matrix. I want to be ready to tow this monster home before we need to use the Pauser again. We don’t know how it would affect us, even with the suits on.”
“Agreed,” said King. “That means we have less than two hours.”
“Sammons,” said Benjamin, as he headed off the bridge, back to the skiff, “I want you to secure every pirate on this ship – get them all into a holding cell. If any of them speeds up enough to put up a fight, knock ‘em out. I don’t want to kill any more of them.”
“Yessir,” said Sammons, seemingly disappointed at this restriction on his operating parameters. He turned to his men. “You heard the captain – let’s go.”
As King, Vrosky and Beck set to work on examining the ship’s systems, Benjamin made his way back to the skiff. Once he was out of sight of his crew, he allowed himself to cradle his arm and wince at the pain. He’d been grazed by a Gravani weapon twice before, but he didn’t remember the burning sensation lasting so long. Perhaps it’s something to do with the reduced-time environment, he thought.
Once aboard the skiff, he pulled out a first aid kit, applied an instrument to the wound, and then contacted the Raptor’s Shadow to speak with Dr. Francis Tucker, the ship’s Chief Medical Officer.
“Frank, I have a little problem.”
“What is it captain?”
“I got shot. I’m okay – well, mostly. But I’m a little concerned. I treated it with an electro-cutanoid laver but the pain isn’t subsiding.”
“You got shot? Where?”
“Aboard the Gravani ship.”
“No, I mean, where were you hit?”
“My upper right arm.
“When you get back I want to run a full work-up on you, Captain. We have no way of knowing how the energy that came into contact with your arm will affect you, since it bore a massive temporal differential to your own molecules.”
“All right. Meantime, got anything for the pain?”
“Nope, sorry, sir. You’ll just have to grin and bear it. I don’t want to take any chances with treatment until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“Understood. Benjamin out.”
۞
“The prisoners are all accounted for,” said Sammons, strutting onto the bridge of the pirate ship like he owned the place.
“Good,” said King. “We’re almost ready to leave.”
Sammons eyeballed King. “I thought you had this all figured out, King. But you put my soldiers in unnecessary danger. And the captain could’ve been killed. That would’ve made me look pretty bad – seeing as I’m responsible for his safety.”
King seethed. “I don’t recall asking your opinion, Sammons. Now, why don’t you round up your men and standby to disembark.”
Sammons just glared at King, and slowly turned toward the door that led off the bridge. Beck walked over to King.
“What was that all about?”
“He’s just a jerk,” said King. “Of course, he’s also right. I should’ve realized our mass would dilate the time continuum and speed up the pirates. In fact, I think I did realize it – I just couldn’t put my finger on it before it happened.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for self-recrimination later,” said Beck, touching King’s elbow. “Besides, Benjamin’s fine.”
King shrugged and shook his head, looking down. “This is why I hate combat missions.”
“Well, this one’s just about over,” said Beck. “Vrosky has coded a sequence for disabling their weapons, and I’ve determined how to lock out their helm controls and transfer command protocols to the Raptor’s Shadow so we can latch on with a directed magna-pulse inversion. All that’s left is to get out of here and wait for the Pauser effect to wear off.”
King nodded. “Good. And that shouldn’t be much longer now. Come on, let’s get out of the belly of this beast.”
The team got back to the skiff and broke moorings. As they returned to the Raptor’s Shadow, their suits beeped as they crossed back over the event threshold into normal space-time.
“Alright, we can take these things off now,” said King.
He went back to the sleeper cabin, where Benjamin was getting some rest.
“Johnny, we’re almost back. How are you feeling?”
Benjamin kept his eyes shut, as if concentrating. In fact, he was attempting to control the pain through a form of meditation that King had taught him years ago.
“I’ll live,” he whispered. “I just need to get Frank to give me something to reduce the burning.”
“It still hurts?”
“Woah-yeah.”
“But it shouldn’t,” King said. “That’s so weird. I want to be there when Frank examines you. I may be able to help.”
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” Benjamin smiled.
King sighed.
“I’m just kidding, Ioban.”
“I know. I’m just frustrated with myself for allowing this to happen.”
“Ioban, it’s not your fault. You had no way of knowing – it was the first time anyone’s ever tried what we did back there. Besides, I’m alive, and I’m gonna be fine.”
King took a deep breath and started back toward the main cabin. “All right. Well, if you need anything, let me know.”
۞
King escorted his captain into the Raptor’s Shadow medical ward. Benjamin was still gripping his arm in pain. Dr. Tucker, the short, balding physician quickly approached the pair.
“Okay, explain what happened – I want every detail.”
Benjamin glanced at King, giving him the nod. “You want details? King’s your man. Tell him, Ioban.”
“Well,” said King, “we were in our environmental suits, which I had modified to isolate us from the reduced-time environment aboard the Gravani ship. I used quantum-phase shielding – ”
“Quantum-phase?” the doctor interrupted.
“Yes. It compensates for the temporal shift by realigning and resetting the gluons as they move in and out of phase.”
Tucker turned to the captain. “And you say you were shot by a Gravani laser weapon that moved slowly toward you, then cut through your suit?”
“That’s right,” said Benjamin. “Well, it wasn’t that slow – I mean, obviously it was fast enough that I couldn’t get out of the way. But yes, it was surely hundreds of times slower than normal.”
Tucker frowned and started to pace. “I’m going to need to run some DNA tests on your wound. I have a theory brewing, but I need to confirm some things.”
“Test away, doc,” said Benjamin. “I’ve got nothing but time – it’s another six weeks back to Earth.”
Tucker ran a scanner over Benjamin’s arm, and the readings were automatically uploaded into the main medical ward computer.
“Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Mmmmmm-hm.”
“Translation, please, Frank?” said Benjamin.
“It’s what I thought. Your arm is undergoing a temporal metamorphosis. When the reduced-time laser energy cut through the quantum-phase shielding and struck your arm, the particles were in such a state of flux that the gluons of your RNA were reset. As a result, your regenerative cells are mutating into a reduced-time sequence.”
“I asked for a translation, Frank.”
“John, you have a kind of temporal cancer. And – and it’s spreading.”
“Prognosis?”
“Well, first off, I’m going to need to develop some medication that can treat your pain. Standard meds won’t touch it, because your nerve endings are sending reduced-time signals to the pain receptors in your brain. I need to adapt something to work within that environment.”
“And?”
“And then we’ll have some decisions to make. If this spreads too far, your entire body could end up out of phase with normal time.”
“You’re talking amputation.”
“If I can’t stop this, you won’t die – but you’ll disappear, and never be able to intera
ct with another living person.”
Benjamin rubbed his arm. “Well, you better get to work, then.”
۞
“What’s the good word, doc?” asked Benjamin, sitting down next to Frank Tucker in the mess hall.
“I’m sorry, Captain, there is no good word tonight. I’ve been working all day, and I just can’t figure out how to stop the mutation from spreading. The original disruption of your cell tissue seems irreversible. And it’s spreading to your body faster than I anticipated. Eventually, all your cells will be out of phase, and you’ll be gone.”
Tucker reached for the salt, but knocked it off the table. Benjamin, his reflexes always quick, shot his right hand downward and caught the shaker before it hit the floor.
“That was incredible!” Tucker gasped, his eyes wide.
“What?” asked Benjamin. “Ah, that was nothing – I’ve always been pretty quick.”
“Not that quick,” Tucker said. “When you moved your arm, I couldn’t even see it. It moved in super-time.”
Benjamin scoffed. “No it didn’t. Watch.” He knocked the salt down again, and reached to catch it. His arm became invisible as he snatched the seasoning out of the air before it could reach the hard mess hall floor.
“Wow. You’re right.”
“This is important” said Tucker. “If you can control it, there may be a way to make it work to your advantage somehow.”
“Well, I’d be wicked-fast in a fight,” said Benjamin. “I could block a punch faster than Sammons!”
Tucker picked up his tray and started to leave. “I need to run some more tests on your DNA sample. I’ll talk to you later.”
۞
Ioban King sat at his station on the bridge, immersed in his work. Beck