The Key West Citizen

TIME TRAP
By ROG PHILLIPS
AP News

B Ring him to me, quickly. Vargia commanded. And be careful. Nelva might attempt a rescue if you relax even for an instant.

There was grudging admiration in Ray's eyes as he saw the queen standing on a dais at the far end of the hall. Her central eye was gleaming, smoky jewel. Her features were a contrast of conflicting emotion - superhuman. Queenly and deadly.

She now showed a gleaming, ornate paralysis gun. She turned it on him and ordered the Vargian to put his away.

Her eyes took on a gleam of sadism. She depressed the trigger more and more. Ray felt the tingle and torture of the force through his body. Sweat broke out from every pore. Still he withstood it waiting. He knew that Vargia wouldn't kill him.

At last she relented, softening the ray to almost nothing.

"You will tell me the secret of the device by which Nelva and Nancy have escaped me," she said quietly. "If you do this quickly and willingly it will save you tortures and may bring rewards beyond your expectations."

This was the moment. "Perhaps," he said vaguely. "But first - look at this."

He raised his hand and pointed a finger at the nearest Vargian. He was one of those with white hair and a gleaming center eye. Slowly that eye dimmed. In the space of a held breath it changed and diminished until it was nothing but smooth skin with no trace of the eye left. The forehead was that of an ordinary man.

There were gasps of horror all about him. Ray looked up at the queen. Her face was distorted with an indescribable horror, a terrible dread.

Suddenly she raised the paralysis gun and constricted her finger. But Ray had seen the move and vanished. He went to stand just behind the queen, bringing himself into almost three quarter phase with solidity.

He leaped onto the dais and

"If you drop your ray gun and order your men to not try anything," he said. "I'll come back and finish my message."

Vargia hesitated, then obeyed, her face a mask of anger and hate.

Ray stepped down again and resumed his former position.

"What is your message?" Vargia asked frigidly.

"Simply this," Ray said. "You saw what I could do to an extra-temporal eye. I can do the same to yours. I'm not alone. You searched for devices concealed on me. You didn't find any because there aren't any. Yet I can jump forward or backward in time, seconds or hours or years. I can do it by willing it. I can do it while your paralysis ray guns hold me helpless, unable to move a muscle.

"All right, what's your message. To tell you of a time trap that's been laid." Ray said.

"A time trap?" Vargia echoed, puzzled.

"Three days from now." Ray went on. "Every Vargian will lose his third eye. It will become just ordinary flesh, as you saw just now. There is no way you can prevent it."

"But that's no threat," Vargia murmured. "We can get along without it."

"You will lose yours too," Ray said. He saw the look of fear appear on her face. "How many of your subjects will willingly stay and face losing their third eye?" he went on triumphantly. "Even you won't stay!"

"Stay?" Vargia said, as if it were a new idea that hadn't occurred to her.

"You'll have to go back where you came from - to Varmour." Ray said. "If you don't - your subjects will without you. Sure, you can restore your third eye once I blot it out. But as quickly as you do it will be changed back into plain skin and bone again."

"Should I point my finger at YOUR eye?" he challenged.

"No." Vargia exclaimed, stepping back and stumbling against her throne, sitting down. "Is - is there no alternative? I'll promise to restore democracy - give Americans equal rights with Vargians."

"No." Ray said. "I had a taste of being considered the inferior racially. There's no compromise. Get out. Go back in time to where you came from. I'm going now. In three days at twelve o'clock noon every Vargian left here will lose his extra-temporal eye."

He looked at Queen Vargia, knowing that in another moment he would never see her again as she was now. Then he sent the mental commands to the solenoids buried in his body that sent him sideways in time to the phase in which his three companions waited for him.

THE helicopter hovered almost stationary in the high atmosphere. In it were Ray, Joe, Nelva, and Nancy. They were watching the departure of the Vargians.

The Vargians were leaving swiftly. Ship after ship rose to gather speed and suddenly vanish as clear of all obstructions, they switched into time-drive and plunged backward through the centuries to the time they had left.

Other thousands were doing the same all over the United States. They were racing against time. Racing to save their third eye.

"It was so simple." Joe said quietly. "I sometimes wonder what good force is. You can always find a way to do things without violence if you think hard enough."

"There'll be a few Vargians who will stay." Nelva said. "Those like us who were never given the third eye. But they will mix with ordinary Americans and be just like any other foreigner coming to America."

"And we can keep the Custodians in line." Ray said. "If they don't carry out their pledge to restore democracy we can harass them into it."

"The four musketeers," Joe grinned.

"And we can have a grand time for the rest of our lives." Nancy said. "We can travel through all the dimensions and find the mysteries of the Universe that are hidden from us now."

"There's something we have to do before we do any of those things, though," Ray said. "Something more important even than making sure the last three-eyed Vargian leaves."

"What's that?" Nelva said, but from the light in her two eyes Ray knew she had guessed.

"Find a preacher," he answered.

THE END