“Nowhere.”
“What?”
“The beginning was in your city.”
“Then…you’re new?”
The creature nodded its head. A rather human gesture, Zeke thought.
“I’m confused. Do you know anything at all?”
“Only hurt. Here.”
The devil touched it’s chest, as if there was a heart inside. Again, oddly human.
Zeke’s head was throbbing.
“What about the other dthpzpii?”he asked.
This word had no direct human meaning, although Zeke understood it to be some kind of guardian.
“My one. It helped seal the Infinity Trap,” he added.
The creature nodded again.
“The source pattern.”
“Source pattern?”
“The first dthpzpii left his pattern behind. It replicated.”
At last a clue!
“You were built out of the first one?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Not known.”
Zeke paused for a moment. Maybe the devil was programmed to rebuild itself. That might explain how it had survived two billion years.
“But why were you in the city?”
Silence
“The city of the Humans. We call ourselves humans.”
“Hoo-mans,” the devil said slowly. “Hoomans. Life forms from the third planet.”
“So why?”
“The host was there.”
“Host?”
“The medium that carried the source pattern and fuelled its renewal.”
Zeke frowned. None of this made sense. Tithonium had to be a few hundred kilometres from the Noctis Labyrinthus, where the previous devil had blown up.
“What medium?”
The devil let out a low growl. “Enough!”
Zeke wrung his hands. It sounded furious.
“You hurt me.”
The devil swivelled its body to face Zeke.
It hissed. “Now the hurt will stop.”
It came closer. And closer still. A murderous expression formed on the raw face. Fear surged through Zeke like a bolt of electricity. Was he going to perish up here? On his own? A failure? His mind raced. There had to be a way to escape.
“If-if-if you kill me you will be all alone. I’m the only one left who speaks your language.”
This stopped the creature dead in its tracks.
“You lie. You never helped before.”
Why did it keep speaking as if they knew each other? The creature stepped nearer. A huge, twisting, blowing monster of sand. It stretched out its arms, ready to grab him.
Zeke moved away, a metre, one more. Till his foot found nothing. He was backed up against the crumbled ledge. There was nowhere to go but down.
“Do you wish you were kinder now?” the devil said.
“I don’t know what you mean. We’ve never met.”
The devil was almost upon him now. The wind of its vortex blew into his face and he could smell the dry stink of basalt. Somebody else had reeked of that smell. Who was it? Yes, mad Jimmy Swallow before they carted him off to the mental facility.
“Please, I will help you. I promise!”
Zeke attempted to translocate. Nothing! Desperate thoughts screamed in his brain.
If only he could figure it out. The source code was probably some kind of molecule. But how did it get to Tithonium City? What linked the city to the cavern of the Infinity Trap, where the original devil had perished?
“No more pain,” the devil said, reaching for Zeke’s neck.
Zeke pressed himself into the rock face. For a nanosecond, he considered jumping. The creature’s blank eyes glared at him. He inched away, teetering on the edge.
What was the connection? What was it? The day he defeated the Spiral. When he was in the cave with the other students. Pin and Scuff and Trixie and Kretzmer and that idiot Jimmy Swallow and—
Zeke froze. His lungs stopped. The universe shrunk around him, trapping him inside a pinpoint of cold, hard knowledge. There, against the cliff, with death snapping at his heels, everything clicked into position.
“Jimmy?”
The devil hesitated.
Zeke’s right foot slipped. He began to lose balance.
“Jimmy Swallow,” he cried.
Zeke’s legs gave from under him. A scream rose in his throat. The horrible feeling of falling.
The devil snatched hold of his shoulders and lifted him back onto solid rock.
“That name,” it said. “That name is remembered.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Basalt Spires
It was the best smell in the universe. Baked beans!
Zeke was standing before the basalt formations he’d spotted earlier in the day. The sun was sinking into a curtain of shadows. But there was enough light to make out horse tracks leading into a cave. And that wonderful, wonderful aroma was wafting out. Baked beans in tomato sauce. His mouth watered.
“Hello,” he said, walking into a large, airy cave.
Scuff and Josiah Cain were sitting around a campfire. A saucepan simmered over the flames. Serendipity, Red Sugar and Cain’s horse Calico were tied to a boulder. Serendipity saw Zeke and let out a whinny of delight.
“Zeke!” Scuff cried. He leapt up and hugged Zeke hard. Zeke winced.
Next it was Josiah’s turn.
“Are you a sight for sore eyes!” he said, and gave Zeke a hearty thump on the back.
“Where the heck have you been, bro?” Scuff asked.
“First things first,” Zeke replied. “There’s a black hole in my stomach!”
Cain laughed. “Would a humble bean stew fix that problem?”
Zeke nodded vigorously.
Josiah handed out three forks from his rucksack. They sat down, speared bread slices and warmed them over the fire. Oh yes, toast, the second most glorious smell in the universe.
“The horses came back after you gallivanted off on the whirlwind express,” Scuff explained. “I didn’t dare ride them without you, so I just sat there, wondering what to do.”
“Sooner or later you’d have to move,” Zeke said.
“To be totally honest, bro, I tried translocating back to the school.”
“That’s dangerous!”
Scuff shrugged. “I should worry, nothing happened. You gotta teach me one day.”
“Is that why were you were pulling those faces?” Josiah asked with a grin.
“Faces?” Zeke and Scuff said together.
“Like you were straining on a biggie.”
Scuff coloured up. “Guess so.”
They all laughed.
“I was returning to Edenville,” Josiah said. “I had to turn back before I ran out of food and kindling.”
“No sign of them?”
Josiah shook his head and gazed into the flames. Maybe it was the heat, but his eyes were watering.
“My toast is burning,” Scuff said.
Josiah fished three bowls from his rucksack and served up the food. Even though the beans were piping hot, Zeke gobbled them down. He was starving.
“Come on, you and the dust devil. Spill the beans,” Scuff said, and chuckled at his own joke.
Zeke drew a deep breath and launched into the story of his afternoon…
“So, he just let you go?” Josiah asked.
“Yes,” Zeke replied. “It was like, when he heard his name, a bit of his memory came back. He just vanished. A few minutes later my psychic skills returned. I translocated back to the where I left Scuff and picked up your trail from there.”
Scuff whistled. “Jimmy Swallow is a Martian monster.”
“Yes. Ironic,” Zeke said.
> “A fudge sundae of irony sprinkled with extra helpings of bizarro,” Scuff replied.
“Tragic. That’s the word I’d use,” Josiah remarked.
“But how, bro?” Scuff asked.
Zeke stuck out his lower lip. “Remember when we were at the Infinity Trap and he got covered in the dust? When the Dust Devil blew itself up.”
“Yup.”
“Some of the Dust Devil’s atomic signature must have rubbed off on him.”
Scuff clicked his fingers. “His festering eye!”
“Exactly, and over time it replicated itself, turning Jimmy into a new devil. The same sort of thing happened to the Cratan.”
“But Zeke,” Josiah asked. “Can you save this poor boy?”
The logs crackled. The flames threw shadows against the cave wall. Zeke did not answer.
“Josiah, what’s your plan to find Bartie?” he said at last.
“Start out tomorrow, with enough supplies to reach the mine.” Josiah looked haggard. “Unless…you could take me there tonight.”
Zeke’s spine stiffened.
“I can’t translocate to the mine. I’ve got no way to imagine it in my brain. I’ve never been there. Never seen a holograph. No connection at all.”
“Hey, I gotta a map,” Josiah exclaimed.
“You don’t understand,” Zeke went on. “Translocation is the most dangerous of psychic abilities. I’m breaking all the school rules using it before my fourth year of training.”
Josiah gave him a hard stare. Zeke nodded at Scuff.
“Sure,” Scuff said. “If you do it wrong you turn up inside a wall. Or underground or a kilometre high.”
“Don’t remind me!” Zeke said, wiping his brow.
“But the Mariners translocate all over the galaxy,” Josiah protested. “To places they’ve never been.”
“They’ve completed the training. Zeke’s hardly begun,” Scuff said, in an irritated voice.
Josiah ran over to Calico. He pulled out a scroll from his backpack and spread it before the boys. “See,” he cried.
Zeke studied the map. All he could see was a mishmash of colours and gridlines.
Josiah pointed to a spot on the page. “Come on, boys. My Bartie’s in danger, thanks to your little friend.”
Zeke gritted his teeth. “No one forced him to go.”
Fire flared in Josiah’s eyes.
Zeke gulped. Beneath Josiah’s pious character lurked an explosive temper. Zeke knew that from the day Josiah felled the elephantine Ricasso.
Josiah leaned forward. “According to you, there’s a madman out to get them. Some kind of electric monster is lurking at the mine. A dust devil is on our heels. Never mind the quicksands, rockslides and marauders. Don’t you think you owe it to Bartie and Pin to at least try?”
“You don’t understa—” Scuff’s words tailed off as Josiah glared at him.
“Please, Josiah,” Zeke implored.
“Trust in the Almighty, Son.”
Zeke studied Josiah’s face and saw there was no compromise.
“Alright,” he said meekly.
Josiah got on his knees and motioned the boys to do likewise. Sheepishly they obeyed. Josiah recited the Lord’s Prayer and then said, “O Gracious and Merciful Lord, let the angels of Mars keep us from harm.”
Zeke glanced around at the ochre walls of the cave. Here he was, on Mars, praying. It seemed odd.
Josiah stood up. “Let’s do it.”
“You stay here,” Zeke said to Scuff.
“With pleasure,” Scuff replied.
Zeke linked arms with Josiah.
“Will it hurt?” Josiah asked with a frown.
“Only if I get it wrong,” Zeke said.
He closed his eyes and pictured the map in his imagination.
The map is real. The contours on the page are real. Cliffs and peaks and plains and valleys. We’re walking into that map. Into the bit marked with the Melas Mine.
He opened his eyes. They were floating in the starless night of nowhere. He could scarcely see Josiah right next to him, such was the darkness. The man was rigid with fear.
They were back on Mars. Stars crowded the sky. The valley gleamed in their light like a ghost land. The black amorphous shapes of boulders surrounded them.
Josiah drew in a few deep breaths before speaking. “Where’s the mine?”
Zeke shrugged.
“There should be buildings, equipment, people!”
“Sorry, I must have got lost.”
“Try again.” Josiah sounded angry.
Zeke tightened his grip on Josiah’s forearm and concentrated. The landscape melted. Emptiness swallowed existence. The flickering glow of the cave reappeared.
“That was quick,” Scuff remarked.
“Need another peep at the map,” Zeke explained.
Scuff’s eyes were as wide as saucers.
“What’s up?” Zeke asked.
Scuff pointed at Josiah. The Preacher’s face was twisted in agony.
With a sickening dread Zeke looked down. Josiah’s right foot was stuck inside a rock. The boot went in one side and the toecap poked out the other. Zeke had bungled the translocation!
Josiah could bear the pain no longer. The cave echoed with his screams.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Office of Principal Lutz
The atomic clock softly ticked on the wall. Zeke stared at its hands. It was like watching the moon crawl across the sky. Agonisingly slow. After an eternity a little door opened above the dial. A glowing uranium bird popped out and squeaked ‘cuckoo.’ One PM, Standard Martian time.
Lutz was at her desk, deep in thought.
Great, Zeke thought. She’s going to slam me in detention.
Dayo was due to arrive the following day. He could only wait another two days. Then he’d pilot a ship full of colonists to Arcturus Five, leaving Zeke behind forever.
You’ll make it, said a Canadian accent in Zeke’s head.
Zeke glanced at Scuff, in the seat next to him.
Stop reading my mind!
Scuff shrugged.
Sorry, bro, it just keeps getting easier.
That was true enough. Scuff’s telepathy was going from strength to strength. In fact, every student in Zeke’s year seemed to be improving. Everyone except Zeke. He felt like a hamster trapped in a wheel, running all day but getting nowhere.
Lutz stirred.
Here it comes, Zeke thought.
“You did the right thing,” she said.
Zeke gaped.
“Translocating your holy man to School. Those quacks at Tithonium would have no chance.”
“You mean we can use our psychic skills to dislodge the stone?” Zeke asked.
Lutz rolled her eyes.
“Unpick a trillion molecules? Hardly.”
Zeke didn’t understand.
“Doctor Chandrasar’s nanomacs will grow back the missing tissue. After she’s chopped off the existing foot, of course.”
A sudden shouting came from outside. The door flew open and Josiah Cain limped into the office.
“I demand action!” he bellowed, and slammed his fist on Lutz’s desk. The Principal didn’t blink an eye.
Doctor Chandrasar appeared in the doorway. She looked frantic, with her black-as-the-night hair all messed up.
“You must return to the Facility, Mister Cain.”
“What’s happening?” Lutz asked in a sour tone.
“He checked out against my orders,” said the doctor. “After the amputation but before the nanomac therapy.”
“I will not submit to that technological voodoo,” Cain shouted.
Zeke peered at Cain’s right foot. The boot has been cut in two and then stitched up again.
A what?
An artificial limb, Scuff answered.
Cain was purple with rage.
“A humble imitation does not go against the divine will. Invisible robots tampering with our god-given flesh is a different matter.”
“Luddite,” Lutz remarked dryly.
A what? Zeke thought, looking to Scuff.
Sheesh, get a dictionary already—someone against technology.
“Have you found my Bartie?” Cain cried.
“Our best psychics are on the job, Mister Cain. We have remote viewers searching the Martian landscape in their heads.”
“Not good enough!” Cain shouted so loudly the windows rattled in their frames.
“On behalf of the school, I assure you, Mister Cain—”
“I demand action, now!”
“I appreciate your concern—”
“Do something this instant!”
“SILENCE!”
Lutz rose up. Her wide face locked into a fearful glare. She kept on rising. Her body levitated several feet into the air.
“I will have silence!”
Cain gulped. “This is your responsibility,” he said in a much meeker voice.
Lutz lowered to the floor. “Warum?” she asked in German. “Why so?”
“One of your young brainiacs talked my Bartie into running off. The School must be held accountable.”
“Pin-mei Liang is an exemplary student,” Lutz replied. “I will not have a word said against her.”
“My Bartie is as good as gold, he wouldn’t—”
Lutz held up the palm of her hand. “Das ist genug. I do not indulge in recriminations with non-psychics.”
Cain took off his hat. His shoulders drooped. “Please, Principal, do something,” he insisted.
A flood of tears erupted from his eyes. The proud and fiery preacher was now a begging child.
Zeke choked up. It was horrible seeing Cain like this.
A ripple passed through the room. A corner darkened and Mariner Knimble materialised. He was sweating.
“Strewth, your horses need a helluva lot of coaxing,” he said to Cain.
“Are they alright?” Zeke asked. He was missing Serendipity already.
Knimble nodded. “Sure. Translocating them back to the Edenville spooked them something rotten. But we got there.”
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