The Kingdom of the Seven Stars: Chaturanga

Chapter 7

"Don't worry, Captain. Of course I'll unlock the controls," said Alice.

"I really must... What?" said Captain Zachary.

"Alice?" said Alex. After all she had done to get them here, he could not believe she was going to give up now.

"Just as soon as we've been down to Earth and checked if King Stephen's Notebook is there or not," said Alice.

"King who's what?" said Lieutenant Anderson.

"Oh, for the love of...! Your highness, no," said Captain Zachary. "We're not going down there."

"We're here, aren't we?" said Ellen, gesturing at the planet through the window. "We might as well go and look."

"No," said Captain Zachary. "It is too..."

"Look, Captain. What happens if it is there?" said Alex.

Captain Zachary looked at him.

"Well, I know there's a chance, your highness," he said, "but..."

"Just pretend for a moment that it is there," said Alex. "If we go home now, we'll have to tell everyone where we've been and why. As soon as we tell Doctor Thornton, she's probably going to want to come and look for it herself. By time she gets here, Lord Blackstar will probably have beaten Mum." He hated to say that outloud, but he knew he needed to if he was going to convince the captain. "What happens if it is here, she finds it and it turns out it could have helped?"

"If that happens and everyone asks why we didn't get it while we had the chance, I'm going to tell them to talk to you," said Ellen.

"I know it's a small chance," said Alex, "and even if it is there, it might have rotted or something, but we haven't got a lot of other chances. We've got nothing to lose by trying."

As well as that, now that they were here, Alex found he did not want to leave without at least setting foot on Earth. Mrs Jadestar had been right. This was not just the planet they had evolved on. It was where most of his ancestors had lived all their lives. He did not want to have to go back to school and tell everyone that he had been all the way to Earth and then not actually walked on it.

Captain Zachary paused, pursing his lips, looking between them and down at the planet.

"I suppose... a quick look... wouldn't hurt," he said.

* * * * * * *

"Right then. Here we go. Chaturanga. Ashtapada Province. India," said the space station's navigation officer, standing over the digital map table in the middle of the station's control room. "You can forget all the details. This particular map's over eight hundred years old, but that's the place."

"OK," said Alex. He had already guessed that the landscape the map was showing, with its neat square fields and roads and a small city with houses and gardens, was probably not going to be what they would find when they got down to Earth.

"Great. So where's the museum?" said Ellen.

"It's not marked, but according to that book of yours it should be about here," said the navigation officer. He tapped the map table and it zoomed in on the right area. "Those are the coordinates you'll need. Our matter transmitter can put you down within two hundred metres."

"Sorry again I don't have anyone available to escort you to surface," said Lieutenant Anderson. "But I'm sure you'll be just fine with the captain to look after you."

"Yes," said Captain Zachary, giving him a dark look. "What exactly can we expect when we get down there?"

"That's the good news. One of our survey drones flew over this area a month ago, so we've got some fairly up-to-date information," said the navigation officer. "The terrain will be swampy. Now, contrary to what most people think, not all of the air down there is unbreathable. We're making great progress in cleaning the atmosphere. This close to the equator, it should be fine. We'll give you some oxygen masks just in case, but you should be able to breathe normally without them."