Justification For Killing (47 page)

At T minus ten
seconds, the
"Go for Magnetic Rotor
Start,"
was automatically issued by
The Transport Launch Computer. All physical
connections from the ‘flying saucer’ to the ‘launch’ facility
should be severed.
Pegasus
ought to be good to go.

At T minus six seconds,
the three main rotors energized at intervals of 110 milliseconds.
Again, as happened with Captain Scarburg the rotors have three
seconds to throttle up to 95 percent rotational speed. At T minus
three seconds, if the main rotors are at the required 95 percent,
the ‘Tachyon’ sequence starts.

He felt nothing... no
movement... no noise... nothing; just a slight tingling sensation
in his fingers and toes. Turning to Olive Marie he asked, “How are
you doing?”

She did not respond, her
hands were tightly gripping the armrests of the seat and her eyes
seemed fixed and dilated. She stared blankly into the console to
her front.

The four inch thick
porthole located directly to their front was beginning to haze
over. Seeing out was impossible. Forrest thought, surely this it
not supposed to happen! Something must be going wrong. What have I
done? I wish I had told Olive Marie I really didn’t mean all those
bad things I have said to her in the past, but now I’m going to get
her killed!!

The time was 4:35 a.m.,
Tuesday, December 6, 2012.

Chapter
Thirty-Seven

GOING BACK TO
TEXAS

Suddenly there was a
brilliant flash of blue light. Forrest wondered if this were
similar to Grandpa’s experience; it reminded him of a thousand
flashes of blue lightening going off at the same time. That was the
last thing he saw - he blacked out. How long he was out he did not
know. When he awoke the bright light had diminished, the tingling
sensation had stopped, and the smoke or fog was beginning to
dissipate from the porthole. And the music... the soft music...
bagpipes...
‘Amazing
Grace’
. He thought,
I don’t believe I have ever heard that spiritual hymn played
so beautifully.

As his mind began to
clear Forrest realizing he had heard all of this before. Forrest
thought
, Grandpa Scarburg – this was
exactly the way he described his ‘flight’.
Forrest and Olive Marie’s experience was similar except for
one thing they wore protective laser goggles. Since Grandpa
Scarburg experienced colorblindness on his ‘jump’ Forrest reasoned
laser goggles might, somehow, prevent this from happening, and it
did. “Olive Marie! Olive Marie! Wake up, Sis can you hear me,”
Forrest said as he removed her laser goggles. She was turning her
head slightly, so he knew she was still alive. “Wake up!” he yelled
again. She slowly opened her eyes.

“
What happened? I must
have dozed off. The time-traveling thing did not work did
it?”

“
I don’t know Olive, let’s
get outside and see.” Forrest wished he had been paying more
attention to his grandpa when he was showing his time-traveling
pictures and describing his experiences. He did remember Grandpa
Scarburg said he landed in a cow pasture north of Dallas. Forrest
was afraid to look out – fearing they could be in that swamp in
Africa, he asked hesitantly, “You ready?”

Before waiting for
Olive Marie to answer he pressed the ‘
OPEN
’ button to allow the hatch to
swing out. Slowly moving to the opening, he was reluctant to gaze
out onto his surroundings. What was he going to see? What was out
there? He could delay the inevitable no longer he summoned up his
courage and looked.

As they peered out
they were pleasantly surprised; they were looking out on grass - a
sea of dead grass and live cows. “Grandpa said he landed in a cow
pasture.” Forrest remarked to Olive Marie. He could tell
Pegasus
landed on flat
ground, its final landing spot was not atop the large tree stump
their Grandpa had to deal with. Yep, this must the same place for
sure! They were not resting on the same tree stump, they were
nestled right beside it! Speaking again, “If we can see an old barn
off in the distance and a grove of trees somewhere behind it, some
old oil wells, a pond and a wide expanse of trees in the opposite
direction, then we would know, for sure, we landed in the right
place. We must, surely, be in Grandpa’s Texas cow
pasture!!”

THE COW PASTURE

Forrest and Olive
Marie managed to get out of
Pegasus
using the portable ladder. Standing in the
pasture of brown grass, they could not see a grove of trees, or an
old barn. Is it November here? The trees off in the distance seem
bare of leaves. The grass was brown and dead, it was blustery cold,
and a few flakes of snow were beginning to drift down from the
threatening dark clouds overhead. Glancing upwards, the sky
appeared menacing - there seemed to be a good chance a snowstorm
was on its way. A quick survey of the pasture revealed wherever
they had landed, it surely wasn’t summer here. Does it snow in
Texas? At the time, Forrest wasn’t exactly sure. “Olive let’s go
around to the other side of
Pegasus
and see if we can spot any recognizable landmarks
from there.”

“
What are we looking for
Forrest? Didn’t you say we should see some old, neglected oil
wells, a grove of trees and a dilapidated barn? They are not here;
we’re in the wrong place! Forrest what do we do now? I’m
scared.”

“
Calm
down Olive Marie,” he said walking around to the opposite side
of
Pegasus
. As he
glanced off to the north a marvelous sight appeared to his
searching eyes: a grove of trees, a number of oil wells, grazing
cows and, best of all the old barn. Thank you Mike Watkins, thank
you for not changing the landing coordinates, but... what is the
date?

Forrest now could confirm
he was in Grandpa Scarburg’s cow pasture. It obviously was winter,
which made it likely it could be, possibly, November, but what was
the day and year, now those were the mystery questions.

“
No! No!” Forrest yelled
at Olive Marie.

“
What! What is it
Forrest?”

“
I do
not have the Johnson folder... it is still inside
Pegasus
, and the hatch
will close in five minutes not to reopen for twelve hours. How long
have we have been outside?” Forrest began to run around the ‘craft’
just as the circular hatch, hissed and closed. Forrest stepped
back, the air was filled with a crackling noise and the snow was
cascading in a circular motion around the time machine like a
mini-tornado. As he watched, the beautiful metallic
Pegasus
began to dim,
the sound of the bagpipes began to fade, and as swiftly as
Pegasus
arrived it was
now gone!

Forrest stood
petrified, what was he to do without his manila folder of the
Johnson facts. He was devastated, how could he have been that
stupid. The lack of the folder was going to be a problem all right,
but he seemed to have a much bigger immediate problem - he had
forgotten his coat and left it inside Mike Watkins’s office back at
the laboratory. Forrest had forgotten to get it before he
entered
Pegasus
!

It was cold, and the sky
was beginning to darken as the snow fell in large half-dollar sized
flakes? Fortunately, Olive Marie had grabbed her warm coat as they
scrambled through the exit hatch. She also had fur-lined gloves in
her pocket.

Forrest was glad
Olive Marie was bundled up, but what was he to do? Grandpa Scarburg
said it was about four or five miles to Clem and Penelope Ruby’s
ranch house - the Ponderosa. It was too cold to make a long journey
without a coat – they were in a pickle!! Forrest knew they couldn’t
stand out there in the blowing snow and wait to freeze to death.
They had to find some shelter until the hatch reappeared, but where
could they find a protective shelter?
Why
yes,
now Forrest had a thought,
the decrepit, old barn Grandpa had mentioned - a
truck was parked inside.

THE BARN

“
We have
to get to the old barn Sis, maybe it will shelter us until the
hatch reopens.” As they walked toward the barn shivering Forrest
thought,
why wasn’t I paying more
attention to the small details as Grandpa told us about his
time-travel to Texas.
Olive Marie and I
are here now; we sure could use some of his
experience.

Forrest remembered Grandpa
said the barn was old. He had not been exaggerating, dirt was old,
and this thing was running a close second. He reached for the
sliding door, would it open? He was afraid rather than sliding the
door it might just tumble over on them both, but to his surprise,
when he tugged on it, it moved. Forrest pushed on it, creating a
small opening, barely enough for them to slip their bodies inside.
There were no windows, but enough light came through the small door
opening to see an old truck sitting in the hallway of the barn,
covered in dust and bits of hay and other barn debris. The decrepit
barn smelled of old hay, rot and mold. Even though, a strong scent
of cow manure filled the air it was dry, and provided a barrier
between the terrible biting north wind, snow and the two of
them.

“
Forrest, what about this
old truck – do you suppose you can drive it?”

Forrest didn’t think so,
but he did not want Olive to hear him say it. Without speaking,
they walked over to the old truck. He could see it was a dirty,
green, old Ford with a mounted toolbox, what year? The best he
could come up with was just to put the year as
‘ancient’.

He grabbed the door handle
on the driver’s side... wow! He thought his fingers were going to
stick to the metal. Stick like the little kid who applied his
tongue to the flagpole, but seriously it was cold, although not
that cold. Opening the door, he noticed something lying on the
seat. Surprised Forrest pulled in out into the light. He recognized
it as an old work coat and inside the pockets he found a pair of
gloves. Wasn’t much, but a lot more than he had when he first got
inside this old, weather-beaten barn.

Forrest had finished
slipping his nearly frozen fingers down deep into the gloves when
Olive Marie pointed out the key was still in the Ford’s ignition.
Funny thing though it was sticking out of the dash and not the
steering column, Forrest had to see if it would crank.

He slipped in behind
the steering wheel.
Man, plastic seats are
cold! Funny what you think of
, he
thought,
did they even make plastic when
Detroit built this truck?
“Olive Marie
where is ‘Drive” on this thing?”

“
Forrest, you are asking
me? Honestly, I’ve never even seen a truck this old, much less been
inside one!”

He gazed at the dash in
front. Forrest saw a large round dial surrounded with numbers,
numbers obviously indicating they were part of the speedometer.
Mounted close to the speedometer were an oil gauge, a fuel gauge, a
temperature gauge and one reading ‘AMP’. This one must be for the
battery, he reasoned. Forrest had always been used to the modern
automobile digital numbers on his dash console, those mechanical
gauges were as foreign to him as the truck was old. He could see
there were no indicators for “D”, “P”, “R” or anything else;
however, there was the long metal gearshift sticking out of the
floor right where his console gearshift would be on his Camaro. He
questioned Olive Marie, “Olive, do you actually suppose we can
drive this truck? This thing is a stick shift!”

“
Forrest, please just do
whatever you have to do, you know I can’t tell you anything about
this truck! I don’t even know anything about my own car at home.”
She added quickly, “Which, by-the-way, I probably will never see
again.”

Oh
well
, he thought
,
I know the gearshift sticking out of the floor is used to change
the gears, I’ll figure out just how in a minute.
He turned the key just a tad, and heard a motor
under the hood began to grind.
Surely this
had to be a good thing
, he thought. The
truck instantly lunged at least a couple of feet forward; he knew
this was a bad thing.
Whoa,
he thought, slamming his foot hard on the
brake.

“
Darn it, Forrest you
trying to kill us?”

Looking down at the floor
he knew stick shifts had a brake and a clutch pedal; although, he
had never actually driven one he knew along with the ‘whoa’
something had to be done with that clutch in the cranking and
driving process.

He had ridden in cars of
his friends that had stick shifts, he mostly knew how they worked,
and had driven a couple before, but was not quite sure this old
truck would be the same. Before turning the key again, he surmised
it might be useful if he and Olive Marie familiarize themselves
with those old Ford’s operating parts before they
continued.