Daisy Malone and the Blue Glowing Stone

by James O'Loghlin

  They stared at each other for a few moments.

  ‘I’m glad you’re okay,’ said Ben. ‘I mean, what’s a dog without an owner?’

  Daisy smiled. ‘And what’s an owner without a dog?’

  The earth trembled harder, causing a dead branch to fall from a nearby tree.

  ‘Where are my parents?’ asked Daisy. ‘And the others? Did you get Dennis out?’

  ‘Yep,’ replied Ben. ‘It wasn’t easy. I had to nip at his ankles to keep him moving. He just wanted to lie down and die. And he is lying down now, but at least he’s not dead. Not yet, anyway. He’s just around the hill a bit. Sinclair is with him. We found him near the entrance. He’s in a bad way, too. No sign of your parents but they must have got out or we would have passed them.’ He paused and looked around. ‘Daisy, we need to get everyone out of here. This rumbling is getting worse. It feels like something is going to explode. Let’s get moving.’

  Daisy forced herself to stand up and took a few tentative steps. Ben led the way. The shaking continued, and twice Daisy stumbled, nearly falling.

  They came around a bend. The cave’s entrance was just a couple of hundred metres away. Near the entrance, just off the track, lying on their backs on some grass, were Sinclair and Dennis.

  They hurried to them. Dennis was moaning softly, while Sinclair seemed to be asleep.

  Daisy knelt next to them. ‘Sinclair?’ She shook his shoulder.

  His head rolled to one side and his eyes struggled open. He looked around uncertainly and then seemed to recognise Daisy.

  ‘Help me sit up,’ he murmured weakly. Daisy pulled him up.

  ‘If we can’t get a stone soon … we’ll die,’ he gasped. ‘But we’re too … weak to search. Prawn went deeper into the caves, but I had to get out … No power.’

  ‘Gamion got the red stone. I tried to stop him but …’ Daisy trailed off.

  Sinclair shook his head. ‘Too much power for one person … Where was it?’

  ‘It was deep in the cave, attached to some computer thingy.’

  Sinclair’s eyes shot fully open. ‘What?!’

  ‘Then when Gamion took it, the –’

  ‘The earth began to shake,’ Sinclair interrupted. ‘Oh my great grandgrasimus.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Ben.

  ‘What?’ asked Daisy.

  Sinclair ignored them, staring into the distance. ‘Do you know what this means?’

  ‘No, of course we don’t,’ said Ben. ‘That’s why I said “Who?” and Daisy said “What?”.’

  ‘Is it bad?’ asked Daisy. ‘Should we get everyone away from here?’

  ‘Get away?’ said Sinclair. ‘You think we can get away?’ He started to laugh, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. It was more of a crazy, desperate, forlorn laugh, the sort of laugh you only hear when things are really bad, and then they suddenly get a whole lot worse. It was the sort of laugh that suggested that the person doing the laughing had finally lost their very last bit of hope.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Daisy uneasily.

  ‘People from our planet,’ Sinclair wheezed, ‘do not travel halfway across the universe and go to the trouble of placing a red stone deep in a cave just to prevent an earthquake. Earthquakes happen all the time.’

  ‘That’s what Gamion said. Why, then?’ asked Daisy, already pretty sure that she wasn’t going to like the answer.

  ‘The only reason we ever do it,’ said Sinclair, fixing her with a sad, solemn look, ‘is to save a planet.’

  ‘Huh?’ was all Daisy could manage.

  ‘Sometimes planets develop structural faults. They can start out looking like an earthquake, or a volcano. But earthquakes and volcanoes begin and end. These just begin.’

  A chill was working its way up Daisy’s spine.

  ‘If a planet has a structural fault,’ continued Sinclair, ‘a crack opens up in the earth. The crack gets bigger and bigger and wider and wider until eventually things on the surface begin to fall into it.’

  ‘What sort of things?’ asked Ben nervously.

  ‘Trees, buildings, hills, and then, as the crack widens, mountains, rivers, lakes, countries and eventually continents and oceans,’ said Sinclair. ‘Ultimately the planet collapses in on itself.’

  ‘And then?’ asked Daisy, dread settling in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘The planet dies. All life is destroyed. The planet burns and collapses and explodes and becomes a lifeless piece of rock.’

  ‘That’s not good,’ said Ben.

  ‘Indeed.’ Sinclair took a deep, raspy breath. ‘My people keep a lookout for such faults. We can detect them. And when they are discovered, if there is intelligent life on the planet –’

  ‘Like the ants,’ interjected Daisy with, despite the gravity of the situation, a touch of sarcasm.

  ‘– we can place a red stone – only red ones have sufficient power – at the site of the fault and adjust it to stabilise the planet. That must be why my people came here all those years ago and dug all those tunnels. They were trying to get to the site of the fault to place a red stone there. Tell me, was there a guardian? A creature protecting the stone?’

  ‘Fiona. Yes. Big and blobby with tentacles.’

  ‘A morphang. Morphangs live on Dextra, the planet that the stones are from, and they are fiercely protective of them. When our people first travelled to Dextra and tried to take some stones, several of them were killed by morphangs. We now use them to guard the stones. This one – or its parents or grandparents – must have been brought here by our people when they came here to put the stone in position. Morphangs will do anything to protect the stones. The only thing that can make them stop is –’

  ‘– using the stone itself on them,’ interrupted Daisy. ‘That’s what I did. I used the power of the stone to make it go away.’

  Sinclair gave her a long look. ‘I see. Which meant that the morphang was unable to protect the stone from Gamion.’

  ‘I … oh … um,’ muttered Daisy uneasily.

  ‘Just so I have this clear,’ began Ben. ‘The red stone was there to stabilise the planet, so now that it’s not there anymore the fault in the earth will open up wider and wider and everything will start to fall into it and soon everything on Earth will die?’

  Sinclair sighed. ‘That is what will happen, unless the red stone is put back in place soon. But how did Gamion get the stone out? Usually they are locked in place … and cannot be released without a code.’

  Daisy licked her lips. ‘Yes, um, about that, you see, I think my mum found the code and she … well, I got it from her … and I sort of used it, because I thought I needed to get the stone out to save you … and then Gamion arrived.’

  Sinclair put his head in his hands. ‘Oh, no. The code must have been left with the spare stone. We always leave a spare stone in case of an emergency. Just in case, for example, someone visits the planet and needs help. Or if the red stone stops working for any reason, the spare can replace it.’

  ‘But the stone my mum found was blue,’ said Daisy. ‘I thought you said that only a red one would be powerful enough to stop a fault in a planet.’

  ‘A blue one could be used in an emergency and would work for a few days until another red one was obtained. They couldn’t leave a spare red one here. They’re much too dangerous.’

  ‘And now Gamion has one,’ said Ben.

  Daisy realised the enormity of what she had done. ‘It’s my fault,’ she gasped. ‘I unlocked the red stone. And then I made its guardian go away. Without me Gamion couldn’t have got it. I’ve … I’ve caused the end of the world.’

  There was a long pause in which both Ben and Sinclair almost said, ‘There, there, don’t worry. No, you haven’t,’ but they didn’t because it wouldn’t have been true.

  Eventually Ben spoke. ‘Not yet, you haven’t. I can track him. We c
an get the stone back, fix your mum and Sinclair and Dennis and then replace it underground.’

  ‘How long do we have?’ Daisy asked Sinclair.

  Sinclair shrugged. Even that seemed to cause him pain. ‘Not long. I don’t know how quickly the fault will accelerate.’

  ‘Come on, Ben,’ said Daisy, getting to her feet. ‘Gamion might not have come out of the cave yet. He probably went back the way he came, towards the main entrance. We can get him there, or if he’s out already, you can pick up his scent.’

  They hurried to the main entrance. While Daisy stepped carefully to cope with the earth’s shaking, Ben was sure-footed, proving that four legs are better than two. They passed a spider, who moved even more surely than Ben, proving that eight legs are even better than four. A centipede strolled along absolutely calmly, proving that a hundred legs are better than eight. There weren’t any millipedes about.

  Ben sniffed around the cave’s entrance as Daisy wondered where her parents were. If they didn’t manage to get that stone back where it belonged, it wouldn’t matter.

  Ben looked up. ‘Got him! He’s out! Fresh scent heading up the hill. Come on!’ He set off after it, nose to the ground.

  They picked their way between rocks and bushes. Normally it would have just been steep, but now it was steep and shaky, and Daisy had to lean into the hill and grab clumps of grass to stop herself from falling backwards.

  Soon they reached the top and the ground flattened out and opened into a clearing. In the middle of the clearing stood Gamion. He had his back to them, and his arms were outstretched and his fists clenched. A red glow escaped from one of his hands.

  They crept closer. Daisy turned to look at Ben just as Ben turned to look at her. No words passed between them but Daisy was sure that somehow, they had agreed on a plan.

  Or at least she thought she was sure. Just to be certain, she knelt and whispered in Ben’s ear. ‘You bite him hard on the ankle, and I’ll pull him backwards. When he falls, you jump onto his chest, growl and, if you need to, bite him. I’ll stamp on his hand until he releases the stone. Then we’ll search him and get the two blue stones, and then run away.’

  ‘Der,’ replied Ben. ‘I thought that was obvious.’

  They crept to within a few steps of Gamion and got ready to throw themselves into one final, gigantic effort to save the world. Daisy looked at Ben and nodded, and then together they leapt forward.

  As they did so a circle of dazzling red light appeared around Gamion.

  And he vanished.

  Chapter 21

  CHASING GAMION

  If Sinclair and Dennis hadn’t been so close to death that they couldn’t keep their eyes open, they would have known from Daisy and Ben’s slouching, defeated walk that they had failed.

  Daisy roused them, helped them to sit up, and explained.

  Sinclair sighed.

  The earth gave a violent heave, and they all lurched to one side.

  Sinclair looked at them. ‘There is nothing more you can do. The only way to follow him is with a stone. And we don’t have one.’

  ‘Does that mean we’re going to die, boss?’ asked Dennis sadly.

  Sinclair put his hand on Dennis’s shoulder. ‘I’m afraid it does.’

  ‘Oh no,’ moaned Dennis. ‘I’ve got overdue library books. I hate dying. Although I’ve never done it before. But I hate the idea of it.’ He sighed deeply. ‘If only we could give them our hearts.’

  Sinclair stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘I know. It’s a stupid idea,’ said Dennis sadly. ‘Silly Dennis.’

  ‘Dennis! You’re a genius!’ said Sinclair excitedly.

  ‘No, I’m not. You’ve got me mixed up with someone else.’

  ‘No, I haven’t!’ Sinclair turned to Daisy. ‘Remember I told you that these bodies that we’re using while we are on your planet are machines? And that they’re each powered by a yellow heartstone. The heartstones aren’t as powerful as blue or red stones, and ours are nearly run down, but if you take them both you might just have enough power to follow Gamion.’

  ‘But we don’t know where he went,’ said Daisy.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. The stones work by concentration,’ explained Sinclair. ‘When you get them, return to the spot where Gamion disappeared, hold one in each hand, shut your eyes and concentrate on following him. The stone will sense what you want and make it happen. It is like a car. It has the power, but you steer it. If you’re holding Ben, he will go with you. Then, if you succeed in retrieving the red stone, you can return in the same way. And if you don’t …’ Sinclair shrugged, ‘… there’ll be no point coming back. This planet will be destroyed. You may as well stay wherever you are.’

  ‘But if you need the stones to power your bodies and we take them … won’t you …?’ Daisy trailed off.

  ‘Die? Yes,’ said Sinclair flatly. ‘That’s why we couldn’t use our own heartstones to return to Hankarania. If we removed them from our bodies we would die.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t such a brilliant idea,’ said Dennis quietly.

  ‘But if you don’t take them, we’ll die anyway,’ Sinclair continued, ‘and so will everything else. The only way to save this planet is to get that red stone back where it belongs. It must be done.’

  At this point in the conversation, there would normally have been a long pause, but they were all aware there wasn’t time for a long pause because the planet was about to die, so instead they just had a short pause and then Daisy nodded tentatively. ‘All right. How do we get your stones?’

  ‘Like this,’ replied Sinclair. He pulled up his shirt and pressed his bellybutton. Below it, a little drawer popped open. In it was a black circle the size and shape of a saucer. Sticking up out of the middle of it was a glowing yellow stone. In front of it was a small keyboard.

  ‘The brighter the stone, the more power it has. Usually it is much brighter than this, but it still has some power.’ He turned to Dennis.

  Dennis swallowed. ‘Do I have to?’

  Sinclair nodded.

  Dennis stared at his bellybutton for a moment and then pressed it. Below it, his drawer opened.

  ‘The stone can only be removed or replaced after the code word has been typed in,’ Sinclair explained. He typed some letters onto his keyboard and hit enter. He then extracted his stone and gave it to Daisy. Almost immediately, his breathing grew more laboured. He nodded to Dennis, who reached towards his own keyboard.

  Sinclair put his hand on Dennis’s shoulder. ‘I know I have been hard on you … but you are a good boy, and I am sorry that I did not … take better care of you.’

  Dennis nodded. ‘Thank you, boss.’ Daisy thought she saw a tear in his eye. But it wasn’t a real body, so how could it have been?

  Dennis typed in his own code, and then extracted his stone and handed it to Daisy.

  Sinclair lay back on the grass. ‘Go,’ he gasped. ‘Hurry.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Daisy. ‘What are the code words?’

  ‘Even if you succeed,’ said Sinclair, ‘it will be too late for us. We will die within minutes.’

  ‘Just tell me. In case.’

  ‘Our Earth names. Sinclair … and Dennis.’

  And with that he closed his eyes and started to die. Dennis lay back, looking frightened, and then his eyes also flickered shut.

  Daisy looked down at them. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. She had first known Sinclair and Dennis as enemies, but then they had become allies, and finally, perhaps almost friends. And it was her fault that they were dying. She took a last look and then turned away.

  Daisy and Ben made their way back up the hill to the spot where Gamion had vanished. When they reached it Daisy picked up Ben and held him in her arms, while grasping a yellow stone in each hand.

  She wondered where they were about to go, and whether they would ev
er come back. And what would await them if they did. She closed her eyes and focused on Gamion. She pictured the moment of his disappearance, his vanishing, his suddenly-not-thereness, and concentrated all her thoughts on following him.

  She felt herself become weightless. She could no longer tell which way was up, down or sideways. She wanted to open her eyes but could not. Then everything started whirling about. It was as if she was sliding down a long, steep water slide except that there was no water and the slide seemed to be going in every direction at once. She felt like she was splitting into fragments, and bits of her were spreading out across the universe. After a while, the feeling reversed and it was as if all the bits were returning to their centre, honing in on each other.

  And then she was somewhere.

  She seemed to be standing, and could still feel Ben in her arms. Cautiously she opened one eye, as if that was somehow safer than opening both. She was in a grey metal corridor that curved gently away to the left. She put the two heartstones in her pocket.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked Ben.

  Ben frowned. ‘Think so.’ He sniffed. ‘I can sense Gamion’s scent, but I’m not sure which way he went.’

  Daisy looked around. Behind her the corridor continued curving. They started forward, just because that was the direction they were facing. The corridor rounded a bend, and they both gasped. Ahead was a floor-to-ceiling window that ran a few steps along the right-hand side of the corridor. Out of the window Daisy could see what looked like outer space: blackness punctured by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stars. The bottom right-hand corner of the window was dominated by a planet. Daisy could make out oceans and great land masses, and she knew enough geography to know that this planet was not Earth. She paused for a moment to allow her brain to catch up and then slowly said, ‘We’re staring at a different planet.’

  ‘It’s been quite an unusual day, hasn’t it?’ replied Ben.

  ‘We must be on a spaceship,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s definitely not where I thought I’d end up when I woke up at the Gloomy Gulch train station this morning.’