Barrington Bayley - The Grand Wheel

The sensation was like passing through the wall of a soap bubble – except that the bubble didn’t burst. For some moments they all stood there in an apprehensive group, gazing up at the sheen curving over their heads, at the black sky, towards the invisible horizon.

Then, though there was no sensation of motion, it became evident that they were moving. The bubble had disengaged from the surface of the planet, taking with it that portion of the ground which it had enclosed and leaving a perfectly bowl-shaped depression where it had rested. The desert fell away. They shot into the sky, coming in view of the sun again, and in scant seconds had passed out of the atmosphere.

Shortly afterwards, Scarne lost consciousness. When he came round again he was still on his feet, standing with the others on the dusty circle of ground the sphere had scooped out of the desert, but he had the impression that a considerable period of time had elapsed.

‘I passed out,’ Dom said calmly. ‘Did everyone else?’ He was answered with a chorus of nods.

Outside, there was no nearby sun and they were passing through the abyss of interstellar space. But now something glimmered out of that darkness. They were approaching their destination.

At first Scarne thought it was a planet, drifting through space free of any sun. As they loomed closer he saw that it was in fact a planetoid, only a few hundred miles in diameter. And though lit by no sun, it was not dark. Its surface was covered in a calm, grey light by which certain features could be seen, though it was hard to say what they were. Dark and light patches; some structures, perhaps; small towns, possibly?

It struck Scarne that most asteroids, even largish ones, were not as regularly shaped as the one down below. He leaped to the conclusion that there was a significant artificial element in its make-up.

Steadily, gracefully, the transparent sphere swept down towards their rendezvous.

The half-track raced at top speed across the nearly pitch-black landscape. The headlights were switched off; Hakandra was driving by gyro compass. Behind it, the vehicle was covering up its tracks with vibrating brushes as it went.

The only other occupant was Shane. He had said little since Hakandra had rescued him, but had resumed his former sullen compliance, sitting in the back of the open cab and feeling the wind rushing past his face.

‘You haven’t been using the machine much lately,’ he said once.

‘Only minor tests,’ Hakandra told him.

‘I didn’t feel very much from it. Of course, I wasn’t so close to it.’

Hakandra made no reply. He was too busy checking his course on the instruments and worrying about possible pursuit. They had to get under cover quickly if they were to evade recapture.

After an hour’s drive he scanned the terrain anxiously until he saw a slight hump in the ground, outlined against the faint, almost absent starlight. Approaching it, he at length stopped the half-track and clambered down from it carrying a spade. After stumbling about before a sudden rise in the ground, a bank of earth about ten feet high, he began digging away the dust. Finally he bent down and pulled at a metal ring.

A counterweighted canopy rose up, revealing a cavern in the bank. Hakandra ran back to the half-track and drove it through the opening.

Only when he had again closed the door to the place did he switch on a hand-torch, and by its light then switch on some interior lighting. They were in a chamber either cut into the rock or else constructed out of some kind of concrete. At the rear were further passages.

‘The natives built this,’ Hakandra explained as Shane climbed down. ‘It’s an archaeological dig we sealed off months ago to stop the dust getting in.’ He led the way through one of the rear openings to a smaller room cosily furnished with beds, a table and chairs. Wall cupboards contained shelves of food.

‘We’ll be all right here,’ Hakandra continued eagerly. ‘They’ll never find us and we needn’t come out again until it’s safe.’

He sat Shane down and inspected him, wiping his dusty face with a damp cloth. ‘Are you all right? How did Dom treat you?’

‘Better than you ever did,’ Shane answered with a shrug.

A look of pain crossed Hakandra’s face. ‘You have been in the hands of evil people,’ he said, his tone urgent. ‘Don’t you understand? The Legitimacy is fighting to ward off chaos, to make life safe and controllable for mankind. On all sides there are threats and dangers. The Grand Wheel is one of the worst of them.’ His eyes burned into Shane’s. ‘We have to stand firm. You see that, don’t you? We have to do our duty!’

Shane looked away and sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he said. ‘I guess you’re right. For a while it looked as if life might be fun with the Wheel, that’s all.’

Hakandra sat down, suddenly very, very tired. He rubbed his hand over his eyes. ‘Yes, Shane,’ he said woodenly, ‘I expect it did.’

The lucid globe had clearly carried them a considerable number of light years. Scarne could see, standing out against the starry galactic background, a more brilliant point of light that was obviously a fairly recent nova, and which had not been visible from their point of departure.

He took his eyes from the sky and studied the ground as the sphere fell towards it. The view was so open that, although the sphere contained a stable inertial frame, all within it automatically put out their arms to steady themselves.

The globe touched ground and, to Scarne’s mild surprise, continued to sink into it until the patch of desert they stood upon made a seamless fit with the somewhat lighter soil outside. What had happened to the earth the globe had presumably displaced he could not imagine.

Müller was the first to risk leaving the space bubble. When no harm came to him, the others followed. There was no sign of vegetation on the landscape, but the air was fresh and invigorating, and the gravity, too, approximated to Earth-normal – more signs that the planetoid had been artificially modified. The horizon was considerably less than a mile away. Its clean, sharp line was interrupted in one direction by the outlines of buildings that jutted up from just beyond it.

Where the asteroid’s illumination came from was a mystery. Their bodies cast no shadows. It was as if the air itself was aglow; not brightly, but with a cool, sterile light that, had there been a moon, could have been taken for moonlight.

Dom gestured to the distant shapes. ‘That’s it, I imagine. Let’s walk.’

They kept silence while trudging across the cinder-like soil. Soon their destination revealed itself as a complete installation that could have been a town, a fairground, or any of a dozen other hypothetical sites. Scarne guessed it was some sort of commercial gaming area. The entire planetoid, in fact, could have been an alien version of the game-ships the Grand Wheel deployed on the fringes of man-controlled space.

They walked between modestly-sized nondescript buildings which had a steely sheen. Further off, Scarne saw a large concourse, or midway, lined with booths.

The installation appeared to be deserted. The first indication of life was when a lighted sign began to flash on and off over the entrance to one of the larger buildings which had a domed roof.

‘PLEASE ENTER HERE.’

‘Our own language, too,’ Dom remarked wryly. He led the way through the arched openings and into a sort of foyer. A second archway led to a spacious round chamber beneath the building’s dome. There, seated on a high chair with an expansive crescent-shaped table at the level of his feet, waited one of their hosts.

The creature was humanoid, but considerably larger than a man – when standing, he might easily have stretched eight foot tall. He wore what seemed to be a tailored suit of outlandish cut whose soft colours altered when he moved.