The Tale of Jupiter Rising

Three years, seven months, twenty-six days, and four hours…

Anders looked out of the window. There was nothing there. In fact, there was so much nothing, it felt an awful like there was very much something there. But that’s just the feeling one gets in the absence of all things. The brain doesn’t like to be alone. It makes up something (often anything) so we don’t have to countence for one single second the possibility that the best company we might be able to hope for is — shudder — our own.

Ghosts. Made up. The Bogeyman? Total nonsense. Monsters under the bed? You should be so lucky… There’s a lot more nothing on Earth than humans are generally comfortable with; there’s a hell of a lot more nothing in Space, which is where we find the unshaven hero of this tale.

Anders Copernicus Brandt, designer, watchmaker, and intergalactic fugitive, wanted across three galaxies for, as the sobbing police officer termed it, “gross, gross indecency”.

He hadn’t realised it was sacred ground. He hadn’t realised it was the middle of the day. He hadn’t noticed that there was a crowd of people (mostly schoolchildren) standing right there. If he’d been aware of any of those things, he surely would’ve acted differently. But he wasn’t, so here we are.

He’d run — of course he’d run. He wasn’t going to stand there and be thrown in jail for such a silly thing. And besides, he knew people who could help. James Thompson was great at manipulating materials. Maybe he could make him a new face? And Rob Nudds had broken in to more prisons than Anders had ever seen, simply because he enjoys both solitary confinement and communal showers.

He was sure his Arcanaut brethren could help. And he was not to be disappointed.

He’d burst through the door of the Badger Den, pouring with sweat.

“You been on a date?” Rob called from the hammock on the mezzanine level.

James emerged from a cloud of dust and removed his gas mask, looking Anders up and down.

“You need a Gammel Dansk.” It wasn’t a question.

“So what happened to you really?” Rob asked, sliding out of the hammock and bouncing downstairs, revelling in someone else’s obvious distress.

Anders told them.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said James, in his best Canadien voice. “You’ll be facing ten, maybe twenty years for this. We need to get you out of here.”

“We’re going to struggle to hide him,” mused Rob. “He’s a lot bigger than us.”

“We could send him to the Netherlands? They have a lot of big people. Perhaps he’d blend in?” suggested James

“Anders is many things, but he’s clearly not made of cheese. The Dutch would spot him in a second and turn him in. No, we need to send him further away. Much further away…”

“Say, I still have my old Asteroid Belt Transporter!”

“That old heap of junk? It still flies?”

“Well, we can get it into orbit easy enough. Can’t vouch for the steering thereafter. It did take a lot of knocks during its years of service, but it’ll be a good place to hide even if it is a bit unwieldy.”

The two men looked at Anders and smiled. He drank his Gammel Dansk and reached for the bottle…

That was three years, seven months, twenty-six days, and four hours ago. He’d cleared the outer edge of the Asteroid Belt some months previously and was now seriously bored. And then, suddenly (which seems impossible considering how big it is), he saw it. Jupiter, rising in his line of sight in the distance. It was still a long, long way away, but, for the first time he could see it clearly. And he was heading straight for it…