CHAPTER 3

A LONE MAN, ON A DISTANT WORLD

Jim Hawkins flicked pebbles off the roof as he sat there, his back leaning against the chimney stack of the Benbow Inn.

He had once again been caught Solar surfing in a restricted area, and they had now taken it away from him and threatened him with 'a one way ticket to Juvenile Hall,' Not that he cared.

He sighed to himself as the sound of a certain conversation wafted into his ears.

"I really don't know how you manage it, Sarah," Doctor Delbert Doppler's voice came through, "Trying to run a business while raising a felon like...felon...fellow....fellow, like Jim."

"Managing it?" His mothers voice said, "I'm at the end of my rope! Ever since his father left, well...Jim's just never recovered. And you know how smart he is. He built his first solar surfer when he was eight!" Jim sighed as she continued, "And yet, he's failing in school, he's constantly in trouble, and when I talk to him he's like a stranger to me, I don't know, Delbert. I've tried everything..."

Any father conversation was suddenly drowned out by the spluttering of a ship engine overhead.

Jim looked up startled as an ancient spacecraft flew over his head, framed by the coming storm, a trail of black smoke billowing from her engines.

He watched in horror as the ship seemed to do it's best to stay aloft as it made it's way to an empty docking Berth. In the last precious seconds, the pilot managed to pull the nose of the craft up, before the ship landed in a crumpled heap on the end of the berth.

Without father hesitation, Jim quickly slid down the roof of the Benbow, landing nimbly on his feet. He then quickly ran towards the wreckage of the ship.

Like he had thought, the ship was old, no wonder it had crumpled after such a hard landing.

As soon as he reached the ship, he started banging on the Glass dome nearest to him.

"Hey Mister?!" he yelled through the glass, "Your ok in there right?"

In answer to his question a human fist suddenly slammed against the dome, causing him to jump back in alarm.

As he stared, the fist disappeared, then slammed into the dome again, before disappearing again.

On the final blow of the fist, the Dome suddenly swung open, forcing a young man to come tumbling out and onto all fours.

As he looked up, Jim could see the look of fear in his eyes behind his glasses, one of the lens of which was cracked.

His clothing looked odd to him, he was defiantly not from around these parts, but had the look of a man on the run from something.

As he stood up, Jim noticed that the man appeared to be young, only a few years older than he was. His hair seemed to be sticking up at odd angles, as though he had gone to sleep with out drying his hair probably.

His clothes were rumpled and wrinkled in several place, and when he stood up, his legs began to wobbled and collapsed underneath him, almost falling if Jim hadn't caught him.

As he did so, he felt something hard bang against his leg from the man's coat pocket.

"Thank you," The man gasped, his face looked pale as though something had scared him a lot.

"Anyone would think you'd never flown a spaceship before," Jim muttered back.

To his surprise, the man chuckled and ran a hand through his damp hair, "It's funny you should say that," he mused as he delved into one of the pockets of his coat. he seemed to fumble for a moment when sighed in relief as his hand closed over something in it.

"We must find shelter," he managed to get out, trying to stand on his own, but failing miserably, "They'll be here soon."

"Don't worry I live at an Inn nearby, the Benbow, you can rest there," Jim said quietly as he ducked under the Man's arm and helped him stand.

"Thank you very much," the Man smiled at Jim, "My name is Daniel by the way, but most people call me Dan, and yours is...?"

"Jim," the young teen said with a small smile, "Just Jim."

I sighed as the rain began to pour down on me and Jim as we headed towards the Benbow Inn, all the while I tried to regain control of my legs. It was only when we had just reached the door did I finally feel strong enough to stand on my own.

Suddenly, as someone opened the door from the inside, I suddenly heard a scream and a shout of; "James Pleiades Hawkins!"

The site before me was an interesting one. The person who stood before me was not human. In fact, the closest thing I could call him was a Canine.

His features, for the most part, were very dog-like. He had a large nose, as well as big floppy ears on either side of his head. One thing I noticed the most was he didn't actually have fur, just a clump of neatly combed hair on his head, tied in a pony tail at the back.

His clothes, like everyone else I had met since Billy Bones, Appeared to be around from the 16th century, only, obviously, they looked almost new.

The woman behind him had been sitting at a table, behind which was a beautiful field of flowers, for some reason,

Now she was standing up, her eyes full of concern and worry for what Jim had brought in.

I noticed that Jim and the woman looked very alike, leading me to presume that they were mother and son.

"Mom, it's ok," Jim explained, father confirming what I had thought, "He's on the run from Pirates."

I had explained, to the best of my abilities, how I had managed to end up on the Hawkins' doorstep and although Jim was slightly sceptical about Planet Earth and all that, in the end he decided to believe me, especially after I had said I was running from people.

"Pirates!" Jims Mother almost went into hysterics, "He has Pirates looking for him? What if they come here? What if..."

Suddenly Jim put a hand over her mouth and motioned for quiet. I cocked my head to listen, and heard the by now familiar sound of an engine above us. Followed shortly by a spotlight through the window. A few seconds later, the gentle sound of a ship landing in front of the inn.

Jim slowly edged his way to the window, and cranked a small handle, the image of the flowers, splitting in the centre, allowing the rain patterned windows to be clearly seen.

A sudden flash of lightning briefly lit up the area.

It took only one glance from Jim to know who was out there.

"Pirates, we have to get out of here!" he said quietly as he grabbed his mother by the hand and pulled her up the stairs, with myself in hot pursuits.

The Canine Alien carefully reached for the doorknob, only to retract it quickly as the brass handle, as well as a good portion of the door, was suddenly blasted clean away.

"I think I'm with Jim on this one," he yelled as he followed us up.

As we ran up the stairs, I gasped as purple blasts of fire shot through the door and the windows.

I watched on in horror as I saw a stray shot ricochet into what appeared to be the top half of a cooking stove, causing it to fall onto it's bottom half, immediately setting fire to the surrounding area.

I was horrified as I ran up the remainder of the stairs, what had I bestowed on these people?

"Delilah?...Delilah!" The Dog Alien cried out of the window, "Stay there! Don't move!" I watched with Jim as the Dog helped Jim's mother onto the windowsill.

"Don't worry Sarah, I'm an expert in the laws of physical science," he reassured her, "Now, when I count to three, we jump." he concluded, despite Sarah's protests. Jim and I glanced at each other before running to the window.

"Ready? One..."

"Three!" Jim and I cried, before promptly shoving them both out the window, with us following in hot pursuit.

At the bottom of the fall, we found ourselves in a large open topped carriage, the top springing up as we had landed.

"Go, Delilah Go!" the slug-like thing attached to the reigns the Alien was holding let off a few barking sounds before running off at incredible speed.

I closed my eyes in frustration as Sarah looked back at the burning wreak that had been the Benbow Inn. All this over a lousy sphere? I sighed and took the sphere out of my pocket. Everyone was either too depressed or too busy driving to notice. I sighed again and ran my fingers over the lines of the surface. What ever this thing was, it was sure important to somebody.

I gazed out of the window of Dr. Doppler's house (I had found out that was his name) the brightness of a crescent moon shining brightly over the land.

"I just spoke with the Constabulary," I heard the Doctor say as he placed down a pot of tea on the coffee table beside Sarah Hawkins, "those blaggard pirates fled without a trace," I watched as he decided to kneel down next to the chair before continuing, "I'm sorry, Sarah...I'm afraid the old Benbow Inn has burnt to the ground."

I didn't know what to say. I had just destroyed a persons entire business, and I'd only just met them.

The Doctor threw me a dirty glance as I walked over and picked up the sphere, clearly outraged at what I had brought upon them.

He poured Sarah a cup while Jim stood next to her, placing a blanket around her shoulders.

Deciding to change the subject, Doppler looked over again to the ball I was holding.

"Well, certainly a lot of trouble over that odd little sphere," he said. While he talked I decided to experiment. By pressing the small circles I realised they depressed slightly. After a few combinations, suddenly, all the circles depressed deeper into the sphere, allowing me to rotate parts of the outer sphere.

"Those markings...baffle me," I heard the Doctor continue, "Unlike anything I've ever encountered," While he kept talking, I decided to try align the criss cross lines into some kind of pattern, "Even with my vast experience and superior intellect, it would take me years to unlock it's- Hey!"

Suddenly, I cracked it. I managed to turn the lines so that some of them separated the sphere into six squares. Suddenly a bright white light emitted from the ball, and the Sphere separated into it's separate parts.

Just as Doppler said "Hey!" the lights suddenly dimmed, and a large 3-D grid seemed to emanate from the sphere, encompassing the entire room, followed by thousands of different points of light. Stars planets, nebula, the whole caboodle.

"It's...a map," I heard the Doctor breath, obviously not quite used to seeing a map of this size, let alone the quality. Then I saw it.
It was a small watery planet, with a few green and white islands.

Earth.

"This is my home," I said quietly, "The Planet Earth,"

Sarah seemed quite interested, but then I heard the Doctor squeak something out.

"Wait! Wait, wait, wait. This is us! The planet Montressor!"

He slowly reached out for a small rocky world. Suddenly there was bright green light, and he jumped back as a long green line suddenly emanated from the planet.

I looked about in wonder as the Doctor began to call out the names of several obvious landmarks of this civilisation.

"That's the Magellanic Cloud! Ooh! The Coral Galaxy! That's Cygnus Cross, and that's the Calyan Abyss! Wait, what's this?" he stopped and I looked up from examining a yellow nebula see what he was pointing out.

It was a large, greenish planet, with numerous lines and circles like the one on the map. Around it were two rings, one solid looking, the other more dusty looking. Both rings of the planet seemed to cross in the centre. The words 'X marks the spot' came to mind.

"Why, it...it's," Doppler spluttered,
"Treasure Planet." Jim whispered.

"No!"

"That's Treasure Planet!""
"Flint's Trove? The loot of a thousand worlds?! Do you know what this means?!!" The Doctor practically shouted.

"It means," Jims said smiling, taking the map from my hands and throwing it up in the air, "That all that treasure is only a boat-ride away."

The doctor though, clearly wasn't listening.

"Whoever brings it back would hold an eternal place atop the pantheon of explorers!" he drivelled on, indicating to the hologram in front of him, "He'd be able to experience-Whoo! What just happened?" he jumped as the lights changed as I snatched back the map from Jim and turned it off, the lighting turning back to the way it had been before

"Mom do you know what this means? This is the answer to all our problems!" Jim cried, indicating to the Map.

"Jim, there is no way..."

"Don't you remember? All those stories?"

"That's all they were, stories!"

Jim rolled his eyes and I couldn't exactly say that I blamed him. If what the Doctor had said about this loot, there was gonna be a lot of it.

"With that treasure we could rebuild the Benbow...a hundred times over!"

"Hey I want to go to you know!" I called out, getting mother and son's attention, "It's my map, so wherever it goes, I go!"

There was a stunned silence after which Sarah seemed to try and make a sentence, before just resting her head in her hand and passing on the trouble to Dr. Doppler.

"Delbert, would you please explain how ridiculous this is?"

Doppler looked up from his thoughts, before finally gazing knowingly at Me and Jim.

"It's totally preposterous, traversing the entire galaxy alone."

He said sternly, to which Sarah nodded in satisfaction.
"Now, at last we hear some sense."
"That's why I'm going with you!" he added quickly, before grabbing a bag to start packing.

"Delbert!" she yelled desperately, much to Jim's pleasure, but the Doctor wasn't listening
"I'll use my savings to finance the expedition! I'll commission a ship!" he said aloud to no one in particular, grabbing bits and pieces from all over the messy study, dropping them into the bag. After a minute of searching he finally climbed a tall stack of books in the corner to fetch a toothbrush from the top of the pile, "Hire a captain and a crew!"

"You're not serious!" I heard Sarah call to him. I glanced over at Jim, who gave me a happy looking grin.
"All my life I've been waiting for an opportunity like this," he said as he surfed a rather large book back down the stack and throwing down the bag beside him, "and here it is screaming- 'Go Delbert! Go Delbert! Go..."
"Okay, okay, you're ALL grounded!" She practically screamed, bring the Doctors rambling to an abrupt halt.

Jim sighed and ran a hand through his hair, it was time for a different approach.

"Mom, look...I know that I keep messing everything up..." He began, sounding very genuine, "and I know...that I let you down. But this is my chance to make it up to you. I'm gonna set things right."

I watched as Mrs Hawkins' face changed from angry to sad, to understanding.
"Sarah? Sarah, eh mhm . . . If I may?" the Doctor interrupted, motioning to have a private conversation in the corner.

As they talked a sidled up to Jim.

"Think she'll let us go?"

Jim shrugged, "Probably. If I know Doc as well as I do, he'll probably convince her.

Finally Sarah turned back to us

"Jim, I don't wanna lose you!" she practically wailed
"Mom...you won't," he replied taking her hands, "I'll make you proud."

It occurred to me I hadn't seen hind nor hair of Jim's father. Perhaps something had happened to him, like my own, and Jim was all she had left.

Before I could interject, the Doctor had slid in between Sarah, Jim and me, and was glancing from one to the other.
"Well, there we are, then." he said cautiously.

Before anyone could say a word he had moved to the window and was looking out of the window.

"We'll begin the preparations at once! Jim, Daniel my boys, soon we'll be off to the spaceport!"