The Alien Brainwash (3 page)

Speakers on the sides played a selection of soothing music. Still, Finbar wasn't asleep. He looked miserable.

‘Finbar, what's wrong?' Kip asked.

‘I've got stinging space fleas,' Finbar groaned, itching his red tummy.

‘Don't be embarrassed,' Kip said, giving him a pat. ‘Animals in every galaxy get them sometimes.'

Finbar shrugged, scratching both ears.

‘Kip and Finbar, report to the bridge,' chimed MoNa's crisp voice.

‘She must've found a wormhole to Botanicus-1!' Kip said.

Finbar climbed down from his space bed. Together, Kip and Finbar hurried to the bridge, MoNa's command centre.

The bridge was in MoNa's nose cone. It had two giant windows looking out to space. A swirling mass of coloured clouds took up one whole window. The wormhole!

In the exact centre of the bridge were two padded captains' chairs.

Sitting down, Kip swiped the air above his head. At once a cylinder of blue light shot down from above. MoNa's dials and controls were projected onto it.

Kip expertly touched a few keys on the holographic console. Immediately, MoNa shot forward into the wormhole.

Kip's skin prickled as though it was crawling with bugs, and his eyes bulged. Travelling light-years in a few seconds was convenient, but not very comfy.

Luckily, Finbar was too busy scratching a flea under his spacesuit to notice the wormhole. Normally, high-speed space travel made Finbar horribly space-sick.

MoNa popped out the other end of the wormhole. Directly ahead was a shimmering green planet. Excitement fizzed through Kip's veins. It always did when he saw a new planet for the first time.

Grabbing their helmets, Kip and Finbar raced to the landing bay. There, MoNa's Scrambler Beams would scramble their particles, beam them through space and rearrange them on Botanicus-1.

Kip jammed on his helmet. After one final nose scratch, Finbar did the same.

A pair of Scramblers shot down from the ceiling. Soon, Kip and Finbar's particles were shooting toward Botanicus-1.

It was finally time to find Zara!

CHAPTER
4

Kip and Finbar's particles reassembled themselves on Botanicus-1. Kip's first move was to check the Air Analyser on his SpaceCuff.

Air-Analyser mode

Pollen count: HIGH
Flying insects: NONE

The air was safe to breathe, so Kip took off his helmet. Flowery perfume filled the air, and he saw straight away why Botanicus-1 looked so green from space.

The entire planet was covered with rippling fields of flowers. Under Kip's feet, the soil was wet and silvery-green. A bright blue sun shone down from above.

‘Smells like my granny's house,' said Kip, wrinkling his nose. He really wasn't into flowers.

Still, these flowers were cooler than most. They were taller than Kip, with identical tulip-shaped heads and thick, sticky stems dotted with claw-like retractable spikes.

They each had two leaves on their stems that moved like arms.

‘Any sign of Zara?' Finbar asked, still scratching his fleas.

Kip shrugged.

The flowers were so tall that anything could be hidden in the field. Zara's wrecked starship, for example, or Zara herself. Kip could even see what looked like a shimmering, silver building in the distance. Was that a sign of alien life forms?

Suddenly, Kip felt a tap on the shoulder. He spun around, his heart thumping, and came face-to-face with a giant flower!

The flower's petals snapped open. Inside, a single black eye stared at Kip.

A strange, soft sound drifted from the flower. It sounded like a cross between harp music and ghostly moaning.

‘Is that flower…
talking
?' said Finbar.

Kip flicked his SpaceCuff to Translate mode. The translator used well-known alien languages to guess what new ones meant. It wasn't always reliable, but it could normally pick up a couple of words.

The flower was definitely talking. But just like Kip and Finbar, the Translate mode had never heard a language like
this
before.

Of course, the SpaceCuff had artificial intelligence. Eventually it would learn to translate the flowers' language. But Kip didn't know how long that would take.

‘The other flowers are talking to us too,' Finbar whispered. ‘They're saying exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.'

They look like plants,
Kip thought.
But
if they're trying to talk to us, they must have
brains
.

These aliens were very different to any Kip had seen before. They didn't seem to have houses or vehicles. They couldn't move around easily. And they all looked and spoke exactly the same way.

What does a flower being even eat?
Kip thought. He had so many questions!

The nearby flowers leant in toward Kip and Finbar. They came closer and closer, making a circle. Kip felt their sticky leaves brushing his spacesuit.

‘This doesn't feel friendly to me,' Kip muttered to Finbar.

The flowers began to sway. Their eerie, moaning voices filled the air.

Finbar yawned and stretched.

‘You can't nap now!' Kip exclaimed.

CRASH!

Finbar had fallen face-first onto the ground! He was fast asleep.

Suddenly, Kip felt incredibly tired too.

The field swam before his eyes.
I'll just lie
down…for a minute…
he thought.

‘Kip!
Kip!
Wake up!' whispered a voice in his ear.

Slowly, Kip opened one eye. Finbar's furry face was an inch away from Kip's.

‘We fell asleep!' Finbar said. He scratched a flea bite behind his ear with his foot. ‘Luckily, this itching woke me up.'

Kip snapped awake. The field was in darkness. The giant flowers had their petals closed, and their heads drooped like they were asleep. Soft rain was pattering down all around.

‘How long were we asleep?' Kip whispered.

It had been day when they arrived, and now it was night. But every planet's day was a different length. A day on Botanicus-1 might last an Earth hour, or a whole Earth week!

Finbar shrugged.

‘And why did we suddenly fall asleep in the middle of the day?' Kip added, feeling suspicious.

‘I do that sometimes,' Finbar admitted.

‘But
I
haven't had daytime naps since kindergarten!' Kip replied.

He remembered the circle of identical flowers. Their strange, musical language. Their single, unblinking eyes.

They're almost…hypnotic,
Kip thought. A chill of fear shot through him.

Kip suddenly had a very bad feeling about this mission.

There was a Space Scout missing on Bontanicus-1. Talking, thinking aliens that looked like flowers were all around them. And these flowers were anything but pretty.

CHAPTER
5

Kip thought for a moment, planning his next move. The flowers' hypnotic song had confused him. It looked like these flower-like aliens could be dangerous. But it also looked like they slept at night.

‘I think night-time's our best chance to search Botanicus-1 for Zara,' he whispered to Finbar.

They'd have to search at top speed, since they didn't know how long the night would last. And they'd have to do it without waking the flowers.

The night was so dark and rainy that Kip couldn't see a thing. As quietly as possible, he rummaged in his backpack. He pulled a gadget from the very bottom.

A brand new UV-Trak!

The UV-Trak was a short, stubby wand with a UV light on the tip. The UV light picked up traces of a chemical called phosphorus. Every human had it in their body, and left traces of it behind.

Kip flicked the UV-Trak on. Immediately, a purple light trail blazed in the air behind him. It started near the ground, where Kip had woken up, and led to the spot where he was standing now.

‘We can see where you've been,' said Finbar softly.

Waving the UV-Trak in front of them, Kip and Finbar tiptoed quickly through the field of sleeping flowers. Their spaceboots made no sound in the wet, silver soil.

They crept deeper into the field. Kip's eyes began to puff up and feel itchy.

‘Pollen in the air,' Finbar whispered, scratching a flea bite. ‘In fact, it's kind of odd – so much pollen, but no insects…'

But Kip was concentrating hard on finding Zara. He ran on ahead, waving the UV-Trak back and forth.

A faint purple trail appeared in the night air. Kip and Finbar rushed toward it. The trail blazed even brighter.

Zara's been here,
Kip thought.
And by the
look of that trail, she's close by!

There was a large patch of bare, silvery sand just up ahead. Something about it looked wrong to Kip, and he stopped short. But before he could say anything, Finbar stepped right into the middle of it.

SQUELCH!

In the gloom, Kip could just make out Finbar's furry white shape disappearing into the silver soil.