Gravity's Eye

by Ian C Douglas

  Scuff and Pin-mei were alone.

  ~~~

  Zeke passed through the void and the ringing of a trillion chimes. Then the pale Martian sky overwhelmed him and cold dry air inflated his lungs. For a moment he wobbled, steadied himself and surveyed the scene.

  With a pang of disappointment he saw the canyon walls zooming up around him. The Chasm spread out below. Students were hurrying across the courtyard. The ants, as Fitch had called them.

  Zeke was balancing on top of Lutz’s minaret! He’d only managed a few hundred feet above ground level. He scanned the world below. There was the parking lot, row after row of shiny bikes and Glow-Worm scooters, with Scuff’s gravscooter glinting like a chrome ladybird. School buildings rose up like termite mounds. Beyond them were the school walls and gate.

  Suddenly, a sickening thought struck him. What exactly was he balancing on? Wasn’t the top of a minaret funnel-shaped?

  Zeke looked for his feet. They weren’t there! His ankles merged into the roof.

  “Oh…”

  He had materialised with his feet inside the roof tiles, mixing his molecules with those of Martian slate. Vomit erupted from his throat. Zeke vanished as it plummeted down like rain onto the people below.

  ~~~

  Zeke lay on Scuff’s bed, hand on eyes, groaning.

  “My feet, my feet.”

  “Your size ten porkers are fine,” Scuff said irritably. “Look for yourself.”

  Zeke tentatively lowered his hands. He looked down at his bare feet and wriggled his toes.

  “See,” Scuff snapped.

  Pin-mei returned from the bathroom with a warm flannel. She began to wipe Zeke’s brow.

  “You don’t know what it was like, Scuff,” Zeke snapped back. “My ankles could have been sliced off!”

  Scuff pouted. “But they weren’t. You achieved a hundred percent molecular synchronisation.”

  “Isn’t that impossible?” Pin-mei interrupted.

  Scuff nodded.

  “Exactly. Never been done before. Zeke’s one surprise after another.”

  “I didn’t intend to do it. I was just lucky.”

  Nobody spoke for a moment. Scuff piped up.

  “So, are you gonna try again?”

  “No way, it’s too risky!” Pin-mei cried, her eyes bright with worry.

  Zeke pushed the flannel away and sat up.

  “No I’m not. But I have a better idea.”

  Scuff and Pin-mei exchanged looks. Zeke flashed a big, lopsided grin.

  “We’re going to make the biggest gravitational catapult this side of Jupiter!”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Behind Some Rocks and Out

  of View From the School

  “Upgrade complete. Albie fully installed.”

  Zeke had wisely backed up his copy of Albie. Although his bike was destroyed, he could still download Albie into Scuff’s gravscooter. One day Zeke would find his father and tell him all about Albie’s incarnations. His father would be so pleased to hear how his old transport software had saved Zeke’s neck again and again.

  Scuff nudged Zeke in the ribs.

  “Bro, get on with it.”

  Zeke stepped towards the scooter. Scuff had propped it at a steep angle against a sloping rock. Then he carefully positioned it with aid of his non-magnetic compass, so that the bonnet pointed towards a distant western ridge.

  “Albie, please confirm coordinates. Ascraeus Mons is at twelve o’clock, at an approximate distance of a thousand miles. Check?”

  The scooter’s processors began to whir busily.

  “Wait!”

  Zeke and Scuff turned to see Pin-mei cycling around the huge boulders that blocked the school from sight. She parked next to Zeke’s bicycle and hurried over.

  “How’s it going?” she asked breathlessly.

  Zeke beamed at her. “Fine, Scuff’s been tinkering with his digi-spanner all morning.”

  Scuff puffed out his chest.

  “Redirecting the anti-graviton collider into the horizontal manifold.”

  Pin-mei ran a finger along the shiny hull of the scooter.

  “Are you sure this isn’t going to fall apart midair?”

  Scuff scowled at her. “Zeke has the ideas and I make ‘em work. We’re a winning team.”

  Pin-mei opened her mouth to say something when Albie gave a little ping. “Coordinates confirmed. There is a five degree risk of error, which I can correct with side thrusters during the flight.”

  “Ok, Albie,” Zeke said with a determined voice. “You know what to do. Get to it.”

  The gravscooter’s engine began humming. Zeke turned to his friends.

  “Well, this is goodbye.”

  Scuff and Pin-mei stared at him with gaping mouths.

  “What?” Scuff cried. “Bro, you are so not going without us.”

  Zeke clenched his hands into fists.

  “No way! Fitch Crawley is dangerous. I need to do this alone.”

  Scuff ran a hand through his greasy locks.

  “Did I fall asleep and miss something? When were you voted hero? One person can’t do this solo. In any case, it’s my scooter. I’m going and that’s that.”

  Scuff took a step towards Zeke. They both looked at Pin-mei.

  “Oh no. I’m coming too,” she protested.

  Zeke folded his arms.

  “You can’t come, Pin. You’re a…”

  Pin-mei locked a fierce glare on her friend.

  Zeke unfolded his arms.

  “Pin, look, it’s just not safe for a…”

  She stamped her foot.

  “A girl? An eleven year old?”

  Zeke swallowed hard.

  “My sister. My Martian sister.”

  “That’s why I’m coming. You adopted me. You’re my honorary Martian brother. That’s why I have to go. To be with you.”

  Zeke desperately tried to summon up a perfectly good reason why she had to stay behind. Nothing came.

  “Yoo-hoo!”

  It was Trixie Cutter, pedalling her pink, tinsel-decorated bicycle. Her perfect ponytail swished in time with the pedals.

  “What on Mars does she want?” Scuff said in a low and suspicious voice.

  Trixie pulled up, dismounted and produced a box from the rear pannier. She dropped it at Zeke’s feet.

  “What’s this?” he asked bewilderedly.

  Trixie’s face broke into a foxy smile.

  “High altitude kits. Thermo-suits, oxygen masks and a week’s supply of air-cakes. Courtesy of Cutter Enterprises.”

  “Huh?” Zeke cried in disbelief.

  “Don’t go all coy on me, Hailey,” Trixie replied. “I know all about your plans. You’re going to blast you and your little chums right out of Mariners Valley, in search of that lunatic Crawley.”

  “How in Martian Hell did you know that?” Scuff asked.

  Trixie laughed.

  “I’m not the top dog at a school for psychics for nothing, bro.” She drawled out the last word in a mock Canadian accent. Scuff poked his tongue out at her and moved away to the scooter.

  Zeke picked up the box, hesitated, then pushed it back into Trixie’s arms.

  “Sorry Trixie, I can’t accept this. Not from you.”

  She leered at him.

  “You’re such a goodie-goodie, Hailey. And that’s going to get you killed. The surface of Mars is five miles straight up. And Ascraeus Mons towers another eleven miles above that. You’ll be climbing the Himalayas in your jimjams.”

  “She’s got a point,” Scuff remarked from the scooter.

  “I may be a racketeering scoundrel, but I pay my dues. You saved my bacon back at the Research Station. Now we’re quits.”

  Trixie shoved the box back into Zeke’s hands and nimbly leapt onto her bike.

  “Oh, and don’t tell anyone about this,” she said with a twinkle in her sapphire-hard eyes. “I have a reputation to keep.”

  She pedalled off in a puff of ochre dust.
<
br />   The humming from the gravscooter was growing louder.

  “Well, let’s get on with it,” Zeke said.

  They took turns to go behind the rocks and change into the gold-foil suits in Trixie’s kits. For a long moment all three of them stood beside the vehicle. The humming was almost deafening now.

  “You don’t have to come, it’s okay, really,” Zeke said in a weak voice.

  Scuff snorted, Pin-mei pouted and Zeke shrugged.

  “Ok, Pin, you squeeze in the back with me. Scuff, it’s your baby, you sit in the driver’s seat.”

  They clambered in.

  “Albie, obey all Scuff’s instructions,” Zeke said. “Oh, and are we ready?”

  “Take off in thirty seconds, Sir.”

  Scuff pressed a button on the dashboard. A clear, plastic dome rose up and over the passenger seats, sealing them off from the outside.

  “This will keep the air in while we’re whizzing through the upper atmosphere,” he explained.

  “So how is this actually going to work?” Pin-mei piped up, trembling.

  Without looking over his shoulder Scuff said, “I’ve redirected all the anti-graviton flow from the vertical thrusters into the hyper-paddle.”

  Pin-mei nodded.

  “The vertical thrusters lift the vehicle off the ground and the paddle gives forward momentum?” she asked.

  “Right. But the paddle outflow pipe is blocked, so a huge mass of power is building up inside the scooter. One fantastic burst of energy which, when released, will propel us up, on a huge arc, over a thousand miles. I calculated it all myself.”

  Scuff’s voice was in a higher pitch than normal. Pin-mei had turned a very nasty green. Zeke himself had a hundred butterflies beating their wings in his stomach.

  “And,” Scuff added hastily, “as we run out of steam, the vertical thrusters will counteract gravity and slow us down to a soft landing.”

  “So how have you stopped the gravitons from pouring out of the hyper-paddle?”

  Pin-mei went on. Scuff gulped. “Um, actually, with a very large cork.”

  Pin-mei took Zeke’s hand in hers and squeezed very hard.

  Zeke glanced anxiously around at jagged boulders.

  Was this the last thing he’d ever see?

  “Take off, Sir,” Albie droned.

  Mars exploded.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Topside

  Open your eyes…NOW…

  It was the voice again, that tiny voice at the back of Zeke’s head. Ever since leaving Earth it was always there, encouraging him, rebuking him, warning him. Maybe it had something to do with the Orb of Words. There was no way of knowing. The only thing Zeke could be sure about was that it was always right.

  Open them.

  A shock of alarm ran through him. He struggled back from the brink of oblivion. His eyes opened. Pale pink sky surrounded them. The gravscooter was rocking like a rollercoaster. Nausea punched Zeke in the stomach.

  Pin-mei was beside him, out cold. Scuff was in front, his head slumped forward and groaning. The intense acceleration, as the vehicle catapulted upwards, must have caused them to black out. Zeke took a long breath, turned to his right and peered over the side.

  “Gosh.”

  There it was, far below, Mars. Miles of frozen red sand rippling across an endless desert. Mariners Valley suddenly seemed quite cosy in comparison.

  Albie’s tinny voice spoke above the rattle. “Warning! Dome integrity failing.”

  “What!” Zeke cried.

  “The gravscooter dome is too weak to withstand this degree of pressure and velocity. Micro-flaws are magnifying into fractures. Total dome shatter in fifty seconds.”

  No! Without this protection they’d be done for! They were hurtling through the Martian stratosphere. The minus temperatures and the near-vacuum would be fatal.

  Think! Hissed the voice inside his head. Their thermosuits would keep them warm enough but how could they breathe? Of course, Trixie Cutter’s air masks!

  Zeke reached down between his legs to the box at his feet. He ripped off the lid and began desperately rifling the contents. There! He lifted out a mask, leaned forward and slipped it over Scuff’s head.

  Plink!

  A crack appeared at the front of the dome, no larger than a thread of hair. It began inching upwards.

  Zeke adjusted the mouthpiece over Scuff’s lips and switched a small button to trigger the airflow. A cake of concentrated chemicals began releasing oxygen. Scuff mumbled something and came to.

  “The dome’s about to shatter!” Zeke screamed.

  Scuff glanced at the network of ever-dividing fissures above his head. He looked back at Zeke, as white as the Martian polar caps.

  “What do we do?”

  Zeke yanked out the second mask and turned to Pin-mei. But a dim memory of a plane trip back on Earth surfaced. What had the flight attendant said during the safety briefing? Always put on your oxygen mask before attending to others. Otherwise you’ll loose consciousness and save no one.

  “Sorry Pin.”

  Zeke pulled the mask down over his face and pressed the button.

  SMASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH!

  The entire dome vanished in a shower of plastic splinters. They were exposed, high above the alien landscape. Zeke grabbed the arms of his seat and braced himself for the worst. Would he suffocate, be sucked out, or simply get crushed by the G- force? But nothing changed.

  It’s the air pressure Zeke. Or rather the lack of it. Scuff was speaking inside Zeke’s head, using telepathy to communicate without removing his air supply. Travelling at this speed on the surface we’d feel an almighty wind. But up here in the near-vacuum scarcely a puff.

  Zeke scanned the world around them. There, dead ahead, lay a small cone, a boil on the horizon. But it was growing bigger and fast. Ascraeus Mons!

  His face was burning! The freezing cold of the high altitude.

  Scuff let out a telepathic squeal. Ow!

  Both boys rolled down the face-covers attached to the hoods of their suits, and secured them with the chin straps.

  Pin-mei!

  She was still out, her face as purple as paint.

  Zeke cursed himself and dived into the box. Where was it! Where was the third air mask? Zeke stared down at the container. Supposing Trixie had made a mistake? Supposing there were only two!

  Thank the stars! His fingers found the hard edge of a mouthpiece. As fast as he could he placed it over Pin-mei’s head and activated the oxygen. Then he unfurled her face-cover and fastened it securely.

  Breathe! He thought. The gravscooter lurched horribly. Albie was saying something, but the thermosuits muffled the sound.

  Duck! Scuff bellowed in Zeke’s mind. He dropped his head just as something long and shiny flew past. The gravscooter’s bumper!

  Scuff glanced over his shoulder, wide-eyed with fear.

  Albie says the scooter’s breaking up, it can’t take this velocity!

  At that moment Zeke’s ears popped. They were losing height.

  In front of him the vast, towering shield of Ascraeus Mons now dominated the world. The peak soared to twice the height of Everest. A jagged crater broke through the volcano like the jaws of a monstrous worm. But this monster had a gold filling. Something on the rim was twinkling in the afternoon sun.

  The gravscooter rolled to one side.

  The stabiliser, the left stabiliser! Scuff wailed.

  Zeke glanced over the edge.

  No! The other left!

  Zeke shuffled back to Pin, who at least had a healthier colour, leaned across and looked down.

  The stabilising wing was working loose.

  Zeke, if it comes off we’ll spin into a nosedive!

  Joint mind power, come on! Zeke replied.

  He stared at the wing and visualised it sliding back into place. Scuff was trying the same thing, Zeke could sense his friend’s intense brainwaves. Slowly the triangle of plastic edged itself back into place. The sc
ooter’s wobble eased off.

  We’ve done it, Scuff mind-spoke and gave Zeke a thumbs-up.

  At that moment the scooter gave a horrible metallic moan.

  That’s a death rattle, Zeke thought. His skin turned to ice.

  There, high in the sky, the gravscooter broke apart. It disintegrated into its component pieces of hull and engine. Zeke and Pin-mei, strapped to the bubble mould of the rear seating, were freefalling towards the great mountain. Zeke could see Scuff a few feet away, similarly belted into the front seat. Zeke’s head spun. They were going to die.

  No you’re not! You’ve done this before remember!

  The voice was right. Once, when Zeke and Scuff were in the stricken autogyro, he had managed to slow the rate of descent down to a safe speed. After all, wasn’t he a mariner?

  Scuff, use psychokinesis to glide down.

  Pin-mei was still out, too bad as her powerful psychic brain cells were exactly what he needed now. But he was on his own. He glanced down at the rocky terrain rapidly approaching.

  Focus!

  He closed his eyes.

  Gravity, magnetism and thought are the greatest forces of the universe. Of these three, thought is the most powerful.

  Zeke imagined giant hands cradling the seat, catching it, supporting it, slowing its perilous fall. He peeped through one eye. The razor-sharp spurs of the crater’s rim were ever nearer. It wasn’t working!

  He closed his eyes tighter and concentrated with all his heart.

  Gravity, magnetism and thought are the greatest forces of the universe. Of these three, thought is the most powerful.

  Brightness flared inside his sockets, tiny electrical charges shooting from his brain and around the retinal veins.

  Yes! Zeke could feel the deceleration. He was doing it!

  Through the light in his eyes he saw the frozen volcanic crater rushing up to engulf them. They were still coming in too fast. Nearer and nearer and nearer!

  They narrowly skimmed the volcano’s edge. But as the seating plunged deeper into the crater it struck an outcrop. The collision sent them tumbling into an avalanche of shale. Zeke’s safety belt snapped, throwing him out. He was spinning over and over, lost in a cascade of dust. His face cover was ripped off. No! The air mask too was snatched away, into the chaos. Air was sucked from his chest as though a thousand tiny knives were piercing his lungs.