Ringships

by Peter Claisse

It was impossible to look at it now, it was far too bright. There was no sound yet, that would follow well behind it.

  Nobody moved in the room, they each cast bright shadows against the wall as the light poured in through the windows. Over the next few seconds the shadows fell as the ship came closer on its trajectory to pass close overhead. Then it was gone, and the sonic booms came one after another as they echoed off the higher levels of the atmosphere. Only the crew members of the Unicorn thought to look across to see the glow recede and the sudden burst of orange flame as their ship blasted its way back into orbit after completing its dive.

  Now the room started to fill with smoke and panic followed as everybody near the door rushed to escape. Admiral Sydney finally stood up, but he walked in the opposite direction to the end wall of the office which was where the smoke was actually coming from. When he reached it, he placed his hand cautiously on it checking that it was not too hot to touch. Satisfied that he would not get burnt he pushed it away from him and the whole end of the transportable building fell outwards onto the ground. The floor and ceiling sagged but not sufficiently to prevent him and his crew members walking out across the fallen wall. They looked briefly back at the ends of the structure which had been exposed by the laser cut and at the panicked occupants inside before walking round to wait by the Jeeps for their tour.

  The car park had been made with black dusty quarry waste but beyond it there was a small area of grass which had grown up where the forest had been cleared. Some larger rocks had rolled onto it, but it was largely unspoilt, and the office workers had used some oil drums and rough planks to form benches and tables. Admiral Sydney and his three companions soon decided to sit on the benches while they waited. From where they were sitting their view was blocked in all directions by the offices, the bulk of the Atlanta and spoil heaps from the mine. None of these were of particular interest but the grass itself was some of the first native plant life they had seen so the admiral leaned down and with unexpected difficulty managed to pull up a handful of it to look at.

  ‘If this is anything to go by this is a tough planet.’ He remarked. ‘It’s so tough I’m amazed anything can eat it.’

  ‘If something does eat this it probably eats people as an appetiser.’ He remarked as he tried unsuccessfully to break some of it.

  At that moment the office door on the other side of the car park swung open and the Abbot walked out of it. Seeing them he closed the door and walked very quickly past the Jeeps towards them.

  ‘I am very pleased you have come.’ He said, slightly out of breath, ‘We, the people of this planet, have been misled by the Director and his crew. He told us that he had the authority of the government of earth, but you now tell us that he has not. You must help us.’

  The Admiral looked at him suspiciously and offered him a seat on the bench. The Abbot refused. ‘No, I can’t stay here. I must go to tell the people that they should not obey the Director’s men because they are not the real power from earth.’

  ‘Nobody should be obeying anybody except their own leaders but please don’t use us as an excuse to start a sort of civil war.’

  ‘There already is a war. Where do you think you friend Captain Turner is?’

  The Abbot jumped into one of the Jeeps but could not see how to start it. The admiral patiently helped him and guided him as he reversed it out of the parking space, scraping along the side of the one next to it as he went.

  ‘Don’t try that on earth.’ He advised.

  ‘I have seen how to drive these things and I shall soon be as good as you are.’ The abbot shouted back to him as he ran into another car on the far side of the car park. ‘I have many skills and can soon learn this’.

  At that moment the Director ran out of the offices with a security guard. Grabbing a gun from the guard he fired into the air shouting to the abbot to stop the car.

  The abbot ignored him. Taking deliberate aim, the Director shouted again but the abbot was still intent on manoeuvring the car. The Director fired a second shot in front of the Jeep which hit one of the picnic tables throwing splinters into the air. Still he was ignored. The Jeep was now almost clear, and the Director fired straight at him. Admiral Sydney saw the man’s body jerk back as the shot was fired and first assumed he had been hit but then he saw him drive off apparently uninjured as the bullet rattled off the mudguard and fell to the ground. He remembered some of the stories he had been told about the people on this planet.

  ‘It seems that he does have many skills.’ The admiral observed.

  The Director briefly pointed the gun towards the picnic tables again but when the admiral simply looked at him with contempt he passed it back to the guard and went back into the offices.

  ‘What do we do about your friend and his civil war?’ His officer asked in a voice that betrayed far more fear than he had.

  ‘Let’s just wait for the tour, shall we? I am looking forward to it. It should be interesting.’ The officer said nothing. He could see why this man had been chosen to explore the voids of hyperspace.

  A full two hours later the Director emerged again and saw the visitors still sitting at their table apparently just talking about the planet and a variety of different grasses and weeds they had found in the picnic area.

  ‘Where would you like to go?’

  ‘First I would like to meet some more of the local population and then I understand that you have had a small civil war so a visit to the main battle sites would be of interest.’

  ‘The abbot was lying. We have been mining, not fighting. Shall I show you the mine?’

  ‘What has captain Turner been doing then?’

  ‘He has deserted. I have no idea where he is or what he is doing.’

  ‘So, what happened to your satellites?’

  ‘Nothing has happened to our satellites.’

  ‘The one we looked at had been burned out. Are you sure that was just a mining accident?’

  The Director made no reply and went to his Jeep and they drove off towards the hutted encampment he had built for the local population. His fears about not being able to explain what they would find there were never realised. It was deserted.

  They walked around the squalid huts together looking at the signs of a hasty departure. The admiral could see that the director was as surprised as he was. He was also horrified by what he saw.

  ‘It is appalling that they were kept in a compound like this. I shall report this in detail back to earth.’

  The director simply observed that if he was instructed to release them it would be pointless. The surrounding area was covered in piles of mine waste leaving no clear lines of sight and no signs of tracks to show where the people had gone.

  29

  The steward had been taking a few moments of rest after lunch. The few moments had possibly extended somewhat longer than they might have in the past, but he was old now and in this dismal camp nothing of interest ever happened. The meeting a few days before had been the only event to punctuate his life in months until today that was. Now he was awakened by the sound of gunfire. This was not just single shots that he heard occasionally as the camp guards shot local birds and animals to add interest to their diet, this was sustained fire from automatic weapons. He jumped up and stumbled to the door. Leaning on the damp frame and slowly getting his bearings, he looked down the muddy road that ran through the centre of the camp. In front of him the camp guards had formed rough a line facing solid ranks of soldiers marching towards them. He stared at the soldiers in complete disbelief. They were in full plate armour, marching with slow but perfect discipline. The guards were firing repeated bursts at the soldiers but none of the bullets were having any effect. He could actually see them clattering off the plate armour and falling to the ground. Looking more closely he saw monks within the ranks, with each volley of shots they had to be supported by the men around them as they absorbed the momentum with their auras. More guards were running to join the line bringing more ammunition and guns wi
th them but still they had no effect as the soldiers advanced up the road at a very slow walking pace.

  Suddenly, after the most intensive gunfire he had heard, the line seemed to break apart. Each man was standing aside to reveal the rank behind him. But the rank behind was cross-bow men, and the steward had to jump rapidly back through the door as the bolts flew past him. When he looked out again most of the guards had fallen. One man was screaming with pain as he fell onto the step directly in front of the steward. Blood was pouring out into the mud from a wound in his leg. Some were still standing and firing their guns, but the ranks had closed again, and the bullets were having no effect. The soldiers were closing now, the first rank drew their swords and were almost on the gunmen when they turned to flee. It was too late. The rank broke again, and the cross-bow men brought down the last of the guards.

  Now there was a rush of activity. Monastery servants rushed forwards from behind the monks. One came splashing through the mud to the Steward’s doorway.

  ‘Can we help you along sir or will you be able to walk?’

  ‘Why? Where are we going?’ the Steward asked bemused.

  ‘To the monastery sir. We have been told to tell you that you will be free to leave at any time and you can stay here or go somewhere else if you want to, but we suggest you may want to be our guests for a few days.’

  He saw that a small crowd had gathered around the doorway. Everybody else was as unsure as he was, and they were looking to him for leadership. He looked around as he considered his position. The dead guards were being cleared away, but they would soon be missed.

  ‘Yes – we shall go with you.’ He said in a clear voice, so all the crowd could hear. ‘The monastery will be the only possible safe place where we could spend the next few days. And it couldn’t be worse than here could it?’

  The evacuation took place with incredible speed. It took only ten minutes for all of the workers to get out of the mine and just a few minutes after that they had formed a long column and were heading out past the spoil heaps. Dozens of carts had been brought for those unable to walk fast enough and the Steward reluctantly climbed into one.

  It was just five miles due North to the monastery, first along a track surfaced with the mine waste and then suddenly emerging onto an ancient flagged road through the forest. They covered the distance in less than two hours and were soon streaming past the high walls of the crucibles by the entrance to the monastery.

  The steward was now looking around with intense interest. He had never been in the monastery before. He had heard Paul and Lynella’s account of it and was trying to see the features they had described. He was still in the cart, moving along a wide corridor which led straight in from the door and he was sure would take them directly to the main cavern with the machine in it. In places there was virtually no light and the driver just let the cart ride forward along the ruts in the floor. At some junctions there were lanterns, at others dimly lit spheres and at one a bright electric light sowed the way. He was amazed by the distance they were travelling into the mountain and was trying to see ahead past the bulk of the driver sitting on a raised seat in front of him when the cart suddenly veered to the right almost throwing him off his seat. Looking out he could see why. To the left there was an enormous void reaching up and down as far as he could see. This was the great cavern and Lynella had demolished the supports to the floor so completely that none of it remained except the narrow ledge which formed the roadway they were using to get past. He heard the cart wheels clatter over wooden boards and knew they were on a platform where even the last edge of the rock had gone.

  Holding tightly to the side of the cart he looked right down into the void below them and saw lights. These were not candles or even dim lighting globes. These were arc-lights. Looking more closely he saw the unmistakable shape of some bright yellow machines pouring out black smoke as their engines roared. Between them he could see vast new columns reaching up towards him. The abbot was re-building his machine and he had stolen enough machinery from the mine to let him do it very rapidly indeed.

  Now the cart turned sharply to the right again into another corridor and he knew that he was in the area used by the servants and this was where he and his people would be living for some time.

  The cart finally stopped by opposite the entrance to an intersecting corridor and the driver jumped down and helped the steward out, fetching out a walking stick and making sure that he did not trip on the ruts in the rock floor. Just a few yards walk took them to a set of doorways opening off to each side. The doors had metal latches and a ventilation grille at the bottom which showed signs of rust but when the driver opened the first one the room inside looked clean and dry. The steward was shown in and the first thing he noticed was a small fire burning in a grate on the far side with the smoke curling away into a recess in the rock above it. The rest of the room looked comfortable and he thought that the lack of daylight was a small price to pay for the use of it and protection from the Director.

  Within a day he had found his way around and in the dining area he met many of the people he knew from the Southern castle. Henry was full of grand plans to re-establish the Kingdom but seemed unable to persuade anybody to follow him out from the safety of the monastery. Apart from him, almost everybody seemed prepared to spend some time recovering from the exhaustion of working the mine and near starvation in the camp. It was clear that the abbot was keeping to his word; the guards would not let them go back into the main cavern or the monks’ quarters beyond it, but they were free to explore whole of the monastery servants’ area or leave by the door leading to the farms to the North.

  Three days later the steward received an invitation to see the Abbot. The wording was polite but gave little scope for discussion, he was invited to meet the Abbot and a servant would be available to show him the way and help him to get there. He was very impressed by the way the note had been printed out. The Abbot had clearly helped himself to some office machinery as well as his machines in the cavern.

  His office was exactly how Paul had described it. The large desk, book-cases and pictures on the wall looked as if they had been carefully maintained by several generations of Abbots. The great changes to the planet outside could only be seen by the smallest detail. Neatly arranged between two stacks of folders on one of the book cases there was a small digital clock. A small brightly coloured cube on the desk had rows of buttons and a display of numbers on the top. Nothing else seemed out of place and the overall effect of these two small items seemed to the steward to be a perfect example of how the new technology could be used selectively where it fitted in best. The Abbot also seemed pleased with his choices and was pushing the buttons on the cube so intently he took little notice of the steward when he walked in. Perhaps this was simply intended to put the steward off balance, but it did not achieve it. Without waiting for an invitation, he instructed the servant to draw him up a chair facing the desk and sat down, dismissing the man and asking him to close the door. This neatly deprived the Abbot of his chance to make his guest wait for the interview to begin and left the steward to open the conversation with profuse compliments about his accommodation.

  The Abbot finally put his cube to one side and after a brief welcome he came straight to his point.

  ‘What are you going to do about Lynella?’

  ‘Do about her?’

  ‘Yes, do about her. Somebody must, and you are probably the only person that can. That’s the main reason I brought you here.’

  ‘So, you brought me here did you? I thought that I was invited.’

  The Abbot looked up intently, clearly reassessing the disheveled looking old man. Then he smiled. His smile seemed to serve as an apology. He reached down into a drawer of his desk and took out a bottle of whisky. Next, he produced two glasses. These were not the ugly type that seemed to appear in unlimited supply from Atlanta but fine cut glass from the glass-blowers of the Eastern Kingdom. Somewhat to the steward’s disappointment he added wa
ter from an earthenware jug to the good measures he poured into the glasses.

  ‘Let’s start from the beginning.’ He said, taking sip from his glass. ‘We have never spoken before, but we know much about each other. In the past we were adversaries but now we have common cause.’

  ‘Is that what you said to the Director when you persuaded him to take your side?’

  Again, the Abbot smiled. ‘No, he was too stupid to realise I had ever been his adversary.’

  ‘And what about me?’

  ‘I am not asking you to believe in me. I am just going to put it to you that if we work together we shall be powerful enough to achieve what we both want.’

  The abbot paused for another very small sip. The Steward wondered if this was all to pretend to be sociable and the man actually disliked whisky. He drained his own glass and returned it to the desk.

  ‘What do you think our objectives are?’ He asked.

  ‘I think that we both want to go back to how we were before the Atlanta arrived. We know that to be impossible, so we want to go as far as we can towards it.’

  The steward thought about this while the abbot refilled his glass. He was amazed how quickly the man had changed direction for a second time and abandoned his new friends on the ship. ‘What about Paul and what about Lynella and the way she has become a mage? Can you accept that?’

  ‘Accepting a few new people to live on the planet is possibly a good thing for us all. With Lynella we might have a problem because, as a mage, she will soon rediscover the ways of the old religion and may already have done so. I have prayed for guidance on this matter and now accept that we should not challenge her and her followers by force.’ To the stewards surprise he also drained his glass and added. ‘We can live together and see this ship go and be better prepared for the next one.’

  Waiting for the steward to consider this analysis he added. ‘The history records that most of her type left the planet long ago. Perhaps she will follow.’