1
GANTRY
She lay back and listened to the soft whine of the engines.
WHAT WAS SHE DREAMING ABOUT?
DON’T WAKE THE SLEEPING DRAGON
Genneta’s brother saves the men?
Rose mention husband in her thoughts early on in the adventure
SWEET DREAMS
Ian Keildson
2
Prologue – Breakfast
I began to slide over the slippery slope down the smooth mountainside,
picking up speed as the boosters kicked in, gliding low and fast over the glassy
gleaming surface glittering green in the weak rays of a dying red-giant sun. The
only blemishes on the landscape were some strange craters at irregular intervals,
as if superheated meteors had slammed into the hard crust and melted through.
Whatever these holes were, each was inhabited by a gigantic silver spiral-worm
that cork-screwed up into the Jovian dawn and tried to grab me whenever I flew
near one of them. There was no avoiding them really because my only food, and
theirs it seemed, pulsating pods oozing globs of gelatinous goo perched
precariously on whip like stalks, was located round the rim of their craters and they
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kept a watchful eye (if they had eyes) on their crop. To harvest these pods I had
to run the gauntlet of wriggling worms, slicing them off with the built-in laser, or
failing that, ripping them out by the roots with my power-assisted mech-arms and
hurling them into outer space.
Every morning early, when the worms were still a bit sleepy and slow
moving, I would make the run to fetch breakfast. No doubt a pizza delivery boy in
Manhattan would scoff at the dangers I faced, but at least the food he delivered
was edible. Well…relatively speaking. Very unlike the slimy balls of yellow smelly,
glutinous gunk I had to eat. Still, it kept me alive since the galley of my ship,
together with all the compressed and frozen food, had been vaporised in the crash.
The length of a day here was about the same as a day on earth, but that
was where all similarities ended. Even the valley where I had crash-landed, bore
no earthly resemblance. The hillsides were smooth and regular and as hard as
diamond. No rocks or dust, just these worm craters, and the cave.
There was no atmosphere on this planet which is why the cave was a
godsend. There was enough oxygen in my tanks for only about a month of
continual use. Then that was it. Because the ship had burst all its seams on
impact, the air scrubbers were useless. So, no recycling.
The cave led half-a-mile downwards and ended in a cavern with bubbling
thermal vents that farted out a continuous stream of stinky but breathable air which
dissipated within a few yards of the vents and bled off into space. So I set up
camp here, only leaving the cave to suit up and get breakfast.
What was down there that emitted this foul stench I couldn’t even guess at.
The whole planet was an enigma. Well not so much a planet as a small moon
covered by strangely shaped mountain ridges in shiny metallic green, with perfectly
symmetrical peaks diminishing into the distance.
4
N
It was nothing really. A faint flicker - easily mistaken for a floater in the eye,
or a misfiring synapse in the brain that left an infinitesimal flash of light on my field
of vision. Then it was gone. As if a star had just winked out. I was about to dismiss
it when another one flickered out and something cold crept up the back of my neck
and goose pimples erupted all over my scalp.
“Reverse direction and fire thrusters now…” The tech officer, an indolent slob
who never did anything without arguing, didn’t even hesitate. The barely controlled
hysteria in my voice brooked no argument. “Lateral boosters to 180 degrees,” he
replied.
“Get ready to fire main thrusters on full power the moment we’re aligned.
And I suggest you strap yourself in.”
All the time I watched as more and more stars winked out ahead of us.
There was only one logical explanation. Something big was blocking out the light
and we were headed straight for it. I fired off a stream of distress drones in the
general direction of home and waited in agony as we rotated to reverse-thrust
position.
“Firing all main thrusters.”
It was too late and I knew it. I had no idea how big it was or how close we
were, but you get an instinct about these things. With two thousand tons of ore in
the cargo hold, even if we survived the massive G force of slamming on the brakes
so hard, it would still take a hundred thousand miles to stop. The scanners still
read nothing and the cameras didn’t have enough light to initialize. There shouldn’t
have been anything out here anyway. Not according to the star chart. That was my
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last thought as the engines kicked in and a sledgehammer hit me in the chest. A
second later I passed out.
The thousand tons of prime ore impacting first is probably what saved my life
by acting like a kind of shock absorber. My techie wasn’t so lucky. I still haven’t
found his body.
So here I was. Eking out my oxygen and waiting for the end. Which was a
real bitch because I had stumbled on the richest vein of Scandium since the gold
rush. I was a made man. However, I was also a dead man.
How I got here is a bit of a long story, but I’ll cut it short. There was this guy
you see, on Alpha Centuari, and we had a little misunderstanding over a poker
game. He seemed to think I had cheated him and wanted his money back. I
pretended to go to the loo, snuck out the back door and managed to get to my
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space ship with inches to spare. I blasted off a few minutes before him and ran like
hell. He must’ve had some very sophisticated sensors on board because he
followed my exhaust signature like a dog after a rabbit. In fact he dogged me all
the way through the asteroid belt and I just couldn’t shake him off. His ship was a
lot faster than mine, not to mention armed to the teeth. I was hoping he wouldn’t
follow me as far as General Outer Defence Station 5 because of all the Federation
cruisers and battleships hanging around there, but nothing seemed to put him off
the scent, he just kept on coming. He fired at me again on the approach to G.O.D.
5 but thankfully missed. But only by a mile. This was getting too close for comfort.
Before he had time to recharge his plasma cannon I pulled sharply around
G.O.D. 5, coming as close as I dared and then skimmed across the face of the
wormhole hoping to generate enough G’s to slingshot me outa there. Not the most
sensible manoeuvre but preferable to death by laser section. The only thing I had
miscalculated was the size of the wormhole. I wasn’t expecting it to be that big. A
gigantic whirlpool the size of a planet, twisting away into nothingness.
Federation flares were fired at me as I passed Station 5 and my radio
exploded into life with a series of urgent warnings.
‘Damned cops,’ I thought. ‘Trust them to arrest the wrong guy.’ I ignored
them and piled on the speed. This was a matter of some urgency and I wasn’t
going to let a few figurative yellow lines stop me. The radio continued to squawk
and shriek at me.
“This is Station 5 to Mining Vessel 385GW. Please be advised that you
have entered a no-go zone and are in dangerous proximity to the wormhole.
Please reverse your position and proceed to Alpha Station Dock 6 for questioning.”
“What for? I haven’t done anything,” I argued, just to give me some more
time.
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“You have entered a restricted area and are in violation of Federation code
35624.1205.”
“Okay, okay. And just where is Dock number whatever you said?”
“We have already sent you the co-ordinates in a code-red package. Please
expedite.”
“Here’s the problem base. I got this guy who wants to kill me. If you look at
your screens more carefully you should be able to see him taking aim at my ass.
So I ain’t stopping for nothing.”
“Station 5 to Mining Vessel 385GW, that is not acceptable. Please change
trajectory to sent co-ordinates and commence deceleration.”
And as if this wasn’t enough I was having a bit of a problem with my
slingshot calculations. They weren’t working out so well. Instead of getting further
away from the wormhole, I was getting closer. I could feel the gravity-well slowly
getting hold of my ship.
I managed to escape my pursuer, but not the wormhole. After a three day
tunnel ride through hyperspace I was spewed out the other end into a solar system
that my computers had never even heard of and couldn’t find on any of their star
maps. I didn’t have long to worry about the problem though, my sensors
immediately picked up some off-the-chart mineral readings from a gigantic asteroid
nearby and I knew I had, in old prospecting terms, struck it rich. Rich enough to
pay off my protagonist and have enough left over for a life of luxury.
It took me a little over a week to load my little ship up to the gills and start
heading back to the wormhole. Hopefully the wormhole worked both ways. It didn’t
bear thinking about if it didn’t. To increase my chances though, I gave my old
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bucket as much G thrust as she could stand without coming apart at the seams
and aimed it straight down the wormholes throat.
But, I never made it that far. Something came between us and here I am,
marooned on the strangest looking planet I’d ever seen.
My stomach growled, reminding me that I still had to collect breakfast this
morning. I fired up the mech suit headed for one of the pods when the landscape
beneath my feet began to heave and buckle, like some mythical beast twitching in
its sleep.
N
N
N
9
PART ONE
Chapter 1
There was no escaping those feet. They were always there. It was bitterly
cold in here, but her feet always stuck out the end of her blanket…all pink and
perfect. They were there when she opened her eyes in the morning and they were
there when she went to sleep at night. She’d been watching them for the last five
months, presenting themselves to her from the upper bunk. Feet are very personal.
One shouldn’t go waggling them in some strangers face. They’re too intimate. It
was like staring into someone’s sole. (Ha, ha) Often in moments of irritation she
had wanted to pull on those little piggies and make them go wee-wee all the way
home. But often too, to her own surprise, when she found herself awake in the
middle of the night when one is prone to strange thoughts, she had been sorely
tempted to lay her cheek against their soft warm rosiness and kiss them.
10
They were very clean: for a convict’s feet. Always clipped and cured. Very
pretty, with slightly fallen arches that gave them a look of vulnerability. She felt
very differently about the owner of the feet, as if the person and the feet were two
different people. She felt more intimate with the feet than the person. She actually
had a love-hate relationship with those feet that almost amounted to a secret loveaffair. Through all the empty hours it had built up into an obsession. Sometimes in
the gloom, if she stared at them too long, they would begin to flow outside their
boundaries and even change their shape, shifting like ghostly wraiths running over
the sheets and reaching down towards her, and she would have to pull her
imagination up sharply. She spent more time talking to the feet (in her head) than
she did to the owner. Without her relationship to those feet, unrequited as it was,
she was sure she would never have made it this far without going crazy. Dutch
was normally a physically active person. Being the pilot slash loading engineer of
an Ore-transport ship had kept her running, lifting, hauling and exerting herself to
near exhaustion for many hours of the day. After work she would continue roughhousing and arm-wrestling with her comrades, drinking and raising hell till the early
hours. Here she was locked up in a cell hardly big enough to spit in and spent
most of the time lying on her back…staring at the feet.
Often in the mornings, when all were still asleep, she would lie and keep
watch over those feet. She knew every contour and wrinkle. She knew the shape
of every toe, some slightly deformed from wearing narrow high heel shoes.
Contemplating them had a great soothing effect on her and often she found herself
mentally stroking them, as if they were a pet.
Soon they would start to twitch. Just once at first and then lapse into
stillness again for a while. Then they would twitch again and Dutch would know
she was starting to surface from her dreams. Another twitch – a long pause – and
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then twice….and then the twirling and stretching out of the toes as she finally woke
up and the cot would creak and sag above her. Then the owner of the feet would
give a yawn and a sigh and sink back into a blissful doze while Dutch waited
patiently.
“Good morning,” she’d finally say.
The day had begun.
Somewhere a door clanged and someone said something…and then silence,
just the soft humming of the scrubbers, recycling the same old stale air. Just like
this station was trying to recycle her. She shivered and turned in her thin grey
blanket. The cold light from the corridor spilled through the bars of the cell. The
chilly metal walls dripped noisily with condensation.
“What do you think it will be like? When we get there?” came the
disembodied voice from the top bunk.
“It’ll be just the same as here.” Dutch’s voice rang out unnaturally curt and
loud. “One cell’s the same as the next.”
“Do you think they’ll put us together?” she said, her voice was filled with
concern. “I mean…we’re friends aren’t we?”
The silence crept over them like a chilly fog up a hillside.
The nights were long and Dutch had plenty of time to think about what she
had done to her husband. It still made her smile involuntarily every time she
recalled the fatal scene. She got the same kind of perverse pleasure one would
get out of squashing a mean bug. It gave her a kick on the one hand, on the other,
if she could have that moment over, she wouldn’t have done it. She hadn’t meant
to kill him. It’s just the devil finally got into her.
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They had been co-workers on the same ore-liner for many years, with the
occasional fling to let off steam, before they decided to throw in the towel and get
married. It wasn’t love really, just convenient. After the wedding she was quite
happy to continue with the same old same old, but something flipped inside of him.
He never was mister nice-guy before, but owning a wife seemed to tip him over
the edge. The problem was she could do most anything better than him, and she
was a hell of a lot smarter. None of this had been a problem until they tied the
knot. Then he began to put her down whenever they were in company, making
snide jokes about her which of course she couldn’t really complain about seeing
that they were ‘just jokes for God’s sake’.
In the beginning she would just grin and bear it. She understood that he had
a fragile face to save and she was a bigger man than him so she didn’t pay him
much mind until one night, after she had involuntarily let fly a witty repartee, he
knocked out a couple of her teeth. Teeth were a premium way out there in the
middle of nowhere because dentures were hard to come by and their staple diet of
dog biscuits not so easy to chew without them. Also, she didn’t look so pretty
anymore. Not that she was ever a raving beauty, but now she looked like a corncob hill-billy broad to boot.
He must have got to like the feeling because soon he began hitting on her
for no reason and she had to use all her whiles to protect what remained of her
Colgate smile. Things went on in this vein for a while until one day there was an
incident. She was running the control board during a pickup and he was E.V.A.
when a retro rocket on the incoming ore train malfunctioned and he began
screaming bloody-blue-murder at her why-didn’t-she-open-the-fucking-hatch-youstupid-whore-get-me-out-of-here and all the while she watched dispassionately as
his end drew nigh, her finger tap-tapping the vital release switch on the cargo bay
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air-lock ever so lightly as she contemplated her husband and his just deserts. He
didn’t say please. That was all it boiled down to in her head. He just didn’t say
please. She would have gotten away with it if the Super hadn’t walked in while she
hesitated too long and her husband died. The Super happened to be her
husband’s brother, and she was busted.
So here she was. On a prison shuttle on her way to the Delta Section Penal
colony because space protocol was sacrosanct. It was too dangerous out here.
Fatal accidents were common place enough without being given a helping hand by
a hormonal wife. She never got a chance to explain her side of the story. No
hearing, no nothing. No one was interested. The fact that she would never do it
again and that everyone knew the bastard had literally begged for it didn’t mean a
thing. You don’t fuck around in space. Ever. The funny thing is, that in her dreams,
she always flicked the switch in plenty of time to save her husband from being
crushed against the hull by the runaway ore-sled.
She looked up at the feet again. Why couldn’t she have had pretty feet like
that? She stuck her big galumphing things out the end of the bed and waggled her
ugly porkers.
“Ugh.”
Then she felt an unaccustomed rush of tenderness for her own malformed
manlike body and two burning tears sprang up in the corner of her eyes.
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The fast bleep of a sensor alarm and the hum and grind of the laser array
turning to take aim woke her up. The guns commenced firing with a soft ‘suckthump’ sound, clearing the path ahead. The lasers could vaporise anything from a
small rock to an asteroid. After six months of acceleration they were travelling
close to fifty percent the speed of light and at that speed a grain of sand took on
the characteristics of an express train. The 100mm thick aluminium-titanium alloy
hull might as well have been polystyrene in such a situation.
The prison ship was basically a huge rotating drum with rows of cells against
the outer hull divided by corridors. There was also a recreation area, mess hall,
and secure prison-warders quarters. A smaller drum within the large one occupied
15
most of the central core and housed the gigantic fusion generators, fuel tanks and
the food freezers. At the thrusting end of the great drum was the flight deck and
engineering section with its control panels, computers and read-outs. The flight
deck and the flight-crew quarters were separated from the main prison area by a
titanium wall a foot thick, impenetrable by any small-arms weapons. The hatch
linking the prison area to the flight deck was double coded and safety locked.
Each prison cell had two beds, its own washbasin and toilet, which you had
to remember to close during acceleration and deceleration as the drum couldn’t
spin during those times and there was literally no G force to hold things down. Gseats were bolted to the wall where the inmates strapped themselves in when the
main engines fired for forward thrust. This happened eight hours out of every
twenty four to keep increasing speed. Eight hours, immobilized in a seat at more
than 5G, is no fun. But that’s what was needed if they were to get to their
destination in their lifetime. Once thrust is cut, the lateral boosters are fired up
again to spin the drum, much like the wall-of-death in an amusement park. In
space however, you can walk upright on the wall quite comfortably, except for the
small sideways velocity from the spin which causes you to walk at a slight angle all
the time. But you got used to it. Even lying down, Dutch could feel the slight tug of
the centrifuge.
Suddenly the feet vanished and a face appeared in their place.
“Would you mind? I gotta go.” Sweet Mary’s face twisted in an agony of
embarrassment.
“Oh Christ.” Dutch gave an exasperated snort, turned over on her stomach,
and put the pillow over her head without saying a further word.
Sweet Mary hopped lightly off the bunk and tip-toed across the cold metal
floor to the toilet in the corner. This was the one thing she never got used to, and
16
even Dutch, who was quite used to working and showering, eating and shitting in
front of a bunch of tough guys, would never admit how difficult she found it to go in
front of Sweet Mary. Having to go to the toilet in front of each other bred an
unspoken empathy for one another, like sisters under the skin, so they did their
best to pretend not to be there at those times.
As irritable as she appeared to be, Dutch had come to feel very kindly about
Sweet Mary. She latched on quite early to the fact that Sweet Mary felt ugly and
miserable without her makeup. She had terrible anxieties when she didn’t have any
on - even when there was only Dutch there. Somehow Dutch had managed to get
hold of some for her. She even managed to get hold of a contraband razor from
one of the other inmates for her to shave her legs, and some other little feminine
knick knacks that had Sweet Mary in tears of thankfulness.
“I like to look pretty,” she said. “It makes me feel better.”
“Sure. You look fine anyway. If anyone needs make-up it’s me. Not that it’d
help much anyway.”
Sweet Mary sat up on her bunk.
“I can put some on you if you like. I think you’d look fine.”
“No thanks.”
“Go on.”
“No.”
Sweet Mary stretched down a leg and lowered herself onto Dutch’s bunk.
“Go on. There’s nothing else to do.”
“I’m thinking,” said Dutch, trying to put her off.
“What about?”
“Nothing.”
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“Oh,” said Sweet Mary, loosening the cap of the precious moisturizer jar and
shifted closer to Dutch, tucking her feet underneath her. “Here we go.”
Dutch just sat there with a dead-pan expression on her face, undecided
whether to stop her and hurt her feelings, or just sit there and endure it.
The shock of Sweet Mary touching her face was enormous. She’d forgotten,
or maybe never known, how wonderfully gentle human physical contact could be. If
she had been gay she’d have fallen head over heels in love with her at that
moment.
Sweet Mary’s fingers were cool and soft, the lotion was fragrant and
soothing, and soon she drifted off in a delightful fantasy as Sweet Mary hummed
and busied herself with beautifying Dutch’s square-jawed, big-boned, coarseskinned face. Neither of them wanted the moment to end.
“There you go,” said a smiling Sweet Mary eventually, handing her a little
mirror.
“Christ, I look like a tranny tart,” she said slapping the mirror out of her hand
and causing it to shatter on the floor.
Sweet Mary was used to these angry outbursts. She quietly collected her
makeup and climbed back up to her bunk.
“I don’t see the point of make-up,” said Dutch in an attempt to make it better,
but only making things worse. “Only good for prostitutes.”
Dutch regretted the words before they were even out of her mouth. She felt
a pang of remorse rising in her throat to choke her. It was the worst possible thing
she could have said to her, because for a long time now she had her suspicions
about Sweet Mary. She was almost sure she was a null-whore.
“You think I’m not a nice person, don’t you?” Sweet Mary sniffed reflectively.
“But I am what I am.”
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Dutch watched the feet rub self-consciously against each other.
“I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to say.”
“But you think it anyway.”
“No I don’t,” she argued. “Anyway, nobody’s perfect. At least you didn’t
murder anybody,” she answered softly.
There was a pause and the feet fell silent for a while.
“No. But I’m still here; in prison.”
They let that truism ring around the walls for a while.
“I did things.” Sweet Mary’s voice was like a whisper in a confessional.
Dutch waited. She really didn’t want to know but she couldn’t help herself.
“What?”
“Things.” She somehow managed to squeeze the whole world of pain into
that single word. “He made me…..” she stopped again.
Sweet Mary was quiet for a long time.
“Nothing,” she said. “That’s why I’m here,” she concluded.
Somehow this enigmatic statement made sense to Dutch. Sweet Mary was
that kind of girl, loyal to the end. Only a whore could still love the man who
betrayed her. It is pride that feels betrayed. Love lives only in the lowly.
Sweet Mary spoke again. “Anyway. He is what he is,” and then under her
breath, “He did what he had to do.”
Her toe twitched briefly.
Dutch knew what these null-whores were used for. Senators and statesmen,
celebrities, powerful and respectable men (and women) looking for a bit of the
other. They were usually looking for someone they could hurt. Mama’s boys with
an axe to grind, needing to let off a bit of steam. Jaded, bored, arrogant men,
spoiled rotten and needing more and more depraved activities to satisfy them.
19
That’s why null-whores were so popular. They were the equivalent of a human
toilet. They could do anything to them and they wouldn’t resist. They couldn’t
resist.
Whatever her story was, Dutch was beginning to think she’d be better off not
knowing. Poor kid. The horrible thing is that the operation can only be done to very
young girls (or boys). Implanting a null-wave transmitter in the frontal lobes of an
adult would be fatal. So it was probably her father who had sold her down the river
to supplement the family income.
The null-wave transmitter made a person unable to defend themselves from
other people’s untoward advances. It forced the subject to stand (or lie down) and
take the pain, humiliation and disgust of what humanity was capable of…what they
all had bottled up inside of them.
Most of the time she would be normal…more or less. It was only when she
was forced to do something she didn’t want to do, something that frightened her,
that the limiters would kick in and suppress the neurotransmitter noradrenalin. This
had an effect like a powerful sedative. Adrenaline is the body’s natural defence
mechanism. The null-wave transmitter neutralises the fight or flight response of the
person and leaves them wide open to abuse. They can’t defend themselves and
they can’t run away. People like that are very vulnerable and probably wouldn’t
survive long without a protector. Dutch stifled the spasm of outrage at what men
could do to women and looked at the feet again. Jesus what a fate. And there was
no way of reversing it. By now the brain had grown around the null wave
transmitter and no surgery in the world could remove it.
“Hey, listen. I’m sorry. That was out of line. If you must know, I think you’re
great. I think you’re a lovely girl.” That was the longest speech Dutch had ever
20
given in her life. And, for Dutch, the inordinate amount of sentiment it contained
was tantamount to a declaration of love.
She watched as the toes above her scrunched in relief that the fight was
over. She knew every mood of those feet. The occasional twirl of the toes when
she was happy. The swaying from side to side when she was singing.
“Did you really murder someone?”
N
The purulent pureed potatoes plopped into a hollow of an indented plastic
tray called a Pig Pan. A thin film of burnt gravy with bits of food of an
indeterminate nature was then splashed on top. A yellow squadge of congealed
rice pudding completed the complement. No one complained. No one ever
21
complained about the food because you never knew what they would put in it if
you did. The smell of rancid fat, old dishwater and sweat hung like a film of grease
in the air. All feeding halls had the same smell.
Holding their trays firmly, Dutch and Sweet Mary walked down the row of
tables bolted to the floor and chose one away from all the others. Dutch picked up
her plastic spork (a combination spoon and fork) and listlessly pushed the mush
around in circles.
“What’s the matter?” asked Sweet Mary.
Dutch shrugged. Not really worth trying to talk in all this noise. Nearly two
hundred inmates all laughing and shouting as people do when you’ve been in
solitary for a while. Plus the telescreens blasting out a car chase with sirens and
machine-gun fire…killing and rape and murder, just the right type of film to play to
a bunch of hardened criminals ready to bust. She looked over towards the wall of
metal mesh dividing the women and the men’s section. To help pass the time, she
and most of the other women would scour the talent on the other side to see if
there was anyone they fancied.
Men and women lived and ate separately, and the guards made small
fortunes smuggling them in and out of each others cells. But Dutch found that men
were not worth the trouble – sex was generally a disappointing business with them.
She could do better by herself, but she still looked anyway. Sweet Mary had no
such interests and hardly even glanced at the men. She was just too glad to be
away from them.
Dutch’s attention was suddenly drawn to a few guys roughhousing round the
food counter. Several guards were already on the move to break it up. Dutch didn’t
like the look of this. She glanced back and saw another group of men stealthily
22
sidling towards the engineering-room door under cover of the distraction. There
was only one guard there and even his attention was on the fight.
Dutch’s guts gave a lurch as she saw him go down with a blow to the back
of the head. She could sense things were about to get out of hand.
“Come on.” She grabbed Sweet Mary’s arm and swept her towards the exit
door, sending her plate of food clattering to the floor. The noise and chaos was
ramping up on the other side as the roughhousing turned into a fully fledged
fistfight and all the women were now crowding up against the mesh and urging
them on. The tannoys crackled and hissed and a mechanical voice intoned for ‘all
prisoners to immediately return to their cells’.
The next thing there was the sound of a huge explosion and everyone was
free floating in the air, bodies cart-wheeling every-which-way in the zero gravity. A
food tray floated past Dutch’s face and she just hoped that the explosion, whatever
it was, had not breached the hull. She desperately looked round for Sweet Mary
and noticed a familiar blonde bob of hair in the distance. This was her element.
Zero gravity to her was like water to a fish. She was so practiced in getting around
in zero gravity, it was almost second nature to her. She kicked herself off from the
wall and sailed across the room. Halfway across someone ricocheted into her and
everything turned into a crazy game of billiards. Some people, unable to get to a
surface whereby to propel themselves were hopelessly trying to swim through the
air with flailing arms. Dutch took hold of one of these bodies and used it to launch
herself across the room. On this attempt she managed to grab Sweet Mary by the
scruff of her neck.
“Hold onto me and keep still.” Dutch quickly tied their prison belts firmly
together then used another nearby body to launch them towards the door. They
were careening through bits of food and undulating globs of orange juice when the
23
second explosion came. This one was bigger. She reckoned the men had blown
their way through the primary door that led to the main Ops centre. From long
years of experience Dutch knew what was coming and instinctively hugged Sweet
Mary to her chest. She was fleetingly surprised at how small and softly plump she
was, and the intoxicating smell of her perfume nearly made her momentarily forget
the situation. A split second later the concussion ripped through the hall like a tidal
wave and they were plucked out of the air as if by a giant hand and hurled towards
the wall. Dutch managed somehow to twist them around and put herself between
Sweet Mary and the fast approaching wall.
Then the lights went out and the chaos was complete.
24
Dutch awoke as cold as ice and shivering from the collision. She couldn’t
see anything and for a moment thought she was blind until she remembered what
happened. She shook her head and concentrated.
“Are you hurt?” she heard an anxious Sweet Mary say, her arms wrapped
tightly around Dutch.
“I’m okay sweetie. You stop worrying,” she said and then passed out again.
“Don’t struggle – go with me,” said a masculine voice in her ear as her
senses started returning to her. This was not what she wanted to hear. There was
a torch beam in her face and she could hear other male voices bustling around her
and cries and groans coming from the wounded somewhere in the darkness. She
tried to struggle but she didn’t have the strength to resist. Strong hands held her
immobile as her arms were strapped to her sides and she felt herself being pulled
through the darkness, torches flashing here and there as the men navigated her
through the chaos. She could feel Sweet Mary’s weight tugging at her belt and
knew they were still attached to one another.
These men knew what they were doing and they were well prepared. Within
minutes the girls were bundled through the security door and into the flight deck
area where the emergency lights were on.
“Okay. That’s the last one.”
“Right: close the door and let’s get started.”
The man turned Dutch to face him.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” he said kindly. “We just need your help. If you
promise not to cause any trouble we will untie you.”
25
Dutch was on the verge of telling him to go and get knotted when her
befuddled brain started to clear. There was nothing she could do all trussed up like
a Christmas turkey. Best would be to behave herself and then see what happens.
“Okay, I promise,” she said grudgingly.
The man took a deep look at her, trying to judge whether she meant it or
not. He didn’t have much of a choice though. Their whole escape plan hinged on
her.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Untie her.”
They released Dutch from her constraints.
“Just relax. We’re not going to hurt you. We just need you to fly the ship.”
The man wasn’t overly worried about her being a problem. Firstly, she was a
woman, and secondly, it was hard to start a fight in zero gravity where all the men
were armed and wearing magnetic contact-boots that allowed them to walk on any
metal surface.
“How did you know I was a pilot?”
“From your files,” said the man.
“What do we do with her?” said another man pointing to Sweet Mary floating
close by and seemingly attached to Dutch by an umbilical chord.
“No passengers. Cut her loose and put her with the others.”
“She stays with me,” said Dutch in a firm voice.
“We don’t have any extra room in here. Put her in the main hold with the
others.”
One of the goons untied Sweet Mary and began pulling her towards the
door. Dutch grabbed hold of the back of the G-seat and launched herself into a
swinging arc. Before anyone could register what was going on she pivoted round
the chair and slammed her big feet into the man’s head. The blow was all the more
26
stunning as his magnetic boots didn’t let go and held him tight to the floor. In a
flash Dutch had removed his plasma pistol from his holster and hooked an arm
around Sweet Mary. Then she wrapped her legs around the now unconscious man
to anchor herself and brandished the pistol at the rest of the frozen crew. Nobody
had moved more than a centimetre.
The great thing about a plasma gun is that it only disrupts human anatomies
and not the ship’s hull. An ordinary bullet stood a chance of going through the hull
and causing massive depressurization, sucking everyone out into space through a
virtual pinhole. Also, a plasma gun wasn’t fatal, unless of course you had a weak
heart. It just disarranged the central nervous system for a few hours, not unlike a
massive, prolonged electrical shock.
“Stop. Awright. Jesus. We won’t touch her. She can stay if you want,” said
the leader with a placating gesture of his hands. He had badly underestimated the
situation.
“I want nothing to do with this,” said Dutch. “I’m already in for murder, and if
they catch me they’ll terminate me.”
“You don’t have a choice lady. You’re already implicated, along with the rest
of us. We’re all terminal here if we don’t do something.”
Dutch turned to see that all eyes were on her. She felt angry at having been
dragged into such a compromising situation, because she didn’t believe that any
cockamamie plan they had cooked up would work. Nothing like this had ever been
attempted before. She tightened her trigger finger on the plasma pistol, just itching
to take it out on someone. She looked hard at the guy giving orders. He wasn’t
your run of the mill thug. He was quiet spoken with intelligent eyes and a good
humoured lift to his mouth. Probably some white collar criminal. The brains behind
all this. Well, she hoped he’d come up with a good one.
27
“So what’s the plan?” she said, relaxing her grip a little.
“Slight course change.”
“I bet.”
The man gave her a wry smile, and she had to admit that he was actually
quite good looking.
Satisfied that she was onside, he turned to his motley crew and said, “Okay
will someone get the spin going.”
There were five men sitting at various consoles busily punching in numbers
and running off radar readings.
“And do it slowly. There are a lot of people in there and some of them are
probably hurt already; just nice and easy.”
As the drum began to spin Dutch could feel her weight coming back. It was
like climbing out of a swimming pool. She could feel herself get heavier and drift
towards the floor. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling being so heavy again. Sweet Mary
moaned in her arms and Dutch eased her gently to the floor.
“It’s going to be alright. Just trust me, okay?” she said with a hug. Sweet
Mary nodded and sniffed.
Dutch turned back to the leader as he switched on the intercom and
addressed the ship.
“Hello everyone, this is your captain speaking. Sorry about that little hiccup;
just a technical problem that’ll be fixed in no time. In the meantime, these are your
new living arrangements. The prisoners are all free to come and go as you please
but the guards will be locked up permanently. However, the same schedule will
apply as far as thrust is concerned. Eight hours in every twenty four you will hear
the alarm and strap yourselves into your G-seats as per usual. The rest of the time
you can do pretty much what you want. Right now I would suggest you take
28
advantage of spin-time and get yourselves sorted out and bandaged up as best
you can.”
N
The course change was going to cause all sorts of problems because this
barrel wasn’t designed to thrust at an oblique angle – especially at these massive
speeds. It could go forward or it could turn around 180 degrees and go the other
way. But that was all. So unless she could initiate this course change with the
greatest of delicacy, the ship was going to collapse like an empty tin can being
trampled on by a cow.
She had hardly let herself entertain the possibility that they might escape.
Those kind of hopes are too dangerous to harbour, because if it didn’t work then
life just wouldn’t be worth living. Her mind briefly brushed by an image of her and
Sweet Mary, free somewhere…walking down a street, looking in shop windows….
‘Stop!’ she told herself. ‘Just concentrate.’
Dutch crossed her fingers and tentatively engaged the directional boosters to
line the ship up on its new course. Then she cut the spin and eased the main
throttle forward very carefully.
N
N
N
29
Chapter 2 - The Wedding
Liquid nitrogen steam swirled around the 120 metre high booster stage of
the titan class rocket. The cockpit speakers crackled into life.
“Launch minus ten minutes. Oxygen feed and cables disconnected. Routing
to internal power. Mother One. You have control.”
“Thank you Houston”
Rose looked up at the soaring structure as she and the other guests waited
for the happy couple to emerge from the cathedral door. Cold stone spires
stabbing into the blue sky as if to wound heaven.
‘A fitting tomb for my heart,’ she thought, looking at the sky-scraping
sarcophagus in front of her.
30
The service had been beautiful and breathtaking. He had stood next to his
bride in his white starched commander’s uniform, looking alarmingly like the larger
than life-size commemorative statue of the happy couple that was perched on a
plinth behind the priest.
The cold stone statue had been commissioned by the Federation Space
Corps as a combined wedding and farewell present; a fitting tribute to the brave
couple who were going on the most daring space rescue mission ever attempted.
‘Nothing says goodbye like a block of concrete,’ Rose thought acidly, ‘and in
case he doesn’t make it back, they can just chisel R.I.P. on the base above his
name. Commander Altheus Darck.’
She had never felt so low in all her life. A shiver ran down her spine as a
fleeting premonition darkened her already depressed thoughts. Something bad was
going to happen. She just couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was attending a
funeral and not a wedding. Her already jarred nerves were set a-jangling anew as
the church bells clanged out in a chaotic cacophony that shattered the peaceful
country air and expelled a black flurry of crows who darkly circled the ancient
towers, cawing out their omen of death. Then the doors opened and the happy
couple tripped lightly down the stairs, floating in a cloud of confetti, love and
laughter. The heaviness of her dampened spirit in response to this happy scene
made her feel like the wicked witch at a fairy tale wedding. Each thud of her heart
fell like a tombstone to the earth. Her son was leaving her for another woman. She
turned to them and tried to smile, but her face failed her. Her son had been her
whole life. More so after her husband had died so many years ago. He was buried
beneath the floor of that very same cathedral, under a slab of black marble. The
bride had in fact walked over his dead body to get to the altar.
31
Her gaze turned towards the gravestones among the grass. How she longed
for that peaceful repose. Her son was gone. Her life was over. It was just a pity
that she continued to breathe.
It was a picture-perfect day for the reception party: feathery cumulous
nimbus painting the blue sky here and there in soft watery colours, the yellow
sunshine bathing the summery landscape in a golden glory of green grass lawns
with bright yellow dandelions. Sparkling fountains played soft fluted melodies,
sprinkled with happy laughter and the noises of children playing. There were
blossoms and bowers and showers of white chiffon, and laces over smiling pretty
faces amongst the young green leaves and laurels of a gorgeous spring day. The
bride was blushing and beautiful, the bridesmaids bustlingly tripped over each
other in their efforts to make everything perfect for the picture.
April Darck, nee Sweeting, bursting with budding enthusiasm and
breathlessness, stood pertly to attention as if her healthy tanned satiny smooth
skin could barely contain her excitement. Beneath her long bridal veil, her red and
white Space Academy uniform was crisp and neat and well fitted to every
exuberant curve of her body. Every inch of her oozed natural full blooded health
and vitality, topped off by an innocent juvenile joie de vivre. She looked like the
eternal bride. She was the kind of girl that would always be a virgin…no matter
what. All who saw her fell in love with her. Men and women were drawn to her
perfection like a magnet.
But she only had eyes for her husband. She loved him in no conscious way.
She couldn’t even give you a reason why she liked him. She just knew he was her
better-half as if it had been written in the stars. Like a command from God she
obeyed her love blindly and willingly, as if this union was as natural as her next
32
breath. She was complete. Her smile was devastating, and many, many hearts
melted that day, unnoticed and unknown by her in her everythingness. She never
even suspected that temperatures rose around her because she ignited admiration
and desire everywhere she walked. Not only was she exhilarated to near hysteria
by the thought that this was her wedding day, but she was also overawed with
honour and pride at the two of them being specially chosen to serve mankind. She
sighed to herself in happiness and looked around at the crowd gathered under the
magnificent silky white marquee.
Her husband, in contrast, was a quiet, self-contained man, standing there in
his white Commodore’s suit, he looked every inch the silent chiselled hero of
popular fiction. Square jaw and firm, clear, but kindly eyes: the epitome of patience
and calm confidence. Who else was more qualified to lead this expedition? Rose
wished it was someone else, but would never say so. She would never do
anything to spoil her son’s happiness, although it seemed to increase as hers
decreased. Is this what life was all about? She couldn’t understand it. It didn’t
seem right that she should be discarded like an empty bottle once her job was
over. She had given everything, and now she had nothing. Well, at least she could
postpone the final dreadful moment of parting. She was to travel with them as far
as the launch way-station overlooking the wormhole. And although her constitution
was getting too fragile for such a rigorous journey she would endure anything for a
few precious extra months with her beloved son.
33
The excited civilian crowd in the bunker stared through the heat haze at the
rocket on the launch pad.
“Houston, we have acceptable confinement. Initiating fusion reaction. Muon
feeders on line and firing.”
“Check that Mother One. We have a clear board here.”
Her husband had been a senator on the Federation Council. Rose, a primary
school teacher from a small town, had had to adapt to the rarefied air of the high
hewn walk-ways and precipices of political life. She never felt at home there,
34
always scared of making a wrong move. She never got used to the genteel art of
doing nothing but be a decoration for her husband’s career, where a wife was
merely an ornament that he wore around him in public.
She had to mouth his opinions and beliefs, not that she didn’t agree with
him, but she was interested in other things – like a home and children (of which
she had only managed one), of country walks and gardening. All the things she
hadn’t done for 25 years since she got married. Instead she had to continually host
huge gala events at which pompous people partook of far too much food and wine
and talked about politics and foreign and marital affairs. She found this kind of life
tedious; always living in some hotel conference venue or space cruiser.
Her son had grown up in the corridors of power and was quite at home
there. He never knew what he was missing, so he was never unhappy. He never
shared any of her longings and feelings. But it was for his sake that she had
persevered until her mind had atrophied and her soul had shrivelled. She had
become a lonely and irritable old hag. Because there was no-one who found her
beautiful, she had let herself go. Now she was just plump and ugly and old. In
short: she hated herself.
As if in sympathy with her miserable thoughts, the wind picked up suddenly
and the day darkened over. Thunder rumbled and people scurried from beneath
the threatening skies as the first great drops plopped down.
It was steamy hot under the marquee with so many people. Rose watched
the scene as if from down the wrong end of a telescope. Everything seemed
preternaturally distant. Even the sounds were dull and far off. There were still the
other speeches to come…then the toasts. She didn’t think she was going to make
it. Thank god she was off her feet though. Those new shoes were killing her. She
rubbed her stockinged feet together under the table. There was yet another
35
torturous device: support stockings. They were tight and hot and the humidity
today made them intolerable. Barely a breeze blew through the marquee under
which the reception was being held, and sweat was now running in rivers down
into her Titanium reinforced bra. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and tried to
hook her fingers under her corset to move it around a little because the pressure
on her internal organs was immense, some of which were in desperate need of
emptying.
The speeches were done and she hurriedly put her shoes on under the
table, a task she found more difficult now that her feet had been given free reign to
swell. When she finally managed to stand up to go to the loo, she found nearly half
the ladies there in the queue ahead of her, and of course as usual, there was only
one toilet for the ladies. She tried to ease the pressure in her bladder by moving
her weight slowly from one foot to the other but the shoes bit cruelly into her
ankles.
And that’s when things got a whole lot worse. The band struck up a lively
Tijuana dance and the best man appeared obligingly in front of her to do his duty
and dance with the bridegroom’s mother. He stretched out a hand and whisked her
onto the dance floor. Thereafter followed ten of the worst minutes of her life. All in
all she danced through three songs. One with the best man, one with the father of
the bride, and finally, the only one she had wanted to dance, with her darling son.
Once in his arms she realized it was the first time she had held him since he was
a child, after which they had reverted to a peck on the cheek as their only physical
contact. She melted into his embrace and let herself be enveloped by his warmth
and the feel of his suit against her skin. For several blissful seconds she was in
heaven, until an urgent and stabbing pain in her bladder woke her from her
36
delicious reverie and she tore herself loose with a weak excuse and ran for the
loo.
She sobbed aloud with frustration and relief once she finally got to sit down
on the toilet seat. There was actually a breeze coming through under the door that
blew blessedly over her legs and feet. She lifted her dress up to give it more
access. She sat for ten minutes in that shady bower, reliving those few moments in
his arms, trying to chisel them into her memory.
It took her another fifteen minutes to compose her mind, clothes and makeup
well enough to venture out again. Even her shoes didn’t feel so bad.
Her son was waiting there for her.
“Are you alright? You disappeared so suddenly.” Oh how she loved him. Oh
how she wished she could tell him. But she just stood there with tears in her eyes.
Before he could help himself he was giving her a desperate hug, as if he
could never let her go. But he soon put childish things behind him, and broke away
kindly.
“We’re on our way pretty soon…just saying the goodbyes and thank-you’s.”
He looked into her eyes as if trying to gauge if she was going to be alright.
“Bye, bye darling. Have fun,” she said.
And then they were off for a night of wedded bliss.
The solid rocket booster provided 12.5 million newtons of thrust.
“We have launch minus thirty seconds. Stabilizers uncoupled. Bleed
chambers open and fusion inhibitors retracted.”
The spaceship stood proudly upright on the launch pad.
“Check that Houston. We have a go for launch.”
N
N
N
37
Chapter 3 – The Doom
They were on the approach leg to G.O.D. 4. Fifty thousand miles out and closing
slowly for docking.
Federation Officer Angelo could feel him – somewhere on the station – could
feel him through the metal hull of the space-ship, almost as if he was breathing
down his neck.
He shivered and pulled his overcoat closer over his shoulders. ‘What a
wreck,’ he thought to himself looking out the porthole at the massive revolving
38
wheel of the crippled space station. Dilapidated and uncared for, it had long since
fallen into disrepair. Once a proud looking edifice, it was now a hulk of stained and
rusted metal.
He vaguely caught a glimpse of his unshaven chin in the reflection of the
porthole. He stared harder, trying to focus on his profile but it was hardly visible,
as if he had no substance. He seemed to blend in with the background so well that
he was hardly even there: just a vague silhouette. This was one of the reasons
they chose him for this mission. He was very good at incognito.
But it wasn’t just an affectation. Some days he felt like he was fading away
altogether. He often felt like he needed someone to pick him up and shake him
and say ‘You are here. This is you. This is your body. I can see you.’
His physical appearance was nothing to write home about. His swarthy dark
looks would have been classed as handsome but for his slightly bulbous nose. He
wasn’t too tall or too short. He wasn’t too thickset or too thin. His personality
suffered from the same sort of nondescript nothingness: he was neither here nor
there. He never did anything remarkable or memorable, never boiled over, or froze.
A tepid kind of fellow whom people forgot about before they’d even met him.
The problem was that he had no edge. He had no edge because he always
went with the flow of the river and never swam against the tide. He never got
upset or angry. He seemed to have no pride that could be pricked. Pride is a
branch that is likely to snag you and hang you out to dry….make you stand out
from the crowd…make you a target for people wanting to be better than you. He
was a nothing man; more shadow than substance. He never presented himself as
a ‘this’ or a ‘that’. He didn’t have a label. He was as insubstantial as a swirl of
smoke. No man hated him and no man admired him.
39
His only two relationships had ended prematurely when his partners finally
found out that he was a ‘Yes Dear’ man and that they were merely dancing with
themselves; that they were having an affair with their own mirror image, which was
most unsatisfying. He could read a woman like a book: her moods; her thoughts;
her likes and dislikes. He knew what she wanted to hear. He did and said what
she wanted him to do and say. The women couldn’t get to grips with him – fight
with him – put a handle on him so they knew how to think of him; how to
remember him, and ultimately, how to control him. He never contradicted them,
never refused them. He never had an opinion that wasn’t theirs. He was who they
wanted him to be: an obliging nobody.
There needs to be some grit in an oyster for a pearl to grow; some pain or
trauma in your past that defines your personality. It seemed like Angelo had no
grit. He was all angel and no devil. He had no strong side, but then again, he had
no weaknesses. No Achilles heel. No one could get a hold of him. A man of a
million faces. If you had to describe him, nine times out of ten you would end up
describing yourself. He was no-one and everyone. He was one of the most
frustrating men alive and he was a perfect undercover agent.
He looked out the window again and thought about the Prophet: the man
he’d come to fetch. Now there was a man who was someone. The Prophet had
been a thorn in the side of the Federation for many years now, and yet all attempts
to neutralize him had been unsuccessful. The Prophet’s ability to predict when the
police were going to raid had earned him the status of a hero to the criminals and
reprobates inhabiting G.O.D. 4 and public-enemy number one to the Federation
police. Worse, he could apparently tell when and where the police’s illegal drug
and arms shipments were coming through, because they were being hijacked with
40
startling regularity. The Pirates loved him. He was one of the most well protected
people in the solar system.
The Prophet was in the spotlight this time because of his predictions
concerning the wormhole. He had said that aliens were planning to launch an
attack on earth through the wormhole, and they intended to wipe out the entire
human race. He also prophesied that the team of cosmonauts who were going on
the much publicised expedition through the wormhole would not be coming back.
The authorities didn’t really take all this mumbo jumbo too seriously, but everyone
else did. Word of his prophesies had even reached Earth where a veritable
thunderstorm of controversy was brewing up concerning the safety of the people
being sent through the wormhole. Petitions were being drawn up daily demanding
the mission be aborted and, more improbably, that the wormhole be closed by
exploding some sort of nuclear device in it. Failing that, there was extreme
pressure being put on the Federation to ensure the safety of mankind, and many
people were questioning whether they were doing enough to guard against an
alien attack.
The Federation now earnestly needed to shut the Prophet up. Officer Angelo
had been sent out to invite him back to G.O.D. 5 for a much overdue interview.
General Outer Defence, station 5, known as G.O.D. 5, was the last in the
series of stations built since the discovery of the wormhole. Primarily it was erected
at great cost to protect against anything untoward emerging from the wormhole,
and to send surveillance vessels, unmanned as yet, through the wormhole to see
what was on the other side. Since then G.O.D. 5 had grown to the size of several
large cities. Watched over by Federation Battlestars, Cruisers, Corsairs and
Corvettes, it was a thriving bustling city, trading ships of all types coming and
41
going in a chaotic stream, bringing culture and corruption, penthouses, casinos,
clubs, celebrities, prostitutes and politicians. All in all, more than 20 million people
now lived there.
G.O.D. 1, the first station, had been built too close to the vortex and before it
had even become operational it had begun to drift on an inward spiral to oblivion.
G.O.D. 2 had suffered a catastrophic meltdown of a prototype fission-power
reactor and had to be towed at great expense out of harm’s way, the reactors
belching radioactive debris far and wide.
G.O.D. 3 was struck by a meteorite in its early stages, killing countless
thousands of workers.
G.O.D. 4 (known as the pig pen) was still there, only a stone’s throw away
from G.O.D. 5, but it had been abandoned by the Federation when fractures began
to appear where the T-arms joined the central core and the rotational spin had to
be kept below 0.25 G to prevent them pulling out altogether. This was due to the
use of cheap materials and unskilled labourers by Amkor, who only got a slap on
the wrist for the expensive disaster because they were a Federation contractor with
several high flying congressmen on the board of directors. Due to the shoddy
workmanship it also wasn’t very airtight, and leaks in the hull sprung up daily.
Oxygen was manufactured by a gigantic Myecine damper in the central core.
All G.O.D. stations were built with these and absorbed most of the 10 billion
marque cost of the construction. The damper was basically a Hydroxen propagator
for the Myecine spores that produced breathable air from water. Myecine spores
not only produce air but also a fairly decent edible fungus. The water is supplied
by ice-heavy asteroids which are hauled in by giant ice-haulers – powerful spacetugs that can lasso and drag these mega-monoliths back to the station for fuel.
42
In the early days when the station was first abandoned, there was enough
water on board to service the few homeless tramps who took up residence there.
But soon the population increased and the oxygen supply began running out. This
was a real problem for the community on G.O.D. 4 until the pirates moved in and
stole a couple of super space-tugs from the Federation’s fleet.
Within days of being condemned to the scrap heap, the dregs of the
universe began moving into G.O.D. 4 and setting up their Heath Robinson survival
systems, not to mention alcohol stills, chemical labs, brothels and booze halls.
There were the homeless, hardcore gangsters, murderers and thieves, runaways,
kidnappers, slave traders, and many, many more: a veritable cornucopia of
criminals.
In the beginning the Federation cops had tried to clean the place out, but the
loss of life sustained by pursuing these people through the warren nests of the
station and the ensuing gun battles made it an untenable proposition. Eventually
the undesirables got themselves organized and took control of the entire station,
including the landing bays, docking quays, defence systems and communications.
There was no way they could be got at now except for nuking them out of
existence altogether, but even the Federation wouldn’t go that far. Soon it became
more than just an eyesore and an embarrassment. It became a launching pad for
hit and run hijackers, kidnappers and anti-establishment terrorists. Running space
battles and rocket attacks were now common place in the G.O.D. Sector and the
Federation forces were sometimes hard put to defend even their own piece of turf
around G.O.D. 5, never mind trying to police G.O.D. 4.
So with its low gravity, lawlessness, and leaky atmosphere, Officer Angelo
knew that G.O.D. 4 was no place for a holiday. This was a bad place for good
43
people. It certainly was no place for an undercover Federation officer without a
gun.
Officer Angelo sighed and fastened his seat belt. This was going to be a
difficult one. He squared up his shoulders and prepared himself for the impossible
task of somehow getting an audience with the Prophet: A.K.A. Righteous Alchemy,
or Ra for short.
He looked out the window again and saw the docking gantry begin to unfurl
to receive them.
N
The first thing that hit you was the smell of badly reconditioned air. The
scrubbers just weren’t able to cope with all the bodies crammed into the little
space-bar. No one gave a damn though. You soon got used to it. There were
kiosks that sold portable oxygen if you wanted a breather, but mostly it was the
booze people came for. Not the fresh air.
A stage was sandwiched in-between the bar and the men’s toilet. On it was
a naked woman wearing nothing but a deadpan expression and a synthetic horse
tail, galloping in simulated gay abandon around the edge of the stage at the end of
a halter, twirling her tassels and tail, trying to titillate the audience of men and
women who cheered her on as if they were at a circus. He was surprised to see
how many women there were. The ‘Thong’ master cracked his whip every time he
wanted the woman to perform a trick: like kicking up her hind legs and waggling
her arse at the audience so that the tail rotated in their faces while they would
lurch forward and try to pull it off. Then, at a crucial stage in the performance, she
44
would ‘mock’ disobey the ring-master and trot around with her head in the air,
ignoring him, and he, pretending to be angry with her, let fly with his whip.
Officer Angelo winced as the lash landed on her back. The whole mood of
the audience changed. This was what they came for. She wasn’t drugged with
neuro-suppressants; that was part of the fun. They knew she could feel the
strokes….and they wanted her to feel it. Another lash and the audience began
straining forward. Soon they were whooping and yelling and throwing their beer
bottles at her: some actually catching her a glancing blow. Shouts of ‘giddy-up’ and
‘ride-em cowboy’ rang in the air as the girl skittered round a stage now slippery
with beer, trying to stay on her feet. The crowd roared their approval as the whip
began to open up old wounds under her thick body make-up.
He felt sorry for these null whores…all the degradation and pain they had to
take without any natural defences. They couldn’t even run away. He watched as
she continued to prance around, the tears streaming down her face as the blood
started to trickle down her buttocks and thighs.
Officer Angelo closed his eyes and turned away.
“Welcome to Station-4,” he said to himself.
Officer Angelo had started off in life as a school teacher, but had quickly
discovered that this had less to do with teaching than it had with controlling a
crowd of hooligans. The children, mostly ore-belt worker’s kids, were like animals
set free from their cages, and he spent most of the lesson just rounding them up
and breaking up fights. Officer Angelo found he had a natural talent for keeping
people happy, and from there he progressed to peacekeeping duties in the town
council and finally to law enforcement. He was unremarkable as a policeman and
lacked the natural fearfulness and panic that drives aggressive and ambitious
45
people. In all his years on the force he never once had to take his gun out of his
holster. His secret was that he loved his job and he liked people. He cared for
them. And being born of an Italiate mother, he could also, when he needed to, like
all good chameleons, present to the world an exuberant, charming and charismatic
personality that could talk its way out of any dangerous situation, from disarming
dangerous criminals to persuading many a potential suicide back from the edge of
oblivion.
“Hi honey, looking for some-one?” she asked, seductively blowing a smoke
ring in his face.
He stared at her silently. She was a pretty little girl, not long past puberty he
guessed. But she looked much older. They matured quickly around here.
“Wassa matta. Pussy got your tongue?”
He laughed at her directness.
“No,” he grinned. “Just dazzled by your…..presentation.”
“You like them do you?” she said, sticking them in his face.
“Best I’ve seen,” he said and smiled.
“My names Belladonna. Belle for short…..as in ‘you can ring ma Belle’.”
“Pleased to meet you Belle. I’m……” He had to stop himself saying the
‘officer’. “Angelo,” he said, realizing that his hesitation made it sound like a lie.
“Ha! An Angel. So tell me ‘Angelo’, do you live up to your name then?”
“Not always,” he said, faking a sly smile for her sake.
“Good, otherwise you in the wrong place. So waddaya wan?” she said
getting down to business. “Straight up, sassy neuf, or you just wan’ me to rub your
halo?” she smiled.
46
He liked her sense of humour, and she cheered him up a bit after the
depressing stage show.
“Well, it all sounds absolutely irresistible, but I’m actually on business here
tonight.”
“Well, I can do the business,” she said, cocking her hip at him.
“I can see that. But, tempting as it sounds, right now I need some
information.”
She eyed him with an exaggerated pout on her lips and a mortally wounded
look in her eye.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. But I also have to earn a living you know.” He
could see he was losing her, so he did what he didn’t normally do and jumped in
with both feet.
“I’m looking for the Prophet.”
“Oh,” she said, losing all interest in him now. “Dunno.” Gone was the smile
as she scanned the crowded bar for other potential clients, humming a little tune to
herself. The horsy show was over. Someone was wiping up the mess on the floor
of the stage while a couple of scrawny girls played at being leaping tigers across
two platforms suspended from the ceiling. In the low gravity they could jump
enormous distances. Occasionally they would collide in midair and come tumbling
unharmed to the floor, wrestling each other amidst roars of approval. He
remembered his arrival at the docking station, disembarking through a well-used
and rather unsafe looking, extendable poly-Trion tube. This was where he first
came to grips with the quarter-G spin of the station. The Gravity on G.O.D. 4 was
only marginally heavier than that of the earth’s moon. Every step he had taken had
propelled him unexpectedly upwards and forwards in huge leaps and bounds. After
striking his head painfully on the roof of the docking tube a few times, he soon
47
learned to take easy little steps. He momentarily wondered what it would be like to
make love in this kind of gravity.
“Listen,” he said loudly over the noise, trying to win her back. “What you
like? Tell me what you like. You like Opera? La Traviata? Huh? You like
musicals?”
“I like musicals,” she said, chirping up a bit. ’Genie with the red Henna hair’.
I like that.”
“Okay. Tell you what. If you tell me what I want, I’ll take you to a musical at
the Apollo theatre on G.O.D. 5. Couldn’t do better than that now, could I?” He
paused to take a sip of wine. She was still staring half disinterestedly across the
room, not quite taking the bait.
“So listen. I’ll pick you up in my space cruiser, any night, and we’ll go and
have something to eat at a fancy ristorante and then go and see a musical. How
about it? You like that?”
“You’re kidding me?” she said looking at him sideways.
“Why should I kid you? You’re a lovely lady; gorgeous in fact. Why wouldn’t I
want to take you to a musical? I’m also flesh and blood you know. C’mon. It’ll be
nice. We’ll have some dinner, a bottle of wine…?” He left the sentence hanging in
the air between them.
“You’re full of shit you know,” she said with a sweet smile.
“I know,” he said with a deadpan expression. “It’s part of my charm.”
She turned back to her drink and nursed it for a while.
“I don’t know much anyway; just what everyone already knows.”
“What does everybody know?”
“Well, they say he lives in one of the Terra Domes. That’s all I know”
“Which one?”
48
She looked at him as if he was stupid, and enunciated carefully. “That’s all I
know.”
N
Almost faster than the eye could follow, the howling feral cat hurtled past the
huddled group and plucked the rat out of mid-air. The two bodies twisted over and
over in the near zero gravity, biting and clawing at each other, each trying to get
the upper hand. The rat, nearly as large as the cat, fought for its life, scratching
and squealing until the cat finally sank its teeth into its neck and crunched through
to the bone. The two animals came to a skidding halt somewhere in the darkness
beyond the circle of light. Within the circle stood a shaken group of pliants,
queuing up to gain an audience with the Prophet. Housewives, businessmen,
professionals, they came from all walks of life, from all over the Solar system
having bribed the pirates with enormous sums of money for a safe passage,
hoping to get an answer to their questions.
“Dear Jesus, I didn’t pay for this! What kind of place have they dumped us
in?” asked a well-to-do looking gentleman. “And where have the guards gone?
Who’s going to look after us here?” It was in the guard’s interest to escort their
hosts safely back off the station; otherwise the balance of their fee wouldn’t be
paid.
“Guards wait you get back. Guards no go,” said an old, holy-looking man in
a dirty cotton robe. Five other such men stood in front of the visitors holding up
burning torches to light the way. These were the renowned Getham priests, who
served and looked after the Prophet. The Getham themselves had no need of light
because, not only did they know every inch of that terrain, but they were also blind.
49
For some strange reason, all the children born in this dome were blind. No one
knew the reason why. But it leant them an air of mystery.
Everyone was waiting for some sign from the Getham. All was still and silent
except for the sound of the feral cat crunching at his meal in the background. Then
the lead priest approached the group and began to go from one person to another,
pausing in front of each person and touching them briefly on the chest.
“You no go!” he said stopping in front of a well dressed woman with a
wedding ring.
“But why?” she protested. “My daughter’s missing. I’ve got to know where
she is.”
“You no daughter. You no go,” said the little priest. “You reporter!”
“You’re crazy. How would you know?”
“You spy. No story. You no go. Leave please,” he insisted, waiting patiently
for her to move.
“This is crazy. You can’t refuse me. I have a legitimate question,” she
pleaded, only half convincing herself, and him not at all.
“You try before. You ask wrong question. Goodbye!” he said and stepped
back with folded arms to wait for her departure.
“Oh for god’s sake,” she protested indignantly. Her newspaper had paid a
king’s ransom to get her an audience with the Prophet, so she was reluctant to
give up too easily. “For god’s sake, what does it matter? I paid my money didn’t I?”
“No matta. You go.”
“Come on lady. They’re not going to let you in. They don’t have to. And
you’re just making everyone else wait. Give us a break,” pleaded one fat middle
aged second-hand salesman type, probably there to ask if his partner was
cheating on him. That’s what most of them asked.
50
“All-bloody-right,” she flounced out of the group. “Know what I think? He’s
probably a fucking fake and doesn’t want to be exposed. That’s what I think.”
“Well we don’t care what you think. So bugger off,” retorted one obnoxious
lady with a peacock-feather in her cap.
The woman left with as much dignity as she could muster, but looked more
like a little schoolgirl who had got caught cheating and was trying to brazen it out.
One of the priests escorted her the few hundred yards to the entrance gate and let
her out. The other priest then continued his assessment of the group.
Officer Angelo, not for the first time, had some doubts about the success of
his mission. If the priest could sniff out a reporter, surely they’d smell a rat with
him? Everyone shuffled uncomfortably, rearranging the various packages they
were holding. These were mainly food offerings for the oracle. That’s how the
Getham survived. They never saw a penny of the money that people paid to see
the prophet. That all went to the pirates. Water there was aplenty, but food was in
short supply here.
There were four Terra Domes on the inside of the G.O.D. 4 space-station
wheel, all facing inwards: giant blisters of glass and steel that were built to house
livestock and to grow the food (and air) to feed them. These oversized Bio-Pods
had gone to wrack and ruin when the station had been abandoned. The plants and
trees were almost all dead or rotting; the cows, sheep, chickens and pigs long
since eaten. It was easier for the inhabitants of G.O.D. 4. to go out and hijack a
few Federation food shipments every week, than keep the Terra Domes running.
Anyway, the great glass domes were now so overgrown with moss and mould that
no light ever penetrated their Stygian depths. The only animals that could survive
51
in that atmosphere were cats and rats…and the Getham: one of which finally
stopped in front of Officer Angelo.
‘This is it.’ He thought, preparing himself to be led away in shame like the
reporter lady. He could feel the priest’s breath on his face, so close was he.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” he said softly in his ear.
Shadows lurched larger than life in the flickering torch light as the group
wound their way across the blackest blackness anyone had ever seen. Shapes
flitted across their peripheral vision - slithering sounds, and groans like corpses
expiring hissed at them as they passed. No one dared look too hard in case they
should see the cause of those horrible noises. They pretty much all kept their eyes
focused on the back of the person in front, trusting implicitly in these strange men.
The Getham had been expecting him. What did he expect from a
soothsayer? He was starting to believe that the Prophet truly had the gift of
foresight. At first he had taken it for granted that the man was a charlatan, but in
this surreal setting, everything seemed possible. Not only that, but the deeper into
the dome they journeyed, the more he could feel his old thoughts and prejudices
drifting away. It was getting hard to remember what was important. He kept
forgetting why he was here, and had to keep reminding himself with harsh
admonitions to stay alert. But his mind wandered and slipped through the quiet
empty spaces in-between and made him feel content as he had never been
before. He could hear the faint echoes of a lullaby his mother used to sing, winding
in and out of the rusted rafters high above, lulling him into a soft sense of sublime
serenity.
He shook his head to clear the fuzziness.
52
“They’re going to kill me,” he said to himself in an attempt to re-ignite his
concern for worldly things, “If I try to take him away from them they’re going to kill
me. Don’t go to sleep on the job.” But he couldn’t seem to convince himself for
long. This mental lethargy seemed to be affecting the others as well. They had
mostly stopped whispering anxiously to one another, and were wandering along
with strangely calm and contented expressions.
“You careful,” said the priest, snapping them out of their reveries. They
looked up and saw strange blue columns of light emanating from some craters in
the ground ahead of them.
“No touch,” said the lead priest. “You die. No touch.”
Every now and then they had to circle some derelict building or crumbling
factory, or wade through a fetid swamp that sucked at their bare feet and had a
smell that turned their stomachs. Angelo glanced round at the group and was
shocked by how much they resembled a band of sleepwalking zombies marching
unsuspectingly to their doom. He knew he should warn them, but the thought was
no sooner there than it was gone, and he slid into silent concurrence once more.
“How long we still gotta go? This place is a dump. I hope you’re not wasting
my time…..” said the obnoxious lady with the peacock-feather. She also had on,
astonishingly enough, a pair of ornate horn-rimmed sunglasses. She must have
been from the Amerigues. For a moment the group focused their attention on her,
but her outburst was short-lived and the strange and wearying place got the better
of them again.
And then the seemingly endless journey was over. They had arrived at a
clearing around a collection of small mud huts. Angelo calculated they must have
travelled some five or six miles, but it could also have been five hundred for all he
53
knew. Everyone was pretty much exhausted and flopped down where they could to
rest.
“I have to go to the lavatory,” said the lady with the peacock feather and the
horn-rimmed specs.
Officer Angelo smiled to himself. She wasn’t going to like the facilities here.
“You go here wee wee,” said the Getham priest, indicating the smallest of
the huts.
“You can see right through that,” she said, outraged. Indeed, the mud on the
walls was old and cracked, showing great gaping holes in the bare sticks behind
that held up the wall.
“We won’t look,” said some wag from the crowd, and someone else
sniggered.
“No thanks. I’d rather wait.”
The Getham were now going from person to person, offering them a drink of
water from an old plastic coke bottle. Some refused, as they had the foresight to
bring their own water. Officer Angelo gulped half a bottle of the Getham’s water
down before he’d had enough, and was immediately sorry. The water was stale
and oily tasting. He hoped there wasn’t anything contagious in it.
The huts were obviously where the Getham slept, all arranged in a circle
with a cleanly swept centre. The ground was hard, compacted mud, and soon
everyone was on their feet again, finding it much more comfortable to stand.
‘I bet they sleep on the ground,’ thought Officer Angelo. They looked as
tough as old leather.
“So where’s the Prophet?” asked the obnoxious woman with the feather.
‘It takes all sorts,’ he thought, wondering what was behind all that bling and
bravado.
54
“You see Plophet now. This way plee.”
The priests led the way beyond the circle of huts, and holding their torches
on high, they illuminated a small wooden structure, perched as if by magic, directly
over a very large chasm in the ground. The little group couldn’t help but peek over
the edge and were struck by a terrible sense of vertigo. There was no telling how
deep or wide it was, for the far shore was out of torchlight range, and a dirty mist
boiled and bubbled within, as if troubled by demon draughts from down below.
Sometimes looping ribbons of dark green slimy mist would reach up and wind
themselves around the hut hoping to topple it into the abyss. Thin blue veins of
static electricity stabbed upwards, illuminating the mist and running along the bank
of the precipice like the crooked fingers of a witch, tentatively touching her victim,
probing for a vulnerable spot. Occasionally it would flicker and run across the
rickety wooden walkway spanning the gap between the bank and the wooden hut.
The horrified group huddled together and backed away as far as they
could…Officer Angelo included.
“Who first?” said the priest with a callous disregard for the terror on
everyone’s faces. Suddenly their questions didn’t seem so important. And worse
still, most of them couldn’t, in the great scheme of things, even remember what it
was they had wanted to know. Everything palled into insignificance in the face of
that tenuous little hut, seemingly balancing on nothing but the up-draughts from
Hell. Officer Angelo finally knew why no-one had managed to capture the Prophet.
“You first,” said the priest, deciding for them. The chosen man looked around
him helplessly with wide, startled eyes, as if he was just about to make a run for it.
Then some higher volition seemed to take hold of him and he began to walk slowly
towards the hut in a kind of trance. The little bridge swayed and creaked ominously
underneath him, momentarily halting the man’s progress, but soon he was
55
knocking at the door, and as soon as he did, it opened like a black mouth and he
entered like a lamb to the slaughter.
“We’re all going to die,” said Officer Angelo to himself. “Dear God, what kind
of a place is this?”
“Not much of a holy shrine is it? You’d a thought they’d tart it up a bit,” said
the peacock lady. “They don’t expect me to go in there do they? Hey you. What
kind of con are you running here?” she shouted at the priest but he appeared not
to hear her, or not to care.
When the man emerged from the hut in what seemed to be a very short
time, his face was frustratingly expressionless.
The priest then pointed to Angelo.
“You next.”
“Hey! What about me. I was here first. What kind of male chauvinist crap is
this?”
“Everyone get turn. No worry.”
“Listen you prick, just because I’m a woman….”
“Hey. No swear. You talk nice. You ugly mouth, no see Plophet.”
“Well I’d like to bash your stupid face in you….” said the woman and stopped
suddenly, realizing that by the look on the priests face this was going to get her
nowhere.
The Getham stared at her for a long moment.
“You finee?”
“Yes.”
The smell of wood smoke hung thickly in the room. There was a small
burning torch hanging from the wall near the door, but the light only illuminated the
56
first few feet of darkness, as if the gloom was made of thicker stuff than it could
penetrate.
“Please come closer,” said a deep, disembodied voice from the shadows.
Angelo peered into the interior to no avail, his imagination running riot. He
might as well have been blind. He took a few very careful, tentative steps into the
room, encouraged by the fact that the last man had left alive.
“That’s better,” said the Prophet, and then fell as silent as the grave.
Officer Angelo waited, not quite sure what would happen next; whether he
should speak or just wait. He was inclined to wait, for he had no real question to
ask, and he didn’t really want to approach the subject of putting the Prophet under
arrest just yet. He wished he could see him though, and then he’d be better able to
judge what to do: whether to begin begging for his life, make up a bogus question,
or just plain make a run for it while his skin was still intact.
As for the Prophet, he was in no hurry. He sensed Officer Angelo’s agitation;
saw all his thoughts and deceptions as clear as if he was a child with ice-cream on
his face, denying that he had eaten one. Like the other Getham, the Prophet was
also blind, and therefore wasn’t tempted to leave his body for the world of shadows
and illusion where everyone else lives. Inside, the truth was always plain to see.
And inside his head, although it was neither dark nor light, his world was
vivid around him, made so by the voices that spoke to him. They painted a picture
more complete than mere mortal eyes could see. The voices had been there ever
since he could remember, telling him things, describing things, providing him with a
running commentary on everything that was happening in the solar system. If
someone said something, the voice would tell him what they really meant, even if
they didn’t know it themselves. If someone asked a question the voice would tell
him what to answer.
57
And the source of all this wisdom was the wormhole. The sub-spectral
energy of the wormhole extended far into the solar system and, although only a
select few could see it, surrounded everyone like a whirling wall of living
information.
Everything was written on that wall and the Prophet could read it like a book.
This is where the voices emanated from. These were the voices he heard, telling
him of things past, things now, and things to come. He studied the wall in his
every waking and sleeping moment and read there the story of the world as it was,
as it is, and as it will be.
That was until a year ago. Then something started to change, and his vision
began, little by little, to darken. At first he thought he was going blind, figuratively
speaking, that he was losing his gift of foresight. But he could still see things, in
the past….and in the now. The voices still spoke to him as loudly as ever. It was
just the future that was being covered by a thin black veil through which it got
more and more difficult to peer. Many other seers and readers had noticed this
disturbing trend too, and as the veil crept closer to the present time they got the
distinct impression that the future was being erased, and that the end of all time
was near. No-one knew how or why, or what it was. They just knew it was coming.
They also knew it was coming out of the wormhole……..and they called it The
Doom.
“Your eyes are a curse,” came the deep voice out of the darkness again,
startling Officer Angelo, who had drifted off into a daydream of thoughts. “You see
evil everywhere…more than most people, because you are a policeman. My
blindness is a blessing. I see only myself, therefore I think twice before judging.”
58
As Officer Angelo’s maligned eyes slowly accustomed themselves to the
gloom, he could vaguely begin to discern a giant black man squatting on a wooden
tripod in the centre of the room. He had large milky white staring eyes almost
popping out of his face, and long Rasta locks of hair twirling like snakes down and
around his gleaming naked body. Sulphurous fumes from the pit rose up through
the cracks in the floorboards and writhed around the two of them.
“You come to take me on a journey?” he asked, and the hut reverberated as
he spoke.
“Something like that,” said Officer Angelo with absolutely no conviction in his
voice. All he could think was that he was going to die.
“We’re all going to die,” said the Oracle. “Sooner or later.”
N
Gertie was getting the urge. It was only at certain times during the month
that she got the urge, and when she did, she found Masino very attractive.
Normally she couldn’t stand him because he was a big mouth braggart with a pusfilled pimple under his nose that consumed all of ones attention during a
conversation, but at the moment none of that mattered to her…when she got the
urge, he was hot. This was all very confusing to Masino. Kind of like the lottery. He
never knew when his number was going to come up, and she could be really cruel
if he got it wrong. At the moment they were humping it up in the miscellaneous
equipment locker with all the concomitant bangs and rattles one would expect from
abusing cheap metal furniture. They never heard the customs hall door open and
close. If they’d have looked at the flickering TV monitor they’d have seen two men
59
walking briskly past their unmanned desk and key open the airlock that led to the
docking bays. They didn’t, and everybody came off satisfactorily.
N
N
N
Chapter 4 – The Honeymoon
Some people like their egg hard boiled for breakfast, and some like them
soft. Thedeus liked his egg boiled for exactly three and a half minutes so that he
could dunk his toast fingers in the runny yellow yolk – because that’s the way his
mommy had made them for him ever since he could remember. And because
these breakfast eggs were unconsciously associated in his mind with early morning
60
cuddles and kisses and fussing’s over and a general feeling of well-being and
being loved, Thedeus still had an inordinate fondness for a soft boiled egg.
In fact, his daily good humour depended on the state of his egg. If it was too
cold, or too hard to dip, it would set him in a mood of unrequitement, if not
downright dissatisfaction. But he would not be aware of this lack of bonhomie, and
he never suspected that his daily happiness hinged on an egg timer watched by a
mother’s loving eyes. Only she knew it, and if she got his day started right, he
invariably had a wonderful time. If she didn’t, he would sometimes even come
home in tears, having been punished by his teacher for inattention or sloppiness,
or fighting in the playground. Even in later life he would return with tales of woe
after a bad start to the day.
Now, knowing how important it was to boil her son’s breakfast egg for
exactly the right amount of time, she tried to pass this valuable information on to
the woman who was going to take over her role in her son’s life, the one who was
going to look after him from now on.
Unfortunately, this woman had never cooked an egg in her life, nor anything
else for that matter, and even though she was, after all, a career woman, and
would always have someone to cook for her, she couldn’t help but feel she wasn’t
quite the perfect wife, and as a result she was a bit defensive about her
shortcomings in the culinary area.
So when Mrs Darck broached the subject, in the nicest possible way, (after
long deliberation and carefully choosing the right words so as not to offend) it
pricked her pride and vanity and the girl actually ‘Humphed’ in indignation and
flounced her firm flesh out of the room. Mrs Darck was mortified beyond words.
She hadn’t expected plain sailing but his was a disaster. She actually tried to bite
her tongue in remorse for what she’d done. True, the ladies hadn’t taken to each
61
other in the way that Thedeus had hoped, but they had reserved their natural
judgement of each other for his sake and been kindly polite to one another. The
heavy atmosphere between the two could be cut with a knife. Rose was sure the
entire ship felt it. April became tight faced and silent towards Rose. She wasn’t a
malicious girl – she was just hurt, and felt that her mother-in-law was criticising
and judging her. Rose spent most of her time in her cabin writing note after
abortive note of apology and then crumpling them up in a little heap of
hopelessness and crying her heart out. Thedeus was too busy training and
attending briefings to notice anything wrong.
Although both women were desperate to make amends, neither knew how,
and they continued to avoid eye contact on those occasions when their paths
crossed, like meal times. For every agonising moment of that three month journey,
both women tiptoed on eggs round each other.
N
From the observation deck, the new commander and his bride looked
proudly upon the vessel that was to take them on the greatest adventure the world
has ever known.
The ship was a clean Conex Tri-hull in ivory white with looping struts and
connectors that resembled a three-dimensional lacework filigree woven between
the elegant slim-line hyper-drive engines and the hull that housed the flight deck,
cabins and the various lavish and comprehensive facilities for the 12 man crew
needed to run it. The outside sensors, weapons, and radar arrays were all
seamlessly integrated into the drive rocket housing. The Z-class Chaser was a
super-streamlined ship of the future. Nothing like it had ever been seen before: a
triumph of modern technology. It was the fastest, most well equipped space ship
62
mankind could conceive of. Built of the latest and most exotic alloys and materials,
equipped with instruments and weapons not yet conceived of in the public domain;
it was well balanced, flexible, awesomely armed, and very strong. It was, in short,
built to withstand Armageddon. The engineers had no doubt that it would cope with
the wormhole quite adequately. The minister for Space and Defence made sure
that the public knew this too. The praises for the ship were sung far and wide. Her
tests had been extensive and gruelling: now she lay silently resting against her
berth on G.O.D. 5, awaiting the crew that would take her on her maiden voyage.
They called her…‘Sleeping Beauty’.
Behind the happy couple a farewell party was in full swing. Family, friends,
officials, dignitaries, well-wishers and crew were all celebrating the coming launch
of the rescue mission that would carry mankind to beyond the frontiers of human
imagination. This expedition had been in the planning for many, many years, but
public opinion had been strongly against sending anyone down there. Many
unmanned space probes had been despatched down the funnel in the hope of
gathering some information of what it was like on the other side, but unfortunately
none of them ever returned. And then, just recently, a Federation distress-drone
emerged from the wormhole. It carried comprehensive information of an ore miner
and his ship that had accidentally been drawn into the wormhole some time before;
charting his entire journey and even giving a detailed map of the solar system in
which he had found himself. Whether he was still alive or not, they couldn’t tell. But
the Federation finally had their reason to send in an investigative team. The public
just could not let a call for help go unanswered: and if a broken down ore-liner
could make it through the wormhole, then so could they.
The music and laughter and general hysteria of the revellers were starting to
have an adverse effect on Rose. She felt claustrophobic and headachy, and also a
63
bit nauseous from the champagne. It was always champagne; that’s all these
people ever drank. She hated the stuff because it gave her gas and made her feel
tired. By some miracle she had found a waiter who had managed to bring her a
nice cup of tea. It was a lifesaver, and just the action of stirring made her relax. It
was something nice and familiar; soothing. And she needed that. The voyage had
been anything but a pleasure cruise. She knew now it had been a terrible mistake
to accompany the married couple on their trip to G.O.D. 5, but the biggest mistake
of all was seeing the actual wormhole up close through the wide panoramic
windows of the observation post. No photograph or video would ever do it justice,
nor did they prepare Rose for the sheer size and power of that roiling tornado
twisting through space as if it was trying to suck in the universe. Even though it
was still some 5 million miles away, it covered most of the view in the window,
sucking at your senses. It was a monstrous sight.
At the mere thought of it Rose’s eyes were inadvertently drawn to the
wormhole again and at that moment she knew for a certainty that she would never
see her son again. With her guts twisting in agony, she took her cup of tea and
slipped away from the celebrations. Once out the door she walked blindly down
one twisting corridor after the other, trying to escape the dreadful nagging pain in
her heart. Sometimes she would be stopped by a locked door, but she would just
keep going this way and that until she was completely lost. She didn’t really care
about that though, but soon her legs had begun to tremble from shock and
exertion, and she desperately needed a place to sit down. Normally Rose would
never have been brave enough to simply knock on any unknown door, but she was
beyond all that now. Her tea cup clattered in the saucer as she pushed open the
first door she came to, and seeing the room was empty, she walked straight in and
closed it again.
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She found herself in some kind of games room, empty but for some
benches along the window (always the window, she just couldn’t escape the sight
of the wormhole), some scuffed and faded white lines on the wooden floors, a
punch bag and a steel basket full of softballs. Keeping her eyes averted from the
monster outside, she walked over to the bench and sat down facing inwards.
She sipped her tepid tea and slowly the knots in her stomach began to
unwind. She slipped her shoes off and placed her feet on the blessedly cool floor.
She knew they wouldn’t miss her for many hours. No-one missed her much
anymore. No-one ever came looking for her. She sighed a small sigh and
unconsciously let her eyes roam around the room, not thinking anything, just taking
in the strange environment. Finally she saw the basketball hoop hanging from the
wall and a hundred memories of her son flooded into her brain from all the games
she had watched him play. Her eyes filled with tears and she began to cry again.
N
“Phew! What the hell?” said Officer Angelo as he entered the prisoners
processing hall on G.O.D. 5 with Righteous Alchemy chained to his wrist. When
they first arrived he had breathed a sigh of relief to be in a clean and civilized
environment again after so long in the field; but he had forgotten what Central
Processing was like. The vast hall was heaving with bodies and the smell that
assailed his nostrils was atrocious. The duty officer at the door directing traffic saw
Officer Angelo’s expression.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “This is how the prisoners get their
revenge on us. There’s so much farting going on here it’s like the fourth of July.”
He turned around and tried to shout above the noise.
65
“Will someone please crank up the air-con,” and turned back to them.
“New prisoner?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Counter number five. Officer Harold.”
“Thanks,” said Officer Angelo and surged forward into the crowd of
policemen and their prisoners all waiting to be booked, jostling and shouldering his
way to counter number five. They were third in line and so he settled down to
endure at least another half hour of olfactory hell. He tugged Righteous Alchemy to
stand beside him and took a closer look at the black giant. They had made their
miraculous escape from G.O.D. 4 without any trouble at all. No-one stopped them,
no-one questioned them: it was as if the Prophet, for all his imposing stature, had
been quite invisible. He had given no trouble at all, willingly following Officer
Angelo wherever he led them. The escape-ship plus pilot had been in position to
pick them up (a small miracle in its own right seeing how overstretched the police
department were), an old refurbished shuttle-bus that was used for covert
operations. All in all Officer Angelo was quite dumbstruck at how smoothly the
whole operation had gone. Even the two officers at the customs hall had been
missing, and they usually never missed a chance to fleece any incoming or
outgoing passengers.
“Next,” said an irritable voice.
“Officer Angelo,” he announced himself. “Docket 526RA. Prisoner being
transferred to Earth. Name: Righteous Alchemy. AKA the Prophet.”
“Hang on a moment,” said Officer Harold, and clattered away at the
computer terminal for a while. “Okay. He’s already in the system…I’ve booked him
on tonight’s transport. Dock 5B. 2200 hours.”
“Ok. Where can I put him till then?”
66
“Nowhere actually. Look around you. Bloody chaos today: not a cell left I’m
afraid. You’re going to have to stick with him till he goes. There are some deserted
cubicles on the other side of C Wing…down there,” he said pointing somewhere to
the right. “Not much fun for you. Neither is the food at the canteen; but we live to
serve,” he said sardonically.
Officer Angelo gave him a semi smile in return. This was a policeman’s life.
He was quite used to it.
“Oh, by the way,” he said, just as Officer Angelo turned away. “Wanna do
me a favour?”
“Sure,” he said.
“I got two leftovers from yesterday: also going to Earth but there was no
place for them on the transport this morning. A couple of women: they’re taking up
a twenty person cell and I can’t put any men in with them. I need that space. You
wouldn’t want to baby-sit them as well, would you? Don’t think they’ll be any
trouble. Hang on,” he said as he brought their file up on the computer. “Here we
go. A5-class detainees. They were prisoners on their way to the Deep Penal
Colony when the two of them and a couple guys hijacked their prison ship and
made a run for it. No-one seriously hurt. Got as far as Delta Centauri would you
believe?” he said, squinting at the screen. “Didn’t resist arrest….no signs of violent
behaviour. Wanna take them?” he looked up again.
Officer Angelo hesitated for a moment. Two prisoners was usually the limit
for one officer.
“Make my life a lot easier,” pleaded Officer Harold.
“Ok. Where are they?”
“Down the hall. Transit lounge, Cell 7. Here’s the key. Sign here,” he said
quickly before Officer Angelo could change his mind.
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“Thanks a lot…..Yes! I’m coming. Hold your hair on….moron,” he said,
mumbling this last under his breath.
Officer Angelo turned and made his way to the exit door, the huge black
man following him like a lumbering bear, people eddying around in his wake.
N
Righteous Alchemy stared with large unseeing eyes at the ladies trying to
freshen up over a little steel water fountain against the wall: the smaller of the two
ducking behind the other, furtively trying to wash beneath her prison overall without
showing too much bare flesh, quite convinced that he could still see her even
though she knew he was blind.
“Are you sure he can’t see anything?” asked the larger of the two women.
Thanks to the overcrowded conditions aboard the prison transports they had
been unable to wash properly for many days now. As a result she had a skin rash
in all her sensitive places. She was irritable and looking for a fight.
“He can’t see a thing,” said Officer Angelo, studiously averting his own eyes,
but still keeping track of them in his peripheral vision.
“Yeah, well tell him to turn around. It’s creepy.”
“My apologies,” said Righteous. “I didn’t realize I was staring,” and turned the
other way.
The two women went about their lacklustre task in silence. They had hardly
said a word since their capture. After the hijack they had got their hopes up and for
a while they thought they were going to make it to freedom…..and they nearly did,
except for a piece of blind dumb luck and a federation cruiser being where it
68
shouldn’t have been. Now they were on their way to earth to be tried for ‘Crimes
Against The State’. They knew this was the end of the line for them.
“Hey, bignose, when we gonna get a bath?” asked the big woman, knowing
she was asking the impossible, but just trying to be difficult.
“Please call me Angelo,” he responded.
“Why. You trying to get close to me?” she said challengingly.
He smiled wryly at the thought and shook his head.
“Yeah, I don’t recommend it at the moment,” she murmured, scratching at
her left armpit.
“Are you done yet?” Officer Angelo was waiting patiently for them to finish so
he could put their wristlocks back on again.
The large woman threw him a searching glance. She was big boned, with
large calloused hands and stood well balanced with her feet apart, like a sailor on
a rolling ship in a storm. Officer Angelo knew he was going to have to watch her.
She was heavily muscled and looked like she could more than handle herself in a
fistfight. He didn’t actually fancy his chances on taking her one to one. She looked
like she could wipe the floor with him. He had to employ all of his self-control not
to let his hand slip down and reassuringly pat his gun.
“What’s the hurry then big boy? We making you nervous?”
She had a sallow complexion that usually comes from a bad diet and poor
working conditions, with pockmarks on her face and neck. She also had the flat
face of a third or fourth generation ore-belt miner and her calm assessing eyes told
him she missed nothing. This was a very capable woman, used to working in
dangerous situations…as all space miners were.
The younger one was small and slightly plump, with delicate features that
could be called beautiful if you could see them. Nice as apple pie and as thick as
69
the crust; she wore garish lipstick, heavy purple eye shadow and tons of powder
and rouge that made her look every centimetre the cheap whore she was. Briefly
he wondered what she had been doing on a lifer jail-boat. Null-whores were by
design passive and non-violent. Very few of them ever committed any sort of
crime. Not even theft. It was a puzzle for him to ponder over.
She was the first one to finish washing and presented her upheld hands to
Officer Angelo for him to put on the wristlocks. Then everyone waited quietly,
listening to the splashing and grunting as the other woman took forever to finish
her ablutions. But even she got tired of her little game eventually and presented
herself for lockup with a challenging smile.
“Ain’t you going to pat me down again? See if I got something dangerous in
my panties?”
Once again Officer Angelo felt the overwhelming urge to finger his gun, but
he didn’t dare show her he was anxious. He did breathe a small sigh of relief when
she was safely back in handcuffs though. After that a long uncomfortable silence
ensued, where every sniff and rustle of clothing could be heard. There were no
magazines to read and nothing to do except try not to look at one another. Out of
sheer embarrassment Sweet Mary was the first to break to ice.
“My name’s Marianne,” she blurted out, blushing furiously at her bravado.
“But everyone calls me Sweet Mary.” There was a long awkward pause in which
Sweet Mary died a thousand deaths, thinking no-one was going to answer.
“My name is Righteous Alchemy.” His voice boomed out so loudly in the
empty room that Sweet Mary jumped in her seat. It took her a few seconds to
recover her poise.
“How do you do Mr Alchemy?” she said as graciously as she could.
70
“I do fine thank you ma’m,” he said, mellowing his voice to a low rumble of
thunder. “But please call me Righteous.”
“Righteous,” she corrected herself.
“It is an honour to be travelling with you, Sweet Mary,” he said. Sweet Mary
blushed again and bit her lip.
“And that’s Dutch,” she added quickly, noticing her friend staring at
Righteous.
“What you doing here?” Dutch demanded in her usual curt way. “What did
you do wrong?”
“Nothing,” answered Righteous.
“Yeah right. What you? A rapist? Murderer??”
“No,” he answered calmly. “I ain’t nothing really.”
Dutch looked enquiringly at Officer Angelo, waiting for him to contradict
Righteous. Criminals always pleaded their innocence.
“He’s an Oracle,” said Officer Angelo.
“What’s that?” said Sweet Mary.
“Someone who talks a lot of crap,” said Dutch. “So what did you do wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“My arse.”
Officer Angelo watched this exchange with interest. He really didn’t know
who he would bet on if it came to a straight fight.
“As far as I know I didn’t do anything wrong. Even Officer Angelo couldn’t tell
you what I have done. You could say that I have chosen to be here; that I am here
of my own free will.
“Yeah? Then why the cuffs?”
“It is not the chains that maketh a prisoner.”
71
“Say’s you,” said Dutch.
“I surrender to the path I am destined to take. I surrender to life and what it
brings me; therefore I am never at odds with my circumstances. I am in harmony
with my life, even if imprisonment is a part of my life.
“It is only when you struggle against your destiny that you become aware of
your chains. I choose not to struggle. Captivity is a state of mind. Everyone is a
captive of sorts. I am even freer than Officer Angelo, because he is a captive of his
job. Like you he cannot do what he wants. So he is a prisoner as much as you
are.”
“Well you can’t do what you want?” said Dutch.
“But I ‘want’ nothing, so I am free. I am only a prisoner if I want to be
somewhere else. And who knows, if I was somewhere else, I might be in an even
worse situation than I am now. So I choose to live with the devil I know. No-one is
actually free. It’s just a matter of degree. We are all slaves to our desires and
needs, our fears and phobias. But I ‘desire’ to be here, for I cannot be other than
where I am. Most people desire to be somewhere else and don’t even know they
have created a prison for themselves from which they long to escape. I know this
because none are happy, and all seek freedom.”
Righteous Alchemy felt grateful to the big woman for asking him questions.
Even if his answers weren’t making much sense, he needed to talk. It helped keep
him steady. He felt disorientated being away from home. He had been born in the
dome, and had never been outside of it. Everything was strange and new and
uncomfortable. For the first time in his life he felt like a blind man. Nothing was
familiar. The impressions he was receiving were confusing. The smells and sounds
were unidentifiable and disturbing. Everything was harsh and hurried, sharp and
72
urgent, and his instincts were hard put to cope with such a big input of new
sensory data.
He liked her; the aggressive woman; Dutch. She was full of confidence, and
although she was obnoxious, it felt good to be around her. Officer Angelo too, had
lived up to his name as an angel. He had been kind and considerate; always
explaining things to him so he did not feel too alienated or uncomfortable. He
always made sure he had enough to eat and drink.
The change in body weight was the most distressing element though. Here
on G.O.D. 5 he was subjected to more than three times the gravity he was
accustomed to, and he was exhausted by the effort of carrying around so much
extra weight. His walking was slow and ponderous, his muscles too weak to carry
such bulk, even when sitting or lying down; his breathing laboured and painful, and
his digestive system was refusing to work properly. He felt tired all the time and
just wanted to sleep. So he talked to take his mind off his discomfort.
“Life is a bit like an arranged marriage. You don’t get to choose who you are,
but you do have a choice as to how you face your fate. You can either make the
best of who and where you are or live your life in denial.
“Happiness for most people lies only in the future, or in the good old
days…in some other time…in some other place….but never now, and here. I am
happy being here now. You are not. So I am the only free person here.”
“Rubbish. You’re living in a fool’s paradise,” said Dutch.
“Is there any other type? So, I am a fool for being happy. And you are a
wise woman for being miserable? Yours is not wisdom, it is cynicism.”
“I’m going to die. That’s why I’m unhappy.”
“No. You’re unhappy because you feel guilty. That man of yours was just
looking to be killed.
73
Dutch looked up at him sharply, wondering how he knew that.
“He goaded and taunted and bullied you until you gave him what he was
looking for, release from his agony. He was a deeply miserable and unhappy man
who was looking for an easy way out; but too cowardly to do it himself. You were
the innocent one and he played you. He got off scot free and you got all the
blame. You should think of your actions rather as an assisted suicide than murder.
He was longing for death, and you helped give it to him. Sooner or later somebody
was going to kill him.”
There was a long silence as everyone lapsed into their own thoughts; but
Righteous had got under Dutch’s skin and she couldn’t seem to settle back into her
normal sulky silence.
“So what’s it say in the file?” she asked Officer Angelo, just for something to
say. “They gonna hang us or what?”
Dutch saw the frightened look that Sweet Mary threw at her and she knew
she had let her mouth do too much talking again. Because Sweet Mary was so
innocent, she felt it her duty to protect her from the harsh facts of life. She hated
upsetting the little thing.
“Never mind. Don’t really want to know,” she mumbled.
“No-one’s going to get hanged,” said Righteous in a sepulchral voice,
“Especially not you nor Sweet Mary.” Whether this statement was true or not it had
the desired effect, and Sweet Mary smiled at Dutch.
“See. He should know. He’s an oracle.”
“Yeah, and I’m the queen of England.” Again she saw that hurt look in
Sweet Mary’s eye and kicked herself mentally. What a dumb mouth she had.
74
“Well, I can’t tell what’s going to happen too far in the future,” said Officer
Angelo, sensing the building frustration and anger in Dutch, “but I think maybe we
could all do with a little bit of fresh air. How about a walk?”
“Oh yay,” said Dutch in a flat unexcited monotone.
“That should be nice,” said Sweet Mary.
“Will you stop being so bloody cheerful,” shouted Dutch and Sweet Mary
finally burst into tears.
It was as if she had a masochistic streak. And there was no controlling it.
The moment everything was going fine her mouth stepped in and ruined it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, putting out her manacled hands to comfort Sweet
Mary. “I didn’t mean to say that. I’m just in a shit mood.”
“That’s okay,” said Sweet Mary forgivingly, and gave Dutch a tearful smile.
“Okay everyone, on your feet. There’s an exercise room down the hall. Do
you all good”
Righteous Alchemy groaned at the prospect of having to walk again and
Officer Angelo chained them all together.
N
75
A square, well dressed middle aged woman, sitting in the shadows at the
side of the hall, nearly spilled her cup of tea on her lap when Officer Angelo and
his manacled entourage bundled into the room. Her eyes wide with alarm, she
tried to think of the best way to make her presence known without startling them.
She needn’t have worried though. Officer Angelo spotted her a second later.
“I’m sorry, ma’m,” he apologised. “I thought this was empty.” He immediately
turned his little crew about-face and herded them towards the door.
“No please,” said the woman, stretching out her fingers as if to detain them.
“I’m the one that shouldn’t be here. I just needed to rest.” Her hand fluttered,
indicating the bench she was sitting on. “Please don’t let me chase you away. I
wouldn’t forgive myself.”
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Now that she’d had time to look them over, she saw they weren’t as
frightening as the chains had suggested. Two of the prisoners in cuffs were women
and her natural sympathies went out to them. It also made her curious as to what
kind of crimes they had committed. Granted the black man was rather big, but he
was obviously blind and that also roused a sympathetic response in her. More than
that, she felt down and depressed and had little care for her safety.
“Please do come in. I take it this is your exercise room. I won’t get in your
way.”
“That’s very kind of you ma’m,” said Officer Angelo, studying the situation
and calculating the possibilities and ramifications, trying to make up his mind. He
looked at the lady again and noticed the calm, dignified manner in which she held
herself. He found himself staring at her and had to consciously break away from
his thoughts.
“We won’t be long ma’m. Just need to stretch our legs,” he found himself
saying. He knew he should have taken the prisoners somewhere else. He knew
that he was endangering the woman by staying and that by doing so he was also
breaking a heap of Federation rules and regulations; but he just couldn’t help
himself. He couldn’t understand why he was doing it, he was just vaguely aware
that he didn’t want her to go away.
“That’s alright. I wasn’t really doing anything. In fact, I’m glad of a little
company,” she said wistfully and gave him another brave little smile as the teacup
rattled in her lap.
Most men are a sucker for a sad lady. It’s as if rescuing a damsel in distress
is programmed into their D.N.A. Officer Angelo was no exception and found
himself in the grip of something greater than he.
“Well you just let me know if there’s anything I can do for you?”
77
“Thank you. I’ll be fine.” She smiled at him. “My name is Rose, by the way.
Rose Darck.”
“How do you do ma’m.” he said, nodding at her. “I’m Officer Angelo, and this
is Dutch…Sweet Mary…and Righteous Alchemy.”
“How do you do. All of you. But oh dear,” she said looking at the women.
“It looks like you’ve got into a bit of trouble?”
“You can say that,” said Officer Angelo. “Though it never feels quite right to
me to put a lady in jail, even though that might be the best place for her
sometimes.”
Rose was looking sympathetically at Sweet Mary.
“I can’t imagine what you could have done that was so bad.”
“I didn’t do anything,” burst out Sweet Mary to her own surprise.
“I can believe that,” said Rose. “But the world isn’t always fair….or kind. I’m
very sorry for your trouble, and I hope it all works out alright for you.”
“Thank you,” said Sweet Mary, whose heart went out immediately to the
lovely lady. And she wasn’t the only one. It can be said, though he wouldn’t admit
it, that Officer Angelo had taken a shine to Mrs Darck. He felt strangely buoyant in
her company. He could barely stop himself from talking to her.
“But why are you sitting here all by yourself, if you’ll pardon my asking?” he
asked and at the back of his mind he was wondering where Mr Darck was.
“Well I…I should actually be at the farewell party,” she smiled. “You know,
the one for the crew of the wormhole expedition, but…I just needed to think.
Everyone’s having so much fun there,” she indicated off to the right somewhere
with her eyes, “and I…just don’t feel like being cheerful,” she said.
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“Ah. I see,” he said, although he didn’t really. Everyone had heard of the
expedition, but not much else about it. They all stood silently and waited as the
woman stared into empty space.
“My son is the Commander of the Sleeping Beauty….….” she continued,
then indicated the window behind her with a slight twist of her head…“and he’s
going to be travelling into that”.
Officer Angelo and the prisoners followed her gesture and stared out at the
massive vortex hovering in the distance. It moiled with malevolence. It looked like
nothing would survive in there.
“Jesus,” said Dutch finally. “You must be worried out of your mind,” she said
in an unaccustomed burst of kindness.
“I’m sure he’ll be alright,” said the woman, dabbing manfully at her tears with
a wet hanky. “He’s a very capable commander and the space-ship is the best they
have.” She sniffed and smiled, trying desperately to believe what she said. “He
even got a special dispensation to show me around the ship,” she said proudly.
“So I could imagine him when he’s gone. Where he’d be working….and sleeping.”
A sob escaped her and they watched as she bit down on her sorrow. Officer
Angelo was dying to comfort her, but he daren’t move.
“Your son will not die out there,” declared Righteous with calm authority. “It
is not his fate.”
This kindness, someone saying the sentence she dared not say to herself, a
hope she dared not harbour, was the final straw that opened the floodgates. Tears
plopped down into her teacup as she sobbed unrestrainedly.
Officer Angelo was now beside himself in all sorts of ways. He only had
eyes for her. The weeping woman tugged at his heart strings and turned him into a
puppet, dancing to the tune of her emotions. Unconsciously his hand made a
79
gesture in her direction, and then he thought better of it and retracted it, not sure
how he should respond.
They say that love is blind; but it is also deaf to all but the beloved’s cry.
Officer Angelo, comprehensively afflicted with these two ailments, never heard or
saw Dutch slowly taking up the slack in the chains that bound the prisoners
together. He never saw her gently edge the three prisoners closer and closer to
him behind his back. All Officer Angelo noticed of the impending disaster was the
slight widening of Rose’s eyes as she saw Dutch surreptitiously remove Officer
Angelo’s gun from his holster. He felt the lightening load on his hip and
automatically slapped his hand down on the holster. Too late. He turned around
and found himself staring down the barrel of his own gun.
“No funny moves,” said Dutch, “and no-one gets hurt. Okay?”
And although she spoke in a quiet, relaxed tone of voice, they could all see
by the look on her face and the white knuckle on the trigger that Federation Officer
Angelo was a hairs breadth away from death.
“Sure,” he said, slowly raising his arms in surrender as his recently buoyant
heart sank to his boots.
“Get the keys out and un-cuff me. Slowly. Then her,” she indicated to Sweet
Mary, whose mouth was opening and closing in shock.
Kicking himself mentally, his mind in all sorts of turmoil, Officer Angelo did
as he was told, being very careful not to make any sudden moves.
“Now turn around,” she said when he was done. “Cuff him,” she said to
Sweet Mary, whose face was as white as a sheet. In a blind panic the girl grabbed
the discarded manacles from the floor but her hands were shaking so badly that
she dropped them again.
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“Never mind,” said Dutch impatiently, realizing that Sweet Mary would never
be able to manage something like that. “Forget it. He’s just going to have to
behave, aren’t you?” she said to Officer Angelo, shoving the gun into his ribs for
emphasis. He winced and nodded briefly. Dutch was bright eyed and sparking like
a live wire. He felt like a deflated balloon. There was no point in trying anything;
she would see him coming by a mile. And he knew he was going to get hurt if he
tried anything. Better a healthy coward than a bleeding hero.
“Un-cuff him as well,” she gestured at Righteous. A plan was starting to
form in Dutch’s mind. She had a gun, and she had hostages. Things were looking
up.
Rose, no longer crying, merely sat quietly and watched as the drama played
out in front of her like a movie. Her grief served to remove her from the directness
of the scene, her numbed emotions unable to respond anymore. She didn’t really
care where she was.
“Okay, let’s go.” Dutch herded them together with the gun. “You too,” she
pointed at Rose. “Up you get lady. You say you’ve been to your son’s ship?” she
asked.
“Yes.”
“Take us there!”
“I don’t know where it is. I’ve been there, but I don’t know how to get there
from here. I got lost. I don’t know where I am.”
“Well that’s great. That leaves you Officer Angelo.”
Officer Angelo looked at her in surprise. “I’ve never been here in my life
before. Well, not on this side of the station. I have no idea.”
“That’s not the answer I’m looking for. Anyway, I think you’re lying,” she said
raising the gun and pointed it at him.
81
“No please don’t do that,” said Rose coming out of her stupor and rising
from her chair. Sweet Mary also chimed in, frightened that Dutch was going to do
something silly.
“Dutch, please don’t.”
“He’s lying,” repeated Dutch. “And if he isn’t, then he’s useless baggage
anyway. Might as well get rid of him now…” Rose and Sweet Mary were just about
to get hysterical when a dark voice boomed out.
“I know the way.”
Rose and Sweet Mary stopped in mid protest, mouths still wide open. They
swung their heads around as one towards Righteous.
“I know the way,” he said. Although he was mightily discomfited by his
surroundings, Righteous Alchemy was in no way lost. He knew exactly where he
was. In his mind’s eye he could feel the layout of the entire ship and all the people
inhabiting it. He could feel the exact route they had to take to get to the ship. He
also knew that although the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was heavily guarded, there was a
back way in that very few people knew about. “I can take you there,” he said
calmly. Righteous could also sense that Dutch didn’t have much confidence in him.
“Why should I believe you? You can’t even see the hand in front of your
face. You have to be led to the toilet for crying out loud,” said Dutch.
“I’ve got just as much to lose as you do. And I might not be able to see
anything directly, but I can sense things.”
Dutch, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, realized that she had lost once
again. This is what her plan boiled down to. Just stumble around the station
following a blind man hoping to find the ship by accident.
“He can do it,” said Officer Angelo, quite surprised by the words he had
spoken. “I’ve seen him find his way around G.O.D. 4, and that’s the same layout
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design as this. And he knows when there’s danger up ahead,” he said. “Though
why I’m telling you this I don’t know. It’s just that if Righteous leads us we have
more of a chance getting out alive. With you leading us we got more chance of
getting killed. No offence,” he said to Dutch.
Dutch switched her gaze back and forth between the two men and then
made up her mind.
“I should have my head examined. But okay, only because we’re running
out of time. You…Lover boy, you lead with the lady, people won’t be suspicious of
you. Remember I’ll be right behind so any funny business and she gets a plasma
perm. Sweet Mary you and Righteous behind me. You take his hand and help
guide him.” Dutch moved quickly now, jostling them into position, giving no-one
any time to think.
“My Shoes,” exclaimed Rose. “I forgot my shoes.”
Dutch waved the gun at her. “Get them, quick.” Everyone’s eyes followed
Rose’s stockinged feet as they padded across the room to her chair and retrieved
her shoes. She slipped them on and came clip-clopping back.
After a quick look down the corridor, Dutch, now itching with impatience,
motioned them all outside.
“Please don’t do this Dutch. We’re going to get into trouble,” pleaded Sweet
Mary.
“We’re already in trouble, now do what I tell you and move!”
“But someone could get hurt,” whined Sweet Mary. Dutch’s nerves were now
starting to rasp and she had no time for this.
“Just shut the hell up and move before I drag you out by the hair.” she
shouted. “Now move. I’m not in the bloody mood for chatting. Go - Go - Go,” she
said, herding them out the door none too gently.
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Sweet Mary was a small woman, just half the height of Righteous. The top
of her head barely reached his chest. With a quivering lower lip Sweet Mary
slipped her shaking hand into the huge paw of Righteous, his hand completely
enfolding hers. She felt like an insubstantial wisp in his grasp, tender as it was. He
must have felt how her hand trembled for he gave her a comforting squeeze and
she started to relax a little; which was just as well because her anxiety levels were
fast approaching the Null-wave’s cut-off point, and then she’d be useless to
anyone. She leaned in closer to Righteous as they walked, almost hanging on his
arm for support. Close up he smelled of wood smoke and spice. She liked that.
She had smelled many men before; most of them sour and rancid. Her experience
of men in general was distasteful, so she was pleasantly surprised by Righteous’
gentle manner and sweet nature.
“Just relax,” he said, giving her hand another squeeze. “Everything’s going
to be alright.”
Sweet Mary felt something released in the pit of her stomach and she found
herself breathing easy again.
“Thanks,” she said, giving his huge mitt a squeeze.
“I’m sorry I distracted you with my silly worries,” whispered Rose to Officer
Angelo as they hurried down the hall side by side.
“Turn left at the next passageway,” said Righteous from the rear.
“It wasn’t your fault,” replied Officer Angelo to Rose.
“Yes it was. I’m so preoccupied with my own problems…”
“Here we go,” said Dutch indicating an entrance marked ‘Authorized
Personnel Only. Service and Maintenance Tunnel.’
They all stopped in front of the door.
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“This will take us all the way to the docking bay,” said Righteous.
‘This is perfect,’ thought Dutch. ‘With such an odd looking group of people,
someone was bound to get suspicious’.
“Let’s go. Open the door,” she said, but Officer Angelo stood sullenly
unmoving in front of the closed door.
“It’s locked.” He said, stalling for time. Dutch deliberated whether to slap him
silly with the butt of her gun.
“Well use your key,” she said sarcastically, and began caressing Rose’s
earlobe with the muzzle of her gun. For a brief moment Officer Angelo and Dutch
locked eyes, but then his childish rebellion fizzled on the wind.
“Okay, okay,” he said reaching into his top pocket for his security clearance
card. The door clicked open on the first swipe.
Suddenly they were in a different world. No fancy wall cladding or mood
lighting in here…just utilitarian steel grating, work lamps, and freezing cold.
“And remember Casanova. No heroics or else your girlfriend’s going to be
doing the funky chicken.”
Officer Angelo held up his hands in a gesture of compliance. It galled him to
have to look like a fool in front of Rose. He felt like a child again and stared
daggers at Dutch; but that’s about as dangerous as he got. She’d made him look
like an idiot – and judging by her air of confidence and control, she wasn’t going to
let him rectify the situation any time soon. Rose, for her part, felt guilty for causing
him such a problem. It was after all her fault. She was the one who had distracted
him from his duty. Nonetheless, she still felt a perverse little glow of satisfaction
that she had that kind of power over him. Not only that, but if Dutch hadn’t
kidnapped her she probably would never have seen him again. And here they were
now, becoming fast friends. Strangely enough though, she didn’t feel frightened.
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She supposed she should have been, with Dutch threatening to shoot her – but
she just didn’t believe she would. She did feel awfully sorry for Officer Angelo – he
was in all kinds of trouble.
“Wait,” came an imperious command from Righteous at the rear. “Quiet.”
Everyone stopped and waited. Up ahead they could hear the clanking of a
hatch opening and someone moving about.
“Everyone face down on the floor. Quickly and quietly now,” said Dutch,
positioning herself ready for action. But the noises soon receded and after a final
echoing ‘clunk’, died away altogether. Dutch waited another minute or two to make
sure, then got them all up and moving again.
“And no more talking…and that means you two lovebirds in front.”
On they trudged: Officer Angelo sulking in front and Sweet Mary sulking at
the rear, the strange humming and pinging sounds of the station keeping them
company.
“Nearly there now,” said Righteous finally. “The docking hall is just ahead.
Once we come out of this tunnel, the entrance will be on our left.”
Dutch was loathe to admit that Righteous was probably doing a good job.
‘But we’ll soon see,’ she thought.
“How many people in the bay?”
“Two. There’s another one somewhere but I think he’s on the ship.”
“Okay. Keep moving everyone but I want you to listen up. This is how we’re
going to do it. You, sad lady, what’s your name?”
“Rose.”
“Rose. Listen very carefully because I’m only going to say this once. I want
you to…….”
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Rose collapsed in a heap in front of a double door entrance marked
‘FEDERATION ZONE DOCKING TERMINAL – RESTRICTED ACCESS’. One of
her shoes had come off and lay discarded to one side of her body. Officer Angelo
didn’t hesitate. Going straight to the VideoCom he stabbed the button and started
shouting for help.
“….then you tell them there’s a lady in trouble and that it’s Mrs Darck,
Commander Darck’s mother. With a bit of luck they’ll remember her. They’ll be able
to see for themselves through the CCTV. But don’t waste any time. Go back to her
side the moment they acknowledge you and kneel down beside her…..and stay
down. If you stand up into the line of fire so help me I’ll pop you too.”
The big doors hissed as the pneumatics kicked in and one of the guards
stepped halfway out to assess the situation.
“Help,” said Officer Angelo, flashing his Federation Officers badge at the
man. “I don’t think she’s breathing any more. We need to do something quickly.”
The guard hesitated on the threshold, not quite sure what to do. He wasn’t
allowed to step out of his station and something didn’t quite add up. There were
too many anomalies in the situation. How did they get here? What were they doing
here anyway? No one had warned them they were coming. Why hadn’t the main
guards stopped them?
Dutch prayed fervently under her breath that he would fall for the ruse. She
needed both guards to come out or else they had problems. If they took down only
one, then the other one could simply just close the doors on them. She had told
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Officer Angelo to cue her with a catchphrase only when both men had stepped out
into the corridor.
“Hurry,” said Angelo urgently. “I need a couple of people to help me to get
her into a sick bay.” Officer Angelo wondered for a mad moment whether he
should dare add the authentic touch of giving her a bit of mouth to mouth
resuscitation, but reckoned that would be pushing his luck a bit far.
Finally the guard made up his mind to disregard his instincts. Refusing to
help the mother of the most celebrated commander of the 45th century was not a
charge he was willing to face. He called to his partner.
“Leave that. We can call for the Meds later. Come and help me.”
“Hurry, please hurry. I think she’s dying,” Officer Angelo intoned the cue
words very loudly for Dutch, who, as she heard the two guards approach the
unhappy couple on the floor, sidled round the corner and fired two short bursts of
her gun at nearly point blank range. The guards went down like skittles, the
plasma blasts disrupting their neurological functions and leaving them flopping
around on the floor like two fish out of water.
Officer Angelo helped Rose to her feet and Dutch swept the little band into
the docking hall. Once the door was closed and locked behind them Dutch
breathed a small sigh of relief. She couldn’t quite believe that they had made it this
far.
“We ain’t out of the woods yet. Righteous! What you got?”
Righteous sniffed the air like a dog.
“There’s someone else…..” he said, turning his head from side to side. “…in
there.”
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Harry Feedle was not like other men. Harry Feedle loved to wash his hands,
especially after going to the toilet. He could often spend the best part of twenty
minutes scouring and de-bacterializing every millimetre of the aforementioned
articles all the way up to his elbows. He would then lovingly let them linger in the
Sani-dry until they were as moisture-less as the Sahara. After which he would
cream them admiringly for another good few minutes. All in all it would take him
the better part of an hour to have a pee.
He was just busy pulling his sleeve down over his right hand as a sock so
he could open the door without touching any of the contaminated surfaces when it
burst in on him with such momentum that he was knocked tip over arse. Dazed by
the concussion he found himself being rolled over onto his stomach and his
gloriously clean hands cuffed behind him. He tilted his head up to see what was
going on. It was a sight he would remember for the rest of his days.
Sweet Mary, with her wide staring baby-doll eyes, her hair (usually carefully
coiffed) all akimbo like a lopsided haystack, her scarlet lipstick smudged in a raw
slash across her cheek, looked more like the bride of Frankenstein than a pretty
call-girl. The whole effect was nicely rounded off be her holding hands with the
world’s tallest, blackest, near naked and pop-eyed Rasta man in waist level dirty
dreadlocks.
Mrs Darck, for her part was making a valiant effort not to look like a chicken
in distress. She did however do some concerted clucking before she could get a
few words out.
“But…but…but…but….Will they be alright?”
The ever attentive Officer Angelo was busy paddling her palm as he cooed
calmingly into her ear. Men are such fools when they fall in love.
“Don’t worry; they’re going to be alright. It’s only a stun gun.”
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Dutch caught his caring ministrations and smiled to herself. ‘As long as he
doesn’t try to impress her by being a hero,’ she thought and looked around the
room to get her bearings. Along one wall were cabinets and hangars with an array
of biosuits and helmets, oxygen tanks and various gloves and magnetic boots. She
ignored the Jet packs. They’d be too bulky to lug around, but the biosuits and
helmets would come in useful.
“Alright everyone. Strip,” she said, unhooking a few biosuits and handing
them out. No-one moved. They all stared at her with quizzical expressions on their
faces.
“Er, strip?” asked Rose, quite sure she had misheard her.
“All your clothes off,” said Dutch. “And I mean ALL; otherwise the biometrics
in the suit won’t work.”
“Naked?” enquired Sweet Mary in a rather timid voice.
“We have about twenty seconds before reinforcements come crashing in
through that door. Now get busy or else I’ll do it for you.”
Everyone sprang into action and got dressed in record time, Officer Angelo
and Rose trying to make it very obvious that they weren’t peeking at each other,
but each of them blushing like a tomato.
“Leave your old clothes on the floor and follow me.” Dutch had already
opened the airlock that led to the ship and waved at them with the gun to step
through.
“Can I take my handbag?” asked Sweet Mary, clutching the article to her
chest for dear life. The whole world could fall to pieces but she would survive
anything if she had her bag.
“Me too?” asked Rose.
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Dutch stared into two pairs of pleading eyes and nearly blew a gasket.
Nearly, but not quite. She herself had never picked up the habit, but she knew that
Sweet Mary’s sanity at the moment probably depended on her handbag.
“Okay. But let’s hurry it up.”
They stood at the end of the tubular walkway that connected the ship to the
station like an umbilical chord. “Come on. Get moving,” said Dutch, and the
walkway creaked and swayed slightly as the first person stepped through the door.
“Go!” shouted Dutch as two quick muffled explosions behind them signalled
the arrival of the troops and suddenly the little group were running heedlessly down
the swaying tunnel, arms flailing this way and that to try and keep their balance.
How no-one fell is a miracle.
And then they were in the airlock, gasping and groping for something to
hold onto or sit on. Dutch hit the release button and the outer hatch closed.
Impatiently she waited for the pressure to equalize. They weren’t out of the woods
yet. The Guards could still open the door via remote control. The atmospheric
indicator went green: pressure and oxygen optimum. She stabbed her finger at the
inner hatch button.
After what seemed an eternity the inner hatch opened with a sigh. This was
what Dutch had been waiting for. In her left pocket she held the silver teaspoon
she had taken from Rose’s cup. She took it out and jammed it into the bolt hole of
the locking mechanism. She bent the spoon over and wedged it solidly into place.
Now the inner hatch couldn’t be closed by remote control….and more importantly,
the outer one couldn’t open. No-one could get in, and no-one could get out. This
was a standard safety protocol built into all ships. One or other door had to remain
closed at all times in case the outer door was exposed to the vacuum and you got
sucked out into space.
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“That’ll do for now,” said Dutch. “Alright, everyone into the ship. You, Rose,
you know where the bridge is?”
Rose sort of nodded her head but wasn’t very sure of anything at the
moment.
“You and Sweet Mary go first, then Righteous. Angelo you stay in front of
me. And don’t spread out. Keep in a bunch and walk slowly.”
It was beginning to dawn on Rose that they were about to hijack the ship,
and if they were successful, then her son was probably not be going to be
travelling down the wormhole, and was probably not going to die. She, on the
other hand, probably was. But she didn’t care about that. As long as he was
alright, she was willing to sacrifice herself for him….again….as she had done her
whole life. Well, what were mothers for?
As the import of this sank into her consciousness she visibly relaxed and
began to look around with a new set of eyes; hijacker’s eyes. How could she help
this Dutch woman steal the ship? It was now imperative that they succeeded. She
looked at Dutch. The woman obviously had a lot on her mind at that moment. And
to add to that her friend Sweet Mary was distracting her by whimpering and looking
at her with those large terrified eyes. She stepped over to Sweet Mary and put a
comforting arm around her shoulders.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Everything’s going to work out fine. You just wait and
see.”
“Really?” sniffed Sweet Mary, looking at Rose.
“Okay everyone into their seats and buckle up; all except you lady…Rose.
Angelo, you sit opposite me where I can keep an eye on you.” She pointed her
gun at his seat. “And you, Sweet Mary, concentrate, for god’s sake. Why must you
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always dither about?” Her head was spinning with trajectories and vector
calculations that would get them away from here as quickly as possible and she
just didn’t need Sweet Mary faffing about with a face like a wet sponge.
As yet she had no idea where they were going, but she knew this yatch was
probably the fastest thing in the solar system and could outrun anything the
Federation sent after them, so they could pretty much pick and choose their
destination. She had a hankering for Taurus Xanthus. There were at least three
habitable planets there – way beyond Federation controlled space – where they
could start a new life. She just felt a bit sorry for Rose though. This couldn’t be
easy for her, conservative lady used to genteel surroundings, being torn away from
her family and safe social setting. There was no possibility of dropping her off in a
safe harbour. They didn’t have that kind of time in hand. She was just going to
have to come with them.
“Okay Rose. I’m going to speak to control now. But I am going to need to
threaten you on camera so they’ll let us go. I won’t hurt you. I can promise you
that. But they’re going to need to believe that I would.”
“I understand.”
“It has to be you I’m afraid. It would be no good threatening Officer Angelo.
Policemen are expendable. It’s their job…getting killed in the line of duty. But noone’s going to fire on the ship-commander’s mother.”
She gently crooked her left arm around Rose’s neck from behind and keyed
open the live video feed. Then she put her plasma pistol against Rose’s temple.
“Hello control. You got a situation here.” The two women stared into the
camera waiting for control to acknowledge. “I would like you to initiate undocking
procedures immediately or I will blow her brains out.”
93
N
The party was in full swing, the General in full bling and blinding with all his
medals flashing as he sailed across the dance floor steering his wife as if she was
a battle cruiser. The younger officers were also busy at it, their lady wives swirling
and smiling and turning their powdered profiles to best advantage. The men made
the dance look as dignified as a parade ground manoeuvre, but the drunker they
got, the more decorously they tried to hold themselves; and the more they tried to
feign sobriety, the more obvious it became that they were all getting a bit tipsy.
At last the music ended and the General came to a puffing halt at the edge
of the dance floor, a fine sheen of sweat on his face. That was the problem of
being an armchair general. Too many signatures to sign, too many soirées and
parties to go to and not enough action. He was just reaching for his fourth glass of
champagne when an Aide tapped him on the shoulder and leaned over to whisper
in his ear. The Generals expression deepened and darkened to a furious red
during the transmission of this message, his happy mood evaporating like
champagne on a hotplate. In one majestic movement he brushed the Aide aside
and swept out of the room.
Everyone noticed. But no-one knew what to do about it so they all pretended
to ignore it and carry on having fun, but the heart had gone out of the party.
Something was wrong. Commander Darck and his newly betrothed wound down
like a couple of dancing dolls out of batteries and stood staring at the door where
the General had exited. Soon everyone had stopped and was glancing
surreptitiously at Commander Darck, waiting for him to do something.
Coming to a quick decision, Thedeus gave his wife a chaste peck on the
forehead and marched off in search of his master. Out in the corridor he turned left
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and headed for the mission control room. If anything was wrong they’d know about
it there.
The many banks of computer terminals all had one picture on them. A shorthaired woman with a plasma pistol stuck in Thedeus’ mother’s ear. The rows of
operators were busily keying their pads and talking in urgent hushed tones into
their throat mikes, but still the hubbub level was almost deafening; orderlies were
rushing here and there clutching important memos as Dutch’s amplified voice
boomed across the room and struck the rock that was General Towersy. The
words ran off him like foam spray dissipating in the wind. He wasn’t interested in
words. He was a picture man. And what he saw was a picture of a terrorist. And
he knew what to do with terrorists. This was what he was trained for, and although
he felt mightily for Mrs Darck and the other hostages, and although he could
imagine the agony Commander Darck would face if his mother died in there, there
was no doubt in his mind as to what to do, no agonizing over a difficult decision.
He was a soldier, granted he was at the top of the food chain and it was from him
that orders issued, but once they were issued, everyone had to follow them….even
him. The protocol for this type of situation was clearly laid out, no matter the
mitigating circumstances. Orders were orders. Nothing else mattered. What did
matter was that they were dealing with an armed hijacker…and hijackers were
given no quarter.
“Strike troop One and boarding teams are moving into position,” said an
Adjutant at the General’s side.
“How soon can they breach?” asked the General.
“90 seconds after the charges are laid.”
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“Someone better answer me real soon,” said Dutch over the various
monitors. “I’m getting a bit antsy here. And you know what happens when a girl
gets ants in her pants…..”
“Will someone switch those bloody sirens off! I think everybody knows
there’s a bloody crisis by now,” shouted the General irritably.
“Yessir,” said a controller scrabbling around for the right switch.
“What are the hostage’s chances of survival?” asked the General, though he
knew the answer full well.
“None. The ship is too small for such a large explosion. The pressure impact
will kill them all.”
Thedeus had come in the door in time to hear this last remark and the world
to him became unreal. Gone was his fairy tale life with his new fairy tale wife, and
the nightmare had begun. In a dreamlike trance he seemed to watch himself as if
he was some character in a movie.
“You can’t do this,” he said, floating up to the General and forgetting to
salute. “That’s my mother.”
“I had noticed.” The Generals eyes never wavered from the screen. “I’m
sorry, but you know the rules. I can’t make an exception for you, Commander
Darck,” he said. “I know it sounds callous but that’s the way it is. You knew the
risks when you joined. If we give in to one of these bastards then all of them will
be doing it. We have to make an example. I’m sorry.”
“Sixty seconds to breach.”
“Can’t we starve them out or something?”
“There’s enough food, water and oxygen in there for five years. You know
that. And the ship is fully fuelled. If any of them’s a pilot then our troubles have
only begun. We have to nip this in the bud.”
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“Charges are laid General. They’re waiting on your go ahead.”
“Secure all bulkheads and evacuate non-essential personnel. Just hope to
hell they know what they’re doing and don’t damage my ship too much.”
“But that’s my Mother,” said Thedeus again, still not believing what was
going on. “You can’t do this.”
“This is the navy, Commander, not a fucking kindergarten,” barked the
General as his conscience bit him in the ass. “Everybody knows the risks. Your
mother knows too, and she’d be the first one to agree with me that this is the right
thing to do. We sacrifice one life to save millions more, otherwise the bastards will
be hijacking liners full of passengers next. I’m sorry about your mother but you are
a soldier first and a son second. Now I think it would be best if you left the room
and let us get on with it.” He softened his tone on the last sentence as much as he
could. This was a hell of a thing to happen to anyone. But he had no choice. This
was the navy. And they were running out of time.
“Here comes the countdown,” said the many images of the woman with the
gun. “If you don’t undock us I splash the old bitch’s brains all over your Vid Cam
and then I’ll launch anyway without uncoupling, and you know what a mess that’s
going to make of your station. It’ll tear half your docking facilities to shit.
“She means it General. Please do what she says,” said Commander
Thedeus Darck frantically, almost pawing at the General. “That’s my Mother.” He
was nearly in tears.
The General had no option but to ignore him. “Commence breach in thirty
seconds. Go.”
“FIVE…” said Dutch.
“You can’t do this. Have you all gone mad?” All Commander Thedeus’ years
of training went straight out the window. Gone was his dispassionate objectivity.
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Gone was his cool, calm, calculating brain in an emergency. Gone was his nerve
under enemy fire. All his experience and bravery in the field went for nothing,
because nothing can prepare a boy for this kind of eventuality, and nothing is
worth this kind of sacrifice. In that moment Commander Thedeus Darck knew he
would never be a true marine. He didn’t have what it took, and he didn’t care. He
just didn’t want his mother to die.
“….FOUR…”
They watched Dutch grind the gun into Mrs Darck’s temple.
“There’s no way out,” said the General, keying in his microphone and talking
directly to Dutch for the first time. “If you lay down your weapon and give up now
I’ll see you get a fair trial. You can’t win this one. If you kill a hostage – you die. If
you let them go…..we’ll see.”
“Kiss me…THREE..”
“Let them go. For God’s sake LET THEM GO!” Thedeus shouted at the
General, beyond himself now, turning this way and that, looking for a way out…a
way to save his mother.
Then they all clearly heard the amplified click as the short-haired woman
cocked the gun.
“…TWO…” said Dutch. “We got nothing to lose here. We were headed for
death row anyway. Believe me…I don’t give a shit.”
“No…” Thedeus clawed at the air in front of him, somehow trying to extract
his mother through sheer willpower.
“…ONE..”
Then his eyes, by a chance in a thousand, lit on the gantry uncoupling
button amongst the myriad of lights and switches on the board in front of him.
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Before his brain even had time to engage his fist had slammed down on the button
and his world went black.
N
Warning lights came on all over the console and they felt a gentle lurch as
the ship came loose of its moorings and started to drift into space. Dutch cut the
video feed and pointed Rose to her seat.
“Well, that was close,” said Dutch. She just didn’t even want to imagine
what they would have done if their bluff hadn’t worked.
“Alright! Here we go.”
But that was easier said than done. Dutch took one look at the control board
and her heart sank. Nothing was recognizable. This ship was the latest, state-ofthe-art creation with an instrument panel that lent itself more to style than function.
There wasn’t a label to be seen; nothing that said ‘start’ or ‘boosters’ or ‘rotational
thrusters’, just a few cryptic symbols scattered here and there. Its design was
basically ultra-modern minimalist chic in delicate pastel shades of pink and blue.
Shit. She was more used to state-of-the-ark ore-transporter ships than this. It was
the difference between a donkey and a highly strung racehorse. Any idiot could
jump on a donkey and give it the stick. A racehorse will kick your ass from here to
next Sunday.
“Great. Anyone have any ideas?” asked Dutch facetiously, waving at the
control board.
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“But this is your field,” said Officer Angelo. “I thought you were a hotshot
pilot?”
“Yes, but I’m used to piloting a ship, not driving a boudoir,” she returned.
“What about you Rose. Did they show you anything here when you took the tour?”
“They explained some of the buttons to me,” said Rose in a tremulous
voice. “But I can’t remember anything. I didn’t understand much to start with,
anyway.”
“Can’t you remember anything at all? Look again.”
“No. I’m sorry,” she said.
“Shit.” Dutch knew this was all her doing. So much for her well thought out
scheme. Their lives were in her hands, and she didn’t have a clue what to do. At
least they had got safely away she thought, until she saw the ship beginning to
slew around into a spin and she knew she had to do something quickly. If the spin
got out of control there would be no way of regaining control. Dutch looked
frantically at the board in front of her and took a wild chance. She pressed the
large pink button in the middle of the desk. She knew it was the wrong thing to do
before her finger even touched it. Immediately a computerised voice began
speaking.
“Commencing countdown for automatic alignment and firing sequence. Coordinates, fiver – zero – niner – six. Curve vector 307 degrees increasing to
312alm.
“Oh oh. This doesn’t sound too good.”
“Relative drag-coefficients within acceptable parameters,” the mechanical
voice intoned. “Trajectory confirmed – upper quadrant of wormhole – course 258
degrees – dropping to centre at 48 GHT and compensating for lateral drift.”
100
“Oh no oh no oh no oh no. We don’t want to go there at all.” A litany of
desperation poured from Dutch’s lips as she jabbed frantically at every button she
could find. “Oh dear god, how do I stop this?” She stabbed at the big pink button
again and again as if that would cancel the horror. But all to no avail.
“We now have an affirmative for ignition,” intoned the voice relentlessly.
“Pre-programmed launch sequence active. Firing main thrusters – power 255zl in
tandem.”
Dutch was thrown into her seat as all three engines fired. Everyone stared
at the windscreen in horror as the ship changed course and began to accelerate at
a phenomenal rate straight towards the wormhole.
“Can’t you do something? Switch it off?” shouted Officer Angelo.
Dutch gave him a sarcastic glare. “Oh wow. Funny, why didn’t I think of
that? Duh.” She stuck her finger in her mouth like a moron.
“It’s on automatic pilot. It’ll take more than an off-button to stop this baby.”
Dutch swept her glance around the flight deck.
“A manual. We need an instruction manual,” she shouted to no-one in
particular.
“Should be one on the computer,” offered Officer Angelo.
“Yeah. You know how to work this computer?”
“No.”
“Well shut up and search for a manual. There must be a hard copy lying
about somewhere.”
N
101
In the observation tower Thedeus Darck watched in horror as the ship
bearing his mother headed for the seething maw of the monstrous wormhole.
N
Sweet Mary looked at the wormhole with a heavy heart. She felt very down
at the moment. The wormhole didn’t worry her. She actually had no real idea how
dangerous or violent it was. She just felt depressed, and a bit lonely. Dutch hadn’t
had much time for her ever since they were picked up by that police cruiser.
Hardly said two words to her really, and then they were snappy ones. She missed
the old Dutch; missed being with her in the cell. The sad fact was that those were
the happiest times of her life, and it was very hard coming to terms with the reality
that it was over. She felt like a piece of baggage now. She couldn’t help Dutch at
all, and always seemed to be getting in the way. There was nothing she could do
to help. She was just a useless bimbo. Good for only one thing…and even that
wasn’t needed now. She looked over at Righteous. He was sitting quietly and
patiently upright in his seat a few feet away from her at the side of the Flight deck.
Rose sat next to him, at some sort of weapons console. Each of these seats was
designed for a specialist job. And none of them had any clue as to what.
“Got it,” said Officer Angelo, waving a wire-bound booklet in the air. Dutch
grabbed it from his hands and eagerly started flicking through the pages. After a
little while though, her excitement fizzled out and she slumped back into her chair.
“What’s the matter? It’s in English isn’t it?” asked Officer Angelo.
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“Yes, it’s in English.” She looked up at the ever widening wormhole, now
filling most of their horizon. “But we’re not going to make it.”
“What do you mean? Are we going to die?” asked Rose.
“No. Well, maybe, yes. But no, I meant we’re not going to be able to escape
the wormhole. It’s already too late. We’re in its gravity field and the ship won’t let
us change course. It’s too dangerous.”
Everyone stared ahead of them in dead silence.
“I need to go to the loo,” piped up Sweet Mary in a tiny voice. Dutch
swivelled angrily around in her seat.
“Why do you always wait until the last moment? It’s too bloody late now.
You’ll have to go in your pants.”
“But I can’t.”
“It’s a bloody bio-suit. That’s what it’s bloody designed for...” Dutch bit her
tongue. She could feel how awful she was being and tried to put on the brakes of
her irritation. “It’s like a built in toilet, recycles all your waste. You won’t feel a
thing.”
But Sweet Mary had long since stopped listening. Tears were streaming
down her face.
Then they entered the wormhole and began to surf along the wide inner wall
of the spiral as it twisted its way inwards. Within moments they were caught up in
the maelstrom and the ship was catapulted forwards at an incredible speed. The
strange thing was that they felt no extra g-force. They could still move about quite
freely. What they did begin to feel though, was the vibration.
“Better hold on everyone,” said Dutch, casting an unsure glance around at
her instrumentation in the hope that it would tell her something. The craft began to
shake like a kite in a high wind. Glancing outside they could see the superstructure
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flex and flap, threatening to tear the three hulls from one another. Silently,
everybody held on and hoped for the best. They had no control over the craft, it
flipped and flapped like a sweet wrapper in a storm, sucked this way and that,
thrashed about by conflicting currents fighting for dominance. The autopilot readout
just kept flashing ‘malfunction’ and seemed to be absolutely useless, and as if that
wasn’t enough, it began to get very hot. Flickering flames now fanned past the
portholes and their world turned a deep blood red. Righteous sat there in the
unholy heat looking like a black demon lit by the fires of hell. Sweet Mary watched
in fascination as the sweat popped out of his skin like droplets of blood and began
to run in red rivers down his body. She looked down at her own arms and saw
much the same thing happening to her. It looked as if her blood was oozing out of
her. She was just about to panic when Rose laid a hand on hers and gave her a
reassuring squeeze. She tried to smile at her but when she saw Rose’s ruddy
cheeks aglow with heat and sweat she couldn’t help thinking of a malevolent turkey
basting in the oven. It wouldn’t be long before they were all juicy and tender and
basted deep brown…….and if someone didn’t switch off the oven soon they would
be fried to a crisp.
Then there came a roaring noise and everything began to melt in the heat.
Dutch watched her hands melt into the console in front of her, flesh and steel all
flowing into one another. With a strange air of detachment she watched as the rest
of her body also turned to liquid and merged with the river of melting molten
molecules that once was the ship and its crew. And then they were no longer
bodies…just liquid. And yet they were not destroyed, nor did they feel any pain or
anxiety. They seemed to float in a kind of warm bliss, free from worries and
emotions. A lifetime passed as they contemplated the mysteries of the universe,
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blind but all seeing…content…complete, separate and together, wanting nothing
but to carry on being here.
Then the magma began to boil and each person could sense themselves
rising up through the lava, each spirit encapsulated in their own bubble, lifting them
up and away as they floated higher and higher. And as the bubbles cooled they
watched the blood red dawn dissipate and the golden hue of a desert sun suffuse
their consciousness. It was a pleasant yellow like the afternoon sun on a wooden
veranda. The bubbles drifted and gently bumped into each other, silently
exchanged excited information. Cradled in their circular cocoons they began to
descend, gently feathering downwards, and with a final plop the bubbles burst and
they were back in their seats, back in their bodies, stretching and blinking and
yawning: back in the spaceship. Whatever disappointment they felt at having to
leave their bubbles of bliss was superseded by a new phenomenon. Now it was
turning icy cold and soon their frozen breath hung in the air between them like
diaphanous ectoplasmic phantoms. The very words they spoke froze on their
tongues and stuck to their lips. They barely had enough energy to shiver. The light
was icy white and blue against a saturated black background. The silent crew, as
one peered anxiously out the windows and what they saw there froze them from
the inside. Giant tumbling icebergs whooshed past them, some the size of a city,
smashing into one another, trailing bits of ice and steam. Suddenly the ship came
to life as the computers kicked in and the autopilot began to steer and veer and
swerve the craft in a zig-zag path through the monstrous mayhem. The frozen
crew could only watch and pray. Not that any of them were particularly religious, it
just seemed a good idea. Just to talk to someone. It seemed almost impossible
that they wouldn’t be hit, but somehow the tiny ship managed to slip and slide in
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between the juggernauts and after a horrific eternity the icebergs began to thin out
and the cold became less intense.
VIOLET. Sound like a choir of heavenly angels – so they thought they were
going to die.
The entry into the wormhole was finally over. Rose and Sweet Mary got
seriously space-sick into their bags, but after that it was as smooth as silk, fine
wisps of cosmic dust whirling round them in a continuous stream. Beyond the dust
there was nothing. No stars, no light. It wasn’t even black. There was just nothing
there.
Once inside the wormhole the thrusters had automatically cut-out and the
ship continued drifting silently down the galactic plughole. Internal gravity was
resumed and they could all walk about freely now.
It was Dutch who first noticed the strange new anomaly. Feeling contrite
over her earlier behaviour, she walked over to Sweet Mary and said…well, she
meant to say ‘Sorry I was such an ass,’ but actually only her mouth moved. There
was no sound. She thought for a moment she’d gone deaf and stopped speaking.
A few seconds later however, she heard her voice talking, like a delayed echo. It
was very disconcerting. By now the others had seen what was happening and
watched her expectantly. She tried again…but again there was no sound until a
few seconds later. She also had to stop speaking when the sound started because
it was too confusing to continue. It was impossible to finish a sentence, unless it
was a very short one. Soon the others started chipping in, eager to try out this new
phenomenon. Even Sweet Mary got caught up in the game, and laughed at the
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silliness of tangling with her own words. Once the novelty had worn off though,
everyone lapsed into silence again. It really wasn’t worth talking unless there was
something important to say, and then they had to speak in short bursts. The
wormhole must be warping the space/time continuum. They could hear the effects
it had on time, but what effects would it have on space, and where would they end
up? In this universe or the next? But these imponderables were beyond anything
they could understand.
Sweet Mary tried to stay out of Dutch’s way as much as possible so as not
to upset her. She could see she had a lot on her mind, and a lot of responsibility
on her shoulders, so when she was on the flight deck, Sweet Mary would tip-toe
around Dutch and slink around in the background, trying to make herself as
invisible as possible. Of course, this irritated Dutch no end and brought down on
Sweet Mary’s head the very thing she was trying to avoid. Eventually the only
recourse open to Sweet Mary was to hang around in the kitchen area, comfort
eating most of the chocolate supplies on board and drinking gallons of Energy-aid.
Which brought her no comfort whatsoever because now she was piling on the
pounds at an alarming rate and would soon be looking like a pudgy little pig. Dutch
in the meantime sat at the console eating her nails to the quick and growling like a
hungry bear.
“Soup,” said Sweet Mary, waiting for the sound to come and proffering the
plates to Angelo and Dutch hovering over the flight desk. While she waited for
them to notice her she glanced at Officer Angelo. He was sitting next to Dutch,
trawling through some computer readouts. He was about forty five she reckoned,
short with dark hair and a prominent nose on a kindly but unsmiling face. He had
an air of dishevelment about him and his dark grey suit had seen better days.
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There were large worn shiny patches on the bum and on the elbows. He was a
good looking man though, but not the kind she’d expect to see as a client. He was
too…..decent. Not that he made her feel dirty or anything, he was too nice for that.
“There,” said Dutch, and without even a glance at Sweet Mary, pointed for
her to leave the soup on the console next to her. Because of the audio time delay,
they had to resort to basic gestures and cave-man talk. So there was a lot of
pointing and dropping of prepositions and conjunctions. Not only that but all
sounds were delayed in time: footsteps, doors closing, everything. Everything was
on a time delay. Sweet Mary put the plates on the console and waited for the
‘clunk’ to come.
“Found………anything yet?” Dutch asked Officer Angelo.
“Nothing,” he said, holding up his empty hands.
“Keep trying,” she said with a scowl. “Try the ultraviolet sensors.” She
waited between words for them to sound. Officer Angelo clicked and clacked out of
time at the keypad buttons.
“No……...nothing works,” he said, sinking back into his seat with a resigned
sigh. Then he noticed the soup. “Thanks,” he said to Sweet Mary, and gave her a
brief but genuine smile. She gave a small smile back; but the person she was
really waiting for to smile at her sat hunched over the instruction manual like some
mad scientist doing a doomsday experiment. She stared at Dutch’s back for a
moment, then turned and left the flight deck. She couldn’t really blame her for
ignoring her, but still, she couldn’t help feeling a little bit aggrieved. She needed to
fill this empty feeling inside, but in an effort to stop eating so much, she decided to
stay out of the kitchen and go look for Rose and Righteous Alchemy.
INTERIOR SPACESHIP
Describe interior….flight deck and cabins etc…like the one I envisaged.
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GET A HOOK
Rose might not know how the flight-controls worked, but she had travelled
so often on these type of spacecraft that she was familiar with almost every aspect
of them. She knew how all the switches, locks, appliances, heating systems, and
especially the sanitation cubicles, worked. Religious Alchemy on the other hand,
having never been on any kind of spaceship, had absolutely no idea, and Rose’s
mothering instinct had kicked in big time. With all the fussiness of a clucking
mother hen, she set about accustomising him to the room and its furniture, guiding
his hands here and there so that he could build up a mental picture. With infinite
patience and kindness, she showed him where things were, how to clean himself,
how to strap himself in the G-seat, and where the emergency call button was. She
was in seventh heaven.
Sweet Mary stood in the doorway and watched them.
“Hi,” she said with a little wave of her hand when Rose noticed her.
“Come in dear,” said Rose, and bustled over to grab Sweet Mary’s hand and
lead her into the room.
“Sweet Mary is here, Righteous……..” said Rose, getting tangled up in the
too-long sentence. Everyone tittered. “I keep………..forgetting,” she said, leaving a
proper pause between words.
“Hello,” said Righteous in his kindly voice.
“Hello.”
“How are you……feeling,” asked Rose, giving her a big motherly hug.
“Alright,” said Sweet Mary, nearly in tears.
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“It’s going……..to be……..alright……….you know,” she said. “Isn’t
it……….Righteous?” She patted him on the shoulder. “He should…….know,” she
said.
Righteous looked into the future and all he could see was the approaching
Doom, burning like a cosmic funeral pyre. And they were heading straight into it.
l
m
PART TWO
110
Chapter 5 – Contact
I’ve been here for more than four months now and starting to get worried.
Two reasons: the first is that my oxygen is running low, and that means I won’t be
able to go out and get food anymore. I tried stock piling those globs of goo in the
cave with me, but the heat and the oxygen causes it to ferment and go rotten. It
makes a good beer though. After a few experiments I got quite a nice little brew
going. Helps to pass the time. Trouble is, I’m starting to see things, so either the
beer is more potent than I thought, or I’m losing my mind from being alone too long
and knowing I’m going to die soon.
The second thing is, there was another quake, or spasm I suppose you
could call it. The ground heaves and undulates but it doesn’t crack open or break
up. This planet, although the surface is diamond hard, has a rubbery, pliable
quality about it. All in all, I’m not too happy about these quakes. There’ve been two
of them in the last month, and getting stronger. So, I’ve been going out at night to
look at the stars. Saying my last goodbyes to my maker I suppose. Trying to spot
him, see if he’s hovering out there somewhere, waiting for me. And that’s when I
started seeing things. I know it sounds stupid saying it, but the other night when I
was out and about, I thought I saw an angel. I’m not religious really, so it’s not as if
I called her. But she did look like a painting of an angel I had seen in a book once.
Anyway. There was this angel, a lady really, standing out on the plains. No spacesuit. Just a shining robe of sorts. I went closer, expecting her to disappear, you
know, like a mirage in the desert. But she didn’t. The closer I got the more real she
looked. She was beautiful. Hair the colour of our son – the one back home – not
111
like this dying, dull red sun here. Her skin was as white as virgin snow, and her
smile was the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen. It made me feel all warm inside.
We just stood there looking at each other for the longest time. She stood so
still and so heavenly, I thought she was my guardian angel come to take me to
heaven (or wherever) when I died. She was so entrancing that I would have gone
with her anywhere. If it wasn’t for my shortage of oxygen I’d have stood there with
her all night – but all too soon I had to leave.
Anyway I went out again a few times but didn’t see her. Then the other night
while I was sleeping in the cave, she came to me in a dream. I got such a shock
at seeing her that I woke up. Then I got an even bigger shock because she was
still there, standing in the cave right in front of me. I must say at that stage I
thought I was losing my mind. I began to get quite frightened and, like a gibbering
lunatic, I shouted at her, “Who are you? What do you want?”
Then she opened her mouth and music came bubbling out of her.
N
The great white bird shot out of the wormhole, screaming like a banshee.
The klaxons went crazy – warning lights flashed all across the board, and
everyone was thrown forward against their harnesses as if they had run into a
brick wall. They would probably have been seriously hurt had they not all been
strapped in. There was nothing ahead of them that could have caused the sudden
deceleration; nothing to see, just the stars. But the ship’s speed was decreasing at
an alarming rate. Something was pulling them backwards. Dutch took a look
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behind and saw that the entire horizon was filled with a giant red sun – its great
gravity-well dragging them back into its fiery mass.
“Hold tight,” she shouted. “This is going to be rough!”
She keyed in more thrust and felt the ship buck and sway as it fought
against the deadly pull, but made no headway. She increased the power more and
more until G-force in the ship was making it difficult for her to retain
consciousness. She knew that the two women, and possibly the men too, had
blacked out by now, and soon it would be her turn.
Normally full power wouldn’t be dangerous: there was a built-in limiter, but
there was no way of calculating the G-force they were being subjected to, because
the gravity of the sun was adding to it exponentially. So she couldn’t just open the
throttle and hope for the best. It would kill them all, no doubt about that. And she
couldn’t just keep slowly increasing the speed until they broke free because she
was just about to pass out herself. She had to take a gamble and hope that it
came off. She had to rely on her years of experience and instinct as a pilot and
make a judgement call. She keyed in three quarter power, set the maximum safe
time limit for cut-off, and closed her eyes.
N
The voices had stopped.
There was a strange ringing sound now where previously there had been a
busy chatter in his head, something akin to the noise on a stock exchange floor.
Sometimes it had been louder, sometimes softer, and often one voice amongst the
thousands would come to the fore as clear as a bell, but they had been there since
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his birth. Now there was only silence. For the first time in his life Righteous
Alchemy felt truly blind.
He no longer knew instinctively who was near him and what their intentions
and thoughts were, or what their mood was. His world for once was dark and
empty. There was no inner landscape to navigate by: he was floating around in
nothingness. It was like the Doom had enveloped him.
He reached out around him in a sudden panic trying to ascertain where he
was. His large grasping hands found an arm and a body, and held on to it like a
baby would its mother. The flesh was soft and yielding and warm to the touch.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” said Sweet Mary, putting her hand on his.
“I can’t see,” he said and realized how silly that must sound to her. But she
seemed to understand what he meant and put her arms around him and hugged
him gently to her bosom. He surrendered to her and they stayed quietly like that
for many long minutes.
“You’ve been asleep for ages,” she said. “I was getting worried about you.
Everybody else is up.”
“Where are we?” he asked, realizing that they could speak normally again.
“We’re out of the wormhole…..and we’ve found a planet. It looks very
beautiful and I think we’re going to land there.
EXPOUND HOW EVERYONE FEELS. EACH WILL FEEL DIFFERENTLY.
Anyway, that’s what Dutch says.”
Righteous shivered in the silence that followed. Where the voices had
always been; there was now nothing. And in that nothingness was a strange new
kind of feeling, a feeling full of potential; irrational fears that he instinctively felt he
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had to keep under control…..or else. He felt something……evil……lurking in the
darkness of his mind.
He breathed in deeply to try and dispel the fear and Sweet Mary’s perfume
filled his lungs. A picture of her began to form, beautiful, wraithlike, but soon it
disappeared into the soul-despairing darkness again. He hugged her tight to try
and recall the image but it was gone. She laid her head on his shoulder and said
softly, “It’s alright. I’m here. I’m not going to leave you.”
The door opened with a pneumatic ‘thump’ and ‘hiss’ that made him jump.
“It’s okay. It’s only Rose.”
He felt ashamed and humiliated by his anxiety but he didn’t let go of her
hand.
N
Directly ahead of them was a beautiful turquoise planet with white wispy
clouds circling it. It glowed like a pearl in an iridescent hue of blues and greens,
winding in ribbons of swirling vortices and currents going this way and that.
For a moment they thought it was the earth, most of them recognizing it only
from photos and videos they had seen, but the colour was different, and the
oceans and land masses strangely shaped. Rose was the only one who had
actually been to earth. The others had all been born, and had lived their whole
lives, on space stations or mining docks, or under bio-pods on planets with hostile
environments.
DESCRIBE P[OLANET MORE AND THEIR EMOTIONS AT SEEING IT
“We’ve picked up a signal.” Said Dutch, and all the heads turned to her as
one. “Standard Federation-issue distress-beacon signal. Coming from the planet
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ahead of us. Officer Angelo tells me it’s probably from the ore-miner who got
accidentally sucked into the wormhole about a year ago.”
“That’s what the big expedition was for,” said Rose. “My son and his crew
were supposed to attempt to rescue him. As well as explore what was here, I
suppose.”
“Well, it seems we’ve found him. Whether he’s still alive is a different story.”
Dutch looked at the planet ahead.
“So. We’ve got a decision to make. What do we do now? Do we land or
look for somewhere else?” she said, and from the looks on their faces it seemed
none of them had any idea what to do. The ‘we’ in her sentence was mere
politeness. Once again she was going to have to decide for them. None of them
had much experience of these matters and were as reliant on her as a bunch of
babies.
“The sensors indicate that the planet is habitable,” said Dutch. “Air’s about
the same as what we’re used to….a bit more oxygen, but hey!” Nobody got the
joke, so she went on.
“I don’t think food and water will be a problem for a while. But here’s the bad
news, although we have enough supplies for a few years, we might not have
enough fuel to blast off again once we’re down. We used an enormous amount of
it trying to get away from the grip of the red giant over there. So, once we land, we
might be there for a very long time.” Dutch looked around at their expectant, blank
faces and waited for the message to sink in. From all her mining and exploring
expeditions, she knew a lot about strange uninhabited planets. She knew the
loneliness first and foremost. They’d be cut off from their own kind forever, and that
does strange things to people. The planet might look appealing, but it was a big
empty place for just five people to live in. Then she continued.
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“The alternatives are few. Going back through the wormhole, for me, Sweet
Mary and Righteous, is no option. We might have enough fuel for the journey, but
not enough to outrun the Federation fleet once we emerge on the other side. The
only other thing we can do is keep flying in the hope of finding an inhabited planet
or space station. But the chances of that happening are small. There are no other
man-made, or sentient signals anywhere. We’re just picking up normal space
clutter. And of course, the distress beacon.”
She knew it was gong to be the distress beacon that tipped the odds.
Human beings are far too curious to walk away from something like that. What if
the person was still alive? That thought would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Could they have saved him? But in this case, they might all die in the attempt.
“So,” she finished. “What do you think?” Her eyes went automatically to the
next alpha-male in the pecking order.
“I suppose I should make an attempt to take us back through the wormhole
and go home, but somehow I don’t think you’re going to let me,” said Officer
Angelo with a wry smile and shrugged his shoulders in good humoured
resignation. He wasn’t an enforcer at heart. He was a peacekeeper.
He had been brought up by a doting mother who had refused to let her husband
ruin him as he had ruined his elder brother. She had sat on loo – watching the pregnancy
indicator turn blue
Joy of having a child
Then cold shivers as she realized what was going to happen to it…especially if it was a boy. What
would her husband do to this one. She was’nt going to let him spoil this one like he did the last.
He simply Thrashed both of them….mother and child – when she tried to protect him
He had been a vicious drunk who thrashed them both bloody. Under his
heavy hand the first child, a boy, had become a cowering, neurotic, nervous wreck
who finally overdosed on a designer drug at the age of twelve. At the funeral, his
only comment to her had been. “That’s what happens when you spoil a child.”
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So she shot him with his own gun. Right up close. She waited till he had
passed out one Saturday night, put the gun to his temple, and blew his brains out.
She wore her washing-up gloves to make sure there were no fingerprints on the
gun and that the shot left no gunpowder residue or blood splatters on her hands
and arms. Then she wiped the gun clean and put it in his dead hand. She was a
cop’s wife after all, so she knew the drill. He never stopped shooting his mouth off
about his police work and police procedure – and now that knowledge came in
handy.
The police ruled it suicide, which was nothing unusual in their line of work.
Alcohol poisoning and suicide were the two biggest cop killers. But she’d killed him
as surely as he had killed their first son.
When she found out she was posthumously pregnant by him, her first
impulse was to get rid of it. But through a combination of indecision, denial and
fear, she didn’t do anything until it was too late. She was ultimately glad of that.
The child was her joy and her friend. He revived her interest in life and gave her a
reason to carry on. They did everything together. They went to operas, ballets,
museums, films, circuses, funfairs, everywhere there was joy and beauty, fun and
laughter. He learned to respect other people simply because she respected him,
and treated him like a human being…not a child. She taught him empathy and
kindness by example in deed and word, never saying bad things about others and
always trying to find the good. And she taught him to always help people less
fortunate than himself.
Yet, despite all this, he eventually became a cop. Life is funny like that. You
can’t shrug off fate so easily. Anyway, he was a very different sort of cop from his
father. He had no axe to grind, no chip on his shoulder, no pent up anger from his
formative years, so he was just and humane in all his dealings. He never used
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force and he would never intentionally harm another person, especially not a
woman, no matter what they had done. Also, although he knew nothing about his
mothers little lapse in loving-kindness towards his father, it had perhaps
unconsciously influenced his attitude and made him even more sympathetic
towards Dutch’s crime of killing her abusive husband. In either case he did not
actively seek to put her under arrest again. She would probably have kicked his
ass anyway.
Dutch snorted at him in affectionate derision and turned to Rose. “What
about you?” she said more kindly. “I know you miss your boy….”
Rose looked out the window at the wonderful new world facing them.
“He……..” She didn’t know how to say it. “I don’t really have anything to go
back to. My boy’s got his wife to look after him now, and there won’t be that much
space for me in their lives. Anyway, if we go back they’ll be waiting for us, and
that’ll mean you and Sweet Mary and Righteous will all go back to jail….”
“…and be executed in all likeliness,” said Dutch, finishing her sentence for
her. “Righteous?”
Righteous still clung to Sweet Mary’s hand, his face uplifted as if he was
listening for something. They had to wait a long time before he could pull himself
together and formulate any words. It was hard seeing a great big man like that
struggle like a baby. After several false starts he said.
“Something has happened to me here. It’s hard to explain. But I feel like I
have fallen into a pit. This new world is dark to me. I cannot see what I used to
see.” He paused for a long time. “But I don’t want to go back. I don’t know why.
But I also don’t want to see anything happen to Dutch and Sweet Mary. I have not
seen this new planet, but by all reports it will be a wonderful place to live. I also
think it would be good to find this man who is stranded here.”
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“Okay,” said Dutch, and turned to Sweet Mary expectantly, who almost
jumped in surprise that Dutch would ask her.
“I don’t know,” she dithered. “I want to be with you.”
“Okay then,” said Dutch. “It’s unanimous. Buckle up girls!”
N
She sat at the edge of the little pebbled pool, idly kicking her feet in the
water, watching the little fish dash in and nibble at her toes. She couldn’t really feel
them, they were so small, but it felt lovely all the same. She was so delighted not
to have to wear those awful new shoes again, or her corset, or the rest. She was
used to the bio-suit now. In fact it was the most comfortable thing she’d ever worn.
She looked at her feet again and for the first time she clearly saw how badly they
had been deformed by the stylish shoes she had had to wear for her husbands
sake, instead of comfortable house shoes, or gardening shoes, or shopping
sandals. It made her want to cry. She looked at Sweet Mary wriggling her pretty
toes in the water next to her. She had perfect little feet, and for a moment she
almost wanted to resent her for it until she remembered what Dutch had told her
about the kind of life the poor child had had to endure. She put an arm around her
in recompense for her bad thought, and hugged her tightly. Sweet Mary smiled
back at her.
“It’s lovely here, isn’t it? Like paradise. And the flowers are so big.”
They were in a meadow with tall shady plants and bushes scattered about.
The flowers were indeed gigantic, of every shape and colour and they hung like
bells in the warm midday air, dispensing their aroma to the winds. Occasionally a
flying creature with wings and a winding reptile body would plunge noisily into one
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of them in search of nectar. Some of the plants, instead of flowers, had a fruit
which looked like a purple spotted watermelon. All around them were gently
sloping hills basking in the sunshine. In the distance they could see a darker green
fringe, probably a forest, and beyond that, the red ridge of a mountain range.
“I think we should stay here for ever and ever,” said Sweet Mary kicking up
the water in pure joy. “The only thing wrong is that I’m running out of make-up.
Well, running out of a few things actually.”
“I can give you some,” said Rose. “But I think we’re going to have to learn to
do without sooner or later, unless we can find something here to replace it with,”
she said, looking around.
There was a sudden buzzing, vibrating sound and a giant beetle, the size of
a turtle, came into view. It had wide serrated mandibles at the front end, grinding
crosswise across each other and making an awful noise. The girls squealed and
clung onto each other in fright. Dutch and Angelo rushed to their side to protect
them but there was no cause for alarm. They all watched in amazement as the
strange carapaced creature fairly zoomed past them, its little legs thrumming at the
ground. It looked like an organic lawnmower, cutting and eating the grass as it
went. It was obvious that it wasn’t interested in them. Sweet Mary giggled
nervously as it disappeared into the undergrowth, clackering away.
“Might as well check the area for anymore surprises,” said Dutch, putting
her pistol away. “You coming?” she asked Officer Angelo, and they moved off a
little way together, scanning the terrain.
DESCRIBE WHERE THEY ARE IN REALTION TO EACH OTHER. SET UP
PICNIC SPOT UNDER TREE A LITTLE BIT AWAY FRO POOL
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“I feel a bit worried about Righteous,” said Sweet Mary to Rose. She noticed
that he hadn’t moved a muscle. He seemed to be getting quieter and quieter.
“It’s not healthy you know, all that thinking, and he’s not eating at all.” She
wiggled her toes and the fishes scattered into the shadows along the bank.
“He doesn’t even talk to me now. I think he’s going mad. Do you think he’s
going mad?” she asked Rose. Rose turned and looked at him for a long time. HE
SAT ON A ROCK LOOKING AT THE SKY????
He stood there, amidst all this beauty and splendour, silent as a sentinel.
“I don’t know. But I don’t think there is anything we can do about it
somehow. I suppose we just have to be patient and wait.”
“He’s such a nice man. It doesn’t seem fair.”
He looked like a man struggling with himself who wasn’t going to move until
one side or the other won. It was as if he was waiting for someone to press his ‘on’
switch because he couldn’t do it himself anymore.
“It doesn’t feel right, having fun like this when he’s like that. I’m going to go
and talk to him,” said Sweet Mary, hoisting her wet legs onto the bank. Her tone
on this last sentence was firm and positive. She had made up her mind. She felt
awful about giving up on him after a few earlier tries. It wasn’t right to abandon him
like that. Everyone had given up on him. She pulled on her bio slippers and went
to make amends for her selfishness.
He felt a soft presence pulling at the mixed up maelstrom of his thoughts.
He tried to clear a path for it but it kept slipping into the darkness again. He was
beyond all human intervention. He didn’t even feel it when the woman guided him
to a shady knoll. He felt nothing of the kind hands and cool cloths that soothed his
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black and beating brow, the soft sweet fingers that held his hands tenderly, the
stream of loving words that caressed his ears, but went no further. For him, time
stood on the edge of a precipice, pushing forwards as well as pulling back at the
same time. He was in limbo. Hell’s fires licking at his broad black feet, sweet
angels pulling at his soul as if to tear his body in half. He knew not which way to
go. He was afraid of his fears; afraid of the monstrous deeds in his mind. He didn’t
trust himself without the voices to guide him.
And then there was that pretty presence again and he felt a brief respite
from the battle, a momentary pause in the onslaught. It was almost like a little
melody threading through the carnage of his mental maunderings. The song
seemed, for a brief moment, to anchor his wandering mind to his body in blissful
conjunction, and he almost came to himself. Then all was dark and deadly once
more and the furies resumed their attack.
Sweet Mary’s loving ministrations would have wrenched the devil himself
from hell and made him foreswear his old ways forever. But Righteous Alchemy
was in a state of cataclysmic change. The very atoms of his being were
undergoing such a profound metamorphosis that it was uncertain whether his
physical being would be recognizable as human in the end. This place, this
neverland, had got a hold of his soul and was ripping him apart.
“Come and get it,” called Rose cheerfully to the group.
“Picnic!” cried Sweet Mary with forced enthusiasm, as if the lovely word
would rouse him from his torpor. “I love a picnic. Don’t you?” she said stroking
Righteous’s hand and continued to babble inanely at him as they settled down for
lunch. That they both had a mental disability of sorts made a bond between them.
Somewhere inside himself, Righteous could feel this.
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“I know you can’t talk, but you must try and eat something.” Everyone
watched her futile attempts to get through to him and felt sorry for both of them:
babes in a very dark wood.
Eventually Dutch couldn’t bear it any longer and sidled over to her and gave
her a hug. Sweet Mary burst into tears. All the tension, the danger and the
scariness of the last few months all came to the fore in a rush, and she sobbed
her little heart out while Dutch held her tenderly.
From the moment of her arrest it had been a nightmare, with Dutch as the
only life raft to cling to. From the moment her mother died actually, Sweet Mary’s
happiness had deserted her. Her father, suddenly saddled with such a burden to
raise on his own had become short tempered and irascible. On top of that, when
she entered puberty, he had reacted to her burgeoning womanhood with cruel
insults about her developing figure and started calling her ‘disgusting’ and ‘filthy’
among other degrading epithets. But his eyes never left her. He would follow her
around the house, berating her and calling her a whore. He wanted to punish her
for her sexuality and the feelings she aroused in him. He accused her of purposely
flaunting herself at him and doing things to excite him. Within a short space of time
he took to punishing her physically as well as verbally. When she finally tried to
run away he decided to have a null-wave transmitter implanted in her brain to
make her more controllable and amenable to his wishes. After that she became so
compliant to his demands that it was just a short step from there to hiring her out
to his friends….as punishment, he said, for being such a bad girl.
When he died she went from one abusive man to another, searching for a
loving father figure. Eventually she found one: someone who loved her…and then
betrayed her. They had a blissful relationship until business matters intervened.
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EXPLAIN WHO HE WAS NEEDS MORE DETAIN There was a certain town
councillor who was blocking her beloved husband’s franchise for a chain of
massage parlours in the area that would bring him in a small fortune.
Unfortunately, the councillor in himself was immune to any sort of bribery or
blackmail. He was an honest, teetotaling, and faithful husband. However, his SON
EXPALAIN WAYWARD SON ALWAYS IN TROUBLE was soon caught having
violent, drunken, public sex in a car park with a certain null-whore, and he was
dismissed from the governing council. The son was given a slap on the wrists and
the woman sent to jail. It had all been a set-up and Sweet Mary had been
sacrificed for the good of her husbands bank balance. Money is money after all.
And women are easy come, easy go.
Thankfully, she never knew she had just been a pawn in his power game. It
would have broken her heart and her trust, flimsy as it was, in human nature. She
was actually more devastated by losing her husband than by going to prison. And
she would be in prison for a long time. Null-wave implants were illegal and she
was sentenced to life on a space penitentiary.
“Don’t worry too much sweetie. There’s nothing anyone can do for him at
this moment. He’ll come out of it when he’s ready. I’ve seen this kind of thing
before,” she lied.
“Is he going to be alright?” she asked, turning a pair of big, hopeful, wet
eyes on Dutch.
“He’s going to be fine,” Dutch answered. “It’s probably a temporary G-force
trauma. Some people can’t handle the high G’s and suffer from time-lag
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afterwards. He’ll be catatonic for a while until his system catches up. So you relax
and enjoy the day. He’ll be fine.”
Sweet Mary sniffed a few times and pulled herself together.
“I can still talk to him though?” she asked.
“I’m sure you can,” said Dutch giving her a squeeze. “But I think you should
eat something too.”
The soporific perfume of the flowers, the heat, the drowsy buzzing of the
strange bird creature and the bubbling water from the pool spread a comforting
balm over the little band of travellers. Even Sweet Mary had calmed down and was
sitting, if not happily, then peacefully next to Righteous, eating and drinking.
They all stretched out in the sun and welcomed in its healing rays. Rose
rolled up the legs of the bio-suit to just above her knees and felt quite naughty
baring so much skin in front of Angelo. She blushed a little as she caught herself
using his name instead of ‘Officer’.
She looked down at her legs. Not bad for a middle-aged lady, she thought:
no bulges or cellulite, shapely and firm. As luck would have it, she looked up and
caught Officer Angelo staring at her. He quickly turned his eyes away, but she saw
a red flush spread across the back of his neck and she smiled to herself.
Dutch was chewing on a grass stalk and watching a strange reptile, shaped
a bit like an ostrich with scaly skin and long bird like legs, pecking at a fruit pod. “I
wonder if that’s edible?” she said.
“The creature or the fruit?” asked Officer Angelo.
Dutch laughed.
“Well, I suppose we don’t have to find out just yet. But I think we should be
giving some thought to finding this beacon quite soon?”
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“Hmmm. Shouldn’t think there’s any hurry. If he’s not dead already, I don’t
think another day is going to matter much.”
One by one they all fell asleep, satiated and content. All except for
Righteous who continued to stand a mute and unmoving guard over the rest of
them.
A cool breeze ran playfully along the tops of the grass and caressed the
sleeping travellers. Dutch was the first to wake at its touch and stretched herself in
the evening air. The light was softening as the sun began to set behind the
mountains. It was a massive orb of dark red now that nearly filled the horizon.
Dutch looked around, slightly concerned. They had slept longer than she’d
planned. She had hoped to be back at the ship by now. The others began to wake
in their turn and yawn luxuriously, much rejuvenated from the deep sleep.
Dutch looked at the ship, a mere few hundred or so paces away, parked in
a flat clearing.
“Time to go people. I don’t really want to find out what type of creatures
come out here at night,” said Dutch and watched with satisfaction as everyone was
suddenly galvanised into action: all except for Righteous, who still stood as she
had seen him last, unmoved and unmoving. She feared he was going to be a big
problem. Space crazies took a lot of looking after. He was going to be a bigger
problem when it came to organizing an expedition to look for the distress beacon.
He would have to stay behind and someone would have to look after him. She
needed Officer Angelo to accompany her, and she didn’t want to leave any of the
women behind. Righteous might seem helpless and placid now, but who knows
what he’ll be like when he woke up. She could sedate him in the ship’s sick bay
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and put him on a drip feed, but that would only give them a week or so, and they
couldn’t get very far in that amount of time. Anyway, she’d have to cross that
bridge later. Right now, they had to try and get him back to the ship.
“Okay Ladies. Let’s be up and at ‘em.”
They were all gathering up plates and rugs and packing things into the
holdalls.
“I can’t find my hat,” said Sweet Mary anxiously. She always panicked when
she couldn’t find her things. And she could never find her things.
“Well, where have you been?” asked Dutch patiently. “Have you tried over
there by the pool?”
Sweet Mary scurried off to look for her beloved hat and Dutch contemplated
Righteous, trying to work out what to do with him if he wouldn’t come along
willingly. He was too big to manhandle.
“OH!” came a high pitched squeal of surprise from Sweet Mary and they all
turned to look at her. She waved them over.
“Look here,” she said. They all hurried over and stopped dead in their
tracks. The pool was absolutely empty. It was even emptier than that. It was just a
dry dustbowl of a depression in the landscape. There weren’t any water plants or
algae one would expect in a drained pond. It was as if it had been dry for years.
“Where did it go?” asked Sweet Mary.
Automatically they all looked around for the missing water and then they
noticed another strange phenomenon. All the plants and flowers and grass had a
slightly transparent look about them, as if the vegetation was losing substance. In
places one could see right through them. They all stood, stunned, staring in
disbelief. The darkness was coming on quickly now and they watched as the
undergrowth became as thin as a ghost, wavering in the twilight. All around them
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the red sands of a desert were replacing the lush vegetation they had been
picnicking in.
“What the hell…?” Dutch was the first person to pry loose her tongue. She
walked forward and tried to touch what remained of a bush but her fingers passed
right through it.
“It’s just a mirage,” said Rose.
“But we could feel it. And touch it. I mean we all felt it didn’t we? And the
water?” asked Sweet Mary.
A cold shiver ran down Dutch’s spine. Classical literature was full of these
honey traps – the lotus eaters, sirens, chimeras - luring the unsuspecting wayfarer
to their doom with intoxicating visions and mirages. Suddenly it all made sense to
her.
“What we’ve been experiencing here,” she said, “is a hallucination of sorts. I
don’t know what caused it, but I suspect it has something to do with the sun. This
sun is an old red giant, a dying sun that in hindsight, obviously doesn’t have
enough heat to sustain life on this planet.”
“But what did we see then? Or feel?”
“It wasn’t real. Just a vision locked in the memory of the land. Somehow,
when the sun rises it raises the shades of a world long gone. But that’s all it is;
Just a vision. We’ve been in a dream world.” As she spoke, Dutch could see
vapour forming on her breath. It was beginning to get cold. Very cold.
“We gotta go,” she said, “Before this gets any weirder.”
“What about Righteous?” said Sweet Mary.
“We’re going to have to push him and see if he walks. But seriously, we
have to go, now!”
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Sweet Mary jumped at Dutch’s tone and rushed over to try and get
Righteous moving. Rose started picking up their holdalls, but she was in such a
state of panic, she didn’t know whether she should run or help with Righteous or
what to do, and simply ended up rushing around in circles.
The sun was nearly down and dark by now and the red desert began to
glow with a strange phosphorescence.
“Must be some sort of bioluminescence in the soil….a fungus of some sort.”
murmured Dutch more to herself than anyone else. She scooped up her bag and
started off at a run.
“He won’t move,” shouted Sweet Mary, a wave of panic beginning to rise in
her. Officer Angelo was busy trying to wrestle Righteous into action but to no avail.
“Leave him. He’ll be alright. We’ll fetch him in the morning. But we gotta go
now sweetie,” said Dutch, softening her tone. Poor Sweet Mary wasn’t really built
for this kind of thing. She stood there, torn between two opposing urges within
herself. She couldn’t just abandon him there. It didn’t seem right.
In the distance, the ship shone like a white beacon in the dull red glow of the
desert sand, beckoning them invitingly.
The noise, when they first heard it, was like the quiet shushing of a sea-shell
held to one’s ear. But soon an ominous crackling sound could be heard overlaying
the susurration. Hissing and bubbling noises were added to the mix in a rising tide
of ominous rumbling and cracking in the cold air. They stood like a group of
mesmerized meerkats, turning their ears this way and that, trying to pinpoint the
position of the awful sound.
All too soon it became apparent. A white wall of steaming ice was moving
towards them at an enormous rate. From the dark side of the planet, a blanket of
glittering, gleaming white death enveloped the land from horizon to horizon and slid
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across the sand, following the setting sun and heading straight towards them. No
one moved, their minds numbed by the monstrous inevitability of it all. It was
moving so fast they had no time to even think. In frozen horror they watched as it
crept up behind their ship, picked it up as if it was a plastic toy, and swept it along
on the crest of the ice, hissing and steaming like an evil demon. Rose stood like a
stunned statue, unable to tear her eyes from the approaching horror. This was
more than she was able to deal with.
“RUN!” shouted Dutch. “This way!” She pointed to the now nearly invisible
sun. “Just run. We can’t let that thing catch us. We’ll all be as good as dead.
RUN!”
Angelo realized there was nothing he could do for Righteous. The man was
planted in the ground as firmly as a tree and there was no time for dithering.
“Come on,” he shouted to Sweet Mary and began to run, not realizing that
she wasn’t following him because his attention was focused on Dutch, who had
hold of Rose’s arm and was trying to pull her limb-locked body along with her. He
sprinted towards them, flinging Rose’s other arm over his shoulders and putting his
arm firmly around her waist.
“MARRIANNE! COME ON! We gotta GO!” shouted Dutch as the three of
them began to hobble away. But Sweet Mary’s anxiety levels had already reached
critical mass and her null-wave transmitter had switched on, filling her with sweet
abandon. She was no more bothered by the terrible danger than she was a fly.
She stood placidly next to Righteous, looking back at Dutch with a beatific smile on
her face.
Dutch realized with horror what was happening to her, and that screaming at
her would only exacerbate the problem. She tried to keep the panic out of her
voice as she spoke. “It’s alright sweetie. Think of it as a game. I’m going to run
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and I want you to try and catch me. Do you know that game?” But she just couldn’t
keep the panic out of her voice. Sweet Mary stood unmoved by it all.
The ice was slithering towards them like a living thing, unstoppable, scything
along the land in its nightly rotation around the planet.
“MARRRYYY!” shouted Dutch in desperation. She was torn between helping
Rose or running back to get Sweet Mary, but the ice was now only metres away
from where she and Righteous stood. By the time she got to her, they would both
be dead.
Righteous Alchemy saw two paths in front of him and he knew the time had
come to choose. On one side was the dark path, where he could just slide into
oblivion and all his troubles would float away. On the other, the dreadful scrutiny of
the white light that would lay all his sins bare before him in an endless stream of
horror. One way was easy. The other….. The voices had always guided his every
move. Now all he could hear was the screaming madness of panic and fear. For
the first time in his life he had to make a decision on his own.
Left right
Day night
Birth or death
Tick tock tick tock
Time was up.
He opened his eyes.
With a single movement he swept Sweet Mary up into his arms and started
to run like the devil.
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Righteous caught up with the hobbling threesome in no time at all and went
steaming past them. Dutch had never seen a prettier sight than that black man’s
pumping buttocks as he carried Sweet Mary across the sands.
“Righteous, wait!” she called after him. Righteous skidded to a stop and
turned to hear what she had to say.
It had become painfully apparent to Dutch that their progress was far too
slow. Rose was a substantial woman and too heavy for her and Officer Angelo to
make any discernable headway on the encroaching ice.
“Put her down and take Rose here,” shouted Dutch. They had no time to
lose. “We’ll help Sweet Mary.”
Righteous put Sweet Mary gently down on her feet and lifted Rose into his
arms as if she weighed nothing more than a child’s doll. Once they had swapped
burdens they set off at a more even pace, keeping just ahead of the ice. Dutch put
her arm around Sweet Mary’s waist and hugged her furiously. She honestly
thought she’d lost her.
They all ran well for a while but soon the burden of Sweet Mary began to tell
heavily on Dutch and Officer Angelo. Dutch had no idea how long Sweet Mary’s
null-wave transmitter would stay switched on, but she knew they couldn’t keep
dragging her along forever. There was no discernable sanctuary in sight. The red
mountains were miles away and no use as a refuge. Officer Angelo was puffing
like the out-of-condition, vodka and lemonade-drinking, junk-food eating cop he
really was. Dutch was not much fitter for lying around in a jail cell for more than a
year and had a terrible stitch that she couldn’t shake. The three of them were
practically crawling along the ground, dragging each other along at a painfully slow
pace.
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There was nothing to run for – no hope. And the growing despair was
making them give up much sooner than they normally would have. Dutch kept
expecting there to be something over the next rise that would save them, but the
landscape remained depressingly consistent, time after time.
‘We’re done for,’ thought Dutch as she felt Officer Angelo trip and stagger,
then try and pick himself up again. She couldn’t go on any longer. She couldn’t
drag both of them along.
Then, as if from the bowels of the earth, came the deep, mellifluous voice of
Righteous Alchemy.
“I can see something,” he said, and everyone’s hearts leaped for joy. “I can
see a place where we might be safe. Follow me.”
Righteous strode magnificently away from them at a slight tangent to their
present course. The effect on Sweet Mary was miraculous. It was as if the good
news had brought her to her senses. Truth be told, her anxiety levels had dropped
to normal and the limiter in her brain had finally switched off. Dutch was overjoyed
to have her back and on her own feet again.
“You ready to run?” she asked Sweet Mary as calmly as possible.
“Sure,” she said. Suddenly they were all running as if they had wings, their
eyes glued to Righteous’ pumping buttocks.
“It’s not far,” he urged them on. “Just a few more paces.”
But it was more than a quarter of a mile before they could see a strange
unearthly light, like a beacon hovering above the ground not too far away, that
seemed to beckon them onwards. Soon they could discern the dim outline of a
rocky knoll sticking up out of the desert ahead of them, lit up by the strange light.
Sanctuary
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They had no memory of running those last few yards. The next thing they
knew they were clawing and stumbling their way up onto the stony plateau, scant
yards above the sandy plain, just as the ice-pack struck the base with a thump
that made everything tremble. But the outcrop held and they watched in relief as
the ice parted and circled around them, leaving them high, dry, gasping and alive.
Sweet Mary was crying uncontrollably in Dutch’s arms, and Officer Angelo was
lying flat on his back, trying to drag in breath after painful breath. It was a long
time before they could eventually sit up and take stock of their surroundings.
They were on a little island in a vast and deadly sea of ice. It was white as
far as the eye could see. When they were finally tired of this amazing sight, they
turned their attention to the outcrop of rock that had saved their lives. It was
uniformly round from many years of being ground down by the ice sheet, and in
the centre was the source of the strange light they had seen. Perched on a rocky
plinth, was a crudely carved bone statue that glowed with an intense light that was
almost too bright to look at directly. They soon noticed that it emitted a substantial
amount of heat too, enough to keep them alive as the temperatures plummeted to
many degrees below zero. No one said anything, and, having been pushed far
beyond their limits, physically as well as mentally – they all of a common accord
crept up to the base of the plinth and huddled close under the strange statue,
hugging each other for extra warmth.
N
Rose was the first to wake up. Having been carried most of the way she was
less fatigued than the rest, though still sore from her exertions. She looked
musingly at the tangle of bodies asleep on the rock. Angelo had his arm around
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Righteous and was snoring contentedly on his chest. Dutch and Sweet Mary were
cuddled up together like two lost waifs. She felt a surge of affection for them and
had to restrain herself from reaching out and touching them.
The first red rays of the giant sun were just touching their elevated platform.
As she looked towards it she could see that the receding ice was being supplanted
with lush green growth everywhere the sunlight touched the ground. Soon they
were completely surrounded by meadows and flowers and trees again.
‘What a strange, sad planet this is,’ she thought.
Her eye for knickknacks was then drawn to the strange white carving on the
plinth. Funny how it stood all alone out here in the middle of nowhere. It reminded
her of the wayside shrines she’d seen along the roads in some Mediterranean
countries. Ugly looking thing this really, although the ivory was so translucent, one
could almost see into its depths. She got up and moved closer to get a better look.
She was quite surprised to hear it give off a soft unearthly ringing noise, a little
tinkling tune like an ice cream vendor van, that made her remember happier times,
and…….something…..she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. ‘Never mind,’ she
thought. ‘It is very pretty.’
At first she had some trouble trying to make out the design, which seemed to
be composed of random loops and swirls. Then slowly the image began to form
and floated out towards her in spectacular 3D. She gasped in surprise. ‘How
clever,’ she thought.
It was a representation of a sleeping dragon with its tail curled around itself
in a circle. The statue was so lifelike that she could swear it was breathing. Rose
had to close her eyes and shake her head to make sure. No, it was definitely
moving. Probably just another one of this planets strange illusions. She felt a little
disappointed. What was real then if nothing could be trusted? She looked around.
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‘We are,’ she thought. ‘Even if nothing else is real, at least we are.’ She rubbed her
forearm with her hand to make sure she was here. ‘Otherwise you don’t know
what’s what.‘
Then Rose got another jolt as she realized someone quite sophisticated
must have carved this thing. And quite recently according to her reckoning,
because the statue looked very clean and new. Surely if it had been made by
some ancient long-dead civilization it would have weathered somewhat in all those
millennia? She called to mind the many outdoor statues she had seen and how the
elements had eroded even the most durable of marbles.
A shudder of foreboding shook her ample frame and she looked around
nervously. ‘What if we aren’t alone?’ she thought. ‘And what do they look like?’
Dutch saved her from going any further down that pointless path.
“Good morning,” she smiled at Rose.
“Hello. You’re in a good mood this morning. Considering,” said Rose.
“Considering my body feels like I’ve been through a crusher, and the fact
that we’ve lost our space-ship,” she stood up and stretched herself gingerly. “I see
the garden of delightful illusions is back.”
Angelo groaned in agony and rolled onto his side.
“My god, this rock is so hard. I’ll never be able to walk upright again. I’ll have
to hobble along on all fours.”
“Then I shall feed you peanuts and call you my pet,” said Rose in a burst of
bonhomie. The daylight really lifted everyone’s mood quite magnificently. Almost as
much as the night time depressed everyone.
Angelo laughed and then cried aloud at the strain it caused on some unseen
mutilated muscle.
“I should be very happy with that,” he smiled at Rose.
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She liked it when he smiled. Made him look like a little boy again, not like
some big-stuff-I’m-on-an-important-mission type of policeman.
Everyone was now limping to their feet, trying to massage some life into
their stiff and swollen limbs. All except Righteous, who stood serenely at ease.
“Righteous. How did you see this place last night?” asked Dutch.
“I can see this,” he said, pointing unerringly at the statue. “I see it clear as
day.” Then a slight frown floated across his brow. “But that’s all I see.”
“I’m thirsty,” said a puffy-eyed Sweet Mary. Already they could feel the heat
beginning to rise from the rock.
“We’re going to have to get off here and find some shade,” said Dutch,
automatically looking around for her hold-all. Then with a sinking heart she
realized she’d ditched it back at the pool when the ice had first started to chase
them.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW///
The first thing they discovered, which had been obvious really, was that
drinking the water from a river or a pond did nothing whatsoever to quench their
thirst. And by the same token, the strange melon-like fruit they ate helped little to
alleviate their hunger. So they had a serious problem. They had to find sustenance
somewhere. Dutch sat for a while trying to calculate how long they could go
without food. A few days maybe, before it started to become a problem.
It was still her responsibility. It was her decisions that got them into this
mess. They would be looking to her to get them out. She started to speak but her
attention was drawn to Righteous who stood facing the distant range of red
mountains. The mountains seemed to be the only other place that might hold some
salvation. But they were many day’s walk away. And in the condition everyone was
in, those mountains might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy.
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“You see anything, Righteous?” she asked just for the sake of asking.
“I don’t know. It’s too far to tell.”
“But you reckon it’s in that direction?” asked Dutch. Righteous couldn’t
possibly know that he was staring at the mountains, but it would help her to know
that his inner compass was also pointing that way.
“I reckon.”
“We’re going to walk there?” Said Angelo, pointing in disbelief.
“I don’t know.” Said Dutch. “We got to do something. But we’ve only got
daylight to do it in. I’m presuming the ice is a regular thing. Maybe there’s another
rocky outcrop further along. Maybe these things are like traveller’s way-stations, a
high ground refuge from the ice for people to go from one to the other during
daylight and resting safely at night. Otherwise, why would it be here? It doesn’t
make sense.”
“I agree with Dutch,” said Rose, quite astounding herself that she could
sound so confident on a subject she knew nothing about. “It sounds right,” she
finished lamely.
“And if it isn’t? If there’s nothing there?” said Angelo.
“Then it’s over,” said Dutch. “But it’s going to be over if we stay here and do
nothing.”
Angelo groaned at the logic of it all. “God, I don’t feel like walking.”
“I think we should start moving. Every day we delay is a day wasted. If we
want to have a chance of reaching those mountains, we got to go now.”
Angelo’s face was a picture of pure misery. Dutch would’ve laughed if it
wasn’t so serious.
“Righteous?” asked Dutch.
“I’m ready,” he replied.
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By midday they had travelled only a few miles and could go no further. The
sun had sapped their energy and left them sweating out what little moisture their
poor bodies had left. There were a few trees now and then, but still not enough to
offer any substantial shade.
“Can you see anything yet, Righteous?” asked Dutch for the umpteenth time.
“Not yet,” he said phlegmatically, and stood waiting. Sweet Mary was in
tears from the exertion and Angelo didn’t want to live anymore. Righteous had
even offered to carry him for a spell, as he did with the ladies, but Angelo’s pride
had to draw the line somewhere. But it was killing him. Rose was baring as much
flesh as she dared in an attempt to cool down, but even that wasn’t doing anything
to revive poor Angelo’s spirits.
“Okay. We better rest for a while,” Dutch’s dispirited voice said it all. ‘At least
we died trying,’ she thought, and reached out an arm to Sweet Mary. They sat
down together in the shade of a tree and curled into a ball.
Dutch shot up into a standing position before she was even awake. The
thunder clapped again and if there had been any moisture left in her bladder she’d
have peed herself. The noise was stupendous. Angelo sat there looking sleepy
and alarmed, but Sweet Mary and Rose slept the sleep of innocents, blissfully
unaware of the approaching storm. Thick dirty red clouds scudded across the sky
like demented horses being driven into the fray. Blood red lighting stabbed
repeatedly all around them in a fury and soon the sun was blotted out. The battle
for the end of the world began. Dutch and Angelo could only stand and watch in
trepidation as the wild wind whipped the world into a frenzy of tortured elements,
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threatening to tear the very sky from its resting place. They’d never experienced a
storm like this before.
It grew darker and darker underneath on the dead deserted plains; the
shrubbery and sward long since gone with the sunshine.
EXPAND????
Only Righteous stood quite calmly unconcerned, his face forever turned
toward the mountains.
l
m
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Chapter 6 – A Penny For The Ferryman
“Could I please have the pleasure of the next dance, Mrs Rose?” said
Angelo and made a sweeping bow towards her.
“You can dance?” said Rose, slightly surprised and not quite believing him.
“Of course I can dance. I’m a dashing debonair sort of guy, ain’t I?”
“Well then,” she laughed. “Yes you may.” And gave him her hand so he
could help her up.
Then they jokingly posed with their arms awkwardly akimbo, his hand on the
small of her back, and poised themselves for the launch.
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“…Aaand…One, two, three…” said Angelo and swept them off in a jerky
waltz around the dance floor. Dutch and Sweet Mary cheered and clapped the
clumsy couple as they stumbled and bumbled their way around and tried to
synchronize their footsteps. Everyone laughed as Angelo pom-pommed a melody
which tangled them up even more. Rose had never been happier in all her life,
even though Angelo stumbled and trod on her toes and apologised every five
seconds. It was heaven. And soon their efforts to find a common rhythm were
rewarded and they began to move more gracefully around the stony stage.
Her thoughts tumbled over each other. Memories of her dead husband, not
so long deceased, came floating up to her and she couldn’t help feeling she was
being unfaithful. Although he had died, she had never really distanced (or
divorced) herself from him. She had never really said goodbye. He had continued
to live with her in spirit and now she was in the arms of another man and she felt
rather like an adulterer. And wasn’t this all very sudden. ‘This Angelo is certainly a
fast worker,’ she thought, trying to find fault with him and the situation. And yet
when she thought back on their relationship, it had been growing since the
moment they met. Perhaps she liked him even then. She had just been otherwise
preoccupied. And as for fast work…who knows, it didn’t look as if they were going
to have that much time for a lengthy courtship. Anyway, the illicitness of Angelo’s
embrace only helped to send her heart rate sky high, adding to the already rosy
blush on her cheeks and the twinkle in her eye.
Rose felt absolutely beautiful. Not only that, but she looked beautiful too.
She had pooled her make-up with Sweet Mary, the only thing that they had
managed to bring with them in their escape from the ice, and had spent hours
making each other up in preparation for the celebration party. This was in aid of
the fact that they had made amazing progress in their journey, and were very close
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to the mountains now. One more day it seemed and they would be safe from the
ice pack. Righteous didn’t even have to carry them anymore. The ladies were
becoming accustomed to the strenuous exertions, and in fact were starting to look
quite healthy and rosy cheeked from all the exercise.
A small worry was that the manna was running out. After the storm they had
collected and stored huge amounts in their spacious utility pockets: so much so in
fact that they all looked like blimps when their pockets were full. There had been
no rain - just these…little balls of moist dough was the closest description anyone
could offer. Anyway, it served as food as well as water. Hopefully it would rain
again soon. But for the moment things were good and everyone was happy.
Rose relaxed and let herself melt into Angelo’s arms. She rested her head
on his chest and breathed in his slightly sweaty aroma. Her nerves tingled from top
to toe as she felt the warmth of his body pressing gently against her as they
moved ever more slowly. A small tinkling melody threaded its way through to her
consciousness and the last barriers in her mind dropped away. The solitary couple
swayed together on the rocky outcrop and she felt like a fairy princess with the ice
arrayed all around her like a white satin dress, and the stars as her diamond tiara.
Eventually Dutch and Sweet Mary fell asleep in each others arms, while
Righteous stood silently with his face turned towards their only hope. Soon the
silent music ended and Angelo led Rose to the other side of the platform so they
could have a bit of privacy.
The first kiss is always the most magical. It is the one that transports you
beyond the realms of mortal man to give you a glimpse of god. It is the moment
that is longed for, and when it comes, it is the moment that is held onto for dear
life, but to no avail. She felt the thread of saliva cool on her lips as they parted,
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heart beating as one long roar of thunder in her ears. They lay for a moment on
their backs gazing up at the stars, then they were joined together again in a warm
and wet embrace, breath mingling with breath, his beard rough against her milky
soft skin, sucking at each other as if it was their only sustenance, hungry for love,
like babies hungry for milk. She felt him fumbling with her clothes and had a
momentary prudish thought, but her body yearned for him too strongly to stop now.
The chill of ice bit at her naked skin as he peeled her suit away and kissed her
again. The last thing she remembered was the hot tears of happiness that rolled
down her cheek as he slid on top of her.
N
The closer they got to the forest the more ominous it looked: a seemingly
impenetrable black barrier between them and the mountains, an unbroken canopy
of leaves casting a pall of gloom on the sinister tangle of tree trunks below. With
only hours of precious daylight left this was a most unwanted obstacle. Today was
to be the final leg of their journey. They had left their rocky refuge early in the
morning to be sure of reaching the slopes before evening and it had been a long
and gruelling journey, the worst so far. Dutch had spent a lot of her energy helping
Sweet Mary and Angelo to hobble along in turns. Because she felt responsible for
all this, she had pushed herself way beyond her limits. Now the mountains
beckoned mockingly from above the jungle tops and seemed to slip further away
by the second. And worse was still to come. The springy grass began to give way
to soft marshy patches which looked suspiciously like quicksand.
“Damn,” said Dutch. “We have to turn around. Find another way.”
“Where are we going now?” whined Sweet Mary in a delirium of exhaustion.
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“Just do what I say,” snapped Dutch.
The sun was low on the horizon now and they seemed to be getting further
from their goal.
“Please stop shouting at me,” said Sweet Mary.
“I’m not shouting.”
“Yes you are.”
“Well I’m sick and tired of your moaning. Will you for Jesus’ sake just SHUT
UP AND WALK!” Dutch fairly screamed at her and stormed off ahead. Angelo and
Rose watched as Sweet Mary’s face went void and her null-wave transmitter
kicked in. But they had no time to dally. Dutch was already way ahead.
“Righteous, you’re going to have to carry Sweet Mary,” said Angelo and
guided him to her.
“What’s wrong with her?” said a concerned Rose as they set off at a trot.
“She has a null-wave implant,” he explained.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Angelo couldn’t believe that she had never heard of them. But of course, she
was a well bred lady, protected from all the real things in life. With as much tact as
possible he started to explain.
More than once they had to double back from a dead end and find another
route. Finally they came to a stop on the edge of a vast mangrove swamp: a
boiling, bubbling morass of foul smelling mud and slime that spelled out an
unequivocal message. It was a sight to daunt the stoutest heart. Long forgotten
nightmares crept in and out of the darkness, twisting in agony around the coiling,
choking vines. Beasts best forgotten, danced like deathly shadows in the deep,
begging to be saved from such an infernal end, their howling voices strangled
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before they could rise and cry for help. This jungle was no friend to man or
monster.
Even if it was only a hallucination, it was real enough for the small group of
castaways. Their belief made the effects of it palpable. They couldn’t go through,
and they couldn’t go back. They had travelled more than a hundred miles from one
way-station to the next to get here. And now the journey was over. It seemed like
a cruel joke had been played on them. But it was much worse than that. Dutch
wasn’t speaking anymore. She seemed to have given up and was wrapped in her
own inner turmoil. She just stood and stared at the swamp as if she had come
face to face with her nemesis.
The good news was that Sweet Mary was back in the land of the living,
being tended to by an overly attentive Rose, who cooed and stroked her and just
generally wanted to baby her.
Angelo, realizing he had to take control, stood with studied nonchalance,
hands in his pockets, thoughtfully surveying the barrier in front of them.
“How far to the mountains from here? They look pretty close to me. What do
you think Dutch?” he asked optimistically, trying to engage her. Dutch didn’t
answer.
“How long you reckon we got between sunset when all this disappears, and
the ice arriving?”
Once again Dutch was as silent as the grave, but Angelo went on talking
undeterred.
“I’d say about half-an-hour from what I can remember,” sweet Mary and
Rose weren’t actually listening either. Everyone was too tired.
“I reckon once the sun goes down and this jungle disappears we can make it
to those mountains before the ice gets us. All we have to do is wait for sunset.”
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As one they all turned to look at the distant mountains.
The sun was halfway down now, but everyone studiously ignored the fact.
What was coming next didn’t bear thinking about. Another terrifying run from the
ice was more than they could stand. Sweet Mary sat cross-legged behind
Righteous, plaiting his long locks into a pony tail.
‘It was strange how he had no facial hair though,’ thought Angelo. His own
beard, much to his dislike and discomfort, was black and bushy already, while
Righteous’ was as smooth as a baby. Dutch sat off to one side by herself, her
unkempt dirty hair wedged back behind her large ears.
‘They could all do with a bit of a wash,’ Angelo thought. The bio-suits had
long since stopped functioning and everyone was beginning to smell rather
pungent. Sweet Mary was singing softly under her voice as she worked away at
her plaiting. He liked her. He liked them all. He was damned if he was going to
lose them now. Especially Rose. He’d never been in love before, except with his
mother he supposed, but that wasn’t the same thing. He felt ten feet tall, like
nothing in the world could get him down.
For the first time since Dutch stuck his gun in his face, he didn’t feel like a
hostage. There was no more ship, so he wasn’t a threat to Dutch anymore, and
she had no need to keep an eye on him. He realized he didn’t feel like an outsider
anymore. The change had been so gradual he hadn’t even noticed it. By now
everyone had stopped calling him ‘Officer’ and he had stopped behaving like one.
He had also stopped treating them like prisoners.
He glanced at Dutch. He had no idea what was going on with her. It was like
the jungle had possessed her. He just hoped she’d snap out of it soon.
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“Nearly time to go,” he said, getting up and stretching his aching muscles. “I
think we should get ready.”
Without a murmur the others followed his lead and came to stand next to
him, staring at the forest. Dutch was the last to arrive, looking like a sleepwalker,
and Sweet Mary, forgiving to the last, went and stood next to her, holding her hand
in an attempt to comfort her and revive her spirits.
As it got darker they began to discern an eerie green glow emanating from
the trees. More bioluminescence was lighting up the swamp like a witch’s cauldron.
Far from disappearing, the forest seemed to be gaining mass and substance.
Angelo rubbed his eyes to make sure it wasn’t just a trick of the light. He moved
closer to the edge and pushed his hand into the bubbling mud. With a cry of pain
he jumped back. Rose equalled his cry with one of concern and leapt to his side,
ready to minister to his wounded appendage.
“It’s boiling,” he said, quite stupefied by the fact. “I don’t think this is a
hallucination.”
Then the horrible reality struck him in the face. They were doomed. The ice
was already on its way and their only choice seemed to be whether they were to
be cooked or frozen. This swamp was terribly real, probably a result of volcanic
action from a fault line below the surface: as real as the ice anyway. Angelo
gathered his wits and assessed the situation. With a swift glance at Sweet Mary,
he tried to keep his voice as light and cheerful as possible.
“Small change of plan. We’re going to have to find somewhere to spend the
night. Maybe a tree that’s close enough to the edge for us to climb up into; or a
fallen log or something. So I want you to keep your eyes open.” Sweet Mary just
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nodded her head stupidly. Thankfully the depth of their danger could not penetrate
her tiredness anymore. There was only so much a person could take in.
“This way,” he waved them to follow him. The ice would be coming from
directly behind them so it didn’t really matter which way they went. Angelo turned
left and they all set off after him in a stumbling sort of gait, Sweet Mary pulling
Dutch along by the arm. Progress was dreadfully slow.
After twenty minutes they still hadn’t seen anywhere they could take shelter.
“Call out if you notice anything that might do; anything that catches your eye.
Anything at all,” said Angelo. Rose and Sweet Mary looked around them, not quite
sure what they were looking for. It all just looked like the same mess of jungle.
Above their rasping breaths Angelo could now hear the sound he’d been
dreading. He glanced to the left and there it was: a stripe of white across the
horizon.
“Keep looking. There’s got to be something.”
But there was nothing. By now the ice was so close they could feel the cold
on one side and the heat on the other as they stumbled along the edge of the
swamp. Angelo refused to give up. He was sure they would find something. He’d
been so confident. Surely God wouldn’t give him the love of his life one day and
take it away the next. He wasn’t a religious man, but now he prayed fervently as
he ran. He was going to be damned if he gave her up so easily.
Ahead of them the ice crashed into the swamp in a massive explosion of
steam and ice. They were trapped. There was nowhere else to go. They all
stopped and looked at the spectacle in awe.
“Damn,” swore Angelo under his breath and desperately scoured the tangle
of vines nearby. Then he saw it, camouflaged by the foliage, an outcrop of rock
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reaching like a tongue into the seething swamp, an islet of land, thinly connected
to the shore just big enough to hold the five of them.
“HERE!” he said, trying to control the hysterical edge in his voice. “Here,
follow me.” He led them to the little spit of land.
“Dutch, you first, then the rest.” But Dutch didn’t move. “Dutch, we gotta go
now,” said Angelo. Still Dutch stood her ground stubbornly, head downcast.
“Righteous, you’re going to have to carry her,” said Angelo and Righteous
scooped Dutch effortlessly up into his broad arms.
“Let’s go,” Angelo chivvied them along. “Sweet Mary you help them.”
Sweet Mary grabbed Righteous by the arm and guided him towards the little
raft of rock. But Dutch wasn’t going that easily. Just as they stepped onto the spit
of land, Dutch suddenly sprang to life and elbowed Righteous in the face. Then
she twisted out of his grasp and tumbled down towards the boiling mud.
N
The woman sat at her dressing table, staring into the mirror. She’d been
there for more than half an hour now, unmoving, her eyes fixed on the reflection in
front of her. One could sense she was building up to some sort of crisis. Her mind
ranged angrily across the bleak landscape of her life and a string of spittle
appeared at the corner of her mouth.
She was drunk.
She had a presentation party to go to. Her husband was to receive a
prestigious award for the highest production rate of his sector. What a joke.
She had married below herself and was now stuck on this godforsaken rock.
Her husband was an administrator. When she had married him he had been
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destined for great things. But the milksop had let everyone else walk right over
him, a fact that she made quite clear to him as often and as loudly as possible. An
administrator of a backwoods mining camp on a piece of barren rock orbiting
Proxima Centauri, where she had nothing to do except show her cleavage to the
local barman. She had no-one to blame but herself. She’d had the pick of all the
aspiring young men of the college and she had chosen Macken because she
thought she was in love. She soon found out that love can be misguided when it
comes to choosing a suitable mate. She discovered this quite early on in their
relationship, but instead of affording her mother the satisfaction of saying ‘I told you
so’, she doubled her error and stuck with him through all his demotions, too proud
to admit that she was wrong. Her pride was still intact but that was all.
Drunkenly she looked around the room: the pink saphite dressing table with
imitation mother-of-pearl inlay, the kitsch Tami wallpaper and the repro Persian
carpets. It was bad enough having to live with tasteless furnishings without the
added burden of the little black flakes of ore-dust permeating everything. In the
beginning she managed to wash them out, but eventually they became ingrained
into the very fabric of her life. All her linen and clothes were now a dirty shade of
grey. Even her skin was becoming irreversibly stained…no matter how often she
bathed. Black streaks had settled in the lines of her face. She was starting to look
like the planet she lived on. She had to admit it. She wasn’t beautiful anymore. Her
life was over. A great sob escaped from her lips.
She picked up the cut-glass cognac decanter and smashed it into the mirror.
For a long time she sat amongst the shards, then brushed them off her lap and
stood up briskly.
‘Party time,’ she thought. “Dulcinea!” she called. The bitterest disappointment
of all: her daughter. The only fun she had in life was tormenting her daughter.
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“My beautiful little Dulcinea,” she said sarcastically when her daughter
appeared in the doorway of her room.
“You’re going to be the belle of the ball tonight, aren’t you, my little donkey
face?” she sneered at her. She was indeed the ugliest child she had ever seen.
Big flat face and ears you could play tennis with. She had massively big feet, and
wiry, untameable hair.
“You’re so ugly. Christ what an ugly child you are. You can’t be my child, not
with a face like that.”
Her mother swayed drunkenly towards her and the little girl shrank back into
the shadows.
“Well, tonight you’re going to look like a princess.” She knew her tomboy
daughter hated wearing frilly dresses and took a special delight in making her do
so. Not only that, but she would add rouge and lipstick to the girls face, making
her look like a grotesque parody of a doll.
“But first, my ugly little princess,” said her mother, lunging forward and
clasping her cruelly by the arm. “First we are going to have a beautifying bubble
bath. You like bubble baths don’t you?”
The child shrunk from her at the mention of her mother’s favourite torture.
Dulcinea, or Dutch as her friends called her, was in the habit of playing with local
urchins on the mounds of slag left over after the ore extraction. As a result her skin
was stained almost black. But not even the threat of being scrubbed raw in a
bubble bath (one of her mother’s many affectations) would dissuade her from
playing on those heaps.
The child let herself go limp as her mother dragged her down the dingy
prefabricated corridor towards the bathroom. She slammed the door and locked it
to prevent the girl escaping. She had learnt to take this precaution from long
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experience. Then she flung open the hot tap, poured half a carafe of ‘Mr Bubble’
into the ring-stained tub and turned to strip her daughter down.
With a lot of effort she lowered herself onto her thickening thighs and
reached for the child. Instinctively Dutch pulled away and her mother lost her
balance and drunkenly banged her head on the basin.
“Bitch,” she said, slapping her daughter. “You fucking stand still or I’ll thrash
you.” She said, rubbing her bruised forehead. She tore the girl’s clothes off angrily,
breathing alcoholic fumes into her face until it made the child want to wretch.
When she was done, she lifted the little girl by her thin arms and dumped her into
the scalding hot water. Dutch screamed in agony and thrashed about to try and
escape the pain.
“DUTCH DON’T!” screamed Sweet Mary just as Righteous grabbed for
Dutch and caught her in mid air. This time he made no mistake and hugged her
firmly to his chest. Dutch continued to heave and struggle for a while, but soon she
calmed down. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Sweet Mary and Righteous
moved to the end of the spit of land.
“Quickly now,” said Angelo making sure that Rose followed right on their tail.
He brought up the rear and they all squeezed as far as possible out onto the
wedge. The smell was unbearable and the vertigo caused by the sucking, slurping
mud was all but irresistible. Then the ice struck the swamp right behind them and
Angelo felt a spray of water and steam drench him from behind. When the mist
cleared he turned to see that they were safe enough…
SENTENCE IS ANTICLIMAX
.for now. Because of the heated swamp, the ice couldn’t come any further.
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DESCRIBE SPIT OF LAND AND SURROUND
promontory
WHERE ARE THE TREES
CAN YOU SEE THE MOUNTAINS
Mostly, they had to stand. They found that only one person could sit at a
time and so they took turns, all except Righteous of course, who was too big to sit
anyway. Dutch seemed to have recovered her equilibrium enough to stand on her
own by now, though she was still worryingly quiet and Righteous kept hold of her
bio-suit just in case. Angelo and Rose huddled together, taking succour in each
others arms. The big problem was staying awake. Falling asleep would be fatal.
One slip and that person would be sucked under never to be seen again.
“Why don’t we tell stories!” suggested Angelo. “Each person can have a turn,
and the most interesting story wins a prize.”
“No ghost stories, please,” said Rose. “Something nice.”
“I have a story,” said Sweet Mary, bouncing up and down on her feet with
her hand in the air. “Can I go first?”
“Off you go,” said Angelo.
“Well,” said Sweet Mary, licking her lips in anticipation. “There once was a
little girl who was actually a princess, but nobody knew it. Every evening she used
to have this wonderful bubble-bath with warm smelly bath-salts and creamy soaps
and lots of lovely shampoos to wash her hair…..”
“Will you please just shut-up about your stupid stories!” exploded Dutch
again. “Nobody wants to hear about your stupid princess,” she shouted at her.
Sweet Mary just couldn’t seem to do anything right. Tearfully she bit her lip in
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contrition. She had no idea she had just stuck a knife into Dutch’s sore spot, she
thought Dutch was just in a ‘mood’. Dutch turned her back on everyone and stared
out into the swamp.
“Sorry,” Sweet Mary whispered to Dutch’s back.
Then she noticed Dutch’s shoulders were shaking up and down and realized
she was crying. She had never seen Dutch cry before and Sweet Mary’s heart
nearly broke for her friend. Daring her wrath, she slipped her arms around Dutch’s
waist and gently hugged her close. She laid her cheek against Dutch’s back and
let all her love flow into the embrace. By and by the sobbing slowly decreased and
finally stopped in a long soft, sad sigh. Dutch’s breathing became more even and
relaxed and Sweet Mary dared to give her a little hug. Dutch put her hand on
Sweet Mary’s and squeezed her back. They were friends again.
Sweet Mary was the first to fall asleep on her feet, and Righteous, standing
right behind her, caught her and lifted her sleeping body into his arms. He moved
over into the space she had been occupying and whispered to Rose that she could
sit for a while.
“Thanks,” Rose whispered gratefully, wishing it was her in Righteous’ arms.
Everyone then drifted off into silence, each left to their own thoughts.
Sweet Mary woke up screaming from a bad dream and nearly tumbled the
lot of them into the bog with sheer fright. There was a frantic scrabbling and
clutching and wobbling and grasping at each other to try and steady the pack
before order and uprightness was restored. For her sins Sweet Mary was set on
her feet again and told to take several deep breaths. Even Dutch was stirred out of
her torpor and embraced Sweet Mary, somewhat restoring both of them to their
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former good spirits. Rose stood up stiffly to stretch her legs and gave Angelo a
kiss.
Thanks to Sweet Mary, everyone was now very wide awake, and likely to be
so for a good half hour or more. Angelo optimistically reckoned it was way after
midnight already and not so long to go before the dawn. But within a few hours
everyone’s muscles were screaming in an agony of cramps. One at a time they
took turns in stretching and sitting and generally moving around as much as
possible without upsetting the applecart weak.
They settled down again and soon the soundsDESCRIBE of the swamp was
all there was to hear. At certain stages during the long, long night, through sheer
exhaustion, they would occasionally see things, and imagine all sorts of monsters
lurking in the mud, and whisper to the others…”There! There, I’m sure I saw
something.” And the others would assure them they had not, and they would all
settle down again like a line of disgruntled pigeons on a branch.
Occasionally Righteous would launch into a deep throated croaky warble that
everyone supposed was a song of sorts. He was the only black man they knew of
who couldn’t sing. But he kept them awake and alive. At one point they did all
actually hear the splashing and snuffling of some sort of large creature in the trees
and held their breath in anticipation. But it didn’t come any closer and eventually
disappeared off into the distance. The rest of the night passed in a delirium of half
snoozes, songs, and terrible stiffness. When the dawn came they were hardly able
to stand anymore and had to thread their way very carefully back to dry land. Even
Righteous had a bit of a rickety gait to his walk at first. How no-one had fallen into
the swamp during the night was just a pure miracle.
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Sweet Mary and Dutch, Rose and Angelo walked arm in arm on either side
of Righteous as they wound their way through the meadow on the long trek back
to their last way-station with a shrine. Angelo and Dutch were completely lost
because of all the running they had done around the edge of the swamp, but
Righteous was like an arrow to the target. His nose pointed directly at the shrine of
the way-station, and they all followed that.
CAME UPON EACH OTHER SUDDENLY – NO ONE MOVED.
At lunch they had just stopped to consume the remaining few crumbs of
manna they managed to scrape from their pocket linings, when a pack of what
looked alarmingly like giant komodo lizards, appeared in front of them. DESCRIBE
MORE…HOW THEY HEARD THEM FIRST?????? They were a few feet taller
than Righteous, standing upright on enormously powerful legs with vicious clawtoed feet. They had long thin forearms that ended in delicately small prehensile
hands. They were all males. That much was obvious to the women’s dismay. They
didn’t quite know what to do with their eyes, but they couldn’t stop looking. They
daren’t stop looking in fact, because these creatures looked like something out of
the Dinosaur era. But the ‘piece de resistance’ was their long protruding wormlike
snouts, which had a round hole-come-mouth that looked like a palpitating anus
rimmed all round by little thin razor teeth. It was a sight to set all their anus’s
palpitating.
“You don’t think this could be a hallucination too, do you?” said Sweet Mary
hopefully.
“Ah don’ think so,” said Righteous. “I can feel them. I can see the bones they
carrying.” It was then everyone noticed the white swords tied to their waists with
sinewy thongs. They had been carved from the same material as the dragon
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statue, and they also glowed, even in the daylight. These were sentient creatures
thought Angelo.
“Oh Boy, we’re in for trouble here,” he mumbled aside. Then stepped up
ahead of the little group and addressed himself to the foremost of these strange
creatures. It had an air about it of standing its ground, presumably he was the
leader.
“Hello. My name is Angelo.”
He didn’t expect a coherent reply, but he also didn’t expect what he got.
The lizard hooted at him. He simply extended his mouth like a trumpet and
hooted. It wasn’t an aggressive sound, even though it was quite loud, but it
obviously meant something. Trouble was, they had no idea what to do with the
information. Then Dutch, her trauma from the previous night being forgotten in the
face of this strange new danger, stepped into the breech and stood next to Angelo.
“We don’t mean you any harm,” she said, easing the plasma gun from her
pocket and holding it in plain sight. If they recognized it as a weapon, well and
good; it might serve to deter them from attacking them. They weren’t to know that
the plasma charge had long since run out and the thing was more than useless.
Nothing daunted, the lizards spread out and slowly surrounded them. They did so
at a leisurely pace and without any undue alarm. The little group of humans turned
back to back to keep an eye on them. When the circle was complete, the leader
hooted again, turned around and began to move away from them. At the same
time, the other side of the circle moved towards them.
Angelo took Rose’s hand in his and pulled her close to him. He breathed a
little sigh of relief that Dutch seemed to be back to normal.
“They’re trying to herd us,” said Dutch. “We better just follow the leader for
now, until we know more of what we’re up against.”
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Rose snuggled up to her beau and sauntered off after the weird alien
creatures. She wasn’t even convinced that they were real. Well, she couldn’t care
less actually.
Dutch dropped back beside Angelo and asked him what he thought.
“Dunno. They don’t feel dangerous to me. I don’t think they mean us any
harm. Well, not yet. But we are definitely their captives.”
“What do you think they’re going to do with us?” asked Sweet Mary, but noone deigned to give an answer.
The creatures plodded serenely on, their reptilian tails dragging along the
ground, swaying gently from side to side. They walked awkwardly as if their
evolution from four on the floor was not quite finished. They had beady black eyes
with double lids, and little triangular ears on the top of their heads which could
rotate about 180 degrees. They didn’t have normal reptile tongues for smelling the
air, so Dutch guessed they relied more on sound and sight like the humans did.
“Dutch,” called Sweet Mary rather plaintively. “My feet are sore.”
Sweet Mary looked at Dutch with her large baby-doll eyes. She always had
a slight squint when she was tired or in distress. Dutch saw the squint and her
natural irritation softened. Her ragged nerves however still made her a little ratty.
“Righteous can carry you,” said Dutch curtly.
“I don’t want to be carried. I’ve had enough,” Sweet Mary simply stopped and
sat down in the grass. “I’d rather go back to jail. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Everyone could see that she was at the end of her tether. They stopped and
waited for her. “I think I’ll join you,” said Rose, and sat down beside her with a
groan.
There was a hoot from behind them as the creatures tried to urge them
forward, but nobody moved. The ones in front stopped and turned round to see
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what the matter was. The leader then plodded painstakingly back to the group.
When he was within a yard of them he hooted.
“Yes alright. We know. But we’re stopping for a while. We…are…tired,”
enunciated Dutch as if the creature would understand her that way.
Sweet Mary was touching her feet gingerly. They did look in a terrible state.
Dutch felt a pang of guilt for putting those pretty feet through such an ordeal. But
everyone was barefoot and blistered by now, the bio slippers having long since
disintegrated.
The creatures went into a huddle and began grumbling amongst themselves.
They made a kind of coughing sound when they talked, as if they were clearing
their throats.
“I’m sorry Dutch, but I don’t think I can go on. We don’t even know where
we’re going. I’m just tired of walking and running.”
“That’s okay,” said Dutch, sitting down next to her. “A few minutes isn’t going
to make much difference.”
“And I’m hungry. And thirsty,” said Sweet Mary, now with tears in her eyes. “I
just want to go home.”
“Ahram,” coughed the leader. The conference between the creatures was
over. The leader left his huddle of fellows, walked up to Dutch, probably sensing
that she was the leader of the little group, and hooted very loudly in her face.
“Yeah, yeah. Hoot away. But you just gonna have to wait.” Dutch and the
creature stared at each other like two boxers trying to make the other back down.
But neither gave an inch. What was going on in the creatures mind they had no
idea, but he took a long time to decide.
“Ahram,” he coughed and pointed with his delicate hand at the not too
distant forest. He cleared his throat again and moved his arm up and down.
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“I know,” said Dutch, “but we’re tired.” Dutch pointed at herself then at the
ground. “We stay here,” she said. The two then continued their stalemate stare at
one another. Eventually the creature gave up the contest and shuffled off in his
awkward gait back to his group.
They coughed a bit more between themselves then sat down on their meaty
haunches.
Then Dutch had an idea. She walked over to them.
“Food,” she said, pointing to her mouth. “We need food. And water,” she
added.
“Ahram,” said the leader and simply pointed at the forest again.
“Do you mean that there’s food in the forest?” asked Dutch hopefully.
“Ahram,” said the creature in reply.
ROSE NAMES THEM THE AHRAM
Dutch gave up and came and sat beside the others. There was a little more
coughing amongst the creatures and then a little one detached himself from his
group and HOBBLED….DESCRIBEcame over to them, holding out a small skin
bag tied with a thong. He stopped in front of Dutch and offered it to her.
“Thanks,” Said Dutch, taking the bag and opening it carefully in case it bit.
“Manna,” she declared, taking some and passing it around.
“Thank you,” said Dutch again to the little fellow and gave him a forced
smile. The creature coughed and rejoined his friends. There was only a little,
probably all they had by the looks of it, but it was most gratefully eaten.
“Our best chance is to go with them. I believe their home is somewhere
there,” Dutch waved vaguely at the mountains. “So I don’t think we should upset
them too much. They might just leave us here and go home…at best. At
worst…Well, I don’t think we have a choice. We have to carry on.”
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“You always say that,” said sweet Mary. “Well, this time I don’t feel like
carrying on. Things are not going to get better. They just get worse. We’ve lost the
ship. We’re stuck on this horrible planet with those horrible creatures and we don’t
have any food or water. There are no clothes, and there’s nowhere to wash or go
to the toilet.”
“I told you. It’ll get better. If we….”
“No it won’t. And you’re always being nasty to me. Ever since that prison
fight you haven’t been the same. Well I don’t want to go with you anymore.”
Everyone turned to look at Dutch and see what she would say. Her face was
white, contrite and silent. She was shocked to see how serious Sweet Mary was.
Dutch had a million excuses for the way she had behaved. She had been
wholly preoccupied with escaping and surviving, trying to keep them free and alive.
She had done what she had to do. She knew she hadn’t been nice and polite all
the time, but she didn’t realize she had been so bad tempered. She just knew that
she got irritated with Sweet Mary’s ‘princess’ attitude sometimes. But she was just
trying to get them through.
“I’d rather die than carry on like this. It’s no fun,” said Sweet Mary and turned
her face away. “You’ve been very hateful to me.”
“I’m sorry,” said Dutch. “I know. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”
She said.
“Well, you can just stop speaking to me altogether.” Everyone was surprised
to hear such strong words from Sweet Mary.
“I don’t think I even like you anymore,” she said, and turned her back.
Rose and Angelo looked silently from Sweet Mary to Dutch and back again.
No-one knew what to say. They felt sorry for both of them. Sweet Mary didn’t want
to speak, and Dutch didn’t know what to say.
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INSERT
HOOT
THEY REFUSE
BRIEF FLASH OF ANGER
LARGE QUICK STEP AND PUT HIS FOOT DOWN….GIANT CLAW
GOUGING DEEP GROOVES IN THE SOIL. All held their breath
LAISSEZ FAIRE
THEY MEANT BUSINES. They knew they were prisoners now.
A long loud hoot told them that lunch time was over and their unfinished
business was going to have to wait. Righteous scooped up Sweet Mary without her
permission and the whole group rose to go.
N
And here they were again; on the edge of the deadly swamp, still looking as
evil as the first time. Somehow Angelo had hoped they were going to be taken
around it via another route, but no, the creatures seemed set on crossing through
it. From under some leaves and branches they pulled out a rough wooden skiff
with several paddles in it. There were no seats, but it was shallow enough to sit
comfortably on the floor and hold onto the sides. There was another hoot and the
lead Ahram gestured for them to climb aboard. None were too keen to be the first,
but Angelo took his courage in his hands and climbed aboard to set a good
example. Next came Rose and then Righteous and Sweet Mary - still in his arms and Dutch dragging along dispiritedly in the rear. The Ahram climbed aboard and
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took up their oars, the small one with the gammy leg taking up his position in the
rear with the rudder.
At first the going was easy, notwithstanding the sweltering heat of the
swamp under the closed canopy of leaves overhead. The Ahram guided the skiff
expertly and smoothly in-between the tangle of trees and branches over-hanging
the water. Very soon the light began to dim as they penetrated deeper into the
dense foliage, and although it was a bit unnerving to be in such a foreboding
place, the little human group were only too pleased to be sitting down and on their
way to somewhere where there would hopefully be food and shelter, and where
they wouldn’t have to be running from the ice all the time. In the meantime they
dozed on and off through the long afternoon, bothered only occasionally by the
stinging insects hovering in wait over the water. Soon the darkness increased and
they were too deep into the jungle to know whether it was day or night. The
massive ancient tree trunks, illuminated by the strange green glow, looked like
black iron monoliths towering around them, the bark bursting open with suppurating
sores that sent slavers of slime slithering down to the surface and spreading
across the swamp like a sickness. The boiling, bubbling mud too, took on a more
sinister red hue from the bioluminescence in its make-up. Dark shadows began to
abound, appearing and disappearing out the corners of their eyes. The Ahram
seemed to notice none of this as they rowed stoically onwards.
For a while this was no scarier than a tunnel of love ride at a carnival,
especially since the Ahram seemed pretty relaxed and in control. But now the trees
seemed to be moving closer together as the skiff passed by. It was as if they could
feel the presence of the intruders and were intent on trying to crush them, their
branches sweeping low overhead, clutching at their clothes. At first they were
inclined to dismiss what they saw as the usual hallucinations. But the Ahram too
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were showing slight hints of concern now by coughing at each other more
frequently and speeding up their rowing, leaving a wake of glowing luminescence
behind them.
Every now and then the raft would strike an obstacle and grind to a halt,
lurching over sideways and nearly tipping them all into the bog; at which point the
Ahram battled fiercely with their oars to set them free and get going again.
Gradually things got worse and deteriorated into a full scale battle with the
seething sentient nature of the jungle. The trees began bumping the sides of the
boat as they went by, long reaching tendrils of root and vine, black as death,
pulled out of the mud with slippery sucking noises and began probing blindly
towards the boat.
This is where the mystery of the white ivory swords was answered. Slashing
left and right the Ahram cut their way through the tangle, gory green fluid pouring
from each severed limb, adding to the noxious cauldron bubbling beneath their
boat. And where one was cut off, two more began to grow in their place. It was an
impossible battle, but somehow those few Ahram managed to fight and paddle
their way through at the same time.
Sweet Mary sat with her eyes closed and her face pressed tightly into
Righteous’s chest. Everyone huddled together in the middle of the boat so as not
to get in the way of the struggling Ahram who were now jumping to wherever the
next attack came from and barking at each other continuously.
‘This is why they wanted us to hurry,’ thought Angelo. If he had only known,
he’d have chivvied them along much faster.
Then they heard a howl that froze the blood in their veins. The entire forest
fell silent…including the mud. Such a sound was too much for Sweet Mary and
swooned in a dead faint. Rose clung to Angelo. The Ahram paused for a split
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second then exploded in a fury of re-energised action, redoubling their efforts and
paddled furiously, spurred on by the sound of something very large splashing and
wading through the swamp after them. They were fairly slicing through the water
now and the trees flew by in a blur, desperation lending wings to the boat. Both
human and lizard creature alike kept glancing fervently towards the rear, hoping
not to catch a glimpse of whatever was following them. But as inevitably as night
follows day they could soon discern a forlorn mist following them, like the ghost
hopelessness, which began to morph into a mighty, moving, mystical, diaphanous
shape that seemed to flow through the trees ever towards them without impedance
or check, the miasmic ooze of the swamp lending it substance as it moved after
the little boat, as if the jungle itself was giving birth to this horror, as if all the evil
humours of this place were materializing and growing in size and malice and
corporality with every step. Within minutes the unworldly creature was dwarfing the
trees it ran through, swatting them out of the way like matchsticks with it’s now all
too real mass of muscle and bone and sinew plunging through the boiling mud with
the scent of its prey igniting its primitive brain. The four legged demon filled its
lungs and howled into the abyss.
It was a sound to turn mortal bone to jelly. The boat lifted temporarily out of
the swamp, the Ahram rowing furiously in the empty air, and then it crashed back
down again, scattering it’s occupants across the floor. Perhaps it was just a
figment of their fevered imagination, but the little group of humans, those who
dared to look, would swear that the creature resembled a giant rabid dog.
Time stood still and everything seemed to play out in slow motion: the frantic
paddling of the Ahram, the bounding of the boat across the roots and hidden
shoals of the malevolent mangroves, the eager panting of the huge hound in their
wake – surging closer with every stride – it’s giant head, twice the size of their
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boat, straining after them with gleaming red eyes and bloody foaming jaw snapping
at their stern. They sat mesmerized by the image of their doom, and waited for that
final lunge that would mean searing pain and then soothing cessation. The end. A
tidal wave washed over the rear of the boat as the dog’s massive paws slammed
down on either side.
Then time sped up and everything happened at once. The lead Ahram
hooted twice and one of the rowers at the rear turned and, with a deft flick of his
oar, flipped the crippled little Ahram over the back and into the swamp.
The dog instinctively slid to a halt and thrust his snuffling snout under the
water, sweeping this way and that, searching for the lost creature.
“They threw him overboard!” screamed Rose. “They just threw him out for
the dog.”
The rest watched in shocked silence as the kill-crazed dog spotted the little
Ahram swimming madly after the retreating boat and leaped after him in pursuit.
“We must stop for him,” said Rose. “We have to save him.”
But everyone could see that he wasn’t going to make it. There was nothing
they could do.
Then Righteous stood upright in the boat. “Hold her,” he said to Dutch and
shoved Sweet Mary into her arms. Then he slid like a shadow over the back of the
boat and disappeared into the moiling morass of mud and mire.
“Righteous. Don’t,” shouted Angelo, but the big man was already gone. Noone could quite believe their eyes. They just stared back stupidly to where
Righteous had disappeared into the bog. If the dog didn’t get him, the boiling mud
most certainly would.
“Nooooo!” screamed Sweet Mary, beside herself with terror. Dutch tried her
best to comfort and cuddle her, but she was just as devastated.
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“What the fuck did he do that for?”
Everyone felt like this was the end. FEELINGS WHEN LOSING A FRIEND.
BURST INTO TEARS
The little craft, now much lightened from the loss of two of its passengers,
fairly flew across the water. The crippled Ahram had gone under again and was
nowhere to be seen amidst the frothing and splashing that was quickly falling far
astern.
They rode in stunned silence for the next few miles and then miraculously
the skiff ran up onto dry ground and scraped to a halt. They were out of the
swamp and the stars surrounded them like fireflies. The Ahram sat crouching over
their oars, panting, too exhausted to move. The horrified humans stared at each
other in disbelief. Sweet Mary, who had woken the moment Righteous had let go
of her, sat wide-eyed in stupefied wonder. No one could quite believe what had
happened.
“He went to try and save the Ahram. Why? He didn’t stand a chance,” said
Rose.
“Maybe he was trying to lighten the boat to give us a chance to escape,”
replied Angelo.
“I would rather have died with him,” she said. “Oh, this is horrible.” She rang
her hands as her eyes searched hopelessly in the darkness of the forest. “This
can’t be happening,” she cried. All Angelo could do was put an arm around her
and hold her shivering body close to him.
Sweet Mary seemed to be totally catatonic, while Dutch sank even deeper
into her dark depression. This was all her fault. Her eyes glazed over as she
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closed herself off from the world and retreated inside to somewhere less terrible.
The night sky twinkled while the swamp hissed and bubbled behind them.
“They just threw him overboard,” said Rose again in disbelief. She just
couldn’t let it go. “How could they do that?”
“It’s over, Rose,” said Angelo soothingly. “It’s done. There’s nothing we can
do.”
“But they just…..”
Then they heard a faint splashing sound from the swamp and immediately
the dog sprang to mind. The Ahram were on their feet in a trice, oars and swords
at the ready; but they knew this was just a hopeless gesture. No weapon was
equal to that beast. This time there’d be no lucky escape. Everyone waited with
baited breath.
Then out of the gloom stumbled Righteous Alchemy, with the Ahram in his
arms, splashing his way up the bank towards them.
“Righteous,” screamed Rose, jumping out of the boat and running towards
him. Sheer jubilant pandemonium reigned for many minutes before any sort of
sense was restored. Even Sweet Mary was in the mix, crying and hugging
Righteous as if he were her long lost brother. The Ahram too were rejoicing over
their lost friend, hooting and coughing and hugging one another.
“What happened?” asked Angelo when the noise finally subsided.
“I don’t know,” said Righteous, obviously in some pain from the burns he’d
sustained in the boiling mud. There were angry welts and blisters all over his body.
“I knew it wouldn’t harm me. I managed to get to the Ahram before the dog
did, and then it just wouldn’t come near us. Maybe because I was darker than he
was,” he said enigmatically. “I don’t know. Anyway, I’m alive. We’re all alive.”
“I am so happy,” said Rose. “But I don’t think I can stand any more of this.”
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THEY MOVED FAR ENOUGH AWAY FROM THE SWAMP in case the dog
came back….climbed up into the foothills..and found a sheltered plateau
The Ahram placed their swords in a circle around them to provide light, and
more importantly…warmth, now that they were away from the heat of swamp. It
was freezing cold up on that mountainside Angelo wondered why, if those things
gave off so much heat, could the Ahram hold them without burning their hands.
Then he too fell asleep, none the wiser.
The morning light found them reluctant to wake up. Aches and pains…hard
to walk. ….and hunger. There was no more Manna. And thirst. Things were
looking pretty bleak.
Righteous in a really bad way in the light of day they could see the extent of
his injuries. Noot fared much better…but RA’s breathing was ragged…his body was
beginning to shut down from his injuries. The Ahram urged them on
“How is he supposed to walk like that. He’s going to die.
The Ahram waved at the mountain ahead of them….s steep climb. He
hooted urgently. Dutch Pointed at Righteous…and the Ahram leader pointed up the
mountain. Once again a stalemate.
Angelo. I know it’ll make RA worse…but if we stay here he’s going to die
anyway. Maybe we’re close to their home…
The Ahram Hooted loudly at this remark, almost as if he understood what
Angelo had said. He pointed at RA this time…then at the mountain and hooted.
This time the sound was more muted and had a sympathetic tone to it. The
humans were beginning to notice the nuance in the speech of the Ahram.
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C’mon said Dutch. There’s nothing for it but to follow them.
They trudged onwards and upwards with their heads down, with no energy
left to lift them up, watching the miles pass by beneath their feet. Righteous,
suspended between Dutch and Angelo, was barely breathing anymore, his feet
dragging along in the dust. Angelo, Sweet Mary and Rose stumbled on,forever
climbing, higher and higher, hardly aware that they were walking…one foot
automatically coming down in front of the other, they had long since ceased to
notice where they were when the Lead ahram Hooted and everyone stopped.
Whether they understood his hoot they couldn’t tell…but their bodies stopped
walking and their eyes began to come back into focus. Something had changed.
The ground beneath their feet was now shiny shale and sharp flints. Hot….burning
the soles of their feet. The Ahram seemed oblivious to the heat though.
“Are we there?” asked Sweet Mary. “Are we there?”
One by one they lifted their eyes, expecting to see themselves perched on
the top of the mountain with a view of their goal in sight: an end of their journey:
an end to their pain.
What they saw was a sheer cliff-face hundreds of metres high ahead of
them.
“I ain’t climbing that.” Said Rose, trying to make light of the horror that
confronted them. “Not with my hips.”
“They must have a plan.” Said Angelo
EXPAND MORE
172
as the group picked their way round the rubble and scree at the foot of the
cliff. The sun was already beginning to heat up the stone to oven temperature
when they came to an opening in the cliff wall.
N
The caves had turned out to be more of a harrowing journey than the forest.
In the beginning though it had been a godsend after that terrifying journey across
the swamp. It had been nice and cool, and more importantly, the Ahram had
unearthed a stash of manna that had been carefully hidden behind a rock. The
euphoric mood of the travellers at the return of Righteous and the little Ahram was
lifted even further after they had finished eating their fill. Their prospects seemed
more positive and even Sweet Mary was smiling and chatting with the others,
although the tension between her and Dutch made things uncomfortable between
them. They pretended nothing was wrong but continued to avoid eye contact with
each other.
A large amount of the manna had been pulped and placed on the burns of
Righteous and the little Ahram. Righteous hardly flinched when the paste was
applied, but the little Ahram didn’t take it so well, hooting in agony at each
application. His hoot was different to the others. It sounded like he had sinus
problems, or a cold, because it came out in a nasal sounding ‘Noot.’
“Poor fellow,” said Angelo. “He can’t even hoot properly. Maybe it’s because
of the pain. But at least we can give him a name now. I vote we call him Noot.”
Poor Noot tried valiantly to bear the pain, constantly looking at Righteous
who stoically bore it without a sound. Noot had become very attached to Righteous
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since he had saved his life, and was always hovering around him in the hope of
being of assistance.
“I think you’ve got a friend for life now, Righteous,” said Angelo.
“It is he who has saved me…in a manner of speaking. We seem to have
formed a bond, and through this I am able to read his emotions and thoughts – to
a certain degree – and of course only in pictures. But now I can see images in my
head that give me a vague sense of my surroundings. I don’t feel so…blind
anymore, or so useless. It grieved me more than I can say when I lost the voices.
And I’ve always felt a bit of a burden on this trip.”
“That’s my fault really,” said Angelo, “for taking you away from your home in
the first place.”
“Yeah, and it’s my fault for getting us all into this mess,” mumbled Dutch
under her breath.
“Yes,” added Rose very emphatically. “And it’s all your faults for keeping my
son safe at home, and for bringing Angelo and me together.” She said, smiling at
Angelo and laying her head against his arm. “So thank you.”
“Well,” interjected Sweet Mary. “This hasn’t been the best trip, but I’m glad I
met all of you. I’m glad to have so many friends.” Then she added in an undertone.
“I really could do with a bath though. I’m feeling really uncomfortable.” She looked
pleadingly at Rose when she said this.
“I know,” said Rose. “But I’m sure we’ll find some water sooner or later.”
A hoot let them know that it was time to move on. Once again Righteous
scooped Sweet Mary up into his arms without a bye-your-leave, and they set off
down a tunnel at the rear of the cave. The tunnel was rocky and narrow and they
had to walk in single file, three Ahram lighting the way in front with their swords
and two bringing up the rear.
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“You shouldn’t be too hard on Dutch,” boomed Righteous’ voice in Sweet
Mary’s ear. Even at a whisper he could be deafening. “She loves you very much
even though she doesn’t show it much. She carries a big burden.”
“I know”
“And I think she depends on you more than you know, because she’s feeling
pretty down since you stopped talking to her.”
They walked on in silence while Sweet Mary thought this over.
“And you ain’t really helping her much by sulking,” said Righteous in his
home accent.
“I’m not sulking.” Protested Sweet Mary and stuck out her lower lip
petulantly.
“But you’re making it clear that you’re not happy with her, and that’s not
good. We gotta stick together.”
“I suppose,” she pouted, hating the thought of having to apologise.
With thoughts about Dutch going round and round in her head, along with
the gentle swaying motion of Righteous’ body as he walked, Sweet Mary dozed off
and fell into a deep sleep.
They had been following a particularly long and dark tunnel for many miles
when they came to an intersection and everyone stopped to catch their breath.
“I hope they know which way they’re going,” said Angelo. “I don’t want to be
traipsing around these tunnels for the rest of my life.”
The Ahram seemed unperturbed and rested on their haunches.
Sweet Mary woke up and Righteous set her on her feet.
“I think you should carry Rose for a while. If you’re up to it, I mean. Cause I
can walk for a while. My feet are much better since they put that paste on.”
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One of the Ahram had also torn the empty Manna skin in half and wrapped
the pieces round Sweet Mary’s feet. It was a little awkward to walk on, but it would
afford some protection.
“I’m okay,” said Rose. “This is pretty easy going. And I’m losing a hell of a
lot of weight,” she said with a smile. “All that good living is falling off me by the
minute. I feel absolutely youthful.”
The creature came out of nowhere, moving so fast that it was on top of them
before anyone could react, ripping at one of the Ahram with its hind claws and
screaming a most terrible sound. In an instant the others were on their feet and
moving to his aid but he was already dead, his assailant scuttling away at a
phenomenal pace, almost sailing through the air.
There was hooting and rushing around and general chaos as the Ahram
dragged their dead colleague out of the way and formed a protective circle around
the humans. Everyone was shaken to the core by the speed and ferocity of the
attack.
“That was an Ahram,” said Dutch, her fighting instincts finally kicking in.
”Why are they attacking us?” She asked the Ahram for clarification.
“That was a woman,” said Rose. “A female.”
They had all seen it. She had been as naked as the men and there was no
mistaking the fact. They tried to absorb this new unsettling information. What could
it mean? And that a female could be capable of such ferocity made everyone feel
strangely disconcerted. One expects that kind of thing from a man. From a woman
it’s a bit scary.
The Ahram stood ready to ward off another attack, but the damage had been
done, and they probably wouldn’t attack while they were watching CLUMSY.
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Without further ado the Ahram herded them into the next tunnel and they all
set off at a brisk pace keeping a sharp ear out for any sounds of pursuit. After an
hour or so a new worry arose. The tunnel began to twist and turn and slant sharply
downwards now. Then the air began to warm up and their breathing became
laboured. Down and down they went, seemingly forever.
“Oh God,” said Rose. “I hope they know where they’re going. This doesn’t
look good.”
Strange cracking and rumbling sounds could also now be heard, unlike
anything they’d ever heard before, amplified by the tunnel ahead.
The tunnel wound on down for another few hundred metres and then they
were out on a narrow ledge in a huge cavern. Many miles straight down beneath
them bubbled and boiled the red hot lava of a magma pool. The heat was
stupendous.
“Don’t look down. Keep your eyes on the ceiling. Everyone link hands and
don’t let go,” Said Dutch, thankfully once more in charge.
The ledge was quite small, only just big enough to accommodate them all.
Ahead, a vast empty hall loomed around them, and a thin wooden bridge ran from
their ledge, dipping dangerously down into the chamber, and up again to a ledge
on the far side. There were no hand rails on the bridge, just some slats tied
together with leather thongs. It was already swaying dangerously in the cross
draughts. What it would do with a bunch of people walking on it didn’t bear thinking
about.
#MAKE MORE OF THE HEAT
FLAMES OF HELL
HOT AIR SCORCHED LUNGS
GLISTENING SWEAT COVERING
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GLEAMED LIKE A POLISHED MARBLE EBONY STATUE
ROSE’S ROSY CHEEKS AND PUFFY RED LIMBS
SM FAINTING AND FANNING HERSELF
OA COOL AS A SLIGHTLY WILTED CUCUMBER
SAPPING THEIR STRENGTH AT EVERY TURN AND STEP
THE AHRAM UNNAFFECTED BY THE HEAT.
One of the Ahram brought out a long leather rope from nowhere and began
tying everyone together. This time there were two Ahram in front…including Noot,
and three at the back.
Sweet Mary went into total meltdown. “I am not going to walk across that,”
She protested, hardly able to draw breath from fright. This was the one time that
Righteous couldn’t carry her. They would all need their hands for holding on.
“You can just leave me here,” she said emphatically.
Dutch was torn by the look of fear on her face and gently took her hand.
“I’m not going without you,” she said simply. “I love you and I’m not going to
leave you. I’ll stay here with you if you don’t want to go.”
Of course the idea was unthinkable. They would die if they stayed, and
Sweet Mary knew that. She was just very scared. Dutch pulled her close and gave
her a gentle hug.
The creature came screaming out of the tunnel behind them and in a flurry
of talons and teeth, ripped into the nearest Ahram. Rose and Sweet Mary
screamed and Dutch had her hands full trying to stop them all from falling over the
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edge. Behind them in the tunnel they saw more Ahram women piling out to join in
the fight.
Noot helped steady the little band of humans while his friends confronted the
attacking Ahram.
“Hoot!” shouted the lead Ahram and Noot started dragging the humans onto
the bridge.
“Noot,” he said and pointed to the other side.
“We gotta go,” said Dutch, catching his drift. The battle was practically
driving them onto the bridge anyway. “Come on.”
Anything seemed better than facing that terrible screaming. Sweet Mary
closed her eyes and let Dutch drag her along blindly. She couldn’t work out
whether she was more scared of the bridge or the Ahram attack, but either way
her divided attention seemed to cause her to bypass her implant.
ROSE GRABBED OA HAND AND SLIPPED OUT..COULDN’T HOLD
ON….SWEAT SLIPPERY ARMPUTS STINGING…REMINDED OF HER SONS
WEDDING…….
Next came Rose and Angelo with Righteous bringing up the rear. Once onto
the bridge of course it began to sway alarmingly, never having been built to take
so many people at one time.
“Keep moving,” said Dutch.
Great blobs of molten magma, each weighing a ton or more, catapulted into
the air narrowly missing the travellers as they traversed a rickety wooden bridge
across the chasm, and then plummeted down into the fiery depths again. The heat
was excruciating. Sweat ran off them in rivers. Their red ruddy faces glowed in the
light from the lava down below. Their giant shadows flickered across the ceiling of
the cavern.
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Some of the Ahram were wounded and bleeding from their recent skirmish in
the tunnels and two of their men were now dead. That left only three of them to
guard the humans. But they pushed on across the dangerously swaying bridge and
collapsed at last, safe on the other side. The humans lay on their backs gasping,
not quite believing they had made it across. But the Ahram wouldn’t let them rest
and urged them up onto their shaky legs to move further away from the heat, and
possible attack from the creatures behind.
Behind them the sounds of battle were diminishing. The attackers, being
cooped up in the tunnel confines found it difficult to fight efficiently and soon the
tide was turned and they were driven back. In a few more minutes they were in a
full rout. But another of their Ahram lay dead on the floor.
“Those were all FEMALES!” said Rose, creeping along on all fours,
obsessed and horrified by the idea. “Why are the women fighting the men?”
l
m
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PART THREE
Chapter 7 – The Singing Bones
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So here I am: rescued by my guardian angel…my dream girl – literally. Yeah
I know it sounds weird but I’ll explain. My guardian angel – the one who saved me
from certain death on the strange planetoid – is in actuality a hideous type of
creature. Well, not hideous if you’re a prehistoric raptor or some such reptile. But I
must admit that even in her gross physical form she’s got a certain allure. She’s
quite pretty in fact; although not cute enough for me to contemplate any interspecies hanky-panky. Well not unless I get very drunk and there’s no chance of
that here. More’s the pity. I could do with a drink right now; but anyway. Apparently
my guardian angel looks like an angel in her dream body because it’s what I
wanted to see. Or what my idea of a guardian angel looks like. The dreamers are
very versatile and can easily adapt to ones thoughts, shape shifting to anything
that suits them. But they don’t just have random dreams like we do. They are
professional dreamers. I say ‘they’ – I mean of course, the women. The men,
apparently, for I have not met any yet, are incapable of controlling their dream
bodies and making them do their bidding. And this is the crux of the great
animosity between them: but more of that later.
For now I am glad to be alive. I was rescued from my planetoid (just in time
I reckoned, as the quakes were getting more and more frequent and extreme) by a
space egg. Not a real egg of course, but a giant egg-shape carved out of bone.
The whitest, purist, glowingest bone you’ve ever seen. It had a round door which
floated open on invisible hinges and sealed shut again without showing a crack.
Once inside, my dream girl merged herself with the shell, and we began to move. I
couldn’t feel much, but soon I was floating around in zero G so I knew we’d left the
gravity of the planetoid behind. Occasionally I could feel some directional changes
but other than that it was a silky smooth ride. I was becoming very fond of my
dream girl, though I could barely see her diffused form glowing within the walls of
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the egg, her shape mingling with its molecular make-up. Her presence scrambled
my brains like a besotted schoolboy with a crush on his first grade teacher. Even
after I discovered she was a walking, talking lizard, was I still madly attracted to
her.
Anyway, did I say ‘talking’? Yes. She talks. And I can understand her. I can’t
talk to her, but she can read my thoughts – which is sometimes a bit
embarrassing. One never realizes how unruly ones thoughts are, and how little
control we have over them…until someone starts reading them and all our secrets
are out in the open. Not so nice. Anyway, she still talks to me. Or sings, rather, for
that is how they communicate, and over the many weeks and months I have been
here she has told me pretty much the whole sad story. How, many millions of
years ago their sun began dying, and by association, their planet as well: how they
survived by hibernating deep underground where the ice couldn’t kill them off. How
a new sun appeared in the sky – in the shape of an egg, thus the iconic shape of
her spacecraft, which apparently she controls by singing to it. Therein lies another
bone of contention between the men and the women. The men can’t sing. They
cannot communicate like the women do, and they cannot control the bones.
Anyway this new sun managed to revive whatever life was left on the planet
and the species began again…until the great tragedy happened.
But that’s another story. So, where was I? Oh yes; the rescue. When I finally
stepped out of the space egg we were on a mountain-top somewhere. From where
we were I couldn’t see what the planet looked like, but it still had the same old red
sun in the sky and I knew the planet was large because the gravity was just about
one G. Also, I could breathe quite freely here. Then, to cut a long journey short,
she disengaged herself from the space egg and led me down a crevice in the
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rocks which wound its way deep underground, to a room full of angry female
lizards.
N
It was night time when the little group of travellers emerged from their tunnel
and stood high on a rocky outcrop in the cold mountain air. Above them the stars
glittered and gleamed, close enough to touch. And out in front of them, surrounded
on all sides by mountains, in a dome of light as bright as day, lay a sprawling
valley of green meadows and forests, winding rivers and waterfalls. Around the
circumference of the valley rose giant white, glowing pillars curving up into the
night sky, illuminating the whole bowl like an enormous football stadium. The
pillars, twelve pairs in all, with a small pair at the end, were each more than a mile
high and nearly touched in the centre, like ribs vaulting the knave of a church, as if
protecting the valley from harm.
In the centre of the night-lit plains, some twenty or thirty miles distant, a
towering cathedral-like building with spires and flutes, windows and winding
walkways stood proudly aloft like the celestial city.
They espied many idyllic villages scattered through the valley with smoke
coming from what they presumed to be houses, which were in fact just mounds of
earth with a door in front and a chimney on top. The villages were interspersed
with meandering meadows and burbling brooks, connected by sandy winding roads
on which foot-travellers could be seen dotted along its way.
In the centre of each village was the equivalent of a market place with
wooden stalls covered in stretched skin shades, harbouring, they presumed, all
sorts of sweetmeats and household items.
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Close to the cathedral-like structure on the other side was a gargantuan
circular amphitheatre with thousands of tiers of seats all built from blocks of ivory.
There were also several sprawling white mansions here and there constructed with
the same white blocks, with carved pillars and porticos and walls to surround them.
These white constructions glowed like beacons in the lush green countryside.
“Do you think this is a hallucination?” Asked Rose.
“At this point I don’t even know if that matters.” Said Angelo. “It’s there. As
long as there’s food and water, that’s all I’m worried about.”
“And I can have a bath.” Said Sweet Mary. And truly, her dirt streaked face
attested to that fact. They all desperately needed one.
“But it seems such a long way down.” Said Sweet Mary. “It’s MILES!”
The remaining three Ahram were of the same mind, and settled down to
rest. One of them keeping guard over the tunnel behind them.
N
“I think it’s time to get out. My feet are getting wrinkly.”
Sweet Mary and Rose sat in a shallow, shady pool of clear spring water. On
the bank within arms reach was a wooden platter with various types of food
tastefully arranged. Of all the Spa’s and beauty salons that the two women had
ever been in, none could compare to this. They wouldn’t have traded this for all the
massages or facials, oils or skin creams in the world. Broken nails, bruises and
abrasions; tangled hair and dry flaky skin. None of that was of any import. Just to
sit in a puddle of cool water and be able to wash the dirt off their bodies was a
luxury beyond description.
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“I don’t care if this is an illusion. As long as it doesn’t go away.” Said Sweet
Mary.
“Apparently it’s not.” Said Rose, lying back dreamily with her eyes closed.
“Not according to Angelo.”
“He’s such a gentleman.” Said Sweet Mary. “I’m glad you two are a couple.
You’re very well suited.”
“I know.” Said Rose. “And I would never have met him if it wasn’t for you
and Dutch.”
She trailed her hand along the top of the water.
“She cares very much for you, you know.” Said Rose.
“I know. She’s been my saviour. I don’t know what would have happened to
me if she hadn’t come along.”
The two women lapsed into a comfortable silence for a while.
“We really should be getting out you know.”
“I know.” Said Rose, but neither woman made a move to do so.
“I feel sorry for Righteous though. He’s such a nice man. But he seems a bit
sad.” Said Sweet Mary. “It can’t be nice being blind. Especially in this kind of
situation…you know, the ice and stuff. And the swamp…and the attacks.”
There was another long pause.
“I haven’t seen any women down here in the village.” She continued.
Rose shrugged her shoulders.
“Maybe they’re at home cooking the dinner.”
Then there was a long silence as if neither of them really wanted to talk
about the female Ahram that attacked them, but the subject was never far from
their minds. All that could be heard was the occasional tinkling of water as one of
them moved to get more comfortable.
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The men had a separate secluded bathing area. Well, the men and Dutch,
that is. Poor Dutch, for she fell in between two pools, so to speak. She felt more
comfortable bathing with the men because it was what she was used to. To bathe
with the women felt too…naked. Unnatural. She had seldom even seen Sweet
Mary naked…or her see Dutch. They used to close their eyes when the other was
getting dressed in the prison. But now she had to choose one or the other group or
bathe on her own. And she didn’t want to be alone.
“Mind if I bathe with you?” She asked Angelo. “I feel a bit out of place taking
my clothes off in front of women.”
Angelo wasn’t in the habit of bathing with women, but he understood her
problem and was equal to the situation. To Righteous of course it didn’t make any
difference.
“Sure. No problem.”
“Thanks. Hello Righteous. How you doing?”
“I am doing fine thank you.”
“Righteous, I wanted to say thank you for looking after Sweet Mary and
carrying her around.“ Said Dutch. “I really appreciate it. She means a lot to me.”
“She’s a nice lady.” He replied. “This ain’t really the place for her.”
“For none of us really.” Said Angelo. “Rose too. Although I have to admit
she’s a feisty woman, and she seems to have thrived since being here.”
“That’s true.” Said Dutch. “She looks pretty good.”
Angelo trailed his hand through the water.
“So this is all real then?” He said, generally indicating all around him.
“So it seems.” Said Dutch.
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“It’s never really night time here…and it’s sheltered from the ice. Maybe
that’s why it’s so lush.” Said Angelo.
“The bones are making it grow.” Said Righteous. “Like a hothouse. The
bones are keeping everything warm and alive.”
“So then this must be the only habitable place on the planet?”
“Unless there are other bones.” Said Righteous.
“What kind of bones are they?” Asked Angelo.
“Not real bones, like you or me bones, but still, they’re living bones.”
“Don’t make sense.” Said Angelo. “If it comes from a creature, where would
something that big have come from?”
No-one had an answer to that. Angelo looked around him. Noot sat on the
bank of the pool, lazily basking in the sun. Next to him on a rock were their biosuits, neatly laid out to dry in the sun. They looked a sorry sight though. Scuffed
and torn and generally not too much use as clothing anymore. Righteous’ suit had
suffered the most. His was literally hanging in strips since his plunge into the
swamp.
“Gonna need some new clothes soon.” Said Dutch.
“Maybe some of those skins they use for bags and stuff.” Said Angelo.
Dutch laughed. “We’ll all look like a bunch of cave men.”
Angelo’s eyes inadvertently fell on Dutch’s broad frame and well muscled
body. He couldn’t help but sneak some admiring glances at her. He even found her
sexy in a robust kind of way. She had a much better looking body than he did. But
that was a cop’s life. Hanging round in bars, drinking and smoking. Mostly too tired
or too lazy to go to the gym. Whereas she was an ore-miner. Not an ounce of limp
fat on her toned torso. He had to admit that she was quite beautiful.
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Then, simply to drag his eyes away from her, he looked at Righteous who
was twice her size and muscled proportionately. Sitting between the two of them
he felt like a real ninety pound weakling. Oh well. Rose loved him for who he was.
And that was all that mattered.
They sat in blissful silence and listened to the gentle lapping of the water.
ALARM. THEY ARE ROUNDED UP AND PUT IN A CAGE WITHOUT
THEIR CLOTHES
Guards hunt animal
It managed to escape the guard, squeezed itself through the bars of the
cage and tumbled to the ground at her feet, its little mouth opening and closing in
shock. She could see it had been hurt from the way it flapped uselessly around on
the floor, unable to launch itself into the air. Such an ugly misshapen creature had
never been seen before. It was an unshapely bundle, or blanket, more accurately,
of fur, feathers and fungus that seemed to be perpetually moulting – bits dropping
off it every time it moved. It had no arms or hands or feet, just a head and a body
bag of skin that flapped and flooped its way forward. It also had two lazy eyes that
swivelled constantly and seemed to be looking in every direction at once.
The guards rushed into the cage and advanced on the hapless and hurt
mite, swords raised, intent on despatching it with extreme prejudice.
“No!” shouted Sweet Mary, stepping in between them and the bat/cat/rat
animal.
“Don’t you dare hurt him!” She might not have been able to defend herself
due to her null wave implant, but it had no effect when she was defending
someone or something else.
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The Ahram hooted loudly at her and pointed at the thing again.
“No!. I told you no!” she said, grabbing the sword out of his hand (which
was rather puny for his size) and thwacking him on his big thigh.
The Ahram hooted several tones higher and jumped backwards out of her
reach. Sweet Mary then waved the sword threateningly at all the Ahram and
herded them out of the cage. Then she bent down and picked up the wounded
bat/rat/bird.
“There, there sweetheart. Mommy won’t let the horrible creatures hurt you
anymore,” she said stroking it’s little forehead. The bag of skin then lovingly
attached itself to her hip, covering her almost like a skirt and began making
contented sounds and sighs.
“There you go,” she said.
The disgusted Ahram coughed and snooted and finally locked their cage and
left them alone again, all except for the one who had lost his sword who was
hanging around on the fringes, just out of her reach, hoping to somehow retrieve
his manhood. But he too in the end he too went off humphing and pumphing into
the undergrowth.
“Well,” said Officer Angelo, letting out a deeply held breath. “You some feisty
lady you are.”
“Rags,” she replied.
“What.”
“I’ll call him rags.”
BRINGS BACK STUFF…TOO BIG TO GET BETWEEN THE BARS
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EVENTUALLY NOOT COMES TO THEM AND EXPLAINS ETC???????
“It’s a fruit thief. A rodent.
N
When he first stepped over the threshold he had to wait till his eyes became
accustomed to the gloom. He could see the little hearth fire burning in the corner,
but it took him a little while to see Rose standing in the centre of the room. Behind
her was a table laden with flowers and food and a flask of wine. Next to the wall
was a large bed made of spongy moss with a skin stretched over it like a blanket.
Now that the moment had come when they could be alone together, they
didn’t know what to say to each other. They both smiled awkwardly while Rose
fidgeted with her hands.
“Would you like something to eat?” She said, lightly touching the chair next
to the table.
“Thanks.” Said Angelo. “You look very beautiful tonight.” And indeed she did.
Her hair was clean and combed and shone like gold in the firelight. Her skin
glowed and the petals of her ruddy cheeks made her look very much like her
namesake. A beautiful pink rose.
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They sat down and Angelo took a sip of wine but tasted nothing. His heart
was in his throat. The sumptuous feast held no allure for him, but he felt he
couldn’t just rush in and kiss her, as he was wont to do every moment of the day.
For decorum’s sake he desisted and tried to make pleasant small talk.
“It’s very nice.” he said.
Rose nodded and affected to be quite cool and calm herself. But she too
was trembling in long endured anticipation of the moment when she could swoon
in his arms and surrender to his kisses. Then she thought of something and smiled
to herself.
“What you smiling at?” Asked Angelo.
“Isn’t it ironic? I was just thinking that this journey was to be my son’s
honeymoon trip. And here I am in his place. Having my honeymoon. That is…”
She faltered suddenly wondering whether she’d overstepped the mark and gone
too far. “I mean. It feels like one to me. Not that we’re married or anything.” She
stopped speaking and looked decidedly uncomfortable and embarrassed, because
they hadn’t spoken of these things yet. It had been too soon. But Angelo, being the
perfect gentleman and lover, came to her rescue.
“Of course this is our honeymoon. Things have been moving too fast. And
anyway, there just hasn’t been any time to get married, even if we had a priest to
hand.”
“Dutch could marry us.” Said Rose, her cheeks blushing like the proverbial.
“She’s the captain of the ship, or was, so she is legally entitled to marry us.” She
smiled. “But you’re going to have to ask me first.”
Angelo put his beaker down and took her hand in his.
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“Rose Darck.” He said formally. “I find it hard to think of a life without you. I
want to be with you always, because I love you more than I can ever say. I used
to be happy on my own until I met you, now I would be most unhappy to live
without you. Will you please be my wife?”
“And I love you almost more than my heart can bear. You make me feel like
a dizzy teenager again. And I also don’t ever want to live without you. Yes. I would
love to be your wife.”
They leant forward and gently kissed each other. Then he whispered in her
ear.
“You wanna dance?”
The days went by in a blissful haze of lazy walks and idyllic picnics.
Occasionally the couple would sneak off for a secret romantic tryst somewhere in
the bushes when they found it too unbearable to be apart. Dutch and Sweet Mary
too were having some long lost time together. They had been given their own
house, as had Angelo and Rose, (poor Righteous had to sleep in his own house
by himself) and Sweet Mary had immediately set about making it a home. There
were flowers everywhere, little carpets and knickknacks that she had brought from
the market, where everything was free. They spent a lot of time together, fixing
and cleaning, with Sweet Mary doing most of the talking and organizing. Dutch of
course was only too happy to go along for the ride, happily listening to Sweet
Mary’s chatter for hours on end. They were enjoying being together again. They
made the perfect couple, being well suited to each others temperament.
The one little cloud on Sweet Mary’s horizon was clothes. Or the lack of
them rather. It bothered her more than it did any of the others. She knew she had
to say goodbye to hi-heel shoes and stockings and suchlike, but surely there must
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be a way of making some sort of dress. Not that she would know how to, having
never picked up a needle in her life. Which is why she had gone to Rose with the
problem.
“They only have that horrible type of skin as far as I know. Unless you want
to weave a little hula skirt out of grass?”
“No thank you.” She laughed. “You’ll be able to see all my bits then. Maybe
we can dye the skin or something?”
“Well, later we’ll go to the market and see if we can find a piece that’s
suitable for making a dress.”
“Thank you.” She kissed her on the cheek and rushed to tell Dutch the good
news.
When Dutch heard her cry out, she nearly had a heart attack. She rushed to
where the sound had come from, ready to defend her with her life.
“Owwww.” Moaned sweet Mary, sitting in the middle of the path, holding her
foot in her hands. “I kicked my toe. It’s bleeding.”
Dutch, feeling much relieved that that’s all it was, sat down beside her and
took her foot onto her lap to examine it.
“It’s not too bad. It’s only a small cut. The bleeding will stop soon. Can you
flex your toes?”
Sweet Mary did so.
“Owwww. It hurts.”
“Well, there doesn’t seem to be anything broken anyway.”
“But it’s so sore.”
Gently Dutch began to massage her foot, taking care not to touch the
bruised area. All her feelings about Sweet Mary’s feet came flooding back to her
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and her heart began to beat faster at the touch of Sweet Mary’s skin. It was the
most wonderful feeling in the world. She would be quite happy to sit there forever.
Sweet Mary too was lying back in seventh heaven. She loved her Dutch very
dearly, and was so happy of recent days that she spent a lot of the time crying in
sheer happiness. Often Dutch would catch her and she’d have to dry her tears very
quickly and pretend she had something in her eye.
Dutch lifted her other foot onto her lap as well, and Sweet Mary sighed in
absolute bliss.
Many ages later they were wakened from their reverie by a distant hooting.
Something was up. Dutch was always curious to know what was going on around
her, always alert to any new danger.
“Can you walk?”
“I think so.” Said Sweet Mary, hobbling to her feet and tentatively keeping
her sore toe pointed skywards. “It’s not too bad.”
“Let’s go and see what the fuss is about.”
Sweet Mary slipped her hand into Dutch’s as they headed down the path
towards the market place where all the noise was coming from.
The centre of this village was presided over by a giant tree, some hundreds
of years old. It had seen many generations play under its leafy cover. Problems
were discussed, birthdays celebrated, feasting, crying, laughing. It had seen it all.
If anything important happened it was announced in the shade of that tree;
whenever the villagers had to congregate for whatever reason, it was there. It was
there now that everyone hurried to. Dutch and Sweet Mary joined the thronging
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crowds under the tree but were unable to see much as the Ahram were generally
taller than them.
“What’s going on?” asked Angelo at their shoulder. Rose and he stood just
behind them.
“I don’t know.” Said Dutch, who was the tallest of them, “I can’t really see.
There was more hooting and then suddenly the crowd parted like the red
sea opening and the four humans found themselves the centre of attention,
standing in a wide space that had been cleared for them.
In front of them, standing directly under the tree was a crinkly old man,
presumably the venerated village elder whose stoop had rendered him nearly
supine. Two young Ahram hovered close by ready to offer assistance should he
need it. Next to the old man was a strange newcomer, riding on an even stranger
craft. He wore a white robe over his shoulders and it was such an uncharacteristic
sight that the humans were almost inclined to laugh at the absurdity. Like a human
dressing in a superman cloak. Yet it commanded great respect from the crowd. All
eyes were on him, and all waited patiently for him to hoot. Even the Elder stood
bowed with deference before him. The craft he rode upon was even more
perplexing. A plain, white, round disc, some two or three metres in diameter that
hovered silently a foot or so above the ground, with no obvious means of
suspension or propulsion. If this sight was not singular enough to bamboozle a
newcomer, then the crosier he carried in his hand would have been.
It was difficult to describe because it was hard to look at. It seemed to
shimmer and vibrate with such intensity as would render it non-material, or as
close to pure, formless energy as matter could come. It steamed and writhed like a
live creature in his hand. But the piece de resistance was the loop at the top of the
crozier. It was an awesome sight – best and easiest described as a miniature
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wormhole, trapped and turning within the circle. It changed colour as one looked,
perhaps alternating with the mood of the creature holding it, because the colour at
the moment was turning from bright red to a deep ugly purple as he stared intently
at the group of humans. The brisance of the staff was actually sending blue sparks
out into the air, and so charged with potence was it that they would not have been
surprised had it gone into a cataclysmic meltdown.
It was a riveting sight. One dared not even draw breath too crudely for fear
of drawing its power down on one. Then without warning, the robed stranger
hooted his anger to the winds and turned towards the old man now quivering with
fear at his feet. Before anyone had time to think, a bolt of blue lightning erupted
from the crozier and struck the old man down dead. A horrible smell of burning
meat filled the air as everyone looked on, stunned. Then the creature pointed at
the humans and let out a series of short sharp hoots. Sweet Mary’s implant had
thankfully kicked in and she just stood unperturbed by all this. Rose felt something
warm run down her leg and realized she had wet herself. A group of powerful
looking Ahram moved towards them, directed by the madman on the flying saucer.
Dutch and Angelo positioned themselves so as to protect the ladies but they were
no match for the Ahram thugs and were easily brushed aside. Dutch, Sweet Mary
and Rose were seized and dragged towards the robed one.
Then the nightmare began. The women were quickly stripped of their biosuits and soon stood naked within a circle of hooting aliens. An old cart with wonky
wheels and a wooden cage on top was dragged into view and the women forced
inside with much hooting and coughing. The Ahram were obviously terrified of
upsetting the leader any further.
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The women were forced to their knees on the floor of the cage and the gate
was pushed shut and securely tied with a thong. Dutch did her best to comfort and
steady Rose and Sweet Mary as the cart lurched forward.
The stranger with the lightning staff set off down the road with a whole
procession following him. Righteous and Noot had now joined Angelo and the
three of them were running alongside the cart. The Ahram didn’t seem to mind until
they tried to put their hands through the bars to touch the women, then they were
driven back and had to content themselves with conversation.
“Any idea where we’re going?” Asked Dutch, fearing the worst. She had both
Rose and Sweet Mary cradled in her arms.
“According to Noot,” shouted Angelo, and Dutch’s eyes flickered to Noot who
was hooting incessantly, keeping up a running commentary to Righteous.
“According to Noot, the old man was killed for not reporting that there were
illegal females in the village. Apparently his excuse, that you are aliens and
therefore didn’t qualify, did not please the master, who is called a Seesh, by the
way.
“Oh Angelo. What are they going to do with us?” Shouted Rose.
“I don’t quite know.” Lied Angelo, but Hoot thinks you’ll be taken to the
master Seesh. He’s the one who will decide your fate.”
“So the fact that we’re aliens might count in our favour?” Asked Rose.
“I should think so.“ Angelo replied, walking by her side.
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For twenty miles or more the poor women endured the stifling heat and
direct sunlight. The carts wooden wheels bumped over the ruts in the road,
banging them painfully against the bars and filling their mouths and ears with sand
and dust. The poor girls huddled their heads together like three crazy religiosi
praying for a miracle to save them.
Sweet Mary came to and began sobbing uncontrollably, while Dutch and
Rose tried to comfort her. The cart lurched and creaked along at an agonizing
snails pace – throwing the occupants this way and that, skinning their knees and
shins, their elbows and knuckles, until all was raw and livid with pain. Their
parched mouths soon ceased to operate at their request and speech became
impossible. It took all their energy just to hang on and survive the journey.
Angelo, Righteous and Noot followed as closely as they dared, not wishing
to draw too much attention to themselves lest they also be incarcerated and
rendered useless to the girls. So they bided their time and watched.
The little groups suffering and anxiety was slightly alleviated as they drew
closer to the giant skyscraper structure they had seen from afar. They all assumed
this was the destination point of their journey and looked on in dread and
anticipation. The building was vast. It was as broad at the base as several human
city blocks and tapered up to three needle points so high above their heads as to
be invisible. Their necks became sore from craning upwards at such a steep angle.
The entire structure, according to Noot, was made of bone, and was still
obviously under construction as there were workmen-like creatures swarming all
over it.
“What is that?” Asked Angelo.
Righteous listened to the babbling Noot for a while and then said in a flat
matter of fact voice.
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“It’s a war-ship.”
Angelo didn’t know how to respond to that. The information didn’t even
percolate through to his brain until many minutes later.
“A WARSHIP?”
“An intergalactic warship.” Said Righteous.
Angelo looked up at the workmen suspended from its sides.
“Well it’s certainly a hive of activity. Are they preparing for a trip?”
Righteous listened to Noot for a while then continued.
“Yes. The construction is nearly complete. Soon they plan to travel through
the wormhole and attack the Earth.”
“Surely this is a joke,” Said Angelo. “Surely they can’t be serious.”
Righteous shrugged his shoulders.
Dutch, who had managed to catch the gist of the conversation, shouted to
Angelo.
“If that ship has anything like the weaponry that this guy with his stick is
wielding, then we’re in for big trouble. Well, the Federation is.” She corrected
herself. “That’s some serious firepower they have got hold of there.”
“What can we do? We have to do something.” Said Angelo.
It was Dutch’s turn to shrug her shoulders.
“Just wait and keep your eyes open.
Even Sweet Mary had stopped crying and was staring at the glowing white
monolith in awe.
“It must’ve taken years to build.” Said Dutch.
“Noot says fifty years.”
“Where does their power come from?” Asked Dutch. “Like on that stick of
his?”
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“From the bones.” said Righteous. “But it’s hard to explain. Sometimes I
can’t understand Noot too well – but he says it’s the song of the sleepers.”
They were travelling around the outskirts of the behemoth now and
everywhere they looked, thousands of Ahram were at work.
“Each village takes it in turns to work. They have laboured day and night for
fifty years. Noot says the power of the bones is dying. It’s fading, just like their sun
– so they are building this spaceship to take them to a new planet. And the one
they seem to like is ours.” Said Righteous. “There isn’t another habitable planet in
this particular galaxy, so the wormhole affords them many more fertile
opportunities.”
They walked on, digesting this information along with the dust being kicked
up by so many feet – the Seesh still riding high and dry ahead of them.
Noot erupted into more hoots and coughs and Righteous turned his head to
listen.
“Noot says they are working so hard because the wormhole is closing. If
they don’t get the war-ship finished in time, then it’s all over for their race.”
After that there was very little to say. The cart trundled along, lurching from
side to side, and there was nothing for the three women to do but endure. They
closed their eyes, gritted their teeth and just hung on for dear life. The motes of
dust spun dizzily in the baking sunshine. Not a breath of air stirred to ease the
dreadful heat. Even the Ahram, hypnotised by the dreary droning sameness of the
procession seemed to drift off into worlds of their own. Angelo took advantage of
their torpor and slipped a piece of melon between the bars of the cage and into
Dutch’s hand without anyone seeing them. The girls ate thankfully, the moisture
easing their cracked lips and painfully dry mouths. Sweet Mary started crying
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again, but at least they felt a little refreshed. After that, Angelo became
accustomed to smuggling them the occasional titbit and made the journey slightly
more bearable for the women.
Then the convoy stopped. The heat of the midday sun beat down upon their
unprotected skin and Dutch did her best to shade the other two with her naked
arms and shoulders. Her own back was baked and blistered. Angelo tried to get
close to Rose but the Ahram moved everyone away from the cage. The women
were given a handful of manna by the guards and everyone settled down to rest.
Dutch went through the options in her mind. Breaking out of the cage was
easy enough for her – but what then? The lizard with the fire-stick was a serious
hazard. And where would they run? All the lizards were faster and stronger than
them.
All too soon the cart jolted into movement again.
Once again the soporific heat and the endless swaying took their toll and
Sweet Mary and Rose fell mercifully asleep as the procession wound its way from
town to town, gathering ever more followers as it went.
“That is where one of the Seesh live.” Said Righteous, translating for Noot.
They were passing one of the many great white mansions they’d seen from the
mountainside when they first arrived. Up close it was an enormous sprawling affair
of white rooms and towers, porticoes, gardens and covered walkways, all
splendidly adorned with flowers and waterfalls and great carved pillars and
archways. It reeked of power and wealth.
“There are twelve of them. That is where they keep the breeders. It’s like a
harem of female slaves. Apparently, only the Seesh are allowed to sire children.”
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“You mean all the other men have to do without sex?” Asked Angelo. “Can’t
see that happening back home.” He mumbled to himself.
“The Seesh are their fathers – though they don’t know which, and therefore
are very obedient. To couple with a woman means they run the risk of mating with
their own mother, so it is forbidden.” Narrated Righteous. “Anyway, the women are
never allowed out. They never see the light of day, so securely are they locked
away in their breeding dens……each one separate from the other, enjoying no
other company other than the occasional visit from their lord and master. The male
children born from this union are taken away after a few months and brought up by
the men. The girls stay with their mothers until they are of childbearing age and
then moved to their own cell.”
Noot interjected a few hoots here.
“If a girl is exceptionally beautiful she is chosen to be sacrificed to their deity
on a day of festival, where she will pass through the Dragons Door to the other
side to ensure the continued well being of the race.”
“So she is fed to a dragon?” Asked Dutch, not at all happy with the sound of
affairs.
Noot hooted a few more times.
“What does he say?” Asked Dutch, her curiosity definitely piqued.
“He says that’s where we are headed now: to the Dragon’s Door.”
l
m
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Chapter 8 – The Crossing
The twirl of an occasional dust devil sprouted up briefly here and there in the
dry desert sand of the arena before dying away into the hot silence. The little cage
rested in the centre of the auditorium, dwarfed by the vast open space around it.
The emptiness was pregnant with expectation.
Rose felt no regrets. Here she was about to be sacrificed by some barbarian
aliens to one of their primitive deities and all she could think of was that at least
she was dying an interesting death. In fact, it didn’t get more interesting than this.
At least she had not had to suffer a long living-death all alone in some old people’s
condo with only senile citizens to talk to. At least she didn’t have to remember to
take her pills every morning noon and night to keep her calm, or wear water
absorbent underpants, or take flower arranging classes with a bunch of doddering
old ladies who walked around with their dresses caught up in their knickers.
She strained her eyes to see Angelo but couldn’t discern him amongst tier
after tier of grey lizard bodies shuffling and hooting excitedly now as the master
Seesh finished his speech and whizzed his flying disc over to the dignitaries’
platform to signal the commencement of activities.
She thought of the many times she had stood on such a platform next to her
husband while someone gave a speech, and how boring it actually was. She felt
sorry for the Seesh. The hours of having to stand on ceremony, not being able to
go to the toilet, or having something to drink, or resting your tired limbs. An
administrative life was a miserable affair. An endless round of dealing with
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commitments like this one – all the worries of the world on your shoulders – and
you can never do anything right – always criticized for your actions - and yet you
have to keep doing your best for everyone.
Well, at least this seemed to be a crowd pleaser. She felt quite honoured in
a way, to be the focus of such a big event. A celebrity of sorts. It’s not everyday
one is sacrificed to the gods in such style and pomp. And she was not alone. She
had a man who had loved and adored her, and friends that were dearer and closer
to her than her own family. She couldn’t have asked for anything more.
Sweet Mary’s wide eyes and tear stained face looked up expectantly at
Dutch, to see what she was going to do. Whether she had some escape plan up
her sleeve. Whether she would save her again like she’d always done. But she
didn’t see any of these things in Dutch’s face. All she saw was tenderness and
regret, and love and kindness. She saw a woman who was just like her, unarmed
and fragile. A woman who had failed. A woman who was about to die. She put her
hands on either side of Dutch’s apologetic face and smiled at her.
“I love you.” She said, drawing her head close and gently kissing her on the
lips.
Then the three women hugged each other silently as the great gates opened
and a gargantuan serpent glided out onto the sand like a boat ploughing into the
ocean. Its massive forked tongue ran in and out of its mouth tasting the excitement
in the air. Momentarily it lifted its head, and then it picked up the scent of its prey.
It seemed that the smell of human beings, so saturated with their natural odours as
to be unmissable, was interesting to say the least, and the tongue began to flicker
in and out at an accelerated pace. Effortlessly it glided up to the cage and stared
short-sightedly at the occupants. Thankfully Sweet Mary was spared the awful
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sight as she was out once more. Rose just hoped that the snake wouldn’t stick out
its tongue again and lick them. She didn’t think she could stand that.
Satisfied with its inspection, the snake slid past the cage and began to circle
around it with a soft shushing sound as it slithered through the sand. The smooth,
shiny scales, each the size of a gladiators shield, rippled in rows down the length
of its body as it moved. Closer and closer it came to the threesome in their final
embrace, the gigantic coils contracting around the cage and slowly squeezing it
until it finally creaked and cracked open like a nut, and the women tumbled out
onto the dirt.
Dutch was on her feet in a moment, turning to face the snake when a
coruscating beam of blue lightning seared past them and sliced into the snake’s
body, causing it to uncoil from its victims and retreat towards the edge of the
arena. The bewildered women clung to each other as one thunderbolt after the
other slammed into the floor of the arena, forcing the serpent to slither off into its
lair, mayhem and panic erupting amongst the crowds. The Seesh were quickly into
the counter attack, their flying platforms scooting up into the sky, unleashing their
bolts of lightning at the three egg-shaped flying ships that were causing all the
carnage. The battle royale had begun. One of the egg craft, dodging the
detonations, wound its way down to the three women crouching in the sand. Dutch
looked up as the star-bright vehicle approached them and a door in the side
opened. In a blink of an eye she was on her feet and bundling the two women
inside. The door closed and before the girls even realized what was happening,
the noise had ceased and they sank into the cool, soft, luxurious embrace of the
ship.
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The Seesh, with greater numbers and firepower than the enemy, were just
starting to gain the upper hand when the egg-ships beat a hasty retreat towards
the mountains.
Angelo had been beside himself with anxiety while the cage was being
carried into the arena.
“We have to do something.” he said, but by now the crowd was so loud that
Righteous couldn’t hear him anymore. Righteous tightened his grip on Angelo’s
shoulder, not wanting to be separated from him in the crush. The hooting was now
reaching fever pitch but Angelo had no way of knowing what was happening in the
arena because of all the Ahram blocking his view. And there was no way of
pushing in front of them, they were just far too strong. Noot, who stuck to
Righteous like his shadow, started hooting in Righteous’ ear.
“What’s he say?!” Shouted Angelo.
“He says the ceremony has begun.”
Just then Angelo felt the vibrations as the gates in the Arena opened and the
crowd erupted in a fresh wave of hooting.
“What’s happening?” Called Angelo, hoping that Righteous’ height gave him
some advantage. Righteous just shrugged.
“If only I had my gun.” He said, and the words were hardly out of his mouth
when an explosion detonated right in front of them. Rocks and debris flew
everywhere and the Ahram surged back in panic to try and escape. Angelo and
Righteous fought like demons to stay together and not get trampled underfoot. In a
matter of moments they found themselves alone at the rim of the arena, part of the
wall ahead of them broken down where the explosion had struck. Out in the centre
he saw a thunderous battle taking place between three flying eggs and the Seesh
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on their platforms. He also caught a glimpse of the women kneeling in the dust,
seemingly still alive, and the enormous tail of a snake retreating into its den.
“Jump.” Shouted Angelo, dragging Righteous into the breach in the wall. “It’s
only about fifteen feet down to the floor. Jump if you want to come with me. I’m
going to help the girls.”
Righteous felt for the lip of the wall.
“Over here?” he asked.
“Yes.”
They jumped almost simultaneously with Noot not far behind. Angelo was
first on his feet, dragging at Righteous’ arm and sprinting across the arena towards
the women. They had covered about half the distance when one of the eggs
descended and landed close to the three huddled women.
“Come on. Faster.” Yelled Angelo and they redoubled their efforts.
When he looked up again the women were climbing into the strange flying
craft and he ran until it felt as if his heart was going to burst. But they were still
twenty yards away when the egg closed its hatch and took off under a hail of fire
from the Seesh. Angelo skidded to a halt on his hands and knees and dragged in
painful breath after breath into his burning lungs.
“It’s too late.” he said. “They’ve taken off.”
“Noot says they have been taken by the female Ahram from the tunnels in
the mountain.”
Suddenly the ground beneath them erupted, knocking them backwards off
their feet as the serpent surged up out of the jagged hole and into the sky,
reaching for the departing ship with its bared fangs and missing it by a hairs
breadth. Rocks and clods of soil rained down upon them as the snake stood
upright, a full hundred metres above the ground, and flicked its tongue longingly
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after the departing craft. Cheated of its prey it subsided reluctantly to the ground
and turned its attention on the two humans.
“Run.” Shouted Angelo, not for the first time on this journey, and the three of
them ran like hell for the open gate in the arena’s walls.
Everything went fine for the first few hundred yards, then it suddenly turned
pitch dark as the serpent entered the tunnel behind them and blocked out all the
light. Angelo, unable to see, ran straight into the wall and sagged to his knees in a
daze, unable to rise again. Noot hooted urgently and Righteous stopped and
scrabbled around until he found Angelo. Then, lifting him up under his arm he set
off at a blistering pace. The snake, angry at being denied its supper, and hurting
from the wound in its side, surged after them.
All Righteous’ other senses came into sharp play now as he expertly
navigated down the winding tunnel. Behind him he heard the snake dislodging
stones and crushing boulders, grinding its way down the passage after them.
Once again the tunnel angled steeply downward, turning their journey into a
slip-sliding, stumbling sort of business. Down they went, deeper and deeper – and
colder and colder it got, and slower and slower moved poor Noot, the chill
gradually shutting down his reptilian metabolism. Righteous slung a muscled arm
around him as well and resumed their pell-mell journey.
The cavern was lit by a solitary spur of bone that stuck out over a deep pit,
like the plank on a pirate’s ship, illuminating everything with a soft ghostly white
glow. Angelo, somewhat recovered, looked anxiously over his shoulder, expecting
to see the snake at any moment. He realized that the only reason they were still
alive was that the snake was also a reptile and the cold had also slowed it down
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appreciably. He looked down into the misty pit and saw what he thought to be
millions of large pebbles. It took a minute or two for him to realize that it was in
fact thousands upon thousands of hibernating Ahram, lying in row after row upon
the floor. And it also became apparent that these Ahram were all women.
Noot hooted feebly in Righteous’ arms, barely able to stay awake.
“Noot.” Said Noot in explanation.
“He says these are the dreamers.”
“Noot.” he said again.
“He says the females are brought into this cold and forced into hibernation.”
“Why.” Asked Angelo, quite perplexed that they should do something like this
on such a large scale. “To keep them quiet?”
Again Noot hooted feebly.
“He says the males then harvest their dreams. He says they capture the
dreamer’s songs in that bone structure. It concentrates the power of the dreamers
and conducts it to the crosiers. It is also this power which they will use to fly their
warship.”
A long sibilant hiss behind them signalled the arrival of their doom.
Instinctively the three edged their way further out onto the spur of bone. Tendrils of
white mist rose up from the pit and tenderly touched their feet as they moved
closer to the point.
Then they were falling into nothingness.
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“Hello Ladies. It isn’t often I get three lovely naked women delivered to my
doorstep.” He could see immediately that his attempt at humour had fallen flat on
its face.
The women stared at him with conflicting emotions shooting across their
faces. Firstly their amazement that there was another human being on the planet,
and secondly that he was a strange male and they were nude.
“I’ll see if I can find you something to wear.” he said and left the room
quickly.
“Who is that?” Whispered Sweet Mary.
“I don’t know.” Said Rose, close to tears. “But right now I’m worried about
Angelo and Righteous. What do you think has happened to them?”
“They’ll be alright.” said Dutch. “Those two can look after themselves.” She
said, giving her a hug.
“I don’t know.” said Rose. “Angelo’s a bit of a softie for all his macho
posturing.”
“They’ll be fine. They might even be here somewhere close to us.” Said
Dutch.
“But where are we?” Asked Sweet Mary.
”In the mountains.” Said the strange man, who had returned and was holding
out some skins for them. He had his eyes closed now, and turned his back the
moment they took they garments from him.
“This is where the women live…the few that managed to escape.” He spoke
while the three girls were getting themselves presentable. “The rest are being held
captive in the village…some for breeding purposes, the others are dreamers.”
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“How do you know all this? And where do you come from? And why are you
here?” Asked Rose. “And what happened to the other two men that were there
with us? Our friends?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know where they are, but I’m sure we’ll find them.” He said.
“These….women,” he said for want of a better word to describe the female lizards,
“…are very resourceful.”
“We call them Ahram.” Said Dutch pragmatically. “Sounds better than lizard.
Lizards can’t do what they do anyway, so technically….” She stopped, realizing
she was just talking for the sake of it.
“Where are they anyway?” Asked Dutch.
“They thought it would be better if I greeted you alone. They weren’t sure if
they would frighten you, given your recent experience with liz…Ahram. But I
suppose now you would rather have a wash and something to eat.”
Dutch eyed him for a moment, not quite sure whether to trust him….or her
eyes….or what.
“Yeah, sure. That’d be great.” She said.
“I won’t be long.” Said the strange man and turned to leave. “Oh. My name’s
Eric by the way. Eric the ore-miner.”
“How-do-you-do.” Said Dutch. “I’m Dutch, this is Rose, and this is Sweet
Mary.”
“Pleased to meet you all. I won’t be long.” And with that he left.
For the first time the women were able to look around and take in their
surroundings. They were in a small, but very cosy rock chamber. Standing on a
pedestal in the centre was another of those shrines with the carved dragon they
had come across when they first encountered the ice. It made the room warm and
light.
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“Do you think it was these women that set up those shrines?” Asked Rose,
putting two and two together.
“Could be.” Said Dutch. “But I’m more interested in those flying eggs. Maybe
we can use them to rescue Angelo and Righteous.”
They stopped talking then as the man re-entered with a large bowl of
steaming water.
“Would it be alright if the Ahram brought in the other bowls? You won’t be
freaked out by them will you?”
“No, it’s alright. We’re not scared of them.”
“Okay.” He said, and instantly three females entered carrying more bowls of
hot water and several skins. “This is Genneta, she’s their leader you’d say.”
“Hello.” Said Dutch, and Rose and Sweet Mary echoed her greeting.
Genneta opened her mouth and a beautiful melody bubbled from her lips. It
was such a shock for the women, who were expecting an unmelodious ‘hoot’, that
they didn’t know what to say.
“She says ‘welcome’.” Said Eric the ore-miner.
“And thank you very much for rescuing us.” Said Dutch, being the first to
regain her composure.
Again there was a tinkling melody, like a waterfall on a sunny afternoon.
“She says it’s a pleasure…..or something close to that. The music says
much more than I can put in words.”
”And she understands you? Us?”
“Yes. She has learnt our language over many years of study.”
“You’ve been here years?”
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“No. Not me. She’s a dreamer.” He explained. “Like all the Ahram women.
She has learnt the language from the trips she, and others, have made to Earth in
their dreams. They’ve been studying us for a long time”
The three human women just stared at him, trying to absorb this information.
“But it’s a long story. For now it’s best to make use of the water while it’s still
warm. Food will be brought shortly.” Then he and the three Ahram women
withdrew to give them some privacy.”
“Well I never.” Said Rose.
“They look so cute.” Said Sweet Mary.
N
Angelo looked around them unbelievingly. The brown wooden walls of the
little shack looked horribly familiar. And then there was the smell. He’d never forget
that odorous sulphur smell.
Righteous put out his hand and gingerly touched the wall.
“Home sweet home.” He said. We are back where we started…you and I.”
“So what do we do now?” Asked Angelo
”I don’t know.”
“Can’t we teleport back the way we came?”
“That is not possible, and not desirable. Remember the snake. Anyway, we
do not have the power. The dreamers gave us the power to come here. But
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now…” Righteous shrugged. “Perhaps I could – on my own. But you are not
suitable for such a journey.”
“Thanks.” Said Angelo, half facetiously.
“On the other hand, I cannot go without you – so…”
Angelo stared into space while he tried to think of what to do.
“We could alert the Federation…tell them what’s happened.” Suggested
Angelo. “They would send out a rescue party.”
“I fear that would take too long. They will be cautious…and there will be
many questions.” Said Righteous. “They will not believe us until it is too late.”
“Then we must find a spaceship.”
“Noot.” Piped in a familiar voice in agreement.
Before Angelo could comment on that fact there was a banging at the door
of the hut.
“How long you gonna be in there. There are other people out here you
know. Just like a bloody man…hogging all the action.”
Automatically Angelo turned and opened the door.
“About time. You’ve been in there for ages. There are other people waiting
their turn you know.” Angelo got the shock of his life. It was the woman with the
peacock feather in her hat and the absurd sunglasses. For a full thirty seconds he
could only but stare at her, dumbfounded, his mouth hanging wide open.
“I said, you’ve been in there for ages. Give someone else a turn you selfish
sod.”
Angelo turned and looked at the row of faces lining the cliff edge. There
was no doubt about it. It was the same group of people he had come with. This
was much more than coincidence.
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He turned to Righteous for an explanation, but no words came to his lips.
Righteous however was way ahead of him.
“I told you we were back where we started. Literally.” he said. “Everything
has happened and nothing has happened. We have completed our journey and we
have not yet begun. We are back at the beginning again when you first stepped
into this hut. No time has passed. And yet, even when it is all over, it will always
be the same moment as now.”
“Do you mean that I imagined it all? The girls, Rose, going through the
wormhole in that spaceship, the planet…the ice?”
“Well. You did and you didn’t. It depends on what you believe.”
“But what about Rose and Dutch and Sweet Mary? They’re real aren’t they?”
Said Angelo who was getting seriously worried about his sanity. “You gotta give
me a straw to cling to.”
“Once again. It depends on what you believe…but yes. They are real.”
“And they’re still there…on that planet?
“I believe so…yes.” Said Righteous with a slightly ironic twist of his mouth.
“But, if we are back at the beginning, that means we haven’t even met them
yet. They’ll be here as well….somewhere.”
“When you two are finished talking crap, can we get on with it? The rest of
us have lives to lead you know.” Said the obnoxious lady, swaying somewhat
precariously on the little bridge in front of the hut.
“What do we do then?” Asked Angelo.
“What do you think we should do? This is your story.”
Without a second thought he answered. “I think we should find a spaceship.”
He said and turned to the obnoxious lady once more. “Please move back so I can
get out.”
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The obnoxious lady, with much haranguing, had to back up across the
rickety little bridge and onto dry land. Angelo was close on her toes, followed by
Righteous.
“Hey! Where are you going.” She asked Righteous, outrage in her voice.
“What about my turn?”
“I am afraid I have to go.” Said Righteous. But they hardly heard what he
said. Everyone was staring in wide eyed horror at Noot who had emerged into the
light. Even the obnoxious woman was shocked into silence for a moment
“What about us?” She continued bravely, hardly able to drag her eyes away
from the lizard creature. “What about me?”
“I am sorry. I have to go now. But one of the others will take my place.” Said
Righteous.
“That is unacceptable.” She said, but Righteous had already walked past her
and began talking to the Getham priest. Then he beckoned to Angelo and they
turned to go.
“Not much of a prophet, are you?” She shouted after them. “You’re just a
fake. I knew it…” She shouted louder now, the hysteria growing in her voice.
Righteous kept on walking, the other two tagging on behind, bowing their heads
and trying to get away from the woman as fast as they could.
“MY BABY DIED.” She shouted and her whole face seemed to collapse in
on itself. She just stood there, suppressed sobs wracking her body. She took off
her sunglasses and her eyes were red and bruised from constant weeping. “My
Baby’s dead.” She said plaintively.
Righteous turned around and came back to the woman. He took both her
hands in his and spoke in a deep soothing voice.
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“I feel your pain.” he said. “But you cannot bring back the dead. You must go
home. There is nothing I can do for you. There is nothing anyone can do for you.”
He put his hand gently under her chin and lifted her face. “You must go home. You
must go home and grieve for a week. Then you must put it all behind you and
begin your life again, for I see many more children standing beside you. They are
waiting for you.”
The women stared up into his blind face…tears running down her cheeks.
She tried to speak, but words failed her and she closed her mouth again.
“You go home now.” he said gently. “And do what I said.”
With that he turned and marched off into the darkness.
N
We watched the arrival of the five humans accompanied by the lizard-men
and followed their progress through the tunnels. At a strategic point Genneta and
the girls set an ambush to rescue them but it all ended horribly for the female
lizards. Two of them were killed and we failed to rescue any of the humans. I have
seldom seen such ferocity in battle, even amongst wild animals back on earth.
They hated these men with a vengeance. And me being a male (of sorts), was not
particularly welcomed in the beginning. Now I’ve been here a couple of months
and participated in their raids, they’re getting to trust me more.
Anyway, I think she likes me fairly well. I’m the first male she’s ever known,
having lived her whole life in these tunnels. But their numbers are diminishing with
no children to replace them.
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Genneta loves listening to me talk about the earth and tell her stories. She
says she still visits there sometimes when she sleeps, but we do little enough of
that at the moment, because ever since we rescued the three humans from the
snake, the Seesh have been making ever deeper forays into the mountain tunnels
to try and wheedle us out, so we all sleep lightly and are ready to move in an
instant.
As an Ahram she is exquisitely beautiful. For any kind of creature she is
beautiful. She has long thin hands with delicately tapering fingers, and a shapely
body. I’ve been with her for so long now, and I have got so used to her that it’s
hard to see her as an alien creature. Especially when she so often appears as an
earth angel in her dreaming body. She has gathered up my heart and soul and I
am completely entranced by her. I am not quite sure how much she likes me in
return, being no angel, and an alien, and a man to boot. Or hoot as they do. But
she is very kindly and spends long hours with me, discussing strategy and filling
me in on the rest of their story. She is particularly fond of the human women
though and they are slowly learning to understand her song as I did.
“Why do the women hate the men so much?” Asked Rose.
“I’d have to tell you the story from the beginning.” I said.
“As long as it’s not too long.” Said Dutch. “Those bastards are due for
another attack soon.”
“It’s not very long.” I said. She was a good person to have on our team.
Dutch was more capable than most men I knew, but without the ego problems of
having to be the boss.
“Well, this planet’s been disaster ridden to say the least. Long time ago their
sun started dying and their world got colder and colder until all the Ahram, men
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and women, were forced into hibernation…and of course, ultimate death when the
planet should finally freeze.
Then they had a lucky break. According to their myth, there is a dragon
sleeping in the sky and she awoke to lay a giant cosmic egg in the sky that began
to shine as brightly as the sun. This came just in time to save a large portion of the
Ahram, who awoke as the egg-sun warmed their world and it started coming back
to life. For many thousands of years they prospered as the baby dragon continued
to grow within the egg and give them heat and light.
Then disaster struck for the second time. By pure chance a comet, cutting
across their solar system, smashed into the egg with the baby dragon inside. It
ripped through the egg, completely destroying it and killing the baby dragon.
The comet, now imbued with all the power from the egg’s life-force,
proceeded to tear a hole in the fabric of space and time, and created a wormhole,
which, once again by sheer chance, came out in our galaxy back home.
Millions died during the sudden ice age, others survived by digging tunnels
deep into the warm heart of the planet and coming up to feed every few weeks,
either on the bio-spores in the sand once the vegetation had disappeared or to
collect manna which now fell instead of rain. Of course, as it grew colder, they
spent long periods of time hibernating and it was during this stage that the women
became consummate dreamers. The men lacked the discipline needed to
concentrate for so long. The women could travel anywhere they wished in their
dreaming form. They even eventually travelled down the wormhole and that was
how they discovered the earth.
Anyway. The dead baby dragon carcass, now freed from its egg-shell,
orbited this world for many centuries until it finally plunged to the ground. Here was
a new source of food for the Ahram. The dragon was preserved in the cold for a
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short while, but the residual dragon-energy in the bones caused the meat to
decompose and rot.
It was the bones that finally saved them though. You’ve seen it all over the
place, they use it for heat and light. Those curved pillars in the valley are the
dragon ribs…and the heat of its bones is what’s keeping the valley alive.
One Ahram female discovered that the bones had more than just heat and
light to offer. They contained immense power. She found that if she was in her
dreaming body, she could make the bones do anything she wanted….fly….even
fire bolts of energy. All she had to do was direct her intent with her song. In other
words they sing to the bones. Of course when this became common knowledge
the men started making plans. The bones, being dead, weren’t going to last
forever. Eventually their power would dissipate. Even so, although they would
support life for many thousands of years yet, this valley is too small to sustain life if
there was a crisis or epidemic.
So the men set about devising a way to make a spaceship that would take
them through the wormhole to this planet the women had found, Earth. In the
beginning the women agreed to help the men build and fly the craft, until they
realized the men were also building massive weapons that they were intending to
use to take over the earth by force and kill all the humans. The females refused to
go along with the scheme and stopped working on the project. They had come to
like the earth people, often taking on their human forms and interacting with them
in their dreams.
Of course the men wouldn’t take no for an answer. They rounded up most
the women and took them down to the bottom of the snake pit. The large worm,
which became the guardian of the women, had apparently been there since the
dragon had fallen to earth, and had grown up feasting on its flesh. After that time
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the Seesh sacrificed a female Ahram every so often to keep its appetite under
control.
The women were forced into hibernation by the extreme coldness of the
cavern, and their dreams were captured and contained in the hyoid bone of the
dead dragon.
This bone, which they call the talking bone, in such close proximity to the
sleeping women, imprisoned their dreams and harvested their song. The men then
fashioned twelve Croziers from the base of this bone, and these acted as power
conduits, allowing them take control of the bones and make them do what they
wanted. With these Croziers they would be able to fly their ship and power the
weapons they had made for the destruction of humanity.
The ship is very near to completion now. They’ve had to work fast because
they discovered that the wormhole is closing. They have only a few weeks left to
make their attempt.”
The grey stone walls stretched and vibrated with the shock of an explosion.
“Here we go.” I said. “They’ve found us.”
Within seconds we were hurrying down the tunnel. The Ahram women were
well prepared and practised in a swift orderly retreat. No panic. No waste of time.
The three human women were on the move before they even knew it, helped
along by the Ahram who were carrying the supplies.
Then we were winding through the never ending tunnels with explosions
reverberating around the caverns as the Seesh unleashed bolts of ball lightning
that ran down the tunnels, bouncing off the walls and hunting down anyone in their
path.
We moved deeper into the bowels of the mountain.
222
l
m
Chapter 9 - Revenge
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“Hello sweet-heart.” She greeted Angelo with a broad smile. “Change your
mind did you? Oh, oh, oh,“ she said admiringly. “And who’s your friend?” Her eyes
were goggling out of their sockets at Righteous. “And isn’t he a big boy.” She said
hoiking up her boobs to best effect, her eyes bright with possibilities, his eyes as
blind as the night. It was then she caught sight of Noot mooching around behind
Righteous. “Oh my dear Jesus what is that?”
“Oh. Don’t worry about him. He’s a friend.”
“He’s also damn ugly.” She said. “At least he could put some pants on. He
be scaring off the customers.”
“Belle, I’d like you to meet Righteous Alchemy. He’s the Prophet I was
looking for.”
“So you’re the Prophet huh? Well there doesn’t seem to be much profit in
being a prophet. Ha ha.” She said, eyeing their dilapidated clothes. “You two look
like bums. I could lend you a couple of dresses if you like. And what’s with the
lizard. Jesus. What’s he? Some kinda new pet? Why don’t you get a poodle? I
shouldn’t even be seen with you lot you know. Give me a bad reputation.”
“We need your help, Belle.”
“Stop saying my name like it’ll win you the jackpot.”
“We got some girls in trouble.”
“You don’t say.” She said, smiling cynically and chewing noisily on her piece
of gum.
“Not like that. They’re in trouble and we need to recue them.”
“Yeah. You guys are always trying to rescue us girls. Thanks, but no thanks.
This is the gift I got from the last guy tried to rescue me.” She pointed to a scar on
her cheek. She turned away from them and stared into her drink thoughtfully. It
had obviously brought back some memories.
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“Got lots to be thankful for though. I’ve lived longer than most girls on this
station. But sooner or later though something’s gonna get you. Drugs, disease, or
some dumb-ass bully boy beating the crap outa you. But I’m philosophic about it
you know. Que Sera, Sera.”
“But why do you settle for this?” Asked Angelo, knowing full well it was a
stupid question.
“What else can I do? Got a place to stay, nice clothes – enough to eat. Best
I can hope is some nice guy like you comes along and falls in love with me and
takes me away from all this. Ha ha. Joke.”
“Who knows?”
“Yeah? Don’t start with your crap. Giving a girl hope. You guys are all the
same. All sweetness and light until you get what you want and then the next thing
you know we’re back on the barstool. But,” She added, trying to remain positive,
for she wasn’t a morbid person. “I got nothing to complain about really.”
“Maybe we can help each other?”
“Now where have I heard that before?” She said with a smile. “You really
are a newbie, ain’t you?” She looked towards the bar. “You buy me a drink?”
Angelo, Righteous and Noot just stood silently in front of her, looking like the
survivors of a shipwreck.
“Didn’t think so.” She said. “Damn, why do I always get the bums without
any bread? Oh well. It’s a slow day, and I could do with a bit of company.” She
rootled around in her purse. “What’ll you have?”
“Whiskey.” Said Angelo before he had time to control his mouth. “Dear Lord
yes, I would like a whiskey.”
“And the Prophet? What you want sweetie? He’s not deaf as well is he?”
She said, stroking Righteous’ big bicep admiringly.
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“Thank you for your kind offer. Although I have never had one, I too would
like a ‘whiskey’.” Answered Righteous.
“Hoo boy. You’re in for a treat. Long as you don’t get ugly when you’re
drunk, ‘cause you’re a very big boy, with very big muscles….hubba hubba.
Barman! set ‘em up.”
Angelo let the whiskey sink its way to the bottom of his stomach and
languished in the spreading glow of its warmth. Soon it infused into his blood and
brain and the world took on a more cheerful aspect. He watched with amusement
as Belle nibbled on Righteous’ earlobe. It was such an innocuous sight. He was
amazed that Righteous even allowed her to do that, making him wonder if he was
even aware of her attentions. There were no indications in his normal deadpan
expression.
By the fifth drink she was sitting on Righteous’ lap, him looking strangely
calm and composed, and her snuggled against his chest as she listened to
Angelo’s story. After three hours and many whiskies later she was nearly in tears
over the plight of the three women left behind on the alien planet.
“We have to do something about them.” She said. Angelo was amazed that
anyone actually believed his story. However, she had had a lot to drink which went
a long way to promoting the credibility of their tale, and then there was the fact that
she had taken to Righteous in a very heartfelt manner. She obviously went for the
strong silent type. Angelo suspected Righteous might actually be enjoying her
attentions.
“We have to do something.” She said again.
“I know.” Said Angelo. “But we don’t know what. How do we get back
there?”
226
“I have a plan.” Said Belle, grandly waving a drunken arm at the universe.
“Why don’t we hire a taxi?” She said with a ‘aren’t I a clever girl’ look on her face.
For a moment this seemed a very reasonable suggestion until Angelo had
time to think it through.
“I don’t think a taxi-driver is going to take us through the wormhole. Not for
all the tea in Chinasia.”
“Oh, oh, oh, I know. I know.“ Said Belle bouncing up and down on
Righteous’ knee. “I know someone who might take us. Well….for a price.”
“What sort of price?” Asked Angelo. “We don’t have a penny between us
and you don’t look like a millionaire.”
“Well, maybe you’re right. I have some money……..but……..”
“Take us to him.” Said Righteous, suddenly speaking for the first time in an
hour. Belle got such a surprise from his deep voice suddenly reverberating in her
ear that she nearly fell off his lap.
“I suppose so. Sure. He’s not too far away and I reck’n I got enough for cabfare. But….” She said, tugging at the remains of Righteous’ bio-suit, “…we gotta
get you some clothes first. And a bath.” She hopped off onto her feet and grabbed
Righteous’ hand.
“Come on. Let’s get you decent.” She said and set off through the crowd.
Angelo staggered after them and Noot followed suit. As they passed the
stage, Angelo wondered briefly what had happened to the horsey lady and hoped
she was okay.
“This way, my fine stallion.” Belle said to Righteous who seemed to swim
through the sea of people quite effortlessly, an arm around Belle’s waist to make
sure she wasn’t jostled or inconvenienced in any way. Angelo wondered if
Righteous even knew that he was in love. What a strange fellow.
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Belle had some boiler suits hanging in the hall closet and laid them out on
her bed while Righteous and Angelo were busy in the Sani-unit. While she waited,
she looked around the room. She had lived here for over two years and it seemed
like she was noticing it for the first time. Just as well Righteous was blind. If he
could see how she lived…..
She saw her life as other people would see it. The wallpaper torn and
mouldy, damp patches spreading up from the floor, unrecognizable stains on the
threadbare, dusty old carpet…not to mention the crumpled, grimy, grey sheets and
their assortment of stains and colours. Sure, her clients weren’t there for the décor,
and anyway, she always had the lights turned down low, but still, surely it had not
always been this bad? Sordid was the word that came to mind. Things had just
gotten slowly worse and she hadn’t noticed her gradual decline into degradation,
like the ring of grime that collects around the rim of the bath. After a while you just
don’t get it clean anymore.
She was better than this. She’d always thought she was better than the other
whores, that this was only temporary. But while she slept, it seems, things had just
gotten older and uglier. Herself included. She was nineteen years old now and
over the hill. No more taking the pick of the crop. Recently she’d had to accept any
old pervert for peanuts and do things she wouldn’t have dreamt of doing years
ago. She suddenly realized how close to rock bottom she was. No wonder she had
agreed to go with these men so readily. It was like she had been thrown a lifeline.
No matter how cock-eyed their story, a chance like this comes along never in a
lifetime. They accepted her, and liked her…and more importantly, they needed her
help. ‘Oh dear god’ she thought. ‘Please do not let me screw this one up.’
228
She looked around the room and noticed Noot. The creature sat to one side,
watching her with kindly eyes. ‘Poor thing’. She did her best not to pull a face
every time she saw him.
“Shame. I suppose you miss your family and your planet too?” She said.
“Noot.” Came the response.
“But really. We have to try and find some clothes that’ll fit. I know I am
accustomed to seeing men’s genitals on a regular basis, but seriously – this is a
bit in your face – even for me.”
“Noot.” he replied contritely.
“Here, try this.” She said, holding a loose coverall-cum-apron out to him.
“Noot.” he said, quite baffled by what she wanted of him.
“Let me show you.” She said, holding the suit open for him. “Put your leg in
here.” And she patted his thigh and tried to lift his leg into the suit, at which point
he overbalanced and they both ended up on the floor. They were scrambling to
their feet as Righteous and Angelo came into the room….quite naked.
Belle thought she was going to have an aneurism and had to breathe slowly
and deeply for a few seconds to stop from passing out. Her colour changed to a
blanched white, and then to a deep musky crimson as she tried to find something
else to do with her eyes. Righteous of course was completely oblivious of all this
and stood there in all his magnificent glory, waiting patiently as per usual.
Belle all but threw their coveralls at them and rushed into the Sani to try and
regain her equilibrium and decorum. Angelo patted Righteous on the arm.
“I don’t know if you know it, but I think you have an admirer there.”
“Noot.” Said Noot.
229
N
He watched the tiny flare of rockets as the ship reversed thrust to slow
down.
It was definitely coming his way. Nothing else within 20,000 miles. He
clambered over a pile of junk, kicking a clutch assembly irritably out of the way,
and headed for the control room. It took him a while to find the com-link amongst
the debris on the desk.
“Hello incoming shuttle. Please state your Federation I.D. and business.”
His thumb flicked the safety caps off the firing buttons of three howitzers on
the approach side, or to call them by their generic name, Rail-guns. Nasty little
brutes they were. A Rail-gun was a pneumatic pump gun that threw a five pound
chunk of metal at the rate of five hundred per second at two thousand miles per
hour. Cumbersome and slow, but it takes only one projectile to disable any ship
smaller than a cruiser. Trouble is, once that hail of metal is unleashed into the
universe, it doesn’t stop until it hits something. And not even then does it stop.
“This is Cora Charter here. I.D. on its way. Got a couple of people here say
they want to see you.”
“Why?”
“Apparently they have need of your services.”
“How many?”
“Well, three people and a very big lizard.”
Junkyard Sam was intrigued. His curiosity seemed to get the better of his
natural mistrust.
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“Hokay. Sending co-ordinates and vectors. Just follow the runner beam.
Docking-door will be lit up like a Christmas tree. If you damage my station I will
remove your genitals with a claw hammer.”
It was a large, slow moving asteroid in the worked-out sector of the ore-belt
with debris drifting in its wake like a comet tail. Not the normal debris of rocks, ice
and dust, but wrecked hulks of spaceships, bulkheads, tanks, engines and
assorted scrap metals all tagging on behind, gently rotating in the heat and cold of
space.
In the centre of this junk spun an old space-station wheel, discarded by the
Amerigoes when it had became too expensive to maintain as a supply station and
defend against pirates and raiders. On it there was a sign saying “SAM’S
JUNKYARD” And in smaller letters, “TRESPASSERS WILL BE VAPOURIZED”.
There were several craft docked to the rim of the wheel, all in varying stages
of incompleteness – except for a black, cigar shaped missile with red flames and
the name TARTARUS painted on the side. It was basically just one giant rocket
with a cockpit mounted on the front.
The inside of the slowly revolving station-wheel was more chaotic than the
outside. Thousands of old ship and engine parts were stacked in trays, shelves
and boxes along the floors and walls. These had obviously been lovingly
scavenged over many, many years. There were four separate workshops on board
with different tools and equipment for different jobs, each murkier than the next,
and of course the living quarters, which were the murkiest of all…in every sense of
the word.
There was old grease, rust, and black dirt of an indeterminate nature on
every visible surface. Everything was filthy and caked with grunge. The smell of old
231
oil assaulted the sinuses the moment one came on board. All except for Sam. He’d
stopped smelling things years ago. He was even dirtier than his junkyard, with
flaming red hair and rotten teeth from eating too many space-cookies. He had big
ugly blackhead craters on his bulbous red nose and thin beady red eyes beneath
fiery ginger eyebrows. People found it hard to look him in the face. People found it
hard to look at him at all in fact. He had a clawed and coiling tattoo running up his
muscled arms and shoulders, culminating in a dragons head on the side of his
neck…seemingly whispering forever some devilish plot in his ear. The predominant
colours were black and red, much like the ‘Tartarus’ outside.
The first leg that stepped through the hatch was slim and shapely and wore
high heel shoes and sheer nylon. Nevertheless Sam kept the laser pistol pointed
unwaveringly at the new arrivals. Hijackers came in all shapes and sizes. Women
who frequented places like this could be more dangerous than men. The rest of
the lady came through the door and wrinkled her nose at the smell. She was also
very careful not to touch anything. The next leg through was the size of a tree
trunk and cause for some concern. Sam stepped back to give it plenty of room. He
waited till they were all in and keyed the hatch shut.
“Well, well, well. Oh me. What a pretty sight. You folks sure strange mix ‘n
match. Say nothing of the lizard fella.”
After that there was a standing stare-off for about five minutes while both
sides tried to take the measure of the other. Junkyard Sam was no man to inspire
trust or confidence in anyone. And Angelo’s ragtag of misfits and aliens were
equally inscrutable.
“Well, well, well. Oh me. “He said again. “So you interest in services? What
services they be?”
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Angelo pulled himself together.
“We need to hire you and your ship.” His ship was fairly well known in the
betting circles on G.O.D. 4. Which was how Belle had come to know about it. It
was probably the fastest Scout-class ship in the solar system. People made more
money out of his race victories than he did, which was why he lived in this dump.
But that was the way of the world.
“Is that so?” He said. “Hokay. You step in office and we talk.”
The little office-kiosk was in no better state than the rest of the ship. Torn
and filthy ledgers and note books littered the stained and battered grey steel desk
in the centre. Hardly legible receipts and bills were impaled on a rusty spike in one
corner, a cracked yellow plastic intercom-cum-phone in the other corner, bits of
scram-belt, rotary fan blades and fuel pumps mingled with a baked bean can that
served as an ashtray and a coffee mug with ‘Happy Father’s Day’ printed on the
side. There was also a bottle of some green looking stuff with a cork in it that
could have been either for drinking or for degreasing some engine part or other.
Probably both.
“So. What on your mind?” He said staring unabashedly at Belle’s boobs.
“Well I know what you got in mind but you ain’t getting any.” She said,
rearranging them to best advantage.
“We want to hire you to take us somewhere.” Said Angelo.
“This is junkyard if you notice. Why don’t you take taxi? They go most
place.”
“We need you to take us down the wormhole.”
Sam stopped speaking for so long it looked like he had solidified in mid air,
like most of the grease around here.
“You not enough money.”
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“We don’t have any money.”
“Sound better and better.” He grinned at Belladonna with a certain
eagerness in his bearing.
“So?” He asked lasciviously.
“So you can forget about that for a start. You don’t have enough money for
that. Not if you worked your whole life.” Said Belle, hanging onto Righteous’ arm.
“Drink?” Asked Sam, uncorking the bottle and pouring the oily fluid into his
cup.
“No thanks.” She said, and shivered at the thought. Angelo also shook his
head although Sam had cast him nary a glance.
“So what you got? You gotta have something, else you wouldn’a come.”
“I can tell you where Eric is.” Said Righteous out of the blue.
Sam almost didn’t hear what he said. He took a few more sips while the
import of the words penetrated his brain. News like that was hard to hear and too
good to be believed.
“You got big talk mister black and blind. What you say about Eric?” His face
softened into a cunning, cruel leer. Eric. The name made his heartbeat thump with
unaccustomed excitement.
“What you know? I don’t think you know nothing.” He said louder.
“He’s the Prophet.” Said Belle. “He knows.”
“I know you want to find him.” Said Righteous. “And I know where he is.”
Sam stared blankly at Righteous, not knowing which way to turn from his
emotions.
Belle leaned her head lovingly on Righteous’ arm and stroked his bicep
tenderly. “This is so romantic.” She said.
“If you help us, we take you to him.” Said Righteous.
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Junkyard Sam looked as if he was being torn apart inside by wild horses.
His normally ruddy face had taken a darker, more passionate hue. His nose blazed
like a beacon.
“If you mess with me I do bad tings with you.” He whispered the threat like
the echo of an avalanche about to break free.
“He don’t mess. He’s the Prophet. He knows everything.” Said Belle, stroking
his arm lovingly.
Junkyard Sam contemplated the offer for a mere nano-second.
“What I have to do?”
N
“Dutch I can’t go on any more.” Cried Sweet Mary in tears, and stopped to
lean against the wall. Rose slumped to a halt next to her.
“Me too.” She said, red in the face and sweating heavily. She had lost all
heart and motivation to save herself. She just didn’t care. If Angelo was dead, and
no-one knew anything about him or Righteous, then she saw no point in carrying
on. She gave Sweet Mary a hug.
“I think we’ll just wait here till they find us.” Said Rose, looking around for a
place to sit. The Ahram women trilled urgently at them.
“We got to keep moving.” I said.
“Where to? Where are we going? Are we just going to keep running
forever?” Said Rose. But Genneta and her girls had had enough of this dithering
and Sweet Mary and Rose were lifted bodily and carried through the tunnels at a
run. Dutch and I were now hard pressed to keep up with them. Well, to tell the
truth, I was more hard pressed than Dutch. God, that woman was tireless.
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Then one of those lighting balls zoomed past us overhead, scorching the air
as it went. Our little party skidded to a halt and watched as the ball came to a turn
in the tunnel and stopped there, twirling and twining and hovering ominously about
six foot off the ground as if it was looking for us. Then it smashed into the wall
ahead and the explosion knocked us off our feet. But it had opened a new tunnel
and when we had managed to regain our feet we climbed in over the shattered
shards of rock littering the floor.
Within minutes though we saw the foolishness of our idea. The tunnel began
to narrow and soon we were crawling along on all fours. Much easier of course for
the Lizard ladies than for us, but our progress was painfully slow. Sweet Mary was
obviously at the end of her tether and sobbing non-stop.
“Come on sweetie.” Dutch whispered in her ear. “Don’t think of anything
except my voice in your ear. We’re nearly through. I can feel a breeze coming from
up ahead so I know it’s not too far. Just keep on wiggling with me. That’s the girl.”
Dutch cooed and coerced and all but dragged her along with her voice across the
rough rock floor.
By now we were wriggling along on our backs with the weight of the
mountain pressing closer all the time. Even I was starting to panic a little and if it
wasn’t for Dutch talking Sweet Mary through her fears, I think I would have lost it
too. Soon I had to turn my head sideways to avoid scraping my nose. A very
disconcerting feeling. The spaces were getting so small I feared for a big lady like
Rose getting stuck, for by the sounds of pursuit, there was no going back, and
there seemed to be no way of going forwards.
Then we were free, scrambling up a hill of scree and rocks and into a small
cavern. Small in fact, it being merely a widening of the tunnel at this point, but to
us it seemed the size of a ballroom. We all sat down, wheezing and sobbing,
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blinded by the dust and sweat stinging in our eyes. One of the Ahram women was
already doing the rounds with a water-skin, giving everyone a small sip of the
deliciously cool liquid. I’m not a great water man myself, but nothing has ever
tasted better…before or since.
Then, suitably refreshed, we were moving again, the going easier and more
upright. Even so, the Ahram set a slower pace, as the sounds of pursuit had faded
into the distance.
I was nearly asleep on my feet with exhaustion and the hypnotic plodding of
one foot after the other on a never ending treadmill. Occasionally I’d stumble and
have to push against the tunnel wall to keep my balance. I soon began to notice
that the walls were getting hot to the touch. I thought this was my fevered
imagination until I saw puffs of steam beginning to rise from the cracks in the rock
face. We were getting near the lava-bed. The Ahram women were bubbling
excitedly among themselves now, discussing what to do.
Sweet Mary was being carried and barely aware of her surroundings. Rose’s
breath was a continual keening moan of despair even though she was being
helped along. I was surprised to hear the whine in my own voice as I struggled to
breathe. The air was as thick as hot treacle, burning my throat as it went down.
We were being slowly cooked alive. Then, once again to my surprise, I found
myself on my knees and Genneta staring at me with a concerned expression.
“I’ll only be a minute.” I said and pitched forward on my face.
The ceiling of the tunnel rushed past me as I came to, bobbing along in
Genneta’s arms. I can’t describe the rush of different emotions I felt at that
moment. Embarrassment, shame, and a strange excitement at being in her arms,
so, so close to her, and utter amazement that my body had given out on me
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without any warning. Dutch of course was still running under her own steam. It
didn’t bear thinking about.
The tunnel started widening out, the light getting brighter and redder. Soon
we were standing at the edge of a lava lake about half a mile in diameter, with a
thin ledge running round the edge. Now and then a molten bubble would well up to
the size of a house and burst with an ear splitting ‘plop’, spewing globs of lava far
and wide. If any of those bubbles burst near us we’d be in serious trouble. I
languished for a few more agonizing and delicious moments in Genneta’s arms
and then wriggled free to stand on my own two shaky feet. The trip around the
basin of fire was the one experience in my life I’d rather forget. At one stage I
almost pitched headfirst into the lava and once more had to be carried like a baby.
The lizard people were much better at heat than we humans.
Then we were climbing upwards into cooler air. Suddenly the tunnel widened
out and a wonderful light washed across the walls. Daylight. We were nearly out.
Just one more rise……and there….on his platform, floating just outside the
entrance to the tunnel, was the Seesh and his company of soldiers.
I am ashamed to say I nearly broke down and cried. I had had enough. It
was such a bitter disappointment and I hated feeling so useless. So powerless. It
wasn’t something I was used to. The Ahram women also sensed that this was the
end. There was nowhere left to run. Hangdog we all shuffled out of the cave and
into the sunshine. Even the Seesh and his soldiers were silenced by the occasion.
Then he raised his crozier in a victory salute and pursed his lips in preparation to
hoot.
At that moment a roaring black and red cigar-shaped missile skimmed
across the valley in front of us and launched two anti-proton torpedoes at the
Ahram warship towering in the centre of the plains. The Seesh on his flying saucer
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turned to follow this with his unbelieving eyes as the bombs zeroed in on the hope
and fruit of all their endeavours. Although he had never seen such a craft before,
he knew it was an apocalypse in the making.
Dutch was the only person not immobilized by the mesmerizing spectacle.
As the torpedoes were released she simultaneously launched herself onto the
flying disc, vaulting all of seven feet into the air. In one fluid movement she came
upright and flung herself feet first at the Seesh, dropkicking him in the side of the
head just as the torpedoes struck the towering white colossus dead centre. The
explosions blossomed out briefly before they were sucked back into the massive
anti-matter void created by the bombs. The great bone beams of the warship
splintered like matchsticks.
Dutch’s heels connected with the Seesh’s temple and he turned a perfect
cartwheel in the air. Before he even went lights out Dutch had wrenched the
crozier from his limp hand and thrown it to Genneta. Behind her the towering
spires of the spaceship had begun to cant and sink in on themselves. The great
ship had been scythed in half. There was a thunderous cracking sound as
thousands of tons of bone came crashing down and the whole crippled edifice
began to topple over ever so slowly and fall in a mighty cloud of dust that hid the
valley from view.
N
Sam pulled the ship into a tight turn just in time to watch the great white
skyscraper bite the dust. Bit like shooting monkeys in a barrel really. Not very
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satisfying, but that was part of the deal. What he was looking forward to was killing
Eric the ore-miner-cum-entrepreneur-and-card-sharp with his bare hands.
He angled the massive deflector fins that directed the main rocket thrust
downwards and the ship slowed to a hovering halt.
“Put her down here.” Angelo had to shout, for this was no quiet cruiser ship.
It sounded more like a hot rod without baffles.
“Hokay.” Shouted Sam as he set her down in a cloud of dust and cut the
engines. As the whine disappeared the silence made their ears ring.
“Noot.” Said a rather distressed lizard in the back seat. He wasn’t very
comfortable in a space ship.
“Hang on Noot.” Said Angelo. “We’ll get you out in a minute.”
“Girl stays with me.” Said Junkyard Sam. “You get Eric. Then she go.”
At the mention of the ‘girl’, Righteous turned towards Sam’s voice and
seemed on the verge of ripping his heart out.
“That’s okay.” Said Belle. “He won’t try any funny business on me, that’s for
sure.”
“No-one gonna do no funny business on you stupid woman. Just shuttup
now.” Said Sam, who was getting very tired of her non-stop nattering in his ear.
“Alright.” Said Angelo quickly to avert another long-winded argument
between the two. “Belle, you wait here and we’ll go find Eric and the others.”
“Ho no lookee what-the-hell-is-that – a flying saucer?” Asked Sam nodding
at the windscreen and lining up his gun aimer on the approaching white disc. They
waited with baited breath as it got closer. Soon they could see a whole crowd on
board, some of them definitely human.
“Don’t shoot.” Said Angelo. “Those are our people.”
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But Sam’s eyes had contracted to two little pinpoints of hatred as he
recognized one of the humans.
“There he be.” He said in strangled excitement. “There is the son-of-a-bitchbold-as-brass-bastard. I’m gonna blow his balls off.” Sam’s knuckles tightened
over the trigger as he homed in on his long lost prey.
Then a black arm snaked out from behind him and Righteous’ big right hand
clamped round his neck like he was squeezing a toothpaste tube, cutting the blood
flow to his brain and blocking his windpipe. Sam went spastic for a few moments
and then passed out in his seat.
And then it was as if Righteous’ vision cleared. With the final destruction of
the warship his sense of prescience had returned tenfold. He wasn’t bumbling
about in the dark like a blind man anymore. He could sense people’s proximity and
thoughts once again. The Doom had disappeared. But instead of voices, his soul
was now filled with beautiful melodies. His inner landscape was no longer black
but delicate shades of paradise. He saw people’s auras like living rainbows…each
one different from the next. Some were not so pretty, like Sam, who was an ugly
luminous green with black streaks. Belle on the other hand looked like a Christmas
tree with extra bling – she sparkled and twinkled like a mischievous sprite and
changed colour like a chameleon.
“What you smiling at my handsome knight?” Asked Belle, swooningly
stroking his bicep. Righteous Alchemy just smiled and smiled. All was well in his
world.
She hadn’t stopped crying. In twelve hours she hadn’t stopped crying once,
and Angelo was worried that she soon wouldn’t be able to.
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“You gotta stop now Rose. You going to make yourself sick.” Rose just
sniffed and buried her face in her hanky again. “If you don’t I’m going to have to
put you over my knee. I’m not kidding. In front of all these people I’ll give you a
spanking.” For the first time Rose looked at him with some interest...and without
bursting into tears. “Good. That’s good. I’ll still give you a spanking if you like…but
later…in private.”
Rose smiled and blew her nose noisily.
“Sorry.” She said. “I just missed you so. We thought you were dead.”
“So you said. A million times now.”
An Ahram’s foot is not so much a foot as a claw. Each curved toenail is six
inches long and as sharp as a razor. The paw is padded and wide, but the
muscles and ligatures running across the top of the foot are as thick as a man’s
wrist. The ankle bone is the size of a steel anvil.
Junkyard Sam surfaced into consciousness to find one such foot placed
squarely on his chest. After a quick assessment of the situation, he knew he wasn’t
going anywhere. The large eye of the Ahram watched him with the seeming
casualness of a cat watching a cornered rat. Sam knew he was milliseconds away
from being disembowelled and closed his eyes in surrender. Next door he could
hear urgent voices rising and falling. Damn them. He had expected to be treated
like a hero after destroying the warship, but he hadn’t reckoned on Eric-the-archdemon being so popular. He heard a woman’s laughter from next door and once
again he was transported back to that poker table, surrounded by lovely ladies and
staring at his cards in disbelief. Eric had won again. No-one could be that lucky.
He could even hear the clink of glasses and music from the jukebox and Eric
sitting there across the table from him with a supercilious smile on his face,
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sucking on his fat cigar. His blood boiled anew. He had a winning hand anyway
you looked at it – but somehow, as if by magic – a royal flush appeared in Eric’s
hand and all was lost. Everything. He had staked all he had on this hand. He knew
he couldn’t lose. He lost.
The women crowded around Eric like flies, stroking his ego and lighting his
fire. Sam’s life now had only one purpose. One terrible purpose.
After the game he hung around waiting for Eric but the man was long gone –
proof positive that he had cheated. Sam took to drinking straight from the bottle
after that….and alone. Then his wife left him and he lost his job. But he didn’t care.
All this was just fuel for the fire. His life’s ambition burned brightly ever before him.
In the meantime he had gathered together his scrap yard and had built himself the
perfect killing machine. Most days, when he could afford the fuel, he and Tartarus
would cruise the space lanes in search of some sign of the enemy. He grew old
and thin on his meagre diet of unrequited revenge, but in the end it paid off. He
finally found his man, who was none the richer for stealing all his money, on a
mining company’s manifest, transporting pig-iron from the Belt to Earth. Finally
lady luck had smiled on him, but it was the sour smile of defeat, because now lady
luck had her foot planted firmly on his chest.
He wriggled slightly to ease the cramp in his shoulders and the claw on his
chest contracted slightly, the needle points of the nails pressing gently into his
flesh as a warning. He sighed and relaxed once more, consoling himself with
dreams of immanent revenge.
“So what do we do now?” Asked Dutch, taking control as usual. She glanced
at Genneta and was answered with a stream of musical notes.
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“She say’s the Seesh are still in control. And the men will do anything they
say.”
“We have to lure them away from the Seesh somehow.”
“Well I could go out there and wiggle my bits at them.” Joked Belle.
“Not such a bad idea.” Said Dutch. “Except you ain’t got the right bits. No
Offence.”
“None taken.”
Dutch looked to Genneta.
“Now she’s go the right bits.” She said. “If I was one of them and been
without a woman for so long…..” She left the sentence hanging in the air.
“But the Seesh won’t let her anywhere near.” Said Eric. “Anyway, you’re
forgetting that they hate each other. This has been going on for decades. Not
going to be so easy calling a truce.”
“Surely they know it’s all over. There’s no point in keeping the women
prisoners anymore surely?” Said Rose.
“The Seesh don’t want to relinquish their power.” Said Eric, translating what
Genneta had just said. “They still need to sacrifice women to appease the snake.
They believe it makes the valley fertile, so they’ll listen to the Seesh’s superstitious
twaddle.”
“Then we must kill the snake.” Said Rose.
“No. The Seesh have set up their armies around the snake pit.” Said Eric.
“Eric’s right. Even if we use the Tartarus, you’ve seen what those croziers
can do. In the air they’d tear the ship to pieces. Anyway, we don’t really want to
start a wholesale massacre.”
“Do you think we’re alright here?” Asked Belle, suddenly nervous with the
mention of massacre.
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“We’re okay.” Said Dutch confidently. The ships lasers will keep them at bay.
But you’re right. We can’t just hang on like this indefinitely. We need to get the
men on our side.”
“Sing to them.” Said Righteous out of the blue. “Call them.”
Everyone turned to look at Righteous.
“They will come.” he said.
For a long time there was silence as they mulled this over. Then Rose asked
the obvious question.
“But how? They’re miles away.”
Then everyone turned to Dutch for an answer. Dutch stared at them for a
while and then a light went on in her eyes.
“There are external speakers on the Tartarus for atmospheric landing
communications. Can pretty much hear them from miles away.”
For the first few hours nothing happened, then slowly the men began to
dribble in, cautiously appearing at the edge of the clearing. Just a few at first, and
then they came in droves, all driven by the need to see who was singing such a
beautiful song that burbled along the brooks, ran along the rivers and echoed off
the mountain crags to the furthest parts of the valley. Many had never heard a
women’s song before, except when they had been too young to remember. They
crowded into camp looking for that long lost lullaby, thousands of them from all the
different villages, their Seesh masters forgotten in the call of the melody. Genneta
spoke to the entranced crowd in her musical tongue, telling them the story of what
had happened and how they needed to free the dreamers.
Indeed, there was much excited hooting and coughing, and the crowd,
stirred by the cause, began to surge toward the Arena, intent on killing the snake
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with their bare hands. But Genneta calmed them down. There weren’t nearly
enough men. And the Seesh still held sway.
As the night wore on the dribble of men died out and Dutch thought they
were going to fail after all. But Genneta didn’t stop singing. There was actually little
else for her to do. She sang the story of the women’s plight out into the night and
her plaintive tone rang through the villages.
Then, just as the group were beginning to give up hope, the men began to
arrive once more – this time in their tens of thousands, marching across the plains.
At first they thought it was an invasion, but soon they saw the Seesh being led,
bound and gagged, in front of them. The war was over.
That night there was the biggest party anyone had ever seen. Eric got drunk
as a lord on the manna beer, and Rose and Angelo danced the night away to the
songs on Tartarus’ audio player.
“You wanna dance?” Asked Dutch half heartedly to a happy looking Sweet
Mary who was tapping her feet and swaying to the music.
“Not really.” She said, laying her head on Dutch’s arm. “I know you don’t like
dancing much, and I am very happy right here thank you. Nothing could make this
night better.”
They’d all got used to calling it night, even though it was almost as bright as
day. Once the stars were out it was officially night time.
“We still gotta do something about the snake.”
“I know. All those women. It’s just cruel.”
“Can’t drop a bomb on it in case the whole shebang falls in on the
dreamers.” Sweet Mary could see that Dutch wasn’t going to let this go. Not even
for one night. Oh well. That’s why she loved her.
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“Maybe we can draw the snake away from them somehow….” Said Dutch.
“Why don’t you let Genneta sing to it?” Said Sweet Mary. “Like she did to
the men.”
“Yeah, but…” Dutch was on the verge of shooting down her idea when she
had a thought.
“You could be right. The snake might be drawn to a woman’s voice. It’s got a
taste for them. We might be able to draw it out far enough.”
She leant over to kiss Sweet Mary on the cheek. Sweet Mary saw the
movement and turned towards her and their lips met. It was such a surprise that
they got stuck there for a lovely moment. With a smile and a hug, Dutch was up
and away to find Angelo and Eric.
“One torpedo, that’s all we got.” Said Dutch
The servo assists were howling away as they turned the engines on. I
glanced out of the window and a cloud of dust rose up around us. The noise
escalated to a deafening roar and then the ship bucked and bumped upwards as
Dutch opened the dampers.
Slowly we climbed up into the sky and levelled off high above the curving
pillars of bone. The entire valley stretched out before us…the villages, the wreck of
the warship…and the snake pit. Dutch set the deflectors to a slow forward drift and
pointed us towards the arena.
Down below, thousands of men were marching in the same direction, hoping
to get a glimpse of the battle. I had tried to dissuade them from going, but they
were all hell bent on seeing the snake get its just rewards. Well I hoped it would
too. We only had one chance…and a slim one at that. I was only too glad Dutch
was doing the driving.
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“I’ll do the fancy footwork.” Said Dutch. “I’m pretty used to dodging a ship
around the asteroids in the belt. You just pull the trigger when I call.”
Okay.” I said, feeling decidedly wimpy next to her ease and confidence.
“What you gonna do afterwards?” I asked to distract myself from thinking about the
snake too much. “You gonna go back home? To Earth?”
Dutch was pretty much preoccupied with her calculations and didn’t even
seem to hear me. No matter.
“I think I’m going to stay.” I said. “Got so used to being here with Genneta.
Don’t think I could do without her actually.” There. I had confessed my shameful
secret. But there was nothing I could do about it. Somehow I was in love with her.
How that would work out I have no idea. But I just knew I wanted to be with her.
And I had more than a feeling that she did too.
“Here we go.” Said Dutch. “Switch on the speakers and run the audio. See if
this will draw him out.”
We played a recording of Genneta’s song from last night. We reckoned it
was too dangerous to bring her up with us. I hoped it would do. I hit the switches
and Genneta’s voice blasted out from the speakers on the fuselage. It was a hell of
a noise, what with the tannoys at full blast and the engines roaring fit to bust I
reckoned we might even just scare the snake to death.
“It was her song that made me fall in love with her.” I shouted at Dutch
above the noise. “Well, that and the fact that she looked…..”
The next thing my nose crashed into the instrument panel as the ship
lurched upwards and the engines whined to cope with the impact. Dutch had
switched off the fly-by-wire and was wrestling with the controls manually.
“There it is….” She shouted as we finally levelled off and backed up a few
hundred yards. And there it was in front of us. The snake, stretched to its utter
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limit, standing straight up on its tail, it’s head, twice the size of the Tartarus,
swayed in time to the music of Genneta’s song, mouth half open in anticipation of
this flying bug it was about to eat.
Vaguely through my panic I could hear Dutch shouting something. It took me
a full few seconds to focus through the pain of my nose.
“NOW!” She was shouting at me and somehow my body responded and
pressed the requisite button. My mind however had no knowledge of the action –
either then or since.
The size of the creature – so close – was more than my frame of reference
could cope with. It lurched towards us and I felt my inner organs abandon their
autonomic duties of holding it all together and it went all loose and warm and
wobbly inside.
I didn’t even see the torpedo go into its mouth. Neither did Dutch I think,
because the damn snake had our nose-cone in its mouth and she was too busy
trying to shake it loose.
And then it was gone. My ears popped as the bomb imploded and sucked all
the air away. Dutch tilted the ship over just in time to see the upper half of the
severed snake arch over and drop to the ground.
The snake pieces wriggled for three days after that, everyone too afraid to
sleep during that period, but eventually it stopped. Many torches and fire braziers
were then carried down into the tunnels and the hibernating women were warmed
and woken from their long sleep.
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In the beginning the men and women were very shy of each other, as one
would expect, but it wasn’t long before their natural instincts took over and they
began talking to one another.
“So, you pleased to see me again?” Said Angelo, fishing for compliments.
Rose just smiled a secret smile and continued sewing her new dress.
“You’ve made this place very nice.” Said Angelo, looking about him at the
cosy little room. But once again he could elicit no response from her.
“So I imagine you’re not thinking of going back home anytime soon then?”
he asked.
“Well.” Said rose, beginning a new row of stitches. “Dutch and Sweet Mary
are staying. Righteous too, although I think his new girlfriend made that decision
for him. Belle loves it here….Her first time in real nature. I’ve never seen anyone
so happy.” Rose paused to straighten the cloth and appraise her handiwork.
“So yes. I like it here.” She said. “And anyway I don’t think it’s a good idea
for a pregnant lady to go gallivanting around in a space ship.”
For a moment Angelo couldn’t work out which pregnant lady she was talking
about until he saw the self-satisfied smile on her face.
In the meantime, a rather dozy and overweight female Ahram called Evie
had been assigned to guarding Junkyard Sam. She was an affectionate old thing
who was more prone to killing him with kindness than in anger. It was also well
known that she was very partial to a snooze after her ample evening meal, and to
his delight, Junkyard Sam saw this as a perfect opportunity to escape. Inch by inch
he manoeuvred himself towards the door as Evie snored a symphony of song and
noises.
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His muscles quivering with the strain of moving so slowly, he finally eked the
door open and took a quick look around. There was no-one about. But there, not
quarter of a mile distant, was his beloved Tartarus, and not a guard in sight. As he
slunk through the bright night air he fervently prayed they hadn’t immobilised his
engines.
“Shouldn’t have thought so.” he mused. “They’d be wanting to keep it ready
for the home journey.” He laughed. “Boy are they in for a surprise.” He felt a slight
pang of regret that he hadn’t killed Eric-the-swine, but he consoled himself with the
thought that he would have to live out the rest of his miserable days on this
godforsaken rock with these damn lizards who would probably eat him first. And
hopefully no-one would have a chance to come and rescue him because he’d
heard talk that the wormhole was closing pretty soon. He hoped there was still
time for him to get through though. And with that thought he increased his speed
to a run.
Dutch lay on her back looking up at the ceiling. Who’d have thought they’d
end up here together – in paradise? ‘Life is strange.’ She thought. It was more
than she deserved. But she was getting used to her good fortune.
Sweet Mary moaned softly in her sleep by her side. She put her arm over
her and snuggled up against her back, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing.
Blissfully she drifted in and out of sleep.
Sometime later she seemed to remember hearing the Tartarus fire up its
engines and launch itself into outer space.
l
m
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Eric the ore-miner's old smashed up space-ship lurched upward into the air
as another cataclysmic spasm shook the strange hard planetoid, finally breaking
the ship apart and scattering bits everywhere as the dragon awoke and shook off
her long sleep.
Spasms continued to rock her as she began the slow process of uncoiling
and uncurling herself for the big event. Birth contractions rippled and rang along
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her gigantic scale encrusted body…one after the other they wracked her great
torso...then she gave a mighty cry.
Epilogue – The Cleanup
“Oh sorry. I thought this room was empty.” The cleaner began closing the
door but the lady called to him. She had been fast asleep when he had entered.
“Please don’t go. You can come in.” She rubbed her eyes and yawned.
“Sorry to wake you.”
“It’s alright. I have to go now anyway.”
The man dragged his trolley in and began unpacking his squirty bottles and
cloths.
“You from the party upstairs?” He asked. He guessed that because she was
a rather well dressed middle-aged lady. Probably a senator’s wife or something.
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“Real big ‘do’ they had up there. Not looking forward to cleaning all that up.”
“Yes.” She answered kindly. “A real big ‘do’.”
“Bit of a disappointment though? The expedition being cancelled and all. I
was looking forward to it.”
Rose smiled wanly at his boyish enthusiasm for adventure.
“They say the wormhole’s become unstable. No-one can use it anymore. I
reckon it’s that Tartarus fellow’s fault, with that crazy space ship of his, set the
whole thing off herky-jerky and now we’ll never know if there was anything there.
We only have his word that there was nothing there ‘cept some dead planets.” He
chatted away merrily as he cleaned. Rose stared thoughtfully out of the window at
the wormhole.
“Know what I think? I think they should send all the criminals there – I saw a
couple of convicts only just now, on their way to court. A couple of women. Didn’t
look like criminals but you never can tell. They could have been serial killers for all
I know. They should send them there. Anyway. No-one’s going down there
anymore. It’s a pity. I was looking forward to seeing the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ go down
the wormhole……..Weren’t you?”