Explorers_Beyond The Horizon

by C J Paget

  Ssshhhlloooppp

  At the last possible second, like a glob of fat sliding down a kitchen sink’s drain, all two hundred pounds of Darryl slithered into the reed blowpipe’s narrow confines. While admittedly claustrophobic, he was safe from vampire bats inside the blowpipe, just like the Hero Twins.

  Refuge gave Darryl time to ponder. The mosquito was right. To escape this nightmare, follow Popul Vuh. Like, don’t stick your head out too soon and get it bitten off by a bat. Long term, he had to be careful with the Lords of Death. Darryl hadn’t taken them seriously at first, thinking them merely phantoms in a silly, earthly dream. But the Lords were real, and in deadly earnest. The stakes were the highest possible, his body and soul.

  Exhausted physically and emotionally, Darryl slept. He only woke the next morning when the majordomo shook the blowpipe until Darryl fell out in a heap on the ground.

  “Congratulations, mortal. Perhaps you’re clever after all.”

  Darryl stood up, stretched and groaned. His clothes hung in rags about him, the only intact items his boots.

  “Never mind the praise. Could I get a cup of coffee and some toast?”

  “Time for hot chocolate and feasting after the ball game.”

  Darryl groaned. “The old fashioned way, right, where the loser’s head gets cut off?”

  “Exactly, great lord. Hurry lest the Ahaus grow even angrier at you.”

  The majordomo let Darryl walk unescorted at his own pace. On the short path from the Bat House to Xibalba’s ball court, he tried to gather his thoughts, to keep a sharp eye out for a chance to escape.

  Like the council hall, the ball court was a grand and terrible place, two even-sloped, high, gray stone walls that flanked a flat court of hard-packed red clay. A giant stone ring jutted from the top of each wall, engraved with grinning skulls. Along either side of the court, the rotting riffraff of Xibalba had gathered in anticipation of the game to come. Upon Darryl’s arrival, they grinned, hooted, and waved their stumps in derision.

  “Soon you’ll be headless too,” one cried, his own severed noggin cradled in his arms.

  The Lords of Death stood at one end of the court, arrayed in regal finery, clad in spotted jaguar skins, high headdresses adorned with long, black quetzal feathers, ghastly faces covered by elaborate masks. The majordomo bowed low. Darryl followed his example.

  “Oh, great Ahaus, I have fetched the mortal as you bid me.”

  “You were lucky to leave the Bat House,” Flying Scab said. “You won’t escape the ball court.”

  “Silence,” One Death said. “I would speak with the mortal.”

  Darryl kept his head bent low. “Greatest Ahau, what would you of this poor servant?”

  “You show respect so I shall be direct and spare you any more ruses,” said One Death. “Play the ballgame against our champion. Lose and forfeit your head.”

  These last words echoed like thunder through the ball court to frenzied applause from the spectators.

  Darryl straightened up. “Gladly, greatest Ahau, if that pleases you.”

  The Lords of Death laughed.

  “Do you go gentle to your own death, then?” Stabbing Demon said. “I wish my victims had such grace.”

  “Again if it pleases you, great Ahaus. Yet, may I ask, what stakes if I win?”

  This provoked even more merriment from the Lords.

  “You cannot win against our champion,” Seven Death said. “You’re like a child.”

  “Yes, I’m sure I’ve no chance. You say I must play and be killed if I lose, but what if I win? After all, you should give me some reason to play.”

  “What?” One Death asked. “Immortality? Wealth and power? Warriors to command?”

  “I’d rather go home.”

  “Return to the crocodile’s back?” One Death said. “Granted. Now play.”

  “Wait. Swear by your honor as Lord of Xibalba.”

  “Enough,” One Death spat. “If you put the ball through a ring, you are the victor and the wish is granted, but that will never happen. There is no need for oaths, mortal. Play if you want to win.”

  “Any way I can?”

  “There is no way. Try whatever you want.”

  Darryl shrugged and walked onto the ball court. His opponent was already there, a muscular, misshapen dwarf who came to Darryl’s waist. Broad chest streaked with red cinnabar, he grinned at Darryl, baring filed teeth.

  The master of the ball court, a man-sized tapeworm, bowed low to One Death and said, “Have I your permission to begin?”

  “Proceed,” One Death commanded.

  The tapeworm’s bottom end grew grotesquely distended and spherical.

  Plllooooottt.

  With a disgusting blat like some vile, super-amplified fart, a solid rubber ball spat from the tapeworm’s mouth high into the air. Darryl leaped for it, but the dwarf slammed into him with a hard shot to the solar plexus. He rebounded off Darryl and knocked the ball away.

  The ball bounced off a wall and the dwarf ran after it with inhuman speed. The second before the ball hit the ground, he smacked it with his left hip. The ball sailed in a long, low arc toward the ring on the opposite wall. He missed the hole by a hair’s breadth.

  “You almost lost that time,” a zombie screamed.

  The ball hit the ball court and the dwarf raced for it again. Before he could kick it into play again, Darryl scooped it away.

  “Not allowed. No hands,” the dwarf grunted.

  Darryl held the ball up with both hands and shook it at the dwarf.

  “Come take it.”

  The dwarf leaped for the ball, but Darryl dribbled it between his legs to his left hand. Darryl stiff-armed the dwarf with all his strength and ran down the court.

  “Boo. Boo,” the crowd screamed.

  The dwarf was hot after Darryl. He put himself between the ball and Darryl, but the wily Californian, mad skilled from teen years on Malibu streets, kept it low to the ground, dribbled behind his back, and unpredictably tacked from point to point.

  “This is cheating,” One Death complained. “This is not how to play the ball game.”

  “Any way I can,” Darryl said.

  Beneath the ring, Darryl leaped up with every ounce of his strength. The dwarf grabbed Darryl by his right leg and sank his razor sharp fangs deep into his calf, but he’d already shot the ball.

  Like a bullet from a fine-rifled barrel, the ball sped straight and true through the ring’s hole only to emerge no longer a ball, but the flayed hide of the Feathered Serpent, evoked by the ballgame’s magic.

  “Cheater. Loathsome trickster,” One Death cursed. “I’ll have you flayed alive in the House of Razors. Your doom lies here, foolish mortal, for violating our secrets.”

  The threat went unheard. Jaws split wide, the Vision Serpent swooped down and engulfed Darryl, leaving the frustrated citizens of Xibalba to bemoan a lost victim.

  * * * * *

  “Jeremy, I don’t know what to tell you,” Wootton said to his cell phone. “Do you think I don’t want to find him? I’ve turned the house upside down, talked to the maids, done everything but put out an all-points bulletin. He’s disappeared, and that’s the long and short of—”

  CCCCRRRRAAASSSSSHHHH

  Like a ton of bricks dropped down a chute, Darryl slid down the chimney and hit the fireplace with a resounding smash.

  “Daxton,” Wootton cried. “Bleeding hell, mate.”

  He clambered into the fireplace and helped Darryl out.

  “Good thing the fire was out or you’d be crisped as well as filthy. Crikey, Daxton, what’s that muck on you? Oh, never mind. You’re a bloody wonder, you are. You pull the greatest stunt since Houdini, disappear up a bloody great snake, and then slam down your own chimney like Saint Nick five minutes later. And not a single word to us in advance about what you had planned. Everyone in the world wants to see you. Where the hell have you been?”

  Darryl looked at the hushed guests, every eye fixed unblinking on hi
s face, plainly anxious to hear him speak. The camera crew stood ready to capture his first words, young faces suffused with an expectant glow. Wootton pointed his mike at Darryl, an eager grin on his broad face.

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  UNIVERSES LIKE CHAMPAGNE

  by Laura Givens

  “Copy that, Comsit. I have active ‘brane flux on grid alpha, coordinates 89 by 43.” Linda wiped hair from her damp forehead for the third time in the last minute or so. She swore to herself that she’d get a buzz-cut if she made it back. “I am commencing shuffle sequence and will go in two minutes if conditions persist within stable parameters.”

  “Everything on this end looks good, two minutes and counting.” There was something in Calvin Tweed’s voice that, even at a moment like this, made Linda feel like she should pop a beer and stop worrying. Maybe it was his slight Jamaican lilt. “Say, girl, do you know what the cosmic zombie said to the theoretical physicist?”

  “No, Cal, what did the cosmic zombie say to the theoretical physicist?”

  “Branes, Braaaanes!”

  “Copy, Comsit. Ha hyphen ha hyphen ha. That one never gets old.”

  Linda Cline leaned back into her harness and closed her eyes. She was suspended in a spider’s web of straps, designed to hold her in place within the transparent bubble, constructed of woven nano-tubes. This would soon be her universe away from home. The web could swivel to any orientation necessary, so she could have total maneuverability and still keep as much distance as possible between her and whatever would soon be on the other side of the bubble. Previous unmanned probes had given her team only a limited idea of what to expect in the universe next door.

  A lot of the accepted laws of physics still seemed to work over there, but there were differences that no one had fully figured out the ramifications of. Gravity seemed to act oddly, it had a slight spin to it, and the speed of light wasn’t quite as constant as it should be. The Omniverse Project complex had been built out here, near Pluto, so the solar system’s gravity wells would exert minimal effect. The idea was to gently nudge our membrane universe into the one right next to it, like a peck on the cheek, allowing the Cue Ball One sphere to slide from one to the other. There was initial speculation that such a touching of two realities might be fatal to both, perhaps even initiating a new Big Bang. The project had only been nervously green-lighted when Linda had proven mathematically that our universe, at least, was made of tougher stuff than that.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and quickly scanned all the virtual readouts that seemed to surround her. It was too early for this. They had scheduled another year of unmanned probes, but their budget had been cut off and re-prioritized for the war effort. If she didn’t go now, the chance was lost forever. She blinked her left eye a few times to adjust her contech lens and bring the virtual displays back into sharp focus. “Do we have any further word from Duffy?” she asked, “I can’t believe that those bastards commandeered our listening post at a time like this.”

  General Ben-Iman’s voice broke in, harsh and impatient. “Doctor, I’m sure this little experiment of yours is very important to you and your people, but back in the real world there’s a war going on to preserve freedom. You may have read about it, it’s in all the ‘casts.”

  “General, please…” Cal tried to reassert communications control.

  “Cline, we’ve allowed you to tie up a vast amount of equipment and personnel out here in God’s bunghole, but I’ll be damned…” Ben-Iman’s voice trailed off into static.

  “Sorry about that, Cue Ball One, I’ve managed to put a cork in God’s bunghole, which should keep him off your back till transit. Thirty seconds and counting, at my mark—mark.”

  “This is Cue Ball One, I copy you. Cal, don’t let him pull the plug on me before the deadline, we can’t back down now.” Linda’s hands trembled slightly as she triggered the final protocols.

  “We’ll handle things here, boss. You’ve got enough on your plate.” Cal made sure that his voice carried all the confidence his heart was lacking at that second. “Transition shuffle in 3 – 2 – 1…”

  * * * * *

  “Goddamned scientists!” General Ben-Iman’s mission had been simple; come out to this huge waste of government resources and dismantle it. Sitting across from his battle cruiser was the repurposed mining platform that constituted the major holding of Omniverse. A partial list of the assets they were wasting on their little science project included two of the biggest plasma generators in the system, a moebius accelerator powerful enough to drive a leviathan, and a sensor array equipped with the latest probability wave collapsing tech. That wasn’t even counting all the brain power that could be put to better use, defeating the Sanger Evolutionaries. At least they had dismantled the so-called listening stations.

  “Did you feel that?” He turned on his XO. “By god, the universe just flickered and we can’t do a damn thing about it. They said ‘no side effects’! Bullshit! Get on the horn and get me authorization to act before those maniacs destroy us all!”

  The XO hadn’t felt anything. “Sir, if we send a signal sunward, we paint a bull’s-eye on ourselves and Omniverse,” he said quietly. “All communications have to be bounced and buffered, you know that.”

  The general snarled and straightened his collar. “Very well, we wait. I’ll be in the wardroom, you have the con.” He glanced at the crew. “Run a drill or something, might as well be ready if the universe is going to end.”

  * * * * *

  And, suddenly, Linda was alone except for the stars that seemed to twinkle all around her.

  “There are stars here, the colors seem to pulse from red to blue with a period of whiteness in between. Like Christmas tree lights twinkling on a….” She stopped and frantically checked her panels. “Holy crap! The stars are twinkling—I’m in an atmosphere! If these readings are right, I could step outside this bubble and I’d be okay, except for a little giddiness from the extra oxygen.” She rotated herself three hundred sixty degrees to make sure. “I could go for a walk except there’s no planet in sight.” Linda laughed out loud in sheer glee. “Feels like there’s a slight tug in one direction, and the instruments confirm gravity, but I have no clue what’s causing it.”

  Cue Ball One wanted to drift in the direction of the pull and she could see no good reason to prevent it. A little spatial variance shouldn’t matter when it came time to snap back into her own universe. Slowly, reefs of clouds, almost like spun cotton candy, came into view. “Well, this is new! It looks like condensed vapor but…” The sphere nudged into a bank and its course altered slightly. “There’s substance to it, the sensors say carbon compounds. Curiouser and curiouser.”

  Color wove itself into the clouds, which were quickly taking on qualities of a landscape, comprised of ever larger gatherings of clouds, oriented towards the gentle gravity pull. The sense of openness remained though, thanks to large canyons separating things. Stars became harder to see as an Aurora Borealis-like effect lit the sky in the distance. She checked her chronometer to see how much time the mission had left, but it said only a few minutes had passed since her arrival. She wondered if time meant exactly the same thing here.

  Then there were bubbles everywhere. Pulsing and glittering, hundreds of them. A few were almost as large as Cue Ball, but they went as small as an exercise ball. They seemed to pay no attention as they drifted past, with Linda deftly navigating the sphere’s path to stay out of their way. Instruments said they were solid throughout, and yet almost completely empty. “I’m not even going to comment on these readings, which make no sense at all, except that I wouldn’t be surprised to wind up at the Mad Hatter’s tea party any time now.”

  She glanced at the mission timer. Her one hour mission was now seven minutes into overtime. Either something had gone seriously wrong or time flowed differently here. She crossed her fingers and hoped it was the latter. Curiouser and curiouser…

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught
movement across the now expected axis of orientation. It looked like there were several new shapes moving quickly, and then they were out of sight. Calling up the sensor view from that direction, she spooled back and enlarged the picture. The complex shapes had large wing-like structures toward their fronts that might be providing locomotion! She could also make out tendrils of some sort trailing behind them, touching others in the group as they moved.

  “Life!?” Linda could barely breathe. This was something they hadn’t even seriously considered from the probe data. There was always the stuff about finding mirror versions of yourself in another universe, but that had always seemed better science fiction than science to her mind. Yes, the math supported the possibility, but the odds were infinity to one. But, life of some sort? Why not? There were specialists back home trained in this whole first contact business, should any neighbors ever drop by. Not that there had ever been any first contact outside of microbes, but the possibility was always tantalizingly there. Heck, she told herself, even if there was life, that didn’t necessarily mean sentience. She might wind up trying to make first contact with a herd of cows. Unconsciously, she started working kinks out of her hair.

  * * * * *

  Cal glanced nervously at the chrono that had been synched to Cue Ball one. “General, the clock says fifteen more minutes! If we try to induce snap-back now, there’s no telling what shape she’ll come back in.” Suddenly, a panel over a young tech’s head bulged inward and snapped off its braces, sending the young man flying from his board. “Django, are you all right, man?” Cal jumped up to tend to his fellow worker.

  Through the buzz and hiss of interference, he heard Ben-Iman’s angry retort. “I can’t properly engage these bastards and protect your ass! You will shut down your class project, engage the machine shields, and evacuate now!” The hiss spiked for a moment. “… Losing the assets is not an option.” The noise overcame the general’s voice until it was lost in static.