Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London (40 page)

“What do you mean?” Johnny asked.

Alf moved to a bank of scientific instruments and called Johnny across. “Take a look at these readings,” he said.

Johnny stared at the many graphics flickering on the screens in front of him and hazarded a guess. “It's cold?” he said.

“Excellent, Johnny,” Alf replied. “Indeed it is—unusually so. I would suggest it is colder than any other object in your solar system. And look at its orbit.”

Johnny studied this for a moment and thought he saw what Alf meant. “It's going the wrong way round.”

“Precisely,” said Alf. “And if you look even closer it has a perfectly circular orbit—not an ellipse. My word, this is interesting. Circular
and
retrograde.”

“But so what?” Johnny asked.

“So what?” said Alf. “So it could well be artificial. It definitely is not as nature intended.”

“Sol—can you home in on Triton?” Johnny asked. As he spoke, the image of the blue and white gas giant was replaced by a smaller pink globe. Johnny stood up and walked over to the
viewscreen to get a closer look. Could someone really have built it? Its surface was scarred, but not as badly cratered as most moons he'd seen photos of from probes like Voyager. As he looked, he thought for a moment that he saw a little flash of white light come from a point on its surface. “What was that? Did you see it?” he asked, turning to Alf.

“What was what, Master Johnny?”

Johnny turned back to the screen, placed his finger onto the spot where he thought he'd seen the flash, and said, “Sol—can you expand this area and go back about thirty seconds?”

“Of course, Johnny,” said Sol and the image flickered momentarily as the spot he'd pointed to enlarged.

Johnny saw it again—bigger this time. “There!” he said, excitedly.

“I saw it too,” said Alf. “What could it have been?”

“Did you get it, Sol?” Johnny asked.

“I detected a fluctuation in the surface luminosity,” Sol replied, as the lights flickered across her vocal display screen.

“Play back and enhance,” said Johnny. “There—freeze it.”

Johnny stared at the viewscreen. There was a hole in Triton, perfectly round with white light streaming out from inside of the moon. “It's hollow,” Johnny said. “They're inside it.”

“I do believe you are right,” said Alf. “That was a ship leaving.”

Johnny looked closer. The frozen image revealed the faint outline of a black sphere, lying just outside the aperture. “Sol—can you track that?” Johnny asked.

“The data has degraded, Johnny, but I beleve it is a small krun shuttle, probably on a trajectory for another moon.”

“Proteus?” Johnny asked.

“Computing … the most likely destination is Nereid,” Sol replied.

“Can you tell who's on board?” Johnny asked.

“Life sign readings are notoriously unreliable,” Sol replied,
“but I believe there are humans present as well as krun.”

“Show me Nereid,” said Johnny, “but keep scanning Triton.” The screen changed again to a potato-shaped rock, tumbling slowly through space with Neptune in the background. It was much smaller than Triton—if the bigger moon could be hollow, he suspected Nereid certainly was. As he watched the spherical black ship entered the field of view. A hole opened up in the surface of the little moon and the spacecraft disappeared inside.

“You should be aware I intercepted what appears to be an entrance code,” said Sol.

“Nice one, Sol,” said Johnny. “Can you tell how many krun are on Nereid?”

“My upper estimate is six, Johnny,” she replied.

“Excellent,” said Johnny. “We should be able to get past those.”

“But we cannot afford to ignore Triton,” said Alf. “You know about the krun. Remember if anything happens on Nereid they will soon know all about it and send reinforcements.”

“I did pay attention to some of the things you taught us,” said Johnny, smiling at his artificial friend. “What we need is a diversion.”

Johnny stared out of the windows of the Piccadilly as the Spirit of London shrank into nothing in front of the gas giant below. They were using Neptune as a shield, keeping the deep blue planet between the ship and both Triton and Nereid. He and Bentley were on board. He would have brought Rusty to help search for Louise, but the setter seemed terrified of most things on the ship, and certainly anything that might make her invisible again. She hid in a corner when he carried her down to the shuttle deck. Johnny thought “shields on” and the walls of the bus that surrounded him faded away into nothing. This must be
a little how Clara felt about folding—she'd talked about being one with the universe and he'd now become just a mind floating in space.

The Piccadilly was the fastest of the shuttles, but Neptune was truly enormous—much bigger than Earth—and it would take nearly half an hour until his little bus/ship was in position and he could signal Alf and Clara. That meant nearly thirty minutes of feeling guilty, as he flew above another of Neptune's moons, that was orbiting close to the enormous planet below.

Ptery and Donna had called another dinocouncil. The final decision had been unanimous. Johnny had spoken to them. He'd made sure he told them how dangerous it would be. He said they didn't have to go—that it was up to them if they wanted to help. The chance to leave the dinodeck, however briefly, had proved too tempting to turn down. Besides—dinosaurs liked danger. And when the carnivores heard there would be fresh meat there was absolutely no stopping them. Johnny shivered at that thought. It was natural, he knew. They couldn't help it, and he should be grateful.

Nereid, orbiting a long way out, came into view—heavily cratered and misshapen—as Neptune finally started to shrink. He wasn't going to break radio silence until the last possible moment. As the moon grew bigger, the thought he kept trying to suppress surfaced again. Was he finally going to see his dad? It was too much to hope for.

One minute to go. It was now or never. He concentrated on the coded message he wanted to send to Sol: “The Piccadilly has reached the Circus,” and Johnny could feel it transmit as though he'd spoken the words himself. He pictured Clara sitting with her palms upward on the dinodeck, opening a gateway in space into the hollow insides of Triton. T. Rexes, velociraptors, the scarily bright troodons, the crocodile-like deinosuchus and many more would be pouring through to
devour the surprised krun. He really hoped so anyway. He knew the dinosaurs were becoming so listless on the Spirit of London, they wouldn't have lasted much longer there. At least now they could stretch their legs and wings. He just hoped they'd make it back in one piece.

Johnny sent the access code and a shutter slid open in Nereid's rocky surface. The Piccadilly, still shielded, flew inside and into a giant airlock that could have held ships much bigger than a London bus. Johnny was worried they might be trapped halfway, but everything worked automatically—as soon as the entrance had closed behind them a new one opened up in front and he guided the ship carefully through. He couldn't help being impressed by the massive hangar he flew into. Below was a landing strip but surrounding it were the same cabbage-like blue-gray walls, with mushroom-shaped sticky handholds, that he'd seen when inside the krun spaceship. Dangling from the roof were huge suckered tentacles, quite capable of moving small spacecraft around. And his sensors told him it had a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere—he could almost breathe it through the Piccadilly. Johnny landed the shuttle beside the spherical krun ship. “Let's go, Bents,” he said and opened the doors, causing everything to rematerialize for an instant, before vanishing again at the push of a button on his wristcom as soon as the pair were safely outside.

Bentley began to scamper across toward the krun ship but gave a surprised yelp as, in one bound, he lifted off the surface and started floating upward. There was very little gravity. It was all Johnny could do not to burst out laughing as the sheepdog rose higher and higher off the ground. He looked into the pack he'd brought from the shuttle in case he needed a rope, but Bentley topped out and began a slow-motion descent to the surface. Instead, Johnny picked out some explosives, set the timer and was able to fix them onto the hull of the krun vessel with a satisfying magnetic clunk.

“Come on, Bents,” he whispered, clicking his tongue and leading the nervous dog toward the mouth of a corridor, where the organic wall stopped and solid rock led away into the distance. Sounds from the inside told Johnny that someone, or something, was hurrying toward them from inside. Johnny jumped to one side of the opening, a little too quickly, and it was his turn to find himself floating away from the ground. He grabbed hold of one of the mushroom-shaped nodules and twisted round. Bentley crouched the other side of the entrance and, Johnny counted them, six krun waddled past. They weren't humanoids wearing suits—these were the krun he remembered from his first time aboard a spaceship: bony exteriors, each with four long arms, and fly-like faces, and with different colored markings on their heads, making them look fierce and cruel. Had they glanced to the side they couldn't have missed Bentley, but they were in a hurry to reach their shuttle. The dino-diversion seemed to be working. Johnny watched from halfway up the wall of the hangar as the black sphere lifted up and disappeared into the airlock.

He climbed down the sticky wall like Spiderman, pulling himself off it at the bottom, and walked through the entrance into the rocky corridor, Bentley lolloping alongside him. As long as they were careful, they made good progress because of the low gravity, yet the corridor seemed to go on for miles, twisting and turning ever further into the heart of the moon. Johnny hated not knowing what was happening on Triton, but underneath all this rock his wristcom, even if he'd dared try it, would be useless. Finally he and Bentley rounded a bend and he saw a speck of light up ahead. After ten years without his dad Johnny started taking giant strides as Bentley bounded along behind, struggling to keep up. He went faster and the light grew bigger. As he drew closer he saw it was an opening—he ran faster still, until finally he was there. Coming out of the
corridor and into an octagonal chamber, Johnny stopped, just for a moment, to take stock. Either side were three closed gigantic metal doors, each built into the center of one of the walls and with a different unearthly symbol emblazoned across it. Opposite was an open room. There were lights flickering within—maybe someone was inside? Johnny sprinted over to the open door, took a deep breath and stepped through.

Around the walls were all sorts of strange-looking instruments and controls, as well as half a dozen containers with foul-smelling little balls of organic matter. It might have been krun food—it certainly smelled disgusting. But what really attracted his attention was a circular plinth in the center of the room, covered by a transparent dome. This was where the light was coming from. As he drew nearer, Johnny could see dinosaurs inside the dome. It was a projection—holographic—of dinosaurs attacking krun, and winning by the looks of it. He placed his hands on the plinth and leaned over to get a closer look, but the image changed. Now he was looking out at what appeared to be a triple star system. It was the view from a ship—he was sure of it. Johnny looked down. He must have put his hand over a control that switched to another channel—this was some sort of communications center. He moved his hand again and once more the projection inside the dome changed. Someone was sitting in front of a dancing blue fire, just like the one he'd seen at the Imperial Palace on Melania. It couldn't be could it? “Bram?” Johnny asked quietly. The figure turned around. It wasn't Bram. Whoever it was, its face was covered by a black mask, a single, blazing white star painted on it, but Johnny could still see its eyes. There was no question—they were staring straight at him and they were blacker than anything he'd ever seen. Johnny bashed the plinth with both hands and the projection changed again. His heart beating much faster, he turned and ran out of the room.

Bentley was sniffing around on the right-hand side of the octagonal chamber. He settled on the second door along from the entrance to the corridor and started pawing at it, letting out a little whine. “Are you sure, boy?” Johnny asked. As he walked across, he felt a strange tightening around his neck. He looked down. The golden locket was straining forward from underneath his tunic, just as it had when he first met Clara in the Proteus Institute maze. Johnny took it out and it began to tug on its golden chain, pulling him toward the very same door where Bentley now sat.

Johnny went over and pushed against it—nothing happened. He looked frantically either side for some clue of how to open it. There was nothing in view. He closed his eyes, trying to listen for something, and after a few moments he heard it. A faint current was flowing, but it was very high up on the right-hand side of the wall above him. He jumped, reached up and placed his hand as high as he could on the rocky surface. Nothing happened as Johnny landed back on the floor. He tried a second time, getting closer to the right part of the wall this time as he really stretched, but still nothing happened and Johnny landed back on his feet with the door still firmly shut in front of him. He wasn't going to let a silly door stop him—not now—not after coming so far. He wanted to see his dad; he wanted it more than anything. Johnny jumped for all he was worth. This time, in the low gravity, he overshot and had to use his hands and feet to stop himself slamming into the ceiling. On the way down he twisted his body and stretched until his arm was almost coming out of its socket, pressing his hand firmly over the right spot. He felt the electric current divert through him. The door opened upward, disappearing into the roof of the chamber and Johnny fell backward, landing badly, and found himself lying on the floor at the feet of a large krun soldier standing guard at the entrance to a darkened room.