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- Herausgeber: Firefly Press Ltd
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Tapper Watson is an ordinary Erisian boy who loves adventure stories. When his uncle sends him away on a space submarine to other worlds, he just wants to go home again. On an unscheduled visit to Earth, he meets Fern Shakespeare and a talking plant called Morse, and their real-life adventures begin. But chased through worlds by a pair of trigger-happy lobster mobsters in search of the mysterious Nemo Machine, Tapper begins to realise that he might not be so ordinary after all…
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Contents
The river between worlds swarmed with a million colours and strange shapes. A three-headed crocodile appeared and snapped its jaws before dispersing back into darkness. Next, a tree appeared, sprouting silver branches with rainbows instead of leaves. The rainbows shrivelled and fell, each one spinning away until the tree itself disintegrated into a shower of coloured lights, which scattered into constellations and vanished.
The river had different names on different worlds but most of the names were surprisingly similar – the Lethe, the Lath, the Lithey. Proof, people said, that the river existed long before any worlds. It twisted through the universe, joining all one thousand and one worlds together, and its waters contained the memories of everyone who had ever lived. Every idea, every dream, every passing thought. They whirled and eddied as the waters carried them, forever colliding and forming new shapes. Echolings. Created from the echoes of memories. Mostly, they flitted in and out of existence like ghosts but sometimes, when a passing submarine whipped up the waters, they could become solid – not for long, but long enough to cause some serious damage.
That was what Tapper was worried about. He watched from his seat at one side of the control room of the Boldly Goes. Submarines rarely sprang leaks and, if they did, you could probably fix them without accidentally swallowing any river water. Probably.
Lethe water absorbed memories. Drink just one drop and you’d forget everything. There were many things Tapper would like to forget – all the times his cousins laughed at him, for a start, but that was what you had to put up with when you were only thirteen years old and the youngest of sixty-eight cousins.
Tapper looked out at the Lethe and suppressed a shudder, wishing he were safely back home on Eris right now. Eris was a nice world, calm and orderly. Everyone knew their place and families looked after each other. His cousins laughed at him, but they meant well.
He still couldn’t believe he was here, in an inter-world submarine with two alien merchants. Uncle Five had arranged it. It was the long winter break from school so it wasn’t as if Tapper was doing anything else, he’d said, and it would be a good experience for him. Tapper was always reading adventure stories. Here was a chance to go on an adventure of his own.
As if Tapper ever wanted to go on submarines – or adventures.
A hand formed outside, waved and turned into a bowl of Perseus fruit, then a basket of red frogs. Each one formed with a loud pop and vanished with a sigh – sounds that only Tapper could hear.
He realised he was tapping his fingers in time to the sounds and he clenched his hands to stop himself. Not that it mattered – Argo and Belladonna were both hunched over the control consoles, paying him no attention.
Argo was human, from a world called Earth. Tapper didn’t know much about it: only what he’d read on the submarine computer, so he didn’t know if Argo was typical. Dark hair, dark beard, so tall he had to duck to get through every doorway on the submarine, and he had a habit of scowling as if he was in a bad temper whenever he was thinking.
Argo’s partner, Belladonna, was a dragona from the planet Cassini, which was so hot that only reptiliads lived there. Her scales changed colour according to her mood. At the moment they were indigo, and her crimson alarm crest lay in folds over the shoulders of her dungarees, which meant she was happy. One of her arms was made of metal from the elbow down and she’d adjusted the hand to give herself more fingers as she typed something into the control panel.
Tapper ran his hands over his hair, the soft bristles tickling the scar on his palm. ‘Shouldn’t we turn the searchlights on?’ he asked. The searchlights would make it easier to see if an echoling was solid.
Belladonna glanced around at him. ‘This isn’t a sightseeing trip. There are river pirates out there, you know.’
Why did she have to say that? Now he was worried about pirates as well as echolings. ‘I thought river pirates were only a story. Like in Isosceles and the River Pirates.’ Isosceles was his favourite adventure hero. A fierce Erisian, tall and brave, defeating monsters and pirates with his golden laser blaster. Tapper wished he was reading that book right now – curled up on his bed at home.
A pair of pirate cutlasses formed with a metallic rattle, right outside the front windows. Tapper sat up straight. ‘Did you see that? We were talking about pirates and the Lethe made a pirate symbol.’
Argo laughed. ‘The Lethe makes a million echolings every second; it’s just coincidence. Bella, don’t frighten the boy. There aren’t any pirates; we’re just being careful. We’ve got a hold full of Lethium oil, remember – not to mention I promised all your relatives I’d keep you safe. Leave the worrying to us,’ he said. ‘You just keep listening.’
Tapper nodded and wriggled in his chair, trying to relax.
Uncle Five said it was a rare gift to be able to hear the Great River, though Tapper wasn’t sure he agreed. He’d discovered it on a family cruise in the Lethe. While his older cousins had joked and played games, Tapper had sat with a pillow over his ears, trying to block out the noise, his fingers twitching to the sounds of the echolings.
His actual name was Daedalus – Daedalus Katoli Watson – but since that day everyone had called him Tapper. They said it was a joke, but it had always felt like a reminder that Tapper wasn’t quite like the rest of them.
Still, he was used to the name now and he didn’t mind his cousins teasing him.
Another echoling popped.
Perfectly safe. Nothing to worry about at all. This was an easy trip to deliver a cargo of Lethium oil – the precious fuel that made Lethe travel possible. Another few days and they’d reach Zymandia. Tapper had read about the octopod world and it sounded nice: low gravity, pretty colours and all the cute eight-limbed octopods flying gently about.
Now he wished he’d paid attention to other details of the trip, such as why Argo suddenly needed a new cabin assistant, and what had happened to the last one? But the whole thing had been arranged so quickly, there’d been no time.
A lump of something yellow hit the front window and slithered down.
‘We’re going too fast,’ Tapper said.
Belladonna flicked her tail. ‘We didn’t cause that. We’re nowhere near angry speed.’
A shark with pink legs swam to the window and kicked it. Tapper jumped in his seat.
‘You know, I think it wouldn’t hurt to slow down,’ Argo said. His voice was far too calm, and Tapper felt his breath coming faster.
The Lethe rumbled. ‘We are definitely going too fast,’ Tapper said.
The red crest on Belladonna’s head flickered. ‘We are definitely not. Though someone is definitely talking too much. Argo, were there any riverstorms forecast?’
Argo shook his head. Echolings swarmed around them, changing shape so fast Tapper could barely keep track. His ears ached with the noise. He curled his fingers into his palms, trying to relax.
Pretend this is a story. Isosceles never panics, does he?
No, but it was easier not to panic when you were a fictional hero and you always survived. In any case, Isosceles was the opposite of Tapper – tall and loud, striding carelessly into danger armed with his golden laser blaster and an inconceivable amount of luck.
Tapper wasn’t feeling lucky; he never felt lucky.
A frog the size of an Erisian bufflebee bumped off the window, croaked and vanished. Tapper gripped the arms of his chair. Belladonna’s scales were growing paler, he noticed, and her alarm crest stood up around her neck like a collar.
‘It’s just a riverstorm,’ Argo said. ‘It should stop soon. I thought you liked adventures, Tapper.’
‘Stories,’ Tapper groaned. ‘I like adventure stories.’ The noise outside was making his ears hurt. He curled up in his chair.
A swarm of purple hornets covered the front windows. Echolings shouldn’t stay solid for that long, Tapper thought, not even in a riverstorm. His stomach tied itself into knots.
‘Everything still fine,’ Belladonna said. Her metal fingers flew over the controls. ‘All will be fine, and there is absolutely no need to panic.’
The storm didn’t seem to be easing. If anything, it was getting worse. The echolings howled, sounding liked the ghosts in Isosceles and the Labyrinth of the Doomed. In that story, Isosceles had guided a submarine through a maze of deadly, invisible echolings by the power of sound alone.
Impossible, obviously.
Or was it? Tapper uncurled a little and glanced at Argo and Belladonna. They both had their backs to him.
Another echoling hit the window, scattering the remaining hornets which turned into bellaphants and lumbered away.
It couldn’t hurt to try, could it? And if it didn’t work – which it wouldn’t, because it was a ridiculous idea – nobody had to know about it. Nobody would laugh or tell his cousins.
The thought gave him courage. Tapper shut his eyes and instead of trying to block out the sounds from the echolings, he listened.
Each new screech began as a low growl and rose in pitch, ending with a squeal like nails on glass. And, right at the start, just before the echoling appeared, there was a pop, so faint you wouldn’t notice it unless you were deliberately listening for it.
A pop to the right.
‘Go left,’ Tapper said.
He opened his eyes just in time to see a tangerine leopard lunge at the submarine from the right.
Pop. From below this time.
‘Up,’ Tapper said. ‘Go up.’
Argo nodded. ‘Do it.’
Belladonna jabbed a control lever and the Boldly rose quickly, surging over the top of a crowd of echolings as they formed in the water. Tapper heard them burst. A pop to the left. ‘Turn right!’ he yelled. Belladonna spun the submarine sideways. Sandwiches became manticores, and manticores became rabbits with tails of flame.
Where were the sounds not happening? Those would be the safe spots. Tapper closed his eyes again. ‘We’re clear ahead,’ he said. ‘Go right a little. Down. Now to the left, quickly!’
The Boldly jolted, nearly throwing him out of his seat. The popping in his ears came so fast that it blurred into a steady thrum.
And the thrum became a voice.
Tapper.
His eyes shot open in surprise.
A shape smacked into the window.
Tapper yelled.
The echoling looked like a person, and not just any person. A round face with a flattened ears and a fuzz of dark hair. Webbed hands, one of them with a scar across the palm, clawed at the glass.
Tapper uncurled from the chair, feeling dizzy.
‘That is … remarkably lifelike,’ Belladonna commented.
Tapper tried to say something, but his voice stuck in his throat.
It wasn’t just a person. It was him. The echoling looked exactly like him.
On a nearby world called Earth, Fern Shakespeare was having the worst afternoon of her life. Well, apart from the day Dad blew up a submarine and lost his job. That had probably been worse. Or the break-in at the shop last year when they’d lost half their stock. Or the school science test last month when she’d answered every question wrong to see if her teacher would notice (she did).
At least the third worst afternoon of her life, though, or maybe the fourth. But definitely in the top ten.
She stood next to the sea wall at Swansea Bay with the tour group gathered around her. A pair of Zymandian octopods who hadn’t got the hang of their electric scooters, a six-year-old boy who was more interested in picking up pebbles from the path, and his mother, the Angry Lady. She stood right in the front of the group, an orange handbag hooked over her folded arms, her sunburned face set in a scowl.
‘Are you quite sure you’re old enough to be leading tours?’ she asked. ‘How old are you – ten?’
Fern contemplated kicking her. ‘I’m twelve – nearly thirteen – and I’ve been helping Dad in the shop for years, so I know what I’m doing. Dad will be here soon.’
And she’d kill him the moment she saw him.
‘It’s only a small group, Fern,’ Dad had said as he’d rushed out of the shop to go to a submarine repair job on the docks. ‘I’ll probably be back before you start anyway. What can possibly go wrong?’
Fern wished he wouldn’t say things like that: the universe seemed to take it as a challenge.
The Angry Lady unfolded her arms, humphed and refolded them. Her son started running in circles, while the octopods chittered – it seemed they hadn’t got the hang of their translators yet either. One of the octopod: was shaped like a giant raspberry with a pink lumpy body and thick tentacles with dark suckers. The other was smaller, cream except for her tentacles which ended in pale blue tips.
Fern shuffled her script from hand to hand. Just pretend you know what you’re doing, and most people will believe you – another one of Dad’s sayings. ‘Welcome to Swansea, the capital city of Wales and the Earth,’ she said. ‘Home of the only rivergate from Earth into the Lethe. You can see it right there.’ She pointed to a brighter patch of sea. ‘Also, welcome to Shakespeare Tours. I’m Fern Shakespeare and I’m going to start by telling you about the Lethe.’ She pronounced the word carefully, stressing each syllable – Leeetheee.
The octopods blinked at her. Fern wondered how much they’d understood. Right now, she didn’t care. She just wanted to get through this.
‘Earth legends talk about five rivers of the underworld, the realm of the dead. We now know that those rivers do not lie in the underworld, but between the worlds. The rivers in the legends are fearsome: rivers of death, despair, fire, weeping and forgetfulness. The rivers between worlds are much nicer.’
Although Lethe water really would make you forget everything. Fern didn’t bother to say that: they all knew it already. She let her gaze drift across Swansea Bay to the high glass walls that separated the sea from the tidal lagoon, and the red-and-green buildings beyond.
‘SMILE – the Swansea Multiworld Institute of Lethe Exploration – has been searching for the rivers between worlds ever since Charles Darwin made the first voyage from Earth into the Lethe in his submarine, the Beagle in eighteen thirty-three.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s eighteen thirty-one,’ the Angry Lady said.
Why had she paid for this tour if she already knew everything? Fern somehow managed to keep smiling. ‘Eighteen thirty-one,’ she agreed. It probably was: she was hopeless at remembering dates. ‘So far, we’ve only discovered the Lethe, but many scientists are sure that the other rivers exist. Either that or the ancient Greeks got it wrong.’
That was the point where the tourists should laugh, but they didn’t. Fern sighed. If Dad had stuck to his job instead of chasing after wild theories, he’d still be working for SMILE and Fern would be getting ready to help at the institute’s family day instead of dealing with annoying tourists.
The Angry Lady tapped her foot impatiently. ‘This is a waste of time. We came to see Dr Shakespeare. Where is he?’
Her son ran into the octopods’ scooters. The raspberry octopod toppled with a squeak of alarm.
‘You need to keep at least two tentacles on the ground,’ Fern said. She hauled the octopod back upright. The little creature chittered a thank-you and tried to pat her hair.
‘I’ve read all Dr Shakespeare’s work,’ the Angry Lady said. ‘What can you tell us about the Nemo Machine?’
Fern groaned inwardly. The only people who read Dad’s work nowadays were crankpots. The Nemo Machine was why Dad had lost his job. He’d wanted to call it Mnemosyne, after the Greek goddess of memory, but he thought people wouldn’t be able to spell it, so he’d come up with NEMO – the Neuro-Electrical Memory Obtainer. Using the power of your brain and electricity to find lost memories in the Lethe. It would have been the first-ever cure for the memory loss caused by Lethe water, making exploration safer, easier and faster for everyone.
Except, of course, it hadn’t worked.
Even worse, Dad had forgotten to tell SMILE what he was doing. Instead, he’d smuggled the machine on a submarine research trip, waited until the sub was half a day into the Lethe, and turned it on.
The resulting riverstorm had been spectacular, Dad had said. The submarine had barely made it back to Earth and Dad was lucky not to be arrested. That was the end of his career at SMILE, the end of Fern’s hopes that she would one day go exploring with him.
‘The Nemo Machine didn’t work, and it doesn’t even exist anymore,’ Fern said. ‘SMILE destroyed it.’
‘That’s what they say,’ said the Angry Lady.
‘Yes, because it’s true.’ It had been two years. Why couldn’t people forget about it?
The cream octopod waved her tentacles. ‘We also have questions for Dr Shakespeare. Also, we do not like your world. There is too much gravity.’
‘You’ll have to take that up with the laws of physics,’ Fern said.
The octopods chittered together. ‘We will return later,’ the raspberry one said. The Angry Lady nodded as if she was planning to leave too.
Dad couldn’t afford to lose customers. He tried to pretend everything was fine, but Fern knew the shop was struggling. The Angry Lady’s son ran into her legs and she looked down at him.
‘Wait here,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something special to show you.’
She dashed across the path into the shop. A purple-leaved plant waved at her from the counter. ‘Sorry, Morse,’ Fern said, scooping it up. ‘I need a distraction.’
Outside, the octopods and the Angry Lady were arguing while the Angry Lady’s son pretended to be a submarine, waving his arms in circles like propellers.
‘If there were more rivers, we’d have found them by now,’ the Angry Lady said. ‘Earth scientists are the best in the universe.’
‘Not true,’ the cream octopod shouted. ‘Zymandia is the best. We know Acheron exists.’
The river Acheron was the home of the gods in octopod legends. Fern had sat through several boring classes about it at school. The fact that there was no evidence that Acheron or any of the gods really existed didn’t stop people arguing about it.
‘I think you’ll find…’ the Angry Lady began.
Fern held the plant up. ‘Look, everyone! This is Morse.’
The boy stared. ‘It’s a stupid plant.’
Morse rattled its leaves. Then, slowly, and deliberately, it dipped one leaf to the metal rim of its pot and tapped.
The boy’s eyes grew wide. Everyone learned Morse code at school – it was how submarines communicated in the Lethe – so Fern knew he could understand each letter.
I AM MORSE. YOU ARE UGLY.
‘Hello’ would have been better but never mind. Fern grinned. ‘Morse is an Erisian danger plant. It detects sound through its leaves. I’ve been teaching it to talk.’
The octopods wheeled their scooters closer to look. The Angry Lady glanced at her son and almost smiled. This was good. If Fern could keep them occupied until Dad got back, he could make up a few stories about the Nemo Machine. They might even pay extra for the ‘secret’ information.
‘Mum, I want a talking plant,’ the boy said.
The Angry Lady nodded and opened her handbag. ‘How much is it?’
‘Morse isn’t for sale.’ Fern stepped back. ‘Sorry, but it was a birthday present from my dad.’
HARRY BATHDAY, Morse agreed imprecisely.
The Angry Lady frowned. ‘Your father can get you another one. We’ll take this one.’
The boy made a grab for Morse’s pot.
‘Don’t do that,’ Fern said. ‘Danger plants have…’
The boy shrieked.
‘…thorns on their leaves,’ Fern finished. ‘It’s how they make the tapping noise. They’re harmless – they just hurt a bit.’
Morse punched the air in triumph.
The boy started to cry in big, tearless wails. His mother scooped him up. ‘How do you know they’re harmless? He might be allergic.’
MORSE FIGHT. STING. HAHA.
‘See?’ the Angry Lady shouted. ‘The plant is vicious.’
The octopods tried to back away. The raspberry one fell over with a clatter.
‘I’ll refund your money,’ Fern said desperately.
Everyone paused, then the boy stopped crying and his mother smirked and held out her hand.
Fern counted notes into it, her heart sinking a little lower with each one. It seemed to take a very long time.
‘That’s better,’ the Angry Lady said, closing her fist around the notes. ‘Now, let’s talk about compensation.’
Standing in the control room of the Boldly Goes, staring at an echoling that looked just like him, Tapper could barely think.
‘It’s fine,’ Belladonna said. ‘It’s only an echoling. It can’t hurt us.’
The echoling clawed the window with its nails, leaving a trail of scratches. It should have dispersed by now. Echolings never stayed solid this long.
‘On the other hand,’ Belladonna said, ‘it might be an idea to shake it off.’
She sent the Boldly into a dive. Tapper fell over as the floor tilted sharply.
Echolings swirled past, their shapes blurring as the Boldly sped through them. Tapper counted the thumps as they connected with the hull. An alarm began to shrill.
‘We’ve been hit,’ Tapper said.
Argo turned to scowl at him. ‘Yes, thank you. We noticed. Bella, we can’t take much more of this.’
‘Just a little longer,’ Belladonna said. The submarine began to shake and then spun out of control.
Tapper! Listen.
No – the Lethe was not talking to him. He was imagining things. What did Cousin Twenty-Three call it? Delusion. You’re deluded, Tapper.
The Tapper echoling punched the window again, its face pressed right up against the glass. Then another group of echolings hit it and it was torn away.
Tapper felt the breath go out of him.
The Boldly slowed. A final thump overhead and the roar of echolings faded abruptly back to a murmur. The alarm bell switched off, leaving a dull tingle in Tapper’s ears.
Tapper picked himself up off the floor, shaking.
‘Well, that was weird,’ Argo said. ‘Bella, what’s our status?’
Belladonna studied the controls. ‘Hull is intact. Windows are scratched but not broken. The Lethium drive is fine.’
That was good. The Lethium drive powered the jumps in and out of the Lethe. Without it, they’d be trapped here. But then Tapper noticed that the dragona’s alarm crest was still rigid.
‘There’s a “but” coming, isn’t there?’ Argo asked. ‘I hate buts.’
Belladonna’s tail flicked from side to side. ‘The main propeller may be damaged, just a little bit.’
‘A little bit? How much of a little bit?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s hard to tell without going out there to look at it, which I’m not going to do. I’ll switch to side props for now.’
The side propellers were only supposed to be used for steering, not for driving the submarine, Tapper thought. His hands felt clammy on the arms of his chair. Echolings drifted past outside, ghostlike again.
Echolings aren’t real. At most, they only hold together for a few seconds. Somehow, Tapper’s school textbooks about the Lethe didn’t seem completely trustworthy anymore. There was no way an echoling should have his face. They were made from the memories of people who’d died, so unless…
The thought made him yelp.
‘A little quiet would help,’ Belladonna said.
Tapper ignored her. ‘Argo, I need to go home. I think someone has died. Someone who knows me.’
Argo looked confused then he nodded, understanding. ‘The echoling. You think it’s someone’s memory of you.’
‘It has to be,’ Tapper said. ‘You saw it. It looked exactly like me.’
Someone in his family had died and now their memories were in the Lethe. Who could it have been? Aunty One? She was the oldest, but she’d been in good health when Tapper had left Eris. Who did he want it to be? His face grew hot at the thought.
‘We can’t go anywhere until we get the propeller fixed,’ Argo said. ‘Bella, what’s the nearest world?’
Belladonna checked the navigator screen. ‘You’re not going to like this. It’s Earth.’
Argo scowled.
‘I thought you came from Earth,’ Tapper said.
‘I do – and I left. What does that tell you?’
Belladonna twisted her tail around her chair. ‘Earth isn’t too bad. Argo just thinks…’
‘Argo just thinks you should shut up,’ Argo said.
Something scratched at the top of the submarine. Tapper glanced up. ‘Did you hear that?’
The scratching stopped. If it was an echoling, it had dispersed.
Argo and Belladonna exchanged a look. ‘Here’s the situation,’ Argo said. ‘We are weeks away from Eris, we’re already running late on this delivery, and we do not want the propeller to fall off while we’re in the Lethe. Sorry, Tapper, we can’t go back to Eris yet. I don’t want to stop at Earth either, but we don’t have any choice.’
His gaze was hard. Tapper ducked his head. Of course Argo couldn’t rush straight back to Eris. It was silly to expect him to do that. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Argo turned back to the controls. ‘That was quick thinking back there, by the way. Isosceles and the Labyrinth of the Doomed, right?’
Tapper stared at him. ‘You know the story?’
‘Of course.’ Argo turned around and grinned, his teeth flashing white against his dark beard. ‘I know all the stories. Isosceles was my favourite hero when I was a kid. I became an explorer because of him – just like you.’
It wasn’t the same at all, but Tapper managed a shaky smile in return.
He saw a flash of silver in the river – the rivergate. Belladonna steered the Boldly towards it. Tapper suddenly realised that this would be his first time ever on an alien world and his palms broke out in sweat. He’d better not mess this up.
‘Engage Lethium drive,’ Argo said.
Belladonna turned a dial. The metal floor trembled and the air flooded with the distinctive sweet-sour scent of Lethium oil. Tapper felt a surge of giddiness, as if he was being spun around and stretched in all directions at once. The Lethe turned silver around them, almost blinding him. He felt himself lift out of his chair and then thump back down as gravity rushed back. The Boldly’s engines eased to a steady throb and the water outside changed from black to deep blue.
‘Here we are,’ Belladonna said. ‘Earth.’
A light came on above the main console, flickering between red and green and then settling on green. Tapper breathed a sigh of relief. No leaks.
Argo stood up. ‘I’ll go first. My name is Jason Argo. I am thirty-four years old. I was born in Birmingham on Earth. My favourite colour is grey. My favourite food is steak, preferably with fried tomatoes.’ He paused, his lips moving silently for a moment. ‘Yes, it all seems to be there.’
‘My name is Belladonna Squamous,’ Belladonna said. ‘I’m nineteen years old. I was born in Taysea on Cassini. I don’t have a favourite colour. Colours are just colours; why do people get sentimental over them? My favourite food is anything that Argo hasn’t cooked, and I hate tomatoes. Tapper, your turn.’
Tapper knew he hadn’t forgotten anything, but his heart thudded nervously anyway. ‘My name is Daedalus Watson but everyone calls me Tapper. I’m thirteen years old. I was born in Aster on Eris. My favourite colour is ginger. My favourite food is meatfish burgers. I have eight brothers and sisters, nineteen aunts and uncles and sixty-seven cousins.’
‘And they’ll all be very proud of you when I tell them how you saved our lives,’ Argo said.
Tapper imagined the looks on his cousins’ faces when Argo told them about this and his cheeks grew warm with pride.
Argo was still looking at him. Tapper’s face grew even hotter. ‘Sorry, was that a joke? I’m not good at recognising Earth humour.’
‘No, I meant it,’ Argo said. He walked across to the periscope and eased it up. ‘Would you like a special assignment? Bella and I will need to stay on board the Boldly to guard the cargo, so someone needs to volunteer to go ashore and find a mechanic.’
He couldn’t be serious. ‘Me?’ Tapper squeaked. ‘On my own? But I don’t even know anything about Earth.’
‘It’s not that different from Eris,’ Argo said. ‘We’re in the capital city. There are shops all along the bay so you won’t have to go far. Just find one that does repairs and come back, as quickly as you can.’
