The Anomaly

On the Trail

Ernest was not a simple man, limited to a single mental state. As he sipped coffee at his table outside the street-front café, he also savored the soft sunlight in which he bathed, also opened himself to the world around him and to the memories of his former life. Impressions entered his mind only to waft away, like the pedestrians passing on the footpath before him, capturing his attention for a moment then disappearing with no after-trace. And intermingling with these soft thoughts: a seething anger.

Because, for all his oddity and his augmentations, Ernest was essentially a human being. He had been wronged. He needed to put things right.

So – as he basked and he reminisced – he also stewed. And pondered. He would have liked, too, to have plotted. But while certain theories took their turn in his consciousness amid the jumble of impressions and emotions, another part of him recognized the lack of data. More investigation was needed.

He worked his phone, brought an image up on screen. It did nothing to soothe him. Jack Jefferies, celebrity navigator. That's what it said: 'celebrity navigator'. Two words that did not belong together in any universe Ernest could countenance. He could feel his disdain for the man as a tightening in his gut. Forcing himself to look closely at the photograph, he felt queasiness at the squareness of jaw, the bouffancy of hair. He had never met the man in question: his rise to fame had post-dated Ernest's self-exile. Indeed, Ernest had done his best to keep news of this man's existence out of his awareness altogether. If the world wanted a celebrity navigator, then so be it: Ernest was no longer part of that world. If the fellow wished to gain notoriety for himself by publicizing his great voyages of exploration, of the sort that Ernest had once guided in anonymity: well, that was the man's own lookout. Ernest had made his choice in life and he wasn't about to resile from it, then or now.

He scrolled down to the obituary, scanning the words: Two years earlier ... tragically young age of 28 years ... ensnared in a sudden squall, location unknown ... hints of treasure ... the ship's master, one Clayton "The Capt'n" Algarve, failed to disengage in time ... mysterious circumstances ... body not accounted for. He clicked across to another article, looking for detail. The ship captain, whose job it would have been to pull his navigator to safety, had been slow to react. In those vital minutes, Navigator Jack's consciousness had become increasingly entangled with the twine of stormy hyperspace. When the panic button had finally been pushed, it was too late. The violent lurch back into the real had ripped free the tendrils of connection, leaving Jack's essence alone and lost in the labyrinth from which ship and crew had escaped.

Ernest read on ... skimmed personal details of no particular interest ... the ship had eventually returned to civilized space, crawling in the tentative baby steps that were, in the absence of their celebrity navigator, all they could trust themselves with in such turbulence. They had been lucky that the incident had taken place early in the voyage – Ernest felt himself gritting his teeth as he read – yet it had still taken them six months to find their way back to the safety of the trade lanes, retracing ground covered in less than a day on the outward journey.

Ernest leaned back, taking in a view of the wide, wide sky, of the streets below. To those around him this was just another city scene – to Ernest, after his years at the waystation, it could have been the savannah, the expanse of it like psychic ointment. He relaxed. The smile made another fleeting appearance.

He felt proud of these discoveries he had made in his few short hours on the planet. But this had been easily done, with recourse to old friends and data constructs. To make further progress, he was going to have to do what he liked least: to talk to strangers.

To his left and right were the brash shopfronts of the high street, between them alleys ran off into the New Town's hinterland of smallholder retail trade. Ahead the street curved upwards to Mission Heights and the spires of the university. A quick phone call, and then Ernest started walking.