FICTION: WELCOME TO THE MULTIWORLDS

Joss and Karr found the Rover almost totally buried in the sand near the small bay beyond the far edge of their usual play area. Its heavily dented roof had been revealed by the storm that had raged all the previous night. With Aries’ summer stretching ahead of them it was very clear what they were going to do with themselves. 

It was with growing excitement over the next week that they discovered what they believed to be a Rover was something else entirely. It became clear within days that what had been uncovered by the storm was from offplanet, not on.

“Should we tell anyone?” Joss wondered.

Karr, “Hell no, it would spoil everything!”

They gradually realized they were going to need help. The thing was down deep in the sand. Though clearly it had been down there a long time its surface, apart from the roof, was undisturbed. But two kids with shovels were not going to retrieve this thing, that was clear. They had only just cleared enough to get the tiniest glimpse of inside. But that moment was quite a revelation. Both felt something akin to the emotions of Howard Carter in peering for the first time at the treasures inside Tutankhamun’s tomb. Inside, though dim in spite of their torches it was clear that something was in place on what looked like a dim red leather seat. Some kind of being had flown this thing, whether human or otherwise was not clear.

What was clear to the boys was that something much more powerful than mere shovels would be needed to clear the sand from this thing and pull it up out of its pit.

There was one fellow who they knew they could trust to help and keep his mouth shut. He wasn’t very bright but was bright enough to know how to use a Caterpillar rig.

So it was that Dimbo Jonat was recruited to the mission.

Five days later there it was and after a good hosing down, she looked almost new.

The boys plus Dimbo stood with arms folded, smiles beaming from each one, at the gleaming “relic” that stood before them. She was mainly red with some kind of weird blue insignia on both sides. She had short stubby wings and a backwards-pointing tailfin. Around two and a half meters in length she was pretty small but more than big enough to impress her three rescuers.

“What now?” said Dimbo.

“We open her of course!”, replied Joss.

Getting inside the thing was easier said than done of course.  Her sides gleamed smooth with no sign of any handle or lever that might permit access. Her front was somewhat crumpled due to the effect of her landing which had clearly been in some kind of emergency. Nothing serious but also nothing to indicate any frontal hatchway. The back was rounded with no rearview mirror. It was time to look into other possibilities.

“Can you lift her?” Joss asked Dimbo.

“Maybe”, he replied.

“Try it”, said Karr.

So it was that the floor hatch was discovered. A thin line formed in a square covering the frontal portion of the thing. But no sign of any button, lever or catch that might activate it.

Joss ran his fingers over the smooth surface feeling for any slight change in it. As he did so his fingers felt a minute difference in temperature toward the central rear section of the square. He then tried laying first one finger on the spot, then two, three and so on. It was when he got to his seventh finger that it happened. A dim green light shone from a tiny patch under his fingers. Then nothing. 

Joss, “What does it mean? Why doesn’t it open?”

Karr, who was peering under the thing along with Joss then instinctively put seven of his own fingers as close as he could get them to those of Joss. A sound. A low humming sound emerged from somewhere deep within.

“At least we know this about them, they had seven fingers, maybe seven on each hand… and they were worried enough about theft to create a security sequence for access. Two of them needed to gain entry.” Joss was clearly impressed.

Meanwhile, the humming grew more intense. Then a click and it was clear the hatch was opening.

The boys sprang back in surprise, then within a few seconds, it sprang full open and with it, a deluge of dust dropped immediately down causing them to cough and choke. They took several paces back and stood there until the dust had cleared, then ventured to the hatch and looked inside. There was the chair. But where was the thing they’d seen occupying it?

“That was the dust,” called Dimbo from the cat.

It was clear now that Dimbo wasn’t quite as dim after all. Being sealed within the vehicle the thing had been preserved to some degree, partially mummified, but upon the air rushing in every fragile element of bone and all else had been rendered down to dust.

It took an entire day to get all the dust that still remained inside cleared. Every time they thought they had completed the job more dust was found. But soon enough it was done. 

Now what?

They found they could haul themselves up into the vehicle quite easily. Once inside the seat was wide enough for both of them. 

“These creatures were not human,” Karr remarked, “At least they were not uniformly skinny ones.”

In front of them was a sheer span of smooth leather-like material where a control panel ought to have been. Joss used his seven-fingered trick again and with the same good fortune. The same dim light, this time blue, shone through at one toward the centre of the panel. Then, moments later the entire expanse of opaque “leather” came alight. Around fifteen small panels glowed in front of them. Those at either end shone dim yellow. The next two at each side, dim green. All other panels located in the centre shone dim red. Where needles existed they were yellow. When numbers, white.

The boys’ eyes lit up in excitement, the colours of the panels shining psychedelically in each and every eye.

Dimbo appeared below them and gave them a shock as he spoke transfixed as they were by the glowing panels before them.

“Listen, I can’t keep the cat here any longer. I have to get it back to the pen.”

Without the cat holding the thing up in the air, how could they get in and out? They had to find a way.

It was just luck that Joss touched below the panel at the far right hand of the control panel where small button-like appendages were discernible standing just above the otherwise smooth material there. He lightly felt with his finger around the area of the appendage discovering four in all. He pressed the one in the upper right-hand corner. 

A hum similar to that which had heralded the opening of the hatch. Then an even louder one just as had been the case when the hatch began to open.

There was a shout from outside.

“Now you’re talking, the thing’s got legs!”

So it was that Dimbo was able to remove the cat’s lifting gear from it and let it stand proud above the compact sand base where he had lifted it several days before.

The boys let out a whoop of triumph. Their toy was functional and they were now having the time of their young lives.

But what did all the panels show and what would happen if they touched more of the appendages?

They were about to discover the function of at least a few of them in the next few moments.

Joss reached out and found the appendage in the area below the leftward panel and pressed the one at its leftward corner. The hatch closed. He pressed it again. It opened. Now he pressed the initial appendage which had turned on the control panel. It disappeared.

It was enough for one day. Joss opened the hatch and they dropped down onto the hard sand below them. They had felt sure no one would find their discovery since the day Dimbo had lifted it into plain view. Their folks were the only residents for three hundred miles around. 

That night just as for every night for weeks they went home singing.

Next day they were up bright and early and ran to ‘Flar’ as they called her. Nervously they approached but found all as they had left it the night before.

Having opened the hatch and crawled in they sat once again before a lit control panel.

Again that question. What now?

Joss felt with the fingers of both his hands along the area below the lit panels. Not all had four tiny raised appendages under them. Those under the central three panels had only two.

First things being first the boys drew up a diagram showing where the panels and their associated appendages were plus what they knew of their functions, which until this moment was not very much. By sheer good fortune, they had managed to lower Flar’s stabilizing legs and also how to close and open her hatch.

Both Joss and Karr knew well that with no instruction manual on hand the next actions they took would be totally hit or miss. They had discussed this together the night before however and were ready for every eventuality. Or believed they were. 

Joss ran his fingers over the area under the middle panel and pressed the rightward of the two raised areas. On the screen in front of them appeared an array of complex maps and here and there an object displayed in three dimensions. Objects that were clearly mostly planets with here and there a star or clusters of stars. Karr noted the function on the paper display he held with now shaking fingers.

Joss then pressed the left hand raised area under the central panel. The boys shook simultaneously as a weird sound emerged from somewhere behind and above them. It varied in pitch here and there with slight intervals between notes and it was clear after the shock of this surprising interruption to the silence that this was a voice. After one apparent sentence, it fell silent.

Now Joss moved to the panel to the right of centre. Two raised ridges were there. He felt then the area below the panel to the left, the same, two raised ridges. Suspecting their function he moved his finger further to the right. Two raised areas as in the case of hatch open/close and undercarriage. He pressed the one to the right. A series of dashes appeared on the screen with the lowest slightly lit. Leaning forward he pressed a dash further along from the first smaller dash. Immediately the heat in the cabin area increased. Another function noted.

This went on for some time Joss always avoiding the ridges and concentrating on the slightly raised areas. One allowed an Influx of air to the cabin. Another caused a grating sound from a small alcove at the cabin’s right-hand side. The best guess they had was that this had been to provide some food, snack or drink. More mundane functions still were found, until at least only one further setting remained apart from those of the ridges. Pressing this a canopy unfolded itself from somewhere above enclosing the two boys below. As it assumed its full position an unpleasant smell assaulted their noses, apparently the remains of what the inhabitant had breathed. Lashing out in fright, Joss hit the canopy full force. At that moment oxygen from outside began rushing in, in what appeared to be a replenishment mode. A gauge that had appeared on screen showed a tiny battery-like display that was filling up fast.

Now came the moment when the two were ready for the final settings. Before the moment came however they took the time to examine the display hanging before them in greater detail.

Most of the screen was filled with 2-D objects. Only a very few, apparently those closer to Flar’s position, were displayed in 3-D. Of these latter objects one, in particular, pulsed softly and was backlit. 

“That looks like the place this guy was headed”, said Joss. Karr voiced his agreement and added, “Joss, you can’t… I mean, let’s think about this.”

Karr had of course known all along what this was all leading to and it frightened him.

“We have to Karr. There’s no way around it. This was meant for us. We can’t walk away now.”

In the end, they agree to go home and write up all that had happened since they first made their discovery and also a note to their parents explaining their intentions and the hope that they would not be lost to them forever.

Next day they were ready… or hoped they were.

All was ready on Flar at least. They tested the canopy and found it contained a regular supply of oxygen once initiated. They would initiate this when required. The temperature was set just right for them and air-conditioned air wafted in from outside making the cabin a pleasantly cool environment.

It was time. 

Joss put seven of his fingers on the top ridge under the panel to the right of centre. Karr put seven his on the top ridge under the panel to left of centre. Flar lifted a good ten meters up into the air. 

The boys let out a simultaneous yell.

As discussed the night before, after lifting all fingers from their positions, Joss now firmly touched the pulsing object on the screen. The backlight changed from yellow to red and a line or two letters in a strange script appeared below it.

Now the lower ridges were engaged using the same dual seven-fingered functionality as used on the upper. Flar began to rise higher and another display appeared on the screen, this time overlaying all others and larger in size. Again, like the temperature display, it was in the form of increasing degrees but in a much longer form which stretched halfway across the screen. Again fingers were disengaged and Joss reached out to touch the next degree after the initial one displayed in front of him. Flar’s speed increased. This Joss did several times until the craft was moving extremely fast.

On looking into Karr’s eyes and getting a nod to the implicit request he touched the furthest degree on the display.

They were on their way.

::::

The object appeared to be a gateway. Flar was clearly in an automatic holding zone where no controls except those associated with life support would function. She had come to a stop with a gradual reduction in speed beginning some two hours before she reached her destination.

Joss and Karr had been out of their minds with excitement the whole way. Luckily the supply of oxygen and the automatic detection of their molecular structures had allowed both food, drink and waste control functions to operate within tolerable parameters. The boys were benefiting from a great deal of fortuitous circumstance. Good damn luck in short. They had known they had to do this however… come what may.

Suddenly a voice. In broken English.

“You-are-late. Five-thousand-years-late.”

Their voices while they waited had been analysed and now their language was now being used in limited form to communicate with them. 

“Late for what?” piped up Joss.

“For the show,” the voice replied.

“Enter!”

At that Flar was released from whatever tractor beam held her and flew forward through the gate.

And that was when their even greater adventure began!