Chapter 3 - The Kraken Gate

‘Yes, Ms. Derringer. There is a second facility, although it has never been activated. It has been prepared and kept in waiting for just such an event.’ Director Harman held out a hand to his niece. She took it. ‘Jenniver will be heading there with Professor Maddison and the remaining team in three days’ time. It’s not far from the town of Lannerville in the Forest of Yesper. It’s time to bring it online.’

‘You knew this was going to happen.’ I glanced at Ankush. He tipped his head slightly to one side, the closest thing to a gesture of surprise he was capable of. No wonder the enterprise had cost so much money.

Director Harman shrugged. ‘Sabotage by Nallian spies, a fire caused by sparks, the Koulomb-field dynamos jumping their spindles…an endeavour of this magnitude entails many such risks. There was also the possibility we might need more than one gate open at a time. Emberland stands at a disadvantage to the Nallians and the Koulomb Gate offers us a real chance to redress the balance. Our planet Illesin has limited supplies of leverium, the lifting gas, and as far as we can tell, none of it outside the Nallian borders.’ The director skewered me with the look of a religious fanatic. ‘That is why they can threaten us with their airships. It seems that the one resource we are rich in, gravitium lodestones, may just be the edge we need. With them we can build many more operational gates and exploit the resources of any number of distant planets.’

The tower clock chimed five bells, breaking the spell. Obermann appeared and announced Professor Maddison. The brainchild of the Koulomb Gate was short and paunchy, with big blue eyes and a hairline that wasn’t so much receding as in full martial retreat. His sideburns and eyebrows were sprouting healthily, as though trying to make amends for the rest of their kind ‘up top’. He wore a soot-coloured suit that looked as though it had lain in a trampled heap on the floor until one bell ago. A thin leather folder, the sort office clerks kept sheaves of official papers in, was clutched under one arm. 

When the professor saw me, his face, already white, took on the look of one unexpectedly finding himself face-to-face with the demon, Aballas. He pointed at me and began to emit a series of squeaks and spluttering sounds, all the while regaining a reddish hue. Harman, Ankush and I watched, patiently waiting for something intelligible to emerge from the man. At last, Maddison realised that he couldn’t translate his emotions into words, and rushed at me instead. The attache case fell to the floor as he reached for my neck. Ankush moved to stop him, but held back when he realised I was ready. I intercepted the professor and gently nudged him towards the chaise long where he collapsed with a grunt.

Director Harman interposed himself before the professor could stand and have another run at me.

‘Professor! Get a grip of yourself.’

‘M-m-murderer!’ Maddison finally managed, wiping at his forehead with a handkerchief. ‘She killed Professor Renny, Albert Twanler, Johnstone and the others...burned, blown-up!’ His upturned face pleaded with Harman. The director’s voice was calm and measured when he bent down and stared directly into Maddison’s eyes.

‘You’re making a fool of yourself. Stop, this instant. Ms. Derringer did exactly what was asked of her. Her device functioned to your specification.’

‘Bu-buh-but…why was everything destroyed?’

‘We don’t know, but I expect we will get to the bottom of it before long, eh? In the meantime though, whatever tried to come through that gate is also dead.’ Harman’s voice was louder now, more insistent. ‘Something that we all knew could not be allowed onto our world.’

Director Harman turned to his butler.

‘Obermann, please fetch the professor a large brandy, the Lagrange, I think.’

Harman’s butler looked as though he would rather eject Maddison from the house, perhaps regretting his part in allowing an unstable lunatic into his employer’s residence. Nevertheless, he dipped his head and proceeded to the drinks cabinet on the opposite side of the room. Harman turned a chair around to face the chaise long and indicated to Ankush and I that we should follow suit with ours. Professor Maddison tried to straighten his clothes out but the creases defeated him. Obermann returned and handed over a beautiful cut-glass tumbler with a generous measure of brandy.

‘I know you’re upset Professor, we’re all in shock at the moment. We’ll all have to come to terms with what just happened, but we’ve known the risk for over a year, yes?’ The professor nodded slowly.

‘Do you have the names?’

The professor and pulled a sheet of paper from his folder and read from it.

‘Thirty-one staff on the night shift, nine members of the expedition and two janitors. Forty-two people inside the building and… well the constables won’t know how many perished outside for some time, but it could be as many as two dozen, people in the street or in the nearby houses that were levelled.’

He handed it to Director Harman who tossed it onto his bureau.

‘Terrible!’ groaned Maddison and gripped his sideburns in anguish. I caught his eye but he immediately looked away.

‘Indeed, it is.’ Director Harman sounded grim. ‘Someone will have to remain here, speak to the constables, answer the chancellor’s questions and pay for the funerals. The families will need to receive personal letters of condolences and assurances that everything will be done to get to the bottom of this terrible accident.’

‘I should do those things,’ I said. 

‘No,’ replied Harman. ‘You and the rest of your security detail are to join the professor and the remainder of the science team at the secondary site and secure it just as you did the one here.’

‘What!’ squawked Professor Maddison. ‘And blow the rest of us up?’

‘Perhaps you’d prefer invite one of those creatures to come and live in our world?’ Harman remarked acerbically. ‘Take one home as a pet?’

‘Well, no, of course not!’

‘What would you suggest then? Shut down your research? Close the Koulomb Gate forever?’

‘The professor has a valid concern,’ I chipped in. ‘What if the Charg are attracted to the gate? Perhaps they can sense the energies.’

Dr. Betz moved to my side. ‘I don’t think that’s likely,’ she said. ‘Koulomb fields don’t exist naturally, so there’s no reason for them to have developed that ability.’

Ankush, silent throughout the proceedings to-date, sat forward. ‘Could the gate and the control room be located sufficiently far apart so that the operators would be safe in the event of another incident?’

Director Harman looked to Professor Maddison, but again it was Dr. Jenniver Betz who knew the answer. I was beginning to suspect that she hadn’t been much fun at university.

‘We have to be able to see the gate to control it. Also, there would be too much of a voltage drop across longer power conduits; it’s hard enough to maintain a stable Koulomb field as it is.’

‘How long would it take?’ 

‘What…to redesign and rebuild the site?’ Maddison looked aghast. ‘Many, many Meniah-cycles, perhaps a year!’

Director Harman looked irritated. ‘We haven’t got that long.’

‘That long before what?’ 

‘Competition. You imagine this project is a secret, Professor? Over three-hundred people have been involved in it, one way or another; three-hundred people who have told their wives or lovers what we’re doing, in spite of their damned contracts instructing them otherwise.’ 

‘What about the cover story?’ Maddison had recovered his composure somewhat. I guessed the brandy had played a part in that. ‘We told everyone involved in the construction of the sites that we were investigating a new power source.’

‘A cover story that was in itself interesting enough to warrant investigation. How many nations, do you think, would kill to get their hands on a power source like the one we’re using? The electricity used to keep the gate open for one bell could light up the whole of Emberly for a whole night!’ Director Harman got up and started pacing back and forth in front of the storm-thrashed galleon. 

‘The fact that we’ve built some kind of tunnel to another world may not be widely known but the men and women on the General Assembly are no fools. They know we’re onto something big and it’s only with the chancellor’s help that we’ve been able to keep everyone out so far, everyone that is except for spies.’

‘Spies!?’ Maddison leapt from his seat spilling what was left of his brandy.

Director Harman looked at me. ‘Tell him, Ms Derringer.’

‘Professor Renny was working for the Nallians.’

‘Now see here, you must be mistaken.’ Maddison was hyperventilating again. ‘He was my friend. We studied at the Academy together!’

‘I’m afraid your friend Jonathan Renny had some rather unsavoury appetites.’

The professor blanched again, betraying his knowledge of Renny’s visits to Razor Gull Lane in the Purple Quarter. If the Purple Quarter was seedy, Razor Gull Lane, adjacent to the docks, was vile. Anything that was too depraved to be tolerated elsewhere gravitated to that filthy cobbled alley, with its crumbling tenements, and lean-to sheds. Girls, boys, animals and Draxil-knew what else was on offer there. I wondered if Maddison had ever accompanied his friend. My team had never seen them there together. Perhaps science was Maddison’s mistress and he needed nothing else.

‘Someone found out and was blackmailing Renny, that is until the Nallians got hold of him. The blackmailer disappeared and Renny’s money worries were over, only the currency traded now was information.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Ms. Derringer is our Director of Security,’ Harman pointed out. ‘It’s her job to know these things.’

‘Well I don’t trust her. How do we know she’s not the spy? Perhaps she deliberately blew up the facility!’

‘I don’t give a damn what you think about Ms. Derringer,’ the old man barked, finally showing some real emotion. ‘I’ll pick my team and I’ll thank you to focus on your role, which is to get the gate in Lannerville up and running. Do you understand?’ Maddison swallowed and nodded his head once, his big eyes all watery at the rebuke.

‘Why can’t we direct the gate at other planets?’ I asked, changing the subject, ‘Ones that the Charg do not inhabit?’ 

‘The gate has only successfully been tethered to the one planet so far, isn’t that so, Professor?’ said Harman. Maddison opened his mouth, but it was Dr. Betz who had the answers.

‘Strictly speaking Professor Maddison’s team have achieved a tether with thirty-one planets,’ she began, ‘but only two were compatible with human life. It proved impossible to sustain a link for more than a ten ticks with the first; you have to remember the distances involved are truly enormous. That just left Ganessa, the Charg’s home world. We have a catalogue of over five hundred potential targets to explore but most lie further away than Ganessa. We will refine the apparatus, in time, but this is the only viable option for now.’ She smiled, sure of herself.

‘What would it take to accelerate that timeline of exploration?’

‘You know as well as I do uncle, that the quality of the connection depends on hundreds of variables such as distance from our planet: good line of sight to the target world, the dampers on the field generators, the purity of the gravitium ore that we use to make the lodestone, not to mention atmospheric conditions in the sky above Emberly. The device cannot see through clouds, you know.’

The girl was on her favourite topic. I wouldn’t have minded, but dawn would soon be on us and I’d had less than two bells of sleep.

‘Yes, if the array of batteries was larger, the Koulomb field would be easier to hold steady and hold it for longer. Larger, higher-quality optics from Nallia would allow us to lock on more precisely, more expensive instrumentation, higher resolution gauges and strengthened axle-stands for the field dynamo…’ here she made an apologetic shrug. ‘All these things require a great deal more money, and the modifications would take many Meniah-cycles’.

Director Harman gazed coolly at his niece.

‘May I ask a question, uncle?’ Jenniver inquired. She was rewarded by a small nod from the old man. ‘If we knew these Charg better, it’s possible that we may find some means to counter them. Would it be possible to mount an exploratory mission to the site of the touchdown?’

‘How would that help us?’ I put in.

‘Well, firstly, we don’t know what effect the demolition of the portal has had over there. I suspect there’s a similar level of destruction, but we won’t know for sure until we see it. Secondly, we may find clues that tell us whether we did something to provoke the Charg. Any information that helps us to beat these monsters, or work around them would be invaluable.’ She spoke bloody confidently for someone who was just out of university. My admiration for her lasted until I understood what she had just proposed, in other words, one and a half ticks.

‘Wait…you want us to return to the site that we know was overrun by these alien creatures?’

Prev • Chapter 3 • Next
Copyright© Philip Dickinson 2023