“I’m afraid not,” answered Bud, “we thought Mike had programmed the destination and arrival time on the Texas School Book Depository building correctly. What’s wrong Captain we arrived just as scheduled on top of the Book building Thursday morning. And Pegasus left Friday evening just as we had discussed, and it returned here to the cow pasture. Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? Wrong? Bud wrong is not a descriptive enough word, for the do-do we are in, and I’m not talking about that cow stuff lying around outside in the cow pasture. We have a problem, a big problem!”
Captain Scarburg continued, “Pegasus arrived on the TSBD building at exactly 9:00 a.m. on Saturday November 23, 1963 as you correctly stated. The departure time back to our cow pasture was also correct.”
Bud replied, “That seems fine, then what’s the problem Grandpa?”
“The “Destination” and the “Arrival time” at the Destination, are both wrong.”
The Captain stood up and pointed to both gauges to show the SCAR personnel how the dials were indicating the wrong numbers. Putting his finger on “DESTINATION” he explained that the GPS coordinates shown were not for Washington, D.C. but for the cow pasture where they were now sitting. Moving over to the “ARRIVAL” indicator. The date the Captain told the group, was supposed to show their arrival date back in Washington as Wednesday December 7, 2012.
“Okay, Grandpa,” Bud responded, “that sounds right, but what are you trying to tell us?”
“This arrival indicator is set for Wednesday December 7, but the year is not 2012.”
“When Grandpa? What year does the dial show?”
“The year is... is 1812!! The first two digits have been changed. We are getting ready to dematerialize from this Parallel Universe in 1963 and will reappear exactly where we are now sitting, but two hundred years ago!!”
“This sounds really bad Grandpa, but you can fix it, right? Right?”
Before Captain Scarburg could answer there was a brilliant flash of blue light, smoke obscured the front porthole and everyone inside the control room of Pegasus was rendered unconscious. They were all lying around on the floor unable to hear the melodious sound of the bagpipes sounding out the finishing notes of the beautiful rendition of ‘Amazing Grace.’
The time was 12:01 P.M., Wednesday December 7, 1812.