The Warriors of Brin-Hask

by Cerberus Jones

  ‘But I did!’ Charlie said. ‘I caught Hugo and we put him in a tank!’

  Lady Naomi beamed at him. ‘You did? Oh, well done! If we can –’

  ‘James let it go,’ Charlie interrupted her, his excitement gone.

  Lady Naomi looked stricken, something deeper than disappointment, almost a grief in her eyes. Then she forced herself to smile, and said, ‘Ah, well. I see. Never mind.’ She stretched and stood up on the workbench, then lightly leapt down to one of the exposed beams in the destroyed floor, landing as neatly as an acrobat. ‘Is there any pizza left?’

  She picked her way across the battlefield, hopping from beam to beam and balancing with no apparent effort. At the doorway to the hall she turned back and bowed to the Brin-Hask, who waved her goodbye from the now rather gruesome mess that was the cavity under the floor.

  Charlie leant over the edge of his sink and surveyed the damage. Clumps of fur, spatters of blood and the corpses of slaughtered rats lay all over the kitchen. The combined stench of blood, guts, singed hair and burnt barbecue was unbearable. It was hard to imagine anyone ever being able to cook in there again. In the midst of it all, the Brin-Hask laughed and cheered and pestered Enrick the bard for another story.

  ‘That,’ said Charlie, ‘was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amelia, still gazing after Lady Naomi, ‘she really is.’

  Dad could only laugh – not a particularly happy laugh, more the helpless, hysterical kind – when he saw what had happened to his kitchen. When he remembered that Mr Snavely would be back the next morning with a Control superior, he peeled off into wild giggles.

  ‘Well, we can’t hide it,’ said Mum. ‘We can’t fix it or change it, so there’s no use worrying about it.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ asked Mary.

  ‘Right now, we turn our backs on it.’

  James hadn’t said a word. He’d stood in mute shock as the Brin-Hask warriors marched past him on their way back to their picnic blanket. He’d just turned pale when he saw the kitchen.

  Amelia felt sorry for him. She could see it was almost physically hurting him to accept that he’d been wrong, and the aliens were real. Changing his whole view of the world to include the existence of an interstellar gateway at the bottom of his garden was not easy.

  She wondered if changing his mind would change his attitude, too. It’d be nice if he could stop being the Mega-Jerk and go back to being the more-or-less decent big brother she remembered.

  He saw her looking at him and said, ‘What do you want?’ Without waiting for a reply, he turned and stomped upstairs to his room. She heard a door slam and, a few seconds later, the din of music being played way too loud.

  Amelia shook her head and walked out to the veranda. Lady Naomi had fetched the Brin-Hask their seaweed at last, and they were sitting around a campfire they had built on a paving stone, and roasting it on the end of sticks – the same way Amelia would roast marshmallows. Enrick the bard was singing again, and when he got to the chorus, all the warriors joined in, trilling like canaries in beautiful harmonies:

  Kill, kill, kill them all dead!

  Give me an axe and I’ll hack off his head!

  So, kill, kill, kill!

  Charlie was humming along with them.

  It was all as cheerful, grisly, fun, weird, amazing, and kind of gross and unnerving as Amelia had come to expect of the Gateway Hotel. She looked around, feeling very fond of the place, and sad that they’d probably all be fired (or in jail) by this time tomorrow.

  At the corner of the hotel Amelia saw a shadow flit past, a black coat billowing behind and the flash of a white face as Leaf Man glanced back the way he’d come. He looked satisfied.

  Amelia slept late the next day. The Brin-Hask celebrations had gone far into the night, and Mum and Dad – knowing it could be their last night at the hotel – had let Amelia stay up to enjoy it. Mary hadn’t tried to argue with Charlie, she just agreed straight away that yes, he could stay the night too. None of them had slept much, what with the intensity of the battle behind them, the dread of the day ahead of them, and in between – those eerily sweet yet murderous songs of the Brin-Hask, and the pretty revolting stench of burning seaweed.

  The sun was high in the sky before Amelia stirred. Charlie was still fast asleep on the spare bed and seemed determined to stay that way, no matter how hard Amelia poked him.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ he groaned into his pillow.

  ‘Don’t you want to check out the kitchen?’ Amelia goaded him. ‘Look for the control centre or whatever linked all the cyber-rats? Check for unexploded bombs?’

  Charlie sat up with a jerk, his face alight with possibility, but then a thought flickered in his eyes, and he said dully, ‘No, you do it. I’ll come down later.’

  Amelia frowned at him. ‘You don’t want to pick through rat carcasses and hunt for weapons?’

  ‘No.’ He didn’t meet her eye.

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Later!’ He thudded back onto his pillow, rolled over and started fake-snoring until Amelia left him to it.

  Downstairs the kitchen looked worse than she’d remembered. At night, under electric light and with the smoke still lifting into the air, it had been impressive and dramatic. In the morning sunlight, though, it was just a filthy mess. Dad’s shoulders slumped as he gazed at it, and Mum patted his back gently.

  ‘When does Mr Snavely get here?’ said Amelia.

  ‘About twenty minutes,’ said Dad.

  ‘Do you know who he’s bringing with him?’ Mum asked.

  Dad shook his head. ‘One of the big three. If it’s Arxish, we’re done for. He’s wanted the gateway run by Control for years, and any excuse will do. If it’s Stern, we’ve got a chance – he’s sympathetic to leaving gateways to the locals, as long as they’re up to it.’ He pulled a miserable face at that. ‘But if it’s the new one, Rosby – I don’t know. No-one knows much about her yet.’

  ‘Will we really go to jail, Dad?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ He managed a smile at that. ‘I’m sure not. Mr Snavely is always threatening stuff like that. He wishes he had that sort of power but no, it’s not up to him to send anyone to jail.’

  ‘But,’ Amelia pressed on, ‘we’re fired, aren’t we?’

  He sighed. ‘I hope not, but … it doesn’t look good. Sorry, kiddo. Still –’ he hesitated, trying to look on the bright side. ‘Moving back home to the city wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it?’

  ‘I should be so lucky.’ James stumped along the hallway, his hair all bed-tangled, and pale, skinny legs sticking out of his striped boxer shorts.

  Mum looked at him in amusement. ‘Good morning, sunshine. Mr Snavely will be here any minute now. Do you want to put some pants on before he comes?’

  Amelia looked down at her own daggy pyjamas and decided proper clothes would be better for her, too. She padded back to the lobby, her bare feet silent on the marble stairs up to her room – and realised with a start how much it really did feel like her room. Already, going back to the city would be like going back to someone else’s life.

  She was halfway along the gallery when she heard a floorboard squeak – but not under her foot.

  She skipped the last couple of metres to the head of the hallway and saw Charlie creeping out of James’s room, easing the door closed behind him.

  ‘Charlie!’

  He spasmed in shock. ‘Amelia! Don’t do that! Kids can have heart attacks too, you know.’

  ‘What were you doing in my brother’s room?’

  Charlie grinned and held up the holo-emitter. ‘Got it!’

  ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘I just did.’<
br />
  ‘But you shouldn’t have.’

  ‘But I did.’

  It could have developed into quite an argument, but Charlie seized on the sound of a car in the driveway and said, ‘They’re here!’

  Amelia fled to her room, slamming the door on Charlie and scrambling to get changed before she missed anything downstairs. She needn’t have worried. It turned out to be Mary, coming back from Forgotten Bay with coffee for the adults and croissants and bagels all round. Charlie stayed close to his mum, pretending to be ravenous so that Amelia couldn’t get close enough to continue the conversation.

  But soon another car crunched up the driveway and into the turning circle, and they heard the heavy clunk of Mr Snavely’s car doors being opened and closed.

  Dad peered out the library window and groaned.

  ‘Who is it?’ said Mum.

  ‘Rosby.’

  ‘Oh. What does she look like?’

  ‘Not what I expected, to be honest.’

  Amelia looked. There was Mr Snavely, as thin and sneering as the day before, and on the other side of the car, an ancient-looking woman, her grey hair curled into a bun, leaning on a walking stick. She tottered slowly around the car’s long bonnet, but looked up brightly enough at the hotel.

  ‘Showtime,’ whispered Dad.

  He went to the lobby and opened the door, his usual smile faltering. ‘Good morning, Mr Snavely. Good morning, Ms Rosby.’

  Ms Rosby made her way inside and nodded to all of them.

  Mr Snavely handed Dad a fat white envelope with a red seal. ‘My report on yesterday’s inspection. Just a copy for your records, you understand,’ he said greasily. ‘The original has already been lodged with Control headquarters.’

  Dad gulped.

  ‘Adrian says you’ve got a hive of robotically enhanced animals under the hotel?’ said Ms Rosby.

  ‘Not any more,’ said Dad.

  ‘Don’t suppose you managed to trap one, did you? Be jolly useful to have a specimen to send back to the lab.’

  ‘I did!’ Charlie beamed. When Ms Rosby turned to him, though, he was forced to add, ‘But it got away …’

  ‘Ah, I see. Pity.’

  Dad coughed. ‘The … ah … situation has … evolved somewhat since yesterday.’

  ‘Oh?’ Ms Rosby cocked her head to one side, her eyes bright.

  ‘Yes. You know the Brin-Hask arrived last night?’

  ‘I thought I smelled seaweed!’ Ms Rosby looked delighted. ‘Marvellous. I’ll have to pay my respects before we go, Snavely.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Dad went on. ‘They heard about the rats.’

  ‘How?’ said Mr Snavely. He had his clipboard out and was taking notes already.

  ‘The …’ Dad sighed. ‘The kids told them.’

  Mr Snavely flashed a triumphant look at Ms Rosby, but Ms Rosby merely waited for Dad to go on.

  Dad, however, was lost for words.

  ‘Perhaps it’s simplest if we just show you,’ Mum suggested.

  She led them down the hallway and threw open the door to the kitchen. Mr Snavely’s mouth dropped open. The dust and smoke in the air had died away completely overnight, but the smell of burnt rats that replaced it was not an improvement. Mr Snavely’s eyes bulged, he gagged slightly, and put a white-gloved hand to his mouth in horror as he backed away from the room.

  Ms Rosby thumped the floor with her walking stick and cried, ‘Oh, bravo!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Dad.

  ‘Really, brilliantly well done,’ Ms Rosby said warmly. ‘Look, Snavely, get down there and fetch me one of those poor things, will you?’

  ‘One of – what?’ Mr Snavely blinked at her. ‘Poor what?’

  ‘A rat, Snavely. Get me a rat. Poor little wretches, I’m sure I’ve seen this sort of thing before. Go on, Snavely – what are you waiting for? You’ve got gloves on, haven’t you?’

  Almost whimpering in disgust, Mr Snavely lowered himself into the ruined floor and picked up the matted, dusted body of a rat. It was slashed open along its belly.

  Ms Rosby took a thin metal gadget out of her jacket pocket and prodded the rat as it lay in Mr Snavely’s hand. The red eyes sparked with light, and the body twitched as machinery inside responded, but it was only the slightest of movements. When Ms Rosby pressed a button on her gadget and prodded the rat a second time, there was a grinding noise and the red eyes died again.

  ‘Humph.’ She put the gadget back in her pocket, disappointed. ‘I suppose they destroyed the hive centre?’

  Dad looked blank.

  ‘Yes,’ said Amelia. ‘At least, I think so. They kept letting off little bombs, but the last one electrocuted them all.’

  Ms Rosby sighed. ‘Yes, they self-destruct every time. Ah well, can’t be helped. The fact is, you got rid of them all, and that’s as much as any of us in Control have been able to do so far.’

  ‘What?’ Dad was trying to catch up. ‘Are you saying –’

  ‘You handled the problem,’ said Ms Rosby. ‘That’s what you are here to do, isn’t it? Handle problems? Well, then, what do you want me to say? Get on with it!’

  ‘You mean …’ Dad was faint. ‘We can stay?’

  ‘No!’ said Mr Snavely.

  Ms Rosby regarded him coolly. ‘Are you contradicting me?’

  ‘But, but –’ Mr Snavely spluttered. ‘The children! The children are the problem! The rats were only discovered yesterday! It was the children Miss Ardman complained about.’

  ‘Yes, I read the reports, Snavely. I know the story as well as you do. As I understand it, the core issue was the caretaker falling under the spell of those eggs.’

  Mr Snavely nodded.

  ‘The man’s first lapse in judgment in the thirty years he’s been here,’ Ms Rosby went on. ‘Am I right?’

  Mr Snavely nodded again.

  ‘And something that could easily happen to any of us. In fact, Miss Ardman should consider herself lucky if Tom doesn’t lodge a counter-complaint that she failed to protect him by not properly securing the eggs.’

  Mr Snavely opened his mouth. He thought better of it, and closed it again.

  ‘Furthermore,’ Ms Rosby said crisply, ‘the issue with the children, as you call them, seems to be rather that they weren’t informed about the gateway. Now they know what’s going on here, I see they are managing themselves and the situation as well as their parents. Perhaps even better.’ She smiled at Amelia and Charlie.

  Mr Snavely had had enough. ‘I must object! How can we trust Gateway Control’s mission, its security, its dignity, I say, to those who are not yet …’ He faltered.

  ‘Not yet what?’ Ms Rosby snapped.

  Mr Snavely was silent, his face pale and fearful. He looked as though he’d just realised a terrible mistake, but Amelia couldn’t tell what it was.

  Ms Rosby turned to her, and smiled again. ‘Tell me, my dear, how old would you guess I am?’

  Amelia shook her head. There was no way to answer an age question politely. Whatever she said, it was bound to come out badly. But Charlie wasn’t so restrained.

  ‘Eighty-nine!’ he said.

  Ms Rosby grinned. Mr Snavely writhed.

  ‘Not even close! Guess again.’

  ‘A hundred and four!’ Charlie grinned back.

  Ms Rosby leaned over her walking stick, her wrinkles deepening as she smiled more broadly than ever and said, ‘Nope. I’m six years old. In Earth years, that is.’ She straightened up and gave Mr Snavely a hard look. ‘And I’m quite capable of protecting Control’s mission, secrecy and dignity, thank you.’

  She shook hands with Dad, who was so stunned he just stared at her, and Mum, who smiled calmly. Ms Rosby said to Amelia and Charlie, ‘Lovely to meet you all. Scott, I’ll send a cre
w in to clean up this mess. You should have a new kitchen installed within the week on my recommendation.’

  Dad stammered a bit, but nothing much came out.

  ‘Come, Snavely,’ said Ms Rosby. ‘And bring the rat. I want to thank the Brin-Hask for their superb work last night.’

  She tottered back out to the lobby, Mr Snavely following her wretchedly, while Amelia and the others stood in silent amazement.

  They were staying!

  As soon as Mr Snavely’s car had disappeared from view, Mum and Dad broke into loud cheers. Dad swept Mum up in his arms and they danced around the lobby, laughing goofily. Mary sat down hard on the arm of a chair, limp with relief, while Charlie whooped and high-fived Amelia so many times, her palms were red.

  James had stayed in his room for the whole event, and if he heard them at all, he was ignoring them.

  Mum went to the cellar and came back with a bottle of champagne. Then, looking at the kids, realised the box of extra-fancy chocolates she kept in her bottom drawer would be a better way for them to celebrate. Amelia was on her fourth soft-centre when Dad blurted out, ‘Tom! We haven’t told Tom yet!’

  Mum looked guilty, then said, ‘Quick, kids – go and get him for us, would you? He’s part of this too.’

  Outside, Amelia looked around for the Brin-Hask. Their camp site seemed deserted.

  ‘Have they gone already? I thought their wormhole didn’t arrive until tonight.’

  ‘Don’t you remember how long it took them to get up here?’ said Charlie. ‘And it’s probably like the airport – maybe Tom likes them there two hours early or something.’

  That made the trip down to Tom’s a bit slower than usual. Normally they would have raced each other down the steep slopes, hardly looking where they were going, but now they knew there was an army of tiny aliens ploughing their way through the long grass, they moved much more cautiously.