This time Sgrunff replied.
"None of that is necessary. The Externals cannot by their very nature operate outside the free zone."
"And if they did?”
I asked, curious and also fearful, but Sgrunff reassured me.
"By their very nature, that is the fact that they are mentally somewhat heavy and stupid beings, they are degraded to such an extent that it is definitely impossible to pass into a more refined universe. For example, a man can go under water and with some equipment can stay there a little, while a fish would not survive long on land.”
"Even fish can progress and change over the centuries. Has nobody ever come over to this side?"
"If I remember correctly," said Sgrunff after a brief pause, "only one. Gray."
Valdes nodded and continued.
"Yes, Gray was nicknamed so because he moved from a dark universe to a light one.
He now resides on one of the artists’planets, but he was the only one who was able to pass across and had to free himself from a mass of ignorance and stupidity to do it. But now he’s one of us and I can assure you he would never go back."
I sat looking at my friends for long moments.
THE DREAM
Sonia smiled at me and seeing Sven enter she said,
"Let's go outside now for a walk!"
I thought she was joking, but they told me to make myself comfortable on the Infirmary bed. Sven had carried out the by-pass connection on my Tasker.
I got out of that device with a totally different consciousness. The mental‘sizzle’had gone the sizzle was gone mental. Now I was aware that I knew.
We found ourselves in the panorama room and what had happened I remembered like a wonderful, magical dream.
We stepped out of the the mental body, indeed we actually threw it away completely. We found ourselves outside; I was looking at the Nemesis in all its glory.
We were at a discrete distance, what I felt and what happened is difficult to describe accurately - just words would be pure limitation.
We were beings made of light, the state in which I found myself could not even be described as‘ecstasy’- it would be too simplistic.
I could see that the forms we were using were vaguely human in shape - the color could change from a bright white to a translucent blue and green pastel, very soft and transparent.
At will I could become completely invisible. I felt no energy inside me, but I could create it.
No thoughts and no strange inner conversations occupied my mind which was in a state of absolute serenity that I could experiment with.
The mental communication that I had with my friends was deep and fast, there were no words or thoughts. Everything happened with a rapid exchange of ideas, concepts that if I had to express with my character would have required a lot of time in explanation.
I seemed out of time - space existed but without the need to be covered
We entered into more intense communication more intensely. I knew what I had to do, I found myself focused on the structure of Nemesis and of everything that was inside.
I felt some small changes, almost imperceptible, to the hull of the ship. I could even mentally wrap myself around Silver Thunder.
I heard some small changes at an inaudible level, on the hull of the ship.
The Nemesis was changing back to its solid form but I knew that now it was made up of a more refined energy - it was different though always the same.
We stabilised the new creation. I still had a little time before returning - Sven’s bypass gave me a few moments more.
I spent the time experimenting with my condition. It was I, myself, without anything weighing on me or any kind of trap.
I moved around the strange space that surrounded us. I could be any place I wanted just by thinking the thought. My friends did the same, as if in a game; sometimes I appeared bright, at other times I chose a soft pastel colour. I felt transparent and lightweight.
Some thoughts from the‘normal’Kate slipped through.
I understood the absurdity of sex which in that place did not even exist.
Every experience inPlanet, even the most beautiful and exciting, could not be compared to what it was like in the state in which I was at that time. It was pure ecstasy, focused, infinite.
I saw Planet H as the stupid game that it really was - twisted, full of traps and changed beyond belief. I felt that many of the individuals I knew were trapped.
Attention reverted to me - I felt I was always the same and I had never been anyone else, even if at that point any idea about being a man or woman had no reason to exist.
I was beyond everything, this was an innate wisdom which I knew and no one could take it away.
In the end that was the only noble‘Truth’that could emerge, despite what I knew to have occurred during my mission.
It was time to return - I had only to think we found ourselves inside the Nemesis, each recreated the mental body in a few moments as if it were a dress to wear.
I woke up on the bed in the Infirmary and I stood up with a wonderful memory.
I honestly do not know if that experience had really happened or if it was just a wonderful dream.
Sven came in.
"While you were out I managed to diminish the irritating effect given by the black light in the upper diffuser. Kate, you should be able to experience a greater awareness, say about twenty per cent more.”
I headed for the panorama room. I was remembering.
"Lieutenant First Class Kate Madison, commander of the Silver Thunder".
I went to my friends and there was Sammy.
He was smiling and spread his arms as if to say, "I could not do otherwise." I gave him a nice pat on the shoulder, looked at him with a smile and said,
"Thank you for letting me drive Sammy."
He smiled and said: "It was a real honour Commander."
The boys laughed and Valdes came up and kissed me on the head.
I asked,
“So what now?”
“We go back to N Technology,”Matt replied. The Nemesis moved towards our departure point.
We arrived in no time, the ship docked and I went to the classroom.
I walked but I actually had the impression of floating. I was smiling and pretty darn happy.
You seem to have some kind of facial paralysis Kate, I thought but nevertheless my happiness stayed with me.
I was still wrapped in the feeling of unreality, that place somewhere between a dreamy state and a hallucinatory experience.
Even though the hallucination was the best I had ever had, indeed, from what I remember I had never had hallucinations ... except perhaps in dreams.
Almost without realizing it, I went to the office and said hello to Alice. She couldn’t help but notice my indomitable grin.
She said she was going for a break and I looked at the time. It was eleven forty-five; time had passed in a very bizarre manner.
I decided to go home for a snack as my experiences had generated an appetite despite the concoctions served up by Bones. So I ate a light and tasty meal in the shade of the big oak tree and sat back to watch the scene below.
Awareness of myself and what I was in reality began to come back in slow waves like the unrelenting inflow of a high tide. Being in Planet H was like those agents who are undercover for so long they can no longer distinguish fact from fiction.
THE MEETING
Later I returned to the office. I sat down in the chair and my Pac rang. I picked it up.
"Hello."
"Hello sis, how are you?" Irina! The voice took me by surprise.
"Hello my treasure .. how? ... where…?" I didn’t have time to finish before she interjected,
"See you this afternoon about three o'clock?" I was speechless for a moment.
"Yes, but how? ... where are you?"
"I'm in town, I arrived last night.”She rattled off an address and went on,
"I'll see you later, now I have t
o run, byeeee!”
She had hung up almost without giving me time to react. But I was in heaven.
Irina in town?….. What’s she up to? Why is she here?"
But it mattered little, I would have got together with her anyway before long. I was excited, a little frantic almost. Now, where did I put the earrings? Ah yes, in the drawer ... I realized I had picked up the yellow socks that I had left there long ago.
No, not those, I thought, laughing, and I grabbed at a pair of earrings.
Valdes entered the office smiling. He asked,
"Going somewhere?"
"Yes, Irina’s here, I have to meet her soon."
"Can I keep you company?" he asked me, which was pleasantly surprising, to the point that I could relax a little.
"I'd be really happy for that Valdes ...”
Without another word we went down to the parking lot and soon were on our way.
Along the way, I watched him and smiled, looking at the view. He asked me,
"How come your sister is in town?"
"I have not the faintest idea Valdes, but I'm happy to meet her, however, and soon we'll know the reason.”
I parked and headed to the meeting place. I saw the back a blonde girl a short distance away, talking with two strange people.
I turned to Valdes but he was gone. I looked again at the girl and saw that Valdes had got to her side in an instant.
He was looking over the two characters before us.
I went over and I seemed to recognize them. Of course I recognised them!
"Kurl, damn bastard!”
The blonde girl was of course Irina and she had grown up in the period since I had last seen her. I struggled to recognize the set of her shoulders.
I concentrated on Kurl and his minion - Valdes was also regarding them with a shiver-invoking intensity.
The two were held in a grip, they could move only slightly. Kurl saw me and paled even more than usual. Valdes loosened the grip on him, Kurl wriggled free and took off.
I launched an intense thought in Kurl’s direction -“Fall!”
Valdes kept the strange grip on his minion and what followed was a memorable scene, rather grotesque and pathetic.
The sleeve of Kurl’s jacket became entangled in the handlebars of a bicycle left on the edge of the sidewalk. I saw the worm become unbalanced on one side while the bicycle hooked to his pocket finished up on his back.
He fell heavily to the ground, landing on his elbow; meanwhile Valdes loosened his grip on Kurl’s minion. I could see the veins in his neck swell up until they were about to explode.
The thug pulled away and stepped back, stumbling into the bicycle wheel dragged to the ground by Kurl.
He stomped on Kurl’s ankle. He screamed in pain; in his attempts to stay upright, the
behemoth of a henchman stepped backwards and with the heel of his shoe managed to crush the fingers of his friend’s hand.
I heard the nasty sound of bones breaking and the unfortunate bastard screamed and cursed.
Kurl’s henchman could not remain upright and, helped by Kurl’s other hand holding on to him, he fell face forward on the asphalt.
I had the impression that he had dragged his two front teeth along the road for a few centimetres. It was quite a smack and he remained motionless on the ground.
Kurl tried to rise, but in his misguided attempt to get rid of the bike he found himself with his fingers jammed in between the chain and the sprocket on the rear wheel.
He continued to curse and drool with anger.
Meanwhile, I heard a voice on a cell phone.
"Hello, police. We need some help please, there's a fight."
Kurl had some severe injuries to his fingers procured through his attempts to free them. In his anger he hurled the bike forwards, got up and then tripped over again.
He fell down on the bicycle pedal which finished up in his stomach and he cracked his head down onto the bone in the small of his companion’s back who was still prostrated on the ground.
The thug was awakened by the blow and he writhed in pain, turning over and kicking out at Kurl’s face. Kurl got his revenge biting into his ankle and the guy screamed like a pig.
He then smacked Kurl’s ear up against the curb in an attempt to get him to release the bite.
Kurl, with a bleeding ear, finally got rid of the bike hurling it away angrily. His minion stood up and held out his hand to help him up - Kurl grabbed the hand but the other guy was too unbalanced and he fell forward onto him.
Kurl raised his hands to fend him off but only managed to divert him to the point where his hands fell forward and thumped the other in the testicles.
Kurl was screaming but that scream lasted very little because his friend’s trunk fell inexorably onto his face, almost completely blocking his breathing. He tried to bring his hands down to protect himself but only managed to find the head of the directly striking on the genitals.
They both finished up unconscious in a grotesque erotic parody.
An old lady appeared with a stick. She limped over to the two and shrilled at them,
"Ugly filth, go home and do this crap!"
She began to lay into them with her stick like a wild thing.
The thug who was lying above Kurl was half-awakened by the tremendous blows. He was able to roll protectively to the side so that the stick fell on Kurl’s ribs and landed some pretty sound thumps.
Kurl woke up also under the blows. His friend was already on his feet now and wasn’t slow to evade them.
Kurl came up behind his minion and delivered him a powerful kick in the ass.
"Watch out where you put your feet you imbecile!"
The blow was enough to knock his friend onto a table outside a bar. The waiter was coming out and his tray of shrimp cocktails and salad was sent flying into the air. The contents finished up all over Kurl and the young waiter tried to clean him up with a napkin.
The result was a jacket streaked with blood and shrimp cocktail with a few slices of onions and tomatoes hanging out of the pockets.
Kurl snatched the napkin from the waiter.
“I'll do it, idiot!"
He was literally drooling and snarling with rage. He wiped his face with a towel and managed to rub in a slice of salad in the process.
The pink cocktail sauce had smeared into part of his hair which made him lookeven more creepy than usual ... that smelly worm.
They were looking decidedly sick as they staggered towards their car, a pea green metallic convertible.
They took off with a great tyre screeching, but apparently Kurl still had difficulty moving his limbs because he careered up onto the sidewalk and struck first a large vase and then a road sign.
He managed a few hundred meters more, swerving from one side of the road to the other. He was still cursing his friend when he was hit in the face by some pigeon poop and they finished up against a rubbish skip, blocked in by a police patrol.
Irina had watched the whole scene, amused.
"Better than a funny film," she said, laughing. I came up and hugged her, forgetting for a moment that rotten low-life Kurl.
"Who were they?" Irina asked.
Valdes turned smiling to her.
"Just a couple of little shits ..... two very small droppings.”
Irina put her head on my shoulder and squeezing me tight she said,
"Hello sister, who is this handsome guy? ... is he your boyfriend?"
I hugged her for a long time. I couldn’t believe she was there and I made the introductions.
Valdes said,
"Do you fancy an ice cream girls?”
The answer was unanimous and we went in the direction of an ice cream parlour. We didn’t feel like sitting down, so we licked and walked.
"What did those two want from you?" I asked Irina. She shrugged and slurped at her ice cream.
"I don’t know, they were talking about a job.”
That bastard was evidently out hunting
for girls for his exclusive‘club.’If he even tried to get near my sister I would have disintegrated him but in any case I doubted if he would or could try again.
I asked Irina why she was there and her reply was enthusiastic.
"Iwon a scholarship to study languagesand a flying course and now I can be close to you."
"What?….you won a scholarship? Where?"
She looked at me with a complicit air.
"Actually, I really didn’t understand it myself, at first I thought it was a joke. I filled out a form on a website. It said something like‘Discover if you qualify for our exclusive scholarship’. I really only replied to the questions thinking it was a game. I even put down our mother’s name as‘Snow White’”!
I was very curious now.
“And why did they offer you a scholarship?”
"I really haven’t the faintest idea. They told me that I had been selected, but I thought it was a joke. Anyway I changed my mind two days later when I received an invitation with the air ticket and a lot of reservations. I packed, said a fast goodbye to mum and dad and I left. I arrived last night."
"So where are you staying? Do you need anything ... money?"
"No sis, don’t worry. I have some money and food and lodging are all included. I have my own room with a bathroom in the school, there’s a cafeteria and whatever I need ... well, I’m actually well taken care of.”
She paused briefly then added,
"You know that this morning I had a medical check? With the dentist too. He filled a small cavity I didn’t know about and cleaned my teeth."
Planet-H: The End of the Beginning Page 29