by Murison, J W
Relegated to the position of spectators they took the opportunity to view the data that the teams were bringing back.
After air samples and swabs of the interior were inspected it was discovered the ship was sterile in nature, without as much as a speck of dust. Mary went to see their new boss, Doctor Simon Sales.
She found him in her husband’s office and tried hard not to show the disgust she felt for him.
‘Doctor Sales.’
‘What do you want Mrs. Gordon?’
She bristled as he deliberately left out her professional title, but she kept her anger in check, ‘I hear the ship is completely sterile, inside and out. That being the case, I don’t see any reason to keep my son locked up any longer.’
Doctor Sales knew exactly who the Gordon’s were and especially Steven. Indeed he had spent the last ten years ridiculing the once brilliant teenager’s theories to a small circle of scientists, all of which had the Governments ear. Unfortunately he found fertile ground on which to sow dissent. For it is far easier to disprove a new theory than to prove it.
He smiled inwardly. He had made a living out of ridiculing this family and the best thing about it was they didn’t even know it. He had been able to block half a dozen research projects put forward by the Gordon’s; projects that would have advanced the human understanding of the universe by a hundred years.
He picked his words for maximum effect, ‘it’s probably safer for everyone if the retard stays where he is for now.’
Anger surged through her, ‘who the hell do you think you’re talking to? How dare you talk about my son like that!’
Triumph shone from his eyes, ‘of course I can always have that bastard retard slung into an isolation cell for the rest of his life and you and that husband of yours along with him.’
His words slammed into her like a fist. She reeled, her face turning white from shock. In that moment she knew he was capable of carrying out his threat. Without another word she turned and walked out of the office and went looking for her husband. Ten minutes later he strode down the corridor with the direct intentions of punching Doctor Sales out. He didn’t get far.
Colonel Howe had overheard the remarks made by Doctor Sales to Mary and had shadowed her. He forced Brian into an empty office none to gently.
‘Get out of my way Colonel.’
‘No chance Doctor.’
A distraught Mary tried to plead with him, ‘please Brian don’t go near him, he could hurt Steven.’
‘He won’t be in a fit state to hurt anybody. Get out of my way Colonel.’
Brian tried to push his way past but the Colonel grabbed him. Much to his surprise Brian broke free easily and almost got past him. The Colonel pounced again and soon found he had to use all his training to try and subdue the enraged scientist. Eventually his superior fitness won out and he was able to put the scientist in a serious arm lock, but it wasn’t until Mary burst into tears that he finally felt the strength flood out of the man.
‘It's ok Colonel, you can let me go now.’
The Colonel did so but not without a little trepidation. Brian was now only concerned about Mary. With his eyes cast down in shame he apologised, ‘I’m sorry darling, but … well … you know?’
Mary threw her arms around the neck of her husband and held on. Long sobs shook her petite frame. ‘I know, I shouldn’t have told you.’
‘No I shouldn’t have reacted that way.’
She pulled back and half smiled with a sob, ‘no Brian I shouldn’t have told you. I think … maybe somewhere deep down I wanted you to kick the shit out of him.’
He smiled grimly, ‘and somewhere not so deep down I still want to.’ He rustled through his pockets and produced a handkerchief. Her smile brightened a little.
Their attention was returned to the Colonel when he let out a big sigh of relief.
An embarrassed Brian turned to the Colonel and held out a hand, ‘I'm sorry Colonel Howe, please accept my apology for my behaviour.’
The Colonel wiped his brow with a sigh and held out his hand with a grin, ‘I’m sure glad you weren’t mad at me Doctor. Remind me to never upset your wife but what are you going to do about Sales now?’
A cold look crept into the Doctors eyes, ‘I’m a Highlander Colonel a Scottish Highlander, we were all born with infinite patience and a long memory.’
The Colonel shook his head sadly, ‘I think you might need it too. I have about the highest clearance you can get in the military and even I can’t find out much about this clown. All I do know is, he has a lot of clout.’
Brian nodded thoughtfully, ‘I know we’ve never heard of him and we’re the top people in our field.’
‘May I say something off the record Doctor?’
‘Please feel free Colonel.’
‘I’ve seen action many times Doctor and a man in my position relies on the men around him. After a while you begin to get an instinct about people and how much you can trust them. I’ll tell you now, there's not one of my men including myself who want anything to do with this Sales character. The President was wrong when he took you and your wife off this project.’
Brian was quite taken aback by the big man’s confession, ‘well… I’ll take that as a vote of confidence Colonel, thank you.’
‘I have a bad feeling about this fellah Doctor; sooner or later he’s gonna balls it up big time. That normally means we have to go in and sort it all out. It would be nice to know you and your wife are going to be around to back us up when it all goes down. So please don’t do anything to give that shit an excuse to throw you out.’
Brian felt quite flustered, ‘well … ok … I’ll try and keep the peace until then.’
The Colonel nodded his thanks, ‘in the mean time I’ll try and find out what I can about him for you.’ He turned and left them.
Brian raised his eyebrows at Mary, ‘do you think he just said that to calm me down?’
She smiled the tears all dried up and smoothed out the rumples on the collar of his lab coat, ‘I don’t think the Colonels the type of man who tries to placate anybody dear. He’s the type of man who knows exactly what he’s saying and who he’s saying it too.’
A shudder travelled the length of his spine, ‘well I hope to God he’s wrong about anything going wrong. Those ships could advance our civilisation by thousands of years over night.’
Another week passed with no results. Doctor. Sales, who now treated the ship as his own personal property, began to fly into unreasonable rages. On a couple of occasions Brian and Mary found themselves on the receiving end of these black tantrums, but on each occasion, either Colonel Howe or one of his men was able to place themselves between them. They would ask the enraged man a load of stupid questions, which deflected his anger.
No matter where Mary or Brian went, one of the elite soldiers never seemed to be far away. It felt strange at first but they soon became used to it and then came to draw some comfort from it. The support from the remainder of their staff was also overwhelming.
Mary was sitting at one of the main monitors when she suddenly realised something was far from right. She knew Sales had ventured into the ship with some of his own men and bags of equipment, but it wasn’t until he began removing teams of scientists from what they thought of as the engine room that she began to suspect he was up to no good.
Sales had promised the President positive results within the first week. But as time went on and nothing had been found his frustration grew. The President had been onto him three times today already and he had begun to get the feeling if he didn’t come up with something shortly then the project would be passed onto someone else.
Sales had no intention of letting that happen. It was time to play his ace in the hole. The three men with him were engineers. Experts at smash and grab tactics. Industrial espionage was their forte and employed almost exclusively by specialist scientific teams buried deep within the Government structure.
The leader of the team swept around th
e walls and consoles running his hands over everything, occasionally knocking them with a small metal hammer. Sales watched him in fascination.
He went round once more then came back to a particular spot. ‘Right here.’
His companions unzipped their black duffel bags. The first approached with a cutting tool designed for fire fighters to cut people out of car wrecks. The second stood back hefting a large sledgehammer.
Mary’s hand flew to her mouth, ‘oh no, you can’t do this,’ her finger punched the intercom button, ‘don’t you dare Sales.’
His head flicked towards the camera, then nodded at one of the men. Mary saw the head of the sledgehammer for a fraction of a second before the screen went blank.
Her finger punched the intercom again, ‘for God’s sake someone get to the engine room and stop Sales.’ She turned to the Soldier who hovered near, ‘did you just see what he was going to do?’
‘Yes ma’am.’
‘Then go get my husband and Colonel Howe and tell them; quickly.’
They left the control room together and went in different directions. The Soldier quickly located both men and returned with them to the control room.
Brian squeezed in between two operators, ‘what's happening Malcolm?’
The bespectacled operator; was sweating and looked frightened, ‘Sales has taken wrecking gear to the engine room. He’s trying to force off a panel.’
‘You can’t be serious?’
He moved aside, ‘look for yourself Brian. He’s taken out every camera in the Engine room, except this one. They’ve missed it so far.’
It took a few seconds for Brian to comprehend what he was seeing, two men laboured with sledgehammers at a single spot. ‘Oh my God, he’s gone mad.’
Colonel Howe leaned over his shoulder, ‘not a good idea?’
Brian looked at the Colonel as if he were stupid, ‘do you know what's behind that panel Colonel?’
He shrugged, ‘no, do you?’
‘No and that’s exactly the point. What if there's sensitive equipment behind there, the vibrations could smash it. What if they are meant to operate in a vacuum, or if there's some form of cooling gas behind that panel.’
The Colonels eyebrows shot up in alarm, ‘you mean like a gas not manufactured on Earth, potentially lethal.’
‘Potentially lethal Colonel, what happens if there's some form of harmless bacterium behind that panel? Harmless to the aliens that built it that is. Come on you’ve been hanging around us long enough to know that.’
‘It could cause a plague, one we couldn’t control.’
‘With the potential of wiping out every living thing on Earth.’
‘That’s bad Doctor, but wouldn’t you have had to do something like this anyway … eventually?’
Brian squeezed his temples, ‘yes Colonel, eventually, after many months of study, or maybe years. With every single precaution that could be taken and recorded in minute detail in case something went wrong. Tell me, do you notice the deliberate error here?’
‘The ship isn’t sealed.’
Brian turned back to the monitor. ‘You got it in one.’ ‘Hasn’t anyone tried to stop him?’ he asked Malcolm.
‘Yeah but …’ a screech of metal, halted the flow of words as both men craned forward to get a better look at what was happening. Two of the men bent to the task and seemed to come away with something in their hands. Sales moved forward cautiously and peered inside.
Just then Mary burst into the room. She stopped for a second to get her bearings, ‘get the hell away from that panel Sales.’
She advanced on him a small ball of fury. Malcolm got halfway to his feet, grabbing for the intercom button, ‘for God’s sake keep away from him Mary, he’s got a …’
Sales had got insolently to his feet, reached behind him and lifted his arm towards Mary. A flash of yellow flame lanced out. The detonation ringing off the walls drowned out her cry of surprise and pain, she hit the floor with an audible thump.
‘… Gun.’ Malcolm finished his sentence.
There was a moment’s stunned silence, then Brian was on his feet, ‘Nooooo.’
Colonel Howe started rapping out orders into his radio and stepped in front of the distraught scientist, ‘No heroics Doc, I've sent my men in to get her out and deal with Sales.’
Brian swung back to the monitor, ‘how is she, is she alive?’
Malcolm was fiddling with the switches, ‘there's something wrong, I’m losing the picture.’
The screen went blank with Malcolm frantically tried to fix it as Brian screamed over his shoulder. Then a young Scientist burst into the room.
‘It's gone,’ he burst out breathlessly. It took a bare second for the operators to get the jist of what he was saying and to start pressing buttons. Brian dipped from consol to consol, but each told the same story, only one ship remained, bobbing gently on a cushion of air.
Chapter 12
They were right to have been cautious. The Centre for Scientific Research into Space had always been their first choice. Years of waiting and listening to Earth communications had finally led them to this spot on the Blue Planet below. Then for many years they had eavesdropped on the communications emanating from the centre.
It quickly became apparent that this was the only site on Earth that came anywhere near grasping the complexities of deep space travel. It also had one other major advantage, it would be difficult to conceal their arrival, but still the humans had tried.
The large inflatable hanger had been easy to dispose of. They had watched with relief as pictures of them were beamed across the world. They had believed this would afford them some form of security.
Never before had they came across a planet of such cultural diversity. Their own planet of origin had only one culture, one people and one race.
Although they were spacecraft and machines, they were of a complexity that man had never achieved. Each had feelings and experienced emotions. Although both ships were identical in shape and size, their programming was gender based to fit with the builder races complicated mating rituals.
There were always two ships built at a time, one male and one female. As the ships were mated so were their crews. Although there were male and female in both crews, the captain of one was always mated to the captain of the other. The male in the female ship and vice versa. They believed this gave an even balance to all decisions made.
When they were travelling to preset coordinates, the ships always flew in tandem, linked together. This allowed free and easy access to all mated couples including the captains. Only separating for landing manoeuvres or when indulging in exploration.
As time passed and the original captains retired, the ships were handed over to the oldest offspring and their mate. Younger children had to have their own made for them when they were mated.
Both ships were now in a quandary. It wasn’t the first time ships had lost one or even both their captains, but there had always been a mated couple on board both ships that could take over the running of them until they reached home.
The situation they were in now was totally alien to them. They could not return home. Both were less than a generation old. All of the captain’s children had died with their parents. There was no one to be handed down to. Their situation was totally unprecedented.
It was only now they were beginning to comprehend the situation that truly faced them. When they first began to view the television programs from space family virtues had been strong. Reassured they had concentrated on technical matters. Now it seemed as though society had begun to breakdown.
Of course they knew what they were offering the human race and they could have made a simple request, but until they were joined they were unable to communicate with the outside world, and once they were joined it would simply be too late.
They in reality could do very little now but try and direct as best they could. Only allowing the humans access to one of them had caused them to move cautiously. It had
suited them well.
It was decided he would be the first to welcome them. In truth he was left with little choice, for she was still fixated by her first contact and adamant that she would make that human her first choice of heart.
He had been perplexed and still was. For he had felt no empathy with any human that he had came into contact with so far and their primary scanning of the human brain had left him in great doubt as to the suitability of a human host.
As the days had begun to mount, they had been lulled into a false sense of security. The whole planet now knew of their existence, and the scientists that prowled his decks every day had been taking things easy, never pushing the boundaries of their knowledge.
Today everything had changed and it had caught them by surprise. They had been aware of the shift in power in the past few weeks, knowing intimately what was happening inside the building. Neither of them liked the new leader that was now directing things but also knew there was little they could do about it.
However the humans seemed to be doing little more than they already were. She had been concerned about the treatment that her human was receiving; he had been trying to calm her when they became aware of the assault in his engine room. He cried out in surprise.
‘What's wrong?’ she asked.
‘They are trying to break into my main drive coupling.’
‘How can they do that?’
‘I don’t know, they’re using crude tools to smash their way into the compartment.’
‘They can’t know it’s the main drive coupling, what are they thinking?’
‘I think they have somehow surmised my systems are less well protected there.’
‘Can’t you stop them? They will cripple you if they remove it.’
‘No I don’t think so. There's something else wrong here. The new commander seems to be in charge, yet everyone’s trying to stop him.’
