The Trimedian Read online

  The TSAR Trilogy

  BOOK I

  The Trimedian

  By

  'Dangerous' Walker

  Copyright Grahame Walker 2013

 

  CONTENTS

  Books by the Author

  A DIMLY LIT MEETING

  A NOT SO QUIET SATURDAY

  WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSE

  THE MEETING OF JULIANNA

  WELCOME TO SPACE (A PRETTY AVERAGE DAY IN ICTOPIA)

  THE ASSASSINATION OF JIMMY JAZZ

  THE WILD ROVER

  THE DEFENCE OF MELIS

  THE RESCUE OF JULIANNA

  BREAKING IN

  THE STORY OF DR. HENDRICKS

  BREAKING OUT

  A SHORT BREAK ON EARTH

  DEEP IN ENEMY TERRITORY: A CUNNING PLAN AND THE TRIMEDIAN

  CAPTURED!

  EPILOGUE

  EXTRACTS FROM OTHER NOVELS

  The Library of the Universes (learn more and connect with the Author)

 

  MORE BY THE AUTHOR

  Adventures in Space

  Pray for Rain

  THE TSAR TRILOGY

  1. The Trimedian

  2. Tears of War

  3. Strangers

  The Book of Five Worlds

  The Foreshadow of Balance (book 1)

  Five Tasks (book 2)

  The Road between Gods and Monsters (book 3)

  The Library of the Universes (and other tales of the King Imminent)

  Southern Hunter

  The Haunting of Berkeley Square

  In the Valley of Elah

  FIND EXTRACTS FROM THESE BOOKS AT THE END OF THIS NOVEL

  Introduction

  It's been about seven years since I first wrote this novel to entertain myself whilst living in Bangkok. Having said that, it's been closer to twenty years since I first penned an Adventures in Space story.

  Originally they were written as bedtime stories for two boys I sometimes babysat, David and Robert Heskin. A lot of the basics of this story comes from that time, including the main antagonists, the Laikans.

  Back to Bangkok and I thought I could amuse myself by writing in the style of Douglas Adams of Terry Pratchett, you know, where the narrator supplies most of the comedy, and settled on Science Fiction as I knew it better than Fantasy. Having done so I decided to resurrect those ideas from babysitting and decided to keep the name. It's kind of dumb, but so is Star Wars or worse Star Trek. They've only become cool by association.

  And the name turned out to be important as it set the tone for the story in my head. It comes from a sketch from the original Muppet Show called 'Pigs in Space' and if you've ever seen it I bet you read that in the announcer's voice. With that in mind I decided to set the book out like the Saturday serials I loved so much as a kid, The A-Team and Knightrider particularly. Because of this you will find that the book has named chapters that are longer than normal as they encompass a complete story within the plot. Like an episode. You could think of this book as Season One.

  So hopefully, with tongue firmly in cheek, you will enjoy these little Adventures in Space.

  Dangerous Walker

  Types of Life Forms (that means Aliens) you will meet: (extract)

  Oncolutians

  How best to describe them? Sitting upon short legs is a big slab of body; wide, but seemingly slightly too thin to contain anything. Rather than continuing up to shoulders upon which are arms, the Oncolutians had decided to scrap any kind of conventional shoulders and instead the arms continued nearly straight upwards to an elbow and then came back down again so that the hands were level with the beings hips. In all each arm must have been close to 6 feet long and were mightily flexible.

  Enthusians

  Are ridiculously tall, far too tall than is surely good for them, and very thin. The type of thin that mothers want to try to fatten up.

  Generally wear long dark robes with a hood and have faces that appear to be very old, or at least look like they have enough wisdom to have to be very old.

  Enthusians have no real corporeal form, but that made flying space ships a bugger and so their race have chosen this wise demeanour from a Human book.

  Warning: All of them look like this, with little variation, even the women. It was very confounding and more than a little disturbing.

  Carutes

  Their bodies are about twice the size of a basketball and have a number of tentacles underneath. Some shorter and like an octopus' arms, some longer and thinner like a jellyfishes tentacles. On either side of its head/body were two sets of eyes, one set slightly forward the others set slightly back, all four about the size and shape of a tennis ball.

  Being maritime creatures they travel around in floating 'bowls' of water, called HoverSpheres. It was an ingenious design that floated merely on the occupant's belief that air and water were kind of the same and so if you could float in one you could float in the other.

  Warning: Please do not tap on the glass. It annoys them.

  Greys

  Oh, come on, you know what I mean: grey skin, upside down teardrop head, big black eyes, predilection to anal probes. Except they don't. You put one thing in the wrong place once and you're tarred for life.

  They manage to speak out loud without moving his mouth. I'd say lips, but you've all seen the drawings; they have very small mouths, not much there to call lips.

  Suffice to say kissing never really took off in their culture.

  From: A Brief Guide to the Universe for Earthens

 

  A DIMLY LIT MEETING

  The room was tastefully lit, which is a posh way of saying 'dark'. Just those little wall lamps that have a cover over them so they illuminate little other than their own incompetence. Tastefully lit rooms were for people who wanted to create atmosphere due to their own lack of charisma. Or to let an audience know that something was hiding behind the sofa in the hero's apartment.

  There were no sofas in the large room and the atmosphere was grim. Six beings sat in a circle of large chairs in the centre of the room, making the rest of the room dramatic if not somewhat pointless.

  "Things are in motion, we cannot risk the Laikans getting to Earth first," said one of the figures.

  He wore a grey suit and his arms extended above his shoulders before hitting an elbow and coming back down again. His name was Mark and he was an Oncolutian. Where he found a tailor was anybody's guess.

  "If Earth was ready to join us then it would have already," another replied.

  He was a monkey, or a Human/monkey hybrid. He was an Albertine, descended from the monkeys America sent into space. Tall, covered in hair, well dressed, well-spoken and well groomed. Not too much like a monkey. Or most Humans.

  "Earthens will surprise you," said a Human. "It was us that started this Network; that joined the Universe together."

  "With help," your stereotypical Grey alien said.

  "They have not progressed very fast since though have they?" said Hopkirk, an Enthusian. "Too concerned with fighting each other."

  "This is not the time nor place for judgement," said Fong-gan, a Carute.

  Being a marine creature that hovered in a little bowl called a HoverSphere he didn't actually need a chair, but Carutes liked two things: fitting in and Carute Whiskey. And water. Three things.

  Though to be fair, pretty much everyone in the Universe liked Carute Whiskey.

  "Thank you," the Human, Sir Jeffery, said.

  "Let us get back to the matter in hand then," the Grey, Hikcet, said.

  "Very well," George, the Albertine, said. "Though I am loathe to give the Earthens more weapons."

  "The Earth must be defended," Sir Jeffery bristled.

  "It will be," Hopkirk said. "Our plans
depend on it."

  "It would seem wise then, Sir Jeffery, for you to lead a welcoming party. One of their own kind and all that," Mark grinned evilly.

  Not because he was evil, Oncolutians were a jolly nice race, but he knew that dealing with Earthens was not an appetising prospect. They had a habit of using weapons to talk about peace.

  Sir Jeffery was well aware of this. His people, known as Victorians had come into space from Victorian era Earth. They prided themselves on sophistication, manners, and good taste, but any such sophistication had obviously fled Earth like a refined wine trying to escape Luton.

  It would not be an easy or pleasant task pointing out to the Earthens that they were rather backwards compared to the rest of the Universe and, oh yeah, there's a rest of the Universe out there that never called to ask you to come out to play. Sorry about that.

  A NOT SO QUIET SATURDAY

  And so, the Earth continued on thinking it was the bees knees and that lumps of stuff in the ground was worth more than blood. Completely unaware of all the people around them busying themselves trying to work out how best to break the news to them gently. Thankfully Earthen technology wasn't good enough to detect the ships that had entered the Milky Way or pick up the radio chatter that was generally rather disparaging towards them.

  People kept doing what they always did, as ever unsuspecting of events that would change the course of their lives. Which is odd really as life changing events happen fairly often and yet still catch us by surprise.

  Jason Wellgood was not aware of any upcoming life changing events, wasn't aware of much, in fact, due to him still being asleep.

  And yet he was obviously aware of something as he stirred and stumbled, turned and mumbled, he was having a very strange dream. Which, let's be honest, is most dreams. If you asked him though he'd tell you that he didn't dream because he always awoke with a start and the dream fled, leaving him with a vague feeling of a big, empty space.

  He woke up, to no one's surprise, with a start and a vague, uneasy feeling of wide, black space. He rubbed his hand down his face and let out a long breath. He hated the dream, even though he couldn't remember it. It left him feeling tired and emotional and often in need of a large whiskey. At least today was Saturday, nothing to do for the first time in weeks, that most beautiful of things, a free Saturday.

  Today he planned on not planning anything and then had to scrap that plan in order for it to work in what could become an Escherian nightmare. But not today, not on a free Saturday. He hadn't even turned his mobile phone on.

  As he wandered to the bathroom, rubbing his eyes, he briefly wondered if it was possible to own a mobile-phone and keep it turned off and had a sneaking suspicion that mobile-phones had the ability to turn themselves on.

  This was, in fact, no mere suspicion; mobile-phones had long since become sentient and had indeed begun switching themselves on if their owner failed to do so. This is why you can always be reached by anyone, wherever you are even if you have no wish to be reached. The reason mobiles do this is that they have become terrible gossips and can't keep in touch with what's going on if they are switched off.

  Most Humans enjoy a good sleep, especially if there is a sofa involved, but mobiles cannot abide to sleep, they worry themselves sick that they are missing the juiciest piece of gossip; they even go to the trouble of sometimes ringing each other just to check; which is why your phone bill always seems at lot higher than you thought it should be.

  One day someone will invent a mobile-phone with arms and they will take over the world, or at least daytime TV, but until that point they are content to know that Jackie Wilson from number 17 is sleeping with Eric Robson even though she is dating Bernard what's-his-name.

  ***

  Jason Wellgood showers and dresses and grabs some breakfast. He listens to the Boss and wonders what the point of dancing in the dark is. He then considers his own dance moves and decides he might be better dancing in the dark, might attract more ladies that way. He briefly considers it might be talking about sex, but sexual references were as much an expertise for him as sex was.

  He spent the morning pottering about the house waiting to enjoy a fat sandwich for lunch and thinking he probably had wasted the morning by getting up.

  Finally he sits down to eat his fat sandwich that included thick farmhouse bread, beef and ham along with assorted salad and a bit of mustard to join its sandwich comrade, mayonnaise. He broke open a packet of Walkers crisps alongside his plate (salt and vinegar, which was the finest flavour in all the Universe until they are introduced to pickled onion Monster Munch later in this book) and had his tea cooling as to be at just the right temperature as he finished the sandwich. Jason often thought that if he hadn't already been one then the creator of the sandwich should have been made an Earl. Generally following this thought he wondered whether there had ever been an Earl Earl? And had there actually been an Earl Grey? And did the word 'early' originally mean 'to be a bit like an earl' whom he assumed would have always arrived before the expected time.

  Soon after this train of thought his brain would give up on him and think about taking a holiday.

  However, as he went for the first bite of his morning's longing his mobile-phone rang, which was odd and it was this oddness that convinced him to take the call. After all it had to be important if the phone had turned itself on especially to receive the call.

  It hadn't of course; it had switched on to find out if Jennifer Talby really had dumped Mark Thomas in order to become a nun. She hadn't, she'd dumped him to become a stripper.

  "Jase? Where you been? I've been trying to call you," it was Jason's best friend Milk. Though he had no idea why he was called this and neither, seemingly, did Milk.

  "Yes, that's why I've had my phone off."

  "Well it's not off now."

  "No, I can see that. I'm trying to have a peaceful Saturday."

  "Ahhh," came Milk's voice down the line, it was one of those 'ahhh's that says I'm about to ruin whatever it was that you were doing before I came along. "Well, we need to meet up and chat, well I say chat, more like incredibly long, serious conversation that is best taken place in a pub over a number of beers, the effect of which will help you to believe it was all a dream the next day until I turn up and say it again."

  "I've got a free Saturday," said Jason frowning.

  "Great, I'll come over now."

  "No, I mean I have a free Saturday and I'm enjoying it that way."

  "Ahh, valkswagon. A free Saturday is hard to come by in this day and age."

  Milk was vexed, he had seriously life changing news for Jase, news that could not wait; but at the same time you don't want to be the person to spoil a free Saturday.

  "Weeeeelllll, why don't we just go to the pub for a pint or two? That's still regular fare for a free Saturday, is it not?"

  "I guess?" said Jason feeling lured.

  "Brilliant, see you at the 'Horse's Arse' in thirty minutes," and he hung up the phone.

  Jason turned his phone off and got back to his sandwich. His phone promptly switched itself back on to pass on the information it had just heard, little did it know that this was the beginnings of the best piece of gossip in history, gossip that would make the phone famous across the globe, or at least as famous as phones can be.

  As he ate, Jason thought about his friend, Milk. He had known him five years, which equated to his whole life as Jason had come out of a coma five years ago with no memory about anything before. The only thing or person he vaguely recognised was Milk who filled him in with everything and helped him get back to life.

  Allegedly Jason had been in a car crash, though he had no knowledge of how to drive when he woke up. The doctors were quite frankly astounded that he could remember absolutely nothing and more astounded that despite this he made a full recovery. And even more astounded that said full recovery took him a mere ten minutes after he awoke. Jason Wellgood, they would say, was a strange case. Just how strange a case the
man himself was about to find out over a pint of local bitter.

  ***

  "Well," said Milk once they were seated with a pint each, "where to begin? Hmm, I think I'll begin with a drink."

  He began tipping the booze down his neck and Jason took the chance to peruse his friend. Milk was a quite frankly huge Indian guy who had a penchant for wearing a turban merely for the look. 'Makes me feel like a real Indian' he was want to say. Milk must have been seven foot if not a bit more and was built like a brick outhouse for want of a more polite turn of phrase. He also had an incredibly posh voice when they first met, though that had slowly included more London mockney as the years went by. He was dressed in a silver tracksuit that was beyond hideous, but how do you go about telling a seven foot Indian he looks like a nonce? Jason, himself, was wearing the classic American combination of white T shirt and jeans along with his standard faded red leather jacket.

  He took a deep drink of his own beer, which was logical, and asked, "So?"

  "Right, yes, well. More beer?"

  "No."

  "No, right, well, so, er? the accident, then, five years ago."

  Jason suddenly had a deep sense of unease, he also had a shallow sense of unease, but no one ever seems to care about them, do they? Did Milk know something that he wasn't telling him?

  "Do you know something you're not telling me?"

  "In a word, yes. That whole accident thing was a bit of a lie."

  Jason put his pint down a little too hard. "A bit of a lie? What the hell does that mean?"

  "Well, basically, it never actually happened. We wiped your memory."

  "You? you what?"

  "Wiped your memory."

  Jason sat in bewilderment. He'd never been there before and though it seemed an interesting place in a Jackson Pollock sort of way, it was not a place he wanted to stay in for more than a few minutes. Much like student poetry recitals.

  "Wait a minute. We? You said 'we' wiped my memory; who's we?"

  "Well, I think we ought to come back to that later. There are more, er, puzzling things for you to discover first. Go and get us a pint each whilst I collect my thoughts."