Means of Escape (Spinward Book 1)

by Rupert Segar

  “I think there are two reasons,” continued Lea, not waiting for a confirmation from the pod, “a lack of pan galactic connectedness and the impossibility of direct interstellar communication.”

  “The first is due to the sheer vastness of space. Even with a ship as fast as yours, it would take more than a decade to circumnavigate the galaxy. When you add in, say, ten thousand stops to recharge flux, the journey could take up to 200 years. Though not impossible, the impracticality of traversing the galaxy means that regionalism is all. The only thing that matters is what is happening in your part of your spiral arm. Everything else is too far away to be important.”

  “But what about the spread of ideas?” interjected the mechanical voice. “The easy transmission of memes should have created a more even level of technology and culture throughout the galaxy, despite the lack of what you call connectivity.”

  Where does it get these notions from? thought Lea, who replied with the lecturing tone of the librarian he once was. “The meme was a notion promulgated on Old Earth in the early space age. The example most often quoted is of a group of young people who decided to wear some out of date footwear called, I think, Hush Puppies. The fad became a world-wide, must-have fashion in less than a month.”

  Lea stroked his three day old stubble. He was getting into his academic stride: “On Old Earth, the spread of ideas or memes was easy. While many of the different conflicted cultures attempted to remain separate and distinct, the temptations of consumerism were carried by satellite television and the world-wide web of digital communication. Dictators in the original Soviet Bloc and the Chinese Communist party could not prevent their underpaid workers seeing their far wealthier counterparts enjoying the material benefits of free market economics. The peasants wanted a bit of that prosperity for themselves. That’s why, eventually, the super power China became the bastion of free trade and liberal economics.”

  “Is not that a model of what should have happened throughout the galaxy?” asked the pod.

  “Neighbouring countries are not the same as neighbouring solar systems,” said Lea. “Because no one has ever found a way of broadcasting in the realm, hyper fast communication is not possible. A planet cannot broadcast to its interstellar neighbour. All messages have to be physically taken by ship from one world to the next. Straightaway, any regime can control the content allowed into their society. On all the planets I have studied, censorship is more commonplace than any general right to free speech. In the same way, oppression is more likely than civil rights.”

  “So, if there was a way to communicate at the speed of hyper-flight,” commented the pod with a distinct chuckle in its voice, “A human pan galactic culture might be more cohesive.”

  “Yes, but no-one has ever found a way of sending information faster than light,” said Lea. “It’s impossible.”

  “Is it?” asked the pod, clearly not expecting a reply.

  Lea stared at the machine. The entity that had rescued him from a life of official disgrace and obscurity on Willow had many surprising abilities but even Lea did not believe in the fabled faster than light communication.

  As the ex-librarian stared, he saw the chubby notebook come alive with lights. Symbols strewed across the screen and an audible shout assailed Lea’s ears. “Art is under attack,” shrieked the machine.

  +

  There were sounds of zapping from stun guns and general panic among customers in the bazaar emporium hall. Hundreds of shoppers who had crowded the indoor marketplace were pouring out of the exits. Several tourists and a few stallholders lay quivering on the ground. Others were cowering behind counters trying to avoid being blasted by stun guns. Yelena was crouched behind a perfume stand. To her it seemed obvious the four assailants were probably police or military: they were well organised. It was also obvious they were after Art.

  The fugitive pilot had taken cover behind the meat counter. The butcher was face down in a tray of chateaubriand steaks. The merchant’s whole body was convulsing, the result of having been hit several times by stun blasts. Art reckoned the butcher had already received too many shots to survive, but still he pulled the woman’s body down into the narrow serving area behind the counter. Only moments before, the young girl had been so alive and enthusiastic about Art’s choice of replicated meat. Now her face was a twisted grimace of pain. Her eyeballs were turned up in their sockets and she was mercifully unconscious. Art rummaged in his shopping bag pulling out what looked like a sun visor and a hairbrush.

  Yelena used her cosmetic cam stick to survey the hall. Although the camera shook and was at an awkward angle, the picture presented to Yelena projected in front of her from her sun visor was steady. The image panned from left to right and showed four assailants closing in on Art’s position behind the meat counter. The picture changed and she saw two more armed women in the main entrance. Yelena donned the gun sight sunglasses the ship had given her and waited to make her move.

  “Yelena,” said the quiet, slightly mechanical voice in her ear, “on my mark, can you fire towards the doorway first then at the two men to your left of Art’s position?”

  She was fumbling with her hairbrush. A number of bristles on the end of the innocent looking tool were now flickering. Yelena held the brush aloft just above the counter. “Now,” said the voice in her ear. She squeezed the handle.

  Almost simultaneously, Art and Yelena launched their retaliation. The tiny bristles shot toward their targets. Each bristle was a long thin power pack with a miniature rocket in the follicle end. The minute missiles were controlled by the pod back at the villa. The entity had already determined a plan of action. On command, each group of bristles exploded in the air above the armed aggressors. The sharp concussive blast combined with a searing flash of bright light disoriented the attackers. “Art and Yelena, please, follow the route I am showing you. There is a side entrance, Becky is there. Lea and I will join you shortly.”

  +

  Outside the mall, Becky stood in the car park besides a fire exit. The door had been locked, which Becky thought was very unhelpful. The metal plate below the handle was now a smouldering hole and the door was slightly ajar. Wearing both a sun visor and sun glasses made Becky look like an overcautious tourist, which was fine by her. The entity asked her to scan round the parking lot once more.

  “Why do I have to keep checking?” sighed Becky. “There’s no one here.”

  “That is the problem,” said Yelena in her ear. “If the authorities wanted to arrest or detain Art, they would have sent more than just six officers. He’s a dangerous renegade whose escape involved the destruction of five Empire cruisers. If they wanted him, they would have turned up mob handed. So where are they? Pod, can you detect anyone else?”

  “I am afraid, for the moment, my real time sensing is limited to what is being picked up by your glasses,” said the mechanical voice as Yelena and Art emerged from the building. Both adopted a slight crouch holding their weapons outstretched, one looking left, the other looking right. It might have been an impressive sight except their weapons were hair brushes.

  “It’s a good job no-one’s here,” laughed Becky, “otherwise your street cred would be zilch.”

  An antigrav car swerved into the lot. Art was about to squeeze off a round of bristles when he recognised Lea behind the wheel and he saw the pod strapped into the passenger seat.

  “Sorry about the delay,” said the pod in his ear. “I had to commandeer a vehicle from the tourist park. Launching drones now.” The passenger window rolled own and several discs each the size of a cent coin span out and soared skyward.

  The car pulled alongside Art, Becky and Yelena as the pod relayed a schematic map of the market building. Bright icons flashed showing weapons with the outline of humans lying beside them. “You assailants are either unconscious or incapacitated,” said the pod. A few more bright icons appeared. “I can see some of the traders were armed but none of them thought to intervene on your behalf,” said the mechanical
voice.

  “Hey,” objected Art, “at least one of the traders lost her life because of those guys.”

  The picture of the market being projected by the three humans’ sun visors changed scale, zooming in to the butcher’s counter where Art had been trapped. They could see the outline of a young girl lying prone. The image zoomed in further and they saw her heart beating. “She’ll live,” said the drone. Suddenly the image changed, they saw the market building, they could see themselves standing by the antigrav car but nearby at the entrance to the car park, there was a new icon. It was green and flashing insistently.

  “Get into the car,” said the pod insistently. “Now!”

  They could all hear an element of panic in the machines voice and instantly began to clamber into the vehicle.

  “Shut the doors and drive away from the entrance,” commanded the pod. All the car windows closed and polarised as Lea gunned the car towards the back of the lot.

  “What is it, pod?” shouted Art as the auto safety belt pressed him into the back of his seat.

  “An anti-flux mine and it is about to explo …”

  A bright flash of light slashed through the polarized windows all but blinding the occupants. All the meters on the antigrav car’s dashboard went out. The pod’s display went blank. There was an unnerving moment of silence, then the blast hit.

  The car, no longer supported by antigravity, crashed onto the ground and screeched across the parking lot in a cloud of dust and sparks. Lea had been driving at speed but now they were being pushed by the explosion behind them. The roar of the blast was in their ears but it stopped within a second. The car crashed into another vehicle, glancing off it, then hit another and a third. The four humans were flung about the car interior, their auto safety belts had switched off. Only the pod seemed safe, tied to the passenger seat by rope, but the machine was inert. The car smashed into the fence at the rear of the lot and shuddered to a halt amid a mangle of metal and twisted posts.

  Art prised himself out the foot well in the rear of the cab. He saw Lea sprawled over the dash board a red welt on his forehead. The ex-librarian was unconscious but breathing. Becky and Yelena were a tangle of arms and legs and were trying groggily to unravel themselves. The pod was still dead.

  Pushing hard, Art managed to open the buckled passenger door and squeeze himself out on his hands and knees. As he began to stand up, he heard a movement behind him. Then he felt the pain of a stun blast before blacking out.

  Inside the car, Yelena had wormed her way onto the front bench and was tending to the unconscious Lea. She could see he had hit his head on the front plastiglass screen, leaving a smear of blood. Yelena took his pulse. Lea was out cold but seemed otherwise alright. The car door beside Yelena was wrenched open revealing a grinning a dog faced man with a protruding jaw and squashed nose.

  “Well, what have we got here, my pretty?” he said leering at Yelena. “I think you could make me a few bob at the slave market.”

  “Leave it!” ordered a commanding voice from somewhere outside but out of sight. “We’ve got what’s wanted and the MPs will be here shortly. Let’s go before we’re picked up.”

  The dog faced man gave Yelena a gruesome grin and turned about and retreated. Yelena scrambled after him, falling out of the car only to see the man board the back of a cargo float which promptly moved away at speed on a cushion of antigravity. The bulky vehicle crossed the lot and hovered onto the main street.

  There was no sign of Art. Yelena saw the cargo float turn round a corner and hover out of sight.

  Chapter 18: The Emperor’s Progress

  In his study, with a mixture of humour and disdain, the Kargol Emperor watched as the head librarian fumbled with rolls of parchment, spread over his large desk. The king of a thousand planets was fascinated by the way the academic’s double chin wobbled as he hesitantly turned from one document to another. The Emperor was appalled at the superstitious prejudice that stopped the librarian using ordinary computers to analyse the information he wanted. He might have been frustrated at the sight of the head librarian shuffling though manuscripts had he not previously ordered his staff to scan all the information into his data cubes. A score of clerks and technicians had spent the night analysing the documents and matching their results with what they had gleaned from the primitive computer on Willow, the librarian’s home world.

  “Here is the list, your Highness,” said Chung Wang, his voice trembling. “These are the so called Forbidden Planets mentioned in the traitor Lea Wey’s scribblings.” The librarian was nervously unrolling a scroll. His unease was made worse by the glowering presence of Colonel Garth, the Emperor’s enforcer, standing at the end of the large desk. “But, your Excellency,” continued the librarian in a pleading tone, “there are more than two hundred worlds mentioned in the myths, and they are all just myths.”

  “Two hundred and forty seven, to be precise,” said the Emperor to the alarm of the librarian who was unaware his manuscripts had been plundered. “Fortunately, your, shall we say, aversion to computers does not hold sway in the empire.” The king of ten thousand worlds passed his hand over the control panel in the arm of his throne like chair and the lights dimmed in the room. The librarian gasped as a hologram of part of the galaxy formed over the desk.

  “Are those the planets? Where did you … The library computers are inviolable,” spluttered Chung Wang

  “Far from it, academic” spat Colonel Garth threateningly. “If your computers could be hacked into by a pair of renegades on the run, do you think your pathetic security is be a match for the Imperial Intelligence Service? ” The librarian visibly quailed.

  “What you are looking at,” said the Emperor evenly, “is the display shown in the study where King and Kolowski were talking to Librarian Whey shortly before you arrived.”

  “I should have known that traitor would be behind this,” whined Wong glad to have someone to blame.

  “No,” said the Emperor, lifting one royal finger to stifle any further comment from the quivering librarian. “Whey was the author of the list but, I think, what he was shown here convinced him to join the criminals. That and the fact he had been demoted by you and your mother.”

  The librarian was about to say something but Colonel Garth glared at him.

  The display changed with many of the highlighted solar systems going out. “Using some criteria we cannot find, nearly all the planets on the list were rejected, leaving just these seven.” The display wheeled and enlarged, with most of the galaxy moving off the edge of the table and being expunged. What remained was a tiny area of space with seven stars highlighted. “They call it the Chimera region, an uninhabited expanse with an unsavoury reputation for ship wreck and disappearing vessels.”

  “And we are going to go there?” asked the librarian, his voice shaking.

  “We are on the way already,” said the Emperor, waving his hand to command the lights in the room to come back on.

  “We’ve been on the way since we left your library world two days ago,” sneered Colonel Garth. “Now get out. The Emperor has matters of state to discuss. These manuscripts will be sent to your cabin when his Highness has finished with them. That’s if I don’t just burn them.”

  White faced and lips trembling, the librarian left without a word. As the door shut quietly behind him, the Emperor laughed. “You really know how to hurt a man: threatening to incinerate his blessed papers.”

  “I wouldn’t waste the carbofuels,” said Colonel Garth. “And I really don’t know why you bother with him either. The man’s a dullard with a computer phobia bigger than his belly. I’m surprised you haven’t had him and his manuscripts pushed out an airlock. That’s your usual antidote to incompetence, Sire.”

  “Ah, Colonel, are you referring to our coroner, Stamford Miles?” asked the Emperor giving his right-hand man a long stare. “I know you have him tucked away somewhere in the brig, despite my orders he be given some extra vehicular activity without a suit. Hmm
m?”

  “My Liege,” intoned Garth, “I thought he might be useful in our pursuit of the ship. He knows the reporter Bhuna.”

  “Precisely,” said the King of ten thousand worlds, “and that’s why I am keeping the obese librarian tucked up safe in a tiny cabin. He will have insights about Whey, a man our fugitives were clearly very interested in.”

  “But all these manuscripts?” said Garth with obvious distaste on his face pointing to the desk littered with scrolls and papers.

  “They’re not the fat librarian’s, they belonged to Lea Whey. Unlike our fat friend, the young librarian was more than happy to use a computer. He wrote his thesis on the library system. Indeed his work was extremely popular as a download on Willow.”

  “It’s hard to believe, A PhD as a top seller,” said Garth, “but I suppose a world ruled by librarians would make for bookish tastes.”

  “The question is, my friend,” said the Emperor, “if he was happy on a computer, why resort to this medieval stuff?”

  “The computer at the Quintox Library is almost as archaic as these scrolls,” said the Emperor’s enforcer. “Still, it was sophisticated enough for the library heads to read everything anyone wrote on the system.”

  “Precisely, Garth, I think our young academic adventurer had secrets he did not want to share,” said the Emperor rubbing one of the parchments between royal finger and thumb. “We have a mystery ship, which is almost certainly of alien origin. I have no need to remind you Garth, this tiny vessel, which can break the laws of hyper flight, defeated a flotilla of my finest warships. Now the ship’s crew are searching for a forbidden world, which till now was always considered a myth. Whatever it is they are seeking, we need to find it first.”

  “My Liege, you are, as always, most insightful.”

  Chapter 19: Jail

  The resort jail house was little more than a holding pen for drunks and druggies needing a night or a day to sleep off whatever intoxicant they had imbibed. Violent or riotous behaviour was not tolerated on Paradise and offenders were routinely stunned, fined and put on the next flight home. Native inhabitants who committed minor crimes were heavily fined while more serious offenders were sold into slavery. As a result, there was little disorder on the holiday planet. This was why there was consternation and confusion among the authorities following the detonation of a flux bomb at the town’s main shopping mall.