Exiled in Space

by Pel Torro, Lionel Fanthorpe, Patricia Fanthorpe

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

After being sent to the planet from which no one had returned and was guarded by barrier rays, Mac is able to return. But the rays had affected him and made him wish that death had been swift as the unknown menace began to spread.

Release date: December 30, 2013

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

PAUL MACKENZIE sat in a position of characteristic relaxation. He was lounging back on a low rexine and aluminium chair. The table beside him was wet with spilled alco. The glass in his left hand contained perhaps another half swallow of his favourite poison. He held it whimsically between his eyes and the coloured glow of the suffused neon tube.

Paul Mackenzie liked the way the light shone through the glass. He moved it down a little out of his immediate line of vision; the glass touched his lips with a feeling of familiarity. He knocked back the last half swallow and put the glass down on the table none too steadily.

The Steward was looking a little anxious; he knew well enough that Space Corps personnel, particularly officers of the galactic federation were not men to trifle with. He also knew Paul Mackenzie. The thought of drawing the redoubtable Mackenzie’s attention to the drinking regulations was not a thought that appealed to the steward. He was a smallish wizened sixty. His most urgent ambition was to be seventy and if possible eighty.

He edged his way obsequiously towards the corner of the Bar where Mac was lounging.

“We shall be closing in a few minutes, sir.”

“So night must fall.”

Mac looked at the Steward without any animosity.

“You wan’t be wanting anything further tonight, will you sir?” Mackenzie’s lined face wrinkled into a frown that might have been concentration and which might have been annoyance.

“Why?” he asked a little thickly.

“No reason sir, no reason.” The Steward backed a little. Mac brought his right hand on to the wet table top, the Steward looked at it and gulped. Up to that moment Mackenzie’s right hand had been concealed in his tunic pocket.

“You see this,” he asked grimly.

“Yes sir.” The steward was looking at the grey metal fingers.

“That used to be a hand,” said Paul. “You remember the Polaris trouble five, six years ago, or maybe more, a man forgets. He forgets, forgets dates.” His speech was a little slurred.

“Yes, sir, I remember the Polaris trouble.”

“Do you know what would have happened if the Polaris fleet had come through?”

“I can imagine, sir.”

“Do you know how they were stopped?”

“I know about the Galactic Federation battle with them, sir, and the way our lads went out helplessly outgunned.”

“All right, all right.” Mac cut him short, “we have heard the citations; we’ve had the medals. You are alive today and so are the people who make these blasted licensing laws because men like me were up there. I left this behind somewhere in space.” He flexed the artificial steel fingers of his right hand. “I left it behind,” he repeated. “I’m not grumbling, this is better than the original in a lot of ways. It’s just that people stare at you sometimes. Give me another drink.”

“Yes, sir, of course, sir.” The steward fetched another double measure of alco, wiped the table nervously and passed the glass to Paul Mackenzie.

“What I’m saying is this,” said the big astrogator, “I don’t mind what happened. I was one of the lucky ones. A lot of my pals in that flight left more than a hand behind. A lot of them never came back. What I do expect is to be allowed to get good and drunk when I feel like it, in peace, without being chased by little, insignificant, petty-minded men. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” said the steward.

“And whose side are you on?” said Mackenzie, “mine … or theirs?” He made a sweeping gesture with his left hand. It was a gesture that seemed to indicate the bureaucrats, the type of men who fill up forms in offices. “Years ago,” he went on, “one of the middle-aged women, who pass their time teaching in Sunday school, told me there were some characters called Pharisees. They used to keep every little tiny rule. They loved rules so much that they weren’t content with the rules they had; they made some more. Then they tried to impose their rules on other people. But because they were so concerned with the details, they missed the really big stuff. Yes, they missed the truth. The most important part. So don’t ever get yourself tied down to details, boy, look for the truth. It’s there, somewhere.”

Mac stared at the steward with the air of a man who has drunk himself into a position of amateur philosopher.

Suddenly there was a movement from the far end of the Space Port bar. The bat-wing door swung open and a white-uniformed aluminium-helmeted Envoy of the Space Corps marched smartly across to Mackenzie’s table and saluted.

“Why, hullo, Buttons,” grinned Mac.

“Special communication, sir.” The Envoy saluted again and handed over an ominous white packet. It was addressed to:

Major P. Mackenzie,

Galactic Federation Forces,

Space Port.

This looks interesting, thought Mac, as he took it from the smartly turned-out Envoy, who stood expressionless.

Mac glanced over his shoulder to satisfy himself that there was nothing behind him except the wall of the bar. Then he opened the packet. There was another one inside it. Typed on the outside of the interior packet he read:

To be opened after blast-off.

He looked at the blast-off time. It was pretty close.

“It looks as if you won’t have to worry about your licensing hours,” he said to the steward, “they’re sending me up.” He grinned.

“Good old Mackenzie!” He grinned again, looking in the bar-room mirror. “Good old Mackenzie. Off into space again. Heading for God knows where. Going to win another medal. Anybody want to come?” he stabbed a long, lean forefinger into the sternum of the steward. The man’s chest made an odd, hollow sound as Mac’s finger-tip made impact. The man gasped a little.

“But sorry,” said Mac. “Didn’t realise you were that fragile, boy.”

“I’m so … so sorry, sir. What were you going to say?” asked the steward, obsequiously.

“I was going to say, do you want to come?” Mac looked at the Envoy. “How about you, Buttons? Do you want to come? I could do with a page-boy to hold up the rockets. Thas’ goo .. d that; ver’ good. Say, whysh don’ you laugh?” his voice was slurring. They were looking at him through narrowed eyes. “You look as if you’re going to a funeral,” said Mackenzie. “Shay, don’ worry, boysh, it’s not your fune …eral. That’s X12 waitin’ for me out there. Thash my coffin, not yours.”

He shook himself and paused. His voice was steadier as he went on,

“They’ll stand by with crocodile tears running down their little hairy faces and wave their grubby little paws as I blast off to God knows where. And you will think to yourself, that’s the crazy Major. Mad Mackenzie! And you’ll wonder where they’ve sent him this time. I’ll tell you who else is wondering, boys, yes, I’ll tell you who the hell else is wondering. I’m wondering. I’m wondering like hell.” Mac ran a hand through his thinning, iron-grey hair. He waved the packet in the Envoy’s face.

“You see this, boy?” The Envoy nodded,

“Yes, sir.”

“This could be my death warrant. It could be my passport to hell. Every time that X12 takes off, the statisticians tell me that there is one chance less of it returning. Have you ever thought about that? One chance less! Of coming home!” His voice began to get thicker and to slur again. He staggered rather than walked to the bar.

“One more drink,” he shouted to the steward. “The condemned man ate a hearty meal, as they used to say in the good old days of capital punishment, God rot their socks.” He knocked back another double alco. “Hail, Caesar! Those about to die salute you. God bless the men who fill up forms in offices. And God save the X12 and all who sail in her.” He laughed wildly and flung over a chair. “And all who shail ins’ her,” he roared, drunkenly. His voice shook the bar. “Thass me. You unnerstand that. Me! I’m the all. I’m the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. The One and the Only. I’m the Captain and the Crew, the Bos’n, the Midshipman, the lot. Me! Largo el factotum.” The Envoy looked blank. “You don’t speak Latin,” said Mackenzie. “You haven’t missed anything.” He staggered out into the cold night air.

It hit him with sobering force. The lights of the Space Port beckoned like fairyland. Mac picked up his spinner, started the engine and skimmed out towards the waiting X12. Like a slim steel needle she towered ready; anonymous scurrying technicians had seen to that; they had been over her like ants building an ants’ nest, like bees building a comb, like wasps chewing that strange waxy substance in their weird little jaws. Men, wasps, bees, buildings, wasps’ nests, space ships, bee hives, ant hills. Did all of it amount to anything? Did any of it amount to anything? What the hell, thought Mackenzie. Probably it was all in the mind, as the psychiatrists said, but what was in the mind? Was there an all to be in the mind? The thought amused him.

He climbed unsteadily up the retractable boarding ladder. The Space Port seemed strangely silent. He closed the lock carefully behind him and sobered up a little as he began to make the essential checks. No space man who had lived as long and flown as far as Paul Mackenzie, ever forgot to check his essentials. Technicians were good and security was well up to the mark, but the man who breathes the oxygen checks more conscientiously than anyone else.

Mackenzie settled down comfortably in the deep anti-grav padding of his pilot’s chair. There were rows of switches and buttons, levers, knobs and dials all around him. It was a bewildering array, but Mackenzie was by no means bewildered. To him, what would have been a mind-shattering constellation of dials and controls, was as familiar as the back of his own hand, his left hand.

He was anxious to be off. He flicked on the radio.

“Major Mackenzie to control.” He had his voice thoroughly obedient to the dictates of his will; it didn’t sound slurred or drunk.

“Right, Control Officer here.” The voice was precise, almost precious; there was a trace of affectation in it. Affectation annoyed Paul Mackenzie more than anything else.

“I have sealed orders,” said Mackenzie, “have you been notified of take-off time?” he added.

“Yes, Major, we have been notified of take-off time. Everything is cleared for you.”

“Right.”

“We will give you a ten second count down, Sir.”

The sidereal chron lit up by remote control from the Space Port Officer’s tower.

Mac watched the seconds ticking off.

Ten … he thought. I wonder how much a man could drink in ten seconds.

… Nine .… Funny how fast those damn clocks go.

Eight .… Where are they sending me this time?

Seven .… Seems faster than ever.

Six .… A lot of places I don’t want to go; a lot of places aren’t worth visiting.

Five .… What if this is the last time I blast off? There has to be a last time for everybody. Should I be making more of these seconds?

Four .… What more can you do with them, he asked himself, sitting here.

Three .… Too late now, mate, you wouldn’t even make the door even if you tried.

Two .… Sit and wait for it, Mackenzie, it has happened a thousand times before, tell yourself it is going to happen again, tell yourself.

One .… He braced himself tense and hard; it was as though the steel from his artificial right hand had spread and contaminated the whole of his body until he was the stainless steel man, like a coiled spring; zero, and the ship was off.

The X12 lifted on a great plume of flight. The bird was flying. Mac settled back deeply into the merciful padding and watched the g counter, calculating the strain of the takeoff.

Up, higher and higher, rose the X12. Her needle sharp thin nose probing and pressing against the great dome, the blue vault of heaven, the celestial hemisphere. It was the dark blue of night now, thought Mackenzie and yet in a short while he would be out of the earth’s shadow and the sun would be blazing forth in all its glory. Night, he told himself was only an illusion. Light and day, these things were the truth; or were they? It was difficult to know. It was difficult to know anything. Space gave a man such strange thoughts. Space made a man look right down inside himself and examine his own soul. One learned the grandeur of the heavens in all their starry splendour. It made a man look down at his own innermost being and cry out with the voice of the heart, I have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

The g began to ease off. Mac unfastened the safety strap that was part of his pilot’s chair and moved the chair itself into a more comfortable upright position.

“Well, that’s another take-off over,” he said, half to himself and half to the control panel, “now, let’s have a look at these sealed orders.” He opened them. The steel right hand didn’t tremble as it tore the envelope. He opened them and he took out the microfilm. The microfilm viewer was immediately in front of him. He put a hand on the reading control and drew a deep breath as he read the orders:

“Major Mackenzie,

Galactic Federation,

Space Port 297,

In Command of X12.

You will proceed on computer course 946/001285A: Warp Co-ordinate B17J: Time Co-ordinate TS47, until you emerge at GR. Point 94 .…”

But GR. Point 94 had a nasty sound, as far as Mackenzie was concerned. GR. stood for Galactic Rim in references. The whole thing had been worked out by the colossal computer at Galactic Federation Headquarters. From what Mac could remember of GR. 94 it was horribly close to Baratar. He wondered whether this time they had given him the Baratar Mission.

He thought of the men he had known who had been on Baratar Missions. Mackenzie was not the kind of man who would have cried, at least not with his eyes; deep down within him his soul was sobbing bitterly. Jack Frayn he remembered, Hendon, Wilkins, they had been in his year at the neophyte star school. He chuckled; there was no humour in it; it was the ghost of a laugh. Some laughs can sound more pitiful than tears; he was remembering twenty years ago the star school, his friends there, Wilkins, Hendon and the others, the things they had done, the gloriously s. . .