Dale Mettam Read online

  The Professor ducked his head so that he could see inside the car, then straightened up and gave her a less than reassuring smile.” I’m sure he has some hidden assets that will make him completely right for the job that lies ahead.”

  Maggie shook her head in disbelief. “I think I’d like to go home now.”

  The Professor gave her a pointed stare. “It isn’t like I haven’t been trying to do that, you know.”

  “I know, I know. The TUR... The machine just has a mind of its own.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Funny how you managed to get it to come to just the place you wanted, to see this man who will save the Universe though, isn’t it?”

  The Professor looked offended, but wilted under the stare of his companion. He quickly stuffed his hands in his pockets, then just as quickly pulled out a small paper bag.

  “Allsort?” he offered, but stuffed the bag back in his pocket under Maggie’s glare. “Let’s be off then, shall we?”

  They trudged through the now muddy field as the rain began to fall even heavier. After some wrestling, the Professor stepped away from the door, which refused to open, and, with a swooping wave of his hand towards the door, he smiled sheepishly.

  “Ladies first.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes again, and with a sharp pull jerked the door open and stepped in.

  The Professor took one last look back at the car, nodding in satisfaction as the driver began to awaken. Still watching, he backed into the portable toilet with a sploosh.

  “Oh good gracious,” the Professor said. “Maggie? Maggie? Be a dear and get me another pair of trousers will you? I appear to have stepped in the bowl, and you know how those blue chemicals stain one’s clothes.”

  With a groan and a headache, Kirk woke up. For a moment, he hoped that this had all been a bad dream, but the insistent whine of a car engine in distress caused him to rethink that.

  Carefully he checked for broken bones, then attempted to pull himself out of the car. As he looked into the field, he saw the woman in the Scottish costume enter the portable toilet, and thought this whole incident had left him with the same pressing need for a toilet; or at least a fresh pair of shorts. Then he noticed the curiously dressed man follow her in before the entire toilet seemed to fade in and out of view. It finally disappeared completely, leaving no sign it had been there, but for a small blue stain on the grass.

  He must have hit his head harder than he thought. He looked around, but there was no sign of George.

  As he sagged back into his seat, he watched a very strange helicopter land in the field, and wondered if this was another hallucination.

  Chapter Two

  “Mr. Deighton?” A woman’s voice came through the fog in Kirk’s head.

  “He’s dead!” Kirk moaned.

  “I am looking for Kirk Deighton, sir. If I could just have a moment of your time?”

  “I told you, I’m dead. Now bugger off and let me rest in peace!”

  “Mr. Deighton, it is very important that I speak to you.”

  “Look. Just go away and leave me alone. Can’t you see I’m having a very bad day? I’m hoping that if I’m left alone in this field, no one will find me for a while and I’ll have a small amount of peace.”

  Abruptly, Kirk was jolted as the car door was ripped off its hinges and he was pulled up and out of the car by his collar. He opened his eyes to see an attractive woman with thick, dark, long hair and flashing eyes. She was surprisingly slight in build and at best, no taller than five feet, six inches.

  “Kirk Deighton?” she asked.

  Kirk nodded, mouth agape.

  “We do not have much time. You need to come with me now.”

  Kirk didn’t move.

  “I can appreciate that this might be a little inconvenient, and I promise that all your questions will be answered, but we do need to set off as quickly as possible. Time really is a factor here.”

  Kirk still didn’t move.

  “Okay., my name is Lu Pillah, I have been sent to bring you back to...” A puzzled look crossed her face. She looked down at the portable tape player on her belt and cocked her head as if listen-

  She nodded.

  “My name is Lu. I have been sent to bring you back to the Head Office.”

  This seemed to make some connection with Kirk. “Head Office?” said Kirk cautiously. “Am I going to be prosecuted?”

  Lu looked down at the tape player again, then back at Kirk. She gave him what she felt was her most charming smile, which actually caused Kirk to take a hesitant intake of breath.

  “More a promotion than anything else,” she said.

  “Promotion?”

  “Yes, you are going up,” she pointed skyward to emphasize the point. “Higher than you have ever been before, I promise.”

  Kirk was even more confused, but a sense of relief was starting to settle over him now that he was almost completely sure this woman had not come to add any more misery to his already overflowing store. He was sure that as long as she didn’t smile at him again, things might even be looking up.

  “I should go home first,” he said, suddenly aware that he was dirty, wet and his clothes were torn. “Probably make a better impression if I looked smarter.”

  “You look fine to me,” Lu said. “Come on. I will get you a change of clothes on the way. Maybe I did not make myself clear. We are on a deadline here.”

  Reluctantly, Kirk stepped forward.

  As they crossed the field, Kirk couldn’t understand why he had to jog to keep up with Lu. He was a good eight inches taller than her, and as he stared at her back, he could see she was simply walking. Her pace was brisk, but walking nonetheless. There was no way he should have to run to stay a yard behind her.

  Another thing began to worry Kirk. Why were they walking across a field to a helicopter, if he was, in fact, being recalled to the head office? He didn’t even know the company owned a helicopter.

  “Where exactly are we going?” he asked hesitantly.

  Lu looked back over her shoulder, never breaking her stride. “I will explain more when we are in the...” She glanced down at the tape player on her belt again. “When we get back to the Shopper.”

  “Do you mean, chopper?” Kirk asked.

  “That is what I said,” Lu answered, shooting a sharp look over her shoulder at him.

  “English isn’t your first language, is it?”

  Abruptly Lu stopped and turned to face him. The grim smile on her face did nothing to reassure Kirk. “Actually, I do not speak English at all.”

  Before Kirk could respond, she spun and set off at a renewed pace.

  “Come on,” she ordered.

  “Before we go on, I have to ask, do I know you?”

  Lu paused and smiled. “I really doubt that,” she said.

  “Only, I feel like I should know you. I admit, it isn’t the first time I’ve had that feeling today, but are you sure we’ve never met before?

  “”Never,” she answered. “Now come on!”

  Kirk hesitated. Nothing about the day so far had made him think his luck was changing, or at least changing for the better. And now he was following a woman walking faster than she seemed realistically able, intent on flying him to see his former employers, and he was not totally convinced they wouldn’t insist he make good on the thefts committed under his watch. But then again, his calendar was pretty free at the moment, and when he weighed up his options, he was still left with the empty feeling that he had nothing left to lose. He set off to catch Lu.

  As Kirk got closer, the vehicle that met his eyes was nothing like he expected, even allowing for the fact he had watched it land, and it had sat in the same field as him for several minutes now. It was, in theory, a helicopter. What kind of helicop
ter though, was a different matter entirely.

  The rotor blades on top of the main cabin area looked entirely too small. When he followed the tail back to what, in theory, should be the stabilizer rotors, he had to rub his eyes. At first glance, it appeared the blades sat atop the tail, but when he looked closer, they were mounted on the side. Wherever they w ere placed, they seemed entirely too large to just work as stabilization. The longer Kirk studied the vehicle, the more it hurt his eyes. He felt a headache starting.

  Lu was at the chopper now and had stopped to see where her passenger was. Kirk came trotting up, rubbing his eyes.

  “Just what kind of chopper is this?” He asked.

  Lu slowly turned and examined the chopper.

  “Er... a new one,” she said, obviously uncomfortable with the question.

  “You mean a prototype?”

  “Exactly!” Lu seized upon his suggestion with relief. “You should consider yourself honored. Not many people on this planet will get a chance to ride in something like this.”

  She turned and patted the chopper, then took a quick glance to see if Kirk bought her story.

  His expression suggested he hadn’t.

  “Come on,” she barked at him. “As I said, time is a factor here, so we really do need to get

  going.”

  She reached for the handle and opened the cabin. The sound of pressure equalizing surprised Kirk, but as Lu quickly disappeared inside, he was left with two choices. Get in, or make a run for it.

  After the way she hauled him out of his car, he knew he was going with her no matter what. It was only his relative comfort level that was left to be decided.

  He took a deep breath and climbed in. As the door sealed shut behind him, he was left wondering how long before his alarm clock was going to ring, because what he now saw could only be a dream.

  Lu quickly took off her tape player and placed it in a console apparently custom made to accommodate it. She slid into the pilot’s seat and ran through her preflight checklist.

  “Sit down and fasten yourself in,” she ordered, her eyes never moving from the controls. Kirk was also staring at the console, but for totally different reasons. If this was the cockpit of a helicopter, it must be a military one. The last time Kirk had seen anything like it was in a book about stealth aircraft used by the Air Force, and looked like it had been lifted straight from a science fiction movie.

  “Are you military?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  “No” replied Lu glancing across at him. “Now strap in, we are ready for take off.”

  Kirk took the copilot’s seat and fastened the safety belt. Lights flashed and small monitor screens displayed information in a language Kirk couldn’t understand. He looked out of the main window as his stomach lurched and the vehicle left the ground.

  Kirk had never been in a helicopter before, but he was pretty sure there was no way they should be accelerating upwards as fast as they appeared to be when he glanced out the window. “We aren’t going to the head office, are we?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Well, not the one you thought.”

  Anyone viewing the chopper from the ground might have been surprised by its rapid rise. But it had disappeared into heavy clouds before anyone could question the vehicle or note its markings for any detailed investigation.

  Kirk watched clouds whiz by vertically through the window and an uneasy thought crossed his mind. They were still rising. Fast.

  As he continued to watch, the chopper burst through the clouds and the sky was darker than he expected. Still blue, but a deeper, purplish-blue now and dark enough that he could see stars.

  “This head office we’re going to...?” Kirk said, ominous dread now creeping over him. “It is on Earth, isn’t it?”

  Lu turned and gave him that reassuring smile again.

  “Is there a toilet on board?” he whispered.

  Chapter Three

  Approximately 873 light years away, questions of a very different nature were being asked. The Lord High Persuader was working diligently at his job. His subject was, without a doubt, the hardest case he ever had to crack. He was a professional who really loved his work, but this case was testing even his considerable skills and patience.

  His long thin tongue flicked out over his eyes, as it did when he was under pressure. He caught himself and gave a slightly self-conscious smile, showing a lengthy row of small sharp teeth.

  No one had ever held out this long against his well-developed line of reasoning. A small shred of doubt began to enter his thinking.

  “Look,” he said. “You have yourself admitted that there is some degree of rationality to my argument, yes?”

  A large gelatinous blob, about a meter across, floated in a heavily shielded Containment Cube across the room from the Lord High Persuader.

  “You have made an interesting argument, I will concede that,” the blob responded.

  “Then why not accept that everything else I said is correct? Surely you cannot be happy in your current state of containment?”

  “Confinement is a state of mind, not a state of the physical.” There seemed to be a note of humor in the voice suggesting that, if there had been a face on the blob, it would have been smiling.

  “And what about all the benefits?” the Lord High Persuader asked. With a swift motion, he drew an ornate sword from its sheath and swung it in a lethal arc behind himself, lopping off his own scaly tail with alarming ease. “You have to admit, knowing that it will grow back in a few weeks makes for a more relaxed outlook on life.”

  Again, he got the distinct impression the blob was smiling at him.

  “Were I not contained within this chamber,” the blob said, “I could show you not only how useless that would be to me, but also just what you yourself are truly capable of.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the Lord High Persuader.

  “We have been together now for some time, you and I,” the blob said in a seductively reassuring tone. “I have seen that you are a capable man, yet you can be so much more.”

  “You think so?” the Lord High Persuader bristled with pride.

  “Most certainly,” the blob said.

  Hesitantly, the Lord High Persuader stood.

  Slowly he began to walk towards the controls maintaining the shield around the Containment Cube.

  Suddenly, the doors at the far end of the room burst open and four members of the High Guard marched in. They were dressed in gold-plated armor under rich crimson robes, with billowing capes of deep, dark blue. The Lord High Persuader spun at the sound then sank to his knees.

  Behind the High Guard strode the Lord High Grand Provost of Prio. In his wake shuffled the Lord High Prime Minister, making notes as he walked, eyes constantly darting around.

  The Provost surveyed the scene with a look of imperious contempt. As the party reached the Lord

  High Persuader and the Cube, the Provost gave a lazy wave towards the Persuader. “Kill him,” he ordered.

  Before he could protest, the Lord High Persuader was dead. With ruthless efficiency, the first of the High Guard had lashed out, and now the Lord High Persuader’s detached head stared lifelessly at his equally detached tail.

  “Weak-minded fool,” the Provost muttered, staring at his former Lord High Persuader. He glowered at the Containment Cube and the blob within.

  “You are responsible for his death, of course,” he told the blob. “The irony is that he was your one chance of avoiding the pain to follow, Hg’Wlz.”

  “You honor me, Buhl,” said Hg’Wlz. “It is the first time since my arrival you have addressed me in person.

  The Provost stiffened. “You will address me by my title. Buhl is the name that was given me by the Y’lem. I no longer acknowledge that name,
or your right to use it.”

  The blob began to shiver. At first very slightly, but as moments passed, the movements became increasingly more exaggerated.

  The Lord High Prime Minister stepped forward, a sneer playing across his mouth. “As well you should quake in fear, Y’lem. But for the mercy of the Lord High Grand Provost, you would be dead.”

  He was about to continue when he noticed the shaking blob had taken on a new form. Limbs appeared, and a head, with a face, had clearly started to develop as well.

  “I was under the impression that the shielding was strong enough to prevent him from assuming another shape,” said the Provost, a hint of fear betrayed in his tone.

  A member of the High Guard ran to the controls and checked the monitors. “It’s at maximum power, my Lord.”

  When they turned their attention back to the Containment Cube, Hg’Wlz had finished. He now had the reptilian appearance of the other Prions in the room.

  “Is this what you wanted, Buhl?” he said. “You want me to become one of you?”

  “I warned you once about the way you address me, Y’lem. I will not do so again,” the Provost seethed. “You had your chance and you failed to take it, condemning this honorable servant to death.” He pointed at the body by his feet.

  With a grand flourish of his cape, the Lord High Grand Provost spun and began to depart.

  “Prime Minister!” he barked. “Prepare for the conversion of our guest. We are forced to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “Very good, my Lord,”

  “And we will need a replacement Lord High Persuader. See to it.”

  “As you command, my Lord.”

  The doors slammed shut leaving Hg’Wlz alone with the Lord High Persuader’s corpse.

  Strain appeared on the face of Hg’Wlz. When he was sure he wasn’t likely to be disturbed for a while, his body shook violently, snapping back into the loose shape of a gelatinous blob.

  “I am sorry for your death, my friend,” Hg’Wlz addressed the body. “If it is of any consolation, this was when you always die.”