by Geoff Palmer
‘I make car,’ Ludokrus volunteered, seizing the calculator and the motoring magazine. ‘We have already many samples in resource pit.’
‘Sensible car please,’ Alkemy called after him. ‘Ordinary. Must not stand out.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Very sensible,’ he muttered.
Tim slumped on to the bench seat at the front of the caravan. ‘Ow!’ The foam cushions looked soft and squishy but were as hard as concrete. He made a note. ‘You were telling us why you thought the microwave might be a trap,’ he said, looking up from the pad.
A terrific bang rocked the caravan followed by a rasping scrape that set their teeth on edge.
‘What the heck ...?’
Outside Ludokrus laughed. ‘Relax. She now has dent. Also scratch. Sensible scratch,’ he added.
* * *
The Eltherians had been exploring their own solar system for hundreds of years before the breakthrough came, Alkemy explained. They colonised suitable planets, sent probes deep into space and peered at the farthest objects observable through powerful telescopes, but all the while they were haunted by the knowledge that they merely occupied one tiny corner of an immense universe.
And then they discovered how to store time.
As they began to move beyond their own system, the Eltherians finally confirmed what they’d long suspected; that they weren’t the only intelligent life forms in the galaxy. Soon they’d catalogued hundreds of species at a technological level close to that of humans, several dozen at a similar level to themselves, and two vastly more advanced. The discovery of one of these came soon after the first successful test of chronocell technology.
‘The rocks begin to talk to us,’ Alkemy said.
Tiny asteroids orbiting at the very limits of the Eltherian solar system suddenly started broadcasting messages. Investigation showed they were cleverly disguised beacons designed to detect when a civilisation reached a certain technological level.
‘You mean time storage?’ Tim asked.
Alkemy nodded.
The messages came from an ancient people the Eltherians simply called the Old Ones whose beacons had been found in every system the Eltherians subsequently visited.
‘Are they here too?’
‘They are everywhere we go. But think for one moment if really they are throughout our galaxy. Two hundred billion stars, each with their own solar system and each of these with many thousand beacons? Is this possible?’
‘Wow!’
Alkemy shook her head. ‘We think we are much advanced, but even we cannot dream of such a thing.’
‘What did the messages say?’ Coral asked.
‘They take us time to translate but always are the same; rules and guidelines only. Our galaxy is young, they say. She must be allowed to develop in her own way. Advanced peoples must never interfere with those who are less advanced. We must not make war or destroy each other. We may explore and learn but do no harm. Our future and the future of our galaxy depend on this.
‘Amongst my people it is called the Galactic Creed. We are careful to obey. But others do not.’
There was another bang on the side of the caravan and Ludokrus returned to tell them that their new car was growing nicely.
‘What have you made?’
He held out the magazine and pointed to a photographic feature on a 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. The car was enormous. Six metres long with huge tail fins and lights that bulged like the thrusters on a rocket engine. What’s more it was painted shocking pink.
‘Oh no!’ cried Alkemy.
‘Oh cool!’ cried Coral.
‘You like?’ Ludokrus grinned at her.
‘But I say to make normal car,’ his sister said. ‘You think enormous bright pink car is inconspicuous?’
‘No,’ he replied, ‘I listen to you. I change the colour. I make enormous bright black car instead.’
Alkemy groaned and held her head.
Ludokrus waved dismissively. ‘No one will notice him. Besides, this have many picture,’ he flicked through the magazine, ‘Look, proper engine, in many pieces. Even the silly mechanical instrument.’
Coral peered out the window. ‘Where is it?’
He jerked a thumb towards the tip. ‘I make him on the eyebrow of the hill. When he is done I take off brake and steer him down.’
Alkemy sighed and resumed her tale as her brother joined them on the other seat.
‘Ow, hard chair.’
‘Yeah, yeah. I fix.’
‘You were saying how not everyone follows the Galactic Creed,’ Tim prompted.
‘There is one peoples who do not follow,’ Alkemy said. ‘They are called Thanatos and say parts of the galaxy belong to them. We do not argue. Must be careful. We are new, small, weak. They are ancient, many, powerful.’
‘What about the Old Ones?’ Tim asked. ‘What do they say about it?’
‘We do not know what become of them. All we ever find are their beacons. Maybe they die out. Maybe they go to other galaxy. A mystery.’
Coral frowned. ‘So who are these Thanatos guys then?’
‘They are like ... from the cold blood ...’
‘Reptiles?’
‘Yes! They like to conquer and make war. They are much powerful. No one can stand up to them.’
‘They don’t make trouble for you?’
‘You do not pick a fight with ant. Is no contest; no sport. Besides, we are much distance from the centre of their empire. Maybe one day they will expand it, take us over. What do we do then? We are like the ant.’
‘But what’s all this got to do with Aunt Em’s microwave?’ Coral said.
‘Sorry, I have not been clear. We crash in your system, a place where we should not be. By mistake we are trespass. Now the Thanatos will squish us like the ant. But they do not know where we are. If they come to make proper search, humans maybe learn of them, and this they do not want. What to do?
‘When we lose our time it make a special alarm signal. From this they know our chronocells are empty so they make for us a trap. If we survive, they know that we must come to them or spend many, many year to go home.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Coral said. ‘What d’you mean “trespass”? This is our planet and our solar system.’
Alkemy shook her head. ‘You may think this but the Thanatos say it belong to them.’
‘But ... what about us?’
‘You also.’
17 : Syntho Tea
‘Why do we have to get up so early?’ Coral groaned as she slumped at the kitchen table.
‘Early?’ Uncle Frank checked his watch, ‘Half the day’s gone.’
‘Do you have an afternoon siesta or something?’ she scowled.
‘Siesta? What’s that? Auckland talk for goofing off, isn’t it? But I tell you what, since there’s a holiday coming up, I’ll let you two lie in next Monday.’
‘Holiday?’ Tim and Coral looked up. Neither of them were aware of any more holidays till the end of term.
‘Rata Day,’ their aunt said. ‘It’s not an official holiday, but everyone takes the day off. The school shuts down, the shops close ...’
‘What?’ Coral said guilelessly. ‘Both of them?’
Frank snorted. ‘Watch this one, Em.’
‘What’s it for?’ Tim asked. ‘The holiday, I mean.’
‘To celebrate the founding of the town,’ Em replied. ‘There was a gold rush in the 1860s and thousands of people came here from all over the world. At one time Rata was the biggest town on the West Coast.’
‘For almost ten whole minutes,’ Frank said.
‘When the gold ran out they moved on to coal. But that petered out about twenty years ago. There are still dozens of abandoned mines around here but not much of anything else — except for the occasional tourist who takes a wrong turn at Haast.’
Coral nudged Tim with her foot.
‘Speaking of tourists,’ she said with careful casualness, ‘a couple of new kids started at school yesterday. For
eigners. From Norway, aren’t they Tim?’
He nodded dumbly, noticing the way his sister was quietly studying their aunt and uncle.
‘Norway? Jeez, that’s a heck of a commute,’ Frank observed. ‘Didn’t realise Errol Fitchett went out that far.’
‘Well I hope you made them welcome,’ their aunt said. ‘This place needs all the new blood it can get.’
Frank laughed. ‘You make us sound like vampires.’
‘What the heck were you doing?’ Tim hissed once they’d been left alone with the dishes.
‘I wanted to see if I’d get a reaction.’
‘But why?’
‘If the Thanatos set that thing up,’ she jerked a thumb at the microwave, ‘they must have left someone to keep an eye on it.’
‘And you thought ...’
‘That they might look at each other, or ask questions, or ... something.’
The clatter of the cat door made Tim jump. Smudge appeared and gave a plaintive meow before commencing to rub round their legs.
‘Uncle Frank’s not a Thanatos,’ Tim said, rubbing the cat’s ears, ‘he’s Dad’s brother!’
‘Yeah I know, but we don’t know about her. She might be a robot for all we know. They don’t have any kids, do they? Don’t s’pose robots can have ‘em. She’d probably give birth to little toaster ovens or something.’
Tim grinned. ‘Or microwaves.’
* * *
Fitchett’s Flyer wheezed to a halt on the gravel track beside the reserve as Ludokrus and Alkemy came bounding up. They took the seat in front of Tim and Coral, turning and kneeling on it so the four of them could converse face-to-face. As the bus eased away Tim caught sight of a pair of dungaree-clad legs sticking out from beneath rear of the car. Ludokrus, seeing the direction of his stare, gave his head a dismissive jerk and muttered, ‘Albert.’
‘Your robot?’ Coral said.
‘Please, when you meet you must not call him that,’ Alkemy said earnestly. ‘He is “synthetic person”. We say “syntho” for the shortness. It has been this way since Robot Liberation.’
‘Robot Lib ...?’
‘What’s he doing?’ Tim asked.
‘He realise there is no mechanism for caravan to follow car, so he make.’
‘You mean a tow bar?’
‘Ah, you have the words! Yes, tow bar.’
‘So he’s using the calculator?’
‘No, he just use it to make the tools and the materials. With these he will now make tow bar.’
Ludokrus looked at their puzzled faces. He could see what they were thinking. Why bother with all that? Why not use the calculator to make the whole thing?
‘He is a crazy old machine,’ he added. ‘He love mechanical junk. Back home he collect ancient clocks that must be everyday wound up. Always he is taking them apart and fixing.’ He shook his head. ‘The noise, always tick-tick-tick, drive you crazy.’
‘He is good also,’ Alkemy said. ‘Resourceful.’
‘Bah!’
‘For the last two days he is prospecting,’ she explained. ‘We will need many unusual material for the Temporal Accumulator that are not in your resource pit, so he try to find. This area is rich in mineral.’
‘Did he find what you need?’ Tim asked.
‘Some, yes. But we will need others also.’
The bus lurched as Errol ground down a gear at the start of the steeply twisting track that would carry them to Rata. They were all pressed back in their seats as the view outside angled sharply.
‘You haven’t told us how you came to crash here in the first place,’ Coral called above the increased engine noise.
‘You have seen him,’ Ludokrus called back. ‘He is called Albert. He mix up the coordinate. Instead of going this way,’ he indicated the gnarled cliff face from which the road had been cut, ‘he go that way.’ He pointed to the drop.
Coral stared at him, incredulous that a pair of aliens with vastly superior technology could make such a basic mistake as turning left instead of right.
When they’d set off to visit their parents, Albert, their elderly guardian syntho with a love of all things mechanical, had insisted on piloting the starship himself. Like many old eccentric synthos Albert thought he knew everything. That wasn’t much of a problem on their home planet as Eltherians were rather fond silly old synthos and made allowances for them, but once he got behind the controls of a starship he was impossible.
‘I try to tell him,’ Ludokrus said, ‘but he just switch on our suspended animation. When we wake up, we are crash.’
‘It was not his fault ...’ Alkemy began.
‘He go wrong way!’
‘He realise. He was turning back.’
‘But still he crash.’
‘There should not be rocks out there. This system is much strange.’
‘Bah!’ Ludokrus grunted. ‘Where was he when this happen? At the controls making steer? No. In the galley, making tea.’
Coral held her hands up like a referee. She was getting lost in this maze of new information. She counted the items down on her fingers. ‘Suspended animation?’
They explained that, unlike the ones on television, real starships are invariably small and cramped and even a short trip can take days. There’s nothing to do that can’t be managed by computers or synthos, so it’s best to leave them to it.
‘A strange system? You mean our solar system?’
Yes. The Eltherians had catalogued many thousands of systems over the centuries and they all fell into certain recognised patterns. Except, it seemed, for this one.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
One of the odd things about it was the large number of rocks and boulders above and below the plane of the solar system. ‘All your planets orbit round your sun on the same level. This is normal. But here also there is junk above and below. This most strange.’
They’d collided with one of these bits of junk.
‘And Albert, your syntho thingy, drinks tea?’
This question surprised them. ‘Everything need energy,’ Ludokrus explained. Albert could draw it from many sources. He might dine with the family, absorb it from sunlight or, on long space flights where neither was an option, simply drink a supplement that looked like oily water: syntho tea.
‘How come these Thanatos guys own our solar system and not yours?’ Tim asked.
‘We are lucky,’ Ludokrus replied. ‘They make the border in between us.’
Tim nodded thoughtfully. ‘You said they didn’t want to search for you guys in case humans spotted them. But why? If they’re so big and powerful, why are they worried about us? Why go to the bother of setting a trap when they could just cruise in and blast the whole planet?’
Ludokrus shrugged. ‘Maybe are just lazy. Long way to come for the blasting. Trap is not so messy.’
Tim considered this. ‘And after you crashed,’ he went on, ‘I guess you used nanomachines to fix the damage ...?’
Alkemy nodded and patted her backpack. She always kept the calculator with her.
‘There can’t have been much left of your ship.’
‘She was smashed to atoms,’ Ludokrus said. ‘Whole side and top are wrecked.’
‘So where’d you get the raw materials?’
Alkemy hesitated, glancing at her brother. ‘It ... take time,’ she said. ‘They must be collected. But we do not know this because we are in the suspended animation.’
‘So how long did it take?’
She made a face. ‘In Earth years, almost twenty-five.’
‘Twenty-five years?’
The bus hissed to a halt. ‘Morning Harmony. Morning Melody. Morning Romany,’ Errol chimed. Tim and Coral were still exchanging stunned looks as the Jones kids trooped on board.
‘Damn,’ Coral muttered. ‘Just when it was getting interesting.’
* * *
Stormin’ Norman Smith ambled along the track that ran beside School Road (No Exit) as town kids whizzed past him on t
heir bikes. Some rang their bells in warning, some called out greetings, but most ignored him. They were used to his odd ways.
Norman preferred walking. Walking gave him time to think. It kept his body occupied while leaving his mind free to consider the intricacies of algebra or work out complicated long-division sums in his head. He was an unusual boy.
As they slowed near the school, Tim caught sight of his friend up ahead. A figure on a bike overtook him then skidded to a halt, bringing him up short. As the bus rumbled past, Tim looked down and saw it was Amber Eloise Sauvage. She said something, stabbed a finger at him, then pedalled off leaving Norman gnawing on his lower lip.
18 : Another Country
Roderick Millais looked worryingly cheerful when he entered the classroom and announced, with an airy clap of his hands, that instead of English they’d be starting with geography. ‘First-hand geography,’ he added significantly. ‘Will you join me please, Alkemy?’
Alkemy touched her chest, ‘Me?’ Millais nodded.
As she got to her feet he added that since they were lucky enough to have a student from Norway, it was a perfect opportunity for the class to learn about the country first-hand.
Alkemy hesitated.
‘Come along,’ he insisted.
Biting her lip, she reluctantly joined him and faced the class.
‘Why don’t you start,’ he said, drawing a rolled atlas down in front of the whiteboard, ‘by pointing out where Norway is.’
Alkemy stared at the atlas a moment then looked up at him.
‘Well?’
She swallowed. ‘I cannot reach.’
Marty Martin sniggered. Millais ignored him and handed her a pointer.
‘Is there,’ she said. ‘Coloured yellow.’
‘In Europe, yes?’ Alkemy nodded. ‘Now, tell us something about it.’
Tim felt the colour rise in his cheeks. This wasn’t fair. He’d had a whole week to prepare his essay. He hadn’t had to deliver it off the cuff on only his second day at school. But it wasn’t just that. Alkemy wasn’t from Norway. Did she know anything about the place at all?
The room went quiet, all eyes fixed on the newest arrival. In the distance, like a silent movie, Sam Crotchett trundled across the playing field in his tractor, a stream of clippings flying like spray from the mower towed behind.