Dale Mettam

by The Pub at the Center of the Universe (retail) (epub)

  And this question was the core of his curiosity.

  He felt a personal drive now. Where once he thought only in terns of the future of his people, now he thought in terms of his plans. His ideas for the future. How he would run the Empire.

  Dangerous thinking indeed. Dangerous, but intoxicating.

  “You could replace him,” the Y’lem whispered, as if reading the Prime Minister’s mind.

  “Shut up.”

  “You could end this now,” cooed the blob.

  “You think he’s wrong, that you could do better.”

  “I said , shut up.”

  “Are his ambitions more important than yours? Are the personal objectives of his more important than your goals for your people?”

  “I am aware that you are trying to turn me against my Lord Provost, Y’lem,” said the Prime Minister. “If you can feel that by creating dissension between us you will somehow escape, you underestimate me. I serve the Prions.”

  “But you know what he’s doing is not in the best interest of your people,” said the Y’lem.

  “You have a great deal to learn about me, Y’lem.” the Prime Minister sneered. “Perhaps you will live long enough to find just how much.”

  Before the prisoner could reply, the Prime Minister swept out of the room and ordered the guards back in.

  As he stood in the corridor outside the cell, he knew the Y’lem was right. He knew he could do better. He looked back down towards the chamber in which the prisoner was housed and shook his head sadly. The voice in his head was growing each day. It grew in volume and insistence. ‘You can do better,’ it said. ‘You could replace him. He is ruining all you have worked for.’

  Ambition, he mused, was an intoxicating indulgence. It was also, like many such indulgences, one that could cost him his life.

  As soon as the Universal Securitat Stringer N’Tur’Pryz boomed back into real space, Kirk and Lu blasted out of the launch deck and away into space.

  “Good luck, agents,” came the voice of Captain Peekord through the swoopers comm system.

  Lu did not respond but checked the controls and steered the Swooper towards a dark area of space.

  “You’re sure it’s a good idea to have the tracker still attached?” Kirk asked, worried now they were alone, without the protection of the tringer or its compliment of fighter vessels.

  “No, but at least we know she’s coming.” said she could track us through the wormhole, she couldn’t follow us directly, because she wouldn’t know where we would drop back into real space, and even if she could track us down into the black hole, she couldn’t come in after us. The way I understand it, anyone who tries to approach the Y’lem without an invitation will not be seen again.”

  It was no real comfort to Kirk. The prospect that he was not about to willingly fly into a black hole, and just not any black hole, but a super dense black hole sitting at the center of the universe, was something that he didn’t need to be reminded of. That Restive Pro would be able unable to catch up with them until after they consulted the Y’lem was about as reassuring as if he had just found himself floating out at sea and was informed that he had little to worry about as far as being stung by a jellyfish was concerned.

  Jellyfish were not stupid enough to swim through these shark-infested waters.

  “We should be close to the event horizon soon, “Lu said. “Captain Peekord is a good pilot. He brought us very close. Closer than I would have thought safe. Certainly a lot closer than I would have brought a Stringer.”

  Kirk watched through the screen as the dark blot in the stars slowly grew. Suddenly Lu shut down the engines, and to Kirk’s surprise he found they didn’t slow down.

  “Are we in it’s gravitational field?”

  “No,” Lu shook her head. “But close. We’re just moving on inertia now. Since there’s no resistance in space, generally you won’t burn you engines the whole time. We have, so far, because time has been an issue, and going full burn can make a slight difference. And any difference was good for us, but we’re very close to the edge, and the last thing I want to do is go blasting down when we start to feel the pull. I have no idea what it’ll do to us. I don’t want to wait until we are in its grip and then try and shut down only to find that I can’t for some reason. It won’t delay us much.”

  Kirk watched as small pieces of what he assumed to be space debris occasionally whizzed by and disappeared from view.

  “Sarge came over the comm system. “Crossing the Event Horizon in Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven... Six... Five... Four... Three... Two... One.”

  Kirk felt the increase in speed. Suddenly the swooper was accelerating at an alarming rate.

  Through the screen he saw an amount of space debris hurtling in the same direction as them increasing and becoming stretched. He struggled to turn and face Lu, who lay with eyes closed and a relaxed expression on her face. Panic filled him. Was she alright? She was worried something like this would prevent her from controlling the ship and it looked like she was right.

  He tried to reach across to her, but while the idea to do this seemed to be a spur of the moment thought, he found that his arm would not move.

  The panic began to grow.

  He struggled to open his mouth and call her name, but no sound came out, even though he could feel himself speaking, however slow and distorted that might be.

  ‘Calm yourself, Kirk Deighton of Earth,’ a warm, reassuring voice sounded in his head. The idea that this was Casio soon passed as the tome and the pitch were very different, as was the compassion clearly evident.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Kirk thought.

  ‘You are entering Destinati, home of the Y’lem,’ replied the voice. ‘Relax, Kirk Deighton of Earth, you are invited, you are our guest. No harm shall befall you here. Sleep now. Rest. Soon will come the time for action. Rest now.’

  Kirk felt himself grow weary. He felt his eyes grow heavy. Before he surrendered entirely to sleep, he had the distinct impression that the swooper slowed and changed direction. He knew this was impossible. Lu was unable to fly and they were being sucked down a super-dense black hole. How could they be slowing or navigating?

  The worrying idea that he was dying sprang into his mind. He found it was not as terrible a thought as he would have imagined. He felt warm and relaxed. What followed was a natural act. He’d seen more amazing things than any other human would for generations to come.

  ‘You are not dying, Kirk Deighton of Earth. But sleep now. We will talk soon.’

  As Kirk surrendered to the blackness he found his memory drifted back to the glowing boughs of the giant huron trees on Sevres Prime A smile grew on his face as he basked in the light of those leaves.

  “What do you mean they disappeared?” snarled Restive Pro.

  “The signal has gone, mistress,” said her F.R.B.

  “Did they discover it?”

  “Indications suggest not. It has not been removed, nor has it been destroyed. It has just traveled beyond my range, mistress.”

  “How can that happen? Even if they made a second string-jump as soon as they dropped back into real space, they should be still be in tachyon range.”

  “That is correct, mistress” said the F.R.B.

  “Damn!” Restive slammed her fist down on her swooper’s controls. “Keep sweeping. Whatever they’re doing, they’re bound to show up sooner or later. They have to.”

  “Should I prepare a link to your client, mistress?’

  “Why?”

  “To inform him of our current mission status,” replied the F.R.B.

  “No, when we have something to report we’ll contact him. Until then I need to think. There’s no way they could have bypassed the tracker without me knowing. And there’s nothing fast enough to make a swooper suddenly fly out o
f range of that signal transmitter. The only thing that I can think of that would even come close to that kind of signal disruption would be...”

  “Would be what, mistress?”

  “It’s just a hunch, but get us passage on a stringer that’s heading towards the inner systems. As close to the center of the universe as possible. Do it immediately, Jet.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  When Kirk awoke he felt as he had when he’d been a child. Waking up on a cold winter morning, buried beneath warm blankets. Sleep seemed reluctant to let him go and he was content to stay wrapped in slumber. Though as his senses began to return and he concluded he was not back in bed at his parents’ house, the realization settled on him that he wasn’t even laying down

  With that crack in the illusion, he was suddenly awake and found himself sitting in the Securitat swooper. Beside him, Lu sat, staring out at the swath of stars before them. If anything, she looked even more subdued and withdrawn than before they had gone into the black hole.

  “What happened?” Kirk asked. “Where are we?”

  “As to what happened, we went to see the Y’lem,” Lu replied quietly. “We’re currently about two hours away from Kenturk, which is the closest place to our present location by several light years.”

  “So what happened? Wouldn’t they see us? I thought they asked for me to go and see them?” Kirk was confused and wondering if perhaps whatever he was supposed to do had changed. Or worst still, they were too late.

  Lu turned and looked at him. “What do you remember?”

  “Between going into the black hole and now?”

  Lu nodded, yes.

  “Nothing,” Kirk said. “How long were we in there?”

  “Over four hours.”

  “So what happened?”

  Before Lu could answer, Kirk slowly began to recall a strange dream. It had to have been a dream, because it had a soft, not quite real feeling. As the memories began to form, they gave the impression that only what he was looking directly at was fully formed. If he turned his head suddenly he would see that everything was a cunning facade not meant to be studied too closely.

  The memories came flooding in. As if he’s triggered a fast forward, the entire four hours came whizzing before his mind’s eye.

  “I take it you’re starting to remember?” Lu asked.

  Kirk nodded slightly. Close your eyes and let the memories play out,” Lu advised.

  Kirk reclined his seat, closed his eyes, and remembered.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Celestrial Egret boomed back into real space. It was the moment North Rubik had been worried about for the last hour. Since he and the old man boarded the stringer, Captain Ingle and Masste Kates had left them alone. As soon as the ship slipped into the wormhole, the old man settled into a trancelike state, a thin wily smile on his face. Rubik had tried to get him to talk, but he’d simply smiled a little more and refused to speak. Eventually Rubik got bored and went for a wander around the Stringer.

  From the outside, as they approached by shuttle, the freighter looked only a little more than one sharp smack away from total collapse. However, as he explored further, it became obvious to Rubik, even with his lack of experience in the construction of space-faring transportation, that what you saw on the outside bore little relation to what was on the inside. While the cabins assigned to them were spartan, to say the least, they were well maintained, as was the rest of the ship. Additionally, once inside, there was little noise and having traveled on several stringers in his lifetime, Rubik knew that this was due to one of two things. Good insulation, which tended to be reserved for the Cruise Stringers, or an immaculately maintained engine.

  Unfortunately, Rubik had come to the conclusion that the image Finns Ingle portrayed of himself and his ship was carefully crafted and aimed at lulling the casual observer into a false sense of security.

  It took him more than an hour to wander around the freighter, which was not as large inside compared to others. He suspected that the engines, in addition to being carefully maintained, had been seriously modified, which would bite into regular storage space and left Rubik thinking that the Captain’s boastful claim of the ship’s speed might not have been so outrageous.

  Rubik also guessed that the reason for such improvements were more than for effect. To make such drastic improvements to a stringer, and then to take such care in concealing them again left one conclusion in Rubik’s mind. Ingle and Kates were obviously smugglers.

  As he strolled back to the cabin where he’d left the old man meditating, he struggled with the inner conflict he felt since donning the uniform of a Titan spaceport junior security officer. Where should he draw the line of what was acceptable behavior and what wasn’t?

  Clearly there were laws, and when these laws were broken, he should act, but what about now? He had no proof that this ship he was on was smuggling anything. He suspected he and the old man were the sole cargo for this trip, so no laws were being broken at the moment. However if they were smugglers, then they had obviously broken the law in the past and would do so again.

  Therefore, was he not obligated to act?

  A second voice entered the debate in his head at this point. It suggested that discretion was indeed the better part of valor, and that he would likely be thrown out of an airlock if he tried anything. Additionally, given that the captain was expecting a significantly larger sum than he was going to get, and Rubik had boarded the stringer in full knowledge that the agreed price would not be paid, he finally decided that it would be better to let both the smugglers, and himself, off with a strong warning. He also decided that he would admonish Ingle and Kates after they had left, assuming he lived that long.

  Rubik arrived at the old man’s cabin and tapped on the door. There was no answer from inside. A feeling of dread began to seep through him as he hesitantly opened the door and saw what he knew would confront him as soon as there was no reply. The room was empty.

  It was obvious to Rubik that the old man was not going to be found in the cabin. While logic suggested there was no way the old man could have left the ship, he also wondered just how reliable logic was when dealing with this particular old man.

  His desperate search of the old man’s cabin revealed nothing but a currency exchange pad that when checked, confirmed his worst suspicions. All that was set to pay for their passage was the agreed upon amount, 2015. Rubik sagged to the bunk and sank his head into his hands. He briefly entertained the idea of hiding and taking his first opportunity to slip off the stringer. The muffled boom he heard from outside made it clear he would have little time to do this. The Celestrial Egret has just dropped back into real space.

  He quickly decided he would try to bluff his way down to the planet surface then, when the chance came, make a run for it.

  The comm system cracked. “We’re in high orbit around Kenturk,” Captain Ingle’s voice came from the speaker in the wall. “If you would be so kind as to come down to the shuttle bay, we can have you surface-side in just a couple of hours.”

  Rubik took a gulp of air and set off to the shuttle bay.

  When he arrived at the shuttle bay, Finns Ingle and Mastee Kates were already going through the pre-flight warm up of the shuttle. As they both seemed preoccupied, Rubik thought it best to just slip into a seat and draw as little attention to himself as possible.

  A few minutes later, the captain and his first mate turned in their seats and smiled.

  “Now, if you can just furnish us with the agreed upon payment, we can get you down to Kenturk before supper.” Ingle smiled.

  Rubik sagged, reluctantly offered the currency exchange pad to the captain, closed his eyes and waited for the explosion.

  What he heard next was the shuttle engines power up and felt the shuttle slowly lift from its pad and move out into open sp
ace.

  He opened his eyes and saw they were indeed heading for the distant planet ahead of them.

  “That payment was Okay?” asked Rubik.

  “Two thousand and fifteen when we arrive.”

  Ingle smiled back at him. “S’ what we agreed upon.”

  “But what about the old man?”

  “What old man?” Kates snorted.

  “The old man that set off from Sevres Prime with us?”

  “Just you, buddy. Now if there’s anything else that’s troubling you, let me know. Otherwise I had a report there was a broken down stringer round here that needs to off-load a batch of Fried Chicken. We can make a tidy sum if we can nail that shipment before anyone else gets word of it.”

  Rubik shrugged his shoulders and sat quietly. He wondered if the old man had been a dream. Yet he knew that he hadn’t even close to the amount needed to pay for this trip. So the old man must have been real. Maybe he did something to that other stringer, set something up as compensation to the captain. Whatever the case, Rubik decided that he would be best served staying quiet, enjoying the ride down to Kenturk, and then decide his next move. Frankly, he wasn’t that much better off than he had been on Sevres Prime. But maybe if he hung out in one of the stringer bars he could catch passage to Titan.

  The shuttle, Rubik realized, was the equal of Ingle and Kates’ stringer. While it looked as if it were falling apart, they made excellent time. The smugglers wished him good luck, the told him they needed to get back to their ship to arrange transfer of that cargo. They estimated they could make an easy 14, 985 on that trip. Rubik noted that this was the balance of the amount that the old man had promised. He was now sure that the old man had in some way brought about this deal of the captain, though he said nothing.

  Rubik decided to make for the closest bar. Then he would see if he could talk his way on board a stringer headed in the direction he wanted. If he had to work his passage home, that would be Okay. As long as it got him where he wanted to be. He was sure, if he could avoid anymore little old men in faded orange robes, he would do fine