Out on the Edge of Night

I see the occasional Etheric Travelling Cabinet pop in and out around Caledon now and then; one gets to shrugging and minding his own business for the most part. The Timelord chaps, they seem to know what they are about, most of the time. Feeling somewhat at odds with myself the other day, I resolved to do something about it, and was in the mood for another long explore somewhere.. when suddenly, as easily as I type these words, an ETC pops into existence, right on the fencing Piste, at Polymath Upstairs. I knocked on the door.. and it was empty!

One rarely has such an opportunity. Had the last master of this ETC been lost in flight? Killed? Teleported else whither? Opening the door, I saw a room opening up that was, paradoxically, much larger than the humble little ETC suggested. On a wild fancy.. I decided to enter the ETC and see where it would go. Not being totally stupid, I suited up in my trusty Aetheric Hard Suit first. One never knows if one will end up at the bottom of the sea, or some other outlandish destination.

I shut the door gently, and found myself in the no-space that is the inside of a ETC. I had not the foggiest notion of what to do next. I simply walked over to the cabinet that appeared to be in the most important, and pulled a prominent lever. There was a vibration, and a whoooosh....



Egad, man, what HAD I done??

Suddenly, I was very glad about the foresight concerning the Aether suit.



I was in the cold, airless grip of the outer heavens. Apparently, I had arrived at some way station of some kind. Outlandish craft of all nations and types surrounded me. I recognized no flag and although some basic English was evident, many of the signs used terms that were unfamiliar with me. A slight kick in my step had me launching off the platform, and catapulting out into the aether!
I was adrift in a see of gargantuan tumbling, floating rocks, slowly moving and colliding with one another. I narrowly missed getting hit by several of them. Fortunately, the platform that the ETC had arrived on was directly above a larger facility of some sort, attached to the Largest of these floating rocks. Some industrial activity was going on inside. There was a bright yellow tunnel that appeared to be the way in.



Eager to get back to the ETC, but not wishing to catapult off into the aether again, I tried the outer door to this tunnel, pushing a rather obvious button. The outer door wooshed open, and I was in a little room. There was another, identical door in the wall, so I pushed the button. A buzzing emerged. Gradually, it dawned on me that perhaps I ought to close the outer door first. Hey, presto! My intuition was on target. The outer door closed, there was a loud hissing noise, and the inner door opened.



I was in a largish room, totally enclosed. The trappings were a bit utilitarian and sparse, excepting for a small area clearly designed for human comfort. I decided to take a chance on the air being wholesome enough to breath..



The air was breathable, to be sure. It smelled slightly of galvanized rubber, perhaps. Suddenly, I detected movement ahead!



Here was the first human (or human like) occupant of the establishment I found myself in. He was a slight fellow, barely out of his teens.. he stared straight ahead and his head made a strange up and down bobbing motion as he sat there, a strange apparatus attached to his ears. I ventured a hello, then again, slightly louder. Then I tried shouting, and shaking him slightly. To no avail. His state was like the Catatonia I had read about in the journals of Dr. Freud in Vienna. Occasionally, a metal servant in vaguely humanoid form would bring him a beverage in a squeeze bulb she would attach to the apparatus on his head, and he would sip from it, but he otherwise did not acknowledge her presence. Sadly, for I wished to communicate, I went elsewhere in search of more wide awake company.

A cheerful little table nearby appeared to have some answers.



Apparently, I was on a mine of some sort! But not like the tin works in Wales like where my mother's Uncle used to toil.. this was a mine in space! As near as I could make out from the presentation, the platform I was on was attached to a giant rock, and there was a mine below for the extraction of vital minerals. I wondered if they had Cavorite here, briefly.



Fortunately, the inhabitants of this place believe in big bright and easy to understand signs. I opted to try the mines.. in case there were any more people of any sort about. Just in case, I put on my helmet again.



I found myself in a bewildering maze of small tunnels bored into solid rock by some powerful industrial equipment. The marks of the stone-boring equipment were still fresh on the walls. Ahead was another one of the autonomous, silent worker machines, busily chipping rocks from the walls. I patted its head on the way past.



The mines were quite narrow in places, and here and there were interrupted by a pressure hatch of some sort. The air appeared very thin here, and I was glad for my aether hard suit. From up ahead, I heard a skittering and muttering sound. I moved ahead gladly,as this seemed to be a human intelligence at last.



Intelligent? That is any one's guess. Human? Most definitely not the case. I found a little greenish figure busily scooping up ore samples into a cart. He wore no air-mask; he did not appear to need one. his skin was hard, glossy, and and plate-like. He resembled nothing so much as an upright grasshopper, without the large articulated legs, wings or antennae. My repeated attempts at starting a conversation resulted in an angry clicking noise and the miner waving a little badge around his neck in my direction, and pointing down a tunnel. Sighing, I went where he (or it) had indicated.



Aha, I had arrived at a room of some importance.. where the mining foreman resides. It was difficult to make out, but there appeared to be some "shuttle" that moved back and forth to corporate offices at the local "hotel".. Perhaps I should take that shuttle.



Indeed, there it was, just outside another one of those strange double HISSING doors. I climbed aboard, finding it deserted. Up ahead was the cockpit.



Fortunately, the makers of this place believed in making their technology obvious, and I discovered a couple of very obvious buttons that A) started the ship and B) took it on a magically pre-piloted course to another large floating structure. This was a giant dome, with a spindle beneath it, with rings around the spindle. Clearly this was a structure designed for comfort, not industry. Far atop the structure, yet another space platform of some sort, with many outlandish craft.



The shuttle craft attached to another double hissing door on the side of the dome, and I ventured inside. Here was luxury! Soft music, strange to the ear yet not unpleasant. The air was cleaner looking, yet I retained my helmet. There were cushions and chairs and clean carpet about. This was a hotel, perhaps, and mayhaps some form of corporate office.



... and so my instincts proved correct once again! The Hotel New California, indeed! Were these some form of Americans, these people in space? That explained the garish decor. Up ahead, I heard a cheerful tinkling sound, as if water was falling. I found another hub room (of which there seemed to be dozens in this "Hotel New California") and sat down to rest my weary legs. Suddenly, a small female form, clad in a suit somewhat like my own, albeit more clinging and certainly more efficiently designed, burst into the room, and commenced to work on a panel to a doorway, without noticing me sitting next to the fountain.



I rose from my seat, and offered a polite greeting. I earned a startled shriek and suspicious glare for my efforts. Apparently this lady (for human she was) was not expecting any company! She calmed down at once, and was quite gracious in her reply. She was short, about 5'4" by the Kings' measure, and very slight. She had the distinct flat American accent I recalled from my days in the gold fields, only with all sorts of strange colloquialisms foreign to my dialect. Her name was Aley Arai. When I explained the nature of my presence, as well as my means of conveyance here, she immediately understood. She was, she explained, a member of an organization called TORCHWOOD, and she had a working knowledge of ETCs and how to pilot them. Apparently, I had gone not just a great distance in the ETC that had transported me here, but also a great distance in TIME as well, and was now far into the future. I quailed at the thought, thinking of all my friends and relations perished. All those many, many cousins, long gone! Aley laughed at my fears. "The ETC is a two way street, y'know!", she explained, and told me she had summoned the ETC I had taken here to the port on the roof of the hotel with a device called "The Sonic Screwdriver". I gratefully took the lift to the roof, and found yet another odd conglomeration of vehicles.. and gratefully, the familiar blue TARDIS.



Being careful to work the EXACT SAME LEVER that had transported me here in the first place, I pushed it up in the reverse direction, exactly the same number of notches that brought me here in the first place. I had to hurry, as my oxygen level had depleted to the point of great danger, and I had no way of refilling the tank either at the "station" I had been in or within the confines of the Tardis itself. The now-familiar rumbling and wooshing sounds were made, and the door opened up on Polymath Upstairs once again, with me collapsing right in the middle of a very surprised pair of fencers, not a little annoyed to find a giant blue police box appear out of nowhere on the piste! Chuckling to myself (after being revived), I took off my aetheric suit and discussed the evening's events with my guests, and thus my Time/Space adventure seemed over. Or was it?

NOTES:

1. Privateer Space can be found HERE.
2. A short sequel to this adventure can be found HERE.