George and the Ship of Time

by Lucy Hawking

  “Citizens of Planet Earth!” continued the broadcast. “Do not panic. Remain in your homes. Do not resist. This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill.” As the voice rapped out its orders, George and Boltzmann heard another sound like a huge, violent explosion, large enough to shatter the surface of the Earth and send a vast gas cloud mushrooming through the Earth’s atmosphere and into space.

  And then there was silence.

  Chapter One

  The spaceship landed on its backside with a huge crunch. It wobbled precariously for several minutes but managed not to topple over. Instead, it was wedged into the rocky ground at an angle like a spacey version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Clouds of dust billowed around it. It would have been quite a sight—if someone had been there to see it. Around the ship, for miles and miles, stretched bleached, sandy ground, as empty as a lunar desert under a blistering milky sky.

  Inside the ship, the two astronauts stayed strapped in their seats as the rocking motion shuddered to a halt.

  “I feel a bit sick,” bleated Boltzmann, who hadn’t yet opened his eyes.

  “Don’t be silly,” said George. “You’re a robot, you don’t know how to feel sick.”

  “Yes I do,” protested Boltzmann. During his time in space with George, he had started to believe that he was not just an intelligent robot but a sentient one too. “I have feelings!”

  George, who preferred facts to feelings anyway, didn’t want to discuss Boltzmann’s feelings at that moment. “Is landing complete?”

  “Yes, thank you, Boltzmann!” replied his robot huffily.

  “Thank you, Boltzmann,” murmured George. “Interesting landing technique.”

  “We are on the surface of a celestial body. I call that landing.”

  “Not being funny,” said George, “but this is Earth, isn’t it?”

  “I think so,” said the robot, looking around. “But it’s hard to be entirely sure.”

  “What if it isn’t?” asked George. “What if you’ve landed us on the wrong planet?” As soon as he said it, he realized his mistake. On their long journey, Boltzmann had become more and more human in his reactions. Any hint of criticism made him very tetchy.

  “Look, I’ve done my best!” cried the robot. “After all, it’s because of you that we went into space in the first place.”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” sighed George. “And thank you for coming on the journey with me. I couldn’t have flown this spacecraft by myself.”

  “Oh shucks!” said Boltzmann, more happily. “I’ve never been allowed to spend so much time with a human before. It’s been most educational. As a robot, I never dreamed . . .” He paused. “Robots don’t dream,” he corrected himself. “I never thought that I would get the chance to have a human friend. And there is no other human I would have chosen. You are the best of your species, astronaut George.”

  Unexpectedly George felt a lump in his throat. “Aw, Boltz!” he said. “You’ve been the best of robots. No, actually”—he cleared his throat—“the best of friends, robot or human.”

  Boltzmann smiled, then reached over with his metal pincer hands and undid George’s straps.

  “Are we getting out?”

  “Yes!” said the robot. “I don’t know about you but I’m ready to stretch my legs!”

  “How are we going to do that?” asked George. “Aren’t we a bit high up off the ground? Will my bones break if I jump out?”

  “Fortunately,” said Boltzmann, peering out of the window, “by landing the ship upright—a clever maneuver, even if I say so myself—I seem to have crushed the bottom half and we’re much lower down than we should be. So your bones should be able to withstand the descent.”

  On the day of the launch, they had boarded the huge spacecraft through an umbilical tower, which had raised them up to the entry point. As George peered out of the window, he could see that Boltzmann was correct. It was still quite a way down to the surface of this planet—Earth?—but it was jumpable, just about, although the windows must have gotten really dirty during landing as he couldn’t see much of a view—only a sort of flat whiteness.

  “Where have we landed?” George checked the control panel of the spaceship to try to gain some clues as to where they were.

  But the spaceship had come home to die. Once an adventurer that had charged beyond the edges of the solar system itself, now the Artemis was no more than scrap metal, blank screens, and pointless switches.

  “None of my devices are connecting either,” said Boltzmann. “I don’t understand why. I hope this is Earth. I don’t feel emotionally prepared to greet a new planet right now.”

  “Well!” said George. “There’s a more practical problem. If this isn’t Earth, I might not be able to breathe the atmosphere . . .”

  “I’ll go first,” said Boltzmann in a noble voice, “and test the conditions. I may be gone some time . . .”

  “Thanks,” muttered George, who wasn’t in the slightest bit worried about Boltzmann stepping out of the ship. Testing the conditions was in no way as dangerous for a robot as it was for a human being. He peered out of the window again. Where on Earth—literally—were they?

  “Are you excited?” asked Boltzmann as he busied himself around the exit hatch.

  “Yes!” said George. “I want to see my mom and dad. And Annie! And find out what’s been going on. What was that weird message she sent us? I hope they’ve managed to fix everything by now . . . and I’m hungry! I’d like some real food . . .”

  “Personally,” said the robot, “or robotically, I can’t wait to catch up with my robot brethren on Earth and share my insights into the human condition. I think they will be fascinated to hear—”

  “Yup!” said George, cutting off Boltzmann’s musings, which he had heard quite a few times on the space journey. “Well, come on, then. Let’s get out of this spaceship before it switches itself off and we’re stuck in here forever.”

  “Ta-dah!” said the robot as the hatch swung open, giving them a panoramic view of the world beyond—except the visibility was so bad they couldn’t really see anything at all. Air blew in, carrying sticky sand and sooty particles that stuck to them.

  “Bleugh!” said Boltzmann, trying to brush the tiny flakes off his metal carapace. “I don’t remember Earth being this dirty. But good news! You can breathe the air—I’ve run a test and its composition is just about safe for you.”

  “What do you mean just about safe?” said George, coughing as he took off his helmet. The air tasted nasty and had a gritty feel to it.

  “The carbon-dioxide content seems very high,” said the robot dubiously. “Higher than I remember. Way less oxygen and far more greenhouse gases. But I think you’ll survive for at least a few minutes.”

  George spluttered a few times as he stuck his head out of the hatch and looked around. He realized that the windows of the spaceship hadn’t been dirty—there was simply nothing to see except a blank, featureless desert stretching for miles in all directions, broken only by knobbly, stunted trees. Flinging one leg out of the side of the spacecraft, he prepared to throw himself down onto the surface.

  For as long as he could remember, he had dreamed of the moment he climbed out of a spaceship and took a step on a new planet. This felt like his dream had turned into a nightmare—a near crash-landing somewhere on Earth. At least, he hoped it was Earth. But it was a remote and bleak spot and there was no one to greet them, nor any signs of home.

  George shinned down to the ground, his spacesuit easily gripping the outside of the spacecraft, which was gluey from the thick air in this strange location where they had landed. Boltzmann followed, plonking his huge metallic feet down on the sandy earth, which was strewn with small rocks. George swayed as he tried to steady himself, the impact of gravity weighing very heavily on him.

  “Look!” said Boltzmann, pointing at his feet. “We’re standing in a riverbed!”

  “We are?” said George, examining the cracked surface for clues. “But w
here’s the water?”

  “Dried up,” said Boltzmann. “But it was once here.”

  “What a sad place,” said George, puffing out his cheeks. “Why did the Artemis come here? What made it choose this spot?”

  “It definitely wanted to land here,” said the robot. “It chose the journey and the destination—we’ve just been passengers all along. My master must have programmed it this way.”

  “Why would he do that?” said George. “Why would he program the Artemis to fly through space only to return to this dump? There’s nothing here!”

  They stood together and surveyed the scene, the boy in his spacesuit and the huge, blackened robot gazing out across the empty land.

  “Do you see anything?” George murmured, peering into the distance.

  “Nope,” said Boltzmann. “Just emptiness.”

  The space rations had just lasted until they landed. Now, as the sun beat down on this dry desert, George realized he needed to find water soon.

  But, as they were both staring at the heat haze in the distance, they failed to notice something approaching from behind. Before they knew it, a group of tiny robots making faint clicking noises streamed right past them, tearing toward their spaceship. As soon as the mini bots reached the ship, they started to dismantle it, pulling it to pieces with remarkable efficiency and speed.

  “Hey!” shouted George. “That’s my ship!” But the tiny bots paid no attention. They couldn’t have been less interested. Entirely focused on destroying the spacecraft, the bots removed the ship’s Artemis nameplate and broke it up into pieces.

  “Let me try,” said Boltzmann confidently. “They’ll want to talk to me.” He strode over to the tiny robots and started addressing them. They gathered around, answering back—and it seemed as though they were laughing at him! Soon the little bots turned back to the ship, cutting it into segments and carrying each piece away like a column of ants. Boltzmann walked heavily back to George, who was now feeling a horrible combination of travel sickness, gravity sickness, Earth sickness, home sickness, and air sickness.

  “Well?” croaked George. “What did they say?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted the robot. “At first, I didn’t understand anything they said—but they thought I was hilarious! I worked out that they were calling me ‘V minus one point zero.’ ”

  “V minus one point zero?” repeated George hazily. “You were the most advanced robot on Earth when we took off.” He felt very uneasy and a bit nauseous. “Did they tell you where we are?”

  “Sort of,” said Boltzmann carefully.

  “What do you mean?” asked George, who was now leaning on Boltzmann as he was finding it hard to stand. He felt so heavy after all his time floating about in space. It wasn’t a good feeling—if he could have gone straight back to space at that moment, he would have.

  “They called it by a funny name,” said Boltzmann slowly.

  “Funny ha-ha?” said George.

  “Not so much,” said Boltzmann. “They called it Eden.”

  “Eden?” said George. “Where even is that? Did they say?”

  “Here’s the very not ha-ha bit,” said Boltz-mann. “The coordinates for this place tally with our point of departure—we are close to the launchpad from which we blasted off.”

  “What?” said George. His head was spinning. “I’m standing in a dried-up riverbed in the middle of a desert and you’re telling me that it has the coordinates for Kosmodrome 2? But that was in the middle of the countryside, not that far from Foxbridge itself!”

  At that moment, a particularly vicious gust of wind sent a flurry of soot into their faces.

  “The bots must have gotten it wrong,” said George, spitting out some of the larger fragments that had blown into his mouth. “This can’t be my home.”

  “I am afraid it is,” said Boltzmann. “I think the Artemis has brought us home. Over there”—he pointed at the bald desert—“is where Foxbridge should be.”

  At that, George collapsed.

  Chapter Two

  George opened his eyes to find himself lying on the hard, dusty desert floor with Boltzmann leaning over him, his face anxious and worried.

  “You’re awake!” said the robot joyously. “Mother of all boards, I thought you had fallen into a coma!”

  George struggled to sit up. He was dazed—by the bright sunshine, the endless, timeless journey, the near crash-landing, and by this bizarre news. What did it mean that this place had the coordinates for the countryside around Foxbridge, his home? What had happened here to change it from peaceful green fields to this uninhabited desert? Why was it now called Eden? The only things he could see were the hi-tech mini bots devouring his battered spaceship at top speed—and a landscape so empty it looked as though it had been scrubbed clean of all signs of life.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, reaching out a hand to Boltzmann to steady himself. He felt a rising tide of panic rush upward through his spinal cord and into his brain.

  “It is rather difficult to process,” said Boltzmann uneasily. “The world seems to have moved on much faster than we expected during the brief time of our voyage. I am surprised those bots find me so amusingly outdated.”

  With remarkable efficiency, the scavenger bots had almost finished dismantling the whole spacecraft. Pieces of it were disappearing across the desert, carried by streams of the tiny robots, merrily clicking as they went.

  George stared at them. “They’ve nearly taken away all our ship! I left my lucky space patch on it!”

  “I think that’s gone forever now,” said Boltzmann. “The Artemis is finished.”

  “But that’s our ship!” said George. “What if we need it?”

  “What for?” said Boltzmann sensibly. “We have explored space. Now it’s time to make sense of home.”

  “This can’t be home,” said George. He felt completely baffled and overwhelmed. “It just can’t be. There must be some mistake.” He thought back to the messages they had received on the ship. Had there been some kind of global wipeout while they’d briefly been in space? How could that possibly have happened? What did it all mean? Surely there was some kind of explanation for all this, and soon he’d be back with his family and Annie, having a good laugh about how wrong he’d gotten it all.

  “Perhaps,” said Boltzmann doubtfully. “But for now we need to go.”

  “Where?” said George, who couldn’t see anywhere to aim for. Boltzmann was right in one way, he thought. Exploring space now seemed quite straightforward in comparison to coming home!

  “We need to find water and shelter—for you. And our only hope is to follow the bots before we lose sight of them. Jump up on my back!”

  George tried to obey—but it was hot, he was tired, and he was wearing a cumbersome spacesuit with an oxygen tank on his back. Eventually Boltzmann managed to lift him up. He threw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and started to run.

  “Ow! Ow!” cried George. “This is worse than reentry.” Hanging over Boltzmann’s shoulder, he was being jiggled and bumped horribly as the robot flew forward with great long strides. But Boltzmann paid no attention. All his focus was on keeping the scavenger bots in vision range as the sunshine beat down on them.

  But, even from upside down, George could see that they were running through a desolate place with no signs of life at all. “Why is there nobody here?” he called out to Boltzmann. “Where are all the roads and houses and farms? And the people?”

  “I don’t know,” said the robot. “Something must have happened here and driven out—”

  He stopped so suddenly that George slammed into his metal back. “Ouch!” complained George. “That hurt!”

  “Shush!” said Boltzmann. “Bots ahead. And I don’t like the look of them!”

  George craned his head around and saw larger, curved black robots ahead, scuttling sideways across the desert like scarab beetles. They seemed to be heading back in the direction George and Boltzmann had come from,
toward the spot where the spaceship had been.

  “What are they doing?” asked George. If he hadn’t already been hanging upside down, his hair would have been standing on end at the sight of these threatening bots, speeding with purpose across the desert.

  Boltzmann dropped him on the ground.

  “Don’t know,” said the robot. “At a guess, I’d say they’re guarding this place. Looks like some kind of robot patrol.”

  “From what?” asked George, shakily getting to his feet. Why would this empty desert need guarding?

  In the distance the patrol bots shimmered in the heat haze as they raced across the dust.

  “They must have picked up our landing,” said Boltzmann quietly. “And they’re going to investigate.”

  “Will they find anything?” asked George, shivering a little despite the heat.

  “Not much,” said Boltzmann. “The scavengers have probably taken away all traces of the Artemis by now.”

  The patrol moved off into the distance.

  “Let’s go,” said Boltzmann, picking George up again.

  As he hung over Boltzmann’s shoulder, George started to feel very sick. He’d been living without gravity in the spacecraft; now, being back in Earth’s gravity, moving at speed on Boltzmann’s shoulder—as well as being home but not recognizing anything—was a brain-bending, stomach-churning experience. He couldn’t figure it out at all, so his mind just had to settle down to the rhythm of Boltzmann’s pounding footsteps.

  But, just as George had almost gotten used to it, Boltzmann twisted his great robot head 180 degrees around on his metal shoulders and looked behind him. And then he sped up, still looking backward.

  “What’s wrong?” cried George.

  “They’ve spotted us,” said Boltzmann. “The patrol. And they’re gaining on us.”

  Boltzmann was going faster and faster now, George bobbing up and down over his shoulder with each long stride, dust bursting up from the dry ground.