In any case, there was no shortage of theories of what would happen to Hunter if he went back as they did. Because he would be returning to a different place from where he started, and would be going through the extra step of passing through the twenty-sixth dimension, Erx thought he'd be reduced to a quivering mass of quarks and snarks long before he ever popped out on the other side. Zarex wondered if he might be caught forever inside the twenty-sixth dimension, unable to make the extra step to break through. Vanex, who was the authority on the matter, warned that while Hunter might make it to the other side in one piece, all of his atoms would be turned inside out.
None of these scenarios appealed to him, so Hunter had made up his mind early on: he'd come here via the mysterious holo-capsule, given to him by Joxx just hours before he was to be executed. He would have to go back the same way.
Actually, this was where the real problem lay. As far as they knew, there were only two Echo 999.9s in existence. One the Imperial spy had given to Xara and Vanex to get them here in the first place. That was the model Vanex had taken apart to make the escape window. The second one the same spy gave to Joxx to allow Hunter to escape. Usually, with lesser models, the romp on the beach lasted what seemed to be a month. Yet when the customer returned, it was as if no more than a few seconds of real time had gone by. It seemed like magic, but this was actually a customer-oriented feature of cheaper models, a reverse-time element allowing them to disappear for what seemed to be a month, but not be gone long enough for their spouse (or their boss) to be suspicious.
The Echo 999.9 was significantly different, only adding to the mystique of the strange device. As soon as Hunter arrived here, Vanex had taken apart his capsule, too, and had effectively frozen its built-in time clock. And then after noodling with it, he found a way to actually advance it.
When Hunter left the other side, he'd been just a few hours away from getting shot. He certainly didn't want to return in the same instant, still locked in a cell, waiting for the executioner's song. So Vanex pushed up his return time to parallel that of the fleet ships; they would all go back together and arrive in the same time frame. Or at least that's how Vanex hoped it would work.
However, there was nothing he could do about where Hunter would return. The pilot had left from the locked jail cell at the bottom of Joxx's starship, and that's where he'd reappear— one month later.
No one could know what had happened in that month. Bonz had told him that at last report, Joxx had dropped out of sight, had been refusing orders, and was seen sporting a silver dagger in his belt — the weapon of choice for those wishing to kill the Emperor. Hunter knew that anything could happen once he returned, including the possibility that he'd find himself still behind bars.
So he had to be prepared for any uncertainty.
That's why when Bonz went looking for Hunter a few hours after the somber meetings in the America, he found the pilot atop High Hill, picking apples.
The valley below was alive with frenetic motion by now. The Vanex Door was about halfway reconstructed in its new place. It was quite an operation for the UPF troopers to try to align the huge framework with the gigantic cargo 'crasher. The rigging looked like a stiff breeze would blow it over in a second; luckily, there were no stiff breezes here in Heaven. The Resonance 133 was almost ready to go, too. Crude ladders had been dropped from it, and technicians could be seen climbing up and down from them on a very regular basis.
Bonz meandered up to Hunter. His family was now living down on the valley floor.
"Not too long now," Bonz said to the pilot, looking down on all the activity.
"How can you tell?" Hunter asked him. Bonz grinned; he got the joke. There was no time here, so theoretically at least, nothing could take a long or short time.
Hunter resumed picking apples. He was looking for ones that were small enough to fit into the pockets of his flight suit, as self-contained survival kits, you might say. Bonz took down an apple himself and examined it. Clearly he had something on his mind.
"I just wanted to apologize to you," he finally said to Hunter, turning the apple over in his hands. "I'm really sorry—"
"Sorry? What do you mean?"
Bonz shrugged. "Well, I'm responsible for this mess," he said, spreading his hands out to indicate the whole operation of getting the Resonance 133 lined up with the Vanex Door.
"What mess?" Hunter replied. "You're a hero. You got us back in gear again. If it wasn't for you, we would have stayed here forever."
"Like that would have been a bad thing?" Bonz asked, half-heartedly biting into the apple. "Being happy not just for the rest of your life, but for the rest of eternity: it's everyone's ultimate dream."
Hunter looked out on the valley below. It was even more magnificent than the first time he saw it.
"Well, it's yours to enjoy now," he told Bonz. "You're with your wife and kids again — as you should be. See how only good things work out here?"
"There's no doubt about that," Bonz replied. "But I have to wonder about something: Will I carry through eternity the knowledge you've imparted to me about the origin of the empires? There is no doubt in my mind that what was done to the original people of Earth is the greatest wrong of human history or certainly in the history of the Galaxy. They used to talk about the crime of the century in the ancient days? Well, this is the biggest crime of all humanity! It's mind-boggling. Billions of people, thrown off their planet after they fought to free it from one enemy, only to be betrayed by another? And these were the descendants who brought man into space in the first place, the descendants of the Ancient Engineers. Such an atrocity. And I'm now one of the comparatively few souls who know about it. Yet there's nothing I can do about it."
Hunter walked to another tree and began examining the apples on it. "Like I said," he told Bonz, "you did your part. You tipped us off on a great opportunity to go back. That's a big first step for us."
Bonz just shook his head. "I know. But look at it from my perspective. I spent more than a century serving a regime that is up to its neck in this treachery. Knowing what I know, I wonder just how peaceful my soul can really be."
Hunter stopped picking apples and looked at the SF3 agent.
"What are you suggesting?" he asked him. "Certainly not that you go back with us."
"It's crossed my mind," Bonz admitted.
Hunter stuffed another apple into his pocket. "Don't be crazy," he told the spy. "Like I said: You're the hero. It took you winding up here to light the fuse again, and that could have only come about by the horrible way you died. They used to give medals out for things like that. No matter what transpires now, it couldn't have happened unless you did what you did."
"Well, sure, that helps you," Bonz said. "It doesn't help me."
Hunter said to him: "Look, man, you lost a beautiful wife, two beautiful kids. Now they're not lost anymore. They are here. And so are you. And you're guaranteed an eternity with them."
"But that's just it," Bonz insisted. "They will always be here. I could go with the R133 crew and maybe do some real good. Then, when I come back, it will be like I never left."
Hunter just shook his head. 'Talk to Pater Tomm," he suggested. "He'll knock that thought right out of your head, either with a prayer or the blackjack he keeps in his back pocket. Bottom line is this: you are a soul who has passed over; the rest of us are not. When we go back, we hope we will be in the same shape and form as when we left. But what would happen if you went back? God, they think I'll turn myself inside out if I ride aboard the first ship. I can't imagine what they might think would happen to you."