The Watcher

by Bill Stenlake

  ‘Now that’s a useful weapon.’

  ‘I have never seen one in use before, but it is mightily impressive.’

  ‘I have to agree, that was something else. You didn’t have any choice with that.’

  ‘I don’t have a problem with it. They took me against my will. I may not know what being The Keeper is, but now, having being able to use that weapon when it wouldn’t work for him; well I know that I do have some power and that being The Keeper is something really special.’

  ‘It’s a shame that he has gone completely though. Maybe those buttons would have worked for you, to open the doors and get us in there.’

  ‘I don’t think that android had any buttons. It was just the other android and GM3 who had them, as far as I could see. Anyway, we don’t know what is inside. We have one weapon against who knows how many androids or robots in there.’

  ‘There is also the one who is named Spirit. We know he is in there too. He is one of us. In fact he is very like you in so many ways. You will see that when we meet him.’

  ‘I think we should maybe see what GM3 is doing. Maybe we can get one of those buttons from them, to get into the base.’

  ‘You can use the Air Micro Compounder weapon to remove the shackles. Think about what you want to do and it will control the power it uses to achieve that.’

  Two minutes later and the shackles are all off.

  ‘I don’t think we should go in a direct line. We should go over that way and try to get close without being seen.’

  They move off to the side and then move slowly in the general direction of GM3’s craft. They err on a margin of safety, as they can’t actually see exactly where the craft is from where they are. There is a bit of cover, if they move over a bit further. They decide to do this, as they think that GM3 might well be even more unpredictable than usual. In fact they think the changes in him might well have tipped him over the edge.

  They get to the point where they think the craft will come into view, and it does. They peer round the rocks, trying to remain unseen. The craft is there of course, but it is not opened up. They can see the android standing just outside the closed doorway. There is no sign of GM3. The question is; did he manage to get inside? If he did, then he is probably in there, but if he didn’t, then the question is; where is he?

  Chapter 17 The Baddies

  Posdon is puzzled by his inability to break down the door. He needs to think about this for a bit. In the meantime, he sends the two androids out beyond where the buildings are, to see if there might be other places where the people could be. He thought he saw other settlements on the way down. None of them were big, but they still exist. It is really odd that there isn’t a soul around, now they have arrived here. He goes to check on what GM3 has written for them about this planet, again.

  The people on Zenfa 2, according to the information GM3 has given about them, are a mild mannered folk. They do not bear arms and part of that is because there is little on the planet for them to have the need to do so. There are no great riches. There are some base metals and minerals, but only those that provide a comfortable existence for these people.

  He reads through the information a couple of times. The buildings they have come across don’t exactly fit in with what he is reading. They are supposed to be mild mannered. It also says they do not bear arms. Posdon is getting a funny feeling about the people he might come across here.

  The androids are maybe half an hour out of the settlement, when he loses contact with them. His first thought is that they might have gone down into a dip and the signal can’t get back to them. Alternatively they might have gone round a hill or something, again blocking the signal. He hasn’t been watching the monitor, as he has been concentrating on reviewing the information in the file. Now there is nothing to watch, just a fuzzy screen. He gives it half an hour, but they are still not back in contact.

  This time he sends four androids out on patrol. He makes them go around in pairs, as they follow the path the first two had taken. He makes sure that he keeps eyes on the monitors this time. He is joined by some of the others. Each android is fitted with a camera, so they can watch their progress. About the same distance out as when the first two lost contact, the forward androids this time reach the edge of some trees. Posdon instructs them to stop, while the second pair catches up with them. The land in front of them is covered in trees. Posdon can’t remember that from their descent, but there is no denying there are trees in front of the androids now. When they are all together, one android steps forward and walks into the wooded area. Posdon allocates two of his men to keep an eye on the monitors of the other three androids, while he and the others watch the monitor of the one who is now walking in the trees. It has gone no more than fifty yards, when the land starts to fall. That is not obvious from the view the other three androids have.

  As soon as the land starts to fall, there is also a mist develops. It is less easy to see where it is going. Posdon instructs the android to slow down. The mist keeps on getting thicker. Then suddenly, something appears in front of them. It is something that has been thrown over the android. That is quickly followed by a picture of the android being mobbed by small creatures. They are standing on two legs, but are maybe only two or three feet tall. They all smother the android and it isn’t long before the camera stops sending them any pictures and a few seconds later, before contact is lost. Posdon has a thought. He gets one of the androids to come back to the settlement. When it gets there, he tells it to go into one of the buildings that have the rows of beds in it. It hasn’t occurred to him until now, to ask the question he now is going to. How long are the beds in these buildings?

  The answer comes back to him very shortly. The beds are all about the same length, about three feet long.

  Valpar goes back inside the house and down to the room they have found the information in. They search through all the papers that are there, to see if they have missed something. It is not apparent that they have. It appears to be written in such a way as to be literal, but they know from experience, that what is written does not work in practice.

  They search all the other buildings. Valpar is impatient to solve this problem. He has a valuable resource literarily at his fingertips, in almost unimaginable quantities, but he doesn’t know what to do with it, to make it work. They come across several other hidden rooms in the basements of the houses. In some of them are written similar instructions to the ones they already have. None of them hint at the fact that you have to do something specific to this material to activate it.

  By the end of the day they are no nearer the solution to this, so they retreat back to the safety of their craft for the night. They meet up over their meal to discuss what they have found and to see if anyone can come up with the solution. No ideas are going to be thought too silly to be considered. They are so close to this, but yet so far.

  They toss the problem around for several hours, without being able to come to any firm solution to their problem. What they do come up with is, that it is likely to turn out to be either extremely simple, the thing they don’t have; or it is going to be extremely challenging. The consensus is that it is more likely to be the latter. If the planet literally has so much wealth, then there has to be a drawback. Mother Nature has a funny way of doing things.

  They retire for the night and wake the next morning, refreshed and ready to continue with their search. They make a detailed search again, but come up with nothing. They try to gather the material in different ways, but they don’t have any change in luck in what it does then. The material reacts the same, no matter where they procure it from.

  They come to the conclusion that they have missed something. It is one of the men close to Valpar, who comes up with a good question. Why does the virus only affect the people on the land? And if that is the case, why do the creatures that are in the sea not succumb to it? Maybe they are immune! That is the assumption he makes. The other thing that has sprung to his mind is; that the virus
has struck more than once. Why might that be? One answer to that, he suggests, is that they come into contact with the virus again. Where is that likely to be? He thinks the answer to that one is; in the sea. Or, maybe to be more precise, is contact with the water in the sea, rather than the animals in the sea. Does that make sense?

  Where does the water on the planet come from? There are no clouds. There are no reservoirs. There are no taps to draw water from, either in the houses or in the streets. Another search around verifies this, up to a point. The point being that they find a couple of water tanks, in a warehouse type of building. They also find containers and machinery which they have seen before, but overlooked as not being pertinent to their quest. Now they are looking at it with different eyes. The machines look like giant food mixers. That is the only way to describe them. The water tanks have pipes leading away from them and the water goes through several filters before it reaches the mixers. They go outside and look at the outside of the building. There are pipes leading up from just above the ground, up to roof level. They conclude that the water is brought here in something and then piped up into the tanks. Somewhere there must be vehicles that collect the water and bring it back here.

  Grillech sends his reply and then waits for the answer. In the meantime the other three craft have arrived. One takes up position behind the other three, while the other two split up with one going to the left and the other one to the right. They stop when they are angled at about 45 degrees, so that if they did fire against Grillech they would not be firing at their own craft.

  ‘You appeared to us to be travelling very fast on your approach. Surely the engines must be working well for you, to go that fast?’

  ‘We were going fast and then the engines made us go slower. They have been doing this for some time. That is what brought us out of our travel pods. We have been looking for somewhere that we can land. Yours is the closest planet that we have information about. There might be facilities that we can use to mend our engines.’

  ‘We do have facilities that you can use. I will have to check, to see whether they will allow you to land. We do not normally let people from other planets land on Nitll. The atmosphere is very dense at one stage. Some craft in the early days found it hard to penetrate going down and going up again. We will have to do some tests on your craft, to see if it will withstand the pressures of entry. We lost some craft in the early days. A couple of visiting craft were lost, before we had the ability to use space flight. It was someone from a visiting craft who gave us their skill, to enable us to be able to develop what we have in use today.’

  Grillech hears what is being said. This is nothing like the information they have about Nitll. Is there a possibility that GM3 has actually visited this place? There is a possibility he has. But then it could be someone from somewhere completely different and they brought advanced technology. Grillech weighs this up and just can’t help but feel the answer is; GM3 has been here and given these people a helping technological hand. Obviously it wouldn’t be the Air Micro Compounder technology, but it would have been valuable enough anyway. There is nothing he can do, whichever way it was delivered here. For the first time since they set out on this crusade, they are not in complete control of everything. He has a nagging concern that if the engines are not functioning properly, then does the fault also affect other things on the craft; namely the weapons and the androids. The robots are relatively basic and are built with everyday technology, but the androids are as special as the engines and the weapons. Could this decrease in power have anything to do with GM3 not being a Guiding Master anymore?

  He doesn’t have the answer to that one and there is no easy way out at the moment. He can’t exactly just fire his weapons to test them out. That could be a bad move, if they aren’t anything like as powerful as before. It could make the difference between them being effective in conquering this planet and being beaten into submission. That would be pointless. He has sufficient riches that he really doesn’t need anything from Nitll. The point of coming here was to give the Cotons their own craft and androids, albeit somewhat less powerful than his, so they could have riches for themselves. And there lies a bit of a problem for him. In the light of the state of the craft, if it was just him he had to think about, then he would consider taking a warning and retreating from Nitll. Always that is, assuming they would let him. He thinks that they would though. The Cotons are not going to accept that. He has just promised them that they can have this planet’s wealth and use this place to build their own craft and androids, to carry on to other planets. Who knows what they might do, if he said they are just going to turn around.

  Chapter 18 Ricardo

  He is really tired. The events of the past however, are catching up with him. Now he has given himself the opportunity to have a rest, his body is taking full advantage of it. He lies on his bed watching the news channels. Maybe his original thought had been; that it wouldn’t be long before the bridges and the tunnels are re-opened in New York. But from what he is seeing there on the news, it is going to be quite a while. Also they are on high alert, so anyone doing something, is likely to be spotted and called in quickly. They also seem to be in a position to respond really quickly. Maybe Ricardo needs to take this somewhere else. It is a big country after all. Maybe he should take it out, into less built up areas. He doesn’t want to go where there are too few people though. He would stand out far too easily there. That wouldn’t be a good thing.

  He goes to the desk and books another night. It is nice and relaxing here, something that he has never really been good at. He really would like to go out and buy a supply of food to take with him, but he is loath to go out in the local district. He is only a mile away from the gas station, where he nearly came into an awkward situation. He doesn’t really want to chance going back there, definitely, but even to other stores in the area. He might come across that guy again, or he might even see the two guys from behind the counter.

  Anyway he isn’t that fussed about what to do in that direction. He can get what he needs from room service for now. He has plenty of cash to pay for it all. They aren’t too keen on him paying cash and having room service, but he has got over that by leaving $200 extra at the desk, to cover what he might order. That has got over that problem. He has the map from the car to look at. He is also making notes on the pad that is in the room.

  He has decided that there is no point going north or east, or anywhere in between. That would take him towards New York and he has already decided not to go there. He doesn’t really want to go southwards either. He’d rather go somewhere where he has a choice of directions, when the time comes to running away, or moving on to the next target. That makes it easier to make the first choice. He decides that he will make for Gaithersburg, when he leaves here in the morning. That stop will be for nothing more than doing a supermarket shop. He wants to have things in the car, so that he can survive, without having to stop all the time to get stuff. That doesn’t mean he won’t stop to get a meal; it just will mean that he doesn’t have to.

  This time he is going to be braver. He is going to leave the weapon in the car when he goes shopping. He is going to need something to hide it in. Ideally a hand towel and a bag would be the answer to that problem. He looks round the room, but decides it would be better if he could get them from another room, so his isn’t short when he comes to leave. He goes out and along the corridor. There is no cart there, being used for room cleaning. He goes up a floor and then another, when that one doesn’t reveal one. Eventually he comes across one and grabs a towel and a pillowcase as he passes. There isn’t anyone around to see him. They might have cameras, but he was quick and they were out of sight before you knew it.

  Back at his room, he wraps the weapon up in the towel and the pillowcase. He puts it ready in his bag. When he gets to the car, he will remove it and put it in one of the side compartments in the boot. He’s not sure what they are made for, but they are ideal for this use.

  He flicks t
hrough the channels for the rest of the day and retires early for his night’s sleep. The only other thought that has come to him overnight is; should he change his vehicle? He decides that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do that. He goes down to the desk and asks there, where he can hire a car. They know he already has one, so he makes up a story that he has a friend coming to meet him and they will need another car. The concierge says he can arrange one, no problem. Ricardo risks using the ID he has, from the guy he stole it from near Denver. It goes through easily enough and the car is delivered an hour later.

  He is going to be later setting off than he wanted to be, but there is still a lot of the day left. He needs to get rid of his own car as well though. All in all, he decides by the time he has done that and then come back here, it will be later than he really wants to be leaving at. There is no rush now, he feels, so he books yet another night in the hotel, before sorting the things he has to sort.

  He is in a bit of a quandary, as to whether he should take his weapon with him, when he goes out to dump his own car. It is one thing leaving it hidden in the trunk of the car while he goes shopping in the supermarket, but totally another, going out to dump it, when he doesn’t know how long he is going to be out for. He decides that the place he is staying in; is not in a bad area. He won’t leave it in the room, but he will take it out to the new hire car and leave it in that, under the driver’s seat. He leaves the room and goes down to the parking lot. He goes to his own car first, to make sure that there isn’t anything left in there that he might need; there isn’t. He also checks to see that there isn’t anything left in there that might point to him; there isn’t any either. He walks across to where they have parked the rental car. He gets in and takes it for a ride round the block. In that time he secrets the weapon under the driver’s seat. He comes back into the parking lot and parks up again. He goes up to his room and then about half an hour later, comes down to take his first car to be dumped.