Multiverse

Trevor Foster

Description

When an alien spaceship crashes outside a hamlet in southern England, and the reptilian occupant gives two villagers the means for obtaining great power and travelling to parallel universes, an incredible adventure begins. But danger in the form of a giant slug like species, the mightiest in existence, which will do all it can to prevent humans from using this capability, must be faced. Can humanity survive the peril? Or will it be reduced to a slave like state and eventually become extinct, after the hamlet's residents build a machine that allows them and their village to go to a different universe? Multiverse is a classic sci-fi novel, perfect for lovers of the genre.

Sujets

• Unidentified flying object
• Science fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 05 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800469716
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2021 Trevor Foster

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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“Every event which happens here on Earth, however insignificant, can have an alternative outcome. Which means you might have an accident and die, or alternatively someone might come in time to save your life. Well, the Many-Worlds’ interpretation of quantum physics states that all alternatives do in fact happen in parallel universes, of which there are an infinite number. Because the cosmos in which the event takes place splits into two, with its alternative happening in the duplicate one.”
Contents
PART ONE: SHULAHAN
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
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43

PART TWO: RHA-KHAK
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31

EPILOGUE

PART ONE: SHULAHAN
1
The telephone call from Lady Caroline Hawkins two days earlier had taken Adam Kibet by surprise. For the owner of Helmstonborough Manor, with whom he did not get on, was someone he never expected to hear from again.
Without wasting time with idle chatter, Lady Hawkins had come straight to the point. “I’m calling because there’s something extremely important I need to talk to you about. Something that concerns your late mother. And I’m hoping that despite what happened four years ago, you’ll agree to come here to Helmstonborough and discuss it. There’s also the question of your house, which hasn’t been lived in since Angela’s death last year, and which you might consider selling if I made you a reasonable offer.”
The house in question was one that Adam’s Kenyan grandparents had bought for his mother, the local veterinarian, Angela Kibet, before he was born. He had lived there until deciding to leave Helmstonborough and start a new life in London. Situated in a hamlet at the foot of the South Downs in Sussex, it was one of sixty dwellings, including the Hawkins’s stately manor house, a short drive from the town of Lewes. Having become the owner following his mother’s death, Adam, who was twenty-six years old, had decided to keep it as an investment and eventually retire there.
“I’m sorry,” Adam had told the lady in a somewhat unfriendly tone. “But I don’t wish to sell the house, and I’ve no intention of returning to Helmstonborough, at least not yet. Even if it is a very nostalgic place for me, what happened before my departure is something I’d rather forget. So whatever important things you want to tell me concerning my mother, you’ll have to do now before I hang up.”
“I understand your reticence, Adam, but what I have to say cannot be done over the phone. It’s so important that I need to see you urgently face to face.
“Listen, I’m prepared to put our differences behind us and start afresh if you are. My husband’s death was not your fault and I was wrong to blame you for it. Knowing that Stanley intended to divorce me, marry your mother and make you his heir, made me angry and jealous. But that was in the past and is now something we should forget.
“I’m having a dinner party on Saturday evening and would be thrilled if you could join us. Several people you used to know will be there, and I’m sure you’d like to talk about old times with them. We could also discuss my offer if ever you change your mind.”
Even if Adam was not intending to sell however good the offer, there was no harm in renewing old acquaintances. His former best friend, Benjamin Cohen, still lived in the hamlet. And Susan Hawkins, the lady’s young daughter, was someone he would not mind seeing again. He had therefore agreed to let bygones be bygones and accepted the invitation.
On Saturday afternoon, therefore, Adam said goodbye to his current girlfriend, with whom he was sharing a flat in Kensington, and drove to Sussex. During the two-hour journey, he reminisced about his childhood years in the hamlet, and wondered what Lady Hawkins could possibly have to tell him that was so urgent. The latter had not said why she needed the house, and Adam suspected that the offer, which surely was not serious, was just a ruse to ensure that he came to dinner that weekend.
Adam’s first thought, on his arrival at Helmstonborough, was that there was an unusual amount of activity in the hamlet. Normally, there was never a soul to be seen. But as he stopped outside his house and went to open the gates, he saw frenzied activity everywhere. Ignoring the people who were staring at him rudely, he parked his car in the garage, collected his bag, and entered his childhood home.
After an hour spent cleaning and preparing to spend the night in the house, which he had the impression had been broken into and thoroughly ransacked, Adam put on a coat and went out. He was curious to know what the activity he had noticed was all about, and to see how much the place had changed since his last visit.
Crossing the main thoroughfare, which villagers called the Lane, Adam walked the short distance to Helmstonborough Manor. The stately building’s gates were open and the courtyard was full of people, none of whom he recognized. The fine Elizabethan period dwelling was just as he remembered it. And as memories of the happy times he had spent there came flooding back, he could not help feeling nostalgic.
Since Adam’s last visit several new buildings had been constructed, and the hamlet had lost the rustic appearance he loved so much. There were also lorries coming and going, and one might have thought the place had become an industrial zone. Especially as tractors and machinery were blocking the Lane, and equipment was being delivered almost everywhere he looked.
Adam recognized some of the busy people he saw, but no one stopped working to say hello to him. In fact, no one paid him the slightest attention. And he had the impression that despite possessing a house in the hamlet he no longer belonged in the now soulless place.
Returning to his former home, none the wiser in his quest to discover what was happening, Adam realized he had no alternative but to wait until Lady Caroline explained things to him. Having prepared for the evening well in advance, he awaited the appointed time with a certain trepidation. It was therefore strengthened by a stiff whisky that he eventually left his house and crossed the Lane, ready for whatever surprises, unpleasant or otherwise, awaited him at the manor.
2
Several minutes later, Adam Kibet stood sipping a whisky and soda in the drawing room at Helmstonborough Manor, where the hamlet’s elders had gathered. Studying each of those present in turn, he noted how much they had changed since the last time he had seen them. Caroline Hawkins had put on weight. And the lady’s daughter, Susan, an immature girl of sixteen when he had left Helmstonborough, was now an attractive twenty-year-old.
The Helmstonborough notables included Julian Cohen, a multimillionaire who possessed a mansion called the Grange, as well as the farm and all the fields surrounding the hamlet. There was also Peter Dean, the blacksmith who owned the forge adjacent to Adam’s house, and David Elliott, the local doctor. Two others whom Adam also knew well were his next-door neighbour, Dinesh Patel, and Colonel Derek Marlow, a retired military man.
Until Julian Cohen saw him standing alone and walked towards him, no one, not even Susan, had paid much attention to Adam. And after the initial introductions had been made he was condemned to watching the other guests chatting among themselves. He was therefore relieved when the older man engaged him in conversation. For it made him feel less of a stranger amid people who had all but forgotten his very existence.
“I earn my living as a salesman in a real estate agency, and am not married. I have a flat in West Kensington where I live with my girlfriend,” Adam said in answer to Cohen’s questions about his personal life. “After I left Helmstonborough, I had no particular desire to stay in touch with the people I knew here. It was Lady Caroline phoning me out of the blue that intrigued me enough to want to come back again. However, I can’t say I like what I see.”
“Ah! Things have changed a bit, and not for the better I do agree,” Cohen said, smiling amicably at Ad