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HEROICS INC.

 

Part Five

The transport vibrated upwards on its journey.  Full of the   
thrill of release from its earthbound restraints, the automatic   
piloting mechanism hardly noticed the correctional craft that  
first plowed itself into a pulverised mess into the transport's  
side and was shortly after incinerated by the all-consuming  
ferocity of the big ship's fiery jets, a space transport had to  
expect some minor damage during the course of its travels and the  
little ship's extinction had barely managed to scratch the huge  
vessel's paint work.  
  
 

 
  
  
  
The upward motion at the point of entry was so rapid that  
Sulphur plummeted through several floors before managing to remove  
the intangibility belt.  It was a matter of luck rather than  
judgement that he managed to avoid the fate of their ship.  One  
more floor, and the resulting barbecue would have been fatal. As  
it was, the terrific force and speed with which the transport's  
hull greeted the dragon's return to solid form almost succeeded in  
achieving a similar result. It took a while for Sulphur to  
internally redirect and restore some of his more befuddled   
functions.  When he finally did return to conscious appraisal of  
his surroundings, there seemed to be a distinct lack of human  
presence in the cavernous metal storeroom.  
        Although Sulphur would never admit that his systems were  
capable of a feeling akin to anxiety, there did seen to be  
something mildly panic-stricken about the speed with which he  
moved his scanners to full power. There was no trace of Will on  
any nearby level and so the search began.  
        Fortunately, all of the vast holds that the dainty green  
talons laboriously traversed were empty, waiting to be filled for  
the return journey. After a while, Sulphur reached an area that  
showed faint signs of life. He followed the trail to yet another  
huge and bare storage area. The dragon cursed his sensors; they  
seemed to have been damaged by the impact, telling him that Will  
should be in the very area that he minutely surveyed.  It was  
typical of the human not to be where he was supposed to be.  
Sulphur was about to disregard the angry internal beeps of his  
life form locator when he heard a groan from above and looked up.  
        Will hung limply from the ceiling like a battered strip of   
fly-paper.  Sulphur magnetised his claws and soon managed to reach  
the upended side of his semi-conscious companion.  Will's apparent  
gravity-defying state was caused by the fact that the soles of his  
shoes were firmly imbedded in the transports hull. "Idiot!"   
Sulphur thought. I told him not to let go.  
  
 



 
  
  
Sulphur was not the only one who took a while to register  
Will's presence. Decades of mindless back-and-forth journeys  
between the third and forth planets had began to work strange  
anomalies into the functions of the transport's automatic piloting  
mechanism. To a point where it no longer even thought of itself as  
anything as mundane as an automatic piloting mechanism.  
        On this trip it was Buck Chandler; square-jawed, gum-chewing  
Major in the Star Corps.  Buck was on a death-defying mission to  
rescue his lover Princess Quarg and her people on Quantag Maxus.   
This was quite a leap of mechanical imagination for a system that  
possessed no jaw, no mouth, no Star Corps commission and no  
genitalia, it was extremely dumb, especially as the Orange Thingy  
had wiped out the population of Quantag Maxus ages ago, but no  
more dumb than the pilot's previous incarnation as Icarus on his  
weary-armed way to get a suntan.  
        The pilot's delusions just meant that occasionally, the  
system's attention wandered slightly, becoming diverted by non- 
existent galactic obstacles and resulting in a somewhat eccentric  
flight path. Eventually though, Buck had noticed the manic  
flashing stowaway alert light and routed emergency oxygen and  
gravity supplies to the relevant area.  For an instant, its  
curiosity was aroused.  It had been a long time since there had  
been a stowaway, but other matters soon intruded.  The unreal jaw  
firmly tightened as Buck casually avoided an asteroid that was not  
there and vaporised an imaginary cruiser of the evil Tolgan  
empire. Thrills and excitement were non-stop in the Star Corps.  
  
  
  
 

 
  
  
Thrills and a excitement were something that Will had had  
more than enough of for one birthday, as he weakly reached a  
painful and shoe-less awakening in a corner of the storage area.   
He knew that the transport was fast, but felt a grateful sense of  
relief at the knowledge that it would take days to reach Mars, all  
depending on its relative orbital position to, and distance from,  
the Earth.  
        It was rest and need for reflection that was sorely needed  
by both Will and Sulphur. Their lives had changed with alarming  
speed and it took a while to catch up.   
        So many of Will's reactions had been prompted by a level of   
instinct and decisiveness that was amazing considering his  
background and at the same time extremely disconcerting.  Will  
wondered whether the no assistance clause of the Queen's contract  
only existed on a conscious level. Were his reactions the result  
of dormant qualities, skills that humans were programmed only to  
use in a crisis?  Or had Sharon just performed an all parts  
service on his character without prior consent?   
        He could  not sense any radical difference but felt that he  
should wait a while to be sure, and allow some time for his numbed  
senses to each some sort of recalibrated level before he could  
really analyse the days events. Only one day - it was incredible.  
Despite feeling every bit as combat fatigued by the rapid  
transitions since morning, Sulphur still outwardly functioned with  
annoying coolness.  
        'You realise of course, that you have forgotten the first  
rule of life for a stowaway?'  
        Will managed a tired smile at the dragon's pragmatic tone.  
        'What's that?'  
        'Bring a packed lunch.'  
  
  
  
  
  



The Orange Thingy watched the distant escape of the transport from  
the Earth's orbit.  
        "No wonder these creatures are so backward, if their idea of  
space transportation is this sluggish and cumbersome toy."  
        Perhaps, with their limited intellect, they had not yet  
managed to harness the power of their own overlap states.  The  
overlap state was a strange dimension that all really advanced  
creatures were biologically capable of reaching.  Aeons before,  
the Thingy culture, like many other reasonably savvy developing  
societies had grasped the principles of true interstellar travel.  
        In a beings "awake" state, much that is imagined takes on a  
real dimension.  In the "sleep" state, much that is real takes on  
a imaginary dimension. Thingy scientists discovered that this was  
because the Universe of the Real and of the Imaginary existed, and  
sometimes overlapped, side-by-side.  By reaching for a subtle  
balance between the conscious and unconscious, one could make use  
of these "overlaps" and travel vast distances at will.  
        All you had to do to travel was to attain the level of  
overlap balance, instantly transport yourself to your destination  
area in the imaginary Universe, then just find one of many overlap  
points that existed in any spatial area and cross back to the real  
Universe.  
        It resembled the transport system that Mankind had long  
dreamed of, not knowing that they already were capable of it, a  
system where you could be broken down and reassembled elsewhere in  
an instant.  Using the overlap balance, you could disassemble  
yourself and overlap into the imaginary universe, travel, and  
return to solid form in a different physical location.  
        Of course, there had been a few casualties with this method  
of journey.  It took practice to fully master and you have to be  
careful or you could end up as a ghost, or as an hallucination  
trapped between the two complimentary levels of existence.  
        There were also economic problems; at first, there had been   
millions of redundancies at Thingy Transport PLC (i.e. Putrid  
Limited Company). But on the whole, the overlap state was  
considered a real boon to the commuter and managed to explain a  
question that had long puzzled Thingy philosophers.  Question: Why  
are objects in the universe so far apart? Answer: Distance does  
not matter because the Universes' creators did not mean physical  
distance to be attempted and only very, very stupid species would  
try it.  
        All this thought of transportation came about because the  
Orange Thingy was beginning to get bored, searching its mind for  
something to think about, The Orange One had one major fault,  
apart from general psychosis; it had the lowest threshold of  
boredom in creation.  Most of its really mean acts were part of an  
attempt to spice up its life and combat dullness; sometimes it  
even took risks, just to see what would happen.  It took a chance  
now, triumphantly emerging from its Moon disguise.  
        The result was disappointing.  There was no reaction from  
the shifting purple form on Deimos.  Not one acid-bathed lavender  
eyeball deigned to glance in the direction of the transformation.   
The Purple Thingy's minds were obviously elsewhere.  The Orange  
Thingy tried, in vain, to pick up the trail of his compatriots  
mauve mentality.  
        Whatever Purple was doing, had to be more fun than watching  
some pathetic little spacecraft.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



What the Purple Thingy was doing at that exact moment was  
watching some pathetic little spacecraft, as the Mars mining ship  
cruised above the reddish rock and Shepard plant-strewn surface of  
the Chryse Plantia.  
        The Purple Thingy also distantly monitored the progress of  
Will, Sulphur and their transport on its lethargic journey to this  
curious world.  The slowness of their travel was a source of great  
frustration to the Purple Being, but it had to keep more or less  
to the confines of the contract it had drawn up.  
        There might have been some brave and foolhardy souls of the   
opinion that the appearance of the Purple Thingy on Mars prior to  
Will's arrival did indicate a slight evidence of rule bending.   
Had the Purple Thingy been of a lower species that resorted to  
self-justification, It would have answered that this was a blatant  
lie.   
        It was Will's job as stated in the contract to engage help  
for the task; it was true that the Thingy could not help in that  
eventual choice, however, the contract did not state that the  
Thingy could not round up the few likely prospects and get them to  
one place to speed up that choice.  
        It was with this object in mind (or minds) that the Thingy  
had made its appearance, albeit with a change of sartorial tactic.   
Rather than once again face the ridiculous strictures of a solid  
humanoid form, the Thingy had projected an insubstantial image of  
Queen Sharon onto the fourth planets surface.  The Queen's task,  
to carry out an extremely taxing mission: Finding anyone on this  
red planet of renegades, rejects and runaways who was going to be  
at all useful.  
  
  
  
  
  
        


The first was a local call.  By Thingy standards the object  
was contemporary.  By mortal standards, the large Sarsen stone was  
extremely old.  Once long ago, this crudely carved and weathered  
shape had taken its powerful and honoured place in the inner  
circle of Stonehenge. That was before Mankind got the idea that  
enough money and influence could buy any foolish whim and  
unfortunately proceeded to prove themselves right.   
        It had happened a couple of decades before human misery and  
self destructiveness reached rock bottom and COMS stepped in to  
offer a future. Mars was like any boom-world in those distant  
days. Peopled by the monumentally wealthy, nouveau-riche few, and  
by desperate poverty-stricken crowds who wanted to emulate their  
success.  Life was especially cheap then, but there had never been  
a time when it was expensive.  
        The most powerful, feared, admired and possibly unattractive  
man at that time was Phineas T. Shepard.  He was the richest of  
the rich. The wealthiest man in either world, old or new, he also  
had one other trait that people talked about, having been the  
luckiest man in the Solar System.  
        He had been mining in the old oxygen pressure suits, on the  
verge of starvation, when fortune had struck and he had stumbled  
across an ancient subterranean structure.  Phineas had gone inside  
and found some ancient seeds, taken them home and nurtured them  
through trial and error, more out of boredom than botanical  
interest, hoping that anything the seeds produced would be edible.    
        The resulting plant was a phenomenon.  It did not need  
water, thrived on the Martian soil, propagated like bacteria on a  
corpse, and most importantly, it transmuted Mars' unpalatable  
atmospheric cocktail of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, argon and  
ozone into something very much like air.  
        Phineas did not realise that he had stumbled on a latent  
example of the very instrument of biochemical warfare that had  
accidentally wiped out the native Martian species a million years  
before.  He probably would not have cared.  It was not his fault  
that the Martians had developed a poison gas plant; all he  
bothered about was the air that it produced and the billions that  
it made him.  
        It took a long time and lot of hard effort to carpet Mars  
with Shepard plants and provide the Red World with a breathable  
atmosphere, but the financial rewards more than compensated.   
        However, Phineas was not completely happy.  He had always  
been active and once the setting up was done, he found that he did  
not have much to do.  Until one day, whilst sitting in his vintage  
champagne-filled jacuzzi, he thought of a solution.  He would  
create projects and tests of influence, designed to strengthen his  
hold on immortality and lovingly fondle his ever-expanding ego.  
        One such test was the transportation of a stone from  
Stonehenge to mark the landing site of the Viking Lander I in the  
Chryse Planitia. There was no logic to this and the stone looked  
naked and vaguely ridiculous surrounded by the oddly shaped plants  
that had paid for its journey. It was soon forgotten by the  
dwindling human population and by the army of hard-working  
machines that remained to ignore it.  
        Sadly, Phineas never got to see the stone in its new  
surroundings. He was killed in a bizarre and messy carpet-cleaning  
accident at his home shortly after the arrival of a consignment  
that bore, amongst other curiosities: the Sarsen stone,  
Tutankhamen's mummy, an Aztec altar and an Easter Island statue.  
There was talk of a curse but no one could decide what was  
responsible; Phineas had blasphemed against so many old gods in a  
bid to prove his personal power, it seemed only fair that one of  
the affronted deities should have the last word on influence.  
        The Purple Thingy did not care about any of this.  It was  
not concerned with futile Human stabs at immortality or with  
sightseeing. It had arrived upon the "plains of gold" with a  
purpose. To deliver a long overdue wake-up call.  
  
  
  
  
  
  




The thing about wake up calls is that to an impartial observer, 
they usually share one common point.  There is something vaguely 
alarming about them.  It has to do with the sudden noise  
or motion that suddenly jackboots itself to a position where it  
can best destroy even the most peaceful of slumbering scenes.  
        There was nothing loud or jerky about Queen Sharon and the   
movements of her insubstantial form, but the effect was still  
striking. One casual movement and the chill tranquillity of the  
rouged landscape evaporated to be replaced by a vibrantly charged  
atmosphere of controlled power.  Waves of energy started to build,  
rippling from the extended arm of the Queen, directed at the  
ancient stone face. Its surface responded greedily, absorbing  
every particle of this potent force as it started to grow and  
throb with a beating life-like pulse. More and more, the stone  
consumed its diet of energy, feeding with the wanton gluttony of a  
black hole, and more and more its surface writhed and bulged.  
Then, abruptly, the movement stopped, all seemed returned to quiet  
as the Queen relaxed into a posture of vigilant detachment and  
waited.  
        After a while, a thin line of brilliant light appeared  
etched in the stone.  Slowly the line moved upward, marking out  
the detailed template for an imposing humanoid figure. A line form  
that yawned as it reached completion and detached itself from the  
stone face to stand erect like some mad neon holograph.  Then its  
lined hand motioned and lurid beams of light seemed to burst from  
every point of the stone, enveloping, building, detailing the  
figure until with a final showy explosion, they were gone, leaving  
behind a very solid, very alive and very confused personage:  
Merlyn.  
        The Queen scanned the Thingy's many minds and compared their   
memory data with the being that stood before her.  This was not  
some ancient shaman covered in foul-smelling animal skins or a  
wizened mystic with a long white beard. Chroniclers usually forgot  
that the first thing a top class witch or wizard did, after  
spending sixty-odd years obtaining a level of power to do so, was  
rejuvenate their appearance.  Thus Merlyn, despite an expression  
of considerable puzzlement at his surroundings, still presented a  
surprisingly youthful aspect, that is if one disregarded his  
piercing blue eyes, which seemed a few days older then time.  
        He had been tall in his day but six feet was now a  
normality. Long hair of deepest black framed a hard and lively  
face, and a long, thick, intricately-pleated moustache hung down  
an either side of the thin mouth. He was obviously a product of a  
harsh, unflabby era. A modern observer might have placed the age  
of his thin, yet solid form at around thirty five and wondered  
about his obvious peak of fitness. Such an observer might have  
also speculated at length about Merlyn's long flowing silken  
robes, which seemed of indeterminent period or cut.  His costume  
was garishly plaid, covered in weird runes and incantations that  
echoed the subtle woad tattooing of his flesh.  All in all, he was  
an impressive figure, someone not to tally lightly with, someone  
to listen to.  As if to underline this last point he found his  
voice and spoke in a tone of rich authority that any actor  
would kill for.  
        Merlyn's words were uttered in a tongue long dead, one of  
many archaic languages that have only a limited purpose after  
their eventual evolution and extinction should have consigned them  
to a footnote. Restricted applications that had mostly served to  
swell the budgets of language departments over the centuries,  
making the lives of their students miserable before giving them  
something to bore people with in old age.  What Merlyn tunefully  
pronounced roughly translated as:   
        'Spirit, where in the name of all the demons am I ?'  
        'You'll find your answer over there, Magician, at the bar in   
Shepard City.' 
        The Queen pointed behind him with an imperious gesture  
of her hand and then promptly disappeared.    
        "Showoff!" Merlyn thought as he turned and faced the point  
at which he had been directed.  
        With the exception of the Sarsen stone, there was nothing  
but red rock and strange plant-life for as far as the magician's  
keen eyes could see.  For a moment, he paused, tenderly feeling  
the stone's rough surface, communing with this great object that  
had housed him for he did not know how many years.  
        He wondered what had happened to its companions. There had  
been talk of redevelopment in the area.  Moving some of the blue  
Stones at the observatory, some over-eager architectural  
innovators had even advocated abandoning construction of their  
huts in favour of new flashy stone dwellings.  
        "But this!"  He frowned at the landscape and shook his head  
at the absurdity of it all.  This was going too far.  
        There had to be an answer, and the spirit, be she fair or  
foul, had said that this lay somewhere before him. With a murmured  
incantation to the deity of travel, he started on his long  
journey, determined to find his answers and someone to pay dearly  
for his inconvenience.    
        Merlyn had some things in common with the greater throng of   
Mankind; one of these was that he hated being woken with a start.   
It made him grumpy.  
  
  
  
  
 

 
  
  
Will sat tensely perched upon the toilet and dwelt upon its  
history. The unit was a gleaming maximum customer comfort model,  
thoughtfully provided to prevent stowaways from fouling the  
transport.  Most appliances manufactured by COMS central were  
provided with mental and vocal functions. The human refuse  
disposal system was unique; an appliance that had had its speech  
privileges withdrawn.  
        Mankind tended to be greatly embarrassed by what they  
perceived as their lower animal functions.  The films and  
literature that Will loved had gone through a period of social  
relaxation and exhibited a marked increase in the amount of sexual  
activity on display.  This freedom had never extended to other  
commonplace acts, and there had always been major reticence to  
displaying an odd visit to the lavatory for its original design  
purpose.  Heroes and Heroines never did such things; they were  
indecent.  It did not matter what the situation, some fictional  
phenomena could spend ten years in a confined spacecraft or two  
weeks trapped underground with four hundred incontinent miners  
without the subject of waste disposal being raised.  
        All this had led the youthful and impressionable Will to  
presume that his need for the occasional use of his disposal  
system was a symptom of some outlandish renal affliction.  He had  
bombarded every available mechanical medical authority,  
withstanding quite a few rigorous and humiliating tests before he  
could be persuaded that nothing was wrong.  
        COMS had faced a similar credulity gap when it came to  
launching the talking toilet.  When the Cybernetic Operational  
Management Structure had first established itself in a position of  
global control, it had blitzed its public with a series of  
soothing advertisements depicting their rosy future.  Most  
everything had been absorbed and gratefully accepted by a  
population in the last stages of decay and desperation.  There had  
only been one exception and Will was sitting on its closest modern  
equivalent.  
        The problem had to do with an inherent bleakness in the  
outlook of the waste system that manifested itself in a  
distressing bluntness of language. It just was not comfortable to  
void oneself whilst your disposal system was loudly proclaiming a  
series of biting and acerbic opinions about your diet, liquid  
consumption and the lamentable aesthetic quality of the faeces an  
offer. Will could almost understand the toilets outlook. In olden  
times, it had been an almost normal reaction for those in  
unglamorous and unfulfilling work to develop a negative outlook  
and a sense of personal offence.  
        Will himself felt that recent events had only increased his  
great feeling of empathy with a moribund object that spent its  
life getting crapped on.  COMS had, after their initial  
disappointment, briefly responded with a disposal system that not  
only enjoyed its work but graphically informed you of the positive  
aspects of its job at great length.  But the new models failure  
was even greater and COMS in its only U-turn, or "U-bend-turn" as  
Will christened it, had finally bowed before the public pressure  
and the sheer weight of vandalised disposal machinery.   
        After jointly finishing his absolutions and train of  
thought, Will returned to the dragon's side. Sulphur, having long  
given up on Man's inefficient design, refrained from comment on  
his absence.  
        'You know.' Will said, thoughtfully shaking his head.  
        'It's strange, but, I always have this really odd feeling  
that the toilet's glaring at me for some reason.'

© Gary Cahalane