I was now entering my golden era on the Cheshire. I had firmly planted my place on the ship—a janitor. I had won over several of the crew, at this point, and they’d meet me almost every night in my Drop to leap. The newfound popularity became so big among shipmates, that it started to infringe upon their day jobs. And the Captain noticed.

Over the loudspeaker that fed into all of our respective rooms, one morning: “Attention all crew,” said the Captain, sternly. “Report to the bridge in 30 minutes.”

That was the entire message, but I could sense it was something serious she intended to address.

We all piled into the bridge, half of us still half asleep having come off a particularly arduous leap the night prior.

“I’m sensing some distraction among my crew, as of late,” the Captain was never one to mince words. “And I’ve called this meeting this morning to get to the bottom of it. We’re starting to fall behind on our tagging assigments. And Danny V. will notice on the upcoming quarterly report, if he sees how our sessions have dropped off. Anyone care to comment?”

We all looked at each other. In these situations, no one wants to speak first, especially the culprits. But I felt responsible for this recent descent.

“Captain, if I may,” I piped up, but before I could get into my explanation, the Captain stifled me.

“Bill, you’re the janitor,” she had me there. “Whatever’s going on among my crew, I would like to hear from a higher ranking official. There is no way the janitor is causing this much disruption.”

The highest ranking official that was privy to our nightly activities, at this point, was Donna. The rest of us who had been leaping were mid-management at best. The underlings, including myself, all looked at each other in hopes that Donna would provide an alibi. Thankfully, she got the hint.

“Captain, might I offer an explanation,” Donna said, after a few heavy moments of silence. “You see, we’ve been staying up late several nights a week in our quarters down below. It’s mainly just socializing and exploring our respective pasts together. Nothing more than bonding, I’d say.”

“That’s all fine and good,” the Captain retorted. “Nothing wrong with a little team building among my crew, especially when unprovoked. That’s good. What’s not good is that your personal actions are now causing the work to suffer. We’re falling behind in mission logs. So I may have to institute a curfew.”

The Captain spoke almost exclusively in orders. There was no reaction to this bad news among the crew, but I knew it had hit us all hard.

“Meeting adjourned,” closed the Captain.

The day then went on like normal. I took to my usual cleaning duties. And the rest of the crew reported to their stations. We had to work through a heavy backlog of tagging missions. The good news there was that some of them took the Cheshire out of Earth’s space to other planets within the solar system. Some even took us to other stars in the local galaxy. But the tasks were always quite the same:

• Receive word of some core memory from a UU bureaucrat.
• Pinpoint the moment in space-time where it occurred, and how.
• Navigate the Cheshire within an earshot of the event, and tag it.

The Cheshire crew had become quite adept at tagging these events for our government overlords. And after a few days of the newfound focus, we were all confident that Danny V. would be pleased with his latest quarterly report. But now we were infringing upon Drop time. I called my own meeting one night.

Once the Captain had regained confidence in our abilities, and loosened the leash, I invited my leap mates down to the Drop one evening. It was everyone you may expect up to this point: Kitty of course, Jacob and Gabe, Donna and Edward, Ron and Rachael. The others I decided to keep on a need-to-know basis, but I knew they were curious of our nightly excursions, which were now not happening as often. I would eventually bring them into the fold, once they could leap with us. For now, it was just the core crew.

As we sat in our circle in the zen garden within the Drop, I waited until the anxious energy calmed down. I closed my eyes and meditated on how to address the group. I opened with this:

“Cheshire crew, thank you for your devout dedication to our nightly leaps. I can honestly say that we could not have arrived at our level of abilities without each and every one of you. But now we’re faced with a predicament. The Captain has become wise to the fact that we’re doing something that takes away from the ship’s primary mission. I’m not saying we need to quit, but we do have to come up with a solution that keeps everyone happy, including Cap.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Kitty, my oldest confidant said.

“I think we need to show her the benefits of what we’ve learned about dimensional leaping. If we can demonstrate what we’re capable of down here, maybe we can win her over.”

“What does that mean?” ever the inquisitive Edward asked.

“I think we need to invite her down here one night and take her on a leap,” I said.

The crew’s faces went white. They knew the risk we were taking. This could mean the end of nightly leaping altogether, and I think they were hooked. A whole crew of burgeoning Thunderbirds I had brewing at this point, and they were not willing to let those privileges go.

“It’s the only way to keep our craft sustainable,” I added. “We need to bring her into the fold, especially with so many of her crew now privy. Your assignments now, while you mull through your day jobs, is to make mental notes of our best leaps thus far. Let’s put together a catalogue that we’ll then present to her, some night soon. We’ll need to get her on board, if we want to continue Cheshire-sponsored jumping.”

***

NEXT UP: Among the stories Bill chooses, we’ll include the Pingback, when he met the Twelve. Kitty mentions the time she got lost in the ’80s for a couple years, until Bill and team retrieved her. Bill’s Twelve proves pivotal in the current plot, since it sheds light on his ultimate purpose with the Cheshire crew and possibly beyond. His pingback ability indicates that his host Earth planet is approaching the sophistication to return to a divine origin, where the Twelve reside. Perhaps Earth, Bill’s Earth, is ready for a higher calling, and a graduation onto the next plane. When the Twelve had breathed life into this distant galaxy holding Earth, they left it for infinite epochs. They waited until a planet emerged as intelligent enough to return, a full-fledged life form responding to a faint radio signal.

That’s how Bill’s Earth landed on the Twelve’s radar. That’s how Earth survived the test of time.

***