by Steve Cole
Luckily, neither Dad nor Hannah-Anna – I mean, MUM – paid the talking goldfish much attention at that point. Maybe his amazing alien fish-powers meant he could choose who heard him.
Or maybe, just maybe, Mum and Dad were finally thinking more about their children right now.
“Come here, Tim,” said my mum. “I don’t care if this is a dream. Oh my darling, let me look at you . . .”
I’m in a spacesuit, I thought dully. You can’t see a lot. But nevertheless, she was pulling me in for a hug. I didn’t hug her back. I froze. Then—
“No!” Dad pulled me the other way, so hard that I almost fell over. “I’m not having you hug MY son, not even in a hallucination.”
“He’s my son too,” said Mum.
“Dad!” Elodie sounded close to tears. “Don’t you want to hug me?”
“I’m afraid I don’t do hugs,” said Dad gruffly.
There were half-developed hugs happening all over the Moon. What kind of rubbish, soppy astronauts were we?
But Herbert seemed pleased, shouting out like a director calling the shots. “Yes! More emotion! More drama! Yes, I say!”
“OK. I guess we really do need to talk – for Earth and for ourselves.” I crossed carefully to stand beside Elodie and looked at Mum. “All right. How come I never got to know you?”
Elodie nodded and turned to Dad. “And why did I never get to know you?”
There was a tense pause. How close would the GET ship be by now?
Mum turned to Dad. “You know, this whole bare, hostile Moonscape is most likely a role-play scenario invented by either your subconscious or mine.”
“Where the perceived threat of imminent catastrophe forces us to come to terms with unresolved personal traumas?” Dad suggested. “Interesting . . .”
Elodie leaned into me. “I can’t think what first attracted them to each other.”
“Very well.” Dad took a deep breath and turned to Elodie. “Your mother and I both cared deeply about our work—”
“You cared more deeply about work than you did for me,” Mum suggested.
“That’s the test-tube-over-a-bunsen-flame calling the distillation vessel heated!” Dad retorted.
“If you mean, ‘that’s the pot calling the kettle black’, say so,” I begged. “Just so I can follow.”
“We hoped having children would bring us together,” Dad went on. “But no. We had fallen out of love—”
“You decided that very quickly,” said Mum.
“—and it became obvious we would have to split up.”
I looked at Elodie; I couldn’t see her face through the helmet but I guessed she was wearing a look that said, “So, it’s our fault!” I knew I was.
Mum sighed. “We wrangled over custody for weeks. In the end, to take one child each seemed fairest. To leave and sever all connection.”
“Very mathematical,” I muttered. “But, Dad, why did you never ever mention Mum and Elodie? Why pretend they didn’t exist?”
Dad didn’t speak for a few moments. His fists were clenched. He was starting to shake. Finally, like a skinny, middle-aged volcano in a spacesuit, Dad erupted at last. “Because Dr Hongananner left when you and Elodie were only six months old and it almost KILLED me!” he roared. “She broke my heart into a thousand tiny pieces! Then she got a hammer and SMASHED each one of those thousand tiny pieces of my heart into ten thousand even tinier pieces! Then she meticulously collected each of those ten thousand even tinier pieces, got a SUBATOMIC LASER and BLASTED each one of them into TEN THOUSAND MILLION pieces, some of which she DISSOLVED with ACID, some of which she INCINERATED WITH A FLAMETHROWER and several more of which she FLUSHED down a DIRTY TOILET that she then BLEW UP WITH HER OWN BARE HANDS and DANCED up and down on the last CHARRED TRACES before moving away to CANADA!!!”
I’d never seen him like that before. And I was so shocked by the outburst, by Dad acting like a human being (a kind-of-scary one, but even so), that I forgot where we were and what we were meant to be doing and how little time we maybe had in which to do it. Talking now, and talking properly, was suddenly all that mattered.
I squared up to Dad in the low gravity. “So you just forgot them? Wiped the muck from your shoes and kept on walking?”
“We agreed, no contact,” said Dad. “It would have been too painful.”
“He was always better at walking than talking,” said Mum wistfully.
“I felt like a cracked bottle that’s been chucked in the trash instead of recycled.” Suddenly the old Dad was back, calm and considered. “So I took myself out of the Dustbin of Heartbreak and rolled along to the Recycling Plant of Second Chances. My broken shell was melted down and reformed in the white heat of a new and challenging job at the Space Centre, and my quest for a non-polluting form of space travel filled me with the Invigorating Liquid of Fresh Purpose . . .”
“You’re not a recycled bottle, Dad,” Elodie said hotly. “You’re a person!”
“And you never could see, my poor dear . . .” Mum walked over to him. “Things that break don’t always have to be recycled. Sometimes you can try to put them back together.”
“Sometimes,” said Elodie, regret thick in her voice. “But not right now.”
I followed her line of sight, into a colossal blurring of the stars and the blackness. And felt a familiar sick feeling gnaw deep into my guts.
“The aliens,” I murmured. “They’re here.”
Dad touched Mum’s hand. “I must congratulate one of us on the realism of this imaginary situation,” he said. “It’s as if we really were about to face death at the hands of Giant Extra-Terrestrials . . .”
“Yup,” said Elodie. “That’s because we really are, Dad.”
“That consequence-free environment you mentioned?” I said huskily. “I’m afraid it really does have consequences.”
“AAUUGHHHHHH!” Dad yelled.
“Thank you, Professor Gooseheart, for that last cry of despair,” Herbert piped up, keenly watching the shimmering blur overhead. “Well done, everybody. This is the Ova-Many’s ship, with the alien nursery on board. I do believe we’ve got their attention.”
“Enough!” came a voice up close in my head – in all our heads, I’d later learn. It was a whisper like before, but it sounded more exasperated than sinister. “For creatures small as dust you are so ridiculously noisy! Illogical and shouty. Annoying and caring and extraordinary. Clinging together even as you pull apart. Worried and loud and hopeful and rebellious and forgiving and . . . strong.”
I licked my dry lips, looking up at the shimmering vessel. “That’s . . . That’s just how we are.”
“Human things, you mean?”
“No.” There was the tiniest tremble in Elodie’s voice as she glanced at me, then back up at the stars. “Family.”
“You understand family, don’t you!” called Herbert imperiously, swishing his tail towards the blue marble in the sky. “And you must understand, that world you wish to purchase is teeming with families like this one. Millions and millions, swarming like dust motes in their little patch of sunlight. Would you allow your little ones to prosper by silencing so many others forever, hmm? Or would you travel elsewhere, to a naturally silent world that is owned and watched over responsibly – HMMM?”
It seemed as though that silence had already fallen. The vast, blurring reach of the Ova-Many craft still hung in front of us, striking upward as far as my eyes could see.
And then, swift as a sigh, it was gone.
The shushing of breath in our helmets was the only sound for quite some time, as Elodie and I waited for our wary minds to accept as fact what we dared to hope in our hearts.
“We did it,” I whispered.
“We did it,” Elodie whispered back.
Herbert swished around, looking pleased with himself. “I was rather good, wasn’t I?”
Then Dad pointed at the bowl. “Ohhhh!” he said, as if some great realisatio
n had just sunk in. “It was the goldfish talking.” He laughed. “What a ridiculous hallucination this is!”
“I’m almost starting to enjoy it,” Mum agreed.
Elodie laughed out loud, and I found myself wanting to join in.
I wish that I could just end things at this point. It would be neat, wouldn’t it?
Thing was, there was still the GET ship out there. The ship full of very angry GETs who’d gone to so much trouble to sell the Earth . . . and whose would-be buyers were now thoroughly put off and heading for the other side of the galaxy.
In a heartbeat, there it was – the GET’s spaceship, a shifting mass of bleary detail before us. Slowly it hardened to a solid, sinister cluster of creepy alien shapes . . .
“OK, it is deffo time to get out of here!” I shouted. “Back to Earth, Herbert! Come on!”
“Please!” cried Elodie.
But Herbert only stared, wide-eyed, at the terrifying sight becoming clear before us.
A colossal gun – it had to be a gun – was protruding from the middle of the spaceship. And the tip of the gun glowed with a terrible light – a light that grew bigger and fierier – and then streaked towards us.
A death ray. Had to be.
I watched the end coming. We’d come so far in so many ways. But now it was all over.
Now, we were DOOMED.
At least, we would have been doomed . . .
Except, just then, in a blur of red light, four more suited figures appeared, floating in space above the lunar horizon, each a long, long way apart. If you could draw lines through space to join the little figures you would connect the corners of a massive rectangle.
I recognised Big G in the yellow TAMASSIS first, top left. Katzburger was top right, Kimmy far beneath her, and Ray wobbling about bottom left.
What was this, some kind of last salute?
Each was standing on an antigravity disc. Each was holding on to something blurry and dark.
My eyes made sense of it all at last: together they were holding up the Big Blanket! So big that it blotted out the gun and the fearsome fireball scorching through space towards us.
“GENIUS!” Elodie yelled. “The Blanket reflects energy, remember, like Herbert said! And that death-ray the GETs fired at us is energy too. So if the Blanket is only strong enough, then—”
My heart leapt. “It’ll reflect the power back at them?”
“Zap!” Elodie agreed.
Then words died away as an enormous, soundless explosion engulfed the heavens around us. A storm of colours and shades burst from the great bulk of the GET ship, and whispers rushed past our ears like an impossible gale.
Then sound and colour were gone. As our friends released what was left of the Big Blanket and used their antigravs to drift down towards us on the lunar highlands, there was only endless space and stars above us.
Mum and Dad fell into each other’s arms. Then they slumped to the dusty lunar surface, apparently in a dead faint. I watched them with a pang of jealousy. Oh, to just drop out of the whole situation and let someone else take care of it all!
“The GETs,” I breathed. “Have they flown away or—”
“Their ship has been destroyed,” said Herbert, and he sounded almost sad. “The destructive powers they unleashed upon us were turned back against themselves.”
“Thanks to our friends,” said Elodie, “coming to the rescue at the last possible second.”
“Quit your lip, Uptight-Buns!” Katzburger growled as she landed. “We actually showed up at the second-to-last possible second.” Suddenly, she grinned. “Timing is everything, right?”
“But how did you know when to arrive or what to do?” I asked, as the TAMASSISS landed beside me. “Big G can’t see into the future now that he’s grown up, can he—?”
“HELLO! Hello! Little G.” The yellow-suited figure grabbed me in a clumsy embrace. “Mmmm! Hug! Hello!”
“Little G?” I exclaimed, trying to wriggle free.
“Hello!” He bounced into the air with me, a huge, exuberant leap. “Little G in little G-force! HELLO!”
“But how?” As I yelled down to the others, I found I was grinning my face off. “How come he’s changed again?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” fussed Herbert. “His body rejected the link with me, thanks to the conflicting alien cells in my system. So now he’s returned to his childhood state.”
“Huuugggg!” Little G was still trying to grab me in mid air like an over-playful puppy. “Hello!”
“Careful!” I yelled. “You’ll put a hole in my spacesuit!”
“You can always sue him!” Kimmy called up to us. “Once the rest of the world has woken up, that is.”
“Which they will,” said Ray proudly. “Kimmy and I mixed up a handy-dandy chemical cure using 101 medicines and the Yellow Downpour as a base – highly diluted of course.”
“That’s what we used to wake your mum and dad!” Kimmy added.
I came down to Moon with a scuffling crunch, clinging on to Little G to stop me falling. “You mean, you broke the lullaby effect by feeding them a cocktail of drugs and alien baby sick?”
Elodie looked at our parents’ sprawled figures and laughed out loud. “Good job, guys!”
“You bet your sweet legal fees it was,” said Kimmy. “Now all we need do is prepare a powdered cure, synthesise the antidote for mass production, and load it into the GETs’ stink machines. Instead of the lullaby, they will spit out a wake-up call!”
Ray nodded. “The human race should start stirring pretty much straight away.”
“In time to feed their fish and small furry friends,” said Katzburger, “and walk their dogs. And change their kitties’ kitty litter. And put nuts in their bird feeders. And place lettuce leaves in front of their tortoises. And—”
“All of that good stuff, yes.” I smiled at her. “You saved the pets from the aliens, Sergeant. You finally did it!”
“Payback is sweet.” I couldn’t see for sure through her helmet, but I heard the grudging smile in her voice. “I’m over the Moon!”
“Whereas frankly, I am SO over the Moon, already,” Kimmy tutted. “Standing on another world is an interesting scientific experience, but I’ve had enough now and I want to go home.”
“Home, yeah . . .” I turned to spy the Earth. There it hung in the darkness, billions of years old but still bursting with energy. So solid and strong – swinging the Moon around its middle every month, keeping its grip on the animals that swarmed over its surface in this quiet little backwater of space.
I want to go home too, I thought. And after all this, maybe I’ve got a real shot at making a new one. A better one.
“Remote on troll!” Little G declared, producing a little black box covered in dials and switches. “Hello! Hyper-beam, remote on troll!”
“Remote control,” Ray corrected him.
“Hug!” Little G replied.
I stooped to pick up Herbert in his bowl, ready to make the journey back.
“No,” my fish said firmly. “I am not going back with you.”
“Huh?” I frowned down at him. “You’re staying here?”
“I am going away,” Herbert declared. “Someone must journey into the outer reaches of the galaxy to find the Galactic Council . . . to make them understand that the Earth can never be sold. That it belongs now to the tiny beings that slowly – so slowly – grew up there. In their ignorance, they do not treat the planet at all well – but perhaps they can learn.” He nodded sagely. “Yes, they will have to learn, in time. And they deserve a second chance.”
“You’re going off into space?” I said. “Alone?”
“Aside from my little glowing plastic jellyfish, quite so.” Herbert nodded.
“But it’s such a long, dangerous journey.” I could feel wetness sting my eyes as I looked out of my spacesuit’s goldfish bowl and into his. “You’re a fish. Humans have treated your kind very badly.
How come you’re still willing to do this for them?”
Herbert wore a wistful smile. “I don’t do it for all humankind, Tim . . . I do it for one kind human.” He blinked. “I’ve watched you grow up. It would give me comfort, as I journey onward, to know that you will continue to grow in peace. And after all, once the antidote fills the Earth’s air and water, goldfish will lose their gifts and return to normal.” He smiled. “I prefer to go on learning . . . to find my destiny.”
“You . . . You’re one cool fish.” I sniffed noisily, wishing I could wipe my eyes. “You know that, Herbert? A really cool fish.”
“I am currently a few degrees below my ideal temperature, for sure, Tim.” Herbert shivered. “What a good job my bowl can draw heat from the mini-retro jets built into the base. That’ll keep me warm as aquatic toast.” He waggled his fins and spun in a loop-the-loop as Elodie walked over. “Remember, you two. The new waters we swim in life may seem terribly chilly when first we enter. But they warm up. Yes, they soon grow warmer. So keep paddling, my friends . . . keep paddling . . .”
Then, the bowl shook, the water bubbled slightly, and with a swift, efficient SWOOSH, Herbert’s little world took off into the vacuum, and streaked away into the distance. Before I could even call goodbye, he was gone.
“I hope he finds the Galactic Council OK,” said Elodie. “If he gets lost, the Earth could still be sold on to any alien race who fancies it.” She snorted softly. “Which means the fate of the human race depends on a goldfish!”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “But what a goldfish.”
The TAMASSISS beside me waved a sudden arm. “Little G go home too. Bye-bye. Little G. Home. Byeeeee.” He was already fading away.
“Little G, no!” I cried. “Don’t just go!”
“You’ve got the hyper-beam remote control!” cried Ray.
“AND MY FLIPPIN’ SUIT!” bawled Kimmy.
But she could shout all she liked – Little G had still gone. I gulped. He wouldn’t really just abandon us up here, would he?