The Big Freeze Read online

  He crawled out and sat down carefully. ‘Wormholes make me nervous,’ Finbar explained.

  Kip decided to change the subject. He pointed to a nearby planet close to the galaxy’s three suns.

  ‘Do you think that’s Eden-7?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s grey and icy,’ Finbar said, getting up. ‘Isn’t Eden-7 supposed to be warm?’

  ‘WorldCorp uploaded Eden-7’s likely location,’ MoNa chimed in. ‘That planet matches the co-ordinates.’

  ‘Must be it,’ said Kip. ‘Take us closer, MoNa.’

  MoNa sped towards Eden-7’s atmosphere. Her windows frosted over with thick ice as they passed through. An ugly meteorite crater scarred the planet’s surface. Dust clouds covered everything.

  ‘Approaching destination,’ said MoNa. ‘Scrambler Beam activated.’

  ‘I hate that thing,’ Finbar shuddered. ‘It scrambles our particles, beams them through the sky, and rearranges them on our destination planet.’

  A beam of light shot down from the roof of the bridge. On the floor below the light, Kip saw a pair of footprints and a pair of pawprints.

  Kip did up his spacesuit and put his helmet back on. He attached the hose to an OxyGlobe, which squeezed enough oxygen for two days into a tank as small as a tennis ball.

  WorldCorp OxyGlobe

  When Finbar had his spacesuit on, they stood on their footprints under the beam.

  There was a soft hum. Kip felt a sharp tingling, like pins and needles all over his body. Then MoNa shot a beam of light down to Eden-7. Kip and Finbar went with it, in millions of tiny pieces.

  WHOMP!

  Kip’s particles reformed on the rocky surface of Eden-7. He was whole again. The beam had vanished.

  Beside him, Finbar whimpered. His spacesuit was specially shaped to fit his ears. That’s how Kip knew they were flattened in fear.

  WorldCorp had predicted a sunny planet. But when Kip checked the temperature on his SpaceCuff, it was 316 degrees below zero! Freezing winds whistled across icy rocks. Giant shards of what looked like crystal stuck up at weird angles. The air was full of dust.

  It was so gloomy and dusty that Kip couldn’t tell if it was day or night.

  ‘Humans couldn’t live here,’ said Finbar, his fangs chattering.

  Actually, it looks like NO-ONE lives here, Kip thought. As far as he could tell, Eden-7 was deserted.

  ‘Maybe it’s nicer in summer,’ Kip said. ‘Anyway, our mission is to explore the planet, no matter how terrible it looks.’

  ‘There’s a c-c-cave over there,’ said Finbar, whose eyesight was excellent.

  ‘Let’s shelter there and work out what to do,’ Kip said, trying to sound upbeat.

  They trudged off.

  The wind sliced through Kip’s spacesuit like a knife. His spirits slumped.

  His first Space Scout mission should have been thrilling. High-tech. Dangerous. Not miserable and cold like this place!

  CHAPTER 5

  Kip and Finbar reached the cave. It was still freezing cold. But now that they were out of the wind, Kip felt like he was back home under his programmable doona set to ‘Tahiti’.

  Suddenly, a shrill call echoed through the shadowy cave. It was something between a shiver and a shriek.

  Then there was another unmistakable noise. Footsteps were coming towards them from deep inside the cave!

  ‘There’s life here after all!’ Kip said, feeling excited about the mission again.

  ‘We should hide,’ said Finbar. ‘We don’t know who or what the noises belong to!’

  Kip and Finbar ducked into the shadows just in time.

  Hundreds of cold, green eyes appeared in the gloom. Moments later, Kip saw who the eyes belonged to.

  The creatures came up to Kip’s waist and walked on two legs. Thick, spiked tails swished behind them as they ran out of the cave. Kip could hear them calling to each other in their alien language as they passed by.

  In Space Scout training, Kip had learnt how to act when he came across a new kind of alien. Some aliens were friendly and some weren’t.

  Kip knew he had to be cautious. If these aliens were unfriendly, those spikes and claws could be dangerous.

  Secretly, Kip thought battling evil aliens would be pretty cool for a first mission.He crept forward and looked out of the cave.

  Outside, the dust clouds had parted. Three tiny, pale suns shone weakly down. The aliens lay flat on their backs in the pitiful sunshine.

  They’re basking, Kip thought. Just like Duke does.

  Kip crept back to Finbar. ‘I wonder where they came from,’ he whispered. ‘Maybe underground. If they live below the surface, that would explain how they can survive on this planet.’

  ‘I can hear something,’ Finbar whispered suddenly, his super-sensitive wolf ears twitching.

  Just then, two new pairs of creepy alien eyes appeared near the roof of the cave. The bigger set of eyes blinked. The eyelids moved from side to side instead of up and down.

  It was an alien hanging upside-down from the roof! It jumped down. In the alien’s arms was a baby alien.

  The baby started wailing, and the mother alien made a soft shivering sound. She rocked the baby alien gently.

  ‘Awww, cute!’ said Finbar, reaching out to stroke the baby alien’s head.

  SCREECH!

  The mother alien screeched at Finbar. She ran out of the cave, her baby held tightly in her arms.

  ‘What were you thinking, Finbar?’ Kip whispered. ‘These aliens aren’t cute! They look dangerous.’

  He was thinking fast. He had to work out whether humans could live on Eden-7. So far, his hunch that the aliens might live underground was his best bet.

  But now the aliens knew Kip and Finbar were there. That meant exploring underground would be a huge risk.

  Kip knew what he had to do.

  ‘Let’s explore the cave now, while it’s empty,’ said Kip. ‘Those aliens might come back for us at any time!’

  Kip paced the cave, trying to work out where the aliens had come from. He followed their footprints in the ice.

  ‘There’s a tunnel at the back of the cave,’ said Finbar, pointing to a dark corner.

  The tunnel looked big enough for Kip to squeeze through on hands and knees. It would be easier without his helmet on though. He turned on the air-analyser on his SpaceCuff.

  ‘I don’t know if I’ll fit,’ said Finbar as they took off their helmets.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Kip, dropping to his knees. He wriggled into the tunnel, backpack in one hand. ‘You’re 99.9 per cent fluff, aren’t you?’

  Kip squeezed along the tunnel. It was really only big enough for the aliens to use.

  The rocky walls jabbed into Kip’s shoulders painfully. He could only move a few centimetres at a time.

  ‘OK back there, Fin?’ said Kip. He could twist just enough to see Finbar.

  Finbar’s wolf tongue panted with exhaustion. He wasn’t moving forward. He couldn’t move back either. Finbar was stuck!

  CHAPTER 6

  Kip knew it wasn’t Finbar’s fault, but they didn’t have time for this!

  ‘Those aliens could be back at any moment,’ he said, worried.

  ‘I know,’ said Finbar grimly. ‘I don’t fancy meeting those spiky tails in this narrow tunnel, either.’ But as hard as he tried, Finbar really couldn’t move.

  What are we going to do? Kip thought, resting on his backpack. It was stuffed full of all the useless stuff his mum made him pack, like powdered broccoli.

  Wait… powdered broccoli!

  One of the few interesting things Kip had learnt from his Teacherbots at school was about powdered broccoli.

  In the year 2176, scientists discovered that people who ate powdered broccoli suddenly lost huge amounts of water from their bodies.The effect didn’t last long. But the nerdy scientists thought it was because water had been taken out of the broccoli to turn it into a powder.

  Whatever the reason, powdered broccoli made peop
le instantly dehydrate and lose weight, since the human body is mostly water.

  I wonder if it works on wolves? thought Kip.

  He tossed the sachet of powdered broccoli to Finbar, who wrinkled his snout.

  ‘Wolves are meat-eaters!’ he said glumly. ‘Still, anything for the mission.’ He tipped the entire sachet down his throat.

  Instantly, clouds of water vapour rose from Finbar’s fur.Within seconds, his damp fur was plastered to his face. He looked like a gigantic rat after a bubble bath! But Finbar was now slim enough to squeeze along the tunnel after Kip.

  They crawled at top speed for another couple of minutes.

  ‘There’s light ahead,’ called Kip.

  The tunnel widened out and soon Kip could stand. Light was shining weakly through an opening in the rock. Carefully, Kip stepped through.

  He gasped. He was on a narrow rock ledge about halfway up the wall of a huge cave. The ledge was only 10 centimetres wide! He grabbed onto the rock behind him to keep from falling.

  The cave was massive. Tunnels like the one Kip had just come through led off in all directions. Pale light filtered through holes in the rocky roof high above.

  ‘What is this place?’ asked Finbar, who had stepped onto the ledge next to Kip.

  ‘Maybe the middle of an underground city?’ said Kip, thinking aloud. ‘We have to explore those tunnels. Humans could live in them… not that I’d want to.’

  ‘We’ll have to get off this ledge first,’ Finbar replied.

  Kip grinned.‘Any good at rock climbing, Fin?’

  ‘None of our ropes are long enough,’ said Finbar, level-headed as always.

  ‘Got any dental floss?’ said Kip suddenly. Finbar’s teeth are very white, he thought. I bet he takes good care of them, even if he is an Animaul.

  Finbar pulled a giant pack ofWorldCorp’s Microthin Dental Floss from his backpack. He passed it to Kip.

  Kip made a loop of dental floss and tied it with a slipknot. He hooked it over a craggy rock.

  ‘Instant safety rope!’ grinned Kip. ‘Minty-fresh, too.’

  Finbar looked doubtful.

  ‘WorldCorp coats its dental floss with Kevlar,’ said Kip. ‘It’ll hold us, don’t worry.’

  The nearest tunnel entrance was below them. The climb down would be short but scary. A single thread of dental floss stood between them and a horrific fall.

  Kip stepped off the rock ledge, feeling for a toehold. He held onto the dental floss tightly with both hands.

  But just as he rested his weight on a hold in the rock, his boot slipped. Rocks tumbled down, falling all the way to the bottom of the cave.

  Kip’s heart hammered in his chest as he swung away from the rock. He hoped he wasn’t wrong about the dental floss’s strength. But it held firm.

  Keep going, he thought, reaching back to the rock and steadying his foothold.

  This time, Kip didn’t slip. He inched his way down the rock wall. Kip was strong and light, but soon his shoulders were burning with the strain.

  The climb down was thrilling, but Kip was pleased when it was over. He stepped down onto the floor of the tunnel with a deep sigh of relief.

  Kip paused to catch his breath and wait for Finbar. He squinted around. The light through the holes way up in the roof only lit the tunnel a tiny bit.

  There was a very strange sound in the tunnel, too.

  GLUB GLUB GLUB

  Ew, Kip thought. What’s that?

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know!

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘The walls are covered with bubbles,’ said Finbar, stepping down next to Kip. ‘And they look like snot bubbles.’

  Kip flicked on his SpaceCuff.There was no reception underground. But at least the SpaceCuff’s light worked.

  Holding the SpaceCuff up, Kip peered at the walls. He shuddered. The slimy bubbles were everywhere!

  Inside each was a tiny creature. Suddenly, one burst through its gloopy bubble.

  The little creature grabbed the walls with its arms and legs. The way it moved reminded Kip of the mother alien clinging to the roof of the cave.

  Suddenly, Kip understood what the gross bubbles were. ‘They’re alien eggs – with baby aliens inside,’ he said. ‘This must be some kind of hatchery!’

  Finbar reached out and scooped up the hatchling in his paw.

  ‘Don’t touch it!’ Kip warned.

  ‘It’s freezing cold,’ said Finbar, ignoring Kip. ‘Its lips are blue. Perhaps the babies are too little to handle the cold.’

  ‘Put it down,’ said Kip urgently.

  Finbar stroked the tiny alien with one furry finger. The creature purred.

  ‘I think the warmth of my paw is helping,’ said Finbar.

  Kip knew it went against Finbar’s animal instincts to leave a fellow creature in pain. And even if the aliens turned out to be dangerous, he didn’t want the babies to freeze either.

  But Kip knew they had to get moving. They needed to explore the planet properly, before the aliens came back. Otherwise Kip would fail his first mission, which would be seriously embarrassing.

  ‘We don’t know anything about alien first aid,’ said Kip. ‘We could do more harm than good.’

  ‘I guess you’re ri–’ Finbar began.

  Before he could finish, a chilling sound filled the cave. filled the cave.

  SCREECH!

  Scuttling aliens appeared from nowhere, thumping their spiked tails. The aliens were short, but their strange scaly bodies seemed to fill the cave.

  ‘Put the baby down!’ Kip yelled to Finbar. ‘We’ve got to run!’

  Finbar stooped down and gently put the baby alien on a rock.

  ‘Bye, little guy,’ said Finbar, giving the baby one last stroke.

  ‘Finbar! Come ON!’ Kip yelled, moving into a nearby tunnel.

  But it was too late. The aliens had completely surrounded Finbar! There were hundreds of them, and they looked upset.

  I’ve got to save Finbar! Kip thought.

  But there were too many aliens. He knew he couldn’t do anything if the aliens captured him too.

  Kip could only think of one way out. MoNa’s Scrambler Beam might just be powerful enough to reach through the holes in the roof and beam Finbar to safety.

  It would use a lot of MoNa’s energy, but Kip knew it was his best shot of saving Finbar. The only problem was that he didn’t want to explain everything to his starship.

  MoNa already thinks she knows more than I do, Kip thought. What’s she going to think when I ask her to save us?

  Still, he didn’t have much choice. Got to get to the surface and call MoNa, he thought.

  But before Kip started heading up, he pulled a Stick-E-Cam from his backpack.

  STICK! CLICK! PERFECT PIC!

  Stick-E-Cams were super-thin cameras disguised as ordinary stickers. Kip’s SpaceCuff could connect to any nearby Stick-E-Cam via bluetooth.

  Kip plastered the Stick-E-Cam to the wall of the tunnel. Now Kip could keep watch on the tunnel from the surface while he worked out how to rescue Finbar.

  Once Kip had tested the position of the Stick-E-Cam, he felt his way along the rocky wall of the dim tunnel.

  Those aliens couldn’t have come from nowhere, Kip reasoned. This tunnel must lead to the surface.

  The tunnel sloped steeply upwards, so Kip figured he was right.

  Getting down on his hands and knees, Kip crawled up through the tunnel as fast as he could. The rocky ground jabbed into his knees through his ultra-light spacesuit, but Kip barely noticed.

  Finbar’s counting on me, Kip thought, and I won’t let him down.

  After an exhausting crawl, Kip finally saw weak sunlight up ahead. I was right! he thought, his mood soaring. The tunnel leads to the surface.

  He slapped on his helmet and attached his OxyGlobe again. The air on the surface was so dusty that it wouldn’t be safe to breathe.

  Kip scrambled towards the light. A second later, he was on the bitterly cold surface of
Eden-7. He was in the middle of the massive crater he’d seen from space.

  Turning on his SpaceCuff, Kip linked into the Stick-E-Cam on the cave wall.

  Straight away, he wished he hadn’t. He didn’t like what was going on in the tunnel.

  Not at all.

  CHAPTER 8

  In the weak light of the cave, Kip could just make out Finbar’s fluffy shape on his SpaceCuff screen.

  It looked like the alien hatchlings were swarming all over him. He was covered in baby aliens!

  Hatchlings nestled in Finbar’s furry arms, on his shoulders and even on his head!

  A theory popped into Kip’s mind.

  The hatchlings are cold and sick. Finbar’s all warm and furry. Maybe the aliens are using Finbar as a giant, walking heat source!

  Kip remembered how evil the aliens had seemed. Now he wondered if he was wrong about them.

  They looked and behaved differently to him. But they were only doing what they had to do to survive – just like Kip.

  Just then, Kip noticed a message flashing on his SpaceCuff. It was an old message. Kip hadn’t received it because there was no reception that far underground in the tunnels.

  SENDER: MoNa 4000

  SUBJECT: Return to ship immediately.

  The Eden-7 atmosphere is so cold that my fuel is freezing. Even my anti-freeze is freezing. Heating has nearly used all my energy reserves. Soon I won’t have enough power for two Scrambler Beams.

  I’ll have to leave you stranded.

  Surely MoNa wouldn’t really do that? thought Kip, horrified. MoNa was supposed to help and protect him.

  But she did have a terrible habit of thinking she knew best. Imagine being stuck in this horrible frozen wasteland forever, he shuddered.

  Basking desperately for any shred of heat like the aliens did. Caring for freezing alien hatchlings. Every day, looking at that horrible giant meteorite scar…

  That meteorite must have been bigger than the one that killed the dinosaurs on Earth, Kip thought. Dinosaurs (and other extinct animals like pigs and budgies) were a personal interest of Kip’s.