“Ulan Nuur? Are you all right?” croaked Donal.
The camel raised his head. “Never better,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Bleeding!” said the lemming. “Poor leg.”
Blood was still trickling from the long gash on the camel’s foreleg. When the Gyzol with the water-bottle bent down to inspect it, the lemming snapped its tiny teeth.
“Gerroff, you!”
The Gyzol straightened up and rubbed its stick-like arms together. Donal heard a series of snaps and clacks. To his amazement, the translator round his neck said:
“Do you want water, Browngrass?”
Ulan Nuur twisted his head and glared. “No, you over-sized locust,” he growled, and spat on the floor.
“You can talk!” exclaimed Donal. “Can you understand us?”
The leader of the Gyzols made a sound like a bonfire crackling. At the same time, the translator said, “Yes – luckily for you. That is why you are still alive; because you said you meant no harm.”
“That’s right!”
“In that case, why have you brought the Greengrass here? If you are a friend of the Greengrass, you are our enemy.”
“Where is Brola? Where is the Greengrass?” said Donal anxiously.
“I’m here,” said a faint voice. Brola sat behind him, huddled in his waterproof. “Don’t let them touch me!”
“You mustn’t hurt her!” Donal implored the Gyzols. “We don’t want to fight. We’re not armed. We come in peace.”
Brola raised her head. “No, we don’t!” she squealed. “What are you waiting for? Get them! You’re meant to be fighting!”
“She doesn’t mean it,” said Donal helplessly.
“Yes, I do!”
The great insect eyes stared down at them. “You sowed the Greengrass from your ship,” clicked the Gyzol.
“What? No, we didn’t!” said Donal.
“Yes, I did!” squeaked Brola. “And I hope it grows all over your horrible cities and strangles them.”
“It would, if we did nothing about it,” said the Gyzol grimly. “That was why we shot you down.”
Donal stared round at Brola. “You sowed the Greengrass?” Then he remembered the bubble that had grown from the side of the Skywheel as they flew over the desert, and the dust that had blown from it.
“Greengrass spores,” said Brola proudly. “So that the glorious Greengrass can spread over all this horrible useless country.”
“What?”
“I see you were unaware of her intention,” clicked the Gyzol. “I am Palzack, patrol leader. When your ship was spotted, we were sent to follow your trail and destroy you, if necessary. We will not tolerate the Greengrass.”
The huge eyes changed from red to violet as they rested on Ulan Nuur.
“Browngrass? That is something new. And a baby Browngrass,” it added, studying the lemming. “Do you plan to sow this new Browngrass across the desert? It will not be permitted.”
Donal said hastily, “That’s not grass! That’s hair. It only grows on him. He’s a camel, from another planet, like me.”
“These creatures are certainly not Meerie,” clicked a second Gyzol. “They may be harmless. But this Greengrass is vermin, Palzack. We must destroy it before it spreads.”
It strode jerkily towards them and raised its silver club – which Donal now saw was not a club at all. It was a narrow canister, with a nozzle that pointed at Brola.
A fine rain began to hiss over her. There was a strong smell of rotten eggs. Brola screamed and threw Donal’s raincoat over her head.
“Stop it!” cried Donal. “You’ll kill her!”
“Save me!” squealed Brola.
Donal jumped to his feet. The movement made his head spin, and for an instant he feared he was going to be sick. He staggered and nearly fell. Spiky claws grabbed at him and held him away from Brola.
He twisted out of their grasp. But instead of going to Brola’s aid, he surprised his captors by running in the opposite direction.
He stumbled over the sandy floor of the Dome to the platform where the Skywheels lay. Behind him, he could hear the quick snapping of the Gyzols’ legs as they pursued him.
He reached the platform just before they caught him up, and whirled round, stretching a hand over the nearest sphere.
“Do you know what’ll happen if I touch this?” he croaked.
The following Gyzols froze in mid-step.
Taking a deep breath, Donal tried to steady his voice. “It’ll blow up into a spaceship with all of us inside! And then it’ll carry us back to the Greengrass to face thousands of Meerie. You’re very brave when it comes to killing one Meerie, but can you face a whole tribe?”
His heart was in his mouth. What if the Gyzols called his bluff? He didn’t want to be trapped in a Skywheel with a dozen angry aliens.
But after a long moment, the Gyzols slowly retreated. Gathering in a group, they put their heads together and interlaced their long arms until they looked like a single huge, spiky creature.
Donal could not tell what they were doing. They seemed to be just staring silently into each other’s eyes, while the translator remained quiet.
His outstretched arm began to ache.
“We don’t mean you any harm,” he said desperately. “We just want to leave peacefully. Don’t hurt Brola, and we’ll go away. Please.”
At last the Gyzols separated. Palzack clicked an answer.
“We have agreed that we cannot allow the Greengrass to spread across our land, killing our plants, defiling our soil and polluting our air.”
“Defiling? Polluting?” Brola shook off the raincoat indignantly. “It’s you who do that – you and your horrible volcanoes!”
“The volcanoes are our life and breath,” Palzack replied. “We cannot eat without the plants that grow on them, nor build without their lava, nor breathe for long without their fumes.”
“You breathe stinky horrible smoke!” jeered Brola. “You’re the vermin, not me!”
With a sudden grunt, Ulan Nuur scrambled to his feet. Limping heavily over to Brola, he put his head down close to hers.
“I believe I am in charge of this mission,” he rumbled, “and I want to hear what these locusts have to say.”
“Those nasty pointy-faced murdering–”
“Be quiet!” growled Ulan Nuur. “You have no more manners than a dromedary.”
Brola’s fur bristled defiantly, but she fell silent.
Donal’s arm, poised over the Skywheels, was now aching badly. He had to make a huge effort not to flinch away as Palzack stalked up and bent over him.
“So these are the famous Skywheels?”
This close, the Gyzol looked even taller. As it loomed over him, smelling of smoke and sulphur, Donal noticed that its skin was covered in tiny, shimmering scales.
And then, to his alarm, it reached right past him. Before he could do anything, it touched a Skywheel with its claw.
Nothing blew up. No space-ship suddenly expanded to fill the dome.
So they don’t work after all, thought Donal, with a sickening lurch of his stomach. That means we’re stuck here now for ever!
But Brola said smugly, “Hah! They only work for proper warm-blooded people, not cold-blooded monsters. You can’t use them.”
“How many of these Skywheels are there?” Palzack asked. “There are seventy spaces on the platform. Ten are filled. Where are the others?”
“You should know! You stole them.”
“Stole them? We knew nothing about them,” answered the alien. “Until today, we had no idea this place existed, hidden underground – and we have walked these deserts since long before the Meerie came.”
Stepping back from the Skywheels, Palzack moved over to the walls to survey the pictures there. Donal cautiously lowered his arm and rubbed it.
“These pictures tell the story of your arrival, do they not?”
Brola was silent. It was Donal who answered Palzack.
“It looks like it. But I can’t read the writing.”
With surprising delicacy, Palzack brushed sand from the carving with a claw. “Neither can I. But it appears that this Dome was part of the mother ship which brought the Meerie from their own planet.”
“Might be,” said Brola.
“And it crash-landed here, in the desert?”
“Might have,” said Brola sulkily.
Palzack moved along the line of pictures, studying them carefully.
“It seems that only a handful of you survived – but you couldn’t live for long in these surroundings. I would guess you took a single Skywheel, and left to find a place where there was water, and where your Greengrass could start to grow.”
“A handful?” cried Donal. “There are more than a handful of Meerie. There are thousands!” He spread his arms. “And miles and miles of Greengrass. It’s everywhere!”
“Big big lots,” agreed the lemming.
“It is everywhere now,” replied the Gyzol. As it turned to face them, its eyes burned slowly scarlet. “The Greengrass has spread over time, as have the Meerie. Perhaps they tried to find the Dome again; but could not, because it had been buried by the sand. And here it has lain unseen and undiscovered, ever since.”
“Like the lost villages of the Gobi,” murmured Ulan Nuur.
Donal felt a shiver crawl down his spine.
“Ever since when?” he whispered. “Brola – when did all this happen?”
She shrugged. “How should I know?”
“Our records go back far into the past,” said Palzack, “yet when we started to keep them, the Meerie were already killing the desert with their Greengrass, and encroaching on our lands.”
“How long ago?”
The Gyzol looked at him. Its expression was unreadable. “Four thousand years,” it said.
Chapter Fourteen
“Four thou-” Donal’s mouth fell open. “Do you mean the Skywheels have been lost for four thousand years?”
“What’s four thousand?” whispered the lemming.
“Very lots indeed,” the camel whispered back.
“I don’t know,” said Brola carelessly. “Many generations. You can’t expect me to count them.”
“Years are but a passing breath in the eternal desert wind,” announced Ulan Nuur. “However, four thousand of them is a long time to have mislaid something of this size. I’m surprised the Meerie still remembered that the Dome existed.”
Donal walked over to gaze at the pictures, trying to work things out.
“They remembered the Dome,” he said, “because they made themselves little domes of earth. And they remembered the Skywheels, because they still had one – but they’ve forgotten everything else!”
“We Camels Never Forget.”
“Neither do we Meerie!” insisted Brola shrilly.
“Then why can’t you read what’s written on the walls?” demanded Donal. “Because the Meerie have forgotten how to read! That’s why! And what about the Skywheels?”
“They’re very clever things!” said Brola indignantly.
“They’re brilliant,” said Donal, “but the Meerie can’t make them any more, can they? You’ve forgotten how. And why don’t you know what houses are? Because you’ve forgotten how to build them! I bet you couldn’t even make a wheelbarrow!”
“We don’t need those silly things,” retorted Brola, waving a dismissive hand at the pictures on the walls. “All we need are the Skywheels. And we’ve got those back now!”
“No, you haven’t. They are under our control,” said Palzack sternly. He motioned to the other Gyzols, who immediately formed a prickly ring round the platform and its silver spheres.
Donal winced. He’d made the wrong choice yet again. He should have stayed next to the Skywheels. Now he couldn’t reach them.
“Couldn’t you let us have just one?” he pleaded. “Just one, to get home in – if they still work.”
“If they work, the Meerie will use them to sow their Greengrass,” crackled a Gyzol angrily.
“I won’t let them,” said Donal.
“How can you stop them?” rasped Palzack. “Have you such power over the Meerie? Will they do as you say?”
Donal paused. Lie, donkey-brain! he told himself fiercely. Just lie, say anything, to get us out of here!
But somehow he couldn’t, with those huge, iridescent eyes glittering at him. As he hesitated, Brola threw aside the raincoat, and scuttled over to stand by his side.
“I’ll promise to leave you alone!” she cried. “Just give me a Skywheel, and I’ll do whatever you want!”
Palzack stooped to look into her black button eyes for a long moment. Brola blinked back at him, her mouth open and her hands dangling limply.
“Your promise is empty,” said Palzack at last. “In your mind I see nothing but the waving of the Greengrass.”
“There is nothing else there,” rumbled Ulan Nuur.
Palzack turned and fixed his gaze upon the camel. The Gyzol’s great red eyes stared long into the camel’s liquid brown ones. Ulan Nuur gazed steadily back.
“And your head is full of dreams,” said Palzack. Ulan Nuur turned his head aside, and coughed and spat in an embarrassed way.
Donal felt sudden panic grip him. Was Palzack reading their minds? Because if he read Donal’s mind he’d see instantly what a hopeless donkey-brain he was, with no more chance of controlling the Meerie than of swimming through the sand…
It was too late. The alien turned to face him, and the huge many-faceted eyes were staring down at his. Donal gazed back, fascinated despite himself by the shifting patterns that glinted across the surface of Palzack’s eyes like reflections on a lake.
As he watched the patterns change and merge, a picture gradually formed in his mind: a tall thin tower of black stone, sharp as a needle, tunnelled like an anthill. Along its dark, warm passages strode many Gyzols, and the tunnels echoed with their constant clicking. Through doors on either side he saw narrow chambers, their black walls polished, where more Gyzols huddled in spiky groups, or sat in circles, legs folded neatly up beneath them, chattering like classrooms of children…
The picture faded. Donal blinked. Palzack’s eyes had turned deep blue.
The alien paused for a moment, as if thinking. “Very well. You may take one Skywheel, and go free. But be wary of the Meerie. Go straight home to your own planet, if you can.”
“Why?” Donal rubbed his eyes, feeling dizzy.
“You are a resourceful being,” continued the Gyzol. “You know more than you realise. You will find your way. And I believe we can trust you. Will you swear friendship with us?”
Palzack held out a long, thin arm to Donal.
Donal stared at the scaly claw, and swallowed. It was like being asked to shake hands with a giant cockroach. As he slowly reached out his own hand, he saw the Gyzol flinch.
“It probably thinks I’m revolting,” realised Donal in a flash. “All soft and squishy instead of hard and crackly…”
Their hands met. The alien hand felt rough and cool, like a dry branch. It gripped Donal’s for a brief moment.
“Farewell, friend,” clicked Palzack. “You may leave. Farewell, Browngrass, and baby Browngrass.” The lemming ducked away from the alien’s gaze, and began to burrow in a heap of sand.
Donal gathered up his things and put them in the rucksack. “Can we really go?”
“Yes. You and the Browngrass may have one ship – on condition that you do not return to the Meerie.”
“But hang on,” said Donal, light dawning, “what about Brola? She can come too, can’t she?”
“No,” said Palzack firmly. “The Greengrass stays with us. She will be kept safely confined.”
“In prison?”
“She must not be allowed to spread her spores.”
Brola wailed, and hurled herself on Ulan Nuur, clinging to his shaggy fur.
“Desist,” said Ulan Nuur. “I am very attached
to my coat, and it is very attached to me.”
“Ulan Nuur! You promised to help me!” cried Brola.
“Indeed I did,” said Ulan Nuur mournfully. “Very well. I shall stay with you.”
Donal was horrified. “What – stay here, in prison? You can’t, Ulan Nuur!”
“It will be nothing new,” rumbled the camel.
“But why can’t we all go home?” cried Donal. “You don’t have to stay, Ulan Nuur!”
“I have pledged to protect Brola,” said Ulan Nuur, rather hoarsely.
Donal swallowed. What was he to do? Despite his desperate longing to see Earth and his own home again, he couldn’t leave Ulan Nuur behind. To abandon him now would be betrayal. He couldn’t bear the thought of the camel locked up in prison.
“Well, if you’re not leaving, then I’m not either,” he announced.
“You must. You will be wanted in your own home. Your parents will miss you. Nobody will miss me.”
Donal ran over to the camel and buried his face in the smelly, matted fur. “I’ll miss you, Ulan Nuur!” he whispered. “I’ll miss you dreadfully!”
“You can’t have him,” cried Brola shrilly from the other side of the camel. “He’s mine!” She tugged at the camel’s leg.
“It is time for you to leave,” clicked Palzack. He walked towards the platform where the Skywheels rested.
The camel turned his head away from Donal and cleared his throat. “You had better go. Look after the lemming – wherever it is.”
The lemming spoke from the heap of sand by their feet. “Dug a little hole,” it said. “Found one more down here. Poor little egg, all on its–”
WHOOMPH. With a shattering, splintering crash, Donal was thrown into darkness.
Chapter Fifteen
“I’m dead,” he thought, until he realised that the darkness was full of the smell of old boots, and the sound of Brola whimpering.
“Oops,” said the lemming.
“Did you do that on purpose?” Donal could hardly speak. He was breathless with elation and terror.
“Dunno.”
“Where are we? Are we still underground?”
“S’alright, underground,” said the lemming in the dark. “No owls.”
“I do not enjoy this mode of transport,” said the hollow voice of Ulan Nuur.
“But where are we?” whispered Donal. “Are we buried? Where are the Gyzols?” He waited, his heart pounding, for the darkness to lighten.