Chapter 5

Rules, Rules, Rules

Back on my side of the portal and tired. I remembered that I hadn’t been last time, but I had spent that night before sleeping on Crossroads before Helken told us she was pregnant. This time I had been up most of the night with Jessica and Beth. I had not had a restorative before I left and with little rest I was near dead on my feet. Looking at the clock and I guessed it was just fifteen minutes later, but I couldn’t recall.

Everything was a weird sensation; on one hand I had spent months away but was back fifteen minutes later. I would have to look over the writings of Samuel to figure out what he did for this. The pressing need now was for sleep, so I went to my bed and ended up sleeping the rest of that day and night.

Waking up alone startled me, and then it came to me that Beth was at Crossroads. Nature was making itself known, but I delayed going to relieve the pressure but thinking about the future here. Finally, the pressure won and I took a shower, shaved and made my way down to the kitchen. The thought of cooking a large meal wasn’t appealing as I knew I would eat each part of it as it finished cooking. So it was oatmeal and I still managed to eat a banana and some raisins that were going to be part of that. Finally, it was done and I finished off all of it with a couple of extra bananas. With that finished I cleaned up and went upstairs to work on my reading.

Samuel’s notes weren’t very helpful about the time phase as he called it. He thought that was why they didn’t have the Hero come back until after a week, but he wasn’t certain about that. It was time that my experiences started to be recorded. While I was searching around my mind I thought about the next time that someone from the office would come to see Samuel.

What would happen when they didn’t find him? If he wasn’t there and I met them in his stead would it make them curious where would that curiosity lead them? No doubt the police would be involved at some point, and I would become the prime suspect. They would search the house tearing it apart. That would have them finding everything that was here. Well, that was months off, and I would have to give it more thought. For now just chalked it up to no-good deed goes unpunished.

There had been a few women in my life since I came of age. Some as friends and others as friends with benefits, they used me, I used them and neither one cared came to mind from that old Bob Seger song. But thinking about Beth it was different, sure there were the benefits and there was the short period of not having to be together every day.

I wondered if she was trapped in Crossroads until her Hero died or retired. Of course there was only one way to discover anything about the rules for it. I read the Caretaker’s, Companion’s and Hero’s papers again. Everything was about going to Chaos and barely anything was written about coming back to Earth. It was a crazy idea, and I didn’t know if Beth even felt the same way about me. Finally, I put it all away. It was just after 2:00 It was no wonder that my stomach was giving me fits about being hungry.

The thought of my own cooking got me into the car and head back to the Wonder Burger. My mind was still playing tricks with me about how long it had been, since I had one. It tasted wonderful and then I went back to my apartment to pick up some more of my things. It was when I was packing up my papers when it hit me. Only paper could pass through the portal but paper could contain all kinds of information written on it. I had looked for a telescope on Chaos and there weren’t any, but if I brought the knowledge with me to build one then they only had to follow the directions. You might have to modify them some if they didn’t have something or could not make it, but odds were that they would come up with something that worked. Much the basic technology could be used there that way.

Somewhere from the back of my mind the idea of the prime directive from Star Trek popped up. I would be changing Chaos beyond its natural progression, and I shouldn’t do that. I sat in my chair and wondered about that for some time. I would be modifying the rules of the Powers that Be. Even so, if they were these great powers and could set all of this up. Why would they have left such gaps?

That led to more questions, none of which were answered in the rules. I loaded up my car and headed back to the house. Everything unloaded, I took my papers with me and created new piles for them since there were books everywhere still. How long would it be before the powers that be would send someone to see me about traipsing though their rose garden modifying the rules?

To this point my bending of the rules should have not caused much damage unless you considered Samantha coming back pregnant. Beth would likely know what the ramification of that were. That was something else to ask her when we were together.

Consequently, I spent the rest of the week gathering papers about all kinds of basic items. The papers would be kept in my possession either on my person or locked away in the box so control could be preserved. Breaking each of the parts down so I could have different people work on it would keep the secrets awhile longer. But I wasn’t foolish enough to think that if I brought a new technology there that it would be only mine forever.

I went up to the portal holding an armful of papers and into my room at Crossroads papers still in hand. Beth came out looking as lovely as ever and after the papers were put down, she came into my arms. Our bodies molded to each other as we shared a tender kiss. The passion rose and she led me to the bedroom. It was after the third set of restoratives with her head lying on my chest when we spoke of more than out love for each other. “Beth; my love, what do you do here while I am on Earth?”

“I wait for your return, look over the missions and work on my body to keep it desirable for you.”

“Nothing else? No communication with others?”

“Well, all the Caretakers can talk with each other. But we don’t talk to anyone on Cassandra; the Powers that Be thought that it would lead to us getting homesick. I did get that way a little this past week with you gone, but now I am over it.”

“I have a question that I want you to think about while I am on this next mission. Please don’t answer it now; just promise to think about it.”

“Okay,” she said with a curiosity in her voice.

So I asked, “If you could go back to Earth with me after the mission was done; would you?”

She took her head from my chest and looked me in the eyes. “How could I do that?”

“It’s just a theory is all.”

“Your last theory got Samantha Caretaker pregnant.”

“Well it was actually more than the theory that got her pregnant.”

“You are so bad.” And she kissed me.

We went through two more restoratives before we finally stopped to rest. I woke when she brought breakfast into the room. We sat in bed feeding each other until it was finished and then headed to the shower. Working the shampoo into her hair as she leaned back against me, she asked, “Did you want me to go with you?”

“The thought has crossed my mind.”

“What would happen if I did?”

“I don’t know. You might get the same burning feeling that I do after the Damsel has confirmed she is pregnant.”

“You would have to bring me right back then. And that would mean another mission.”

“Yes, that is one scenario; the other is that you might not have that feeling, and you would be able to stay with me.”

“I wonder if I would get pregnant if I stayed on Earth with you.”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead. However, if you were off Crossroads, whatever the powers that be have done so that you do not conceive might not work on Earth.”

I helped rinse her hair then, and we finished our shower. The loving was tender and complete, and she rested her head on my chest again. “Would you want me to be with you on Earth?”

Ah the loaded question: what did I want? It was a struggle for me already and now Beth wanted to know more. No way to blame her for that. When she was not with me, my heart was sad and I longed for her. “I would like it if you were with me on Earth.”

I got some very intensive loving that required four — no maybe it was five — restoratives. It doesn’t matter at this point. She knew how I felt about her now without coming out and saying it. We could have stayed like this forever. There was not a time limit imposed on how long we were together but the Damsel was waiting to be rescued and that was my job as Hero after all.

So we reviewed the missions together. The one that was the most desperate was Damsel Joan; she was captured by some river pirates to the west. The early journey would be safe but after a month of travel, I would head out to the western edge and that was a wild area. The trick would be finding her on the river as the pirates moved about. She was on one of the ships they used, but there was no way to know where she would be when we arrived.

“What are all of those papers you brought?” Beth finally asked.

“Well, when I read the rules it said that I could only bring paper with me. However, it didn’t say what could be on those papers. Consequently, I have the knowledge of how to build something that I might need when I am on Chaos.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I would like a telescope, but I haven’t had any luck finding one. So I thought I could have parts of it built along the way and then put it altogether.”

“That is very clever of you. What else?”

“Steel for swords and I brought some information on the Japanese way to construct a sword. With steel, they make some of the best swords on Earth.”

“You’re changing the rules.”

“No, I think the rules that matter are hard and fast. All I am doing is looking for the gray areas and seeing if they can be bent. Who knows? The Powers that Be might have wanted this to happen. It is, after al, l the rules or lack of them that they set up.”

I got a kiss from Beth. “You may be right but you have to be very careful, or you could be facing enemies with those weapons.”

“Exactly.”

“You need to get going, I know, but for some reason I want to make love with you again before you do.”

“I try; not good to have the love of my life unhappy.”

She looked at me “I’m the love of your life? Is that why you want to try to take me to Earth?”

She was all over me then. It was hard to finally break away once we had finished. She was the love of my life and everything I looked for in a woman. But we both knew that I had to go.

So after one last time, a shower and restorative she led me to the portal. “Goodbye my love. I will think of you often.”