by R. E. Weber
‘I wanna go home,’ said Larissa as she lay on the floor sobbing. ‘I wish I’d never come to this place. I hate Polisium.’
Shocked at the sight of the once tall, proud figure of Larissa now curled up on the ground, sobbing like a child, the rest of the group crouched beside her and put their hands on her back to comfort her. But her sobbing and wailing continued for some time.
*
Gravity. Within a split second, the word resonated through Theo’s mind, and almost instantaneously a circular symbol, with twin arrows, had been highlighted on his companion. His arms spread wide, Theo squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the end. Moments later, his spread-eagled body hit the ground with a resounding thud.
The breath knocked out of his lungs, Theo opened his eyes. Somehow, he was still alive. Gingerly, he pushed himself onto his haunches and looked around. He appeared to be on a flat icy ledge somewhere. Then he looked at his companion screen and noticed a faint message:
Anti-graviton pulse successfully initiated.
It had worked. He was still alive.
*
‘There’s no signal,’ said Weng.
‘What?’
‘There’s no transponder signal – from Theo, I mean.’
‘Weng, don’t. We know where he is, don’t we,’ said Ruby angrily. ‘He’s down there, at the bottom. He’s de…’ Ruby couldn’t finish her sentence.
‘No, I mean, even if he is, well, you know, he’d still have a signal, wouldn’t he? We’d still know where he is.’
‘At the velocity he was travelling, it is entirely possible that the transponder may have been irreparably damaged. When he hit the bottom, the…’ Another squeeze of Lara’s arm told her to stop talking once more.
‘I doubt it,’ said Weng. ‘They’re made of strong material.’
Ruby stood up and took a deep breath, then wiped her eyes.
‘We can’t leave him down there, whatever’s happened,’ she said, her voice strangely calm. ‘We’ve got to go and get him back. We’ve got to retrieve his body.’
They all turned to look at Ruby, speechless.
*
As Theo lifted himself to his feet, there was an almighty crash behind him, and he turned to see the twisted metal wreckage of the platform lying about ten metres away, its mangled mass almost unrecognisable among the remains of the ice shelf. Instinctively, he looked up to make sure that no other debris was tumbling towards him. He couldn’t see any. Then as he stared upwards, he thought about the friends he had left behind. They probably had no idea that he was still alive.
Theo took a deep breath to ready himself for the shock that they would feel when they realised that he hadn’t actually fallen to his death. Then he tried to open a companion conversation with Ruby. But the screen had now faded away into nothing; either the anti-graviton pulse had drained all the power, or his companion had been damaged when he’d hit the ground. Even though he had activated the anti-graviton pulse to break his fall, he hadn’t been able to time it precisely to stop him just above the ground. Instead, he had probably fallen three or four metres in normal gravity. He’d been lucky to land without any broken bones.
He looked up the cliff towards where he had fallen from, but the mist limited his view to just a few tens of metres. How far had he fallen – perhaps five hundred metres? And what about his companion? If it wasn’t working, did that mean the transponder wasn’t working? Would that therefore mean that he couldn’t be located? If nobody could find him, not even rescue drones, could he expect help soon? Or was he going to have to do what he always did and save himself? If he did want to save himself, his only choice was to climb back up – there didn’t, after all, seem to be any obvious route off the icy ledge he had landed upon. But would that work – would the hyper-skin bond to the icy wall of the cliff? Or would he have to do it the old-fashioned way, with nothing except his own limited climbing skills to rely on?
Theo closed his eyes for a moment to focus on calming himself. Then he walked over to the ice wall and placed the palm of his hand on its cold, smooth surface. It seemed to stick to it pretty well. He placed both hands on the wall, one above the other. Then he leant forward, lifted his right leg and pressed his foot against the wall, pulling his other leg off the ground. His grip seemed firm and strong enough to hold his weight. Wondering whether he was about to make a huge mistake, Theo began to climb up the ice wall. When he had agreed to undertake the Ascent, he had never expected it to be so literal.
*
The friends sat together in silence and waited, none of them wanting to look at each other, their eyes, without exception, red and tearful. Weng had activated an emergency beacon to request Theo’s immediate recovery, suggesting that medical aid be made available in the unlikely event of his survival. None of them dared look towards where the platform had been.
The sun had now gone in, and a dull, grey sheet of cloud had appeared overhead, accompanied by a cold, biting wind and heavy snow. Even though their environment suits were compensating, they still felt cold and shivery.
Unable to sit on the frozen ground any longer, they all rose to their feet and huddled together to share their body heat, like penguins in the freezing Antarctic gales. Then over the increasing wind, Weng heard a distant noise.
‘Did you hear that?’
‘No, what was it?’ said Larissa.
‘Dunno, a voice I think,’ said Weng.
‘It must be help – a rescue party,’ said Ruby. ‘I thought they were never coming.’
They each turned to look around, but the driving snow obscured their vision.
‘I can’t see anything,’ said Lara.
‘There’s nobody there. I must be hearing things.’
‘How long does it take to send help, anyway?’ said Cristos. ‘I’m gonna raise a formal complaint about this. I…’
‘There it is again,’ said Weng.
‘It’s a voice,’ said Ruby. ‘Did anybody hear what it said?’
‘…Weeeennng, Rubeeee…’ came the voice, even louder this time.
‘What in the name of…’ said Larissa, spinning around to see where the voice had come from.
Ruby turned towards the cliff edge, her heart thumping hard in her chest. A hand had appeared from beneath and was waving around, trying to attract their attention. Then a contorted face popped into view.
‘Is anybody actually gonna help me,’ said Theo panting, ‘or do I have to pull myself up?’
Breathless with shock, Ruby leapt forward and dropped to all fours to ensure that she couldn’t be pulled over. Then she grabbed Theo’s hand and pulled while he scrambled over the cliff edge. Flipping himself onto his back, Theo lay flat out for a moment while he caught his breath. Then he stood up, brushed the snow from his suit, looked down at Ruby and smiled. The rest of his friends just stared at him, slack-jawed with shock.
‘Well that’s a nice welcome when you’ve just come back from the dead,’ he panted.
Ruby stood up and stared at Theo, her heart beating louder and faster than it had ever done in her life. Then she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed as hard as she possibly could.
‘Ouch, not so tight, Rubes,’ said Theo flinching. ‘Got a few bruises from my skydiving exhibition.’
Reluctantly, Ruby released her grip, by which time the rest of the group had gathered around and were touching him all over, like true believers reaching out to their messiah. Their faces were a mixture of tears, laughter and relief.
*
‘OK, Houdini,’ said Weng as the flyer shot up and out of the planet’s atmosphere, ‘tell us how you did it – how you survived, I mean. A fall like that is certain death for the rest of us mortals.’
‘Yeah, well I’ve got a nice bit of kit called an anti-graviton pulse generator. They gave it to me at Teng Muah.’
‘A what?’ said Larissa.
‘Anti-graviton pulse generator,’ replied Lara. ‘A device able to momentarily negate the effects of gravity on any given
object. However, such devices have yet to be integrated with companions. How were you able to utilise such a device?’
‘One of the perks of working at Teng Muah. We get to test tech that isn’t publicly available. They’ve asked me to field test it for them, although I have to admit, I didn’t expect to be using it so soon.’
‘A perk?’ said Ruby. ‘If you hadn’t had it, you’d be dead now.’
‘Talking of which, how did it happen? How come you fell?’ said Weng.
‘The ice shelf cracked open and tipped me over the edge.’
‘You’d think they’d have some minimal protection at the very least. I can’t believe they left a viewing platform open to the elements without a force-field,’ said Cristos.
‘Theo saved me,’ said Ruby tearfully. ‘I was on the edge and he pulled me away just in time. Problem is, he fell forward at the same time. If he hadn’t come after me, I’d be dead now.’
‘Isn’t it a bit suspicious though?’ said Cristos. ‘I mean, the fact that it happened to fall away at the same time you two were there. That ice was rock hard. It should’ve held your weight.’
‘Just bad luck,’ said Theo casually. ‘Just one of those things. My Lusok wasn’t smiling.’
‘No such thing as luck,’ replied Cristos. ‘Something else was going on there. The cliff edge falls away and there’s no force-field. Sounds more like sabotage to me.’
‘Are you saying somebody was trying to kill Theo or Ruby?’ said Larissa, alarmed.
‘It’s possible,’ said Cristos. ‘Like I said, that ice was solid. It was well below freezing, even in the direct sunlight. It would never have cracked and fallen away of its own accord. I don’t believe it was an accident. I’m going to report it to security enforcement. This has got to be looked into.’
‘No need,’ said Theo. ‘I’ve already done it.’
‘Have you?’ said Ruby. ‘You never said.’
‘Yeah, just before we boarded the flyer. It’s all in hand. But I’m convinced it was just an accident. I mean, if somebody had wanted me dead, you think they’d have done it properly, wouldn’t you?’
Ruby didn’t say a word, but just looked at Theo quizzically. Theo turned away, not wanting to catch her gaze.
‘Anyway,’ said Weng, ‘where do you want to go next?’
‘What, you wanna carry on after what happened?’ said Cristos.
‘God, yeah. I ain’t letting a little accident stop my Ascent.’
‘Have you guys heard of the Taltan Habitats?’ said Theo, secretly knowing that it was his first stop off for the Star Agency.
‘No,’ said Larissa, ‘what are they?’
‘An architectural miracle, basically. There’s a string of linked habitats orbiting the planet Taltus. When you approach them, they look impossible. They don’t, well, fit. It’s like those optical illusions they used to do back home, but on a massive scale. Whichever way you look at them, they don’t make sense.’
‘Sounds intriguing,’ said Larissa, ‘I’m game.’
‘You sure you wanna come with me after what happened?’ said Theo, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
‘You’re kidding, aren’t you? I’m not letting you out of my sight. Somebody’s got to keep an eye on you.’
Theo looked at Ruby for approval. She nodded back at him and smiled.
‘Personally,’ said Ruby out loud, ‘I fancy doing something else. Any ideas, anybody?’
‘What about the Necrolon Singularity?’ said Cristos.
‘You mean, a black hole – a reallive black hole?’ said Weng excitedly.
‘Yeah, the accretion disc is seven million hotah across. It's tearing the outer layers away from its companion star. It’s supposed to be really spectacular.’
‘Hey, Theo, that’d be right up your street. Wanna come?’ said Weng.
‘I think,’ said Ruby quickly before he’d had time to respond, ‘that Theo wants to do his own thing.’
‘Oh yeah?'’ said Weng glancing at Larissa, before looking back at Theo with a huge grin.
‘Yeah,’ replied Ruby firmly.
Theo opened a private conversation with Ruby. ‘Are we good now, Rubes?’ he said, peering at her out of the corner of his eye.
‘We are,’ said Ruby winking.
‘Well, look after him,’ said Cristos. ‘Keep him safe.’
‘I will,’ said Larissa, her eyes alive with excitement.
‘And I’ll look after you,’ said Cristos to Ruby privately.
‘Thanks, Cristos, I know you will,’ she replied, smiling warmly.
‘So this is it,’ said Weng. ‘We’re splitting up. The end of the seven.’
‘The seven will never end,’ said Theo insistently. ‘We are the seven.’
‘We are the seven,’ they all chanted in unison.
But as Theo stared at his friends, forcing a smile, he couldn’t help but think about what Cristos had said. Why had the platform broken away, taking him with it? Was it truly bad luck as he had protested? Or were the dark shadowy forces of the Metah Dah trying to kill him once again?
9 – Conspiracy Theories
Despite the warmth of the late spring sun and the protestations of her father that she ought to be out enjoying the good weather – because it never seemed to be sunny anymore – Jules sat hunched in front of her laptop, staring intently at the reams of data scrolling up her screen. A banner, which said Rob’s Conspiracy Theories in garish yellow and green sci-fi text, took up the entire top quarter of the screen, while underneath were a multitude of links to articles from every conspiracy theorist known to man. And although the site had been poorly designed, often ill-informed or just plain ludicrous, it had, just over a week ago, given Jules the most intriguing, surprising and somewhat disturbing link to Theo’s disappearance over a year before.
In among the nonsensical stories about the fact that NASA had faked the moon landings or that aliens had been sighted in lunar craters by the Apollo astronauts – couldn’t they even make their mind up whether the landings had been real? – she had found a link to an online newspaper article detailing an interview with an amateur radio astronomy group in Cumbria, in the north of England. And even though Jules had read the article half a dozen times and even printed it out for her scrap book, it still teased her to read it every time she visited the site:
Unusual gamma-ray bursts detected on the lunar surface:
Scientists at the Roger Postlethwaite Radio Astronomy Institute in North Cumbria have detected a series of gamma-ray bursts on the surface of the moon, suggesting the intriguing possibility that small scale, nuclear explosions may have taken place. Although no flashes of visible light were detected and no new craters have been found, the head of the group suggested that nuclear detonations might be the most credible source for the gamma-ray bursts.
“I’m not for one minute suggesting that our governments are carrying out secret nuclear testing on the lunar surface,” said Andrew Hart, head of the institute. “I’m simply saying that small nuclear explosions would be consistent with the bursts detected.”
However, when questioned further about the theory, the group seemed to backtrack on their previous statement, keen not to incur the derision of the wider scientific community with their unfounded and fanciful theories.
When Jules had originally read the entire article, she had then followed a link at the end, which had taken her to the institute’s website for further reading. It had been then that she’d been somewhat alarmed to discover that the gamma-ray bursts had occurred approximately thirty-five minutes before and after the power cuts that had taken place on both occasions that Theo had left Lower Pinton. And that information had been the second piece of the puzzle regarding her missing best friend – a puzzle suggesting that odd scientific events had coincided with his disappearances.
Jules re-read the entire article again, even though she practically knew it word-for-word. ‘Where are you, Theo?’ she mumbled to herself in frustration. Then she sighed, folde
d down her laptop screen, picked up her mobile phone and headed downstairs for lunch.
When she entered the kitchen-diner, her mum was busy making sandwiches. As she saw Jules enter the room, she smiled warmly.
‘You OK, sweetie?’ she chirped.
‘Yes, Mum, I’m fine.’
‘Righto. Wanna go outside and tell your Dad lunch is nearly ready?’
‘Will do,’ mumbled Jules absent-mindedly.
As soon as Jules stepped into the back garden, a burst of warm midday sun caressed her face, momentarily lifting her spirits. Her father was at the bottom of the garden, digging up the multitude of weeds that had popped up in recent weeks, almost choking the colourful bedding plants and shrubs that had been planted several weeks earlier. The lawn too was overgrown with dandelions and other weeds due to recent deluges of rain, which had prevented her father mowing it. Still, it didn’t look too bad. Not that Jules cared. The colourful back garden and their cat, Fudge, who was busy slinking in and out of the flowers sniffing everything in sight, were the furthest things from her mind.
‘Penny for them?’ said her father as he looked up from the flower bed at her distant expression.
‘Oh, I was just thinking about school and my exams,’ said Jules without turning to look at him. ‘I don’t think I did very well.’
Her father put down his trowel, stood up and smiled at her sympathetically.
‘You never were a very good liar.’
But Jules didn’t say anything. Instead, she just carried on staring straight past him, in silence.
‘Come and tell me all about it,’ said her father as he made his way towards the patio table and chairs.
Jules followed her father and sat down next to him, her arms folded defiantly.
‘What is it, squirt?’
‘Don’t call me that, Dad. I’m not a kid anymore.’
‘OK, sorry. But please, tell me what it is. I know something’s wrong. I can see it in your eyes.’
Jules sighed.
‘He never believed me, you know. You know that, don’t you?’