THURBER'S WORLD
by
Elizabeth Ann Trigg
Copyright 2007 by Elizabeth Ann Trigg
Smashwords Edition
ISBN: 978-0-9813449-7-3
Fiction
This book is a work of fiction in its entirety and any resemblance to any persons living or dead is mere coincidence.
CHAPTER 1
Eleven-year-old Thurber 7 Kane was awakened by the silence. He'd been born into the constant hum of the space station and the sudden absence of the background noise roused him better than the annoying morning buzzer.
"Mom!" Thurber screamed as he opened his eyes wider in the pitch-blackness. Even the red glow of the buttons by his door was gone. "Dad!"
The eerie silence caused his voice to bounce around in the darkness. He heard banging against his door and then his father's voice.
"It's Okay, Son," his father reassured him. "Just remain calm! There's some sort of power failure! Just relax! I'm sure it will be fixed in a few minutes."
"What's going on?" Garth groaned from the top bunk. Garth's consciousness was a comfort for the first time. Thurber's older brother was usually just a pain in the neck but at least Thurber wasn't alone in the sudden cold blackness. "I'm trying to sleep!"
Garth could sleep through anything, which was usually an asset to Thurber. That meant he could put his light back on and read as late as he wanted and Garth would never be disturbed. He could also talk to his best friend, Shane, on his pc, personal communicator, and Garth would be too sound asleep to complain.
"What's going on?" Garth asked again, his voice suddenly strong and alert. "What's happening?"
"Some sort of power failure, dad said," Thurber replied, unsettled by his brother's insecurity. He needed his older brother to make him feel safe in the darkness, but at 13 Garth sounded suddenly more afraid than Thurber felt.
"It's cold in here!" Garth's voice rose in alarm.
It was true, Thurber suddenly noticed. It had never been cold before. The temperature had always been perfect. With the sudden silence all around him, Thurber could hear his own heart beating. Just when he was sure he was going to pass out from sheer terror, the familiar hum kicked in and the glow from the panel beside his door returned. Thurber let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he'd been holding.
The door suddenly opened and his father rushed in, brushing his hand in front of the panel and turning on the overhead lights.
"Dad, what's going on?" Garth jumped down from his bunk, almost landing on Thurber who was already half out of his bunk.
"You boys okay?" Their father asked, grabbing them both in his arms at once.
"What's happening, Dad?" Thurber asked.
"Don’t know yet," he replied and glanced up as Thurber's mother and sister came into the room.
"Daddy!" Chadra burst into fresh tears and leaped into her father's arms as he turned. Chadra was 7 and usually cried over nothing anyway, but this time Thurber actually felt sorry for his sister. He had been petrified in a room with his brother; he could imagine how terrifying it had been for his little sister to be in the pitch-black cold all alone.
"Everyone's okay now," Thurber's mother reassured with a tremble in her voice.
"Ok, you stay with the kids," Luke told his wife, "and I'll go to the Center and see what's going on."
Being a government official aboard the space station, Lucas Kane not only had the right to go to the Center, the hub of the station and seat of Station Council, but the responsibility to go there. Not only to ask questions but also to provide answers, which Thurber could tell he didn’t have. Thurber had never seen his father's face without answers before.
CHAPTER 2
Over the next few weeks, Thurber began to grow accustomed to brief and sudden bouts of darkness. Sometimes there was no darkness but sudden temperature drops. Twice the temperature rose to sweltering conditions, lasting just long enough to disable all functions among the 1000 residents, before the familiar hum reached its regular frequency and air conditioning was restored.
Thurber knew it was bad when a general assembly was called. He only ever remembered general assemblies being called twice during his lifetime. He settled down on the sofa in the common unit to watch the assembly on the viewing screen with Garth and Chadra.
"See if you can see Mom and Dad," Chadra urged for the hundredth time.
"I told you," Garth growled. "There's hundreds of people there and the cameras are on the Captain."
Eventually Captain Cowell filled their screen and began to speak. "As you know," he began in a monotone that almost instantly put Thurber to sleep. "Our systems are not functioning as well as they used to. We are working on repairs and everything should be good as new pretty soon. In the meantime we will continue to experience short power failures but do not be alarmed. This is just because we are working on the systems and upgrading them. I repeat, there is nothing to be alarmed about. However, our most recent air conditioning failure ruined a large percentage of our food we've been growing in the Gardens section. We are back now on the space rations until further notice. To conserve energy we are going to be shutting down certain areas of the station."
"Oh please let it be the school wing," Thurber said out loud.
"The sections that will be shut down will be Wing 117 residential, all single residents will be partnered up with roommates in Wing 118 Residential; Wings 24 and 25 business wings, all work can be done from your housing units; Wing 87 School Wing, all classes will now be done from home units via the monitors…"
"Woohoo!" Garth shouted.
"Yes!" Thurber and Chadra said at once.
Thurber lost interest in the listing of the closing wings. The captain's voice droned on and on as Thurber and his siblings rejoiced in the news the school was closing.
CHAPTER 3
Thurber sat in the common unit in his bare feet and shorts and stared at his school monitor. The sweltering heat made it impossible to concentrate. Miss Hewlett's words got all tangled in his brain before he had a chance to make sense of them. What good was history for anyway? What good did it do to learn about Earth and its inhabitants when it didn’t even exist anymore and never would again. What did it matter?
"Thurber?" Miss Hewlett said loudly, breaking into his thoughts, making him realize she must have called on him more than once.
"Yes, Miss Hewlett?" Thurber asked, wiping the sweat from his forehead, pushing back his wet blond hair.
"I was asking you to tell me the cause of the third world war on Earth," Miss Hewlett said sternly, her orange eyebrows meeting in the middle of her forehead.
"I…," Thurber was interrupted by his name being called over the public announcement system.
"Thurber 7 Kane, please report to Center at once," a female voice called. "Thurber 7 Kane please report to Center at once."
Thurber watched Miss Hewlett's orange eyebrows knit even closer together as she purse her lips up into a firm scowl.
"Excuse me," Thurber said, trying to hide his pleasure as he passed his hand in front of the screen, turning it off.
He wondered what he was being called for. He'd never even been in Center before. Not even with his father. Kids were not allowed there. Even very few adults were allowed there.
When he reached the hallway to Center he passed his hand in front of the panel beside the door. Incredibly it confirmed his authorization and the door opened. It was true; he really was wanted in Center. He wondered what for.
Thurber reached the curved reception desk at Center. There was no one there. He glanced around looking for an authorization panel to pass that would give him more information or directions.
Suddenly a door opened in the rounded wall and a trio of men in gray suits stepped out followed by a tall thin woman in a black suit. She seemed to live in black and white with her pale skin contrasting against her black suit and her long upswept black hair.
“Thurber 7,” his name was called and he instinctively straightened his back, perfecting his posture. “Come with me,” one of the men in gray said and began walking away. Thurber hurried to catch up and followed him into a sterile white steel office. The other two men and lady followed.
“Do you know why we’ve called you here, Thurber?” The tall man in gray, who Thurber finally recognized as Captain Cowell, asked him. “Have a seat.”
Thurber sat in a big comfy chair and bravely faced the four adults who promptly seated themselves behind a huge steel desk. Again, Captain Cowell asked if Thurber knew his purpose.
“No,” Thurber answered honestly and bluntly. At the moment his point of interest lay in the comfort of the chairs. These were better than any he had at home or in the school. Everything else on Station Samson had been built for service, nothing for comfort. This chair he sat in was even more comfortable than his own bed. Thurber thought if he had to choose, he would prefer to sleep in this huge chair with thick cushions.
Well, just relax, Thurber,” another man said, “and tell me what you know of Earth.”
“Well, our ancestors lived on Earth,” Thurber recited from his history lessons, again wondering why there was such a preoccupation with Earth lately. “Earth was destroyed in 2028 by the positron bomb in the third world war and only a handful of people escaped to Space Station Samson. Those and the people already aboard the station were the only ones that survived.”
“Very good, Thurber,” the woman spoke up.
“Now listen very carefully, Thurber,” a man said. “We have discovered a way to travel through time. We have located a wormhole. That is like a black hole that will take you through time. We need someone to go back in time to prevent the nuclear disaster. Unfortunately it can’t be one of us, it has to be someone that was not born on Earth.”
“Why?” Thurber asked.
“Well, because, if I went back in time and saw myself, for example, that would create a paradox. You see, I couldn’t be there in the past and there in the future at the same time. If we were going back fifty or a hundred years, that would be different, but we’d only be going back thirty-three years. We would be going back to a time when we were already there. You were never there, so there’s no chance of that happening. Do you understand?”
Thurber nodded but it was a lie. He didn’t quite understand what the man was saying. It didn’t make sense totally, but the tone of the explanation eased his mind and convinced him the man knew what he was talking about. Thurber didn’t really care if he understood or not. He was getting out of history class and sitting in a comfortable chair.
“So, you see, all the adults on board are over thirty five years old, so none of us can go back, there is too big a chance that they could cause a bigger problem. So, you scored the highest on the tests we’ve provided and you, sir, are our man.”
“What?” Suddenly Thurber’s attention was caught. It suddenly became very important that he knew what they were talking about. “I have to go back in time?”
“Yes, my boy,” a man said.
“But what will I do? I’m just a kid, I don’t know how to save the world,” Thurber could not help the note of panic in his voice.
“No, no, now don’t worry, Thurber,” the first man spoke up, standing up quickly. “You don’t have to do anything to save the world, just to be there. All you have to do is to deliver documents to the right person and things should be ok.”
“Also,” the woman added. “Perhaps just having you in the past would create enough of a change to that time that the war would be prevented.”
Thurber didn’t understand. “So, you mean I don’t have to kill anybody or anything like that?”
“No, not at all,” a man said. “The first time, we’ll try to just deliver information. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try again. But according to our calculations, the difference of having one extra person that was not around before should change things enough.”
Thurber didn’t understand and it must have been clear to the adults in the room.
“Let me explain,” the woman tried. “If a man is going to walk across the street and he isn’t paying attention and a big yellow bus hits him, he dies. Let’s say, someone went back in time, asked the man for directions to another place and the pedestrian spoke to him for two minutes. That would delay his crossing the street by two minutes, in which time that yellow bus would have passed. The pedestrian would still be alive and perhaps he had an idea in his mind and perhaps that idea would save the world.”
Thurber realized it was true. Perhaps just one tiny act of one person could change the entire world. He nodded. He knew they would take his nod as not only understanding but as agreement to go on the mission. But then, a thought occurred to him that scared him.
“What if nothing changes?” He asked somberly. “If I don’t change anything, the world would still blow up, and I would die.”
“Now, don’t worry about that,” the man said. “See, we are sending you back to the past, which means, if you were to die, you would die in the past and you wouldn’t be here now, do you understand? You obviously didn’t die in the past because you are here now.”
“But if I change the past, then that would also change the future, which is now, which means this would change,” Thurber said defiantly. How dare they use him, a child, and risk his life. Was his life worthless?
“Look, Thurber, don’t argue with us, we’ve done the math,” another man stood and spoke rather harshly. “We have already scientifically proven that you will succeed, or rather that you did succeed, since you succeeded in our past.”
“I don’t understand, and I don’t want to be the one,” Thurber said, his voice rising.
“Look young man,” the woman spoke sternly. “It is your duty as a human being to save the human race. If you don’t, this station will eventually die. We do not have the materials to sustain life indefinitely.”
Thurber was silent. Obviously he had no choice. He was a child, they were adults. They were the boss. He lowered his eyes, his only defiant resource left.
“Okay,” the first man said in a bright tone. “Now, let’s get started.”
He punched in some commands on his desk and still photos came up on the wall screen. A series of young man with long blond hair and glasses was displayed.
“This is the man you must find,” Thurber was instructed. “His name is Leif Thurber. You were named after him.”
“Wow,” Thurber looked at the picture. “He looks so familiar.”
The room was silent for a moment.
“You were named after him,” the woman told him. “You were cloned from him.”
“What?” Thurber couldn’t believe this.
“You have his DNA,” the woman clarified. “He was born over fifty-eight years ago. He is the one who developed the positron bomb in 2005 when he was twenty-five. When he realized the countries were preparing to stage a war because of the positron threat, he was preparing to publicly destroy the positron plans. But, one day, as it happened, he was on his way home when he was killed by a yellow bus. After that, his house was raided, the plans were stolen, the most deadly bomb ever built was created, and although it was meant to be used as an empty threat to win the war, it was accidentally set off because the plans were misunderstood. As you know, that was in 2028. For the past eleven years, we’ve been watching our resources decline and we just don’t have the resources to maintain the station any longer. Our only solution is in the past, and …if that fails…we will all die, including you and your parents and brother and sister.”
Thurber listened intently. He felt as though he were the main character in a movie.
"But," he whispered, mainly to himself. "What if I fail?"
"There is no failing," Captain Cowell said, holding up a small communicator disk between his thumb and forefinger. "You will deliver this disc to him. It has all the information about the destruction his bomb caused. That should be enough to make him destroy the plans immediately and not wait to do it publicly. If he doesn't listen, then all you have to do is prevent him from leaving his house during the time you are there. If worse comes to worse and you cannot prevent his death…"
"There is another reason we chose you," the woman interrupted. "Because you are a clone of Leif Thurber, a duplicate, an exact copy, if you cannot prevent his death, you have the exact same fingerprints that will grant you access to his lab. You are to then go into his lab and destroy the documents yourself."
Thurber felt the weight of each word she spoke. The fate of the entire human race really was dependent upon him.
CHAPTER 4
Thurber hugged his parents goodbye. He knew he might not see them again. The feeling tugged at him, even though he’d been promised a safe return.
“All we need is for you to delay him from leaving his house by at least one minute,” they told him. “Delay any moment of his life and you will have changed his entire future.”
It sounded simple enough, Thurber agreed, but somehow it seemed too simple, yet too difficult all at the same time.
“We’ve mapped out the course of the worm hole mathematically,” Captain Cowell explained as he buckled Thurber safely into a small space vehicle. “You don’t have to worry about anything, kid. We’ll jettison you out and send you into the wormhole by remote control. You should arrive exactly the day before Leif Thurber gets killed. But, now remember this, this wormhole will only provide about a 3 day window. You must leave this space pod exactly where it lands, and you must be back inside of it within 3 days, because according to our calculations, the worm hole will suck it right back up and deposit you right back here about one minute after you’ve left.”
Thurber concentrated hard and tried to let it all sink in. His heart pounded with a mixture of excitement and fear. In all his childhood play adventures, battles and rescues, the thrill of being a hero motivated him. Now that motivation was gone. Mainly it had been replaced by fear; a fear of failure as well as a fear of success.
Thurber felt his blond hair stick to his forehead as beads of sweat grew. The door was closed and sealed as he sat behind useless controls. He was thankful at least that he wasn’t expected to drive this thing. As it was, saving the entire human race was enough pressure to bestow on any eleven year old, he felt.
Thurber felt a rising sense of panic as he watched the men back away from his vehicle. He saw his own fear reflected in their eyes. Was it guilt he also saw, he wondered. Did those adults suspect they were sending him to his death? Did they care?
He bit his lip and watched the men disappear behind a closed door. He wished he’d asked if he was the first to ever go through a worm hole. Suddenly he thought of a thousand questions he wished he’d asked.
“Son, can you hear me?” The voice through his headphones calmed him for a second.
“How many people have ever traveled through wormholes?” Thurber burst out. He wanted to know now, while there still might be a chance to cancel this trip.
“Well, son, this makes you a pioneer,” he heard the shallow chuckle on the other end. “You come back from this and you’re a hero. Famous, do you hear me?”
“Stop!” Thurber shouted and reached to unbuckle his seatbelt. “Let me out of here! I don’t want to go!”
“Now, son, calm down,” the older gentleman said in his ears. “Just relax, son. It will be okay. You don’t have to do much, you only have to be there, that’s all.”
“Stop calling me son,” Thurber shouted. “My name is Thurber and I want to go home! Let me out of here!”
“Calm down, Thurber,” the gentle voice urged. “You have nothing to worry about and if you don’t go, you won’t even have a home in less than a year. I won’t force you to go, but if you stay you’ll face certain death, if you go, you’ll have bought your future. Yours and everyone else’s on this station.”
“You can do it,” his mother suddenly said in his ear.
“Go ahead, son,” his father then spoke. “We’re so proud of you. My little hero.”
Thurber’s eyes stung as tears slipped out, steaming up his helmet visor. He was so encumbered by safety gear that he couldn’t even reach his thickly gloved hand to his eyes. He blinked hard, and then realized that a panel of lights in front of him was lighting up and blinking in a sequence that he couldn’t understand.
Panic gripped him again. He didn’t want to be the one. Why couldn’t they send someone else? Why him?
The empty question rang in his mind as he felt his shuttle rumble and shake. In front of the small shuttle he saw huge bay doors slide back to reveal a black heaven sprinkled with tiny stars in the distance.
“No!” Thurber shouted as the shuttle moved slowly through the doors and out into the black nothingness of space. Suddenly he felt as if everything was silent and still. He didn’t dare to speak. All sorts of imaginable deaths probed his mind. What if he drifted in space forever? What if his door accidentally opened and he was sucked out into space to die? He dared not move in the tiny capsule in case he accidentally caused some sort of a malfunction.
“Are you okay, son?” It was the captain again. “Thurber? Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Thurber whispered in a small voice.
“Are you okay, Thurber?”
“I don’t know,” Thurber whispered.
“What’s wrong, son?” Captain Cowell asked.
“I’m scared,” Thurber admitted in a high, quiet voice. He was afraid his very breathing could send him hurtling to an unknown fate.
CHAPTER 5
Thurber lost track of time as he seemed to drift slowly through space. Captain Cowell and his parents talked him through his fear and his fear momentarily subsided enough for him to take in the view.