A'int No Atmosphere

The reason why Kevin was advised to hold on tightly became apparent almost immediately.  The vertical pole to which he was hanging on to, once clear of the floor, took a ninety degree bend turn and became a handrail.  This however was not the reason.

The actual reason was due to the abrupt shift in gravity; from some to none.  The other thing that there was none of was mostly everything.  All Kevin could see was the floor (or wall or ceiling) with the rail leading off in both directions.  The rest was black, vast, foreboding with twinkly bits in it.

'What the..?' yelped Kevin as his legs flailed around ineffectually.

Kara had flipped a panel open and was firmly bashing randomly flashing keys, 'Stupid...bloody...Ah, that's better.'

There was a shushing noise as a hatch slid across the hole they had recently emerged from.

'That's better.' She added.

'We're in...we're in...' stuttered Kevin

'Space.  Yes, I know.'

'But we're...' Kevin's free hand gestured towards his mouth.

'Breathing.  Yes.  This,' she bangs on the floor/wall giving a hollow clunking noise in response,'is a space ship.  One fortunately with a force field.  It is keeping the air in.'

'I thought they were used to stop bullets and stuff?'

'They were originally designed for that, but then it was discovered that you could build a much cheaper space ship if it wasn't airtight.  You know - no airlocks and spacesuits and all of that pallaver.'

'The pallaver that keeps you alive?'

'The only important thing was the engine.  If you had airlocks, space suits and pressurization and all that jazz and a non-working engine then you would be just as dead a ship with just a force field and a non-working engine.'

Several of the small dots now appeared to be moving.  Not just moving, but moving towards Kara and Kevin at fast rate.

'Hold on,' cried Kara as hundreds of small bits of space ship looking debris bounced along the hull.

Kevin wrapped himself around the handrail the best he could as several items of the junk bashed off him.  Fotunately his hold held.  A massive chunk of mass the size of a medium sized detatched house followed the smaller debris, however this was at a further and safer distance away from the space ship.  It was clearly meticallic, sparks flashed all over it and parts were on fire.  It looks like someone had ripped a cash machine right out of the wall of a bank.

'What's that?' asked Kevin suspiciously.

Kara mumbled something.

'Sorry, didn't quite catch that?'

'It was the engine.'

'Nice.  Open the door, while we can still breath.'

'I can't.  The way back has gone now.  I had to cut the link.'

'This is just getting better and better.  Why did you cut off our only way back?  We could've gone back.'

'If we had we would be dead by now.  We were being followed.'

'Really?'

'C'mon,' replied Kara sprightly.

Starts Here

© Copyright 2010 Paul Phillips

The Corridor

The door lead into a long grey, dimly lit corridor.  Kevin couldn't even guess at its length as both ends just faded out of vision rather than the usual abrupt stopping you usually get with a wall.  There were no other doors to be seen.  Kara was marching off down the corridor.  "Hurry up slow coach.  The clocks-a-ticking," she called back.

A brief sprint and Kevin had caught up.  The door, the only definable feature in the eerie passageway, was now fading away into the distance leaving nothing to see except Kara, two grey walls, a grey ceiling and a slightly darker grey floor.

"Where on Earth are we?" asked Kevin.

"Always with the assumptions.  Remember what I said earlier?  Think bigger."

Kevin thought about what she had said, "Not-"

"Go on," encouraged Kara.

"on-" continued Kevin.

"Nearly there."

"Earth?"

"We have a winner."

 Kevin lost his balance slightly and fell against one of the walls.

"Actually," continued Kara. "We’re technically not anywhere."

"Are you sure I’m not dead?", Kevin says feeling for a pulse in his wrist.

Kara pinched Kevin hard on the arm.  He yelped and jumped a short distance.

"Quite sure.  Some people call it the void, others call it the nothing, null-space, n-space or sub-space."

"What do you call it?"

"A corridor."


"That's not very sci-fi."


"They made the universe too big.  It took too long to get from one end to the other.  So, in their wisdom, they put in short-cuts."

"The universe was built?"

"Yeah, we found that out a few millennia ago.  Believe me, those evolutionist guys were not happy about it."

"I can imagine."

"These short-cuts, corridors, tunnels or whatever you want to call them have been lying around just below reality since the beginning.  They take you from one point in space-time to another point in space-time."

"Like a wormhole?"

"Yes!  Well, no.  Not really.  Most wormholes are just black-holes and will squash you flat.  The Dododechrans found that out the hard way.  A misinformed scientist had convinced the whole planet that their version of everlasting afterlife, heaven, Shangri La or whatever you call it was through a local ‘wormhole’.  So they built ships, loaded the whole damn species on board and-"  Kara smacked her fist into her hand. "Goodbye Dododechrans.  Poor bastards."

"The ones that do actually take you somewhere," continued Kara, "are a fault, a snag in the universe.  We think that they rushed things near the end."

"Did you say space-time?  Time?"

"Yes.  They go everywhere and every-when."

"Really?  Travel through time?  Go anywhere.  At any point in time?  Can we go-"

"Stop.  It’s not that simple."


Next Part


Starts Here


© Copyright 2010 Paul Phillips