“Not the shuttle,” Matt stated, “Surely not the shuttle.”
“No, it’s something much bigger, like a forest fire or something like that. But the smell‘s wrong for a wood fire. Once, Mrs Quinn and I got in the middle of such a thing. Must have been fifteen years ago now, God rest her soul, but the smell is very distinctive and this smoke smells more like...like something much worse.”
Quinn’s face had drooped a little. Silverman wasn’t sure if it was the thought of his wife or whatever the “something much worse” might have been.
“I found some pieces of the shuttle, but not all of it,” Quinn was saying, “The cockpit section is pretty intact, surprisingly. I suppose that’s how we find ourselves so close together. If I remember things correctly, I think we were sitting together at the controls.”
“Really?” Silverman said, “I’ll take your word for it I honestly don’t recall much. I remember Alice. The pink rabbit,” he almost smiled, but not quite, “Are we the only survivors”
“Yes,” Quinn said, “I didn’t go far, but I think I found everyone. They all died quickly. Instantly, I’d suppose. Most of them, except the poor girl.”
“Do you want to talk…”
“I’d rather forget, son, to be quite frank with you,” and Quinn looked old and frail for the first time. Silverman stared unblinking as he fought back the sadness that threatened to suffocate him. He felt the urge to pity the old man, but he knew that Quinn would not want that. There was a silence. Quinn’s face was stony and his eyes were cast downwards, staring blankly at the dry dusty soil. Silverman looked away and got to his feet again. Not so shakily this time.
Matt looked around. He couldn’t see anything but rock and some very small patches of green. There was some of the green beside his feet. Small blades of something that looked very much like grass. He reached down to touch the grass as his left hand reached for the sunglasses in his shirt pocket. He put them on and got shakily to his feet. Quinn said something about being careful. Silverman touched the old man’s shoulder lightly, steadying himself at the same time.
The sunglasses could see through the smoke and Silverman started to find pieces of the shuttle - and the remains of the other passengers. The largest part of the shuttle was situated about eighty metres down the mountainside. It was a piece of wreckage about a half the size of the original shuttle. Silverman could see that it was the cockpit.
“I didn’t take you for a Gadgeteer,” Quinn said, “And normally I wouldn’t approve of those kind of toys. But right now those are just the ticket. Would you mind if I have a little try at them?”
“Sure,” Matt said. He handed the glasses to Quinn. Idly, he noted the frail bony hands that took the offered glass with the slightest of tremors. He didn’t know many older people. In fact, the last old person he’d known had been his grandmother - his beloved nana. She’d died ten years earlier. The thought made him think of his father. Eighteen months had passed by since Richard Silverman had died. It was still very difficult to remember his last hours. The last hours alone in the small hospital room, waiting for his father to die.
“I see what you mean. These are rather good,” Quinn handed the glasses back, “Not my cup of tea, though, even if they are jolly useful on a day like this. There‘s a city down there - or the remains of one.”
“A city? An alien city?”
“Yes, certainly an alien city. And its burning, devastated. There’s been a disaster, or we’ve crash landed in the middle of a war.”
“It’s crazy. It’s like this is a dream,” Silverman said quietly, “An alien city. An alien world. It’s like a dream,” he looked at the city’s infra-red picture
“Strange choice of words. Some people would have said nightmare and not dream.”
“What do we do? Do we walk down to the alien city and introduce ourselves?
“It seems like they have problems enough of their own,” Quinn said, “But we seem to have two choices. We head down the mountain or up the mountain. I can’t see anything up the mountain worth heading for, but it looks like there’s a city down below maybe ten fifteen miles away. A city means civilisation, society. Hopefully, our alien hosts will be relatable.”
The ground was very dry. The air was cold. Somehow, Matt correctly guessed that it was morning. Quinn was steady on his feet as they walked towards a large piece of shuttle wreckage. Matt could see the diminishing heat of one of the dead passengers. He detuned the glasses slightly to avoid seeing too much detail as he passed close to the body.
“That’s the girl,” Quinn said flatly, “Most of her, at least. Alice her name was.”
“I remember,” Silverman said, “I remember her name.”
He didn’t say anything else. Matt tried to think of something to say, but he couldn’t think of anything and the moment passed. He realised that it was difficult to get his breath. He didn’t realise that his sunglasses would have told him the oxygen content of the atmosphere if he’d touched them the right way. But although they were ten thousand metres up the air was still not thin enough to trigger the sunglasses air alarm.
“I… I never thought of myself as a gadgeteer,” Silverman spoke because he hated the silence. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been called that.”
They were passing a piece of wreckage. Another body. A passenger, still strapped into his chair. His eyes were open and staring. His body looked completely intact and unharmed, Quinn observed. Matt did not look.
“I’m sorry,” Quinn replied, “I didn’t realise that it was a derogatory term. I didn’t mean any offense.”
“No, it’s not that. I just didn’t think, that’s all. Gadgeteers are usually teenagers or in their early twenties. I guess I’ve always felt older than I am - until now. I don‘t know why.”
“Glad to be of service, son,” Jim Quinn grinned, “If we’re the only two people alive on this planet at least we’ll make each other laugh.”
They continued down the mountainside. The gradient wasn’t too treacherous. The surface was loose stones and gravel on top of a hard rock. Some areas were sandy. There was some vegetation, but it was sparse. Quinn seemed to negotiate the terrain better than his younger counterpart. Matt almost fell a few times. They were close to their destination when Matt realised that it wasn’t a part of the shuttle at all.
“It’s a… storage shed,” Quinn said.
Silverman took off the sunglasses. They weren’t helping him and the object looked unrecognisable in all the special modes. He looked with his plain unaugmented eyes. The box was a three metre square of corrugated metal covered in flaking burgundy paint. The paint was faded with age and had been burned black on one side. The shed was crumpled, like a giant’s hand had reached down to squeeze it before tossing it harshly along the mountainside. There was space where a door had been and the remnants of hinges. There were symbols painted in dark green. Something that looked like a triangle or maybe even a hat of some kind, Silverman thought.
“That looks like the number 4,” Quinn said by his side, “See that there? And perhaps the number 7 next to it.”
“I… I don’t know,” Silverman followed Quinn’s pointing finger to the markings on the shed, “Could be anything. And how could it be a number. Aren’t we on… “ he stopped and turned to face Quinn, “Where are we, Mr Quinn?”
Quinn was touching the metal. He peeled off a piece of paint about an inch square and brought it near to his nose. He sniffed the blackened paint cautiously.
“We’re on an alien world,” Jim Quinn said thoughtfully, “Although if I didn’t know better I’d say we were back on Earth - or on Haven. He tapped the squashed metal shed softly. “Unless the Emmerson Corporation are in the business of storing ancient corrugated iron garden sheds in their emergency shuttles, it looks like we find ourselves on a new world that seems to be the home of an alien culture not unlike our own.”
“Could this be Earth? Or Haven” Silverman asked, “It’s not possible, is it?” he looked at the
burning city again. Even through the smoke the city looked like something from another world.
“If I didn’t know for sure that we’d just exited the Joan Gallsin ether gate I’d say we were back on Earth. But that would be the same as me telling you we jumped off the New York Subway and found ourselves in Moscow. It’s just impossible. Wherever this is, it isn’t home. And as for this tin box…. I’m as confused as you are.”
Silverman got to his feet. He helped Quinn get up too, or they both helped each other. There was a moment when one man did not know who was helping who and when it had passed they both almost laughed.
“A garden shed on an alien world,” Silverman said, “And a burning alien city.”
Quinn was smiling. He was sweating enough that when he wiped his hand across his face most of the dried blood there came away. His wry grin was back and his eyes had the sparkle that Silverman had admired and had so badly missed since the shuttle had crashed.
“Yes,” Quinn said, “This really is quite wild, isn’t it?”
Silverman could only shake his head. He didn’t want to smile, but it was somehow involuntary. Just then there was a buzzing sound. Quinn looked nonplussed as Silverman looked around and tried to determine the source. Quinn reached into his tunic pocket and produced a thing slice of silver metal. The edges were glowing blue and green, keeping time with the vibrations. Silverman did not know what it was.
“My Aston Martin,” James Quinn said, “Someone’s… stealing it...”
“You have an Aston Martin?” Silverman almost made himself laugh when he said the words, “What’s it doing out here? Where is it?”
“It was in the executive hangar. Not that there was anything much executive about it. I was hoping to skim some obscure moon’s surface in it,” Quinn said thoughtfully, “But I don’t know how it can be here, now.
He pressed a hidden stud on the little silver case. Delicate panels slid away to reveal a keypad and a tiny view screen.
““Who is this?” Quinn breathed into the silver box, “Is this really my Aston?”
The wind was warm. It carried tiny fragments of Jann Linn city ‘s ashes with it. They drifted across the mountainside lonely in their number. Somewhere nearby, Cass Linn had powered down for the thirteenth time. She’d power up again in a few minutes. Sixteen hundred thousand miles away, the Hard Edge was on its way full of hate and prejudice.. Jann Linn and Cass’s sister were on their way to collect her too - even though Oss Linn had already passed over Cass’s inert frame without realising it.
FOURTEEN
2195AD - London.
This was not the white house. This was the incident centre. One of the eight incident centres throughout the free world and the nearest one to London, where President Charlie Rigg had been appearing on a live television broadcast. President Rigg was a natural celebrity and enjoyed his regular TV appearances. But he knew that something important has happened when his special advisor gave him the wave. He’d seen Rip Tranmore do the wave three times before, and each time it had meant something terrible had or was happening. The TV people would make their excuses and were making them even as President Rigg’s high speed transport zoomed towards the incident centre. Rigg was reading the electronic tablet that Tranmore had handed to him. He couldn’t put it down, couldn’t stop reading, couldn’t believe that it was true.
“Destroyed?”
“The USS Drake definitely attacked and destroyed after a firefight,” Tranmore rasped, “The passenger liner Spirit of the Future has been out of communication for some time. Presumed lost.”
“Incident centre in six minutes,” The driver’s voice sounded over the intercom.
“Good,” Rigg nodded to no-one. To Tranmore he said: “This information is verified? It’s true? It’s not part of the…” he hesitated before asking, “It’s not part of the President Rigg Show?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Rip Tranmore scowled, “You think I’d let them pull that kind of horseshit? This is real – or as real as I know. And if someone’s pulling some kind of horseshit that I don’t know about then they’ll find their balls in a goddamned mincer once I’m through with them.”
“English speaking aliens. Two different races. Radio, music, English speaking extra-terrestrials itself is just crazy. Everything else. Everything else, man. Oh man, it’s just… wild.”
“We’re coming up to Cheltenham,” Tranmore observed, “The defence secretary is already there. Lovitz is on his way from Berlin. Admiral Kildare is on his way from New York but will be joining us by phone.”
The almost invisible pointed nose dart car zoomed through the empty air above the city. Six yellow and blue police flyers surrounded the president’s superfast dart. It could easily have outdistanced them, but kept its speed low enough that they could keep up. Admiral Kildare was CINCSPACFLT – Commander in Chief for the Space Fleet. He was in his late thirties. The lines in his forehead were the reveal of his real age. His lean, tall, athletic frame was the body of a much younger man.
“You know something, we’re in a whole shitload of trouble,” Rigg said, “If this all turns out to be true,” He added.
Rip Tranmore was about to grunt “it better be” but the words got lost in a thoughtful, low growl.
It was six minutes past eight when the dart touched down on top of the Incident Centre. There was a tight circle of the local security forces around the landing platform. President Rigg’s own security detail were there too, having arrived minutes earlier. Rigg, Tranmore and the two senior security men walked briskly down the narrow corridor leading to the secure room. Defence Secretary Lindsey Bonneville met Rigg as they were about to enter the room. Rigg smiled a cold smile and shook Lindsey’s bony fingered hand.
“We’re in real trouble,” She said, “I can’t emphasise that enough.”
The room was empty except for the three of them. The two security men had stayed outside the door. The room seemed cold, but Rigg felt it might have just been the apprehension that was running down his spine.
“I gathered that at least,” Rigg waved the tablet, “It’s certain that the attack on the Drake was unprovoked?”
“Absolutely. I’ve seen the data. Seems the Drake was fired upon by a large vessel comparable with our Explorer class. There was a firefight and Drake was destroyed. The enemy ship is called the Justice six. It looks like the Drake inflicted damage on its attacker but the Enrilean ship was much stronger.
“Neil Armstrong is en-route to the battle site and will be arriving there shortly. So far it seems that the Justice is the only Enrilean warship in the vicinity – besides a dozen or more small fighters that Armstrong is tracking. “
“I don’t want to lose the Neil Armstrong,” Rigg said, “We can’t lose another ship out there.”
“Well, sir, we’re working really hard to prevent that. Captain O’Rourke is proceeding with caution to pick up survivors. Our BURST messages take roughly thirty minutes to reach the scene but Armstrong is under orders to retreat to a safe area and rendezvous with the Enterprise and Brilliant if the rescue effort fails. But as you know, sir, Enterprise and Brilliant combined with Armstrong represent the largest part of our longer range operational space defence force. So right now we’ve got our three most powerful ships either directly in harms way or practically in harms way.”
“We need to get them back,” Rigg said, “That’s priority one.”
“What about the USS Drake? There may be survivors.”
“I don’t care,” Rigg said, “I don’t want to risk losing another ship. Recall the Enterprise and Brilliant immediately. And before you ask,; No, I don’t want them to wait for the Neil Armstrong. Tell O’Rourke he’s to get back here as quickly as possible. I want any further engagements avoided – until we’re sure of what we’re dealing with.”
“Charlie, I don’t know how much you’ve read of the analysts’ reports. We’re dealing with a warmongering race of religious lunatics. Their entire way of life seems based on conquering and subju
gating inferior races – which, I might add, they’ve already done with their neighbours in their own solar system. They’re not going to show any mercy to the USS Drake’s survivors.”
“If there are any,” Rigg said quietly.
“We can’t assume there aren’t.”
“Christ, Lindsey. Have you read the reports on these… people? We’ve got Armstrong, Brilliant and Enterprise. We’ve got a handful of ships in the solar system and maybe a few dozen fighters that we can launch from Earth. Have you seen what they’ve got?” he handed her the tablet, “This one ship. That’s one of their ships, Lindsey. This one ship is more powerful than everything we’ve got put together, and if our intelligence reports are correct then our new enemy has more of these at their disposal – and whole fleets of smaller ships. They’re fought wars in space before. We’re not their first contact with an extra-terrestrial race, unfortunately. We’ve got to get our ships the fuck out of there – or we’re going to be completely pulverised if they come after us.”
On the table, a screen appeared. It unfolded itself and swivelled to face the President of the free world. Admiral Kildare’s high forehead filled the screen and his square, morbid features showed no emotion. The tiny camera on his screen swivelled as his own eyes moved, studying the scene before him. Rigg was lightly touching Bonneville’s hand and they were standing inches apart, face to face.
“Looks like I’m interrupting something,” Kildare’s voice was slow, authorative, confident, “Would you like me to look away for a few minutes so you two can get on with fucking each other?”
Bonneville took a half step back from the president. She glared at Kildare, but her mouth crinkled into a thin smile.
“You might not be having such a fun time by the time we’re done here,” She told Kildare, “And it looks like we might all be pretty much fucked by the end of the day.”
“I’ve been looking at the reports. Drake returned a massive amount of information. I’m still hoping that the assessment of their military forces is inaccurate, though I doubt it. But we’ve got a real problem here. It could be that the Spirit of the Future was attacked without provocation, but I’ve been told that there was an incident on one of the alien worlds that coincides with the loss of contact with Spirit of the Future. One of the alien cities has suffered a cataclysmic accident, and there’s a lot of confusion about what caused it. The aliens seem to think the city was attacked by some kind of orbital weapon – or at least that’s what we’ve gleaned from the transmissions we’re analysing. We know from the TubeShock experiments that strange and wonderful things can happen when the wormhole openings are subjected to high gravitational forces. Could be that Spirit of the Future simply broke apart in the wormhole and that in itself caused Joan Gallsin’s exit point to shift to its new location.”
Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1) Page 25