‘Captain Calamus, please, how is he?’ The Captain walked down the corridor without stopping to acknowledge me and I had to run after her. When she did slow down and turn, she wouldn’t meet my eye.

‘Dying a slow and unpleasant death,’ she said. ‘Doctor Carter is doing his best for him. He hasn’t regained consciousness, which is probably a blessing. Where the acid has eaten away the flesh, it has allowed poison to be delivered straight to his nervous system. At present, nothing can be done to save him.’

She was rubbing her forehead distractedly. ‘Irresponsible.’ She was only just managing to control her temper. ‘Wasteful disregard for life. Never has such an incident happened on one of my missions and you are both wholly responsible. When Halley dies, you alone must answer for what the pair of you were doing in the middle of the sea in a remote location, in a decommissioned vehicle and disregarding the most basic safety requirements.’ By the end of this speech she was visibly shaking.

It wasn’t the moment to try and explain and I knew it couldn’t be justified. I was broken by the news about Halley. It didn’t seem real. I felt sick and light-headed.

‘Can I see him?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘Please…’

‘Halley has one chance, but it’s a very slim one,’ she continued in the same angry tone. ‘I know all about the celephet and your opposition to it. If you agree to Doctor Carter’s fitting it again, if we finally discover the genetic code of the dragomansk it may be possible to create an antidote that could save your friend. We have the technology to make one quickly, but only if we get that code.’

‘Captain Calamus.’ I was trembling. ‘The celephet won’t work, you have to believe me.’

She waved her hand dismissively, nearly striking me, and strode off. I called after her but she didn’t reply. I was left on my own in the empty corridor. For one paranoid moment, I wondered if the whole horrible episode was yet another of Carter’s plans to try and get me to wear the celephet; then I remembered the excruciating agony on Halley’s face as I pulled him into the cabin and the sight of him curled up in the footwell with the back of his head in such a mess and I hated myself. In the room behind me Doc Carter was trying to save his life and what was I doing?

If I’d honestly believed that wearing the celephet could have helped, I might have agreed to it, but I knew with absolute certainty that it was at best futile. There was only one chance to save Halley and to quote the Captain, it was a very slim one. While everyone was busy trying to save his life, I would slip back to the Museum.

Nothing had changed since the first day Halley and I set foot in the hall of statues because no one ever went there. I crept in like a fugitive. I was about to ask the unthinkable. In the fossil room, I began by clearing away the crinoid circle on the floor, stacking the fossils neatly against the wall. The circle had been my construct, now it felt like my intrusion. The Museum wasn’t mine and I wanted to show some respect. There wasn’t much time though, I had to ask what I had come to ask.

I turned off my tile and stood in the near total darkness with only the smallest light stealing in through the open doorway behind me. I knew some of our poems off by heart. I recited them. The room was so very dark, it was easy to imagine faces, shapes that moved. I finished.

‘Jonah?’ I said. ‘I’m going to choose to believe you can hear me because I’m too scared to believe you can’t. I’ve come to ask you something, but it’s not on behalf of my people, it’s for me. My friend is dying…’ I had to gulp back the tears because it wasn’t time to break down yet, there was still this great request I had to make.

‘Jonah?’ I continued. ‘My friend is dying because he was attacked by the dragomansk. All that might save him now is … is…’

A grey shape swooped past my head. I decided to carry on.

‘All that might save him is an antidote and you know the only way we could possibly make one. If we know the dragomansk genetic code. Jonah, can you help me? My friend is dying.’

Bird-like flapping circled over my head.

‘Oh, thank you,’ I cried. ‘Jonah, thank you for coming back. I want to save him, but I know what this will mean. I will make you this one promise: if you give me the code, I will do everything in my power to safeguard the Earth. I have a plan and I think it might work.’

‘Tired.’ The word echoed around the room, from every corner at once. ‘Tired … tired … tired…’

‘I know,’ I said.

‘Tired of death.’ The voice was right in front of me. ‘Tired of seeing others die.’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘My time is slipping away, I can feel it.’

‘Please tell me,’ I said. ‘You know we feel the same about Earth. You know I don’t want to harm Earth. And there are others just like me in my world, but they don’t know what’s going on.’

‘I … I wish…’

‘I give you my word I will do all I can to make Earth safe, just tell me please.’ I was rambling now and it was important to shut up and listen.

‘We stepped out together, we were all struck down.’ His voice seemed to be weakening.

‘Please stay with me,’ I whispered. ‘Please tell me, Jonah. What is the secret of the dragomansk’s code?’

‘I was holding Malaky’s hand. He went down before I did… I saw the flesh on his chest burst apart and his screams, his terrible screams… I knew I was next.’

‘This is what happened to my friend, Halley. He was struck from behind in his head but – the same.’

There was a pause and for one horrible moment, I thought he’d gone.

‘SAVE HIM!’ cried Jonah.

‘Yes?’

‘Malaky’s drawings, the code is on the wing…’

‘Upstairs?’

‘The code … on the wing…’ His voice was fading fast.

‘Jonah, thank you!’

‘The code…’

‘Jonah?’

‘On the wing.’

And he’d gone.

On the floor amidst a pile of similar stones, in the dark, a small fossil glowed for the first time. A small fossil ammonite. It glowed once then began to fade, as though some phosphorescent light deep within it were dying. I picked it up before the light finally went out. I held it to my lips.

I braved the awful gallery with a new sense of purpose. With my tilelight, I searched all the walls twice over, clambering up and down Halley’s book staircases with my heart pounding, but I couldn’t see it because I was panicking so much. It had to be there, it just had to.

Starting again by the door, I slowed right down and disciplined myself to make a steady and thorough search. This was only the first room of these pictures, but I had to start somewhere and if I made a thorough search and still couldn’t find the code, I would go to the next room and the next. I wouldn’t stop until I had found it.

The dragomansk were pictured with their wings a blur, as we were used to seeing them in real life. They bore down upon the hysterical men, women and children, all drawn in heavy, angry scratches. I was about a third of the way across the second wall when I spotted it, a dragomansk rising over a hill in the distance, its wings actually drawn in rather than just indicated as movement. I had to make a hurried new staircase of books to get a better look. The higher I climbed, the surer I became that this dragomansk was different from the others, more precisely drawn, and when I managed to get myself into a position where I could put my eye right up close to one of the wings, balancing precariously with one hand flat on the wall, I could see a pattern inscribed on it. A tiny, intricate mass of unfamiliar symbols written in rows.

I had found it! I had found it!

I photographed the wing with my tile, very carefully and several times over, then sent the images to Carter, to Calamus, to Lana, to Pico, to everyone with the message:

The dragomansk code. It was at the museum all along.

sent from Bree Aurora.

On my return to Base, I was summoned to the Captain’s quarters on the top floor of the building. I had never been there before. The large room was circular with windows all around. I was instructed to sit in the chair in the middle opposite the Captain’s long, empty desk. Ahead of me was the same view you could see from the lounge on the floor below, with the sea in the distance. The weather was calm and still, no hint of rain, just mist on the distant brown hills to the north. I was left all on my own for maybe an hour before the door opened and in came Captain Calamus and Doc Carter. They looked like strangers, less certain of themselves than usual. The Captain sat behind the desk and Doc Carter sat by her side.

‘How’s Halley?’ I faltered. ‘Did you make the antidote?’

Doc Carter cleared his throat. ‘Yes, and we’ve given it to him,’ he said.

‘It’s early days but … he appears to be responding well,’ added the Captain.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

Captain Calamus leaned forward and folded her hands on the desk, knitting her fingers together. I could see her reflection in its polished surface, right down to the furrowed brow.

‘How did you do it, Bree?’ she said. ‘The best minds have been working on this for years, trying to discover the code.’ She gave Carter a little nod of acknowledgement as she said this and he folded his arms, staring at me intently.

‘You just found it, drawn on the gallery wall?’ she went on. ‘No one has taken notice of those old drawings for years. And the secret was there in plain view the whole time? How did you find that out?’

‘The celephet,’ Carter jumped in. ‘The celephet, it must have been. Somehow the information has bridged its way into the girl’s unconscious. The celephet told her where to find the code and it’s just remained buried in her mind until today. There’s no other explanation.’ He threw up his hands.

‘The celephet had nothing to do with it,’ I said.

‘Then how do you explain it?’ The Captain’s tones were measured.

From the corner of my eye, I could see a metamansk, riding the air currents in the west where the sun was almost setting, preparing to disperse its individuals across the skyline. The creatures’ days were numbered. Soon, the dragomansk stranglehold upon Earth would be at an end. And then…

‘Why was I chosen for this mission?’ I asked.

‘What does that have to do with it?’ Carter snapped.

‘Actually, you don’t have to tell me, I already know. And you do too, Captain. And Core Panel at school. You had a problem, didn’t you? Pioneer School is filled with elite students. How were you going to find someone of a low enough intelligence to be able to wear the celephet and not compromise it?’

They both looked dumbstruck.

‘I don’t see what this has got to do with…’ Captain Calamus began.

‘It has everything to do with it.’ My voice was stronger now, bolstered up by all the frustration, all the pain I had been feeling for weeks. ‘You were wrong. My intelligence is fine, it is just of a different type. My brain is different from your analytical brains. I have a talent, but it’s an unusual one that the school can’t measure so they never gave me much credit for it. My empathy and my imagination has led us to the code.’

‘This is nonsense.’ Carter shut his eyes and shook his head emphatically. ‘It was the celephet.’

‘It was not the damn celephet,’ I said quietly, impressed by my calm. Carter glared at me. ‘You’ve analysed the data, there was nothing there of any use, was there?’

The Captain lifted her hand, imploring Carter to allow me to carry on.

‘Your invention did nothing,’ I said, ‘but torture the consciousness that was stored at the Museum, who had a name by the way. His name was Jonah, I didn’t make it up. I’ve been talking to him for weeks, stealing back to the Museum each night. We’ve been writing poems together. He’s gone now, I’m glad to say, gone for good. He’ll not be subjected to any more torture, Doctor Carter. That screaming face, telling us all to go away – that was Jonah, responding to your celephet. Oh, and by the way…’ I removed the small ammonite from my pocket. ‘This was it. The storage device. You might be interested.’

The two of them stared incredulously at the insignificant piece of limestone. After letting them look for a moment, I replaced it in my pocket.

‘And this is how—?’ said the Captain.

‘How I learned the secret, yes. I returned to the Museum this afternoon because I was desperate to help Halley, but I knew that the celephet was useless. I begged Jonah to help me. I didn’t know if he would or not. We’re the old enemy, aren’t we, us Martians? That’s right, Captain, I know all about the War for Earth and he knows I know.’ I nodded at Carter. The Captain turned to him, but his eyes stayed fixed on me as though he wanted to kill me. ‘I did it myself, do you understand that now?’ I said.

‘The evidence seems … quite compelling,’ said the Captain.

Carter jumped to his feet, his face a mixture of rage and frustration. I felt triumphant. I’m almost ashamed to say so, with Halley still fighting for his life downstairs, but I did. I met his gaze, steadily and surely.

He strode from the room and I was left with the Captain.

‘It seems you are owed some sort of apology,’ she said. ‘And the Martian race owes you a debt of thanks. You have hastened the next stage in our Great Quest and Purpose, Bree Aurora, and your name will live on.’

This was it, the moment I’d most feared.

‘Our Great Quest and Purpose,’ I said, ‘has meant different things at different times, hasn’t it, Captain?’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘Well, at one time, and not that long ago, the recolonisation of Earth was an integral part of our Great Quest and Purpose. I know that’s true.’

She smiled and shook her head, feigning confusion.

‘I have something else to tell you,’ I said. ‘When I left the Museum this afternoon, once I’d sent you the message about the code, I didn’t come straight back to Base. I took a detour, out towards the landing craft where I knew I’d have the time and privacy to make a broadcast.’

The Captain’s smile faded.

‘I sent my broadcast to everyone I know on Mars, everyone at Pioneer School, to all my friends and their families as well as my own. I sent it to a hundred and twenty-nine people altogether and I asked them to share it as quickly as possible. That was almost two hours ago, plenty of time for it to be spreading from our Dome to others across Mars right now. I sent our poems, Jonah’s and mine, which are about how precious life is here and how vital it is that we preserve it. How we have a countless amount still to learn here that will help us achieve a successful future, even if it means we’ll take longer to get there.’

‘You told them—?’

‘I told them about the danger Earth is in. I told them everything I know.’

The Captain scrolled on her tile and her eyes widened. With all that had been happening at Base over the past few hours, she clearly hadn’t had time to check on incoming messages from Mars.

‘Bree,’ she whispered. ‘Bree, what have you done?’

‘I may have reset our Great Quest and Purpose, Captain Calamus. I sincerely hope so.’