Fracture - A Window Overlooking the Universe Read online

  Chapter Three - Secret Journey

  Footsteps echoed eerily along the dimly lit passageway, Fenton could barely make out Javer ahead, the immaculate cut of his suit contrasting with the decay around them. The corridor was on emergency lighting and had been the whole time he'd been here. It was typical of K5, only the most essential of the station's systems were repaired, the rest were left to run down. Even the maintenance units needed maintenance. Once, it had been the last word in luxury, exclusively reserved for the executives of Dila-Gatz, the conglomerate that had exploited this solar system, Karnos. Now, it was the only station left and accommodated anyone unfortunate enough to be here.

  His parents had owned Karnos and its ship building business before their deaths, twenty-two years ago. Its acquisition, twelve years before that, had been one of the foundations they had laid in the building of their empire. Karnos was dying then. Eight hundred years of intensive mining had taken its toll. The seven planets lay gutted, their resources pillaged. Extraction costs had become prohibitive so Karnos was to be abandoned, left to the scavengers and the outsiders. It seemed madness then when an ambitious young couple took over the operation. Mark Fenton senior was a twenty four year old Gadder business graduate, Rachael Michael, twenty six, a Marner structural scientist. Together they produced a thirty-five year shutdown programme, slashing overheads and improving productivity, turning around the system's death throes into massive profitability. Within ten years they had paid off the loans, the substantial profits now theirs alone to reinvest in their ever widening interests.

  It felt strangely appropriate to Mark Fenton that he was here now, witnessing the final closedown they had masterminded seven years before his birth. He'd been looking for somewhere isolated so he could work without distraction, somewhere cheap. K5 was ideal. There was absolutely nothing else to do here and there were hundreds of empty flats, the rent negligible. He could afford better, they'd left him a portfolio worth a fortune but he didn't need any more of their money, he wouldn't be tainted by it. Besides to access it would mean talking to Culris again. He hadn't spoken to him since that call three years ago when he'd told him to sell everything. Culris had blustered about needing signatures witnessed and assets being tied up in trust and they'd need to have a meeting. Had that just been a lawyer's delaying tactics or did he genuinely need to see him? He'd ended the conversation angry and frustrated, shouting at him, ordering him to sell the lot. He doubted Culris had taken any action since then. He'd have to speak to him again. It was a conversation he'd rather avoid.

  But even if he had the money he'd still be here, this place was perfect for him. He was an outsider, perched on the edge of events, en route to nowhere, a malcontent refusing to conform, refusing to accept their compromised little utopia, The System. He would labour alone out here, an exile on the forgotten dying fringes dredging up the past they'd rather forget. His book would shake their complacency to its roots. Only he would never finish it. He would never return here to see the last great interstellar cruisers leave. He ran his right hand back through his long hair. He was being morbid.

  They had reached the end of the corridor and the travel unit. Javer stepped into the sensor zone, summoning a car. He folded his arms, waiting.

  Warily Fenton glanced over his shoulder. Brozmam had stopped dead. He was staring past him. Fenton turned his head to follow his eye line. He found himself gazing out of the panoramic observation window into space. Tiny specks of brilliant white light gleamed against the black velvet tableau. More immediately, the third planet pulsated ominously, a scarred dirty yellow sphere contrasting vividly against the crystal clarity of the stars surrounding it. At this distance it seemed fired with a haunting, melancholic beauty. Close-up it was anything but pretty: its atmosphere was sulphuric, its rain acidic. Centuries ago an anonymous executive had christened it Slagshite.

  Closer still was the zero gravity ship-yard, a pink gossamer cloud swathing a vast tract of space. From this distance the shroud seemed fragile as tissue paper. Fenton knew though it was strong enough to exclude the vacuum outside and maintain the atmosphere within, an atmosphere perfectly suited to the building of spacecraft but absolutely noxious to human life. The protective skin blurred and subdued the colours and movement inside lending the scene a dreamy, unreal air. Tubular support frames loomed through the misty haze. They cocooned the gleaming new craft ranged in varying stages of assembly from the bare, almost unrecognisable infrastructures to the awesome hulks they would become. Tiny crafts weaved and ducked around them, headlights glittering. And then there were the even smaller dots Fenton knew were the engineers. They hung pressure-suited in the void, moving slowly and methodically, their lives precariously poised against the hauntingly beautiful but deadly environment. Showers of sparks and dense clouds of yellow smoke flared all over the site and every few seconds the works were starkly illuminated by vivid bursts of white light, a light of such piercing intensity it still seared his eyes even after it had sliced through that thick protective chrysalis and the polarised tinted glass.

  Above the window THE SYSTEM SUCKS! was scrawled in livid crimson.

  With a hiss of hydraulics an ancient car glided into the terminal. It stopped, its doors opened releasing a blast of rank air, revealing a dim, vandalised interior. Javer stepped inside, dropping onto one of the two bench seats. Fenton followed, taking the other seat, avoiding the tear in the fabric. Brozmam entered a few seconds later. He seemed to genuinely resent abandoning the vista. He sat next to Javer, opposite Fenton. The carriage was covered in graffiti. Despite the crazily coloured collage of letters and images Fenton could clearly see the words SPECIAL SYCHOES daubed above them in putrid yellow. The doors clanged shut.

  'Dock Eight,' said Brozmam.

  The car sped off down the transit tunnel. He'd had smoother rides, but not in the last eight months. The few still functioning lamps flashed spasmodically through the windows as the car hurtled past them unexpectedly illuminating the interior with a gleaming bony white light. For a subliminal moment his escorts' faces glowed like the grinning skulls of two overdressed skeletons before the carriage was abruptly plunged back into semidarkness.

  Their appearance and demeanour amazed him: they were nothing like the SSD agents he'd imagined when he wrote that article at Gadder. Memories flooded back. Graeme had said it was pretentious, boring and badly written. Alizen had been shocked at how forthright he'd been in his criticism of the Central Authority. It was the first time she'd accused him of being paranoid. Alizen. He'd promised himself he'd stop thinking about her.

  He was too tired. Memories and unanswered questions echoed in his mind.

  The car jolted to a halt. The doors opened revealing a stout metallic door embossed with the crest of the white dove. Brozmam raised his hand, pointing his ring.

  'Caliban.'

  The door slid open revealing a darkened cockpit. From the smell it was obviously an almost new ship, the instrumentation panels gleamed, the upholstery spotless. There were four seats, two at the far end by the control console, two nearer the access door for passengers. He was impressed. There were not many organisations that could afford a private four-seat interstellar craft, let alone a new one. Culris had one. So had his parents. They'd died in theirs.

  Brozmam entered. He turned to face Fenton.

  'Mr Fenton, we'd be grateful if you'd allow us to sedate you before we get underway.'

  Sedation was essential during interstellar trips, the conscious mind could not cope with the experience of the matter to tachyon conversion and the reciprocal operation required for hyperspace travel. The concession they were asking was not a great one, they would all have to be drugged before they made the jump, but it was a concession. It implied they were sufficiently wary of him to want him harmless while they were preoccupied obtaining clearances from Central. Did they really think he was dangerous?

  'Do I have a choice?'

  'No,' said Javer.

  Wearily he nodded. Brozmam indicated the
left-hand passenger seat. Fenton froze. Were they just going to sedate him? If they were planning to kill him then this would be their chance. It would be so simple to overdose him and claim it was an accident. He'd just be sitting there, meekly accepting it. He glanced at them fearfully.

  'Problem, Mr Fenton?' jeered Brozmam.

  They could have killed him long ago. But if they were going to set him up he was giving them the perfect opportunity. He'd be completely at their mercy. But if he resisted they'd shoot him down.

  As if on cue Brozmam's hand was nervously rising to his jacket, for the gun.

  He had no choice. He mustn't provoke Brozmam. And he certainly didn't want to give them the satisfaction of knowing how frightened they made him.

  He sat down. The harness instantly snaked around him, clamping him firmly into place. The medicine band locked around his left wrist. He felt the pressure of the sensors. His heart was pounding. Had he made a fatal mistake? He felt a brief pain as a needle penetrated. Unconsciousness came almost instantly.

  He was at a party. His head ached dully. He was surrounded by a circle of strangers, chattering excitedly amongst themselves. He struggled to hear but their speech was nothing but a senseless, droning monotone. They blossomed out into an even bigger crowd, their faces indistinguishable, melting into the grey haze.

  He was very drunk.

  Suddenly he saw her: a gleaming flash of golden blonde hair framing that familiar, beautiful face. She was on the other side of the room, her features standing out against the blur. He had to speak to her. He had to explain. He struck out, swimming against the tide of men and women choking the room. For a second he lost sight of her, but then she reappeared, blazing through the throng like a beacon. He was just metres away when he realised she was with someone. They were kissing, the back of the man's head with those long flowing locks blocking his view. She stepped back as their lips parted, revealing her face again.

  She saw him: the look of recognition in those wonderfully deep brown eyes was obvious. What would her reaction be after all this time? Everything seemed to have stopped. The room was silent. For an instant he thought he would be trapped here forever, hanging in suspense, waiting in tortured anticipation for a greeting or rejection that would never come. Then she smiled at him, that captivating smile he remembered so well, her eyes full of that familiar mischievous mirth. It was alright. Everything was going to be alright.

  But he'd forgotten about the man.

  Reacting to that wondrous smile her partner turned his head towards him, revealing his face. It was Graeme. He should have known. Before he could react Graeme Dezlin's arm shot out, the hand opened, the fingers extended. The open palm caught him on the chin, knocking his head back, the impact sending him somersaulting head over heels through the air. The room had gone, so had the people. There was only the black, empty void and Alizen and Graeme embracing, spinning round and round, shrinking to an unrecognisable dot in the distance as he spiralled away from them. Then they were gone and he was hurtling, screaming, down a long dark tunnel towards the glaring white light at its end and the black lizards waiting for him there. Only they weren't lizards, they were insects, or arthropods, with great swollen chitinous segmented bodies, their limbs distorted by enormous muscles and taut tendons, sinuously stretched across their glistening exoskeletons. Their claws reached out for him. As he rushed closer he saw with terror a tiny shrunken face lurked at the heart of their bulbous heads. He recognised them: Brozmam and Javer. They waved their pincers, humming, chattering, screaming his name.

  'Fffffennnnnnnnton! Misssssshterrr Fffffffffennnnnnnnnton!'

  He was awake, his eyes blinking franticly against the sheer white light streaming at him. He was still strapped down, trapped in the chair. Brozmam and Javer stood before him kitted out in shiny spacesuits, their unvisored pink faces contrasting starkly with the black outfits, their heads dwarfed by huge helmets. They leered over him, manipulator claws poised like talons. Brozmam's spindly metallic fingers held the familiar gun. It was pointing straight at him. He hoped the artificial hand was properly calibrated to Brozmam's own, meshed inside the suit. Such claws could exert a wide range of pressures, at one extreme they could handle eggshells, at the other they could tear through metal. He'd hate a muscular tremor to be translated into a flexing of the trigger finger.

  Instinctively, he ducked his head down, twisting his face around as far as the restraining belts would allow, averting his eyes from the gun. He found himself staring directly at Javer. It was not a reassuring sight. The right arm of his suit terminated in a bulky, high-powered, high-precision weapon. He couldn't remember what it was called but he knew it could fire a ragged bolt of energy that could tear a hole in a spacecraft's hull, or project a fine beam a precise distance ranging over thousands of metres. If he chose to Javer could kill him without even scorching his seat.

  Panic stricken, still only half-conscious, he jerked his head back, finding himself facing the muzzle of Brozmam's gun again. For a few seconds his head swung back and forth between the two equally disturbing poles until the futility of his action sank in. He stopped, his head coming to rest at a point between the two agents. They stood there in silent unamusement.

  Then he saw it, gleaming on the monitor screen behind them. It hung there, shining dully silver against the black satin backdrop of space, a grey disk of intersecting and bisecting lines criss-crossing over and across the hard scaly shell bolted behind it. Pandemonium. That was where they were going. That was where they were taking him. It had to be. There was nowhere else they could go, not here. He knew where they'd brought him now. He knew where they were.

  They were in Hell.