2000 Light Years from Home (James London) Read online

  2000 Light Years from Home

  By

  Iain Benson

  For

  Adam and Thomas

  and

  Elaine, always.

  2000 Light Years from Home

  Copyright February 15th 2017 by Iain Benson

  Cover Design by Iain Benson

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction: Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  One thing this book taught me: Sometimes you have to get lost, in order to be found.

  First published: February 15th 2017 on Kindle (www.amazon.com).

  First printed edition: February 15th 2017 on Create Space (www.createspace.com)

  ISBN-13: 978-1542704403

  ISBN-10: 1542704405

  Prologue

  In which a spaceship approaches Earth

  At Jodrell Bank, Cheshire, there is Britain’s largest satellite dish. It puts the efforts of those on council estates to shame, even those that pick up dodgy channels. It is used by researchers from many disciplines, mainly those involved with space, for it’s not much use in cooking. One of those disciplines is the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

  They key word is ‘intelligence’.

  This is why the SETI researchers completely failed to spot Warsnitz’s spacecraft speeding towards Earth, Cherenkov radiation sparkling all around it. The Deep Space Asteroid Watch (which has the acronym SEESAW because NASA is rubbish at acronyms) did spot the craft, but as it looked like a fish, it was discounted by the researchers using SEESAW.

  Warsnitz generally struggled to register on anybody’s intelligence scales, as he spent most of his time totally and utterly wasted. The craft he was in looked more like a Winnebago than a sleek sci-fi imagined craft. There were no bristling lasers and no pulsating engines. It was the perfect craft for doing a drug run. The outside was dented, pock-marked and made just about space-worthy with the aid of duct tape and hope. The interior looked like a student bed-sit. Clothing, equipment, food wrappers and food were left scattered where they had fallen. Their location depended on where he had been standing when he’d finished with them.

  In total discord with the surroundings, Oasis’s song Wonderwall was blazing out of the ships speaker system with Warsnitz singing along. He sang without knowing any of the words were actual words, they were just sounds that he could reproduce.

  “…walker wined ding and altherlie stat lee…” sang Warsnitz at the top of his lungs, his voice warbling, of key and high pitched.

  The common misconception of aliens looking tall and spindly, the so called ‘greys’, was probably down to beings like Warsnitz. He himself was about a metre and a half tall, with wiry, jet-black hair that covered the rear of his head, three large, black circular eyes in a triangle on the front. He wore a loose fitting tunic over his yellow-tinged skin. Any human that actually saw him would probably describe him as a three-armed tic-tac covered in fuzz from being left in a pocket too long. A crumpled lump, off to one side of the cockpit, was what appeared to be a prop from the alien autopsy video ‘accidentally’ released from Area Fifty-one. Warsnitz paused his singing long enough to grab a bar of something purple from a box and give it a good chew. The wrapper was thrown over shoulder. It landed with several similar wrappers and a metal box disgorging wires like it had been disembowelled.

  Warsnitz pulled a metal flask out from under a pile of clothing that tumbled off the console revealing several flashing red lights. Warsnitz glared at them and hoped that they would turn off on their own. Deciding that he neither knew what they were nor knew how to fix them, he ignored them and went to take a sip from the flask. Nothing came. He shook it, and tried again, one droplet of a white liquid dripped onto a long black forked tongue that whipped back into his mouth. Warsnitz heaved himself to his feet and half walked half waded to the back of the craft. Several doors were opened with small whirring noises. Each was examined, and found wanting. One struggled to open, but after a sharp smack, flew open.

  Warsnitz looked as crestfallen as a tic-tac can and headed back to the front of the craft, willing the blue-green orb to grow quicker in his front screen. He tried bouncing up and down in his seat to make the craft go faster, but stopped when the seat made an unfortunate cracking noise. He looked underneath.

  “I really should clean this place,” he admitted, before having another go at getting something else from the flask. It remained stubbornly empty. He threw it at a wall. It must have hit something important, as the cabin went dark momentarily. “And learn how stuff works,” he added to his mental to-do list.

  An alarm made Warsnitz pay a little more attention to the various lights on the array of instruments.

  “Is that the collision warning detector?” he wondered, wishing that the various graphs, dials and screens were labelled.

  Bon Jovi came on the speakers singing Livin’ on a Prayer. Warsnitz stopped worrying about the array of warnings he should be worrying about.

  “To mused do were kontha dox!”

  Socks, underwear and food containers flew everywhere as Warsnitz danced around, his oversized feet clearing a small patch on the floor and squashing some loose fruit.

  There was a very loud clunk.

  ‘Clunk’ as a word did not do it justice.

  CLUNK!!!

  This is still not quite descriptive enough.

  There was a huge resounding crash that rang the craft like a bell, sending what few items that were put away to spew out and join the mess on the floor. Warsnitz paused his dancing due to being thrown sideways. His tufted ear stalks were ringing long after the clunk had finished. He staggered about, resting one of three hands on a vital lever. Most things in a spacecraft cockpit are vital.

  “Oops,” he said as he turned gravity off. Everything not stuck to the floor by something only a sanitation engineer has the stomach to investigate, started floating.

  Warsnitz could just about reach the same lever, and pushed it down. He pushed it too far, doubling his preferred gravity. Loose items crashed to the ground.

  “Ugh,” he said, moving the lever to a more comfortable location.

  One of the controls Warsnitz did understand was the viewing control. He spun the control so he could see behind him. Spinning lazily against the absolutely black backdrop of space, was a shiny, and definitely broken, satellite. On the planet below, sixty million television viewers were pressing buttons on remote controls, and reaching for the phone to the television company.

  “I hope they had insurance,” he muttered, and turned the control back to face the front: Just in time to see another satellite fly across the front of his ship, missing by millimetres.

  “What the…?” Warsnitz thought the planet had defences that his dealer hadn’t warned him about. Some of the satellites were speeding by very, very fast. Warsnitz wondered how they avoided hitting each other, never mind his craft. There was another almighty crash that jarred his ship, sending it into a balletic spin.

  On the planet below, the Robinson family from Dulwich followed their satnav into a lake in Lincoln, a boy taking his new girl out on a date led her to a funeral parlour and three ships ran aground in Plymouth.

  “What kind of moron surrounds their planet with crap to stop you getting in and out?” Warsnitz impeached
of the slowly spinning globe that now filled his viewing screen.

  The alien got hold of the controls and steadied the ship. He might not know what all the buttons did, but he knew how to fly. From a pocket in his leggings, he unrolled a sheet of cellophane and turned it on. He quickly whizzed through some pages of text until he got to a crudely drawn map. He held it up and looked at the globe. The British Isles slid into view.

  “There you are,” said Warsnitz, sending his ship down into the atmosphere.

  Test subject Twelve-Gamma felt the freedom of the open countryside pass under its feet as it ran. Muscles pumped the wind whistled past its ears. Back in the control room, Twelve-Gamma’s controllers watched as the countryside flew by. A large map showed the rapid progress of Twelve-Gamma as it leapt walls and streams.

  “Holding steady at thirty miles an hour,” said a thin-faced, dark-haired man wearing a lab-coat.

  “Vitals look good,” said his partner, and equally thin-faced, dark-haired woman; also in a lab-coat.

  The light from the monitors barely illuminated the room. The banks of computer equipment filled in the blackness with twinkling lights like a technicolour starry sky. At the back of the room, just within the periphery of vision were eight tall glass tubes, figures just visible within them.

  “We need to acquire a subject,” said the man.

  “Scanning,” said the woman.

  The feed from Twelve-Gamma’s optics showed dark hillsides, with the lights from a nearby town reflected into the dark, still waters of a vast lake. Twelve-Gamma paused in its running, and scanned the environs, allowing its controllers to survey the scene.

  “The town is too populated,” said the woman.

  “There,” said the man, pointing at the screen.

  On the monitor was a solitary figure standing by the lake, illuminated by the lights from a car.

  “Is he alone?” asked the woman.

  Twelve-Gamma looked in the direction of the figure. He looked alone.

  “Is that the V80 Volvo?” asked the man. “I’ve been thinking about getting one of those.”

  “Why?” asked the woman.

  “They are very sturdy cars,” shrugged the man. “And they have good miles to the gallon. The have plenty of boot space too.”

  The woman tutted, and said: “We have our target.”

  The man put on a headset, and hit a button.

  “Wishbone?” he said into the microphone. “We have found a target. Do we have go to engage.”

  There was a short pause. The man looked at the woman.

  “We have a go,” he said as the authorisation came through his earpiece.

  “Let’s see what this baby can do.” She gave a wry smile, as Twelve-Gamma was only a few days old and therefore, still technically a baby.

  She typed some commands onto a keyboard. Twelve-Gamma’s optical system focused on the solitary figure. They filled the screen. With a gut-wrenching spurt of speed, the surroundings blurred. Twelve-Gamma was really moving, almost flying down the hill.

  “Hold on,” said the man as the figure enlarged on the screen. “Is he holding a sword?”

  Chapter One

  In which there is an alien abduction

  As James London’s Volvo purred up the M6, he couldn’t help but smile at how the car ate up the miles. The last time he’d been on this road, it had been on horseback and had taken days. Now, his satnav was telling him he should be at his hotel within the hour.

  London quickly checked himself in the rear view mirror, to ensure he’d arrive presentable. His brown eyes under perfectly trimmed brows glanced back at him with a twinkle of humour. He ran his fingers through his tousled black hair and checked his chin was still smooth. It was. He’d been told he was good looking so often, he believed it.

  London slowed slightly as he came off the motorway then sped along the A590 as dusk started to gather.

  Bon Jovi came on the radio, London sang along as he pulled into the car-park of the Windermere View hotel. Gravel crunched under tyres as he pulled in alongside an Audi. Ordinarily, the slate-clad, thatched roof hotel would not have been London’s preferred choice. It was a little too old-fashioned, he thought to himself as he extricated his overnight bag and broadsword from his backseat. The broadsword was the legendary Sword of Justice, Excalibur, in a custom-made scabbard with ‘Adidas’ embroidered in white down its length.

  The hotel seemed fitting for what he would do that evening. He entered the hotel, taking in the familiar sight of the dark red walls, dark wooden reception desk and slightly too low oak beams supporting the floors above. There was a grey-haired woman behind the desk, talking on the phone. She finished her call as London approached the desk.

  “Good evening, Mo,” he said.

  “Good evening,” she replied, looking puzzled. “Have we met?”

  “In another life,” London said with a smile, “you fed me the most heavenly bacon sandwich I have ever tasted.”

  She returned the smile. “Do you have a reservation?”

  “Several,” London replied with the standard hotel joke. “Sorry, yes, I do. London, James London.”

  She typed onto a computer to one side of the desk and brought up his details. “Have you stayed with us before?”

  “Just the once,” said London. “I doubt you’d remember.”

  “We do have a lot of guests,” she replied, handing him a key. “You’re in room twenty-six. That’s on the first floor. Please familiarise yourself with the procedures in case of a fire.”

  London thanked her. He didn’t point out that the reason she didn’t remember him was that, in this time-line, he’d never visited.

  The room was as he’d remembered: chintzy curtains that didn’t quite meet in the middle, a television on one wall, a comfortable looking bed that he knew was a godsend after riding a horse for a week. He dropped his bag on the bed and took off his watch before heading out.

  After eating at a local café, staying until late and they asked him to leave, London got back into his car and drove the short distance around Lake Windermere to a lonely car-park. A low hedge marked one edge; beyond, a jetty speared out into the midnight-black water with small boats moored along its length. London deliberately parked as far as he could from the jetty.

  A lovely safety feature off the Volvo was how the headlights stayed on for a few minutes after turning the engine off. London was thankful of this, as they provided the only illumination as he walked across the car-park to the land end of the jetty. It probably had a technical name, but to him, it was the ‘land end’. He disturbed the sleeping geese and ducks as he took the gap through the hedge onto the shoreline, heading for the jetty.

  London had chosen this particular place purposefully, for it was a long way from anywhere, and felt lonely enough for him to return The Sword without being seen. London knew he had chosen the right spot when Excalibur felt light in his hands. He waited on the land end of the jetty, thinking it looked a lot like the one that went out into the River Styx. The Sword seemed to be telling London to take it out of the Adidas scabbard. He slid it from the hand-made scabbard for the last time.

  His plan was to go to the water end of the jetty, amid the bobbing boats, call the Lady and hurl Excalibur as far as he could. This was the sword’s home. This was where it belonged. Spending the rest of its days suspended above a radiator was no life for the most powerful sword in history. In another time, he could have gone out into the lake in a small boat. His nautiphobia (fear of being on a boat) hadn’t been so bad back then, as long as he could see the shore was within swimming distance. These days, he’d really rather not as he’d added the fear of pirate attack to his nautiphobia.

  London felt, rather than heard, the pounding of feet approaching him. He turned and looked back, illuminated in the headlights of his car was a mountain of a man running straight for him. Excalibur leapt to life in his hands, coming round and swinging at the assailant. For the first time in recorded history, Excalibur missed. Lo
ndon’s attacker moved exceptionally fast for someone so big.

  The assailant leapt over the swinging blade, spinning in the air. It landed lithely, a leg sweeping round and taking London’s legs out from under him. Before he could wonder why he was being attacked, the attacker was bringing a massive forearm down towards London’s throat. Excalibur moved of its own volition, deflecting the arm along its length. The sword sang with the impact. London rolled away and came to his feet. A size fifteen shoe flew towards London’s head. He brought the blade up, blocking the kick. The impact sent him flying backwards through the air.

  London landed in a crumpled heap, winded.

  His arm ached, his back hurt and his head was spinning.

  “Who is this guy?” London backed up, trying to get a good look at who was attacking him.

  The assailant was easily over two metres tall, broad, with muscular arms, thick legs and an undersized head with no hair.

  “What do you want?” London called.

  London sprinted back to his car. The attacker quickly crossed the distance. London only just ducked the swinging knee, hitting the door remote on his car. As he moved from the lake, Excalibur returned to being just a sword, although it was still sharp. London’s attacker aimed a roundhouse at London’s head, but London had been prepared, opening the car’s boot, into which the attacker’s boot flew, denting it.

  London used the brief respite to dive across the driver’s seat. He had a purloined Sig Sauer in his glove compartment. His fingers had just wrapped around the handle when a strong hand wrapped around his ankle in similar fashion. He was hurled from the car, thrown across the visitor’s car-park. Excalibur returned to life, just in time to avoid him decapitating himself on the blade. London’s knee hurt. There were flames shooting around his back, and he wasn’t certain, but he felt his head might now be on backwards.

  Twelve-Gamma turned to face him. The gunshots were loud in the car-park, waking some nearby cows.