Strings, Percussion and Celesta
Chapter One – A Wheel within a Wheel
He had always loved numbers. Women scared him and left him unsure, but numbers had always been a source of ordered comfort to him. But not today; today he was confused, puzzled and annoyed. First there was the wall; about five feet high, brick red and silky smooth. Then there were the numbers emblazoned in gold along the wall. 0112358132134558. The wall and its numbers seemed endless, stretching from where he stood to where the deep blue sky met the dark green land. 9144233377610987; on and on and on like some gigantic galactic telephone number.
Somewhere deep in the darkest recess of his mind he knew what those numbers meant. Yet he could not access the information. It was like catching a sudden glimpse of something out of the corner of one's eye. When you turned to see what it was, it was gone. Yes: annoyed did not even begin to describe his frustration.
Something cold and damp touched his cheek; a long, coarse tongue flicked at his forehead; stale breath drifted across his senses...Eli Wallace woke with a start and stared up at the large black dog which was trying to push its cold nose into his left ear. He pushed the dog away with his left hand and struggled to sit up.
Eli had fallen asleep watching the sheep: again. Long shadows were being thrown out from the trees along the field boundary. It had to be after six already. The others would be concerned. Although, thought Eli, they were not concerned enough to send someone to find him. The dog bounded back as Eli got to his feet. The sheep were gathered together in the cool shade under the trees. When Eli moved towards them they all stopped eating and looked inquisitively at him. The presence of the dog made them turn as one and follow Eli out of the gate and onto the dusty road which led to the farm and the village.
It was the Dining Hour and the road was empty. All around him the fields were empty of livestock. Up above the sky was empty of clouds. The land was shrouded in silence. To Eli it felt that his whole world had been empty and silent for as long as he could remember. There had been his mother, of course, and a few friends; although none of them were close friends. He had always seemed a little bit odd to the people of the village. They were polite to his face and rude to his back. Eli the dreamer, who's only worth was in watching sheep. He was the man who spent his days scratching numbers in the dirt.
In an attempt to dispel the overpowering quietness Eli began to hum, tunelessly. Then there were the others. Eli knew everyone in the village, but there were other faces he did not recognize. They came to him in his sleep. Silent, terrible faces etched with pain and fear and hopelessness. And the one thing Eli knew above all others was that he was responsible for their pain.
"You're late." Bergman's deep rasping voice made Eli jump.
"What...late...late for what...what's happened?" Bergman laughed at the look of incomprehension on Eli Wallace's face.
"It's almost sunset Eli, weren't you supposed to be back before the Dining Hour?"
"I lost track of the time," Eli began in a hesitant voice.
"You mean you fell asleep again," Adam Bergman cut across Eli's excuses. "Look, don't worry, no harm's done. Just take the sheep to the paddock."
Eli nodded. The dog was already forcing the sheep towards their night-time pasture. Eli followed the flock round the side of the wood built, two-storey farmhouse, past the large red barn and the tall oak tree to the paddock. Once the sheep were inside Eli padlocked the gate and the dog raced away to the back porch of the farmstead where he knew his dinner would be waiting.
Eli was not so lucky. Ever since his mother's passing he had been alone. Housekeeping did not come easy to him. Nor did cooking; on many nights he was either too tired or too lazy to prepare food. Tonight he was too lazy. Eli simply climbed, still fully clothed, onto his bed and closed his eyes. But sleep did not come that easily.
Strange, unrelated images flickered across his closed eyes. There were mountains; snow; a tiny blue balloon that he had once been given by his mother at a local carnival. Eli remembered how upset he had been when a gust of wind had torn the balloon from his grasp. The sudden updraft had sent the balloon spiralling higher and higher until it was swallowed up in the hazy blue of the limitless sky.
Then there were the faces. Eli did not know whether they were asleep or dead. A line of white, expressionless faces. Each encased in some sort of glass coffin.
"Can you fix it?"
"What?" Eli turned towards the voice.
Colonel Young was tired. Command and his failing marriage had worn him down. Now there was this. "Can you fix the damn pod – yes or no?"
"I can". Young looked at Rush
"Don't interrupt", Young growled in a low threatening tone, "I was talking to Eli, not you."
"All the same Colonel I can..."
"Yes...no...I don't know" Eli's voice was shrill and filled with desperation.
"So which is it Eli? Can you fix the pod or do we have to decide which of us is going to die out here between galaxies?" Everett Young knew he was shouting. He knew that a raised voice was never ideal when in command. But he simply could not stop himself. "Well?" His voice echoed around Destiny's metal hull.
"Colonel I don't think..." Young stared at Rush for an instant, his dark, shrouded eyes ablaze with anger, fear and frustration. Rush was cowed into silence.
Eli made a sudden decision. "Yes Colonel I can fix the pod well before..." His voice trailed away to nothing. The deal was done. All three men knew it. What more needed to be said?
"Then I guess it's time to sleep". Young's voice was filled with weariness. He held out his hand and Eli grasped it. He was surprised by how cold the Colonel's hand felt. "Good luck Eli, I will see you when Destiny reaches the next galaxy."
Nicholas Rush said nothing. He simply smiled to himself and stepped into the stasis pod. The glass front slide into place and a moment later Rush was motionless, an enigmatic smile still on his frozen face.
Eli Wallace stood on the observation deck as systems began to power down all over Destiny. Behind him, cocooned deep within Destiny's womb, was her sleeping crew; before him lay the vastness of eternity. Already the silence was becoming oppressive. To relieve his growing fear Eli began to hum, tunelessly.
From the day he had arrived, unexpectedly, aboard Destiny Eli had dreamt of being alone. He enjoyed his own company. He enjoyed the freedom, which solitude gave him, to think. In the moment that his dream became reality Eli Wallace hated it. He loathed the gloomy corridors that echoed to the sounds of his footsteps. He found the strange groaning sounds, which the great ship made in FTL, alarming. Above all, as the quietness enveloped him, Eli began to feel that he and the sleeping crew were not alone on Destiny. In the half light of the stasis chamber shadows flickered and moved all around him. They gave the impression that a huge army of strange beings were slowly and furtively creeping closer and closer to Eli as he worked on the damaged pod.
After two days of relentless work Eli was still no nearer to fixing the pod. He felt he had a good grasp of Ancient systems, but he could not get the pod to function properly. Each time he fixed one problem another would appear. It was almost as if the thing had a life of its own and did not want Eli to succeed.
"Don't be so stupid", he said softly, "First you let the quiet get to you; then you see ghosts in the shadows and now this? Are you nuts?" He laughed. I'm on an alien space craft, he thought, thousands of light years from home, surrounded by frozen people and in imminent danger of a horrible death...of course I'm nuts. "And tired", he added.
Slowly Eli sank to the floor. The metal beneath his prone body was cold and hard and very uncomfortable, but he was too tired to care.
As his eye lids closed he saw the strangest thing. There was a door in front of the faulty stasis pod. Not just any old door either. It was the door to Clancy's Bank. It was the heavy oak and glass revolving door from his childhood. The one he loved to play in, turning round and round and round as he hummed that tune. What were the words to that song, Eli thought, as sleep over took him.
Eli woke suddenly. Apart from a small blue light high up on the ceiling, everything was black. He struggled to remember where he was and what he had been doing before the urge to sleep had over-powered him. No: nothing came to him at all.
Eli Wallace struggled to rise. Something was holding him down. He could move neither his arms nor his legs. Vainly he tried to turn his head, but that too seemed clamped in place. What the hell was going on? He tried to shout. He could not make a sound come from his mouth. Something had been placed across his throat making speech impossible. There was only one sound in the entire world. It was a word; a single word repeated over and over inside his head. And that word was...sleep.
Laughter was all around him. There was a blue balloon; snow; cold faces in metal cylinders. A revolving door...
"You fell asleep on the porch step Eli? How the hell does anyone do that?"
Eli slowly opened his eyes. The bright sunlight made him shut them again.
"Come on Eli, get up or Bergman will have your hide." Hands grabbed at his shirt collar. He was dragged up into a sitting position, his eyes still tightly closed. The cold water made Eli open his eyes. He struggled to stand up, water dripping from him.
"What the hell did you do that for Scott?"
Matthew Scott dropped the empty wooden pail on the ground and smiled. "Well now you are awake and upright, let's go. Bergman will be waiting for us and you know how much he hates to be kept waiting." Scott strode off with Eli hurrying after him.
"Good God Eli, you look like shit." Adam Bergman stared in disbelief and then slowly shook his head. What in the name of all that was holy would Marian have made of her son? At least Eli was not his problem today. Drainage ditches were his concern this particular morning. "Scott I want you and..." he paused to look at Eli again. "I want you two up on the South field. There's a drainage ditch on the far side which needs sorting out before the rains start. Think you can do that Eli and stay awake?" Bergman hauled his not inconsiderable bulk out of the chair which he had been lounging in when Scott and Eli had arrived. He watched them hurry across the yard to the barn and moments later he watched them reappear, each with a good sized shovel in their hands. Satisfied, Adam Bergman shook his head one more time. Then he turned and stamped across the veranda and into the farmstead that he had built with his own two hands, slamming the front door behind him.
"Told you he'd be mad Eli".
They had been walking in silence for almost thirty minutes. Although it was only nine o'clock the sun had already burnt through the early morning mist and was beating down mercilessly on the well trod track. Matt glanced at Eli. He was slouching along with the shovel balanced on his right shoulder. Sweat dripped from his face. Deep lines were etched across his brow. Scott knew what that look meant. When Eli Wallace became silent and furrowed his brow, then watch out. He was thinking. And thinking always seemed to get Eli into trouble.
Scott stopped walking. "Well?"
Eli slowed to a halt and looked back. "Well what?"
"Well how about telling me what it is that seems to have got hold of you this fine morning."
"I went to sleep on my bed."
Scott laughed. "No you didn't Eli. I found you on the porch step sleeping like a baby. And snoring too," he added. "Did you have just a little too much of Doc Myer's Rye Whiskey last night?" He began to laugh loudly at his own bad joke, but the laugh died in his throat when he saw the look on Eli's face. The look was a cross between anger and incomprehension.
"I don't care what you believe Matt, but I'm telling you the truth. I went to sleep on my own bed last night." He threw his shovel down and slumped to his knees in the middle of the track.
Matthew Scott dropped his shovel on the ground. He knelt next to Eli and put a consoling arm around his shoulders. "Then you must have got up in the night and ended up on the porch step."
"May be I did." Eli did not sound convinced. "Then there are the dreams."
Scott stood up and groaned. "Dear God Eli, not the damn dreams again. Balloons, glass coffins and doors! They mean nothing Eli, nothing."
"Then what about the space ship? Is that nothing too?" There was almost contempt in his voice as Eli glared up at his friend. "The one with the dead people: you were there, I saw you. You were there Matt. You were in one of those glass coffin things." As he spoke, Eli struggled to his feet.
"It means nothing." Scott's reply was not as self assured as his previous words had been. He felt Eli's eyes staring at him. "We'd better get on; Bergman's drains won't mend themselves."
Scott picked up his shovel, turned and started walking again.
"You had the dream." Eli stood in the middle of the hot, dusty track, his sun burnt hands thrust against his waist. "Admit it," he shouted after the retreating figure of Matthew Scott, "you've had the dream."
Scott stopped. He turned around very slowly. For a moment he was ready to deny it. But he could not do it. He said simply, "Yes Eli – I had the dream."
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