And the World Changes by A M Kirk (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

and cheer.


34 Afterwards…

Days of debriefing by military, scientific and political people followed - questions after questions after questions.
Mark told the truth. The Soros had given him a power and used him as a weapon. He explained who and what the Soros were, how they had encountered those mysterious creatures known as “the Enemy”, and how they had returned to Earth expecting help but finding it populated by a new, technologically inferior species.
He told of how they had loathed us, how they had used us in horrible experiments, and how, in the end, they had died to save us. And he did not fail to mention how one, known as Striped Arm, had given his life to preserve Mark Daniels. He explained that “the Enemy” had been killed by massive explosions in the second Soros ship. He did not try to explain the sub-atomic nature of “the Enemy” or the precise details of his part in their destruction. When pressed, he confessed that events at the time had been so frightening that he had great difficulty recollecting them clearly now.
The Soros bodies, he explained, he had ejected from the ship - his idea of a “space funeral”, the most fitting thing he could think of to do with their mutilated remains. They had, after all, spent millions of years in space, so it seemed appropriate. The scientists were very unhappy to hear this.
Then the scientists asked him about his wonderful gift – his power. They had seen the recorded evidence of it from the hospital and from his passing through the fence around the perimeter. Yes, Mark said, the Soros had given him a power, but unfortunately the source of that power had died with the annihilation of the enemy and the deaths of the last of the Soros. The power had depended on Soros telepathy, he supposed. The “growth” in his head that had apparently been his link with the Soros seemed to have withered shortly after the battle. His tremendous power had gone with it. Mark could no longer put his hands through tables, walk through walls or cause strange behaviour in mobile phones. For him that was the worst part, he said. Just when he was getting the hang of it, it was taken away from him. He’d been really looking forward to being Superman. But when all was said and done, he was just glad to be back with his mum and happy to be able to see his girl-friend again. All he wanted now was a normal life.
The scientists nodded and made their notes, leaving out the part about his gladness, his mother and his girl-friend.
Naturally tests were carried out. But no device could show the faintest trace of any growth in Mark’s head. Results showed it had indeed disappeared.
It had taken him a long time to figure out the controls of the ship, he said, and that explained why it had taken four days to return to Earth, given the incredible speeds the ship was capable of. He thought it might be useful to us here on Earth. The scientists wanted to know what had happened to the bigger ship, the mother ship, as it was clear now that the craft Mark had used to return to Earth was only a landing craft.
The bigger ship had been just too complicated, Mark explained. He had abandoned it in favour of the smaller, easier-to-fly landing craft. The scientists’ eyes lit up. So the bigger ship is still out there? Mark admitted that it was. It is still out there, somewhere in the solar system, waiting to be found. Mark couldn’t tell them where, exactly – he was only a fifteen year old boy, not an astronaut. But he could willingly show them what little he knew about the controls of the landing craft.
The scientists wasted no time in lengthy expressions of gratitude. They could not wait to get their hands on this alien technology that had been like a barb in their sides ever since the aliens’ arrival in 2013.
Mark pointed out, to no avail, that the Soros had not been aliens. And in the next few days he was not surprised to see that his advice was not really considered valuable.
“Just show us what buttons to press, son,” seemed to be the standard scientist’s attitude, “then run along back to your computer games. Leave this to people who really know what they’re doing.”
“Computer games?” replied Mark. “Okay.”
So he did as he was told.
The search for the mother ship would begin at once, however: the Holy Grail of the twenty-first century.
The search was also on to find those others who had been implanted by Soros devices. Medical researchers were desperate to find out how those things worked. Janette was invited to take part in the track-down operation, but she remembered her husband, John, and declined. She had had enough of such matters.
A very much doctored version of events was relayed to the world’s media. It was Talbot who explained that this story of mysterious enemies from space, destroyed by a fifteen-year old boy, well, it would be just too much for the public to take. It could cause huge panic, civil disorder even. On a personal level it would entirely disrupt the lives of Mark, Janette and Carrie’s family too. He could be viewed by some as a kind of messiah-figure. He would not get another moment’s peace. Did he really want that? So no, the “truth” was that Mark had been selected as a “witness” to the Soros’ days. They had chosen him rather than a political or military figure because of his comparative innocence, and the ability that would give him to report the truth. It was agreed that the Soros had originally come from Earth, but now they were dying and wanted to return to space because that is where they had spent most of their lives. Talbot liked the space funeral idea. But they had left human-kind their legacy of technology in the form of the landing craft, and our future was bright with the prospects of the many gifts that technology would bring. A new era was indeed about to begin for the human race.
That, Talbot declared, would form the basis of press releases.


After a few hectic weeks the publicity started to die down. The house in Touch had been rebuilt. Janette re-opened her surgery and was able – and glad - to go back to work. Her practice was now a great attraction in the little community. The waiting room had never been so full of so many healthy people. But she did not mind. Normality, or at least a version of it, was starting to re-enter her life and the memory of the summer’s traumas began to fade, for that is the way of even the sharpest of experiences, as she well knew.
General Talbot stayed in close contact. He did his best to ensure that the excesses of media curiosity did not disturb Janette and her son. There was no shortage of requests for interviews, book offers from publishers vying for their story and TV companies falling over themselves to produce TV specials. The specials and books appeared eventually anyway, as could only be expected in the aftermath of such sensational events.
Roberts and a team of fifty Net detectives (“They sound like butterfly hunters,” mused Carrie) were making considerable progress in tracking down the Human League. He had no doubt that the murderers would be brought to account for what they had done. Mark said that he had every confidence in Roberts. The Inspector seemed strangely pleased by that remark.
In August, school restarted. Mark entered his fifth year, but started late to allow time for the trauma of the summer to pass somewhat. Many people remarked, however, that if anyone ever looked less traumatised than Mark Daniels they would like to meet him.
And, of course, he and Carrie continued to meet.


35 Blue Dolphins

One evening, in mid-October, when the hue and cry was beginning to die down, Mark and Carrie were sitting on the swings at the swing park. They held hands.
After a comfortable silence that had lasted a couple of minutes, she looked at him askance for a moment. “What?” she said, with a wicked smile.
Mark looked wide-eyed. “”What do you mean, ‘What’? I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I deny it all!”
“Look at me, Daniels, and don’t give me that wide-eyed and innocent look, I’m not buying it, Buster. You’re up to something.”
“I’m not.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“You are.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am not either.”
“Humm… I don’t trust you.” She pinched the flesh around his ribs. There was not much to get hold of.
“Oh well. I was just remembering the last time we had a chance to sit like this and make fun of each other, that’s all.” He stretched out a hand, as if examining his finger-nails; he waggled his fingers a little.
In the pocket of Carrie’s jacket her mobile phone began to buzz. “Oh God! That’s Gin, I bet, wanting to know where I am.”
As she took the mobile out of her pocket its sound changed suddenly. Instead of a buzz, it became a tune, a jaunty little melody that Carrie remembered hearing on an ancient cassette tape recording at her grandmother’s house.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” replied Mark. “How should I know?”
“I know that tune – it’s ‘Caledonia’. Hey, I love that song! Who was the singer that used to sing it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mark. “Somebody MacLean, was it?”
“It’s quite a nice tune, actually. Well, not on this thing, of course…”
“How does it go? The words, I mean.”
“Let me see… tum-tee, tum-tee that I tum-tee… Yes: “Let me tell you that I love you… and I think about you all the time…” Carrie suddenly looked embarrassed.
“Why, really! Carrie Jenkins, I am shocked! Flattered, as well, but very, deeply shocked! My, my, Jenkins, you’re blushing!”
“What! You! You did that! You made me say that!” She belted him on the arm. “How did you – Hey, wait a minute, Daniels… You – you’ve done this. You somehow made that tune come over the phone. You haven’t lost your power at all!“
Mark laughed. “Do you remember when we visited the Soros Museum in June that we kind of thought things weren’t quite as they seemed? “
“Hmmm – mmm.”
“And I said that it was like looking at one of those crazy patterns that if you look at it long enough you begin to see what’s really hidden there – “
“Blue dolphins on motorcycles!” cried Carrie. “I see where you’re bumbling to with this – you’re the pattern of dots and no one’s been able to see you as you really are. You’ve fooled the scientists and everybody! Can I ask… Why?”
“I’ll tell you why. When I was on that ship, I thought the game was up and I was going to die. Really – I thought