Chasing Stars (21 page)

‘I guess,’ I said.

I couldn’t even identify a car beyond its colour; did he really think I would get excited about a hunk of grey metal?

Peg pressed a button and a hatch opened up. A small metal stairway slowly lowered to the ground.

‘After you,’ he said.

I climbed up the clangy metal steps to the hatch. Inside was a small cockpit with two seats. Behind the cockpit were several rows of seats, facing forward like on a bus. It was much bigger than the time-ship.

‘Where should I sit?’

‘Right up front. You can be my co-pilot.’

Peg pulled himself through the hatch and sat next to me in the cockpit. He pressed a button and the stairs collapsed and tucked themselves inside the ship. Another button closed the hatch.

‘You ready for the best ride of your life?’

‘You’re not really going to fly this thing are you?’

Peg smiled. ‘You surely don’t think I brought you here just to show you the ship I’ve been working on?’

‘But won’t people see? I mean, this is a spaceship. Won’t it have fire and flames and lots of noise?’

Peg looked at me as though I was insane. ‘Fire and flames? I hope not. If this thing sets alight, I’ve seriously messed up its engines.’

‘But, on the TV, when rockets and spaceships lift off . . .’

‘Ahh, the tee vee,’ said Peg with a smile. ‘It has a lot to answer for. There’s no fire or flames or rockets involved in a twenty-second century spaceship.’

‘You’re sure we won’t be seen?’

‘Of course we’ll be seen. I’m allowed to do this. I’m just not qualified to take passengers yet.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Wait and see.’

‘Is it safe?’

Peg didn’t even bother to answer the last question. He pulled on a headset and began speaking to someone. He listed coordinates and tapped away at buttons on the console.

‘OK,’ he said, turning to me. ‘We’re cleared for a twenty-minute flight. Are you strapped in?’

I nodded and took some deep breaths.

He tapped away at some more buttons on the console, and moved a big, cross-shaped controller. I felt the ship vibrate in the same way the time-ship had. The world outside was all darkness, but even so, I had the strangest sensation of moving backwards, which I knew was impossible as there was a big shed behind us. And then I felt we were moving forwards. A tiny beam appeared in front of us, like a pinprick of light at the end of a long dark tunnel. We moved rapidly towards it.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘Not very far,’ said Peg. ‘Just far enough to give you a magnificent view.’

The pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel grew wider and larger until it filled the view in front of the cockpit window. Just as quickly as it grew, it shrank and then disappeared into nothing.

‘Where are we?’ I asked. I couldn’t keep the unsteadiness out of my voice. Peg was only eighteen. He was still studying engineering and just a little earlier he’d told me that portal mathematics made his head hurt.

‘Close to home,’ he said.

He jerked the controller to the left and the ship slowly rotated until a huge mass of blue and white came into view.

‘That’s not really, that can’t really be . . .’

‘Planet Earth,’ said Peg. ‘We’re passing over Egypt right now. It’s just about dawn down there. Right below us is the River Nile.’

I looked down through the ship’s window. From this height, the shape of the continents was clear. I could make out the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the top part of the African continent.

‘We’re really in outer space?’ I said, although the view through the window answered the question for me.

Peg smiled. ‘Low Earth orbit,’ he explained. ‘You get the best views of the planet from here. Further out you get to see the whole planet and sometimes the moon, but you don’t get the detail that you get from this orbit.’

A swirl of white cloud obscured the shape of the continents and I lost sense of where we were.

‘How fast are we travelling?’

‘Thirty-four thousand miles an hour.’

‘What!’

‘Don’t worry. It’s safe. You have to travel fast at this height or else gravity will pull you in. But it’s actually perfect because you can circumnavigate the globe in forty-five minutes.’

‘I thought you were exaggerating, Peg. But you’re right. This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever done.’

‘Well, it’s not like travelling through time . . .’

‘It’s better. Much better.’

‘I love it,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s better than the moon or Titan or any of the other planets. This planet’s alive.’

I leant forward in my seat and tried to pick out features beneath me. The land below looked tan and dry, with swathes of white muslin swirling above it.

‘Eden,’ said Peg.

‘Just a minute.’

If that was the Nile and we were heading east, then below must be Saudi Arabia? Iraq?

‘Eden,’ said Peg again.

The view from the window disappeared behind a fog.

‘I can’t see,’ I said.

‘I’ve been trying to tell you, you’re fogging up the glass,’ said Peg. ‘Sit back.’

‘Shall I wipe it off?’

‘No, just wait.’

I sat back and watched the screen gradually clear. And then I remembered Eden.

‘Do you think we’ll ever find another living planet?’ I asked.

Peg looked at me. ‘Of course. The universe is unfathomably large. There must be millions of living planets out there.’

‘So why haven’t we found one yet? Don’t you think that by now we’d have found another planet with life, if one existed?’

‘It’s expensive to travel through space to investigate possible planets. And all our efforts so far have yielded nothing. People don’t want to pay more taxes to fund dead-end exploration. But that doesn’t stop me believing there’s life out there.’ Peg tapped my elbow. ‘Look. There’s India. Can you see it?’

I leant forward; the triangular shape of the subcontinent angling down into the Indian Ocean was unmistakable.

‘It looks thinner than I expected,’ I said.

‘Its landmass is smaller than it was in your time. Sea levels have risen quite a bit.’

He moved the controller. ‘I’m going to take us over the North Pole now. You’ll get to see the dark side of our planet briefly before we go home.’

Home. That reminded me.

‘Peg, I need to ask you something,’ I blurted out.

It was now or never. The Institute had only given me until tomorrow to find a legal guardian myself; after that, they would choose someone for me.

‘What is it?’

‘I need to ask you a favour.’

He shrugged. ‘OK.’

‘It’s a lot to ask, so I won’t mind if you say no.’

‘This sounds serious.’

‘I’m kind of embarrassed to even ask, but . . .’

‘Just ask.’

I swallowed. ‘Well, the thing is, I’m sixteen.’

‘I thought you were a hundred and twenty-seven?’

‘The court wouldn’t accept that. I’m supposed to have a legal guardian. The Institute said I could find my own guardian by tomorrow or they would appoint one and put me in a care home. It can be anyone, so long as they’re over eighteen.’

Peg laughed. ‘You want to move in with me?’

‘Just for a while.’

‘And you want me to be your dad?’

‘No! Well, I suppose. Sort of. I would have to live with you and you would be responsible for my welfare until I’m eighteen. But as soon as Ryan is free, I can live with him.’

There was a sudden jolt to the ship and the view through the window wobbled. For a second or two we lost sight of the planet. Peg frowned and pulled the controller to one side until Earth was clearly in our sights again.

‘Space junk,’ said Peg. ‘You can’t afford to lose focus for a second. Sorry about that.’

‘What’s space junk?’

‘Mostly bits of obsolete space stations,’ he said. ‘But you also have to watch out for dead satellites that haven’t entered the atmosphere and burned up yet. And then there’s the debris from shipwrecks. They’re the worst.’

‘Shipwrecks?’

Peg laughed. ‘You’re quite the stress freak, aren’t you? We’re in a stable orbit, with a sound ship and a very talented pilot. Relax and enjoy the view.’

He hadn’t answered my question. My chest tightened. I wrapped my arms around my middle and looked out of the window as we flew north.

‘We’re flying over the Himalayas now,’ said Peg.

I leant forward again, but the mountains were obscured by thick cloud cover.

‘Of course I’ll be your fake dad,’ said Peg.

‘Are you serious?’

‘Eden, it’s not a big deal. I’d actually like a room-mate. I spend a lot of time alone.’

If he wasn’t responsible for flying this spaceship, I would have hugged him. ‘Thank you, Peg. I really didn’t want to be sent to some stupid care home.’

‘We’re flying over the Arctic Ocean right now,’ he said. ‘Once we get close to Greenland, we’ll have to head home. We don’t want to be mistaken for a hostile.’

‘What’s going on in Greenland?’

‘The Greenland War. The Federation, Scandinavia and Russia are still disputing territory there.’

‘I thought Greenland was just a pile of snow and ice.’

‘With valuable fuel deposits. Much cheaper to extract fuel from Greenland than mine it on the moon.’

My stomach rolled over. The mines on the moon were where Ryan could end up if the Time Court found him guilty. I didn’t want to think about that.

‘Do you come here often?’ I asked, to change the subject.

‘I’ve clocked up several hours.’ He glanced at me. ‘This is the first time I’ve brought someone with me, though.’

As we rolled over the globe, Earth grew darker. A band of deep yellow and orange hugged the surface of the planet. Above that, a thin band of pink and blue. And then there was nothing but the unending blackness of space.

‘Take a last look out the window,’ said Peg. ‘I’m going to land her in thirty seconds.’

There was the sensation of moving backwards for a few moments and then the speck of light appeared at the end of a dark tunnel. We hurtled towards it. Just as the white light filled the screen in front of us, it shrank to nothing and we were back in the dark shipyard.

Chapter 14

I sat next to Ben in the gallery. Although the court had been closed during the trial – and each witness appeared separately – the court was open to close family, witnesses and reporters for the verdict. Admiral Westland was in the front row with his wife and sons. Travis Deckard’s widow was there with her two children. And I spotted Lauren, the cleaner from the most recent mission.

‘This will only last for a few minutes,’ Ben said to me in a low voice. ‘The admiral will announce the verdict, and if he’s found guilty, the sentence. That’s it.’

There was a hush as Ryan and his lawyer entered the room. An usher directed Ryan to the front bench. I watched him scan the gallery until his eyes rested on me. He smiled; I smiled back, doing my best to convey good luck and all my positive energy his way. He scanned the gallery again, this time his eyes resting on his mother.

And then Wolfe came in. Everyone stood.

‘Be seated,’ said Wolfe.

He began by telling us all that it was a troubling case, that time trials are never easy because only a select few are privy to the full details of a time mission.

‘However, there are several things that have caused me grave concern,’ he went on. ‘Any time mission must be authorised by the Guardians. Only then can we be certain that all possible permutations have been duly considered. The theft of a time-ship and an unauthorised mission to the past – whether performed with good intentions or not – is a breach of our most sacred law.

‘There is one exception to this rule. And that is if the Clemency Protocol applies. The Protocol may only be invoked in “exceptional circumstances” when a participant has made an “unusual and vital contribution to a mission”. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the point of debate.

‘I have listened with great care to the testimonies of all those involved in both missions,’ Wolfe went on. ‘And I have reached my verdict.’

Ryan and his lawyer stood. Ben squeezed my arm.

‘Mr Westland claims that he thought that it was morally right to save the life of the young woman who assisted his mission. To that end, he presented his concerns to a panel of the Guardians.’ Wolfe checked his notes. ‘Admiral Philp and Admiral Shastri were the Guardians who considered his case. They did not agree that it was necessary and correct for the mission outcome to be altered in any way. At that point, Mr Westland should have accepted their decision, unless he considered that he had a duty to act under the Clemency Protocol. Mr Westland did not convince me that was the case. I believe that he stole a time-ship and travelled without authorisation for personal reasons rather than altruistic reasons. As a consequence I find Orion Westland guilty as charged and an Enemy of Time.’