Chapter 23
‘Countdown sequence. Ten..Nine..Eight..Seven..Six..Five..Four..Three..Two..One..Zero’ announced Dev.
Sarah moved the RSC dial. As she looked down at the base from fifty metres up, she could see it become less distinct and quickly fade from view. As soon as the final vestiges disappeared, trees started to appear. They were clearly now far enough from their starting reality for the base not to exist. Both she and Will were surprised at how quickly the transition had been.
She stopped the ship from moving through further realities and they launched three micro-satellites to their pre-programmed locations around the planet, then set off again. The process was repeated every ten minutes over the next few hours. As they travelled through the realities, the forest changed before them. Some trees came and went, with some appearing where there had been a gap before. Branches flowed into different positions, as the natural events that had created them changed as they traversed the realities. It was as if the forest ebbed and flowed, not just as a result of the wind but by an unseen hand stirring the forest like the sea moves on a rocky coastline. Sarah was reminded of the description given by the time traveller of the changing view from his time machine in H.G.Wells’s book ‘The Time Machine’. Even though they weren’t travelling through time, the effect seemed oddly similar.
As evening approached, Sarah felt the safest thing to do was to land the ship. They had been airborne since shortly after breakfast and they were both feeling weary. As they had travelled through the realities, several clearings had come and gone but the current reality had none nearby, so she moved the ship a few miles towards a nearby tarn, where she settled onto what passed as a beach, manoeuvring the ship to be as close as she dared to the tree line. As they were well out of the way, up in the mountains, she was hoping that they wouldn’t be spotted, so they could rest up for the night before moving on in the morning.
Sarah called Dev on the radio ‘Dev, just to let you know, I’ve decided to call it a day for today. I didn’t want to find a suitable landing site in the dark. I’ve relocated to the east bank of what you know as Tarn Hows and tucked the ship into the lee of the trees. Hopefully, we’re safe from prying eyes here. I plan to restart about 08:00 hours tomorrow morning and see what happens from there. Sarah out.’
‘Okay, Sarah. Have an enjoyable evening. Call me when you’re ready to start up again.’
‘Okay, will do. Good night, Dev. Sarah out.’
‘OK, Will. I don’t know about you but I’m famished. Lets have something to eat.’
‘Ahead of you there. While you were busy, I’ve rustled something up. Your table awaits.’
‘I didn’t notice you slip out. After you’ replied Sarah, following Will to the canteen. As there was only the two of them on board, they felt a little lost in the space but Will had set up a table close to a viewing port, so they could feel less hemmed in.
‘Nothing fancy, I’m afraid. Nevertheless, I think it’ll hit the spot. Nothing alcoholic on board, of course but there is a nice wine substitute I found that’ll wash it down nicely.’
‘Looks wonderful to me, Will. Afterwards, we could go for a wander outside. See what it’s like. The tarn might be a bit cold for a swim, though!’
‘Might be worth a try. I seem to recall the last time we did that, we found a very enjoyable way to warm up afterwards’ he said, smiling as the memory came flooding back.
An hour later, they were standing in the door to the airlock, overlooking the lake. There was a movement in the bushes on the opposite side of the tarn. A group of creatures emerged from the trees, heading towards the water. As they moved away from the trees towards the tarn, Will noted that they had a pig-like snout and totally circular eyes. They had long, pointed ears on the sides of their heads, which seemed to move about in all planes. They had what looked like pale green ‘fur’, with blue ‘spots’, similar to those on a leopard. Although they seemed as tall as a human adult, their arms and legs were much longer than those in a human. They also had six limbs. Some were walking on two ‘legs’ and using the four upper limbs as arms, whereas others were walking on four limbs and using just the top-most limbs as arms. Each was clutching a spear and some were also holding additional weapons, similar to clubs. They were communicating in high-pitched voices and seemed to be joshing with one another, with several of them screeching in what appeared to be their equivalent of laughter.
Will and Sarah stopped. Sarah hit the door close button ‘We need to avoid contact with aliens at this stage. Who knows what any of our bugs might do to them. Even something as simple as a cold virus could kill them all. That doesn’t mean we can’t observe them using our camera systems.’
They re-entered the ship and returned to the bridge. Sarah pointed the cameras towards the aliens and started to record what they were doing. Slightly worryingly, they were moving cautiously towards them. As they got nearer, one threw a spear at the ship but it bounced harmlessly onto the ground nearby. Two approached the ship, touching one of the ship’s legs inquisitively.
‘If we need to, could we take off with them so close to the ship?’ asked Will.
‘No, we’d fry them but I reckon that if we used the loudspeakers, they would probably run away. We’re clearly just as alien to them as they are to us but we at least have the technological advantage. Their existence does, however, mean that our scans could easily miss such primitive groups. They seem to be at the hunter-gatherer stage of evolution. The most they might have is fire, so our satellites could easily miss them. Damn! This makes it even more of a job than we thought. We’ve never come across any native life forms before other than plants and trees, so didn’t think of the possibility before we set off. I’ll let Dev know.’
‘Dev. You need to see this’ Sarah said into the radio microphone, and sent an image file to him.
‘Thanks, Sarah. Oh hell! We’ve been looking for human habitation but it didn’t occur to us that there might be any form of native life, as there hasn’t been any in any of the realities we’d already visited. When you return, we’ll need to consider how we might spot anything like this. If I remember correctly, the team that Sunil Modaley was with had at least one Astrobiologist with them. They may be able to advise us as to what we might do. Fortunately, we thought we might turn up something unexpected. It looks like you have. OK, thanks, guys! Dev out.’
As Dev finished, there was a loud clanking sound reverberating around the bridge. Will and Sarah looked at the monitors and saw that the two aliens that had approached the ship were now hitting one of the legs. One was using one of their spears, the other, a large rock.
‘I think we need to discourage them. I’m pretty sure the leg can stand them hitting it but I’d rather they didn’t do it any longer than necessary. I’ll play a bit of music. Might perplex them a bit.’
She turned back to the controls and played some loud music over the external airlock speaker. Although the speaker was adequate for speech, it was somewhat distorted for music. However, it did cause the two aliens to stop hitting the ship and look around for the source of the sound with their ears. The remaining aliens instantly stopped what they were doing and called to their two colleagues. Will couldn’t tell if they were shouting words of warning or encouragement. Either way, three of the aliens ran away, the remainder appearing to be more intrigued than ever.
‘Well, that wasn’t entirely successful!’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll prime the engines. That should put them off.’
She switched on the engines and ran through the start-up routine. As a result, the turbines on the planetary engines began to spin, making a significant amount of noise, as well as making the ship vibrate slightly and lift an inch or so from the ground.
This had the desired effect, with the two attacking the leg running away at high speed. The remainder also ran off but less quickly than the attackers.
As they arrived at the other bank of the tarn, they all stopped and looked at the ship. One stood on its hind legs and waved its club and spear at
them, accompanied by a loud shrieking sound, as if in defiance.
‘Phew, that’s a relief’ said Will.
Just as Will and Sarah were settling down on the bridge again, they heard a loud crashing sound from outside.
‘What the hell is that?’ asked Will, looking confused.
‘No idea. Let’s have a look on the monitor’ replied Sarah.
At first, they could see nothing but then Will spotted trees moving on the side facing the trees.
‘What the…. I think we need to get out of here. Now!’ yelled Sarah. Moments later, they were above the treeline and looking down at an enormous creature rushing headlong into the space occupied by the ship moments earlier. A few seconds later and it would have rammed them. Unfortunately for the creature, its momentum was such that it couldn’t stop itself from continuing on into the tarn. Fortunately for it, the water resistance was enough to stop it before it was in deep enough to drown.
‘Did that alien call that thing to attack us?’ asked Sarah, relaxing from the panic.
‘Could be. Might have been coincidence but I guess we’ll never know.’
‘OK, I think we’ll be better off in space. If these are the locals, I don’t think we need to worry about being spotted up there’ announced Sarah.
‘I think we should check out the satellite images first, just in case humanity has occupied a different part of the planet in this reality. Just because they’re not to be found near here doesn’t mean they’re not on the other island.’
‘Good point. OK, let’s have a look.’
‘Dev. We’ve been attacked by something much bigger than an elephant and twice as heavy. Not sure that the legs of the ship could’ve handled the attack but we managed to get out in time. I’m about to send you some camera footage and image files. I’ve had to move us to treetop height to keep us safe. Do you have a problem with us moving to geostationary orbit?’ asked Sarah on the radio.
‘Oh, great. That’s all you need. Just make sure you won’t be spotted first but you may be safer up there than where you are. I’ll trust you to make the correct decision. Look forward to seeing the footage. Dev out.’
At first, they saw no signs of life on the satellite images but after about fifteen minutes, they noticed there was a small town on the banks of the major river on the other main continent, where the river ran into the sea. They could see a number of boats in the ocean nearby and a road network advancing into the countryside around it but the roads themselves looked more like cart tracks.
‘I think we need to zoom in on that town to see if the inhabitants are human or whether they’re similar to our recent acquaintances.’ suggested Will.
As they looked at the image stream, they could tell that the town’s inhabitants weren’t human. They closely resembled the aliens they had recently encountered but they were ochre-coloured and wore a variety of items of apparel, ranging from simple belts to cloaks and trousers. None were fully clothed. However, neither Sarah nor Will could see anything that hinted at advanced technology, with everything looking similar to what would have been commonplace before the industrial revolution on Earth.
‘OK, I don’t think we need worry about them spotting us but we’ll continue looking for a while longer. Any radio activity?’ asked Sarah.
‘None so far.’
As they looked further, they saw a number of towns and villages on the other continent but the continent they were on had no visible population centres larger than small villages. They didn’t see anything they would consider large enough to be classified as a city anywhere on the planet. The only vehicles they saw were carts that were being pulled by large six-legged beasts, which resembled the one that had charged them.
‘I think we should be safer in space than down here, so I’m going up to put us into a geostationary orbit unless you have any objections’ announced Sarah after they had spent an hour looking at the planet from a variety of notional heights.
‘I don’t think there’s anyone here who would notice us and you can’t hover here all night. Go for it!’ replied Will.
As they settled into orbit, Sarah said ‘Well, that wasn’t quite the romantic walk we were expecting!’
‘Best laid plans and all that’ replied Will ‘Fancy a drink?’
‘Found anything with alcohol in it?’
‘Sorry, the best on offer is some non-alcoholic equivalents.’
‘Oh well. It was a good idea while it lasted. OK, in that case, I’ll have whatever there is that tastes like cider.’
‘Fizzy apple juice it is, then!’ replied Will, smiling as he went to the ‘fridge.
Ten minutes later, drinks in hand, they were looking out of the viewing window at the planet below. ‘I wonder how many more realities there are before we get to what we’ll consider the end point?
‘To be honest, at the moment I don’t really care. I’m just enjoying the view. And the company, of course’ replied Sarah, snuggling up and putting her arm round Will’s waist.
Will put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze.
‘Will we have enough micro satellites?’ asked Sarah.
‘Something to check before we drop down tomorrow morning. If we haven’t enough, we’ll have to go back and restock. We still had plenty left when I last checked.’
‘Fancy turning the agrav off?’ said Sarah, with a cheeky grin.
‘Now why would that be, exactly?’
‘Oh, I don’t know’ she replied, smiling ‘I just thought there might be some fun things we could do before we go to sleep. Drink up!’
‘Well, if you insist….’ he said, turning towards her.
THE END
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