The Boy from Earth by Richard Scrimger Read Free Book Online

gently, every now and then, to keep airspeed. I can steer in a straight line, and make gentle turns.
    I'm sweating from concentration. Remember learning to ride a two-wheeler? It's like that. It's fun, all right, butSlippers it takes a lot of effort at the beginning. I'm starting to get a headache.
    Norbert is a horrible teacher. He makes snarky comments and keeps telling me to hurry. –
We haven't got all day, you blockhead!
he shouts.
    “I'm doing the best I can!” I snap back. “You want to leave? Go ahead. Try to find the castle and rescue the princess by yourself. But I thought you needed me. If you want my help, then shut up, you … poopy prince!”
    I'm so mad I fly right up to him, sheering off at the last minute. He twists his legs around somehow to back up. I haven't mastered that move yet. I point my slippers upwards. I'm sick of the dimness, down here in the Chasm. The circle of sky way up above looks blue and bright.
    It takes Norbert a minute to catch me.
    –
Hey, Dingwall, where are you going?
    I don't say anything.
    –
You ready to move on, now? We've got a ways to go, if we 're going to make it to Bogway Fen tonight. You know, I think you might be. Your flying looks pretty Sid. I had to push myself to catch up.
    “You think so?” On Jupiter, Sid means good. I turn with a smile. I'm ready to make friends again. “You really think so?”
    Of course, when I turn, my slippers turn too and I fly right at him. He sidesteps in midair. I fly past him, clench to stop, and turn myself around with difficulty.
    “Sorry,” I say, awkwardly.
    –
No problem.
He sounds a bit awkward too.
    “Guess I'm not a real Sid flyer yet.”
    –
Sure you are. Not super-Sid, maybe, but you're getting there.
    “Thanks,” I say.
    We fly side by side for a while. The circle of sky overhead gets bigger.
    “How deep is this Chasm?” I ask. “I fell so far. Was I just about to crash?”
    –
It's bottomless
, says Norbert.
    “What do you mean? This hole goes all the way to the center of the … planet?”
    –
Farther than that. Mad Guy invented a photosonic probe, working on the intersection principle to find a target. When he tried it on the Optic Chasm, the readings came back as parallel lines. No intersection. No bottom to the hole. It goes down forever.
    I look back over my shoulder. The sheer rock walls of the hole go down and down, narrowing, darkening, disappearing. I shudder. Forever is a long way.

I want to stop for a rest when we finally get out of the Chasm, but Norbert says no. We've wasted too much time already, he says. He scoots away.
    Everything looks bright after the dimness of the hole. The walls of Betunkaville are rose colored, with the sun above them. The land beneath me, covered in scrub bushes and stands of trees, slopes gently away from the declining sun. On Earth that'd be east, but I don't know where the sun sets on Jupiter. That's the way Norbert leads us.
    Lightning flashes in the distance. We're too far away to hear the thunder. Norbert tells me not to worry; there's always electricity somewhere in the Jupiter sky.
    I ask him to tell me more about the minions. If I'm going to defeat the Dey, I want to know about his servants. “I see them as little round smelly guys,” I say.
    He laughs. –
Those are
onions,
Dingwall.
    “Oh, yeah.” They must be what I'm thinking of.
    –
Minions are slaves of the Black Dey. Sometimes we call them hired hands because that's what some of them look like, but the Dey doesn't hire anybody. They're slaves, all right. They're not very big, but they work together, and they appear out of thin air.
    “Well,” I say, peering around, “I can't see any hands here.”
    –
Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not here, Dingwall. Back on Earth, people couldn't see me.
    Norbert leads the way. I'm on his left, but behind. His slippers are perfectly still in the air. Mine keep sliding to one side, pushing me off course. I have to work harder than he does