Into the Simian Future

All material is the property of its owners and is used here without permission.

　

　

Special Guest Star:

Charlie Evans (Charlie X, Star Trek, Season 1)

　

　

Chapter 1

　

　

Stardate: 19•8•82 (August 19, 1982)

　

Deep in outer space, a ship tumbled out of control. The three men inside it, already passed out or worse, were explorers sent form a tiny blue-green world to explore a planet circling their nearest celestial neighbor. The two stars of the Alpha Centauri system, one somewhat larger and brighter than Sol, Earth’s sun, the other somewhat smaller and about half the luminosity, danced around each other in a broad spiral.

Around the larger star slowly orbited one rock-strewn planet just somewhat larger than Earth. Although Earthbound telescopes had disvoered the existence of the terrestrial planet, only closer investigation would reveal if the conditions on it were friendly to life, preferably intelligent life. That was the mission of the Enterprise, to survey the planet, propelled to their destination by a new engine that broke the barrier of light speed.

But something had gone horribly wrong. Man, in his hubris believed that he cold somehow tame the wilds of outer space. Even after accidents that had killed entire crews, missions that were lost in the cosmos, they continued to press on, thinking that they understood the dangers. But the infinity of the universe held anomalies beyond all human understanding. Places where space itself folded and twisted, where time was so distorted that a lifetime could pass in the blink of an eye or so slowly as to seem to stop. Places where the reality of this universe thinned, allowing other alternate realities to bleed through. Such was the stuff of nightmares.

Yet, they continued to hurl themselves into the Void for science and country.

Inside the ship, the three men were oblivious to the blaring claxons and screeching of stressed metal as the command module, designed to be a life pod in the event of a catastrophic failure, separated from the rest of the ship. They also didn’t see the small, unobtrusive chronometer where the numbers flickered and changed faster than the human eye could track.

　

　

　

　

　

　

Seventeen-year-old Charlie Evans slept beneath a tree in the blazing afternoon sun. Beside him, a basket held several pieces of fruit and some root vegetables. He wore his blonde hair short, shaped to the back of his head with thick bangs hanging down from his scalp just above his forehead. A slight breeze ruffled his loose-fitting hand-me-down.

The silence of the idyllic scen was broken by the distant sound of a barking dog. Charlie’s eyelids fluttered, then popping open suddenly as the barking grew louder. A look of terror crossed his flawless adolescent face as he sat up, his head whipping back and forth trying to discern the direction of the sound. The piping voice of a small child rose over the barking.

"Get him, dog! Go get him!" the child cried out, excited. "Go get him!"

Charlie scrambled to his feet and hurried to the base of the tree, his bounty from the morning forgotten. He started to climb the thick trunk just as a big dog, a German Shepherd, in fact, came running down the path. When he reached a large fork in the branches, he hunched in the V, his breath coming in harsh pants. The dog reached the tree and clawed at the trunk, barking and growling.