“Ugh, this place is revolting... my head hurts... I’m not feeling well,” a girl complained, it could have been Lexell. After that it went quiet for a while. Carina’s grip on Heen tightened. Then they heard vomiting and groaning. Another minute went by. Carina tried unsuccessfully to dampen the sound of her breathing, otherwise there was silence.
Suddenly a piercing scream echoed around the grotto waking Heen and forcing Carina to cover her ears. A torch rolled across the ground coming to rest in front of them. It stayed unclaimed shining back the way it had come, but gave no hint as to the whereabouts of its owner.
The commotion stirred the girls into action. They tiptoed across to the far side of the alcove away from the commotion. Their eyelids still hung heavy over their eyes, but the urge to escape from Tapper spurred them on. Carina slapped herself across her cheeks then grasping Heen’s arm she used her free fingers to hold her nose in an effort to mask the stench coming from the carpet of decaying bugs.
Reaching the far end of the grotto they could go no further. The girls huddled together knowing that they could be discovered at any moment. The screaming had stopped and the kaimons were silent too. Holding their breaths they strained to catch some words or whispers from their pursuers, but none came. Where were they? Why don’t they come for us? How much longer do we have to suffer? The tension was unbearable.
Then Carina heard a croakiness, a mere whisper above the hum of the tracks.
“Help me! Please help me,” it was Tapper, but it was unusually high-pitched and whining, a bit like a little child. “Gibran is hurt, he’s not moving. I don’t know what to do.”
Carina found it hard to believe that Gibran could be hurt. He was a big fat slob and known as the muscle or more accurately the flab of Tapper’s gang. Tapper was the brains, Derain the one to get his hands dirty, but Gibran was the strength and the one feared the most. Gibran never considered the consequences of his actions and would often boast “I’ll do it now and worry about it never”.
Heen edged forward reaching for the unclaimed torch. Carina grabbed her legs and jerked her sister back. She held onto her tightly and stifled her objections. What if this was a sneaky trick to get them to show themselves? Yet a short distance away in the darkness someone sobbed. It sounded genuine, but they couldn’t take the chance.
The girls huddled closer together. The sobbing finally stopped, but it was replaced by a new sound, soft at first but growing louder. Whatever was making it was coming closer.
“Chiut chi chi chi chig. Chiu-u-u-t chi chi chi chig.”
Carina instantly recognised the sound. It was the unmistakable call of a slemon, an extremely venomous lizard, and the plague of many planets. Adult slemons were usually quite lithe and petite no more than a metre from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail, but nevertheless deadly to their victims. The slemon’s body, covered in vivid electric blue scales served as a warning to all who might be foolish enough to challenge it. For many creatures the distinctive call and the flash of blue would be the last thing they ever knew and many people died each year from the lizard’s bite.
She remembered what their teacher had told them to do should they ever meet a slemon. Simple as it was the best advice was to run. Run fast and don’t stop until the slemon is far behind you. If you were unfortunate enough to be bitten then get to a hospital within minutes otherwise make your last request to anyone stupid enough to still be near you.
Firstly the slemon would taste its victim using its trident-shaped three pronged tongue. Then it used its double rows of needle sharp teeth to bite while gripping its prey with six scythe-like claws on the ends of each foot. Carina remembered her school project on her town’s unsuccessful attempt to wipe out wild slemons. She had learned about the environmentalists who fought for the slemon rights and how they would release slemon babies into secluded areas where they could find plenty of bugs to eat. Underneath the tram tracks was the perfect place.
With nowhere to run, Carina, her mind dulled by the magnetic vibrations and with an overwhelming desire to sleep she chuckled and spoke loudly and with confidence.
“So are you my imaginary dragon?” She asked.
Slemon (Centaurus slemensis) – Sketch made by Piers Vallis shortly before being eaten by the same creature he was drawing.
Six legs each equipped with deadly claws tore at the dirt as the slemon came towards her. Pausing for a moment it stuck out its three-pronged tongue to taste the air. Then lowering its head into a narrow crevice it scooped up a mouthful of bugs. Its tongue tasted then lassoed the sickest ciri lizard and curled it into its mouth, chomping the doomed creature with its poison-laced teeth.
“Chiut chi chi chi chig. Chiu-u-u-t chi chi chi chig,” chewed the slemon.
It waddled forward until Carina could smell the foul stench of rotting meat on its breath and feel the rasp of its tongue tickling her bare feet, but staring straight at Carina its great saucer-sized eyes showed no signs of compassion.
Imaginary beasts shouldn’t smell this bad, she thought, and you certainly shouldn’t feel them tasting your toes.
“Don’t move Heen, keep absolutely still!”
Carina tried to whisper but found she needed to raise her voice over the buzz of the tracks. She was terrified that a sudden noise might startle the slemon, and with fatal consequences. Carina was no longer tired. The magnetic beat still flowed into her body, but the fright of meeting this monster had forced her to concentrate. The slemon was not so fortunate. Normally known for its lightening quick reactions it lumbered along slowly chasing an imaginary victim. Its eyes were glazed and empty. With a great deal of effort it swung away from Carina leaving her feet covered in slime and spit.
“Do you think the slemon bit Gibran?” Heen whispered.
“I wish, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Gibran bit the slemon. Anyway do you want to stay and find out?” Carina tried hard to force a grin.
A group of kaimons, angry at having their supper interrupted, scuttled between the slemon’s legs. Hungry and curious to learn if the colourful lizard would make a good meal one kaimon made a brave leap at the slemon’s belly. More followed. Attaching their slug-like suckers between the scales and sinking their tiny sharp teeth into slemon flesh the kaimons fed. In reply the slemon stuck out its tongue, lazily grabbing the nearest kaimon and curling it onto its blood-stained teeth and into its monstrous mouth. It repeated this grotesque drama until only a few kaimons remained.
Splashes of dirt rained from the alcove walls as kaimon reinforcements emerged from their hiding places and began their assaults on the slemon. The girls froze, not daring to move. Freshly made holes honeycombed the walls as swarms of kaimons emerged and scampered hungrily towards the slemon.
“Quick Heen, we must go NOW!” Carina edged along the tunnel keeping as far as she could from the fighting, but failing to notice a tiny creature creep silently into one of her pockets.
“B-but we can’t get by. They’ll eat us, and even if they don’t what about Tapper? He could be waiting for us.”
Carina edged past the angry, swirling mayhem, but found she couldn’t reach the tunnel entrance without becoming part of the battle. A large and ferocious kaimon leapt at the slemon’s throat making Heen step backwards and tripped over the carpet of bugs scattering them as she fell. Carina reached out a hand while keeping her eyes fixed on the skirmish no more than a few steps away. Heen pulled herself from Carina’s grasp and reached into the litter of bugs. She grabbed hold of something and with both hands and pulled.
Chapter 5
The Tunnel
The cover was too heavy for one diminutive girl to lift. Heen clenched her teeth and pulled at an old metal handle causing the rust around its edges to break in to large brown flakes, but the cover refused to move. Carina crouched beside her and together they rocked it backwards and forwards until there was a loud click and an ancient spring, activated for the first time in many centuries, helped push the
cover upwards. Underneath was a manhole, a circular opening about half a metre across, a deep dark well. Heen sat amongst the carpet of bugs and dangled her legs inside. Keen to escape the battle she lowered her legs further into the hole until they rested on the rung of a ladder.
There was no time to speculate on the unknown monsters that might be waiting for them below; they were keener to escape from the monsters battling above. Leaning against the rungs of the ladder Carina raised her arms and tugged at the manhole cover hoping to close it over her. She knew that if she pulled too hard she risked the heavy cover falling and sending both girls to their deaths an unknown distance below. At last it moved, slowly swinging down towards her head. It fell almost neatly into the hole leaving only a crescent of light shining from above, illuminated by the abandoned torch. Carina prayed it was enough to stop the slemon from following.
Standing at the top of the ladder and peering through the narrow slit Carina watched fascinated as the slemon continued to grab, lick, snatch and crunch the kaimons. Legs, tubes, blue scales and tiny teeth spat against the walls. At least, Carina thought, the slemon wouldn’t be hungry after the battle. She still pondered Heen’s question, had Gibran been bitten? If he had there wasn’t much anyone could do. She didn’t like him, Derain or Tapper, but would she want them to become slemon food? She had mixed feelings about that.
“Come on Carina, let’s get out of here,” Heen nagged from below.
Heen counted the rungs as she descended. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine and thirty. What if the ladder stopped high above the ground? Forty-one, forty-two what would they do then? Could they wait for the battle to finish? Sixty-one, sixty-two, if the slemon won the battle would it come after them? And what about the kaimons, there were thousands of them, would they still be hungry? Seventy-eight, seventy-nine and... At last she could feel solid ground under her feet. Heen let out a huge sigh, and a few seconds later Carina rejoiced as she reached the bottom, but she tried not to let it show.
Feeling her way in the darkness she caught hold of Heen’s shirt.
“Listen Heen, it’s important we stay together.”
“And I was going to run off into the darkness,” Heen replied sarcastically.
As they stood considering their next move Carina felt a sharp tap on her shoulder. After a few seconds another tap, then a whack on the back of her head.
“Heen stop that!” Almost as soon as the words had left her lips Carina remembered Heen was standing in front of her, and in fact she still had hold of her sister. How could Heen be tapping her from behind? Instinctively Carina’s fingers pulled Heen’s shirt even tighter, which made her sister grumble.
Scared to discover what was behind Carina shook with fright.
“Heen something’s tapping my shoulder, it must be right behind me. Turn your torch on, now!”
Heen, still annoyed with her sister, fumbled with her torch. She pointed the beam at Carina revealing a steady rain of bugs tumbling from the crescent gap high above. Most landed on the ground, but the occasional one landed on her sister.
Carina gave a loud yelp and jumped back from the plunging mini-beasts and franticly brushed them from her body. Reluctantly Heen helped extract some of the wriggling creatures that had become tangled in her sister’s hair. The bugs were no longer sluggish. They scurried, scuttled and writhed over and between the sisters’ feet. Some went straight for nearby cracks and crevices while others searched for a long awaited meal. Many of the billipedes, using their multitudinous legs to spear their prey, had already begun a banquet.
Searching their surroundings they found themselves standing in a long tunnel that in the feeble torchlight appeared to go on forever. There were no signs to help them decide which direction to travel and each wall was painted a dull steel grey. On the ground a series of grooves etched into the floor. Carina guessed these were made by maintenance robots but it was impossible to tell the direction they travelled and how long ago they were left. They could have been made earlier that day or be hundreds or even thousands of years old.
“So w-which way do we go?” Heen betrayed her nervousness.
“This way, I think,” Carina hoped she sounded more confident than her sister, but in her mind she had simply tossed an imaginary coin.
“Carina, can we go home? I’ve had enough excitement and I’m tired. I want to sleep without that constant buzzing in my ears.”
Carina studied her sister. Heen was quite petite for a ten year old but often disguised it with her daring and bravery. Did she expect too much from her little sister? Heen was tired and Carina felt guilty for bringing her. If she had not insisted Heen follow her perhaps her younger sister might now be at home in bed.
“What do you think happened to Gibran?” Heen asked as tears started rolling down her cheeks.
“Don’t you think I would rather be in my nice warm bed?” Carina snapped, desperately trying to avoid the question.
Heen’s tears became streams and she started to howl as the tension finally overwhelmed her. Carina decided to try a different approach.
“Listen Heen, don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll find a way out of here. I promise you. Give us another hour and you’ll be at home laughing about this.”
Carina longed to believe her own words, but she couldn’t, she knew she was failing her sister miserably.
“Come on, let’s go home!” she said with fake confidence.
She grabbed hold of Heen’s shoulders and took the first few uncertain steps into the tunnel.
The soil underneath their feet squelched with each step. It stuck to their shoes like sticky goo. Progress was uncomfortable but here at last they appeared to be free of bullies, bugs, kaimons and slemons. As an extra bonus the buzzing was at last growing fainter. Walking into the darkness Heen counted at least five hundred steps before the tunnel zigzaged and after a further five hundred the tunnel opened out into a vast cavern.
Chapter 6
The Cavern
The first thing they noticed was how cold and damp the air had become. The grotto and tunnel had been quite hot, but here in contrast the temperature must be close to freezing. A frosty-blue bioluminescent hue covered the cavern walls, not enough to pick out details, but enough to give the whole place a ghostly atmosphere. Over on the far side panels of flashing lights hung above an assortment of buttons marked with strange wavy symbols, but like the walls they glowed dimly. Nothing stirred, not even the huge dangling stalactites that hung from the cavern ceiling or the enormous stalagmites that over many centuries had crept upwards towards the roof.
“Carina, what is this place?”
“Let’s find out. Shine your torch over there!”
Pointing the torch towards the middle of the cavern its light caught the edges of a tall black tower with walls so polished they acted like mirrors. The girls walked slowly and nervously towards it. Carina kept her torch pointing ahead but Heen swung hers in swift wide arcs hoping it would frighten any monsters lurking in the darkest corners of the cavern.
Carina craned her neck upwards but the top of the tower was lost in a thick cluster of stalactites and the gloom. In the centre of the facing wall was a colourful picture of a robot, arms painted red, chest of gold and legs and head coloured with the same electric blue as both the lasertram and the slemon. Carina wondered who would bother painting such a colourful picture in a dark dank gloomy cavern.
Heen, happy with this distraction started to explore. Swinging her torch in all directions she crept around the tower brushing against the polished mirror walls. On each side she found an identical robot picture, which she counted as she turned.
“One robot, two robots, three, four, five, six robots.”
She turned again and this time her hand slid off the edge.
“There’s a hole in this side, can I explore it?” Heen shouted, and not waiting for Carina to reply stepped inside.
The cavity was just tall enough to enter but extended less
than the length of Heen’s arm. She ran her hands across the inner surface and unlike the front it was quite lumpy. More importantly there were no obvious buttons, switches or handles that might help them escape. Shining her torch into the hole she read the words ‘ROBOT DOCK 1’ stencilled across the bumps.
“I can’t see anything in here. Carina, are you having any luck?” Heen shouted then heard herself echo across the vastness of the cave.
Carina followed her sister and walked round the structure. Each of the first six sides had a robot pained on it. The remaining two sides, including the one Heen was exploring, contained no picture but only a hole exactly the right size and shape of a robot picture. Exploring the eighth side and having bent her head to enter Carina examined the writing stamped inside. It read ‘ROBOT DOCK 2’.
Carina frowned and cupped her hands to her ears.
“Listen to that, Heen.”
“What? All I can hear is the drip, drip, drip of water coming from above.”
“That’s it,” Carina whispered, “there’s no buzzing anymore.”
“Yeah that’s great big sis. All we have to do is follow the sound of the drips out of here,” Heen shook her head in disgust.
Over to the left the torchlight shone over a large pool of water. Occasionally an air bubble as large as Heen’s head would rise to the surface and pop. If the dark murky depths offered an escape neither girl fancied finding out.
“Don’t be stupid Heen. Search for a trapdoor or something. You’re good at that!”
Over the next hour they searched every nook of the room. Heen shone her torch along the floor, walls and ceiling while Carina tried pressing against the robot pictures searching for a hidden door. After a fruitless search Heen started to shake her torch.
“Carina, my battery won’t last much longer!”
Tramway robot docking and routing station – Courtesy of Ministry of Robotics.
“Turn it off, we might need it later.” Carina shone her torch at a metal bench that rested against the far side of the cavern below the flashing lights. “Go and sit over there while I find a way out.”
Heen took less than a step. Tiny lights flashed on the panels above the bench as they danced a crazy jig. Then for a brief moment the air above the bench shone so bright it hurt her eyes, and for several seconds neither girl could see anything more than bright red blotches, yet Carina thought she caught a blur of motion. Something was heading straight for her. She thought it brushed against her sleeve, but perhaps it was simply the breeze coming from a hidden passage. After the blotches cleared from her eyes everything was still.