BIG MOTHER

OLD ELIAS

BRIAN EARNSHAW

Dragonfall 5

and the Super Horse

Illustrated by Simon Stern

TIM&MINIMS

SANCHEZ &

A Magnet Book

1• A horse scientist in orbit

Dragonfall 5 swung suspended in orbit, fifty thousand miles out from the moons of the planet Mowl. Even in daytime the moons were so bright that Big Mother had pulled all the shutters and curtains on that side of the cabin.

'Fading all my paintwork!' she said.

And now, after three days of waiting, Tim and Sanchez only rolled back a corner of curtain every now and then, just to reassure themselves that anything as remarkable as the moons of Mowl really did exist.

'I've seen planets that had three or four suns,' said Sanchez.

'And we have visited planets with as many as nine or ten moons,' his brother Tim reminded him. Tim was always exact about science.

'But we've never before been to a planet that had so many moons whizzing round it that you couldn't see the planet itself,' finished Sanchez firmly.

'There are four hundred and eighty of them,' said Tim, who had looked it up in The Intergalactic

Register. 'That's if you count all the small bits that are just a few miles across. But at least one hundred and twenty are full-sized moons that you'd notice anywhere.'

'After they've checked on the launching of this new Instant Ship, do you think our two scientists

will want us to pick a way through the moons and see Mowl itself?' asked Sanchez. 'After all, the Instant Ship is being launched from Mowl not from the moons. I don't know why we haven't gone in closer straight away to make an inspection.'

'Because it's a secret mission,' said Tim, 'and we're not meant to be here. We're right on the course the Instant Ship will have to take to get to Earth from Mowl. With all the instruments they've packed into our cargo-hold,' Tim nodded over his shoulder, 'our scientists should be able to check any disturbance in air currents and any waste gases that the Instant Ship might create with this new Proton Drive it uses.'

Old Elias, their father, grunted suspiciously.

'You keep saying our two scientists,' he said, 'but I'd say we'd got one scientist back there in the hold and one horse!'

'It's a very special horse,' Tim reminded him. 'All its four hooves are divided so that it can hold things. You've seen how it can open doors and cut food with a knife.'

'And there's no reason why a horse shouldn't be a scientist,' Sanchez added indignantly. 'They're very intelligent!'

'Humph,' Old Elias snorted into his beard. 'If I let you sit on my back and ride me round and round a field while people bet money on me, would you say I was intelligent?'

'But it's a horse from Mowl,' Sanchez protested, 'and they're quite different. They've invented the Proton Drive so they must be cleverer than us.'

'So they say,' his father grumbled. 'If they have it's the first new thing to come off Mowl, and look at the trouble it's causing already—pollution and upset, keeping us hanging about here, checking on them to see they aren't tearing up the atmosphere with their new inventions. Who wants an Instant Ship anyway? Takes all the fun out of travelling. There won't be much future for us as cargo carriers, I can tell you, if they develop this Proton Drive of theirs. Horses!'

He scowled at the door to the cargo-hold.

'Never mind,' said Big Mother soothingly. 'We've got some lovely colour slides of these moons and I've half finished hook-stitching this round rug of mine. Professor Horgankriss was telling me at lunch that they're expecting this Instant Ship launch any time now, but I shall be sorry to move on.'

Old Elias was still cross.

'Scientist horse!' he scoffed. 'Have any of you seen that horse touch just one of the instruments down there in the hold? Have you seen it make a single measurement or add up a few figures?'

'It watches television,' said Tim doubtfully.

'Hah!' snuffed Old Elias. 'So does your flying hound dog, by the hour if we let him. But no one's ever suggested Jerk was intelligent.'

'He's often been very useful,' Sanchez reached up to where Jerk was lying on his private hammock and scratched behind the long soft ears that the flying hound dog sometimes, but only very rarely, used to glide with. Flying hound dogs cannot bark, but Jerk rolled his eyes sulkily at Old Elias.

'We have heard this horse speak,' continued Tim, 'and that proves he's intelligent.'

'Speak!' snapped Old Elias, who was grumpy because he'd had no space flying to do for three whole days. 'Speak! I've heard him say "Thank you, ma'am, for your courtesy" and "No more today, thank you kindly". I could teach a parrot to say that much. I've got nothing against Professor Horgankriss, I'm sure he's got a whole string of scientific degrees after his name, but that horse there is another matter entirely. He's no more a scientist than I am!'

'Well,' said Big Mother heavily to end the argument, 'the Galactic Health Authority is paying good money to charter this ship whether that horse is a scientist or not. And for my part I think it's a treat to hang about in space on purpose instead of hanging about because the engines have broken down, which is what's usually happened to us.'

There was an awkward pause. What Big Mother said was true, but out of loyalty to Dragonfall no one in the family crew liked to agree with her. Dragonfall 5 was a vintage starship, nearly seventy years old, and several museums had offered to buy her. Things did tend to go wrong with her more often than with modern space ships. Usually the two boys, Tim and Sanchez, could help their father to patch her up, but on their last voyage they had been forced to send out a 'Help!' signal on their laser radio, and the breakdown ship which came out to rescue them had been very expensive.

After that Big Mother had been firm. 'It's no use picking up a cargo here and a cargo there,' she had said. 'If we want the money to pay that repair bill we must put ourselves out on charter for a few months.'

So they had advertised.

Starship for charter. 5,000 credits weekly or terms to be arranged. Star drive, propulsion unit and rocket pods for unaided planetary landings. Would suit luxury cruise or special cargos. Go anywhere, do anything legal.

And in next to no time they had been chartered by the Galactic Health Authority, which was very respectable, to take two of their scientists on a secret mission. Their cargo-hold had been turned into a laboratory, with banks of instruments to measure air pressure and air purity. All sorts of aerials and rods and nets had been fitted on to the old ship's rear propulsion star drive and they were ready for their two scientists and their sealed orders.

Old Elias had hung two comfortable hammocks so that the scientists could sleep in their laboratory and he was very put out when one of the scientists turned out to be what he called a horse, though Sanchez insisted that the horse was really quite a small pony, about ten hands high. Finally Old Elias had slung a foam rubber mattress from the cargo-hold roof.

'Though probably I should have thrown him a bale of straw!' he said.

Then they had taken off and Professor Horgan-kriss had given them their sealed orders to open. These were rather mysterious. They were to proceed cautiously to a point fifty thousand miles outside the moons of Mowl and there take up orbit station to await the next test flight of the Proton Drive Instant Ship from Mowl to Earth. After that they were to go 'as directed by Professor Horgan-kriss until the charter period is ended.'

Of course they had heard all about the Instant Ship and its secret Proton Drive. The whole galaxy had been buzzing with the news for months. Someone who called himself Mr Mowl and lived rather secretly on the planet called Mowl had taken off from there in his strange new craft which he called the Instant Ship. He had taken off in front of television cameras, and about three seconds later he | had appeared again halfway between Earth and its moon. That was a journey of one hundred and ninety light years. Such a journey had taken Dra-gonfall 5 two weeks and even the fastest modern space cruisers using star propulsion would have taken three hours at least to do the journey. Now here was a ship using the unknown Proton Drive doing it in three seconds!

It was no wonder that everyone was excited. Mr Mowl and his Instant Ship had then disappeared from Earth skies, in front of half the television crews in the galaxy, with a huge cloud of black smoke hundreds of miles wide, and five seconds later he had reappeared inside the moons of Mowl in another cloud of smoke. When he was asked why he had taken five seconds this time instead of three, as he did the first time, he had replied airily, 'the Proton wind was head on, but what's two seconds between two galaxies?'

And that was all anyone could find out about Mr Mowl or his Instant Ship or the Proton Drive. Now everyone was waiting for another test flight and an explanation of this mysterious 'Proton wind'.

'I expect the Galactic Health Authority is worried about the big black cloud of smoke,' Tim said thoughtfully, 'and probably our horse scientist is an expert in air conditions off Mowl. I believe they are rather unusual.'

'Hah!' Old Elias snorted again. 'The only thing that horse is an expert in is hay!'

Just then Old Elias noticed that Sanchez was making frantic signs to him to shut up. He turned round and saw why. The horse had quietly opened the door into the cabin from the cargo-hold laboratory and was standing politely waiting to be noticed.

2 The mysterious passage of the Instant Ship

It is always upsetting to be caught talking behind someone's back when, in fact, they are facing you! But the horse scientist did not seem to be the least put out at hearing himself described as a hay expert. He slid the door shut with a casual push of one of his hind legs.

'Pardon me, lady, and pardon me, gentlemen,' he said in a deep lazy drawl. 'We have just heard that the Instant Ship is about to take off from Mowl on its second Earth flight. Reception is none too good on our set and I wondered if I might make so bold as to see if your television reception is any better. That's if it's not inconveniencing any of you folk.'

Old Elias was embarrassed and pulled his green eyeshade right down his nose, but Jerk got up and wagged his tail and Big Mother pulled up a sofa hospitably.

'Why surely,' she said. 'You're welcome to watch our television any time you want. Though I don't expect our reception will be much better

than your own. All these moons get in the way and block the signals from Mowl, so Tim tells me. Put the set on, will you, Tim, and see what we can get?'

As Tim switched on their television the horse stepped carefully around the furniture and sat down on the sofa. He was a very handsome silvery-white horse with black freckles on his face. Sanchez moved up to make room for him. He normally loved animals but was not quite sure how to take this one.

'My name's Sanchez,' he said, 'I expect you know my brother Tim’

'By sight only,' said the horse. 'Though we have spent two weeks together in your compact but admirable starship we have kept ourselves to ourselves and our paths have crossed but little. My name is Hneighhhl.' He gave a short sharp neighing sound which the boys could never have repeated. 'But I was called Nigel in Chipperfield's Circus and I would be honoured if you would use the same name here.'

'Nigel!' repeated Sanchez. 'And you've worked in a circus?'

The horse tossed his head saucily and smiled with his eyes.

'Briefly,' he replied. 'Nigel, the Amazing Counting Horse. It was not remarkable that I could subtract six apples from ten to leave four since I have a University degree in Pure and Applied Mathematics.'

Sanchez gave his father a look to say 'I told you so'. The television had come on. As Big Mother had warned them it was a very poor picture. Splashes and white lines flashed across the screen and a harsh grating roar cut out all the words. The camera was closing in on the surface of Mowl, The ! ground was a very dark green and the sky was deep | black with random patterns of curved streaks of silver that altered as they watched. The cone of a I neat volcano showed up, spouting fire in a delicate plume.

'You've got lots of volcanos on Mowl, haven't you?' Tim asked their guest.

'Countless pillars of spouting fire,' the horse replied lazily. 'Thanks to the gravity pull of our four I hundred and eighty moons the fiery inside of our I planet is always trying to get outside, which makes j life lively. That particular volcano you see there,' I he nodded at the flickering screen, 'is the property I and laboratory of the famous Mr Mowl, discoverer i of the Proton Drive and inventor of the Instant I Ship, of which you will have heard.'

'Isn't it rather cheek?' Tim asked cautiously, 'for him to call himself Mr Mowl? I mean that's the name of the whole planet; it's not his name, is it?|

It's like calling yourself Mr Earth or Mrs Moon or Master Jupiter!'

The horse snickered briefly and turned thoughtfully to Tim.

'Right, right and right again,' he said. 'His real name is Hwihyaahmhh, which is hard for anyone not of my race to pronounce. Let us call him William, which is near enough. For the rest I agree with you wholly. To call himself Mr Mowl is a volcanic-sized bit of cheek. But that is the way to impress a galaxy and, when all is said and done, he is the first horse from Mowl to have done that. This is more impressive than being a Counting Horse in Chipperfield's Circus, so who am I to criticize him?'

Sanchez could not tell whether their horse approved of Mr Mowl or not. He felt puzzled and turned to the television.

A commentator horse had been talking, but now the picture closed in upon the slopes of the volcano where a round steel door was opening in the side of a cliff.

'The Instant Ship,' said Tim.

Very slowly, under perfect control, a slim long starship, beaked like a dangerous bird, drew out from the hole in the rock face. It tilted carefully on a column of golden fire that flowed from its twisted rear unit.

'Is that the Proton Drive?' Sanchez asked.

'I shouldn't think so,' Tim answered. 'It looks to me like a simple ion gas jet to position it for the real take-off.'

The horse nodded.

'Hydrohelioid,' he agreed. 'Our volcanoes squirt it out like water. They have their uses.

Very deliberately the Instant Ship climbed upwards. The television picture, still flicking and jumping, changed to a close-up of a horse sitting ; at a control panel. Much of his head was hidden by a helmet and earphones, but he looked very dis- _s tinguished. He had a mocking smile, high cheek- | bones that made his eyes slant upwards a little, a j. black mane cut square over his forehead and a j crooked white blaze to the left of his long nose.

'And that,' sighed Nigel, 'is Mr William Mowl, the master of the Proton Drive, which half the galaxy would give its back buttons to lay hold of.'

Again Sanchez looked to see if he were serious and again he found it hard to be sure.

On the television Mr Mowl had said something. He smiled mockingly straight into the cameras and waved. The picture cut back to an outside view of the Instant Ship.

'Balloons!' Sanchez gasped.

The Instant Ship now hung motionless in space; the golden fire had faded, but the ship still pointed sharply up towards the dark sky and the changing silver patterns. It had sprouted ten long oval balloons of gas and these held it in place.

'It'll launch now,' said Tim.

A great flash of green light, bright silver at its heart, blasted across the television screen, followed by a cloud of darkness which blotted everything out.

'Giddup, boys, we're away,' called Nigel.

'It's off!' said Sanchez.

'What a pity television can't show us the other end,' said Tim. 'He'll have reached Earth by now.'

'It took us two weeks,' said Sanchez.

'Mister,' said Old Elias uneasily to their visitor, 'I don't want to seem inhospitable but oughtn't you to be in your laboratory? I mean wasn't that your big moment when all the instruments were to do their testing as the Instant Ship rushed past us?'

'You're absolutely right,' the horse got up lazily. 'But you know most of these instruments work by themselves, they make their own records. Professor Horgankriss will get along wonderfully well without me. Hey ho for the wonders of modern science! Just between you and me, folks, if I'd sat here in your comfortable warm cabin the whole voyage playing scrabble, which, I warn you, I play very well, I don't think Professor Horgankriss would even have noticed. There is a man who lives for his apparatus.'

'A real scientist,' cut in Old Elias triumphantly, 'which is what I've just been saying'.

'A scholar and a gentleman,' the horse agreed in his slow deep drawl. 'Howsoever,' and here he ! looked up at the six Minims who were sitting • alertly on their perch, 'I understand that you and [ the Professor have had your little difficulties from | time to time.'

Sanchez giggled, Big Mother looked away and even Old Elias chewed his beard to hide a grin. It was important to get on well with the Professor because he represented the Health Authority and I it was the Health Authority which paid their charter fee, but travelling with him had been an effort. The Professor had not been fun. Sometimes when the boys spoke to him he would just widen his small eyes behind their metal spectacles and simply not answer. At other times he would ask I them what they had really meant by their questions. Then he would tell them what they should have asked, using much longer words, and still forgetting to give them any answers.

This was irritating if they had only been asking him how he wanted his eggs cooked for breakfast, but they could cope with it. The real trouble had been with the six Minims. They had taken against the Professor.

Minims are plump furry animals like chipmunks. They travelled with Dragonfall as a team to do any interpreting that might be necessary on strange planets. They had a gift for telepathy and with their pouchy throats they could make just about any sound they needed, so interpreting came easily to them and they loved their work.

What had caused the trouble had been the way the Minims insisted on interpreting what the Professor said into English, when the Professor thought that he was speaking English all the time. In fact he had a trick of using long scientific terms to impress people.

He would start off at the table after chewing noisily and wiping his mouth.

'What you boys have got to realize,' he would say, fixing them with his little eyes, 'is that the climatic impact of novel methods of vehicular propulsion may be an imbalance of the three-dimensional dynamic processes of photochemistry.'

Then the Minims would look smugly down from their perch and interrupt.

'What he means to say . .' began the first Minim,

'Is that if you invent a new kind of space ship ...' the second continued,

'It might make an awful mess of the weather between planets,' finished the third.

'Which he could have said quite easily in the first place but he likes to wrap it all up,' chanted the three Minims in chorus.

Everyone would look nervously at their plates. Professor Horgankriss would go red.

'I think they mean to help,' Sanchez would explain.

'And I'm sure they mean no offence,' Big Mother would add hastily.

But the Professor would stump off, muttering, back to the cargo-hold and set his instruments to make 'Ping! Bleep! Whoing!' noises all the next night. None of this led to good feeling, but no one could control the Minims because they worked for pleasure not for pay.

One result of this state of affairs was that the crew of Dragonfall got only a very hazy idea of the purpose of their mission. Every time Professor Horgankriss began one of his complicated explanations the Minims would butt in and irritate him again. No one had liked to ask the horse scientist what they were going to do, because he had been very reserved until now.

'I can assure you folks,' the horse went on, 'that if the Professor wakes up in the night feeling a little hungry, why he just reaches up on the shelf for his dictionary and eats a few pages.'

The horse looked down his nose and this time everyone joined in the laugh openly.

'Strike me down,' declared Old Elias, 'if you're not the first horse I've met with a sense of humour! Eats a few pages of his dictionary! I like that!'

'You will pardon a delicate point, folks,' their guest continued, pawing lightly with one hoof at the roses on the sofa cover, 'but now we are well acquainted I'd take it kindly if you would not refer to me as a horse. On Mowl we are very particular about degree: sizes, weight, height, that kind of thing. I am always called Hneighhhl Hwhahh, or as you would say, Nigel Pony. Our surname or second name always describes our size. So if you wouldn't mind.'

'Pleased I'm sure,' said Big Mother. 'It'll be Nigel Pony from now on.'

'I always told the others,' said Sanchez, 'that you couldn't be a horse if you were less than fourteen hands in height. You're a pony between eight hands and fourteen hands, aren't you?'

'Exactly,' said Nigel. 'What a relief to find someone who knows and cares in this wilderness of technology.'

At that moment they heard a stumbling sound from the cargo-hold followed by a furious knocking on the door from the hold to the cabin.

'It's not locked,' Big Mother called out. 'You only have to turn the handle.'

'That's too simple for the Professor,' Sanchez thought, but he jumped forward and threw the door open.

There stood Professor Horgankriss holding on to both sides of the door frame. For a moment he stared at them all, his eyes wild with surprise,, then he spoke.

'The Instant Ship has reached destination Earth! It must have passed close to us.'

'What happened to your instruments?' asked Tim.

'Absolute monitoring equilibrium!' the Professor replied solemnly.

The Minims stirred on their perch.

'He means ...' said the first Minim,

'That ...' said the second,

'They didn't notice a thing,' ended the third.

For an awkward moment everyone in the cabin waited for the last three Minims to chant something rude. Instead all six sniggered musically together like bamboo chimes blowing in the wind. If the Professor had held anything in his hands he would certainly have thrown it; fortunately he held nothing.

Tim cut in quickly to relieve the situation.

'But if the machines noticed nothing when the Instant Ship passed, that's a very good sign, isn't it? Aren't you pleased? It means that there's no pollution and the Galactic Health Authority will be happy.'

The Professor scowled.

'Pollution!' he shouted, 'there must be pollution, there is always pollution, otherwise what is the meaning of my work?'

'Perhaps this Proton Drive is clean,' Sanchez suggested.

'Clean,' raged the Professor. 'If you use proton energy you smash the atom, the building brick of the whole universe. This makes evil radiation which brings sickness and death everywhere. Now am I plain enough? Now do I use simple words? Now will your animals stop persecuting me and making fun ? Sickness and death, you hear! Yet my instruments registered nothing!'

'That's just terrible,' said Big Mother quietly. 'Now what would you like us to do?'

'What can I do,' asked the Professor despairingly, 'but go home and report my failure?'

He wiped his face with a green silk handkerchief.

'I know I'm just an amateur in all this, Professor,' Nigel lay back again on the sofa and waved his front hooves gently, 'but have you ever thought that perhaps we were waiting too far out?'

'What do you mean?' the Professor snapped. 'Wherever it was launched the Instant Ship would have to pass through my air space.'

'Yes, but perhaps by the time it reached us it was going too fast for our instruments to notice it,' Nigel suggested. 'Maybe it just slips through space after a certain speed.'

'It will be travelling back from Earth to Mowl again very soon,' said Tim helpfully. 'You'll have another chance.'

'You mean we should go down to Mowl and set I up the instruments again?' The Professor wrinkled up his forehead.

'It's your idea, Professor Horgankriss, not mine,' said Nigel.

Sanchez looked sharply round at the pony, but Nigel did not even blink, he just looked seriously at the poor Professor, who stood there looking very uncertain. As far as Sanchez could remember it had been Nigel who first suggested going down to Mowl, not the Professor or Tim. Nigel seemed to be very clever at making events go the way he wanted them to go.

'What do you think, Captain?' the Professor turned to Old Elias. 'Do you think we could bring it down through the ring of moons and land on the surface of Mowl?'

Old Elias snapped his green eyeshade back so that it stuck up over his head.

'Make it?' he declared, 'with our rocket pods and anti-gravs I could land this boat on a thimble spinning round a whirlpool!'

The Professor's face cleared; he almost smiled.

'Very well, Captain,' he said, 'I put my trust in you. We must abandon secrecy. If necessary I must seek an interview with this Mr Mowl and set up my equipment at the very door to his hangar.'

'Shall I begin countdown?' asked Old Elias eagerly, longing to begin flying again.

'I must go to prepare my instruments, to check and to recheck,' the Professor turned in the doorway. 'Countdown it is,' he called, 'countdown through the moons of Mowl!'

The door slammed to behind him. Old Elias was already in the pilot's seat, running his hands over the controls. The others looked at each other.

'Well, what do you know!' remarked Nigel Pony lightly. 'Who'd have thought I'd be back on my old home planet so soon?'

3 • Through the moons of Mowl

Dragonfall 5 woke from her three days of orbiting I sleep to the soft hum of her anti-gravs. With Old' Elias alert at the rocket switches Tim eased the old ship gently round until she was pointing straight for the centre of Mowl.

Now the whole glory of silver light reflecting from the four hundred odd moons poured straight into the control cabin. A sphere composed of many other spheres, some large, some small, all brilliant, I the moons of Mowl filled half the heavens ahead [ of them. Old Elias flipped down his eyeshade, thej rest of the family crew reached for their goggles.! Tim was at anti-grav controls, Sanchez was navi-l gator at the laser radio, Big Mother was on standby as usual, with the rug she was making on her knee.j Nigel Pony stood firmly on his four legs w^rith his I nose resting on Sanchez's shoulder. Jerk had gone to sleep.

'On target zero,' Tim called as the three long) vanes of their Galactic Integrator in the nose cone centred on to their course.

'Rockets fire.' Old Elias called back, as he pulled down the firing rods for port and starboard wing pods.

Dragonfall quivered slightly from end to end and reared up a little upon itself. Her blue and silver livery flashed back light at the great white sun behind them almost as brilliantly as did the moons ahead of them. Down her sides was blazoned GHA in green letters, crossed with a black hypodermic needle, the badge of the Galactic Health Authority, their charter company.

Four ...

Three ...

Two ...

One . . .

On two pillars of fire Dragonfall lunged forward at five, ten, twenty thousand miles an hour, straight for the barrier of moons that swung in stately order and grew ever larger ahead of them.

'She's riding rough,.isn't she?' Old Elias spoke what they had all noticed; that their starship was shaking, quivering and almost kicking as her speed gathered.

'This far out she should be smooth as silk at twenty thousand.' Old Elias checked anxiously at his dials.

'Nothing wrong on my side,' called Tim.

Dragonfall lurched again, so violently that Big Mother had to snatch sharply at her rug.

'Land's sakes!' she said. 'It's a mercy I've got nothing on the stove!'

softly. 'Honey child! The history of Mowl goes back for many thousands of years, but it just does not record a time when my race was not living on the moons and travelling freely to them.' Tim felt a little crushed.

'But you haven't developed space craft,' he pro-tested, 'not until this Mr Mowl came up with the Instant Ship.'

'Instant Ship,' Nigel repeated thoughtfully. 'An uneasy name to my ears. It suggests an easy-to-pre-pare pudding. Add milk and then stir! You know what I mean?'

'But you didn't develop space flight, did you?'

Tim persisted.

'When you live on the finest planet in the galaxy you don't spend much effort trying to fly away from it,' Nigel explained airily. 'But you are right, Until this remarkable creation of Mr Mowl we had developed no space drive. Our volcanoes pump up an inexhaustible supply of hydrohelioid gas. This is much lighter than air. By collecting it in oval balloons we construct cloud clippers which travel

comfortably and reasonably swiftly between our planet and our moons.'

'What do you mean by "reasonably swiftly",' Tim pressed him.

'Brother,' said Nigel, 'I've got my hoofs above my head! I surrender! I'll come quietly! You've got me cornered. By reasonably swiftly, I mean it takes about a week. And what's a week when you've got fresh air and good company? No one hurries on Mowl.'

'Can I take it that you know these moons reasonably well?' asked Old Elias, moving restlessly in his seat.

I was born on that one,' Nigel waved a hoof vaguely at the barrier of bright opal globes looming large ahead of them.

Then I'd take it kindly,' said Old Elias, 'if you'd find us an easy road through them, 'cos I'm bothered if I can figure one out. According to my charts all galaxyside ships land on one of the big moons.'

'That one there! The one we call Gate to the Dark,' Nigel pointed to the left. 'Then passengers travel on down to Mowl by cloud clipper.'

'What we want, though, is to do it under our own steam. To get down before the return entry of the Instant Ship,' Old Elias explained.

'The usual way through is between Gate to the Dark and Eye of the Sun, over there,' Nigel pointed. 'But that way might be too crowded for what we want. May I suggest the narrow but clear passage over to our right, thirty-five degrees, between Sighs of the Air and a minor moon called Wind Whipper.'

'Whatever you say,' Old Elias grunted.

'And might I ...' Nigel Pony hesitated.

'You want to take over, I suppose,' Old Elias sounded cross.

'Folks, I'll be so careful you'd think a feather pillow was at the controls.'

Grudgingly Old Elias slid sideways and Nigel wriggled carefully into his seat. His two front hooves closed precisely upon the wheel.

'And could I trouble you for an eyeshade?'

Old Elias sighed and fitted his own on to Nigel's forelock.

'What a trial,' Nigel mused contentedly, 'that one's very own planet should be the most brilliant object in the known universe!'

Confidently Dragonfall 5 closed in upon the moon wall. Their cabin flooded with almost intolerable light as the great spheres bulked about them. Mountains, plains and valleys were marked on their curves as they drew closer, but they still reflected silver light. Only as Dragonfall swung in a fiery arc and plunged into the gap between vast Sighs of the Air and small, broken Wind Whipper did the colours change.

'They're going dark green, now we're going past them. Dark green and shadowy,' called Sanchez.

'That's their real colour,' explained Nigel. 'The silver is only sun reflection. Think of all that stone grass. No! Stop tempting me. I've got to wait.'

Now Dragonfall blazed like a two-winged flame bird through the dark passage between the two moons. Though their way looked narrow it was at least thirty or forty miles wide.

'How is it that they don't bump into each other?'

Sanchez asked as he gazed at the dark green slopes to left and right. 'With four hundred and eighty of them you'd think they'd crash sometimes.'

'Astronomers say they have quite often,' Nigel answered, 'but it was all millions of years ago and they've been going steady now for ages. They all hold each other in position.'

'It's gravity,' said Tim.

'Yes, isn't science wonderful?' Nigel snickered again, then peered forward into the darkness. 'Look, there's Mowl at last.'

Everyone stared into the gloom, which was such a contrast after the blaze of light they had been used to for the last three days. Far ahead of them, looking at this distance no larger than some of the moons they had just passed, was the dim green sphere of a planet mottled with faint silver patterns reflected down from the moons and the barely seen sun above it.

'Is that Mowl?' Sanchez was disappointed. 'Isn't it rather depressing living there?'

'Depressing!' Nigel exclaimed. 'To live in a perpetual green twilight as if surrounded by unripe cooking apples or lost in a forest of moss! How can you call that depressing? Mowl is the finest planet that ever was, and here's me coming back to it! I'm so happy I could sing. But I won't because your father will think I'm not concentrating on my flying and that wouldn't do at all. Just you wait and I'll show you. Mowl is free! It's the only planet where earth, air, fire and water all do more or less as they please.'

'Fire?' Sanchez questioned. 'Volcanoes and rivers of flame spout here there and everywhere,' Nigel replied. 'Look carefully and you can see some of the biggest craters from right up here.'

It was true. When they looked they could make out tiny crackled patterns of yellow and red in some areas.

'Water?' Tim asked.

Nigel threw back his head for a long, high, neighing laugh.

'Water,' he repeated. 'You know what happens to your seas on Earth where you've just got one medium-sized moon tugging at them?'

'Tides,' said Sanchez.

'Sometimes rising sixty feet,' added Tim.

'Right, folks,' said Nigel. 'Well, imagine what happens to our seas, which are much smaller than yours, with four hundred and eighty moons all heaving away with their gravities!'

'Golly,' said Tim, working it out.

'The sea must go mad!' said Sanchez.

'You've said it, folks,' crowed Nigel. 'Now you understand what I said about earth, air, fire and water doing what they please.'

'We must get our camera out,' said Big Mother. 'We're going to get some very good colour slides.'

'Reckon I'll take over the controls again,' Old

Elias had been fretting as they'd come between the moons. 'I've got to fly while I can. We'll soon be grounded on some hick planet again, wasting away.'

He and Nigel Pony changed places. Nigel stood again behind Sanchez, handily near, to the laser radio. Big Mother got up to prepare supper, a vegetable risotto with an enormous green salad for Nigel. Cooking smells filled the air and slowly, very slowly, the changing green disk of Mowl grew closer. Behind them the sky was monstrous with the black shapes of the moons. Only thin slivers of light reflected from the sun to Mowl, and then back up again to the moons to pattern them with rare silver.

'Large flying object twenty-eight miles distant,' Sanchez called from his 3D-radar screen, 'thirteen degrees right, forty-six degrees down.'

'We'll give that a wide berth,' Old Elias commented as he swung the starship to the left.

'Can you bring it up on your visi-screens?' Nigel asked.

'It should be well within range for a minute or two.' Tim adjusted the focus of the visi-screen and abruptly the picture of a strange ship sprang into view. A large cluster of oval balloons gathered like a pyramid to carry a broad flat deck with a shallow curved hull. Towers and turrets sprang from the deck in fantastic outline. They were painted black and gold, while the balloon cluster was in five shades of blue.

Going up fast,' Tim remarked.

'Like a city in the sky,' said Sanchez.

Nigel leaned forward and sighed.

'That's a school cruise ship,' he said, 'going up to sample the various pastures of the moons. Ah me! That takes me back awhile.'

'Aren't all the pastures stone grass?' Sanchez asked.

'It never tastes the same in two different places,' Nigel explained. 'And it's the travel that really matters, not the object of travel. I can remember

my cruise school days now as if it were yesterday: dancing, singing, fighting.'

'Our school isn't like that,' Sanchez looked crossly at Big Mother. 'They put us under mechanical in-fillers all night and ask us questions all day! We hate it!'

'All life should be pleasure,' said Nigel. 'That's the only true way to learn anything.'

Big Mother stirred uneasily. She had a hard time persuading the boys to go to school just for a week here and there, and she didn't want Nigel Pony putting them off even more.

'All very well,' she began .. .

Abruptly a shrill loud neighing, broken and changing from high to low notes, filled the cabin.

'It's the radio,' said Sanchez. 'Someone is trying to get through to us. It's the horses at last!'

4 • Landing in the green shadows

For a moment they hesitated, wondering how to cope with this first contact from the horse world. While they waited Nigel stepped briskly forward.

'I'd better answer it, folks,' he said. 'I talk the language and you don't.'

'No!' said Old Elias quickly, 'let them speak English. It's Intergalactic standard language for radio contact.'

Nigel Pony looked huffed. Sanchez spoke into the microphone.

'Dragonfall 5 speaking,' he said, 'inbound from the galaxy. We are receiving you. Over, please.'

There was a brief pause, then the quiet drawl of a horse speaking careful English came from the speaker.

'Mowl Base to Dragonfall 5. All ships inbound from the galaxy land at our Moon Base on Gate to the Dark. You are now within the moon circle and headed for Mowl. What is your purpose, please?'

Sanchez turned off his broadcast switch so that Mowl Base would not hear them talking and then turned to the crew. The door to the hold flew open at the same moment and Professor Horgankriss came in, partly to look for his supper, partly to find out what the neighing sound had been about.

'What do we tell them ?' asked Sanchez. 'Are we still supposed to be a secret?'

'I don't think there's anything to be gained by hiding facts, is there, folks?' Nigel asked, looking around.

'Well,' Old Elias began, 'we might want to hang around a few thousand feet up until this Instant Ship . '

Smoothly Nigel interrupted him.

'What do you say, Professor? Haven't you decided to meet this Mr Mowl as he calls himself and have it out with him? You want to find out just what he's up to with his Proton Drive; pollution and all that!'

'Pollution,' the Professor caught the word as Big Mother handed him a steaming plate of savoury-smelling risotto. 'Oh yes, we've got to deal with that! Bring it out into the open! The only way!'

'And you don't want to wait first and run your own checks when the Instant Ship comes back from Earth?' Tim asked sensibly.

The Professor hesitated a moment, then plunged his fork into a big mushroom, cupped full of brown rice.

'Negative!' he said fiercely.

'He means no,' the first three Minims whispered loudly overhead.

'Give me the microphone,' ordered the Professor with his mouth full of food. Sanchez passed it to him after a glance at his father.

'Dragonfall to Mowl. Do you hear me?' the Professor demanded.

'Not very well,' the radio voice replied.

The Professor swallowed once to empty his mouth and went on speaking. 'This is Professor Horgankriss of the Galactic Polytechnic speaking. I represent the Galactic Health Authority and I am arriving to monitor radiation hazards on Mowl following the flights of the new Instant Ship. I may have to forbid any further use of this Proton Drive so it is urgent, repeat urgent, that I should have saddles on Mowl, some horses might let you sit on them as a special favour because you've only got two legs, but you won't be allowed to ride them.' 'Oh!' Sanchez could not hide his disappointment. He had been looking forward to a whole planet full of horses, hoping that they wouldn't all be as clever as Nigel Pony. Nigel looked sideways at him. 'You won't think much of me,' he said sadly, 'when you see the real horses on Mowl. They're big and beautiful and very fast.'

'You're all right,' Sanchez told him. 'You've got a super coat.'

'Small head, perfect shoulders, true action,' said Nigel gloomily, 'but only ten hands high. Ah well, it's the price of being intelligent!'

'And you really believe that this new Proton Drive could be dangerous?' Tim could see Nigel was getting depressed. 'You think it could tear the atmosphere apart and make radiation?'

'Ah, we don't know, do we?' Nigel hung up his tea-cloth neatly. 'That's the interesting thing about the Instant Ship and the Proton Drive, we just don't know anything about it. One minute no one has heard of it, the next minute it's big news all over the galaxy and all the big space-ship lines are queuing up to try and buy it.'

'They're down there now,' he jerked his head in the direction of the green planet. 'If our Professor wants a chat with the great Mr Mowl he's going to find that there are a lot of other people with the same idea. Yet we don't know a thing, that's what interests me about the Proton Drive—masses of money but no hard facts. Of course it could be dangerous. It may use a huge laser of gas to project a radiation beam that could blot out a planet with a twitch of its tail. Still nothing's blotted out dear old Mowl yet, has it? And if anyone can get to the bottom of the mystery it's the Professor. Don't you agree?'

They looked over to where the Professor was having a nap with his silk handkerchief over his face. Sanchez did not think that the Professor was very likely to get to the bottom of any mystery and he did not believe that Nigel Pony thought he would do so either. Sanchez looked sideways at Nigel and found that Nigel was looking sideways at him. They all burst out laughing.

'Of course,' said Tim when they'd quietened down a little, 'the strangest thing of all is that Pan Galactic and Trans Galaxy Airways are ready to spend millions of credits and risk tearing up the atmosphere just to get people across the galaxy in three seconds instead of three hours.'

'That's not their fault, it's people's faults for not having three hours to spare,' said Sanchez. 'If people would refuse to pay more to go faster, then the space ships would go slower, like these horses do when they take a whole week to get from Mowl to its moons.'

'You can't expect everyone to be as intelligent as a horse,' said Nigel kindly. 'It's all a matter of the confidence you get from having four efficient legs. Now, though I don't expect he'll be very pleased, I'm going to offer your father some help with our landing.'

Dragon/all swooped down on Mowl in a great arc from the North Pole to the South Pole. From sixty thousand feet up the planet still looked dark and shadowy but speckled by hundreds of fire pits and lakes of flame from the many volcanoes. Once around the South Pole they streaked up the other side of the planet, crossing a small dark sea.

'Nearly there now, folks!' Nigel pointed to a line of plume-topped volcanoes along the curve of the horizon, 'The one we call The White Mane of Fire is that tall slim one, the second on the left.'

'Rocket in retro-brakes to force three!' ordered Old Elias.

'Force three retros away,' Tim called back.

Dragonfall's rocket pods swung into reverse on her short curved back wings, and coughed flame that fell behind them in roman-candle balls of red fire.

'Force five retros!' ordered Old Elias as the slender volcano with its white feather of .drooping incandescent gas drew nearer.

'Force five away,' replied Tim.

'Project anti-gravs at quarter strength and free wheel,' said Old Elias and turned on the anti-gravs himself. A hum of partial weightlessness ran through the old ship.

'You'll pardon an amateur ...' began Nigel.

'Eh! What's that?' Old Elias growled.

'But I wouldn't fly directly over the crater of White Mane of Fire if I were captain,' Nigel continued.

'Well you're not!' snapped Old Elias, and at eight thousand feet he drove directly across the volcano's fire pit.

With a great whoosh Dragonfall 5 shot upwards four thousand feet in a few seconds, carried headlong by the gush of lighter-than-air hydrohe-lioid gas from the volcano. Jerk, the Minims, Big Mother and Big Mother's rug all ended up in a heap by the cooking stove. From down below in the cargo-hold came a crash of breaking glass and a shout of'All my precious instruments!' from the Professor.

'That'll larn 'em to fasten their safety belts,' said Old Elias as he fought back into control.

'There's usually a thermal up-draught over the top,' remarked Nigel, whose four legs had kept him firm. 'That's where we should land.' He pointed down.

Old Elias glared in the direction Nigel had pointed.

'There's a ditch of fiery lava right around the area,' he snorted.

'One mile due south was what we were told,' Nigel reminded him.

Her rockets silent, buoyed partly by her anti-gravs, Dragonfall swung like a blue and silver gull, down, down over the weird green land, threaded with its ribbons of fire.

'Anti-gravs full strength!'

In a soft whirr of gentle power they landed, a careful three pointer, on a rolling meadow of long dark grass.

'Perfect!' Nigel commented, stepping over into the corner to help Big Mother to her feet, and letting the Minims use him as a ladder back up to their perch. 'Three cheers for our captain!'

'We'll save that for when we've tidied up,' said Big Mother, and she gave Old Elias a meaningful look.

5 The Professor vanishes

Sanchez was first to open the outside door but Nigel Pony was the first through it in a flying leap.

'Home at last!' he shouted and galloped right around the starship, kicking his heels up wildly and neighing in a high musical note. Sanchez jumped cautiously down and looked about him. The grass was soft, not springy, the air was cool and the green light was like a summer twilight about half an hour after the sun has set. Somewhere a bird was singing, a note that began like a whistle and ended like a bell. There were no trees or bushes, but the cones of slim volcanoes patterned each horizon with elegant black shapes.

'Mmmm! mmmm! mmmm!'

Nigel was munching stone grass greedily, as if he hadn't just finished a large salad and a vegetable risotto.

'Is it good?' Sanchez asked.

'Mmmm! Try some!'

Sanchez plucked a long blade and nibbled it.

'Juicy,' he said. 'I can see that it might grow on you.'

'All those miles shut up in two cabins,' called Nigel wildly, 'and now all these open acres to gallop across! If only I were a pale gold, fifteen and a half hand thoroughbred to do justice to it all! Excuse me, but for a while I've got to get into action.'

'Oh,' he began to sing in a surprisingly deep voice, 'John, John, the grey goose has gone, and the fox is off to his den oh!'

Then he was away in a light patter of hoofs, circling Dragonfall again and curving off into the half light over a slope of grass.

'Den oh! Den oh!'

He could be heard singing for a while, then even that faded and they were left alone.

Tim, who had been helping the Professor to put his instruments together again, jumped down near Sanchez. The Professor passed a small brown case to him and then stepped carefully down the rungs of a ladder to the ground. Big Mother watched them from the door.

'Now,' he said, 'where is this anti-gravity transport which I was promised? Is it evening here or morning?'

'Not really either,' Tim explained. 'There are so many moons in the sky that very little sunlight gets through between, them; and at night the moons aren't very bright because there's hardly any sun- light reflected back ota to them from Mowl. I think it's usually like this. it might be any time.'

'Even the flowers are white or pale green,' said Sanchez who had started to botanize.

'Hmm!' said Professor Horgankriss. 'Probably atmospheric pollution has already begun. I have no time to lose.'

'Look out!' cried Sanchez shrilly. 'Dad! fetch the stunner quickly! Here comes the most enormous spider, straight for us!'

Everyone looked where he was pointing.

'Land's sakes!' exclaimed Big Mother. 'You boys get back into the cabin this moment!'

Across the near horizon, silhouetted black against the pale sky, the shape of a huge insect, perhaps thirty feet high, was bearing down upon them on four long many-jointed legs that bent and clicked rhythmically as it walked.

Old Elias appeared beside Big Mother in the door, armed with a large old-fashioned stunner. The monstrous insect was within fifty yards of the starship. It was all bending legs with hardly any body except for an odd little head up on top. Sanchez and the Professor were getting in each other's way trying to scramble back into the cabin up the rungs, but Tim was looking carefully at the insect. Old Elias took aim with his stunner, trying to focus in the weak light.

'Tim! do you hear me?' Big Mother called anxiously.

'Take it easy!' Tim called back. 'And for Pete's sake don't shoot,' he added, seeing his father's wavering stunner. 'It's the anti-grav! It's not an insect at all!'

He was right. Sanchez had first mentioned the word 'spider' and that was how they had all seen if afterwards. In fact it was a type of anti-grav quite new to them. Four long jointed legs carried it in massive strides over the rough country and the driver, a horse, stood on the top platform with his legs in four canvas sockets through which he worked the long jointed legs by remote control.

'Trust the horses to do things differently,' Tim laughed.

'It took me in,' said Sanchez nervously.

'A galloping anti-grav!' said Tim. 'We see everything in terms of wheels or wings, they see transport in terms of four legs.'

The new anti-grav came unsteadily to rest alongside Dragonfall. With a final click all four legs bent downwards so that the rider on his platform was at the level of their heads. He was a heavy bay horse with a no-nonsense look about him. The horse glanced at something written on his instrument panel.

'Hor-gan-kiss,' he read slowly. 'Anyone here of that name?'

'You've got it wrong,' said the Professor. 'It's Horgankriss with an V. That's me.'

'I've come to take you to see the Boss,' said the bay horse. 'Up you get, smiler.'

'Horgankriss,' said the Professor firmly. Ts Mr Mowl back from Earth yet?'

'We're going to the Boss's place on the coast,' the driver horse drawled and rolled his eyes, showing yellow round his eyeballs. 'You talk too much, four eyes. Giddup behind me and cut the chatter.'

Professor Horgankriss turned uncertainly to the family crew.

'Would it help if one of my boys were to go you, Professor?' offered Big Mother kindly, it might be company in a strange place.'

'Or you could take three of the Minims in case you want an interpreter,' added Sanchez, who was not very keen to go off with the Professor.

'Thank you, madam, that will not be necessary,' the Professor replied. 'This will be a top-level conference with maximum security. However, I may well require you to call with your ship to pick me up from Mr Mowl's coastal castle. You will see that I have my two-way three-dimensional ion beam transmitter with me and I can call you on that. You can call me if any urgent business comes through. Naturally you will not disturb me over trivia.'

'Naturally,' said Big Mother.

The Professor turned and scrambled up, joint by joint, along one of the galloping anti-grav's collapsed legs. He straightened up when he settled into the rear pair of leggings. He looked and felt very uncomfortable.

'Right,' the bay horse called over his shoulder, 'now stay there and no more funny business. Remember you're on a respectable planet now.'

As the driver horse began to flex his legs in their canvas seatings the whole strange spider craft rose spindling up above them. It turned and in creaking giant strides moved rhythmically away to the east. Their last glimpse of Professor Horgankriss showed that he had fallen forward with the uneasy motion and buried both his arms in his two front leggings for safety.

'It may be rough to ride in,' said Tim, 'but it can certainly cover the ground!'

'How fast do you reckon it goes ?' asked Sanchez.

'Sixty or seventy miles an hour,' Tim suggested, 'and it can stride across the roughest country.'

'But if it's an anti-grav, why doesn't it just hover?' Sanchez wanted to know. 'That would be much simpler.'

'These horses seem to be more interested in fun than simplicity,' Tim remarked. 'Remember that balloon city we saw out in space, and think of the way Mr Mowl is handling the Proton Drive.'

'Talking of Proton Drive, what do we do now?' Sanchez asked his family.

'Where did Nigel go?' asked Old Elias.

'For a run,' said Sanchez shortly. They all looked around puzzled. Nigel Pony seemed to have been managing things for so long now that when he was away no one knew what to do next.

Then, just as they were all waiting for someone to speak first, a dazzling green light filled the whole western half of the sky with a brilliant oval heart of flaring white down low near the horizon. After two seconds it faded, leaving a dense black veil over all that part of the sky. Seconds later a deep thunderous roar rolled like a wave out of the west, jarring inside Sanchez's ears, rattling loose rivets on Dragonfall and shaking the crockery on the racks.

'He's back in the Instant Ship,' said Tim.

'Mr Mowl again!' Sanchez remembered that mocking face on the television; the helmet, the slanted eyes, the crooked white scar. 'Just look at the black cloud he's made! The Professor must be right about pollution. Do you think there's a radiation danger?'

'He's landed in the wrong place,' Old Elias said. 'The Professor's gone off east on that spider contraption to meet this Mr Mowl by the seaside. And here we have Mr Mowl landing to the west and a good distance west if I'm any judge. It doesn't add up. There's something funny!'

'I think the Professor thought Mr Mowl had got back already,' said Tim, looking puzzled.

'The Professor was rushed into a decision,' Old Elias waved his empty pipe, 'and we all know who rushed him. That pony of yours, our four-legged scientist.'

'He got us down through the moons of Mowl,' said Tim.

'Only because that was where he wanted to go himself,' Old Elias replied. 'Mark my words, that pony has been running this ship for his own ends, and what those ends are I would very much like to know!'

'I can hear hooves,' said Sanchez. 'He's coming back.'

'Lots of hooves,' Tim had put his head down to the grass. 'More than one horse.'

'More than one trouble,' said Old Elias, and lit his pipe, as he was allowed to do in the open air.

Over the brow of the slope a whole herd of horses came cantering, with Nigel Pony looking quite small and silvery at their head. He led them up to Dragonfall and here they stood in a half circle snorting and puffing noisily and tossing their heads. Nigel looked very pleased with himself.

'Folks!' he called out. 'I want you to meet the fellows. Fellows, I want you to meet the folks. This is the crew of starship Dragonfall 5, and my very good friends. Folks, I won't bother you with all the fellows' names because you couldn't pronounce them if you could remember them. But there's ten of them, all old friends and the salt of the earth!'

'The Professor's gone,' Sanchez blurted out.

'Well, what do you know! I turn my back a moment to eat a mouthful of fresh grass and the old Professor ups and leaves me. Who took him?' Nigel did not seem very surprised.

'A big bay horse called for him in a funny anti-grav like a large spider. He said he was taking him to meet Mr Mowl at his place on the coast,' Sanchez explained.

'But now Mr Mowl has just landed in the opposite direction,' said Tim, 'So we're a bit worried.'

'My, my!' Nigel continued to look cheerful. 'The mystery deepens. Let us hope our respected Professor has not fallen into bad company. But this is a peaceful, law-abiding planet. There is no call for gloom. We are not back on Earth where anything might happen.'

'The Professor said we were to call him up if things went wrong,' Big Mother reminded them, 'and he could call us back. He took his ion beam transmitter with him. He said not to bother him with trivia.'

'Well, we must certainly call him,' said Nigel, 'and tell him he has gone in the wrong direction. That isn't trivia, is it?'

'I'll do that straight away.' Old Elias ducked back inside the cabin and they heard him putting out their call sign on the laser radio. This would automatically sound a buzzer on the Professor's transmitter. Again and again the call sign went out, as they stood waiting in the dusky light that filtered through the cloud created by the Instant Ship. There was no reply. The Professor had fallen into silence.

6 • A horse ride in the fiery dark

Old Elias made a last call sign at full emergency power, waited a whole minute, then appeared in the doorway and shook his head.

'Dear me!' said Nigel. 'This is disturbing. We must hope that he has accidently dropped his transmitter.' <<

'He certainly didn't look well balanced on that anti-grav,' said Sanchez. 'He could easily have been accidently dropped himself.'

'Do you think there is any danger of radiation from this cloud?' Big Mother asked Nigel. 'Ought we to be standing about here?'

'Madam,' Nigel replied eagerly. 'You are so right! You recall us to our duty to the Galactic Health Authorities. Our first business must be to visit this mysterious Mr Mowl and ask him what the radiation levels of his Proton Drive are. That would be the poor Professor's wish.'

'Where are you going to find this Mr Mowl?' asked Big Mother doubtfully.

'If we gallop fast,' said Nigel, ruffling his short

'That's Jolly Legs,' said Nigel.

'They speak English!' Sanchez exclaimed.

'And they can probably subtract six apples from ten to leave four,' said Nigel sarcastically. 'It's wonderful what dumb animals can manage!'

'That circus really affected you, didn't it?' said Sanchez.

'You can say it made an impression,' Nigel replied, 'that and the Girls' Pony Club.'

'Is that where you got the names?' Sanchez asked.

'Could be,' admitted Nigel. 'Now, let's get moving, shall we, if we. want to catch our mysterious inventor before he sells his Proton Drive and turns into a millionaire?'

'I've packed a few things to eat and a toothbrush,' Big Mother handed down a knapsack to each of the boys.

Old Elias clambered down from the cabin with a box on a strap. He took Tim to one side and handed him the box.

'You can guess what this is,' he said, 'it's a pocket laser two-way radio. See you use it and let us know exactly what's going on there.'

Til do that,' Tim promised.

'If I were you,' Old Elias looked around at the stamping horses, the flaming volcanoes and the raging electric storm, 'I wouldn't take anything on this planet for granted, and that includes the ground under your feet. And just watch that pony!'

'We will,' Tim assured him.

In the confusion of the storm and their preparations one of the older horses, a little flea-bitten roan, came up to Sanchez.

'Mister!' he said, very quietly. 'Would you like to lay a bet on whether you or your brother gets to Splinter Rock Mountain first?'

'What for?' Sanchez was puzzled. 'I've never betted on anything.'

'There's always a first time,' said the little roan. Tell you what, I'll get your brother to bet that he'll be there first, and you bet that you'll get there first. Then I'll have a word with the fellows and see that it's you that's first at the post. How about that? And ten per cent of the winnings for me as your agent!'

'But that's cheating,' said Sanchez in a shocked voice.

'Not a bit of it!' said the roan. 'Just a bit of fun for everyone and no one the wiser.'

'No,' said Sanchez firmly.

'Ah well, it was worth a try. Mum's the word and good day to you.' The roan shuffled back to the other horses, leaving Sanchez to work it all out.

'Come on! Up you get,' called Nigel. 'No time to lose.'

'Sixteen hands is very high to mount with no harness to hold on to,' Tim whispered to Sanchez, 'and how do we stay on once we've got there? It'll be bare-back riding.'

Tim knew all about science, but when it came to animals it was Sanchez who knew the most.

'It's all a confidence trick,' Sanchez told his brother in a low voice. 'Just run at them full tilt as if you were going to vault, turn in mid-air and grab their manes. You'll be all right. Once you're on, it'll be easy. They've all got a beautiful smooth action; it was the first thing I noticed. Right?'

'Right!' said Tim, but he didn't feel at all right inside himself.

Sanchez was to begin on Silver. He stepped back eight paces, measured up the ground, ran, leapt, snatched at the horse's thick white mane and found himself seated astride, looking down at the rest of the family.

'Bravo!' said Nigel, 'and you have a fine seat if I may say so.'

Now it was Tim's turn and everyone was watching. He paced back like his brother, braced himself for a cannonball run and threw himself at Tuppenny's high, cream-coloured flanks. As he leaped and grabbed, the northern sky shimmered into a fury of forked lightning. Tim shot over Tuppenny's back and fell flop on to the ground on the other side.

All the horses whickered and snickered, Sanchez looked anxiously down at his brother, who was rubbing a bruised shoulder.

'One more go,' he urged him. 'It'll be dreadful if Tuppenny has to sit down for you to get on. Remember, open your legs as you grab, then you can't go wrong!'

Tim paced back again, waited until the next lightning had raged, then ran in the dark patch that followed it. Thunder crashed around his head as he jumped. A snatch at the mane; legs apart; plonk! He was there!

If at first you don't succeed,' said Nigel, 'try, try, try again. All right up there?'

'Great!' said Tim, who was aching already.

'I thought there was a ditch of fire all round this landing area,' Sanchez suddenly remembered.

'There is!' said Nigel, 'the Grand National is tame compared to Mowl. We've got Beecher's Blazing Brook! Away, fellows,' he gave a high whinny.

'Look after yourselves and report back,' called Big Mother.

'Remember,' shouted Old Elias as the horses swung and turned, 'nothing is what it seems to be!'

As the nine horses and Nigel Pony rode off, neighing excitedly, towards the west, a dark head with long silky ears appeared in the door to Dragon-fall'5 's cabin. It was Jerk. After his helping of risotto he had felt full and tired. Now he was rested and had woken just in time to find the boys leaving him. There was nothing he loved more than a good run after being cooped up in the cabin.

Spreading wide his huge ears he glided out over the heads of Big Mother and Old Elias, his landing turned smoothly into a fast run. He ignored Old Elias's calls, because he was never a very obedient dog, and in no time he had caught up with the horses and was lolloping along beside Silver.

Tim was lying almost flat on his stomach on Tuppenny's back, trying not to think of the ditch of fire which they had to cross. Tuppenny had a very smooth action, just as Sanchez had said, but it was a long way to the ground and it didn't really help when the horse you were sitting on kept saying soothing things like:

'All right up there?'

'Watch this bit!'

'Hold on now!'

Ahead of them, down a slope, Tim caught sight

of a gleam of molten lava and shimmering heat. It was the fire ditch.

'Tim,' he heard Sanchez call to his left. 'It's Jerk! He's following us and here's the ditch!!

Risking a glance, he looked left and saw Sanchez's horse and Jerk rise into the air at the same moment, leaping out over the white-hot lava. Silver's rear hooves kicked divots of turf back into the fire ditch, but Jerk's gliding ears carried him comfortably yards beyond danger. Then there Was no time to think, for Tuppenny was in the air and a fierce blast of heat surged up from the lava to his dangling legs. Desperately Tim balanced and clung, waiting for the jolt of landing. But Tuppenny's pace was so smooth that there was hardly ajar as they hit earth again and galloped away.

'Made it,' said Tuppenny soothingly. Across flame from the ground and under flame from the heavens, nine horses, one pony, two boys and a flying hound dog drove furiously through the storm-racked green twilight of Mowl to meet the great Mr Mowl himself.

7 • The great Mr Mowl meets the Press

Splinter Rock Mountain was a very active volcano indeed. They reached its foot after two hours' hard riding over so many fire ditches and bubbling mud pools that they lost count. Jerk had glided wonderfully over all obstacles, and when the horses had offered him a lift at the halfway point Sanchez had told them it would be better to let Jerk go on being independent. When the two boys were changing steeds, to Jolly Legs and Jingle, the horses were very tactful about Tim and jostled close together so that he could scramble from one back to another without getting down to the ground.

It had been a splendid ride for Sanchez, watching the empty green countryside fly past in everlasting twilight, and the volcanoes rear their slim cones against the flickering silver patterns of the changing sky. But all Tim had seen had been the grass racing just beneath him while he concentrated on not falling off.

As they neared Splinter Rock Mountain the last blasts of the lightning seemed to strike again and again at its broken double peaks, and the crater of the volcano fought back with gouts of white fire and rumblings that shook the earth beneath them. Now the country was no longer empty green distances. Two or three cloud clippers were parked under their tugging pyramids of balloons in a field over to the left. Horses of every size and colour were cantering to and fro or standing in groups around portable television sets. Also there were large numbers of humans and inhabitants of other civilized planets from all over the galaxy: cameramen, journalists, secretaries, business men and tourists, all drawn by the news of the Proton Drive and the mystery of its inventor. There was one large group of solid furry people whom Tim and Sanchez always called the Eager Beavers. They lived on a very rich twin-planet system in the constellation of Ophiu-chus.

'If they are here,' Tim called to his brother, 'there must be money in it because their engineering industry is first rate.'

A sea of reed tents had been set up to house all this crowd and there was even a small race course with stands.

More horses and people were watching the racing now than were gathered below the hangar of the Instant Ship. The round steel door high in the cliff was closed. Mr Mowl was back and there was no news of any further flights. Nigel and his companions cantered right up to the gate leading into the mountain. It was wide open, humans and horses were going freely in and out. The storm was almost over, only the coughing and shaking of the volcano reminded the boys what a restless planet they were on.

Sanchez vaulted down, helped his brother to do the same and scratched Jerk behind the ears when the flying hound dog came up, panting and weary, but very pleased with himself.

'I bet you've never needed those ears as much as you needed them today,' he said. 'You're a bad old dog, but I'm very proud of you.'

Nigel Pony trotted up to them, his flanks dripping with sweat.

'Well, folks,' he said, 'this is where the action is if we believe the television cameras, and they never tell a lie, do they?'

'Will we be able to see Mr Mowl?' asked Tim. Tf he is going to pollute the whole atmosphere we really ought to stop him soon.'

'I hear he's holding a press conference within an hour,' Nigel replied. 'I'll do my best to get the questions in when the cameras are on him. They tell me the whole show is worth watching. And now, if you'll excuse an old friend, guess what I'm going to have?'

'Something to eat,' Sanchez suggested, after thinking what he wanted most himself.

'Wrong,' said Nigel. 'First things first! We're all going to have a bath. Lovely hot water full of mineral salts.'

He trotted off with his friends and the boys looked around them. They were in a narrow valley made of a dark rock that peeled easily in gleaming crystal layers if you pulled at it. Bushes of pale green trumpet flowers hung down the rocks and gave offa sharp perfume. All down one side, under the flowers, were stone spouts that poured natural hot water in rust-red steaming streams into deep troughs. The troughs were full of horses queuing up to take turns under the water spouts. They drank the water as it fell, splashed in it, kicked at it, rolled in it and enjoyed every minute of it.

'Come and join us,' Tuppenny called from one of the troughs.

'Later perhaps. We're hungry,' Sanchez called back.

'Dirty beasts!' Nigel shouted after them.

Across the valley horses were selling bales of fresh stone grass and a special fodder made of cut lily flowers. For humans there was a stall selling very expensive imported roast chestnuts. The boys shared a bag and tried to top up with a drink of the hot brown water, but it tasted like old iron, so they spat most of it out. Jerk had half their sandwiches.

'You have very expensive food on Mowl,' Sanchez told Nigel as the pony came up to see how they were.

'You're telling me, folks. 'I've just had to pay ten credits for a bunch of stone grass,' Nigel snorted disgustedly. 'That's what always happens when something unnatural like this Instant Ship and the Proton Drive starts up. It upsets order, then people take advantage.'

'Don't you have inspectors to control things?' Tim asked.

'We don't have anything on Mowl except fun,' Nigel replied. 'Or we didn't until this Mr Mowl appeared, sending all the prices up.'

'No government?' Tim wanted to know.

'No, nothing,' said Nigel. 'We're all good like me and don't need a government! Come on, let's break up this press conference. It'll be in English because he wants everyone to be in on it, but leave the talking to me. That's if you can trust a humble four-footed animal!'

Nigel grinned at them to show he wasn't serious and they walked together towards the gate. Far above them the volcano peak towered and puffed, shivering the rock walls with its vomiting, but over the gate the green trumpet flowers hung thickly.

'You can tell his attendants,' Nigel told.them as they walked up a ramp into the cave mouth, 'because they're all pure white horses with silver manes. There's two of them, one on each side of that anti-grav outside the gateway.'

'Mr Mowl's pure black, isn't he?' said Sanchez. 'Except for that white scar.'

'Yes, he's a showman with an eye for contrast,' Nigel agreed.

Inside, the cavern was lit by green electric light bulbs shaped like the trumpet flowers and hanging in clusters from the high ceiling. The place was nearly full of horses and people chatting and staring about. There were the directors of four or five of the biggest space-ship lines with their advisers, secretaries and staff. The arc lights and wires of several television cameras cluttered up the sides of the room, but what dominated the cavern was a large cage of gleaming steel, open at one side and hung at about the height of Sanchez's head. It was topped by a crystal curtain of cut stones that reflected the arc lights dazzlingly and drew every eye to the steel cage.

Jerk, Tim and Sanchez lost Nigel in the crowd and worked their own way over to the right where the whole wall of the cavern was taken up by a folding steel door. This was locked and on it was written:

PROTON DRIVE LABORATORIES STRICT SECURITY

'That's where it is,' said Sanchez. 'Beastly messy invention!'

'Ladies and gentlemen of the Press,' one of the white horse attendants suddenly called out in a high ringing voice, 'Mr Mowl is now coming.'

Everyone fell silent and a deep hum, as of some powerful force, began to fill the room.

'Is the volcano erupting?' whispered Sanchez.

'No. It's coming from the cage. Shut up!' Tim hissed back.

As the hum grew, a pale transparent lightning began to play around the bars of the cage. Behind the lightning Sanchez could see the ghost of a horse standing stock still. Then the lightning began to fade and as it lessened the ghost of the horse grew darker and more solid until, abruptly, the hum and the lightning ended at the same instant and there in the cage was a tall handsome black horse wearing a black cloak slung over its withers and flowing down to the cage floor.

The horse smiled down confidently at the crowded room and raised his finely moulded head.

'Folks and fellows,' he said, in a light voice that carried easily, 'I have brought you here to the edge of a new era of togetherness. The gulfs that divided the stars are bridged for ever. You're very welcome.'

He leaped down to a buzz of applause and was immediately surrounded by admirers as he began to shoulder his way to a flight of black marble steps across the cavern from the folding doors.

'How did he manage that?' Sanchez asked Tim. 'It was very impressive.'

'Very expensive too,' said Tim. 'Matter transference.' It uses up enough electricity to light a large city just moving one person a few feet. And it's dangerous! You can fly to bits. I wonder where he gets his power from?'

'Do you remember the way the lightning kept striking the mountain as we rode up?' asked Sanchez.

'You've probably got it,' said Tim. 'He stored up a whole storm to give a good opening to his press conference. He's trying hard, isn't he?'

'What are you getting at?' his brother asked.

'Remember what Dad said, "Nothing is what it seems to be"? If Mr Mowl puts on this sort of show he's trying to stop your mind and your eyes from wandering somewhere else.'

'Like behind the folding doors,' Sanchez suggested.

'That's what I was thinking,' said Tim. 'There's a little door in the bottom corner. Give me two minutes and I'd be through that. We might try later. Meanwhile let's get closer to this Mr Mowl. I'd like to test him with a few questions.'

'Could we be reporters for a children's newspaper?' Sanchez suggested. 'That sort of gimmick is quite common nowadays.'

'Good idea,' said Tim. 'Let's be on a paper called The Voice of Youth. Come on.'

As they wriggled between legs and bodies across the room, the press conference had begun. Mr Mowl was standing at the top of the flight of steps, against a panel of white marble, answering questions with replies like:

'Yes, folks, I have had big offers to buy my Proton Drive.'

'No, I have not yet accepted one of them. My invention is for the whole galaxy.'

'No, my three-second journey over a space of one hundred and ninety light years has not tired me. As you see, I'm as fresh as a daisy.' 'Yes, I do have a crew.' 'No, you may not interview them.' 'They are busy tuning up the ship.' 'No, the fuel I use is surprisingly cheap.' 'Much cheaper than present space fuels.' 'Well, lady, you might have some in your back garden, but I'm afraid I'm not going to help you look for it.'

Everything was going very nicely and the two boys had just got to the foot of the staircase when they heard Nigel's voice ring out from the middle of a crowd of journalists.

'Tell me, Mr Mowl, have you a certificate from the Galactic Health Authority permitting you to make flights using the Proton Drive?'

For the first time Mr Mowl stopped smiling and paused before he replied.

'Not yet. But I'm expecting one soon.'

Nigel's voice cut into the silence.

'Is it true that your Proton Drive uses a gas laser which could tear up a planet's atmosphere and expose the inhabitants to radiation sickness?'

'No, it is not.' Mr Mowl was changing visibly before the cameras into a, figure of scowling rage.

'Then why,' Nigel went on, 'have you shut up Professor Horgankriss who came from the Health Authority to test the safety of your Proton Drive? Why have you shut him up in a seaside house fifty miles away from your Instant Ship?'

'Professor Horgankriss is my guest,' Mr Mowl began, rearing his head and pawing at the marble steps. His voice faltered.

'Answer,' someone shouted at the back.

'What is the secret of the Proton Drive? Tell us if it's safe,' Nigel shouted.

'Yes, tell us. Tell us,' other horses joined him.

For a painful moment Mr Mowl hesitated, then collapsed into snarling fury.

'I can't take it any more, folks,' he shouted. 'I can't take it any more.'

Sparks flew from the marble as he beat it with his hooves.

'Here I come,' he cried, 'offering my good and great invention to this galaxy to bring everyone closer together, to make them all friends, and what do I get! Insults, questions, wicked lies!

'My father told me about people like you!' he pointed an accusing hoof down at Nigel. 'My folks back home warned me. They said, "Don't bother your head with any new inventions, because no one will be grateful. There'll always be someone jealous ready to speak up and ask lying questions." That's what my folks told me and they were right. But I can't take it, I tell you, I can't take it any more! Will no one give me a helping hoof?'

Mr Mowl turned away from the crowded cavern and snuffled sadly into his shoulder. Murmur and chatter were breaking out all over the cave. Sanchez heard:

'What a shame! Aren't people mean!'

I always thought there might be a danger angle to this Drive.'

'He hasn't answered, has he?'

'It could put the price down.' .

'We've got to think about this.'

'Folks and fellows,' Mr Mowl looked down from the landing at the top of the staircase, a picture of misunderstood woe, wiping his eyes with a corner of the black cloak, T know you don't all mean to be ungrateful. I know I've got some great friends and buddies here. But I've taken these insults hard. You've got to let me work this out for myself.

'Perhaps I'll be back with you later. Perhaps I'll be able to see a few of my director friends in my retiring room at the top of the stairs here. Just now I've got to be alone.

'Remember though, if kiddies at one end of the galaxy are going to be able to visit their grannies and grandads at the other end of the galaxy, to give them a big hug and a kiss, it's going to be my Proton Drive that brings them together. Be patient with me, folks. I'm all big heart and I wouldn't want to be any other way. Wheel in the refreshment, boys. Give everyone a good time.'

Mr Mowl stumbled out of sight and from all sides white horses pushed around trolleys of lily fodder and sandwiches. Most of those in the cavern started eating, but some began to push their way upstairs towards Mr Mowl's retiring room. Whatever Nigel had intended to do, he had certainly ruined an orderly press conference.

8 • Face to face with a grumpy inventor

'What did you think of that?' Sanchez asked Tim.

'A load of sloppy old rubbish about grannies and grandads,' Tim said sharply. 'All this Mr Mowl cares about is money, and he doesn't mind how many atmospheres he rips apart as long as he gets a good price for his Proton Drive.'

'I suppose it must be dangerous or he'd let people inspect it,' said Sanchez. 'But these horses can be very tricky, you know!'

'What do you mean?' Tim asked, and Sanchez told him all about how the little roan horse had offered to fix a cheating wager on who got first to Splinter Rock Mountain. Tim looked very thoughtful.

'Let's get upstairs and try to speak to Mr Mowl,' he said. 'Can you pick up Jerk and hold him? It might be helpful if we look very young.'

Jerk was a big hound dog and not at all used to being carried, but Sanchez heaved him up into his arms and hung Jerk's ears back over his shoulder out of the way. He staggered up 84

the stairs to find Tim talking to a white horse door keeper.

'You don't look like press people,' the white horse was saying.

'We represent The Voice of Youth,' said Tim. 'It has some very young reporters.'

'Oh yes,' said the horse unbelievingly, looking at Jerk. 'And what about this dog? Does he represent The Canine News?'

'Who've you got out there?' they heard Mr Mowl call from inside the retiring room.

'More press representatives, Boss,' the white horse replied.

'Kick 'em down the stairs!' Mr Mowl called back.

'They're only two kids, Boss. Two kids and their dog. They say they represent The Voice of Youth.'

'Kiddies and their doggie!' Mr Mowl's voice changed completely. 'What are you keeping them waiting for? Send them right in!'

The room was quite full. All the important directors of space-ship lines were there. Mr Mowl was standing by a mirror being curry-combed by yet another white horse. As the boys entered Mr Mowl had his nose deep in a cut-glass bucket of water; near him was a silver rack of fresh stone grass. He looked up from his bucket as they came in and smiled. Sanchez thought that his slanted eyes made him look just a little cunning, but he was a very impressive horse.

'Hi, kids,' he said, 'take a seat.' He turned to the directors. 'I love kiddies,' he said. 'They're the ones who are going to benefit by my Proton Drive.'

The directors nodded as if they'd heard all this before.

'That's if one of you fellows is going to be wise enough to put up the money fast!' Mr Mowl snarled in another of his quick changes of mood.

'What can I do for you kids?' Mr Mowl smiled again. 'You've got a fine doggie there. What's his name?'

'Bonzo,' said Sanchez, who disliked dogs being called doggies.

'Bonzo, Bonzo, here, boy!' Mr Mowl flicked his right fore hoof. Not surprisingly Jerk looked the other way.

'Can we ask you some questions for our paper?' Tim asked.

'Fire away, kids. I'm all yours.'

'What my paper wants to know,' said Tim very seriously, 'is will your Proton Drive create halocar-bons that destroy the ozone layers below the tropo-pause?'

Mr Mowl staggered and looked closely at Tim. Everyone else in the room stopped chatting and started listening.

'My, my!' Mr Mowl scowled. 'That's a mighty big question from one very small news reporter. The answer is no!'

'Well,' continued Tim, 'you know that the tropopause is higher in the atmosphere of a planet than the stratopause, don't you?'

'Er ... yes, sure!' Mr Mowl agreed uneasily. 'Where's this getting us?'

'Will enough ultra-violet radiation get through the tropopause to break up . ..'

'Wait a minute,' Mr Mowl interrupted Tim crossly. 'I thought you kids would be asking me

kids' questions. You know, like, how does it feel to drive the Instant Ship at three thousand Gs?'

'How does it feel to drive the Instant Ship at three thousand Gs?' Tim asked obediently. 'Great!' snapped Mr Mowl. 'Next question.' Sanchez could tell that they were not asking anything that Mr Mowl had been expecting. He hadn't understood his brother's questions himself, so he thought that perhaps he should try "to ease the atmosphere.”

'What do your family think about your inventing the Instant Ship, Mr Mowl?' he asked politely.

Mr Mowl relaxed and smiled broadly..

'The folks back home,' he said, 'why they're just delighted. They reckon my Instant Ship is going to unite happy families all over our great little galaxy, kiddies and their mommas, poppas and their big boys.'

Tim wrote this down and Mr Mowl nodded approvingly.

'Mr Mow! . ..' Sanchez began again.

'Call rne William, kids,' said Mr Mowl. 'That's my real name.'

'William,' Sanchez tried again, 'have you got any sisters and have they ridden with you in the Instant Ship?'

'I've got three dear little sisters,' replied Mr Mowl cheerfully. In English, let's see, they'd be called Sadie, Josie and Betsy-Lou. I'm sorry but they haven't travelled in my Instant Ship yet, though as you can guess, they're eager for the trip. They live with the rest of my folks in a cosy old farm way off on Star Eye—that's the name of one of our moons.'

'And your brothers?' Sanchez could see he was happy with this sort of question.

'Well, my twin brother. Leastways I had a twin brother, but I haven't seen him for some time now. And if you kids'll excuse me I've got business to talk with these director gentlemen.'

Mr Mowl motioned with his head to one of the white horses and before they knew what was happening the two boys and Jerk found themselves outside at the top of the stairs again. Sanchez dropped Jerk. ,

'That didn't get us far, did it?'

'Far enough,' said Tim. 'That horse is a complete phoney. You heard my question about the tropopause being higher than the stratopause, didn't you?'

'Yes,' said Sanchez.

'Well, he got it completely wrong. The stratopause is much higher than the tropopause. They're the names given to two stages in the atmosphere around a planet. Anyone knows that!'

'Of course,' said Sanchez, who had never heard of either of them before.

'So what's he playing at?' Tim demanded. 'A horse like that wouldn't notice what he was doing with his rotten Drive to the atmosphere of any planet! He's got to be stopped. I'm going to get in to see this Instant Ship. Let's find Nigel.'

They found the pony with his friends, all eating refreshments greedily. Tim explained what they wanted and Nigel nodded eagerly.

'To hear is to obey,' he said, 'but try to look after yourselves. You know I consider myself responsible for you to your kind mother and your good, if suspicious, old father.'

'It pays to be suspicious on this planet,' said Tim. 'We'll be careful and we'll take Jerk. Hurry up before this crowd starts to leave. If anything goes wrong we'll meet you back at Dragonfall, somehow!'

The two boys and Jerk walked casually nearer to the folding doors that guarded the way to the Instant Ship and Mr Mowl's laboratory.

'I'll use the back cover of my pocket diary,' said Tim, cutting at it carefully with a penknife. 'When the trouble starts you stand in front of me to hide me. There are just those two guards that we have to watch.'

The cavern was still crowded. Most of the refreshments had gone and the television cameras were being taken down. People were still moving up the staircase trying to see Mr Mowl.

'Crash!'

A trolley loaded with empty plates went flying. Sanchez thought that it had been Jolly Legs who had kicked it.

Nigel Pony reared up in the middle of the cavern.

'Safety and clean air for Mowl!' he shouted. 'Down with the Proton Drive!'

'Down with the Proton Drive!' Shouts came from all the corners of the cavern where the nine horses were waiting to support Nigel.

Crash! Crash!

Two more trolleys went flying. There were shouts and cries of alarm. Then a solid chant rose up:

'Down with the Proton Drive We want to stay alive! Down with the Proton Drive Mr Mowl's a crocked skive!'

There were more crashes and shouts. White horses guarding the doors and helping with the refreshments gathered together and made a charge towards Nigel. A door was flung open at the top of the stairs.

'Now,' said Sanchez. 'No one is looking. Be quick!'

Tim slipped to the little door at the foot of the vast sliding door and began to fiddle in its lock with the sheet of plastic which had covered his diary.

'Bother!' he said. 'I'll have to cut it again!'

Now Mr Mowl had appeared and was looking down at the rumpus and riot that filled his cavern.

'Fellows!' he called. 'I want those horses out of this room and I want them out fast!'

A crystal jug flew up and hit the curtain of shimmering stones over the Matter Transference cage. The curtain jingled and shattered. Shrill neighings and whinnyings filled the place.

'How are you managing?' Sanchez called over his shoulder.

Tim was cutting away coolly with his pocket knife.

'One more slit,' he said, 'and I may have got it.'

Jerk whimpered. He never liked sudden noises.

In three great leaps Mr Mowl had descended the steps and was lashing about him with his hooves.

'Vandals, villains, rogues,' he shouted. 'Out! out! out!'

'Down with the Proton Drive We want to stay alive.'

The chant came back.

Sanchez heard a soft click behind him. He turned; the small door was open and a dim light shone through it. He looked once more at the scuffles in the cavern. No one was sparing a glance in their direction.

'Quick!' Tim called from through the door. Sanchez caught Jerk's collar and pulled him in with them. Very carefully Tim snapped the door to with a hand on the catch to soften the sound.

9 • Journey through the backwaters of a volcano

The instant the door closed the hubbub in the cavern was cut off completely. There was just the faint menace of the volcano shivering the ground.

'Good soundproofing,' Tim said.

'Good lock picking,' said Sanchez.

'Didn't Nigel kick up a rumpus!' Tim shook his head.

'Yes, I feel rather badly about it,' said Sanchez. 'After all, Mr Mowl did offer us refreshments.'

'And pollute the atmosphere, and kidnap the Professor!' Tim added.

'We're not certain yet that he pollutes the atmosphere,' said Sanchez carefully, 'and to be honest I was quite glad that he kidnapped the Professor. I hope that he keeps him.'

'Too late now to fret about details,' said Tim. 'It's our duty to check that Proton Drive. There doesn't seem to be anyone around, but tread softly and whisper if you have to say anything.'

Their only possible route lay up a long steep ramp cut through the rock and lit at intervals by lamps. Stepping carefully and keeping to the wall they came, after about fifty yards, to a balcony that looked out over an enormous cave. Cautiously they peered sideways and then downwards. There was neither sound nor sight of any of Mr Mowl's white horses.

'Golly!' said Sanchez.

Poised on its launching pad in the centre of the cave was the Instant Ship. It was very long and looked even longer than it really was because it was so slim. Its sharp needle nose was far above them, pointing to the shadows of the bore hole that led to the steel door and the open air. The trim was silver on grey steel, and a leaping black horse was emblazoned below the thin slit windows of the cabin.

'Just look at that tail unit!' said Tim. 'I've never seen anything like it!'

'Except in a brass band,' said Sanchez, who wasn't mechanical. 'It looks a bit like that instrument they blow with all bends and twiddles.'

'A euphonium, you mean,' said Tim. 'Yes, you're right. That must be the Proton Drive, I suppose.'

'There are steps down,' said Sanchez. 'We'd better inspect it quickly.'

'Have you seen the notice?' Tim pointed.

On the rails of the balcony was a notice printed in English and in the Mowl horse writing, which

looked like lots of blades of crossed grasses. It said: This is the ultimate limit for all except crew members and inspection engineers. You are warned that beyond this point there are fierce radiations and deadly forces.

'Oh dear!' said Sanchez. 'What do we do?' 'I suppose Mr Mowl quite often brings directors here and people he wants to impress,' said Tim thoughtfully. 'It's a sort of peep show. And with that notice they wouldn't ask to look any closer, would they? They'd be afraid.' 'Like I am!' said Sanchez. 'Listen to my geiger counter.' Tim pulled a little disk from a string around his neck and held it to Sanchez's ear.

'It's clicking!' Sanchez exclaimed. 'That means there's radiation, doesn't it?'

'It always clicks a bit,' Tim explained. 'That noise you heard is just the natural radiation level you'd expect inside a volcano. I don't believe the Instant Ship is giving off any radiation at all. But I'll keep my geiger out. Come on, it's perfectly safe.' Sanchez always believed what Tim said about science so he followed his brother down the stairs and across the cavern floor until they were standing right under the swooping loops and whirls and bulges of metal riveted to the Instant Ship's tail unit. Tim peered into everything and walked right round the launching pad. Strange echoes rose from the least sound they made. Sanchez felt very subdued.

'All I can see is an ordinary star drive like Dra-gonfall^'s but more up to date,' Tim reported. 'I wouldn't even say it was faster,' he added loyally. 'And of course there's the outlet for that gas jet we saw it using on television. That's to get it in position independently, like we use our rocket pods.'

'That's where they get the gas, straight out of the mountain.' Sanchez pointed to a broad pipe leading from the rock to a faucet.

'It will be hydrohelioid,' said Tim. 'I'm going to get up closer. This is really puzzling me.'

And with that he began to scramble up the inspection catwalks which rose for about a quarter of the height of the Instant Ship.

'You're sure it's all right about radiation,' Sanchez sent up an echoing whisper. 'Radiation ... sure ... right ... radiation,' the echoes answered him from the reflecting metal surfaces and the high rock roof.

'Hardly a click,' Tim whispered back. He had reached the top of the catwalk and was leaning over to where the twists and coils of the Proton Drive reached a final narrow point.

'Hey,' he whispered again, and 'hey ... hey ... hey' the echoes caught him up. 'You know what you said about this looking like a euphonium?'

'Yes,' hissed Sanchez, longing to get out of this place.

'Well, listen to this for a cool note!'

Tim put his mouth to the top pipe of the Proton Drive and blew. The whole vaulted cave was filled with a gloomy trumpeting bellow that went on and on, up and down the scale, the noise you would expect elephants to make if they were sinking in a swamp.

'Come down!' said Sanchez, forgetting to whisper. 'Someone is bound to hear it. You'll get radiation in your mouth!'

'Radiation be bothered!' Tim came shinning down the catwalk to the floor. 'The whole thing is hollow. There's nothing in it and it can't do anything to the ship except spoil the streamlining. It doesn't even lead to anything in the star drive. It's like Mr Mowl. It's a big act.'

Far away, down the ramp they had climbed, a door slammed.

'Someone's coming! I told you! We've got to get out,' whispered Sanchez.

They looked right round the Instant Ship's cave. Only one broad passageway led out, apart from the one by which they had entered. Over the passage entrance was written:

EXTREME DANGER PROTON LABORATORY

'That looks safe,' Tim grinned. 'There are some cylinders stacked in it. Let's hide behind them and see who's coming.'

The two boys and the hound dog hurried across the cave floor and under the warning notice into the passage. There they ducked down behind a pile of cylinders labelled 'Magnesium'. Sanchez held Jerk tightly and thought how lucky it was that flying hound dogs cannot bark.

They heard neighing and whinnying for some time before three white horses appeared on the balcony. They were engineers with tool kits slung over their withers and they did not seem to be hunting anyone.

'My trumpet blast must,, have sounded like the volcano erupting!' Tim whispered. 'On this planet no one would notice the Day of Judgement!'

The engineers went down the steps and mounted the catwalks. The leading horse unlocked a door in the Instant Ship's side and they all went in through it. The boys could hear them laughing and talking inside, then one climbed down again, picked up a cylinder of magnesium that had been left lying at the foot of the ladders and carried it up into the ship on his shoulder.

'If they want another cylinder they'll have to come over to this passage,' Tim whispered. 'We can't stop here.'

A second engineer horse climbed down and fitted the hydrohelioid pipe into the ship's gas jet, then turned it on.

'They're going to make another flight soon,' said Tim, 'and I still haven't a clue how the Proton Drive works. If it does work. Come on, let's see where this passage leads us. I want to have a talk with Nigel Pony.'

When all the white horses were back inside the Instant Ship the boys hurried softly up the passageway and round the first bend. There the passage suddenly narrowed and became much rougher, also it seemed to be getting hotter.

'It did say "Proton Laboratory",' warned Sanchez. 'We ought to be careful.'

'And it did say "fierce radiations and deadly forces" on the last notice,' Tim reminded him, 'and all we found was a musical instrument. I know the Instant Ship looks very long and impressive, but I believe it's a perfectly ordinary starship behind the streamlining.'

'Well, how did it get to Earth from Mowl in three seconds?' asked Sanchez.

'Did it really do that?' Tim asked thoughfully.

'It must have done,' said Sanchez. 'There were television cameras filming the take-off and television cameras filming the arrival. He's gone there and back twice now. He couldn't possibly cheat in those conditions with all the big space-ship lines so interested and checking on him.'

'I suppose not,' Tim sounded doubtful. 'But 100

when we were out there in space with Dragonfall the Professor's instruments didn't detect a thing when the Instant Ship was supposed to be passing us.'

The passage came to a fork, one way led up and one kept level.

'We don't want to get higher,' said Tim, so they chose the level way, which was beginning to get rather stuffy. Soon there was a dark bend in the passage.

'No more lights,' said Sanchez, stepping cautiously forward, and then, 'Help! I'm slipping!' he shouted.

Tim snatched at his brother's collar and pulled him back as Sanchez began,to slip down a steep cindery slope. His own feet scrabbled for a moment and then he was back on firm rock. Waves of hot air welled up to them from a deep pit. Sanchez found his feet again and the two boys looked down. Far below was the red loom of molten lava and the stirring, grumbling sound of the volcano in eruption. When they looked up, the dark vent rose out of sight, thick with fumes and gases. The passage had come to an end.

Jerk whimpered and stepped back hastily around the corner.

'That was a near thing,' said Sanchez, following Jerk.

'So much for the "Proton Laboratory",' Tim said. 'Another sham.'

'Well, if there isn't a Proton Drive,' said Sanchez, 'then there's no pollution problem and we can all go home.'

'But what are all those directors trying to buy for millions of credits?' asked Tim. 'There must be something. Mr Mowl did make those four fast trips.'

'These horses are very pleasant,' said Sanchez, 'and they gave us a wonderful ride, but they are a bit tricky you know. Think of that roan trying to cheat me over bets as soon as he saw me. Even Nigel Pony is very secretive and sly at times.'

'You can say that again,' Tim agreed. 'Come on. We'll have to try the passage that led upwards.'

They retraced their steps to the fork in the path and took the steep passage upwards, going very cautiously around every bend. After six or seven turns, when they had quite lost their sense of direction, the passage levelled out and opened into a wide square cavern with a low roof. It was hot and steamy and almost full of water in three tanks which were separated from each other by walls with paths on their tops. At one side of the cave water rushed in red and bubbling from a cleft in the rock. On the other side the water ran out from each tank separately down three passageways.

'Nearly boiling,' said Tim, trying the water in the first tank with his finger.

'Just nicely warm,' reported Sanchez, testing the second.

Tim slipped past him to try the third.

'Icy,' he said.

Sanchez giggled.

'It's like the cottage of the three bears in the nursery story. You know. Trying their porridge!'

'It's like some sort of bathroom,' Tim said, 'but this is the end of the road; the passage just leads here and stops.'

'What about the three places where the water runs out,' Sanchez suggested, balancing his way between the tanks to inspect the water outlets. 'The water goes offdown chutes, only a few inches deep with plenty of headroom.' He peered down into the pitch dark of the outlet from the hottest water tank.

'Quiet a minute,' he said,, 'I can hear something!'

Tim joined him and they both listened. Jerk cocked his head on one side and growled a little.

'It's horse music,' said Sanchez. 'Someone's singing.'

I think it's a radio or a record player by the sound,' said Tim.

'And sometimes there's another voice singing along with it,' added Sanchez.

'Hey!' Tim had an idea. T bet I know where we are! That singing is coming from those troughs outside by the gate where Nigel and the horses had a shower. You remember!'

'And this is a cistern for three different temperatures of mineral water,' said Sanchez. 'I'm sure you're right. Horses love having showers even more than eating, so they'd be likely to sing. We're nearly out!'

'So all we have to do,' said Tim, 'is to scramble down one of the outlets and we should come out at those stone spouts that we saw.'

'Hurrah!' said Sanchez. 'I'm sick of being inside this mountain. It's like exploring a hot jelly. Let's go down the chute with medium hot water and then it won't matter if we get wet. Nigel said we should have baths.'

'Take it carefully,' Tim warned.

Sanchez stepped down into the shallow water of the middle outlet and Tim followed him, holding his belt as the darkness of the tunnel closed around them. Jerk hesitated, whined, and then followed them, his long ears trailing in the water.

The chute dipped steeply. As Sanchez edged one foot forward his other foot slipped on the slimy mineral deposit which the water had left on the rock. He sat down hard, pulling Tim forward after him.

'Duck!' called Tim as they slithered helplessly down the slope.

Sanchez was sliding comfortably on his seat and Tim was much less comfortable on his knees. Gathering speed they pitched into the steaming darkness of the tunnel.

10 • Ambushed in the bath

It was very like a water chute at a fair except that the boys didn't know what their heads might bump into. Faster and faster they flew until the chute ended and they fell splash! into deeper water.

Sanchez went down, gulped some of the water and struggled to the surface spitting and spluttering out the rusty iron taste. He kicked out into a breast stroke. A little light was filtering in from somewhere, but it didn't look like the green light of the open air. The singing now was much louder, but it still seemed to come from below.

'Shhh!' he heard, and from the subdued splashing guessed that Tim was somewhere near him. A louder splash sounded behind him and then a whimpering. Seconds later Jerk bumped into him, dog-paddling furiously. Sanchez tried to pat him, but with one hand it was hard.

The singing changed from horse neighing to English.

'If I were a blackbird I'd whistle and sing,' it went, then there was a splashing noise and it changed again to:

'A space flight ticket to romantic places With lots of money and some nice new faces La la la la la la ...'

'He's forgotten the words,' Sanchez said, 'and the ones that he remembered weren't quite right.'

'Shhh,' came again from Tim. 'I'm sure I know that voice!'

The singing changed again, after more splashing and some noisy snorting, a light high tenor trying some opera this time:

' Just a word, a word in kindness spoken

Will my peace of mind my peace of mind restore,'

it carolled from Verdi's opera Rigoletto.

'It's a well-educated horse,' Sanchez whispered.

And he was right. What had happened, as the next event showed them only too clearly, was that they had come down into the cisterns of Mr Mowl's own private bathroom, and it was Mr Mowl himself who was singing as he enjoyed the first part of his shower in very hot water. Then he stepped round into the medium hot shower directly under the tank where Tim, Sanchez and Jerk were swimming.

An ordinary spray of water is no use to a horse, he likes a waterfall. So Mr Mowl reached up a hoof and pulled the cord which opened a whole trap-

door in the bottom of the cistern where the boys were swimming.

'Oh!' called Sanchez. 'I'm being sucked down!'

A deluge of warm brown water poured on to Mr Mowl's head and back. He had been expecting that and was ready with his scrubbing brush. What he had not been expecting to fall on him were, first, a flying hound dog, second, Tim, who broke his fall on Mr Mowl's head and then tumbled into the shower trough, and finally Sanchez.

Sanchez was sucked down struggling desperately, brown water filled his eyes, then suddenly he was falling and landed with a breathtaking jolt on something solid. Instinctively, being a good rider, he clutched at a mane and dug his knees in while the water still cascaded down over his head. And there he was, on Mr Mowl's back with an astonished Mr Mowl looking at him over his shoulder.

Mr Mowl leaped from the shower; Sanchez ducked to avoid the ceiling.

'Fellows! Fellows! I'm being attacked. It's a plot. They're everywhere!' Mr Mowl neighed loudly.

Sanchez scrambled hurriedly to the floor as three of the white horses, who were, never far away, clattered into the bathroom.

'Call yourselves bodyguards!'Mr Mowl snarled at them. 'I could have been murdered in my own bathroom for all you care. I can't go on like this, 108

blinding headaches, nervous spasms, never any peace or security! Boys falling from the ceiling! What do I pay you for? What is all this?'

He was getting worked up again into one of his fits. His nostrils were wide, his eyes were showing their whites and the towel which he had seized to dry his head was being waved like a signal. Jerk shook his ears with a 'flap-a-flap-a-flap' noise and Tim picked himself out of the shower trough. Sanchez was the first to come to his senses.

'We're truly sorry to bother you like this,' he said. 'We were just looking around, trying to get back into the open.'

'Looking around, were you? Looking around what, I'd like to know,' Mr; Mowl snorted. He looked up at the trapdoor which had now released all its water except for a trickle. 'The trap leads to a cistern, the cistern leads to a tank, the tank leads to ... Fellows, how do you reach the tank?'

'A passageway from the launching pad, Boss, that's the only way,' one of the white horse guards told him.

'The launching pad, eh! Kiddies snooping around my Instant Ship. Kiddies from the Press nosing about to smear me in the newspapers.' Mr Mowl's eyes flashed. T can't take it any ...'

Abruptly he broke off, patting his face with the towel as if he had just remembered something.

'Hold it a minute, fellows, will you? Take them into the other room. I'll be back,' he said in rather a muffled voice, and trotted briskly out, still holding a towel to his face.

The boys were left soaking wet and rather bruised to face the three white guards.

'Do we get this right?' one of the horses asked. 'Did you boys and your dog fall out of that hole on top of the Boss?'

'Yes,' said Sanchez, 'entirely by accident.'

'Entirely by accident,' the horse repeated. The three guards looked at each other, then they all burst into helpless snickering laughter.

'They fell on the Boss!'

'Two boys and a dog!'

'Best shower he's had for a long time.'

'That would calm his nerves!'

'And his headaches!'

'Listen, boys,' the first horse wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. 'You take a towel each and one for your dog and we'll go and wait in the Boss's standing room. It'll give you time to reflect!'

This started the horses snickering helplessly again. The boys saw why when they went into the standing room; it was lined with mirrors, all round the walls.

'I bet they make that joke seven times a week,' Sanchez whispered to his brother.

Mr Mowl was away such a long time that they were almost dry by the time he came back. He looked very good-humoured again and was wearing his black cloak.

'Well, kids,' he said briskly, 'you can write what you like about poor William Mowl in your papers. Tear my name to pieces for all I care; I'll be out of your reach.'

'Oh yes!' said Sanchez politely.

The tall horse smiled mockingly down at him, his white blaze twitching crookedly down the left side of his nose.

'Yes, sir,' he curvetted gracefully around the empty room, snatching glances at himself slyly in the mirrors. 'I'm giving up my Proton Drive and retiring for a little well-earned peace and plenty!'

'Are you selling the Proton Drive?' Tim asked.

'Better than that,' said Mr Mowl, fishing for something in the pocket of his cloak. 'I'm putting it up for auction!'

'Will anyone bid for it?' asked Sanchez doubtfully.

'Bid for it!' Mr Mowl snorted. 'They'd sell their grandmothers just for the chance to bid for it! Look, this is what they'll bid for and I'll let them see it while they're bidding:'

He held up a heavily sealed parchment envelope and a dark twisted glass cylinder in his right hoof. The cylinder was full of a pulsing glow of light, one moment faint, the next so brilliant that it hurt the boys' eyes to look at it. A spiral vortex of some force whirled and twisted like a top within the pulsing fire.

'That,' continued Mr Mowl, holding the cylinder high in his hoof, 'is the secret of my Proton Drive, the mysterious flame that can put a girdle around the universe in seven minutes. Here you kids are privileged to see the key to untold wealth for any space-ship line lucky enough to buy it from poor old William Mowl.'

'And the parchment envelope?' Tim prompted him.

'Oh that!' Mr Mowl tossed cylinder and envelope casually back into his cloak pocket. 'That envelope holds the secret and exceedingly complex formula by which the lucky space line can construct a hundred such cylinders to power their mighty fleet and knock their competitors reeling into the gutter. I slaved over that formula. Long years I toiled in my laboratories beneath this mountain.'

'Yes, we've just visited those laboratories,' Tim said meaningfully.

Mr Mowl allowed a very slight scowl to cross his fine forehead.

'But I'm not going to labour any longer. I've had enough. You're not going to have William Mowl to kick around any longer in your newspapers with your scare stories about pollution. Pollution!' he repeated. 'My cylinder wouldn't pollute my own Daddy's back garden.'

Something funny seemed to strike him at this point. He put his hoof to his face and they could just tell by his eyes that he was laughing.

'So everyone will bid,' Tim urged him on again.

'No point in having everyone,' Mr Mowl replied airily. 'Just the two richest rivals. I've invited the director of Pan Galactic and the director of Ophiu-chus Spaceways down to my island off the coast this evening, in just one hour's time. Neither can afford to let the other win, but one of them will have to be the loser. And they'll have to pay me ready cash.' He scowled firmly and beat his hoof on the floor. 'Yes, sir, William Mowl doesn't want any paper promises. Though naturally,' he smiled easily again, 'I will receive a certain percentage of the profits when they begin to roll in.'

Again a smile crossed his face.

'Can we go now, please?',asked Sanchez. 'It's been very interesting.'

'And run off worrying my directors with stories about pollution and things you've seen nosing about in my Proton Laboratories?' Mr Mowl snapped. 'Never in this world!'

'We didn't actually see a Proton Laboratory,' said Tim, 'though we did look.'

'You'll be locked in here for the next three hours until I've sold my Proton Drive and pocketed the money,' Mr Mowl said harshly. 'You can have the run of my house and after midnight you can have the run of the whole galaxy, but for three hours here you stay!

'Fellows,' Mr Mowl turned to the guard. 'I want those trapdoors in my bathroom locked, and look lively. Jet-off in the Instant Ship is in thirty minutes. It will only be a short trip, but see that we give the cameras a good blast-off for their money!'

He moved to the door and turned for a last smile.

' 'Bye, kiddies,' he said, then cocked his head slyly sideways, 'and don't worry too much about that pollution, will you?'

They heard him laughing to himself, as his hooves clopped lightly down the corridor.

'Stay here, boys. Remember we're about and we've got our eyes on you,' the first white guard warned them. Then the three horses hurried out and the boys were alone.

11 • Escape with the truth

'Well, now we know,' Tim turned to his brother.

'What do we know?' Sanchez asked.

'That there is no Proton Drive!' said Tim.

'What was that thing he showed us that pulsed in the cylinder?'

'An old whisky bottle that he'd filled with olive oil, an inert gas and a pulsant argon bulb, the kind they use on Christmas trees; then he fused the end down with a blow torch,' said Tim.

'And the envelope?'

'There'll be a long string of figures inside it, that will be complicated enough for him to make his getaway with the money before the director who has bought it finds out it's nonsense.' Tim sounded very sure. 'You heard him telling them to give the cameras a good blast-off. Well, they'll use that magnesium we saw stored in the cavern. Mixed with hydrohelioid gas it makes a very bright flash and leaves a huge cloud of black smoke.'

'So that no one can see how slowly the Instant Ship is travelling,' Sanchez added to show that he wasn't completely stupid about science.

'You've got the idea,' said Tim. 'Though of course it's all very simple.'

'If it's so simple,' said Sanchez, 'do you think that one of these two directors is going to give Mr Mow! millions of credits for an old whisky bottle with a flashing light bulb in it?'

'I'm afraid so,' said Tim, sitting cross-legged on the floor and looking very puzzled.

'Why?' asked Sanchez.

'Because he got from Mowl to Earth in three seconds. We can't get away from that fact, can we? Because he's done that, and then done it again, these directors will believe anything he tells them. There's a sham going on somewhere, but apart from the magnesium powder we can't say what the trick is. I do wish I could talk to Nigel about it, he's an expert in shams.'

Sanchez peered out of the door. Down the corridor one of the white horses was standing guard. He shook a threatening hoof at Sanchez.

'No way out, we're stuck,' he reported to Tim.

'I'm sure we're on the edge of understanding the trick.' Tim still sat cross-legged, rocking to and fro. 'What odd things has Mr Mowl done while we've been talking to him?'

'Lost his temper every two minutes,' Sanchez suggested.

'That's foolish, not odd,' Tim objected.

'Each time we've been talking to him he has broken off very unexpectedly,' said Sanchez, 'though perhaps that's just his nature.'

'When did he do it? Go on!' said Tim excitedly.

'The first time he was telling us about his family and then he suddenly turned us out of the room. The second time was just now, when he was shouting at us and fiddling about with the towel, then he rushed out.'

'We're nearly there!' Tim shouted, leaping to his feet. 'I know we're nearly there! Some picture is in my mind, to do with what you've just said; and Mr Mowl, he looked wrong. The towel! Oh what was it? I'm nearly there!'

'Got it!' Sanchez yelped in such a high voice that Jerk jumped to his feet too. 'Got it.' He grabbed Tim's hands.

'Go on!' said Tim.

'The towel!' Sanchez gulped. 'When we saw Mr Mowl in the bathroom he was holding a towel to his face because there wasn't a white blaze on the left side of his nose. It must be painted on and the water had washed it off.'

'You're right,' Tim smiled delightedly. 'Then he remembered about it and rushed out with a towel round his nose.'

'And when we saw him next time in this room he'd painted the blaze on again. I remember it was there because it wriggled when he laughed,' said Sanchez.

'Got that!' said Tim. 'Now, quickly! How does this tie up with the first time he was talking? What did he say? Was he talking about his family?'

'Yes,' Sanchez thought hard. 'He mentioned his three little sisters. I can't remember their names, does it matter?'

'No, just go on.'

'And a cosy old farm house they lived in, and then, and then he mentioned ...'

Tim and Sanchez looked at each other. At the same moment their faces lit up and together they slowly whispered:

'His twin brother!'

'That's it! We're there! The mystery is solved!' Tim leaped high in the air and clapped his hands. 'Mr Mowl has a twin brother!'

'Identical in looks,' Sanchez took over.

'Except for the white blaze on the left side of his nose,' Tim finished.

'So there are two identical Mr Mowls, two identical Instant Ships and two teams of white horses,' Sanchez hurried on.

'One disappears in a big black cloud just off Mowl,' said Tim.

'And three seconds later the other pops out of another big black cloud just off Earth,' said Sanchez. 'He's just a confidence trickster!'

'Unless we can speak to those two directors within the next three hours he's going to be a very rich and successful confidence trickster,' said Tim.

'He'll have to give half the money to his brother,' said Sanchez, 'and the white horses will want a share, and the two Instant Ships must have been quite expensive.'

'Cheap conversion jobs on ordinary space ships,' Tim replied. 'But that's not the point. How are we going to let our parents and Nigel know? They could stop him. My two-way laser radio has gone phut! It's full of warm brown water.'

Sanchez looked out of the door again.

'They're all packed up,' he said. 'We haven't got long. They'll open the door just once on to that staircase to get out themselves, then we'll be locked in. Houses dug into mountains don't have back doors'.

'Jerk is our best chance. He'll have to escape for us,' Tim decided. 'Where's some paper?'

He took out his diary, ripped a clean page from it and began to scribble fast.

'One good thing about horses,' he said as he wrote, 'is that they keep very accurate bloodstock records.'

'What are those?' Sanchez asked.

'Pedigrees,' Tim explained. 'Who married whom, and who was so and so's father and how many children such and such had. Horses love that sort of thing. What was the name of that moon Mr Mowl said his parents lived on?'

'Star Eye,' Sanchez told him.

Tim finished his note and read it aloud:

'There are two Mr Mowls and two Instant Ships. Radio the Records Office to check that he has a twin brother born on a moon off Mowl called Star Eye. Then get to his island off the coast quickly and stop him from cheating two directors of spaceship lines. There is no Proton Drive. Love, Tim and Sanchez.

'How's that?' he finished.

'Tuck it into his collar quickly. They've just opened the door,' Sanchez hissed. 'Oh, Jerk,' he got down on his knees and let Jerk lick his face, 'Jerk, you've got to go home, boy! Home, boy! Home! Understand? Without us.'

Jerk whined, pricked up his ears, made a short run to the door and then stopped. Tim hastily stuffed the note behind the brass nameplate on his collar.

'The corridor is empty,' said Sanchez. 'Come on. Home, boy! Home! You must go home.'

Quietly they padded to the end of the corridor with Sanchez holding Jerk by the collar because now Jerk was tugging quite hard. They peered into the next room. It was the retiring room at the top of the stairs, the room where they had first interviewed Mr Mowl. It was full of luggage. The door across on the other side, the one that led to freedom, was wide open, but Mr Mowl was pacing about the room and three or four white horses were stacking the luggage.

Sanchez gave Jerk a last hug.

'Straight home, boy!' he whispered in his ear. 'Understand?' Jerk whined eagerly and tugged.

'Home!' Sanchez shouted, and let Jerk go.

Jerk shot across the room, dodged Mr Mowl's feet, skipped around a pile of luggage and reached the door to the stairs.

'Here, Bonzo, here!' Mr Mowl called out sharply.

Jerk paid no attention. A white horse on the top landing made a grab for him. Jerk swerved again.

Til close the outer gate,' Mr Mowl shouted and lunged for a lever in the wall. 'Catch that dog in the cavern. He mustn't get away.'

Jerk was perched on the banisters. There were three white horses waiting for him in the great cavern. The outer gate began to swing shut, heavily. Jerk spread his ears wide and launched himself out. In a perfect curve, like an enormous paper aeroplane, he glided across the cavern, down, down, and out through the gates with barely a foot to spare on each side of his ears as he passed between them.

The gates clanged shut. Jerk was outside in a raging thunderstorm. He landed and immediately began to run in his long lolloping stride, smiling to himself. So much for the people who said that flying hound dogs couldn't fly.

'Boss,' the horses in the cavern called up, 'you've locked us in and he's got out! We can't chase after him.'

Snarling and stamping, Mr Mowl pressed the lever to open the gates again. Outside was a whirl of yellow lightning and crashing thunder.

'Shall we go after him in the anti-grav, Boss?' one of the horses asked. 'It's the only hope.'

'Too late,' shouted Mr Mowl, 'and it's only the dog, we've still got the boys. Hurry down to the launching pad. The sooner I'm on my island with my hooves on the money the happier I shall be. Faster! What do I pay you for? Must I do everything myself?'

Heaving and puffing, the horses hauled the luggage through the door. Mr Mowl looked back mockingly at the two boys.

'You've kicked William Mowl around for the last time,' he called. 'You're going to miss me, but I'm not going to miss you!'

He slammed the door and they heard him turn the key.

'Jerk made it,' said Tim, 'if only he goes straight home. Nigel said he'd go back to Dragon/all 5 to wait for us. If he's there when Jerk gets back he'll know what to do. But time's very short. If only we could get out and down to that island before Mr Mowl starts his auction.'

'Let's look around,' said Sanchez. 'There must be another way out or a laser radio or something.'

But there were just five rooms and a bathroom, all bare except for a map on one wall and dozens of mirrors. Sadly the two boys sat down on the floor of the retiring room. Thunder was raging outside and the volcano was erupting as usual, but over all that noise they could still hear the long high whine of an ion gas jet as the Instant Ship prepared to leave its launching pad.

'He's going to get away with it,' said Tim furiously. 'Even in that slow old crate he'll be down on the coast within five minutes. He'll fill those two directors with food and drink, hold the auction and then fly off again. We've lost, just at the very last round.'

'Won't the directors notice that he's taken five minutes to cover only about fifty miles ?' asked Sanchez.

'He'll think of some excuse,' said Tim. 'He'll say he didn't want to break people's windows. You know how he can talk!'

The jet scream of the Instant Ship reached its pitch, then faded. Mr Mowl was off to his island castle.

'I've been thinking,' said Sanchez slowly. 'You know how nothing on this planet is quite what it seems? Well, though Mr Mowl is very vain I can't see why even he wanted a mirror on that wall over there. It's in a corner and it's usually covered up when the outer door is open.'

Tim went quickly over to the mirror in the corner and looked at the decoration.

'Carved horses' heads,' he said. 'Let's try them.'

He pulled and twisted them. The second one he tried was a door-handle and the whole mirror swung out of the wall. Behind it a long narrow ramp led steeply downwards.

'Here we go again!' said Sanchez, and down they both went. The ramp led at last into a large low cellar that looked like a workshop. There were no other ways in or out, but in the middle of the cellar was a cage of wires and bars. Snaking down to it from the ceiling were three fat power cables and there was a range of dials and levers on a control box beside the cage.

'Another dead end,' said Sanchez. 'This place must be exactly under the great entrance cavern,' said Tim. 'You know what that is, don't you?' He pointed to the cage.

'Is it the other half of the matter transference machine?' Sanchez guessed. 'The thing Mr Mowl first appeared in?'

'Yes,' said Tim, 'so ...'

'Oh no!' gasped Sanchez. 'We can't use it! They're very dangerous. Sometimes they transfer some bits of you and forget to transfer others. I'm not going to turn up on the other side without a head!'

'Rubbish!' said Tim. 'A little skin or the end of your finger is all you'd loose! The thing is to stand absolutely stiff. Pretend you're playing statues. Come on, the lightning is striking outside and the power pack dials register brim full.'

I like my finger ends,' Sanchez protested, 'and my skin! And who's going to pull the lever for us to send us through to the other side?'

T'm just seeing to that now,' Tim said, fiddling with a piece of wire and a lever on the control box. 'Thank goodness horses don't often go in for pressing buttons because of their big hooves.'

He bundled Sanchez into the cage and followed him, holding one end of the wire which he had tied around the projection lever.

'Freeze!' he ordered. 'The less you move the safer you'll be,'

Sanchez tried to think of a statue but could only remember the Venus de Milo, which was no help because that had lost its arms. Instead he stood stock still, arms pressed to his sides. Tim froze too, with his hand out to tug the wire. 'Right!' he called, and pulled. At first nothing happened. Sanchez just felt an odd twitching inside him, as if his blood was jumping and dancing, and there was a smell of burnt saucepans. Then the deep hum that they had heard before began. It boomed deeper and deeper inside Sanchez's head. His nose itched so that he could hardly bear not to scratch it, but he knew he must not move. Pale lightning flowed around the cage and came welling up their legs until it played around their heads and all the world seemed pale lightning. Sanchez thought of all the solid feet of volcanic rock between the two matter transference cages. Now there was a burnt taste in. his mouth and his nose itched more than ever. His eyes were wide open and all he could see was lightning. Or was it?

Wasn't that a cluster of light bulbs shaped like trumpet flowers, and beyond them wasn't that an open gate? Still Sanchez did not dare to speak or even breathe. The world became solid again. The hum faded and the lightning died.

'We've made it,' said Tim, and looked down at the severed piece of wire he held in his hand.

'Can I scratch my nose?' asked Sanchez, then found he didn't want to any longer.

They jumped down from the cage into the empty cavern.

'Much worse than the dentist's!' said Sanchez.

'That spider anti-grav is still standing by the door,' said Tim. 'You can only work it if you know exactly how a horse trots and gallops. So it-will all depend on you. Do you think you could make it carry us fifty miles? If we really got it working we could be at his island within an hour.'

Sanchez was still counting his finger ends and checking on the tip of his nose. Everything was still in place. The two boys walked around the ungainly anti-grav, then scrambled up to the control platform.

'It's all a matter of how you use your legs once you've put them in those canvas sockets,' said Tim. 'After that it all works by remote control. Whatever you do with your leg, the big leg of the anti-grav does the same. Of course it's all right if you're a horse, but what are we going to do with just our two legs?'

Sanchez giggled.

'Have you ever wanted to be the back half of a pantomime horse?' he asked. 'Because now's your chance! I'd better put my legs in the two front sockets, you get into the back two and hold on to my waist. This is a time when knowing about horses is more useful than knowing about science.'

As they scrambled down into the sockets and got their balance the anti-grav came automatically back to life and straightened its legs.

'Let's try a few steps slowly, left, right, left, right, just to get the feel of it,' Sanchez ordered. 'Left, right, left, right.'

Slowly, like a very timid beetle, the anti-grav made its giant strides and staggered into the open air. The green twilight of Mowl was refreshing after being cooped up so long inside Splinter Rock Mountain. Sanchez could smell the sharp sweetness of the hanging trumpet flowers and hear the water tumbling into the shower troughs, but there were no horses around now. They had all gone to the evening races after seeing the Instant Ship leaving in its usual cloud of black smoke.

'I should guess,' said Sanchez, 'that this anti-grav will work best if we use the legs in the same order that a horse uses when he gallops.'

'How's that?' asked Tim, who was not enjoying being the back legs.

'Well, it looks as if the front legs go back as the back legs go forward,' Sanchez explained. 'But that's an optical illusion. If they did they'd keep bumping each other in the middle.' 'So ...' said Tim impatiently. 'So as I swing my legs forward you do the same,' said Sanchez confidently, 'and as I swing my legs backwards you go backward too. We'll begin slowly, in a sort of canter, and speed it up into a gallop. That way we should do seventy miles an hour over flat country. Which way do we head?' 'South south by east, that way,' Tim pointed. He had the compass.

They had three bad times when their canter turned into a trot. The thing not to do was to go left, right, as you would if you were walking. With four legs you have to think quite differently; balance is easier for one thing. But after one spill that shot Sanchez out of his sockets and head over heels in stone grass, they got the idea and the anti-grav worked wonderfully. It was as light as a feather, almost floating in fact, and all the boys had to do was to suggest a motion and the anti-grav perfected it for them, cutting out bumps and jolts.

They had got splendidly into their first real gallop and the country was whirling past them, lit faintly by dying lightning, when they came without warning to their first fire ditch. The molten lava flung its heat at Sanchez.

'Back legs kick for your life!' he ordered, and raised his own legs. In a wonderful soaring leap they were over the ditch and on beyond, climbing steeply up the pass between two volcanoes.

12 High tides and higher flying

Of all the adventure it was the part Sanchez enjoyed most. Instead of riding a horse you were the horse! Or at least you were the front half of it. Even Tim enjoyed the motion and the easy power, pacing along through the night under the silver-patterned heavens.

'Do you think they'd sell us this,' Sanchez wondered. 'It's so much more fun than our ordinary anti-gravs.'

The land ended very suddenly after they had been galloping for about three-quarters of an hour. One minute they were rollicking over rolling green turf, the next Sanchez called 'Whoa!' and they had halted on the brink of a high cliff. Five hundred feet below them was a great bay of flat dry sand. It was the sea, but there was not a drop of water in sight. A mile or two out across the sand yet another volcano soared up like a spike driven out of the sea bed. Just below its summit was a line of lights and the shape of buildings.

Til bet you that's Mr Mowl's castle,' said Tim.

'It's just the sort of place he'd choose for a holiday home.'

'How long since he left us?' asked Sanchez.

'An hour and a half,' Tim looked at his watch. 'Jerk could have got home by now if he went straight. And if the directors eat a good long dinner before the auction we could still make it.'

'There's a way down to the left through a break in the cliffs,' said Sanchez. 'Let's get going.'

Downhill was hard—horses often fall on their noses going downhill—but at last they picked their anti-grav's legs over the last rocks and pattered out in full gallop over the level sands. Mr Mowl's castle rose forbiddingly across the dry sea bed, the sand skimmed and whistled beneath them, the air was fresh in their faces with a hint of salt.

'I reckon we're doing over seventy miles an hour,'Sanchez called back happily. 'Our rhythm's perfect. Isn't this great?'

'The faster the better,' Tim panted. 'It all looks dry sand now, but you remember what Nigel told us about the water on Mowl doing what it pleased?'

'Golly,' said Sanchez. 'I'd forgotten about tides! What did he say?'

'He said the sea went mad,' said Tim, 'and if one moon on Earth can pull up a tide of sixty feet in some places then I've calculated that the four hundred and eighty moons on Mowl could make tides half a mile high and send them swilling around the ocean like cliffs of water.'

'Who'd be a fish on Mowl?' Sanchez laughed.

'In fact,' said Tim, 'going by the cliffs we've just come down, I shouldn't think the first wave of the tide would be higher than four hundred feet. But if we're not lucky we're going to find out soon for ourselves because there it comes! Gallop for our lives!'

Far across the bay, beyond Mr Mowl's castle mountain, half seen in the dim light, but reflecting moonshine from its crown of towering foam, a monstrous wave had risen as if by magic along the whole line of the horizon. As Tim said, this was the eternal ravaging tide that tore for ever across the sea beds of Mowl, pulled here and there at random by the great circle of moons.

The boys raced their legs frantically in the canvas sockets and sent the anti-grav skimming across the sand. One break in their rhythm and they would have gone flying, but practice had made them perfect and they hurtled full tilt towards the base of Mr Mowl's mountain, which now blotted out half the night sky. Just beyond the mountain Sanchez could see the tumbling wall of sea water sweeping towards them as fast as they pounded towards it. A confused roar of thousands of tons of collapsing water filled their ears.

'Whoa!' called Sanchez and they skidded fifty yards sideways-on to the very foot of the mountain. A shivering boom! shook the whole face of the rock which towered above them.

'That's the tide hitting the other side of the mountain,' called Tim desperately. 'It'll be here in a moment. We've got to get up somehow!'

'Look,' Sanchez pointed into a cove between two towering rocks, 'floppy balloons!'

Where he pointed, five slack, half-filled balloons bounced against the rocks, tugging weakly at" a platform to which they were tied. A notice in two alphabets was fastened to the cliff, just where a gas pipe sneaked out of the rock. The notice read:

INFLATE TO RISE

'It's a lift to the castle,' Tim said. 'Quickly, get us on to it!'

As Sanchez edged their anti-grav on to the platform Tim leaped to the ground to turn the tap on the gas pipe. Sanchez jumped after him to open the valve leading to the balloons. Wind driven by the tide wall came moaning into the little cove.

'Got it!' Tim had managed to turn the stiff tap. Hydrohelioid gas hissed into the valve. The five balloons perked up, scraped off the pebbles and rose into the air. Just as they rose, the vanguard of the great tidal wave raced round into the cove. Already thirty feet high it swept down upon them in a welter of foam.

'Too late!' cried Sanchez."

'Hold the ropes!' shouted Tim. 'Hold on!'

They each grabbed one of the ropes that tied the balloons to the platform. The lift, almost airborne, was grinding over the stones, with the gas still pouring in through the valve. Salt and icy, the water surged over their heads, wrenching at their arms as they held desperately to the ropes, and swirling their anti-grav to twisted ruin on the island rocks.

That saved them. Relieved of the anti-grav's weight the balloons shot upwards, tearing the gas pipe from the valve and sending water cascading down from the platform where the boys clung. Wave after wave reached up to them, each higher than the one before. One monster swept so high that it tilted their platform with a great blow, only to fall back again. And then they were out of reach at last, there was no spray in the air and their lift, tethered to the cliff face by a running wire, was drifting lightly upwards, safe from the violence of the sea.

Soaked and breathless, Tim and Sanchez looked down and saw that all the bay across which they had just galloped was fathoms deep in water, and the front of the tidal wave was already bursting with a noise like cannons firing against the cliffs of the mainland.

'We seem to keep getting that bath Nigel wanted us to have, don't we?' said Tim, trying to manage a grin. 'And the water wasn't heated this time!' 'I did love that anti-grav,' said Sanchez sadly, gazing down to where the sea heaved about the cliffs. 'It was the only scientific thing I ever travelled in that felt natural, and now it's gone.' 'I think we're arriving,' said Tim. The balloons pulled their platform gently in alongside a landing ledge carved from the rock below the castle. There they came to a stop with the balloons still straining upwards, and the boys stepped off on to solid ground.

Above them a zig-zag ramp climbed up to the grim walls. There was one gate and that looked very firmly shut. Everywhere else the castle was built to the very edge of the cliff.

'Isn't that ... surely it is ... yes, look!' Tim gasped. 'They've got here. Jerk must have made it!'

'Where, where?' Sanchez asked.

'Just to the left of that tower. See it? Against that silvery patch of sky.'

'Glory be!' said Sanchez.

Faint against the moons but quite unmistakable with her rakish cobra head, Dragonfall 5 was hovering motionless on her anti-gravs about a thousand feet above Mr Mowl's castle. She was showing no lights.

'But what are they drifting about up there for?' Sanchez asked. 'Time's running out. He'll just be starting his auction.' »

As he spoke ten extraordinary shapes swung into sight around the corner of the castle.

'Winged horses,' Sanchez gasped delightedly. 'Even better than a galloping anti-grav.'

Til bet one's a winged pony,' Tim said. 'Let's call him or he'll miss us.'

'Nigel!' they shouted together. 'Were here!'

Their voices echoed off the castle walls. Three of the flight separated themselves from the others and dropped in an odd dipping motion down to the boys. As they came nearer the boys could see that what had looked like wings were actually wide transparent vanes that beat lazily and swirled outwards from power packs strapped to the horses' shoulders. Their spread was at least thirty feet and they were clumsy yet graceful at the same time.

'It's Nigel and Silver and Tuppenny,' Sanchez picked them out.

'Not more horse riding,' Tim groaned. 'Think what will happen if I fall off this time!'

Each night-rider chose his own zig-zag of the ramp, then, awkwardly like pigeons settling on ledges too small for them, they poised back on their vanes to lose way and dropped. Silver mistimed his landing, scrabbled his hooves an instant, then swung out again into the void. With two broad lazy beats he rose again, came in for a second try and made it. The vanes folded in carefully like fans to lie along the horses' flanks. The boys hurried up to Nigel's landing strip.

'Great to see you again!' said Tim. 'Is Jerk all right?' asked Sanchez: 'Great to see you,' Nigel replied. 'Yes, Jerk's very well, but Big Mother said he was exhausted so he stayed up there in Dragonfall with Old Elias.' 'Where's Big Mother then?' asked Sanchez. Nigel waved a hoof upwards to the sky. 'She's not flying on a horse, is she?' Tim asked in astonishment.

'Your mother is a very remarkable woman,' said Nigel. 'And you two haven't done badly, if I may say so.'

'Did you check with the Records Office?' Tim asked.

'We did, and we found Mr Mowl's twin brother just like you said. We were just about to pay Mr Mowl himself a visit when you called me. You look rather cold and wet, but it would be a shame if you missed the last act of our comedy. Do you think you could risk a ride on Silver and Tuppenny here?'

'Not a ride, a sit,' Sanchez corrected him, 'and you try to stop us!'

'If Big Mother is up there riding I suppose I can do the same,' said Tim.

Sanchez helped his brother on to Tuppenny and vaulted up himself on to Silver.

'Scramble!' called Nigel.

The wide vanes unfolded wvith a soft ripple of plastic. The power packs hummed into life. Sanchez felt Silver brace himself, then leap, and they were out over the dark sea with the rock face sliding past them.

As the three rose in formation to meet the other seven, Tim clung desperately to Tuppenny's mane. The vanes gave more the feeling of wobbly gliding than of flight; the horses seemed to have to wait for an air current and then climb up it. Tim had caught one glimpse of sea and rocks a thousand feet below them, now he was keeping his eyes on the back of Tuppenny's head.

'Relax!' said Tuppenny in his usual irritatingly helpful way.

'Are these outfits reliable?' Tim asked him.

'While the batteries last,' Tuppenny replied. 'They tend to run down very quickly, but a red light comes on to warn you, and then you know you've only got one minute's flying time. Let me know if you see it flashing.'

'Yes,' said Tim, with a gulp, 'I will!'

'They're ideal for quick commando-type operations like this,' Tuppenny went on.

'Have you used them before?' Tim asked, a little' surprised.

'Oh, often,' said Tuppenny. In the police force we get called in on jobs like this most weeks.'

'Police force,' said Tim to himself. 'Now that explains a lot that I didn't understand.'

The other seven horses swung into sight. Sitting side saddle on Jolly Legs, a splendid figure in her thickest flying jacket, was Big Mother. She looked determined rather than happy, because it is difficult to ride side saddle when you have no saddle to hook your leg around, but she waved when she saw the boys.

The horses were hovering over a small terrace between the castle and the cliff edge.- Nigel swooped carefully down on to this, folded his vanes and beckoned to the others. One by one, first Big Mother, then Tim and lastly Sanchez were landed on the terrace, each horse taking off again as soon as he had set his passenger down. Nigel waved a hoof and the nine horses rose on the air currents and separated over the castle towers.

A sliding glass door led from the terrace into a brightly lit room. Through the door Sanchez could see the backs of a circle of directors—half were from Pan Galactic and half were from Ophiuchus Airways. Behind them were a large number of open cases of money. Facing them was Mr Mowl, who was talking and smiling and holding the pulsing light for everyone to see. Obviously the auction was just about to begin.

'The moment has come,' said Nigel. He stepped forward and rapped firmly on the glass of the sliding door. Everyone inside the room turned round. Mr Mowl's nostrils twitched angrily and his false white blaze twisted. He said something they could not hear to the directors, put the pulsing light into his cloak pocket and came quietly to the door. He slid back the glass, stepped on to the terrace, then slid the door shut again. Nigel and he were face to face.

'Who are you?' he asked.

'An Inspector in the Intergalactic Police Force,' Nigel replied seriously.

Intergalactipol!' Sanchez whispered and turned to Tim. Tim nodded.

'Excellent, Inspector,' Mr Mowl replied confidently. 'And you have come to tell me that you have caught these two young criminals.' He nodded towards Tim and Sanchez. 'Let me be the first to congratulate you.'

'I've come to tell you that we know all about

you and your tricks, thanks to these two young gentlemen,' Nigel replied in his deepest voice. 'Your twin brother is alive and well and waiting for you in the other Instant Ship halfway between planet Earth and its moon.'

Mr Mowl slumped miserably and looked from one to another of them.

'So it's all up with poor William Mowl,' he said, snuffling a little. 'I've come to the end of the road!'

Then his mood changed suddenly and his eyes rolled.

'One pony and three feeble humans,' he snorted. 'What if I were to clamp you and those foolish directors into my dungeon and fly off with the money?'

Nigel waved a hoof in the direction of the sky. On each tower of the castle one of the nine horses was standing poised for battle.

Big Mother pressed a signal button on her two-way radio. 'And we have a heavily armed battle cruiser waiting just up there,' she said threateningly.

Warned by the radio signal Old Elias produced two thunderous backfires from Dragonfall's rockets. Yellow flames licked across the heavens and the double bang rattled the tiles on the castle turrets.

'I surrender,' said Mr Mowl. 'What do you want me to do?'

'Use your wits to get out of trouble instead of into trouble,' said Big Mother. 'Nobody wants a fuss and a scandal. You've got Professor Hor-gankriss tucked away in a cell somewhere, I suppose?'

'The Professor is my house guest,' said Mr Mowl quickly. 'You're very welcome to have him back again.'

'Well, he's got to be soothed for a start,' said Big Mother. 'What you must do is to tell these directors that the Professor has proved to you that the Proton Drive would pollute the atmosphere, so you can't sell it until you've cleaned it up. That'll mean the auction will be off and the Professor will get his name in all the papers as the hero from the Health Authority. What do you say to that?'

'Admirable,' said Nigel. 'It will save us the expense of keeping this rogue in prison.'

'Madam,' said Mr Mowl, 'you have written a last act worthy of a great play. I only hope that my acting will do justice to it. And what a setting!'

He looked down over the cliff, then turned to the sliding door. With one blow of his right foot he shattered the whole sheet of glass. The sea wind rushed into the room. Everyone inside saw his magnificent, cloaked, black figure standing windblown against the silver shadows of the night.

'My friends,' Mr Mowl began, and once again in his hoof he held the parchment envelope and the pulsing light, 'my friends, I bring you a dis-

appointment. Any horse can ride good fortune, only a great horse can ride good fortune and bad. I thought, you thought, we all thought, that with my Proton Drive I was about to offer the galaxy, for a trifling price, a fraction of its true value, the finest gift it had received since the invention of atomic power. Now I know that this must not be. You will have to wait a little longer.

'My good friend Professor Horgankriss of the Galactic Health Authority has proved to me that the radiation pollution levels caused by my Proton Drive would be impossibly high. I did not argue with him; I respect him far too much; I accept his orders. The Proton Drive must go. Better to take three long hours travelling by ordinary space ship to Earth than have one little colt or kiddy surfer in its cradle by my invention.'

Mr Mowl paused and swallowed as if to control his tears.

'You, my friends, must witness the end,' he continued. T have laboured for years in my laboratory, but now I give up my rough magic. Here I break the secret of my Proton Drive.'

As he spoke he slung the brilliantly flashing whisky bottle against the projecting wall of the next tower where it went out with a sharp 'bang'! Little fragments of glass tinkled on to the stones.

'And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book,' he ended and flung the parchment envelope, which was supposed to contain the secret formula, far out to sea in a curving arc.

Mr Mowl swept away down the terrace and the directors in the room burst into excited chatter. Sanchez had expected to see them looking very depressed, instead they looked delighted. Nigel watched them rather scornfully. 'They're pleased,' he said, 'because they haven't got to spend a lot of money on a new way of carrying lazy people a little bit faster to places where they don't really need to go.'

'It's really all their fault, isn't it?' said Sanchez. 'If they weren't so weak they wouldn't be cheated by people like Mr Mowl.'

'They deserve Mr Mowl,' said Nigel. 'And you were in the Galactic Police all the time,' said Sanchez. 'Why didn't you tell us?' Nigel looked sad.

'Once people know you're a policeman,' he said, 'they're never quite as nice to you. As things were, I enjoyed my trip with you very much.'

Across the room Mr Mowl was just escorting Professor Horgankriss in through a door. The Professor was blinking and looking puzzled, as well he might after being shut up in a dark room for the last few hours. But all the directors were shaking his hand and praising him for saving the galaxy from Proton Drive pollution, so he wasn't complaining.

'When you really get to know about things,' said Tim, 'nothing is quite like it seems, is it?'

'If it were,' said Nigel, 'there wouldn't be much work for policemen, would there?'

Ts that what you really think?' Sanchez asked seriously. 'Wouldn't you like Mowl and its moons to be peaceful and green forever, with nothing for you to do but chew stone grass?'

'To be honest, no!' said Nigel. 'I enjoy a tussle with a rogue like our William Mowl here.'

'And he has been punished, hasn't he,' said Sanchez. 'All this plotting and planning must have cost him a tremendous amount of money. I suppose that now he's ruined.'

'Ruined!' Nigel laughed.^'Whatever else happened he made a clear profit just out of selling the television rights of his various arrivals and departures by Instant Ship. People like William don't often lose money. The galaxy is full of bored people who need to be entertained. He gives them nonsense to watch.'

'So, in a sense, he's necessary,' said Sanchez.

'And all of us deserve him,' finished Tim.

Across the room Mr Mowl and the directors were about to drink a toast. The Professor held a glass in his hands, but he .was looking down modesdy at it, not drinking from it.

'My friends,' said Mr Mowl, 'I want to propose a toast this evening that comes from my heart and from all our hearts, I want us to drink to the galaxy to all the good kind people who live in it, and to the Professor here who has saved it all from a peril which some of us did not even believe existed. To Professor Horgankriss and a new clean Proton Drive!'

'To the Professor!' 'To a new clean Proton Drive!' Everyone drank the toast heartily. 'Does that mean that he'll soon be starting off on a new confidence trick?' asked Sanchez.

'Probably,' said Nigel Pony, 'but there will always be people like us to deal with people like him. And now, I know it will be for the third time today, but I do believe you both need a good hot bath.'

'Exactly,' said Big Mother, 'what I was thinking!'

BRIAN EARNSHAW DRAGONFALL 5 BOOKS

If you have enjoyed this Dragonfall book, you will want to read about all the other comic adventures on board the Dragonfall 5 with Tim, Sanchez, Old Elias and Big Mother, not to mention Flying House Dog Jerk and the inquisitive Minims.

There are six other Dragonfall books.

Scanned by Toast Feb 2003-02-23