Trouble on Ch-Ch 4 (Troubleshooters 59)

TROUBLESHOOTERS 59

TROUBLE ON CH-CH 4

Published by EJY at Smashwords

Copyright 2019 Dr E J Yeaman

All characters in this publication are fictional. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold, or given away, to other people. If you would like to share this e-book with other people, please buy additional copies. If you did not buy this e-book, or it was not bought for you, then please go to Smashwords.com and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

CONTENTS

1. TOOLS STOLEN FROM MINE.

2. NOW, BEAN. TELL.

3. IN THAT HUT.

4. LEAVE.

5. SEARCH.

6. V-Y-K’S SLY.

7. BREEZE.

8. CHAMER.

9. THE PURPLE COCONUT!

10. NA-AVA.

11. I’M COMING WITH YOU.

12. COME ON!

13. 72 SECONDS.

14. HOW MUCH LONGER?

15. GRUNK!

16. PREPARING?

17. READY TO GO?

18. RIGHT HAND. LEFT FOOT.

19. THREE CHOICES.

20. AROUND THE CAVE.

21. BREEZE WILL DO IT.

22. 28 SECONDS.

23. AIR!

24. G-R-K!

25. WHERE WAS MY STUN-GUN?

26. TO YOUR CAVE?

TROUBLESHOOTERS

INSIDE STORY

TROUBLE ON CH-CH 4

1

TOOLS STOLEN FROM MINE.

I faced the door. Open. It slid aside. The Bean and I went into the transporter, like a lift. Close. The door slid shut. Operate. I felt the twist in my guts as the transporter took us to the planet Ch-Ch 4.

We switched on our helmet torches, making bright patches on the metal door. Open. It slid aside. The transporter’s light showed the bare rock outside, and our beams disappeared into the darkness beyond.

The people here didn’t need light. They sensed their surroundings like a bat, using ultrasonic rays.

Two guards appeared out of the darkness. They were diamond-shaped, with two short thick legs near the bottom, and two long bendy arms near the top, about level with my shoulders. They were black, but their bodies were covered with silver hair which shimmered in our torch beams. They didn’t have faces, but they did have nerve-guns on straps across their fronts.

I spoke into my wrist unit. Greetings. I’m Tony, and this is Bea. We’re agents of the Galactic Federation – Troubleshooters. V-Y-K asked for help. (The people here couldn’t pronounce vowels. Their words, including names, were consonants with kind-of breaths between.)

One guard was wearing a wrist unit. He held it at the side of his body to hear the translation of what I said, then moved it to his mouth in the top of his body. Follow. Our wrist units said it in English.

As we followed, the transporter door closed automatically, leaving only our beams in the darkness. I swung mine around. This was a cave about half a kilometre underground, but it must be huge: I couldn’t see the walls or the ceiling.

The first thing I did see was a grey pipe about as thick as my arm. An open end, level with my chest, faced the transporter. Then it curved down and ran across the floor. The guard walked beside it.

We soon reached a long grey hut with no windows. The guard opened a door in one end and stood aside.

We went in – to a square room in the end of the hut. A native was standing behind a low table, facing us. He had a wide silver band on each upper arm, maybe to show he was a leader. Behind him was the door to the rest of the hut.

Silence. Young people from Earth can sense the minds of people from other planets. This guy thought he was important, and we weren’t.

I said, Greetings. Are you V-Y-K? I’m Tony, and this is Bea. We’re Troubleshooters from the Galactic Federation. You asked for help.

You are small. The ones with eyes usually say, young.

I told him, I’m 13, and Bea is nearly 12. We’re trained agents. If you want older ones, you may have to wait. That’s what we always say.

No copper on Ch-Ch 3. Opened mine on Ch-Ch 4. Ore to Ch-Ch 3.

A few words at a time, he was going to take all day to explain, so I said, Our leader briefed us. Bea will tell you.

The Bean squeaked, Me?

Yeah, I said. You’re the leader. I hate to admit it but, although she’s nearly 1½ years younger than me, Victor, the Federation computer had given her a higher rank than me, so she was in command of this mission.

I thought she was going to leave me to do it, but she said to V-Y-K, A long time ago, this planet, Ch-Ch 4, was inhabited. You can still see the remains of cities on the surface. No one can live there now because the air is poisoned by bacteria. Federation scientists suspect they were produced for warfare. Someone used them, or they escaped.

The Bean stopped. V-Y-K didn’t speak. The Bean frowned at him and went on, Your people live on the next planet, Ch-Ch 3. It never had much copper. Now it’s run out. The Federation gave you permission to open the mine here on Ch-Ch 4.

Again, V-Y-K didn’t speak.

I asked him, What’s your problem?

Tools stolen from mine.

Who goes into the mine?

Miners.

Only?

Yes.

Then they must be doing it.

Questioned. Not guilty. I didn’t like the way he said that.

I asked, How often does it happen?

Often. Four times in six days.

We’d better have a look at the mine.

Come. The guy led us out of the hut, and followed the pipe. It soon swung right, beside a river.

I didn’t like the look of that river. It swirled along a channel, cut in the floor of the cave. It wasn’t very wide: I might’ve jumped it, but only if I was desperate. If you fell in that deep dark water, you’d never get out.

We stepped over a metal pipe which ran through a slot in the floor and disappeared into the river. Beside it, masses of little bubbles hissed to the surface.

V-Y-K stopped. Air.

The Bean said, Victor, the Federation computer, told us. You pump air from the surface, and bubble it through water to remove the bacteria.

V-Y-K moved on without speaking, but I glanced nervously at those bubbles. What if a few of the bacteria escaped? In a day, everybody in the cave, including us, would die a painful death. Victor had assured us the fresh water would remove all the bacteria, but….

After two or three minutes, we reached the side of the cave, where the river surged out of a round tunnel. V-Y-K followed the pipe, which swung right into a square tunnel. He and the Bean could walk upright in it, but I had to duck.

The tunnel ended in a room about the size of my maths room at school. V-Y-K announced, Room 1. The pipe ran across the floor and disappeared into a tunnel in the other side. Three Federation scooters were sitting on the floor.

Scooters! They’re one-person hovercraft, about a metre square. For human-like people, they have a low seat, but these didn’t.

Ch-Ch 3 natives didn’t need a seat. V-Y-K vaulted onto a scooter and leaned back until the bottom of his body was resting on the platform, supported by his feet. He told us, Room 2, and gave the order to the scooter. It rose to hover, then sailed smoothly into the tunnel opposite.

I said, Bean, this’ll be more fun than trudging through this mine on foot. That didn’t shift her worried frown.

I sat on the second scooter, ordered it to take commands in Sol 3 English, then told it, Go slowly to the mouth of that tunnel. It rose and hummed across. Yeah: I had loads of room to sit up on the scooter without banging my helmet on the roof of the tunnel. I ordered, Room 2.

My scooter slid into the tunnel at about walking speed. On each side, my beam showed the rough rock, with the pipe running along the corner at the right.

It was a ten-minute trip to Room 2, about the same size as Room 1, and just as low. I sat on the scooter to look around. Tunnels led off to the left and right; eight scooters sat on the floor; and a pile of black cylinders – longer than Coke cans but thinner – lay in the corner.

V-Y-K must’ve noticed me looking at them: he brought one to show me. Explosive. He pressed a white button in one end. It sank into the cylinder. Set.

Set? I squeaked the question. Did he mean it was ready to blow up?

He made a gurgling noise – his way of laughing. He pressed the button again. It sprang out. Safe.

Good!

With another gurgle, he threw the thing on the pile.

As we waited for the Bean, I spotted a crack running down the wall opposite the entrance tunnel. That wasn’t unusual: we’d seen other cracks in the rock. But this one had little nicks beside it, making Federation symbols for the Earth sounds ‘GWRP’. Those nicks didn’t look natural, but who would make Federation letters in this place?

The Bean’s scooter came out of the tunnel. She stood up and swept her beam round the room.

I said, Bean, d’you see these marks at the crack? They look like….

Tony! She interrupted me. Don’t worry about details like that.

But….

No! We’re here to find out about the theft in the mine. We definitely don’t have time to worry about anything else.

Definitely! That’s a secret code word the Bean and I use. If we’re suspicious but can’t say anything in front of other people, we say, definitely. It’s a warning.

2

NOW, BEAN. TELL.

My mind whirled. Why was the Bean suspicious? She’s brainy: she’d seen something I’d missed. Now I’d watch. Definitely!

To stop V-Y-K wondering what we were talking about, I asked him, Where do we go from here?

He waved an arm towards the tunnel at the left. Room 3. Done. He followed the pipe into the other tunnel.

I walked with him. You’ve taken all the ore from Room 3. Is that right?

Yes.

One minute took us to a small square room with a ladder and the pipe going up through a hole in the ceiling. V-Y-K announced, Room 4, and climbed the ladder.

I followed – up through a shaft in the rock. It was made for Ch-Ch 3 natives, so it was wide enough for me, but not deep enough: the back of my uniform scraped the rock. The rungs of the ladder were close together for the Ch-Ch 3 natives’ short legs.

The shaft wasn’t very high – about five metres – but I was glad to climb out the top and look around. This must be the mine itself. Behind us was solid grey rock, but in front was an open space where the layer of ore had been removed. It was about as high as the tunnels: V-Y-K could just stand up, but I couldn’t. Wide pillars of the ore – dark green – had been left to hold the roof up. The pipe ran across the floor into the darkness.

When the Bean had squeezed out of the shaft, V-Y-K led us across the floor, following the pipe. We passed about ten