Zeke’s throat ran dry. What trouble was he in now?
~~~
Zeke hurried through the dark network of caves, the sound of his footsteps echoing into the murkiness. He turned a lonely corner and ran smack into the last person he wanted to see. Jimmy Swallow!
“Hailey!”
The bigger, older boy grabbed Zeke by the lapels of his uniform and rammed him against the wall. Zeke was too stunned to cry out and found himself eyeball to puffy-eyeball with the nutcase.
Jimmy’s right eye still looked sore. Three months had passed since the alien dust devil had exploded. Jimmy had been standing a little too near and caught a face full of sand. The wound was taking a long time to heal. His skin was crusty and his shock of black hair thinning and greasy.
“I’m a mess, Hailey. Look what you’re doing to me.”
Zeke twisted his head away from Swallow’s rank breath. He reeked of Martian basalt.
“I’m not doing anything. Don’t blame me if you’ve got post-traumatic thingummy.”
“So, you’re a doctor now?”
“That’s what Scuff reckons. Or maybe it’s survivor’s guilt, ‘cause of you know who.”
A long moment passed as they remembered Jasper Snod. Lutz had put up ‘have-you-seen-this-boy’ posters all around the school and even at some of the settlements.
“Your Canadian pal is as off target as the real doctor.”
“Huh?”
“Your precious Doctor Chandrasar. You know, the one you drool over.”
“I do not!” Zeke replied hotly.
Swallow relaxed his grip, rolled up his sleeves and rubbed his right forearm. A cloud of skin flakes broke free. Zeke struggled to hold back a grimace.
“Doctor Chandrasar calls this acute psoriasis. She calls my nightmares ‘a psychiatric condition’.”
“Well then, that’s what’s wrong with you.”
Swallow shoved him back onto the wall.
“She doesn’t know about your Martian friends, does she? I’ve tried telling her but she’s labelled me a nutcase. Your damned sand creature contaminated me!”
“He did not. You need the Doctor’s help.”
“Help? You’re the only one who can help me!”
“What?”
“The dreams, Hailey, the dreams!”
“Dreams?”
“You told us on the way back, in the Bronto. You kept dreaming about monsters and cataclysms, of the end of worlds. I’m having those dreams. The terrible, terrible things I see.”
“Maybe what I said is playing on your mind?”
“No!” Swallow shouted. He pressed a scabby fist against Zeke’s cheek, flushing with anger. Then, unexpectedly, his raw features paled.
“Don’t you see Hailey, I’m doomed unless you save me.”
Zeke opened his mouth, realised he didn’t know how to comfort Swallow and closed it again. A tear trickled over the boy’s white, crispy eyelid.
“I’m done for.”
Swallow backed away.
“Done for,” he murmured and disappeared into the shadows.
Chapter 5
The Office of Principal Lutz
Zeke tried very hard not to stare at the school secretary as she sat typing away. Temptation got the better of him. He stole a sly glance at Marjorie Barnside, studying her wrinkles for a hint of plasticity. He listened intently for a squeaky cog or a rusty gear. Nothing. Not a clue to the truth. The school secretary was an android. A secret Lutz kept from the entire world. Zeke had only found out by accident and was sworn never to tell, on threat of expulsion. But why? What dark need compelled Lutz to employ a machine as assistant and sole companion?
“Will you stop with that goggling,” Barnside protested in her rich Belfast accent.
Blushing, Zeke turned his head and gazed out at the red landscape. Lutz’s office topped the highest minaret in the Chasm with a stupendous view of Mariners Valley. Giant fingers of basalt, older than Earth’s earliest fossils, rocketed up to the sky.
“Send the boy in,” twanged Lutz’s voice over the magnophone.
“Away with you, then.”
Zeke stepped into Lutz’ office, a circular chamber under a high dome, littered with dusty filing cabinets and old-fashioned hard drives.
The Martian engraving still hung on the wall. Lutz described it as a harmless relic, but Zeke knew differently, knew that the right trigger could activate a prehistoric alien device. He had already done so, surreptitiously, on two occasions and longed for another go.
“Bonjour!”
Zeke’s mouth dropped as he saw Lutz, reclining in her worn, leather chair. She was smiling with the most radiant smile he had ever seen on her wide, black face. Come to think of it, he’d never seen her smile at all.
“Let me introduce you to one of our late arrivals,” she grinned. Zeke’s jaw fell further. Across the desk from Lutz sat the little kid from breakfast, the fair-haired boy with the glacial eyes. The boy nodded and gave a crafty wink.
“Hailey, this is Fitch Crawley. Fitch this is your new buddy.”
If possible, Zeke’s jaw would have clanged onto the floor.
“Me? But you said—”
Lutz raised a hand to silence him.
“Yesterday was yesterday. As for today we have need of you. Sadly Fitch’s original buddy, Pedro Chavez, has fallen prey to a mystery illness.”
“An illness?”
“Some kind of toxic fever, says Doctor Chandrasar. The poor child’s in the Medical Facility now. Second case too. One of the late arrivals developed the same symptoms during the landing. Had to be taken straight to Tithonium Central. Chavez will have to follow if he doesn’t improve. Still, let’s not dwell on gloomy topics. Why don’t you two take the day off? Get to know each other.”
Lutz beamed brighter than a solar flare. Zeke frowned. This was so out of character.
“Don’t mind if I do, your lusciousness,” said the new boy cheekily.
Zeke waited for Lutz to explode, but instead she giggled like a love-struck schoolgirl. The day was getting weirder by the minute.
“But we’ll miss Precognition 101,” he protested.
“C’est la vie. And you need to get one. A life that is,” Lutz replied chirpily.
Fitch leaned forward and said, “That’s settled. Let’s get some Martian sodas. What’s the cafeteria called?”
“The Cranny,” Zeke replied with a frown.
The new boy stood up and shook Zeke’s hand with a gentle, clammy grip. A brief chill gave way to a sense of relief. What on Mars was there to worry about?
~~~
“Your hair’s so blue!” Fitch remarked, staring at Zeke’s head.
“Oh,” Zeke replied, smiling. “Mum always—”
“Says a cartridge of nanodye fell on your head!” Fitch guffawed as if the joke was a lot funnier than it actually was.
“Just my genes, really. Same as my dad. Makes a pleasant change on the Red Planet, though,” Zeke said. “I didn’t know how many shades of red there were till I came here.”
They were seated beside the long panoramic window of the Cranny Cafeteria. A half-mile above the school, the Cranny overlooked an unearthly vista of crags and desert.
“The colour of blood,” Fitch replied. “Mars was the God of War in olden times.”
Zeke said nothing.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if Mars turned out to be a bringer of war today?” Fitch added, stirring the spoon in his soda.
“What?”
Fitch focused on the ochre landscape. “It’s just funny don’t you think?”
Zeke looked at him blankly.
“That psychics have to come to Mars to train to be mariners.” Fitch continued.
“They’re here because Mars has no magnetic field,” Zeke explained. Magnetism cancels out psychic power. That’s why those one-in-a-million gifted with ESP weren’t discovered until we began exploring space.”
Fitch gave him an impatient stare. “I do know that. Ear
th’s magnetosphere blocked humanity’s psychic ability since the dawn of time. But I grew up on the Moon…”
Both boys became lost in their own thoughts.
Zeke sipped the dregs of his strawberry soda. “Anyway, I’m so excited about being your buddy. I’m going to do everything I can to make your first term a happy one.”
Fitch’s left hand twitched nervously.
“You will that, mate. But I’m not out for study tips. It’s your Martian speaking skills I’m interested in.”
Zeke’s eyes widened.
“How did you know—hey, you’ve been reading my mind!”
Fitch sniggered.
“That’s not allowed!” Zeke protested. “Unsolicited telepathy is…is…”
“Isn’t it? Looking into somebody’s head is so intimate.”
Fitch lowered his gaze.
Zeke felt insulted. A thought began to form in his head, but somehow he couldn’t focus. For some odd reason, his anger slipped away, replaced by a glow of fuzzy happiness. He looked at Fitch, who was now staring at him intensely.
“So what else have you seen in here?” Zeke laughed, tapping his temple.
Fitch smirked.
“Oh, I know the whole story. A madman called Magma, an ancient Martian orb that downloaded their language into your head, a trip to a parallel universe. Zeke, you’ve got the most interesting memory I’ve ever read.”
Zeke leant back, hugely flattered.
“Gosh, thanks. The important thing is I stopped Magma releasing the Spiral.”
Fitch tensed, digging his nails into the back of his left hand.
“Don’t worry Fitch, we fixed him.”
“Yes, you did that alright.”
They exchanged glances. A look of hostility darted across Fitch’s pale features.
Then it was gone.
“Well, as I’ve seen into your brain, let me repay the favour. I need to bring you up to speed.”
“Huh?”
“Let you in on a few of my secrets, how I came to be here.”
With a darting movement Fitch pressed his index finger against Zeke’s forehead. Even as Zeke brought his arm up in a reflex action, Fitch’s psychic power flowed into his consciousness. Fitch’s eyes seemed larger. In fact, they were growing. Bigger and bigger. They filled up the entire cafeteria.
“What the—” Zeke exclaimed.
Two great eyes gazed down on him. Still they expanded, merging into one super eye. Zeke felt himself slipping. Before he could cry out, he toppled, falling in the bottomless pit of that sole giant iris.
Chapter Six
The Peak of Eternal Light
The sun ignited and burned in a black sky. The Earth floated like a bubble above the horizon. Countless silver craters pockmarked the landscape. Zeke was on the Moon, standing on top of the highest crater. Solar panels studded its rim like diamonds.
“Welcome to my favourite view,” said a small space-suited figure beside him. Zeke frowned. He was still wearing the Chasm uniform.
“Is this, um, a hallucination?” Zeke asked.
The figure’s face was hidden behind the opaque visor. But Zeke recognised the malicious chuckle. It was Fitch alright.
“Obviously, otherwise your body fluids would be boiling about now.”
“I’m in your memories?”
“The technical term is ‘gestalt recollection’. Anyway, this is the Shackleton Crater. The lunar South Pole.”
“I read about this, it’s always facing the sun.”
“A peak of eternal light,” Fitch said.
“Like the Land of the Midnight Sun on Earth?”
“But more so, due to the angle of the Moon’s axis and the crater’s height. That’s why we put these solar panels here. The twenty-four hour sunlight is captured by the panels and taken over there.”
Fitch pointed to some irregular peaks in the distance.
“That’s Malapert Mountain, my home is on the other side. The mining complex.”
“The Alpha Mine?”
Fitch’s body tensed. “No, that’s up north. It’s the Beta Mine here. My parents are second-class citizens in every sense.”
Neither boy spoke for a while. Zeke turned round to take in the far side of the moon. The metallic-white mountains broke on the shores of a dark ocean. The sight of absolute night filled Zeke with a strange emotion he couldn’t quite grasp.
“I used to love visiting the far side.” Fitch said in a sad voice. “It gets scary out there, but I like scary. Just me and the wide-open universe.”
Zeke stroked his chin. “The far side of the moon always looks away from Earth.”
“A useful shield from Earth’s tiresome babbling, all those radio waves and stray thoughts,” Fitch said.
A spark of understanding flickered in Zeke’s brain. “The Moon has no magnetic field, the same as Mars!”
“Yes. Psychic children on the Moon discover their powers long before the ESP exams. And mine always felt strongest on the Far Side, as if someone was calling me.” Fitch’s voice trailed off, as though he yearned to say more.
“Come on,” he said, taking Zeke’s hand. He took one long stride, tugging Zeke with him. They launched on a trajectory way above the monochrome world. They were flying. Craters passed below their feet, dark wrinkled islands in a sea of dust. They flew over the pinnacles and criss-crossing basins of Malapert Mountain, landing in a puff of dirt.
“Home sweet home,” Fitch said with a warped cackle.
A large number of domes sprouted from the dust like fungus.
“Moon dust gets everywhere you know, but it’s a free source of insulation.”
A neon sign over the nearest dome proclaimed ‘Hubs Geo. Inc’.
“That name might as well be stamped on my butt.” Fitch sounded bitter.
“You ought to be proud. What’s the saying? Hubs Geological Incorporated is the backbone of the solar system?”
“Yer, right. What advertising hack came up with that? The Hubs family practically own the solar system. They started off as oil barons, you know, in the twentieth century. It was their pollution that put Earth in the mess it is now. In the twenty-second century they conquered the Helium Three market.”
“Without Helium Three to fuel our energy needs, humanity would be crippled.”
Fitch sighed. “So they say. Anyway the Alpha and Beta Mines were built to excavate the Moon’s Helium Three deposits.”
“Is your father an engineer then?” Zeke asked.
“Take a look.” Fitch grabbed Zeke and everything rippled as they walked into another memory.
They were now in a long white corridor. Fitch remained in his spacesuit. A stout sullen man in overalls was mopping the floor. He was muttering softly.
“Why don’t they decontaminate their boots properly before treading moon dust all over my nice clean floors?”
“Don’t worry he can’t see us,” Fitch said.
“Why is he so bulky?”
“What? Oh, you mean his exo-suit. We wear them under our clothes. A frame of weights and pulleys strapped to the muscles.”
Zeke immediately understood. “To keep up normal body strength in the low gravity?”
“Otherwise we’d never leave the Moon. Anyways that’s my dad. What a loser!”
Zeke was about to disagree when Fitch pushed him through a further wall of ripples. They were in a school locker room. Before them was another Fitch in a lunar uniform, unpacking his schoolbag.
“Isn’t it odd seeing yourself?” He asked, but Fitch ignored him.
Two huge apelike boys rushed up and began punching the other Fitch. Their fists rained down upon his chest with heavy thuds. Zeke turned away sharply.
“You think you’ve had it rough at the Chasm. You’re not the only victim you know,” the space-suited Fitch said.
“That’ll teach ya, Creepy-Crawly. No more using them weirdo powers to steal,” boomed one of the bullies.
“Stealing?” Zeke asked.
�
��Don’t listen to him, the liar!” replied the original Fitch.
The second Fitch collapsed crying, while his attackers turned to go.
“Up for a game of moon buffing?” one said to the other. “I’ll dare you five seconds.”
Before Zeke could ask what moon buffing was, the scene transformed once again.
Zeke and Fitch found themselves watching the two heavies entering an airlock. Alarm jangled Zeke’s nerves.
“Shouldn’t they put space suits on before—oh!”
Zeke realised that moon buffing had to be some game of chicken. Who could go longest in the Moon’s vacuum. Just as the airlock door swished shut, a figure ran up and peered through the tiny window.
“Nothing to see here,” the Fitch-in-the-space-suit said hastily.
A succession of images formed and faded quickly. Zeke witnessed Fitch’s mum slaving away in the staff kitchens. He saw Fitch coolly opening his ESP test results. Zeke knew that for Earth’s teenagers a pass came as a big surprise. But Fitch must have known long before he sat the exam that he was psychic. He’d had all that time to practice his gift. Leaning over Fitch’s shoulder, Zeke read the printout. Fitch was an A-plus in psychokinesis and telepathy. Finally, there came an image of Fitch at his computer in his bedroom, downloading an article onto his magnopad. Zeke inched closer. The title was a word he didn’t recognise.
Transubstantiation.
“Discovering that theory was a turning point for me,” said the space suit.
“Trans-sub-what?”
“The power that will save the human race.”
Zeke’s eyes widened. Questions erupted in his head. But before he could voice them, the room shimmered and a tall, pretty girl with a perfect blonde ponytail barged into Fitch’s memory.
“And what exactly are you earthworms up to?” Trixie Cutter demanded.
Chapter Seven
The Cranny Cafeteria
Zeke blinked. They were back in the Cranny. The afternoon sun was now hidden by the gigantic canyons. Shadows rose across the Valley like a dark tide.
“Oh no,” Zeke muttered at the sight of his old enemy.
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