she struck a nerve.

“I am the sole survivor of my Pride.”  Her eyes widen and now instead of fear I see something there that I know is important, but that something passes quickly and she is all calmness and composure again.  “How do you know so much about my people?”

She is finished with her ministrations now.  She brings me a glass of water and after I drink it she sits down next to the bed.  She takes a deep breath and starts talking:

“This place is on the territory of the Institute of Quantum and Temporal Mechanics. The most important subject of research here is time travel, to both past and future.  We’ve gone as far as the Jurassic period here on Earth and several thousand years into the future, in many different worlds. That’s how I know of Nietzscheans, and Vedrans, and many others. But we have never brought anyone with us.

“My guess would be that maybe somewhere in your time someone was using time-altering technology and somehow you have gotten caught in the middle of it.”

I run my hand over my face, “Little Professor and his Tesseract!  He is going to be very sorry when I come back.” 

Alexandra looks astonished: “Someone actually made a working Tesseract?  Incredible!”

“Do you see me here?  It is working alright, but only until I get back!”

“If you get back.”  Her voice is soft but the words scream at me.

“I have to get back.  I told you, I am the only survivor of my Pride, I have an obligation to my people!”  She closes her eyes for a second and when she looks at me again I see that something there, a fleeting shadow in the hazel depth of her gaze.

“Look, I may be able to help you to get back, but you need to heal first.  You can’t walk, let alone time travel.  I will not have your death on my hands if I send you back and you do not survive the trip.  When you are better, we’ll find a way for you to get home.  You have my word.”  I believe her.  What’s more, I trust her.  I trust her to keep her word and help me.  It is unusual for me to say the least, to trust total stranger, a human none the less, to believe someone’s good intentions, but I feel something about this woman, I can’t name that feeling but it makes me trust her.

She squeezes my hand gently, “Please, get some rest.”  She pulls away and I loathe to break the connection but I let go.  She dims the lights and walking out of the room she turns and says quietly, “Sleep well, Tyr.”

*  *  *

I stand on the terrace outside the guestroom where my unexpected visitor sleeps.  He is out of immediate danger but still not fully recovered.  I am amazed at how quickly he healed.  The future definitely holds a lot of promise in terms of genetics and medicine. I would die to go there again and just see all that will have been accomplished by future science… 

I shook my head.  Don’t even go there.  The trips were taboo for me now.  I broke The Rule and there is no turning back.  Hell, I am breaking it again now. I should have reported the visitor and let the team handle it.  But I can’t allow them to make a guinea pig out of him.  I can’t let them hurt him.  I can’t!  Hot tears run down my face.  I was and still am being punished for adhering to the Hippocratic Oath I took years ago – Do No Harm!  Damn it, I couldn’t let the boy die!  I still remember the slaughter, the gore, people dead and dying strewn on the ground slippery with blood…  I was sobbing now, years passed and still it was too vivid in my mind…

A hand on my shoulder startles me.  “You are crying.”  A statement, not a question.  His voice still hoarse and his fingers heat my skin – he is running a fever.  I swipe a hand across my eyes and turn, trying to look less pitiful.

“Why are you out of bed?  It is freezing, you’ll catch pneumonia.”

“I heard you crying.”

“It’s nothing.  C’mon, let’s get you back to bed.” He follows me inside, quietly, but I see the questioning look in his eyes.

I nudge him towards the bed and he sits down, wincing.  The painkiller is wearing off and I go get the syringe to give him another shot.  It should bring the fever down, too.  When done, I ease him back into the pillows.

"Why were you crying out there?" 

"You should be sleeping, you need the rest."

"You should be answering questions and not avoiding them."

"Why do you care?"

"I don't know." The answer makes me pause and look at him. He has a very expressive face and now it bears a look of surprise – he really does not know why but it is evident he is resolute to find out.

"I remembered something that upset me."

"Tell me about it."

"No."  I sound rude, but he shouldn't be prying.  Why would he give a rat's ass about me and my tears?  He shouldn't be here, in this time, in this place.  A freak accident brought him here and he will leave as soon as...

"You reminded me of something I try to forget."  The words come out unexpectedly and I am shocked that I allowed myself to speak.

"How?"

"You need to rest." I don't know why is he so insistent.  I still sit next to him and when I try to get up he grabs my hand.  He is not hurting me but his grip is strong enough to hold me rooted. His fingers are still hot and I notice his eyes are too bright.  Fever?

"Tell me!  Please…" His unexpected order softened by that almost inaudible "please" stops me and I start talking.

"It was a normal mission.  We were to travel three thousand years in the future, observe, record, etc. As usual we wore cloakers -- no one would see us, so The Rule would be abided by."

"The Rule?"  He looked puzzled.

"The Rule is the main law of time travel -- no interference or any kind of contact with the time visited, people, plants, animals, etc.  Only observation and recording of the facts."

"I can understand that when traveling to the past -- you would be there to learn the history.  Why the future?"

"The point of traveling to the future is to verify that we didn't do harm by implementing new inventions, technologies, etc. Earth had suffered a lot in the past from seemingly harmless things, so visiting the future is our way of preventing Eco-disasters, genocide, and much more.  That particular trip was actually to study your species, the Nietzscheans. 

"We knew the general characteristics of Homo Sapience Invictus, but we didn't know the extent of the potential violence they -- you -- are capable of.  When we arrived to the destination world it was drowning in blood.  One clan was exterminating another, completely, men, and women, children, babies, elderly -- all of them.

“My group leader commanded to leave immediately but something was jammed in the dialing mechanism and we were delayed.  Our group moved into the trees waiting for the dialer to be fixed.  I saw a woman running with a boy, they were moving in our direction.  Suddenly she stumbled and fell, bright red stain spreading on the back of her dress.  The boy just stood there, looking at the dead body of this woman, probably his mother.

“I shouldn't say that he was a boy, rather a teenager.  He had this coltish appearance of early adolescence, not a child any more, but not yet a man.  He stared in utter shock at the body in front of him, frozen in terror.  I saw a soldier creeping up behind him, gun ready.  Something snapped inside me and I ran, screaming, "Get away from here!  Run!"  He couldn't see me and looked confused.  The soldier leveled his gun with the boy's head and I knew I had to do something.

"I threw myself at the kid, knocking him flat on the ground.  The pellet from the gun hit me in the shoulder and destroyed the cloaker. It went clean through my body and into the boy's side, but I knew the wound wasn't bad. We rolled downhill and I pushed the boy away from me.  He looked like he saw a ghost when I suddenly appeared out of thin air before him.  I didn't have time for explanations, I just yelled at him to run.  I was not sure he understood me, but he did run. 

"After that I passed out and came to in the hospital here. I am not allowed on the missions any more.  I broke The Rule and now I suffer the consequences.  I just hope that the boy survived."

"I did."      

*  *  *

The words had fell from my lips before I could think, stunned by what I’ve just heard.  She looks shocked and a croaking "You..." is all she could manage to say.  I carefully turn to expose a triangular scar on my right side.  Alexandra slides the robe off her shoulders and I look at the identical scar on her left side, two inches below the collarbone.

I extend my hand and touch her face, trailing my fingers ever so lightly over her cheeks, lips, down to her neck and shoulders.  I bring myself up. Even sitting I tower over her, and I bend and kiss the scar, and then I pull her in and hold her.  I feel that my body is burning and light tremors run through it, like waves. She looks up and sees the tears that for the first time in my life I don’t feel the need to hide. She makes a move as if to leave and I can’t let her go, not just yet.

“Stay with me…” I whisper and hold her even tighter. 

“You need to rest.  I shouldn’t…”

“Please, stay. I was searching for years, trying to find out who you were; I need to feel you, to know that you are real.”

She slides under the covers next to me and I lay my head on her shoulder, my arms still tightly around her. She feels incredibly good and right and right now I don’t care that she is human.  I am alive only because she is human. I have so much to say to her, I want to say so much to her I don’t know where to begin.

“You know, in the beginning I was so angry with you I hated you.  I was hurt and alone and I forgot all about survival, I just wanted to be dead, like the rest of my family. But then I realized how wrong I was.  You have given me a chance to survive, to avenge the deaths of my people and to rebuild my Pride.  All that because of you.  I am here now because of you.  The strings of time are twisted and stretched and broken and reconnected and all that because of you.  Because you were too human to be impassive observer of a single mindless death.”

“The Moebius Strip…” She whispers. Yes, I know what she means.  I don’t say anything, for now I am content just to lie here, listening to her heartbeat measuring seconds of our existence, each tick and tock a reminder of the gift she gave me all these years ago, a gift of my life. 

*  *  *

I can’t believe we fell asleep like that, holding each other.  Perfect strangers in gesture of ultimate trust.  I have never done that before, but it feels right. 

She cries out in her sleep, she is dreaming and her dreams are not pleasant.  Her heart is beating fast now and she is breathing in short rapid gasps, tiny beads of sweat are forming on her forehead.  I shift slightly and carefully rub her temples.  I am trying not to wake her but to change the sleep pattern, to guide her away from her nightmare.  It’s working; I see that she is calming down.  She smiles in her sleep and nestles against me.  Her robe slid off her upper body and I feel her skin against my chest. A wave of tenderness washes over me and I pull her even closer.  I have never thought I was capable of these feelings, I have never believed they were anything but the tricks of weak minds, but here I am, almost crying because of her smile. 

The moon comes out from behind the cloud and in its phantasmagorical light her skin looks so white it’s almost silver.  Her lips are parted slightly and I can’t resist the temptation to kiss them.

*  *  *

I am in that wonderful state now when I am not yet awake but not sleeping either.  I feel warm and safe and someone is kissing me with such tenderness that my heart skips a beat. I open my eyes and I see Tyr’s face. It is impossible to comprehend, I am laying in bed with a man I only met yesterday, a stranger from another time, another place, and yet it feels so right to be here…

The room is bathed in silver light from the moon; I see it in the window, looking at us, this huge, incredible moon that Italians call ‘La Bella Luna’.  It makes everything look surreal, like a dream within a dream, like a chain reflection in two mirrors that make everything look endless, like Moebius strip…

I try to say something but he places a finger on my lips, stopping my unspoken words before I can ruin the moment and he kisses me again. He tastes of cloves and honey and something else, I don’t know what it is, and I drink him like a rare wine, I become dizzy with need for him. 

I regain focus and I see him looking at me, the whites of his eyes tinted silver, starkly framing the dark irises, hypnotic, addictive, dangerous, he draws me into his gaze and I am drowning in it, surrendering to him.  He whispers one word to me, ‘Please…’ and I breathe ‘Yes’ and the world is gone, there is nothing but us and the moon, our witness, our conspirator.

He trails his fingers over my face and I catch his wrist and press my lips against the thin blue vein pulsing with the beat of his heart.  I move down along his unguarded forearm, the skin there is soft, sensitive and he gasps and growls when I lick around his bone blades.  He turns us over and now he is hovering over me, his hair tie comes loose and his braids spill over, curtaining us, hiding us from the spying moon.  We kiss and touch and learn each other, knowing that this is all we have, all we will ever have and we need to remember everything, every little detail, every sound, every smell, and every breath.

His hands are everywhere, he evokes sensations I didn’t know my body was capable of.  I am ready, I am aching, I want him to take me but he continues his exquisite torture, nipping and licking and biting, he is driving me mad! I try to move, but he holds me down, pressing my hipbones into the bed and suddenly he slides down and God, he is making love to me with his mouth!  He bring me to a climax, to an unbelievable high and when I am back and breathing again he rolls us over so I am on top of him. 

The bandages on his shoulder became undone and I am suddenly afraid to cause him pain.  My expression probably reflected my thoughts because he asks, “What’s wrong?”

“I am afraid I will hurt you.”

He smiles, such wonderful smile he has, and pulls me tight against his chest.

“You will not hurt me, I am fine.  Look for yourself.”  And I look, and all I see is a faint net of already fading scars where his wounds had been, and I turn and kiss them.  He runs his hands through my hair, down my back, retracing the paths he’d mapped before, but I stop him.  I bring his arms over his head and hold his wrists.  My hand is not even big enough to wrap around them, and definitely not strong enough to keep them in place, but he lets me. I kiss him lightly on the lips and when he tries to deepen the kiss I break it off, lean in and whisper into his ear, “My turn!” 

*  *  *

“My turn!” I hear her whisper, her breath hot, it tickles my ear and she gently bites and pulls on my earlobe, then she moves to my neck, up to my face, she is still playing the illusion of holding my hands and I let her, I enjoy it, I want her to do what she is doing.  Her short chestnut hair looks like a silver halo now, illuminated by the moonlight, her whole body is shimmering. She looks ethereal and yet so real, so tangible, I ache to touch her, to kiss her, but I play her game and allow her to lead me down the road she chose.

*  *  *

He growls again, a soft rumbling sound coming from deep within his chest, and I continue to kiss and lick and bite and taste, I want him to ache for me just like I ache for him.  I move lower and find a nipple, I suckle gently on it and yes, he likes it, he is very vocal and it thrills me, I want to give as much as I get, I want to hear him cry out his completion, but it’s early yet, and I am not done.

I had to let go of his hands and he tries to move us, to take control again, but I stop him and take him into my mouth.  He didn’t expect it and he almost throws me off, but I hold on and he gives in to the sensations.  I see his knuckles whiten, grabbing the sheets and he breathes rapidly.

I feel that he is ready, his whole body is taut as a bowstring, but he suddenly picks me up and the next thing I know I am on my back.  He enters and begins to move, long slow strokes at first, but I cling to him, urging him on and he speeds up, building the tempo, faster and faster, and I feel the release approaching, and soon the world ceases to exist, it’s just him and me and we explode together.

I think I passed out because the next thing I know he is kissing my face, my eyelids, and I feel tears seeping from under my eyelashes.  He frames my face with his hands and I hear him saying, “Alexandra, look at me, please!”

I obey his request and open my eyes.  He looks – scared? “Alexandra, are you alright? Did I hurt you?”

“No, no, no, you didn’t, I am fine, better then fine, I am incredible, I am…”

“You are babbling…” He laughs, and I start laughing with him, and suddenly the reality hits and I start crying, sobbing and shaking like a child.

He sits up and brings me close; he holds me and lets me cry. He knows, I don’t have to explain and when I finally look up I see that he is crying too.

“Tyr…”

“No, don’t say it.  It isn’t time for it yet, right now it’s just you and me and the hell with the universe. Right now you are the only one that matters to me.  The moon is still high, we have time.”

His kisses me so tenderly my heart begins to ache, and I respond and I loose myself again, but not before looking at the moon in the window and whispering, “Thank you, mia Bella Luna…”

*  *  *

The morning comes way too soon and we are all business, planning and calculating and drafting, working out the way for me to get back. Alexandra explains to me that she will take me to the alternate location of the laboratory that houses the dialing mechanism. She is hoping that the codes remain the same and she will be able to use them. Today is Sunday and the security would be minimal, if any.

She smiles at me; her smile is slightly crooked, “Are you any good at breaking into places?” I laugh at the quaintness of her question. “Yes, actually I am very good at breaking into places.”

Two hours later we are on our way. I don’t know where did she find the clothes to fit me or how did she explain to the stable hand that today she needs two horses, but she did and we are riding across the valley, leaving two trails of hoof prints on the virgin snow.

The laboratory is hidden in an innocently-looking dwelling, to those who don’t know what to look for it appears to be a brewery or a dairy. Alexandra opens the first door, shabby wooden contraption and points to the second one, steel volt door with complex system of locks. It takes me about ten minutes to break in and we enter the inner chamber. Alexandra points me to the circle in the center of the floor and starts punching in numbers on the console. The lights go on and the whole room begins to hum quietly.

“Tyr, it’s working. I have ninety seconds to finish the sequence, then the main control will be activated and this unit will be disabled.” Her fingers continue to dance over the keys on the console, and suddenly I grab her and hold her to me, unable to let go. “Come with me, Alexandra. Please, come with me.”

Her hand touches my face, I feel her tears staining my shirt, a second later she finds her voice and says, “I can’t, you know I can’t, it wouldn’t be right. I am afraid to cause irreparable damage to the timeline. Who knows, if I come with you – you may never be born! I can’t risk that…I care too much about you, Tyr. You must go now, before it is too late! ”

I still hold her and I kiss her one last time. “Alexandra – I – I…“ I stutter and she quiets me, her finger on my lips, “I will write to you. I will leave a message for you here. You will come to Earth once again, in your time, and you will find it and you will know that I have lived and had good life and…”

The claxons stated blaring; she pushes me into the circle and runs over to the controls. Few more keys pressed and the world twirled around me and she disappeared, but I still hear her voice, reverberating in the vortex of reality, “I love you….”

*  *  *

The sheets on his bed are still crumpled; the pillow still holds his scent. I start to straighten it out but I can’t, and I sit there for God knows how long, hugging his pillow. Finally I get up and begin folding the bedding and suddenly something catches my eye. I pick it up – his hair tie, intricately woven leather thong. I clutch it in my hand and collapse on the floor, crying. I can’t stop, the tears just flow and flow, I am overwhelmed with such sense of loss it’s unbearable. I know it will fade with time, but I will always carry it with me. I will always love him.

*  *  *

All is well with the Universe for a while. Or so it seems. The Little Professor is free from the larvae; the Tesseract is disassembled and poses no more threat to the time/space continuum. The three humans I work with are happy. I have to say I am too, in a way. I’ve grown to care about the boy. I’ve grown to care about all of them, although I’ll never admit it to them. I look differently at humans now. Again, they’ll never hear it from me. But I act on my convictions, so – they are safe from whatever hostilities of this world I can protect them from.

There is one thing I have to do though. I have to get to Earth. I need to see if she did leave me the letter. Why, you ask? I don’t leave loose ends. If there is a letter, I don’t want it in the wrong hands. And because I miss her so much it’s difficult to breathe sometimes.

I can’t just pickup and go to Earth, especially not after Harper’s attempt at revolution. So I bide my time. We are long overdue for our shore leave and finally the day comes when we are given the long-awaited time off.

Beka is bugging me to go on a treasure hunt with her. I am looking for a polite way to decline the invitation when the golden creature that replaced our purple pixie announced that I’ll die if I go. I silently thank Powers That Be for this reprieve.

The trip was uneventful. If one doesn’t count that Dragans are one Garuda Cruiser and a hundred people short. I retrieved the letter. The titanium capsule preserved it in perfect condition. I load the data chip, engage privacy and turn it on. It’s a primitive video recording, with lots of static and crackle but my throat tightens when over all this noise I hear her voice.

*  *  *

“Tyr, I hope you will find this letter. There is so much I want to tell you, so much I need to tell you… I never believed in love and I never thought myself capable of the feelings you evoked in me. After that one night I realized that I loved you. And I had to let you go. I know I did the right thing, but it still hurts. Fifteen years had passed and it still hurts.

“There was no one after you. Not only because no one would measure up to you, bit because I couldn’t trust anyone to be involved in raising your son. Yes, we have a son. You gave me the most incredible gift – this little boy. Well, not so little any more, but… I named him Victor. He looks so much like you, it’s uncanny. He is everything to me. He is so bright; everyone thinks he is a genius. He is only fourteen years old and he is already in college. He wants to study medicine and genetics. Rather fitting, don’t you think?

“Tyr, I don’t want you to regret anything. I know how important family and fatherhood is to you, but don’t blame yourself for not being here. Your son knows all about you. I mean all; I told him everything when he was old enough. The only thing I didn’t know about you was your family name, so I had to give him mine. So, Tyr, meet your son, Victor Museveni.”

*  *  *

I sit motionless, looking at a young version of myself on the vid screen. The only difference between us is that he has his mother’s deep hazel eyes and there are no bone blades. He waives and says, “Hello, father. I…” The recording stops abruptly and his image is still on screen, smiling at me. I shake my head and smile. The Moebius Strip, yes indeed.