One of the problems of
having a slave labour-force instead of a paid or patriotic one is of course the
quality of the workmanship; especially on important and sensitive areas of the job.
Ahram workers were no different to any others. When their overseers weren’t
watching every little move, corners would be cut and shoddy workmanship often hidden
under layers of paste and paint. Mostly, the faults wouldn’t come to light
unless they were put under some undue strain or tension.
Of the thirty thousand
bone stitches holding the central spire on to the main body of the Cantave,
three thousand of them had been inserted by a fellow called Jessup – a surly, mean-spirited
sort of bloke who didn’t give a Grob’s scrotum for doing anything properly. He
took no pride in his work, since his pride had been pissed on pretty much by
everyone since the day of his birth. These stitches had to fit like a glove
because the lateral forces caused by wind and weather at these altitudes were
tremendous. Needless to say, three thousand of these stitches did not fit like
a glove. They hardly fitted at all. And three thousand turned out to be a
critical threshold.
The central-top bone
spire of the Cantave - the ‘live’ terminal for the event horizon - was in
Quantum terms…Hot. The energy coursing through this spire had caused its molecular
structure to mutate. Its atoms had been bombarded until it didn’t quite exist
in any particular material realm. It had been so altered by the anomaly that it
could be sighted in several different dimensions at the same time. It existed neither
in the present, future, or past for any appreciable length of time. It existed nowhere
and everywhere, flickering in and out of reality and jumping the space-divide
like a train-hopper.
This central spire, one
thousand metres in height, its faulty stitches giving way under the extreme
duress of the event horizon, finally separated from its base and toppled over -
and fell.
On its way down it
killed half a dozen angels from the Kieron galaxy in the universe but one from
this - and three Snorks from the Malthesium realm in another adjacent universe
- which by the way, wasn’t a bad thing. The
spire - to all measurements now just pure radiation - plunged through forty
five parallel universes before reaching the Cantave floor, by which time it was
travelling at thirty seven thousand light years per second.
The captain’s giant hand
held him up high in the air as little Righteous kicked frantically to free
himself.
“What’s that feel like
now my little rat. Not so cocky after all,” He laughed again, his voice a deep
rumble from the centre of the hurricane as a bolt of lightning crashed into the
storm-tossed ship and severed the top masthead spar. Wind-driven and gravity
bound, the hefty piece of wood came whizzing down, jagged stump first and plunged
into the captains neck, piercing down through his body and impaling him to the
wooden deck where he stood – dead as a doorknob.
The boy fell to the
floor and lay there for some time, feeling the rain and spray on his face. Then
he heard a faint cry, a woman’s voice, somewhere to his left. With his hands he
felt his way across the deck and came upon a closed hatch. Feeling for the
latch his fingers touched upon a lock. The vaguely familiar voice called again,
directly beneath the hatch. “Help us. We’re trapped in here and the water is
rising.”
Instinctively the boy
worked his way back to the captain and by feeling around his blood-soaked body,
he found the key - an old fashioned iron thing hanging from his neck. As fast
as he could, he worked the key up the oily neck and lifted it off over the
captain’s scabby scalp. No easy feat, for the ship heaved on the swells and the
wind whipped at his face. But soon it was free, and though he couldn’t see it, he
fancied that it glowed in his hands.
There were now many voices
calling from below as he felt his way back to the hatch. At first the key wouldn’t
fit. Slippery with blood, his trembling fingers couldn’t seem to hold it
properly. He tried to hurry but it only made things worse. A giant wave crashed
over him and for a moment he nearly lost his grip on the key. Tears gathered in
his eyes and snot ran down his nose as he clawed his way back to the hatch.
“Help us,” came the
woman’s cry again, this time fainter. He had the key and he had the lock but he
couldn’t seem to fit the one into the other.
In frustration he swiped
at the lock with the key and the crozier in his hand flared into a brilliant
black corona of light, burning its way down into the darkness as the widening
gyre of a wormhole began to open up and illuminate the pit of slaves beneath.
“Hello big boy,” said
Belle. ”I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
