The Skull (16 page)

John was the first to be fitted into his cocoonlike bed for launch. Mum and Dad were standing over him, checking the various instruments and making sure everything was perfect for the journey. It was supposed to be a relaxing experience, and the computer was piping soft music through the ship. However, instead of enjoying the gently reassuring atmosphere, the three of them were having a massive row.

‘Just don't ever do anything like that ever again!' yelled Mum. She wasn't at all happy that he'd taken the risk of trying to save the skull.

‘When am I going to have the opportunity to do it again?' protested John.

‘He's got a point,' chuckled Dad, trying to defuse the situation.

‘You know exactly what I'm talking about,' snapped Mum, ‘and he only did it because of you!'

‘Why because of me?' cried Dad. He turned back to John. ‘Your mother's right, you know. We just want you to be safe. It was very irresponsible.'

Mum was still glaring at Dad. ‘He knows how much that fossil means to you!' she shouted.

Dad shrugged in frustration.

John tried to sit up. ‘I can make my own decisions, you know. I'm better at driving a suit than you give me credit for,' he started, as Mum pushed him back down into the bed.

‘We have to get you fixed for the flight,' she said dismissively. ‘Hold still.'

Mum and Dad did the rest of the pre-flight checks in silence, then said a short, ‘Goodnight,' to John before going to their own beds and strapping themselves in. John looked up at the ceiling. It was a shiny metal angled plate that reflected the far end of the cargo bay. The skull, the last item to board the ship, was being winched into place. It stared back at him as though the creature was standing over his bed.

‘How long is the journey exactly?' he whispered to the ship's computer.

Its voice was neutral. ‘I don't know,' it said. ‘A better question would be: “how long is the journey approximately?”'

John sighed. ‘OK. How long is the journey
approximately
?'

‘Four thousand, five hundred and forty hours,' it said. ‘We could travel faster, but that would cause unnecessary risks.'

‘What kind of risks?'

‘A new wormhole accelerator is running just outside of the Earth's orbit. We must avoid crossing its acceleration vectors at critical points during the preliminary experimental phases.'

‘What?' said John, feeling confused. ‘Why?'

‘I don't know,' said the computer. ‘The results of running a wormhole accelerator are unpredictable. That is why the experiments are taking place outside of the Earth's orbit.'

John had heard of the proposed wormhole accelerator experiments. They had something to do with finding out about the origins of the universe, but he had no idea what. In any case, it sounded as though they had best keep well away from them.

‘You don't know much, do you?' John said.

The shortage of computer chips on Mars meant
that new computers tended to be built out of older machines. They were made of a patchwork of recycled materials, just like everything else. If an error or bug couldn't be fixed, the scientists found ways to work around the error instead. This had resulted in some very eccentric machines. They didn't always work in the way you expected, but they got there in the end. Usually.

‘Claiming certainty where there is none is not useful,' said the computer enigmatically. ‘We will reduce potential risks by travelling more slowly.'

The shuttle computer's lack of certainty wasn't very reassuring. John was about to ask more, but the computer abruptly announced, ‘I will now fire the engines.'

‘We're launching right now?' John suddenly felt nervous.

‘I hope so,' said the computer. John didn't like the word ‘hope'. The machine could have been programmed to at least sound confident.

‘Don't you have to put us to sleep first?' he enquired, a hint of anxiety in his voice.

‘No,' said the computer brightly. ‘You need to be awake until we are in orbit in case something goes wrong.'

‘Great,' said John, as he swallowed hard and lay back.

The engines roared, and the image of the skull, reflected above his head, started to vibrate. His hands gripped into fists as he felt the rocket starting to lift and the gravitational force pushing him down into his bed.

It felt as though a heavy weight was pressing down on his chest as they gathered speed. His fists uncurled of their own accord and his hands flattened to the bed. He felt his face pulled backwards. Even his eyeballs felt heavy, sinking back into his skull. The rocket juddered through the clouds, shaking him left and right.

Suddenly, the buffeting was gone. That must mean that they had cleared the atmosphere. Slowly the pressure eased off too. They were no longer accelerating.

‘We are safely in orbit,' the computer announced. ‘I am now attempting to prepare the correct mixture of drugs in order to induce a coma, from which I later hope to recover you without brain damage.'

‘Terrific,' whispered John.

‘This prevents me from having to feed and entertain you during the journey,' explained the computer.

John didn't like this situation one bit. ‘Wake me as early as possible,' he said.

‘Please stand by.'

John stared up at the jaws of the skull above him. Its teeth were magnified by the curved mirror. As the barbiturates flooded into his system, John felt the engines suddenly kick in again, jerking the craft away from Mars so quickly it felt as though he left a part of himself there. He lost consciousness wondering vaguely what real meat tasted like.

The stegosaur tasted rotten, but John knew he was lucky to have it. It could be his last meal for months. He sank his teeth deep into the pallid, long-dead flesh, forcing himself to swallow.

Incubating eggs meant staying close to the nest to protect them, and this had reduced the greatest hunter in the valley to becoming no more than a petty scavenger.

The closer to hatching the eggs came, the hungrier he had become. And now they were very close. His hunger made him weak and thin, and the desperation to relieve his starvation fought with the instinct to protect his eggs, each and every time he caught the smell of blood on the wind.

The scent of a fresh carcass was like a whisper on the air, calling all scavengers to feed. But the stench of this one was not a whisper. It was a scream that echoed through the trees. He'd followed it from the nest to the lakeside, and found the bloated body washed up on the shore.

Whatever had killed the stegosaur had done so some days ago somewhere upriver, and the lake's inhabitants had already taken what they wanted of the meat. The remains were waterlogged and rancid. Nevertheless, he hungrily tore off a chunk and lifted his head high to swallow it down. The maggots inside wriggled in his throat.
At least they're fresh meat
, he thought. If he could just stay alive for just a few more days, the eggs would hatch, and he could start to hunt again.

There was a loud squawk. He turned his huge head down to see a small dinosaur standing on the carcass in front of him, defiantly waving its thin claws. Its feathers were brightly coloured and bristling. He snapped at it, and it darted back just out of reach. It screeched again and swiped with its claw, grazing the end of his nose.

He took a step forward, and it jumped back. Suddenly, he felt a sharp scratch at his ankle. He swung
his head around. Another of the little dinosaurs had nipped his leg, breaking the thick skin. He bellowed and launched himself after it.

Before he'd taken two steps it had disappeared into the jungle, and when he turned back, three more of its kind were standing on the carcass biting chunks out of it.

He ran at them, but they deftly leapt out of reach, circling around him, squawking raucously. Each time he made a grab for one, another would dart in behind him with a bite or scratch, only to skip nimbly back out of harm's way before he could bring his crushing jaws down on its back.

Each time he tried to return to feeding, the little dinosaurs would rush in to attack his legs. One even leapt up to grab a chunk of meat out of his jaws before he could gulp it down.

If he wasn't already weak and slow with hunger, he would have easily seen off the little scavengers. Right now, however, they were faster than him, and they had him outnumbered. If he didn't retreat the tiny bites and scratches in his legs would get worse. With the skin already torn, a lucky bite or slash could cut tendons or damage muscles, and a hunter with a wounded leg would not survive for long.

But if he didn't feed now, he'd be dead before the eggs hatched anyway. He tilted his head and eyed his attackers carefully as they stood in a row taunting him. Although he was nowhere near as strong as he once had been, his instincts were every bit as sharp. They stood between him and the kill, ankle deep in the water.

Suddenly, he gave a great roar and lunged at the scavenger on the left. It jumped out of the way, pushing its companions to the side. They scattered, slowed by the water around their feet. The one on the far right, furthest from the megalosaurus's snapping jaws, was struck hard in the side by the tail of its companion and fell, winded, into the water. Within seconds it was back on its feet and blindly pelting for the trees. John swung his massive head to the right and clamped his jaws shut with a spine-snapping crunch, hefting the dinosaur high into the air. At least this meat would be fresh.

Limping, carried his kill a little further down the lakeside to devour it in peace. It was small and bony, with precious little flesh to be picked from its bones, but it would do, for now.

By the time he'd finished, night was falling. He lowered his huge head down to the water to drink.
It was still, and his reflection was thin and dull. His eyes were sunk so deep into the sharp rings of their sockets he could hardly distinguish them. His face was a skull reflected back at him.

He moved his head, but the reflection of the skull didn't follow. It hung there, motionless in front of him. In the distance, there was a low, steady rumbling. It was very, very cold.

‘I may have made a mistake,' said the computer.

John didn't move. His eyes slowly focused on the reflection above his head. His mind began to clear. Why was it so cold?

‘You need to get up now,' the computer said without feeling.

John unfastened the drips from the bandages around his arms and swung his feet down on to the deck. It was so cold, the soles of his feet ached. His head was pounding and his lips were dry.
A glass of water and some slippers,
he thought,
would improve this experience no end.

‘Why is it so cold?' he muttered, his voice cracking.

‘You asked me to revive you as early as possible,' said the computer. John hauled himself to his feet, and
staggered to the cockpit window. Outside, thousands of stars stood out bright and sharp. He could see the sun's light reflected off the front of the ship, but the sun itself was out of sight to the left of his window.

‘Where's Earth?' John scanned the scene in front of him. He'd never seen the planet as more than a dot in the sky. He looked for a blue and white sphere.

‘I may have made a mistake,' the computer repeated.

‘Why can't I see Earth?' pressed John, beginning to worry.

‘Earth is here,' replied the computer. A blue neon arrow lit up in the centre of the window. It circled around a tiny star, only slightly larger than the other pinpricks of light surrounding it.

John felt his stomach tense. ‘Why is it so small?' he asked cautiously.

‘Because it is still roughly thirty million kilometres away.'

John stared at the tiny dot in horror. He felt as though all the air had been sucked from his lungs. He gasped, ‘We're only half way?'

‘You asked me to revive you as early as possible,' said the computer simply. It replayed him a recording of his own voice making the request just before he
was sedated. ‘Error checking reveals that I may have put too much emphasis on your wishes. This was probably too early.'

John staggered backwards and collapsed into the pilot's chair. His brain thought back to Mars, thirty million miles behind him, and then raced forward to the tiny dot of Earth thirty million miles ahead. The unimaginable distance filled his head.

‘You mean we're still three months away?' he cried. ‘Can you put me back to sleep?'

‘No,' stated the computer.

He hesitated before asking, ‘Is there enough air for me?'

‘Yes.

‘Water?'

‘There is enough water – '

‘Good,' interrupted John.

‘For roughly three weeks.'

‘Ah,' said John, hope fading from his voice. So that was it. He would die of thirst in deep space. Back on Mars they had plenty of water. They had so much that they ran the base by splitting it into oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to give them power. John sat bolt upright. Could they do the same thing in reverse? ‘Have we got hydrogen?'

‘Yes,' said the computer. ‘We have a lot of hydrogen.'

‘Can you turn it into water?'

‘Yes. Creating enough water is not a problem.'

John sighed in relief. ‘OK, great. Do we have enough food?'

‘No,' replied the computer. ‘The drips you were connected to contain nutrients.'

‘Enough to survive on?' asked John.

‘Not in an animated state. They are only suitable for use in minimum energy-expenditure candidates.'

Back to square one. He would die, but more slowly. He tried a different tack. ‘Can we get there any faster?'

‘Yes, we can increase our speed. But this will result in passing close to the wormhole accelerator at a critical point in its experimental cycle. There are risks.'

‘What does that mean?' asked John.