

Astro Saga

The Celestial Secrets

Part III

The 3rd Secret

by

Robert Smithbury

To Phil Wilson, (POG),

without whom Armitage Shanks would be someone else entirely.

Published by Oblique Media Group Ltd. https:\\\www.oblique.media

at Smashwords

Edited by Sarah Armstrong

Copyright 2019 by Robert Smithbury.

Third edition 2020,

Copyright

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Contents

Map

Living in an asteroid

Prologue Monster in the mist

The Casebook of Armitage Shanks – The mystery on the waterfront

Chapter 1: The oddly unusual Oceanius

Chapter 2: Navigate to Nautilon!

Chapter 3: The Fortress of Enlightenment

Chapter 4: Dangerous dialogue on the dockside

Chapter 5: Into the Isle of Alvion

Chapter 6: Lost in the crowd

Chapter 7: Backs against the wall

Chapter 8: Finally finding a way into the Fortress

Chapter 9: Through the N'th dimension

Chapter 10: The Cyberphins

Chapter 11: Missing stuff and the N dimensional inverter

Chapter 12: Thirty-six hours until doomsday

Chapter 13: Meeting with a Merlady

Chapter 14: Nattie's Ark

Chapter 15: Return of the Cyberphins

Chapter 16: Deep water

Chapter 17: Even deeper water

Chapter 18: How much air do we have?

Chapter 19: To battle Krakiathan

Chapter 20: Alone against Krakiathan

Chapter 21: Infeyd Krackliafan

Chapter 22: The last breath?

Chapter 23: The wreck at the bottom of the bay

Chapter 24: Air?

Chapter 25: A black hole?

Living in an asteroid

An extract from the 4th Secret

Other books by Robert Smithbury

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An extract from the 4th Secret

Prologue from the 4th Secret

Chapter 1 from the 4th Secret

Maps of the inhabited asteroids in earth orbit

The asteroids have been distributed in orbit around the Sun so as to avoid collision with any major planetary bodies. To promote social cohesion, trade and transport links they all roughly orbit at the same distance from the Sun, at between 80 and 100 million miles. (The Earth orbits at 93 million miles.)

The asteroids have been clustered into 5 layers, or planes.

The majority of the action in The 3rd Secret takes place inside the Nautilon asteroid. The Nautilon orbits in the Retovian layer of asteroids, (see below).

The heroes of this saga have so far visited one other layers, Midgard. The map for this follows.

Living in an asteroid

Following a cataclysm several centuries ago humanity abandoned Earth. The alternative was to face extinction and therefore they were compelled to find somewhere else to live.

The other planets around our sun are inhospitable places and therefore new habitats had to be manufactured. The asteroids were identified as being able to provide ample raw materials but were unfortunately too far from the Sun to be viable. Over a period of several years, suitable asteroids were towed into safe areas of Earth's orbit and aligned in five layers around the Sun.

BEFORE

Asteroid map circa 2000 by kind courtesy of NASA

AFTER

Asteroid map circa 2520 by kind courtesy of NASA

as updated by the AsteroNation digital archives

The process of converting these into habitable environments then began, but time and materials were beginning to run out. As a result most of the asteroids were initially fitted out with only minimal facilities and the addition of customised environments following later. In many instances this has enabled individual communities to configure the layout of the interiors to meet their own cultural ideals. Consequently, there is significant diversity in the style of habitats amongst the current Astro-Nations.

In some areas the inequalities in the distribution of resources has led to local depravation, rising tension and conflict.

Asteroid habitats tend to follow a common design, dictated by the availability of time and resources available at the time of their construction. This involves a hollowed out interior that is then set spinning to create an artificial gravity inside. Communities were laid out on the inside of the exterior shell of the asteroids.

In the majority of designs attempts have been made to create artificial skies along the axis of the asteroid's spin. These have been only partially effective and in most asteroids it is still possible to see the communities on the opposite interior suspended above the artificial sky. This has led to a decrease in the mental health of some citizens and Astro-Nations report higher health cost ratios post migration compared to the levels experienced on Earth.

The hurried timetable for the fit out of some asteroids has led to a number of subsequent catastrophes arising from poor design and the maintenance of adequate records related to the construction. The worst of these was New Attica in 2297 when a gunshot fractured a thin section of the asteroid's shell leading to a major disaster as the artificial atmosphere dissipated in less than an hour. Official casualty figures of 3,757,293 fatalities were recorded but some agencies consider these to be under estimates. New Attica has only recently completed its re-population programme.

While the terraforming of the asteroids was taking place the 'ark ships' were also being constructed on Earth to ferry everyone to their new homes. This was a time of much confusion as communities were uprooted and relocated in hastily constructed accommodation inside of the asteroids. Space had to be found for everyone and no one was to be left behind. This created significant upset and millions of misplacements, the ramifications of which are still creating upset in some societies today.

~o0o~

Prologue: The monster in the mist

Smog rolled across the creaking boards of the ageing, wooden waterfront, hovering a hair's breadth above the surface of the slimy sea. Fragmenting in places, it first revealed then concealed the crouching, scrawny form of Jimi Scribble. His unusual features were illuminated only by the eerie glow of the gaslight lamps that littered the deserted wharves. No moon shone inside the polluted asteroid of Nautilon.

Jimi had covered his nose and mouth with a cloth in an attempt to avoid breathing in the stench of rotting garbage. Unfortunately, it hadn't worked and he had to fight his gag reflex to avoid any accidental discovery.

A gnawing hunger and the memory of the Forlorn Kids' vacant eye sockets anxiously awaiting his return drove his late night foray. He knew that somewhere, lost in the midst of the mist, were a myriad of dangers, tricks and traps for the unwary. But these didn't alarm him. To get his hands on the crates of fodder he needed, he'd also have to avoid the eagle eyed dockyard runners, the uncompromising press gangs who'd sell your soul for a slither of silver.

That was assuming that you were able to avoid the unholy rumoured monster of the mist, a monster that some said swallowed unwary men whole for breakfast, dinner and tea.

Shifting his footing on the damp and precarious boards of the waterfront, Jimi ignored rumours that he was sure were started by the harbour authorities to keep away the easily frightened. Cautiously he edged out into the silent nothingness of the fog. All that he could see was restricted by the very pollution that clung to his lungs and clawed at his craw.

An unexpected creaking footstep, and a muttered conversation splintered the silence and forced him to slip back into the cloaking, choking darkness of a shady alley. Shortly after, two grey, hunched guards emerged from the mist and paused with their backs to him.

Smothering a croaking cough he stared at the men in their heavily buffeted greatcoats and felt the creeping, damp fingers of the waterfront pull at his thin ribs. The men didn't understand how lucky they were, he thought, warm and well fed with only their battered and soiled clothing giving any indication that they had also seen a better day. It was a sad, sad, future fate that had fallen across the Isle of Alvion, as it floated amidst the endless artificial seas of Nautilon.

Fate nudged Destiny. Had humanity so quickly fallen to this or had urban depravity never elevated itself up to the level of civilisation?

Discovery wasn't an option for him. Jimi knew that if he didn't return, there was no one else to feed the Forlorn Kids and if he wasn't around who would look out for them?

"Fog's getting worse," one of the dockyard runners muttered to the other in a gruff Celtic accent. He lifted his hat to scratch and scrape at the bald head beneath it. He was so close that despite the thick smog Jimi could easily see the man's lips moving as he spoke.

"Every day it's worse. Never gets any better. Life never gets better. It's all about the gradual decline of humanity," the second one moaned, rubbing at the grimy stubble of his chin.

"Naw," the first one drawled. "Don't give me any of that 'end of civilisation' rubbish. It's too early in the morning for all that. It never used to be this bad. I remember being able to see across Aquatica bay when I was a boy," he yawned, rubbing vigorously at his soiled skin.

"I hear that the city recycling plant at Hangman's Point has broken down. Some say it could be weeks before new parts are shipped in from Louis De Ville. The recent problems with the generators and the navigation whatsit's have backed up shipping orders from here to Dis Knee. Others say that no one knows what's wrong with it. It just stopped working, just like that," he waved his arms about wildly in an attempt to encompass all of eternity.

"It just stopped working. One day it was working. The next it wasn't. There was no rhyme or reason to it but..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know; the perpetual decline of humanity. That's all you ever go on about. Don't you have anything cheerful to say? It's all doom and gloom with you. Next, you'll be telling me that you believe in aliens, fairies and everlasting life. And stop waving them arms around or I'll chop 'em off."

"Whether I believe in them or not ain't going to matter much in a handful of days anyhow. If something doesn't change soon then we're going to choke on our own pollution. It won't be just the Isle of Alvion, either; the whole of Nautilon will die."

He paused and looked particularly gloomy, "Everyone dead, millions of us. Alive one day and dead the next. Just like that," he said. He jammed his hands into his pockets to prevent them getting him into further trouble.

"Aw, someone will come along and save us. One of the other asteroids will bail us out. They ain't going to let 16 million people die without trying something. The scientists with all their technology will help us."

The other man shrugged, "It was the scientists that got us into this mess. The way I hear it the other asteroids are in a similar fix to us. Sure, they ain't as badly polluted as Nautilon is. We started from a much worse situation, but mark my words; it's only a matter of a few short weeks before humanity, everywhere, chokes on its own rubbish."

"You and your stories of doom and destruction, I'm off home to my nice warm bed."

He turned suddenly towards the alley and stared down at the half-hidden figure of Jimi in astonishment. Jimi cowered in front of him worried about what was going to happen next.

"Look, it's a kid! A scrawny, starving kid," yelled the man.

"Them's the worst ones. Coming around here looking for what they can thieve. We'll give him a good beating with our bandit breakers and send him on his way. I could do with a bit of bone breaking before breakfast, works me up an appetite."

The man bent down towards Jimi with a sickly grin, full of broken teeth and ulcerated gums.

Jimi tried to slink away from him, further into the alley, but the slimy, yet very solid brickwork behind him thwarted all thoughts in that direction and his feet just slid on the slew of rubbish under foot. If he was captured who would feed the Forlorn Kids?

Extending their beating sticks from within their long, dark coats, the two menacing figures entered into the crowded confines of the alleyway. Jimi knew this was going to hurt.

Behind them, the dying embers of the artificial moonlight split the smog and shimmered down on the rusting breastplates of space marine armour. Unknown to the dockyard runners a couple of ghoulish figures rose up silently behind them from the slime of the water line. Jimi started with alarm. The sudden sight of the eerie, bone white humanoid shapes distracted him so that the first blow from his assailants caught him unawares. Reeling, he collapsed, half conscious, half in a dreamy daze.

His only comfort was the knowledge of being right. It did hurt.

Staring through smarting, vacant eyes, Jimi watched the ghosts descend on his attackers with ruthless efficiency. Energised clubs rose and fell quickly, flailing lightening, overwhelming the two watchmen with the suddenness and ferocity of their assault. Two lonely cries of alarm were swallowed quickly by the mist leaving behind the dying thumps of heavy clubs. Within moments, only the bony glow of the soldiers filled the entrance to the alley, towering over the broken bodies of the watchmen lying in a spreading pool of lifeless blood.

"They won't be bothering us any more," croaked one ghoulish figure to the next. "Let's go."

"What about the kid?" the other replied as Jimi stared at him in disbelief. Is this really how ghosts talk, he wondered.

"What about him?"

"Our orders say to leave no witnesses. To move without being seen they said. Nautilon has a Carthaginian garrison. If they discover that we are here..." he left the sentence hanging.

"But someone needs to take the rap for these two dead fools, otherwise every policeman in the asteroid will be out looking for us," he hissed, pointing at the slumped bodies of the dockyard runners. "If we leave the kid behind, the boy can take the blame. His DNA must be all over the place."

"What about Lord Steal's last transmission? He clearly said that we were to be on the lookout for any suspicious kids hanging around. Look, it says here..."

The man dragged a ragged piece of paper from his pocket. The face on the wanted paper was recognisable, but not as Jimi. Underneath was the promise of an astronomical reward leading to the capture of the individual in the picture.

The spectre emphasised his words by gesticulating at Jimi with his thick space gloves and waving the paper around dramatically.

"We're to be on the lookout for anyone asking questions about the Celestial Secrets."

"Yeah, and it also says that they had their own spaceship, two pets in tow along with some leading edge technology. None of that describes this poor wretch. Beside he ain't said anything about any secrets."

"True...." the first soldier hesitated, unconvinced. The piece of paper dropped from his fingertips.

"Anyway, he looks half dead. With that head wound he might not see the dawn yet."

Ignoring Jimi, the two soldiers pulled out a small rowing boat and clambered aboard. Gently they made their way through the mist into the calm water of Aquatica bay.

Throbbing pain, hunger and fatigue were forcing Jimi's eyes closed. Through half slitted eyelids he watched the boat slowly dwindle from sight.

Then from out of the stillness of the water a huge shape erupted, extending rapidly, higher and higher into the air. It was a tower of miry, scaly, throbbing flesh, oozing with slime. Toxic water, pulsating with orange and green goo, gushed down its flanks and at the top, rose an enormous head armed full of terrifying teeth. The monster seemed to glance momentarily at Jimi, marking him as a possible future meal, before plunging down to engulf the small boat.

Before they could even scream, or offer any resistance, the pale white passengers disappeared into its cavernous mouth. Within moments it had swallowed both men and boat whole before sliding back into the water as quickly as it came. Only a slowly rotating whirlpool and a widening ring of ripples proved that it had ever been, and gone.

Jimi knew that he had to move before he was discovered with the two dead bodies, or even worse ended up as one himself. However, the last thought he had before he lost consciousness was that the monster of the mist was clearly no idle rumour. He could only hope that it didn't find and consume him, too, as he lay defenceless in the alleyway.

The mystery on the water front:

An extract from the Casebook of Armitage Shanks

It was extremely early in the morning of 22nd February 2522, when the sharp bell of the intercom disrupted my meditations. I have always made it a point of principle never to answer the door before breaking my fast and therefore left it for half an hour to ensure I could finish my food and let I settle to avoid any risk of indigestion. I also took the opportunity to dress as I reasoned that appearing without clothes at the door would only further alarm my visitors, who I could tell from their shouts, were already becoming highly agitated. By the time I eventually answered the door it would have been clear even to the most stupid of investigators that this case must indeed be important.

As I had deduced, the culprit of this attack on my nocturnal meditation was Inspector Clump of the local constabulary. He was - is - a bestial, simian creature having only a remote connection with any interest in intelligence. Opening the door quickly and silently enabled me to catch him pressicotious digitalis, or more precisely with his thumb firmly wedged on the doorbell; my doorbell, to be precise.

"There's been a couple of murders on the waterfront," he said in a rush, the words stumbling over each other in their desire to get themselves said, thereby confirming my deductions of a full half-hour earlier. From this most elementary of inferences it was merely the matter of deploying my mastery of logic to construe that I was indeed the best detective, in the room, on the island and possibly in the whole solar system.

In less time than it takes to tie up a tadpole we were on the waterfront.

The smell as usual was atrocious and I was forced to deploy two tissues into each nostril to prevent this nasal assault on my finely tuned senses. I promised myself that next time I would arrive much better prepared. I made a mental note to finish off the amphibious detectornaut suit as its use would make this investigation much simpler. It would also be far easier on my wardrobe, which my cleaning lady would no doubt forget to thank me for.

The scene was an obvious one; two dead men. A third, a youth, had been captured by the first officer on the scene and was now being questioned with the normal efficiency of the local law enforcement. Hence, the most urgent need for my skills.

Despite the application of several buckets of cold seawater, a bevy of cracks across the skull with night-sticks and the threat of being impaled on the end of an evil looking boat hook, the youth wasn't co-operating. The fool, who went by the unusual name of Jimi Scribble, continued to insist that the real criminals had been devoured by a huge sea serpent.

Yet, it was not what he said that irked my interest. It was the unusual nature of the boy's hands and one other clue that the local gendarmerie had overlooked. While the screams of the young lad made it clear that they did indeed intend to carry out their threat of the boathook, I had proved that the Ace of detection still trumped the bully boy of clubs. In the drying dirt I detected a discarded document that caught my interest.

The title 'Top Secret' only titillated my intentions and reading more I recalled the upstanding officers from their imminent surgery. I didn't know it at the time, but the information contained on that piece of paper would change my life forever and lead to at least three further mysteries for me to solve. Hurrah!

"Stop!" I yelled in my most official tones. "I think you'll find that this person is more likely to tell us anything than that poor waif is ever likely to."

I held out the piece of paper, predictably positioning my hands over the passage that proposed that there was a huge reward for the capture of this new suspect and drew their attention to the poor picture of another wanted youth.

One of the officers dropped the young lad who he had been holding up by his feet. He crumpled on impact.

Scratching at his bald head in what I can only assume was a vain attempt to find the switch that started his brain, the detective struggled to connect the clues together.

"So... What you're saying is that this lad isn't the villain, it's the one on this piece of paper."

"Exactly!" I replied, concocting my story to achieve my objective. "Now, if you could be so kind as to commence your pursuit of this perpetrator, I will take care of matters here," I suggested.

I committed the face on the picture to memory and offered them the image at the top of the reward notice after carefully tearing off all suggestion of the reward being offered by one Lord Steal.

Never looking too far beyond their own noses, they set off in hot pursuit of someone named Torr Naydo. It was my firm opinion that he was probably already far away on the other side of the sun. Whether he was or not appeared irrelevant at the time. I had achieved my objective and the police officers had left this other young lad in my care.

Researching the matter later I confirmed that there was certainly no information on Mr Naydo in the Nautilon pan asteroid data banks. The only related piece of intelligence that was returned from my data search was from one of my own currently unsolved cases; the case of the missing Naydos, case file #43/d/81/x. It seemed unlikely that the two items were related but I cross referenced them anyway. You never know when some obscure link will reveal its usefulness.

Whoever Torr Naydo was, he was already in enough trouble with a reward for his capture of over a million astrodollars.

I placed a comforting coat around Jimi's shoulders, as I led him away, "Now, tell me more about this monster of the mist."

Between frightened sobs he told me his tale. Whilst I considered the story to be total fiction I was particularly interested in the webbing between his toes that matched the skin connecting his fingers. I subsequently found some fascinating cross references to his anatomy in Volume VII of 'Myths and Legends of Ancient Atlantis', which was to prove useful in my research of lost civilisations.

What became surprisingly interesting was when the boy began to mutter a highly dubious tale of a monster rising from the depths. Amazingly, there were tantalising glimpses within his words of what might be a mystery of stellar proportions that aligned with my own suspicions about the resurgence of ancient empires. As he told me his tale, I resolved my next course of action. It would be daunting, it would be daring and above all, it would be damn clever.

Chapter 1: The oddly unusual Oceanius

"Visitors," announced Kiki the onboard computer with a personality overload, navigator and source of all cleverness on the Eos. He'd recently been re-programmed with a child friendly but somewhat over zealous personality and everyone had regretted it since.

"Visitors?" queried Nattie, one half of the intrepid human duo who had already successfully recovered two of the Celestial Secrets.

She looked quizzically at Torr, her friend and companion, the notional 'owner' of the Eos and the other half of the intrepid human duo.

Together, they rushed to look out of the window, roughly nudged aside by Fuzz ball, the bundle of cuddliness who had been waddling along behind them. Within the cramped confines of the window, three faces peered out into the depths of space, two humans and... and... what? No one was prepared to even discuss what Fuzz ball might be, at least not within earshot.

Had Lord Steal caught up with them already or was he still trapped where they had left him; being chased by giant, hunter-killer polar bears across the frozen asteroid wasteland of NördStrörm? Or maybe it was Dr Wunderfoul, come to take his revenge because they had liberated Kezin; the lion boy, from his evil circus?

They all quickly realised it was neither, but something equally weird and unsettling. Torr stared in disbelief at a huge metal fish 'swimming' alongside them in deep space. Its fins and tail undulated gently as if there was an unseen current brushing them in the harsh vacuum of shallow space.

"Captain Barney Brine requesting permission to come aboard to discuss a matter of national emergency," crackled the speaker.

Torr looked at Nattie. "Do you think it's another trick?"

Reluctantly she nodded slowly back. "We'd better be careful."

Torr raised his eyes to stare at where he mentally imagined Kiki to be. It was somewhere mid ceiling.

"Kiki, do you still have Lord Steal's laser pistol in the armoury?" asked Torr.

Lord Steal had dropped the laser pistol when he had collapsed underneath a falling, genetically re-engineered polar bear. Kiki had retrieved it and released the Viking long boat from the grip of an enormous, ravenous glacier.

"Sure do, boss!"

There was a slight pause and Torr cursed himself for not asking the right question. "Is it in the overnight bag?"

He knew from previous experience that objects that went into the overnight bag weren't always easy to find when you wanted to take them out again. But before he could get too anxious about putting his fingers between the teeth sized zips Nattie announced that she'd found the laser pistol.

"Got it? Good, take it and hide out in the galley. You can cover me from there whilst I talk to whoever they send across."

He paused to make sure that he meant what he said next, running the thought around in his head to make sure that there wasn't any other option.

"And if they make a wrong move, shoot them." He'd gone beyond the point of thinking that whoever they might meet was more likely to be friendly. With their track record, it was much more likely to be someone who wanted to kill them, eat them, or sell them into slavery as a bargaining chip for galactic domination.

Nattie headed over to the galley as under his breath Torr added, "and make sure you don't miss. We might not get a second chance."

~o0o~

Torr tried to feel brave and avoid looking over his shoulder to the slither thin gap in the doorway from where Nattie was providing cover with the laser pistol. He watched the solitary figure cross from the strange fish shaped ship. How dangerous could one person be?

Winking lights on Kiki's monitor board showed the stranger enter into the air lock. He appeared to be wearing something akin to an ancient diving suit, complete with full bronze headpiece. He unbolted it easily despite the obvious weight and set it to one side in the air lock. There appeared to be no end to the weirdness of the fish shaped space ship and the people it had on board.

The air lock door started to open and Torr kept his full attention on the tableau that unveiled. The man inside the thick suit held the helmet under one arm whilst he fished in the bag he carried with his free hand. His handsome features showed signs of age and there was a suspicion of grey in his hair. He glanced up at Torr and his welcoming smile appeared genuine, if only fleeting.

There was a faint fragrance of engine oil and ozone about him. Torr was sure he could smell seaweed and beach spray. The scent reminded him of forgotten vacations and more memorable holidays.

"Hang on a second. I just need to get this on," the man mumbled as he successfully removed a gas mask from his bag and dragged the straps into place behind his ears.

He carefully replaced his cap on his head over the top of the straps. The resulting look reminded Torr of a giant insect, with bulging eyes and protruding proboscis. Very different from the friendly face of the man behind the mask, Torr thought as he subconsciously backed away from the unsettling image.

Nattie tried to steady her shaking hand as she watched through the wafer thin gap.

The scary figure recognised Torr's fear and fleetingly waved his arms in an attempt to calm his reaction. The result wasn't particularly successful and the only effect was to make him look yet more strange and alien.

"I'm sorry, this..." he gestured at the gas mask, "... is a necessary precaution where I come from. Whilst the atmosphere in your cabin appears okay, the rising problems everyone is having with the life support systems means that that might change at any moment. I wear this to protect me from the noxious poisons that might start leaking from the air re-cycler if it suddenly breaks down."

"Thanks!" muttered Nattie from her hiding place.

The third Celestial Secret! Torr thought. The Tinkerer had mentioned that it might control the life support systems. Now that the Aztex had undoubtedly tried to open it, life support systems everywhere had to fall back on old technology...which wasn't working well enough to keep everyone alive. That was a real worry as without efficient life support systems mankind would slowly start suffocating on its own pollution.

The alien technology, hidden deep within the giant egg shaped objects known only as the Celestial Secrets, enabled humans to flourish in the scattered remnants of civilisation. Clinging onto existence, living inside asteroids dragged from the asteroid belt to earth orbit, humans needed the alien paraphernalia to survive in the hostile environment of space.

The man from the fish shaped space ship didn't know about the Tinkerer's advanced technology, which would probably keep the Eos operating long after the rest of humanity had died out. The interior of the Eos wasn't any danger to him yet, but even it would succumb eventually. Torr overcame the urge to try and hold his breath and focused instead on waiting more calmly. Just what did this stranger want?

The man stopped waving his arm around and stuck out a hand, "The name's Brine, Commander Barney Macgregor Brine of the Oceanius, a NAVCAN ship."

"NAVCAN?" asked Torr, taking the proffered hand and feeling the strong, tempered grip through the rubberised gloves.

"The Navy of the Commonwealth of Asteroid Nations," Commander Brine answered rather stiffly. Despite his firm, formal outward appearance, Torr was beginning to warm to him.

Commander Brine gave a smart click of his heels and a tiny bow, "Now, young man. If you would be so kind as to introduce me to the Captain of this ship..."

Torr hesitated, he could see already that this wasn't going to be easy.

"I'm... I'm...erm ... I'm the Captain," he announced bravely.

"But... but..." spluttered Commander Brine. This clearly wasn't what he'd been expecting Torr to say.

"Surely not! Are they leaving children in charge of spaceships now? Whatever next! There must be an adult on board... somewhere."

"I'm afraid not. If there is anything you need to say then you can say it to me," Torr responded bravely.

Commander Brine was unconvinced. "This simply won't do. I'm going to have to take you into the nearest port and arrange for you to be properly looked after. In the meantime, I am commandeering this ship!"

Torr hoped that Nattie was listening carefully. He mustered up his courage and tried to put some sense of authority into his voice, "I can't allow you to do that Commander. We are on a most urgent mission."

The insect mask swivelled towards him inquisitively and the huge eye-pieces stared blindly into his own.

"Whilst you appear to be a strapping youth, I can assure you...erm ..." Brine searched around for Torr's name; appearing unnaturally flustered, "I'm afraid I've forgotten your name...."

"Naydo," Torr replied tersely. "I guess I'm the Captain, so that makes me Captain Torr Naydo," he insisted, earnestly, in the face of the fiercely questioning eyes of the giant insect.

Hidden away in the galley Nattie bristled, Captain indeed! They needed to talk about this. She put the gun away into her pocket and grabbed the door handle. But before she could wrench it open, Fuzz ball pulled at her leg. Furiously, she signalled to Nattie to stay hidden. It still might be important to save the unexpected entrance for a more opportune moment.

Out in the main cabin, Commander Brine gave way slightly, "Well, Captain Naydo...."

Torr swelled with the sense of self-importance that Commander Brine put into the words. But he was taken aback by what he heard next.

"Whilst you may be a strapping lad, I am an officer of His Imperial Majesty's Navy, fully trained in a dozen different types of armed and unarmed combat. If you insist, I can easily take this ship by force."

Initially worried, Torr felt a new sense of confidence wash over him when he remembered Nattie and the laser pistol. He decided it was time to declare his hand and put a stop to this stranger trying to bully himself into control.

"You can certainly try, Commander, but my colleagues will shoot you down before you can get to me."

For the first time, the Commander looked uncertain and Torr thought it would be wise to provide further conviction, "Nattie, if he makes any move towards me, shoot him."

That should do it, he thought proudly to himself and added, "Without further warning," for good measure.

In her hideaway Nattie was having a hand signal argument with Fuzz ball and only half heard what Torr said.

"Did he say, 'shoot him!'?" Nattie signed at Fuzz ball, not having really been listening to the conversation from the next room.

Fuzz ball did her best to shrug her shoulders in that universal sign of ignorance.

Nattie pulled the gun back out of her pocket and looked at it with fresh uncertainty. She wasn't sure that he was ready to shoot someone just yet. Maybe, if she just aimed at his leg?

Chapter 2: Navigate to Nautilon!

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" blustered the Commander, clearly unsettled but still single mindedly intending to carry out his threats.

Nattie tried to take aim but Torr was in the way. She couldn't be sure she would miss him and still have a reasonable chance of hitting the NAVCAN officer. Her hand was shaking so much with anxiety that her aim was leaping all about the room. She dared not place her finger on the trigger in case the gun accidentally went off with very real and unintended consequences. She certainly didn't want to kill anyone, accidentally or otherwise. Life was too precious to waste. Torr had never realised that the gun she had no intention of using the gun she had aimed at him when they had first met.

With shared nervousness but a new sense of bravado brought on by the Commander's indecision, Torr decided to press his unexpected advantage. Without thinking through the implications of what he might be saying he gave his lips free range to say anything that sounded vaguely threatening.

Fate covered his face with both hands in shaken dismay. He didn't want to watch what was going to happen next.

"Kiki, if there are any hostile moves from his fish, or ship, or whatever it is, blow it out of space with the Ionic cannon," Torr heard himself say.

He couldn't believe he'd just said that. Torr waited impatiently hoping that Kiki wouldn't say something like, "What Ionic cannon?"

But instead the electronic marvel answered, "Yes, Captain! Ionic cannon locked on."

Perhaps they had some Ionic cannons anyway. Torr had no idea what Kiki did or didn't have, or even what an Ionic cannon was. It did sound good, though!

Commander Brine sighed and gave way. Things weren't turning out how he had intended in anyway, shape or form.

"Okay, look this isn't what I really came about. Whilst His Imperial Majesty's Government and I think the safety of children is really important," he sighed heavily, "it isn't as important as what I need to talk to you about." He paused and held his hands out in a gesture of contrition. "I need your help so badly that I'm willing to overlook any absent adults, just this once."

Nattie relaxed. Torr wouldn't expect her to shoot someone who was asking for help. Would he?

She waited as seconds ticked slowly away.

Torr was both surprised and taken aback and his brain whirred in confusion. This wasn't something he had expected. Was it all part of an elaborate trap? Could it really be this easy to be Captain of a space ship and issue orders to everyone else?

"I'm sorry, I don't see how we can," he blurted out. His mouth was still licensed for independent action and muttering words that his brain no longer had any control over. "We're on an urgent mission ourselves. If we don't recover the third Celestial Secret, then the whole of humanity is in danger."

He forced down the anxious quiver that had snuck into his vocal chords and tried to control the level of panic that had crept into his voice. After all he was Captain Naydo now.

"Everyone's recycling systems will eventually break down, leaving the Asteroid Nations uninhabitable. We have to recover it as quickly as possible," Torr finished breathlessly.

As soon as the words had tumbled forth from his lips Torr's brain was fruitlessly trying to cram them back in again. As everyone who had ever said something they didn't mean to he realised that it was already far too late.

"Did you say the Third Celestial Secret?" the Commander asked, coolly, calmly and with a hint of ominous and overanxious interest.

Torr knew that he'd said more than he should have done. He tightened his lips firmly to prevent further words escaping.

"I thought they were just a myth. What do you know about them?" The Commander continued. "Are you an archaeologist as well as a rather young ship's captain?"

Torr decided that he should quit while he was ahead.

"I can't tell you," he forced himself to say but his words wobbled worryingly.

Commander Brine looked like he wanted to argue about it, but something stopped him.

"Look, we'll have to discuss this another time. I need you to come with me to Nautilon to assist with the evacuation. There's an environmental disaster happening there right now," he pleaded. "It sounds like we're both trying to solve the same problem. The recycling systems there have already failed."

Torr gasped. More than he wanted to.The NAVCAN officer's whole attitude had changed from posturing authority to needy begging. Torr felt torn between his own mission and the Commander's clear desperation.

"If we don't help evacuate the asteroid's population, then millions will die. They need our help, right now!"

While Torr was trapped helplessly indecisive between two impending dooms, Kiki offered a possible resolution.

"Would it help if I mentioned that Nautilon is one of the potential locations of a Celestial Secret?" he whispered into Torr's ear.

Really? Then it looks as if it's now on our list of 'must places to see in the solar system', thought Torr, relieved that he no longer had to make a difficult choice.

"OK, we'll go with you to Nautilon," he announced out loud. "We'll see what we can do to help, but I'm not promising anything. We'll come and take a look, that's all."

"I'll settle for that," said Commander Brine. "Now if you don't mind", he clicked his heels and bowed low, "I will make my way back to my ship, the Oceanius, and get us underway."

"The Oceanius, that's an unusual name," Torr said to himself, without realising that his mouth was still in broadcast mode.

Commander Brine paused with his hand on the airlock door and removed his mask.

"Oceanius was a Titan as well as a concept of the ancient Greeks. It represented the sea that surrounded the earth. I always like to think of that as the deep sea of space. They used to believe that Oceanius was the source of all fresh water and I hope in my own way that I can bring fresh water and air to the people of Nautilon."

A wry, self-satisfied smile split his face as he closed the door behind him leaving Torr feeling vaguely inadequate. Why couldn't he remember clever stuff like that?

~o0o~

In the airlock, however, Commander Brine wasn't thinking as clearly as Torr might have thought. His mind was racing, evaluating and planning. The Celestial Secrets! The boy spoke about them as if they were real. They had always been half mythical mysteries but if they really existed....

He promised himself that he would play it cool for now and see what developed. If he could somehow find a way to overcome the Ionic cannons he might be able to convince them to tell him more about their quest for the Celestial Secret. If he could obtain one of the Celestial Secrets for His Imperial Majesty he would be well rewarded. A knighthood perhaps; Sir Barney Brine, he quite liked the sound of that. He'd joined NAVCAN to make a name for himself and here, finally, was his chance to go down in the history books.

~o0o~

Immediately after the airlock had re-cycled Commander Brine back to his ship, Nattie returned to the main cabin. She handed the butt of the laser pistol quietly back to Torr.

"You take this. Guns frighten me. I don't even want to touch it. Yeeuch!"

"Thanks." Torr shrugged and threw the laser pistol towards the gaping, hungry mouth of the overnight bag.

"Here, catch!"

The overnight bag's spindly feet scampered after the flying laser pistol. With a short leap and a snap of its zips it slobbered up the tasty morsel, landed awkwardly, bounced twice, skidded chaotically, slapped into one of the windows and slid down it with an irritating squeaking noise. Torr was sure he could hear it swallow noisily. Eventually opening its eyes to find itself facing its own back end, the overnight bag snapped at its nether regions with its toothy jaws before starting to chase itself around and around in circles.

Torr turned his attention to what Nattie was saying.

"That was a bit 'touch and go' for a few minutes. I didn't even know we had Ionic cannons," Nattie giggled nervously.

"Nor did I" said Torr.

Nattie stared at Torr in shock.

"We haven't, but let's not worry about that," announced Kiki. "It's not the only thing you don't know."

Torr shrugged. He was used to the annoying habit Kiki had of endlessly pointing out his faults.

"Nautilon also directly lies on one of the possible trajectories that your parent's ship could have taken after it disappeared," continued Kiki, totally ignorant of Torr's opinion. There were clearly some things he knew nothing about at all.

Torr's head snapped around in surprise and sudden enthusiasm. Now Kiki had his full attention.

"My parents? Why didn't you say so? Let's get over there. With luck we can be on Nautilon by bed time."

~o0o~

On Nautilon, Jimi's mind was in a wrinkly daze as Armitage Shanks led him up the stairs. His arms and legs still ached and throbbed from where he'd received the beating on the dockside. He winced inwardly as he wondered what new torture awaited him now on the other side of the door that the self-confessed highly successful sleuth was unlocking.

"Mrs Baker? Mrs Baker!" the great detective called until eventually an elderly housekeeper emerged from one of the great oaken doors that lined the corridor ahead of them. "Please run this boy a bath and settle him down into one of the spare rooms for the night. He's had rather a tough time of it, I'm afraid but I believe that before the end this boy will be extremely important. We need to look after him."

Jimi shivered. What were they talking about? What had he got himself into?

Destiny cast a blind eye to Jimi's inner torment, returning its gaze to where the Eos was even now hurtling towards Nautilon and the location of Jimi's incarceration at full speed.

~o0o~

The Eos quickly left the Oceanius behind, as the triumph of design over engineering seemed to swim elegantly, but very slowly, through space. From the bridge of the Oceanius, Commander Brine could only watch the departing Eos with envy.

"What I would give for a set of those engines," he muttered to First Officer Drinx Driven, who merely grunted in reply. The First Office rarely used words, so this, in itself, wasn't unusual.

"But there's much to ponder here, Drinx..."

Within the relative safety of the interior of the Oceanius, Barney Brine had dispensed with his gas mask and sipped gently from the steaming teacup he held carefully, nestling it in its delicate saucer in the palm of his hand.

"...like the way he talked about the Celestial Secrets. he didn't do it as if the things were myth or fantasy, but as if they really did exist." He started to pace up and down, his tea momentarily forgotten and his hands clutched tightly behind his back. "The boy was clear that he was referring to The Third Secret, which implies that the First and Second Secrets must already have been discovered. This has important implications for the Commonwealth. If these have fallen into the hands of the enemy then I hate to think of what might happen. Hmmmm. I do believe I need to make a report on this to TIMIES."

"TIMIES?" asked Drinx, momentarily confused. Naval life was awash with acronyms and it was sometimes difficult to keep track of them all. "Remind me who they are again, Sir."

Commander Brine gave his First Officer a firm look, "The Imperial Majesty's Intelligence and Espionage Service. Once they see the report I'm going to write to them I'm sure that they will authorise me to arrest this so called Captain Naydo and bring him and his whole crew in for questioning."

Brine allowed himself a smirk of self satisfaction.

"And this time we'll do it, Ionic cannons or not!" added the Commander emphatically.

Chapter 3: The Fortress of Enlightenment

Within hours and well before Torr's forecast of bedtime, the Eos had entered the interior of Nautilon and was coasting along at a much more leisurely pace. Skipping through the clouds that clung around the centre of the asteroid, Nautilon's civilisation and terrain were spread out all around them, held firmly in place by the artificial gravity generated by the spin of the asteroid. Once again Torr, Nattie and Fuzz ball crowded at the viewing ports with their noses pressed against the strengthened glass as they watched the new world unfold in wonder and awe in front of them.

If the children had known that far below a cold, dark intelligence was, in turn, watching them it would have been a chill of fear rather than a thrill of excitement that fluttered along their spines. The moment that the Eos had slipped inside Nautilon an alarm had gone off deep within the Fortress of Enlightenment alerting the waiting watcher of their arrival.

"Alien technology! That ship is using an alien propulsion system," exclaimed Professor Banx. "I must have it. I will have it!"

~o0o~

Whilst piloting the Eos at the same time, Kiki's own electronic intelligence was also scrutinising his surroundings through an overwhelming array of sensors and receptors that were scattered over the entire ship's surface. He could sense an extensive range of frequencies and wavelengths that went far beyond the capabilities of any human eye. Kiki's cybernetic brain observed things that no one else on board was able to see and combined them into almost limitless data banks. Background tasks sorted and sifted the data, perceiving new insights and filing the conclusions away for later consideration.

To everyone on board, each in their own different way, Nautilon was fascinating.

"Wow, awesome," muttered Torr. "I don't think I have ever seen so much water."

All about them, in every direction, murky waves stretched to the horizon, enveloping them from above, below and all sides. It was as if they were tunnelling through the heart of the ocean. Peeking between the heavy, dark clouds they could see a string of small islands, scattered across the vast expanse of sea, left behind almost as an afterthought by the asteroid's engineers and architects.

"This is so unique. There can't be another asteroid like it," gasped Nattie under her breath.

"It's part of a string of asteroids in the Retovian layer," pronounced Kiki, keen to show off more of what he knew. After all, what was the point of having access to limitless data if you couldn't show off that you had it.

"There are others, built by the same design team of AmsVirgin Interplanetary Enterprises, AVIE for short, near the end of the 21st Century. The other asteroids they built were Tempest, Ahab and to a lesser extent New Plymouth. Tempest is racked by permanent storms. At least once a year a type 1 hurricane ploughs its way through the settlements just to keep the natives on their toes. As you'd imagine, the people who choose to live on Tempest are a strange bunch of individuals."

"Seems that the whole of the solar system is made up of strange and unusual people if you ask me," muttered Torr but his curiosity was piqued by something else that Kiki had said.

"What about Ahab? Wasn't Captain Ahab the one who hunted the great white whale in Moby Dick?"

"Very good, Torr, it was indeed. Ahab was created as a fisherman's paradise. Originally populated with as complete a collection of earth's sea creatures as the Noah ships could gather, the population of each species is carefully maintained by intense breeding patterns and occasional dips into the NoaDNA banks to restore any depleted reserves."

"Where did they get it all from?" queried Nattie. "I wouldn't have thought there was that much water on the whole of Earth, let alone enough for three or four asteroids the same as this."

"The Earth had enormous reserves of water. The seas there were immense and water made up over two thirds of the total surface of the planet. But most of the water here comes from the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. When the asteroids were originally hauled here by companies like AVIE they also harvested some of the asteroids that had high concentrations of ice to provide the raw materials for the interiors."

With all of this talk of Earth, Torr's thoughts returned to his Uncle Otto. How was he? Torr hoped that he was okay and reminded himself again that he must return to try and rescue him once his quest for the Celestial Secrets was over, if ever. The Nattie would get a chance to see a real ocean.

"So what's special about Nautilon?" she asked.

"Nautilon is a bit of a mistake, or at least has become one. Originally, it was intended to be a tropical paradise. But the founding fathers of Nautilon strongly believed in freedom of expression and didn't impose any restraints over what could be built here. There are very few planning laws."

The Eos swooped down through the clouds towards one of the few islands as Kiki continued with his lecture.

"Gradually, bit by bit, heavy industry started to buy up land and move in. The high density of minerals in sea water made its extraction worthwhile and the ocean currents provided a readymade mechanism for washing away the industrial waste."

They were now finally below the heavy layers of clouds. The Eos skimmed along only a short distance above a forest of large brick built chimneys that sprouted from the islands in a frenzy of uncontrolled, urban expansion. From every industrial orifice, acrid smoke continuously belched forth, adding to the thick, dense clouds that clung to the asteroid's spindle region. Crammed in between the factory chimneys were warrens of streets and ramshackle houses. Every one was crowded with people, scurrying like insects through the industrial shadows. Shantytowns merged together in the twisting, winding thoroughfares surrounded sturdy, concrete, monoliths stood like bastions of modernity against the rotting chaos that surrounded them.

Nearer the coast, stunted palm trees appeared to be huddled together for comfort, surrounded by mini mountains of refuse that cascaded down into the stagnant water. Tiny warrens ran between the shambling mounds and the mouldy heat combined to create a foggy haze through which people coughed and gasped out their pitiful existence.

Tiny boats clogged every causeway like nestling, suckling baby rats around each anchorage. All had their own cooking areas, engine rooms, and air conditioning units. Each chugged away, adding its own tiny contribution to the inundating pollution. Everywhere, thin streams of fresh smog rose to join the encroaching, misty gloom.

"Without the Third Celestial Secret to recycle the pollutants this asteroid nation is choking itself. It can only be days before the whole asteroid becomes uninhabitable," said Nattie in dismay.

"This must have been what Commander Brine wanted our assistance with. But there are so many people it would be an almost impossible task. We can never evacuate them all in time," Torr replied in a heavy voice.

"Then we'll just have to find the Third Secret and get it back to the Tinkerer quickly. It's their only hope," announced Nattie gloomily.

"Where exactly is it Kiki?" asked Torr quietly, lost in thought, overcome with the enormity of the challenge ahead. "Can you get a closer fix on where it might be hidden?"

"It's not easy with so much pollution around here, it's confusing my sensors. As far as I can tell, it's somewhere near the Isle of Alvion."

"Better take us in there then," announced Torr in his most commanding voice to cover up the uncertainty that was nagging at him.

Amidst all of this unchained expansion and severe over crowding, where on earth was Kiki going to land the Eos?

The Eos tore back into the clouds with a wrench that had them all struggling to keep their balance.

"I'm taking a short cut," Kiki commented as he noticed the pandemonium that he was creating in the main cabin. "We're going straight through the axis of the asteroid."

"As long as it's not straight through the surface of the asteroid," muttered Torr anxiously as he strove to keep his supper inside his stomach while the Eos boogied through the clouds.

If they punctured the thin skin of the asteroid, the ocean would start to spill out into the vacuum of space in spectacular fashion, creating a waterspout hundreds of kilometres long. Now that would be mind bogglingly awesome!

Several minutes later, anyone looking up from the docksides of the Isle of Alvion would have seen the Eos emerge screaming through the heavy clouds in the twilight before the fall of the full black of night.

The new Neutrino drive that the Tinkerer had installed after they had recovered the Second Celestial Secret was working perfectly. Mischievously, Kiki was relishing the opportunity to demonstrate what it could do in splendid vomit inducing style.

Torr clung to the furniture fixings and tried to watch the images flashing past at lightning speed outside. The Isle of Alvion appeared to be identical to all of the other islands they had seen since their entry into the asteroid. It was a mad collection of cottages, tenements and heavy industrial chimneys discharging thick, black gas. The one startling difference was the large stone structure that rose from near the centre, towering over everything about it.

"What on earth is that, Kiki?" Torr asked whilst trying to keep his arm pointing in one direction.

"The Fortress of Enlightenment," Kiki replied, effortlessly managing conversation alongside a dazzling display of excellent flying.

The Eos thundered across Aquatica bay, sending mothers running to shrieking babies, before barrel rolling in a loop across the moored ships.

Reaching the apex of her climb, Kiki cut the engines and let her fall. At the last moment, before she hit the water with a tremendous splash, the reverse thrusters kicked in, slowing her descent. Water boiled, creating a cloaking cloud of steam that eliminated any further chance of impressing anyone else with Kiki's aerobatics display.

The manufactured cloud dissipated slowly to reveal a rather green looking Torr emerging from a hatch that was hidden in the shadows. The overnight bag was slung over his back, groaning silently.

Torr was still figuring out how to get from the deck of the Eos to the dockside above when a ladder was lowered down to him.

"Come on up," announced Commander Brine with what Torr felt had to be a smug smile hidden behind his respirator.

Up on the quayside, Torr stared around him noticing the Oceanius moored right next to the Eos. That was convenient. She looked strangely appropriate, a giant fish sleeping contentedly on the surface of the stagnant, refuse strewn sea. Commander Brine had swapped his space diver's suit for an impeccably clean white naval uniform with the initials NAVCAN embroidered in gold braid across his chest. Only the gas mask remained from their previous encounter.

Over it all he wore a long white leather coat. Amidst the filth that was strewn across the dockside in all directions, it was amazingly spotless and totally incongruent with his surroundings.

"How did you...?" Torr gabbled.

"...arrive before you? Quite simple old chap, I took the most direct route. Whilst you were sightseeing we came straight into this berth. Sometimes, speed isn't everything. Planning and attention to detail has its place."

All around him were ships of a thousand different designs and sizes, each moored against the quays, half hidden amongst the rolling clouds of smog and flotillas of floating rubbish. Alongside every one were streams of people shuffling their way on board. The sound of heavy coughing and choking was everywhere. In every direction were crowds of people, wearied, worried and wearing faces filled with fatigue. The lines of waiting waifs wound endlessly along the seaweed laden wooden walkways. Mothers clutched small infants and children clung to their parents' sides, staring about them in wild-eyed bewilderment. Many wore an array of different respirators but the poorer wretches simply clutched dirty surgical masks, scarves or muddy blankets to their faces.

Torr shouted down into the still open hatch of the Eos, "Nattie, come on up. You must look at this. I've never seen anything like it before."

Nattie emerged gawping around her in disbelief as Fuzz ball tried to squeeze through the gap besides her, nudging her aside. They all emerged onto the dock side and clustered closely together for comfort, in awe of the huge humanitarian effort that was taking place all around them. Even Kiki joined their vigil, hovering with the hushed hum of his mobile motors. All of them were silent as they watched the ghostly procession pass endlessly by.

Fascinated as she was by the sights and sounds, Nattie was equally overwhelmed by the pungent odour of the rotting rubbish mixed noxiously with the stagnant water and the stench of unwashed flesh. She gagged, desperately trying to keep her supper down.

Suddenly, Torr shouted a warning as something grabbed him firmly about the ankles.
Chapter 4: Dangerous dialogue on the dock side

Struggling to free himself, Torr wrenched his neck around to try and see what it was that was holding him captive. Something large, green, slimy, and barnacled was gripping his ankle, pulling him backwards into the murky water. A bulbous head slipped into sight, streaming sludge and marine plants whilst a second arm shot out to grab the rusty rungs of a ladder before hauling itself upwards. Releasing Torr's ankle, the shambling mass of maritime vegetation and scum dragged itself onto the dockside. Huge bulbous eyes glowed at them and as they all stepped back in terror Commander Brine stepped forwards, his arm extended palm outwards, ready for the first sign of danger.

The creature from the black water spoke, "Commander Brine, I assume," and lifted the huge amphibious helmet, to reveal a man inside. "My name is Armitage Shanks, detective of the unreal, nemesis of the underworld, celestial investigator, enquirer of the unknowable, assessor of space, auditor of the asteroids and absolutely deadly in the ancient art of armed umbrellarama."

From somewhere that Torr didn't quite see, he revealed a small silver case and removed a minute white card from it. He handed it to the Commander, who looked slightly at a loss as to how to deal with this figure from the depths. To buy himself time he peered closely at the card as Armitage Shanks waited patiently with a slightly haughty air, tapping his flippered toes to some unheard-of tune.

Technically speaking, Torr thought, they weren't flippers. Dolphins had flippers, humans wore fins, but most people still called them flippers and in his mind, that's what he was going to call them.

The whole scene appeared ridiculous. Whilst Armitage Shanks looked as if he had deliberately disguised himself as a giant frog, flapping its fins or flippers, flap, flap, squelch, he looked more ready for a pantomime performance. The bizarre outfit might well be proof against the polluted waters of the bay but compared to the Commander's smart, white NAVCAN uniform the logicality of its design lost out to sartorial elegance and style.

What Torr didn't know was that Armitage Shanks had recognised Torr instantly from the poster he had retrieved from the site of Jimi Scribble's arrest. Inside his immense brain, arterial cogs of calculating intelligence were already forming a cunning plan to get his hands on the reward and possibly much, much more.

"So, it would appear that you have the approval of the Isle of Alvion Police Department?" questioned Commander Brine.

"Yes, an uncomfortable necessity in my line of work," announced the enormous amphibian. "They have no flair for the mundane arcane."

"And may I ask what case it is that you are currently employed upon?"

Brine was struggling to retain some sense of decorum and respectability, but he was losing the fight to command the conversation. The ridiculous amphibious figure of Armitage Shanks dripping on the quayside trumped any attempt at normality.

"Indeed you can, Commander. I am employed in the defence of a boy wrongly accused of double homicide, not a hundred yards from this very spot. He is a young stray, who claims that he saw a monster in the midnight mist. A monster, I tell you!" he paused to stare at Torr, Nattie and Fuzz ball as if they were in cahoots with the monster.

Fuzz ball stared up at Nattie, wondering what this strangely dressed human was on about. Nattie just shrugged her shoulders in confused response. Despite the tropical heat, she could feel the chilly fingers of subconscious concern run down her spine. Her supper suddenly redoubled its efforts to break free. Something was up, she was sure of it.

"Master Scribble claims that this so called monster devoured the real murderers. It is because of these 'reports' of a 'monster' that I have been navigating the murky bottom of Aquatica bay to see if I can locate this mythical leviathan."

He gestured down at his diving suit, now dripping revolting sludge onto the wooden quayside. None of the thousand passers by seemed to notice or care.

"Unfortunately, at this point, all of my efforts have proved totally unproductive. The monster continues to elude me."

"And what has this got to do with us?" asked Nattie, her hand clamped firmly over her mouth to avoid the stomach-churning stench.

"I suspect that you are somehow involved in all of this," he said, speaking quietly, but firmly to the crew and passengers of the Eos. His steely gaze pinned their butterfly minds. He jabbed a bony, web-covered finger towards them accusingly as he initiated the first steps of his cunning plan.

"Information has come into my possession that you are possibly involved in a crime so monumental that it leaves a trail through the whole of human space."

Torr swallowed hard. Too hard, he thought.

The great detective leant down so that his face was closer to theirs.

"I know what you've been up to."

Torr and Nattie started to feel very vulnerable. They were both an awfully long way from home, in a strange country, on the verge of an ecological disaster where the rule of law and order was probably as thin and fragile as the rancid crust on the waters below.

Nattie's head reeled. What could he possibly have discovered? How could he know anything about them? They'd only just landed. Was this self styled great detective bluffing?

"Whatever makes you think that?" shouted Torr rapidly losing any rationality and control over his emotions under the intensity of the detective's accusations. He was still angry with himself for mentioning the Celestial Secrets in front of Commander Brine and wasn't handling the dockside interrogation at all well.

"We've only just arrived, how could we know anything about this monster you keep referring to?"

"I never reveal my techniques, or evidence, before my earth shattering conclusions," the detective said firmly and emphatically in his reply.

With his spare hand Shanks fingered the 'Wanted' poster with Torr's face on it that was still carefully secreted in his pocket. Surely this was the same boy. He couldn't be mistaken, could he?

"But I can assure you that you I have evidence that somehow you are all linked to this case," he lied.

At the moment he had no idea about how they could be connected, however his intuition promised him that they were. If he could just convince Torr to leave the dockside and follow him he could find a way to bend their plans to his own.

"Under my authority as a voluntary member of the Isle of Alvion Police Force, I must ask you to accompany me to the Fortress of Enlightenment where we can talk about this matter more discretely," Shanks announced loudly.

His eyes looked left, then right, and then left again before swivelling around in his head. Nattie tried to follow them, to understand what he was looking at, but could only see the crowds of refugees still flowing past. Who was he looking at and what did he mean by 'discretely', she wondered?

Did he have some secret information that he needed to share with them? Was it something to do with the Celestial Secrets? Was he a colleague of the Tinkerer? He certainly looked weird enough. There were so many secrets and so much uncertainty in her life. Which were real and which were lies and deception? She wasn't sure anymore. Her head spun with all of the different possibilities and there was still a quietly nagging doubt at the back of Nattie's brain that there was something not quite right about this, but she was too disorientated to try and figure it out. Everything was happening way too fast. They should never have come to this planet. The people here were all horrible!

Shanks sensed their confusion and could see that they were still undecided about whether to trust him and wavering over whether to accept his invitation. But gaining their trust was irrelevant. All that was important was that they came along with him to the Fortress of Enlightenment. Capturing Torr Naydo would boost his reputation as a great detective and the reward money would come in handy as well.

Meanwhile, he could continue his deliberations about the further mysteries that surrounded this case and tantalised his intuition. If the children were central to solving this mystery then he could always break them out of whatever temporary prison the authorities threw them into AFTER he had banked the reward.

However, a struggle on the waterfront right now would be a disaster, especially if that NAVCAN Commander decided to intervene. The children might be recognised by someone else while they argued and his NAVCAN ship was probably full of marines ready to swarm all over the dockside at the slightest hint from their Commander. They would easily and quickly overwhelm the lone detective. One wrong word from Commander Brine and instead of a nice headline Shanks would find himself engulfed in a huge public incident.

He looked carefully at the Commander, trying to understand the other man's intentions. Was he inclined to intervene, or could he be convinced to play along?

Shanks glanced again at the children. The boy looked angry and the girl looked confused. He knew that he needed to play a close line between being firm enough to convince them and friendly enough that they didn't just make a run for it. In these flippers he'd never catch them.

"You can come with me quietly and I'm sure we can sort this out quite quickly," Armitage Shanks proposed gently. "It will also give you a chance to do some sightseeing before you get caught up in the rescue effort. You might never get the chance to come this way again. Or you can be difficult and I'll be forced to call for some extra help. They probably won't be as friendly as me," he finished firmly, folding his arms across his chest.

Torr stood stiff with rage and fury beside Nattie. She was still lost in confusion but knew that she didn't want a fight. That rarely settled anything. She slipped her hand into Torr's and spoke to him quietly.

"Come on Torr, let's see what he wants. We can always come back later. I'm sure it's just a simple mistake. It's not as if they're going to run out of people who need rescuing."

Perhaps there was something that the man in the odd diving suit felt the need to say in private. Perhaps it was something to do with the Celestial Secrets? Perhaps he was trying to help them, or perhaps it was a trap? Her head continued to reel with the possibilities.

Beside her, Torr looked nervous about going along with Mr Shanks. After their experience in the Tower of Neidelkreig, Torr was reluctant to enter another stone edifice such as the Fortress of Enlightenment. What sort of name was that? From what he had seen of the big stone ziggurat from the safety of the Eos, it didn't look enticing. Torr was extremely worried that if they went in they might never come out again. He'd had enough of dungeons to last him a lifetime not to mention nearly freezing to death over bottomless pits. There'd be no Kezin to save them this time.

As if she could read his thoughts, Fuzz ball hugged Nattie more tightly and rubbed her soft fur lightly against them both. There was no way he could resist the two of them at the same time.

Torr needed a fourth opinion.

"Kiki?"

The talking computer replied almost immediately.

"I think for the moment it is best to go along with him until we can find out more," whispered the on board electronic adviser through the microphone in Torr's ear. "Unusual as it might appear, he does seem to represent the local law enforcement department in some minor way. I suspect that there is nothing to worry about. It may all just be routine. I'll bring along our passports just in case."

"Passports?" exclaimed Torr. "I didn't even know we had passports!"

Chapter 5: Into the Isle of Alvion

While he listened and pondered Kiki's advice, Torr heard Commander Brine give way and concede control and authority to the self styled 'great' detective. His heart sank. Once inside the Fortress of Enlightenment there would be no escape. Where was Kezin when you really needed him?

"It would appear, Mr Shanks, that I must reluctantly agree to your request and release these young people into your custody. But rest assured that I will be lodging a complaint with the appropriate authorities. His Imperial Majesty's Government has reasons to be interested in these children and if any harm should come to them then there will be questions to be answered."

While on one side it was reassuring to know that if they were to conveniently disappear then someone might someday come asking questions about them, they no longer had any choice but to go with Shanks to the ominously sounding Fortress of Enlightenment. Unless of course they decided to make a run for it, Torr thought. There was a chance that they might escape from Mr Shanks. After all he was only wearing flippers, he wouldn't get very far in those. Could he?

Torr decided against that idea. Overall there were too many risks involved. He was already on the run from two evil empires, he didn't want to add another 'Commonwealth' and the local law enforcement as well. He was sure that his Uncle wouldn't count that as 'keeping out of trouble'. If he ever did manage to get re-united with his parents he didn't want their first conversation in years to be all about how much trouble he was in.

Armitage Shanks could see that Torr was relenting and felt relieved now that Commander Brine had conceded as well. He didn't have to worry anymore about being overwhelmed by a squad of NAVCAN marines at any moment. Torr Naydo and the huge reward for his capture were almost within his clutches.

"If you will follow me then!" he announced, turning his heal and flapping off ahead of them. They all looked at each other for a moment in embarrassed silence before following awkwardly along the slimy dockside. Did he really mean to walk to the Fortress of Enlightenment in his flippers?

To Torr's pleasant surprise, Commander Brine fell in behind them, taking up the rear. For his part he wasn't going to let his own chance at fame and fortune fly from his fingertips so easily. Besides he had very clear orders from TIMIES to keep them under observation at all times.

"I can't see any reason why I shouldn't accompany you, Mr. Shanks," announced Brine from the rear of the party. "That way I can ensure that the interests of these children remain protected by His Imperial Majesty's Government and her agents."

Under his breath Armitage Shanks used some swear words that he'd learnt in the worst of the harbour bars along the quayside of Aquatica bay. This was really inconvenient. Now he'd have to figure out how to lose the Commander once they were ashore.

Already his razor sharp mind was concocting a new cunning plan to add to his first. You never could have enough cunning plans up your watertight sleeves.

Armitage Shanks waddled along in front of the strange retinue, guiding them through the myriad maze of possible pathways, past the countless people lining the waterfront clutching uncertainly to their meagre possessions. Torr was close behind, followed by Fuzz ball, then Nattie with Commander Brine bringing up the rear in his immaculate uniform. As always, Kiki hovered in and out of the line as they snaked along the narrow gangplanks.

Suddenly, Shanks paused, as if uncertain of the exact route he should follow to get him back to the shore. They had stopped besides a couple of ship hands re-fuelling a local fishing cutter. The two men chatted to each other loudly, apparently oblivious to everyone else around them.

"I don't understand why everyone is so desperate to get on board any of those ships. It's not as if they are going to escape to anywhere safer," shouted one of the ship hands, plunging a fuel hose into the cutter's fuel tank.

"Yeah, the way I hear it, recycling and anti pollution systems are failing everywhere," the other replied, turning the pumps on so that the gurgling and gushing liquid threatened to overwhelm even their extremely loud conversation.

The smell of motor fuel combined with the pungent aroma of the rubbish strewn sea was overwhelming. Nattie was close to passing out.

"Nautilon might be the first to choke on its own toxic waste, but it won't be long before each asteroid goes the same way," the first man coughed.

"Dying one place is much like dying in any uvver, ain't it?" the other one replied, spitting into the water as he did so. His phlegm floated fleetingly on the contaminated water before merging with the other revolting remnants of humanity that skirted the edge of the scum covered water.

"If you gotta go, you gotta go," agreed the first and then before Torr and the others could overhear much more Shanks had his bearing again and was waddling off ahead; leading them with surety once more.

Behind him Torr heard a final few words, "...looks like the end of humanity for sure, this time."

Torr was worried. Time appeared to be running out to find the next Celestial Secret and here he was wasting it with futile bureaucracy.

~o0o~

Eventually and after the slippery, slimy surface of the walk way, the dirt and mud of 'dry land' was a welcome change. Before they shifted from the maze of the walkways to the labyrinth of the cobbled streets, Torr took one last look out over the grey, sluggishly-shifting soup of the bay and the marmalade texture of the sky that spread across it. Was there a monster lurking beneath the surface of the sea? Was the environment so polluted that the whole eco-system was in danger of collapse? Was every asteroid in an equally ruinous position? The questions chased each other around inside his head, playing tag with each other as they splashed through puddles full of empty ideas.

"Look after the Eos, Kiki. Lock her down tight," he whispered almost to himself.

Behind them, aboard the Eos, hatches slid silently closed and bolts slipped into housings. He could only guess what Kiki had done but he tried to make out the Eos, just the same, lost amongst the armada of ships and hordes of humanity clogging up Aquatica harbour. He hoped his ship would be safe amongst the thick and wispy clouds of smog that hugged the water, obscuring and then revealing anyone's view over the polluted bay.

Commander Brine paused as well, standing tall and proud at the edge of the water. In his white naval uniform he cut a dashing figure, looking very confident and sure of himself, as he stared out across the moorings. Torr was envious. Commander Brine appeared every inch the fearless leader that Torr felt he should be; being with the Commander only fuelled Torr's own deep feelings of uncertainty and inadequacy.

I bet he never makes mistakes and leads his friends into trouble, Torr thought. Why can't I be more like him?

They continued for a time through the smog that clung to the taller buildings and tumbled down into the chaotic streets. Ahead of Torr, Armitage Shanks took advantage of the change of surface to increase the pace and before long they were striding (and flapping) across the cobbled pavements at a brisk but uneven pace. Shanks appeared unaffected by the constant crowds who jostled and grunted as if they were a single sentient beast, all elbows and baggage with a severe case of bad temper and halitosis.

The most obvious things that snatched at Torr's attention were the endless stacked rows of rotting refuse, futilely stuffed into overfilled sacks. Many were split, their contents spilled recklessly amongst the crowds who in their turn trampled the trash underfoot. Rats and other vermin dug and delved for their dinner with dogged determination. The stench was appalling in all its aspects. The scene reeked of anarchic Armageddon.

Arms and legs shoved at him as Torr searched the faces that loomed unexpectedly from the smog swirling around in the constant throng of humanity. The light from the gas lamps gave off a ghostly glow such that each expressionless face he saw had an eerie luminescence about it. Some features appeared to wear woven halos in the gas light, whilst others took on a ghoulish tint, with twisted features, broken teeth and once, just once, Torr told himself that he had imagined a set of exaggerated fangs.

Vampires only exist in horror stories his brain insisted in what he hoped was a persuasive tone. So what was that, then, replied his unconvinced and very frightened sub conscious.

A chill trickled along his spine as he saw no hint of friendliness in any of the faces that passed him by. There was a streak of fear, running just beneath the surface of every gaze he met and with growing discomfort attaching itself to every step he took he felt a cloudy and gloomy sense of menace descend upon him.

Chancing a glance behind him, he recognised the same anxiety in Nattie's features. He could tell without asking that she was thinking the same thing. Fuzz ball was sufficiently nervous to be hitching a lift on Nattie's shoulders, unwilling to be down on her own at ground level. The crowd pressed in roughly behind them and Commander Brine momentarily disappeared as the smog closed in around him. The semi sentient mob swallowed him up with a soundless gulp as the crowd closed into the empty space where he should have been.

Silently Commander Brine cursed his luck as he found himself separated from the rest of the party. He couldn't afford to lose the children. Not now that he'd been ordered to keep his eyes on them. Not now they were TIMIES' only lead to the Celestial Secrets. The very same Celestial Secrets that would keep the Commonwealth of Independent Asteroids free from the threat of the Aztex and Carthaginian Empires, whilst bringing fame and fortune to the name of Barney Brine.

Hidden from Brine's sight by the smog and crowd, Torr glanced behind him again and Nattie caught his eye this time, moving her lips soundlessly. What was she saying? Torr could almost make out the words from her lips as she repeated herself.

'Someone, or something, is following us!' she mouthed with a face almost drowned with panic.

With a simultaneous sinking feeling Torr suspected she was right.

Chapter 6: Lost in the crowd

Torr stopped with a jolt as Nattie's words sunk slowly into his brain and rippled through his consciousness, mixing toxically with his own growing anxiety. It was such a sudden stop that Nattie stumbled straight into him, tumbling Fuzz ball over his shoulder to the ground. The fluffy creature bounced, once, twice, three times before coming to a stop and glaring back at Torr with a look that accused him of cold, hard, inhuman callousness.

Why would anyone be following them here where they were virtually unknown? Was that why he felt nervous? Did he subconsciously feel everyone's eyes following them, or was it more to do with their impending appointment within the Fortress of Enlightenment. Regardless, relentless, unfeeling fingers of unease walked up and down his spine.

Destiny nudged Fate awake.

Reacting quickly, Torr leant down to pull Fuzz ball back up by the scruff of fur at the back of her neck. While he did so another person brushed into them and then another as the hustling, bustling crowd struggled to cope with the sudden obstruction that interrupted the constant flow of humanity.

"Oooff! Watch out, you idiot, what do you think you're playing at, lying around on the ground like this," one man shouted into Nattie's ear after he had collapsed with his baggage on top of them.

His suitcases hit the ground and burst open, flinging clothes everywhere. Desperately he tried to cram his belongings back into his baggage.

Torr struggled back to his feet as the passerby continued to complain more and more loudly and others began to join in. His breathing mask had been ripped from his face during the fracas and he pushed it back into place. Coughing loudly, his lungs gasped for the fresh, clean air.

Watching eyes immediately confirmed their suspicions and passed the information along.

"Look at my clothes," the man wailed, holding up his underwear which was patterned with large pink hearts lovingly embroidered and monogrammed into swirling, curling patterns. They were now streaked with slime and grime from the muddy puddle he had recovered them from.

Someone in the crowd sniggered.

"They were a present from... my mother," the man with the suitcase said, smothering a choking sob.

Torr wasn't sure what they were, but they certainly weren't the sort of underwear that he would admit to owning, even if they had been a present from his mother.

It began to look like trouble was brewing again as more and more people found this new interruption to be a good excuse to vent all their pent-up frustrations. Angry faces were glaring at them from all directions and every one of them seemed to be shouting something at Torr.

"What is the world coming to?"

"As if things weren't bad enough now we've got to struggle with dirty laundry!!!"

"There's not much you can do with slimy underwear."

"Not that you would ever catch me dead in those pants."

"What, the ones with pink hearts on them?"

"Dead, dead, dead, we're all going to be dead soon!"

"We're all going to die!"

"We're doomed, we're doomed, we're all doooomed!"

The crowd was on the edge of panic. Any moment now there would be a stampede as the levels of fear surged uncomfortably and dramatically. Torr stared into the faces around him and saw only anger and uncertainty in every face; except for one, a face from the dockside that looked at him with an appraising gaze full of calculated cunning and deception.

Right now, a friendly, even if only apparently friendly, adult would be welcome, Torr thought. He looked around for Armitage Shanks who had disappeared, complete with flapping flipper sound into the crowd ahead of them. Was the self styled great detective really totally unaware of the mood of the crowd or had this all been part of some cunning plan of his? Had they already been betrayed?

Either way, all their self-appointed guardians had vanished.

Torr's brain started blinking when it should have been thinking. Something that he had learnt during his recent adventures was that every disaster contained within it the scrappy seeds of success. They wouldn't be obvious, but they'd be there, hidden somewhere. Perhaps there was a concealed opportunity here; but where?

Commander Brine still hadn't re-appeared from behind them. They were truly on their own now. Perhaps this was their chance to escape from their self appointed carers? But what if it wasn't? What if that was totally the wrong move that would plunge them all into an unmitigated disaster?

Nattie glared at Torr, desperately trying to get his attention. People were shouting and gesticulating around them but Torr's brain wasn't listening. It was elsewhere, trying to balance internal confusion and indecision, risk and indecision, options and opportunity. Was this their only chance to escape, or was this the end of the line?

"That's them," she whispered to him urgently.

The large man standing behind her echoed in deep gruff tones the very same words she'd whispered. It was the man from the waterfront.

"It is them. I thought it was. The kids we were told to look out for. The one's with the huge reward for their capture. Let's grab 'em and claim it. We'll be rich and can buy our way out of here. If we deliver these kids the Carthaginians will get us out of this mess, for sure."

There was an urgent surge and the mood of the crowd turned from annoyed belligerence to capricious self-interest and greed. A mob was born and arms all around reached out for a piece of them.

"Run!" shouted Nattie, annoyed at Torr's inaction, as he stood there apparently still stupefied by the sudden hostility and the array of choices that confronted them.

She didn't have any more time to waste. Fear gripped her and she barrelled past him. Vaulting over piles of luggage Nattie leapt between gaps in the men closing in on them. Fuzz ball followed; a cannonball on furry legs.

Torr's ears finally gave up trying to force its message through and bypassed his brain, going straight to his legs. Run, they insisted! His legs tried to obey, but were jerked backwards as a hand grabbed the overnight bag still slung across his shoulder.

"I've got one of them!"

The sudden yank jolted him out of his confused internal deliberations and Torr's brain finally kicked into action. What could he do, right here, right now? He couldn't leave the overnight bag behind, he had no idea what was in it; but if he was caught...

Unexpectedly, the hand released him and there was a shout of pain.

"What happened there?" Torr mumbled to himself as he started to run.

Pursuit was close behind as he picked up the pace..

"I hit him with a low level positronic laser blast," replied Kiki, bobbing and weaving alongside Torr as he navigated the crowd. Both of them followed the fleeing Fuzz ball.

"You have posiwhatsit lasers?" asked Torr incredulously. "Why didn't you ever use them before?"

"Positronic lasers! The tinkerer installed them after that run-in with the Verminx on NördStrörm," Kiki lectured. "He told me that I need to be careful using them in the interior of the asteroid though. I don't want to miscalculate and burn a hole right through to space. There were enough people to aim at in that crowd so that I didn't have to worry about missing!" Kiki insisted.

Torr wanted to ask how Kiki had managed to get fitted out with new weapons when the last time they had actually met with the Tinkerer was in orbit about the moon, long before Nordstrom, or Kingsley Downs. But he needed his breath for running. The angry mob was still closely behind them. Were they Aztex, Carthaginians, friends of Dr.Wunderfoul, or something much, much worse?

"Get them!" the crowd roared as if it didn't care.

"Yeah, one of them's using posiwhatsit lasers. They're dangerous those are," came the cry.

"Should be a law against it!" a lone voice screeched and Torr felt a shiver down his backbone.

"Ain't no law left," coughed another evil voice in his wake.

Were they gaining on him? Were the voices getting closer?

"Except what law we make of our own!" suggested somebody with a weasel's whiney voice.

"Yeah. String 'em up I say!

Torr urged his legs to run even faster. He'd done enough dangling from the end of a rope to last a lifetime, however short that might be.

Amazingly, he seemed to be making progress.

The random crowd ahead of him appeared to be thinning and behind him the roar of voices that were shouting for him to stop was diminishing into the distance. Nattie and Fuzz ball disappeared around a corner ahead. Was there a chance that they could yet escape?

Instead, rounding the corner himself, he saw Fuzz ball slow and come to a stop. His stomach groaned and his lungs ached from running. What now?

"Don't stop!" he wheezed, unable to halt.

Leaping to avoid Fuzz ball he collided with Nattie. Together they fell into a dishevelled and embarrassing heap on the ground.

"Why did you stop?" he asked from the top of the tumbled pile up.

"Because I didn't have any places left to run to," she replied petulantly from the bottom of the pile. "Look!"

Torr stared around in dismay. They had emerged into a dirty courtyard. Ahead of them, rising from the smog was a huge wall constructed from gigantic granite blocks. Each was so massive that it had probably been built by a long dead race of celestial beings.

It had to be the outer wall of the Fortress of Enlightenment but there were no entrances in sight, just a very high, very thick looking wall that bolted into the houses on either side. There would be no climbing over that. There would be no climbing that. There was no... exit!

The entrance to the courtyard they had just come through was the only way out and that was already filling as the front runners of the mob caught up with them. Within moments any thoughts of retracing their stapes and taking another route were dashed with depression and dismay.

Torr reluctantly turned to face the large crowd of big, angry hooligans, carrying extremely large, malevolent looking clubs. This was no chance, angry rabble. This was a disturbingly well-organised gang of thugs, out for head-bashing aggro.

"Better get ready with those positronic lasers, Kiki."

Chapter 7: Backs against the wall

Torr hesitated, fighting indecision. Should Kiki use the positronic lasers on the crowd, or the wall?

If they used them on the crowd it would probably just make them angrier and Torr didn't really want to hurt anyone. If they managed to burn a way through the wall of the fortress, what was to prevent the mob following them through? And the authorities, or whoever owned the wall, weren't going to be that happy about things either.

Nattie derailed his freight train of indecision and hesitation with an anguished question, "Positronic lasers? When did he get lasers?"

"Don't ask," replied Torr, pulling the overnight bag from his shoulder and unzipping it with a flourish. Destiny gave a gasp of delight and the overnight bag gave a big grin of anticipation. Torr just hoped there was something useful inside.

"Least of all positronic lasers," Nattie continued urgently. "Do you know what those things are capable of?"

Her voice was on the edge with nowhere left to go.

Torr shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He had enough on his plate with a mad crowd, a polluted asteroid, a cosmic detective, two evil empires, NAVCAN, five missing Celestial Secrets and mankind on the edge of extinction but now Nattie wanted to lecture him on quantum physics. He sighed wearily.

Hysterically, she just started shouting at him, not waiting, or really caring if he was listening.

"Positrons are anti matter versions of electrons. When they hit electrons, both particles just disappear as if they never existed. Can you imagine what might happen if a stream of positrons from one of those lasers hit the asteroid wall?"

Torr shrugged his shoulders. He didn't care. He was a little low on imagination at the moment. Intense physical danger tended to do that to him.

"This whole side of the asteroid wall would just disappear in an instant," Nattie continued to rant. "The explosive pressure would be enormous. We'd be ejected into space so suddenly we wouldn't even have time to scream. We can't afford for Kiki to use them! They're far too dangerous."

"Really? Surely not," Torr commented sarcastically.

At the moment he didn't care one way or another. Death was death and the only real choice that appeared to be remaining was how quick and painful did he want it to be. How did he get into messes like this? He was just a normal kid. Well, until recently that was how he liked to think of himself.

"Yes, really!" Nattie replied hotly. "Positrons are anti matter particles. When they run into normal matter they both explode on contact, leaving nothing and I mean completely nothing behind!"

"Nothing?" Torr repeated blindly.

His thoughts were elsewhere in a very dark and gloomy place. The mob was starting to close in on them. This was it; decision time.

"Nothing, no dust, no debris, no blood, zilch, zero, nil!"

"Oh."

Torr couldn't think of anything else to say. Why had the Tinkerer armed Kiki with something so dangerous? It wasn't as if he didn't have enough worries already. Now he was able to add 'an over armed and confused computer brain with delusions of importance bearing weapons of mass destruction' and 'angry mob about to tear him apart' to his already overlong list of life ending things to worry about.

The mob fanned out as it moved forwards and formed into a large semi circle, effectively trapping them against the walls of the Fortress. Things were looking more ominous by the second.

"I'd better fish around in here and see if there's anything else we can fight with," Torr said distantly as he started to reach between the oversized zips of the overnight bag.

At least they still had Kiki and the positronic lasers, thought Torr. If things became really desperate he'd have to take the chance that Kiki's aim was accurate. He just probably wouldn't tell Nattie about it in advance, he concluded.

"I'll try and remember to ask nicely," he added with words of experience. He still remembered when the overnight bag had refused to give him back the Second Celestial Secret because he hadn't been polite enough.

"I'll do it!" Nattie interrupted impatiently, snatching the bag from Torr's fingers. She knew that they didn't have time for any mistakes.

As Nattie searched inside, one of the men hurled a fist-sized rock at them. Torr watched it sail through the air high above his head. He felt comfortably relieved at the thrower's poor accuracy, when suddenly and to Torr's complete surprise, there was a sound of splintering plastic and silicon.

Fate winced outwardly as Torr looked up.

"Squuark!" was the last sound that Kiki's mobile form made before it fell in fragments at Torr's feet, showering him with splintered glass and green goo. Torr didn't even want to start thinking about what that might be.

What were they going to do without Kiki? He was their contact with the Eos and an ongoing source of information and annoying quips. Kiki was the only one who could tack down the Third Celestial Secret. There was definitely no chance that the positronic lasers were going to help them out now.

Kiki had been carrying their passports as well. Torr wasn't sure what had happened to them and there was no way he was going to go rooting through the gooey remnants of plastic and silicon to see if they were hidden in there somewhere. He knew full well that not having them was going to get them into deep trouble with the authorities, but right now that was the least of his problems.

Survival was currently top of his list.

The advancing men grinned horribly at him and Torr started retreating along with the others towards the heavily fortified wall. "Any luck with the overnight bag?" he called towards Nattie, "I think we're going to need it."

The mob appeared extremely confident and they looked ugly in more ways than one. Fuzz ball was too scared to be of any use even if they were able to persuade her to morph and without Kiki and his onboard armaments the three of them were hardly likely to be able to hold out for long. Not for the last time Torr regretted the loss of Kezin. The lion boy might not have known what to do most of the time, but his unbridled ferocity was unbeatable in a fight. If only he was here now.

Fuzz ball hid amongst his legs, nearly tripping him over. "A lot of use you are," he grumbled to the diminutive figure and Nattie stopped searching in the overnight bag long enough to glare at him. Fuzz ball looked up at him with big 'I'm sorry, eyes' and Torr felt even more wretched.

"That's it, all gang up on..." he stopped as his back reached the wall.

This was it, as far as they could retreat. They couldn't back away any further and there was going to be no escape through the wall of thugs advancing towards them.

"We've got them now, lads," shouted a particularly nasty looking brute with a scar across his cheek and a significant number of teeth missing. "We'll show them that they shouldn't come around here shooting at people with their posiwhatsit lasers and when we've finished with 'em we'll trade 'em in for that reward."

"Reward?" thought Torr. "What reward?"

"Here take this," Nattie suggested, handing Torr one of two baseball bats that she'd found in the overnight bag. "You might also want this," she suggested, passing him a matching baseball cap. Torr just glared at her in return. "Gee, thanks!" he added sarcastically.

There was no denying it, though. The weight of the bat did feel good in his hands.

One of the men near the front, wearing a blackened eye patch roared with laughter and looked around at his colleagues. From behind their backs they revealed a selection of heavy clubs studded with nails, knives, chains and short stabbing swords. They raised them into the air violently and jeered with evil inevitability.

"So you want to fight, sonny?" the eye-patch lout spluttered between bouts of laughter and broken dentistry. "Good, the reward pays out whatever state you arrive in and we've been itching for a good scrap all day. Ain't we lads?"

The others nodded and grunted their agreement. The man from the waterfront appeared particularly pleased with himself.

Eye patch turned back towards them, "You're a plucky one my lad, but I can't see you taking on all of us. This is your last chance to come quietly." He hefted his club in his hand as if speaking to it. "Well, relatively quietly. All that chasing has kind of got our blood up and we should probably let off a little steam before we take you in. But we won't hurt you too much if you come along quietly."

Torr didn't know what to do. He couldn't see any way that they could fight their way through, but he didn't want to just surrender them all up to the these rebels and be handed over to the Carthaginians, or the Aztex, or whoever was behind all of this. It looked like they were in for a beating whichever way. He glanced at Nattie who was standing with the baseball bat across her shoulder ready to swing at the first gang member that came towards her. It seemed she had made her decision.

Despite their murderous looking weapons, the mob was clearly keeping a safe distance from her. Torr looked around for his own discarded hat and saw that Fuzz ball had already pulled it over her own head, backwards. He didn't have the heart to ask for it back and reluctantly lifted his bat, taking up an identical stance to Nattie. At least he'd go down fighting with his friends.

"Come and get it, boys!" Nattie yelled.

With a blood curdling yell, the mob charged forwards, their weapons waving in the air and their heavy boots thundering on the cobbles.

Torr prepared himself for the worst. Someone was about to get hurt and he had a good guess about who that was likely to be.

Chapter 8: Finally finding a way into the Fortress

The mob charged forwards with the inevitability of a giant wave breaking over a pebble beach. As it poured towards them Nattie and Torr struck in unison, swinging their bats in great arcs that caught the first two mobsters squarely across their foreheads. But before the two friends could swing again the next pair of thugs was upon them, striking with halitosis, inadequate hygiene and well-honed weaponry. Nattie screamed and went down under the onslaught. She fell first to her knees and then flat on the hard, chilling, cobblestone pavement. Thugs fell on top of her and her jaunty hat flew away through the air. With Nattie down Torr was left on his own.

Nattie continued to scream in panic and Torr was forced to try and look in two directions at once as he tried to protect them both at the same time. Taking advantage of Torr's predicament, the leading thug paused to grin back at his gang before grabbing for Torr's throat. Torr recognised him. It was the man who had been listening to them on the waterfront and Eye patch was right behind him.

The leading man managed to shout, "We have..." before Torr completed his second swing and the baseball bat connected cleanly with the man's head.

The man crashed senselessly to the ground alongside Nattie. The mob paused for half a second, almost silently considering the odds once more before renewing their assault with a deafening roar. It was still clear that everything remained heavily weighted in their favour.

Torr ducked to avoid the first swing of a giant club that was studded with nasty looking nails and razor blades. His attacker wound up his war weapon once more before watching in amazement as a long thin blade emerged from his chest. A thin red-rose garland of blood spread across his grimy shirt as he gurgled a horrified goodbye. Astonished at his lucky escape Torr glanced over the thug's shoulder to see where the sword had come from.

It was Armitage Shanks!

Armitage Shanks was here!

Armitage Shanks was here with a sword!

Armitage Shanks was here with a sword, still dressed in his monster diving suit and flippers!

Armitage Shanks was in front of him, all on his own, fighting at least four thugs with a sword, acting like a complete mad man and giving him time to rescue Nattie!

Having given more than enough thought to what was happening Torr dived sideways and started heavily pounding Nattie's attacker with the head of his bat. He could just see her wriggling beneath her assailant and was relieved to see she was still alive.

"Owww!" the lout yelled and rolled painfully out of the way, rubbing at his injured shoulder.

"You okay?" Torr breathed into Nattie's face. Blood was running from somewhere on her head and matting her hair a dark and sticky red. Dragging her over to the wall of the Fortress he propped her against it and she smiled back at him weakly.

"Sure! I'm so pleased he came back for us," she said in a tired and defeated voice.

"Yeah, I'm not sure how he got here, but I'm glad he did. I just wish I had a sword like his."

The overnight bag burped and Nattie and Torr both stared at it in disbelief.

"OK. Give it here," Torr said sternly, holding out his hand in what he hoped was a firm fashion. "Please".

The overnight bag backed away from him, only to come up against the enormous brick walls of the Fortress of Enlightenment that towered above them.

"I know what you've got in there. Give it to me," Torr demanded.

The overnight bag coughed up a toothbrush and looked at him expectantly.

Torr picked it up threateningly.

"If you don't give it to me, I'm going to stuff this toothbrush so far between your.... between your...between your...zippers that... that..." Torr was struggling to find the right threatening words. Just how did you go about threatening a sentient piece of luggage?

"Just give it to me!" he shouted, stamping his foot against the cobbled pavement in what he hoped was a decisive manner.

A sword hilt stuck itself hesitantly up between the overnight bags zippers.

Torr seized it and hauled the sword from the bag as if from a stone anvil. Turning hesitantly with the blade waving uncertainly in front of him, he stared in amazement at how Armitage Shanks was single handily holding off the front row of the mob whilst another handful were already howling from the floor. The man was an amazing swordsman as well as a detective with dialectic dialogue and immensely poor dress sense.

Torr stood, indecisively, admiring Shank's sword wondering where he should start his own sword work. Amidst all of the action, he hardly noticed the wild ticking sound of reality unwinding its clockwork mechanism in double quick time.

Now that he had his hands around the hilt of the weapon he could feel its weight and became conscious that he really had no idea how to fight with a blade. Heroic as it made him feel, he could see that Armitage Shanks was in a totally different league and probably didn't need his help in holding off the band of brutes. Sure, he could do play stuff, but he wasn't sure he could win a battle with a sword against a bunch of homicidal maniacs determined to separate his head from his shoulders.

What he needed to do most was to think. How could they get away? There was always a way out, he told himself, you just had to find it.

Armitage Shanks continued to hold off the mob single handed as Torr turned and stared at the wall. Fortresses always looked impregnable but they rarely were. There was always some hidden doorway, or something, a fire escape perhaps. Look at the Tower of Neidelkreig. That had appeared impregnable but they'd found a way in. Somewhere around here was a way of opening up this wall, he was certain of it. But where was it and more importantly how could he convince it to work for him?

Feeling empowered from his recent experience with the overnight bag he stared anxiously at the very solid looking masonry, thinking wishfully.

Fate stepped forwards. 'Enough!' he said to Destiny.

To Torr's amazement, a line appeared before him in the wall, so thin he wasn't sure he could see it. Then, somehow it turned sideways on itself, opening a second dimension, to become paper thin in the shape of an arm. It appeared to be a mechanical arm, as if cut from a paper chain, but in living, breathing colour. Like a live action cartoon, Torr thought.

It turned sideways again, becoming three dimensional, waving around in the air, fingers grasping at nothing as if searching around blindly. A fourth turn left Torr's eyes confused, unable to comprehend what the additional dimension should look like, scattering his thoughts with disembodied disbelief.

Torr was unable to shift his eyes from the odd tableau but kept a firm grip on the overnight bag even though he had relaxed his hold on the sword. The hand reached towards him before it could twist again, grabbed his shirt collar and dragged him towards the wall.

Just prior to hitting the hard, stony surface he managed to call out "Nattie!" before he felt, rather than saw, the arm twist its dimensions again.

This time, he felt it through his body as well as seeing it with his eyes. His whole field of vision creased itself inwards as if it was a self-folding map and his body bent and pleated in a way that he didn't feel should be possible.

It was as if he had been distorted through another dimension as the arm dragged him through the wall. There was no whack of his head against the concrete and sandstone. No impact from the wall, no feeling of movement, no air to breathe with while what he liked to think of as 'himself' was effortlessly merged with the wall. There was nothing in his experience to prepare him for this. A fresh wave of panic arose from where his stomach should have been and overwhelmed him.

And then he was through the wall into a corridor shaped haven of sanctity on the other side. Peace pervaded everything. The walls glowed a soft white; even the floor had a glimmer of a shimmer, Torr noted.

Also, there was silence.

Reeling to keep his stomach in check and his head on his shoulders as his body attempted to straighten out its wrinkles and creases, Torr saw a woman dressed in a neatly creased white lab coat quietly watching him. Her eyes were hidden under chunky, dark glasses and her hair severely cut, thick and black. But it was her arm drew his attention. It was encased in a long metal glove that had hauled him away from the sword fighting and blood curdling mob.

He should only feel grateful rather than suspicious.

"My friends, please help my friends," he managed to gasp before falling to his knees and emptying his supper all over the bright, white floor. Flying with Kiki was one thing but being dragged inter dimensionally through a solid wall was too much for his stomach to deal with in the very same day.

He just knew that Uncle Otto wouldn't have approved of it as civilised behaviour.

Could things get any worse?

Chapter 9: Through the n'th dimension

The woman in the lab coat dragged Nattie and Fuzz ball through the wall and into the corridor, depositing each one of them into a quivering, vomiting pile on the floor. Armitage Shanks was the last person to come through as Torr was helping Nattie to her feet, blood drying on her forehead.

"I'll get someone to clear that up later. In the meantime, you'd better come with me," barked the woman.

"And you are?" asked Nattie who had had her fill of people ordering her around ever since she had crawled through the hatch of the Eos and onto the quayside earlier.

Torr wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, "And what was that thing that just... just..." he gestured at the blank inner wall where there was obstinately no sign of a doorway. There wasn't even a fire escape sign.

"Questions, questions! Why do children have so many questions?" the strange woman hissed.

Nattie stubbornly folded her arms and looked at Torr for support. Reluctantly he moved beside her and crossed his arms as well, trying to look difficult. Even Fuzz ball joined them, struggling to fold her short arms across her chest. Unfortunately, they were far too short and inadequate to have the desired effect.

"Humph," grumbled the woman. "That's gratitude for you! Very well.

I am Professor Banx and I pulled you through the wall using an N dimensional inverter." She put her real hand on her hip, raised the metal glove threateningly and spoke in a stern voice. "Now, are you any the wiser? No, of course not! Your brains are too small."

Torr and Nattie looked stupefied and Fuzz ball continued to wear her normal uncomprehending expression of whimsy. Only Armitage Shanks appeared fascinated by the news and pulled a small device from his pocket which he started to mumble into.

For her part, Professor Banx ignored their reaction, turned on her heels and started down the long corridor ahead of them. On all sides refuse bags were piled two deep and the stench was only slightly more breathable than the toxic atmosphere outside.

"Now follow me!"

This was proving to be easier that she had expected. These were the children from the ship that had set off the 'alien technology alarm' she had installed and now they were within her grasp. How convenient. She would soon have her hands on whatever it was that was on their ship. Now, what should she do with them?

Her feet made a clipping sound on the hard tiles that was muted by the hasty flip flap of Armitage Shanks' flippers struggling to keep up behind her rapid gait. The children hurried awkwardly along behind as they appeared to be rushing along an endless tunnel into the centre of the pyramid that angled down towards the very roots of the Fortress.

While they walked Shanks was re-calculating his own plans. The intervention of this strange woman changed things. Even though he'd only just met her, he already had his suspicions about her motives.The thought of the reward money was now beginning to diminish in importance. Far more interesting to him were the hints of the Celestial Secrets; the children were clearly wrapped up in. How lucky that he should stumble upon them. What could be more enticing to a self styled great detective than a mystery of galaxy wide proportions?

Torr fell into stride besides Armitage Shanks, interrupting his thoughts.

"What's an N dimensional inverter?" he puffed, wondering if the great detective was any the wiser than he was about what was going on.

Being dragged through a wall had scrambled any slim sense Torr had had that his life was understandable at the moment.

"I'm not entirely sure," the great detective replied. "I think it's linked to Feynman's work on ten dimensional space. His calculations indicate that our universe consists of ten dimensions. What mathematicians have never been able to prove since then, however, was why we are only able to experience three, or four of them. Why not five, six, or more?"

"Four?" queried Torr. "I thought there was up, down, left, right, backwards and forwards. Let me see, that makes six." He said after mentally counting off fingers.

"Each of these is just a direction within each dimension," answered the great detective. "So, up and down are directions within the vertical dimension. Left and right are merely the directions we can travel in the sideways, or horizontal dimension."

Torr understood and quickly adjusted his counting as they turned another corner and started to descend yet more stairs.

"So that makes three dimensions. What's the fourth?"

"Time. The mathematicians claim that time is the fourth dimension."

"But we can only move one direction in time. Does that make it a real dimension?"

"Ah, yes. Well that might just be a figment of our imagination."

Torr scratched at his head, beginning to wish that he had never asked. How could time be a figment of his imagination?

"What if we could travel in time? Would that make it a proper dimension in your mind?" asked the great detective, always one for the difficult and mentally challenging questions.

"Possibly," Torr murmured, unsure of himself.

This multi dimensional stuff was beginning to make his head hurt again and coming so soon after having lost his supper it was beginning to remind him that he was hungry as well.

"So why can't I see the other six thingies and what does an N dimensional inverter do?"

"Feynman proposed that the other six dimensions might be rolled up in on themselves, so that we were unable to use them, or experience them. What an N dimensional inverter would do, if ever someone was able to build one, would be to switch between the three, or four dimensions that we could experience and the six that are curled up. It might uncurl some that we don't know about whilst curling up others that we do experience."

Torr gave up trying to understand and he stared blankly at the uniformity of the floor as they started to descend another set of stairs.

"If Professor Banx is telling the truth, then that glove of hers moved us into dimensions where the walls of the fortress don't exist. Then she shifted us through those dimensions before returning us to our normal dimensions on the other side of the wall."

"Which explains why I felt like my stomach had been twisted inside out?"

"Which explains why you felt like your stomach had been twisted inside out," Shanks confirmed.

He paused for a few seconds before he added a bombshell thought. "I would suspect that your bag works on the same principle."

~o0o~

Back in a comfortable bed in Armitage Shanks' house, Jimi slept and as he slept he dreamt. He was underwater, deep underwater.

There were fish all around him and the rugged ocean floor was a mere arm's length away as he swam in powerful strokes towards it. A rock face loomed up in front of him and as he swam around it he noticed cave type entrances riddled across its surface.

Unexpectedly from one of the caves, a group of young children rushed out. They were all much younger than him and he eyed them with the wariness that older children have for young tearaways. Spotting him they swam in his direction, signalling to each other in a language he couldn't understand. He backed away cautiously and they gave chase with joyful whoops.

Jimi accelerated, keen to not get involved with anyone. Years of living on his own had taught him the danger of having companions. Swimming as quickly as he could he found that he still couldn't lose them. Following him whichever way he dodged they swam strongly, continuing to gain on him.

How could they be swimming even faster than he was?

Eventually he arrived to where the long wooden posts of the dock rose towards the surface and the dappled light played hopscotch across the waves. He swam directly towards the haunting illuminations. The pursuing children were only just behind him now, almost catching his toes in their flitting, flighty games.

Hauling himself out of the water he found himself in an old, long abandoned, secluded section of the docks.

Jimi backed away quickly from the edge, breathing heavily.

Breathing heavily? How had he been able to breathe under the water? Before his dumbfounded brain could start searching for an answer, faces appeared in the water beneath him and the children who had pursued him smiled up and waved at him playfully.

Jimi counted four of them in all. He felt they needed a name and so he gave them one; the four Forlorn Kids. It had an onomatopoeic ring to it.

He watched in astonishment as one by one they hauled themselves out of the water to lie by his side and stare at him with gaunt eyes. Each of them was extremely thin and hungry looking, suffering from some strange, unusual mutation. Every single one was missing their legs and in their place had a tail; a fish's tail. What sort of creatures were these?

With rising panic, Jimi awoke and sat bolt upright in a room he didn't recognise. His dream seemed so real. But was it a dream, or a guilt filled reminder of his assumed responsibilities?

Chapter 10: The Cyberphins

Torr stopped dead in his tracks as the implications of what Armitage Shanks had just told him hit him clearly between the eyes. The others strode on ahead of him unaware of the revelationary thoughts he was having.

Torr remembered that the Tinkerer, who knew more than it was healthy to know about alien technology, had adapted the overnight bag. Did this mean that Professor Banx was also using alien technology? Had she somehow successfully opened one of the Celestial Secrets? Was she secretly in league with the Tinkerer, the Carthaginians or the Aztex? Or did she represent some unknown faction in this celestial conflict that he hadn't previously considered?

Armitage Shanks also stopped and turned to gaze back at Torr with a look of interest on his face, "You're more in the dark about what's going on here than I am, aren't you?"

"If you mean do I understand about ten dimensional space, inverters, moving through walls that appear solid, pollution gone mad, being mobbed in the street and everything and nothing about girls, the answer has to be no," Torr explained, exhaustedly.

Even talking about how confused you were was confusing, he thought.

"Well I can explain some of that, for that is what I do. I explain the inexplicable," announced Shanks. With a wink and a wry smile he added, "But girls, they remain a mystery. Even to me."

"But let me start with the easy answers. I suspect the men attacked you in the street because they were after the reward."

"Reward?" Torr gasped.

Some of the mob had mentioned a reward but he'd put it down to idiotic mob shaped nonsense. Now that Shanks had confirmed it was true he had to be careful what he admitted to. Torr could think of lots of reasons why the Carthaginians and the Aztex would want him under lock and key and they all came back to the Celestial Secrets. However much Shanks had just saved their lives Torr wasn't about to trust him anytime soon. Unwarranted trust in others had already caused him more than enough problems.

Instead Torr expressed his incredulity that anyone would want to pay good money to meet him.

"You are unaware of why there is a reward out for you? You really do have no idea why someone would want you out of the picture? Extraordinary!" the great detective pondered.

"There is a reward of a million astrodollars for bringing you into captivity. It is because of the reward that I brought you here. But now I am more intrigued by who you might be, what interesting friends you may have and the origins of the amazing technology that you appear to take for granted," Armitage mused. "There are powerful forces at work here and I sense that these events might shape the whole future of humanity. I have, therefore, changed my mind about what is the right thing to do. One thing that is clear, is that handing you over to the idiots in authority is unlikely to serve any purpose but to hasten the end of us all. I think the right and appropriate thing to do now is to watch and wait to see things out. To achieve that safely I must first undo the wrong I have done in bringing you here. Hopefully I can make good your release and if I am successful, then before the end everything might become clearer for us all."

His attention disappeared in thought and Torr, sensing that the great detective was no longer even aware of his presence hurried after the others ahead of him. His own head was swimming. The reward for his capture was eye wateringly huge. That must surely be the Carthaginians. Or perhaps it was Dr. Wunderfoul, still angry at him for releasing Kezin the lion boy. No, a million astrodollars wasn't the sort of reward that you put about to recover a missing person. That was the sort of reward that an Empire put out for something that was extremely important for you. Something like the Celestial Secrets.

There was so much going on, in addition to everything that had happened to him over the last few months it was all getting too difficult to deal with. He needed time to think and get his perspective sorted out. But the Universe always seemed to find something that distracted him from the important stuff. Stuff like thinking about what he was going to do next. At least Armitage Shanks appeared committed to helping him, at least for the time being.

Shanks' thoughts were thinking along similar lines. But unlike many of his gender he could think and act at the same time.

I need to recalculate everything, he surmised. If the boy has no idea what is going on then there would appear to be no benefit from questioning him further. But if he were lying, or covering up, then Shanks knew he would need to get the answers through stealth and guile.

What should he do next? Which was the right route to success? This was a conundrum worthy of his deductive skills. The boy was certainly worth watching and Shanks was very good at watching people. Watching and waiting. That was the game he'd play, he decided.

So with his thoughts in order and a new objective ahead of him Armitage Shanks flapped down the corridor after the children and the particularly interesting Professor Banx.

0o~

Torr caught up with Nattie, Fuzz ball and the Professor. They appeared to have paused in front of a large water tank that lay behind a window ahead of them. The passage widened out here into some form of seating area, but the sacks of rubbish stacked on every chair and sofa made relaxation impossible. The liquid inside the water tank was extremely murky and large shapes could be seen swimming through the cloudy water.

Nattie caught sight of a familiar fin shape.

"Dolphins!" she exclaimed. "You have dolphins in this tank."

As she spoke, one of the friendly beasts glided over to the window and tapped against it as if to say hello.

"Well, firstly it's not a tank. This is a window out onto the water beneath the Island," announced Professor Banx haughtily.

"The ocean goes beneath the Island?" gasped Nattie. So many surprises on top of each other were beginning to disorient even her.

"Yes," continued the Professor. "The Islands aren't really islands at all. They are in fact huge floating platforms. None of them is fixed to any single point so they float across the mighty seas, powered by submerged engines that constantly leak pollutants. These platforms were originally built to be giant fishing factories, which followed the huge shoals of fish that the asteroid was originally stocked with. Sadly though, most of the fish have now been hunted almost to the point of extinction."

Nattie's hand flew up to her mouth in shock, "That's awful!"

Professor Banx carried on speaking, regardless of Nattie's interruption. "This brings me to the second point that I wanted to make. These aren't real dolphins; they are robot dolphins. We call them Cyberphins. All of the real dolphins died out long ago."

Nattie face filled with sadness. "Oh, I can't believe it. But these look so lifelike. Amazing!" breathed Nattie. "They look so real. Are you sure that they aren't..."

"Of course I'm sure," snapped Professor Banx. "I created them myself!"

~o0o~

Still rigid with the shock from his recent dream Jimi cautiously eyed the room he'd awoken in. A growing sense of unease crept down his spine at the unusual nature of these surroundings. Had his ghosts from the waterfront finally caught up with him?

He appeared to be laying on something soft and his whole body glowed with warmth. Both were unusual ways for him to start the day. His skin felt odd, layered over with a soft material that smelt... different. It was a clinical smell; the unrecognised smell of clean sheets.

Ever since he could remember Jimi had slept in alleys and doorways, on cold, hard floors in damp, drafty buildings. This wasn't how he was used to waking and it was unnerving to be so cosseted.

The room was relatively bare, consisting of only the bed he appeared to be in, a table and a wooden chair. 'Bed' was a comforting word. He rolled it around in his mouth a few times and it felt good. It was a short, simple word for such an extensive, comforting, all-enveloping feeling of warmth and safety.

The feeling was quickly snatched away from him when Jimi saw his clothes draped across the back of the chair. His clothes! Panic gripped him. If those were his clothes then what was he wearing?

He wrenched his arm from underneath the covers to stare unbelievably at the pyjamas he had on. They were covered in little blue and red sailing boats. Astonishing!

Leaping from beneath the covers onto the floor Jimi grabbed at the hanging clothes. They felt odd. They smelt odd. They were clean!

Wherever he was he needed to escape from this terrible place quickly and get back to the Forlorn Kids. They would be waiting for him with empty stomachs and hungry eyes.

Swiftly he stripped himself of the suffocatingly pleasing, innocuous, pyjamas. He pulled on his normal clothes now made unfamiliar by their visit to the laundry and attempted the door handle.

It opened smoothly and surprisingly easily in his grip. It wasn't even locked. Gently he leant forwards and surveyed the corridor. There was no sign of the strange man who had brought him here. Escape should be easy. Returning to the Forlorn Kids should be just a matter of time.

Silently he crept down the corridor towards the door at the other end. Touching the handle hesitantly he pressed it gently before it spun out of his hand and the door was jerked suddenly open.

In front of him was a middle-aged woman wearing an apron.

"What?" she gasped in surprise.

Recollection flooded back to Jimi. Mrs Baker!

She tried to grab him. To avoid recapture he ducked and threw himself between her legs. The stairs opened up beneath him and he tumbled down, down, down.

Tumble, bang, tumble bang, tumble, tumble bang!

Chapter 11: Missing 'stuff' and the N dimensional inverter

With the implications of what Armitage Shanks had told him about the alien technology still ringing in his ears, Torr watched Professor Banx with renewed interest. Questions ran around his head faster than the Cyberphins swam through the deep, murky waters of the bay in front of him.

Was she just really, really clever, like the Tinkerer? Did she have a different insight into the alien technology? Or, as Torr suspected, was she secretly an alien, just as he believed the Tinkerer to be?

"I designed the Cyberphins as a tribute and a reminder of the amazing creatures that we exterminated. They make it a lot easier to explore the depths of the oceans we've created. In addition, they help us to try and maintain a healthy balance in the eco system that we've unfortunately destabilised."

'Destabilised?' thought Torr. What was she inferring?

"Nautilon has always been an asteroid on the edge of an ecological disaster," she continued. "Ever since the giant factories were built on the floating platforms we've been in a race to save our environment faster than the pollution could destroy it. The situation always managed to stay in balance because of the huge boost we received from the alien recycling machines. Unfortunately, they use technologies that we don't really understand. Because of this, we've spent years focusing on research into the technology that recycles our toxic by-products. Most of it remains beyond our understanding but we have managed to untangle some of it," she smiled with pride. It was the first time any of them had seen her show any positive emotion.

Torr switched his opinion of whether she was alien or human again. She really honestly seemed to be proud of what little she had managed to unravel about the Celestial Secrets during the lifetime she had been studying it.

"The device I used to pull you through the wall is one of the secrets at the centre of our recycling system. We don't know how it does what it does, but we have been able to copy it and replicate it," she paused and opened her arms in explanation.

The metal glove moved ominously.

"After all, we've known about the ten dimensions of time and space for over five hundred years."

Torr glanced up at Armitage Shanks who had caught up with them again and was staring out into the murky depths of the ocean beyond the gloomy viewing screen. That was what the detective had guessed, but either he wasn't listening, or was pretending that he already knew all that Professor Banx was telling them. Either way, Torr was impressed.

"We know that these other dimensions must exist because the maths says so. But we've never been able to find them before. Then along come the aliens with their recycling systems that are ten thousand times better than ours. They baffle our best scientists as there doesn't appear to be enough..." she struggled for a word, "...erm.. 'stuff' inside their devices. There appear to be...erm...bits missing."

She obviously wasn't comfortable with not knowing the correct answer to anything. Perhaps years spent trying to understand unfathomable secrets had warped her unstable mind. There was no guessing what this highly intelligent and slightly deranged woman was capable of.

Torr tried to look at Armitage Shanks again to see how he was taking all of this extra news about aliens. This was all stuff that was supposed to be really, really, secret. Celestially Secret in fact, but the great detective appeared to be taking it all in impassively. Torr wondered whether he wasn't really listening but that seemed to be a highly unlikely explanation.

I guess that's what makes him a great detective, thought Torr. He just takes it all in without appearing worried about anything. He observes everything and misses nothing. He doesn't overlook things because he already thinks he knows the answer. He's willing to consider all possibilities, however stupid they might sound. Even new ideas like secret alien technologies didn't faze him. Shanks just added it to other stuff he knew, examined the conclusions openly and without prejudice using evidence to be his guide of what was true and what wasn't.

"What we can see is that more rubbish and pollution goes into them than ever comes out," continued Professor Banx. "It's as if the pollution is being dumped somewhere else, along a route that doesn't match any of our existing four dimensions. That led us to the conclusion that it must be one of the six dimensions that we've known about mathematically, but never been able to see. Just like we can't see where all of the toxic waste has been moved to."

Professor Banx pulled up the sleeve of her coat to reveal more of the glove like contraption of metal and wires that appeared to be embedded into her skin as if it had been bonded to her bones. It was a giant cybertronic metal glove.

"Yeeuch!" muttered Nattie in Torr's ear.

Where the metal and wires burrowed under Professor Banx's skin, it was red and blistered. Puss filled sores had erupted up her arm and been smeared with ointment, that from the look of it wasn't delivering on the promises made by the manufacturer's marketing department.

"Eventually we gave up trying to understand how it all worked and approached the problem from an engineering angle. I realised that we didn't have to understand all of the science to be able to build our own version. I could copy the recycling unit and use its technology to create something new. So I took one of the recycling units apart and rebuilt it into this far more useful and mobile N dimensional inverter. I find it helpful when working with the Cyberphins. By moving my fingers through one of the spare six dimensions I can fix their insides without having to open up the water seals."

~o0o~

The fall down the stairs managed to bang every part of Jimi's body that wasn't already covered in bruises.

"Come back 'ere you little scoundrel," yelled Mrs Baker from the top of the stairs.

"Don't you steal nuffink!" she shouted. "I'm watchin' yew!"

Her heavy footsteps started to thud down towards him as Jimi struggled to untangle his elbows and knees from each other. It was only by a supreme effort that he managed to somehow slide one through the other as if he was a one-boy bag of pythons. Slithering lithely across the floor he leapt for the door handle and rolled out into the street.

Immediately he became entangled into the whirling, swirling mass of people that infested the walkways and byways of the Isle of Alvion. Before he knew it, he'd created a major pedestrian pileup and by the time he extricated himself Mrs Baker was only moments behind and in hot pursuit.

While he ran, he made a new resolution about the Forlorn Kids. The fear and panic he had felt when he thought he was being held captive in strange surroundings had given him a new outlook on their predicament. Keeping them from their rightful home however well he looked after them wasn't right and whilst his dream hadn't been entirely accurate it had reminded him that he should try and return them to their homes deep beneath the endless sea.

That meant he had to head straight for the warehouse where he'd hidden them. Glancing around quickly at his surroundings to orientate himself he realised with dread just where he was. A huge shadow loomed over him and gazing up he reluctantly recognised the vast mass of the Fortress of Enlightenment disappearing towards the heavens from the next street.

Jimi flinched involuntarily and gnawed nervously at his finger nail. Fear of the forbidding building clawed its way along his spine. He had to get out of here before someone spotted him. The last thing any rational person wanted to do was to be dragged inside the Fortress. Few people emerged unchanged.

With fearful feet Jimi ran towards the abandoned warehouse where a difficult encounter with the Forlorn Kids awaited him.

Chapter 12: Thirty six hours until doomsday

"Sounds like things aren't as bad as we thought," Torr whispered to Nattie, in an attempt to calm her down over the loss of the dolphins. "I thought we were in really big trouble when we were dragged inside the Fortress of Enlightenment."

"Can't you use the knowledge you have to deal with the pollution? Doesn't science have an answer to the problems it has created?" Nattie begged Professor Banx, deliberately ignoring Torr.

"Sadly, no. We've left it far too late to solve," sighed Professor Banx. "We've lived on borrowed time for far too long. It's a battle that we are losing and the whole asteroid is on the brink of an ecological disaster. The toxins have taken on new virulent forms that are mutating faster than we can eradicate them." The Professor was almost crying with frustration at being so helpless.

"The alien recycling units were able to match the mutations, but now that they've failed...they're only working at normal human power levels. That's less than one percent of their previous capacity. If only they hadn't all failed at the same time..."

Tears began to stream down her face.

" If only we hadn't have taken one of them out of commission to build this N dimensional inverter glove," she gestured helplessly, "we might have been able to delay the inevitable for a few days more. If only, if only, if only! How many times do you think we've said that? But as it is, the computers monitoring the pollution tell us we have only 36 hours before everyone has to have evacuated this stupid, stupid asteroid," she sobbed.

"Thirty six hours until the asteroid becomes uninhabitable. If only we had access to the Celestial Secrets then we could reverse the decline," screamed the Professor madly in frustration.

She stared earnestly at the children as if she was expecting them to say something. "We could make the asteroid habitable again. Maybe introduce real dolphins back into the ocean once more..."

"Aren't you able to work out what's wrong with the recycling units and repair them?" Nattie asked, feeling sorry rather than angry now but being careful not to get drawn into a discussion of the Celestial Secrets.

"No, we never understood how they did what they do. We just know what they do and are able to re-use components in different ways. We can't build the units themselves. Before long this asteroid will become as uninhabitable as Earth."

Whilst all of this was going on Torr noticed that Armitage Shanks seemed to be talking to himself, or perhaps speaking into some hidden microphone. Torr sidled up to the distinguished detective to try and overhear what was being said.

"...follow him secretly....yes....see where... goes... mystery..."

Torr couldn't see how Armitage Shanks could do anything secretly at the moment. There were only the five of them in the room, if you didn't count the overnight bag and whilst the room was quite big it would be difficult to do anything secretly, especially whilst flapping around in flippers.

Worrying about the great detective appeared to be a waste of time, although Torr did wonder about who was being secretly followed and what the mystery might be.

For the moment, though, he had enough problems of his own. Like the Third Celestial Secret. A lot had been happening lately that had diverted his attention from the Secrets. He was now convinced that Professor Banx's ten dimensional arm wasn't a case of stolen alien technology. This was a simple case of blind copying. He wondered if the aliens had copyrights on their technology. If they did Professor Banx might be in a lot of trouble. Her N dimensional inverter was just a poor, cheap imitation of its industrial sized, alien equivalent.

That left him with the conundrum of where the Third Celestial Secret was hidden then. He didn't need Kiki to tell him that it wasn't in the basement of the Fortress of Enlightenment. But it was on Nautilon somewhere, the ANP had told them that much. It was only a matter of time before Kiki managed to fine tune it to find the exact location and they all needed to stay all alive until he did.

Of course, this all depended on whether Kiki was still alive. The green goo had been worrying. Despite that, though, Torr felt certain that his electronic friend would have managed to survive the destruction of his transportation device.

If they could only stay out of trouble until Kiki discovered the exact location of the Third Secret they had a fighting chance. But until then, they were trapped in the bowels of the Fortress of Enlightenment with a detective dressed like a giant frog and a semi-mad, self mutilating, ten dimensional, cyborg professor.

How did he manage to end up in these situations?

~o0o~

With the towering walls of the Fortress of Enlightenment far behind him, Jimi pushed his way between the crowds on the waterfront and through the crack between the rotting walls of an old warehouse down by the waterline. Inside the broken building it was extremely dark and Jimi felt blindly forwards with his fingers and toes.

Eventually his questing found the iron ring in the floor. As he lifted its creaking hinges light oozed up from below revealing a basement level that was tucked beneath the main building and just above the lapping waves. Between its decaying infrastructure, light swam in and out, rippling a myriad of reflections from the surface of the turgid water. Jimi lowered himself down the crumbling staircase and carefully closed the trap door behind him.

If he'd paused a few moments longer he might have sensed another shadowy figure enter the warehouse, closely following his trail. It was moving slowly, avoiding recognition, whilst struggling with temporary blindness caused by the sudden plunge into darkness.

In the basement below, Jimi quickly checked to see if anything had been disturbed. Six rusting barrels still sat on seaweed-strewn boards. Every one of them was half full of seawater and within each, a small child slept.

As he looked in on each a pang of guilt sliced at his heart.

What right did he have to keep them all away from their rightful homes? Yes, it was him who cared for them, fed them, possibly he even loved them, but quite likely he wasn't even related to them. In his own way he had imprisoned them in a web of his own affection, a net of his own neediness, food for his own loneliness. They must feel as trapped, he thought, as he had when he'd awoken in the bedroom of Armitage Shanks' house near the Fortress of Enlightenment. He now understood that it was time to return them to their home and put an end to any further suffering.

In the first barrel, the child inside opened a lazy eye and stared up at him as he slid back the lid.

"Food?" she squealed.

Jimi cursed himself for a fool. Of course they'd be hungry. He'd left in search of food more than 18 hours ago. Very soon his small hideaway would be filled with crying, hungry children.

He shook his head sadly and with tears in his eyes manoeuvred the barrel towards the water's edge. The rolling movement shook the liquid inside into chopping turmoil, almost throwing the child out onto the hard, wooden floor. With tiny webbed fingers she clung to the edge in fright. For a moment, Jimi stared at her hands. He wanted one last long look at the only link he had ever had with the Forlorn Kids; the thin membrane of skin that linked each finger. Just like those on his own hands and feet.

He'd never seen anyone else with fingers like that and never showed his own to others. With shame, he'd always kept his own hands hidden for fear of ridicule. These children of the sea had identical hands to his own and he'd used that link to convince himself that they were part of the family he'd never had.

But that was where any superficial familiarity ended because they had no feet that he could compare with his own webbed toes. Their rib cages extended far lower than his, far lower than his waist, almost to the floor before curling into long, delicate, scaly tails.

Chapter 13: Meeting with a Merlady

"That's terrible," said Nattie with dismay as Fuzz ball stood beside her, silently echoing Nattie's words with her eyes and soft wavy fur. "Only thirty six hours! Is that all?"

Nattie paused as emotion threatened to overwhelm her.

"With your arrogance and curiosity you've destroyed so much. Take the dolphins. You could have saved them. You should have saved the dolphins!" she shouted. "Rather than wasting your 'science' on figuring out how to make creatures you could control, or how to find out even more useless knowledge you should have been trying to figure out how to save the very ones you were destroying. And now you've doomed everyone," yelled Nattie in dismay.

"What about all of the other creatures? How many other species did you extinguish in your greedy thirst for knowledge and power? How many species are still left inside this asteroid?"

Professor Banx waved her hands in front of her. "There are still thousands," she hissed dismissively. "But you're missing the point."

"No, YOU'RE missing the point," Nattie shouted over the startled Professor. "I've seen the ships down in the harbour. I've seen the queues. They're all for people aren't they. I haven't seen a single ship that's taking on board the animals. You're just going to leave them here to die aren't you?"

"Well..." flustered Professor Banx, "We don't have enough... we have a duty to our own people."

Her voice rose in tone and volume, "We have to save OUR people!" she shouted.

Professor Banx paused as if a thought had just occurred to her before continuing more quietly, "Yes, our own people. The people of Nautilon; the humans."

"Sometimes grownups can be so stupid!" Nattie raged back, ignoring the fact that Professor Banx had stopped shouting back at her.

Nattie's words tore the Professor's attention back from her internal reverie. Sharply she spoke with cold anger, pursuing a new line of questioning.

"Just who are you? Coming here in the middle of our disaster, flying in on your alien ship, leaving an unmistakable energy trail across the sky. Making your accusations, when, with all of the alien technology you no doubt have on board, you could probably fix our broken re-cyclers yourself. Why aren't you? What hidden agenda are you up to? Perhaps I should have left you to the mob outside."

The children all stood stunned by the accusations.

Alien ship? What did she know about their ship that they didn't? Had the Tinkerer's improvements left behind some tell-tale trail behind them, Torr thought worryingly.

Alien ship? Nattie heard the words and her brain immediately started thinking, pulling two and two together and coming up with forty two. If Professor Banx thought that the Eos was an alien spaceship, then perhaps Torr's suspicions were right. Perhaps the Tinkerer was an alien!

~o0o~

Just as Jimi had the first barrel poised above the surface, there was a disturbance beneath the water. With disbelief, Jimi stared at the two arms that emerged and reached out to take the barrel from him.

The small child in the barrel flipped her tail excitedly, splashing water high into the air as the head of a beautiful woman broke through the waves. Her hair was festooned with multi-coloured seaweed, plastered to her skull. Gently she smiled at Jimi.

"I believe you have our children," she murmured in an almost musical voice. "I have come to ask politely for them," she continued with a hint of firmness entering her voice.

She didn't appear ready to argue.

"We have heard them calling to us in the night. Many of our Mermen have wanted to come for them secretly and in force but we have dissuaded them for there were those of us who saw you for what you are."

"Wha...what am I?" an astonished Jimi asked. "How do you..." he trailed off, lost for words.

Embarrassment, confusion and guilt washed over him.

She reached out and brushed her wet hands over the webbing between his fingers. She had the same extra flaps of skin between her own.

"It is this that marks you as one of us, or the offspring of one of us," she said, taking the first child gently from the barrel and sliding it gently into the water. "We have legends of taking human lovers and sometimes they have children, for we come of common stock. You have the markings..." she stroked his hand again, "of such parentage and since you are clearly an air breather then my guess is that you are born of a human mother. Now come, give us the rest of our full-blooded children. They don't belong in your world."

Dumfounded Jimi moved the other barrels to the water's edge, too shocked to be able to pull a sentence together. Was that why he had never known his mother? Had she abandoned him in disgust when he'd been born? A tear began to form at the corner of his eye and he stifled a sob.

In silence, he returned the children, one by one to the merlady. Soon there were six splashing, cheerful, merchildren swimming around her laughing and shouting "Feed us, feed us."

With a smile she ignored them. "Find fishes, if you can amidst all this filth!" she countered and turned her green eyes back to Jimi. "Thank you for looking after them and..." she paused, "...good luck in whatever comes your way. But now I must return these children to their mothers as they have missed them so. Goodbye."

"Wait!" Jimi called, but she ignored him and slid back beneath the water. The playful children followed her without a backward glance at Jimi. There had been no thanks from them, despite all of the time and care he had devoted to them.

Alone, he stood alone at the water's edge, awash with emotion. His head was full of crazy thoughts and questions as he stared down into the murky depths.

The creaking sound of the trapdoor interrupted his reverie and a blinking figure was illuminated in the warehouse above.

"Wait!" called a familiar voice. It was Mrs Baker.

Torn between two worlds, Jimi stared into the depths of his possible destiny and was forced into making a choice. Did he want the smothering comfort that Mrs Baker and Armitage Shanks offered, or did he want a future of unclear uncertainty?

Mrs Baker was already making her way gingerly down the steps towards him. She picked her way carefully trying not to collapse the rickety staircase beneath her.

"Jimi! Don't! The water's poisonous. You'll catch some awful disease," she called without looking.

But it was too late; Jimi was already diving and with a splash Mrs Baker, along with the world of opportunities that she represented, were gone.

Being back in the water again was a bit of a shock. He hadn't returned there since the day he had been chased across the bay by the Forlorn Kids, the day he'd captured them and kept them for his own.

The bay was cold, colder than he remembered and the water around him was empty. Empty that was except for the usual floating litter. His new 'family' had disappeared completely. With their more developed fish like figures they could swim much faster than he could and they'd headed straight for clearer water. Had he already lost any possibility of ever seeing them again?

Disappointedly Jimi swam out from underneath the warehouse and the light from above filtered down through the waves. He'd made his choice.

As long as the fish people, the merfolk, seemed as disinterested in him as the surface dwellers were there seemed little point in returning to Mrs Baker and the inevitable questions of Armitage Shanks. So, with strong strokes he headed towards a jetty further along the bay. Now that his home had been discovered he needed to find somewhere new to stay.

He was homeless once more. Where could he find somewhere new with people who would accept him for what he was, rather than what he wasn't?
Chapter 14: Nattie's Ark

Torr felt the full penetrating weight of Professor Banx's attention.

"I've had my suspicions about you ever since you lit up the sky with that pyrotechnic display of advanced technology. How do you children fit into this? Clearly you..." she pointed her normal fingers at Torr, "...aren't clever enough to understand the technology you are using."

Torr felt insulted. He was about to say something when she continued speaking without waiting for him to comment.

"There must be someone on your ship who does understand how it all works. Is it your parents? Are they still on board? Who are your parents? Which asteroid are you from? Are you working for the Carthaginians, or something worse?"

Torr was at a loss as to what might be worse than being Carthaginian. Being an Aztex, maybe?

He guessed that the only person who would probably fit the picture she was describing would be Kiki. He was the only one on board who understood how anything worked. Torr's opinion of whether Kiki was worse than the Carthaginians depended on when you asked him.

At the moment all that Torr was concerned about was whether Kiki was okay.

Are you alien spies, Professor Banx thought to herself but dare not say it. What if the aliens had detected her meddling with the N dimensional inverter and had come to challenge her theft of their secrets? Did aliens look like children? If they did then there was no telling what they might be capable of. She didn't know the answers to any of these questions but she had to admit that she had expected someone cleverer. Perhaps they were deliberately acting stupid and naive.

Armitage Shanks listened to the unfolding conversation with fascination. He had been right to continue his observation of these children. He was sure that there was more to this than the reward for the boy and the strange, familiarity of the girl's features. His investigation was uncovering all sorts of interesting information that was bound to come in useful at some point in the future. After all, knowledge is power.

His brain was doing double time simply trying to process all of the new data that it was receiving right now, never mind cross referencing it with all of the other important stuff he knew. There was an alien ship! Professor Banx must be talking about the childrens' ship in the harbour. To think that he had been so close to a fascinating mystery and hadn't even seen it. If there was an alien ship then there must be aliens. Damn they were clever! Finally, here was a mystery worthy of him.

The Great Detective felt the urgent need to return to the waterfront and begin his inspection at once. He was certain that the fiasco involving Mrs Baker and the loss of the boy's trail in a waterside basement would turn out to be a temporary setback.

It was true that young Jimi's mutated hands were of interest. There had always been rumours of humans being biologically engineered during the early history of Nautilon. It was a mystery that he had been pursuing for a number of years now and it looked like he was close to cracking the case. The boy's strange webbed fingers indicated that there were vestiges of truth in those rumours and he was just the sort of man who could easily sort out a few vestiges.

But myths about the existence of secret alien races giving technology to humans to assist with survival were even more exciting. Absolutely any information about them deserved further, immediate, research.

Torr was still annoyed that Professor Banx didn't think he was clever enough to understand what was going on in the Eos. Well, maybe he wasn't but that didn't mean that he couldn't exploit her fascination for it to convince her to let them go. Now he was in the Fortress he was clear that this wasn't where he wanted to be. It had all of the negative aspects of a fortress and none of the life affirming aspirations of enlightenment. He started thinking about what he was going to say that might help get them out.

Professor Banx had got to the point of pleading with the children for their assistance, but she clearly hadn't had much practice at it.

"You must take me to the ones who are in charge of your ship. You must let me speak to them. Together we can still solve the problem. We can make Nautilon habitable again. Perhaps even Earth..."

While she was speaking, Professor Banx had been moving closer to the children with her gruesome N dimensional glove to the fore. They, for their part, had been gradually retreating until they were reversed up against Armitage Shanks, who in turn had his back to the viewing wall. They were now all pressed up against the glass, which was all that separated them from the Cyberphins and the ocean depths. With no further retreat,Torr found himself in front of everyone else, face to face with the strange, probably mad, scientist.

He blurted out what he'd been thinking about saying.

"It's not like that," said Torr. "It's not that simple."

He hadn't finished thinking through what he was going to say to her, but he had no other options left. He'd decided to try and engage her interest in the complexity of their situation to buy them some more time to figure a way out of the Fortress. Torr wanted to say that nothing in his life was that simple but he realised that that would only make him appear even more pathetic than he felt.

Nattie shushed him to keep quiet. She had a different plan with the same intention. "Yes, you're right. We can help you," she interjected from over Torr's shoulder. "We'll go straight back to our ship and get our parents. They'll be able to help you, if you could just show us the way out."

Torr felt her pleading was completely unconvincing. Surely Professor Banx would see right through such a simple ruse?

But to Torr's amazement, Professor Banx listened and after a pause in which her eyebrows twitched and her lips moved in silent speech she even more surprisingly agreed. She couldn't have fallen for it, could she? But it appeared she had as she quietly asked Armitage Shanks to escort 'these special children' out of the Fortress of Enlightenment.

Shanks immediately agreed. Here was a perfect opportunity for him to continue his investigation of these very interesting children and their fascinating alien secrets unhindered by the intervention of others.

Astonishingly, despite her threatening attitude and dogged insistence, Professor Banx seemed to be letting them go without any further resistance. All of them started to breathe more easily once there were several heavily set doors between them and the seriously strange, possibly deranged, scientist.

When they finally arrived out into fresh air and daylight, Armitage Shanks bade them goodbye saying that he had an urgent situation to deal with. It was something about a missing boy.

Whilst Torr and Nattie were concerned about being back on their own, they were equally eager to get back to the Eos as quickly as they could. Sticking with Armitage Shanks would surely delay their return. Consequently they were happy to take their leave and didn't even watch as the great detective effortlessly disappeared into the crowd.

Shanks had no intention of actually letting them out of his sight. He was going to follow them secretly and had only gone far enough to be able to do so unobserved. He wanted to see what they would do if they thought they were on their own. He knew where their ship was. He could always find them there.

Standing once more in the open air Torr was almost beside himself with relief. How on earth did they get away with that?

Little did they know how much trouble they were still in. If they had been able to see what Professor Banx was up to they would have realised that things were about to become much more difficult for them.

~o0o~

Deep within the basement of the Fortress of Enlightenment, Professor Banx was deep in conversation with one of the Cyberphins002E

"I've let them go so that they believe I no longer suspect them of anything, Minerva. However, I want you to follow them and tell me everything they do. If they won't co-operate with me willingly I will have to use whatever measures are necessary. The future of everybody depends upon us."

The Professor paused for a moment in thought, "While you're out there, remember to keep an eye out for that power source lurking at the bottom of Aquatica Bay as well. I know it's down there somewhere and I want it found! Do you hear me?"

The Cyberphin just continued to swim around nonchalantly, potentially ignoring her. The Professor banged on the glass with the N dimensional glove and her voice rose to a piercing shriek, "If you don't find it soon I'll reach inside and rip out all of your wiring the hard way. I want it found! It will be mine! I've given you your orders, now go!"

She dismissed her creation and the Cyberphin gave a nod of its bulbous head before it swam away into the gloomy water behind the viewing screen.

Finally on her own, Professor Banx caressed the cold, metallic, N dimensional inverter and a look of deep, darkness swept her features. "If they won't let me into their alien spaceship willingly, this can get me through anything. There is no way they can hide from me inside when I can access the power of the N dimensional inverter. I can reach in and take whatever I want, whenever I want. If I can't find it I can disable their engines so that they're marooned here. If they won't give me their technology then I can still stop them using it. Nothing can stop me from recovering all of the Celestial Secrets and unlocking the knowledge they contain. Nothing!"

~o0o~

Back in the cobbled streets of the Isle of Alvion Nattie and Torr were trying to look inconspicuous. With their breathing masks back on it was difficult enough for anyone to tell whether they were boys or girls, never mind whether they were the people everyone was looking for. Providing they kept their masks in place their safety should be assured.

Torr started trying to figure out the way back to the Eos. His nervousness about Kiki was beginning to reach breaking point.

"Torr, we need to save them," said Nattie urgently, as they walked along.

"Save who? What we need to do is find Kiki, get the Third Secret and save ourselves," Torr's muffled voice replied.

"We have to save the animals. All of them. I've figured it out. The Eos can take them all. It will be just like Noah's ark."

"Are you crazy? Where are we going to put them all? There's only just enough space for us."

"But that's exactly the point. There's always just enough space. Haven't you noticed that the Eos gets bigger depending on whoever is on board?"

Torr looked at her speechless. He hadn't noticed.

"Before Fuzz ball and I came on board, how many bedrooms were there?"

"I dunno. I didn't count. Three, I guess."

"I bet there weren't. But there were only three bedrooms when we recovered the First Celestial Secret. So where do you think Kezin stayed when he was on board helping us find the Second Celestial Secret? Do you remember? He had his own bedroom. All of a sudden there was an extra bedroom and you know what, after we left Nordstrom it was gone again. That was because it wasn't needed after Kezin decided he wasn't coming with us. So the spare bedroom disappeared once more. The Eos changes shape for whatever we need. Well, at least the inside does. I'm not so sure about the outside," she admitted.

"But what if there is a limit? Professor Banx said that there were thousands of different species that would need saving. Can we really accommodate another thousand bedrooms?"

"Oh, Torr. You always look on the worst of things. What if, what if, what if... What if not! We have to try because without us the animals don't have a chance."

Torr turned to Nattie and spoke firmly. This was getting out of control and extremely ridiculous.

"What we need to do is get back to the Eos to see if Kiki is alright and if he is we need to find the Third Celestial Secret before that nutter with the N dimensional glove does."

"Agreed!" was all that Nattie needed to say before they were off and running through the streets, eager to get back to the Eos before any more mishaps and adventures could take place.

Torr dismissed the conversation with Nattie from his mind, he had more 'important' stuff to wonder about. Fortunately he couldn't hear the silent conversation in Nattie's head, which was probably just as well really, he didn't need any more evidence that he was missing the bigger picture. Torr's ego wasn't yet ready to accept that she was cleverer than he was.

'Torr doesn't know anything about what the Eos can and can't do. I'll ask Kiki, he'll know," she decided. 'We'll need to have rules. I wonder how Noah did it?' she wondered silently. 'We'll have to keep the carnivores away from their natural prey. We'll need some watertight compartments for the aquatic species and how are we going to feed them all? We'll have to carry some stored food. And we need to decide where we will take them. What asteroid will want to take several thousand animals from a modern day ark? Who will provide a home for Nattie's Ark?'

There was a lot to do but Nattie was starting to feel pleased with herself. Here was a challenge that was finally worthy of her.

Chapter 15: Return of the Cyberphins

Jimi swam strongly up to a walkway over a mile from his old, abandoned home and swiftly started to climb the wooden ladder that conveniently connected the walkway with the water. He paused near the top; there were voices. His usual aversion to being seen kicked in and he ducked his head back under the jetty.

"At least the Eos is still here," said a girl's voice.

"Yes, come on let's get inside," answered a boy. "We need to find out if Kiki knows where the Third Celestial Secret is yet."

Jimi's ears were suddenly straining intently. Bingo!

He felt an urge to know more, so silently and gradually he poked his head above the walkway. The Celestial Secrets has been mentioned by one of the policemen who had beaten him up on the waterfront. Other people's secrets were always worth knowing. He had to find out more. But all he could see were two sets of booted feet and a pair of furry slippers, or were they real paws? They must be paws, who would wear furry slippers on the waterfront?

The boy who had been speaking started to climb down the ladder on the other side of the walkway from where Jimi was hiding. There was a ship anchored there. The girl started to follow, but first she removed her gas mask, giving Jimi a clear view of her face as she lowered herself down the ladder. It was a face that caused him to catch his breath in alarm.

He recognised that face. On those rare occasions that he'd seen a mirror he'd been so surprised to see his own reflection that the sight of it was etched on his memory. The girl's features were almost identical to his own. He could only stare in disbelief and astonishment at her as she lowered herself out of sight.

How did the girl have his face? Why did this girl have his face? Who was this girl that had his face? So many questions, with no apparent answers.

"Come on Fuzz ball, we need to find out from Kiki how we can rescue all of the animals. We can't let them die. There has to be a way to save them!" the girl called out to the furry slippers as she climbed down to her ship.

Whilst Jimi clung to the top of the ladder with surprise and incredulity another unusual creature was listening to the conversation on the quayside.

Hidden nearby, destiny and fate observed, unperturbed, expecting the unexpected, ready to intervene.

With her ears just above the surface of the scummy water, Minerva, the Cyberphin, floated, listening intently amongst the drifting debris and litter. Professor Banx's instructions to Minerva had been clear. She was to find the children on the waterfront and report everything that they said or did.

When building the Cyberphins, Professor Banx had been intent on ensuring that they could learn and adapt to new situations. It was an essential skill if they were to survive in the poisonous oceans of Nautilon. Now in processing this new information Minerva's cybertronic choice circuits adapted and grew, mixing with the toxic chemicals in the bay to reach new and mind-expanding conclusions.

'So, the young human wanted to try and save all of the animals?' thought Minerva. That sounded worthwhile but never something that Professor Banx expressed any interest in. This novel idea was interesting and worthy of further consideration.

Deep within the most basic nature of any living thing is the desire for life. Although they were physical constructs the Cyberphins were still living, semi-organic creatures. Nattie's words had touched that fundamental desire hidden deep within Minerva's cybernetic brain. This girl wanted to save them all. She wanted to save the humans, the animals and quite probably the Cyberphins as well. Didn't she therefore deserve Minerva's help more than Professor Banx did?

What about the other clandestine knowledge that Minerva knew and never shared with Professor Banx? How did that have a bearing on this new idea of salvation? What about the secret of the Merfolk? They would need saving too. Should she tell Nattie about the Merfolk, or should she tell the Merfolk about Nattie's plan. Perhaps she should tell both and they could help each other?

Oh, decisions, decisions. Which of her friends or masters would she, should she, pass this information onto? Would it be the barracuda and the tuna, or her fellow Cyberphins? Would it be Professor Banx with her cold, cold hands, or the noble, but gentle Merfolk who inhabited the deepest parts of the asterocean?

Minerva mulled the new thoughts around her semi cybernetic brain in indecision as the humans started to climb inside their ship down near the water line. She might never get a better chance. She needed to get their attention urgently before they disappeared from sight.

"Hello!" she called, leaping from her hiding place with a somersault before splashing back into the murky water. Torr and Nattie stared about them in surprise and Fuzz ball nearly fell off the ladder.

"You talk?" Nattie called back as the Cyberphin returned to the surface.

"Oh, there's many things that I can do," the Cyberphin answered, giving a wink and a smile. Nattie smiled back and in that instant, Minerva made her decision.

But before they could share more, the sea around the Cyberphin started to boil and bubble, churning around her wildly. She looked about her worryingly, her eyes bulging in alarm. Nattie gasped and muffled a scream as Minerva gave out a strangled squawk. Torr roared a warning and Fuzz ball covered her eyes with her paws before realising that she needed to retain her grip on the ladder with at least one of them. She flailed helplessly for a moment before Nattie grabbed her in mid fall.

They all watched with helpless incredulity as the grotesque head of a sea monster reared up from the depths and half swallowed the Cyberphin. It gripped her tail between its sharp jaws before wrapping sinuous tentacles tightly around her armoured body. Dripping seaweed, toxic water and venom the hideous head swept up out of the water and towered over them, dragging the doomed Cyberphin high into the air. She wriggled pathetically within its tight grasp and let out a tenuous scream for help.

Nattie shrieked and the vacant eyes of the leviathan stared down at her before crashing back beneath the waves and showering them with noxious water. The last they saw of Minerva was a terrified eye and a flipper waving a sad, forlorn, farewell.

Chapter 16: Deep Water

Nattie screamed the loudest shriek that Torr had ever heard yet, "We must save her!"

"Are you crazy? Did you see the size of that thing? Besides, she's just a machine. She's not real!" Torr yelled back, his voice hoarse as he clung to the ladder, soaked in slime.

"Of course she's real!" Nattie shouted back at him. "In the same way that Kiki is real. Don't you worry when Kiki gets hurt?"

Torr suddenly remembered about Kiki. The last he had heard from him was as the rabble attacked. He'd been coming back here to check on his 'friend' in the hope that he'd survived the destruction of his mobile form by the mob.

How could he have forgotten so easily? Torr panicked and scrambled for the hatchway of the Eos.

"Kiki, open up! Are you in there?" he shouted.

The doors slid open and the welcoming, warm aroma of the Eos beckoned. Torr literally threw himself down through the access hatch.

"Kiki!" Torr called again as Nattie quickly climbed down after him.

"I'm here boss! No need to shout. What's the matter? What's all the fuss?"

Torr almost sagged with relief. Kiki was alive. Even though his mobile form was just another pile of rubbish in the streets of Alvion the Eos' main computers still held Kiki's primary essence.

"Kiki, there seems to be some form of monster in the bay. It's attacking the sea life. What can you tell us about it?" asked Nattie, coming up quietly beside Torr as he sagged, sick with relief just inside the hatchway.

Kiki slipped too easily into machine mode as he scanned the bay using the combined sensory arrays that the Eos concealed.

"I've found it. It's large, heavy... hmmmm, The creature itself doesn't appear in my memory banks of biological creatures. However, I do have certain references to similar creatures in my fiction section under 'Myths & Legends of the Deep'. From this data it would appear to be a cross between a Kraken and Leviathan," Kiki's electronic brain droned on. "Of course, this information does come with a health warning that the creature might not actually exist and you might be imagining the whole thing. If it really does exist then I suggest that we call it a Krakiathan. Library update complete."

"Trust me Kiki, I'm not imagining it!" shouted Torr. "Let's ignore what you might want to call it for a few moments and instead let's talk about how we can fight it."

"I think the answer is probably 'very carefully'" interjected Nattie. "We can't use any of the major weapons systems. Not now we are on the inside of Nautilon. Kiki, has the monster re-surfaced?"

All thoughts of Nattie's ark had temporarily vanished from her head at the imminent peril of a single creature.

"No sign of the Krakiathan on the surface," replied Kiki. "Shall I take us down to pursue the Krakiathan into the depths?"

"Can we do that? Can we operate underwater? Is it safe? Can we function in the same way as a submarine?"

"Whether we're floating in space, or floating in salt water it doesn't make a lot of difference to the Eos. Neutrino propulsion works totally independent of the environment it's operating in. There are no intake valves but I may have to re-calibrate for buoyancy."

"In that case take us down, Kiki!"

"Yes, sir!"

Klaxons sounded throughout the Eos, the doors slammed shut and the water line rose up the viewing windows as she submerged. Jimi watched in exasperation as his only lead to the Celestial Secrets and the mystery of the girl with his face disappeared before his very eyes. Soon, the whole ship was below the surface and the murky water erased any trace that it was ever there.

Nattie, Fuzz ball and Torr stared out into the darkness, awe struck and fearful. Somewhere out there a monster lurked.

"I can't see anything," Nattie complained.

"Kiki, is there any way we can get some light outside so we can see what's going on."

Immediately, huge search beams lanced out into the filthy water. They arced to and fro, disappearing into the darkness. Then suddenly, one of them swept across a huge pale cloud that reflected the light back at them before vanishing into the murk.

"There, what was that?" shouted Nattie

"After it Kiki," roared Torr in his most commanding voice and the Eos swept forward, bubbles racing across the screens as they surged ahead.

They were clearly gaining on whatever it was and whatever it was, was huge. It had to be the Krakiathan. Nattie felt sure that she could almost see Minerva still struggling in the creature's tentacles.

"Permission to fire torpedoes?" asked Kiki.

"Permission denied," shouted Nattie before Torr could reply. "You'd certainly destroy Minerva at the same time."

"That's a good point," added Torr thoughtfully. "How can we save Minerva without killing her in the process?"

"While we're thinking about it guys, we're catching up rapidly," announced Kiki. "What do you want me to do when we make contact?"

He was right. The monster filled half of the screen now.

The two children started and stared up at the viewing screen. The Krakiathan was getting uncomfortably near and it was clearly aware of them as it turned slowly, malevolently, to face them. Eight bulbous eyes appeared to look at the Eos simultaneously and the savage arrays of teeth gnashed viciously.

Unexpectedly, an elongated tentacle rose up from beneath them and grabbed the Eos from behind, wrapping itself around the fuselage. They were trapped. Inexorably the Eos was being dragged towards the Krakiathan's fearsome, ferocious fangs.

"Oh, errr!" gulped Nattie.

"Kiki!" demanded Torr, grasping the manual controls, ready to take over.

"Full reverse thrusters!" announced the onboard computer with a sometimes obnoxious personality overload.

The sea boiled around the Eos as its powerful engines engaged. But despite their ferocious energy and strength all the engines could manage was to maintain the distance from those yawning jaws of death.

"How...?" clicked Kiki, his damage assessment circuits whirring noisily.

"Don't ask me," replied Torr. "You're the onboard computer. How would I know? You work it out!"

"But this is a Neutrino drive. With this we can nearly achieve the speed of light. Nothing biological should be able to match it."

"Oh, now you admit it's biological," shouted Nattie. "A few minutes ago you were convinced it was a figment of our imagination."

"That's not all of it," continued Kiki. "The tentacles are crushing us. Pressure has already reached fifteen atmospheres. That's the same as on the surface of Jupiter! Its grip is astronomical. If it keeps crushing us in this way then there is only so long we can resist before we burst open like a broken egg. At this depth that would spell doom for us all. If my circuits get submerged for more than a few milliseconds I'll never recover from the aquacybernetic feedback" he wailed.

"I'm not sure we'd look any better as flattened pancakes!"

"Or squelched into jelly!"

"What are we going to do now?" Nattie screamed. A look of fear was etched into her face.

Torr realised with a sinking feeling of dread that this was the worst situation they had been in since landing inside Nautilon, possibly since he had started this mad quest for the Celestial Secrets. Could this be the end of them all?

Chapter 17: Even deeper water

Unexpectedly, an immense silvery net scattered with luminescent pearl balls spun through the murky water towards the Krakiathan. The monster looked on incredulously as the radiant cloaking net settled about it.

"Where did that come from?" warbled Kiki on behalf of them all.

Torr looked around for the overnight bag; the usual culprit for pulling surprises out of, so to speak. But there it was sleeping happily just inside the hatchway.

The luminescent balls pulsed once, twice, shifting through the spectrum from the warmth of the silvery glow to a cold metallic red. They all waited anxiously; even the Krakiathan appeared to have frozen, waiting for an inevitable explosion. Rather than exploding, however, the control balls simultaneously discharged a strong electronic pulse that lit up the deep with a lightning storm of incredible intensity. Arcs of unrepentant electricity flickered from one piece of floating rubbish to another.

The creature recoiled in shock, releasing both Minerva and the Eos, before falling backwards into the sudden gloom and disappearing into the darkness. Everyone else, meanwhile rubbed their eyes in a mixture of astonishment and pain.

The savage light followed by the inky blackness left an unbelievable image burnt into their retinas. The interior of the Eos was plunged into darkness. All that could be seen were the crackling balls of lightning that continued to play along the Eos's instruments and switches, throwing obscure shadows across half illuminated, frightened faces. Torr leapt quickly away from the controls to save his fingers from getting scorched by the latent electrical charge that was playing havoc with the Eos' internal circuits.

"Scqrrrwrkle," crackled Kiki. "Rebrblng! I rpt rbtng!"

While the speakers struggled to communicate sensibly with them, Torr and Nattie glanced nervously around, expecting the Eos to return to the safety of the surface. But the heroic spacecraft, along with their hopes, resolutely continued to sink into the darkness of the deep. The lightening had disabled the Eos, but could she and Kiki recover?

"Kiki, Kiki" Torr called helplessly. "Kiki?"

Where was Kiki, thought Torr. How much damage had the Eos suffered from the electrically charged net? Had something, or someone, saved them from Krakiathan only to mortally wound the spaceship, leaving it to a watery grave at the bottom of the bay.

From the window Nattie jumped back, startled, as a stunned Minerva bumped her nose against the Eos as she sank alongside them. The Cyberphin was clearly wounded and the electro shock had scrambled her cybernetics as badly as Kiki's. She settled lazily into the sand of the bottom, one eye still operating, pleading silently for help as the Eos eased into the sand beside her.

"Look," gasped Nattie above the creaking of the hull. "What's that?"

"Where?"

"Just where the horizon disappears into the gloom. There's a glimmering, shimmering. It's just the way you see the lights of a city far off in the distance."

As she watched the lights dimmed until only remnant outlines implied the residual shape of buildings. Shifting in and out of vision, the shadows seemed to mock her with their instability.

"I can't see anything," said Torr. He glanced quickly at where she was pointing before returning to his task of randomly flicking switches and alternately turning knobs in a vain attempt to get the control panel to respond.

"Perhaps it's just your imagination," he continued. "You're probably just seeing things. It's undoubtedly the after image of that electronic net. The pressure will do that to you. Bends your mind, or something like that."

The lights inside the Eos flashed on for a second before plummeting them back into darkness. It was almost as if it were taunting him.

"Scqrrrwrkle," crackled Kiki again. "Rebrblng flr! I rpt rbtng flr!"

"There's still power somewhere!" exclaimed Torr, re-trying the switches he'd been playing with just before the apparently random power surge had momentarily illuminated the interior of the cabin.

Nattie ignored Torr's reflexive and uncoordinated outbursts. She was too busy trying to see more clearly through the murky water. But the spectral city shimmered, disappeared and then seemed to reappear elsewhere only to vanish again as soon as she thought she was certain she could see it. .

Despite the difficulty of their situation, Nattie couldn't quite shake an unidentified sense of unease. She had the unsettled feeling of being watched by someone, or something she couldn't see. Was it Krakiathan, returning to finish them off whilst they were helpless?

Fearfully, trying to ignore the shimmering, shifting lights, she searched the gloomy seabed for any sign of danger.

There, just where the broken Cyberphin lay stranded on the ocean floor, she could just see the outline of an incongruous shape. On the sandy bottom of the seabed only a few metres away from Minerva's pitiful wrecked torso, she found her observer. It was a predominantly humanoid figure, hovering or floating, in the water, apparently unworried by the fact that he was a long way from the surface. His naked skin had a slightly bluish tinge to it, although it was difficult to be sure in the shifting darkness.

Almost as if it was responding to Nattie's need to see more clearly, the Eos' emergency lighting flickered into life, illuminating the scene with a soft, low wattage, shadowy glow.

"Ah, that's better," announced Torr as if he had had something to do with it.

Nattie ignored him and kept her attention firmly fixed on the figure in the water. This was no illusion. This was real.

He wore a clipped beard and heavy eyebrows that were festooned with seaweed as if his body had a spare time job as an aquatic garden display in some underworld utopia. On his back he wore a giant shell formed into a kind of covering hat continued down and over his shoulders almost as if it had been grown especially for him. In his hands he grasped a three-pronged trident and around his waist a selection of the luminescent nets were wrapped tightly. But it was his waist itself that Nattie found most fascinating. Instead of legs he had a long elegant tail sprouting downwards, which undulated gently in the current, holding the rest of him stationary.

There, she had thought it. The words that her brain had been refusing to use were finally out in the open. He had a tail. She stared at him in awe and wonder. He was indisputably a merman!

"A real live merman," she muttered beneath her breath, hardly daring to believe her eyes.

He seemed to be strangely indifferent to the sight of the Eos stranded on the bottom, even now that the emergency lighting must be drawing them to his attention. He was paying more attention to Minerva.

While Nattie just watched from the window in awe, Torr carried on talking to himself, oblivious to the scene that was captivated her.

"Kiki appears to be having a few problems getting re-started," he said, still focused on the sparking control panel. The rising level of concern was beginning to be apparent in his voice. "I think we should be worrying about that, rather than any shimmering illusion of reflected light from the surface that has you thinking you're seeing things that aren't there. We need to get him re-started before the Krakiathan returns."

Nattie could only stare open mouthed out of the window in wonder and awe. She had no words to respond on Torr's monologue.

"It won't be long before that Krakiathan comes back for us and if we're still down here then we'll probably be toast, or at least soggy pancakes," Torr continued.

It was almost as if he was subconsciously trying to take on Kiki's self appointed role in under appreciated humour.

"That seems to be the most important thing to worry about at the moment," he added, his head spinning from the events of the last few minutes.

"Kiki didn't seem to know where that net came from but that's a mystery that is going to have to wait for now," he continued aimlessly.

"Oh," replied Nattie as if she'd only just heard what he'd been saying. With her attention still glued to the scene outside she continued, "I think we know where the net came from."

She pointed out of the window at where the figure was floating. For a moment, as Nattie glanced away from him, he finally gazed at her with one final glimpse of curiosity. Then as if he had seen enough he lifted the stranded Cyberphin into his arms and swum lazily away from them, disappearing behind the unrelenting, undulating dunes.

"Where was that then?" replied Torr, swinging around to stare past Nattie and out into the emerald, subterranean, depths of the asterocean.

There was no one there. The Merman had disappeared into the gloom. Outside the window the rubbish-strewn surface of the seabed was as grimy as everywhere else with absolutely no sign of sentient life in any direction.

"He must have gone back to the city with Minerva," whispered Nattie. "We have to go after him and make sure he's looking after her properly."

"What city? There is no city," replied Torr acidly. "There can't be. Humans can't breath underwater. It's biologically impossible. We have lungs, not gills. Besides, who are you talking about?"

"He wasn't human, you idiot!" she gasped in exasperation. "Weren't you listening to me? Goodness sake, boys! He had a tail, not legs."

A voice over the speakers saved Torr's pride from further damage.

"Systems re-boot successful. Time to re-surface."

Bubbles erupted around the Eos and the meagre light from the surface started to seep through the gloom as she headed gently upwards.

Torr and Nattie looked at each other with relief. With Kiki back everything would be all right; wouldn't it?

~o0o~

Torr was just beginning to welcome the thought of breathing the polluted air of Nautilon once more when the sky darkened perceptibly above the surface of the water just above them. The Eos halted her ascent and bobbed patiently beneath the waves.

"Kiki, what is it? What's darkening the water above us?"

Torr's sensors instantly relayed the information he needed directly from the Harbourmaster's ANP. Thanks to Torr the First Celestial Secret was back up and running, simultaneously guiding the collision avoidance systems of both ships.

"It's a ship descending into the space we had on the quayside. At the moment it's hovering, waiting for the ANP to give it permission to land. It's quite a big ship. I don't want them landing on us so I'll keep us here, just below the surface until I know that it's safe to re-emerge. Give me a moment and I'll place a trace on their communications frequency. The encryption algorithm should be in my databanks somewhere. Now where did I put those files on advanced code breaking? Ah, here we are, should take more than second to scan through these transmissions and find the one that will establish how long they might be staying."

He paused momentarily before continuing in a voice laced with as much sympathy and muted concern as was possible for a cybernetic construct with a child-friendly personality overlay. "Oh, oh, you're not going to like this!

"I'm not going to like what?" Torr laughed at the unusual voice Kiki was using.

"The name of the ship landing in the water above us. Torr, it's the Nebulon III!"

Torr felt the weight of thought-clouding fear settling over him as the long thin snakelike shape of the Carthaginian battleship cast its murky shadow over them. Retro engines ignited brightly along its serpentine torso as it started to settle onto the surface above. Memories of the Nebulon III viciously attacking the Typhon came flooding back to him.

They dare not surface now. The Eos was trapped under the water until the Carthaginians moved off again. That could take weeks and in the meantime, they were down here with the monster and apparently an imaginary city of Merfolk.

"Kiki, how much air do we have?" asked Nattie, praying that Kiki would have a good answer.

Chapter 18: How much air do we have?

Torr's head was spinning as the Eos floated motionless twenty metres below the hulk of the Nebulon III's keel. Too many surprises coming so close together made his brain reel. His stomach felt weak at the thought of his mortal enemies floating so dangerously nearby. If they were discovered here then they were doomed and the thought that there might be people living underneath the sea made him question everything that he thought he knew. If myths and legends were real then... then... For some reason their very existence was an affront to his sense of certainty.

The questions in the cabin went round and round his head as what he hoped were fantastical impossibilities flitted in and out of existence with all of the unexpected insistence of a hungry, wounded seagull.

"I'm telling you that I saw a Merman!"

"And I'm telling you that we have much more pressing problems to worry about than a bunch of fish people. Or should that be a shoal of fish people? I'm never sure what the collective nouns are for imaginary creatures," Torr was being deliberately nasty.

"Well what do you suggest we do then? Sit down here until we run out of oxygen?"

Torr could feel a headache coming on, but Nattie wasn't going to let him off the hook.

"Well?"

"Whatever!" he shouted and glared at Nattie defying her to respond.

Nattie glared back at him, just as deadly and twice as mean.

Torr broke first and slunk off towards the control panel with a gloom descending on him.

"Kiki, can you take us deeper without their realising we are here?"

"Sure can, boss. But it'll take us a while. Rather than engaging the main Neutrino drive we'll need to pretend to be moving with the currents and gravity. If I use the engines then we're bound to be detected and if that happens..."

"Cut the doom laden forecasts and just do it, Kiki."

Torr slumped into one of the big chairs in front of the console and stared out into the murky water. He thrust his head into his hands and glared at his reflection in the glass. His reflection glared right back.

"Humph!" His headache was gaining full control now.

Nattie sat down in the next seat and spoke to him quietly. She felt bad about the glaring competition.

"I don't understand why you find the idea of Merfolk so difficult to believe. We've met the Tinkerer, recovered secret alien technology and walked through walls. What's so hard to believe about Merfolk? You never questioned whether Fuzz ball was real."

Fuzz ball did her normal trick of coming up to where he was sitting and staring at him with big soulful eyes. Torr couldn't resist scratching her between the ears and she purred contentedly. It was a feel good moment.

"Fuzz ball is different!" he sulked, but more out of habit than dismay. It was difficult to resist Fuzz ball when she was up close like this. It was almost as if... but no, that was impossible too.

Nattie decided it was safer to change the subject than to try and pull Torr out of his sulk directly. "I hadn't realised the Eos was also a submarine," she mentioned casually, almost in passing.

"Just another of the Tinkerer's little tricks, I guess."

"I'm surprised that he doesn't have a trick to keep the air supply replenishing."

"That's a good point. Kiki, don't we have a neat gizmo for keeping the air fresh?"

"We certainly do and it's working flat out. The Eos' life support systems work just as well under the waves as they do when we are in deep space. Unfortunately, it's the Third Secret hard at work here. Or rather, not working at all," the playful computer almost smirked at its own joke. "The Aztex have clearly tried to open up the Third Celestial Secret and as a result, the advanced life support systems that use that technology have shut down. What you're breathing in now can't be replenished and to make matters worse, the first battle with the Krakiathan has damaged the hull. There appears to be a slight air leak somewhere, but I can't quite pin down where it is at the moment. Any increase in pressure or sudden changes of direction might cause that leak to fatally fracture. We don't want to take on that monster again before I can re-schedule some serious repair work. The sooner the better."

"Which brings me back to my question of several minutes ago," Nattie groaned.

"How much air do we have left? How long can we stay down here before we have to surface?"

"Well, I didn't think we'd need to fill up the tanks this quickly, so just before you all came back from your trip to the Fortress, I was running some cleaning routines and flushed the system out with nitrogen. I'd only just started refilling with oxygen when we dived and we've been jumping around a lot since then and lots of talking. Lots and lots of talking..."

"Just spit it out Kiki. Quit all of the excuses."

"About 57 minutes, give or take 10.472 seconds, 9.471, 8.47."

"Well at least we know where we are," muttered Torr, sinking back into despondency, his headache continuing to worsen by the minute.

"And at least we don't have many options left."

"I don't see that we've got ANY options," replied Torr.

"The city of the Merfolk. We have to go there," Nattie insisted. "They may be able to help us. They certainly appear to be hiding from the same people as we are. 'The enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine', sort of stuff."

"Or maybe, 'The enemy of my enemy might be good to eat',"

"Why on earth would you think that?"

"Well, we eat fish. They might be friendly with fish or something. They'd be getting their own back for all that fish and chips we've been eating..."

"Oh, for goodness sake. I give up," she scolded him, sitting back and folding her arms across her chest. "What suggestions do you have, then, brain box?"

Torr sat tight-lipped and tried not to look at her. She had a point but he'd dug himself into a corner and was too proud to admit he was wrong.

Nattie scowled at him and a silence descended between them. In the end it was Nattie who broke it. Someone needed to take charge.

"Kiki, on the way down, steer us towards the city I saw."

Despite his gloom Torr hadn't failed to notice the fact that the normally exacting Kiki had not corrected Nattie about there being a city beneath the sea. If Kiki could see it, that meant...

"56 minutes," announced Kiki cheerfully.

~o0o~

To avoid being seen by the Nebulon III, Kiki oozed the Eos slowly through the polluted, cloudy water. It seemed that the ship was cautiously sinking into an immense vat of soup as it submerged into the muddy, murky depths of the bay. Kiki kept a close check on the air leak. Any indication that it was fracturing and he'd pull the ship straight to the surface. They'd just have to take their chances with the Nebulon III.

In the surrounding darkness Kiki activated the sonar to give them something to watch and to Torr's eye its phosphorescent light cast an evil glow across the cabin. As they waited in silence, anxiously anticipating imminent discovery the sweeping arm on the screen circled with the impending menace of an empty carousel.

Sweep, beep

Sweep, beep

Sweep, beep

Sweep, beep................................... beep

Sweep, beep..................... beep

Sweep, beep............... beep

Sweep, beep............ beep

Sweep, beep......... beep

They watched in horrified despair as directly between them and the underwater city something big was heading straight towards them.

"Is that it?" Nattie asked breathlessly. "Is that the city of the Merfolk? Will we be able to see it soon?" she wished out loud.

"I don't think so," Kiki answered hesitantly. "It appears to be moving."

"Perhaps it's the Merfolk coming out to help us?" she whispered expectantly with avid anticipation, peering wide-eyed into the gloom.

And so it was that she was the first to see into the gaping maw of the Krakiathan as the rows of long, sharp teeth opened wide before the gently, drifting, dangling bait of the Eos. Nattie's scream rent the silence as the monster lunged to tear the ship asunder.

The dying scream reverberated around the tense cabin and a deathly chill tore down Torr's spine. It was a dark foreboding of the impending doom that awaited him amidst the army of teeth in the monster's mouth.
Chapter 19: To battle Krakiathan

"Krakiathan has found us!" roared Torr as he clung to the instrument panel whilst the Eos lurched precariously, sending them all reeling.

His blood was surging and his headache was disappearing; a pile of rotting leaves before the winter's storm of the impending battle with Krakiathan.

I guess we've run out of alternatives, though, thought Torr. It's them or us.

"That makes things rather simple," he said out loud. "Kiki, hit it with everything we've got!"

"Won't that rupture the asteroid!" Nattie squealed as she slid from her chair to the floor and fell into a tumbling bundle with Fuzz ball. As they rolled across the floor haphazardly Nattie realised painfully that one of the main differences between being deep underwater and far out in space was that the gravitational spin of the asteroid still worked far too efficiently, even beneath the surface. Being thrown against the bulwarks of the Eos hurt! In space they would have bumped gently and bobbed away with a giggle and a laugh. Instead she breathed a painful 'Ow!' into Fuzz ball's fur as they were jolted against another hard and very firm piece of infrastructure.

Fortunately, Torr couldn't hear her being thrown about, as his attention had narrowed, focusing down on the single most important, current, threat to their lives; the Krakiathan! This was something he was beginning to get quite familiar with.

He'd come to realise that for every threat, as time passed, his choices narrowed. Until there were usually only two left; run away, or deal with it. Running away had rarely turned out the way he'd wanted it to. The big threats always had a habit of catching up with him when he least expected them. Dealing with them, however scary the thought of that was, had usually turned out best for him.

They couldn't surface. They shouldn't descend any further. Krakiathan was here, right now. It was time to confront it. His fingers tingled and his body ached with anticipated action. His muscles gorged themselves on oxygen as adrenaline surged around through his veins. At this very moment he didn't care if the whole asteroid was split asunder under the murderous fury of Kiki's onslaught; as long as the Krakiathan was destroyed. This was kill, or be killed. Us, or... or......it.

The floor tipped violently again as Kiki threw the Eos around the asterocean in an attempt to prevent the Krakiathan from devouring them without bursting some damaged seam. It was Torr's turn to be hurled heavily to the floor.

Flashes of light flared through the cabin at random intervals as Kiki managed to fire off a shot between dodges, but apparently to no effect. The Krakiathan seemed to be resolutely resistant to their heaviest blows.

~o0o~

Meanwhile, on the surface, the bay had started to boil and bubble as a result of the titanic struggle taking place beneath the waves. People rushed to the water's edge and Jimi quickly dragged himself onto dry land before trying to blend in with the watching crowd. It occurred to him that he, of them all, probably had the best insight into what was happening beneath the raging water. He was sure that somewhere below, the monster of the mist was enjoying lunch. Jim worried that he might never see the strange girl's face again.

~o0o~

Only one woman had noticed him but her mind was firmly focused on other things. The message from Minerva had been clear before contact with the Cyberphin had been suddenly terminated; she knew the children and their alien spaceship were here, somewhere in the bay.

Professor Banx wasn't immediately identifiable. She wore a long trench cloak over her white laboratory coat. Her arms were hidden deep within her sleeves and her face wore a mask of patient anticipation. She thumbed a switch and the N dimensional inverter started to warm up from its standby mode.

When the Eos emerged from the depths she would be ready. The N dimensional inverter would give her access to the Celestial Secrets that were almost within the grasp of her eager, metal fingers.

~o0o~

In the cabin of the Eos pandemonium continued to reign.

"53 minutes!" squeaked Kiki.

A faint buzzing sound was nagging for Torr's attention. If he had been prepared for any more impossible surprises then he might have thought that a swarm of hornets was preparing itself for an attack. Instead, the smell of ozone filled the cabin and the lights dimmed. The interior of the Eos appeared to breathe in, readying itself for some supreme effort.

"Fzzzglpt!" spluttered the speakers and the lights went out entirely.

"Nattie?"

"Torr? Kiki?"

"Fuzz ball?"

"She's here with me! We're underneath the table......I think."

"Kiki?"

Torr's eyes were beginning to adapt to the ghostly glow of the asteroid's lighting systems that was filtering through the littered water of Aquatica bay and in through the Eos' viewing ports. The interior of the control room looked as if a local gang of louts and hooligans had just interrupted a wild party. Rubbish was strewn everywhere, the floor was covered in puddles and the furniture was thrown askew in all directions. Surely all this mess wasn't theirs?

"Kiki?" Torr whispered in hope once more into the twilight darkness.

He glanced along the control panel but there were no signs of life, no flickering lights signalling cybernetic thought patterns. Nothing! The only consolation was that with his final wrenching movement Kiki had managed to convince the Krakiathan that it should release the Eos from it's crushing jaws. So, here they were, apparently gently settling to the bottom of the bay, without power, without weaponry, without any onboard computing and worst of all without any hope.

No, not without hope, thought Torr angrily. There was never a point at which he would give up hope. There was always hope. There was always a way out. There was always a solution. He just had to find it.

The Eos' powerful weaponry was useless without Kiki to operate it. This time Torr, Nattie and Fuzz ball were really on their own now.

He filled his lungs with air and gingerly pulled himself upright. If it was going to be up to him, so be it. It was about time that he started fielding his weight on this team.

"Ftwifglpt mgurgle" spat the speakers.

The speakers, of course! Thought Torr. The speakers were still working. That meant there was power somewhere on the ship and as though to silently confirm he was on the right track the cabin lights flashed. In the sudden glare Torr could see Nattie and a frightened Fuzz ball wedged in against a bundle of chair legs.

In the corridor beyond, the wardrobe doors had been flung open and the contents scattered about in mounds of debris. It looked like the partygoers hadn't left a room unturned. His space suit lay across the heap in a haunting imitation of a dead man; a spread-eagled and broken mannequin.

"Trirtle mintz!" the speakers rasped.

"Kiki?" offered Torr hopefully in reply. Was their intelligence behind the static, or was he superstitiously reading meaning into the death of electrical intelligence. Kiki had warned them about the danger of aquacybernetic feedback on his circuits.

"Hor somblwhirr!"

The Eos lurched again as the fierce, broken teeth of the Krakiathan loomed wide in the viewing panels before missing them seemingly by a hairsbreadth. The monster still seemed intent on trying to devour them as they sank to the bottom.

Torr made a decision based on what felt like an insane leap of faith. Yes, he was sure that they had power, albeit sporadically, and that meant Kiki was still there trying to communicate with him. But what exactly was he trying to tell them?

"Twnty nnnnununun mintz," the speakers warbled.

Torr was beginning to come to the conclusion that as much as his body ached for action, in order for him to do something, anything, there was no point until Kiki re-booted himself. If there was power onboard, even hidden in some deep recess, then Torr was willing to gamble that Kiki was hanging onto life somewhere. He'd managed to re-boot himself after his last battle with the Krakiathan and he was clearly trying to do the same thing now. If they could just survive until Kiki got himself back together again, Torr assured himself, then they probably had a chance.

He might be asking for a big 'if' with that one, he thought to himself. Survival was the important thing though.

At that instant, a thought came in from left field. It was almost as if the thought wasn't his but one that had been poked secretly into his ear.

Destiny looked at Fate accusingly.

The space suits, they had to get into their space suits! Then they could always escape by swimming through the water in their space suits.

He pulled at Nattie's arm as she huddled under the table with Fuzz ball who clung to her desperately for safety.

"Nattie, Fuzz ball, come on."

Nattie moaned a protest, "Go away." She was bruised all over and had a roaring headache that thumped against her skull like a five year old with a new drum kit for Christmas.

"We all need to get into our spacesuits, in case the worst happens," Torr was shouting in her ear. "Come on Nattie, it sounds like the hull is going to crack open at any moment! We need to get into our spacesuits before the Eos fills with water. That way we might not drown down here. The air in the suits can keep us going until we can get to the surface."

Gradually, Nattie's arms and legs unfolded like petals in an April dawn after the worst March wind on record.

"Twntzitz mintz!" crackled the speakers.

Mintz, mintz, mintz? Why did Kiki keep going on about mintz?

"Twntfv mintz," replied Kiki as if to taunt him.

The Eos started to speed through the water again, weaving this way and that, evading the Krakiathan's gaping maw. With relief Torr realised that, clearly, some part of Kiki was still functioning.

Torr had to try and communicate with him. If the Eos was going to be lost to the Krakiathan then what would happen to Kiki? The thought didn't bear thinking about, but he must try. He must consider the worst. If the Eos were lost then they would have to find the Third Celestial Secret on their own. Assuming they survived, that is. They had to know where it was and the only hope was if Kiki could tell them exactly where it was. If not, they could spend forever looking for it and still never find it.

"Kiki, where's the Third Celestial Secret?" shouted Torr. "Where have the Aztex hidden it?"

"Infeyd Krackliafan."

Torr and Nattie's faceplates bumped against each other as they tried to read one other's expressions through the thick glass. What could Kiki be trying to tell them?

What did he mean by Infeyd Krackliafan?

Chapter 20: Alone against Krakiathan

"Infeyd Krackliafan?" Torr repeated.

"Krackliafan, sounds like Krakiathan. Perhaps he's trying to tell us something about the monster?"

"Infeyd. Been tied? Invade? Infide? Inside!"

Nattie looked exultant. "Torr, that's it. The Third Celestial Secret must be inside Krakiathan. The monster must have swallowed it. Just like its trying to swallow us."

Torr tried to rub his eyes in disbelief but to his irritation was thwarted by the helmet of his space suit and his thick gloves. As if things weren't bad enough for them already now he had to confront the impossible. How were they going to recover the Third Celestial Secret from inside the Krakiathan? Of all the places for it to be hidden, it was just their luck that it had to be in the most dangerous place in the asteroid.

A huge shudder hit the hull as the Krakiathan brushed them with its tail, throwing them all to the ground. Torr landed next to the small alcove where the overnight bag had sought cover. The ever-helpful luggage shuffled more tightly into the corner and as it did the zip parted. The butt of another small laser pistol jutted out towards him.

The sleek, bright metal reached out for his attention and grabbed it by the throat. The butt was covered in thick rubber grips, with a power dial and where his thumb would rest was a big red button marked 'FIRE'.

Gingerly he took it, surprised to find that the handle fitted his hand perfectly. Even through his glove, it felt warm to the touch.

"Well I guess this is a big hint. I think somebody is trying to tell me what I need to do," announced Torr, hauling himself to his feet and looking incredulously at the laser pistol he was holding. It had a deadly, but beautiful design, all sleekness and death. To Torr it breathed devastation and annihilation; it fed on fear and finished lives; it laughed heartily in the double-headed faces of jeopardy and danger.

Also, there was something about the way it fitted so snugly into his glove that made him feel that this was the right thing to do. This pistol was meant for him. The pistol was made for him. It was almost as if it had a big sign on it marked 'USE ME!' or 'Captain's property. HANDS OFF!'

Despite the scary feeling that had appeared in his stomach, he couldn't deny that it made him feel invincible. The pistol made him feel that anything was possible; any dream was only a heartbeat away. All he had to do was aim and fire and anything he wanted would somehow become possible.

Destiny tried to shout a warning but fate firmly clamped his hand over his lips.

Torr still had his reservations. The last time the overnight bag had given him a gun it had been worse than useless and had almost got them all killed. Would this one be any different?

"But I have no idea how to use it. How does it work?" he muttered, staring down at the odd sight of a gun nestled comfortably in his hand.

A thick book poked its way out from between the zips.

"The 500 page owner's manual to the 250 GW 0.2mm Virstrad laser pistol. ENJOY!" remarked Torr as he clumsily tried to leaf his way through the contents with his thickly gloved hands. "In Chinese!"

Another book gingerly emerged. Torr just had a moment to read the cover before the overnight bag swallowed it again. A Chinese English dictionary! Whatever next?

"Thanks," he threw the manual back onto the floor, "I'll figure it out as I go along."

How difficult could it be to use a weapon with a button marked fire?

He turned towards the airlock with the 250 GW 0.2mm Virstrad laser pistol gripped as firmly as he dared. This wasn't going to be easy. Soon he would be alone against the monster with only the small pistol for company.

"Torr, you can't!" gasped Nattie, gripping his arm.

"Of course I can," he gulped, hoping that the overnight bag had more imagination than to play the same stupid joke on him twice. He knew he was hoping a lot. "It should be quite easy. I'll slip outside whilst the monster isn't looking, slice through it with the laser pistol and then while it's guts are spilling all around the bay I will swim in, grab the Third Celestial Secret and... and..." He paused and smiled at Nattie weakly before waving his arms expansively. "I'm sure I'll think of something. I'll get back somehow. I'll do whatever it takes to get back. I promise."

He hesitated again as an inner voice of caution finally raised its head over the parapet. Somewhere, in some other land, he hoped that promises had power.

"Will you promise me something?" he asked, emphasising the word, binding Nattie's fortunes to his own.

The words sounded suddenly dry and squeaky. Was the air supply already on the blink?

"Of course," she said in a small, quiet voice, filling with fear for him, "Anything."

Destiny and Fate joined hands and shook each other heartily.

"If I don't make it back for any reason..."

"Don't say that Torr, of course you'll..."

Torr fixed her with a heavy-eyed look and raised a finger to his faceplate.

"Promise me that you'll rescue the animals. Don't let them get abandoned."

"Yes, yes, I will. And I'll make sure that the Merfolk get away as well...and the Cyberphins."

"...and tell my Uncle Otto. Promise me you'll rescue him from Earth. Tell him that I wasn't just a kid. Tell him that I.... Tell him that I died... I don't want him to worry about me being lost and lonely in some half remembered asteroid! I don't want him to spend the rest of his life worried that I'm marooned somewhere like him, looking for me like I'm looking for my parents, never knowing, always wondering whether they're waiting around the next corner."

Nattie gripped his arm savagely, "Torr, don't...!"

He could see that she was on the edge of tears herself, but he didn't have the time, or energy left to console her. If he didn't go now, he knew that however much false courage and hope the laser pistol filled him with he'd never make it out of the airlock. As if to emphasise the urgency there was another large jolt to the hull as the Krakiathan closed on its elusive, yet wounded, prey.

"I must!" he insisted. "If I don't tell you then no one will ever know and they'll always wonder what happened to me. Just like I always wonder..." he gulped, swallowing back all of the unsettling feelings that were swimming around in his head. "So, tell Uncle Otto and help him find my parents. Make them understand that I never stopped believing that we'd..." he tried to wipe away a tear from his eyes, but the helmet of his space suit prevented it, leaving a dribble running down his face.

"Tell them that I never stopped believing that we'd be together again. Someday."

Torr swallowed a final mouthful of despair and regret, before he turned on his heels and headed for the airlock. Nattie could only watch helplessly as the water gushed in and rushed Torr out to his appointment with the Krakiathan.

"Twntifwar mintz," announced Kiki.

Chapter 21: Infeyd Krackliafan

Torr was totally immersed in the foul, filthy water. He was hardly any distance away from the Eos, but already she was almost invisible. How was he supposed to find the Krakiathan in this murk? He only knew that the monster was out there somewhere. The question was where.

He thought about how fishing bait might feel and the logical part of his brain told him that he didn't need to find Krakiathan, he could just wait for it to find him. The sensible part of his brain told the logical part to shut up and stop being stupid. The scared stupid part of his brain told them both to swim as fast as they could. They might make it before the Krakiathan caught them.

He gripped the laser pistol more closely in his hand, whilst swinging it backwards and forwards in great sweeping arcs around him. With luck, he might just be pointing it at the Krakiathan as the monster loomed out of the darkness and tried to tear him to pieces with its razor sharp fangs. How was it able to see anything when he couldn't?

It was no use; there was no sign of the monster anywhere. This was getting him nowhere. He needed to return to the Eos before it completely disappeared in the darkness and filth. He turned and swam back the way he'd come.

Unseen, soundless and with deadly purpose, two slimy tentacles oozed out of the darkness and slowly wrapped themselves around his torso, creeping inexorably towards the laser pistol. Torr only became aware of the serpentine trap that was engulfing him when he raised his arm to grip the airlock handle. Glancing down, he gasped in surprise at the strange and unusual encumbrance that weighed down his arm.

Where had that come from?

With excellent timing the trap was sprung and the tentacles struck, tightening rapidly and strangling the breath from the desperate gasp that died unspoken on his lips. He stared in unbelievable pain at the third tentacle wrapping itself around his midriff whilst another struggled to capture his gun arm.

He didn't have to wonder about how he was going to find the Krakiathan anymore; it had found him!

But despite the pain it occurred to Torr that discovery was a blade with a point at each end. Torr had also found Krakiathan. His single remaining thought turned and looked squarely into the face of the monstrous fear that was threatening to overwhelm him.

I'm not afraid of you. You might be bigger than me and you're certainly a lot uglier but that doesn't mean I have to be frightened of you, he thought.

My fear only feeds you, making you stronger. Well, I'm not going to feed you anymore! Torr decided. I won't be frightened anymore. I refuse to be afraid and when I'm not afraid I know I can fight back!

The coils wrapping themselves around his stomach were tight, but Torr could still breathe. The other tentacles that were trying to capture his gun bearing arm were faring even less well and were easily shrugged away. The enormous tentacles were too thick and slimy to grip his slim body tightly enough. Gradually he was able to wriggle free, leaving behind only a disgusting slime that clung resolutely to his space suit. This was going to need some serious cleaning when he got back on board.

If he got back on board, he corrected himself.

He turned to face the Krakiathan, which hadn't quite accepted that its lunch was about to escape. Pulling his gun arm free he took aim at the creature's eyes. There were many to choose from.

Knowing that he couldn't afford to burn through the delicate shell of the asteroid, Torr set the power setting on half load and pressed down firmly on the trigger. A vivid line of red light erupted through the water connecting him and the monster. The laser bit home sending boiling steam away towards the surface.

Torr watched in dismay as the bright beam bounced off the creature's scales in a flurry of sizzling sparks with no apparent affect. In response, the Krakiathan opened its cavernous mouth wide. Perhaps it was yawning at his feeble attempts to harm it, Torr thought. He would never know.

Had the overnight bag given him yet another dud weapon? His hopes drained away breath by breath, as the monster advanced towards him again, the sea rushing into its cavernous mouth. Throwing caution to the wind Torr switched the power setting on his laser pistol to full. With trembling hands he aimed as best he could and fired again. With the monster upon him he no longer had anything to lose.

The water around Torr exploded. Broken atomic chains writhed helplessly under the onslaught of the destructive force he had unleashed. It felt as if the laws of physics were being torn apart and recombined in new, warped and twisted permutations. The polluted liquid seemed to seethe and scream as it tried to escape the laser beam and a bursting, boiling mass of steam enveloped him. Saved only by the insulation of his space suit from becoming a vaporised lobster, Torr was blinded by the fleeing gas as it surged around him in swathes and clouds of confusion.

He thumbed off the power button. Surely that had worked. Nothing biological could have survived such destructive force.

"Torr!" came Nattie's voice through his suit radio. "I've figured out what Kiki has been trying to tell us. We're running..."

The water continued to boil around him until, with the suddenness of a power cut, total darkness descended on him. Nattie's voice disappeared into an ominous silence. Torr turned on the space suit's headlights in the sudden stillness and looked around.

There was no denying where he was. Behind him and on each side were rows upon rows of glistening sharp teeth. He was inside the Krakiathan's mouth. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to avoid being chewed up by the massive molars, but if luck was with him then he wasn't going to argue. At the moment though, he wasn't quite sure how 'lucky' he was to be in the creature's mouth.

Somehow, as impossible as it seemed, the Krakathian's hide had shrugged off the destructive force of the laser beam. If that was the case then it also possibly explained how the beast had managed to keep pursuing the Eos despite the ship's impressive armaments.

But the strangest surprise was right in front of him. Where he expected to see the dark maw of the monster's gullet, there was only the flat grey sheen of an impressive and clearly man-made, steel door.

That explained a lot, Torr thought. The Krakiathan wasn't biological. It was a construct, a machine, a submarine, in fact. A very cleverly crafted submarine, disguised as a monstrous denizen of the deep to prevent people realising what, or who, was on board. An armoured, laser resistant hull, instead of flimsy flesh and blood would explain how it had managed to survive both the Eos's own weapons and his own laser pistol, Torr thought.

That was all behind him now though, because he'd discovered their secret. Torr suddenly realised he knew where the Third Celestial Secret was. Armed with that knowledge there was nothing to stop him, relatively speaking of course. Having managed to get inside Krakiathan, the worst must surely be over, he thought.

That outer skin must have been expensive, thought Torr. It can't be cheap to produce a laser resistant exterior. Odds on that the people who had built the Krakiathan hadn't thought it necessary to protect this inner hatchway, hidden away here behind rows of terrifying teeth. If he were lucky then this doorway wouldn't be so resistant. The only question left in his head was whether, he still had any luck left.

Not wanting to create an explosion in the small confined space, he switched the power back to low, raised the laser pistol, pointed it at the door and took careful aim. His thumb hit the trigger button again and the thin red light linked him with his target once more.

In response, the Krakiathan yawned wide and gnashed its teeth in a vain attempt to shred him between their razor sharp edges. Torr's laser pistol continued to cut a thin line through the heavy door. Slowly but steadily he was breaking through. It was only a matter of time.

Waves sloshed around his waist and every time the teeth opened snatches of Nattie's voice came through to him. Piece by piece he re-assembled the urgent message and as the metal door collapsed the last shred dropped into place.

"Torr, I've set this message on auto transmit as I don't know whether you can hear me. Kiki is almost back on line. His garbled message is about the air supply. It's been disappearing a lot quicker than we thought, probably as a result of the battle with the Krakiathan. We have about twenty minutes left in the ship. I've tried to calculate how much fresh air you have left in your air tanks. I can't tell exactly, but it's probably no more than five minutes if you don't exert yourself. Less if you do. So you need to do as little as possible. Torr, I've set this message on auto transmit as I don't know..."

"Fat chance of doing nothing," muttered Torr to himself. "I'll just have to get this over quickly."

All around him, the Krakiathan continued to heave and lurch in an attempt to dislodge him. But the laser beam was relentlessly doing its work and the creature's hideous mouth was filling with sharp shards of broken metal, boiling water and steam. Conditions were becoming impossible as Torr started kicking at the cut and battered door in an attempt to force his way inside whilst he could still breathe. Finally, with a hard jerk of his foot he kicked a hole in the bulkhead big enough for him to climb through. The ocean rushed through behind him.

It was only then that he noticed the annoying sign above his head that said in simple plain text, 'To Open, Press here'.

Bother.

Having climbed through, Torr waded inside the Krakiathan, now himself awash but with frustrated anger and futility. The asterocean flowed, followed and filled the interior as he went. It was amazing to see how much of it resembled the inside of a submarine. There were doors everywhere and as he opened each one, water flooded in behind him. Outside, the Krakiathan started to list as her internal compartments filled with water and she began to sink to the bottom of the bay.

"But how am I ever going to find the Third Celestial Secret? I don't have enough time to search everywhere!" Torr growled.

Chapter 22: The last breath?

"Torr? Is that you?" shouted the voice in his ear.

Torr was surprised to realise that he'd been speaking out loud.

"Nattie, is that you?"

At that moment, he saw a figure emerge from one of the doorways and stare at him in shock as the water flooded into the room that had just been opened. With a look of alarm the man turned and waded rapidly away from him, shouting as he went.

"Help! We're sinking! Man the lifeboats!"

Torr deliberated. He didn't want the man to get away, or even worse gather up his friends and return, but he couldn't very well shoot him in the back. Could he? That wasn't very gallant or fair, was it?

But Torr hesitated too long and the man fled up the nearby emergency escape ladder before he could act. He had no time to spare to regret his indecision as Nattie's voice continued to chatter away at an alarming rate.

"Oh, thank goodness you're okay. I've been so worried. You only have a few minutes of air left," she garbled, repeating what he already knew.

"Kiki had been recycling the air out of the space suits to feed the cabin supply on board the Eos. He didn't have a chance to recycle it back again before you left. You've only got a fraction of the air supply you should have. Can you take your helmet off? Are you anywhere that has oxygen?"

Glancing down at the air dials Torr's heart sank faster than Krakiathan. They were all nearly empty. He looked at the water all around him. It had now reached chest height and was still rising rapidly. There was little point in taking his helmet off now, he'd only have to replace it in another few moments.

"Not really," he answered. "Look, I'll probably only have one shot at this. I may not even have that. You need to tell me exactly where the Third Celestial Secret is and you need to tell me right now. I don't have any time to waste searching for it!"

Fortunately, back on the Eos a fully functioning Kiki ran the Celestial Secret Locator program and cross indexed it with the recalibrated portable ANP tracker they'd last used on the glacier at Neidelkreig. For a moment there was nothing and then he remembered that he had turned off the astroalgorythm generator in an attempt to save energy. He turned it back on and a few seconds later the screen brightened into life.

"Torr, you need to go about 15 paces forwards and then through a door on your left. Inside there should be an experimentation chamber about chest height on the wall. The Third Celestial Secret should be in there. But please hurry. You probably only have a few moments of air left."

Torr didn't need to be told twice. He waded down the corridor as fast as he could through the torrent of murky water and wrenched the door open. Fortunately, there was only one experimentation chamber inside. Tugging it hard, he found it wasn't locked and the door opened easily. Somehow luck was running his way.

With an immense surge of relief, Torr looked inside. The Third Celestial Secret was wired into some form of clever circuitry. But it lay there still and lifeless. Its alien technology had shut down in an attempt to prevent the Aztex engineers from discovering its secrets. Clearly, the Aztex had failed.

Torr became aware of a dull ache in his chest. He realised with dismay that it had been there for a while. Each breath was becoming more difficult and less useful. Small dancing lights flickered on the periphery of his vision as he wrenched the wiring aside and pulled the Third Celestial Secret towards him.

His air was running out.

Hooking the alien device to his belt, he struggled through the wrecked interior of the sinking Krakiathan. The disguised submarine was now completely flooded and its crew either dead or fled.

That made his journey through the interior of the monster much easier. With no one to avoid and without having to fight the surging tide, he half swam half walked through the abandoned warship. The pounding of his heart banged away in time to his heavy, leaden footfalls. But struggle as he might the wan light from the exit remained elusively beyond him.

~o0o~

Nattie and Fuzz ball watched in horror as the Krakiathan hit the sandy bottom of the bay without any sight of Torr emerging from the wreckage. A huge cloud of sand billowed up from the impact hiding the wreckage from further observation.

"Kiki, where's Torr? Is he still alive?"

"Just. He appears to have almost stopped breathing. His life readings are very, very low."

Fuzz ball gripped her tiny claws into Nattie's arm but Nattie didn't notice. Their attention was focused on the mouth of the Krakiathan where they had last seen Torr swallowed by the monster.

The clouds of sand started to settle.

Then as they watched in frightened fascination, desperate for any sign of life a small figure tumbled out through the razor sharp teeth and collapsed onto the litter strewn bottom of the bay. Painfully it tried to stand up but the effort appeared too much for it and it collapsed prostrate on the sea bed.

"Nine minutes of air left," announced Kiki helpfully as he tried to ease the tension. "Then why is he having so much trouble breathing?" blubbed Nattie, her heart bursting.

"Not his air. Ours."

~o0o~

Torr collapsed, exhausted, spent, beyond caring. Amongst the broken bottles, empty cans and mattresses a mechanical figure darted towards him.

"Minerva?" he gasped weakly, but she couldn't hear him.

The Cyberphin nudged up against him almost playfully but Torr lacked the strength to smile. Curiosity over how she had been repaired surfaced and then sank again as consciousness dwindled away. Perhaps Nattie had been right about the Merfolk. It was a shame, he would have liked to meet them, but that wasn't going to happen now. Darkness descended over his vision and slowed his brain.

With his last residue of energy his hand absently stroked the long metallic dorsal fin and as he lost consciousness Minerva shifted uneasily beneath him in the water, dragging him slightly along the bottom with the eddy of the gentle current. He realised with fading consciousness that his lifeless body would probably become just another piece of junk clogging up the asteroid's arteries. Without the Third Celestial Secret to save them his would be the first death of many. He felt a certain fleeting triumph at finally being the best in class.

Torr's fingers slipped lifelessly from her back. In desperation Minerva let out a piercing electronic scream of clicks and whistles.

In response, from the thick, oily darkness of the depths, figures drifted into view. Silently they watched the tragic tableau of the dying boy, the caring Cyberphin and the dormant alien technology.

Behind the thick glass of the Eos' viewing panes Nattie stared helplessly. Torr was dying and there was nothing she could do about it. She banged on the windows and screamed at the silent Merfolk who just stood in patient vigil. Why didn't they help him?!

Deep in the cybertronic core of Kiki's computer brain electron trails flashed through calculating circuits at the speed of light. Silent counters ticked away the seconds since Torr's last breath and quantum judgement cells watched the slowing beat of his heart. One could almost say it was a very dispassionate analysis. He reached a perfectly logical conclusion.

"Nattie, we have to surface. There's no point in waiting for Torr. He's not coming back. We have only seven minutes of air left. What do you want me to do?"

A huge hole opened up in Nattie's world. Was Torr really gone? She didn't, couldn't really know. Should she trust Kiki's judgement? With grief threatening to overwhelm her, Nattie felt the uncomfortable and unfamiliar, singular weight of command sink heavily onto her shoulders. Was this really the end of Torr's quest to recover the Seven Celestial Secrets? Should she abandon him for the of all mankind?

Chapter 23: The wreck at the bottom of the bay

An idea burst into Nattie's mind with the brilliance of a new day.

"Kiki, what's keeping us afloat?" she asked in an urgent, but hesitant, sort of a way.

Her brain was starting to run away with a half-finished notion that she dared not hope might be anywhere near right.

"What do you mean?" Kiki replied, his computer-generated voice laden with disbelief that they were discussing schoolboy physics whilst Torr lay dying on the seabed right in front of them.

"We're not sinking to the bottom. What's keeping us up? What's giving us buoyancy?"

"The floatation tanks."

"...and what's in the floatation tanks?"

"Ah, I see. If I flush the floatation tanks with seawater, we can use the oxygen that's still in them to give us a few more minutes to breathe."

"Precisely," she said sadly as tears streamed down her face. It was a clever idea and it was a pity that she hadn't thought of it before Torr had left the Eos with his air tanks bordering on empty.

"It does, of course, mean that we will sink to the bottom of the bay and be unable to re-float the Eos. You and Fuzz ball will die alongside Torr. You're just choosing a slower form of suicide." Kiki spoke in a flat emotionless voice that was loaded with inferences that he would use this information later in conjunction with the words 'I told you so...' many times.

That's if there was a 'later'.

"Let me worry about that. I have a plan," was all that Nattie mysteriously said in reply.

She didn't want to enter into a discussion about the all-important bits that were currently missing.

"That is exactly what worries me," muttered the onboard computer, almost to himself. "Flushing the floatation tanks isn't exactly something I can just undo at the flick of a cybernetic relay you know."

Nattie was in a torment of anguish. If Torr was already dead, she couldn't just leave his body here to rot amongst the rubbish. Somehow, she had to recover it. If he was somehow still alive... no, she dare not hope for that, not yet.

She returned to the viewing ports to refine her thinking. The extra air from the floatation tanks would give her enough oxygen to cycle the airlock and she could use her space suit to get his body back onboard. She ought to have enough air inside her suit for that. But beyond that the details of her plan were a bit fuzzy and were refusing to coagulate. There was still the problem of how they were going to surface with floatation tanks full of seawater.

Nattie stared blankly out into the murky waters whilst her brain remained locked in neutral. A small, unexpected movement disturbed her deliberations. She stared at the commotion with more curiosity than before. What was going on out there?

She gasped out loud. She couldn't believe what she was seeing!

"Kiki, Kiki!" she shouted. "Can you see what they're doing?"

"I can't be everywhere at once," he grumbled uncharacteristically, but she ignored him.

"They're rolling him across the bottom!"

Kiki turned his attention to the external monitor feed and could see that a handful of Cyberphins were indeed rolling and dragging Torr along the bottom of the bay. The merfolk appeared to have lost all interest and were departing into the darkness.

"Kiki, could he still be alive?"

"No. His vital life signs have stopped transmitting. I'm getting no readings from his suit. Either he's dead, or the suit is and if the suit's dead, Torr soon will be."

The cold metal tones of the onboard computer's voice reminder her that however much Kiki might appear to have a personality, at the end of the day he (it, she told herself) was just a computer. He (it) had no soul to feel emotion, no psyche to feel the pain and no sense of independent life that could show him the huge sense of loss she felt for Torr losing his. He had no heart to hope with.

Nattie did and she wasn't about to give up yet.

"But could we bring him back to life? Can't we re-start his heart with one of those electro shock thingies?" she pleaded, whilst praying that it was just the suit that was dead.

Her brain refused to give up and her humanity refused to let go.

Kiki sparked at the thought.

"If we can get him inside quickly enough, I guess I could try. You get him in and I'll prep the galley into a makeshift operating theatre."

Nattie snapped the helmet of her space suit shut and started fiddling with the controls of the air lock. The thought of anyone leaving a mess on the dining table was usually enough to send her into a spin of fussiness, but she didn't balk at Kiki's suggestion that they use it for a dead body. Strange that. It was Torr, though, and that was enough.

"Kiki, I don't have time for the air lock to cycle. I'm going to override it. It will mean flooding the Eos, so you had better close all the internal airtight doors. I don't want to ruin more of the electrics and soft furnishing than I really have to."

Doors hissed shut just as Fuzz ball squeezed through and equipment started to descend from the galley ceiling. Kiki lost no time in converting the kitchen into a makeshift operating theatre. The overnight bag leapt onto the worktop and the zip flipped back making the vast array of contents available and ready for use. Robotic arms emerged from hidden recesses and started rummaging about inside.

Nattie manually dragged open the outer air lock doors and water started to pour through in an endless torrent, bringing Torr and the Cyberphins rolling in behind it. The robotic dolphins splashed and chittered playfully to each other as the air lock door struggled to close again. Grabbing Torr under his arms and with the waist-deep floodwater and Cyberphins helping her, Nattie dragged Torr's body onto the kitchen table and stood clear.

Instantly an electric saw buzzed into action, biting into Torr's spacesuit. Water churned and splashed everywhere as it cut through the spacesuit armour, sending tiny shreds of shrapnel spinning across the galley. Everyone dived for cover.

"Kiki, be careful. If you go too deep you'll cut through Torr as well with that thing."

"That's Dr Kiki to you," the computer joked.

Now that Torr was back on board even Kiki was sounding relieved.

Torr's breastplate split into two and fell with a splash into the waterlogged floor. Inside, his chest wasn't moving. Two electro plates flew into view and clamped themselves to his torso.

"Stand clear!" Kiki announced clinically.

There was dull thump and Torr's whole body convulsed as the electrical discharge attempted to re-start his heart.

Had it worked?

Nattie waited as patiently as she could.

"Kiki?"

"Yes?"

"Did it work? Is he alive?" she stared at the lifeless body unable to touch it.

"Erm..."

"Erm? The best you can do is 'erm'?"

"Well, there's a lot going on out here. The crew evacuating the sunken Krakiathan have started to crawl up onto the docks and that's started a lot of people asking some very tricky questions. It seems that there's going to be a lot of explaining to do if we ever get back to the surface."

"... and this is Torr and we need to focus on him. Is he alive?" she insisted.

"Erm... I can confirm that the suit isn't."

"Kiki," she warned.

"Erm... Torr's sort of alive."

"What do you mean 'sort of'?" she asked desperately.

"Well, he's just about alive now, but he won't be in another few moments."

"KIKI!" she screamed.

"Charging. Stand clear!"

The air fizzled once more and a second charge shook Torr's body.

There was a second moment of terrifying silence where Nattie feared they'd had failed completely, before Torr gave an almost unnoticeable cough and started gulping in huge lung fulls of air.

The tension broke with a rush and moments later Nattie was giving Torr a chest breaking hug. He was alive.

"Torr, thank goodness you're alive," she cried, tears rolling down her face. "I was so worried."

Kiki interrupted, "I hate to break up this touching moment but if we don't hurry then Torr's return to life will be short lived. The Carthaginians appear to have noticed we're down here or else it's a weird and very unlikely coincidence. The survivors must have told them. They've started launching mini subs from the Nebulon III. They must be looking for us. Also, thanks to Nattie's idea of flushing the floatation tanks we still have air, but there's probably only enough for about ten minutes and insufficient to float us back off the bottom."

The computer paused to let the information sink in.

"Whilst running out won't affect me I have grown quite fond of some of the life forms on board...." he paused for emotional effect before continuing, "...and I'd hate to lose them. It might be considered careless by my next owner."

"Kiki, that very nice of you to say," Torr managed to whisper.

Breathing still wasn't easy.

"I wasn't referring to you. I was talking about Fuzz ball, of course."

"Well, I walked into that," Torr paused and winced a bit. "Anyway, I have a plan and those mini subs have just made it easier."

He'd nearly died of asphyxiation once. It wasn't an experience that he wanted to repeat.

Nattie stared at him in surprise. A moment ago he'd been lifeless at the bottom of the bay and yet he already had plans?

"Someone, help me up. Kiki, prepare us for space. We take off in, hmmm, let me see. Yes, we take off in less than ten minutes."

He tried to stand on his legs, but they wouldn't hold him up.

"Nattie, I need you to help me," he said, passing her the Third Celestial Secret that was still attached to his belt. "Send this to the Tinkerer. We have to get him to fix it before there's a disaster. We and the rest of humanity need it working again."

"But what about the floatation tanks, they're still empty. How can we ever get off of the bottom of the bay?"

Chapter 24: Air!

"Don't worry about that," said Torr. "I told you I have a plan."

Only a few minutes later they were all safely strapped down, with the Third Celestial Secret safely sent through the Transportomatic to the Tinkerer.

Torr's face was ashen and grey. That was partly due to his still recent return from death ‒ it isn't easy to pass between this world and the next ‒ and partly because of their deep and persistent predicament.

He wasn't under estimating the danger they were still in. Firstly, there was the Nebulon III to worry about. The Carthaginian battleship was a more formidable adversary than the Krakiathan could ever be. If she managed to get the Eos within sight of her weaponry then it would all be over.

"Kiki, I want you to compute a straight trajectory from here to the asteroid exit. We need to make it in a single blast because as soon as we clear the surface of the bay, the Nebulon III is going to be in a hurry to catch us. We need to be as far away from here as possible before they get going."

Torr paused to fill his lungs full of oxygen again. He gulped spasmodically at the air.

"It's going to take them a few minutes to get all of those mini subs back on board and we need to make the most of that time to get as far away as possible before she comes hurtling after us. Unless the Cyberphins are coming with us then they need to leave now."

"Okay boss"

Without a further word, the Cyberphins swam for the exit and beyond as Kiki increased the air pressure to prevent anymore water surging in through the re-opened air lock. Torr wanted to thank them but he didn't have time for long goodbyes full of gratitude.

Torr still looked drained. The effort of continuing was almost too much for him. His breathing remained shallow and his skin was still grey.

"And as soon as we clear the surface we need to open up the air vents and get as much oxygen on board before we leave the interior of the asteroid for deep space."

"No need, boss."

"Look, you might be able to survive without oxygen," Torr panted. "But having just come back from the land of the dead I can assure you that it's not somewhere I want to visit again anytime soon."

Torr's voice trailed off into silence and reflection. How could he ever really tell whether he had properly returned, or was he just a boy on borrowed time, some half zombie in a spaceship?

"You won't need to. Listen!" insisted Kiki.

Torr listened carefully; he didn't have the energy to do anything else.

"I can't hear anything except for the whirr of the life support recycling systems!" he answered eventually.

"Torr, the life support systems!" exclaimed Nattie.

Torr stared at her in disbelief, his spirits not daring to believe what he was being told.

"The life support systems. The Tinkerer has fixed them! Hurrah!"

"That means that everyone's life support systems will be working again as well. There's no longer any need to evacuate Nautilon."

"We no longer have to worry about finding a new home for all of the animals."

"Did I hear my name mentioned?" came a new voice to the conversation.

"Tinkerer?"

"I did hear my name mentioned," the elderly gentleman's voice appeared to smile.

"Thank goodness you're here. We need help."

"Well I'm not exactly here in the sense that you mean it."

Torr decided to ignore him and quickly outlined their situation.

"Hmmm," muttered the Tinkerer. "Tricky. There's not a lot I can do from here but there was something I did when you recovered the Second Celestial Secret that might help."

"There was?"

"Of course!" Nattie exclaimed,. "You boosted the power in the engines! You said something about the Eos being one of the fastest ships in space."

"That's right, young lady. You really do have a good memory."

Nattie beamed with pride.

"If you can just get ahead of the Nebulon III then you might be able to stay well ahead. Over short distances the Eos ought to be faster, it's only in long hauls that the Nebulon III will have the better staying power. The Eos should have enough edge on speed to get away this time."

"If we can just get ahead," repeated Torr, his voice declining into a whisper. "In that case we'd better get started straight away. Kiki, let's do it. Full speed launch!"

"From the bottom of the bay? From under the water?" gasped Nattie before her voice was drowned out.

"Exactly!" shouted Torr above the roar from the main engines. "No need to float when you can launch from where you are."

There was a large groan near the stern as the Eos' engines superheated the water around them in an instant. On a cloud of expanding gas the nimble spaceship leapt forwards, reaching the surface in an instant before breaking through like a lissom dolphin. Shooting from the waves, she climbed gracefully, and instead of falling back again she continued to rise on a column of steam and smoke, streaking away into the sky.

The watchers along the bay stared in surprise and amazement, jostling each other in astonishment. Professor Banx gasped in awe and then screamed in frustration as her hope of stealing the Celestial Secrets disappeared into the heavens towards the Asteroid's external doors. Whilst everyone else was shifting position to try and get a better view Professor Banx took a step backwards out of their way. She didn't like crowds.

Too late, she remembered the edge of the quayside.

Letting out a wail of panic she flailed backwards and fell into the bay. The advanced alien electronics along her arm mixed unpleasantly with the unsophisticated dirty water surrounding the Isle of Alvion with the usual outcome. With a soft fizz, the N dimensional inverter was instantly converted into a worthless pile of short circuited, heavy metal junk as the polluted liquid invaded every circuit. The unique and irreplaceable hybrid of human and alien technology was now almost exactly, but not quite totally, useless.

As the inverter's interior compartments filling with water and with no power to shunt the damaging liquid into another dimension, its weight started to drag Professor Banx downwards. With dismay she remembered that the quick release mechanism relied on the now useless electrical circuitry. Panic and fear gripped her. Drowning had suddenly become a distinct possibility.

From the Quayside Jimi heard the woman's falling shriek and instinctively dived to her rescue. With difficulty, he located her amidst the dark, unpleasant waters. She was still sinking and struggling to remove the large trench cloak and metal glove. Together they successfully released her arm from the heavy encumbrance and headed back to the surface.

Deep below, the Merfolk watched the heavy metal gauntlet sink softly downwards to lie amidst the other piles of refuse, another discarded gadget from the surface people. A merman carrying a sack full of rejected contraptions scooped up the broken device for recycling. There was bound to be a use for it somewhere. He could smelt the device down into its base metals. They would have some value.

On the Nebulon III the alert was sounded as soon as the Eos was seen heading skywards. Klaxons sounded and soldiers started rushing about, hurriedly trying to put away equipment they had only just unpacked.

Far above inside the Eos, Nattie, Fuzz ball and Torr were pinned to their crash couches by the force of their acceleration. With uncharacteristic ease the Eos deftly navigated the asteroid's external portal. But even before they finally left Nautilon behind them Nattie started to wonder about the future.

She wondered about the Merfolk and what might happen to them. They couldn't remain hidden forever. With the first stars beginning to twinkle at them through the Eos' observation window she made a silent wish. I hope I get to meet them again one day.

Maybe one day.

Chapter 25: A black hole?

Deep inside the Nebulon III sat enormous engines that, paradoxically, only created a fraction of the energy than the Eos', much smaller Neutrino, drive. Inside the Carthaginian battleship huge metal chambers tried to contain the vast energy generated from minutely controlled atomic explosions but succeeded in capturing only a tiny fraction of the available energy. Instead of harnessing most of the power, much of it was wasted, burning away in an explosion of light and sound. Inside the Eos' engines, however, the neutrinos induced a supernova like fission process without any of the waste from traditional atomic collisions. Neutrino's don't interact with themselves.

Comparing the two types of engine was like contrasting a hand pump with a jet turbine. But to everyone on the Eos their propulsion system was just another, overlooked example, of the Tinkerer's genius.

In the next berth along the quayside, Barney Brine stood on the deck of the Oceanius staring skywards after the Eos' diminishing vapour trail as the furious din of industry bubbled up from the interior of the Nebulon III.

He muttered to himself as he marvelled at the technology the children appeared to have at their disposal, "If only NAVCAN had access to it...".

Stepping lithely onboard he called to the first Mate, "Drinx! Drinx, we need to get ready to leave. We're going to need to keep a close tab on that ship."

Then he reflected on the better part of discretion and valour. "Better keep clear of the beast of a ship next to us though, I don't want to get in the way of that Carthaginian battleship taking off. One day, but not this one!"

"Aye, aye, Captain. Attention all hands, prepare for departure!"

Onboard the Carthaginian ship mechanics swarmed over the monolithic mechanisms, reviewing valves, releasing regulators, swearing oaths as the Chief Engineer screamed orders and imperfect instructions. The superheated sides of the Nebulon III hissed and bubbled like a witch's cauldron on the murky surface of Aquatica bay.

Then with a howl of tortured and twisted metal, she roared skywards so quickly that the water held an indented image of her hull for a moment. Milliseconds later, in realisation that the Nebulon III had actually gone, water rushed in to fill the gap with a slap and a gurgle, bucking the adjacent ships in the resulting swell.

On the dockside, Armitage Shanks was sharply brought back to reality by the deafening noise along with the echoing silence that filled the air following the ships' departure. With the Eos already gone and unlikely to return with the Nebulon III hot on her trail he was too late to see if there really was a connection between unresolved case file #43/d/81/x and young Torr Naydo. Perhaps he was related to the missing scientists?

Maybe now was the time to get the files back out and review the case once more. Conceivably, this final piece of information was the one that would crack the case wide open for him.

Also, it occurred to him, the young girl that had accompanied Mr. Naydo had a passing resemblance to young Jimi Scribble. Did she have the same webbed feet as Jimi? Shanks didn't think so. If they were related then there was something odd going on with their parentage. Were they half siblings, or cloned from the same gene pool? Possibly, there was something about that which was worth looking into as well. But how could he follow them? Where could he find a ship that might be going in the same direction?

He glanced up at the Oceanius, which loomed above him. Now all he needed was a disguise.

While his hands immediately engaged his brain started thinking about where the strange boy from the waterfront could be now. Suddenly, from right in front of him, as if on cue, a couple of people emerged, dripping from the water. It was with a modicum of surprise that he realised that it was young Jimi helping Professor Banx from the water. Well, that was one mystery resolved.

Professor Banx appeared much diminished without the weighty threat of the N dimensional inverter wedded to her arm and her recent dip had washed any maniacal defiance right out of her. Another tick off of his 'to do' list.

That made a total of three mysteries and one solution for the price of one. Of course, it might be coincidence that all four cases had arisen at the same time, but Armitage Shanks didn't believe in coincidences. It looked like the time and effort he had invested in Jimi and his potential friends hadn't been such a waste after all. If they were all part of the same case then this could be the big one.

Professor Banx lay spluttering in indignant frustration on the dockside in front of him, cursing the loss of the N dimensional inverter and along with it all of her dreams. Jimi shifted nervously next to Armitage Shanks.

"I'm sorry," muttered Jimi, looking down at his webbed toes. "There was something I needed to do."

"It's OK," replied Shanks. "I shouldn't have left you alone like that. It must have been quite a shock when you woke up."

Jimi smiled weekly and shrugged. "Doesn't matter now."

"No, it doesn't," replied Shanks. "Would you still be interested in my assistance?"

"Yes," answered Jimi, almost a little too quickly, the image of the girl's face still clearly imprinted on his memory. "I'd like you to help me find out about my past."

"You've come to the right place," pronounced the great detective. "You'll have to trust me but I've got something you need to do for me."

The two conspirators leaned closely together.

~o0o~

On board the Eos, the Merfolk were the main topic of discussion once more.

"I'm still worried about them," Nattie said quietly. "They're so vulnerable there at the bottom of Aquatica Bay. If the asteroid fails, they may never find out until much too late. And what about all of the fish and other animals?"

She was about to add 'and Minerva', before she remembered that the Cyberphin wasn't really a dolphin, she was more like a machine. Or was she? Nattie's brain spun. Was Minerva, real, did she need to be saved? Just because she was a hybrid of biology and cybernetics didn't mean that she was any less important in the great scheme of thing. Just where was the line between machine and mammal? Was Kiki any less real because he was an electrical intelligence?

The Tinkerer's intervention prevented a small frown of worry creasing her forehead.

"Well, thanks to you and Torr's bravery we don't need to worry about the asteroid failing any time soon," he said. His disembodied voice floated in the air as if he was in the next room. Whether he was nearby or on the other half of the solar system was impossible to tell.

"The Third Celestial Secret is back operating safely once more. Already the dark and muddy waters of Aquatica Bay are clearing. People are discarding their smog masks. The Merfolk and the marine animals are finding it easier to get around as well."

Nattie smiled and hugged Fuzz ball. Even Torr let out an inflated sigh of relief.

"Three down!" he yelled jubilantly for a moment, jumping to his feet and punching the air. But as his feet floated softly back to the deck, his brain started thinking ahead.

"Only three down."

"Only?"

"Yes, only three. All that we've done; the enormous distance we've travelled and after all of that, we've only recovered three of the secrets. That means there must be another four. We've recovered less than half of them. Less than half," he finished with a quail of despair in his voice.

"Will this ever be over so I can get on with finding my parents?"

He turned as if the Tinkerer was behind him, "Will I ever find my parents again. Are you really trying to help me, or are you just using me."

Nattie tugged at his arm, "Torr, don't!"

Torr pulled his sleeve free and shouted into the cabin, "Well?"

"Ah yes," mumbled the Tinkerer. "I was afraid that you were going to ask about that."

"See, I told you he was just leading us on," Torr hissed to Nattie with venom in his voice. "He hasn't been looking for my parents as he said he was. He's just looking out for himself. Just like everybody is."

Nattie didn't know what to say.

Fortunately the Tinkerer did.

"That's not what I mean Torr. I do have news about your parents, but it's not very happy news."

Torr felt his heart sink to his toes and start to seep out in a mucky puddle of dismay.

"I've managed to trace them towards the outer reaches of the solar system, somewhere near Saturn. Their path is clear as far as one of the moons of Saturn, but then it isn't so clear what might have happened next."

Despite the importance of what the Tinkerer was telling him, half of Torr's brain was now thinking about something else entirely. The moon's of Saturn. Wasn't Titan a moon of Saturn? Had his parents passed through the Gates of Titan?

"...a black hole. If they did then it would appear that the quest to recover the Celestial Secrets and the search for your parents are still heading in the same direction."

Torr wasn't sure what he had missed whilst his brain had wandered, "How?"

"One of the remaining four Celestial Secrets tracks and diverts black holes. If a black hole wandered through the area that humans have colonised the effects would be devastating. Even now, one could be hurtling towards us and we might never know until it was too late. Humanity needs that Celestial Secret before it becomes too late to divert the danger of any stray, wandering black hole passing through the densely populated areas of human space."

"Likewise," Nattie continued where he had finished. "If we can get our hands on the Celestial Secret that allows us to track black holes then we could use it to find out what happened..."

"...to my parents much more clearly," Torr finished the sentence for her.

Torr sat down once more and put his head in his hands.

"I guess you're right. I'll just have to do whatever it takes to find the fourth Celestial Secret and hope that this is the one that controls the black holes. It's the only way I'm going to be able to ever find my parents again."

No one disagreed.

It looked as if he was going to cry but Fuzz ball smothered him in her fur, so that if he did, no one would ever find out.

"I guess we ought to discover where the next one is so we can get this over and done with," Torr's muffled voice emerged from underneath Fuzz ball.

"I've expanded the ANP's Celestial Secret tracker so that it can cover all of them at the same time," announced the Tinkerer. "Look."

Torr persuaded Fuzz ball to climb off of his head and gazed over to where Nattie was sitting by the main display screen. The solar system was arrayed in front of them in dramatic 3D, impossibly appearing to float inside the cabin. Close enough to touch.

Within it, three bright points of light clustered around where the Tinkerer's satellite orbited the earth. The other four were spread amongst the asteroids that were scattered in a close ring around the sun.

"I guess any one of the four will do. They're all equally likely to be the right one."

"The closest, then?"

"The closest, then."

"The closest?" chirped in Kiki. "The closest it is!"

And with one of the largest battleships of the Carthaginian space navy hot on their trail, they turned their course towards the Fourth Celestial Secret.

But that is another tale for another book...

...to be continued in the 4th Secret.

An extract follows...

~o0o~
This is the end of the quest for 'The 3rd Secret' but the quest for the Celestial Secrets continues in 'The 4th Secret', which you can find the beginning of in the pages ahead.

(published by Oblique Media. https://www.oblique.media).

Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to leave a review at your favorite retailer. At the end of this section, you should find the beginning of the 4th Secret.

Thanks. :)

Robert Smithbury

All art and words by Robert Smithbury, except where credited. Visit Oblique Media (https://www.oblique.media) for further insight, stories and art from the Astro Saga.

If you want to know more about the Astro Saga and upcoming releases, please subscribe to my email list either at <https://www.oblique.media/subscribe> or send us an email at astro.saga.oblique.media@gmail.com from the email address you'd like to subscribe from.

Follow me on Instagram (robert.smithbury) mostly used for comic book commentary as well as everything connected with the Astro Saga artwork and get involved in choosing the focus of future stories when I ask the fan base for those. (2020 update is that I'm currently plotting the Faerielandz storyline so that's where most of the questions will arise as well as which versions of artwork to include in future editions).

Follow me on Facebook (Robert Smithbury) for all of the Instagram feed, upcoming events and general updates and more in depth conversations on futurism.

Most of the posts take place on Instagram and Facebook

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If you want to find out more about me, my books and artwork then visit <https://www.oblique.media/people> and follow the links from there. If you haven't already read my bio on Smashwords you might find this enjoyable.

Thanks to Pixabay and their contributors for many of the photographs incorporated into some of the artwork contained here.

Also thanks to Nasa for providing the map of the 'large asteroids across the solar system' used in the description of 'Living in an Asteroid', which I've clearly used as the basis for the same map of life in 2520.

Other books by Robert Smithbury also published by Oblique Media

https:\\\www.oblique.media

ASTRO SAGA

The Celestial Secrets

Already published or scheduled for publication

The 1st Secret

The 2nd Secret

The 3rd Secret

The 4th Secret

Which starts in a couple of pages

The 5th Secret

The 6th Secret

The 7th and Final Secrets

Further **Astro Saga** adventures

for future release

The Earth Series

Torr Naydo and the King of Earth

Torr Naydo and the Battle for Earth

The Casebook of Armitage Shanks

The Mysterious case of Un-Life

The Voyages of the Spaceship Oceanius

Underworld

Colony and Conflict

Kezin: Bio-Gene Agent

Kezin in deep

Kezin's Pride

Kezin, Dragon Lord

Faerielandz

Yet to be scheduled for publication

The Prophecy

The Hamster, the Explorers and the Fridge

Princess De Stiny

The Vision of the Dawn Together

The 4th Secret

There follows an extract from the 4th Secret, without the artwork to reduce the download size of the 3rd Secret.

The published versions of the novel (both printed and e-editions) include artwork.

It had to happen. In the world of the future, (mad) scientists have cracked the secret to breeding dragons and super-sized dinosaurs, leading to the ultimate clash between fantasy and pre-history. Amid the mayhem, the young crew of the Eos must scramble amongst the 'saurs' to find the fourth secret, for everyone's sake.

But things are never that simple. While growing up, every day can throw you a new angle and when pirates attack before you can grab breakfast...

The nail-biting fourth installment of the quest for the Celestial Secrets continues the Astro Saga, the light-hearted antidote to the pressures of growing up, mixing science, adventure and futuristic fantasy into an intoxicating concoction that will keep you turning the pages until the shocking climax.

'Groarrrrhhhhh!'

Soot, Black Dragon

'Technically we're half way through, but after what happened in The 3rd Secret, I'm still extremely worried that we might not live to see the end of this...',

Natalia Vodianova, speaking on the Grayam Thoughton show,

after being nominated for a Golden Globula for her part in the Celestial Secrets.

'We have to stop this now!'

Dr Wonderfoul, leading bio geneticist, speaking to 'Bio Genetics today'.

'This is...' Sara Blaine

'..all very...' Tara Blaine

'...EXCITING!', Kara Blaine

<extracted from the Blaine triplet twitterbookfeed>

The fourth instalment of the Celestial Secrets kicks off the action right from the start with a pirate attack that has Kiki arming the Ionic cannons. Or is it? In the Astro Saga, everything is not always as it first seems.

In the Saurox theme park, inside the asteroid of Triassica, the remaining crew members of the Eos search for Nattie. She's been kidnapped by an old enemy for unspeakable nefarious purposes and it's only a matter of time before her short career comes to a sticky end. The clock is ticking.

Introducing the Black Dragons, the Aztex empire's highly (ahem) trained fighting team of especially bred behemoths. Up against them are the genetically enhanced saurian inhabitants of the theme park and with the whole asteroid threatening to crack at the seams through excessive volcanic activity, it's anybody's guess who's going to come out of this one alive, (if anyone).

Remember, if you do read this one, you must keep the location of the secret pirate lair secret, or...

too late, they're at the door...

no... stop!

ENJOY

Prologue: The fallen egg

Tina, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, was temporarily ignoring the recent tremors beneath her huge hind claws. Instead, she stared up at the strange object that hurtled across the night sky on a trajectory straight towards her and her nest.

It burned a bright and angry blue, far more vivid than the long, aching, sulphurous glow of the volcanoes that belched continuous smoke and fire. This new celestial object potentially represented something much more dangerous and deadly, drawing a heavy line of distress in her direction. But that's for later.

With delicate sensitivity that was totally at odds with her ferocious expression, rows of razor sharp teeth and her enormous size she checked once more on her clutch of eggs and continued fretting. She'd deliberately set her nest up within this small cave to avoid the danger from meteor strikes. She'd done the best she could to protect them, and now this.

Unfortunately, she didn't have time to move any of them now. It looked like she was about to find out if she'd done enough. She'd just have to hope that they'd be okay. Being an expectant mother wasn't easy and maternal anxiety didn't sit comfortably with the T-Rex's normal sentiment of ferocity and all round bad-cussedness.

With a poorly disguised sense of emergency, she crooned and cooed at them, gently nuzzling them closer together, covering them under her huge bulk. It was a vain attempt to shelter them from the impact of the flying object. You could never tell. Inwardly she tensed her muscles and winced. This might hurt. Closing her eyes tightly she waited for the impact.

With an angry groan, the ground shook violently and a heavy shower of dirt sprayed across her. Roaring, she climbed precariously to her feet and staggered out onto the open ground in front of the cave.

Deep rooted, reverberating roars are the traditional way to deal with most problems if you're a T-Rex. Shouting also usually works as well. If not, throw in some ground stomping and a bit of charging. So far, it had worked every time for Tina.

After a couple more deep throated growls, she felt ready to face any impending danger with 100 tonnes of sinew, muscle and armour backed up by bone crushing jaws and cruel claws. When you're built like that it does amazing things to your self impressions of importance and invulnerability. You don't often meet a self-conscious, shy T-Rex and Tina definitely wasn't one of them.

Of course, whilst the body of a T Rex is huge and impressive, its brain is small and stupid. Hence the reason humans had grown Tina from a chain of dinosaur DNA and not the other way around. If dinosaurs had more brains, perhaps they'd be growing humans in their laboratories.

For Tina, growling, roaring, alert and ready to tear something, anything, to pieces for covering her with dirt, there was just one problem. There was no one there.

The space outside of the cave was totally devoid of life, as normal.

But something was different.

The landscape?

Yes, the landscape.

The ground now seemed to rear up in front of her, where before it had been flat. Yes, she was sure of it. There was a moderate ridge where before there had only been arid, flat, dirt surrounded by high-sided cliffs towering over a long, thin valley, covered in bones.

On the other side of this new ridge, a fire flared into life with thick, black smoke disappearing into the darkening dusk. The mother inside her hoped that the fire wouldn't spread. If it did, then she'd have to move her nest away quickly. Much easier said than done for a dinosaur with only residual forearms and a bite that could tear through an armoured pressure dome like wet tissue paper.

She growled low in her throat, mostly out of habit, but also from general dissatisfaction with her life. There was no alternative. She'd have to go and check out the fire and see if it was likely to spread. Calling for her mate, Timothy, to watch carefully over her eggs whilst she was away, she hurried around the edge of the crater.

Cresting the ridge, she gazed down into the impact site of tangled and twisted metal. She was in luck; the fire was already showing signs of going out. Tentatively she poked around disinterestedly at some of the smouldering wreckage.

Looking more closely, she could see that a human lay amidst the smoking debris. Her heart fluttered with panic for a moment. Was this a hunter's trap? Was he lying there in wait to satisfy her curiosity with a pointed, poisonous death?

No, he was clearly dead. The bottom part of his torso was missing and that bright red liquid that they were filled with was oozing out onto the dirt.

It was then that she saw something that made her own blood boil and set her nerve endings alight with rage. In his outstretched hands, he held an egg.

One of her eggs? It had to be. Where else would an egg come from here?

Hurrying to the scene before the egg became cold, she gently nudged it up the slope with her nose, trampling the fallen spaceman into a forgotten grave as she did. At the top, it rolled easily down the other side and she 'returned' it to her nest as quickly as she could.

Temporary relief flooded through her. All mothers have an in-built anxiety about their eggs. The fire flickered its last and Tina settled herself back into position.

Unfortunately, this momentary respite from a life of fretful stress wasn't to last. The soft sound of slowly beating wings advancing down the valley and slid into her consciousness. What now?

Twitching her thick neck backwards and forwards, searching the sky, she spotted the source of the annoying noise. A yellow dragon and its rider circled high above them, back lit by the remnants of the day, clinging to the sky against the sudden, encroaching storm.

She roared at it loudly for effect. Unless the rider was a hunter then they were in no danger from a single yellow dragon. Not even a sole black dragon would concern her. A thousand yellows or a dozen blacks maybe, but a single puny yellow one wouldn't be any threat to her and her clutch.

The rider was unlikely to be a hunter anyway. It was too far away. Hunters usually wanted to experience the risk of being up close to the kill on something as symbolic as a T-Rex. Shooting a Tyrannosaurus from the back of a yellow dragon circling high overhead was unlikely to be considered 'sporting'. It was far more 'honourable', for hunters to place themselves within charging distance, apparently. There was something exciting about felling a charging T-Rex as it thundered towards you. Bringing it crashing to the ground within touching distance of where you stood. Evidently that was 'honourable heroism'.

From close range there was less risk of the hunter's shot missing and breaking through the thick skin of the asteroid. Neither Tina, nor Timothy knew anything about the Celestial physics of asteroid habitation. They had absolutely no understanding of the thousand technical miracles that it took to create their special volcanic habitat inside the asteroid of Triassica. The hunters knew though and that was all that mattered. Supposedly something about self-preservation.

Personally, Tina didn't spare a lot of time for more advanced thinking and philosophy. Kill, eat, belch, sleep, kill eat, etc. etc. made much more sense.

She took one last hungry look at the circling dragon. Just let it come within reach and she'd dine on dragon wings for supper. Her stomach growled in hungry agreement. Fresh dragon wings were scrummy.

~o0o~

In close orbit alongside to the asteroid of Arronax was the Aztex Battle Cruiser, 'The Soul of the Conqueror'. Its commander, Lord Steal, agreed to take the urgent message from the Triassica dragon scout unit directly from his position on the bridge.

"Lord Steal, it is my extreme pleasure to inform you that we have tracked down one of the surviving mini ships from the Typhon. You were correct, it appears to have entered Triassica. Unfortunately, it crash landed in the Dinosaur park at Saurox before we could safely transfer off the Celestial Secret that was undoubtedly on board."

Lord Steal beamed with pride. He loved being right and even more so when someone else noticed it. He also felt elated that the Fourth Celestial Secret was almost within his grasp. Whilst the first three had eluded him by some unlucky and strange combination of luck and fate, the fourth would surely be his. He was so wrapped up in feeling delighted about his impending victory that he almost didn't hear what the scout said next.

"...crash landed and all of the occupants are confirmed dead. The Celestial Secret now appears to be in the possession of a pair of Tyrannosaurus Rex."

"Curses!" muttered Lord Steal, darkly. His thick brows knitted together and his grisly beard squirmed disgustingly.

"Well don't just stay there flapping your wings. Go down and get it off of them, you fool!" thundered Lord Steal in an uncharacteristic moment of weakness and compassion.

The scout quailed, "But...my lord...." he wailed.

"You have your orders!" raged Lord Steal. "Or do I have to think of another particularly unpleasant punishment that would be far more horrifying than unarmed wrestling with a ferocious dinosaur!"

There was only silence on the other end as far away, inside Triassica, the petrified dragon and rider circled lower. Eager eyed, the solider leaned as far forwards as he could. He gulped. If he could avoid a direct confrontation with the dinosaurs that would be preferable but at the moment he couldn't see anyway of recovering the Celestial Secret without going in and taking it.

Perhaps if he sneaked in whilst the dinosaur was looking the other way. That might work...

Lower and lower they glided.

Closer and closer, thought Tina as she looked the other way whilst simultaneously watching the dragon's descending shadow.

Just a little bit closer.

Lord Steal paced the bridge silently, waiting for news of success.

It came within a few minutes, but not in the way he had hoped.

"I'm afraid that we've lost contact with the yellow dragon scout," reported back the communications officer. "The signal has gone dead at the other end. It may just be a technical problem; the local weather's playing havoc with the gadgetry... but...."

Lord Steal raged in silence for more than a few microseconds during which time some of the junior officers on the bridge were sure that they could see steam coming out of his ears, or maybe his wiry beard was smouldering.

"I want our best flight of black dragons retrained for combat with T-Rex," he thundered. "I will create a black squadron that will recover the Celestial Secret stolen by those... those test tube reptiles!"

He paused for dramatic effect.

"Set a course for Triassica!"

"Aye, aye, Lord Steal."

Whilst the mighty warship accelerated across the solar system, the diminutive tyrant pondered and plotted, pounding his fists on the arm of the chair as he did so. He would create the most fearsome fighting force in the solar system, Lord Steal's Black Dragons!

He smiled an evil grin. He quite liked the sound of that but then he tended to like any title that had his name in it. And even if it didn't work it was such a cool sounding name that he could surely turn it into a successful business.

It was agreed then. This was a good plan!

~o0o~

Deep inside Triassica, Tina and Timothy enjoyed a good supper of fresh yellow dragon wings with a side order of ribs. It tasted good. So good that Timothy made a mental note to look out for another chance to try dragon and human sandwiches again.

Maybe more barbecue sauce next time?

Chapter 1: Pirates?

Torr was woken by the clamouring of klaxon alarms going off across his spaceship, the Eos. He leapt out of bed and half dressed, headed for the bridge.

Stumbling half naked into the room he jumped back behind the door as he realised that Nattie and Fuzz ball were already there ahead of him. They were the remaining, both female, members of the crew, (as long as you ignored Kiki, the slightly annoying, kid-friendly computer). Struggling into the rest of his clothes he edged back onto the bridge hoping that no one had noticed him previously. He was in luck.

"Kiki, cut the alarms out and tell me what all of the noise is about!" he shouted above the noise.

"Pirate attack!" announced the onboard computer with an arrogant personality overlay that was seriously too much for so early in the morning.

If you're a computer who doesn't need to sleep then you can get out of synch with your human companions.

At the word 'Pirate', the three of them instinctively ducked below the viewing ports.

"Pirates?!"

"Where?"

"About 35 degrees to port and slightly sunward of us. There's a tourist ship that appears to be under attack by... Well, you should take a look for yourself."

Kiki displayed an image of a small, but rather bloated ship sitting motionless against a backdrop of stars surrounded by a fantastical display of exploding lights bouncing off its crumbling shields. It looked like a perfect image of vulnerability. Impossibly from above, a much larger dragon shape swept through space on giant wings. Torr's mind boggled at the sight, struggling to make sense of the talons outstretched towards the smaller ship.

But Torr was getting used to dealing with the unusual and slightly surprising.

"Kiki, arm the Ionic cannons! Everyone, battle stations!"

"Battle stations? Battle stations? Where are our battle stations? No one has ever mentioned battle stations before. Have we discussed this? I don't recall discussing this."

"Nattie, shut up and get your space suit on."

Nattie glared at him and gave him a look that said, 'I'm going to have words to say about this later,' but did what he asked.

Fuzz ball, as usual, bumbled about cutely and tried not to get in the way whilst achieving totally, absolutely nothing.

The Eos accelerated with a lurch and swept forwards.

Torr was feeling grumpy; he had a thing about being woken by loud noises. It was going to feel good to take his foul mood out on some bad guys. He grabbed the controls of the ship's gunnery systems and sighted in on the swooping dragon. How was a dragon able to live in space anyway? He'd be doing reality a service.

Ignoring the question that continued to kick around at the back of his brain, he thumbed off the safety controls. If he could live knowing about space aliens, underwater monsters and evil empires he was sure it wouldn't hurt him to suspend disbelief long enough to deal with an extra-terrestrial flying lizard, a random improbability field, or something equally unbelievable.

"Kiki, give me full manual control," Torr commanded, releasing the safety catches.

"Torr, I don't think that's wise."

"I'm not asking you to think. Just do it."

If it was possible for a computer to sigh, Kiki sighed.

Once he'd felt the comforting tremor of the manual controls being handed over, Torr promptly sighted and fired, twice. There were two low thuds and a jolt before a couple of streaming lines of light burst from the sides of the Eos and raced across space towards their target.

In response, the dragon impossibly reversed direction and swept itself out of the line of fire. Instead, the two shots caught the space ship that was under attack with glancing blows and small blasts. There were detonations amidships that exploded in expanding balls of flame.

Torr had missed the dragon and hit the space ship instead.

"Stop! Stop! Why are you attacking us?" screamed a whining voice over the speakers.

Torr was speechless and stood there, open mouthed, at the controls. Nattie marched across and thumbed the safety catches back on again.

"Oh, well done! That was just sooo clever."

She switched on the communications channel.

"I'm very sorry, but there appears to have been some form of mistake. We were trying to hit the dragon that was attacking you."

"They're not attacking us! We're a tourist ship from Triassica and the 'pirate attack' is just a part of the show that we put on for our guests. It's not a real dragon, it's a dragon shaped spaceship, you fools! How could a real dragon live in space? It's just a spaceship called the Dragon's Storm."

Nattie glared at Torr, "Battle stations indeed..." she hissed quietly.

Torr looked away. His face was burning with embarrassment. But Kiki had said that the space ship was under attack!

"Well, you've damaged us now and we need to off board some passengers. Since you're the ones that have caused all of the trouble the least you could do is ferry some of our passengers back inside the asteroid whilst we make repairs."

"Of course," muttered Nattie, humiliated. "Kiki, please take us alongside and prepare to take on passengers."

~o0o~

A little later the three space ships were nestled together and Nattie, Fuzz ball along with a very reluctant, silent, Torr were onboard the Santa Anna, which was the name of the ship that they had thought was under attack. Everyone on board wore space suits while the crew struggled to restore air pressure in the damaged sections.

To Torr's dismay, Nattie had agreed to take seven passengers on board the Eos for transport to the inside of Triassica. Even worse, they were all young girls who seemed to have nothing better to do than point and giggle. His day was getting steadily worse.

On the plus side, there appeared to be an interesting conversation going on between the Captain of the Santa Anna and the Captain of the Dragon's Storm. The Captain of the dragon ship was a big, imposing woman in what could only be described as a wildly flamboyant space suit. Covered in crimson and white feathers, her thin legs poked out from a flurry of fluff, reminding him of a giant flamingo.

Torr nonchalantly tried to edge closer so he could hear more of what they were talking about. He still had a niggling feeling that something wasn't quite right here. Kiki had said there were pirates and whilst he was usually incredibly annoying he was also seldom wrong.

Torr could only make out small phrases of their conversation.

"...did you invite them on board..."

"...up appearances..."

"...ransomed them all..."

What were they talking about? Were the two captains conspiring in some fiendish plot together? Or was Torr just jumping to the wrong conclusions again? He didn't know anymore. He was confused and he already felt like a fool. Perhaps he was going mad. He'd heard that obscure fascinations with possible alien conspiracies could do that to you.

He tried to hide by edging behind Nattie before the Captain of the Dragon's Storm noticed him listening to her conversation. But he was too late, he'd already captured her attention.

"Hello my dears!" she simpered as she waddled up to them on those unfashionably long legs and wound her arms around their shoulders in an unnecessarily camaraderie fashion.

Fuzz ball tried to hide between their legs as the woman's voice boomed out in a commanding fashion.

"My name is Lady Lucretia Medea. I see you've caused a bit of a stir here. Never mind, I'm sure it can all be sorted out. Now, since these poor people don't have a working space ship anymore, if you would be so kind as to escort our guests to the Saurox Theme Park inside Triassica I'm sure that we can forget about the whole thing."

She smiled a false smile at them and hugged her hands together.

There must be millions of astrodollars worth of damage here, fretted Nattie suspiciously. Why were they so willing to ignore it and who was this weird woman to go around making these sort of promises? Nattie's suspicions were heading in the same direction as Torr's.

Medea, Medea? thought Torr. Where had he heard that name before? In buried memories of half finished stories, myths and deep, dark legends?

There was no use denying it any longer, both of their suspicions were aroused.

...continued in the 4th Secret.
