STOWAWAY TO THE STARS

The girl now gripped the backrest of his seat with her right hand, and the pistol trembled in her other hand. Her eyes burned with fury as her words tumbled out. “What the hell were you doing, you miserable bastard? Don’t you care if I shoot you for what you’ve done? It’s what you deserve.”

Larry needed to buy time to think. “Don’t shoot. What have I done to upset you?” He lowered his eyes in a submissive gesture. It had the bonus of allowing him to study her weapon.

She launched into another tirade, something about him killing her sister. He let the words wash over him as he weighed the options. From the way the girl stood much too close to him, she seemed to be inexperienced. It would be simple to knock her arm away before she could shoot, but dare he risk it? The gun could go off, and he couldn’t chance a stray bullet damaging the control panel or ricocheting round the cabin.

On the other hand, the pistol didn’t seem to be cocked, and the knuckle of her trigger finger did not show white to indicate initial pressure on the trigger. A blow on the correct spot on the inside of her wrist ought to numb the hand and make her drop the weapon without firing it.

“Well? Answer me, damn it.”

She’d finished by asking him something. He made up the start of an answer as best he could, to distract her. “You have to believe it, I swear it wasn’t me . . .” As he spoke, he struck fast with the edge of his palm at her gun hand, aiming for the critical spot.

She screamed as his hand slammed into her wrist. The gun flew safely toward the back of the cabin.

He tensed in the expectation that she might try to retrieve the weapon. Instead, she launched herself at him with renewed fury, lashing out, clawing at his face with her fingernails.

He fended off her flailing arms, trying to soften his blocks so as not to hurt her more than necessary. She had no idea how to fight properly, but she had surprising strength and speed. Two or three times she broke through his defenses, once leaving a streak of blood across his neck.

Eventually he managed to catch hold of first one wrist, then the other. Thwarted from scratching him, she tried to kick, but the seats got in the way. Instead she tried to bite his hands. He avoided her teeth and swung one arm over her head so that she faced away from him, pinning her arms against her chest like a straitjacket. She struggled and squirmed, panting heavily, and he had to grip hard to restrain her.

“Look,” he said, “this is getting us nowhere. I have no wish to hurt you. If you stop struggling, I will let go and we can talk.”

She stopped suddenly and glared at him over her shoulder, her eyes still on fire. You could always tell from the eyes. She wasn’t ready to give up yet.

“Okay,” he said, still gripping hard, “I’m not stupid. You have to promise to stop before I let go. And if you break your promise, I will not be gentle with you.”

Her shoulders slumped, and the fire faded from her eyes. She gave an almost imperceptible nod. He released her, and she turned back to face him as she sank into the rear seat.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asked defiantly, rubbing her sore wrist.

“Do to you? Why should I want to do anything to you?” What to do with her was the problem.

“Oh, come off it,” she snapped back, tossing her head. “Don’t give me the innocent act. I’ve found you at last, but I’ve messed up. Rachel’s dead because of you. No doubt I’m next.”

By all the saints, you had to admire her spirit. Exhausted and defeated, and for some reason thinking he would harm her, she still showed no fear, just a tired defiance. He probably ought to be annoyed with her, but he was much too intrigued by what drove this firebrand of a girl.

“Please believe me, I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never met anyone called Rachel. Who is she and why do you think I have done something to her?”

She clenched her fists, and for a moment he thought she might launch herself at him again. “I don’t believe you. I spotted the surprise in your face when you looked at me in the bar. You thought that I was Rachel, come back from the dead. She told me that you sometimes met up in a bar. I’ve been looking for you since the day she died. Today I finally caught up with you.”

The girl’s accusation didn’t make sense, but he was curious. “So why would I think you were Rachel? Oh, wait, the strange disguise. Were you supposed to look like this other girl?”

“‘This other girl’ was my sister, you bastard, and I do look like her, dressed up like this. I had you fooled at first.”

Larry shook his head. “Lady, I’m sorry you have lost your sister, but that was not why I looked at you. Of course I’m going to stare when someone walks in with a ridiculous wig and a lot of unnecessary padding. Look, I don’t think I can get you to see reason any other way, maybe this will help.”

He moved down the cabin to where her pistol had fallen, retrieved it, and handed it back to her. One of his favorite techniques was to wrong-foot his opponents. She wouldn’t actually use the gun now. She was clearly confused and looking for answers. Only hardened psychopaths could really kill someone in cold blood.

“If you still don’t believe me then shoot me. I don’t know what else I can say that will convince you.”

****

Karen stared at the gun in stunned disbelief. Could this be a trick? Or had she made an awful mistake after all?

She set the pistol down next to her and looked back at the man, seeing him properly for the first time. He was medium height, probably in his early thirties, good looking with fair, curly hair and pale gray eyes. He had an open expression that didn’t look right for the face of her quarry. Her impetuous nature seemed to have landed her in trouble again.

“Oh, hell,” she said slowly. “I don’t know, I was so sure that you were Rachel’s boyfriend. Who are you then?”

He settled himself in the seat opposite her. “I am Laren’hi.” He spoke in a very precise fashion and pronounced the name with a sort of cough in the middle. “Laren’hi Jalid Rasilii, but everyone calls me Larry.”

She looked round. When she had first hidden the light was dim and her attention was focused on her mission, without paying much attention to her surroundings. She had assumed she was in a motor home with fancy styling. But it was like nothing she’d ever seen before. The four seats and strange instrument panel seemed more like an airplane cockpit. It was still only early evening, but what looked like windows showed pitch dark now, punctuated by stars that were startlingly bright and didn’t seem to twinkle. Even the air smelt different – a stale, metallic tang.

“So what on earth is all this?”

“It’s exactly what it looks like. I thought you might be impressed. Most of my other passengers have been.”

Most of his passengers were probably blonde bimbos. They might indeed be impressed by this fancy display.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you. I assume it’s a kind of computerized simulator.”

“No, it’s my ship.”

His ship? Was he trying to kid her that it actually was a spaceship? That was absurd. It might work with his gullible girlfriends, but not with her.

She’d watched pictures of space launches. They were huge, dramatic events. The astronauts were pinned back in their seats by the rockets, which made a deafening noise. But the most certain giveaway was that she was still under gravity. The one thing that made space travel so different was that astronauts were weightless in space.

On the other hand, it was over the top for a babe magnet. She felt rather foolish and wanted to get out of this fix, but it was all so peculiar, and her curiosity was too strong. What the hell had she stumbled into?

She tried a different tack. “Why did you turn away from me when I confronted you? What was so important you didn’t care that I was threatening you with a gun?”

“We came under a missile attack. You were very close to getting killed, and the way you distracted me didn’t help.”

Missile attack. What sort of stupid answer was that? “If you won’t tell me, just say so.”

He grimaced slightly and pulled at his earlobe. “I’m sorry, I think this will all be hard for you to believe. Before I explain, I want to know how you got here and who you are. And I suggest you take off that silly disguise.”

Damn, she didn’t want to appear compliant by doing what he told her, but it would be nice to get rid of it all. She pulled the cheek pads out of her mouth, took off the glasses and peeled the wig from her head. She shook out her own hair and flicked it away from her face with another toss of her head. The padding would have to stay, Rachel’s clothes wouldn’t fit her without it.

She was starting to relax and getting used to the idea that she had fouled up. Now to square things with this guy who she had quite unjustifiably attacked, and see if she could persuade him to overlook her indiscretions. Oh yes, and she needed a lift home as well.

“I’m Karen Marshall,” she said. “That’s a funny name of yours, is it foreign? You have got a slight accent.” She’d noticed it straight away, but couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe Eastern European, not quite Germanic, but fairly hard. And he had a precise way of speaking – English probably wasn’t his native language.

He laughed. “You could say that. I will tell you more in a minute. You have not yet told me how you came to stow away in my ship.”

Why did he get to ask the questions? She was the one with the gun. On the other hand, she would like a lift home. She was way out in the countryside, miles from anywhere. “Well, it’s simple. When I thought you recognized me in the bar, I went outside to wait for you. In the parking lot I’d seen what I felt certain must be your car, typical flashy sports car. I checked with the bartender. He confirmed that it belonged to you.”

She waited for Larry’s reaction, but his expression gave nothing away. He didn’t seem to be offended, maybe he didn’t care what she thought about his choice of transport.

“So I slipped into the footwell at the back, hid under that coat you have in there, and waited for you to drive away.”

Larry looked puzzled. “Did you not feel anything when you got in?”

“It’s funny you should say that. I did feel rather queasy, but I put it down to nerves.”

Larry said, half to himself, “Yes, of course, the aversion field has a proportional response.”

Karen shook her head. “I’m not sure what you mean. Anyway, that’s what I did. I had my pistol ready in case you saw me, but you didn’t.”

Larry smiled. “I was miles away, puzzling over what I had done to upset you so much.”

She didn’t know whether to be flattered or annoyed that he was thinking about her. Had she really been that obvious? So much for her scheme of surprising him. She swallowed hard, collected her thoughts, and continued.

“I stayed tucked down to find out where you went. As far as I could see you drove way out into the country. Then you parked your car in the barn and opened the door of this . . . well, I’m not sure what it is.”

She stopped. Maybe he would answer her implied question. But he just sat and waited, so she felt obliged to carry on.

“Anyway, when the barn door slammed, and you went to fix it, I took the opportunity to run in through the open door and hide in the back.” She pointed to the rear of the ship.

“Now I understand,” he said. “It never occurred to me that someone might hide in the back of the car. I should have realized the aversion field only protected the front.”

That was twice that he’d mentioned an aversion field. What the hell was he talking about? Oh well, it didn’t matter. She’d answered all his questions and he obviously wasn’t going to answer hers. Maybe he’d let her go now.

“Look, Larry, I don’t want to be rude. I know I’ve made a mess of things and trespassed in this – whatever this thing is. I’m sorry about attacking you earlier, but do you think I could leave now? I’d like to go home.”

****

Larry had a big problem on his hands. How could he make it clear to this poor girl that her request was impossible? Any other time, the challenge of coping with a stowaway and concealing the truth from her would have made an interesting diversion from his boredom. But she had to choose the same trip that the Ziloni ambushed him. Now there was no possibility of returning to Earth any time soon. He was stuck with her, and somehow he had to explain the whole complicated mess.

“Before we get to that, I would like to ask you something, Karen,” he said. “Have a good look around this ship. Look at this instrument panel.” He indicated the controls, that included the 3-D holographic viewscreen and various other instruments with what must surely be very strange markings to her.

“Look out there,” he indicated the canopy above, through which burned thousands of bright stars in constellations never seen from Earth. “Now tell me, what do you think this ship is?”

Karen shook her head slowly. “I’m not at all sure. I assumed it was some sort of futuristic motor home. There are a pair of bunks in the back. But this inside is weird. And what I really can’t understand is why it looks as if it’s dark outside.”

Larry sighed. He had suspected that she wouldn’t realize where she was. After all, she didn’t expect to come across an alien spaceship hidden away in an old barn up in the hills, and his ship was nothing like the huge, cumbersome rockets her people used. It would be difficult to convince her of the truth if she was rationalizing it into something else. She’d just have to believe what she wanted until he found a way of showing her the truth.

“Karen, you are not even close. The trouble is, it’s not physically possible for you to go home right now.”

“Rubbish. I’m not staying here another minute. Don’t try to stop me.” Stopping her was the last thing he would try. Let her find out for herself – though doubtless she’d still blame him.

She picked up the pistol, retrieved her clutch bag from the rear, and marched over to the door. The opening mechanism was obvious, a large lever next to the door that currently lay horizontally across it. She pushed up on it and it moved easily to the vertical position, leaving the door clear. For a moment a look of relief showed on her face, then she jumped as a warning siren sounded and the red light that had been glowing steadily over the door started flashing. She pushed against the door and pressed the recessed pad beside it, but nothing happened.

She turned back to him, raising the pistol once more. Her anger had returned. “You must have locked it when you got in, or somehow by remote control,” she snapped. “Let me out, or this time I really will shoot.”

Maybe it wasn’t so clever to give her back the gun, but even now, he doubted she could shoot someone in cold blood. Larry shook his head sadly. “Karen, would I have given you back the gun if I had planned to keep you locked in? Can you see any lock on the door? If you can’t open the door, shooting me will not get you out. Try anything you like to open it, you won’t succeed, though I’d prefer it if you would close the lever again. That awful sound will not stop until you do.”

Karen examined the door carefully, tried pushing at it in several places and pressed the recessed pad in the wall alongside the door twice more. But the safety locks kept the door firmly shut. Nothing short of explosives would open that door while the pressure differential existed. At last she reluctantly lowered the lever, which silenced the insistent noise of the siren.

Larry watched her from his seat, careful not to make any sudden move. He mustn’t spook her more than she was already. “It’s as I said, I have no wish to keep you here, but that door is not going to open at present. Look, I promise that everything will become clear soon if you bear with me for a little while longer. I want to show you some more things that might help you to understand what this is all about.”

She paused for a few moments and frowned, then she nodded. “All right, but I don’t trust you, so don’t try any tricks. I’m keeping out of your reach this time.” She stepped back and gave a warning wave of the pistol.

“Don’t worry, I have no intention of upsetting you. I shall make another jump in a moment. I should warn you that you will get that same strange sensation you must have felt earlier. After that, there will be more to see outside the ship.”

He had to get her off the ship, because while they were inside she would never believe that they were in outer space. That suited him fine. Just one place remained that would be safe from the Ziloni.

He moved to the front seat again, while Karen watched warily from behind the second row of seats. Larry dialed the setting for Hideaway on the hyperspace control panel and punched for another jump. Again the tearing sensation, and the stars outside the canopy vanished, snuffed out by the appearance of a huge, blood red sun that lit up the cabin. The automatic shielding in the canopy darkened to cut the light level down to a gloomy red glow.

Karen grabbed the seat back for support and clasped her forehead with her other hand. “Oh, what a weird feeling.”

“Was it uncomfortable? Some people find it a painful experience.”

“No, not really. Just odd. What is that peculiar light coming from outside the window – well, I thought it was a window, but it can’t be. Larry, what the hell is going on?”

“Would you believe me if I told you it’s exactly what it looks like – a red giant star, and we are in outer space?”

She snorted. “Yeah, and I’ve been abducted by aliens. How stupid do you think I am?”

Not stupid, confused because you don’t understand what has happened. And you haven’t been abducted, you stowed away.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You will have to wait just a little bit longer. Meantime, keep watching and enjoy the view.”

He rolled the ship away from the sun. The canopy cleared and stars reappeared. He continued to roll the ship until the planet he was looking for appeared, reddish in color because of the light from the red giant.

As usual, the ship had come out of hyperspace still with the high velocity it had been travelling at after the missile attack. Larry pulled back on his joystick, trimmed for cruise reverse thrust and sat back to let Karen watch for a while. Their course curved toward the planet, it grew slowly larger and the surface markings became more pronounced. After a short while he decided that he should start laying the groundwork for the shocks to come.

****

Karen still struggled to make sense of what she saw. It looked exactly like she’d expect if they were in space. But that was pure fantasy. Anyway, if they were in space, why was there that planet that looked a bit like Mars and the gloomy red star outside, instead of the sun and the Earth?

The planet had no clouds or surface water, but large ice caps and lots of structure in the reds and browns that made up the land coloring. In places, craters and various streaks of light and dark scarred the surface. The planet appeared much larger than the moon did from Earth, and half was in darkness.

Larry turned to her. “Karen, I expect part of your confusion is because you don’t understand how we could have travelled to a different star.”

How strange. He had accurately anticipated her biggest objection. She nodded.

He said, “It turns out that well away from the gravitational fields of stars and planets, outside what we call the hyperspace boundary, space is folded up. So it’s possible to jump through hyperspace from one fold to another, many parsecs away.”

Now she knew he was full of bullshit. “I read in a magazine article that travel to the stars would always be impossible. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.”

“That is true,” Larry replied. “But there is no law against taking a short-cut through a higher dimension, which is what hyperspace is. Your Earth scientists are now theorizing about the possibility of higher dimensions. They have already discovered that three-dimensional space is a surface on a higher-dimensional entity called a brane. The gravitational force appears so weak compared with the other forces like the electromagnetic force and the weak and strong nuclear forces, because it isn’t confined to the brane. The hyperspace unit uses that to jump from one place on the brane to another, but it only works where there isn’t a large gravitational field like you get near a planet or star, outside what we call the hyperspace boundary.”

Oh yes, that’s a likely story. Couldn’t you come up with a better excuse than that? But she decided not to comment again.

“To keep the journey short, we accelerate all the way to the hyperspace boundary at around fifty gee. So the hundred and fifty thousand kilometers journey only takes about a quarter of an hour. It doesn’t matter what speed you are doing when you make a hyperspace jump.”

Karen gave another snort. “That’s impossible. No one can stand more than about ten gee.”

“Absolutely right, so to withstand that much force you have to have gravity compensation for the passengers. With that they don’t feel anything. They don’t even need to wear seat belts. Anyway, as you can see, we are well into the deceleration stage now and aiming for the sunny side of the planet.”

Larry pointed outside. The planet was indeed growing large and was all in sunlight.

It was time to put an end to this silly story, he was spinning it out too long. “You’re talking about this as if it were real. If it weren’t such a ridiculous idea, I’d think you really meant it.”

“Don’t you believe what your eyes are telling you?”

“Of course not. I’ve seen enough computer animations to know you can simulate anything.”

Larry didn’t reply, but looked at her with a sad little smile.

Karen felt bemused. Could his outrageous story be true? No, that was ridiculous. This had to be some fantastic computer simulation of space flight, though it was an amazing trick how he achieved the effect of the view moving across the canopy as she moved her head. She was certain now that her earlier guess was right. The show was Larry’s method of impressing people, particularly prospective girlfriends, she suspected, or in her case, his stowaway. What a poser. However, it all seemed harmless enough, and the view was getting spectacular.

She pocketed her pistol, slipped into the right-hand front seat beside him and sat back to enjoy the show.

Before long, they had slowed right down with the red planet above them and filling the canopy. Larry moved his joystick and the ship tipped until it pointed straight down at the planet surface. A whistling noise started faintly, and it steadily increased in pitch. Karen recalled the same noise when she had been hiding, but this time it rose to a much higher-pitched whine than before. She looked around, but the sound didn’t seem to come from anywhere in particular.

“What’s that noise? I heard it earlier as well.”

“It’s the sound of the airflow over the ship. We are well down in the atmosphere now. Normally you have to stay under the speed of sound to avoid creating a sonic boom. But this planet is deserted, so it doesn’t matter and we are descending at about Mach five.”

He was still sticking to his pretense.

Soon features became visible on the ground below. Karen could see mountain ranges, gorges and plateaus quite distinctly through the crystal clear air. The craters that had been visible much earlier were now huge. She marveled at the amount of detail in the show. It had to be a show – didn’t it?

She shook her head in irritation. Of course it was. His excuses were absurd. Hyperspace, gravity compensators – what else would he dream up?

They appeared to be heading straight down toward the edge of a large plateau and she developed a sensation of falling. The descent slowed down again as the ground at the foot of the plateau began to rush up toward them. The sensation of falling built up so much that Karen had to put her hand out to brace herself on the instrument panel in front. Larry pulled back on his stick and brought them to a hover a few meters above the surface. They floated there briefly, staring directly downward in a stomach-churning fashion, before he leveled the ship and they settled onto the ground.

“Wow, that was fantastic,” exclaimed Karen. “A bit like those surround cinemas where they show a roller coaster ride that makes you want to sway with the motion, but even better.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Larry gave her a wry smile.

The simulation now showed a broad open plain of bare rock that looked chestnut colored in the somber light of the red giant. The plain stretched into the far distance, studded by tall pillars of reddish rock. It was a bit like the desert scenes in old westerns, but even more barren and with a depressing air from the gloomy illumination. The graphics were amazing.

Beyond the plain rose a range of brown hills that stood out sharply in the clear air. Nowhere was there any trace of vegetation, no trees, bushes, grass or even primitive lichens. Close by on the door side was the edge of the plateau, a sheer, ochre-colored cliff, pitted with cracks and holes that looked as if they could be the openings to substantial caves. The cliff towered over a hundred meters into the cloudless sky, that was much darker than on Earth and bluish green.

Karen knew she would regret asking, but she couldn’t resist. “Why is the sky such a strange color?”

“The sky on most planets is blue because atmospheric dust particles scatter blue light much more than red. But this red giant doesn’t have much blue light in its spectrum, so there is less scattered light here, and what little light there is, is more green than blue.”

More science. This guy was obsessed with it. Her gut feeling that she shouldn’t ask had been right.

Larry turned to his control panel and pressed another pad. A hissing sound came from the direction of the door and her ears popped. He looked back at her. “I’ve equalized the cabin pressure with the outside, which will release the safety locks. You might like to try the door again, Karen.”

She turned to look at the door – the light above it now glowed blue. Larry watched her with a flicker of a smile. A sudden premonition sent an icy shiver down her back. She had an urgent need to get the door open and see the familiar blue sky and trees and Larry’s barn. She hurried over to the door, moved the handle up again, and pressed the recessed pad beside it. This time the door folded outward and down with a quiet sigh.

A blast of freezing air hit her. Above her hung the gloomy red sun. A short distance away the ochre cliff loomed up into the dark green sky.

She gasped. “Oh dear Lord, it’s real!”