Read Online Lost on Mars by Paul Magrs - Free Book Online

declared. She was really playing up her part, making herself and her husband sound like great adventurers.
    They drove through days and nights, taking turns at the controls of their hovercart; soothing the fever that their little girl Annabel was coming down with; fixing their broken engine when they were halfway there; spending a night lying under the stars; shooting one of those tall, purple hares and roasting it over a fire.
    â€˜Our journey was so much more hazardous than usual, we were relieved to see the wreck of the Melville on the horizon. That oh-so familiar rusting hull looked almost welcoming…’
    They clambered aboard through a breach in the side, taking ropes and torches and all their usual equipment. Their pretty daughter Annabel was back on her feet, though choking with sneezes that echoed in that cavernous interior.
    â€˜Poor child, I felt cruel,’ said Mrs Adams. ‘But we only went that way twice a year. Only Annabel is small and limber enough to fit through the twisting nooks and crannies deep within the Melville .’
    So the Adamses sent their nine year old down into the hull of the fallen ship. At nine Annabel was an old hand at having a rope tied around her waist and being lowered into the waiting darkness. Oh, she was very used to shining her torch around in the inky spaces – looking out for boxes, crates, anything useful. Anything she could lay her little hands on.
    Annabel was sitting by the front door, on a hard wooden chair, staring into space. She didn’t seem aware of her mother holding court. She was in a pretty dress that was too small for her and she was unfazed by all our stares.
    Mrs Adams went on. ‘This time, I knew there was something different about the Melville. I guess we knew that supplies aboard the ship couldn’t last forever. The past few years we’ve had to probe further into the hold. We’ve had to carry more and more rope with us, lowering Annabel deeper into the darkness. We’ve scoured room after room, breaking open doors that have been sealed for decades. Never mind the danger.
    â€˜But there is also treasure. Things we all need. Things we have become used to by now, eh? Remember the lobster bisque? The sherbet bonbons? The steak and kidney puddings? The freeze-dried shrimp?’
    She had us licking our lips. Thinking about the exciting days when the Adamses threw open their shop doors following one of their expeditions.
    â€˜This time the Melville seemed vaster, more echoing and chillier within. Its hull rang with clangs and bangs as we let ourselves in. It seemed like we were disturbing somebody’s peace, just by being there.’
    â€˜Don’t, dear,’ said Vernon Adams, but he was shushed by everyone in the room.
    Mrs Adams went on. ‘I thought it was ghosts in the ship. Come out at last to ward us off. But it wasn’t. They were people. Real people. We could hear them distantly, deep in the bowels of the Melville . They were blasting down doors and tramping about. Moving aside great big hunks of bulwarks and ramparts. Drilling and burning through sheer metal walls.’
    My Da asked, ‘Who were they, Alice?’
    She shook her head. ‘We don’t know. They had serious equipment. Stuff we’d never heard. We listened to the disturbed echoes and thought about it. They could have come from anywhere on Mars. Places we don’t know nothing about. There was an urgency and an ugliness to the sounds we heard, as if they were wanting to rip the Melville open to see what it hid. We take from the Melville twice a year, but I hope that we respect her. We even say a little prayer to the Melville ’s soul, each time, before we leave her behind.’
    If it had been Da, he’d have done everything he could to find out who the strangers were. He looked excited by the descriptions of the sounds of their heavy-duty machinery – the blasting and the drilling. He looked hungry to know