Star Blaze (6 page)

Johnny's brother kicked out and one of the Krun was sent flying through the air backward, unconscious even before it hit the ground. “Then why do I find myself abandoned in this dreary wasteland?” screamed Nicky.

Memories Johnny didn't know he had began bubbling up inside him. This place reminded him of when he was little, of being crushed and frightened as he was swept along in the middle of a vast, chanting crowd. It had been Nicky who'd lifted him up, placing Johnny on his shoulders so he could see above the fray and wouldn't be scared. Another time, he was in a pushchair, rocking back and forth when the brakes must have failed and he'd careered down a hillside toward the top of a sea
wall. Again, it was Nicky sprinting to his rescue who'd saved him, diving onto the back of the chair and sliding along behind to bring it to a stop, just as the gaping ocean promised to welcome Johnny in. In those long-ago moments Johnny had loved and idolized his older brother more than anything. It was hard to believe it was the same person standing before him now. The Krun kneeling beside Stevens mumbled something Johnny couldn't quite catch because the mosquito started buzzing again—but it sounded like it was Nicky's orders. Focusing his thoughts more precisely than he'd ever needed to before, Johnny directed the shuttle to create a tiny opening through which the annoying insect could escape, before sealing itself shut again. As he had hoped, the
Jubilee
was able to remain shielded.

“My orders? To be abandoned here?” Nicky snorted derisively, lifting his head so his mane of thick black hair shook. “I don't think so. You have failed me once too often.”

With that he held out his right hand toward the alien, who fell forward onto all fours and pleaded, “No, My Lord, no!” The Krun pawed at Nicky's boots, until a bolt of bright light shot from the ring and engulfed the alien in an orange halo. For a brief moment, the creature's true insect-like form was revealed—the head like a fly, the long snout that dripped sticky mucus and four elongated arms, made human only by the Krun's DNA showers. Then the creature vanished, leaving behind the slight hint of a shadow on a singed patch of ground.

Nicky, his hand still outstretched, sneered at the bowed figure of Stevens. “Stop groveling, slave. Return me to my ship.”

Hesitantly, the Krun stood up. Still with his head bowed, he asked, “Did my Lord acquire what he wanted?”

As though mollified, Nicky turned his hand over so the ring was no longer a threat. Lost in thought, he stared at his open palm for some time before his fingers closed and he raised his
eyes to Stevens. “The plan has worked perfectly,” he said. “If I allow you to live, it may be you shall teach the boy. Come—the
Astricida
awaits us both.” With that he walked toward the Krun shuttle which opened before him. At the entrance he paused and turned around. Despite the shuttle's shields, Johnny froze. His brother was looking straight toward the
Jubilee
, a curious expression on his face. Once more, Nicky raised his right hand to display the ring, but the orange death it promised came to the unconscious Krun on the ground. Its body disappeared into nothing, before Nicky turned again and entered the ship. As soon as he and Stevens were inside, the black sphere shot skyward at incredible speed, disappearing behind the clouds.

Johnny sat in the shuttle pilot's seat unable to understand what had happened. He'd found his brother who, for almost all of his life, he'd thought dead. Yet Nicky only seemed himself when that light wasn't shining out of his horrid mask, and even when he was himself Johnny wasn't at all sure he liked him. He certainly didn't want to rule the galaxy—that was Bram's job and, from what Johnny had seen, the Emperor was welcome to it and all the Phasmeers that came with the territory. He didn't know how long he stared at the area of the sky where he'd last seen the Krun ship, but was finally roused by someone speaking in his ear.

“Master Johnny,” said Alf's familiar voice. “We have landed safely. Where on Earth are you?”

“I had to go somewhere,” said Johnny quietly, deliberately vague. “I'll be back in a few minutes.” In his mind he focused on his destination, 30 St. Mary Axe in London, and the
Jubilee
lifted into the air.

Johnny was in the sickbay while Alf tried to heal his burned face. When the android started asking difficult questions such as,
“Whatever were you thinking going off on your own like that?” and “Why did you not ask Kovac to monitor the
Spirit of London
's signals so you would know as soon as we were back in Earth orbit?” Johnny covered the red-faced wristcom with his sleeve and diverted the topic of conversation to the latest
Times
crossword. Because other city workers sometimes did puzzles around the entrance to the
Spirit of London
, Alf had taken to joining them. Much to his frustration, the android sometimes found them impossible to solve. Despite his enormous intelligence, the answers to the clues needed something more than logic. Johnny was trying to help with four across: “E” (thirteen letters) when the door swished open and in walked Clara.

“What happened to you?” she asked, sitting down on the bed next to Johnny's.

He took a deep breath as he wondered how to answer the question. The
Spirit of London
had returned to Earth before his message reached Pluto, so neither she, Alf nor Sol knew about Nicky's transmission. After everything that had happened this year, Johnny wasn't sure it was fair to tell Clara about a new brother just now, especially when that person seemed in league with the Krun. He needed to find out more. “Louise got in touch,” he said, “and I found Stevens.” It wasn't a lie—it just wasn't the whole truth.

Clara gasped. “What about Louise? Is she OK?”

“Yeah, she's fine. And she says the Krun have left Yarnton Hill completely. Stevens was in Derby.”

“Derby? What was he doing there?”

“No idea,” said Johnny, which at least was an honest answer. “I got this burn and he flew off in a Krun shuttle.”

“And a very unusual burn it is, Master Johnny,” said Alf. “It is not down to exposure to heat.” Johnny and Clara looked at each other and then back to the android, who continued, “This is the result of extreme cold.”

Johnny couldn't help it—he shuddered as he wondered about the freezing mask that covered half his brother's face. It didn't bear thinking about. “What was Pluto like?” he asked, keen to change the subject.

“We completed the outpost,” said Alf.

“And I got to go outside and stand on the surface,” said Clara, now grinning. “It's a double planet. Charon—its moon—is huge and really close.”

“It helped that we could put a skeleton staff in place,” Alf continued, ignoring the interruption.

“There are people there?” Johnny asked. “What are you talking about? Who?”

“Not people, Master Johnny. Tolimi.”

“
Cheybora
went back to search for survivors after Alpha Centauri—you know, Toliman—went supernova,” said Clara. “There's only a handful—they're really cute and tiny—but we couldn't bring them back here.”

“And they were very determined to help,” Alf continued. “If only we had some Corniculae. Then the warnings could be instantaneous. Those extra few hours could make all the difference.”

At least that was something Johnny could come clean about. He'd completely forgotten he hadn't told the android about his stash of eggs waiting to be hatched—Alf was sure to know what to do with them. Once out of their cocoons, the creatures behaved like salmon, finding their way to the place of their birth in order to lay new eggs. Only these Worms had the special ability that they could burrow through the fabric of space itself. “About that,” said Johnny, grinning despite the pain in his cheek. “I've got some … eggs anyway. They're at Halader House.”

“What? How? When? … Master Johnny!” Alf looked so flabbergasted Johnny wouldn't have been surprised to see the
bowler hat lift off the android's head and start spinning of its own accord. Clara just giggled.

“Bram gave them me with the Worm he'd hatched on Melania,” Johnny went on. “I tried contacting him last night, but the new Chancellor wouldn't let me speak to him.”

“Let's go to Melania,” said Clara. “We've got to tell him about the supernova and we can take a Worm to Pluto on the way.”

Johnny smiled. One ship wouldn't be enough to protect the solar system from Nymac—they needed reinforcements and Melania was the best place to find them. Part of him wanted to stay and search for Nicky, but his brother had already found him once and promised to do so again. Besides, it would be wrong to put his family ahead of saving Earth and the solar system. “We'll go tomorrow,” he said.

He didn't know why he'd not been able to speak with Bram, but he was certain of one thing. Neither Mrs. Devonshire nor Mr. Wilkins was going to be pleased when he failed to turn up to school in the morning.

When, very early on Monday morning, Johnny arrived at Halader House to collect the Cornicula eggs, he ran straight into Mr. Wilkins.

“Oi! Where've you been, sonny?” asked the cook, blocking the entire corridor outside the computer room, so there was no way past.

He didn't have time for this. They were scheduled to take off in under three hours. Clara had been keen to update her diary with everything that had happened, so remained on the
Spirit of London
while Alf had come with him to Castle Dudbury. Johnny had left the android sitting in the
Jubilee
in the station carpark and promised to be no more than five minutes. “Out,” he replied as he tried to squeeze through a gap between Mr. Wilkins and the magnolia-painted wall.

He wasn't quick enough. The cook pressed his enormous bulk into Johnny, lifting him up and pinning him against the side of the corridor. “Gotcha!” said Mr. Wilkins, smiling through his tiny black eyes. The cook's hot breath and bristly beard were on Johnny's face, forcing him to close his eyes. The huge man continued, “Where'd you bugger off to yesterday, you good-for-nothin'? Who did you think was going to cook the roast?”

Johnny wanted to say, “That's your job,” but when his eyes reopened he was distracted by the clumps of dandruff on the shoulders of Mr. Wilkins's blue polo shirt, twinkling like tiny
stars under the fluorescent lights. It was, perhaps, just as well.

The cook backed off slightly allowing Johnny's toes to touch the floor but, before he could make a run for it, Mr. Wilkins grabbed hold of Johnny's ear and dragged him along the corridor into the kitchen.

“You'll cook up the porridge and then you can change into your school uniform. I don't want you keeping that nice Mrs. Devonshire waiting. Is that clear, sonny?”

Johnny nodded. He couldn't afford to do anything else.

“Don't think I'm enjoying looking after you,” continued the man who, Johnny was certain, was loving every minute of it. “But I will drag you to that school myself if I have to—it's right next door to the pet food factory and I need to pick up some cheap meat.” Mr. Wilkins licked his lips.

Johnny tried to shut out the horrible thought of what he might have been eating all these years and set to work making the porridge. He could hear Alf speaking in his ear, wondering what was taking so long, but daren't respond as Mr. Wilkins was watching him like a hawk, from behind the cover of an upside-down newspaper. Instead, he knelt down, slid open a cupboard door and tried to pull out the large two-handled metal pan from the very back, without tripping any of the mousetraps Mr. Wilkins had set around the inner walls. There were loads of smaller pans, bowls and baking trays in the way, but eventually, after a final tug followed by a loud clunk, the pan broke free and Johnny fell backward, gripping it to his stomach. One of the handles was half hanging off, but he was pretty sure he hadn't done it. Inside, burned onto the bottom, was a charred brown crust—remnants from previous visits to the hob. When he picked some off with his fingernails it just made things worse, exposing a lighter layer that looked far more likely to contaminate any new meal.

He lifted the pan, hoping the dodgy handle would hold, and
dropped it onto the charcoal bars that sat above the grease-coated hob. Mr. Wilkins placed the paper beside him, folded his arms, focused his small beetle-like eyes on Johnny as though X-raying him and began barking orders. “A mug of oats's more than enough,” he said. “Plenty of water in the pan—no skimping on that. And don't forget the salt, sonny. Lots of salt.”

There was no chance at all of swapping tastier ingredients as he had before, so he followed the cook's instructions to the letter. The oats already looked gray and soggy; the water from the curved cast-iron taps was, again, rusty brown, and the drum of salt had all sorts of unidentifiable black bits and pieces inside. After everything had been added to the pan, Johnny walked to another set of cupboards and opened the third drawer down where all the odds and ends were kept—blunt corkscrews, broken chopsticks, garlic crushers and battered straws—and took out a big box of kitchen matches. Johnny smiled, despite himself. The massive box made it seem as if he was in
Land of the Giants
. He took out a gigantic match, around ten centimeters long, and struck it away from him along the side of the box. He turned the gas on, placing the match under the pan, but it was a few seconds before the whoosh of blue flame came, shooting out in all directions. Johnny only just avoided being burned. He found a relatively clean wooden spoon in the same drawer and began to stir the watery broth.