[2] The Executioner

Kaleg Ankara lay on the soft grass and stared up at the wisps of fluffy white cloud which stretched across the midday sky. A flock of wild geese soared gracefully above, winging southward in an almost perfect triangular formation. How he marvelled at the sight of a real sky, brilliantly formed under a genuine sun, the touch of grass which was not artificial, the scent of flowers which breathed in natural sunlight and drank the water of pure rainfall. A shadow fell across his eyes and he sat up instantly.

“Oh it’s you,” he said, plucking blades of grass from this shirt. “I was just about to drop off. Didn’t you say you were going for a swim?”

“I changed my mind.”

Kaleg sensed tension in the girl’s voice.

“On a clear day you can see the skyline of Dallas over yonder,” he said, pointing towards the distant haze as Daxa looked on without enthusiasm. “This sure is a beautiful world man. It’s just incredible to think that in another fifty years...”

“Forget it Kaleg,” she snapped and sat next to him. “It’s not real for us is it? All this beauty and nature you’re so fond of. None of it is for real.”

“What’s eatin’ you anyway? You’ve bin mopin around like a grizzly with a sore head all day.”

Daxa lay back on the warm grass and sighed at length. Kaleg swept the yellow hair away from her face and kissed her on the side of the mouth. She turned her face towards him and forced a smile. Kaleg recalled how he had deserted from the Spacetime project and how Daxa had pursued him out of a sense of loyalty. He had been filled with a joyous pride when he thought of how she had sacrificed a brilliant career to be with him. She was the final piece of the jig-saw in a world so ultimately breathtaking compared to the living death he had left behind.

“I’m going back now,” she announced and the smile quickly disappeared from her lips.

“What do you mean you’re going back?” Kaleg felt his heart pound as he pressed her.

“You mean back to the ranch, back to the lake or what?”

“I’m going back to the third millennium. I’m returning to the dome.”

She turned away from him as she saw the look of panic in his eyes. Kaleg leapt to his feet and pulled her up to face him.

“Just what the hell are you talkin’ about girl?”

“I’m sorry but I have no choice. I told you. This isn’t the real world. At least not for you or me.”

Kaleg laughed nervously and tightened the grip on her arms.

“Let me go. You’re hurting me.”

He released her and instantly she turned away from him. Kaleg moved behind her and she felt his warm breath at the back of her neck.

“You can’t return, even if you wanted to. How are you going to transport yourself across four hundred years for Chrissake?”

“My people . . . our people, will be waiting for me at fifteen hundred hours down at the ranch. I will be travelling with them.”

Kaleg knew her well enough to recognise that any attempt to make her have a change of heart would be futile. He had always admired her unshakeable logic and was painfully aware that his own mind was too full of romantic ideals to have any chance of competing with such a cold intellect.

“How long have we got?”

“About fifteen minutes.”

Kaleg turned to face her again and now he did not conceal his anger.

“You’ve got it all worked out haven’t you,” he spat out the words.

“Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is, please.”

“Spare me the phoney sentimental crap honey. Go back to your world and live out your fantasies. This is what real living is all about.”

He picked up a handful of earth and held it up to her face. She tried to move away but he grasped the back of her neck with his free hand and pushed the arid dirt into her mouth.

“Go on taste it. It’s real earth girl, not like that trash they feed you back in the dome.”

She began to cough and splutter as she pulled herself violently away from him.

“Go on then. What are you waiting for? I don’t need you any more. No-one needs you here.”

There was something more. Daxa was crying real tears. Kaleg had never known her to show such human weakness and his mood changed as he rushed to her and wiped a tear from her cheek. He put his hand to his mouth and tasted the tears as if to convince himself that they were genuine. Kaleg felt unnerved at such an uncharacteristic display of emotion and he was sure that he had not yet been released from the claws of the old world.

“In less than fifteen minutes you will be dead.”

She resumed her cold manner once more as she stared into his eyes.

“I mixed a potion into your drink this morning. It is set to take effect within a minute of the intended time.”

Kaleg’s face turned pale and his mouth fell open as he listened to the cold hearted voice of the executioner.

“Do not be alarmed Kaleg. You will feel no pain. You will fall into a deep sleep from which you will never return.”

Kaleg was silent as he listened to the death sentence being so callously pronounced from the same lips which had moments earlier shown real feeling.

“You bitch. You murdering son of a bitch.”

His words reflected the look of hate in his eyes.

“You didn’t have the guts to face up to the challenge so you want to return. Only you couldn’t stomach the thought of me staying here to enjoy a real life so you decided to kill me, knowing that I would never agree to go back with you.”

“You’ve got it all wrong Kaleg.”

Daxa turned her back on him and fought hard to steer her thoughts away from pity and remorse. Kaleg sank to his knees and ran his hands over the soft grass and cracked earth. He looked up and took in the natural beauty surrounding him. He stared at the girl and noticed how easily her own beauty fitted into the world around her.

“I was sent here to kill you. I had no choice.”

“Then why tell me? Why didn’t you just do it and be damned? Am I being punished for daring to choose freedom instead of a life of drudgery in a synthetic world in the service of faceless masters?”

“You are not being punished Kaleg. Rather you should regard yourself as giving your life for the future of the human race.”

“What bullshit are you feeding me now woman? Am I to believe that and die a glorious death? Come on bitch. Surely you can do better than that.”

“It is the truth.”

She moved down on to her knees and faced him. Kaleg watched her sun-kissed hair bounce in the warm breeze and he found it impossible to reconcile her cold mentality with the pretty young country girl he had grown to love.

“I’m listening,” he said with an air of resignation. “Tell me how it is that I, Kaleg Ankara, am about to be granted the wonderful honour of dying in the cause of mankind.”

Daxa relaxed and sat a discreet distance from the man. She did not wish to have any contact with him as she told him why he had been sentenced to death.

“When our mission arrived in New Mexico in nineteen hundred and sixty we were under no illusions as to the dangers we were facing. You were aware of the rules just like the rest of us. We were to complete our task and return to the dome.”

“But I decided to stay put and the Supreme Council were having kittens at the thought of a castaway traveller posing a threat to the great plan.”

“Not quite Kaleg. The truth is that there was no Supreme Council, no Dome of National Psychological Participation, no synthetic world, nothing.”

Kaleg leapt to his feet and wiped beads of perspiration from his face.

“What in God’s name are you talking about girl?”

“We had no world to return to. Somewhere along the line this planet, this beautiful world of yours, was completely wiped out. I’m not talking of the nuclear accident which forced us to live in a dome. I’m talking about the total annihilation of the human race, the whole Goddam shootin’ match.”

Daxa laughed as the irony of the whole situation hit her.

“It didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened to cause the disappearance of millions of years of evolution.”

“You mean by deserting from the mission I was somehow responsible for wiping out mankind?”

“It took us a lot of return missions and many years of research to discover exactly what it was you had done. We had to retrace your every move to make sure there was no mistake, otherwise we might have made matters even worse if that was at all possible. Basically you did something which indirectly resulted in two decades of war between the old east and west. Twenty years of nuclear attacks and counter attacks which eventually killed off every man, woman and child.”

“So now I must die.”

Kaleg walked in circles round the girl as she stared in the direction of the Dallas skyline.

“Believe it or not I fully understand your reasons. But what was to stop you from telling me what it is I did to cause the end of civilisation? At least that way I could make sure I didn’t do it and we could all live happily ever after.”

“You have enough intelligence to know that is just not possible. There is no way of knowing what damage you may cause by the most innocent action as long as you are left alive in this time zone.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

Kaleg pulled Daxa up to face him and ignored her resistance by kissing her full on the lips. She allowed this one last feeble gesture which fuelled her feelings of contempt for him. Now she only wanted to be free of him and his primitive sentimentality. She turned and walked back down towards the lake. He followed quickly and stood in front of her, stopping her progress.

“At least tell me what it is I did, or was going to do to cause such havoc.”

“What difference would it make now?”

“I don’t know. But I do know that it will do no harm to tell me anyway.”

Daxa thought for some moments before relenting.

“In eight hours from now you and a friend will get drunk and while driving home you will collide with another car. Your friend will be killed instantly. At least that’s what would have happened. You need know nothing more than that.”

“There must be more to it,” he protested.

“Your friend will now turn out to be a very important person indeed.”

Kaleg thought long and hard as he watched her walk down the track towards the lake.

“You’ve got it all wrong Daxa,” he called after her. “I’m having a few beers with a buddy this evening. He’s a loser, a nothing. He’ll never achieve anything.”

She ignored his protests and continued her descent.

“Maybe you should check your facts. He’s just a bum kid. His name is Lee Harvey Oswald, a nobody. Do you hear me girl?”

She stopped at the foot of the hill and turned in time to see him collapse on to the soft grass. She afforded herself a contented smile before walking on towards the ranch and the Dome of National Psychological Participation.