CHAPTER FIVE – Someone else’s Sun
‘I thought we’d put them off the scent!’ Skye was wrestling frantically with the levers and dials. ‘How do I get this thing into hyperspace mode Sir?’
‘See? It’s too much for a boy of your age to handle. Let me take over,’ shouted Pluto above the din, pushing in front of Skye and taking over the controls.
Venus clutched the arms of her padded space seat and tried to calm her thudding heart. The ship lurched and juddered. She stared through the thick glass windscreen, where a large black oblong shape nosed into view. Bolts of red light hurtled towards them. Pluto yanked the steering wheel over to the left and the craft dived sideways, leaving Venus’s stomach far behind. Thunderbolts rocked the ship as it careered through space. Skye turned to Venus and put his ferny hand on hers. It felt warm and soft. She stared back at him, paralysed with fright.
‘Are we going to die?’ she whispered.
His third eye flared open. ‘No! Don’t even say it! You cannot die! We’re taking extreme evasive measures Serenity. It’s our only chance. Oh – and it might hurt a bit.’
This didn’t sound good. But what choice did she have? Pluto was working furiously at the controls, his black paws a blur of movement as the space pod rocketed on. They must be going faster than the speed of light.
‘Black hole Charkon 234 positively identified!’ shouted Pluto. ‘Ready? Let’s go!’
Venus clenched every muscle in her body, including ones she didn’t even know she had. This was far worse than going to the dentist. The fire bolt attacks had stopped but now the ship felt as though it was being controlled by an outside force. It was hurtling past countless bright planets and towering clouds of pink nebulae – probably not clouds at all but constellations - towards something she didn’t like the look of at all. As they drew closer she gaped in disbelief.
It was a giant black plughole in space, a twister on a vast cosmic scale. Everything around it was pouring into it, swirling round and round, irretrievably sucked into the dense black core at the centre. It distorted reality and the whole skyscape looked like a tablecloth being pulled down though a hole in the table. Vast quantities of swirling matter were disappearing as she watched, and their frail craft was part of the tumult, rushing helplessly towards the giant vacuum like a leaf in water. The pod gave a violent jolt and they were pulled forward at an unimaginable speed towards the vortex. Planets and rocky meteorites flashed past, spiralling out of control around them, blurring together as they joined up in a storm of white lines.
Venus closed her eyes and grabbed Skye’s hand. Every muscle in her body screamed in pain and the breath was torn from her body. It felt as though she was disintegrating into a thousand particles. She lost all sense of time, of whom she was, what she was and where she was. It was as though she had merged somehow with the rest of the universe. Then just as suddenly, the pod seemed to stand still. Venus opened her eyes. There was nothing but dense black emptiness outside the window. They were floating in limbo.
She looked down and saw she was still there, her hand gripped tightly in Skye’s. They were still inside the space pod and her companions were in one piece. Pluto was expertly working the console, growling under his breath in concentration.
Skye grinned at her. ‘There, that wasn’t too bad was it?
‘It was horrible!’ cried Venus, ‘worse than the worst theme park ride ever!’
‘You have been through much worse in your previous lifetimes, Serenity,’ said Pluto gravely. ‘Are you ready? We are about to enter the Seventh Dimension in the Third Realm of Galaxies. Our galaxy is not far. We will be landing on Ventura in approximately ten earth minutes. ’
Venus was about to resume her enquiries, but realised she was far too exhausted to cope with any more startling revelations for the time being.
‘Just sit back and enjoy the view. We’re safe now,’ said Skye, patting her hand. ‘We’ll explain everything when we get there.’
Venus slumped into her seat. She felt the pod pushing through some sort of barrier. It emerged into another skyscape and gave a jolt. It seemed to be working under its own powers of propulsion again. More stars, more planets, more endless matter rushed past the window.
‘Welcome to the Seventh Dimension,’ said Skye. ‘We’re on home ground now. Look!’ He pointed at a group of nine planets spinning round a giant fiery ball of gas. They were of varying sizes, orbiting around it at different distances, some with rings of swirling matter around them that wobbled like hula hoops. ‘That’s the Manchuria Solar System. That’s Nexus, our sun, and there’s Ventura.’ He pointed at a beautiful planet, third out from the Sun, blue and green, hanging like a precious jewel in the black void. From this distance, it looked just like earth. But there were three moons, orbiting slowly round it and as they approached, she saw that the land masses were configured in an entirely different way.
There was a gentle puff as they entered the planet’s atmosphere. Brilliant sunshine flooded the interior of the spacecraft. Pluto guided them gently towards the surface. Within a few minutes, the contours of the planet were lost from view and the horizon flattened out as it rose to meet them. They were gliding over turquoise oceans dotted with island chains. They headed towards a continental land mass in the Northern hemisphere and came in to land on the shores of a vast inland sea. Large pink cloud formations towered to the North, banked up like turreted castles. Moons hung in the sky like giant paper lanterns. Jagged peaks reared on the horizon, and in the distance glass towers and pyramids glinted in the sun, sprawled across emerald hills.
The space pod came to earth with a gentle bump. The aperture slid open and Venus felt a gust of warm air rushing in to meet her. Skye unstrapped her. She rose unsteadily to her feet. She allowed herself to be led towards the opening and stepped onto the most stunning beach she had ever seen. Acres of soft, fine, multicoloured sand stretched in a giant crescent around the bay, arranged in marbled streaks of iridescent colours. Turquoise waters lapped the shoreline. An azure blue sky arched above her, and a blazing sun warmed her skin. It was so beautiful she could scarcely breathe.
Pluto turned to her. ‘Welcome home Serenity.’
