***
The evening’s celebrations carried on well into the night. There were fireworks and Telallamorph shape-changing competitions. The king also gave a great many speeches. In one of them, he presented a medal to: “Sharptooth Whitefur! For outstanding valour and distinction in the defeat of the Dreadful One.”
Apparently, this also made Helix an honorary colonel in the Telallamorph army. A fact he was evidently very proud of, as he puffed out his chest to best show his new gleaming gold medal, whilst Captain Nelkoo led his platoon in a salute.
All through the festivities, Stella looked for a chance to speak to her uncle. There were a number of questions that were nagging at her. She waited until she saw him get off his chair and give the king a bow. She was about to get up herself and follow him, when she realised that she didn’t have to, as he was coming over to speak to her.
“Stella, could I have a quick word with you,” Dodds said.
They walked back through the ornamental gardens side by side. Dodds occasionally would stop a while and admire the view, commenting on something strange.
“That is what I love the most about travel,” he said. “You get to see such remarkable wonders. Once you’ve experienced them, nothing ever seems quite the same again.”
Shaking himself out of his reverie, Dodds said to Stella, “I received a b-mail from Grandas today. The Attic will reach Telallamorph tomorrow. I suggest that we should rejoin the ship as soon as it gets here so we get back to Greenwich as soon as possible. There are still a number of memories that need to be returned, and I’m sure you’ll want your parents back with you for Christmas, won’t you?”
Stella had completely forgotten that back on Earth it was the Christmas holidays. In fact, she realised she hadn’t once thought of her mum and dad during the feast. Now that she had been reminded, she felt a need to be with them again as soon as possible.
“Why don’t we go to the Attic tonight?” she asked. “We could ask the Telallamorphs to transport us.”
“You could do this, but I’m not sure I want to risk teleportation for a while.”
“How come?” Stella asked. “I mean, what happened to you when we transported from the Phantom cave?”
“I was wondering when you’d get round to asking me that,” Dodds said.
He gestured up at the twinkling stars, still visible through the purple murk of the Talellamorph night. “There are beings, who live just outside of our galaxy, to whom the cosmos is merely a mortal veil. During the course of my travels, I have had contact with these people, and they have some claim on me. It so happens that the Telallamorphs travel through their realm as they teleport from world to world. When I teleported, I was recognised and sent for, but when they heard of my errand with the Greddylick, they sent me back here, via a quick detour to the Attic. That is why I was late. Thankfully, Persiminon and I got to you just in time with that tin of illusion. I know I’ve said it before, but that stuff can be very useful.”
“Is there anything else you want to ask me, Stella?” Dodds asked.
Stella did have a question, but she was scared to ask because she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“What’s a Calridian?” she said. “The Greddylick seemed to think that my necklace was made by them.”
“Ah, I see. I am no expert, you understand. The Calridian were an ancient people, even older than the Greddylick. They were fabled to be in possession of quite astounding powers. Many of the knottiest puzzles of the galaxy can be found in the relics that are believed to be Calridian made.”
“Were an ancient people? You mean there aren’t any left?” Stella asked hopefully.
“Apart from you, you mean?” Dodds replied. “That is what you are thinking, isn’t it? It is true that the necklace you were found with as a baby was the sign of the Calridian people, but no other trace of them has been recorded for millennia. I think it is clear, from the fact you carry a Calridian star, that your fate is tied with them in some way. However, if you are asking me whether you are Calridian – no one knows what they looked like and you have the physical form of a healthy human. I guess what I’m saying is, that I don’t think anyone can tell for sure.”
***
Early the next morning, Stella was eager to leave for the Attic. Doctor Dodds had retrieved Jerbil-Din’s ship from the Doom Gate site and was going to launch it so it could be towed back to Pilades Cluster. The Vanga tour party had already left. The Telallamorphs were eager to teleport them home, as they had eaten rather too much jellied beer during the feast and had become clumsy and raucous. The damage to the Telallamorph palace wasn’t serious, just a few walls had buckled from the tourists sitting on them. It had, however, given the Telallamorph king second thoughts about the possible advantages to his treasury in opening his planet up as a tourist destination.
Prince Fawcus was waiting in the courtyard for them, and Helix was enjoying a march past of the Telallamorph guard in his honour.
“Thank you for everything, Your Majesty,” Stella said to Prince Fawcus.
“There is no need for formality between us, Stella. You don’t want me to keep calling you Key Holder of the Doom Gate all the time, do you? Either that or princess?”
Stella flushed red with embarrassment. That was definitely what she didn’t want.
“My father has agreed to me being the Telallamorph envoy to the Greenwich Interplanetary Society,” the prince continued. “He believes it is time Telallamorph rejoined the rest of the galaxy. So I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.”
Grandas and the Cragulons were relieved to see them return. The Mechomator had cooked a large fry-up to welcome them back. Stella had thought to ask for some Telallamorph sponges as a souvenir for the machine. They weren’t really very sponge-like, more like bars of rubber. The Mechomator pretended not to be interested, but Stella caught it stroking one of them when it thought no one was looking.
Doctor Dodds had brought the mind-squeezer with him and had used it to return Jerbil-Din’s memories. He didn’t seem too upset about what had happened to him at all. He just hummed and hawed and started to give a lecture on galactic politics.
Tom spent most of the voyage home at the steering wheel of the ship, and Wendell, to his dismay, found that Doctor Dodds expected him to resume his navigation studies. Stella spent a lot of her time sat in the observatory with Helix, looking out at the stars. Sometimes she would talk with Grandas, who never seemed to tire of hearing what had happened on Telallamorph.
“So how did you blast that Greddylick, Stella Mayveader?” Grandas asked her.
“I still don’t know, really,” she said. “I keep trying, but I can’t seem to make it work again.”
“You vill learn. I am sure. You are still only very small. But you vill grow strong. Maybe even stronger dan Grandas,” he said.
“Impossible!” Stella replied. “For I hear that Grandas is the strongest person on all Cragulus.”
“Is true,” Grandas said with a chuckle. “Maybe you could be second strongest, eh?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Very good, Stella Mayveader. Ve make a spacefarer out you yet!”
####
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