by Patty Jansen
Cory frowned at the screen. The menu looked different from what he had at home. There were a lot more choices and a bar of advertising scrolled down the side. 'You have an unrestricted link.' He found it hard to keep awe out of his voice.
Alma pushed her glasses further up her nose. Cory got the feeling she secretly liked his admiration. 'Yep. Because of Dad's job.'
Theariki mumbled, 'Is not hard. You put . . .' She wriggled her fingers and said a few words in Coldi, half of which Cory recognised as numbers. Was she telling them that she had worked out how to get past the restrictions?
Alma's face creased in concentration as she typed. 'Here we go . . . Terran . . . League.'
The screen lit up with a red logo underneath which appeared the text The Terran League—keeping you safe.
Alma gave a soft snort and pointed at the link. The next page appeared, displaying picture of Earth seen from space. Superimposed over it was a ticking clock and underneath the text: It's five minutes to twelve. Earth is about to be invaded by aliens.
Cory's insides squirmed. He glanced at Theariki, but her face showed no emotion. The text faded, and next appeared,
They say they can be trusted, yet they call us primitive.
Which faded again to be replaced by,
They invite us to join networks, which they control; they want us to obey rules, which are theirs.
And,
Little by little, they wrest control from us.
Until it is too late.
Will YOU let this happen?
Will you stand by and deliver our most precious resource to the alien fiends?
At this, the image of Earth exploded into a giant fireball which faded until the screen went black. On this background appeared in red letters:
Or will you help us defend Earth with all we've got?
When the graphic finished, a white page appeared on the screen with a menu.
Cory tore his gaze from the screen, realising his mouth hung open. 'I don't think we're supposed to be looking at this.'
Alma snorted. 'Of course we're not. But you wanted to know what the Terran League is, so I think it's fair you get an answer. And I mean a proper answer.' She selected a link on the screen. 'Listen to this . . . Nations of Earth liars have us believe they represent the human race when they negotiate with the Union. They say they act on the wishes of the people. THEY DO NOT. The people do not want Earth invaded by aliens. We do not want to sign agreements of mutual respect and other rubbish. Union races do not respect us. Why should we respect them? We want only one thing: to be rid of Union scum.'
Blood draining from his face, Cory turned to Theariki, who was again staring at the bat on the ceiling. 'But . . . this is horrible. Like a declaration of war on the Union.'
Alma gave a hollow laugh. 'Tell you what, there is nothing the Terran League wants more.'
'And who . . . who's in this Terran League? At Midway I mean?'
'I suspect most technicians.'
'Sullivan?'
'Likely.'
'Miss Rosier?'
'Cory, you're so ignorant. Don't you know who she is?'
'How am I supposed to know these things?' Really, sometimes Alma was such a pain.
'She is the Reverend Peter Rosier's daughter.'
That did ring a bell to him. Cory remembered a televised speech in the Nations of Earth assembly. A thin man balling his fist and shouting. He couldn't remember what the speech had been about—he had been six or so—but he did remember the fuss it had caused. 'He was in the Terran League?'
Alma gave an exasperated sigh. 'Really, Cory, what did you learn at that school? Were you brainwashed just as much as the kids here? Did they all tell you Earth would just join the Union and all would be fine?'
No one had said that at all.
Alma met his eyes. 'But Nations of Earth is telling everyone it will happen at some time, don't they?'
Cory shrugged. He felt seriously out of his depth. What did he know about all this political stuff? As far as he could see, Earth joining the Union wasn't such a bad thing.
Alma continued, 'You know—the Union has rules about joining. They do not allow any members whose structure of government includes religion. They say religion is primitive.' Alma stopped as if for effect. 'You know how many constitutions of governments on Earth mention a God of some sort? That's what the Terran League is fighting. They believe the Union people's hidden aim is to stamp out religion altogether.'
'That seems a bit ridiculous.' Cory had never heard Erith speak of anything of the sort. He glanced at Theariki, but she was now studying the com panel next to the door, pointing at buttons but not touching them.
'Ridiculous or not, that's what it's all about.' Alma gestured at the screen. 'And this is not ridiculous, Cory. It's serious.'
In total silence, they went through page after page of anti-Nations of Earth material, naming the authorities everything from liars to much worse things. The organisation called for an end to all joint programs between Earth and the Union. Cory stared at the computer, feeling more sick by the minute, moving the cursor over different links to see what was behind them. He was almost glad when one link brought up a familiar screen. Volcanoes, dragons . . . 'Hey, that's Doomland.'
Alma snorted. 'Yeah. I think that's on there so the site qualifies as entertainment. What rot.'
Cory moved the cursor over the screen and clicked the volcano. The white dragon jumped up in the corner. Moving it without game gloves was hard, but Cory managed to get it at the top of the volcano before Alma interrupted. 'I don't think this is the time to play games.'
'But this is different from the normal version.' The screen displayed a view from the top of the mountain, showing a desert with a settlement. A gold-coloured space ship—the type he recognised as used by the evil demons—stood on the ground. 'Look, in the normal game these ships never stop.' Was this some sort of new routine? He selected the toolbox at the bottom of the screen to get the ship's mission statement. It said, Have a little fun.
Cory noticed that this ship, too, was different from the usual design. The wings were larger, delta-shaped and the curved shape made it look almost . . . like the Aurelian . . . He felt like someone had tipped a bucket of ice over his head.
Alma's voice came from far off. 'Seriously, Cory, close it down. Have you become addicted to this nonsense as well?'
'It's not nonsense,' he whispered. 'You see this ship? That's the Aurelian. This game tells the players to do something to it. You know there was an explosion aboard the Aurelian yesterday?'
Alma stared at him.
'Really Alma, how can you not know that?'
She snorted. 'That exploration stuff doesn't interest me.'
'No? Then what do you think of this?' He told of his trip to the docks, of seeing the Terran League people threatening Rocky and giving him a parcel. Theariki had turned away from the com panel, watching him intently, nodding at times.
'But . . .' Alma frowned. 'If that is true, it makes no sense at all. Why would they plant an explosive on one of our own ships? I mean—the Terran League is against the Union, not Earth.'
Yes, she was right, but then Cory thought of something else. 'Well, it says, Have a little fun. They didn't want a big explosion, just a practice one, and they don't have a Union ship to practice on, do they?'
They both looked at each other.
'The conference,' Alma whispered.
Cory added, 'The Union delegation.'
Alma stared at him, her face white. 'But . . . but that's horrible. We need to tell your father.'
A thousand things played in Cory's mind. How he had made a deal with these men to say nothing, how often Sullivan visited their house, how someone still had that letter. Compared to this, those things were unimportant. He whispered, 'Yes, I think so.'
Chapter 15
Cory clamped his sweaty hands behind his back and shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again, staring at the pictures of past station directo
rs behind his father's desk.
'You said what?' His father's eyes met his, stern.
Cory took a deep breath. Alma nodded at him. Cory wasn't sure this had been such a good idea, but there was no going back. 'I think the Terran League could have caused the accident with the Aurelian.'
'The Terran League.' His father's voice sounded unemotional, flat.
'Yes.'
Silence. His father folded his hands in his lap. 'On what knowledge do you base that statement?'
Cory hesitated. 'We . . . we visited the Terran League site.'
'You . . .' His father's mouth fell open. 'Cory—'
Alma interrupted. 'It wasn't his fault. I suggested it—'
'It was my fault. I wanted to know what the League was because you wouldn't tell me.' Cory met his father's gaze squarely.
His father cocked his head. 'So you didn't just hear about it at dinner.'
'No.' Cory looked at his feet, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. He continued, 'I saw these men in the docks . . .' His father raised an eyebrow, but Cory ignored it. 'They were attacking one of the maintenance crew, saying that he had to do something for the League or else. The thugs gave him a parcel. And on the Terran League site, they have this version of Doomland, where you have to do something to a ship that looks like the Aurelian and . . .' Cory stopped under his father's gaze. The explanation did sound rather lame when he said it out loud like this.
'Doomland?' His father's voice still sounded blank. 'The game?'
'Yes, but it's different from the official version. They changed the ship to look like the Aurelian and—'
'So you thought that because a game tells you to do these things, it must have happened in reality?'
'Yes.' Cory looked at his feet.
'Cory, tell me—why would anyone want to put explosives on the Aurelian?'
Cory said in a low voice, 'To practice, for when the Union delegation is here.'
His father stiffened briefly. For a moment, an expression of horror marked his eyes, but then he rose from his desk, his face set. 'Come. You, too, Alma. I want to show you something.'
He opened the door to his office.
As soon as they stepped into the reception area of the command centre, the secretary half-rose from his seat. 'Mr Wilson, Skye Millivan from StarTrans wants to speak to you, and the members of the agriculture branch are in the meeting room—'
His father silenced the man with a wave of his hand. 'Let them wait. I'll deal with it when I come back.' Without waiting for an answer, his father walked to the door. Cory and Alma had to run to keep up with him.
No one spoke a word in the lift. Alma just stared, her eyes wide. Cory clamped his jaws to stop his teeth clattering. He didn't dare ask his father where they were going, although he could guess. His father's lips twitched in a way they only did when he was angry. Cory didn't meet Alma's eyes. He shouldn't have dragged her into this.
The trip to the inner ring, through the two lifts and the hub, took an eternity, but when they walked through the bare corridor with the workshops on both sides, Cory knew for certain where they were going. He had even wanted to come back here again, but not like this.
Someone called his father into the workshop at the end of the corridor. Cory and Alma waited outside, looking through the doorway into maintenance dock.
'Is that it?' Alma stared into the maintenance hall, where the Aurelian stood, all panels open.
'Yes,' Cory whispered.
An engineer wearing a face mask crossed the floor driving a trolley, its undercarriage extended. It looked like a long-legged bug. To Cory's surprise, nothing indicated there had been a fire aboard the ship, except perhaps a whiff of burnt plastic.
The idea that someone would deliberately blow up this magnificent structure overwhelmed him.
He looked over his shoulder. His father was just coming out of the workshop.
'Come.' He led Cory towards Rocky's room and knocked on the open door.
'Afternoon Sylvester, can we come in?'
Rocky started. Gloved hands holding rolls of electrical tape, he turned to the door. 'Afternoon Sir.'
Then his face split into a smile and he winked at Cory. 'Hello, Cory, nice of you to come and see me.' He gestured at Alma, who had remained at the door. 'Brought a friend?'
'Someone from school.' Cory didn't feel much like smiling. His father's gaze burned into the side of his head like a laser beam. It had to be pretty clear to his father that this was not the first time Cory had spoken to Rocky. If only he wasn't such a terrible liar.
Rocky still smiled. 'Ah, school. See, I told you it couldn't be all bad—'
'Sylvester, how's the repairs going?' Cory's father interrupted in a business-like tone.
Rocky launched into a long and technical description of what the repair team had done so far. His father nodded every now and then, and Cory looked about. The parcel the thugs had given Rocky was no longer on the shelf.
Alma had crossed to Rocky's desk, where a leather bag lay in a box. She ran her finger over the strap.
A silence fell in the conversation, and Rocky turned his attention to Alma. 'Like that?'
She nodded. 'It's very nice.'
Alma had lifted the bag.
'Did you make this?'
Rocky took it from her with a large, hairy-fingered hand. 'Be careful of the pins, Missy. I haven't quite finished it. It's a present for someone.' His eyes met Cory's and held his gaze for longer than comfortable, as if he wanted to ask a question.
Meanwhile, Cory's father still stared at the image of the Aurelian on the screen. 'Sylvester, the reason I have brought these children here—could you be so kind to explain to them what went wrong with the Aurelian's booster engines.'
Rocky smiled and beckoned Cory closer to the screen on the wall. 'You, too, missy, come closer.' He had the diagram of the Aurelian on the screen. 'This is a pretty amazing computer, which took Earth developers at least twenty years to build—ever since the disaster at Taurus in 2183, which was caused by bad maintenance. This computer is linked up to all tools used by our technicians. The diagnostic program in computer pinpointed the reason for the fire in this section.' He touched it and a part of the ship's hull, side panels removed, zoomed in. 'It indicated that one of the boosters overheated because of a fault in the cooling system.' He touched the screen again and a further section enlarged, showing a tangle of blue and red tubes. 'It further determined this happened because the coolant wouldn't flow through the system at the required speed, which was caused by . . .' He reached to his desk, and lifted a transparent container. '. . . a broken O-ring which was tangled in the pump that moves the coolant through the system.' He shook the container and a black piece of rubber bounced around inside. 'Fortunately, the on-board computer recognised the emergency and shut down the booster; then it shut the fire doors in the part of the ship to prevent toxic fumes from the fire overpowering the crew.' He winked, his face crinkling with laughter. 'Pretty amazing stuff, isn't it?'
Cory's father wasn't smiling. 'Sylvester, I want you to spell it out for these children: there was no indication of foul play?'
Rocky shook his head. 'There wasn't.' But his eyes held Cory's for a few uncomfortable seconds.
Cory's mind rebelled. 'What about the men who threatened you?'
Rocky's eyes widened. He glanced at Cory's father. 'Yes . . . You see . . . Mr Wilson. I've . . . I've got some debts . . . from gambling.' He shrugged. 'I came to Midway to get away from it, but . . . you see, they tracked me down—'
'Sylvester, let me be clear about this: I tolerate no bullying amongst the staff. If anyone on station gives you trouble, see Security.'
But Security was the problem!
Rocky swallowed. 'I know, Sir. Thank you, Sir.'
Still, Cory didn't give up that easily. 'What was in the parcel they gave you, that is . . .' He looked at the empty spot on the shelf. ' . . . not there anymore?'
'Oh, my clasps and rings.'
'Clasps?' Given
to him by a bunch of thugs?
'Yes, for my leatherwork. Rabbittoohs have excellent leather, you know. The management asked me to make some gifts for the visiting Union delegates.' He laughed, a hollow sound.
However, Cory didn't think he had much to smile about. Had he really interpreted things so badly? No, he was sure he hadn't, and Rocky's stare still burned in his mind. Rocky had wanted to tell him something.
On the way back to the outer ring, no one spoke a word.
When they emerged from the lift into the central hall, his father took Cory aside.
'Cory, what does this tell you?'
'That I was wrong?' He couldn't say that he thought Rocky was lying; he had no proof.
'No, it tells you that this sort of talk starts rumours.'
But Cory didn't give up so easily. 'But there are Terran League people at Midway.'
'Yes, there are plenty.'
'They say nasty things.'
'Yes, and I don't agree with them either, but that doesn't have anything to do with the Aurelian.'
'But I did see the men threaten Rocky and they did mention the League—'
'Cory, please, no more of this. Play with your friends, have fun at school. Leave this sort of thing to the adults. I want you to promise me, all right?'
'OK, I promise.'
Chapter 16
Cory stared after his father's disappearing back, hands clenched at his sides.
A couple of people were waiting for a lift; a woman in the group glanced at Cory.
Theariki had caught up with them. She hummed to herself and tapped her fingers on her palm.
Alma asked, 'So you agree it was all nothing?'
Oh, ferrets—he should have told his father about Doctor Savage.
'No, I don't. Didn't you see how Rocky was staring at me? He was trying to tell me something.'
'Oh, don't be ridiculous. There was no bomb. It was an accident.' She stuck her chin in the air.
'So now all of a sudden you've forgotten what we saw on the Terran League site? A ship to be destroyed in the shape of the Aurelian, with a golden colour . . .'