probe 154 - sffsasfsa.org.za/publications/probe154.pdf · 2013. 2. 5. · selling star wars:...

PROBE 154– December 2012 www.sffsa.org.za

PROBE 154

DECEMBER 2012 Published by: Science Fiction and Fantasy South Africa (SFFSA) P.O. Box 781401, Sandton, 2146, South Africa www.sffsa.org.za Twitter address: - http://twitter.com/SciFiZa Facebook address: - search under groups as Science Fiction & Fantasy South Africa (www.facebook.com/group.ph7p?gid=7967222257) Probe is supplied to all SFFSA members and is for sale or exchange. Contributions of all types are very welcome. Electronic transmission is preferred, but all text should be typed. There are no longer any limitations on the artwork supplied for Probe as we have shifted over to digital printing. Photographs are accepted but will be converted to grey scale. Email: [email protected]. Probe is typed by Carla Martins and other contributors. Artwork on pages: .23 and 82 is by Gary Kuyper Probe cover is by Mario Franke Layout is by Carla Martins Created in MS Word Probe © 2012 All rights reserved

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4. BOOK REVIEW – ADELE MEYER

5. SLITHERING THROUGH THE BUFFY OMNIBUS - THE

ALICE HENDERSON INTERVIEW - MICHAEL LOHR

10. AS THOUGH TO BREATHE WERE LIFE - ERON

FASSER FINALIST GENERAL SECTION – 2011 NOVA

SHORT STORY COMPETITION

24. GOLDSTRUCK - GARY KUYPER - FINALIST – GENERAL

SECTION – 2011 NOVA SHORT STORY

COMPETITION

36. LETTER OF COMMENT FROM SHERYL BIRKHEAD

37. NATURE'S JOURNEYMEN – PATRICIA JACOBS -

FINALIST – GENERAL SECTION – 2011 NOVA SHORT

STORY COMPETITION

55. THE DAILY GALAXY - NOVEMBER 05, 2012 -

"BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE IS A FLEETING PHASE

IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE"

59. THE PROMISE - GARY KUYPER

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/11/the-human-species-is-at-an-evolutionary-inflection-point-weekend-feature.html



EDITOR’S CORNER

Carla Martins 2012 is almost over and I think that I can safely say that the end of it will pass by without too much cataclysmic goings on – I do not lend any credence to the so called “Mayan Prophecy”. It has been fun to see how our various media outlets etc, responded to this hoopla – the cheesy/hilarious conspiracy theories, movies, books and TV series that have come and gone trying to cash in on this so called prophecy. As usual this year has seen our club host events that have offered something for everyone. Our Star Trek convention and mini convention are always fun to attend. The speakers that we manage to snag for our meetings always speak so passionately about their subjects – they could go on for hours and we have been lucky to hear them. A very special thanks to our Committee – for all the hard work they have put in this year and I look forward to next year for more exciting happenings taking place – so keep your eyes peeled folks! Now let’s get on with the show – here it is – the last edition of Probe for 2012!

BEST OF SFSA VOLUME III

NOW AVAILABLE – THE THIRD VOLUME OF

THE BEST OF OUR NOVA COMPETITION

FOR MORE DETAILS OR TO ORDER PLEASE

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BOOK REVIEW: by Adele Meyer

BLACKOUT by Connie Willis Connie Willis is the author of fabulous time-travel books and Blackout is no exception. Once again, it is set in a future Oxford University (in 2060) where students and historians use the laws of time travel to visit past events and observe the people and behaviour of history. Like her previous books, Blackout begins in Oxford, where students spend their time scurrying from college to college and place to place, trying to meet up with their professors, organise their costumes and gather knowledge for their time-travelling voyages. One wonders, perhaps, if Connie Willis spent time as an undergraduate at Oxford University in the days before cell phones, because no-one in her novels ever has any form of cell phone or personal communicator. The characters in the novel, some new, and some from previous books, are heading off to observe Britain (and some other places) during World War II, and the various threads of the story alternate. The writing is vivid, exciting and very well researched. Apart from the descriptions of life during wartime, is the ominous undertone that the laws of time travel are not as well understood as previously thought, and that something is going horribly, horribly wrong. Blackout is a great pager-turner, but be warned, it is only Part 1 of a saga, and you will have to read the sequel, All Clear, to find out how it ends. This was a big disappointment, especially as the story was building to a great climax, and it will now have to be strung out for another whole book. The final chapter of Blackout jars, as it reads like an opening chapter of the next book, and breaks the rhythm of good story-telling. On finishing Blackout, I felt disappointed. Firstly, because I felt manipulated and cheated out of a good ending, and secondly, because sequels seldom live up to the original, and you shouldn’t mess with perfection.


Slithering Through the Buffy Omnibus

The Alice Henderson Interview

by Michael Lohr

Alice is a fascinating individual. While earning her Bachelors degree at

Webster University she studied the worldwide distribution of folkloric

creatures such as lake serpents like Ogopogo, Bigfoot and the Chupacabra,

topics near and dear to my heart. She went on to earn her Masters in

Folklore from the University of Oregon, were she translated the Mabinogi.

Who else do you know that can cuss in Medieval Welsh?

Alice has since made a name for herself working at Lucasfilm Ltd., and

writing Star Wars gaming and video strategy guides including the best

selling Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds and Star Wars: Battle for Naboo

manuals published by LucasArts Ltd (in house). She also wrote Prima's

Official Strategy Guide to Obi Wan and the hint book for the Galactic

Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns (an expansion pack) that were published

by Prima (a division of Random House). She is currently writing novels for

the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. She is an Active member of the Horror

Writer’s Association.

ML: Many writers have written serials over the years, even Harry Turtledove

wrote a Conan novel and R. A. Salvatore wrote a Star Wars novel. Some

critics however are on record as having said derogatory remarks toward

writers like yourself for writing media tie-in novels for movies or television

shows. Do you feel the need to defend yourself against such criticism?

AH: Not at all. I love the media tie-in work I've done, and I'm honoured to

contribute to such great universes as Star Wars and Buffy the Vampire

Slayer. I think a good story is a good story no matter what universe it's set

in, whether it is one of your own creation, or something like the Buffy-verse,

which has been contributed to by numerous writers. There's something vital

and alive about so many people contributing characters, story arcs, and

supernatural elements. It's like being part of this pool of creative energy,

dynamic and inspiring.


ML: Did you find it difficult to write an already known character? In other

words was putting yourself into Buffy’s formidable shoes constraining from

a creative perspective?

AH: I loved the whole process. I was already very familiar with the show

when I got the go ahead to write Night Terrors. I enjoyed thinking, "How

would Buffy say this?" or "How would Giles react to this situation?" I studied

the spirit of the characters (watching episodes of Buffy for research is just

too much fun) and really tried to capture that in my writing. In a way,

writing with an established set of characters allowed me to channel even

more creativity into the plot itself.

ML: Did you enjoy translating the Mabinogi? What attracted you to

Medieval Welsh? Have you ever studied the famous Finnish text the

Kalevala?

AH: That's great that you call it the "Mabinogi." It has been published under

the name Mabinogion for so long that it's generally recognized by that

name, though Mabinogi is more accurate. I've long been fascinated by

Celtic tales, and I had the wonderful opportunity to study under a

Cambridge scholar who knew Middle Welsh. She taught a handful of us

how to read and speak it, and we translated the first branch of the

Mabinogi together, then branched off on our own to finish it. I love that

tale -- so much magic, wonder, strange beasts, and gods and goddesses

lightly veiled as kings and queens. I especially like the third branch of the

Mabinogi, Manawydan Fab Lyr (in English its Manawydan, Son of Llyr). The

language itself is utterly lyrical. It was quite a challenge to translate, though,

as Middle Welsh has very complex grammar.

Another fantastic Middle Welsh tale is Culhwch ac Olwen, which is a quest

story in which Arthur appears. His quest? To get a set of shears and a comb

from between the ears of monstrous boar.

As far as the Kalevala is concerned, I've read a little of Crawford's

translation, but I have never studied the text myself.

ML: Has any Welsh or Celtic mythology found its way into your writing?


AH: Surprisingly, not so far, though I'd love to take a journey in that

direction in the future. My manuscript, Bound, however, is a suspenseful

novel centred around Norse mythology. I've spent some time in the

Norwegian fjords, and was inspired to write a novel set there. I've read

extensively in the Norse sagas, and even translated a little bit of Snorri

Sturlson's Prose Edda. Shape shifting gods, cursed treasure, giants warring

with Asgard, vengeful queens and dragons guarding cave entrances --

Norse mythology is rich with adventure.

ML: Have you ever thought about writing a historical or historical fantasy

based upon the Mabinogi?

AH: I've thought about writing a screenplay based on the Mabinogi. It

would be challenging because the four branches each tell very different

stories, with only some recurring characters. The history behind the

Mabinogi is fascinating -- kings and queens that may well have existed in

antiquity, place names giving clues to events that may have actually

transpired. It's obvious it was a rich oral tradition before it was finally

written down, so there are lots of fascinating interpretations of the text.

ML: Your novel Insatiable was to be published in the UK (for legal reasons,

we cannot print the name of the publisher), but then it was cancelled. What

happened?

AH: There was a lot of excitement about Insatiable, my manuscript set in

the wilds of Glacier National Park, U.S. A small European publisher was

interested in it. To drum up publicity, they printed a handful of pre-release

sample copies to coincide with the World Horror Convention in New York

City this year. I signed a few of these sample copies at the Convention. They

garnered some great attention, including several Horror Writers Association

members who want to recommend Insatiable for a Bram Stoker Award.

After this, however, the publisher did not move forward with the

publication process, and ultimately the book was never published or

distributed. Since then, all rights have reverted back to me, and I am

currently seeking a publisher for it.

ML: You heard it here first folks, her novel Insatiable, is now available for

publication if anyone is interested. I bet those WHC copies will become


collector’s items some day, so if anyone reading this has one, you’d better

hold onto your autographed copy.

ML: Have you ever read any of the Celtic historical novels from Morgan

Llewellyn or Juilene Osborne-McKnight?

AH: No, I haven't, though I've read the work of Evangeline Walton, who

wrote a series of books having to do with the Mabinogi. I will have to check

out the works of Llewellyn and Osborne-McKnight.

ML: What motivated you to write horror fiction? What authors do you enjoy

reading the most?

AH: Ah, horror. I love horror. I've been writing it since I was six years old,

but I really fell definitively in love with it when I was twelve and my dad was

teaching a class called "The Supernatural In Literature." One night I stole

down the stairs and read some of his students' book reports while the

moonlight streamed in through the window, casting the shadows of leafless

trees across the typed pages. After reading the summaries of more than a

dozen books, I was sold. From then on, I wrote supernatural fiction almost

exclusively, though currently I am at work on a techno-thriller.

As for authors, Robert McCammon is my favourite author in the

supernatural vein of fiction. His novel Boy's Life is outstanding, truly a

moving and exceptional piece of work. Stinger, Usher's Passing, Wolf's Hour -- McCammon makes you feel as if you know the characters -- you triumph

with them, grieve with them, and adventure with them. His recent historical

novel Speaks The Nightbird is a gripping read. In it, he transported me back

to 1699 and I experienced the food, the muddy streets, the seedy inns, and

the stalwart optimism of the protagonist. Dan Simmons' novels Summer of

Night and A Winter's Haunting are chilling, and really stayed with me long

after I closed their covers. Algernon Blackwood's short stories "The Willows"

and "The Wendigo" terrified me when I made the mistake of reading them

while out camping. Simon Clark's novels, especially Darkness Demands,

brought a whole town to life, as well as the despair, fears and hopes of its

protagonist. I am also a fan of gothic horror, such as Charles Maturin's

Melmoth the Wanderer, written in 1820. It's hard to definitively choose


which writers I enjoy most in this genre. I have thrilled to the tales of so

many of them, including Owl Goingback, Dean Koontz, Richard Matheson,

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Tim Waggoner and William D. Gagliani.

ML: Are there any secrets or backroom scuttlebutt that you can share with

us about your days at Lucasfilms?

AH: LucasArts, the video game division of Lucasfilm, was a fast-paced,

intense place to work, and I'm delighted to have contributed some written

material to the Star Wars universe while I was there. I have many great

memories of visiting Skywalker Ranch (I once took author Simon Clark there

for lunch when he was in San Francisco for Spooky Con). I met a wonderful

group of creative people there. As for secrets and backroom scuttlebutt? I

know nothing.

Pocket Books published Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Night Terrors as well as

her second Buffy novel, Portal through Time. Her horror novel Voracious

was published in the US by Penguin and in Italy under the name I Predatori

Della Notte by Newton Compton Editori.

For more information about Alice and what she’s up to go to:

www.alicehenderson.com

Join us next time when we will be trekking with Alice up the Brecon

Beacons searching for St. David’s magical dipstick. He lost his dipstick when

Owain Glyndwr attacked a regiment of the famous English sheep dog

squadron along Offa’s Dike in 1401. The surprised English sheep herders

routed the Welsh rebels with a blistering attack of maiden stones pressed

firmly against their wives breasts. Upon their chaotic retreat the sacred

dipping rod was accidentally dropped into a deep ravine near Morrigan’s

Leap never to be seen again.

Please no hate mail from the Owain Glyndwr Society. I was only joking

Yes Rhys, I really was joking.

http://www.alicehenderson.com/


AS THOUGH TO BREATHE WERE LIFE - ERON FASSER

FINALIST GENERAL SECTION – 2011 NOVA SHORT STORY

COMPETITION

CHAPTER 1: ITHACA The sirens were wailing like demented banshees as Nathan’s feet came crashing down on the metallic catwalk, turned sanguine by the warning lights that swirled frenetically above his head. He was a blur of sweat, black hair and nanite-infused arteries as he propelled himself to the far end of a now desolate Ithaca Station. His dwarfed profile was all that could be seen as he sprinted past the massive radiation filtered viewing window perched behind the catwalk and that looked out onto Scylla. Scylla was a Class-B main sequence star that had, until an hour ago, provided a reliable and stable source of solar energy to power the one hundred and fifty thousand SUSAN pods that housed the last of hibernating humanity. The five cyclopean solar panels, shaped like sections of a tremendous clementine, together with their symbiotically attached gravitational stabilisers, stretched for hundreds of thousands of kilometres up and around Scylla’s circumference. For thousands of years these solar panels had been envisioned and utilised as the ideal method for the propagation of the human species throughout the universe. It was a vision that had trumped all others. Gravitationally harnessed stars would power quantum gateways and allow humanity glimpses of unplumbed universes and divine dimensions. It was simple in theory: gravitationally contain a star, control its life span, feed it when it was hungry, maintain its balance, capture its energy and reap the rewards of eternal life. Do this with every viable star across the entire breadth of the human empire and even God himself would tremble. But now, in the twilight of eternity, the solar panels simply provided the means by which the last vestige of humanity could cling to its limping half-


existence. And this star, Scylla, was the last one of its kind within the reach of Ithaca station – the last bastion of the human spirit as it drifted quietly like flotsam through the ocean of the cosmos. The sirens continued their apocalyptic mantra as Nathan reached the final bulkhead that contained the control room with its emergency containment protocols. This would give the gravitational stabilisers some chance at preventing Scylla from expanding too far. Scylla was swelling; a hungry colossus that had been contained for hundreds of years, and in minutes the titan would break loose of its human shackles. It would engulf the solar panels, the gravitational stabilisers and soon after Ithaca Station - the human footprint would be erased capriciously from the universe. As Nathan reached the bulkhead he managed a terrified backward glance out at Scylla. Scylla glanced back, unblinking across the void. The solar panels glinted in the piercing blue luminosity that bathed Ithaca and its environs. Terror gripped Nathan’s gut as he gazed upon the monster. Forcing his gaze from Scylla, Nathan adroitly tapped out the bulkhead door code on the iridescent panel and the bulkhead door opened with a groan. Drops of sweat ran down to the tip of his nose and splashed onto the glowing face of the panel. “Critical System Failure. Warning. Warning. Gravitational Stabilisers Off-Line. Critical System Failure. Warning. Warning.” “Shut up!” screamed Nathan at the indifferent heavens as he rushed into the control room that was the nerve centre of Ithaca Station. Marie was already in the control room pounding away at the terminals and consoles. The room was a blur of flashing trajectories, masses, calculations, power outputs and other mathematical minutiae. They all told Nathan, in no uncertain terms, that Scylla’s prison bars were not just bending, they were broken. “Critical System Failure. Warning. Warning. Gravitational Stabilisers Off-Line. Critical System Failure. Warning. Warning”, came the voice of Ithaca Station’s mainframe computer once again.


“Where are the others?” Nathan shouted over the cacophony as soon as he saw her. “They left! They took the escape pods and left! The bastards! It’s only the two of us on the station now!” Marie answered with visible tears in her eyes. Her usual placid hands were now shaking as she attempted to access the console. “I can’t believe it…they left us here alone…they ran…the bastards…they swore they’d protect the rest of us in the SUSAN’s...to find a way to...to…they…they…they” Marie shouted while simultaneously trying to hold back the sobs, that were threatening to pour out of her being - sobs that were born of betrayal. “What exactly is the situation Marie?” Nathan shouted as he catapulted across the control room floor to Marie’s console. Marie had plugged her neural net into the mainframe and was desperately trying to force her way through the multitudinous warning messages that kept proliferating on the console and on her optical HUD. Marie tilted her head slightly as the information streamed into her neural net. The tears dried up immediately. Her voice took on the metallic sound of Ithaca Station and its computer mainframe. “Gravitational stabilisers in Sector C are offline. No Power in Sector C. Unknown Cause. Scylla has become unstable and is expanding. Sectors A, B and D will go offline in T-minus thirty minutes.” “Can we get power back to Sector C?” Nathan asked almost pleadingly. “Can we tame her again?” A second passed. Marie tilted her head again as she momentarily disconnected from the mainframe. Marie’s eyes flashed him a glance. The tears in her eyes began to swell again. The inevitable response. Nathan sank back against the control room wall and slid down to the ground. His body crumpled against the weight of the moment and his black


hair stuck to his face. His hands immediately went clammy and his mouth went dry. Everything was moving in slow motion. He could feel the millions of tiny nano-bots circulating throughout his body surfing the highway of arteries, veins and neurons. He could feel each individual nano-bot jumping his synapses. He could hear the sound of his breath as it left his genetically enlarged lungs. He could feel the beat of his own cybernetic heart as it thudded in his nano-augmented chest. He looked at Marie from his slumped position against the wall. She had turned back to the console and had plugged herself back into the mainframe. Tears of pure desperation were now streaming down her cheeks. After millennia of technological advancement, nano-augmentations and genetic restructuring human beings still could not prevent themselves from crying. Nathan clenched his fists slowly and deliberately. He felt his nails dig into his palms. He stood up. His legs, an amalgam of nanites, sinew and nano-wiring, felt weak as if they had been replaced by hollow rubber pipe. His sweat began to run down his back snaking along the electric conducting nodes that interfaced directly with his nervous system. Nathan, like all other humans of his age had been augmented in utero. He had been raised a demi-god. Nathan and his human brethren had been a glorious Icarus amongst the stars. Nathan’s wings were now melting. But there was still time to be worthy of his species. In a moment, he decided what had to be done. Tears would not solve anything and if he was going to fall then it would be a plummet as the cosmos had never seen before nor would ever see again. The world dropped out of its hyper real state. Time resumed its regular and oppressive march. “Marie! Marie!” He strode up to her again and took her by the shoulders. “Marie! How much power is left in Ithaca itself?” Nathan demanded authoritatively. The shock and pain of Nathan’s iron-like grip ripped Marie out of her self-pity and back out from the mainframe. “We…We…We have almost one


hundred percent power but…but…most of it is being used to keep the SUSAN’s life support on-line!” “How much power can we divert to the station from the remaining gravitational stabilisers?” “W-w-we can take it all, the solar panels are still capturing Scylla’s heat and light by the second and conducting it here via the relays. But it would only make it worse if we rerouted the power from the remaining stabilisers! There would be nothing to contain Scylla! What do you want to do Nathan?” Nathan ignored her question. His mind was racing and his brow was furrowed in extreme concentration. “How many escape pods are left?” Marie quickly tapped the holographic keys on the console. A map of the station emerged out of the data stream. “There’s one left! Those bastards were at least decent enough to leave us that!” Nathan released his iron grip of Marie’s shoulders and looked to the central computer console. He immediately ran to the console and plugged his neural net into the mainframe. Waves of data, algorithms, fire-walls, mathematical formulae, files and plans swept over his mind like a tsunami. Millions of terabytes of information pulsated brightly over his optic HUD. Undeterred Nathan pressed his mind forward looking for that one piece of data he knew was there. His fingers were a blur as they moved with unimpeded celerity over the console. His eyes and mind betrayed no sign of equivocation and indecision. His countenance was one of utmost intensity. His mind found what it was looking for. There it was. Nathan let out a long sigh of relief. The lines on his face sighed with him. There was still a chance. With a quick flick of the finger the data he had found sprang into existence on every screen in the control room. A hologram sprang up above the central computer console and began a three hundred and sixty degree dance as it delicately and slowly rotated in space. Marie looked at the host of screens, terminals, and consoles. Her eyes were fixated on the data that swirled majestically before her eyes.


“Is the cryo-chamber still on line?” “Y-y-yes” Marie managed a stammer. She was unable to take her eyes off the data that had erupted all around her. Nathan gripped her by the shoulders again but this time his voice was softer. He spoke slowly “Marie. Focus. I need you to go to the cryo-chamber. There’s a nano-replicator inside that will replicate the data and make as many copies as we need. Try to get as many replicated as possible. Get to the escape pod. Ten minutes is all we can afford. I’m heading to the QGG and PENELOPE. I’ll meet you at the escape pod when I’m done. Ten minutes Marie. That’s all.” At the mention of the QGG Marie’s eyes were torn from the data. She looked at Nathan quizzically. Until that time confusion, betrayal and pain had been smeared across her eyes. Now the faint traces of understanding began to dawn. “Nathan! We haven’t used the quantum gateways in years! We won’t even know where any gateway that is opened will lead! You know as well as I do that we lost all the navigational data during the collapse! The gateways are practically useless to us!” Again Nathan batted away her concern “It doesn’t matter. As long as the gateway leads away from Scylla! Reroute the power from all the solar panels and gravitational stabilisers to the station...” Nathan paused. He knew what his next words would imply “and reroute the power from the SUSAN’s as well.” A look of terror swept across Marie’s face. The blood drained from her cheeks. Her green cybernetic eyes flashed fury. “But they’ll die Nathan! They’ll all die!” Marie shrieked in protest. “You swore an oath Nathan! We all swore an oath that we’d try to save them! That we’d find a way to prosper again! That we’d wake them up when we did!” Nathan looked directly into her raging tears “Yes Marie. I know. But no matter what we do now they’ll die, we knew that five minutes ago. And if you don’t trust me right now, it will be the end of more than just them. If we don’t do this PENELOPE won’t have enough power to construct a gateway.”


Marie was still rooted to the ground in shock as Nathan relinquished his grip, swung around and sprinted to the bulkhead on the far side of the control room. The bulkhead door opened. He stepped through and glanced back at Marie. “Ten minutes Marie!” Nathan managed to shout once more as the bulkhead doors closed behind him with a prodigious thud. CHAPTER 2: PENELOPE Ithaca Station was a labyrinth of decks, sub-decks, crawl ways, maintenance routes, laboratories, observatories, and cat-walks. Luckily Nathan had the map of the station up on his optic HUD as he raced to the QGG that sat at the station’s heart. The Quantum Gateway Generator or QGG was the pinnacle of human achievement. By harnessing and channelling the energy of stars like Scylla the QGG was able to seize upon a wormhole at the quantum level and enlarge it to macroscopic scales. Once there had been a time when humanity had basked in the glory of the QGG. The cosmos had rendered up its gifts and secrets to its star-born progeny and human colonists had spread across the universe like a golden web. It was a time when stations like Ithaca had spanned the breadth of the universe connecting humanity to itself. New wormholes were discovered on a daily basis and navigational data had spread ecumenically across the breadth of all human consciousness. Men had become divine and the children of Earth had bathed in the light of galaxies and nebulae. Death no longer held any dominion thanks largely to the development of the Suspended Animation pods or SUSANs. Not only could humanity triumph over the eternity of the cosmos but now it could enter dream worlds and explore the eternity of consciousness for as long as it desired. Never aging, always growing, never dying and always conquering, the iridescent glow of the night sky had been reflected in humanity’s eyes. But no more. Nathan reached the QGG. He stood poised before the heavy doors that led to the holy of holies. The sensors in the QGG ante-chamber immediately


detected his neural and cybernetic implants and began the process of scanning Nathan for any impurities or contaminants. In a few short seconds, the sensors and detectors purred their approval and the heavy doors opened to reveal the QGG itself. The room itself was relatively small compared to the expansive control room. It was circular in shape with control panels, terminals and screens the arched around its outer circumference. In the centre of the room stood PENELOPE the affectionately named Artificial Intelligence that controlled the quadrillions of calculations that were necessary to open, maintain and mould a quantum gateway. PENELOPE appeared as a smooth black stone on a raised dais. Plugging himself into the nearest terminal Nathan immediately contacted PENELOPE via his neural net. He felt her consciousness rub up against his as they merged in cyberspace. “PENELOPE.” Nathan said calmly through the neural net. “Yes Nathan”, came PENELOPE’s satin voice. “Please give me a diagnostic of the QGG.” “Yes Nathan. All systems are one hundred percent operational” PENELOPE purred “Marie has rerouted power from all operational Gravitational Stabilisers around Scylla to Ithaca.” “Warning Warning. All Gravitational Stabilisers off-line. Warning Warning. Evacuation Protocols Commencing. Warning Warning.” Nathan heard the tell-tale warning sounds of the mainframe computer. Unperturbed he continued “And what about the power from the SUSAN’s ?” There was a momentary pause. Nathan felt an eternity pass. “Marie has done that too.” PENELOPE answered laconically. Another pause. “Marie is crying Nathan.” PENELOPE’s tone sounded accusing.


Nathan almost threw up. His head began to whirl and he felt as if he would hyperventilate. His vision was blurry. His blood boiled and his skin itched. Genocide! That’s what it was. Even now, at this time, during the dusk of humanity. The word rung in his mind like a gong. PENELOPE said nothing and awaited his direction serenely. He could feel her consciousness waiting expectantly as it gently lapped against his. The last of humanity were now dreaming the final dreams of the human race and they didn’t even know it. Nathan had to force himself to remain conscious. Nathan’s mouth was bone dry and he struggled to swallow. It had to be this way. With the weight of all human history and life pressing down on him, Nathan continued “PENELOPE please initiate the QGG protocols.” Nathan’s teeth were grinding together with anxiety. His face was contorted in pain and the veins in his neck were bulging. PENELOPE politely proceeded “Yes Nathan. Initiating Quantum Generation. Please input co-ordinates for Quantum Gateway Construction.” Nathan instinctively brought up a map of the solar system around Scylla. Six planets made up Scylla’s playground and all were uninhabitable since the loss of terra-forming technology during the collapse. Nathan spied the most promising site just beyond the sixth planet - the farthest position in this solar system that was still within range of the QGG. Calculations and trajectories arched across the map. “PENELOPE input the following co-ordinates.” Nathan indicated the position on his optical HUD with a single blink of his brown cybernetically enhanced eyes. “Co-ordinates accepted. Quantum Generation will begin in T-minus five minutes.” PENELOPE was quiet. “PENELOPE.” “Yes Nathan.” PENELOPE answered congenially. Nathan had nothing else to ask the A.I. It slowly dawned on him that he had been about to say goodbye to PENELOPE. He looked up from the terminal and glanced over at the small black stone in the centre of the room as she sat quietly computing, calculating, formulating, generating and


perhaps even imagining. Soon she would no longer exist. Was she also dreaming like the men and women in the SUSAN’s? How could Nathan say goodbye to all humanity and everything that it had produced? How could Nathan say goodbye at all? “Never mind PENELOPE…thank you.” “Thank You Nathan.” Nathan thought he detected an inflection he had never heard in PENELOPE before. But it had only been for an instant and PENELOPE went silent for the final time. Nathan felt his mind disconnect from PENELOPE’s as he unplugged from the terminal. He left the QGG and the heavy doors closed behind him. “Marie! Where are you? Are you done with replicating the data?” Nathan called over his neural net. “Y-y-yes. I am on my way t-t-o the escape pod now.” Nathan could hear Marie’s wheezing sobs. “I’m on my way there too. PENELOPE is constructing the gateway as we speak.” By the time Nathan reached the last remaining escape pod Marie was slumped against the wall beside the escape pod hatch. She looked catatonic, her face was drained and she did not even register Nathan’s presence as he ran up to her. Lying beside her inert body lay a small unassuming package with the data that had necessitated the death of the last of humanity. Without a word he gently picked up the package and opened the escape pod hatch. Carefully he placed the package in the nearest seat. Nathan hit the button on the armrest of the seat and immediately thousands of tiny self-replicating nano-bots spread out over the package adhering it to the seat in a semi-permeable bubble of protective nano-gel. Outside the escape pod, in the corridor, the sirens and warnings were still blaring, calling out with psychotic shrieks. The thick titanium infused walls of the escape pod, however, made the madness sound a million miles away. Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. The archaic words from far flung antiquity streaked half-remembered across Nathan’s neural net and his consciousness.


Standing in the semi-darkness of the escape pod’s door Nathan stood on the precipice of a new world that called to him from beyond space and time. He felt a subtle tug in his gut as he looked down at the package in awe and wonder. In the half-light of the door Nathan’s shadow slowly and deliberately let out a long sigh. He reached out and put his hand on the nano-gel that enclosed the precious cargo. The gel made his dermal sensors tingle. Nathan’s mouth curled into a subtle smile. This was his journey but it was not his to take. Nathan stepped back out of this liminal space into the frenetic pandemonium of his own world and closed the escape pod hatch. He looked one last time through the escape pod porthole into the dark, quiet interior. He pressed his face to the porthole and squinted into the blackness hoping to catch one last glimpse of the package. His breath immediately started to fog up the porthole and he couldn’t see anything. Nathan reached out his right hand to the terminal beside the escape pod and tapped out the self-same co-ordinates he had given PENELOPE. The co-ordinates were accepted immediately. In golden fluorescent letters the terminal prompted him with one final choice. He hesitated for only a moment. Nathan hardly felt anything as the escape pod was propelled through the kilometre long tube into the abyss, smaller and smaller, farther and farther, dimmer and dimmer. In a matter of seconds it had faded completely from his sight. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch where through Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. His neural net surged forth once more the archaic words without any overt prompt from his conscious mind. As he gazed at the empty escape tube, Nathan wondered whether he had any real control over his neural net or, for that matter, whether there was anything in the world he could control at all.


CHAPTER 3: GOING HOME Nathan looked down at Marie who was starting to come around. She tilted her head up weakly and met Nathan’s gaze. His eyes were calm and gathered her up in one magnanimous look. Nathan stretched out his left arm and Marie gripped it as he pulled her up. “What do we do now?” asked Marie with meek resignation. Nathan’s eyebrow rose slightly as he thought of something appropriate. Marie waited quietly while he thought. “Let’s go to the viewing room”. He answered resolutely. The viewing room was at the apex of Ithaca station. Nathan and Marie had to uses the grav-shafts to get there. Their ascendancy was smooth and quick. Both Nathan and Marie stepped out of the grav-shaft and were greeted by the frighteningly immense visage of Scylla. Scylla had already grown titanic. Gargantuan solar eruptions were now clearly visible where the gravity stabilisers had once operated to keep her anger in check. The solar panels were also visible but were now diminutive in comparison to the growing blue giant that swelled, belched and burned. Nathan and Marie walked slowly to the viewing bench that looked out onto the bizarre spectacle and sat down. Even with the radiation and heat filters the room was bathed in warm blue light. “Will it hurt Nathan?” Marie softly queried. Nathan’s eyes remained transfixed on Scylla, “No. I shouldn’t think so. It’ll be over quickly.” “I’m scared.” Marie muttered. “Don’t be.” Nathan turned his calm countenance to hers “We’re just going back to where we came from.” Marie’s green cybernetic eyes glinted. “Do you think the escape pod will make it?”


“It should.” Nathan answered quietly. “The gateway will be open by now and the escape pod should be about half-way there. PENELOPE will make sure.” Nathan took his holo-pad out of his pocket and rested it in the palm of his hand. The holo-pad flared to life and the data that Nathan had found in the control room resumed its three hundred and sixty degree dance in space before the both of them. Beautiful and precise, the two helixes wound around each other in an eternal game of tag. The game was reflected in Nathan’s eyes for just an instant as a solar discharge erupted from Scylla. He turned the holo-pad off and returned it to his pocket. Marie took Nathan’s hand and squeezed it. He squeezed back as she gently rested her head between his neck and his shoulder. Her black hair fell across her cheek. He could smell the scent she had put in her hair. She could feel the nanite-infused blood as it pumped through his body. Scylla’s mass engulfed the first solar panel. “Sssshhhhhhh. I’m here.” Nathan stroked her hair. His neural net flared for the final time. Nathan took this as his cue and continued in a whisper. The second solar panel disappeared. Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The third solar panel vanished. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. The penultimate solar panel disintegrated. Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars until I die.


The last solar panel melted out of existence. Her grip was iron. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; The radiation and heat filters on Ithaca began to ebb away. With her free hand she felt his cybernetic heart beat for the one billionth time. One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. A lone red warning light marked the trajectory of the tiny escape pod as it hurtled through oblivion. The stars gazed on indifferently at the transient passer-by while inside the package sat expectantly in its protective bed of nano-gel. The escape pod rushed passed the sixth planet, the gargantuan gas giant with its colossal ice rings and its three pockmarked moons, accelerating on in the direction of PENELOPE’s co-ordinates. It was almost home. Outside, on the escape pod’s porthole, eternally petrified by the cold of space, crystallised and opalescent particles of breath, in the shape of a human mouth, glinted in the starlight.


GOLDSTRUCK - GARY KUYPER FINALIST – GENERAL SECTION – 2011 NOVA SHORT STORY

COMPETITION

It was late and raining hard when the hooded horseman galloped into Doctor Zadnost’s cobbled courtyard. The rider hastily tethered the horse to the hitching post before moving towards the large, thick, oak door. If not for the door’s sturdiness it would surely have splintered off its hinges by the cloaked man’s frantic bashing.

“In God’s name open up!” he shouted. “I need a doctor before it is too late!” After some more shouting and banging the door swung open to reveal a thin pale man dressed in his pale nightclothes, and carrying a single lit candle on a saucer. The hooded man pushed past the ashen figure and said, “Wake your master and be quick about it! I have desperate need of his services this night!”

“I am the doctor,” said the pale man angrily as he cupped the flame against the storm. He pushed the door closed with his foot and slid the bolt in. “I stay alone. I live alone. And I do all my work without the need of any lazy, long-fingered assistants! You obviously don’t stay in these parts or you would have known that!”

“Forgive me! I meant no disrespect. I am from a village about two hours from here; two hours of very hard riding. I almost lamed my steed in getting to you. I have heard of your skills as a physician and….”

“Is your wife about to give birth?” asked the doctor interrupting.

“What?” asked the man removing his cape and hood. He was a handsome man in his late twenties. “No!” He shook his long blonde hair. “It is I that desperately need your services.”

“That is a relief,” growled the doctor. “I was thinking I had to go out in this terrible storm.” He looked the blonde man up and down. He was neatly dressed in a frilled, long-sleeved shirt. He wore thin black leather gloves. There was a gold ring on one of the gloved fingers of the left hand. “You don’t seem very ill to me? If you’ve gotten me out of my bed in the middle of the night because the cold weather has made you sneeze once too often…?”

“Trust me, doctor,” said the man raising his palm. “This is a very serious matter of life and death. I could not trust myself to that butcher who calls himself a doctor in my village. I have heard of your fine skills in performing…delicate operations.”

“Have you been bitten by a serpent.”


“Worse! I have been bitten by something far worse - greed! And now because of that I am about to die.”

“I’ve never had a case like that before! Can’t help you! Good night!”

“Wait! In order for you to fully appreciate the seriousness of my condition, I first need you to listen to the whole of my story! It won’t take more than a half hour. In fact, I can’t afford to take any longer than that.”

“I haven’t time for stupid stories!” The doctor moved back towards the door. “It’s late and I’m very tired. I had to remove Father Manilov’s appendix this afternoon. The monastery gave me two chickens for doing the job. You would think they could have at least parted with some of that silverware of theirs. It was a fairly simple operation, but nevertheless it did save his life.”

“Then save another,” said the blonde man struggling slightly to remove the gold ring from his finger. He held it towards the doctor. “Here!”

The ring dropped into the doctors waiting palm. “What’s this?”

“That is worth more than many many chickens.”

The doctor bounced the ring in the hollow of his hand. “Solid gold!”

The man nodded. “Do I have your ear now?”

“Sit down my boy,” said the doctor smiling and pointing towards a large armchair in front of the fireplace. “Make yourself comfortable while I throw a few logs onto the coals.”

“My name is Gregorr Zlato, of the Brothers Zlato,” he said seating himself. “You may have heard of me and my sibling, Petrovich? We are master metal workers.”

“And I am Doctor Zadnost,” said the doctor sitting down opposite Gregorr. “Forgive me, but I have not heard of you or your brother.” He reached for the poker and scratched the coals until they were glowing brightly. “I very seldom use the services of a smith.”

“Oh, but we are not makers of crude horse and farming implements. We are….” A look of great sadness came over Gregorr. “We were makers of the finest jewellery.”

“Did you make this?” asked Zadnost holding the ring towards the firelight in order to study it better. It was an intricate design of two intertwined serpents. The heads faced each other. The eyes of one were green, and the other red. “The eyes?” queried Zadnost. “Are they…?”

“Merely coloured glass.”


The doctor made no attempt in hiding his disappointment. “Pity! Still, it is very well made; very beautiful indeed.”

“I curse the day that I ever crafted that ill-fated object. That was the beginning of our troubles.”

“It won’t work you know. I’m a man of reason; a man of science and logic.”

“What?”

“Trying to scare me into giving it back?”

“You misunderstand me. The ring itself is not cursed. The ring is harmless.”

“Then, what?”

“What would you say if I told you that that ring was once solid brass?”

“I’d say you were either insane or deluded.”

“I would expect a doctor to use such terms.”

“I am not a psychiatrist. I am a rational man merely stating a fact. I have no belief in alchemy or witchcraft.”

“What if I was to present you with irrefutable proof?”

The two men stared at each other for awhile before Zadnost dryly said, “Continue.”

“My brothers and I have a small jewellery shop in the village of Brechnya. Our home lies only a short distance from there. It is at our home that we do the manufacturing work; the smelting, moulding, cutting and twisting of various metals into finely crafted items for both male and female clientele. Due to the nature of the work, we needed to be constantly safety conscious as regards thievery. We made a point of having few, if any, items fashioned from precious metals amongst our wares. This meant that our jewellery was mostly made from brass, bronze, copper or combinations thereof. These served as an example of what could be done. So, basically, the only time we worked with gold or silver was when a rich client had commissioned us to do so. The fact of the matter is that it is actually far easier to work with gold because it is much softer and more pliable than most other metals. The ring you hold was originally one of the works of which I was most proud. I made sure to place it in our display tray where it could not be missed by browsing customers. And although it was made of brass, I was reluctant to let it go for a bargain. I had taken many painstaking hours to fashion it. Then one day a strange man walked into


the shop. I say strange because he had certain peculiarities in his mannerisms. He also dressed rather…differently.”

“Eccentric!”

“What?”

“I believe the term to be used is eccentric. It is normally a trait of the very rich.”

“Exactly! For upon seeing the ring he immediately agreed to pay the price - one large gold coin. ‘It is exactly what I have been looking for,’ he said studying it carefully. ‘It will suit my experiment perfectly.’ When I asked him about the experiment, he simply paid the price and left. We had never seen the man before. Most of our clientele were travellers passing through; merchants who made their living by buying cheap and selling high. We never expected to see him or the ring ever again.

“Then about three months later a wagon merchant approached me to do a special job for him. He had sold a wagon to, what he described as, a rather strange man who lived near Bladstok. The man had given him a gold ring as payment. Although the merchant had accepted the ring as payment, he had felt that the design was somewhat offensive, especially as he was a prominent member in his church. And, as he had always promised his wife that she would one day wear a genuine gold band, he asked if I could fashion it into something more…acceptable.

“I immediately knew the ring. Any fine craftsman is able to recognize the work of his own two hands. There was no doubt about it, it was the very same ring that I had fashioned, and yet it had now mysteriously turned to gold.

“My brother, upon inspecting the ring, agreed that it was most definitely my work. I told him of the strange man and how he had spoken of the ring being perfect for his experiment. We both immediately agreed that investigating the matter was of utmost importance. If the strange man had a means to turn base metals into gold, we needed to know how it was done.

“I gave the wagon merchant a plain-looking band that I had fashioned out of the gold coin, and then we set out for the village of Bladstok. It took some searching, but we eventually found the old stone mansion where the strange man lived. Confronted with the evidence of his handiwork he felt…obliged to give us a demonstration. I guess you might say that we were rather demanding. I am embarrassed to admit that gold has an evil power, a somewhat terrible means of changing benevolent human beings into the most malevolent of beasts.


“He led us into a large hall which contained many shelves of books. In the centre of the room was a small round table with a circular, unimpressive-looking, blue-grey clay bowl. In front of that was a reading stand holding an enormous open book.

“He asked us to place an object constructed from a base metal inside the bowl. ‘Be sure that the object fits neatly into the bowl and does not protrude above the rim,’ he said. My brother gazed at the cutthroat razor in his hand. He decided that the object he had been utilizing to threaten our reluctant host would make an ideal object. Although the handle was carved from African ivory, the blade was of the finest tempered steel.

“‘Proceed!’ said my brother stepping away from the table. The man moved to the reading stand and without turning any pages began to read the large words written in red ink on the large right-hand page. As he read, the bowl began to hum and vibrate. Then, as the resonance increased, the shallow container began to emit an odd luminescence. This too began to increase until it was impossible to keep one’s gaze fixed upon it. There was one final blinding flash just before the bowl returned to its original dull blue-grey colour.

“Then without a word the man slowly gestured towards the bowl. My brother moved cautiously towards the table and touched the cutthroat’s handle. ‘Cold!’ he said frowning. ‘I would have expected it to be slightly warm at least.’ Then he picked it up and unfolded the blade. What had once been a shiny silver steel was now a glistening yellow. ‘It worked,’ he said rushing to my side and holding it before my eyes. There could be no doubt - the steel had been turned to gold!”

“Hmph!” grunted Doctor Zadnost sceptically. “I hope this fairytale of yours is going somewhere?”

“My brother walked towards the man at the reading stand and asked wryly, ‘I wonder if the gold blade is as true as the steel was.’ The man backed away and said, ‘You promised not to hurt me if I showed you the secret!’ ‘Relax, old man! I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to test the edge.’ Then he ran the blade down the right-hand side of the page. A strip of paper snaked its way down onto the floor. ‘No!’ screamed the man. ‘Don’t destroy the incantation! The bowl is useless without the words!’ ‘Thank you,’ smiled Petrovich. ‘You’ve just told me all I need to know.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘Get the bowl, Gregorr. Be very careful with it. The incantation releases the special energies contained within the clay.’ The man started to weep as I picked up the bowl. ‘It took me years…decades to find the exact formula and gather the correct substances to construct the bowl. I beg you not to take it. If you leave it alone, I give you my word that you may use it whenever you wish. Please, there is no reason to let your


greed get the better of you.’ ‘Greed?’ queried my brother. ‘Why, we’re not greedy at all, old man.’ Then he slid the blade along the left hand side of the page, near the centre of the book, and grinned as the large sheet came away. ‘Look,’ he said folding the page and pushing it into his pocket. ‘I only want a single page from this very large volume of yours. I would think that is most generous of me? Wouldn’t you?’

“Two days later we arrived back home with the page and bowl. You must surely realize the great excitement we were experiencing in wanting to use the bowl and incantation as soon as possible. We were like waifs who had acquired a fantastic new plaything. We wanted to turn every single item in our inventory to gold as soon as was possible. We moved all the furniture, save for one small table, out of our living room. Onto this we placed the blue-grey bowl, and into it Petrovich placed an intricately designed copper necklace that he had fashioned himself. At that very moment I understood how King Midas must have felt just before the trouble started.

“My brother removed and unfolded the page. He smiled at me once before starting to read the incantation. It would be the last time I ever saw him smile.

“I immediately knew that something was different…something was very wrong. Yes, the bowl hummed and glowed, but not like before. The noise was high pitched and irritating to the ears. An instant later the bowl shattered in a blinding flash. I managed to get an arm up in front of my face just in time to shield myself from the flying shards. We stood there for a long time staring at the fragments in disbelief. Finally, when I turned to look at my brother, I noticed a trickle of blood running down his left temple. ‘You’ve been injured,’ I said pointing at his head. It was only then that I noticed the cut on my left hand. ‘I’m fine,’ he said rubbing at the wound. ‘It’s not very deep.’ ‘What went wrong?’ I asked inspecting my own wound. He picked up the page from where it had fallen during the turbulence and studied it. ‘I have no idea,’ he said turning the page, then immediately added, ‘Actually, I do!’ He held the page out towards me. ‘Look!’ ‘What?’ I said frowning at the red ink words. He turned the page over to reveal yet another crimson-hued incantation. ‘In my haste, I read the wrong words, never realizing that there would be another…spell on the back of the page.’ ‘I wonder what the other incantation is for. It did manage to activate the bowl before destroying it. The spell can’t be all that different from turning base metals into gold.’ ‘Eh?’ said my brother placing a finger in his ear and wiggling it about. ‘I seem to be having trouble hearing you. I think all that commotion has affected my ear.’ I gazed in horror at the left side of my brother’s face. It had turned to shiny gold and was continuing to spread down towards his neck. ‘The Saints preserve us, Petrovich!’ I exclaimed staring in horror as the same yellow rash started to spread out


from around the cut in my hand. ‘I know what the second incantation is for.’ Before he could say anything I thrust my hand out and cried, ‘It turns living flesh to gold!’ He rushed towards the looking glass in the passageway and cried out as he saw the seriousness of his predicament. Then with another shout he bolted out the back door. I rushed after him, and caught up with him at the old well behind our house. He leaned over the opening and stared down into the deep menacing shaft. Without looking up he said, ‘It is so ironic Gregorr. It is so ironic that I should actually be laughing.’ ‘What is?’ I asked putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘Soon I shall be gold from head to foot. And then some master metal worker will come and break pieces off of me and turn it into fine jewellery. Do you have any idea how much I’ll be worth once I’m all solid gold?’ My mind was awash struggling to find a solution to our dilemma. ‘You must not say such foolish things, Petrovich. There must be a way to stop this.’ I spoke reassuringly, but the tremor in my voice had betrayed my true feelings of futility. ‘It’s too late, Gregorr. I will not allow myself to be found like this. You should do the same when your time is near.’ ‘Do what?’ I asked frantically. ‘Farewell, my brother,’ he said and fell forward. I screamed long and loud, but I do remember hearing the splash as he struck the water.

“I watched, shaking uncontrollably, as the accursed rash spread along my hand and towards my wrist. My thoughts were racing. Even if I could make it back to the strange man in time, the chances of him helping me were very slim. Then I remembered that people had made mention of a very good man of medicine and surgery who stayed in a village close by. His name…Doctor Zadnost. I immediately saddled my horse and set off to find him. If anybody was capable of saving me, then it would surely be him. And now I have found you!”

“As I mentioned before,” said Zadnost staring at Gregorr. “You need the services of a psychiatrist. There is absolutely nothing that I can do for you. Nothing, except relieve you of this splendid ring. I believe the saying goes that a fool and his gold are soon parted.”

Gregorr rolled up his left sleeve, removed the glove, and shoved his arm under Doctor Zadnost’s nose. “Do you still believe that it is a psychiatrist that I need to be seeing?”

“Mother of God!” exclaimed the doctor staring at the shiny appendage. “It can’t be possible!” As he stared in disbelief, the golden rash slowly continued its journey towards Gregorr’s elbow. He watched in fascination as each hair follicle turned from blonde to shiny metallic gold.

“The strange thing is that I am not suffering any pain or discomfort,” said Gregorr rubbing the arm. “So, now you must help me. You have already accepted payment.”


“What?” said Zadnost looking up. “What can I do? This is way beyond anything that I have ever seen. There is no medicine I know of that can cure this!”

“You misunderstand, Doctor. I am not asking you to find a cure. I need you to remove the problem before it spreads too far.”

“You want me to amputate?”

“Exactly! I realize that I will never be able to make another piece of jewellery again, but a solid gold arm should be able to keep me well for the rest of my life. That is why we need to wait yet a little longer.”

“Wait? For what?”

“For the gold to spread further. I was thinking that it should be allowed to almost reach my elbow. This will make it easier for you to remove the arm at the joint. That way I will still have the use of my upper arm, but I will also gain a fairly good amount of gold.”

“A finger,” said the doctor staring at the golden hand.

“What?”

“Besides the ring, the operation will cost you a finger as well.”

“The ring is already worth more than…”

“Just the small one. Take it or leave it,” said Zadnost holding the ring out towards Gregorr.

“Greedy bastard!” exclaimed Gregorr. You know darn well that I have no choice but to agree.”

“Greedy?” asked Zadnost smiling. “It’s only one tiny little finger that I’ll be taking, and that is a very large arm you’ve got.” He stood up. “Come; let us make preparations for you in the operating room.”

“It is almost time,” said Zadnost watching the golden rash creeping ominously towards the elbow. “What did you do with the stolen page of incantations?”

Gregorr looked up from the hard slab he was lying on and said, “I tossed the damnable thing into the fireplace. It burned up with an evil green smoke that smelled of brimstone. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” said Zadnost placing a cotton-filled wire mesh over Gregorr’s mouth and nose. “Just curious.” He reached for the bottle of chloroform and began to sprinkle it onto the cotton. “Now I need you to take very long, deep breaths. In…out…in…out…yes, that’s it.”


Zadnost stopped adding chloroform when the gold had spread to Gregorr’s head. Then he covered the still figure with a white sheet and went to bed. The next morning he removed the covering and stared at the clothed golden statue that lay upon his operating slab. “How does that saying go again? Give them a finger, and they take an arm. In this case, the whole damn body,” he laughed. He looked at the new ring on his finger. “I won’t have to sell this now. In fact, I’ll be keeping it as a reminder of the great fortune that has come my way. A solid gold statue like this can have me living like a prince for the rest of my life. A second would have me live the life of a king. Yes, once I acquire that as well, there will be no more serving this ungrateful community for pittance. They will have to serve me from now on. There will be no more chickens served at my table. From now on it will be only pheasant in brandy sauce. Pheasant shot by my gamekeeper on the grounds of my extensive mansion estate.”

That very same afternoon, Zadnost procured the potato farmer’s cart and horses with a promissory note for future medical care towards the farmer and his immediate family.

After tying Gregorr’s horse to the back of the cart he set out for Brechnya.

It was dark by the time he reached the outskirts of the village, but this suited him as most people were now indoors warming themselves in front of the fires that glowed golden from the many window that he slowly passed by. There was no possibility of any over-curious local recognizing Gregorr’s steed.

He had, though, brought it along for a very specific purpose. Although he had given the mount water, he had purposely refrained from feeding it. Then, just as he had hoped, the horse started to become energized and began pulling against its fetters.

“That’s it!” whispered Zadnost climbing down from the cart. “You sense your home and the food that is always waiting for you there.” He tied a longer rope to the horse and removed the shorter one. “Show me the way,” he said holding tightly to the rope and climbing back onto the cart.

The horse led Zadnost out the other side of the village. About two miles further it turned left into a side path that passed through a small, but concentrated forest. On exiting the woodland, a large cabin came into view. There was no golden glow or smoke coming from the chimney.

Zadnost stopped the cart by the front door and shouted, “Hello! Anybody home?”


After repeating the query a few times he climbed down and untied the horse. It immediately galloped off towards the adjacent barn. “This has to be the place,” he said lighting a torch and entering the building through the wide open door. He gazed at the accumulation of dead leaves in the entrance. “Certainly seems like the place.” He moved past a clutter of stacked furniture into the empty living room. Empty, except for a single small table and a number of pottery shards scattered across the floor. It was hard to tell by the light of the torch, but the shards seemed to be of a blue-grey hue. “Definitely the place!”

A short while later Zadnost was staring down the well. The light was unable to penetrate to the full depth of the well.

“Only one way to tell,” said Zadnost releasing the torch. It struck the side once before being extinguished. “That is pretty deep. He studied the rope wound around the pulley. “Thin and rotted. Luckily I had the foresight to bring a new and very long rope along.”

After a short struggle to reverse the cart against the well, he secured the end of the rope to the vehicle and tossed the remainder into the dark orifice. “I hope the water isn’t too deep?” he lamented before starting his decent. “Or too cold?”

It seemed like forever, but eventually his boot touched water. He slowly lowered himself, and was pleased to find that although there was a slushy mud beneath the surface, he was able to stand firmly with only his ankles and lower calves getting wet.

He reached for the torch strung across his back and lit it.

A gasp of horror escaped his lips as he was suddenly confronted by a mound of bones. The many skulls grinning terrible witness to the fact that these remains were once living, breathing, human beings. He held the torch towards the water’s surface. It was far too shallow to conceal a golden statue. Even lying flat there would have to be some evidence of it. Nothing!

A single word sprang into Zadnost’s mind.

Trap!

He reached for the rope, but his hand passed through air. He gazed up just in time to see the end of the rope disappearing up the well. “No!” he shouted up the vertical tunnel. “It’s not possible. I made sure the cart was secure. It could not have moved! Someone has retracted it.”

“That would be Petrovich.” The voice came from the blackness past the bones. Zadnost watched as the dark figure approached the light.


It was the long blonde hair that Zadnost first recognized. “Gregorr?”

“Doctor Zadnost,” came the acknowledgement.

“How?”

“I think the question is, ‘Why?’

“Why?”

“Gold, as I said before, has power. The power to turn basically good people into dirty rotten scoundrels.” Zadnost was about to speak, but Gregorr continued. “But gold also has the power to remove fear. The fear of heights. The fear of cramped spaces. The fear of dark places. Do you have any idea how many people have overcome even their worst fears in order to climb down into our well?” Zadnost glanced nervously at the pile of bones. He could distinguish at least two dozen skulls amongst the remains. “Yes,” said Gregorr, a wicked smile caressing his lips. “That many.”

“Why?”

“We both know why they all climbed down here. The why I needed for them to do it is more important.” He walked over to the pile of bones and lifted one of the skulls. “Most of the story that I told you is true. The malady is very real.”

“I saw you die? I saw you turn into a golden statue?”

“Ah, yes,” said Gregorr dropping the skull and approaching Zadnost. “That reminds me. You have something that belongs to me.”

“What?”

He pointed at the doctor’s hand. “I’m really quite fond of it.”

“The ring?”

“It helps to weave a wonderful, intriguing, tale. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“But…”

“The ring was payment for removing my arm.” Gregorr waved a perfectly normal arm in the air. “I do believe that you failed to fulfil that medical commission.” Zadnost removed the ring and handed it to Gregorr. “Thank you,” he said slipping the ring onto a finger. “And thank you also for returning my steed. I am just as fond of him.”

“The malady?”

“Everything I told you was true. That is, up to the point where I decided to seek you out. That, and the fact that it all happened over two years ago.”


“Two years?”

“Uh-huh, but instead of looking for a doctor I did return to the strange man in Bladstok. Instead of helping me, he just laughed and said that we had gotten everything we deserved.” There was a long silence before he added, “I ended his irritating laughter forever. I crushed his head with my golden arm.”

“You killed him?”

“It was the first time that I had taken a human life, but it would be the first of many, for in death he revealed the cure. As I stared at his blood on my hand and arm, I suddenly became aware that I could once again move my fingers. Before long, the golden appendage had been restored to its original state. Blood…human blood is the cure.”

“Then why…?”

“Because the cure is only temporary. I returned home with a good quantity of the alchemist’s blood. In short, I managed to return my brother to a being of flesh and blood, but about a month later I awoke with a terrible stiffness in my hand. The malady yet remained as I watched the golden death creeping towards my elbow. We quickly devised a number of schemes in order to lure greedy souls into our well. There is an abundant supply, and you yourself know just how easy it is to be duped.”

“How could you have been so certain that I would not amputate your arm?”

“I wasn’t, but Petrovich was watching you through the window. He would have made certain that it did not happen. He also waited until you had left for our village, before reviving me with a vial of blood. We always have a few at hand in case of emergencies.

The malady can strike without warning at any time. This is why it was almost a blessing that we were both struck with it. The malady does not affect us both at the same time, so that one of us will always be in a position to help the other. This is also why we need to make sure that we always have a sufficient supply of the cure. That is, until we are able to procure a more permanent solution. But, until then, I’m afraid that we must continue to do as we have been doing.” Gregorr reached into his pocket and removed an ivory-handled cutthroat.

Zadnost was uncertain as to whether the golden gleam in the advancing Gregorr’s eye was a reflection of the flame or the gleaming blade.


NATURE'S JOURNEYMEN – PATRICIA JACOBS FINALIST – GENERAL SECTION – 2011 NOVA SHORT STORY

COMPETITION

Some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well,

They imitated humanity so abominably. Hamlet Act 3, Sc.2.

Sitting on a rock, Maura shivered as a cold wind swirled dust around. She heard buzzing and scanned the air, not sure why as there were no insects here. The sky was empty and she looked back at Farrell. He was the only one not wearing his anorak which was tied round his waist by the sleeves. He gripped an outcrop and pulled himself higher up the rock face. Muscles, dewed with sweat, bulged like aubergines and Maura felt a visceral tightening, not for the first time on this trip. Holy Mother, she thought, here I am thirty-three years old and except for one disastrous love affair I've never needed a man. Yet, when this Brit flexes his biceps, I can hardly contain myself. 'This looks promising,' Farrell called down to them. 'Ore runs right through the outcrop.' Sholto stood, arms akimbo, looking up at him. 'About time too, me boyo,' he answered. 'Tis fer nothin I wiz beginning to think we'd come all this way.' His brogue sound out of place without the green hills of Limerick. Maura missed home and she wondered yet again what she was doing on a mountain, watching men chip, examine, and collect pieces of rock. Sheer boredom. No wonder she was eyeing bulging muscles. 'Skipper,' Farrell called, 'we've found something.' Sitting on a boulder off by himself, Sedric Shipton, leader of the expedition, heaved himself up and came over. He looked at Farrell clinging limpet-like to the rock face. 'You're sure?' he asked. 'A lot's riding on this find.' 'Positive,' Farrell said. 'Asher, what d'you think?' 'Certainly looks like carnotite to me,' Asher said in her posh English. Alongside Farrell, Asher gripped rocks, her gluteal muscles tense. Maura caught Sholto ogling the tight little backside. Farrell jumped down from the ledge, Asher followed more sedately. As she leaned forward to look at the sample, pale blonde hair slipped over one cheek. Asher Wilson, so young and fresh, Maura thought, I don't stand a chance with her around. At twenty-three she was ten years younger than Maura, and Farrell's assistant.


'Doctor Keegan,' Shipton called. 'I need to speak with you.' Glad of the distraction Maura followed the broad back out of earshot of the team. He stumbled on loose shale. She nodded. 'I'm having a problem with my breathing,' he said. 'Are you sure the air has enough oxygen?' 'Taki's test said oxygen was thin but adequate. What symptoms are you having?' 'Tightness in the chest and a sharp pain in my throat.' 'How difficult is the breathing?' 'Pretty bad on that last climb.' She frowned. As aerospace medical officer, she'd warned the Committee for Space Research, COSPAR, that Sedric Shipton was too old for this expedition but he'd been fit for fifty-two and his leadership record, had won out. 'Perhaps you should stay on board.' 'No,' he said quickly. 'These people are my responsibility. Don't forget the last team that came here vanished and no one's found out why.' 'That was forty-eight years ago,' Maura said. 'Technology wasn't what it is today.' 'True, Doc, but our technology isn't so hot either, is it? The glitch with the air-streamer has me worried.' He looked round at the landscape and his mouth twisted. 'What a crap hole. Rocks as far as you can see, not a frigging drop of water, not a sign of life, and a constant cold wind.' 'There can't be life without water,' she pointed out. 'Nigma might have what we desperately need on earth, uranium to run the reactors.' 'Yeah, that's vital and that should be our main concern.' He drew a deep shuddering breath, huffed it all out. 'Okay, let's go back to the others.' 'Sure you're all right?' 'I'm fine now.' He smiled. 'Having someone to dump on cured me.' 'I'll give you a thorough checkup tonight,' Maura said. The team had been drawn from different countries and COSPAR had been concerned that more valuable scientists would be lost in space, as well as cause an international incident. Consequently, they'd kept the expedition to essential people only: Commander Sedric Shipton, astronaut, with his co-pilot Semira Jones, both from America; Englishman Farrell Locke, cosmo-geologist and his assistant Asher Wilson; Japanese computer and robotics expert, Taki Kamakura, Sholto Bryan, Ireland's top nucleonics man, and herself.


As a safety factor, Semira and Taki had stayed on board the space cruiser, Aenigma II, while the five of them air-lifted down to explore Nigma. Essentially Farrell and Asher did all the work while Sholto, Sedric and Maura gave moral support and carried samples. When they returned, the others had their heads together checking samples. 'There you are,' Sholto said. 'Nipped off for a quick one, did you now?' Maura said, 'For God's sake, Sholto, get your mind above your nucleon.' Everyone laughed. They were used to Sholto's continual innuendos. Farrell held out a rock sample. 'Here you are, Skipper, carnotite, uranium-bearing ore, and it runs clear to the top of the mountain.' He showed another sample. 'This one is monazite which contains thorium, also used in reactors. Not as good as pitchblende but good enough to start mining. Once we've done a laser augur to prove reserves we can go home.' 'This is great news,' Skipper said. He checked the sky. 'It'll be dusk in an hour; we better head on back to base. We get caught out in the open at night; we'll freeze our asses off.' 'I want to climb to the top for a few more samples.' Behind the commander's back, Maura shook her head. Farrell looked from her to Skipper. 'Asher and I could go alone if you want to wait here.' 'No way,' Skipper replied. 'We stick together.' Again Maura shook her head at Farrell. 'On second thoughts we'll do it tomorrow,' he said. 'Let's go back to camp.' "Camp" was rampant hyperbole as the therma-tent was barely large enough to contain the five of them with basic equipment, food supplies and a few personal toiletries. They couldn't bath because water had to be conserved. Maura lay on her sleeping bag, hands tucked behind her head, too weary even to crawl inside. She was more tired doing nothing than after her normal workday back at home. This was only their fifth day on Nigma but it felt like a year. Normally they'd have slept on the cruiser but problems with the air-streamer convinced them to bring down the therma-tent and stay on the ground while Taki worked on it. Night temperatures plunged to fifty degrees below zero but they had a small nuclear generator for heat and lights and to operate the microwave. Sleeping bags were plain old-fashioned sheepskin but reasonably comfortable. Their only entertainment was a pack of playing cards.


Sholto and Asher were playing rummy with plenty of arguments about his cheating. Maura had grown up on the same streets as Sholto Bryan and was the only member of the team who completely understood him. He had an IQ off the Binet Scale but, like many geniuses, his emotional age was sixteen. World expert in nucleonics he'd designed a revolutionary micro-reactor plant quarter the size of old stations, with a higher output of power, as well as being more fuel efficient. The reactor had been put into immediate use. Nevertheless earth's fuels, especially uranium, were running low and reserves would barely last another twenty to thirty years, hence this push to other planets to search for an alternative source. 'Hold it down a bit, you two,' Farrell murmured, 'I'm trying to concentrate.' Maura found British men pale and slightly built but Farrell was tanned and muscular from working outdoors. He had a mini-lab and was busy scraping rock dust onto slides, adding chemicals, pushing a drawer into the computer, and peering at the on-screen results. Every move was relaxed. Such a peaceful man. Unlike her frenetic life at the hospital; rushing around twelve, thirteen hours a day, going home to her computer, dictating papers for medical journals, working on speeches for conferences. Studying new medical information until it was time to turn out the light. Many times she'd fall asleep with a book on her chest. Maura knew she was sublimating her sex drive into work but quite simply didn't have time for a man. Not after John. She'd put her face into textbooks at age fifteen, looked up at twenty-three and there was Dr John Whitson, blue-eyed darling of London Hospital. She'd lost her hymen on a couch in the doctor’s office after three weeks of his persistent flattery. God, how she'd loved him. The “formidable” Dr Keegan drifting round the corridors in a pink haze, straining for a glimpse of him. Waiting and waiting for him to call. Then she found out he was married. Skipper closed his log book with a thud. 'Well, we better get some shuteye. Big day tomorrow.' Sholto looked up, irritated. 'We're busy,' he said. 'Deal, darlin', then I'll let you share my sleeping bag.' 'Big treat,' Asher said. 'It is. You want to see?' 'Sholto.' 'Holy Mary, tis a long time since I saw anyone blush.' Asher walked over and stood behind Farrell, leaned against his back and peered at the screen. Maura blinked rapidly and looked away.


Sholto dropped onto a bed next to hers. He said softly, 'Why don't you go after him then.' 'Is it obvious?' 'Only to me, mavournin, because I spend me life on the chase.' 'And compete with Miss English Rose?' Maura said. She smiled but, serious for once, Sholto merely nodded. 'She pales into naught next to your russet hair and creamy skin.' 'And freckles.' 'Sure now, they're charming. And more, she's too thin, where you're a foin healthy Irish wench.' 'You've been chasing Asher since space-training,' she whispered. 'How come she's suddenly too pale and thin?' He flopped onto his back, switched to Gaelic. 'Because she's a virgin, mavournin, and a Brit. They both have to be conquered at all costs.' Maura had to laugh. 'Sholto, you're incorrigible,' then added in Gaelic. 'And how do you know I'm not a virgin?' He turned onto his side, their faces inches apart. 'Tis in your eyes.' 'What is?' 'Passion.' He raised his head, looked beyond her. 'I'll keep her busy. Loosen your hair, go over there and show him what's in your eyes.' He unfolded his tall frame and sauntered over to Asher. 'Ah, me darlin', 'tis alone you are and lookin' to be seduced.' Maura shook her head. She wouldn't have credited Sholto with sensitivity. Loosen your hair? What was he talking about? Her hair was uncontrollable she always wore it in a plait. Or is that what he meant? Farrell packed the samples away and closed his computer. What was she saving herself for? She sat up, pulled a brush out of her toiletry kit. Mouth set, she undid the plait and began to brush with long strokes. From across the room, Farrell stopped and gazed as if seeing her for the first time. Goodness now, Maura thought, its working. Then she was distracted by a strange noise. She stopped brushing, cocked her head. 'What was that?' The four looked at her. 'What?' 'I heard buzzing outside,' she said. 'Listen.' 'I hear nothing.' 'Maybe it's the ...'


'Shhh.' she held up a finger. 'There it is again.' 'I heard it that time,' Farrell said. 'Buzzing in short bursts.' 'I didn't.' 'Neither did I.' They all leapt as something banged against the door. 'Sholto,' said Skipper, 'you're nearest.' 'Bugger that. How do we know who's there. Might be an alien looking for food.' Farrell said, 'For Pete's sake, Sholto, there's no such thing.' He stalked over, pulled open the door letting in a mini tornado of icy wind and dust. 'Taki? What the hell are you doing out there?' Taki came in hunched over, dumped a bed roll onto the floor. His teeth clacked together so rapidly he couldn't reply. Maura sprang up and whipped a coat round his shoulders. 'You'll catch pneumonia out there. Sit next to the radiator and get warm.' 'I'll heat some coffee,' Farrell said. Although he couldn't find a fault with the air-streamer, Taki had spent the day re-programming it. 'I decided to run a test and it was fine for one. I'm not sure about taking a group though.' He opened the bundle pulled out a portacomp. 'Shigla, I didn't know it was so cold on the ground.' 'I specifically told you to stay aboard,' Skipper said. 'I want nothing to go wrong on this trip.' 'Semira's managing alone.' He unrolled his bag. 'I brought my own bed, a porta-comp to work on and, 'he tapped his wrist, 'my remote Rist-Comp.' 'I hope you brought your own porta-potty too, me boyo, I don't like sharing.' 'Did you hear a buzzing noise out there?' Maura asked. 'All I heard was the drone of a wind that froze my vital extremities.'

* Today it was icy cold and everyone but Taki was irritable. They'd almost reached the ridge of the mountain. The wind was stronger up here and whipped hats off, flapped collars against faces, blew dust into their eyes. Farrell and Asher had outstripped them and stood looking round. Maura had to practically carry Skipper the last few feet and she wasn't much of a climber herself. 'Holy Mother,' Sholto said, puffing, 'why we had to come to the virry top. I'll nivver understand, at all.' 'Because it's there,' Maura said. She eased Skipper onto a rock. 'Are you all right?' Unable to speak he waved both hands in a "leave me" sign. Taki's backside disappeared over the ridge.


'You rest,' she said to Skipper, 'I'll ask Farrell what he wants up here.' She signalled Sholto with her eyes. 'Keep an eye on the commander.' 'I need an excuse to sit, I do. Move up there, Skip, me lad.' 'Get your own friggin rock. There's plenty of them. No way,' Skipper replied. We stick together. Don't forget the last expedition vanished without trace on this frigging dust bowl.' Maura climbed on. Farrell held out a hand and helped her over the ledge. He wasn't even breathing hard. 'Just look at the size of this crater,' he said. 'We've been standing on a volcano.' 'Dormant, I hope.' The raw beauty of the panorama pushed worry about Skipper out of Maura's mind. The crater rim must have measured eight miles in diameter so deep the base looked like a postage stamp. Asher, blonde hair riffling in the wind, looked like a model on a shoot for High Adventure magazine. She broke the awed silence with her high-society accent. 'What's that at the bottom?' 'It's black. Looks like oil,' said Taki. 'It's in shadow,' Farrell said. 'Most likely it's ash or solidified lava.' 'I agree with Taki,' Maura said. 'It looks shiny. Could it be water?' At this point Sholto and the commander joined them. Both breathless. 'Impossible,' Skipper said, 'The probes would've registered water.' 'There's always a chance of deep underground water,' Farrell said. 'Like they found on Mars.' 'Why haven't we seen signs then?' Farrell shrugged. 'We haven't really looked.' He shouldered his rucksack. 'Let's go down and see what it is, because if there's water it will make mining more feasible and cost effective.' Sure,' said Skipper, but don't take long.' Wearily they hitched on their backpacks. Sholto offered to carry Asher's bag but she shook her head. Scoring points?' Maura whispered. He gave a cheeky grin. The crater's inside walls inclined at a thirty-degree angle, almost a walk after the near-vertical climb. The floor of the crater stretched three miles across. At the bottom the first signs of life on Nigra appeared in the form of fungi. Mosses, lichens, mushrooms. Thousands of mushrooms dotted between the rocks, like measles. Goodness now, it's ice,' Maura said. Black ice.' Tis, for sure,' said Sholto. Why is it black?' asked Asher.


I've seen it before,' Farrell said. It's from the mushrooms. Called Coprinus, when the spores mature they release an inky fluid which leaks into the water and turns it black. Then it freezes over.' Could there be fish underneath?' Asher asked. I doubt it. If there are any they'll be achromatic.' Unless they've been stained with mushroom ink,' Maura said. In which case we'll never find them.' Amused, Farrell winked, causing her stomach to flip. Taki said, I hear buzzing.' They scanned the sky expecting bees, birds, something they understood. The buzzing grew louder. Look.' Across the black ice a row of strange vehicles skimmed towards them. They resembled old-world motorcycles except squatter and broader. When they drew nearer Maura saw the bikes didn't rest on the ice but hovered above it. Each one held a woman. Eight of them. As if it were a uniform, tight PVC suits covered their long frames from neck to ankles but their arms were bare. Their skin was paper-white, no pigment at all. Raven hair rose in a high quiff above their foreheads, was caught in the wind and whipped out behind in a long switch. The buzzing diminished as the bikes slowed, encircled the team and settled onto the ice. Moving simultaneously, military-like, the women dismounted. Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' said Sholto, they must be eight feet tall. Are they aliens?' Nonsense,' Farrell said. There's no such thing.' Glassy green eyes staring, as one person, they raised their left arms and pointed across the ice lake. Skipper said, I think they want us to go with them.' Although nearly twice his height, young Taki was unafraid. He raised a hand in greeting. Do you speak English?' The nearest woman lashed him across the head. He dropped like a stone, skidded along the ice and lay still. Asher pressed against Farrell. My Gahd, they've killed him.' Keeping an eye on the strange women, Maura inched over to Taki, knelt, and lifted his eyelid. He's unconscious.' A woman shoved Maura aside, picked Taki up by an arm, carried him as if he weighed nothing and dropped him across her bike.


Skipper said, everyone get onto a bike.' Once they were seated the women remounted and skimmed across the ice lake. Near the rock face the bikes slowed into single file, entered a crevice and zigzagged through a narrow rock tunnel which widened into a cavern. The bikes lined up, four on each side, and subsided. The women dismounted. Even though each carried a weapon on their belt they didn't appear to mean any harm. One woman lifted Taki under her arm like a doll; the others removed the team's backpacks. Look at those doors,' Skipper whispered, they must be thirty foot high. How the blazes did they get here?' The massive doors soughed open at their approach and they entered a vaulted corridor, the walls and floor of which were polished black rock. Lighting came through staggered slits in the walls. Straight ahead another set of doors swung open as they drew near and they entered a hall that must've measured two hundred feet each way. Except for giant urns against the walls there was no decoration. Pillars, one in each corner, measured six feet across the base but what they supported couldn't be seen for they soared up into darkness. The vast space-enclosing architecture was reminiscent of ancient Egypt. Five pentagonal pillars on each side down the centre of the hall formed a walkway that led to a dais at the far end. A woman sat on an H-shaped throne made from the same black rock. Where the other women were eight feet, this one was taller. Their hair was black, hers was white; they were pale and smooth-skinned, her skin was warm-hued and wrinkled. In a word, human. More amazing yet she spoke English. Why is that one injured?' she asked. I said no one was to be harmed.' The woman holding Taki released him and he plunked onto the floor. The old woman rose majestically. Is he dead?' No,' Maura replied, he’s unconscious.' As if to prove it, Taki groaned. Are you the team doctor?' I am.' See to him.' Skipper stepped forward. I'm Commander Shipton, leader of this expedition. We have questions.' I'm sure you do.' She smiled. My name will answer the first ten. I'm Mary Armstrong.'


Professor Armstrong? From the previous expedition? But how? That was nearly fifty years ago. I remember reading she was tall but not, uh ...' Ten foot? Let me explain that first. You must know astronauts grow in space but no one stayed long enough to test if they continued to grow. They do. I stopped growing a number of years back so I've topped my maximum height.' She had a lovely slow smile and Maura felt herself succumbing to her charm. But how did you survive? What happened to the team? Are they alive?' No. Your questions will be answered later. By now you must be longing for a bath, the Zan will show you where. We'll meet again in two hours for dinner. Please don't try to wander about on your own or the Zan will react.' Followed by four of the women she glided down the steps, crossed to the back of the hall and vanished. Did that sound like a threat to you?' Farrell murmured. Maura shook her head. No. A fact.' Skipper scratched his bristled chin. I think she's, uh ...' he glanced at the Zan, a little weird.' So would you be,' Farrell said, if you'd been marooned on a planet for fifty years.' I guess. But something's off. I wonder what happened to the others.' A Zan stepped forward and pointed. Skipper looked up at her. My kinda woman, one who doesn't talk.' He and the men went one way and the other pair took Maura and Asher down a different corridor to a small room. A Zan opened a three-foot slot and steaming water flooded into a sunken bath. Maura immediately began undressing. Asher whispered, 'are they going to watch?' Who cares? One thing I miss on these expeditions is my bath.'

* Two hours later the Zan led them back to the main hall. The men were seated round a long stone table laden with unusual fruits and vegetables. Blocks of black stone served as seats. We are vegetarian there being no animals on Nigma.' Where do the vegetables come from?' There's extensive underground water in this cave system and we grow them. Or rather, my daughter grows them.' Daughter?' Skipper said. You were single. I saw photos and read your file. A prodigy who entered Oxford University at ten, graduated cum laude at fifteen, a professorship at seventeen. You were a whizz at math,


computer science, robotics and astronomy. You were the astronomer who discovered Nigma and insisted on being part of the expedition. You're a legend on earth and your loss stunned the world.' She bowed her head at the accolade. I was fortunate to find Nigma hidden behind Mars. From probes we learned that volcanic activity had ceased and that the geology was earth like; we knew there was oxygen but not if the air was breathable and so came for further research.' She waved a hand. Please help yourself to whatever you wish.' The food's great,' Skipper said. Who does the cooking?' The Zan do everything.' They're robots,' said Taki. Observant of you,' Mary said. Science hadn't got that far when I left earth.' They still haven't,' Taki said. We're at the R2D2 stage.' I don't understand the reference.' Mechanical man.' Her lips pursed in an odd expression. Smugness? If they're servants,' Maura said, why are they armed?' Mary may be seventy-one years old but her eyes were still sharp with intelligence. Merely a precaution.' She looked up and her expression softened. Maura turned. A young woman crossed the hall. She had creamy skin, blue eyes and rich golden-brown hair; the first touch of colour in this strange place. Shorter than the Zan, a mere six feet, she wore the same draped white cloth as Mary Armstrong. Seating herself at the table she nodded and the Zan began serving her. Mary said, my daughter, Neola.' Sure now, she's lovely,' said Sholto. She's the image of you at that age,' Skipper said. Where did a child come from?' Neola looked at him. Quickly, Mary said, let me continue my tale.' Sorry I interrupted,' said Skipper. Our first mistake was to land the shuttle and leave it unattended.' Farrell looked at Maura and frowned. He didn't seem as impressed with Professor Armstrong as the others. You are a small group?' Mary asked. Six of you?' Seven,' Skipper said. One stays with the cruiser.' Very wise.' She impaled him with a look. Where is the ship?'


In orbit.' She rubbed her bottom lip, then continued: We were a larger group, fifteen of us. On landing, we split into two teams to gather samples and search for water. Our second mistake was to take only enough provisions for the day and we weren't carrying camp equipment because we intended sleeping aboard the shuttle. The arrangement was to meet at dusk.' Her face clouded at the memory. Nothing prepared us for the sudden drop in night temperature. Three of our group collapsed with hyperthermia. Nikolai Basov, a Russian engineer, settled them in the shelter of some rocks, said he'd look for a cave and come back. I insisted on going with him.' A fifty-year mystery was being cleared up and the people round the table hung on every word. Hardly noticed, Zan removed dishes and served herb tea. Like you, we found the crater, circled the ice lake looking for a cave. Half frozen I passed out. Nikolai carried me and was almost on the verge of collapse when he found the entrance to this.' Again she waved her hand. To him it was just a cave. Shelter. Of course it was too late to go back for the others.' She drank her tea. I haven't spoken this much for a long time.' But how did you build this place?' Farrell asked. Two of you with no equipment, not even food.' One of the mysteries of the universe, Mr Locke.' You know our names?' Maura said. Again there was that sharp-eyed look. Asher said, what happened next?' Mary turned her scrutiny from Maura. The next morning we returned to the others. They had died of exposure. We spent several hours burying them under rocks, then discovered the shuttle had vanished.' The others left you behind?' That's what we at first thought but later Nikolai found the bodies of the second group, also in the shelter of rocks.' Then who took the shuttle?' Skipper asked. Mary's mouth tightened. There was no time to worry about it, we had a more urgent concern. Survival. We stripped the team of outer clothing, food, water, and hurried back here.' Maura noticed Neola gazing at Sholto. He stared at her, mouth slightly open. Mary's voice drew Maura's attention from them.


The next morning Nikolai fashioned a cloth torch so we could explore the cave system and find water. We thought no further than that. Try to picture our amazement when we saw manmade doors. We thought there may be people here and that they may kill us. I said we'd die anyway if we didn't find food and water.' She smiled gently, lost in memory. ‘Nikolai, that brave man, wanted to go in alone. I insisted that would achieve nothing. We discovered the doors are people operated.' ‘What?' said Asher, aspirating the aitch. As you approach,' Taki explained, ‘the door's open by body-heat or magnetic impulse.' ‘Correct,' Mary said. Magnetic impulse. Even more astonishing, as we stepped through the doorway, lights flared. Everywhere we walked, doors opened, lights went on, generators began to hum and fresh air circulated. The place came to life as if waiting for us. Everything we needed was here. Except people.' ‘I don't understand,' Farrell said. If there had been no other expeditions, then who built this place?' ‘I have no idea.' ‘Oh, come now,' he said. Are you saying aliens did all this? Slimy monsters with tentacles?' Mary studied him. ‘Humans have such monumental egos and assume earth has the only intelligent life in the universe. Don't forget, Mr Locke, on other planets we are aliens. Humans never question why Bushmen in Africa did cave drawings of spacecraft and men wearing space helmets, or why ancient Egyptians worshipped the stars? Or what the secret is of the "Gateway to the Heavens" in their crypts? With a gate that dilates like the iris of an eye; a mechanism unheard in those times.' ‘You mean God didn't create us?' Maura said. ‘We came from outer space?' Sholto laughed but Mary Armstrong remained serious. ‘Whether you believe in theology or the big bang, who's to say only one earth was created. What if there were beings on other planets developing along the same lines as earthlings? No more, or less, intelligent than we are.' A long silence followed this speech. ‘I've given you much to think about and you must be tired. The beds will seem strange at first but once you get used to them you will rest well.' And with a regal wave she left, followed by her handmaidens. They huddled together speaking softly, not sure if the Zan outside were able to understand.


‘There's something off about Mary Armstrong,' Skipper said, ‘so I had Taki contact Semira to keep the cruiser in orbit.' Maura looked at Farrell seated next to Skipper. ‘I agree,' he said. ‘Twice, she's asked where the ship is.' ‘Do you think she'd damage the cruiser? Why?' Farrell shrugged. ‘To keep us here.' ‘I may be wrong,' Skipper said, ‘but I think there's a cuckoo in her crow’s nest and we may have to sneak the hell outta here. Tomorrow at breakfast, I'll put it to the test.'

* Mary Armstrong smiled. You may leave any time you wish but you have yet to see the conservatories and Mr Kamakura must be dying to visit the laboratory where the Zan were made.' Taki's eyes shone a plea at Skipper. Well, okay, but then we gotta be on our way.' Maura, Sholto and Taki wanted to see the labs while the other three opted for a tour of the conservatories with Neola. The laboratories were behind the main hall. Starting on the left was the botany lab, Neola's project. Behind was a miniature observatory with a cupola. Mary explained the cupola rose through a shaft in the mountain and opened like a tulip. Round the walls were holograms of various planets taken by the previous occupants. Some, Maura noticed with alarm, were close-ups of earth. The nuclear power plant was next. Built on a scale smaller than Sholto's design and "put together differently"; they had to spend an hour there to let Sholto examine the workings. Maura could almost hear wheels whirring in his head. "Ingenious" was his summation. High praise. There were adjoining labs for microbiology and genetics, then Mary ushered them into the robotics section. This room became my obsession,' she told them. Along the left wall was a bank of panels, monitors, lights, switches, and keyboards with strange symbols. Down the centre of the room ran a black stone counter, fifteen feet by thirty, the top much higher than usual. This was the workbench used for assembly.' The computers consisted of two transparent, pentagonal pillars that soared upwards. Unlike any computer Maura had ever seen, the inside held electronica: a series of motherboards, recording discs, plugs and tiny lights, but no connecting wires. Standing between the two transparent shafts was a ten-foot, drum-shaped machine that Sholto said looked like a sun-bed, except for the protruding electrodes.


Mary said, the first robot lay here, built, ready to be activated but it wasn't until six years later that I could do so.' Taki hadn't closed his mouth since coming in, now he said, why so long?' She smiled at his expression of wonder. I felt the same way forty-eight years ago when I was new at artificial intelligence.' She gazed at the bed. Now I've perfected it.' She blinked herself back to the present. To answer your question let me show you something.' She slid open a panel, took out a roll of waxy parchment, unwound the beginning and placed it reverently on the table. They leaned forward. I can't read that,' Taki said. What language is it?' Maura said, it looks like hieroglyphs.' Yes, Dr Keegan. They are pictographs like those used by Minoans in ancient Crete. Part pictures, part symbols to represent words. I wrote a disc operating system in order to use the strange computer, then I had to re-assign the keyboard and finally write a language program to translate these notes.' The diagrams,' murmured Sholto. Clever of you, Mr Bryan. Yes, I used the diagrams as a key. Once I found where they'd left off, it took another three years of trial and error to activate the model.' Her blue eyes gleamed. Such an exciting moment. I made more, each one becoming easier.' She brandished the chart. This document bore a single word at the end: Kylizan.' The name of the inventor?' Sholto said. Or the race.' All the evidence pointed to an alien race but Maura found it hard to believe. Do you think the design was like them?' You're perceptive, Doctor, I wondered who would ask that question. One can only conjecture but I believe they made the Zan in their own image.' Same as God made us in His image?' Mary smiled broadly. Exactly. The human ego.' She rested a hand on the table. The height of the table suggests they were a tall race.' Did they make the weapons too?' She didn't seem to like the question. Nikolai was a brilliant inventor; he made whatever we needed including the Hovabikes and the REM guns. The Zan are programmed to defend.' Why would it be necessary?' Maura asked. We were afraid the Kylizan would return.' Maura said, and you were prepared to kill them?' Just then the others arrived. Sholto gravitated to Neola.


Taki prattled on, fired with intensity by all he'd seen. ...and Professor Armstrong created the perfect android,' he finished. Mary was pleased with the compliment but said, they weren't really my idea.' She put her arm round her daughter. This is my perfect creation.' Neola's gaze flicked to Sholto and she blushed. Oh, Mother, you're prejudiced.' Of course I am. You're a miracle.' Mary turned to Maura. We never tried to prevent conception but after twenty-three years with just the two of us on Nigma, Neola was born.' She sighed. Such joy. Nikolai spoiled her rotten. We both did.' Yeah, well, sorry to break up the party,' Skipper said. It's been interesting but we gotta get going. Still have to climb over a mountain and break camp.' Mary rested a hand on his shoulder. Why return to earth? Stay here. You're all experts in your fields. We could start a new world, build spaceships, visit other planets.' Sorry, can't do that, duty calls,' said Skipper. Why don't you come back with us?' Her face hardened. What, and be in the Guinness book of records? Join a circus? Earthlings don't accept what they don't understand.' Perhaps Neola would like to go?' Sholto said. She belongs with me,' Mary snarled. Stay away from her.' Sure now and doesn't she have a say?' Mary snapped her fingers. Zan, alert.' The Zan drew their weapons moved into a circle round the group. Hey, wait a minute,' Skipper said. I rule here. No one is leaving. Soon mining companies would arrive to destroy the landscape and deplete the water system. No. Not while I'm alive. Zan, take them. Don't be fooled by their toy-like appearance, the REM guns are lethal.'

* Let's take all the bikes,' Sholto said, then they can't follow us.' You're supposed to be a genius,' Farrell said. There are six of us and eight bikes.' Let Taki cripple two.' It was midnight and they were in the cavern. Bypassing the Zan had been a major task. Maura had hurried past and they'd followed Maura down the corridor, keeping pace. After leading them away, she'd shaken them off and met the others in the cave. Can't we push the flaming things,' Sholta said, and start them outside?' Won't budge,' said Skipper, and they're too heavy to carry.'


A voice from the doorway said, Can I help?' Thinking they were doomed, six pairs of eyes stared at Neola. She crossed to a recess barely visible in the darkness. In it was a sled. Father made this for me. The Zan used to push us round the lake.' With vast relief they carried the sled out onto the ice, shuddering in the arctic air. Flinty moonlight reflected on the mirror of black ice. Neola said, I’ll come with you to show a short route.' Five squeezed onto the sled teaspoon-style while Farrell and Sholto pushed. Once the sled was gliding they hopped onto the runner and rode until it was time to give another push. Progress was slow but walking in the bone-numbing cold would've been slower. They were almost across when Maura heard it. Buzzing,' she called. They're coming.' Farrell yelled, Hold on.' Wait!' Maura shouted and jumped out. Taki, help me push.' I'll push,' Skipper said. No. Your heart.' With Maura and Taki pushing they sped the last few yards. The buzzing grew louder. There's the entrance,' Neola said. That black patch.' Everyone out,' Farrell yelled. Run.' Maura glanced back. The Zan's white features showed the bikes approaching fast. Neola guided them through a narrow crevice into a tunnel. They can't follow on bikes and the Zan don't run. The path exits at the base of the mountain quite near your camp.' Sholto gripped her shoulders. Come with us.' Next time, Sholto, I can't leave Mother,' she said, obviously distressed. Here are two Lumi-lamps. Pull the strip to light them but wait awhile, the Zan can't see in the dark so they follow lights. Now go.' They took off down the tunnel. Farrell led, Skipper brought up the rear. After ten minutes of running, Asher stopped, bent over. Stitch. Go on without me.' No,' Farrell said, I promised your father I'd look after you.' Go. I'll follow.' The pain in my chest is unbearable,' Skipper said. I'll stay with her. The two of us will rest and catch up.' Maura gave a Lumi-lamp to Skipper. Farrell gripped Skipper's hand. We'll hold the cruiser for you, Sir.' Sure. Now beat it.' They ran on.


One minute the warmth of the mountain enveloped them, the next they burst into icy air. Taki frantically signalled the cruiser. C'mon, Semira, c'mon.' Farrell pointed. The camp was over there.' We should see the tent,' Maura said. Where is it?' The camp had vanished. God,' said Farrell, 'my samples and reports are gone.' There's the cruiser,' Taki yelled. Let's go.' The great ship hovered. Outlined by friendly lights the streamer shaft descended at a screamingly slow pace. Farrell said, You get in. I'll wait for the others.' There's Asher,' Maura said. Neola's with her.' The Zan appeared, resolutely striding. Run, Asher,' Farrell yelled. They're behind you.' Neola looked back, tripped and sprawled on the ground. Asher ran on. Sholto moved towards Neola. Maura held onto his arm. No, you'll be killed.' He pulled away. I can't leave her.' The air-streamer's open,' Taki yelled. Come on.' Asher, crying, fell against Farrell. 'Skipper's dead. He stayed to hold off the Zan.' Neola walked towards them, one hand raised. Come on, Neola,' Sholto yelled. Come with us.' No, Sholto. Next time.' A REM beam pierced the black night aimed at Sholto. Neola swerved into its path. The beam punched her over but her legs continued a running motion. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next ...' Taki murmured, Holy Hiroshima, she's a robot.' A ray punched the streamer, another. It shuddered. Maura dragged Sholto in. Taki sealed the hatch, air pumped in and the team rose to the cruiser. Stunned, Taki said, the perfect android and the world will never see it.'

* The commander didn't make it.' Farrell finished. He was reporting to the lone operator manning earth's space station. Static crackled into the cabin for a moment, followed by a chuckle. 'All right, chaps, joke's over. What really happened?'


THE DAILY GALAXY - NOVEMBER 05, 2012

"BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE IS A FLEETING PHASE IN THE

EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE"

During an epoch of dramatic climate change 200,000 years ago, Homo sapiens (modern humans) evolved in Africa. Several leading scientists are asking: Is the human species entering a new evolutionary, post-biological inflection point?

Paul Davies, a British-born theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist and Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and Co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative at Arizona State University, says in his new book The Eerie Silence that any aliens exploring the universe will be AI-empowered machines. Not only are machines better able to endure extended exposure to the conditions of space, but they have



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the potential to develop intelligence far beyond the capacity of the human brain.

"I think it very likely – in fact inevitable – that biological intelligence is only a transitory phenomenon, a fleeting phase in the evolution of the universe," Davies writes. "If we ever encounter extraterrestrial intelligence, I believe it is overwhelmingly likely to be post-biological in nature."

In the current search for advanced extraterrestrial life SETI experts say the odds favor detecting alien AI rather than biological life because the time between aliens developing radio technology and artificial intelligence would be brief.

“If we build a machine with the intellectual capability of one human, then within 5 years, its successor is more intelligent than all humanity combined,” says Seth Shostak, SETI chief astronomer. “Once any society invents the technology that could put them in touch with the cosmos, they are at most only a few hundred years away from changing their own paradigm of sentience to artificial intelligence,” he says.

ET machines would be infinitely more intelligent and durable than the biological intelligence that created them. Intelligent machines would be immortal, and would not need to exist in the carbon-friendly “Goldilocks Zones” current SETI searches focus on. An AI could self-direct its own evolution; each "upgrade" would be created with the sum total of its predecessor’s knowledge preloaded.

"I think we could spend at least a few percent of our time... looking in the directions that are maybe not the most attractive in terms of biological intelligence but maybe where sentient machines are hanging out." Shostak thinks SETI ought to consider expanding its search to the energy- and matter-rich neighborhoods of hot stars, black holes and neutron stars.

Before the year 2020, scientists are expected to launch intelligent space robots that will venture out to explore the universe for us.

"Robotic exploration probably will always be the trail blazer for human exploration of far space," says Wolfgang Fink, physicist and researcher at Caltech. "We haven't yet landed a human being on Mars but we have a robot there now. In that sense, it's much easier to send a robotic explorer. When you can take the human out of the loop, that is becoming very exciting." As the growing global population continues to increase the burden on the

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Earth’s natural resources, senior curator at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Roger Launius, thinks that we'll have to alter human biology to prepare to colonize space. Launius looks at the historical debate surrounding human colonization of the solar system. Experiments have shown that certain life forms can survive in space. Recently, British scientists found that bacteria living on rocks taken from Britain's Beer village were able to survive 553 days in space, on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS). The microbes returned to Earth alive, proving they could withstand the harsh environment. Humans, on the other hand, are unable to survive beyond about a minute and a half in space without significant technological assistance. Other than some quick trips to the moon and the ISS, astronauts haven’t spent too much time too far away from Earth. Scientists don’t know enough yet about the dangers of long-distance space travel on human biological systems. A one-way trip to Mars, for example, would take approximately six months. That means astronauts will be in deep space for more than a year with potentially life-threatening consequences. Launius, who calls himself a cyborg for using medical equipment to enhance his own life, says the difficult question is knowing where to draw the line in transforming human biological systems to adapt to space. “If it's about exploration, we're doing that very effectively with robots,” Launius said. “If it's about humans going somewhere, then I think the only purpose for it is to get off this planet and become a multi-planetary species.” Stephen Hawking agrees: "I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," Hawking told the Big Think website in August. "It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet.” If humans are to colonize other planets, Launius said it could well require the "next state of human evolution" to create a separate human presence where families will live and die on that planet. In other words, it wouldn't really be Homo Sapiens that would be living in the colonies, it could be cyborgs—a living organism with a mixture of organic and electromechanical parts—or in simpler terms, part human, part machine. "There are cyborgs walking about us," Launius said. "There are individuals

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who have been technologically enhanced with things such as pacemakers and cochlea ear implants that allow those people to have fuller lives. I would not be alive without technological advances." The possibility of using cyborgs for space travel has been the subject of research for at least half a century. A seminal article published in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline titled “Cyborgs and Space” changed the debate, saying that there was a better alternative to recreating the Earth’s environment in space, the predominant thinking during that time. The two scientists compared that approach to “a fish taking a small quantity of water along with him to live on land.” They felt that humans should be willing to partially adapt to the environment to which they would be traveling. “Altering man’s bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space,” Clynes and Kline wrote. “It does raise profound ethical, moral and perhaps even religious questions that haven't been seriously addressed,” Launius said. “We have a ways to go before that happens.” Some experts such as medical ethicist Grant Gillett believe that the danger is that we might end up producing a psychopath because we don't quite understand the nature of cyborgs. NASA, writes Lauris, still isn’t focusing much research on how to improve human biological systems for space exploration. Instead, its Human Research Program is focused on risk reduction: risks of fatigue, inadequate nutrition, health problems and radiation. While financial and ethical concerns may have held back cyborg research, Launius believes that society may have to engage in the cyborg debate again when space programs get closer to launching long-term deep space exploration missions. “If our objective is to become space-faring people, it's probably going to force you to reconsider how to reengineer humans,’ Launius said. The Daily Galaxy via via astrobio.net Image credit: NASA

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THE PROMISE - GARY KUYPER

“Hate?” asked the child psychologist frowning. “So Audrey, you’re saying that Ghosts are created through hate?”

“I told you before; they don’t like to be called that!” The eight year old spoke without looking up. She seemed more interested in finishing the drawing she had been asked to make. She had been asked to draw a picture depicting her family. She was making copious use of the red and black pencils.

“Whose hate, Audrey?”

“Their own of course, that’s why you don’t get any animal wispies. Animals don’t hate anybody or anything. They just…dislike. That’s why the dog they put down that mauled Mikey never became a wispy. Animals don’t lie around planning revenge on the people that hurt them or make them angry. When those people aren’t around, the animal is just sleeping off its last meal and dreaming of the next. They don’t wish anybody dead. If you put a cat and a dog together in a room they will dislike each other because it’s in their nature to do so, but when you separate them again they don’t go off and start scheming on how to kill each other. That’s why only people become wispies.”

“So gho…wispies are then created because of their own hatred?”

“Yep, when a leaden dies with too much hate inside them, then that hate keeps them from passing over.”

“You mean going to heaven?”

Audrey ignored the question and said, “One John chapter three verse fifteen.”

“What does that say?”

“If you hate someone then you’re just as bad as a murderer.”

“If all wispies are made from hate, then surely all wispies are bad? Is your friend bad?”

“Not necessarily. Sometimes the bad person is the one who caused them to hate.”

“Then how come they can’t…pass over?”

“Many have…later on. When the leadens that caused them to hate so much were no more, then the hate was gone and they could pass over. Although lots have passed over, there are still many that have been wispies for a long long time. Some just can’t seem to let go of the hate.”


“Who was it that caused your friend to hate so much?” Audrey made as if she had not heard the question. She began to add a second layer of red to the smiling lips of the figure that she had drawn of her mother. “Audrey?”

“Her parents.”

“Her parents? What was it that her parents did?”

“They made her a promise and then they never kept it.”

“That is terrible. Parents should never break their promises to their children.”

“Yep.”

“Do you know what that promise was?”

“Yep, they promised to give her a sister to play with. Ever since she was three years old she asked to have a sister. Every year they would promise to give her one, but every year they would buy her a doll instead. For five years it happened, but on her eighth birthday she said she didn’t want any more dolls; she wanted a real sister.”

“What happened?”

“They gave her another doll. It was a big doll; as tall as her when you held it up straight. But it was a rag doll with orange hair and a light blue frock and candy-striped stockings. She says that it wasn’t too bad-looking actually, but still it wasn’t a real sister.” Audrey held up the drawing and studied it.

“Tell me more.”

“Her parents stayed on a house that was built near the cliffs that overlooked the sea. There was a lighthouse nearby. It used to shine into her bedroom window at night. It made the shadows in her room seem alive. It frightened her, so her mother made her long thick curtains to keep out the light.”

“That doesn’t seem like the actions of an uncaring parent.”

“I guess.” She pushed the drawing across the large wooden desk. “Finished.”

“Great!” exclaimed the psychologist picking it up and studying the figures. She Frowned.

“Is there something wrong with it?”

“Not at all, it’s a lovely picture.” She held the drawing towards the little girl. “I see you’ve drawn four people in the picture, your mother and father and two little girls. The girls look almost identical.”

“I guess.”


“Do you consider your imaginary friend to be a part of your family?”

“She’s not imaginary. Just ‘cause leadens can’t see her doesn’t mean she’s not real.”

“I know exactly how you feel. When I was about your age, I also had a friend exactly like that. I remember clearly how angry and upset I became when people tried to convince me that she didn’t really exist.”

“Was your friend also a wispy?”

“Where did you first hear the words, leadens and wispies?”

“From Mikey Delaney…well, actually from Celeste who told me that that is what Mikey calls people and those like him.”

“Celeste? Is that the name of your friend?”

“Yep.”

“And she’s a wispy?”

“Yep.”

“And Mikey Delaney?”

“He’s a wispy too, but he’s no friend. He’s bad. I can’t see him when he’s in my room, but Celeste tells me whenever he’s around.”

“In what way is he bad?”

“He’s angry because I can see Celeste. He’s jealous that no leaden has ever been able to see him, but sometimes when he gets real angry he can move things about. Celeste says it pleases him to see how frightened they get. She says he would do it more often, but it takes a lot of strain and effort. She can do it easily, but doesn’t like to scare leadens; only the really bad ones that deserve it. She believes that if she were to really try hard enough, she would be able to move very big objects, not only across a room, but even through walls. To show me, she once put Mario inside my piggy bank.”

“Mario?”

“My budgie. I couldn’t see him through the slot at the top, but I could hear and feel him fluttering around inside. She took him out again when I started crying. I thought I was going to have to break it open.”

“Has your mother ever read you a story about a will-o’-the-wisp?”

“Uuh…nope.”

“Have you ever heard of such a story?”

“Nope.”


“Not even on TV?”

“Nope, why?”

“Doesn’t that make you frightened?”

“What?”

“To know that there are wisps in your room.”

“Wispies! No, why should that frighten me?”

“Because you said that a wispy is actually someone that has died.”

“So?”

“Most other people would be.”

“I guess, but not all wispies are bad like Mikey Delaney. Celeste says that she will make sure that he never does me any harm.”

“What sort of harm?”

“Try to kill me.”

“How could he do that?”

“By putting roller-skates at the top of steps, flipping an electrical switch, opening the gas on a stove, or poisoning food. There are many small things a wispy can do that can cause harm or even death to a leaden. Celeste says that people call them freak accidents caused by Grim Lynns or something.”

“Gremlins.”

“Yep, that’s it.”

“Has Mikey done any of these things?”

“Many times. He says he’s done it so often that he can’t even remember how many leadens he’s killed. He says babies are the easiest, but he prefers to kill older leadens. He says he likes the challenge. He likes to think up and discover new ways to do it. He also says that he has never met the wispy of any leaden that he killed.”

“How old is he?”

“You mean when he died?” The psychologist nodded. “I’m not sure, but Celeste says he’s a little shorter than her.”

“How did he die?”

“I told you already, a big dog killed him.”



“Mikey says that he knows that it was all his own fault what happened. Whenever he was angry and frustrated he would go down the road from where he lived and tease Mister Washington’s big black dog. Mister Washington lived alone and worked late, so there was hardly anyone ever around to tell Mikey off. He used to drive the dog crazy by running next to the fence with a plank and making a clackety clack sound on the metal railings. Sometimes he would do it so long that the dog would start to foam at the mouth.

One day he was on his way to the corner store to fetch cigarettes and whisky for his father. It’s against the law to sell to kids, but his father had made a special arrangement with the shopkeeper. And if Mikey ever opened his mouth about it, his father would be sure to beat him within an inch of his life. Anyway, on the way he remembers passing Mister Washington on the sidewalk only shortly before the dog attacked him from behind. The last thing he remembers was seeing Mister Washington shouting and trying to pull the dog from his neck.”

The psychologist grimaced before asking, “If he knows that the dog was not to blame then how come he became a wispy. Surely he would have had to have hated the dog for that to happen.”

“The hate he had at the time of his death was not for the dog, but for his father.”

“His father?”

“Yep, he says he blames everything that happened on his father.”

“Because he was running an errand for his father when it happened?”

“Not just because of that. His mother died when he was six, and not long after that his father started to force him to do things and would beat him terribly if he refused.”

“What sort of things?”

“Celeste has often asked him about it, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. He did tell her though that hardly a day went by without his father taking off his belt to give him a whipping. Sometimes it would be for a simple thing like spilling his father’s drink. Once his father got so angry that he broke Mikey’s jaw. Then he threatened to hurt him even worse if he ever told anyone the truth about what had happened.”

“How did his mother die?”

“He says she got sick and died in hospital. He’s not sure what was wrong with her. He did overhear two of his aunts at the funeral say that she was suffering from severe depression. Can that kill you?”


“How long ago did Mikey die?”

“I think it has been about forty years now.”

“That long. That would mean that he would be in his late forties now?”

“I guess, but wispies stay the age they are when they die. They never get any older.”

“What about mentally?” Audrey frowned. “I mean, although he appears to be…say about seven years old, surely he must have the mind of a forty seven year old man?”

Audrey pouted her lips. “I never thought of that, but I guess it could be true. On the other hand, Celeste says he’s always acting like a naughty childish brat.”

“So, after forty years he still hasn’t managed to release his hatred?”

“When he became a wispy, he was still afraid of his father. He travelled as far as he could get from his father’s house. He once tried to board a plane to travel to another country, but as soon as the plane started to pass over the ocean his wispy body was ripped from the aircraft and he found himself on the shore watching the plane disappear into the distance. He had discovered that no wispy can ever cross a large body of water. They are stuck in the land where they died. Celeste says it’s true. She once tried to board a ship but found that something like an invisible wall was preventing her.”

“That’s very interesting. I believe there is actually some sort of old folklore that says ghosts are unable to cross over water. Anyway, why don’t you tell me some more about Mikey?”

“Like I said, although he was a wispy, he was still scared of his father. But after some time he came to realize that leadens can’t cause wispies any harm. Even so, he still had no desire to return to the house where he had felt so much pain. But then, after even much more time passing, he came to realize that wispies can certainly cause leadens harm. With that knowledge he returned to the house with a single purpose; he would make sure to kill the one person he hated more than anything else in the world. It took a lot of effort to get the rat poison from the cellar into the open whisky bottle. His father spent a week in the hospital, but managed to recover. Celeste always laughs when she tells about the time when Mikey’s father had gotten so drunk that he had passed out in the garage after stopping the car. It was a perfect opportunity. Mikey placed a piece of hose from the exhaust into the car’s window, but the effort to do that had been so great that he never had any strength left to simply turn the key which was still hanging in the ignition.


“Three more times he tried to kill his father, but failed. Then one day, for no apparent reason, his father took a pistol that he kept in the draw beside his bed and shot himself in the head. He died instantly.”

“That must have pleased Mikey?”

Audrey shook her head. “Not at all. In fact, it made him hate his father all the more.”

“Why is that? I thought he wanted him dead?”

“Yep, but Mikey wanted to be the one that killed him. Now he will never be able to do it. So, even though his father is dead, he now hates him even more than before. That is why Mikey may never ever be able to pass over. Now he just spends his time trying to get rid of his anger and frustration by hurting as many leadens as he can.”

“That’s very nasty of him, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yep, but as I said, Celeste keeps me safe from him.”

“Has he ever tried to harm you?”

“Celeste says he’s so weak and pathetic, he wouldn’t even think to try it while she’s around.”

“Aren’t you frightened he might try something when she’s not around?”

“She’s always around.”

“Is she here now?”

“Nope.”

“I thought you said that she’s always around?”

“Well, she may not always be around, but she always seems to know when I need her or when she’s wanted.”

“Your mother tells me that she first came to you on the evening of your eighth birthday?”

“Yep.”

“How long ago did she die?”

“Ten years?”


“You mean, how did she die?”

“Yes.”

“On the morning of her birthday after opening her present she was very angry. She grabbed the doll and ran from the house crying. She ran to where she had been strictly forbidden never to go. She went through the


gate of the white picket fence and down the narrow path behind the house. There was a light drizzle falling when she reached the edge and stood there looking at the waves crashing onto the rocks far below. She tossed the doll over and watched as it fell face-up onto the sharp black rocks. She heard her parents behind her. She doesn’t remember what they were shouting, but she remembers telling them that she hated them both. Then she slipped on the smooth wet edge and fell over. She says she never even cried out when she was falling; she just closed her eyes real tight. The last thing she remembers before she opened them again as a wispy was hearing her mother’s scream fading away and the sound of the crashing waves growing louder.”

“She died on her birthday?”

“Yep.”

“You say this happened ten years ago?”

“Yep.”

“Then she would have been eighteen today?”

“Yep, but like I already told you, she still looks young. She looks my age now, and she always will.”

“Eight years old?”

“Yep.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“You mean because I’ll get older and she won’t?”

“Yes.”

“It might. Maybe. I don’t know.”

The psychologist pointed a finger at one of the figures in the drawing. “Who is this here?”

“Me.”

She slid her finger across. “And this would be Celeste?”

“Yep.”

“Doesn’t she have her own home and family?”

“Of course not. She’s my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“Yep, my older sister.”

“And what has she been doing for the past ten years?”

“Waiting.”


“Waiting? Waiting for what?”

“For me to turn eight.”

“Why?”

“Because I was promised to her.”

Audrey and the child psychologist exited the consulting room. Jessica placed the magazine she had been browsing on the small low table.

“Can we go home now, mom?” asked Audrey.

“I need to speak to your mother alone,” said the psychologist. “We shouldn’t be too long.” Jessica and the psychologist went back inside the consulting room. “Take a seat,” said the psychologist closing the door. She walked to the other side of the large wooden desk and sat down. She stared intently at Jessica. “Audrey’s is a rather unique case.”

The statement made Jessica feel uncomfortable. “In what way?”

“In the sense that she believes her friend to be a ghost, the spirit of a little dead girl…a wispy as she refers to it.” Jessica nodded. “You see, other children believe their imaginary friends to be alive; real people of flesh and blood. This makes it difficult for them to explain why other people are unable to see them. This also makes it possible to use logical reasoning to…deconstruct the fantasy.” She paused, taking a deep breath before saying, “But there is an even greater problem. The elements of her stories are rather remarkable. I’ve never met a child who has been able to imagine or create an imaginary friend in such intricate detail.”

“Those were my thoughts exactly.”

“Yes, she has…endowed her friend with so much…baggage that it is almost impossible for her now to believe that the friend is simply a figment of her own imagination. Many children endow their toys with life. If the relationship becomes problematic, it is a simple means to remove the item from the child.”

“Problematic?”

“I once had a patient whose father had sexually abused her on a regular basis. When the father was eventually arrested and put away a terribly sad thing happened. The daughter, who loved and missed her father, endowed her large teddy bear with her father’s… personality. One night the mother walked into her bedroom to find her using the toy to mimic the father’s depraved actions.”

Oh, my goodness,” said Jessica placing a hand over her mouth. “That’s awful.”


“Forgive me that was not the best of examples to use. Audrey’s problem is far different. It is also different in the fact that we can’t solve the problem by simply taking away her…teddy bear, so to speak.”

“What about medication?”

“Heavens, no! Do you think we give pills to children to make their imaginary friends disappear?”

“Then how…?”

“My question to you is this…we’ve been using the words problem and problematic. Do you consider Audrey’s actions as such? Do you think they could be harmful in any way?”

“I…I…I’m not sure. It’s just that she frightened me with the stories of Mikey Delaney. In the beginning I went along with her…fantasies. I humored her at first. Do you know that she only sleeps on one side of her bed because she says that this imaginary friend of hers sleeps on the other half? Well, actually she says that the friend doesn’t sleep at all. She just lies there the whole night keeping watch and protecting her from the bad ones. The ones she can’t see. She says that Chad Bouwers was ten years old when Mikey Delaney put a pillow over his head. That was the part that frightened me the most. You see, when I was a little girl, there was a Chad Bouwers who stayed down the street from us. His parents found him in the morning. There was no logical explanation for it. The best that the doctors could come up with was that it was a form of adult cot death, a condition where a person just stops breathing. Chad was ten. How could Audrey know about something that…?”

“The human mind is extremely remarkable,” interrupted the psychologist smiling reassuringly. “Somewhere in the past you and your husband made mention of it. Even if Audrey was very young at the time, her subconscious would have filed it away somewhere. This is why, even when a child is an infant in a cot, we need to be wary of the things we say around them. I also picked up in the short time that I spent with Audrey that her intelligence is above normal. In most cases, having an imaginary friend is a healthy normal part of growing up. If their fantasies pose no harm to anyone, then the best course of action would be to learn to live with it as it is never good to suppress a child’s imagination. At the moment I see that the problem lies with you and your inability to deal accordingly with the situation.”

“Yes, well, as I mentioned, it was just when the details of her…relationship with her imaginary friend became so vivid and graphic that I thought it best to seek professional advice.”


“Quite understandable. My advice for now is to simply continue humouring her until she eventually tires of the fantasy herself. Just try not to let it upset you.”

“I understand. How long do you predict…?”

“All children eventually grow out of the habit. I would expect in Audrey’s case, due to the incredible detail and history that she has given to this friend that it may simply take a little longer. I’m afraid you will have to be patient.”

“What sort of details has she told you?”

“I recorded our conversation,” said the psychologist rewinding the tape. “Let me play you the part where she tells of the house by the sea and the lighthouse.”

“We’re not moving because of some…imaginary friend of Audrey’s!”

“It’s not an imaginary friend! It’s Celeste!”

“I know she calls her Celeste, but…?”

“No!” exclaimed Jessica. “It’s our Celeste.”

Nat stared at Jessica. “Are you saying that Audrey’s playing with the…the…ghost of our dead daughter.”

“Yes!”

“And you believe this to be true?”

“Yes!”

“Do you realize how insane that sounds?”

“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I have tried to reason through this rationally?”

“I thought going to the child psychologist would help to clear up this whole silly business. Instead you come back home even worse than before. I think maybe that you are the one that needs to see…”

“The doctor played me a recording of their conversation!” interrupted Jessica holding up her hand. “Audrey knows things about us and Celeste that she couldn’t possibly know unless someone who was there told her about it. Have you ever spoken to her about Celeste?”

“No!”

“You’re certain of that?”

“Of course!”


“Then tell me, Nat, tell me how she knows about the house we stayed in near the cliff? The lighthouse and how it used to frighten Celeste at night? About the special curtains I made to keep out the light? She spoke of stuff that I’d forgotten about. She even told how Celeste never uttered a sound when she fell. How do you explain that, Nat? Tell me?”

Nat was dumbfounded for a short spell before saying, “There has to be a logical explanation.”

“I’m frightened, Nat. I’m frightened for Audrey’s sake. I think Celeste means to do her harm.”

“Even if what you believe, happens to be true, why would she do that?”

“Do you remember why she died?”

“Of course! How could I ever forget? It was an accident. She slipped and fell.”

“No, it’s because we never kept our promise to her.”

“What promise?”

“We promised her a sister to play with.”

“You know we never thought it safely possible for you to have another child at the time.”

“Then we should not have made any promises. We shouldn’t have lied to her!”

“We gave her that doll. Didn’t she understand that it was supposed to be like a sister for her?”

“It was that doll that killed her, Nat. It was that stupid silly doll that cost her, her life. I don’t know how you could ever have thought of burying it with her?”

“If you didn’t like the idea, why didn’t you say so at the time?”

Jessica dropped her head and started to cry. “Because it seemed to help your conscience at the time. At least it seemed to help lessen your pain. ‘It will keep her company,’ you said.”

“I was hoping it would work for you as well.”

“Well it didn’t. You buried our daughter with the thing that caused her death.”

“I’m sorry, I…”

“I’m sorry too. I know, you were doing what you thought was best. I shouldn’t take it out on you. In the end it’s really all my fault; this silly stupid weak body of mine that couldn’t have any more children.”


Nat grabbed Jessica. He held her firmly yet tenderly. “You mustn’t reason like that. It was nobody’s fault. Besides, after we lost Celeste you were willing to risk having another child. That makes you a very brave woman in my eyes.”

“A foolish woman, you mean.”

Nat smiled. “Yes, brave and foolish, but if it wasn’t for your willingness, we wouldn’t have our little Audrey with us today.”

“And it’s for her very safety that I fear.”

“Why?”

“You need to listen to the recording, Nat. It sent shivers up my spine. I’ve never been so frightened in all my life. Audrey says that Celeste has been waiting for her. The reason she has not revealed herself to Audrey until now is because she was waiting for her to turn eight.”

“Eight? Why eight?”

“Think Nat.”

After a short deliberation he queried, “Because Celeste was eight?” Jessica nodded slowly. “Celeste died on her eighth birthday.”

“Exactly!”

“So?”

“She means to harm our little girl, Nat.”

“Even if all this is true, why would she want to hurt her sister?”

“The recording, Nat. You need to listen to that recording. Celeste is still eight years old. No matter what, she’ll always be eight years old. But Audrey will continue to age for as long as she lives.”

“So?”

“Don’t you see? Celeste has waited patiently all this time for someone her own age. She’s not going to allow her to get any older.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“I just know it. Don’t ask me how. It’s one of those mother instincts. I just know it.”

“What makes you think that moving away will solve anything?”

“Listen to the recording. We need to travel across water. We must move overseas.”

For a brief moment Nat was flabbergasted. Then he spat, “You want us to emigrate?”


“It’s the only hope we have of saving our daughter.” Nat held Jessica at arm’s length and frowned hard. “Please, Nat. Trust me. It’s the only way. You have to believe me.”

Whether it was the pleading tone or the desperation in the eyes, Nat was more than convinced that his wife was sincere, not only in her fears, but in her wishes as well.

“First thing tomorrow, we’ll both go see the child psychologist and listen to that tape.”

The next morning, it was Jessica’s screaming that awakened Nat. He rushed to Audrey’s room from where the terrible cries had emanated. He found his wife sobbing on the floor next to their daughter’s bed. He felt his heart sink as he noticed how still the figure beneath the blanket was lying. He grabbed the base of the blanket and pulled it away. He almost screamed himself as he gazed down at the smiling face that stared unblinking at him. The face belonged to a rag doll with orange hair and a light blue frock and candy-striped stockings. The doll seemed to be clutching tightly onto the etch-a-sketch that rested on its chest. Nat choked as he read the two words that had been written all in capital letters on the screen.

FAIR EXCHANGE!

probe 154 - sffsasfsa.org.za/publications/probe154.pdf · 2013. 2. 5. · selling star wars:...

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