Great writers R

 R.A. Daunton is an  award-winning screenwriter, novelist, and musician  based in the United Kingdom. More about R.A. at the end of this section

The mirrored hull slithered through the sparkling warp tunnel, dancing through the stars with sleek purpose. An obsidian mirror, reflecting the emptiness it knew all too well. Through piercing eyes, the man stood, watching, ever sure. The vacuum was an inferno compared to his heart, but what could not melt could not be changed, reforged, or reshaped. A constitution, frozen, yet always reliable. The man was all he needed to be, nothing more and nothing less.

As the violet plumes reconverged and the planetoid emerged, he looked away from the viewfinder. There would be no acknowledgement of a job well done. No words of affirmation were necessary; they were all there to do a job and would carry it out without question or need for approval.

Captain Alzhahn ran his hand over the armrest of his chair. The bridge of the Frumentarii hummed in anticipation as he sat down and crossed his legs. He looked over his crew and calculated their next move. The members of his ship were the best of the best, men and women who had been handpicked from across Terra and her colonies for their specific—and unique—skills, honed to a razor-sharp edge through years of gruelling training and fieldwork. The Frumentarii flew no flag, its name would never be sung, and its victories never celebrated. The crew had a singular purpose, and it would be kept secret by every ear that ever heard it, one way or another—for space was a terrifying place, more so than anyone could ever know. The only thing keeping the nightmares found amongst the stars from revealing themselves to the people of The Known was the crew of the Frumentarii. And they would take that knowledge to the grave.

‘Elztoria, report,’ Alzhahn ordered.

A thin, stern woman with long, blonde hair, Elztoria was a science officer. She was dressed all in black. ‘We are close enough to Beherit I, Captain.’

‘The atmosphere should be clean,’ Vurn said. She was another science officer. Also dressed in black, she was raven-headed and olive-skinned. ‘I also do not foresee any difficulty descending to the surface. This was, until recently, a milquetoast mining colony. There should not be any issues below other than what was stated in the reports. Initial scans show a slight deviation in the population, but nothing which couldn’t be explained by an accident. Apart from the beacon, everything appears normal for what you’d expect from a mining colony.’

‘Affirmative,’ replied Alzhahn, attaching a small sidearm to the thigh of his trousers with a buckled strap.

‘Grav-discs fully charged and onboarded,’ proclaimed Mann. He was a muscle-bound, shaven-headed man in a sleeveless rolled-neck sweater and flared trousers.

Vurn put her hand on Elztoria’s shoulder. ‘This mission is no good.’

The Captain, Elztoria, Vurn, and Mann, grabbed their long-barrelled rifles and walked down to the transport shuttle. ‘Yeah, I think this whole thing stinks,’ Mann said. ‘A whole colony of miners and farmhands goes quiet, and what? And we’re the first ones that they send in? Not the military? Not even a scouting vessel? Us? Going off, what? Some busted broadcast from a distress beacon.’

‘We are the scouting party, the military, and the damn exorcism if need be, Mann,’ uttered Elztoria. ‘You know that as good as anyone.’ I know it feels like Decanfore, but we made it out. Now we’re here. We didn’t die then, and we aren’t going to die now.’

Mann looked up at Elztoria and smiled. ‘You science types always know the right thing to say.’

Alzhahn held a long, golden shamshir. Holding it up, he turned it over in front of his face. It appeared to vibrate and shimmer in the space between his fist and face, humming as if powered by a battery. He waved it up and down, leaving smoky, red tendrils dancing in the air as if it had burned the atmosphere around it. Pressing a button on the hilt, the shamshir took solid form and ceased humming. As Elztoria stared at the captain, she could have sworn she saw the sides of his mouth twitch as he inserted the weapon into the scabbard dangling from his belt.

#

The shuttle was smooth on its descent, traversing the high winds of Beherit I like a scissor through crepe paper. As the ship approached the surface, Alzhahn slicked back his shoulder-length hair and placed a wide-brimmed hat upon his head.

‘Approaching Hinom, Landing Zone VII,’ proclaimed Lansor, the shuttle pilot. ‘Sorry there’s no welcome party for you, but I think they might be a bit preoccupied.’

The captain looked out of the shuttle window at the dock below. The landing zone was built into the black rock of the planet, the mineral that had been so sought after by the settlers there and gave the entire planet its distinct look of endless night.

It was Monozium. Unbreakable and surprisingly light, unlike any other material in The Known. It was used in starship and weapon manufacturing. The Frumentarii was built from it, as well as rifles, the grav-discs, even the shamshir. It was first discovered on Beherit I but had since been found in more plentiful numbers on planetoids closer to the Inner Belt. The planet was all but forgotten.

‘Why are we here?’ asked Mann. ‘Why are we being sent down to check up on some washed-up old mining colony?’

‘It’s not about the Monozium,’ replied Elztoria. ‘It can’t be. It has to be something else.’

‘We are here to respond to the distress call,’ uttered Alzhahn. ‘Sent two weeks ago on a public channel, broadcasting things they shouldn’t be broadcasting to the galaxy.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about, sir,’ replied Mann.

‘It’s not our job to worry, Mann. Our job is to do whatever they tell us to do and to do it quietly,’ said Alzhahn. ‘We are merely here to turn the beacon off. Terra can’t have any spacer turn up and find out what happened here.’

‘And to deal with whatever caused this in the first place,’ said Elztoria. ‘It’s not an important place now, but it once was. The people here have been digging for longer than any other colony. Digging for longer means digging deeper. Who knows what they have seen below the planet.’

Elztoria and Mann approached the window. The world outside the shuttle was barren and desolate, windswept and dusty. Not a soul was visible as far as their eyes could see, neither alive nor dead, a ghost planet for a ghost ship and her ghost crew.

‘Coming down now!’ yelled the shuttle pilot yelled as they landed on Hinom, the capital mining pit of Beherit I.

#

‘The beacon is one klick north,’ stated Vurn. ‘Looks like it should be inside one of those installations by the excavator facility.’

Through the thick dust clouds surrounding the Frumentarii away team, Vurn pointed north toward a large, imposing shadow. As Mann squinted his eyes, he could just about make it out: a towering bucket-wheel excavator.

‘Stars above, that thing is massive,’ he uttered. ‘It must be two miles high!’

‘Two point two miles, to be exact,’ answered Vurn. ‘It is a StarRov Manara, a Ganymede-class drilling system. There are only six in the entire galaxy. I believe that this was the first. The arm can stretch out for over four miles when fully extended.’

‘Damn,’ uttered Mann. ‘Have you ever seen anything like that before, sir?’ he asked Alzhahn.

‘Never,’ replied the Captain. ‘If they are drilling with something so large and for so long, the depths they have reached must be unfathomable.’

‘That is my main concern,’ answered Elztoria, ‘Considering what we heard from the beacon…’ Her words trailed off as they approached the facility. It was a congregation of several short, stout buildings with few windows and fewer doors. The buildings were connected by long, snaking, corrugated above-ground tunnels, several of which had collapsed on themselves. ‘Where is everybody?’

‘The beacon should be inside this building,’ stated Vurn, staring at a device around her wrist: her Omni-Vis. ‘I think we will find out fairly soon.’

Mann gripped his rifle and looked toward the building. His thumb hovered above the safety switch, coated in a film of sweat that began to glisten through the sandy haze.

#

The voice greeted them before they saw it. The beacon was placed in the middle of a control room, long since abandoned and surrounded by dust, sand, and debris. Tools, data pads, and work clothes lay scattered throughout the room. A control desk sat across one wall, smashed to pieces, next to a wide-open blast door leading down into the mine.

‘Emergency. Emergency. This is Aoid Forrester, Chief Mine Supervisor of Beherit I. Requesting immediate extraction for all colony members. The mine has been compromised. I repeat, immediate extraction for all colony and company personnel. The Monozium is not what we once thought. We dug too deep. There are things, creatures beneath the surface. They are down there, waiting, biding their time. We have to stop all operations across the territories. They are the Monozium. They are a part of it, all of it, across the galaxy. Their eyes, stars above, their eyes. This cannot go on, there is no more time, we —’

The message cut out and began to repeat. The crew of the Frumentarii shared a look among themselves, even Alzhahn.

‘Shut it off,’ uttered Alzhahn after a second repetition of the message.

Without needing to be told twice, Elztoria stepped forward and turned off the beacon, plunging the control room into total silence, other than a dripping of moisture echoing from within the mouth of the pit. Elztoria, Mann, Vurn, and Alzhahn turned their heads to the entrance. None of them needed to vocalise what had to come next.

#

The Monozium glistened against the dim footlights, reflecting and cutting a path through the dank inner mine. Though the light was low, the mirrored stone consumed the beams of the small guidelights like a thirsty desert traveler, gulping it up like water in an oasis. The cavern was titanic, stretching as far and as deep as the crew could see or comprehend, and as they traveled down the endless, hollow earth, there appeared to be no end in sight. The massive, carved gash from the bucket-wheel extractor let in no light from above, despite its monstrous size, but gave off the impression that the sky had been ripped open, torn apart by celestial claws through a tin can. The sidings of the mine were made from pure, cut Monozium, jagged and jutting at all angles, stabbing at the wide-open, howling depths of the planet, vibrating gently with a low, unnerving purr. The place was as barren and unwelcoming as anywhere they had seen throughout The Known, yet still they ventured on.

‘This makes me miss Efflon VII,’ muttered Mann, tripping over a shredded fuel tube hidden beneath a mass of dust and sand. ‘At least we could see where we were going.’

‘You mean the same Efflon VII where you got frostbite and had to have a new foot grafted on?’ replied Vurn. ‘That Efflon VII?’

‘I’d take that cold over this heat any day. I can’t stand this; muggy and dry, the back of my throat feels like it’s made out of sandpaper,’ replied Mann.

‘Take a moisture shot if you feel that bad,’ said Elztoria, ‘We can’t have you passing out now, not when we still have a ways to go and still haven’t seen any signs of life. It gives me a bad feeling; where could they have all gone?’

Mann grunted and nodded, then shot the science officer a sarcastic, ‘Yes, miss.’ Still, he removed a small silver tube from a pouch on his belt and put it on his neck. Gritting his teeth, Mann pressed a button on the tube and injected himself with the azure liquid contained inside. His body spasmed for a beat before he rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles. ‘Damn, that feels good!’ he roared, but Elztoria, Vurn, and Captain Alzhahn had already walked on.

‘No, you’re correct. It doesn’t make any sense.’ Vurn was walking next to Elztoria, her head pointed high, her gaze floating from one protruding Monozium ore to the next. ‘It’s as if the whole colony has disappeared. According to Bringham Mining Corporation reports, Beherit I has a population of over one point eight million settlers, civilians, and workers. Over eighty percent of them are located here in Hinom. Yet, nothing; not a soul, not even a hint of life other than that beacon.’

‘No ships either,’ replied Alzhahn, walking to the front of the group. ‘A mining colony of this size, producing Monozium in this quantity, even if the activity has slowed; there should have been hundreds of transport vessels on the surface.’

‘A fleet of sixteen hundred, to be precise,’ replied Vurn. ‘For both personnel and product transport off and on the world.’

‘Gone…’ uttered Elztoria. She shuddered as a chill ran down her spine. ‘What could have done something like this, captain?’

‘The beacon specifically mentioned “creatures,” so I am speculating Xeno involvement of some kind, although to what nature I cannot speculate. It was that aspect of the message that worried Terra. You know they can’t have that information broadcast before First Contact has been revealed,’ proclaimed Alzhahn. He turned his head to look at Elztoria and noticed a bead of sweat drip down her brow. ‘You are the expert of extra-terrestrial fauna, officer; what do you suppose?’

Elztoria ran the back of her hand across her forehead before wiping it dry against her tights. ‘There wasn’t enough information in the broadcast to say for sure, but it didn’t sound like anything we have come across. The rambling about Monozium? No, nothing like we have encountered. Nothing anybody has.’

‘Then we better find out for sure and make certain it stays that way,’ replied Alzhahn. ‘Vurn, what do the blueprints say about how to get to the bottom of the mine? If whatever happened here happened after they reached down to a certain point, then we would be best checking there first.’

Vurn turned away from the Monozium and checked the Omni-Vis on her wrist. She pressed two buttons, and the blueprints appeared above her wrist in blue, holographic form.

‘There is a transport elevator one hundred and eighty-six klicks to our west. It will take us to every level of the facility – all forty-six thousand if required.’

‘That will not be required,’ stated Alzhahn. If there are forty-six thousand levels here, then it is level forty-six thousand where we will find answers.’

‘Sir.’ Replied Vurn.

‘That’s a long trek, though,’ said Mann, having caught up. ‘One hundred eighty-six klicks on foot, and in this heat?’

‘It’s only going to get hotter the lower we go,’ replied Elztoria, ‘But I agree, I don’t like the idea of traveling this far on foot, especially in such open ground and with no idea what kind of danger is lurking out there.’

‘Indeed, forty-six thousand levels below the surface. Based upon the company plans, that will take us dangerously close to the planet’s core. I honestly have no idea how they were able to do it, how they were able to survive,’ said Vurn.

‘They didn’t,’ uttered Alzhahn.

‘Yes, captain. Quite correct,’ responded Vurn. ‘Our Grav-discs should be able to sustain us, even at those heats, but it’s not going to be comfortable.’

‘It’s bad enough up here as it is,’ complained Mann. Elztoria rolled her eyes.

‘But, I have some good news, at least,’ continued Vurn. ‘Half a klick from here is a transport hub. Assuming it is still operational, a bullet rail there will take us through the facility to the core. We won’t need the elevator at all. It’s a one-stop trip.’

‘Assuming that it is operational,’ repeated Mann. ‘And why do you think that will still be the case?’

‘The lights are still on, are they not?’ spat Vurn.

Sheepishly, Mann looked away from the science officer and towards the captain. It was no use, though, for he had already begun bounding towards the transport hub.

‘At least his lights are still on, anyway,’ grinned Elztoria to Vurn. Mann sighed, loud enough that it echoed through the hollowed earth. As the Monozium hummed around them, they took off behind Alzhahn.

#

‘Vurn, check the controls; Elztoria, scan for any signs of life; Mann, hold the perimeter,’ commanded Alzhahn as they entered the transport hub station. It was an open-plan platform featuring benches, vending machines, information booths, and a waiting lounge. Posters and billboards depicting moving company slogans were bolted to every wall. Messages like Keep Calm and Mine On, Monozium for the Heart, Monozium for the Soul, Bringham Mining Corporation Thank You For Your Service, and Beherit I: A Place To Settle glowed in bright, neon colours.

Each poster featured a buxom blonde woman with teased hair and a spandex, figure-hugging jumpsuit in the blue Bringham company colours.

Alzhahn approached one of the moving posters and studied it for a beat. As he gazed into her eyes, the woman smiled and blew him a kiss from her hand.

She was Bettie the Bringham Bombshell. Applications to join off-world Bringham mining colonies increased seventy-two thousand percent after she was introduced. The poor actress has been carted around the entire Known for decades, doing in-person appearances, signings, and hand-shakings. She was probably out there right now, kissing some baby somewhere. They advertised it as one of the job perks, “Join up and meet Bettie!” They even gave you a keyring of her likeness when you signed up.

‘They say she’s responsible for more male deaths than the Lunar Civil War,’ Vurn said.

‘I am aware of the most famous woman in the galaxy, Vurn,’ snapped Alzhahn. ‘Report; what have you found?’

‘Nothing, captain. There isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Everything is in working condition, and there are no signs of struggle. The only thing is the complete lack of life. The reports said that the beacon had been active for two months before reaching Terra, but other than the dust and the sand, it is as if this place was used hours ago. It’s like everybody just…disappeared.’

‘What do you suggest, officer?’

‘Honestly? Ask Bettie.’

‘Bettie? You want me to ask the billboard?’

‘If anybody has seen anything, it’s her. Her face is plastered all over the place.’

‘I appreciate the attempt at humour. Call the bullet.’

‘It might take a while to arrive. The console says that it is still down in the core.’

‘Very well,’ sighed Alzhahn. ‘Call it.’

#

‘Did you hear that?’ asked Mann, pointing his rifle towards the glass partition separating the platform from the waiting room.

‘Hear what?’ replied Elztoria, looking up from her vibrating Omni-Vis. It was making a low, humming noise as she walked the platform. Her brow furrowed as the vibrations and the sound appeared to grow and then diminish in intensity depending on the direction she was pointing the device. ‘There’s something here,’ she muttered to herself.

‘I don’t like this, Elzy. I think there’s something behind the glass. I heard it move.’

‘Shut up for a second, will you?’ Elztoria hissed. She pointed the device towards the waiting room, and it began to shake violently against her wrist, beeping quickly and sharply. ‘Take the safety off your rifle.’ She floated a couple of feet off the ground and removed the blaster from her thigh.

‘You take the window, I’ll get the door,’ stated Mann, clicking the safety of his rifle.

Floating above the window, Elztoria jammed the heels of her boots into a metal vent and let herself hang, her ponytail swaying back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. She pointed her rifle and the small, glimmering pistol at the window and waited for Mann to make his move.

Mann pointed two fingers at his eyes, to Elztoria, then down to the door. He gestured to the window with a nod, rolled his shoulder, and then put his hand against the door to the waiting room. He waited for Elztoria to reply: a nod and a circular rotation of the hand holding her blaster. He felt the hard plastic handle in his hand grow slippery with sweat as he received the signal that she was ready. Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, he took a deep breath through his nose and then barged the door open with his shoulder.

A quick, deep shot sounded through the platform, followed immediately by the noise of shattering glass.

#

Alzhahn stood by the poster depicting the flashing words Mining on Beherit I: Drill Deep and I’m Yours to Keep! He let out a dry sigh and tapped on the screen with his knuckle, impatient for the mascot to make her appearance. A couple of long seconds passed, which he used to consider the absurdity of what he was about to do, but he knew that Vurn was right more often than she was wrong. As he felt the urge to turn heel rise within him, coming dangerously close to overruling his better judgment, she poked her head out from the side of the poster.

‘Hello, handsome,’ said the voice, swaggering out from a pair of speakers in a comically strong 20th-century Dixie drawl. ‘If you aren’t a big old hunk of man, or what! What can I do for you? You aren’t signing up to be an honourable member of this colony, are you? We sure could use a man like you!’

Alzhahn felt himself getting light-headed as the rage built inside him. He clenched his fists, digging his nails so deeply into his leathery skin that he could start to feel the skin break. ‘Bettie. I have some questions, please. About the mine, about Hinom, about Beherit I.’

‘Gee, I’d love to answer them for you, feller! But why don’t we talk about you signing up for a little tour of duty here on Hinom first? It sure is a wonderful place!’ A long, spandex-clad leg appeared below Bettie’s face, seductively kicking itself up and down from bent to straight, repeating hypnotically. The stiletto-heeled, black knee-length boot lowered after a couple more repetitions, coming down upon the bottom of the poster, and Bettie pulled herself into full view. The zip of her jumpsuit had been pulled down below the bottom of her breasts, and she adjusted her cleavage before looking up, putting a hand over her mouth and giving Alzhahn a cheeky look as if she had been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. ‘Oops!”

‘What makes you think I’m not already a settler here?’ Alzhahn said, his blood boiling at having to play along with the charade.

‘Why, I’d remember a face like yours. No, you’re new to these parts. Come on, I can get the paperwork up right now. Right here on this screen. It doesn’t take more than five seconds to sign up, and afterwards, when you’re all settled, I’ll be right here with you the whole time, right by your side! I can even sit on your lap if you like!’ She broke into a hysterical fit of giggles at this, ‘Hehe!’ Her chest jumped up and down with every laugh, coming dangerously close to falling out of her outfit.

‘No,’ he stated. He had begun to have enough. ‘I am Captain Alzhahn. I am here from Terra on official, confidential business.’ He raised his Omni-Vis to the front of the poster and pressed a single button. ‘Here are my credentials. You will now answer all of my questions. I am getting bored of this.’

‘Aww,’ Bettie sulked, falling to her knees and sucking her thumb. ‘You’re no fun.’

‘Are you quite finished?’

‘I suppose,’ she said, sticking out her tongue and blowing Alzhahn a raspberry. ‘What is it you want to know?’

‘You can start by telling me what happened here. What happened to everybody? Where are the people in charge?’

‘Oh, that?’ she replied. ‘Why, they didn’t go anywhere. Nope, nowhere at all!’

‘What do you mean? I don’t see any of them. Where have they gone, Bettie?’

Bettie, once again, put her hand over her mouth and giggled. ‘Hehe!’

Before Alzhahn could press the matter, the noise of breaking glass echoed across the station.

#

‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ yelled Mann, pointing his rifle at the man. He was cowering in the corner of the waiting room, covered in broken glass and what looked like weeks of dirt and grime encrusted into his face and oily, unkempt hair. On his body, he wore a Bringham jumpsuit complete with an enamel pin badge of Bettie attached to the collar. Surrounding him were dozens of empty water bottles and cans of dry food.

‘Answer him! Now!’ demanded Elztoria as she floated into the room through the broken glass, her rifle still smoking. ‘My next shot won’t be a warning! There’s no glass in my way anymore, so I suggest you listen!’

The man scuttled backwards, trying to increase the space between himself and the angry-looking man and woman waving laser rifles his way. Upon hitting the wall, he clutched the pin badge and began mumbling. ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! She did it, she told us to go! We had no idea. No idea!’

Elztoria’s heels crunched against the fragments of broken glass as she returned to the ground and shot Mann a fast, sideways glance with her eyes. He shrugged his shoulders and stepped closer to the man, reaching his free hand out in a show of friendship. His rifle, though, was still unmistakably pointed towards his chest.

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Mann. ‘Do you live here, work here? Are you a miner? We aren’t here to hurt you. We are here to help.’

‘No, no, no. No help,’ stuttered the man.

Elztoria edged closer. The sound of more glass cracking beneath her feet caused the man to turn his head her way with widened, frightened eyes.

‘Whoa!’ she uttered. ‘Easy now, he’s telling the truth. We are from Terra; we received a distress call. Was that you who sent it?’

‘No. No call. Forrester did that. He’s gone, gone to the core. To be with her. With them. With all of them. But not me, no. Not me. I’m too smart for that, I hid. I hid away where they couldn’t get me. Safe. Just me and her. Safe.’

‘Slow down,’ said Elztoria. ‘What are you talking about? Who are you? Tell us your name.’

‘He’s gone loopy. You won’t get anything from him,’ scoffed Mann.

‘Linklater, sir,’ stuttered the man.

‘Stop right there! I’m warning you!’ yelled Mann.

Linklater had attempted to bring his hand to his forehead to salute. He quickly returned it to his side after sensing Mann wasn’t messing around.

‘Linklater, okay. We are getting somewhere now,’ said Elztoria, trying to calm the situation. ‘What do you do here?’

‘Live,’ replied Linklater. ‘I live here.’

‘Here? In the station?’ asked Elztoria.

‘Yes. But not always. I used to live up there as well. Sometimes down there. Anywhere she told me to go.’

‘Are you a miner?’ asked Mann. ‘What did you do here? He doesn’t look like a higher-up, Elztoria. Probably just some drone; he won’t know anything.’

Linklater glared at Mann. ‘Don’t like him,’ he spat.

Elztoria took another step forward. ‘It’s okay, Linklater. He won’t harm you. None of us will. We need to know what happened here at the mine, though. Where did all your friends go? Can you tell us that?’

‘No friends. Only her. She is the one.’

‘No surprises there,’ chuckled Mann. ‘To Venus with your friends; what about your colleagues? Forrester? Tell us where the people in charge went.’

‘I told you already. Down! They went down!’

‘To the core?’ asked Elztoria. ‘That is where we are heading next. Is that where we will find everybody?’

‘No, not everybody. Not me. I’m here, safe. Safe with her.’ He pulled the badge up and kissed it with his cracked lips.

With the sound of an electrical thunk, a poster frame behind the man sprang to life. Startled, Mann turned his rifle away from Linklater to focus on the newly awakened piece of company propaganda. The words Safety in Numbers: Join Up Now! began to appear on the screen in front of a photograph of the bucket-wheel extractor. Upon seeing that the poster was no threat, he lowered the rifle, brushed a layer of broken glass off a bench, and sat down. ‘Okay. Who are you talking about? Who’s this woman you keep mentioning? Your wife?’

Elztoria lowered her weapons and sat beside Mann, slotting the pistol back into its holster on her thigh as she crossed her legs.

Linklater giggled and put his hand to his mouth. ‘No, not my wife. But soon, maybe, if I’m lucky—yes. I do everything she says, maybe then. She’s told me so.’

Once again, Mann and Elztoria shared a worried look. ‘Who are you talking about?’ repeated Elztoria. ‘Who told you this? Told you to do what?’

‘I think I know who he’s talking about,’ stated Alzhahn, opening the door to the waiting room. Vurn stood outside the broken window, pointing her rifle inside toward Linklater. ‘Why don’t you show up and tell us yourself, Bettie? Tell us everything that you told him. About the mine, about what’s down there by the core. About the Monozium. That’s what this is all about, after all. Is it not?’

Elztoria and Mann turned their heads to watch their captain enter and strut across the room, stopping in front of the poster next to Linklater. The dishevelled man looked up from the floor and continued to laugh. ‘Yes, please! Let her come and show you! The most beautiful, wonderful girl in the entire Known!’

Vurn groaned and lowered her rifle. ‘It’s never easy, is it?’ she uttered as she floated over to Elztoria and Mann.

Alzhahn tapped on the poster and waited for a response. ‘Come on out, Bettie. I still have some questions I need you to answer.’ After taking a quick look down at Linklater, he grabbed him by the chest of his jumpsuit and pulled him up to his feet. ‘I have someone with me. Do you know this man?’

Bettie appeared on the poster, swinging on the rungs of the extractor like they were monkey bars. She had changed from her usual jumpsuit into a matching combination of company blue leggings and a sports bra. On her feet were matching trainers, and her hair had been straightened down and pulled back with a thick hairband. ‘Oh! Hi there, lovely!’ said the mascot. ‘You caught me working out! I’m…’

Mid-sentence, Bettie began doing pull-ups, making a point of pushing her breasts against the top of the bar with every rep.

‘…All…’

Pushing herself to the top of the bar, she raised her legs in the air and held herself there, hand-standing miles above the earth, legging-bedecked buttocks knowingly displayed to the front of the poster. Linklater began to breathe heavily, pushing his face up to the screen. Suddenly, Bettie appeared, close-up at the front of the poster, ringing wet. Surprised, Linklater jumped back from the screen with such force that he would have fallen if Alzhahn hadn’t been holding on to him.

‘…Sweaty!’

Pulling a towel out of thin air, she began to dry herself off, giggling as she went. ‘Tee-hee!’

Vurn rolled her eyes, looking down at Elztoria. ‘Stars above.’

‘What do you want to know, darling?’ Bettie purred. ‘I’m all yours. Just let me change first, yeah?’ With a wink of her eye and a spin of her body, Bettie evaporated into a cloud of cartoon smoke and stars.

‘No!’ gasped Linklater, raising his hand in protest.

Before they knew it, Bettie had reappeared from the cloud, dressed again in her jumpsuit, boots, and with her giant, backcombed hair. ‘Good to go, handsome. Shoot!’

Alzhahn sighed. ‘Are you done?’ he asked. ‘I want you to tell us what’s been happening here.’

‘Why, that’s easy, honey!’ sang Bettie. ‘Mr. Linklater and I have been helping out, that’s all! Just wait until you see what wonders we have uncovered here. You’re going to burst!’

‘I have been good, Bettie? A good boy, for you and the company?’ simped Linklater.

‘You sure have, ducky. You quacked real good, don’t you worry! You’ll get what’s coming your way,’ replied Bettie. Alzhahn couldn’t help but notice a hint of disgust in the mascot’s voice that Linklater seemed oblivious to.

‘Thank you, Bettie. Thank you so much!’

‘Enough,’ uttered Alzhahn. ‘Get to the point.’

‘Gee, you are a grumpy one, aren’t you? Fine, but why tell you when I can show you?’ declared Bettie. ‘That would be much more fun, don’t you think, ducky?’

‘Yeah!’ answered Linklater, nodding and clapping his hands. Alzhahn scowled down at him.

‘What’s got into him?’ whispered Mann to Elztoria and Vurn. ‘To make a fool out of yourself like that, in front of strangers no less.’

‘What’s the matter, Mann?’ replied Vurn. ‘Haven’t you ever been in love?’

‘Sure I have. But I don’t know what that is. That’s not love, that’s embarrassing.’

‘I think it’s cute,’ uttered Elztoria. ‘I like it when a man shows reverence.’

Mann scoffed. ‘Yeah, you would. Elzy Blackheart: Maneater of the stars.’

‘There’s a reason you’re single, Mann,’ spat Elztoria.

Mann chuckled. “And, what? Like you aren’t?’

‘I am. But no one hears me cry myself to sleep about it. Unlike someone I know.’

Mann turned away from Elztoria and returned his gaze toward his captain. Elztoria and Vurn shared a quick smirk between themselves and did the same, Vurn nervously scratching at the beauty mark below her eye.

‘Show us what?’ quizzed Alzhahn. ‘Stop dancing around the question and tell me what happened. I’m getting sick of this.’

‘Don’t speak to her like that!’ growled Linklater. ‘You can’t speak to her like that!’

Alzhahn looked down at the man and balled his hand into a fist.

‘It’s okay, ducky. He’s just a grumpy goose, that’s all,’ twanged Bettie before Alzhahn could act. Alzhahn un-balled his fist and let Linklater out of his grasp. Linklater scowled at him and threw himself against the poster, pushing his face against the screen. ‘Fine. If I tell you what happened, will you come with me? But you have got to promise to keep it a secret, now. It’s big! Can you keep a secret, sugar?’ continued Bettie, ignoring Linklater as if he were nought but an annoyance.

‘Fine. I can keep a secret. If it will hurry this along, I promise to keep whatever went on here a secret, okay?’

‘It’s only for a little bit, anyway. Company rules, you know how it is? It will all be revealed in time, don’t you worry!’

‘I feel like my head is spinning,’ muttered Vurn.

‘It’s fascinating, watching him in action. Don’t you think? I would have lost my temper far before now,’ replied Elztoria. Mann said nothing, still sulking.

‘We found something below,’ began Bettie. Suddenly, an ancient-looking mining helmet appeared on her head, complete with a blinking head lantern. ‘Down by the core. Deep in the heart of the planet. Where the juiciest Monozium dwells.’

Linklater began panting. “Yeah! Yeah!’

‘It’s a game changer, but not everybody saw it that way. At least, not at first. Bringham sure didn’t think so.’

‘But they aren’t a problem now!’ yelped Linklater.

‘No, not now,’ smiled Bettie. ‘Not thanks to you, ducky.’

‘Bringham? They own this facility, this planet,’ stated Alzhahn.

‘Do they?’ smirked Bettie. ‘They may have done. Once.’

With a loud THUNK, the next poster on the wall burst to life. It depicted a bullet-rail car speeding through molten rock and Monozium. As if leading the way, every subsequent poster in the room burst to life, one after the other. THUNK. THUNK. THUNK. They formed a trail leading towards the door to the platform.

‘Come on, darling. It will all be made clear soon enough,’ giggled Bettie. She danced off to her right and appeared in the next poster. Waving her hand at Alzhahn, she beckoned him to follow before jumping to the next screen. She leapt from every poster until she reached the one closest to the door. ‘I think I hear a train a-coming! Choo-choo!’ she yelled before disappearing.

As Alzhahn looked around the room, he caught the eyes of Mann, Elztoria, and Vurn. ‘With me, let’s go.’

‘Sir,’ they replied in chorus, standing up from the bench.

The sound of another poster sprang to life from the platform outside. They followed it, Linklater straggling behind as he stared, mesmerised by every poster, sniffing at them he passed.

#

Alzhahn, Elztoria, Mann, Vurn, and Linklater stepped through the door onto the bullet rail platform. The ground beneath their feet began to rumble and shake as they stood, looking down the empty rail. Bettie stood in a poster by the rail, dressed in the uniform of a steam train driver and holding a whistle in her mouth. As the group emerged, she began to wave and blow the whistle, letting out a sharp, harsh noise through the platform that burst out of every poster’s speaker.

‘All aboard!’ yelled Bettie before blowing the whistle again for a purposefully long, annoying time. She held the note, winking at Alzhahn and tipping her hat at him as they locked eyes. He gritted his teeth and walked forward, running his thumb across his neck to tell her to stop.

‘This woman,’ groaned Vurn, holding her hands to her ears.

The platform began to shake violently as Bettie’s whistle grew in intensity. AI did not require nor come equipped with lungs, and the threat that she could hold the noise for as long as she wished had begun to dawn on them all. Other than Linklater, who seemed to have the time of his life, dancing across the platform, spinning around in a circle with his head held high.

‘Enough!’ roared Alzhahn, but it was no use. He could not be heard over the whistle and the now thundering sound of the platform shaking around them.

Then, as if appearing out of thin air, the train materialised on the platform, and the shaking and Bettie’s whistle ceased.

Relieved, the crew of the Frumentarii removed their hands from their ears and gasped for breath. Linklater stopped his maddened dancing and drooped his shoulders, looking as if somebody had just kicked his dog.

‘Hehe!’ giggled Bettie. ‘Jump on, boys and girls! Next stop, the core of Beherit I! Better strap in and hold on to your hats because it’s a doozy! Choo-choo!’

They stepped aboard the train car and held onto the railings inside.

‘Here goes nothing,’ said Mann as the train started to vibrate.

Like a shot from a gun, the train disappeared from the station in a plume of static and smoke. The platform shook for a few seconds before settling. The posters faded, once again, to black – and it was as if none of them was ever there.

#

The train sped through the mine, following the corkscrewing rail down. A level counter on the wall flittered through digital numbers in the thousands as they descended, letting the passengers know how far and quickly they had travelled. The numbers went from one to one thousand in the blink of an eye, with the only sights outside the window being that of blurred, fiery darkness.

‘I’ve never been so thankful for gravity regulators,’ grimaced Mann as he gripped the handles of his seat.

‘You got that right, big boy!’ chuckled Bettie. ‘All courtesy of the good, generous people at the Bringham Mining Corporation! Think big, think Bringham!’

‘We have had gravity regulators and bullet-rails on Terra for centuries,’ scoffed Vurn. ‘Bringham did not invent them.’

Bettie pulled a face and stuck her tongue out at Vurn before turning to Alzhahn. ‘I don’t like her. Why do they have to come along?’ she said, thumbing her hand toward Vurn and Elztoria.

‘Don’t like them either,’ uttered Linklater as he stared out the window. ‘I only love Bettie.’

‘Aww!’ chirped Bettie. ‘I like you too, ducky.’

Vurn and Elztoria rolled their eyes at one another as the counter hit level twenty-one thousand.

‘Starting to get hot. Hotter, I mean,’ groaned Mann. He wiped a cascade of sweat from his forehead with his hand.

‘I like it!’ replied Bettie. ‘I love getting sweaty, don’t you?’

Mann looked up at his captain with a pained expression on his face. Alzhahn gave him a sympathetic I know look back and shook his head.

‘Is he going to be alright?’ asked Mann, nodding at Linklater. ‘He doesn’t have a grav-disc or a mining suit on.’

‘Don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine. Won’t you ducky.’ stated Bettie.

‘Yeah,’ responded Linklater, his head quickly shifting right to left as his vision attempted to keep up with the outside world.

Thirty-three thousand.

‘Sure,’ muttered Mann. ‘Whatever you say.’

‘Not our problem,’ scoffed Elztoria. She received a playful nudge in the ribs from Vurn, but before she could respond, the train pulled to a stop.

‘Gentlemen and…ladies,’ announced Bettie. She shot daggers with her eyes towards Vurn and Elztoria. ‘We have reached our destination: Beherit I, level forty-six thousand! This will be the final stop of our journey, so please be sure you have all your luggage and personal effects. There will be no more stops after here, the hottest of hot, the most boiling base on Beherit, hotter than hell, the scorching station – the planet’s core!’ She blew her whistle, long and hard.

Trying their best to ignore her, the crew picked themselves up from their seats and wobbled towards the exit of the train car. Their grav-discs blinked red and screeched at them as the doors opened and the heat from outside blasted into the train.

‘Bleed it,’ uttered Mann. He put his hand up, trying to protect himself from the heat. ‘I feel like I just stepped onto the sun!’

Vurn squeezed Mann’s shoulder, gave him a knowing smile, and strolled past him.

‘It has been a pleasure travelling with you. We thank you for your patronage,’ Bettie winked as they passed her. ‘Come on, ducky. Time’s up!’

‘Yes, Bettie,’ replied Linklater as he followed them onto the platform.

#

The station at the core was different from the ones above. While the others had been open-plan affairs full of niceties and billboards, station forty-six thousand was utilitarian in sight and purpose. Housed within a massive heat-shielding canvas, the place felt more like a tent than a rail station.

‘It’s so stuffy,’ complained Mann as he looked around the station. A wall of lockers ran across the side of the canvas, from the platform to the far end of the canvas. At the end of the wall was a large airlock door.

‘And this is it with enviro-conditioning on,’ replied Vurn, holding up her Omni-Vis as she scanned the area.

As Alzhahn stepped out of the train, the posters in the station came to life. Bettie stood dressed back in her mining gear behind a blank, black background. The screens flickered and crackled under the heat as she grinned at him, sweat patches dotting her uniform.

‘Come on, ducky Chop-chop!’ she sang, clapping her hands.

Linklater began hobbling over to the lockers, hunchbacked beneath the appalling heat. ‘Yes, Bettie!’ he said, pulling one open.

Ignoring the man, Alzhahn, Mann, Vurn, and Elztoria began to walk through the station towards the airlock.

‘There’s still nobody here, Bettie,’ uttered Elztoria. ‘You’re not taking us for a ride, are you?’

Bettie appeared on a poster next to Alzhahn. ‘Don’t’ worry, handsome,’ Bettie flirted. ‘They are just behind the airlock, having a wail of a time! You’re going to love what they’ve done with the place. I know it!’

Elztoria glared at the poster but received no response from Bettie. ‘You ready, Mann?’ she whispered.

‘Always,’ he responded, flicking the safety off his rifle.

Alzhahn put his hand against the airlock door and peered outside through the window. There was nothing but darkness.

‘I’m afraid this is as far as I can go,’ groaned Bettie.

‘No!’ protested Linklater, running up to the rear. He was dressed in a heat-shielding mining suit, covered from head to toe in blue. There was a large backpack slung across his shoulders with pipes and wires scuttling out to various points on the suit, and his covered face included a respirator that made his voice take on an odd, robotic quality.

‘But don’t you worry,’ continued Bettie. ‘I’ll be seeing you soon.’ She winked before disappearing. The posters hummed for a beat and then fizzed. The black backgrounds reset to a blue screen, vomiting flashing code and notifications about errors.

‘Bettie!’ wailed Linklater, falling to his knees. Tears began to dribble down his cheeks, barely visible through his mask.

‘Finally,’ groaned Vurn.

A roaring CLICK boomed from the airlock door, followed by a steamy hissing noise.

‘Stand back,’ commanded Alzhahn. ‘Be prepared.’

Slowly, the doors opened. The crew of the Frumentarii stood, weapons clutched and pointed into the darkness that greeted them. As the airlock opened, they were met with the core of Beherit I.

‘Whoa,’ uttered Mann. ‘How were they able to…?’

The core was pitch black, other than the mass of flame and magma that swirled in the reflection of Monozium. The choking darkness of the ore was attempting to snuff out the light of the core, but it was unmistakably still there, fighting for survival. A path had been cut through the ore, leading directly to the heart of the core, miles away from the airlock. But something stood there, blocking the path, twinkling in the reflective glow of Monozium.

‘I don’t believe it,’ gasped Elztoria.

Standing in the middle of the path was Bettie, all 5ft 11 of her in her 5-inch heels. In disbelief, Linklater and the crew of the Frumentarii stared at her from the airlock as she smiled their way.

‘She looks…I don’t know how to say it,’ continued Elztoria. ‘Real.’

‘Bettie!’ screamed Linklater. Alzhahn knew what was coming next and thrust his arm forward to catch the man, but he was too slow. Linklater’s suit passed through Alzhahn’s fingers as he sprinted down the path, rushing past the jutting Monozium walling them in. Alzhahn looked at the wall of Monozium and furrowed his brow, seeing what rested inside.

‘Vurn, scan them,’ Alzhahn commanded. ‘Mann, Elztoria; with me.’

‘Sir.’

Vurn began to scan the ore as the Frumentarii crew ran after Linklater. What met her as she peered inside caused her blood to run cold.

‘Stars above,’ Vurn uttered to herself. Looking back at her from inside the ore were the miners of Beherit I, eyes open, unmoving and suspended within pulsating black gunk.

Vurn looked at her Omni-Vis: Gregov Hilde, designation number 80039291072. Age 41 years old. DOB: 05/01/3219, Origin: Mars. Register to Bringham Mining Corporation, Beherit I – Sub-mine Hinom c.3238. Designation, Quarry worker. Status, Alive -BPM 50.

 The ore was jammed with bodies, shoulder-to-shoulder and floating at various, contorting angles. As she moved the device across the ore, the vitals of different workers pinged up – all male, all alive, all unmoving. As far as her eyes could determine through the darkness, every piece of Monozium contained the same mass of human beings trapped inside. The cavern stretched on and on, miles high, miles wide, and miles deep. With the foundation of the planet’s core made of pure Monozium, there was enough space to contain the millions of workers and settlers registered to Beherit I, all trapped in suspended animation in the bowels of the mine.

‘Captain!’ screamed Vurn. She took off, running as fast as her legs would carry her, past endless trapped workers and Monozium ore.

Gregov Hilde, designation number 80039291072, opened his eyes and reached out of the Monozium.

#

Bettie stood, towering above Linklater. He was hugging her legs, glaring at Alzhahn and his crew. She slowly stroked his covered head with her hand, a knowing smirk on her painted face.

‘I’m so glad you could join us,’ said Bettie. ‘We had been waiting such a long time.’

‘Get away from her, Linklater,’ ordered Alzhahn. Elztoria and Mann were standing by his sides, pointing their rifles at Bettie. None of them were sure who she was addressing. But they knew something was wrong.

‘No!’ he roared. ‘I don’t take orders from you!’

‘That’s right, ducky,’ responded Bettie. ‘He’s all mine, I’m afraid. As are…all of them.’

‘What?’ asked Elztoria.

Bettie waved her free hand, and the Monozium around them began to glow, revealing the men sealed inside.

‘Captain!’ yelled Vurn as she arrived. ‘The miners, the settlers, everybody! They are trapped within the Monozium!’

Alzhahn looked around the path and studied what he saw. After a few seconds of silence, he took a step forward. ‘Why?’

‘Where are all the women, Bettie?’ growled Vurn. ‘What have you done?’

‘Oh, darling,’ Bettie replied. ‘Why, that’s easy.’

‘Explain. Now,’ commanded Alzhahn.

‘Show, don’t tell,’ giggled Bettie. ‘Ain’t that what they say?’

A shocking, gloopy noise began to splurge across the path as the men trapped inside the ore started to fall, walk, and tumble out of their cages. Exiting their prisons, they stood tall, staring silently at Bettie as if waiting for a command. Millions of beings began to fill the cavern from all angles. The light from the core dimmed as the settlers piled up, eclipsing it with their mass. So many emerged from behind the group that it began to cut off the path, sealing the way back to the airlock. Elztoria, Mann, and Vurn span around, pointing their rifles at the unmoving horde.

‘Great Terra,’ uttered Mann. ‘How is this possible?’

‘Needed the power! Needed the men!’ spat Linklater. ‘Isn’t that right?’

‘Yes, that’s right, ducky,’ replied Bettie, patting Linklater. ‘Isn’t that what everything is about, after all?’

‘The women, Bettie. What happened to all the women?’ repeated Vurn, spinning to face Bettie. Her rifle was pointed directly between her eyes.

‘No need for them!’ roared Linklater. ‘They wouldn’t listen to Bettie. They only got in the way!’

Elztoria edged forward. ‘You mean they wouldn’t go along with whatever insane scheme she cooked up.’

‘Not insane!’ replied Linklater. ‘Progress!’

Bettie patted Linklater on his head and stepped forward. He fell on his belly as her legs moved away from him, his head slamming into the dirt beneath her feet.

‘The Monozium offers more than you know. Bringham, Terra; they had no clue. They have wasted it on their weapons and starships. But if they had just looked a bit closer. A little bit…deeper,’ grinned Bettie. ‘They would have seen the truth.’

‘What truth?’ growled Alzhahn.

‘The men here, they understood. The power in the Monozium is astronomical. They just needed a little guidance, that is all. They needed to be pointed in the right direction. They needed direction. They needed me, the right person to give it to them. The Monozium, you see, is a conduit, a battery. It is the lifeblood of reality, but it requires power, and what is a battery without…juice? Once they understood, they were more than happy to give their power up for the greater good.’ 

‘You trapped them in there? To what end?’ asked Mann.

‘Trapped? No,’ replied Bettie. ‘They all, every one of them, entered on their own free will.’

‘Brainwashing is not free will,’ spat Elztoria. ‘That is what happened. Isn’t it? You got into their heads somehow. You tricked them in there!’

Bettie laughed. It was a dry, deep, throaty laugh, unlike anything she had displayed before. As her body convulsed, her appearance blinked and shifted as if phasing out of reality. For a brief second, the image of Bettie was replaced with a crouching, black creature, its eyes glowing golden and bright. As the sight of Bettie reappeared, the image of its eyes remained, hovering in front of her as if they had burnt their presence onto the world like a screen burn on an old television. Linklater picked himself up and stared at her, a look of confusion forming on his face.

‘B…Bettie?’ he mumbled.

‘Enough,’ stated Alzhahn. He stepped forward.

A flash of light burst across the path, followed by a low thudding sound.

‘No!’ screamed Linklater, reaching out toward Bettie.

Standing in front of the whimpering man, Alzhahn’s outstretched arm held the shamshir, its blade glistening under the hue of the Monozium. Bettie’s face smiled back at Linklater as it rolled over to him, flickering in and out of its human and creature forms. Her body dropped to its knees as a cascade of blood fountained out from its severed neck. Falling to the ground beside her head, Bettie’s body shifted as it bled out, taking on the appearance of the slimy, clawed creature. Its thin, spindly body jutted out at sharp angles along its elbows, knees and ribs where the skin was thin and the bones ascended.

‘Bettie!’ sobbed Linklater in a mass of hysteria and confusion. ‘What have you done?’ he asked, looking up at Alzhahn.

Mann, Elztoria, and Vurn span around the path, sensing the settlers begin to stir.

‘Captain? What is going on?’ asked Mann.

‘I don’t think that was Bettie,’ stated Vurn. ‘What is that thing?’

Elztoria waved her Omni-Vis over the creature’s corpse and stared at the data it returned. ‘I don’t believe it. The readings say that it is Monozium. PureMonozium. As in, it contains nothing organic at all. It shouldn’t even be alive. It certainly shouldn’t be bleeding.’

‘That isn’t filling me with confidence,’ replied Mann. ‘What do we do now?’

A miner to the side of Alzhahn stepped forward. The captain watched as he began to spasm and fizz, phasing forms between himself and Bettie like she was a ghost signal, trying to claw itself through static. The man shuddered in place as the woman, unresisted, took control of his body. After a few seconds, the miner was gone, leaving nothing but Bettie. She grinned and winked at Alzhahn as she brushed down her jumpsuit and straightened her cleavage.

‘Now, darling. Did you really have to go and do a thing like that?’ she giggled.

‘Bettie!’ yelled Linklater upon seeing her. On all fours, he scuttled towards her but was quickly pulled back by Alzhahn.

‘Don’t you get it?’ uttered Alzhahn. He slashed the sword at Bettie with his free hand, beheading her once again. ‘That is not Bettie. It never was.’ 

As Bettie’s corpse sank to the ground, it morphed into its extraterrestrial form. Linklater looked into the face of Alzhahn, sad and confused. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Poor ducky,’ Bettie’s voice echoed through the core. Her image flashes across the cavern, possessing thousands of miners and settlers a second. Every letter of her words came from a different position within the planet’s centre, giving it a stuttered, displaced feel. ‘But never fear, your time to be one with me has come.’

The miners began to step forward, their arms outstretched, their monstrous visages slipping between creature, Bettie, and human with every step.

‘No,’ cried Linklater. ‘You’re not Bettie. I don’t want this! I want Bettie! The real Bettie’

Alzhahn let go of Linklater and turned to his crew. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Sir.’

Alzhahn nodded his head. ‘Now!’

Elztoria, Mann, and Vurn let loose with their rifles, Alzhahn slashing with the shamshir. Heads rolled away from the captain as he spun across the path, cutting the creatures down as they came.

‘It’s no use!’ screamed Vurn. ‘The rifles aren’t doing anything!’

Every blast of plasma from the guns bounced off the approaching miners, doing nothing to stop their descent from the Monozium ore.

‘What do we do?’ yelled Elztoria through the din of plasma fire. ‘Keep shooting? Why isn’t it working?’

‘To Venus with this!’ roared Mann. He threw his rifle at the head of the closest miner, caving in its skull and sending it crippled to the ground as it morphed.

‘The sword, the rifle,’ uttered Vurn. 

‘They are Monozium! Maybe they can only be hurt by Monozium!’ responded Elztoria.

‘Worth a try,’ grinned Mann.

‘Take them back to the ore!’ commanded Alzhahn.

The crew nodded, and Mann, Vurn, Elztoria, and Alzhahn ascended. Using their grav-discs to take them above the path, they held themselves in the air and waited for the command.

‘Now!’ yelled Alzhahn, and they flew back down towards the creatures.

Each one slammed into a group of miners, pushing them towards the Monozium ore walling the path, utilising the momentum of their flight to bulldoze them inside. As they hit the ore, the world went black.

‘Now. Now you will see,’ Bettie’s voice hummed.

#

Flashes of melting orange and purple oozed through the pulsating black as they floated within the Monozium, holding the creatures in their arms. The visage of humanity had ceased upon entering the ore, and the black, sharp-toothed aliens thrashed and wailed to be set free. The strange, gritty substance they had been enveloped in slowed the beast’s movements, stopping them from reaching their fanged mouths to the Frumentarii’s throats. Still, the colours around them flew by at the speed of light.

‘Traverse the Monozium. Witness your reality fold as the new day unfolds, darling.’

As the words pounded through their heads, the crew found themselves spat out of a cluster of Monozium ore. Rolling the beasts away from their bodies, Alzhahn beheaded his and Mann’s while Elztoria and Vurn smashed their creature’s heads with the butts of their rifles.

‘Where are we?’ gasped Elztoria, looking around.

They were no longer in the core of Beherit I. The place they found themselves was bright and cool and filled with strange, pastel-coloured flora. It smelt of burnt rose petals, but the sidings of the cavern were unmistakenly made of Monozium ore. The place dwarfed even the cavern of Beherit I, stretching on as it did for miles upon end, but with beaming sunlight crying down from the open heavens above.

‘Welcome, dear. To the core of Monozium Prime,’ Bettie’s voice sang. Suddenly, she appeared before them, dressed in a short floral dress and sandals. Her hair was braided, and she wore a crown of daisy chains.

‘Explain,’ commanded Alzhahn. Even he couldn’t help but look around, the wonder clear on his face. ‘And Enough with the disguise. We know you aren’t Bettie.’

‘Very well,’ replied Bettie. Her form shifted into a large, muscular version of the creature. It had spiralling horns upon its head and a long, pointed tail that thrashed in time with the swaying movements of its body.

‘Queen…of Monozium?’ uttered Elztoria.

‘Very good,’ replied the Queen. ‘Do you see now? Why all of this was necessary? This is a junction to the stars, where all deep-core Monozium comes together as one. It is connected to hundreds of thousands of other planets across the cosmos. All it takes is the joining of Monozium to Monozium. And you are free to enter. And, of course, power. Lots and lots of charge. Every piece of ore you see here is connected to a cluster on another planet. Interstellar travel in the blink of an eye. It just requires…’

‘Life,’ declared Elztoria. ‘You sucked the life out of an entire planet so you could walk across planets! You turned all those people into those…things!’

‘Correct. Long-term Monozium exposure at that level does invoke certain changes. Wonderful, beautiful changes. Embrace the hive mind, Terrans. Open yourselves to a new, exquisite reality.’

Alzhahn walked up to the Queen and faced her eye-to-eye. ‘This is astonishing. It could change everything we know about…everything.’

‘Correct. And all it takes is the life force of a mere few million of your Terran bodies to power. Or any other humanoid creature, that is. After you change, we could find more species together, others to power the machine. Join us and begin humanity’s journey further afield than you have ever dreamed possible.’

‘Terra will need to be informed,’ stated Alzhahn. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Sir,’ responded Elztoria.

‘They will be very interested in this indeed,’ said Mann. ‘Very interested.’

‘All of these ores transport you to another world?’ uttered Vurn.

‘Yes,’ replied the Queen.

‘I see. Yes, think of the prospects.’

‘And all you need is Monozium from a Monozium-producing planet’s core to pass through. Interesting indeed,’ Elztoria said.

Alzhahn’s fist flexed. The Queen’s eyes widened. A light flashed, and with a wail, the Queen’s body dropped to the grassy floor of Monozium Prime. Alzhahn picked up her head and walked back into the cluster of ore from whence they came.

#

Upon reaching the surface of Hinom, the crew of the Frumentarii gazed at the giant bucket-wheel extractor.

‘What are you going to do now?’ stuttered Linklater.

‘Lansor, requesting pick-up from Landing Zone VII,’ spoke Alzhahn into his Omni-Vis.

‘Roger that, sir,’ replied Lansor. ‘I’ll let Issah know to vacate your chair.’

‘Are you ready, Vurn?’ Alzhahn asked.

‘Sir.’

‘What happened down there? Where did you go? Why won’t you tell me what happened? What did they do with Bettie?’ demanded Linklater.

‘Then bring it all down,’ commanded Alzhahn. ‘Terra will want this place safe when they come to pick up the pieces.’ 

Vurn pressed a button on her Omni-Vis, and the bucket-wheel extractor roared to life.

As the extractor descended, so too did the Amort. The crew stood and watched the beastly machine at work as they waited for pick-up, hearing the screeching sounds of Monozium upon Monozium filling the air.

#

‘Elztoria,’ uttered Alzhahn.

‘Sir?’ she answered as the Amort began to land.

‘Keep our secrets.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The sound of a blaster rang out, followed by a soft thump before Alzhahn, Mann, Vurn, and Elztoria entered the Amort and returned to the Frumentarii.

THE END

 From the Hollows is a raygun gothic, sci-fi/horror story focusing on the crew of the Frumentarii. Helmed by Captain Alzhahn, the Frumentarii sails the stars in the early days of human space exploration, dealing with clandestine alien and supernatural threats that dwell amongst the cosmos. Sworn to uphold the secrets of alien life from the human populace scattered throughout the galaxy, Alzhahn and his crew will do whatever it takes to ensure that the facade of human superiority is upheld for their Terran masters. No matter what the cost.

Sailing to a far-off mining colony, the Frumentarii responds to a distress beacon broadcasting xeno-centric warnings to the galaxy. Upon reaching the seemingly abandoned facility, the crew find all traces of life missing. As the crew descends to the core of the planet, they are met with the AI mascot of the mining corporation, who leads them to the source of all the problems. Revealing that the strange ore found on the planet can facilitate instantaneous, interstellar travel using harvested lifeforce, she reveals to the crew that the miners have been used to fuel this revelation. Alzhahn and the crew understand what must be done to keep this a secret from the galaxy, and battle with the sinister creatures dwelling within the ore, as well as the entity that has taken over Bettie, the mascot of the mining corporation.

Focusing on the themes of corporate greed and the dangers of artificial intelligence, From the Hollows is a space-trekking warning not to succumb to the empty promises offered by big business, wrapped up in a bow of star-faring adventure, a love letter to 60s and 70s sci-fi, and cosmic horror.

I am an award-winning screenwriter, novelist, and musician with an MA in Screenwriting from Napier University in Edinburgh and a BA in Film from The University of Kent.
Some of my previously published stories include Man/Maid for Black Sheep Magazine, and Edin and Padlocks, both for an upcoming anthology by Hex Arcana Publishing. My short films, A Whole Host and Wooden Masks, are currently doing the rounds on the festival circuit and can be viewed at various festivals both around the world and online.

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Rebecah Hall was born in Pecos, Texas. She lived in the U.K. for 10 years and currently reside in Rockport, Texas with her tuxedo cat, Jazz. More about Rebecah at the end of this section.

I worked in the cotton fields
of New Mexico
beside grandma and Rosa.
I dragged that heavy canvas bag
from one row to the next
pulling cotton from sharp bolls
that cut like knives
through steak.
Rosa shared her 
tortillas, rice, and beans
that were rolled tightly
and sealed in foil.
I shared my pbj.
And when we'd worked
from sunup to sundown,
Rosa slept in our cellar.
She said it was cooler down
there with the spiders
and other squiggly creatures
on an old army cot
that sagged slightly
and grandma would say,
sleep tight 
and Rosa would laugh
like wind chimes in a breeze.
Rosa bought me gloves
to keep my hands from 
bleeding on the cotton
and ruining it.
I bought her a crucifix
for Christmas.
One day, I stumbled from the
bus and walked in to
see my grandma
her face wracked in pain
tears streaming from her eyes
and sobs choking her words
that hovered in her throat.
They took Rosa
away somewhere
and said she could never return.
The absence of her
laughter and joy of life
haunts my vaulted heart
as I remember shared food,
small gloves and wind-chime laughter 

At the grand old age of 38, I faced a monumental life crisis. I was finally dealing with the source of my unhappiness. I felt suicidal. I knew that my decision to reveal myself could and would destroy the deceptive world I had carefully built on shimmering sands that were being eroded daily. When I crawled out of the dark closet society had given me to hide away my darkest secret, it was with fear and trepidation. This was it. Face the truth, reveal it, and live it, or be locked into a marriage where I found very little love or even attraction for the man I married 19 years before.  The hurt and damage I inflicted upon him were enormous.

At 39, I told him I was a gay woman and wanted a divorce. He was stunned. We had no relationship other than me talking to him and his replies were always, “I’m tired,” or “Not now.”  Upon that day, I made him listen. I forced him into a conversation that revealed the greatest lie I ever spoke. I was right. It cost me everything. 

Now, as I reflect on that time, I know that simple statement, “I’m gay. I want a divorce,” was the voice of a woman who wanted nothing more than to be free to be who she was.  I began the search for my authentic self. For ten years, I explored, found my broken pieces, and put them back together, sealing the puzzle with gold.  I found freedom and began to walk into a light I never knew existed. That divorce may have cost me everything, however, it gave me more than the marriage ever had. I could breathe. I could smile. I could be authentic.

The authenticity of self cannot be over-rated. It comes at a cost, yes. However, anything of authentic value is expensive. 30 years later, I stand before the world that scorned me and my fellow LGBTQ sisters and brothers with pride. Not just pride because I am gay, but proud because of the courage and dignity I found within when the lies fell away, and the truth enfolded me.  I am a lesbian. I live quietly and love greatly because finally, I love myself and the woman I walked into the day I walked away from the carefully crafted woman I was.

I am Becah. I am made of light and love. I truly believe that is all that matters. I love and share the light of that love with everyone I meet.

In short, I fought the battle of becoming myself and claim that victory.  I pray that each of you finds your path in the light and discover your authentic self and live it every moment you are given.

Blessings to all of you.

Should you ask me
what defines poetry
I might gaze upward
at a cruising cloud
searching for a parking place,
listen to a seagull’s
raucous screams in its
relentless search for food,
I might caress an early leaf,
hug an aging tree.
Or
I might gaze into your eyes,
listen to your voice,
touch your hand,
for you see, my friend,
you are as much a poem
as the other three.  

It's a thing of never-ending beauty:
the metaphoric lover trailing laughing fingers
lazily across the impending birth of the poem
a creation of a roaring cascade
the living river directed to the inevitable ledge
where the foaming fall of words
plummet down and down upon the rocky page
a simple symphony the driving simile
all to the destination of meaning
and the transcending ascent to something
deeper and more profound than the mind
ever perceived but the soul always knew 

I was watching Brene Brown's show on Netflix today, A Call to Courage, (fabulous by the way). She said that being brave makes you vulnerable. I've been thinking about that simple statement for the last four hours. Then the penny dropped. Yeah, it does make you vulnerable—especially when you are speaking of the Arts.

Once a month, I attend an Open Mic here in Rockport. I read my work and applaud others on theirs. I think what really strikes me is that so many people don't realize that when you create and expose that creation to the world, just how vulnerable you really are. Every single time I read, I open myself up to criticism and negative remarks. So does every other artist. The moment art is displayed in any form, the artist then loses control over it. We are revealing not only our innermost thoughts but our hearts as well. It's easy for people to say, “I didn't understand what you were saying,” and then walk away. It's easy for the audience to bombard the artist with negative remarks. So, the artist must develop a thought process that says, “It's okay. It doesn't matter.” Yet, it does matter at some level. My dream is to change this world one poem at a time. I tackle the controversial because the voice within says, “Somebody has to.” It's an interesting progression. Giving birth to a poem, shaping it, fine-tuning it and then releasing it upon the unsuspecting world. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I want to provoke thought and discussion. I want people to remember just one line that may have resonated within them and helped them through a dark time or even through a life-changing event. It's not so much ego as a sincere love and hope that I might write something that helps that one person.

So, to all of my creative friends, don't feel alone. We are all in this one together. Maybe, just maybe, our time has come to storm the Bastille. Blessings. xxxx

I’ve been putting pieces together in the puzzle I refer to as my life. I had so much repressed anger for the first 40 years. Looking back at the time when I was diagnosed early on with Sjogren’s, I wonder how much that anger contributed to that disease—autoimmune—the body attacking itself. How much anger had I been forced to swallow as a part of the creation of it all?

The past few days, aside from working on my manuscript, I’ve been going back in time reading my journals. Every significant health event occurred after mismanagement of emotions. Is there a link? I think there must be. Here are some examples I am pulling out that refers more to the past few years.

After Hurricane Harvey hit: I am so angry about the loss of the tiny town I love so much. Side note: Every joint in my body just aches. I wonder if I will ever find what is wrong with me?

I am so frustrated today! I just can’t deal with news and talking heads speaking over each other and spewing hatred. Today the pain is at a 9. Ibuprophen isn’t touching it. I just want to cover up and pretend this day is not happening.

Today was a really great day! I stayed away from Facebook and read “The Immortal Diamond,” by Richard Rahr. I feel fantastic—better than I have in weeks!

Another good day! No pain, no angry voices speaking in the background, no politics . . . just Jazz and me listening to music and floating away on a peaceful cloud.

When I looked at that, I knew there had to be some truth to the statement that suppressed emotions are detrimental to our health. Bobbie made that statement yesterday when we were coming back from the doctor’s visit. Another E.N.T. who is honestly looking for the underlying issue causing vertigo. It might be Meniere’s.

Anyway, the whole thing boils down to not expressing feelings in a way that is constructive rather than destructive. Learning that I don’t have to take anyone’s opinion personally. It’s theirs, not mine. So rather than allowing knee-jerk responses and angry retorts, I have given myself permission to mentally say, “This isn’t mine to own or to argue. I will not accept negativity and allow it to damage me even more.” I’m not saying this is for everyone. Right now, it’s the only way I can cope. 
And as an aside, I do believe the media is fueling the divisiveness in this country. I am not playing those games. I have enough to deal with and I am sure you do as well. Blessings xxxx

She is more than you can imagine in your wildest escapades  or your careless littering of plastic.

She is more than the luscious gardens that feed you and give you dripping flowers which scent the air with non-duplicating smells.

She is more than the sidewalks and highways, the trails and paths cut deeply into her skin, the blasted tunnels through the mountains.

She is more than the pipelines desecrating her rivers and lands with their contents, or the spewing refineries vomiting their ugly fumes.

She is more than the towering buildings cutting the air with razor edges lining the landscape with artificial lights.

She is so much more  than you know or recognize, She is your mother . . . mistreated and abused.

copyright Rebecah Hall 2016

Rebecah Hall was born in Pecos, Texas. She has 2 daughters and 3 grandchildren. She pursued a Communications degree at Black Hills University in Spearfish, S.D. After that she lived in the U.K. for 10 years and pursued a Masters and PhD in Creative Writing--poetry. She currently reside in Rockport, Texas (a Hurricane Harvey survivor) with her tuxedo cat, Jazz.

She's been writing poetry since the age of 9, and went through the typical teenage angst period.  Her poetry began to mature at the age of 17. Presently, she addresses controversial topics more than  the everyday. Her hobbies include photograpy and music.

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Roberta Shellum Dohse practiced law in Corpus Christi for many years.  She has always loved to write. More about Roberta at the end of this section.

I once read a book about a woman who ran away from her life,

changing her name to that of towns through which she passed,

names so unique and different 

that no one would think them the name of a woman.

She cut free her tethers and floated into a new world.

There are still times when I wish to pull up stakes, leaving behind all that is

known. 

I still thirst for new challenges, new mountains,

different faces of the sun.

What am I searching for?

At those times the moments appear like facets in a gem,

turned one way and the familiar stares back,

turned another and the unknown glints in the light so enticingly,

luring me with possibility.

Those moments last only so long as the light refracts just so,

but an urgency still remains and presses on me

 to change the air I breathe, the job that I do,

the routine of my life.

I want to see a different mountain, listen to a different sea.

So I dream. But they are waking dreams. 

My restlessness is strong.

And though my wandering is a poor substitute, it helps slake my thirst

when I watch the sun rise, or set, on a different sea,

taste the salt in the air and smell the pines. 

There is a respite as I breathe in heather and lilacs, 

new rain on freshly turned earth

leather being worked into scabbards 

and iron being forged, 

melted wax being formed into candles,

alfalfa in the fields and dust on the wind.

I grow herbs and imagine I am of a different age in the gardens of a castle.

And, sometimes, I linger at the faint strums of a guitar and think of you

and wish I did not have to wander just to catch a hint of your

passing.

read more great writing like this in Corpus Christi Writers 2019

The old tree where you first pulled down a branch 

to pluck me a sweet blossom, 

where you first gazed so deeply into my eyes, 

it is leaning so wearily into the wind.

The old gas pump is still standing at the edge of town, 

though the station is now long abandoned.

It was there you first put your hands on my shoulders 

and drew me close, just to smell my hair. 

And just up the hill is the old barn 

 where we had our first dance, 

swaying so slowly to the rhythm of the band.

I still remember the deep musky smell of you.

There is music! And despite my best intentions, 

I am drawn in to gaze at the big dance floor, 

at the band at the far end, up on the stage, 

just getting started.

People filter in to sit at the rough wooden tables, 

laughing, talking, 

and I lose myself in the lively tunes.

I can almost taste the beer. 

A smile steals across my lips. 

Then a loud commotion erupts at the door, 

and you burst in, 

your bigger-than-life laugh filling this space. 

You move through, 

greeting old friends, eyes sparkling, 

legs twitching with the pulsing rhythm. 

The very air has come alive. 

But you are not with me, 

and the tears spill unbidden from my eyes. 

I stifle my sobs, fade back into the shadows, 

then out into the twilight. 

Still, I cannot keep from looking back as I drift 

slowly down the hill, and, 

like Lot’s wife, I am rooted to the spot.

The last rays of the setting sun 

arc through the gaps in the walls, 

through the places where the roof has crumbled, 

where moss and leaves have tumbled in.

And, with a great a flutter of wings, 

a covey of dove bursts out into the cooling air. 

Shadow and color mingle, and glitter in my tears.

When am I and where are you, my love?

copyright Roberta Dohse

read more poetry by Roberta Dohse in Corpus Christi Writers 2018

Roberta Shellum Dohse hails primarily from California. She is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley. After a stint on a farm in northern Minnesota and time in Oregon, she moved to Texas in 1980. She attended law school at the University of Houston and practiced law in Corpus Christi. She was formerly a flight instructor and a college professor. She has always loved to write, and conveys her love of the land in her poetry. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies.

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I was 17 years old in the summer of 1969, when I announced to my parents that I was going to upstate New York to a three-day music festival. They looked at me like I was crazy. They said "oh really, and how do you plan to get there?" I told them I would hitchhike if I had to, but I was definitely going. I whined about it. I got my twin brother Michael and my younger sister Lynn to whine about it. My mother reminds me that I was the ringleader and instigator. I had roused my siblings to the cause, and we all wanted to go to Woodstock. Our teenage mantra was that we would get there any way we could. We had seen the poster. We heard about it from everyone we talked to. The festival's energy was simply omnipresent in our world. My parents relented but only on one condition, if our 20 year old brother Marc, who was home from college would drive us in his fine 1967 Ford Galaxy 500 convertible. My mother tells me now that she gave him her credit card and cash to encourage him to take us. She even paid for the gas. So, he agreed to chaperone and chauffeur us, and our high school buddy Susan, to the celebration of peace and music: Woodstock.

We borrowed sleeping bags from our neighbors. We didn't even have backpacks so we didn't pack a thing with us. No food, no change of clothes. We were kids from suburban Fords, New Jersey, who had never camped out in our lives. Despite being seasoned anti-war protesters, open-air music concerts was out of our ken. We brought an extra blanket, like we were going to a picnic, loaded ourselves into the car and drove the 125 miles upstate to a show we didn't have tickets for. I think we must have assumed that we would buy tickets at the gate. It all seemed very reasonable to a 17 year old.

The ride was uneventful until we arrived fairly close to the site on Friday afternoon. Suddenly there were cars and people everywhere. Everyone looked just like us. My older brother told me that that's what he remembers most about Woodstock, how it was a great equalizer. No one stood out. There was a moving sea of blue jeans and flowing hair, beads, embroidery and flowers. We just parked our car in a field of other cars and joined the throngs. We didn't even have to know where the event was being held exactly, the movement simply took us there. We had heard in the crowd that the fences were down and people were being allowed in for free. That worked for us. We were going to Woodstock and we didn't even need tickets anymore!

A sea of people spread before us in the largest crowd of humanity we had ever seen amassed in one place. There was a stage in the distance, and smoke was rising from pipes and joints. Everyone smiled at each other like we were all members of the same lost tribe, now rejoined. There was camaraderie, a likeness of spirit. It reminded me of Walt Whitman's: And what I assume, you shall assume; For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you."

I remember listening to the music of Ravi Shankar, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez. Darkness fell to their sounds on Friday night. People came and went. Joints were passed around. Someone gave us amyl nitrate. The world inverted and then righted itself. The rain started. We moved our wet sleeping bags closer to the stage. The rain continued. We were part of the sea of people.

I don't remember sleeping, but soon it was Saturday morning.

I have to admit I don't remember much else. My older brother left us for several hours in search of food. That was some time on Saturday. I do recall that he showed up with a dozen hamburgers and a good-sized box of big soft pretzels that someone had given him on the side of the road. We shared the bounty with our neighbors. Lynn, Susan, and I walked to the port-a-potties. There were tables set up where event organizers were handing out information; there was food somewhere; there was a makeshift medical tent. I don't know how we found our way back to our family and our little square patch of place, everything looked the same in every direction, but we did. I remember feeling safe everywhere we went.

It occurred to us, though, we were completely unprepared to stay. We were in the same clothes from the day before. We had spent the night outside unprotected from the elements. We were cold, and we had no way to change our situation. So, we decided to leave. One of our neighbors was handing out acid. My siblings and I didn't indulge, but Susan did. She opened her mouth, and he tossed in a tab. Just like that. We headed back to the car, found it and headed south on the New York Thruway. By then It was late Saturday afternoon.

Exhaustion does not begin to describe the state we were in. Giddy and hungry, we talked and dozed. We pulled off on to the thruway shoulder and slept, with the top down. Susan was still tripping away. She sat on the top of the back seat and watched the sky change colors. She told us that while we slept she had walked into the field of cows we had parked next to and had communed and communicated with them. It's very likely that's exactly what happened. We had just come from Woodstock. We knew anything was possible.

If I had to summarize those 24 hours we spent at Woodstock, I would say that we did not hear much of the music, but we celebrated with a half million other people the first festival of peace.

I love being reminded of Allen Ginsberg's poems. I had the wonderful good fortune to cross paths with him in 1982 in Boulder, Colorado. I volunteered at Naropa Institute where he was teaching a poetry course. I did a summer poetry apprenticeship with him and would go to his house to help him with all kinds of stuff. He had an old file cabinet with a giant folder in it called "Faded Yellow Newspaper Clippings" that I would add to on a regular basis. It was the summer of the Kerouac Conference celebrating the 25th anniversary of the publication of On The Road. All the old Beat poets and writers were there. I was the volunteer coordinator for that week-long event. One of most favorite summers of my lifetime. 

 Here's another anecdote from the 1982 era. For some reason I had William Burroughs in the back of my car driving him somewhere. He had a companion with him, but I can't remember who. Burroughs said in his very strange voice, "I want to stop and get some strawberries." The way he said strawberries sounded so bizarre, I never forgot it. Many many years later on the the campus at UC Santa Cruz, the library had just gotten many works by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He was on campus to celebrate. I was coming out of the library for a completely unrelated reason and saw him walking up the steps. I had to stop and ask, "Are you Lawrence Ferlinghetti?" He said, "Yes, I am." I said I was the volunteer coordinator at the Kerouace Conference at Naropa in 1982." He looked at me and his eyes twinkled with happiness. He said "Oh that was a time...that was quite a time." 

Ron George retired in 2015 from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi as a research development officer. He is a former journalist and retired presbyter of The Episcopal Church. His newspaper stints include The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Houston Chronicle. He was an instructor in the Journalism Department at Texas A&M University in College Station and news adviser for The Battalion student newspaper from 1999 to 2006. A 1965 graduate of Texas Christian University (BA, Journalism), George holds a Master of Divinity degree (cum laude) from Nashotah House Theological seminary (1976) and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary (2009). In retirement, he writes for pleasure at https://pelicandiaries.wordpress.com/.  

His family had been stonecutters for generations. His father and grandfather worked all their lives on the great Temple in Jerusalem. He was born in the city of David, almost in the shadow of Herod’s great work as it rose above the Kidron Valley. Previous generations of his family had been itinerant craftsmen, ranging as far north as the Galilee and across the Jordan River valley. They were a proud, talented clan, and the gleaming cities they left behind were their legacy.

They were Jews and spoke the common tongue of Palestine but also Greek, for it was the language of trade. There hadn’t been much need for it in his time, but grandfather always insisted that the family keep its Greek, even after more than 40 years of living in mountainous Judah. You can speak Greek to the ends of the earth, he used to say; and someday, you may have to go there to make a living.

He had no yen to travel, though. Jerusalem was home, the center of his world, his life. Now his children were learning his craft and trade; and soon, he would be the grandfather of his family. Thirty years of life, most of them in quarries and climbing construction scaffolding, had left their mark, but he was glad to have lived so long. Many of his generation had not. He no longer scaled quarry ladders, but neither had he quit working. He was a tomb cutter, one of the best. The pay was good for an old man, but best of all, his feet never left the ground. He had seen too many of his old friends end their days falling from where they had climbed to put finishing touches on high stone. Some regarded tomb cutting as unclean. There was nothing unclean about a new tomb, though, which he was weary of explaining to neighbors.

His clients were wealthy and had taken to the burial practice of cutting family tombs into limestone with enough space to lay out a corpse and then store the bones in niches in the walls or floor after the flesh had totally decayed. Thousands of such tombs in Jerusalem were filled with bone-boxes inscribed with the names of the dead. Every handbreadth of space was used for storing the bones before a new tomb was cut. Hiring a tomb cutter, especially the best, was expensive.

He had cut large and small tombs, always with a ledge for laying out the corpse. He took great care in making the tomb seem more like the room of house than a hole in the side of a hill. Most tomb cutters did no more than this, and of course, their prices were lower. He had spent too many years, however, carefully measuring and measuring again before making just the right cut.

It was a hallmark of his work that his tombs were secure, ingeniously engineered to make it impossible for grave robbers to steal whatever was precious in the bone boxes. Once the custom-cut stone, shaped like a globe, was rolled into place, it took special tools to move it. He was not only the cutter of tombs but the opener as well for those he made, which was another reason his prices were high.

He had for some weeks worked on a modest tomb for a member of the Council from Arimathea. It wasn’t far outside the northern wall of the city, between roads leading from the Fish and Sheep gates on the way to Samaria. Nearby, a putrescent waste dump fouled the air, the Place of the Skull, so called for all the rotting animal carcasses and even human remains. Beggars’ corpses were dumped there—and criminals’, especially of those crucified on that foul heap. He detested the tomb site. He’d almost turned down the work, but the Arimathean was persuasive—and paid a little more. He’d finished the tomb just a week before Passover.

The holiday was relatively uneventful, which is not to say the city was calm. While tens of thousands of pilgrims thronged upper city streets and the Temple precincts, his family crowded into his house in the lower city to commemorate Passover with the traditional meal. Permanent residents of Jerusalem had learned to stay home when pilgrims jammed the streets. They had stored extra food and provisions for weeks before the holiday. His sons had secured the lamb and had it duly sacrificed, but everyone else stayed far from the Temple. They would pay their respects some other time.

As usual, the family remained together through Passover night, all sleeping in the tomb cutter’s modest house. They would stay together through the Sabbath, which began at sundown the next day. An unspoken prayer churned in everyone’s breast: Let there be no riots this year.

There weren’t, although a Galilean rabbi had been arrested for making trouble at the Temple, or so his sons told him. He spat upon hearing the news. Nothing good comes out of Galilee, he said. Some criminals were to be crucified, and it was rumored that the rabbi might be crucified, too, although no one was sure. Residents in the lower city heard only bits and pieces of what was going on at the Antonia, the Roman fortress built immediately next to the Temple. He was relieved that he’d finished his work for the Arimathean. The dump was especially foul after a crucifixion. It took days for victims to die and then putrefy as carrion birds picked their bones clean.

Not long before Sabbath sundown, a messenger came from the Arimathean. The new tomb had to be opened. Reluctantly, the tomb cutter set out through the city, which was quiet though still crowded with pilgrims. Fortunately, his sons had been close at hand, so they joined him, which would make the work go faster. They made for the Fish Gate and then for the new tomb.

The large closing-stone fit snugly and had been rolled into place over a lip of stone he had cut intentionally so it would fall into the round, low entrance of the tomb. He had left a slot at the top of the stone and had fashioned a special tool that, when slipped into the slot and down the back of the stone would engage a notch that enabled one man to pull the stone away from the entrance; without the tool, however, it was impossible to get hand or lever behind the stone to pull it out. He and his sons made short work of removing the stone. A few moments later, the Arimathean came with a small group of men carrying a corpse, followed by a few women.

This is one of the criminals, he thought, stepping back. The Arimathean said nothing but stood aside as the men carried the corpse into the tomb, which was no easy matter. The entrance was no more than three cubits across. The Arimathean passed a taper inside; a few moments later, the men came out. The women, carrying blocks of spices and a long piece of linen, went in for a few minutes then emerged. Everyone looked more frightened than grief-stricken. The sun was just above the horizon. Shadows were long. The tomb cutter aligned the closing stone then let it roll into the entrance of the tomb.

The Arimathean asked that the stone be removed early on the first day of the week. The tomb cutter agreed, then he and his sons hurried home. He wondered why the wealthy Arimathean let a criminal be put in his new family tomb; otherwise, he didn’t think much about it. It was the Sabbath, a day of rest. There had been no Passover riots. His family was safe and secure. Perhaps the day after tomorrow would shed more light on this strange burial.

__________

Chill air and darkness greeted the tomb cutter as he rose the morning of Yom Ree-Shom, the day after Sabbath. Snoring and deep breathing rose from his wife, sons and daughters, their spouses and children. He walked carefully through the house then picked up his tomb-opening tools—a large iron hook threaded with long leather straps and a stout wooden staff he’d put near the door. He splashed cold water on his face from a cistern then donned and cinched his stonecutter’s leather tunic, a protective outer shell worn over his garments.

Jerusalem’s streets lay empty. He decided not to carry a lamp but made his way in the dark through the city’s narrow but familiar streets. He passed through the Fish Gate no more than a half hour after leaving his house in the lower city. He picked his way carefully along a rocky path through an orchard then down a steep bank to the tomb he had made for the Arimathean. Golgotha’s stench rode the morning breeze. He marveled at the silence—no moans from the crosses, no screams. They must have died sooner than usual, he thought, which made the burial of the crucified man two days ago all the more strange.

He worked quickly to remove the globe-shaped stone from the mouth of the tomb. He dropped the carefully-fashioned iron hook behind the stone through a notch he’d made at the top of the stone, then skillfully let the hook slide down the back of the stone until it caught on a deep notch he’d made to fit the hook. He tied the strap ends together to form a loop, then used the staff put through the loop to pull the heavy stone from where it lay secure against the tomb entrance. It came to rest with some precision a few feet away from tomb’s mouth. The tomb cutter would align the stone carefully before replacing it after the body inside had been treated. He walked some distance away to wait for the women who would come to clean the body and drape it with linen. He would keep his distance and replace the stone when they left. He had no desire to see that corpse again. He found an olive tree, sat to lean against it and promptly dozed.

He was awakened by women’s voices as dawn light began to make its way over the Mount of Olives. The tomb cutter smiled as they marveled that the stone had been removed from the mouth of the tomb. He hoped they would be quick about their grisly business so he could replace the stone and return home. The first woman crouched to enter the tomb but quickly emerged, shouting at the others and tearing at her hair. She screamed, They’ve stolen his body! The other women looked into the tomb. All began keening their grief and fear. Surely this was the work of the Temple guard. The final degradation—a second death!

The tomb cutter slowly approached the grieving women, but before he could reach them, they rose and hurried back the way they’d come, almost running along a path to the Sheep Gate road that would take them across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives and then Bethany two miles away. He turned back to the tomb and stooped to enter. Sunlight scarcely shone into the cave, but there was enough light to see that the corpse put on the ledge last Sabbath sundown was not there. The spice blocks and linen remained. Pungent spices only amplified the sickening odor of dried blood and human waste on the ledge. The tomb cutter left the tomb quickly but not quick enough to avoid vomiting.

No one could have stolen that man’s body, he thought; no one could have rolled away that stone. The Arimathean would be furious that someone had stolen the body. He had paid a premium for the tomb cutter’s reputed guarantee that tombs he made could not be robbed. He’d have to return his pay for this tomb. That setback, though, was nothing compared with damage to his reputation. Then came an even more frightening thought: He would be accused of stealing the body, because he was the only one who could open the tomb. He began to sweat as fear churned his innards. Morning had broken, and it would not be long before nearby roads would be swarming with traveling Passover pilgrims leaving the city. Rumors would spread quickly once the women told others what they had found. All eyes would be looking for the tomb cutter.

He staggered then collapsed in despair.

Don’t be afraid, said someone nearby. The tomb cutter leaped to his feet but saw no one. I’m here, said the man, behind the olive tree. Please don’t look upon my nakedness. The tomb cutter ignored the man’s plea and began walking toward the tree where he had sat waiting for the women. He took off his leather tunic, and without saying a word held it out for the man to take. The naked man slipped into the tunic then stepped from behind the tree.

Dried blood caked and matted his hair. Bruises covered his swollen face and blackened eyes. Torn flesh hung from his knees, which still oozed as he stood. Worst of all, the man’s hands and feet had been pierced and still bled. The stunned tomb cutter could but gawk at the man who wore his tunic. 

I was one of them, the man said through labored breath as he sat down on a large stone. I was crucified two days ago, but then I awoke in the tomb. I was frightened, he said. I didn’t know where I was. It was so dark, I thought I was in Sheol. I couldn’t get out of the tomb. I prayed I would die. Then I heard the sound of metal against the stone, and the tomb was opened. I saw no one at first when I finally crawled out. I looked for a hiding place because I was naked. 

The tomb cutter found his voice: Who are you?

Yeshua, the man said. I am a teacher from Galilee. 

The tomb cutter backed away. He had seen a dead man laid in the tomb, a man flogged and crucified; and now, that man was speaking to him. His body hadn’t been stolen—or had it? What was he seeing now? A ghost? A demon? Something from Sheol come to haunt him? Moments before, the tomb cutter had feared for his reputation; now, he feared for his life. Perhaps this shade had come to kill him and take him to Sheol. The strangeness made his head swim as he backed away, reached for his tools and then turned to flee the way he’d come.

As he stumbled along a path through the olive trees, he heard voices behind him. Turning, he saw men and women coming to the tomb, but he didn’t see the Galilean. His family, thought the stone-cutter. They will accuse me. He plunged on through the trees to the Fish Gate road. 

__________

The Arimathean never came to accuse him. It was well known who had made the tomb, and rumors of a crucified man risen from the dead percolated through the city. The tomb cutter kept silent. He knew nothing of the man, he would say when asked. He had opened the Arimathean’s tomb and then went home. Ask a Galilean, he would say as he spat with disgust. 

Temple guards once came to ask about the Arimathean’s tomb. Yes, he said, I opened it. There was no body in it. No, I didn’t steal the body. It was unclean, and I am a religious man. How then, they asked, did the dead Galilean get out of the tomb? I don’t know, said the tomb cutter; maybe his disciples stole his body, though I don’t know how. That tomb could not be opened without my tools. Then you must have stolen the body, they said. No, he said, it was unclean. And so it went, round and round. The guards threatened to torture him but didn’t. The tomb cutter was known to be an honest man from a good family, generations of stonecutters who had helped build the Temple. The tomb cutter told no one, ever, that he had seen the man and fled. In any case, it wasn’t long before the story of the crucified teacher from Galilee who vanished from the Arimathean’s tomb was all but forgotten. 

Almost, but not quite. 

Ron George reads from "The Tomb Cutter" from Corpus Christi Writers 2020

I.

I hear the voice of Jesus on the Cross:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

I like to say I can’t help what I don’t know,

it’s not my fault,

don’t blame me,

if only I’d known.

Lets me off the hook.

Lets me off, Scot free.

read the rest in Corpus Christi Writers 2019

I’ve never been so moved by an art exhibit as I was by "Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work, 1940-1950" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. -- frame after frame of images created from life, composed with deep care and concern, and not just for the black people but also for glam-fashion women, celebrities and, yes, film stars – Ingrid Bergman, most notably.

Parks didn’t take pictures; he made photographs – light writing images in silver halide media – and it was work to get it right. He must have made tens of thousands of images, but we see only the outcomes. It’s how artists work, by producing so much more than anyone ever will know in order to reveal whatever truth they’ve discovered and distilled from the mass.

That leaves most of us out, because it seems as though being an artist, doing art, is magnificently obsessive. When I say the reason I don’t or can’t write fiction is because I lack creative imagination, it’s also because I am not possessed by the urge to make creative words or photographs or anything else, for that matter. I’m a rank amateur who can take it or leave it. Given the opportunity, I’ll take it, but I’m not going to build my entire life around the making of art. Frankly, I wish that were so, but I know it’s not; and, you know, it’s not just the Deadly Sin of Sloth but personal disposition.

True artists are few and far between. There are many more aspirants and pretenders than there are those who work obsessively, who practice and are disciplined by their talent and who aspire to develop and grow into a kind of perfection called fulfillment – although, I’ve heard it said, that last bit seldom enters the true artist’s consciousness, because they themselves never sense that kind of completeness. There’s always more, and it seems beyond their reach, but they sally forth just the same, intrepid, even though they may not know where the path is leading – or when it will end.