Day 200:
We have to make a mid-course correction to arrive at Epsilon Eridani B. The creatures still move about our fleet, doing no harm and their presence is comforting.
Captain Henries gave the order to fire the manoeuvring ion-thrusters. Silence on the bridge. No movement.
“Fire the thrusters Helmsman!” Henries shouted his face purple, “Now!”
The Main-Helmsman, a pleasant soul, spluttered, “But Sir, the life forms! We’ll destroy them!”
The Men-At-Arms appeared again and the Pleasant Soul went the same way as Captain Roberts.
The Under-Helmsman jumped into the seat and smashed his hand down on the ‘Ignition’ control.
Immediately, our minds were filled with a sense of near-immortal creatures moaning in fright as they winked out of existence at the hands of ignorant savages. We thought we would go mad but it was over within a minute. We looked around at each other, shocked. The female Astrogator was in tears and the Admiral was typically oblivious.
More soon, your J.
#
Excerpts from Letter 324. Xmit from Relay 1822.
Day 382:
Dear William,
I have lost count of the systems we have visited, some devoid of life, some inhabited with primitive societies and an unfortunate few who were advanced enough for our fleet to take an interest. The only constant is the rapacious greed of the Corporate Representatives.
We are at the furthest extent of our journey now and will begin to retrace our path along our Line of Relays in 2 standard days, our holds full of valuable minerals and artefacts.
More soon, your J.
#
Excerpts from Letter 337. Xmit from Relay 1798.
Day 482:
Dear William,
Our Astrogators have detected signals that indicate another craft approaching us, following the line of our Ion-Relays. The Admiral with his usual arrogance has decided the signals are only a type of ‘Ion Reflection’ and of no concern. He also smirked and said pretentiously, “We have, after all of our great journey, not come across another race more technically advanced than our own!”
Cellini is rarely seen now. He stays in his cabin for weeks on end with his passionate dreams of star travel, his love of everything to do with spaceflight, shattered and lost. All of his new research has ceased and it is said that the doctor is in constant attendance.
On the bright side, if I can dare use the term, it is calculated we will be in Earth orbit within eighteen months. We have begun to accelerate and eventually will travel at top speed with no stopping! Then I will never leave you again! Ever!
More soon, your J.
#
Excerpts from Letter 339. Xmit from Relay 1756.
Day 520:
Dear William,
Our overconfident, ass of an Admiral was wrong!
Our fleet is being approached by an alien vessel! We estimate it will reach us within a week as we approach Randall’s Star, a Binary System with some low-class habitable worlds.
I hope that whatever the aliens are, they are more humane than we have proved to be.
More soon, your J.
#
Excerpts from Letter 348. Xmit from Relay 1730.
Day 527:
Dear William,
The alien spacecraft, for that is what it is, is enormous! A dull grey sphere easily ten times the size of our flagship Cellini 1, without any exterior features of any kind.
Cellini appears to be on some kind of meds but has been constantly present on the bridge as the alien ship draws near.
Day 531:
The alien spacecraft is now nearby and matches our trajectory in every aspect.
We are also beginning to have problems with our engines for the very first time. Our forward speed is decreasing. Cellini and his engineers are perplexed. He has said the slow linear decline in power output means the main engines could cease to function completely in 23 days! On the Bridge we look at each other with growing unease.
Day 544:
William, I am scared. Battery output is also now beginning to decay! In 10 days they will be useless and our ancillary equipment will stop. No water, no air.
The Politicos and Corporation men are going to pieces! Several of them have been heard in the Admiral’s cabin screaming. It won’t be long until they lose it altogether!
Day 545:
The mystery ship is Rallan!
I was on the Bridge when the Rallans just materialized out of thin air, one in front of each crew member but four for Cellini. The one that appeared to me was Rena! She smiled a sad smile, “The journey of your Race amongst the stars is to cease forthwith! Humans have left a trail of destruction such as we Rallans have never seen before in all our thousands of years of space travel.”
Soon, Rena began to dematerialize and her last words will always be with me, “William 'will luv yoo ‘rest of iz lyf.”
More soon, your J.
#
Excerpts from Letter 349. Xmit from Relay 1729.
Day 549:
William, Dearest,
This will be my last letter.
I feel the weight of great sadness in my soul for the life we will not now have together. We (Message quality poor due to impending Relay failure) and looks like the Rallans took Cellini with them.
In a short while I’ll board a shuttle with the majority of the Marines and Engineers. We are leaving the Politicos and company reps to go to hell together! The Astrogator has said there’s a small planet with a fairly stable orbit in this binary system. God only knows what it’ll be like! There’s a chance it is reachable as the shuttles use chemical rockets and we have just enough battery power to power up (Message quality poor due to impending Relay failure) Admiral went to his cabin and placed his pistol in his mouth. Got off too damn easy! (Message quality poor due to impending Relay failure).
Very Important William: we tracked the Rallan ship after its departure. It’s accelerating down the line of our Relays and each one it passes begins to fail. The Rallans are heading towards Earth! The Earth Governments must know and probably will go to any lengths to keep a lid on things before the Rallans arrive!
All my lo (Message ends. Relay Failure).
The Founder slowly refolded the grubby and aged letters and put them back in his satchel.
Looking at us, he smiled.
“After I received the last letter my friends and I had a few weeks to prepare a bolt-hole away from New York City. At that time we didn’t know what the Rallans would do when they arrived but because of what the Fleet had done, we knew it wouldn’t be good. We stocked a large country cabin with food, warm clothing and weapons. We didn’t know it at the time but we were founding the Colony of New Hudson.
When the Rallans did arrive they deployed what we call ‘The Three Eyes’ that you see every evening in the night sky. The array is actually a gigantic Electrical-Field-Suppressor. The immediate effect was that all electrical generation on Earth became impossible. Generators did not work and gradually over a period of a few months we found our advanced technology limited to that of The Steam Age.
Even now I don’t think the Rallans themselves are a bloodthirsty race, not directly anyway. The immediate effect of their actions was to initiate what we now call ‘The Adjustment’ when Millions died of starvation and deprivation.
For the sins of The Grand Fleet we had our civilisation impoverished and nearly destroyed!
There are rumours that somewhere in the Californian Federation they are building chemical rockets with crude mechanical guidance systems that may be able to reach The Three Eyes. If they could be destroyed, I hope a better mankind would once again visit far worlds...”
Mr Wilson stood up slowly and most of the class stampeded away. I went to help him walk down the ramp and noticed that dusk was beginning to fall.
A few stars were beginning to appear and I could see that he was glancing up at the sky and at that moment I knew that his thoughts wer
e on a distant world where his heart had always been and would always remain.
THE END
THE OWC’s RETURN
The Rt. Hon. Anthony Graham Lyndon Cromwell, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom stood at his bedroom window looking over his estate. The smooth, manicured gardens had been designed by the famous landscape architect Capability Brown in 1762 and melded very pleasingly into the distant tree line, creating a superb view.
“Except for that damn Krell Tower!” he thought.
The only Krell Tower on the whole planet Earth was indeed visible although it was seventy miles away, on the other side of London. From its three miles wide base it ascended into the sky for a height of thirty miles. At its top the constant arrival and departure of alien starships could be seen with a good pair of binoculars. A wonder of alien technology!
Cromwell had now been Prime Minister for twelve years and had been instrumental in enabling the Krells to build their Tower. Behind his back, some brave souls called him worse than corrupt and indeed he had been involved in many ruthless schemes to get the land cleared for the aliens whom he secretly and personally regarded as his patrons.
The Krells had originally landed their Emissary ship in Australia during the time when the British Commonwealth Ministers Conference was taking place in Sydney. Eight of them left the alien vessel to meet with Earthies.
The Conference was thrown into a frenzy of political posturing and backstabbing as the assembled politicians squabbled and conspired against each other to be seen with the Alien visitors. A lucky minister photographed with a Krell would see his political profile head into the stratosphere!
As the political bickering reached a fever pitch the Krell called a final meeting with only government representatives present, immediately excluding the dross of the various hangers on, lobbyists, special assistants, security etc. The room fell silent when one of the Krells raised an arm. The eight aliens turned their heads in unison as if listening for something and then suddenly made a bee-line for an insignificant junior member of the U.K. contingent, an assistant attache called Cromwell, disregarding everyone else.
The rest of the Ministers and their numerous aides were aghast that such an inexperienced and relatively low-ranking person should beat them to such a juicy plum!
Amidst the ensuing furore the Krell ignored all entreaties because somehow they had decided that Cromwell was The One. In years to come, Cromwell’s contemporaries would suspect the Krell had some kind of telepathy or empathy that had allowed them to sense the most ruthless, amoral Earthman at the conference.
When the Krells finally had Cromwell alone, they surrounded him, baring their fangs in the many-times-used ‘Ritual of Subjugation of Inferior Races’.
They screamed and shouted, outlining their needs, barely restraining themselves from demanding he acquiesce! They thought they could intimidate him using the same procedure that had worked on a dozen primitive worlds before with their black uniforms making them seem even more malevolent.
The Krells had an average height of a little over seven feet. Of humanoid form, their skin had a greenish tinge, no bodily hair was evident and their heads were covered with short green snake-like fronds. The eyes twice as large as the Earth norm were mounted over a delicate nose and a lipless mouth filled with lots of sharp canine teeth. As a result, most earth people found them repulsive and not a little frightening.
The future Prime Minister was totally oblivious to any personal threat from the ruthless, demanding creatures with their drooling fangs and foul odours. He had suddenly recognized his superiority and advantage over all of the other earth politicians. He would rise above them all! Consequently the assembled Krells were taken aback as Cromwell opened his arms and embraced several of them and smiled the greasy insincere smile that would become popular with the British and American public. He now knew he was a man of supreme destiny, feeling at ease with these creatures from the Green Sun, his mentors and kindred spirits!
On a personal level, Cromwell had few attractive qualities but in politics where it mattered, he was clever, devious and soon to be very dangerous to all that crossed his path. He knew that on his return to England he was to be the sole point of contact for the Krells on the planet Earth. The impending power he would wield in the Party and abroad would give him the means of settling old scores and clearing his path to the top job!
Prime Minister Cromwell. How wonderful!
It should be noted that at no time did the thought of Public Duty and Obligation to the Electorate or Country ever impinge upon his thoughts. Some things never change.
Once back in London Cromwell refused all demands and requests to share his access to the aliens. He talked expansively about the Krells, why they had chosen him, what his plans were and at the same time managed to impart little actual fact or detail. The supreme politician!
It proved surprisingly easy for him to manipulate his fellow members of Parliament of all political parties. Privately, he viewed them all as greedy, selfish and incompetent! Never the less, the Right Honourable Members were only too eager to put themselves in line for the vast rewards that would flow from the coming Krell Tower. That they would be lackeys for Cromwell, they did not care.
‘Money speaks its own language’ it is said.
In England, every Wednesday when Parliament is in session, Prime Minister’s Question Time takes place at Twelve o’clock in the afternoon. It is an opportunity for the opposition parties to come face to face with the Prime Minister and criticize his response to the current crop of Important Matters live on television.
Cromwell had been Prime Minister a matter of weeks when the Krells had erected force-fields and began to build the base of the Krell Tower using only Krell Overseers and imported alien labour.
The Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition Party, The Rt. Hon Nicolas Farquharson, stood up from the Opposition Bench and faced Cromwell who sat and smirked at him from the Government bench opposite.
Farquharson glanced at his notes then looked straight at Cromwell The Upstart, whom he hated and loathed with a vengeance and said, “Why does the Prime Minister allow the Aliens, these Krells,” he loaded the last words with venom, “to build their construction without our workforce, whilst knowing that we suffer thirty two percent unemployment in most industries?”
The Opposition Leader sat down confident that he at last had that pretender Cromwell on the ropes! He would show the electorate what a callous-hearted leader Cromwell was; indifferent to the plight of the unemployed, responsible for the demolition of whole villages and the consequent destruction of entire communities for the building of the Tower! And an Alien-Toady as well!
Cromwell stood up looking relaxed, perma-tanned and a picture of good health. A man who was at the peak of his power and supremely confident he could handle these pathetic fools! He had his fingers on all the buttons and could not be intimidated! How he loved and looked forward to Prime Ministers Question Time! Yet another opportunity to humiliate his enemies!
“I would inform the Honourable Opposition Member that I am well aware of our unemployment rate and that it is due in no small part to his policies in the previous administration!”
The Opposition members, some standing and waving their Order Papers, screamed and shouted abuse that was returned in kind by the Government Members. It was not a very dignified performance for the public watching on television at home but the political class was held in low regard anyway after a long series of money-related scandals! Cromwell held up one hand and the noise subsided.
“This morning I met with Gengar, the Krell Representative of Technology Transfer”.
From the Opposition members there was a moan of frustration. They sensed that Cromwell was about to make them look like out-of-touch idiots, again.
“Gengar has assured me that there is a large demand for labour on their Off World Colonies and Earth people would be most suitable. Two Year, Three Year and Four Year contracts are to be offered for work on a range o
f Agricultural and Mining planets. This will give employment and training in a wide range of disciplines from Farming, Construction and Engineering. Flights and accommodation supplied by our generous Krell friends, of course.”
The whole House erupted! The Opposition Parties were screaming in outrage and everyone else laughing in admiration for Cromwell. He had done it again! He was the best Prime Minister ever!
Again the house went silent and Cromwell continued, “It is for this reason that in the coming weeks The Government will submit to Parliament, ‘The Off-World Labour Supply and Taxation Bill’. This will enable our Government to receive taxes and payments from the Krell for the supply of labour etc.”
The Opposition sank into despairing silence.
Cromwell was Invincible.
Well hidden in the small print of the ‘Off-World Bill 2026’ as it would be known was a section for the compulsory enlistment of anyone who had been unemployed for more than six months or was deemed to be guilty of antisocial behaviour. The Bill would also extend to non-British residents and also anyone from another country presenting themselves for an Off-World Contract.
When in full swing, The Krell Tower would bleed Europe and beyond empty of the ambitious, the poor, the gullible and the desperate!
Cromwell continued staring out of the window thinking of how easy it had been to ramrod the ‘Off World Bill’ through Parliament. Bribery and coercion had been used on all who opposed him and they had been pathetically susceptible. The now ex-Leader of the Opposition sat in Pentonville Prison on Child Pornography charges, his career and life ruined. False charges true enough, but easily generated by Cromwell’s small Inner Circle of Chum’s!
After the ‘Off-World Bill 2026’ was enacted, there had been twelve years of a very enjoyable Premiership for Cromwell. The OWC’s (Off World Contractors) disappeared into the Krell Tower and off the unemployment list, for transportation by the frequent Interstellar Transports. Out of the Tower came new materials for industry and minor technology to be funnelled through Cromwell’s private company ‘Krell World Technologies Ltd.’
Into the Great Darkness Page 11