The Rings of Darelius

An imploding civilisation and the last throw of the dice in a desperate search for a cure. Marooned on a hostile and primitive planet, suddenly there appears the pinprick of hope.

I

 

Darelius

 

Second planet in the twin sunned Arthrelian System. Mass 5.2413 x 10²⁴Kg, Volume  1.0652098�-10⁸ km³, Circumference 38,659.77 Km. Atmosphere 75% Nitrogen, 22% Oxygen, 3% Carbon Dioxide and other minor gases. Surface Pressure 100.05kPa.

 

Orbited at its Equator by a ring system of stunning beauty, it was the Paradise Lost that the earth poet John Milton had dreamed of hundreds of their years ago. It’s people had lived in peace and harmony for generations and the threat of extinction had come out of the dark blue of space with no warning…………………..

 

Distance from Earth approximately 80 light years.

 

 

“John, not still staring out into space?”

 

Margaret was John Alloway’s mother, and a constant source of mild irritation to him. They had come, the three of them, to this backward and bellicose planet over thirty Earth years ago in search of a cure for the disease which was ravaging their society and decimating its population. Indications from the survey which his father had carried out, had revealed that the properties of a certain kind of plant carried all the necessary elements which would be needed for a complete and permanent cure. They had, of course, changed their names to fit in with Earth culture in general and conventions in the UK in particular.

 

“Yes mother, and we will return home one day. We came to find the cure, and it’s my fault that we’re still here. Father would still be alive now if I hadn’t been so careless.”

 

John’s father would indeed have survived if it had not been for his carelessness. The vehicle which caused his death had been in the charge of a driver under the influence of alcohol, a substance long since outlawed on Darelius.

 

“That’s all in the past now, and you musn’t keep blaming yourself. We have to get on with our lives here.”

 

“But mother, we have the cure, and the ship can get us back home in time to save all those still suffering.”

 

He was right. The scout ship which had brought them across the darkness of space all that time ago could take them back in the twinkling of an eye. Back to a point in time shortly after departure. There were still billions who could be saved with the cure now in his possession.

 

“What is the condition of the ship?”

 

“Perfect and ready to launch. I was there only last week. All we need is father’s ring to set us on the way. It is my fault that we no longer have it, remember?”

 

Margaret Alloway did indeed remember. John had been a boy of eight Earth years old when they had arrived. Mark, her husband had located the life-giving plant within a week, and they were set to return home when John took it upon himself to take one last look at this curious planet and its inhabitants. They fascinated him; almost identical in their chemical, biological and physical make-up to his own, the three of them had gone undetected during the short time of their stay. His trip to the beach of one of their coastal settlements had proved to be the disaster which had imprisoned them here.

 

Entry to the scout ship was effected by the presence of one of the two rings which his father and mother rarely allowed out of their sight, but without both to activate the propulsion system the vessel was completely immobile. It had been whilst his father had been taking one of the frequent bathing sessions that the ring had been placed on a table at the side of his bed. The sessions were necessary to remove any and all ‘foreign’ matter from their bodies in preparation for the journey home.

 

The ring hypnotised John, and his innate curiosity had got the better of the firm instruction from his father that she should never take it for any reason. He was, after all, only going to put it on to his finger, and what harm could that possibly do? The rings were constructed to adjust their size to fit the diameter of an adult ‘finger’ as the Earth people called the digit. It never occurred to John that this adjustment was never designed to accommodate the smallness of his own. He had lost the thing in the sand of the beach on the very evening of their departure.

 

“John? Come on dear, dinner’s ready. What are you thinking?”

 

“The night we were supposed to leave, mother. The night I lost father’s ring. That’s why we’re still here. That’s why it is my fault.”

 

“We searched the entire beach �" many times. Our instruments are just not designed to cope with the depth and shifting nature of the Earth sands. It’s gone, and we need to forget it now and live out the rest of our lives here.”

 

John was about to remonstrate with his mother, but his answer was stopped short by a news report on the television screen in the dining room. These primitive devices had their uses, and he had kept a watch on the weekly scientific channels for anything out of the ordinary in the local area. The monitoring had been continuous at first, but was now more sporadic. This one however, had produced something quite special.

 

“And finally, an interesting discovery on the beach at Preston Sands has projected a local boy into the media spotlight. James Carrington, shown here, found a strangely ornate ring amongst the rock pools in the bay yesterday……………………….”

 

John’s eyes widened in amazement. The close up shot of the ring showed it to be that of his father. The very item he had lost all those years ago. The crash of pottery from behind him snapped him out of his trance. His mother was standing transfixed at the images on the screen.

 

“That’s…………..that’s……the ring. John, oh John it has been found. We can go home now.”

 

“Mother, calm down. We haven’t got it yet. I need to find out where the boy lives, and we don’t need any more attention being drawn to it.”

 

The news report showed the location of James Carrington’s home, and it was an area with which John was familiar. Locating the boy would not be a problem; getting him to surrender the ring would be quite another thing.

 

 

II

 

“You have to go to him and explain.” Margaret was walking up and down the length of the lounge, clasping her hands continually as the news story came to an end.

 

“Mother, he’s only a boy. He has no idea of the importance of what he has found. To him it will be a toy, a curiosity and nothing more. It has no value here, and contains none of their precious metals.”

 

John was right, and subsequent valuations of the ring had disappointed James Carrington to the point that his school friends no longer took an interest in his discovery. He was a solitary child, the only son of a young woman now dead, and an orphan living at a local children’s home; he was considered too old for adoption. Much of his time was spent either in his room doing homework or out on the beaches of Torbay scouting the seashore for interesting items. The ring has been his best find to date. John chose one of these excursions to intercept him.

 

“Hello, aren’t you the young man who found that strange ring? I saw the television report.”

 

James looked around. The staff at the home had warned him about the advisability of speaking to strangers, and he started to back away towards the sea wall steps. There was no-one else on the beach and he suddenly felt quite worried.

 

“It’s alright, I won’t hurt you. I’m just interested in the ring. Would you like to sell it?”

 

“It’s worthless.” James looked around again, hoping that someone would come along and help him out of this situation. He fingered the ring in his jeans pocket. It might be worthless but it was still his, and he carried it everywhere.

 

“Could I take a look at it, please? I might be prepared to buy it from you.” John was taking a gamble and he knew it. One word out of place and the boy would run.

 

“It’s just a ring” James frowned, still backing slowly away as John approached. He pulled the ring from his jeans and opened his hand. “Look; see I told you.”

 

John stopped dead in his tracks and James’ eyes widened in surprise as it began to glow and vibrate. The one on his own finger was doing just the same. James had not noticed it until now.

 

“What is it?” The boy asked, now becoming frightened. “It’s never done that before, is it going to explode?”

 

“No, just stand still.” John came closer as James was frozen to the spot.

 

The two rings were now glowing bright yellow, and the gentle vibration had changed to a constant throbbing; its low pitched hum changed in tone and intensity as the distance between the two of them shortened.

 

“What’s happening? I’m scared.” Tears were starting to run down the boy’s face and he was shaking with fright.

 

“Give me the ring. It’s alright I’m not going to steal it, and it isn’t going to hurt you.”

 

The boy slowly handed the ring over and watched in amazement as John at first held them apart, and then brought them slowly together until they were only inches away from each other. His hands disappeared into the intense yellow glow that now encompassed both rings, and a stroboscopic light flickered in the midday sun.

 

“What are they?” James, wiping the tears from his face, was now studying the phenomenon with intense interest.

 

“Keys.” Said John, and instantly kicked himself mentally for speaking out before thinking.

 

“Keys? Keys to what, a car?”

 

“No, not a car.” In too deep now to hold back, John took a deep breath and continued. “A ship. They make the ship go. They’re special and the ship won’t work without both of them. I lost this one a long time ago and you’ve now found it.”

 

James Carrington’s initial fear and caution was now lost in the story that John was starting to unfold, and he came closer as the rings continued to hum. John decided to go for broke.

 

“I……..that is we, my mother and I, need the rings to get us home. Our ship is in Victoria Park and now we can go back to where we belong. Come with me and I’ll explain once we get back to my house.”

 

James Carrington backed away once more. Although only eight years old, he was a bright child and had understood the dangers involved in meeting strangers. Many children had been taken, never to return home, and he had read reports in the newspapers of the horrors inflicted upon them. Nevertheless, the rings held a fascination for him that was slowly overcoming all the advice he had been given. John held his breath as the boy came forwards once again.

 

“Where do you live?” A question which he hoped would provide an answer that he could give to the police if he managed to escape an imagined kidnap.

 

“Tarraway Road, just the other side of the railway line.” John waved an arm in the general direction of the cliff tops. He waited for what seemed like an eternity

 

James Carrington looked from this man, who only moments before was a complete stranger to him, in the direction indicated and back. The rings were now glowing once more, and emitting the same low-pitched hum which entranced him. He looked up into John’s face, and felt a pull which had not been apparent before.

 

“Alright then, but will there be someone else there?” Another question designed to test John’s reaction.

 

“Yes, my mother. My father died years ago and we’ve been living here for some time.”

 

The walk to Tarraway Road took around twenty minutes, and they talked about the rings along the way, but by the time they arrived James didn’t really know any more than he had already learned. He was totally unprepared for the shock which awaited him inside the house.

 

“You found it!” Margaret Alloway’s attention focussed directly on to her late husband’s ring, and she completely failed to register the presence of James Carrington.

 

“Yes mother, we can go home now. I’m not sure what we’re going to do about the boy though.” John looked around and frowned as he noticed that James had vanished.

 

This was a potentially serious problem. If the boy told anyone in authority about the rings, the consequences could be disastrous now that they were so close to their race’s solution. He need not have worried, as James had merely strayed into their lounge and was now standing by the bay window holding a framed photograph. He was staring at it intently. John coughed politely as they entered the room.

 

“Mother this is James Carrington, and I think we may have a deal on the subject of the ring.” He smiled at the boy, but was cut short by a question delivered with the unerring accuracy of a laser blast.

 

“What is this photograph doing here?” The demand was delivered abruptly, in an almost accusatory manner. John frowned.

 

“That’s a picture of my ex-wife. Why?”

 

“No, it’s my mother! She died two years ago after we came back to Torquay. What is it doing here?”

 

“Your mother?” This time it was Margaret Alloway’s turn to frown. “But Janice and John separated almost eight years ago and we’ve heard nothing from her since.”

 

“I’m telling you that’s my mother. I think I should know.” Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes.

 

“That means you could be my son.” John sat down, clearly taken aback by the revelation from the lips of the boy. He had not been aware of Janice’s condition when she left, only that she had departed after an exchange of words with Margaret. They had never really got along.

 

“One way to find out the truth.” Margaret put on her coat. “Let’s go to the ship. We’ll put blood samples through the computer.”

 

 

 

III

 

They arrived at the open spaces of Victoria Park as the sun was setting, and with no-one to observe their actions John produced the rings from his left and right pockets.

James Carrington glanced at the two of them with a look of incomprehension on his young face. They were standing in the middle of one of the town’s park football pitches and staring at, apparently, nothing.

 

“So?” He asked “What next? Why have we come here?”

 

“Our ship is just over there.” A statement from Margaret and a wave of her hand.

 

“It’s out of phase.” John joined in. “It’s there alright, you just can’t see it.”

 

“Invisible? Wow, that’s cool.” A now impressed James Carrington was not prepared for what was about to happen.

 

“No, not invisible, out of phase. It’s  there, but it’s not there. If it were invisible you’d just bump into it. It exists in a different dimensional plane. Look…………..”

 

“I’m not stupid.” The words halted John’s attempted explanation. “I’ve watched Star Trek, I know what ‘out of phase’ means.”

 

“Alright.” John pressed the flat surface on the top of one of the rings.

 

The air just before them seemed to shimmer, and there was a static crackle to its quality. A door appeared from nowhere, just a door �" nothing else. A set of steps dropped from the aperture, and James had seen just such an arrangement before.

 

“Flight of the Navigator! Awesome. Can we go inside?”

 

Once in the scout ship, John reset the phase shift to cloak the vessel once more, and they proceeded with the tests which Margaret had suggested. They were quick and painless, and as the three of them waited for the results, James turned back to John.

 

“So if you’re my dad, where are you from? Neither of you are from Earth are you?”

 

Margaret smiled and sat down, patting the surface of the seat beside her. The boy came slowly over and took the place indicated. She told him the story of their journey from Darelius in search of the cure for the disease which was bringing an end to their civilisation, and the loss of the ring which effectively stranded them all on Earth.

 

“So all your people will now be dead?”

 

“No.” said John. “This craft is capable of a velocity far in excess of the speed of light. For us, whilst on board and in flight, time stands still, or rather moves very slowly. The time we have spent on this planet will have passed in the blink of an eye to those we left on Darelius. If we can get back with the cure which my father found, we may yet be able to save billions of my kind from a terrible fate.”

 

“Time travel?”

 

“Not really.” Margaret smiled. She picked up a piece of paper-like material and drew two dots on its surface with a stylus. “Look, what’s the shortest distance between these two?”

 

“Easy, a straight line!” James laughed, but frowned when Margaret shook her head. She folded the paper in half and drove the stylus through both dots, and unfolded it again. He gasped.

 

“A worm hole!”

 

“Right. A distortion in the fabric of space which allows us to ‘jump’ enormous distances in almost no time at all. We can be home just after we left.”

 

‘Anaysis is complete. Results are ready.’

 

The mechanical voice had them all out of their seats in an instant as one of the monitors displayed the comparison of the samples taken by Margaret from John and James.

 

<100% Positive Match>

 

The message screamed out at them in stark white against the inky blackness of the screen into which they all gazed. Tears streamed down the face of the boy as he clenched and unclenched both fists. He looked up into the face of John Alloway.

 

“Dad?”

 

“Son. Let’s all go home.”

 

With both rings now in place on the power console, John punched in the co-ordinates which would take them back 80 light years to the Arthrelian System and the planet of his birth. In moments they were way above the surface of the Earth and James took one last look at the third piece of rock from the sun which had been the home to his lonely existence for what seemed an eternity. Saying a final whispered ‘Goodbye’ to the memory of his mother, he turned to look at John and Margaret and the ship flashed away.

 

In truth, the journey took something over one Earth day to complete before they emerged at the other end of the ‘worm hole’ into a cascade of colours the like of which James had never seen before. The beauty of the twin star system took away his breath, and the sight of Darelius with its multi-coloured rings was awe-inspiring.

 

“Home?” The question was academic.

 

“Home.” Said John as he ruffled the boy’s hair “Now we set about saving our world.”

Reviews

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This is a very good story. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The perspective of the main characters is portrayed just right to suit their current situation, as well as using the correct amount of detail necessary to get the story across without any problems. Darelius sounds like an amazing world, and the plot line to save their species is quite good, and I would enjoy reading more into these characters storylines if they were to ever pop up again in any other stories.