Outpost

by Allan Baillie

  Contents

  1. Monsters

  2. Ord

  3. Saphare

  4. The Peak

  5. The Lump

  6. Lunch

  7. The Decision

  8. The Tug

  9. Idiot

  10. The Mystery

  11. Disaster

  12. The Leap

  13. The Hold

  14. The Bug

  15. The Cutter

  16. The Chasm

  17. The Rooms

  18. The Trap

  19. The Whispering

  20. The Beacon

  21. The Ship

  22. The Alien

  23. Why?

  24. The Try

  25. Choice

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Allan Baillie began writing stories for fun while still at school. He is now one of Australia’s most acclaimed writers for children, and his novels have gained him awards and international recognition. His most recent novel, Krakatoa Lighthouse, was winner of the 2010 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award Patricia Wrightson Prize.

  Allan spends most of his time with his wife Agnes in Avalon, north of Sydney, but they travel regularly and widely, though never as far as he does in his imagination.

  Find more about Allan Baillie at allanbaillie.com.au

  ALSO BY ALLAN BAILLIE

  Adrift

  Little Brother

  Riverman

  Eagle Island

  Megan’s Star

  Mates

  Hero

  The China Coin

  Little Monster

  The Bad Guys

  Magician

  The Dream Catcher

  Songman

  Secrets of Walden Rising

  The Last Shot

  Wreck!

  Saving Abbie

  Treasure Hunters

  The Excuse

  Foggy

  Imp

  A Taste of Cockroach

  Cat’s Mountain

  Krakatoa Lighthouse

  PICTURE BOOKS

  Drac and the Gremlin

  The Boss

  Rebel!

  Old Magic

  DragonQuest

  Star Navigator

  Archie the Good Bad Wolf

  Castles

  NON-FICTION

  Legends

  Heroes

  Riding with Thunderbolt

  Villains

  Puffin Books

  Something was in their rings that

  shouldn’t have been there

  Life on the remote moon Ord is dangerous. Random eruptions in the ice, extreme cold, loneliness and loss: it’s all Dece knows. Until one day he sees a mysterious object caught in the rings of the nearby gas planet Cotal. With no choice but to investigate, what he will find is so extraordinary that it is almost beyond understanding.

  1.

  Monsters

  DECE stared at the reflection in the polished steel of the small transport, and snorted. With his swollen head, his eyes gleaming in the dim red glow, his polished claws, solid body, heavy legs, and the little sparks flying everywhere, he looked scary enough to frighten Seps.

  Then he saw her Skimmer parked against the rock wall. The Skimmer was covered in frost and looked like a large green crystal.

  Well, he would have frightened Seps when she was little. With a blackout and a meteor storm.

  Dece clanked up to the transport.

  All right, he knew there were better suits than this creaking thing he had on, lighter ones, that almost felt like a new skin. Seps wore the light one when she drove the Skimmer – but she had to make sure the Boss didn’t see her. If Boss saw Seps she would murder her. The light suits weren’t as protective as this one.

  Dece snapped his right claw onto the transport’s handle. The transport’s name was Telp, but ‘Dumb Box’ would have suited it better. Dece shoved himself into Telp and clicked on the engine. Telp coughed. Dece touched the controls.

  No, he thought. That would really annoy Cap. He would shout at Dece for months. So Dece moved his arm away and waited. Telp’s motor always needed warming up, otherwise the cold would destroy it – even here, inside the hangar.

  Dece wiped his helmet’s visor with the back of a claw and turned on the headlights. The blaze threw shadows across the cave, the metal door, the rock walls and the side of the Tug.

  The Tug looked frightening in this light. Its four thick legs lifted its body from the pocked floor, and its swollen black back almost scratched the roof. One of its engine nozzles was twice as big as Dece, and all together there were three of them. The Tug looked like an immense bug hatching in the rock.

  Boss owned the Base but the hangar was Cap’s place – and they were a perfect match.

  A shiver ran down Dece’s back, even though he knew that the Tug was nothing but a tender, a lifeboat, something that ships carry in their holds.

  Dece glared at the fat transport. ‘Stop leering at me. I once flew you.’

  Seps didn’t pay much attention to the Tug. She called it a rattling ferry and complained about the reek of fish oil.

  Like she said, the real monsters are outside.

  Seps’ Skimmer was parked near the lumbering Roller. Dece looked at it and shrugged. The Skimmer and the Roller were nothing but junk.

  Looking up for a moment, Dece noticed Boss and Seps watching him from the Base’s window. He waved one of Telp’s arms at them.

  Dece figured Boss was at the window because she worried about him, but that wasn’t why Seps was there. If he fell into a crevasse it would be a week before she’d notice he was gone. She was only there because she wished she was the one driving Telp, and Dece would have preferred that too. But Cap wanted Dece to be some sort of warrior – because that’s what Dece was supposed to be. But he wasn’t.

  Dece sighed, finally gripped the controls and moved towards the small yellow metal panel on the wall. When Telp got closer, the panel slid up and away and ice particles scurried into the hangar.

  Dece watched the particles dance around Telp.

  There were two places here. The Quarter was the safe place. Even with the cold hangar and the crouching Tug. But the Base was also part of the Quarter, and that was warm, had hot meals, computer games, Seps’ holograms and the calm sea from Home. The Quarter was home, but they never called it ‘home’ because that would confuse it with Home. Especially for Cap. But ‘Quarter’ just sounded like a slice of pie.

  Then there was the outside.

  As Seps said, there were monsters.

  2.

  Ord

  DECE moved Telp outside and the yellow panel came down behind them. In front was the motionless Dreaming Sea, the black Saphare Range, the weak sun and the stars – an explosion of white stars, dying orange stars, red giants, spreading novas, so many he could almost feel their heat.

  There was one spectacular nova. Seps called it the Dancer because its gases, green, yellow and a touch of red, looked like long streamers wafting across its stars.

  The Dreaming Sea wasn’t really a sea, it was just ice with a bit of sodium.

  The Saphare Range was simply called the Black Range, in the beginning.

  With a soft sigh Dece looked at the spot on the Dreaming Sea where he had seen Saphare taken. He didn’t like to but he felt he should every time he was outside, as if otherwise Saphare would be forgotten.

  Saphare had been the leader – Cap had hated that – and he’d wanted a base on Ord because he was convinced there was life there. Never mind that nobody could find a bug anywhere, apart from Home – he was going to find a bug under the Dreaming Sea.

  The time he found sodium in the ice, he leapt around the ridges shouting, ‘Yes, yes, good!’ Because sodium was a building block for life – at Home.

&
nbsp; Cap said all scientists are a little mad.

  But Dece had liked Saphare because of that.

  Saphare used to play up the madness bit. He knew that his group of biologists, which included Cap, were thought of as idiots who spent a lot of time on failing. The group had looked for life outside Home on clouds of planets, in acid pools, in undersea volcanoes, but they had found nothing. Dece and Seps were born on the planet Dur, where they’d had to import everything, even the bugs. Saphare used to tell everyone that he was looking for bigger and more ravenous bugs on Ord. Very funny.

  But Saphare stopped being so funny once he started worrying. He would do anything to find a bug, but he would also do anything to stop that bug from getting into the Base. He would insist that anyone tramping out there use the Roller before coming inside. He’d say, Those suits can carry unknown microbes so they have to be cleaned, and so do you. And Telp has to be left outside and anyone using it must go into the Roller.

  That was the Roller’s purpose: to clean off microbes in the airlock on the other side of the steel door to the Quarter. It was a hassle, but Saphare was so apologetic that nobody muttered – much. Not even Cap. Now everyone ignored the Roller, and Telp was parked in the hangar. There were no bugs on Ord.

  Saphare had found something far worse.

  Dece pulled his eyes from the Dreaming Sea’s ridge of ice. He knew it wasn’t safe to stay where he was.

  Move!

  He clicked Telp’s gears and Telp slid towards the slope, following the glint of red under the ice. The red track was the highway to the Peak. Telp could get there without Dece, if the track was all right. Dece had seen Cap playing with a data processor while Telp was climbing the track, but Dece couldn’t rely on the technology for everything. He had to watch carefully.

  Ord was an unstable moon. Every day, Dece felt its heart moving. One quake could warp the red highway, maybe even break it. It hadn’t happened yet, but it could happen any time, and Telp could topple off the mountain onto the Dreaming Sea.

  The solid rock that made the Base stable also blocked communication signals. The broadcast station was clear of the rock, at the Peak. But that’s where Ord’s movement seemed to be concentrated, and this meant there was often trouble up there. Tiny robots, microrobots, were there to fix things, but they couldn’t fix everything, so Cap and Dece had made the trip up the mountain many times.

  This was Dece’s first solo trip.

  It was easy, he thought. He’d just let Telp do the work.

  Dece folded his arms and watched the red-flecked track ahead as Telp trundled from the shelter of the cliff towards the mountain. It was not really a mountain, more just a hill made of rock, but on Ord there was nothing bigger. Ord was a small moon with flat ridges, scarred hills and ice lakes and seas. Before they lost Saphare, Seps used to talk about shooting so quickly around Ord in her Skimmer that Boss wouldn’t notice she was missing. Ord was that small.

  A pale light washed over Telp as it rumbled up the slope, revealing its dents in the front. Dece glanced up at the sun, a small yellow blob among the crowded stars. Silhouetted beneath was the beginning of the great rock shaped like a knife, jutting from the Peak.

  It shouldn’t be there, he thought. It is moving too fast. It’s going to –

  Stop it. It is where it should be.

  He looked down at the red track and urged Telp to go a little faster.

  And for a while, Telp seemed to obey, till it piped out a shrill noise and stopped.

  There was a small rock on the path. Dece allowed Telp to vaporise it. Telp seemed to enjoy blasting it away. The rock disappeared and Telp rolled on.

  The knife of rock was growing and tilting. As Telp climbed the mountain the knife lifted from the top of the Peak.

  Dece made a face and calmed himself.

  It’s all right. Stop looking at it.

  But while Telp ground its way up the narrow track, Dece noticed the knife was still changing. There were lines on it, and they were getting bigger, becoming rings. Massive rings in the sky. A star was winking through a black area between two of the rings. Dece checked the time on his helmet and on Telp’s control panel.

  It’s all right, nothing’s wrong.

  But there was something in the rings that shouldn’t have been there. Nothing to worry about, of course. Just a slight bump.

  Telp piped again and stopped.

  ‘What?’

  Dece looked at the clear track, the red strip under the ice.

  ‘Nothing. Come on, you Dumb Box!’

  He hit the buttons several times, but Telp kept piping and refused to move.

  ‘You pile of bug manure! What’s wrong with you?’

  Dece kicked Telp’s floor. His lips were forming more words to bawl it out, but then he looked up.

  ‘Oh.’

  There was a fresh boulder sitting on a crag above the track, beyond Telp’s low laser.

  Dece had to do something.

  Like get out of there.

  He glanced at the track. The Peak was just ahead.

  It was so close. What would Cap say if he went back without having done the job?

  Never mind, he’d say, I should have done it myself. You don’t use a shrimp for any job.

  Dece shook his head. He thumped the dashboard. The control panel flipped up, and he took from it a light cutting-machine, and stepped out of Telp.

  For a moment, he studied the boulder. It was big. Huge, even. If he zapped it sloppily it could hit both Telp and him. He hurried back into Telp and reversed for three seconds.

  He clambered out again, muttered, ‘Stupid, stupid …’ and looked at the Peak, where the rings seemed to be pulling something enormous in their orbit. The dark, rocky outcrop of the Peak was highlighted by a sliver of something pale grey.

  Don’t look!

  Dece turned on the cutting-machine and sliced into the boulder at the bottom. The boulder shifted a little. He moved the laser to the top, working slowly until he could see the boulder move. He wished he could hear the rock as it crunched, but there was nearly no atmosphere on Ord, so there wasn’t any sound.

  The boulder began to roll.

  Dece moved as quickly as he could behind Telp.

  The boulder slowly left the crag and crashed down on the track. It cracked in two and one part spun over the edge of the track and into the drop below. But the larger part remained in the middle of the track.

  Inside Dece’s helmet a faint green light glowed above his eyes.

  ‘Dece, where are you?’ Boss said.

  ‘I’m still on the track.’

  ‘Look at Cotal!’

  Dece looked at the Peak, and the grey sliver behind the Peak’s rocky outcrop was now a large, swelling planet, the planet made of gas, Cotal. It was above the horizon of Ord now and still growing rapidly.

  ‘You have no time,’ Boss said.

  ‘There was a big rock in the way. I’ve nearly got rid of it.’

  Dece blasted the boulder again, but independently Telp fired its own laser at it. Dece hurried sideways. He climbed back into Telp, returned the cutting-machine to its slot and waited.

  ‘What’s up?’ Cap sounded half asleep.

  Seps joined in. ‘He is still on the mountain and Cotal is rising.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Dece looked at the Dreaming Sea and saw the ice quivering.

  ‘Where are you?’ Cap said.

  ‘I’m nearly there.’

  ‘Where? Nearly at the Base or nearly at the Peak?’

  ‘The Peak, the Peak.’

  ‘Do I need to come and help you?’

  For one instant Dece almost said, Yes, save me, but Telp had finished mopping up the fragments and was moving again, towards the Peak.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  Telp crept along as Cotal slowly blocked out the view of the stars. The great gas storm swirled around the planet, hurling the ammonia clouds aside. Dece felt like Ord was tumbling towards those clouds.

  And
Seps’ monsters were rising from the Dreaming Sea, as if worshipping the mighty Cotal.

  3.

  Saphare

  THE first of the monsters shimmered up towards the rings. Then it flattened, and for a moment it looked like there was a hideous head in the crystal vapours. It leaned over Telp, as if it was looking for Dece in the tiny metal box. Dece was hissing like a broken pipe at it, but then the head drifted apart in the light gravity.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Boss called urgently.

  Dece swallowed. ‘Yes, yes. I’m almost there.’ He needed to remember they were listening, and stop having Seps’ terrors.

  Telp rolled steadily into the shelter and stopped with a metallic sigh.

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘That is a relief,’ Boss said, and clicked off.

  Seps’ terrors? No, they were his own terrors. Because Dece was the one who saw it happen. Seps only called them monsters to show Dece she understood. But the reason she hated the monsters was because they stopped her from taking her Skimmer on the Dreaming Sea.

  Dece climbed down and gave Telp an affectionate pat. The shelter was nothing more than a cave that had been carved out with a cutting-machine. Its purpose was to protect Telp from ice falls while people were at the Peak. When the monsters were dancing they could tear off slabs of solid ice, hurl them into the sky, and they came down slowly and then fast in the thin atmosphere. Dece leaned against the rock wall of the shelter to watch Cotal and the monsters dancing.

  Saphare used to call this one of the great sights in the galaxy. But Cap didn’t like it.

  Dece looked at the black ridge where Saphare had died and moved his eyes slowly back to the monsters. There were seven, now, shimmering over the Dreaming Sea. Yes, they were beautiful. Saphare used to call them his ‘ghosts’. He thought he could predict when they would come out from the ice sea. But he was wrong.

  Dece played over in his mind what had happened. He was the only one who had seen it, because only he had accompanied Saphare outside. Cap was busy adjusting the cameras, Seps was working on her Skimmer in the hangar and Boss was sending notes from Saphare to Control. But Dece was sitting in Telp, waiting for Saphare to finish sending a probe down to the heart of Ord. The gas planet Cotal was over the horizon, which should have meant the Dreaming Sea was safe.