Buck Rogers- A Life in the Future Page 6

  "Something wrong?" Caliburn asked.

  "It's Rogers. He's taken a turn for the worse. Dr. Reilly just told me he'll be dead in less than twenty-four hours."

  "Show me your damned magic machine," Caliburn said icily. "You'll need magic, and more, to save that man."

  Chapter 6

  They stood before another huge cylinder, glowing with a steady, unnerving light. Technicians scanned data banks, and computers glowed and flashed all about them. Medical technicians stood by the entry hatch to the cylinder. A woman approached them.

  "Dr. Packwood, we're almost ready to complete the test run," she said quickly.

  Packwood nodded and gestured to Caliburn. "This is Mr. Rex Caliburn. He works with us in the front office. Mr. Caliburn, meet Dr. Heiko Watanabe. She's our team leader."

  Caliburn ignored the social amenities. "What test are you running. Doctor?"

  The slender woman smiled. "A test of supreme confidence— my own dogs, Susie and Marki. They are Akitas, born from the same litter. Here, I will show you."

  She led them to a fenced enclosure. A powerful Akita greeted her enthusiastically, ignored Packwood, and studied Caliburn with open hostility.

  "He misses his litter companion . . . his sister," explained Dr. Watanabe. "Consequently he's suspicious of all strangers. To him, they might be responsible for her disappearance."

  "And where is this . . . um, Susie?"

  A Life in the Future

  The woman pointed to the glowing cylinder. "In there. For eight months, in fact. But, of course, there is no time in that cylinder."

  "So I've heard," Caliburn said sourly. "Tell me about it in as straightforward a manner as you can, please."

  "Yes, sir. Stated simply, Susie was placed in the laser beam when she was eight weeks old. At that time, this dog"—she patted Marki as she spoke—"was also eight weeks old. Today Marki is ten months old. Eight months have gone by. We are about to shut down the power beam. When we open the cylinder, Susie will be inside, alive and well. If our calculations are right, then we will see a perfectly healthy puppy eight weeks old."

  Caliburn had expected what he was hearing. "In short, you're telling me that for eight months time has stood still for the puppy. No growth, no change in the animal?"

  Dr. Watanabe studied an instrument panel, Caliburn at her side. Then they both moved closer to the cylinder. Light shifted in a meaningless swirl. "I sure as hell don't see any dog in there," Caliburn complained.

  "Of course not," the woman said patiently. "Susie has been floating—dispersed might be a better word—in an electromagnetic matrix. The electromagnetic code for Susie is in the bio-science computers. The frequency of every atom in her body—and they all vibrate at a specific frequency—is coded and retained while she is in the laser beam. When we turned on the beam, time ceased to exist, but because the atoms are moving at the speed of light, they retain the code. These mirrors," she said, gesturing, "bounce that code back and forth. In a few moments, we will shut down the laser beam transmission."

  "And?" Caliburn prompted.

  "Susie will rematerialize exactly as she was when we turned on the beam eight months ago."

  "You're asking me to swallow one very large implausibility," Caliburn retorted. "Or impossibility."

  "There's only one way to find out. We have frozen in time every element of the puppy, every electromagnetic pulse of her body and brain, every cellular structure, every blood cell, every command of hormones, every enzyme—in short, all life has simply been placed in stasis. That's why such things as food, water, muscle movement, waste disposal—none of them exist so

  Buck Rogers

  long as this beam is active."

  "And if you're wrong?" Caliburn pressed.

  After a long silence, Dr. Bedford spoke. "Then we will be faced with a horrible sight—a mass of disassociated muscles, tendons, fur, teeth, eyeballs, intestines—the whole ball of biological wax. Dr. Watanabe will be crushed. The dog, Marki, will likely howl instinctively that something terrible has happened. I think you get the idea."

  "If you're right, and it is one heck of an if, you will retrieve a healthy animal?"

  'Tes," Watanabe and Bedford said in unison.

  "I see an awful lot of emergency medical equipment in here," Caliburn noted. "That seems to suggest you're not altogether sure of what you'll find."

  "We've never run a test this long," Dr. Watanabe said quietly.

  "But if it is a success," Bedford added, his face solemn, "this laser system is the only hope of survival for Anthony Rogers. Either we send him into some unknown future when medical science will be sufficiently advanced to do for him what we cannot—keep him alive, make him well, repair his body—well, you know the rest of it."

  Caliburn stood in silence. Bedford suddenly became animated. "Confound it, Caliburn, don't you understand? Rogers is djdng. He could go at any moment! If we don't try this laser system, he dies. No questions about that. If we fail, then nothing has changed except that we tried to send him ahead in time where he could live. And," Bedford added slowly, "science then could not only keep him alive, but they might even endow him with certain life-protecting systems that would make him much more than he was before the crash."

  "Do it. Now!" Caliburn spoke harshly, teeth gritted.

  Bedford turned to Watanabe. "How long?"

  "Twenty seconds."

  "Go."

  Watanabe's fingers flashed across a computer control board. Lights blinked off; others glowed softly. A timer chimed and digital seconds appeared on a screen, counting down.

  The people in the room seemed frozen. Someone whispered, "Ten seconds . . . nine . . . eight—"

  A final, hoarse, "one . . ."

  A Life in the Future

  Reality seemed to pulse in the room almost physically. The air shimmered, and the thrill of something extraordinary about to happen swept through the room. A hellish ruby-red light pulsed within the cylinder, while an invisible wind sighed about them.

  Then silence.

  Moving almost as if she were an automaton, Dr. Watanabe approached a code screen on the curving side of the cylinder. Her fingers danced across the numbers to depress a long curving hatch. Bedford stood by her side, lifting the hatch. Several men came forward, locked the hatch open. Everyone strained to see within the cylinder. Sounds of hoarse, frightened breathing came from everjrwhere. Watanabe peered through the open hatch, then her hands slipped into the opening.

  There was a sound, a single, wonderful, incredible sound, high-pitched, short.

  Yip!

  In an instant, Marki was barking furiously, straining to rush forward as he heard the unmistakable sound of his eight-week-old littermate.

  Heiko Watanabe turned, triumph shining in her eyes, tears streaking her cheeks, holding close to her a healthy, thick-furred puppy. For long moments, no one spoke, overcome with the emotion of the moment. Finally Caliburn stepped forward, holding out his arms.

  "May I?" he asked softly

  Watanabe placed the puppy in his arms. Caliburn held the animal gently, feeling the fur, the damp nose. "I ... I can hardly believe this," he said finally.

  Watanabe retrieved Susie and placed the pup on the floor. Immediately the young whelp dashed across the room to the frantic older dog, greeting him with joyous cries and sharp yips of

  joy

  Someone tapped Caliburn on his shoulder; he turned to face the grim visage of Dr. Nancy Reilly One look confirmed his worst fears, yet he had to voice them aloud.

  "What is it. Doctor?"

  "Rogers is fading fast," she said. "He may not last the hour. We've got to bring him in here now."

  Caliburn nodded. He had no choice anymore. Everjrthing was

  Buck Rogers

  in the lap of the gods and these people. Either they committed Rogers to some unknown, unpredictable future, or there would be a second, secret funeral service that would end this story once and for all.

  "Do it now. Immediately," he
urged.

  Dr. Reilly spoke into her pagerphone. "Bring Mr. Rogers to Laser Prime at once. Maintain Code Blue during the transfer. Medical Team Two, get in here on the double. Be ready for time insertion at once!"

  Caliburn heard confirmation to her orders from her pager-phone. "There's very little time to explain, Mr. Caliburn," she said, her words tumbling forth in a rush. "I can talk with you only until the medical teams bring Rogers in here. Just before we insert him into the cylinder, we'll have to remove all life-support systems."

  "You'll kill him," Caliburn interrupted.

  "No. There'll be a few minutes—we're not sure how many— when his own systems will keep him alive. We can't keep his life support operating in the beam. The moment we activate the laser transfer, all those mechanical systems will be so many free atoms and other subatomic particles. They'll be useless to him. But the instant he's sealed in the cylinder and we go to full power, he'll be suspended—"

  "In time," Caliburn finished for her. "I understand. Forget about me right now. Do whatever is necessary."

  A signal chimed, the far doors opened, and a medical team rushed toward the cylinder that contained the unconscious form of Anthony Rogers strapped to a gurney. They stopped by the open hatch. "Quickly, quickly," Dr. Reilly pressed them. "Prepare to disconnect. Keep him under full oxygen when you place him in the transporter. Maintain cardiac assist until the very last moment. Once he's inside, disconnect everything. He's got to be on his own. You'll have no more than a minute to make the transfer. Anything more than that is simply too long. Now, I want the air pressure built up and ready the instant you have him in the cylinder. He's got to be suspended away from the interior surface. You understand? If you have any questions, let's hear them right now. All right, everybody, move it!"

  A Life in the Future

  Rex Caliburn stared in dismay at the unconscious form of Anthony Rogers. Machines pulsed, hghts flashed, Uquids flowed through tubes into his body. The snaking Medusa head of artificial tendrils, gases, liquids, and electrical energy formed his lifeline.

  The man was more dead than alive, his skin an alarming chalk-white, his face a mangled mess. Internal pressure kept his lungs from collapsing. Only one eye could be seen on the wreckage of his face, and that was blackened and swollen.

  Caliburn found himself holding his breath, gasping painfully as the life tendrils were removed from Rogers. The young pilot's breathing slowed. "His blood pressure is down, still going down. Damn it, we don't have any time left!" Caliburn didn't even know who spoke the words. The medical team moved with skilled and practiced hands. In moments, they had Rogers within the cylinder. Air pressure whooshed in to suspend his form away from any contact with the circular walls of the cylinder.

  "We're losing him!" a doctor shouted in alarm. "Hurry!"

  Caliburn couldn't keep himself back. He moved forward into the midst of the medical teams. He looked intently at the disfigured form inside the cylinder, seemingly levitated by air pressure from all sides.

  "Come on. Buck. Give me a sign. Anything, son . . ." The words hissed from him, unknowingly spoken aloud. It seemed a gesture of final futility, but he swore he saw the pilot's one remaining eye tremble and flicker open for an instant.

  My God, I know every ounce of his pain, every stab of the thousand knives in that body, wracking every muscle, twisting his tendons and nerves. The sight of Buck's torn body thrust Caliburn back in time to that moment when the Russian missile warhead had exploded into his fighter-bomber, enveloping him in a ball of searing flames, ripping the legs from his body. He could hardly recall that terrible moment when he'd pulled the ejection-seat handle that blew what remained of his body out into a lashing wind, his legs going down in the blazing wreckage.

  Oh, he knew. He was the only person in this group who really knew the agony Anthony Rogers was going through. Caliburn's face remained stonelike, but if the others had looked deep into his eyes, they would have seen the pain there.

  Buck Rogers

  Rex Caliburn, hard-nosed, no-nonsense agent of the government, was being torn apart on the inside. No one but he and the helpless form before him knew that Angelina Barzoni was the daughter of Rex Caliburn, and that this young man was to have become his son-in-law.

  Caliburn had married Rose Barzoni, a raven-haired beauty of an aristocratic Italian family. To give up the family name was unthinkable, and she had adopted the name Rose Caliburn-Barzoni.

  The name had proven too long, too clumsy, too correct for Angelina. Far better for her to be known in the air show as the Great Barzoni. She and Buck and Rex had kept her secret all too well.

  How could he, Rex Caliburn, agree to this program, committing the still-functioning remains of this young man he had come to love to a possible life in the future through death in the present? There must be no question of the death of Buck Rogers, or Angelina would go mad thinking she might have done something, an3rthing to save him.

  Rex Caliburn trembled with the weight of his inner struggle, fighting back the tears. He wanted to embrace Buck, embrace his daughter, bring them back together somehow, but he knew there was only one decision to make. . . .

  He saw no more as hands pushed him aside, closed the cylinder hatch, and secured it tightly.

  "Activate!" Dr. Bedford called out. Heiko Watanabe's fingers danced on the computer console. "Full power!" she sang out. Somewhere in the distance, an enormous power surge began. Caliburn felt the floor tremble. Everything was now run by the time signals generated by an atomic cesium clock, accurate down to a billionth of a second.

  The dazzling light flashed, and Caliburn felt every fiber of his body vibrating. As close to instantly as any device made by man could measure, Anthony Rogers vanished into swirling light of pulsating colors.

  Trillions of cells that made up his body, molecules and subatomic particles, even the brain processes flashing with a hundred thousand signals per second, stopped, frozen in timeless limbo. Synapses, neurons, axions, everything, became pure light.

  "He's gone," Dr. Bedford said shakily.

  A Life in the Future

  "You mean ..." Caliburn gripped Bedford tightly by the arm. "You mean you lost him before—"

  "No, no," Bedford said hastily. "He was alive when we activated the system. He's alive now, but not in a way that any human being ever experienced. And so long as our reactor keeps power flowing into this system, he'll remain just as he is now. Stardust. Maybe that's it. Stardust waiting to be recreated, reborn."

  Dr. Reilly stood mute, still shaken at the spectacle of committing a human being to a great unknown.

  "He's in the hands of God now," she said quietly.

  Rex Caliburn wasn't so sure.

  "Or the devil," he added.

  He turned and left the great complex. Maybe the woman was right; maybe it was all up to God now. But Caliburn wouldn't bet on it.

  One thing was certain. If anyone had ever rushed into the great unknown, this was it.

  Outside again, breathing deep of the fresh, cool air—Good Lord, it was dark already!—Caliburn looked up at the stars.

  Maybe that's where Rogers was headed. Maybe.

  "Godspeed, Buck," Caliburn whispered aloud.

  However the great experiment turned out, one thing was inevitable. When Buck Rogers regained consciousness, if he ever did, everyone now alive on this planet would be dust.

  Everyone but Buck Rogers, that is.

  Chapter 7

  Pain.

  He was immersed in a river of pure white agony. Could his bones be breaking, twisting in this horror that went on and on and on?

  He tried to see, but all about him was white pain. He saw an eye socket with a blazing needle being thrust into it, then realized it was his own. He felt his lungs bursting, and then a shrieking jackhammer ripped into and spun around and through his spine. A scorpion stabbed his liver, knives thrust into his kidneys, and then he was falling, an impossible plunge with whips of barbed razor wire slashing hotly at his shredded sk
in. . . .

  Then he knew. He had been thrust into space, cast into the vacuum, and he was helpless, weightless as his breath exploded from his nostrils and mouth and ears and lungs, and he felt his blood boiling violently within him. He was floating, floating. . . .

  But he must be dead!

  An inner voice spoke to him, a single remaining shred of sanity: Knock it off, Rogers. The dead don't hurt. They don't dance, and they don't prance, and they don't wear pants. . . .

  "Can you hear me, Rogers?"

  A woman's voice, a cold and wonderful wind blowing through the fetid clamp of red-hot pain. How could he be hearing such a

  A Life in the Future

  voice?

  "Anthony Rogers, do you hear me? Try to answer. Bhnk your left eye. That's it, try! Don't talk. You can't do that yet. Just open and close your eye. That's all. Think of nothing else. Ignore the pain. Open your eye ... do it!

  He forced both eyes open. Something was wrong. He could feel movement, ripping pain, in his left eye. There was nothing from the opposite side of his face. He fought a grim upward battle against the fires burning within him. His eye opened. A white-hot needle stabbed into his eyeball. He clenched it shut tightly, wincing at the terrible effort and another wave of pain.

  Strange ... he should be in shock and feel overwhelming nausea from the pain. Don't talk, don't move. Try to feel beyond the pain. . . . Someone is out there ... a woman . . . helping me, trying . . .

  "That was great, Mr. Rogers. You may not realize it yet, but you moved your left eye. You can hear me; you understand. I know you're in terrible pain, and I understand. Now that we know your mind is working, we'll be able to move on." He could barely hear her taking a deep breath. "The pain will start to diminish very soon now. You're doing beautifully. Very soon you'll be able to see through that eye. You will be able to hear me, and you will talk to me. Sleep now. We're starting to rid you of your pain. . . ."

  Her voice faded away, a diminishing tendril of sound floating about him, thinning and drifting off somewhere, somehow.