Free THE VROL TRILOGY by S.K. Benton Page A

door, and almost
dropped his newly acquired medicine on the floor. There, on his
bed, was Draagh, passed out, snoring, partially disrobed, and
wearing what appeared to be some sort of cloth diaper.
    "Nooooooo!" Max painfully yelled out.
"Crap, it wasn't a dream!"
    He backed up, tossed the pain med
concoction down his throat and bounded up the stairs to the
cockpit, sitting in the pilot's chair, trying to get his brain
straight with his head in his hands and yelling, "A diaper. Oh my
God, he's wearing a diaper! Draagh! Wake up!"
    Max started clanging some scrap metal
pieces together as Draagh tried to get out of bed, but ended up
falling on the gray deck of the cabin. Then, quickly righting
himself and dressing, he exited the small room with a slight
stumble and a feeble smile.
    "Good morning, my son," he said, in his
most authoritative voice, "Shall I assist you in preparing to break
the fast?"
    "Huh?" replied Max as he dropped his
scrap pieces, making loud clanging noises. He then stepped into the
galley and grabbed some foodstuffs from the refrigerator. "Naw,
that's ok. I'll cook up some desa. It's a camping trip, after all.
Just a camping trip on a distant planet - where aliens wiped out
the majority of humanity, and military forces are coming to kill
me. No big deal - I'll cook. Not like it's weird or anything,
right? Immortal Viking dude in a diaper?"
    Max made a silly face, which was good.
It showed he had come to terms with the fact that he was in the
company of someone with perhaps the ability to save his hide, if it
came down to that. Or at least he believed this to be true.
Trotting out the back of the Machu Picchu, he used his Stinger on a
low setting and torched some wood, starting the fire up again. He
then set a screen over the flames and put down his cast iron
skillet. Eggs and jraxon meat - that was on the menu. He didn't
have coffee grounds, so they would have to settle for synth'd
coffee from the dispenser, but it tasted good anyway.
    Sitting on their respective logs, both
men ate in silence. Draagh looked no worse for wear, as he ate the
hot meal that Max had expertly prepared in a matter of minutes.
Once finished, Max took their plates and set them down off to the
side, and then looking at Draagh with a stern
expression.
    "Ok Draagh, can you tell me more? You
said something about going somewhere, and I have a feeling that you
left a lot out."
    Draagh went for his pipe, but then
reconsidered. "Max, last night our conversation went all over the
place. That was simply normal, as we had met for the first time and
you had numerous questions, but now I am going to speak, and I need
for you to listen. I need for you to listen, understand and believe
everything I am about to tell you. Are you fine with
this?"
    Max made a deadpan expression and
nodded. "Ok, dude, I'm game. Speak away."
    "There are many worlds in
the universe. Yes, hundreds of trillions of worlds. In these many
worlds there have been civilizations that have come and gone -
empires that existed long before fish on Earth crawled out of the
oceans and took their first breaths of deadly atmosphere. Mankind
is not alone in the universe, as you already might have surmised.
There indeed is an alien fleet on its way to Azul, and your people are
alarmed - for good reason, I might add. Every society needs to do
its utmost to protect itself, but time is not linear, nor is it in
a loop. It is more like a - how can I put it - a bicycle wheel.
Have you seen the wheels of a bicycle?"
    "Sure I am," Max said as he nodded. He
had bicycles when he was a child, so he was familiar with the
concept of spoked wheels.
    Draagh waved his hand in the air and
conjured a holograph that vaguely resembled a bicycle wheel, but
with complex, moving spokes. Max watched intently as animated light
from the holograph moved across his face. The old man moved his
fingers, causing the wheel to spin around, and then delicately
pulled at some of the spokes, bringing it into a zoomed view,