“Oh, sharp as an electropencil.”
Zeke averted his eyes from Fitch’s gaze.
“So what’s up?” he added.
“Plenty. Last night I paid a call on Principal Lutz.”
“What?”
“Keep your Martian polar cap on. I broke into her apartment. Found her snoring like a walrus in bed, talk about Sleeping Ugly. Anyway, I raided her brains.”
“You did what?”
“While she was asleep, no defences you see. I found it. Your father’s mission, where he went.”
Zeke jumped on the spot.
“Tell me! Tell me!”
“Yuri Gagarin Freetown.”
Zeke’s excitement curdled like Plutonian porridge. He didn’t understand. What did one of the wildest, most dangerous settlements in Mariners Valley have to do with his father’s space voyage?
“Been there. Got into a spot of bother.”
A cunning smile escaped Fitch’s lips for the briefest of moments.
“With Ptolemy Cusp?”
“Yes, the Freetown leader. What on Mars does he have to do with my dad?”
“He knows the secret of your dad’s whereabouts. It was written all over Lutz’s subconscious.”
Zeke should have been elated but for some reason he felt oddly unmoved. The broad shouldered frame of Mariner Chinook strode into class. He turned immediately to Zeke.
“Ah Hailey, I’ve had another brain-mail for you from Lutz’s office. You’re quite the busy boy aren’t you?”
“What Sir?”
“You’re ordered to make your way to the Medical Facility immediately. Doctor Chandrasar has put out an emergency alert on you.”
“I don’t understand. I’m fine.”
Chinook gave him a withering stare.
“Patently, but somebody else is gravely ill. Now go!”
Chapter Twelve
The Medical Facility
The auto-door swished open and Zeke stepped into the soft lighting of the Facility. The cave walls, carved into alcoves, were cluttered with medicine bottles and instruments. In the corner a spotlight illuminated the doctor’s workstation. A natural archway in the rock led to a small sickbay from where long tortuous moans escaped. Zeke crept up to the arch and peered through. Alonzo Caracol lay shivering beneath sweaty sheets.
“Es peligroso, muy peligroso,” the boy muttered, turned then succumbed to an uneasy sleep. His face was green with fever.
“Ah, there you are!”
Doctor Chandrasar strode through the doorway with catlike grace. She pushed back her jet-black hair and gave a wide smile. Zeke flushed, although he wasn’t sure why.
“You sent for me?”
“Yes, I thought you might be able to help.”
“Help?”
“With a very sick boy.”
“Alonzo? How can I help with him?”
“No, not him. With Jimmy Swallow.”
“Jimmy? He’s just a few planets short of a solar system.”
The doctor sighed.
“He’s very unwell, Zeke. I thought you’d be a little more sensitive.”
“Oh, sensitive? I am, very. It’s just, what exactly is wrong with him?”
“I can’t discuss patients in too much detail. But it’s no secret he suffering from an acute form of psoriasis. Quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s resistant to both UV and nanotherapy. Even more concerning are the psychological symptoms. Which is why I called for you.”
That deep, feline gaze stared directly into Zeke’s soul.
“What really happened when you and your gang went missing up at the Noctis Labyrinthis?”
Zeke gulped. There was no point in telling the truth. It was all too crazy to believe.
“Nothing.”
Doctor Chandrasar sighed again.
“I may not be psychic but I have a minor in psychology. Body language. I know when somebody’s lying, Zeke.”
His cheeks were burning.
“What do you think happened?” he replied.
She crossed the cave and sat down at her desk.
“Something that pushed a previously rock solid teenager into a psychotic illness. All his stories of monsters, murders, Martians and,” she tapped the keyboard and brought up his patient file, “cross-dimensional escapades, can’t be true. But some trauma, some event beyond the norm must have occurred. I suspect he invented these stories to conceal a greater hurt.”
Zeke looked at his feet. The doctor continued.
“Tell me, in your own words.”
Zeke turned his attention to the roof of the cave. You can’t tell her. She’ll only think you’re nuts too. And you might get into trouble over Jasper Snod. Why is Jimmy wimping out anyway? We all went through it, but nobody else is loopy!
At the moment the air in the middle of the room blurred, darkened and took form. Mariner Alistair Knimble appeared.
“Doctor, your fellow medics are highly alarmed—”
He broke off when he saw Zeke.
“It’s okay, Alistair. He might as well know. It might jog his convenient memory loss.”
The translocation teacher wore a sad expression.
“I’ve just translocated Jimmy Swallow to the Tithonium Hospital. We think the skin condition is triggered by his mental breakdown. They want to keep him under observation. Indefinitely.”
Doctor Chandrasar offered Zeke a chair.
“You sit here and think about how you can help Jimmy while we prepare the next patient.”
“Prepare? Alonzo?”
“It’s been two years since we’ve had a medical evacuation,” Chandrasar said.
“Now four all at once. As well as Jimmy, I have three similar but undiagnosed cases.”
“So what’s wrong with El Telepático?”
The doctor and Knimble exchanged glances.
“A quite different mystery illness,” Doctor Chandrasar said. “All the symptoms of a venom attack, right down to the sting mark. But absolutely nothing on the tox scans. I just can’t explain it.”
She walked off to the sickbay. Knimble stroked his goatee.
“The poor boy isn’t responding to treatment. Neither did the other two. One of the new arrivals and Chavez. I’ve taken them to the city already.”
Think! It was Zeke’s inner voice, whispering from the back of his head. Think! There’s a common denominator to these three boys! Zeke tried to focus. A sudden haziness seeped into his brain.
“Ready.”
Chandrasar stood in the arch. She led Knimble to Alonzo’s bedside. Zeke watched as the teacher lifted the sick boy into his arms. Knimble’s eyes sparked and they both vanished.
The doctor collapsed back at her desk, rubbing her forehead.
“All this suffering and I’m powerless to do anything about it.”
Zeke moved his chair to her side.
“Doctor, I’m having a problem myself.”
For a moment she looked right through him, then she sat up and reached for her magnopad.
“What’s troubling you?”
“My psychic powers.”
“Not more self-doubts?”
“I don’t think so, but I can’t get them to work.”
“It could be something playing on your mind. Is there?”
Zeke looked away. There was something. Something Professor Tiberius Magma said, something about his father.
“No, nothing at all,” Zeke replied. Doctor Chandrasar was not convinced.
“All these secrets you’re bottling up. It’s not healthy Zeke, I should know I am a doctor!”
Zeke laughed politely. Regretting he’d ever said anything, he scoured the doctor’s desk for a change of subject. A framed holograph stood beside the computer screen.
“Who’s that?” he asked, examining the picture of a handsome young Indian man in university robes.
Doctor Chandrasar seemed to age twenty years in a second.
“The reason I came to Mars and the reason I’ll never leav
e.”
She pulled the frame from his grip, rather sharply, and set it back in its place.
“Was he in that dream you had? The one you said came true?”
Doctor Chandrasar was a normal, not a mariner like the other adults at the school. However, even she had once had a psychic experience. She had mentioned it to Zeke the time he was recovering from hypothermia. But only in passing, with no details.
She frowned.
“I’m very busy Zeke. I’d like you to go now.”
Silently cursing his clumsiness, Zeke left her alone with her bottles and instruments.
Chapter Thirteen
Ophir Chasma
Zeke squeezed the brake levers, bringing his mountain bike to a dusty stop. He leaned back on his right leg, surveying the view. Lofty canyon walls tumbled into the jagged horizon. A sea of rubble lay to the west. Another giant curtain of rock loomed overhead, throwing its shadow out across the valley basin. Blood-red boulders emerged from its gloom like monsters.
“Albie, how far away is that canyon wall?”
The bike’s artificial personality whirred and clicked.
“Ten miles Master Zeke.”
“Wow, it’s so big it looks near enough to touch.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” said a deep voice.
Zeke whirled around. The square-shouldered form of the psychokinesis teacher, Mariner Chinook, stood behind him.
“Oh, you—”
“Startled you? Apologies. What brings you so far from the Chasm?”
“Oh, just exercise.”
The mariner’s silent gaze pierced Zeke’s heart like a laser.
“Um, well, I-I wanted to blow away a few of the Martian cobwebs.”
“In other words you needed to think.”
“Sort of.”
“Something’s troubling you, young Hailey?”
“Oh, this and that.”
The last words of Hesperian in the Engraving echoed in Zeke’s head. Why had it called out ‘traitor’? He pushed the memory aside. The Inuit tapped his knuckles pensively against his chin.
“We ‘Eskimos’ have a good way of clearing the head.”
“Meditation?”
“Ha! Not at all. Hunting.”
Zeke’s jaw dropped.
“Hunting? You mean like, for interesting rock samples?”
“Hardly, hunting for prey.”
An image zipped through Zeke’s imagination, of Bobby Chinook wrestling enormous, savage bears deep in the pine forests of the Pacific Northwest.
“Sir, there isn’t any wild life on Mars.”
A gleam ignited in the mariner’s eyes.
“I’m searching for the great mar-rat, a most elusive of critters.”
Zeke’s laughter died on his lips. The man was deadly serious.
“Scuff told me that’s an urban myth, like the Yeti or the Moon Monster.”
Chinook broke into a wide grin.
“And Mr Barnum knows everything, does he? So don’t take my word for it. Does that talking pedal bike have the Encyclopaedia Marius?”
Zeke nodded. “Albie, show me what you know on the great mar-rat.”
The bicycle hummed for a nanosecond, before projecting a holoscreen over the handlebars. Zeke scrutinised the text.
Rattus Marius
As the climate of Mars stabilised in the late twenty-second century immigration from Earth increased. Along for the ride came the same vermin Man had unwittingly exported so many times before, the cockroach, and most notably, the common rat (Rattus Norvegicus). These rats escaped into the wilderness, where low gravity and the solar radiation allowed a swift mutation into Rattus Marius, a feral scavenger many times the size of its terrestrial ancestor. The lack of food on modern day Mars prevents the animal from breeding as prolifically as earthbound rats. However it may pose serious dangers as Mars terra-forming develops. Recent research…
Zeke wolf-whistled.
“Will you join me?” asked the mariner.
Mutated, oversized rats? Zeke didn’t like the sound of that, but he only had two options, agree or wimp out.
“Okay Sir.”
Chinook slapped him unexpectedly on the back, a strong hearty slap that nearly knocked him to the ground.
“Don’t worry boy, I have these.”
Chinook slipped two long, narrow packs off his shoulder.
“What’s in them? Pool cues?”
Chinook raised a solitary eyebrow.
“Sure, we’re going to challenge the rat to a game and play him to death.”
He opened the first pack and withdrew a large, steel bow. The other turned out to be a quiver and arrows.
“Stealth is imperative. How’s your telepathy?”
Zeke lowered his head.
“Um, not one of my strong points.”
“I see, but may I have your consent to read your thoughts? One way communication is better than none.”
“Absolutely,” Zeke replied, crossing his fingers behind his back. He didn’t want the mariner looking too deeply into his head.
“But what makes you think there’s a rat here?” he asked.
Chinook smiled as though he were talking to a baby.
“A mar-rat’s been foraging the Chasm trashcans every night. Lutz kept it quiet so as not to alarm the students. I’ve tracked him here.”
Chinook pointed to a slithering trail running into a small gully.
Zeke gaped.
“That looks more like a humongous snake. Shouldn’t there be paw prints?”
“It’s dragging a bag of scraps. Mighty strong critter this one.”
An idea fired up Zeke’s enthusiasm.
“We can use Albie’s radar to track it!”
Chinook shook his head.
“An unfair advantage is akin to cheating, young Hailey. Dishonourable.”
Oh great, now we’ve got to obey some traditional code of honour! Zeke thought.
Chinook guffawed. “So is disrespecting another’s culture.”
Zeke cringed. His teacher was reading his mind already.
Chinook crouched low. “Here’s a paw print for you.”
An imprint of five long claws as big as Zeke’ hand sent shudders somersaulting down his spine. Bobby Chinook disrobed, placing his cloak on the ground. Zeke propped his bike on its stand. He gazed into the Inuit’s weather-beaten face, tanned not from the Alaskan sun but by years of Jupiter’s nuclear heat. That face burned now with passion, a passion for the hunt.
“Keep quiet and watch my every gesture.”
“Yes Sir!” Zeke said, wishing he were sipping Craterade back in the Cranny Cafeteria.
“Come!” Chinook said and walked stealthily towards the gully.
Zeke drew a deep breath and followed.
Chapter Fourteen
A Blind Gully
Daylight was fading as Zeke trailed his teacher to the gully’s mouth. Can’t we come back in the morning? Zeke thought.
Bobby Chinook chuckled but shook his head. They crept inside, deeper into the warren of fragmented rock. Trails and tunnels broke away in every direction. The air was musky. A soft green fur draped the walls, softening stony edges and muffling their footfalls. Zeke prized a clod away from its roots.
Oxygen Moss!
The teacher nodded.
The spores must have blown up from the air farms. It’s getting thicker. The gully must be shielding it from the sun’s radiation, Zeke thought.
Chinook nodded again but looked cross. Obviously the mariner wanted him to concentrate on the hunt. Zeke adopted a suitably fierce expression.
Slowly they explored further, like bees lost in a giant honeycomb. The Inuit tapped Zeke’s shoulder and pointed. A huge dollop of steaming-fresh droppings lay nearby.
Zeke pulled a face as the stink attacked his nostrils.
Yeuk!
Chinook raised his eyebrows, seemingly more disgusted by Zeke’s reaction than the bad smell. They continued.
Suddenly the huge ma
n froze. He placed a forefinger to his lips in a shushing gesture. Then he looked at Zeke and cupped a hand behind his ear.
Zeke closed his eyes and listened. There it was, the faint sound of slobbering and crunching. Cold fear gushed over him.
The teacher quietly withdrew an arrow and nocked his bow. A few more steps. The narrow, airless ravine curved round a corner and into a small opening. At the far side a figure hunched over the entrance to a cave, furiously chewing on a cow bone. The contents of several bin liners were scattered at its clawed feet. A reek of urine clouded the air. For a brief second, Zeke believed they were looking at some unfortunate, malnourished human. Only for a second.
Zeke gasped sharply. This dark silhouette was the mar-rat itself.
Simultaneously Bobby Chinook pulled back his arrow. The rodent’s ears twitched. Its sinewy neck twisted around and the furry body tensed. The bone dropped from its long paws.
The creature fixed Zeke in its feral, vicious, red-eyed glare, the whiskers on its snout quivering. The mariner released his grip. The arrow flew. The mar-rat’s primitive face flared with hatred. It leapt to the right. The arrow missed by millimetres, bouncing uselessly off the rock.
The giant rodent scrambled, not on four legs but two, across to a jagged fissure.
There it paused, allowing Chinook enough time to load another arrow. This hesitation struck Zeke as odd. But then the mar-rat vanished, a dark, grey shadow among many shadows.
Chinook dived after the prey and was gone, leaving Zeke alone. He shook off his frightened stupor and hurried over the thick turf. An unexpected noise brought him to a standstill.
Something was mewling!
He peered into the gloomy cave. The dying light caught, in its final moments, a constellation of blinking, watery stars. Zeke steadied his trembling limbs and inched nearer. What is that?
Zeke’s mouth fell. Babies! A litter of four, five, no six babies, their eyes glittering in the dusk. Six infants nestling around the mother mar-rat. Her gaze feebly returned Zeke’s astonished stare. She was defenceless, weakened from the recent birthing and a meagre diet of scraps.
Oh no!
No wonder the male had allowed Chinook to chase him. He was leading the hunter away from his brood. And now Chinook was about to kill the father. How would his family survive then? Mars turned on it head. He and Chinook were not brave hunters but cruel murderers. His teacher had to be stopped!
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