The Greenwich Interplanetary Society

by Stuart Boyd

  ***

  Doctor Dodds found himself very busy over the next few hours. He took the mind-squeezer to the pit by the Doom Gate and patiently gave back the memories to all those that the Greddylick had enslaved. Stella had turned down repeated attempts to send her back to the Telallamorph palace for some sleep. Although she felt very tired, she didn’t want to be on her own. Her uncle seemed to recognise this and allowed her to stay and help him. Stella found it comforting to see the colour return to the Telallamorphs as Doctor Dodds placed the mind-squeezer on their heads and retrieved their memories. Her relief, though, was tinged with the terrible knowledge that they might easily have remained like that forever and she would have been one of them.

  Thankfully, none of the Greddylick’s victims seemed to remember anything about their experiences at all. The Vanga tour party seemed to be the most confused. The last that any of them remembered was peering out at the Skull Field in the Phantom Quadrant.

  “Hey? Where’s my camera?” one of the tourists exclaimed and looked around at the piles of rubble that she’d helped dig up. “Is this part of the tour?”

  Eventually, Doctor Dodds insisted that Stella go to the palace, after he spotted her curled up asleep in a newly dug trench.

  “’M just a little drowsy.” Stella yawned.

  “I should have all these people’s memories back to them before morning, Stella. I’m sure they’ll want to thank the one who saved them. It would be quite a muddle if they’ve just woken up and she’s asleep,” Dodds told her.

  “I didn’t save anybody, it was…” Stella tailed off. She felt terribly guilty that her friends had got hurt trying to save her.

  “It was you who closed the Doom Gate, was it not?”

  “I only did it after you told me to. I nearly messed everything up. If the others hadn’t been there, the Greddylick would have got me.”

  “But they were there. They were there to help. They believed you would do the right thing, and Stella Mayweather, they weren’t wrong because, in the end, you did!”

  Stella was taken back to the lawns of the palace gardens, and despite her misgivings, she did, in fact, sleep very well. The news of the Dreadful One’s defeat had spread across Telallamorph during the night, and the next morning held a definite sense of festivity. When Stella awoke early in the afternoon, she found Helix and Fawcus in the quiet little hospital on the hill. The Morphplaster’s healing properties were remarkable. Helix had been given a ward all to himself, but he was awake and a little restless. When he saw Stella, it was all she could do to persuade him not to run out and jump up at her, as it might re-open his cut. She managed to restrain him to pushing his head out of one of the windows, so she could pat his head.

  Prince Fawcus also appeared a lot better, but then Stella supposed that this wasn’t that difficult, as he had literally been in pieces when she had last seen him. He was sat comfortably in a wheelchair and wiggled his legs a little as proof that he was on the mend. Stella asked him if he had seen Doctor Dodds or Tom.

  “Doctor Dodds has asked Tom to help him track down those last stragglers that have lost their memory,” he replied. “Although, I do know that they hope to be back this evening, to attend the feast.”

  “Feast?”

  “My father has called for a planet-wide holiday to celebrate the defeat of the Dreadful One. There is a party planned later in the palace courtyard. You are to be the guest of honour, I believe.” Fawcus smiled at the look of horror stretched over Stella’s face.

  “But I’ve got nothing to wear!” she exclaimed, looking aghast at the ragged state of her clothes.

  Fawcus squinted up at her and gave a chuckle. “You are right. It will be a bit of a disappointment. I have heard rumours that as Key Holder of the Doom Gate you are considered akin to royalty on your world. My people are very formal, and they expect a princess to look like a princess.”

  “Princess!” Stella spluttered. “That’s ridiculous. You’ve seen my bedroom. Does it look like where a princess would hang around?”

  Prince Fawcus laughed again and called for a page to come to him. A Telallamorph child appeared out of mid-air, and the prince issued a royal proclamation. Writing on an official piece of paper, he called for all members of the Tailors Guild on Telallamorph to stop whatever they were doing and make a suitable dress for the Key Holder.