Black Desert

by Peter Francis

“I’m trying to apologise here. It isn’t easy.”

  “Why isn’t it easy?”

  Ramirez stroked his chin as if checking he had shaved that morning. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I do like you but we always seem to end up fighting each other.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  “About fifty fifty.”

  “In your dreams,” she said. “Why don’t you pick me some flowers?”

  “We’re in the middle of the desert,” protested Ramirez. “The only thing that blooms here is tumbleweed. The only flowers you will find will be printed on some old lady’s dress.”

  “But if there were flowers, you would pick them for me?”

  “I would go outside and pick flowers.”

  “Well, that would make a change from picking your nose,” she said.

  “Now there you go again.”

  “Sorry, Ramirez. I guess we’re destined to remain enemies but we can console ourselves that we tried.”

  “I think we can do better,” he said and went back to his work.

  They broke for lunch and ate inside the house. Gowan prepared simple sandwiches for them using ham, cheese and tomato with green salad purchased from the market the day before.

  “I have made the new circuit boards,” said Lillishenger, “and Ramirez is almost finished with the transmission aerial. We should be ready to test by mid-afternoon. You, Captain, will have to help me link it in to the Challenger’s power source.”

  “You already have the best man for that,” said Stiers. “Ramirez is the expert. I’m just an old horseback pilot.”

  “How is flying that craft related to riding horses?” asked Gowan.

  “It’s almost identical,” said Stiers, “except aliens don’t shoot at you.”

  “They fired?” asked Ramirez.

  “Yes,” said Ogden. “We established they were getting ready to fire as soon as their cloak was down. Fortunately – or not – we were already being despatched here.”

  “So there is no doubt they are hostile,” said Lillishenger.

  “None whatsoever,” declared Ogden.

  “Then we must find a way to stop them.”

  Stiers looked at her. “I don’t care what it takes or what price we have to pay. They’re not getting near my family.”

  “Nor mine,” said Ramirez.

  “Then let’s get back to work,” said Gowan and rose from the table. They cleared up the dishes and made their way outside where Gowan peered at the fence. “There’s a fat man on a motorcycle on the other side of the road,” she said.

  “This is America in the 1990s,” said Ogden. “There are fat men on Harleys just about everywhere. And fat, bald men wearing crops.”

  “He looked at us, then looked away.”

  “Lucky we’re wearing civvies,” said Lillishenger. “We had better dress this way in future until we have a mission.”

  “I’m not in civvies,” said Ramirez.

  “Don’t worry. Your uniform looks enough like Dickie overalls from a distance.”

  Inside the craft there was some confusion as the Porfessor and Ramirez completed their fabrication and began to install the cloaking device. “You are going to have to move your ass,” Ramirez said to Gowan. “I need to reach the ceiling.”

  “Oh, you can’t fly?” she queried politely.

  “I left my wings behind,” he said. “Talking about wings, how are yours?”

  “Not as big as the ones under your arms.”

  “Not me, kiddo. I’m as fit as a man can be. You want to see surplus flesh, look at Ogden.”

  “Where’s that fork?” said Lillishenger.

  “Sorry, Prof. I’ll get on,” said Ramirez and placed a folding platform close to where Gowan was working. “If my workboots offend you, I’ll take them off,” he said to his fellow junior officer.

  “If the choice is between your boots and your feet, I’ll take the boots any day.”

  “Porton Down,” said the Professor suddenly then looked at the astonished faces around her. “Sorry,” she said. “I was just thinking out loud.” To Ramirez she said, “You can’t manage that on your own. I’ll give you a hand.”

  There was room for them both on the platform and they soon had the aerial loop fitted securely. Stiers asked, “Is it a strong bond?”

  Ramirez tugged at it. “You can swing on it and it won’t come off. Try it if you like.”

  “I’ll try it with your dick,” muttered Gowan.

  “You two are turning into each other,” said Stiers. “There’s a cheap motel down the road. Why don’t you go along there and work this out of your systems?”

  “I’d rather be in bed with a wallowing walrus,” said Gowan.

  “Too late. The Prof has already nabbed Ogden,” said Ramirez.

  “I have super adhesive in my hand and your gonads within easy reach,” said Lillishenger, “and I’m tired of warning you.”

  “Okay, okay. We’re finished here.” Ramirez jumped down and studied his handiwork with a proud grin on his face. “All we have to do is wire this baby in.”

  He and Lillishenger went below deck to complete their work. The remaining three studied their screens and made copious cloud notes. Holo images flickered and lives short lives before being replaced by others. Every possible scrap of information or theory was wrenched from the sensors and probes and memory banks and tested against other possibilities.

  The man on the motorcycle outside, who was less fat than actually mildly chunky, drove off and located the diner a couple of miles away. He had a carbohydrate and fat-rich lunch and coffee to quicken his heart. None of that bothered him. He was a man with a motorcycle in and many parts of America, that is enough for a lifetime.

  By late afternoon the cloaker was installed and ready for testing. For safety reasons the entire crew evacuated the Challenger and watched as Lillishenger threw the switch remotely. The chameleon cells faded, as did most of the ship, leaving just the faintest outline.

  “Ignore that,” the Professor told them. “The outline is a part of your mind that expects to see the vessel – which is, of course, still actually there and quite visible. The alpha part of your brain is being told to ignore what you see. In real life, without the device, your brain records only a tiny fraction of what your eyes see anyway. Your brain only notices the important things – like sudden movement or a sharp dagger pointed at you or a beautiful woman. Otherwise, most of what you see is ignored. Your brain is being encouraged to ignore the Challenger yet there is no long-term effect or damage.”

  “When will we use this, impressive though it is?” asked Stiers.

  “When we locate the stuff to kill the aliens for one thing,” said Lillishenger.

  “You have a plan?”

  “I’m working on one. Now, if you don’t mind, while Ramirez tidies up our work here, I shall study the reports of your various analyses.”

  “As good-natured as I am, I am also the Captain and expect to be kept abreast of any ideas you have, Professor,” said Stiers.

  “Of course, Captain. I must do some research first.”

  “Understood, Professor.”

  They spent the subsequent hour downloading their discoveries and theories so they could be studied on the large screens. Ramirez spent most of that time below deck finishing his work. When Gowan was done she joined him there and offered to help as he struggled to knit together some wires.

  “Can I hold anything for you?” she offered.

  “You wouldn’t want to hold what would really help me,” he said.

  “You’re infuriating,” she stormed. “And to think you made me suck your ass.”

  “You were saving my life.”

  “Yeah, from a piece of tubing.” She crept back out and went on deck again. Ramirez was only seconds behind her. Stiers suggested Ogden lead them through the day’s findings.

  While everybody was settling, Ogden seemed wistful and pensive. He was quiet for a while then said to nobody in particula
r. “It seems strange to realise I have not yet been born and neither have my mother or father. Childhood is a wonderful time not realised until middle age approached and passes. Those golden years when everything is fresh and new; when inquisitive minds seek explanations; when fears are all self made; when there are comforting arms and kisses to comfort every cut and bruise; last but a short time. But children have others to resolve their problems – grown up, experienced minds to solve their crises. How fortunate they are for we just have ourselves and our undisputed intelligence to recover our situation. It is likely we may die before we are born. Ramirez has posed the concern that even if we can find a way to travel through time – the speeds required would squash our bodies into a sub-molecular mass.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Gowan.

  “I am saying that our plan must now comprise finding a way of sending our ship back through time, computer programmed with an attack strategy, while we remain here in this not unpleasant place.”

  Gowan gasped and Stiers stared.

  “Light travels at 186,000 miles a second,” Ogden continued. “It is a fact that to achieve a useful speed of two million miles a second, our bodies would just consist of separated atoms. So we are not going back, I’m afraid.”

  “We have to remain here?” queried Ramirez.

  “Unless we can conceive a way of protecting our bodies – yes.”

  “Well lock my locks and boil my socks.”

  “We must focus our efforts on saving future Earth, and do it from a time before we were born,” said Ogden.

  “Don’t take up stand-up comedy, Ogden,” said Ramirez. “You’d be no good at it.”

  “I think we all knew it. I just gave it voice.”

  “I’m not real happy at that news,” said the Captain. “I was figuring on getting back to my family.”

  “You have no family in this time,” said Ogden. “This hasn’t been a day trip to the beach. This is the reality for which no amount of Fleet training could have prepared us. We will have to save the Earth in a remote and anonymous fashion if that is to be achieved at all.”

  Lillishenger waved her arms. “There is much truth in what Daniel has said,” she told them. “However, we must not give up hope. Whatever happens, this craft will need to travel forward – with or without us – and carry the means to seriously damage the aliens.”

  “I don’t want to stay here,” said Stiers. “Everybody smokes cigarettes.”

  “Let me summarise what else we have learned,” said Ogden. “The aliens have a weak point when travelling cloaked. If you know where they will be – and our recordings can pinpoint that exactly – you can reach their ship and do damage. Most of their vessel is empty space and the engines – we cannot identify the propulsion system – vent into space. Most of the area where the aliens live and work, which is quite small, is sealed except for the areas where there is entry to the engines. We must assume there is some form of opening seal between their decks and the engines because there must be a need for regular attendance and maintenance in there. The engines must also heat the living quarters. Again this is an assumption, but they may also be used to recycle rebreathable atmosphere to the decks. They breath oxygen and nitrogen with a much higher percentage of methane than we could tolerate.

  “We also know they do not transport water as H2O but use H2H2O or D2O – heavy water. About one part in 10,000 of Earth’s water is D2O so if they were after that they would have to process and dehydrate much of Earth’s surface water to make the trip worthwhile. The effects would be catastrophic. But we feel there is a chink in their armour – a combination of their desire to move cloaked and the engine vents. Because not only do they blow out gases, they suck in a cooling vacuum from space. We have to define a means of contaminating that with something lethal and fast acting.”

  “From a quarter million miles and a hundred years away,” said Gowan.

  “Indeed.”

  “Well I’m glad it’s going to be easy,” she said.

  “We have the skills to do it,” said Lillishenger.

  “All we need is a big can of bug spray,” said Ramirez.

  “There is something else,” said Ogden. “We could fight with a two-pronged attack.”

  “Tell us about the other prong,” said Stiers, still thinking of his family forever lost to him.

  “The aliens must have been water dwellers until recent times in their course of evolution,” said Ogden. “Their accommodation is very humid with a continuous spray of water mist inside their living and working areas. This is likely why they seek water. They have very limited reserves and we estimate that if we could cut that supply of vapour, they would suffer enough not to be able to function effectively. If we could find a weapon that blew a hole in their living quarters at that point, we would be able to see victory.”

  “We won’t see anything,” said Stiers. “We’ll be stuck here never knowing whether or not our plans for the future worked or failed.”

  “True,” agreed Ogden. “There will be a great deal of faith involved.”

  “Keep looking at ways of getting us back with the ship,” said the Captain. “I am willing to die here for humanity – but only if I have to. I would rather die from defending human safety in my own time.”

  “May I take that on board, Captain?” asked Ramirez. “I have a few ideas to work on.”

  “Can I help?” asked Gowan.

  “No,” said the Professor. “The rest of us must work on a foolproof method of getting to the aliens with a means of destroying them.”

  “I still can’t figure out the time travel side – and how we travelled back in time against all known physics,” said the Captain.

  “Time is an illusion,” said the Professor. “For instance, when we look at the moon what we see is actually how it was about a second and a half ago. We see the sun as it was a few minutes ago. Light takes time to travel. Let me pose a problem. If you were now on a planet a two thousand light years from Earth you’d be able to see the crucifixion of Jesus. That would be ‘live’ for you. If you were a hundred light years or so from Earth you could see the Boer War taking place. Now imagine you could travel at a speed that put you on that thousand light year planet almost instantly – what would you be seeing? You would have to travel at speeds so above light speed that a thousand years could pass by here even in one day of travel. You would arrive almost in time to witness your departure. You would be able to see the past.

  “Now theory – with which I do not agree – insists you have to travel through space in order to travel through time. My small experiments here show that is not the case. You merely have to be moving. If you can achieve, and I believe we can, light speeds while barely moving from the spot, you will travel outside Earth time and into warp time. Vibration would shake the craft to bits so we must devise a circular motion for the Challenger in which she constantly chases a signal that moves ever faster. It is my belief that if we can perfect this, the ship can move forward ten years in the space of a year, or even a month or a week.”

  “But we can’t go with it?” said Stiers.

  “Ramirez has the most agile brain here so if there is a solution, it will have to come from him.”

  “We may as well give up now,” said Gowan.

  “I have some ideas already, Rubbertits,” said Ramirez.

  “Why don’t you kiss my ass?”

  “No objection, Sweetcheeks. After all, you kissed mine.”

  “They’re off,” said Ogden.

  “Can it,” said the Captain. “What if transporting existed to the extent that we could beam somebody to this thousand year planet?”

  “Then they would arrive in time to see a thousand years into the past,” said Lillishenger. “Beaming would involve transmitting atoms instantly. We can break an item into atoms and transfer it but it takes a lot of power, is not always successful, and cannot be used on something alive. The problem is not in breaking something down into its atomic structure – the prob
lem is reassembling it in the correct order at the other end. Most of what we see around us that is inorganic, comprises a mixture of various elements. Stainless steel, for example, is a mixture of refined pig iron combined with charcoal, chromium and nickel. Morphine is derived from coal tar, but so are many other things then combined with other chemicals for various effects. Gunpowder is charcoal, powdered nitre and sulphur. This can be broken down atomically but the reverse is as yet impossible. Yet we do have the ability to send the elements separately and assemble them at the other end. Strange, isn’t it?”

  “Isn’t science wonderful?” said Ramirez. “It can do anything except what you want to do.”

  Lillishenger said, “Assuming we are able to propel the ship forward in time – we still need to slaughter the aliens.”

  “I have a few ideas,” said Ogden.

  “So do I,” said his partner. “We will explore them together.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” asked Gowan.

  “Using some ideas I give you, you can explore the possibility of building an electro-magnetic track that will be capable of exceeding light speeds.”

  “Should be a piece of cake for you, Ogden,” said Ramirez. “Nobody knows how to run away as fast as you do.”

  “I resent that.”

  “Children, children,” said Stiers. “Please let us focus.”

  “I suggest we go to the house and eat,” said Lillishenger, while we figure out how to get more money without faking it.”

  “That just leaves stealing,” said Ogden.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes it does.”

  They adjourned their discussion and went back to the house where it was Ogden’s turn to be chef. They were already getting low on food again so made an old recipe shepherd’s pie, involving hamburger meat and mashed potato topped with grated cheese. Ramirez pulled a face but managed to gulp down a second portion. Most had opted for iced tea and this became a regular at the table.

  It was Gowan who disturbed the pleasure of their relaxation.

  “Did you notice,” she asked, “that our friendly motorcyclist is back across the road?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN