Ultimate Justice (2 page)

Momori's beans were a treat. It was a Wanulkan recipe that she had perfected over the years. No-one could make a bean dish like Grandma. That night they all slept well and the following day was a public holiday so they woke late.

The morning had begun with a thick mist but, by the time Jalli drew back the curtains of their cottage bedroom, the fog was clearing a little. Through the gentle whiteness her attention was drawn to a glow low down behind the tree in the middle of the front garden. She dismissed it with a shrug and turned away and headed for the little upstairs bathroom. As she washed her hands she pondered what she had seen and began to wonder. At first she had assumed that it was just a trick of sunlight on the fog, but hadn't it had a familiar feel?
Of course
, how could she have missed it? It was a white gate,
a white gate
of the sort that had brought them to Joh more than twenty years before – a portal between planets, galaxies and perhaps universes. She had given up all thought of seeing one again!

Jalli dried her face and quickly returned to the bedroom window. The mist was now lifting properly and the sun was breaking through. There it was, clear as any special white gate had ever been, in a part of the hedge that had not ever had a gate in it! Jalli roused Jack who was still enjoying not having to get up at the crack of dawn.

“Jack. Jack! I think I can… I
know
I can see a
white gate…
in the hedge behind the tree.”

“A… what?” exclaimed Jack, pulling himself up.

“You heard –
a white gate
.”

“A white gate? You're kidding.”

“Do I sound like I am kidding you?”

“No. Where?”

“Behind the tree.”

“We've never had a gate there – of any sort.”

“Precisely. It is completely new.”

“Take me to it,” ordered Jack.

“The grass is damp. Get your shoes on.” Jalli found her dressing-gown and her own shoes and they descended the stairs. Jalli led her husband across the lawn and around the tree. The gate was new, clean and bright. Jalli touched it and the feel of its shiny surface sent a powerful sense of nostalgia through her brain. Memories of the time before the children were born swept though her – the joys
and
the pain.

Jack stood waiting. He could neither see nor sense anything but the crisp scent of the hedge in front of him. Jalli took his hand and placed it on the top of the gate, but just like the last time when he was not called, his hand passed straight through it. All he felt was hedge.

“Are you sure you can see it?” he asked meekly.

“Sharp and solid, with a two-metre-long pathway that leads into some kind of building.”

“Any shed or clothes and things?” In the past there had often been ‘supplies' for the adventure – clothes, equipment, even bank notes laid out for them.

“There's a box here. Let me see… two pairs of blue overalls and caps to match.”

“Is that it?”

“Yes.”

Jalli held up the overalls. The larger of the two, however, was never going to fit Jack.

“This is definitely not for you!”

Jack held out his hand to feel the overalls.

“Then who?”

“That we are going to have to find out. But first let us get dressed and get some breakfast. I am not going anywhere without my Jack unless I have had at least a cup of hot, sweet tea.”

“I will put the kettle on and call the others.”

“When they have all eaten, we'll bring everyone out here and see who can see the gate. If we tell them what I can see before breakfast they'll never eat.”

“Especially Kakko. She has reactions faster than lightning.”

“I wish she would stop and think sometimes.”

“She will… one day.”

“When she is seventy-five – if she's lucky!”

There was a lot of grumbling when Jack and Jalli called everyone to the kitchen. Wasn't this supposed to be a holiday? But Jack told them that they had a surprise for them after they had finished their breakfast.

“What surprise?” said Kakko languidly.

“Just wait and see,” said her mother.

“Wait! Wait! It's always wait. ‘Kakko wait.' ‘Kakko take it slowly.' ‘Steady down Kakko!'”

“Well, if it's
always
‘wait' then it might be that I have a point.”

“But everyone's just so slow,” she grumbled.

“Who's slow?” asked Shaun. “I'm not. Dad said the surprise comes after breakfast and who's eating his breakfast instead of complaining?”

As usual, Bandi said nothing.

“Does this include us?” asked Matilda putting her head round the door. “Momori is not feeling so good.”

“I think you do need to come,” said Jalli.

“Right you are. Tell us when you are ready.”

Kakko slurped the last of her cereal and declared, “Finished!”

“Wait until your brothers have finished theirs,” said her mother. “Go and call Nan and Grandma.”

“Wait. Wwaa-ii-tt! It's always ‘wait'… Oh, come on you two.” She went and called her grandparents who followed her back into the dining room.

Bandi sat up ready. Shaun took up his glass of juice very deliberately and slowly to annoy his sister. But Jalli ignored this and began.

“OK. This morning I have noticed a new white gate in the garden.”

“So …?” began Kakko. And then the penny dropped. “A
white gate
! Like the ones you had when you were having your adventures?”

“Precisely.”

“Cool. Will we all be able to see it?”

“That is the thing,” replied Jack. “There are only clothes for two. We were always given the things we needed for our visits. It is therefore likely that only two are invited.”

“So you're going on an adventure!” blurted Kakko.

“
I'm
not,” stated Jack. “The gate is not there for me. For your mother, but not for me.”

“So who is the other person?” quizzed Kakko.

“That is what we are now going to find out,” said Jalli. “Follow me.”

Kakko didn't wait to follow but rushed out of the front door and headed for the main gate. Jalli took no notice of her and led the others behind the tree.

“Where?” asked Matilda.

Jalli stepped forward towards the gate and turned round. There was a look of puzzlement on the faces of everyone. Kakko had, by this time, realised she had headed in the wrong direction and came bounding over and, sure enough, there it was, the white gate. A new, shiny white gate was in a part of the hedge that had never had a gate. Beyond the hedge was an open field which sometimes had animals in it but now the hedge seemed much thicker and there was no sign of the field beyond it. The odd thing was that the world seemed to kind of fold in on itself above the gate. It was so strange. Kakko stood stunned for several seconds.

One by one everyone turned to look at Kakko – her silence was so unusual that it drew attention to her. All she could say was, “Cool!”

“So it's you, Kakko,” said her father. “It seems, then, that you are the one chosen to look after your mother.”

“Wherever this leads,” said Jalli, “it appears that the Creator has a job for Kakko.”

The larger set of overalls fitted Kakko perfectly. They put them on, together with the tight fitting caps. They looked so out of place that even Bandi couldn't stop giggling. Jalli took hold of the gate to unlatch it, but it refused to move.

“It's stuck,” announced Jalli.

“Let me, Mum!” said Kakko exasperated, pushing her mother roughly to one side.

“Kakko!” hissed Jalli. Jalli was becoming alarmed at taking this headstrong girl with her into what was going to be a strange and different world. “When you go between planets you need to do it sensitively. Think about the people on the other side!”

But she need not have worried just then. The gate remained tightly shut. Jack was listening carefully, analysing the situation.

“You have a white gate and you have the appropriate clothes. Have you put them all on? Have you missed anything?” he asked.

“There are only two items each,” said Jalli as she checked the grass for anything smaller they'd missed. “I can't see anything else.”

“Overalls and caps. Could be a factory. Let me feel them.” Jack ran his hands over Jalli. “Ah. I think I know. This cap is meant to contain all your hair. There could be machinery or something.”

“Of course,” said Kakko. “I should have thought of that. We do that in the college workshop.”

“Right,” said Jalli. “Kakko, if you know about these things, stop and think please.”

“OK. OK,” Kakko sighed.

They took off the caps and Momori and Matilda helped them gather their hair and enclose it inside them.

“Now you look the part!” declared Matilda.

Jalli tried the gate. The latch was free and the gate opened. She turned and reached for Jack.

“I'll miss you.”

“You'll be too busy to worry about me. Now you had better go. Kakko come here!”

Jack gathered Kakko in his arms and cuddled her to him. “You look after your mum. Look after her like I would!”

“Yeah, Dad. I'll try…”

They all gave the departing couple appropriate cuddles. Momori lingered over Jalli. She looked tired.

“I wish you weren't going,” she said, and added, “but then I never did want you to go anywhere for myself, so don't mind an old fool like me. You have your adventure girl. Have fun!”

“Yay,
fun
!” laughed Kakko.

“Come on, let's go,” breathed Jalli. “Before I change my mind.”

***

Jalli and Kakko found themselves inside a large storeroom of some kind. It had a high corrugated iron roof with a skylight. It was piled up with wooden crates on pallets. There was a forklift truck parked in one corner. It looked like a loading bay because all down one side were roller shutters right to the ground and, on the other, some large, plastic swing doors. Inside the room it was quiet but there was a steady hum from another area somewhere beyond, and the sound of traffic outside. There was not, however, any sign of people.

Kakko examined the crates. She tried to lift one of them but, although it measured no more than sixty centimetres in width and length, and thirty centimetres deep, it was far too heavy for her. Jalli studied the crates which bore what looked like a danger symbol and a picture of the contents. She had seen something similar before. Where? Then it flooded back to her. She recalled Mr. Somaf showing her a land mine in Tolfanland. That one had been disarmed but he had shown her it to warn her what lay all around his house. It had been one such devise that had killed four soldiers while she and Jack had been there. (Although she had not seen the dead bodies herself, Jack had given her a graphic description.) Whatever you thought of the necessity of war, these weapons were unethical, Jalli had declared. But Jalli had long since concluded that war did not solve anything in the long term anyway, there were far more effective ways of tackling arguments and misunderstandings. The histories of both her planet and that of Earth One were testimony to that.

“Be careful,” said Jalli in horror. “I know what these are. They are land mines. This room is full of high explosive weapons, enough to blow up a small town I should guess.”

“What are we supposed to do?” asked Kakko.

“Proceed with caution. Let's go through those doors. It'll become clear what our task is when we find someone.”

The two women pushed carefully though the plastic doors. Immediately outside was a little glass cubicle with a man in blue overalls, like theirs, seated on a swivel chair, reading a newspaper.

“What? Have you just come through from the loading bay?”

“Er… yes,” croaked Jalli.

“How did you get in there?”

“Er… it's our first day in this department. We were looking for the er… ladies.”

“The toilets? In there?”

“Yes – but it's the wrong door.”

“You don't say! Can't you read? It says quite clearly, ‘No unauthorised entry'. Are you authorised?”

“No.”

“No, you're not. How you got by me, I don't know. The toilets, ladies, are over the far side… by the canteen.”

“Thanks,” muttered Jalli.

“Sorry,” said Kakko. She was used to saying sorry.

The man shrugged and they walked across a large workshop with benches upon benches with men and women (mostly women) assembling what looked like bombs and armoured shells.

“A munitions factory for sure,” observed Jalli.

They made their way towards a sign which said, ‘Canteen' in case the man was watching them, but he had long since reverted to his newspaper. A woman in front them pushed a door into the ladies' toilets. Jalli looked at Kakko and followed her. “Listen,” whispered Jalli, “and learn.” They each took a cubicle and listened to the conversation between the women at the wash basins.

“That sod of a section boss has got really stroppy since last week. He's really down on anyone who supported the union.”

“I didn't go along with anything. Not any of the protests myself, but he's just so cocky now. Reckons he's a special friend of Big Plo.”

“All we asked for was proper safety procedures.”

“Yeah, but that evacuation drill occupied most of the morning. It's rumoured that Big Plo has ordered that we all work an extra shift to make up for lost production.”

“And whatever he says, goes. The company has us all trapped. Me and my hubby, we tried to find somewhere of our own but with what they pay us we will have to live in a company flat for ever… Going to eat?” she asked as they stood at the drier.

“Yes. Company food. Can't afford anything else.”

“Modern day slavery, that's what I call it!”