by Chris Troman
you moron. I've just seen the flash of a retro blast. We'll be fighting over the best asteroids."
With a gasp Ron saw his partner was right, had Ron got a premonition this might happen? He sprang into action, plotting the richest pickings for the ten remaining rocket sets. In seconds he had the hit list. While Jake dragged all their markers from their storage unit, Ron manoeuvred the ship in to position.
Strictly speaking this sort of action didn't follow the code of mining. But the letter of the law said once a beacon was up and running, you had a month to mine its recipient. And they were not going to be driven away by some latecomers to the party. So by the time the new arrivals were awake enough to hail them, Ron was putting out the penultimate beacon. He had swapped with Jake, when the other man got tired. "Hey you guys, no fair we've just come a quarter of the way round the disc for those." "Well you should have got here earlier. Finders keepers." Jake barked back from the control room.
Then he switched coms to Ron. "Ready for the last one, those guys are spitting feathers." "Sure." And they off they sped to a Carbonaceous rich rock, that would finish their rockets off. By the time Ron was back on board, Jake had noted down the last security code from the computer. In the case of a dispute, he was not planning to lose out. "I bet those guys are sick as parrots" Jake laughed, as he turned to his partner. "Still there's plenty of C type's out there." Then they went for a well-deserved supper.
Over the next week Ron and Jake took turns setting up the rockets. While their neighbour’s craft moved about with purpose, trying to make a decent profit from the fields remaining asteroids. "Do you think we should fill the hold here, or move on? Those guys must be pretty mad at us”, Ron asked over breakfast. "Well there's a good trail of smaller rocks some distance behind us." Came the reply from behind a cheep novel. "Why don't we just drift off and leave them to it." So with a glance back at the only humans within a million miles, they set off on the Tritium rockets for the next stage of their mission. As they neared the potentially deadly cloud of debris, Ron and Jake suited up. If any thing breached the hull, they needed to be prepared. The front of the craft seemed to move away from the back, as a web like cage unfolded.
This was the main cargo hold. Where aerodynamics mean little, such a space came into its own. Only the mass inside it really mattered. Next a vast net of fine Mallomite mesh was stretched out on extendable poles. Tiny specks seemed to dance about on it, as the dust of space was gathered up. Finally sensors detected enough force between the drag of the net, and the forward thrust of the rocket. Then automatically controlled motors started up, and the full load was dragged into the ungainly belly of the ship. Inside the control room, Jake and Ron were tired from concentration. So they staggered off to their bunks, and flopped down. Meanwhile Teddy turned the craft towards home.
After a final meal, they began the pre sleep checks. "This will be my last one", Jake announced from his control desk." "You always say that", came the yawned reply. "This time I mean it. I've got enough to retire in style." And with that they settled down for the long sleep home.
Alter Idem
"Alter idem, Latin for another exactly the same." The doctor spoke in a clear voice from the podium, and for effect the gaslights suddenly rose to illuminate a tank. It contained an exact facsimile of the doctor. The body stared blank eyed at the assembled scientists. Gasps of surprise arose, but from the general babble doctor Sebastian Mountebanks smiled. He had won the crowd over.
He waited for the noise to die down before he continued. "This specimen was only a blood sample a month ago, but thanks to the revolutionary techniques I have developed during my long service in the pursuit of the natural sciences." And he continued to explain the accelerated growth techniques to the enraptured assembly.
In 1849 a youth arrived in England on the SS Great Britannia. As he stepped on to the Bristol quayside, he took in the motherland he was finally back in, after all these years. His father had taken the family to the new world, to revitalise their waning fortunes. And he had struck while the iron was hot, making it big in industry. He soon climbed his way up the ranks, to establish himself in the land of opportunity.
Young Sebastian rode on his father's coat tails. He was given the best education money could buy, and soon found his talents lay in the field of medicine. So with appropriate letters of introduction, the lad boarded the train bound for London and the Royal College. Doors were opened by wealthy connections, and backed by a talent that left his tutors in awe.
He soon found a place in this great city, both practicing and advancing the medical sciences. Then when the war broke out in the Crimean just half a decade later, he threw it all up to serve over there. "What any decent chap should do", he explained to his peers on enquiry. And so off he went again.
It was over there that he earned the nickname, the occasional seamstress. For although he sent a similar proportion of his patients to the lime pits. Where all rank and file ended there days, when the surgeons skill was surpassed. He still managed to save limbs to such a high degree, that the stitching could not be seen by the naked eye. Many a soldier would swear the limb had been lost, only to awake from the chloroform dumfounded at his fortunate recovery.
If the public were to know of his successes, he may have been hailed a hero of the day. But he always played down his work, secretively operating in the solitude of his tent. Then there was the incident to be later passed round dark taverns; frequented by the battle weary soldiers in their twilight years. It was generally was known as the sergeant McFinn tale. The soldier in question had caught some Russian shot in the throat, and he was not expected to last the hour. Doctor Mountebanks was summoned, and he had two orderlies take the unfortunate sergeant in to his tent. Then pulling the flaps down he began his work.
As it happened the light brigade was encamped near by. And when strange noises emanated from the surgical tent, the horses became most restless. Although no one can swear to the exact events, rumours spread of a crazed figure of the sergeant tearing from his deathbed. Just before the brigade took flight en-mass towards the Russian guns. "And I swear it was the sight of that fiend back from the dead, what caused them horses to bolt." The scarred figure would always finish, before downing his pint.
After this incident Mountebanks returned to his lodgings in London, but not to his practise as a healer of the sick. Now he put his moderate fortune to more clandestine pursuits, mysteriously procuring odd specimens from undisclosed sources. But he would then invariable donate them to medical museums, two headed sheep and strange misshapen babies.
One cold February night saw the Doctor returning from a discussion. It had been on the newly published "On the Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin. Over the past couple of months it had caused some considerable up roar. And he was still reeling from an argument on the subject. Sebastian certainly didn't agree with lord Huntington in that area.
He unlocked his workroom, which no one was allowed to enter. He even cleaned it him self. The far end held a tank of glass sides with steel reinforced edges. Inside of which a murky green liquid swirled, like a strange coffin built for an over large mermaid. This was his latest experiment, and he hoped it to be the fruition of his life’s work. Rechecking a sample of the green liquid, he nodded to himself.
Then raising a silent prayer, he opened the valves that would drain his artificial womb. Slowly the level dropped revealing a form in the tank, which the doctor rinsed down with warm water. Leaning over the tank he had a queer feeling of looking in to a mirror, for indeed the figure below was a true likeness of Sebastian.
With a start it gave a convulsion, and coughed up more liquid. Then like a tender parent administering to a sick child, doctor Mountebanks eased the figure up and helped him to a comfy chair. Next he wrapped his facsimile in a warm blanket. The eyes unaccustomed to the light blinked, as the doctor wiped his face like a mother cleaning an errant child. Finally awake and staring back at his creator, the recumbent figure smiled.
"My name is docto
r Sebastian." "Mountebanks" completed the seated man. They both raised their right hands to mouth in surprise. "My nick name in the Crimean?” "The occasional seamstress." "My final year tutor?” "Doctor Stanwick." "The name of the lady who invited me to tea last week?” "That I don't recall." "So perhaps we diverted when I took my sample." They both pondered, then at the same time announced. "January the tenth."
"Yes, I don't recollect any thing beyond that point until now. I say Sebastian. Can I put something more substantial on? I feel a tad indecent in just this blanket." "But of course", and the other hurried up stairs for a full set of clothes. "I hadn't realised I'd put on so much weight" mused the doctor, and they both laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation.
"I was thinking while you were gone, on whether this phenomenon of memory can explain past life regression. Like snatches of life long past." "Splendid idea, and I considered how the young of some species show tendencies to the same behaviour as an adult. Even when reared in isolation from their own kind."
Just then there was a knock at the door, and both men startled from their in-depth discussion, dashed to answer it. "No this won't do, we’d shock whoever is
