Martin King and the Prison of Ice (Martin King Series) Page 4

  “Ah,” he said. “Here it is.”

  A small control panel was built into one side of the pyramid. Martin followed Howell’s instructions; he pressed the green arrow and typed the numbers 0041 into the keypad. For a second, nothing happened. Then the sand around them began to ripple. Martin realised that they were standing on some sort of platform. The platform began to descend. They were carried beneath the ground.

  Martin, Darcy and Tommy stepped into the darkness, and the large platform began to ascend again, leaving them underground.

  “This is cool,” said Tommy.

  They were standing in some sort of tunnel, which was lit by fluorescent lights. There was a strong current of air blowing through it. Strangely, there were no guards. In fact, there wasn’t another person in sight.

  It was around the year 500 B.C. The Axis Lords had hidden Abaddon’s recall device on Pyridos over 3,000 years ago, but 1,000 years later the entire planet had been demolished by the Axis Lords in a controlled explosion—and the recall device had been lost with it. Martin and his friends had gone back in time to retrieve the device before it was destroyed.

  “I need to find some sort of internal schematic,” said Martin. He approached a computer panel on one of the walls and fiddled with the buttons. “Ah, here we go.”

  A map of the tunnels appeared on the screen. Martin had always been good with computers.

  “How did you do that?” said Tommy.

  “Because I’m a genius. Now, we need to head in this direction…”

  Martin’s friends followed him as he led them through the brightly-lit tunnels. Eventually, they came to a large metal door.

  “The recall device should be through there,” said Martin, “in the main archive.”

  At that moment, a young Axis Lord appeared from around the other corner. He was carrying a gun. The guard switched on his translator.

  “Intruders!” he said. “How did you get in here?”

  “I don’t know,” said Martin. “We were just walking around on our own planet and then pop! We all appeared here.”

  “Do you think you’re being funny?” The Axis Lord raised his gun. “Explain yourselves properly.”

  Darcy took a step forwards. “You don’t mind little old me, do you?” She stepped even more closely towards the guard. “I was just having a little wander.”

  The guard blinked, going a little red.

  “Well, I still have to—”

  Darcy leaned forwards suddenly and kissed the guard. He looked bewildered. Then he grabbed Darcy and kissed her again.

  “Now, can we go through?” said Darcy.

  “Well, yes,” said the guard, breathless. “You only have about ten minutes left anyway.”

  Martin opened the metal door and they stepped through it; it sealed itself behind them.

  “What the hell was that about?” said Martin, turning on Darcy angrily.

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Aren’t you going to answer me? What was that about—kissing the guard?”

  “Oh, chill out, Martin.”

  “Chill out? You’re supposed to be my girlfriend.”

  “Well, it got us through, didn’t it?”

  Martin turned away from her. “Let’s just find that recall device,” he muttered.

  Tommy glanced around the place they had just entered. It was some kind of massive warehouse; boxes were stacked on metal shelves that seemed to stretch on for miles.

  “The recall device is in Section 8F,” said Martin. “Let’s spread out and look for it.”

  Martin didn’t waste any time in getting away from his friends. He tried to look for Section 8F but the image of Darcy snogging the Axis Lord guard kept floating back into his mind. Was he right to be angry with her? Or had she done the right thing in the circumstances? It just didn’t seem like Darcy. First the strange boy outside the flat, and now this…

  Martin sighed. His eyes fell upon a large sign reading Section 8G… the recall device had to be close. Martin located Section 8F. It was a section comprised of rows and rows of empty shelves. A single box stood on one of the shelves, and Martin took it down. He pulled out the object that was inside it. It was a smooth blue triangular prism. Inside the prism, there was a tiny speck of bright light.

  I’ve seen this before, thought Martin. But where?

  He suddenly remembered. He had once met a billionaire called Harvey Longfellow who owned a private museum of rare artefacts. This blue prism had been one of his exhibits. So Harvey had owned the recall device all along. They could have saved themselves the trip. But how had it ended up in his collection?

  At that moment, Darcy and Tommy appeared at his side.

  “You found it!” said Tommy.

  “That’s the thing we saw in Harvey’s museum,” said Darcy, puzzled.

  Martin nodded. He was feeling uneasy about something… something the guard had said to them.

  “You only have about 10 minutes left anyway.”

  What had he meant? As if to answer Martin’s thoughts, a siren began to blare through the hangar, accompanied by red flashing lights. An alien voice sounded through the speakers. Tommy went pale.

  “What is it?” said Martin. “What did it say?”

  “We’re going to die,” said Tommy.

  “But what did it say?”

  “It said that the self-destruct process has been initiated. We only have 2 minutes before this place blows.”

  “But…”

  So this was the day—the day that Pyridos was destroyed in a controlled explosion. Alexander Howell had given them the wrong date. So that was it. They were going to be blown up. It would be impossible for them to get back to the Time Sphere in 2 minutes. There was nothing they could do.

  “What do we do?” said Tommy.

  The voice came on over the speakers again.

  “Can’t you ask the Wheelmaster for help?” shouted Darcy.

  Martin shook his head. A year ago, when his duplicate had taken over as the Wheelmaster, he had made a pact with XO5. Neither the Wheelmaster nor XO5 would help or harm the three friends. It meant that they were safe from XO5, but it also meant that the Wheelmaster couldn’t offer them any assistance.

  Martin ran a sweaty hand through his hair. If the recall device had been destroyed today, it couldn’t have ended up in Harvey Longfellow’s museum thousands of years later. Perhaps it had just landed on Earth by chance after the explosion. No, the chances of that happening would be astronomical… astronomical! Of course!

  Martin laughed.

  “What are you smiling about?” Darcy yelled. “We’re about to be blown to bits.”

  “No we aren’t!”

  Martin grabbed Darcy’s handbag and ran. His friends ran after him. He entered the corridor—which direction? There was a clicking sound from inside Darcy’s bag and he took a left turn. At the next junction, he took a right turn. Eventually, Martin came to a row of escape pods.

  “40 seconds!” said Tommy.

  Martin put the recall device into one of the escape pods. His indestructible watch got caught on the side of the pod and came off his wrist. Martin left it.

  “What are you doing?” said Darcy.

  Martin closed the escape pod. He pressed a random button and the escape pod containing his watch and the recall device was fired out into space. Martin opened another escape pod.

  “Get in!”

  The three friends climbed into the escape pod and Martin started pressing random buttons. The device in Darcy’s bag clicked. Their pod was launched out of the underground tunnel. As soon as Martin saw daylight, he pressed another random switch—the Coincidence Machine clicked again—and the pod crashed to the planet’s surface.

  The teenagers climbed out of the escape pod, bruised but otherwise unharmed. They had dropped right next to the Time Sphere.

  “Quick!” said Martin.

  They climbed back into the gold time machine and Martin set the controls. The Time Sphere vanished. A s
econd later, Planet Pyridos exploded.

  *

  The sphere appeared outside the back of Tommy’s hotel again, and they climbed out into the sunshine, panting.

  “What did you do?” said Darcy, once she had caught her breath.

  “Well, the chances of the recall device reaching Earth after the explosion were a billion-to-one,” said Martin. “But we already knew that it had—we’d seen it in Harvey’s collection. I knew that the Coincidence Machine must have caused the escape pod to take the right course. The pod must have eventually disintegrated, but the recall device and my watch survived—another billion-to-one chance. The recall device landed on Earth thousands of years ago, but my watch took a bit longer. Maybe it was stuck in orbit for a while.”

  “Lucky,” said Tommy.

  “Literally,” said Martin, grinning. He took his watch out from his pocket and put it back on his wrist.

  “So what do we do now?” said Tommy.

  “We need to get the recall device back,” said Martin. “I think it’s time we visited our old friend Harvey Longfellow.” He turned to Tommy. “Are you coming?”

  “Er…” Tommy looked apologetic. “No offence but I think I should go back to Fire Opal now.”

  Martin smiled. “No worries. I understand.”

  Tommy grinned and walked back round to the hotel entrance. Martin looked at Darcy. He decided to try to forget what had happened on Pyridos—for now, at least. He smiled.

  “Looks like it’s just the two of us, Darcy.”

  *

  Martin and Darcy were standing outside the gate of a grand house. Martin pressed the intercom. They had called in advance, so Harvey was expecting them.

  “Oh, hello!” said an American voice. “I’ll let you in!”

  The gate swung open automatically, and Martin and Darcy walked along the gravel path towards Harvey’s house. Harvey greeted them at the door and led them inside. They descended the steps and followed him into his underground museum.

  Harvey led them to a glass case, and pointed at the exhibit.

  “So that’s it, right?”

  Darcy nodded. The blue triangular prism was inside the glass case.

  “And you said it’s a… recall whatsit?”

  “A recall device,” said Martin, nodding. “There’s a fleet of ships heading to Earth, which means trouble. We need the recall device to summon an ancient warrior to defend the planet.”

  Harvey laughed. “Fair enough.”

  “So, can we have it?” said Darcy.

  The American businessman laughed again.

  “It’s not as simple as that, Darcy. That little thing cost me over a million dollars.”

  “But the world is in danger!” said Darcy.

  “Not my problem,” said Harvey. He smiled. “I am grateful to you, Martin, for fixing my telescope last year. But you must understand that I can’t just give away something so valuable.”

  Martin paused. He had known all along what he would have to do. But it still seemed a great shame. He held out a hand to Darcy.

  “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…”

  CHAPTER 5: THE JUNGLE OF WORMWOOD

  “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?”