Chapter Five

I struggled to digest Icelia's words, wondering what could have happened on the Ice Moon. Had something happened to her people and, if so, what? Did it had something to do with the fragments of statue we both carried?

There was only one way to find out. "What are you talking about?" I demanded, keeping my guard up. Despite what Icelia said, she was still a Lunatac and I wasn't entirely sure if I could trust her. What if her claim that the Ice Lunatacs were no longer on the side of the Mutants was a lie, a ruse to trick me into trusting her? I narrowed my eyes. "I'm in kind of a rush here," I added, recalling that I had been told to get to Third Earth as quickly as possible.

Icelia paused for a moment. "The Ice Moon . . ." She hesitated, her voice wavering. " . . . is no longer home to my people. Not since the Mutants launched their Doomsday Missile . . ."

A Doomsday Missile? I had vaguely heard of such things; they were said to be missiles so powerful that they could take out an entire planet with one blast. For obvious reasons, their use had been forbidden for centuries and was punishable (in theory at least) with a life sentence on the Grey Penal Planet, the planet that served as a giant prison for all the worst scum of the universe. But the prohibition against their use was so well understood that this law had never been enforced in living memory. And, then, there was the question of why the Mutants would launch such a device against a race that was meant to be allied with them. Especially when, in all the years they had been at war with Thundera, they had never used one on my people . . .

I must have said that last bit out loud without thinking because the next thing Icelia did was look at me with a serious expression etched on her face. "Because they want the Statue," she told me. "And they will stop at nothing to obtain all the pieces. Not even turning on old allies . . ." There was an edge of bitterness to her voice as she said those last words. Then, without waiting for me to reply, she hurried on. "There are only a handful of Ice Lunatacs left now - and we spend every day living in fear."

"Fear?" I echoed. "Fear of what?" From what I'd heard of Lunatacs, they were usually the ones who were feared; it was hard for me to picture them living in fear of anything.

"Of the Mutants. They are gaining in strength once again and they seek to restart the war with your people. But, first, they must release Mumm-Ra and that's what they need the Statue for." This was something I already knew, of course, but she still hadn't explained why the Ice Lunatacs had broken off their old alliance - and I lost no time in telling her so. "As to that," she went on. "There have always been a handful of Lunatacs who wanted to break with Plundarr, but none of them dared do it because of the Unbreakable Treaty."

"Unbreakable Treaty?"

"It's exactly what it says. When the Mutants landed on the Moons of Plundarr, they forced the leaders to sign a treaty which, should it ever be broken by any one of the Lunatac clans, would cause that clan to be destroyed. That treaty made the Lunatacs answerable to Plundarr and . . ."

"It's an interesting story!" I snapped, my impatience bubbling up inside me. "But it still doesn't explain what this has to do with the Statue!"

"You'll find out," she told me, "when we get to Third Earth."

With that, she broke contact and I was left to ponder her words. Could I trust her? I had been taught all my life that the Lunatacs and the Mutants were Public Enemy Number One as far as Thunderians were concerned. In the days of Old Thundera, the Mutants were a constant menace, willing to do whatever it took to conquer the planet and gain possession of the Eye of Thundera. In fact, from what I'd been able to piece together in the last few years, that was what prompted the Mutants to pursue the Thundercats all the way to Third Earth. As for the Lunatacs, I had been told they were a proud and ruthless race, willing to do whatever it took to get what they wanted.

But, if Icelia's people had a part of the Statue, maybe they would be able to fill me in on what all this was about. If this wasn't a trick to lure me into giving up my own fragment . . . That, however, would have to wait until I got to Third Earth.

I began to wonder what Third Earth was like. I'd read a bit about it in the last few years, enough to know that it was the third planet out from its sun and that its name derived from the fact that there had been two great cataclysms in its past. Exactly what those cataclysms had been was lost in the mists of time, but, from what I'd read, very little of the two previous civilisations had survived. Now, it was a wild, untamed planet, inhabited by strange creatures, some good and some evil.

Wild and untamed or not, I had to get there quickly. And, to do that, I would have to activate the Hyperlight drive which Leopardo had installed; this would enable the Thundershuttle to travel the countless light-years that lay between here and Third Earth. I reached towards the button on the control panel that was marked Hyperlight and pressed down on it with the palm of my hand.

It's hard to describe to someone who has never experienced it how travelling by Hyperlight feels. So I won't even try. I'll just say that, the next thing I knew, I was in orbit around a planet; through the telescreens, I could see white clouds in the planet's atmosphere, as well as water covering much of its surface, a sure sign that this planet supported life. Thanks to the program Leopardo had fed into the onboard computers, I also knew this had to be Third Earth - there was no doubt about it. All I had to do now was locate the Thundercats who were already on the planet and, since I didn't have the Sword of Omens (my father had it) I would have to use the Thundershuttle's radio.

I activated the microphone and spoke into it. "Father? Mother? Ocelotra? Is anyone there? Are you receiving me?"

There was pause of several seconds, before a voice came through, Fangelo's voice. "Storm?" The mighty Sabretooth warrior's voice had an edge of concerned anger to it. "What are you doing here? We left you on New Thundera with the rest of our children."

"I'll explain later," I said, feeling slightly annoyed at being called a "child". "Right now, I need to know where you are."

"We're with the Warrior Maidens, what's left of them at any rate," Fangelo replied. "Seems someone launched an attack on their Treetop Kingdom, destroyed it completely. Tia - that's their Queen - was patrolling with a dozen of her Maidens at the time, so they all survived. But the others . . ." He paused, unable to go on and I knew immediately the full enormity of what had happened. Whatever was happening on Third Earth had to be connected to the strange events of the past few days. I had to find my fellow Thundercats quickly.

"Where are you now?" I asked.

"Inside Cats' Lair," Fangelo replied. "The one the Thundercats built on this planet. Most of the equipment still works, so Lord Feleo decided to use it as a base while we were here."

Cats' Lair - that should be easy to spot. I had been shown pictures and knew it consisted of a fortress built into a cliff-face, with a retractable bridge providing access. And, like the Cats' Lair on New Thundera, the whole thing was dominated by an outsize carving of a cat's head, proclaiming it as the home of the Thundercats. All I had to do was keep an eye for a building which matched that description.

Unfortunately, I had no idea which direction to head. I thought about searching from the air, but I didn't want to risk running out of fuel, so I landed the Thundershuttle in a clearing and continued my search on foot. As I walked, I was constantly on the alert for trouble, ready to use my chakram to defend myself if need be. And, since I did not know where I was going, I just picked the first path I came to and began to follow it in the hope that it would lead me, if not directly to Cats' Lair, to someone who could tell me which way I must go.

It was no summer afternoon stroll, I'll tell you that. The forest was deep and dark, so dark in places that, even with a feline's ability to see in low light conditions, I could barely see where I was going. And my ears were constantly listening out for danger - perhaps, that was why I attacked without thinking . . .

It happened just as I was nearing the heart of the forest; I heard movements behind me, movements which seemed to stop and start whenever I did. Someone was following me, but were they friend or foe? Wasting no time, I hurled my chakram into the trees and, seconds later, had the satisfaction of hearing someone cry out, letting me know that I had hit my target.

But, when I lifted the bushes to see who or what I had hit, my elation quickly turned to guilt. The thing I had hit was a small boy with dark curly hair and tanned skin, who wore a simple red tunic and light brown trousers, a member of a race I had never seen before. What had I done? I would never have knowingly targetted him; Thundercats were supposed to protect the weak, not attack them. I knelt down beside him and began to clean the cut my chakram had left on his forehead, hoping that I would be able to repair the damage I had done. "I'm sorry," I whispered as I swabbed the cut. "I didn't mean to hit you - I just thought you might be an enemy . . ."

At this point, he groaned slightly. "W - what?" Looking closer, I realised that, despite his short stature, this was not a child; rather, he was an adolescent like me. His height, roughly the same as Lata and Sita, was deceptive. But who . . . what was he? I must have asked those questions out loud because the next thing he said was: "I'm a Wollo - my name is Koris. Who are you?"

"Storm of Thundera, future Lord of the Thundercats," I told him. "I'm supposed to meet my parents and the other Thundercats in Cats' Lair. I don't suppose you know where that is?"

To my surprise, the next thing Koris did was grab hold of my hand and start kissing it repeatedly. "Thank goodness! I've been looking for the Thundercats all day, ever since they attacked!"

"Who's "they"?" I asked, pulling my hand out of his reach.

"The Mutants and Lunatacs!" Koris's eyes were wide with fear. "They attacked our village, razed it to the ground! I was the only one who managed to get away."

I looked at Koris for several seconds, recalling as I did so everything I had been told about Wollos. Like the Bolkins, they were a simple folk who rarely (if ever) resorted to violence, yet it seemed they had been the targets for another seemingly senseless attack. "Mutants!" I thought bitterly, recalling everything I had learned about their race and their long war with Thundera. Though that war was long over, it seemed certain members of the Mutant race wanted to start it up again and would attack any race who had been allied with the Thundercats in the past. But why? Did it have something to do with the Statue which had been broken into fragments?

At length, I spoke. "You mentioned that Lunatacs were involved. Could you tell if any were from the Ice Clan?" The reason I asked was because I had not been able to stop thinking about Icelia, wondering if what she had told me was true or an elaborate trap designed to trick me into trusting her.

But Koris shook his head. "I don't think so. But I've never seen Lunatacs before, so I can't be sure."

"Did any of them have pale blue skin?" I asked. "And white hair?"

Koris paused, frowning for several seconds. "Now that you mention it, no. I didn't see any who looked like that," he said at length. "Anyway," he added to change the subject, "I heard the Thundercats were back on Third Earth, so I set out in search of them and that's when I ran into you."

Since we were both heading for Cats' Lair, Koris was only too willing to escort me. It turned out that he knew the area well, having spent much of his youth exploring the forest, and was able to tell me a great deal about the races which inhabited Third Earth. As we walked, he told me of his only people, the Wollos, and also of the walrus-like Tuskas who lived on the coast, the gentle unicorns and their two humanoid keepers, the primitive Brutemen who could only communicate in simple grunts . . . These were just a few of the beings which called this planet home.

At length, we approached a small village consisting of several round huts built around a square, which was bordered by several large fields containing crops the likes of which I had never seen before. One field contained row upon row of bushes whose fruit resembled bunches of candy cane, while another contained bushes which looked as though they had loaves of bread growing on them. But the strangest thing was the village's inhabitants; they resembled plump bears whose bodies appeared to be made almost entirely out of metal, with just a few patches of fur around their heads and shoulders. They did not appear to have mouths.

"What are they?" I whispered to Koris as a group of the metal bears approached us.

"Berbils," Koris whispered back. "Ro-bear Berbils, to give them their full name. It's said they were friends of the Thundercats in the old days and . . ."

He was cut off as one of the Berbils began to speak. "Welcome," he said. His voice was gentle but robotic and a light flashed in the area where his mouth should have been as he spoke. "I am Ro-bear Bill. We . . ." He indicated the assembled robotic bears. " . . . are the Ro-bear Berbils. You are welcome, descendent of Lord Lion-O."

I was stunned. I had barely met this creature, so how could he know who I was? "H - how do you . . .?" I stammered, forgetting for the moment that, as a future Lord of the Thundercats, I was supposed to appear self-confident at all times. However, Ro-bear Bill's words had rendered me temporarily speechless.

"I knew Lord Lion-O more than eighty years ago," Ro-bear Bill replied. "And you look very much like him . . ."

I could hardly believe I was meeting someone who had actually known my great-grandfather; previously, the only such being I had known was Wilykit and she was gone. Still, since these Ro-bear Berbils appeared to be either fully fledged robots or cyborgs (part robotic and part organic) it made a certain amount of sense for them to have longer lifespans than most fully organic creatures.

Koris and I spoke to the Berbils at some length about the crisis which had brought me here. I told them about the message my father had received, the unknown individuals who had released Thundranium in the New Thundera subway (something I felt sure was connected in some, as yet unknown, way) and the fragment of statue Wilykit had given me. Koris, meanwhile, spoke of the ambush on his village and how he had escaped with his most priceless treasure.

"Here it is," he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small object wrapped in a sack. Slowly, he unwrapped it to reveal a piece of alabaster like the one I had and like the one Icelia had shown me. His appeared to be part of the statue's face, the carved eye staring sightlessly at me as I held it in my hand. It seemed that three beings - a Thunderian, an Ice Lunatac and a Wollo - all owned pieces of the same statue. But what was this statue supposed to represent? And who had the other fragments?

"I have something like that," I said, reaching into my pack and pulling out the fragment Wilykit had given me. As I held it up for the others to examine, a stunned silence fell.