by Carl Derham
*
Oli decided that curiosity might have ruined the cat’s day, but he just had to have a closer look at the light panel. He was cagily sliding one foot in front of the other, with his arms outstretched, waving from side to side like an out-of-control somnambulist, making a painfully slow advance towards the lights, when the whole room lit up. At first, the bright light dazzled him and he put his hand over his eyes. Slowly, he began to crack his fingers apart and for the first time, was able to make out the very strange environment in which he found himself. He was in a room, about the size of his living room, and just over three metres in height. The end of the room with the light panel was curved in all directions and the light panel was set into a concave, sloping desktop, constructed from shiny grey metal, with just a few lights occupying the central part of the desk. Above the desk, following the curve of the room was a giant, black, very blank screen. He twisted his head in a most unnatural manner to examine the rest of the room. The walls of the room were made from a lighter grey material with a matt finish. There was the outline of a closed door behind him. That was it! No furniture, windows, or any other feature. He looked up, wondering if he would see the tunnel that had transported him to this rather strange place, but if there had been a tunnel, it was concealed behind a closed door, the outline of which was barely visible. He spun back to face the direction of the curved desk. It had some symbols that he had never seen before printed across the top above the lights. Some of the lights were flashing and two rows of yellow lights at the top of the desk were slowly lighting up in opposite directions. The desk had three screens set into it protruding at an angle and there were two panels of buttons, one on either side of the desk, also with graphics that made no sense to him.
“Woaw!” said Oli.
“Hello Oli.”
The voice seemed to emanate from all around. It was soft, male and seemed somehow friendly, like a favourite uncle arriving with gifts for a birthday party. Still, Oli jumped and took a step back from the control desk.
“Who said that, and how do you know my name?”
“I am the ship, and I know you, better than you know yourself Oli.”
Now this is a bit odd, thought Oli. He had millions of questions all jostling for position to be first out of the mouth.
“Where’s my hat?”
“You weren’t wearing a hat Oli. Why don’t you sit down, try to relax and I will explain why you are here.”
With that, a small door slid open in the wall at the side of the control desk, causing Oli to run in the opposite direction for a couple of seconds before reaching the other side of the room. Oli wasn’t predisposed to unnecessary panic, after all, a level head was required to drop in on a thundering wall of water and ride it as far as it would allow, but he was really struggling to control his urge to go just a little bit loopy on this one.
He was half expecting a bizarre creature to emerge from the opening, but instead, a very comfortable-looking high-backed chair glided silently across the floor and came to rest in front of the curved desk. Oli cautiously approached the chair with an ever-increasing look of perplexity. The chair had no wheels, just a black rod extending to the floor and tapering to a single point. Oli wasn’t sure about sitting on it. Surly it couldn’t balance on such a tiny spike. He gave it a gentle shake, half expecting it to topple over. It felt solid, not even the slightest wobble. By this time, the entire desk had lit up. Strange symbols were scrolling through at great speed, apparently leaving the confines of the solid panel to hover a few centimetres above the shiny surface. He glanced at the unfeasible base of the chair, then back to the obviously, technologically advanced desk.
Would people who were clever enough to build this… whatever this is, make a chair that fell over every time someone sat on it?
He was beginning to understand that wherever he was, it was not anywhere built by people and was rapidly coming to the conclusion that if a race of beings from another planet, had built furniture that fell over every time someone sat on it, then they probably didn’t present much of a threat. He started giggling to himself at the idea of an invasion fleet coming in to land on Earth, but every time their ships encountered the sort of turbulence that he’d felt approaching Cairo airport, everyone inside fell over.
“Ahem,” the voice interjected.
Oli gingerly lowered himself into the grey padded material. The seat was firm, very stable and probably the most comfortable chair that he had ever sat on.
“Okay mister voice, my heartrate seems to have descended to a level where I’m no longer in danger of ditching. Let’s hear it.”
