MAX TOOK OUT from his external spacesuit chest pocket the notebook that he had spent hours writing in during the MER-2 Earth to Moon rocket flight.
"We need to get to Tesseract hexagon cell 52 using neutral doorways," he said. "Follow me."
Max walked through a doorway that led to one of the three adjacent Tesseract hexagons within the lunar HTH.
"There is always a neutral doorway that leads to another neighbouring Tesseract hexagon in this same time, space and universe," said Susan. "If you follow these neutral linking doorways you get the impression there is nothing special about this lunar HTH, and it's just a gold metal honeycomb perhaps waiting for some robotic bees to busy themselves within."
Max navigated his way through the neutral linking doorways of the lunar HTH at a remarkable pace.
"How can Max be moving so quickly?" asked Cindy.
"The Tesseract hexagon cells of the lunar HTH are labelled with their number in a circular sticker on the floor," explained Susan. "The label is always found just to the right of the doorway that leads to the next neutral cell." Susan pointed down at the floor just before Max waded through yet another doorway. "See? We're in cell 47."
"I see," said Cindy. "So we'll be in cell 52 in just five more doorways."
"Correct."
The Equalisers soon reached cell 52 ...
Cell 52 was packed with a massive amount of highly advanced technological equipment.
"Oh my goodness," exclaimed Tony. "Would you take a look at all this gear! This is a science officer's paradise."
"This is one of the Tesseract hexagon cells we often work from," said Susan. "The adaptable doorway portals have been especially adapted to concentrate on time shifts and parallel universe shifts, and even each of those within themselves. I should have mentioned that each Tesseract hexagon is unique and allows some doorway portals into places that no other Tesseract hexagons allow."
"Not sure I understood bits of that," said Cindy. "To be honest, I've never felt so dumb in all my life."
"Don't sweat it, Cindy," said Tony with an encouraging smile. "I'm sure your skills will soon be needed when we eventually get on with the task of somehow defeating the humanotics. I'm sure Susan, Sylvia and Max are about to come up with some sort of incredible attack strategy."
"See that large desk?" Susan pointed to a large desk that looked much like the Main Controls Desk found on the bridge of an Equaliser starship. "That's the Main Computer Desk. From that desk every device in the lunar HTH can be accessed and operated."
"Cool," remarked Tony.
"Yes, well," said Max, "first things first. We need to secure the lunar HTH—not to mention ourselves."
Max walked up to the Main Computer Desk. He leaned forward to examine its computer monitors, and seemed to be checking something he had been working on in his notebook. He ignored the chair because he was in his spacesuit.
"I take it you're planning on going somewhere where you will need the protection of your spacesuit," remarked Sylvia, knowing Max well.
"Yes, yes, that's right. And talking of Cindy and her usefulness, I intend to make use of her imminently." He turned his head to Cindy. "I take it you know how to teleport the entire lunar HTH to the Main Cargo Bay of the starship Equity. You are, after all, the starship's Chief Security Officer."
"I would have to be on board the Bridge of the Equity and start up its teleportation system from the Main Controls Desk. But how could I get on board the locked down Equity, as far as I can see, we're trapped in this lunar HTH? Moreover, even if I could, Equaliser teleportation has been disabled by the humanotics, so how could I use its teleportation system?"
"With reference to the preliminary questions, I asked Tony when we were all enjoying our MER-2 Earth to Moon liquid-hydrogen rocket flight, to confirm that the Equity was in lockdown status and hidden somewhere relatively nearby before the humanotics disabled Equaliser teleportation. Can you confirm this, Cindy?"
"Yes," answered Cindy.
"And since it was put in lockdown and hidden has anybody entered it?"
"No. Not as far as Tony and I know. Of course, it might be possible that one of the Bridge crew with Equity teleportation rights, teleported on board without my permission for some obscure reason, but I doubt it."
"Good. That is what I would have expected. So do you realise what I'm going to do now, Cindy?"
Cindy shrugged her shoulders.
"Tony?" Max gave Tony the opportunity to answer the same question.
"I would expect that you are going to open a doorway portal into a time period prior to the humanotic disablement of Equaliser teleportation, so that Cindy can teleport from this prior time period onto the Bridge of the Equity, and teleport the lunar HTH into the Equity's Main Cargo Bay. That's why you asked me if the area of a football field could be stored on the Equity. Don't worry, the lunar HTH will easily fit into the Main Cargo Bay."
"That is exactly what I intend to happen," said Max.
"Can Tony assist me?" asked Cindy. "We can get the job done quicker that way."
"That will not be a problem," said Max. "The faster the better. Can you confirm that the Equity was in lockdown, hidden and unoccupied on Wednesday, September 23rd, 4229?"
"Yes, and a handful of months before that."
"Fine," said Max. "In that case, I have calculated the dial readings that will open a doorway portal to midday on that date. So, Tony and Cindy, put on your teleportation bracelets and spacesuit helmets. Once you step through my dialled-in doorway to the past, you will be in the Tesseract hexagon located right at the centre of the lunar HTH, that's cell 136. It will be September 23rd, 4229. I chose that date, not only because teleportation will be possible, but because the lunar HTH was unoccupied on that date. It is important when dabbling with trips into the past that you avoid as many paradoxes as possible. It wouldn't do for any of us to bump into ourselves. Thus, this provides greater stability and allows an initial quantum superposition certainty. Then the pair of you will then do as Tony suggested. Teleport to the Bridge of the Equity and then teleport the lunar HTH into the Main Cargo Bay."
"By the way, is it safe to be using this cell 52 equipment?" asked Cindy. "What about humanotic surveillance?"
"We are safe inside the entire lunar HTH," put in Susan, "provided its entrance door is closed. I can see from the status lights on our surveillance equipment here in this Tesseract hexagon that the humanotics have not entered the cavern outside yet, nor even the Ventilation Filter Station."
Tony and Cindy unstrapped their spacesuit backpacks and eagerly searched them for their teleportation bracelets, looking forward to using them again. Fortunately, they found them. They strapped them on their spacesuit-covered wrists and Sylvia and Zach helped them put their backpacks back on. Then, with a quick lock of their spacesuit helmets, they were ready to go.
Max walked over to a doorway portal and set the dials according to his calculations.
"Don't forget that you can use your spacesuit helmet's standard communications system," he said. "September 23rd, 4229, is early enough to avoid detection by humanotic surveillance systems, as will all of your teleportation executions. Right, good luck!"
Max gestured for Tony and Cindy to step through the doorway portal.
* * *
Tony looked around the Tesseract hexagon ...
He spied a circular label on the floor by a doorway on one of the Tesseract hexagon's six walls.
"Look!" he said, pointing to the label ...
"Yes, I can read it," said Cindy. "136. So Max has dialled in the correct place he claimed he would. But what about the date?"
Tony lifted up his teleportation bracelet and pressed a few of its buttons. Its touch sensitive face showed the time and date ...
"Max scores again," he said. "My teleportation bracelet has calibrated to the current network Equaliser time and it's just past midday Wednesday, September 23rd, 4229."
"Right on," added Cindy, looking at the time and date on her own teleportation bracelet.
"Race you to the Bridge!" exclaimed Tony, playfully. He managed to manipulate his teleportation bracelet adeptly despite wearing spacesuit gloves.
In response to his manipulations, he materialised on Equity's Bridge.
Cindy was nowhere to be seen ... but then she appeared.
"Beat you," teased Tony.
"You took me unawares," protested Cindy.
"Yeah, well, I knew that was the only way to beat you."
"Right, well, let's teleport the lunar HTH into the Main Cargo Bay and hope Max knows what he's doing. I'm no science expert, but it seems an incredibly risky thing to do."
"I agree, and I am a professional scientist—well at least a starship Science Officer."
"Grade 2," added Cindy with a hint of sarcasm.
"No need to rub it in Senior Security Officer Cindy Lee. Let's just do the business. We owe that much to the greatest scientific mind of our lifetime."
Cindy walked over to the Bridge's Main Controls Desk from which all starship functions could be executed. For the time being, the various Bridge stations that specialised in particular subsets of these starship functions would remain unoccupied.
"I'll just start up enough starship systems to do the job, so don't take off your spacesuit helmet as I'm not starting up any life-support systems.
"Understood."
"Hmm, I'm going to have to clear out a lot of cargo from the Main Cargo Bay. I'll quickly teleport it to a vacant area in the Shuttlecraft Bay. Just give me a few minutes ..."
Five minutes later ...
"Took a bit longer than I thought," said Cindy, "as I wanted to make sure the floor area required was absolutely spotless. Probably not required, but even I know that a HTH must maintain a high degree of structural integrity."
"Good call," agreed Tony. "A single loose bolt on the floor might just happen to affect the structural integrity of a single Tesseract hexagonal cell teleporting on top of it. What if that Tesseract hexagonal cell is numbered 136? We might never be able to step back from it into the cell 52 of the future. Trust me, I'm a Grade 2 starship Science Officer."
"Most amusing. Tony. Ready?"
"I'm more than ready. Teleport that lunar HTH!" Tony gave Cindy an emphatic spacesuit helmet nod.
Cindy's gloved fingers led a merry dance upon a touch sensitive computer pad on the Main Controls Desk ...
"Teleportation complete," she said. She continued examining her computer pad ... "Everything appears to be stable. No radical neutrino activity or anything like that."
"Excellent," said Tony, checking teleportation information displayed on Cindy's computer pad. "So now, I believe, the lunar HTH is not only on the Bridge of the Equity here on September 23rd, 4229, but will also be on the Bridge of the Equity in the future. We just travelled from."
"How come?"
"Just trust me on this."
"Okay." Cindy shrugged her shoulders. "So can we now teleport back to cell 136?"
"Yes," answered Tony. "Hopefully our teleportation bracelets can find it. We can't use a simple teleportation return function, because the universal coordinates of the cell have moved, as the lunar HTH moved. Just a moment and I'll see if I can locate it."
Tony worked away on his teleportation bracelet ...
Moments later ...
"Got it!" announced Tony, triumphantly. "I'll show you how I did it."
Tony walked Cindy through the manipulations required to locate cell 136.
"Ready to teleport?" asked Cindy.
"As per usual," replied Tony.
"Race you back to—" started to say Cindy, but Tony had already vanished.
Tony materialised in cell 136.
A second later, Cindy materialised next to him.
"Beat you again," said Tony.
"You may be a Grade 2 starship Science Officer, but I would rank you as a lowly Grade 5 comedian."
"Is that an insult which I see hurled upon me, A phrase toward my helmeted ear? Come, let me crush thee." Tony grinned gormlessly inside his spacesuit helmet.
"Huh?" Cindy's spacesuit helmet could not hide her befuddled look.
"I might not know much about the poetry of the Baroness Orczy. I might not know much about poetry at all. But who doesn't know a little of the works of the Bard."
"What are you talking about?"
"William Shakespeare. I manipulated a small piece of poetry from his play Macbeth."
"Congratulations, Tony," said Cindy sarcastically, "but I really do think we should step back through the doorway we entered this Tesseract hexagon from and hope we join the others in cell 52, in our normal future current time zone."
* * *
Through the doorway, Tony and Cindy triumphantly returned.
"We did it," said Cindy after removing her spacesuit helmet.
"Yes," replied Max, "our instruments showed the shift in the lunar HTH's universal coordinates. So, we must quickly get on with the last part of my plan to secure the lunar HTH and ourselves. Right now, the lunar HTH is in the Main Cargo Bay of the Equity. If the humanotics discover the locked down starship and destroy it, then all is lost. Of course, their chances would be incredibly small. However, who knows what surveillance instruments their scouting starship might have at its disposal."
"So what's the plan now, Max?" asked Tony, his spacesuit helmet in his hand.
"We all go back into Tesseract hexagon cell 136, to September 23rd, 4229, with our spacesuit helmets on, We all link arms and teleport to the Equity's Bridge, as Tony must have the coordinates to the Bridge in his recent teleportation bracelet jaunt memory, and thus he will act as the primary teleporter. Then, according to my theoretical suppositions, the moment the back-in-time Equity shifts even just a hair's width, its current position here in our usual current time zone will become invisible to the humanotics. And providing we keep the back-in-time starship moving, it will remain invisible until we come to a relative stop."
"Are you sure about that?" asked Cindy.
"Oh yes," replied Max. "But I'd rather not go into the exact details as you might counter with the fact that nothing can be truly still, but trust me, if we come to a halt with the starship, it stabilises the atoms. And that would mean that if the humanotics in this current time zone come across the same relative position, they will see the Equity. It would be empty, but not in lockdown status. If they destroy it—they destroy us. So we will find a hiding place somewhere in the universe in September 23rd, 4229. Then we will return to the usual current Equaliser time zone back in this Tesseract hexagon cell 52. And then, of course, if the humanotics find the hidden Equity, we will certainly kiss the universe goodbye, and by corollary, the universe will kiss the Equalisers goodbye."
"Are you sure about all this, Max?" asked Sylvia, looking quite concerned.
Max smiled, and simply said, "Let's find out, it's not as if we have any other options." He gave the others a happy wink, indicating that he was highly confident of success.
And so, the six Equalisers donned their spacesuit helmets and stepped into Tesseract hexagon cell 136 at twenty-six minutes after midday on September 23rd, 4229. From there they locked elbows and allowed Tony to teleport them to the Equity's Bridge.
Immediately upon materialising on the Bridge, everyone quickly unstrapped their spacesuit backpacks to get more comfortable. There were no life support systems running, so everyone had to keep on their spacesuits; however, the virtual Earth-like gravity was running because it was not in any way electromagnetic and was non-detectable.
"Should I just start up the engines and start lifting off?" asked Cindy, heading off to the Flight Controls Desk.
"I'll do that," said Zach. "After all, I have starship piloting experience and have captained starships on occasions. I'll do it from the omnipotent Main Controls Desk."
Zach rushed to the Main Controls Desk and started up the flight controls.
"Ah, so you've simply hidden the Equity under a thick layer of moon dust at the edge of a solidified lava flow," said Zach, looking at some flight control monitor screens.
"You've got it, Zach," said Cindy.
"Good," said Zach. "Engines on and off we go—provided we are not laser-blasted out of existence before we can move."
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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.