An Ending

by Marianne

All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension.
Transuranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life.
Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Mercury, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium and Silver.

An Ending

The café window drifted through space. Out of it, framed by the red gingham curtains, two faces looked out.

The man, in his late thirties, was handsome, until you looked closely and saw that his features were cold and devoid of expression. He wore a grey suit and held himself proudly. The woman was blond, slim with a graceful beauty. Her blue dress mirrored the brilliance of her eyes.

Eventually the woman turned from the window and glanced around the interior of the café; it was devoid of people. "We seem to have been here forever," she said softly.

The man turned to look at her. "Eternity is a long time," he pointed out.

"How did we let this happen, Steel?" The women sighed, sitting down on one of the hard plastic chairs.

"I don't think we exactly let it happen," the man called Steel said dryly. He walked over to one of the tables and looked down at the two travelling chess sets that lay there. He closed one of them; a simple wooden box. "I am not sure I understand..." It was an unusual admission for him to make.

"Sapphire?"

"What?" The women called Sapphire, turned away from the menu board.

"What are you thinking?"

"I was wondering what became of Silver."

"Maybe he is trapped somewhere - some when too," a lazy smile played over Steel's lips as he spoke.

"No, I don't think so."

Steel looked at his companion sharply. "Are you certain?"

"I can't be. Perhaps he will find away to free us?"

Steel almost looked disgusted at he thought. "But of course, he is the technician."

Steel opened the chess box, and picked up the earlier conversation. "Unless."

"Unless?" Sapphire asked.

"Unless Silver was working with Them."

"The Transient Beings?"

Steel nodded, snapping shut the box lid.

"No!" Sapphire was adamant. "I won't accept that."

Steel began to prowl round the room. He stopped by the doors. "They must know we are here." For a moment he opened the door and looked out at the black space filled with stars.

Sapphire shrugged, "but do they care?"

"The Transient Beings must not be allowed free," Steel said, slamming the door shut.

"Someone else will have been sent to stop them," Sapphire tried to reassure him.

"We could not stop them."

"We didn't know what we were fighting."

"We never failed before."

"That is what tripped us up. We needed to learn failure."

"I didn't," Steel said without a trace of irony. He continued to roam around their prison. "There was something else, something we missed."

"Others will be sent. They will sort it out."

"That is what is so frustrating," the man admitted.

The women nodded sympathetically. She understood and shared his frustration.

The woman and the man, Sapphire and Steel, continued to drift through space, trapped within the four walls.

"There must be someway out," Sapphire said quietly. "Something we can do."

"Sapphire, we have been through this conversation before. We have taken turns in convincing each other that there is no escape," Steel spoke calmly. "We can change nothing."

"Pessimist," Sapphire accused.

"Realist," Steel responded, without anger.

"I could try..."

"No!" Steel raised his voice for the first time.

"When I used to say I couldn't do something you used to push me - force me to do it," Sapphire tried to reason with him.

"No," Steel repeated, this time with no harshness to his voice. "You have tried and I have pushed you. There is a limit to your abilities and you have to accept that."

Sapphire sat down. Resting her arms on the table she examined her hands. Steel turned back to the window and gazed past the stars into the blackness of space.

Time passed.

"Steel!"

Steel spun round, startled by the urgency in Sapphire's voice. She was standing up, her hands held high in front of her face.

"Steel, look," she whispered. "Look."

Steel looked at Sapphire, and then he stared down at his own hands.

"No. It can't be happening. It must not happen," Sapphire protested, horror in her voice. "No, please no," she begged desperately running her hands over her face.

"Quiet," Steel commanded.

Sapphire looked at Steel for the first time since her outburst. "No," she repeated. "This cannot happen."

"Well, it can - it is," Steel said flatly, he could offer no comforting words, only the bare reality. "We are aging."

Sapphire shook her head. "They can't do this. I wont let them." She stood still and her eyes grew brighter and brighter, two sapphires shinning brilliant blue. As Steel watched she began to grow young again, then as the glow in her eyes dimmed she rapidly aged. Her eyes brightened again and the aging process reversed, but she could not hold the past and once more she aged twenty years. Fighting back, Sapphire held her trance, but the sapphires has gone from her eyes.

Steel walked over to her and slapped her hard across the face. He took no pleasure from the action; it was merely what had to be done.

Sapphire came round with a start and Steel grasped her by the shoulders and shook her. "Do you not realise what is happening?"
Sapphire shook her head.

"They are taking away the elements."

Sapphire's eyes widened, but almost before they brightened they fell dim. "I can't do it any more," she gasped. "I can't take time back, nothing. Empty."

"They are removing the elements to new hosts," Steel surmised.

"But why?"

"They must have found us," Steel said, thinking out loud. "But if the Transient Beings did their work too well it may be that They cannot remove our bodies from this prison..."

"But they can free the elements," Sapphire finished.

"If new hosts are found, then the elements can become active again," Steel smiled wryly. "It makes economic sense."

Sapphire looked at the man who had been her working partner, and more, for so long. The aging process has stopped, or at least had slowed down. Steel was now a handsome man in his thirties, and herself...?

"Steel, how do I look?"

Steel glanced at her. "As attractive as ever."

Sapphire evoked old memories. "Do you remember when...?"

"Yes," Steel said abruptly. There was no point in reminiscing.

"Steel, what will happen to us?"

"We will get older."

"And die?" Sapphire asked.

"And die," Steel agreed.

Sapphire sat down, suddenly feeling tired. "I wonder what they will look like?" she mused to herself.

"What? Who?"

"The new hosts. I was wondering what they would like like."

"It doesn't really matter," Steel was dismissive.

"Maybe not."

The café continued to drift through space.

"Steel, look!" Sapphire called to Steel. "What is it?"

In the centre of the café two elongated shimmering shapes were materializing.

"What are they?" Sapphire asked.

"Watch," Steel told her.

As they watched the shapes took form. Two young people, one male, one female, appeared before Sapphire and Steel. They wore full-length robes, sapphire blue and steel grey, as was appropriate. Slowly the young man bowed, and the girl curtsied.

The older couple returned the greetings. The woman who had been Sapphire mouthed the words "thank you."

The young people raised their hands in a farewell salute, then were no longer there.

The man who had been Steel nodded to himself. "Interesting," was his only comment.

"Was it accidental or deliberate?" The woman pondered.

"I don't suppose we will ever know."

"No."

The man walked over to the window. He smiled a slow, almost sly smile, meant only for himself. Suddenly eternity doesn't seem such a long time."

The woman smiled with him. "Yes. Forever does have an end, for us."

There was silence for while, then the woman asked a question. "How much longer?"

"Oh, not long, I should think," he continued to regard the stars.

The woman crossed over to the window and joined him. She turned her head, looked towards the man and spoke, softly, one word: "Steel."

The man jerked his head and looked questioningy at her. Eventually he relaxed and nodded. "Sapphire."

They joined hands and together turned towards the infinity of space and time, that now had and end.

A Beginning

The ship's captain clung to his desk, praying to the gods of the sea that the ship would ride out the storm. He looked down at the last log entry, November 24 1872. It recorded their position as just north of St Mary's Island in the Azores. He wished desperately they were still there, that he could take time back just those five days. Above the crash of the thunder her heard a knock on the door.

"Come in," he called.

"The door flew open and he heard someone enter. "Fosdyk?" The captain looked up, "What is it?"

However, the captain did not recognise the two people standing in front of him, and with only eleven people on board he should have. Stowaways? As if he did not have enough problems with three of his seven strong crew having disappeared. "Who are you? How did you get onboard?"

It was the girl who answered him. "Captain Briggs?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"Your name was on the door," the man pointed out.

Captain Briggs looked hard at the coupe. The man was the taller of the two, dressed in a light coloured suit with a brilliant blue tie. The girl was beautiful, dark hair and wearing a flowing dress that seemed at odds with its pearl grey colour.

"What the hell is going on here?" Captain Briggs' New York accent grew more pronounced. "Who the hell are you?"

The man spoke first, "Sapphire."

"And Steel," the girl introduced herself. "We are here to help."

AN ENDING

by Marianne

An Ending

A Beginning

THE END