CHAPTER 7

Uncle Nancy showed Bill and Elliot to the bathroom.

"Revolting! Just look how this thing has changed!" groused the bartender, gazing around in horror at the colorful tile, the new light fixtures, the bidets, the vitamin and cologne vending machines. "Used to be just a trough and a thundermug. Oh yeah — and a rubber dispenser that was always broken or empty. Real homey and friendly with lots of grafitti. And I mean graphic grafitti."

Bill, a little woozy, looked at the three bright white porcelain urinals. "Gotta go," he mumbled.

"Not there, you idiot!" said Elliot. "Didn't you hear the man? That's the Time Vortex!"

Bill blinked. Funny, looked like a urinal to him. True, an unusually fancy, unusually clean urinal. "Sorry — I guess I can wait...."

The bartender and Bill stared, transfixed, as Elliot reached out a tremulous hand, touched the handle on the urinal, sucked in a deep breath — and flushed.

The results were far more dramatic than usual. It even beat the cheap vacuum potties on quickly assembled starships where chances were you finished your trip with a high squeaky voice.

"Wow!" Bill susurrated.

"Absolutely," Elliot agreed. From somewhere, a small device with knobs and switches and an oscilloscope had appeared in his hands. "According to my Time Ticker — all we Time Police are equipped with these things — what we have here is a crack in Time far larger than anticipated. Yes — I can see how it was possible for that weirdo hippie to jump back through time and wreak havoc. This aperture you could fit an elephant through!"

Bill stepped back two paces and grabbed hold of the door latch of the bathroom stall for security. He felt like he was losing his sense of balance. He had the distinct sensation of being sucked into a mammoth Time Maw.

The Portal had replaced the porcelain facility completely. A scintillating light swirled and revolved and gave off sparks, whirling and growing. Dimly seen within this display was a control console, not unlike a multidialed TV set. As the Time-Wind pulsed, the screen flickered and displayed some highly interesting scenes.

Bill sniffed loudly. "It stinks," he said nasally, because he was pinching his nostrils shut as he spoke.

"Of course. That is because the Time-Nexus is routed through Garbageworld on its way to linkup to Barworld. Depends on what part of the past you tune into," said Elliot. "This particular era, for instance, is particularly offensive to members of our era." He tapped his nose. "Which is why Time Authority knocks out its agents' sense of smell before we Time Dump."

"And just what era would that be? That you're from I mean," Uncle Nancy wanted to know.

"Classified information," stated Elliot unequivocally. Hair waving, he looked down at his device. Its needles were swinging wildly. A hot red light flashed. And the oscilloscope was being particularly scilly. "Yikes!" intoned Elliot, looking alarmed and rather uncharacteristically out of control. "This time portal —"

"Don't tell me," cried Uncle Nancy. "Something terrible is going to happen and we'll all be killed!"

"No. Well, possibly maybe yes. Anything could happen — because this thing, this Time Portal, and I find this difficult to comprehend, is sentient!"

"That's kind of a long word," Bill explained. "It means, I guess — sentiment without the 'M' because it's not quite as emotional?"

"No, moron. It means alive! Alive and intelligent! Which is more than I can say for you sometimes!" Elliot Methadrine shook his head with alarm and amazement. "In all my eras as a Time Agent, I've never seen such a thing!"

"Alas, I encounter your deplorable type all too often," a rich baritone bass said. British accent, deep-dipped with culture, heavily dripping irony and other metallic forms of humor. "Good day, you wretched deplorable excuses for biological self-propagation. In the words of my esteemed ancestors, Alexander Graham Time-Phone Machine, you rang?"

The Time Portal glowed ethereally, a fascinating sight. Its interior was imbedded with alien crystalline assemblages and jewellike appendages emanating rainbowed glow and pixillating auras, light arias and perhaps even light operas, Haydn perhaps, or Delius — or was that THE MIKADO by Gilbert and Sullivan in the background? Upon those aforementioned screens flashed candid scenes from intergalactic history. The signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Emperor's Annual Public Constitutional. Napoleon the Fifth's Battle of Watercloset.

"You.... You're a Time Portal?" intimated Bill, gasping gawkily with awe.

"Well, I'm certainly not a Time Potable, so please refrain from drinking me, you obvious lush! Nor am I a Time Portable. I am the full-scale, full-priced model — an Eton- and Oxford-educated Time Portal. And dear chap it is a pitiable shame that as worthy an intelligence as I am, I must respond to anyone who yanks my chain, so to speak. Especially noisome and illiterate obnoxious primates such as yourself."

"Well, be that as it may," intoned Elliot, rearing up to his full if meager height. "As you have just told us, in far too much detail, you have been summoned and you must help us!" Elliot flashed his Time Cop identification and then showed the Portal his Captain Cosmic Secret Decoder ring.

"Yeah, right!" said Uncle Nancy. "And first off we want to know where the hell did that hairy guy who zipped in here get to?"

"What's that, dear boy? Hirsute chappy, you say? Ah! Of course! You must mean that horrible hippie from Hellworld. Yes, quite! Why, I believe he went back into the past, and with the rather laudable ambition to change history. Either that or I plugged a few too many bloody nanodes into my quazoid last night."

"Just take a look," said Bill. "He must have changed something. This dump used to be a nice dump of a bar! Now it's a sweaty gym, run by goose-stepping weightlifters with German accents."

"Hmm. Oh, my, yes. Well, that sort of thing does happen occasionally. You can't have Time Portals in this Universe and not get a few minor changes from time to time."

"Minor changes!" expostulated Elliot Methadrine. "We're talking about a vast sweeping cataclysm! Why, I'm not even sure there's a Galactic Bureau of Investigation anymore!"

An amber light pulsed quizzically. "Oh?" said the Time Portal. "Well, then. Let's have a look into my Crystal Bowl." From the bottom of the Portal's floor emerged a round bowl filled with scintillating liquid. In this liquid swam a goldfish. Pictures began to flash. Bill saw images of Panzer-tanks and Spandau propeller planes. Jackboots kicking galactic butt. Beer halls and pretzels everywhere. Hmm, he thought. Maybe this change isn't really bad. He loved beer halls and pretzels!

Finally, the flipping images settled upon a wobbling close-up of a sign. "There you go, lads!" said the Portal. "Images of the Way Things Are Now. 'GALACTIC BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION,'" he read. "You see, things haven't changed so much! One totalitarian government is much the same as another. I say, amongst all those amino acids and yogurt drinks out there at that refreshment station, I don't suppose you might find me a spot of tea and maybe a lightly toasted crumpet or two?"

Bill squinted at the sign. "It's a sign for a ship!" he exclaimed with some satisfaction at his astute powers of observation — although in truth he could read it better because he had a superior angle to the others.

"A ship?" said Uncle Nancy.

"Yes! See ... off to the side ... it says 'SS GALACTIC BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION.'"

"Good grief, Bill!" said Elliot. "That's not a, ship! That's the SS! The infamous secret police of the Nazi party!"

Bill blinked. "Yeah. Well, what's the difference? Aren't you guys the infamous secret police who blackmail any politician who is at least one percent honest and always steal the spiked punch at the Emperor's party?"

"So they're the rotten bastards!" said Uncle Nancy. "I always wondered about that!"

Elliot Methadrine screwed his face up and pounded on the side of his head with his fists in total frustration. "Look, Time Portal! In the name of Truth, Order, Justice and Equilibrium in the Universe —"

"You got some Librium?" interrupted Bill. "I sure could use some."

"Shut up, Bill!" Elliot suggested to the Trooper as he ground his teeth gratingly, then turned back to the Portal. "You have to help us avert this ... this chaos. You must take us back to the place in time where that hippie went to change the course of history. What he has done is terrible! Where was it?"

"Hmm? The Time that hirsute individual went? Why, I declare! It is rather boring, but demn me, I am driven to admit that it has completely slipped my memory. I suppose I could have a crafty riffle through my files and come up with the information. Though — do pardon my yawn — I must admit I'm not terribly motivated."

"Oh ... and dare I ask just what motivated you to acquiesce to the hippie's demands?"

The light auras formed a quiescent Technicolor Cheshire cat grin. "Since we are being frank, dear boy — hard cold cash, actually."

Elliot slapped his forehead with exasperation. "Just who the hell are you anyway, guy?" He took out a pen and a small spiral notebook. "I want your name, your serial number, your registration code with Intergalactic Time Machines!"

"Utter rubbish!" boomed the voice insouciantly. "Not applicable. For I am a member of an incredibly ancient, unregistered race of Time Portals. My name is Dudley D. Doo, Esquire, of the Noble Right Royal Transubstantiated Knights of the Temporal Jet Plane. My kind has been around since Before Time Began — and even earlier!"

"Before Time Began?" muttered Bill, trying to imagine that concept. But his mind, such as it was, got even more bent than usual in the process. "You mean, like before they had clocks and digital watches and stuff?" His brain suddenly grasped an important macroscientific concept. "You mean, back when bars never closed!"

"Precisely, chum. And what jolly days they were," said Dudley. "But then, come to think of it, they weren't days, were they? Days hadn't been invented yet. Nor nights. It was just one continual spifflicated party, with time out for an occasional brawl or bash at the birds. Raucous and tiring — but what jolly fun!"

"Breathtaking!" breathed Bill, his eyes wandering off, his mind permanently bent now at the very notion.

"The Knights Temporal!" said Elliot, voice hushed now with awe. "There were rumors of you back at headquarters — and phone numbers in the loo, too! Why, we've found ruins of an ancient civilization from beyond recorded posterity! Could those have belonged ... to your kind?"

"Not really. I believe that it is a matter of public record that the Knights Temporal are from beyond recorded posteriors!" answered Dudley in a thoroughly smug fashion.

"Hmmm. Guess that makes you guys the butts of jokes!" snorted Uncle Nancy the Bartender.

"Access to the Knights Temporal is one of the Fundamental Keys to the Universe, and a hell of a cheap way to travel!" said Elliot. "However could the hippies from Hellworld have obtained that kind of access?"

Uncle Nancy scratched his head. "Robbed banks?"

"No. No!" Elliot paced the floor. "This is far too crucial, too fundamental an issue! We don't know enough about these hippies, dammit! But I can't help but feel as though an understanding of their access to the Knights Temporal — and a comprehension of you knights yourselves — is crucial to the success of this mission!"

The shining Portal glowed a positively numinous sheen with pleasure at the prospect of explaining the story of the Knights Temporal.

"Ahem!" he began. "In the beginning, even before Marmite and traffic wardens, Certificates of Deposit and talkie movies, there was a good deal of nothing but space and absolutely no time for anything or anybody. The local cosmic galactic race at that time first invented overdraughts and Irish jokes to try to make sense of things. That's our lot, mind you — the Knights Temporal. However, needless to say, none of this really worked, since often as not you finished doing something before you began, which caused all manner of confusion and made it rather difficult to calculate interest on CDs. 'What we need,' posited a singularly intelligent gentleman Knight Philosopher-Scientist, Simon Temporal, 'is some sort of order to this wretched chaos. I mean, when you don't know when it is the right hour of the day to take tea, that's not civilization.'

"And so Simon Temporal invented the idea of Time. This startling and revolutionary concept was such a profound notion that at first it was far too cosmic an idea for general dissemination and it took a few eons to assimilate. But when it did, the suns and planets started to tick off those days and years like wretched cosmic clockwork, erstwhile life ebbed and flowed, civilizations flowered and died. Although the ultimate boring truth at the core of it all was that it all has about as much relevance as a monkey's ballocks in a nunnery, at least you could measure how many years of boring nothingness an average life held.

"Now this was all very well and now we could soft-boil eggs just right, but for the Knights Temporal, you understand, it was all just a concept. You see, time is actually just a kind of brainwashing on a gross atomic level. It really doesn't exist for us, unless we imagine it does, utilizing these stainless steel and crystalloid casings. We simply modulate the degree of collective molecular imagination generated by the universe. Thus we can transport — and be transported — through so-called Time — and always be the first to arrive at good parties that we never have to leave. In any case this is all rather boring, and I am sure impenetrable to your teeny-tinies as well."

Uncle Nancy made a face. "I still don't understand what that has to do with hippies! And how in hell do I get my bar back?"

Bill scratched his crotch with grim depression. He hadn't the slightest idea what was happening or what they were talking about. And even worse, when he could get the next drink.

"Even through your fog of temporal confusion I see some meaning," philosophised Elliot. "Meaning penetrates and I understand now! Somehow, the hippies understood this on a preconscious level ... and hypothesized your existence. They didn't exactly summon you as we had to. They calculated that for some reason you'd be here at a certain hour, minute, second and that you'd be open for the exact leap they needed ... to wherever that was! Thus the agent was able to go back in Time and change history."

"But why this Nazi stuff?" asked Uncle Nancy. "That hardly jibes with my understanding of essential hippie philosophy."

"We can puzzle that out later!" said Elliot. "Right now, we have to go back and undo the damage that bearded bowb did." He spun to face the Time Portal. "Dudley ... Sir, if I may make the supposition that that is your honorable title."

"Why yes, indeed it is!" the Time Portal simpered, pleased with this crafty bit of bumsucking.

"All you need to do is open your Portal again just as it was when the hippie leaped and allow us to jump through! In that way, we can go back and undo the damage!"

"Damage? Again, I see no damage. In truth I suppose the long and short of it is, Mr. Elliot Methadrine, Time Cop — and I must be insistent on this point — what's in it for me?"

"Well, I have a couple of megabucks I brought for expenses."

"Ah! Excellent! Far more than the hippie paid me! Let's have a look at this money, and then I'll see about this adjustment."

Elliot took out the shining discs, the cross-eyed semblance of the Emperor glowing from each of them. A cash-register drawer 'chinged!' open from the alienoid interior of the Time Portal and swallowed up the offering.

"Super! Now then, my part of the bargain. Just allow me a few moments for a bit of concentration!" Antennae extended, quivering. Static electricity crackled between Van Der Graaf generatorlike coils. Dollar and cent signs erupted from the portion that held the cash register.

"My God! He's doing it!" cried Uncle Nancy, pointing as Time mists poured through the glowing hole.

Bill looked. Sure enough in the moil and parti-colored fractious fantasy uncoiling within the Time Portal, Bill was able to see an image — a Time Ghost, if you will — of that hippie from Hellworld leaping through the space between Now and some other Then and disappearing in a twinkle of stars.

"Yes!" cried Elliot. "That's it! That's the instant! Hold that thought!" He turned to Bill and Uncle Nancy. "Well, guys! The Moment of Truth! Are you with me?"

"Uh," said Uncle Nancy, grinning artificially. "I'm just a simple barkeep. It is my duty I think to ... maybe I could do with some aerobic exercise! Maybe pump some iron! A few laps around the pool! You guys stay in touch, hear. Let me know how all this comes out." The bartender shuffled backwards, grinning smarmily.

"Whatever," said Elliot. "Come on, Bill. Let's show the universe some real men in action!"

"You know," said Bill inarticulately, "I've been kind of, you know, feeling poorly lately. Maybe a month's training would put me in better shape for this kind of particular mission."

"...maybe they'll hire me to push their kumquat yogurt coolers!" came Uncle Nancy's voice, drifting back from the door.

"Kumquat yogurt coolers!" The very notion put a halt to Bill's intended departure. It stopped him long enough for Elliot to grab him.

"Come Trooper! Let's start earning the Emperor's bucks!"

The next thing Bill knew, Elliot Methadrine had hurled him straight into the maw of the Time Portal.