Means of Escape (Spinward Book 1)

by Rupert Segar

  “How did he divine so much?” asked the young man earnestly. “Was it just guesswork?”

  “No, Dylan was a genius first and a cosmologist second,” said Anton. “He ignored everything he had learnt about time and space and just worked with logic. That was how he learnt to navigate the doorways. But his greatest insight was to divine the purpose of the doorways.”

  “Look!” instructed Anton tracing his fingers across the twinkling dots on the map showing the original 35 worlds the first voyageurs had discovered. “From these few doorways, Dylan the Devoted deduced the circular pattern and saw how the time dilation from one world to the next was a constant. We voyageurs have spent more than a thousand years proving that he was right.”

  “We never found the aliens,” said Pierre ruefully.

  “No, but we found the part of the aliens’ construction fleet,” replied Anton, “abandoned at the end of the cul-de-sac link. We know the makers used the time shift effect to build the doors in the past. The entire network of doors was completed at the moment the first one was built. It may be a paradox but it is a nice trick.”

  “So the construction fleet went into the past while the aliens went into the future. But why did they go?”

  “That’s the great mystery: what makes an entire civilization pack up and move to the future?” said Anton. “Maybe there is something centuries or millennia ahead so wonderful that every single alien went for it. Perhaps they have a pack mentality. Dylan the Devoted didn’t think so. He said it was the opposite. They were running away from something. Something that frightened an entire alien species so much that they created this means of escape. That’s why Dylan and Captain Isoko tried to follow the aliens into the future. So they could find out and humankind could be warned about the coming danger.”

  “And is that why Dylan and the Captain went away?” asked Pierre ruefuly.

  “We live in hope that they may return one day,” sighed Anton, who then held up his left wrist, which was tied by a short piece of rope to Pierre’s right wrist. “Now, my young apprentice, we are but three jumps from Devastation, the planet where Dylan and the Captain left on their quest. It is time to go.”

  Tied together, they leapt into the grew oval disc which dilated for an instant, swallowing up the master and his apprentice before resuming its silent vigil as an oval of wafer thin grey smoke.

  For a few minutes, the doorway hung in the air, immovable and in silence. Then some long ragged claws extended out of the centre of the disc, opened up like a flower, bent back and gripped the edges. Eight metal legs flexed and a lobster like body was pulled through. The creature remained fixed to the edge of the oval disc as electrical charges shot between body and claws. The bolts of multi-coloured lightening ceased and the metallic crustacean unfurled a cluster of antennae which it used to caress the surface of the disc. Inspection over, it swung its body outward and then back into the grey oval pulling its ragged claws behind it.

  Chapter 21: Royal Progress

  Colonel Garth stood silently at the side of the Emperor’s desk. The king of the thousand worlds had been deep in study for several days; slouched over his majestically sized desk, his Excellency shuffled papers once more and sighed. Then he unrolled one manuscript and referred to some of the copious notes he had made. Then he sighed again.

  The enforcer’s comm link wrist band contracted and expanded several times rapidly. No-one would dare message him while he was with the Emperor unless it was extremely urgent. Colonel Garth glanced down covertly. The message scrolling down the mini screen was brief but welcome.

  “Sire, there is good news. Our intelligence forces have captured the pilot Arthur King. He is on a rendezvous course, on board one of our postal scout ships.”

  “Excellent,” said the Emperor, “he could provide a much needed key to this mystery. How long is it before we reach the Chimera Sector?”

  “Five days, Excellency, we will emerge from the realm on the edge of the Chimera One system. Our postal delivery will arrive a few hours later.”

  The Emperor tidied the pile of papers in front of him and pulled his pad towards him. “Garth, I think we need to summarise the issues at hand,” said the Kargol king, squaring his pad neatly before him. “Firstly, what do we know about this young pilot?”

  “Terra Novian, three years compulsory service in your Majesty’s Imperial Fleet,” said Garth, recalling the details from memory. “Apparently he was an outstanding trainee pilot. He had a high psi rating which translated to a degree of empathy in the sensor webs used for hyper flight navigation. One of his instructors said he was a natural pilot when he was recommended for a commission in the Fighter Fleet.”

  “He was offered the commission?” asked the Emperor.

  “Yes, but he turned it down. My liege, Arthur King, like many from the protectorate planets, is not a patriot. I am not saying he was a subversive or a rebel. Terra Nova has benefited from your Majesty’s protection for more than twenty years. Nevertheless, the planet has not yet earned full Imperial membership so many of its citizens seek their fortunes elsewhere.”

  “You mean they won’t give their lives to a navy that treats them as second class citizens?” scoffed the Emperor. “Perhaps we should consider more inducements.”

  “Arthur King chose to become a commercial pilot instead,” said Garth, gently steering the conversation back to its subject. “He became a hyper flight captain within a year, following some medical emergency on a freighter. He spent several years as a jobbing pilot. He had several scrapes: a few skirmishes with pirates or brigands; a near miss with an uncharted flux fissure and a passenger ship generator that threatened to explode. All of which he managed to extricate himself from successfully and with some honour.”

  “Then you gave him a commission, Garth,” said the Emperor.

  “He was the best pilot available. He was also expendable. We had already had one of the Fleet’s finest left crippled by his encounter with the alien ship. I chose Arthur King because I thought he was the most suitable pilot available.”

  “Then he stole the ship, Garth.”

  “Your Excellency, I prostrate myself in front …”

  “We don’t have time for all that. Look at it from his perspective, Garth. He flew a successful mission taking that tiny alien ship all the way to a neighbouring stellar system and brought it back. Admittedly, re-emerging above Terra Nova was a bit unconventional. Then you tried to kill him. What did you expect him to do?

  “I expected him to die,” said the Emperor’s enforcer. “What he and the others knew about that alien vessel was far too dangerous.”

  “Which brings me to the alien ship itself,” said the Emperor. “Your analysis of the vessel as a potential secret weapon is exemplary. The ship would allow us to defeat any potential enemy with ease. We could emerge from hyper flight above a planet and launch a few planet busting bombs before anyone knew. This is why, Garth, I applaud your efforts to eradicate all knowledge of the vessel’s capabilities, but what of the ship itself?”

  “Your Majesty,” said the Enforcer, “I fear the ship is more than just a machine. According to Coroner Stamford, it has a personality.”

  “So what? My drinks cabinet has a personality, and a rather rum taste in blue jokes.”

  “No, your Excellency,” said Colonel Garth, not for the first time wondering whether it was ever wise to contradict the Emperor, “the ship seems to have free will. In the unfortunate coroner’s case, it lied, disarmed his gun and stunned him. I believe, it was the ship that itself that detected and attacked our troops at Proteus Spaceport. Or at least it gave the pilot, King, the option. The same is probably true concerning the destruction of the quintox flotilla above Terra Nova.”

  “Come, Garth, are you re-writing history to protect your reputation? It was your orders that caused the task force to fire, so destroying the flotilla.”

  “Your Excellency, it was the ship that provoked the fleet having first disarmed the quintox flotilla. It was a
n act of deliberate sabotage.”

  “And using an alien technology which your technicians have singularly failed to explain,” said the Emperor grinning broadly while giving his right hand man a long hard stare. “Garth, I hope you have more success in the Chimera Sector.”

  Chapter 22: Destination Chimera

  Yelena looked at the vid-screen anxiously as the shuttle achieve low orbit about Paradise. She, Lea and Becky had escaped from jail but Yelena was desperate to find Art. The ship said he had been taken off world, and the trail was getting colder by the minute. They were approaching a large vessel, although the lack of perspective made the actual size difficult to judge. Nevertheless, from the loading bay beginning to open in the side of the vessel, she could tell it was as big as a naval cruiser.

  “Ship, where are you?” she said to the pod still sitting at her feet. “And why in Einstein’s name are we docking with this vessel?”

  “Yelena, this is me,” said the mechanical voice in her ear. “I have made a few alterations.”

  “Ship, have you put on weight,” said Lea looking over Yelena’s shoulder and clearly parley to the conversation. “I hope you have the balls to match, big boy.”

  “Are you making some puerile reference to male adolescent growing pains, Lea?” said the slightly mechanical voice. “I am sure you know all about those.”

  “Ouch, I’m being put down by an AI.”

  “That’s not difficult, Lea,” laughed Becky. “You see, I’m not the only one who knows you’re actually just an overgrown teenager.”

  “Come on, you guys,” interrupted Yelena. “Ship, can we follow the postal vessel heading to the Chimera Sector?”

  “As soon as you are aboard, Yelena,” as the mechanical voice spoke, the shuttle juddered and the iris door flexed open. The trio followed a line of yellow floor lights. They left the large loading bay, where the shuttle looked like a small car parked in an empty lot, and they passed into a wide corridor. A few moments later and they were in a gravmag lift. Stripes of light flickered past indicating a rapid rise of at least 20 metres but there was no sensation of movement. Yelena marvelled at the accuracy of the inertial compensators.

  The doors opened and they were in the main cabin, although Yelena suspected they should now call it the bridge. The room had changed though not out of all recognition. The main control panel was much wider and now had seating for three. The circular table was still in the centre of the room but seemed a little bigger. A hologram sphere was spinning above the table, stripes of different colour vibrating across its surface. Art and Yelena’s cabins were there and now had an adjoining door between them. Beside the cabins there was a wide ramp which double backed on itself.

  “I hope you do not object, Becky and Lea, your private cabins are on the next level down, as is the medical lab and the galley,” said the ship’s voice coming from a hologram sphere.

  “Mmmm,” said Lea leering at Becky, “handy in case you get a case of night starvation.”

  Becky squeezed Lea’s nose in mock irritation.

  “If you would like to take your seats,” said the ship. “We are about to leave orbit and enter hyper flight.

  Four hours later three humans and an alien entity sat at the circular table on the bridge. The conversation was proving exasperating and depressing for Yelena. “You mean to tell me, ship, there is no way you can track or catch up with the postal vessel, and there is no way to be sure Art is even on board? So why are we heading toward the Chimera Sector is it just because you want to go there for your own reasons?”

  “Yelena, there are very good reasons for us all to go to the Chimera Sector, not least it may be our best chance to recover Art. I am almost certain he was taken off-world in one of the postal vessels.”

  “But how can you be so sure he’s being taken to the Chimera Sector?” said Yelena.

  “Over the past week, three postal scout ships left Paradise in the direction of the Chimera sector,” said the mechanical voice coming from the striped holosphere. “The first left shortly after you arrived on the planet. The second took off at about the time Art was captured and the third, left two hours later, presumably with Art on board.”

  “Couldn’t it all just be a coincidence?” said Becky.

  “There are no known inhabited planets in that direction,” said the ship. “Thus, it is odd for a postal service to send three vessels that way.”

  “Hey, everyone knows they are just a front for the Kargol Empire’s intelligence service,” said Lea. “Maybe they have some secret military base that way.”

  “More than that,” said the ship pausing for what seemed like a deliberate dramatic effect. “My interrogation of the computers in the Paradise central post office divulged two important facts.”

  “What?” asked Yelena desperately. “Stop this guessing game, ship.”

  “Firstly, almost all reference to Art, the Kargol Empire and the Chimera Sector had been deliberately and, may I say, expertly deleted from the memory crystals. Given Art’s kidnap and the departure of three ships, to remove all records is telling. But not all the data was removed and from what I have recovered there is one significant detail.”

  “Ship, tell us, for Einstein’s sake, before I break something,” shouted Yelena.

  “The Kargol Emperor and his fleet are headed to the Chimera Sector before us,” said the rapidly spinning sphere.

  +

  The lights had been lowered on the bridge to a semi gloom. There was no reason for the ship itself to have any lights at all but it did so for its human guests. The dimming of the lighting took place at what was designated night time. Despite spanning the galaxy, humans still required sleep and liked their circadian patterns to be kept regular.

  Yelena had gone to her cabin emotionally drained. Much to Lea’s frustration, Becky had also turned in. Now Lea sat in the gloom at the circular table on the bridge, nurturing a carton of coffee. The scent of the coffee was very appealing. Lea remembered the improvements to the galley and the supplies within had been a product of Art’s gourmand tastes. The pilot had insisted, if they had to live on board the ship for weeks at a time, they should at least eat and drink well.

  Lea took a little sip as the coffee was still a bit too hot. The sweet liquid tasted better than any coffee he could remember. The carton said it was Columbian Blue Mountain. Lea slid an index finder under the picture of a plantation. The scene came to life and music played. A tiny voice explained how the finest beans in the sector were grown on the southern slopes of the Blue Mountain on Columbus, the gateway to the Alliance. The voice continued on talking about how the beans were harvested and roasted using wood chips from banana trees. Lea was surprised, even slightly annoyed, that the 4D presentation included a whiff of the aroma of burning banana chips. His finger slid back to stop the presentation.

  “So, ship,” said Lea. “Tell me again why, exactly, do you want to go to the Chimera Sector?”

  “For the same reason as you, Lea, I would like to find the Forbidden Planet. It is natural to be curious about the veracity of such a story: a legend known right across the galaxy.”

  “No, ship, that is why I want to go there. I am a librarian through and through and the pursuit of truth is an end in itself. But you have another reason, don’t you, ship?”

  “Yes, Lea, I am trying to find my home. Until I do I cannot know my true purpose. My builders were looking for some solution, not just for themselves but for humankind. My problem is the Great Plague arrived before I could be told what my destiny was. Lea, I need answers before I act. Those answers may be found on the Creators’ home world, the location of which has been the closest guarded secret in the galaxy. I believe this is the source of the legend of the Forbidden Planet.”

  Chapter 23: Dragon

  Explorer Spirit II moved into a high orbit above Dragon the only planet rumoured to be inhabited in the Chimera Sector. At the helm, Thistle set the sensors to record. All radio wavelengths would be sampled over the next three
orbits. Detectors would also look for gravnometric sheers or any disruption in the realm. Flux meters were still registering the ripples created by the Explorer Spirit’s eruption into normal space. These disturbances were now dwindling to a point below detection. Thistle finished setting the gauges and left the control room on automatic.

  Sitting in her cabin near the rear of the craft, Suxie Wong pondered on her long life. At the age of one hundred and seven, she was beyond normal retirement age. However, explorers in general tended not to retire but died in the job; and, explorers from the authoritarian library world of Willow hardly ever went home to retire. Almost by definition, explorers had to have a liberal attitude when contacting long isolated worlds. They needed to be very tolerant of the diverse societies they encountered. After years roaming the galaxy, most found the dictatorial regime on Willow too oppressive and chose self-imposed exile rather than return.

  Nigeal knocked at Suxie’s cabin door. She answered and he bustled in with a bowl of miso soup. The fermented soy and rice smelt good. She looked at the young man fondly.

  “Nige, explain to an old woman again, why are we in this Einstein forsaken part of the galaxy. No-one lives in the Chimera Sector.”

  “Not so, Aunt Suxie, according to the Norwegians, there reckon there is a small colony here on the world they call Dragon.”

  Suxie was not sure she liked being called Aunt; it made her feel like some barren dowager. Both Nigeal and Thistle had started giving her the familial title Aunt shortly after they left Fair Isle seven years before. If it makes them feel like they are kin, so be it, she thought.

  “Complete twaddle!” said Suxie “Norway Prime is typical of the smaller cut off, culturally regressive worlds, full of myths and folk lore. Sometimes I think our Good News is wasted on pagans.”