Rating: R for violence and some language
This three-way crossover is an alternate universe story, and a sequel to an earlier crossover I wrote called "Genetic Destiny," also posted to Wolfpup's Den. I don't think you have to have read it to understand what's happening in this story, but you probably need to have seen at least two of the three shows crossed over here, or read their fanfic.
The characters of all three shows belong to other people, not me. I am writing this purely for fun and making no financial gain. Anyone who wants to tell me what they think, or has any suggestions of which show I should crossover next, I would love hearing from you. Please don't archive without my permission.
Also, I want to thank my incredibly speedy beta readers for their helpful suggestions, and wolfpup for posting.
Datalore
"Chuma... Chuma... Chuma... Guardian... we praise you! Chuma... Chuma... Guardian, we worship you! Chuma... Chuma... Chuma..."
The chants of the natives rose to a crescendo as they danced naked around the stake where an unconscious Jim Ellison was tied. For this ceremony, the dancers' pale white bodies were painted with blood-red symbols and the bones of their enemies were woven into the warrior's long matted hair and pierced through their ears and noses. The faces of the two dozen warriors, and their women and children were contorted with religious ecstasy, as they sang the praises of their new god.
The stake was in the center of a clearing in the forest. A ring of campfires surrounded the clearing to keep wild animals from the forest at bay.
In the darkness beyond the fires, crouching behind some heavy brush, two men watched the scene in horror.
"What are we gonna do?" Blair Sandburg asked anxiously. His long curly hair was secured by a piece of string at the nape of his neck, revealing a face almost as pale from fear as the features of the singing natives who, fearing the sun, only came out of their dwellings at night.
"You're asking me?" demanded Quinn Mallory, worry making the usually soft-spoken young man more curt than usual. Quinn was tall and lanky, unlike Blair, who was short and compact. He wore his own russet hair short, and was a couple of years younger than Blair. Both were dressed in jeans, t-shirts, windbreakers and hiking boots. "You're the anthropologist. I'm a physics major!"
Blair didn't reply to that, thinking that their former status as grad students didn't carry much weight in this situation.
"We have to get him out of there!" All Blair's attention was focused on the man tied to the stake, his best friend. He couldn't believe how fast things had gone wrong. This seemed like such a peaceful place when they first arrived.
Quinn Mallory had urged caution. Because of a handheld device he had invented, he was a "Slider" between alternate dimensional versions of earth. Jim, a "Sentinel," with naturally enhanced senses and a predisposition to act as a protector, usually went with his suggestions. After all, Quinn had been traveling this way, from world to world, for much longer than he and Blair. The Sentinel and the young anthropologist, who was studying Jim's enhanced abilities, had joined Quinn by accident and now all three were looking for their home worlds, lost amid the multi-verse.
They found the village of simple hunters and gatherers on this world to be friendly and happy to share their food with the three inter-dimensional travelers, as long as they respected the villagers' superstitious fear of daylight. Their speech was similar enough to other primitive languages Blair had studied for him to have no trouble picking it up quickly.
Then Jim, invited to go hunting at night with the men of the tribe, had accidentally revealed his Sentinel abilities. Blair was surprised to learn that the primitive people not only knew about Sentinels, a relative obscurity on his own home world, but had an entire religion based on the genetically gifted protectors. He had been eager to learn more about the natives. Unfortunately, the feeling was mutual.
The three Sliders had left when the villagers wanted Jim to take part in their sacred rites. Even with all he could do, Jim knew he was still just a man, and had felt uncomfortable with their now worshipful attitude towards him.
But an even bigger shock came when the Sliders learned what the natives' rites called for the villagers to do with a Sentinel. After hearing how they "took the Sentinel into themselves" the three travelers had camped out away from the village, waiting nervously for the time for their next slide. Then that night, Blair had awakened to relieve Jim on watch and found him gone. The sound of chanting had led he and Quinn to this ceremony.
"Chuma... Chuma... Chuma... Guardian make us strong! Chuma... Chuma... Chuma... Guardian we take your power into our bodies, we become as you are!" The eldest man in the village had a long knife raised towards Jim's unprotected chest.
"I've gotta do something," said Blair desperately. "I'll distract them; you free Jim, and meet me back at the cave!"
Blair jumped out of the brush and yelled at the top of his lungs, "STOP!"
As if a switch had been turned off, all sound in the clearing came to a sudden halt. Drummers stopped beating, hands stopped clapping. The total attention of every man, woman and child in the group of natives was totally focused on Blair. They stood as still as statues awaiting his next utterance. The young anthropologist felt a flash of stage fright, something he hadn't experienced in years. He knew he was good at public speaking, but now that his friend's life depended on how carefully he chose his words, he found he had no idea what to say.
"Greetings..." he began tentatively, holding up one hand dramatically, hoping his voice came out strong. "I come with a message from... the king in the sky!" The villagers gasped. This was what they called the sun. Encouraged, he went on, hoping to hold his audience's attention as he saw Quinn creeping around behind them towards Jim, withdrawing a knife from his pocket. "He doesn't want this... Guardian killed at this time. He has... plans for him. Things he must do yet."
"What things?" asked the village elder with reverence and awe.
Blair thought quickly, what could a Sentinel do that these people would see as both necessary and fit in with their religious beliefs? "He must produce an heir!" Blair winged it. "He must father children or there will be no more Guardians for you to... take into yourselves."
"Once we take in this Guardian, we will have his power. Why would we need another?" asked someone in the crowd with admirable primitive logic.
"What of your children, not yet born? And their children? Are they not going to someday need the Guardian's power?" Blair argued.
Looking past them, he saw Quinn cutting through the ropes holding Jim up to the pole. Without the support the Sentinel sagged and Quinn caught him in his arms. Blair was grateful that the scientist was also athletic enough to support the larger man's weight.
As the natives considered his words and Jim and Quinn disappeared into the brush behind them, Blair decided that he had better not be there when they saw their Guardian had escaped.
Blair began backing slowly back into the brush. "And now, that I have delivered the message of the Sky King, I will take my leave... go back to tell him that you are all good followers and not to burn you anymore if you go outside, I mean... during the daytime..."
"The Guardian is gone!" yelled someone in the crowd, "Stop him!"
Without waiting to hear more, Blair turned and took off running at top speed. The entire crowd, yelling furiously, ran after him. Blair led them through the bush, across rocks and over hills, anything to slow them down and wear them out. He was making a huge circle back to the cave where he and Quinn had agreed to meet.
Hoping they couldn't see him in the darkness, he dropped onto all fours because of the low ceiling at the entrance, and, breathing hard, ducked into the cave. Crawling around a bend, he found Jim beginning to come around while Quinn examined him with a flashlight.
Jim's strong featured face held a sheen of sweat. The natives had drugged him to make him compliant for the ceremony and Blair knew that had to be playing havoc with his delicate Sentinel system. Jim stretched his muscular forearms and ran a hand across his closely shorn head.
"Opportunity to study natural man, you said," he bitched angrily, as he tried to shake the cobwebs out of his head. "Can't be missed chance to learn about human primitive culture, you said."
"Well, how was I to know they believed consuming their gods would give them that god's strength?" said Blair sheepishly. He reached out, holding Jim's chin steady with his thumb and forefinger so he could check his eyes for dilation. His aquamarine eyes were inches away from Jim's crystal blue orbs.
"If you hadn't used your Sentinel sight when you hunted with them, this never would have happened. Of course, ritual cannibalism isn't that uncommon. It shows up in some form in most religions, usually in some merely symbolic way. What's interesting is that they know about Sentinels. I bet I could write a paper on the subject of whether more primitive societies like the Chopec are more accepting of the idea of genetic throwbacks than..." Blair released him and launched into a lecture without pausing for breath.
"Chief... not now," said Jim with more weariness than rancor. He was still groggy and felt as if he had a monster hangover, complete with nausea, dry-mouth and a skull-splitting headache. He cocked his aching head to one side, listening to something his friends couldn't hear. "They're coming! How much longer Quinn?" he asked urgently.
Quinn drew from his pocket the device that allowed them to slide from world to world. He hit a timer button and smiled with relief. "About ten seconds."
"How far away are they?" Blair asked Jim.
"Nine, eight, seven..." Quinn counted down.
"It's gonna be close," said Jim.
"Six, five, four..."
"How close?" asked Blair, just before he saw the first native coming around the bend in the cave, brandishing a knife and screaming when he saw them. Up against the wall of the cave, there was nowhere the three men could go to escape. The sound of the natives yelling was so loud now that Blair and Jim could barely hear Quinn say...
"Three, two, one, that's it!" Quinn hit the button that opened the blue tunnel between them and the natives. The three Sliders leapt through the portal to what they hoped was safety.
A hawk, her powerful wings outspread, was slowly circling through the warm afternoon air. She didn't need to hunt anymore that day. Both she and her young had fed well on squirrels she had caught. Game was plentiful this time of year. She was now just lazily riding the air currents, reveling in the freedom of flight.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, the hawk's world was disturbed. An unexpected roaring sound broke the stillness of the air, causing her to drop several feet in shock. As she regained her equilibrium and sailed upwards again, her head turned sharply to look in confusion at something she had never seen before, a brilliant blue hole had appeared in the air.
From out of this tear in the sky, three ungainly forms dropped like hatchlings too soon from the nest. The hawk cried out once in outrage, and then glided swiftly away.
With three solid thumps, Quinn, Blair and Jim hit the ground.
"Oh, man!" said Blair, his long curls a mess, "That was a close one!"
"I've had closer," scoffed the young physicist Quinn with a grin on his affable face. He was already on his feet, dusting off his clothes. Blair considered telling him that his reddish hair was full of pine needles, but decided against it. Quinn was a nice guy, but he could be a little condescending about his expertise with Sliding. Let him walk around with messed up hair for a while. The humility might do him good.
"As far as I'm concerned that was as close as I ever want to come!" snapped Jim in irritation. He stood up and offered a hand to Blair, the only one of them still on the ground.
"Okay," said Blair, taking the hand and using its solid strength to pull himself to his feet. "So where are we this time? And how long will we be here?"
"We'll be here thirty-eight hours," said Quinn, looking at the blinking lights on the sliding timer, "and we're the same place we always are when we Slide, the last place we jumped from. Remember, we're not moving in space or time, but only trans-dimensionally."
"Okay," said Blair patiently, "let me rephrase that. What kind of a place are we in this time?"
The three of them looked around curiously. They were standing on a broad, obviously often used path through a forest. It had been night on the last world, but judging by the sun's place in the sky, it was past noon here. Quinn had explained before to his companions that time displacement wasn't unheard of in sliding. Differences in nature gave some worlds slightly longer or shorter days, which added up over time, or caused mountainous areas on one world to be flat on others.
Huge trees, some with trunks more than three feet in diameter, flanked the path on both sides. The heaviness of their growth blocked out sunlight, and prevented seeing for any great distance. Bees buzzed merrily around purple and white wildflowers sprung up in the sunlight on the path of hard-packed dirt.
"It looks like a park," observed Blair.
Jim was sniffing the air, a frown of concentration on his face. "If it is, then it's a hell of a big one. I can't smell any sign of human habitation here. We could be many miles from the nearest city, if there are any cities on this world." In the past, they had slid to a couple of worlds that seemed entirely free of human habitation. Even though Quinn said those worlds were probably safer, it always gave Jim a chill.
"Hmm," mused Quinn. "Somebody or something made this path. But from the way these flowers are growing right in the middle of it, it doesn't see much traffic." He was nervous too, thinking about dinosaur worlds.
Suddenly Jim went rigid as a hunting hound listening for game. "Wait, somebody's coming, I can hear them. They're coming fast; we need to get off this road!"
They looked to the sides for a break in the dense foliage, but couldn't see any. Then they saw the cloud of dust and now all could hear a thundering sound becoming louder and louder as it came closer. As they stood frozen, like rabbits before headlights, the cloud of dust surrounded them.
Chris Larabee, leader of Recon Team 7, was startled to see three men standing smack-dab in the middle of the road, as if waiting to be run down. With a curse, the camouflage-clad man pulled the reins of his horse back with one hand and raised the other above his head to signal the men behind him to pull up also.
If the horses had wheels they would have come to a screeching stop. As it was, two of the six animals stumbled and their riders had to fight to control them.
"Mr. Larabee!" a cultured voice with a thick southern accent called out from the back of group on horseback. "What is the meaning of this? If Chaucer had broken his leg due to..."
"Who the hell are you and what the SAM HELL do you think you're doing?" yelled Larabee at the three strangers, totally ignoring the voice of his own man, who fell silent when the dust cleared and he saw the reason for their abrupt halt. The six men on horseback were only a few feet away from the three men on foot, both groups staring at each other in equal shock.
Jim, his protective instincts kicking in, stepped forward and spoke to the enraged blond man who seemed to be in charge of his group. "I'm Jim Ellison. These are my friends Blair Sandburg and Quinn Mallory. We're sorry to have stopped your... outing. We tried to get off the road, but the brush is too thick."
Blair and Quinn were looking past the leader to the other men, who were studying them in turn. The riders were a wildly assorted bunch; a black man with small rimless glasses, a tall man with a handlebar mustache, a huge older man with a long grey beard, and behind them, the man with the southern accent who had spoken sharply to their leader, and a boy who couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen, with dark hair almost to his collar, and a nervous expression. All wore green and brown camouflage clothing, boots, and had traces of black greasepaint across their dusty faces.
"Are you insane?" demanded the blond leader. "Don't you know if you get caught out here, on foot yet, the People will kill you?"
"Why would they kill us?" asked Blair, "We're not hurting anything. What reason would they have..."
"You're white! That's reason enough for the patrols!" snapped the leader, glaring over at the slight man who had spoken. He studied him thoughtfully. That long hair, Chris thought, maybe he was a spy...
"Chris, they're coming!" the boy spoke urgently, listening to small box in his hand attached to a plug in his ear.
"We don't have time to talk," said the mustached man, "We gotta git, now!"
"What about them?" asked the older man looking at Jim and his friends, "We can't just leave them here for the men chasing us to catch. It wouldn't be Christian. They'd be shot on sight."
Chris sighed. He hated unexpected glitches. "Fine, they'll have to come with us. The tall kid can double up with Ezra, Mr. Hairy with Buck, and Ellison with Josiah. Let's go."
Blair glared at him, resenting the dig at his hair. It wasn't like friends hadn't kidded him about it, but it was rude for a total stranger to mention it. "What if we don't want to go with you?"
Larabee looked down at him from up on his horse. "Then I can leave you here to get scalped with my conscience clean."
The big man was holding out his arm to Jim, who, with a glance over a Blair, reluctantly took it and pulled himself up into the saddle behind the older man. He could hear the sound of more riders on horseback coming, and for all they knew, they could be as unfriendly as these men had said. Blair and Quinn followed suit and took the offered arms up from the mustached man and the man with the southern accent.
They took off in a renewed cloud of dust.
As they bounced along at a rapid pace, Jim tried to make sense out their predicament. This was like a scene from an old western; the band of men on horse back, running from the killers who would, if the one called Larabee was to be believed, kill them. But could these men be trusted? Who were they running from and why? What if they were criminals on the run from the law on this world?
"Scalped?" wondered Jim, remembering what Larabee had said. He had called them 'the People.' Didn't he once read somewhere that the Navaho Nation called themselves 'the People'? Or was it the Cherokee? He couldn't remember. Not that it mattered much now anyway, since this was an entirely different world, with a different history.
These men sure weren't cowboys, not dressed in camouflage and sporting a radio like the kid had. So who were they then? Jim thought about the black paint on their faces and the way they moved as one, like a team. That's what they reminded him of, a Special Ops team.
What the hell, it was worth a shot. "Are you here on a covert mission?" he leaned forward and spoke directly into the grey-haired man's ear, to be heard over the pounding hoof beats. He knew he was heard because of the way the older man's shoulders stiffened. But instead of answering, he just shook his head. Okay, Jim thought if this was my mission; I wouldn't volunteer any information either.
After about twenty more minutes of hard riding, the six horses seemed to pick up their pace. Jim soon knew why. They were near water. Like the horses, he could hear the rushing sound and smell the dampness in the air. It made his by now parched mouth water.
The path ended at the banks of a river. White water rapids roared under the logs of a makeshift bridge tied with ropes to trees on either side of the river. The horses wanted to stop for a drink, but the riders urged them on across the bridge before letting them drop their heads and slake their thirst in the shallow water near the riverbank.
Larabee and the mustached man quickly dismounted and untied the ropes holding the bridge to that side of the river. The wooden bridge was tossed repeatedly against the rocks on the other side by the force of the running water. The logs of the bridge were no match for the fury of the water. They were reduced to kindling in seconds.
"Hot damn!" cried the dark-haired kid exuberantly, "Let's see the Redskins swim across that!"
The two men were already climbing back up on their horses.
"Let's get out of here," said Larabee. "The People may not be able to cross that water, but their bullets sure can!"
They rode on, albeit at an easier pace to rest the horses. It was another hour before they came to a campsite in the mountains. Jim, after looking around, decided that these men might have been living here for some time, from the way the grass was trampled down. There were four tents, a place to hitch the horses, and a circle of stones with ashes from a campfire. Thinking about the last campfires he had seen, when the natives had him tied to a stake, made him shiver. The man in front of him felt it and misunderstood.
"Don't worry, son," said the older man kindly, climbing down from his horse. "Have faith, we don't bite."
"Yeah, that's what we thought about the last bunch," mumbled Jim.
"What?" Jim's riding companion asked, confused by Jim's offhand comment.
"Never mind. Why are you all living up here?" His feet hitting solid ground caused a multitude of aches to spring up all over him. Jim was in good shape, but he wasn't used to riding a horse. His muscles were gonna hate him for this.
"Before we divulge anything, I think an interrogatory session is in order," said Southern Accent.
"You mean question them?" asked the kid with the radio.
"It would seem to be prudent to be reticent with our own situation until we can surmise their origins." As the southern man spoke, the kid looked at him in awe, apparently admiring his vocabulary.
Noticing this, Blair thought gamely that if a lot of big words would impress the people here, he could oblige. He turned to the blond leader and spoke formally. "Our origins are of no consequence in the greater scheme of the universe. Suffice it to say, our intentions are benign, our danger minuscule and our curiosity about your situation is purely academic."
There was a moment of stunned silence and then all of the camouflaged men, except the leader and Southern Accent, burst into laughter. Jim, Quinn, and Blair didn't know whether it would be safe to join in.
"Hot damn, Ezra," said Mustache, laughing so hard tears came to his eyes, "This one talks just like you!"
"Not like me, I assure you, Mr. Wilmington." The erudite southerner drew himself up indignantly, which only seemed to make his companions laugh harder. Even the haggard face of the leader twitched as if it would smile.
"You are educated, I take it?" Ezra spoke to Blair, who, not knowing if that would be a good thing to be or not, could only nod hesitantly. "Then you are the one to whom we should address our queries." As the only formally educated member of Team 7, Ezra took every opportunity to remind the others of the fact. Not that he enjoyed bragging, but it didn't hurt to point out his usefulness to the team, he thought.
"No," said the big guy, Ezra remembered his name was Ellison, stepping protectively between the southerner and his uncertain partner. "I'm the one you should address any queries to."
"Fair enough. Who are you?"
"We already told you..."
"You told us your names, not who you are," said Larabee curtly.
Jim met the other man's glare with one of his own. "Alright. We're travelers. We got lost. Like my friend said, we don't mean you any harm. Whatever you're doing up here has nothing to do with us."
"We're from out of the country," put in Blair, hoping that would explain their not knowing what was going on.
"Well, I didn't think you were born in this country. Not with white skin!" Larabee sneered. The others in his band chuckled at this, as if it were an obvious fact. The Sliders were at a loss. They didn't know what was going on and their obvious ignorance was only making the other men suspicious.
Blair saw that Larabee was looking at his hair again. Feeling an unreasoning need to justify it, he said, "I just happen to like my hair this length."
"Never saw an Easterner with hair like it," put in the black man who was rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"They're not Brits, educated or not," said the big man with whom Jim had ridden double. "Accents are wrong."
"Hey, maybe they're from south of the border?" suggested the boy, "Hey, speakin the Deutch?" he asked Jim, his eager expression reminding Jim of a puppy.
"Ah, they're not from German stock either," scoffed Mustache.
"Don't you have anything to say, son?" the big man addressed Quinn, who had been observing all this silently.
Quinn spoke precisely, choosing each word with care. "We are from New Arcadia, a small island in the Atlantic originally colonized by Britain. We've not been in this country long, and I'm afraid we don't know very much about it."
The seven men hashed that over. Quinn was hoping they bought it. He had invented the country as an explanation for any obvious gaps in their knowledge.
Finally Larabee nodded, "Alright, we'll accept that for now. But should you try to betray us to the authorities, we'll kill you just the same as if you were a Redskin."
"Who are the authorities?" asked Blair, "Just so we'll know to stay clear of them?"
"The Peoples patrols, they're all over the place, looking for Americans trying to sneak into this country."
The Sliders looked at each other, digesting this for a second. "Americans like you?" asked Jim carefully.
"Like us," agreed Larabee levelly.
"Hi, I'm Corporal J.D. Dunne." The boy offered a hand to Quinn, who smiled and shook it. The boy pointed to Mustache. "That's Captain Buck Wilmington." He nodded to the older man and the smooth talking southerner, "Sergeant Josiah Sanchez and Lt. Ezra Standish, and our commanding officer, Major Chris Larabee." Jim thought he had been correct, a military unit. And not from this country, since the Major had implied whites weren't born here.
"And this is Medic Nathan," the corporal nodded toward the man with glasses.
"Nathan what?" Blair inquired of the medic, wondering why he was the only one J.D. had introduced without a military rank or full name.
An expression of weary resignation crossed the black face, "Nathan, sir," he replied.
This seemed to make J.D. furious, "You don't have to address him as sir, Nathan. There haven't been any laws that say you do for decades." The young man scowled at Blair, who felt his face going hot as he realized that he had inadvertently committed some kind of social blunder. The other four men also glowered at him as if he had insulted Nathan.
"I'm sorry," stammered Blair. "I didn't mean that you should call me sir. I was just inquiring about your last name."
Nathan's eyes widened behind his small rimless glasses. "You really don't know do you?" he asked incredulously.
"Know what?" asked Blair.
"I guess you all never had slaves in New Arcadia, huh?"
"Uh, no we didn't." Blair was wishing he had never brought the subject up.
"Well after President Hoover made slavery illegal in America, all the freedmen stopped using more than one name. It's considered a sign of a past we're trying to escape. I prefer to be called by what I do, so I'm known as 'Medic Nathan."
"And he's better at his job than any other medic I've worked with," put in Buck Wilmington defensively.
"I'm sure he is," agreed Jim quickly, hoping to defuse the situation. Clearly if you slighted one member of this unit, they all took offense.
Blair glanced at Quinn, the seasoned Slider, who merely nodded his head once. It wasn't the first time he had been to a world with a shockingly different history. Here, apparently, slavery had lasted almost a century longer than on the Sliders' home worlds. Blair's mind was racing ahead. He wanted to talk to these people and find out about their past. The alternate history aspect of Sliding was fascinating to the anthropologist. It was like discovering a lost tribe with almost every new world they visited.
"Perhaps we should begin our evening meal?" suggested Ezra diplomatically, interrupting Blair's thoughts. "We still have to decide on where our guests will sleep tonight."
Over a meager dinner of what Jim recognized as army rations, they "discussed" it. It was a short discussion.
"Two of them can bunk with you, Ezra," said Chris decisively. "The other gets his choice of where to sleep."
"Why two?" protested Ezra. "There are three of them and we have four tents."
"And you're the only one of us with his own tent." That ended the discussion.
Quinn and Blair exchanged a look at this. They had both caught the inconsistency. If there were six of these men, why wouldn't they sleep two to a tent? Why would the southerner be the only one with his own tent? For that matter if there were four tents and six men, then at least two of them should have a tent to themselves. Perhaps Larabee got his own tent as a privilege of rank, thought Quinn.
They got part of the answer soon as the sound of a birdcall first made all six camouflage-clad men tense and then relax as a man walked into the camp.
He was young, mid to late twenties, and Blair noticed, had brown hair longer than Blair's own. He was dressed in fringed buckskins, like a mountain man, with a wide brimmed hat. He had entered camp on foot, without making a sound, except for the birdcall, which, Jim realized, had been to signal his arrival to the other men. Also, his scent was of forest vegetation, unlike the other men, who smelled like horses and the materials of their clothes and weapons.
"Thanks," he said softly, as he took a cup of coffee that Josiah handed him, and then noticed the three newcomers sitting around the fire. "What's this?" he asked looking over at Chris.
"I'll tell you about it later, brother," said Chris. The younger man nodded and accepted this. "What news do you have?"
"Not much," said the man in buckskins, dropping gracefully as a cat to a spot by the fire. "Patrols are out looking, but they don't know for sure that Easterners are out here. They're still talking about getting rid of the school, brother. Arturo's holding firm though."
"Is that Maximilian Arturo?" asked Quinn with sudden interest. He felt his heartbeat quicken with excitement at the thought of finding another version of his friend on this world.
The man looked at him carefully and answered, "Yep, you know him?"
"I, ah, I've heard of him. I would really like to meet him, if that is at all possible."
"You'll get your chance tomorrow," said Larabee. "We're all heading down to the school to see him."
"Excuse me," began Blair hesitantly, "Forgive me if this is a rude question, but your um... brother told me earlier that he had never seen hair as long as mine on an 'Easterner'. How is it that you have it?
The young man gave a somewhat shy smile. "That's cause I'm not an Easterner, not really. My parents were missionaries. I was born here. The People let my parents stay with a small group down south of the Red Mountains, so they could teach them about Eastern religion. When my folks died, I was about ten. The American State Department didn't think it was worth the trouble to have me taken out of the Nation, since I didn't have any relatives back in the world, so an old woman of the tribe brought me up. I had enough trouble fitting in with the People without cutting my hair like a white."
"Oh," said Blair quietly. Blair didn't know what else to say to him. He thought he was looking at a man who had lived all his life among those who would probably always consider him an outsider. If the People would kill anyone just for crossing their borders, then how would they treat a child among them who was not of their race? Blair wondered if he had stayed here because he couldn't go east to America, or because he felt, as a man raised among the People, he wouldn't be welcome there either. He had surely endured prejudice and hatred and who knew what hardships, never belonging to either world.
"Vin Tanner is our liaison with a religious group among the People who believe that their government's strict policy prohibiting white immigration into this country is wrong. Brave souls are risking their own lives to help us." said Josiah.
That night Quinn slept in Josiah and Nathan's tent. Blair and Jim bunked in with a reluctant Ezra.
"Why do you have your own tent?" Blair asked his temporary roommate after they had lain down in darkness.
"I treasure what little solitude this life affords me," replied the southerner in a chilly tone he hoped would discourage further questions.
"What does that mean?" In the darkness of the tent, Jim smiled. He knew Blair, when asking curious questions, could be as relentless and annoying as a five-year-old.
Ezra sighed, "I was the last to join the team. The others had already established a routine. I knew I was lucky to be here at all, I didn't want to cause any more disruption."
"How did they decide the routine?"
He paused for so long, Blair thought he wasn't going to answer him, then he said, "As you have no doubt seen, Major Larabee and Mr. Tanner are like long lost brothers. Two sides of the same coin. Young Corporal Dunne tends to be somewhat impetuous, so Captain Wilmington looks after him. I don't understand the bond between Medic Nathan and Sergeant Sanchez, but I don't question it either."
He went on, his speech becoming impassioned, "I don't know who you and your companions are, sir, but do not think that you can easily understand so finely tuned a configuration as this team. I was, despite my mother's foresight in marrying into money and privilege when I was a tot, a man of questionable reputation. I was on my way to prison, in fact, when I was recruited to help out with a mission with Team 7.
"I fully expected to be sent to jail after my usefulness to the team was over. Much to my surprise, Major Larabee arranged a pardon for me after the mission and gave me a place amongst these men who bravely go far into enemy territory to secure a better life for their countrymen. If I am still a stranger among them, at least I am a stranger amongst friends." Ezra's voice had risen in pride at the end of this statement.
There was a moment of silence. "I only meant how did they decide the sleeping arrangements," explained Blair mildly. Ezra sighed.
Trying not to chuckle, Jim said, "I don't know about you two, but I need my sleep. Why don't we put off conversation until tomorrow?"
The next morning they got up at dawn, ate a quick breakfast of more army rations and started out on horseback again. Blair and J.D. rode J.D.'s horse, Jim rode double with Buck, and Quinn rode double with Josiah on his big equine. Vin rode with Chris.
Quinn noted that they were headed west and judging by the sun, they had come from the south yesterday. Of course, with the bridge destroyed, they couldn't have returned that way again. He thought that when they slid out of this world again it would not only be to a new world, but also a new location. But he didn't care, he was happy at the prospect of seeing the Professor again.
More than anything, Quinn wanted to regain some of the people he had cared for and lost. Blair and Jim were good friends, but he still missed wise, fatherly Arturo, the loyal and talented Rembrandt, and sweet, feisty Wade, all the brave companions he had seen die. He daydreamed about finding them here. One of the few advantages to sliding was that sometimes you got a second chance.
Three hours of steady riding brought them to a tree-covered hill. On top of the hill was a structure which appeared very strange to the eyes of the three Sliders. It was a long, low slung black building, with a roof that appeared to be made out of mirrors, and an enormous wooden wheel attached to one side. Water flowed through the wheel into a creek that ran down the hillside, turning the wheel steadily. The futuristic sheen of the mirrored roof was a sharp contrast to the old fashioned water wheel, reminiscent of a sawmill.
"What's the wheel for?" Jim asked.
"Power of course," replied Buck, as if it should have been obvious. "What did you think the school would run its' computers on, kerosene?"
"Of course!" exclaimed Quinn, "And the mirrors on the roof are solar collectors for the same purpose, a non-polluting, renewable power source. Tell me, did they ever consider wind power?"
"I read somebody wanted to try it," said J.D. , "but the People wouldn't hear of a bunch of windmills disrupting their beautiful vistas." He sounded bitter.
"Don't you think saving natural resources is a good idea?" Blair asked him, thinking, no wonder Jim couldn't hear or smell any sign of civilization, the People must be fanatic conservationists with little or no industrialization.
"It's hard to appreciate a bunch of tree huggers when you grow up like I did," said J.D., his young face scowling with disgust. "People in the cities back east are living ten to fifteen per room, where I come from. Just tryin' to get though the winters with enough heat to survive. Meanwhile the damned greedy Redskins are letting thousands of square miles of trees and who knows how much fossil fuels just lie around, all in the name of preserving their precious way of life. They won't cut the trees, won't mine the coal or drill the oil. They won't even allow combustion engines over most of their land, only horses for transportation. And that's to say nothing of the food shortages back home, because there's not enough land for crops in America, while millions of acres of fertile land sits here, unused."
Blair frowned, thinking that there were two sides to every story. If this was the People's country, didn't they have a right to preserve it? But, by the same token, didn't their wealth also give them the responsibility of helping to provide for their less fortunate neighbors?
"Is that why you're here? To get a foothold into enemy territory?" asked Quinn.
"We're here to protect the school, nothing more," said Chris Larabee curtly.
They rode the horses into a corral in back of the building, where two smiling young men in their early twenties offered to unsaddle and care for the beasts. The Sliders looked curiously at the stable hands. They were obviously members of the People, their features similar to those of Native Americans on the Sliders' home worlds. They both appeared tall and strong, with copper skin and long flowing dark hair. Both wore bright colored shirts, jeans and boots. One had silver beads braided into the hair that fell down his back and silver rivets in his boots.
The group went into the building and into a large common room where a big man with thick black hair and a full black beard was pacing back and forth in agitation.
"Professor!" Quinn spoke excitedly before he thought. It was all he could do to not run over and embrace his friend and mentor. He reminded himself that this was not the same Maximilian Arturo who had taught and inspired him. That man had been killed, many worlds ago.
Professor Arturo looked over at Quinn as if trying to place him. "Have we met?" he asked, his booming English accent heart-warmingly familiar to Quinn.
"Ah, no, not exactly," admitted Quinn, "I, ah, attended one of your lectures some time ago, and I've read some of your work."
"Hmmph," the older man snorted. "You must be older than you look, boy. I haven't published anything in the ten years since I came to this bloody county."
Quinn smiled, this was still the blustery man he remembered. He wondered where were Wade and Rembrandt on this world? Perhaps starving back east in 'America?' What would the society be like for them there, amid overcrowding, food shortages and racial inequality? The smile faded from his face at that thought.
"What's the news?" Chris asked the professor.
"All bad, I'm afraid. We received word an hour ago, the People have decided that since we won't leave here willingly, they're going to take us out by force. We can expect armed troops later today."
"How many of your own people are here?" Jim asked.
"Counting fifty students and twenty faculty, seventy of us. I've tried to convince the students to leave, for their own safety, but they refuse to go. It was a very hard decision for most of them to come here, and be educated among what most of their culture still consider the enemy. A lot of them don't have homes to go back to. They say this is their school and they won't leave it. You know how loyal the People are."
"Can't you just leave the school?" asked Quinn.
"And go where?" the older man asked with a scowl. "We're not allowed to travel through the People's territory without a military escort. It's a shoot on sight offense. If they catch us off school grounds we're dead, dammit!"
"Try to calm down, Professor Arturo," said Josiah. "We're here now, so you're not defenseless. If worse comes to worse, you and your staff will be deported back to the East. It's miserable there, but it's not the end of the world."
Arturo sat down on a bench along one wall dejectedly. He clearly hated to give up, but didn't see any other way out.
"Excuse me, sir," said Blair. "Someone told me you have computers here. Is that true?"
"Yes, part of a satellite connected computer network." The older man pointed down a long hallway branching off from the main room. "First door on your left, help yourself. It's one of the reasons the People give for not wanting us here. They say we're corrupting their youth with our technology and filling up the sky with machines," he snorted, "as if outer space isn't big enough for the both of us."
Blair went down the hall to the computer room, followed by a wistful Quinn, who was torn between wanting to stay near Arturo and wanting learn about the history of this world and where it had gone so radically different. Jim stayed with the soldiers and the Professor, discussing their situation and what to do about it.
About half an hour later, Jim glanced up from the table where he had been sitting with Arturo and the others. Blair was giving him a meaningful look from the hallway. He got up and walked over to his friend.
"What did you find out?" Jim asked.
Blair was grinning broadly and bouncing up and down on the soles of his feet in excitement, his usual reaction to any new burst of knowledge. "You wouldn't believe it Jim. All this started because of a dispute over a price."
"A price of what?"
"The Louisiana Purchase."
Jim frowned searching his memory for his school history. "Thomas Jefferson bought the rest of the North American continent from the French, from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark explored it and then it was opened for settlement."
"On our world that's what happened. On this world they never could agree on a fair price. So the French held onto the land, knowing that the colonies in the east were already becoming over crowded. They figured the Easterners would have to meet their price eventually. But before that could happen the Confederation of Tribes stepped in."
"The what?"
"Let me back up a little," Blair began to move his hands in the unconscious gestures he used when lecturing to a class. "You see up until a point, American history on this world seems almost identical to ours. White settlers arrived from Europe and took the land from the native tribes already living in America. Sometimes they drove them off, sometimes they just slaughtered them for the hell of it.
"Here's where the history starts to diverge: The remnants of some of the tribes formed a loose government called the Algonquin Confederation and decided to head west, en-mass. They resettled, armed themselves and made alliances with other tribes to the west. By the time the East was ready to start settling the rest of the continent, the People had formed an armed resistance army. There were some bloody battles during the early part of the eighteen hundreds, but the American Continental Army, overtaxed and still recovering from the Revolution against Great Britain, was no match for the Confederation. The People set up borders and guarded them zealously.
"The Wild West never happened here, Jim. There's no mention of a Lewis and Clark in the history I could find. There never was a land rush, no free land given by Uncle Sam to the settlers, no Gold Rush, almost no large cities west of the Mississippi. The People respect the land more than anything. They limit their civilization to certain areas. There are huge stretches of miles upon miles of unpopulated land. And they don't tolerate squatters. Any whites found encroaching into the Peoples' territory without permission of the government are executed on sight."
Jim leaned back against the cold stone wall and tried to grasp it. Everything western that was a part of the American culture, cowboys, bar-b-ques, Texas, Roy Rogers movies, all of that didn't exist here.
"What about the East, what happened there?"
"From what I've been able to learn, a living hell. The thirteen states are massively over populated and short on resources. People are starving in the streets. Jim, America is a third world nation here. The two superpowers that control this world are Communist China and the People's Confederation of Tribes."
"If they're so poor, why start up a school here?"
"Depends on who you ask. American propaganda says that the school was started for cultural exchange, hoping to gain the people's trust, so that they might eventually allow immigration. Confederation propaganda says they're spies sent here to learn about the Peoples' way of life to use it to stir the masses back home into land encroachment."
Jim's forehead wrinkled with a frown. "But don't the People want their young educated?"
"They are educated. The standard of living for a child of the People seems to be way above that of a child in America. They have colleges, excellent school systems, more than enough money and resources to feed and clothe their citizens, hell to keep them in luxury, the works and all of it geared toward Anti-Americanism."
"Why? What are they so afraid of?"
"The millions of starving Americans just over their borders that want to overrun the People's land and that hate them just as much as the People hate the Americans." Blair leaned back up against the wall beside Jim. "There are rumors that some in the Confederation government want to nuke America, just as a show of strength, and they have the weapons to do it."
Jim was shaking his head. "I can't believe this."
"Why? We've seen alternate American histories before."
"Yeah, but nothing this... hopeless. I mean come on Chief. This is the land of the free we're talking about here. It should never be inferior to any other country."
Blair was looking at the Sentinel thoughtfully. "Are you saying America should be superior because it's your home or just because it's America?"
Jim paused; he really didn't see the distinction there. "I'm saying it's always been the superior way of life to me." Jim's voice rose with certainty. "You know democracy is the best way to live, freedom for all, everyone equal, with an equal say in who runs the country..."
"Oh, come on!" Blair interrupted him. "I love my country too, but you know that's the ideal, not the reality. The fact remains; in our culture, the more money you have, the more power you have. And who's to say democracy is the best way of life?"
"So you're saying that it's right for millions of Americans to suffer, while half their continent goes to waste?"
"Who says it's going to waste? Just because it's not being consumed by the masses doesn't mean that it isn't worth saving. And I'm not sure it is 'America's Continent.' The People were here first. The only difference between our reality and this one is that they weren't the victims of genocide here..."
Jim interrupted him, "All I know is I joined the military because I believed in my country. I can't just abandon that belief, even if I wanted to, it's too deeply ingrained in me. And I think deep down, you feel the same, Chief. It's a question of loyalty."
Blair took a moment to think that over. Then he asked Jim, "Have you ever heard of cultural relativity, the theory that all cultures should be judged solely on the basis of their own merits, not in comparison to other cultures? We can't claim these people are good or evil on the basis of how it is on our world."
He shook his head. "It's ironic. If my mother exists on this world, she's probably lobbying for America against the People, just the opposite of what I watched her do while I was growing up. Kind of makes you wonder what's the point of believing in any cause, if it's all a matter of circumstance and luck, doesn't it?"
"Blair," Jim began, looking intently at the anthropologist's face. "We have to live in the here and now, not in theory. All that should matter is the fact that there are people on their way here who want to kill us."
Just then Quinn came running out of the computer room and down the hall toward them, his face pale. "Guys! I was monitoring the news on the computer's real time station..."
Arturo, standing up from his place at the table on the other side of the room with a terrible feeling he knew what was coming, asked, "What is it, my boy?"
Quinn started slightly at the familiar form of address and then went on, "The news said that long range cameras had just spotted a dozen well armed soldiers, white soldiers, entering the white school. They said this was proof that the school had come to take innocent People's lives!"
"What soldiers? What are they talking about?" asked Blair.
"Us, they're talking about us," said Vin Tanner in disgust. "Though we're hardly well armed and there aren't even a dozen of us."
"You don't understand!" Quinn snapped. "They're not sending troops to deport people anymore. They're considering this school and everyone in it a threat to national security. We're all to be shot, as an example against American aggression."
There was a moment of stunned silence while everyone tried to digest this incredible news. Then Larabee's military training took over.
"Do you have any weapons we could use along with our own to defend ourselves?" he asked Arturo.
The older man nodded gravely. "About a dozen guns that I've taken away from students over the school year, very little ammunition, I'm afraid."
"Jim," began Blair thoughtfully. But the other man was focused on what Larabee was saying.
Arturo raced to his office and quickly ran back with his arms full of guns and ammo, which he then swiftly distributed. Quinn and Blair, neither of whom knew how to shoot, declined and members of the school's student body and faculty took the rest.
"We'll need to deploy people all around the perimeter of the building to watch for their approach," said Chris. "Maybe we can use the broadcast to our advantage. If they think we're well armed, they won't come in to get us."
"Makes sense," agreed Buck, "We sure don't have any other options."
He and Josiah began gathering and organizing the students, while the others planned deployment by a map of the school Arturo produced. Students were placed on the upper floors of the school, with the better armed soldiers on the ground floor.
"Jim," said Blair again, more forcefully this time.
"In a minute, Blair. Do the people have helicopters? Maybe we could ask for one in exchange for our peacefully leaving the country."
"What's a helicopter?" asked J.D. curiously. Jim winced, realizing that the flying machine had probably never been invented on this world. The poverty of America because of the shortage of natural resources was only one result of a different history, another was a different degree of technological growth. He wondered if they even had planes.
"Jim!" Blair took his partner's arm firmly in his grip.
"What is it?" Jim asked him impatiently.
"We can all leave this place with Quinn's help," said Blair too softly for the others to hear. His eyes looked deep into Jim's own.
Jim paused for a second, considered what Blair was saying and smiled. The kid was right. Why hadn't he thought of that? Nobody had to die here today. They could all escape into a Slide. He looked over at the young scientist, who was looking doubtful and slowly shaking his head.
"Not enough power," Quinn mouthed the words and touched the pocket of his jacket where he kept his sliding device.
Blair cursed under his breath. Quinn was right. They couldn't save everybody in the school. Even taking into account that they would be sending people who had no idea other worlds even existed into a totally unknown environment, there was no way to keep the wormhole between dimensions open for long enough for everyone to go to the same world. And if Quinn were to send people to different worlds, say in groups of eight or ten to each slide, the self-recharging power battery in the sliding device would quickly drain before he could get everyone out, leaving him and the rest stuck here to die. It just wasn't a viable solution.
Alright, they would have to think of something else. Blair was racking his brain when the shooting started.
It came totally without warning. The People's troops had crept up silently around the school and at some prearranged signal, simply began firing on the building.
As Chris shouted orders to his men, deploying them at the windows of the huge common room, they heard the sound of glass from the outside windows breaking and then something was lobbed into the building. The school quickly filled with an arid green smoke that scorched the lungs and burned the eyes.
"Blair, Quinn, stick close to me!" yelled Jim, automatically protecting his own small tribe as he took a weapon for himself and checked the clip. Impressed with the sophistication of the gun compared to the rest of this world's technology he had seen, he mumbled under his breath, "Damn, they can invent better ways to kill each other, but not to fly our asses out of this mess!"
Each of the men of Team Seven already had their own guns drawn, and Arturo had kept one for himself, grimly determined to defend his school to the last.
They all raced to the outer walls of the school and peered cautiously out the windows, staying low to the floor to avoid the burning smoke from the gas and to minimize their chances of being shot.
What followed was one of the longest days of the Sliders' lives.
As soon as they realized that the people in the school weren't going to surrender and die easily, all the troops outside opened fire on the building. The people inside attempted to stay down out of the range of gunfire. The roar from the shooting was almost continuous. The soldiers outside had a lot of firepower and a lot of time to use it. Chris had instructed the armed in the school not to fire unless someone was crossing the threshold of the school. So they kept their heads down and waited.
After a few minutes the shooting stopped outside and the troops began a cautious advance toward the school. The people crouching inside the building could barely see from the shattered windows the oncoming men through the tear gas smoke and their own terror. The warriors, for there was no other word for them, were all dressed in camouflage clothing and black combat boots and carried rifles. But they were strangely enough, eerily beautiful; a tall solemn people with copper skin, dark eyes and long dark hair, some of it braided, others decorated traditionally with beads or feathers. They crept toward the school through the mists of smoke like specters returning for vengeance from some distant past.
When the first set foot across the hard-packed earth surrounding the school, someone in the building shot him. The man fell dead on the ground, blood pouring from his chest, his eyes wide open and unseeing. The other soldiers began returning fire even as they quickly retreated back into the shelter of the forest.
Those inside the building waited tensely until the People began to approach again a few minutes later. Again they waited until they crossed onto the bare ground surrounding the school and again they shot the first man over. This time the man was only wounded in the shoulder. He returned fire with his other hand as they retreated again. A few minutes later the same maneuver was repeated again, this time resulting in another death among the People.
"Why are they doing this?" asked Blair in horrified confusion. "Their people are getting shot one by one."
"And each one that gets shot means that much less ammo we have to defend ourselves with," said Arturo sagely. "The bastards plan to wear us down and force us to use all our bullets, then they'll swarm us."
"And the loss of life means nothing to them?"
"To them, this is a noble death in defense of their country," explained the older man.
"Wouldn't it make more sense just to rush the building?" asked Jim, wiping sweat from his brow.
Arturo was shaking his dark head. Quinn noticed absently that this version of the professor had curly black hair down to his shirt collar. His own professor would have been too conservative for that style, Quinn thought, but it suited him, made him look adventurous, more devil-may-care. He could have been a pirate on the Spanish Main.
"They don't know but that we might have a cache of weapons in here, waiting to slaughter them if they all rush out of cover at once. This way they get to show their individual bravery and protect their advantage of greater numbers at the same time."
And so it went for the rest of that evening and far into the night. Eight more of the People's soldiers were killed and half a dozen more wounded in forays every few minutes as the frightened people inside the building watched their bullets and worse, their own numbers dwindle.
Josiah was the first to fall. As the big man was firing at the encroaching soldiers, one of them got off a shot that hit him in the neck. He fell to the floor in front of the window, bright red blood gushing from his throat, an expression of surprise on his wise face that otherwise would have been comical, as someone shouted, "MEDIC!" frantically.
Nathan jerked up from his place beside another window and tried to crawl over to his friend. He was quickly crossing the floor in a series of rapid movements as a bullet came through the broken window, ricocheted off a far wall and slammed into his back.
Jim and Blair happened to be closest to him. They turned the black man over and pulled him back against the wall where they crouched. Blair looked away from the wide red smear that his body left on the floor.
Nathan looked up solemnly into Blair's eyes. "My name... name is Medic, I have to help Josiah."
Blair looked back over at the big man lying dead across the floor. He looked back down at Nathan to tell him and saw that it was already too late. Nathan's open eyes, like Josiah's, were unseeing. Fighting down a mixture of nausea and frustrated rage, Blair closed the other man's eyes. Then he scooted away from the body and closer to Jim. He no longer cared about the cultural relevance of what was happening here. He just wanted this nightmare Slide to be over.
About an hour and three more bloody forays later, another stray bullet caught Vin. Chris Larabee gave a howl of primal rage and, to the astonishment of them all, stood up and ran across the floor to the young man he had called brother.
It was as if no bullet could touch Chris. He loped across the floor of school, ignoring the shots that flew around him, as his remaining friends tried to lay down a cover fire. He grabbed up Vin's lithe form as if he could protect it with his own body. "No! Dammit, not him!" he howled again. He sat cradling Vin in his arms, the younger man's long hair, rapidly turning from brown to blood red from his head wound, falling over Chris' right arm to drag across the floor.
It was so damned unfair, thought the hard-bitten leader of Recon Team Seven in a torment of grief. This man was not a soldier, not a killer. He was a gentle soul. The only reason he had gotten involved in this mess was to help save lives, not take them. This wasn't even his country and yet he had lived all his life here, a stranger among the People. He had died without even seeing his own cities, his own world. So. Damned. Unfair! The other men looked away from the tears that were falling unashamed down Chris' face.
Two hours later, night had fallen like a curtain. The People were spacing the forays farther and farther apart. Arturo speculated that they were running low on men and ammunition themselves. Suddenly from out of nowhere, three of the People rushed out of the forest, all three firing their guns at once. About ten feet behind and standing directly between and to either side of the three, came five more men, also shooting. They all ran in as straight a line as possible, to avoid getting in each other's line of fire. Two of the men fell to enemy gunfire but the others kept coming this time instead of falling back as before. All had their gaze focused intently ahead, as if not seeing or caring that they were committing suicide.
The strategy was obvious. The men kept firing blindly, blanketing the building with gunfire, not giving those inside much of a chance to return fire. They got close enough that their bullets tore a gaping hole through one plaster wall.
Young J.D. Dunne just happened to be near enough to that wall to see the hole forming. He could even see out into the moonlit night at the starry sky through the hole. He saw his own death coming toward him. The boy had time to turn his head slightly and yell out desperately, "BUCK!" before a round of bullets cut him nearly in two.
"KID!" Buck yelled back in answer. There was no reply from the bloody mess that had been a bright, inquisitive young man. A young man with his entire future ahead of him. A young man that had been the best part of the closest thing Buck Wilmington ever had to a family. Quinn, sitting next to him saw what the older man was about to do and made a grab for his leg, but Buck was too fast for him.
"YOU BASTARDS!" Buck screamed as he stood up in plain view and started firing at the advancing soldiers through the window.
"Buck NO!" Chris called out in horror. Chris watched in stupefied horror as a man who had been his loyal friend and follower for more than half his life was cut down by gunfire that took off most of his head.
Chris started to move towards his friend, when something abruptly knocked him down to the floor. He thought for a second that he too had been shot. He thought it was only right that he should die here, amidst the ruins of his comrades, but then he realized that some heavy form was lying on top of him. He wiggled out from under the body frantically and looked down at Ezra Standish's face.
"Ezra!" he said, more in surprise than anything else.
The southerner's chest had been torn open. Absurdly, Chris thought of how much Ezra hated to get his clothes messed up. The man was so fastidious about his appearance; the others in the team had often teased him about it. He had always taken it good naturedly, usually shooting back some sharp-tongued comment about their own quirks.
Chris had never liked Standish, no that wasn't right he thought. Ezra could charm a snake out of its skin if he tried. Chris had liked him well enough; he had just never trusted him. He knew the southerner's reputation, and he could see how the rogue sometimes struggled with his own demons, the temptation to lie, cheat and steal, faults that had been deeply ingrained in the young man in his haphazard upbringing by a greedy and obsessive mother. But he was excellent at his job, could speak four of the People's tribal languages fluently and had a knack for talking anyone into helping the team, so Chris had kept him on. As team leader, Larabee had always kept him back from the jobs that would put the lives of the rest of the team in Ezra's hands. Ezra had never commented on this, though it had to be obvious to him. He just hadn't been trusted.
Now Chris Larabee felt anew the piercing grief of loss, seasoned with bone deep regret. This man he had never trusted had knocked him to the floor and covered his body with his own. He had taken into his flesh the bullets that had been meant for Chris. He had been willing to give his life for Chris.
Larabee looked up from the ruined chest to Ezra's face and was startled to see that not only was he still alive, but he was managing to smile.
"Chris..." the other man managed to gasp out through his pain, "I did it. I proved myself worthy of the team..." Ezra's eyes, dark green and shining like jewels began to slowly close forever.
"Ezra!" Chris said, desperately he grabbed Ezra's shoulders and shook the other man until the emerald eyes opened again. He had to make Ezra hear him before he died. He had to make him see the truth. "You never had to prove yourself to me or to the team. You were always one of us!"
"Know that..." Ezra's last words to Chris, though strained, were tinged with satisfaction. "Had to prove it... to myself..."
Jim and Blair, observing this, forgot all about the other people in the room, until they heard another voice scream in fury. They looked over in shock at the usually quiet Quinn Mallory. He was cursing loudly and with surprising breadth of vocabulary, picked up from numerous worlds in his travels. Quinn was experiencing something rare for him, something alien to his analytical, balanced nature: pure rage.
The young scientist rose up from behind a large body on the floor. Quinn had tears running steadily down his cheeks, and the front of his brown t-shirt was dark and wet with blood from the body lying at his feet. Maximilian Arturo, his friend and mentor, had been taken from him again. He had lost another father.
"Quinn..." began Jim, about to tell him to get down, though it was doubtful if the other man could hear him over the gunfire that still raged. But even that noise was suddenly drowned out.
Quinn was pointing the sliding device at the wall that the soldiers outside were advancing toward. A large bright blue hole in reality suddenly opened up there at his command. Without sparing a glance backward, Quinn ran towards it and jumped through to another world, as if heading towards his own only salvation.
Blair and Jim started to follow and then stopped. They looked back at Major Chris Larabee, who still sat on the floor, staring down at the face of the dead man whose shoulders he held. The team leader was too far gone into his own pain to even notice the wormhole.
"We can't leave him here to die!" Blair shouted to Jim. Jim might have argued that this was Larabee's destiny on this world, but Blair had already run to the Major and grabbed his arm. He was trying to pull up Chris, who was resisting. "Come on! We have to leave now!"
"No! These're my men! I'm Team Leader... my duty to die with 'em."
Jim didn't hesitate. He knew if they didn't go through the wormhole in seconds, it would close behind Quinn, trapping the rest of them here to die. Jim drew back his fist and slugged Chris across the chin with all the power he could manage. He thought he could hear the sound of the blow landing even over the roaring of the blue wormhole.
Chris fell forward, dazed. Jim threw one of Larabee's arms around his neck and Blair did the same with the other. Between them they dragged him to the hole that was already beginning to shrink. The three men fell forward into the Slide.
As always the Slide seemed to go on forever and at the same time be over almost too soon. They fell down, down, down, at last falling out of the blue tunnel to land in a puddle of dirty water.
The first thing that Blair noticed was that Quinn was leaning against a nearby lamppost, wiping at his still streaming red eyes. The second thing he saw was that he, Jim and Chris were sitting in a couple of inches of tepid brown water in a puddle in the middle of an asphalt road.
"Shit, we need to get up! I hear traffic coming!" Jim said urgently. He and Blair got to their feet, without relinquishing their hold on Chris, and quickly moved off of the roadway. Seconds later a bright red sports car sped past them in a roar of powerful engines and a cloud of exhaust smoke.
"That was a car!" said Chris in surprise, shocked even out of his grief. "There aren't any cars for hundreds of miles. Where in hell are we?" he demanded of the other three men. "And where did everything go?"
Jim looked around him. It was early morning. They were in an open area. The road had been cut through the forest. Trees grew on either side of it, but the mountains in the distance looked like the same peaks he had seen the day before. He saw aluminum cans, plastic bags, and other garbage scattered along the sides of the blacktop road. Where ever they were was close to civilization.
Jim raised his head and sniffed the air. Using the techniques Blair had taught him, he could smell a large settlement close by, about three or four miles he would guess.
"We have a long walk ahead of us," he said and began to hike down the road toward the smell of people. Blair, Quinn, and a still dazed Chris followed behind him.
Quinn's shoulders were hunched. He was still trying to get a hold on his emotions. Blair tried to think of something he could say, but "I'm sorry," seemed woefully inadequate under the circumstances. At least he, Jim and Quinn had survived. That was something, anyway. And now they had a new traveling companion.
"I don't get it," said Chris, still looking around in confusion. "What the hell happened?"
Blair and Jim exchanged a glance, how to begin to explain the incredible journey they were taking?
"Major," Blair drew in a deep breath and asked with a slight grin, "how would you like to hear an interesting story?"
End