the flight of the nemesis by jan bee landman

7/31/2019 The Flight of the Nemesis by Jan Bee Landman

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The Flight of the Nemesis

a short science fiction storyby

Jan Bee Landman


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Despite the absorptive powers of the seat Hugo Jones felt sweat

trickle down his temples while he struggled to keep his arms

horizontal. His muscles were almost being torn apart by the

weights dragging down his wrists, but he had to persevere. The

slightest weakening would pull his arms against the stingers;

and the howls around him stressed the agony of that. Cruel,

slow seconds crept by till finally a beep announced the end of

the exercise. Groaning, Hugo lowered his arms. His whole bodyached, which was not surprising, because the muscle exercise

had been unusually severe this time. He wondered why, but

shook the thought at once. That was a lesson he had learned

long ago: to survive as a Damned One, you were to ask nothing

and think as little as possible.

He felt the tremor of the metabolic tube in his abdomen

while moisture was being pumped into his body to make up for

the perspiration lost. The faint sense of hunger he had

experienced also disappeared gradually, giving way to physical

well-being.

The main lights went out and the screens on the wall acrossthe narrow corridor brightened. Another Galactic war movie.

Hugo scowled. Why couldn't it be a sitcom for a change? He

hadn't laughed in years.

He had no idea how long he had been in his seat. Terrestrial

years at least. He called it a seat but in fact it was a complete

survival unit. Every Damned One was placed in his or her own

seat on the planet of condemnation and would not leave it


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before reaching the site of punishment. Nobody knew where

that was or what the punishment meant. That was the worst.

To be fettered to a seat for years, utterly unaware of the fate

awaiting you. Artificially fed and lulled to sleep, occupied by the

screen and exercised by that hellish structure that forced you

to strain every muscle to avoid the stinger. One headlong fall

into hell. He marveled that he had not gone whooping mad a

long time ago. But perhaps he had. How could he tell?

Suddenly the screen went blank. This surprised Hugo. It had

never happened before. A moment later the straps tying him to

the seat were tightened. The seat turned, so that he faced the

length of the corridor. He grew uneasy. What was going on? He

stared at the back of the seat in front of him. In all those years

he had never seen or spoken with the man in it. That was

forbidden and disobedience meant pain and if pain did not help

an anesthetic needle in your vocal cords ensured silence. Hugo

only knew that it was a man by the small animal sounds of

pain and fear and discomfort that he had uttered throughoutthe years.

The seats started to move forward, slowly. They made soft,

scraping sounds as they slid through the corridor. Hugo drew a

very deep breath. Was this to be the end? Were they

approaching their doom? Before and behind he heard

whimpering and sobbing. He grinned disdainfully. They were

scared, the weaklings. He was not. Fear had become a stranger


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to him. He only felt anger, as always, but now it was whetted by

his keen awareness of being helpless. Someone started to

scream. The yells turned into howls of pain and broke off

suddenly.

Hugo swallowed. The grin stuck to his mouth like glue. He

still could not fully grasp being here. This punishment was only

for the most brutal of criminals. He did not count himself

among them, however great his crime had been. His stomachplayed up, on the verge of turning, but the tube twitched and a

sedative was injected into his system. His nausea disappeared.

But not his anger. He did not care a damn about having to die,

but not like this, not like a fattened pig.

Just then he remembered nights, long ago, long before his

life had foundered, lying content in bed, behind the soft and

warm body of his first wife, everything secure and cosy and

carefree. In those nights, when life had seemed perfect, weird

and chilling thoughts had sometimes entered his mind. A

sudden awareness that outside his safe grotto there was a

universe full of blood-smeared dungeons, gallows groaningunder their loads, mass graves filled with stacks of corpses still

shivering with life while the bulldozers moved in. Sick,

inconceivable thoughts they had been. But now it was just as

inconceivable that somewhere men like him were cuddling up

to their women, whispering words of lust and tenderness.

How had it ever come to this? His record read genocide. Mass

murder. He drew a scornful smile. Mass murder. All he had


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done was drop a flask of bacteria. A flick of the wrist. It had

seemed so easy at the time. Infect a pure colony, let the disease

work its havoc for a year and go back to fill your pockets. But

when his mates and he returned, all they found was a sleepfog

and a rude awakening in the cells of an intergalactic police

ship.

The row of seats moved steadily on, in and out of corridors,

like a conveyor belt in a slaughterhouse. Occasionally someonein the row lost his nerve, burst into screaming and was speedily

silenced.

The trip seemed endless, through narrow corridors and large,

twilit halls. They must have left the ship a long time ago. But

for what?

Then, for the first time in years, he saw people, walking,

hurriedly, all in uniform, soldiers and nurses. Hugo's first sight

of them almost moved him. He wanted to grin, wave, exchange

looks of understanding. But nobody paid any attention to the

row of seats moving by. He tightened his jaw. Butcher's meat.

That was all they were. And even if they had all committedcrimes of the very worst kind, they were still human beings. No

sentient soul deserved this kind of treatment.

The seats reached a broad white passage, with numerous

doors on both sides. Hugo saw the seats ahead turn right or left

and disappear behind a door one by one. He could not see

whether there was any marking on the doors because of the

side panels on the seat. His heartbeat quickened. It would not


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be long now. He clenched his fists. Not like this. Not like this!

His anger became stifling. He tugged at the straps but it was

useless. The seat in front of him swung to the left. His moved a

little farther and swung to the right. The white door slid aside

and he advanced into a fierce white light so blinding that he

had to close his eyes. He tensed, expecting the final blow. An

eruption of pain. But it did not come. The lights went down and

he was in a small, soberly furnished room. Facing him in aneasy chair, sat a small, dapper woman, in a white leather

uniform, legs crossed, a data pad on her lap. Her ageing face

was still beautiful, but with sharp creases and an icy

expression. Her honeyblonde hair had been brushed in an

absurd wave across her skull.

"Hugo Jones?"

His mouth was so dry that he could not speak. He nodded.

The woman moved her fingers across the data pad and studied

the results.

"Genocide," she mumbled to herself. "Typical act. Severe

psychopathic traits. Emotional starvation. Weak sense ofstandards. Erotic frustration. Marginal case."

She looked up. Her eyes were uncannily large, pale blue orbs

that hardly left any room for the whites. The pupils were

jetblack specks.

"Any illusions left, Jones? Or do you just want to lie down

and die?"


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Completely in control again, Hugo grinned contemptuously

at the absurd question.

"Of course not," he snapped.

"That's not such a matter of course," said the woman, staring

at him without a blink. "Most of those who have spent a few

years in the seats, are only too happy to die. But you still want

to extend life?"

"Like hell I do,""What's your attitude towards your crime?"

"I regret it," he said quickly. A strange, confusing sensation

stirred inside him. Hope.

"That's just talk. Try again."

Feverishly Hugo searched his mind for the answer that

might be expected of him.

"I did not realize what I was doing," he said.

"According to my information you and your accomplices

caused the deaths of 17,553 colonists. The planet was declared

inaccessible for two hundred years. Quite a feat. Would you say

that you have amends to make?""Sure I do."

"You're lying through your teeth," she said. "But that's all

right. I think we've got something here. I'll advise my superiors

to give you a try." She caressed the data pad and the straps

binding him to the seat snapped loose. The needle of the

metabolic tube was withdrawn.


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"You will stay well clear of me," said the woman. "Or you'll

just be a heap of ashes." She waved vaguely at a kind of camera

that was suspended from the ceiling, a burner, aimed at Hugo.

He nodded.

"Pay attention now," said the woman. She swung her chair

round and touched the data pad. The lights went out and one

of the walls of the room moved aside, offering a view of a

breathtaking void. A sheet of black velvet."You are looking out of the known universe. Beyond lies the

primordial cosmos. Everything out there already existed before

the Big Bang. Things unspeakable and unimaginable. Awesome

powers that can probably blot us out at one swoop if they tried.

But our fortune is that the Outsiders, as we call them, are very

cautious. They explore with the shyness of deer. They only act

when they believe they are completely certain of success. We

exploit that. We give criminals like you a little mental

modification and then shoot them into space to serve as lures.

That gives us a chance to test the reactions of the Outsiders."

Hugo grew weak as he gazed into the boundless darknessand thought of being surrendered to those so-called Outsiders.

"Can I ask a question?" he said.

"That's unusual, but go ahead."

"What's this mental modification?"

"Some brain functions are neutralized. The Outsiders appear

able to fathom the contents of any biological brain. This means

that the memory of a single human being would enable them to


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get a very good picture of our civilization. That is why all lures

have their memories either completely removed or modified

surgically in such a way that a distorted image of the system is

created. In short, during their probes the Outsiders only

encounter babbling amnesiacs or lunatics."

Hugo could not believe his ears.

"But that's monstrous," he said, clammy with revulsion.

"Right," said the woman. "That's why it's good to havemonsters like you. And it works like a charm. Based on

information obtained from our lures, the Outsiders have

already undertaken several attacks that were so clumsy that we

could beat them off easily. In sort, they don't understand the

first thing about us and that is why they do not dare to mount

a full-scale attack."

"But why are you telling me this, if you're gonna blot out my

mind anyway?"

"I have other plans for you. We are detecting some reluctance

among the Outsiders. They're not biting anymore, so to speak.

That may mean that they have decided to leave us alone, but itmight also mean that they intend to surprise us. That is why

we want to draw them out. We are switching to the attack. But

the lures cannot do that alone, so we need a pilot who knows

what he is doing. You may become that pilot."

A wave of joy passed through Hugo. Saved! After all those

hopeless years. He was certain he would find a way to escape


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once he was allowed to leave with a ship. He found it hard to

hide his glee.

"You need not harbor any illusions, though," said the

woman. "We are leaving nothing to chance. Everything will be

programmed in such a manner that you either do exactly what

we want or..... die."

Hugo nodded meekly, but inside he was almost crowing with

pleasure. He was an expert in self-destruction systems. He didnot fear these goons. Freedom dawned.

His first hope was quickly dashed. Little was left to chance

indeed. He was even given a synthetic back-up memory.

"Taken from the brain of a guinea person on a Holocene

planet," said the surgeon. "Of course it would have been easier

to take the brain itself, but the Ethical Laws forbid that. Thanks

to this specially prepared memory the Outsiders will get a

picture of our world as it was in prehistoric times. It is triggered

by any abnormal influence on the brain. Your biological

memory will be destroyed at the same time. It will only hurtbriefly. Otherwise you won't notice a thing. You'll just think you

are a prehistoric man. A Cro-Magnon Man." The surgeon

chuckled. "Who knows? Perhaps you'll like it."

Hugo clenched his fists so violently that his nails dug into

the flesh of his palms. Murder most foul, but also most

discreet. Fiendish. He shrugged his shoulder, not wanting to

give the surgeon the satisfaction of seeing his dismay.


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His trainee year had been completed. Hugo was ready to take

the spacecraft into primordial space. He spent his last hours

alone, behind the window of his luxurious cell, with his legs on

a table, cigar in mouth, glass in hand, looking out at his

floating coffin. The ship was dozens of kilometers outside the

atmosphere but it was so big that it hung like an enormous

rectangular moon in the evening sky, snowy white.Hugo was in a somber mood. He no longer believed in the

possibility of escape. They really appeared to have thought of

everything. For five years he was to scour the outer cosmos. If

he survived that, he could return and would be free. The

chance of this happening was ridiculously small. But it was still

better than nothing.

He took a sip. This wasn't going to work. He felt it and the

knowledge that sooner or later he would no longer be himself

made him reminisce, which did little to improve his mood.

Devoid of kindness, his youth as the son of an embitteredcolonist on a barren planet. His young days spent in the stifling

atmosphere of the hothouse, always tampering with machines

that were too old to work properly. Lying awake every night to

listen fearfully to the rows of his parents. His drunken father,

his fanatically religious mother. Most terrible by far the riot of

their rare intercourse. Dad snorting like a pig, mom shouting

psalms at the top of her voice. And everywhere the rustbrown


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sand that seeped in through walls and floors, like blood.

Shunned by all at school. The boys fearful of his strength

and silent anger, the girls shuddering at his somber, brooding

looks, both unnerved by his strange palomino coloration:

bronze skin, ash-blonde hair.

Having returned home one afternoon, a little later than

usual, he found his mother laid out on the kitchen floor, her

hands devoutly folded around the handle of a knife sticking inher chest. A trail of black stars in the sand led to the barn.

Without going to look Hugo had known that his father was

swinging from a beam there. He remained in the kitchen

doorway for several minutes before turning, with a ghastly grin,

to make the 5-kilometer walk back to town and enlist with the

space marines.

He had relished combat and the admiration of his mates

whenever he gambled his life, taunting every apparition of

death and always winning. It made him feel good to slay

enemies. To look down on a lifeless opponent brought a briefstillness to the anger that otherwise raged inside him, like a

howling gale that drowned out everything else. He could never

shake the feeling that life should not be the way his had always

been.

His first marriage had been a mystery to him. He had not

loved, had not known how or even dared to try, important

though she had been to him. Before her he had only cared


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about animals, in secret, all too briefly, till his father found out

and killed them. The only creature he had known for a little

longer had been Spartakus, his chameleon spider, invisible to

strange eyes in the top of his attic room, at the verge of a web of

finely spun glass. Ah, Spartakus, so beautiful, so patient, so

explosive. The only love in his youth, source of his last, copious

tears, when one gusty winter's day it suddenly dropped from its

web, shriveled.

His first wife had been called Emmy-Lou. She deceived him in

the end. Red-bodied. Hugo had laughed homerically at first but,

snapping out of it, battered the couple so badly that it got him

three years' hard labor and dishonorable discharge from the

forces.

After that he went downhill fast. Women. Liquor. Mercenary

work. Crime. But above all: the anger. The chill and swelter of

ire. Not like this. Anything, Cruel God, anything but this.

Always a sense of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time,

doing the wrong things. It enraged him, made him need to hurtanyone who gave the slightest occasion, leading to prison cells

and bars, and finally complete indifference. A deep-frozen soul.

The Nemesis was the latest spacecraft carrier of the

extragalactic class. Hundreds of man-years had gone into

perfecting its armament and range. It offered room to two

hundred fully automated space fighters that possessed such an


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abundance of fire power that they could cut their way through

a meteorite swarm by their guns alone. In addition there were

thousands of missiles, bombs and guns aboard, while the

carrier contained a fully automated ammunition factory to

make up for any losses.

"With this jewel you can lay waste an entire galaxy," said

General Oban happily, while he maneuvered the shuttle to the

dizzying hulk of the carrier.Hugo did not react. He felt sick. Perhaps he should have

stopped trying long ago. Nothing ever worked out anyhow.

Still, he spent the first month in a whirl of enjoyment. The ship

went its automatic way, while he wallowed in the facilities

installed for him. An inexhaustible supply of three-dimensional

movies, exquisite food and drinks and courtesan robots. But

boredom followed fast. After that first month communication

with the base became harder. Magnetic hurricanes infested the

periphery of the galaxy, destabilizing nearly all electronic

equipment while they raged. A few weeks later he could nolonger be bothered to attempt any direct contact.

Alone in darkness. All alone. He had always thought of himself

as a loner, but only now, roaming through the lethal silence of

the ship's vaults and catacombs, did he realize exactly what it

meant to be alone.

Without much conviction he started his investigation of the


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safety systems that had to prevent him from abusing the ship.

Their design was as simple as it was effective. Any order that he

gave the navigational computer was compared with the

objective of the mission. Any deviation had to be explained. If

the explanation was not compatible with the flight plan the

order was simply not executed. In addition robots followed him

day and night. They kept him out of certain areas.

He soon realized that in the given circumstances there wasnothing he could do. So he decided to wait for the encounter

with the Outsiders. If the ship sustained enough damage, new

possibilities might arise.

After four monotonous months a shower of meteorites drilled so

many holes in the ship's skin that his guardians had to convert

to repair robots to save the ship, which gave him some freedom

of movement.

His first goal was the lure quarters. He hankered after human

company. Later he often wished he had never gone there.

When the door moved aside, a cacophony of voices beatabout his ears like a flock of startled birds. In front of him, in

dismal gloom, rows of seats extended beyond the line of sight.

The wretches in them were physically healthy, it was true,

well-fed and cared for, but mentally they roamed the deepest

regions of hell. Faces so distorted by sorrow and pain that they

were no longer human.

Struck dumb with horror Hugo shuffled between the rows.


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Eyes swollen shut with weeping, voices hoarse with lamenting.

Everywhere the blank stares of the mindless. Hugo had been

hardened. He had seen much but this was way beyond

everything. With a lump in his throat he stopped and looked

about at the boundless misery. How could anyone think this

up? What right of existence had a society built on this.

He wished ardently that he possessed means to put these

wretches out of their misery. But he had none.When he came to a bearded man, a giant of a fellow, who

dangled head down in his seat, wracked by sobs and

whimpering with grief, Hugo could take it no longer. He went

up to the man, placed his hands on his throat and pressed till

the man whimpered no more.

He was just about to turn to flee this netherworld, when his

eye caught sight of a young girl. She was watching him

attentively. A smiling face, bright and lively. Virgin innocence.

Hugo froze in surprise. A normal human being? Some

mistake? He walked up to her.

"Hello," said the girl cheerfully. "You must be new here. I'mvery glad to make your acquaintance."

She could not be much older than eighteen. Her red, frizzy

hair framed a very pale, very delicate face, with a sprinkling of

freckles around her nose. Her eyes were big and wondering, her

smile sweet and eager. She was the prettiest girl he had ever

seen. Hugo gave a few tugs at the straps tying her to the seat.

He had to get her loose. The girl looked down.


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"Hey, look at that," she said. "I'm tied up. I can't get out."

"Just wait," said Hugo. "I'll get you loose."

She looked up.

"Hello," she said cheerfully. "You must be new here. I'm very

glad to make your acquaintance."

Appalled, Hugo drew back.

The girl's eyes wandered away from him.

"Where am I?" she asked. "This doesn't make any sense atall."

She looked at him again.

"Hello," she said cheerfully. "You must be new here. I'm very

glad to make your acquaintance."

With a curse Hugo turned away and ran, as fast as he could.

The months strung together to a year. Hugo went to seed. He

neither washed nor shaved anymore. He just lay in his

navigation chair and gazed out into the primordial tar, usually

stupefied with liquor, and brooded about his wasted life.

Occasionally he kicked one of his robots to pieces, but it did notserve any purpose, because one hour later the thing would be

reassembled by another robot. Still, it offered him some

satisfaction.

The Outsiders showed no sign of their existence. Now and

then a lure would die. It was ejected automatically. Hugo was

always glad to see it happen. Something had changed inside

him. His hardness was no longer what it had been.


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Occasionally he also went to take a look at the girl in seat 324

but carefully avoided her heartrending greeting. His anger did

not change, however. It only grew. He dreamt of breaking the

safety code one day and turning this fort around to descend like

a true Nemesis on his fellow beings and repay them for

everything that they had done to him and - oh, miraculous

transformation - the others.

After exactly 402 days and 14 hours the Outsiders came. Hugo

was lying, true to form, half drunk in his chair and studied the

void. Suddenly a nebula developed at 2 o'clock, purple, with

expanding tendrils, like a big translucent starfish. At first he

thought he was hallucinating. Then he shot bolt upright.

Nimbly his fingers pranced across the keyboard. The first

twenty soundings were negative. The twenty-first identified the

nebula as a sheet of antimatter. Hugo fired a black grenade and

gone was the nebula.

Sinking back with a sense of satisfaction, he had to rise

before his back touched the chair. New nebulas, poisonousgreen this time. Forty-four soundings had no effect. The

tendrils slithered towards him like the arms of an octopus. He

launched four lures. They were immediately grasped by the

tendrils and pulled away. It smarted Hugo, but he comforted

himself with the thought that now at any rate they would be

put out of their misery. Or so he hoped.


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The third incident came as a complete surprise. Energy

shafts suddenly sliced through the ship like knives through

butter. Hugo had only just enough time to activate the power

shields before the indicator needles reached the critical point

and automatic self-destruction. Once the screens were in

position, the danger receded rapidly. He launched forty lures,

taking care to skip number 324, not really knowing why.

Dozens of sleepless hours followed. The ship was assaulted

from all sides. Meteoric whirlwinds arose, black pits opened

their abysmal maws, nuclear explosions splashed their

rainbows across the backdrop of primordial black. Hugo came

alive. He savored the combat. His fighters gamboled around the

carrier like dolphins and led it straight through nightmares of

extragalactic monsters. Shaking with laughter Hugo sat at his

controls. He would not mind dying now. This was how it should

be. Like this. At last. Like a wild cat, spitting and clawing, till

the end.

The fight lasted several weeks. Losses became critical. Theinboard factory could no longer handle the repairs. Nor did he

have any lures left. He even had to sacrifice 324. As a final

resort Hugo decided to employ his biological weapons. The

Nemesis became a fountain of bacteria and viruses. Swinging

round its axis, the ship spewed disease from all barrels.

The effect was stupendous. One moment Hugo's view was a

kaleidoscope of lugubrious forms and colors, and his ears rang


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with the beeping and screaming of alarm systems, the next

moment the heavens were empty, the cabin mute as death.

Deeply astonished Hugo sat in his chair and looked about.

Not a thing in view. As if someone had turned a switch. A few

fighters came fluttering back from the void like wounded birds.

It took minutes before Hugo could finally believe what had

happened. Then he dropped back with a sigh and fell asleep at

once.

The ship thundered on. Apparently its makers had not

reckoned with a victory. That was something. Hugo did not dare

register that the mission seemed completed. He had a sneaky

feeling that he would invite his own doom by doing so. He

devoted himself to breaking the safety code. Soon it appeared to

be a hopeless task. During combat he had possessed free

control of the ship. Now it ran like a train in its tracks again.

Not the slightest change of course was accepted by the

computer. Moreover he had to be careful with those attempts. If

he gave too many wrong orders, the ship would self-destruct.

One day, after a drunken fall in the catacombs of the ship,

he found a ball of crumpled foil behind a heating tube. It was a

page from an installation manual for a photogeneric compass. It

told him little but set him thinking. He had often wondered

about the ship's navigation. How could it keep course in the

void? There was nothing to steer by. That compass explained a


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lot. There were still some known light sources behind him,

easily matched with galactic 4D maps to pin-point his location.

He instantly saw opportunities. The data were obviously

collected in hidden files but now that he knew what to look for,

he should be able to find those files and modify the data to gain

control of the ship. He rubbed his hands in glee. Freedom

dawned.

Sadly, things were not as simple as he had imagined. He didfind the data and could modify them at will, but the

navigational computer refused to accept them. At first this did

not worry him. After all, he had all the time in the universe. But

that also changed when the light sources got weaker. Space

was empty, but not entirely, containing all kinds of debris,

bodies, interferences. The navigational system began to fail.

Alarums would go off for no particular reason. His screen

flashed red warnings, accusing him of navigational interference,

giving him sixty seconds to stop whatever he was doing, which

was nothing at all. The system managed to recover, probably by

upgrading its reception of the light signals, but this, obviously,could not go on for ever. It made him spend every waking

moment in search of delivery.

His relentless delving into all the hidden nooks and crannies

of the mainframe led him to a single, corrupted little file that

had been programmed to self-destruct but had not. This

smacked of salvation. It contained data from the Outsiders'

attack, and hence the trigger to release the ship from all


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automatic controls. If he could repair and duplicate it, he could

feed the data into the system whenever he wanted and have

free control of the ship. He finally got lucky. The corruption was

only a minor syntactic omission, repaired with a few

keystrokes. Now he only needed to execute the file. He paused,

taking a deep breath. The next tap of the key would decide his

fate. If it worked, his life would start anew. If not, he might

trigger his own death. Clenching his teeth, he hit the key.Instant, unspectacular success! His monitor changed into a

forward view of the universe with a simple HUD superimposed

on it, like in a computer game; only this one was for real, giving

him complete control of the ship.

Aha! A boisterous laugh sprang from Hugo's throat. He

changed course. The total darkness graded into a grayer shade

of black and then into the faint glitter of his own, faraway

galaxy. His joy was boundless. Drunken ecstasy. He righted

himself in his chair.

"This is it, buddyboys!" he roared and threw the main engine

switch.

Hugo went berserk. At last he had mastered his fate. At long

long last he had found the right way. They would pay. Each and

every one of them. For each smile that had died on his lips

before it could beam, for each tear that had dried long before it

could reach his eyes, millions would die. He would strip that

Christmas tree. Single-handedly.


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"Doomsday!" he howled and slapped his thighs in

anticipation. His only regret was that he had not been able to

spare 324.

Barney Brownbread was an insignificant technician on the

base. That was also why he had been given the sedative task of

monitoring the Nemesis during its flight through nothingness.

So it was not surprising that Barney was in the depths of aslumber when the Nemesis' change of course made his screen

change color.

Barney did not notice until the coffee lady woke him. He did

not believe his eyes. It could not be. Some slight malfunction.

Nothing else. So he first drank his coffee at leisure before going

to his back-up screen. When it also displayed the color change,

Barney got a little nervous. He alerted his chief, who assured

him in fatherly tones that it could only be a malfunction. But

half an hour later frantic sirens blasted the whole base awake.

There was no denying it: the Nemesis had turned.

"But it simply is impossible!" shouted the master shipbuilderat the emergency meeting that had been called. "It cannot be."

"All right. It cannot, but it has happened all the same."

"Now what?"

"Nothing. Wait and see. That ship can't be stopped. Maybe

this convict means no harm. Maybe he only wants to return."

"Do you believe that? After everything he has been put

through?"


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"Not really."

"So?"

"We die, what else?"

"Can't we try to eliminate him?"

"Try? Sure we can always try."

Hugo's elation knew no bounds. Triumph. Total Power.

Invincibility. He did not attack the main base at once, but keptthe Nemesis in defensive mode and started to vandalize the

outer planets. He wanted his prey driven mad by despair before

he struck. Let them suffer the exquisite pangs of ever mounting

fear as all their attempts failed to stop him and he moved in

ever closer for the kill.

He just lolled in his chair, boozing, and watched the clumsy

little enemy rockets approach the Nemesis. More than ever his

fighters looked like playful dolphins as they circled the

intruders and waited till the very last moment to pulverize

them.

Cycles of time had passed. The Nemesis still rumbled through

the galaxy, laying it waste. But Hugo no longer laughed. Grimly

he sat behind his controls. He had cleansed all the outer

planets. No stone unturned. No man, woman or child left

standing. Like a lone Apocalyptic rider he galloped through

space. But ultimately all this did not mean a thing. He felt as

miserable as he had in the chair, so many years ago. Worse,


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even. Devoid of any emotion apart from a dull, relentless aching

inside. Nothing mattered anymore. His heart pumped blood.

His mind responded to outward stimuli. That was all.

Wrong again. Even revenge had lost its relish. But what

then, in the name of Purgatory? Gladly, ecstatically, would he

have sacrificed all his power to feel good for one single hour. He

was sick and tired of life. He loathed it. Just being alive made

him physically sick, to the point of gagging. Sick enough to die.Aye. There was a thought. Death. Oblivion. He was beginning to

realize that this was the final chapter, no matter what. There

was nothing beyond this. All the things that mattered lay in the

past. The future held nothing but agony. Why bother? The more

he thought about it, the more he embraced the idea. He could

go out in a blaze of glory, pulverizing the planet that had

spawned such a cruel species, himself included. The Nemesis

had a Kamikaze mode, which made it a nuclear fragmentation

bomb that could turn its target into a cluster of lethal

mushrooms.

With a snarl he locked the ship into a collision course with

Earth, hit the treble buttons to activate Kamikaze mode and

sank into his chair. Two hours, 37 minutes left. To his pleasant

surprise the deed gave him some cheer. Pale, weak and fleeting,

but nevertheless. At long last he was going to be put out of his

misery


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The main screen suddenly lit up. Giant letters flashed across it.

"Please grant us contact. We beg of you. For all our sakes,

including yours. Please! Please! Please!"

He shrugged. Why not? He opened the communication

channel.

The face, male, middle-aged, carefully groomed, winced at

the sight of him, in obvious revulsion, but instantly slid into a

bland smile."Mr Jones. I'm honored, privileged."

"Who are you?

"I'm Blonk, president of the United Nations of Earth. I

represent humanity."

"So?"

"Please spare us. We know what you are doing. It will mean

the end of humanity. Not only here but throughout the

universe. They all depend on us."

Hugo grinned, took a huge gulp from the bottle and burped.

"Nope," he said, with a grin. "I can't be bothered."

"But you dont understand. You're our hero. You saved usfrom the Outsiders. We shall be happy to forgive you everything

else. We have voted you the key to the world. You can have

anything you want."

"Anything?"

"Anything!"

"Well, then I want my mom, Spartakus and 324. Think you

can arrange that?"


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"Sure. Absolutely. If it's humanly possible we'll do it."

"Well now, there's the rub. It ain't humanly possible. They're

all dead. Revive them and I'm yours." He tapped a key and

closed the communication channel.

President Blonk gazed in disbelief at the dead screen.

"It's a nightmare," he said. "One man, dooming us all."

He looked up. The mightiest men in the universe werepacked elbow to elbow at the round table. Politicians, soldiers,

scientists, technicians, psychologists, thinkers.

"We've still got time," said a field marshal.

"Yeah, all of 55 minutes."

"Background?" asked the president. Assistants came running

up.

"Mom: killed by father forty years ago. Spartakus: a spider

killed by father. 324: female lure, sacrificed during encounter

with Outsiders."

"Spider?"

"Forget it. Whats this female lure?"The assistants explained. The president looked around at the

pale, frightened faces.

"Any ideas?"

A psychologist rose.

"We could try the girl. Feed him some tale that she may have

survived. Gain some time."

"Words alone won't convince him. Can we get a lookalike?"


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"In 45 minutes? No way. We could, however, whip up a

lifelike computer animation in half an hour."

"Do it."

Hugo switched his monitor to the frontal cameras. The image of

the mother planet filled his screen and several screens on the

walls. Earth in living color: blues and greens and browns

swathed in veils of white, a pretty picture after all those years ofblackness. Still, it meant nothing to him. It was too late. He had

become too old and too decrepit for all the joys that a world

could bestow.

Unmoved he watched the sphere grow. He had opened a

timer in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, counting

down the minutes to impact. Eleven twenty-five. He wondered

whether his feelings would change. Whether he would suddenly

undergo a violent mood swing, repent, rush into the abort

procedure.

"Not very bloody likely," he muttered, grinning to himself.

Three minutes later the screen began to shimmer and all of asudden the pretty, happily smiling face of a young girl flashed

before his drunken eyes. He shot upright. 324! O God. A fierce,

electrifying emotion surged through him and a moment later

his skull seemed to catch fire. Clasping his scorching head in

both hands he staggered away.


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"What the hell's happening?" howled the president, as he

watched Hugo stumble about.

"Some kind of seizure."

"Background! Right now. Background!"

One of the older scientists rose to his feet, face ashen.

"I know," he whispered.

"Speak up, man. It's a matter of minutes."

"He's got a chip. Artificial memory. The shock of seeing thedead girl alive must have triggered it."

"And?"

"He now thinks he's a caveman."

"Oh, great."

Out of the pain came confusion. One moment he was trotting

through the fresh and fragrant dawn of a spacious pinewood,

spear loosely in his right hand, the next moment he was struck

on the head and staggering through thunder and lightning with

the world itself groaning, moaning and trembling underfoot. As

brave a warrior as he was, this was too much. Shaking withfright he threw himself on the ground, covering his aching head

with his arms. This had to be the end of all, the doom foretold

by sages. Any moment now a thunderbolt would turn him into

a black skeleton, as he had once seen happen to an enemy. The

netherworld loomed. He cowered on the floor tense, bracing

himself for anything. But nothing changed. Glare, noise and

movement all remained the same.


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Slowly he regained some courage. Perhaps it wasn't the end

at all. He raised his head. Dumbfounded he looked around.

Nothing made any sense. Odd shapes and wild colors and,

maddening, the terrible, incessant drone of the ground itself.

What place was this? A cave? At any rate he was not outside.

Only now did he notice that he, himself, had also changed. He

was wrapped in strange skins, and his body felt weak and

powerless. He shuddered. Something terrible had happened.But what? Then it struck him. Witchcraft. Someone had cast an

evil spell on him. He had seen it happen to others. They went

mad and saw things that others could not see. His fear peaked

again. He cast frantic looks about and suddenly saw a woman's

face, unlike any he had seen before, larger than life, pale as

death, sharp-lined, baring her teeth at him, mumbling strange

incantations. A witch! Having lost his spear, he picked up an

oddly shaped stone and threw it. The face shattered at once.

Victory came so easily that he could hardly believe it. He

suspected a trick and remained crouched among the sharp-

edged boulders.Seconds later, out of nowhere, another voice rang out.

"Alarm Phase Scarlet. Collision imminent. Negate Kamikaze

mode to abort."

The words meant nothing to him. More sorcery, no doubt. He

clasped his hands to his ears. He had to get away from the

sound, escape before the spell maddened him. He panicked,

jumped up and started to run, blindly, to and fro, bumping into


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things, until he finally saw something familiar. A view of rocks

and water. It had to be the mouth of the cave. A way out! With a

yelp of joy he ran towards it, clumsily, on faltering legs. But

that did not matter. He was stumbling towards freedom. Just

before he reached the exit, he ran headlong into an invisible

wall. It almost knocked him out. Dazed he sat on the floor. The

voice rang out again.

"Kamikaze mode locked. Eight seconds to impact. Eight,seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.."


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About the author:

Jan Bee Landman was born in Middelburg, theNetherlands, on January 13, 1948,

from a French/Scottish mother

and a Dutch father. He studied

English, became a teacher and

translator, wrote many short

stories and retired from the big city

to the countryside in 1997 to


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devote himself mainly to his three horses and to

research and write a historical novel.

the flight of the nemesis by jan bee landman

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