Another free short - check it out andlet me know what you think - the below is the inspiration for Universe One - if any of you guys checked it out.
Commander Seres stood straight and proud on the
flight deck of the Icaran. He was a tall man for his caste, well over two and a
half metres, with an athletic build, a shaven head and – despite the years of
hard service – a face that was craggy rather than ravaged by war and time. The
life of a dog soldier had been good to him and his exploits had earned him the
respect of the Icaran’s crew and their agreement to his leadership.
It was only a small transport and research vessel
connected to a larger city ship but it held three hundred men and women and
even a few children, all under his command. It was a position he had never
hoped for in the early days but now, after a decade in charge, he had grown
into the habit of salutes and respect without having to earn it in battle with
someone, or something. The men and women he saw every day were more than his
battle brothers from a former life: they were friends, and they were family. Leadership
was sometimes lonely but he could, through the framework of the ship’s hierarchy,
form lasting relationships with both the young and the old like himself. It
gave him a sense of satisfaction he had never had in a battle group; the sense
that he could be part of the next generation.
The flight deck was gunmetal grey, the flooring a
steel meshwork on top of rivers of cables and pipes that regulated the thousand
systems the crew relied on for air, food, energy and their transport across the
galaxy. Long and thin, the deck’s edges were lined by consoles where the crew
controlled the various parts of the ship. Three technicians on either side and
the two pilots at the head, at the tip of the craft’s fluid angularity. Its
shape seen from above was reminiscent of the flying lizards that Seres had spent
time swatting from his food on a primordial planet years before.
The pilots moved deftly in their tasks. Genetically
enhanced to improve their reactions and control the three hundred metres of
space ship: wired into the engines and steering as well as each other. One knew
instantly what the other was doing; although they could turn the systems off
when not aboard, it was vital that if something befell one pilot during active
service, the other knew. The skill of these men was beyond value, their brains unconsciously
controlling the rapid movements and minute course changes required along any
flight path.
Seres stood just behind them. He had always found
their type fascinating. Unlike many who had been enhanced genetically either
before or after birth, they showed no physiological difference to other mortals.
He himself had been gifted a developed skeletal structure, the ability to shift
his size and probably still his shape if he concentrated hard enough on the
task, as well as his abilities as a soldier. Even when, after seven hundred years,
he had finally retired that portion of his life, he kept the size and
musculature he had become so very used to. In contrast the pilots looked just
like any other men; the only change was in their minds, their processing power dramatically
enhanced to give them the ability to control a million tons of fast-moving
cruiser. Connections made and fused in an organic computer that matched even
the greatest minds of humanity. Seres had been told the rumour that their
actual intelligence, their cognitive powers outside the realm of the flight
deck, was lessened slightly. He thought it had some merit, pilots being often
the last to click when an idea or a joke was being batted around, although
their position prevented any attempt to take advantage of that loss of social
pace. They were treated with respect. And in any case with their training it
didn’t matter.
As long as they did their duty by the crew and
the ship, Seres didn’t care.
The jump through the dimension drift was going
without a hitch. With the latest anti-matter engines aboard the ship could
halve the time it took to drift to their next port of call. It was a luxury at
last to have no reliance on inhabited star systems or the power capacitors of the
colonised stars, the reserves being enough to voyage for over three years
before the habitual refuelling at any one of a thousand ringed planets to have
begun the production of refined antimatter.
He paced between the rows of computer terminals
that lined the path to the cockpit proper where the two pilots sat. Technicians
monitored the gravitational pull of the objects in real space, as they called
it. Real space didn’t seem to be the best way of describing the universe that
they lived in. They lived in ten dimensional space time rather than three dimensions
that were visible to the human eye. Although this was the only other element
they could traverse through, and even then at great care. Seres didn’t like to
dwell on it, but every drift into the blackness of the dimension jump left him
thinking of those who went away and never reappeared. The darkness of space
travel was a painful step into the unknown that he did not like to endure for
long. The view screen at the front of the ship revealed nothing but the blue
glow of the space-time bubble around the ship, effectively giving them a zero
mass.
It was nearly impossible to see into the
dimension drift, although occasionally he thought he saw shadows at play behind
the energy that shielded them. Shapes and patterns that his eyes and mind
turned over and tried to make sense of, but never could. At any rate, without
the bubble they would immediately be expelled, most probably in a billion
pieces. Although gravity was experienced in this dimension, energy could not
be, thus the need to remain within the bubble. He had gone through a phase of
having the computer simulate the star systems they were passing on the view
screen, but in the end he would always turn it back to the blue glaze.
His presence on the flight deck was in order to
be one of the first to see the star they were travelling to. It was his relief,
his moment to exhale and briefly to assume that he and his crew were safe
again, at least until the next foray into the unknown. Like a swimmer coming up
for air, he was suffocated by the confines of the dimension jump and longed for
the colour of the universe proper.
‘Coming out in five, four…’ the co-pilot began.
Seres listened to the rest of the count with his eyes closed opening them only
when the Pilot remarked ‘oh dear’. He was sorely disappointed with what he saw.
Watching
from a distance the crew of the Unnamed watched the ship pop into their
dimension and immediately career off course towards the danger they had just
narrowly avoided. The captain ran a
gnarled hand through his shock of erratic white hair and exchanged a smile with
Stephen.
‘I see
them’ the anxious call. Alan’s tweed coat flapping. There was anxiety in the
rag tag crew of misfits. They had escaped one disaster and had launched
themselves into yet more peril.
The
craft they were watching had come out of its dimension jump too close to what
it thought was a star. The black dwarf had too much pull and the miscalculation
would cost them. By all rights they would be sucked in without hope of escape.
‘There
must be a way?’ Nikola muttered in his clipped Balkan tones.
‘There
always is’ said the tall Austrian.
‘OK but
how Ludwig’ Alan blurted.
It had
not always been so, life had changed. Alan recalled only a few days before an
air raid had been continuing without respite. 1940 was not a good year to be in
London. Kneeling
under the kitchen table continuing to work, the note books out in front of him
he had felt the ground shake and realized there was a strike nearby. With the
failure at Dunkirk
it was only a matter of time before the inevitable invasion. The only thing
standing in the way was the air force at the moment; they numbered a few
thousand men and the fighters they could get off the production line. He
doubted they could save the nation without the hundred thousand troops captured
in France.
Regardless of the dire situation he had a responsibility and would finish it
regardless of the irritation of high explosives. Another explosion erupted too
close for comfort.
‘Shit’
Alan had fallen flat and waited. The noises moved off. The bomber’s first
strike obviously. He shone the flashlight at the kitchen, a few broken panes of
glass and a mug he liked were in pieces, but the rest of the house seemed fine.
He stayed put and continued to work. The numbers in the notebooks dancing in
front of him. His mind whirred and he played with the possibilities of the codes
and the codes within codes that could be the secret to unlocking the elements
he had before him. He needed something more logical than his own brain to
achieve this, and certainly something that did not react badly to being kept up
at all hours by bomber plans or fear or an impatient Prime Minister. If only he
had got the train when he could instead of waiting around to see that blasted
lawyer. A sale of a house in war time should not be that much of a deal, it was
no where the Germans would want to bomb, yet to sell he needed far too much
approval, it seemed an honest waste of the lawyer’s brain power, his money and
both men’s time.
He had kept
watch a short while before realising the ridiculousness of his vigil. He could
see only the faintest glow of the fires through the blacked out, taped up
windows. He switched the flashlight back to the papers he was working on and
continued to cogitate. The bangs and thunder grew ever distant, from his flat
in Westminster
he felt the direction was to the East. The docks were getting a hammering
again. The supplies being loaded in the Thames were minimal now but it was
still a place of high population. The people there would be the ones to suffer.
We could always build more boats, but not more people. That took a while.
He
turned back to the numbers, irritated that his thoughts kept turning to the
people, to the men and women, to the friends, although he had few, his manner
and his shy approach to others kept people at arms length. He focused. He would
get the numbers. But he would not get out from under this table. He rolled his
jacket up and lay down; placing it under his head he held the notebook aloft,
flashlight shining at it. He tried flashing the light on and off, moving the
book, flicking the pages. He lay the book on his chest and switched off the
light, trying to think. Fear of the dark, fear of the next bomb to drop made
his heart race, but he scolded his brain and turned it back, working through
the numbers in his mind, moving them, manipulating them, seeing the code. He
pulled his pencil to the back page he knew was blank and in the dark wrote for
three minutes before resting again and drifting off to the rumble in the
distance.
Another
Crash and a shriek. This time far too close.
Alan
crawled from under the table to find the house keeper on all fours by his side.
Tartan skirt rucked to her thighs and a bag of potatoes spilt and rolling
across the floor.
‘What
are you doing sir?’ she squawked, hurriedly rolling her skirts to cover the
blotchy, limbs.
Alan
helped the matron up. The short round woman looked cross for a minute before
becoming a mother. She dusted him down before herself. She slapped the grime
out of his lapels especially, before coming too close to his backside for
comfort.
‘I’ll
let you dust that down. Have you been under that damned table all night again
sir?’ she enquired while finishing to brush the worst of the grime from her
skirts.
‘Yes
Mrs Havelock’ said Alan, ‘although I believe it has paid off this time.’
‘Jolly
good sir’ she said, leaving her enquiry at that. A religious devotion to duty
meant that Mrs Havelock had never asked a single question about Alan’s work,
only that he worked for the Prime Minister and that if captured by Nazis she
wanted no more information in her head than she needed. ‘I will not put you in
danger by making conversation’ she had said.
Alan
liked it this way, he was not able to speak with people easily and his
nervousness at the ‘park’ had been treated as a sort of joke, despite his
breakthroughs. When he did want to converse with his housekeeper in London he
was only occasionally able to start conversations that did not fly in the face
of Mrs Havelock’s national security rules and regulations.
He
looked down in his hand at the notes he had made during the last few minutes of
the night. The rest of numbers on the sheets no longer swam or moved. They were
pinned between his own notes and figures, trapped in his mind by a set of rules
that explained them, or at the very least allowed them to be explained. Maybe,
just maybe they could start to pre-empt the raids, get the fighters in the air
before they hit the Dover Cliffs. It would be the only way.
He
turned to Mrs Havelock and started to ask a question, wanting to share his
triumph in as low key way as he could, she waited expectantly, but he could not
find the words, it was always the words that failed him.
He held
up the red notebook like a referee sending off an unfortunate player and simply
said, ‘Gotcha!’
The ship shook violently under Seres feet and the
expected star did not appear on the view screens before him. Nothing but a
darkness against the stars. There was immediate panic as the Icaran was
bombarded with what felt like asteroids; the lesser energy shields absorbed most
of the impact but from the displays to his left Seres could tell they had
suffered at least one breach. A massive jolt hit the port side of the craft slowing
it to minimum power, sending a young girl in a blue jumpsuit flying from her
station to land on the floor at Seres’ feet. He hoisted her up with his massive
arms and sat her down again as a parent would a child. She immediately went
back to her work as if nothing had happened. In the whole experience Seres
would reflect later that she had been the best of his command crew, simply
because he did not notice her fear while the others were yelling or calling for
information or help.
‘Calm!’ he barked. The noise stopped immediately.
Seres stood straight, running a hand over his shaven head.
‘Where are we?’ he asked the pilot, yelling the
length of the ten-metre flight deck.
‘Exactly where we’re supposed to be,’ the rapid
nasal response came back.
‘Then where are the star and the planets?’ a technician
wailed, standing and pointing at the shadows ahead of the ship.
Seres took a step and placed his hands on the
nervous technician’s shoulders, his massive paws gentle on the technician’s
neck, and leaning in, he whispered kindly in his ear. The tech, through fear
and a feeling of calm exuded by his captain, ceased wailing and slumped into
his chair, his eyes focused on his own screen, not wanting and not daring to
look back up at the monster before them, getting ever closer.
The space-time bubble had remained functional at
its lesser extent. It was a failsafe to allow them to ride through just such a
possibility. The shell surrounding the ship protected it from the bulk of any
physical damage, although the concussion was still felt across all eleven decks
of the craft and according to the readouts had obviously caused a tear in the
cargo bay. Thankfully, the habitation decks had not been affected. Nevertheless
the possibility of what they were seeing was not something any of them had
prepared for.
‘There,’ Seres said. ‘Enlarge the centre section
of the screen.’ Before them lay the star they had expected to see, black
against the deep forever of space: no more the bright red giant but burnt
beyond recognition.
‘Black Dwarf!’ Seres yelled over his shoulder.
‘Black Dwarf!’
December
1926, how the hell did it get to December? Ludwig Witgenstein looked at the
calendar page for a few moments. Sat at his desk in the forward command post he
was used to more comfortable situations than this. He liked to have music and
at least one book around. But he was here and had to make the best of it. An
adjutant walked in and snapped a salute.
‘Yes?’ Ludwig asked.
‘The three prisoners are ready for their
interrogations Colonel’ the moustache growled. He was a short man but effective
in the current climate. Ludwig had responsibility for intelligence in the
Northern front push against the communist insurgents who had taken hold of the
Prussian, Polish border. He did not relish the action but it needed doing. The
government was not strong and with the attempted coup by the Spartacists
managing to almost derail the entire democratic process the year before it was
vital that ay remnants of the disease of communism was removed. Ludwig had
noting against the communist ideology, but he had his orders. They needed to
know where the bastards would hit next, and more importantly how to get hold of
their leader, the almost messianic blank.
‘I’m coming’ said Ludwig. He pulled his
overcoat on. The snow was not too deep, but the temperature had plummeted to
well below zero. He had a habit of picking up stupid illnesses on campaigns. He
had managed to get ill twice in the Great War, in between claming his medals.
Artillery factory to western front he had fought alongside men who he would not
normally have looked twice at. His time in Cambridge had given him a respect for
knowledge, but his time on the fronts next to what he had always regarded as he
scum of the earth had given him greater respect for people’s capacity for
bravery. He had led by example, charging guns and showing utter calm under the
most intense fire. The military Merit and Silver medal were followed by two
Iron Cross awards for the Battle of Bapaume. At 37 he was the youngest full
colonel in the reformed Greater German Army after the Stalemate agreement was
signed.
Walking outside for the first time in two
days the air struck Ludwig making him glad of his scarf and gloves. He whistled
to himself a Mozart theme as he strolled along the cobbles of the half decent
Polish town. It was early morning and the population was still not up and out.
Their presence had sent many of the men running for the hills and many of the
women, fearing the deserved reputation of the troops locked their doors and
only scurried too and from their hovels when absolutely necessary. The Seargent
led him to the barn holding the captured men. Ludwig was dismayed when he
walked in They were hardly prepared. The men, having been left alone with the
prisoners had decided to have some sport. All three tied to wooden kitchen
chairs liberated from a nearby house, one was on his back, coughing and
probably choking on his own blood; one was receiving the attentions of an
overzealous private and one, still left alone was screaming at the soldiers
watching and laughing to help his prone friend.
The very presence of ‘the colonel’ in the
barn sent the men into a quiet reflection. Only the aggressive guard, still
slapping the face of the battered and bruised man failed to notice.
‘Corporal’ said Ludwig. The man stopped
immediately. He turned and faced his commander.
‘Sir’
he saluted.
‘What happened?’ Ludwig asked.
‘It just seemed to start sir’ the man trembled
as he spoke.
‘You had orders to watch them?’ Ludwig asked,
his calmness building the tension in the others around him.
‘Sir’ the soldier stood ramrod straight.
‘You have disobeyed an order’ said Ludwig.
The words provoked a gulp of expectation from the men in the barn. Disobeying
an order could result in the death of a soldier, summary execution or even
being shot out of hand was not unusual.
‘Be thankful’ said Ludwig, ‘that I have use
for you Private.’ The man almost wet himself in relief. The immediate demotion
and probable loss of a months pay was like winning a lottery. ‘Now get out of
my sight. Sergeant, please educate the Private on why he does not beat
defenceless men.’ The moustache frogmarched the still trembling Private
outside. The man would appear later with a face black and blue, teeth would be
missing and his nose broken, however his eyes and his hands and his feet would
remain untouched. The Sergeant knew the value of an extra rifle and Ludwig knew
he would gain the man’s loyalty for a short while as he now owed him his life.
Ludwig turned to the one man left untouched
by the disobedient soldier’s ministrations.
‘Young man’ he said, ‘do you speak German?’
There was no movement, Ludwig continued, ‘French? English? Dutch? Russian?’ Ludwig
rattled off the names with fluency watching the man’s expression. His eyes
flickered as he said Russian. Ludwig transferred to the language immediately.
‘Listen carefully’ he said in a close
whisper, ‘the man I just set outside was punished for attacking your friends. I
have no intention of hurting you or allowing you to be hurt if you help us.
However I have every intention of killing you if you do not. Do you believe
me?’ The man nodded slowly.
‘Excellent’ said Ludwig, ‘I have one question
then, where is the weapon’s cache?’
‘I am just visiting my…’
The man had no time to finish his sentence,
as Ludwig pulled a pistol from his belt and fired the gun next to his ear. The
bullet buried itself in the floor, the man screamed.
‘Bear in mind’ Ludwig said, ‘that I have no
problem killing you, I am trying to stop a civil war in this area, expel the
communist menace and hopefully save Germany from falling into the same ravaged
state as Italy. Now, shall we try again?’
‘I er’ the man stammered.
‘Do you believe in God young man?’ Ludwig
whispered in the ear he had not deafened. ‘I used to, and then I saw the
terrible things that could happen to believers and non believers alike. I used
to carry the gospels around with me. I used to recommend passages to my men.
But it was all a placebo, a drug that worked only if you believed it would. Be
of no doubt my young friend, there is no God, but even if there is a some
subtle hint of hope in your heart, some element of you that still thinks that
he may reach down and save you from this bullock freezing barn; be clear that
God, if he exists, does not give one fuck about you, me or this wretched
country. We are alone suckling at the teats of the gods we create for
ourselves. For you it is this wretched politic, for me it is my duty to the
people around me.’ Ludwig looked behind him to the men who had entered the
barn. ‘Believe me young man, my god is a vengeful god and it will have its
sacrifice. Now, where is the weapon’s cache?’
The ship shook violently again as the picture
loomed before the whole flight crew.
‘Sir, we have a gravitational issue,’ the pilot
said. ‘The star is pulling us in.’
‘It can’t be,’ said Seres. ‘We arrived just where
we should have.’
‘No, sir,’ the co-pilot explained. ‘Gravity permeates
the dimension jump. Because of the explosion and subsequent shrinking of the
star, no doubt we were pulled into space further along than we should have been.
We’re ... we’re effectively inside the previous sphere of the star, sir.’
Silence greeted this terrifying prospect. Seres
strode to the front of the ship and knelt between the two men, their hands
still moving and eyes rapidly blinking as they fought to take control of the
ship.
‘Give me the worst,’ he said softly.
‘Crash and explode,’ said the pilot bluntly.
Visibly straining, he was sweating, making minute movements as the processors
controlling the ship fired his synapses.
‘The best?’ asked Seres.
‘A similar first part, I don’t think I can stop
it. We’re going to have to risk a landing, and then possible survival on the
surface of the star for up to a month given the power we have available.’
‘Escape?’
‘Possible once we go down,’ answered the pilot.
‘We can try to calculate for a drift going through the planet. If we attempt it
now and fail we lose all power, no controlled landing and probable death for
all aboard.’
‘Escape pods?’
‘There are four, sir, they hold seventeen people
each. The rest of the ship is designed to function as autonomous life rafts, but
they would fail to escape from the gravity well of the star.’
‘Then we go for the best possible course,’ said
Seres, standing up. Their odds of survival if they tried to break free now were
low. They could try to jump back into a dimension drift, but without precise
calculations they might find themselves lost, stranded or dead. There was no
way to control the ship through the precise manoeuvres. He took a step back.
‘I’ve always wanted to walk on the surface of a star,’ he muttered.
Then, ‘all available power to the gravity field,’
he yelled loudly over his shoulder. They were going to need it.
The pilot fired a series of thrusters to try to steady
their descent. The space-time bubble had burst by now, and recreation of it was
probably impossible and would certainly have cost the ship most of the power
that remained in reserve. Seres was concerned but he had got out of tighter
spots than this. He stood upright in the middle of the deck. His knowledge of
flight mechanics was minimal; the only thing he could do was be a leader right
now. The right example and the right figure for adversity. That was the best he
could be. He reached for the communications array for the ship and when he
spoke, his voice was clear and firm.
‘Icaran,’ he said, ‘prepare for crash landing. Brace
for impact, brace for impact. ’
As his command reverberated around the ship,
Seres kept his eyes fixed on the surface of the scarred rock they were heading
towards. The surface loomed black under the ship’s strong landing lights. The
craft stuttered, the pilot fighting against the ever-increasing speed as they
sped towards the massive ball of black, its surface filling the whole view
screen until the pilot pulled up at the last moment. The ship’s pointed prow miraculously
did not dig in, the hull bumping along the impacted carbon surface with minimal
debris. With the force shields acting as a cushion against an otherwise fatal
impact, they finally slid to a halt.
‘Fucking
Einstein’ Nikola Tesla grumbled at the newspaper he had just read. He threw it
at the pile of papers he had been reviewing, taken from the library just the
day before. 1918, a war on and there was still news of the German genius on
every page. He wasn’t that special. He sipped gain at his rough coffee and
stared out of his basement window at the feet of a hundred people passing every
moment; his New York home, his palace in the new world, his prison of
obscurity. He managed another gulp before the bitter cud at the bottom of the
cup touched his lips. He spat it back out and looked again at the paper. The
maid he employed for an hour a day moved behind him, placing things in order,
the pieces of the puzzles he created for himself, the papers and pieces of
metal in tidy piles for Tesla to get cross about later and reorganise in a
flurry.
‘Something
in the paper’ she asked.
‘That
blasted German’ said Tesla. ‘And his curved space’ he threw the paper down,
‘it’s nonsense, space cannot be curved, there’s nothing in it! It’s like saying
that God has properties we can see and feel.’
‘Sometimes
you can feel God’ the girl said meekly, ‘I go to church every Sunday and my
mother says that…’ Tesla cut her off.
‘Not
like that’ he said, ‘those aren’t properties, they aren’t length and width and
weight, those are attributes that you feel, your interpretation of the words of
the hymns, of the prayers of the priests sermon, that isn’t properties, you
aren’t feeling God, someone is making you feel that way, not God.’
The
maid gave up quickly and continued to scrub down the kitchen area of the
apartment. Tesla went back to his notes. The pile of unfilled patent
applications on his table. His inability to go forward was a crippling
disability. He had arrived in the states years ago and now with the deaths of
those closest to him he was alone again and tinkering in the basement of this building
wit the ideas that had intrigued him as a young man before he had started to
work for the Ford company. His income from the shares he had been given was
enough to survive as a man of leisure, to a point, but his half formed plans
and unformed ideas on the nature of the universe plagued him. He would be
better to spend his final few years socialising, making talk, seeing opera or
maybe returning to his homeland, but the pain in his mind, the gaps he wanted
to fill were more of a draw. He yearned to be able to satiate the hunger he
felt for those missing pieces. If only he had the confidence to push himself
out of his building, maybe to the university. Maybe just to talk to someone.
He looked over the papers again. Plans for
motors and coils, an interest in magnetic fields that he was sure could power
greater amounts of energy, the ideas he had about wireless energy and field
emission sat next to aborted plans concerning a hundred other ideas. He poured
himself another cup of coffee. Today he would not think about these things, he
would not regret, he would simply take solace in thoughts about his latest
interest. He got up and walked towards the machine in the corner of the room. A
small turbine using three magnetic fields as well as that of the earth itself
it had been turning slowly for a week now. The power generation was feeding
into the light bulb, glowing dimly atop the self directly above it. The energy
field feeding directly into the element of the bulb. No wires. Tesla smiled.
He
moved towards it and for a moment wondered. It was one of those ‘what if’
moments and Tesla made the adjustments to one of the Magnets and stood back.
The maid came back in, bustling in her childish way, picking things up and
putting them down. Tesla watched her as she cleared away the breakfast she had
made him. He was filled with disgust at that point. She was young and innocent,
able to do so much and yet she would accomplish, like him, so very little. He
breathed heavily, trying to shake the melancholy from his mind. Wishing he
wasn’t sat making wishes but rather doing something, pushing forward. She
looked up and smiled at him, he eyes caught the bulb on the shelf.
‘That’s
interesting’ she said.
‘What
is?’ Tesla asked.
‘Your
bulb’ she said, ‘it’s getting brighter.’
‘Gravity got the better of the last section of
the land, sir, I’m sorry.’ The pilot turned around, anxious not to have displeased
his captain. Seres just smiled.
‘You have done the impossible, Haft. We are
alive,’ said Seres. He looked out at the desolate waste of the landscape,
wondering again how far he had come and what the chances were of survival to
the next refuelling stop. He soon returned to his default position. They were
stranded, with little hope of any rescue. He would order a distress beacon to
be sent up, but the chances of anyone hearing it within a thousand years were
slim. In cases like this it was up to the leader to show that life could
continue, and the world was not as scary as it perhaps suggested itself to be. But
then Seres took a long look through the view screen at their captor and realised
they were dead. They just did not understand that fact. The black dwarf star
should not be here. The chances of something like this occurring were infinitesimally
small over a million years. Seres had been to this system before, albeit a
thousand years before, but this now carbon heavy star should not be able to
exist. The power drain and forced fusion as well as immediate cooling would
require an event of such barbarous negligence that no human or indeed any other
species would be capable. He was worried for his crew and for the ship. The
circumstances were beyond dangerous and dire; there was little chance they
would ever be able to find a way off this cold chunk of stellar ash. He almost smiled
to himself; he now had the luxury to be as brave as he could ever be, with no
consequences other than the inevitable. He turned to his crew with a flourish.
‘Is the gravity shield extended around the ship?’
‘It is, it is,’ said the calmed technician, ‘but it
can be pushed out by a further five hundred metres with little effect on the
power reserves.’
‘Excellent,’ said Seres. He paused. ‘Who wants to
go for a walk?’
Much to his delight the waif he had placed back
in her seat during the turbulence was the first to stand up. He walked to the
exit, throwing his arm around the girl as he went.
‘Let’s go then,’ he suggested. He was even
starting to believe his own confident lie as he took five strides towards the
exit. He could feel the incredulous stares of his crew at his back. If he
believed he was a dead man, maybe he could use that for just long enough to
convince them they could live.
The
weather was hot. The final day of the three day game between Cambridge University
and the M.C.C. at Lords was proving a dull affair, petering out to a draw. The
M.C.C. already ahead by a handful of Runs with just twelve overs before the
game would be called.
Stephen
looked down the wicket at the batsman again. His hand gripped the red ball
firmly, his right hand, index and middle finger flexed, feeling the subtle give
of the red leather. He ripped the ball, it fizzed in the air and he caught it
again. A show, a pantomime for the man at the other end. He was not fast, he
was not going to crash a bouncer into the man’s head, but he was dangerous
enough.
Stephen’s
bowling action was a simple one. He did not run but rather walked with
rhythmical pace. His arm swinging up, pointing at the batsman before
windmilling round as he delivered the ball. Twenty two yards of flat dusty
pitch on the fourth day. Cambridge were in a rut, but if he could just get this
one man out, this irritating groundstaff jock playing for the MCC he could give
them half a sniff at a victory. The batting to come for them was weak, nine ten
and jack on a pitch that was turning; he needed to get into those men. With
twelve overs left in the day they could be skittled out, but this kid, this
arrogant all rounder was blasting people all over the ground. He couldn’t win,
but he was like a Leonidas, wanting to rage against the ever encroaching
hordes. He had been in for two hours and had made ninety three. Light hair, his
name was John, or Ian? Stephen didn’t care, he just needed him out.
Stephen
took his first step and bowled. The ball tossed high, but undercut, the
rotations dipping the ball at the batsman’s feet as he skipped down the pitch,
his bat already through the shot the red ball turned off the pitch through the
gap between bat and his pads. Bouncing high it was taken by the wicketkeeper
who brought his hands down onto the stumps and missed. Stephen held his head in
his hands as the batsman regained his ground laughing. The ball was tossed back
to Stephen by an apologetic wicket keeper.
‘You
owe me a pint’ Stephen said through gritted teeth.
‘Try again
proffessor’ the fortuitous batsman called.
Stephen
wound up again, his delivery in anger was wrong, too full, too fast the
batsman’s eyes lit up and he sent the ball straight back over the bowler’s head
seventy yards. The ball clattering into the pavilion steps, sending the dozing
members into a fury, their slumber roused.
‘Wake
up’ The batsman called.
The
captain jogged over to Stephen. He was a young undergrad who was being pushed
through a degree in land management on his way to captaining England.
‘Easy
Prof’ he said.
‘Its
fine’ Stephen reassured him. ‘Remember which one of us plays for England.’
He
skipper laughed. Stephen had gained his first cap last summer at the Oval.
Taking three wickets in the second innings on a dusty pitch. It was his only game,
finishing the doctorate taking priority, Stephen desperate to get it done
before he was thirty.
Stephen
wound up again. He looked at the batsman. The ball would turn past the edge,
but his hands were too quick. The answer was to slow it down. He bowled his off
break, fingers wrapping round the ball turning it into the batsman from well
outside the off stump. He ball hit the turf, a puff of dust erupted off the
surface. The batsman was again through his stroke too soon, not reading the
turn right he watched in horror as the ball clattered into the stumps.
The
batsman, out on ninety nine tucked his bat under his arm and strode off,
nodding politely to Stephen as he went.
‘I’ll
have to remember him’ said the captain.
‘Commander Seres?’ Juval, his second-in-command,
came running down the corridor as the captain with his three volunteers for the
star walk were making their final preparations. Even the waif looked ready for
the adventure, buoyed up by the joking and playful men he had at either side.
His medical officer and the chief science officer had both been keen and
volunteered immediately after their youthful companion.
‘Change
your mind, Juval?’ Seres smirked.
‘Hardly,
sir,’ said Juval. ‘I value my life and
the command of the ship. Should you be incinerated in a solar sinkhole, we have
no way of knowing how deep the burnout of this star goes.’
‘This is the work of those bastards though, isn’t
it?’ the science officer chimed in.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Seres, turning back to
Juval. ‘Now what do you want?’
‘It’s
another ship, sir,’ said Juval.
‘What, in
orbit?’
‘No sir,
it’s outside.’
‘Impossible,’
said Seres. ‘We saw nothing when we landed?’ He looked at the waif, Sypo, who
shook her head in confirmation.
‘Well,
it’s a good thing I’m dressed up then, isn’t it?’ he frowned. ‘How far away is
it?’
‘About a
hundred metres,’ said Juval. ‘It has extended its own grav field over ours,
taking some of the strain from our engines.’
Seres
raised an eyebrow. ‘Keep ours ready to take the strain back should they fail to
continue their hospitality.’
He dismissed
his executive officer with a wave and finalized his preparations. They made
their way through the air lock system that extended out underneath the nose
cone, the hydraulics bringing them down to the surface. The doors opened to a
sea of black glass, the other ship in the distance almost invisible against the
alien scene. Stepping outside the men felt the effects of the gravity shields
take hold and keep them firmly within normal gravity. The batteries would not
last long though. Seres kicked at the surface. Like tempered steel with a glassy
sheen: no dust flew up, even in the false gravity. Across the desolation Seres
could see from the other ship a singular figure striding across the surface
towards him. The ship was human and modern in design, although the markings
were unusual for a transport. It had obviously had some form of modification
done as the engine block at the back was at least three times the size of his
own ship’s, which was itself three times the size of the transport. Seres
stoopd and waited for the man who seemed to gambol enthusiastically.
It had
been a week since their kidnap, two days since their escape and ten minutes of
a gentle stroll before he saw just how big the stranger from the crashed ship
was. While he walked he thought about how to explain who he was. Surely in this
universe there were stranger things than him. He was out of place, out of his
own reality according to all reasonable investigation. A mad experiment by a
scientist with too much time on his hands and a passion for the past. He, the
others, all snatched from their own times by technology their captor didn’t
understand, let alone him.
He had
been at a party. It was going rather well, he had danced, made merry, then he
suddenly felt like he could taste the colour blue and that was it. In an
instant he was aboard a ship floating in the dead of space.
The others
were the same.
People
he recognised, some people he knew but did not know. Taken from their worlds
and alternate earths to converge on this far distant time: ten thousand years
later.
It had
been easy enough to depart their prison. When you trap minds like that together
they soon realise that a gilded cage is still a cage. But now what? A ship at
their command they stumbled into this.
Their
captors would have left the stricken people, but what good was technology if
you didn’t use it to help your fellow man.
In the end
that was all they could offer a universe that had forgotten Earth. A touch of
humanity.
Seres marvelled at the bizzare terrain. The star
had begun the process of turning into a black dwarf, a roaming lump of coal in
space. Although black dwarfs would usually form over thousands of years some
massive power drain had crusted the star completely. Seres guessed that it was
no more than a third the size of an average planet, perhaps even as small as a moon.
The problem was the gravity. Without the suits and the space time bubble
extending from the ship to dull the effects they would all be much shorter; in
fact, becoming part of the surface of the star. If the process went the wrong
way this could get nasty. They had power to survive for a short while, but being
crushed by a star collapsing in on itself to the extent it became a singularity
would certainly not be how Seres would want to end his days.
The approaching
figure, dressed in human gear, was shorter than he expected and the suit,
designed for a man of seven or eight feet in height gave the unlikely
appearance of a child in oversized clothing. The visitor came to a halt a few
yards before Seres, flipped the face screen to clear, and now Seres could see
the small man inside.
‘My name’s Albert,’ he said with a thick German
accent, ‘and we’ve come to give you a hand’.
