“Roger that, Skuldark-Ant Station-Moonberry, but we have no record of your flight path, and can’t find you on 4-D database, confirm assistance level, over.”
“Well . . . our spaceship is held together by robot hands and smashed fruit—so assistance level pretty high, over.”
The radio went silent.
“We’re not sure we understand your position, Ant Station, over?” said the perplexed voice. “You said fruits, over?”
“No, fruit, singular, moonbe—”
Then Gertie interrupted. “Listen—we’ve got fifteen minutes before our spaceship breaks apart and we all die and it’s over, over.”
“Roger that, we’re going to pull you in now, release any hold lock, over.”
“Pull us in? Over?”
“Confirmed. Station dock 483 opening now, over.”
“Er, where are you exactly, over?” Kolt asked.
There was a silence again, which meant Kolt had asked something that would have been obvious to real astronauts.
“Have you looked out your rear window, over?”
The three Keepers released their harnesses and floated to the back of the ship. Through a grubby round window, they gasped at the sight of the enormous Oppenheimer-Bruno Biosphere Station I-8-PP, which looked like eighteen sports stadiums, each with a glass dome. At the top of each rounded dome were enormous silver panels Kolt said were solar sails—or photon nets, bright and blazing hot as they harvested light particles from the sun.
“We’re saved!” cried Kolt.
“For now . . .” Gertie sighed. “Should we tell them there’s a giant bomb on board?”
Kolt thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t . . . maybe let’s drop it into the conversation later over lunch or something.”
“But we only have fifty-one minutes left!” Birdy reminded them, rather desperately.
“Hmmm, that’s not long at all, is it; let’s hope it’s buffet style, as a whole sit-down thing might . . .”
“Kolt!” Gertie said. “Focus!”
“Yes, of course.” He blushed. “No munching until we’ve gotten rid of the Muncher.”
They all stared at the mammoth space station as their tin-can spacecraft moved slowly toward the dock, pulled in by a beam of blue light.
“What are all those weird glass domes?” asked Gertie.
“It’s a biosphere station,” said Kolt. “A re-creation of certain ecosystems on Earth that allow people to live with the air and light they need. This is probably a prototype, a test model, because the first commercial one was a thousand times larger—so this would be considered a baby.”
Kolt said the four biggest glass domes were probably rain forest, wetland, grassland, and ocean reef.
“They’ll have all kinds of life in them,” Kolt went on. “A mixture of plants and insects to create the right balance of gasses for breathing, and the recycling of waste of course, and the production of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, to form a covalent bond known as water, H2O.”
“There are names for the particles that make up gasses!” said Birdy. “I remember now!”
“If you think that’s impressive, wait until you see my collection of periodic tables,” bragged Kolt.
Gertie rolled her eyes. “How about we put nerd-fest on hold for the next . . .” She floated back to look at the bomb’s digital clock. “. . . forty-seven minutes.”
“Yes, yes, good thinking,” Kolt said.
“Any idea who these space people are? Losers maybe?” asked Gertie.
“Probably not Losers,” Kolt said, “but be on your guard.”
“Could the ant be from one of the glass domes—maybe the rain forest?” added Birdy.
“Exactly,” said Kolt, “it has to be. Once we dock, keep your eyes open for any sign of Doll Head. Hopefully we’ll find this Doctor Brady.”
“Mush room,” said Robot Rabbit Boy, who all this time had been staring at the robot ant.
“Maybe we should split up?” Gertie suggested as they entered the bright blue docking mouth. “Birdy and I will return the ant, while you and Robot Rabbit Boy get information about the nearest black hole.”
“Good idea,” Kolt said. “The captain will probably want to see us, as we’re not registered as visitors.”
“What about the robot hands?” Gertie said. “Will they start causing trouble once we’re docked?”
“Not likely,” Birdy said seriously. “They’ll never regain normal function.”
Gertie pretended to look upset. “You mean you killed them?”
Birdy’s cheeks flushed red. “Well, er, I, er . . .”
Gertie grinned. “I’m only joking!”
They landed with a clunk on the docking platform, and several of the hands dropped to the deck of the space station. The panels they had been holding fell outward, leaving three gaping holes in the spaceship.
The biosphere technicians who’d been sent down to the docking platform just stared.
“Hello,” Gertie said. “We like your domes.”
“Eggcup fly, eggcup dollop.”
Then Gertie heard a splat and looked down. The crushed moonberries had melted, and were dropping in blobs from the cracks of their spaceship.
One of the technicians, a tall man in glasses, was wearing a white lab coat and holding an electronic pad. He wrote things on it with his finger. Long dreadlocks of hair cascaded down his back.
“Doctor Echlin,” he said, stepping over a purple puddle to extend his hand. “Call me Ishmael.”
“Have we met before?” laughed Kolt nervously, stepping from the wreckage of their collapsing space rocket. “That name sounds quite familiar.”
While the appearance of Robot Rabbit Boy didn’t surprise the space station crew, Dr. Echlin and his fellow scientists stared in disbelief at what to them was a spaceship older than the oldest ones in any of the museums on Earth (or the famous museum on the Earth-extension-moon Alpha, also known as MeeMA for short).
“If it’s okay with you,” Kolt said, “we’ll leave our ship here to, um, cool down, and come back for our very important cargo a bit later.”
“What type of cargo?” Dr. Echlin asked.
“Um, well . . .” said Kolt, covering his mouth, “that would be a COUGH COUGH COUGH, excuse me, I have a dry throat . . . too much talking in space I suspect . . .”
The technicians looked at each other.
Gertie nudged Birdy, who was leaning against one of the ship’s crooked panels. “Look inside,” she whispered to him, “and see how long it says we have on the bomb clock.”
“I just looked a minute ago,” Birdy said. “Forty-two minutes. And by the way, why would they put a clock on it? Seems like a waste of time to me.”
“Good one,” Gertie said. “Waste of time.”
Dr. Echlin cleared his throat so that all the Keepers were paying attention. “The captain wants to see you immediately.”
Then Gertie had an idea. “Oh!” she cried. “Look!” Everyone looked. On the floor, still sitting in the palm of his host hand, was the ant.
“An insect!” she said. “Could it have come from a forest under one of the glass domes?”
“Oh my!” cried Dr. Echlin. “This is a clear breach of protocol. I don’t know how, but it must have escaped its biosphere.” He turned to one of the technicians standing with him. “Doctor Brady, get this precious creature back into its dome world, check its vitals, and send the forest techs to my office immediately.”
“Wow, Doctor Brady, can I go with you?” Birdy blurted out, still trying to follow Gertie’s plan.
“Um, why?” Dr. Echlin questioned.
“Because he’s a doctor,” Kolt interjected. “I know he might look young, but this child is the famous Doctor Seuss.”
Dr. Echlin scratched his chin. “That name does so
und familiar to me. Has he written any books?”
“Many,” said Kolt. Birdy nodded and tried to look doctorish.
“Well, if Doctor Brady doesn’t mind,” Dr. Echlin said.
Dr. Brady seemed friendly. “I’d actually appreciate the company!”
“Fine, but the captain wants to see the rest of you pronto,” Dr. Echlin went on.
Gertie nodded to Birdy that it was okay for him to go alone. She figured he could oversee the return of the ant by himself, and keep a lookout for Losers.
Dr. Echlin led the three other Keepers away from the wreckage of their ship to a floating white couch.
“Please get on the courtesy cushion,” Dr. Echlin instructed.
Gertie whispered into Kolt’s ear, “We should ask the captain where the nearest black hole is!”
Kolt nodded. “Let’s meet the captain first.”
“Wow!” Gertie said, as the levitating furniture began to massage her back. “This is the most comfortable couch ever. . . .”
“Yeah . . .” Kolt said, rubbing at one of the cushions, “but I don’t like the fabric at all. Imagine trying to get stains out of this!”
34
Space Muffins
THE COUCH WHISKED THEM silently through bright glass hallways and mirrored doors. When they arrived at the entrance to the captain’s navigation suite, the floating piece of furniture slowed down. Soft music played through the cushions as the three Keepers were sprayed with a citrus “welcome mist.”
The captain’s lounge was a glass bubble, a giant blister that looked out at the dazzling pinpricks of distant suns. At the center of the room was a table of food and several more comfortable white couches, all floating. The only control panel in the room was attached to the wall near the doors. It glowed neon pink.
“Look at all that food!” Kolt said. “If you’d told me yesterday I’d be lunching in space with a giant bomb about to go off in half an hour I’d have thought you were mad, absolutely mad.”
“We should focus,” Gertie said, “so that doesn’t happen.”
The captain was a powerfully built woman with shoulder-length hair and a serious face.
She seemed more curious than happy to see them, and waved off the citrus “welcome mist” that sprayed as she entered the lounge herself. She sat opposite them on a separate floating couch and stared for a long time before finally forcing a smile.
“Why don’t you just talk . . .” she said with a vaguely German accent, “because I would not know where to begin.”
“Well, we’re from Earth,” Kolt said.
The captain gasped.
“Originally!” Kolt said. “I mean, sort of . . . as humans once were, cave men, I mean cave people, Captain.”
The captain then turned to Gertie. “How exactly did you make it to mid-space in the thing you were flying?”
Gertie thought it might not be a good idea to explain the time travel, frozen moonberries, Losers’ robot hands, or the bomb they had brought with them. So she just smiled and made up a white lie.
“We’re part of a space club . . .” she said.
“That’s right.” Kolt nodded. “Stellar enthusiasts.”
“We found the old rocket, and decided to try and fix it up and go into space.”
“I can’t believe it actually got you this far. There are no cells for liquid nitrogen or liquid oxygen. What fuel did you burn?”
“Hmmm, yes,” Kolt said. “The fuel situation was serious, a bit scary actually, ha ha.”
“Doctor Echlin told me over ear-com that you have cargo?”
“Mashed potato mush room,” said Robot Rabbit Boy.
“Vegetables?” said the captain.
“That’s right,” said Gertie, “for space-club members to eat on the journey into space.”
The captain leaned forward with a menacing grin. “You do know you were on an insane suicide mission?”
Kolt looked past her at the muffins on the food table. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”
“A dollop of butter.”
“What would you have done if we weren’t here?” said the captain with genuine curiosity.
“Perished!” Kolt said, still looking at the muffin table. “Victims of our own cosmic hunger.”
Then the captain’s watch beeped. “Hold on, please . . .” she said, raising her wrist to whisper something.
Although she thought she was speaking a language her visitors wouldn’t understand, the power of Skuldarkian allowed the three Keepers to comprehend perfectly the captain’s next words.
“Doctor Echlin, these people are total lunatics—though probably harmless. The rabbit droid seems to be quite interesting, and reminds me of an antique Series 9 Forever Friend I had as a girl. Anyway, let’s feed them and transport them back to Earth-Mater or Alpha Moon, where they can be examined by psychologists. Why don’t you have Doctor Brady and Doctor Beaverbrook film-log their ship for suspicious items and beam the file to Space Guard Council? Just in case there’s some fallout with protocol, we’ll be spared a kick in the butt by the stiffs from FFC.”
The captain laughed at whatever her colleague’s response was, then lowered her sleeve. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Routine matters, I’m sure you understand.”
It was suddenly obvious to Kolt and Gertie they needed to speak privately, to decide what to do before the bomb was found. As a ploy to exchange a few words without being heard, Kolt asked the captain if he might visit the food table.
“By all means,” she said. “It’s all healthy, grown right here, and prepared by the famous chefs of I-8-PP.”
Gertie followed Kolt to the buffet and stared at the various things to eat.
Predictably, Kolt went for the enormous muffin. There was even a pot of blueberry jam for Robot Rabbit Boy.
“No matter how much danger we find ourselves in,” Kolt said in a hushed tone, “isn’t it funny how there’s always a meal? Remember China? And Venice? And . . .”
“Kolt, what are we going to do about the bomb!?”
Kolt cut his muffin in two pieces. “Oh yes, that.”
“Maybe we should tell her?” said Gertie.
“She’d freak out.”
“I know, but it’s better than getting blown up,” Gertie told him.
“I suppose so, and it’s not like she would kill us or anything. They don’t seem to be crazed Losers, just a bunch of scientists.”
“Then where are the Losers?”
Kolt shrugged. “They might have left ages ago, who knows.”
Gertie wondered how Birdy was getting on, returning the ant to the place where the robot hand had most likely been made.
“So it’s settled,” Gertie said. “We tell her before they find it in the rocket ship?”
Kolt nodded, his mouth already stuffed with space muffin.
35
Gareth Milk Is Found
THREE MILES ACROSS THE station, the forest biosphere where the robot ant belonged was in serious danger of breaching further safety regulations. It had been mismanaged for the past year by a crew of biologists who had slowly grown to despise science. The endless data and testing had ruined their minds and left them with great bitterness.
So one day, when they received 3-D spam in their email accounts from a group known as the Losers, they found themselves very interested in the tagline.
MURDER KILLS, WEAPONS DESTROY, SCIENCE IS BORING, AM I RIGHT?
After becoming members of this Earth club called THE LOSERS, the scientists were soon under their command, and placing orders for robot hand parts from factory moon 76. Once they were built, codes sent from Vispoth were uploaded to their mainframes. Each hand was programmed to complete a particular task. Then it was ejected into space through the Nanobot Osmosis Glass (N.O.G.) of the great dome. Once in space, Vispoth created
a time funnel direct to Skuldark, based on space-time coordinates the Losers had used when stealing the B.D.B.U. several months before. There, on the Island of Lost Things, the terrible hands did their work.
Like the bad scientists they were, the crew of space Losers didn’t ask why they were building robot hands and then ejecting them, they just followed orders.
To check on operations and send regular reports, Thrax had dispatched one of their gang—a Loser by the name of Gareth Milk.
When Birdy and Dr. Brady arrived by magnetic monorail, the two Loser scientists were lying around munching on chips, with no idea they were about to meet one of their most hated enemies—a Keeper known as Birdy.
“What do you want, Brady?” sneered a Loser scientist with a bushy beard when he saw his colleague.
“He’s come to see his insect family,” a woman in a green lab coat laughed. “Looks like he’s brought a specimen for us to try and step on.”
They all looked at Birdy. “A new type of pest!” the bearded Loser chuckled.
Dr. Brady smiled awkwardly.
The third forest-dome scientist, whose credentials had been forged by Vispoth, was sitting at his desk in a virtual reality helmet. He was playing a game and waving his arms in the air—shooting birds that no one else could see or hear. He didn’t even see Dr. Brady and Birdy pass their messy workstations and disappear through some plastic flaps into the forest dome.
“One day,” Dr. Brady said, “we’ll be able to create hundred-thousand-acre forests here in space that can just grow and grow for thousands of years. That is, if we can learn how to keep the robotic ants from escaping.”
Birdy wondered if he had ever seen anything like it before. If he had ever been familiar with space, or if this was something that had happened beyond his own time.
“But won’t the glass break?” Birdy wanted to know. “When the trees get taller?”
“No, because it’s N.O.G., Nanobot Osmosis Glass, which is glass not made from sand but constructed from nanobots— tiny computers that can change their forms.”
“Oh,” said Birdy, “so the glass is actually millions of tiny robots squeezed together that have the ability to look clear?”
Gertie Milk and the Great Keeper Rescue Page 21
