The Grand Master

by Bill Stenlake

  Chapter 8 The Grand Master

  The Grand Master eases the craft into the landing bay. The automatic docking system has already taken over on his approach. He still likes to keep at the controls and pretend it is his steering and adjustment to speed that is the deciding factor of a good landing. Of course he is doing nothing more than feeding his ego.

  Satisfied that the outer door is closed and it is safe for him to disembark, he moves away from the control panel and readies to leave the craft. He has decided he will go ashore, as he likes to put it, to double check the secure place he has already prepared for his guest.

  ‘Welcome to Luvus’ is the sight that greets his eyes on exiting. As always it makes him smile at his own wit. In truth it isn’t an ‘us’ in Luvus at all. It is more Loveme, but that is what makes him laugh every time he comes home and sees the sign he has made as a greeting. The droids don’t get it and never will, but there is nothing to concern him in that. He hasn’t had another living visitor since he set up his small hideaway. Nobody deemed it appropriate to ask him why he was taking the odd droid here and there on his visits to distant planets. The only thing he made sure of was that each droid was incapable of communicating to anything else. Certainly not back to where it had been procured and as it turns out, not even to another droid. Each one works in its own sphere. Any shortcoming is communicated back to the Grand Master (ah he has another smirk at his newly upgraded title) and he sends new instructions via the programme he has, to get another droid to do it. Other than when he is not there to defend Luvus; then they can work as a team.

  It sounds a little archaic considering the technology that he has had at his fingertips. GM3 however, has a problem with the amount of knowledge others have about what he does. Particularly about Luvus and what has been up to now, his very secret plans to assume a bigger role for himself in the Universe. There is no way he would have been able to get away with building Luvus, now that the spotlight is going to be well and truly on him. Well also just a little late, on what he has been up to on all his supposed visits to other planets. He had pushed the number of times he had done missions to the limit. He hadn’t been worried about GM6 & GM7, because he was and still is technically senior to them. What he had been worried about, was O finding out what he was up to and pulling the plug before he was ready.

  Luvus is a compact lump, as that is what it looks like, that is attached to Boristal 7. Boristal 7 is an unoccupied planet floating rather aimlessly round a star that has more days behind it than in front. Sonol 22 is a star that has all but burnt out. No one is going to come nosing round here to see if the planets, Boristal 1 to 12, are worth colonising. It is definitely several millions of years too late for that exercise.

  Luvus is very light and can be moved to attach somewhere else, if ever the need arises. Luvus is self perpetuating, so the Grand Master need never move away if he doesn’t feel the need to. Using the same technology as they use to propel their spacecraft, everything is kept going with only having to use the smallest piece of energy to start the whole system. Once started the Air Micro Compounder technology generates more than sufficient power for every need. In fact the one thing that you do have to be aware of is that the Compounder will produce too much energy. There has to be a way of releasing that energy so that it does not become destructive.

  The Grand Master has trained a Mark 1 watcher to be the escort for The Keeper. He is also going to be his guard, carer and fulfil every need The Keeper might have, other than to escape from Luvus of course.

  He expects nothing less of course, but he is always satisfied to find that Luvus is as he left it. He checks on the quarters where The Keeper is going to be held. There are only 3 rooms in there; a living space, a sleeping space and a bathroom.

  The interrogation room is next door in the next cell of the structure. The interrogation cell has its own access leading off the same corridor that leads to The Keeper’s quarters. There is a multi security separation system, keeping those areas well secured away from the space The Grand Master occupies when in residence.

  Satisfied that everything is ready, he instructs the droid to go on board and release The Keeper. He had thought about doing it himself, but on the balance of things decides that it will be safer if he lets the droid do it. He will watch from a distance via his consoles, making sure that each area is secure, before and after the pair pass through them. The droid is fitted with a cuff link to attach to The Keeper, before he brings him out of the travel pod.

  Sitting at the console, The Grand Master can’t help but feel disappointed that someone with supposedly such a responsibility for the Universe looks just like any other human being in the world.

  The Keeper is looking confused, but not visibly worse for wear for his suppression and journey through space. The droid leads him steadily off the craft and through the corridor straight into the interrogation room. The Grand Master has considered giving him time to rest and clean up before he starts on him, but comes out against the thought.

  Chapter 9 Ricardo

  Ricardo comes to sometime later in the night. He had surfaced after the operation but really he barely recovered consciousness, before he allowed himself to drop off back into a deep sleep again. The room isn’t in complete darkness. There is the glow from the monitors, whose wires he is attached to. There is also the faint back glow of light coming through the window to his ward. The blind has not been pulled all the way down, so the dimmed light of the nurses’ station is sufficient for him to make a few things out in the room.

  Ricardo knows immediately that he is in a hospital. He also knows exactly why he is there. He takes a few minutes letting his eyes accustom to the faded light. He has kept his body still, as he doesn’t want to alert anyone to the fact he is now awake. He is fortunate in that the way he is facing he does not have to move a muscle to be able to make out the leg of someone sitting on a chair by the door. This person is sitting on a chair inside his room. Ricardo doesn’t need his eyes to adjust anymore to be able to judge that this person is probably not awake.

  Ricardo lies still for a few minutes more. He is trying to work up to the point where he is going to try to move some of the parts of his body. He is slightly worried about trying, as when he had last done so he had been unable to move anything other than his eyelids. He thinks his left hand might well be showing out of the covers of the bed, but he isn’t certain about that. It is just a feeling he has, partly because that hand feels colder than his right one.

  He starts with the right hand and tries to wiggle his fingers. Initially he only tries to see if his body reacts. A flash of excitement, as he feels one of his fingers touch the next one. In his head he can remember someone saying that he was frozen with shock and not paralysed, but he isn’t sure who said it. He tries some more and can feel each one of his fingers gently tap against its neighbour. Encouraged by this he moves on to his toes. He tries a little wiggle first, but isn’t sure that there is any movement as a result of this. He tries a little harder and is rewarded on the plus side by the knowledge that his toes have obeyed his instructions. On the negative side something clatters to the floor at the end of the bed.

  The person on the chair is snapped out of their slumber. He suddenly stands up, slightly in a panic to start with, but soon realises it is Ricardo’s medical chart that has fallen off the bed.

  The level of light increases in the room as the door is opened and a nurse enters. Ricardo has shut his eyes a millisecond after the chart hit the floor. He thinks it prudent at this time to keep things that way.

  ‘The chart fell onto the floor’ he heard the man say to the nurse.

  ‘Is he awake then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I saw his toes move and they knocked the chart off the bed. I haven’t heard anything from him other than that.’

  ‘I’ll have a look’ the nurse says.

  Ricardo can sense the nurse walk up the side of the bed where the monitors are attached. He feels her hand take a gentle hold of his
wrist for a few seconds and then she lets it go again. His ears pick up the soft intake of breath as she hovers briefly over his head. She is trying to ascertain whether he is awake, without disturbing him. She is very close and Ricardo is desperately trying to keep his breathing regular, shallow, and slow. He is also keeping very still, as he doesn’t want her to think he is anything but asleep. He decides he will twitch the toes on one of his feet, which he does. The nurse hears it and lifts away from his face.

  ‘He’s asleep. It was just a twitch I think. I probably left the chart there when I filled it in last.’

  Ricardo hears her footsteps move away and a second later hears the door quietly open and close. He hears the man reposition himself on the chair, trying to regain his position of comfort. Ricardo isn’t sure if the man has seen him twitching his toes when he knocked the chart off the bed, or whether he was covering up for sleeping on the job. Ricardo is hoping it was the latter. He decides he will try to keep the man on his toes and not let him go back to sleep, if he can help it. He starts with a quiet murmur. It has the desired effect, in that he hears the man pulling himself more upright on the chair. He leaves things for another couple of minutes before emitting a soft quiet moan. It isn’t a long one, but it is enough to disturb the man again and make him get to his feet. He senses the man moving closer to him, so keeps still and quiet for the next few minutes. The man gets bored and settles back down on his chair again. Ricardo gives him five more minutes before he wiggles the toes on one foot again. He has it judged almost to perfection, as judging from the scraping movement of the chair, the man must have just about dropped off again.

  Ricardo repeats the toe wiggling and moaning off and on every ten minutes or so for the rest of the night. The result is the one he hoped for. After the first few times the man stopped reacting to the noises and movement Ricardo made.

  The light begins to stream through the blinds at the window. The person in the chair only wakes when the morning shift of nurses comes through the door to do the changeover.

  Chapter 10 THE WATCHER

  The Watcher has woken all of his passengers from their travel pods. That means there are eight of them sitting round the control room listening to what The Watcher is telling them.

  The Wise Soul is by far the most attentive of them all as The Watcher tells of his fears of leaving not only Ricardo still alive on Earth, but also the weapons in the bag that Ricardo and the crew man had used. He suspects they are going to be in the hands of the army, but he feels it his responsibility to try to do something about the situation. They shouldn’t be left in possession of something this much advanced on their technology.

  Ricardo is still a puzzle, but The Watcher has now moved on to the point that he thinks that Ricardo is not just a random fly in the ointment. He is someone who has been activated to help GM3. That assumption has raised the question of how he got there and lay dormant. There could only be one logical answer to that. The Watcher had somehow unknowingly brought others with him when he arrived on Earth. There was a possibility that someone, or more maybe, had stashed away on one of the trailers. If they knew what they were doing, then it would have been possible for them to do that without his knowledge. That would mean that once his craft had been separated, then at least one of the trailers had landed somewhere else on the planet Earth. If that was the case, then it could only have been one of those trailers; the one with the power. All the others would have crashed to the ground destructing them totally in the process. The only one capable of making a planned landing was the powered one. So what must have happened was that the trailers went briefly in to space to offload the other trailers, before the powered one returned to Earth and landed somewhere. It couldn’t have been anywhere close, as The Watcher would have noticed another craft landing on the planet. In fact the only way it could have happened was if this was all done the first night, while they were hovering low trying to prepare the land ready to disguise his craft under the mound. He would not have noticed if another craft landed, say on the other side of the planet that night.

  He voices all these thoughts to the gathering around him. He voices his intention to try to do something about it, while at the same time continuing to follow the craft with The Keeper.

  ‘Well there is a small emergency craft on board’ Draton says ‘but it is barely big enough for a couple of people. In fact it will hold a couple of people and nothing else. What are you thinking of?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of anything for certain. I was just hoping that we might be able to do something.’

  ‘So we need to get someone back to Earth to try to make sure that this Ricardo is kept secure. Also we need to march up to the army and demand the weapon bag back, telling them that the weapons it holds are far too far advanced to be allowed to be left on the planet with them.’

  ‘That’s about it’ The Watcher says, knowing that saying it sounds so simple, but neither part is as easy to execute. ‘Then there is the possibility that I am right about how he got there and we need to find the Trailer that took him there.’

  ‘Oh that’s alright then. Everything is much easier in threes.’ George pipes up.

  ‘Show me the craft, so I can see exactly how much room we have to play with please.’

  Draton takes The Watcher below to inspect the small craft.

  ‘It is only really for carrying out repairs to satellites and other objects in orbit. That is why it is so small, as the person inside only needs room for the tools they are going to use on a particular job.’

  ‘How is it powered?’ The Watcher asks, expecting the answer to be a disappointing mode of propulsion.

  ‘The same as this one. Air Micro Compounders! In fact they were originally designed for craft like these, as there is so little room on them.’

  The Watcher is cheered with this information. At least it opens up the possibility of being able to send someone, possibly even two back to Earth to tidy up what they have left behind. The next problem he has is to decide exactly who he sends back, but then that is the main reason he has brought the others out of their travel pods. He hadn’t known about the extra craft and that is an unexpected bonus. He returns with Draton to the control room to make the decision as to who goes back and with what.

  George is up for it and The Watcher is tempted, as he believes George has some assets which might be useful. He can’t separate him from Cassie though and although she is up for going with George, he doesn’t see that pairing as being the strongest one for the tasks ahead of them. The same applies to Bluechen & Marlitta, only neither of them is suited to the task anyway. That leaves him with Elkante, Draton and The Wise Soul.

  To be fair they are all saying that they will go and do what they can, but The Watcher does not feel that is enough for the task in hand. Elkante and Draton are humans and mortal. They are skilled in their own areas, but he does not feel they are strong enough for this task. That leaves him with only one choice, The Wise Soul.

  Chapter 11 MARIO & TZ

  Mario drops the pile of plates. Knives and forks fly in every direction. The situation is made worse by the fact that not all the plates are empty. Well actually they are now that they have hit the floor, cracked, smashed and broken. It is the bounce that sends the knives and forks and the remains of the meals splattering across the floor, onto the nearby tables and worst of all; over some of the diners. The whole place stops buzzing in an instant. All eyes are turned onto Mario who is just standing there like he has seen a ghost. His hands are held out in front of him, just like they were when he was walking with the pile of plates, but obviously just a fraction further apart, which is why the plates fell.

  There is a glazed look in his eyes and it is apparent Mario has no idea what he has just done. In fact his right foot is off the ground. It had been in the process of taking his next step when the plates fell from his hands.

  ‘Mario. What are you doing?’ The kitchen door has swung open. Luigi stops and looks at the situation that greets his eyes
. ‘Mario, what have you done?’

  ‘Hey Luigi; I think something is wrong’ One of the diners says as he starts to get up out of his chair.

  The place comes alive again as chairs scrape back and people move. The diners not in the flying food, knives and forks area return to their meals. The ones in the affected zone start to wipe down their clothes and shoes. The waitresses help customers do the best they can to clean where they have been splattered. The tables are moved aside while the kitchen staff brings out the mops and buckets. Quickly two of them retrieve the cutlery, while another brushes the broken plates into a pile and shovels them into a plastic bowl. All this is done while Mario remains motionless in the exact same spot. They clean up around him while Luigi tries to get him to respond. It is a little unnerving with him just standing there motionless, staring with blank eyes straight ahead of him. There is a pulse; Luigi checked that.

  Luigi feels that if he doesn’t do something very quickly, he is going to spook his customers. He doesn’t want that to happen. His family have owned this diner here for three generations. It is very busy and he wants it to stay that way.

  ‘Hey, Santos. I don’t think Mario is feeling well. Let’s take him out the back.’

  ‘Sure thing, Boss! Come on Mario.’

  Luigi takes one side while Santos takes the other. They have to lift him fractionally by the elbow. To the casual onlooker it would look as if he is being helped out. At a closer inspection you would notice Luigi and Santos actually lift Mario at the elbows and carry him through.

  Once out the back, they sit him on the ground. Santos goes to fetch a chair and a glass of water. Luigi stands over Mario until Santos returns. Together they lift him onto the chair. Mario is still remaining motionless. Luigi shakes his shoulder and holds the glass of water to his lips. Mario does not respond. Luigi is at a loss what to do, so he throws the water into Mario’s face. It does the trick, as far as it brings Mario round to the here and now.