John chuckled to himself. "Can the leopard change her spots?" Wait until she realized how far from earth she was. Of extreme urgency now was to return to earth post haste.
He pondered about how rapidly he could get there. He decided to travel back in time to intercept the submarine again. To the best of his recollection, he would be able to intercept space-time at which his previous submarine existed. That is he would be able to continue transit in the submarine. Paradox could be avoided as long as he avoided contact with Jim and Helen till after Isis left the Flying Dutchman. He would then be able to avoid paradoxical shock waves by time shifting them slightly into the future. This they could accomplish by relocating the Dutchman forward in time to a different location.
John commanded his hyperspatial unit to return him back to the submarine from which he had rescued Jim. The transference occurred and John found himself back in time being pursued by the Navy and Venetian sonar. He then applied a lateral transfer, which transported him about forty miles away from the site where she had previously been. John was effectively home back on earth before he had surrendered the Pegasus to Isis. Isis would be temporarily indisposed at the present time and the immediate future. He would have to wait until Helen and Isis were gone before he could communicate with Jim.
He programmed his submarine unit to displace to the vicinity of the Flying Dutchman immediately after she left through the portal for the Pegasus. Before doing so, he decided he would bide some time and consider the potential opportunities he would have to consider exploiting. Currently, Isis is on the yacht, while Jim and Helen are on the Pegasus with his other self. Helen will return to the Dutchman for a brief period of time and then she would be gone again, but Jim would be on board. His projected light cone permitted an interception with the yacht, May 3 1996. This would be the same day that Isis walked through the portal from the Dutchman to the Pegasus.
John probed the airwaves to find a communication connection. His own vehicle's computers were updated with Genie's satellite information database. Using the 10% solution, John clandestinely tapped into earth's defensive communication systems. A critical target would be the cruiser and portal that she had used to gain landfall.
An extensive search of earth's database systems revealed that the ships had disappeared beneath the surface of the ocean and were believed to be in the depths. A search was currently underway, but it appeared that the Navy and Air Force were quite lax at following up leads. It was almost as if they were afraid to or were under orders not to pursue. He was not surprised to discover that she had effectively hidden her ships from surveillance.
Well John was back, and he would be able to find those ships. It seemed that there was evidence that there was a cruiser submerged not far from the Dutchman. He speculated that she had been taking the yacht towards the cruiser. Satellite records showed that the bearing of the Dutchman had no landfall in its current apparent path. A rendezvous with a star cruiser could be suspect. Perhaps she planned to return him to Artemis. Yes that would be her intention, or so she had told him. John calculated the direction that they were headed. He referred back to his target coordinates. They were identical. He searched the depths along the projected path. One spot in particular he identified as being very deep, and would be a likely candidate to hide a cruiser. He decided that he would search there first.
VENETIA
Chapter Twenty- Two
John Goes Back In Time