Astrosaurs 6

by Steve Cole

  “Well, no,” said Shanta. “But they are very scary. Now you know why we need your help!”

  “We can’t do much about ghosts, can we?” asked Iggy.

  Shanta shook his little head. “But you can help us find the dispium quickly so we can get off this horrid world! I will give the DSS half of whatever we find.”

  Arx’s eyes lit up. “If dispium does exist, its mysterious powers could be very important for dinosaur science.”

  “I agree,” said Teggs. “Of course we will help.”

  “But . . .” Iggy swallowed hard. “But what if dispium really is the cursed treasure? We don’t want to end up haunting this place for ever like the kentrosaurus miners!”

  “I don’t believe in curses,” Teggs told him.

  “Arx didn’t believe in ghosts until last night!” said Gipsy quietly. Then everyone jumped wrist communicator beeped loudly. “It’s the dimorphodon!”

  The dimorphodon were specially trained flying reptiles who worked the Sauropod’s controls with their beaks and claws. There were fifty of them, and they were usually left in charge whenever Teggs and his chief officers were away.

  Gipsy translated their squawks and chatter. “The dimorphodon were looking down at the planet from up in orbit, when they spotted something strange,” she explained. “Looks like that big storm last night uncovered something buried in the sand . . . something big and metal and rusty.” Gipsy gasped. “They say it looks like part of a spaceship – just a few hundred metres from this camp!”

  Shanta gasped. “Maybe it’s the old kentrosaurus ship.”

  “The one in the old stories, that vanished as suddenly as the kentrosaurus did?” Teggs rubbed his hands together. “Let’s take a look!”

  Shanta woke up Herman and Frank, the other two miners, and they all trooped out into the cold sunlight.

  Sure enough, just as the dimorphodon had said, the front of a spaceship was sticking out from a purple sand dune close by. Teggs and his team watched as the miners carefully dug it out with picks and shovels, holding the tools tightly with their peg-like teeth. Plod was working harder than any of them. She dug dementedly with a shovel, sending sand flying in all directions.

  “That ship didn’t just vanish,” Arx murmured. “It was carried here and hidden on purpose!”

  “How do you know?” asked Gipsy. “Maybe the sand just buried it over the years.”

  Iggy shook his head. “It’s parked upside down! I suppose a big storm could have blown it over . . .”

  “Not without damaging the ship,” said Arx as Frank and Herman finished clearing away the sand. “And apart from some rust, it seems fine!” “But who would want to hide it?” wondered Gipsy.

  No one had a good answer.

  “I’m not getting any closer,” said Herman. “If that is the kentrosaurus ship, it could be cursed!”

  “He’s right!” said Frank.

  Iggy’s love of old spaceships overcame his fear. He jogged over and sniffed the engines. “Ah, yes. This ship ran on kentrosaurus dung all right. It’s a very distinctive smell.”

  “I won’t ask how he knows that!” said Teggs, grinning at Gipsy and Arx. “You two wait here. I’m going to look inside.”

  “Be careful, Captain,” called Arx.

  Teggs crept up to the old ship. Carefully, he hooked a tail spike over the door and pulled. The door creaked open.

  “Take this torch,” said Shanta.

  Teggs took it in his beak, and bravely went inside.

  The ship was dead. Its power had drained away long ago. Teggs looked sadly at the empty control pit, at the withered ferns that the crew had never eaten. What terrible fate had befallen these long-lost dinosaurs? What drove their ghosts to roam on Creepus?

  After a few minutes’ poking about, Teggs’s torch beam fell on a piece of paper lying on the floor. A map was marked on it. He pricked it with his tail and went back outside to show the others.

  Iggy peered at the paper. “There’s something written on the back. It says, ‘Mine D here’.” He frowned. “No sign of mines A, B and C though.”

  “Wait a moment!” cried Arx. “Mine D – that could be short for Mine dispium here!”

  The dinosaurs gasped.

  “This map might mark the very spot where the kentrosaurus made their discovery,” said Teggs, smiling. “So – I reckon it’s time for a mine hunt!”

  Chapter Four

  THE TREASURE TRAP

  WHILE ARX AND Iggy searched the spaceship for more clues, Teggs and Gipsy set off with Shanta to look for the mine.

  Shanta knew the land around the camp well, and soon worked out what the map was showing. Teggs and Gipsy followed him over plains of purple sand, across marshy moors and through the foothills of mauve mountains. The sun glared down at them like an evil eye. A wild wind blew against them all the way. Then, as they approached the place marked on the map, it died away to nothing – like the weather itself was holding its breath.

  “Don’t forget, dispium is supposed to look like little red glowing cubes,” Shanta told them. “Keep your eyes peeled.”

  Teggs and Gipsy gazed all around as they entered a gloomy gully. Purple cliffs rose up sharply on either side of them, blocking out the sun.

  And suddenly, in the shadows up ahead, the figures of four creepy kentrosaurus appeared.

  “G-g-ghosts!” gasped Gipsy.

  Shanta gulped. “I’ve never seen so many at once!”

  The ghosts were glowing green. They reared up on their hind legs, swung their tails from side to side and opened their beaks in a silent scream . . .

  “Don’t be afraid,” Teggs told his friends, though secretly even he was scared stiff. “I don’t think they will hurt us. Back in the Stegosaur Sector where I grew up, the kentrosaurus had a reputation for being nice, kind people.”

  But even as he spoke, one of the ghosts charged up to them and waggled the spines on its back. Its beak twisted open and it pawed the air like it wanted to trample them.

  “Are you sure?” Gipsy squeaked.

  Then the other three ghosts ran forwards, their shoulder spikes gleaming in the gloom.

  “Quick! Close your eyes and walk straight through them!” Teggs commanded.

  “Walk through them?” Shanta stared at him. “You’re bonkers!”

  “No, he’s brilliant!” cried Gipsy. “Ghosts aren’t solid – so how can they harm us if they can’t touch us?”

  “Now!” Teggs shouted.

  The spectres gave a silent gasp as he pushed through them! Gipsy and Shanta shut their eyes and followed.

  For a moment, Gipsy felt very cold, like she had walked through an icy shadow. Then she opened her eyes again and saw the ghosts were behind her. They looked confused.

  “We did it!” laughed Shanta with relief. “We stood up to them and nothing happened!”

  “And that must be the entrance to the mine,” said Teggs. He headed over to a dark cave in the side of the cliff.

  “Careful, Captain!” called Gipsy. Two of the ghosts had appeared on a ledge halfway up the cliff face. They were staring down at Teggs, still waving their tails.

  “Ignore them,” Teggs told her. “How can they bother us if they can’t even touch us?”

  But then the whole cliff started to rumble and shake. Seconds later, huge rocks and boulders started tumbling down from the ledge where the ghosts were standing!

  “Captain, look out!” cried Gipsy. “It’s a rockfall!”

  With no time to run, Teggs used his tail to bat away the biggest ones. But more and more were falling. One of them was bound to squash him flat . . .

  “Shanta, use your tail like a lasso,” Gipsy shouted. “It’s his only chance!”

  “Reckon you’re right, lassie,” said Shanta grimly. “Here goes!”

  The diplodocus whipped his tail around Teggs and yanked him clear of the cave mouth – just as a pile of purple rocks came pounding down on the very spot he had been standing on.

  When the dust
had settled, the cave was sealed up by the fallen rocks and the ghosts had gone. Teggs heaved a sigh of relief. “Thanks, guys. I was nearly a squished stegosaur!”

  “And you were wrong about those ghosts,” said Shanta. “They can hurt us, after all!”

  “Hmm.” Teggs was lost in thought. “I reckon there’s more to these ghosts than meets the eye. How did they make the rocks fall if they can’t touch anything?”

  Gipsy scampered up the pile of freshly fallen rocks to investigate the ledge. There was a small machine there.

  “Captain, I think this thing set off the rockfall,” she called down.

  “Must be some sort of booby trap.”

  Shanta looked round nervously. “We should get out of here – before we set off another one!”

  Teggs sighed. “I suppose so. Let’s take the machine back with us and check it for clues. Then we can plan our next move . . .” He trailed off, staring at the ground. “Hey, what are they?”

  Scattered among the chunks of rock were some strange blue jewels. They weren’t dispium crystals. They were perfectly round, like beautiful marbles.

  Shanta stared at the round jewels in wonder. “In all my years of mining, I’ve never seen anything like this before!”

  “Let’s take them with us,” said Teggs. “Maybe Arx will know what they are.”

  Quickly they gathered up the blue jewels and headed back to Camp Kentro. But they didn’t see the ghosts watching them from the shadows with burning eyes . . .

  Chapter Five

  A ROAR IN THE DARK

  IGGY, ARX AND Plod were sitting in the crew room when Teggs, Gipsy and Shanta returned.

  Arx was intrigued when they showed him the strange blue marbles. “Is there anywhere we can test them?”

  “There’s a small lab here,” said Shanta. “Plod, could you show them where it is?”

  “No problem. It’s just by the toilets” – Plod gave Iggy a look – “which are still making funny sounds!”

  “I haven’t had time to fix them yet,” Iggy protested. “I’ve been too busy cleaning up the kentrosaurus ship.”

  “Find anything interesting?” asked Teggs, helping himself to an extra-large plate of plants.

  “Yes!” said Iggy excitedly. “Did you know, the engine was a Dungsmith One Thousand? Worth a fortune!”

  Teggs shook his head. “No, I mean, did you find anything to do with dispium, or what happened to the kentrosaurus miners?”

  “Er, no,” Iggy admitted. “It was just an ordinary ship. With the most incredible engine! It had twenty-seven gears, one for every—”

  “Maybe these crystals can tell us something,” said Arx quickly. “I shall start work on them right away!”

  “What about this instant-rockfall maker?” asked Gipsy, holding up the strange machine. “Iggy, have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “Nope.” He opened it up with a screwdriver and peered inside. “Very clever, and very nasty. There’s a special camera in here – it must have been pointed at one spot. I’ll bet that when it saw you standing there for too long – CRASH! – it sent a shockwave into the cliff to start the rockfall.”

  “So the ghosts didn’t start the rockfall after all,” Teggs realized. “The machine was on automatic.”

  “I bet they set it when they were still alive,” growled Shanta. “They wanted to keep all that dispium for themselves.”

  “And a lot of good it did them,” sighed Gipsy.

  “Greedy devils,” said Shanta crossly. “They still want it all for themselves, even though they are ghosts. That’s why they are trying to drive us away!”

  “This is weird,” said Iggy, dismantling the machine. “It’s completely different technology to anything on board the kentrosaurus ship.”

  Teggs raised an eyebrow. “Then maybe it doesn’t belong to the kentrosaurus. Maybe someone else has been skulking about on Creepus!”

  “Or maybe the kentrosaurus just picked it up cheap at a spaceship-boot sale!” said Gipsy.

  “I wish those ghosts could talk.” Teggs sighed. “We need some proper answers.”

  Gipsy nodded. “If only it was safe to go back and explore that mine.”

  “It will be – if you hold on to this!” Iggy pulled out a circuit from the rockfall machine. “This is the bit that sends out shockwaves. If anything nasty comes after you, flick this switch and give it a shock!”

  “That better not include me!” said Shanta. “I want to come with you.”

  Teggs shook his head. “Sorry, Shanta, you’re just too big for a sneaky mission. The ghosts – or anyone else who might be watching – will see you coming for miles.” He nibbled a leaf from his plate. “No, I had better go alone.”

  “If you’re not back by midnight, we will come looking,” Iggy promised.

  Gipsy nodded. “Good luck, Captain.”

  It was getting dark by the time Teggs returned to the mine. He looked all around, carefully holding the shockwave maker in his beak. But there was no sign of life – or death, for that matter. The gulley was ghost-free.

  Teggs crept up to the entrance of the mine, which was still blocked by tons of rock. He carefully aimed the shockwave maker and fired. The rocks jiggled like jelly, and then they blew apart! Luckily he was wearing his battle armour, and so the pieces just bounced off him.

  When the dust cleared, the black mouth of the cave was open wide. Teggs took a deep breath, got out Shanta’s torch, and went inside.

  The cave was damp and smelly. It led onto a twisty tunnel that dipped down deep under the planet’s surface. Apart from the splish and splosh of water dripping from the roof, and the shuffling sound of his feet on the floor, all was quiet.

  Until Teggs heard the roar.

  He stopped in his tracks. It was a throaty, growling, bad-tempered kind of roar, and it seemed to be coming from somewhere close by.

  “Hello?” Teggs called bravely, waving his torch. “Who’s there?”

  Suddenly a haze of green light appeared ahead of him.

  The ghosts were coming back!

  Teggs backed away, looking for a place to hide. He wanted to spy on these ghosts up close. He was sure there was more to them than met the eye . . .

  Unfortunately, the same was true of the tunnel. Teggs backed up into a dark hole in the side of the wall – and slipped down a steep, slimy slope. His armour sparked as it scraped against the stone. Then he fell through empty space and landed with a bump that took the breath from his body. A strange red light surrounded him.

  It was coming from the little red cubes of crystal all around him.

  “Dispium!” he breathed. “Pure dispium!”

  The crystals glowed with a mysterious, beautiful light. Teggs felt his eyes grow heavy and his body become light as a feather. His head started spinning. “What’s happening?” he gasped. The world around him was fading away. All he could see was the red, red glow . . .

  And then everything went black.

  Chapter Six

  STRANGE MEETINGS

  BACK AT CAMP Kentro, in his well-lit lab, Arx was still testing the glowing blue marbles that Teggs and Gipsy had brought back from the ghostly gulley. He had been at it for hours and hours, and had lost all track of time. Not even the strange noise from the nearby toilets could distract him – Ratta-tatta-tatta-BZZZZZZZZ-CLUNK!

  The door slid open and Shanta’s head snaked inside on the end of his long neck.

  “Any news from Teggs?” Arx asked.

  “He’s not back yet,” said Shanta. “It’s close to midnight now, so Iggy and Gipsy have gone to look for him. How are you getting on with the marbles?”

  Arx sighed wearily. “I’ve drilled them, chilled them, swilled them in acid and sliced them with lasers. But I still have absolutely no idea what they are or what they can do!”

  “Maybe they just look pretty,” Shanta suggested.

  “I’m not giving up yet,” said Arx. “Maybe if I heat them . . .” He put one in a clamp and placed it over a hot f
lame. “Oh, I do hope Iggy and Gipsy turn up with the captain soon . . .”

  The marble gave off a tiny trail of blue smoke, and Arx shuffled forwards to study it. Then suddenly, from out of nowhere, a kentrosaurus appeared!

  This one did not glow eerily like the ghosts they had seen. It looked solid and real. “Stop them!” cried the kentrosaurus.

  Arx gasped. “This one can talk!”

  The dinosaur reared up on his back legs, and Shanta desperately dodged aside. “Beware!” the newcomer cried. “Beware the—”

  But his words were lost as Shanta’s snaking neck bumped into Arx’s workbench. The experiments were sent flying. The flame went out and the heated marble splashed into a glass of water.

  And the kentrosaurus vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  “I’ve never seen a ghost like that before,” whispered Shanta, his enormous knees knocking together with fright.

  “No,” said Arx thoughtfully as he started to clear up the mess. “Neither have I . . .”

  *

  Teggs woke up in a dark cave, lit only by a flickering lamp. His brain felt like it had been boiled in hot mud. A kentrosaurus was watching him closely.

  But this one was not a ghost. It looked gruff and solid and real – if a little bit grey about the scales. A miner’s helmet was perched on its little head.

  “We tried to stop you,” said the dinosaur, “but you fell into a seam of pure dispium.”

  Teggs scrambled to his feet, still feeling dizzy. “You can speak!”

  “I’ve always been able to speak. The difference is, you can hear me now.”

  The dinosaur sighed. “My name’s Spink, Chief Miner.”

  “I’ve seen you before!” Teggs realized. “You scared me in my bedroom last night at Camp Kentro.”

  “My bedroom, you mean!” Spink retorted, and then he sighed again. “I like to go there to see the picture of Shirley on the wall. You know, it’s been fifty years since I last saw her.”

  “But why? Why have you stayed in hiding all this time?” Teggs demanded. “And why are you trying to scare away the diplodocus miners?”

  “We’re not!” Spink protested.

  “Come off it,” snorted Teggs. “You’ve been making them think there are ghosts on this planet. You don’t want them getting any dispium – but why? Surely there’s enough for all of you?”