Muggles Bereaved

by Vernon C Moyse

  “Blimey, Archbishop,” said Jim, “getting a bit deep for me. Time to call Newton back and chuck an apple at his head! Let me be the pitcher!”

  “Well,” said Tracy, “this is a scientific problem, so what is the scientific method of approach. We theorise that the vehicle is a portal, but it is open with no Harbourmaster in sight. Perhaps the actual portal is well inside the saucer and maybe there is a sort of anteroom. So how can we test that.”

  “I suggest that we introduce an inanimate object with a GoPro camera and see if a Harbourmaster appears or if the object is simply snatched into the portal current and swept away.” That was Jim’s idea. He added this to the idea, “but I definitely think we should get Newton down here to conduct an investigation. And Carnegie too. Newton could be persuaded to lead the way into the portal.”

  Tracy did a ‘ooo-eeee-ooo’, “fancy you clamouring to have Newton come down and deliver one of what you think of as his ego-tripping explanations.”

  Louis grinned, “Well, I am going to call him anyway. No sooner said! I’’ll waken them, or interrupt their meetings if necessary. They are constantly soaking up bandwith on commercial discussions.” He slipped away and gave instructions to his communications officers on the way out.

  “He’s very young to be ordering those guys about,” opined Lim, “at least one of them is a Wing Commander.”

  Louis strolled back. “They are rigging a mannequin with a camera and communications gear and will introduce it to the saucer using one of our bomb-disposal robots up on the scaffolding. It has a long boom and will reach 15 to 20 feet inside with no difficulty. If a Harbourmaster appears we will also be able to talk to him.”

  “How long will it take,” said Jim, “we have a long journey home.”

  “Don’t worry about that, it’ll take just minutes” said Louis, “but we have booked you three rooms in the officer’s mess and we have already warned your parents that you may be enjoying yourself so much that you will stay a few days. We do hope you will. Your choice, of course. Newton and Carnegie will be here shortly. I phoned them on the way out.”

  Jim relaxed. The food had been pretty good so far. Breakfast in the morning was bound to be a cracker.

  The mannequin made them laugh. It was a shop sales mannequin dressed in RAF blue and with a helmet with all sorts of communications gear on it. It had a very engaging grin and red hair. Laughter seemed inappropriate, but it lifted their spirits.

  “Meet Jimbo,” said Louis, putting an arm round Jim so that he did not feel it was a mockery. “OK guys, get it up on the scaffolding and lets move it in.”

  “How did you acquire the mannequin so quickly,” asked Tracy.

  “Oh it was in the NAAFI, dressed as a policeman. A deterrent to shoplifters.”

  Lim thought it sad that the RAF had anyone who might shoplift, but learned that the most likely culprits were members of the public who were allowed to use the NAAFI because there was a dearth of shopping outlets in the area.

  The mannequin was manoeuvred into the open ‘mouth’ of the saucer, pausing for a whole minute at each 6 inch stage of its advance. Nothing had happened when the mannequin was held at a point 6 feet inside.

  “Six feet is just base camp,” said Louis, “Let’s move further in.”

  12 feet in and the robot was feeling the leverage of the weight of the mannequin on its long probe and rocked uneasily. Louis had the robot weighted down and the advance resumed.

  “Just a thought,” said Lim, “does a Harbourmaster appear in response to a living, sentient being, or will it respond to inanimate objects.”

  “Good point,” said Louis. He suspended operations while one of his men drove to the portal at Cotton End to consult the Harbourmaster there and to attempt to transport an inanimate object in the form of a box of chocolates. A gift for who ever opened the far end portal next.

  The Wing Commander returned and reported. It seems that inanimate objects could be transported, but not returned. But it was necessary for a sentient being to trigger the portal and to get help from a Harbourmaster. The Wing Commander had tried pinning a note to the box of chocolates saying “please return to Cotton End, Cardington,” but to no avail. The Harbourmaster had advised that one of his kind was associated with every portal known to man and must appear before the transport was actually triggered. When asked if there were any kind of portal unknown to man, he simply shrugged. What was likely was that a box of chocolates with a note attached sat on a bench seat waiting for any passer by.

  “If a type of portal is unknown to man, it is unknown to me,” the Harbourmaster had said.

  “I asked,” Louis’s man had said, “because you were not programmed by man, but by The Quintessence, or its agents.”

  “Nevertheless,” said the Harbourmaster, “I am unaware of any portal not requiring my attendance.”

  Louis accepted the news as confirmation of his own thoughts;

  “Hmmm,” he mused, “so.... we have to get someone into the lip of the saucer to see if a Harbourmaster or other avatar is triggered. Potentially very dangerous. But it must be done so that we can determine what kind of portal it is. If it’s The Needful One’s own front door, there’ll be no point in using it.”

  “I’ll do it.” said Jim, who felt uncharacteristically indestructible.

  “No,” said Louis firmly, “Not one of you three can be put at any risk. Your powers are obviously essential to the task of defeating The Needful One. Besides, you wouldn’t fit into a Skylon EVA suit and that is the minimum protection which should be used. Just in case the transport does trigger.”

  They watched as Louis consulted with his men and a volunteer scooted off to get a Skylon suit. The man returned, suited and in a launch transfer vehicle which carried suit pack life support. It looked like an early moon buggy. It was in fact the British equivalent and no longer a front line system as a Skylon had a payload capacity able to take a JCB designed jeep-dozer.

  Louis returned to brief Lim, Tracy and Jim.

  “Wing Commander Anderson has volunteered. It needed a qualified Skylon pilot accustomed to all the suit controls. He’ll unplug from transfer vehicle support and move into the saucer shortly. We are putting him on a tether because the portal may be like an earth-side portal and a tug may be experienced in the seconds before transport initiates. Anderson has only to raise his arm at the feeling and we will pull him out of there in a second.”

  Wing Commander Anderson moved over the lip of the saucer’s wide mouth and stood a foot into the space. Nothing happened. He moved a foot further forward and his crew tightened the line that held him. Still no action. Another 12 inches forward and still no activity. He inched forward again and slowly moved to the back of the available space. Then he turned to give a shrug of disappointment. And then he was gone, and the tether fell, severed and unattached, to the floor of the hangar.

  All hell was let loose as men tried to move the robot probe as far into the saucer as possible, staring anxiously at the screen images from the camera. Darkness, nothing else. Communications with Anderson using the suit commcen which had previously worked were now delivering just white noise. The last voice record showed Anderson gasping out a worrying “Ouch!”

  Activity was giving way to despair when Anderson’s suited figure was ejected from the saucer, clearing the railed scaffolding and flying down to the floor. He was winded and bruised but was otherwise OK. But a careful appraisal showed that there was a strange after effect. The right-handed Anderson was now left-handed, a fact he announced after being offered a spirit-enhancing cup of Bleakstone’s best ground coffee. He looked at his left hand as if it were a stranger, then shrugged and raised the mug to his lips. Skylon pilots and would-be Universe travellers are used to accepting new experiences. Anderson’s wife would ask why his hair was suddenly being parted on the right hand side. The Space Medecine doctors would worry more about Anderson’s heart having moved to the right hand side of his body. In all probability they would have to test
for the swapping of his right and left brain lobes.

  “OK, that does it. We secure the area and leave matters until Newton arrives,” said Louis. “He’s taking his time and missing all the fun. Meanwhile, you three settle down and start discussing all this with a view to finding scenarios for moving forward. And most importantly of all, where do you think The Needful One might be and how do we deal with him, er, she or it.”

  “Test Anderson,” said Lim, “Why is he left handed? Has he sprouted a Boyd-Karlssohn meniscus?”

  “You mean, is he matter or anti-matter?”

  Anderson gulped on his coffee, “I feel no different, test away to your hearts content,” He offered. It transpired that he was indeed solid matter, though matter is not solid and the space between his atoms was still like the space between a fly and the walls of a cathedral the fly moved through. In fact, if you lost all the empty space between your atoms, your body would be so reduced in size that it would fit into a cube less than one five hundredth of a centimetre on each side. The dimensions of each side being the same as five human hairs packed together.

  Chapter Twelve – Newton and Lateral Thinking

  By the time Newton arrived, Jim, Tracy and Lim were finishing another meal. Newton explained that he had been delayed by a need to chastise his publishers over some contractual matter. This had taken hours because;

  “Money,” he said, “was at stake.”

  Jim scowled at the Professor. He was thinking, “universal freedom is also at stake”. But he bit his tongue, knowing a sense of shame about his comments remaining behind the backs of Newton and Carnegie.

  By this time, they knew that Wing Commander Anderson had not just sprouted left-handedness and other changes, he now had developed a Boyd-Karlssohn meniscus. It was a hammer blow to Anderson and his family and to the brotherhood of Skylon pilots. Whatever the ramifications of a change of state of his matter, Wing Commander Anderson voluntarily entered into armed protective custody. He was led away to an enclosure created from a massive water tank hurriedly kitted out with Faraday cages and other shields. The accommodation was sparsely furnished and communications provided by closed circuit television. He was denied email and social network access but had incoming internet facilities only. He was indeed anti-Anderson.

  After some debate, it was agreed that Anderson should repeat his venture into the saucer, proceeding by the same stealthy degrees. But this time a catch net was rigged outside to prevent his falling to the hangar floor. The supposition was that if one pass through the saucer portal had transmuted him into anti-matter, another pass might reverse the process.

  “Totally unscientific,” said Newton, refusing to have anything more to do with the idea. He left for a pressing engagement with a publisher.

  But Wing Commander Anderson was adamant. He was not going to spend the rest of his life in a water tank kitted out as a Faraday cage. He personally supervised the preparations and the placing of the catch net. He insisted that it was up to the man being shot from the gun to calculate the likely trajectory and landing spot.

  The process was repeated as before. Anderson stepped forward 6 inches at a time, turned at the back of the portal and disappeared. As before.

  After an hour, Anderson had still not reappeared and alarm turned to despondency. His wife and children, waiting like an astronaut’s family might, had to be led away in distress. Then there was a loud bang and a figure exploded from the saucer and landed in the bouncy catch net. It was indeed Anderson and checks showed that he was in pristine right-handed condition. The spinmaster had been ‘unhanded’.

  The Companions, who had slept but fitfully, were now unaware of time, day and date. They showered and dressed using the RAF blues provided for them. Tracy had insisted on having blue trousers in preference to the badly cut skirt. They all refused the berets and slouch hats. Their discussion over the meal that was probably brunch rather than breakfast, now ranged widely over the events of the week. There was an air of desperation in their efforts. They had tried to boil their deliberations down to something that they could offer to Louis, Newton and Carnegie for assessment. And they had all three tried earnestness in prayer both singly and in concert. It seemed odd saying a joint prayer with Lim leading the worship as if he were Vicar of a new church of All Souls, Cardington. But it had to be done and it was done with great honesty and openness. Even Louis joined in.

  They had an additional piece of evidence to weigh. Wing Commander Anderson had been debriefed about his two short trips into the portal. It seemed that no Harbourmaster had appeared as he reached the saucer portal event horizon. But he had a sensation as if he were on the edge of a mighty whirlpool. And then he had been swept into the portal, round the whirling force field several times and then flung out into the world again. An action Man in a washing machine. It was not an ordinary portal at all, but some kind of transport known only to The Needful One, and potentially only available to dark matter. Anderson put his expulsion down to the effect of the wings of Dark Angels. He could not explain why, but that feeling was left in his mind, just as the taste of a newly favoured Malaysian bitter gourd or durian had first left a nasty taste behind in Lim’s mouth.

  “Well, we all prayed, but when do you usually get an answer to your prayer,” Louis asked. He realised that this was a bit flippant, treating answers to prayer a bit like the arrival of the morning mail.

  “We don’t usually get, or don’t recognise getting answers.” Said Lim. “Things just happen.”

  “Like coincidences,” said Louis too late to bite back the words.

  “Well, it isn’t like that, and you know it. Our powers were in answer to prayer, sometimes in answer to an anticipated prayer. And you’ve seen how the opening of the saucer came about.” Lim wasn’t feeling in the least defensive. “It seems to me that The Quintessence will respond in good time and will use whoever is best able to deal with any issue. But the biblical fact is that this world is said to be the domain of The Needful One. How that will pan out, I am not quite sure.”

  “And The Needful One is at loose in Angle-Land’s green and pleasant land,” said Louis, “adds a certain frisson to the words ‘and did those feet in ancient time...’” Louis was accustomed to confronting and defeating enemies of the state. But this enemy was like no other. It may not even have what humankind would recognise as ‘intent’.

  Enter Sir Isaac Newton and Andrew Carnegie, fresh from their commercial triumphs. They were greeted with applause born of relief and respect, applause joined by the entire mess. But only half heartedly by Lim and Tracy and not at all by a scowling Jim. Some younger officers punched the air and called out “Respect!”. Sir Isaac still had his stilts on and had to be careful not to bounce into the polystyrene tiles of the canteen ceiling. He was as bizarre as any construct of Mary Shelley’s creative genius. Hardly an image that was respect-worthy. Tracy was alone in envying his lustrous long and curly hair.

  The next hour was spent in briefing Newton and Carnegie and bringing them up to date. The issue of what to do hung over the assembly like a bad smell.

  Newton was ecstatic. He had a problem to solve, and he had another experimental subject in the shape of Wing Commander Anderson. Anderson was thankfully unaware of Lim’s joke about Newton the vivisectionist. Carnegie was also delighted. He was about to see how the greatest of minds approached difficulty.

  “You told me that the characters on the upper surface of the saucer changed when it opened. Did they then reform in a line or an arch over the upper lip of the ‘mouth’ that was formed.” Asked Newton.

  “yes they did,” said Louis, “and in an arch.” He was wondering what lay behind the question. He suspected that Newton was simply playing for time and hiding the fact under a cloak of mystery.

  Do you have the ‘before and after’ as it were? Of the saucer’s transformation?”

  “We have photographs here, Sir,” said Louis.

  “Don’t call me ‘sir’,” said Newton and everyone thought he wo
uld follow that by saying;

  “Call me Isaac.”

  But what he said was “Call me Professor, for goodness knows what sacrifice led me to that title. Ask poor Hooke when you join him in Valhalla. The Lord knows I made him sacrifice the most. Him and Liebnitz.”

  Lim pondered, hesitated and then took the plunge; “Professor you mentioned Valhalla and I have that back of mind ‘itch’ that tells me that the name is significant. What do we know of Valhalla?”

  Here, Newton displayed the products of one of the two eidetic memories present, “It is the largest multi-ring impact crater on Jupiter’s moon Callisto, it is, in Norse mythology, the hall of the slain; it is also a hamlet in Westchester County, New York.”

  Tracy looked up from her iPhone, now wired into the base wifi. She was not relying on her memory which was experientially shorter than Newton’s.