“Excellent idea,” Vesta said, and pulled a microphone from her armored suit. “I’ll have one constructed now. It will be here in a second or two-”
“Wait. I have another small favor to ask. I will need certain functions built into the duplicate to convince our scientists that it is not a dummy. Just a simple device that will destruct after a single operation. This will pose absolutely no difficulties for your techs, I am sure.”
It took me a bit longer to convince them of this necessity, but in the end they reluctantly agreed. The duplicate was an exact physical duplicate of the original. It blinked into existence floating in the air before us. Othred reached up and tugged; there was a popping sound as he pulled it down and handed it to me.
“Wonderful,” I said, tucking it under my arm. “Shall we go?” They nodded agreement and put their helmets back on.
I had my temporal companions first release the stasis field on Floyd’s hand so I could disarm him. Like our mutual enemy his finger was also tightening on the trigger. What a world of nascent danger Ť=e do live in! I tucked the gun into my belt and nodded to the tempotechs.
Give Floyd that-his reflexes were great. He was twisting and chopping towards Othred’s neck the second he moved – stopped when I called a halt.
“Friends, Floyd, Down boy! Ugly-looking monster friends who are getting us out of here. If you look around you, you will see that all our enemies are paralyzed with indecision-and will stay that way until we are gone. Don’t trip over the pieces of the Killerbot on the way out. And, Vesta, if you please. Tap that fake ball of fur with your magic wand so it can join us.”
“What the hell is going on?” Floyd said, blinking in confusion as he tried to understand what was happening.
“I feel that some explanation is in order,” Aida said, and Fido barked with exasperation.
“Second the motion,” Floyd said.
“Forthcoming. As soon as we are out of here. Will you be so kind as to lead the way back to the surface.”
I turned to thank my temporal saviors, but they were already gone. Not only short on imagination but bereft of manners as well. And when they had vanished they had taken the time stasis with them; I could hear our footsteps for the first time. I looked back with a sudden feeling of horror but, right, the stasis was still working for the enemy as the silent form of the gun-toting snarling Commander indicated.
“Time to leave,” I said. “Since I have no idea how long the nasties are going to stand around that way. Go?”
“Explain!” Floyd shouted. Not in the best of moods.
“In a moment,” I equivocated-and stopped dead. For I had suddenly been possessed of an even more horrifying idea. All this playing with time-what had it done for my personal poisonous deadline! I groped for my pendant skull-computer but of course it was gone with the rest of my equipment. How much time had passed? Was the poison now taking effect? Was I about to die . . . ?
Sweating and trembling I dropped the replacement artifact temporooter and grabbed up the plastic poodle.
“Aida-is Fido transmitting?”
“Of course.”
“What time is it-I mean what day? No cancel that command. Get on to the Admiral now. Ask him how much time I have left. When is the deadline? Now-please. Don’t ask me any questions. He’ll know what you are talking about. Do it! And fast!”
Time dragged by on very sluggish feet I will tell you. Floyd must have heard the desperation in my voice for he stayed silent. A second, a minute-a subjective century crawled by before I had my answer. Aida must have done it-and made a good connection. Because the next voice Fido spoke with was that of Admiral Steengo.
“Good to hear from you, Jim . . .”
“Don’t talk. Listen. I don’t know what day it is. How much time is there to the deadline?”
“Well, Jim, I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you-“