"I think you are," Dahl said. "Thank you for that."
"I"m sorry," Martinez said, and stepped aside slightly. "Would you like to come in for a minute?"
"I would love to, but I can"t," Dahl said. "I have a taxi running its meter, and I have people waiting for me."
"Going back to your mysterious, complicated place," Martinez said.
"Yes," Dahl said. "Which reminds me. That projector and that letter will probably disappear in a couple of days."
"Like, vaporize?" Martinez said. "As in "this letter will self-destruct in five seconds"?"
"Pretty much," Dahl said.
"Are you a spy or something?" Martinez said, smiling.
"It"s complicated," Dahl said once more. "In any event, I suggest making copies of everything. You can probably just project the pictures against a white wall and take pictures of them, and scan the letter."
"I"ll do that," Martinez said. "Thanks for telling me."
"You"re welcome," Dahl said, and turned to go.
"Wait a second," Martinez said. "Your friend. Are you going to see him when you get back?"
"Yes," Dahl said.
Martinez stepped out of the doorway to Dahl and gave him a small kiss on the cheek. "Give him that for me," she said. "And tell him that I said thank you. And that I"ll take good care of Margaret for him."
"I will," Dahl said. "I promise."
"Thank you." She leaned up and gave him a peck on the other cheek. "That"s for you."
Dahl smiled. "Thanks."
Martinez grinned and went back into the bungalow.
"So, you"re ready for this," Dahl asked Hester, in the shuttle.
"Of course not," Hester said. "If everything goes according to plan, then the moment you guys go back to our universe, I"ll be transported from this perfectly functioning body to one that has severe physical and brain damage, at which point all I can hope for is that we"re not wrong about twenty-fifth-century medicine being able to cure me. If everything doesn"t go according to plan, then in forty-eight hours all my atoms go pop. I want to ask you how you think one gets ready for either scenario."
"Good point," Dahl said.
"I want to know how you talked me into this," Hester said.
"I"m apparently very persuasive," Dahl said.
"Then again, I"m the guy who got talked into holding Finn"s drugs for him because he convinced me they were candy," Hester said.
"If I recall correctly, there were candied," Dahl said.
"I"m gullible and weak-willed, is what I"m saying," Hester said.
"I disagree with that a.s.sessment," Dahl said.
"Well, you would say that," Hester said, "now that you"ve talked me into your ridiculous plan."
The two of them stood over the body of Matthew Paulson, whose stretcher was surrounded by mobile life support apparatus. Duvall was checking the equipment and the comatose body it was attached to.
"How is he?" Dahl asked.
"He"s stable," Duvall said. "The machines are doing the hard work for the moment, and the shuttle has adapters I could use, so we don"t have to worry about depleting any batteries. As long as he doesn"t have any major medical emergencies between now and when we make the transition back, we should be fine."
"And if he does?" Hester asked.
Duvall looked at him. "Then I"ll do my best with the training I have," she said. She reached over and slapped his shoulder. "Don"t worry. I"m not going to let you down."
"Guys, it"s time to go," Kerensky said, from the pilot seat of the shuttle. "Our trip over from Griffith Park did not go unnoticed, and I"ve got at least three aircraft coming our way. We"ve got another couple of minutes before things get messy."
"Got it," Dahl said, and looked back to Hester. "So, you"re ready for this," he said.
"Yes," Hester said. The two of them walked outside, into the lawn of Charles Paulson"s Malibu estate. Charles and his family were there, waiting for Hester. Hanson, who had been keeping them company, broke off and joined Dahl. Hester walked over to join Paulson"s family.
"When will we know?" Paulson asked Dahl.
"We"re taking the engines to maximum capacity to the black hole we"re using," Dahl said. "It will be within the day. I suppose you"ll know when your son starts acting like your son again."
"If it works," Paulson said.
"If it works," Dahl agreed. "Let"s work on the a.s.sumption it will."
"Yes, let"s," Hester said.
"Now," Dahl said, to Paulson. "We"re agreed on everything."
"Yes," Paulson said. "None of your characters will be killed off going forward. The show will stop randomly killing off extras. And the show itself will wrap up next season and we won"t make any new shows in the universe within a hundred years of your timeline."
"And this episode?" Dahl said. "The one where everything we planned happens."
"Nick messaged me about it just a few minutes ago," Paulson said. "He says he"s almost got a rough version done. As soon as it"s done he and I will work on a polish, and then we"ll get it into production as soon as ... well, as soon as we know whether or not your plan worked."
"It"ll work," Dahl said.
"It"s going to make h.e.l.l with our production schedule," Paulson said. "I"m going to end up having to pay for this episode out of my own pocket."
"It"ll be worth it," Dahl said.
"I know," Paulson said. "If everything works, it"ll be a h.e.l.l of a show for you."
"Of course," Dahl said. Hester rolled his eyes a little.
"I hear helicopters," Hanson said. From the shuttle came the sound of engines primed to move. Dahl looked at Hester.
"Good luck," Hester said.
"See you soon," Dahl said, and made his way to the shuttle.
They were gone before the helicopters could get to them.
"It"s time," Kerensky said, as they approached the black hole. "Everyone get ready for the transition. Dahl, come take the co-pilot seat."
"I can"t fly a shuttle," Dahl said.
"I don"t need you to fly it," Kerensky said. "I need you to hit the automatic homing and landing sequence in case that a.s.shole writer has something explode and knock me out."
Dahl got up and looked over to Duvall. "Hester doing okay?" he asked.
"He"s fine, everything"s fine," Duvall said. "He"s not Hester yet, though."
"Call him Hester anyway," Dahl said. "Maybe it"ll matter."
"You"re the boss," Duvall said.
Dahl sat down in the co-pilot seat. "You remember how to do this," he said to Kerensky.
"Aim for the gap between the accretion disk and the Schwartzchild radius and boost engines to one hundred ten percent," Kerensky said, testily. "I"ve got it. Although it might have been helpful for me to observe the last time we did it. But no, you had me in a crate. Without my pants."
"Sorry about that," Dahl said.
"Not that it matters anyway," Kerensky said. "I"m your good-luck charm, remember? We"ll make it through this part just fine."
"Hopefully the rest of it, too," Dahl said.
"If this plan of yours works," Kerensky said. "How will we know that it"s worked?"
"When we revive Hester, and he"s Hester," Dahl said.
A sensor beeped. "Transition in ten seconds," Kerensky said. "So we won"t know until we"re back on the Intrepid."
"Probably," Dahl said.
"Probably?" Kerensky said.
"I thought of one way we might know if the transfer didn"t take," Dahl said.
"How?" Kerensky asked.
The shuttle jammed itself into the ragged edge between the accretion disk and the Schwartzchild radius and transitioned instantly.
In the view screen the planet Forshan loomed large, and above it a dozen ships, including the Intrepid, were locked in battle.
Every single sensor on the shuttle flashed to red and began to blare.
One of the nearby starships sparkled, sending a clutch of missiles toward the shuttle.
"When we come through, it might look like this," Dahl said.
Kerensky screamed, and Dahl then felt ill as Kerensky plunged the shuttle into evasive maneuvers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.
"Five missiles coming," Dahl said, fighting the sickness in his stomach from the shuttle"s dive to read the co-pilot"s panel.
"I know," Kerensky said.
"Engines minimal," Dahl said. "We burned them coming through."
"I know," Kerensky said.
"Defense options?" Dahl asked.
"It"s a shuttle," Kerensky said. "I"m doing them." He corkscrewed the shuttle violently. The missiles changed course to follow, spreading out from their original configuration.
A message popped up on Dahl"s screen. "Three missiles locked," he said. "Impact in six seconds."
Kerensky looked up, as if toward the heavens. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I"m a featured character! Do something!"
A beam of light lanced from the Intrepid, vaporizing the nearest missile. Kerensky yanked the shuttle over to avoid the explosion and debris. The Intrepid"s pulse beam touched the four other missiles, turning them into atoms.
"Holy s.h.i.t, that worked," Kerensky said.
"If only you knew before, right?" Dahl said, amazed himself.
The shuttle"s phone activated. "Kerensky, come in," it said. It was Abernathy on the other end.
"Kerensky here," he said.
"Not a lot of time here," Abernathy said. "Do you have the carrier?"