SKYE’S SECRET MISSION
A prequel to the “Venus” Series
Lucy Daniel Raby
https://www.lucydanielraby.co.uk
Copyright 2012 by Lucy Daniel Raby
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SKYE’S SECRET MISSION
The minute Skye woke up he knew something was wrong with today. Or at least, that something was going to be wrong with today, at some point. And it wasn’t just the Starmaths exam.
He slid out of his sleep pod and landed on the floor of his rather untidy bedroom. It was a typical boy room, the walls festooned with animated images of his favourite spacehoppers and Venturian pop stars, the floor piled up with zipper suits in every colour imaginable, for he was quite fashion conscious. Tripping over his favourite supersonic, turbo powered skateboard, he stepped lightly over to the window. The blinds rose silently at his approach, revealing the panoramic view that his home gave over Ishtania Province. The three moons still hung overhead like giant paper lanterns, but the purple rings of Isis had already begun to fade. The sky lit up as the huge, bloated red sun popped its head over the horizon, with a speed that would have been alarming to anyone who had not grown up on Ventura.
Daybreak happened very quickly on this planet, and in a matter of moments the landscape had filled with instant blazing warmth, as though someone had flicked on a switch. Sunlight picked out the jagged peaks of the Morphing Mountains that ringed the inland sea. Humanoid shapes broke the surface of the ocean as Mermians hauled out into the shallows to bask in the early morning sun. Soon after that, the distant cry of the giant seahorse echoed across the sea as he towed his cargo of schoolchildren from the outer islands of Western Nimrovia.
It was a familiar sight to Skye, but today there was something different in the air. He could feel it in his roots. Skye had no need of hair gel. The spiky black tufts on his head stood straight up on end, a feature of the Monrovian race. When he sensed danger or any kind of major change, they began to wave about with a life of their own. And that was what happening now.
Glancing up, he saw that the sky had already filled with a variety of silver flying craft, heading towards the gleaming pyramids that sprawled along a low range of hills overlooking the sea. This was Amrylla, capital city of Nimrovia, shining metropolis of the North. Ishtania Province was a cluster of white buildings on the outskirts of Amrylla, scattered over the landscape like tumbled dice, one of the most sought after residential areas of the city. Their home was an elegant villa of stacked cubes and vine covered verandas, with unparalleled views over the city and the Straits of Pandora. It had every mod con imaginable, including a massive spaceport, a Geodome Observatory for viewing the night heavens, vidiscreens in every corner of every room, an Astral Ethernet connection to all the planets in the solar system and some of the galaxies beyond, its own temple to Sunev, its own private beach with an ocean going launch, and a fleet of robot servants. It had been a gift from Queen Andromeda to his parents for services to the crown, whatever those were. They were always in some sort of confab with her and often came home late.
Skye unfurled his ferny fingers and put a zoomglass to his eyes to get a closer look at the city in the distance. Flocks of Space Hoppers and Planet Skimmers were converging on the tallest building, a collection of pink mirrored towers that reflected the surrounding landscape. They hovered irritably, waiting to dock in the mini ports that jutted out of the towers. He frowned, his Monrovian eyebrows knitting across his forehead. There weren’t usually that many spacecraft heading for the city at this hour. He could hear his parents padding about downstairs and a palpable feeling of urgency pervaded the air.
Suddenly his little sister Nunya burst into the room and flung herself at him. Her third eye was open, flashing with excitement. ‘Hey! Guess what! There’s an urgent meeting been called by Queen Andromeda! Mum and Dad have to leave now!’
Skye groaned. That meant Sarsi2 would be giving them breakfast and seeing them off to school. She was an old fusspot, her voice was rusty and she clanked about the kitchen dropping things because she was really too old for the job and needed to be melted down and recycled. But her parents didn’t have the heart to part with her; she’d been with the family for 20 nanoyears.
Minutes later there was a low hum as the spaceport doors slid open and his parents’ brand new red Galaxia MegaG5 Planet Skimmer zoomed out and shot off towards the city. They always used it when on outings together. Normally his Mum used her ‘little runaround’, a small white Spacepod which could convert to interplanetary travel for when she had to visit neighbouring moons and planets in the solar system. In the old days, she was an Interplanetary Outreach Worker, always off doing community visits to neighbouring worlds and social work on the penal colony of Ventura’s 3rd moon, Sisyphus. But those days were long over, since the Time of Peace came. Sisyphus was uninhabited and the other planets had no need of her services. Now she and Skye’s father were close advisors to the Queen. Skye watched their craft disappear into the distance and wished they had at least come up to say goodbye and wish him good luck in his exams. This dawn meeting must be a very urgent matter indeed.
Nunya was now bouncing round the room like a pinball, sliding down the chute from his sleeping pod, trying on his new space helmet, tinkering with his latest Cloudberry holophone all at the same time. Suddenly a holophonic image of his best friend, Chokra, leapt out of the device and stood in the middle of the room, his blue face blinking in shock. Chokra was a Vishnuvian , so he had six arms, with which he was simultaneously scratching his bottom, scratching his head, rubbing his eyes, picking his nose or generally gesticulating to nowhere in particular.
‘Wassup mate?’ he croaked. ‘I was fast asleep!’
Skye grabbed the holophone off Nunya and spoke apologetically into the speaker. ‘Sorry Chocks. Nunya pressed the wrong button and dialled your number.’
‘Oh fanks a lot!’ grumbled Chokra. ‘I was up half the night revising for the Starmaths exam. ‘
‘Well at least you’ve got plenty of hands to make notes.’
‘Yeah, but I still only got one brain.’
‘Sorry! Go back to sleep. I’ll see you at school.’
‘Laters..’ mumbled Chokra, as his image shimmered and dissolved.
Skye glared at Nunya and replaced the holophone on his workspace surface. ‘Now just calm down Nunny! Okay? Go and get dressed!’
But his little sister ignored him and continued pinballing round his room, pouncing on anything she could find. She seemed to go faster than time itself and he wondered why she didn’t disappear into a blur. Sometimes he wished she would. There was a crash as she landed on his skateboard and began charging towards his aquarium full of electric fish.
‘Jumping jiggernomes Nunya!’ he shouted. ‘Be careful!’ He stopped her just in time and scolded her roundly, picking her up by her skinny arms. ‘Come on trouble. Get ready for Kinderschool. I’ll see you in the kitchen.’
He dressed quickly in his favourite turquoise zippersuit, the one that enhanced his natural skin tones, and hurried downstairs, the uneasy feeling still nagging at him. The kitchen was a white space full of gleaming chrome and well concealed units, all of which powered themselves on and off by voice recognition. The waste disposal robot, Telko2, was busy emptying all the wastebins into the rubbish chute and grinding his jaws mechanically as he chomped on the more difficult items, like metal cans, to reduce them to a smaller size. Zoot3, the cleaning robot, was humming tunelessly, as he was programmed to do, his long jointed metal arms wielding a dustsucker round the main living area. Sarsi2 was scolding Nunya and telling her to eat up her cloudbeans and farkle eggs. Farkle birds were a hybrid species, a cr
oss between hens, ostriches and turkeys, and every home had a flock of them in the garden. Their name derived from the noise they made every time they laid an egg. For some mysterious reason, farkle eggs were square shaped. Evolution happened in strange ways on this planet. There was a terrible screech from outside as one of the farkle hens laid a new egg followed swiftly by a maternal clucking.
‘Don’t like farkle eggs!’ whinged Nunya. ‘Nargy!’
‘Now eat up young lady and don’t complain,’ nagged Sarsi2, in her tinny voice. Her little green electronic eyes swivelled round as Skye entered the room and her mouth stretched into a mechanical smile that always looked genuine to Skye. He was really quite fond of her.
‘Ah! There you are young Skye! Welcome to
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