Battle for Earth (35 page)

“You had no right, Katherine.” Mrs. Irvine was haranguing Johnny's social worker, while he sat at the small round table in the Manager's office.

“Johnny needed to know,” Miss Harutunian replied. “I should have said something when I first came to England.”

Johnny hated it when people talked about him as if he weren't there.

“He's not stupid,” she went on. “Remember when I just happened to find him outside the Gherkin after he ran away?”

“It could have been chance,” said Mrs. Irvine. “It was where you'd taken him on the day out.” She was pacing up and down in front of the bookshelves that lined the walls either side of her desk.

“Well, not in New York. Johnny runs out of the Chrysler Building and there I am?”

“You're from New York.”

“It's a big place.”

“He's a wee bairn. He doesn't know that.”

“He's not a child anymore,” said the social worker. “He's growing up. Besides, what about that time in the basement? And then there's the doctor …”

“Hmmph.” The Manager's owl-like eyes turned on Johnny, who was struggling to comprehend what was happening.

“I promised his parents,” said Mrs. Irvine. “If anything happened to them, I said I'd bring Jonathan up like a normal boy.” Johnny thought he could see tears welling in her eyes, magnified by her glasses.

“We don't live in normal times,” said Miss Harutunian.

Taking advantage of the brief pause, Johnny said, “You knew my mum and dad? How?”

The Manager turned to Miss Harutunian and said, “You see where this leads?” She looked back toward Johnny and took a deep breath. “I worked with your father for many years. In fact, I led the expedition where … well, that's not important right now.”

“What's not important? What expedition?”

Johnny's questions were drowned out by the wailing of sirens. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, a succession of police cars and vans could be seen entering the Castle Dudbury station parking lot.

“Whatever now?” asked Mrs. Irvine, turning to stare outside. Johnny and Miss Harutunian came around the desk to join her. The convoy didn't stop at the railway station. It continued all the way across the pavement to the door of Halader House, where the vehicles fanned out and armed police rushed toward the building. Stepping unhurried from one of the cars and walking slowly in her high heels through the melee, was a figure Johnny recognized all too well.

“Hartman.” Mrs. Irvine, standing beside him, had spoken the colonel's name. Johnny put his hand on the desk to steady himself as his world came crashing around him. “Regrettably, now might be the time to close Ben Halader House permanently,” said the Manager.

Orders were being barked out beneath the window. A man raised a megaphone to his lips. “This is the police. Jonathan Mackintosh, we know you're in there. You have one minute to surrender yourself. Come out with your hands up.”

“Get down, Jonathan,” said Mrs. Irvine, placing a surprisingly strong arm on his shoulder and pushing him to the floor.'

“What happens now?” Miss Harutunian asked the Manager.

“Had you not forced my hand, Katherine, it appears the
Corporation would have. Bairn or not, he must go down the rabbit hole.”

There was shouting inside the building and the sound of people running up the stairs.

“Jonathan,” said Mrs. Irvine, “come this way.” She and Miss Harutunian moved to the other side of the desk and stood before the bookshelves. Johnny crawled after them on all fours, thinking the two women looked remarkably calm.

“Who are you?” he asked, getting up but keeping his distance. “What expedition did you lead?”

The shouting was coming closer—it sounded as if all the doors in the corridor were systematically being kicked in and the rooms searched. There was gunfire.

“This is no time for questions,” said Mrs. Irvine, turning her back on Johnny and running her finger across the spines of several hefty books, as though trying to pick out her holiday reading. “All will be revealed shortly.”

The police were right outside the door. Given a choice between Colonel Hartman and Mrs. Irvine, Johnny knew who he'd rather trust.

“Ah, this is the one, I believe,” said Mrs. Irvine. Her finger settled on the spine of a particularly dusty-looking book, entitled
Home Office Regulations for the Administration of Children's Homes within England and Wales, 1955
.

Thinking the Manager had quite possibly gone mad, Johnny looked to his social worker, who winked. Mrs. Irvine pulled the top of the book down as though on a hinge, and the entire bookshelf swung open to reveal a secret passage, angled steeply downward into darkness, lined by some sort of slide.

“After you, Johnny,” said Miss Harutunian, pushing him forward so he overbalanced and slid headfirst away into the gloom.

Behind him he heard Mrs. Irvine shout, “Tally-ho!” in her sing-song Glaswegian accent.

Wherever Johnny was going, it was a lot further underground than he could possibly have imagined. As he slid faster and faster, arms outstretched, spiraling down a seemingly endless helter-skelter, he thought about Bentley, curled up underneath his bed in the Halader House attic. He had to hope Colonel Hartman's men wouldn't find the sheepdog or, if they did, they wouldn't hurt him.

It was fully a minute before the twists and turns ceased and the slide began to level out. Johnny slowed, but he still shot out of the tunnel very quickly, flying past a blur of silver and into a blinding white light, before sliding across the floor and slamming into a large pile of cushions propped against a wall of rough, natural rock. He sat there dazed until someone pulled him off to one side. Seconds later, Miss Harutunian appeared, stopping comfortably before reaching the cushions and rolling away from Johnny. Straight after, with another cry of, “Tally-ho,” Mrs. Irvine slid into the cushions between them.

“I'd forgotten quite how much fun that can be,” she said. “Help me up, young man.”

The person standing behind Johnny stepped across and offered the Manager his arm, which she took and got surprisingly lightly to her feet. Beside her, Miss Harutunian was shouting instructions about sealing the exits, before the American hurried across the room.

Johnny tried to take in his surroundings. The room, out of proportion in that it was far higher than it was wide or long, was lit by a single, miniature sun floating far above, just beneath a domed ceiling. He'd only ever seen such things on other worlds. The roof and three of the walls glowed pearly
white, ending with bare rock on just this one side. The silver Johnny had seen as he shot out the bottom of the slide was a reassuringly familiar statue about three meters tall, similar to the one at the foot of the
Spirit of London
.

“Come along, Jonathan,” said Mrs. Irvine, setting off briskly toward an area around which several people were gathered, now including Johnny's social worker. A few other faces he recognized from the children's home were there, all looking deadly serious. Accompanying the Manager was someone wearing jeans and an olive green hoodie. “Of course, you already know Spencer,” the Manager continued. To the other boy she added, “Jonathan will be joining us for the foreseeable future.”

“Nice one.” In the strangeness of his surroundings Johnny had somehow not registered the familiar face of Spencer Mitchell, one of the rather intimidating older residents of Halader House.

Miss Harutunian and the others were gathered around a table, poring over a projection of the inner solar system, centered on the Sun and going out to just beyond the asteroid belt. Their attention was fixed on the space between Earth and Mars, where the approaching Krun fleet could be clearly seen.

“Any developments, Sheldon?” asked Mrs. Irvine. On the far side of the circular table, a man Johnny recognized as the new Halader House caretaker shook his head.

“I'd expect to receive a signal before any rescue ships appeared,” said Miss Harutunian. “The distress beacon's been broadcasting for four days now, but we've heard nothing. Four light days just isn't enough. If only I'd set it off when we first spotted the alien activity.”

Mrs. Irvine said, “I take full responsibility. The galaxy's a dangerous place. It seemed prudent not to reveal ourselves unnecessarily.”

Miss Harutunian turned to Johnny and the look in her eyes told him it was madness to have ever believed she was simply a random social worker who'd happened to come over from America. She said, “From down here, we track any and all evidence we find of alien activity. When I told you there was an alien fleet approaching Earth, this is them. We don't believe they're friendly.”

“They're not,” said Johnny. “They're coming to harvest humanity as food for their Queen. They were looking for a fleet of ships too, but at least they're not going to get that now.”

“You know this how?” asked Mrs. Irvine. She wasn't the only one who'd stopped to stare at him.

There was a pause, like the standoff in a gunfight, waiting for someone to be first to draw. Pieces of a jigsaw he hadn't even known existed were beginning to fall into place, but far too many were missing for Johnny to see the whole picture. While what he was discovering was amazing, Bentley was waiting for him above and Clara back on the
Spirit of London
—where he knew he owed Kovac a massive apology. Miss Harutunian broke the silence.

“Your mother built this place, Johnny.”

“Katherine …” said Mrs. Irvine.

“This is no time for secrets,” said the social worker. “You can't protect Johnny anymore by keeping him in the dark. Maybe he knows something about St. Catharine's—like where it went?” The Manager frowned, accentuating her wrinkles. Johnny hadn't ever thought of her as old before.

“I don't mean to be rude,” said Johnny, looking around and keen to direct the conversation away from his mom's hospital, “but it doesn't look finished.”

“It's not,” said Mrs. Irvine, through slightly gritted teeth. “Your mother, now missing unless you know otherwise, was special, Johnny. And she had special … powers. But they were
already fading, had almost gone, by the time she began this. It drained her terribly and then, on that dreadful night when your brother died, she had nothing left to stop them.”

“My mum was the most powerful being in the galaxy,” said Johnny. “This wouldn't drain her.”

“Perhaps she was,” said the Manager. “I don't know. Whoever she was, she gave up the power she had to be with your father. To be with you.”

“Our turn,” said Miss Harutunian. “How do you know about the alien fleet?”

“We've been tracking them too,” said Johnny. “Since they left Mars.”

“Who's we? Is there another center … like this?”

“Tracking them from my own ship,” Johnny replied. “My turn.”

“Hold on,” said the social worker. “Then it's true you have a spaceship? I wondered when you were in New York.”

“And I have to get back there,” said Johnny. “Clara's ill—she needs me.”

“Don't you understand?” said the social worker. “Earth needs you.” Her eyes blazed with passion. “Can you travel beyond the solar system? You could make contact with friendly alien races—they must be out there.”

“Katherine,” said Mrs. Irvine, cutting the social worker off, “Jonathan's just a boy. It's not for him to go gallivanting across space …”

“But we're desperate. We need help.”

“Enough.” Somehow when Mrs. Irvine spoke it was very hard to contradict her and Miss Harutunian fell silent. “The allies we have here must suffice. The information the doctor gave you about this Clara appears correct, though I never knew Mary was pregnant again—it explains much.” Johnny presumed she was talking about Carrington, and wondered
where the mysterious doctor fitted into all this. “Jonathan … Katherine, come with me.” The Manager set off toward one corner of the chamber. Miss Harutunian shrugged at Johnny and followed, leaving him feeling he had no choice but to do the same. Around them, the spell was broken. The somber mood snapped and the dozen or so other people in the hall burst into animated chatter. As Johnny fell into step behind the two women, all eyes followed him and he knew he was the subject of every conversation.