TAKE A JOURNEY INTO STRANGE AND EXCITING WORLDS Take a trip into the shadows of mystery, intrigue, ghosts, and science fiction. Bramlett takes you on a journey that introduces you to new characters and n
Midnight In The Shadows
By Timothy A. BramlettAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Timothy A. Bramlett
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4772-1324-7Contents
Chapter 1 The Red Giant..........................................7Chapter 2 Just A Bum.............................................16Chapter 3 A Fly on the Wall......................................26Chapter 4 Raising the Devil......................................33Chapter 5 A Visit To Skytropolis.................................44Chapter 6 It's Only Money........................................55Chapter 7 Welcome to Oakville....................................61Chapter 8 Philanthropic Pesticides, Inc..........................67Chapter 9 Sensory Transformation.................................71Chapter 10 Who Killed Montague?..................................78Chapter 11 Matt Starr –Space Detective.....................86Chapter 12 Mr. Big...............................................93Chapter 13 The Starring Role.....................................101
Chapter One
The Red Giant
Dr. Bernie Hogan's tiny satellite sped away from Earth's gravitational pull at 25,000 miles per hour, heading toward the Alpha Centauri star system. It was the last productive act from the planet Earth before it and Dr. Hogan both were engulfed in a giant red envelope. His satellite was named the Dove and was a personal project that punctuated years of amateur rocket research. He was determined to send a space probe into orbit around the Earth, but when it became obvious that the end of the human race was near, he frantically worked on a more powerful and improved version that would go far into deep space. The hope was that it would be discovered by aliens from another planet.
"It's kind of like keeping the memory of the planet alive," he would say to himself. Dr. Hogan was proud of his space probe and had painted its name on the side along with the words, 'To a home on God's celestial shore,' taken from the hymn I'll Fly Away.
The final phase of humanity's existence was dependent on the newly formed red giant, also known as the sun. It became the executioner for all that the Earth had been for its long and storied existence. Soon, the red menace would engulf all of the solar system and each of its planets would become a scorched, lifeless, cremated remnant of its former self. The Jovian planets, also known as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, were made up primarily of gasses, and would be reduced to a small inner solid core, a fraction of their former size.
The sun had been the life blood of Earth for billions of years but due to its exhausted hydrogen supply, the star began losing its mass and thus the gravity that held it together. As it cooled, it took on a reddish appearance, expanded outward and with its still intense heat, began to cook the planets.
Mercury was, of course, the first to go as it became a glowing, molten sea of hot lava. Venus was next as its clouds were burned away, exposing its cratered, lifeless surface. It eventually exploded from the tremendous pressure that had built up inside its liquid core.
Earth's turn came as the life-giving atmosphere rich in oxygen was burned away. Plant and animal species methodically began to die out and what was lucky or unlucky to be left was destroyed by either the lack of oxygen or intense heat as even the oceans eventually began to boil. The red halo would creep outward, taking with it Mars, then Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus Neptune, and finally tiny Pluto, which was innocently minding its business as the outer outpost of the solar system, having suffered the humiliation of being demoted to a minor planet. It would, however, have the last laugh as it would be the final planet to survive before its turn came for conflagration.
Dr. Hogan was one of the last humans to walk on the Earth and during his last days was able to get his rocket ship ready for its journey. Having to use his oxygen generators and living deep below the surface, he held out longer than most people and made rare trips to the top. He still kept records of the surface temperature, oxygen levels, humidity, and other readings that would be of no use to anyone on Earth.
Soon, however, even his insulated world began to fail and he knew the end was close. He struggled to the surface and in the intense heat, pushed the button that sent his rocket soaring into space. In only a few short hours, Dr. Hogan was gone, another victim of the evolutionary process of stars. The last words from his lips before he suffocated were, "I wonder if this is how the dinosaurs felt?"
Someone had written a short poem just hours before Dr. Hogan's death, that read:
'The stars in the heavens shall come and go,
Like all that's graced upon the eye,
The eastern star that shines so bright,
Shall be the same to dim in the west and die.'
The Dove's launch was perfect and it reached escape velocity of 25,000 miles per hour. It was heading out into space toward Alpha Centauri, the sun's nearest star neighbor, just as Dr. Hogan had planned.
As the Earth continued to cook from the increasing heat and gasses of the sun, the Dove passed the planet Mars in about six months and then pierced its way through the asteroid belt. In another year and a half it passed Jupiter's orbit. Four years into its trek it journeyed close to the beautiful planet of Saturn with its majestic rings.
In nine total years it was crossing Uranus' orbit and when it reached sweet sixteen it had come close to Neptune. The Dove then entered the Kuiper belt where 'short period' comets reside. Being made mainly of ice, they would also fall prey to the expanding red giant and would eventually melt, turning into gasses.
Finally, the Dove reached Pluto in twenty-five years and if it had eyes, it could have seen Pluto's barren, eerily lit surface that resembled the
Moon. But now even Pluto's had a reddish tint from the glow that was moving closer to the outskirts of the solar system.
As the Dove left the planetary neighborhood, it entered an area known as the Oort Cloud, a region with millions of orbiting rocks. Ordinarily some of them would have become long period comets, thrown out of orbit by the gravity of the giant planets such as Neptune and Uranus. This would have caused them to hurtle toward the sun in elliptical orbits, seen only once by Earthlings, then lost forever in the vastness of outer space. However, even they were not immune to the giant red fiery glow of the sun's changing structure, as most would be engulfed in heat or thrown far into space by the powerful solar wind to explore their own changing future.
As it left the Oort Cloud region, the Dove began its slow, quiet journey through deep space, spending thousands of quiet and peaceful years moving toward Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to the sun, 4.3 light years away. Carrying its nostalgic cargo along with its dead solar powered batteries, the Dove had long since become an inert, lifeless, silent, projectile, hurtling through space in a quiet world of serene emptiness. It was no longer sending out a beacon and would have to be discovered and retrieved by some advanced civilization in order for the legacy of planet
Earth to be remembered. The odds of this seemed remote but with new and advanced spaceships scattered throughout the galaxy, they could detect any object of comparable size, and since the Dove was metallic, the chances of its discovery were even greater.
The Dove had a hastily assembled and rather unorganized cache of tapes, pictures, and records, that chronicled the history of the planet called Earth, in case anyone in the far reaches of the galaxy really cared. Some of Dr. Hogan's hair was also included, along with hair of several other people. His thinking that some advanced civilization might one day clone his DNA and create a replica of himself and the others, and thus perpetuate the human race.
This scenario of dying but inhabited planets had been, unfortunately, played out many times before and was nothing new in the galaxy. Actually, antiquated spacecraft like the Dove had often been found by space patrols from other worlds.
For the next 100,000 years, the Dove flew silently through space, getting ever closer to that magic neighboring star called Alpha Centauri. With virtually nothing in between but stars, nebulae, and a few distant galaxies, it was a rather uneventful trip. However, the sealed capsule kept everything intact and nothing decayed, discolored, or rotted. In the dry vacuum of space all the contents were preserved just as if it had left the day before.
Dr. Hogan's calculations were incredibly accurate as the target star became brighter and brighter. Soon, there were shadows within the capsule itself from a small window that he had installed. It was from here that a camera had been carefully placed, which took pictures of Earth as it rocketed outward bound, into the stratosphere and beyond. This would, he thought, help explain the capsule's existence as it escaped a dying planet and a chaotic and convulsing solar system.
With Alpha Centauri becoming a bright magnitude star now, a miracle took place within the Dove. The sensitive photo electric cells suddenly came to life and a red light began to glow, indicating that the batteries were being recharged.
In a period of only six hours, the radio was ready to start transmitting again. Dr. Hogan's little capsule awoke from its deep sleep, shook off the cobwebs, and began to speak in its own way. The message Dr. Hogan recorded in his own voice, repeated over and over again: "Hello from planet Earth. We are in grave trouble. Planet burning up from the heat of the sun. No chance for survival." This message played for five minutes, rested for one hour, then repeated. This procedure continued as long as the cells and the transmitter would continue to function.
Steady Morse code signals were also transmitted across outer space in several frequencies that were designed to draw attention to the Dove. Inside the capsule was an explanation of each word that he spoke and each Morse code letter, matching them with pictures and words that would explain exactly what he was talking about. He gave the time of the Dove's departure coordinated with an internal clock. He explained Earth's relationship to the other stars in the galaxy, pinpointing its location. It would be simple for anyone to see the pictures and match the words. And although it was too late to save the Earth, the memory would live on. Perhaps a distant neighboring civilization would erect a monument in the memory of Earth and someday place it on its burned out remains. They might even create a museum that would explain the beginning and end of a world. What a glorious tribute to a planet and star that lived out their usefulness.
The Dove sailed past two planets, then a third, but there was no indication that Dr. Hogan's words were being heard. As the capsule crossed the Alpha Centauri solar system, the same words kept repeating at one hour intervals. A steady radio signal poured into space but fell on deaf ears. In a few years, the Dove had traversed its intended destination and had not been seen or detected. Either there were no humanoids below or they were not scientifically sophisticated enough to either detect or intercept the tiny capsule.
As the Dove pulled away from Alpha Centauri, the starlight dimmed and the capsule became dark again. The batteries died out and the photo electric cells ceased to gather light rays. The only hope for Earth's memory became quiet again in the darkness of outer space. As it moved quietly at 25,000 miles per hour, the capsule was dormant again inside, waiting for something else to happen. A popular conception is that it could travel for eternity without detection, for the universe is of infinite proportions with incredible distances between stars. However, the 'law of eternal probability' refutes this theory by stating that 'no matter how eternally large the odds are against a given occurrence, it will inevitably occur.'
In approximately 900,000 more years, the Dove had traveled 36 light years, or 219 trillion miles. It had been another quiet journey, uneventful except for a close call with a couple of asteroids that came within a mile or so of the capsule. The only thing that changed were the relative position of the visible stars, which shifted during the journey.
The records remained intact and explained the history of Earth from start to finish - a history that stretched for billions of years, from a theorized 'big bang' to the red giant. From one-celled plants and animals to the humans. It covered the great civilizations such as the Incas and the Aztecs. Dr. Hogan included libraries of information, condensed on microfilm about the history of the human race including wars, great scientists, inventions, sporting events, religion, medicine, ecology, and every other conceivable subject. From books by great minds to music from the most brilliant composers. From the most incredible works of art to architectural masterpieces. The whole history of the world was contained in one small capsule, condensed and hermetically sealed into a package suitable for a timeless trip across the galaxy, and maybe the universe.
The next destination for the Dove was the double star system called Castor and Pollux. They formed the "twins" in the constellation Gemini. Pollux was the closer of the two and Dr. Hogan's capsule was traveling almost directly toward it on a collision course. This was, of course, totally unplanned and would not have occurred at all had it not been for gravitational pull from Alpha Centauri which skewed the Dove away from its straight course and vectored it toward Pollux.
This proved to be serendipitously advantageous for the Dove's potentially continued survival. As it neared Pollux, the starlight activated the photo electric cells, which once again fed the batteries with life giving electricity. The Dove's brain sprang to life again, spewing out the same messages. Maybe this time it would be heard.
Off in the distance was an inhabited planet called Celaquan, orbiting the star Pollux. On its surface was an advanced civilization, far more that than humans ever were on Earth. They heard the call of the Dove and immediately relayed it to a nearby Space Patrol ship called 'GemSP-6.' And just like that, the Space Patrol drew a bead on the tiny capsule and zeroed in on its quarry to investigate.
Antiquated spacecraft like the Dove had often been found by space patrols from other worlds. The Reclamation Division of the U.S.S.A., or Unified Space Security Administration, had collected thousands of these derelict travelers with much the same information as the rest. Stored in a warehouse called Outpost 505, most had simply been put away. At first it was interesting to open up these timeless crypts but after a few thousand, it was decided just to store them for a while. They would be assigned a file number and after a period of approximately one hundred Earth years, and if no one claimed them, they were disposed of by sending them into the nearby white star called Castor-4 for incineration. Each sector of the galaxy had thousands of these outposts for so-called space junk reclamation projects. A sign on the door of the main office in the Pollux sector read 'It's your galaxy, let's keep it clean.'
Late that afternoon as GemSP-6 closed in and began listening to the Dove, something seemed unique and special about the capsule's recorded message. It appeared that it might have some information that could be useful to the history of the galaxy. A curious message describing a premature nova that occurred about a million years ago coincided with an event 36 light years away.
"I think we may have something interesting here," the captain of the reclamation ship exclaimed.
"Bring it back for analysis," a voice answered.
As they hauled the Dove back to the laboratory, they opened up the hatch, checked for deadly bacteria and viruses, cleared it for inspection, retrieved and examined some of the materials.
"Amazing," the director of the analysis team stated, "This explains the nova that was reported so long ago. A star suddenly flared into a red giant in that region."
The Lieutenant added, "If only they had known about the new Hydrogen Injection technique. Their star could have been revitalized by the introduction of hydrogen into its core creating nuclear fusion. It would have saved their star and the inhabitants of their planet would have been saved."
"Anything you want to keep?" the pilot of the GemSP-6 stated as he visually scanned the contents of the Dove. He looked at his watch and realized that he was supposed to take his kids to the ballgame later in the evening. He didn't want to be late.
"Not really," the director answered as he hastily shuffled through a few of the various remnants. "It's getting late and I'm tired. We'll store the capsule in the archives with the others."
As the technicians were putting the contents back into the capsule, a wad of hair fell out of one of the boxes onto the floor.
"What's this?" the Lieutenant asked.
"Why, it looks like hair," the director added.
After reading and deciphering an attached document, a technician explained, "The builder of this primitive spacecraft had a message that we should use the genetic material from this hair and clone a duplicate of himself and others to perpetuate the Earthling population."
"What do you know," the pilot answered with a chuckle. "Another one of those." They had a good laugh and prepared the Dove for storage.
"We'll put the hair inside the capsule with the rest of its contents," the director said. "We don't need any more DNA. We've got plenty already to experiment with." He pointed to a box on the laboratory table where a mixture of different types of alien hair was stored.
As they started to put the items back into the capsule, a few strands of hair fell out and landed on the floor, unnoticed.
The Dove was closed and sealed and given the designation 06-9974-443C and was docked to be sent to Outpost 505 in the morning.
Later that evening after the technicians and scientists had gone home, a janitor was cleaning up the area. He had noticed the loose hair lying on the floor and picked it up. "It must have fallen off the table," he said to himself. He placed the hair from Earth into the container labeled 'to be cloned.'
The laws of chance and design that shaped the creation and development of the universe, the galaxies, the stars, the planet Earth, and the tiny bit of hair with its DNA, would be set into motion by the same invisible hands of fate. The hair would wait its turn in some white sterile alien laboratory many light years away to be cloned, somehow defeating the odds and perpetuating Earth's human race after all.
As for the Dove, it sat quietly for one hundred years with many other similar capsules, each with its own story to tell, each with a world of information. Of course no one claimed the Dove and it was eventually sent, along with its contents, into the fiery furnace known as Castor-4 for incineration.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Midnight In The Shadowsby Timothy A. Bramlett Copyright © 2012 by Timothy A. Bramlett. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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