by Oliver EADE
“Thanks, Redfor. Sorry for not trusting you before. I was confused. So many lies… so much damned deceit!”
“Like God said, Gary, you’re a poor judge when it comes to people. Yes, you and Beetie love each other, but even you thought she’d betrayed that love.”
“I guess God used the time-specs to confirm Beetie’s pregnancy… travelled with her into the future. But he did more than that, didn’t he?”
Redfor laughed.
“Don’t even ask, Gary. Just accept there are things we’ll never find out,” Redfor said as they rejoined the O’Malleys in the hallway.
“He’s been there, hasn’t he? To ‘Paradise Planet’? He’d have checked things out. Of course, he would’ve! I would! Only how did he get back?”
“Lips are sealed! The things on his memory-stick are only the bits that take this world up to a point you’re going to now. The launch of the Belindaron, shortly before London disappears for good! Now, little Caitlin, are you looking forward to shooting off into the sky and outer space in the largest airplane ever built?”
“Is it a flyin’ saucer, Mr Redfor?”
Redfor chuckled.
“Yeah! I suppose so! But enough of talking. You lot had better get going, and make sure you take the shuttle-bus in the right direction, Gary. Don’t want you ending up in the Belt with all those veg-eatables! The one going from right to left all the way to the Terminus. A full ten seconds!”
The other customers and two shop assistants scratched their heads when a boy, a little girl, a middle-aged man and a young woman vanished holding hands.
“Guess some people can run so fast you miss them if you blink,” Redfor remarked to puzzled onlookers before leaving.
Two hundred years later, Gary, wearing the time-specs, and the Irish family, stood on a wide, deserted pavement beside the shuttle-bus run.
“What is dis funny place, Da?” the child asked, her questioning eyes scanning the towering buildings. “You said we were goin’ to London. Is dis still London? Why are de windows in de houses all round like plates?”
“I really don’t know, my darlin’. Only dat we’re waiting for a bus to take us to de space-ship.”
“Well I don’t like dis place… and neither does Angelina, do you?”
Angelina was the child’s yellow-haired doll. The two were inseparable, and Caitlin held onto her tightly.
“Where is everyone? Dere’s nobody here. London’s empty!”
Gary’s concern as well. Too late, perhaps? The streets of the twenty-third century London he’d visited before were always teeming with surfacers. Redfor seemed so certain they’d arrive only two minutes after God transferred himself back to the past, having delivered Beetie into the safe hands of Arthry. He’d preset the specs for Gary. Surely they hadn’t failed him? Worse, had Redfor betrayed him?
Holy Father, don’t let my mind take me down that road again!
“Maybe they’ve all gone to see the space-ship, Caitlin,” he suggested.
“Oh, look! See dat little mouse down there, Mr Gary!”
Caitlin pointed to a tiny, trembling creature squatting in the centre of the shuttle-bus run. Mouse-sized, true, but Gary wasn’t sure exactly what the animal was. Nevertheless, it was clearly terrified.
“I’ve gotta help him, Mummy. Look, he’s shiverin’.”
“No, Caitlin. Leave de wee t’hing in de hands of de Holy Fader. You can’t go down there!” warned the girl’s mother.
Determined to disobey, the child slipped down onto the shuttle-bus run. Gary, trying to work out why London had turned into a futuristic urban Marie-Celeste, was jerked back to reality. He stared in horror as a great silver bullet shot, from nowhere, into the space where Caitlin had stooped to pick up the little animal. It slammed into the child just before halting, the speed of the impact atomising her fragile body. The mother’s scream reverberated in Gary’s skull as he stared at the stationary shuttle-bus, its circular door open and its glistening silver body splattered red with blood.
***
Mike and Cathy found themselves in the spotlessly-clean, doughnut-shaped concourse area of the Belindaron, its walls a shining white. Round doors opened inwards every ten metres or so, towards the centre. A curvy seat encircled the outer wall of the craft, and futuristic arm chairs were scattered about, some occupied by surfacers.
Like a five-star hotel playing host for the twenty-third century Olympics? mused Mike, for the place had that clean, fresh smell of a plush hotel.
“Hi, guys!” the boy called out. He waved, expecting, at the most, zombie-like grunts in return.
A tall, thin man broke away from a small group and approached the young couple. Mike slipped his hand into his pocket for the mag-stunner.
“Mike?” Mike relaxed. “You have the converter?” The man held out his hand for the case. Cathy nudged her boyfriend. She looked troubled and his hand tensed again.
“Who are you?” he asked.
There was something odd about the man’s face. Cathy must have noticed it. Perhaps she remembered the guy, for so many more memories were coming back to her.
“Who I am is of no importance! Arthry’s getting impatient. God’s predictions were wrong. The super-volcano could blow a lot sooner. Maybe within twenty minutes.”
“Whatever, but I’m gonna give this flipping thing to him myself, dude!”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“Please yourself. I’ll show Cathy to her room, whilst…”
“Cathy? How come...? No... you bloody won’t! Where’s Arthry?”
The man glanced from Mike to Cathy, as if sizing them up.
“This way,” he finally replied.
They passed beyond a door, and on through a series of brightly-lit, diminishing doughnut-shaped hallways, connected by short corridors... on towards the centre of the Belindaron before emerging into a large open space with a high-domed ceiling.
Mike had once been to a prom, and the place reminded him of the Albert Hall without the seats. Instead of the organ was a vast screen and several desks at which surfacers fiddled with controls, whilst in the middle a wide pillar, the girth of a redwood tree, soared to the apex more than a hundred feet up. Against the pillar stood a girl in a yellow dress, torn apart to expose her back, her blond hair untidily half covering her lovely face. Her arms were stretched above her head, held by straps attached to the pillar. Beside her, also shackled to the pillar, was a large black man in a ripped red tracksuit. A heavy holding a whip stood a few paces back from the hapless couple.
“Behold Arthy!” said the thin man.
A familiar figure arose from a chair. His nervous, twitching eyes fixed Mike with an acid gaze.
“Thanks for bringing Cathy back, Mike,” Blinker said. “She’s been a bad girl, too, so when we’ve finished with little Miss Belinda and my ex-boss here, then you can enjoy watching her get come-uppance as well! He’s good, the guy with the whip, I can tell you! I trained him myself. He’ll soon have those two losers screaming a noisy duet. Then it’s Cathy’s turn.”
With a casual gesture of the hand, Blinker indicated the man wielding the whip. Mike observed how the brute’s muscles bulged the sleeves of his blue tracksuit.
“As for you… what do we do, ay? What amusement can we think up for Cathy to watch as she’s nursing her wounds? She’ll need to see something pretty good to take her silly little mind off the pain.”
***
Gary smeared the child’s blood over his hands, praying it contained enough intact DNA, fumbled with the controls of the time-specs, removed them, readjusted the time setting and, before slipping them back on, gripped hold of Seamus and Molly O’Malley. The shuttle-bus was gone. With Molly’s screams still echoing in his skull, Gary saw Caitlin standing at the edge of the run, like before, staring at the mouse-like creature on the track. He jumped down before she could speak, scooped the animal into the palm of his hand, and scrambled back onto the pavement in the nick of time. The silver lozenge appeared from n
owhere and stopped where Gary had been a fraction of a second before.
“Here you are, Caitlin.”
Caitlin cupped her hands to receive the furry bundle from Gary.
The woman ran to the child and folded her into her arms.
“Oh Caitlin, my darlin’ Caitlin! For one awful moment I imagined you jumpin’ down and gettin’ killed!”
“Just stress! Plays with the imagination!” reassured Gary. “Quick!”
The diaphragm door of the pod sprang open. They climbed aboard, with Caitlin holding the little creature close to her chest.
“I t’hink it’s a baby one, Mummy,” she said after the door snapped shut. Strapped into her seat, Mrs O’Malley held on to Caitlin whilst the child stroked and fondled the animal.
“I won’t even ask why you did dat, Gary,” Seamus whispered, “but I’ll tell you one t’hing. De Holy Virgin, she’ll always be wid you, to be sure she will!”
The shuttle-bus shot forwards like a released arrow, and within ten seconds stopped equally abruptly. A whirring sound, then the door was fully open again.
“Oh my God, the Terminus!” Gary announced.
“Well, t’hank de Holy Fader for dat,” said Seamus.
Gary stepped out first.
“So this is what Mike was on about!” he said, looking up at the Belindaron. “God knows how long it took to build the thing. Imagine the force required to lift her off the ground. Well, perhaps not the ground as we know it! I wonder…”
But there was no time to waste pondering the impossible... getting a craft of such gargantuan proportions from under the sea to the sky above… let alone into deep space. A whole different order of physics, for sure! He glanced at Seamus, Molly and their little daughter and decided not to tell them they were actually under the sea. They’d already had enough to contend with.
“Look! There’s de funny space-ship!” Caitlin said, holding the animal up for a better view.
“You’re right. It is funny. Funny and strange. That’s science for you, Caitlin. No people here either, which is even funnier. Wait… holy shit… what the…?”
Very slowly, a giant stepped ramp, resting against the side of the craft, began to edge backwards.
“RUN!” he shouted, sprinting forwards.
“RUN!” echoed little Caitlin with excitement, chasing after him.
Gary scrambled up the steps, threw himself across the platform and grabbed the bottom of the circular doorway. He felt something on his back, moving, gripping his shoulder. Caitlin giggled as she slipped her mouse-like animal into Gary’s pocket so that she could hold on to the boy with both hands.
“DIS IS FUN, DA!” she shrieked with delight.
Gary felt his arm joints strain as the ramp continued to move away from the space-craft. His shoes slid forwards, and soon his body was stretched between ramp and craft like a human bridge. Any moment the diaphragm door might snap shut, slicing through his fingers and causing him to fall, with the child, some thirty feet.
“Holy Virgin, please help me now!” he prayed, forcing every ounce of strength he had into his arm muscles. His legs dropped, leaving him dangling from the Belindaron. He pulled himself up… up… up... slowly… inch by inch… with Caitlin still clinging on and laughing whilst Mrs O’Malley screamed and Seamus muttered all the holy words he could think of. Gary eased his elbows over the side of the Belindaron, pushed himself up, twisted his body and flopped, half in and half out of the doorway. Caitlin leapt off his back and ran on into the space-craft, stopped, ran back, fumbled in Gary’s pocket, removed the confused-looking, mouse-like creature, and ran off again.
“A child… a child!” someone shouted... then another and another. Gary, dazed, became aware of a figure looming above him. A woman’s peering face came into focus.
“Gary? They said you were dead. We mustn’t wait a minute longer as the volcano could blow any moment!”
She reached down and helped the boy to stand.
“Stop the ramp, for God’s sake!” demanded Gary. “Her parents are down there!”
Seamus grinned and waved at the woman from below.
“STOP THE RAMP!” she shouted. “TWO MORE TO COME ON BOARD!”
The ramp growled to a halt. Seamus and Molly climbed the steps and stood together as the ramp slowly returned to the Belindaron. Soon, they, too, had boarded and the outer door closed behind them. Gary was intrigued by the door, layered like an onion. Finally, the innermost layer slid shut, completely sealing the wall and leaving no trace of the entrance.
“Where is she? Where’s Beetie?”
The woman smiled.
“She’s fine! With Arthry in the control room. Oh, she’ll be so pleased you’re here! All of us are! You’ve no idea! Ever since God left, and they took the jumped up little double-crosser, Blinker, away for a flogging, we’ve been waiting for you to appear. As for Beetie… the joke is, Arthry persuaded the Chairman to let him, of all people, flog her. He worships the child!”
Gary lost control. He grabbed the woman’s shoulder and pinned her against the wall of the Belindaron, pulling out his mag-stunner.
“Wait! Wait!” she exclaimed, alarmed. “He honestly won’t hurt her. He couldn’t! The Chairman thought he was on his side with the Agenda, but of course he’s not! Beetie’s carrying God’s baby too. Quite a thing, ay? You don’t mind, do you? Her having a baby by God? I mean, it is incredible we’ll be taking God’s genes with us. Inside Beetie!”
Gary felt confused. Whom should he believe? He had to find out the truth from the girl! She and Mike were the only ones he now fully trusted, but he released his hold on the woman.
“Take me to her. NOW!” he snapped.
“Mike’s with them. Mike and Cathy. Cooled down a bit since he was last here. Had a large case with him. That’ll be God’s final triumph. The DEC. Dark Energy Converter. Doesn’t bear thinking about, those hundreds of thousands of poor people who had their Life-Force sucked out before getting chopped up and fed to the gee-rats… all to no purpose!”
Gary glanced anxiously at Caitlin. She was out of ear-shot, thank God, spouting forth about all manner of things and surrounded by a crowd of astounded onlookers none of whom had any memory of seeing a child. Arthry did promise that children would appear again in their new homes at their destination, but nobody expected one to make the journey with them. The girl also showed off her little animal. No one had a clue what it was, but when Caitlin learned they were going to a world called Planeta Paradisa, she decided ‘Paradise Mouse’ would be a fitting term. Then she introduced everyone to her doll, Angelina.
“Please forgive me... but I’ve got to make sure Beetie’s okay!” Gary apologised.
“He’s a bit over-wrought, de poor boy,” explained Seamus. “You’ll understand when you see her, Molly! Beetie’s de Holy Virgin, see, and you’re not gonna believe dis, but…”
“Seamus, why do I have listen to your ramblin’? Would you stop goin’ on about de Holy Virgin all de time or I’ll be takin’ myself and Caitlin back to Dublin on de next train, I will!”
“No, I really am sorry,” Gary insisted. “Only, in this place… never sure who’s with The Agenda and who isn’t. Tell me, where’s Teeth… the Chairman?”
“Gone for good,” she replied. “Went to meet the gee-rats with the rest of the Atlanteans. We bundled them all into a shuttle-bus at the last minute. Tipped them out at the Hatcheries. The place is over-run with gee-rats. The Chairman was too trusting of Arthry! Thought we were unbrained and docile. Didn’t occur to him we’d been practising ‘fake zombie’ in the Retreat and had gradually infiltrated the other surfacers. Arthry’s idea. They never even considered Arthry might be a double agent working for God after all. The Chairman let Arthry decide who he was gonna leave behind. So he chose the Atlanteans!”
“MUMMY!”
Caitlin came running towards them.
“Mummy, dey want me to meet someone called Art’hry. He’s de boss, to be sure! Dey say he’ll be so excited to
have a child on his space-ship. I’m gonna show him de Paradise Mouse… and d’you t’hink he’ll be wantin’ to meet Angelina too?”
Molly looked with disinterest at the yellow-haired doll.
“I’m t’hinkin’ I must have upset de Holy Fader somet’hing terrible, my darlin’, to end up in dis mad-house!”, but no one listened. Caitlin had skipped off to follow the throng heading for the door to the centre of the craft.
“The child! Show Arthry the child!” they cried.
The crowd that had assembled around Caitlin now streamed the corridors before bursting into the control room with Seamus in the lead, carrying Caitlin who carried the little animal. Molly held Angelina and Gary followed up behind, clutching his mag-stunner. The joyful shouting was at once replaced by stony silence as they slowly spread out across the cavernous area.
Blinker, taken by surprise, twitching and speechless, had one arm around Cathy’s neck. He stepped backwards. The heavy, either oblivious of the instant crowd, or thinking this was the signal to get to work on his first victim, Beetie, swung back the curling lash, his arm raised high. Gary whipped out his mag-stunner before he could strike her and turned the brute into a statue. Blinker stumbled when Cathy struggled and kicked to break free. The girl swivelled and poked a finger into one of the boy’s eyes. He screamed, pawing at his bleeding face as Mike ran forwards and launched yet another kick at his groin. The boy crumpled, in agony, to the ground and Mike shot a fist in the air!
“Goal!” he shouted. He looked at his friend. “What took you so bloody long, Gary?”
Gary didn’t reply. He walked over to Beetie. She turned to face him. Half-hidden by her straggled blond hair, her cheeks streaked with tears, her lips trembled. Gary gently brushed aside the hair, wiped away the tears with the back of his hand, and kissed those lips. The control room echoed with the cheer that erupted from the expectant crowd. A grin stretched Arthry’s normally expressionless face.
“Yes, Gary… what took you so long? I promised God no one would touch a hair on her body! Damned close thing!”