Lair of the Sentinels

by Geoff Palmer

  He sighed.

  ‘Are you going to stand there looking at that hole all day, or are you going to help me with these?’ She shook her backpack containing their share of the scanner blocks.

  ‘I help.’ He turned to face her. ‘But first there is something I must get.’

  She followed him back to the caravan where he opened a drawer beneath the sink and took out a willow-pattern plate. ‘I mean to give this back, but last night I forget.’

  ‘Aunt Em’s plate,’ Coral said. ‘The one that got broken.’

  The day before, Alice had left a plate of pikelets for them, but when Albert discovered the others were in trouble, he’d accidentally dropped it, shattering it on a stone.

  ‘I fix her with the nanomachine.’

  ‘Good job.’ Coral studied it. ‘You can’t even see the joins.’

  ‘Is fun design, yes? Chinese scene with little peoples. Girl with donkey, men in boat, another fish from bridge.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘I make another.’ He went to the cupboard beside his fold-out bed and took out a second plate. ‘For you.’

  ‘Me? Oh. Thanks.’

  He grinned. ‘Not quite the same.’

  She held them side-by-side and looked from one to the other. They were identical.

  Almost.

  ‘Always I have been good at draw, so change the faces. See? Albert, Alkemy and me in boat. Tim fish from bridge. The corner of pagoda I make like the fins on the Cadillac. In the clouds I hide our ship. And you, the main one, I make her best. Leading donkey, looking back.’

  Coral looked and saw herself in perfect caricature. The resemblance was uncanny.

  ‘And the donkey!’

  ‘You see that too?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The donkey was still a donkey, but somehow, with the addition of a few deft strokes, it had the face of Norman Smith.

  ‘When did you do this?’

  ‘Last night, when I cannot sleep. I think that when we are gone you will have no picture, no photo, only memory. So I make this. Present. So you will remember us.’

  ‘Oh Ludokrus, how could I ever forget you?’

  She stared down at her present, not daring to look at him. It was the loveliest thing anyone had ever given her. It made her want to cry.

  ‘I guess we should put out the scanner blocks,’ he said at length.

  Coral cleared her throat. ’And I’ll give this back to Aunt Em.’ She hugged the second plate to her chest. ‘But I’m keeping this one very safe.’

  They headed out, back across the reserve, pausing to place one of the blocks on the roof the communal toilet and another in the fork of tree. As they started on the track to the farm he said, ‘You think these things will work?’

  ‘I really hope so. But you missed that bit.’

  ‘You mean after I go?’

  She nodded. ‘Norman asked what would happen if this plan didn’t work and Albert said you’d have to leave. Go somewhere else for safety’s sake. Keep moving until he worked out something else. Maybe even go to Australia and try to hijack one of their satellite dishes.’

  ‘Does he say when?’

  ‘Twenty-four hours. If we’re no further on this time tomorrow, you’re gone.’

  Ludokrus frowned but said nothing.

  They jumped the stream, climbed the fence, and started across the open field heading towards the milking shed. It was unused at this time of day and the perfect spot for another scanner block.

  ‘I guess it doesn’t make much difference,’ Coral said at length. ‘You were supposed to go yesterday, but ... I dunno ... it’s fun having you guys around.’

  ‘Is fun to be around,’ he said quietly.

  Several of the grazing cows looked up and watched them cross the field.

  ‘I will come back,’ he added. ‘Even if we go yesterday, I will come back to see you.’

  ‘Oh god, don’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of where you come from. Your home planet’s fifty light-years away. You travel at close to light speed, and we both know how that works. If you went home yesterday and came straight back, you’d only be six weeks older, but decades would have passed here on Earth. By the time you got back, Tim and I would be on the pension. Or worse.’

  ‘Albert says he has an idea about this.’

  ‘Yeah, you told us.’

  ‘Now he does more. Says he build new circuit into the Temporal Accumulator he make last night.’

  ‘What sort of circuit?’

  ‘The accumulator store time to use when we are travelling, yes? He say he work out a way to inject extra when we are moving so that back home the decades do not pass. Weeks only, like you say, so six week trip will be the same for everyone.’

  ‘But ... that would be like the travellers going backwards in time, and that’s impossible.’

  ‘He say no. He show me the math, but I do not understand. Make my brain hurt to even see. He say find a loopyhole in the physic.’

  ‘A loophole? In the physics of Special Relativity?’ Coral laughed. ‘Did he say he mastered quantum mechanics in his tea break too?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Seriously, Ludokrus. You said yourself he’s got a touch of space mould. Do you really think your silly old syntho is smarter than our Einstein, or all your scientists and physicists who made space travel possible?’

  They climbed a second fence and Coral slipped around the side of the milking shed to hide another scanner block. Ludokrus watched her, thinking of his argument with Albert. What could their eccentric syntho possibly come up with that thousands of experts and specialists had overlooked? When Albert said he had an idea, Ludokrus wanted to believe him, but that didn’t make it true — or even valid.

  Coral returned.

  Ludokrus sighed. ‘I think you are right.’

  ‘I wish I wasn’t.’ She made a face and looked away as they headed for the house.

  Frank appeared from one of the sheds further up, riding a ride-on mower. He waved and motored on, disappearing round the corner of the house. A few seconds later, there was a loud crash and the sound of the mower’s engine stopped.

  Coral looked at Ludokrus. Ludokrus looked back. Then they both started running.

  8 : A Little Leverage

  The Cadillac stopped beside Dead Man’s Pine. ‘More like Dead Man’s Stump,’ Tim said as he clambered out and wedged a scanner block in its gnarled bark. ‘Should we make a note of where we put these things so we can collect them later?’

  ‘No need,’ Albert said. ‘They’re designed to break down into their constituent atoms after a couple of days.’

  ‘Leave only footprints, eh?’ he said, getting back in the car.

  ‘And craters,’ Alkemy muttered.

  They drove on, gradually descending towards Rata, passing through lush green countryside and rolling hills, pausing regularly so one of them could climb out and place a block.

  The town of Rata consisted of a pub, a petrol station, a dozen shops — four of which looked like they’d been closed for a hundred years — and RAM and RAGS, which stood opposite each other on the main road, like guardians at the entrance to the town. Rata Area Merchants stocked farming supplies, tools, hardware and gardening needs, while Rata Area General Store carried groceries, fruit and vegetables, fresh bread, and doubled as the local post office.

  Glad looked up from stacking shelves when the four of them trooped in. ‘Don’t tell me the Townsends have thrown you out already,’ she said to Norman.

  He checked the rear aisle. The shop was empty. ‘We’re on a mission,’ he said, then explained what they were up to.

  ‘Sounds like a good plan,’ she said. ‘There’s plenty of places round here to hide your blocks. And you say these Sentinel things live underground?’

  Albert nodded.

  ‘Rata’s an old mining town. This whole area’s littered with abandoned pits. But I hope you’re not going with them.’

&
nbsp; ‘Oh? Why not?’ he said.

  ‘Three kids wandering about won’t draw attention, especially on a holiday weekend. But you’re a stranger round here. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb.’

  ‘Actually, I was hoping to locate some raw materials.’

  ‘Raw materials?’

  ‘I need to build a receiver to track the signals from the scanner blocks. Norman said you may have some old computer equipment I could use.’

  ‘I’ve got a shed full. We’re the drop-off point for the annual recycling drive. C’mon through, I’ll show you.’

  * * *

  Coral and Ludokrus found Frank scratching his head and studying the clothes line that was now lying in the garden — with the washing still attached. The ride-on mower was jammed up on top of its support post.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Some damn fool ran into it,’ Frank said. ‘Can’t have been watching where he was going.’

  Coral laughed. ‘Which damn fool would that be?’

  ‘Would you believe I swerved to avoid a begonia?’

  ‘I should breathalyse you. What’s the penalty for being drunk in charge of a mower?’

  ‘Fourteen years hard marriage, I think.’

  ‘I heard that Frank Townsend.’ Em appeared from the other side of the house, garden trowel in hand. ‘What have you done now?’

  ‘Ah, hello my sweet. I’m trying out my new invention: the horizontal clothes line.’

  ‘I’ll horizontal you! Alice has only just hung that out.’

  ‘Actually, Alkemy and I did that,’ Coral said.

  ‘Did you, dear? Well you and Alkemy can have first swing at him.’

  ‘Now now girls, no need to be like that. I just need to get the post out from under the mower.’

  ‘And how do you propose to do that?’

  ‘With the help of this strapping lad here.’ He clapped Ludokrus on the shoulder. ‘You lift the mower, I’ll do the rest.’

  Ludokrus frowned. ‘Big mower. Look heavy.’

  ‘When I say “lift”, I don’t mean lift lift. Here.’ He picked up a length of four-by-two lying in the uncut grass and wedged one end under the side of the mower. Then he took a block of wood and placed it part-way along to act as a pivot.

  ‘Press down on this end, and up the mower goes. See? Easy. Now, if you just hold it there ...’

  Ludokrus did so, supporting the mower’s weight while Frank unbolted the clothes line’s rotating top. It came loose, tilted over and fell into the freshly dug garden — along with the remainder of the washing.

  ‘Ah. I should probably have got one of you to hold on to that,’ Frank said.

  Em glared. ‘Yes, you probably should.’

  ‘All right Ludokrus, now for the big lift. As high as you can.’

  Ludokrus leaned on the end of the four-by-two and pushed it all the way down. The side of the mower rose smoothly, Frank grabbed the support pole — its base still fixed in a lump of cement — and dragged it to one side.

  ‘There’s your problem,’ he said to Em. ‘Dodgy concreting job.’

  ‘Hmm, I wonder who did that?’

  Ludokrus lowered the mower, then raised it again one-handed.

  ‘Easy, eh?’ Frank said. ‘What was it that Archimedes joker said? “Give me a lever long enough, and a place on which to rest it, and I will move the world.”’

  ‘Archimedes?’ Coral said. ‘I didn’t know you’d had a classical education, Uncle Frank.’

  ‘What classical education? Bob Archimedes used to have the farm up the road. He was always saying stuff like that.’

  ‘Did he have any laundry tips?’ Em narrowed her eyes. ‘Because you’re going to need them once you’ve gathered up that washing.’

  ‘Hadn’t I better fix this first? After all, what good’s laundry without a place on which to hang it?’

  Em said nothing, just stared at him, her hands on her hips.

  ‘No, no. Quite right, my sweet. Laundry first.’

  9 : Town and Around

  ‘If higher up’s better,’ Norman said, weighing a scanner block in his hand, ‘then how about RAM’s roof?’

  ‘Are they designed to be ...’ Tim began as Norman lobbed it, ‘... thrown?’

  They watched it soar through the air. It landed with a sharp clack on the far side of the pitched iron roof and shattered into dozens of pieces, all of which clattered down to the guttering.

  ‘Guess not,’ Norman said as the back door of Rata Area Merchants burst open. A wiry figure in a khaki-coloured apron appeared, wielding a broom. He looked up and down the street, snorted, ‘Bloody kids,’ and went back inside.

  ‘Was that Rambob?’ Tim said from the shelter of some bushes. ‘I don’t think I’ve actually seen him before.’

  ‘The name is foreign?’ Alkemy asked.

  Norman pointed to a large cartoon ram painted on the side of the building, its features a caricature of its owner. ‘His real name’s Bob, but another Bob used to run the garage, so everyone called him Rambob to avoid confusion.’

  ‘Funny to make up such a name.’

  ‘Wait till you meet meet the guy that runs the Rata Area Tavern. They call him Morrie the Rat,’ Norman said.

  He led them over the road, down a side street and across a patch of waste ground. A few minutes later, they came to a squat concrete structure standing on a low hill.

  ‘The old water tower. Reckon that’s high enough?’

  A rusty iron ladder ran up one side. It didn’t look safe, but Norman scrambled up it without a moment’s hesitation. Alkemy put a hand to her mouth. Tim shook his head in admiration. It was like when they were mice. Give quiet, bookish Norman a mission, and he’d throw himself into it with such energy that he hardly gave a thought to his own safety.

  ‘Whoa, it was a bit freaky near the top,’ he said, dropping to the ground and shaking out his stiff, rust-coloured fingers. ‘Some of those rungs are nearly rotted through. Great view though.’

  For the next hour, they zigzagged back and forth across town, slipping scanner blocks on to roofs, tucking them behind signs, or wedging them in tree branches. Everywhere they went they saw evidence of an older and once more prosperous place. Ramshackle buildings with wood bleached almost white. Rusting machinery hidden in weeds. Areas of barren ground, some of it fenced off. Tim knew a little of the town’s history. How it had been founded in the gold rush days of the 1860s before moving on to coal. Then that ran out too. Norman added a wealth of detail, pointing out old crushing plants and tailing pits, leading them past abandoned sidings, collapsed buildings and pools of noxious looking waste.

  Pioneer Park was a narrow strip of greenery that ran the length of the town. Two blocks back from the main street, partway up a gentle hill, it ran parallel to the road, continuing on past each intersecting street.

  ‘Used to be the railway line,’ Norman said. ‘But that got ripped out years ago, so they turned it into a park.’

  They stopped at a section containing a play area and stood watching while Alkemy clambered up the climbing frame to place a scanner block on top. She paused, looked about, gave a startled gasp and scrambled down.

  ‘Quick, this way. Someone come.’

  ‘Who? What? Where?’

  ‘Hide. Hurry.’

  She steered them to some trees on the northern side where they took cover and watched as a yellow Citroën swung into a car park near the swings.

  ‘The Cakeface car. I see her coming up the hill.’

  Millicent Millais, principal of Rata Area School, got out and looked around.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’

  ‘You think she follow us?’

  ‘What, up the water tower and through the quarry?’ Norman said. ‘We probably would have noticed.’

  ‘Still, she is a Sentinel host,’ Tim said. ‘It’s a heck of a coincidence.’

  They watched as Cakeface walked over to the swings, inspected them and tugged on one of the chains.

  ‘What’
s she doing?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Tim watched. Cakeface gave him the creeps. He’d had dealings with her at school. He’d seen the effects of the Sentinels manipulating her mind and altering her memories, even as she spoke.

  ‘If the Sentinels did send her,’ Norman said, ‘it’s just what we want. The scanner blocks will pick up their directions.’

  Cakeface went back to her car, opened the passenger door, and took out a clipboard. She returned to the swings and began examining them closely, checking the wooden seats, peering up to where the chains connected to the crossbar, and making notes on the clipboard.

  ‘Ha!’ Norman said. ‘It’s not us at all. She’s doing some sort of safety inspection.’

  ‘Why would she do that? It’s not her job.’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘On a Saturday too. And a holiday weekend. That’s the sort of thing the local council should do.’

  ‘Maybe some kid got hurt on the way to school or something and she has to write a report. Who cares? It’s just a coincidence. She’s not interested in us. Hasn’t even looked this way. C’mon, we’ve still got a ton of blocks left, and now has to be the perfect time to leave a couple up at the school.’

  Norman raced off through the undergrowth. Alkemy followed, calling for him to slow down. Tim paused a moment longer, watching Cakeface examining things and writing notes. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it in his bones.

  * * *

  Norman dropped from a tree and landed at their feet. ‘That’s it, lucky last.’ He dusted off his hands. ‘Unless you guys have any left?’

  Tim shook his head. ‘I’m all out.’

  Alkemy yawned. ‘Me also.’

  Norman had taken Albert’s request to heart and insisted on spreading the scanner blocks as widely as possible. They’d been all over town, from one end to the other, zigzagging back and forth until their legs ached. Tim was secretly pleased they’d finally run out. If they’d had any more left, he reckoned Norman would want to plant them in the next district.

  They followed him back to the main road, relieved to see the RAGS sign in the distance.

  Glad looked up as they trooped in. ‘Mission accomplished?’

  Norman gave her a thumbs-up.