The Particle Beast

by Ian C Douglas

  “And keep away from young Miss Liang. She’s taken the death of her friend very badly. I’ve signed her off classes for a few days. She needs to be alone.”

  Both boys nodded.

  “You’re late for Remote Viewing 101,” Lutz said, glancing at the atomic clock on the wall.

  Zeke and Scuff stood up, eager to escape.

  “Just one thing. Who was the Mariner who agreed to translocate you, Hailey?”

  Zeke hesitated. He didn’t want to get Edward Dayo into trouble. But Dayo was now on the other side of the galaxy with a ship full of colonists. It didn’t seem to matter any more.

  “It was Edward Dayo, Ma’am. We met when he brought me here from Earth.”

  The strangest expression clouded Lutz’s dark face. “Ah, Dayo,” she said sadly. “An outstanding student. I tried to persuade him to accept a position at the School. But he wouldn’t have it. Insisted on doing his bit for humanity. He was a beautiful boy.”

  “He’s smashing,” Zeke agreed.

  “Go!” Lutz shouted, with an unexpected burst of temper.

  Bewildered, Zeke and Scuff hurried from her office and started down the long spiral staircase.

  “Guess who turned up at the mine looking for Justice. While you were KO’d,” Scuff said.

  Zeke shrugged.

  “Bobbi.”

  “The robotoid from the Perspicillum?”

  Scuff nodded. “He had a recorded message from Doctor Hiss. Begging Justice to go back and work with him.”

  “Must get very lonely up there above the airline,” Zeke remarked.

  “Sure thing. Justice jumped at the chance. Being newly unemployed and all.”

  “Justice always lands on his feet.”

  “Yup, funny character really, don’t you think?”

  Zeke raised his eyebrows. “Guess so. What’s that project Hiss is working on?”

  Scuff thought for a second. “Searching the galaxy for the genesis particle. Whatever that is.”

  Zeke’s scalp tingled. “It must be something crucial,” he said.

  “Wait a cotton-picking minute!” Scuff cried, stopping dead in his tracks. “You fell into the alien pool. Are you immortal now?”

  Zeke burst into peels of laughter. “I wish. No way.”

  “But how would you know?”

  Zeke pointed to the purple bruise on his cheekbone.

  “If the pool was still working, I’d be impossible to injure.”

  Scuff examined the bruise with a suspicious expression.

  “Two billion years,” Zeke went on. “Any idea how long that is? The Pool’s powers fizzled out long ago. Probably while dinosaurs roamed the Earth.”

  “If you say so, bro. Pity.”

  They began down the steps.

  “Immortality would be a curse,” Zeke said. “Funny how in seeking to live forever Enki ended up destroying himself.”

  “Serves the imbecile right.”

  They continued descending the staircase.

  “So what will you do?”

  “Me?” Zeke asked.

  “Now that you’ve missed your ride.”

  Zeke stopped again.

  “Stay here, graduate, serve an apprenticeship then volunteer for the next colony ship to Cepheus.”

  Scuff chuckled. “I can’t see you waiting six years to go looking for your dad.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Something will come up, you’re a trouble magnet.”

  Zeke pushed out his bottom lip. “Don’t say that.”

  “What about Pin?” Scuff asked.

  Zeke paused before answering. “It must be tough. She and Bartie were devoted to each other. And her prophecy. It kinda came true, but for the wrong person.”

  “Heartbreaking,” Scuff replied softly.

  The look on Bartie’s face flashed through Zeke’s mind. The look as he died.

  “Sometimes I hate this planet,” Zeke said, but more to himself than his buddy. He fished in his pocket for his handkerchief.

  “Oh!”

  “Oh, what?” Scuff asked, as they reached the bottom step.

  The corridor panned out before them. A cleanomac trundled by, sweeping the parquet with spinning brush feet. A reek of polish filled the air. Voices echoed from the distant playground.

  Zeke pulled out his empty pocket. “My handkerchief! Must have dropped it in Lutz’s office.”

  Scuff regarded the steep stairwell. “Think I’ll sit this one out,” he remarked.

  “I’m not climbing them again,” Zeke said.

  Scuff’s face lit up. “Translocation? Lutz will kill you.”

  “I’d better not get caught, then!” Zeke laughed. And vanished.

  Atoms formed and became solid. Walls, furniture, office equipment. He was standing beside Barnside’s desk. The door to Lutz’s office was in front of him and open. Both women were still inside and did not see him. That was lucky. He could pretend he’d taken the stairs.

  Zeke edged nearer. What were they doing? And what was that noise? A braying sound, like a wounded donkey.

  He tiptoed to the door and peered into Lutz’s office. First, he saw his handkerchief under the seat. What he saw next made his blood run cold.

  Lutz was at her desk, hands on face, crying. Barnside stood over Lutz, arm around her shoulder, in an attempt to console. Lutz’s magnopad lay on the desktop, projecting a hologram of Edward Dayo’s kind, handsome face into the midair.

  “I killed him. I killed them all,” Lutz sobbed.

  Zeke’s handkerchief no longer seemed very important. He closed his eyes and translocated away as quietly as possible.

  Zeke glanced at the atomic watch on his wrist. Ten minutes had passed since he arrived at Pin-Mei’s door. And still he didn’t knock. He was afraid. What did you say in situations like these? Sure he was upset, but it was much worse for Pin. She and Bartie had a special relationship, he understood that. Was it romantic? Pin insisted they were just good friends, but he wasn’t sure.

  “Stop it,” he said to himself.

  It was none of his business. After all, he wasn’t jealous or anything. His honorary sister needed him and that was what mattered. He pressed the buzzer.

  Silence. He pressed again and then a third time.

  “It’s me,” he said into the intercom.

  “Go away, please.” She sounded croaky.

  Zeke was momentarily stunned.

  “Open up, it’s me. Let me in.”

  More silence.

  “I’m sorry, please just go.”

  “Pin…” Zeke struggled to find the words. “You know it wasn’t my fault?”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  “How was I supposed to save him from the Particle Beast?”

  “By sending him back first.” The anger in Pin-mei’s voice was unmistakable.

  Zeke took a step back. “But—” The words dried up in Zeke’s throat. How could she say something like that? Pin-mei? His Martian sister?

  “I’d like you to go, Zeke. Please.”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  Zeke trudged away from Pin-mei’s room. It’ll pass, he thought. A few days and she’ll be back to normal. Their friendship was as solid as Mars.

  That’s what you think, said the little voice at the back of his head.

  Epilogue

  The Site of the former Melas Mine

  No one remained. The crushing silence of Mars reigned again. Not like Earth, with its streams and birds and hovercars and trees and people. Earth was a symphony of background noise. Mars was just silent, a flat line, dead.

  The plains stretched out for kilometres around the discarded mine. Every centimetre as quiet and deserted as the mine itself. Only a clutch of nearby rocks broke the dreary red-gre
y landscape. They jutted out from the bedrock like stubby fingers. Here, in the middle of these fingers, was a clearing. Just some sand ringed by rocks. Not at all remarkable.

  There was nothing to show this place once linked to a parallel dimension. A link that burned out when the tiny universe ceased to exist.

  Almost.

  The air rippled. Flexed. Stretched.

  A head popped out of nowhere. A head, no body, a metre or two off the ground. A face with greasy hair, a swarthy complexion and a pencil moustache. But the eyes! The face had spinning, spiralling eyes.

  An arm appeared. As though the man was struggling out of a tight-fitting invisibility suit.

  “Silly, silly,” Enki muttered, and giggled. Now he was half a man, or rather, a man stuck between two worlds. He grunted hard and pushed. Something gave way and he slipped out of thin air and onto the ground. He was whole. Reborn.

  Enki sat up and smoothed back his few strips of hair. The spinning spirals transformed into beady black eyes.

  It was true that the Spiral could not pass from its dimension to the pocket universe. Just as it could not enter this one. But there was nothing to prevent Enki from returning. The dimensional bridge survived the gravity wave that nearly did for Zeke and Scuff. Only a sliver was left now, but that was all Enki needed.

  The air blipped. A kind of a hiccup.

  “How sad,” Enki remarked. The bridge was truly gone at last. Still, it was time to put aside bad memories. Those tortuous hours trapped inside the pool while the pocket universe crackled and collapsed outside. The pool, of course, was a dimension within a dimension. That’s how Enki’s master had kept him safe. Then the pool too dwindled away. Enki found himself with seconds to crawl back to safety.

  He sat quietly for a few minutes, hoping to hear the Spiral’s voice inside his head. There was nothing. The Spiral lived outside the walls of this universe. Enki missed him. Nevertheless, he now had the Master’s plan.

  Enki stood up and dusted himself down. He scanned the horizon.

  “Which way to the capital, I wonder?”

  His eyes spiralled briefly. Then, whistling a jaunty tune, Professor Enki set off to fulfil his new destiny.

  Mars is a planet of secrets. Uncover the truth at Zeke’s website: www.zekehailey.com

  And Zeke’s adventures will continue in Electron’s Blade.