by Simon Bown
For Sarah, Izzy and Emma.
Also by Simon G Bown:
NOVEMBER ASTEROID
IMMORTAL SUICIDE
SIMON G BOWN
First published in 2019 by Simon G Bown
The right of Simon G Bown to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All Characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.simongbown.com
Copyright Simon Garfield Bown 2019
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
SIEZURE
TIME WAITS FOR NO WOMAN
IMMORTAL DISCOVERY
STROCIR SUMAE
BARTON LECTURE
SUTTON COURTNEY
CONTACT & DEVELOPMENT
ESCAPE
IMMORTAL TRAUMA
A STEP INTO THE PAST
BARTON HARTSHORN
TIMING AND CO-ORDINATES
PLANET FALL
TIME TRAVEL DISCOVERED
LAS VEGAS 2163
WEEDON BEC
DESPERATE HOPE
DIRECTED TO CERN
THE CHASE BEGINS
MOVE TO HARAS
LUCY’S FIGHT
IMMORTAL SUICIDE
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
Mansell Gamage worried for his friend Barton. He had been unable to find him all morning and despite his many efforts at contact there was still no answer.
Their lunch yesterday had been a depressing affair. Barton had played with his food and conducted himself in an unhappy introspective manner. It was not as if Barton had anyone else to turn to, people at best ignored him or at worst were openly aggressive. He was still an outcast even after all this time.
He studied his appearance in the mirror. His close cut, partly greyed hair and clean shaven face did little to indicate his several billion years of life. As always his immortal body remained slim and muscular. The dark three piece suit fit well and he smiled as he checked his pocket watch and found he was ready to leave at exactly the correct time. He closed the door to his hotel room, walked to the lift and pressed the button. He was staying in an exact replica of an early twentieth century London hotel. It excelled in the old world charm Mansell loved, the floorboards creaked when he walked, the plumbing didn’t always work and the lighting sometimes dimmed for no apparent reason. The lift doors opened and he entered. The three occupants had each over time enjoyed a relationship of varying intensity with Mansell. No words passed between them, the immortals had lived a life so long and complicated that to stay in contact or even acknowledge one another’s past associations would require a polite conversation with everyone one met.
He passed through the hotel doors and paused for a moment on the steps to take in the sight of the multitude of immortals walking past. The wide tree lined avenue was teeming with the remainder of the human race, all heading for the same vantage point above the city. A gathering of so many from across the universe only served to bring home to him how important the night was.
He closed his eyes and felt a familiar lightness as he immersed himself in a wash of telepathic noise. All at once he understood who every single person passing in front of him was. His friend Barton Hartshorn should have been amongst the crowd but he was not. He sighed and joined the mass leaving the city for the northern slopes.
The immortal members of the human race had returned to witness the one remaining point of light in the night’s sky vanish. This last visible galaxy racing away in an eager, frenzied dash to discover the limits of the universe would pass beyond light’s almost limitless reach and leave the colony’s sky dark and without interest.
Mansell sensed a high level of anticipation in the people around him. Excited conversation and laughter resounded throughout the crowd but still the underlying mood was gloomy. The fact that this last remaining piece of their home planet would be alone in the abyss was for most, at the very least, disturbing.
The colony’s weather matrix had established a balmy summer evening and many people walked with picnic baskets and drinks. Mansell’s only regret was the lack of children. The curse of living forever was the inability to reproduce, nature’s built in means to prevent the universe filling up with immortals.
The city buildings slowly petered out into green suburbs and then Mansell was in the open countryside. The level ground slowly raised in degrees as the side of the valley asserted its incline. People settled on the grass as they reached the top of the valley rise.
Mansell became aware of an unmistakable telepathic essence, it was Barton.
“I can see you, if you walk to your left and look up I am by the tree,” he said.
Mansell spotted the tree and made his way up to join him. He sat on the grass in an ungainly heap.
Barton Hartshorn collapsed next to him in an equally graceless pile. His old, dark suit was two sizes too big and his unkempt hair fell forward over his eyes. He remained silent and watched and waited for the day’s event to reach its climax.
A warning was delivered across a broad telepathic affinity and the noise of conversations quickly faded to nothing. Artificial daylight suddenly ceased as the weather managers switched the colony to night. The single feeble point of light was clearly visible thirty degrees above the horizon. The thousands of anxious witnesses waited for the moment the light would disappear.
A universe fated to expand at an explosive velocity, propelled by the first and most powerful detonation, finally leaving this part of its own creation totally isolated. This fragment of Earth, this last piece of their home planet floating alone in the abyss of the ever expanding universe.
Eyes strained to gather in more light as the galaxy slowly faded from view. A collective telepathic bond permeated the age-old community connecting the race as never before for a moment of shared wonder.
Mansell lay on his back and waited for his friend to speak. Barton’s mood had been dark since he had returned to the colony. Mansell decided to give him time until he was ready to talk rather than trying to coax him into conversation. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small bottle of whisky, he took a short sip and allowed the liquid to slowly drain from his mouth. He offered it to Barton but he declined.
“Did you ever think we would end up like this?” Barton asked. He played with a blade of grass to avoid eye contact.
“End up like what?” Mansell asked.
“Watching the universe expand beyond sight, waiting for a death that will never come?”
Mansell had always been an optimist, his constantly cheerful disposition could be annoying but in the last few thousand years he had learned how to be the serious listener. “Waiting for a death that will never come? You’re not going into one of your depressive retrospective phases are you?”
Barton caught Mansell’s eye. “Don’t you ever look back and regret things you have done?”
“I find it difficult remembering much of my life but yes there are some things I wish I had not done. It’s too late now though, you have to live with it.”
Barton shook his head. “No, I can’t live with it. I have to go back and do something. Change what I have done.”
Mansell was becoming uneasy, he shifted himself around to face Barton directly. “What do you mean ‘go back’? Time travel is forbidden, we can’t interfere anymore.”
Barton continued, ignoring his friends protest. “I have found somebody on Earth, somebody with the rare leap of imagination to understand what I will ask of her. A person totally lacking any telepathic talent, a perfect catalyst for my plan.”
Mansell was shocked “But to Earth? How far back are you thinking?”
“The twenty first century, Teafu was there for a short time. With a little help I can find him and stop him.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you. You will have to play out this madness on your own.” Mansell was becoming increasingly worried, his friends unhappy state had obviously deteriorated far further than he had thought.
Barton got to his feet and brushed the grass from his trousers. Without looking at Mansell he replied in a bitter distant tone. “I can but try.”
SIEZURE
Weedon Bec put the thought of capture to the back of his mind, he had an important task and he didn’t want stray thoughts clouding his judgement. The jump bell chimed signalling that they had arrived at their destination. The large star-ship fell out of the wormhole into normal space and fired the forward thrusters to halt all movement. Gravity waves rippled out from their emergence site pinpointing the ship’s quantum arrival to all the watching security systems. The gravity jump had placed the star-ship close to a small rocky planet on the outer reaches of the Noinu system, close enough to plot a detailed course to the target moon but also far enough out for a quick exit if needed.
The central office of the Amalgam security service was located on the second moon of the only gas giant in the system. Every passive sensor technology ever conceived was seeded throughout the local area of space to watch over an installation that officially didn’t exist.
Alarms of varying enthusiasm filled the halls, offices and buildings of every security department of every agency in the system. A cacophony of shrill electronic distress desperately pointing to the unauthorised appearance of a most sought after star-ship.
Monitoring staff alerted their superiors to the audacious arrival and they in turn activated emergency security crew. But their urgency failed and petered out. The bewildered personnel sat confused looking upon their display equipment without a sense of what it was they were doing. One by one the alarms ceased their commotion as the oblivious staff de-activated them.
Weedon released his jump web and activated the pilot seat. It raised him from the passive jump posture to the active pilot position. His hologram display came to life in front of him, various coloured icons danced across the main grid pattern in a three dimensional representation of their immediate area. To his left the defence status grid indicated the gradual step down of security as red icons switched to green.
He didn’t like the pilot seat. It was just a bit too small. He had reached an above average height in his adolescence and since then had found life always a little uncomfortable. He stretched his arms over his head as he waited for the fusion reactors to come on line. The display showed zero activity. He yawned, moved his head from side to side cracking his neck and with nothing better to do picked a small piece of white fluff from the sleeve of his dark purple velvet suit jacket. Still no activity. He called over his shoulder, “Sutton? Sutton are you awake?”
Sutton Courtney raised her eyes in exasperation. “Can’t you wait for a few minutes? I mean, are you not capable of just a little patience?” She returned to her drive systems start up routine.
Weedon turned, looked over the back of his seat and rested his chin on the headrest. He watched her intense expression as she worked at her terminal, entering commands and reacting to their outcome. She had chosen to wear black trousers and polo neck top for this mission. Easy to fit the munitions belt over and very practical unlike Weedon’s ridiculous insistence on wearing his usual flamboyant attire.
Weedon knew that the fusion reactors were shut down just before a gravity jump and that they took time to start up from cold. Green icons lit up across the drive display indicating available power for the engines. Sutton monitored the reactors as Weedon set the star-ship on course for the small mediocre moon. He found piloting the star-ship a dull exercise. He had trained in small, fast two-man space planes and this lumbering giant did not appeal to his talent for pace and manoeuvre. The vessel took too much time to respond to his piloting. Each command delayed slightly as the engines wrestled with the mass of the enormous craft.
Teg star-ships were the workhorses of the known worlds’ transport industries. Built to be reliable and dependable not to be thrown about in Weedon’s preferred reckless manner. They were constructed from the most basic component design and their numbers counted in the thousands. All new craft left the docks suffering an ugly construction that did not place priority on appearance but on functionality. The sight of different alterations had become commonplace as owners repaired or rebuilt to their own specifications and flight controllers had become used to seeing odd configurations. This ship’s modifications involved heavy weapons and powerful gravity generators, which were easily hidden amongst the confusing assembly.
The moon orbited close to the massive gas planet and rotated upon its axis once every thirty hours. As the star-ship approached the moon the size of its parent planet became more and more imposing. Instead of a globe the atmosphere appeared to be a sheer wall rising from a bottomless depth to an unimaginable height.
Weedon secured the ship in a geostationary orbit above the heart of the security section’s small city. He leapt out of the pilot seat and quickly left Sutton to finish the final parking lockdown. He ignored her disdainful look as he passed and exited through the door.
The ship’s chaotic interior did little to hamper Weedon in his eager efforts to get to the space plane hangar. Artificial gravity was not applied to a vast percentage of the star-ship’s interior and he swam through the craft’s tangled mess of structure with speed and agility. Part of the money saving philosophy in building these craft was to do away with niceties such as corridors and rooms, if you wanted them you either built them in yourself or bought an entirely different spacecraft.
He arrived in the hangar and activated one of the launch cradles. The space planes were stored in large recessed compartments on either side of the hangar giving easy access for engineering and maintenance. The cradle moved with a frustrating momentum as it retrieved the space plane from its compartment. Loud creaks and groans echoed through the hanger as the cradle settled the space plane into the launch position over the hanger doors. The link gantry extended, with Weedon already on it, to the space plane airlock where it connected with a loud bang. The claw stabilisers reached out from the gantry and seized the craft. Weedon keyed in a short code into the lock and the doors opened to allow entry. He slipped into the pilot seat and switched on the main computers. Systems quickly came online as Weedon skipped every flight check and initialised full readiness. The moon’s terrain appeared on his display and he worked out a course to their destination.
The door to the small cockpit opened and Sutton entered carrying both hers and Weedon’s plasma assault rifles.
“You took your time.” Weedon said. He looked at the rifles and then back at Sutton and then back at the rifles. “What are those for?” He asked.
Sutton didn’t reply but dropped the weapons to her feet as a sign of her contempt. She sat in the navigator’s seat and strapped herself in. The command networks activated automatically giving her control of the terminal.
Flight readiness was achieved but despite their haste in coming to this point they stopped. Both Weedon and Sutton relaxed into their seats and fell into a deep meditation. The cold environment of the functional cockpit faded from their foremost perception to be replaced by a telepathically constructed reality. A virtual world built entirely in their own minds.
Weedon smiled as he appeared on the wide, open pavem
ent next to Sutton. He picked his sunglasses from the top pocket of his flamboyant suit jacket and slipped them on. Sutton looked down at her short summer dress and sighed. The stream of passing people took no notice of this couple who had just arrived out of thin air. They walked to the nearby pavement café and sat at one of the outside tables. A waitress took their order, a coffee for Weedon and water for Sutton.
Weedon leaned forward and whispered to Sutton. “Have you seen him?”
Sutton looked over her shoulder and checked the area before replying. “No. It’s not like him to be late.”
Teafu materialised and sat at the table. “Not like who to be late?” He asked. Teafu manifested himself as a being of light, a figure clearly flesh and blood but shining with a startling luminance. But even as his form impressed an astounding vision, attention was ultimately drawn to his distressing eyes. A depth of menace and evil intent seemed to reach out from the darkness and permeate the surroundings, pulling in life and colour.
Weedon was entirely unimpressed and talked to him with little patience. “We are ready to land, have you cleared our way?”
Teafu smiled. “Of course. Brightwell Baldwin is located in the main security bunker. He has great confidence in his defences, he will be very surprised when you walk in.”
Weedon looked at Sutton, she glanced at him and closed her eyes. A momentary shift in balance indicated a return to normal consciousness.
Weedon opened his eyes and started the launch cycle. The hanger bay doors opened below the space plane, air exited the bay in an explosive decompression and shook the small craft as it rushed out into open space.
Brightwell Baldwin entered the area outside his private office and greeted each of his personal staff as he passed. He collected a new set of data slips from his administrative assistant and continued to his private office. The large doors recognised his security implant and opened automatically to allow entrance into the office of his private secretary. Several visitors sat lined up along one wall, each one early for their meeting with the head of security. Brightwell smiled at them, went through into his own office and sat in his large chair. The leather creaked as he pulled himself up to his desk, his large stomach prevented him from getting as close as he would like. His secretary entered and delivered a cup of tea.
