by Chris Hawley
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
RESCUE
That night was the longest I had ever spent in my life. As the night wore on it became colder and colder. I lay on the bed and shivered under the thin blanket. From time to time I would get up from the bed and walk up and down the room to keep warm. Then I would return to the bed and try to sleep. Hunger gripped me but thirst was my worst enemy. I had had nothing to drink since the tea after lunch and I had lost a lot of body liquid during the dusty car journey. Sleep wouldn’t come, no matter how much I tried to calm my mind. My head ached from dehydration and the blow from Alexei’s fist.
At last, when I was beginning to think that the night would never end, the square above my head became lighter and I knew that dawn was on its way. Slowly the black of night turned to grey of early morning. I decided to try to see out of the window. I got up and shifted the small table, using my legs to push it along. It was not heavy. I positioned it underneath the window and with difficulty I clambered onto the table, getting to my feet and wobbling. One of the table legs was too short, which made it see-saw up and down. Stretching up on my toes I was able to see out. I could see nothing but grass as far as the eye could see. A wire fence crossed about two hundred metres away and that was all. Whatever buildings there were must be on the other side, I thought.
I slowly climbed down from the table. As I was about to put one foot on the ground, I lost my balance and fell over backwards onto the floor. The handcuffs cut deeply into my wrists and I felt a searing pain in my left shoulder. I lay on the floor in pain and regretted having had the crazy notion to look out of the window, which had revealed absolutely nothing.
I lay there for what seemed like hours. First, the sky turned blue and the hut filled with light. Then a shaft of sunlight touched the ceiling of the hut and slowly spread downwards as the sun moved higher in the sky. I continued to lie on the floor, the pain still strong but easier. Hunger gnored at my stomach and thirst caused my mouth to dry until it was like sandpaper. And there I lay.
I decided to try to return the table to its original position and get back onto the bed but when I moved the pain in my shoulder returned and made me cry out. I gave up. The oblong of sunlight passed slowly across the floor towards me and as it did so the temperature in the hut rose. The patch of sunlight reached my face and I glanced up, squinting in the glare. I moved to avoid the direct sunlight. It was hot in the hut now. My mouth was as dry as dust and my head throbbed with pain, so much so that I couldn’t decide whether the pain in my shoulder was worse than the pain in my head.
The day wore on and it became hotter. The rectangle of sunlight became thinner as it advanced across the floor until it disappeared altogether. But the hut was still an oven and my pain continued to haunt me. I fell into a fitful sleep, lying there on the floor.
The next time I opened my eyes, it was evening and the sky through the skylight was purple. My body ached and I moved to find some relief, but my shoulder hurt so much I had to give up.
Night came and with it the cold. With no blanket and lying on the concrete floor, I felt the cold even more than the night before. No-one visited the hut to see me. I thought then that I would die there and later someone would come and find my body and they would take it and bury it under the rough sandy ground of the Russian steppe. With that thought I fell into a shallow sleep full of strange visions. Ivan was there, shouting at me and Alexei was standing over me with his arms crossed over his chest. Then he suddenly became Ben and he was telling me that England had lost the Test Match by eight wickets and Hermann had scored a century for Germany. Sonia was there in a bubble telling me I needed to do nothing because it was programmed in advance.
The next thing I remembered was having water poured into my mouth and then being picked up and carried outside. It was night and the air was cold. How many days and nights I had lain there on the floor of the hut I couldn’t say. I no longer felt hungry, just weak and my body ached from head to toe.
‘Don’t worry Bill, we’ll soon have you out of here,’ said a voice, a strangely familiar voice.
‘Careful!’ I cried out in pain. ‘My shoulder, I think it’s dislocated.’
I opened my eyes but saw nothing. Another wretched dream, I thought. When is this nightmare going to end?
‘The nightmare is finished Bill,’ said the familiar voice.
I opened my eyes again but still saw nothing. I closed them and tried to sleep. It was hard to sleep when you are being carried and you have so much pain.
‘Steady,’ I said, ‘the pain in my shoulder…’
‘Sorry about the pain, Bill. It won’t be long now.’
Suddenly it dawned on me that the people around me were not Russian. Then I knew who the voice belonged to, that familiar voice. She had read my thought about the never ending nightmare. But was it a dream? Surely it had to be!
‘Michu?’ I said quietly.
‘Yes Bill. I’m here.’
‘Is it really you, Michu?’
‘None other, Bill’ she said tenderly.
‘And Sonia? Where is Sonia?’
‘I am here Bill. You just sleep: you’ll be fine.’
It was then that I passed out again, safe in the knowledge that I was in good hands.
THE END
EPILOGUE
A TASTE OF WHAT IS TO COME
Bill and Sonia’s challenges are by no means over with their rescue by Michu from the heart of the Russian steppe. Bill’s silent plea to his Martian friend has led to their being snatched from the clutches of the vengeful Ivan Ivanovich and whisked off by bubble to temporary safety on the Red Planet.
But no sooner do they reach the surface of Mars than the two friends find themselves at the centre of a battle for survival of the Martian people after millennia of peace. Zeris, the Chief Elder of Similaria has already warned Bill of the very real threat to their civilisation … and that of the Earth too … from the power-hungry Zoggs and their Martian allies, the Zeronerans, led by the cruel dictator, Zigismo.
And that is not all! If that challenge were not enough, a monster asteroid, dark and dreadful, is identified by the Russians and will almost certainly collide with the Earth several months in the future, spelling doom to all life on the planet Hermann Winke, the brilliant scientist with his incredible invention may be the only way to save our planet from annihilation. But the Russians may be the only ones able to provide the support to achieve that almost impossible goal. Which way will Ivan go….and how are the Martian people going to meet the threat to their existence?
There are plenty of surprises in store for the reader of Operation Stargazer, the second book in The Mars Series and no end of nail-biting suspense as the date on which the Zoggs are due to arrive and the giant asteroid, Attila hurtles ever closer to its fateful meeting with the Earth.
