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Dark Chariot: & other Science Fiction Tales

by Keith Wakelam

475 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0782; ISBN 1-4120-2954-6; US$36.05, C$41.46, EUR29.61, £20.73

A collection of science fiction tales featuring new ideas on Dark Matter, Stargates, distant viewing, plague threats, spaceship technology and weapons and what it means to serve Satan.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book These four novelets cover the adventures of ordinary people caught up in weird adventures that bring them into contact with alien beings and powerful entities exercising unseen control of our destiny. There are the voyages of a scratch crew aboard a Space Shuttle cocooned in Solid Dark Matter, who revive an ancient species of Plant People on Mars. The publishing Agent who visits a friend in Spain and gets involved with shape shifters and a terrible plot to spread a plague on Earth. The girl who follows an Army career as a communicator not knowing she shares her body with an alien Guardian. She is posted to a special communication mission to the States and after being pursued by the C.I.A. in America becomes involved in piloting the Guardian's spaceship and fighting off an alien race, the Kurendara. In the last story a former Ranger who edits a New Age Magazine is contacted by Satan, because of his knowledge of the occult, and made to carry out a series of dangerous missions involving assassinations on behalf of the FBI, who find his lethal ability very useful.

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About the Author Apart from an interval from 1940 to 1946 in the Armed Forces the author worked for 40 years in the Ministry of Defence, mainly on weapon production and design, and feels well qualified to write about such matters. After retirement in 1978 he spent further time working in electronics at Surrey University until 1986. Retirement was spent in lecturing and developing systems of Mind Development, also writing on various philosophical and scientific matters. Book titles are The Individual Universe, Understanding Eternity, The Morphism of the Void, Biofeedback and the Human Energy Field, How to Open Channels and Read the Muse.

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Excerpts

Don Skelton watched while Dr Kemp thumbed the control that opened the huge hangar doors at the Northridge skunk works. As the doors slid aside he gasped with amazement at the sight that was revealed. The space shuttle filled nearly all the available room in the hangar, but it wasn't standing on its undercarriage. The wheels were retracted and the whole mass of the shuttle was supported on four tubular steel stands, one fore and aft and the other ones under each wing. Around the shuttle whirled a thin ring of brilliant light that emanated as far as Don could see, from a black box below the midline of the shuttle, from which numerous cables sprouted and led off to power sources and gas bottles. A piercing howl came from this apparatus and a reek of ionized air assaulted his nostrils. The bright ring flitted back and forth over the shuttle, encompassing its whole outline. As it flashed unceasingly Don could see that its axis was changing gradually as if it were winding threads on a ball of wool. As the ring of fire encountered each steel tube of the four stands it spluttered and cascaded a shower of sparks to the floor of the hangar.

The Doctor saw Don's attention focused on the steel stands

'Those holes in the cocoon will be used for steering purposes.'

'Cocoon?' Echoed Don.

'Not the same as cocooning for long-term storage. It's a cocoon that will take it out of our space.'

. Dark Matter not just out there somewhere, but all around us, invisible, chargeless having a mass/energy quotient and most important of all * spin. Just like the neutrino, but something else

As they looked up at the brightening sky there were several contrails visible, made by jagged lumps of ice weighing hundreds of tons as they burnt through the atmosphere. Fine snowflakes were falling and the ground was covered in a thin, white film. The landscape had taken on a totally different appearance. The black rocks were being covered and it might have been a scene from the Tibetan plateau. There was a stark beauty about it and it had become less forbidding. They could breathe the air below the ice in the Martian habitat and soon, maybe, walk here on the surface without EVA suits

'When you've been here a while you'll change.' El P. reflected. 'Look around you, down there over the roofs of the village. You can see all those miles clear to the Med. You look down on the tops of mountains 800 metres high. This pinnacle somehow pierces the veil of our sublunary world. It's a portal to other planes and sources of knowledge. These huge rocks act as a focus for the energy. Don't you feel the air is clearer and purer and your mind sharper?'

Nowadays there is a tendency to overlay other things that are socially or politically unacceptable - such as naked ambition, masochism, wanton cruelty, racialism, etc. A new candidate for overlays now seems to be the stark fear of alien encounters. The subject can be so heavily stressed that the overlays can happen in full consciousness, as we shall see. Especially if the subject lives naturally in a state of emotional flux (and you've met them!)

A long time passed, as nearly as he could define it. His view of the outer world through the chinks in the Wall told him that the child was growing up. In learning to read, he could mimick the child's efforts at comprehension and master the language. Likewise, there were opportunities to understand the customs of this strange place. From the way things happened with other beings he deduced that the entity in which he was trapped was female. Certain of her habits shocked him. He found the meat in her diet revolting. Then at times she would imbibe liquors that produced damaging effects on his perception. The sexual advances that were made to her were crudely distasteful. In all these things he made efforts to alter her behaviour, seemingly without success at first, but finally achieving his purpose

"Hallo ambassador. This is Captain Ross, ADNS at the Pentagon."

"Good morning Captain. No problems I hope."

"No, your Excellency. I called you over this secure line just to tell you that the chick you sent over fills the bill. She's through all the screening tests and has made contact. She's booked on a flight to 'Dreamland' tomorrow, so I expect you'll be getting some interesting stuff via the diplomatic channel within a few days."

"That's very good news. I want to thank you and your staff again for the very efficient way you've handled this tricky business. I'll be sure to mention this to the President when I next see him."

Lone Cloud motioned her to be seated in a wicker chair and curled up on the floor in front of her.

"I know you are the dark faced woman they told me would come. But to make sure lift up your right arm and bare it to the shoulder."

Mystified she did as she was asked. "There it is. Under your arm. What you call a mole." It is their mark." His eyes gleamed. "you had not known what it was?"

"Like you said. I thought it was just a mole."

"In your country a mole is also an animal that lives hidden in the ground. Is this not so?"

She nodded. "Then the meaning is clear. You are also the mole that must stay hidden."

"I have much to tell you and must not waste time. From the earliest history of our race we have had messages from people beyond the sky, who you would call Guardians. They have warned us that another star people, the Kurendara, have come here to make humans their slaves. Many moons ago they made a treaty with the Yankees, to share their knowledge in exchange for changing humans so they would know how to make their terrible weapons. These weapons are to be used in a war against the Guardians. Also the Kurendara have built a net around this world that turns our souls back from their happy hunting grounds, so the numbers of humans grows fast. They will all be needed as soldiers in this war.

"You must keep at your post taking these messages from the Kurendara. All that you receive is known to the Guardians. Your people, from the Kingdom across the ocean, like the Yankees, have also made this treaty with the Kurendara, for they sought knowledge in the same way."

"But why is it necessary to change people like this?"

"Because your science is flawed. You do not understand the forces that shape you and this world. You see the mighty winds come and lift up your houses, you see the earth shake and ruin your cities, but you still do not understand the dark, invisible power that lies behind all this."

"Be strong, for the Guardians are with you and you with them."

Madame placed her hands around the crystal ball and began to breathe deeply, rolling her eyes upwards. Then she murmured what appeared to be an invocation, though she spoke so rapidly it was difficult to follow the words. Her eyelids dropped and she shuddered uncontrollably and gave out a low moan. This went on for quite a time, then suddenly her eyes snapped open.

"You are in trouble. Many people are looking for you. You fear them." Her voice trailed away.

Marguerite made as if to speak, but Madame held up her hand.

"You need help in sending messages. Some new kind of device. I can't tell what it is. This is all very confused. The picture is fading. Now I see you with a group of people who are helping you." Madame shook herself and came out of the semi-trance. "It's all too strange for me to read. I see two people here, you and another entity trapped within you, since before you were born. It's not possible. I've never come across anything like this before. You have had a career in the Army of another country. That's over. You now have a career in another kind of* she hesitated. Another organisation like an Army, but much greater. This is all I can tell you."

The Medical Officer looked at the X Ray pinned on his lightboard and then down at the report he had written on his laptop. He shook his head sadly.

'I have no explanation for what I see on this X Ray. The subject M.Sanson WO III appears to have sustained massive crushing injuries to the lower ribcage and abdomen. There is scar tissue on both kidneys, bladder and liver, which appear to have been repaired by some means unknown to present medical science. Injuries of this severity should have invariably proved fatal. Also her ribs have been repaired with strands of some foreign material, having great strength and the consistency of bone, so that they are barely visible on the X Ray against the outline of the ribs.'

It happened when I was in the desert, the Mojave Desert to be exact. No, I hadn't gone there for forty days or anything like that. I was on my way back from the Casino Hotels on the Gold River, where the food and accommodation is cheap, and where I had a quiet spin at the roulette tables. I stopped at a little rest area, miles from anywhere. A level gray plain stretched away all around to the distant mountains. It seemed devoid of anything except the chaparral, gray like the dirt it rooted in.

I walked a little way into this wilderness, to stretch my legs and to see if I could spot any of the wildlife that was supposed to dwell in it. Nothing stirred.

The voice spoke suddenly and startlingly in my head. I looked around but no one was in sight.

'Hear me'. It said. The tone was that of country dweller, uncouth and rasping. It reminded me of something from my youth. Yes, I remembered those tones well and it was the accent I had striven hard to erase from my speech in order to pursue a career in middle class editorship. Despite all the trouble I had taken with elocution it had come back to haunt me.

'Yes, I speak in a way you cannot forget, however you may try.' The voice said, echoing my thoughts. 'You will listen for I have much to tell you.'

I thought for a moment I should go back to the car and turn on the radio loud to see if it would drown out this hallucination.

'You cannot escape me now.'

You have no choice. I make no bargains here. There is evil that dwells in all humankind. You, too, have deadly skills that you could be provoked into using. When in drink you could gamble yourself to ruin. Fail me and I will release that knot of evil within you and you will be destroyed by it.'

I knew that Satan could plumb the very depths of my soul and had found in it that which I could not admit even to myself. So it was I became his servant for a space and wrote his testament.

So the Sirians made you humans, with hands and minds and voices to sing their praise and labour for them. The first was called Adam and we were summoned to bow down and worship their creation, of which they had such pride. But I foresaw what greater evil could enter into such beings.

I saw how they had altered the body of a hominid to make it into an image of themselves, since their knowledge of genetic engineering was too crude to evolve a new design entirely. Since I was their adversary why should I worship this imitation of them. It would be my adversary also. Also, in spite of seeming whole, it had useless appendages like the appendix and tonsils, that they had not taken care to remove. They had used my reptilian brain, since it responded so swiftly to stimulus, but overlaid it with an arbiter of pleasure and pain, allowing the man thing to plot a path of least unpleasantness through circumstances, but leaving him prone to addiction, for this is how they meant to control their creation. The man's neo-cortex, formed in a great hood over the two lower brains was to be the key to memory, association, fine control of limbs and foresight that these men needed to function as farmers and keepers of a garden. They were also given the power of speech to be able to communicate in groups. Fools, for this meant I could communicate with these men, too, and fill them with fear if I wished, or even make them serve me.

That was when pandemonium broke loose. A number of young men up and down the aircraft suddenly stood up brandishing plastic knives they had kept up their sleeves. I suppose everyone on the aircraft had eaten their meals using plastic knives and forks. I often marvelled at how well they could cut the meat. They probably wouldn't penetrate thick clothing but could make a nasty mess of exposed flesh.

I couldn't hear what these guys were saying because everyone seemed to be shouting and screaming at once. It dawned instantly on everyone that the hijackers could be on a suicide mission intent on crashing the plane into a skyscraper in LA. Such considerations do concentrate the mind.

I saw that up front one hijacker had a knife to the throat of a stewardess and was demanding the entry code for the door to the cockpit. A second steward, out of sight in the kitchen, must have been an air marshal. He fired a Taser at the hijacker, who went down in a heap. This sparked a general surge of reaction by the male passengers, who rose up as one man, old a young alike, to tackle the hijackers.

My own instinct was to wait for a suitable opening to add my weight to the conflict. It is good military strategy to have something in reserve. As it happened the fight came to me. A young hijacker, screaming violent obscenities, was forced on to my lap by a red-faced, overweight business executive type, with blood streaming from a gash on his cheek. Well I hadn't spent time in the Rangers for nothing. I got my left arm around his neck with his chin in the crook of my elbow and jerked forcibly to the left. The boy went limp and the plastic knife fell from his nerveless fingers. I recovered it and offered it to the businessman. But he stood back with his mouth open in awe, dabbing at his cheek.

So I heaved the body off me and dumped it in an empty seat. Wrapping the knife in the airline magazine I made my way forward to where there appeared to be a standoff at the entrance hatch. Here a hijacker was holding several passengers at bay, flourishing his knife, while fumbling for the actuating lever with his other hand.

This looked serious. As I came forward, my upper body leaning forward in the approved manner, he lunged viciously at me. I blocked the thrust easily with my left forearm and fastened on his wrist. He flicked the magazine away contemptuously as I poked it in his face. This was his mistake. I thrust for the jugular with the plastic knife.

Satan's Promise

To all you humans who now inhabit bodies made from patching genes of hominids with those slave qualities the Sirians devised, I now ask, do you wish to continue worshipping those who contrived you as their sheep? Have you not awoken to those who hold you in thrall? Like splendid Eve, will you not rebel?

If you do not believe that you are slaves, try then to make slaves of those aborigines the Sirians did not touch and who die sooner than become your tame instruments. Slavery has run through all your societies in the past, because that was what you were intended to be.

Are you happy with bodies that fall prey to a thousand ills? That are short in life span, too short to gain the wisdom you need to reach the stars.

You are just hybrids, made by patching two genes of the hominids. These deficiencies are made plain when Mongol children are born, because the two patched genes have become separated. It is obvious how you lack the muscle power of the hominids.

Do you not see that you are imperfect creatures, burdened with useless appendages, except for a few, incapable of that second sight which brushes asides all calamities, that third eye that can behold other planes beyond the physical world. Your vision holds to a single patch, so your eyes must dart forever seeking light. Yet all around are things you do not see, wonders yet to be known.

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Catalogue Information

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