by Zac Harrison
First published in 2013 by Curious Fox,
an imprint of Capstone Global Library Limited,
7 Pilgrim Street, London, EC4V 6LB
Registered company number: 6695582
www.curious-fox.com
Text © Hothouse Fiction Ltd 2013
Series created by Hothouse Fiction
www.hothousefiction.com
The author’s moral rights are hereby asserted.
Cover Illustration by Dani Geremia
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978 1 78202 006 6
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner.
ebook created by Hothouse Fiction Ltd
With special thanks to Martin Howard
Chapter 1
Morning sunlight streamed in through the window. With a groan, John Riley pulled the duvet around his head and rolled over. Killer aliens with hideous, venom-drooling fangs were attacking his spaceship. Any moment now they would come crashing though the door. He pulled a blaster pistol from its holster. Let them come.
Somewhere close by a voice yelled, “Are you ready, John? John!”
The words seemed like part of his dream. John couldn’t help noticing that the aliens were now dressed like his mother.
That’s weird.
“John, I said, are you ready?”
John frowned under the duvet. Oh. I’m dreaming, he thought. Rats. And it was just getting exciting...
John’s eyes flickered open. There was something he should have remembered. Oh, yeah, he thought fuzzily. He had to catch the coach for his first day at boarding school. But there was nothing to worry about; the alarm would wake him. There was more than enough time for a doze. Maybe, he thought, I can get back into the dream.
With a yawn, he closed his eyes and burrowed further beneath the duvet.
The door crashed open.
“You’re still in bed? The coach leaves in fifteen minutes and your dad and I have to get to work,” John’s mother babbled in panic.
“Eh? What? Huh?”
“Get up! Get up! You’re late!”
John sat bolt upright, flinging back the covers and blinking sleep from his eyes. “No I’m not. I can’t be. I set the alarm clock.”
His mum picked up the clock and peered at it. “This alarm clock? The alarm clock without batteries in it?”
A memory rushed back. The games console controller had needed fresh batteries while he was in the middle of a level. He’d taken them out of the clock and instantly forgotten as he rejoined the laser battle.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he yelled, leaping out of bed and pulling his T-shirt over his head.
“Don’t blame me, I’ve been shouting for the last half hour,” his mother said quickly.
Frantically, John tugged on a pair of jeans and a sweater over his T-shirt. Precious minutes were wasted looking for a lost trainer, which he found wedged down the back of the bed. Brushing his teeth in the bathroom, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Blond hair stuck out at bizarre angles. He couldn’t turn up looking this ridiculous. Grimacing, John turned the tap on full blast and stuck his head under it.
“Waaaaa-hahh!” he screamed, as freezing water poured onto his head. “Awake, I’m awake, I’m awake!”
Grabbing his rucksack, thankful he’d packed it the night before and that most of his luggage had been sent on ahead, John finally made it as far as the kitchen. He looked up at the clock: five minutes until he was supposed to meet the coach.
His dad was throwing papers into a briefcase. As he looked up, he said, “Sweet mercy, what is that thing? It looks like the creature from the black lagoon.”
John’s mum put a slice of toast in her son’s hand and attacked his wet hair with a brush while he chewed.
“Or some sort of mutant,” his dad continued. He was clearly enjoying the moment.
“Dad?”
“Hmmm, it’s calling me ‘Dad’, but I don’t believe it. What have you done with my son, vile fiend?”
“You’re not helping, Dad.”
“There,” his mother interrupted. “I wouldn’t want to be seen with you, but at least you won’t frighten small children.”
“Thanks, Mum. I’d better run, then.”
“Not so fast, disgusting thing,” said his dad, rising from his chair. “Give us a hug.”
“Bye, Dad,” John said, hugging his father. He felt his dad slip some money into his pocket. “Thanks, I’ll see you at half term.”
“My turn,” said his mother, catching him in her arms. “I’ll miss you.”
John lifted his face to kiss her and saw tears in her eyes. “Come on, Mum,” he said softly. “I’ll be home in a few weeks.”
“Are you absolutely positive you don’t want us to come with you to the bus-stop?”
John shook his head. “No way, Mum! I don’t want to look like a baby.” Secretly, John was worried that he might cry, too. He glanced at the clock: three minutes left. “I’ll call or email as often as I can,” he promised, wriggling free. “But I have to run or I’ll miss the coach.”
Stopping only to wave to his parents as they climbed into the car to go to work, John tore out of the house and down the street towards the main road, where the coach would be waiting in a lay-by.
It’ll wait. The coach will wait. It surely won’t leave without me.
He remembered the letter the school had sent, telling him where he would be picked up. The words “PLEASE BE ON TIME” had been in capital letters, and underlined.
John picked up speed.
Dashing around the corner, he saw the coach gleaming in the morning sunshine. It was sleek and silver and looked both brand new and ultra-modern. A slim woman with a tall, old-fashioned beehive hairstyle was leaning against the coach doors and looking impatiently at an electronic screen in her hand.
“I’m here! I’m coming!” John yelled as he sprinted down the road, waving, his rucksack bouncing on his back.
At the door he skidded to a halt.
“You’re late,” snapped the woman. “I’ll have to make a note.” She jabbed at the thin screen – a design that John had never seen before – with long fingers. Very long fingers, John couldn’t help noticing. A lot like the rest of her. The woman was well over two metres tall, and as thin as a pencil in her brown tweed suit. And with her hairdo adding almost another half metre, she towered above him.
“S-sorry,” he panted. “Alarm didn’t go off.” Getting his breath back a little, John looked up at her and almost stepped back in shock. The woman’s hair was obviously a wig. A bad wig. He could see the gap where it didn’t quite meet her forehead.
Aware that he was beginning to stare, he looked away again. “I-I’ll get on then, shall I?” he stuttered.
“That would be most excellent,” the woman said crisply. “The departure window closes in twenty-six seconds.”
Scrambling up the steps, John wondered whether she was joking or really so incredibly punctual that she counted every second. The woman seemed so odd, it could have been either.
Inside, he blinked in surprise. John knew Wortham Court School was posh from the brochures he’d been sent when the
y offered him a full scholarship, but the coach made the first-class cabin of a plane look like a farmyard truck. High-tech and luxurious, the seats were wide and black and looked like expensive modern armchairs. Above each of them was an overhead computer screen with information scrolling across. The black carpeting was so soft that even through the soles of his trainers it felt like his feet were being gently massaged. Everything was polished and gleaming.
But something nagged the back of his brain. Apart from the fact that it looked like it had cost a fortune, there was something wrong with the coach. Something John couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Behind him, the woman said, “Sixteen seconds.”
John sank into an empty seat that swallowed him up in soft comfort. He ran a hand over the surface, not recognising the marshmallowy material. Frowning slightly, he watched the woman climb the steps. She moved like she was carrying heavy weights and puffed with effort.
“Please strap yourself in for departure,” the woman said loudly, before she dropped into the seat across the walkway from John’s.
He reached back. The straps, too, were weird, more like a harness than a normal seat belt. One strap fitted over each shoulder and they clipped together over his chest. With a soft vipp sound, they automatically tightened, holding him securely in the seat.
This school must take safety way seriously.
His thoughts were interrupted by a soft chiming sound. Then a voice that John thought must be coming from hidden speakers said, “Standby for departure.”
The coach began to vibrate softly, although there was no noise from the engine.
As John looked out the window, hoping for a last glimpse of his house, it dawned on him what had been bothering him.
“Hey!” he shouted. As the woman turned to face him, he looked at her in total confusion. “There’s no driver. Where’s the driver?”
He caught a brief glimpse of her puzzled face, then the coach began moving.
John’s eyes widened as the front of the coach lifted up smoothly, until it was pointing straight up at the sky. He gasped as his weight settled into the back of his seat. In front, where he had been able to see the road through the windscreen a moment before, clouds now moved slowly across the sky.
“What the—”
The soft chime rang again. “Boosters engaged,” said the disembodied voice.
The words in John’s mouth turned into a choking noise as, with a slight jolt, the coach leaped upward.
Unable to speak, he jerked his head to the side, just in time to see the roof of a house and the topmost leaves of a tall tree rush past the window next to him.
“Acceleration procedure initiated. Escape velocity in three, two, one—”
There was a terrifying burst of speed. John was pushed back into his seat by an invisible force. It felt like his skin was trying to crawl to the back of his head.
Unable to move, his eyes darted towards the windscreen again. The coach plunged into the underside of a cloud.
A heartbeat later, it swept out into clear blue. It was moving faster now, powering higher and higher.
“Waaaaah!” John gasped. Seconds ago he’d been sitting in a coach on a lay-by at the end of his street. Now the “coach” had turned into some sort of aircraft and was rocketing away from the ground at a furious speed. He stared ahead, his mind boggling. He closed his eyes. The view was exactly the same when he opened them again, though the sky ahead was darker now, a deep velvety blue.
Feeling like his brain was being scrambled, John racked his thoughts for a reasonable explanation. Then for an unreasonable explanation. Anything that made any sense at all.
Another chime. The voice spoke again, sounding ridiculously calm. “We have now left Earth’s atmosphere.”
John’s jaw dropped open as the words sank in. There was nothing outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Nothing but... He couldn’t bring himself to even think about what his brain was trying to tell him.
The voice interrupted his gibbering thoughts once more. “Particle drive engaged. Three-quarters light speed and accelerating.”
Nothing but...
Space.
Chapter 2
“Gah!” John shouted in confusion. With effort, he turned his head to look out the window. Falling away below, there was now what looked like a map of Britain, outlined by blue.
He stared wildly at it.
Impossible.
Now Britain was just a small shape on a blue and green ball, ribboned with white and shining against blackness. To one side a smaller silvery ball was slowly moving behind it.
For a second he struggled to understand what he was seeing. But the part of his brain that wasn’t gibbering in horror gave him the answer: Earth, with the moon spinning around it.
I’m in space. Impossible. It’s impossible.
The chiming sound came again, followed by the calm voice. “You may remove your safety harness and move around the shuttle.”
The force that had pinned him to his seat was gone now. Hearing what sounded like a sigh, John turned his head away from the window. Part of him felt like screaming, part of him wanted to laugh, as he watched the woman who had hurried him onto the coach remove her wig. She let it go and it floated beside her.
The woman’s head was bald and almost the same height as her disembodied wig. She took a small tube from the breast pocket of her suit and sprayed the contents across the hairless dome of her head and her face. John gaped, as a layer of make-up dissolved to reveal pale blue skin. She blinked and her eyes changed, becoming black slits, like a snake’s, set in bright violet.
Feeling his gaze on her, she turned towards John and gave him a cool smile. “It’s a relief to get that off my head,” she said. “Stupid thing itches like mad.”
John moved his mouth but no sound came out. The woman pressed a button and her harness fell away. Gently drifting upward, she unfolded her long, thin limbs and began spinning in the air as she took off the tweed jacket, revealing a skin-tight silver suit.
Folding the clothes carefully, the woman grabbed the floating wig before it drifted out of reach and, with a flick of her hand, darted upward. She tucked her disguise into an overhead locker and, with another flick, zoomed down until she was resting in her seat again.
Stretching her legs out with another deep sigh, she continued talking. “Of course the gravity on Earth is much too strong for us Elvians. Not good for the joints, you know?”
Still unable to speak, John leaned over and looked back at the rows of seats behind him.
I must be going mad. That’s it, I’ve gone completely round the twist.
The other passengers were as weird as the woman next to him. No, he corrected himself: weirder.
In the seat immediately behind him was a creature that looked a little like a dolphin with arms and legs. It was wearing a black all-in-one suit, its head covered with a clear helmet filled with bubbling water.
The dolphin’s mouth opened and closed. An electronic-sounding voice from a panel on the front of its suit said, “What are you staring at, newbie? Never seen a P’sidion before?”
“Uh... no. No, I haven’t,” John choked, his own voice sounding small and hoarse.
“Well you’re getting a good eyeful now. Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”
John tore his eyes away from the creature, and instantly found himself staring again.
In the row behind was an insect-like being with six spindly legs and huge eyes made up of hundreds of tiny hexagons. Its mouthparts clicked and buzzed, making a girl with jet-black skin opposite laugh. She looked almost human, apart from bright yellow eyes and the two stubby feelers on her forehead. “I don’t believe you, Kritta,” she giggled at the insect-creature. “You so did not go solar flare surfing on Erraticus Six.”
Further back were more strange-looking beings.
One looked a little like a frog with orange skin. Another was covered in thick fur. Its long, sharp teeth showed when it laughed.
John’s attention was distracted for a moment as a pale yellow ball circled by a shimmering halo passed by the window.
Saturn, his brain told him matter-of-factly.
No. Freaking. Way.
Biting his lip, he watched until the majestic planet slipped out of view, then turned back to look at the other people on the coach.
Not “people”. Aliens. They’re all aliens.
A few rows back, an alien wearing what looked like sunglasses, but with four lenses instead of two, settled back in its seat and flipped open a small device. The beat of weird music filled the shuttle. A hologram of a woman with eight arms began dancing above the tiny machine. A girl whose head bristled with metallic spikes leaned forward for a better look.
“Zero-G war!” shouted an alien with bright green eyes and a floor-length tail of purple hair falling from a knot on the top of his head. The alien unclipped his seat belt and sailed through the air towards the seat opposite. The female creature sitting there, who looked as though she was covered in tiny tattoos, spilt her drink in surprise. Blobs of liquid floated past her and splattered into smaller blobs on the window.
Scowling, she threw the empty cup, hitting the purple-haired alien on the forehead and sending him floating off, giggling, in the opposite direction.
“You are such an idiot, Lishtig!” the tattooed girl shouted.
Purple-haired Lishtig crashed into a grey alien with an almost triangular head and spindly limbs. His huge, black eyes blinked in shock and a small mouth opened in what John thought must be a grin.
“Got you!” he shouted, pushing Lishtig away with an enormous heave that sent him hurtling along the length of the coach.
Unclipping his own harness, the grey alien kicked off from his seat and soared into the air. As he passed the row in front, he reached down with one long, three-fingered hand and grabbed a metallic packet from the claw of the alien sitting there.
“Yes!” he shouted. “Galva-coated Dumpod candies. Who wants one?”
“Hey, those are mine, Bareon. Give them back!”
