Maddrax: Volume 6 (English Edition) E-Book

Stefan Hensch

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Pulp
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Maddrax (English Edition)
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 684

Beschreibung

The parallel world swaps continue! The Titanic of another world winds up stranded in our heroes’ dark future, and Archivist intervenes helpfully. Ydiel the Dinoroid stages a “big” comeback while learning the life story of another lizard-person, and at last reunites with Matt and Aruula. Then they get transported into a parallel world where they meet an astronaut named...Perry Rhodan?! Yet another Archivist helps out this time. (Those guys keep popping up with suspicious frequency, don’t they?) Finally, Rulfan’s marriage falls apart, Jacob Smythe escapes, Aran Kormak escapes, and Nick Brahmke investigates in the chaotic conclusion!

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

The Story So Far

Course into Damnation

Back to Crater Lake

Crossover

Ray of Hope

The Complete Story So Far

About J-Novel Club

Copyright

Landmarks

Table of Contents

The Story So Far

By Ian Rolf Hill

This introduction is meant to give you a quick insight into the MADDRAX universe. For those of you who want to know the whole story, please check the extended synopsis at the end of the volume.

On February 8th, 2012, the comet “Christopher-Floyd” crashed into the Earth. United States Air Force flight commander Matthew Drax was deployed to observe the comet’s approach. When Drax and his squadron made contact with the Comet, however, they were flung five hundred years into the future.

During this time, the world as he knows it changes drastically: human civilization undergoes extreme degeneration, to the point of now resembling the Bronze Age: the world’s once-great cities lie in ruins, there are no longer any official forms of government, and people regress to living in clans and tribes, moving through the wilderness like nomads and calling themselves the “Wandering Folk.” Earth’s plants and animals have also mutated in bizarre and dangerous ways.

Upon exiting the timeslip, Drax crashes alone in the Alps. His passenger, the scientist and professor Dr. Jacob Smythe, triggered his ejector seat out of panic and is now missing. There is no trace of Drax’s other comrades.

Attacked by mutated, semi-intelligent giant rats called Taratzes, Matt is saved by a barbarian warrior named Aruula. As she finds his name, “Matt Drax,” difficult to pronounce, she gives him the nickname “Maddrax.” A telepath, Aruula is instantly able to understand Matt, and the two form a connection. Soon after, Aruula falls in love with Drax and remains by his side throughout his adventures.

In London, Matt and Aruula meet a group known as the “Technos,” whose ancestors survived the comet’s impact in bunkers beneath the city. By avoiding the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the group has not only retained its twenty-first-century intelligence, but continued to invent and innovate. However, this knowledge has come at a price: due to their centuries-long stay in the bunkers, the Technos have depleted immune systems, and are only able to visit the surface in protective suits. The community in London offers to connect Drax with other Technos around the world. The journey brings Matt and Aruula to America, now known as “Meeraka” in the language of the Wandering Folk.

Along the way, they encounter the Hydrites, an anthropomorphized species of fish-people. Later, it is revealed that they are not mutants, but rather an alien race who initially settled on Mars, where they were known as Hydrees. When Mars began losing its atmosphere hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Hydrees traveled along a tachyon-based time beam to Earth, where they took the name “Hydrite” and settled the undersea frontiers.

One of the Hydrites—a man named Quart’ol—begins traveling with the pair, ultimately sacrificing himself to save Matt’s life. In the aftermath, Matt and Aruula are separated before they can reach Meeraka. While Aruula is forced to travel with the Neo-Barbarian Rulfan (son of a London Techno and a barbarian woman), Matt Drax reaches the coast of the former USA.

In Washington (now “Waashton”), Matt learns of another bunker-based civilization, one calling itself the “World Council” and claiming to be the true global political leaders. The council’s president—General Arthur Crow—is a power-obsessed dictator looking to cement his grip on the world. A rebel group, the “Running Men,” seeks to thwart his plans. The Running Men are led by Mr. Black, a clone of the last US President (and a certain beloved action movie star).

During the clash between the World Council and the rebels, an outside consciousness takes control of Matt Drax. This turns out to be Quart’ol, who at the moment of his death, transferred his soul into Matt’s brain. Quart’ol brings Drax to an undersea city of Hydrites, Hykton, in order to have his consciousness implanted in a clone of his original body.

Matt returns to Waashton where he reunites with Aruula. Together, they are forced to flee from the World Council and end up in Los Angeles (now called “El’ay”). There, they meet the android Miki Takeo, who becomes one of their closest friends.

Meanwhile, the World Council plans a mission to the ISS, where they hope to find information about the comet’s impact. Matt is forced to travel on a repaired space shuttle to make the trip and recover the data. From space, Matt is able to see that life began evolving much faster near the site of the comet’s impact in Siberia than in other locations.

Together with Miki Takeo, Matt organizes an expedition to Crater Lake. The World Council also catches wind of the discovery and a team is en route. On the long and dangerous journey to Crater Lake, Aruula is possessed by a strange consciousness which calls itself GREEN and is a type of plant-based hive mind. Upon Matt and Aruula’s arrival at Crater Lake, the warrior reveals that she is pregnant, and that her child also possesses plant DNA. GREEN has apparently manipulated the embryo’s development, whereby its gestation is changed. Cruelly, Aruula’s child is taken from her womb by an unknown creature before she can give birth.

Shortly thereafter, Matt and Quart’ol make a shocking discovery: Comet Christopher-Floyd was actually a spaceship!

The ship was an ark belonging to an alien species known as the “Daa’mures,” who were searching for a new homeworld and crashed on Earth. The Daa’murian consciousness is stored in green crystals, whose energy is not only responsible for humanity’s degeneration, but also the mutations of other species. Their motivation is clear: the Daa’mures are using the mutations to find ideal host bodies in which to rehouse their minds. A further surprise comes in the form of information that the spaceship is also a cosmic being, known as an “Oqualun” or “Wanderer.”

When Matt accidentally destroys a Daa’murian egg, he is instantly declared enemy number one. Together with his friends, he flees to Russia. There, he meets with a group of Technos who have created an immunity serum from the blood of Mr. Black, allowing various bunker inhabitants to visit the surface without protection. They also confirm that Matt’s body has been flooded with tachyons, which slow down the aging process—possibly as a result of the time slip.

Matt annihilates the Daa’mures’ mutant army and couriers the immunity serum back to London, where he forms an alliance against the Daa’mures with General Crow.

The Daa’mures succeed at reactivating the Wanderer, which sends out a planetwide electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and takes all remaining technology on Earth out of commission. Chaos breaks out, and the Technos are forced to flee their bunkers without protection. As if that were not enough, Matt and Aruula learn that the Daa’mures themselves are only one of countless servant races created by the Wanderers to protect themselves from their enemies: the Warriors, cosmic hunters of unimaginable strength.

Matt and his allies are able to hold off the Wanderer, but the Warrior is quickly on his target’s trail. In order to overcome this threat, Matt searches beneath the Antarctic ice to find a long-lost legendary weapon created by the Hydrees: the Surface Reamer. A grand artifact of unimaginable destruction, it is naturally being pursued by General Crow as well. He attempts to force Matt to fire the Reamer at Washington, hoping to eradicate the Running Men in the process.

However, Matt manages to change the target coordinates at the last second. Instead of hitting Washington, Matt targets an area in the Appalachian mountains, where General Crow was operating a factory building organic robots. The shot effectively exchanges a region five kilometers in diameter with a bubble containing its counterpart from almost million years into the future, The Earth is left defenseless against the Warrior.

With the help of a converter that harnesses the Earth’s magnetic field, Matt is able to reload the Surface Reamer, only for it to backfire when the Warrior comes into range. The Warrior destroys the Earth, and Matt only has one chance left to fix things: entering the time bubbles created by the misfire, which lead to both the past and future.

While traveling through various parallel worlds, Matt meets the archaeologist and time traveler Tom Ericson in the year 2304. Ericson works for a group of evolved humans from the future who call themselves the “Archivists.” Their goal is not only to collect technical achievements from the parallel worlds but also to remove any dangerous time lines and continuities from existence. Matt, therefore, gains an opportunity to quickly reload the Surface Reamer and defeat the Warrior. Unfortunately, too late, and the Moon is launched from its orbit into the Reamer’s firing path, threatening to crash into the Earth.

Matt and Aruula travel through a wormhole at CERN and are sent to a far distant ring planet system. There they meet another alien species called the “Kasynari.” They offer to assist humanity with the evacuation of Earth through the use of a portable wormhole generator. In reality, their goal is to feed off the mental energy of human brains. Only by doing so they are able to maintain the camouflage required to protect their home planet.

Ultimately, it is revealed that the true threat is another Wanderer: like the Daa’mures, the Kasynari are servants of the Oqualun. However, their plan fails and the camouflage screen is nullified. In order to help the Kasynari and save the Earth, Matt and Aruula make contact with the species from whom the Kasynari adapted the wormhole technology: the Pancinovas. With their help, the pair are able to transport the Surface Reamer from the Antarctic to the ring planet system and give the Kasynari a weapon to use against the Warriors pursuing the Wanderer.

And that’s not all! The Pancinovas manage to perform the impossible: They create a gigantic wormhole that sends the moon back to its orbit, saving the Earth before returning to their own solar system. However, the wormhole passage to the ring planet system has collapsed. Contact is lost between Earth and the established colony on the moon Novis.

Before the collapse, a military hardliner named Colonel Aran Kormak also had a lucky break and escaped the collapsing wormhole. Doing so triggered a chain reaction with unexpected consequences: all across Earth, regions measuring exactly fifty kilometers in diameter have been replaced with their counterparts from parallel worlds, surrounded by near-impenetrable forests of thorns.

Course into Damnation

by Stefan Hensch

The South Pole, 14 December 1911

Dazzling brightness. Cutting cold that crept into the bones. Roald Amundsen had learned from the Netsilik Inuit about how to protect himself from both of them. For the cold, he had fur from caribou or seals that helped much better than the most modern of clothes against the cold. The brutal white presented the human beings with a special challenge. Snow blindness was just one of two possible dangers. The other was nature itself, because the white of the snow on the ground and the white of the sky above it could merge. It was just an optical illusion, but the effects could be fatal, leaving the victim with anything from complete disorientation to psychosis.

The polar explorer had also learned another trick from the Netsilik Inuit, about how he could protect himself from this state. He had to focus his senses as far as he could because the bright white wasn’t a completely uniform mass. Upon closer inspection, slight differences in the white became apparent. This made things easier on the eyes and enabled the polar researcher to reliably keep the sky separate from the ground below it. The language of the Inuit had several terms for “snow” and now it became obvious why.

Roald Amundsen took a deep breath—slowly, so that he didn’t overwhelm his lungs with the chilled air.

Then it was over. Finally over. Before his eyes, almost painful flashes of bright color flickered in the air. The colors red, white, and blue from the Norwegian flag dominated his vision. Amundsen contorted his face into a wide grin. The pain from his simultaneously sunburned and frozen skin was terrible, but that didn’t bother him at all. Not right at that moment.

He and his men were the first to raise the Norwegian flag at the South Pole!

Deep in thought, the explorer watched the piece of fabric dancing in the wind. They had beaten Robert F. Scott. Without snow motors but with huskies and Inuit clothing. How must their competition have felt?

Amundsen had imagined that very moment several times before now. However, the reality exceeded his imaginations by miles.

Without a word, five men stood next to each other and faced the flag. Each one of them had survived the competition to reach the South Pole; unfortunately, the same could not be said of the dogs. Amundsen felt sorry for the deceased animals, but they had fulfilled their duty in an exemplary way.

After a while, the magic of the moment broke as he turned to look at his rucksack. He could barely feel anything through his thick gloves, but after a little fumbling he soon held a bottle of aquavit in his hands. The best alcohol that Norway had to offer. He gave each of his companions a wooden beaker and filled his team’s cups to the brim.

“Skål!” Amundsen raised his beaker to Oscar Wisting, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, and Sverre Hassel individually. The men returned his toast and emptied their beakers. Amundsen hurried to refill them. “We will never meet again at such a young age,” he laughed.

But this time, his friend Oscar beat him to a toast: “To the most successful fraudster of all time!”

Amundsen smiled wryly, but then he raised his glass with his men. Wisting hit him on the shoulder. “It might not be the North Pole, but we are still the first ones here!”

The leader of the expedition nodded. “Secrecy is everything!” Their success made him right. There was no sign of Scott for miles. He had been beaten!

Amundsen savored his triumph as if it were a drop of very special liquor. His right hand tightened around the now empty bottle of aquavit, then he drew his arm back as far as he could and threw the bottle far behind himself.

Seconds later, the men heard something they had not thought possible: the shattering of glass!

Here, where there was nothing but ice and snow? The bottle must have hit a hard object. In surprise, the polar exploration team turned around and looked in the direction that the bottle had flown in. Then Amundsen decisively strode off in that direction.

Once he had crossed the snowdrift, he immediately stood still as if he had been hit by lightning.

The flat piece of metal on which the bottle had shattered rose around two fingers above the snow, surrounded by other metallic rubble. Amundsen gulped, but his throat was bone dry.

What did this mean? Were they not the first ones here after all?

“Oh my god,” Amundsen heard his friend Wisting say next to him. “What on earth is that?”

The eyes of the polar explorers wandered over the field of debris. It spread over an area around fifty yards across. “It looks like something...just fell out of the sky,” Amundsen answered after a while. He took a few trepidatious steps into the debris field.

What he saw overwhelmed him. Some of the parts looked like they were made of steel, but had been drilled into each other in an absurd way. Other fragments looked somehow...organic.

They had nothing to do with the laws of space and time that Amundsen knew. The bizarre design was definitively based on some strange kind of geometry, the laws of which were completely foreign to Amundsen. Instead, the sight of the strangely shaped debris caused him to feel nauseous—or was that the shock?

“What is that?”

The eyes of the polar researcher followed his friend’s outstretched arm. Then he saw it. In the middle of the mysterious field of debris, they could see a lengthy object. As if they had been given a silent command, the two men walked over toward it.

Amundsen crouched down. Unlike the other pieces of debris, this one seemed relatively intact. It was a cylindrical piston around twenty inches long made of a shining material. In the middle, it bulged out slightly, but otherwise the cylinder seemed to have a constant seven-inch diameter.

It looked like the object had been made from two parts, because one half was smooth, while the other had a wavy texture. Despite his scrutiny, Amundsen couldn’t find any seam where the two very different materials had been joined.

Instinctively, Roald Amundsen stretched out both hands to the object—but hesitated for a minute. Fascinated, he looked at the long, deep scratch that went down the entire side of the cylinder. Then he grabbed it. He just had to touch the strange thing.

His gloved fingers wrapped around the cylinder. He immediately noticed that he could pull it out of its fixture. The cylindrical object was much lighter than the researcher had expected.

A grin spread across his face. They had made a sensational find, he was sure of that. This was, after all, the South Pole!

“What on earth is that?” Wisting asked with a frown. “Or better put: what was that?” he added with a glance toward the remaining rubble.

Amundsen could not let go of the cylinder; he stared at it in fascination. “We might have stumbled onto an ancient civilization,” he said, moved. “An advanced civilization that had its zenith right here.”

Then he looked up at his friend’s skeptical face.

“But wouldn’t that mean that this stuff should be long buried under miles of snow and ice?” Wisting asked.

Amundsen stayed silent. Wisting was right, of course. But that was something for the experts to worry about. He would have to take the artifact with him. Everything else would sort itself out. Maybe he could use the find to fund other expeditions.

When he walked to the huskies with the cylinder in his hands, he saw the animal’s get agitated with every step he took. It wasn’t him. It must be the object, Amundsen thought.

He was a mere few steps away from the animals when they started crying and yowling. Amundsen stood still, feeling his men stare at him. They had seen the whole thing. But he had to store the artifact in the sled, there was no other choice. But why did this thing make the dogs go mad?

One of the dogs ducked his head to the ground. The animal growled and flashed its teeth threateningly.

The Netsilik Inuit had also taught Amundsen a lot about huskies. That was why he knew that he had to act like he was the leader of the pack. Despite it going against his nature, he kicked the dog in the side, strong enough to confuse the animal. The dog yowled and pulled back.

The animals dug into the snow, panting and staring at the metal object in fear. They seemed to feel that there was a storm brewing.

For the first time, Amundsen wondered whether the find was a danger. However, it was too important a find to leave here, and so he pushed the doubt to the back of his mind. He pulled the oiled paper from the drawer on the sled and wrapped the cylinder in it before using a leather strip to tie it to the back of the sled.

The dogs were still agitated, but they seemed to slowly calm down. In order to expedite the restoration of order among the animals, Amundsen turned to his friend: “Oscar! Have you already packed the seal meat?”

As an answer, Wisting gave him a fanny pack. It was filled to the brim.

Amundsen wrapped the bag around his waist, put his hand in it and threw a few pieces of meat to the dogs. That did the trick. In their hunger, the dogs gave up their panic and began to devour the meat.

Amundsen grinned. The Inuit understood how to deal with their hounds. “Get on!” He called out to the other men. “We need to get going!”

“Already?” Bjaaland called back.

“There’s been a change of plans!” Amundsen didn’t want to debate his decision. He wanted to get the cylinder to their ship, the Fram,before there was anything else that could stop him and while the dogs were still obedient. He couldn’t let them have a break.

The members of the expedition got on their sleds. Amundsen pulled out his whip and unrolled it. The animals had barely eaten the last strips of meat before the polar researcher vigorously cracked his whip. The leather strap whistled closely over the heads of his dogs in the ice-cold air.

His sled started and Amundsen sent a quick prayer to heaven, hoping that they would reach the ship in one piece.

***

The Royal Society, London, 1 March 1912

As soon as Amundsen and Wisting walked into the great hall, they felt it: the atmosphere was tense. The two polar explorers felt the skeptical looks of the professors who sat next to each other on wide benches.

An assistant silently showed them to two seats before the giant rows of black tables. Ebony, Amundsen guessed. His eyes wandered over to the object that was on an impressive side table between the professors: their find from the South Pole. From where he stood, he could see the deep scratch that stretched out across the entire length of the object.

Sir Archibald Geikie cleared his throat. As the president of the Royal Society, he would present the results of the commission of experts. Both Amundsen and Wisting were convinced that their find from the Antarctic was a sensation. Anyone who didn’t see that was a fool!

Geikie raised his brow, looked Amundsen up and down, and began his lecture. The first sentences were punches that took Amundsen’s breath away.

“In the many centuries that the Royal Society has existed, it has been regularly challenged. However, never in our history has someone tried to pull a fast one quite like this.”

Amundsen and Wisting looked at each other in horror; a look that Sir Archibald Geikie took as provocation. “Yes, Mr. Amundsen,” he continued. “We haven’t fallen for your trick. You didn’t expect that, did you?”

A tense silence spread out in the hall. Roald Amundsen’s mind spun. This could only be a complete misunderstanding!

“I... I don’t understand what you think that we are capable of, Sir Archibald. This object”—he pointed to the cylinder with his index finger—“was doubtlessly found at the South Pole. I guarantee that!”

The president of the Royal Society looked first at the person sitting to his right and then whispered something in his ear. Then he did the same thing to the scientist to the left.

Amundsen’s heart was racing. He had set such high hopes in the object. How could he be so disappointed?

Geikie’s lips twitched to become a patronizing smile. Amundsen began to hate everything about the man: the bald patch on his head, the deep-set eyes, and the damned beard.

“As we know nothing of any civilizations that existed in the South Pole, things look rather clear to me.” Sir Archibald took a break to underline the drama of what he was going to say. “If you didn’t commission this crude deception, then it must have been someone else. That object cannot be authentic, that much is certain. It was probably produced in some backyard in China.” The president of the Royal Society once again paused dramatically. The corners of his mouth twitched, hinting at a gloating smile. “Do you have any idea who played this trick on you, Mr. Amundsen?”

The Norwegian could no longer control his facial expressions. He now understood what the scientist was getting at. “You mean, did Robert Scott get there before us and leave this object at the South Pole only to lead me astray?”

Sir Archibald Geikie let out a loud laugh that all of the remaining red-faced scientists joined in.

Amundsen clenched his fists. He had wanted to have the cylinder inspected by experts. Instead, he felt like he was in a mental asylum.

Geikie had to pull himself together when he addressed Amundsen again. “I can understand that this is unbearable for you, because it implies another problem.” The president shrugged. “You did not just fall for a trick, but you were also the second person to get to the South Pole. Isn’t that a perfect example of British humor?”

Once again, the professors all started to laugh loudly. Amundsen could no longer stand it. Furiously, he got up from his seat and walked on over to the cylinder. He coldly stared at the chuckling scientists. “And where is your famous Mr. Scott?” he asked sharply. “May I remind you that he is missing?”

Amundsen picked up the object and left the hall without a sound and without waiting for Geikie’s answer. Wisting followed him a few steps behind.

“That is outrageous, Roald!” His friend ran after him, caught up, and walked alongside him. “What on earth are these eggheads thinking?”

Together, they left the building and walked out into the London evening. Before they went on, they had to let a car go past.

“I had such hopes for what we found,” Amundsen murmured quietly.

Wisting looked at him from the side. “What if the cylinder really isn’t from this planet—do you really think that those narrow-minded idiots would even recognize that?”

Amundsen shrugged. “If not the Royal Society, who else?”

“You’re thinking in the wrong direction, Roald,” Wisting retorted excitedly. “Of course there are people who would be able to recognize the value of what we have found, because they have dealt with this kind of artifact for their entire lives!”

“You mean private collectors?” Amundsen pressed his lips together and fell silent for a while. He had never thought much of those people, men who used their wealth to keep scientific or artistic treasures from the public eye. However, it might be the only way of selling the finding for a profit.

He looked at Wisting intently. “And how do we find these people?”

His companion hit Amundsen hard on the shoulder. “You let that be my worry.” He winked at the polar explorer conspiratorially. “I actually know the very person. Let’s see what he can do for us!”

***

Travellers Club, London, 3 March 1912

Oscar Wisting had kept his word. Evening had fallen on the Thames metropolis, and Amundsen stood before building number 106 on Pall Mall. So here was the legendary Travellers Club. His right hand clung to the grip of his leather suitcase. It was ridiculously heavy, but Amundsen had long gotten used to the weight.

He pressed the bell. It took a few moments before the door opened. A bony looking man wearing a dark gray suit squinted back at Amundsen as if he was miles away. “What can I do for you, sir?”

The Norwegian gulped. He had never been to a gentlemen’s club before. Hopefully, the man he faced wouldn’t notice that. “Mr. Charles Wolfe is expecting me.”

The other man thought for a second, then nodded. “So you are Mr. Roald Amundsen?”

He smiled back and nodded in confirmation.

A drastic change occurred in the bony man. The once distant and cold doorman was now a warm and friendly host. “My name is Victor Montague. In the name of all members of the Travellers Club, welcome. Won’t you come in?” Montague took a step aside to make place for Amundsen. A well-known name could open any door.

After taking his coat, Montague led the polar explorer into the smoking lounge. The term was fitting, because it was a large hall with oversized paintings that were probably hundreds of years old. The floor was adorned with oriental carpets, and a cozy fire glowed in a fireplace.

Amundsen only saw three people who were spread out through the entire hall. One of them sat on a couch directly next to the fireplace and looked at the newcomer curiously. That had to be Charles Wolfe.

Montague led Amundsen to the leather sofa. “Mr. Wolfe?” he nodded his head in a bow. “Your guest has arrived.” With that, he left the two men to their talk.

With a fluid motion, Wolfe stood up and stretched out his hand to the polar explorer. “Mr. Amundsen! It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” He shook Amundsen’s hand vehemently. The man looked aristocratic, with high cheekbones and short dark hair.

“The pleasure is mine,” Amundsen replied.

Wolfe gestured to a spot on the couch, and the two men sat down. Amundsen put his suitcase next to himself on the couch. When he looked up, he felt the assessing look of his partner.

“Our common friend Mr. Wisting has told me that you discovered an interesting...object on your last expedition.”

Amundsen nodded. He was not there to beat around the bush. He opened the suitcase, pulled out the cylindrical artifact from the South Pole, and handed it to Wolfe.

His partner’s spiderlike fingers grabbed it. At the same time, an almost reverent look came over his face. He gazed at the artifact with quiet movements, his hands running over the obvious scratch on the surface and the wavy structure on the one half. Then he looked at his guest, but continued to hold the artifact. “As you may know, I am a lawyer. My client is Daniel Tarrance; he works in the steel business.”

Amundsen nodded, even though that piece of information was new to him.

Wolfe continued: “Mr. Tarrance is an enthusiast and collector of strange objects. Artifacts like this here, for example.”

The researcher frowned. “So there are more like this?”

Wolfe smiled quietly. “Mr. Tarrance’s collection is quite extensive. But he is always interested in gaining more.”

At that point, Roald Amundsen’s negotiating strategy imploded. He had put arguments together to support the uniqueness and preciousness of the artifact. The way things looked, he didn’t need to worry about that.

Wolfe gave the artifact back to its owner. A devious smile crossed his face. “You’ll have taken a thorough look at this?” Amundsen had the impression that the lawyer’s eyes were now darker than they had been. Slowly, he nodded.

“And?” Wolfe continued. “Does it have...special abilities?”

Amundsen had predicted he would ask that and so came prepared. He had noticed an interesting ability. The Norwegian took out a small paper tissue. “Open your hand, please,” he asked Wolfe. Wolfe did as he was told.

“That’s iron powder, Mr. Wolfe.” Amundsen took a small bottle, tipped a little of its contents onto the lawyer’s hand, and held the cylinder out to him. “Now sprinkle some over the artifact!”

The man frowned, but ultimately did as he was told. Then his eyes widened. The iron particles sprinkled downward—and stopped in the air a few inches above the artifact! The flickering firelight reflected off the iron filings and gave the whole scene a very dramatic atmosphere. Fascinated, the lawyer followed how the particles almost weightlessly and elegantly started to rotate around the artifact.

Wolfe gulped and stared at Amundsen. “How much do you want for this extraordinary piece of equipment?”

The polar explorer took a deep breath through his nose. The scornful expertise of the Royal Society had made him more insecure than he cared to admit. Did those buffoons really not notice the obviously magnetic effect of the object, or did they just not care to notice? He was suddenly gripped by nerves. He found it difficult to think clearly.

Wolfe saw what was going on and smiled; he was still impressed by the demonstration. The thin man bent over the table and wrote something with a pen on a serviette. Confidently, he passed it over to Amundsen.

The Norwegian saw the sum of money and stared, flabbergasted, at his negotiating partner. “Are you serious?”

Wolfe nodded confidently. “As serious as I am standing here before you!” He waited for a response. “Do we have a deal?”

At first, Amundsen looked at the fireplace; then he nodded. His heart pounded in his chest. Who was he to refuse such an offer?

***

London, 5 March 1912

Ian Getty had “cleaned up.” It had been a dirty job anyway, and he had put up with a lot. That’s just how things were as a private detective. It often depended on who was taking the punch. It was no use having a great one-two when you had a chin made of china.

Getty grinned. He looked awful, but his opponent was worse off. These guys won’t be a problem for Mr. Wolfe anymore, you can bank on that!

He stumbled down Exeter Street. A few minutes ago, it had been pouring rain, and now the chill wind made the soaked Getty shiver. Disgruntled, he tightened his coat and hugged his arms around his body. That made him feel the Colt 1903 under his left armpit. He had only used the weapon to “turn off” a streetlamp. Under cover of darkness, he had been able to ambush his adversaries.

Unfortunately, one of the men had given him a hefty punch in his face. His nose had been broken—again—and that was why his coat was splattered with blood. On top of that, his knuckles were also bloody.

He finally saw his hotel. Mr. Tarrance expected nothing but the best for his people, so Getty had the privilege of living in the Savoy, one of the best hotels in the city. Getty didn’t care much, though. He needed coffee, black if possible, and hot. He never had managed to get used to the damned tea that the English constantly waxed lyrical about. In addition, he needed a hot shower.

He finally reached the entrance. One of the porters, wearing a black uniform and a top hat, recognized him, greeted him, and opened the door. When he walked past, he saw how the staff goggled at his messy and shabby appearance. He looked more like a homeless man than a guest at the hotel. That said, at least none of them dared to make any rude comments.

“Mr. Getty? Is that you?”

The private detective heard a voice and turned around to face the speaker. The pale concierge Niles Harrington stared at him with raised eyebrows.

“Who else could I be? The emperor of China?”

The liveried hotel employee chuckled exaggeratedly. “Is that kind of suit in vogue in the States right now?”

Getty heard the mocking tone oozing from the concierge’s words and walked over to the reception desk. The concierge seemed to feel safe behind the desk. His impression was wrong.

Getty’s steely gray eyes fixed upon the receptionist. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me, Niles?” he asked in a soft voice, then gestured threateningly with his chin.

Harrington thought for a second and then shook his head. “No, of course not, Mr. Getty.” He cleared his throat. “You have a letter, sir.” He put his hand under the desk and brought out an envelope made of the finest paper.

Getty snatched the letter and left the hotel employee where he was. He had wasted enough time with Harrington as it was. When he got into the elevator, he looked at the envelope. There was no sender’s address, but still he knew where the letter had come from: Charles Wolfe. The lawyer was the right arm of Getty’s boss, Daniel Tarrance. Both were men neither Getty nor anyone else should get on the wrong side of.

Full of curiosity, Getty ripped open the envelope. It contained a folded letter and a ticket. The private detective frowned and looked at the ticket. His stomach tightened a little. It was a ticket to cross the Atlantic. By ship!

The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and Getty stood still as if he was rooted to the spot. His hands shook. He had never really liked sailing. Not too long ago, however, something had happened to make this dislike get worse: Max, his brother, had drowned when the Général Chanzy sank in the Mediterranean.

Getty gulped several times. He wobbled out of the elevator and opened the letter. Immediately, he recognized the handwriting that confirmed it was indeed from Wolfe.

After reading the letter, he felt even worse. His commission was clear: he was to sail across the Atlantic in a ship and take care of a piece of luggage while he did so. In his stress and tension, he had forgotten to read the name of the ship. He looked at the ticket: the Titanic. He had never heard of it. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Getty hated every ship!

***

In the Domain

│┼╟║│▌┤│ had stood for a while in front of the console with his right hand on the computer interface to link it up to his nervous system. To any observer, the tall amber-colored creature would have seemed like a statue, so completely absorbed in his work was he.

During his time as a traveler, the Archivist had already calibrated several gateways for missions, but this time, the process was much more complex, because the target destination was mobile. When the gateway was programmed, all of its parameters had to be calculated exactly, otherwise the Archivist himself and the entire mission would be in danger. The latter would be much worse, because a lost artifact would be a wholly unacceptable outcome.

Finally, he worked out a time window of a mere few seconds. That had to be enough.

He lowered his elongated head with its tentacles and checked the parameters one last time. Every point of data looked present and correct. The traveler stretched out his elongated finger toward the console in front of him and transferred the coordinates from his hand computer to a device on his belt. A quiet electronic chime told him that the process was complete.

In his youth, he was a huge fan of the famed Karanor Blyzz. As an agent, this figure had taken on the most difficult jobs; no enemy could defeat him. It might have been Blyzz’s example that made │┼╟║│▌┤│ also join the service of the Domain.

As usual, he had chosen a normal name for the mission. After analyzing the research material he had, he decided that he was going to be “Archibald Mountbatten.” That combination made use of names that were quite common at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Now he just had to worry about his outer appearance. He navigated the steering unit to his mobile holoprojector. Before his eyes, individual elements of his wardrobe appeared. As a traveler, research was part of his job. So he had an entire collection of fashionable trends from the era on the hard drive of his projector’s memory bank. Now he tested a few combinations, threw most of them away again, and ended up with a two-piece suit from red tweed, a white shirt, and a cravat tied in a large knot. As accessories, he chose a watch chain and a noticeable broach shaped like an antique sun.

Mountbatten had already decided on his physical appearance. While he perused the data for the period, he had constantly seen the name of a famous person, a writer called Oscar Wilde. Of course, Mountbatten had modified his face so that he didn’t attract any unwanted attention. At last, the Archivist activated the mobile holoprojector on his belt. A disguise field fell over the tall creature and turned the Archivist’s visage into that of a hominid from the period. Now he was ready for his mission.

The only matter that remained was the details of his commission. He mentally reviewed all the information that he knew about the artifact. It was made on one version of Earth by an ancient people that had settled on the planet. But then a terrible accident happened in the parallel world, causing parts of the extraterrestrial technology to unfortunately find their way into human hands. It was only a question of time before the human scientists would be successful in their analysis. The humans of this time were not ready for such a technological leap. Mountbatten would have to stop this development at every cost. This mission was indeed worthy of the great Karanor Blyzz!

***

Southampton, 10 April 1912

Myrna Harper had just learned the true meaning of the word “ambivalence.”

On the one hand, her journey through Europe was coming to an end, and that made the young lady sad. She had seen the beauty of the ancient continent and had greedily lapped up everything that she could find. Spain, Italy, and France had been of special interest to Myrna; the Austrian capital of Vienna had also fascinated the young lady. However, her enthusiasm had been overwhelmed by the political tensions brewing in Europe.

The signs definitely pointed to a coming war, which was why Myrna was looking forward to returning to the United States. Italy had already fought against the Ottoman Empire, and the situation in the Balkan countries looked as bad. The competition between imperial Germany and Great Britain was taking a similar path. However, Myrna hoped that in the end diplomacy would prevail over the loud banging of the war drums.

She watched her aunt, Elizabeth Eustis, from the corner of her eye. Aunt Liz was her only surviving relative. She had gifted Myrna the tour through Europe after she had passed her physics degree.

In many ways, Aunt Liz was a role model for Myrna: clever, beautiful, and worldly despite her age. In Myrna’s eyes, Aunt Liz had only made one mistake: she had never married. Apparently, there had been a dashing officer, but he’d not returned from the Boer War, and so Elizabeth Eustis had remained a spinster.

The driver was going a little too fast, and the car bumped and jostled through the potholes. Aunt Liz frowned admonishingly.

Suddenly the streets were full of people, stopping the car from continuing and forcing the driver to slam on the brakes. The two elegant ladies were thrown forward and had to use the front seats to block their path.

Aunt Liz’s black straw hat fell off her head. “Good gracious! Where did you learn to drive, Freddy?” she swore. Her American accent could be heard as clear as day.

“I’m sorry, Mistress Eustis. We started a little late, and we didn’t expect to run into this kind of traffic.” Freddy blew the horn several times, trying to make his way through the crowds of pedestrians.

The street ran down to the harbor on a slight incline. As they were going so slowly, the two ladies had the chance to take in the majestic view of the oceanic giant that towered far over the heads of the people milling on the street.

Myrna looked at aunt Liz in disbelief. “Are we really going back on this ship?”

Elizabeth Eustis’s sensual lips turned into a sophisticated smile. “When one gives presents, then one should aim to give the best ones, child. You should never take anything less!”

Myrna knew that Aunt Liz was referring to the social standing of a prospective husband. This topic was one of the only things that divided the two ladies. Myrna wanted to marry a man because she loved him and not because he was a member of the “right” social class.

Her green eyes took in the majestic ship. She saw the night-black hull with the red line just above the waterline, the shiny white deck, and the four black chimneys. The ship was a real giant.

“What’s the name of the ship, Aunt Liz? Is that the Titanic that the papers are raving about?”

“Indeed it is, my dear. She will take us from Southampton to New York!”

Myrna was blown away. Reading about the ship in the newspapers was one thing; beholding the fascinating beast with her own eyes was something else entirely.

Freddy managed to maneuver the work of art—in other words, the car—right up close to the ship. Although, he did nearly run over several pedestrians along the way.

“Please put our luggage on board, Freddy,” Aunt Liz said resolutely after the driver had opened her door. Freddy nodded, but first helped Myrna get out of the car before taking care of the impressive number of suitcases.

Myrna was practically suffocated by the sheer number of people at the harbor. What she had not thought about was that apparently poor people were there as well. They stood there with their simple clothing in long lines, at the end of which members of the Titanic crew waited to check them for fleas and lice.

Myrna found these public checks humiliating. As a prospective doctor, she knew that people deserved a modicum of dignity. The checks could have been done more discreetly in a closed room.

She was just about to ask Aunt Liz about the tickets when she heard a cultivated voice speaking very loudly. In surprise, Myrna turned around and saw a young fellow wearing a working man’s outfit. He was surrounded by his peers in the line and was lecturing the impoverished, suffering listeners.

Before Myrna was able to understand anything, her eyes became fixed on the young man’s face. He was about her age, but seemed to exude a confidence that other men of their age group could only dream of. It would have been a mistake to describe the young man’s face and blond hair as beautiful. Interesting would have been a better fit. Myrna stood and listened.

“True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance,

Assure yourself, after our ship did split,

When you and those poor number saved with you

Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,

Most provident in peril, bind himself...”

Myrna knew the play that he was quoting. However, hearing these words before boarding a ship made the young lady feel uneasy.

“Did you hear that, Aunt Liz?” she asked.

The attractive lady nodded. “Shakespeare, my child. At least that poor devil can read!”

Myrna shook her head. “Isn’t it a bad omen to quote that before we board a ship?”

Aunt Liz put her arm gently around Myrna’s shoulder. “Don’t get superstitious, young lady. The Titanic is the safest ship in the world. They say it is unsinkable.” Elizabeth Eustis smiled encouragingly at her niece. “The devil himself will have to come up out of the sea and drag the Titanic back down with him. That will never happen, no matter how much that worker’s boy over there can quote Shakespeare!”

***

On board the Titanic, 10 April 1912, evening

William Thomas Stead sank into the comfortable leather seat and closed his eyes for a few seconds. Was he the first passenger to experience the pleasure of the smoking lounge? He opened his eyes and pulled out his first cigar. Before he lit it, he sniffed at it slowly. The universe seemed to be full of amazing gifts.

Silently smiling, he lit a match and used it to light up his cigar. When he took a drag, the end glowed red and Stead immediately tasted the aromatic smoke. Life could be so nice, but also ugly and just plain brutal. Duality, the journalist thought. That’ll be the reason that our souls take on mortal form.

Stead waved the match out in the air and put it in the ashtray on the table in front of him. He put one leg over the other and relaxed, watching the glowing fire in the fireplace, deep in contemplation.

“I’ve seen you somewhere before!”

Stead jumped; he thought he was alone in the smokers’ lounge. When he turned his head, he saw a thin man sitting at the other end of the room. He wore a tuxedo and smoked a cigarette rather than a cigar.

Instead of answering, Stead merely pointed toward an empty chair opposite him. The man didn’t need to be told twice and brought his ashtray over to the table. Before he sat down, he stretched out his hand.

Without getting up, Stead shook his hand.

“Miles Smith,” the man introduced himself.

“William Stead.”

Smith snapped his fingers. “You’re the spiritualist!”

Stead smiled in surprise. He was more famous as a journalist, but was also known for his interest in spiritualism.

“Why are you on the Titanic?” Smith wanted to know.

Stead hated small talk; that was why he preferred to give Smith a bone. Maybe the talk would get a bit deeper. “I’ve been invited to the peace conference at Carnegie Hall as a speaker by President Taft.”

Smith nodded, took a drag of his cigarette, and blew blue smoke out of his nose. “There was a reason why I asked you why you were on this ship.”

Stead frowned. Was there something he didn’t understand? “I told you the reason,” he said irritably.

“I didn’t mean that, Mr. Stead.” The thin man took a further, longer drag. “I know your stories that you wrote by automatic writing.”

So that’s what he’s on about, Stead thought.

“Especially the stories that dealt with shipping catastrophes. You last wrote about a ship that hit an iceberg.”

The journalist shrugged, took a puff at his cigarette, and stayed silent.

“Is it not strange that someone like you has now boarded a ship without a care in the world, Mr. Stead?” Smith continued to dig.

This talk is going to be interesting after all, Stead thought. He put his cigar in the recess on the ashtray and massaged the base of his nose with his index finger and thumb. Then he got up.

“As you said, I am a spiritualist and I use the technique of automatic writing.” Stead paused for artistic effect. “I receive messages from another world; let’s call it the otherworld. These messages contain prophecies of specific events that actually happen.”

Smith hung on every word and slid back and forth on his chair. Stead’s first assumption was that Smith was going to discredit him. Things now looked completely different: the man was scared that this ship would sink!

“I can put you at ease, Mr. Smith. All prophecies come to pass, but not necessarily in this universe. I believe in a so-called multiverse in which there are countless parallel realities. Any outcome you can think of is possible in one of them, no matter what it is.” Stead smiled. “In terms of our world right now, the Titanic is the most modern and thereby the safest ship possible in our time!”

Smith’s face turned pale. “But how can the Titanic be unsinkable, if it can sink in another reality?”

Stead stopped. Smith was right, of course. He had not considered this outcome. However, while he thought about an answer, Smith jumped up and ran out of the room without a word, almost running into another passenger as he ran.

“I thought you’d be behind this,” an authoritative voice intoned.

Stead narrowed his eyes to see who the newcomer was. The passenger had snow-white hair and a beard of the same color. His stance belied an unshakable self-confidence.

“You liberals have been poisoning people’s minds with your foolish ideas,” he continued, coming to stand right in front of Stead. “You’re that journalist that likes to pour buckets of manure over prominent members of the public, aren’t you?”

Stead raised his left eyebrow. “Do you mean that veryprominent member of society who I discovered dealing in child prostitution, Mister...?”

Fury flashed through the eyes of the white haired man, but he fought his instincts and gave an answer. “My name is Colonel John Bertram Crafton of His Majesty’s British Indian Army,” he said stiffly. “And I will not sit idly by and watch you carry on with your infernal business, Stead!”

With that, Crafton spun around petulantly and stalked out the smokers’ lounge.

William Thomas Stead shook his head and ran his right hand through his beard. His relationship with the military could be compared with that of dogs with cats.

***

11 April 1912

Getty hated every second that he had to spend on board this damned ship. It made no difference if he was in his cabin, on deck, or, like now, deep inside the ship’s hull.

Last night, he found he was unable to sleep without his good old friend Jim Beam, a type of bourbon whiskey. He just couldn’t find any peace. But that was just the unshakable feeling on the surface. Underneath the surface, he felt something even more terrible brewing.

He had never liked being on ships; in the slums of Chicago, there was never enough money to afford a journey on a ship. That said, until his brother Max had died, he had just mildly disliked the idea. Then everything changed.

Sweat ran down his spine. Getty loosened the knot of his yellow striped cravat and desperately suppressed the panic attack.

“So that’s your treasure,” William Murdoch, the first officer of the Titanic, said with a nod.

Even though Getty was busy focusing, the strange undertone from the first officer brought him down to earth with a bump. He hated it when Murdoch stressed the word “treasure” like that.

If this bloody thing wasn’t worth a fortune to my boss, I’d not even be on this boat!

He had always been aggressive; that had helped him get from the slums of Chicago to Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Maybe it was his natural propensity to outbursts of anger that had been his ticket into this business, because his job did demand he be ready to do things others would think unthinkable. Fury and rage were good motivators.

“You mean the freight that your White Star Line is earning a small fortune from by carrying it across the seas, Mr. Murdoch?”

The confidence in Getty’s voice confused the first officer slightly. That was a good thing.

The private detective walked over to the boxes. As arranged, they were stored near the entrance to the freight hold at the bottom of a shelf. From outside, they looked undamaged. “As far as I can see, everything seems to be present and correct,” Getty commented.

The first officer nodded. “So there’s nothing more to do here.”

But the private detective didn’t seem to want to move. Instead, his face contorted when he saw a large cockroach crawling over the floor. “You have bugs on this ship?”

Murdoch laughed. “You will not find a ship on this planet that is free of animals and bugs. Cockroaches and rats get on the ship while we are loading up. The crew deal with them during the crossing with poison and traps, only for new ones to come aboard when we arrive.”

Getty mumbled something. Then he got more specific. “Rats can eat through my freight. I want to be able to check that my freight is unharmed at irregular intervals.”

Murdoch sighed. “Is that really necessary, Mr. Getty?”

The bulky man with the short neck took a step over to the first officer. “Yes, it is necessary. That is exactly what Mr. Tarrance is paying your company for.”

Murdoch nodded in resignation. “I will instruct my crew accordingly.”

Getty was satisfied. When the two men left the freight room, they heard a dull thud against the side of the outer hull. “Probably driftwood,” the first officer commented.

Getty, however, thought of Max. How were the oceans and seas connected? His brother was somewhere out there; his body had never been found. Maybe he had turned into one of the creatures that populated the sea. He had sometimes heard seamen talk about them.

The private detective felt nauseous and needed to lean against the wall. Murdoch grabbed his arm.

“Is this your first time on a ship?”

Getty pressed his lips together and nodded. And hopefully, my last, he thought. He had no idea how close he was to the truth...

***

On board the Titanic, in third class

“I thought it would be much worse,” Hans Peter Jensen conceded and looked at his cabin. “Well, with four beds in the room, there isn’t really much space left. But look at the flooring and the pine boards on the wall. Third class on other ships is much uglier and made of plain steel.”

Thomas McEnroe grinned. “And we even have a sink!”

The boys laughed. None of them had expected a great amount of luxury, because none of them came from money. London, Manchester, Liverpool... Hard work, hunger, and hopelessness were their daily lives. The ticket in the third class of the Titanic had cost each of them an arm and a leg, but it also meant a new start. Each one of them wanted to conquer part of the new world in person.

James Flynn sat on his bed and listened to his roommates attentively. He knew each one of them, and that made the trip easier. Easier, but not necessarily nice. James took his notebook from under his bed and opened it.

“Ah, be quiet, boys!” Kyle Bloom called with a mocking undertone. “Our very own Charles Dickens is taking down some notes!”

James winked at Bloom. He liked the boy from Sheffield. Only, his roommate couldn’t read. Otherwise, he would have understood that James was not trying to copy Charles Dickens. “Kyle, I write poetry. Charles Dickens wrote novels!”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

James shook his head in thought. Then he had an idea: “Tyger, Tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night!” He looked at Kyle expectantly.

Comprehension filled the young man’s eyes. “What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?” Kyle continued the poem.

Everything had fallen silent in the cabin. The two remaining boys stared at Kyle Bloom while James began to applaud. “That’s it! That is poetry, Kyle.”

“But how did a ragged old pickpocket like Bloom learn a poem like that?” Jensen wanted to know.

Flynn grinned widely. “We were in the same home for children. Old widow Weathers always quoted this poem by William Blake when she beat our backsides with her confounded walking stick.”

The incongruity of the scene made all of them laugh wildly, but their laughter dissipated fast. Flynn felt Bloom staring at him.

“Did you see your fine audience from the upper classes listening when you held your show in the harbor?” Kyle asked.

James had indeed noticed the two ladies. He had relished the attention from two attractive and well-bred ladies. He smiled. “Mother and daughter. The younger wore a white dress with a dark blue belt and lapel. Besides that, she wore a large hat.”

“So our poet actually remembers the ladies!” Bloom’s voice sounded derisive, and once again the cabin erupted into laughter. Flynn joined in, even if his cheeks had turned a little red.

“So, friends, time for tea,” Jensen said after looking at his watch. As if on command, the others jumped off their beds and ran out of the cabin. Only Flynn stood still.

“Are you angry now, James?” Bloom asked.

He shook his head. “Rubbish. I just want to write something down. You guys go on ahead, I’ll come after you!”

When he was alone, he lay back on his bed and started writing in his book. The words came without any effort or without him questioning them.

When he was finished, he read his words for the first time. They felt like stabs in his heart, because they were about the dark-haired beauty in the white dress.

Beautiful—and unattainable. The young lady lived in a completely different world. She might as well have been on the moon.

Despondent, Flynn got up from his bed and was about to follow his friends. But for some reason, he stopped.

It was this very pain in his heart that drove him. Longing. That was why he had worked night after night in the factory until he had saved all the money for the ticket.

He didn’t want to be a nobody anymore. That was why he was taking this journey to New York. He would find a decent place to live and build a life for himself, just like everyone deserved.

***

13 April 1912

Colonel John Bertram Crafton stood on the front end of the promenade deck and stared out at the sky. Until now, everything had been the exact opposite of what he had planned. First of all, he met that disgusting journalist and spiritualist William Stead after he had managed to put the fear of God into some poor young man. Then his wife of all people had fallen ill. Laura was now on bed rest and Crafton was all alone. At least he’d given that dirty fellow what for. These liberals thought they could get away with everything these days!