The Book That THEY Do Not Want You To Read, Part 2 Read online

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  eBook First Published in 2013 by Autharium Publishing, London

  Copyright © Andy Ritchie 2013

  The moral right of Andy Ritchie to be asserted as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All Rights reserved, No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  British Library Cataloguing-in Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

  ISBN: 9781780252285

  Diary Entry 20

  Tuesday 14th September

  [Collator’s Note: This was JP’s first typed entry for Tuesday 14th. It was on the main CD.]

  The thing is, it’s all so real, so incredibly fucking real...it has an intensity that matches any memory I can bring to mind.

  But it’s just not me!!

  And as for him, well he’s as happy as Larry about the whole thing!

  Alien bastard!

  Let him go through it, see how he fucking likes it...

  Two hours sleep.

  That was all I managed, two fucking hours!

  But, d’you know what? I’d have been happy with just two hours sleep if I hadn’t have woken up with that...image in my head...shit, I can’t get rid of it, it just plays over and over inside my brain, every time I close my eyes.

  It’s not just the image, though, it’s everything else associated with it.

  I can hear noises — the screeching of tyres, the thud of the impact, the screams of onlookers, even the tinkling sound of fragments of glass dropping from the windscreen to the tarmac.

  And I can taste blood in my mouth. It’s harsh, metallic and unpleasant.

  But most of all, I can feel things, not just physical things, but emotional as well.

  Even before I see the bus, I’m experiencing fear — it’s a raw fear, the sort of fear that consumes you, that turns your innards to liquid, that robs your muscles of their strength.

  I’m staggering into a rain-soaked street. I’m confused, disorientated. I’m looking for someone, scanning the crowd, so many people, so much noise...

  Then I turn and I see it coming towards me. It’s moving so very, very quickly and it’s so very, very big...and I’m overcome by a wave of...not fear, no, that’s suddenly gone. Instead, it’s something else...resignation.

  There’s only a split second between turning to face it and having it slam into me, far too little time to react. I know this. I accept this. And I feel a moment of intense disappointment.

  I see her face — her eyes are wide with horror. She seems to be mouthing the word ‘Shit’. I see another face too...it’s my own, reflected in the windscreen of the bus in the moments before it shatters from the force of my head smashing into it. My face looks calm, unnaturally so.

  But it’s not my face!!

  It’s the Researcher’s face!

  This memory isn’t mine!!!

  So why, when I open my eyes again after the impact and see the world spinning wildly around me, am I able to experience the pain, the screaming, mind-numbing pain, all over me, in every single part of me?

  Why am I able to hear the sound of my own head hitting the road surface?

  Why am I able to hear the sound of my own bones snapping and cracking?

  Why am I able to taste the blood in my mouth, smell that blood in my nostrils?

  And why, oh why am I able to experience the agony of all those injuries...not the smashed face, or the broken limbs or the fractured skull...the injuries of my own form, the form that is inside the shattered human shell that now lies bleeding on the tarmac...

  And that’s the weirdest thing of all, to experience the pain of a body that is not your own, a body that is alien, that has alien parts to it. There is pain from bits of me (it) that I simply do not recognise...it’s like trying to understand how a cat must feel when it gets its tail caught in a door; how can you relate to that sort of pain if you’ve never had a tail of your own? Of course you know it will hurt, but it’s difficult to imagine the kind of hurt you would feel.

  It really is the most disconcerting sensation.

  Within the memory that is not my own, my tumbling, broken shell has finally come to rest. My vision is badly blurred and I’m struggling to make out anything except the grey clouds above me.

  I’m struggling to breathe, desperately struggling, choking maybe, I’m not sure...but I can feel it, it’s so real, so real...

  Then, nearby, a face...my face!

  My own, fucking face!!

  Like looking in a steamed-up bathroom mirror...recognisable, but only just.

  And in the memory I sense myself recognising the face. I experience that satisfaction of recognition, and I feel a sense of...relief. I’m overwhelmed by a peculiar warmth, a sudden, pain-free numbness, as if I’ve just been lowered into a soothing bath and all the pains and the agonies associated with both the shattered shell and my own irreparably damaged body have simply soaked away.

  There’s one last thing to do, I tell myself, one final act to perform...and then the pain will be gone...forever.

  I try to speak, try to get the lips to move and the air in my lungs to force itself through a throat that is flooded with blood and flem.

  I look up at the face (my face!). It is coming closer to me, turning slightly, placing an ear to my lips.

  My last strength.

  My final act.

  Then I hear the face cry out in pain, but I don’t care.

  It tries to pull away, but I hold it firmly in place.

  There’s a serenity in performing the discharge, almost a pleasure...I can feel myself swirling, as if I’m dissolving, my very essence, my very being, flowing gently away into nothingness...and then the darkness comes.

  That’s the point where, after re-living the nightmare for what seemed like a hundred times, I eventually managed to force myself to wake up, just as I was about to be engulfed by a wall of utter, all-consuming blackness.

  According to Tukaal, when I awoke, I didn’t scream like a girl, which was something of a relief.

  Unfortunately, he did tell me that I was whimpering like a puppy, which is not such a relief.

  ‘Bad dream?’ he asked, looking far brighter than anyone, human or alien, had a right to look after spending a night in a car.

  It took me a little while to get my bearings...in fact, for just a short time, it felt a little strange finding myself as me...!

  ‘Guess a cup of English Breakfast Tea is out of the question,’ I said groggily.

  ‘Afraid so,’ Tukaal replied, now peering at me through the gap between the two front seats.

  ‘I think there’s a mobile café a few miles down the road, just before the turn off for the Derwent Valley. We could nip down there for some tea and maybe a sausage and egg roll.’

  My stomach rumbled in agreement when I mentioned the sausage and egg roll.

  Tukaal didn’t answer. Instead, he just stared at me for a few moments.

  I know I then frowned quizzically at him, at which point he decided he should speak:

  ‘Tell me about the dream you just had, Jeth.’

  I said
I didn’t want to. It was bad enough having to re-live it so many times inside my head, let alone re-living it outside my head as well. But eventually he persuaded me that I should. When I’d finished, he was nodding thoughtfully, and there was the hint of a satisfied smile on his face.

  ‘You know something, don’t you?’ I said. ‘Last night, you described the fact that that Researcher friend of yours had injected me with something as ‘interesting’. Then you came out with some cryptic bullshit about ‘what we need to know may now be inside you’. I was too tired and too shit-scared last night to push it, but today is a different day, so I’d appreciate some answers, especially about why I’m dreaming about the Researcher’s death and seeing it from his perspective...no, not just dreaming about it, living it, experiencing it, as if it wasn’t a dream, as if it was instead a...’

  My voice tailed off.

  That same satisfied smile was still on Tukaal’s face, and there was that really annoying mischievous glint in his eye.

  He knew the truth, and he knew that I had just worked out the truth for myself.

  ‘It’s not a dream, Jeth, it’s a memory. It’s the Researcher’s memory, his last one, unfortunately.’

  ‘But how...’ I whispered somewhat pointlessly because I already knew the answer.

  ‘It’s called ‘memory oil’. The race of life-forms that the Researcher belonged to, the best translation into English would be Harkenbach, retain their memories in a fluid within their bodies. As he knew he was dying, the Researcher did the only thing he could; he injected his memory oil directly into you. It was certainly something of a gamble. I’ve never heard of that being done before...actually, that’s not strictly true...I have heard of it being done before, but never when a Harkenbach is at the point of death. And yet, the fact that you are now starting to experience the Researcher’s memories whilst you sleep means that, somehow, they are managing to find their way into your own subconscious and, from there, into your conscious mind...’

  ‘Hold on a second,’ I interrupted.’ Are you telling me that that Researcher friend of yours has injected me with all his memories and that now, when I go to sleep, those memories are going to be popping up into my brain and...what...becoming like my own memories, something that I can remember as if I had been there...’

  I stopped speaking because I had suddenly realised that what I was saying was simply a crock of unbelievable bullshit.

  ‘Yes, that’s a fair summation of what I think is happening.’

  ‘But I don’t want someone else’s memories, particularly not a fucking alien...no offence.’

  Tukaal smiled an annoyingly benevolent smile.

  ‘None taken. But, Jeth, whether you like it or not, the Researcher’s memories are now inside you and, if you think about it, this opens up a fantastic new opportunity for us.’

  ‘Oh whoop-de-fucking-do.’

  ‘Think about it, Jeth. The reason we went to see the Researcher yesterday was to try to find out what it was that he had seen that he thought was so important that it should interrupt the First Contact protocol, the same thing that was important enough to Patrick Mendelssohn to prompt him to go to such extreme lengths to try to apprehend us all.’

  ‘What’s your point, caller?’

  I have to admit that, at this point, the penny hadn’t dropped. After all, it was still quite early, I was cold, tired, hungry and I was apparently sharing my head with a dead alien.

  ‘Jeth, if we can tap into the memories of the Researcher that are currently churning around inside you, we may well be able to find out what it was the Researcher was going to tell us. It’ll be in his memories.’

  That was when the penny finally dropped.

  All I could say, though, was:

  ‘Oh.’

  My stomach rumbled again.

  I closed my eyes and pinched my fingers on the bridge of my nose; thankfully, the image that popped into my head was not one of a bus smashing into my face, but was instead the tempting sight of a big white bread roll with two succulent sausages and a yolk-oozing fried egg inside it.

  ‘I know you’re going to tell me that we now have to do something weirdly alien to sort out my brain, but before we do anything, I need to have some food and I need a cup of tea. I know we are in a stolen car and that there’s a risk that we might get spotted by the police if we go out on the road, but, to be honest, I don’t give a shit about that. I want a sausage and egg roll.’

  I’m not usually such a pathetic, whiney individual, but this morning I felt I had a right to be.

  ‘Okay,’ Tukaal agreed, ‘we’ll go and get something to eat and something to drink. After all, you’ll probably need all your strength for what we probably need to do.’

  I decided that I hated his guts.

  ‘Oh, great.’

  -----

  Diary Entry 21

  [Collator’s Note: This explanation of the Harkenbach was on a memory stick. Not entirely sure when it was written. The only date I have is the date it was transferred onto the memory stick.]

  Tukaal called it a Harkenbach — not sure if I’ve got the spelling right — no doubt it has three apostrophes, a couple of hyphens and four or five ‘a’s instead of just the two I’ve put in.

  So what is it?

  Well, it’s an alien, naturally, from one of nine moons of a planet which I think Tukaal called Guurtanui (probably spelt that wrong as well).

  Apparently, your average Harkenbach is no more than twelve inches tall, vaguely humanoid in shape in that it is a biped with two upper limbs, and it comes in various shades of blue. It has no head to speak of, just a bulbous body that houses all the vital organs. It has six eyes (two of which see in normal light, two in the infra-red and two in the ultra-violet...a result of living in a world bathed in the light of three different suns). On top of its body sits something akin to a huge, rotating ear, and it has a series of glands which act as very powerful olfactory sensors (or noses to you and me).

  It has a small, rudimentary orifice, akin to a mouth, through which it consumes food, but it cannot use this for speech. Instead it communicates with its own kind using its ultra-sensitive skin.

  All of which adds up to a very unusual creature, at least from my perspective, though not, it has to be said, from Tukaal’s.

  No.

  As far as he is concerned, it is not the physical appearance of the Harkenbach which makes them special...it is their memory, something he described as ‘eidetic on a multi-sensory level’.

  Unlike humans (and, so it would appear, the vast majority of other life-forms in the galaxy) which store their memories in the same place as whatever passes for a brain, a Harkenbach stores its memories in an oily substance which flows around its little body in just the same was as blood flows around ours. This ‘memory oil’ (as it best translates) has the ability to hold vast amounts of data in a virtually uncorrupted form, which means that Harkenbach, like the proverbial elephant, never forget.

  But it is not only the incorruptibility of the memories that a Harkenbach’s memory oil can store which is amazing. It is the astonishing detail within those memories. According to Tukaal, if a Harkenbach was left sitting for a while in a garden and then, at some point maybe years in the future, was asked to describe that garden, it could not only describe the colour and shape of every single plant, provide details of the weather at the time, and recall what distant sounds could be heard, it could also tell you how the temperature, humidity, wind direction, etc. fluctuated from one minute to the next, describe the odours and the smells down to the smallest detail, and recall the comings and goings of every passing insect...and if all that weren’t enough, it could even tell you how it itself reacted to the garden, how the garden made it feel, relive each and every emotion as if it had happened only moments ago.

  A Harkenbach could, in fact, tell you anything and everything about any place they have ever visited, right back almost to the moment they were hatched.

  And it’s that ability to recor
d in the most astonishing detail the totality of that which it has encountered that has made the Harkenbach so perfectly suited to the role of Researcher within the Confederation...along with the fact that their size means they are able to fit inside the shells of all but the smallest life-forms.

  But the ability to observe and then to remember with incredible meticulousness is not the only remarkable ability possessed by the Harkenbach. They also boast an interesting little trick when it comes to what happens to all the memories they have accumulated throughout their lifetime when they finally die. Those memories are not, unlike a human’s memories, lost for all eternity.

  This is because a Harkenbach, using a special gland just below its massive ear, is able to extract the fluid from its memory oil and turn what remains into something that, from the way Tukaal describes it, sounds very much like a Fox’s Glacier Mint; a small, clear, smooth lozenge.

  Amusingly, this is called a Gub and it is, to all intents and purposes, a concentrated pellet of memories, memories which, quite astoundingly, can be accessed and relived, over and over again, by any one of countless other Harkenbach who simply have to take the Gub and insert it into a special orifice in the centre of their body, whereupon they can experience the memories of their dead colleague.

  On the face of it, it appears to be a pretty neat way for the unique experiences of an individual of the species to be saved for posterity.

  Unfortunately, there are a number of niggling little problems associated with this form of immortality — problems of timing, problems of size and problems of honesty.

  1. A Harkenbach is only able to produce a single Gub in its lifetime. This makes the decision of when to produce the Gub a very important one indeed; after all, you wouldn’t want to pop out your Gub on a Tuesday, only to get a knighthood from the Queen of Guurtanui on the Wednesday, would you? That’s why most Harkenbach tend to leave the producing of the Gub to the last possible moment in their lives. Of course, there are occasions when aging Harkenbach leave it a little too late and don’t manage to get their Gub out before they croak, and there are occasions when young Harkenbach die suddenly, for example when the artificial body they are housed in gets sent flying by a bus whilst running away from a group of dark-suit-wearing henchmen outside a department store on a dull day in Manchester. In either of these circumstances, it may be reasonable to expect the memories of that life to be lost...but not necessarily. In cases of sudden and unexpected death, a Harkenbach is able to inject (using a thin needle-like protrusion on the end of a tentacle) what are best described as ‘extremely edited highlights’ from its copious memory banks, into another Harkenbach. The receiving Harkenbach can then, when they produce their Gub, incorporate the edited highlights of the deceased, thus enabling the memories of that individual (in a very curtailed form, admittedly) to be retained as part of Harkenbach history (this is what the Researcher did...except, it did not have another Harkenbach available into which to inject its memory oil...so it injected it into me instead).