Mimps sat on her rock looking out over the trees as the setting suns slipped behind the distant mountains and bathed the landscape in shades of rose and lilac. She wasn’t really seeing the trees, she was thinking about the dream. It had been so unexpected and so real she didn’t know what to make of it. She absently twisted a strand of her long greying hair with one hand and picked at a patch on the knee of her dragon skin pants with the other. The pants were so worn and patched by now that there was more of other hides showing than the original dragon skin. Even the toughest hide in the galaxy can’t last 37 years of continual wear. She tried again to remember all of the dream.
She had been sleeping in her hut, a comfortable log cabin type structure with a bed, plenty of warm furs, a table, chair, cupboards and shelves, all made with her own hands over the years. Coals were glowing in the fire place and starlight was shining in the open window. Then she had dreamt the noise. It was a noise that had no place on this deserted planet; it was a noise from her past. The noise of a transporter beam. She lay for a moment as her brain processed the noise and gave her a name for it. Then she became aware that there was someone or something inside the cabin with her. She sat up and saw him, a shimmering ghostly image standing at the foot of her bed. She could see straight through him to the other wall of the hut. As she stared he looked down at something in his hand then looked back at her and his mouth formed the word “Oh”, then he looked down again and vanished.
Now she sat on her rock forcing her mind to remember her past, to remember a face and trying to understand why after all these years that face would appear in a dream. Because it was only a dream, wasn’t it?
* * * * * * * *
“I’ve found her, I’ve found her!” shouted Arado as he rushed onto the bridge of the Rorschach. He slapped a data chip into a vacant slot and rapidly punched keys across the consol. The others on the bridge gathered around and watched the flickering image of an elderly fur clad woman with long grey hair. “I was able to send a holo image forward in time and I found her. My timing was a bit off but I think I can fix that.”
Miral frowned at the screen then at Arado. “You mean that is…” she said unable to finish the sentence.
“Yes,” said Arado still tapping at keys. “That is her.”
“But we can’t…” said Miral with some confusion.
Arado stopped for a moment and looked at the faces of the crew staring back at him and the worried confusion in Miral’s eyes.
“Oh,” said Arado, “let me explain. We don’t go and get her from here,” he jabbed a finger at the image on the screen. “Now that we have found her I will use this image to calculate how many years have passed and we go back and get her from then, just after she arrived there.” He tapped the final key with a flourish and a set of coordinates replaced the flickering image. “That is where we are going folks, hold on to your seats, it could be a bumpy ride.”
* * * * * * * *
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