Martin King and the Prison of Ice (Martin King Series) (6 page)

“Darcy. Your
bag please.”

She passed her
bag to Martin, and he took out the Coincidence Machine. Harvey’s eyes lit up.

“What’s that
contraption?” he said.

“This is a
Coincidence Machine,” said Martin. “It was given to us by an Axis Lord called
Dr Ackerman.”

Harvey took the
cube and held it with both hands.

“Interesting,”
said Harvey. “What does it do?”

“It gives you
good luck. But it’s pretty random. It doesn’t work all the time.”

Harvey looked like
an excited little boy in a sweet shop. The man took a coin from his pocket and
tossed it into the air. The machine made a clicking sound. Harvey tried to
catch the coin but it dropped to the floor. The businessman crouched to pick it
up. The coin had landed on its edge, right next to another shiny object.

“It’s my
cufflink!” said Harvey, picking up the coin along with his gold cufflink. “I
lost that stupid thing weeks ago… guess this thing really
is
what you
say. It’s incredible.”

“So you’ll
swap?” said Tommy.

Harvey smiled.

“You’ve got
yourselves a deal. Let me get the key for this case…”

“The British and American
governments are stockpiling arms. Russia has apparently cut off all diplomatic
channels to Britain and the USA. There are widespread fears of an outbreak of
war…”

Martin watched
the TV report. If only the governments knew about the real enemy—the fleet of
ships heading towards Earth. He picked up the recall device and held it up to
his eye. He needed to activate the device… but how? Why couldn’t alien
technology ever come with an instruction manual? Martin took the Truthful Eye
from his pocket and looked at the recall device through it. It looked exactly
the same. He sighed.

“What’s that?”
said his dad.

Martin hadn’t
seen him come into the living room. He hid the recall device under a cushion.

“Nothing,” said
Martin, unconvincingly.

His dad smiled
slightly. “Well, you’re entitled to have secrets. Everybody has them. I’ll give
you a couple of minutes.”

Martin’s dad
walked back out of the room and Martin stuffed the recall device into his
trouser pocket. There had to be some way to make it work—they
had
to
summon Abaddon before the ships arrived on Earth.

Martin glanced
at the news report again and shook his head. Whoever the aliens were, he was
sure that they would have a lot more firepower than Russia, America and Britain
combined.

His phone rang;
he glanced at the screen. It was a number he didn’t recognise. Martin answered
the call.

“Hello,
Martin,” said a very familiar voice. “How are you?”

Martin could
hardly believe it. It had been over two years since he had last seen his old
maths teacher.

“Mr Slater?”

“Yes, this is
Michael Slater. I know about the ships.”

“Oh.”

“We need to do
something,” said Slater. “I do not know who they are, or what they want, but I
am worried.”

“I know,” said
Martin. “In fact, I’ve managed to get hold of something that might help. It’s a
recall device for a warrior called Abaddon. I don’t know whether you’ve heard
of him.”

“Of course I
have,” said the teacher. “I assume that you have not been able to activate it?”

“No,” Martin
admitted.

“Well, I might
be able to help you. Can you meet me with Tommy and Darcy?”

“Yeah,” said
Martin. “Tommy’s in Italy for a few more days, but me and Darcy will definitely
come. Where do you want to meet us?

*

Martin and Darcy were standing
in a field. The sun was intensely hot, and the grass had faded to yellow. A dog
was barking somewhere in the distance, and Martin’s tongue felt like sandpaper.
They had been walking for what seemed like over an hour, and Martin had
forgotten to bring any water.

“I hope he
hurries up,” said Darcy.

They sat down
on the dry grass and waited. Darcy raised a hand towards the grass and a jet of
fire shot from her fingertips. The dry grass caught fire and the orange flames
quickly began to spread, hissing and crackling.

“What the hell
are you doing?” said Martin.

He took off his
thin jacket and threw it onto the flames, stamping out the fire. Darcy just
watched. Eventually, he managed to extinguish the flames.

“Don’t sweat
it,” said Darcy, grinning, as Martin mopped his brow with his arm.

He looked at
Darcy and frowned. Something was different about her. She had been acting so
strangely recently. It was almost as if something was
wrong
with her.

At that moment,
the sound of a powerful engine filled the air. Martin looked up, squinting in
the sunlight, and saw the ship. It looked like a helicopter at first, but as it
got closer Martin could see that it was Mr Slater’s spaceship—
Valiant Star
.
The ship was Victorian in design; it was sleek and elegant and covered with a
golden floral motif.

The ship landed
on the dry grass. The door opened, and a white-haired man stepped out. He was
wearing a linen jacket, and looked even older than the last time Martin had
seen him.

“Good
afternoon,” said Mr Slater. “Lovely day. Why don’t you come in?”

*

Martin and Darcy were sitting in
leather wingback armchairs in
Valiant Star
’s luxurious lounge. The ship
was—thankfully—air-conditioned, and they were sipping iced tea. Mr Slater sat
smoking endless cigarettes as they talked.

“You’ll take
years off your life doing that,” said Darcy.

Slater smiled.
“Will I?”

“
You
told us,” she said, “when you took our class for Biology as a cover teacher,
remember? You said that just one packet of cigarettes will cut a week off your
life.”

“Well, do not
believe everything you hear,” said Slater, his purple eyes twinkling. “Even if
the words do come from an old Axis Lord.” He paused. “Well, can I see it?”

Martin pulled
out the recall device. Mr Slater took a loupe from his pocket and examined it.

“Remarkable,”
he said. He turned to the teenagers. “How did you find out about this device?”

“An Axis Lord
called Howell told us,” said Martin.

“Ah.” Slater
paused. “Yes, Howell is an acquaintance of mine. But how did he find you? You
were supposed to be hidden from detection.”

“He got to Dr
Ackerman,” explained Darcy.

“I see…”

Mr Slater fell
silent, surveying the blue prism through his loupe. Inside, the tiny light was glowing
faintly.

“The power
source inside the device has become very weak,” said Slater. “It will not be
strong enough to send a signal to Abaddon.”

“Can’t we boost
it somehow?” said Darcy.

“This is very
old technology,” said Mr Slater. “A recall device like this hasn’t been seen
for thousands of years.”

“There must be
something we can do,” said Martin.

“Imagine, for a
second, that it is the year 10,000 on Earth. Do you think it would be possible
to find technology capable of reading a floppy disk?”

Martin sighed. “I
see what you mean. So it’s hopeless?”

“I did not say
that. As luck would have it, I have already considered the possibility that the
recall device was faulty. I believe that I have a solution.”

Mr Slater
pulled out his pocket watch and activated a few tiny switches.
Valiant Star
,
with a roar of engines, began to move.

“I have been
meaning to set up the remote activation for a long time,” said Slater, smiling.
“Let me just check the coordinates…”

Darcy looked
out of a circular window; the clouds were rushing past vertically. They were
travelling
upwards
.

“Where are we
going?” said Darcy.

“The Planet
Wormwood.” Slater laughed. “Well, the official Axis designation is Planet
9320B, but the first colonists called it Wormwood.”

Mr Slater took
out another cigarette and lit it. He took a deep drag, and faced Martin and
Darcy.

“A few hundred
years ago, the Axis Lords were using Wormwood as their main communications hub.
The planet lies almost directly in the centre of the Blue galaxy, so it was a
convenient spot. All communications were channelled through the planet—it was a
sort of relay station. However, one day the Axis Council announced that
Wormwood was no longer to function as a communications base. The circumstances surrounding
the closure are shrouded in mystery, but it is well-known that none of the Axis
Lord workers ever left the planet.”

Darcy
swallowed. “So something killed them?”

“Perhaps,
Darcy, perhaps. And I must warn you that visiting Wormwood is likely to be
extremely dangerous. If it were not for the approaching ships, I would never
ask you.”

Martin paused.
“So, I assume that Wormwood is still hooked up to the Axis communications
network? All we need to do is connect the recall device and we can use the Axis
network to send a signal to Abaddon?”

“I could not
have put it better myself,” said Mr Slater, smiling. “Oh, you might want to see
this. We are about to break through Earth’s atmosphere.”

Martin and
Darcy jumped up and approached the window. They were high above the clouds.
Suddenly, they were in space. The ship climbed higher and the Earth beneath
them became smaller.

Martin gazed
out. “It’s beautiful.”

Mr Slater, who
hadn’t gotten out of his armchair, smiled.

“Yes, it
certainly is.”

Darcy looked
down at the Earth. Now it was barely visible—nothing but a blue and green
marble floating in space.

*

Planet Wormwood was darkening
when
Valiant Star
landed. The ship door opened, and Mr Slater climbed
out, followed by Martin and Darcy. Alien birds were singing in the thick
jungle, and strange insects were chirping in the undergrowth. Martin could hear
the burble of nearby water. Darcy glanced around at the jungle. It was so…
fresh, so untouched. The air smelled wild and exotic. The last few slivers of
sunshine were pushing through gaps in the canopy.

“It’s almost
night-time,” said Mr Slater. “I always seem to get the timing wrong.” He
paused. “That’s interstellar travel for you—jetlag like no other.”

Martin grinned.
His old teacher seemed much happier, much more relaxed, now that he had left
Gateway School.

“It’s good to
see you again, sir,” said Martin.

“Likewise. But
please—enough of the
sir
. Michael is my name, or at least, my human
name.”

It was always
weird when you met teachers when they weren’t teachers anymore. And it always
felt strange to call them by their first name.

Mr Slater
walked around in a wide circle over the soft ground composed of decomposing
plant life.

“We can sleep
in this clearing,” said Mr Slater. “It seems safe, but the jungle can be a
trickster. One of us must keep watch at all times.”

Darcy glanced
at
Valiant Star
. “Can’t we just sleep in the ship?”

“If you like,
but I would rather sleep out here.”

Martin held
Darcy’s hand. “So would I.”

Darcy glanced
around at the dark jungle. It seemed so mysterious, so inexplicable. But she knew
that Martin really wanted to sleep outside.

“I suppose…”

Darcy tailed
off. A strange feeling came over her. Something was happening to her. It was as
if someone was taking hold of her mind. It had happened a few times before—the
time she had brought Tyler to Martin’s flat, the time she kissed the guard, the
time she had set fire to the grass… but she had been too scared to tell Martin
the truth. Now someone was taking control of her mind again—

“I’ll sleep
inside,” said Darcy suddenly. “You can sleep in this horrible place if you
really want to.”

And with that,
she marched back inside the ship. It wasn’t actually
her
doing the
marching. It was as if someone had actually seized control of her limbs.

“Is something
the matter with her?” said Mr Slater. “I do not pretend to be an expert on
human behaviour, but she seems to be acting rather strangely.”

Martin sighed.
He had been worrying about the same thing. Darcy
had
been different
lately. And he was scared that it meant she didn’t love him anymore.

“I don’t know,”
he said, shrugging. “I’ve tried to ask her if anything’s wrong, but she just
says that she’s fine.”

They fell
silent for a few seconds. Then Michael Slater pulled a tiny capsule from his
pocket.

“Watch this,”
he said, squeezing the capsule between his fingers.

The capsule
suddenly began to expand. Slater dropped it onto the jungle floor as it got
bigger and bigger. Eventually, it had grown into a kind of mattress with a
duvet cover attached.

“Here you go,”
said Slater, handing Martin another capsule.

Martin
activated it, and another bed had appeared within a few seconds. Martin and his
old teacher lied back, listening to the sounds of the jungle as the final light
rays faded.

They both sat
up when they heard the main door of
Valiant Star
open. Darcy was walking
towards them, carrying a tray of three steaming mugs. She had gained control
over her consciousness again. But what had actually happened? Had someone
actually taken control over her? It was a terrifying thought. She knew she
should tell Martin, but she knew he would panic.

“Sorry about
earlier,” she said. “I made some hot chocolate.”

Martin stood up
and walked over to Darcy. He took the tray, put it down, and hugged her.

“If anything
I’ve done to upset you, I’m sorry,” Martin whispered in her ear.