Reality Zero

Chapter 11

  Will stumbled and fell several feet. ‘What the hell?’ he thought, as he landed on his knees on a gravelly surface. He looked around. A moment ago, he had been crossing the hotel’s lobby, having just eaten breakfast, and was heading back to his room to collect his belongings. Josef was due to arrive to take him to the spaceport, where a shuttle was to take him back to Cantabrigia to meet up with Captain Van Delden and the others. Now, all he could see around him was trees, lots of trees. The gravel was digging into his knees, so he stood up, rubbing them to get rid of the discomfort.

  As he looked around more carefully, he realised that, physically, he was in the same place. Ahead of him was a track heading towards what he knew as the Stanley Mountains, named after the Captain of the ship that first landed on the planet in his reality, Idris Stanley. He heard rustling in the undergrowth. He looked around but could only see a flock of birds rising from the trees to his right.

  Wondering what had made them rise en masse like that made him realise that he ought to have some kind of weapon, however crude, in case there was something wild that he needed to defend himself from. Although there were no animals that could kill an adult human in his reality, there were a couple that could deliver a nasty bite, which he could do without. He had no idea what could exist in this reality. Looking around, he saw a fallen branch that seemed suitable and went over to pick it up. He also saw a piece of wood that he thought would be suitable as a crude dagger. He didn’t think either was all that impressive but they would be better than nothing. Feeling slightly more confident, he walked towards what he knew as Lake Vera, named after Captain Stanley’s wife enjoying, for now, the sunshine. Fortunately, it was a fairly short walk, the hotel having been in a prime town centre position.

  As he got close to the lake, he spotted a group of small buildings dotted amongst the trees to his left, so decided to investigate. When he got closer, he realised that the buildings looked derelict, with the roofs in tatters and trees growing through some of them. Most of the doors and windows were open. In other places, the window glass was broken, though there was nothing around to indicate why. He could only assume that chunks of trees had been thrown at them in a storm.

  He entered the first house he reached. Every surface had a thin layer of dried mud and dust on it, through which various types of vegetation were growing in patches, suggesting that the house had been abandoned a long time ago. He went through a doorway into a bedroom. He was shocked to see that the bed was occupied but the empty eye sockets and gaping mouth told him that the occupants weren’t going to get up any time soon. At least, he thought, they looked human, which was, he decided, probably a good sign but he hoped that whatever had killed them was long gone and wouldn’t affect him. He decided there was nothing for him here, so moved further into the town. All the buildings looked just as deserted. As he continued to walk down the street, it was clear that the settlement had been abandoned for some time. Having just reality-jumped from a bustling town, he found the whole experience deeply unsettling.

  When he finally got to the lake, he found a large rock and sat down, in order to get his head around what he’d just seen and to decide how best to tackle his new predicament and to try to work out what his best course of action was. One of the things that concerned him was that the community he had just passed through was abandoned and he couldn’t imagine what could have caused the township to die like that. He tried, and failed, to think of anything in his own reality’s past where the early settlers had nearly died out. Trying to remain positive, he tried to forget the town, at least for now, and concentrate on what he should do next.

  Fortunately, it was summer, so he wasn’t going to feel cold. He felt in his pockets but, apart from a few coins Josef had given him, a telephone handset and the electronic key to his hotel room, there was nothing there that would help him to survive in the wilderness he now found himself in. If he could find some way of sharpening it, the room key might be another useful weapon but he would need to find a way to hold it. He thought about using it as a tip to his spear but until he could find some means of attaching it, he thought he would be safer to keep it as it was, in case something better came to mind. He would need to find a way of sharpening it to a point anyway. He couldn’t see any use for the phone but decided to keep it for now. Something might turn up but he couldn’t think what it could be. For now, however, his priorities were to find food and shelter. He was, in the circumstances, hesitant about revisiting the township. Although there was some logic in searching through it for weapons, the thought of it didn’t appeal at present. He decided that, if the weather turned nasty, the settlement would provide somewhere to shelter from the worst of it, at least in the short term. Knowing it was there was reassuring, inasmuch as he knew that he knew he could worry about finding shelter once he had a better feel for his surroundings.

  Fortunately, having recently breakfasted, he wasn’t in urgent need of food but that would change. Luckily, he was dressed in navy fatigues, in readiness for his trip to Cantabrigia, which were fairly robust, so he was, at least, dressed for the environment. He decided to return to the forest, to see if there were any fruit trees or bushes. Even though there were small animals on his version of the planet, he didn’t know, as yet, whether they were also on this version of it. Even if there were, he doubted that his hunting skills were up to much and he would, at least initially, expend more energy trying to kill an animal than he would get from eating it, especially as he didn’t fancy eating raw meat and, as yet, he had no way of starting a fire. In common with most of the adults on board Shackleton, he had been given basic weapons training in case of an attack but he’d never really enjoyed it, nor was he all that good at it. It wouldn’t have helped him anyway, as the weapons he had trained with weren’t available.

  As he re-entered the forest, he looked again at the trees and bushes, this time looking primarily for food but also looking to see if there was anything he could readily turn into a shelter. After about an hour, he had found a small holkonut bush. The nuts weren’t all that tasty but they were nutritious and widely used as a cooking ingredient in his reality. He ate a couple, then stuffed what he could in his pockets and walked on. After a short while, the trees began to thin out and he found himself at the edge of a small clearing. At the other side, a small animal was eating something on the ground, oblivious of his presence. Automatically, he threw his spear at it, making it bolt into the trees on other side of the clearing. As he’d thought, his hunting skills were somewhat inadequate. He crossed the clearing and, as he bent down to pick up his spear, he heard a voice behind him shout ‘Stay EXACTLY where you are. Put your hands behind your head and turn around, nice and slow.’

  He raised his arms and slowly turned around. A group of four men and two women were pointing weapons at him. Like him, all the men were bearded and their hair looked longer than it should but it looked more that they just hadn’t shaved for several months. All of them looked unkempt and some of their uniforms were looking frayed around the edges, with stains and rips in various locations. One of the group stepped forwards. ‘OK, sunshine, just who the hell are you and how did you get here?’

  Will was relieved that they spoke English. ‘My name’s Will Hunt and I’m not entirely sure how I got here. I was just going back to my hotel room after breakfast and suddenly found myself here.’

  ‘A joker, eh? How come we haven’t bumped into you before?’

  ‘I’m not sure if there’s an easy explanation. I seem to be jumping from one reality to another. Where I come from and, indeed, where I was this morning, this area is part of a thriving town. Each version is different but I haven’t seen anything THIS different.’

  ‘No idea what you’re talking about. Apart from the piece of wood in your hand, can I assume you have no weapons? What’s the uniform? I don’t recognise the insignia.’

  Will had forgotten about his makeshift dagger and dropped it. ‘No, that’s all. The uniform belongs to the Britannian
navy, Britannia being the name of this planet in the reality I’ve just left.’

  ‘OK, boys and girls. He seems harmless, if not a little eccentric. Mascall, check he’s telling the truth.’ A middle-aged man approached. ‘Empty the pockets’ he said, gruffly.

  Satisfied that Will wasn’t carrying anything untoward, Mascall went back towards the leader and showed him the phone, coins and hotel door card. Will put the nuts back into his pockets. The group’s leader looked at them ‘Don’t recognise the character on the coin, or the name of the hotel. Never seen a phone like this one. Any explanations?’ he said to Will.

  ‘The character, as you call her, is Her Majesty Queen Anne. She’s the Queen of this planet in the reality I was in until this morning. The hotel is near the lake in that reality. Lovely views of the lake and mountains. Can’t say much about the phone. A phone’s a phone! I only bought it yesterday.’

  ‘Uh, OK, I guess. Hard to get your head round. By the way, I’m Major Sunil Modaly, in charge of this sorry bunch of reprobates. You can call me Sunil.’ He held out his hand in greeting.

  ‘So why are you here? The area seems a bit wild and you all look as though you’ve been here a while’ said Will, as he held his hand out in return.

  ‘You could say that. We’re from an exploratory mission to try and find out what happened to a bunch of colonists who’d headed here to Wyton a couple of hundred years ago. They were never heard of again. Unfortunately, when we were on the way down from the Cornishman, our shuttle suffered engine failure. Luckily, we only fell less than about thirty metres. The shuttle’s a wreck. Fortunately, we were all strapped in, so there were no major injuries but a couple of people suffered broken bones. There was another shuttle on the ship but there were problems with the engines in it. Fortunately, they were discovered before it left the ship. I’m guessing the engineers weren’t able to fix it, or we’d have seen them down here by now. We haven’t been able to contact the ship, as we lost all our comms in the crash, so can’t let them know what’s happened. We’ve been here for about a year, I reckon.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re lucky to be alive. By the way, I’m a communications engineer, so I might be able to jury-rig something up to communicate with the ship, if that would help. Mind you, even if they hear us, I’m not sure what they’ll be able to do. As you said, if they could have fixed the other shuttle, they’d have been down here by now. At least they’ll know you’re alive. Did you manage to find any evidence about what happened to the original settlers?’

  ‘You’ve probably seen the town. We’ve found some computer records that suggest a calamitous outbreak of an infection about ten years after they landed that they seem to have been unable to deal with. None of their drugs or treatments seem to have had much impact. We’ve collected samples from some of the human remains but we don’t have the kit we need down here to analyse it. The idea was to collect samples and analyse everything on the ship, so we have no idea what the infection was. Since none of us has suffered any kind of illness, we can only assume that whatever it was is no longer active. Thanks for the offer. Any help would be useful. To be honest, we’re struggling. There’s only ten of us altogether, with four back at camp, so even covering the basics has been a slog. We did have a couple of bots but their battery packs died a few months back and we’ve been unable to recharge them. We only expected to be down here a month or so and brought supplies to cover twice that. Even though we’ve only been here about a year, it feels like it’s been forever.’

  ‘Weird. In my reality, there’s a thriving economy here, as there was in the last reality I was in. Both had space stations and strong links with the rest of the occupied galaxy. There’s nothing that I know of on the planet that would kill them off. I can’t imagine what would cause such a lethal infection. I can see if I can do anything with the bots but it’s not my field, so can’t promise anything with those, I’m afraid.’

  They set off down a path in the woods heading towards the group’s camp. The remaining members of the team were intrigued by the new arrival and crowded round the returning party. When they got to the centre of the camp, Sunil put down his gear and called the group around him. ‘Let me introduce our new arrival, Will Hunt. We found him in the woods down near the lake. Says he’s from another reality, whatever that is. Either way, he’s human and looks like he could be more of an asset than a liability. Anything to add, Will?’

  ‘Hi, everyone. As the Major says, my name’s Will Hunt. This morning, I was in another version of this planet and had just had breakfast when I suddenly found myself here. Becoming a habit recently. It’s hard to get your head around at first but there seem to be a number of versions of the universe. The easiest way to think of it is that if you took a left turn instead of a right turn, your life could be different from that point on. If you then think that both options actually happened, even if you only know of the one YOU remember actually taking, then you can see that infinite possibilities exist. In at least two realities I know of, a thriving city exists where we’re standing, with trading links across the galaxy. Because we’re in this version of reality, we’re completely unaware of their existence – well, I’m aware, because I’ve been there! I’m afraid I can’t prove any of it, other than the fact that I’m here and had some things with me that Sunil had no explanation for.’

  ‘Thanks, Will. I think Will makes sense but I’ll leave you to form your own opinion. For myself, I’m happy to take him at his word, even if I’m not sure I understand it. Anyway, let me introduce Will to you lot. For information, Will, there are four marines, a pilot and five scientific staff. Sergeant Greg Mascall you’ve met. The pilot is Nik Martensz. Then there’s Privates Andy Adams and Jill Blake. Jill is also capable of being the co-pilot but she hasn’t passed any of the flight tests. The scientists are Han Zhu, Marcy Shirliqui, Rube Saavendra, Ana Salas, and Suman Sharma. I’ll let them explain their particular specialism when they get the chance but they cover botany, zoology, archaeology, both biology and microbiology, virology and forensic sciences.’ Each had nodded at Will as their name was given.

  ‘We all take it in turns to sort out the cooking and what not, while the patrol looks for fresh food and any more evidence of the settlers. The bots used to help out with those mundane chores but since they croaked, we’ve had to do all of it. In case the ship sends down a rescue team, we decided to stay close to the shuttle, even though this isn’t the best place to pitch camp. It does mean that the shuttle can be used as storage and part of our accommodation if we need it, such as when the weather gets a bit wet and wild. Anyway, speaking of cooking, I reckon it’s chow time. Our mess area is over there’ continued Sunil, leading the group towards the eating area. The eating area consisted of an open-sided tent, with collapsible chairs and tables but some of the chairs seem to have been patched up with whatever could be found. One was propped up on one corner by a sawn off tree trunk.

  ‘Unfortunately, we weren’t that well equipped for this kind of mission. We had the basics covered but we’ve had to improvise somewhat. For now, until we’ve decided what happened to the settlers, we’ve decided to leave their stuff where it is. Besides that, the site is currently of archaeological interest, so we’re trying to disturb it as little as possible until we know more about what happened here. While we marines were trained to live off the land, our training only covered the essentials, and without the tools, I’m afraid it’s all pretty basic round here’ explained Sunil.

  Will began to get to know his new colleagues, over a simple meal of stew. Although it tasted different to anything he’d ever had before, it seemed nutritious and was quite enjoyable.

  After they had eaten, Sunil took Will over to the shuttle to show him around.

  The shuttle was in a decidedly sorry state, with much of the lower front panels badly bent by the impact of its crash landing. The sides were intact but they were badly bent towards the front of the shuttle. The rear panels were only lightly damaged by the fall. One of the engines was
completely smashed, the other was streaked with black smoke residue and one of the doors was badly bent on the leading edge.

  ‘You weren’t kidding about the damage!’ said Will, as he looked at the shuttle in more detail.

  ‘Fortunately, the interior looks a lot better but there is clearly a lot of damage behind some of the panels, especially at the front. It’s not going anywhere. Here, let me show you the comms gear, or at least what’s visible. All I know is what we actually use, so you’ll find the workings hidden behind the interior panels somewhere’ replied Sunil, entering the craft.

  The rear of the craft interior had been tidied up, with equipment stashed at the edges of the floor, with the central area available for use by the team. In one corner, two humanoid robots sat limply on the floor, looking as if they were just resting. Sunil took Will towards a door into the crew area, or at least what was left of it.

  ‘I’m amazed the pilot wasn’t killed in the crash, looking at this mess. By the way, those bots look a lot more human-like than any I’ve seen before. Robots such as those were banned in my reality about a hundred and fifty years ago after a couple of them went on a killing spree at a shopping centre. Over a hundred shoppers were either killed or badly injured, including twenty-five children. Once they’d been disabled, it was discovered that someone had tampered with their software. It was decided that we couldn’t take the risk again, so they’ve been banned ever since.’

  ‘Luckily, the cabin is pretty strong internally. Nik did suffer a few cuts and bruises but the co-pilot on the day, Jill, got a broken leg when part of the control panel smashed into her leg but that’s now fully healed. The comms panel is over here’ replied Sunil, pointing at the part of the dash panel concerned. ‘We use bots quite a bit in the military and in a number of situations where using a human would be too dangerous. They also help crew some of our space ships, where space for food and supplies become issues on long-haul flights. It means the human crews don’t need to be as big. I can think of a couple of instances in the early days where the bots went rogue and killed the human crews but the subsequent analysis decided that it was down to electromagnetic interference causing critical software damage. Hasn’t stopped us using them, though. We just retrofitted them all with a radio-controlled kill switch that just turns off the battery pack remotely. Works every time.’

  ‘OK, thanks. I guess we hadn’t thought of that option at the time. Do you have any screwdrivers and other tools that I can use to check out the dash panel? Any idea what sort of antenna the shuttle uses? As a matter of interest, do you know if the dash is getting any power?’

  ‘There’s a box of various tools that you might find useful in the rear compartment. I’ll go get it for you. As far as the antenna and power are concerned, I haven’t a clue, I’m afraid. I assume the aerial’s on top of the shuttle but I can’t say I’ve ever taken much notice, to be honest. Not my area of interest. We ought to be able to rig something up for you take a look up there to check it out. We haven’t checked for power but the master control switch is directly in front of the pilot’s seat’ said Sunil.

  ‘OK, thanks. The sooner I can make a start, the sooner I can see what can be done, if anything’ replied Will, turning to the panel to see if he could make out how it all went together. He then moved to the master control switch and turned it but wasn’t surprised when nothing happened. What he needed to ascertain was whether the power was there but not being switched on or whether there was no power at all, which would add an additional complication.

  ‘I’ll leave this here, if that’s OK’ announced Sunil, putting down an open toolbox on the pilot’s seat.

  ‘Great, thanks’ replied Will, looking into it, to see what it contained.

  He pulled out a suitable screwdriver and used it to open the cover of the comms panel and peered in. What he saw at first didn’t fill him with any confidence that he could get the radio working again but he persevered and removed the panel cover as far as he could, in order to get a better view. Now that he could see what he was working with, he needed a multimeter to find out if there was any power getting to the transmitter, so turned back to the box left by Sunil. A few moments of rummaging resulted him finding one near the bottom of the box. Applying it to the circuit showed him that the circuits were dead. He then checked that there was power at the master control and was relieved to find that there was. Now all he needed to do was to find out why the radio wasn’t getting any electricity, so decided that he needed to dismantle as much of the control panel as he could so that he could find the power cable and trace it through from the switch.

  Two hours later, he had traced most of the cable from the master control switch to the radio but had had no luck in finding out why power wasn’t getting to the radio circuitry. Unfortunately, parts of the cable were buried deep inside the panel area and, try as he might, he couldn’t get at it. He assumed that the break was within the inaccessible part of the dash but he wasn’t surprised, due to the amount of damage the front of the shuttle had sustained in the crash. He decided that the easiest way to deal with it was to simply cut out that part of the cable and put in a patch cable piece, assuming he could find a soldering iron and solder or some other means of connecting the cables.

  He had another look through the toolbox but, although he couldn’t find a soldering iron, he could find some solder. Unfortunately, there was nothing else he could use to create a solid connection, so decided that he needed to discuss the problem with Sunil.

  When he returned to the main part of the encampment, Sunil was nowhere to be found but he did find Marcy Shirliqui, Suman Sharma and Privates Andy Adams and Jill Blake starting to prepare the evening meal. None of them recalled ever seeing a soldering iron. Realising there was nothing further he could do with the radio itself for now, Will returned to the shuttle to see if there was any way he could check out the antenna. Whilst Will had been checking out the pilot’s area, Sunil had managed to get some large crates moved alongside the shuttle, complete with some smaller ones to act as steps between them, so Will was able to clamber up to the roof to look for the antenna. Fortunately, it was only about four metres from the ground, so it only took him moments to climb up to get a look of the roof panel. Standing on the top-most crate, he could see what he considered to be an aerial mount inside a recess but there was no sign of the actual aerial from his vantage point. Cursing inwardly, he decided to get a closer look and clambered carefully onto the roof panel, then wormed his way across to the antenna mount. Fortunately, the mount itself looked undamaged, so that at least meant that he had a chance of fitting something to it to act as an antenna. While it almost certainly wouldn’t work as well as the original, it would be better than nothing. Unless he could get the transmitter to work, though, it would all be academic. He carefully crawled back to his impromptu ladder and clambered back to the ground. As he did so, Sunil and two of the scientists appeared.

  ‘I gather you’ve been looking for a soldering iron, Will.’

  ‘Hi Sunil. Yes, I’m going to struggle to fix the radio without one. Do you have one anywhere in the camp?’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve ever seen one. When we get back to the main part of the camp, I’ll see if anyone else has.’

  Once back at camp, Sunil asked the group if anyone had seen a soldering iron. None had. Will explained the problem regarding the radio.

  ‘I know we don’t like to but we could always look in the town. There are a few likely places we could look’ suggested Ana Salas.

  ‘We’ve agreed not to go into the town unless we really have but this is the first chance we’ve had of letting the Cornishman know what’s going on down here. I, for one, don’t want to die here. As Ana suggests, there are a couple of likely possibilities we can try first, such as the workshop we found in the centre of town and the police station’ said Sunil.

  ‘There’s a police station?’ asked Will.

  ‘Yes. It’s not very big. We haven’t examined it in much detail as yet.’


  ‘If they have a transmitter, there might be something I can cannibalise to get the radio in the shuttle going again. Alternatively, there might be some other tools I can use. I don’t even know what frequency the shuttle radio works on yet. This could substantially speed up my repairs’ responded Will.

  ‘OK, Will. We need to limit what we look at but we’ll get you to the station tomorrow morning and you can see what you can find.’

  After breakfast the following morning Will, Private Andy Adams and Nik Martensz walked to the town and headed for the police station. As they entered the building, Will could see that the place could well provide him with everything he would need.

  ‘Could you look for a soldering iron, while I look to see whether any of this equipment can be of use?’ Will asked Nik and Andy.

  ‘Sure. Anything in particular, or will any old soldering iron do?’ asked Nik.

  ‘If possible, a self-powered one, so I can use it in the shuttle without external power but at this stage, just see what you can find.’

  ‘OK, no problem. Good look with this lot’ replied Private Adams, looking around the room.

  Will decided to look around the whole building first, so he could get his head around what the station consisted of in more detail. It was a modest station, which didn’t surprise him too much, so he didn’t think it would take long. He soon found what he was looking for – the transmitter part of the station. At the back of the building, he found a ladder attached to the wall and a small hatch to the roof. He decided it would help him to look at the antenna or antennas up there, so made his way up to take a look. The hatch door was a little stiff but soon succumbed to his efforts to open it. As he opened the hatch, he was so surprised to be attacked by a bird that he nearly slipped off the ladder. Fortunately, the bird flew off when the hatch clanged against the roof decking, so he was able to climb the rest of the way unmolested.

  As he looked around, he saw a VHF antenna, a simple vertical antenna attached to the top of a short mast. He also saw a UHF vertical antenna and wondered what it was used for. He hadn’t seen anything that looked as though it would operate on that band in the station. Having seen the antennas, he climbed back down the ladder, to be greeted by Nik.

  ‘Say, Will. I’ve found something that may be of interest. Not sure if it’s of help to you but you’ll be a better judge of that, I reckon.’

  ‘OK, lead on Macduff.’

  ‘Pardon?’ replied a confused-looking Nik.

  ‘Just a saying where I’m from. Can’t recall who Macduff was but I think he was a Shakespearian character from a play called ‘Macbeth’.’

  ‘Ah. Right’ replied Nik, clearly none the wiser.

  As they entered a small room at the end of a corridor at the side of the building, Will saw a row of twelve hand-held radios, sitting in what looked like battery chargers. He could tell from the antennas that they operated on the VHF band.

  ‘How do you communicate now?’ asked Will.

  ‘We have a couple of walkie-talkies but the range isn’t up to much. As often as not, the signal breaks up when we’re trying to use them.’

  ‘Can I have a quick look at yours?’ asked Will.

  ‘If I had one, you’d be welcome to have a look but the Major and the Sergeant are the only ones who have them to keep in touch with the camp. Until now, we’ve always had one or other of the two of them with us but they needed them today on another mission.’

  ‘Oh well. OK. Can we take these and the chargers and we’ll see whether I can get them to work back at the camp. That would allow most of you to have one. It’s not as if anyone else has a use for them.’

  ‘As the resident archaeologist, I need to record them in situ first but that will only take a few moments’ replied Nik, taking out a scanner-camera to record images of the radios in their holders and their location in the building and take a 3D sweep of the room.

  ‘OK, it’s not what we came for but these could prove really useful. Any sign of a soldering iron?’

  ‘I haven’t seen anything but Andy may have.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll shout if he does. Best keep looking.’

  ‘OK, will do. Anything look useful from your point of view?’

  ‘I’ve found some antennas but I suspect there must be a base station to go with those hand-held radios you found. That would provide us with a more powerful station at the camp, which would come in handy, as it would extend the range we can explore before getting out of range of the camp. I’ll discuss it with the Major when we get back. Looking at the antennas on the roof, they would have been using VHF frequencies. Hopefully, the frequencies they used will be near enough what I need to get the shuttle transmitter going but, if not, I’m used to improvising. I also spotted a UHF one up there but so far, I haven’t come across anything that may use those frequencies.’

  A further search of the building resulted in Will finding the VHF base transmitter part of the station. He hadn’t noticed the entrance door to it the first time he had passed it by, as it was tucked away behind a pile of cases. Someone had clearly been searching for something in the corridor outside it. When he entered the room, he was surprised as to how untidy it was. It seemed to be a bit of a dumping ground for anything and everything that might come in handy one day but no one seemed to know what to do with. Fortunately, the transmitter itself had been kept clear, so was easily spotted. The police service clearly had very little to do in the settlement.

  Luckily, the transmitter looked as though they ought to be able to carry it back to the camp on the trolley they had brought along. The only thing he needed to do was to check on the voltage of the power supply it needed, to make sure it was compatible with that produced by the shuttle. Luckily it was near enough, so he knew he would be able to make a voltage converter to compensate for the difference, providing he could find suitable components. Luckily, the room also seemed to be the storeroom for such things, so he had a look for the components he thought he would need and put them on the desk he found near the transmitter. As he searched, he also some pieces of metal rod that he could turn into a suitable antenna for the shuttle, a gas-powered soldering iron and some spare gas canisters to power it and a variety of items of test equipment that would help him tell whether the radios he was taking, as well as the radio in the shuttle, were working and, if so, what frequencies they worked on. He also hoped that, in time, he would be able to see if he could do anything with the two bots. At last, he thought, his luck was in.

  When he left the storeroom, Will called Nik and Private Adams and informed them of what he had found. They were pleased the trip had been successful and, after Nik had finished recording the site, he and Andy Adams helped Will load what they could onto the trolley and returned to the camp.

  When they arrived back at the camp, they discovered that the Major and a small party had gone in search of more food supplies, so took the trolley of equipment to the shuttle. Until Will knew Sunil’s views on his walkie-talkie acquisitions, Will decided that he could do no more with them, so went back to the main camp to help with the preparations for the evening meal.

  Over dinner, Will made a point of approaching Sunil. After explaining what he had found, Sunil agreed that anything that helped their safety would be helpful. So long as the archaeological records were maintained for future generations, Sunil was happy to use the equipment.

  ‘I realise I’m a newcomer and it may not be my place to say this but we may need to recognise that we’re not leaving this planet. Perhaps we need to make greater use of the settlers’ resources. Unless we do something, there’s a limit to how long we can survive. Your ammo won’t last forever and you seem to be barely subsisting. I think we need to think longer term. If the crew of the Cornishman could have rescued you, I would have expected them to have been here by now. For what it’s worth, I think we should search the town for anything we can use and even think about relocating over there.’

  ‘I hear what you say, Will. We’ve been a
rguing over doing just that for some time but so far haven’t come to any decision. You may be right. If you manage to get the radio working, we may be able to get a response from the ship and then make a decision after that. We may be on the verge of a rescue but I would also have expected them by now.’

  ‘No pressure then! OK, I’ll see what can be done tomorrow. It’s too late to make a start on it today. Unless you object, I’ll first off concentrate on getting you some new radios organised, so you and the others can keep in touch more successfully.’

  The following morning, Will set about getting the radios he’d brought back from the police station working. The supply voltage produced by the shuttle was too high for the radios, so he needed to build a transformer to drop the voltage to the correct level. Although this wasn’t overly difficult, it wasn’t as straightforward as he would have preferred, as he needed to design the circuits himself, then either salvage or otherwise obtain the components he would need before he could build the transformer.

  Two days later, Will had managed to construct a working transformer. Unfortunately, his first two attempts hadn’t worked for more than a few minutes, as some of the old components he had obtained from the town failed shortly after power was applied.

  Now he had a suitable power supply, he connected the radios to it, so that they could be charged. The LED’s at the front of ten of the radios turned on but the other two remained off. Upon investigation, he discovered that the radios weren’t sitting quite correctly in their holders, so the power wasn’t being applied to the batteries in the radios properly. Re-seating them seemed to solve the problem. Although the radios seemed to be charging, he wouldn’t know for several hours whether the ancient batteries would hold the charge.

  He turned his attention to the base station, pressing what looked like the power switch and was relieved that the radio seemed to spring to life. Knowing he had something he could work with at last, he turned to the collection of test equipment to check what frequency he was actually using, the amount of power he would be transmitting and whether the antenna he had removed from the roof of the police station was the correct one.

  He turned the transmit power down to its lowest setting, then pressed the transmit button. He decided to risk taking the transmitted power up to full but wished he hadn’t. As soon as he pressed the transmit button, there was a loud bang, a smell of burnt electrical components and the radio went dead. The smell took him back to his accident on Astraeus 5, which had sent him off to Billy’s reality.

  ‘Damn!’ he said, to no one in particular. He had known it was a risk, with the radio having been unused for going on two hundred years but he had to check it. He removed the bottom and rear panels and peered inside. ‘Could have been worse’ he thought, as he saw that the actual damage was relatively minor. He just hoped that he had suitable replacement components. He removed the damaged circuit board and examined the burnt out components to see if he had replacements. Fortunately, they were common items so he had a plentiful supply amongst the items he had taken from the station, so was quickly able to repair the damage.

  When he tried to test the radio again, he was pleased that it seemed to be working properly. To test it out, he decided to turn on one of the charging hand-held radios and was thankful that it burst into life. A few minutes later he was relieved to note that the transmitter seemed to be working and a signal was being received by the hand-held radio and that the hand-held seemed to be able to transmit meaningfully to the base station. Until the hand-held radios were fully charged, he decided to reserve judgement, especially as he had only transmitted a few feet. He would need the assistance of one or more of the rest of the team to be able to confirm that they would work over a greater distance.

  The following morning, he tested the remaining radios, now that the batteries had been recharged and found that all but one worked as expected. He would have to dismantle it later, to see what was wrong with it but he was happy that they now had eleven working radios. Sunil agreed to take one of the hand-held radios with him, and left one of the navy radios with Will, so they could test the respective ranges of the two radio systems. Overall, they found that the acquired radios had a much greater range than the original navy ones, so decided that, henceforth, they would use the acquired ones whenever anyone left the camp, as well as have a radio to link the camp to the shuttle. Just in case the acquired ones failed, however, they decided that they would, whenever possible, take a navy radio as well but the limited numbers precluded this on every trip.

  Now that the local communication difficulties had been improved, Will started to concentrate on the shuttle radio, to see if there was any way he could communicate with the orbiting Cornishman. Using the soldering iron he had taken from the radio station, he made a patch lead to by-pass the power cable damaged during the crash-landing. With that done, he turned on the radio and was relieved that it worked, or at least he could hear background noise. He then connected the transmitter to the frequency meter and pressed the transmit button, to discover what frequency the transmitter used. Once he had discovered the frequency, he realised that the antenna he had attached to the roof mount was completely the wrong length, so climbed up to the roof to replace it with one that he calculated would suit the transmit frequency. Some minor adjustments were required but, less than an hour later, he had a working transmitter. He then dug out the signal generator they had found at the police station and tuned it to the correct frequency, and used it to transmit a signal to the radio. It worked! He decided that, before he called the Cornishman, Sunil would probably like to be the one to make the call, so called him on the hand-held radio. Fortunately, Sunil had recently returned to the camp, so was able to join him a few minutes later. The rest of the group were with him. After all, this was a momentous moment, as they had had no contact with the ship since they had landed.

  ‘Calling Cornishman. Calling Cornishman. Do you copy? This is Major Sunil Modaley for the Cornishman.’

  There was no response. Sunil repeated his message but the response was the same. The initial excitement subsided.

  ‘It may be just that they’re round the other side of the planet at present’ suggested Will, trying to be positive about the lack of response.

  ‘That’s possible, I suppose but they were meant to be in geostationary orbit so that we could always remain in touch. I would have expected them to have been listening out for us, so it’s odd they haven’t responded’ replied Sunil. ‘OK, I suggest we call them every four hours just in case something has taken them out of range. I’ll draw up a rota to cover the night hours.’

  Despite regular calls to the ship, there was no response. Will checked that the power from the transmitter was sufficient and that the radio worked properly but couldn’t find anything wrong.

  ‘I suggest I make something up to transmit a pre-recorded message every hour and rig up something that will notify us if there is a response from the Cornishman. It’ll save anyone having to stay at the shuttle to operate the transmitter and listen out for a communication from them, as well as give more calls’ Will said to Sunil over the evening meal two days later.

  ‘Good idea. It’s been a bit of a drain having to monitor the radio. On top of that, the poor SOB who has to be there has nothing much to do while they’re there.’

  Two days later, Will had produced a simple device that would transmit a pre-recorded message every hour and would sound a loud buzzer in the camp if a radio message was received.

  After hearing nothing for a week, Sunil agreed that they needed to branch out and find ways of settling the planet themselves, as they seemed to have been abandoned by the Cornishman. It worried him, as he couldn’t understand why they would have left the planet with the team on it.