Weslee looked from me to Perki and back to me again with a look of disinterest. "When do we eat, Doc?" he asked.

   I didn't know whether to just groan or if I should slap him.   Just like Perki and me he doesn't really need to eat that much.   But he's preoccupied with his stomach just the same.   I finally settled for putting my hands on my hips and snapping at him, "Weslee!   Now's not the time!"

   He gave me hurt, defiant look, "Waddya mean, Doc?   It's always a good time to eat!   And what more perfect spot for a picnic?   Why, there's no ants here or little kids to ask nosy questions and we certainly don't have to worry about finding a spot!"

   I looked at him closely.   Was he being sarcastic at Perki's expense or did he really believe what he'd just said?   I didn't think he'd be that cruel.   Maybe it was just thoughtlessness.   But with Weslee you just never knew, sometimes.   I decided to try to ignore him.   Sometimes that works.   I turned back towards Perki.   But she wasn't standing there beside me anymore!   Looking wildly around, thinking she might have translated for some reason -- it wouldn't be inconsistent with her strange behavior of the last little while -- I saw that she was instead striding resolutely across the red sand back towards Edgar. "Look what you've done now, Weslee," I shouted and took off after Perki!

   I turned back momentarily to see if he was following us.   He was still standing there with a nonplussed look on his face.   Then a look of horror crossed his face. "Wait, Doc!   Don't leave me alone here in this ghost town!" he yelled as he came charging after me.   I chuckled wryly and ran on.

   By the time I caught up to Perki I wasn't laughing at Weslee anymore.   In fact I wasn't laughing at anything.   I was tired of being stonewalled.   Perki stepped inside Edgar with me right behind her.   I did something then that I wasn't proud of, something I had never done before, but this was also something very different for Perki.   I grabbed her by the arm, swung her around to face me, pinned her in place against the back wall by her shoulders and said, as forcefully as I knew how, "Perki!   What is this all about?   Dammit!   Talk to me!"

   She stiffened in my grasp, but gave no sign that sh'd heard me otherwise.   It was looking into the eyes of a zombie!   For a moment I was just tempted to let her go.   Instead I escalated my demands, still not proud of myself, but feeling it had to be done.   I shook her until her teeth clicked together.   All at once she went limp in my grasp.

   She sagged against me for a moment and then, looking up at me like a litle lost child, she whispered, "I promise I'll explain everything when we get back there in this world's past."   In that same tremulous voice, she pleaded, "OK, Doc?   OK?"

   I looked her in the eyes for a moment.   Gathering her in my arms tenderly this time, I replied, "OK.   But just until then.   I'll trust you until then." Leaning forward, I kissed her, like a father kisses a frightened child.

   In my peripheral vision, I saw Weslee enter Edgar at this moment.   He cleared his throat loudly.   When we didn't break the embrace immediately, he said, "Don't we have a some temporal apparitions to visit -- or something?" Weslee persists in maintainting that Perki and are carrying some torrid affair.   While it's true that we are very much attracted to each other -- almost in love, one could say -- it's not quite the big deal that he says it is.

   I broke the embrace after giving Perki one last meaningful look, saw that she was going to be OK -- for now, despite Weslee's clumsy attempt at humor -- and turned to look up at Edgar, ignoring Weslee again.   Weslee went into the corner to pout.   I said to Edgar, "Wherever milady wants to go, we shall go!"

   In his usual cultured, silky voice, Edgar replied, "Not a problem, sire!   I have taken the liberty of already entering the co-ordinates."   His doors closed and we were off.

   Describing traveling in time is impossible -- at least not exactly.   I could engage in all kinds of metaphors, I could use all kinds of descriptive language, but I could never completely tell you how it really is.   It's something you'd have to experience yourself.   The closest I can come is to say that it's like entering a ghostly world where everything has substance and yet nothing does.   It's like this old rock song from back in the sixties on earth: First there was a mountain, then there was no mountain then there is.

   When we got to the point in time that Perki had directed Edgar to and we could see clearly on his monitor again, we saw that it might not have been the same world. This world had an ocean.   It was shimmering blue in the near distance; it's wave slapping against the shore.   Also the gray mountains were no longer completely bare gray rock.   Only the very tops of the mountains were gray bare rock; now the lower two thirds of the mountains were covered with vegetation up to the top of the timber line.   The red sand was no where in evidence.   Instead there was grass and flowers and shrubs and all the usual flora of a living, vital planet.   But the biggest change was the fact that the city was no longer there.   In it's place was a village of wood and hide huts surrounded by a pole stockade.

   I knew better than to ask Perki if this was indeed the same world.   Edgar is flawless in his temporal navigation.   Besides I had half expected to see something like this.   The city by the dead, dry ocean was something advanced, civilized people would build and it was possible that Perki's involvement had started long before that level of civilization had arisen.   I'd had the distinct impression that she was showing us the end product of her ill advised intervention -- whatever that intervention had been.   I suspected that now we were going to see why she had engaged in that intervention.   But I had one question that needed to be answered first.

   "Perki!   How are we going to work this?   I mean if you've already been here you will be recognized again.   And it seems to me that you certainly don't want to run into your past self here.   So what is your plan?"   I wasn't worried about being seen for the moment.   Edgar had set us down in a grove of trees that was some distance from the village.   That grove of trees effectively hid us from sight for the time being.   And should anyone from the village venture near us Edgar could always go out of phase for as long as it took for them to go away.   However it would do us no good to just sit here and observe from a distance and I was sure that Perki had more in mind than that.

   From the look on Perki's face I could tell that she thought the answer should be obvious to me.   However, that wasn't fair.   Being from an advanced alien race and since she'd had access to Edgar a lot longer than me, she'd had more experience with this time travel stuff than I'd had.   I'd had plenty of experience with her and Weslee traveling in space, sure and I had even traveled foward in time once .   But that was to the future and this was the past and therefore it WASN'T obvious to me.   I mean, it seemed to me that the two were different.   "OK," I said, "Spell it out for me."

   Perki gave me a very sweet, very patient look.   Good!   She was back to her old self again -- at least for the moment. "The past is very real, at least to those that are in it.   I mean, the past selves are still here or else the continuity of time would be broken and the present and the future would cease to exist.   It -- to put it as simply as possible -- has to do with the conversation of energy; that works in space as well as time or else it doesn't work at all.   Because we are from the present, their future, they won't be able to see us and --" Perki began."

   "Wait a minute!" I interjected, "what do you mean they won't be able to see us? I mean, we're here and present aren't we?   How could they not see us?"   Then something scary occurred to me, "We're not ghosts are we?"   I held my hands out, palms up in supplication, "Please say we aren't!" Then I pretended to shudder, but I was only halfways faking it.   What had I let myself in for?   When Perki had insisted on this trip I had not really thought it through this far.   I had been more focused on helping her do whatever it was that she needed or wanted to do -- if only because it would help her lay her ghosts to rest.   But now that we were here I wasn't so sure it had been such a good idea after all.   I was thinking I should have looked before I leapt.   How did I know this wasn't something permanent?   Maybe Perki had snapped and I had joined her nightmare forever?

   Weslee chose this moment to chuckle indulgently at my ignorance.   I snapped at him, "What's so funny, furry buddy?   You're back here too, you know and how do you know that --?"

   Perki cut me off, still smiling sweetly, patiently, "Well, we ARE ghosts of a sort -- if that's what you want to call it --" I started to say that I was getting out of here, but Perki, travating what I was about to say, cut me off, holding up a forestalling hand, and grinning at me to show that she had been joking, "Let me finish!"   I nodded reluctantly that she should continue. "OK.   Here's what the deal is.   Since we are from their future -- our present -- to them we are only potentialities. As such they can't see us.   It's like the potential futures in our lives.   Can we see them?   Of course not! And of course potentialities are infinitesimal moments in time.   So --"

   I wiped my brow with an exaggerated motion and sighed overly loud as if in great relief.   But in reality I was now on the same page she was, "That means we can observe them and see anything we want and watch the whole past unfold if we want, just like watching a movie and it will not take the rest of our lives since we are only potentialities.   But to what purpose?   I mean it's not going to change anything, so what's the point?"

   Perki looked at me like she had the weight of the universe on her shoulders and for all I knew she might have.   The thing I was most impressed with as I waited for her answer was the fact that she'd managed to keep this from driving her in the ground for the whole time I had knew her.   It seemed she was stronger than I knew and I was even more enamored of her.

   "The point is, Doc, that I want to get across this message: Be careful, be VERY careful what you say to someone.   And even more -- be VERY careful what you believe!   Now shall we get out and watch the show?" Perki said, in a strange combination of bitterness and wistfulness.

   I thought I already knew the point Perki was trying to make.   I thought I was already conversant with that wisdom.   And at that moment I thought that the lesson she was about to teach must, therefore,be extraordinary.   I had no idea that it was beyond being able to be described as extraordinary.

   We all got out of Edgar and began walking through the trees towards the stockade in the near distance.   Lost in thought I fell a bit behind Weslee and Perki.   Amongst other things I was wondering what it would feel like to be a "ghost" to these people who were ghosts of a sort themselves.   And I was also wondering what it would be like to watch people live their whole lives right in front of me -- in what would seem to me like mere hours.   Or would it be that way after all?   Being a relativistic situation, would it seem like we were living our lives right along with them, matching them moment for moment and hour for hour -- only to find out upon our return to Edgar that nowhere near that amount of time had passed?   Then something occurred to me.   A question I needed Perki to answer for me.   Noticing I had fell behind I began to hurry along to catch up.

   As I came up behind them I saw that Weslee once again, when my attention had not been on him, had changed his T shirt.   In it's usual spot on the back this T shirt read: "I'd go into the LIGHT -- IF I could find it!   Instead I'm just passing through!   Please excuse my ghostly presence!"   Chuckling under my breath I joined them.   Weslee always seemed to nail the situation dead on.

   "Perki!   I have a question." I said as I stepped next to her side.   She gave me a look that urged me to go on as she reached out and took my hand. "Um since we are not from this people's past why are we potentialities to them?   I mean, I understand that you have been here before, but what about Weslee and me?"

   She gave me an indulgent grin.   But Weslee interrupted her before she had a chance to say anything.   "That's an easy one, Doc!   Even I know the answer to that one!   Since we were not alive in this branch of the "river of time" our existence can only be posited.   That makes our existence operate in the the Uncertainty Principle and that makes us potentialities!"   He grinned at me like a naughty school boy showing off for his fellows.

   What Weslee had just said was a mind bender, but I understood it, sort of, even if it did give me a headache of sorts.   But if nothing else it further illuminated the saying on his T shirt.   We were indeed "just passing through" -- just like Schroedinger's cat! "OKaaaay," I said, as we came within a few feet of the entrance to the stockade, "Now what?"   But then it came to me.   The answer to my own question.   "Never mind the question.   I know the answer already." I said, giving Perki a meaningful look.

   "What?   What is it, Doc?   I can't say that I like the way your looking at me." Perki smiled in fake alarm.

   "Relax!" I told her, grinning back, "It's not gonna be a big deal.   It's just that I suddenly realized that's it's your story.   As such it should be told from your point of view!"

   This time her alarm was for real.   "But -- but -- I can't do that!   You're the writer around her!   I'd probably just mess it up and I wouldn't be able to keep my perspective and my editorial distance.   I mean, I'd get too involved and that wouldn't be fair to me or the reader and --"

   "It'll be fine!" I said, making soothing motions.   "I'll look over your shoulder and play editor with you, if you want me to or if I think you need me too.   But I still think it should be told from here on out from your point of view since you're the one that lived it.   From time to time we'll take interludes and Weslee and I will ask questions to help clarify it in our minds.   Fair enough?"

   She still looked doubtful.   But finally she nodded agreement, albeit reluctantly. "If you think I can and you think it's best --"

   "Wow!" Weslee said, "Perki's gonna be an author!   And that means I'll be famous by two different authors!"

   "Not so fast, Weslee!" Perki said, giving him a shaky smile. "You might want to get an agent so you can sue me!"

   "Naw!   I'll just sue old Doc here!" Weslee gave me an evil grin.

   "You don't even want to go there, Weslee.   "I'll just write you out!" I said, returning his evil grin to him.

   Weslee clutched his chest and staggered around. "Oh the perfidy!   Oh the ingratitude!"

   "Stop it you two!   This is not a laughing matter!" Perki said, chuckling despite herself.   Then she sobered. "Oh boy is this NOT a laughing matter.   OK. Here goes nothing . . . ."

   *********************************************************************  

   I came upon Fremala and Charianna quie by accident.   I don't believe in fate or karma or any other such nonsense.   No, I was simply young, bored and had powers that I did not fully appreciate; nor was I responsible with them.   Being bored, I was cruising through the universe in Edgar in search of a thrill and some way to show off my powers.   Fremala caught my attention.   I had found several planets like Fremala in that sector of space that were at a very low level of civilization, but Fremala seemed to be at a singularly low level of civilization.   I thought Fremala would be the perfect place to assuage my ennui.   So I ordered Edgar down.

   Quite satisfied with my choice and quite impressed with myself I got out of Edgar and looked around by the light of the four quarter moons; quarter moons that were arranged in the sky in such a way that they looked like the blunt ends of fingernails clawing at the sky.   Was that arrangement of moons an omen?   I thought not and still do.   It was mere coincidence!   In any case, it wouldn't have mattered to me had there been no moonlight at all since I can see in the dark as well as any cat, but I HAD landed on the night side of the planet because I wanted the advantage of night's cover -- at least for the moment -- and because I had seen that there were settlements of a sort on this side of the planet that I figured were just as good as any to check out.   Edgar had confirmed that the so called level of civilization was uniformly low all over the planet, therefore there was no reason to favor one portion of the planet over another -- other than the simple logistics I have just mentioned.

   Near where I had landed in the cover of thick forest, was a clearing.   In that clearing I could see a village of rude huts surrounded by a stockade of vertical, sharpened poles.   I considered a moment.   Did I want to announce my presence with a bit of showmanship or did I want to be a bit more devious and sneak up on the situation?   After a bit more thought I decided that it would be a bit more to my advantage if I checked out the lay of the land, as it were, for a bit, instead of just jumping right in.   I had no fear for my personal safety; I was, as I said, quite impressed with my abilities.   But I figured that things would go better if I took my time.   No use rushing things and ending up bored again just that quickly.   As it turned out I did not have any need to fear being bored right away. Not knowing that and satisfied with my decision I left Edgar behind and began my cautious approach towards the stockade.

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