But for the strange glow of the crystal on the roof of the battery, I could have convinced myself that this was no more than a pleasant diversion. Patrick and I immensely enjoyed ourselves fishing and swimming and simply taking in the scenery.
   Early on the afternoon of our fifth day we had finished a light lunch of bread, sausage and cheese, and had now reached the bottom half of our last bottle of wine. We were sitting in the shade of a large tree dreamily looking at the view of the cliffs and trees, and at the cloud formations. By that time, rides to the stars were the farthest thing from our mind. In fact, we were thinking that in the next few days, we would continue our journey into the neighbouring country. The realities of nature, the water fall, the cliffs, the trees, the stars at night — everything but the glowing crystal — had put any fantasies out of our mind.
   I remember looking at one cloud as it drifted in the wind. Suddenly, it looked like a small piece of the cloud decided to shoot off on its own. Parts of the cloud were left behind in a trail as a small circular piece sped onward.
   ‘Look at that!’ I said.
   ‘Where?’
   ‘Right there. See?’
   We both looked as the small circle came nearer and nearer. In those days before aircraft, you can imagine our amazement. The only things that flew in those days were birds and insects. This was no bird.
   Suddenly I knew this was the flying sphere we were (or weren’t) waiting for. Even though Patrick had been more believing than I, he was equally amazed.
   ‘It really flies! There really is a flying sphere!’ was all he could say.
   The sphere came to a point directly overhead and suddenly stopped in mid-air. Then, it began to slowly descend. The lower it came, the larger we could see it was.
   By the time it came to the point about twenty feet above the battery, we could see that it was actually ten times the size of the battery. Here, it stopped in mid-air.
   We both stood there where we had been sitting, some distance from the battery. Part of me wanted to flee, but the more sensible part of me, that knew that this was after all what we were waiting for, somehow managed to keep me still, despite the other part of me wondering if I ever knew what I was waiting for in the first place, and now I did have some knowledge, if it wouldn’t be better to take flight.
   As it hovered there, something else began to happen. The iron rod lay back down of its own accord. Then, a circular hole on the bottom of the sphere opened up to reveal a design the exact size and shape, and a similar pattern to that on the roof of the port house. The design was circular, and the pattern was that of concentric circles, with sections like slices of a pie. At that moment, both designs opened as though the pie slices were triangular shutters fastened by hinges on the outer part of the circle. Then, the sphere came slowly lower until the triangular shutters on the roof of the port house meshed with the triangular shutters on the bottom of the sphere. Then, the sphere came even lower so that the cylinder formed by the two sets of hinges disappeared inside of the craft. Now, it looked like a giant mushroom with the port house being the stem.
   The loud humming noise emitting from the sphere then died down. The next thing we knew, a man appeared at the door of the port house. The only way to describe him was that he looked like a medieval friar. Everything about him — his posture, his dress, and even a shorn spot on his head (the hood of his cloak was down) — was that of a friar.
   We began to walk carefully towards the man. His humble appearance offset any fear or awe that could have paralysed us or sent us off in the opposite direction — at least for me. Patrick seemed to have a bit of aprehension.
   I took the initiative:
   ‘Good day to you sir,’ I said in English.
   The man pondered a moment, and answered, ‘Good daye to thee. Whither wendist thee that mye servyce mightest holpen?’
   ‘Beg your pardon?’ said Patrick.
   ‘Whither loongen thee to goon?’
   We tried a few more times to make ourselves understood. Having studied and memorised parts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tails, I suddenly realised that the language was actually an earlier form of English, but it took me a while because that was the last sort of language I would have expected him to speak.
   ‘Wendest we to Lactid,’ I said finally.
   After a few more words back and forth, which I barely understood, we had managed to communicate that we knew two men named Clarence and Morris. I gave him the letter from Clarence. He read it, nodded, and then motioned us into the port house.
   He seemed quite old, and his facial features sharp — sharp nose, sharp cheeks, a tuff of brownish white hair descending over the dome of his otherwise bald head — and yet a fatherly air that radiated from the same features which, to me anyway, put me at ease. I think, though, he looked too Roman Catholic for Patrick’s liking.
   We entered the port house and found a winding steel staircase coming down from the ceiling where there certainly wasn’t one before. Light shown from above as though sunlight were shining through the roof. I momentarily forgot about the giant sphere on the roof and thought it was indeed sunlight. Instinctively, Patrick and I went for our belongings.
   At once, the friar put his hand out as though preventing us.
   ‘What bringist ye?’ he inquired.
   Without waiting for an answer, he took first my bag, and then Patrick’s, opening both, and examining all of the contents. Each item met with his disapproval. He’d pick up one thing after another and say something like, ‘Nae this.’ When he was finished with the bags, he began to examine our clothes as though they were the next item to be inspected. They also failed inspection.
   ‘Strip thee of thyne appearyle. They and thyne stuff, put thee here.’
   At that, he went to the wall of the port house, pressed on a stone that protruded slightly from the rest of the stonework, and pulled at a rather large slab. At once the slab slid across as though it were the sliding door of a wardrobe, revealing a vast space inside in which were stored more bags and overcoats, presumably of other space travellers.
   Patrick and I looked at one another in amazement. Then, we began removing our clothes and putting them in our bags. At this point, I was more confident of ourselves than Patrick, who looked as though he were acting out of fear of acting inappropriately in such an unfamiliar situation — as though responding to an angelic visitation.
   The friar put them and our overcoats into the stone wardrobe. Again pushing the small stone, he slid the slab back to its original position. The two of us stood there, completely naked. He nodded to us, and began to lead us up the metal staircase.
   Patrick mumbled, ‘Naked came I into this world; naked I leave it.’
   The friar immediately stopped and looked at Patrick for a moment or two.
   ‘Yob,’ he said finally, with a thoughtful look. Then he turned around and led up the stairs.
   ‘He knows the book of Job!’ said Patrick under his breath. This seemed to have put him a bit more at ease.
   The stairs led upwards through a circular aperture in the ceiling the same diameter as the design on the roof. We proceeded upwards as though ascending a castle tower, but the walls were unlike any castle walls I’d ever seen. They were smooth, greyish in colour but almost reflective. The seams caused by the coming together of the shutters on the roof and those on the sphere were barely discernible. In the middle, was a brass coloured poll going all the way up.
   The light coming from above was as bright as daylight. Suddenly realising that the light was actually coming from inside the sphere, I looked up and saw that the whole ceiling panel high above us, except for a round section the circumference of the shaft we were in, was a bright light, brighter than any lamp I had ever seen. Those were, of course, the days before electric fluorescent lights.
   We reached the top of the stairs to find ourselves in a larger somewhat cylindrical room. The walls were, again, of the silver grey reflective surface, and were slightly concave. The floor was a grey rubbery surface that was pleasant on our bare feet. In the middle was the brass poll I described, which served as a pillar.
   The friar went to a section of the wall where there was a round hole. He reached into the hole, and a door formed in the wall. The panel that formed a door sunk into the wall and slid sideways. This appeared to be a storage closet.
   He motioned for us to come, and he began to pull out pieces of different coloured fabric material. He motioned for us to take our pick from the various pieces he pulled out. These were obviously various items of clothing.
   The only things Patrick or myself could recognise were a couple of loose fitting breeches and something like a short skirted tunic. We each picked a set of these, and put them on. The breeches had to be drawn together and tied like a towel when worn around the waist. The tunics came down almost to our knees. All the clothes were of shades ranging from grey to maroon, green, blue and aquamarine. They all had the look and feel of the same material.
   It was then that I realised that our friar’s outfit, though the style was that of a friar’s, the material was the same as all the other pieces of clothing, which was not like that of a friar at all. It was a silky grey colour, that reflected a different colour depending on how the light hit it.
   The grey pieces reflected more colours than the coloured pieces, and were thus more beautiful looking. I chose a green tunic and a pair of grey breeches, and Patrick chose a grey tunic and maroon breeches. The tunics had a belt that tied at the waste. We later discovered large pockets near the skirts.
   The friar looked at us and nodded with approval. Then, he motioned for us to follow him to another hole in the wall, into which he reached his hand, and again, a door appeared. This time, it was to a staircase curving around the outside of the large cylindrical room. We followed him up the staircase to a smaller room directly above the cylindrical room.
   This room was much darker, and had a low concave ceiling, and we could only stand upright when we were near the middle of the room. There were ten seats all in a circle close together that struck me then as looking like a strange sort of over stuffed arm chair. A hundred years later, they would have been described more like jet fighter’s seats. In the middle of the circle was a large rounded indentation in the ceiling, like the inside of a bubble. Just below this ‘bubble’ another ‘overstuffed armchair’ was mounted on cross bars that were welded to the four vertical bars that supported the ceiling around about the bubble. There was a circular bar that rested on these so that one could swivel the chair around using one’s feet. In front of the chair, the circumference of the bubble came down lower than the ceiling to almost level with the waist of the person who would sit in the seat. When one was getting in or out, this portion could slide up behind the rest of the bubble. The person’s head would be in the exact centre of the circle of the bubble. About the seat were other objects that I couldn’t recognise at first.
   The friar touched one of the objects near the seat, and at once the concave surface of the bubble lit as though it were a lamp of the same brightness of the ceiling of the room below. Only when I looked a second time did I realised it was a panoramic picture of the sky and the mountains outside. Yet, it wasn’t like a picture. It was more real. One hundred years later, we would have said it was in 3-d. It was, in fact, view of the area directly outside of the craft, as though the craft didn’t exist. In the part of the bubble that protruded below the ceiling, parts of the port house directly below us could also be seen.
   The friar directed us each to one of the seats. Now, with the light coming from the bubble, I could see that the seats were of the same material as our clothes, but all purplish in colour. He sat us down, and brought a Y-shaped bar up from between our legs, also upholstered with the same material, and fastened it so that our bodies were held firmly in our seats. Then, he himself got up into the seat in the bubble, and fastened himself in likewise.
   First, he spun himself around half a turn. As he did, the whole bubble spun with him. I could see that in this way, by turning himself around, he would be able to see anything he wanted that was outside the craft.
   Then, he began tinkering with the objects around him, which consisted mainly of two large silver balls, and other smaller objects. As he did so, a faint hum began to be heard, similar to what we heard from outside as the craft had landed. Suddenly, we began to feel as though we were being lifted up. Judging from the parts of the bubble screen that I could see from where I was seated, we were indeed going slowly upward. The tops of the trees disappeared, and then we saw the rock cliffs beyond. Soon, all we could see of them were the peaks of the mountains beyond the cliffs.
   We proceeded upward slowly for a few minutes, and then came to a stand-still in mid air. The friar turned himself around a couple of turns, as though looking for which direction to go. Finally, he seemed to settle on a course. With a couple strokes of the silver balls and a large lever to the side of him, we suddenly began moving at a higher speed than I had ever moved before.
   I had been taught that at certain high speeds, a body of matter will disintegrate. I looked over at Patrick, and I could tell he had similar fears.
   Looking at the bubble screen, I could see the surface of the earth as though it were in front of us, but noticeably moving as though we were crawling across a large map on our bellies. In the parts that weren’t covered with clouds, I could begin to recognise the shape of the coastline as I had seen it on maps. All of this steadily moved along until all we could see were clouds and ocean. Then, the surface of the ocean curved away from us, and we could see the horizon, and what appeared to be a bluish white mist above it. Beyond that was darkness.
   After this, the friar climbed down from his seat in the helm, and began to undo the Y-bar from around our bodies. We stood up, but we suddenly felt lighter than we had previously.
   I was unstrapped first, and while he was undoing Patrick, I went and looked at the screen. What I saw left me awe-struck. I saw what looked like a huge global map of the world, but different than I had ever seen it. In places, the clouds looked like a mass of porridge. In other parts, I could recognise continents just as I had studied in maps of the world. The whole thing had a misty effect, as though the surface of the earth were shrouded with a ghostly partially visible cloak. Beyond that were more stars than I had ever seen.
   Another large object caught my attention. That was a huge silver ball all covered with grey circles and splotches. It took me a while to realise that this was in fact the moon. For the first time the reality of the fact that the moon is actually a planet-like body much like the earth, dawned on me. Also, the fact that the earth was indeed round, as they taught us, and not flat as previously believed; was suddenly an unshakeable reality.
   Patrick also gazed at the scene with fascination before the friar motioned us to the steps leading down to the door, and down the stairs to the cylindrical room. We almost floated down the steps, we were so light. But the friar seemed to disapprove of our jumping up in the air, so we politely refrained.
   Later I realised that the fact that there was any gravity at all in this craft was a luxury. Many other crafts I’ve been on don’t have gravity at all.
   We entered the cylindrical room, and found that the round aperture down which the spiral staircase descended, had disappeared. It was all grey rubbery floor, with a round seam where the spiral staircase had been, barely discernible, with the brass pillar in the centre.
   He led us across the room to where he reached into another small hole in the wall. I could see that there were similar holes all around the wall, all about waist level. I knew then that these were all accesses to doors or closets. But, when he reached into this hole, instead of the wall, a portion of the floor opened up. There, in front of him, was a staircase leading straight downwards and towards the centre of the craft. To go down, we had to go to the wall and descend towards the middle again.
   There, before us, as we descended, was a cylindrical shaped pillar of the same circumference as the winding staircase that would have been in that spot. The rest of the room was the same shape as the one on top — the bridge deck where we sat while we embarked — however inverted. Instead of the ceiling being concave, the floor was. Set into the floor around the broad pillar were about five seats. The friar showed us how the seats lifted up to become toilets. In front of the seats, mounted on the pillar were what I knew could only be basins. The friar showed us how a hose attached to the side of the basins would squirt water, that could either be directed into the basins so as to wash one’s face and hands, or else directed at one’s self so as to take a bath while seated on the seats in the circle. I only realised later how much of a luxury artificial gravity is for performing one’s ablutions.
   When we had done all that we needed to do, we returned to the cylindrical room. There, we found that in the centre, where the spiral staircase would have been, was now a round table of the same circumference. It was attached to the brass pole in the middle in the middle of the room. Just around where the pole joined the table was an upraised compartment from which the friar was getting out something that looked a bit like bread along with some small pots of jam and other spreads. Round stools had been placed around the table. The bread was of a greener colour than I’d ever seen.
   He sat us down to the table. That’s when I got a shock.
   The friar folded his hands, and said what appeared to be a prayer — in Latin!
   ‘Our, Father,’ he prayed, ‘I bless your name, and give you thanks for this food we are about to receive. Please bless this trip, I pray, and help my friends to find what they seek in these heavens which are the work of your hands. I pray in the name of ha Moshiach our Lord. Amen.’
   He looked up to see Patrick and I gazing at him with open mouths.
   ‘Wherefore beholdist ye me thus?’ he said. Compared to the fluency with which he spoke Latin, the English seemed to be somewhat of a struggle.
   ‘You speak Latin!’ I said, in Latin.
   ‘And so do you!’ he exclaimed. ‘So why do we struggle to speak in a language that is strange to both of us?’
   ‘But why did you speak to us in Middle English?’ asked Patrick.
   ‘I heard you speak words in the Anglo tongue. I used what I remembered from my sojourn on those Isles.’
   ‘You spoke that way when you sojourned there?’ I said. ‘When would that have been?’
   ‘In chronological years, it would have been 420 years ago.’
   In any other circumstances, I would certainly not have believed him; any more than I believed the people at the tavern regarding the flying spheres. But then, nor would have I believed that a day like this would ever occur.
   ‘So you’re quite old then,’ I said.
   ‘No, actually I’m still young,’ he contradicted. ‘I’m not much beyond a thousand, in body years.’
   ‘What’s your name?’ asked Patrick.
   ‘Anselmo,’ he said. ‘As you can see, I am a friar of the order of the Benedictines. I used to be a follower of the dear man himself.’
   ‘You knew St. Benedict?’ I gasped.
   ‘They didn’t start calling him "saint" until later on. I also knew him during some of his more "unsaintly" days, but he was a marvellous teacher and example to us all, to be sure.’
   ‘Don’t you have to obey a superior?’ asked Patrick. Now, he was looking less and less at ease.
   ‘I often stop at a monastery in the Alps of Austria. It has only a few brothers and a superior residing. I make my submissions to the Father Superior there, and he blesses me. There they have a landing pad. Other than those few, no one in any of the orders knows about travelling in the heavens. But, there are many settlements of the devout scattered throughout the heavens. I can take you to one If you wish. Are you both Christians?’
   ‘He is,’ I said, pointing to Patrick.
   ‘Actually I’m a — er...’ Patrick turned to me and asked me in English, ‘How do you say "Protestant" in Latin?’
   ‘He doesn’t submit to the Pope of Rome,’ I told Anselmo.
   ‘Ahh, then he’s of the Eastern churches,’ said Anselmo.
   ‘No — well, do you know of Martin Luther? — King Henry the Eighth? — William of Orange?’ asked Patrick.
   ‘So you’re of those who don’t follow apostolic succession. I’ve known some righteous men among these,’ said Anselmo. ‘But what about you?’ he asked me.
   I answered, ‘I was baptised as a baby in the Church of England, but Patrick here says that’s not enough to qualify me as a Christian.’
   ‘Only your heart can tell you if you’re truly a Christian,’ said Anselmo.
   We finished the meal, and Anselmo put away the food, and then, from one of the storage closets, he produced an old leather bound tome.
   ‘Perhaps you would care to join me for the evening reading?’ he said.
   I noticed that it was an old printed copy of the Bible in Latin.
   ‘I also have Greek and Hebrew if you prefer,’ he added.
   We thought it would be just fine if he read to us in Latin. He read a passage that wasn’t then very familiar to me. Though I know the Scripture passages much better now, my mind was scattered in too many places to remember anything of what he read.
   ‘How long have you had printing presses in the heavens?’ I asked as soon as he was finished.
   ‘Only since quite recently,’ he said. ‘But this Bible, I purchased at the Vatican in Rome. Before the first German press was in operation, we made do with hand written copies just as you did. It was actually I who brought up the first printing press to be used in any of the heavenly settlements.’
   ‘You, here, benefit from Earthly inventions?’
   ‘Oh! Practically everything we have was invented on earth. Perhaps a few things, such as the gravity that holds you to the floor of this craft, and other things essential to living in various situations were developed in the heavens. These ships, among the oldest of their kind, were built on Earth. How could anyone have ever reached the heavens otherwise?’
   Soon, Patrick and I were beginning to feel sleepy. Anselmo did something that caused the table to slide up the poll and become part of the ceiling. After this he went to yet a couple more of the holes in the wall. There, he turned a knob and put his weight on a portion of the floor, causing a rectangular portion the length of a tall body to turn over, revealing a sleeping pad on the flip side. He did this twice, providing a bed for each of us. Patrick and I both settled down, and, after dimming the light, Anselmo went upstairs.