Will's Galactic Adventure (3 page)

Slowly at first, then with more confidence as she stopped worrying about her oath and got more wrapped up in what she was saying, Mavis began to tell her story.

“Let me start by asking you a question, Will. Suppose you were being bothered by troublesome aliens. Suppose you found out that they were trying to do something horrible to the Earth. What would you do?”

“Well, er, I don't know. Tell someone, I suppose.”

“Who would you tell?”

Will thought about that for a minute. Who would believe him if he came up with a story like that? He smiled to himself as he imagined the scene if he tried to convince Mr Frobisher that he was being chased by aliens. ‘You should get out more Will. Too much time playing with computer games and not enough time spent in the real world. Why, when I was your age there was nothing I liked better than a brisk tramp over the hills. Get some fresh air into your lungs and take in the majesty of nature. Much more healthy than those silly games!'

“Well, Will, who would you tell?”

Will's attention was snapped back to the present. “Oh, er, a policeman. Perhaps.”

“That's not a bad answer but do you think that a policeman would believe you?”

“No, not really.”

“I think you're right. Anyway, policemen have got enough to do catching ordinary criminals never mind worrying about intergalactic troublemakers. There's another problem too. I expect you have been on outings to unfamiliar towns now and then. Try this for me: think of somewhere that you have been then tell me where the police station was.”

Will looked blank.

“Exactly! Never obvious in the middle of town are they? Always down some seedy back street away from the shops. Come to that, how often do you actually see a policeman wandering about? Not that often, and I can tell you that you NEVER see one when you are being chased by an alien. Outside of town it's even worse. How often do you see a policeman out in the country? It's not just on Earth of course. It's just the same on all the inhabited planets.”

Will felt a tingle go up his spine at the casual way Mavis mentioned ‘all the inhabited planets'. Was he going to see some of them? Where were they? What did all the aliens look like?

Mavis continued without giving Will the opportunity to interrupt her story with all the other questions that were bubbling up inside his head. “No, policemen do a good job with Earth-bound criminals but for intergalactic ones something else was needed. There had to be places that anyone who knew about the intergalactic criminals could go for help. The places needed to be inconspicuous, disguised so as not to worry anyone who didn't know about why they were there, but they needed to be obvious to anyone who did know about them and wanted to use them. Also, there needed to be lots of them. All over the place – in the cities, in the towns out in the country. A lot of thought went into deciding how this could be done. In the end a decision was reached that would work on all the known planets.”

Mavis paused for dramatic effect. It worked because Will asked: “Tell me then. What was the decision?”

“Tea shops!”

“Tea shops?” Will couldn't believe his ears. Some sort of war against alien criminals was being fought from tea shops?

“That's right. Not necessarily tea, as such, on all the planets of course. Only Earth has tea. Well not quite only Earth. They have set up some tea plantations on Grooble, a small planet in a solar system a bit further out in this arm of the galaxy.”

“An' very grateful for my ‘elp wiv that they was too.” This was Spiv from, as ever, somewhere behind. “'Ardly made anyfink for meself out of it, too. Done it out of the kindness of my ‘eart, I did.”

Will ignored him. “Grooble…?”

“Yes,” replied Spiv, who didn't sound as if he was going to be ignored. “It means ‘Earth' in Grooblish. All names of planets mean ‘Earth' in whatever language the planet uses. First rule of learning languages, that is. I should know – know hundreds, I do.”

“ALL RIGHT, Spiv, let me get on with my story. Where was I? Oh yes. Most planets don't have tea but they all have something similar, something that they can have a nice cup of in the afternoon while they give their feet a rest and let Granny catch her breath.”

“Let me get this right,” said Will. “Are you telling me that all the tea shops in England, or Wales, or…” and he hesitated a bit at this point, “in the galaxy, all these tea shops are really there to fight these criminals?”

“No of course not all of them; just some of them. Well, quite a lot of them really. The ones with the Ninja Tea Shop Ladies.”

“I've never seen anyone dressed like you in a tea shop. I think I would have noticed, what with the ninja suit and everything.”

“We don't dress like this all the time. That would be silly. We'd get crumbs all down it for one thing. We only wear this when we are out on a special mission. Usually only those who know the secret – the secret that we swear to keep in our oath…” at this point she gave a sideways look through the folds of her silk head-dress at Drych, “… only those who know the secret of how to recognise us can actually work out who we are.”

Will couldn't wait. “What's the secret?”

“Black,” answered Spiv before Mavis could get a word in. “They wear something black.”

“SPIV! It's supposed to be a secret. I have sworn on the oath…”

“Mavis, ‘es a bright lad and ‘e would ‘ave worked it out for hisself in about ten seconds!”

“Furthermore,” added Drych, who had been silent up to this point, “since Spiv told Will, you haven't broken your oath, have you?”

“See? Can't argue with that can you?” came Spiv's smug voice. Before Mavis could get a word in he continued. “They don't wear the full kit but they always wear something black: black skirt, black trousers, black top. In fact, I've been quite helpful to them there, even if I do say so meself. I can get hold of quite a range of black waitressing apparel to fit all sizes at very reasonable prices, see. Miss out the middle man. Get the stuff straight from the manufacturer. As luck would ‘ave it, ‘e went broke so I got the gear at cost price and did them a really good deal.”

Will didn't want to get side-tracked with more of Spiv's wheeling and dealing. “Are you telling me that every waitress in a tea shop who wears something black is one of your intergalactic police force?”

“Well, no. Of course not all of them,” replied Mavis. “We can't actually stop anyone wearing black if they want to. If we tried that we would have to tell them why and that would sort of defeat the object, wouldn't it? I mean, if we told them then they would know about us and once they knew about us they would sort of have to be one of us, wouldn't they? I mean, they'd be in on the secret and have to take the oath and…” Mavis was starting to tie herself in knots with the logic of this argument so she finished weakly, “But they're not all suitable, so we can't tell them. Oh, and we're not really a police force. We just, sort of, help.”

“OK,” said Will slowly. “If you're a Ninja Tea Shop Lady, why are you here in a spaceship with a dragon and, and…” He couldn't think of the words to describe Spiv.

“Wiv, me you mean? Intergalactic entrepreneur, raconteur and wit. Also gourmand and bon vivant.” Then changing tack, “And you too of course. Don't forget you're here too.”

Will was hardly about to forget that.

Mavis continued her story. “The reason I'm here and not back in my tea shop is that I'm on the trail of two dangerous troublemakers.”

“The same ones that Spiv is chasing, or who are chasing Spiv, or whatever?” asked Will.

“Yes. Now, all of you, let me tell the story. It started a couple of weeks ago back in my tea shop. ‘Celtic Cooking', it's called. Actually, we're branching out a bit. Not doing just teas anymore. We've got a couple of local artists who hang paintings on our wall and there's a chap who makes amusing items out of driftwood. All very artistic. When we started selling the paintings and the wooden carvings they took off very well, very popular with the visitors, so we bought in some other things too. All tasteful handmade items, you understand, none of that plastic tat. And books. Local guidebooks, animals, Victorian recipes, that sort of thing. All starting to pick up rather well actually. Lavender bags too. And shortbread in pretty tins. Oh, and there's a rack of jewellery that a nice lady in the next village makes out of all sorts of odds and ends.” Mavis' eyes, at least, what Will could see of them through the folds of silk, started to glaze over as her thoughts wandered back to her shop. “Thinking of changing the name of the place to ‘Celtic Cooking and Crafts'. Give people a better idea of what they'll find inside.”

“Doesn't sound very much as if it has anything to do with dangerous aliens,” Will suggested tactfully.

“What? Oh, no. That wasn't the problem at all. My suspicions were aroused by two chaps, middle-aged men, who came in one afternoon. One of them wanted a cream tea, the other wanted a toasted teacake.” Mavis paused, as if for effect after having made some great revelation. It was wasted on Will.

“Doesn't sound very, er, criminal,” he ventured.

“Not criminal! I think you've missed the point. The one who wanted the cream tea, he wanted cream AND BUTTER with his scone! American tourists expect that sometimes but you have to make allowances for them because they don't know any better. These chaps though, they weren't Americans. You can tell, you know. It's the accent mostly. And the clothes. Tea ladies are very good at spotting those sorts of things, even the ordinary ones, the ones who haven't done the Ninja Tea Shop Lady training. To make it worse, the thing that really convinced me, was that he wanted MARMALADE, not strawberry jam, with his cream tea. His friend, the one with the teacake, he was just as bad. Wanted coffee! Coffee with a teacake! I ask you! What sort of sense does that make?”

“So on the basis of these, er, dietary peculiarities you decided that these people were intergalactic criminals.”

“Absolutely! That's not always how they give themselves away though. Sometimes they come in pretending to be children. Tea shop ladies are often suspicious of children.”

In the past, Will had noticed this for himself. You would expect that ladies in tea shops would be OK with children. Most of them looked like grannies, or mums anyway. But usually they weren't that friendly. Often they scowled at children, especially when the children were getting bored and starting to play with the sugar basin or making floppy paper aeroplanes out of the serviettes. Very often they seemed to disapprove when someone ordered a child a squishy cake. Sometimes there were even notices telling children not to run around, or rather, telling parents not to let their children run around. Will had always thought that was because the tea shop ladies didn't want orange juice spilled all over the tablecloths or jammy fingerprints on the walls – but now it all made a different sort of sense.

“Anyway,” Mavis was saying, “as soon as Cream Tea and Teacake had paid and left the shop, in no time at all I had called for a dragon ship and was off after them.”

“They paid, then, these intergalactic criminals?”

“Oh yes. They try not to give themselves away with silly little crimes that would get the local police involved. It's the trade between worlds that they are trying to disrupt so that they can take over and make a profit. Tea shops are too small for them to bother about. That's another reason why tea shops were such a brilliant idea as places to fight them from.”

“I suppose that this ship,
Brenda
, was the dragon ship that you called?”

“Yes. As luck would have it Drych and Spiv were already after the same pair. That business about the proton disrupter cannons that we told you about. When my message got through they came and picked me up and here we are.”

“Not quite, surely?” corrected Will. “When I came along you had crashed in Wales.”

“Not crashed,” said Drych, “we landed safely enough. The criminals have a way of damaging our…” he hesitated, “you know, the equipment that we replaced by using your phone. They have a sort of force field that, er, oh dear, this is very complicated. The point is that they caused us some damage to slow us down but now it's fixed and they won't catch us that way again. If I'm not mistaken we will be coming back from hyperspace into normal space in a couple of minutes. I suggest that we end the story there and get ready to see what is happening outside when we return to normal space.”

There was a gentle ‘pop' as the dragon ship
Brenda
, along with all her contents, returned to normal space. At the same time the screen on the control room wall lit up again. Will caught a glimpse of something that he couldn't recognise before there was a much louder ‘BOOM' and the room seemed to go upside down and inside out all at the same time. Half a second later all the lights went out. Will found himself on the floor, or possibly on the ceiling because in the dark it was difficult to know which way up he was. He could smell burning too.

In a moment everything had gone still and quiet again. Will sat up, slightly gingerly because he wanted to make sure that his arms and legs worked properly before doing anything too quickly. As he sat there something prickly scuttled across his legs. He squeaked in surprise and jumped backwards, crashing into what felt like a pile of laundry, and fell over again.

The light came slowly back, dim and yellow at first but soon growing back to its usual brilliance. Will, it turned out, was tangled up in a big pile with Mavis and her ninja suit. As luck would have it, they were on the floor, not the ceiling. Drych was on the floor too, but sitting comfortably as if nothing had happened, legs tucked up under him as usual. Spiv, of course, was nowhere to be seen.

“What's happening? I can smell burning! Are we on fire?” Will sounded most concerned.

“Toast.” It was Spiv.

“Toast?” repeated Will.

“Yes. My toast fell out of the toaster when that blaster hit us. Bit of a pain really. All covered in fluff now.”

“Blaster!” If Will sounded concerned before he was definitely worried now.

“Quite a big one by the feel of it. Sort of thing a
Galaxy
class cruiser might have.”

Will was trying to disentangle himself from Mavis and, because he was flustered and in a rush, making a bit of a mess of it. He tripped over again and came face to face with a thing like a huge metal spider with far too many legs and big, glowing, red eyes. Each leg ended in some sort of sharp or pointy thing. The whole thing looked like some sort of explosion in a Swiss army knife factory. Will squeaked again and rolled to one side.

“Look out!” he shouted, “They've got inside!”

“Who have?” asked Spiv.

“I don't know! Aliens! Monsters! That thing!”

“That's Mech 2. He's just been fixing the lights. Mech 1 will be around somewhere. Fixing the toaster with any luck.”

“Mech 2!” Will collapsed back into a heap on the floor. They had told him that the Mechs were about the same size as dogs and about as intelligent as dogs. He had supposed that they also looked something like dogs too. Obviously he had got that part wrong. “Oh,” was all he could say.

“It would be preferable if you have survived the blast.” This was a new voice, deep and sounding as if it would stand no nonsense. They all looked round at the control room wall where the screen had come back to life. Will had been frightened by the sight of Mech 2 but the thing on the screen was much worse. It looked a lot bigger for one thing.

“There's a turn up. That's old One Chance,” whispered Spiv. Even Spiv seemed impressed. He didn't let it show for long, though. “I was right about that
Galaxy
class blaster, then. I let him have it cheap because it was the last one and I needed the space for a ship load of washing machines.”

From what Will could see on the screen, One Chance had the build of a gorilla with the skin and features of a frog. Apart from the horns, that is. Will didn't think frogs had horns, at least not horns like water buffalo horns. He (Will took Spivs word for it that it was a he, not a she) seemed to be wearing a sort of loose fitting robe with some pieces of metal armour scattered about over the top – certainly a breastplate and some things on his arms. There were still some gaps where bits of One Chance showed through but Will couldn't imagine anyone being so foolish as to get close enough to see if they could poke anything into them. The big gun on a thick belt round One Chance's waist would have put them off for a start. Will wondered if it was a ray gun. Must be, surely?

“I will reconsider my previous statement if I am correct in recognising that whispering voice as belonging to the one who calls himself Spiv. Had the blaster been up to the specification that was promised, you would not have survived the shot.”

Before Spiv could reply (
and make matters worse
, Will thought) Drych interrupted. “I am Drych of the dragon ship
Brenda
. We have superficial damage but no injuries.”

“I know of Drych and have no reason to cause you injury. You would be wise, in future, not to follow so closely behind any ship that is intent on interfering with the conduct of my business.”

Spiv whispered again into Will's ear, “Old One Chance is a trader. Been everywhere in that old ship of ‘is, ‘e ‘as. Fair, but you wouldn't want to cross ‘im.”

“Why is he called One Chance?” Will whispered back.

“Because that's all he'll give you. If you're lucky, that is.”

“Who was trying to interfere with your business?” Drych continued.

“A vessel which came out of hyperspace just before you. It fired on me. I returned fire. We both suffered damage, it more than me. It fled. I did not pursue. To do so would have taken me out of my way.”

“I believe that we were chasing the vessel that you describe,” said Drych. “There is a ninja with me. She wishes to speak with them. Where did they go?”

“Towards the centre of this planetary system. They did not enter hyperspace. I may have damaged their systems. Now follow them if you wish. I have delayed here too long.”

With that the image of One Chance disappeared from the screen and was replaced by the view outside the ship. Will could see now that the thing he had seen but not recognised before One Chance shot at them was, in fact, One Chance's ship. He imagined that spaceships should look like spaceships – long, thin, shiny cigars with fins and boosters. It did look like that. A bit. But it also had lots of pointy bits and lumpy bits. It was fatter than he thought it should be, at least at one end it was. And it wasn't shiny; it was a sort of dull orange. Beyond One Chance's ship was a bright red star. It looked about as big as a marble. Will guessed that it was at the centre of this solar system. He was a bit disappointed that he couldn't see any planets but he supposed that they must be too small or too far away.

As Will watched, a blue glow appeared at one end of One Chance's ship (not the fat end, surprisingly) and it accelerated away. At the same time the red sun started to move across the screen and will realised that
Brenda
was moving too.

“We're moving. Who's driving?” Will asked.

“Drych,” answered Mavis. “Remember we told you that dragons weren't entirely in this dimension? Drych can think where he wants
Brenda
to go and the message, sort of, gets through. That's why dragons are good at this sort of thing.”

Drych was sitting serenely on the floor, a far-away look in his eye. In the starlight shining from the screen he looked distinctly red. In a few moments his eyes closed and he seemed to be asleep.

“Apart from being grey, ‘e looks just like the red dragon on that Welsh flag, don't ‘e,” chuckled Spiv.

Despite himself, Will couldn't help asking, “What is the story behind the red dragon?”

“Well, Will, it's like this. It started with some ancient relative of Drych's; great grand uncle or some such. Dragons live a long time so this was a very long time ago. Anyway, Draig, that's what this dragon's name was, was a Welsh dragon. It was summertime and very hot. I don't mean the just-not-raining sort of hot that people talk about when they've just come back from a week's holiday in Aberystwyth. This was really hot. Sunshine and everything. Anyway, Draig did what dragons do when it gets hot: ‘e went to sleep. Trouble was, Draig wasn't always the brightest of dragons and ‘e did one of the worst things a dragon can do: ‘e went to sleep with ‘is head towards the wind.”

“What's so bad about that?”

“It's the snoring. Usually dragons don't snore. Ordinary snoring's not too bad but if they really get going then they start the old fire-breathing trick.”

“You mean dragons really can breathe fire?”

“Course they can. Well known that is.”

“Even Drych?”

“Especially ‘im. Bit of a champion, ‘e was, in ‘is younger days. Now are you going to let me tell this story or what?”

“OK. Sorry.”

“So I should ‘fink too. Now where was I? Oh yes. Snoring. Old Draig had a bit of an affliction where snoring was concerned. Couldn't stop hisself. So when ‘e went to sleep ‘e started snoring. Before long there was great gouts of flame and smoke pouring out of ‘is nostrils every time ‘e breathed. While ‘e was sleeping the wind was getting stronger and before long all this smoke and flame was getting blown back all over ‘im. That's why he shouldn't face into the wind, see? If he was facing the other way the wind would ‘ave blown the flames away but as it was they blew back all over ‘im. Scorched red ‘e were. Made worse too by the sun. Normally dragons don't get sunburn, skin too thick, see? But ‘e'd scorched off a couple of layers of skin with ‘is own flames. By the time ‘e woke up ‘e was in a right old state. Just at that moment some dopey shepherd came traipsing over the hill trying to find a sheep that ‘ad got away. The shepherd weren't even as bright as old Draig – ‘an that's sayin' a lot – didn't see ‘im till ‘e trod on ‘is tail. I ask you, how could ‘e not see a bright red eight metre dragon wot was breathing fire all over the place? Stood no chance of finding a sheep, did 'e? Anyway, old Draig got really fed up, wot with being burnt all over and ‘aving is tail trod on. He stood up with a great roar and chased the old shepherd right off the hill. In no time the story got around that there was this fierce, red, fire-breathing dragon and before you know it the story ‘ad grown in the telling and old Draig was eighty metres long, not eight, and flying about destroying everything in sight. Truth was, ‘ed crawled into a bog to cool off and wait for ‘is skin to grow back. Anyway, it was too late by then. The Welsh wanted something to scare their enemies and a giant red dragon would do very nicely, thank you. Irritates the dragons no end, though. Peaceful creatures really, see? And bright too. Well, most of ‘em.”

There was a snort from Drych's direction. Will looked round and saw that Drych had one golden eye half open looking at him. Well, perhaps not quite at him. Perhaps just over his shoulder. As will watched, a curl of smoke started to emerge from one of Drych's great nostrils. Then, like a sudden sneeze, a bolt of flame shot over Will's shoulder. This wasn't the sort of floppy, orange, curly flame that Will associated with dragons. It was white hot, pencil thin, like a laser beam.

There was a loud “Eeek!” from over Will's shoulder then the dragon's eye closed again. For all the world Drych seemed to have once more fallen asleep.

“Oops! Nearly got me with that, ‘e did. Wants to be careful, ‘e does. Could do someone some damage like that.”

Will couldn't help thinking to himself that if Drych had really meant to hit Spiv with that bolt of flame, Spiv would most likely have been well and truly hit. What's more, he suspected that Spiv, despite his complaining, probably thought the same thing. Will had learned something else about dragons too: they might look as if they are asleep – but you couldn't be sure.

Back on the main screen, the red sun was now noticeably bigger and brighter. Will could see some small black specks crossing the disc of the sun and, as he looked more carefully, he could see some other specks, faintly reflecting the sunlight, stretching out into space on either side.

“Asteroid belt,” said Spiv. “Need to be careful going through that. Don't want to get hit by one of them things. Mind you, they can be useful places to hide, should you ever need to. If someone's chasing you. Not that I've ever needed to, of course. I mean, never been any reason for anyone to chase me.”

“What about the people with that photograph of you. You know, Cream Tea and Teacake? Aren't they chasing you?”

“Course not. I've told you all about that. We're chasing them.”

“So they might be hiding behind one of those asteroids.”

“Highly probable,” said Drych. Will looked over at Drych and saw that he no longer seemed to be sleeping. From the tone of his voice, just the same as always, it was as if the flame-thrower act had never happened.

As Will looked back at the screen, some of the closer asteroids seemed to be getting very large indeed.