Our car turned left, followed the row of buildings for quarter of a mile, and came to a halt outside a blue and pink house. The side of the vehicle vanished, our captor stepped out, and we followed. She carried one of the blue pistols. Was there danger for her here? Why did she need a weapon with the force field available at her command?
‘This is your house. You will be here some time,’ she said.
‘Oh no. You are not going to abandon us without some sort of explanation!’ I said as forcefully as I could muster.
‘Mr. Mackay, you forfeited any right to information when you invaded our privacy. We are conducting a project from the convent grounds and you were in the way. When it is complete, we might be able to return you home. You are in no danger here, but we will not tolerate any more interference. Enter your home.’
‘You will pay for this!’ I said with ridiculous bravado.
She didn’t reply, climbed back into the car, the side reappeared, and it swung around and returned to the glass gates. We watched as it disappeared into the tunnel and then rapidly accelerated into the distance away from the dome. The glass gates swung shut. A bell jar-like structure formed over the two guards, there was a swirl of mist within it, and they and the bell jar vanished into thin air.
‘You’re new arrivals?’ a voice behind me said, causing us to turn anxiously. Two men and three women were approaching us from along the road.
‘Yes. Who are you?’ I asked, defensively.
‘Don’t be concerned, we’re fellow internees from Earth,’ said the closest woman, a tall light-haired lady in her forties, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Patricia.’
I shook her hand, ‘Henry, and my wife, Hazel.’
‘Pleased to meet you. John is my husband. This is Greg and Joan, another couple, and Anne, from further up the street.’
John was heavily built and severe looking. I guessed at forty-five or so. Greg was my age, sandy haired and looked vaguely familiar. His wife was rather nondescript. Anne was a petite black woman in her twenties. We all shook hands.
‘You’re from Earth, then?’ Hazel asked.
‘Yes,’ said Greg. ‘There are about two hundred of us. You stumbled on their “project”, did you?’
‘I’m the culprit. Hazel got dragged into it after they caught me.’
‘How long have you been here?’ asked Hazel.
‘A couple in the first house by the gates were the earliest to arrive, about a year ago,’ Joan said.
‘A year. Good God,’ I said.
‘Yes, they’ve been adding to our population steadily. Anne came last week,’ said Joan.
‘We’re hungry and thirsty. Is there anything in the house?’ Hazel asked.
‘Yes. Go on in. You’ll find the place well stocked. We’ll leave you to settle in,’ said Greg.
‘Patricia and I will come along in about an hour and fill you in on what we know, if that’s okay with you?’ said John.
‘Yes, please,’ I said and examined the front door with Hazel.
The handle turned easily admitting the two of us to a hallway with a staircase leading off to one side. On the left of the passage I opened a door into a comfortably furnished lounge. The furniture appeared to be from home, but it was, again, a mismatch of styles and colours. We continued through to the kitchen area where we found a table stacked with provisions. Tea, coffee, jars, cans, and packs of groceries, fresh vegetables, fruit, grapes, bottles of red, white, rosé, and even sparkling wine. Lemonade, Coca Cola, fruit juices, milk, cheese, cereal, bread, meat, eggs, butter – everything you might need.
Hazel spotted one of the hot-water bowls, filled it from a tap and waved her hand over it to boil while I found a couple of cups and opened the teabags. At least we weren’t going to starve.
With mugs of tea and a packet of bourbon biscuits, we explored the remainder of the house. Upstairs one bedroom with a double bed and another with two singles, and a bathroom with bath, shower, washbasin, and toilet. It was all very civilised, but unearthly in its combinations of furniture and fittings.
After our exploration, we returned to the kitchen area and packed away the provisions. One of cupboards was a refrigerator, but there was no freezer. Four square areas on the worktop turned out to be hotplates operated in the same manner as the kettle-bowl.
There was a knock at the door and Patricia and John entered, shouting, ‘It’s just us,’ as they came along the passage.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Settled in?’ asked Patricia.
‘Sort of,’ I said, ‘and desperate for information.’
John held his finger to his lips in the age-old sign of secrecy, then said, ‘Let’s sit in the garden. It’s a nice day.’
He opened the door from the kitchen onto a stone patio where there was a stack of plastic chairs and a table. He picked up the chairs and took them down the garden until we were about ten metres from the house, then unstacked them. I ran to help.
We all sat down facing each other.
‘Do you know anything at all?’ he asked.
We shook our heads. ‘I stumbled into their compound after finding a doorway which was concealed behind some sort of projected camouflage. I got curious and got caught.’
‘Similar with us. John is a police inspector, saw someone acting suspiciously and followed him into a building,’ said Patricia.
‘With his Middle-Eastern skin tones and the furtive way he was behaving, I thought he was a terrorist,’ said John.
‘That was him caught. They came and got me from our home and we were brought here a few months ago,’ Patricia added.
‘I was an armed-response officer, but my arm was encased in their force-gel before I could pull my weapon.’
‘Do you know where we are? And what’s that misty shape in the sky?’ asked Hazel pointing north towards what seemed to be a huge, hazy, oval cloud, which seemed to be frozen in position.
‘Ha, who knows where we are?’ he said. ‘It seems to be an alien planet and a man down the street who is an amateur astronomer says the constellations of stars are unfamiliar although he says he’s found some odd similarities. He thinks it’s likely we’ve been transported to another spiral-arm of the Milky Way galaxy, but he says there is something weird to do with Andromeda and that it’s something to do with the spiral galaxy you can see up there. I don’t really understand.’
‘Galaxy?’ I asked. ‘That’s a galaxy. Visible in daylight?’
‘Yes. The astronomer says he needs a telescope but the robots in the shop won’t order one or even a pair of binoculars. It is something else that they are keeping secret.’
‘But a galaxy, visible during the day. That’s amazing,’ I said.
‘Something like that. Someone else suggested we might even have left the Milky Way and that might be it… up there, but the astronomer was dismissive of that idea as the Milky Way is still visible around us,’ said John.
‘Wait ‘til you see it at night,’ said Patricia. ‘It’s stunning.’
‘They must have faster than light travel,’ I said.
‘That vortex which brought us here seems to be a wormhole through space or something.’
‘The day here is about forty hours and the sun is larger than ours and more red,’ said Patricia.
‘Forty!’ said Hazel.
‘Yes. Difficult to get used to,’ said Patricia.
‘Not Mars, then,’ I said.
‘No, and the gravity rules that out, anyway. Our weight is very similar to being on Earth,’ said John.
‘And we’re stuck here?’ asked Hazel.
‘We have some freedom and have learned a little about our captors. There is a small group who are planning an escape. I’m one of them,’ said John.
‘Escape to where?’ I asked.
‘Back to Earth. Come along tomorrow night and we’ll tell you all about it.’
‘Have you worked out what their “project” is?’ I asked.
‘No, and despite their protestations th
at none of us will come to any harm, many of us are worried it’s an invasion. Looking around this world, it seems old. It’s certainly a possibility,’ he said.
‘You think we’re being bugged? Is that why we’re down the garden?’
‘Possibly, but safe rather than sorry. I’ll come and collect you at eight tomorrow evening. As Pat said, it’s difficult to adjust to the long days. Most of us sleep for a few hours at midday and again at midnight. You’ll need a clock,’ said John and handed me a digital device.
‘Homemade?’ I said, examining the rough metal case and red digital readout.
‘Yes. No timepieces here. These are made by one of our group. We can order wire and other bits and pieces. It is surprisingly difficult to organise anything without knowing the time.’
I looked towards the sun which was a little lower in the sky. The clock said 19:68.
‘Nineteen sixty-eight?’ I asked incredulously.
‘It was decided to stick to twenty-four-hour days, but there are now one hundred minutes in an hour. So, it is still thirty-two minutes to eight o’clock in the evening and over six hundred minutes to midnight or nearly ten Earth hours.’
‘That’ll take some getting used to,’ said Hazel.
‘We’d certainly like to come to the meeting tomorrow,’ I said. The idea of an “Escape Committee” intrigued me, and tomorrow wouldn’t arrive a minute too soon.
We talked until dusk darkened the landscape and were amazed by the view in the northern sky. The vague misty shape we’d seen in daylight was now clearly a huge spiral galaxy, covering at least a third of the sky. Could it be the Milky Way? The possibilities were fascinating. Was Earth in one of those spiral arms? How could we find out?
Despite a day of little action, the anxiety seemed to have taken its toll on us and we turned in shortly after dark. Soon we were dealing with the effect of the day's stresses by taking advantage of some welcome privacy and losing ourselves in some leisurely lovemaking. I think I was forgiven – well, for now anyway.
11 Escape Committee
It was strange to wake up after a good night’s sleep and still find it pitch black outside. This forty-hour-day would certainly not be easy to adapt to. We went into the garden and sat watching the amazing galaxy. I looked around other parts of the sky and didn’t see anything familiar, although there was a distorted form of the Great Bear constellation immediately above us and, John was right, the Milky Way was also visible, crossing the sky to the south.
When daylight arrived, we walked towards the centre of the town. Seemingly every resident along the psychedelic street popped out to talk to us and get some news of home so it was a slow walk indeed.
An hour later, we arrived at a group of communal buildings including the equivalent of a town hall, a non-denominational church, and a supermarket. We poked our heads into the civic buildings then headed to the shop.
Inside, robots were coming and going through a rear door and replenishing the shelves, chiller cabinets, and clothes racks. It seemed we had arrived during restocking.
It was fascinating to watch them trundling into the store, whizzing up and down the aisles, bringing older products to the front and sliding new goods into the rear of the shelves. When they moved, they did so rapidly, yet never running into the shoppers or each other – in fact, they went out of their way not to inconvenience any of us, waiting patiently for humans to move along the aisles before replenishing the shelves we’d been looking at. We wondered how long it would be before we saw similar devices in our supermarkets on Earth. It was such an obviously useful function of robots that it was surprising we hadn’t already seen these in the twenty-first century.
In the clothing section, there was little choice. Short and long-sleeved shirts were brown or green. Trousers the same. Shorts were short or Bermuda length; skirts short or knee length, but everything in the same two colours. Shoes came in three styles – brown trainers, black shiny shoes, or comfortable slippers. Underwear was in the same colours and everything was unisex except for the variety of bras. The ambient temperature of the dome seemed to be about 21oC, so no wet or cold weather clothes were required. Other than the choice of sleeve length and leg coverings, there was no difference in the cut or features of the garments.
Food shelves were well stocked with produce from Earth, at least as regards packets, cans, jars, fruit juice containers, cheese, butter, and milk.
The fresh food racks were laden with a small, but fascinating collection of fruit and vegetables. Some looked vaguely like Earth produce but others were quite bizarre. There were handwritten cardboard signs over each to explain what they were like. Example labels were “Like peppers” – “Similar to sprouts” – “Think asparagus” – “Aniseed flavour” – “Looks like an orange but tastes similar to strawberries”, and one broccoli-like purple vegetable even said, “Marmite-like, you’ll love it or hate it!”
The contents of the chiller cabinets were rather odd too. Hazel pointed out to me that everything was half an inch thick, circular, and four inches in diameter. It didn’t matter whether it was beef, chicken, pork, lamb, or fish.
‘I think the meat and fish is synthetic. You can’t grow animals to produce such perfectly spherical cuts,’ she said.
‘Tastes fine,’ said a woman who’d overheard us. ‘The steaks are wonderful and never any sinew or fat.’
She introduced herself and we chatted awhile about the selection available on the shelves. It seemed most of our needs were catered for and a fixed robot near the door could be asked for anything else we required. Strange that we could take anything we wanted. There was no charge for any of the goods, not that we had any money, of course.
I later learned that requests to the robot were how our colony had obtained the components and light-emitting diodes for the clocks. Strange that they wouldn’t allow binoculars, telescopes, or even lenses to be ordered. Surely this world was too far from Earth to give us clues about it by observing the surrounding universe. They must be trying to conceal some secret from us which could be revealed with astronomical instruments – but what?
We soon whipped our house into shape and reorganised the furnishings to better suit us. The television played films from a vast online library and also showed a BBC television news round-up, but it appeared to be a week behind as we both recognised one bulletin about an art theft.
We took the advice given by John and Patricia and decided to sleep for four hours at ten hundred hours and a bit longer at twenty-two hundred hours. It was four hundred minutes, of course, so actually closer to seven Earth hours.
When we woke that afternoon, we tried on our green and brown, shorts and t-shirts. We looked laughable, but they served their purpose. Hazel was pleased to get out of her business suit. I only wore the alien clothes to keep her company.
At eight o’clock, John came for us and we walked back into the centre and entered the town hall. The room was twenty metres square. Pop music was playing and, with everyone wearing green and brown, it gave the impression of a girl-guides’ and boy-scouts’ annual jamboree, but, bizarrely, everyone was wearing a balaclava. What was that all about?
Once inside, John put his finger to his lips and guided us to a table against the wall. He picked up a balaclava and pulled it over his head, leaving only his eyes and mouth exposed. I selected one for myself and examined it. Although knitted, each wool thread contained four or five metal filaments. I pulled it on and Hazel did likewise.
‘We think this blocks out our thoughts and we use the music to hide our words.’
‘How sure are you?’ I asked.
‘Pretty sure. We tested one by attacking a guard. Not only did he not realise Greg was about to attack him, but the force field was less potent. Greg pretended to be immobilised, but surreptitiously moved parts of his body while in its grip. We daren’t try it again in case it gives away our plans.’
‘Did they not take away the balaclava?’ I asked.
‘No. The first one was only a
knitted skull cap and Greg had worn it under a baseball cap. It fooled them. Since then they always carry guns when they are in town. You might have spotted quite a few people walking around the town wearing full balaclavas.’
‘Yes. Thought it was a bit odd,’ I said.
‘Well, that is because we need our captors to get used to seeing them otherwise our plan won’t work.’
There were thirty to forty people in the group and each pulled up a chair so that we were in a tight huddle. I saw other members of the group moving audio speakers to face out and away from the huddle. The volume of the music was raised.
John introduced us.
Greg, the leader of the escape committee took over. ‘I’ll recap the current position for Henry and Hazel, our latest internees.
‘We now have more than a hundred balaclavas. Hazel, Henry, just so you know, the grey balaclavas are just wool. Only the black ones contain the metallic thread. We also have two handguns and a rifle.’
I wondered how the devil they’d obtained those. This was certainly a resourceful group.
‘The plan is to stowaway on one of the delivery vehicles and hope it takes us back to the main city. Before we do that, we intend to capture one of our warders and get information on the vortex transport system so that we can return to Earth. We can then report what has happened to the government.’
‘How do you intend to capture one of them? Will he not just call out for help telepathically?’ I asked.
‘That’s where this comes in.’ Greg held up a heavier, tighter knit balaclava without any openings. ‘This is heavy duty and we think it will block their abilities. We’ve made four of them.’
I examined it. The wool was more metal thread than actual wool. ‘And you’ve covered all eventualities?’ I asked.
‘Don’t be naïve, Henry,’ he said sharply. ‘We’re guessing at their potential responses, but it seems the only way forward is to make an attempt.’
I felt hurt by his harsh put-down, but at least it meant we had a leader who didn’t suffer fools lightly and, of course, it was a foolish question.
The Door Page 6