Sean O'Brian part 2

Copyright (c) 2018 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

Sean O’Brian

Part 2

By R. Peterson

            Father O’Malley was on his knees behind a lectern sorting through a few remaining religious icons and deciding which of the gilded objects the destitute parish could liquidate when Sean O’Brian entered the Church of the Devine Light. A cold wind blew through the mostly empty pews and circled the barren walls. The figure of Jesus hanging on a cross was all that was left from a decade of glitter and prosperity. “I heard about your mother; I’m so sorry,” the Priest said.

            “She didn’t have much,” Sean said as he dropped a gold wedding band and a silver necklace chain into the priest’s reluctant hand, “but I would like her buried behind the church … she was a good woman.”

            “Your mother was rich in faith,” Father O’Malley told him. “I will find a way to bury her properly.” He tried to hand the ring back. “You might want to keep this as something to remember her by.”

            “I see her smile each time I close my eyes,” Sean said as he pushed the priest’s hand away. “I hear her voice when I’m alone and her singing each time the wind blows through the streets. I don’t need a piece of gold to remind me of what will never leave my heart.”

            “You’re a good boy,” the Priest said as he patted his back. “If you need a place to sleep you are welcome to stay here. I try to find enough food to keep my flock from straying.” He gestured toward a small room adjoining the chapel; it was filled mostly with ragged women and wide-eyed children clutching at their skirts. “The streets are filling with wolves.”

            “Thank you father,” Sean said as he turned toward the double doors. “But I made a promise to my mother … that I intend to keep.”

Father O’Malley looked after him with one eyebrow raised. He had counseled Ava O’Brian in confession many times. “You don’t have to worry about fighting in my church.”

            “It’s not about fighting,” Sean began to cry. “I have to make the world give me …”

            “Give you what?” Frustrated sympathy shone in the priest’s eyes.

            “Everything,” Sean told him. “I have to make this new world give me everything.”

-------2-------

            “Sauce” Branson and Gordano Donelli had Gin Lou Lee pushed against a broken baseball fence that a whiskey truck had ran into and were rubbing snow in his face when Sean entered the school yard. “We told you to bring a hundred jacky-jumpers,” Donelli told the terrified boy.

            “No more gun-powder,” Gin Lou bawled. “Father trade all food … family hungry!”

            “You Chinks can eat garbage,” Branson laughed holding up the small string of firecrackers he’d taken from the son of Chinese immigrants. “I want twice this many tomorrow.”

            “How does garbage taste?” Sean asked quietly. He smiled when both of the bullies turned to stare at him.

            “How the hell would we know?” Donelli sneered.

            “I suppose it depends on what you call garbage.” Sean picked up a metal post and broke away the mesh wire clinging to it.

            “You and Lee are both garbage!” Branson laughed.

            “In that case have a bite of this!” Sean viciously swung the metal post and caught Donelli smack in the side of the head. He jumped back as Branson charged forward and then thrust the rod into his bulging stomach. Sean kicked Donelli in the head when he attempted to stand and then dragged a moaning Branson by the hair and dumped him on top of his unconscious friend.

Sean twisted in the air and then sat down hard on the pile. Branson gasped; long ragged breaths. All the wind had been knocked from his lungs. “I’ve seen stray dogs trying to get into the garbage cans behind the school,” Sean pointed. “We’ve got a few minutes before Sister Mason rings the bell. See if you can find a couple of dog turds … fresh would be best … but frozen will do.”

            “I can do that.” Gin Lou glanced at Sean and then looked at the pile of arms and legs he was sitting on.

            “My new friends …” Sean punched Branson in the face. “Are going to find out what real garbage tastes like!”

-------3-------

The Café on the corner of Illinois Avenue and Lake Drive was a front for illegal booze and horse racing. Sean had never been in the back room before. A dozen men were counting stacks of money on two tables. An Italian guard with a rifle strapped across his shoulder was busy putting his hands all over a young waitress and ignored him. “Bugs McCain is going to hit this place in two minutes,” Sean yelled.

A couple of the men counting money actually laughed. “Benny McCain is a stooge,” one said as he lit a cigar. “McGooganheimer gets protection from the boss himself.”

            “Shouldn’t you be in school?” The waitress brushed away the fingers dangling across her chest and tried to keep her too short skirt from rising.  She was trapped in a corner and was obviously grateful for the distraction.

            “Get out of here kid … or so help me I’ll take off my belt!” The man with the gun now turned vicious mean eyes on the boy. The oily mustache above his lip danced as his mouth turned into a snarl.

            “I’m not making this up,” Sean sounded frantic. “Three black cars just pulled up out front. A dozen men are taking those short rifles with the big round cylinders out of violin cases.”

            “Thompson machine guns?” One of the money counters stood up and dropped his stacked bills on the table. Eyes began to look worried.

Suddenly the café area behind Sean erupted with a storm of loud bangs. Men and women screamed; smoke was everywhere. The two tables upended as the money counters scrambled out of their chairs and fled toward the back door. Clouds of loose cash hit the low ceiling and rained to the floor.  The man with the rifle lost it and shattered one of the overturned tables after Sean’s outstretched boot sent him cartwheeling across the floor. Sean handed the coughing waitress two fifty dollar bills. “You’ve got looks,” he said. “Why not take a train out to Hollywood.” The dizzy guard was rising to his feet. Sean used the butt of the gun to knock him out.

Gin Lou’s round, smiling face appeared in the doorway right after the waitress scampered. “Father pack plenty powder very tight … sound like war where people eat!”

“Anyone left out there?”

“Much smoke! Everybody run into street … no come back here for long time.”

A police siren could be heard in the distance coming closer. Sean tossed Gin Lou a couple of empty flour sacks. “We’ve got to work fast … make sure you pick up every bill!”

-------4-------

            The candy store that Machine-Gun McGooganheimer used as his headquarters had just opened when Sean walked in and plopped the bags filled with money down on the counter. The man with the gun from the night before leaned against a rack filled with Baby Ruth bars. His head was bandaged and both of his eyes were blackened, a beating that obviously came after the ruckus. Several of the money counters also lingered. They looked as if they’d been up all night … with no sleep. “It’s almost all there,” Sean said. “I don’t steal from my employers.”

            “It was a fake raid!” the man with the black eyes blurted. “Lots of bang with no bullets!”

            “And I tried to warn you.” Sean turned toward McGooganheimer. “I saved the loot before McCain’s thugs could get their hands on it.”

            “Is this true?” The Scottish/German mobster was as large as an elephant when he rose from his seat glaring at his men. “Did this boy warn you about the raid before it took place?”

            “He came in yelling about McCain and guns out front,” one of the counters stammered. “We thought it was a joke!”

            “That’s right … they all laughed before they ran,” Sean said.

            “How many men came in from the street?” McGooganheimer stared at his men. He’d been over this point for hours. “You told me they got the cash!” The shooting was faked but his own soldiers swore that McCain’s men had been there in force.

Several of the money counters looked at Sean with pleading eyes. “There were twelve all carrying machine guns,” Sean agreed. “They must have been under orders not to use them.”

            “Big Al wants any violence from the families kept out of the papers,” McGooganheimer said. “We got control of the mayor, the cops and all the rackets so long as the public don’t start seeing bodies and us as the bad guys.” He lit a cigar. “We’ll show McCain how fake raids are done when we’re ready.” He looked at Sean. “Until then, let’s be thankful some of us used their noggins.”

McGooganheimer smiled as he patted the money bags. “How much are we paying you?” He obviously thought Sean was one of his number runners. None of his men had the nerve to set their furious boss straight.

            “Ten bucks a day,” Sean lied. “But I’m worth it!”

            “We’ll make it fifty,” McGooganheimer said reaching into one of the bags and thrusting a fistful of bills toward Sean. “I’ve got some special jobs for you starting tomorrow. In the meantime … buy yourself some candy.”

TO BE CONTINUED …

           

Sean O'Brian

Copyright (c) 2018 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

Sean O’Brian

By R. Peterson

                A cruel October wind dropped shards of ice as it wandered the streets of Chicago, whispering promises to take those who lingered without shelter.  Sean O’Brian left the tiny house, that he and his mother shared with her arduous employer, in a hurry. The only way to get to the Angels of Mercy elementary school without a yardstick beating was to take a short cut. The ever-hungry human vermin that descended on the dirty streets like a nineteen thirty-two version of the Illinois state militia had yet to advance from their shanties, doorways and shipping crates in search of work. He should have a day job helping to put food on the cable-spool they used for a table … but his own angel insisted. He ran.

            Sean was worried about his mum. Gone were the days when she would dance about their own kitchen singing “Lift MacCahir og your face, brooding o'er the old disgrace when Black Fitzwilliam stormed your place … and drove you to the fern.” while he and his father stomped their dusty boots and laughed. The good days were mostly before his da was killed in the railroad accident. The company gave his mum a hundred dollars. It wasn’t enough to keep the house for a year. Lately her troubled eyes had sunk far into her pale face, surrounded by cowls of darkness as Mrs. Finch contracted piles of hired-laundry for her to clean, mend and hang in payment for the rent on the cold washroom they lived in. A rusty oil-drum vented above the door with rags and pipe served for heat and cooking. Water was lugged and boiled by bucket loads from the East River; he hoped he’d hauled enough.

            Mum was much too thin and courting a persistent fever. Beads of perspiration had appeared on her forehead as she wrapped bread and cheese in old newsprint for his lunch. It was almost their only food but any argument would have weakened her. “I’ll have a bit of soup later,” she told him, pointing to the can boiling on the stove and a thumb sized potato starting to seed. He made her promise she would eat … with lye-soap reddened fingers touching her heart and the other hand gripping his … it would have to do.

-------2-------

            “Sauce” Branson slapped Gordano Donelli on the back and pointed as Sean scaled the pile of old truck tires and dropped over the fence. They had a scrawny tabby pinned to the ground and were about to tie Chinese jacky-jumpers, probably stolen from Gin Lou, to its tail with wire. Both lads were years older, but they went to the same school. “Why waste these on just a cat?” Branson smiled.

            “Let her go … you bastards!” Sean told them. Donelli stood up he was at least a head taller than Sean. The cap covering his head was pulled down low almost covering his black Italian eyes. His pudgy fingers clutched the tightly wrapped paper-rolls filled with gunpowder and tied together with fuse string.

            “Who’s going to make us?” he said, moving toward Sean’s back as his pal struggled to hold down the hissing feline.

            “Let the cat go … we’re almost late for school,” Sean said.

Sean saw the muscled arm swinging toward him … and ducked. Donelli wailed as his fist broke the wood slat fence.

Branson let the cat go and charged just as Donelli tackled Sean at the waist.

Branson punched Sean in the eye and then picked up the wrapped bundle he dropped as Donelli began to throw furious punches. “What’s this?” He crinkled his nose as he tore away the paper. He laughed when he saw the hard bread and the bit of cheese. He dropped it and then ground it into the oily dirt with his boot. “These damn micks will eat anything,” he laughed.

“Who’s there?” The night watchman at Jorgen’s Cannery opened the back door holding an oil lantern.

“We’ll finish with you later,” Branson promised. Then both boys ran.

You’re a right mess you are …” the watchman said as he walked toward the bloody child. “You want to stay alive in these cruel streets you’re going to have to learn to fight back!”

“I can’t,” Sean said as he stood brushing himself off. His nose was bleeding and one tooth felt loose. Scraped fingers went automatically to his heart. “I promised my mum.”

-------3-------

It was almost twenty after seven when a still wet Sean walked into the classroom. He had stopped by the river to clean off the blood. Sister Ermine Mason stared with unsympathetic eyes as he sat behind pretty Sally Jennings. “We all know the rules,” the nun said. “In your seats with books open before the bell rings at ten to seven … or there will be penance.”

Branson nudged Donelli and they both laughed as Sean searched in his desk for his pencil. Sean heard a snap and turned as Branson dropped broken bits of wood and lead beside his seat.  “I have an extra,” Sally said. She turned and gave him a sharpened stub along with a smile. He could scent heavenly lavender soap coming from her soft blonde curls. Sean could see her tiny teeth marks on the wood. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Sean listened carefully to Sister Mason as she read from a history text and then gave out assignments. His mother paid an enormous price with her health to keep him in this school; he was determined not to let her down. His grades were the highest in the class. Father O’Malley was so impressed with his studies that he even supplied Sean with new notebooks and pencils from time to time.

Almost five hours later, after English, Math and Science, the bell for mid-break rang. The students all grabbed lunch pails and headed for the dining hall. After eating, there would be a good forty-five minutes for outside play. “Not you,” the sister said as she reached for the heavy yard-stick she used to dole out punishment.

Sean was secretly glad as he stood in the corner and bent at the waist. There was a limit to physical pain. Anything short of his own death he was very familiar with. It was better than a fine lass like Sally Jennings … seeing him without food.

-------4-------

Sean knew Branson and Donelli would be waiting for him in the school-yard when classes let out so he wasted precious minutes and then used the back door. He wasn’t afraid of another beating either by them or Sister Mason … he just didn’t have time. Stealing was another of his mother’s rules that he was forbidden to break but without food they were both going to die. Promises guide the living … Regrets follow the dead.

Tonight Amos Chandler’s Fruit and Vegetable Stand would be at the corner of Water Street and Illinois Avenue. Amos kept a ten-gauge Remington shotgun loaded with rock salt under the crates of large red apples that he sold for a nickel each. He hadn’t killed anyone yet, but quite a few of Chicago’s workforce limped the streets with stubs where their fingers or toes used to be and just as hungry as before.

“Yo be late!” the large negro said without looking up as Sean slipped under the horse-drawn wagon and behind the stacked boxes and began to sort the apples, polishing them with a rag and placing them on display.

“I ran into a little trouble.” Sean turned so Amos could see his black eye.

“I don pay boys fo the time dey spends fightin,” Amos said. “Dat fun cost yo a maybe four sents.”

Sean cursed under his breath. At five cents an hour he’d barely make enough for a handful of carrots and a couple of onions. If he wasn’t home by seven his mother would try to unload the laundry truck herself. She wasn’t strong enough and the strain would do her in. He’d have to tell her he ate an apple on the way home.

            “Dem spuds needs ta be washed, trimmed and sorted,” Amos stared at him with his good eye. “Don let me catch yo walking home with any peels in yo pockets … ma pigs gots to eat two.”

            “Yes Mr. Chandler,” Sean said as he lifted a heavy crate from the wagon. Amos was almost forty-nine - old for any Illinois farmer let alone one as mean and black as roof tar. If it wasn’t for Amos’s horse-kicked leg, that never mended right, Sean wouldn’t have this job.

            “Better shake da lead out o yo boots or I’m a half-ta keep back anader nickel,” Amos threatened.

Sean’s arms felt like they were on fire and he was too busy pulling crates off the wagon to wipe the sweat from his eyes but he tried to move faster. “Yes Sir Mr. Chandler,” he said.

            “I like dese here Irish niggers,” Amos flashed white teeth as he laughed to himself. “Dey knows who dey master is!”

-------5-------

It was starting to get dark. Sean watched anxiously for the first street-lamp. If Amos hadn’t paid him when it went on … he’d have to go home with nothing. The last customers drove away and Sean took the opportunity to approach the cranky old farmer. “Mr. Chandler I …”

Sean never got a chance to finish. A long back Ford sedan screeched to a stop and suited men climbed from all four doors. An Italian mobster known on the street as Little Joey Espinosa walked toward Amos puffing on a cigar. He pulled it from his mouth and pointed with it. “You can let that nag crap anywhere it wants, but you still got to buy a license to do business in Chicago!” 

            “I talked to da man at city hall,” Amos stammered. “He say street vendors don’t need no license.”

            “You haven’t been talking to the right people,” Little Joey took a bite from one of the apples then tossed it away. “You been in business a week … you owe us a sawbuck.”

            “If I owes da money … den I pays it!” Sean knew something was wrong. Mr. Chandler was walking toward the apple crates and Sean knew he kept all his coins in a bag under the radishes. The other men from the car were spreading out in a circle.

            Sean wanted to yell a warning but before he could Amos had pulled out the shotgun and was aiming it at Little Joey. “I dig every bunch a carrots, spuds and onions out a the groun and den I plants ‘em under dirt in my cella afor I brings ‘em here,” he said. “Ain’t nobody gonna take what I breaks ma back for … ‘cept for me or my wife … when I is done!”

            “I can respect that!” Little Joey spread his arms wide in a gracious gesture. His smile was like the white picket fence surrounding the mayor’s mansion. Sean released his breath.

Then two men struck Amos from behind … so fast all Sean saw was a blur. The next moment Amos lay on the ground a knife blade was stuck in his back. Little Joey picked up the gun and used it to break apart the crudely fashioned vegetable stands. When he finished he broke the gun-stock over poor Chandler’s head. His accent was now a mimic of the dead negro’s. “Somebody ‘gonna have to tell yo wife … yo be done.” A gob of his spit landed in a puddle of blood.

Sean saw one of the men pick up the coin bag from the piles of broken wood and scattered vegetables. They glanced at him but paid him no more mind than if he’d been a fence post. They drove away slowly and had just turned the corner when a police car screeched to a stop. “What did you see?” One of the cops who stood looking down at the body asked.

            “I didn’t see anything!” Sean lied.

A fat cop chewing a big wad of gum smiled as he put his arm roughly around him. Sean could smell alcohol. “We better run you downtown just to be sure.”

It was an hour later and total dark when the cop finally let him leave the back seat of the police car and gave him a stick of gum. Sean threw it away. They hadn’t asked a lot of questions and the car had never moved. It was like they were just putting a scare into him and they enjoyed his tears as he told them about his mother. Sean picked up an armload of broken carrots and potatoes off the ground … and then he ran. He could hear raucous laughter behind him. “Stop! Thief!”

------- 6 -------

            The laundry truck was half unloaded when Sean got home to the room his mother rented. A furious Ralph Finch stood next to spilled piles of laundry. “Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded as Sean pushed past him.

Mrs. Finch was already pulling the blankets off the filthy bed his dying mother lay in. “They say some vomit just before they go. I won’t have anyone to do the wash now!” The fire in the stove was out and the pile of kindling wood … missing.

Sean almost climbed into the bed with her. She was as hot as a furnace and shaking. “I’m sorry I’m late. I brought vegetables for soup,” he sobbed. “Let me get some water boiling!”

            “There be no time for that,” she whispered as she gripped his fingers. She searched his eyes with hers. “You were never anything but the greatest pride ‘o my heart!” He could feel her heart beating erratically like a car engine about to stall. “I’ve only ever loved two men … in my life.”

He started to protest and she put a trembling finger to his lips. Her voice seemed to already belong to a ghost that was floating away.

“Promise your poor mother that you will make this new world give you all that I and your dear da dreamed it would.” His mother gagged as he leaned close. Sean held her frail hand and touched his fingers to his heart. “I promise,” he whispered. She smiled for a moment … and then her eyes stared across a vast ocean to green fields a lifetime away … and she was no more.

TO BE CONTINUED …

PLANET OF GOLD part 6

Copyright (c) 2018 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

Keeper and the

PLANET OF GOLD

Part 6

By R. Peterson

          Keeper consulted the Centurion’s ever expanding ship log. It had been seven Earth years, six months, fourteen days, twenty-one hours, nine minutes and fifteen seconds since the rare species acquisition vessel had ventured into the outer rings of the Viridian galaxy. If the ship’s captain thought it strange that he now kept track of time the way his former First Officer Jeff Bland demanded that it be kept, he didn’t show it. Some things like memories change an individual or a group forever. The inter-dimensional particle-detonation, planned by the Gorwat and meant to create a second Big Bang in this universe, failed when Bland, Leika and Queen Delicia acted as travelers sending the ultimate bomb not just into a neighboring dimension … but to one beyond.

Leika and Bland had become more than crewmembers and Keeper missed them despite an inability to show his emotions. He floated about the ship performing his captain’s duties with the bottom part of his legs, just above the ankles, dissolving into nothing. This peculiar behavior for an Andé species was strictly against protocol and although Keeper was not being insubordinate to his commanders … this was his ship and he just didn’t care.

The current non-biological mission commissioned by Maltese 17 was to travel to the farthest edge of the universe and recover the oldest bit of matter in existence … Diona just happened to be on the way.

            “No matter how many times I see it I’m amazed at just how tiny we are!” Teuth, a land-adapted cephalopod and the ship’s navigator used his eight octopus-like tentacles to make adjustments to the holographic display. Ceilings and walls on the ship dissolved … and gave a spectacular display of the plant worlds they were entering. A swarm of Carriers, enormous bee-like robots made of super strong metallic alloys appeared and escorted the ship as it moved through an interstellar garden of sights, sounds and exotic stimulations.

            Planet-sized orchids sent out rhizomes that connected worlds and sometimes surrounded entire stars … capturing the light and energy in the most functional and efficient manner. Communicable thoughts were now entering Keeper and Teuth’s minds although the captain had taken great pains to insure that the rest of the crew were shielded.

            “Welcome.” The message said. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Keeper often wondered if the thought communications they received from the Viridians came from one plant or from them all; he suspected the latter.

As on their previous voyage years before, rhizomes invaded the ship’s outer surfaces and within minutes all crew members were semi-floating in blissful sedation. The Viridians were right in determining that animalia species were better delimited with euphoric and tranquilizing fragrances. As the ship neared the center of a planet sized orchid, cities appeared and the most magnificent civilization in the universe unfolded like a flower. “Welcome to Diona!” the thought transmission, received by all crew members despite his elaborate precautions, was sincere.

-------2-------

Keeper and Teuth wandered through an exotic garden that Keeper was sure had been prepared by the Viridians especially for them. Three cascading waterfalls emptied into a deep blue pond as still as glass except for tiny ripples made by the entering water. Schools of Earth trout and Emloos from Leika’s world swam just under the surface. An eternal revolving hologram depicted Jeff Bland, Leika and Queen Delicia moving through the falling vapors as they carried the particle-detonator through a neighboring universe and beyond. Keeper thought the three dimensional image especially good. First Officer Bland had a wary look on his face as if he expected Leika to suddenly strike him with one of her exposed quills. Leika had been like a spoiled brat during her onboard service but Keeper found himself missing her carefree insubordination and her sense of unregulated adventure.

Even Teuth was surprised to hear the former crewmembers’ voices. They sounded too real to be manufactured and both he and Keeper thought they were actual communications captured and recorded just moments before they disappeared forever.

“Back off … I’ve got this!” Bland appeared to slap Leika’s hands away as she reached for the light array.

“Are you sure?” Leika’s quills were extending on the part of her face not covered by flowers. “You almost missed the event horizon!”

“Almost missed … means I didn’t!” Jeff laughed. “In about six, point, nine, eight seconds we’re going to become part of a universe-sized singularity … the smallest and the heaviest thing in three dimensions … can’t you at least give me some credit for my flying abilities?”

“No!” Leika said as she leaned in to kiss him. “I’ll never, even in death, be caught feeding your outrageous and self-consuming vanity.”

“Look who’s talking!”

“What’s happening to our shuttle?”

“What must all plants make in order to survive?”

Jeff was just beginning to smile when the image broke part. A minute later it began again … from the start.

“That must have been just an instant before they became less than matter.” Teuth hung his head and all eight tentacles drooped.

“Then there is no way they could have lived through this?”

“Singularity occurs when all compressed matter reaches the limits of infinity,” Teuth said. “The mass is great enough to punch a hole through to another dimension creating a Big Bang as matter re-enters through the same hole into this one. The fact that the Viridians were able to help propel them not into just a neighboring dimension but into one beyond is a testament to their God-like technology. No known living organism, or matter itself, can survive the ultimate cataclysm!”

Keeper and Teuth watched the hologram replay several times before they moved on to other parts of the garden. Keeper was intrigued by the last question posed by Leika but he was no horologist. Chlorophyll? … Oxygen? … Nothing seemed to fit.  Several crewmembers were eating berries from a special plant that made them forget unpleasant memories. Bland’s replacement offered some in his hand. “No more pain,” he said.

Keeper shook his head. “As long as can I remember … they live,” he said.

-------3-------

The Viridian galaxy was one of the oldest in the cosmos and was already on the outer edges of the universe. Still it took the crew of the Centurion, placed in cryogenic hibernation, three-million, seven-hundred and sixteen thousand, four-hundred and nineteen Earth years at reverse light speed to reach the place where the ongoing expansion of space was occurring. After six months of waking and conditioning, the crew members stood on the bridge and watched space being formed … from a white nothing.

“I’m glad that’s over with,” Teuth complained. “The water in my tank was beginning to smell funny.”

“Don’t forget the trip back is just as long … even if we are going back in time,” Keeper told him.

“The oldest chunk of matter in the universe should be close to where we’re at now,” Teuth said. “The Dark Matter Telescope, orbiting Maltese 17, discovered it only three years after the universe’s most costly bit of technology became operational.

“We can thank the Planet of Gold for helping to fund these recent advances in science.”

“We should also thank Queen Delicia’s last transmission giving the Federation a thousand year lease on the planet’s mineral rights.” Teuth said. “Otherwise the Gorwat might still be trying to capture their elusive prize.”

Keeper shook his head. The Gorwat had retreated shortly after their failed attempt at creating a second Big Bang in this universe. “How large is this package we’re supposed to deliver to our tormenters?”

“Somewhere between the size of an average moon and that speck of dust floating in the air where your foot should be,” Teuth said. “Dark Matter Telescopes can do amazing things, but at this infinite distance … even the tiniest flaw in technology can create huge deviations.”

“How will we know what we’re looking for?”

“Dark matter replacement of conventional matter is much like Carbon 14 dating on primitive planets,” Teuth said as he moved his tentacles through a light array, “only about a billion times more accurate. The oldest organic matter in this universe … is speeding away from us just up ahead.”

“Organic? You mean this object we’re looking for was once alive?”

“Everything alive will become un-living or dead … so every non-living thing was once alive,” Teuth reasoned. “But don’t tell my poor mother I said so.”

“I seldom swim that deep,” Keeper assured him.

-------4-------

The oldest object in the universe was much smaller than Teuth’s wild estimate. When the Centurion pulled alongside, matching the target’s velocity at exactly light speed, three six-by-two-meter long objects fused together with a common base were relatively easy to capture and bring aboard.  Keeper and several of the onboard scientists marveled at the uniformity and the smoothness of the dark surfaces. “Any idea as to the composition?” he asked Teuth.

“The exterior is a dark matter extraction, mostly made of the same minerals that make up Viridian,” Teuth said. “This is not surprising since they are relatively in the same location in space time. It appears to be stronger than any other substance we’ve tried to dissect. We might be forced to return to Maltese 17 to get a complete interior analysis.”

“How did something this old get so smooth?” Keeper couldn’t stop running his fingers over the surface. His fingers trembled. Something reminded him of the euphoric rhizome vapors they encountered on the way to Diona.

“Who knows?” Teuth said. “This was probably the first object to shoot out of the Big Bang nineteen-billion plus years ago. That much time rocking and rolling in the solar wind can smooth-out anything.”

------- 5 -------

As the Centurion made preparations for recovery time travel and the almost four million year sleepy-ride home Keeper kept visiting the cargo bay and running his fingers over the three  objects joined as one. He knew he was missing something … but he didn’t know what. Leika’s last words echoed in the far corners of his mind at least once an hour. “What must all plants make in order to survive?”

The ride home was not one continuous sleep for Keeper. He programmed the ship’s life support systems to wake him every one-hundred thousand years so that he could do a quick inspection of the ship before returning to hibernation. It was in the months leading up to his seventh awakening that his thoughts once again turned to Leika’s riddle. Jeff Bland and Leika appeared to him in a dream. “Let the old man sleep,” Jeff laughed. Suddenly Keeper had the answer. When the sleeping chamber opened he raced to the cargo bay. There was something in the air … a mist of euphoria that he hadn’t felt since the garden on Diona.

Keeper wasn’t surprised to see the three oldest joined objects in the universe lying in shattered egg-shell fragments on the cargo bay-floor. Whatever was locked inside … was no longer trapped. He noticed on a light array that three extra humanoid hibernation chambers had been activated since his last awakening and he smiled for the first time in literally millions of years. The Viridians were conquering worlds when animalia were still swimming in the seas. Seeds were the answer to Leika’s riddle. A super tough shell designed to protect precious life as it travels into eternity … and sometimes beyond.

THE END ???

PLANET OF GOLD part 5

Copyright (c) 2018 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

Keeper and the

PLANET OF GOLD

Part 5

By R. Peterson

          As though being held hostage on a Gorwat ship wasn’t bad enough,  Viridian invaders now swarmed the vessel. I left Leika to attend to her mother, the plantae-mutated queen of Promo 4, and started a desperate search for an inter-dimensional particle-detonator. Unbeknown to it’s crew, the device had been secretly attached to the Gorwat command ship and was set to destroy Diona and at least a thousand other star systems in the center of the Viridian galaxy.

            Super-fast growing rhizomes had taken over the ships navigation and weapon systems. I had to step over leafy stems covering almost all the corridor walls and floors on my way through the various levels. If I was going to find the detonator, I’d have to start thinking like a reptile. The High Council of  Gorwat didn’t want their ship commander to know he was carrying the deadly bomb. He might be a fool when it came to his romantic infatuation with Leika … but I don’t think he was suicidal.

            The Gorwat all appeared to be suspended in a kind of plant-induced hibernation. Two guards stood like statues next to the inner-ship transporter. Rhizomes entwined them like rope and stems grew into their gaping mouths. I found Gordo Ventbong in his quarters and he also appeared to be asleep. He was entwined with stems and a large yellow flower spread its petals inches from his mouth.  It looked as if he might have been kissing it.

On a bookshelf was a small hologram showing a naked Ventbong basking on a warm rock … probably his last vacation. A fuming bowl of half-eaten Gormeed worms burned my nose. There was a bouquet of fresh Venusian orchids on a table along with a bottle of Jotimo nectar and a childish unfinished note printed with Tanesian silk-fibers and addressed to Leika. It was a poem that Ventbong must have written to the exotic Porosities … as he fell asleep. No doubt he would have a multitude of tail-thrashing lizard-like wet dreams while he was in hibernation.

            Your Eyes are like Nebula-rings shining like stars.

            Your legs are like spore-stems cultured on Mars.

            You r lips are like Hair springs found inside a trap.

            I want to qwodu umacoo beoga  you … and then we’ll take a Nap.

Ventbong’s grammar and writing skills left much to be desired, but something about his attempt at a romantic encounter sparked my interest. I think it was the fresh flowers. In order for Ventbong to have acquired them, the Gorwat must have a bio-sphere on board capable of growing things. If you wanted to hide a super bomb from the Viridians what better place to hide it than in a place filled with their own species!

The holographic display that dissolved walls, floors and ceilings on the vessel was still activated and the Gorwat command ship appeared to be accelerating as it moved toward Diona, the Viridian capital. A swarm of Carriers, enormous bee-like creatures made of super strong metallic alloys escorted us as we moved through an interstellar garden of sights, sounds and stimulations.

Flowers, many light-years in diameter, whose root-structures spread across nutrient-rich nebula clouds created exotic garden pathways between worlds. We were traveling toward a continent-sized peach-yellow blossom that even from a thousand light years distance looked like a rare and beautiful Anoectochilus or orchid.

I stumbled on the Gorwat biosphere by accident … I smelled it. Tiny floating spores seemed to come from the ventilation system. I could hear Leika’s thoughts in my head. Follow the scent of warm, moist soil and sunlight. The riches of the universe lie in life … and not in precious metals. Down a long corridor with two turns to the left and one to the right I found myself walking through a black light and transporting into a Cretaceous swamp … complete with flying reptiles and Gorwat ancestors. Wave-littered beaches led to oceans that met a blue sky on the horizon. A transparent dome many miles above would no doubt show the stars at night. The Gorwat bio-spheres were not that different from those created by humans. If you wanted to survive long space voyages you had to take a world with you. It was a place of dreams … and of dangers.

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I had no idea where to look as I wandered along the beaches. There were hundreds of square miles of jungles, mountains and oceans. The inter-dimensional particle-detonator could be anywhere. I struggled to remember what Teuth had said the device would look like. Dark matter is the unseen elements in the universe … the magic in all worlds. If the device was unseen, how would I ever find it? The tiny spores were surrounding me again … buzzing around my mouth and eyes like tiny gnats. Connect to this world. It was Leika’s voice once again entering my thoughts. Ask the force of life to help you!

There were sea-shells scattered in the sand. I picked one up that a foamy wave left exposed as it returned to the sea. Rainbow colors curved like a bloated French horn. On impulse I held it to my ear to listen to the ocean. It was alive … and I rode it through time.

I stood on a pile of rocks covering a septic tank and felt wonderful. I was six years old and living on a farm four miles from Cloverdale. My mother stepped from a tiny white house onto a porch made of cinder blocks and called to me and my older brother. She wanted wires to create fake flowers for a funeral. To the west lay an old horse drawn hay-wagon half buried in a clump of weeds. We played there often and pretended that an old wooden-spoke wheel suspended two inches from the ground was the steering part of an old sailing ship. Nearby was the remains of an old rail fence and a bush sized ball of wire. The wire was rusty and easy to break with a little twisting. Another voice sounded much farther away. I knew if I didn’t listen I could stay here forever and grow up again … but the voice called … and I answered.

Leika was once again in my thoughts. I dropped the shell and walked toward the jungle. Vines became snakes and snakes became vines everything moved in and out of existence. I was directed to a large fig plant and placed my fingers on the leaves. I was with Leika and her mother and we were floating, spinning on seed-pods toward Diona. You must find the bomb … or all beauty will vanish!

I removed my fingers from the leaves and turned but I was directed back. This time I placed my fingers on the plant’s leaves and tried to remember Teuth’s technical explanation for an IDPD, a bomb idea that had never been tested outside of physics theory. I could almost hear his bubbly-voice and see his tentacles swaying in the onboard Centurion classroom.

“Subatomic particles traveling at velocities exceeding the speed of light and moving through up to sixty-four different dimensional-plates inside the nucleus of Meitnerium atoms, are un-bound by transactinide-elimination and form a black hole inside a neighboring dimension … thus creating a Big-Bang in ours.

An inter-dimensional particle-detonation is essentially a new universe forming inside our own. The tremendous release of energy-turning-matter vaporizes everything as it expands outward at the speed of light. But since everything in our universe is already expanding at that exact same velocity … the only star systems theoretically affected are the ones closest to the initial unbinding.”

What did the bomb look like? Meitnerium was one of the heaviest and most radio-active metals in the universe with a half-life of only seconds. Supposedly incased in dark matter that propelled sunlight, the device would appear as a translucent black globe growing as the binding was released … with the smallest of all things becoming the largest.

We were becoming one as I rode with Leika and her mother toward the center of Diona. I was there but I was also everywhere. You must find it! The voice was Leika’s.

All things serve the life force! The voice was unknown to me but familiar. It was the origin and the end of all life. The heaviest of all metals would sink to the lowest of places. I stared toward the water. We need a traveler … someone to send to other worlds with the end of this one.

The unbinding was happening … I could feel it. A shadow rolled like a ball beneath the waves and I dove toward it. It found me when I found it. I was a moon sized rock hurtling toward Earth, becoming smaller as the world became larger. I carried the seed of destruction with me and it was growing.

Expansion happened at the rate of ten just as I entered the Earth’s atmosphere. I was inside a semi-dark translucent sphere suddenly larger than a planet then larger than a star system. Larger than ten star systems then a hundred. A thousand – ten thousand and a hundred thousand. A million and ten million. A hundred million and a billion. Ten billion and an entire galaxy. Ever growing consuming the universe. I was unbelievably large and still growing. A trillion galaxies then a hundred trillion then a zillion … to the edge of infinity!

It was near the end that I realized that I hadn’t been growing at all … size like all things travels the road of eternity. I was shrinking – compacting - becoming a black hole with unimaginable mass. A billion minds from the plant world of Diona willed me to carry the seed of destruction beyond … to a universe no longer bordering this one. I was at the place where all things become as one and singularity becomes everything. It was the end of all things. It was darkness and I slipped through the fabric of time … just before the largest explosion possible … and the beginning of all things.

TO BE CONTINUED …