by Ruth Morgan
I didn’t tell him about the footsteps for several days. They came and they went, always on the other side of the wall. The same icy fear spread through me when I heard them but I was also bloody-mindedly determined that mere footsteps weren’t going to scare me away from my beloved fossils. Before long, I could shut my eyes and wait calmly until they’d finished, then return to my work. They always stopped.
My poem was progressing and I decided that photographs of my various finds would illustrate it well. I started wondering what might happen to my poems when we got home. To see them displayed on the walls of the school or the corridor walkways of Albany Court didn’t seem too ambitious.
Whole cities of coral, spires and domes
Temples of honeycomb and chain
Favosites, halycites…
I loved the scientific names of the extinct corals, but would they be off-putting to readers who weren’t familiar with them? I was so wrapped up in this problem one afternoon, I only half-registered that the footsteps had begun. I was still wrestling with it when:
BANG.
Startled, I looked up. The door in the corner seemed different although I couldn’t think why. I peered into the gloom.
The ancient door was closing, very slowly. Then:
BANG.
The door flew open, slamming against the wall. It closed slowly again.
BANG.
I was on my feet now. The door was heavy and it must be taking some force to throw it open so violently. This wasn’t the wind blowing through the building. Someone was doing this on purpose.
‘Halley!’ I shouted. There was no way he could hear me if he was upstairs.
BANG BANG BANG BANG.
Was someone trying to scare me? I covered my mouth, my hands cold and clammy.
Quick heavy footsteps walked over from the corner of the room. I could hear them on the marble tiled floor. I held up my tilelight with one trembling hand, but no shaking or confusion could explain what it showed: that no one was there.
The footsteps stopped just short of me and then, horribly, I could feel the definite presence of someone or something breathing into my face. I could hear and feel sharp, angry breaths.
I bolted for the exit but that door slammed in my face. I grasped the ancient handle with slippery hands and pushed and pulled as hard as I could, forgetting which way it should open. It would not budge. Behind me, the footsteps were approaching stealthily.
Gasping for breath, I ran in a circle around the thing I couldn’t see. I was in one of my nightmares. Whatever it was followed me. The footsteps wished me harm, I knew they did, but what could they do to me if they caught me? I wasn’t waiting around to find out.
I saw that the door in the corner was open again so I ran for the next room. The footsteps grew louder, echoing all around me, echoing in my head. Through the empty room I ran, into another and another, and still the steps came. They weren’t panicking. They knew they were going to get me in the end. I didn’t know where I was or where I was going and the more I panicked, the more I stumbled over the jumble of ancient exhibits heaped up like the mounds of rubble outside. My tilelight shook so much it was hard to see. Just like my dream, the terrible footsteps seemed to gain on me but never actually catch me up, as though they were driving me somewhere. I knew that they were very, very angry. I didn’t know why but I was sure they wanted to kill me.
Round and round I tumbled, through the maze of rooms. Little by little, I realised that the pounding was now just the blood pulsing in my ears. Even then, I carried on stumbling, cutting and bruising myself on sharp objects in the dark. Finally, I had to stop. I was so out of breath. I emerged into the hall, in tears.
‘Halley!’ I screamed and this time he heard.
*
‘So all the time we’ve been here, you’ve been hearing these footsteps?’
‘They didn’t seem threatening really, not until today,’ I snivelled.
Halley didn’t look straight at me but I could see he was annoyed.
‘You’ve been really brave,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think it’s such a good idea us being here anymore.’
‘There has to be some rational explanation.’ I had to cling onto that.
He shook his head. ‘Yeah well, ask Doc Carter.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just ask him, will you?’
I stared at him. ‘Halley, there’s something you’re not telling me.’
‘Come on, let’s go before anything worse happens.’
‘Halley!’
On our journey back to Base, I kept on asking him what he knew that I didn’t. It was starting to drive me crazy: what exactly was the big secret? How did he know Doc Carter had something to tell me? Halley backtracked, denying he knew anything, but drove in that infuriated, dangerous way of his that told me something was very wrong. The feeling that something was being kept from me brought back my other worries: what was I doing on this mission? Why me, not Teyra?
We drove along the canals. At the most easterly exit, the alert sounded on out tiles and we spotted a lone dragomansk in the sky above the lake. Halley’s hand hovered in the steering zone, bringing us to a halt, then he clawed at the air and we reversed until we were three trees back from the entrance.
‘What right have you to be annoyed? It’s me that should be annoyed. You’re keeping something from me, I know you are.’ I was absolutely furious, but Halley wasn’t in the mood to talk. Replacing his hood and visor, he retracted the roof and stepped out of the vehicle into the water. He pulled his sauroter from its holster.
‘I’ve told you everything I can. They keep secrets from us.’ He bared his teeth in a grimace. ‘Secrets about the dragomansk, Bree. About other things too. Well, I’ve had enough. I’m sick of it.’ He primed his weapon like some kind of hero and waded off towards the entrance.
‘Halley, get back here now. Where do you think you’re going?’
I stood up inside the vehicle and watched him pass one tree, then another and finally, unbelievably, walk beyond the last tree, right out into the open. My jaw dropped. He waved his arms above his head, as though beckoning an aircraft to land. For a moment, the dragomansk disappeared from my view, but in seconds it reappeared, heading directly for the canal. It had seen him. Halley began wading back inside. The dragomansk fired streams of brown acid which turned the water to clouds of steam. Halley zigzagged, evading the dragomansk’s fire, but as soon as he was beneath the first tree, he turned and I could see the idiot taking photos with his tile. He seemed oblivious to my screams.
The dragomansk was stuck at the entrance of the canal. The span of its blurry wings was too wide to let it fly in. It hovered in frustration, pretty much as we had seen one do that first day in the wood. Aggravated, it kept firing at Halley, shooting into the water, churning it into a bubbling cauldron. The enclosed space filled with an acrid smell and those great menacing eyes through the clouds and spray looked like some infernal steam-driven machine. The amphibical was rocked so much by the waves I had to sit down. Coming to my senses, I closed the roof of the vehicle.
Halley turned to face me and grinned, giving me a thumbs up. ‘You take a picture.’ He pointed at me and signalled.
‘You idiot,’ I bellowed, not that he could hear me. I was furious with his stupid grinning face. ‘You’re going to get yourself killed. Get away from there.’
The dragomansk’s head turned and I saw its domey eye in profile for the first time. Fear gripped my insides as I realised what it was doing. The humming of its wings changed, becoming deeper and more rasping. It had succeeded in entering the tunnel. I was certain that the creature had managed to get his left pair of wings past the first tree trunk and was beginning to sidle in.
‘Look!’ I pointed. Halley spun to face the dragomansk. I shrunk in terror when I saw him backing slowly away from it. He stumbled and I feared he would fall backwards into the water. If he did, the beast would be on top of him in seconds. It was negotiating its wings
around the tree to its right, as though it were elbowing its way through an assault course. With horror I saw that its wings were sawing partway into the tree, shaving off pieces of bark which flew up into the air.
Halley’s arms were trembling as he raised his sauroter and when he fired his aim was hopelessly wide. With the churning water, the steam and the vibrating wings ripping through the bark and vegetation, it was difficult to be sure how near the dragomansk was. Faced with this terrifying blur, this advancing death machine, Halley finally began running back to me. His splashing looked comical and pathetic but the fear I could see through his visor was very real.
A sudden flash and the dragomansk collapsed, one of its wings shattering against a tree like a broken stained-glass window. Halley missed it because he was still desperately trying to reach our amphibical. Shifting across to the driving seat, I powered up the engine, retracting the roof to let him clamber in. But we didn’t drive off immediately. We were spellbound by the creature’s tangled remains, its floating legs and tattered wings, appearing little by little as the steam dispersed. Its punctured head was half-submerged and from it bloomed a filthy mixture of blood and brains and acid. The death shot certainly hadn’t come from Halley’s weapon.
The filth was churned up again as a large silver amphibical drove straight at us at high speed, cutting through the wreckage and pulling up level with Halley’s side of our vehicle. Their roof was open. Cole Huxtable was driving and Doc Carter, sitting grimly in the passenger seat, had obviously just discharged his sauroter. I’d hardly ever seen him without his trademark smile and for a moment I didn’t recognise him. He pointed up the canal and mouthed the word ‘follow’ very clearly. I had no choice but to swing our own craft around and do as he said.
Halley entered the room with a thunderous look on his face. ‘You next,’ he said. Someone had left a pair of boots lying on the floor and as he passed, he kicked one across the room, just missing Nisien by the window.
‘Hey,’ said Nisien.
Halley grabbed my arm. He turned so the other two wouldn’t hear him. ‘Just ask Doc Carter about those footsteps,’ he said and almost as an afterthought, ‘but don’t tell him I said to, all right?’
‘Course not.’ From the corner of my eye I could see Robeen looking at us. I was positive she hadn’t made a move in her game of Kyrachess for at least twenty minutes. Her curiosity must be on fire. Leaning closer towards Halley I whispered, ‘I’d prefer it if you told me, though.’
Halley let go of me, sighed and shook his head.
I had a tense walk up to Doc Carter’s room. I sensed I was about to find something out and I wasn’t going to like it.
Above all else, I was scared that Halley knew something I didn’t. Yes, he could be crazy and unpredictable but I’d always thought of him as my one real friend on the mission. Could he really have been keeping anything from me, anything big?
Doc Carter wasn’t smiling as I entered his room. I saw the graphs flickering and updating themselves continually on the holoscreen behind his head. My hand crept up to the back of my head and the celephet which I had grown almost to hate. Somehow, I knew that his invention was at the bottom of the nasty surprise I felt sure was coming. Now I was there, I didn’t want to know.
‘I’m very disappointed, Bree,’ he said. ‘And very, very annoyed.’
I couldn’t think what to say.
Doc Carter lowered his eyes to the floor then looked at me again. ‘Though more so with Halley than with you. What the hell did you think you were doing, facing down a dragomansk like that? Why didn’t you call for help? You could have been killed, the pair of you.’
‘It all happened so quickly. Halley…’ But I stopped. I wasn’t going to put the blame solely on Halley, even if it had been his fault really. If there were any punishments, I wanted to be treated the same as everyone else for once, even if it meant – what? Being confined to Base?
‘Halley was contravening safety rule number one in the idiot’s guide to not getting yourself killed. At least you stayed in the vehicle.’
I swallowed.
‘It was pure chance Cole and I happened to be nearby. Have you any idea how dangerous these creatures are? Haven’t we managed to impress that on you? You sat through all the lectures, Bree, weren’t you listening?’
Now it was my turn to stare at the floor.
‘You could have died this morning, quite easily. This isn’t some game we’re playing here. We’re doing our absolute utmost to find a way to rid the planet of these creatures precisely because they are so dangerous. Until we do, we can’t make any further plans for Earth.’
‘Like stealing its resources?’
I immediately wished I’d kept my mouth shut. I’d meant stripping, not stealing anyway; I hadn’t meant it to come out like that. I caught a look of absolute fury on Doc Carter’s face before he jumped from his seat and started pacing the room. Quick, angry footsteps again, I thought.
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ he said eventually. ‘Such disloyal thoughts have no place on this mission. I hope you remember our Great Quest and Purpose, Bree?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
His voice became calmer. ‘You’re doing your bit by wearing your celephet. It’s advancing our knowledge for future missions. But Halley, no. He will be punished for this morning’s escapade – no more trips out in the class ones for the time being.’
Doc Carter leaned against the wall with his arms folded.
‘But that means no more visits to the Museum,’ I said.
He gave an annoyed smiley snort but then visibly reined in whatever he was feeling. His reaction was puzzling.
‘You really love it there, don’t you? I’m glad. Sounds great, doesn’t it, a trip to Earth? But it’s hard work most of the time and let’s face it, there’s not much to see here once you’ve taken in the endless rubble and marshland. You’ve discovered the best bits of Cardiff: the canals and the buildings round the Museum. Next month some of us meet up with colleagues in France but I’m not sure if there’ll be room for you lot. So, this is it. This is as good as it gets.’
‘You’ve known about us visiting the canals?’
‘I guessed. The canals have their own fascinating little ecosystem and plenty of students have admired them over the years and have learnt a lot, too. They’ve always been safe areas till now, as long as you observe normal safety precautions. The last thing we need is our friend Halley actually encouraging the dragomansk to find their way in there. They have intelligence, you know: if one of them learns how to get in, it returns and tells the others in that big dance of theirs. Before we know it, that whole area will be destroyed too. It’ll end up the same as everywhere else. You wouldn’t want that, would you?’
‘No, of course not. I’m so sorry. What happened this morning was stupid.’
He was right, of course. Halley’s moment of madness could have endangered the precious ecosystem in the canals. The thought of not being allowed near the canals or even the Museum again was unbearable.
‘Halley’s a liability,’ Doc Carter went on. ‘I’m going to swap him and Robeen around. She’ll go with you to the Museum tomorrow and he can stay and help Nisien.’
My immediate reaction was relief but then again – Robeen? How were she and I going to manage to spend any time in one another’s company? No wonder Halley had looked so angry; staying behind to assist Nisien was going to be pure torture for him.
‘We don’t exactly get on. Me and Robeen,’ I said.
‘Yes, I do recall what happened the other day.’ He nodded. ‘But you’ll just have to “get on”, won’t you? If you want to return to the Museum. I’m seeing Robeen next and I’ll explain the situation to her. Between you and me, I don’t think she’s relished Nisien’s project and I’m guessing she’ll jump at the chance of going with you.’
‘I suppose so…’
‘If you want to continue your project at the Museum, you’ll have to put up with Robeen a
nd that’s it.’ He arched his eyebrows and looked at me pointedly, but his tile began bleeping. He flew to the holoscreen to correct the build-up of overlapping data, cursing mildly under his breath. ‘So, unless there was anything else?’ he said over his shoulder.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘There is actually.’
‘Go on.’
I took a few breaths. This was it, the moment I’d been dreading. ‘I’ve been hearing footsteps,’ I began.
‘Footsteps?’ His smile wavered a little.
‘At the Museum. Today someone even chased after me, at least the footsteps did. There was nobody really there. But it felt like there was. I could feel breathing in my face.’
‘Are you joking?’
‘No.’
‘It felt like someone was there with you? Not Halley, you’re sure?’
‘Yes. I mean no. No, it definitely wasn’t Halley.’
‘Real footsteps?’
‘Yes!’
‘But this is incredible,’ Doc Carter looked genuinely taken aback. He clapped one hand to his head and continued speaking, largely to himself. ‘If we’ve summoned up a physical manifestation, I can hardly believe it. These results are better than we could have imagined.’
‘Please, whatever it was wanted to harm me, I know it. I was terrified. Doc Carter, I have to know something. Please listen. What’s the big secret?’
He rounded on me. ‘Secret? Who said anything about a secret?’
‘No one but…’ I was cursing myself for putting this the wrong way, too. Why couldn’t I ever get it right?
‘There’s no secret,’ he said. ‘Or…’ He turned to the holoscreen a moment and looked as though he were trying to figure something out. Minutes passed. ‘All right,’ he said, changing track. ‘I knew this day might come but I wasn’t sure when. Sit down, Bree.’
