Phoenix

  ‘. . . exceeding all expectations,’ the Professor was saying. ‘In fact, sometimes I find myself wondering if maybe—’

  ‘Lucky!’ said Mystica sharply. ‘Bixa! Welcome!’

  The Professor looked up, startled. Before Lucky could ask what they’d been talking about, Bazooka attacked his cloven-hoof boots, while Frollix and the Captain came striding down from the cockpit. Everyone seemed excited at the thought of what lay ahead. Mystica began to pour the steaming Xoco out into cups, but as she did so –

  FLASHHH!!!

  – another terrible pulse of light came through the vidscreens.

  Mystica dropped the Xoco pot. It fell to the floor and smashed to pieces, hot liquid splattering everywhere as she screamed in pain. Lucky helplessly watched her coughing, shaking, worse than ever before – and still the searing light blazed on. Everything was laid bare in its merciless glare. He could see every drop of Xoco on the floor, every line and wrinkle on Mystica’s face, until at last the light faded.

  He hurried to pick up the pieces of the broken pot as Captain Nox moved to help Mystica.

  ‘Don’t worry about that, boy,’ the Captain told him. ‘Go now. Go with the others, and see if you can find out anything that might help us.’

  Grimly, Lucky pulled on his space traveller’s coat, and tucked his astrolabe into the pocket. Frollix, Bixa and Professor Byzantine made preparations beside him; they were coming too, while Mystica and the Captain stayed on the ship.

  But Bazooka the phoenix seemed terrified at the idea of going out. She flapped her wings in horror, and hid under the table, squawking loudly. ‘Baaa – Baaa – Baaa—’

  ‘Bazooka,’ the Professor called. ‘Come out of there. You have nothing to fear.’

  But still she wouldn’t come out. ‘Baaa-zeekeeee?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Absolutely not,’ said her master sternly. ‘You must come with me, this instant.’

  Reluctantly, she crept out from under the table, eyes cloudy with fear. She perched uncertainly on the Professor’s shoulder, shaking her head and chittering to herself.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ asked Lucky, stomach tight with tension.

  ‘Pay her no heed,’ said the Professor. ‘Come now. Time is of the essence.’

  They said quick, tense farewells to Mystica and Nox, and then Frollix drove them out on the cycle.

  Lucky’s spirits lifted as soon as he saw Scorpio Six. It was beautiful: lush green fields and rolling hills under an open lilac sky. The air was heady with the scent of freshly tilled soil, of agriculture and animals: things growing and alive. He had never seen such things in the Human worlds, and he drank it all in thirstily, relishing the new sights and sounds and smells.

  In the far distance, across the horizon, an enormous rainbow framed the sky. Professor Byzantine’s face lit with a smile when he saw it.

  ‘Take us that way, Frollix,’ he said. ‘That’s where we’ll find her.’

  Frollix drove them through fields of wild flowers, their colours as vibrant as their scents: sunflower golds, passionflower purples, poppyfield reds. They drove through forests full of trees, dotted with dwelling huts that were decorated with patterns representing the stars and constellations.

  ‘Keep going,’ said the Professor, as the sun set and twilight fell, turning the sky deep indigo. He pointed at the horizon again.

  Lucky looked up, and blinked in surprise. The rainbow they’d seen earlier seemed much bigger from here, and it had become so bright, it was lighting up the twilight with vivid colours. He’d never seen a rainbow after sunset before. He didn’t think such a thing was possible.

  He kept watching, puzzled and enchanted by its colours, though no one else seemed surprised.

  ‘There’s never been any fighting on Scorpio, has there?’ Frollix was saying. ‘Never even a case of the Living Death.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the Professor. ‘You will never see Theobroma’s army here; they hate Scorpio. They call it a traitor’s paradise, because the Startalker of the Future refused to join the War. But this is how it was everywhere, before the War. It may be hard to remember, after all that has happened, but back then, we had such hopes for the meeting of Human and Axxa.’ He sighed. ‘You know, some say even Theobroma had a Human lover once, though I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘King Theobroma?’ snorted Frollix. ‘No way! He was the one who said the stars wanted us to make war on the Humans!’

  ‘Couldn’t the Startalkers have challenged that?’ asked Lucky. ‘Couldn’t you have said it wasn’t true?’

  ‘Oh, we tried,’ said the Professor. ‘But how do you prove a thing like that? The King and his commanders had whipped the Axxa up into such a frenzy, they would not listen to us. Our temples were destroyed by our own people. We had no choice but to flee, and go into hiding. Few of us ever recovered from those events; we were all diminished by the War. Only the Startalker of the Future was strong enough to persuade her planet to stay out of it. And you can see what a wise decision that was.’

  They came over the top of a hill as twilight deepened into night. Right in front of them now was the rainbow.

  And here, at last, Lucky could see that it was really some kind of vast crystalline structure. A perfect circular wheel, glowing from inside with every colour of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. It was bigger than any building he’d ever seen, reaching right up into the clouds. It took his breath away.

  As he looked closer, he realized with a thrill that there were compartments hanging off this wheel, each one full of people. They were looking down at the ground from on high as the wheel turned slowly in the Scorpio night.

  ‘That, my boy, is an Axxa temple,’ said Professor Byzantine. ‘The Rainbow Temple Wheel of Scorpio. And that is where we will find the Startalker of the Future.’

  Lucky kept looking up, and up, and up; he couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was the most amazing construction, constantly turning through its cycles, majestic as the sky itself.

  They walked right up to it. Many people were clustered around its base, camped out in tents: old folk, parents, children, all together. There were even some Humans there, mixing peacefully with the Axxa. All around them, Lucky could see the gleam of camp fires, and he could smell warm woodsmoke on the wind.

  Frollix gazed up at the wheel in undisguised awe. For once, he made no jokes; he was like a little boy in the presence of something he’d never quite dared believe in. ‘Oh – it’s amazing!’ he said, his eyes reflecting the rainbow lights.

  Bixa bit a fingernail and held back for a moment, gazing up at the wheel.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ said Lucky.

  ‘It’s just . . . you can’t imagine what this Startalker means to us,’ said Bixa. ‘Growing up in the Human worlds, all we ever heard was how everything Axxa was rubbish. But she was different. They played her music, and they loved it. And the idea that an Axxa could do that – make music so good and strong and brilliant that even Humans had to respect it . . .’ She shook her head, lost for words.

  Lucky stared at her. ‘Who is the Startalker of the Future, anyway?’ he said.

  ‘Gala, of course,’ said Professor Byzantine. ‘She is not merely a singer. She is a Startalker: the most powerful of us all.’

  Lucky gulped. The woman who made the scariest music he’d ever heard was Startalker of the Future? ‘Well, come on, then,’ he said, trying to put a brave face on it. ‘Let’s see if we can get her autograph!’

  There was only one entrance to the wheel: a high gate, guarded by burly Axxa armed with cudgels.

  Professor Byzantine approached them, holding himself straight and proud. ‘From the stars we all came . . .’ he greeted them.

  ‘And what do you want?’ snapped the guard who seemed to be their chief.

  ‘Why, we are here to see Gala, naturally,’ the Professor replied.

  The guards’ faces darkened. ‘And who are you?’ said the chief. ‘Have you been granted an audie
nce with the Startalker?’

  ‘We are old friends,’ said the Professor, stroking his whiskers. ‘We have travelled very far; she will certainly wish to see us . . .’

  The chief shook his head. The atmosphere had changed. All sense of wonder was gone now, and the night air crackled with tension.

  ‘We defend our Startalker with our lives,’ said the chief, horns glinting. ‘Others have come before you, wanting to hurt her. None of them left this world alive.’

  The guards circled Lucky and his friends.

  Frollix grinned and held his hands up in a gesture of peace. ‘Hey, you wanna defend a Startalker?’ he said amiably. ‘Then you should know you’re talking to Professor Byzantine, Startalker of the Past!’

  They all stared at the little old man with the white whiskers and the chittering bird on his shoulder – and they didn’t look remotely convinced.

  ‘The Startalker of the Past left our worlds long ago,’ said the chief. ‘I don’t know what he looks like any more. I just see an old man who’s causing me trouble. Get out of here, if you know what’s good for you.’

  Bixa’s needles flashed crimson. ‘We’re not going anywhere,’ she said. ‘We need to talk to Gala, and we’re not leaving till we do.’

  ‘By all the Twelve Astraeus!’ said the chief, digging his hooves into the ground. ‘Get out of here, or we’ll throw you out, little girl!’

  ‘Little girl?’ said Bixa. ‘You moonbrain! You have no idea how important this is!’

  ‘You’re calling me a moonbrain?’ The chief’s face twisted up with disbelief and indignation. His horns bristled at Bixa.

  Bixa’s needles bristled right back. Raw aggression sizzled in the space between them. The space rapidly narrowed as they moved towards each other. The chief towered over her, but Bixa stood her ground, shaping into an Astral Martial Arts style that Lucky recognized as Cancer the Crab.

  The chief swung a fist at her – but she’d already taken a deft sideways step away. Then she flicked out her hooves, like a crab with its pincers, and trapped the chief’s arm in her grip. With one twist, she flipped him over. He hit the ground hard, sprawling flat on his backside in the dust, with one of her hooves poised menacingly above his face.

  But the other guards were circling them now, swinging their cudgels. Lucky didn’t know what to do. He didn’t doubt that Bixa could deal with them, but this was getting out of hand, and it wasn’t going to get them in.

  Professor Byzantine raised an eyebrow. ‘Lucky,’ he said softly, ‘I think our friends need a little convincing. Perhaps they should see some of the things you have been practising?’

  Lucky concentrated. He shut his eyes, and thought about everything he’d been working on with the Professor. He dug deep inside himself –

  – and felt it rise up within him. Heat. Light. Incandescent power.

  He could taste burning at the back of his throat as the energy rose and swelled and grew.

  And then he let it loose. He let the power stream out of his hands, and sent it straight up into the sky as a volley of multi-coloured fireworks.

  They exploded above, sending flares streaking out across the night. And all around the wheel, people gazed up at Lucky’s fireworks, savouring their bright colours and smoky smells.

  The guards looked up too. And when they looked down, there was a new expression on their faces. They stared in awe at the glow of his hands as he pulled the power back inside him.

  ‘Can it be . . .?’ whispered one of them, as Lucky fell forward into the Professor’s arms, exhausted and in pain as always.

  ‘What say you, friends?’ the Professor asked them. ‘May we see my old comrade Gala now?’

  After a moment’s silence, the chief nodded. Bixa moved her hoof away from his face, and offered him a hand up.

  ‘Who are you people?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re like something from the legends,’ one of the others said. ‘It’s like a sign: a sign that the Twelve are returning.’

  The Professor’s eyes sparkled. ‘Quite so,’ he said. ‘That is what we believe, and I am glad to hear you say it. It is precisely what I hoped to find in your hearts.’

  Frollix gaped at the Professor, open-mouthed. So did the guards. They glanced at Lucky again – but not one of them could say a thing to him. They turned back to the Professor with a strange look in their eyes; as if they’d just discovered that their dearest, most secret dreams weren’t just dreams, but were real after all.

  ‘So – you really are the Startalker of the Past?’ they said.

  The Professor bowed graciously before them. The atmosphere changed again. The guards now clustered respectfully around them, as if they were celebrities, or royalty.

  ‘Oh, we have missed you, sir!’ said the chief. ‘You don’t know how much we’ve missed you. We’ve had such troubles with this war. The one thing that keeps us going is our hope that the Astraeus will return. It’s a hope we’ve never lost – but every year, it gets harder to believe. Will they really come back, sir? Will it be soon?’

  ‘We certainly hope so,’ said the Professor. ‘And we hope Gala will help us to find them.’

  ‘Then please: step on board the Rainbow Temple Wheel! Step right this way!’ And with that, he opened the gate with a flourish, and moved aside to let them through.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  They stepped into a large compartment at the bottom of the wheel. On the outside, the crystal gleamed with rainbow colours, but on the inside, it was so clear, Lucky felt he could see forever through it. The guards closed the gate, and the compartment rose into the air, lifting slowly and smoothly off the ground.

  Professor Byzantine and Frollix stood on one side. The Professor was talking in hushed tones about the Twelve Astraeus, and Frollix was listening intently, looking out at the world as they rose higher and higher.

  Bixa helped Lucky over to the other side of the compartment. He was still unsteady; his body ached after his fireworks. Together, they watched the planet gradually reveal itself before them. They were already high enough to have a clear view into the next valley. An enormous amphitheatre had been carved out of the hillside, as big and wide as the hill itself. A huge crowd of people thronged around it, buzzing with excitement, watching the wheel.

  The view was so clear, Lucky could still see individuals in the crowds below. He was becoming aware just how diverse the Axxa were. Though the men all had horns, some had great curving crescents, while others sported short sharp spikes. The women’s hair was all different too, and so were their eyes. Lucky could see every shade of flame imaginable, and features just as varied as Human features.

  Even so, he couldn’t help noticing a couple of Axxa who seemed out of place. Two burly men with metal piercings in their faces and brandings on their arms.

  That’s strange, he thought. They look a lot like those pirates who boarded the ship; the pirates who I . . . I killed.

  ‘Hey,’ he said to Bixa. ‘Didn’t the Professor tell us there’d be none of Theobroma’s army here?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she replied, silver eyes glowing as she took in the view.

  ‘Then what are those two doing?’ asked Lucky.

  Bixa looked where he was pointing – but by the time she did, the men had disappeared into the crowds. ‘Which two?’ she said.

  ‘Never mind. They’re gone now.’ Lucky kept looking, but there was no sign of them amid the mass of people. It was becoming hard to make out individuals; they were rising higher all the time. They could see hills and valleys extending far into the distance, and an endless horizon stretching out beyond. The panoramic view made him feel light-headed. In this magical space, high above the world, anything seemed possible. ‘Could you imagine the War ever ending, Bixa?’ he asked. ‘The two sides making peace, and not fighting any more?’

  ‘I don’t see so much difference between them,’ she replied. It was so quiet up here; the only sounds were their own voices, echoing off the crystal walls. ‘Sometimes I think
there’s two sides in this war, but it’s not Humans against Axxa. It’s all the people who want war on one side, and all the people who don’t on the other.’

  He’d never thought about it like that before. ‘And which side are you on?’

  ‘I’m a warrior,’ she said proudly, needles bristling. ‘But . . . I’m supposed to be a Startalker one day too, right?’ She glanced across at Frollix and the Professor, and her voice dropped so low that Lucky had to lean in close to hear her. ‘You know what? Sometimes I wish I could be a Startalker. You think I really like having to defend myself all the time? Imagine having a temple like this. Imagine being like Gala!’ Just for an instant, her neon needles flashed with cobalt-coloured light; then the colour drained away. ‘It’ll never happen, though,’ she said glumly. ‘I don’t have the power Mystica thinks I do.’

  Lucky frowned. ‘What do you mean? You’re brilliant! You know everything about the stars.’

  ‘Sure, sure: I can talk about the theory. And it’s not like I haven’t tried. But I just don’t feel it, inside me.’ She shook her head. ‘The truth is, I’ve never heard a star singing, my whole life long.’

  ‘You haven’t?’ he said, surprised. It was totally silent for a moment as he took this in. Then he looked up through the crystal top of the compartment. There they were, bright and beautiful as always: a million points of silver light, shining in the black.

  ‘I want to,’ sighed Bixa, gazing up at them too. ‘More than anything, I wish I could hear a star singing to me, like Mystica and the Professor have; like even you have . . .’ She looked down again. ‘But it’ll never happen. And anyway – what’s the point of power if it can’t save the people you love? Mystica’s power couldn’t save my parents from the Axxa army and the Shadow Guards. Now she’s dying, and no one can save her. Soon she’ll be gone, and the Captain too. What am I gonna do then? It doesn’t matter what powers I’ve got – how can I survive alone?’

  Lucky knew the feelings she was talking about; knew them very well indeed. The loss of his mother went so deep inside him, he’d thought he was the only one who’d ever felt that way.