by Tanya Allan
They all looked at it.
It wasn’t what anyone expected.
“How does it work?”
“In theory it does everything you asked of me. Using the data that I collected from the two specimens, this device firstly tunes into the mind of the wearer, and then projects and transforms, through the wearer’s physical form, the correct image of the indigenous natives, even down to blood type, DNA and brain patterns. In short, you not only look like they do, but your body works like theirs and you think like them too.”
“You said it was an image. I thought it transforms the body to be the same as the brutes?” asked Fytin.
“In a way, it does, but as soon as you remove the device, the effect is reversed and the wearer returns to normal.”
“In theory? Haven’t you tried it out yet?” Kayra asked.
“Ah, as you know, I have approached each of you over the last few weeks, and unfortunately none of you seems willing to be the test subject.”
“Let me hold it,” the captain asked.
Graton handed it over to her, watching as she turned it over in her hands.
“It looks like something to put round a prisoner's neck,” she said.
“It is, sort of.”
“This will hardly make us inconspicuous. I mean, it’s very obvious.”
She held it up for all to see.
It was a C shaped torc, made from a dull grey metal, thicker at the rear and with small globes of metal at each end. At no point did the device's thickness exceed a centimetre in diameter, and actually it looked relatively delicate and inconsequential. It was rigid, so there didn't appear to be any way that any of the crew could hope to fit their neck through the two inch gap between the globes. As their necks were slightly thicker than a human, this was quite an obstacle.
“It’s only obvious because we aren't used to wearing such ornaments. The brutes wear ornaments not unlike this from time to time, so shouldn't draw any extra suspicion. I accept that they have yet to discover metal, but that is a minor factor. The power plant, micro-chips and transforming projector are located in the rear where it is slightly thicker. I've used the last of the Guayxa metal, it's a rare commodity that is now even rarer after our planet’s destruction.
“The alloy is about the strongest metal we've ever known. Some say it's the hardest metal to have ever existed, and certainly it is far harder than anything that we've found here, so far. Even the diamonds that are reasonably common here are not able to scratch the surface of this substance. Let me show you,” she said, taking a bar of dull grey metal. Taking a large clear gem, she tried to scratch the surface of the bar, but failed to make the slightest mark.
“You see, it can be made so thin and yet remain exceptionally strong. However, the technology inside the torc is the clever bit. Using a combination of technologies, I've achieved something that would win awards if we were still back home. Firstly, the mind of the wearer will complete the final picture through the mental booster and matter transformer. I had tried to use a simple projector, but that was, as the dead rodent showed us, not exactly reliable. Instead, I've locked the Brutes’ DNA code into the transformer, and by linking it with our own, it simply uses the transformer to alter our DNA code and with our mental image to help, generates a finished product that will retain our individuality while rendering us as close to resembling them as possible.
“Secondly, I've managed to place a small force field generator in each torc, thus rendering the wearers virtually indestructible to any form of physical attack. Even micro-organisms and noxious gases would be kept out. Thirdly, by linking it to the force field generator, I've succeeded in linking the mental communications chip with the generator, so the wearer can literally manipulate force to either throw a bolt of energy or to reach out and use it as a tractor beam, to bring an object to you, or move you to a larger object.”
“Won’t the wearer get hot or suffocate?”
“No, the force field has the quality to filter air through, you will know it is there, but no one else will see or feel it. Only the wearer can remove it, and there is a special way of doing that. But I haven't told you about the best bit yet.”
“There's more?”
“Oh yes. I've managed to use an anti-gravity cell from the ship to link into the mental coms unit. So, if you need to jump, or even fly a short distance to escape a horrible fate, then you can do so.”
The crew were astounded, each staring at the grey device in front of them.
“How about language; can it assist in translating their dreadful grunts?”
“Ah, I’m pleased you asked. I have inserted a microprocessor with a full analytical program. Once you are mentally tuned to the device, if you want to speak in their language, you tune in and think in your own, and it will transmit to you the words in the other language, and it will translate anything spoken to you in the same way. It is completely silent, operating on a mental level only.”
This impressed everyone.
“What power source does it use?” one asked.
“It's a simple thermal cell that converts any natural heat or light into energy and stores it indefinitely or until used. Technically, it should never run out of juice, unless kept on ice in the dark.”
“How do we get it on?” the captain asked.
“Hold the two ends at the same time for about twenty seconds and it will tune itself into your DNA. Once it is ready it will allow you to open it and place it around the neck. If you let go at any time, it will return to the original shape and become stiff and immovable once more. It simply can’t be forcibly taken from you, unless they sever your neck.”
“Why did you need two test subjects if there is only one type of torc?”
Graton smiled, holding up a second torc.
It was similar to the first, but slightly smaller
“This is the female version.”
“What happened to the subjects?” someone asked.
“Oh, we couldn’t risk keeping them here. We’ve put them back from whence they came. I don't think either of them was aware of what happened.”
“What happens if one of the brutes manages to get hold of one?”
“Indeed, it is so sophisticated, that even if one of them should wear it, then it would align itself to their DNA without causing them any harm. They could wear it all the time and never know what they were wearing. They would, of course have access to the special powers, but without knowing what it could do, the chances of them doing it and surviving would be limited.”
“What, no harm at all?” asked JayBee, sounding almost disappointed.
“No harm, unless a male wore a female torc or the other way around. In which case, they would align to the gender of the torc. There would be an added problem if they wore it for too long. Because they are of the same DNA as the programmed device, if they were to wear it for longer than around five of their days, then their body would take on the changes as permanent and the torc would be redundant.”
“You mean they’d just be that new gender and that’s it?”
“Yes, but the powers that it held would still work, only they’d not be able to return to their original gender.”
“So, they couldn’t change back, ever?”
“Not unless they were able to use the male torc. I suppose, it would be best if we don’t allow them to get hold of one, wouldn’t it?”
The crew were not that interested in what would happen to the brutes.
“All this is fine, but do these things work?” the Captain asked.
“That, I’m afraid, is up to two of you to test.”
* * * * * *
The Lani people were afraid of the monsters that lived on the mountain. A hunting party had found them several moons ago, but despite being many hunters, three of the monsters breathed death at them and disappeared unhurt.
Unlike any of the beasts that the Lani had ever encountered, the tales were now a regular part of the camp fire story-telling. Small children we
re threatened with the monsters if they failed to obey their parents. Paintings on the hides depicted the squat and ugly forms of the monsters, with their hairless domed heads and enormous eyes. Two of the surviving hunters would tell the tales until everyone in the tribe knew them by heart, but for one young woman, her secret was something she could never share, for to reveal it would cause the others to kill her.
Phullima had been that other captive, caught while gathering berries and placed in a cage. Although unaware of her plight until later, her experience shocked and frightened her.
Because the two crewmen had delayed returning until they had caught a male, the anaesthetic that Phullima’s dart contained had begun to wear off prior to their return to their ship.
She first became aware of strange sounds and unusual movement. She moved, finding her hands and feet were bound as she lay against something soft and warm. Opening her eyes, she saw she was in a cage and that a strange male was lying next to her, bound in a similar fashion.
She was in a box made of poles, but the poles weren’t wooden, neither were they stone. She licked one and found it had a strange and very unfamiliar taste. The floor was firm, yet soft and pliable; almost as soft and spongy as moss, but perhaps as firm as bark. It was a strange substance. She couldn’t get a grip with her teeth to test its strength.
She remembered the dart, but couldn’t reach the sore place on her buttock. The movement ceased and the strange noises finished at the same time.
Believing she was a captive of another tribe, she feigned sleep as her captors sounded as if they might be coming for her. She realised that she needed all her wits if she was to hope to escape. She dared not think what possible reason they could have for capturing her and a strange male from yet another tribe. This man was snoring, so she knew she couldn't count on his help for a while.
She heard strange noises, which after a while, she worked out were voices, but not like any she had heard before. With strange whistles and clicks, they seemed unlike man-speak, and she'd heard many different tribes to know that they all sounded similar, even if they couldn't understand each other. These noises did not sound as if they were made by human throats.
Indeed, when she risked peeking at her captors, her breath caught in her throat and she passed into blissful unconsciousness, for her captors were the monsters!
It was, therefore something of a mystery when she regained consciousness to find herself back in the forest, lying at the feet of the unknown hunter, whom she had last seen bound and unconscious next to her in the strange cage. At his feet were the wrapped hide parcels of meat that all hunters carried away from their kills.
This time he stood, towering above her, and not looking too happy.
“What did you do to me?” the man asked. His dialect was strange, but she understood him, so she guessed him to be a Banna hunter, as his clothing and face scars would indicate. She had known a few Banna, and their language was not dissimilar to the Lani.
“I didn't, the monsters did,” she said.
“What monsters?” he asked.
She explained her story to him, and he became increasingly nervous, hefting his spear and eyeing the forest as if the monsters were about to return.
“I remember them. We must go,” he said.
“My village is that way,” she said pointing to the west.
“Mine is that way,” he replied, hefting the meat onto his broad shoulders and nodding to the south.
She looked at him critically.
“Have you a woman?” she asked.
“Not yet, why?”
“You have now,” she said, taking some of his load from him and so allowing him more freedom to use his spear to protect them both. He examined her and after a few moments, smiled and nodded, turning away and starting to walk east.
“What do they call you?” he asked as she walked beside him.
“Phullima, and you?”
“G'mom.”
She smiled and felt safe for the first time in ages.
History fails to reveal what happened to G'mom and Phullima, but I'd like to think they had loads of children and they all thrived and prospered, but for all we know, they could have all been eaten by bears.
As for the crew on board the scout ship, history wasn't kind to them.
For all their science and technology, the crew suffered at the hands of the smallest predator of all – micro-organisms. They lasted another six months, having ironed out the bugs in the two torcs. Their first effort was reasonable, but failed to maintain the transformation for longer than a couple of hours at a time.
Unfortunately, one of the crew, Fytin was actually with some humans at the time. She was trying quite successfully to trade some crude tools for some food. The torc ceased working and suddenly the humans had a weird-looking monster appear in their midst. Despite wearing some protection she was seriously wounded and died a short while later. Graton took her death personally, so after repairing and improving the torcs, withdrew and became unapproachable.
Within a month of Fytin's death, the first symptoms of the disease appeared, and a few short weeks later the last crew member, the captain, died. Her last act was to lift the ship off and fly up out of the atmosphere. There she detached a small satellite that repeated the message in their language as a warning for all her kind never to land of this planet. Knowing that the organisms were deadly to her kind, she simply set the craft to fly towards the sun. She died some two days before the air ran out. Eventually, the craft and dead body were burned to a crisp long before they reached their destination.
What about the torcs? I hear you ask.
Shortly before her last flight, the captain buried the ashes of her crew with her infant and her dear friend Graton. As she looked out at the beautiful vista before her, she felt a heavy sadness of knowing what might have been. Instead, she knew that the brutes would grow and multiply, dominating and probably destroying everything that was beautiful.
The torcs were a testimony to the intelligence, ingenuity and imagination of her people. Therein lay an even greater sadness, that none would ever know of what they had been able to achieve.
She was in a quandary, for should her people find this planet and heed her warnings, then given the advances in medical science, it might be possible for them to make this place their home. However, they would need the technology in the torcs only if the brutes were still an issue. If she left them in space and another civilisation, perhaps even the descendents of the brutes themselves found them, then that could be disastrous. If she left them on the planet below, then the only creatures to find them would be the brutes, and the chances would be slim that the devices would survive the thousands of years that it might take for these beings to advance to a civilised state, if ever.
It seemed a shame, but she originally intended to keep them with her on her final journey. However, there might be a chance her people would come here, and the metal was so rare as to be immediately identifiable to any of her people.
She returned with the torcs to her ship, and flew slowly over the changing landscape below. She flew north, over the advancing glaciers, until she decided that this was as good as anywhere.
She didn’t want the brutes getting hold of them, but she didn’t have the heart to destroy all that effort by her dear friend. Instead, she set the craft to hover, and threw the torcs onto the ice.
Their warmth melted the surface and she watched as they slowly sank from view.
They would keep on sinking, until their energy was spent. Then, if the glaciers ever retreated, they would fall into the ocean below and settle on the bottom forever.
If, and it was an infinitesimal if, her kind ever found this place and managed to conquer the disease that killed her crew, they might just locate the torcs and put them to use. Otherwise, they should remain where they were until the Brutes managed to kill themselves and possibly the entire planet of abundant life.
Those rather insignificant circlets of metal were the only
evidence of her and her people. Nothing else remained, not even a boot print, to tell their story. It should have been a different story, but as she turned her eyes outwards, she cried for her kind.
Two.......
England.... Autumn 1954.
Jacob Morely sat on his elderly Massey Harris and ploughed the lower field, hoping that the tractor would last the job, but fearing he'd have to stop several times to coax the old beast into life again. He'd love a new tractor, but until business got better, he'd have to make do.
It was only nine years since the end of hostilities, but he still carried the stigma of never having gone off to fight. People were funny. They wanted meat and potatoes, so he'd been classed as especially useful so as to stay and keep the farm going. But now it was all over, even the children in the village called him Old Custard or Yellow Jake.
He was over sixty-five now, so what he really wanted was to sell up and bugger off to somewhere that no one knew him. However, Oxfordshire was in his blood, so he knew that he would never leave. He did not believe that his wife Maggie would want to go as the kids were all settled up hereabouts.
The Thames Valley had been his home all his life, as it had been for his father and his father before him. The wide, flat plain of the river was particularly fertile, as it was often re-invigorated by the flooding river Thames, depositing the silt from further up-river each spring.
He sighed and concentrated on keeping the furrows straight.
As he watched he saw a brief gleam of something different. It made him smile when he read about people finding stuff in the ground, and they often said that it gleamed at them. Stuff that’s been buried for any length of time never gleamed; it was always covered in mud and so the only thing that caught the eye was the shape not being either earth or stone.
He’d dug up lots of stuff over the years, particularly since the war, with all the aircraft falling in pieces across the Home Counties during the Battle of Britain, not to mention the German mines and bombs. He’d dug up one bomb and had to wait for a day for the army to come and diffuse it. In the end, as it was in the field and not close to any buildings, they just blew it up. He was left with a bloody great hole in the middle of this self same field, and so now was forever unearthing pieces of shrapnel.