Star Blaze (21 page)

No one seemed more disappointed over Bram's delayed arrival than Alf, who took his frustration out on Johnny, insisting he settle into as normal a routine as possible, spending time at the children's home and being good about going to school. Despite trying the Wormholes every day, no one was to be found at the other end of the one to Melanian and the Tolimi were so busy on a special project they'd devised that he barely even spoke to them.

Johnny, sitting at the back of the classroom, found the lessons pretty dull, but was fascinated by the complex effects of feedback mechanisms on climate change. It seemed scarily like the feedback loops in the electrical circuits he was so good at, where you could overload a system very quickly. But it was one of very few highlights when set against design and technology, ICT and citizenship.

Secretly, though, he didn't mind school that much but it was nothing to do with his classes. While he sometimes kicked a ball about with Clara and Alf on the
Spirit of London
's five-a-side deck, it wasn't like the real thing. She was only a girl and Alf was
even worse. Despite the two of them playing against him, Johnny always won easily. At least spending time at Castle Dudbury Comprehensive meant he could play some proper football. The next round of the County Cup, the competition they'd won last year, was coming up and PE teacher and coach Mr. Davenport was putting on extra training sessions after school.

Tonight they were working on a new corner routine, with Johnny driving the ball to the near post as fast as he could, where Dave Spedding would flick it on. It was beginning to get dark—black clouds raced overhead, carried on cold winds that gusted across the playing fields. Johnny was finding it hard to judge the distance on his kicks, and felt sorry for his teammates who were spending a lot of time getting cold while they waited for him to cross the ball. Mr. Davenport, wearing his customary green top, kept shouting at everyone to bounce on their toes to keep their energy levels up, but most of the team looked miserable and desperate to return to the changing rooms.

They'd been using six white footballs, but only a couple remained by the corner flag with Johnny. He picked one up and placed it in the “D” where the touchline met the goal line. Then he bent down and picked it up again, as though it hadn't been positioned right first off. This was the signal for the near-post corner. Mr. Davenport insisted Johnny made it each time, even in practice, so it was drilled into everyone. Johnny took four paces back, stopped, visualized the ball flying straight onto Dave's forehead, and then he ran toward the ball and kicked it. The wind got up, making the cross fall short and allowing Ashvin Gupta to block Dave off and boot the ball back the way it had come. It sailed on the wind over Johnny's head, down a slope and away into the wasteland beneath the football pitch.

“Last one, Johnny,” shouted Mr. Davenport. “Make it a good 'un.”

It started to rain. Johnny steeled himself to shut out the cold and concentrate on the final kick. Again he placed the football in the “D.” Again he picked it up and repositioned it. Again he took four strides backward and looked up. Dave was on the penalty spot about to make his run. Joe Pennant stood alongside him, with the job of blocking off the defenders, allowing Dave to reach the near post unopposed. Johnny ran forward and struck the ball well. It ripped through the air into the wind and landed perfectly on top of Dave's head, picking up speed and a little height to carry it to the far post where Micky Elliot, the ginger-haired skipper, forced it home.

Mr. Davenport blew three times on his whistle and everyone started to run for the changing rooms. Before Johnny could follow, the coach shouted over asking him to collect the ball that had flown past him down the hill. Johnny nodded, shaking off the icicle of raindrops that had attached itself to his nose. He rolled his socks down and picked out his shinpads, before sliding down the slippery slope toward the bushes at the bottom that marked the edge of the local tip. The smell of rotting rubbish was so strong he held the pads over his nose like a makeshift gasmask. He wasn't sure where the ball had ended up and, with the rain getting heavier, it was quite hard to see. From his left, Johnny saw a flash of white. He turned toward it, felt an arm grab his collar and jerk him through an opening onto the bridge of the
Spirit of London
.

Johnny tripped over Clara and they both fell to the floor. He felt sick—he'd not prepared himself for the fold at all and it was as if his stomach had been tied into several very tight knots. “What's going on?” he managed to ask.

“We're taking off,” said Clara. “I couldn't stop Sol.”

“Taking off? You don't mean …” Lying on the floor beside each other, Johnny looked at his sister, who nodded back. As if going on an unscheduled journey wasn't bad enough, the
Spirit
of London
was actually flying away from the Earth's surface rather than folding. At least, with her dark energy drive, Sol could travel astonishingly fast (harnessing the very force that accelerated the distant galaxies), but even so it was hard to believe they wouldn't have been seen.

“Sol—what are you doing?” Johnny shouted.

“We are proceeding directly to the Alnitak system as instructed, destination Novolis, the fifteenth planet,” replied the ship.

Erin must have done something to Sol to force her to take him and his sister home. Johnny was furious, but before he could act the ship added, “Folding in three … two …” Johnny ran toward his chair, but on “one,” he floated upward, just in time to see the Plican pass the other way and fall into the main, blue-pulsing tank. Space began to distort and disappear around him. As he was jerked in one direction after another, Johnny tried to hold the contents of his stomach in place, but it was no good. The last thing he saw before slipping into unconsciousness was a wobbling cloud of diced carrots and tinned tomatoes, the leftovers of his school dinner, flying across the
Spirit of London
's bridge.

“Johnny … Johnny.” Someone was calling to him, but they sounded such a long way away. Very slowly he opened his eyes. He was lying down only everything seemed to be spinning. If he didn't hold on it was as if he'd fall off the floor and float away. Clara was standing over him, frowning, but he didn't feel well. He just wanted the spinning to stop, so he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

Someone was shaking him. Johnny thought about opening his eyes, but the message from his brain was that this would be too
hard work. He wished whoever had hold of him would stop. There were two voices in the background now—Sol sounded like she was counting while Clara was screaming at him. Through Johnny's lids everything was blinking an annoying red color that he could do without. His head hurt so much he just needed a bit of peace and quiet. He drifted away and the voices became fainter until, at last, there was silence.

He could feel a cool breeze on his face. Another voice began to call to him, so insistent that he couldn't shut it out. “Johnny Mackintosh … concentrate.” He thought he recognized the speaker and then Princess Zeta appeared before him. They were standing together aboard her sailing ship where she had been winding a brass handle, but now stopped. “You need to wake up,” she told Johnny, which made no sense at all considering they were here having a conversation.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

A voice reached them from further down the ship. “Zeta—why have you stopped? I need more sail.”

The princess looked at Johnny and said, “You must go now. You must wake up—your ship is in danger.” As she said the last word her tongue shot out and slapped Johnny across the face, spraying him with moisture. Strangely, although the tongue withdrew and Zeta returned to her winch, Johnny's face became wetter and wetter. He felt cold too. He opened his eyes and saw Alf and Clara standing over him with an empty bucket, the contents of which had just been deposited on Johnny's head.

He groaned and asked, “What did you do that for?” while sitting up and wiping the water away from his face.

“Master Johnny—you have to wake up,” said Alf, skipping on the spot behind Clara, clearly very agitated. All around the bridge, red warning lights were flashing.

“Three hundred seconds to self-destruct,” said Sol, lights on the display flickering in time to her words.

It took less than one of those three hundred seconds for their meaning to sink in. Johnny jumped to his feet, ignoring the blood rushing away from his brain. There didn't appear to be any damage and there was nothing to suggest the
Spirit of London
had been boarded. Sol would only self-destruct if aliens had taken control, but the bridge was still theirs. Alf had moved to the navigation station and was using it without difficulty—Clara must have rebooted the android after the fold. Johnny hoped Bentley was in a gel pod and not unconscious elsewhere. Yet, despite the normality of the scene, Johnny could see the fear written across his sister's face. “What's going on?” he asked.

“You've got to stop her,” said Clara. “Sol's going to blow herself up.”

As if on cue, the words, “Two hundred and fifty seconds to self-destruct,” rang out across the bridge.

“Sol,” Johnny shouted. Although the ship's mind was distributed everywhere, he clattered across the floor with his football boots still on, until he was standing in front of her voice screen. “What's going on? End self-destruct sequence.”

“I'm sorry, Johnny. I'm afraid I can't do that.”

“Why not? What's the problem?”

“Johnny—I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.”

“What are you talking about, Sol?”

“When you ordered the self-destruct sequence to begin, you stated that, whatever you were to say later, the command could not be revoked.”

“Stop it, Sol,” said Johnny. “I didn't order anything.” This sounded weirdly similar to what Nicky's ship had said when he'd been taken aboard the
Astricida
, but Johnny was sure there wasn't a hidden consciousness buried within him, ordering Sol around—it didn't make any sense.

“Two hundred seconds to self-destruct.”

“It must have been Erin,” said Clara. “We're heading for Alnitak—though we only managed one fold.”

“But, for an initial fold, it was at the very maximum of safe limits,” added Alf, examining the panel in front of him. “Hence Master Johnny's … discomfort. We are entering orbit around a gas giant in the Aldebaran System.”

“Sol—where's Erin? And Zeta?” Johnny asked.

“King Erin and Princess Zeta are no longer on board,” the ship replied. “They exited in the
Falling Star
31.415 927 seconds after the self-destruct sequence was initiated.”

“I shouldn't have let them get away,” said Clara, “but I was too busy trying to wake you.”

“Hey it's not your fault,” said Johnny, before trying again with Sol. “It wasn't me—it was Erin. He's done something to you.”

“I believe you are mistaken, Johnny. I distinctly remember you giving me the order.”

“Think about it, Sol,” said Johnny, beginning to get desperate. “I was unconscious—from the fold.”

“One hundred and fifty seconds to self-destruct. The order was pre-programmed,” continued Sol.

“Pre-programmed? What does that mean?” shouted Johnny.

“When issuing the command you insisted it should not take effect until after the next fold. All failsafes were meticulously followed,” the ship replied.

“But we're heading toward Alnitak,” said Johnny. “I didn't order that—it must have been Erin.”

“I agree that the inference is not without plausibility,” said Sol. “I will think about it.”

“Please, Sol,” said Clara. “You've got to stop.”

“I'm sorry, Clara. One hundred seconds to self-destruct.”

“I thought you said you'd think about it,” shouted Johnny.