Dreamspinner Page 10

  “Hello? Can someone help me please? I’ve lost my memory and need help. Hello? Hello?” The eerie silence creeped him out and he shivered as he looked both ways down what was a curving corridor. The sight that met his eyes was not one he recognised. Although his memories aboard the mid budget liner were scant, he did not remember seeing anything like the corridor he now found himself within. “I don’t remember anywhere like this on the liner,” he muttered. “Perhaps it’s one of the crew only parts of the ship.” With renewed hope, he went to the left and crept down the corridor.

  ‘Observation Lounge – Senior Officers only. All other personnel use the recreation room on deck five.’

  Realising that he was trespassing where he should not be, Jole walked briskly until he came to a set of stairs and an elevator. A map of the ship attached to the wall caught his eye and he wandered over. Within seconds, deep furrows creased his brow.

  “This isn’t the liner I boarded. That was twice the size at least.” Scanning the map, his frown deepened as he noticed the lack of swimming pool, concert hall, bars, restaurants, whorehouse, and library. As he studied the map, a memory floated back to his mind and the aching void grasped it, greedy to fill the worryingly empty vaults inside. He was swimming in the pool on board the liner, eyeing up a sexy blonde and laughing with some other young men his own age. Who they were he did not know, but his memory held a feeling of attachment to them, a tangible bond they shared. Where they friends? Student colleagues perhaps? At that moment, he did not know, but as he stood at the map and allowed the memory to flow back, he knew he was not aboard the liner anymore.

  “What ship is this then, and how did I get here?” he mused as he checked the map and wondered where to go. Deciding that he was most likely to find help in the security section, he pressed the button for the elevator and waited. Nothing happened and after waiting for a full minute, Jole headed for the stairs and descended to deck three.

  ‘Security,’ the bright yellow letters announced. Underneath, scrawled in black marker pen, was a message. ‘Inter-Galactic Elite Command, Unit 389C4 Headquarters. T Lindo Commanding Officer.’

  That sounded very official to Jole and he felt much better knowing there was someone from the Inter-Galactic Elite Command on board, although the name of the organisation caused no flutters of recognition within. He guessed it was some sort of top-secret military outfit of the kind the conspiracy theories he loved so much revolved around. He raised a hand to knock, frowning as he wondered how he knew he loved conspiracy theories. A smile teetered at the corners of his mouth when he decided that it meant he was getting more memories back. After knocking several times and getting no reply, he scratched his head at the lack of a touchpad that would afford him entry. Rather than walk away without at least trying his best, he resorted to force, pushing at the door several times and wondering how it was supposed to open. The sight of the key card slot gave him his answer.

  “I guess the security section has to be secure, even if the rest of the ship isn’t.”

  The corridor curved away in both directions as Jole stood outside the security room and wondered what to do. All the other rooms on this deck were the sort the public would not be allowed to enter, so he headed back to the stairs and the map. Taking the stairs two at a time, he went down to deck five. Crew quarters, dining room, and recreation room the map said. These were the only places on the map that ordinary members of the public might be allowed to visit. Hope still dared to beat within his heart as he entered the dining room.

  The large room was empty, and by that very emptiness, creeped him out. His heart sank as he approached the counter and called out. “Hello, is anyone around? Can someone help me? Hello, anybody?” His calls echoed in the lofty room and panic again rose in his heart. “What the fuck has happened? Why am I here and why am I alone? Please, someone help me. Anyone.” Brief pain gripped his fingers as he thumped his fists down onto the counter top, a mixture of fear and anger fuelling the outburst. Before his anger dissipated entirely, he used its energy to fuel the bravery to go behind the counter and into the kitchen. After noticing that it was also devoid of life, he was somewhat pleased to note an abundance of foodstuffs in store, enough to feed him for a long time. With a sudden burst of uncharacteristic courage, he helped himself to a large piece of Nolwik Cake and wandered next door to the recreation room.

  This room was divided into several areas. A large vidicom screen hung down from the ceiling, its movie library handset on one of the seats facing it. Rows of seats, enough for twenty people were set out in a curve facing the screen and Jole imagined faces etched with concentration staring ahead. He imagined the sounds of movies, gunfire, men laughing together, and women screaming as monsters grabbed at them. Several gaming tables sat along one long wall and he grinned despite the gravity of the situation in which he found himself. Those tables represented fun and he knew that somewhere in his memories were good times had on machines such as these. As he went to leave, images flooded his mind. He was leaving home, his bags packed and waiting for the hover bus in the centre of a town. Deep inside, he knew this happened recently.

  Opposite the gaming tables, a small stage, set up for live music, nestled beside the vidicom screen. Several musical instruments he did not recognise stood idle, waiting to be caressed by fingers or lips. In front of the stage, the dance floor echoed as he walked across. At the far end of the large room was an informal arrangement of seating and low tables and he imagined groups of people discussing topical issues, laughing and joking with each other. On the far wall, a window ten feet high by fifteen wide allowed a good view out into space, and Jole approached, transfixed by the sight. His last memory was boarding the passenger liner for travel to Mi’ikenway Da Duiea so it was not the stars gazing back at him that caused his unease. What troubled him was knowing he was now on the wrong ship with no memory of how he came to be there. He felt alone and terrified again but was unable to tear his gaze from the viewing window. That sight meant he was imprisoned as securely as if his leg were confined within the jaws of a Tiglan Trap. There was no option to leave the ship or run for help. Trapped and alone in space was a horrible way to live, but an even worse way to die, he decided as he sat down to think.

  Jole sat for nearly an hour thinking about the situation and wondering what to do. Fear glued him to the seat. Fear of being alone, being abandoned, of maybe never getting help and having to live alone on the ship for the rest of his life. All sorts of horrors invaded his empty mind and gripped his heart with icy fingers. His emotions swung between self pity and blind rage. One minute he was sobbing with fear and indecision, the next he was screaming in anger at being left alone to rot. Images of his parents came to his mind, reassuring smiles on their faces and he wished with all of his being that he were back home.

  “Why did I have to go and sign up for Mi’ikenway Da Duiea anyway? There were other options for my year in the field.” Shaking his head in frustration, he berated himself for his stupidity, as if admitting to such lack of judgement would somehow make things all right. He sat, and continued to sit until he realised that he could not sit there forever. Knowing that action is always better than inaction, he made a mental list of the facts as he knew them so he might formulate some kind of plan. “Okay let’s make a list of what we know,” he said aloud without wondering who, ‘we,’ were. It gave him more comfort than saying, ‘I,’ would, which would only serve to highlight the fact that he was alone. “There seems to be nobody but me around, so it might be a good idea to go and check everywhere to make sure. There may be someone injured or holed up somewhere who also thinks they’re alone.” This possibility gave him a precious ray of hope and his troubled mind clung to it greedily.

  By the time Jole sat back down in the dining room, he had made a quick tour of the ship and found no one around. A few of the rooms were blocked to him; the security room, bridge, and shuttle bay all had locks to which he did not have access. On deck five he found many staff quarters, all of which sp
orted a convenient key card that hung from a hook on the outside of the door. Inside the rooms, he found clothes and washing necessities, comfortable beds, showers and toilets. Finding nothing he recognised that might indicate one of the rooms was his own, he decided to set up home in room twenty. The understated but elegant decor within the room appealed to him and the number was the same as his age, which he chose to accept as a good omen. Deck seven had provided an enormous storeroom of everything he could think of that he might need. There was enough stuff in the various crates and storage bins to keep someone in relative comfort for years, he thought to himself as he walked around.

  After rummaging in the kitchen, he managed to prepare himself a meal of sorts, after which he decided to take his mind off his problems by watching a couple of movies. Afterwards, boredom quickly set in and he paced. As he strode up and down, he thought about the days ahead as they turned into weeks, then months and knew the boredom and loneliness would drive him mad if he did not find something with which to occupy himself. Not long later, he whooped as he flew along corridors, up and down staircases on one of the hover loaders he found in the cargo hangar. These machines were not built for racing by anyone’s standards, but it was fun and more than once, he bashed into walls and doors. It was after he bashed in the door to staff quarters room forty-two that an idea came to him and he grinned.

  Jole flew along the corridor on deck three, whooping and howling as he went. The door to the security room lay up ahead and he slowed as it came into view. Like a predator stalking his prey, he ducked his head down as he shuffled his feet into a secure position. A grin spread across his face as he flexed his fingers and gripped the controls. With a jerk of his wrist, he flung the hover loader into full power and held on for all he was worth. The machine shot down the corridor towards the security room door, closing the gap in less than five seconds. The confined space of the corridor did not allow him to approach the door head on, so he had to resort to a sudden and violent veer to the left, which sent the vehicle smashing into the door at an angle. A loud bang echoed around deck three, followed swiftly by a series of thuds and a dull pop.

  “Oh shit,” he groaned as he sat up and pushed the large irregular shaped piece of metal off his legs. The hover loader had successfully smashed through the security room door, which was unable to withstand the onslaught and broke into several pieces. Acrid fumes and a column of black smoke rose from the wreckage of the hover loader, which lay on its side on the floor, its engine having blown apart. Jole waved a hand in front of his face in an attempt to clear the fumes and stood up. “Nothing broken,” he muttered after giving himself a quick check over. After brushing himself down, he poked around.

  The security room was like a treasure cave to a bored young man of twenty, and within a few minutes, he was in the firing range he discovered through a door, testing out all the guns the lockers contained. Several of the larger rifles caught his shoulder painfully as they kicked back and he winced after his third attempt to control it failed. When the discomfort became too much to bear, he settled for a pair of impressively large handguns and was soon grinning from ear to ear as he acted the character he had seen in one of the movies earlier that day.

  “Go back to where you came from, asshole,” he yelled as he fired at the target, doing a remarkably good impersonation of the blonde actor. Laughing at the top of his voice, he stood back and caught his breath. He hefted the guns and knew instinctively that he had never been properly trained in handling weapons of any kind. Although fun, they felt somehow foreign to him and once he calmed down from his outburst of energy, he realised they scared him a little. For a fraction of a second, he toyed with the idea of blowing his own brains out, but the feeling was gone as quickly as it came and left him feeling vulnerable and sad again. Putting down the guns, Jole dropped to the floor in a corner and sobbed.

  Swinging from suicidal depression one minute, to hyperactive frenzy the next, Jole whiled away the next seven hours and by the time exhaustion dragged him back to room twenty to sleep, his mind was struggling with the trauma. Holes and dents pockmarked doors and walls all over the ship with the evidence of his more frenzied moments as he ran naked along corridors shooting the handguns with far less care than common sense should have allowed. By a sheer miracle, he had not managed to cause a hull breech with the guns, but several computer consoles were forever beyond repair. Three times the height of a man up the right hand side of the huge clear bullet shaped engine housing was a hole the size of a man’s fist.

  Sleep overcame him quickly and Jole plunged into darkness. His troubled mind rested in the calming blackness and tried to piece itself back together. Once the images began however, the cracks grew ever wider. Faces, blurry and indistinct, floated in and out of his vision. Huge and terrifying, they loomed over him, undeterred by his vain attempts to recoil from their touch. Frozen with fear, he tried to shrink into the mattress beneath him but found his body numb, as if anaesthetised by some strong and poisonous chemical. Strong hands gripped his shoulders and he yelped in fear, unable to wriggle away. He tried to force his hands to move, tried to make his fingers grip the sheet and fling it over his head. Maybe if he did not acknowledge the frightening shapes that loomed and shrank above, they would go away, he thought, but his fingers lay cold and still by his side.

  The bed on which Jole lay suddenly lurched and the room began to jerk and sway. Crying out in terror, he fought to escape but it was as if his body were not his own. Screaming in fear and begging for help one minute, he spat and swore in anger the next as he realised the moving shapes were taking him somewhere. From the darkness of the room, light exploded into his eyes and he counted the square pattern of illumination panels on the ceiling as they moved past. Trying hard to ignore the presence of the horrifying looming figures, he concentrated on the illumination panels above and counted them as they floated past. He found the counting strangely meditative and calming and hoped that maybe by concentrating hard on it, he might wake up from this dreadful nightmare.

  Sounds reached his ears, low guttural growls and swooping cadences that boomed as they swelled up and flowed down. The sounds cut his concentration on the counting and he felt panic once again rise within. Hot tears stung his eyes and flowed down the sides of his head to his temples. Another of the huge shapes loomed towards him and he squeezed his eyes shut as he sobbed, unable to move away and hide from them. The sounds came again, and this time he noticed a strangely soothing quality to the cadences, as if someone were attempting to reassure him. Between sobs, a new sound came to his ears and he turned his head towards it. A soft ping from his right that reminded him of elevator call buttons. The gentle swaying had stopped and above, the square illumination panels no longer moved passed. Jole realised his frightening captors, whatever they were, had stopped and he wondered why. The next thing he heard was an audible swish much like the sound the doors on board the space ship made. A lurch and a feeling of leaving his stomach behind had a wave of nausea swelling up inside and he groaned as he tried to breathe it away.

  Guttural growls echoed all around and he wished to put his hands over his ears and shut out the sounds. Screams filled the air and Jole felt something grip his shoulder tightly as something else wiped across his brow. Realising that the screams were his own, he tried to stem the tide of panic by squeezing his eyes shut and heaving deep breaths. The growls became the same soothing cadences once again and he listened as they gently swelled and flowed. The effect they had upon his troubled mind was swift and he felt his mind relax as the lurching stopped and he heard another soft ping before the gentle swaying began again. More illumination panels swished passed above, only these ones were circular instead of square. More sounds came, some deep and soothing, others shrill and frightening and Jole screamed, pleading to awaken from this nightmare.

  Swishing sounds came and went, circular illumination panels moved passed above and as he screamed, the lighted circles moved faster and faster until they were flying past him so q
uickly he was unable to keep count. All of a sudden, the gentle swaying stopped and Jole noticed one single circular illumination panel stationary overhead. The moment he realised his kidnappers had stopped their flight with him, something came down over his face. Despite moving his head from side to side, he was unable to free his face from whatever it was that pressed down upon it. Before he could scream again, he noticed a nasty taste in his mouth. His eyes snapped open as a moment of total clarity hit him. He was being gassed. A fresh wave of panic swelled in his mind and he held his breath as he struggled to move.

  For a few seconds nothing happened as he strained against his numb muscles. Then Jole felt himself gradually shrink until he was nothing but a spark deep within the darkest corner of his own mind. Safe at last, he allowed himself to relax as his awareness shrank away from the terrifying experience out there in the physical world and retreated into the deepest recess of his troubled mind. Without the sensuous input from his overloaded physical senses, Jole’s mind became clear and he heard sounds he recognised. Gone were the guttural growls and soothing cadences, and in their place was a voice.

  “Don’t worry Jole. Everything will be all right. Relax and let go.”

  Jole listened, relaxed, and let go. Just before his awareness switched off, he heard another voice join the first and listened in horror as he waited to wake up.

  “Too dangerous.”

  “Neutralise it.”

  “Wipe it out.”

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  8

  Tovis Kerral awoke and allowed himself a few precious minutes in the warmth and comfort of the bed before stirring. Snatches of dreams floated past his consciousness on their way to oblivion, and he registered the sound of wind in the trees and the vague memory of a soul crushing sadness but the reason for it evaded him. He kept his eyes closed and waited while it faded and left a gap that he knew should be filled with something. A feeling of loss swept through his heart and he frowned. Loneliness was not something he was too familiar with, but as he lay in the warmth of the bed, he suddenly felt lost, incomplete. Not being the sort of man to dwell too long on feelings and emotions, he yawned, stretched, and got up. After breakfasting lightly, he crouched by the open side of the communications station on the bridge and made himself comfortable.