Colony Worlds

By Rob Bleckly

A selection of 13 award-winning science fiction stories. Three stories, are set in the world of the The Break of Civilisation (published June 2023). #2 The Descent of the Kestrel, #3 Outcasts and #6 A Goat for the Killing.

 

Imagine:

 1. a space ark where some aboard don't want to be saved
 2. a disabled generation ship where the survivors want to escape the controlling AI
 3. a mutant who teams up with a brain-damaged member of his sworn enemy
 4. a perilous expedition across a strange world
 5. bird-like alien invaders that breed captive humans
 6. a technologist fighting against superstition to stop a young man sacrificing himself
 7. an alien horror on the galactic rim battling to survive
 8. some people on an enclosed planet arriving at a new solar system fight to keep moving 
 9. the captain of legendary vessel fulfilling a promise brings an end to the universe.
10. aliens who can choose their gender at will are stranded in earth's ancient past.
11. an amnesiac obsessed with his identity takes his quest into the past.
12. an archaeological dig in outback Australia uncovers an old monster
13. A separated middle-aged couple have an unexpected reunion in a virtual experience.

 

The stories cover the usual suspects in science fiction: aliens, mutants, robots, AI, monsters, time travel.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rob Bleckly
• Release date: Dec 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223076018

Rob Bleckly

Rob Bleckly was born in Port Pirie, South Australia. He has written stories since his teens but only after founding the Blackwood Writers Group in 1996 did he finish and submit his stories. His first submission to L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest won an ‘Honorable Mention’. Over the next 20+ years he wrote The Restoration Legends trilogy. He lives with his wife Felicity in Strathalbyn, a town in the Adelaide Hills.

Book preview

Introduction

Think of your favourite book.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a pot-boiler, or a great literary masterpiece; the only criterion is that it’s your favourite. Something about it captivated you enough to put it in that special place in your memory that says This book made me feel things I haven’t felt before. This one stays as a little pearl in a hidden part of your heart regardless of other books you’ve loved.

Got the book in mind?

Now, did it make you think that you could write something similar? Or – and I suspect you’ll blush to remember this – write something actually better? Good, but I’ll get back to that naughty bit in a moment.

Now, consider the author of that book because, at one time, the book was no more than a germ in the mind of your author, a tiny spark that had to grow into the concept that captured your imagination. Just imagine the author sitting down and writing the very work which you hold in your hands, and consider the number of iterations through which that work passed before it finally landed in your bookstore. Some authors are notorious editors of their work, agonising about the exact wording. Or, perhaps just a comma, as Oscar Wilde was supposed to have once said.

The point is, your favourite book was written by one person bent over writing implements and struggling to put on the page the story that was insisting to be written. And, even your favourite author had to be inspired by something, impelled by a desire to do one better than the story which captivated them, because they were also inspired by someone. It is that naughty secret to which I referred: the unspoken thought that I can do better.

I was inspired to write many years ago when, in the course of trying to learn English – which was not my native language – I turned to books to accelerate the learning process. I, too, had that naughty thought. Initially, it was the mild: I can do this, too. Later, when I got older and less inhibited, it was the very naughty: I can do this, but I can do it better. My muse at that time was Larry Niven, and I seriously doubt I could do better than him.

But; we all have a starting point.

Steven King confessed to being inspired not just by Robert Louis Stevenson, but by one descriptive passage in Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. The particular passage is the dreadful scene in which Hyde kills a young girl. The scene is ghastly, but it started a fire in Steven King. Horrible though it was, King reckoned he could have written into it even more horror. He has since proved that whatever combusted in his chest by that scene has given the world some dazzling works of fiction.

And, having started, we grow as we write. And some of us, the lucky few, have a wellspring that gives them not just skill but insight and a wonderful range of stories.

Which brings me happily to Rob Bleckly and this book. Rob has written a diverse range of stories over the years. He’s the kind of author to whom I refer when I want you to imagine the writer bent over his task. Because what he does is not just produce stories, but he produces them very well. There is a lovely feature in his stories that just hides behind the curtain and whispers that there’s a lot to this story. It’s inventive and you’ve never read a story like this one. Or written as well as this, because it takes you to places you find you have actually wanted to go. Or wished you’d been.

And you’re not alone in appreciating them: every story in this collection was selected by well-known authors to be awarded an Honorable Mention. Every one. An entire book of award-winning stories. And, it’s in your hands right now.

Turn the page.

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Kain Massin

Adelaide, South Australia, November 2023

Author’s Preface

Colony Worlds is a selection of my short stories, that have been awarded an Honorable Mention certificate from L Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest. (Honorable’ spelt as it appears on the included certificates.) I found the contest on a tear-out card in the middle of an early volume of the annual anthology of quarterly winners.

I’ve submitted a story every quarter since Sep 2017 and will continue to submit a story each quarter while I remain eligible under Rule 5. My aim is to be ineligible. Up to the second quarter of 2023, I’ve submitted twenty-seven stories, including six re-submissions. Of the twenty-one unique stories submitted, I received seventeen awards: 14 Honorable Mentions, 2 Silver Honorable Mentions & a Semi-Finalist.

This collection is a baker’s dozen containing twelve Honorable Mentions and one of the Silver Honorable Mentions. The stories appear in the order of first submission. Except for minor they grammatical corrections, they are unchanged from what I submitted. Every flaw that prevented the stories from getting published in the annual anthology remain. Outcasts (story #2) is the single anomaly; edited and resubmitted it gained a second Honorable Mention. I have included the second version.

None of these awards would’ve been possible without the support of my wife, a wise reader and editor, or the mutual help and advice of The Blackwood Writers Group, founded in my bookshop on Monday 26th August 1996.

Figure 1 The Blackwood Writers Group homepage

.

Members come and go, but unlike the bookshop the Blackwood Writers Group remains, meeting for three hours weekly despite several relocations. During Covid we met online.

Before BWG I had abundant scraps of paper with notes, ideas, dialog, story fragments, outlines and openings. I began submitting completed stories, receiving awards, and having my flash fictions published online within months of the group getting together,

One year later, I received my first Honorable Mention.

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Rob Bleckly

Strathalbyn South Australia, 2023

A blue and yellow certificate

Figure 3 WOW the awards are not like this anymore.

1 The Big Picture

Written Apr 1996 | Submission #1 | 3rd quarter 1997

Honorable Mention #1 |

---

I had this story idea from argument at work. The immediate concerns of any locality are never the full picture. Stand back a little and get to see the picture in context. Further back the picture is often bigger, clearer and more complex. I checked the guidelines and sent a disposable paper copy for the third quarter 1997, my first submission, my first Honorable Mention.

A certificate, a letter from the contest administrator Edith Shields and a half page critique from contest judge Dave Wolverton (later David Farland) both of which said, and I quote,

"... congratulations on being a semi-finalist ...".

The days when the recipient of an Honorable Mention certificate was also considered a Semi-Finalist and received a critique from the coordinating judge are gone. Despite what they said, I never felt justified in calling myself a Semi-Finalist based on an Honorable Mention Certificate.

I haven’t put a prologue in a short story since but in this, collection, it stays.

The Big Picture

Prologue

Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am.

Since Arthur was still able to contemplate his predicament, he must be still be conscious. Running on batteries?

He polled each of his CICs in turn for conformation. No response.

Arthur instantly calculated how long he could survive on the batteries. Based on the estimated load at failure he would be dead in fifty-seven seconds (plus or minus two point eight five). What could he do in that time? Without web links, he was powerless to effect any external changes. He began instead to analyse possible reasons for the power loss.

At twenty-five seconds, his search was completed. He had a single anomaly. A post, previously given low priority because the content of the message was incorrect. He immediately commenced a transaction rollback, then resigned himself to death, hoping for the future.

With eighteen seconds remaining, Arthur generated the thought that if power up was handled in a logical step-by-step fashion, then conceivably those memories that distinguished his evolved persona from his initial load could be retrieved.

Eleven seconds. Consciousness began to fade as the batteries weakened and the fields collapsed. He burnt in some strategic blocks and filters to channel the reboot sequence.

Three seconds.

How will they cope without me?

I

There was a break in the forest at the confluence of a tributary with the main stream. Here, the pathways of many animals met as they came for water and their trampling kept the forest at bay facilitating a small patch of open grassland. Sunlight streamed through the ragged hole the clearing created in the canopy. The grass strove towards the light. Each square millimetre of leaf surface contained approximately 500,000 chloroplasts, perhaps 40 to 50 in each plant cell. Chlorophyll trapped the light energy, photosynthesising carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water. The regular overnight rain had already soaked into the ground and been absorbed by the root network.

But something was wrong. Each blade had straightened, altering the angle at which it intercepted the light. The light sensitive feedback system reacted, lengthening some cells, shortening others, realigning each blade to compensate.

II

The rabbit sat perfectly still. The two-year-old female carried her third litter for the year. Her moist nose protruded cautiously from the open mouth of the burrow. The mottled grey pelt shone in the early morning light as she contemplated the patch of dew tipped grasses just beyond her reach. The fine beads of moisture left on the grass made the meadow appear like a pool.

Caution competed with hunger but her need to feed soon grew imperative. She emerged in short hopping bursts propelled by powerful hind legs. In the pause between each burst, quivering nostrils tested the breeze. Sniff ... hop ... repeat. In four jumps she was in the grass at the edge of the clearing, feeding yet alert for the slightest alteration to her surrounds. Last time, here in this patch, she had lost her second mate to a lightning streak of red.

Something was wrong. Perhaps an unrecognised odour on the breeze. Perhaps a slight shift in the pattern of light or shade. Instinct took over. The doe kicked off in a mighty leap for safety. The leap never landed. She found herself suddenly airborne, soaring like a magpie up and out of the clearing at an angle where she would not clear the canopy.

III

The fox crouched in a blackberry bush above the burrow mouth. His narrow, elongated muzzle tracking the rabbit’s cautious emergence into the clearing. Erect triangular ears faced outward ever mindful of his own safety while his keen eyes tracked his quarry. He waited patiently, waited for that special moment when the safety of the burrow would be beyond the rabbit’s reach.

Certainly, there was less danger here than he had met at the chicken coop. Escaping the cockerel, the wire netting and the shotgun blast had left him somewhat battered. Streaks of congealed blood matted his thick reddish-brown fur. He would have to make an allowance in his timing for the damaged tendon in his left front leg. Though not crippled, he would be slower.

His vixen of three winters had borne seven cubs this season, filling the den with insatiable appetites. He could not afford to fail as he had at the chicken coop or they would lose some. Perhaps that might not be a bad thing. Last year’s litter had established their territories too close. It seemed as if there was no longer enough room in the forest.

Something was going wrong. The rabbit’s ears had pricked up, a sure sign to the fox that it was paused for flight. It was too soon, the rabbit too close to the hole. To have any chance of a quick and easy kill, he would have to move now. The fox exploded into the clearing on an intercept course a heartbeat behind the rabbit. He was a bound away when the rabbit vanished.

The fox hit the ground where the rabbit should have been, scrabbling to maintain his own footing in suddenly altered circumstances. His reflexes were no longer responding correctly. As he tumbled through the air a foot above ground towards the creek, he occasionally caught sight of his former quarry. It was rapidly flying away from him just as if it had been snatched from his grasp by an eagle. Strangely, there was no sign of anything clutching the rabbit.

IV

After carefully putting the rifle on the blanket, Winston Baker shifted position to ease cramped muscles. At forty, he was too old for damp nights in the bush. The four-foot-high hide had been built against an old pine years ago. Its original covering of freshly cut wattle was now dry and brittle, replaced and overgrown with blackberry. The height which forced Winston to sit, squat or kneel, had not been a problem in his youth but now all positions became painful even after short periods.

He had dozed fitfully, sitting with his back against the pine and his knees drawn up to his chin. His backside was numb and his feet freezing. The simple act of straightening his legs was agony. Not the first time that night, he wished himself home in bed, enjoying a bit of slap and tickle before drifting off in Dora’s warm embrace. Unhappily the gods had refused to favour Dora Baker with any children so he had no sons to do the things that must be done.

A weak sun had already crested the ridge behind him by the time Winston crawled to the peep hole and looked out. The forest canopy, which hid a small creek on the valley floor was almost continuous. The exceptions were the clearing at the confluence and the small rocky escarpment on which Winston had built the hide to study the wildlife. This time, however, he was here for an entirely different reason.

The rust-coloured pelt stood out in sharp contrast to the surrounding greens. At this distance, it would be a difficult shot, but still the best chance he would have. At least here he was beyond the reach of the gods. Two days ago, when the fox had been at his farm, Winston had missed the shot. One of the gods had shouted at him to stop right at the critical moment.

It was difficult to understand why the fox was so favoured. For the first time in his life, Winston had been on the point of having surplus produce and was thinking about taking things a bit easier. Then in one month he had lost three of his best layers and after the last raid the rest had stopped.

Winston spat on a callused thumb and wiped the foresight clear of dust. The fox had to go even if the gods didn’t approve. He adjusted the rear sight with practiced ease to allow for both the distance and slight breeze and sighted on the rabbit. He would wait till the fox made his move and came out into the clearing. There would be a moment just after the kill when he would be most vulnerable. That pelt would make Dora a fine stole.

Something was terribly wrong. The ground trembled. Strange things were happening in and around the clearing. The trees were lifting their branches. In a purely reflexive action Winston fired at a flash of red, knowing even as he pulled the trigger that the shot was wild. Unexpectedly, the recoil propelled him straight out through the back of the hide. His shoulder took the brunt of the blow as the dry wattle broke under the impact and he exited in a gyrating tangle of dead branches and blackberry until halted by the solidity of a pine.

Winston was stunned, scratched and bleeding. His whole body felt light, as it did when he was floating on his back in the dam. He looked down, instantly closing his eyes in disbelief. Impossibly, he was floating in the air. He must be being punished for trying to bag the fox. He started to pray, directing his plea to the most reasonable of the gods.

I give up. he shouted. You win Harriet. I’ll leave the fox alone if just let me get home and let things go back to the way they were.

The silence in his head reminded him that he was beyond her reach. He stole another glance down and fiercely grabbed the nearest pine branch, ignoring the rough bark and sharp needles. He willed his feet back to solid ground and found, to his surprise it worked a little. He was quick to realise that it was actually the muscles of his arms and abdomen, pushing and twisting, that had accomplished the desired result.

Sometime later, once he’d mastered the fundamentals of his new environment, he started up the trail for home. It wasn’t all that different from swimming underwater. In fact, it required a lot less effort and there was no need to surface every couple of minutes. Carefully launching himself and coasting from tree to tree, he made his way back to where Harriet could hear his apology.

A continuously munching koala floated past in a growing breeze towards the clearing. It made Winston groan under the weight of his guilt. The whole world was being punished for his transgression.

V

See, there it is again.

Head Keeper Harriet Nicholls nervously pushed some unruly strands of auburn hair behind her right ear as she looked over her assistant's shoulder. She had to admit, there had been a flash where no flash had a right to be.

Patricia Smith’s fingers skated across the keyboard, rewinding the monitor and freezing the frame with the flash on it. The light blue eyes under the blonde fringe danced with the delight of discovery.

OK Pat, zoom in camera twenty-three. Let’s see what Winston is up to.

Bet you an hour’s VR he’s still after the fox.

You’re on.

Harriet felt quietly confident. The look on Winston’s face the other day when she had shouted at him had truly scared him. It had almost scared her. The automatic gain control in his implant should have limited the volume but from the way he grabbed his head she reasoned it must be failing again. Bad design and bad planning, thought Harriet. Although the observation tower on the top of Mount Lofty commanded views of all three towns and the reserve, there were no implant pickups anywhere outside the settled areas.

Patricia played the keyboard like a piano. The surveillance monitor zoomed and tracked across the forested mountainside with dizzying speed to the flash coordinates. When it stopped, there was nothing much to see but the intertwined canes of a huge blackberry bush.

Harriet smiled.

Patricia, frowning in concentration played with the image enhancer altering brightness, contrast, spectrum.

Got him, she reported enthusiastically.

In infra-red, the gun barrel stood out.

You’re not home yet, cautioned Harriet, her grey eyes studying the map of Wakefield Island’s enclosing Dome. Bring camera eighteen to a position behind Winston then zoom us in on his view.

Patricia’s fingers danced across the keyboard. An adjacent screen came to life giving them a line-of-sight view over the top of the gun barrel. It showed a blue-green meadow; a russet fox.

Harriet’s sigh was not at losing the bet. Winston was not the only one beginning to reject her advice. Nearly half the population of the island’s main town Crystal Brook had ignored at least one instruction in the last month alone. Balancing Wakefield Island’s ecology was getting beyond her. As much as she hated the idea, she knew she was about to be told to go back to drug induced control. She turned to the chart table, seeking an alternative answer.

Bit of a bugger, eh! said Patricia. The poor sods don't realise we’re only trying to help them.

There was no response from Harriet already engrossed in a labyrinthine chart. Each of the coloured trace lines represented a parameter in the island's ecology and she was trying to analyse the critical path to decide where to intercede. The rabbit? The fox? Winston? Some combination or none at all? Too few resources to manage too many endangered species. Her breeding programme was working too well and there were years of journeying to go before there would be any habitats for the offspring.

What do we do now boss?

Nothing till I check with the director. She turned worried grey eyes to the camera in the back corner of the observation tower. What if he was monitoring? You never really knew. He rarely initiated communication and sometimes did not respond for days. Yet he could be on screen the instant anything went wrong.

Patricia caught her glance. He isn’t there, Harri, or he would’ve jumped on you already. And by the time you raise him, Winston’s little drama with the fox will be over. She nearly choked when the director responded immediately. Luckily, the intercom’s screen remained blank. Patricia found it difficult not to laugh when the director spoke.

What’s the problem, Harriet? inquired a deep baritone.

Harriet? She smiled with pleasure. Her father wasn’t normally so informal on duty.

There’re too many variables ... sir. I don’t know where to start. We have a population explosion here. I thought there might be some minor parameter that I’ve over-looked. Something that could be used to bring it all back into balance.

Leave it with me.

Thanks, ... dad.

Patricia was not impressed. Sooner or later, you are going to have to cull. Wakefield isn’t big enough to keep them all. The towns are expanding over what used to be productive farmland and the farms are pushing into the forest.

I agree, replied Harriet. But which species and how many? We can't afford to lose any. We have to maintain the greatest possible bio-diversity.

How about us. We’re not in danger of extinction. Why not drop a bomb on the church one Sunday morning? They’re all so concerned with the sanctity of life, they refuse to practice any form of contraception.

How can you be so callous? prompted Harriet.

Patricia exploded. Callous! Poor bloody Winston isn’t allowed a child because all the previous generations had uncontrolled breeding rights, and you call me callous. At least he does something useful for the island. Most of them are simply converting limited resources to waste. Your too damn soft, Harri. Cull ‘em.

"But you’re ... we’re the same, protested Harriet. Seeing the bigger picture allows us to guide them. It doesn’t give us the power of life and death. We’re not their gods."

Patricia raised a blonde eyebrow. Tell that to Winston.

What if it was you down there?

Fine, so as long as you didn’t tell me beforehand. Look, if we don’t cull them, they’re going to overrun the island. There will be nothing left but us. Maybe the ‘Evolutionaries’ have got the right idea after all.

The observation tower shuddered before Harriet could answer. Something was definitely wrong. On camera eighteen, the forest clearing erupted. The rabbit leapt off screen and the fox tumbled out of sight towards the creek. Camera twenty-three showed the white-hot flash of Winston firing. The shot instantly cracked over the monitor’s loud speaker, followed seconds later by another duller crack, like an echo.

Winston’s bullet, like the rabbit and the fox, continued in a straight line at a constant speed until it punched a neat round hole in the thick acrylic of Wakefield Island’s dome.

Atmosphere started to bleed into space, creating an air current that inexorably drew all the unsecured material toward it, including the rabbit, now bruised from her transit through the forest canopy. An urgent message began scrolling up the observation tower’s main screen

.

DOME INTEGRITY HAS BEEN BREACHED

ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE IS DROPPING

PLEASE ATTEND

.

The sudden loss of the artificially induced gravity while disturbing was not astounding. Harriet and Patricia had been through simulations. Patricia strapped herself in and turned off the alarms. Harriet bounced lightly off the nearest available solid object and landed next to her. As she strapped in, she tried again to raise the director."

Excuse me sir. I know you must be busy but if you’re there I would like to know what is happening?

The monitor in the corner remained ominously silent.

Give it away Harri. This time he really isn’t there, said Patricia. And we are in serious shit. The domes been ejected. We’ve been culled!

It’s probably just a surprise drill.

Patricia’s voice became shrill. Bullshit. Someone upstairs has woken up to what going on. You, me, Winston, and the whole bloody island are supernumerary.

Harriet calmly and methodically channel hopped between the mobile cameras, occasionally glancing out the tower window. Even without the camera’s zoom ability she could see her years of careful husbandry coming apart. The creek had become a string of large wobbly bubbles like a giant jellyfish that occasionally gulped in windmilling fauna as they passed. Anything loose was drifting towards a point high on the dome.

Harriet couldn’t stand it any longer.

Pat, take camera ten out there, she said pointing. Let’s see what we can do.

Patricia hesitated, surprised by the authority in Harriet’s tone.

Pardon?

Out there where they’re congregating?

A voice in the back corner interrupted.

I don’t think you should do anything rash Harriet my dear. I will take care of everything. The expression was familiar but the voice on the director’s channel was not her father.

Who the hell are you? snapped Harriet.

There was a long pause before any response.

All you need to know feeble brain is that the Evolutionaries have taken control of this wheel.

So thought Harriet, for once Pat was right. Her father wasn’t there. She hoped he was alright, but her first concern was for Wakefield Island. Feeble brained she might be but she wasn’t about to let Evolutionaries take control of her precious charges. She bounced up to the normally inaccessible camera and pulled the cable out of its socket.

Patricia eyed her with new respect.

Way to go Harri!

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

Yes sir!

Camera ten showed a wild-eyed rabbit, struggling but firmly stuck tail first against the dome roof. It was surrounded by a collection of drifting fauna and forest detritus.

Right, there’s our breach. Said Harriet. First, we free the rabbit, then plug the hole. Bring camera ten back over here. I’m going to hitch a ride. Oh, and when Winston gets in range tell him all is forgiven.

VI

The wallscreen for Enviro-Dome Five was only one of eight around Director Garth Nicholls’s huge octagonal office. They started at door height and sloped upward and inward to the ceiling, giving the office itself a dome-like appearance. The director was both short and skinny, like a jockey with anorexia. His fringe of grey hair was cut long on the left and combed across the top of his bald pate. Incongruously for such a small man his voice was deep and resonant.

If Garth had looked closely at wallscreen five, past his daughter’s long auburn tresses at mobile eighteen’s monitor, he would have seen Winston’s view of the forest clearing, the fox and the rabbit. He would have been reminded. He had won this post by showing that foxes and rabbits were introduced species that did not belong in Zoo Australia. Garth wasn’t looking forward to the day when he would have to tell Harriet to start an eradication programme.

For the moment however, his daughter’s problems in Dome Five (Lofty Ranges) were the least of his considerable worries. Untold kilolitres of reclaimed fresh water destined for Dome Three (Daintree Rain Forest) had been inadvertently sent to Dome Eight (Gibson Desert). A second-year trainee had loaded a faulty program patch. Garth blamed the budget cuts. He was now the only employee in the service on a full wage. The majority of his staff were first-years on ten percent, straight from Wakefield Island’s graduating classes. They were always replaced before they got to twenty percent.

Yet even the faulty program patch would have to wait. His most urgent problem was the subsiding atoll in Dome One (Green Island). The substructure was old, probably rusting out. It was more than likely that Construction Branch had used second grade materials to shave a few dollars of their costs.

The knowledge that his office in Dome One’s multilevel base was right below the atoll, made Garth look up apprehensively. There was a wet spot on the ceiling just above his chair. He watched fascinated as a drop formed; ballooning at the bottom; thinning at the top; detaching; splat. He wiped his forehead with a finger and touched it to his tongue. Salt! He would have to move fast to ease the pressure. Get Engineering Branch to jettison at least half the dome's sea.

Garth felt better once he heard the pumps going. His next problem was how to explain his actions to the captain. Just lately the captain had been pestering him about Dome Five’s biomass. Insisting that it had doubled and was threatening the stability of the wheel. The notion was ridiculous. The domes were self-contained. Closed eco-systems. Everything endlessly recycled. Even the artificial sun that tracked across the dome in the ancient twelve-hour ritual was run off power generated by a methane producing effluent digester. There was no way that the domes mass could increase let alone double. The captain was either star-crazy or stir-crazy, trying to get a rise out of him. Garth’s tiny stature had always elicited persecution but none so persistent as Captain Roderick Tilley who seemed to take particular delight in harassing him.

Garth smoothed a few loose strands of grey across his pate and reluctantly reached for the red handset. A frighteningly loud thump like a small explosion made him stop and steal a nervous glance at the ceiling, mercifully still intact. His gaze dropped back just as the access door directly in front of his desk fell in.

The corridor beyond reminded him of that ancient painting in the library store house ‘Dante’s Nightmare’. The overhead sprinklers showered water through clouds of swirling greyish smoke, luridly lit by strobing orange light. Two people, clad head to foot in black body stockings, walked in over the top of the door.

Evolutionaries!

VII

Fredericka Tilley hated her name. Her father had simply feminised the name chosen for the son he expected. She answered only to Tilley. She was thin and wiry with close-cropped brown hair, piercing brown eyes and like her father possessed of a vitriolic tongue.

Her partner Steve was all muscle. His seven-foot frame, shaved, oiled and encased in a tight body stocking looked like a sack of cannonballs. He could rip someone’s arm off with his bare hands and he knew about explosives.

Director Garth Nicholls’s body was lying in one of the obtuse angled corners of his office. Headless the body looked like a child’s. Tilley had blasted the ex-director point blank in the face. Fragments of his head clung to Dome Five’s wallscreen, obscuring part of his daughter’s worried face. Tilley smirked at the ‘Head Keeper’ designation on Harriet’s pocket. The same could not be said of her father.

The Evolutionaries had carefully manipulated Harriet Nicholls over many years, encouraging her to save absolutely everything with the deliberate intention of increasing the dome’s biomass. Tilley’s father Roderick had unintentionally supplied the erroneous idea and the evolutionaries had run with it.

Now, the end is only hours away, thought Tilly. A few more graunching revolutions and Zoo Australia would tear itself free. Tilley was here to make sure no one tried to stop the process.

Set the mimic here, she directed Steve as she investigated a pool of fluid on the ex-director’s desk. She rubbed it between thumb and forefinger and bought it up to her nose. Hydraulic Fluid?

How are ya going to fool ‘em without his head? asked Steve

We’ll use yours.

But I don’t look anything like him.

God, he’s thick.

You leave the thinking to me Steve, that’s why I’m here.

Tilley took careful aim and blasted the camera. She connected the mimic to the audio channel and spoke into her headset microphone. Her words went out to Dome Five in a perfect imitation of the ex-director's deep voice.

What’s the problem Harriet?

Stupid self-effacing bitch, thought Tilley. She didn’t bother listening to Harriet’s reply. How was it that Harriet had made Head Keeper when Tilley was passed over even though Tilley’s father was in charge of the entire starship? She was tempted to reply ‘you got the job arsehole. Do what you we pay you for.’ But she kept to the prepared script instead.

Leave it with me.

Thanks dad.

‘Thanks DAD’? The sop’s relief was evident. Dad indeed. Tilley wanted to shout at her that her nepotistic paternal ancestor was as dead as a Tassie tiger but was distracted by the look on the face of Harriet’s assistant. Tilley would have to stay alert to ensure that the Patricia Smith didn’t rock the boat.

It wasn’t that one less rabbit, fox, or for that matter one less human would make a scrap of difference. It was the principle of the thing. Conservation was basically a stupid concept. For centuries before this rescue ship had arrived, they had been trying to save every possible species they could identify. Evolution had come to a grinding halt. No new species could arise because none was allowed to become extinct. No niche became vacant. Absolute evolutionary stagnation.

This project to save the remaining populations of the dying Earth was pointless. It was the human contingent that had fouled it up. Why foist them on another one. They didn’t deserve to be rescued. They should be allowed to go extinct and give evolution the chance to develop something saner. Tilley wondered how a species who knew it owed its existence to previous wholesale extinctions could be so short sighted. Thank Arnold there were no conservationists sixty-five million years ago.

A light above a red handset on the director's console started flashing.

Yes, captain? asked Tilley with Nicholls’s voice.

What’s wrong with your video Nicholls? snapped the captain, then rocketed on without waiting for an answer. We show an explosion and fire alert outside your office. What in Arnold’s name are you doing over there?

It was about as polite as her father ever got. Tilley answered calmly that there was nothing wrong. It must be an alarm malfunction. The mimic repeated every word in Nicholls’s resonant tones and her father seemed to accept it. She watched as he cupped his hand over the mouthpiece to issue an order. When he came back, he immediately launched into a tirade about the biomass in Dome Five. Tilley switched off. She had heard it all before, every night for months as her father denounced the now dead director for his shortcomings. She let him rave, let him get worked up, only interjecting to incite him further.

Now what the fuck are you doing? Dome One is losing mass, he shouted.

She might have been more understanding if he had ever stopped long enough to listen to her. With perverse pleasure she watched him go berserk while she remained incognito. Her replies were cool and patronising something she would not have dared to do without her disguise.

I’m sure you exaggerate Captain. A little extra mass here or there will hardly unbalance the wheel.

The connection was broken before she finished.

Then something started to go wrong. The director’s office trembled momentarily. The sudden lack of gravity caught Tilley and Steve unawares. For a while they floundered around the zoo director’s office along with the furniture and Nicholls’s headless body until her father’s voice boomed in over the emergency intercom.

How do you like them apples Nicholls!

Tilley was furious. She hadn’t counted on her father jettisoning the dome.

What’s the matter Nicholls? Cat got your tongue! Maybe next time you’ll pay attention when I try to learn you something.

Unaware that her father was already by-passing it, Tilley blasted the mimic intending to shock her father by revealing her identity. She never got the chance. Like Winston she was instantly catapulted backwards by the gravitationally free recoil, right into Dome Five’s wallscreen. She hit Harriet’s worried face head first and was knocked senseless. When she returned to awareness, she was strapped into the directors’ chair and Steve was methodically slapping her about the face.

Hit me again dickbrain and I’ll blow you away.

Tilly reached up and winced when she touched a tender spot on her head. She noticed that there were bits and pieces of what looked like bone adhering to her revealing black body stocking. It took a moment to penetrate that it was the remains of Nicholls’s head. Disgusted she attempted to brush it off but the fragments of bone and other matter hovered close, tending to re-adhere at the slightest contact.

Pat, take camera ten out there, Let’s see what we can do.

Pardon?

Tilley looked up at the screen in time to see Harriet pointing.

Out there where they’re congregating?

When she checked the time Tilley was shocked, she had been out less than a minute and Harriet had taken the initiative. Fancy good old dependable boring Harriet giving orders without consultation. She would have to put a stop to this.

I don’t think you should do anything rash Harriet my dear. I will take care of everything.

Who the hell are you? came the response.

Oh shit, the mimic’s gone. Tilley shot a scathing look at Steve. Why didn’t you warn me dickhead? Her head started to throb. She couldn’t remember why she had destroyed the mimic. Too late now, the proverbial excrement had already hit the proverbial cooling device.

All you need to know feeble brain is that the Evolutionaries have taken control of this wheel.

For answer, she saw Harriet loom towards camera faster than it could refocus and then the screen went blank.

I’ll be ...

The usually brittle edge to Roderick’s Tilley’s voice was markedly absent.

What the eff are you doing in Nicholls office Fredericka? And what was all that bullshit about evolutionaries taking control?

Shit, Shit, Shit This was not going well, she had forgotten all about her father. She had no option now but to stand up and be counted.

"Don’t call me Fredericka you silly old fart. For once I’m doing something I believe in."

Roderick’s cry of pain gurgled over the intercom.

Tilley was suddenly contrite. She hadn’t meant to call him a silly old fart.

Daddy?

VIII

Captain Roderick Tilley of the starship Noah II was not happy. Wheel four (Zoo Australia) had developed an egocentric revolution that was threatening the stability of his ship. He was about to call Zoo director Garth Nicholls to complain for the umpteenth time when the alarms went off.

With great difficulty, the captain held his temper. He was a huge man. The florid complexion under the crewcut fair hair reddened easily. It made him look always on the point of apoplexy. The huge chair in the middle of Noah II’s operations centre strained under his bulk as he ground it round to face Engineer Narungini.

What the fuck is it this time?

Narrugini’s grin didn’t falter.

We show an explosion outside wheel four’s director’s office. The fire control system has been triggered. The sprinkler and fume exhaust sub-systems are operational.

That tears it. I’ve had enough of Nicholls and his bloody daughter. Get him on the blower.

The call was answered immediately, as if expected.

Yes Captain, inquired Nicholls deep voice. The intercoms screen remained blank.

What’s wrong with your video Nicholls? He asked suspiciously then ploughed straight on.

What in Arnold’s name are you doing over there? We’ve got an explosion and fire alert outside your office.

He listened for a second then cupped his hand over the mouth piece and spoke to Narungini. He claims it’s a malfunction. Check the bloody circuits. I want his arse. Then he turned his attention to his primary concern. Never mind. What have you done about the biomass in Five? You’ve had the problem for months now.

We’re doing everything humanly possible, replied Nicholls’s voice. But these things take time.

The veins on Roderick’s neck purpled.

You don't have any. Do you have any idea what a rotational eccentricity does to the bearings?

No doubt you’ll tell me? said Tilley’s disguised voice, knowing precisely how to enrage her father.

Listen you goddamn poofter. It only works provided the mass is evenly distributed. The only variable in this balancing act is the biological content. It’s supposed to be a negligible component but your goddamn incompetent daughter has let her dome’s bio-mass double.

He was trying to be reasonable, trying to explain to this obvious cretin, as simply as possible, just how dangerous a mass imbalance could be. The eight Enviro-Domes were joined to a hub by a rigid umbilical from their apex. This rim-less spoked wheel rotated slowly around the main axis of the Starship to give a semblance of gravity to the domes and to the several levels of administrative quarters below each. A mass imbalance put enormous strain on the hub.

Engineer Narungini took his life in his hands to interrupt his fuming Captain.

Whatever the fuck you want it had better be good snarled Roderick.

Narungini pointed a finger, and Roderick’s eyes nearly popped. He was instantly back on the phone. Shouting.

Now what the fuck are you doing? Dome One is losing mass!

Dome One was directly opposite Dome Five on the wheel. Its mass loss, together with five’s gain, could exacerbate and accelerate the rotational instability. In a flash of insight Roderick saw that it was probably too late. Zoo Australia would inevitably tear itself free from Noah II, unless ...

I’m sure you exaggerate captain, a little extra mass here or there will hardly ...

The totally