From Beyond the Blue Planet

by Trevor Palmer

  “Crunch time, I guess. What think you, Josie? Give ‘em any chance at all?”

  The redhead emptied her mouth of the sausage that had been on a stick. “Nah, Rog. I give those Chasers no chance at all.”

  A mile away, Seth finished examining Kevin’s leg. “It’s growing really well, son. You know, I reckon that estimate of a year will be well beaten. When you finish with that mechanical leg, what are you goin’ to do with it? Throw it in the trashcan or fix it on your wall with your certificates?”

  Kevin laughed and Ginny and Jill joined in. But then Kevin became serious …

  “Kee will come back, won’t he, dad?”

  “I don’t know, son. I reckon he’ll know too many tricks for them aliens on Mars. He’ll beat them. But … I don’t know if he’ll want to exist … live … forever on Earth. P’raps there are other more interesting worlds for him to visit in other solar systems. Even so, he’ll not forget you. He’ll come avisitin’ some day.”

  Ginny almost forgot and reached to ruffle her son’s hair. Then she remembered and pulled back, looking at Jill and raising her eyebrows with a knowing smile.

  Doctor Rankin pulled out his pipe and filled it with his favourite tobacco without thinking. Then he remembered and thought how awful the electronic pipes were. He pulled out a pad of matches and lit up. After puffing contentedly for several minutes he realised just how tired he felt so he placed the pipe with his usual care onto a tray upon his desk. He closed his eyes, smiled his dry half-smile and drifted from sleep to death.

  General Algernon Ceri-Baker frowned out of the rear window of his armoured Cadillac. He had heard only yesterday that his former Group Leader was in Cambridge, England but it didn’t worry him or concern him in any way. Pity I wasn’t able to get my hands on that damned robot, he had thought … then he had dismissed it from his mind. Plenty to worry about these days with his own safety. After one block from the military complex he called to his driver, “Route Cee”, and the driver took a left. The route varied from day-today.

  “School bus ahead, General,” The driver came back soon after the turn. “Want me to try another?”

  “No, Sergeant. School buses are harmless. Just take it easy.”

  The sergeant who was driving eased his belt holster open anyway and rested a hand on the SIG. You never knew.

  With the big vehicle slowed to a crawl behind the bus they were both suddenly aware of an almighty big truck looming close and then it had struck them at midpoint caving in both driver and rear door.

  The general gasped and struggled to get out past the truck’s bent wing – it was fire he feared. As he staggered to his feet, wiping a little blood from above his eye with his sleeve, a large figure wearing a black, knitted helmet stepped out from behind the truck and levelled a machine pistol at him. The general recognised the gun as the widely-used Intratec DC9 before its 9mm parabellums smashed into his chest leaving it a bloody mess.

  Later that day a message reached a food mafia boss in San Diego. Philipe Chavez dumped the cigar that he’d been smoking in a tray and hotched the nearly naked girl from one knee to the other while he took the call …

  “Chavez.”

  “Good news. You’ll be pleased. We finally caught up with the general. Chico let him have a full mag. Revenge is sweet, eh, boss?”

  “Okay. Give Chico the bonus.”

  “What about the others on our list?”

  “Nah. Can’t go chasin’ all round the world after them. We got the kingpin, that bastard general. We got that Regis guy in our pockets now, anyway. Things are on the up.” He laughed and winked at his girl. “We’re eatin’ well.” He put the phone down.

  ……….

  Dave shook his head and puzzled over the fact that he wasn’t injured. It had taken some courage for him to crash the pod despite reassurances from Kee. He knew he had hit something with an almighty wallop but he had no external view and didn’t know what he’d slammed into. All he knew was that his bed or the ship or both had phenomenal powers to absorb the shock of an impact. He was okay. But, was Kee? His thoughts turned to the shoot-out which he assumed would soon be taking place outside between robot and Chaser. He was to stay put and wait and he didn’t know how to disembark even if he had wanted to. He did now begin to yearn to be strolling along beside Kee on the red sands with his trusty Glock half-cocked and ready. His mind brought up the picture of an old film depicting the shootout at the OK corral. If Kee wins this one, we’ll have to re-name him ‘Wyatt’, he thought.

  Outside the ship, the view that was denied Dave was that of a huge drift of red sand, blown by the fierce winds on Mars up against a red-tinted rock face. This reared to several hundred feet and began a small mountain range. Sticking out of the drift was the tail end of the pod, dark and metallic in appearance but still undamaged.

  The pod had travelled barely a mile to the start of the hilly range. Standing quietly motionless in the path of the cautiously approaching Chaser vessel, Kee had received a brief transmission from his pod, a status report … pod and occupant were undamaged. To his friends back on Earth, Kee in his robot configuration was big; a formidable figure, dark and menacing. Now, the massive Chaser ship gliding silently towards him at about ten feet off the ground made him look like a child’s plaything. The vessel stopped with its rounded nose only 100 feet from Kee and it hovered at his height waiting. The wait was probably inviting a response, computed Kee. He remained silent and absolutely motionless.

  Changes took place on the vessel’s surface. Most of the bulbous nose cleared to a degree of translucency. Shortly after this, the outline of an entrance was visible low down behind the nose. Kee computed that he had been visually examined and that the Chaser was preparing to exit the craft. He was correct … the entrance cleared completely although there was no door or panel as would be familiar to Earthmen. Then the fifteen foot Chaser dropped easily to the sandy surface and stood just as still as Kee. Kee sensed the weapon held easily between the fingers of the Chaser. After further moments of examination by both parties, the Chaser spoke in a garbled tongue but the robot clearly understood the meaning of every word.

  [Translation into English …] “So, your pod has crashed, my little one. I wonder if that was your final attempt to deny me the mineral which your master stole? If so, you will have failed your programming … I will soon dig it out. I’m sure your pod will not be capable of protecting its secrets for long.”

  “You have been wrong in the assumptions you have made, Tzern … it is Tzern is it not? Woooh! If you terminated your leader then you are in great trouble. Just as my master-friend, Keelon, could not hide from you, where can you hide now, my big one?” If Seth had been there he would have been impressed at Kee’s example of humour.

  “And where has my assumption been misguided? The creeto-material was stolen from a laboratory by Keelon. You were expelled in the pod and, since the creeto was not with Keelon, it was clearly inside your vehicle, the escape pod. You may since have hidden it elsewhere … but you will tell where that is. Once you have done that, you can return to your normal function, that of a ReeRee unit. I will find you a new master.” A deep chuckle rumbled from out of Tzern’s beard.

  “I will now give you some true facts. In your job of simply chasing criminals … or enemies of the state, which is not necessarily the same thing … you will not always have been appraised of unneeded data. Such as, what exactly creeto is.”

  “And you know this? A ReeRee unit with the knowledge of a top ranking scientist.” His deep chuckle forced its way through the mass of black, curly hairs again.

  “I have simply been programmed by a better master than you. You have been right about only one thing so far … the creeto was in the pod. But it wasn’t cargo … it was my outer covering, my skin.”

  “Your skin!” The Chaser moved his massive legs restlessly. Then he remembered his vessel hovering where it had been when he jumped down. He gave it a dark stare and, without any other obvious method of contr
ol, it circled slightly and gently lowered its massive bulk to the ground but still facing Kee. The entrance became once more a part of the hull and the window effect at the nose did also. The positioning was vital to Kee and without any obvious activity on his part he calculated that he was at the focal point of a triangle with the Chaser and the spaceship whose angle was 32 degrees, 12 seconds. Now he continued …

  “Creetonite is a very rare metal and will combine with very few other metals. However, when it is alloyed with several of these it attains certain distinct properties; it can become very ductile.”

  “So? There are many such malleable metals.” “Well, the properties of this alloy, now called simply creeto, have a further characteristic but this only became exploitable after many years of research in the best laboratories of the Zemblastion empire. Keelon worked in one of those, did you know that?”

  “I didn’t know … but where are we going with this wonder material?”

  “We are going to my skin. The end product was a substance with many differing properties but the main one was that, with thought control, it could morph into different shapes.”

  “Assuming you are telling me the truth, who applies this thought control? How does it work?”

  “I can only explain my own case … Keelon reconstructed my standard ReeRee unit exterior using creeto-material. He linked its control to a unit inside me to give a robotic appearance or, that of a humanoid-like one somewhat resembling a being from this star system. I was given control of the switching device so that I could choose which shape to adopt. He made many other internal changes to my previous construction which altered … and improved … my capability enormously.”

  Tzern rumbled once more. Then he said, “I hope he gave you a better fighting capability.” The stick he held had been twizzled between the large fingers like a juggler’s baton but now it steadied, pointing directly at Kee. “You are obviously not just a food-bin any longer but can your new skin protect you from this?” He glanced down momentarily at his weapon.

  “My skin can absorb and dissipate much impact energy but, of course, you fire without emitting projectiles … your weapon system uses particle energy wave-distortion and it utilizes our forth-dimensional quarks as well. But, we can only find out by a test of our capabilities.”

  The Chaser hesitated. The former ReeRee unit seemed very confident. “My own firepower would probably melt you and your precious skin to a solid puddle on this planet’s surface but … you have reckoned without the supreme power of my ship. These were built by the Federation to attack and destroy all manner of space-vessels. I have seen with my own eyes what they can do.” His dark lids slitted and Kee, knowing this was the moment, reacted.

  Keelon’s creation had, as it had said, only two preprogrammed shapes. The robot itself had been left with only a very limited control to get any other type of shape adjustment and these had to be far simpler than the complex configuration of the other two. However, it did know just what those certain shapes could do and now it acted in a split-second …

  The Chaser had braced himself for any eventuality but had signalled his ship to fire at the robot with everything it had. Now he was astonished to see the robot morph into a strange configuration of flat, smooth–surfaced planes. Simultaneously a shimmering wave lanced from the Chase ship and struck the new Kee but, instead of the usual meltdown of intervening material, the wave continued from the flat plane it had struck. At precisely 32 degrees, 12 minutes it carried across the thin Martian atmosphere in nanoseconds to the Chaser. The reflected beam could have melted a small mountain or a skyscraper; instead, Tzern simply vanished; his particles split into their components and became a part of the atmosphere.

  Then, as Kee had computed, without a living controller the mighty space vessel from a far distant galaxy remained motionless and its highly complex systems all switched into a standby mode.

  Kee returned to robotic configuration. His job was done and he sent a signal to MARGO Earth Control advising the team there of the outcome. He had suffered some minor damage to his skin … particles of the creeto-material which had been even slightly misaligned had been totally destroyed. It would be Kevin who noticed the small, rough patches some days later. Now, though, Kee had one final job to do on Mars … he trundled across to the pod to dig out a relieved Dave.

  Other books published by Trevor Palmer The first editions of most of these were published by Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing in 2012. They have now been published as paperbacks.

  Non-fiction: TheYoung Giants– a comparison of the early years of Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton C hessforOrdinary Mortals– instruction on all aspects of play, aimed at players of average or below playing strength and utilizing games played by the author.

  Fiction: The Fifth Mind-leap – Sci-fi

  Funny Worlds– 8 sci-fi humorous shorts. The AntGods– action drama in the

  world of ants.

  And a trilogy of space adventures featuring Dave Hogarth, The GrandTourofFunny Worlds, LightYearsfromthe Truth and The Pharaoh,the Writerandthe

  Last Green Bottle

  Fiction for older children

  : Dobbo’s Most Boring Holiday– Sci-fi