The Plight of the Bumblebee: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“Is there a longer route that we could take from the hangar to Nelson’s office?” Joe asked Zip.

Zip shook his head grimly. The director’s office was some distance from the hangar, and the guards seemed determined to take the longest possible route to their destination. They were probably new, Zip thought, and not well-acquainted with the layout of the station. Had it not been for the urgency of their situation he might not have minded; the station reflected Thomas Starlight’s love for elegance and grace, and he marveled at its beauty. Instead of dark, narrow corridors the base was filled with large, open spaces; there were tall galleries, waterfalls, small streams, trees, and even simulated glass ceilings through which streamed a soft, yellow light. Tom had gone to great lengths to make the base feel as Earth-like as possible and the effort had paid off; he understood how people could spend their lives here and not feel as though they were cramped inside a metal container out in space.

It took them a full ten minutes to arrive at the director’s office. The guards deposited the Starmen in the secretary’s office and then, to their surprise, abruptly left. The secretary seemed unruffled as she pressed a button on her desk.

“Three Starmen from Starlight Enterprise are here to see you,” she said calmly. “At least, I think they’re Starmen.”

“Send them in immediately!” the director barked. “There’s no time to waste!”

The secretary gestured toward the director’s office door but did not move to open it for them. Zip walked up, opened it, and stepped inside.

Mark had to admit that Alfred Nelson had a real taste for interior design. The office was decorated in a beautiful African theme: it had a large mahogany desk, a comfortable-looking couch decorated with a print of animals from the African plains, shelves filled with books on the Dark Continent, and pictures of what he guessed was Alfred Nelson on various African hunting expeditions. Hanging on the wall behind the director’s desk was a pair of ancient rifles, but curiously, he didn’t see any mounted animal remains. To one side of the room was a wide, low glass case that was filled with odd models. Mark spotted a very old-looking motorcycle, airship, and submarine that had to date back to at least the 1920’s, if not earlier.

Before the Starmen even had a chance to introduce themselves the director spoke up. “I’m so glad you’re here!” he said. He acted as if he was going to say more, and then stopped, got out of his chair behind his desk, and began pacing around the room. “It’s terrible, just terrible,” he said, as if to himself. “You’ve got to do something!”

“How can we help you, Mr. Nelson?” Zip asked. “Richard Starlight told us that you have a problem.”

“I have a problem! We have a problem!” he shouted. “Earth has a problem, young man! If you don’t do something they’re going to destroy us all!”

“Who is going to destroy us all?” Mark asked.

“The Xenobots! They’re here!”

The Starmen were astonished. “Xenobots?” Joe asked. “Here? Where?”

“I know they’re here,” the director said, looking at them excitedly. “They’ve infiltrated this station and are using it as a base of operations! They have a secret laboratory where they are manufacturing trillions of tiny nanobots. Once they finish their evil work they are going to release them in swarms on the helpless planet below, where they will multiply in the oceans and then boil them away! We’ll all die and the planet will be ruined!”

Zip was speechless, but Joe was not. “Have you considered evicting the Xenobots?” he asked. “That’s got to be a violation of their renter’s agreement.”

Alfred Nelson continued on ranting without missing a beat. “I tell you I’ve got Xenobots on this station, and you’ve got to get rid of them,” he said, pointing his finger right at Mark. “They’ve been wrecking havoc with my station. Do you realize that this station has started singing?”

“Singing?” Mark asked in surprise.

“Yes, singing,” the director insisted. “Late at night I’ll hear it over the intercom: someone is singing Away Down Yonder with Davy Jones. It’s terrible – the words are right, but it’s off-key. I don’t know where it’s coming from; no one can pin it down. Just ask anybody. We keep hearing distant rumblings that don’t seem to have any particular source, and shadowy figures have been spotted in places where they don’t belong!

“And that’s only the beginning!” he raged. “Hangar doors open and close on their own – which is blasted inconvenient, if you happen to be in them and get sucked out into the void of space. The power keeps fluctuating, as if someone’s straining it, and high-security authorization codes just suddenly stop working. Someone is messing with this station, and I tell you that Xenobots are behind it! I have proof, young man!”

While the Starmen were standing there astonished, unsure what to say, he pressed a button on his desk and demanded that Dr Daystorm come in. The doctor entered a few minutes later, carrying a heavy metal briefcase. When the director saw it he pointed to it. “That,” he told the incredulous Starmen, “is our proof.”

“What’s in it?” Zip asked Dr Daystorm. He set the locked steel case on the director’s desk. “Something amazing – something we found just this morning. You’ll never believe it: self-replicating nanobots.”

“That’s astonishing,” Zip said. “Starlight Enterprise has been working on that technology for fifty years and has never perfected it. I had no idea that such a thing existed.”

“I’m telling you,” the director said – and then the lights went out. All sound ceased, and it became dark – very dark.