How I Spent My Christmas Vacation: 3/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
"Oh boy," he said.
"What?"
"That island. It's inhabited by what looks like Polynesian Islanders. Primitive ones."
"How can you tell?" she asked.
"The grass huts, spears and animal skins kind of gave it away," he said.
"No, I mean how can you see anything? All I see is a bunch of green stuff."
"Oh. X-ray vision and telescopic vision. I told you I'm not from Earth."
""Really?" She stared at him with wide eyes. "What else can you do?"
"Well, I'm a lot stronger than a normal human man, and pretty fast. I can hear very well, and -- well, a lot of things. I'll tell you later. The question is, what should we do now?"
"Do you know what island that is?" she asked.
He shrugged. "No. Just one of a hundred little islands in this area. I think we're in the South Pacific, though."
"Well, if you know that, then you should know which way to go to get us to the States," Lois said.
"If there even *is* a United States at this time in history," Clark said. "All right; the States it is. If we wait for Herb in Metropolis -- or where Metropolis should be --he can probably find us without too much trouble."
"Assuming he does find us, of course," Lois said. "I don't suppose you have the stuff you need to build a time machine, do you?"
He shook his head regretfully. "I'm afraid not."
"That's what I was afraid of," Lois said. She sighed. "Oh well. At least I'm alive, and that's a lot better than the alternative."
**********
And now, Part 3:
"I know you said we're in the tropics," Lois said a short time later, "but I wish my clothes would get dry. I guess it's taking a while because of the humidity."
"Why didn't you say so?" Clark asked instantly. "Just a minute while I find another island and I'll take care of it."
"You've got a disguised clothes dryer in your pocket?" she asked.
"No, but I can dry your clothes," he said, grinning slightly. "There's one a little off to the right."
The island was tiny, no more than ten acres of ground, but even here plants grew abundantly. He touched down and set her on her feet.
"Now what?" she asked, the wary look returning. "If you think I'm going to take off my clothes so you can hang them up to dry, think again, pal."
"Wouldn't dream of it," he assured her. "Raise your arms from your sides and hold still."
Casting him a dubious look, she obeyed and he fanned his heat vision over her, concentrating on the clothing. He saw her eyes widen as steam began to rise from the cloth but she didn't move as he walked slowly around her, drying her clothes.
When he had finished he stood back, trying not to grin. "How's that?"
"How did you *do* that?" she demanded.
"Heat vision," he said. "Remember, I'm not ..."
"From Earth," she finished for him. "You've convinced me, but you still look like a man to me."
"I *am* a man," he said. "Just like you're a woman."
She flushed. "I feel like a pretty scruffy woman right now," she said. "I don't suppose you have a hairbrush in that bag of tricks of yours."
"No, but I have a pocket comb." He produced it. "Will this help?"
"It sure will." She took the offering and he waited while she tugged the comb through her hair. "Ugh," she added. "The salt water sure makes it sticky."
"If we come across a larger island with a lake or something, we can stop while you rinse off the salt," he suggested. "I promise not to peek."
He watched her cheeks darken. "No, really, my parents taught me better than that. I promise, you're safe with me."
"I'm beginning to realize that," she said. "Here's your comb," she added, returning the item to him. "I've done about all I can do until we get somewhere a little more civilized."
"Don't worry," he told her. "You look pretty decent, actually."
"That's reassuring. As for your offer, I'd like that -- if you can be sure there aren't any natives around. I don't fancy being captured and made to marry the tribal chief or something."
He laughed. "You can count on me. Shall we go?"
They had been flying for another five minutes when Lois asked suddenly, "Who are the others?"
That one was out of left field. "What others?"
"The others necessary for this Utopia you talked about to happen? You said this Tempus guy came back to attack the people responsible for making the future into a kind of Utopia. That means I wasn't the only one. Who else did he attack?"
"Oh." He hesitated and had to remind himself sharply of what his father used to say. "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember which lies you told. Honesty is the best policy." He drew a breath. "He attacked me."
"You?" she stared at him. After a moment, she nodded. "Yes, I guess I can see that. A man with your powers ..." She hesitated. "But if he attacked you, why did you come back to help me? Weren't you afraid he'd go after you again?"
Clark shrugged. "It all has to do with time. He came here first to attack you, then he apparently came to 1996 to attack me, after he disposed of you -- or so he thought. This time travel thing is confusing. Anyway, in *my* timeline, he attacked me last year. If he'd succeeded in taking me out, the chaotic future he was trying to create would have happened a lot sooner, or so Herb told me. My presence delayed it, but to prevent it from happening, we needed you, too -- so Herb and I came after you."
"I guess I see," she said. "You're right. Time travel is confusing. So, what happens after this Herb finds us? How do you know Tempus won't attack me again when he realizes he's failed?"
"Well ..." he bit his lip, trying to think of an easy way to explain it. "You have to come back to 1997."
"*What*? Now just a minute ..."
"Look, Lois," Clark said, patiently, "you can get Herb to explain it to you, assuming he finds us, but there's a good reason why it has to be that way. Where I come from, you've been missing for four years. That's why we searched for you and stopped Tempus from killing you. If you aren't missing then we won't search for you -- and by not searching for you, we allow Tempus to kill you, which starts up this timeline again. Herb told me that it might set up an alternating time loop that would cause disaster for the whole world. Do you want to risk that?"
She was silent for a long time when he finished speaking. "No," she said finally, in a small voice.
"No?"
"No, I don't want to risk it. What you're saying is that I'd be doing this forever, over and over again, wouldn't I?"
"I guess so," he said. "I'm just repeating what Herb told me. He knows a lot more about this time travel stuff than I do. I never read much science fiction when I was a kid."
She had turned her face away, and after a few seconds, he realized she was crying and didn't want him to see it.
"Lois," he said softly.
She didn't answer. He tried again. "Lois, I know it's a little scary, but there's an up side to this, too. Think about the people who will be glad to know that you're alive."
"Yeah? Who?"
"Perry, for one. I think it nearly broke his heart when he thought you'd been killed."
"Okay, one person. Big deal."
"Your sister, Lucy. I've talked to her a little. She misses you more than you think. She told me a little about your family, too. Your mother started drinking again after you disappeared, you know. She's dried out now, but I think knowing you're alive will make a big difference."
Lois sighed, turning her head to look at him. "I know. I guess I do know that she loves Lucy and me. She just doesn't know how to show it."
"Just keep that in mind," he said. "And there's this too." He grinned at her. "Now you'll be younger than your sister."
"This is a *good* thing?"
"Well, a lot of women might think so. In the course of things, you'd be thirty in 1997. Instead, you'll be twenty-five, going on twenty-six, since it's nearly Christmas there, and you went to the Congo in early '93. Is that so bad?"
Now she was looking thoughtful. "Actually, it isn't," she admitted. "You're right; this time travel stuff is confusing as heck. But how did you know my age?"
He hesitated again. *The truth.* "I read the date you were born on your tombstone, but I'm happy to say the rumors of your death were greatly exaggerated. I think everyone else will be, too."
"Well, maybe a few," she admitted somewhat grudgingly. "I don't have many friends around the newsroom."
"Perry's talked about you, a lot," he said. "From everything he's said, he thought the world of you. I have to admit, I wanted to meet you."
"You know Perry?"
"Sure. I told you I'm a reporter, remember? I work for the Daily Planet. I joined the staff a few months after you disappeared."
She was silent for several minutes after that revelation. The blue water rolled past beneath. Once they passed a school of dolphins, leaping and cavorting in the waves, and here and there he could see the occasional seagull. There had to be land not too far away if there were gulls.
"Island coming up," he announced as a land mass loomed on the horizon. "Looks too small to have what we want, but I think ..." He focused his enhanced vision on it. "That's Niihau."
"Nii -- what?"
"It's a little island in the Pacific Ocean with very little rainfall, but the good news is that it's the farthest west of the Hawaiian Island chain -- which means that what we're looking for is coming up in a minute." He smiled at her. "How does Kauai sound for a bath? -- minus any Twentieth Century amenities, of course."
"Are there people?" she asked.
"Yes, but I think we can avoid them."
"It sounds good to me," Lois said.
**********
Clark stood on the riverbank, keeping his eyes away from the water where Lois was currently bathing. Her clothing, newly rinsed and dried, courtesy of his heat vision, was spread over several bushes, waiting for their owner to reclaim them.
The sound of splashing behind him increased. Lois said, "I feel like Jane in the old Tarzan movies. Any sign of the owners of this place?"
While floating over the island, looking for a place for Lois to bathe, they had spotted not only a village populated by Polynesians dressed in feathers and animal skins, but quite a few groups of muscular, scantily-clad, golden-skinned men, apparently fishing with woven nets in the aquamarine waters that surrounded the island. In the village, they had seen small, naked children playing, and women dressed in grass skirts, not in the least like the commercial grass skirts he had seen on hula dancers of modern day Hawaii. These were made of the natural grasses native to the islands, and the women wore nothing at all above the waist. Lois had looked down at the village and its inhabitants in silence, and admitted, as they soared over the lush jungle growth, that she was now completely convinced that this was not the Hawaii she had visited some years ago.
"Nobody nearby," he reported. "Are you done?"
"I feel much better," Lois said. "Just keep your back turned while I get dressed."
More splashing as she climbed from the water, and then the rustle of foliage as she reclaimed her clothing. He resolutely didn't look around.
There was a slap. "Missed," she said. "I guess they had mosquitoes here, even way back whenever we are."
"Or biting insects of some kind," Clark agreed. "I'm afraid even paradise has those."
"It's the tropics," she said. "I've gotten used to them, unfortunately." More rustling as she pulled up her jeans. "They don't seem to bother you, though."
"They can't bite me," he explained.
"What do you mean? Do you taste bad to them or something?"
"My skin is impenetrable," he said.
"You mean you can't be hurt?"
"Not by ordinary means," he said.
"Oh." The sound of a zipper. "But if you can't be hurt, how could Tempus attack you?"
He had to grin. Trust Lois to pick right up on that little discrepancy. "I said I can't be hurt by ordinary means. Remind me to tell you about a certain glowing green rock sometime. That's a whole other story. Let's say, he knows exactly what will harm me, but I made sure he didn't see that I was here. I didn't want to tip him off that I'd come to help you until it was too late."
"You can turn around now," Lois said. "And may I borrow your comb again?"
He turned, fishing the comb out of his pocket once more. Lois took it and began to tug it through her hair. Fortunately, he thought, she didn't have one of those overly complicated hairdos like a perm or something. Her hair was a simply styled and flattering page-boy cut that just brushed her shoulders, and probably wasn't particularly difficult to care for. When they had first met, the Lois from the other universe had favored a shorter and more intricate arrangement that would certainly be impossible to do much with in the circumstances they now faced. By their second meeting the style had softened somewhat, but he still preferred the one the Lois of his universe wore. As a matter of fact, there wasn't anything about her that he didn't like, from her sharp, practical observations, to the way she seemed, at least according to Perry White, to defy the universe on a regular basis, and somehow come out more or less unscathed. And the incredibly familiar way she fit in his arms when he carried her. It was exactly as if he had known how it would feel and had expected it. And it felt *right*.
"Are you there?" She waved a hand in front of his face.
He blinked. "Sure. Why?"
"The way you were staring at me. You kind of zoned out on me."
He could feel his cheeks burning. "Sorry. I guess I've heard so much about you from Perry that I keep expecting you to pull the solution to this mess out of thin air. You kind of have this reputation."
"Oh, that," Lois said. "The reputation of plunging head first into dangerous situations and somehow walking away from them?"
He shrugged. "Kind of."
She gave a short laugh, handing him back his comb. "Clark, I have that kind of reputation because I get involved with my stories a lot more than a good journalist should. I have this habit of jumping in headfirst without checking the water level." She ran a hand over her hair. "I had the feeling I shouldn't meet Mr. Temple at the warehouse tonight, but my informant said that he had a tip for me about the gunrunners, and I couldn't resist -- and look where it got me. If it hadn't been for you, I'd have been shark bait. Perry used to claim that I was making him old before his time, but he loved the stories I brought in." She shrugged. "I should know better by now, but it's the only way I know how to do it, and so I keep jumping in without checking first. One of these days my luck is going to run out."
"Not if I can help it." The words were out before he could stop them.
She laughed dryly. "In that case, you've just acquired a 24/7 job."
"If that's what it takes." He shrugged. "You're worth it."
"If you think so, then you’re the only one who does," she said.
He tucked the comb into his back pocket and stepped forward to lift her from the ground. A moment later, they were soaring over the island in a warm, rising current.
"Why do you say that?" he asked. "I can't believe I'm the only one who ever noticed what a remarkable person you are."
"If anyone did, they were good at keeping it secret." She turned her head to look down at the greenery passing under them. "I'm not anything special, Clark. I never was."
He couldn't believe what he was hearing. This woman was everything he'd dreamed of, and yet she had no idea how unbelievably special she really was. "Don't you think you should let me decide without trying to prejudice me?" he asked, trying not to smile.
She shrugged. "What I don't understand is why I'm so important to the future. What is it about me that makes the difference? If anyone could make a difference, I'd think it would be someone like you, not me."
"Well ..." He hesitated. How could he explain it without ruining his chances with her? "According to the little that Herb told me, the key is the two of us together. In the future, you and I apparently promote certain principles that the people in future generations use as the foundation of their society. That's a pretty big job. Neither one of us can accomplish it alone -- not even Superman."
"I guess not." She had turned to look at him again. "You know," she said with forced lightness, "it isn't really fair."
"What isn't?"
"That you know so much about me and I don't know anything about you except your name, and a little of what you can do. Tell me about yourself."
**********
tbc
