“We have to get out there and rescue George,” said Annie urgently. “We need space suits—Cosmos, where can we get space suits?”
“Well, you are in the world’s largest space facility,” he pointed out. “So there must be space suits somewhere.”
“Why do we need space suits?” asked Leonia. It was, after all, her first-ever sight of the space portal and she could be forgiven for not knowing what was actually going on.
“Because we’re going through the doorway to get George!” said Annie. “Rika must have quantum teleported him to space. We have to go and get him back!”
“I know where to find space suits!” said Leonia, pleased that at last she had thought of something useful to do. “I’ll be back.” She sprinted away.
Annie peered through the doorway to where she could see her friend George still slowly materializing out of the thin atmosphere on Europa to become a solid shape.
“Could I stop the transfer at this end?” she asked Cosmos.
“Unwise,” he said. “If you stop it midway, you might never get the whole George back again. We could end up with half of him over there and half back here. I believe the full transfer will take place in”—he calculated rapidly—“about six minutes.”
Annie’s face crumpled. This was the most horrible of all the scenarios she had ever faced! “How can Rika do this?” she asked Cosmos in despair.
The great computer sighed. “Human beings are notoriously unpredictable,” he observed. “From what I understood of the character of Rika Dur, the respected and well-known scientist, this is most out of character. But if my experience in dealing with humans has taught me anything, it is that they are most likely to do the most unlikely actions. Unless, as I said before, this is not Rika Dur at all.”
“But who could it be if it isn’t Rika?” said Annie. “Her and her horrible robots?”
“The robots are only doing what they were commanded to do,” said Cosmos gently. “They are machines—their actions come from the wishes of humans. The robots themselves are as nice or nasty as the person who operates them.”
“Apart from you,” said Annie.
“Apart from the Cosmos generation of supercomputers,” replied Cosmos. “We are so intelligent that we have the ability to learn from our mistakes and make judgment calls about decisions in the future—which is very similar to the process that humans know as ‘thinking.’ ”
At that moment Leonia burst back into the room, carrying two space suits. They were a very dirty white with enormous bulbous glass helmets, rather shabby-looking stitching, and a distinctly musty smell.
“Ew!” said Annie. “Those are pretty old-school!”
“I got them from a display about the history of space travel!” admitted Leonia. “I think this one might have actually walked on the Moon.”
“It’s going to be massive on you!” said Annie. “Perhaps you’d better stay here with Cosmos.”
“What!” said Leonia. “And let you go into space by yourself? No WAY!”
“Okay, but you stay close to Cosmos’s doorway,” said Annie, who was already putting on the historic space suit. “Because you’re not used to doing this and we haven’t got any time to teach you how. And the gravity is going to be different on Europa. I may need you to hold on to me with a rope.” She pulled out a section of space rope from her suit and handed the other end to Leonia. “You are to stand and not move! In fact, you should just stand on the other side of the doorway, on Earth, so you can hold on to me and stop me floating away. But you should still put your suit on, just in case you need to step through. I hope these air tanks aren’t empty.” She fitted the tube into her helmet and took a few breaths. “Amazing!” she relayed over the transmitter, her voice appearing through the speaker on Cosmos. “It works!”
“They knew how to make things that lasted in those days,” said Cosmos approvingly. “But don’t spend long on Europa—you only have a limited number of minutes before your air runs out.”
Leonia had her suit on already and stood poised. “When I go through the doorway, you stand on the Earth side of it and hold on to my rope,” Annie reminded her spacewalk companion. “Don’t let go of it! And Cosmos, keep the portal open the whole time we are in space. Will Rika be able to see us when we land on Europa?”
“Affirmative,” said Cosmos. “We have to assume she will be able to see you or be alerted to your presence pretty much immediately.”
“Roger,” said Annie firmly. “We are going to get George! I am not leaving my best friend halfway between one blue world and another. We’re going to bring him safely home.”
With that, Leonia took hold of the space rope and Annie stepped through the doorway onto one of the moons of distant Jupiter—this moon being possibly the home of space dolphins, some scary robots and currently around three-quarters of Annie’s best friend, the rest of him still being in transit through the quantum teleportation device. Which might or might not reassemble the full George by the time his two friends, one old, one new, stepped out onto the surface of Europa in one of the most complicated and risky rescue missions that the Solar System had ever seen.
*
Close to the spot where Cosmos had positioned his brightly lit doorway, George’s vision was clearing in the misty foggy swirl. When Rika had spotted George on the mezzanine level of Mission Control through the flying camera drone, she had immediately dispatched some of her bot helpers to capture him.
Boltzmann had been no help whatsoever. The “nice” robot just kept clapping his hands in glee and exclaiming that “at last!” George would meet his master. As George was led down to the ground floor of Mission Control, Boltzmann was practically skipping along behind him.
George, on the other hand, was gutted. As far as he knew, he was the only human being at large in Kosmodrome 2, which meant he had no hope of anyone coming to his assistance. Looking at Rika now, George couldn’t believe he had been taken in by her when he first saw her on the screens at Mission Control. He had thought her the most amazing person he had ever seen. Now she looked distorted and strange, all her welcoming charm vanished, to be replaced by a frightening smirk.
“George,” said Rika in a threatening yet still oddly syrupy voice. “We meet again.”
“Er, yes,” said George. “Good news, eh?” He tried to keep his spirits up and not let her see he was frightened.
“It is perhaps more extraordinary than you know,” replied Rika. Behind her, Boltzmann was jumping about, attempting to indicate something via a series of gestures and expressions that George couldn’t read.
“You’re the head of Kosmodrome 2; I’m one of the junior recruits,” pointed out George. “It’s not that surprising.”
Rika smirked again. “I agree,” she cooed. George noticed with alarm that her face appeared to be caving in. “You and Rika Dur coming across each other is no surprise to anyone.”
“Are you okay?” asked George with some concern. “Your nose seems to be slipping off your face.”
“That’s because it isn’t really my face,” said Rika in quite a different voice, a much deeper voice and one that gave George a cold shiver as he remembered where he had heard it before. He looked over at Boltzmann, who was nodding manically and grinning in a blissed-out fashion. The nice robot looked like he was dancing to a music of his own.
“Whose face is it then?” said George slowly. “It looks like it’s falling to pieces. Have you had plastic surgery?”
“Oh, it’s much cleverer than that,” said the deep-voiced person in front of him. “I’ve had Rika’s face 3-D printed and transplanted onto my own face.”
George felt sick. Who would possibly go to such lengths? But he didn’t need to wonder for long—he already knew the answer.
“And before you ask, I have a computer implant in my throat that allows me to speak with the voice of a woman.”
“Alioth Merak,” said George. “It is you, isn’t it? You’ve escaped from prison and disguised yourself as Rika in order to tak
e over Kosmodrome 2, get rid of Eric, and put yourself in charge of all the space missions launched from Planet Earth.”
“Oh, LOLZ,” said Merak, “as your friend Annie would say. It is me. You are so right, George. Even though you defied me once before, turned down my offer to be my heir, destroyed my spaceship and my quantum computer, caused me to be arrested and imprisoned and lose control of my robot army, it’s still so very nice to see you again.”
George blanched. He had managed to forget the pure horror of his last meeting with Merak. But once Alioth reminded him of how dramatic and how dangerous it had been—and how much Alioth Merak had lost in his previous encounter with George and Annie—George realized that Merak himself was not about to forgive and forget any time soon.
“What happened to your onesies?” he asked, trying to play for time. When he had met him before, the crazy squillionaire had worn only onesies, in the colors and patterns of the planets of the Solar System.
“Onesies are not Rika’s style,” replied Merak haughtily. “And as I have been impersonating the eminent scientist herself, I have also been making use of her wardrobe.”
“What have you done with the real Rika?” George queried, almost too terrified of the answer to ask. “You haven’t killed her, have you?”
“Of course not,” snapped Merak. “Brutality is not my style. I’m anti-violence, if you must know.”
“You!?” said George. “Anti-violence! After everything you’ve done!”
Rika/Merak tried to look down her/his nose but couldn’t quite manage it as the nose had veered off so drastically to one side. “Rika is still alive,” he/she said. “I have not killed anybody. The face I am wearing is a copy of Rika’s face—she still has the original.”
“Then where is she?” demanded George.
“Perfectly safe,” said Merak. “She is with some people you know—some people you know very well indeed. They’re all together, in a nice contained cozy environment where they have all they could need to stay alive. For now.”
George realized he had no idea what Alioth Merak meant by this.
“Oh, blank face!” said Alioth. “WOOF-er? Ring any bells, George? Family suddenly summoned to an organic farm in the Faroe Islands? Wonder how that happened, huh?”
“What?” said George slowly, half-astonished, half-furious.
“And Annie’s mom! How sweet. She’d always wanted to play a solo while on tour with her orchestra. So I made her dream come true!” said Merak. “That’s what I do. Make dreams come true. Want to farm on a remote island? I can fix it for you! Want to play your violin in Mexico City? Oh yes, I can do that too. Want to join a training program to be a Mars astronaut, children of the world? Come right this way… .”
“Where are they?” asked George, his voice choking in his throat. “What have you done?” He just couldn’t bear to think of his mom and dad and his little sisters Juno and Hera, along with Annie’s mom, having to encounter this man. He was more worried for his family than he had ever been for himself. Even when he had been on his most dangerous space mission with Annie, he had never felt this spinning sense of fear.
“Well now,” said Merak confidingly. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yes, I would,” shouted George. “Tell me!”
“Um, well, what’s it worth?” Alioth smirked, looking at his bright red, glossy fingernails. “To me, that is. Because right now, George, the way I see it, I hold all the cards.”
George looked around him. He was completely surrounded by a robot army that he knew was tightly controlled by Merak—and which would react to his every command. The only ally he had was Boltzmann, and even he seemed to be entirely in thrall to Alioth.
“Let’s see,” continued Merak, taking off his blonde wig.
As he did, George wondered how he could ever have thought the person before him bore any resemblance to Rika Dur, one of the world’s most respected scientists. George kicked himself. How had he fallen for it? How had he been suckered in by a fake Rika Dur? He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid.
“You can do something for me,” the evil Alioth purred. “And in exchange, I will tell you where your family, Annie’s mother, and Rika Dur are. Is that a deal?”
“What do I have to do?” asked George, gulping. He knew that whatever Merak suggested, he would have to do it, however awful it was.
“Can’t tell you that!” sang Merak. “You have to agree first—or you never see your mother, father, or sisters again. And your dear, lovely little friend Annie will never again see her mother.”
“Deal,” said George quickly, not giving himself time to balk.
“Oh, good,” said Merak. “I’ve been wanting a real live human being to test out my quantum teleportation device on for some time now. It’s fiendishly clever but I know you expect nothing less from me. Basically it allows you to transfer exact electronic states across space through quantum actions. I have successfully bootstrapped my robotic army and their equipment into space using this technique after the replacement Cosmos machine fell short of expectations. But so far, I have not sent living cells. You, George, will be the first! A space pioneer! And for such an exalted role, I hardly want to use coercion. It would be so much more fitting to use a volunteer. If you could just sign here!”
A robot quickly produced a lengthy contract, which ran to pages and pages. George started to look through the small print.
“Oh, don’t bother to read it all,” said Merak. “Basically it says you are going through the quantum teleportation device of your own free will and choice.”
“But it’s not true that I’m going through of my own free will!” said George.
“Fine,” said Merak. His robot snatched back the contract. “I don’t mind if you never see your family again. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”
George hesitated. “Why don’t you go through the portal yourself?” he asked. “If it’s such a great step for mankind, then why don’t you do it?”
“Oh, George!” sighed Alioth, smiling. “I thought you would realize. It’s still in the experimental phase. Now, fond of you as I am, I could lose you and not forfeit any sleep over it. But I couldn’t say the same for myself. I’m much too valuable to be a test pilot.”
“Has no human ever done this before?” asked George, the hair rising on the back of his neck.
“No,” said Merak thoughtfully. “I did try to interest some of your little companions from the training program in volunteering—those who were asked to “leave” the camp. But they all refused—some of them quite rudely! And such a voyage must be undertaken by someone who agrees to go out of their own free will. Willingly and nicely, in fact. It would spoil it all if I felt I’d forced the issue.”
“What?” said George. “The others knew?”
“No, not while they were actually in the process with you,” said Merak. “What you don’t know is that I’ve kept all of you from the Challenges phase. We sent the duds home after the training stage as they were no use to anyone. I just kept the crème de la crème. So when a trainee or pair of trainees failed a challenge, I just popped them into a safe holding pen, in fact, to keep them until everything was ready for their great adventure.”
“Where are they now?” said George. “And what is this great adventure?” If he thought he’d felt cold and scared before, it was nothing compared to how he felt now.
“Well, you’ll never find out, and neither will anyone else unless you sign this document!” said Merak affably, waving the pen at George.
“I’ll sign,” said George snappily, reaching for the pen. This, he figured, was it. This was the challenge he had come here for, not to fly to Mars or create a 3-D printer that would work on another planet or mend a solar array. His challenge was unique and a test he mustn’t fail. It was to save the other trainees who had stayed behind at Kosmodrome 2, falsely imprisoned, as he now knew, by Alioth Merak. And to get his family and Annie’s mom released from wherever Merak held them captive.
“A-hem,” said the evil genius, holding the pen out of reach. “What did I say about ‘willingly and nicely’? It matters enormously to me that this great step is undertaken by someone with gladness in their heart.”
“I will sign,” said George as nicely as he could, given the circumstances. “Gladly,” he managed to force out.
“That’s better,” said Merak, proffering the pen.
George took it and scratched his name on the contract, wondering as he did whether he would ever return. As much as he wanted to run screaming from Mission Control—and keep running and running until he was safely home at his funny, sweet-smelling, scruffy house in Foxbridge—he knew he couldn’t. The only way he would see his family again—and perhaps the only way the other kids would ever see their moms and dads again—was if he went into space through Alioth’s questionable doorway. There was, he figured, nothing else he could do. He felt so desperate that everything seemed to white out in front of him.
But he didn’t get much time to think. A couple of robots behind him stuffed him into a space suit, strapped some space weights onto his legs, popped a space helmet on his head, and zipped him up. Gesturing with his hands like the conductor of an orchestra, Merak then seemed to give a series of commands, which created a cone of light just next to where he had been standing.
Guided by two robots, George took up a position in the center of the cone. He had no idea what would happen next, where he was going, or whether he would ever come back. It was so terrifying that he couldn’t think about it at all. Instead, he tried to focus on the face of Boltzmann, thinking that he wanted what might be his last sight to be something friendly, even if it was also horribly misguided. But as he gazed at the battered and blackened features of the only sentient robot in the world, his vision started to blur. Boltzmann seemed to fragment into tiny little pieces that began to whir around in a swoosh of colors.
And just as George had time to think what a pretty pattern it all made, everything went dark, as though the lights had gone out, or he had fallen very suddenly into a deep and fitful sleep.
George and the Blue Moon Page 18