Beyond Uranus Read online

  All I could think was that Simon was bonkers. “I think it’s time for you to go.”

  Simon raised himself up from the chair and walked with a surprisingly light tread to the front door. “Remember Mister McCormack you have twenty four hours.”

  “Yea, whatever.”

  I opened the door to let Simon leave. I stood there and watched as Simon walked down the drive. What a disappointing end to the evening and although I should have slammed the door, I leaned against the frame in disbelief of the complete and utter bullshit I had been told. Simon rounded the end of the drive and went out of sight. A couple of seconds later a car door opened with a hissing sound then shut with a barely audible clunk. Commanding my attention, I heard an unusual whine like a distant jet engine starting and then a sleek black car swished past the end of my drive. I did a double-take because the car wasn’t touching the ground and had no wheels! It actually glided past, entirely wheel-free, floating a foot above the ground. “Fuck me!”

  That was the moment when recall and realisation bandied together and hit me, just as I thought ‘Well that was unexpected. Hang on a minute, unexpected, unexpected, unexpected...’ My brain inserted a ‘Break’ clause which allowed me to escape the nested loop. I cautiously turned around to see if I would be there to impart some further information, but no I was alone and the only one of me.

  Deep down at the bottom of my mind, in a tiny little shed behind the door with the modest sign saying ‘All visitors welcome, please come in and browse’, well no one bothers to pry where they are welcome. People only use subterfuge or jemmies to sneak into the places with big signs saying ‘KEEP OUT’. Anyway behind this door, two of my brain-cells were congratulating each other for not letting me slam the door behind Simon and watching for the car.

  *

  Having put its wheels down so it didn’t attract any unwanted attention, the sleek black car whined its way through the night. Eventually, it dipped underground into the car park of a black glassed building. A dark suited figure with spiky white hair and pale skin left the vehicle and made his way to a lift. He pressed a button and waited for it to arrive, stepping inside when the doors silently opened. At the requested floor, he emerged into a corridor with a single door at the end. The Gold lettering on it declared “Director”. Simon knocked and waited. Ten seconds later a muffled shout summoned him in with the word “Come!”

  Simon entered a large room. Opposite him at the other end of the room was a dark wooden desk with a monitor placed to one side of it. Behind it sat a man in a dark suit with dark rimmed glasses, short white hair and very pale nearly white skin. The lenses of the glasses were tinted pink, and behind them his eyes were playing ping pong. These two men were almost mirror images of each other and could pass for identical twins, yet strangely they were not traditionally related.

  “Sit.” Simon sat.

  “Tell me how it went,” said the director.

  “He was an idiot.”

  “You know that’s not true, you’ve seen the data and you know the history. We need him and I suspect he is going to play a vital role in the organisation. We both know that things are happening and we need Roy’s ability to analyse and make intuitive guesses.”

  Rubbing his eyes with a hand under his glasses, he said “I don’t mean to be rude Director, but my usual client for enrolling into the program is an Oxbridge graduate of science. Typically with several post graduate qualifications and an I.Q. that’s bouncing off the top of the scale. By comparison, Roy appears to have an IQ exceeded by his own shoe-size and is frankly, an idiot. I don’t get it and I cannot understand your logic, it’s almost as if he’s some sort of genetic throwback like a modern-day caveman. He’s a lager guzzling, pizza eating I.T. failure that teaches in a dead end school.”

  The director took a deep breath to calm him and said “You knew the father and so did I. His father didn’t have any of those qualities you described of your usual client and look what he achieved.”

  “Yes,” said Simon “and look how it ended.”

  “All we ever found was the drive section of his shunter, we didn’t even find a body and we don’t know the true story of how it ended.”

  “But the records show...”

  The director interrupted with “The records show nothing other than speculation. We don’t really know what happened and I doubt we ever will. Incidentally, I’ve also spoken with Roy’s mother, Margaret, and she won’t say anything until he’s settled.”

  “That’s good, but are you sure you’re not doing this because of his father?”

  “Simon, you’ve seen the data, you know this could work regardless of who you normally recruit. Do you think he’ll agree?”

  “I don’t know Director. Talking of his father, I spotted one of his jars of layered sands sitting in the corner on a table.”

  “I hope you didn’t mention it?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Good! When you drove away, did you retract the wheels and use hover mode?”

  “Yes Director.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “Yes, I used the jet whine to attract his attention and he was definitely watching as I drove past.”

  “Excellent. What story did you tell him about where the station is?”

  “I used the planets as a guide to distance and explained that it far beyond Your Anus.”

  The director’s head jerked up and with some confusion and he said “Don’t you mean Uranus?”

  “I bloody knew it!” said an exasperated Simon.

  *

  That Thursday night was a very strange one for me. I sat in my front room sipping my lager and had a good think about the events that had passed. I hadn’t done much serious thinking for a while and fair comment, I needed to dust the cogs a bit. All my life I’d followed seemingly shrewd advice and this was where it had got me. Don’t get me wrong, my life was, if anything, a little too comfortable. Simons offer was bonkers but that car suggested something, what harm could it do? Surely if that was real then the offer would be real? If I had witnessed something as weird as a floating car then perhaps there is a completely mad job offer situated outside our solar system. Perhaps the strangest thing was the way in which I had, so matter of fact, accepted the existence of aliens and their space station in our solar system, it was almost as if something or someone was calling to me.

  All these thoughts kept swirling around my head all evening and before I knew it the time was 12.30am and time for bed. For about the first time in five years I hadn’t played a game.

  In bed I lay awake for another two hours. I knew I would be knackered in the morning but I couldn’t sleep. I had reached a schism, I knew one when it bit me and this was a real humdinger. The left fork would carry on down the road of unfulfillment and boredom, to a lifetime of degeneration and emotional flat-lining. The right fork, however, could lead to who knows what? An adventure for sure, something that will make the heart beat faster. At that point I knew that my decision had been made and a plan slowly began to form in my head. I would accept the offer and if Simon turned out to be a complete nutter it wouldn’t make any difference because the job wouldn’t exist. And then there was that car. I couldn’t get the image out of my head. What a car! When I did sleep, I had a curious dream about being Odysseus on a raft in stormy seas and being washed up naked, on a beach.

  *

  Be bebe bebedebeep, bebe bebedebeep bebe bebedebeep...

  8.00 am on a Friday morning and the last thing I wanted to hear was my alarm clock pounding in my ears. I opened an eye and tried to focus on the offending noise maker. With a grunt I went to push the snooze button but stopped and clattered the off button. I felt great, apart from my head which throbbed a little from the lager and an unpleasant tang from something that had died in my mouth, all because I knew I was about to change my life. Well, as long as Simon wasn’t a nut case. He described it as ‘a leap of faith’ and now I knew exactly what he meant because this really was going to be
me jumping in blind.

  I went through my usual routine and arrived at school for 8.30am. I even forgot my daily look at the bleak monolith to comprehensive education. Locking the car I quickly walked across the car park, past the usual throng of year sevens waiting outside the reception area and made my way up the zombie corridor which led towards the staffroom.

  “Oh my god, the night shift is here!” scraped a voice preening at me from several metres behind.

  I knew it was the Head again and turning on my heals to face him, shouted “What!”

  “Don’t take that tone with me McCormack. I’m just so shocked to see you arrive early. Well, when I say early, I mean early by your standards not by my mine, you’re still a part-timer to me.”

  “If I’m late you moan at me about it and if I’m early you make stupid comments. Why don’t you give it a rest and go and bully somebody else for a change.”

  “You don’t need to take that tone with me and I think calling me a bully is a bit strong, and a serious accusation.”

  “It’s not an accusation it’s an observation and therefore a fact.”

  “You need to be very careful where you start throwing the ‘F’ word about, especially with your performance management meeting coming up.”

  “And that’s what I mean by bullying. You are making a threat that if I don’t speak to you with the respect you don’t deserve then you are going to make sure I get a poor review for my performance management. As a teacher you should recognise the text book definition of a bully.”

  His face started to redden “You are making a big mistake here with these accusations. What you need to do is apologise before it gets out of hand.”

  “Apologise? OK I’m very sorry that you’re a bully.”

  “Retract that statement now.” His voice started to get louder and so did mine.

  “OK, I’m not sorry, but you’re still a bully. Listen here Batman, I do a dam good job here and get cracking results from our students. My observations from my team leader are consistently good but you still feel it necessary to single me out. So for once, why don’t you back off and leave me alone?

  “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

  “I think I’m talking to a pompous prig that has no idea about how to motivate staff or pupils and thinks the only way to get results is to indulge in petty bullying. You’re a coward because you think you can get away with it just because of your position.”

  I could see his mouth moving up and down but no words were coming out and his face was slowly turning from European pink to Mediterranean sun burnt red. The veins at his temples came to the surface and started to throb.

  And then he erupted. “You can’t speak to me like that. I’m going to make sure this goes down as an official complaint with a written disciplinary and I will be pushing for a suspension. How dare you speak to me like that? How very....”

  I cut him off by shouting back at him rather too loudly, “I’ll save you the bother. As of now I quit, so you can take your job and shove it where the sun don’t shine.” I started walking back down the corridor towards my car. It was time to leave as my job had been done. I could hear him ranting as I walked away. He was bellowing something about me never working in education again and how I would never get a job because he would see to it that no employer would take me on having left them in the lurch like this. Before I went through the outside doors, I turned and closed my fingers as if holding an imaginary rod and moved my hand back and forth in a rude gesture towards the crimson faced Head Teacher.

  As I stepped though the doors I emerged outside to a silent group of students. It was like a scene from the Hitchcock film ‘The Birds’ only with kids rather than birds. At that point I had no idea exactly how much they had heard of the conversation. The silence was eerie and the only thing missing were tumble weeds rolling across the yard behind them. I stood for a few moments looking at various faces of the students and then from the back somebody started clapping. Slowly more and more students joined in until all were clapping. Time to leave.

  *

  When I got home I went back to bed. I was knackered as I had very little sleep the previous night. I awoke at 3.00pm and spent the rest of the day pottering around and tidying up.

  *

  Another cardboard Pizza was eaten at 6.30pm washed down with a can of lager and then I sat in my living room and waited. At 7.00pm the door bell rang. I opened the door to Simon and invited him in. He sat in the same seat as the previous evening and so did I, next to him that is, not in the same chair on his knee or anything.

  “Have you considered my proposition?” he said.

  “Yes and I would like to accept.”

  “OK. This is what happens next. You sign the contract and then you can ask any question you like. Once you sign the contract you are committed to a three year tour of duty. You cannot be released from this contract for a minimum of three years unless you are dismissed from this contract. After this three year period you may leave or we may extend your contract. Do you agree?”

  “Yes I do. Where do I sign?”

  “Nowhere Mister McCormack it’s just a saying.” Simon pulled out a small block of plastic. “Place one of your fingers on the top of this device,” he said. I put my finger on top and a blue light scanned from one end to the other and back again. When it finished Simon said, “Welcome to the company. You now have one hour of questioning. Tomorrow morning I will come to your house and pick you up at nine. You will not need to pack anything as everything will be provided for you. Let’s start the questioning.”

  I used the hour as best I could and tried to glean as much information from Simon as was possible. Some of it put me at ease as he explained that my house would be looked after, important phone calls and mail would be redirected to me and there would be a cover story about me so people wouldn’t get suspicious about my disappearance. The cover involved me going off to some far flung part of the world to teach and help poor children learn to speak English. Some of the information was a bit mind blowing and quite a lot to take in. The main facts were repeated to me on several occasions.

  I would be working on Earth Station Three. There were six Earth Stations all placed outside the solar system at an equal distance from each other in a sort of star formation but billions of miles apart. Each station was manned mostly by selected people from Earth. The stations were provided by an alien race that also provided all the equipment needed to keep the stations running. The main duties of the station were to keep all intergalactic traffic from entering Earth’s solar system. Any doing so could be detected by Earth’s radio telescope or, if it came close enough, ordinary optical telescopes. It had been decided by some sort of galactic type United Nations body that Earth was not yet ready for first contact and until then all ships should be diverted around the solar system. I was reassured that this quarantine was mostly for the benefit of humankind, to allow us to develop along a normal path rather than be artificially accelerated by the discovery of aliens and their advanced technology. Earth was to be treated with kid-gloves, apparently we have an unusually rapid pace of evolution and technological development and there are civilisations out there billions of years older but less developed. So we are something of a galactic anomaly, child prodigies.

  Most intergalactic traffic was automated. The problem was that it went from A to B via the quickest route. Most of a journey involved Hyper Travel which was faster than light and didn’t cause a problem. However you couldn’t go straight from A to B because you had to make several stops for days or even weeks depending on the total distance. You had to drop out of it because the navigation computers had to be realigned to keep the vessel on course, unfortunately planets never stay still. Whilst in Hyper Travel navigation computers were useless which is why you have to stop to make course corrections. It was during this period that ships could enter the Earth’s solar system and be detected from Earth hence the need for the stations.

  Simon tried to ex
plain the complexities of Hyper Travel to me but most of it sounded like classical Greek and ‘ton ployon’. It had something to do with travelling beyond light speed and certain laws of physics changing in ways that the computers were not able to cope with which is why they cannot navigate until they are back in ‘normal’ space. There was also the problem that if you are using supposedly fixed points like stars to navigate then that also couldn’t be done because you cannot see light in Hyper Travel and that none of the so-called ‘fixed’ points ever stayed put. The words uncertainty principle, super string and dark matter kept on cropping up. Stifling a yawn I tried to look interested. Simon explained that these were Earth terms that barely scratched the surface of three states of Absolute Physics.

  The Galactic standards of physics roughly translated into English were Quantum (on a very small scale), Macro (what we can see as people) and Hyper (what happens when you travel much faster than light). Quite a lot of the Earth ideas and theories were a bit wrong. “And don’t get me started on the big bang” he commented at one point. The best explanation he came up with was “Space Travel is like moving through a maze. Only every time you move you have to shut your eyes. That means when you stop you can open your eyes but you have to ascertain exactly where you are before you can make your next move with your eyes closed. Going from one side of the Galaxy to the other may take a few years but it’s quicker than the hundred and twenty thousand years it would take crawling along at the speed of light, apart from the fact you cannot travel at the speed of light and if you could you’d end up with all sorts of time dilation problems.”

  “I don’t get it. What is Hyper Travel if you cannot travel at the speed of light?”

  “Making the mass of a ship travel at the speed of light takes an infinite amount of energy and cannot be done. Hyper Travel isn’t travelling at the speed of light, it is much faster than the speed of light, a sort of by-pass perhaps. The laws of Macro Physics work fine up to the speed of light which is why you cannot travel at the speed of light because the law says you cannot get there. Once you pass the speed of light the laws change to Hyper Physics and the energy requirements are very modest in comparison. So, rather than getting faster and faster to get you to the speed of light we miss all that part out and go straight to Hyper Travel. Simple isn’t it.”