S.W.A.T. (book 2 of the hexology in seven parts)

“Look mate you took the contract on. No one twisted your arm to do it.” Ron Wheelwright waved the order sheet at Dave Massey. “So get back out there and do your job.” The heavyset man turned to go, grumbling about the injustices of the world. And Ron watched his back disappear through the air lock, as it closed behind his heavy frame. It wasn’t as if it was a complicated job Ron thought. Just one suited for a more thorough contractor, and Dave Massey had given the company reassurances and letters of recommendation, from previous contracts. He should be able to complete the job, so why was he griping about it?

Ron took another look at the surveyor’s report, which had started his day off. Not the best way to begin a morning. He re read the document. “Office of construction regulation section 3f. Site survey for Geoff Oswald Delaney, general construction ltd. Average site reading for proposed erection bx33275. 0.37 parts per trillion. Suggested action is to re prepare site.” And then in red ink below it, the angry looking message. “Wheelwright you hired this joker. Get this sorted out, or you’ll be looking for a new job. I can’t hang around waiting for you to sort out your messes on every job. G.O.D.”

Ron crumpled the sheet, and remembered the last time he had messed up. Only that time he had tried to fix it himself, what a farce that had turned out to be. He’d almost lost his job over that. But after a chewing out Ron would never forget, he got his last chance speech. And went back to his office, determined never to get in that situation again. But that Massey had looked so good on paper, and he had undercut his nearest competitor by twenty per cent. Well that at least had backfired on Massey. With the penalty clauses invoked he’d be losing out on this job, and serve him right. This time Ron would stop the buck here, not like that other time.

He had skimped on materials then, but for what he thought was a good reason. Ron wanted a stable universe, one that would last forever. But much to his shame on that fateful day, when the boss called him in to explain his actions, he found out you just don’t do cosmological construction that way. “It’s got to flow you dolt.” Delaney had poked him with every word, to drive the message home. “Everything moves, haven’t you learned anything I taught you? Things just don’t work in a static universe. Energy has got to transfer, bodies must swirl, and the whole must expand and contract. And if it’s built right, a universe will inflate and contract a good few times, before it peters out. More than enough times to see many a civilisation get free of the cosmic egg.

Ron’s boss had waved the C.M.B.R. report under his nose. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice this?” And he had jabbed his finger at the dark patch on the oval diagram. Ron had flinched at Delaney’s accusation. “Did you think in your tiny mind, that I wouldn’t see a hole like this on the membrane.” Ron shook his head, as his boss threw the sheet on to the desk. “The whole thing’s leaking now. There are gravitons flooding in, upsetting the balance of forces. That sort of thing plays havoc with the physics. How do you think any life forms are going to learn about a universe, if it doesn’t even work properly?”

Delaney took the C.M.B.R. report again, and flicked through to page five. “They won’t even be able to travel faster than the speed of light.” He turned his formidable gaze on to Ron. “Imagine being stuck in a small corner of a whole universe you can see, but knowing you will never be able to colonise. It would drive any sentient being mad.” He slammed the report down once more. “The council could take my licence away for this. It’s only lucky for you, that I know someone in the multidimensional regulatory office. He smoothed it over, and reclassified it as a thought experiment, or you’d be out in the cold. Now get out, and remember if you want to play at being me, start your own construction company, and see where that gets you.”

Then Delaney had turned his back on Ron, as his junior left the room to get some much-needed sleep. For even before his boss had discovered his mess; Ron had been up all night trying to fix the problem. First off, with not enough Baryonic matter, Ron had to add some exotic matter to prop it up, while the Baryonic matter was setting so to speak. Scaffolding they called it in the trade, not that such practises were allowed these days. But Ron was desperate; and when that over balanced the accelerations, he had resorted to dark energy. That’s when it really started to go wrong, and the dark patch on the cosmic microwave background radiation report had appeared. In reality it was a vast gap in space-time, which had been ripped by the forces any universe wasn’t supposed to have to cope with. And to top it all, Delaney had got the report anyway. Before Ron could patch the hole, and make good. A procedure also banned these days, which would not only have saved his bacon, but would have definitely lost him his job, if it had been found out. All in all Ron felt he had got off lightly from the incident. So this time he was going by the book. Following the dogmatic rules that Delaney had set out religiously. And let Massey take any fall that was coming.