John waited in queue with a ticket to Tokyo, Japan, and a transfer follow through to New Delhi, India. He used the last funds on his master card to do it. They were the only two tickets he could get that day. The plane departed with a fatigued and distraught young man aboard. He was well away from his home and almost far out of the reach of any help.
The plane landed in Tokyo with a scrawl and a bump. He hurried through a crowd of anonymous figures to gate sixty-one in an unadorned terminal. On the plain concrete floor was a loud hailing horn with a battery and handle and flared sound well. He picked it up and carried it with him before anyone saw him do it.
The next flight was better than the previous one. This being on Singapore Airlines which values their hospitality higher than anything else. He received a pack of playing cards. He and the female flight attendant rooted on the back seat during the flight.
She said that he had made her feel like a woman and he disembarked then stood at a lonely train station for two days. A man walked up to him and preached to him Hindu and Christian philosophies and he listened. When the train arrived he rushed onto it without a bag but only wearing a green marines surplus uniform. Johnny talked about destinations with another man who was riding and who bought him tea. They saw blackened, dry landscape.
The towers of Calcutta are dusty and old. He stood at a ditch staring down a hill at a seething city scape which thrilled history. He did not speak the language. He did not have a visa. He was not far away from the danger zone. He considered whether he was going to walk into the team of mobsters or starve to death right where he was. He knew that he would end up in the black hole of Calcutta if he moved forward.
He had carried with him from Tokyo the loud hailer which weighed several kilograms. He lifted it above his head and pressed the switch. The battery he had stolen from airport security. The noise blared into the air loud and strong. It rang for forty minutes. When it had expired he took the battery out and dropped it. Then he moved forward slow towards the pit at the bottom of the hill ahead.
Two Indian Army staff members in striped uniforms spoke to him. They asked him if he believed in Jesus and he said ‘Yes, definitely.’ They then invited him to follow them to their truck. All three of them walked to the green steel unit parked on dirt next to the road. They invited him to perform a mind-breaking exercise. It was one which every Russian pilot had refused upon themselves to accept.
The rough ride to Vladivostok took him every muscle’s worth of pain and body bruises to endure. When the lorry train got there, he found himself ushered into a space base where bed rest awaited with clean tea. He tried to sleep for thirteen days until a man came to him and said, ‘Time.’
The undressing was the simplest part. Interviews taken in foreign languages incomprehensible to him. The aerial exercises performed. On the sixteenth day he was to dress in a body suit. It was abominable, of artificial manufactured and matted fibre hide. The commanders showed him a strange helmet. They asked him if he knew how to use it and what it meant. Then they asked him to climb a three-hundred-meter tall ladder. To the top he climbed into a leaden and brass capsule which was twenty-six feet tall and sixteen feet wide. It was circular and conical. This was the second time within two years that the superpowers had used him as blackmail. The first ride had near killed him and the second ride would break his mind in two.
He waited for a while in the shell cone. At the top of the ladder by the gantry tower it was four-hundred feet off the ground. He settled his body on the hard seat in the cone. He breathed and watched the stillness of the shape he was in. It did not move, and had in it several devices built in the sides. There was a radar console and two computer screens, a keypad and a calibrated valve reader. Three other devices appeared to be medical in their purpose. A window lit a high point close to the top and on the side. Next to the window was a small white button. Above that a red label which read, ‘LAZAR’. Inside were also several levers protruding from out of the base of the conical machine.
After he had been there a day, a man like him came to the door. The man said that everyone on ground level had been wondering why he had not come down yet. He replied that it was because this was fascinating. The man said that he was the rescue mission and had risked his life to get there and he must come down. Johnny left the big aluminium helmet in the capsule and went with the rescuer onto the tall ladder again. Half way down the other man fell because he and John were too tired and distracted to down climb correct. He got to the bottom to thundering noise which sounded like music. He was a taken to a white concrete walled painted prison cell. After a week of drinking tea and eating jelly bars people grabbed him out of there. They took him before a commander. Who said that since it was obvious he liked being at the top of a rocket then he should do it again.
Again he climbed the ladder to the top of the rocket. He prepared and sealed the helmet up with hope. He was now inside an artificial environment. He had not realized that he would be the chosen for this. When the shaking of the rocket structure began beneath him he felt fear. His heart did things which his ears and tongue never knew about. In six minutes’ time the rocket launched and he lost consciousness.
He did not come back to his senses until the ship was passing a vast object. A white and grey mass was approximately outside the window. He could see the mystery through the window. He reckoned in physical shock that the pale circular object was the moon. He could see on it a curved edge which ended in pure blackness. The void of outer space boomed a loud noise like a ghost wail. He was in the sixteenth Soyuz mission as a captive to a mad terrorist manager on Earth. He must negotiate this situation or die.
While he knew a little aeronautics and avionics from study and practice. Although he was not qualified to perform the task. He only hoped, and prayed to God that satan would not touch him.
The surface of the moon is a ghastly sight. It has irregular structures on it made of heaps of rock. Cavaliers of fallen geographical heaps play on it unmoving. It exists in all the stillness of time in silence. Johnny watched the senseless object while his capsule floated slow around it. The blackness of the void of space was lit only in a minor degree by tiny white lights in the semi to far distance.
The direction of the drift of the craft was the risky life and death matter that he must trust. When he had awoken by the alarm in the ship, he had not remembered what he had done or expect to find himself there. It took him minutes to recognize and prove to his reason that this was not a dream. The fibre suit trapped him and left no room for feeling, and he could not touch his head with his hands. He was in gloves and mittens and had on his head a helmet built of three hard layers.
He looked through a visor and heard only a suffering whimper from his throat. Several times he said, “Where am I? Where am I?” There was no answer, and so he concluded that he was inside an hallucination. He had learned from a schoolteacher this. If a person woke up to an experience trapped inside a hallucination. They must negotiate their survival according to the terms of that hallucination. He faltered and checked around him for anything solid.
He put his mittens on a set of six levers in front of the body. He pulled them forward and then sat on the seat again and watched them. The view of the white and grey circular object turned in the window. Until its edge became occluded by the limits of the window and filled it. “What is that? What is that?” he said. Nobody replied to assist.
Beyond his knowledge, by pulling at the levers he had lighted the side jets of the capsule. He'd moved it into the gravity trap which surrounded the round object. A change in sensation made him fall. He struggled to his feet and saw that he was now leaning on the seat. Straps connected to his suit attached to the inside of the cone. He surmised then that he was doing well. Even though he had no memory he also surmised that he must in fact be in outer space.
He must find the controls for the craft’s side jets. By using them he could bring the ship back into the correct trajectory. The moon’s gravity would seize it and fling it around itself. So to travel one hundred and eighty degrees past the far side. He must estimate the correct adjustments. The great weights he dealt with must have their own equilibrium. He hoped to move closer to the earth again.
He pushed the six levers back and the cone he was inside tilted again so that he fell to the other side. A mathematical conclusion he realized caused him to pull three of the six levers down again. To all his relief, the pod revolved back to centre and he could stand in the middle on the floor. The moon was now still filling the window and this seemed normal. It was possible that he was on a safe course.
He watched the view. It changed with slight graduations. Features on it passed from one side and away across the other side. Then he decided to read the instruments in the devices in the wall. The familiar sight of a pressure gauge was the first thing he recognized. Then another thing, a radar circle spinning in a line. He had completed the first step in saving his own life. If he had not, then the ship would have travelled in a straight line and crashed somewhere in the homeless void. He imagined the tiny craft drift solo for millennia. He imagined starving and suffocating alone. He laughed a little.
The bastard commanders in Russia had supplied him with a cyanide capsule. He had it inserted by his upper right molar teeth. He chose to not want to burst it. The orders from Kazoo were to drop bombs on the other side of the world from above. Of course he would not do this. In retrospect, when he had received this order at the Vladivostok ground base, he had replied, ‘I can’t see why. That’s suicide.’ The wheels of mission had continued to the same bluff tune as though they had not heard him.
The voices continued to haunt him. He does not remember what they said. The magnetic winds were blasting all around the outside of the capsule. His body had protection from these forces. This was enough to soothe his spirits. There was the worry that he would become a radioactive hell survivor again. He continued on his lonely ship into the night. He watched a field of reflected light fading at a great curved horizon. He entered further into the fearsome space which gave no sign of its existence. Numbers on a panel in the computer counted up in digital ascension. By the time they indicated fifty-four, the capsule was facing the dark side of the moon. Little was visible there but for shadows. The shadows formed chaotic patterns of a higher intensity than the lit side of the object. Lack of light betrayed a greater violence. He calmed his stress by breathing regular and slow. For the following time an experience like execution flooded his poor imagination.
By sixty hours he saw regular shapes on the surface. They looked like blocks in lines. Rectangular objects moved through corridors between them. A white disk flashed towards the window of his capsule. He pressed the round button marked LAZAR by the apex of the cone and the white disk vanished. A sounding hum filled the volume in his ears inside the cone. He surmised from this sensation that what he was experiencing must be real after all.
He had still not dealt with the problem which the Russian had left him with. That was what to do with the atom bombs connected to the back of the ship. As the craft orbited around the big circular rock, he pondered. Two large levers by the seat might connect to a part of the craft which he could not see. If he pulled them and they were the connector control, then he could detach the payload from his capsule. Of the eight levers in the small chamber, six were flight controls and two remained a mystery. If he pulled them and they did what he thought, they could. By throwing the mines into the gravity hole he could prevent the tyranny. If they were not, then he might empty the atmosphere from the chamber. Depending on whether there was any atmosphere within it in the area outside of his suit. He searched further and found that at the vertical ledge of the seat was a large turning screw handle. He turned it. The seat lifted and revealed a wide circular screw valve. It had horizontal handles the kind reminiscent of a submarine portal. There was also a large tank which he surmised must contain air for his survival. The screw valve would then be the egress to the outside void. So there were two ways to die in this run, a crunch of the jaws onto a poison pill, or a turn of the screw on the outside valve.
He pulled the two large levers and heard a thump. The capsule began altering its feel of the direction of his weight. He checked the pressure meter and it had not changed. So the levers were not part of the jet system. Yet the pod was still altering trajectory. He waited, and then a thump shocked the very metal structure of the hull. He must discover the reason for this. For the second time he fell and he could not turn to look through the window. He was searching for a vision of the sixteen bombs float away from the unit. Curiosity got the better of him, and he unscrewed the base valve by only three centimetres. Atmosphere began rushing out of the chamber. Crystals of ammonia ice formed on the surface and walls of the pod. The breath which had been lent him from the solo space suit he was in became harder to get, and his lungs wheezed. He turned the handles of the valve wheel back in the reverse direction. So that he could close it but with his strength he could not succeed in sealing it tight. Ice had blocked the screw and air was still leaking out of the valve.
He turned the top joint on the tank of air and a volume of gas released from it. He turned it to open full and the pressure rose in the cabin until he could breathe normal again. Helmet and oxygen tubes kept him alive. He struggled with the handles of the egress valve. After much straining succeeded in closing it. The atmospheric gasses had melted the sick yellow ice of the heavens.
Now there was definitely nothing on the other side of the aperture. So the weapons were not there anymore. The capsule was handling different, as though it was lighter. As he played with the small levers he found that he could spin the cone in its own somersault. The trick had worked and the big end had floated away and nudged the cone a bit. The payload drifted. The play of low gravity with zero friction made the two objects spin separate. Perpendicular to the axis of spin, it headed away from the moon. What was more important, away from the earth itself. Johnny did not care where it went. He could see it getting smaller in size while he approached sunrise of the lode basalt satellite. To his dismay the cone spun in random circular motion until a flash of bright light hit the window. This lent him enough vision to enable an orientation of position. He jetted with the levers until the death roll stilled.
Earth rise was the next thing which told him that he would remain significant. The manoeuvring of the capsule was not easy. Since he was doing it for the first time, it took him nine attempts. Guess work deduction lead to conclusion to right its trajectory. Into a slim angle that was within the approach of earth’s horizon between three and twelve degrees. If he could survive the fierce heat of re-entry, then he may after all stay alive. The clock read one hundred hours by the launch. He saw on the window the tell-tale wisps of gas trailing along the capsule’s sides. Re-entry began with spiritual promise, and rose to a climax of red light engulfing the hull. The symphony subsided when the noise of home air rushed and shouted like a herd of animals around the cone. He clutched at the latches to the helmet of his KV-2 and lifted it off. Sensors activated the drogue parachutes. The far-distance voyage ended after twenty minutes of fall. The capsule with its occupant fell into the Pacific Ocean. Water splashed at the top window until a naval frigate approached. Sailors in a fleet of dinghies burst open half the side of the old machine. He emerged in front of the watching cameras a living man. Media knew his flight as one of the failed Space attempts.
He decamped off from the navy and onto Tonga Island. He met Aunty May there and a vice admiral. They were wandering through the forest talking to him on a trail. She said that she was no longer his mentor or was ever a friend. The man said to Johnny that he would have to be careful of misinterpretations for the rest of his life. From there he made his way home to his country. When he arrived there a medical assessment declined any need for therapy.
He kept the undergarments of his space suit and would sometimes wear it for the sakes of nostalgia. Roscoe told him to get out of it and re-join the world. His father kept a friendly silence. They watched television together by the fireside. Now he had been to America and survived. Others in his peer group were still hunched over papers at technical colleges.
What so far had eventuated in moral events? The squads had taken him young and put him through a series of difficult tests. He had withstood them. He was stronger for surviving. He had defended his own country from marauders on the high seas. Had learned cunning needed in secrecy and anonymity. Split second decision making and speed had saved the planet. He was also used as a sacrifice for those who refuse to take the blame. A vision reassured him that something existed following mortality. He felt the cutting irony of scapegoat accusations. Since the actions began when he was so young, his life changes were irrevocable. He could not go back to expected respectable behaviour. The events had been too traumatic.
His one-time friends from the place where he lived had gone their own way, and he did not team up with them again. He had abandoned lovely young women to complete his missions. This brought a sense of sorrow and loss to his heart. If he could turn back time, then he would be happy to stay with her. To enjoy all the good things that life has to offer. It was not to be so. He did in a way feel an abduction and cruelty. This brought in him feelings of anger and pity. The emotions welled in him like a flood sometimes.
He relied on the charity of his step-father. When that man had enough he shifted him out of the house to face a homeless life. He had been living in Doyle Park sleeping rough under trees. A legal case continued meantime. A humanitarian agency had heard about his activities. It had lodged an official complaint. He found that he was facing charges. He had pleaded not guilty. On the count that what he did represented other peoples’ business, and that he had been only a pawn in the game. An interview spoke about his being the fastest member of the team out of twelve armies. About pressing the final triggers. The interviewer assessed that he had a kind personality. A sly high court judge sentenced him to join the French foreign legion.
A friend of his named Katherine informed him that a French frigate docked currently at a wharf. From the park at the harbor side he walked to the city wharves and climbed a lowered gantry onto the ship. He said to the sailors in halting French that he wished to stay aboard. They asked him why. When he told them that he was under sentence, they wanted to know what for. They asked other details about his abilities and then asked him how much money he had. They told him to go into the boat’s cabin beneath decks. The door locked behind him, and after two days at the wharf the ship was ready to leave.
The way out of the harbor was fraught with danger. They fired their side guns at the home port artillery as they passed. Johnny fixed something to eat in the kitchen. He saw that there was not much in the cupboards except for drugs. He found in a fridge crackers and onion. By the time their navy had reached some point at international waters the ship needed repair. He thought that he would have to cook a meal for everyone. Instead they set him to work welding the hull and bolting the inner walls. From Kermadec the captain ordered a full pace ahead for the gates of Vladivostok. Johnny shared the meal.
All along the voyage he was in cabin confines. This had a hard wearing thread carpet and plain walls and a bed and a desk. He was content there and started recovering from his heartbreak. When they reached Russian waters he visited deck. The ship doctor greeted him and asked him what he wanted from life. The doctor explained to him that he should not worry about anything. Not to let social status make him feel small, especially when it came to personal challenges. He also told him that he should pay no account whatsoever to any accusations. No matter who it is who prosecutes him. To enjoy life in all its beauty and variety.
The gates of the Vostok River opened for the travellers and slow the ship entered the city hold. Sights of the slow moving lights and huge industrial cranes towers in the sea hold. This was a profound thing to witness. He and the passengers and crew disembarked.
He remained in a boarding house room until he had come back to his senses. Then he found his way out and walked the suburban streets with a transistor radio. He turned the dial and listened to all the different babbling signals in their languages. Chinese and Slovak were among the represented. He watched the tall antennae stand in sets, high above roofs toward the sky. He heard the open air broadcast of news reports. It sounded from speakers in the awnings above pavements. Only two days had passed before he received an offer of a seat in a jet airplane ride. Destined for the loneliest emptiest place on earth, and that is Chad. Woe the destroyer.
The pilot was his lieutenant from Romania. The man who had lectured the troops at the border leaving the Czech Republic. He was a happy man who did not curse without necessity. He had a good habit of readying essentials into order before commencing a journey.
In Chad they landed and walked a mile to a rock wall where trainee soldiers were climbing in turns. A skull and cross bones tattoo emblazoned in bold black on the rock. They were all clambering up this crag in their efforts to reach the top. They must climb unless they fell to the ground and got smashed up. He achieved a rise over the edifice. He kept his distance from the others because of his poor grasp of their language. He found some shade by a rock to rest beneath. Although this was not a wise idea because it was a toilet place which attracted rattlesnakes.
When weapons building time began he picked up the spare machine parts. Any metal dismantling provided these pieces. and started placing, fitting and screwing until he had invented a pistol of his own. The captain put it away in a box for later.
The real training was something which he failed to complete. If he had continued it he would have been drilling in file again and again. His muscles would be as hard as rock and his brain as small as an ant. He did not ring the gong, and thereby earned his right to life. The captain there said that no man has the right to kill him, not even if he is the head of a nation. They departed as friends albeit quite estranged. The head had also told him that he did not look like a Kiwi territorial. More like a scallywag from somewhere in South Kenya. He likened him to a bad baboon. They did not see one another again for many years to come.
