"In that case guys, have a good trip, and report directly anything you find, over and out."

"How on the Moon did we get roped into this in the first place Bill, I mean, why us?"

Bill just laughed. You could never tell if Eric was being serious, which he usually wasn't.

They submerged and headed for the opening. There was no need for stealth now, so Bill put the lights on full to make sure he could see everything that went on. The sub glided smoothly through the water and directly towards the opening. As they approached it, Eric made a quick mental decision.

"I think we can get this baby in there Bill, fancy it?"

"Not on your life old son, but you're at the controls so you decide."

Eric already had and went straight into the opening, though at a very slow pace. The powerful lights lit up the tunnel beyond very well.

"Base, this is fish fodder calling, we've entered the opening and are proceeding, somewhat slowly, along a tunnel on the other side over."

"Understood fish face, keep us posted, over."

They had travelled about twenty meters into the tunnel when they saw the discarded skins. Eric brought the sub to a stop.

"Base, we are looking at hundreds, no, make that thousands of discarded skins, all sizes up to mummy and daddy, but no sign yet of any live ones, over."

Eric moved the sub off again deeper into the tunnel. Suddenly the tunnel narrowed and became too small for the sub to go any further.

"Base, we've reached as far as we can, but it's obvious that there is a current flowing towards us from wherever the tunnel leads, so there must be another way out somewhere else, over."

"OK guys," Kay's voice came over the radio, "good job, come home."

"Yes, boss, you don't have to tell us twice, over and out."

Reversing out of the tunnel was a deal more tricky than going in forwards, and Eric had to learn a whole new skill set just to be able to do it.

On reaching base, the two, somewhat relieved, Edenites exited the sub and closed its hatches.

"I'm glad that's over," Eric said, "they must have gone back through the tunnel to wherever they came from. Hopefully, they won't come back, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one."

"Sadly," Kay said, "I think you're right...We need a contingency plan in case that happens. Spread the news will you and let's see if we can come up with something."

Kay called all the heads of departments together along with Chris and Katy Forester.

"Guys," she said, calling them to order, "we need to make some sort of plan in case the snakes come back, let me hear your thoughts."

Chris opened, "I think we can a.s.sume that they will come back, and they will use their numbers against us as they did with Gareth. They are vindictive and cannibalistic; we must a.s.sume that they would treat us all the same way. The main problem I see is their size. Danny easily killed one adult, but what if there are thousands of adults attacking at the same time...We know that the berries act as an anti-toxin, (Gareth's ears p.r.i.c.ked up), but that doesn't stop us being eaten." Chris sat down saying, "Sorry folks."

Sam stood. "We know that the spray Gareth used on the crops killed them, so we might be able to use that as a first line of defence. I think it's safe to a.s.sume that they will come from the lake, if they come."

"So," Kay said, "we could poison the lake, nothing else lives there. Any other thoughts?"

Jimmy stood. "We have the mining laser, that will easily cut through them."

"Good point Jimmy, but it's located quite a way from Eden, any other thoughts?"

"We have 'Jimmy's juice'," Jimmy added, "we could blow up the opening in the lake, that should slow them down a bit."

"Now that's not a bad idea, Jimmy," Kay said, "make the preparations will you."

Jimmy nodded that he would.

"Bill, Eric, I want you to check out lark and make sure they haven't penetrated any of it. Roland, you check the power level, and Sarah, take someone with you and check out your hydro level."

The meeting broke up, but Gareth stopped Sam before he could leave.

"Did you really inject me with anti-toxin Sam?"

"I injected you with the only anti-toxin I had Gareth, what else could I do?"

Gareth slapped him on the back laughing, "Then I guess I'm going to see those trees mature after all."

Gareth hugged Sam, almost breaking his back in the process, and left.

"I'd back you against a hundred snakes any day," Sam said, rubbing his back.

Two days later, Jimmy had perfected his explosive charge and delivered it to the sub with instructions on how and where to place it. It would be set off by radio signal when the sub had returned to base. Eric and Bill set off for their last trip to the lake, much to their delight. They placed the charge according to Jimmy's instructions and returned to base.

"As you've had the job of going down there, I thought you might like to throw the switch." Kay said, handing the box to Eric and Bill, who jointly pushed the b.u.t.ton. There was a distant boom and some mild vibration in the floor and it was done.

"Right," Kay said, "that's that part done, now Bill, how about some movement sensors."

"Good idea Bill said, I'll get to work on it right away."

After a while, a general feeling of, 'it's over,' invaded Eden, and life began to settle down again, but Kay couldn't let go of the thought that the snakes would probably return...One day.

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

Chapter 7.

Journey's End "The ship seems to be OK Steve. I checked everywhere and didn't find anything out of the ordinary."

"Good," Steve replied. "We'll give her another push then."

Together they went through into the c.o.c.kpit to join the ladies. Clare and Hope had been studying the star charts looking for possible places to visit.

"The trouble is Sweetie, it doesn't look very far on the map, but distances in s.p.a.ce are so huge that we can't grasp just how big they are. For instance, that cl.u.s.ter there you just pointed to, would take one hundred years to reach at light speed."

This sounded impressive to Steve, but Hope spoke up, "Yes, but daddy, it's only one year at one hundred times the speed of light."

Steve turned to Tris and said, "Remember what I told you about the Forester women?"

Tris smiled.

The Navcom was showing that they had covered about one percent of their planned journey. Steve was thoughtful. Clare touched his hand saying, "The ship is fine, we are fine...the dogs are fine...Let's get on with it."

She knew he wanted to really hit the throttle, but was hesitant about doing so. Steve looked at the others who all nodded to encourage him.

"OK, Let's do it!"

He set the shut off for Mak C1 and pushed the engine start, the ship obeyed his commands and the engines fired up. The Trion drive kicked in and pushed them through s.p.a.ce at ever increasing speed. The stars were now merged into blocks of blue light. As the speed increased, the blocks became elongated and almost uniform in shape. Steve was watching the speed gauge, which was moving very rapidly upwards. Just before it reached Mak C1, he hit the override to cancel engine shut off. The gauge climbed pa.s.sed C1 and up at an increasing rate. C2 came up shortly after, and C3 shortly after that. Steve reached for the cut off and pushed it. The engines died. The view to the front was now of a light blue featureless sky with streaks of black here and there. The navcom display was moving steadily across the chart showing their progress. Steve was seriously impressed.

"What's our speed Tris," he asked, without looking up.

"Mak C5." Tris replied, a little breathlessly.

"What does C5 mean daddy?"

"It means we get to where we're going in a week Hops, instead of years."

Tris leaned over and said, "It's five hundred times the speed of light."

Hope seemed suitably impressed, more so with the 'weeks' part, than the 'five hundred times' part.

"I'm glad to hear it," she said, "there's only so many times I can check mom's plants!"

They left the c.o.c.kpit laughing.

The dogs were released from under the table, and began some doggy horseplay. Clare took the hint and made for a cushion.

"Oh no you don't," Steve shouted, getting to a cushion first. The pair of them began a cushion fight, rolling on the floor and giggling like little kids. Tris looked at Hope and went for it. He grabbed a cushion and chased her around the living quarters. She squealed with laughter as she tried to escape, it was no use though, as Steve and Clare were always in the way. She eventually fell over them, as did Tris, he landed on the cushion he was carrying and so lost its use as a weapon. Hope seized her chance and began to tickle him. He became a heap of shaking jelly on the floor unable to fight back.

"Aha," Hope laughed, "so you're ticklish, what a shame." She was merciless, and had him to the point of not being able to breath when a well-aimed cushion hit her full in the face knocking her over.

"Eureka!" Steve shouted, "Come on Tris, we can't let these women get the better of us."

Tris was up in a flash, armed with two cushions. "Now you're for it," he shouted and began chasing Hope across the floor pummelling her with each cushion in turn. She yelped and screamed with laughter as she tried to hide under the table.

"Enough," she pleaded, tears streaming down her face.

Tris took pity on her and relented. He joined her under the table and sat with her, catching his breath. Steve and Clare had gone quiet, they were in a pa.s.sionate clinch, kissing.

"Look at them," Hope said. "they're behaving like a couple of teenagers."

"OH no they're not!" Tris protested, then, grabbing Hope in his arms, he kissed her pa.s.sionately. When the kiss ended he said, "Now, they're behaving like teenagers!" Hope laughed again, but only until Tris kissed her again. The silence lasted a couple of minutes until Steve and Clare got up off the floor and headed for their room.

"Night you two," Clare said, "behave now..."

The door closed and Tris and Hope kissed again.

"It's nice to be alone at last," she said.

"Yes, it is," he agreed.

Just then, Rufus and Lady landed in their laps.

"Did you say alone," Tris said laughing. They got up, said good night, and went to their rooms, and Rufus and Lady settled down for a bit of peace and quiet.

"Why is it always the middle of the night?" Steve said, more than a little disgruntled. An alarm was sounding in the c.o.c.kpit and he had to go and see what it was. On reaching there, he looked around the control panel to see what was making the noise. It was the Navcom. Steve bent down rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Destination arrival -- system shut down." It was flashing in green. "But we shouldn't be here until next week!" Steve said, out loud. It was then that he noticed the blackness of s.p.a.ce through the front ports and began to wake up rapidly. The speed gauge said zero, they were at a dead stop.

"What's going on Hun?" Clare said, as she came through the hatch.

"It seems we have arrived," he answered her, "we're not moving at all, look."

He pointed to the stars.

Clare looked out and saw a beautiful yellow star, a sun. "It's just like ours," she said, "and there are planets in orbit around it."

"What?" Steve said. He'd been so intent on the controls he hadn't noticed. He looked out of the ports and saw the new solar system for the first time. "It's beautiful," he said, "and look, the third planet...It's blue! It could be Earth, but the continents are wrong."

They stood gazing at the vista for some time, all thought of sleep was now well behind them. "Let's wake the kids," Clare said, and went to do it. Clare burst in on Hope, and Steve on Tris.

"Come on you guys," they shouted, "you've got to come and see this."

In a few seconds they were all in the c.o.c.kpit gazing out of the ports. This new sun had three major planets in orbit around it that were close in, and at least one gas giant further out. The charts were not complete, but the location was perfect.

"How did we get here so fast Steve?"

"I honestly don't know Tris, but I'm glad we did."

"Me too," Hope said, "travelling across s.p.a.ce is not exactly exciting, but arriving at a place like this certainly is."

Steve turned the scanners on. "We may as well take a look around before we go in, see if there are any nasties close by."

The scanners went through a predetermined set of tests which took some time, this gave everyone a chance to get dressed and have breakfast.

"We need a plan of attack," Steve said, "but I fancy the blue planet first, any objections?"