Monty scratched his head. Hayden continued unabated ‘- Like in this other universe you might be explaining this to me.’
‘Okay. So why are there copies of us in this universe?’
‘Not copies. They are just as real as you or I...hypothetically.’
Monty was now even more confused. ‘But you said they were replicas?’
‘If they met us, to them we would be their replicas. A better description would be counterparts.’
Monty was confounded. Hayden continued. ‘To them, their lives are just, their lives. ’ He took a breath. ‘They’re counterparts because they didn’t come from us, they weren’t cloned from us. They are just people going about their lives like us, again hypothetically.’
‘So what you’re saying,’ Monty began, hoping that he’d get it at least a little bit right. ‘Is that every one of us could be living exactly the same lives as we are living, but slightly different? They’re us but not us? Like if I say yes now then my exact counterpart somewhere in another universe could be saying no?’
‘Yes! And you could have thousands, millions or billions of counterparts. There could be as many universes as there are variations in anything that could vary here or on any of them.’
‘Hypothetically,’ Monty added.
‘Yep,’ Hayden grinned, proud that his friend had grasped the theory so well. ‘Or hypothetically there could be as many completely different universes and we could be the only us at all.’
‘That is a lot of hypotheses,’ Maddy added.
‘Hypothetical physics-or maybe not so hypothetical?’ Hayden smiled. ‘There could be just this universe.’
‘Well, I don’t think I could’ve explained that any better,’ Baden said. ‘As you alluded, it could be that there are other universes connected to ours with some being entirely empty, some being new, some being old and with others dying, or it could be simply us.’
‘I hope then that this ship avoids the really big wormholes, Captain?’ Hayden hoped.
Baden looked serious. ‘Thankfully, Hayden, we have all Black-Holes charted.’
‘All? ’
‘Super-Massive included. ’
‘Super - massive - black - holes? ’ Monty asked meekly.
‘All our charted galaxies have what’s called a Super Massive Black-Hole,’ Baden informed.
‘How many galaxies are there then?’ Monty questioned.
The captain laughed his friendly laugh. ‘Well, Monty, we haven’t as yet mapped all of them as there are most probably around fifty billion of them in the universe.’
‘Does that mean there are as many of these giant Black-Holes?’
‘Could well be. Could be that a galaxy can’t survive without one?’
Seeing his wide-eyed friend’s face at that moment, Hayden couldn’t resist some trivia. ‘You know, Mont. If the Earth was sucked into a Black-Hole it would emerge on the other side crushed to the size of a ping-pong ball.’
‘That’s if it emerged?’ Baden added.
Monty thought about that for a few seconds then swallowed coarsely. ‘Hypothetically, right?’
Hayden smiled and Maddy poked him in the side.
*
‘What stops us from turning into toothpaste on the event-horizon?’Hayden inquired but Baden didn’t answer.
The Captain showed them the rest of the engine room. There were two people working diligently inside an opened hatch on one side of one of the spherical engines. Hayden and his friends recognised both immediately. Rupert Rampe, Armadale’s civil engineer, was apparently chief of engineering onboard and his son Darmon was his second in charge. They both stopped what they were doing when they noticed the group, turned and bowed gently in Hayden’s direction
‘Hullo, Rupe,’ Maddy said excitedly to Rupert as he was an old friend of her family. ‘That looks complicated?’
‘Not at all, Madds. She’s a real beaut, this one.’
‘It looks very complicated to me.’
‘Well, if I stay on top o’ things, I generally avoid any mishaps and it’s no dirtier than bein’ on the council.’ Then as if to prove a point he wiped black dust from his hands over his already grubby pant legs.
*
Hayden was now feeling really tired and asked if they could continue tomorrow. Captain Baden was happy to complete the tour in the morning as they wouldn’t be arriving at their destination until early afternoon. Maddy and Monty were glad as they were finding it a little too hard to concentrate themselves despite the novelty of their surroundings. They headed out and forward back to Hayden’s cabin, chatting about space and wormholes and Salar-One all the way.
When they’d arrived, Captain Baden bid them all goodnight but before he walked back to the bridge, Hayden asked if he would answer one more question. ‘How did the ship get out of Jagged Peak?’
‘I can tell you, Hayd,’ Monty volunteered excitedly.
‘And he can tell you, Hayden, as I need to get back to work. Goodnight again to you all.’ The three best friends bid him a goodnight as he walked up the passage and out of sight.
Monty turned to Hayden with an excited look. ‘You know at the back of Jagged Peak where it swoops down and then back up again and it looks kind of like a cradle and Dove Lake is in the depression in the middle?’ Hayden nodded. Of course he knew. He’d been pulling big trout out of that lake with his uncle for years and knew it very well.
‘Well, we came out of that.’
‘The lake?’
‘The lake.’
‘Yup. We came out of the lake,’ Maddy continued. ‘I don’t know how we did but I remember being taken onto the bridge and seeing water pouring down the windows and when I looked down, even though it was dark, I saw clearly what was certainly Dove Lake below.’
Monty shook Hayden’s hand goodnight and he received a sustained hug from Maddy. He looked at his two friends. ‘It is really good to have you guys here with me.’
‘Remember, it’s just as strange for us to be here too,’ Maddy stated.
‘It’s great we’re all together,’ Monty smiled.
Hayden smiled a wider smile than he’d done for a while then after some final goodnights, his friends walked off to their quarters and he entered his cabin with the door swiftly shutting behind him. In the half-light, the small room oddly felt like his home now.
He wandered about slowly looking at stuff. The hard but rubbery floor. The folded joins in the metal walls. He could very faintly hear the footsteps of his friends as they walked away to their cabins. Sitting on his bunk in the silence, he removed his shoes, lifted his legs around onto the surprisingly comfortable bed to lay down fully then closed his eyes. He tried to sleep but despite his physical and mental exhaustion couldn’t. The day’s happenings wouldn’t stop rotating through his mind. Happenings that until a few hours before didn’t even exist to him. What were those aliens’ worlds like? Their civilizations and technologies? He thought about his friends and their families and of everyone in the town and then he thought of his uncle and his mother and how hard it must’ve been to keep a secret so very massive from him. Then he thought curiously about his father and what he once was and what history he’d have to learn of the blood that ran through his veins.
Turning his head to the side, his eyes closed heavily as sleep began to wash over him. Tomorrow was certain to be another adventure, he thought happily as he let himself drift toward slumber.
This pleasantness was interrupted when without warning, a thin metallic ceiling tile fell with a dull clanging sound, narrowly missing him onto the floor. In the brief moment it took for him to look up, he was grasped by something and lifted into the ceiling!
Frantically he searched for what had hold of him but could see nothing in the low light and his torso hurt from an intense pressure encircling it. Whatever it was made disturbing squelching sounds as it moved and Hayden’s heart beat fearfully in his chest.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“It” had him hooked under the arms so t
hat he couldn’t fight it, he could barely flail the top of his arms as he was dragged by its immense strength in the darkness of the narrow ceiling cavity. The disgusting squelching sound got louder as it hastened for wherever it was heading. Wanting to yell for help but with his chest constricted so tight he could barely breathe, suddenly his captor stopped and its grip loosened slightly. Hayden frantically inhaled deeply. It was then that he noticed the smell, like rotting fish, and he was about to vomit but couldn’t for as soon as he convulsed the creature’s grip tightened again and he had to swallow bitterly.
Surrounded by inky blackness, the dim light from the punctured ceiling in his cabin was by now well back from him. Trying to move his head slowly round to see just what it was that had him he could only manage to tilt his chin forward slightly. It was too dark and so he nervously waited for his eyes to acclimatise.
Are these are to be my last moments? he thought, stuck in a roof cavity with a creature that reeked of dead fish. Did he want to see what it was? Straining his eyes he tried but couldn’t make out anything but the faintest silhouette of the bulk around him. He struggled against the immovable strength only for it to answer with the pressure needed to immobilize him completely. Hayden saw something, a light, a miniscule red light. It was smaller than a pinhead and just above him. The light almost instantly began to grow, no - multiply until within an instant there were hundreds then thousands of them in radiating fluorescent crimson waves. With absolute horror he realised that he was in the clammy vice-like grip of a Sepian!
Struggling in vain to escape, its hold around his upper chest grew still stronger. The cephalopod then set something on the floor that quickly flashed orange. Hayden lay outstretched in the intermittent dark, his upper body gripped and his head locked by the creatures unbelievably strong thick tentacle arm, his clothing wet with its slime. The Sepian appeared to be waiting for something. Every time he tried to struggle, the creature illuminated red with anger. He still couldn’t breathe. Impossible to resist, he could only yield to its strength. A loud clunking sound directly above his head caused the beast to relax slightly and he caught another rancid breath. Sparks flew over them and he began to realise what was happening. The metal of the outer hull was being sliced through and it appeared that he was being kidnapped!
Hayden’s head was now tilted to the right slightly and he strained his eyes upward. With limited vision he could see the Sepian that had him as it watched the roof being cut, the tiny sparks of molten metal reflecting in its large wet glassy eye and glimmer of its sickly opaque wet skin. He saw the long, deep jagged scar running down its face, Hayden struggled and its eye flicked downward to watch its prey. The metal peeled back above them with a high pitched squeal and Hayden was lifted into a dark tunnel, grasped by the tentacles of another and hauled away from the safety of the Copernicus and his family and friends.
Almost entirely upside down, from his uncomfortable vantage he could see the foul creature from the alien hall clambering up into the funnel after him. That was when he noticed the small device his abductor had set off in the roof cavity was still there.
They’ll know who’s taken me!
Hayden’s hope was short-lived however when the scarred beast stopped, turned, then extended a tentacle to retrieve the flashing beacon. A rounded hatch door above was opened by yet another Sepian and Hayden was roughly passed through the gap into its grasp. That Squid man lifted him then threw the young Earthling a few meters through the air before he fell hard onto the floor. The first two creatures slid past before turning to face their prize then stood to full height and stared unblinking, glassy stares.
Hayden stood up too. He was undeniably very scared and felt very, very vulnerable. They were standing in a small, dim and very humid room that smelled like a fishmongers. He noticed that where they’d moved, wide wet slug-like trails crisscrossed the dark metallic floor. A smaller Sepian suddenly appeared seemingly out of thin air, camouflaged against the wall and it immediately slithered across to Hayden, gripped his arms firmly while probing one giant eye at a time into his. A greasy looking door at the rear of the room slid open and another even bigger Sepian entered making straight for Hayden.
Five of them!
Upon the larger entering, the smaller creature looked at its counterparts one by one, flashed green gold then let go of Hayden to return down the tunnel from which their prey had been brought.
The larger alien grabbed Hayden roughly and seemed to take pleasure in knocking him against the walls as it slithered down a narrow, damp dark passageway. Hayden was sure it did because after he’d hit a wall he glimpsed its right eye glance down as if it were looking for a reaction from him, reactions it got repeatedly in the form of struggling, painful groans.
They stopped in front of another door and the Sepian ran a free tentacle across the face of a grimy reader on which strange yellow angular symbols flashed and rotated. The beast and its reluctant cargo moved through the opening door and into what Hayden realised immediately, aided by the sparse light from the hallway - was a prison.
A stinking, dank metallic room, its walls glistening with grease, mould and scum. The door slowly closed as the mollusk-man glided swiftly across the metal floor and stopped in front of a small cage where, with its free limb it opened it and unceremoniously threw its captive inside. Hayden righted himself only to turn and face the powerful Sepian slamming the self locking perforated steel gate shut with a reverberating clang. The creature turned and moved back toward the door.
Hayden was now an intergalactic prisoner and he fretted over what they wanted with him? Pressing his face up to the grimy gate, he peered through the small holes and watched as his warder swiped at what he was sure would be the only exit then left, the door closing tightly behind it.
A small caged globe above the door cast its immediate area in muted yellow light but it was enough for Hayden to see that he was being held in one of perhaps twenty small cages stacked on top of each other four and five high, separated by a wide metallic grate walkway on each level.
Prison cells.
Moans and groans and growls and snarls emanated from the darkness and Hayden didn’t want to know what other captives were making them. It was bad enough he could smell them. He was trapped in a mysterious alien zoo that, if under different circumstances, he may have been fascinated to visit but definitely not now. Crawling to the rear of his cage and rubbing his chest for relief from the tentacles that had compressed it, he sat down and stared outwardly from his cell. The sounds emanating from the other cages sent chills up his spine and the hairs on his neck stood on end. Hours ago, he was at home on Earth. Minutes ago, he was chatting with his friends.
*
Looking at his watch, hours had past. He’d loosened his top but wasn’t prepared to take it off despite the humidity that kept him sweating profusely in the eerie silence occasionally punctuated by alien noises. The stench of the place had lost some of its pungency the longer he stayed and for that at least he was grateful. He was contemplating, and only contemplating, trying to get some sleep when a scuffling sound emanated from above him. Reactively recoiling, he moved to the back of his cage, positioning his legs with some difficulty in the cramped space in an automatic fight or flight position facing the hatch. Something howled loudly, the call filling the room and bouncing off the hard surfaces, and he jumped, hitting his head hard on the low cell roof. Rubbing it, he let out a pathetic groan and as he did so, a stirring emanated from the cell directly above as if something had woken. Then there was silence for several seconds until he heard another sound, a beautiful and familiar sound. From the darkness he was sure he heard his own language being spoken. It sounded like “Hello.”
Had they taken someone else from the ship?
He heard it again, it was broken and in an accent he couldn’t recognise but it was definitely his language.
‘Hello?’ He called meekly.
‘Hello.’ Was the reply.
‘Uh - Who are you?’
‘My name is Hay- den,’ he answered as he heard more scuffling.
‘Hay- den?’ The little but forthright voice replied, mimicking his tone exactly.
‘I am from Earth.’ Hayden announced, feeling profoundly weird having to explain.
‘Earf ?’
‘Earth.’
He crept forward and peered through the perforations again.
‘A- very- long- way- from- here,’ he continued, his speech muffled by the grate and drawn out, as is a common habit when some are talking to foreigners.
‘Are you damaged?’ said a very much unexpected girl who was now, surprisingly standing in front of Hayden’s cage with head cocked to the side tapping her right temple. Despite the sparse lighting and his limited view, his eyes had aclimatised and he noticed she was slim, had long hair that understandably under their present conditions was a dirty, sweaty, matted mess. She wore single clothing similar in type and colour to Hayden’s but considerably more dirty. He couldn’t see her face.
She looked down into his little prison as he looked up at her and he suddenly registered that she had escaped from her cage and had now, after fiddling with the latch, opened his!
‘Who are you? ’ Hayden asked as he awkwardly and quite painfully exited on his hands and knees.
‘I am Kel.’ She nodded. ‘Kel Jeles - hello to you, ’ she said in a jovial way very much out of keeping with their environment. She then made the saluting gesture by placing her right hand with fingers outstretched, palm forward onto her chest just as everyone else had done on the Copernicus. Hayden wondered if she had been taken from his ship. Was she someone he hadn’t met onboard?
He stood and they both noticed he was quite a bit taller than she.
‘Kel- Jel- ess?’
The Blake Equation- Discovery Page 11
