Time......... (Part 7)

Peter swallowed hard. The hand on his arm seemed to lighten a little bit. Peter mustered all of his courage, and said, "I'm Peter."
"Peter? Peter who?" the man demanded.
"How did you get in here?" a second interjected.
"Through the hideout," Peter said. He tried to appear calm, but his knees were all shaky. It was clear to him that the men had been discussing something they didn't want anyone to hear, and their faces betrayed their anxiety.
"And how -" one of the men began.
"Wait! What were you doing in the hideout, boy?" the man who appeared to be the leader asked of him.
"I -I was frightened," Peter replied.
"Frightened? Of what?"
"Of- of- soldiers, sir."
"Soldiers? Why were you frightened by them? Don't you realize, that by giving into your silly fears, you have landed yourself into more trouble than if you hadn't?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then why did you do it?"
Peter remained silent. He could tell he was making a fool of himself. Yet if he were to tell them everything, they would not believe him, and if they did, Kevin and Frank would be in hot water, too. He screwed up his face to think.
"More to the point," the leader continued, "Why were you afraid of the soldiers if you yourself... are... one," his voice trailed off, and he looked at Peter sharply. "Or aren't you?"
"Please, sir, I don't know what I am!" Peter said as he gave way to vexation.
"What do you mean? Everyone knows what they are."
"Well, at least - I- know I'm a boy," Peter stuttered. The leader rolled his eyes.
"Yes, yes. Of course your a boy! If you were a man, you'd answer like one!"
The room became very still for a few minutes. Finally one of the men spoke.
"Sir, what do you want done with him?"
The leader stroked his chin thoughtfully. "He's an idiot, I can tell that, but even idiots have ears. I'm not sure how much he has heard."
"Nor I, sir."
"I think you should hold him in custody for -" he was interrupted by a rapid knock on the door coming from the hideout. "Doremat, answer the door please."
"Who is there?" Doremat, a thin man with shaggy brown hair, called out.
"The Lady Elwes, sir," the answer came back.
"Elwes. Should I let her in?"
"Uh, yes, go ahead. Things can't get much worse can they?" the leader replied wearily.
Doremat opened the door, and the lady entered to room. Her long, dark hair was worn in a braid, and her eyes were clear blue. Peter saw at once that she was both beautiful and stern.
"Father," she said, addressing the leader. "We have found that, according to our computers, there are two people in the fort without leave. We caught one of them, in the midst of some mischief with Kevin, and -"
"Kevin!"
"Yes, and the computer directed us to this room for the other one. Since no one else is allowed here while your meeting was in session, I came alone to warn you."
"Well then, it would appear that this boy is the person you seek," her father motioned to Peter.
"Another boy?" She raised her eyebrow in surprise.
"Yes. What does Kevin have to do with all of this?"
"I do not know. He was found in the Information and Technology chamber. The other boy, who says his name is Frank Liftun was found in the hall directly across from the entrance to the chamber. I must also inform you that he knew both the entrance and exit passwords."
"This is not looking good. The computer identified nothing else?"
"No, nothing out of the usual," the woman's face looked puzzled for a moment and she added, "there was one other thing. An oddly made machine was brought in today. The materials are a type of metal we are not familiar with."
"But that could easily come from another planet. Which would describe a lot of things. These two boys were thought to get away with spying, and thus were sent in the machine from Nagar."
"But Father, the Nagar's don't have this kind of metal on their planet either!"
The leader's face showed his confusion and for a moment he was unable to speak. Then he said, "Fromere, send out the emergency signal. Something is going on and we have to figure it out."
"Very good, sir!" Fromere saluted, and left the room hastily.
"Sir?" Peter said timidly.
"What?" the leader demanded harshly.
"I think I could explain - about the machine - and about me and Frank."
"Ah! so you admit that you are directly related to the machine?"
"Yes, sir."
"You will tell us everything when we reach the Information and Technology chamber." The leader yelled out some orders to the men, and they set off on their way. Peter's eyes took a moment to adjust to the dark lighting of the hall, but he managed to half stumbled, half be dragged along by Doremat.
The hall was soon seething with people. People were rushing past in uniforms and arranging themselves in lines. There were few woman though, Peter noticed.
His group reached the gate, and the leader demanded entry as the password had already been changed and the new one was yet unknown to him.

Frank turned to see Peter enter with a stately group of men and the woman he had seen before. He was glad to see his friend unharmed, and called out to him,
"Hi, Pete!"
Peter seemed to be occupied with other thoughts, for he only glanced at Frank. He was intently studying the faces of the people around him.
The leader cleared the room of anyone lower than captains, and sat down in a chair by the computer screen, Lady Elwes standing by his side. "Now then, bring those boys here. Kevin, too, mind you!"
The three of them stood before the leader, and shifted uneasily.
"Peter, you claim you are able to explain everything to me; please do so."
"Yes, sir. Frank and I built the machine and traveled into the future, or rather here, and -"
"This won't do! No one can travel through time!"
"Yes, sir, but -"
"What year did you build it in?"
"2054, sir."
"And here it is 2054. You didn't go into the future at all. Now start over again."
Peter looked helplessly at Frank, and Frank returned the look. "We thought we did go into the future, though. I have no other explanation, unless - unless we're on a different planet somewhere?"
"Hmmm. Which planet do you come from?"
"Earth. The planet Earth."
"Earth of the Milky Way? We've been observing them for a bit."
"You have? Then this isn't even in the Milky Way?" Peter gasped. "Great Scott! Where are we then?"
"You told me you could explain everything."
"And I thought I could, only I'm dreadfully confused now!" Peter suddenly felt very weary.
"Alright, then Kevin you explain how you got involved in this."
"Yes, sir. You see, I was wandering about in the North side when I heard a thud and a click coming from one of the chambers. I entered it, and found these two in it. So, of course, I figured they were spies and brought them to Uncle - I mean Major Hethe - and he sent my away thinking I needed help getting out of a jam again -"
"And no wonder he thought so! Continue."
"So then I had nothing to do, so I took them done a hall or two."
"And how did Frank learn the passwords, you manage to get in here, and Peter into the hideout and eventually chamber A1?"
Kevin was at a loss as what to say. He didn't want to get Peter or Frank into trouble, nor himself if he could help it, and - how did Frank guess the passwords?
"I can tell you!" piped up Frank. Peter and Kevin exchanged worried glances. "Yes, I can!" he continued. "We were walking through a hall and Kevin thrust us into the hideout to keep us - well, hidden - and we were pulled out except for Peter and I guessed the passwords to get in the gate and managed to escape from it."
"Guessed? How did you guess?"
"From conversation."
"I don't understand. Can you opened that gate again?"
"I don't know. They changed the password."
"Then guess the new one."
"Okay," Frank walked to the gate, closely shadowed by some of the men, and typed something in. The gate swung open.
Everyone started up in amazement.
"And what was the password?" the leader demanded of Frank sternly.
"Guessing gait," Frank replied. At that, question after question bombarded him, and he felt overwhelmed. Somehow he managed to tell the story of Peter and his adventure in the midst of it all.
"May I ask something, sir?" Peter said at last.
"Yes?"
"If we're not on Earth, or the Milky Way, or the future, where are we?"
"Andromeda, boy. Limblon, Andromeda."
"Does that mean we still have hope of getting back home?"
"Going home!" the leader cried. "No indeed! You can't go home now! With a boy who can build faster-than-the-speed-of-light machines, and a boy who can guess passwords correctly; why you two are just what we need to help us win this war!"
"If we must stay, then would you be so kind as to tell us what you want us to do and what this whole war is about?"

Copyright - 9/17/2008 - Curious Cognitive Content (CCC)
Please do not reproduce without permission from the author(ess).