Poppycock Place Series -Sky Sailing Heroes

by Tobias Dingbat

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  And the night passed, the dark inky sky shading to a lighter blue, and the stars fading into the ocean of light. Down below, deep shadows and lit-up peaks indicated they were flying over very mountainous territory. Colours of deep greens and blues signified patches of deep impenetrable jungles, pierced by rocky jagged outcrops. Noodles was a little worried that they may not find a suitable landing place. They were over Peru and it was now time to study the treasure map.

  “At this speed and direction we should arrive at these map co-ordinates about mid-afternoon,” Noodles informed Botzi. “But I can’t guarantee we’ll land right on target, this mountain territory is pretty difficult. We may have to hike on foot some of the way.”

  “I’m confident we’ll find it,” said Botzi optimistically, though he knew he was trying to put the best spin on it.

  Rory joined him in his optimism, “I’m not fussed if we don’t find anything –we’ve already had one adventure and another coming up. What stories we have for our shop customers once we go back to New York.”

  But to their dismay, mid-afternoon came and went and Noodles could not get the wind to push any harder, as it had dropped to a gentle breeze. At least their landing should be gentle, he thought. Noodles suddenly saw a clear patch. They were still some 50 kilometres from the exact landing co-ordinates, but rather than fly around all night and waste gas, he decided to land the balloon and tie her down upright using minimal gas, so as to be ready to go up again in the morning at daybreak. Hopefully they would also get a more favourable wind. The others agreed and an anxious landing was navigated through the tree-tops to the ground.

  The bots were reasonably temperature insensitive as their bodies were made of a special Teflon formula, tough against heat or cold and their circuit temperature was kept constant by tiny inbuilt temperature conditioners (like air-conditioners but sealed and waterproof, venting through microscopic holes in their skin, like humans do). Noodles was different, but also fully weatherproof.

  They decided to build a campfire, not for warmth, but for feeling cozy, and to ward off any large animals prowling around. Rory slept in the balloon basket and the others sat around the camp fire, switching their systems to sleep mode to conserve fuel. Conserving fuel was important to them as in the jungle, they would not have the luxury of plugging in every few nights to special power points available back home in their shops.

  Botzi volunteered to keep using his full radar alert in case something approached them. Everything was still, the bots sitting like Buddhists, steady and motionless with eyes closed. Botzi meanwhile was in semi-sleep and his processors were constantly analysing the sounds of the jungle night.

  The balloon sailed over some very wild and rocky places

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  Thirteen (13)

  Wonderland at Night

  The forest began talking through the night, its’ plants and creatures making little noises, each clear and distinct in the general stillness. Crickets dominated, with their “Chirp! Chirp!” keeping up a constant rhythm like somebody shaking a gentle beat with maracas. An odd howl or woop-woop sound, deserved more attention, but as it was far enough away, it was no cause for alarm. Occasionally, a twig snapped, but was this a falling branch? An approaching animal? Or a large frog leaping from place to place? The forest formed dark enclosing walls around them, almost impenetrable, and left only a hole in the tree-canopy above, to expose brilliant white diamond stars, so beautiful, they mesmerised the star-gazer into soft, fancy dreams.

  This balance of darkness, stars, and gentle forest sounds went on for some hours. The camp fire was now down to orange embers and no flames danced past the dark wood that had turned to charcoal. The fire glow had died down to a dim haze but then again, the surrounding plants and trees looked more defined than they should be. In one particular corner of the clearing, a strange light was softly appearing as if out of nowhere and was taking the shape of a purple donut, about a meter wide and floating about a meter off the ground. And dawn was yet hours away.

  Botzi’s sensors picked up the variance in light and he slowly opened his eyes and watched the floating ring. He was curious and not a bit afraid and decided he would not use any extra powers in case he might destroy or frighten whatever this phenomenon was. Soon, several insect-like creatures that looked like large dragon-flies flew around and through the ring. The amazing thing was, they were taking on a bluish glow, but there was nothing around that looked like fireflies. More dragon-flies were attracted to the ring, which now lit up the forest floor.

  Botzi next saw something astonishing. Six pixie-like creatures floated out from the dark into the clearing. Each of these pixies was riding on the back of creature like a sea-horse. But this was no sea and these little horses were bobbing about in the air, their riders mounted on their back. By rapidly fluttering their wings just as a humming bird keeps itself flying in one place, they nudged around into a formation.

  “What next?” thought Botzi. He switched his left eye to digital camera mode and silently filmed the proceedings. He decided not to wake the others just yet as surely this would destroy the whole scene.

  The pixies formed a guarding circle, hovering under the purple ring of light. A new red glow was emerging from behind the dense jungle and a small figure riding a cat-like creature moved into the circle, closely followed by four others. Botzi could make out this was some sort of leader and maybe they had gathered to do some ceremony. In fact he was looking at a rare sight. This was the King of the Forest Life-force. Everything that was good and alive was under his care.

  He settled disputes and accidents and made sure that all forest plants and creatures lived happily in a wonderful harmony. Every living thing paid him respect and was happy to play its role under his guidance, and together they supported their forest homeland.

  The group had a glow around them, indicating some sort of spiritual energy. They dismounted their cat-like horses and gathered around the king. They had flowing robes, like mediaeval lords, and long flowing hair, but only their leader wore some sort of silver crown, as well as holding a glowing stick, topped by a lion’s head.

  Botzi detected they were beginning to talk about something. It was a weird language spoken in tiny voices. He wasted no time in analysing the meaning of the sounds and processed them into English, his preferred operating voice. Botzi listened –the king was speaking.

  “The consequences of that earthquake we had last week have put the whole eco-system and our kingdom in great danger. The earthquake was small, but it cracked the entrance to the lair of Pan Everos, ‘The Destroyer.’ We suspect that he has escaped from his prison.”

  There was great dismay on their faces at this catastrophic news. The king went on:

  “Pan Everos is over two hundred years old and may live another two hundred but under the terms laid down by the Great Creator we are not allowed to kill him. The last time Pan Everos escaped from his permanent underworld was fifty years ago and those of you old enough can remember what happened then.”

  The oldest of the King’s associates spoke. “It was a terrible time, O King. The plague ruined more than half of this green paradise.”

  The king continued “Yes he started the plague and controlled it, in order to starve every living creature who wouldn’t submit to him as his slave. He wanted to conquer the world.”

  A younger one of the four spoke bravely, “I’m ready to get my clan to fight, O king, what do we do?”

  “You can’t fight Pan Everos, because he’s difficult to see and he doesn’t fight in person. He lets his wizardry fight for him.”

  “He’s a wizard?” asked another, “Has he magic powers?”

  “No greater than what we have,” said the king, “In that he can talk to trees and creatures and persuade them to follow him. He has shown great skills especially with insects.”

  “Then
united we can defeat him!” exclaimed the younger one.

  “Not so easy,” replied the king, “he can hypnotize insects to do his bidding and we are defenceless in breaking their hypnosis.”

  “So what’s a few insects against our collective minds? We can focus on putting them to sleep and ask the insect-eaters to dispose of them.”

  The king sighed, “The plague was huge, it was impossible to stop. We were doomed, except for a heavenly chance that happened just in time.”

  “If it please your majesty, what was the plague and what happened?”

  Botzi saw a ring of hovering blue lights as the pixies formed a circle around the red light of their king.

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  Fourteen (14)

  Botzi offers Help

  By now Botzi was extremely interested. He was recording all this, but a little puzzled as to why these forest people had not yet detected his presence. Admittedly, he and the others sat motionless, without any sound and they could have been mistaken for strangely shaped rocks by anybody who had never seen a Bio-Tek. Botzi listened on, as the king told his story.

  “The plague wasn’t a disease. Pan Everos hypnotized hundreds of queen fire-ants. He induced them to breed rapidly. Within weeks, they multiplied into billions, eating and killing every living thing. Anyone who didn’t pay him homage and submit to his rule was destroyed. He was power-mad, he wanted to rule the world.But Everos made one big mistake.”

  “What happened?” asked Kirmon, in a hushed and worried tone.

  “Everos planned to conquer the southern tribes of the giants first.”

  “The human Indian tribes?”

  “Yes. So he took his army of ants into the great valley of the giants through which flows the Oranji River. The humans saw the ants coming, and knew they could do nothing. As the ants marched down the sides of the valley the humans could see the green forest turn to brown as the ants ate all plant life and just left the brown soil. Every animal was running ahead of them, trying to escape. The humans left their huts, taking all they could carry and fled, climbing up over to the other side of the valley to get away. Some humans left it too late and perished under a thick blanket of ants.”

  The king stopped for a moment, as if to gather strength to go on speaking about the tragedy.

  “Pan stood atop the ridge of the valley behind the fighting ants, mentally directing the lead soldiers where to go and what to do. He was laughing like a demon, because he knew the humans couldn’t run forever, and it was a just a matter of time before every creature surrendered or be eaten alive. In his maniacal glee he didn’t notice grey clouds coming together, high above. The forest was used to frequent rain as this abundance of water grew luxurious plants and herbs. But this was no ordinary cloud gathering. Once in a lifetime, the forest is flooded out by heavy rains and his happened to be the time. Rains fell, so heavy, almost like a waterfall, that you couldn’t see your hand in front of you.”

  Again the king paused. He thought he detected something unusual in the clearing, but hearing nothing, continued his story.

  “Pan lost contact with the soldier ants. In fact he couldn’t even see them. The rain crashed even more heavily, the water rushed down the sides of the valley, ripping up naked soil and turning it into mud. The river at the bottom of the valley started to roar with flood waters. It went on for twenty hours more. Every ant, billions of them, was swept in the deluge down to the raging river which carried them all to sea. Thick mats of ants floated to the ocean but the sea broke them up and they soon drowned. Gone! -Each and every one of them.”

  The king sighed with relief as if he was re-living the nightmare once again.

  “What happened to Pan Everos?”

  “Pan was now powerless and he knew we would go after him. He thought the best place was for him to retreat to his cave. But we suspected that too, we were waiting for him. There was a hundred of us who took him prisoner and forced him back into his under-world. Then we sealed the cave entrance once again to last a thousand years.”

  “Until last week’s earthquake,” joined in one of the elders.

  “That’s right,” continued the king, “we believe he got out and would seek vengeance.”

  “Can’t we band together and catch him?”

  “Not if he takes control of dangerous insects, by then it would be too late. We don’t know where he is and he could be hatching evil right now.”

  The elfin group continued to discuss the problem, arguing the merits of many strategies to save the forest, but each had advantages and drawbacks and none was guaranteed. It was understood that to expect a coincidence of flood to save them as happened last time would be wishful thinking. Besides, Pan would be smart enough to keep his insect troops high up in the trees till the storm was over -he would not be caught again in that regard.

  Botzi felt sorry for these good-minded forest guardians and he searched his in-built databank to research whether he had any information on these folks or the events they had described. He was unsuccessful as the scientists who programmed him didn’t believe in fairies and thought such information was a waste of time. He had an idea though. He possessed a powerful hypnosis generator and most likely could challenge Pan Everos mind to mind, but would that be enough?

  In any case, Botzi thought it was time to offer help. He was careful not to frighten them so made his presence felt in a gradual manner. Using their language, he said soflty across the dark clearing.

  “Good King Andorian, I have listened to your story, maybe I can help.”

  The king turned around, startled, staring at the direction of the voice. His subjects did likewise.

  “Is that the voice of the Earth-Mother God, your majesty?” said one with reverent awe.

  The King spoke, still a little suspicious of the voice. “Who are you and where did you come from?”

  It was time for Botzi to turn on the spherical light atop his cone-shaped hat. A soft pink glow revealed him sitting on the ground, with Noodles also sitting beside him, staring into the darkness, motionless. Banjo was flopped on the grass, and Izaak curled beside him.

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  Fifteen (15)

  Bio-Teks Meet the Spirits of the Forest

  Upon discovering so many strange creatures grouped together, and actually larger than the giants, (as that is what they called the native tribes), the whole fairy group showed alarm and froze in their tracks. The flying horse riders lined up as a shield in front of the group as if expecting attack, to protect the king. Botzi spoke softly in a calm, friendly manner.

  “We are travellers from the North. We are resting for the night and will soon be on our way again. But in the meantime, I was very concerned about this Pan Everos and your frightful dilemma. Maybe we could help.”

  “How do you know our language and what species are you?” asked the king.

  “We are half robots and half human. I myself have special language abilities.” The elves looked at each, puzzled, searching for answers. Obviously, Botzi thought, they have not ventured outside their forest into the scientific world of the Northern Continent. Robotic people meant nothing to them.

  “How can you help us?” The king asked cautiously, wondering about the offer.

  “I don’t know yet,” replied Botzi, “we need to get together and discuss this in more detail.”

  Botzi approached them casually keeping his face relaxed and friendly.

  In order that the king and his people would not get alarmed to discover there were more of these strange creatures, Botzi introduced his other friends and mentioned something of their powers. He told them there was another robot that could make very strong push and pull effects on metal weapons, handy for disarming enemies. The other was a female type robot who was able to make herself invisible. And lastly, a dog and a snake who worked together and performed amazing tricks. The good thing about it all, was they were tougher t
han humans, could communicate without words, and could go for a couple of weeks without their food energy, either sunlight or electricity.

  Botzi motioned to where his friends were sitting. The king could see them all except for the girl who was at rest (sleeping, in human terms) in the balloon cradle. He was expert at detecting evil auras around people who had bad intentions, and could even judge what degree of evil they were, but in the case of Botzi, he could detect nothing sinister or suspicious. Normally, the king would not have stayed around one moment longer if he detected the presence of the giants. It was safe and sensible not to let the giants know of their existence as he knew they would be hunted for curiosity and profit.

  Botzi gave a gentle signal to Noodles and switched him to active mode. To make sure Noodles would not get a big surprise, he quickly gave him a briefing of all that he had seen and heard. Noodles quickly stored the facts in his memory. “Move gently Noodles, look around, you’ll see me with some friends. Come over slowly, and wear a big smile.”

  Noodles, came to life and did as Botzi advised. He was soon close to the group and their king and they could see him clearly. “You are stranger than your friend,” said the king, pointing to Noodle’s body made of shiny gold rings, hovering a few centimetres apart from each other. “Er, magnetism keeps his rings together, your majesty,” explained Botzi.

  Noodles smiled at the whole group “Hi folks, I’m Noodles, pleased to meet you.” Botzi continued the introductions. He sent a similar message to Rory and shortly they could see her approaching, also smiling.

  “Hi I’m Rory,” she said trying to make conversation, “we had to come down for the night due to unfavourable winds. We sail through the air in our balloon machine.”

  At these words, the pixies looked a long way down the clearing and saw this strange shape, very, very tall, reaching up to the sky.

  “What is that,” asked the king pointing to the balloon.

  “It’s not magic,” assured Botzi. “It’s just a big bag which we fill with hot air and it lifts into the air to take us on our journeys. But like a sailing ship, we depend on good winds to take us where we want to go.” He waved his hand towards where Banjo and Izaak were at rest. “And our last two friends are a dog and a snake.”

  At the mention of the word snake, the pixies showed concern, as this was a symbol of evil to them. Botzi detected the alarm and said, “You know snakes are living creatures like the rest of us. They just want to mind their own business. Banjo and Izaak are not ordinary creatures, they are not aggressive and very intelligent. Also you can talk to them, as they too have language processors.”As he was speaking he switched on both of his remaining friends and they woke up and shuffled amiably towards them, curious as to what the fuss was about.

  Banjo, a big grin and tongue hanging out, disarmed their fears. Izaak took the funny road and sucking his tail, turned himself into a giant wheel and did a few spins in the air. That certainly broke the ice.

  Botzi and Noodles laughed to show they were comfortable with the situation and the king bade them to sit down so they could communicate closer at their eye level.

  The king spoke.“We don’t have much time. When daybreak comes, Pan Everos will be building some kind of disaster system.”

  Botzi asked “Does he have any soldiers or servants?”

  “No, he works alone, but he can command the creatures of the forest, which gives him his fighting power. Last time he wiped out the Grand Valley with an army of billions of fire ants. There was no stopping him except for the flood.”

  “Does he have supernatural powers?”

  The King explained his powers were not unlimited but, “He can live for hundreds of years, and has a strong will to command creatures to do his bidding but is not himself a warrior. If his mind can’t control you he will run and hide to catch you unawares on another day. But never underestimate him, he is very cunning.”

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  Sixteen (16)

  Everos Attacks

  For about an hour, the robots and the pixies talked at length, discussing many things, about the kingdom of the little people, their customs and their work as guardians of the forest. How Pan Everos was once one of them, a troubadour going from clan village to village singing for a living. But early in life he discovered he had a powerful ability to hypnotize and being greedy, would put people to sleep and rob them.

  This criminal act was upsetting a lot of people, but their anger hit a peak when he started to kidnap children for ransom money. This was unpardonable and the village elders decreed that he be imprisoned for the rest of his life, because no one knew how much damage he could do to the whole community. They decided to ambush him and put him away but Pan Everos wasn’t done yet. He collected a large swarm of mosquitoes and as the pixie soldiers went deeper into the jungle, the bites became so bad they had to retreat to fight another day.

  So finally, being fully wrapped in mosquito netting and carrying heavily smoking torches, a volunteer search party finally cornered him in a clearing. Their shields were not to protect them from arrows or swords as Pan Everos was no soldier. Instead their shields were polished mirrors with which they formed a circle around the evil pixie. As the circle closed in tighter around him, he turned on his powerful hypnotic gaze but this was his undoing. Hundreds of hypnotizing eyes, his own, put him in an immovable trance. While thus frozen, four soldiers jumped out of the ring and pulled a hood over his head and tied him with ropes. He was carried to the Cave of the Underworld and released, still in a trance. Great rocks sealed up the cave except for one little hole, through which an exploding firecracker was tossed in then the hole finally sealed. The purpose of this was to snap him out of his trance, so he could wake up and earn a living in the underworld, among all the bats, rats, snakes, lizards and other creatures of the dark. It was forbidden in the laws of the forest to destroy a helpless enemy, and therefore they had to stop him as best as they could, without killing him.

  “He’s not so silly as to be trapped by mirrors again,” said the King, “we have a more difficult task this time.”

  “But we have the element of surprise,” added Botzi, “He’s never seen the likes of us, and maybe we could draw his attention to attack us first. This could give us some precious time and delay him destroying the forest plus giving us a chance to ambush him.”

  “Well, what do we do, now?” asked the king.

  Botzi laid down a practical plan. “Your majesty, spread the word quietly amongst all your subjects to be on the lookout for anything unusual in the forest and to communicate immediately to your lieutenants who will report to you. I will give you this little device for you to use to be able to speak to me across distances. It’s called a mobile communicator. In the meantime, Noodles and I will go up in our balloon. We will tie it to a tree so it won’t drift away, and once up there we should get a good view of the area.”

  Noodles was a bit concerned. He wasn’t sure how much fuel gas this might take and whether they would have enough to fly the balloon home. But he was game to have a try. Rory, Banjo and Izaak would stay on the ground to save weight and fuel, and to guard the balloon’s mooring. So they went into action, helped by the approaching light of a dawning day.

  The king sent out instructions, which rapidly spread throughout the forest, to be on the lookout for what was about to happen. He bade a temporary farewell to the robots and went back to his kingdom. Botzi and Noodles wasted no time in preparing the balloon and lifting it into the air. It drifted up about 200 metres higher than the tallest tree, which happened to be nearby.

  Up in the sky, swaying in the cool fresh morning air, the Bots searched intently down below and far to the horizon for clues as to where the battle would begin. Everything seemed peaceful as the golden rays of the sun sneaked through trees and ferns, reflecting flashes of light off the glistening dew.

  Noodles did his best to use a minimum of gas but he had to wa
rn Botzi, “If nothing happens by mid-day, we’ll have to put her down, or we will be in trouble, -we won’t have enough gas to search the treasure and get back home.”

  Just then Botzi pointed due East, squinting into the rising sun. “See that –a strange cloud is coming off the forest tree-tops.”

  “Yeah, it’s changing shape all the time, and sometimes it’s thick and sometimes you can see through it.”

  “It looks like a giant swarm, Noodles.”

  “It does, -but a swarm of what? And would this have something to do with the work of the evil Pan?”

  By the minute the swarm was growing into the size of a small mountain, rising ever higher into the sky. The bots realised this was no ordinary swarm, and highly likely that Pan had something to do with it. They could even hear a steady buzzing sound, gradually getting louder, indicating that it was heading their way.

  A moment later, a chime on Botzi’s phone indicated a call. It was the king, “Hello friends, we are in more terrible danger than before, there is no escape, as they can fly and follow you no matter where you go.”

  Botzi knew he was talking about the flying swarm. “What are they, and what’s happening to your people?”

  “They are killer bees –no-one can stand an attack of a hundred of them and there are millions. Our people have managed to hide in caves for now and are lighting smoky-fires to keep them out but it’s only a matter of time.”

  “We can see the swarm,” replied Botzi, “and they’re coming our way. Don’t worry -no insect can penetrate our armour-skin. We will do battle with them.”

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  Seventeen (17)

  Noodles Fights to the Limit

  At this point, Botzi and Noodles did a quick hook up to a satellite data bank and rapidly searched through information on killer bees. They listed characteristics and options for control and soon they came up with a plan. Noodles exposed the maximum amount of solar skin to the shining sun to soak up as much energy as possible for what was about to happen.

  Noodles was absorbing so much energy, he actually begun to hum like a spinning top. Botzi never saw him like this before and was worrying about how this force-field that Noodles was to deploy might destroy his own sensitive electronics.

  Noodles read his mind. “Don’t worry, Botzi, here plug this cable into your energy socket and that will keep you neutral, that is, shielded from any magnetic power.”

  Botzi took the cable hooked to one of Noodle’s power sockets and plugged it into one of his own. Instantly he felt relief as the magnetic pressure was already building up, but now he felt normal again.

  Noodles gave him some instructions. “You take over the balloon and fly it into the middle of that swarm while I generate a network of magnetic forces.”

  Botzi wasted no time. He radioed Rory to loosen their anchor rope immediately, and after he checked they hadn’t snagged any branches he took the balloon higher into the sky.

  Botzi’s job was easy as the balloon did not have to fly much of a distance –the bees had already been given a purpose – to attack the balloon, and they were approaching like a freight train –fast and furious.

  The buzzing noise of millions of bees was incredible and the bots adjusted their sound inputs to filter it out so they could easily communicate.

  “Here they come!” exclaimed Noodles. A moment later the cloud mountain of bees, so thick that you couldn’t see past your hand, was all around them. Botzi and Noodles were carpeted with a layer of stinging bees about 6 inches (150 mm) thick. Botzi could see they all had their stingers out, ready to hit them again and again. But interestingly, he noticed that those bees trying to fly through Noodle’s hovering rings dropped dead in a flash as they were zapped by great force.

  Not only had Noodles’ humming increased to the wail of an air raid siren, he even vibrated like a tuning fork, which was exactly the effect he wanted. Botzi hoped he wouldn’t break the neutralizing cable between them as he would suffer damage for sure. Then he began to notice strange things. Firstly the whole mountain of bees had concentrated around the balloon, but as it drifted, the bees kept away from it, not wanting or being able to touch it or the bots. In a short while the balloon had a halo of clear space inside this bee mountain, and Noodles instructed Botzi to take it up 1000 metres. The bees followed as if attracted by honey. Then after a few more gestures and manoeuvres, Noodles was satisfied that he was in control.

  “Take her up another 500 metres, Botzi.” This time the bees didn’t follow them but stayed at their level, high in the air. As the balloon drifted up, it slipped through the cloud of bees, and was in clear air. “Head for the coast, Botzi.”

  Botzi, still wondering what Noodles was doing, found the right air-stream towards the ocean and the balloon picked up the pace in that direction. He looked back to see a giant sphere, sometimes black, sometimes shiny, hovering in the distance. This sphere contained the millions upon millions of teeming bees, pulsating as one, like a giant heart. He noticed the sphere seemed to follow them.

  Noodles’ screaming hum and vibrations had now subsided, although he was strictly focussed on this wobbly cloud of bees moving slowly as if tethered by an invisible rope to the balloon.

  Botzi thought this was an opportunity to ask. “Hey, Noodles, what’s happening?”

  Noodles held up his hand to signify “Wait a moment.” and said nothing. For a further fifteen minutes, now having travelled seaward enough for them to see the waves breaking on the shore below, Noodles maintained his concentration without saying anything. He indicated to Botzi to fly further out to sea, for another half hour, in fact. The swarming cloud followed them, not far behind.

  Botzi obeyed his instructions, until land was a faint blue ribbon on the horizon. Next Noodles hummed again but not so loudly this time. His arms stretched out towards the sphere of insects. With a final flash of light from Noodles’ transmitting hands towards the sphere, he turned to Botzi and indicated to go up higher and find a wind back to land. Botzi burned more gas and the balloon rose until they caught a fresh breeze. It was a strong wind and the balloon sailed back as if it had motors. This time, Botzi saw the sphere of bees a long way below and out to sea. It was now getting smaller as they drifted away, indicating that it was stationary a few hundred metres above the ocean.

  Noodles looked at Botzi and smiled, “Now to answer your questions. What you saw was a magnetic entrapment and control of a plague of insects.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “First, I picked up the communication frequency of the queen bees and interfered to take command, a bit like hypnosis. All the other bees had to fly around the queens. The queens flew in a tight circle making up the centre of attraction. When they had attracted every newly hatched killer bee, then it was a matter of tidying up the messy mountain of bees into a more balanced sphere for easier towing out to sea.

  “How did you get them into a sphere?”

  “By sending out magnetic force-fields and wrapping them around the bees to form a giant beach ball -a bit like using masking tape, as well as tightening here and there to get a perfect shape. The bees could not fly through the fore-fields because of unpleasant shocks to their nervous systems, so they could only fly in very limited space inside the sphere.”

  “Why is the sphere standing there?”

  “The sphere now has an invisible hard shell of ionised air kept intact by the strong static electricity generated by the bees. We towed the sphere to sea by my magnetic pull. When we arrived far out from land, I snapped this “attraction rope” –that was the flash you saw. The sphere will now stay there, and gradually dissolve into the ocean”

  “Dissolve? What do you mean?”

  “Within 2-3 hours, every bee after flying for so long and colliding countless times into many other bees will be exhausted and sink to the bottom of the sphere. By the time most bees have stopped flying they will have gathered to die in a solid c
rush filling more than half the sphere. This will cause it to sink slowly into the ocean and any bees still active will drown.”

  “Every bee? Is this ecologically a good thing to do?”

  “Yes, remember this was above nature’s control, like a locust plague that eats all the food of other creatures. These plagues harm the balance of nature. Besides, the bees are not wasted, no chemical was used and the fish are going to have a party. This will benefit the fish population which is under threat.”

  Noodles pointed out to sea. “Look Botzi, see how the sphere is now near the water? See all those silver flashes around it? They’re flying fish, waiting for a feed. Soon the water will de-magnetise it and it will collapse.”

  The balloon sailed away from the swarm of trapped bees.

  “Soon the water will de-magnetise the sphere of flying bees and it will collapse.”

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  Eighteen (18)

  Everos Defeated but the Bots are Stranded

  Botzi watched in fascination. First the sphere appeared to float on the water, then it began to slump at the top, losing its shape, like melting jelly. The water around it was frothing with fish, all kinds, large and small, flashing silver in the morning sun. There was lots of food and lots of fish and by the time the balloon sailed back over the shoreline towards their landing spot, the sphere was completely gone. Only some larger fish, leaping over the others could just be seen.

  “Great job, well done,” said Botzi, “Now to capture Pan Everos himself.”

  “Yes, that is good news,” replied Noodles, “but we created a big problem for ourselves.”

  “Oh no, don’t tell me, we don’t have enough gas to get home,” groaned Botzi.

  “Even worse, we probably don’t have enough gas to get to the treasure site,” replied Noodles. “All that back and forth and up and down manoeuvring we had to do, to shake off the bees, cost a lot of gas. We may be stuck in that forest, and have to walk out. Sadly it also means we would have to leave the balloon behind.”

  “Cheer up Noodles, our pixie friends are pretty smart, they’ll help us. Let’s for now concentrate on catching the evil creature who started all this.”

  They sailed in silence, a little while longer, till the clearing came in sight. As they looked down, they were astonished to see an amazing sight below. On the edges of the clearing stood thousands of pixies from King Andorian’s kingdom. They were armed with spears and bows, arrows at the ready. The King was among them, holding his horse at a standstill, in a position of attention. But the amazing part was that in the middle of the circle, stood some evil creature-like thing snarling and menacing the whole army. It was turning around slowly, doing complete circles and repeating the motion. It was soon evident why. Between it and the surrounding army was an impenetrable ring of blue fire. It appeared that the creature was controlling this ring and keeping the attackers at bay.

  “Look, Noodles, there’s Rory, Banjo and Izaak standing at the back of the troops. I’ll contact Rory and find out what’s going on.”

  Noodles beamed a broadcast at Rory in an encrypted code so no one could understand the message except her.

  “Rory, are you alright, what’s going on?”

  “Yes Botzi, we’re all OK. We heard this huge commotion coming into the clearing and saw them chasing this one pixie and surrounding him in a circle. We figured this must be Pan Everos, because we saw the king in charge of the troops. Before the soldiers could close in. he generated this huge ring of fire and no one is able to get to him at the moment. We can’t help them as we are not fireproof, and even if I were invisible that’s no protection from the fire. We decided to wait till you two came back to work out what to do.” Rory gave them a wave to signify they were safe.

  The balloon was now about one hundred metres above the evil Pan. Of course he was aware of the balloon above his head and guessed rightly this would be another battle weapon against him. He hissed a loud warning at them and gesturing violently with his right arm, hurled green fireballs into the air, straight at them. Fortunately, his range was only thirty metres and they were too high to be affected.

  Noodles worked out a strategy. “Look Botzi, if we descend slowly he’s going to set us on fire, before we can do anything. Also we haven’t much time as the balloon could drift away from the centre of the circle, making it really difficult to come back. Here’s what we’ll do.”

  In ten seconds Noodles outlined the plan to Botzi, who nodded, “OK Lets go ! We’ll surprise him.”

  And surprise him they did. A quick but measured descent to thirty metres brought them within range of his fireballs. He actually caused the wicker basket of the balloon to catch fire but before any serious damage was done, Noodles let the air out of the big bag with a swoosh, and plunged the whole contraption on Pan Everos’ head. As he lay on the ground concussed, Noodles jumped on him and had him wrapped with a thick rope. Botzi held Pan’s head in his hands and waited for Pan to wake up. Botzi was going to eyeball him and freeze him into a hypnotic trance.

  Upon Pan temporarily losing consciousness, the power that sustained the fire ring faded and the king advanced his troops closer to our heroes. They stopped a short distance, ready to help but obeyed the King’s signal not to interfere for the moment. Pan started to come around, feeling very restricted by the rope. He opened his eyes and stared at Botzi. Botzi knew the real battle had begun.

  “You will obey my commands, close your eyes and sleep,” Botzi commanded Pan.

  Pan hissed at him and cursed him in a dialect Botzi had no time to translate, but he understood they were enemies. Botzi swung his hypnotic transmitters to maximum and bored in on Pan.“You will surrender your will to mine,” commanded Botzi.

  Pan wriggled and hissed louder defying Botzi, and sneering at him with scorn. Noodles watched for awhile then detected something that was causing Botzi a lot of trouble in his mental fight.

  Noodles unobtrusively spoke to Botzi by radio transmission, being careful not to destroy Botzi’s concentration. “He’s using a magnetic shield to deflect your transmission, I’ll fix that.” Noodles switched to an angry hum and within a few seconds, Pan’s magnetic shield was neutralised, like a curtain drawn aside, allowing Botzi to hit him with a powerful dose of mind control.

  Immediately, Pan went into a trance, staring up at the sky. After checking that their enemy was truly incapacitated, the bots turned to their friend the King and told him it was safe to lock up Pan Everos. A big cheer went up into the forest trees.

  The king was most grateful, and turned to his people, “We can’t thank these friends enough, this would have been another great disaster without their help.”

  Immediately, the king gave orders for his men to take Pan back to his cave, but this time he ordered that the cave to be sealed with triple walls of rock. These were to be layered on the outside by a special type of tree gum that set like concrete, but still stayed flexible. In the event of another earthquake, the gum would be flexible enough to hold the rocks in place, preventing escape.

  Botzi got his bio-tek friends together and related what he and Noodles had done, how the bees were captured and eventually fed to the fish, but sadly he told them they were out of gas and now marooned in the forest. Whilst they were talking, the king dismounted and walked over to them, accompanied by three couriers. One of them, a younger-looking pixie stayed close to him, talking earnestly and waving his arms as if explaining something to the king.

  __________________________________

  Nineteen (19)

  A Little Genius

  The king hailed them and they respectfully turned to him to hear what he had to say.

  “We are very grateful, and offer you our hospitality. If there is anything we can do to help you, let us know.” The king nodded at the young man beside him “This is my nephew, who is a student in the Laws of Nature. He has asked if he could have a look at your flying machine
as he is very interested.”

  His nephew, though a little shy, was full of curiosity. -What happened to the bees? How did you do it? How does this machine fly? How do you control it? –And so on. Noodles patiently explained everything with the king and his courtiers listening with great interest.

  Finally Noodles finished his lecture and stood quiet for a moment. The king looked at him, then the others, noticing some anxiety on their faces. “What is it?”

  “We used up our gas reserves chasing the bees,” your majesty, “without gas to heat the air in the balloon, we are marooned here in the forest,” explained Botzi.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It’s a long journey over mountains and valleys to get to the cities of the Other Giants. We can take you there, and carry things for you.”

  “It’s not just that, we don’t live in this country, we come from far away, across the sea. We have no money to be able to go back to our country.”

  The king was silent for a few moments and then he offered, “We would give you riches if we had them. That is, those things the giants think are riches, gold, diamonds, -that sort of thing. None of those riches have ever been discovered in this land which is why the giants never plundered us and we were left alone to live in peace. Our riches are all things natural.”

  The nephew who was deep in thought, raised his head and joined the conversation.“You say, that these bottles contained gas squeezed in by great force. You then let the gas out slowly from these taps and burnt it under the mouth of the balloon to heat the air, right?”

  “Yes”, answered Noodles, amused by the nephew’s quick understanding.

  “In the valley of the Moonlight, there is a gas from decomposing plant matter that sometimes catches fire and lights up dancing flames over pools of water. Would this gas be any use?”

  “That’s probably methane, sometimes called swamp gas. Yes, it’s a good burning gas, but how do you get loose gas to enter into the bottles?” asked Noodles, “I don’t think you people ever saw a pump, or had use for one, or even have the electricity to run it. The gas is not much use if we cant get it into the bottles, and it has to be under great pressure or it won’t last long.”

  The nephew smiled, “Can you wait another day?”

  Botzi looked at the others and grinned “I guess we could, -another day won’t make much difference seeing that it might take weeks to get back to the closest city.”

  Noodles eyed the young nephew, “What have you in mind?”

  The nephew explained to him respectfully, “Sir, I know what a pump is for and how it works. You are right that we have no such thing in our kingdom, but we will make one.”

  Bozzi and Noodles threw glances at each other. How can this pixie make a gas pump with no manufacturing facilities whatsoever? The nephew guessed their disbelief and assured them.

  “I will ask the king to send some troops to carry your empty gas bottles close to the swamp in the Moonlight valley. It’s about one hour’s walk. Meantime we will make the equipment to serve as a pump. If you wish to rest here for a while, we will send some guides later to show you how we hope to fill your bottles.”

  “Ok, we’ll wait for your escorts, when you’re ready.”

  “So be it!” announced the king. He commanded a troop of soldiers to carry the bottles away and with a wave of good-bye, the group left them till their next meeting.

  Rory was sceptical, “D’you think he can do it?”

  “He’s got something in his mind, he seemed pretty confident. Meanwhile, it won’t hurt to repair the little bit of damage to the balloon. It’s mainly the wicker basket. Let’s hunt for some suitable branches and tie them in.”

  The balloon basket had a burnt hole in one of the corners, but it was easy to fix. Within about an hour, they had gathered the right size branches which Noodles worked into the existing lattice of the basket. Banjo and Izaak were not needed to help and they spent some time practising gymnastics to co-ordinate their fighting skills if ever they were needed.

  Rory sat down to watch. “You could work in a circus you two.”

  Banjo said “Possibly, but we enjoy entertaining the kids living around Poppycock Place and besides, we have a pet shop to run, don’t forget.”

  As promised, after some time, three escorts on miniature horses appeared almost as if out of nowhere and approached the robot group.“Master Markoni has asked us to take you to his gas pumping project.”

  “OK, “agreed Botzi, “The three of us will go -Banjo and Izaak stay guard over the balloon and our equipment. You shouldn’t have any more trouble.”

  “And if we did, we’re ready for it!” answered Banjo proudly sticking his chest out. Botzi turned to follow the escorts, lifting his eyebrows at his magnetic friend. Noodles understood what he was thinking. The dog-bot and snake-bot were designed to be intelligent pets, not soldiers. As it turned out, they were more intelligent and versatile than the original design, but had none of the extra powers that the human-design robots had. Still, they weren’t a push-over either. They were more than capable of fighting, as much as the strongest dog, or striking, as fast as the toughest snake.

  The escorts headed towards dense jungle but it became obvious that there was a cleared pathway through which Botzi and his friends could pass without too much bother. They followed, admiring the beautiful plants, flowers and butterflies dancing around them. Up a few little hills, down a few gullies, tall trees soaring above them, the friends were soon to find themselves in a small clearing. What they saw made Noodles chuckle.

  __________________________________

  Twenty (20)

  It Really Worked

  “Well, look at that!” As they watched, dozens of pixies all working in a co-ordinated effort, were running a very weird pumping system. It was actually a large bag in the shape of a cube, made of some sort of tough material and apparently coated with a substance to make it air-proof. The flat roof was stitched to a heavy bamboo frame as was the floor of the cube. The floor was secured to the ground by means of heavy rocks weighing down the perimeter of the bottom frame. The roof frame also had smaller rocks piled on top. This roof was attached to a rope hoisted over a pulley hung from a large tree. As the rope was being pulled up and down by dozens of volunteers, this caused a pumping action, like the bellows used by a blacksmith. As the roof lifted the bag expanded, and swamp gas was sucked in through a nozzle at the bottom of the bag. When the ropes went slack, the stones on the roof of the bag flattened it, to expel the gas under pressure through some contraption attached to the inlet of one of the gas bottles.

  The young nephew, noticing the arrival of his robotic friends, walked over to volunteer more information.

  “Hello friends, welcome to our little invention. It’s a bit rough but it works.”

  Noodles saw ten bamboo pipes inserted into the nozzle of the bag, tightly sealed. These bamboo tubes were made up of lengths joined together and snaked into the jungle, out of sight.

  The nephew explained, “Of course, we can’t stay long in the swamps of the Moonlight forest because of the gas. These bamboo pipes go all the way to the swamp and are sucking the gas. We compress it with this bag, using one-way valves and introduce it into the gas cylinders, come, I’ll show you.” He took Noodles and Botzi around the big bag to where the bottles were being filled.“See, we’re managing to force the gas into the bottles.”

  “And so you are,” said Noodles astonished. “Look I can see good pressure on the register of the bottle.”

  “We’ll be finished by the afternoon.” said the nephew cheerfully.

  There was not much to be done. The Bots watched for some time completely impressed by the ingenuity of these little people. Finally they returned to their balloon, to find Banjo and Izaak still doing circus tricks.

  “Good news Banjo, we’ll be out of here tomorrow. We are getting gas refills.”

  And so in the late afternoon, a big supply party emerged fro
m the darkening forest, carrying all 6 bottles, gassed up to their maximum. The king was there, hosting a little farewell ceremony. He presented the Bots with some beautiful crystal necklaces. They were not made of diamonds but contained the good will of the forest creatures and were very much treasured by the tribe. And then a final good-bye and the Bots were alone once again.

  The night passed quietly, and at the first hint of light Noodles was up and about getting the balloon ready. Botzi switched himself on to start helping him, followed by Rory. Within half an hour, the basket was loaded with the occupants and all equipment. Noodles opened the jet on the first bottle and the flaming gas roared into the balloon sending it high in the cool morning air.

  “I figure our treasure landing spot is 50 kilometres to the south-east, at this speed a little over half an hour,” announced Noodles.

  The countryside was becoming more mountainous, with deeper valleys and steep rock faces. There was a sense of mystery about the whole place. Finding a safe landing spot was going to be difficult, as clear flat areas were hard to find. At the moment when Noodles calculated they were on target, the sun had risen just enough to spear the mountain ridge below them with a golden ray and edge the terrain with more detail.

  “Wow, look! Looks like the ruins of an ancient city, down there.–And next to it –see? ...over there –a landing area. Hang on everybody, we’re going for it!” Noodles’ emotion generator was in full swing, and his excitement was caught by the others.

  The balloon vented hot air, making it heavier so it descended at a fairly rapid rate towards a clear patch of ground.

  Noodles did not want to miss this opportunity. At the last moment, he gunned the gas jet, so the cloud of hot air would act as a brake against hitting the earth too hard and the whole thing floated gently to the ground. Botzi and Banjo wasted no time leaping out, holding tethering ropes which they quickly secured to short tough trees and large rocks. Noodles carefully went through the collapse process, whilst the others picked up the limp fabric and methodically folded it.

  “That’s it, packed!” declared Noodles. Botzi was already poring over his treasure map. They had come so far, and been through several adventures already –enough time had been wasted and they were eager to see what this treasure was all about.

  The map was laid out on the ground, for all to see. Botzi tapped a spot on the map marked with “X”, supposedly, indicating the location of the treasure.

  “As in the old pirate maps, X marks the spot, I guess,” he chuckled then a look of frustration appeared on his face. “But what are we looking for? What on earth is this treasure? Is it a chest? Is it gold bars? Diamonds, or none of these, perhaps, -What is it?”

  “Time to think,” muttered Noodles, “let’s read everything on the map carefully, maybe we’ll find clues.”

  They scanned the parchment from edge to edge. Botzi even turned on his vision enhancements, which gave him infra-red as well as microscopic vision abilities. This paid off, as on the bottom left-hand corner, he could just make out the words “It’s in Latin... Leo, Anguis, Testudo, Rana ”.

  “Something written in Latin here,” he pointed out. He processed the words through his translator module and explained what he’d read.“Lion, snake, turtle and frog...something, something. It says ‘The lion guards his temple, the snake, turtle and frog guard the way’....”

  “Look for a rock or something that looks like a lion’s head. We might get a line of sight in which direction it’s staring and what thing it’s staring at. How the snake, turtle and frog fit in I don’t know.”

  It didn’t take long. Rory who was keen on knowing about all members of the cat family was the first to spot it. “How about this? Does this look like a lion’s head?” she said, pointing to a large rock and walking all around it.

  Botzi walked up to the top of a nearby hill. “Well there’s nothing else that comes close. That lion face is looking at one of the larger ruined buildings. I expect it was some sort of temple. Let’s take a look.”

  The Lost City in the Clouds. Looking for a landing area

  __________________________________

  Twenty-One (21)

  Banjo Crashes into The Underground Temple

  They made their way to the broken walls, and collapsed roof of what must have been an important building. The distant view from that position was spectacular. Around them there were quite a few things to look at, piles of finely carved stones and a few sculptures of some kind of gods or rulers of that ancient kingdom. Rory sat down on one of the larger stones, probably being an altar slab. It had carvings on the sides. Banjo and Izaak probed tirelessly around every square foot of the area, as sniffing around was their specialty. Rory watched Banjo bemusedly acting just like a dog-bot that he was programmed for, his head buried in tall grass and his tail upright like an antenna. Suddenly Banjo disappeared, letting out a yelp that caught the attention of all of them. They rushed to the spot to investigate. Noodles was first, peering down what looked like a deep hole obscured by overgrown grass. He saw the first steps of a stone staircase disappearing into the darkness.

  “Banjo, are you all right?” he yelled.“Banjo are you there?”

  Banjo was scratched but not badly damaged. He had cart-wheeled down some fifty steps, and was a little bit shaken.“Arf! Arf! Arf!” he barked.

  “He’s defaulted to pet mode, which is his emergency status.”That didn’t necessarily mean he was damaged, only in a “conserve energy” condition. Banjo could still see, hear and bark.

  “We’re coming down to get you,” shouted Noodles, “stay there!”

  One by one they descended down the stairs into the gloom. Both Noodles and Botzi turned on their glow lights atop their hats to illuminate the surrounds of what appeared to be a large underground temple. They found Banjo waiting for them. After a few crackles and static in his transmissions Banjo was back to normal alert mode and grinned, “Boy, that first step was sensational! I don’t recommend it to anyone!”

  “Well, you seem to be alright, did you do a systems check on yourself?” asked Botzi.

  “Yeah, I’ve got some scratches and a few small dents but everything’s OK.” smiled Banjo.

  “Wow this place is big,’ said Rory in a hushed tone. There are rooms going everywhere into the dark.”

  “Too many rooms, Rory, we don’t have the time to search them all,” replied Botzi.

  “Let’s examine the walls for details, these ancient tribes usually filled the walls with stories.”

  “Nothing like the Egyptian wall friezes, just odd animal carvings here and there,” observed Noodles.

  “All sorts of animals, lions, crocodiles, monkeys, sloths, squirrels, panthers, eagles, wolves, -what can we make of this?” Botzi was puzzled.

  “You said the parchment said something about reptiles,” Rory reminded him, “What was it?”

  “The snake, turtle and frog mark the way... hey, let’s find the snake, turtle and frog markings among all these.”They examined the walls, the floors, the ceilings. There was none they could find. They were in a large octagonal hall. Each of the eight sides had a high door leading into the darkness. Faintly through each door they could see it lead to yet another room with several doors.

  “Looks like we have dozens of doors to explore, we could be here for weeks,” moaned Noodles.

  “No we don’t have to.” said Rory excitedly, “notice the floor, all paved with stones, all tightly fitted together.”

  “And so?” asked Noodles.

  “Come to the centre of this main hall. I saw something, -look there it is, the centre paving stone –see, there are tiny gaps around the edges, -that’s a loose stone! Noodles, can you pull it up and see what’s under it?”

  Everybody was now getting excited. Here was something that could lead to new options. Noodles went over to the stone and radiated it with a vibrating force field to loosen it up completely. Botzi flipped open a flap
on his thigh to reveal a compartment. He selected a screwdriver from a well-stocked tool-box, and shoved it into the crack between the stones. He prised upwards the loose paving stone to reveal another underneath, carved on the face with an image of a snake.

  “Aha!” exclaimed Rory, “See! The first clue -a snake! The snake, frog and turtle mark your way! Which door is it pointing to?”

  Noodles lined up the head of the snake with the second door on their left of centre. “That door,” he pointed.

  “Ok, let’s go for the next clue in that room.” Rory led the way.

  The room was smaller but also octagonal, each wall-face had an opening for a doorway. Again, they had eight doors to pick from. Naturally they went to the centre of the room and looked carefully for loose pavers. None was found.

  “Ok, these ones have locked into each other over time. Here goes a little vibro,” said Noodles with enthusiasm. After a few minutes, a patch of stones did become loose and Botzi pulled them up. Nothing resembling the carved picture of a creature could be found. Rory did notice there was a second paving layer under the stone floor and it was not level, but appeared to have a hump in the centre.

  Suddenly she clapped her hands, “That’s it! We are looking at the back of a giant turtle. We can’t see all of it because it’s so big! Botzi, if you remove more pavers, we’ll probably uncover where the head is and where it’s pointing!”

  Botzi looked at Noodles for a second opinion. It meant he’d have to excavate forty or fifty heavy pavers.

  Noodles nodded in agreement with Rory. “Don’t worry, they’ll be easier to vibrate loose this time as the edges are free.”After some five minutes, the task of pulling them all up was done.

  “Yay!! I was right,” said Rory ecstatically.“There’s your turtle head, and that is the door.” She now took over the pointing.

  “One to go!” said Noodles, as he lead the charge into the next octagonal room, this time it had only four doors. The walls alternated between blank walls and doorway walls.

  “Assuming we are looking for a frog, the last in the series, are we now going to rip up the whole floor? “

  “Somehow, I don’t think, they would repeat hiding the clues in the floor. There’s something odd about these doors,” muttered Rory.“Why the blank walls? Less doors leading to less rooms would make it easier to find the treasure...... -which is not what they would want. Noodles, I have a hunch. Try sending some shock waves against the blank walls.”

  Noodles was now impressed with Rory. She had been right so far but rattling the floor with vibrations was consuming a lot of energy.

  “Those walls are covered with some kind of plaster,” observed Rory, “Just a gentle shake on the surface to start with, Noodles.”

  Noodles picked a wall at random and waved his arms slowly over the whole surface. After a minute, cracks appeared in concentric circles and the plaster lifted and fell off. Soon a large area of wall was cleaned off to show its original stonework, tightly fitted together. Although no mortar was used, the stones were large and heavy suggesting this wall was permanent and perhaps not leading anywhere. In any case, there was no symbol to be seen, and it made sense to also check what lay under the plaster of the other walls. This Noodles duly did, cracking the plaster on the remaining three walls. They all looked alike, all stoned up and no symbols.

  __________________________________

  Twenty-Two (22)

  The Last Door

  “Looks like we’re at a dead end,” said Botzi. “Lets have a quick look through the available four doors.”This time they could see that each door led to another dark empty room, but this was the end, there were no other doors leading off these side rooms.

  “We tried the walls, we tried the floors, we looked into the rooms, what’s left? We haven’t examined the ceiling,” said Rory. They went back to the middle room and gazed at the ceiling. It was dark and dome-shaped. In the centre of the ceiling was a circular niche, about the size of a bowler hat, too dark to see inside.

  “Get a light into that hole,” directed Rory, “let‘s see what’s inside.”

  Botzi directed a light straight into the ceiling hole and turned on telescopic mode through one of his eyes.“It’s a mini-dome,” he said “and it has what looks like a jig-saw of small coloured patches painted inside it. Lots of funny shapes, but wait, if I filter for red, green or blue patches let’s see what happens.” Botzi filtered his scanning eye for red, then blue and could make no clues. But then he tried green. “Aha! Green shapes are making up a pattern –it looks like I can see the pattern of a frog.”

  “This could be it!” exclaimed Rory excitedly. “Where is the head pointing to?”

  Botzi looked carefully and raised his hand to indicate one of the blank walls. “Possibly behind that wall,” he said. They all stood staring at it. How were they going to break in, assuming that there was even anything behind it?

  All this time, Banjo and Izaak were serving as extra scouts, exploring each remaining room just to make sure, but mostly finding nothing except dust and stone rubble. However, Banjo had an uneasy feeling and came back to voice his concerns.

  “I don’t know why, but I thought I saw something moving in the shadows, way back there, -a dark shape, just for a fleeting moment.” he said.

  “We’re casting moving shadows on the walls every time we turn around,” assured Noodles, “It’s easy to imagine extra shadows.” But Banjo wasn’t convinced, he and Izaak stood staring into the shadows of the passage ways leading back to the entrance.

  Noodles summoned up some more power. “I guess I’ll have to do my vibration act again, seeing we have no picks or hammers. I hope I can do this before my power pack runs down.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Banjo, “we saw some old tools near the temple entrance, probably abandoned by other treasure seekers in the past. C’mon Izaak, let’s go and get them.”Within a few minutes, Banjo returned with an old pick-axe and Izaak dragged a large sledge hammer back into the room.

  “What luck, they will be a big help!” said Botzi with glee. “Now, Noodles you loosen the stones, I’ll whack them hard with the hammer, and Rory, you pull the pieces out with the pick axe.”

  And so it went. Rattle! Whack! Bam! Bang! The bots worked as a team and actually got into an efficient routine. A hole appeared in the first layer of wall, to reveal yet another layer. This was not surprising, and on they went with their onslaught. Soon the second wall developed a hole, but this time, a low metal door could be seen. It was embossed with a frog symbol, as if to confirm the connection with the clues of the treasure map. Botzi took the pick axe and cleaned around the sides of the door, so it would be easier to open. But the door was strong and refused to be opened. The tools they had were unsuitable to help them break through it.

  “We’ve reached a dead end,” sighed Botzi, “This door is too thick, too strong.”

  “We’ve still got one chance,” said Noodles, “without using too much power, I can try to magnetically manipulate the lock.”

  They watched in silence as Noodles operated on the lock, sending waves to push and pull the wheels and levers inside. They could hear something was moving behind the face of the door and the excitement was building up in the whole group. Each faint click, each rusty squeak of a lever promised the more likelihood of success, and then Clack! -Did that door give a little shudder just then?

  “Yahoo! –She’s open!” exclaimed Noodles. With a groaning creak, the door was opened wide, and Botzi spotlighted the interior to expose a big underground temple. One by one, they crawled in for a better view and for some time they stood staring at the big spooky chamber. Above them a high vaulted ceiling was supported by fat stone columns to each side. Two stone tabernacles, the size of tall igloos stood side by side in the centre of the floor. On the dome of the igloos stood the half statues of twin wizards, staring at them. Each igloo had an entrance opening. But the strangest of all was that
inside the igloos they saw, through the entrances, a dark gloom lit up by coloured, winking lights. These lights, although shining dimly, threw enough glow to show a jade pedestal standing in the middle of each igloo.

  On the flat table-top of one pedestal lay a short sceptre-looking object. It was carved in gold. The sceptre had two large crystal balls capping either end of a golden shaft, the whole thing looking a bit like a small bar-bell. At one end of the bar-bell was a brilliant blue crystal sphere almost diamond-like, cut into many scintillating facets, and the other end had a similar sphere but in brilliant pink. Inside the other igloo, on a similar pedestal, lay a gold-embossed leather pouch tied with leather straps.

  Finally, Botzi offered an opinion. “I think we shouldn’t touch anything until we examine what’s in the pouch first.”

  “And what if there is a trap, when we enter inside those things?” wondered Noodles.

  “Why not poke around with these old tools first?” suggested Rory.

  Noodles picked up the pick-axe and swung it around gently just inside the entrances of the igloos. Nothing happened. He also took some magnetic readings and found nothing. Next he snagged the pouch with the pick-axe and dragged it to the floor, so he could reach in and grab it. This he did without any drama.

  He lifted it out and untied the leather binding. Inside was a yellowed piece of paper bark with some kind of hieroglyphics inked onto its face. He gave the parchment to Botzi, who turned the message around in his hands a few times to determine a possible direction of writing. After several attempts at translating the message he finally understood it, and was staggered to learn what they were looking at.

  “This is the treasure my benefactor tried to describe in the treasure map. The parchment is written in an ancient Indian language and describes that thing we are looking at. This is extraordinary!’’… Botzi trailed off.

  “C’mon, what is it!?” asked Rory getting frustrated.

  “Well folks, the parchment says that we are looking at ‘The Sceptre of Emotion’.”

  “The sceptre of what!? Did you say ‘emotion’, as in cry or laugh?”

  “Yes. But it seems more sinister than that. If you hold the shaft and rub it with your thumb then you can control a person, a group or a whole country to do your bidding.”

  “Sounds pretty heavy, how does it work?” asked Rory.

  Botzi continued, “If you point the blue crystal at any creature, people or animals or even plant-life -if you then rub the shaft, then those creatures will fear you and obey any command you give them. They go into a depression and think only you can save them so they are prepared to do anything you say.”

  “And the pink crystal, what does it do?” Rory was wide-eyed.

  “The pink crystal is the anti-dote. Pointing this at anybody would make them happy and self-confident again. Again, they would be under your control as they would fear you sending them back into a state of unhappiness –like withdrawing a drug they depend on.” Botzi re-read the parchment. “There seems to be more conditions.”

  Noodles showed some exasperation. “Some treasure this turned out to be. What now? Do we have to stroke it with feathers from a purple ostrich?”

  “I wouldn’t joke just yet, Noodles,” said Botzi seriously. “These Indians worshipped the heavens. They know a thing or two about star signs and the influence of the stars and planets.”

  “So, what are the conditions?” asked Rory building up with some impatience.

  __________________________________

  Twenty-Three (23)

  Success at Last -Only to be Robbed!

  x

  “Firstly, the parchment says that the Sceptre of Emotion has great powers to destroy or to create. Therefore the omniscients of old who cast it into existence limited its power to operate for only one hour per month when the full moon is visible directly above at its azimuth. Well that’s a relief, we’d hate to make a mistake with this. Uh-Oh! Wait, there’s more!”

  “Har! Har!” laughed Noodles, “This sounds like a TV commercial!”

  Botzi was undaunted. “To summon the powers of the gods, you must take it to the pinnacle of the gods.......What’s that mean? There’s something here I can’t read.....Some kind of sketch – a bit like a triangle.”

  “Well, we can relax, we’ll take it back home and give it to science or a museum. This is not something you can play around with, except maybe we could try it for one week of happiness and have a party or buy some lottery tickets,” smiled Botzi.

  At that moment Banjo and Izaak almost went into a fit.

  “STEP BACK!” roared a voice from the dark. “Don’t approach me or I will destroy you all!”

  Banjo and Izaak moved backwards, closer to their friends and watched in a state of high alert as the voice emerged from the shadows. The black grim figure of a muscular man wearing a black top-hat was unmistakable. It was Alby, their horrible neighbour who owned a shop next to theirs in Poppycock Place. Alby was ambitious and he could be ruthless. Back home he bullied people to repay his loans at terribly high interest rates. He was in effect a loan shark. A shorter, squat figure standing next to him emerged as Fungus, the bot designed not unlike an American Pit Bull terrier. This cringing associate, though mentally a few cents short of a dollar, was nonetheless still capable of a savage attack if Alby so commanded.

  Alby was aware that the Bots had some extra special powers. Both he and Fungus wore dark contact lenses for protection against Botzi. He was holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, no small weapon, as it really could destroy any of them. Fungus menaced them with his steel rimmed bowler hat. (He purchased that from an odd lot of props left over from an old James Bond movie). In any case, Alby was not about to put a weapon in the hands of his clumsy assistant.

  “You will all do as I say,” growled Alby. “Rory, if I see you going invisible, I’ll shoot you first. Botzi don’t try any hypnosis tricks, and Noodles, if I feel any magnetic effects, I’ll blast you with this grenade. And you animals, get behind the rest. Now everybody stand back against those columns.” Alby was in a deadly serious mood and they did as he asked, because they were so surprised, there was no chance for them to work out a defence strategy.

  Alby moved forward, picked up the sceptre from its cradle and commanded Botzi, “Hand over the parchment!” Botzi did so, saying nothing. He was careful not to upset Alby with his eyes and kept them lowered. This was not the time to try anything in such close quarters, where someone was bound to get hurt.

  Alby, now loaded with what he wanted, walked slowly backwards, grunting.“See? That wasn’t so bad was it?”

  Nobody said anything as they watched him and Fungus make their exit. After about a minute, Botzi and Noodles cautiously made their way out, back to the staircase leading to the grassy field above. As they raised their heads out of the hole into the sunshine, they could hear a Wop! Wop! Wop! of a helicopter’s whirring blades somewhere on a plateau below. Sure enough, a machine rose into view and with a quick turn-around headed north-east for a direction unknown, possibly towards North America.

  Rory by now had joined her friends out in the fresh air and could see the worried look on their faces. “What now?” she asked.

  “Well, we just helped a madman to gain possibly the most powerful small weapon on earth. Who knows what he’s going to do with it?” Botzi was feeling dejected, and fully responsible for what happened.“I wish I had never set eyes on that treasure map.”

  Noodles comforted him. “Don’t blame yourself, Botzi. Firstly, we had no idea what the treasure was, and couldn’t suspect that there might be anything dangerous about it. Secondly, who would guess Alby would know where to follow us all the way here. This place is as hard to find as a pebble on the moon. You never let the treasure map out of your sight, so how did he know about all this?”

  There was puzzled silence for a moment until Izaak said something that at first, didn’t appear to make sense.
Izaak rarely spoke although he had speech qualities as good as Banjo. He was rather shy and preferred to listen. On this basis he learned a lot and was wiser than one would expect from a creature that looked like a snake.

  Izaak disclosed some information, “While you were all reading the treasure map back home, out on the street, I saw a round hat, bobbing up and down behind the roof-top parapet wall, on the roof of Alby’s shop. I didn’t make any connection at first, so I said nothing.”

  Botzi explained a theory. “You probably saw Fungus’ hat. He wears a bowler hat all the time.”

  Noodles asked, “You think he was spying for Alby?”

  “Quite possibly. I think he may have photographed enough of the map to get here, but not the frog and turtle clues needed to get to the treasure because the writing was very faint. That would explain why he camped nearby, waiting for us to find it, instead of stealing the treasure directly for himself and disappearing without trace. He waited for us because he didn’t know about those extra instructions, about the lion’s head and the reptile symbols. And certainly he wouldn’t be able to read the colour patches inside the little dome that pointed to the wall-safe, without the colour filters I had to use.”

  They sat on the rocks, basking in the sunshine. It was good to soak their solar power cells and charge up. The mood was quiet, everyone busy with their thoughts. Finally Noodles spoke.“Ok, we have to do something, we can’t let him use this weapon, he could enslave whole countries, the world maybe.”

  “We can do nothing here, Noodles, what’s the quickest way home?”

  “Well let’s see...we can ride llamas, donkeys, just boots or a team of eagles! We only have the balloon.” shrugged Noodles, a little cynical.

  “Of course balloon,” retorted Botzi, “I mean, how fast can we fly back if we catch the right wind patterns?”

  “If we go high enough, to get the 100 mph jet stream we can do it in 3 days including a quick drop down for refuelling.”

  “Let’s not waste any more time. We can discuss plans as we fly home.” said Botzi.

  Alby pointed his weapon at the Bots and ordered them to hand over the treasure.

  __________________________________

  Twenty-Four (24)

  What a Crazy Night !

  They all walked towards the balloon. To his relief, Alby did not have time to sabotage their equipment. The balloon lay limp on the ground, but Noodles had made sure it was in a carefully placed state of readiness in case they faced danger and had to make a quick exit. His advanced thinking paid off, as in a co-ordinated team effort, they had it up in the air in very quick time.

  Gas roared into the big air bag once again, lifting them higher than before, so high that the view seemed endless. They required no oxygen or heating and were not fussed as the temperature around them dropped to about 5 degrees centigrade. Noodles was right, the winds at this height were fast, judging by the mountains and valleys rapidly sliding away beneath them. Of course, they felt only a gentle breeze now and that was because they moved at the same speed of the air around them.

  Botzi was the first to open the discussion.“We have one thing in our favour – Alby can only use that weapon one day in the month when the moon is in the right position. The last favourable situation for that to happen was 24 days ago. It means we have some 6 days to track him down and recover the weapon, before he can use it.”

  “Well he doesn’t own a helicopter as far as I know,” said Rory, “Botzi did you manage to take a photo snapshot of the escaping helicopter?”

  “I did more than that, I took a high definition video with the camera in my right eye.” smiled Botzi. “It looked like a tourist hire helicopter, couldn’t get the name but got a clear shot of the registration number painted on the bottom. It flew up high enough for me to read it.”

  The trip back was uneventful. Noodles did a descent near Acapulco, intending to refuel and move on. It was then that something bizarre happened. One of the NASA engineers who worked on their project was holidaying there. He spotted them and came over with a party of friends who were celebrating someone’s birthday. He begged the bots to join the party at sunset among the ruins of a nearby Inca temple, where giant statues were said to come alive and do a tribal dance.

  As the bots were under some obligation to this engineer, who was one of their “godfathers” they reluctantly agreed to go to the temple for the party.

  So they went. At sunset, the whole birthday gang, all quiet and hidden behind bushes among the ruins, watched a row of giant statues standing perfectly still looking into the distance.

  “Not much going on here,” radioed Botzi to Noodles after watching for a while.

  “Probably just rumours fuelled by a drunken imagination,” added Noodles.

  More time passed. The birds twittered, the leaves rustled, it was generally quiet. The sun, a golden fireball, was slowly sinking behind the distant dark outline of the forest tree-tops.

  “THUMP !”

  The bots could hardly believe their sensors. One of the statues had broken rank, stepped out of the line and pounded his heavy stone foot into the earth.

  “THUMP ! THUMP !” Now he was thumping both feet, one after the other into the ground. Pretty soon another stone god moved towards the first, matching the rhythm of the feet. They swayed from side to side, a bit like gorillas stomping to a jungle threat.

  “THUMP ! THUMP !....THUMP ! THUMP !....THUMP ! THUMP !”

  The other stone gods had not yet moved but stood watching the first pair.

  The engineer turned to Botzi, “Go on, do us a favour, go out there and show these heavy turtles how to dance. We brought a Ghetto Blaster with us.”

  No sooner had he said this when he turned up his music player loud and boomed out some rock. The rest of the party by now was too drunk to realise they were watching a very strange phenomenon and joined the engineer in a chanting and giggling spree.

  “DANCE ! DANCE! DANCE !” they chorused to the bots.

  At this commotion, the statues froze back into solid stone, fixing their glaring eyes on the intruders. There was to be no more movement from them – their sacred ritual had been violated by a party of drunks.

  Botzi shrugged, graciously took Rory’s hand and escorted her out to a clearing in front of the statues. Noodles flexed his body like a slinky spring and followed them. The portable music player thudded a heavy rock beat in the twilight air. The trio of bots picked up the rhythm. Botzi spun Rory off the ground and Noodles, standing on his head, gyrated on his pointed hat with legs flailing in the air. It was a superb display rock ‘n’ roll and wrap-dancing. Great peals of laughter testified to the great fun being enjoyed by the engineer’s party, as they sat, talked and drank. The engineer was so proud of being in the team that created such complex Bio-Teks.

  The stone gods glared but did not move. In the morning, they would be in their place once more and the human party would remember nothing of what happened.

  The evening rolled on, and Botzi explained they had a deadline to meet and had to get going again. The party thanked them profusely and let them go. The bots wasted no time disappearing into the darkness and heading for their balloon.

  It was a crazy night but the bots showed they could really dance.

  __________________________________

  Twenty-Five (25)

  Where did Alby Go ?

  The balloon had already been refuelled and they were up in the air again sailing towards New York. Again luck was with them and they made good time, as within 24 hours they found themselves drifting over Manhattan. Noodles pointed to Stuyvesant Field and after getting permission from the local authorities, put his craft into an open area, much to the amusement and interest of joggers and other outdoor citizens.

  The balloon was quickly packed and Noodles phoned for a taxi truck to take them all home. Their friends who helped to manage their shops were very glad to see them and they spent an hour of exchangin
g stories between them. There was a fair amount of excitement. Noodles asked if they saw anything strange about Alby’s shop and it turned out that Alby closed it soon after they had left. The shop stayed closed until two days ago when in the middle of the night they heard some noises and doors banging. Then after hearing some screeching tyres all was silent again. The shop and the money lending business had been closed down ever since. Only darkness could be seen looking through the shop window from the street.

  The group of adventurers had agreed to keep secret all that had happened about the finding of the treasure in order not to attract the attention of the newspapers and cause possible panic in the community. Botzi enlisted the help of a friend in the FBI who wasted no time in checking the helicopter identification, time of arrival, who the passengers were and where they were heading. The trail led to the town of Las Montanas where the helicopter was based. From there, passengers Alby Monk and accomplice Fungus Lockjaw flew to Caracas city, in Venezuela, by light aircraft, then picked up an international jet to New York. After landing in New York, the trail ran cold.

  Botzi related the details to Noodles. “In the time available, it looks like Alby and Fungus came straight back to his shop and disappeared again. We have no more clues apart from that.”

  “We have no choice but to do a break-in into his shop and look for leads. There’s too much at stake here. By the time we get the authorities onto the case, the moon could be in a favourable window to give him power. And that’s if we can get anybody to believe us, which is itself going to waste time. We have to act!” said Noodles in a determined mood.

  Botzi didn’t argue the obvious. After dark, they would go around the back lane and force their way into Alby’s shop. They confided only in Rory as to their plan, leaving Banjo and Izaak in peace, to run their pet shop as normal and keep a watch on the other shops.

  At about 10 pm Noodles, standing against the back door of Alby’s shop, opened the lock and with a quick heave, they were in. It was all dark. They closed the door behind them. Botzi switched on his hat light. They decided to go upstairs and start searching Alby’s office and make their way down.

  The office was dark, sparsely furnished, with an antique desk and chair, wooden shelves, and a reading lamp, almost a scene out of the Charles Dickens days. Everything looked old and dusty, as befitting a stuffy old grouch like Alby, thought Botzi. But there was one thing that contrasted among all this, a computer sitting on the desk, obviously the focal point of business for Alby’s Loan company.

  The two friends looked at each other, and kept their conversations internally, that is they turned off their speaker modes so as not to produce sound that could be recorded in case the place was bugged.

  Noodles nodded towards the computer and Botzi switched it on. The screen flickered for a while and the operating system finally presented them with the entrance screen.

  “Username ? Password ?” it demanded before going any further.

  “We have no time to crack this, Botzi”, said Noodles a little exasperated.

  “Even if we did, I doubt that Alby would leave a trail to his whereabouts when he holds such an incredible chance to gain power and become rich. I bet he would have swapped the hard drive with a clean one, which would give us no details, including his shady loans business.”

  “We can try searching this place, no one will bother us. But where to start?”

  They looked around and assessed whatever clues they could find. They saw signs that someone had come in at some time and left in a hurry. A few drawers and a cupboard door were not fully closed and these areas they inspected but the result was fruitless. The waste paper basket next to the desk was emptied clean, so this may have been done as a last action on leaving the premises.

  Botzi picked up the basket, stared at it and imagined Fungus doing this chore at the last minute.“Hey Noodles!” he exclaimed a little excited, “The garbage collection is not due till tomorrow. Let’s have a look at Alby’s dumpster in the laneway. If Fungus took care of this, and he’s not too bright, we may be able to find something.”

  They went downstairs and exited out the back door. Alby’s dumpster was hard up against the back wall, the lid closed, and looking rather empty. On opening the lid, Botzi peered down and started to retrieve any piece of paper that might have anything readable. He was especially hopeful when he handed two tightly rolled up balls of paper to Noodles. As if by magic, Noodles vibrated each ball into a flat sheet and a quick glance told him they were in luck.

  “Look at this! This is a copy of an airline itinerary, listing flight connections to Egypt!”

  “Egypt?” queried Botzi.

  “That’s right, and this next piece of paper is a copy of a hotel booking in Cairo. And look at the date, all done late at night only two days ago. Alby must have instructed Fungus to empty the waste paper basket into the dumpster and Fungus didn’t check what’s in it.”

  __________________________________

  Twenty-Six (26)

  The Mystery Points to Egypt

  “Egypt? Why Egypt?” said Botzi, applying his best algorithmic program to his brain cells to obtain a possible solution.“Wait a minute! Remember when Alby held us up with his gun just as I was reading some obscure instructions on the parchment?”

  “Yes!?” asked Noodles.

  “Remember I said there was some sort of triangle amongst the word characters?”

  “Go on, what are you getting at?”

  “Put triangles and Egypt together – what does that point to?”

  “Pyramids!?” asked Noodles.

  “I bet that wasn’t just any triangle, I bet it was a symbol!”

  “So you think the last part of the instructions on that parchment had something to do with pyramids?”

  “Well why would Alby bother to go to Egypt ?Why not wait for the full moon over New York, hide at the top of the Empire State Building, say, and conquer New York to start with?”

  Noodles suggested a possibility. “Because he needed to combine the influence of a full moon with the mystical powers of a pyramid? Come to think of it, didn’t you read the parchment as saying something about the pinnacle of the Gods? That might also suggest the top of a pyramid.”

  “That’s what I think, the Sceptre of Emotion needed a combination of the two to charge its power. Somehow Alby figured out the complete instructions and is carrying out a plan.”

  Botzi continued, “Can you imagine how the Pharoahs were able to control thousands of slaves to do their bidding? Imagine once a month the high priest would climb to the top of the largest pyramid and use the Sceptre to radiate a feeling of helplessness and obedience to the Pharoah.”

  “If the Sceptre belonged to the Pharoahs, what was it doing locked up in the jungles of South America?”

  “Who knows? Maybe the early Spanish Conquistadors brought it with them to attempt to conquer whole Indian civilisations. Or maybe, it was discovered by the Nazis during the Second World War and used secretly by Hitler. When the war ended, plenty of Nazi criminals fled to South America. One of them could have brought it over, hiding it for a future Nazi uprising but somehow failed to return to retrieve it.”

  “That’s what happened to Indiana Jones in the 1940’s with his ‘Ark of the Covenant’ -what a mess that ended up!” said Noodles.

  “That was Hollywood fiction Noodles, -this is for real! But we’ll find out how the Sceptre got to Peru one day -right now we have a problem. We have to stop Alby.” said Botzi grimly.

  “Correct, and we’ll have to enlist some government help.”

  That very night, Botzi phoned his contact in the CIA and explained the whole story. Money, visas and air tickets were ready for them by morning to pick up from a branch office in New York. By Mid-day the bots were winging their way across the Atlantic heading for Cairo the main city of Egypt.

  The flight landed as scheduled and after customs clearance, the bots hailed a taxi to take the
m to a hotel close to the one mentioned on the discarded note-paper found in the rubbish bin. It’s worth noting that the bots had not the usual acceptance as they had in their neighbourhood back home, and quite a few people stared at our colourful friends.

  They went around to the nearby hotel, to check if their “friend” had a booking, but the concierge said there was no one by the name of Alby Monk. However, a person by their description did stay one night a few days ago and had left for address unknown.

  “If I were Alby, I’d probably pick the biggest pyramid around here for maximum effect. We could start with the Great Pyramid of Giza.”

  “Well, we don’t need a room to sleep, as we can easily sleep outside. Let’s go find that pyramid.”

  Another trip in a taxi took them to the base of Cheop’s pyramid. They paid the driver and looked out at the massive pile of giant stones. There was no sign of anyone climbing the stepped sides of this ancient monument.

  “No full moon tonight, I guess Alby will stay in hiding until the right opportunity arises.”

  They walked around the pyramid to familiarise themselves with the surroundings. It was assumed Alby might be armed and dangerous, and also assisted by Fungus who could be quite vicious. As Bio-teks they were forbidden to use fire-arms, and relied solely on their in-built powers and toughness. Alby and Fungus of course had somehow overruled their ethics programming.

  So the plan was to throw a net over Alby and Fungus to disable them. Then a light, strong rope threaded through the net would be pulled tight and Alby rendered incapacitated. Botzi would jump on him and apply a pair of handcuffs, assisted by Noodles. This was hardly high-tech, but it might just work, if they had the element of surprise, and held them until official help arrived.

  They made a circular hide-out of rocks, some distance away, to watch comings and goings around the pyramid whilst remaining unobserved. It was now a few days away from the next full moon. The bots had plenty of patience, making use of the sunny days to charge up their cells to the full to prepare for the struggle ahead.

  There was one day when they decided to have a bit of fun with The Sphinx. Izaak crawled down its forehead and wriggled across its cheeks, pretending to tickle its nose. “Stop that!” laughed Botzi, “Get Down! You want to make her sneeze and blow us across the desert!?”