Gradually the walls cleared, to show sand beating soundlessly against the skin of the Skywheel. They were in the midst of the sandstorm.
Donal looked down through swirling sand, and saw the shattered remains of the Dome below. The Skywheel had broken right through it.
“Palzack!” he gasped. Then he saw angular figures scrambling out of the wreckage, pulling each other free.
“Serves them right,” said Brola. “Nasty horrible monsters.”
“No, they’re not,” said Donal. The Gyzols turned, pointing bony fingers up at the Skywheel: and then they were lost in a blizzard of sand.
“I hope they’re all right! They weren’t nasty at all. They were interesting.” Donal remembered the shifting patterns of Palzack’s great eyes. “I’d like to have visited their city,” he added wistfully.
“For me, it is sufficient to have walked the desert,” said Ulan Nuur. He gazed mournfully through the floor at the shrinking ground. “And to have seen the Karaburan, and the majestic Altai mountains,” he murmured.
The Skywheel climbed rapidly until the sandstorm was no more than a dull, brown cloud spread harmlessly beneath them. Beyond it lay the bleak landscape of black dunes and smoking craters.
“The peerless Gobi,” breathed Ulan Nuur, “the shining centre of the World.”
“But it’s not–” said Donal automatically. Then he sighed. “Oh, never mind.”
He lay down beside Ulan Nuur to watch the dunes diminish as the Skywheel ascended. The desert fell away beneath them, becoming no more than a pattern in a sand-box, or a perfectly drawn map.
“I know,” said Ulan Nuur quietly, at last. “But it matters not. Whatever you call them, all deserts are one, and all are Home. It was magnificent, was it not?”
“Yes,” said Donal, to his own surprise. “It was quite something.”
“Horrible place,” muttered Brola.
“I wish you would enlarge your vocabulary,” sighed Ulan Nuur. “By horrible, do you mean perilous, outlandish, intimidating, or incinerating?”
“Big hot,” offered the lemming.
“Horrible,” said Brola firmly. “The sooner all that desert is seeded, the better. First chance we get, we’ll take this Skywheel back to the Dome and fetch all the other Skywheels. Then we’ll show those horrible Gyzols!”
“Seeded? But, but you promised not to!” said Donal, aghast.
“You just try and stop me,” said Brola belligerently. She stood next to the ship’s core, covering the control panel with her flat hands.
Donal thought of trying to wrestle the controls away. But last time he’d done that, they’d crash-landed…
“Don’t worry,” murmured Ulan Nuur in his ear. “After that sandstorm, the Skywheels will be better buried than ever. The Meerie will never find the Dome again. Why, I would be hard put to find it myself, experienced as I am in the ways of the desert.”
“Oh, we’ll find the Dome again,” said Brola confidently. “The Skywheel will remember where it’s been. It’s programmed to remember. We can dig all the other Skywheels out. Then we’ll seed this whole planet with Greengrass. Sow it all over those horrible Gyzol towers. With seventy ships, we can do anything!”
Donal stared at her in horror, as an emerald horizon crept gradually towards them, smothering the world below in its brilliant green embrace.
Chapter Sixteen
The Skywheel burst like a bubble over a crowd of swaying, cheering Meerie, and dropped its passengers in their midst. Hoisted high on the Meerie’s shoulders, Brola appeared to be riding the crest of a giant green wave.
“See the Skywheel!” she shouted proudly. “And there are more! I found them all! I found the Dome! Me, Brola!”
“–didn’t the Gyzols attack you?”
“–didn’t they try to poison you?”
“They tried,” retorted Brola, “but they couldn’t stop me!”
“Shameful! Bomb them with Greengrass! Horrible Gyzols! Dirty thieves!” cried the Meerie all together in rustling confusion, their Greengrass puffing up like the fur on a troop of angry cats.
“Hang on!” yelled Donal over the din. “Listen! The Gyzols aren’t thieves!”
Scores of black eyes blinked at him.
“–oh yes, terrible thieves, they stole the Skywheels and the Dome–”
“No, they didn’t,” cried Donal. “They were never stolen! They were buried in a sandstorm. And it wasn’t Brola who found them – it was Ulan Nuur!”
“He can’t have them!” squealed Brola.
“Certainly not,” said Ulan Nuur with dignity. “A dreadful mode of travel. I much prefer to walk.”
But Donal was furious. “Ulan Nuur saved your life back there in the desert!” he shouted. “Without him, you’d be a bundle of bones on the sand! How dare you be so mean and – and ungrateful?”
He might have well have saved his breath for all the attention the Meerie paid him.
“Brola’s our heroine!” they cried. “Hurrah for Brola the brave!”
“Brave? She spent half the time hiding under my raincoat!”
Brola glared at him furiously, but the other Meerie were too busy chanting to hear.
“Kill the Gyzol cowards! Sow the Greengrass! Cover their land!”
Ulan Nuur cleared his throat loudly. The Meerie hushed as he stepped forward to address them.
“I think not,” he said. “Brola promised to leave them alone. And a promise is sacred. Even a dromedary knows that.”
“Oh, don’t be stupid! That promise didn’t mean anything,” sniffed Brola.
“They’re our Skywheels,” added Nolga. “Why shouldn’t we have them back?”
“We want them back!” “We want them back!” the Meerie chorused.
Donal and the camel looked at each other helplessly.
“They’re like toddlers,” said Donal in despair.
“What they want, they will have,” shrugged the camel. “They only care about themselves.”
“Sow the Greengrass! Cover the land!”
“You’ve got plenty of Greengrass!” protested Donal. “You don’t need any more!”
Brola threw her arms out wide. “We want to turn the whole planet green!” she declared.
Donal was appalled. He thought of Palzack and the Gyzols, and their black desert full of hidden life. He’d promised to save it from the Meerie – but they simply wouldn’t listen.
Then he had an inspiration. Climbing up on to the camel’s back, he shouted over the chants of the Meerie.
“Listen! Listen, all of you! I’ve got a much better idea. If you get the Skywheels back, you could go anywhere. Anywhere in the Galaxy! Why stay on this planet full of volcanoes and deserts? Why don’t you find a nice new planet, with no Gyzols to worry about, and plant your Greengrass there instead? You’ve done it before.”
The Meerie hummed and rustled doubtfully. Brola tilted her head and surveyed the sky.
Then she smiled. “All right!” she said. “Once we have our Skywheels, we don’t have to stay on this horrible dusty planet any more. We can find a better one.”
“Good idea,” said Donal, almost sagging with relief.
“I always have good ideas,” said Brola. “And I know just which planet to try.”
“That’s great!”
“Yours. It will do very nicely. If it’s good for you, it must be good for us. The right sort of air, nice and warm, and lots of space to grow our Greengrass… Beautiful, glorious Greengrass! We’ll plant it all over your Earth.”
Donal was horrified. “What? But you can’t! We’ve got our own grass already, and animals that live on it! What if they can’t eat Greengrass?”
“They won’t be allowed to,” Brola said. “It’s ours.”
“But,” he stuttered, “but–”
“First we’ll go and fetch the other Skywheels,” announced Brola, “and then we’ll all go to Earth.”
“You’ll never find Earth!” protested Donal. “I
won’t help you!”
“Oh, we’ll just set the program to hunt sector nine, and find the nearest planetary system. That’s how the Skywheel found your Earth the first time. When we get there, we can seed the whole Earth with Greengrass. It won’t take long!”
The other Meerie chimed in. “We’ll leave this horrible planet–”
“–take our lovely Greengrass somewhere else–”
“–find a new home for the Meerie–”
“–Earth!” The Meerie chanted together. “We’re going to Earth! We’re going to Earth!”
“No!” Donal clasped his hands over his head. “What have I done?” he groaned. He imagined his garden – the park – the fields – the whole countryside – covered in Greengrass, smothering the flowers, stifling crops, strangling trees. It was a nightmare.
“Earth! Earth! We’re going to Earth!”
Donal slid wearily off the camel’s back. “I’ve done it again, Ulan Nuur,” he said. Despair made him want to sink into the ground. “The Earth’s going to be covered in Greengrass, and it’s all my fault.”
“I’d say it was all the Meerie’s fault.”
Donal shook his head. “I’m just a donkey.”
Ulan Nuur gave him a long, thoughtful look. Then he cleared his throat. It sounded like someone spilling a bucketful of wet pebbles. All the Meerie stopped chanting and looked up. In a loud, sonorous voice, the camel proclaimed:
“I too am looking forward to returning to my native Earth. How I long to tread once again the endless sands of the Gobi desert! To cross the waterless dunes of the Mongolian wastes–”
“Deserts?” rustled the Meerie. “Dunes?”
“Dunes as high as mountains,” sighed Ulan Nuur, “hot as a furnace in summer, yet so cold in winter that nothing can survive. Except us camels of course. Your little black desert here made me feel quite at home.”
“–Little?” “–at home?” “–you live in the desert?” The Meerie looked aghast.
“You didn’t tell us that! Is Earth a desert?” Nolga demanded of Donal.
Donal hesitated. He was not good at lying, so he picked at the truth.
“Not just desert,” he said. “There are lots of volcanoes, too. Bigger than the ones here, of course – some are quite awesome. One destroyed a whole island last year.”
“But not where you live? Surely things grow where you live?”
Donal thought carefully. “Not much really,” he said. “Where I live, it’s all covered with a rock that humans make, called concrete. And hard black stuff called tarmac.”
“Humans like concrete,” grunted Ulan Nuur. “They put it everywhere. Strange animals.”
“And there are lots of fumes,” Donal added. “Loads of air pollution. Humans are very good at that.”
“I thought you stayed too healthy in the desert,” complained Brola. “And Ulan Nuur kept saying how much he liked it there!”
“–Maybe Earth won’t be so suitable–”
“–most unhealthy–”
“–there must be some other planets around–”
“–I don’t like the sound of that Earth at all,” concluded Nolga. The Meerie began to drift away in a murmuring, grumbling green wave. Only Brola remained, her fur standing indignantly on end.
“It’s most inconvenient,” she said petulantly. “You should have told me about Earth before.”
“I’m sure you’ll find somewhere else suitable for the Greengrass,” said Donal, trying not to look relieved.
“Speaking of which,” remarked Ulan Nuur, “I begin to feel in need of some Hay. Although I can march for a month without food, a little Something now would not be unwelcome.”
“Me too. Sausage and chips,” said Donal longingly. “Giant pepperoni pizza.” It felt like days since he’d eaten his last sandwich. “Brola? Can you give us a lift back to Earth? We’ve done what you asked. We found the Skywheels. Now we’d like to go home.”
Brola stamped her foot.
“You haven’t helped at all! You’ve spoilt everything! I’m supposed to be the heroine, and now they’ve all stopped cheering me!”
“But we found the Skywheels for you–”
“I found them,” snapped Brola. “And you can’t borrow them! If we can’t live on your horrid planet, I’m not taking you back. So there!”
And tossing her head angrily, she fluffed out her fur, and waddled away.
Chapter Seventeen
For Donal, it was the last straw. His hopes had been dashed yet again. He turned angrily on Ulan Nuur. “Now look what’s happened! If you hadn’t put them off the idea, we might be on our way home!”
Ulan Nuur raised a haughty eyebrow. “With a ship full of Meerie, all ready to colonise Earth?” he retorted.
“We could have sorted that out once we got there! At least we wouldn’t be stranded here!” Donal kicked furiously at the lush Greengrass, sick of seeing its bright, wrong shade of green everywhere he looked. “I’m starving,” he grumbled. “I wish I’d never come.”
“You needn’t have,” Ulan Nuur reminded him. “It was only Me they wanted.”
“I didn’t have any choice, did I!”
“But if you had not come, you would not have met Me.”
“Oh, big deal!” said Donal. “What do you want, Camel of the Year Award? Stink of the year more like!”
Ulan Nuur half-closed his eyes and looked down his long nose at Donal.
“Do you know,” he said, “the Meerie remind me very strongly of you humans. Do this, do that, and no Hay at the end of it.”
“Well, thanks very much!” Donal stamped away in a huff.
But he didn’t go far. There was nowhere to go. He sat stiffly by the stream with his back to Ulan Nuur, and chewed on a stalk of Greengrass. It tasted as bitter as old tea-leaves, and Donal felt very depressed.
Nearby, the lemming emerged from the water with barely a ripple. It shook itself dry, and began to graze noisily on the Greengrass.
“Glad to see somebody’s happy here,” said Donal morosely.
“S’alright. Nice streams. No foxes,” pointed out the lemming.
“No.” Donal pulled a face. “Nothing but Meerie.”
“Don’t you like it?” asked the lemming in wonder.
“Not any more. I want to go home.”
“To the zoo?” The lemming sounded faintly horrified.
“Not much chance of that,” sighed Donal. He glanced across at the precious Skywheel on its stone slab, surrounded by a huddle of admiring Meerie. Even supposing I barged past them and managed to touch the Sphere, he thought, I’d find a dozen Meerie inside it with me. Hopeless.
Noticing Donal watching them, the Meerie ruffled their fur and turned their backs pointedly.
“I wouldn’t treat people like that,” said Donal reproachfully. “Not people who’ve helped me. They’re just as mean as Toby. Meaner!” But even as he spoke, he remembered, with an uncomfortable jolt, how he had just turned his back on Ulan Nuur in exactly the same way.
His own words echoed in his head. Stink of the year…It was a horrible thing to say. Truly horrible, because it was meant to hurt. It was the sort of thing Toby would shout, jeeringly, in the playground.
But Donal had said it to the best friend he had on this world. The thought was as bitter as the Greengrass.
He squatted down at the stream’s edge, and splashed water over his face.
“Swim?” said the lemming hopefully.
“No, thanks.”
The lemming glanced back at Ulan Nuur. “Still bleeding,” it said. “Poor leg.”
“His leg!” cried Donal, horrified. “I forgot all about it! It must be really painful.”
Cupping clean water in his hands, he hurried back to where the camel stood surveying the cloudless pink sky. The lemming scampered after him.
“Sorry, Ulan Nuur,” muttered Donal. “I forgot about your leg.” He trickled water over the wound. The blood on it was thick and cl
otted, so Donal took his flask back to the stream to fetch more water.
Then, since he had no handkerchief, he used a corner of his T-shirt to dab gently at the camel’s shin while the lemming watched. The gash was long and deep.
“Hhrmp,” said Ulan Nuur, twitching as if to kick his hand away. But Donal persisted, until the wound looked reasonably clean.
He straightened up, and hesitantly stroked the dishevelled fur, without looking the camel in the eye.
“I am glad I met you, Ulan Nuur, even if we never make it home. And you probably are Camel of the Year. It’s really the Meerie that I’m angry with – not you. I liked the Gyzols better, although they looked so insecty. The Meerie look cute and cuddly, but they’re not really, not on the inside.”
“Bossy,” agreed the lemming.
“Selfish brats,” rumbled Ulan Nuur. “They think they have nothing to learn.”
“They must have been so clever once,” said Donal, “to have made spaceships that still worked after four thousand years. Yet they’ve forgotten it all.”
“They cannot be bothered to think for themselves any more,” growled Ulan Nuur.
“I’m not really as bad as them, am I? I know I’m not very clever,” said Donal dolefully.
“The Gyzol said you were a resourceful being,” said Ulan Nuur, “and I have no doubt that it was right.”
“I like you lots,” said the lemming, nuzzling his foot. “Nice warm shirt. Lovely sandwiches.”
“Thank you,” said Donal sadly. “They call me donkey-brain at school.”
“There is nothing wrong with donkeys,” said Ulan Nuur. “They are sensible beasts, determined and brave. Anyway, you should hear what the dromedaries call Me.”
“What?”
“Old-scrap-of-carpet-from-a-poor-man’s-tent-that-needs-beating. They’re jealous, of course.”
“What do you do, when they call you that?” asked Donal, enthralled.
“I kick them,” said Ulan Nuur, “and my kick is much stronger than theirs. You may scratch my second hump, just in the middle, if you please.”
Donal scratched while Ulan Nuur rumbled in his throat with a camel-sized purr. Burying his face in the camel’s wool, Donal breathed in its deep, warm smell. It was very comforting.
The lemming had scurried off. They leant against each other, Donal scratching and the camel purring, until Donal felt a sleepy contentment creep over him.
“The Meerie are getting excited about something,” he said dreamily. There was a commotion amidst the green field of Meerie, who swayed and parted as an object ran past their feet. Something large and crumpled, with two arms...