Why is it that whenever I try to clean out the garage, I spend 5% of the time cleaning and 95% playing with the stuff I find?
Chapter 58
Divided Loyalty
Ruth Kinderman had no reason to believe April and Saffron would be alone when they returned to their home, so she should not have been surprised to see Florian Klein and Holly Duncan walking with them. She quickly tried to come up with an excuse to get rid of both of them but in the stress of the situation, nothing came to mind.
"Hello Ruth" April smiled softly "It's so good to see again after all this time."
The Kinderman's plan was rapidly falling apart but in desperation, Ruth decided it was time to place her cards on the table and let everything hit the fan by heading off to the creek without a paddle, while the Budgerigar of Overused Metaphors collapsed under the strain of being overworked.
"Err... can we speak inside" she asked April.
"Yes certainly" April replied as she reached for the door control.
To her complete surprise, April noticed the door was already unlocked and there was a very suspicious guilty look on Ruth's face.
"I'll explain everything, I promise" Ruth begged.
"Maybe we should catch up later Florian" April said to her old friend.
"NO!" Ruth protested "I can't take the risk of what you may do, or who you may tell."
"What are you talking about Ruth?" April was becoming worried.
"Please... inside."
The door slid open and Ruth shepherded the small group into the room where Jarred was still working on the communication system.
"What on earth is going on here" April asked sternly.
"Very sorry April but we had to break in to check for listening devices" Jarred said softly.
"You have got to be kidding me" April sniffed at the idea.
"I'm afraid it's true my dear" Florian nodded "The entire base is bugged."
Everyone looked at Florian with stunned looks on their faces, but he just smiled while still managing to look both embarrassed and ashamed. Then at that very moment, some words Florian had spoken more than a month ago flashed into April's mind.
"A man of a certain age" she remembered as Florian just nodded.
"A man of... what does that mean?" Ruth asked.
"It means I know things my dear" Florian admitted as he sat down "Secrets I never wanted to keep, and secrets I will keep no longer. I dare say your friends have discovered the truth behind the death of your husband and daughter and I will not try to stop them from telling you; if this colony is to grow and succeed, perhaps it is time for the truth to come out."
Saffron had trouble holding back her tears at the mention of Luis and Abigail, as everyone stood in silence for a moment until Ruth brought the shock up to Magpie level.
"They're not dead" she revealed.
April suddenly turned to Ruth and glared at her with fury.
"That's not funny!" she growled "Can't you see this is upsetting Saffron?"
April held on to her daughter who didn't openly sob, but stood shivering with her lower lip quaking
Jarred stepped forward with a computer tablet in his hand and on the screen was a picture of Luis and Abigail. He handed it to April and as she took it, he lightly tapped the screen.
"Hello my darling" Luis's voice came from the speaker "Don't believe what you have heard; Abigail and I are not dead but very much alive."
April almost dropped the tablet as she and Saffron watched the recorded message.
"I can only imagine what you and Saffy have been going through since being told we had been killed. The most incredible thing is my darling, it was no accident; Commander Sage actually tried to kill us. I am very happy to say that although we were in great danger for a while, we were saved by two remarkable young people; get ready for another shock my dear."
Luis and Abigail floated back a little to allow two other young people to move into shot. The young girl looked very pleased, but it was plain to see the boy next to her was very nervous.
"Let me introduce you to Miss Calla Donia Linwood" Luis said as the young girl waved.
Seeing her family alive and well after having gone through days of grief, started to overwhelm April as she tapped the screen to pause the message.
"How did you get this?" she asked.
"It's a long story but it started when we were on our way back to Mars with the last of the supplies and we intercepted a message from Earth" Jarred explained.
April was about to ask another question when Ruth interrupted.
"Sorry April but you just have to see this next part" she insisted as she reached over and tapped the screen again.
Calla moved out of shot as Luis brought all attention to the young man with him.
"And this young man my dear, is know as Blue; or as you and I would know him, Henry Gerwin Dias" the proud father grinned.
"Hi Mom; hi Saffy" he smiled.
April did not exactly faint, but this time she did drop the tablet as she herself dropped heavily onto the couch.
"Are you alright April?" Ruth asked as she sat down with the distraught woman.
"Are you seriously telling me... that boy... is my son?"
Ruth and Jarred glanced at each other; they both knew there was no proof to give.
"We know the ship he was born on did not sink, Professor Adisa, Sarah Spencer and all the others made it to the Sumatra Complex and they have been sending us the supplies for this base for over fifteen years" Ruth said.
"We don't know why this information was kept from us, but it looks like Roux and Sage knew about it. As to who else was involved we can only guess but we have some suspicions" Jarred noted as he turned towards Florian Klein.
April also looked at this man she had trusted but before she spoke to him, there was something else she had to take care of.
"Saffy, I think you and Holly should go to your room while I talk to Florian."
"Just give me a minute to check it for bugs" Jarred said as he retrieved his detection equipment.
With new supply pods appearing in Earth orbit regularly, Luis had been very busy retrieving them in the Space Exploration Vehicle. He had taken Blue with him for the first few trips, giving them a chance to get to know each other, but on the current trip he was showing Calla how the machine worked and how to operate it. This gave Blue an opportunity to become more familiar with the MTV as well as the older of his two sisters. Abigail knew her brother would have a lot to tell her about his life on Earth, but she had not expected him to start off with a story about dragons.
"Did you hear me?" Blue asked the stunned girl in front of him.
"I heard you alright" Abigail answered as she sat on one of the other bunks "I can honestly say I did not know we were descended from dragon riding Vikings; but what makes you believe a silly story like that?"
"It was an odd little man named Maximilian DeGroot who appeared at the Railgun Complex with a whole bunch of other people, not long after I met Calla. He knew about Mom and her grandfather, and he had actually spent years looking for me. He's been telling me all about a tribe of Vikings who had been at war with dragons; these dragons would raid their village and steal their livestock. This went on for hundreds of years until one day, one of them managed to capture and train a dragon. Thereafter they were known as the Dragon Riders of Berk; I don't know the whole story yet but DeGroot says we are direct descendants of this guy who is referred to as the Dragon Master."
"So why would this DeGroot character want to try and fool you into thinking you were a dragon rider? It doesn't make much sense" Abigail noted.
"I know what you mean because none of us really believed him, but he had these old books telling the whole story and no matter how farfetched it seemed, it was kind of like reading a great adventure story; but then something weird happened."
"What could be weirder than riding dragons?" Abigail grinned.
"More than you'd believe" Blue answered. "Not long before you made contact with us, DeGroot sailed off with some others to America, to find out why we had been locked up for fifteen years underground. Before he left, he gave me another old book called the Book of Gothi; it was very old with pages that appeared to be some kind of animal leather. It was written in Viking Runes and when I translated one of the pages, I found something very surprising."
"Well don't keep me in suspense" Abigail snapped when Blue stopped talking.
"It was like a diary... or maybe a history of important occurrences on the Island of Berk. The one I read told a fanciful story about Gothi taking the Son of Stoick to look into a thing called the Vision Portal."
"Sounds like more fables to me" Abigail shook her head in disbelief.
"Exactly... but as I read on, the book described what the Son of Stoick saw in his vision."
"You're keeping me in suspense again" Abigail scolded her brother.
"He saw me" Blue stated.
"You're kidding me; he could see you?" Abigail's eyes widened "How do you know it was you he really saw?"
"The book said the guy in the Vision Portal introduced himself as Blue Dias; not exactly a common name."
"The real question is could you see him?" Abigail wondered.
"I err... don't know; it was such a shock I didn't read the rest of it" Blue admitted.
"You could have gone back and read it later when the initial shock wore off" Abigail said in frustration.
"I suppose I could have, but saving you and Dad sorta took priority."
Abigail dropped her head in disappointment. She had first thought the idea of dragon riding Vikings was nothing more than craziness, but now she wondered if she were being a little to gullible because she was starting to believe Blues story.
"I don't suppose you brought this book with you?" she asked.
"Even if we didn't have weight restrictions, I wouldn't have wanted to risk losing it; I had no idea where we would have ended up if we'd gone straight back to Earth."
"Well I suppose it's too late now since you're going back to Mars with us" Abigail noted.
"Who's to say I won't return to Earth one day?" Blue pondered "My future isn't set in stone."
"But apparently bits of it are written in the Book of Gothi" Abigail smirked.
Something Peter Parker never realised is, with great power comes a great electricity bill.