by Paul Rice
Jane watched as a section of the wall dissolved into a window. To her utter amazement as she looked through the glass, she saw the stars. She saw them along with the blackness of the universe and also the vivid colours of other worlds that lay near and far. As she sat propped up in some far away hospital bed, talking to a man who may well have been hundreds of years old – Jane saw space. She sat there looking at a strange and unknown universe through a hospital window and smiled, and as she did so, Jane felt a strange sense of being. She leaned forward and touched the Spear brooch once more. The Angelica Star filled her with the strange sensation once more. In a sudden rush of emotions, she knew exactly what they must do. “It’s obvious, what a bunch of idiots! Why hadn’t we thought of it before?” The clarity of the thought, which rushed through her mind, was almost overwhelming. She said: “I know what to do, George – I know what to do about Red!” George smiled as he looked at her from the window. It was then Jane realised: “He knows exactly what I’m going to say!” She laughed at him. George laughed back.
He smiled and said, “Ah, my dear child!” Then returned to her bedside to sit next her once more.
Together they made a plan.
It was a big plan with very big ideas, a plan that was going to need some big people with big helpings of courage to see it through to the bitter end. George already knew the ending, and he was pretty sure that the people he had chosen were going to be more than big enough to make the changes that were needed. They would have to be, as it was they whom were chosen to deliver the ultimate gift to all of mankind. The gift of salvation from the Darkness…
Chapter 20 - Changes
Mike’s Communicator buzzed and its green light flashed repeatedly, the glow caused Ken, who was ambling upstairs, to turn and run back down to the kitchen. As he passed Mike’s room, he shouted: “Mikey, something’s happening with your box of tricks again!”
Ken hadn’t reached the kitchen door before he was joined by Mike. The Australian was still pulling his jeans on. “Yeah, I heard it, what the hell?” he said as he stumbled into the kitchen still zipping his flies. Lifting the machine’s lid into the upright position, Mike ordered: “Display on, please.” On his command they were joined by the silvery screen. It rose above the table and sat there in darkness, juts as they started to think it was a false alarm, a stream of words suddenly flooded onto the screen: ‘Standby – incoming personnel… wait!’
The men looked at each other in surprise, but before they could speak, the air began to do its treacle impression again. With a slight wobble, it thickened and then pulsed. Ken felt it in his temples and held onto the side of the table with his left hand. As quickly as it had started, the air in the room resumed its normal everyday ambience. “What now?” Ken had the overwhelming desire to look under the table, which he was gripping tightly. There wasn’t any other place in the kitchen that could be hiding the supposed ‘incoming’ person. Someone who, judging by previous experience should have appeared before their eyes like a melting ice cream cone… He turned to Mike and saw him checking the screen. ‘Transfer complete.’
It blinked unhelpfully and turned itself off. “OK, I give up!” was all Mike said, he shrugged his shoulders and turned to Ken, as he opened his mouth to speak he suddenly paused and, forgetting what he was going to say next, stood looking over Ken’s shoulder with his mouth hanging open. Ken swivelled his head to follow his friend’s startled gaze. There, on the staircase, stood his wife. Jane was in the process of leaving the bottom tread of their stairs and looked up at them as she entered the hallway. She was as calm as if she had merely been returning from having taken a short nap.
“Jane – Bloody hell, woman, where’ve you been, George said that you weren’t too good… are you OK, what’s happened, I mean…” Ken was halted in mid-flow by the cool fingers that she placed across his flapping lips.
“Ssshhh… I’m back, stop talking you old fool!” Placing her hand on his shoulder, she reached up and kissed him on the lips. Ken shut his eyes and gently encircled her within his ropey arms.
They stayed that way, embracing, until Mike said: “OK, OK… why don’t you two get a bloody room, jeez!” Reluctantly they broke their embrace and turned to look at him. “Damn it woman, you sure as hell know how to make an entrance, don’t you!” Mike said as he walked over to them, bent down and kissed Jane on the cheek. “How are you, crazy lady?” he said and pulled a chair out for her.
Jane sat. “Put the kettle on, love… I’m absolutely dying for a brew!” She said, looking at Ken. Looking up at them with shining eyes, Jane smiled and watched the men as they started laughing.
It felt good, in fact, Ken laughed so hard that it made him cry…
They sat and had a hot drink and listened whilst Jane told them of her tale. She never omitted any part of it as she walked them through her story, leading them by the hand through the corridors of fear and darkness, before telling them of the light of her discovery. Throughout her tale the two men sat and merely stared at her in wonder. When she had finished, there was a moment of silence, before Ken exclaimed: “That’s just wild, completely scary and it makes our stuff sound like a bloody fairytale!” He looked at her in amazement. “But you’re OK now, sweetheart, yeah – how’s the stomach?” He was still petrified at the thought of having so nearly lost her.
“Yes I am, my stomach is good and my mind’s even better. I do feel really tired and the small of my back is killing me, too, but I guess I could be a lot worse?” Jane smiled and held out her mug for a refill. “How long have I been away, it must have been ages, what month is it?” She looked at the clock – why, she had no idea and it could have been dawn or dusk on any day of the year and she wouldn’t have known the difference. The answer, which Mike gave, allowed Jane her own chance to be amazed.
“Three-days, I think, just about, yeah… three days, Ken?” He said as he turned to his friend and found Ken staring at Jane again.
“Two days twenty one hours and about thirty minutes, to be exact…” Ken looked at her and asked: “Why do you ask, what’s up?”
Jane sat quietly for a while before saying, “What was it George said to you before, you know, about that insect thing?” She looked bewildered for a moment.
Ken said, “Oh, the Lacewing you mean? Yeah, he said that time was like size, it’s all relevant to who you were and certain things lived their whole lives in what we would see as being only a couple of days, or something – why?” He placed a fresh mug of tea on the table and stood behind her, hands gently massaging her shoulders.
“Nothing, it’s just another lesson for me. I felt like I was gone for ages. I mean, I must have slept for about a week, I guess what he said also works in reverse… I wonder where in the hell I was?” She shook her head and picked up the fresh drink. They sat around the kitchen table together and talked about the events that had led them here. It was, in many ways, a kind of self-therapy.
The simple act of sitting and talking about the outlandish proceedings, which had been thrust upon them, almost seemed to help. Ken could sense that awful feeling in his head begin to fritter away once more. It was like knowing you were broke and then, unexpectedly, finding a fifty pound note in the pocket of an old shirt, an unexpected and extremely gratifying boost to the moral. Much like the money would have, the feeling lifted Ken’s spirits and those of his wife and comrade along with him, glancing at the kitchen clock, he suddenly realised that it was gone midnight. Jane had dark rings under her eyes and looked as though the pain in her back was making her uncomfortable.
Seeing all these things, Ken interrupted their conversation and said, “Right folks, I reckon we should let Jane get some shut-eye. You look worn out, babe. Should we call it a night or what, I don’t think there is anything else we need to talk about just yet, is there?” Mike agreed and Jane rose unsteadily to her feet. Helping her up, Ken asked Mike if he would lock up and then, lifting her effortlessly into his arms, carried Jane upstairs to bed.
It was
gone two o’clock the next afternoon before any of them awoke. It was the hungry barking of the two dogs that made Ken raise a lazy eyelid. Looking at the bedside clock only made him swear: “Shit, look at the time!” He groaned, sat up and looked across at Jane. She was still dead to the world and Ken thought it might be another couple of hours before she would be awake, maybe much longer, but either way he wasn’t about to disturb her. He slid quietly out of bed and headed for the shower. Once he was dressed, he made his way downstairs and went to sort the dogs out. “Poor buggers, they must be starving.” He filled their bowls and stepped out onto the back patio. Needing no second invites, the Ridgebacks pounced on the food. Standing and watching them, Ken breathed in the late afternoon spring air and decided that life was good. “Thank God she’s all right!” He smiled and turned and went back inside to feed another animal, the one that was growling from within his guts.
Later that day, Jane came down with the black box under her arm. When she showed them the wonderful object inside they were flabbergasted, however, it was only when they touched the small ship that they truly felt the significance of the graceful object. The almost religious feeling it exuded, told them all they needed to know. It spoke of great things, of things deeper than they could imagine. Each one of them felt its touch in their own way, but each of them also saw there were greater things in this universe. Ken felt lifted again, his heart felt somehow cleaner than before. He looked at Mike and saw that his friend felt it too. Mike had a distant look in his eye. “That is really quite beautiful isn’t it, Kenny?” He smiled as he spoke and stretched his arms out so his hands rested on the shoulders of his friends who sat either side of him. “I bloody love you guys. Never forget that, will you?” They looked at him and never said anything as they watched a single tear run down his face. Jane leaned over and gave Mike the box of tissues from the middle of the table. He grinned ruefully and wiped his eyes. “God only knows what that’s all about?” He said, with a small laugh. Jane never said anything. That was three grown men she had seen cry in less than a week. If the truth be known, Mike wouldn’t be last one she saw cry, either.
After they had recovered sufficiently, the trio went into the lounge, took a seat, and listened whilst Jane told them of the plan, the one she and George had made. Sitting on the couch with her legs folded under her, in that way in which only women can, Jane gave them her idea. “Red seems to be the crux of this whole crazy thing,” she said. “George told me that no matter what dimension they are in, Red always seems to be the one who thwarts their plans. It’s almost as though he is the hub of this crazy wheel?” She explained the Council was not sure if it was simply the huge man fulfilling his destiny, or if there were some other, darker forces at work. Either way, they kept ending up with Red playing an evil part in the final scenario. No matter whom they gave their ‘Gift’ to, and no matter what outcome they managed to manipulate by their changes, Red would always be there at the end. Be there, causing mayhem! Even those whom they had enlisted to help look into the future could not quite see past the fog that surrounded the red giant. “Red just flummoxes them.” was the phrase Jane used to sum up the story of George’s predicament.
“Why don’t they just kill the guy and be done with it?” Ken looked at them and then suddenly realised that they had tried to kill Red, tried and failed miserably. “I should know that all right!” He thought of how easily Red had out foxed him in the dream battle he’d endured with the man. Shaking his head, Ken said, “Is Red some sort of ‘untouchable’ do you think, Jane – what does George have to say about that as a theory, I mean, maybe we will never be able to kill him?” He looked at his wife in confusion, and worry.
She told them, just as George had explained to her, that there had been several attempts to kill their enemy. All of them failing and all of them sending Red further down his path towards evil. “Although we saw George send him into the Rip, it was too late by then, the Storm had been used, life on Earth was nearly extinct and you two were dead! It’s always the same, they can change everything except Red, and without changing him the other modifications become worthless?” They looked at her and began to understand. She finished with: “No, I don’t think he is untouchable and now nor does George, I just think that we’re handling him the wrong way?” She paused and listened to Mike’s outburst.
“So, without changing what he does, then all of what we have been through, the deaths, the injuries and every damned thing else, will have been for nothing and sooner or later we are gonna end up with the big oil problem, then the Storm and finally the Rip, screwing us all for good! Shit, what the hell are we going to do?” Mike sounded beyond frustrated.
Ken looked even more helpless as he asked the next question: “What about the ship, are we still on her or is that a ‘manipulation’ too?”
Jane looked at them steadily. “I believe it’s true, yes. George never said as much but I saw things when I was with him, I saw the stars!” She paused, “But I don’t know if we are, not for sure. I don’t know if we’re still on a ship or if I was somewhere else – I just don’t know?” Her wide green eyes underlined her words, double underlined them, in red. After a moment of silence so thick, that if you’d been listening, the sound of their brains racing would have been as plain as the ticking of a grandfather clock, Ken spoke.
“So what should we do now, there must be something George has said?” He stopped and looked at the smile on Jane’s face. “He bloody-well has, hasn’t he, you bugger! You look like that cat in the old ‘cream’ scenario – come on then, spit it out!” He grinned at her in anticipation. Jane grinned back and Ken felt himself sit more upright. “Please let this be the answer, please! If we aren’t gonna be able to kill Red somehow then I ain’t sure that I’ve many other big ideas left…” Ken really hoped that Jane had something good for them, some perfectly formed trap for the red haired bastard to fall into. “Fall into and keep falling, fall right out the other side of the fucking universe!”
He sat, masking his thoughts and looking innocently at Jane, listening as she let them into the plan, the one she and a grey haired old man had made – made just yesterday whilst she was visiting him on his spaceship… Smiling at the madness of it all, she said, “It suddenly dawned on me, yesterday, or whenever it was, that maybe we have been going about this the wrong way. Everything they have ever done has always been aimed at stopping Red, or changing the things around him so that he gets stopped?” She looked at them before continuing, they nodded in agreement. “Well, when I was at university we had this lecture on man management, you know, leadership and stuff? There was this guy, the one who did the lecture, he had this thing, this manner and it was as though he was only talking to me, I didn’t know why at the time, but his words stuck right in my head and they’ve been there in the background ever since?” Both the men had done a fair amount of leadership training and neither of them could figure out what she was aiming for. Jane put them out of their misery: “He said there was this thing, a theory, it’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy or… umm…” She though for a while, and then, with eyes suddenly lighting up, said: “The Pygmalion Effect, that’s what he called it, yes! And what he said about it made sense. It’s where you assume something about someone and then treat them accordingly. They, on other hand, know it’s what you think about them, and so they behave accordingly – it’s a method that will never break its own circle. Treat someone like an idiot and the chances are that they will behave like one? We can apply this theory to ourselves, we only ever look at Red in one way, and accordingly we only ever act towards him, in one way?” She waited for them to digest the information.
Mike asked: “So what does this have to do with Red, then?” He turned to Ken for some support. Ken smiled but he couldn’t help Mike as he himself was starting to see where Jane was coming from.
“Wait a bit, Mike – I can see where she’s going with this, go on Jane…” He looked at them both and waited for his wife to continue.
Jane smiled, and said, “Well, all we’ve been doing is trying to stop Red’s actions, yes?” Without waiting for their agreement she pushed on. “It’s got us nowhere and is probably going to get us nowhere in the future. Why don’t we just pause and take a look at him. Instead of trying to stop him, or change what he does, why don’t we try and change him, change his life, why don’t we change Red?”
The simplicity of her idea rolled over her husband. Why they hadn’t thought of it that way before was beyond him. Ken was amazed and also extremely proud of the woman who sat curled up in front of them. He said, “So, let me get this straight, Red is the centre of everything, change him and everything else changes as well – is that what you’re saying?”
Jane replied: “Well, not quite, changing him may have a very positive effect upon the future; however, they are not sure as to what that effect will be. But it’s got to be better than the one they have been battling unsuccessfully against so far? George doesn’t think that by changing Red we will be able to prevent people like Peters and O’Hara from doing what they’re doing, their types are probably still going to plague us, and by the sounds of things – people like us will still be used to ‘change’ them.” She then told them what George had said about the Dragon, of how something evil always seemed to have a say in these particular events.
