I am an ardent fan of my favourite pastime, which is shouting at the wireless. I have mostly my own teeth and can still get myself to the bathroom without too many accidents. I prefer my wine both copious and red.
I am an ardent fan of my favourite pastime, which is shouting at the wireless. I have mostly my own teeth and can still get myself to the bathroom without too many accidents. I prefer my wine both copious and red.
The crate’s lid settled into place with a muffled thud, and I pressed down on it to make sure it was properly shut. Yes, if anyone looked closely enough they’d be able to see that it had been tampered with. But who was going to do that before this ship got to where it was going? And hopefully Finn and I would be long gone by then. Beside me, Finn wiped his palms on his trousers and exhaled. The shard, the ‘Benidorm egg cup toilet, a small, unremarkable, piece of junk, was now tucked safely into my pouch, nestled amongst the other items of weirdness.
We had it. One step closer.
And one step closer to a reckoning I was pretty sure we weren’t ready for.
I turned to Finn, keeping my voice low. “We need to talk about what we’re going to do when we have all of them.”
Finn raised an eyebrow, an edge of wariness creeping into his expression. “You mean besides stopping the multiverse from unraveling into overcooked spaghetti?”
I folded my arms. “You know what I mean.”
He hesitated, then exhaled. “The Collector, you mean.”
“Yes. The Collector.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The cargo bay hummed around us, the distant thrum of the ship’s systems a low background constant. But there was nothing reassuring about our situation.
Finn ruffled a hand through his hair. “Alright, let’s get this out there, do we actually think he’s trying to fix things?”
“No.” The answer came too quickly, too easily. Finn’s lips pressed into a thin line, and I saw the agreement and, to some extent relief settle in his face. I went on. “He’s been playing this game for a long time. Longer than we can measure. I know from past experience with him that he’s had his hand in too many moments of history. And no matter what he claims, he’s always been more interested in himself than anything else and I think he sees an opportunity for power. He always was one for self aggrandisement. Think about it, Finn—when he first told you about the watch, about all this, did he look like a man who had just lost control of the situation?”
Finn frowned. “He looked… theatrical. Giving it the whole avuncular ‘I know everything and you’re just the errand boy’ sort of vibe.”
“Exactly.”
He shook his head. “You think he set me up?”
“I think he made sure you would pick up that watch. He might have given you some room to think you had a choice, but it was always going to happen. And he made it happen. To you.”
Finn let out a frustrated sigh and leaned against the crate. “Okay, but let’s say you’re right. And I think you are. I’ve been struggling to answer the why question the whole time. Why would he go through all this trouble? Why me? Why didn’t he just gather up the shards himself?”
“Because he needs to be In Between to control the Anchor, to make sure nobody else gets near it and to do that he needed somebody to gather the shards. But not just anybody. It had to be you, or somebody like you. Somehow, these shards have an affinity towards you. I know getting hold of them is hard work, but they make themselves obvious to you. There’s something about you Finn. The time-bind latches sense you too. It had to be you Finn and the Collector knew right from the start. But his agenda isn’t return reality back to normal, I’m pretty sure of that.”
Finn blinked. “And now we’re doing the hard work for him.”
“Exactly.”
For a few moments, the only sound was the ship’s low hum. Then Finn muttered, “So we don’t give them to him.”
“No,” I agreed. “We don’t. Do you think this one is the last one? Have we got them all now?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, “I can’t be sure, but it just doesn’t feel as though we’ve got them all yet. I think there is at least one more.”
“OK,” I said, “that gives us time to come up with a plan. We just make sure we don’t hand over what we’ve collected so far.
“What if he get’s nasty though?” he asked. “We need to make sure we get in and out of In Between without him getting these shards off us.”
I exhaled. “Yep. So I’ll keep hold of the pouch, together with my bind-latches. I don’t know what else we can try.”
“Great,” Finn muttered. “That’s comforting.”
“It’s reality-shattering cosmic mechanics, Finn, combined with a megalomaniac time professor who wants to rule the multiverse. It’s a bit complicated. Excuse me for not having a plan ready to go.”
He sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Alright, fine. We don’t hand them over. We don’t tell him we’re onto him. That means we keep collecting the shards like good little pawns while figuring out an alternative.”
I nodded. “And we need to start preparing for what happens when he realises we’ve no intention of handing them over.”
“That’ll be fun,” Finn said darkly. “Any idea how powerful he actually is?”
“No,” I admitted. “And that’s the problem.”
Finn scowled. “What’s the chance of him writing us out of existence?”
“None, without the shards. Piece of cake if he has them and the Anchor.”
I was about to say more when I felt a shift in the air—an instinct, the sense of someone watching. Finn must have felt it too because he tensed beside me. We turned at the same time.
The cargo levels were immense, a city’s worth of freight distributed in staggered compartments, climate-controlled and protected from the vagaries of interstellar transit. The Lotaran exhibition’s cargo was secured in Section 49-C, marked as ‘cultural artefacts’, a designation that placed it in a restricted but not impenetrable zone.
Our ‘work’ detail had us assigned to the general handling team, and since by the time we reported in, all of the freight transfers had been completed, the work turned out to be about monitoring environmental controls and verifying manifests. It was, as Jake Firby had assured us, a perfect cover. If anyone questioned why we were near the crates, we had every reason to be there.
The challenge was not to alert the additional security.
“You see that?” Florence muttered, nodding towards a small surveillance node blinking in the corner of the cargo bay entrance.
I frowned. “I just knew it would turn out to be impossible.”
Florence frowned at me. “Come off it, Finn,” she said, “OK, the ship’s security is actually fairly light. It’s designed to deter opportunistic theft, not to fend off organised sabotage. Of course, there are still motion sensors, biometric scans for restricted areas, and the ever-present risk of some other actual crew member taking an interest in our movements. But definitely not insurmountable. So cheer up.”
Well, that’s me told.
“We need a distraction,” I said. “Something that will keep eyes off us while we check the Lotaran crates.”
Florence’s grinned. “That’s more like it, Finn. You do know we’re in a floating city full of volatile cargo and thousands of delicate mechanical systems, right?”
“…You have something in mind, don’t you?”
“I have several things in mind.”
The first step was simple misdirection. The ship, for all its scale and sophistication, was still a closed-loop environment. Systems relied on constant self-monitoring and automated adjustments to keep everything running smoothly. Which meant that when Florence and I, quite accidentally, of course, inadvertently overloaded one of the environmental dampers in an adjacent section, by setting off an inert gas fire extinguisher onto a temperature sensor, causing a false temperature variance warning, it immediately triggered a minor, and very irritating series of alarms.
As a result of which, crew members scrambled to assess the issue. Within minutes, the majority of personnel in the cargo sector were focused on investigating a harmless, entirely unexplainable mechanical hiccup. Which left Section 49-C momentarily unwatched.
We moved fast.
The Lotaran shipment consisted of several large crates, sealed with identification markers confirming their contents. The one we needed, if our theory was correct, was among them.
Florence pulled out her handheld cargo scanner, a neat bit of crew kit that came with the job when we reported for work. She scanned the crate.
“Bingo,” she whispered. “Additional information: ‘Culturally sensitive items. Do not open without authorisation. Not for general display. Sevridian and Fremdar exhibitions only.’”
“Which means…”
“It means it’s something they didn’t want on public display at GEO.” She tapped the screen. “And this is the best hope for us to find the next shard. We have a window, but not a big one.”
I exhaled. “So, how do we get inside?”
Florence considered. “I don’t know… do you happen to have a crowbar in that jacket?”
“No, but I do have this…” I pulled out Verya’s gift, which might do the job if I can just jam this end under the lip of the crate…”
She sighed but didn’t argue. “Fine. But make it as quiet as possible, Finn.”
We crouched by the crate, I beavered away with ‘Finn’s Little Helper,’ and to my complete and utter amazement, the lid just levered off. True, I’d inadvertently zapped it with about six billion gigawatts of zappage by pressing the wrong button, which may, or may not have blown the locks. But I didn’t expect it to be that easy. Still. Never look a gift horse and all that.
We worked quickly, the ship humming around us as it carried us further from L1 and deeper into the unknown. And what did we find?
A novelty bright yellow die-cast egg cup shaped like a toilet with ‘Welcome to sunny Benidorm’ on one side and ‘Bienvenido a la soleada Benidorm’ on the other. This had to be it.
“Which tells you a lot about the Veridians, if they find a die-cast egg cup shaped like a toilet culturally sensitive,” I said.
Florence gave me that look.
Extract from a report presented to the periodic meeting of the Alcubierre-Drake Expanse Survey (ADES)__ __ 2033/49.232. __ __ -cc. Report to the Pan-Galactic Observatory Network Scientific Council- -cc. The Event Horizon Synthesis Array (EHSA)_ (A distributed network of telescopes designed to map deep-time gravitational distortions, now detecting anomalies beyond its intended purpose.)_ __ __ __ __ Subject: Temporal Disruptions and Nonlinear Causality Events__ __ __ Summary:__ Multiple incidents across independent locations indicate significant deviations from established temporal mechanics. These anomalies, characterized by reversals, accelerations, and violations of causality, present an escalating risk to both observational consistency and fundamental spacetime coherence. __ __ Incident Reports:__ __ __ Terrestrial Transportation Event – Tokyo-Kyoto Line__ At 08:42 JST, the Nozomi-class bullet train departing Tokyo for Kyoto arrived at its destination two hours before its recorded departure time. Passengers reported a continuous, uninterrupted journey, yet timestamps from onboard and station systems confirm the arrival predated the departure event. Some travellers exhibited memory inconsistencies, with a subset claiming no recollection of ever boarding the train. No relativistic effects or external influences explain the discrepancy. __ __ Biological Reversion – Tau Ceti d Research Facility__ A controlled botanical experiment at the Tau Ceti d Planetary Research Laboratory yielded unprecedented temporal anomalies. Under standard observation, an Oxalis celestia specimen progressed from germination to full bloom in under six seconds. Immediately thereafter, the process reversed: petals retracting, stems shrinking, until the plant was restored to its seed state. Microscopic analysis confirmed no external manipulation. The event was recorded in real-time, with no disruptions to local environmental conditions. __ __ Communication Paradox – Asteroid Research Station 6K-17__ At 13:19 GST, a communications officer stationed on Asteroid 6K-17 transmitted a routine personal message to her brother on Mars. The response was received instantaneously, despite a confirmed eight-minute light-speed delay under standard conditions. The message contained a verbatim response to her inquiry, yet timestamp analysis verified that her brother had not yet sent it. When he eventually did, 3.6 days later, the content matched precisely. __ __ Analysis and Recommendations:__ These events suggest the emergence of localised temporal distortions, potentially indicative of broader instability in causality itself. The risk to computational systems, biological processes, and large-scale infrastructure is incalculable. Immediate coordination with temporal physics divisions and high-energy research facilities is advised. __ __ End Report.
The ship, ‘The Crumbs of Seed’ was colossal. Gob-smackingly vast. I’d never seen anything up this close that was anything like it. Even docked, the ship pulsed with the quiet power and scale of something that obeyed no terrestrial scale. The hull, a slightly shiny slate grey interwoven with webs of golden superconducting mesh, stretched for kilometres in either direction. Florence and I were insignificant specks within the yawning confines of its passenger reception, shuffling around a controlled, orderly chaos of interstellar migrants, corporate envoys, and transient traders, all of whom were being processed through to the cryogenic units for cryo-stasis through the voyage. There was no Director Shallan or any of the Lotaran delegation to be seen and both Florence and I presumed they’d already been frozen on their way here from the GEO Station.
Mr Firby had done his work well. We were officially on the manifest as passengers. But he had somehow arranged that we show on the crew manifest as cargo handlers. The former gave us passage in relative obscurity, whilst the latter gave us access to the cargo areas and the ability to avoid being put into stasis. Obviously a little bit of creative obfuscation might be needed, but I was getting used to that. Apparently, this anomaly in the system was a capability, built in to the systems like a ‘back-door’. Jake Firby reckoned it was there to allow the Galactic Council to move assets around unnoticed. How Mr Firby even knew about it is testament to his in-depth knowledge and un-noticed long service. We knew from the schematic and manifest information Jake had given us that the Lotaran exhibition’s artefacts were listed under secured cargo, slotted for trans-shipment before the ship continued to the next system. That meant we had precisely the duration of this leg of the journey to locate and access the crate before it vanished beyond our reach. Always assuming that the Ship systems didn’t clock that we were on both crew and passenger manifests. Well, at least not too soon, anyway.
Boarding proceeded around us in staggered groups, dictated by some internal algorithm balancing priority, security, and cryogenic availability. The Crumbs of Seed was an intergalactic vessel, built for voyages spanning months and years. Most passengers would be frozen in low-energy suspension, their metabolic processes slowed to an imperceptible crawl for the duration. This was by far the cheapest option and was how the whole problem of time-dilation at hyper speeds was dealt with. It also meant that, for those in stasis there would be no need to deal with the very disconcerting effects of hyper speed travel. Florence and I would be two of perhaps only a few dozen awake passengers in a vast ship that was transporting tens of thousands, most of whom were already in stasis from their various boarding points across the system.
Inside, the scale was no less overwhelming. The main passenger decks were laid out in concentric layers along the central spine, each level dedicated to a different class of traveller. At the core, shielded from the distortions of the drive, were the cryo-bays, vast fields of cylindrical pods stacked like library shelves, where most of the occupants would remain frozen for the duration. Above and below the passenger levels were crew quarters, operational zones, and mechanical access-ways. Near the needle-sharp nose of the vessel were the conscious passenger decks, ours among them, although we also had berths in the crew quarters.
We visited the passenger quarters. Florence and I had been assigned a standard sleeper cabin: a six-by-six-metre cell, modular in design, with a single bed recessed into the wall, a fold-down second berth, and a narrow console embedded with basic interface controls. The walls were matte grey, the lighting automatically adjusting to circadian cycles. The only luxury was a viewscreen, which at the moment was giving us a view of L1 station shrinking away as the ship’s docking clamps disengaged.
The undocking sequence was as precise as it was enormous. The Crumbs of Seed pulsed thrusters in a carefully orchestrated ballet, extricating itself from the station’s moorings with the gentlest shudders. I imagined, luridly that even a minor miscalculation at this scale would rip the station to scrap, spilling its million inhabitants into the vacuum of space. But of course, none of that happened and the ship eased itself away on low-impulse drives, gaining clearance before orienting toward its departure vector. Then, the real transition began.
After about an hour of manoeuvring out past the parking swarm, a vast collection of visiting ships too difficult, impoverished, tight-fisted to use the docks proper, the ship's hyperdrive, a real hyperdrive, an actual Casimir Effect-based negative energy drive, not the crude intrastellar Alcubierre fields, was housed in the aft section, a system of nested, self-stabilising bubble generators that created a controlled topological fold, slipping The Crumbs of Seed into an eleven-dimensional trajectory. The shift was barely perceptible inside the ship, save for a subtle flicker of the lights as spacetime momentarily resisted and then relented. The view outside the viewscreen blurred, starlight smearing into unfamiliar spectra.
Florence exhaled. “Well. No turning back now.”
I grunted in agreement. We both headed away from the passenger area to the crew spaces. Our bunk was one of about twenty in a long, narrow space in the lower portion of the ship. We each had a space about a metre wide and two metres long, with little but a bunk and the terminal on the wall. We both checked the terminals. Our work assignments, conveniently aligning with the cargo deck where the Lotaran shipment was stored, nice work again Mr Jake Firby, started in six hours. Until then, we needed a plan. Actually, I needed a sleep.
The next four days were the worst kind of waiting game. Hiding in a storage unit barely big enough to stretch out in, eatingFirbyly cold food, and trying not to let paranoia get the better of me. Florence took it all with her usual unflappable calm, which was equal parts impressive and annoying. I, on the other hand, spent most of the time imagining all the ways Krenz’s goons might find us and turn us into regrettable stains on the station floor. This whole business with Krenz was getting me down, and somewhere, in the back of my mind, I was pretty sure Florence and I were going to have to deal with him one way or another.
The only time we left our hideout was to meet with Jake Firby, who, I have to say, was really good about providing updates and food that hadn’t expired five years ago. It was an extra load of work for him, and he didn’t complain even once. And on the fifth day, he came with good news.
“Passages are booked,” he said. “You’re now officially Finn…” he glanced at me, “…and Florence Horringer, junior planetary surveyors catching a ride to the next system.”
Florence nodded approvingly. “Good cover. No one questions surveyors.”
“Exactly.” Firby leaned in. “Now, about that cryo problem. Turns out, the ship has an alternative for ‘essential personnel.’ Surveyors don’t qualify, but crew do. So I had to get a little creative.”
“Creative? Can you define ‘creative,’ for me?” I said warily.
“I added a couple of roles to the ship’s records, temporary cargo handlers. It’s a technicality, but it means you two will be awake while the cargo is handled.”
Florence raised an eyebrow. “And the actual cargo handlers?”
“Will just carry on as normal. If the Ship picks up on it it'll just show as a ‘scheduling conflict.’”
I let out a low whistle. “Man, you’re good. I mean, really good.”
“I know.” Firby smirked. “Now, once you’re on board, you need a plan for the multiple cargo holds. Security will be tight.”
“Any chance you can get us schematics?” Florence asked.
“I’ll see what I can do. But whatever you’re looking for, you’ll have to move fast. Once the ship jumps, security in the cargo areas tightens even more, since technically at least, nobody has a reason to be in there.”
“Do they stay in atmosphere or are they vacuum?” Asked Florence. I immediately started to panic.
“Ah,” said Jake, “that’s the good thing about this ship, it was designed originally as a passenger liner and although it now transports primarily freight, largely due to the galactic economic situation, it is, by design, mostly pressurised so the cargo areas should be in atmosphere.
I exhaled. “So, to summarise: stroll onto the ship, pretend to be cargo handlers, avoid getting frozen, and break into a high-security cargo hold before the ship jumps.”
“Pretty much.” Firby looked pleased with himself.
Florence gave me a pointed look. “Well, Finn? You wanted an adventure.”
“I wanted a quiet life,” I grumbled. “I just happened to be terrible at it.”
“Just one thing,” said Jake, “this journey, even at hyperjump velocities is due to take more than five years…”
I looked at Florence. Florence looked at me.
“If we find what we’re looking for,” she said, “we may well have alternate means to enable us to disembark earlier.
It was all going swimmingly well until we got to the bit where Florence and I had to get onto the actual ship itself. We tried to do it without attracting attention, but that turned out to be easier said than done. The docking bay, naturally, was a high-security zone, with a pressurised tunnel from the security checkpoint to the ship entrance. The cargo and maintenance teams were floating about outside the ship in full vacuum, doing their stuff. There were airlocks, of course, but unless you were in a suit, there was no way onto the ship except through the main security checkpoint, meaning no shortcuts or sneaking through maintenance tunnels. We had to walk in the front door like we belonged there. Since we were, thanks to Jake, bona fide passengers and crew, this should have been no problem at all.
Which, of course, was when everything went pear-shaped.
We were halfway across the docking level when I spotted them. Krenz and his two goons. They weren’t subtle. Big, ugly, and moving with the determined pace of people on a mission. The trouble was, we were that mission.
“Company,” I muttered.
Florence didn’t look, just adjusted the bag slung over her shoulder. “Options?”
“Do you know what, Florence,” I said, “I’m done with all this. This bloke Krenz is just a dodgy lab tech gone bad. A bloody nobody. Without his two hard men, he’s got nothing, and I’m fed up with all this lurking about.”
Florence looked at me with that ‘OK…?’ look she could do.
“Wait here,” I said, “If I’m not back in ten minutes, take the bag of shards with you, get on that ship, and get the fuck out of Dodge.”
Before she could say anything, I walked towards Krenz and his two dummies, leaving her behind.
“You want it Shithead, I’ve got it. Leave Florence; she’s really got bugger all to do with this. You need me, so let’s fucking well have at it.” Before anyone could say much, I walked off toward the cargo airlock. I just hoped Krenz and his chums would fall for it. I daren’t look back, and my head was doing flip-flops thinking what a total idiot I’d look if they didn’t follow me and went for Florence instead. I’d finish up standing around on my own looking daft.
But greed is a powerful thing. I got about three hundred metres around the curve of the Station rim, out of sight of Florence and the security checkpoint to join the ship, to one of a long row of cargo airlocks. I stepped inside the first wide-open door I came to, a door big enough to admit a very large cargo loader full of pallets of ’stuff’. I turned round and there they were. Krenz, Mr. Intimidating, and his sidekick. They stepped onto the metal floor of the airlock after me.
“Don’t know what you think is happening, little man,” said Krenz, “but give me now. Everything. Otherwise, we have big falling out.”
“Right,” I said, nodding, “I’ve just totally had enough of all of this crap. Krenz and I just want to be left alone. So here you go…”
I whipped out Finn’s Little Helper, my gift from Verya, and jabbed Mr. Intimidating straight in the Adam’s apple and gave him a good two-second jolt. Mr. Intimidating decided to take a nap. He hit the airlock floor like seven sacks of potatoes falling off a roof, his neck and throat smouldering. I must admit, I was sort of surprised when his hair caught light. Sidekick, suddenly realising he was supposed to do something, tried to grab me, but I jabbed him in the left temple and fried him too. He went down next to his mate. Krenz looked a bit cross at this point.
“Oh, stupid boy…” he said, making a move for me. But I was already going for him and I kicked him full in the bollocks. It’s amazing what you can learn in the car park of the White Bear in Rickmansworth on a Friday night. I kicked him really, really hard. I nearly broke my ankle.
“Just sod off, Krenz, you slimy nobhead,” I said. I followed up the kick with a good zap in the top of his head as he was bending over, clutching his fractured wedding tackle. Down he went too. With his hair on fire. I stepped out of the airlock and pressed the button to cycle it out to vacuum. I walked, very shakily, the three hundred metres back over to where I’d left Florence.
Florence, who was still there and looking worried. I was feeling sick from the effects of the adrenaline.
“You’re back then,” she smiled.
“Yep,” I said.
“Krenz?” she asked.
“Spaced,” I said, “together with his two chums.”
“Bloody hell, Finn,” she said.
“Sorry, Florence,” I said, “I lost it. But sometimes enough is enough. And they weren’t going to stop.”
“Right,” she said.
“Right,” I said, really pleased when she linked her arm in mine.
I was pretty sure the Station AI and the security teams would have noticed the sudden appearance of Krenz and his two henchmen in the vacuum outside the airlock, but I reasoned that we’d be gone from here within the half hour and had no intention of returning. I also had an inkling that by the time the Station had identified the bodies as Krenz and company, the AI would also discover they were wanted felons and nobody was going to mourn their passing too much. Lastly, I was reminded of the contract the Station AI had taken on to keep Florence, a priority passenger, safe and maybe this would buy us a little bit of time to just leave. So we headed for the security entrance, showed the passes that Jake Firby had provided, and went on down the pressurised tunnel to join the ship.
We stepped through the door into ‘Archives, Records, Transit Logs and Station Information.’ And saw Mr Firby sitting in his office over in the far corner. He didn’t look overly pleased to see us, I have to say, although I think that was because he didn’t recognise us at first but I introduced Florence at which point he seemed to thaw out a bit.
“So you managed it then,” he said, referring to my prior plea for help to rescue Florence from the Dart of Celeste, “although, by all accounts you almost caused a major incident? Well, I’m guessing that was you forcibly releasing ship from its docking clamps while it was not under control?”
“Yes, Mr Firby, we managed,” I said, deciding to skirt round the whole docking clamp business, “and now I’m back to ask for your help again. Sorry, but if it’s any consolation, now the Florence is here I think we can pay this time. And I haven’t forgotten that I owe you a favour.” I smiled at him.. He ignored me totally and looked instead at Florence.
“And you, young lady, I presume you’re as involved in this, ‘whatever-it-is’, as he is? Although, I have to say, you actually look remarkably sensible to be swanning around the galaxy with him?”
“I think it’s fair to say that our aims converge,” Florence smiled that smile of hers, unleashing her fantastic blue eyes on him, “and actually, he’s a lot more sensible than he looks.” I blushed, for some reason.
“OK then, why don’t you tell me what you need and I’ll see what I can sort out. No promises, mind, I might not be able to help you at all.”
“There is an exhibition of galactic cultural artefacts taking place on the GEO station. It is being present by the Lotarans, under the direction of Director Shallan, who is an acquaintance of mine… well, ours. There is an item in that collection which we missed on our viewing at the GEO but that we really need to see and we think it is in the non-displayed part of the collection. As you probably know, if an exhibition is intended for display at a number of different sites, the exhibition on show at any one site may not show everything included in the set of exhibits, and we think this is the case here. The Exhibition ends and leaves the GEO for it’s next venue in six days, and we need to get to it before that.”
Mr Firby started pulling up the station manifests, his fingers flickering over the ancient terminal. I stood there like a spare part looking around his office. It had definitely seen better days. Probably, those better days were about fifty years ago. The air smelled of stale coffee and, well, a load of old stuff just piled everywhere. Florence stood beside me, arms folded, her usual air of authority somewhat undermined by the fact that we both looked like we’d been chased through half the station, which we had.
“GEO’s out of the question,” Firby muttered after a minute or two. He was scanning lines of text. “Shipping schedules don’t line up. Even if there was a ship, it’d be minimum a day late by the time you got there.”
I groaned and slumped into a chair. “Brilliant. That’s us done, then.”
“Not necessarily.” He said as he squinted at the screen. “The Lotaran exhibition is booked onto a ship that is actually stopping here at L1 before heading out-system. Even better, there is time in their schedule for the standard trans-shipping procedure, you know, offload from an intra-system freighter, reload onto the interstellar transport. You can get on that ship. If I arrange passage, you could be aboard when the cargo is moved.”
Florence perked up. “And the cargo includes everything they were carrying at GEO?”
“That’s what the manifests say.”
I sat down on a slightly rickety chair. “So, we’re back in the game! Great.” And then I thought for a moment and looked at Florence, who I could see was thinking through the same things. “Except for a couple of small problems,” I said to Jake. I held up three fingers. “One, we have to survive here for the next few days without Krenz or Shasta catching up with us. Two, I thought interstellar ships tend to put their passengers into cryo the second they board, which would be inconvenient for our whole sneaky plan. Three, even if we stay unfrozen, we have no idea how to access the cargo hold once we’re onboard.”
“Minor details,” Florence said dryly. “But one thing at a time.”
“Who’s Krenz?,” asked Jake.
“Yeah. Survival first.” I turned to Firby. “Krenz is the goon that grabbed Florence in the first place. He’s on the loose around the station looking for us. And Shasta, well, you warned me about her. I wish I’d listened. Anyway, I don’t suppose you’ve got anywhere we can lay low?”
He snorted. “What do I look like, a concierge? I’ve got nothing part from my own cubicle. There’s hardly room for me in there never mind two more” But after a moment’s thought, he sighed. “But… there’s a maintenance sector a couple of levels down. Some old storage units. Not exactly luxury, but it’s off the grid. I’ll give you access.”
“That’ll do,” I said. “Now, about getting onto that ship without becoming human ice popsicles?”
Mr Jake Firby smirked, looking very pleased with himself. “That’s where bribery and bullshit come in. Lucky for you, I’m well-versed in both.”
I swallowed. We climbed. Quickly and quietly. Below, the goons moved ever closer, their boots echoing on the metal floor.
We reached the gantry and I pretty much wanted to freeze right there, but Florence started to inch out along it so, not wanting to seem like a total wuss, I felt bound to follow. It was pretty scary, I thought. Looking back, I’d have to admit it was pretty solid, but then I would have sworn that the entire structure groaned under our weight. Whatever, I held my breath. The men below paused, frowning, clearly wondering where we had gone. And then, from somewhere deeper in the bay, there was a loud crash. One of the men cursed. The other demanded, “What the hell was that?”
I turned to see if I could see what had made the noise but Florence didn’t waste time. She just grabbed my arm and we bolted together, as quietly as we could, across the walkway and we arrived at a door. The two blokes below had gone off to see what the noise was so we tried the door, which, it turned out was open. It took us back into the station proper but on a level above where we’d dodged out of sight.
We ran, in that ‘we’re only walking very fast because it’s good for our health and we’re not at all suspicious or running away from two goons who want to turn us into dogfood’ sort of way. We needed a downward elevator or stair to the admin levels, which weren’t far away now. But Krenz’s men weren’t the only ones looking for us. Shasta would have got the word out by now and she had goodness knows how many people scattered about who were on her payroll. We probably couldn’t trust a living soul on the entire Station, with, I fervently hoped, the exception of Jake Firby. The real question was whether Shasta would try and grab us overtly or just keep tabs on us and make sure she got what she thought she was owed her later. She was a sly one, but we’d probably pushed a button too many with her.
As luck would have it, we found a door to a stairwell. It was locked but Florence was already gamely tapping at the control panel. “Give me a second,” she said.
“I’d like to but I don’t think we have a second.”
A very large man in coveralls had appeared from nowhere and had a grip on the collar of my jacket. I tried to turn towards him, initially to see who he was. Florence was turning, limbering up for a fight and then the guy was down, twitching violently and frothing at the mouth a bit. Florence turned back to the control panel while I wondered what had happened. And then I looked down and in my hand was Verya’s cattle prod. My best chum in all the world. Finn’s little helper. I must have just grabbed it from my pocket on a reflex and jabbed the guy. As the smell of frying bacon wafted away, Florence got the door open. She grabbed my sleeve and pulled me through, sealing it behind us.
We hammered down the metal steps in a clatter, half running, half falling and then we were in the dingy, flickering corridors of the admin levels.
I leaned against a wall, panting. “Tell me Firby’s actually here.”
Florence just pointed ‘Archives, Records, Transit Logs and Station Information.’
I sighed. “When I grow up I want the quiet life of a garden centre watering attendant .”
She rolled her eyes and pushed open the door.
If you bring me coffee in the morning, black, one sugar, just how I hate it. I’d drink it anyway. Sometimes love is a foreign language, and you’d be mispronouncing me.
I touch your arm, you flinch, say, “Not here.” I translate: not anywhere But you just mean: not now.
If you buy me a sweater, a good brand, expensive, but maybe a size too small. I’d put it on anyway. A tight fit, like us.
If you write, I love you, but the font is all wrong. The letters hang all awkward, like a borrowed phrase from a language we neither of us speak.
I say, I love you, but if you don’t hear it not in a way that lands Maybe next time, I’ll write it in your dialect. Trailling in a fifty foot banner Behind an aeroplane.
Wham! Out of the Grey Veil, like a shot out of a cannon, down an alleyway, and then another two and we hit the main thoroughfare at a fair lick, trying to blend in with the late-night station hubbub, but at the same time get a wriggle on and put some distance between us and Shasta’s crowd. And it wasn’t just Shasta’s people we had to worry about, by now Krenz and his goons would have either left while they were undocked or made it back to the station, which meant we had, probably, at least two groups who would dearly love to see us stuffed in a cargo crate and turned into chicken food.
Florence, seemed pretty focussed. She kept her head down, walking just ahead of me, and I matched her pace. After a few minutes of what could best be described as going nowhere in particular, but with a purpose, I grabbed hold of her arm and eased her off to the side of the thoroughfare.
“Hey,” I said, “I think we need to get to the admin levels, to the Archives, I reckon Jake Firby could help us off this station before things get any worse?”
She stood stock still, looking at me. And then sighed and let her shoulders drop a bit. “OK,” she said, “but can we trust him? That whole thing with Shasta was, well, unnecessary and now we’ve got two groups of nut-jobs on our tail.”
“True,” I said, and you’re right, I should have used my loaf a bit more, rather than follow the advice of some spotty-faced engine mechanic I hardly know. I just wanted us to be out of sight with time to catch our breath and I thought it would be the best way. I was wrong. Obviously. But Jake Firby is a different sort of bloke. He got me here, after all and I do trust him. How about we try and get to him? He might not be able to help us, but I’m pretty sure he wont hurt us.”
She shrugged. Honestly, she looked completely exhausted. I just wanted to hug her, but my ‘Oh-er,’ sense of ‘101 things I should probably not do right now’ was holding me back. “OK,” she said, quietly.
“OK,” I said.
So we set off. It all went well for about five minutes and then, as we cut through a narrow alley between two rows of stalls selling weird bits of ship parts, Florence glanced over her shoulder. “You see them?”
I hadn’t, so I shook my head, but I knew if Florence had seen someone, they were definitely there. I reckoned Shasta’s heavies might be moderately subtle, at least at first. Krenz though? I reckoned not so much.
As if summoned by thought alone, a broad-shouldered man in a long but battered coat stepped into our path about fifteen metres ahead of us. Another one was over to our the right, a similar distance away.
Florence didn’t break stride. “Left,” she muttered.
We turned sharply into what turned out to be a service corridor, pushing past a couple of service drones. I heard a scuffle behind us as our pursuers tried to follow but were slowed by the service drones who, suddenly awake to the influx of humans, were blocking they way and broadcasting in every language imaginable “This is a service passage, authorised service personnel only. Please return to the main thoroughfare. Security has been notified of your presence in this passage.” We moved fast, heading, it seemed, towards some lower transport levels normally used only by Station infrastructure teams. From there, I guessed, Florence was hoping we could cut through maintenance tunnels and avoid the main passages where trouble might be waiting for us.
A siren whooped briefly, then cut off. An announcement in three different languages crackled overhead about unauthorised movement in restricted zones.
“Oh, that’s probably for us,” I muttered.
“Yes, probably, but never mind. Keep moving,” Florence said.
It was all really interesting in a ‘tour of the factory’ sort of way. and if I’d had more time and a less pressing desire to ‘RUN AWAY’, I’d have enjoyed the tour. We passed through a decontamination bay, the automated system giving an excitingly pungent soaking of some sort of anti-microbial spray as we forced our way through. Everywhere the lights flickered overhead, and a hum filled the air. This felt very much like a backstage area populated only by servitors and security. Nevertheless, we could both hear the two goons we’d dodged hammering along behind us. They’d obviously got past the service drones. It was like a maze back here anti was hard to figure out which way to go. I was pretty sure at one point that we were retracing steps we’d already taken, but the only real option was to press on. I was pretty much disorientated, and I wasn’t at all sure that Florence knew where we were going either. We were just getting away from bad people.
Florence turned sharply and yanked me into a side compartment. The door hissed shut behind us, plunging us into darkness. We crouched low, trying not to breath. Outside, heavy boots pounded past.
I exhaled slowly. “Back the way we came?”
“I don’t know. I can’t say I’m sure of our directions at all. Let’s try it.”
We left the alcove, heading back the way we’d just come but everywhere looked the same. I was well and truly lost. and then took a quick turn through a short corridor off to our left. We crept through the side corridor, and emerged into an old storage bay stacked high with unclaimed freight. The automated systems had long since shut down, leaving the place in dim emergency lighting.
Florence stopped suddenly, pressing a hand against my chest. I opened my mouth to question her, but she pointed.
A figure moved between the crates, slow, deliberate. Another stepped into view, they were sweeping the storage bay, looking for us.
“Mr Intimidating,” Florence whispered. Krenz’s goons.
I glanced around for another exit. “Ideas?”
Florence pointed upward. A maintenance ladder led to a narrow gantry above the crates.
The Sky Is Falling.
Brother Jurel of the Omnian Church was having a bad day. This was not an unusual occurrence; most of his days were bad. In fact, all of his days were verging on the truly atrocious. But he’d grown used to it over the years. It was the constant reality of arcane theological debates turning into inquisitions. That and the fact that the inquisitions were often conducted with blunt instruments. And the whole business was further complicated by the ever-present possibility that the Great God Om would change His mind about something crucial. Like gravity for example. Or rain. Or day turning to night.
Unfortunately, today seemed to be shaping up to be worse than usual.
Jurel stood atop the Great Temple of Om, staring at the heavens. He often did this. People thought he was knowledgeable on the subject of the heavens. In fact, he’d found it to be a way of getting a bit of peace and quiet that was well worth the neck-ache it bought on. Today though, the sky, which was generally regarded as the sort of thing that stayed put, was displaying a glowing, fiery object plummeting down towards the Disc. In Jurel’s experience, this was very likely not to be a ‘good thing.’
Jurel did what any good priest would do. He ran inside the temple and biffed the Holy Gong of Om. He bonged it twice, mainly because he liked the sound, and then announced to the gathered acolytes:
“The End is upon us! The Great God Om has finally had enough!”
There was a pause, then one of the younger priests, Brother Seb, said hesitantly, “Are we sure it’s Om’s doing?”
Jurel gave him a withering look usually reserved for heretics about to be enlightened by a sudden onslaught of heavy stones about the bonce. “Do you think it’s some other god? Look at it! Fire, speed, and almost definitely smite-shaped.”
Brother Seb peered outside. “Well… up to a point, I suppose. To me, It’s sort of… wibbly.”
Jurel folded his arms. “Om moves in mysterious ways.”
They watched the falling object in silence.
“Maybe we should pray?” Seb suggested.
“Yes,” Jurel agreed with a resigned sigh, “because that always works.” In his heart of holy hearts though, he was fairly certain that even a mega-super-uber-quota of holy blithering wouldn’t stop what was coming.
Meanwhile, Doctor Po of the Imperial Celestial Bureau, a serious man who prided himself on knowing more about the sky than anyone else in the Agatean Empire was also studying the sky. Doctor Po’s pre-eminence in all things sky was partly because he was very intelligent and had studied celestial movements for many years, but mostly because he had, quite simply, outlived all his competitors.
Astrology was a dangerous profession in the Forbidden City. If an emperor’s horoscope predicted doom, the doom often first visited the astrologer in question. Hence Doctor Po’s longevity - him being firmly of the view that we can all do without too much doom spoiling a good breakfast.
But right now, the heavens were offering him a very large side order of ‘you are in trouble, prepare for some imminent doom’.
“Fascinating,” Po murmured, stroking his long beard as he watched the bright, flaming object streaking downwards. It was moving far too erratically to be a natural star.
His assistant, Quick-Number-Two, looked up nervously. “What is it, Oh great Master of the skies?”
Po considered lying, but he was old and could no longer be bothered with such things. “A catastrophe, I should think.”
Quick-Number-Two nodded, eyes wide. “Master, should we tell the Emperor?”
Po winced. The Emperor was not known for his patience. “Perhaps we might wait a little while and see if it hits anything first. With any luck, if it hits anything at all, it might hit the Imperial Palace, saving us the trouble of upsetting His Magnificence.”
He adjusted his telescope, tracking the erratic path of the object. It was falling, yes, but not directly. It seemed to be wibbling about a fairish bit, as if it might be correcting its course.
As though someone was steering it.
Po narrowed his eyes. “Interesting.”
Leonard of Quirm was having so much fun. Many, if not most people would have described plummeting through the sky in a rapidly disintegrating flying machine as a bit of a disaster, but Leonard, who, in fairness, was remarkably bonkers, saw it as a fascinating experiment well up in the ‘fun’ end of the spectrum.
“Well, that could have gone better, I suppose” he muttered as he furiously wrestled the atrociously badly designed controls to the equally imperfect steering fins. Leonard, as often before, had been so absolutely sure that this design would work. This time.
The Luggage, Leonard’s ubiquitous fellow traveller, currently strapped down to a platform on the side of the flying machine as best as one could strap a malevolent, self-propelled travel case, rattled ominously. The Luggage did not enjoy flying. It was even more averse to crashing.
“Now, now, now” Leonard said cheerfully, “there’s really no need to panic.”
The Luggage snapped its lid open and shut in a way that suggested it very much disagreed.
Far below, Leonard could see the continent rushing up to meet him at an alarming speed. ‘Ah,’ he thought, ‘probably about time to deploy the emergency parachutes.
He pulled several levers. And pushed a large black and yellow striped button. He tapped on the glass of a dial.
Nothing happened. Apart from continued, exuberant plummeting. There were certainly no parachutes to be seen.
Leonard frowned. “Hmm.”
The Luggage made a sound like a coffin lid being nailed shut.
“Right,” Leonard said, rummaging for his backup plan. He pulled a lever marked DO NOT PULL.
The wings exploded off in opposite directions.
The descent continued, if anything, slightly faster than before.
Leonard considered his options. 1. Impact at high speed. 2. Impact, regardless of speed. 3. Miracle.
Miracles, traditionally, and in Leonard’s experience, tended towards the unreliable. Impacts were, by and large, much less unreliable. Leonard decided to aim his hurtling craft towards a large body of water. At least it might be a less resilient surface than, say, a temple on a mountain. Or an Imperial Palace.
He adjusted the controls one last time as the surface of the sea rushed up to meet him. The frantic adjustments had no appreciable effect.
In Omnia, Brother Jurel and several of the less prayer-obsessed priests watched the fireball vanish over the horizon. After some small amount of time, when no obvious smiting seemed to have occurred, Jurel coughed and said, “Ah. Just as I suspected, a test of faith. We passed, of course. Well done on the praying malarkey everyone.” The priests, as a single force, shuffled off for a lunch of lentil porridge.
In the Agatean Empire, Doctor Po nodded thoughtfully. “I believe we have just witnessed history.”
His assistant, Quick-Number-Two, said “Should we tell the Emperor?”
“Emperors,” said Doctor Po, smiling benevolently at his assistant, “are seldom concerned by history, no matter how exciting. Emperors are best left to be what they were put here to be. That is the purpose of Concubine-Numbers-One, through Twenty-Seven.
His assistant, Quick-Number-Two, was also uninterested in history, although never admitted as much. Quick-Number-Two felt that he could become interested in concubines, if he were ever given the opportunity.
Whilst out at sea, Leonard of Quirm surfaced, clinging to a piece of wreckage. He beamed, wetly.
“Well, that was an excellent, in fact, first class, test flight!”
The Luggage bobbed next to him, somehow, it managed to shoot him a look of pure, dripping malice. Clearly it was wondering how it ever got mixed up with this Quirmian lunatic.
Leonard patted it affectionately, almost drowning as he let go his piece of wreckage to do so. “Don’t worry Luggage. Better landing next time.”
The Luggage sank beneath the waves with a gurgle that could only be interpreted as ‘Next time??’
