Dexter breaks out of her thoughts as Walker sits down opposite her once more. He holds cup and saucer like some English gentleman, crafted with poise and a delicate air, well-mannered...of sorts.

To distract herself, she changes the recording disk.

"Do you wish to continue?" Dexter asks, attempting a smile.

Alan Walker sits silent, staring. He blinks long, slow.

"After two centuries of the whole affair being covered up, lost and forgotten in the annuls of time, you Ms. Dexter sit there listening to it, recording it, finally the truth of then being known.

"But what would happen if it were all false? Some ramblings of a distant, lost, forgotten soldier? A loner's twaddle?"

Dexter's mind immediately goes to work as she defends herself against doubt. 'The Field Marshall's last transmitted log, it corresponds to what he has told me. Besides, no one is interested in that part of history anymore. There is no more cover up.'

"I skip large chunks of detail and events to what I think you need Ms. Dexter. Do tell me if you require more," she remains quiet as he poses the offer to her, "good, I must also add that I am unaccustomed to the presence of human beings or anyone so excuse me while I try to regain my…conversational, or interview, abilities."

Cutter has the same monotone voice as he delivers each word. Dark coldness shifts as he ends another below zero pause, "I know from the make up of your psyche that you are feeling unsettled by my.........presence. This is common for those who have never had contact with a Univarian."

"What are you talking about?" The reporter intones curtly.

"Do not be alarmed, there' s time enough," he continues as though not hearing her words, "you are an investigative journalist. Or you were. A pity no one will believe any of that which you have recorded."

Dexter seethes.

"I have tracked you down to here over the period of a decade. The research itself could make me a Noble Prize winner Mr. Walker or should I call you..." she doesn't understand her own outburst; her raised voice, sharp decline in control- it's as though he were pulling her 'strings', toying with her emotions.

"I did not mean to cause any insult to your efforts Ms. Dexter...that have been wide and far reaching, I commend your persistence."

The woman shifts uneasy in her seat as another flash of emotion explodes, but this time it appears like a teenage crush which she used to have at school; a puppy love that sends her heart turning in awe and that frightening loss of control, nice with it though. "It's alright," she gushes foolishly.

"Do you have a partner? A mate....Ms. Dexter?"

"Of course not," she answers quickly in an abstract manner but feeling yet another emotion torn up through as she feels herself getting wet, a hotness in her undergarments, something quite unacceptable; bizarre like an assault.

Cutter closes his eyes taking in a deep breath through his nose. Exhaling with a long rasp through his mouth he silences it half way through looking at Dexter once mores she ceases feeling anything.

"I have seen many things. They say Ms. Dexter, one is either born a survivor or.......falls to the wayside. I think one can program one's self to be a survivor. If a situation teaches us, through the very nature of it being so desperate, that the most amazing odds can be negated. A lot of people know this fact but it still remains a mystery to some why it is so important. I cannot tell you why or how or what but can only talk in great, long, empty words that seem inadequate.

"But this is circumspect to what really lies at the heart of any question to choice and choice is what matters. A glimmer of hope maybe through 'trying to find something.' The irony of life only ever being that if any species did know what they were looking for they wouldn't know what to do with it. Why so much violence toward fellow beings?"

One old soldier had seen Walker in operation. He told Dexter that it was one of the most frightening things he had ever seen. The veteran, a boy at the time, living on Sirius II, remembers renegade U.F troops invading his planet, coming to his village. A band of twenty or so, they operated only in small numbers once the regime of the United Forces had cracked and splintered. He recounted to the reporter that they were sufficient enough to wipe his village clean off the cultivated surface of Sirius II. At that point in history, Outlanders were continually being dogged by disbanded U.F troops, soldiers who still clung onto the old regime; eventually the odd faction or two were scrubbed out in 4085 AD.

"They never believed me that I ever saw him, but I did!" Nicolai Tumar, half-human, half-Silurian, hence extended life span, he continued to enthrall the reporter, "the U.F stormed into our village. We knew they were coming but my father was terribly proud of his home planet. He believed it was better to die than let somebody take it. That's Silrians for you. All are proud but were no good at fighting. I didn't want to fight. Being only a boy, I just didn't share my father's zeal. The U. F were armed. We had only hand to hand weaponry.

"As they came in, killing whoever was foolish enough to ignore the elders warnings and carry on with their crops, that awful cloud of fear crept over my village. A small hover ship armed with a staser cannon did most of the work. A T39 or T42, one of that period. It pinned us down into the area where ground troops could come in.

"We could do nothing. Running like animals. They would have mown my mother and I down in moments. All the village was in the same predicament. They knew exactly how to torment their victims. Throughout our sector, on other planets too, their trick was known. But when faced with it yourself I suppose you pray up to the Gods for forgiveness in even a dark human heart. Yet they toyed with us.

"And when they were toying with us, being their prisoners, stripping the women..these arrows spun into the guy on the T39's cannon. Before the leader could do anything...he suffered the same fate.

"Smoke suddenly exploded on the ground. I remember hearing the U.F men calling out, then screams, some shot wildly. All the time this happened a young man, early twenties, bustled us into a small craft. I had and have never since seen a craft like it. It contained us comfortably, like a living, breathing thing. We needed no encouragement to take refuge as the U.F soldiers swarmed everywhere in panic.

"I looked through a porthole in the craft. I have never forgotten that sight which greeted me: the young man evaded the stupid soldiers attempts at shooting him with ease, like something out of movie- but it was real! He used all manner of techniques. He used these long prong, knife-like things; I later learned these were Sai. He used kicks, punches, grabs, choke holds, whilst holding a man as a human shield. Only with an occasional burst of staser fire, oddly though he relied on those ancient Japanese forms of warfare. Throwing stars, sweeping enemy onto the ground without actually taking a hold of them. I still am in awe of him. "

Behind the elderly gentleman Dexter remembers noticing universal karate trophies, filling up entire cabinets.

"Of course I never fully realized what power this man had. I knew though that this person had a great heart, tremendous courage, to face so many, for Silrians he didn't even know. All that ran through my heart was gratitude for saving my family.

"When the fighting had ceased, the young man came back to us. He released the lock on the craft. It was then I noticed that there were others with him. In no way did that hamper my admiration for him, as far as I was concerned he had saved the day. We had been locked in their for our own safety from those U.F. I recall my mother crying. She hugged and kissed the young man, as well as the other women who could get near him....but......all the time be did not respond. He left without saying a word."

She notices then that Walker has paused, noticing her distraction, albeit a flicker of time. With no over tone of indignation, as some would take offence; like constant clock watchers, he addresses her: "your mind seems to be wandering. Do you wish to retire? Continue later?"

"No, not at all it's just that...well..you see.." Dexter isn't exactly sure how to voice what she has to say.

"I was just thinking about an incident, involving a boy from Sirius II," she lets the sentence hang in the air a moment- waiting for a reaction; puzzlement maybe or a visible search through his memory.

"I know Sirius II. I had some experiences there. The person which you interviewed must have been quite...effected by what he or she saw when we cleared the last few United Forces out."

Mary moves her weight in her chair, deciding to refill her tea cup as an excuse to hide what is going on inside her, his nonchalance, "he remembered you with great detail, also...in awe. He went on to become a karate champion."

"People easily remember............what they wish," Walker says.

She senses an aloofness in his voice. The reporter pushes a little further to find that crack or gap, however minute, to let his emotional side leak out, if he has one.

"Do you consider yourself immortal? Does it impose on your mind as well?" Dexter is unsure of her next stab but feels her heart racing and emotion beginning to thrust her forward, "do you think of yourself as some God?"

Cutter remarks cold, "what I think of myself is unimportant. As to what I referred to before, I also think that people using a limited part of their minds is really without any consequence. They can use it fully or not, it is irrelevant to me.

"Everyone ( that takes into account other species too) has a choice to how they use themselves and to what they do within their limited time within life. I have no personal....feelings on the matter, if being a religious man like a Christian from that faith found in the human race, then one could say that that factor of free will is the most important of all. Why should there be any regard for it anyway? If not for mortals?"

"Are you content Mr. Walker? Not bound by human qualities? Never able to die? And why do you insist on aiding the poor and down-trodden?"

"I have no idea of any emotion. I am not content. I am.........not human; emotionally, psychologically, biologically, or any other formula or theory that you are now trying to fix me down to- a discernible point. It is like having one's self put into another dimension and leaving it there, having another form put here and left to get on with it.

"As for the last part of your question, I have only ever known soldiering, that is all I do. Maybe that is the only discernible link I have to the past, when I was a human being."

This happened to be true. It had seemed like a lifetime that Mary had started out on the trail of this unique gentleman. But she felt, in all honesty and blunt straight forwardness (in his style) that it may have been a waste of time and it's that which grinds her down. Could she put her finger on his psyche or any psyche for that matter or anything in that husk of him? Probably not. Yet, it is still early days. After so many years of chasing him and finally locating the legend as it were, it has actually mutated into something indifferent, ridiculous.

"You were about to tell what happened after your rescue cone was picked up."

Walker rises from his seat and walks past her, to the other side of the semi-circular room. Along the smooth white wall he glides his hand over the surface in some kind of contemplation. Dexter notices the quietness that hangs in the room. It accentuates any minute sound- clothing shifted, breath sharp exhaled, tea sipped.

He faces her, "you shall learn of the Univarians. But let us not speak in perfect chronological order. lf one thing I have learned through several chance (on occasion predetermined courses) this Universe (along with the many others) nothing follows an exact course. The human mind is a little collection of mini universes. Human subconscious self has repeatedly shown what appears to be chaos."

"What are you suggesting?" Dexter probes.

Cutter returns to his seat. Instead of sitting immediately, he moves the table to the side and pulls his chair closer to hers.

"Your place in all of this," he infers, eventually, after much getting himself settled.

"Me?"

"You," Walker repeats once more with typical monotone emotionless, like his voice is being played back on her recorder.

"Why? My life is-"

"Absolutely fascinating, " he interjects. There's a very awkward pause.

"I...came here to-t-t..." she stammers.

" 'To'?" His mind checks every fibre of the female human before him.

"Are you interested in me?" She adds a flirting note, feeling no desire to arouse herself merely turning it on for a purpose that every adult does.

"No."

"Have you any desire whatsoever Alan?"

"No."

"Any female member of the human race?"

"No."

"No sex life? Yearning or anything of that type?"

"No."

"Why?" the reporter finds herself slipping into exasperation.

He doesn't answer.

"When was the last time you felt anything for...anyone?" She attempts to cajole more out of him apart from the basic facts but there is now something rather stunted in his body language.

He bows his head in a slow, deliberate movement, bringing both hands to the top of his long locks of hair; running his fingers through the thick brown mass. An odd gesture. As though she has pinned a marker which jarrs like a broken limb inside of him.

"Does that concern a certain humanness in you? Does it disturb you?" Not only does she feign compassion (in reality thinking it a small victory).

He pulls his face with a slow drag of his hands across it, contorting his features. Underneath, as his hands pull down and reveal his face, his expression hasn't changed whatsoever.

'Had his expression changed?' Thinks Dexter, moving her recorder, feeling uncomfortable with Walker close, 'or has he been playing another fucking game?'

"There was a girl. Many, many years ago who I used to....love?"

"You sound unsure?"

"I can never be sure of anything from then Ms. Dexter. Particularly that element which held me with a thin thread to my former life. Life before the Univarians."

"But I thought you said that you remembered everything?" She cross-examines him, scoring a second minor victory.

"I...........summon up everything with precision but have difficulty conveying emotional past. Is that better?" He checks it like an actor in working progress with a director.

"Sure," she shrugs.

"This young lady..I wouldn't say it was an affair that bore great depth. Then, I wouldn't say it was casual either."

"What was her name?"

"Patricia Webb. She married a Robert Benton in the year 4071, August 2Ist," his facts are falling into place easier now and he returns to monotone with Dexter. She is intrigued by how he can know this information, "a fine upstanding man I believe. A plumber. She lived long and happy with him. There was one instance though which…"

"What?" Dexter is now more than intrigued.

He carries on regardless, "I revisited Earth...eventually....some years later....4O83. Specifically to track her down."

"Why?" The reporter asks softly.

"That......I cannot tell you. Something within me drew me back to my home planet...then."

" 'Then'?"

"I have no home. I have nothing. No place. No need," Cutter rests his hands formally on the arms of his seat.

"That would sound rather pityful..you know," she smiles.

"Would it?" Every question is countered with some query. "Surely it is an advantage to look on such confines of the heart as weaknesses and therefore be rid of them, so as to release one's self to a better life."

"Do you believe that?!" The journalist feels like laughing aloud.

"No."

"Then why say it?"

"It is always advisable to take in every conceivable approach to a situation or given thing and attempt to convey every possible outcome, angle."

"That was merely one?" Mary asks.

"Sure. After the Univarians I had no more need for any of that. Human in appearance but. .without the most important ingredient."

"Which 'important ingredient'?" She questions him feeling fatigued.

"The soul," he answers undramatically.
*
"They took it away from me. Like an unburdening of a human soul I remember waking in my S.C. I couldn't for a moment recall where I was, events had transpired so quickly, I looked before me for a moment, expecting to see Holodern IV. Or if I looked around the interior of the Longfox. But it seemed I was inside a sun. A bright whiteness with strange blurred shapes.

"As my eyes focused there seemed to be millions, to many to count, of these forms moving. I appeared to be moving through them. Then it all came back. That huge vessel which had suddenly appeared in front of me.

"I felt cold. Colder than I can ever remember being. A seemingly inhuman temperature, dropping, steady; more so by the seconds that passed. The stench of my own vomit over my chest burned. Smoke rose from where bile had been brought up. It then disappeared as though never having been there. I could see my S.C being pulled to some source of energy above. I could almost hear......like....choral music.....ancient sounds of a choir...singing some...mass, a requiem?"

Dexter quickly changes the full disk in the recorder. After having the revelation of his lost soul before, a few hours back, Cutter has rejoined her. He went for a walk, alone, around his gallery. He had left somewhat distracted....but not by her, by some long forgotten picture, which had been hinted to him through their conversation. A picture, not in the literal sense, something posing the question: had he made a difference?

"Er...requiem?" The reporter finds it difficult to swallow what he is feeding her, " 'Mass'? 'Choral music'? What do you mean? Is it a question of some greater being? It sounds rather fanciful."

"Not some great being Ms. Dexter. Millions or billions of greater beings. Actually existing. Not in some religious debate on the existence of God. Univarians are fact," defending the aliens he still reveals no emotion; she perceives no indignation, anger, any irrational defensive manoeuvre, she wishes he did, it has started to become tedious, wearing.

"Kyrie. Gloria. Sanctus. Benedictus. Angus Dei," Cutter shifts across the room uttering Latin, a dead language past, gone. He sweeps his right hand over the far wall to where they are sat.

A small disk player of some kind comes out from the pristine surface. The reporter cannot recognize the make. From another section of the wall a tray of light projects itself beside the player. Removing a disk of brightness from it, having no defined form, its edges undulate as he slips it into the machine.

"What kind of a disk is that?"

Music surrounds Mary. From all directions, from hidden speakers the sound follows her as she rises; it is as though the system is catering for her movements, making sure that she enjoys the experience aurally to the full. Men and boys singing, their vocal ranges being shaped and run through like water directed.

The first piece finishes, reverberating about the large space of the room. A second piece begins. It seems to test the sensitivity of the listener's nature. The composer uses amplitude, duration, timbre, pitch and morphology to express some state which seems strange when compared against Walker's cold, mercenary, presence.

Cutter moves toward where Dexter stands. She looks out of the window to the flat plain outside with its fine sand. The music plays on. She did not realize how much time had elapsed, lost in the sudden welcome intrusion of sound. Instead of taking his seat, he moves closer to her. Out in the desert, through window which Dexter looks, feeling his presence close, a dark formation of cold by her, she stares into the strange planet's sky. Burning with a blue that seems to possess an odd tranquillity- a reflection of her listening to the ancient music.

Now all her thoughts transfer back into themselves and desolve. Desolve into nothingness. Each aching, wrought fibre from her mind seemingly healed over, her work having brought her to something she thought she would never know; to a state that she could never have guessed at. The woman thinks in broken images of thought; 'to know not. I'm....Mary......Dexter................aren't I? Am.....I.....not.........? What.....is going.......on?'

"I lost consciousness once more, " Walker's voice makes her turn around to face him.

For some reason, Dexter closes her eyes. She feels his hands on her shoulders. Not in a trance-like manner. Not in a crass, sexual way. Not pseudo-paternal. Not anything. A pure gesture of contact. Chills run up her spine as though a thousand worries that have dogged her, hassled her everyday life, are released into his hands.

'Is it my imagination?' The woman contemplates the question in her head. It is an insubstantial thought for in that present moment she cares not. A moment flicks into past. Her memory, as soon as she queried it, the process vanishes off and is soaked into a cloud of calm, of his breath like air involving itself around her own body.

"The next I knew," his voice seems to be penetrating her chest and passing through his hands, indelible on her mind, "I found myself in space. There were no interiors. No colours, nothing. My ears could just faintly hear sounds like beings talking underwater. It sounded like speech but for some reason my brain could not recognize it. It was curious, like they or it were speaking with a million intonations within their patterns of communication. I felt it more than heard.

"I had no idea of time whatsoever. I thought an average cliched response that I had died. What I experienced was the start of the afterlife.

"How.........foolish.

"Then they made themselves known to me. The Univarians transformed themselves into forms I could recognize. Communicated in a way, which I understood. I recollect saying out loud 'why do I not feel fear?'

"The whole of my being seemed to glow on the inside. Whilst in the hospital ship I kept worrying about how I had been struck out of the game so quickly, I had nightmares aboard the R. C Longfox of being killed as easy in battle. But none of that mattered anymore.

"I arose from a bed. I did not feel ashamed of my nakedness. I did not wonder where the bed had suddenly come from. I wasn't perturbed at all in my mind. In body. Why should it have? And then, inside my head I heard my own voice but with someone else using it: 'why should you be disturbed by what you see? It is merely your human brain attempting to gauge what surroundings you are in.'

"These were more than mere thoughts Ms. Dexter. It was like I felt their language. Telepathically they told me a brief history: 'Alan Walker: human. Born: 4049. Speak, thought pattern: English. We know of your culture and all that you do. Do not be alarmed. Welcome. Alan Walker. Do not be alarmed.'

"They entered my confidence and I had no fear, my very being seemed at their mercy. I felt as if my soul were being unloaded from me like unwanted baggage; even in those early stages.

"They spoke to me further: 'You have suffered a great traumatic experience Alan Walker. You have a young heart, your survival will be guaranteed. No problem with physiology but a regard to mental in consideration: cyclothymic structure as human psychologist, analyze mental; more advanced but as of yet underdeveloped until 4235 AD time yours. Concept. Felt. No future we of know already. Time enough.....to speak of many things. Your Homo Sapian language, different forms....you are English, beriddle with slang; yeah. Why are you here? Why are you here? Why are you here? Why are you here?'

"And they repeated this question over and over again," Walker turns his head to an awkward lopsided position, as if trying to comprehend that moment of contact with the Univarians; in his mind a press of confusion burns bright but doesn't consume as it would with a stable person," several voices sometimes, in perfect unison. I could not understand, still in a daze. Then all of a sudden they stopped."

He draws back from Dexter. She is immediately snapped out of contact with him.
~
"Perhaps the Homo Sapian knows not why he is here?" Univarian No. 1.

"But I think that he does not know what point in universal history it is," Univarian No. 2.

"Why say you?" Univarian No. 3.

"May I interject?" Univarian No. 4.

"Interject, " Univarian No.1.

"From the manner of the vessel in which we found him, this is known as a Survival Cone, circa 4057- time built to: a) ensure safety from vessel/station or other body just aborted, b) give sixty-eight hours of service so as to allow a chance fair of occupant being rescued, c) serve as temporary shelter if landed upon a planet. But facts are unnecessary in this particular case to mull over," Univarian No. 4 shows the extent of knowledge which its race has," he and his colleagues have been brought to us by sheer chance."

"Impossible. It could not have been unknown," Univarian No. 5.

"But it was known. We must have known. Will be known. By a few of us. They came in no fixed course but through a hole in the fabric of their dimension. It is now our choice to cease that which they will go on to do," Univarian No. 4.

"The question here is not to debate but merely act in accordance with that which we know will happen. Leave them and other races to their own histories," Univarian No. 6.

"We do not disagree in the term of what you are saying. But it is for their own sake it concerns me, much suffering, as we have seen before, results in their change," Univarian No.1.
~
"Then there was silence. They left me in a white room. It had formed into some large honeymoon suite. I lay on a large double, four-poster, bed. The Univarians had left me (so it seemed ) to mull over their words. Later, I discovered, they never intentionally play psychological games. It is an inherent beauty with their race: they never try to interrupt any other races history. The Univarian see all. All before it happens. Having lived for the whole of known time. Knowing how it will all end. They will be there. And then at the beginning again."

Dexter can see a flash of some lone lost abstract indication, a mark almost indiscernible within his white, pure eyes. He seemed ghastly to behold first of all. She wept in fear, in shock. At the time the reporter thought Satan had come for her, which was odd because the reporter had always seen herself as devout atheist.

She blacked out. Then she remembers being where she interviews Walker, Cutter- the legend, a myth. He had a gentle grace when he picked her up off the floor as she attempted to crawl across it away from him tending her wounds. She had screamed and he merely calmed her. He reached under her shoulders and buttocks, lifting, placing the reporter back on the bed. She recalls that it was as though he were picking up a box filled with nothing. He said: "Welcome. Do not be alarmed."
*
"So what happened to you after they left?" Dexter's recorder snaps back on.

"It was then I learned of the others-"

"What 'others'?" She hadn't covered this aspect very well, interrupting him in mid-flow bringing his words to a jittering stop, "there are more of you? Like you?"

"Of course," he shifts in his seat, stretching his arms up, warming his muscles, "you seem...........surprised."

"More of you?"

"Not more of me."

"Not 'others' then? I don' t understand," Dexter complains.

"Men of my longevity, but with different...dispositions," Cutter ponders long over his words.

"Explain."

"From the R.C Longfox, eleven survival cones were picked up by the Univarians, one of them obviously being mine. The other ten I met later:- Officer Reed, Captain Brice, Lieutenant Chee, Corporal Ball, Private Dobrovowski, Private Irons, Private Lee, Private Webster, Sub-man Slyth and Sub-man Wheeler.

"Sub-man Wheeler: an alcoholic residing in Cetrian VI. Sub-man Slyth: I slew in 4094 AD. Private Webster and Private Lee: own their security business on Masstri, heading their operations from Ceveran II (a strictly off-limits station under the blind eye of the Masstri government). Private Irons: held within a mental institution on Mars. Private Dobrovowski: a lucrative dealer in the Velox system. Corporal Ball: under the pseudonym of Cpt. Rupert Treaves- head of police on Earth. Lieutenant Chee: living in a monastery on Saf El. Captain Brice: unknown. Sgt. Reed: killed in action.

"Of course being the only human beings for billions upon billions of light years we did not have any antagonism toward each other. In fact, it would be true to say it pulled us together as a 'team'. But the traits of what weaknesses we had before made themselves known in years to come. Focusing in on each one of us. One can conquer that last blight upon one's person or...go down such as Wheeler."

"So there are still some who have not overcome it, some say like.." Dexter skips back on her recorder to find the name, "Lt. Chee? He seems to have battled weakness to the full."

"Perhaps," Walker intones with an off-the-cuff word that shows his indifference.

"Why 'perhaps'? Surely he has!" Mary expostulates.

"How can I speak for him? You must speak for yourself. And it would be shallow of me to account for another person's feelings or well being or thought processes."

The reporter switches on the recorder, "but how did this all come about? You haven't told me of what happened after they left you. Did you meet them there? All at once? Separately? After the Univarians?"

Walker closes his eyes like in some psycho, a serial killer in an overplayed movie. He turns his head as though listening to the walls of the room; as if the very interior itself were speaking to him, the next words of what should be said. The whole atmosphere of the place seems to change as a thousand thought processes flash in a burst of activity within him.

He opens his eyes slowly. Looking directly at Dexter he moves into another monologue.