THE PLANET THAT LOVED PEOPLE (standard:science fiction, 1824 words) [4/12] show all parts
Author: Danny Raven	Added: Mar 11 2016	Views/Reads: 1821/1261	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
PART 3 - CH 4

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Kane sipped his drink. “You sure about this?” he asked. 

“Positive,” she replied. 

Kane stood up and began pacing round the Galley. “If this is true we're
in the clear!” he said. “Tyler can't touch us! Tell us how you know!” 

“Well Tyler had to have some kind of hold over all of you, didn't he?”
Sarah explained. “I mean if he had just sent the six of you off on a 
Ship you'd have disappeared into space somewhere, wouldn't you?” 

Kane nodded. “So he fooled us into thinking he'd cloned us all.” 

“It wasn't just cloning,” Sarah reminded him. “It was supposed to be
accelerated cloning.” 

“Yeah, I remember. So what stopped him from doing it?” 

“They made some discoveries about accelerated cloning when you were on
Sirene,” she told him, “so you wouldn't have heard about them.” 

“Such as?” 

Sarah sipped her drink. “One of the main ones was that the original
subjects and the clones were dying within a couple of years so it was 
banned by the Supreme Court.” 

Kane raised an eyebrow. “The Supreme Court? Christ, even Tyler couldn't
get round that.” 

“Exactly.” 

“So how did he do all that stuff with that guy, what was his name, oh
yeah, the Worm?” Blaze piped up. 

“That was just a well organised stunt,” said Sarah. “The Worm had a
younger brother. A little bit of make-up and he looked like the real 
Worm.” 

“And pretended to be his clone,” Kane finished. 

“So did they really get killed? The two of them?” the blood-thirsty
Blaze asked. 

Sarah nodded. “They didn't know they were going to but they were. There
was a small laser high up on the briefing room wall. It was 
synchronised to the hand gun which the Guard had.” 

“And when he shot the clone the real Worm got shot as well,” said Kane. 

Blaze frowned. “How come we didn't see the laser beam then?” 

“Some laser beams are invisible,” Kane told him. “Special Space Forces
use them on night missions.” 

Sarah nodded. “So that's how it was all done.” 

“What about the bit when Tyler zapped Sinto?” Blaze asked. 

Sarah grinned at him. “To fool you into thinking it was clone-pain?” 

“Yeah, that.” 

“Easy. An electric current had been fed into one of the chairs you were
all sitting on. It was just Sinto's bad luck that he was sitting on the 
wired one. Could've been you, Mister Blaze!” 

Blaze screwed up his face. 

Kane sat back down, finished his drink and poured himself another. He
thought about what Sarah had just told them then stared hard at her. 

“What's bugging you?” she asked him. 

“How the hell do you know all this?” he asked her. 

“Tyler had to let me in on part of his plan,” she told him. “I was a
trusted Fleet Pilot and if anybody refused to carry out his orders or 
tried to escape, I was under orders to kill them.” 

“And would you have done it? Would you have killed, say, Blaze?” 

Sarah finished her drink before answering. “In the early part of the
mission I would have killed anyone,” she answered. “The mission came 
first. I was a Fleet Pilot. It would've gone against everything to 
betray the mission. You should know that.” 

Kane glanced away. He knew just what she meant about the Fleet. He felt
a stab of loyalty in his memory but it passed. 

“Sorry Frank,” she said. 

He shrugged. “My Fleet days are long gone,” he said. “So what changed
your mind then?” 

“Because things have changed for me,” she told him. “I've got you two
now.” 

Blaze whooped with delight and ran round the table and hugged her. He
was about to do the same to Kane when a look stopped him. 

“Does that mean we're a family then?” he asked, grinning up at Sarah. 

She ruffled his hair. “As far as I'm concerned, we are,” she replied. 

The two of them looked expectantly at Kane. 

“Oh Christ!” he muttered. 

“Well?” Sarah insisted. 

“If you call me ‘Dad' just once, just once,” he warned Blaze, “I'll
blacken both your eyes.” 

“Yes!!” whooped Blaze, punching the air. “Can we tell her about Sinto
now?” he asked. 

“Why not?” Kane replied. 

Excitedly, Blaze told Sarah about how Sinto was alive and still on Modas
and how they'd managed to fool Tyler. 

“Well that's good,” she said and raised her glass. “To Sinto!” 

“Yeah, to Sinto!” agreed Kane, clinking glasses with her. He grinned at
her.  “Well we may as well call off the exploring now,” he said. “Tyler 
probably thinks were dead and since we're not cloned he has no hold 
over us.” 

“So where do we go?” Blaze asked. 

“Back through the Corridor,” Kane told him. “Find some half decent
planet well away from Earth and settle there.” 

Sarah smiled at him. “I think this calls for another--” 

“Attention diners!” the Computer announced, interrupting her. 

“Yeah what is it?” Kane asked. 

“The forward scanner has just detected a planet!” it told him. 

“Jesus!” Kane muttered. 

They all looked at each other then there was a rush for the door. Blaze
dematerialized back to the Bridge and was staring at the Observation 
Screen when Kane and Sarah arrived shortly afterwards, panting 
slightly. They rushed over to him. In the centre of the Screen in the 
blue-blackness of space was a dark green dot. 

“Distance to the planet?” Kane asked. 

“One hundred space miles,” the Computer told him. 

“What's our present speed?” 

“Half maximum.” 

Kane looked at Sarah and Blaze. “Lock in,” he told them. “Take us up to
maximum,” he ordered the Computer. “Head straight for that planet.” 

***** 

Half an hour later they were circling the planet. 

They had all unlocked their seats and were standing in front of the
Observation Screen, staring intently at it. The planet was a dull green 
in colour with some dark brown and black areas. Dark blue sections 
indicated oceans. 

“Any activity inside its atmosphere?” Kane asked the Computer. 

“Negative,” it replied. 

“Send a thermal probe in and run a scan,” he instructed. 

“Certainly,” it replied. 

Seconds later they could see the small probe shoot out from the Falcon
and shortly afterwards they could see it burn briefly as it entered the 
planet's atmosphere. 

Kane drummed his fingers impatiently on a console as he waited for the
report. 

“Thermal scan shows low heat generation,” the Computer eventually told
him. 

Kane glanced at Sarah. “You know what that means, don't you?” he asked. 

She nodded. “Not much heat being generated. No buildings, no industry,
no houses, nothing flying. Possibly no people.” 

“I'd say it's uninhabited.” 

“I think I'd agree.” 

“Send in a data probe,” Kane ordered the Computer. 

Once again they saw another small probe shoot out form the Ship and burn
briefly as it entered the planet's atmosphere. They waited impatiently 
while the information was gathered and relayed back to the Computer. 

“Probe results received,” it announced a couple of minutes later. 

“Go,” said Kane. 

“The planet is atmospherically capable of supporting life but is
uninhabited. No life-forms of any kind detected. Earth-like in 
vegetation, landscape and seascape. General climate extremely wet at 
present.” 

“Christ, an uninhabited wilderness!” Kane summed up. 

“A shithole!” Blaze added. 

Sarah elbowed him in the ribs. 

“Well it is!” he insisted. 

Kane shook his head. “All this way to find an Earth-like, uninhabited
planet where it's raining!” 

“At least we found something!” Sarah said. 

“Any other planets or stars detected nearby?” Kane asked the Computer. 

“Nothing,” it replied. “I sent out a few deep probes yesterday as
instructed but there's nothing so far. There is the distinct 
possibility that this is the only planet here.” 

They stared at the dark green ball on the Screen. It looked dull and
lifeless. 

“I would advise against landing,” the Computer said to them. 

Kane frowned. “Why?” 

“On the grounds that it looks way too boring!” the Computer told him. 

Kane grinned. He turned to the others. “We have a decision to make,” he
said. “We've come all this way to find this shithole,” he went on, 
jerking his thumb at the screen. “Tyler doesn't have us cloned and 
thinks we're all dead. We can leave now and start heading back to the 
Corridor or we can waste time having a look round down there. As we're 
now a family,” he muttered, shaking his head, “let's vote. I say we 
head back.” 

“I say we land,” said Sarah. 

“Me too!” agreed Blaze. 

Kane sighed. “Looks like I've been outvoted then. Okay, get locked in.
Computer?” 

“Yes master?” 

“Take us down.” 


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