Introduction

My adventures on Kitchener have taken on a romantic and somewhat mythical quality since the public became aware of them. This was never my intention when I set out on the journey, and indeed seems almost comical, knowing first-hand as I do exactly what occurred on the planet. It had seemed common sense to me that the role of myself and my now famous companions was restricted to injury, embarrassed diplomacy, and desperate improvisation. However, I had only last week found myself on business in the far-East when I was accosted on the streets of Peking by a rather starstruck American. She seemed to be under the impression that I was single-handedly responsible for the suppression of a rebellion and the restoration of dignity to the whole of the empire. No matter what words I used to explain to her the limited extent of my input, she remained firmly convinced of the splendour of my achievements. Her views were indeed reinforced by my attempts to dissuade her, as she simply added modesty to my vast list of virtues!

I therefore put my account of the events to paper, to serve the public good and remove the cloud of dishonesty I feel has shrouded me since that encounter. I have utilised both my memory and my notes from the period to bring as much accuracy as possible to this memoir. I cannot promise that every event occurred exactly as I have written it, but I will pledge that nowhere in this text have I intentionally misrepresented the tale.

Herein lies the truth of it.

-Roger Cunningham, OBE

Chapter 1: In which I arrive on Kitchener.

The journey to Kitchener from Earth takes more than a week, which I spent making polite conversation with the other passengers and desperately hoping for some miraculous event that would quicken my journey (This event did not materialise, needless to say). I have never liked starships. I’ve always found them to be too cramped and relying on too many factors outside the crews control to ever make a journey comfortable. Naturally then, once we had neared the end of the journey, I sat patiently in the landing chair of my cabin, tugging absentmindedly at the thin strap around my waist. My head was turned towards a round cabin window and I found myself gazing at the infinite abyss beyond. The dense blanket of stars slowly growing fainter as the atmosphere of the planet below thickened. Then, with a jolt that frightened me more than I would care to admit, the ship tilted downwards. I caught my first glimpse of Kitchener and its rolling yellow surface. In the far distance I could see a sandstorm forming over the great basin, but soon enough the heat of atmospheric entry turned any view out the window into a writhing mass of flame. The ship began shaking and I closed my eyes firmly to avoid the blinding light.

“Calm. Be calm man!”, I had to mutter to myself. In times like those I find that thoughts of my father come to my mind. I was only small the last time we had spoken, and my father had seemed so tall to me. He had been dressed in his naval uniform and I had asked him if he was afraid.

“Of course, my boy.” My father said. “Fear is natural. But to act despite your fear is what makes a man.” It was good advice, I think. It had certainly stayed with me. Many boys have the misfortune of bad fathers. I think myself fortunate to have had a good one, gone or not.

I forced my eyes open and calmed my beating heart. The flames outside grew stronger and the ship shook more violently than ever before. Eventually the angry glow receded and the shaking lessened, and there was no more flame. Beyond was simply a yellowed, desolate landscape. Kitchener is notable only for its deposits of a unique sort of coal just beneath the surface. K-coal burns just as hot and long as the sort we find on Earth, but cleanly, fading away into nothingness without the pyres of smoke that are produced from our home variety. The dragar use it to build their bonfires and cook their food. We humans use it for just about everything else. Indeed, if the fireplace you have in your home is burning, you’re likely using K-coal as you read these very words.

The planet is not a welcoming place, but beneath those sands lay a mystery that had called me from my home and across the galaxy.

The ship landed with a thud and skidded along a lonely runway located far in the desert outside Inverness. I put my kettle on to boil and pulled my case from the overhead storage. When arriving on a new planet its’s best to look sharp. People develop an impression right away after all.

I selected a grey suit, which was less comfortable than my lighter linens, but I wouldn’t feel so underdressed when meeting with a friend. When matched with a smart waistcoat and a fedora to keep the sun out of my face, I was the picture of what a newly arrived academic should be. Being out of space and watching the scenery pass by my window with a cup of tea in my hand, was, I suspect the last time I was truly at ease on that planet.

Kitchener, of course, is a new frontier for the empire. It had been incorporated only twenty years before my arrival and has even today received little in the way of investment. Mining companies are all that are interested in the planet, and they leave nothing in terms of infrastructure or development beyond what is absolutely essential for their operations. The only true civilised settlement across the planet’s entirety is Inverness, and it is small by the standards of most imperial worlds. Indeed, at the time of my arrival the most notable aspect of the entire planet was a single inhabitant. My former mentor, Dr Edward Nelson.

He was the entire reason I was on Kitchener at all. He had sent me a letter asking me to come to Kitchener to meet him. He claimed to have discovered something beneath the shifting sands that he promised would be the discovery of the century. This was all intriguing naturally, but the letter had ended, quite abruptly, with “Any more, I can explain once you’ve arrived.” Nelson had always been paranoid at the prospect of someone stealing his discoveries. Understandable in a competitive field of exploration, but frustrating when attempting to get a straight answer.

I exited the ship through a long gangplank with the rest of the second-class passengers. I was forced to immediately don my hat, as the scorching sun was overhead, and it felt as though any exposed skin at all would be peeling away within a few minutes of exposure. Near the bow of the craft I could see the first-class passengers hurrying from the shuttle to their waiting transports. They were all dressed in elaborate cloaks and tremendously wide dresses, aimed at protecting them from the sun. I assume they were the mine owners, and perhaps a few young aristocrats on a tour of the empire. For the remainder of my stay I did not lay eyes on any of them again.  Exiting at the stern were the third-class passengers, who were all but sprinting out of the ship in a great sweaty mass. Not that I could blame their filthiness on them, a week in a crowded dormitory would reduce anyone to an unhygienic state.

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Waiting at the end of our gangplank to take the luggage of myself and the other passengers were a few of the local inhabitants, the dragar, a beastly species of hulking lizards. They looked rather odd dressed in suits designed for humans, but their help was greeted with relief all the same. The general perception at the time was that the dragar had benefited greatly from the arrival of the empire. The reputation of the aliens has since been damaged by the actions of their more violent tribes, and there is, sadly, a growing feeling of disdain throughout the empire being directed towards them. No man can claim to speak for the species as a whole, but I hope that my own experiences will serve as counterweight to the unfounded prejudices at the very least. Some dragar are savage beyond any doubt. Others are delightful, loyal and intelligent. I can only say that I have not given up hope for them.

As I had only my case with me, I strode past the scaly creatures, turning my head only to eye them with curiosity. These were the I had seen in person. One of them caught sight of me as I passed, and its long slender neck snapped around to face me, giving me quite a fright.

“Mister Cunningham sir?” its raspy voice asked. Dragar’s eyes sit on opposite sides of their head, which makes conversation with them a peculiar affair as their head is perpetually sideways. His tongue also shot involuntarily out of his mouth as he spoke, not dissimilar to a snake. This was my first meeting with Chauncey, and he is quite possibly the finest example of the dragar race yet to be brought forth into the world.

“I am. What do you want?”, I responded too quickly. I was desperate to get out of the sun and I’m afraid in my haste I gave a rather poor show of my manners.

“Doctor Nelson ordered me to take you to his office sir. I am his assistant.”

“A pleasure to meet you. Take me to him.” He bowed respectfully and his slithering neck almost reaching the ground. He also requested to take my case, but I have never enjoyed nannying and carried it myself.

We got through customs quickly as distant planets are always lax with that sort of thing. All that was required for my Webley revolver was a small slip of paper! With the heat outside I wished it would have taken longer and seeing proper stone and metal construction again was comforting after the confines of the ship.

However, I was soon met with an even more comforting sight. Waiting for me at the far end of the port’s garage was a vehicle I recognised but hadn’t seen for years. It was an original Byron, decades old now but still the height of luxury. Its carriage is the length of a small room, and its seats a rich brown leather that seemed to engulf you anew every time you sat in them. The driver’s seat was separate to the rest, but I’d never had to deal with that particular part of the automobile. As they say, if you’re driving a Byron, you can’t afford a Byron.

I settled myself in the carriage and helped sipped the tea that had been thoughtfully prepared for me while Chauncey took us down the long road to Inverness. Sand swept from the mountains in the distance and over the road in small clouds. It made it rather difficult for me to see what was ahead of the car, and I’m ashamed to say that at first, I doubted the driving skills of my escort. To take my mind off the concerns I had I made polite conversation with Chauncey through the intercom. “How long have you worked for the doctor? I can’t recall him ever mentioning an assistant.”

“For only a few months sir. I was given to the doctor as an egg, he has trained me as a servant from my hatching sir.”

“Rather nice of him. I suppose you do all sorts of work for the doctor if you’ve been trained since you were a child. Are educated locals rare here?”

“Yes sir, very rare. He is still teaching me many things. I am only six months old.”

It was extraordinary to me, and indeed still is, that after only six months of life he was capable of driving, talking and performing all the duties of an assistant to the doctor. I suspect that if humans aged as efficiently as the inhabitants of Kitchener, we would have been ruling the galaxy while we were still building the pyramids! It did not relieve my concerns over his driving ability but did provide me with food for thought.

After half an hour or so of travelling down the sandy road, the first of the buildings began to appear. The sparse structures soon thickened into a well-built town of the same comforting, columned construction of the rest of the of the empire. Inverness does have a certain desolation to it however, as the streets are devoid of people on account of the sun, and there were no trees to be found anywhere. There isn’t even grass. Earth’s vegetation simply isn't suited to Kitchener. Suddenly Chauncey lurched us down a side road, and before I could even complain about his carelessness we had come to a stop.

He unfolded himself from the driver’s seat and rocked himself out of the car. It was a long process, as the Dragar are unwieldy creatures, especially in a vehicle not designed for their bodies. He finally opened my door and announced our location to me. “Doctor Nelson’s residence sir.”. The sun was reflecting brightly off the windows, and I was forced to squint my eyes in order to assess my old friend’s home.

The brickwork was the same as the rest of the city; cream-coloured stone cut into large rectangles. It was three stories high, which was quite impressive compared to the buildings around it. Chauncey and I hurried inside, as my skin had already started to burn in Kitchener’s harsh sun.

Chauncey led me into a well-furnished parlour before leaving to fetch Nelson from upstairs.  I quickly brushed myself off and strolled the perimeter of the room. Needless to say, I was curious. It had been years since I had last seen Nelson, but I could tell from the room I was standing in, he hadn’t changed at all.

There was a Zulu shield hanging over the fireplace, coupled with a large statue of an Indian elephant in the corner that managed to dominate the room. There was even an exquisite collection of Chinese porcelain kept in a glass cabinet. But these objects were old hat to me, as I had seen them all before on Earth. In the case of the porcelain, I had even helped to acquire it! Though what really took my interest, and was by far most valuable of all the possessions held in the room, was a small opal statuette resting in the centre the coffee table. It was magnificent. Its shimmering colours seemed to change with every flicker of light and every turn of my head. But what was more interesting than the marvellous colours was what it was depicting. It was a dragar, dressed in battle armour and swinging a great weapon above its head; a deadly whip tipped with a sharp blade. I kneeled to examine the statuette. It was mesmerising. It was also impossible, as the art of the dragar didn’t extend beyond scribbles on their clothing, and they certainly didn’t make such things as the statuette sitting in front of me. I tried to wave it away as merely an elaborate forgery, but it didn’t make sense that someone on Kitchener would put so much work into a depiction of the dragar. Likewise, Nelson had no interest in useless or forged trinkets. It was valuable or he wouldn’t have it.  I ran my hand along the statuette’s cool surface and could feel the detailed carvings beneath my fingers.

“Doctor!” came Chauncey’s terrified cry from upstairs. It shook me out of my musing, and I sprang to my feet, taking the staircase two at a time. I didn’t know the layout of the house, so I followed the sound of Chauncey’s cries of distress. The door to the office was half open, and I took it at a charge, bursting in with a loud crash. Nelson wasn’t inside. There was only an open window, a tornado of torn papers, and one assistant dragar leaning out a window and yelling in distress.