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Chapter [1]
There were two good reasons why it took so long
to discover the Perax Sphere. First, it was located in the vast emptiness
of space, and second, anyone that went near enough to find it disappeared
before they could report its existence. It was Kovel Perax, a
number-crunching nobody working for the Galactic Safety Standards
Office, that first realised that the section of space designated
GC 104-061-200 seemed to be eating spaceships. This was cruelly confirmed
when the first four ships sent to investigate promptly disappeared as well.
A safety zone was soon
created around the anomaly and poor Perax had the ignominy of having his name
appended to an area of space that represented the greatest known hazard to
shipping ever recorded. A young man at the time of the discovery, he never
lived long enough to see the Perax Hazard renamed the Perax Sphere.
In fact it took sixty
years of costly and dangerous research just to establish and map its
boundaries. Then it took another thirty years before The Doughnut was
discovered; a disc shaped asteroid floating on the surface of the Sphere
with a deep chasm at its centre.
There were many attempts
to land vessels on The Doughnut, manned and unmanned. Almost 120 years to
the day from when Kovel Perax first reported his findings to his immediate
senior in the Safety Standards Office, the three survivors of the crashed
survey vessel Perax Venture IV were using an incandescent fuel burning
lamp and glass lenses to signal back to their mothership that they were
still alive, and that they had discovered something really amazing.
And that, as they say, was how it all began.
Nothing works on The Doughnut, well nothing that runs on electricity. They
have a saying on The Doughnut---"We all work because nothing works".
There are others;
You have to be Nuts to live
here.
A computer - what's a
computer?
Doughnutters do it by hand.
Call me - but real loud!
Slide rules rule!
Nothing works harder than a
Nutter.
And so on...
At The Doughnut's core is
the only known interface between this and the other universe.
My alarm started up, and I stretched my hand out to hit the off lever. The
weighted bob rattling between the two hemispherical brass bells ceased its
oscillations and the loud ringing stopped. I had an hour before my shift
started. I squeezed the striker on the side of the bedside lamp and ignited
the tiny pilot flame beneath the mantle. I waited a second for the cut-off
valve to warm up before releasing the lever. Then I opened the mantle valve
and a gentle glow spread across the bedside table.
My wife Holly grumbled a
little and then released her grip on my waist, turning away from the weak
light. She hated when I was on early shift, steadfastly refusing
to rise before what she called a reasonable hour---though without actual
daylight to indicate when this was, it seemed a moot point. I wasn't going
to push it though, I was perfectly capable of making my own breakfast---and
as she was the sweetest and most perfect creature either side of the
interface, I wasn't about to risk losing her over something so piddling.
My name is Danel Kovel
Perax, a sixth generation descendant of the Kovel Perax. They
call me Sheriff Dan. I used to be a Marine Core sergeant, but about three
years ago I decide the Nut and its lack of constant surveillance and
monitoring sounded perfect for me.
In a society devoid of
all electrically based technologies, I help keep the peace between
frustrated scientists, religious fanatics, fundamentalists and all the
paranoids, weirdos, refugees and criminals hiding among the thousands of
manual labourers who keep the flow of trade goods moving across the
interface. And all this under the watchful eyes of two universes of worlds,
all desperate to find some way to profit from this incredible, but next to
useless phenomenon.
Like most men I follow
the 3-S morning protocol. The shave was close, the shower hot, and like many
things on the Nut the first S was reassuringly clockwork. After dressing I
fried up breakfast on the gas stove in the kitchen.
Though the Nut has many
challenges, the fact that most worlds have emerged from historical
periods without electricity means there are answers to all the basic
human needs. We get by, aided by a vast technological resource that tries to
make sense of the Nut's limitations. Some ideas work, others don't—it's
usually the simple stuff that works well. However, because of limited
production runs, a lot of it is really expensive. Most of the production gets
sold to off-Nutters who come here for a visit, thinking they're taking back
a genuine Nut artefact. The fact that we can't support the manufacturing
technology to produce it, or that most Nutters can't afford to buy the stuff doesn't seem
to matter. I do well out of it through product endorsement deals, though I
insist on a good try-out before agreeing to anything. Best thing I've had so
far is my Stazesharp Shaver; a super little clockwork device that has no
metal parts in it at all.
After breakfast I washed
and dried my plates before putting them back on the shelves. Good
housekeeping, and good marital Karma. Though Holly embraces a lot of
traditional responsibilities in our household, she still works outside of it. She
manages the records office that keeps track of all the goods flowing across
our side of the interface. Unknown to the rest of the Universes she and her
counterpart on the other side, a matronly sweetheart of a woman called Telfora, have halved their workloads by only recording what each sends
across from their side. Once a month they meet and swap copies of their
records before indulging in a wine-soaked gossip-fest to which I'm never
invited.
Preparing for my day, I
strap on a big six chambered revolver, fixing the end of the holster to my
leg with a Stazefast Stic-Strip. It's a showy piece, there for its size and
reliability. Small complex mechanisms with a lot of metal in them don't
survive too well here, and the very last thing a lawman needs is an
unreliable weapon. Plastic body armour being as efficient as it is, if
someone really doesn't want to get shot they can protect themselves pretty
well. What they can't protect themselves from is the basic laws of physics.
When one of the slugs from this baby hits you, you know all about it.
Across my back I sheath a coarse
replica of an ancient automatic weapon known as an assault rifle---we make
them right here on the Nut. They work real good as hammers too when they
inevitably jam up. My only real piece of uniform is a shiny plastic badge in
the shape of a star,
which I Stic to my chest. I have one affectation, a large cowboy hat. I
stole the design from the history of a little planet where the direct
sunlight was strong enough to present a hazard to a person's health. I
thought it looked good, but then everyone started wearing them---I suppose I
should be flattered. However, none of them will have the military grade
armour-mesh that's woven into the fabric of mine.
Holly and I have prime
quarters in the historic remains of the crashed inter-ship Long Night II.
It's the only non-scientific vessel that crashed here. An old passenger
liner, it has a lot of different accommodation on board, though half of it
was crushed to a compressed metal sandwich by the actual impact. The
captain's suite is rented out to honeymoon couples that come to the Nut for
that unique experience only the Nut can provide. They don't have an
equivalent facility on the other side, so we get couples from both universes
staying here. Apparently it's fifty-fifty as to whether couples from each
universe want to tie the knot on their side or the other side.
It keeps the twenty or so different preachers, priests and holy men on both
sides busy enough.
I slipped quietly into our
darkened bedroom, to give Holly the obligatory peck before work.
"See you later, Hol."
She smiled, and her hand
crept out from under the bedclothes to gently squeeze my crotch; a last
territorial reminder before releasing me to the world.
"Later," she says.
All the automatic
compartment doors have been replaced with hinged panels. I stepped into the
brightly lit corridor outside our quarters and pulled the door onto its latch. The electric
lighting has been replaced by gaslight, which burns through a ceramic
sponge.
What remains of the ship
has been completely re-fitted; in fact, it's a pretty swanky joint. Holly
and I couldn't afford to stay here were it not for the royalties from my
holo-show---The Sheriff. The guy they've got playing my part even
looks like me. Part of the deal is they have to transfer each episode to
continuous-strip film, so we can project it at the local filmhouse. Synced
up in a clockwork film and disc player, we get the whole show in full
sound and colour.
It always gets a good
audience, with everyone trying to work out if they resemble any of the
characters enough to qualify for licensing and royalties, but the producers
have it all tied up pretty well. Afterwards, once everyone's sure there's no
Holo-Life spies around, we sit and discuss what they got right and
what they got wrong. Information like that is worth money. We let Reverend
Boscombe sell-on anything important, to help fund the orphanage.
The doorman Harry greeted
me in the foyer. "Morning, Sheriff," he
said, tipping his hat.
"Morning, Harry. Anything
up?"
“Nothing much, watched a few burials,
listened to a bit of music, quiet night really.”
Harry walked me out of the big cargo hatch
and we stood and looked over Praxton. The ever-present glow from the
interface spreads a light over the whole town that’s halfway between late
afternoon and dusk. Plenty enough to see by, but always unsettling to
newcomers, as the expectation is always there that it’s either going to get
lighter or darker--it never does.
Visible above the rooftops in the centre of
town is a big ten-hour clock, which is mounted on top of the tail end of a
crashed survey probe. It showed 3.00, officially it's dawn. A familiar
creak followed by a dull thud sounded from across the other side of the
ring. Trebuchet Burial Company had released a casket towards the interface.
Harry and I peered into the gloom. The casket was just visible; a small dark
object tumbling across the huge disc of light. It was well aimed and hit the
interface dead centre, excuse the pun. Travelling above Interface Safe
Velocity, it impacted and instantly vaporised, spreading a rippling
incandescent glow across the interface. On the other side a brief jet of
plasma would erupt from the surface. Some preferred the ripples, some
preferred the jets. They have burials on the other side, so inevitably we
get to see both.
"Nice
aim," said Harry.
"Hit the spot," I said.
Just then Harry's Gel phone buzzed, the Nut
equivalent of two paper cups and a piece of string, but the string is
replaced by a
sophisticated gel inside a flexible tube. He went into his booth and
answered. I was about to move on when he waved me over.
"It's
for you, Sherriff."
I took the heavy plastic receiver. "Perax
here."
The voice at the other end was Deek Morel,
night duty deputy. "We got trouble Dan, over at the Fairground, one of the
capture jockeys has lost it, threatening to vent a cargo pod."
The fairground is what we call the giant
Ferris wheel that handles incoming and outgoing cargo transfer. The top of
the wheel sits outside of the Nut's small and fragile atmosphere.
"Human
cargo?" I said.
"Yep,
and worst kind of bad--the new Gal-rep and his wife."
If the cargo pod was cracked outside
atmosphere, everyone inside would be dead in seconds. "I'll go straight
there, Deek. Get the Doc out of bed and bring my suit and crossbow."
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