by Zac Harrison
“I d-don’t understand,” Kaal stuttered. “Those aren’t holograms. The technology to make something like that doesn’t exist, anywhere.”
Socrat leaned forward, his already quiet voice dropping to a whisper. “Young Derrilian,” he said, “the scholars of Kerallin choose when to share their discoveries and inventions with the universe. So far, we have not chosen to share our library. In the wrong hands, the power of such knowledge would be very dangerous indeed.”
Aristil clapped her hands together, the noise echoing from the shelves. “Your next task,” she said, “is to prepare a Galactic Geography presentation. You will use the globe that represents your home world to prepare a presentation for the scholars. Extra marks will be given to those who are able to tell us something that extends our own knowledge. The best presentation will win a special award.”
John’s hand shot up. “Can you... errr... tell us where to find the right globes? There must be thousands in here,” he said.
Aristil smiled again. She and Socrat began shuffling towards the exit. “It wouldn’t be much of a test if we gave you all the answers now, would it?” she said.
“Don’t take too long finding your planets!” Socrat called over his shoulder. “The presentations begin in three hours.”
The students spread out, gazing up in awe at the tiny glowing planets. “A special award,” said Emmie in an excited whisper. “Did you hear that? Aristil said there would be a special award for the best presentation. If I win, I might still pass the inspection.”
“Good thinking,” John replied. “But first we need to find the right globes. It could take days.”
Up ahead, Lishtig leaned over a shelf. “Hey, this one says it’s planet Fy-Ix-Cero,” he shouted. “Anyone here from Fy-Ix-Cero?”
Seeing the students around him shake their heads, he grinned. “Oh well, only another few thousand to get through.” He moved along to the next globe. “How about Garshom Ssvene?”
“The planets must be organized in a logical system,” Raytanna said, running a long, white finger along a shelf. “We only need to understand that system.”
“Maybe they’re arranged alphabetically?” John suggested.
Kaal shook his head. “It would be impossible to arrange so many worlds alphabetically,” he said. “For a start, most of them have different languages, some of which are impossible to translate.”
“Perhaps they’re organized by size,” said Emmie, wandering up to the centre of the library, where a ring of glowing circular panels were set in the floor, surrounded by desks and MorphSeats. “What’s the biggest planet in the universe?”
“No,” said Raytanna thoughtfully. “Too many planets would be similar in size. It must be something else.”
By now, Kaal had reached the end of the row. “Hey!” he shouted back. “Every row has a number! Look! This one is zero-zero-one, the next row is zero-zero-two, and so on.”
The other students clustered around him. “How’s that supposed to help us?” asked Werril doubtfully.
Kaal’s straightened up, his eyes shining. “I’ve got it!” he shouted. “It’s obvious when you think about it. The planets are arranged by planetary number. Each row is a different galaxy, and the globes must be numbered according to their solar system and position.” Turning to Emmie, he said, “What’s Silar’s planetary number?”
Emmie looked at him blankly. “Is that something I’m supposed to know?” she asked.
Kaal sighed. “Silar is in the Zeta Galaxy, that’s the twenty-fourth.” He ran to row zero-two-four. “There are six hundred and thirty-seven solar systems in that region. Silar orbits Skylara, number three-eight-two.” Kaal’s forehead creased in concentration as he counted shelves. “Oh, they’re grouped into hundreds, that’s sensible,” he muttered. Raising his voice, he shouted, “How many planets in the Skylara system, Emmie?”
“Oh, I know that,” Emmie replied brightly. “Six, Silar is the second.”
“So the planetary number is zero-two-four-point-three-eight-two-point-zero-two,” he said, reaching up to a shelf. “And here’s Silar.”
“Brilliant, Kaal,” said Emmie, as he dropped the small globe into her hands. “Now all we’ve got to do is find out how these things work.”
The library filled with excited whoops as students scurried down rows and found their own planets. Only John was left looking around, still baffled. “Umm... I have no idea what Earth’s planetary number is, either,” he said nervously.
Kaal grinned. “Luckily for you, Mars is one of the most famous planets in the universe. I know its number by heart. We’ll just find that and Earth will be the next one along the shelf.”
Earth’s globe was on a top shelf, near the top of the domed ceiling.
“Are we supposed to climb up the shelves?” John asked, frowning.
“You could try that, I suppose,” answered Kaal. “Or you could ask a friend who just happens to have a magnificent set of wings.” The Derrilian’s huge wings snapped out.
“Umm... Kaal. Do you think flying’s such a good idea in here?” Emmie said.
She was too late. Kaal had already leapt upward, his leathery wings thrashing. Swirling gusts of air blew John and Emmie’s hair back, as their friend flew towards the ceiling.
“Kaal!” Emmie shrieked, as the first globe fell.
“Look out!” cried Emmie. “ You’re creating too much turbulence.”
John dived, catching the precious globe just before it hit the floor. Another plummeted downward. “Kaal!” Emmie screamed again, as she plucked the globe out of the air. “Come down... Oh no, John. There’s another—”
“Got it.” John caught another globe, as Emmie put hers gently on the floor and ran backward, her eyes fixed on another globe that had been blown off its shelf by Kaal’s flapping wings. “Quick Emmie, two more coming!” John shouted.
“What were you two shouting about?” asked Kaal a few moments later as he landed lightly, another globe in his hands. “I couldn’t hear you up there... Oww, Emmie. What was that for?” he finished, as Emmie pushed him roughly to one side.
Emmie caught a globe that would have smashed on Kaal’s head and held it before his eyes. “Oops,” said Kaal, noticing the other fallen spheres and looking sheepish. “Did I...? Are any...”
“We got them all,” Emmie replied with a raised eyebrow. “But don’t do that again.”
“We are such idiots. Look, there’s a lift here,” said John, dragging over a platform on wheels and replacing the fallen globes.
“Oops... Well, anyway, here’s Earth,” said Kaal, passing John the globe he had fetched.
John immediately forgot about the near-catastrophe. Before his eyes was a tiny Earth. Clouds moved slowly over the familiar shape of continents: the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia. John reached out and gently touched the shape of Britain. Home.
“Thankfully, there’s no damage done,” said Emmie, interrupting John’s thoughts. “Come on, let’s get on with the presentations.”
Each carrying their own planet, the three of them hurried back to the centre of the library. There, Raytanna had discovered that placing a globe above one of the glowing floor panels allowed the planet to float in the air. Most of the students were already running their hands over the surfaces of their globes, calling out advice to their neighbours.
“Spinning makes time go backward and forward!” called Werril.
“And you can zoom in and out by tapping on an area,” added Gobi. “Like in the holo-lab back at school.”
The Earth globe was light in John’s hands and grew slightly in size when he stroked the surface. He slid a hand across its surface again and stepped back quickly as it increased to the size of a weather balloon.
“Cool, Queelin, your planet looks like one big desert. Look at the size of those sand dunes.” John looked up to see Lishtig with h
is nose pressed close to Queelin’s globe.
“It is a desert,” Queelin replied. She pointed. “We have some water, though. Look, here’s Oasis City, where I live. It’s built around the biggest pool on the planet.”
Despite the three-hour deadline for their presentations, most of the students were curious to see their classmates’ home planets and were eagerly walking around looking at the different worlds. Only Mordant was busy working with his own globe. half-Gargon, half-Tiqlar, he had chosen Gargon for his presentation. From across the circle, the planet looked dark and gloomy to John.
Unable to resist, John peered at Kaal’s world. Derril was a planet of grey craggy mountains and steep cliffs. Trees rose as high as skyscrapers from deep gorges filled with dense vegetation. Here and there, John could see Derrilians swooping through the sky, landing on balconies of elegantly built wooden “nests” that were built into cliff faces.
Turning, John looked over Emmie’s shoulder. “That’s beautiful!” he gasped. Candy-floss clouds, tinged with pink, drifted across continents of pale yellows and greens. Here and there were ranges of snow-capped mountains, waterfalls tumbling into wide lakes and rivers.
“Thanks,” said Emmie shyly. “Some people call Silar the ‘Jewel of the Galaxy’.” Peering across at Earth, she continued, “But your planet is spectacular, too. Look at all that water! You’re so lucky to have such vast oceans.”
John pointed to Britain. “That’s the country I live in,” he said. “It’s completely surrounded by sea.” He spun the Earth absent-mindedly, then stared. As Gobi had said, time moved backward. Millions of years passed in the blink of an eye. Continents moved. Now Europe and North America joined together as one huge continent. South America floated free on its own. India moved away from Asia, and the Himalayan Mountains fell to become a flat coast.
Fascinated, John flicked his fingers over North America. Now he could see dense forests and wide plains. Volcanoes spilled fiery rock. John’s eyes widened as he zoomed in closer still. A tyrannosaurus rex ran across grassland, roaring in victory as its powerful claws ripped into a hadrosaur. John moved the globe slightly and watched as a pterodactyl launched itself from a cliff.
“Hey, look at that,” said Kaal behind him. A thick green finger jabbed towards the pterodactyl over John’s shoulder. “That guy looks a bit like me.”
“It’s a dinosaur, Kaal. They died out millions of years ago,” John replied. He spun the globe in the opposite direction and zoomed in on an area of France. A group of dirty-looking men wrapped in animal skins squatted around the body of a mammoth, stripping it with stone knives. “Those are my ancestors: primitive humans,” he said in awe.
“I didn’t think it was possible for humans to be any more primitive than they are now.”
Whirling round, John saw that Mordant had left his own globe and was now staring at Earth, lip curled in a sneer. John’s hands balled into fists. While his friends might joke about “primitive” Earthlings, from Talliver’s mouth the word sounded exactly as it was meant – like a deadly insult.
“At least Earth looks like a nice place to live,” Emmie snapped back before John could speak. “Gargon’s one big swamp.”
“I’d rather live in a swamp than some pathetic little planet that doesn’t even know there are far more intelligent life forms in the universe,” Mordant replied. “Wait until you see my presentation on Gargon. With everything my planet’s achieved, I can’t fail to win the special award.”
As the half-Gargon stalked back to his own globe, John forced himself to relax. Spinning Earth once more, he flicked his fingers over Britain. Flicking his fingers again and again, he zoomed in on his town, street, and house.
“This is incredible,” he whispered. “The globe is collecting every scrap of information from Earth in real time.” Leaning forward, he watched as his dad threw a ball for the new family dog, Super Rover. The little Jack Russell ran across the garden to fetch it.
Kaal and Emmie crowded in to see what he was looking at. “That’s my dad,” said John in a hoarse voice.
“Wow, your dad’s really hairy,” said Kaal.
“That’s a dog, Kaal,” John said, laughing. “It’s a pet. You know, like Super Rover that I built for the Robot Warriors. That’s my dad, there.” He pointed.
“Where’s your mum?” said Emmie, leaning in so close John could feel her soft hair against his cheek.
John gazed at the scene in front of him. “There,” he said quietly, pointing to his mother. She was kneeling in the grass, cutting back the plants before winter set in. As John watched, she lifted her face to the sun and stretched, turning to laugh at something John’s dad had just said.
Emmie’s fingers curled around John’s arm. “Your mum is pretty,” she said softly. “She looks so happy. And your dad seems to like making her laugh.”
“Yeah, they’re both pretty cool,” John replied. Tears pricked at his eyes. Seeing his parents always reminded him of how much he missed them.
Stop it, Riley, he warned himself silently. You are not going to start blubbing in front of everyone. Standing up straight, he smiled and said to Emmie, “Hey, I’d love to take a look at your—” His sentence went unfinished. An alarm roared, shredding the quiet peace of Kerallin’s library.
Chapter 8
Shouts filled the library as the alarm wailed on. The students struggled to make themselves heard over the noise. “What’s going on?” John yelled at Kaal.
Kaal shook his head, passing a hand across his face – a gesture John recognized as a Derrilian shrug.
“Is there a fire?” Bareon yelled, looking around anxiously.
Students ran to check the long rows of shelves, but the library looked just as it had a few moments before. Apart from the alarm, there was no sign of an emergency. Slightly confused, they met back at the centre of the library.
“We’d better get out of here, just in case!” John shouted above the noise. “Maybe it’s a drill. We should group up outside and wait for the alarm to stop.”
Presentations forgotten, the class walked calmly to the doors and lined up on the library steps. Outside, there was still no clue as to what might have triggered the alarm. Strange-looking birds flapped away from the noise through calm blue skies. A light breeze carried the scent of exotic flowers. Apart from the wailing alarm, all was calm and peaceful.
On the library steps, the noise was slightly less deafening. John glanced around at his classmates’ worried faces. “What should we do?” he asked Kaal.
“I guess we just stay here, but everything looks fine,” Kaal replied. “Maybe someone touched something they shouldn’t have. I’m sure someone will come and tell us what’s going on in a moment.”
“Here they come now,” said Emmie. “Look.”
On the lawns in front of the library, Aristil and Socrat climbed down from the hoverbus and hurried up the path. Both scholars looked grim and nervous.
“Something’s seriously wrong,” John said under his breath. “Is there a problem?” he asked as they came closer.
The scholars glanced at each other and shook their heads, unwilling to share any more. “You must leave immediately,” Aristil said, waving all six arms in the air. “Please follow us to the hoverbus. We will take you back to the ship that brought you here. Return to Hyperspace High as fast as you can. The ship will show you the way.”
“Why do we have to go?” John blurted out. “What’s going on?”
“It is for your own safety,” Socrat wheezed.
“But what about our presentations?” asked Emmie.
“There is no time to explain,” said Aristil, sharply. “Leave your work. Please, follow us to the hoverbus.”
The scholars turned, shuffling towards the hoverbus as fast as they could. Shrugging and exchanging questioning glances, the students followed in silence. John tried asking Aristil what had happened onc
e again as he climbed aboard. His answer was a look that told him firmly that she would not be giving out any information.
The hoverbus shot away at high speed, throwing those still standing into the laps of their classmates. Still, Aristil and Socrat ignored the students’ questions. Leaning their heads together at the front of the hoverbus , the scholars whispered to each other. John couldn’t hear what they were saying above the wind, but the tone of their voices was unmistakably urgent.
As John gazed across the landscape of Kerallin, the scene outside looked as tranquil as it had when they had landed.
“Maybe there’s a big storm coming,” suggested Bareon. “Or an earthquake or something.”
“Don’t be daft, Bareon.” Sprawled across the back seat, Lishtig was the only student who looked relaxed. His long ponytail streamed behind him in the breeze. “I bet you a slice of Falarcake at Ska’s Café we were so totally awesome the scholars decided not to bother with any more tests,” he said brightly.
“More likely Tarz has already earned us a fail,” said Mordant.
Lishtig raised an eyebrow. “Is there any situation you can’t make worse just by opening your mouth, Talliver?” he demanded.
Before Mordant could retort, the hoverbus slowed to a halt at the pyramid ship. As it stopped, the wind dropped. The two scholars didn’t appear to notice that their words could now be heard by the students in the seats behind.
“But how did they find Kerallin?” Aristil whispered.
Socrat nodded his purple head towards the pyramid ship. “The students failed to activate the cloaking device,” he answered. “It seems they were tracked all the way here from Hyperspace High.”
In the seat beside John, Emmie let out a low groan. Her golden skin turned the colour of pale custard.
“I didn’t translate the cloaking device instruction,” she hissed. “Whatever’s happening, it’s my fault.”
“None of us translated it, Emmie,” Kaal replied quickly. “If it caused a problem, we’re all responsible.”
