“I’ve got to stop it! I’ve got to switch it off!”
Donal threw himself at the pillar, pounding recklessly on the panel, desperate to find a way to halt the countdown.
It was in vain. The red glow did not alter, and the soft voice continued its steady, inexorable chant.
“Thirty-one. Thirty. Twenty-nine.”
Ulan Nuur raised his head high, his eyes half-closed in rapture. “At last I shall behold my Homeland!” he declared ecstatically. “The vast and windy plains of the Gobi Desert, where the sun shines on rivers of ice–”
“Eighteen. Seventeen. Sixteen.”
“–where mighty sand-dunes rise like mountains, and mirages hang shimmering over the salt-pans–”
Donal stopped pounding the pillar and kicked it instead.
“Ten. Nine. Eight.”
“–where the dust-storms howl like demons,” intoned the camel, “raging for days on end–”
Donal dropped to his stomach on the transparent floor. Beneath him the swirly blue and white globe was shrinking more rapidly than ever. Pressing his hands against the floor, he gazed out at the disappearing Earth, willing it to come back to him.
“Three. Two. One.”
There was the faintest of judders. And the stars were gone. Every single star. The walls turned black.
“Night night,” squeaked the lemming.
“What’s happening?” breathed Donal.
“It is probably a Karaburan, a black sandstorm of the desert,” came the camel’s confident answer out of the darkness. “Fear not. It will pass in a week or two.”
No sooner had he spoken than with a blinding flash, the stars returned.
But they were different stars. The Earth had gone.
Chapter Four
The cool blue earth and friendly yellow sun had vanished. In their place, a huge red globe scowled fiercely at them. Plumes of fire writhed like snakes across its surface.
“Morning!” said the lemming. “Breakfast?”
“That’s the wrong sun,” whispered Donal. He turned to look the other way, and nearly jumped out of his skin at the vast planet that completely filled his view.
“We’re about to crash!” he yelped, before he realised that the spaceship was not diving towards the planet, but skimming swiftly across its surface.
This was definitely not Earth. It was a black and desolate planet. Its surface bristled with spiky hills, steeper and more vicious than any mountains he had seen back home.
And they were barren, with no sign of life. Donal’s heart sank. Surely nothing could live on those jagged mountains and grey, dusty plains?
I’ve really messed up, he thought wretchedly. Why did I ever touch that silver ball? Why did I have to get lost in the Zoo? Now I’m really lost. I’m Nowhere.
He felt sick.
Ulan Nuur, in contrast, gazed down hungrily, shifting his feet as if he would like to leap right through the wall onto that empty land.
“Behold the Altai Mountains of Mongolia,” he murmured solemnly. “A thousand miles from end to end.”
“It’s not Mongolia!” Donal watched the new world roll past beneath them. He longed to see a scrap of blue, a single shred of green – but there were only ranks of fierce black hills like sharks’ teeth, topped by clouds of grey dust…
“Hang on!” he cried. “That isn’t dust – it’s smoke!” Through the swirling smoke-drifts, he saw red spots below, like burning coals scattered on the ground.
“Volcanoes,” he breathed in awe. “Look! There’s one erupting.” A slow trickle of red oozed down a black hillside.
“Hill’s bleeding,” said the lemming with concern.
“Volcanoes? In the Altai Mountains?” queried Ulan Nuur doubtfully. “I was not informed about those.”
“These aren’t the Altai Mountains…” Donal’s voice trailed away as he stared down at a smoking pool of lava. Tall black spikes stood all around its edge, straight as a row of spears.
“They’re almost like – Ulan Nuur!” As he clutched at the camel’s shaggy coat, a bit of fur came off in his hand. “Those are buildings!”
He felt sure of it. They couldn’t be natural, those towers like arrowheads. They were too smooth: and they had windows. His heart began to thud. What sort of people – or things – could possibly live here?
Soon he saw. As the spaceship glided closer, he glimpsed figures moving through the smoke. Although he couldn’t see them clearly, what he saw sent a shiver down his spine.
They were tall, angular creatures, with too many arms and legs as thin as sticks. They walked on four limbs, while four more waved in the air. They looked like giant stick insects, or preying mantises.
“Gross,” said Donal with a shudder.
“They do appear to be rather prickly,” commented Ulan Nuur. “And someone is throwing rocks at us. How unmannerly.” He bared his long yellow teeth and growled in disapproval.
“Rocks? How can anyone be thro–” began Donal, just as a boulder hurtled past the ship, missing it by a few metres. “They’re shooting at us!” he yelled.
A huddle of spiky creatures gathered round a dark hole below. There was a puff of smoke, and the crowd pulled back promptly.
A black dot flew up from the hole towards the ship. It grew bigger and bigger, until Donal could see that it was a huge, pock-marked lump of rock, like a meteorite speeding straight at him.
“Get down!” he yelled. “It’s going to hit us!”
“Get down where?” objected Ulan Nuur. The ship shook like a jelly, as the rock missed it by a hairsbreadth.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Donal leapt at the control panel and punched it. “Go on! Go faster!” he urged the ship, though his pummelling made no difference whatsoever to its speed.
Another rock cannoned up towards the ship. Convinced it was going to hit them, Donal instinctively crouched down, wrapping his arms around his head.
Then he thought, “Don’t be stupid, donkey-brain. What good will that do?” He unwrapped his arms in time to see the rock falling away, only metres short.
The ship was pulling out of range. The insect-like attackers were growing smaller and more distant.
“Never fear,” said Ulan Nuur complacently. “They would not dare to injure Me. You see, they have thought better of it now.”
“That’s only because we’ve gone past them!” Donal took several deep breaths, trying to calm his galloping pulse. “Are you all right, lemming?”
The lemming looked up with a guilty start, and stuffed the remains of a sausage roll into its mouth. “Mmnf,” it said, spraying crumbs.
Donal shook his head in disbelief. Was he the only one who realised the danger they’d been in?
At least the jagged towers had slipped behind them now, and the mountains were rapidly dwindling. Soon the ship was gliding over a lifeless plain of black sand, littered with smoking craters.
“It’s a desert,” said Donal, his heart sinking even lower.
“I see no tents, no yurts,” Ulan Nuur murmured. “I wonder where the camel-herders are?”
“There are none. This is a terrible world,” said Donal, hanging his head in despair. He was convinced that he had somehow steered the ship to this dark, arid wasteland, where the only living things in sight had tried to kill them. “I’m so sorry. It’s totally my fault.”
“Hmph! It doesn’t look so bad ahead,” remarked Ulan Nuur.
Donal raised his eyes. Sure enough, on the far horizon, as if a giant hand were clinging to the edge of the planet, fingers of green spread across the black.
“Grass!” said the camel, smacking his lips loudly.
“Lots of lunch,” chirped the lemming. Eagerly they watched the green fingers creep closer, edging their way across the ground.
The black desert became patchy; then suddenly they were flying across an unbroken carpet of green so brilliant and richly emerald that it hurt Donal’s eyes.
It was almost too green to be true. He was entranced. Thick, lush grass grew everywhere across a gently undulating landscape, laced here and there by sparkling streams. Although there were no trees, hundreds of little green bushes dotted the meadows.
The ship began to descend. And Donal’s jaw dropped.
The bushes were moving. They had feet. Each of them had two short grey arms, green furry bodies and green heads that turned to look at the approaching spaceship. As the sphere hurtled downwards, soon Donal was close enough to see dark eyes glinting.
“Plants that walk?” said the camel dubiously. “I don’t remember that about the Gobi Desert.”
“We’re not in the Gobi Desert!” cried Donal helplessly, wondering how to make the camel understand. “We’re on an alien planet billions of miles away. And we’re just about to land in the middle of a crowd of – of – of little green space-things!”
Chapter Five
As the ship touched down, there was a soft WHOOMPH.
The floor of the spaceship disappeared. Donal tumbled onto long, cool grass.
He felt the lemming trying to burrow down the back of his shirt. Its claws tickled and he sat up to fish it out. The camel was sprawled inelegantly nearby. But there was no sign of the spaceship: it had vanished.
That was the least of his concerns. For he was surrounded by hundreds of little green furry space-things, all watching him intently with beady black eyes.
Donal got unsteadily to his feet. “Sorry,” he said, although he didn’t quite know why.
“Oooh!” The little green space-things all gasped together, and moved back in a wave.
They hardly came up to Donal’s shoulder. When Ulan Nuur scrambled upright, he looked like a rock hung with tattered brown seaweed in the midst of a rippling green sea. The creatures sounded like the sea, too: hushing and shushing like breakers on a beach.
One of them bustled forward to stand in front of Donal, its head enquiringly on one side. It held a small silver box in its leathery grey hands, each of which had only three fingers.
Trying to be polite, Donal bowed awkwardly. To his surprise, the creature reached up on tiptoe, hung the box round his neck by a thin cord, and squeezed it. At once it gave out a chorus of rustling, whistly voices, all trying to talk at once, and all saying more or less the same thing.
“Welcome, welcome!”
“Don’t be afraid, it’s a very clever box–”
“–called a translator–”
“–like the one in the skywheel–”
“–to tell us what you say.”
Donal squeezed the box experimentally. The voices switched off. When he squeezed it again, they came back.
“–because we knew you would come–”
“–we were waiting for you–”
“–we’ve been looking forward to your arrival–”
“–and we’re so glad! So glad!”
Despite his bewilderment, Donal couldn’t help smiling. He was glad too. With their brilliant green fur, which exactly matched the grass they stood on, the aliens reminded him of friendly puppets from Sesame Street.
“We are the Meerie!” they cried in a rustling chorus.
“This is Nolga, our leader–”
“I’m Tola–” “Rolga–” “Holga –”
Their high, feathery voices all sounded identical to Donal.
“I’m Brola, and I sent the Skywheel–”
“–oh, yes, it was Brola’s idea–”
“–she said it would bring someone–”
“–from the far-away stars.”
“I knew it would,” said Brola importantly, fluffing up her fur.
“The Skywheel?” asked Donal. “What do you mean? Is that the ship we came in?”
The sea of Meerie parted in a green wave.
Behind them was a large, pitted slab of stone, half-buried in the grass. On it lay a little silver ball, just like the one that had landed in the zoo. Donal realised that it probably was the one that had landed in the zoo.
The Meerie bowed at it respectfully, while keeping their distance from it.
“That’s the Skywheel, it’s very precious, priceless–” said Holga, nodding gravely.
“–the only one left–”
“–the last of its kind–”
“–but we had to send it through the depths of space to find you! So which of you is it?” finished Nolga.
“Which of us is what?”
“Which of you is the one?”
“The one what?” asked Donal, completely out of his depth.
“The most intelligent one, of course,” said Brola. “I programmed the Skywheel to find a planet with intelligent life, and track down the place with the greatest number of species–”
“Do you mean the Zoo?”
“–and to home in the brainwaves of the most intelligent being there.”
The crowd murmured expectantly. Donal shook his head.
“I suppose you must mean the Zoo,” he said, “but I don’t think you can mean me.”
The lemming sidled down his arm. “Got a hole to dig,” it muttered, as it disappeared into the grass.
“Or him,” said Donal.
“Ahem.” Ulan Nuur cleared his throat with a sound like a bucketful of coal being tipped down a coal-hole. At once the Meerie surged in a green tide to surround the camel.
“If it’s not that one, it must be this one–”
“–oh, yes, we can see now–”
“–so much grander–”
“–such a fine coat, even if it’s not very green–”
A score of inquisitive grey hands stroked the camel’s matted wool. With a haughty sniff, Ulan Nuur reached down in his turn to give their emerald fur a cautious lick.
“Not grass,” he murmured, disappointed.
“You are the one who is going to save us!” announced Brola.
“Save us! Save us!” they all cried, arms waving like stunted boughs in the breeze.
Ulan Nuur looked up at the coral-pink sky, and Donal thought he saw a faint expression of bewilderment in his eyes. Then the camel shrugged.
“I knew I would be expected. Lead me to your Camel House.”
“House?” asked Nolga. “What is House?”
Donal glanced around. He could see no houses, no trees, no roads; nothing but a few grassy mounds.
“You must have houses?” he said uncertainly. “Places you build? To shelter in?”
“Shelter? Oh, yes! House, of course! Come! Come!”
The sea of Meerie flowed towards the nearest and largest grass-covered mound. Brola, at the front, appeared to sink suddenly into the earth. Donal found himself being pushed after her, down a steep tunnel that led into the mound.
He stumbled into a dome-shaped chamber, whose rounded walls reminded him of the Skywheel; except that it was green.
It was lined with thick, velvety grass. A little light filtered through, filling the place with a soft, green gloom. The only piece of furniture – if it could be called that – was a low stone table, on which stood a number of silver boxes of various sizes. One of them looked like the translator around Donal’s neck.
“What are all those?” he asked curiously.
“Oh, very clever things, ever so clever–”
“–things to translate other languages–”
“–and things to clean air–”
“–and things that hear messages from far away,” said Brola. “Far too clever for you to understand.”
Donal supposed that this was true. He was impressed. If the Meerie had translators, and air filters, and radios, they must certainly be a very advanced race. He wondered why there was nothing else in the room, not even a stick of furniture.
“Why is your house full of grass?” he asked.
“Not grass,” grumbled Ulan Nuur, who had just taken a mouthful. “Unfortunately.”
“It’s the Greengrass,” cried the Meerie in chorus, “the Greengrass,
very important, the Greengrass, we live on it, it lives on us!”
Then the whole crowd of them inside the dome began to sway in unison, chanting: “O Glorious Greengrass, Greengrass green, O gorgeous greenest Greengrass–”
“Right, right,” said Donal hastily. “Greengrass. Got it. But why have you brought us to your planet? Why do you need someone from the Zoo? And when can we go home?”
“Let me explain,” said Nolga. Ignoring Donal, he addressed Ulan Nuur, while the other Meerie murmured agreement with every sentence.
“We Meerie are in terrible danger, because of our deadly enemies, the Gyzols.”
“Gyzols?” inquired the camel.
“–oh, yes, those long-legged spiky faced–”
“–black-hearted cold-blooded–”
“–horrible needle-fingered monsters who live in the smoking mountains,” finished Nolga.
Donal shivered. “We’ve seen them,” he said. “They tried to shoot us down.”
Nolga paid him no attention. “Then Brola had her idea–”
“–to fetch help from outside–”
“–such a clever idea–”
“It was a wonderful idea,” said Brola, elbowing him aside, “and it worked! We sent our precious Skywheel to look for help amongst the stars, and it brought you back!” She clasped her hands together and gazed at Ulan Nuur with pride.
“I’m flattered,” said the camel, “but why?”
“We can’t overcome the Gyzols on our own, you see,” said Nolga. “They’re far too dangerous.”
“Terribly perilous,” said Brola.
“For us to attack them would mean certain death–”
“–but you can go and fight them instead!”
Chapter Six
“Certain death? That does it,” said Donal. “You’ve definitely got the wrong man. I mean the wrong camel. Come on, Ulan Nuur, let’s get out of here.” He made for the tunnel, but Ulan Nuur didn’t budge.
“I am called here for a Purpose,” he declared, “and I must perform my Duty.”
“But they didn’t mean to fetch us!” hissed Donal. “Don’t you understand? They wanted the Head of the Zoo, or somebody like that. And even if I was Head Zookeeper, I wouldn’t hang around waiting for certain death!”
“Oh, not certain death for you,” said Holga. “I shouldn’t think so, not very likely anyway.”
“Certain death for us – for the Greengrass,” added Nolga. “Our Greengrass can’t survive in the horrible desert where the Gyzols live. We live on the Greengrass, and it lives on us. If it dies, we die.”