Twisted Metal

Epilogue: Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah

The turboprop of Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah’s craft spun so quickly it sent ultrafrequency vibrations humming through his frame. The twisted metal of his mind vibrated, his thoughts seeming to come from a little farther away. The pinging that now echoed inside his skull was irritating. It took him a while to realize that it came from the radio.

He clicked the send button. ‘Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah.’

‘Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah! Turn immediately on heading oh four oh two.’

‘Affirmative.’

The wide blue sea tilted as Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah banked the plane, eyes fixed on the navigation device before him. The radio controller had sounded excited, and Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah wondered why, but manners and discipline prevented him from asking.

He clicked the send button again. ‘Assumed the heading. Awaiting orders.’

‘Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah, we want you to check if the radar is malfunctioning. It indicates something approaching you from behind.’

I can’t see it if it’s behind me, thought Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah.

‘It’s travelling at four times the speed of sound,’ added the controller. ‘It should be passing you anytime now.’

Four times the speed of sound? But breaking the sound barrier was supposed to be impossible! Any craft attempting to do so would shake itself apart in the attempt! Obviously the radar was malfunctioning. Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah composed himself, meditated on iron and water.

And then his craft was shaken by a huge boom. A shadow passed over him, moving at such speed, and then he saw it…

‘Control!’ he called, ‘I see it. An… aircraft!’

And what an aircraft. Clad in a silver skin, it was much, much larger than Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah’s craft. Several hundred yards long at least, and painted with such odd symbols.

‘Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah, report! What can you see?’

‘I don’t know! It looks like a… ship! A ship of the ocean, but flying through the sky! It’s so high up, but it’s descending. Where has it come from?’

There came no reply. The silver ship was rapidly receding into the distance. Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah gazed at it with enhanced eyes. Was it decelerating? he wondered.

‘It seems to be changing course. Control, I ask again: where has it come from?’

The carrier wave of the radio clicked on. Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah could just hear the controller engaged in muffled conversation with someone else. Then the voice came to the fore.

‘We… we don’t know for sure. We think, we don’t know, but we think, we think it has come from above the atmosphere. From out in space!’

Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah opened the throttle of his own craft and he heard the rising note of the turboprop as he sought to chase the rapidly diminishing silver speck. It was flying in the direction of Shull, he thought. Was it one of their own craft? No, it couldn’t be! Shull was a backward continent. They had little knowledge of flying craft; they could not build something like this. Was it true then that it had come from space?

The distant speck was changing direction. It seemed to be curving around, back towards Yukawa.

Control came back on the radio. ‘Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah, the craft is changing direction.’

‘I can see that.’

‘Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah,’ the controller’s voice was low and hollow with emotion, ‘the craft has spoken to us, using the radio. It is coming to Yukawa. It is coming to us, Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah!’

‘Controller, control yourself!’

‘They say they have come from the stars! You are to escort them to Huru base!’

The silver speck was growing.

‘Controller, they are so big! They could knock me from the sky!’

‘They say that they can see you, small though you are. They say they can see all of our aircraft with their ship’s senses!’

‘Controller, what are they?’

‘I don’t know!’

The ship was getting large enough for Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah to make out its shape, to see its smooth lines. It seemed to be built entirely of metal. He looked for its propulsion system, but saw nothing. There were no propellers, nothing to indicate how it moved.

Closer and closer the ship came, and then suddenly it swung around in a wide loop.

‘Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah, did we not ask you to set a course for Huru base?’

The words shook him from his reverie. ‘Affirmative,’ he replied, banking his craft once more. The silver ship moved smoothly alongside him, and Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah picked out more details on it. White flashes marked with strange red symbols. Tiny little pits in the metal skin. And there, at the front, a transparent section: the cockpit.

Who was flying this ship?

Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah opened the throttle to its fullest extent, his craft slid slowly forward along the great silver length, his enhanced eyes peering across at the cockpit.

He saw a figure in there, looking back at him. The figure appeared to be waving to him. He turned his eyes up to their fullest extent, and felt his gyros lurch.

The figure in the ship. It wasn’t a robot.

It was organic.

It was an animal.