Makthryg started to speak, but Valkrog shook his head. “My Lord, I can bring you to the machine. It is in our world, I can sense it. I ... I believe it may reverse my decline. But I would bid your help, for I believe the machine will need your spells for it to function. Do you have a plan to escape, Master?”
The frail sorcerer leaped back at Valkrog’s words. “No! You must neither locate nor operate the machine, Valkrog. It is not safe. You will place all our worlds in jeopardy—I feel it. Have you not noticed how our world groans and complains at the hands of these storms? No—there is something bigger at work, and I know not what it is, or even if I will live out my days and still not know. I command you to relinquish any desire to—”
“My Lord. Do you not wish to use the power of their device? We would once again rule and bring about great change. Much more than these backward farmers would ever deserve.”
Makthryg backed away, and sat down again in the corner. “No, Valkrog. I command you ... leave it alone.”
Valkrog’s eyes blazed. “Then you command me to death!” He withdrew at speed to his cell, ignoring the searing agony as the atoms of the walls tugged at his form. Had his frail Master become insane? He cursed the Orange Witch loudly. Not only had she robbed them of their rightful place in the new world, but she had taken his Master’s mind. He stared at his fading arms and legs. The witch had destroyed everything, even his body. And now not even his Master would listen. He would have to do without Makthryg’s help. He slumped to the ground, deep in thought, and felt the ground give a little below him, responding to his—what had the sorcerer called it?—discorporation.
He frowned and looked over at the bars of the cell, then back at the brick wall, and finally back to his legs, sensing the beginnings of an idea.
Perhaps whatever was killing him and causing him to fade to nothing, could also be his saviour.
~ 18 ~
Open Source
They had managed to get themselves heard by the Captain of the Russian freighter, who had turned out to be the stout red-faced man she’d seen when they’d been taken on board.
“Okay. You make argument for keep kids happy. I get you pencils and papers.” He turned to the huge man standing behind him and rattled off a string of unintelligible words in Russian. The man nodded and said, “Da, Kapitan,” then spun on his heel, beckoning two sailors standing by to accompany him.
“Now you tell me secret. I look after kids, now you look after me. What is this thing you say is valuable?” His gaze pierced Sarina’s. She swallowed hard.
“Umm, yes, sir. You see there is this ... scientific machine your boss is looking for—”
“Have no boss. Have customer who needs place for hide children. Nobody is boss of Ilia”—he tapped his chest—“but perhaps customer want to buy information from Ilia.” He leaned into Sarina. “If information not make Ilia look very stupid to customer. If information is truth.” He gestured for her to continue.
She gulped again. “Yes. I—we—understand.” She glanced at Nathan, who looked pale, but nodded for her to carry on. “This ... customer, who wants us hidden, is actually trying to force a friend of ours to give them the machine. But he doesn’t have it.”
The Captain stroked his chin and looked at both of them. “This machine. Is weapon, yes?”
“No,” Sarina said, at the same time as Nathan said ‘Yes.’
The Captain raised his eyes and waited.
“Well yes, sort of,” Sarina said. “It’s not built as a weapon, but—”
“It could be weaponised,” Nathan said. “Not that anyone would want to,” he added quickly, looking at Sarina’s dark expression.
Ilia’s eyes glinted. “Powerful weapon, eh? So customer wait for your friend to give machine, but he don’t have. Customer kidnap children to make motivation for friend. But children”—he tapped the side of his bulbous red nose—“tell new friend Ilia where machine is. This is secret you have, no?”
Sarina looked at Nathan, who shrugged. The Russian Captain was no fool. He’d do what he could to squeeze more money from his customer. Sarina turned to the Captain and nodded. “Yes. But we’ll only tell them where it is once all the kids have been released.”
The Captain guffawed. “Very funny!” He leaned in again and prodded Sarina. “No one tell Ilia what to do. Especially young lady like my daughter.”
“You have kids?” Nathan sounded surprised.
“Of course!” The Captain smiled and pulled out a worn leather wallet. “You look.” He flipped it open to show a photo depicting a row of smiling kids taken on a sunny wharf. “I have eight. This is why Ilia knows pencils and papers is very good idea.” His expression became serious again and he snapped the wallet closed. “I will consider secret information and perhaps discuss with customer. Now we finish talk. Olaf will bring pencils and papers. You go back and make childrens happy.”
The adrenaline slipped away from Sarina, and left her deflated. She turned to leave, and found herself face-to-face with Nathan, who was flicking his eyes back and forth between her and the Captain. He made an expanding motion with his hands. She jerked up. That’s right—they had agreed to ask for more space. And better facilities. She took a deep breath and turned back to the Captain.
“Mr Captain Ilia, sir.”
Captain Ilia raised one eyebrow.
“Umm, with all the kids now, I think it would be better if we had a bigger space. You know—if one kid starts crying, then it won’t be long before they all are. But if we can separate them—and maybe have a painting and drawing area, and somewhere else for sleeping so the younger ones can have their naps ...” she looked up at him, trying to bat her eyelids in the way she’d seen her mum do with shop assistants.
He had grinned at her. “You speak like my daughter, Petra. Is good. I will consider request and make extra for kids.”
She ignored her pounding heart and decided to make one more play for the Captain’s sympathy. Perhaps he was human after all. “Thank you. Maybe if Petra was here, she might ask you to clean the toilets, too. They’re not really fit for kids—or a woman in a wheelchair. Are they, Captain?” She tried her best to fix him with a steely gaze.
Captain Ilia guffawed loudly. “Is ship, not hotel. But you impress Ilia to ask him to clean toilet. Is funny. Petra always try to be boss, is clever to make me think of her.” He grinned and tapped the side of his nose with his finger. “But Ilia not stupid. Customer tell Ilia how many childrens coming. I already have men bring some portable toilet. Is more clean for childrens. Now no more question.”
And that had been the end of the conversation. Now they were back in the dim room, with the kids sitting around them, waiting for Sarina to begin.
She smiled at them. “The Captain has agreed to give us some more space, so we can have somewhere to rest while we wait—”
“Why are we here, Miss?” A young girl raised her hand.
Sarina nodded. “Good question. And to be honest, we don’t know yet. I was here first, with Rona, then Nathan came, and then all of you at once. We’re still trying to work out why they want us, but I’m sure the Captain will let us go once the Professor sorts things out. I have more good news though.” She waited to get everyone’s attention. “Do you want the toilet news, or the fun news first?”
Some of the boys giggled and shouted out “Toilet news!” But they were drowned out by the request for the fun news first.
“The Captain is bringing some supplies of paper, pencils and paint soon, so we can have our art competition.”
The kids cheered.
“What’s the toilet news, Sarina?” Jimmy was grinning at her.
“I knew you’d ask that. It’s good news, really. The Captain had already organised some extra portable toilets. I don’t know exactly when they are coming, but he promised them soon. If you’re anything like me, you’ll hold it until they get here, rather than use that other disgusting thing.”
There was general applause, and she noticed some ki
ds pulling faces. Probably those who had already trudged through the pool of—something—in order to use the loo. She held up her hand for quiet.
“One more thing. We need to work together as a team, because I don’t know about you, but does anyone find this place a bit creepy?”
She had to hold up her hand again to stop the chorus of multiple yesses. “Me too. But if we work together, we can stop it getting too scary. Who thinks we can do that?” She put up her hand, and immediately every single one of the group did the same. She felt the tension in her temple ease.
“Great. So here’s my rule: If anyone gets scared, they think of something happy, and if that doesn’t work, they grab a buddy and find me, Rona or Nathan and we’ll have a competition to see who can do the silliest dance. I bet no one can beat Rona!”
The door opened at the top of the stairs and Olaf appeared with another man. Both carried cardboard boxes and Sarina could see the plentiful supplies poking out of the top. “I’d say that’s our pens and paper arriving. Time for our art competition.”
The children ran over to where Olaf and the other man were walking down the stairs and waited for the boxes to be set down before sharing out the contents.
“Well done,” Rona leaned over and whispered. “That was no mean feat, keeping them focused on the positive.”
Sarina gave her a wry smile. “I should listen to my own advice. I feel bad trying to distract them, I’d like to know more about what’s going on myself.”
Rona shrugged. “Sometimes we have to do whatever it takes. They look up to you, so if you can reassure them, then all the better.”
“Speaking of what’s going on, shall we take this chance to regroup, and see if either of us noticed anything that would give us a clue?” Nathan asked.
They moved to a corner of the room, leaving the kids to get on with their creations, and started go back over what they spoke about with the Captain.
“Definitely a Russian freighter, yes.” Nathan was responding to Rona’s question. “I saw the flag. And from what I could see, we must be docked at one of the wharves in London.”
“Do you think he bought your idea about knowing where this collider is?” Rona said.
Both Sarina and Nathan nodded.
“Now we have to make the most of what we know,” Nathan said. He looked at Sarina. “Time for a new plan.”
Sarina felt the tension in her jaw, and she let out a big sigh. “I thought maybe we might discover something, or yell for help or something, but”—she shrugged—“all I know is that Captain Ilia has eight kids, and one of them is called Petra. What plan can we make from that?” She looked around at the kids, busy painting and drawing. “And now someone wants this collider to make a weapon from it.”
Rona’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you say that?”
“Captain Ilia,” Nathan said. “He became very interested when we talked about the collider being a powerful weapon—”
“When you talked about it being a powerful weapon!”
He shrugged. “No point in running from the truth. Someone very powerful has learned about the Prof’s invention and they want it. Badly enough to kidnap a bunch of kids.” His brow furrowed. “Which makes me wonder why we aren’t the subject of a nationwide missing children hunt.”
“How would you know, Mr Smarty-Pants? Have you read the newspaper today?” Sarina glared at him.
Nathan held up his hands. “Alright, alright! I get it. You hate me now because I’m a scientist and you’re not!”
“What I hate is that you stupid scientists make these things and hide their secrets.” She held his gaze until he looked away, then she got up and walked over to where the children were painting and drawing.
She was impressed with their resilience. Some were exchanging ideas, passing pens, pencils, brushes and paint, and doing their best to ignore the oppressive environment, and were already in animated discussions about each other’s work. The dim room; the occasional guard checking on them, and the disgusting toilet facilities hadn’t dampened their enthusiasm. Yet. She suspected that deep down, the kids knew what was going on, and sooner or later it wouldn’t matter what fancy games she organised for them: the anxiety level would rise, and panic would spread.
She moved around the children and watched them work, busy being creative. She thought of her own art—lacking emotion, according to Dreary Drysdale, whom she supposed she would never see again. She would happily go back to what she had thought was a no-win situation, if it meant the world was free of powerful men with weapons. Men who had no problem threatening kids. She saw one of the two girls become frustrated with her work, stabbing her brush at the paper. An older girl next to her leaned across, gave the younger one her own brush and spoke to the girl while pushing her own painting closer. She guessed the older girl had said something encouraging, maybe suggesting the younger girl copy what she had done, and to borrow her brush. Sarina smiled—then stopped, frozen in her thoughts.
If she couldn’t express herself through her painting, then she’d do it by preventing these stupid scientists always getting in the way of her life. She spun around and walked back to Rona and Nathan, who were both regarding her with caution.
“What?” Nathan said.
“Is it that obvious?” Sarina said. She smiled at them both. “You said you wanted a new plan.”
They both nodded.
Sarina fixed her gaze on Nathan. “Do you really think the collider is in Paolo’s world?”
Nathan rubbed his temple. “I guess it must be.”
“I need better than a guess. When we blasted our energy through it, and it was no longer in our world when we finally got back, the Professor seemed to think it had gone somewhere. He even asked us what we’d done with it, I seem to remember.”
“Yes.” Nathan looked disconsolate. “Maybe we should have tried to find out. I think we were all so happy to have reversed the rem-loss, it didn’t seem to matter.” He looked up at her and forced a more positive expression, which Sarina thought only made him look like a scared rabbit. “But why do you ask? Even if we tell this customer of Ilia’s where it is, it’s not much use to them. And if anything”—he flicked his gaze over at the children painting—“it doesn’t exactly make us safer, does it?” His eyes looked pained.
“Is it there or not? What’s your hypothesis?” Sarina stared him down.
“Yes. I’d say so. Greater than ninety-percent probability anyway.”
“What’s your plan, Sarina?” Rona said. “We can argue all day about where the machine might be, but there are some pretty nasty folks behind all this, and we’ll need all our wits about us.”
Sarina nodded. “Sorry. I was thinking about stupid scientists. No not you”—she looked at Nathan, who looked relieved—“and how they like to keep everything secret. Then I watched the kids painting and I realised something. Artists never hide their work—they share it. Most famous works of art are on public display somewhere in the world.”
“Yes,” Nathan said slowly, “but what’s that got to do with stupid scientists?”
“Artists all steal from each other. Not literally, but they steal ideas. Like those kids are doing behind me. Some even go so far as to teach and share their ideas and techniques—don’t they Rona?” Rona nodded. Sarina dismissed the momentary ache she felt when she’d mentioned teaching art. That would have to wait.
“So the reason these people want the Prof’s machine is because the way it works is secret and hidden, and if they get their hands on it, they’ll hide it too and make it into some ultra-weapon. Scientists like to put their black boxes around everything, don’t they?”
Nathan looked downcast.
“If everybody had a similar machine and shared it around, they wouldn’t have any power any more? They’d have to let us go, wouldn’t they?”
“But—”
“Shut up, Nathan. What if the collider’s workings were shared with everyone. You know, like they do on the internet. Oh, what’s it ca
lled”—she scratched her head—“open juice, or something.”
“Open source,” Nathan said, staring at her.
“Yes. That’s what I meant. So that’s what we’re going to do.”
Rona and Nathan looked at each other.
Sarina looked at the two of them in turn, hoping they couldn’t see down into her fear. “We’re going to find the collider and bring it back here.”
Nathan looked aghast. “Then what?”
“Then I’m going to take away its power.”
“How?” Rona said.
“I’m going to give it to everyone.”
~ 19 ~
The Consortium
Professor Kingsley Harrison pored over the data printout, then peered again at the screen. He picked up a pen, made some notes and jotted down numbers from the screen. He swivelled on his chair to face away from the bank of screens—and stopped, staring into the air. Scientific curiosity and a professional interest had lured him into investigating the issue that had the cosmologists’ online communities buzzing. The moon.
Several eminent moon orbit researchers were now convinced the moon’s erratic orbit was now far from any oddity and a provable trend. There were those who argued against it, citing all kinds of statistical anomalies, but the argument was persuasive. As far as the researchers were concerned, the moon’s orbit had changed, in a disturbing manner.
It was getting closer to Earth.
Professor Harrison tapped his pencil against his lips. There was something odd—and familiar—about the data he’d obtained from the various observatories. He’d spent the last day and a half buried in reams of figures, running calculations and re-calculations. The waste bin beside him overflowed with screwed-up balls of paper, covered in scrawled numbers. Still it didn’t make sense—
Unless.
He spun back around, fired up another program, and entered in a series of numbers. He waited for the result to show on-screen, drumming his fingers on the desk as the computer crunched his input. There it was in front of him, in lurid colour charts.
The Dreamer Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set Vol I - III: A Sci-Fi Parallel Universe Adventure (The Dreamer Chronicles - Science Fiction For Kids And Adults) Page 74