‘This feels very real. It is real, isn’t it?’ Marcus breathed in deeply and felt… youthful. There was a faint scent of something sweet in the air but better still was the energy that coursed through his body. For the first time in decades he felt like leaping about: performing cartwheels even, if he could remember how. For now though such cavorting would have to wait, he was in a bulky spacesuit and strapped to a seat in front of a large display that was glowing yellow and orange. There was another figure in the seat beside him but the fact that their face-screen was darkened prevented Marcus from seeing them properly.

If this was really happening – and he had major doubts that it was ­­– then what did he feel? Anger at being taken from his home? Not at all, it was a relief to find himself somewhere other than his squalid cottage. Fear of death? At ninety-two Marcus had long prepared himself for death. And as an adherent of Epicurus he understood that one might reasonably fear pain, but not death. Did he feel shock? Certainly, he was shocked. But he was excited too: stimulated. There was art here, in this experience of translocation, providing he could survive to express it.

In fact, that was a very intriguing thought. How could you communicate to the viewer of a sculpture, say, what it was like to be alive in this intense moment? How to give the viewer insight into the extraordinary sensations of a mind that had been plucked like a pearl from an oyster and brought out of dark depths to a bright world above the waves. The sculpture would have to simultaneously convey a fundamental, violent rupture and a continuity of thought by a person who had lived over ninety years on another planet.

‘I’m sorry. You have been mind-swapped without permission.’ There was a soft-spoken voice in his ears, breaking into his thoughts.

‘Mind swap?’ The person beside Marcus who asked that question was a woman. Young. Annoyed. ‘Well swap me back.’

‘Again, I must apologise. We are falling through the atmosphere of a planet called Grimworld and there is far too much interference to…’

‘It’s hot!’ the woman exclaimed. ‘How do I get up? My seat is burning.’

‘Please remain seated. It is uncomfortable but in a hundred and sixty-two seconds I will eject you from the craft. After which, you will land safely but… I anticipate my own destruction.’

‘Are you the spacecraft?’ asked Marcus. An erratic, shuddering vibration was becoming stronger, spoiling his appreciation of the simple pleasure of sitting and breathing while free from pain.

‘I’m a personality housed in this craft. My name is Cortness Malkine.’

‘Pleased to meet you, I’m Marcus.’

‘Hello Cortness Malkine, hello Marcus. Pleased to meet you. I’m Sina Koskina. Princess Sina Koskina, but I suppose that a title won’t mean much here.’

‘Please,’ said the spaceship, ‘while I appreciate good manners, we are losing valuable seconds, which would be better spent if I brief you about the planet you are about to land upon.’

‘Go ahead Cortness Malkine,’ the woman waved her left hand, a gesture that, now he came to reflect on it, seemed to Marcus to indeed be rather regal.

‘Grimworld is a system planet. Do you know what that means?’

Several red lights were blinking around the small cabin and an alarm began an undulating wail.

‘I do not,’ said Marcus.

‘No,’ said the woman, Sina.

‘System worlds are artificial and were created in the distant past, for unknown reasons, to provide inhabitants with an interface similar to a base-building game. You will be able to construct a shelter for your survival and everything else you need by using this interface.’

‘What do you mean an interface? Do we get a games console or something? And do you mean a shelter just appears when we use the interface? Like a... a... three-D printer?’ New methods of creation would allow for interesting artistic opportunities, thought Marcus. Despite the probability that this experience was a dream, or a drug induced experience (not that it felt like either and he hadn’t taken anything liable to create hallucinations for decades), Marcus hoped he would survive the coming crash to learn more.

‘The interface will appear across your vision in response to movements of your head and eyes. You should practice raising it and dispersing it when you land. It is not like a printer, you will have to do all the work required yourself, but you will find that if you let them – and usually you can override their tasks at any time – your bodies will move appropriately and carry out the constructions.

‘Even if I’ve never held a hammer or saw in my life?’ exclaimed the princess.

‘Indeed. And, if you live, you will be able to advance in your abilities, your skills, the technology available to you, and in the sophistication of your buildings. You might even achieve great personal power through solving a mystery quest. The people who previously occupied your bodies and who have swapped with you called this the Ultima quest and our expedition was planned with the intention of solving this quest. Unfortunately, the planet seems to be hostile to intruders and it has somehow destroyed our engines.’

‘Interface. Game. Got it. What else?’ Marcus detected a melancholy note in the spaceship’s voice and spoke urgently in the hope of rallying it to tell them more before the crash: to judge from the violent shaking and jolting he was experiencing, it was imminent.

‘There are monsters. Prepare defences as soon as you can. There are also twenty tribes, mostly human. Try to avoid them. Many are slavers. Some are cannibals. There are shifting alliances and constant warfare among them. Don’t trust anyone.

‘Grimworld is just under seventeen light-years from civilisation but it might be you can advance your technology sufficiently to one day be able to send a powerful signal and obtain rescue.’ Cortness Malkine paused, then sighed.

‘What?’ asked Marcus.

‘The more I think about your plight, the sorrier I am for you. You are almost certainly going to die here and probably within a day or two of landing, when a predator sniffs you out.’

‘That’s enough,’ said Princess Sina. ‘This is becoming a nightmare, with cannibals and slavers and predators ahead. I know where this going. Can you end it now please.’

‘I cannot swap you back,’ said the ship.

And at the same time, Marcus said, ‘Princess, I’m from Earth too. I’m pretty sure this isn’t a dream.’

The woman surprised Marcus by promptly saying, ‘In that case, computer, tell us some practical information. What plants are safe to eat? Can we drink the water?’

There was a pause of several valuable seconds. ‘Oh, you mean me,’ said Cortness Malkine. ‘Well, most often, river water is drinkable. I will attempt to land you near a source.’

‘And wood, can you land us somewhere with trees?’ asked Marcus.

‘I can try.’

‘What about a nice hot spring for bathing in? You know, like they have in Iceland. Even better if it has that mineral enriched sludge that is so good for your skin.’

‘That’s a splendid idea princess! Let’s have one of those please.’ Carried away with a sudden sense of pleasure at the adventure he found himself in, Marcus raised his right arm, which was nearest to her, and presented his palm in the fashion that young people sometimes did. He’d rarely executed a high-five and perhaps he wasn’t performing it correctly, because the princess did not reciprocate.

‘I don’t do that.’

‘Goodbye my brief acquaintances,’ said Cortness Malkine’s soft voice in his ears. ‘I sincerely wish the very best for you and if I have one last piece of advice it would be to co-operate wholeheartedly. I sense a discrepancy between your personalities that might be harmful to your already low chance of survival.

With that Marcus experienced a massive lurch, as though a giant had hurled him up in the air and he found himself outside the cabin, falling through the air, the wind roaring in his ears. The spaceship was below him and falling away rapidly: a spinning silver cylinder whose nose glowed orange. Where was the princess? There! Above him.

A mighty yank on his armpits, and Marcus suddenly found that he was drifting downwards, not falling. A parachute had been released from his back. The woman shot past him and Marcus barely had time to formulate a fear that her parachute might not release properly when it blossomed below him, displaying a cheerful blue-and-white chequered pattern.

The incandescent streak of metal that was the spaceship smashed into the distant ground below with a powerful explosion, accompanied by a deep booming noise. Debris flew from the blast, some of it creating white streaks of smoke in the otherwise blue sky. The fire at the impact point created a huge, billowing column of black and grey smoke. Marcus felt sorry for the AI who had presumably just died.

There would be no escaping this planet on that craft. But perhaps there would be useful salvage from the explosion. Sharp fragments of metal might mean the difference between survival and dying. Right now, it would be easy to find the crash site. But once in the trees of the fast-approaching forest and after a night or two to disperse the smoke, it might not be so easy.

‘Camera on. Record.’ Even as he tried to impress in his memory the details of the landscape – dull, sinuous river; thick forest below, more sparse clumps of trees in the direction of the crash; mountains in the same direction but far away; sea in the direction he was drifting – Marcus attempted to get his suit to take pictures. But despite having a complex-looking control panel on the chest, nothing responded to his voice.

Marcus had been falling a little faster than Sina and as he came past her, although he could not see her expression through the mirrored face-plate of her space suit, she raised a thumb. The gesture caused a surge of affection to run through Marcus. At least he had company for whatever lay ahead.

And then the trees rushed at him, and the pace at which he was falling no longer seemed comfortable. There was nothing he could do but bend his knees and hope not to hit a tree trunk. Branches whipped at his limbs and scrapped across his helmet. Several powerful jerks from the parachute yanked at his back and then, with a wallop that knocked the breath out of him, Marcus was down on the ground. Alive.

Well, well. That was extraordinary. It had possibly been the most adrenaline-filled experience of his ninety-two years.

It was good to be alive.

Welcome to Grimworld.

This is your quest screen. You currently have 5 quests to review.

A rectangle with a bright green frame had appeared in the upper left corner of his vision, floating as though actually in the world, but, like a rainbow, it moved away from him as he took a step forward. After some experimentation he found that by moving his eyes to the very edges of his vision he could cause the rectangle to disappear or reappear. There were other pop-ups that appeared with different eye positions and with great curiosity Marcus studied the one with his name at the top.

Marcus Korol

Modified human*

Str 7

Con 8

Dex 12

Int 15

Wis 11

Cha 11

*Does not age (age fixed at 27). Teeth do not decay. Perfect vision. Immune to cancers and malarial diseases.

Top Skills

Artistry 20

Crafting 7

Negotiation 2

Boxing 1

Chemistry 1

Hide 1

Listen 1

Move Silently 1

Research 1

Pathfinding 1

Having spent his entire artistic life avoiding any possibility of celebrity or acclaim, Marcus was surprised by the feeling of pleasure he obtained from seeing that Artistry was far and away his best skill. The fact that someone – the planet? – seemed to know him and give him a relatively high score in Artistry was extremely satisfying.

This moment of self-congratulation was broken by the sound of a crash; not far off came a flurry of splintering and rustling sounds. With a blink, Marcus closed all the open menus and took greater stock of his surroundings. He was standing in a forest that was relatively young to judge from the slender trunks of the trees and the sparse undergrowth. There was plenty of light – the sun was nearly at its midpoint – and in the distance was the vivid blue and white of Sina’s parachute. Had she landed safely? It would be awful if she’d smashed into a tree trunk.

Heart pounding with anxiety, Marcus found the clips to his harness and wriggled free of it. He would come back for the valuable rope and cloth later. Despite his concern for Sina, he couldn’t help enjoy the experience of running through the forest. Leaping over a fallen log; swerving around a thorny bush; sprinting through a glade. Although the spacesuit was cumbersome, Marcus relished being young again and felt joy with every stride.

Back on Earth, it would have taken him about twenty minutes to cover the few hundred metres to Sina’s parachute. Even with the aid of a walking stick (he had refused a Zimmer frame as undignified), his hips had ached so much that he used to have to take tiny steps. Now he ran the same distance in just a couple of minutes.

Relief filled him from head to toe.

There she was. With her helmet off, Marcus could see that Sina was stunning, like an Irish queen from a legend. It would have taken a poet, not a painter, to have expressed exactly why she was so striking, but as if he were creating a palette for her portrait, Marcus noted that Sina’s hair was raven black, her lips were full and scarlet, her cheeks were pale and delicate, and her eyes, as she looked at him, a startling emerald colour.

Sina had her helmet in her hands and turned away to look at the mirrored face plate with great intensity. Had it broken? What was she looking at?

‘I’m so beautiful,’ she said. ‘O.M.G. If only my Insta followers could see me now!’