Zombies ahead of us, zombies behind us.
“That way!” cried Tim, pointing to our left. He began running toward the bleachers that extended out from the wall.
I followed his lead, though I couldn’t figure what good it would do us.
We scrambled up the bleachers.
The zombies shambled toward us, slowly but inexorably.
“This way,” said Tim. “I’ve got another idea!”
I followed him along the top row of seats—and suddenly I thought I knew what his idea was. Ahead of us, tied to the wall, were a pair of thick ropes. “Climbing ropes,” explained Tim as he began to fumble at the knot holding one in place.
I started to work at the other.
The zombies began to cluster below us. Their slow, awkward movements made it hard for them to climb the bleachers. The ones at the rear pressed forward. The ones at the front began to trip their way up the steps. We waited… waited… waited. The zombies were crawling up the steps, getting close, closer, too close, way too close…
“Now!” cried Tim.
Pushing out from the wall, we swung over their heads, far out into the gym. At the far end of the arc I let go of my rope—and landed on something incredibly springy.
“Pleskit!” cried Tim as I bounced into the air. “Get off the trampoline and follow me!”
“I’m trying!” I cried as I bounced again. “I’m trying!”
Fortunately, the zombies were tangled up in themselves as they tried to get off the bleachers and turn back in our direction.
“Get them!” shrieked Skizzdor. “Get them!”
He wasn’t standing that far from the trampoline. I had had plenty of practice bouncing on my bed. Circumstances were desperate. I decided to take a chance. Instead of trying to decrease my bounces, I made them bigger. Boing. Boing!
Boing!!
I flew off the trampoline and landed directly on Skizzdor, who collapsed beneath me.
“Nice shot!” cried Tim.
Skizzdor moaned but seemed to be unconscious.
I staggered to my feet and moaned myself as I realized the zombies were still after us.
“Come on!” cried Tim. “Let’s get out of here!”
We bolted for the far door, pulled it shut behind us. It wouldn’t stop the zombies, but it would slow them down.
We pelted down the hallway, back through the other gym door, knowing that the zombies would follow our trail, rather than doing the smart thing and coming back by the short way.
“Okay, what’s your idea?” I panted.
Tim told me.
“Let’s do it!” I cried.
We hurried to his display and grabbed his grandmother’s spray gun. “What’s in there now?” I asked as we hurried to my display.
“Nothing but water,” he said.
“Good, we probably need to dilute this anyway.” While Tim unscrewed the cap at the end of the spray gun, I opened the antidote. I poured it into the spray gun. “Shake it up,” I said.
We could hear the zombies coming down the hall.
Still following Tim’s plan, we scurried over to Michael’s pulley display and scrambled into the bucket.
The zombies were almost at the door.
“I sure hope this will hold both of us,” said Tim.
“I hope he designed the pulley ratio so that I can lift us!” I responded as I began to pull on the ropes.
Creaking and complaining, the pulleys did their job, multiplying my effort into a much greater force. Slowly we began to rise from the gymnasium floor. When we were as high as we wanted, I wound the rope around my hand another time.
“I’m not sure how long I can hold this,” I whispered.
“Just another few minutes,” whispered Tim encouragingly. “You can do it! I know you can!”
The zombies were at the door. We ducked our heads so that we were just peering over the edge of the bucket.
Once they were in the room the zombies stopped in confusion. They looked around, then sniffed the air again. A moment later they were shambling in our direction.
Soon they had gathered in a knot below us.
“All right, lower the bucket!” whispered Tim.
I let us down a few feet so we were dangling over their heads but still out of reach.
Groaning mindlessly, the zombies stretched their arms toward us.
Tim leaned out of the bucket and began to pump the spray gun.
CHAPTER 19 [TIM]
SKIZZDOR
As soon as the purple mist of the antidote drifted over the zombies, I could see them begin to relax. Their mindless groans stopped. They dropped their arms to their sides. They twitched a few times, then blinked, then shook their heads.
A moment later a babble of voices broke out. The words were angry, confused, frightened, but—and this was the beautiful thing—each person was shouting something different.
My favorite was my mother, who shouted, “Timothy, you get down from there!”
Leaning over the edge of the bucket, which made it tip dangerously, I said, “Wait just a minute, Mom. The rat that did this to you is still on the loose—and still dangerous. Pleskit knocked him out, but I suspect he’ll be back in a minute.”
The crowd began to mutter, some angrily, some in fear. It was wonderful to hear the difference in their voices.
“Listen!” I cried, holding up my hands. “I’m afraid he’s got a weapon of some kind. If he realizes you’re free of his power, he might use it. But if you’ll all pretend you’re still zombies, I think we can catch him.”
Dr. Frobisher and McNally quickly got the idea, and convinced the others to go along with it. So they were all standing below us, stretching their arms up and groaning mindlessly when Skizzdor came limping back into the gym.
“Good!” he cried. “You’ve trapped them.”
He hobbled over to where Pleskit and I were dangling in the air. “Get back,” he ordered the people, assuming that they were still zombies. “Get back.”
Muttering and shuffling, the crowd backed away, forming a circle around him.
He looked up at us. “You boys might as well come down,” he said triumphantly. “You can’t escape now!”
Which was when McNally conked him on the head.
CHAPTER 20 [PLESKIT]
A LETTER HOME
FROM: Pleskit Meenom, on the always interesting Planet Earth
TO: Maktel Geebrit, on the much-missed Planet Hevi-Hevi
Dear Maktel:
Well, there it is—the story of how I survived my latest glikksa idea. Believe me, I will never again mess around with an Earthling’s mind. It leads to more trouble than it is worth.
I have only a few details left to tell. After Tim and I had lowered ourselves to the floor,
I helped McNally find the way to peel off Skizzdor’s mask. You should have heard the gasps from the Earthlings when they saw his pebbly orange face.
McNally called in reinforcements, hoping to catch Skizzdor’s cohort, Urkding. But Urkding never showed up—probably because he had some way of knowing their plan had fallen apart.
It will probably not surprise you to learn that Skizzdor was working for our old enemy Harr-giss. So even though Harr-giss himself remains in custody, his agents are still trying to sabotage our efforts here on Earth.
“I don’t know why he doesn’t just sit back and let you do the job for him,” snapped the Fatherly One, in the first flush of his anger.
He was most upset with me for creating the Suggestibility Ray.
However, his anger was softened by two things:
First, I think he is starting to feel a great deal of guilt over the amount of time he spends away from the embassy.
Second, if it had not been for the Suggestibility Ray, Skizzdor might have succeeded in his scheme to kidnap me.
“Even so,” said the Fatherly One, “you must not tamper with the Earthlings’ brains like this.”
“But think how beneficial this technology would be for
them!” I cried.
“And have you forgotten the laws forbidding us to interfere with the development of a species?” he replied sharply. “This could cause us no end of trouble with the Trading Federation.”
I sighed. “Must we erase the Earthlings’ memory of what has happened?”
The Fatherly One looked at me in shock. “What an immoral idea! It would be totally unethical to take from a being the memory of an experience it has already had. Really, Pleskit, I have been neglecting your education. I must spend more time with you.”
So things didn’t work out all bad after all, since I have been most anxious for the Fatherly One to do exactly that.
The Fatherly One has hinted that it might actually work out for you to come to visit. I hope, hope, hope that this is true. It would be great for you to meet my new friends and get a firsthand look at this planet. Strange as it might seem, I am actually starting to like the place!
Please write soon.
Fremmix Bleeblom!
Your pal,
Pleskit
SPECIAL BONUS: On the following pages you will find Part Five of Disaster on Geembol Seven—Pleskit’s story of what happened on the last planet where he lived before coming to Earth.
This story is being told in six installments, one at the end of each of the first six books of the Sixth-Grade Alien series.
The final thrilling chapter will appear in Book Six: Class Pet Catastrophe!
DISASTER ON GEEMBOL SEVEN PART FIVE: “AN ANCIENT WRONG”
FROM: Pleskit Meenom, on Planet Earth
TO: Maktel Geebrit, on Planet Hevi-Hevi
Dear Maktel:
As I have been promising, here is more about what happened to me on Geembol Seven.
Just to remind you: The Fatherly One and I had been on the planet only a few days when he took me out to the Moondance Celebration. During the festivities I spotted a six-eyed boy named Derrvan who seemed to be in great distress. I followed him to the waterfront, where I was yanked into a hidden elevator and taken deep beneath the surface of the planet.
The being who had pulled me in was one of those illegal combinations of biological and mechanical parts you and I have been taught to fear since we were little: a construct. It turned out that Derrvan’s father had worked with the constructs. But before Derrvan and Balteeri could tell me what they wanted we were pursued deeper into the planet, to an underground city filled with constructs. Balteeri led us to a chapel where he asked the serha in charge, a female construct named Dombalt, to tell me their story.
Serha Dombalt stared at me from the shadow of her hooded cloak. “How much do you know about the history of the constructs?”
“Only what everyone knows,” I replied. Then I felt the coldness of pizumpta. What everyone “knows” about the constructs, of course, is that they were the evil invention of a warped genius, that they were the implacable enemies of biological beings, that they would just as soon kill you as look at you, that… well, I knew a whole lot of things that weren’t very nice and that should have left me terrified. Yet none of what I “knew” seemed to match the experience I had had so far with these constructs.
Of course, the other thing everyone knows is that despite occasional scare stories about “construct sightings,” the creatures had been wiped out in the Delfiner War.
“We have a saying,” murmured Serha Dombalt, interrupting my thoughts. “No matter how much you know, there’s always more to the story.”
“Especially when so much of what you think you know is wrong,” growled Balteeri.
Serha Dombalt raised a hand to silence him. “The saying is valid no matter how much you know,” she said quietly. “Even if it’s all true.” She turned back to me. “This much of what I suspect you have been told is true: The first constructs were made over a thousand grinnugs ago, long before the birth of the Trading Federation. It was a time of turmoil in the galaxy, for a great—and unnecessary—struggle between religion and science was shaking systems to their roots.
“Three things happened that led to the Delfiner War. The first was the perfection of the technology that let doctors replace any lost limb or organ with a mechanical substitute. This was actually accomplished by Derrvan’s grandfather.”
I started to ask how Derrvan’s grandfather could have been involved in something that happened so long ago, but quickly realized there were a dozen ways it was possible, anything from the time-warping effects of sub-light-speed travel to a long term in suspended animation, to… well, a variety of things I had probably never even heard of.
“The second major step toward the war,” continued Serha Dombalt, “came when those replacement body parts were refined so that they exceeded the original biology, making many constructs stronger or more adept than ‘organics,’ as nonconstruct beings began to refer to themselves.” She sighed. “This created an undercurrent of jealousy that was ripe for fanning into the flames of hate.
“The third step came with the perfection of yet another technology, one that allowed a body to regrow any lost part. When this happened, a number of fanatical religious groups began claiming that only a natural body was acceptable in the eyes of whatever god they worshiped, and that constructs were ‘abominations’ or ‘works of the Great Evil’ or ‘Children of Refuljus’ or… well, any of a thousand other things.
“In this way the constructs became the focal point for a clash between science and religion that had been brewing for hundreds of grinnugs. Remember, this was early in the history of the Connected Galaxy, and the Great Understanding had not yet even been dreamed of.
“The war started small but spread fast, as often happens with these things. But this was not merely a war between constructs and organics, or between two planets. It was between science and religion, and its flames swept the galaxy in a wave of destruction unlike anything seen before or—thank all that is good—since.
“Each side, of course, believed it was totally in the right. Fortunately, there were beings of goodwill on both sides, who soon recoiled in horror from the destruction that had been unleashed, and began to seek for a peace. Though the war was about far more than the constructs, we had become a symbol of the clash, and we were the final sticking point in the solution.
“Eventually a secret agreement was reached, largely through the efforts of Derrvan’s father.”
I glanced at the six-eyed boy. I think it was the first time I had seen him smile.
“That agreement called for the Geembolians to accept the remaining constructs—and there were not that many of us, for an enormous number had died during the war—here on their planet. Or, to be more precise, in their planet. In return, the Geembolians insisted that the deal remain a secret, for we were still considered both a shame and a danger.”
Serha Dombalt’s voice became sharp with anger.
“Did money change hands? Almost certainly. Did the common people of Geembol know about the deal? Possible, but highly unlikely. We have remained here ever since, the secret shame of the Geembolian government, sealed in our underground world, where we were allowed to live, but just barely. We are illegal in the greater galaxy, through old laws that remained long after the war was over. But most people think we are gone, and use us simply as a story to frighten young ones into behaving. Here on Geembol there is an elite corps of construct hunters, a secret service that devotes all its energy to keeping us from escaping.”
“But if this happened so long ago, why are there so many of you now?” I asked, feeling confused.
“Pride,” said Balteeri. “We refuse to accept the judgment of others, and so we live, and we marry, and we reproduce, and all our children are constructs, too. We replace limbs and organs not because they are defective, but because there are better things available.”
I felt a tightening in my clinkus. I would hate to be the child of a construct.
Serha Dombalt sighed.
“The Delfiner War is still taught in school, of course, as it should be, since it was the last of t
he galaxy-wide conflicts. But, like the history of most wars, it is taught badly, and the ‘facts’ depend on which side is telling the story. Little thought or question is given to the constructs and what happened to them. We have lived beyond the notice of most of the rest of the galaxy for these many hundred grinnugs. However, now we are in grave danger.”
I looked at her curiously. “Why now, after all this time?”
She placed her hand against the stone wall. “This underground city that has sheltered us for so long is about to collapse. That collapse might not happen for another Geembolian year. It might as easily happen tomorrow. The timing is not certain, but the fact that it will happen is as certain as stone.”
I glanced around nervously. “What do you mean?”
“The planet is shifting,” explained the serha, “as all living planets do. Tectonic pressure is building, pressure that must soon be released in a grinding earthquake—an earthquake that will destroy the city, send it crashing down around us. When that happens we will be buried alive, and the place that was once our shelter will become our tomb. We have to leave here. But the Geembolians have us bottled in, and turn a deaf ear to our pleas.”
“They don’t believe you?” I asked in horror.
“They don’t even listen,” said Serha Dombalt. “We are a bad memory, a blot on their conscience, a mistake no one wants to remember, a secret kept from their own people. The ancient bargain still rankles, and the planetary government will not admit that we are even here, much less that we are in danger. The death of our city will close a chapter of their history they would rather forget anyway.”
“They’d rather let you die than admit they were wrong?” I asked in astonishment.
“Such are the ways of power,” said Serha Dombalt. Her voice was remarkably calm, given what she had just told me.
“I still don’t understand what this has to do with me,” I said, feeling more nervous than ever.
Balteeri spoke up. “I originally went to seek Derrvan, who is our last link to the outside world. I went alone, and barely escaped the construct hunters. But when I returned to Geembol with Derrvan, I learned of your Fatherly One’s trade mission. He has credibility here. He will be a source of money for the planet. We want you to get him to speak to the Geembolian leaders on our behalf.”
Zombies of the Science Fair Page 7