Free Steam City Pirates by Jim Musgrave Page B

you control where I will be sent?”
    “Oh yes! There is a time-space gauge that monitors the place on the light spectrum when a particular year took place. Thus, when your body reaches a point when the twisting light causes the exact gravity needed for that specific date and time, you pull the lever and you will be there. You shall not be here, of course,” he said, waving his hand. “But you can use your machine to send yourself back to this date and time whenever you believe you have seen enough.”
    I had reached a time and place in my life that I really never wanted to reach. I could accept the supernatural reality of Seth Mergenthaler and his ability to prognosticate future crimes, and I could even face evil mazikeen or the perpetrators themselves, but when it came to the possibility of time travel, I was horrified deep within my psyche. My fear came from my Catholic upbringing and the idea that one cannot tinker with God’s creation the way it has been established.
    I suppose my fear was at the heart of why science and religion have been mortal enemies for so long. Whereas science held fast to the idea that change was good, religion wanted life to remain secure and predictable. If time travel were possible, so my thinking went, then it meant we could know God’s plan for us in advance. Where was the miraculous nature of being unsure of the future? How can my faith in a higher power mean anything when I can see the past and the future all laid out in front of my mortal eyes like a three-dimensional road map? There was something about time travel that sent my mind reeling in terror at the possibilities. I was so afraid that I knew I had to express it to my comrades.
    “Have you traveled with this machine?” I asked Seth. Perhaps I could dissuade him from his need to recruit me by changing the subject.
    “I’m sorry. I should have told you before, but mazikeen cannot travel through time. Because we are one-half spirit, the magnetic charge in our physical essence is not enough to blend with the space-time light. We do not have enough gravity to make a trip through time,” said Seth.
    “Seth may be a genius, Mister O’Malley, but he behaves like a genius only to you,” said Bessie, his mother. “I must see the eight-year-old, and I don’t particularly want my only child to be confronting dangerous criminals,” she added.
    “Mother, the mazikeen have been facing danger for thousands of years. As you are a daughter of Lilith, I would assume you would know,” Seth said.
    “Please, let us keep family disagreements out of this discussion,” said Doctor Adler. “We must focus on confronting the possible dangers in our present. To do this, Mister O’Malley, we need to visit the future. You said this yourself. Why are you now so hesitant?”
    I certainly did not want to admit my religious fear to Rabbi Adler, or to any of the others, for that matter. It was one proposition to believe in the intuitive meditation exercises that Becky taught me from her transcendental practices. It was quite another proposition to place myself inside this capsule that had yet to be tested. However, if we were to remain competitive with our adversaries, I needed to take the risk.
    When Walter McKenzie and his men arrived, I was seated inside the time machine. I could feel my heart pounding inside my chest, and my mouth was like sandpaper. I could hear nothing but Seth’s voice, as he spoke into a device attached to the crystal capsule. He explained that it would be removed when I started up the machine.
    I looked around and saw McKenzie pointing at me inside my tomb. His 315 pounds of Plug Ugliness was shaking like gelatin as he laughed. I would have some words with him if I ever returned from this alive. He had only one of his men with him, big Bill McGuire, the identical twin whose brother, Dan, was killed during our escapades with Jane the Grabber.
    “Detective O’Malley? Can you hear me?” Seth asked, peering at me through