Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams by Sean Williams Page A

seconds.
     
    GABE: (Still incredulous) Flying what?
     
    ME: (With an almost insane grin) A bona fide UFO!
     
    ANDRE: Alek, if this is one of your ridiculous sub-plots —
     
    ME: God, no. I may be crazy but I’m not that crazy. Who would believe a flying saucer, out here in space ...?!
     
    FREEDOM: And how would he program the visuals? We’re seeing them for real.
     
    ME: Yeah. Thanks, Freedom.
     
    ANDRE: (Scowling) Keep a lid on it, then.
     
    ME: Only if you stay in character.
     
    JAKE: (Interrupting) ETA thirty seconds.
     
    GABE: Right. Suggestions, anyone?
     
    (Silence, again, apart from the impact-siren.)
     
    GABE: OK. I guess we’ll just have to try and bluff our way out. (His face shows a hint of fear but, on the whole, he maintains his persona well.) Hang on tight!
     
    (GABE’S hands flicker over his control board as he wrenches the ship to one side. There is a muffled roar as the mighty engines kick into life. Note: there is no joystick; no falling from side to side; no screaming. This is real space opera, even if the dialogue’s a bit wooden in places.)
     
    JAKE: Bogey changing course.
     
    GABE: Towards us?
     
    JAKE: Aye, sir. ETA fifteen seconds.
     
    (The Captain tugs the ship in another direction. The grim set of his jaw reveals that he knows the gesture will be futile, but he tries nonetheless.)
     
    JAKE: ETA ten seconds. (I belatedly applaud his next words, although I loathed them at the time.) Nine ... eight... seven ...
     
    (Cut to, in turn: ANDRE, SARA, STEVE, FREEDOM, ME, JAKE and GABE, interspersed with snapshots of the visual scanner, upon which the alien ship is approaching rapidly.)
     
    JAKE: ... six ... five ... four ...
     
    (The saucer seems to explode out of the screen.)
     
    JAKE: ... three ... two ...
     
    (Everything goes green ...)
     
    JAKE: ...one...
     
    ( ... blindingly bright green ... )
     
    JAKE: Impact!
     
    (Blackout.)
     
    ~ * ~
     
    In the wake of the encounter with the flying saucer, a vague sort of panic reigned. Of all the footage faithfully recorded by the security scanners, there was only one salvageable line:
     
    ANDRE: Where the fuck has it gone?
     
    And, as no one at the time could provide a suitable answer, I was forced to archive it.
     
    My first thought, to maintain the dramatic impetus, was to cut immediately to the debriefing session, held in the Captain’s quarters eight hours after the event. People had calmed down a little by then, and were able to make a little more sense.
     
    But, after much shuffling and re-editing, this eventually became the episode’s opening scene:
     
    Gabe chaired the meeting, naturally. His haggard face was a mask of tired determination. He hadn’t slept for over thirty-six hours. None of us had.
     
    ‘OK, folks. I guess we need to work out what the hell happened. Anyone want to suggest where we start?’
     
    ‘Something did happen, I presume?’ Andre was taking the easy way out: evading the problem by questioning its very existence. ‘It wasn’t just an hallucination?’
     
    ‘No.’ Freedom was adamant. ‘It’s all there on file, if you want to check. The bogey appeared, flew towards us under an acceleration beyond the capacity of human engineering and then disappeared on impact.’
     
    ‘The “bogey”?’ Myrion looked amused, although the half-smile was twisted by her usual bitterness. Her psych file spoke of deep traumas, buried beneath conditioning. She was one of the few truly complex characters in the drama of the Wandering Jew, and one for whom I had great plans. Plainly attractive, with shoulder-length white hair, she was an interesting contrast to Freedom, with whom she was usually at loggerheads. ‘I thought you said it was a “flying saucer”?’
     
    ‘Whatever. Does it matter what we call it?’
     
    ‘No.’ Gabe stepped in to forestall an argument. ‘Either will be fine. And I think we can assume it was of alien origin. The pertinent question, as I see it, is: what was the