The Watcher

by Bill Stenlake

  They also conclude that when these survivors saw them approaching their planet, they set up the warning message and then took to their craft, to remain out of reach. They must be hiding in the sea. That means another thing though. They have a craft that can resist the attacks of the sea creatures. Or on the other hand, maybe the sea creatures are not as vicious as they have been lead to believe. Piranhas attack things that come into the water. In fact that was what it was like when one of them had ventured into the water the other day. That is not to say they could attack and disable a water craft.

  Valpar decides to test out this theory, using one of his craft. He asks for a volunteer to go, but none is forthcoming on that front. It leaves him no choice, but to offer to be the one who goes. He notices that some of the men around him have looks that want him not to come back alive. That way they will be able to take over his position and have the wealth for themselves. Not that any one of them does not already more than sufficient wealth, to be able to do anything they want to, anywhere in the universe. But then greed is the motivating factor and some people can never have enough.

  Valpar moves his craft down to the water’s edge. The others have come along to watch him go. They have brought another craft, but it has already been agreed that if things go badly wrong, then they won’t try to rescue him.

  Valpar enters the water slowly, in his craft. He gets in several yards and then stops. His craft has ropes attached, that the ones on land can pull him back out; if he is unable to if he gets attacked. There is little doubt in anyone’s head that he is going to get attacked. That is the threat they have been told about, to put them off.

  Sure enough, as soon as he stops, the water starts thrashing around with sea creatures. Inside the craft, Valpar can see them. They do not attack his craft though; they just thrash around in the water around him. He gives it about a minute and then decides that it is alright to go further in. The creatures move away and leave him to advance further into the water. He gets further out and then submerges. There don’t appear to be that many creatures around. Certainly none of them come up to his craft, in either an interest or aggressive approach. It would appear that the main threat in the water on this planet; is that it must contain the virus that is so deadly to the people and animals on the land. He switches on the instruments and starts to search for other craft in the waters.

  Grillech is still waiting for a response from the craft in front of him, to let them know if they are going to be allowed to land. There has been maybe a wait of an hour so far. In the meantime he has had his hands full, because the Cotons have heard what he said to the people of Nitll. They have heard him say that the engines are not working properly. He is surprised that they did not notice it on the approach. He had, but as it turns out, they hadn’t. He explains the bit about the possible change of ability. They are not happy about it, because they had been expecting similar things for the craft they were going to build. Grillech had never intended that level of technology, but he hadn’t told them that much when he had laid out his plan for them to have their own slice of the cake. He debates whether he should share his concerns about the weapons and the androids too. He is really unsure how they will take that information. Too much bad news on top of bad news!

  He thinks that the best alternative would be to actually withdraw and then go back to one of the planets they have previously conquered and build their craft, androids and weapons from there. He decides to throw that to them as a possibility. They are having none of it. They are determined to do what they originally planned to do. They have come here to get their own powers and that is that in their head. They won’t listen to what he says about the people here, being much more advanced than they had been aware of. He is in a very awkward situation and he only has as long as it takes for the people of Nitll to come back with their decision. The Cotons aren’t going to like it, if they won’t let them land.

  Grillech leaves the control room, telling the Cotons to come and fetch him, if they get a response before he gets back. He goes to his quarters and gets some things together. He then goes to the launch pad. He doesn’t know if the small craft there are capable of the journey he wants to make, but he sees it as his only possible way to escape and survive. The Cotons are only going to react one way. If they are allowed to go down to the surface, then they will try to attack when they get there. If they are not given permission to land on the planet, then they are going to try to land anyway, so they are likely to get fired on, by the six craft that they have sent up to meet them. Grillech believes that if their technology is so superior to what they were informed it was, so then their fighting capability will be too. That combined with the probability that Grillech’s and the Cotons’ weapons are less powerful than they were, will result in death for him and Cotons. He doesn’t need that.

  He loads his things into the craft. Now the question is; does he go back and tell the Cotons he is going to give them this ship and they can decide what they want to do, or does he just go. The decision is taken out of his hands.

  ‘We have seen that you are carrying no cargo. All you have is your people and androids. We do not believe you are here on a peaceful mission. We do not believe that there is a fault with your engines. Our decision will follow in five minutes.’

  This is what appears on the screens in the control room. The Cotons do not go to get Grillech. They see the six craft that had been very close to them, now start moving again. They are not moving towards them though, but they are moving backwards away from them. They are spread out in a fan and retreating very fast. Five minutes later they stop. They are spread out in a fan shape, still pointing towards their craft.

  The message appears on the screen in front of the Cotons:

  ‘Permission to land on the planet Nitll is denied. Please leave this planet and go somewhere else. We will open fire if you make a move to land on Nitll.

  Chapter 26 Ricardo

  Ricardo gets up and walks away from the bench he has been sitting on. He is puzzled as to why the weapon is no longer working. He still has not made the connection, about the change in him affecting his weapon too. The weapon just isn’t working. He knows he has to abort this attack. He walks leisurely away and takes a few turns, knowing he is actually walking away from where his car is parked up. Half an hour later he is back in his car. He quickly wraps up the weapon and stores it back in its place under his seat. He pulls away and joins the traffic. He hasn’t actually done anything, so there is nothing for him to worry about; well he hopes there isn’t. He joins the 70, after taking a few wrong turns. There is no doubt that the weapon failing on him has rattled him a bit. He thought he had his route planned out fairly and squarely in his head.

  When on the 70, he makes towards Hagerstown. Again it isn’t far that he has to go; maybe just over thirty miles again. When he gets there, he drives around until he finds a motel that he thinks will be good to stay in. He books a room for the night and takes his stuff into his room. There in the privacy of the room, he takes out the weapon and has a look at it. Now, the last time he tried to use it, even aiming it down at his feet, there was absolutely no evidence of it working. So he is sitting there on his bed with the weapon in his hand. He aims it at the bathroom door, fully expecting it to be still not working. He depresses the trigger. The bathroom door is blown off its hinges. The weapon also makes a noise as it fires.

  ‘Holy shit’ he can’t help him shouting out loud at this. ‘What is going on here?’ He puts the weapon down on the bed, as if it is something too hot to handle. Well, it is in some senses. He doesn’t know what its capabilities are. It used to be a really powerful weapon. Then it didn’t work at all. Now it is working again. It is still a powerful weapon. Look at the door. Look at what it has done to it! But it has only done minor damage, against what it would have been able to do before. Then things start to click in his head.

  He needs to find somewhere that he can test out the weapon. Obviously like him, it is not the same as it was befor
e. But he can’t embark on the next stage of his crusade, unless he knows the capabilities of his weapon. The biggest question he has in his head about it now, is whether he can keep on using the weapon in its new state, without having to reload it? The old one was capable of that. And that is probably more to the point of the current issue. If it has to be reloaded, then he has a problem. What does he reload it with? Now he starts to think about it some more. He is going to assume that the weapon has only been fired the once and that is into the bathroom door. Therefore on that assumption, the gun still must be nearly fully loaded. And so that means he can use it now to access more weapons. He is thinking about the weapons that he will need, if the next stage of what he wants to do is going to have any meaning.

  The only problem he has at this minute; is the state of the bathroom door. He has no problem paying for it. He has plenty of cash. It is just the explaining of it that is the problem. He doesn’t know how to explain it. That is going to make this a problem for him. How much will a door cost to replace? He is going to have to change some stuff again. He is going to abandon the rental car. He will leave that here in the parking lot of the motel. He will leave several hundred dollars to pay for the door. He doesn’t want to have people chasing him, even the false him, for something he can sort right now.

  He lifts the door off the floor and leans it against the wall inside the bathroom. You can only see it is not attached, if you go into the bathroom. He sits down and starts to think some more. Obviously when he was being manipulated totally before, things were happening. Money and other things appeared. Will that continue, or have things stopped happening like that completely?

  Ricardo has a coffee. He needs to get organized. By the time tomorrow morning comes, he needs to be not here. He needs to have got himself another set of wheels. He needs to have acquired some new weapons, to use when his runs out of ammunition. To that end, he goes out walking in the local neighborhood, to see what he can find there. He’d like a new set of wheels that won’t necessarily be traceable. That means going to a different kind of area. This area is not that kind. But every town and city has a poor area; an area where the rules are slightly different. In Hagerstown this area is Bardsville village.

  He drives round Hagerstown, until he comes across what he is looking for. Bardsville village has all the hallmarks of the type of place he is looking for. He has brought a limited amount of money with him. It was a difficult decision to leave his bag at the motel. That was why he didn’t do it. He left that motel and found another hotel in a different area. He has left the money for the door. Hopefully they will find that in the morning, when they come to clean the room.

  In his new room, he found a place to leave his money. The side panel of the bath came away relatively easily and more importantly, fitted back on just as easily. So with him on this task, he has a pocket full of money. He has the weapon tucked into his pants and he has the rental car. Having found the area, he tours round, looking for cars that might be for sale. There are some parked at the side of the road, but he really wants to buy one from a dealer. He can only find the one, so he stops off there. He parks the rental car about half a mile from there. He doesn’t want them to see it and remember it. It might be a risk leaving it there, but he hasn’t a lot of choice in that. He is going to abandon the vehicle anyway, so if it goes now instead of later, then it isn’t exactly making a lot of difference.

  When he gets to the car dealer, he looks around the cars. They are quite old and to be honest, not quite up to what he needs. In normal circumstances he would have walked away if he couldn’t find what he wants. But today his needs are a bit more pressing. He needs to arrange something today. The lot owner strolls over to him. He asks what he is looking for. Ricardo makes a move towards one of the cars and the guy shows him the inside and even starts up the engine. Ricardo stands back, making that he is thinking about making a decision on it. The owner can smell a sale. Ricardo then voices his concern. The car is a bit older than he would like. He would prefer something a bit more modern and less noticeable, if the owner knows what he means. The owner knows. He looks around the rest of the cars in his lot and knows straight away, that he doesn’t have the car here to fulfil this customer’s need. But car salesmen are a special breed. They are nothing if they are not resourceful. He doesn’t walk away from Ricardo. He takes out his cell phone. He dials a number, after telling Ricardo that he thinks he has just the vehicle.

  The conversation is brief. It is almost too brief, but it is what it is. The result is that a car is being driven round to them. It will be with them in ten minutes, maybe fifteen. In the meantime, he takes Ricardo into his small office and makes him a coffee. Ricardo decides he might as well ask another question. Does the guy know where he can get some other stuff? Strangely the owner of the lot does not ask what stuff. It is almost as if he already knows.

  ‘It depends if you like the car he’s trying to sell. He could be your guy for other stock, shall we say.’

  The coffee has been drunk, when a car turns into the lot. The guy has got it right. It is a standard saloon car. It isn’t a bright color and it is no more than a couple of years old, at the most. Ricardo smiles, as the car is brought to a stop by the office. He isn’t doing it to make a point; he is doing it, because it is exactly the type of vehicle he needs.

  He takes the car for a run and then they return to the car lot, to make the deal. Before they conclude that, the owner of the lot suggests to the car owner that there might be other business to be done. Buy the car first and then he will discuss Ricardo’s other requirements. Ricardo does not negotiate that hard. He has the cash to make the deal. It is within his car budget anyway. The rest of the cash he has with him is available for new guns and ammunition. He doesn’t think he will get any powerful weapons, other than guns. They can see the cash he has. He makes no show of having any more. He is willing to spend what they can see. That money gets him an AK47 and a handgun, together with more than plentiful supply of ammunition.

  Those goods are delivered an hour later to the lot. The owner gets a cut from the car sale. Ricardo collects his goods and drives round to where his rental car is parked. He opens the door and puts the key on the floor well. He checks there is nothing in there and drives off, leaving it. He goes to his hotel and collects his money and bag from there. He is not going to stay the night there. In fact, he decides that he needs to move to another town to spend the night. It is not that he expects any trouble. Both transactions have gone smoothly. At no point was there any suggestion that things could get dirty. His weapon had been at the ready, but he is happier it remained out of sight.

  Chapter 27 The Watcher

  ‘Can you see it yet?’ The Watcher asks out loud.

  The only one who answers is George.

  ‘I can’t, but I can feel it is close by.’

  ‘I am getting that feeling too.’ The Watcher says.

  ‘I can’t see a thing’ The Wise Soul states, even though he knows the comment is not aimed at him. The others are all looking through the observation window; scouring the space in front of them, for something they are unlikely going to be able to see at a distance.

  Their speed has slowed down markedly. In precise terms, they are down to a fraction of the slowest crawl.

  ‘I think we need to come to a stop now’ George says.

  The Watcher immediately does as he has said.

  They scan the space, all 360 degrees around them. It is filled with nothing at all. There are several sets of eyes waiting for something to happen; waiting for something to appear on the screen in front of them. The screen goes blank, the window obscures, and the control room goes completely dark. It remains that way for more than a second or two. It remains that way for more than a minute and then the light returns. The screen lights up and the observation window becomes clear, so that they can see through it once more. But now there is something to see.

  It is way smaller than they had all imagined, what they are approaching wa
s going to be. It is there in front of them now. It is large, for something that isn’t natural. It is large, for something that someone or something has built, to be out here in the middle of space. It is small, if you were thinking you were going to be seeing a planet or an asteroid even. It is however, just what they need it to be at this very moment.

  ‘It is going to guide us in’ The Watcher announces.

  ‘This is going to be so interesting’ George says, to no one in particular.

  The others are gathered around the observation window, as the craft is drawn closer to the station in space. That is what this is; a station in space, but a huge station that is waiting for them to approach and dock.

  Even though he is no longer in charge of controlling their craft, The Watcher stays by the controls, to make sure all goes well. Other than the brief message, there has been no other communication, to tell them who this station might belong to. For all they know, it may be an alien force and this might be their last act ever. It seems to take an age making the approach towards the station. They get there in the end. They get right into the mouth of the station and land gently on the internal launch pad. They wait for the message, to tell them to disembark. It comes soon enough. They come out into an area which is larger than a football field. It is a bit of a disappointment for them to see that theirs is the only craft there. Who knows how many other craft each of them expected to see? That is except for George and The Watcher. Neither of them expected to see any other craft.