by Brian Smith
3
Anthony felt very alone and terribly lonely in the escape pod. There was no light in it and what little daylight came down through the narrow canyon was almost totally absorbed by the clouds of mist surrounding the pod. There was very little space to move in the pod. All he could do was turn his head to the sides and stretch his arms and legs. There wasn’t even enough space to turn on his side. Everything was quiet, in fact, he lay in total silence. There were no sounds coming from outside. This meant he could hear the throb of his own heart as it pumped blood through his ears. It was an eerie, scary sensation that he had never experienced before. He began singing songs to pass the time and to combat the oppressive silence. When he had sung every song he knew at least ten times and grew bored with singing he started making up silly rhymes such as
“Id, ad, od, I’m stuck in a pod”
or
“I love cars, I hate Mars”.
Then he remembered Edward and their beautiful home and life back on Earth and he cried. He didn’t know that at the same time spaceport officials were still talking about what to do and that no one had even started to look for him yet.
Hours went by and on the surface of Mars it became night. The dim grey light in the mist turned to black and for the first time in his life Anthony was locked into a small space with no light and no sounds of any sort at all. It was terrifying. He had never been so scared before, in fact, he was so scared he couldn’t even cry.
Then, suddenly, he thought he heard something. Was it his mind playing tricks on him? Was he slowly going mad? He held his breath. There it was again! He was sure of it now. The sound came from outside the pod. It sounded like little bumps and scraping. He stared at the window of his pod trying to see something, anything. Then he saw it! A faint glow in the dark that gradually became stronger. There was light outside the pod, a dim green light that glowed in the swirling mists and as it grew stronger so did the sounds outside too.
Anthony pressed his nose against the window hoping to see where the light came from, but all he could see were glowing green clouds of mist.
Then the pod moved! It was a small sudden jerk, but it was movement.
Anthony’s heart beat faster and he was happy. He was sure now that his pod had been found. Soon his rescuers would take him to the spaceport where he would be united with his brother again.
The pod moved again. It was pulled across the surface and as it scraped over rocks and sand loud metallic sounds filled the pod. Most people would have found the noise very unpleasant but after the total silence Anthony was happy to hear something again. He only wondered why no one looked in through the window. Why didn’t they wave a little ‘Hello’ to him?
Suddenly the pod tipped forward and began moving quickly. It was sliding down a slope of some kind.
Anthony was confused. Was the spaceport so deep underground? He had expected the rescuers to lift the pod up and fly him to the spaceport.
The pod became faster and faster until it suddenly stopped. Anthony was lucky he was still strapped into his seat or he would have been flung against the window. The green light outside was very strong now but he still couldn’t see anything. Then the pod was turned onto its side and rolled over a few times.
Now Anthony was getting worried.
“Stop it!” he cried. “I want to get out of here, just let me out.”
The pod lay still. There was a loud bang and the green mist became thinner and thinner until it was all gone. He could see out of the window at last. Everything outside was green. The ceiling a short distance above the pod was made up of strange strips of spongy green material that was wet and dripped in some places. A drop fell onto the outside of the pod’s window. A little curl of white smoke went up where the drop had fallen. Anthony didn’t understand. Why didn’t the spaceport people simply open the pod to let him out?
Another drop fell on the window, then another and another. A strange hissing sound came through the glass. The glass cracked.
Anthony’s eyes popped wide open. This couldn’t be right. Another crack appeared and still the mysterious green drops of liquid kept falling.
What was going on?
Anthony was petrified and stared at the glass.
More and more cracks appeared and the glass was getting thinner. Whatever there was outside the pod, it was getting closer and closer.
Now a hole appeared in the glass! The hole got bigger and Anthony held his breath for as long as he could, which wasn’t very long. When he breathed again the air smelled funny. A drop of green liquid fell though the hole and onto his hand. He screamed, expecting it to be painful. Nothing happened. He stared at the green drop on his skin. There it was, one of the green drops that could eat through glass. He touched it with a finger and then rubbed it a bit. It was slimy. He moved his hand towards his nose and sniffed. There was a faint smell of mint and lime jelly mixed together.
Distracted by the slime on his hand he didn’t notice movement outside the pod. Then he heard it! Something was coming up the side of the pod. It made a squelchy noise and then he saw it! It glowed green, and was fluffy with drips of slime sticking to the fluff. It was all round and about the size of a beach ball. A fluffy green beach ball that moved on its own. It stopped at the melting window. An opening appeared in the ball of fluff and it began eating the melting glass. It looked so ridiculous that Anthony laughed out loud. Who had ever heard of fluffy balls on Mars eating glass?
Anthony unstrapped himself and tried to sit up. The window was too small for him to get through even with all the glass gone. The fluffy ball paused a second as if it was watching Anthony. Then it resumed its meal. It began to eat the metal of the escape pod! Soon the hole was big enough for Anthony and he squeezed through. He jumped off the pod and looked around. There were dozens of the fluffy balls there happily eating the pod.
“Good they don’t want to eat me,” Anthony said.
“Good they don’t want to eat me,” the fluffy balls repeated.
This was funny. Whatever he said the fluffy balls repeated it. He giggled. Then the fluffy balls giggled.
“Hello fluffies,” he called.
“Hello fluffies,” they answered.
“No, my name’s Anthony,” he said.
“No, my name’s Anthony,” they said.
This was getting confusing and very funny. He laughed happily and the fluffies laughed with him. They had already eaten half the pod. He watched them eat the rest and wondered what they would do after that. Watching them eat made him feel hungry too, but he couldn’t imagine himself eating the metal of the pod.
“I do hope there are other things to eat here,” he muttered. The fluffies spoke after him and he decided to be more careful with how much he spoke. Having eaten the entire pod the fluffies moved out of the room and Anthony followed them. They entered a tunnel and walked along, or rather Anthony walked while the fluffies rolled and jumped. The only light in the tunnel came from the green glow of the fluffies so Anthony made sure he stayed close to them. Being marooned on Mars and in the power of metal eating aliens was bad enough, he didn’t want to be lost in a dark tunnel on top of that. The tunnel kept changing its shape, sometimes it was huge and at other times it was barely wide enough to get through. He also noticed other tunnels branching off in different directions. The fluffies kept moving until they turned into another tunnel where there were many more of them. The tunnel came to an abrupt end so that Anthony had the opportunity to watch what they were doing. At the end of the tunnel a lot of fluffies were clinging to the wall and little pieces of rock fell on the ground under them. They were eating through the rock! Or rather they were eating the metal in the rock and spitting out the stony parts. The whole tunnel system was nothing else than a gigantic mine that fed the fluffies.
This was too much for Anthony who could feel his own belly rumbling.
“They’re eating again and I’m so hungry,” he complained. “It’s not fair!”
The fluffies stopped eating and repeat
ed “They’re eating again and I’m so hungry. It’s not fair!”
Then they giggled and went on eating.
Anthony was surprised. Something was not right. Of course the silly things repeated everything he said, but there was something else, something that was different. Then he realized what it was. He hadn’t giggled, but the fluffies giggled. It was the first time they made a sound they hadn’t copied from him. He decided to try an experiment.
“Hickery, dickery dock, an elephant ran up the clock,” he sang.
The fluffies sang after him and laughed.
“It’s so silly,” one of them said.
“Yes,” another one laughed. “How can an elephant run up a clock? It’s too heavy.”
Then they all laughed.
Anthony was astounded. “You can speak?” he said to the fluffies.
“It asks if we can speak,” they said all together and laughed loudly.
One of the fluffies came to him.
“Of course we can speak, we’re not silly surface animals like you. But why can you speak? Who taught you? Who gave you such nice food for us to eat? Who sent you here? Why are you hungry? Why don’t you eat? Why…?”
“Stop!” Anthony shouted and all the fluffies stared at him.
“It’s angry,” one of them said.
“Why is it angry?” another asked.
“I’m not angry,” Anthony said. “You just asked too many questions at the same time. If you ask so many questions, how can I answer them?”
Now the fluffies were astounded. Answer questions? This was the first time they had heard of anyone answering a question. They liked asking questions and they knew all the answers so why should anyone answer a question.
They looked at one another, they giggled and then they burst into the most uproarious laughter. It took them several minutes to calm down and when one of them said “It’s so funny!” they all started laughing again.
At first Anthony was annoyed, but laughter is infectious and as the fluffies couldn’t stop laughing, he started to giggle and laugh and laugh even more until he collapsed on the ground laughing his head off.
“Look at it,” a fluffy said. “It’s laughing at itself.”
This new idea caused so much hilarity that the fluffies were laughing for at least half an hour and they probably would have carried on laughing if Anthony hadn’t stopped them.
All the laughing exhausted Anthony, in fact, even his belly began to hurt from laughing so much. Feeling the pain in his belly reminded him how hungry he was. And that made him angry. Why should he have to go hungry while the fluffies were munching away at their metal and laughing at him?
He jumped and stamped his feet.
“Stop! Be quiet! I’m hungry. I also want to eat. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.”
The fluffies stopped laughing.
“Plenty of food here,” they said. “Why don’t you eat if you’re hungry?”
“It’s metal. I can’t eat that.”
“Can’t eat metal? What a strange silly thing you are,” they said. “What do you eat?”
It was the first time the fluffies had asked a question where they didn’t know the answer and they all looked at him eagerly waiting to hear what such a strange creature liked to eat.
“I like strawberries, bananas, bread, eggs,…”
“What are strawberries? What are bananas? What’s bread? What are eggs?” the fluffies quickly asked.
“If you know that an elephant is too big to run up a clock then why don’t you know what strawberries, bananas, bread and eggs are?” Anthony asked in surprise.
The fluffies giggled. “Silly thing, everyone knows what elephants are. But what do you eat?”
An answer without an answer. Anthony sighed. The conversation was becoming rather difficult. He looked around at the bleak rocky tunnel.
“Aren’t there any other places here?”
“Aren’t there any other places here?”, the fluffies laughed. “What a silly thing it is.”
“I’m not an ‘it’, I’m a boy and my name’s Anthony, and I’m not silly,” he said annoyed.
The fluffies looked at him in amazement.
“A boy, Anthony, not silly,” they repeated.
“And anyway,” Anthony said, “I think you’re rather silly because you keep repeating what I say. So there!” And with that he stuck out his tongue at them.
“We’re not silly!” the fluffies said.
“Yes, you are. You are very silly. In fact, you’re the silliest things I’ve ever seen!”
Now the fluffies were upset. They looked at each other for a moment and then burst into tears. They cried and wept and wailed and made a horrible noise that echoed throughout the tunnels. And while they cried sticky green tears ran down their fluffy bodies and dropped onto the ground.
4
At the spaceport of Ylthia Edward was inconsolable. He had been through so many adventures and dangers with Anthony it seemed impossible that Anthony was gone. He knew he had to face up to the fact that he would never see his dear brother again, but at the same time he couldn’t believe that Anthony was dead. Edward cried and cried and no matter what Henry and Jane did or said. He was simply inconsolable, he couldn’t and wouldn’t be consoled and so he kept on crying.
It was late at night. The futile search for Anthony’s escape pod had been broken off at sunset and spaceport officials saw no point in continuing the search on the next day.
“The missing pod could be anywhere on the planet,” an official announced. “It is not possible for us to commit further resources to a search. Our hearts are with the lost boy, but we must understand that there is nothing more we can do.”
When Edward saw the announcement on TV he resolved never to give up on Anthony.
“I will find you, Anthony. I will find you wherever you are and however long it takes!”
He clenched his fists in determination and dried his tears. “Crying won’t help,” he said to himself. “The question is, what can I do?”
With authorities in Ylthia unwilling to provide any more help he turned to the only people who had shown him consistent kindness, Henry and Jane.
“I need a helicopter or shuttle or any kind of craft that flies,” he said fiercely.
Henry and Jane looked at him in astonishment. Just minutes ago they had been unable to calm him down and now he was utterly transformed. What they had before their eyes now was a warrior, ready to embark on a quest and face any dangers there could possibly be.
“But what do you want it for?” Jane asked.
“I must go and find my brother.”
“Have you ever learned how to fly?” Henry asked suspiciously.
Edward shook his head. “No, I’ll need someone to fly me. Can you help me, please?”
Henry and Jane looked at each other. They were both areologists, that means it was their job to study the planet Mars. They had to travel around the planet, examine rocks and sands and look for raw materials such as iron and gold.
Jane looked at Henry and gave a slight nod.
“Well,” Henry said, “the thing is we both have to travel around the planet quite a bit anyway. We’re areologists, so it’s our job to explore the planet. You can come with us, but I can’t promise you where we’re going to go exactly.”
Edward beamed. “Thank you,” he said. “When do we get started?”
“Tomorrow,” Jane quickly said. “It’s night now so we can’t do anything anyway and I think all our preparations are made so we can set off first thing tomorrow morning. Isn’t that right, Henry?” she said in a voice that would not allow any contradiction.
“Er, yes, certainly. First thing tomorrow. There’s only one thing we need to do first.”
Both Edward and Jane looked at him questioningly.
“We really have to get some sleep now or we’ll be too tired to do anything useful tomorrow.”
When the first rays of the sun appeared on the horizon Edward an
d the two areologists climbed into a helicopter. They were all wearing special spacesuits made for walking on Mars. If they landed or if the helicopter had an accident the suits would protect them from the thin atmosphere on Mars. The air on Mars is thin and contains no oxygen, so humans trying to breathe it would die in seconds. Henry and Jane were not only qualified areologists, they also knew how to fly and they had studied medicine. On Mars the nearest doctor could be thousands of miles away and when they were on field trips they had to help each other in case of an emergency.
They were about to take off when Henry got a radio call from Mars Watch, the global monitoring agency.
“Morning Henry, thought you might be interested in a meteorite we monitored two days ago.”
Henry thought. Two days ago would make it the same day Anthony vanished.
“Can you give me the coordinates?”
Mars Watch sent the requested information.
“The time seems to be a match,” Henry said. “I wonder if this might be the missing pod?”
The location of the probable impact was more than a thousand miles away, far from the area they had all searched on the day before.
“If that was the pod then no wonder no one found anything. What do you think, Jane?”
She made a quick check on a Mars resources satellite photo.
“It might be. We’ve got nothing else to go on and the area looks promising for our work. The satellite photo indicates a number of possible mineral deposits. I say we go.”
“Roger that,” Henry replied.
He started the helicopter’s engine and took off. They roared across the Martian surface at top speed. Below them Edward watched plains, mountain ranges and ancient nullahs pass by. A nullah is a riverbed that sometimes carries water and that is sometimes dry. On Mars the nullahs hadn’t seen any water for billions of years. Several hours later they approached the impact site of the reported meteorite. They flew across the area a few times till they found it. Edward spotted it first.
“Look! Over there,” he said and pointed.
“You’ve got good eyes,” Henry said and put the helicopter down near to the place.
They had to cross a small nullah to reach the impact site and Jane couldn’t resist looking at it.
“Look at this,” she said excitedly. “This is clearly material deposited by running water.”
They all took a peep, but Edward begged “Can we look at the impact site first?”
“Of course,” Jane said. “How thoughtless of me.”
A few more steps brought them to the place they had come to investigate. It was a small crater and the two areologists were surprised Edward had seen it at all.
There wasn’t much to see and Edward didn’t know what to make of it. The crater was just a few feet wide. The areologists climbed into it and examined the ground carefully.
“That’s strange,” Jane said. “I can’t find any trace of a meteorite. There should be something in the middle of the impact zone.”
“Then maybe it wasn’t a meteorite,” Henry said.
“Look at that shiny thing,” Edward said.
There was a small shiny object lying on the side of the crater.
The areologists examined it quickly.
“Definitely a piece of metal,” Henry said. “But this is too small to have been the escape pod and it’s not where the spaceship came down. I don’t understand it.”
They were silent for a moment, thinking hard.
Then Jane said “The heat shield, Henry. It’s got to be the heat shield.”
Henry examined the piece of metal again.
“I think you’re right Jane. That means the pod has to be somewhere near by. It shouldn’t take long to find.”
This time they ignored the nullah on their way back to the helicopter. They were excited. Would they find Anthony soon? In their excitement they almost forgot that Anthony did not have enough oxygen in his pod to last such a long time.
The helicopter’s engine roared back to life and they flew up eagerly looking for the missing pod. They flew back and forth over an area much larger than where the pod had to have come down but found nothing.
“That’s not possible,” Henry said. “It has to be here. It can’t drift very far once the parachute is deployed.”
“Well,” Jane said, “there’s only one place left to look here.”
“The canyon,” they all said together.
