by R. E. Weber
‘You can open them now,’ said Ruby.
Carefully, Theo opened one eye and looked down. Then he gasped. There below him, fanning out in every direction, were the gleaming crystalline arms of Polisium Prime, lit from within by thousands of flashing and pulsing lights of every colour. The sense of scale was truly staggering. Looking directly down, he could see as far as the environment level seven kilometres below, which contained the simulated landscapes and biospheres of several of the Affinity worlds, each housed in a two kilometre wide hexagonal dome. Even from this distance, it was possible to make out the distinctive environments of each dome through their transparent roofs. One looked like a sandy, rock-strewn, windswept desert, while another contained thick, lush, green woodlands and rivers. Another looked like it contained a single huge lake, dotted with green and brown islands, while another to his right, partially obscured by the station core, looked similar to the surface of Polisium: a rocky landscape of ice and snow. In some ways, the view didn’t seem real, almost as if his mind couldn’t take in the scale. Instead, it felt more like he was looking at an enormous, spectacular painting.
Theo had been so fascinated with the view that he’d almost forgotten about his fear of heights. But then, as the first sun rose and the daylight side of Polisium drifted into view below the station, he was suddenly and sharply reminded why he hated being so high up. And no amount of self-control could stop him feeling ill.
‘Whoooaah,’ said Theo wobbling and staring back at Ruby. ‘I feel sick.’
‘Is that it, is that all you can say? I’ve just shown you one of the best views in the Universe and you feel sick.’
‘You should know me by now, Rubes. Heights and all that.’
‘Yeh, I do,’ said Ruby. ‘But I hoped you might find it a bit, you know, ro…’
‘A bit what?’ interrupted Theo. ‘A bit scary, a bit insane?’
‘No, just… well, erm, I, you know. I like to come up here to think sometimes. It helps me relax. I thought it might help you too.’
‘Yeh, good luck with that,’ said Theo. ‘But amazing as it is, I don’t think I’ll be coming up here any more. I think I found our night out in Open Space more relaxing than this.’
‘You’re a strange boy, Theo,’ said Ruby.
‘Yeh, I know,’ said Theo. ‘But that’s why you love me, isn’t it?’
But Ruby didn’t answer. Instead, she just glanced away and stared into space for a few moments. Then she turned back to face him and cleared her throat.
‘Anyway, I suppose I’d better get some sleep. I didn’t realise the time,’ said Ruby, sheepishly making for the exit.
‘Oh Rubes, hang on. There’s one other thing I’ve got to tell you. Something happened to me tonight after we separated. Something really strange.’
‘Strange? What, even stranger than being half strangled by a giant octopus-crocodile beast?’
‘Yeh, well I was reading up about something that the Protah said to me when it had me pinned up against the wall. Then when the results came up, this new option appeared next to one of the results, so I selected it. Then my Companion went all funny. I thought it was broken because all these weird symbols were appearing all over the place. Then I got a message telling me I had level two security access.’
‘Level two? That doesn’t make sense. You should only have level one until you’ve finished your orientation, and even then it depends on what position you take.’
‘Yeh, that’s what I thought. I mean, I reckon it only applied to that search result, because my companion still said I had level one access on the status page. Still, I shouldn’t have it, should I? Do you think I should ask First Mentor about it?’
‘Yeh, I think you probably should.’
‘Before we tell First Mentor though, why don’t I get you to try the same thing? See if you can see it? Perhaps it’s normal and we just haven’t been told about it.’
‘Yeh, OK. Tell me what to do.’
Theo shared the recording with Ruby’s companion and then told her exactly how he had done the search. Several seconds later, she had exactly the same results screen showing.
‘Can you see the red dot at the end of that result?’
‘Erm no, I can’t see anything.’
‘You have to look carefully. It’s hard to spot. Take your time. Can you see it?’
Ruby paused as she checked the result. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘There’s definitely nothing there.’
‘So I can see something that you can’t. Don’t you think that’s strange?’
‘Very strange. But like you said, you should ask First Mentor. She must have given you the option or at least know what it’s there for.’
‘It,’ said Theo.
‘What?’ said Ruby.
‘You should refer to First Mentor as an It, not a she. It doesn’t have a gender as it once pointed out to me.’
‘Oh yeh, of course, it. I knew. It’s just that it’s got a woman’s voice.’
‘It’s hard to get used to, I know.’
‘Yeh, it’s strange. Every person and every animal on Earth is either a male or female.’
‘Starfish aren’t,’ said Theo. ‘They’re neither.’
‘Trust you to know a useless fact like that.’
‘Oh come on Rubes, you never know when it might come in handy. You might meet a giant killer starfish one day and want to know its sex in case it...’
‘I think it’s time for bed,’ interrupted Ruby. ‘I don’t like where this conversation’s going.’
‘I win again,’ said Theo licking his finger and drawing a vertical line in the air, this time without leaving a glowing trail behind.
‘If you say so,’ said Ruby.
‘Oh, I do,’ said Theo, grinning. ‘I do.’
*
Immediately after arriving back in his quarters and undressing, Theo flung himself back down on his bed and issued the Lights down command, hoping that it might help him get off to sleep. But as he lay there with his eyes closed, he began to wonder what would happen if he told First Mentor about the level two access he’d been given, albeit in a limited fashion. If he owned up, then his honesty might be appreciated. But then if he kept quiet, he might be able to use it again sometime. And in any case, he had been granted the facility, so he was obviously supposed to have it. He hadn’t asked for it and he hadn’t broken into the system to get it for himself. If he kept quiet about it, then he wouldn’t be lying, would he? It would only be a lie if somebody asked him and he denied it.
Quickly, he sent a short message to Ruby:
Don’t tell anybody our little secret yet Rubes.
And within seconds, the reply came back:
You can always trust me.
Yeh, he thought, he could trust her; trust her with his life.
About half an hour later, sleep finally closed in and Theo began to dream. In the dream, he was playing marbles with Weng on the path outside his cottage. But instead of being round, the marbles were a sort of hexagonal shape and glowing in the centre. And they didn’t roll very well. As Weng tried to hit one of Theo’s yellow marbles with his own blue one, it missed, rolled on past and dropped down a drain just outside his front door.
‘Game over,’ said Theo.
But Weng didn’t reply. Instead, he just got up and went inside. Only he didn’t go into Theo’s cottage. Instead, he went inside the Kingsley’s and slammed the door behind him. Then Theo noticed that the sorry looking Father Christmas, which he had seen on Christmas day in the middle of the front lawn, was still there, lying face down in the mud. And Fudge, the Cat, who Theo was expecting to see peeing against it, was nowhere to be seen. Indeed, the whole house looked as if it was deserted.
Chapter 15 – Command Centre
Only two more days to go. As he wandered back to his quarters that night, his eyes heavy and aching for sleep, Theo cheered himself with the thought that his orientation was almost at an end, after which he would have – or so he had been promise
d – at least ten days of complete rest and relaxation. Then, as he entered his quarters and flopped down on his bed, his heart sank. A tiny flashing symbol at the bottom right of his companion screen reminded him that he still had further studies to do – studies which wouldn’t wait until the following day. Sighing to himself, he lazily he selected the symbol and opened the contents screen: Tri-sexual species mating. He flipped to the first page and began to read. But within minutes he’d fallen into a deep, heavy sleep, and soon after begun to dream. In his dream there were alien creatures. And they were doing things to each other that he would never have dared describe to Ruby.
After what seemed like only a matter of minutes, Theo awoke suddenly to the familiar bleeping noise that always accompanied somebody waiting to enter his quarters. He checked the time on his companion. 00.04.38: the middle of the night. He had been asleep for three standard hours. He rose quickly from his bed, pulled on his dressing gown and issued the Lights thirty per cent command. Then, grumbling to himself about being woken at such an unearthly hour, he checked the caller’s identity:
Unknown
Theo stared at the response, suddenly feeling a little uneasy. In all his time on Polisium Prime, he had never seen an identity of Unknown. Should he answer it? Or should he just go back to sleep? It could, after all, be anybody. What if the Protah, which had attacked him weeks before, had come to get its revenge, or even worse sent a faceless assassin to do the job properly? And then what if the rest of the recruits woke to the news that he’d gone missing in the middle of the night, or that they’d found bits of him lying around his quarters? If he ignored whoever it was, they might of course go away. But then what? What if they tried to kill him again? What if they poisoned his food or made him ‘fall’ from one of the floating platforms in the station’s core? What if they arranged a discreet ‘accident’ for him?
Theo took a deep breath. Of course, it was all nonsense. In his semi-conscious state, his vivid imagination had gotten the better of him. After all, what kind of assassin would simply turn up at his quarters asking to be let in? Nobody like him was even important enough to bump off. He was just an insignificant being from some distant, primitive planet, and his common sense had gone for a walk in the middle of the night. Who did he think he was anyway, some sort of interstellar James Bond?
Theo stared at the doorway for a moment. Then he selected Allow, ready to meet the mysterious visitor. Silently, the doorway slipped open and nervously Theo looked out. But nobody was there waiting for him. He stepped out into the corridor and looked in both directions. Still nothing. No sound of footsteps hurrying away, no shadows disappearing out of sight round the corner, nothing. Had it had been a malfunction of some sort? Somehow, he doubted it. Theo sighed, turned and stepped back into his quarters. A good night’s sleep had been ruined for no reason.
Angrily, Theo lay back down again and was just about to issue the Lights Down command when suddenly, directly above him, a metallic orb appeared out of thin air. Startled, Theo quickly rolled off his bed and then backed slowly away towards the wall, watching the orb as he did so. But the orb didn’t move towards him. Instead, it remained perfectly still and silent.
With his back pressed up against the wall, Theo stared at the orb. At first glance, it appeared to be identical to the security orbs he’d come across before – about twenty centimetres across, with a perfectly smooth, featureless, gleaming chrome like surface. But as he looked at it more carefully, he noticed that there was a faint symbol of some sort embossed on the surface.
Not wanting to approach the orb, Theo zoomed in, using his companion, to examine the symbol more carefully. The first thing he noticed was what appeared to be an upturned crescent, with both tips touching at the top to form a complete circle. Dead centre, was what looked like a large single star, with two further smaller stars either side within the crescent and two more stars outside and above it. Did the symbol look familiar? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it reminded him of some country’s flag from Earth. But then maybe it was something else altogether.
As Theo continued to stare at the magnified image, the symbol suddenly began to fade away. Within a few seconds it had vanished completely, and all he could see was a distorted reflection of himself in the sphere’s surface. Then a booming voice made him jump out of his skin.
‘Theopolis James Logan, Human Species. Your presence is expected at the Estraba Tomah Command Centre.’
Startled, Theo stared back at the Orb. ‘Erm, what?’ he said. ‘What is… I mean, what are you talking about?’
‘Dress, collect your environmental suit, then stand directly underneath this recall drone.’
‘Recall drone, you mean you?’ said Theo. There was no answer.
Sleepily, he walked over to his clothes – which as always were lying in an untidy pile on the floor – and picked up his jacket, trousers and underwear.
‘Erm, do you mind?’ he said. ‘I need to get dressed.’
There was no reply. Clearly a sense of decency hadn’t been programmed into the drone, so Theo slipped into the shower compartment and quickly changed. Moments later, he came out fully dressed, grabbed his suit bag and clipped it onto his utility belt.
‘Ready,’ he said. ‘But I’d really like to know where we’re going.’
But the drone didn’t reply. Instead, it just glided silently over towards the doorway and stopped just in front of it.
‘Stand directly underneath and remain still.’
Nervously, Theo stepped forward and positioned himself directly under the drone. Then what looked like a shell of shimmering air descended quickly and surrounded his body from head to toe.
‘Cloak enabled. Gravitational grapple engaged,’ said the drone.
Suddenly, Theo felt his body rising up into the air. He rose up until he was about half a meter above the ground and was then spun quickly around to face the doorway, which had already opened. Then he began to glide slowly forwards, heading out of his quarters, swinging round to his left and then off down the corridor. Theo didn’t attempt to struggle because he could feel that the force, or whatever it was that had lifted him up, was much stronger than him. Instead, he just dangled beneath the drone, as it raced down the corridor, like a helpless puppet on a string.
After a minute or so, he arrived at another open doorway. The drone then spun him around again and swung him through into the small room beyond. Once the doorway had closed, he was set gently down on the floor and released. Then the shimmering shell of air rose quickly back up and vanished.
Theo looked around the small room and to his left he immediately spotted a familiar sight – two Transport Pods. The pods looked exactly like the ones he’d boarded back on Earth, except for the fact that each one was embossed with a symbol: the same symbol he’d seen on the drone. Slowly, he approached the pods, and as he did so one of them zipped itself open to reveal a familiar looking chamber. He didn’t need an explanation. He knew he was being invited on-board. Or was it instructed?
Carefully, he climbed up into the pod, turned around and slotted himself into the chamber. As before, the pod walls expanded out to cushion him gently in place, and the doorway sealed itself shut. Then he felt the familiar sensation of an oxygen tube sliding across his back and forming a mask over his mouth and nose. Suddenly, his heart was thumping with excitement. Where was he being taken?
For a few seconds, as he stared out through the transparent pod wall, he could still see the drone hovering in front of him. Then suddenly, it seemed to shoot away out of sight as the pod raced away through a narrow tunnel.
A few seconds later, the pod shot free of tunnel and he was outside the station. He craned his head down towards his feet and saw that Polisium Prime was already disappearing rapidly out of sight. In less than a minute, the station had shrunk to a small twinkling jewel, suspended above Polisium, and then soon after it had vanished completely. He was racing off into deep space again. But he had no idea where to. Or why.
In only a mat
ter of minutes, the pod was skimming above the pale, cratered surface of Polisium’s moon. For a short time the brightness of the surface was almost blinding and Theo had to squint to look at it. But then the twin suns disappeared quickly below the moon’s horizon and the brightness faded. Relieved, Theo opened his eyes, fully expecting to see nothing but blackness. But instead the surface was still visible, dimly illuminated by a faint, ghostly, bluish light. Then Theo realised what he was seeing: light reflected from Polisium. Within moments however, even that had faded away as Polisium set behind the moon. Now there was nothing, literally nothing to see. It was pitch black everywhere he looked.
After a few seconds of staring into the blackness, he noticed a faint glimmer of light out of the top right hand corner of his vision. Looking up, he saw that there were two concentric circles of light, pulsing faintly on the moon’s surface. And the pod seemed to be heading towards them.
In less than a minute, the pod reached the circles of light and then quickly shot through into a dark tunnel beneath the moon’s surface. For a few seconds, the pod raced on through the darkness, before finally coming to rest in a dimly lit pod berth. The oxygen mask unclamped itself from his mouth and withdrew back into its compartment behind him. Then the pod door zipped open and the cushioning walls peeled away to release him.
Pulling himself free of the chamber, Theo dropped slowly to the floor and landed with a light thud. The gravity was considerably lower than on Polisium Prime. Then he turned back to look at the pod in its berth. What was that symbol? He had seen it twice now, so it had to be important. Using his companion, he took a snapshot of the symbol and then filed it away. It was something he could check into later.
As he continued to stare at the symbol, he felt a faint rush of air from behind him. Quickly, he spun round to see that a new doorway had appeared. And in the doorway, unexpectedly, stood a familiar figure.