‘And that’s the machine,’ Ispex muttered, ‘that’s supposed to take care of us, in space . . . Take care of us . . .’

  Blast-Off

  ‘Are we ready?’ Makenzi said. Even if his voice had come from his own mouth instead of through the little speakers built into the Ecosuit helmets, it would not have sounded natural. It was high with anxiety.

  ‘OK,’ said Vawn. ‘OK’ – Tsu. ‘OK’ – Ispex.

  ‘And your straps are tight? Really tight?’

  Another chorus of OKs: and from Shambles, a steady teep-teep-teep. He was in the padded cell with them. ‘Why?’ Vawn had asked. ‘To take care of us if anything goes wrong,’ Makenzi had said. She said, ‘If anything goes wrong it will most likely be Shambles!’ Tsu said, tightly, ‘Not now I’ve attended to him. Me and Ispex.’

  Outside, the sun rose over the trees of the wood. The Starstormers saw only a poor TV picture of them. Yet they could see enough. The sun, Earth’s sun; the trees, Earth trees: the undergrowth – only a shifting fuzz on the little screen, but real Earth undergrowth, with Earth insects, invisible, leading their tiny, busy lives: and Earth creatures, mice and moles and voles, snails and spiders, sparrows and hedgehogs, earthworms and badgers, all so familiar and real . . .

  ‘This is not real,’ Vawn thought. ‘I’m not here. This isn’t happening. When Makenzi puts his hand on that little console and pushes those little buttons, nothing’s going to happen. It’s a game, a stupid game, it isn’t happening . . .’

  Tsu thought, ‘Push those buttons. Go on, push them.’

  Ispex thought, ‘I checked the food and I checked the ecosuits and I checked the Navplan . . .’ But he was only making his mind think like this. His true thoughts were with Mr Whiting. He could see Mr Whiting in his mind’s eye, marking them absent. And then there would be reports to the Headmistress and radiomails to his parents – but what did it all matter? Why did he think about these things? All that mattered was that Starstormer got off the ground and into space . . . Had he checked the checklist?

  Makenzi thought, ‘I don’t want to. I can’t. I can’t.’ His hand was like a tendoned claw above the little console. The claw had only to move downwards a centimetre and then – ‘I can’t,’ he said, actually mouthing the words. Because it was all stupid, childish, babyish. A junk ship filled with four morons and a mechanical clown.

  He groaned, brought his fingers down and Starstormer exploded.

  Makenzi thought his head had been crushed – that his brain, a scarlet football, had been lit from within with agonising fire. He fainted.

  Tsu heard herself scream. She was astonished by the noise and astonished that she could hear it: for the other noise, the explosive noise, was crushing her skull. She fainted.

  Vawn thought, ‘This is death.’ It was not only the unbearable noise, the feeling that her head was being forced into her shoulders, the certainty that her eyes were being forced from their sockets – worse than these was the split-second realisation that her harness had burst. Her hips had slammed down into the soft cushion, bounced up again and torn the lower harness apart. In that split-second, one of her own knees hit her in the face and knocked her out.

  Ispex thought, ‘This is wrong, two starters have gone off at once!’ and then everything was crimson, his eyes were coming out, a bully had smashed him in the face. He fainted.

  Shambles, legs splayed, body flattened onto his wheels, said, ‘Pardon’.

  One person, Mr Whiting, saw the ascent of Starstormer. He saw it through a school window: red and yellow fire, a puffball of black and grey smoke, a dribbling snailtrack of burned air and vapour leading into the sky. A thunderclap; then a distant roar, soon dying. ‘So that’s what they’ve been doing,’ he said, moodily. ‘Idiots.’

  He had discovered their absence only half an hour earlier while walking in his dressing gown through the dormitories. He was sleepless, as usual: sleepless because he was a disappointed man, a man without hope, too old to leave Earth, too young not to want to go. ‘Idiots,’ he said, looking into the dawn sky. ‘All be killed. Yet, if I had the guts . . .’

  Gloomily, he made his way to the Headmistress’s rooms. She would have to be told. Then the authorities, the police, the parents. A lot of fuss. Four stupid kids, probably dead by now. Burned to a crisp, like the last lot. When was that? Ten years ago, eleven? Serve them right.

  In the open, the dawn sun made the grass sparkle. He stopped and looked again at the sky, deep blue, luminous, endless, clean.

  ‘Good luck!’ whispered Mr Whiting after the starship.

  Vawn came to first. There was a weight on her chest as if a lorry was parked on it. She was afraid to move. But the weight moved. Now it was on her right hip, the right side of her rib cage, inside her right ear. She said, ‘Makenzi! Makenzi!’

  He heard her, groaned, moved and opened his eyes.

  ‘Makenzi, it’s happened! It’s worked! We’re moving!’

  He groaned again and said, ‘Hurts . . .’ He woke properly. ‘We’re moving! We’re up! I can feel the weight going round my body!’

  Shambles said, ‘The ship is rotating,’ and blinked some of his lights. He was doing sums. ‘We have escape velocity,’ he announced.

  Vawn, half sobbing with the pain of the constantly moving pressure, undid her top harness. ‘Your face!’ Makenzi said. ‘What hit you?’

  ‘My own knee or something. The lower harness went. I was all over the place, my legs flew up –’

  Shambles said, ‘Reduction dressing,’ and climbed the wall to the medical chest. The wall was netted so he did not slip. He opened the chest with his whiskers and front legs, got a dressing and crawled over Vawn’s body. He pressed the dressing to her bruised forehead and nose. Vawn said, ‘Ouch!’. Shambles said, ‘Pardon’.

  Tsu, her eyes still closed, said, ‘Why don’t we go? We must go!’

  Makenzi said, ‘We’ve gone. We’re moving. Wake up! Can’t you feel the pressure?’

  ‘Oh yes . . .’ Tsu did not groan but the crease between her brush-stroke eyebrows deepened. ‘What about Ispex?’ she said.

  They aroused Ispex. ‘We’re moving!’ he said, immediately. And then, gasping with pain, he was out of his harness and squatting on the floor beside Shambles. ‘What’s our speed? Acceleration? Rotation? Course? Trajectory?’ The questions poured from him. Shambles answered them. The others listened, silently.

  At last, Ispex nodded at the TV screen. ‘Get us a picture, Shambles.’

  Shambles winked his lights. The screen showed flicks and jiggles. ‘Pardon,’ said Shambles. The images cleared and steadied. They showed a thing, a thing with a curved edge, that almost filled the screen. The thing was grey, green and blue with overlaid pieces of white that made patterns.

  ‘That’s Earth,’ Ispex said. His voice was hushed.

  ‘Earth . . .’

  Threshold of Space

  They left the shallow envelope of breathable air surrounding Earth; they entered true space.

  They flight-trimmed Starstormer, not perfectly but well enough. The ship spun and gave a feeling of gravity in the rooms; but some parts of the corridor near the centre of the ship’s mass were sickeningly light and uncertain.

  Earth was now a jewelled ball on the TV screen, incredibly remote and unreal. The ball was alive and alight with beauty in its dark setting: it was small and glowing, a jewel to be worn in the hair of the Queen of All the Universe. But it was not their Earth any more, the earth of sparrows and squirrels, rain and sun, Mr Whiting and school food. That world was gone.

  ‘I don’t think I care,’ said Vawn, when she had looked long enough at the miniature Earth. ‘About leaving, I mean. Do you, Makenzi?’

  ‘Pity to miss seeing Mr Whiting’s face when he found us gone . . .’ said Makenzi. ‘You, Ispex?’

  Ispex did not answer. He was crouched over Shambles again, peering at the little lights and readouts, making notes in his checklists.

  Tsu said, ‘Shambles, get a picture of Epsilon Cool.’

  The screen flickered and showed dark blankness. ‘No picture available yet,’ Shambles said.

  ‘Never mind,’ Tsu replied. ‘Just hold on that. Forget about Earth. Just look ahead.’

  They ate their first meal in space: a huge meal. Fresh bread, fresh steak, fresh orange juice, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit. ‘Eat!’ Makenzi commanded. ‘Enjoy it!’

  ‘I’m still aching, the pressure . . .’ Vawn complained. ‘A bit of steak, perhaps—’

  ‘Eat. You won’t eat stuff like this for a long time. Enjoy your food.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Certainly, sir.’ She ate, sulkily hiding her face in her hair.

  Ispex said, ‘Is Shambles getting fed?’

  Tsu said, ‘Yes, he’s connected up to the Maggie. Something might be coming through. But his cells should last for months. He’ll be all right. Can I have more potatoes?’

  ‘Vawn’s eaten them all. Vawn eats more than any two of us put together.’

  ‘You said “eat”,’ said Vawn. Her voice was muffled. Her mouth was full of food. She was the thinnest of the four and the biggest eater.

  The lights in the little cell-like room went out. Now they were in windowless darkness. Makenzi pressed the button of a Glo and the feeble light lit the curved walls, ridged like the body of a worm where the laser beams had cut.

  ‘Shambles!’ shouted Makenzi. There was a distant scuffling and the lights came on again.

  ‘Pardon,’ wheezed Shambles. ‘I was checking the circuits—’

  ‘That’s right, I told him to,’ Ispex said. To Shambles, he shouted, ‘Did you get any juice from the Maggie?’

  ‘No. Nothing coming through. But I do not need any.’

  ‘He’s not a bad old relic,’ Ispex said. ‘He tries. He is always trying. Very trying.’ He chuckled at his own joke.

  Vawn said, ‘Look, we’ll be together for months and months and if you’re going to make those jokes of yours, Ispex—’

  They ate, greedily and splendidly. When they had finished, they cleared up and piled the dishes on Shambles’ back. His whiskers and feelers held them. He took the dishes to the Char, the machine that reduced the leftovers to powder and recycled the moisture content. He tried to load the Char but could not. He was not equipped for the job, simple as it was. Makenzi did it for him while Shambles stood by saying ‘Pardon’.

  Meanwhile Tsu tipped the disposable items down the chute of the Exall, the waste-disposal unit. Steak fat, plastic bottle-tops and paper napkins slid down the chute. She pressed a button. The chute folded into itself and disappeared. Somewhere below there was a metallic noise, the sliding clunk of a door opening; then a hiss, as air from the ship escaped; then a second clunk as the outer door opened and the waste jetted out from the ship. Two more clunks followed. The button Tsu had pressed glowed OK.

  Tsu had frowned while all this was going on. She knew about ships that lost all their air through a defect in the Char or its airlock; she knew what happened to the people in the ship. But this Char worked. She stopped frowning and rejoined the others.

  Party Time

  They were in a good mood – such a good mood that they seemed almost drunk. It was the food, of course: full stomachs. Tsu suddenly caught the infection of good humour. She too began to smile, then to sing. ‘Three cheers for the dear old College, it fills you full of knowledge,’ they sang, just as they used to a very long time ago, when they were still on Earth. Even Ispex was singing. He was out of tune but he sang loudly, with his round head thrown back and his round nose catching the light and his round mouth a black O—

  Shambles was trying to tell them something, flashing his funny little lights, going from one to the other, anxiously pulling at them with his whiskers or feelers or whatever you call them – how absurd, he looked like an illuminated puppy-dog!

  ‘What’s your name, Shambles?’ Vawn cried.

  ‘Shambles. Please—’

  ‘No, it’s not Shambles, it’s puppy-dog! Say “puppy-dog”!’

  ‘Puppy-dog. Listen to me, pardon, it’s important—’

  ‘It’s not important, that’s not your name, your name is puppy-dog! Say “puppy-dog”!’

  Vawn was laughing, she couldn’t stop laughing. Makenzi was as bad; he was rolling on the floor, roaring ‘Puppy-dog!’ Ispex was singing. Tsu was shaking his shoulders, shouting, ‘No, it doesn’t go like that, you’ve got the tune wrong, listen!’

  ‘Oxygen,’ said Shambles. ‘Please listen—’

  ‘You can’t hear oxygen,’ Ispex said, ‘so what’s the good of listening? Oxygen is a gas, didn’t you learn that at school? I did. “Three cheers for the dear old Coll, it fills you full”—’

  ‘Oxygen!’ said Shambles. Now he was turning in little circles, desperately trying to get someone to listen to him. ‘Oxygen!’ But then something went wrong inside him. He began to go ‘Dup-dup-dup-dup-dup-dup . . .’ It was too much. Everyone began to imitate him, choking with laughter, clutching at each other. ‘Dup-dup-dup-dup-dup,’ they went.

  Vawn, screeching ‘Dup-dup-dup’, fell. The wall hit her head where her knee had hit it. The pain was so great that it drove out the giddy, drunken feeling. ‘What?’ she said, vaguely rubbing the pain with her hand but staring at Shambles. ‘What?’ What did you say? What?’

  ‘Dup-dup-dup-dup-dup-dup . . .’ said Shambles, fastening himself to her ankle.

  ‘Speak properly! Look, press your restart or something . . . Here, let me!’ She pressed his restart button.

  Shambles said, ‘Oxygen.’

  ‘What about oxygen?’

  ‘The mix is wrong. You’re not getting enough oxygen. You are suffering oxygen sickness. You are drunk.’

  She wanted to stand on her head – everything was going round and round, so why not stand on your head, what’s the difference? – but she knew that would be wrong, not good manners, Shambles was trying to tell her something. Be polite! She began to giggle.

  ‘Oxygen! The mix is wrong! Do something!’ Shambles insisted. His grasp on her ankle tightened.

  ‘You do it, Shambles,’ she managed to say.

  ‘Can’t reach. Come with me. Quickly.’ He pulled at her ankle. She wanted to oblige him, but now she was sleepy, very sleepy, she could not be bothered. Oxygen? What oxygen? Who where why oxygen? ‘I’m going beddy-byes, Shambles,’ she said, and giggled. Shambles pulled her ankle. It hurt. She yelped. He pulled again, his metal lashes cutting into her. Grumbling and hobbling she followed him.

  He led her down the corridor and towards the centre of the ship. The gravity must be wrong, she kept falling sideways. ‘Let go my ankle!’ She kicked feebly at him. He tightened his grip and led her on.

  ‘Ecoputer,’ he said, when they reached the ecoputer.

  ‘What?’ she said, staring stupidly at the dials of the machine that computed the craft’s climate.

  ‘Correct the levels!’ he said. ‘Get the needles all straight, all pointing the same way! Make it say OK!’

  She sat down on the floor, staring at Shambles. ‘So many little lights,’ she said. ‘And you’re covered in little lights. Pretty lights.’

  He tightened his grip on her ankle. She yelped with the cutting pain. ‘Do it!’ he said. ‘Pardon, but do it!’

  ‘You’re hurting! Will you stop hurting if—’

  ‘Yes. Get up and do it. Now.’

  Sometimes frowning, sometimes giggling, she played games with the knobs that made the needles move on the ecoputer. When she lost interest, a metallic thong tightened on her ankle, making her scream.

  At last, she said, ‘All in line! Simply fine! And there’s letters, look, I can see letters, can you see letters?’

  ‘OK,’ said Shambles. ‘They read OK.’ The burning thong round Vawn’s ankle loosened its grip. She sighed, rubbed her ankle and said ‘What’s OK? My ankle –’ Then she slipped to the floor, asleep, one arm pressing down on Shambles’s back.

  ‘Pardon,’ he said, disengaged the arm, and made his tortoise-like way to the Maggie.

  He had saved the Starstormers and their ship. Now he needed some energy, a little recharge.

  Slowly spinning, Starstormer went on. Silently spinning, the ship made its way through the near-nothingness of space. Behind her, slowly and silently spinning, Earth receded, a greater jewel among the thousand million jewels of the Galaxy.

  Behind Starstormer, slowly and silently spinning, followed the ship’s attendants – seven bottle tops, two white flasks marked FIZ!, some wrappings and four bones from T-bone steaks; all making their solemn journey through eternity.

  Octopus

  Time passed. Days, weeks, months. They still used the words but of course they had no meaning. No sun rose and set. No season changed. Time had become timeless: ‘a clock-face with no hands’, as Ispex said.

  For three days, Vawn had put herself into a Big Gloom. She had whimpered, snivelled, then fallen into complete, damp silence behind her curtains of hair. The others were not surprised. Makenzi had said, ‘I know how she feels. I wouldn’t mind a good long silent sulk myself.’

  But now, she had recovered. When Ispex said, ‘a clock-face with no hands’, Vawn looked up and said, ‘But of course, there’s got to be time of some kind! I mean, time doesn’t stand still. Take us: we’re getting older—’

  ‘It’s Makenzi’s cooking,’ Tsu said. He had taken up cooking. Bored with their rations, he crouched over the Glo, mixing this with that and that with the other. But the same old tastes, or lack of them, came through.

  Ispex said in his professorish manner, ‘Time’s relative. I mean, it’s not absolute—’

  ‘Oh, dry up,’ Makenzi said, wearily. Ispex closed his mouth.

 

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