The Lost Home World

by Jones Cerberus

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  ‘You’re out, Floros!’

  A cheer went up from most of the kids watching, and Erik grinned as Callan ran off to get the handball.

  ‘No way!’ Charlie stood in his square, refusing to budge, even though Shani had already stepped up to take his place.

  ‘Come on, Charlie,’ said Callan, coming back with the ball and tossing it to Erik, who was in king. ‘Don’t be a sore loser.’

  ‘Yeah, Charlie,’ said Dean. ‘Just suck it up and let Shani have a go.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for ages, Charlie,’ said Shani, ‘and the bell’s going to ring any minute now.’

  ‘But that ball was in,’ Charlie insisted.

  Amelia, at the end of the handball line, looked up from her conversation with Sophie T and winced. She hadn’t been watching at the crucial moment, and had no idea what had happened.

  ‘Seriously,’ Charlie said. ‘I can show you exactly where it bounced – right in the corner of the square. It was the ultimate kill shot.’

  Erik crossed his arms. ‘It was out, Charlie. Stop whining about it and get lost, will you?’

  ‘Yeah, Charlie.’ Callan was always quick to back Erik up.

  Dean, being Shani’s twin, was always going to take her side over Charlie’s. And as for the rest, almost all the kids in Ms Slaviero’s class thought Charlie was an idiot, and they were ready to let him know it.

  Amelia watched Charlie’s face redden into a stubborn, angry expression that was all too familiar for him at school. It didn’t matter that he was probably right about that trick shot, the rest of the kids had decided he was done playing for the day.

  Erik, seeing that he was about to lose his temper, pushed him one step further. ‘Oh, come on, Floros,’ he said in a falsely reasonable tone. ‘It’s just a game. Just get out before you ruin it for everyone else, OK?’

  Amelia heard an angry snort beside her, and suddenly Sophie T was storming up to Erik. She flicked her long, blonde hair back over one shoulder and pointed up at Erik. ‘You get out, Erik Zhang – that ball was in, and you know it.’

  Erik stared down at her in amazement, and a stunned silence fell over the whole schoolyard. Sophie T was defending Charlie?

  ‘Uh, are you kidding me?’ Erik asked her.

  Charlie, as shocked as everyone else, nodded as though that was his question, too.

  Amelia smiled. Last Saturday had been her birthday, and the first time Sophie T had been over to her place – the old Gateway Hotel on the top of Forgotten Bay’s headland. The party had started out well enough (loads of cake, fireworks, nice presents) but then a run-in with some intergalactic kidnappers had made a real mess of their night. With some help from Charlie, Sophie T had avoided getting dragged through the gateway to another planet – but she’d found out all about the hotel’s alien secrets.

  She was sworn to silence by Gateway Control, of course. And so far, she’d done a brilliant job of keeping the secret to herself: since the night of the party, she had refused to even listen when Amelia and Charlie tried to discuss it with her.

  ‘You’re allowed to talk about it with us!’ Amelia had promised, but Sophie T wanted to pretend nothing had happened that weekend.

  Right now, though, it was obvious that Sophie T had changed. She’d never thought Charlie was just a goofy misfit like everyone else – the whole of Forgotten Bay knew she found him the most irritating, painful, stupid, disgusting, ridiculous and horrible boy on the planet. And Charlie felt exactly the same way about her. But now …

  ‘Do I look like I’m kidding, Erik?’ Sophie T put her hands on her hips. ‘You think you can boss Charlie around because everyone will back you up, but you’re a cheater and a liar and worse than that: you’re jealous because Charlie’s better than you at handball.’

  Erik gaped at her.

  And then Callan laughed, ‘Is that really you, Sophie T, or have you been abducted by aliens?’

  All the kids laughed, but Sophie T went white. Amelia ran to her side, a big fake smile on her face, and said, ‘Haha, Callan, very funny. I don’t think,’ and dragged Sophie T away from the centre of attention.

  Forget all the dangers and secrets and crazy goings-on at the hotel – how long could Amelia and Charlie keep acting normal at school? How long before Forgotten Bay realised that none of this was a joke?

  After school, Amelia and Charlie stopped off at Archie’s grocery on the way home. The groundskeeper Tom had given them another one of his weird shopping lists: ten tubes of gel toothpaste and a large jar of seed mustard.

  ‘It’s got to be for Leaf Man,’ said Charlie as they began the steep walk up to the headland.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Amelia. ‘It’s been a week since we saw him, so he’s due for another visit, isn’t he?’

  Leaf Man wasn’t his real name, of course, but Amelia and Charlie didn’t know what else to call the mysterious Keeper of the Gates and Ways, and he did like eating gumleaves. He was an alien, but totally unlike any other, because instead of travelling through the wormholes that connected to the gateway, Leaf Man travelled through the Nowhere – the huge and dangerous space between the wormholes. And he seemed to know more about the gateway than anyone else – even more than Control did.

  When Amelia and Charlie got past the hotel’s gates, though, and trudged their way through the magnolias to Tom’s cottage, there was no Leaf Man. Tom was tinkering with some holo-emitters at his desk, and stretched out on the sofa with a stack of charts was –

  ‘James?’ said Amelia, scowling at her older brother. His high school was in the city, more than an hour away by bus: no way should he be back yet. ‘What are you doing home from school again? Are you in trouble? Oh!’ she gasped. ‘Did you get expelled again?’

  ‘Expelled?’ said Charlie, impressed. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I wasn’t expelled,’ James sighed. ‘And I’m not in trouble now, either.’

  ‘Then what –’

  ‘Are you my mum?’ James interrupted her. ‘No. So let me and Tom get on with our work in peace.’

  Tom snorted and scratched under his eye-patch. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘We’re working, too,’ said Charlie, dumping the bags of toothpaste and mustard in Tom’s kitchen.

  ‘What are you working on?’ Amelia asked James, by way of an apology.

  James huffed, but he couldn’t help himself – he was so excited by the gateway, he was always happy to talk about it. ‘I’m trying to work out how the gateway is controlled.’

  Tom straightened up at his desk, startled. ‘Controlled? Don’t be ridiculous! You know how unpredictable and chaotic the wormholes are. There’s nothing controlled there, believe me.’

  ‘Chaotic, yes,’ said James, ‘but not random. It can’t be. I mean, look –’

  He opened up a notebook and scrawled across a blank page:

  0.000000000000000000004%

  ‘That’s how much of the universe is matter, and not just empty space. Then imagine subtracting from that tiny number all the bits of matter that are comets, meteors, gas planets, dust clouds, stars, or planets without a breathable atmosphere. And then tell me: what are the chances that these wormholes are just coincidentally only connecting with a safe planet every single time?’

  Amelia goggled at him, but Tom snorted. ‘Safe? Have you noticed what’s been coming through the gateway lately?’

  James
shrugged. ‘The aliens aren’t always nice, I admit, but the wormholes are safe. I mean, what’s stopping one connecting us to a black hole? No, something must be organising and directing the gateway system. If only we could work out what it was, or how it operated, then maybe we could understand why the wormholes are getting so off schedule.’

  James’s eyes were shining with the possibilities, but Tom snapped, ‘Are you quite finished? Because unless I’m the only one who remembers what’s been going on here, we’ve got more to worry about than theories and timetables. We’ve had a plague of cyborg-rat spies, a time-shifter trying to rip the universe in half to get her hands on a canister more powerful than a nuclear bomb, and a continual stream of aliens trying to kidnap as many of us as they can.’ He drew in an angry breath while all three kids gazed at him. Amelia felt not only intimidated by his temper, but also vaguely guilty for being there when he lost it.

  Tom blinked, as if suddenly realising the effect he was having. He said in a milder voice, ‘Science is all very well in times of peace, James, but right now we have to stick to what’s practical. For me, that means forgetting the hows and whys, and concentrating all our attention on what’s going to come through the gateway next. And tell me, when’s the last time it was anything good?’

  At that moment the cottage was flooded with the most heavenly perfume, and a trill of ecstatic birdsong sounded from the stone stairwell in the next room. A new wormhole had connected.

  James, still sitting with the charts, frowned and stared intently at the numbers. He looked at another chart for comparison. ‘This doesn’t make any sense. Either this is that wormhole that never turned up a week ago, or the next wormhole on the schedule is nine hours early.’

  Tom snorted and got up from his desk. ‘The next wormhole is supposed to be from Klal Guinee, and that place stinks of volcanic ash. This is something else.’

  ‘What?’ said Charlie.

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m getting my gun before we find out.’

  Amelia blanched. Tom had always been wary of the gateway, but meeting arrivals with a gun pointed at them was a whole new level.

  Another gust of perfume blew up from the gateway stairs, stronger than before, and it seemed to Amelia to smell of nectar and strawberries and maybe the tiniest whiff of cinnamon. Amelia breathed it in deeply and felt very calm and yet hopeful, sure that something wonderful was about to happen, even with the sound of Tom loading his shotgun behind her. She turned to the gateway room and waited to see who or what would come up the stairs.

  ‘Stand aside,’ said Tom, but both Amelia and Charlie ignored him, transfixed.

  Perhaps it was the delight in the birdsong that held them, because unlike any Earth bird Amelia had ever heard sing, this one didn’t just sound beautiful. It was clearly and unarguably happy.

  And then there was a soft rushing sound – like the hiss of water on the sand when the waves pull back from the shore – and the song was gone. The gateway had closed. But the perfume stayed as strong. In fact, Amelia was sure it was getting stronger. Almost too strong, too delicious to bear, but she and Charlie stayed where they were nonetheless, watching the edge of the stairwell in the next room.

  Amelia heard a rustling of fabric, the gradually louder tapping of light shoes on the stone steps, and then at last their visitor emerged.

  He was a young man – a human man, apparently – and something in his face made Amelia’s heart pound. It wasn’t just because he was beautiful, although he certainly was that. Not merely attractive or handsome or even gorgeous, he was beautiful in a way that made your eyes want to drink him up.

  Amelia was almost befuddled by his beauty, but there was still more to it than that. What made Amelia really unsure of herself was how familiar he seemed. His hair was thick and black and held off his face with an intricate metal headband like a crown. He had smooth, tawny skin, sharp cheekbones and slanting grey eyes that were wide with excitement. He swept through the gateway room toward them so gracefully, his soft green robes just whispering over the floorboards, that Amelia almost curtsied.

  ‘I see you’ve got your own holo-emitter,’ said Tom. ‘I’m afraid under Control’s new orders, you’ll have to exchange it for one of our registered units.’

  Amelia sighed. Can’t he keep this face for a while longer?

  But the alien put his hand up to his throat and firmly pressed his fingers to the spot where the holo-emitter should have been attached. ‘No holo-emitter here. This is just me.’

  James looked at his charts and jotted down some numbers in his notebook.

  ‘You’re human?’ Charlie asked.

  Amelia knew it wasn’t always as simple as that. The Munfeep, for instance, were a shape-shifting species that could appear human with just a little borrowed DNA.

  Nevertheless, Tom leaned his shotgun against the table and approached the alien to physically check for himself that there was no holo-emitter.

  ‘No,’ said the man, smiling at Charlie so brilliantly that his eyes crinkled at the corners. His voice was warm and joyful. ‘Not human, though I could probably pass. I’m looking for the woman you call Lady Naomi.’

  Tom, his fingers just touching the alien’s throat on both sides, suddenly reeled back, mouth open in shock. ‘Who are you?’ He backed away, and reached behind him for his gun.

  The man bowed his head. ‘My name is Mallan, and I am her brother.’

  Tom staggered back. His gun dropped to the floor, but he barely seemed to notice it fall.

  Amelia finally tore her eyes away from the alien and glanced at Tom, puzzled. She’d never realised Lady Naomi had a brother either, but surely it wasn’t that surprising … was it?

  Tom pulled himself together and said, rather roughly, ‘I suppose you have proof?’

  ‘I have a memory,’ said Mallan, and from inside his robes, he took a flat box, about the size of a sandwich, and set it on the palm of his hand. With one finger, he prodded a wheel on the side, and a tiny crystal appeared in the centre of the box. It flared with light and then suddenly they were looking at a baby lying on its back and playing with its feet.

  ‘It’s a holo-emitter!’ said Charlie.

  Mallan nodded. ‘Similar.’

  James looked more interested in the gadget than the image it was producing, but Tom had gone pale. ‘That’s a baby,’ he said, gruff as ever. ‘They all look the same. This proves nothing.’

  ‘Wait.’

  Amelia looked at the baby and saw that it was moving – this wasn’t a 3D photo, but a 3D video. And then she heard the baby gurgling to itself, and a woman’s voice: she spoke in a rush of alien language, but the last word was clearly Mallan.

  A boy about Amelia and Charlie’s age ran into the image and scooped up the baby, plonking it in his lap and tickling its chubby belly until it broke into giggles. The boy grinned up at the camera, and Amelia could see it had to be Mallan: the same angular black eyebrows, the same wide smile. And then the woman came into the shot and cuddled up behind Mallan and the baby, beaming at the camera and speaking again. Mallan grabbed the baby’s hand and made it wave while he repeated the woman’s words.

  Amelia had no idea what they were saying, but it hardly mattered. All four humans were staring at the mother of Mallan and the baby. She looked just like Lady Naomi.

  No, not quite, Amelia corrected herself. Her nose was a little broader, and her hair was slightly purple rather than the true black of Lady Naomi and Mallan’s, but it was proof all right.

  Tom leaned heavily against the wall. ‘When was that taken?’

  ‘Nearly twenty Earth years ago,’ Mallan said sadly. ‘She was not yet six months old.’

  Tom nodded thoughtfully, and then his head jerked up and he snapped, ‘And what was wrong with you people? Why did you let her near a gateway? What did you think would –?’

  He broke off, shaking his head. With a sudden rush of energy, he jumped up and grabbed Mallan by the arm, pulling him toward the door. ‘Right, come on, then �
� Mallan, was it? Let’s find your sister.’

  Mallan staggered after him. His beautiful face broke into a smile so dazzling Amelia was dumbfounded. How could anything so angelic seem familiar to her?

  ‘Come on,’ said Charlie, tugging on Amelia’s elbow as he followed Mallan out the door.

  It’s because he’s like Lady Naomi, of course. Amelia shook herself, and she and James hurried outside to catch up with the others.

  Tom had already limped his way through the magnolia grove, and together the five of them made their way up the hill, past the hedge maze, and toward the hidden bush track that led to Lady Naomi’s workstation.

  Charlie could hardly contain his impatience at Tom’s stolid pace. ‘Tom, what’s –?’ he asked. ‘How long have you and Lady Naomi known each other, anyway?’

  Tom didn’t answer. He crashed through the bush, one hand still locked around Mallan’s arm. ‘Naomi! Naomi!’

  Amelia and Charlie had time to exchange one last baffled glance before Lady Naomi slipped suddenly into view ahead of them, ducking gracefully under the low-hanging banksia branch that covered the beginning of her bush track. She looked startled to see a crowd of people headed in her direction, and then did a double-take at the sight of Mallan.

  She stood very still and waited until they were only a couple of metres away before she said quietly, ‘What’s going on, Tom?’

  Mallan stepped toward her, his face bright, but Lady Naomi fixed her eyes on Tom instead. ‘Who is this?’

  Tom coughed, then laid his hand on Lady Naomi’s arm and said very gently, ‘It’s your brother.’

  Lady Naomi stiffened, her eyes wide with shock, and yet so like Mallan’s.

  Amelia didn’t know what she’d expected – perhaps whoops of excitement, or maybe weeping and laughter like the Munfeep, or just a thousand questions – but instead Lady Naomi stayed right where she was, utterly still, and only stared and stared as Mallan drew closer. He stopped in front of her. The two of them stood gazing silently at each other, and Amelia’s mouth fell open as it suddenly dawned on her that they were meeting for the first time – or at least, for the first time since Lady Naomi was old enough to remember.