... AND THERE WAS Piron standing on the edge of the platform immediately passing Skylar down a small pad that had a blue plasticised surrounding border.
"I have not tried to operate mine yet," he said.
"Yes, and please don't, Piron. I'll try to work their use out later when we're in a safe place. Somewhere off the Faraway. I fear use of the location finder pads might be noticed as they are probably some sort of computer device that's networked to who knows what sort of network."
"Maybe the bracelets are on a network and we've already blown our cover."
"I doubt it. Teleportation by thought would surely only be acceptable if it had inbuilt privacy. I should think the bracelets could only be networked with the consent of the user. Probably a setting on the location finder."
"I think I see what you mean. If I was desperate for the bathroom, I wouldn't want anyone knowing I had teleported there. That sort of thing."
"I take it you replaced the box containing the location finder pads back to its original position?"
"I have. It was easy to get to, being on top of a stack of metal boxes. And as I shapeshifted away my finger prints ..."
"And our footprints do not matter as I'm wearing standard starship Faraway boots that will merge with the many footprints of the ranked crew."
"And I have my ways of leaving no footprints despite taking many steps as both a panther and a human. And in my firebat form, I never touched a thing except your shoulder."
"Right, let's get off this platform and out of the view of the Main Cargo Bay door window. Then we will have executed the perfect heist, all bar the shouting."
Skylar carefully stepped off the platform together with Piron, and they disappeared behind some cargo racking like a couple of nocturnal animals hiding from a clearing subtly bathed in a sliver of moonlight.
"Where shall we teleport to, Skylar? There's no need to sneak back out through the data and lighting duct. From now onwards, we can breathe in at a location A and exhale at a location B. I take it we will not be attempting to teleport to anywhere unusual like the Captain's quarters."
"You take it correctly. Let's keep things simple when taking our first steps in this teleportation business. We'll teleport out of here to our cabin. Then I'll get myself on the starship Faraway's disembarkment log for the planet Zetum, from where the aliens will be shuttling up to the Faraway through the normal physical method, as they need to attend a security check before boarding. Hence the reason for their disassociated property trunks. And you don't need to be on the disembarkment log because you're bonded to me."
"So we are getting off in a shuttlecraft ferry? How will we pass the disembarkment security checks? We'll never be able to risk taking the bracelets and location finder pads."
"We will not risk the disembarkment security checks because we will rather risk teleporting directly down by thought to a place on Zetum that we know well. I just have to hack the disembarkment log to show we are on the list. It's a complicated hack, but you know I can do it and verify it was successful after the fact."
"Let's hope there is no distance range limitation in this teleportation by thought method." A mixture of doubt and fear flashed across Piron's eyes.
"We'll soon find out, Piron. And I'm sure such advanced technology must be safe, so don't fall into a fug of anxiety."
"And will the teleportation really be instant? I wonder if it is executed at the speed of light. Perhaps it was just because the Main Cargo Bay office was so close that the teleportation we experienced seemed instantaneous."
"I don't think you can apply the normal way of thinking of the transportation of matter through space. It would be similar to starship faster than light travel where space is manipulated rather than the speed of matter travelling through it. Maybe we can discover the basics of how it works later. Maybe matter is temporarily transformed into gravity during transport. Gravity definitely has no mass, so who knows what speeds it can travel at—and that's in ordinary space. My guess is that the teleportation method will be instant whether by thought or not."
"It will be interesting to see if it's instant at great distances. However, I cannot see how it works. I mean to say, suggesting mass can be transformed into gravity? That's a new one on me. You're just shooting in the dark with your suppositions."
"Better than not shooting at all. And here's another shot in the dark that's pretty interesting—maybe the teleportation can travel through time. Backwards under certain conditions and forwards under any conditions. If the teleportation is instantaneous, then time would stop momentarily for the user. So when you said time waits for no living creature, perhaps you were wrong, Piron."
"True. And when I said we can breathe in at a location A and exhale at a location B, we can probably do so at vast distances in time as well as in space!"
"Yes. To put it artistically, my dear Piron, perhaps, you could take a breath in London's Westminster Abbey during Queen Victoria's coronation on June 28th, 1838 and exhale it in The Golden Halls of the Mystic Mountain Nebula during humanity's inauguration into the Intergalactic Alliance on December 25th, 3751."
"Your shots seem more inclined to entertain than to kill, but I see where one such shot has been directed."
"Really?"
"You're thinking you might be able to return to your era and see once again your father, the famous long dead private detective Sherlock Holmes? You know, I still find it hard to believe you are the daughter of such a famous historical figure. Intellectually, I can. But the thought of such a circumstance ..."
"More a truth than a circumstance. But you've got it, Piron. I am thinking I'll see my father again through this teleportation technology. You see, we don't know exactly why the Equalisers collected me from my time Monday, January 6th, 1908 on my fourteenth birthday and put me here in a time just over two thousand Earth years later. I sometimes find it hard to believe I'm now a sixteen-year-old 20th century girl alive here on Monday, July 28th, 3919."
"Yes, Skylar. And that the Equalisers also took me from my universe at a time hundreds of thousands of standard years in my relative future, and bonded us together. We cannot be a hundred yards apart for more than a day without suffering debilitating pain. We've been stuck together for just over two Earth years. Hopefully we will be free of each other one day. Not that I dislike your company. It's an honour to be bonded to such a genius despite what I may think of your dangerous outrageousness. What makes you different from other geniuses is your lightning speed of thought and the actions you take so quickly and boldly as a result of them."
"As was the case here in the Main Cargo Bay despite your constant fretting and criticism," put in Skylar sarcastically.
"Of course. But you need my occasional speed bump interventions to force you to think more responsibly—and more deeply."
"Anyway, Piron, the point is that the Equalisers made it clear I have to solve a crime without at first having any knowledge of what that crime is. Now what genius can solve a crime they have no knowledge of? All they gave us was a partial manifest list from the Faraway that they claimed was from two years in the future. And we found a way on to the Faraway a year ago as lowly cleaners. Useful though, as it gave me the opportunity to educate myself of modern technology. I obviously have to find out what the crime is I need to be solving. Surely these teleportation bracelets and their location finder pads are the second clue?"
"Second clue?"
"Yes, the manifest list given to us by the Equalisers was obviously the first."
"Oh yes, of course."
"I'm sure that the teleportation will work back through time. Obviously there would be incredibly sophisticated constraints on travelling backwards in time. At the very least, such a direction would have to have been set up in advance from the target time itself. It's just dawned on me this very moment. I think my father will have the third clue. The Equalisers would have left it with him for safekeeping. Who else could they trust?"
"Huh? Really, Skylar?"
"Yes. And his clue could only be useful with other clues that we will learn, hopefully, before we meet him. It's elementary, my dear Piron."
"To you, perhaps. All I can say is what a deduction. I need say no more."
"But you can say more if you like. We might be bonded, but you've still got a free mind."
"Well, off we go to our starship cabin. I want to see where your mind takes us next on this impossible mystery tour."
"Strap your mind in, Piron. The adventure is bound to be outrageously bumpy. As Papa might have said: 'When you have allowed for the danger, whatever remains, however perilous, must be experienced.'"
"As your father did say: 'Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.'"
"You believe you are talented?" questioned Skylar instantly with her quicksilver mind.
"That is my hope."
"Whereas according to the Equalisers, I am the 'Last Hope', whatever that means ..."
Skylar and Piron pressed the square button on their bracelets, and vanished instantly.
The outrageous heist of the millennia was successfully completed.
The Main Cargo Bay once more breathed alone in its semi-darkness.
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I hope you enjoyed this Chapter. I welcome any votes, comments or constructive criticisms (style, spelling, grammar and punctuation errors).
T. J. P. CAMPBELL.