Another Space in Time, Returns

By Richard Bunning

This is the standalone sequel to Another Space in Time. The new reader isn’t disadvantaged by having missed the earlier story. Rodwell is seen as very much a local hero as he continues his new life on Axa-Goranas. He has now more or less come to terms with the ridiculously unbelievable idea that one can be re-born, and even into another dimension. Life is becoming almost routine as Rodwell looks forward to the birth of his new child. Married to a young, beautiful wife, having a tolerable job, and living in an idyllic environment, life seems different, even approaching perfect—that is, until the police start looking to take advantage of his resemblance to his twin brother in order to penetrate a terrorist organisation. What were once mere character flaws start to have an increasing influence on Rodwell’s activities as he struggles to deal with the impossible demands of the police, and the potent dangers of mixing with terrorists.
Suddenly all those who Rodwell knows and loves are in danger, including his new baby daughter. Will the growing harshness in his nature help him to survive, or is the job too big even for Rodwell this time?
Arthur Fieldman, Carlton Heath, Nethertown, Lincolnshire

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Bunning
• Release date: Mar 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476176420

Richard Bunning

I am currently a writer of speculative Science Fiction. Thank you to all who read my books. I review other peoples works in many genres, specialising in helping promote self published and small publishers authors. My main reviews site is at http://richardbunningbooksandreviews.weebly.com

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Another Space in Time, Returns

Richard Bunning

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © Richard Bunning 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, audio, visual or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner. Nor can it be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar conditions including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Every effort has been made to seek copyright permission for quotations and illustrations published in this book; any omissions are regretted and can be rectified immediately.

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This book is a standalone sequel to Another Space in Time

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Chapter a: BACKSTORY

_______________________

This book is the continuing story from ‘Another Space in Time’. As with that previous work I dictated all my detailed memories, which were recorded, sorted, and then transcribed by Richard Bunning. Both books are accurate in every detail.

My name is Arthur Fieldman, farmer of the parish of Foxton, Lincolnshire, England, Planet Earth. Could I have written these two books for myself? Probably, given time and a fair wind, but as a still working, elderly farmer, I would have always struggled to find the time. This is especially true as the routine demands of the land seem in my old age to take ever longer. My health received a boost when I received my replacement heart, but one can’t for long turn back time. My failing eyesight is now also an increasing impediment. The young ones are no longer prepared to struggle with the demands and isolation of farming, mine included, and who can blame them? If I were still young I believe that even I would head for a potentially easier life in the city.

My strange ‘inheritance’ needed to be properly recorded sooner rather than later. I really feel that the completion of this, the second half of my story, might just help a few sinners and non-religious individuals gain some sense of direction and purpose on their journeys into distant futures. Once Richard and I started this project I almost immediately felt an urgency to complete, so as to minimise the chance that this strange inheritance would ever be lost. The inevitable approach of my own death gave poignancy to my efforts, not through regret but sadness. The sorrow is driven by the realisation that however well Richard writes, many will treat this as just another work of science fiction. Note well that the melancholy is not to any degree based in my personal demise. I am an old man with aching bones for whom death is provided with unexpected promise by my, what must be God given knowledge.

I had no hesitation in using Richard’s help again, so benefiting from his long history of ghost writing for ‘wish-to-be-authors’ who lack fair ability. Some of his works would be a surprise to regular readers who rest unaware of the shenanigans of the publishing industry.

It’s truly amazing that it isn’t my lived history that is recorded in these pages, but the memories of another man I know as well as I know myself, even though we never met. One can say that I acquired a synaptic memory of every detail resting in Rodwell Richards’ mind, at the point of his death. Nowadays I carry not just the record of my own life, but also that of this other man who last lived on Earth in a modern family home on Goil Stripe Lane, in Foxton. This is a small town in the English county of Lincolnshire. He worked as a middle-ranking officer of the European Department of Border Security who, having come to know too much for the powerful to risk, was one night ‘dispatched’ by a bullet to the head. His body, when police eventually gave up on his case, ended up to be long forgotten in cryogenic suspension. This potentially beneficial store of replacement parts, as chance had it, was to be used years later to save my modest life.

Amazingly, it seems that though Rodwell was truly dead, as we understand the concept, he somehow then spent a very active period in another space and time, in another world. I have no doubt at all that this other place really exists. During this strange life, and, as I understand it, for some time after, his clinically dead body was kept going on a hospital ventilator. A medical scientist reviewing this case might argue that he was merely experiencing vivid dreams in a comatose near-death state. I who have his memories beg to differ. This other life that I truly believe was enjoyed in a parallel dimension, on a planet named Axa-Goranas, just had to be recorded for posterity. It would have been a sin for me to have died without ever giving readers a little glimpse into the possibility of some sort of continuing future. The truly religious reader may gain no personal reassurance from Rodwell’s gifted history, but others will. Of that I am sure.

The rationale is that this other place exists in another fold in the space/time continuum, which could be physically close, or may equally well be some astronomical distance away. Reborn at the same chronological age as he was at death, onto this other, very earth-like planet, Rodwell was soon falsely accused of multiple murders. Labelled as a terrorist, he was literally forced to fight to preserve his new life. This happened even as he struggled to come to terms with the loss of his earthbound family, and with the idea of his unfathomable inter-planetary travel.

By the time I restart the story, Rodwell has become something of a local hero to the people of Albion, on Axa-Goranas, as a result of the events in ‘Another Space in Time’. After the initial hiatus he settled down to life, establishing himself as an accepted member of Goranian society. Tranquillity was, unfortunately, again shattered after only one Goranian year. Too many criminal noses had been put out of joint, and too much of the establishment required his help for Rodwell to be left long to enjoy the good-life. Is it strange, or inevitable, that this character came to reside in a similar cleft between flawed establishment and powerful criminal organisations, on both Earth and Goranas?

I suspect that it was inevitable that Rodwell’s new existence was soon thrown back into commotion as the forces of law and order engaged him in the ongoing struggle against terrorism. The News networks of this China-sized saucer of a planet, lying under its bright pulsar sun, were to once again make front-page space for the activities of this notorious Arrival. David Bowie once famously sang, ‘Time may change me, but I can’t change time’. Well, just possibly time actually has little permanent influence on us, but our nature does.

In truth,

Arthur Fieldman

Chapter b: PROLOGUE

_______________________

As that I have recorded and transcribed. I like to think that those who have read the earlier book, ‘Another Space in Time’, might just remember it being written in the present tense, as though Rodwell narrated the book even as he saw events unfold. I Arthur has explained, this is the second book of Rodwell’s memories admit that in both books I have reinterpreted his stream of consciousness to make it more coherent to readers, but I have not intentionally altered any subtlety of meaning. This is necessary, as much of our thought is broken, ungrammatical, and of no consequence in understanding the course of events.

I wonder at the fact that any such detailed memory stream was stored at all, even by Rodwell. Added to which we have to accept that this was all then passed into a second mind. The whole thing is truly amazing, just out of this world! How great is our ability to store knowledge, and if it is so huge why can’t we normally recall every detail? I have no clue, but I am aware that some individuals labelled as autistic have fantastic recall of certain memory streams. I personally don’t remember many minute details of past events. However, for some reason first Rodwell, and then Arthur, were, I believe, capable of repeating every small nuance. I had to listen to my recordings of Arthur over and over again, yet however many times I looked from different angles, or asked complicated questions, every word was a perfect fit . . .

Enough, or else you will put this book aside for ever. Ok! Go and have a stretch, walk the dog, do whatever, but please try to find the fortitude to read the rest of Rodwell’s story. In the main, the tempo of this second part builds slowly as the tensions of inevitable consequence flex their muscles. However exciting true life may be, for the greater part of the time new dynamic changes come only after long periods of barely simmering regularity. That is how any chronologically accurate diary reads. Only fiction, and fabricated timelines drawn across historical events, can cause a novel to boil opportunely towards the end of every chapter. In the mind of the narrator, the story that follows is anything but fiction and fabrication.

To recap for a moment; my friend Arthur, who ‘carries’ this story, had what could easily have been a terminal heart attack. He was lucky enough to be saved by receiving the heart of long-dead Rodwell Richards. This replacement organ, retrieved from the cryogenic stores of the Transplantation Service, was older in chronological time than Arthur’s failed one. Nevertheless, in the hasty need to find a rare tissue match it was very gratefully received. Apparently this long storage of scarce tissues is becoming increasingly common as preservation techniques improve. I chuckle at the idea of one potentially being kept alive by a heart far older than oneself; but however freaky this may feel, ‘beggars can’t be choosers’. I guess the recent recreation of mammoths and their establishment as a breeding herd in London Zoo is a sort of proof that time is not necessarily a barrier to biology, just as I believe Rodwell demonstrates that death is no barrier to our physical existence. Is it too fanciful to think that, along with the Siberian mammoth’s recovered DNA, an animal’s memories could have been re-established as well? . . . I’m now getting carried away, aren’t I?

I am sure it is clear that Arthur’s heart attack was so massive and unexpected that there was never the possibility of growing him a new heart from his own tissues, making transplantation of another’s organ his only survival option. How on Earth he inherited Rodwell’s memories, including every private nuance of thought, along with his wonderfully healthy heart, only God knows. Both the advance of science and the flux of religion seem unable to explain this mystery, at least for the present . . . On a tangential thought, life for the rich and powerful is already extended obscenely far.

Until now we have been spared having to fear science’s finding a way of extending the minds of the ruling elites into completely new replacement bodies. Imagine a world in which Hitler’s, Pol Pot’s and Bin Laden’s terrifying minds had been kept indefinitely alive. Unless we get to grips with the world birth rate, the excessive extension of the lives of the elites has no moral justification, even when, on odd occasions, they are truly benevolent members of our kind.

In this century of resource depletion and environmental collapse, it is only reasonable to strive to enhance the quality, and not the excessive quantity, of people’s days. Fear of death should not be allowed to drive an unnaturally long extension of life. Anyway, who knows, but just perhaps this strange tale can tranquilise at least some fear of death for those of us who believe ourselves to be godless, or who suspect that we haven’t sufficiently endeared ourselves to our vision of God.

Arthur and I recently reminded each other of how we first met on that Payerne train, as it ploughed its way through unusually deep December snows above the shores of Lac Léman. I had started to read a copy of ‘The Week’, which drew us into English conversation. Eventually we got to talking about the strange memories that Arthur then still sometimes saw as a curse as well as a gift. Who would not be unsettled by acquiring another man’s mind? It was my idea that the best thing would be to talk out the whole story, to perhaps exorcise the spirit of Rodwell, as it were. Anyway, one thing led to another, so that before long we were talking about a book, with me generously acknowledged as author. I would have gladly stayed anonymous, as per usual: the ghost behind the scene. In fact, until I really started to believe in the story I would quite honestly have preferred such anonymity. As it happened it was not long before I was so immersed in, and convinced by the story that I would have begged Arthur to let my name appear, as of course it now has on both novels.

We could have hidden our belief that this story is, to a word, true. To have written as though Rodwell’s adventures were nothing more than speculative science fiction may have been the safest option. Such cowardice would have saved us from the occasional ridicule of those with limited vision. If we had, though, we would not have been honest to ourselves, or to the gifted memories of Rodwell. Our decision to play an honest hand has in fact grown over time, as we have become increasingly convinced that we have a certain responsibility to mankind to report this strange revelation, this unique history that has the potential to give a hope for their future to so many. The fact is that people deserve to hear what is to us revealing truth. We both stand by every word in the following pages, and are proud to do so.

Chapter c: EXORDIUM

_______________________

As this ‘story’ opens, Rodwell Richards has been on the planet Axa-Goranas for something over an Earth year. For those who haven’t read the first book I will very briefly take you back to the beginning.

Assassinated as he slept beside his wife, Veronica, Rodwell subsequently awoke to a new life on this other world. I probably need to emphasise that everything believed about existence seems to tell us a simple truth, this being that it is only our essential being, our souls, and now it seems assured, our memories, which can make a perhaps never-ending journey beyond the grave. It isn’t the tissues, the science, the mix of chemicals that here we call ‘us’, that can travel unhindered by space and time. It is purely subjective self that is free. ‘The Time Machine’ of H.G Wells and the ‘Tardis, Time and Relative Dimension in Space’, which originated in the mind of Verity Lambert, are still a long way from true invention. Indeed, one may wonder if God will ever allow man to create such things, for He may then have to reinvent much of the mathematics of the Multiverse.

Many individuals, once of the Earth, have second lives on Axa-Goranas. Rodwell’s Arrival is far from unique. Even abandoning all we know of cell science, if one really could appear on this second world with one’s previously earthbound body, then there would be a logical shortage of cadavers on Earth. This absolutely isn’t the case. As chance had it, Rodwell gained consciousness inside his newly created, genetically familiar shell, lying under the watching eyes of a placidly grazing cow.

According to what Arthur knows, it is only a best guess of Goranian scientists that the genetic code of an Arrival is really the same as the one they had on Earth. Whether the code is really identical, adapted in some subtle ways for life on a different planet, or independently created, is seemingly impossible to determine. To ‘cut to the chase’, Rodwell felt that he arrived better assembled! He started his new existence with a preferred face, with good sight, and free of some of the structural decay that comes with ageing. Arrivals are almost invariably reborn free of the genetic and physical problems they were previously carrying, as well as those resulting from the wear and tear of their previous existence. This genetic benefit does not extend, however, to the next generation, who are born with a normal range of inherited genetic faults expressed in them. These faults seem to have a partial relationship to Arrivals’ remembered family history, though this is impossible to verify. If this is the case, then these histories support the idea that new Arrivals are genetically identical to the people they previously were, but that they benefit from the fact that their bad genetic snips are somehow switched off.

Without pretending any real understanding of genetics, let us, nevertheless, consider a simple example. Take the inherited disorder muscular dystrophy; the causal snips of genetic material can be carried in the genes of healthy individuals. These faults then rear their ugly heads from time to time amongst subsequent generations. The healthy amongst the next generation can be considered to have the bad genetic coding of their inheritance, but in their fortunate cases the faulty genetic material is not active. It is widely believed that Arrivals are blessed with having their genetic faults switched off.

In the short time Rodwell had been on Goranas he had not only remarried, but at the start of this part of the story Lucy is due to give birth. Rodwell is excited by the coming event, though he knows only too well that sharing the home with a baby isn’t easy, especially for the father who tries to insist on maintaining his normal quota of sleep. Life on Goranas is life as we know it, with all its familiar pains and joys.

The big majority of the Goranian population come into being through natural parturition, but one in five of them are Arrivals from Earth that appear at the biological age they were when they died. Chronologically, years here are believed to be a fifth longer. Rodwell was killed at the age of fifty, but at the time this story begins he is considered to be only forty one by Goranian reckoning. The time it takes Goranas to orbit its sun is known as a cycle, rather than a year. Each rotation takes 480 Goranian days.

At this point I am aware that there is a good chance some of you have already walked the dog, started reading again, and are still considering slinging this book. So be it! But I need to persist with setting the background before launching into the story. I have to believe that you will enjoy things better if I risk dulling your mind with peripheral detail first.

There are twenty-five recognised regional languages on Goranas, plus the official language everywhere, which happens to be Latin. This is no longer the classical Roman of Earth, but rather an expanded and grammatically simplified version, known as ‘Living Latin’. Perhaps it is not so different in some ways from the vernacular language used by the common man of Roman antiquity. Except for this Latin, all the languages are, give and take, the very same as those of Earth. Ethnic groups generally choose to keep language on Goranas in accord with the latest known ‘speech fashions’ on Earth. This greatly helps a relatively easy absorption of Arrivals into society.

There is one other recognised language, so bringing the total to twenty-seven. This is known as Indigenus. It is really a mixture of Latin and English. I assume English is used as a secondary base language simply because it is the most widely known lingua franca of this world after Latin itself. The commonly-held idea that the prevalence of my mother tongue in Indigenus is due to the fact that so many English speakers are right-wing supremacists, isn’t appealing. The strange linguistic concoction which is Indigenus is a very modern invention of the Integritas political movement. This unapologetically fascist entity is the bane of Arrivals. It is the public face of a planet-wide terrorist scourge. The objective of these Vids is nothing less than the lowering of Arrivals and their offspring to the status of a secondary subservient race.

As we follow his story, Rodwell is in the English-speaking State of Albion, whose citizens number some four million. The population of the planet is about 500 million. Of these, about fifty million speak English as a first language. These figures are the best we can deduce from Arthur’s ‘inherited’ knowledge.

Axa-Goranas is a small, saucer-shaped planet lying under a pulsar sun which, due to its rotation, and because it only radiates light through its polar axis, gives us equal periods of night and day. This planet does not spin; indeed it isn’t even a planet as we on Earth understand the word. It is perhaps best understood as a giant asteroid that is in a circular orbit around its sun. The Axa part of the name almost certainly has Latin roots and was used because, historically, people believed that Goranas was the ‘axle’ on which God spun the rest of creation.

The atmosphere and the pressures exerted on it, and the nature of land and sea, are as conducive to human life as they are on Earth. The plants and animals species generally appear to be very similar to equivalents we know, but are, incredibly, all totally different. Only we humans seem to be biologically identical creatures in both worlds. We must naturally speculate that this is the case because mankind is chosen for special treatment by God. In fact it is hard to conceive of any other explanation. One only slightly less exotic theory is that both planets were colonised by humans from elsewhere at a similar sort of time. However, if this is the case, it seems very strange that the Multiverse’s creator then subsequently set up a system whereby Arrivals like Rodwell appeared on Goranas from here, particularly when the same is certainly not true in reverse. There are ways of integrating simple concepts of colonisation and the reality of Arrival, but for me they are just an expansion of the idea that ‘God only knows’.

There is only one difference between Goranian-born and Earth-born human beings, though this one profoundly affects the life of Arrivals. It is a sense rather than a thing, and a sense that is scientifically little understood at that. The natives of Goranas are genuinely telepathic, not just possessing, as we do, varying levels of astute empathy. Having their minds read is difficult for Arrivals, who eventually learn to protect their thoughts from mental intrusion, but this is a slow and socially painful process. Amazingly, even though Arrivals themselves never develop telepathic skills, all their subsequent offspring do. This is even true when both parents are Arrivals. Only the first generation Arrivals are profoundly handicapped by lacking the skill. In general, newbie Arrivals eventually learn to defend their minds adequately. Rodwell, even after a cycle, still has some trouble blocking determined mind readers.

The level of technology is more or less the same as on Earth. New Earth developments are reported on Goranas from the memories of Arrivals. Unfortunately, as technologies get ever more complicated, less and less key information is accurately reported. Despite the fact that it is increasingly unlikely that Arriving individuals have sufficiently deep knowledge about any technology to really be able to add anything useful to Goranian understanding, up to this point technological advances on both planets have remained in very close parallel. Of course, some of the physical constraints on life here require different solutions, not all technologies being similarly adaptable, or as useful.

The nominally independent territories are overseen by the Confederation, or as it is better known, The League of States. The system runs a bit like a loose Empire. Order is maintained by the League’s own armies, while the States are generally allowed to make their own internal decisions. Wars are almost invariably ended with the quick dispatch of the antagonistic political and military leaderships of aggressing forces. The realisation that they would be amongst the first to perish is a very sobering thought for those that might plan mayhem. There are of course always those here, as in all societies, who wish to disrupt the status quo. However well State governance is modulated by the ‘big brother’ umbrella of the League, there will always be criminal organisations beating on the doors of power.

In the State of Albion, by far the most dangerous subversive group is the ETT. They officially call themselves the Earth Transmigration Terminators, but are ubiquitously known as the Earth Trash Terminators. The ETT belongs to an umbrella organisation; this and its fraternal groups are known collectively as the Vid Confraternitas. The ETT have proved to be the bane of Rodwell Richards’ existence on Goranas.

Lastly, for now, I think it is necessary to further emphasise that it is only the souls of mankind, and of no other creatures, that are apparently transmigrated. Further, it appears—at least to the scientists and religious leaders of Goranas—that one’s genetic makeup and one’s soul are in some far from understood way, physically connected. Before any fundamentalist should feel distressed, the evidence is only that this connection is maintained on the journey to Goranas, not into any vision of final heaven. I only use the lower case ‘h’ for the ultimate celestial goal so as to make it clear that no particular theological opinion about the nature of heaven or heavens is a concern of this story. Anyway, the old adage that one man’s heaven is another man’s hell seems to have some validity. However eccentric one might be, it seems quite impossible to believe that Axa-Goranas is any sort of heaven, though it is just perhaps possible that it is a staging post for those that still lack sufficient faith in their personal view of God. There is nothing to contradict any religious person from believing that their personal next stop is their particular religion’s exacting vision of heaven.

The story, the meat of this novel, begins with Rodwell at home, and in conversation with his new and pregnant wife, Lucy. The story will still need to build, but at least now I feel we know enough to start.

Chapter I: ANNIVERSARIES

_______________________

Lucy says, I don’t suppose that by any small chance you know what day it is today, Roddy?

Ignis!

That is clever of you. Does anything strike you as special about today?

Well, it’s the 30th of Junius in the year 4999. So it’s not your birthday. And we celebrated mine yesterday, on the basis that it was the anniversary of my appearance here.

Well, if you really don’t know, you deserve a kick up the backside!

Don’t be too physical, darling. I’m not worried, but you might disturb the baby!

Funny ha-ha, Yvette is quite safe inside my bump. But as for you, Rodwell Kenneth Richards, that is another matter.

Gosh, I’m scared. Let me see . . . it is a year since I first visited the Pig’s Bladder. . . since I got my identity card . . . since I met your father . . . and something else which escapes me for the moment.

Right, that’s it! You are in trouble, big time. I’m going to tickle your toes until you remember.

Ouch! That’s not a tickle . . . Ok, you win. It is a year exactly since I first saw your speedy red hover-bike. Aaaeea—and the sexiest hover-biker in the world!

You remembered just in time, so for that you still get a big kiss.

As it happens, sexy bump, I have a little something for you.

Oh goody! Is it chocolates? I could eat a mountain of them.

How did you guess?

Because you hid the box in your coat pocket thinking I wouldn’t look there. Why don’t you go and get my present and bring up a bottle of wine with you? I will only have a sip, but it would be nice to mark the occasion, wouldn’t it!

I get up from the sofa and head down into the basement of what has been our home for the last couple of months. I am actually trying to get used to calling months ‘mensum’, of which there are ten. A year is called a cycle—I assume in reference to the rotation of seasons. We live in a very modest dwelling by the standards of Albion, but for now it is just right for us. Like most modern homes in this part of this world it has one floor above ground, and one below. The place can seem a bit cramped when we have visitors, but neither of us earns very much so we are just pleased to have somewhere we like that is affordable. We are on the edge of Berkley, on the road out to Harrodville. This is ideal for me as I work part-time on the golf course, and the club house is only a ten minute walk from here. Lucy had been working part time as a research assistant for Jack Callum. Jack is a Senator for the State of Albion, and a member of the governing coalition. He is also one of our best friends. Lucy has temporarily given up work as the baby is so nearly due. We are going to find it hard to make ends meet if we only have my very modest wage coming in.

I return with a bottle of local wine and the chocolates, both of which are similar to, but not exactly the same as the equivalent products on Earth. What I have come to accept as grapes here, have more of the texture and look of an English gooseberry. They make very good, rich wines that, although generally white, have more of the taste of a light red, such as a Pinot Noir. There are a few reds, but taste and texture isn’t affected by colour. The red has been bred in over centuries of viticulture by those wishing to recreate a product familiar to Arrivals from Earth.

Actually chocolate is very different as well. It isn’t made from anything resembling a cocoa bean, but from a root plant. This same plant, which looks a bit like a Jerusalem artichoke, is also used to make what passes as coffee. The varieties used for the two products are different, but, farmers and botanists apart, few would see any differences. The caffeine is normally extracted from all but certain specialist chocolates. I am told that the stimulant is, as far as we can tell, exactly the same chemically as that found on Earth. It is doubtless produced by plants for the same reason, namely as a toxin to ward off insect pests. Nature certainly didn’t design it as a drug for humans.

Lucy is speaking.

I am going to get a bag ready tonight, in case we have a mad dash to the hospital. I really think that Yvette is keen to be born. Put your hand on this side of my tummy and feel her kicking.

I settle back on the sofa, and reach my hand over to comply. Aah, Roddy, you might have warned me. Your hand is freezing.

All my warmth is in my heart, dear.

*

Being a father is far from a novelty for me. On Earth I am proud to have two daughters and a son. I miss them and my first wife, Veronica, dreadfully. I know I will never see them again. After being on Goranas for a cycle I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no way I can return. People everywhere get permanently separated for any number of reasons, but so long as the parties still live, most of them can at least hope that the future might reverse the situation. From this place any idea of getting back to Earth is only the stuff of dreams.

I have only recently passed my driving test, as I found so many excuses not to bother. This required the learning of a rather different skill, as, outside of agriculture and construction, vehicles are almost invariably hovercraft. With a child on the way I thought it high time I got myself independently mobile.

Most of the year has been spent exploring my new homeland, and in learning from other people’s experiences here. In the last couple of mensum my new independence has allowed me to go further afield. I am now officially allowed to drive vehicles of up to ten tons, or tonna, of gross weight. Passing the test was a relief. Despite the fact that from very early on I had got quite handy at driving, I was very tense before the test started. My experience on Axa-Goranas, grass-mowers apart, had been very much against the law. I have a history of speedy hover-bike-aided escapes from the police. My early days were filled with a storm of run-ins with both Vids and with the law. Within a couple of days I was a suspect in the kidnapping of the Callums, and marked as a cop killer to boot. Life on the run demanded that I face a very steep learning curve. This place may not seem so immediately exotic that an average person would fail to cope, but things seem different enough for a new Arrival, especially one on the run, accused of murder.

As yet we have no family car, managing just with Lucy’s sporty hover-bike. What with her, me, and now the bump as well, we have a fairly cramped ride. Even if we wanted it, home births in Albion are almost never by design. The panicked drive to the maternity ward will seemingly be an inevitable consequence of rising birth-pains. As the worried bystander I was very happy that my three earth-born children were all delivered in hospital, surrounded by understanding nurses and plenty of drugs. My fourth will be born in Newhampshire Base Hospital in the State of Albion on the planet Axa-Goranas.

I will hope to find a suitably sympathetic nurse to hold my hand when I can no longer stand watching the pain. That is, provided I get Lucy and Yvette there safely in the first place. We are as sure as we can be that our little one is a girl. In fact we are certain enough that there are no boys’ names on the reserve list.

*

I often wonder how I would be received on Earth if somehow I did return. I’m sure I would be dismissed as some psychologically-damaged, drug-afflicted ‘urban spaceman’ the moment I told my story. I can well imagine how unbearable life would be made unless I was able to keep my experiences an absolute secret. Even from the fringes of society I wouldn’t pick up many friends. The space cadets would want to be seduced by stories about flying saucers and little green men, not my experiences of an almost familiar second Earth. The religious would want me punished for preaching terrible heresies, and the sane majority would want to see me quietly locked away. So the fact that I’m not able to travel back is probably fortuitous. At least no one in this place, in this different dimension, will accuse me of being a lunatic; there is after all no moon circling this planet! No, actually I’m wrong there, as, moonless though this place is, I have heard the familiar derogatory use of the word.

An irritated glance from Lucy makes me aware that I’m ignoring her.

Sorry, I have been drifting off into my own world! About what you were saying earlier—the time really has come for us to either trade in your bike for a family car, or better still find the money to buy one outright. It would mean economising and looking to bring in extra cash. You know, we really should have got on with it over the winter when we had the time.

Well, I’m not prepared to see my machine go, so . . .

Ok! So I will start robbing banks tomorrow. It’s either that or bringing Yvette up in cardboard boxes.

*

Some of my unaccompanied trips out on Lucy’s hover-bike, since passing my test, have been to see and properly thank the individuals who went out of their way to help me when I was on the run. They all seemed very pleased to see me. Amazingly enough, not even the Jardins of Muchlightly Farm House, which I had broken into, used for a night and plundered of various supplies, expected any more than a heartfelt sorry. They turned out to be a couple of school teachers who were away on a sailing holiday when I broke into their home. I am sure their friendly attitude owed a lot to the fact that they were keen supporters of Senator Jack Callum with whom Lucy and I have such a strong connection.

Jack and I were imprisoned together by the Vids, who were in the process of setting me up as his murderer. If that sounds complicated, that is because it is. I must be grateful that the Jardins seemed content to put down my burglary as tangentially helping the cause, the basis being that anything to stop the fascist-minded Vids and their political apologists, is worth putting up with. In the end I spent a whole evening there, talking about one thing and another. I now even feel I can add them to my small circle of friendly social contacts.

I was pleased to do some chores for Sheila Vail at Hardy’s Farm. I intend to return there regularly to do manual jobs, as she has quite a struggle managing on her own. I also called in on Gerald Ash. He is absolutely mad about military history, and was eager to pick my brains for any little bits about the subject I could remember from Earth. When he isn’t on the land he is writing a book about the military history of the Roman Empire. The Federation army of Goranas is built on a system of legiones, cohortes and centuriae, borrowed from the Romans. I am interested in ancient history, but I very, very much doubt whether I could conjure up any little snippet that hadn’t been recorded by previous Arrivals. The best I could do was offer to be a proof-reader on his book.

I have memorised the fastest route to Newham’ hospital, so as to be prepared for the big event. Yvette, as I have said, will be my fourth child, so I am hardly new to the game. How any woman puts up with the process I have no idea. A sort of mix of guilt and relief that I’m not more biologically involved encourages my support. I guess that my view is common enough. I wonder if in another life an individual can be reborn as the opposite sex. The idea isn’t very appealing, but I guess that as there is no memory transfer for a naturally born child, one would never know if they had once lived as the other sex.

Especially with this being her first, everything is rather overwhelming for Lucy. I really must be there to at least give her the support of my presence,