Authors: Zac Harrison
John frowned as Archivus Major’s sun rose higher in the sky outside the window.
“Where
is
she?” he asked, looking around at his classmates. “Ms Vartexia is
always
punctual. It sends her into a twitching fit if she’s even a
second
late.”
As had been arranged the previous evening, the class had met at the space dock’s Terrace Café for an early breakfast. That had been an hour ago. Everyone had eaten and was now eager to start the day’s visits. Unfortunately, the Elvian teacher was nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe we should check on her,” suggested Emmie. Impatient to leave the dock, the students agreed.
“Umm,
hello
. Are you in there?” Emmie called, rapping on the Privateer’s shell.
No reply.
“
Ms Vartexia
!
” Emmie shouted, knocking again. “Is everything all right?”
“Do you think we should open the door?” asked John doubtfully. Forcing their way into a teacher’s private sleeping space seemed a good way to land a month’s worth of detentions.
The students looked at each other in silence.
“I think we should,” said Emmie eventually. “She didn’t look very well last night. Perhaps she’s ill.” Placing her hand on the craft, she said, “Emmie Tarz. Open up.”
Nothing happened.
“Let me do it,” said Kaal, pushing his way through the crowd. From his pocket he pulled a small device that he always carried around with him. Called a ToTool, John always thought of it as a sort of space-age Swiss army knife. At the flick of a switch, it seemed to become whatever tool Kaal needed.
Kaal aimed the ToTool at the side of the Privateer. A small beam of red light swept across the ship’s glassy hull. Kaal grunted with satisfaction as a panel slid back, exposing delicate circuits. He flicked the ToTool again, and a needle-thin spike shot out. With steady hands, Kaal touched it to the circuitry. “Computer: emergency override of privacy protocols,” he said. “Pilot Vartexia unable to respond and possibly in need of medical attention.”
“Privacy protocols suspended.”
John’s eyebrows shot up in amazement at his friend’s technical expertise, as the door panel of the Privateer slid back noiselessly. The students peered inside.
Wrapped in a cover, Ms Vartexia’s thin body was sprawled across the MorphSeat bed.
“Sleeping like a newborn Pataq grub,” said Werril at the back of the small crowd.
“I’m not so sure,” Emmie frowned. “She should have woken up by now.” Reaching out, she shook the teacher’s thin shoulder. “Ms Vartexia.
Ms Vartexia
!
”
The Elvian didn’t stir.
Emmie turned, her forehead lined with worry. “There’s something wrong with her.”
“Let me take a look,” said Bareon, stepping forward. “My dad’s a doctor with the Galactic Fleet.”
John, Emmie, and Kaal stepped back to let him through.
Bareon leaned over. Placing a long-fingered hand on either side of Ms Vartexia’s neck, he said, “Both hearts beating slowly, but firmly.” He lifted one of her eyelids. “Eyes look fine, and she’s breathing without any problems. Werril’s right, she’s just sleeping.” He stopped for a moment and then turned to face the students with a smile on his small mouth. “Of
course
, it must have been the Elvian spaghetti.”
“What do you mean?” asked John. “Has she got food poisoning?”
“No,” replied Bareon. “Elvian spaghetti contains small amounts of sedative. Someone eating a normal portion would just feel relaxed after their meal, but in large quantities—”
“She had four huge bowls of it last night,” Emmie chipped in.
“Enough to keep her asleep until at least lunchtime,” said Bareon. “Seems a bit strange. She’s Elvian, so she must have known what it would do to her.”
“I remember the curator, Graximus Greyfore, telling her to try it. I guess he didn’t know quite how much she’d like it,” said John. He paused for a moment, then added, “Is she going to be OK?”
“Oh, yes. She’ll wake up this afternoon feeling as fresh as a Coopit blossom.”
“So what do we do now?” asked John, voicing the question that everyone was thinking. “If there’s nothing wrong with her, I don’t want to hang around a space port for most of the day.”
“I suppose someone ought to stay with her, just in case,” said Bareon, sighing. “As I’m the only one here with any medical knowledge, it’ll have to be me. There’s no need for the rest of you to stick around, though.”
“Hmmm, I’m suddenly seeing an upside to this,” said John, a smile spreading across his face. “No Ms Vartexia means no rocks, no moss gardens, no stupid art galleries...”
Kaal already had his ThinScreen guide out. “Right,” he said, with a grin. “Let’s vote on what to see first.”
Emmie turned towards them, with a matching look of delight on her face. “There’s more good news,” she said. “I had a look round the Information Centre while we were waiting, and they have Space-Stilts. Ms Vartexia would never have let us use them, but if she’s asleep...” she shrugged as her voice trailed off.
“She never needs to know,” Lishtig finished for her, with a chuckle.
“Space-Stilts?” asked John.
“I cannot wait to see your face when you try them,” said Emmie.
* * *
“So tell me again, what do these do?” asked John, as he pulled on a pair of heavy boots. Extending from the heels were lengths of curved metal.
“They act like giant springs,” explained Kaal. “So you can jump across long distances quickly.”
“Are you sure they’re not dangerous?” John looked at his friend nervously. “I notice you’re not wearing any.”
“Hello?
Wings
?
” Kaal replied, rustling them. “Some of us don’t need gadgets.”
“You’ll be fine, John,” Emmie interrupted. “They have all kinds of in-built safety features. You just turn them on here.” She pointed at buttons on the back of the boots. “No, not
NOW
!
Don’t turn them on in
here
, you’ll splat yourself on the ceiling. Wait until we’re outside.”
Leaning heavily on Kaal’s shoulder, John tottered through the door, feeling like a newborn giraffe.
“
Now
you can turn them on.”
Flicking buttons on each boot, John was amazed to find that he was immediately more stable. The Space-Stilts hummed. Nervously, he stood as still as possible.
“First, we’re going to the jungle,” said Queelin smugly. Emmie had wanted to go straight to the frozen Goran–Subo battlefield, but had been outvoted.
Turning to John, Emmie explained, “You just need to do
this
.”
Emmie bounced once on a heel and shot elegantly into the sky with a whoop. In a single bound, she leaped across buildings, landing almost a kilometre away and instantly bouncing into the sky again.
“Yee-
hah
!” yelled Lishtig, following her. “Last one there’s a Skantard.”
As the students bounded after Emmie, shrieking with laughter, John tried a small experimental hop. “Waaaah!” he cried, flailing his arms as he shot high in the air.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” said Kaal, as his friend finally bounced to a stop. “Come on, I’ll keep you company.”
“This is
amazing
!” called John, as he leaped into the air again.
“You should try wings!” Kaal yelled back, swooping through the air alongside him.
John didn’t reply. The ground was coming up fast. Putting a foot forward, he felt an enormous surge as energies were released, then he was climbing high into the air again.
Bet they don’t do this at Wortham Court
, he thought to himself.
Emmie had been right: the Space-Stilts were easy to master. Within a few leaps, John felt like he had been using them all his life. And sailing through the air with the breeze whipping his hair back was much more fun than taking the Shuttletube.
“Stop on the next leap!” shouted Kaal, diving past, wings outstretched. “By the Information Centre.”
“Stop? How do I...
Gaaaahh
!
”
CRASH!
John smashed into a clump of thick undergrowth. He lay there without moving. A low moan escaped his lips.
“Nice landing, John,” said Lishtig, lifting his purple eyebrows.
“Hey, it’s my first go,” John replied, pulling twigs from his hair.
The rest of the class had already removed their Space-Stilts. They were waiting by the Teride Six Jungle Environment as John and Lishtig trotted down a path overhung by a dense canopy of purple leaves.
Queelin Temerate was pointing to a large map. “If we walk along the pathway there,” she was saying, “we might see Flurbs and Sinches, plus we’ll end up at a simulation of the Great Teride Falls.” Catching sight of John, she broke off and grinned at him. “Anyone tell you what a great landing that was?” she asked.
“Yes. Lishtig. Thanks, Queelin.”
Walking beneath the branches of an alien jungle was a mind-boggling experience. The trees alone were like nothing John had ever seen before. Some had trunks the thickness of a house twisted around with snake-like creepers; others were covered in flowers the size of dustbin lids and smelled powerfully of oranges. Between the trees were scattered the leaf-thatched longhouses the Teridean people had lived in millions of years ago. Insects larger than parrots, and more brightly coloured, hovered in the dappled sunlight. The calls of larger beasts sounded in the distance and, beyond, was the unmistakable roar of a waterfall.
“John,” hissed Emmie, after they had walked about a kilometre. “Don’t move. There’s a Flurb, just to your left.”
“A what?”
“A Flurb. Shhhh.”
Standing as still as possible, John turned his head slowly. About a metre from his feet, half hidden in a bush, was an animal that looked like a cross between a monkey and a large hamster, except that it had six legs. “Awww,” he breathed. “Look at its little face.” Slowly, he dropped to his knees.
“Uh, John. I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Emmie whispered nervously, as he stretched his hand out to pet the Flurb.
“Don’t be silly, look how cute it is.”
Click.
Metal fingers closed around his wrist, snatching it back just as the Flurb bared a hideous set of razor-sharp fangs. As the creature’s prey was jerked away, it turned and scampered into the bushes.
“Aaaargh, no!” bellowed Kaal, covering his ears. “Here comes that alarm again.”
Blinking in shock, John gazed at the metal fingers restraining him, trailed up the metal arm, and then looked up into the steady electronic eyes of an Omega-bot.
This time, no alarm went off. “Do not touch the exhibits,” the machine droned, dropping John’s hand.
“S-sorry,” John stammered. Over the past twenty-four hours he had become so used to the machines following them everywhere that he had completely forgotten about them. Remembering the nasty look on the Flurb’s face, he suddenly felt grateful for their presence. “Umm, thanks,” he added.
“Do not touch the exhibits,” the Omega-bot repeated blankly. Then it turned and floated away.
“Sheesh, they’re like Examiners with firepower,” said John, as Emmie and Kaal hurried over.
“Yeah, and ear-melting sirens.”
“Two very good reasons to not upset them. Come on, let’s get to the waterfall,” Emmie replied, pushing them forward.
The falls were spectacular. Almost a hundred different streams crashed over rocks into a lake of clear orange water. Rainbows hung in the air.
“Can we swim?” asked John, looking at the cool water longingly.
“You could,” Kaal replied, checking his ThinScreen guide. “But it says here the lake contains Pain Snakes.”
“They don’t sound good.”
“Apparently, it’s not a very accurate name,” Kaal continued. “If they bite you, the venom causes hardly any pain at all. Just immediate death.”
“Great. How about we move on to the next exhibit?”
As the morning passed, it was as if Archivus Major was making up for the disappointments of the day before. Crossing vast distances in huge strides with the help of the Space-Stilts – and using the Shuttletube only when it would have taken too long to bounce – the class visited the most interesting displays the planet had to offer. Emmie and Queelin loved the Floating Pleasure Gardens of Vox Charm, and even Kaal grumpily agreed that the Silken Desert Palace of Queen Alaria was breathtakingly lovely. John was flabbergasted by the Star Dragon skeleton. The creature’s head alone was the size of a cruise ship. Sparkling like cut diamonds, its crystal bones stretched as far as his eyes could see.
“The only living creatures that have ever managed to live in the hard vacuum of space,” said Kaal, ThinScreen guide in hand. “No one knows where they came from or where they went, but the Star Dragons disappeared about twenty million years ago. According to this, they starved for thousands of years as they flew between planets. Then, when they found one, they devoured everything on the surface.”
“Errr... so they might come back, then?” asked John, trying not to imagine the scenes of devastation if a Star Dragon ever descended on Earth.
Kaal switched off his ThinScreen. “Maybe,” he shrugged. “No one knows.”
“Come on, you lot!” called Emmie impatiently. “We’ve done what you wanted to do. Now can we
please
go to the battlefield?”
Getting to the battlefield exhibit meant a half-hour ride across the planet. It was almost lunchtime when the Shuttletube swept into the station, but Emmie was far too excited to think about eating.
“We’ll just see
some
of it,” she gabbled, as the class streamed through the Shuttletube exit, “and stop for lunch after that. Then we’ll have a proper look. John...
John
. Hurry up.” She had pulled the Comet Creative from her bag and was already running forward. “Got to find the best place to get a picture!” she shouted over her shoulder.
John and Kaal glanced at each other, frowning. Hyperspace History was one of Emmie’s worst subjects, and she had never showed the slightest interest in the Goran–Subo war before Graximus Greyfore had talked to them about it.
However, Emmie’s unusual behaviour was quickly forgotten. As they cleared the exit, both John and Kaal stopped in their tracks. Before them was a vast block of crystal-clear ice and what was inside was nothing less than a complete battle, frozen in time.
The entire class had fallen silent. There was no laughter or happy chatter now. Every eye, antenna, and sight-sensor was turned to the towering ice block. Before them, across a dreary landscape of mud and bogs, the creatures John had seen in the 4-D movie at Hyperspace High were locked in close combat. The Goran – looking like heavily armoured tanks with great pincers – against the blubbery Subo, seal-like, except for the long laser spikes jutting from their heads. Spikes that could be used to stab their enemies. Several Goran had been frozen in exactly such a pose.
“Come on, there’s loads more to see.” Emmie clapped her hands to attract attention and pointed the gawping students to a path around the exhibit. “Over there looks like a good place to take a 4-D photo.”
As the rest of the class moved away, John stopped by an information screen. It immediately changed, as the characters on its screen transformed to English. Fascinated, he leaned in to read.
“Over two hundred thousand warriors, including Suboran’s infamous General Klort, are held inside this stasis cube. It is the largest display of suspension technology in the history of the galaxy,” the screen told him. “It was developed in complete secrecy, at a time when ninty-five per cent of space-faring civilizations were at war.”
Shaking his head in amazement, John continued reading the story of how the frozen battle had come to rest on Archivus Major. At the height of the war, members of the Galactic Council had formed a top-secret peace group. Hiding deep within a gigantic hollow asteroid, they created factories that had produced immense spaceships –
Peace Stars 1
,
2
,
3
,
4
, and
5
– each one equipped with powerful suspension beams. Escorted by a fleet of smaller fighter craft, the
Peace Stars
had battled their way through space to the centre of the Goran–Subo war. There, they had released the power of their beams. With the warmonger, General Klort, as well as top generals on both sides, in stasis, the Subo and Goran governments had quickly laid down arms and, under threat of suspension from the Council, the rest of the galaxy followed.
“With the war over,” the screen finished, “it was decided that releasing the fighters from suspension was too great a threat to the new-found peace. Instead, the
Peace Stars
cut the entire battlefield from Gora Prime’s surface and towed it to Archivus Major. It now serves as a reminder of the horror of war. By order of the Galactic Council, the warriors within will never be released.”
“They’re all still alive in there,” Kaal’s voice broke through John’s thoughts. “Just held in suspended animation for thirty thousand years.”
Lost for words, John looked up at his friend, nodded, and then returned his gaze to the scene within the stasis cube. A thick line of heavily armoured Goran were frozen in the act of charging a weaker line of Subo: thousands of fighters’ screaming battle cries that had been silenced for ever. Even explosions had been caught by the stasis beams. Like great flowers of yellow and orange, they dotted the landscape, throwing giant sprays of earth into the air.
“We’re getting left behind,” said Kaal, pointing to the rest of the class. The other students were now some distance away. “Better catch up or they’ll lose us.”
“What do you think, John?” asked Emmie excitedly, as John and Kaal joined the group. “It’s spooky, isn’t it? And sad, too.”
“Yeah,” John agreed quickly. “But it really makes you think. If every Hyperspace History lesson were like this, I’d be getting top marks.”
“Talking of marks,” Emmie babbled, “where’s a good place to use the Comet Creative? I want to get the best view.” She held up the device. To John, it looked like a large digital camera.
“OK, Emmie,” said Kaal. “Let’s get it over with and then maybe you’ll calm down.”
John’s forehead tensed in worry. Something Emmie had said was niggling at the back of his mind.
Emmie, however, was dancing from one foot to the other in eagerness. “Hey, with the extra marks Graximus Greyfore is going to give me, maybe this term I won’t be bottom of the class,” she said, grinning.
Marks
, thought John.
Something about the marks doesn’t add up
.
Emmie was still gibbering. “I think I should get a picture of you standing in front of it first, Kaal. You can send it to your dad.”
“Great idea,” said Kaal enthusiastically. “He’s really interested to see what a human being looks like, too, so John should be in it. Let’s find somewhere with a really impressive background. Lots of action, that’s what we need.”
As Emmie and Kaal hurried along the path, John followed more slowly, lost in thought. Unable to put his finger on what was bothering him, he decided he was being ridiculous and picked up his pace.
“Perfect,” said Kaal, pointing to a particular scene in the stasis cube. A lone Goran raising a tattered, mud-streaked flag reared up defiantly as a wave of Subo fell upon it. “John, come and stand over here.”
John took position next to his friend, smiling as Kaal put an arm around his shoulders.
“Ready!” the Derrilian shouted.
“Wonder how many extra marks I’m going to get for this,” said Emmie, pointing the Comet Creative and looking through the viewfinder. “Looks good, guys. Smile.”
Of course, that’s what’s wrong.
Realization hit John at the same time as Emmie hit the activate button.. Graximus Greyfore had promised Emmie extra marks, but told her to keep the Comet Creative a secret. Greyfore wasn’t a teacher, so how was Emmie going to get extra marks if no one was to know about it?
“Wait!” John shouted. Further up the path, students turned to look, surprised at the urgency in his voice.
Too late.
John raised his arm across his eyes, as the Comet Creative gave off a blinding flash that lit the sky.
“What the—” Still clutching the Comet Creative, Emmie staggered, covering her face with her free hand to protect her own eyes. As the flash faded, she screamed. Two Omega-bots were bearing down on her at top speed. “It’s OK!” she yelled desperately. “Graximus Greyfore gave it to me. The curator.
Graximus Greyfore
told me to use it!”
The Omega-bots ignored her. Metal claws gripped her by the arms.
“Hey, leave her alone!” John shouted, trying to shove the nearest Omega-bot away from Emmie. “Didn’t you hear her? Greyfore said it was OK.” Deep down, however, he knew that something was seriously amiss. If the Comet Creative was such a great new invention, why didn’t Greyfore want to test it himself? Why give it to a visiting student?
Behind him, John heard a shout in a language he was coming to recognize as Derrilian. As Archivus Major’s computer systems hadn’t translated it, he knew his friend must have sworn. Snapping his head round, John saw Kaal backing towards him, one arm raised in alarm. John followed his friend’s pointing finger.
After 30,000 years, the stasis cube was melting.