The air between them was electric, and Amelia couldn’t believe anything so quiet and motionless could feel so explosive.
The two extraordinary faces studied each other, and Amelia saw they had the same hairline, the same foreheads, and though Mallan was slightly taller than Lady Naomi and dressed like a prince, while she was in her usual cargo pants, they wore exactly the same expressions. And at almost exactly the same moment, tears spilled down exactly the same angular cheekbones.
Lady Naomi slowly reached out her hand, and whispered, ‘Are you really here?’
Mallan reached out and set his palm against hers, perfectly symmetrical, and whispered back, ‘You must have so many questions. We’ve got plenty for you too. That’s why I’m here. We’ve been looking for you for a long time, Oriana. I’ve come to bring you home.’
‘Oriana,’ Tom muttered. ‘All along … Oriana …’
He was sitting at the table in the common room, staring into a mug of black tea. Mum and Mary swapped worried looks, and Dad dumped another heaped spoon of sugar into Tom’s mug.
Mum had given Mallan one of the guest rooms to stay in, and he and Lady Naomi were up there right now. His holo-projector was filled with dozens of other clips of Lady Naomi’s long-lost family, and obviously Lady Naomi was desperate to see them all.
More than that, Amelia could tell that Lady Naomi – or were they supposed to call her Oriana now? – was self-conscious about crying in front of them before. She was an extremely private person, and so no way did she want to discover her whole family background with everyone watching.
Still, it felt weird to be down here together – all the humans, Amelia supposed – with Lady Naomi upstairs with some alien brother who’d appeared out of nowhere. Weird that this stranger could have already put such a huge distance between them and Lady Naomi. Mum always said, ‘Blood’s thicker than water,’ and Amelia had never liked the idea. Sure, family was important, but how quickly would Lady Naomi forget all her friends?
James was still scowling over the charts, trying to figure out where Mallan’s wormhole had come from. ‘None of these figures add up,’ he said for about the hundredth time. ‘Tom, you must know something about the wormhole Lady Naomi arrived through.’
Tom shook his head, refusing to look up, and seemed unable to speak.
‘Tom?’ said Dad gently. ‘What can you tell us?’
Tom heaved a deep sigh and then said, ‘Almost nothing.’
Charlie, who had been heroically quiet up until now, blurted out, ‘Weren’t you there?’
‘I was.’
They all waited. Amelia was torn between desperately wanting to know everything, and not wanting to see Tom get any more upset.
At last he said, ‘I’m not going to go into all the details. I explained it all once, back then, and I expect Control would show you the report I made, if you must see it. I don’t ever want to talk about it again, but …’ His mouth twisted. ‘It’s enough to say that this happened at the height of the Guild war – the end of it, as it turned out, though we didn’t know it then.’
‘The Guild again!’ spluttered Charlie. ‘Who are those guys? I always just imagine Control, but with black capes and helmets.’
‘The Guild are nothing like Control.’ Tom’s face was curiously blank, as though his attention were turned so far inside, the words were coming almost without his knowledge. ‘Gateway Control was cobbled together from what was left of the resistance when the war ended, to make sure the Guild never came back.’
Amelia and Charlie glanced at each other. They’d always thought of Control as this vast, all-powerful authority, but really it hadn’t even been around as long as the Forgotten Bay Surf Club.
‘But the Guild,’ Tom went on, ‘are ancient – older than half the civilisations they’ve conquered and destroyed. Before the gateway evolved, they were just ordinary merchants: generations of families living on cargo cruisers the size of planetoids, drifting from star system to star system over centuries to trade their goods.
‘And then they discovered the gateways, and realised that journeys that took several lifetimes by ship could be made in mere moments by wormhole. And trade that had only ever been in metals, stone and other ageless materials could be replaced by far more lucrative things. At first, they made fortunes in fabrics, perfumes and spices, then almost overnight, they moved on to weapons, drugs and slaves.’
Tom closed his eye, his voice toneless. ‘Thousands of years of secretive and fiercely loyal family networking was converted more or less instantly into a criminal organisation that held whole galaxies to ransom.’
Amelia gulped. She was finally beginning to understand just how big the war must have been, and how much had been at stake. Control’s strict rules about who could use the gateways, and how, suddenly didn’t seem ridiculous at all.
Tom opened his eye and stared blankly at Charlie. ‘Eventually, gateway by gateway, the resistance managed to build. And once that happened, war over the gateway system was inevitable.’
He shook himself. ‘Anyway, there are history files on all of this. It’s enough to say that twenty years ago, it was chaos around the gateway. The wormholes were more unpredictable and violent than at any time in their history, until … well, now. And Guild and Resistance fighters were streaming through, coming and going with every connection, constantly fleeing one battlefield and charging into the next. Some wormholes arrived with nothing but the dead and injured to deliver – they were fighting even as they travelled. Some were sucked into the Nowhere, so desperate to escape whatever was chasing them they didn’t wait for the wormholes to align.’
‘And this was all happening in your cottage?’ said Charlie.
‘Some of it. More went on down in the caves below us. Some of it spilled up into the hotel. In fact, the Resistance set up a camp hospital in the library. But anyway … Sometime in the middle of the night, when things had been unexpectedly quiet for a couple of hours, I went back to my cottage, hoping to save some of the tech and charts I’d been forced to abandon earlier. And I heard crying from the bottom of the gateway stairs.’
‘Lady Naomi?’ said Amelia.
Tom almost smiled. ‘That’s what we called her. Naomi – my little lady. She was just a baby – too young to speak or even crawl, just lying on her back, naked and alone. It still gives me nightmares to imagine what would have happened to her if I hadn’t found her.’
‘She arrived just as you did?’ asked James. ‘About what time was that? And do you remember the day? I’m sure if I tried hard enough I could figure …’
Tom held up a hand. ‘It’s no good. We tried, but no-one can be really sure how long Lady Naomi had been lying there before I heard her. She had the beginnings of hypothermia, so it could have been nearly half a day. And, as I said before, the wormholes had been wild – blowbacks, misconnections, and entirely unscheduled arrivals all over the place.’
‘You mean, Lady Naomi has been here almost her whole life?’ said Dad.
‘Oh, Tom,’ said Mum. ‘You raised her yourself?’
‘Not exactly. Not at first, anyway. It was Caroline who became Lady Naomi’s mother – the old housekeeper,’ he explained. ‘I was more like a … er, an uncle or something.’
Amelia suspected he had been a bit more involved than that, but nobody wanted to push him any further right now. Then she wondered all over again about Lady Naomi herself. Imagine knowing you were an alien, that Earth wasn’t really your home – and yet never having the first clue about where you’d come from.
It was tough enough for Charlie not knowing where his dad was, and he at least had a mum and a country and the rest of the human race.
The first time Krskn had seen Lady Naomi, even he – the big-shot alien mercenary who thought he knew everything – had been baffled by her. Amelia could still hear the icy curiosity in his voice as he properly took her in for the first time.
‘And you … What might you be, my dear?’
It had sound
ed creepy at the time, but now Amelia realised it must have also been a painful question for Lady Naomi. And what about Caroline? What had happened to her? Why had she been Lady Naomi’s mother only ‘at first’? Had Lady Naomi lost her family twice?
But Charlie’s mind had followed a different train of thought. ‘So that’s what her research is about!’ he said suddenly. ‘Right? She’s been looking for her home.’
Tom nodded.
‘But if she wanted to go looking for her family … why stay here on Earth? Why not actually go looking? Head out through the gateway, and –?’
‘Why not –?’ Tom choked, growing suddenly angry. ‘Why not just run blindfolded out onto the highway? Why not just go skydiving without a chute? What do I keep telling you people? The gateway is dangerous! Have you never wondered where Lady Naomi got that scar on her arm?’
Amelia gulped. All along, Tom had been yelling at them about the dangers of the gateway, and even though she’d listened, and basically knew he was right, she’d always thought he was exaggerating a bit, the way adults usually do.
For her and Charlie, the gateway was a magic trick that kept bringing them adventure. For Dad and James, it was pure science and an endless set of mathematical puzzles. But for Tom, it was a battlefield that ate up soldiers and spat out the dying, and once, by accident, a baby girl he loved. And then the thing that sliced up her arm so badly she had a silvery snake of scar tissue from wrist to shoulder to this day.
No wonder he was touchy about it. And no wonder he was protective of Lady Naomi. What would it mean for Tom if Lady Naomi accepted Mallan’s offer to take her home?
The next day at school took forever to finish. Charlie always squirmed in class, but even Amelia found it impossible to concentrate on what Ms Slaviero was saying when every second away from the hotel was another second of lost time with Lady Naomi. Surely she and Charlie could catch up on their schoolwork after Lady Naomi had left the face of the Earth. It was OK for James – whatever was going on with him, their parents had agreed to let him take the whole day off school.
It’s so unfair, thought Amelia. What if Lady Naomi is gone by the time we get home and I never get to say goodbye?
‘Earth to Amelia Walker,’ said Ms Slaviero. ‘Come in, Commander Walker – report your status, please.’
Amelia blinked as she realised the whole class was looking at her. ‘Um … present, miss.’
‘Are you sure?’ Ms Slaviero smiled. ‘Because from here, you looked like you were out on a space-walk.’
‘Sorry, Ms Slaviero.’
‘No, no.’ She waved away the apology. ‘I’ve collected some valuable negative information here: you’ve helped me see we’ve spent enough time on photosynthesis for now. Let’s take a five-minute disco break. OK, class – you’ve got forty-five seconds to push back the tables and clear the dance floor while I put the music on.’
‘Nice work.’ Sophie T grinned at Amelia, putting her pencils and books away. ‘What were you thinking about, anyway? You looked really worried.’
Amelia leaned over and whispered, ‘Lady Naomi’s brother arrived yesterday.’
Sophie T’s eyes grew round. ‘She has a brother? What’s he like?’
‘He’s just like Lady Naomi.’
‘Amazing, you mean?’
‘Yeah, but …’ Amelia frowned.
Ms Slaviero’s stereo began to blast out ‘I Will Survive’, and Amelia felt more frustrated than ever. She shoved her desk back with more force than necessary, not able to explain even to herself why she was so … What was it? It was more than worry about how much she was going to miss Lady Naomi.
Maybe she was just being a totally selfish little baby, acting as if she’d rather Lady Naomi had never been found by her family, but she couldn’t shake a gnawing sense of resentment.
When at last the bell rang, Amelia and Charlie raced back to the headland. But where to look first? Tom’s? The hotel? Perhaps they were already too late.
‘Relax,’ said Mary, watching them from the hotel’s verandah as they thundered up the driveway. ‘Lady Naomi’s taken Mallan down to her workstation. James is with them, so it’ll probably be OK if you go, too.’
‘Thanks, Mary,’ said Amelia.
‘Bye, Mum,’ said Charlie, and without another word, they dumped their bags on the top step and ran down the hill again, this time toward Lady Naomi’s hidden bush track.
‘I suppose putting these away is my job, is it?’ Mary called after them, but they were long gone.
Crashing along the narrow path, around the last corner, and into Lady Naomi’s clearing, they saw her workstation was up and running, with Mallan leaning over the controls. Lady Naomi stood close beside him.
James was practically vibrating with jealousy, and Amelia could understand why. He’d been itching to get his hands on this alien technology for ages, but Lady Naomi had never let anyone else touch it. Not even Control, when they’d used the site to hide a starship.
Lady Naomi had no hesitation about sharing her stuff with Mallan, though. She beamed with joy, and gave him free rein to play with all the settings. As Amelia and Charlie approached, they could smell that the whole clearing was filled with that perfume that hung around Mallan.
‘Look,’ he was saying to his sister. ‘This is our galaxy – it’s on the far side of this super cluster. I don’t know if Earth has identified it yet, but we call it the Great Oriana.’
Lady Naomi looked surprised and, if possible, even more delighted.
‘Yes,’ Mallan laughed. ‘Mum and Dad named you after the galaxy. I was named after some distant uncle, so I think we all know who was the favourite.’ He grinned at her with that incredible smile that was so strangely familiar to Amelia, and then turned back to the equipment.
‘Let me zoom in – ah, here is our solar system, with our sun, Karaskon at the centre, and here –’ he focused in on a dot circling the star, ‘is our planet, Chloros. Well,’ he frowned slightly at the blurry smudge on the screen, ‘that’s not a great visual, but try to imagine a planet that is almost entirely green. We don’t have oceans like Earth, but thousands of rivers crisscrossing the most fertile, lush forest and grassland you can imagine. And there, right near the equator, but high in the mountains where it’s forever spring, is where our family lives. If you come home with me on the next gateway connection, we will be back in time for you to see the great migration of the succubees – iridescent butterflies the size of Earth’s pelicans, each one the colour of the flower it last fed on.’
James, peering at the figures listed at the bottom of the screen, scribbled in his notebook.
Amelia felt herself growing dizzy at the beauty of the world Mallan was describing. How much more wonderful it must be for Lady Naomi, knowing that not only was she going to go there – she belonged there. It would be awful for the rest of them when Lady Naomi left, but how could anyone ask her to stay?
‘But our parents,’ Lady Naomi said, almost reluctantly, as though she didn’t want to bring up anything that would break the spell of Mallan’s words. ‘They’re both gone?’
Mallan’s lovely face became grave, and he laid a hand on her arm. Amelia noticed James wince, and realised she was clenching her jaw. Lady Naomi had always been friendly, but somehow untouchable. Not aloof, but sort of separate, like royalty. It felt strange and even presumptuous to Amelia to see him handling Lady Naomi so casually.
‘Yes. I’m sorry you never got to know them.’ Then he smiled. ‘But our grandmother is still alive, and from the day I told her I’d finally tracked you down, she’s been calling in cousins and aunts and uncles and all our friends and clan members. By the time we get back, half the mountain people of Chloros will be lined up to welcome you. Not least,’ he ducked his head shyly, ‘my wife and our three children.’
‘I’m an auntie?’ Lady Naomi gasped, and Amelia knew the deal was done. The wonder of a home planet was powerful, but the promise of blood relatives who already loved her was beyond anything Earth c
ould offer. Poor Tom was no competition.
‘Grawk!’
They heard the sharp bark before they saw him. Amelia turned, already smiling at the arrival of her friend, but then stopped, shocked by Grawk’s appearance. Since his growth spurt, he’d been hiding out more and more in the bush, avoiding almost everyone but Amelia. She missed hanging out with him as much as she used to, but was glad he was being so careful around strangers.
Now, though, he came springing through the trees, his blunt ears laid back against his head, and all fear of exposure apparently forgotten. His teeth were bared, and his eyes narrowed to slits. He landed silently in the clearing, not even snapping a twig as his enormous paws hit the ground, and stared at Mallan.
Mallan paled, and who could blame him? Grawk wasn’t growling, but every now and then he lashed his tail.
Amelia looked at Charlie in alarm. Grawk had never made a mistake yet about who was friend and who was foe. So if Grawk didn’t like Mallan …
But Lady Naomi wasn’t fazed. ‘Grawk!’ she scolded him. ‘Stop mucking around. That’s my brother you’re bullying. Be nice, will you?’
She laid a hand protectively on Mallan’s arm, and Grawk glanced at her. ‘See?’ she went on. ‘There’s no problem.’
Grawk stopped flicking his tail, and reluctantly eased off his snarl until all those razor-sharp teeth were neatly hidden. His ears, though, stayed flat to his skull, and he kept a steady gaze on Mallan.
‘Is that –’ Mallan began, then gulped. ‘What is that?’
‘This is Grawk,’ said Lady Naomi. ‘Grawk, this is Mallan.’
Mallan’s eyes widened, and Amelia could guess why. Even if you’d never heard of grawks before, Grawk would be frightening. But if you had, then you’d know they were one of the universe’s most ferocious and intelligent beasts. You’d also know they didn’t grow much bigger than a wombat, and yet here was Grawk, as big as a tiger and twice as broad.
The Lost Home World Page 2
