Epsiode 16

Some people like their egg hard boiled for breakfast and some like them soft. Thedeus liked his egg boiled for exactly three and a half minutes so that he could dunk his toast fingers in the runny yellow yolk – because that’s the way his mommy had made them for him ever since he could remember. And because these breakfast eggs were unconsciously associated in his mind with early morning cuddles and kisses and a general feeling of well-being, Thedeus still had an inordinate fondness for a soft boiled egg.

In fact, his daily good humour depended on the state of his egg. If it was too cold, or too hard to dip, it would set him in a mood of unrequitement, if not downright dissatisfaction. But he never suspected that his daily happiness hinged on an egg timer watched by a mother’s loving eyes. Only she knew it, and if she got his day started right, he invariably had a wonderful time. If she didn’t, he would sometimes even come home in tears, having been punished by his teacher for being inattentive, or fighting in the playground. Even in later life he would return with tales of woe after a bad start to the day.

Now, knowing how important it was to boil her son’s breakfast egg for exactly the right amount of time, she tried to pass this valuable information on to the woman who was going to take over her role, the one who was going to look after him from now on.

Unfortunately, this woman had never cooked an egg in her life, nor anything else for that matter, and even though she was a career woman and would always have someone to cook for them, she still couldn’t help but feel she wasn’t quite the perfect wife, and as a result she was a bit defensive about her shortcomings in the kitchen.

So when Mrs Darck broached the subject, in the nicest possible way, (after long deliberation and carefully choosing the right words so as not to offend) it sorely pricked April’s pride and vanity and the girl actually ‘Humphed’ in indignation and flounced her firm flesh out of the room. Mrs Darck was mortified beyond words. She hadn’t expected plain sailing but his was a disaster. She actually tried to bite her tongue in remorse for what she’d done. True, during the voyage out the ladies hadn’t taken to each other in the way that Thedeus had hoped, but they had reserved their natural judgement of each other for his sake and been kindly polite to one another. Now the heavy atmosphere between the two could be cut with a knife and Rose was sure the entire ship felt it. April became tight faced and silent towards Rose. She wasn’t a malicious girl – she was just hurt, and felt that her mother-in-law was unfairly criticising her. Rose spent most of her time in her cabin writing note after abortive note of apology and then crumpling them up in a little heap of hopelessness and crying her heart out. Thedeus was too busy training and attending briefings to notice anything wrong.

Although both women were desperate to make amends, neither knew how, and they continued to avoid eye contact on those occasions when their paths crossed. For every agonising moment of that three month journey, both women tiptoed on eggs round each other.

 

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But thankfully the voyage was soon over and shortly after their arrival on G.O.D. 5 the new commander and his bride were looking proudly out from the observation deck upon the vessel that was to take them on the greatest adventure the world has ever known.

The ship was a clean Conex Tri-hull in ivory white with looping struts and connectors that resembled a three-dimensional lacework filigree woven between the elegant slim-line hyper-drive engines and the hull that housed the flight deck, cabins and the various lavish and comprehensive facilities for the 12 man crew needed to run it. The outside sensors, weapons, and radar arrays were all seamlessly integrated into the drive rocket housing. The Z-class Chaser was a super-streamlined ship of the future. Nothing like it had ever been seen before: a triumph of modern technology. It was the fastest, most well equipped space ship mankind could conceive of. Built of the latest and most exotic alloys and materials, equipped with instruments and weapons not yet conceived of in the public domain; it was well balanced, flexible, awesomely armed, and very strong. It was, in short, built to withstand Armageddon. The engineers had no doubt that it would cope with the wormhole quite adequately. The minister for Space and Defence made sure that the public knew this too. The praises for the ship were sung far and wide. Her tests had been extensive and gruelling: now she lay silently resting against her berth on G.O.D. 5, awaiting the crew that would take her on her maiden voyage. They called her…‘Sleeping Beauty’.

Behind the happy couple a farewell party was in full swing. Family, friends, officials, dignitaries, well-wishers and crew were all celebrating the coming launch of the rescue mission that would carry mankind to beyond the frontiers of human imagination. This expedition had been in the planning for many, many years, but public opinion had been strongly against sending anyone down there. Many unmanned space probes had been despatched down the funnel in the hope of gathering some information of what it was like on the other side, but unfortunately none of them ever returned.  And then, just recently, a Federation distress-drone emerged from the wormhole. It carried comprehensive information of an ore miner and his ship that had accidentally been drawn into the wormhole some time before; charting his entire journey and even giving a detailed map of the solar system in which he had found himself. Whether he was still alive or not, they couldn’t tell. But the Federation finally had their reason to send in an investigative team. The public just could not let a call for help go unanswered: and if a broken down ore-liner could make it through the wormhole, then so could they.

The music and laughter and general hysteria of the revellers were starting to have an adverse effect on Rose. She felt claustrophobic and headachy, and also a bit nauseous from the champagne. It was always champagne; that’s all these people ever drank. She hated the stuff because it gave her gas and made her feel tired. By some miracle she had found a waiter who had managed to bring her a nice cup of tea. It was a lifesaver, and just the action of stirring made her relax. It was something nice and familiar; soothing. And she needed that. The voyage had been anything but a pleasure cruise. She knew now it had been a terrible mistake to accompany the married couple on their trip to G.O.D. 5, but the biggest mistake of all was seeing the actual wormhole up close through the wide panoramic windows of the observation post. No photograph or video would ever do it justice, nor did they prepare Rose for the sheer size and power of that roiling tornado twisting through space as if it was trying to suck in the universe. Even though it was still some 5 million miles away, it covered most of the view in the window, sucking at your senses. It was a monstrous sight.

At the mere thought of it Rose’s eyes were inadvertently drawn to the wormhole again and at that moment she knew for a certainty that she would never see her son again. With her guts twisting in agony, she took her cup of tea and slipped away from the celebrations. Once out the door she walked blindly down one twisting corridor after the other, trying to escape the dreadful nagging pain in her heart. Sometimes she would be stopped by a locked door, but she just kept going until she was completely lost. Soon her legs had begun to tremble from shock and exertion, and she desperately needed a place to sit down. Her tea cup clattered in the saucer as she pushed open the first door she came to next, and seeing the room was empty, she walked in and closed it again.

She found herself in some kind of games room, empty but for some benches along the window (always the window, she just couldn’t escape the sight of the wormhole), some scuffed and faded white lines on the wooden floors, a punch bag and a steel basket full of softballs. Keeping her eyes averted from the monster outside, she walked over to the bench and sat down facing inwards.

She sipped her tepid tea and slowly the knots in her stomach began to unwind. She slipped her shoes off and placed her feet on the blessedly cool floor. She knew they wouldn’t miss her for many hours. No-one missed her much anymore. No-one ever came looking for her. She sighed a small sigh and unconsciously let her eyes roam around the room, not thinking anything, just taking in the strange environment. Finally she saw the basketball hoop hanging from the wall and a hundred memories of her son flooded into her brain from all the games she had watched him play. Her eyes filled with tears and she began to cry again.

 

 

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EPISODE 15

Angelo peered into the dingy interior of the hut to no avail. He could see nothing. He might as well have been blind. He took a few very careful, tentative steps into the room, expecting to come into contact with something horrendous at any moment. He did encourage himself though by the fact that the last man had left alive.

“That’s better,” said the Prophet, quite startling him out of his wits, and then fell as silent as the grave.

Officer Angelo waited, trying to get his breathing under control and his knees to stop shaking, not quite sure what would happen next; whether he should speak or just wait. He was inclined to wait, for he had no real question to ask, and he didn’t really want to approach the subject of putting the Prophet under arrest just yet. He wished he could see him though, and then he’d be better able to judge what to do: whether to begin begging for his life, make up a bogus question, or just plain make a run for it while his skin was still intact.

 

The Prophet was in no hurry. He sensed Officer Angelo’s agitation; saw all his thoughts and deceptions as clear as if he was a child with ice-cream on his face, denying that he had eaten one. Like the other Getham, the Prophet was also blind, and therefore wasn’t tempted to leave his body for the world of lies and illusion where everyone else lived. Inside, the truth was always plain to see.

And inside his head, although it was neither dark nor light, his world was vivid around him, made so by the voices that spoke to him. They painted a picture more complete than mere mortal eyes could see. The voices had been there ever since he could remember, telling him things, describing things, providing him with a running commentary on everything that was happening in the solar system. If someone said something, the voice would tell him what they really meant, even if they didn’t know it themselves. If someone asked a question the voice would tell him what to answer.

And the source of all this wisdom was the wormhole. The sub-spectral energy of the wormhole extended far into the solar system and, although only a select few could see it, surrounded everyone like a whirling wall of living information.

Everything was written on that wall and the Prophet could read it like a book. This is where the voices emanated from. These were the voices he heard, telling him of things past, things now, and things to come. He studied the wall in his every waking and sleeping moment and read there the story of the world as it was, as it is, and as it will be.

That was until a year ago. Then something started to change, and his vision began, little by little, to darken. At first he thought he was going blind, figuratively speaking, that he was losing his gift of foresight. But he could still see things, in the past….and in the now. The voices still spoke to him as loudly as ever. It was just the future that was being covered by a thin black veil through which it got more and more difficult to peer. Many other seers and readers had noticed this disturbing trend too, and as the veil crept closer to the present time they got the distinct impression that the future was being erased, and that the end of all time was near. No-one knew how or why, or what it was. They just knew it was coming. They also knew it was coming out of the wormhole……..and they called it - The Doom.

 

“Your eyes are a curse,” came the deep voice out of the darkness again, startling Officer Angelo, who had drifted off into a daydream of thoughts. “You see evil everywhere…more than most people, because you are a policeman. My blindness is a blessing. I see only myself, therefore I think twice before judging.”

As Officer Angelo’s maligned eyes slowly accustomed themselves to the gloom, he could vaguely begin to discern a giant black man squatting on a wooden tripod in the centre of the room. He had large milky white staring eyes almost popping out of his face, and long Rasta locks of hair twirling like snakes down and around his gleaming naked body. Sulphurous fumes from the pit rose up through the cracks in the floorboards and writhed around the two of them.

“You come to take me on a journey,” he said, and the hut reverberated as he spoke.

“Something like that,” said Officer Angelo with absolutely no conviction in his voice. All he could think was that he was going to die.

“We’re all going to die,” said the Oracle. “Sooner or later.”

 

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Gertie was getting the urge. It was only at certain times during the month that she got the urge, and when she did, she found Masino very attractive. Normally she couldn’t stand him because he was a big mouth braggart with a permanent pus-filled pimple under his nose that consumed all of ones attention during a conversation, but at the moment none of that mattered to her…when she got the urge, anyone would do. This was all very confusing to Masino. Kind of like the lottery. He never knew when his number was going to come up, and she could be really cruel if he got it wrong. At the moment they were humping it up in the miscellaneous equipment locker with all the concomitant bangs and rattles one would expect from abusing cheap metal furniture. They never heard the customs hall door open and close. If they’d have looked at the flickering security monitor they’d have seen two men, one short and clothed – the other huge and naked - walking briskly past their unmanned customs-desk and key open the airlock that led to the docking bays. They didn’t, and everybody got off satisfactorily.

 

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