Star Blaze (13 page)

The monstrous blackness obliterated the stars outside while the only sound on the strangely quiet bridge was Bentley lapping from his bowl. Even the sheepdog must have sensed the danger and he didn't so much as growl. Sol's mind had withdrawn to a deep recess where the alien sensors shouldn't penetrate, but the reassuring aura of power she exuded was noticeably absent. Johnny and Clara both held their breath as the
Spirit of London
drew level with the huge ship and passed within a whisker of the deadly looking quills. Up close, an otherworldly glow hung around the tips of the black ship's spines. Although they were traveling at amazing speed, the thorny sphere was heading in the same direction and must have been at least a hundred times bigger, so overtaking it was agonizingly slow. As they passed alongside, it appeared that at least the Andromedan ship had no windows. It had seemed inconceivable that they wouldn't be spotted—they could only hope that the aliens aboard the other vessel were just using sensors rather than the evidence of their own eyes.

It didn't help when the silver tray holding Bentley's water bowl slid off a console in slow motion, crashing onto the floor with the metal, like a clashing cymbal, taking an age to stop vibrating. Johnny and Clara stared at it, then each other and
then the gray and white sheepdog, who lay down with his paws over his face to hide his embarrassment. They cleared the last few black thorns and Johnny finally exhaled. The sight that met them was beautiful. The sailing ship's oval, silver hull, with three silver side-sails like fins, may have been minute, but what impressed was the size of her four mainsails. Johnny remembered them from his dream—together they formed a vast diamond, glinting in the light of a pair of nearby stars and dwarfing the little capsule they pulled.

Clara turned her attention to the Plican while, to his utter astonishment, Johnny heard Sol's voice counting down in his head. Since he'd given form to his wonderful ship he'd always known they shared a unique bond, but he'd never felt it so closely before. Sol told him they were entering the final minute before their high-speed encounter. He wondered how Alf was getting on in the shuttle bay and hoped the android's targeting mechanism was ready. At the speed they were traveling, they'd only get one shot at snagging the little sailing ship as they flew by. All the time the surrounding space was filling with more and more black craft, their sweeping search pattern becoming ever narrower.

Johnny worried for a moment that the
Spirit of London
might actually collide with the sailing ship, but then he marveled at the accuracy of Sol's calculations as he realized they would pass about a hundred meters apart. Somewhere in his head he knew Sol was happy that he was impressed.

It appeared the crew of the sailing ship—it had to be the boy and girl he'd seen in the dream—had spotted them coming. The liquid silver mainsails were being taken down and reeled in. Johnny hoped it would be done in time. A volley of enormous four-fingered grappling hooks, fired by Alf from the
Spirit of London
's belly, overtook her nosecone, reaching out toward the tiny silver capsule. The first hook missed. The second overshot
too. They simply hadn't had time to come up with a better plan than to snag the little craft, and their efforts were beginning to look foolish. The third and the fourth attempts also failed. It was becoming desperate—they were nearly past the gleaming vessel—yet if anyone could do it, it had to be Alf. Then the fifth hook found its target and held on. The sixth bounced off the hull, but the seventh, again, held firm. The
Spirit of London
flew on, taking up the slack. Johnny hoped the boy and girl had some sort of dampening field as the giant ropes (made, he knew, of carbon nanotubes) took hold and dragged the sailing ship behind. Otherwise, whoever the strange occupants of the little craft were, they could never survive the enormous g-forces they'd been subjected to.

The problem with any dampening field was that it needed power, and power signatures were exactly what the Andromedans had been hoping for. Almost at once, one of the smaller fin-like side-sails began to glow orange, disintegrating from its wingtip inwards just as the Ke Kwan transports had done before. It was jettisoned before the field reached the main hull, the beautiful liquid silver atoms of the sail boiling away into space. The danger wasn't over. The position of the sailing ship—and with it the
Spirit of London
—had finally been revealed.

There was a searing pain inside Johnny's skull, as though his head was being torn apart from the inside. The agony of the dispersion field ended almost before it had begun, yet he almost lost consciousness. Dimly he was aware of the bridge coming to life and Sol's voice saying, “Full shields in operation.”

Alf was speaking too, saying he needed more time to reel the sailing craft inside. The
Spirit of London
's engines screamed louder than Johnny had ever heard them, as Sol turned impossibly sharply, ensuring the little ship (continuing on its own trajectory) immediately found itself within the confines of the shuttle bay.

“Shields down to 20 percent,” said Sol as the starship flew between the spines of an Andromedan vessel. It bought them a moment's breathing space as the alien ships couldn't fire so close to one of their own.

They would have one chance before the shields failed completely. “Clara—it's now or never,” said Johnny.

His sister closed her eyes while, with both hands, she massaged the Plican's tank around where the stray tentacles drooped sorrily down. The creature's arms curled up inside its body and at once the whole tank pulsed with blue light. Bentley howled, but the noise was somehow distant. The
Spirit of London
's hull passed through Johnny and out the other side. Then he saw the spines of an Andromedan ship fly toward him. Even within the fold, there was something horrible about them. The next stage began. They were pulled so fast vertically down that the background stars became streaks of light. Another ninety-degree turn, past a nebula he dimly recognized, before another turn and then another. Then, finally, there was stillness. The
Spirit of London
's hull was back where it belonged and poor Bentley lay unconscious on the floor nearby.

Johnny felt horribly sick, but was pleased to have remained conscious. He undid the straps holding him in the chair and ran across to the stricken sheepdog, laying his ear on Bentley's chest. The double thump of a heartbeat, albeit very fast, filled him with relief. Johnny looked over to Clara for reassurance.

Her eyes met his. “We're safe,” she said. “No one can follow us through a fold. Is Bents OK?”

“I think so,” Johnny replied. “Let's take him to sickbay. Then we'd better go and meet our guests.”

The first thing Johnny and Clara saw when they stepped out of the antigrav lifts was the sleek silver-hulled vessel, berthed in
perfect alignment with the
Jubilee
, its sister shuttle the
Bakerloo
and the bigger
Piccadilly
. Again Johnny marveled briefly at Sol's precision. He didn't dwell on it, for there were two aliens out on the deck. A squat, powerful boy with wispy orange hair was inspecting the
Piccadilly
, running his stubby hands along the sides of the red double-decker bus. Meanwhile, a girl with long purple hair was sitting on the floor, bent over the prone figure of Alf who lay motionless, his bowler hat forlorn on the floor beside him. Johnny and Clara started walking over, Clara shouting, in Universal, “Leave him alone. He'll be OK.”

Before they could come close to the android, a long forked tongue shot from the girl's mouth across Alf's face. His body twitched, he coughed and sat up, looking puzzled. As Clara reached her, the girl looked up and smiled, a gleam in her eye. Then Johnny arrived and her expression changed. She turned round and shouted across the shuttle bay to the boy in a strange, rasping language, “Erin—it's the one I told you about. The one who was aboard the
Falling Star
.” Johnny didn't let on that he understood every word.

The boy walked over, sizing up Johnny and Clara as he came. It was hard to read the expression on his face, but Johnny didn't think he looked impressed.

“Fanciful nonsense,” he said to the girl on the floor. “Your imagination makes you weak—there was no one there. Now get up. You demean yourself on the floor in front of these commoners.”

The girl got to her feet, scowling. “I tell you—it is he.”

Before a full-blown argument could develop between the newcomers, Johnny coughed and spoke in Universal, concentrating on making it sound like that to the new arrivals. “Who are you? Why were the Andromedans after you?”

It was the girl who answered, this time in Universal. “Thank you for coming to our aid—the galaxy looks after its own. We
were searching for …”

“It was a pleasure voyage—nothing more,” interrupted the orange-haired boy. “I am Erin, son of Marin, King and ruler of the Alnitak Hegemony,”

“I do not believe I have heard of it,” said Alf, offering his hand to the alien in the gesture Johnny had taught him and adding, “My name is Alf.”

“Then you are woefully ill-informed,” King Erin replied, ignoring Alf's outstretched arm.

From all around, Sol's voice explained, “Alnitak is a binary system that, from Earth, appears as the left-most star of Orion's belt.”

“My name's Johnny,” said Johnny, but he didn't offer to shake hands.

“And I'm Clara,” added Johnny's sister, more to the girl than the boy.

“Your voyage didn't look very pleasurable,” said Johnny. “The Andromedans were swarming all over you.”

“Insects are drawn to the honey,” said the girl.

“Silence!” roared the boy, reverting to his own language. “You will speak only when I permit it.” Erin turned his back on the girl and, in Universal, continued, “This is my sister, Princess …”

“Zeta,” Johnny interrupted, before the little king could finish. He knew he shouldn't have said anything, but he wanted to bring the other boy down a peg or two.

“Princess Zeta, daughter of Zola. Clearly you and your ship have heard of us, Johnny,” replied Erin. “You must be the captain of this vessel.” He looked around the shuttle bay. “It will prove an acceptable form of transport. You will return us to Novolis, the fifteenth planet of the Alnitak system. During the journey, I shall remain with the Royal Carrier, the
Falling Star
, but I am not unaware of your particular methods of faster-than-light travel. My sister is of a more delicate disposition—you will
escort her to your gel pods. That will be all.”

Alf and Clara both looked at Johnny, wondering how he would react. He simply replied, “Of course, King Erin. We'll let you know as soon as we arrive.”

The boy nodded, but added in his native tongue, “These commoners are puny. We should seize their ship—it would make a fitting trophy.”

As Erin turned and began walking back toward the silver-hulled craft, the purple-haired girl's tongue shot out, hissing after her brother. “Come with us,” Johnny said to Zeta, again in Universal, and set off toward the lift with Clara and Alf.

On the bridge, Clara went over to the Plican's tank. She peered inside, checking how the folder was, and then asked Johnny, in English, “So we're not going to Earth?”

“Of course we are,” Johnny replied. “We've got to stop Nymac. And I think our new friend needs to learn some manners.”

The purple-haired girl smiled knowingly and Johnny realized he hadn't disguised his speech. Because of the Hundra inside him, she'd understood every word. Johnny shrugged, touched a button on the control panel by his chair and a gel pod rose from out of the floor below them. Princess Zeta, grinning broadly, stepped inside.

Clara had coaxed the Plican through the remaining legs of the journey back to the solar system, where they'd unfolded somewhere close to Saturn. The gel pods were all open and Bentley, now fully recovered, was enjoying having Zeta pick the remaining globules of orange gel out of his coat.