A Loop in Time by Clark Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

activate the auxiliary drive.”
    “Roger,” John said and reached for the button marked ‘Vmax3 Drive.’ When he hit the button the plane jumped forward and his head was pushed backwards in his seat.
    He looked at his controls when it smoothed out some. “Holding steady at Mach 0.5, Control.”
    “Roger that, we are reading the same thing.”
    Suddenly John heard a loud pop behind him and the plane started buffeting wildly. The stick was shaking and all of the aural warnings went off all at the same time. “Massive system failure.”
    “We’re losing him,” the normally calm controller was yelling.
    “I’m still here,” John insisted.
    “We’re losing him!” Then the headset went dead.
    “Control, do you read me? Control?”
    Then the flames started.
     

Chapter Nine
     
    John sat bolt upright in bed. To his surprise, Susan was sitting on the edge of his bed and she calmly put her hands on his shoulders. “Are you okay? I could hear you yelling from my room.”
    She didn’t have time to get dressed; she just came running in. She was wearing a faded pink nightgown that she would have been embarrassed to be seen in if she had thought it through.
    “I was having a nightmare, fire and alarms in my plane. I had to get out.” John was sweating profusely.
    “I wonder who Control is and why they can’t seem to hear you,” she said as she took the sleeve of her nightgown and dabbed the sweat away.
    “I am sorry to have bothered you. What was I yelling?”
    “You kept yelling over and over, ‘can you hear me, Control?’ No one seemed to respond though.”
    “No, I lost them. I guess I lost them 45 years from now.” He sighed. It was then he noticed how she was dressed and that her nightgown probably revealed a little more than she intended.
    She saw him looking, but she didn’t care. There were more important things here than modesty. It would embarrass her more to go running off anyway. “You get some sleep. I have the early shift at work so I have to go get in the shower. I will ask Doctor Ralston about that yard work job, if you are interested. Nothing like being bored in someone else’s house where you can’t do anything.”
    “Yes, I’m interested,” he said as he sat back.
    When she went to get ready he watched her go. He enjoyed looking at her and it made him feel just a little guilty. ‘No hanky panky,’ he reminded himself.
    When she was gone, he got up and got dressed. He only had the one set of clothes and they were going to be mighty uncomfortable by the end of the week. He would need any money he could get.
    She came out of the shower in just a towel, but went immediately to her room. She didn’t even notice that he had gotten up. He was looking in the refrigerator, wondering if he could get away with cooking an omelet. He decided against it and went and sat down in the living room. He had brought the James Bond book back from the hospital so he started to read it.
    When Susan came out she was in her nurse’s uniform. “Oh, you got up. I thought that you would have gone back to sleep.”
    “I didn’t want to face the night demons again,” he explained.
    “Did you figure out anymore about yourself in your dream?” She was half listening as she got out a frying pan and some eggs and bacon.
    “I saw the plane that I was flying. It had swept wings and was all black. It wasn’t smooth but had weird angles. Oh, and I heard my call sign. They called me Moondog.”
    She peeked around the corner, “Moondog, huh? Can I call you that?”
    “No, it’s part of my nightmare.”
    “What type of wings did you say your plane had?” She broke open four eggs into the pan and started the bacon in another one.
    “Swept wings. It’s where the wing tip is at an angle from the fuselage.”
    “Hmm, never heard of that.” She then went back to cooking.
    “You aren’t going to tell the base everything I relate to you, are you?” He was suddenly suspicious, especially after Andy had been