Being the 14th part of the adventures of Amelia Bourne-Phipps at the Songmark Aeronautical Boarding School for Young Ladies, currently exploring with her friends on one of the islands that do not appear on the cruise ship routes. Cranium Island has a certain "Reputation" for strange events and mysterious inhabitants; mysterious still since so few folk come back to tell.



Sunday August 12th, 1936

(Written on waterproof field notebooks and transcribed later)

So far, so good. We had an uneventful flight out yesterday, in a newer model of the Lockheed Lamprey that actually has some windows in the main hold. The original designers probably reasoned that cargo does not need to look out - presumably the crew chiefs telegraphed them urgently that they need some light to sort the cargo when the flying boat has its big front-loading hatch shut.

A brief circling over the coast fixed our position on the sketch map and the aerial photographs we had managed to obtain. Most of the Southern part of the island is heavily forested, but on hilltops there are clearings and what looks like buildings or at least ruins here and there. The obvious cones of three volcanoes rise up at one end of the island, but they have trees growing right up their flanks and must have been quiet for centuries.

The pilot is a familiar snout to us, a local otter who revealed he has experience in Mexico and the Bolivian /Paraguay wars; at any rate he brought us in for a terrifyingly brief "combat" landing, diving straight down and slamming the flaps and air brakes on as it looked as if we were going to pile right into the beach. As it was, he judged it perfectly and the Lamprey just ground gently into the sand leaving us barely hock-deep water to splash through carrying our supplies and equipment. In three minutes he was turned round, and in five we were on our own.

Saimmi was dressed in a more "practical" outfit than I have seen her wear before; she is unarmed except for a machete, which is an essential tool and not a weapon for her. She has explained that there is nothing expressly forbidden about her fighting in self-defence, but doing so would disturb her spiritual focus and spoil her abilities for days. As she is our main detector and navigator in this trip, she is relying on the rest of us to handle the threats. Molly seems quite happy at the prospect.

We made best speed to the edge of the jungle, brushing out our tracks behind us as the Lamprey turned and took off; the tide is coming in and in ten minutes there was no sign of where its cargo door had dented the beach. It was almost disappointing in a way; Molly had the T-Gew with bayonet fixed and safety catch off, and the rest of us were ready to repel an ambush, but there was nothing happening. As far as we could tell it might as well have been the wilder parts of Main Island on Spontoon.

By nightfall we had made camp by a stream and settled down vigilantly. No fires were lit, as a plume of smoke can be seen for miles away rising through the canopy. Helen says her Uncle was in the Spanish-American wars in the Fillypines, and it took them a lot of time and casualties before they worked out how the Spanish artillery on the open ridges were tracking their progress through the jungle.

A first night on Cranium Island passed peacefully enough. I was on first watch with Saimmi, who sat at the edge of the clearing with her eyes closed letting her ears and other senses reach out. She has taught us a jolly interesting exercise with a candle flame, first looking through the fire at the surroundings, then blowing the real fire out and holding the image in the mind's eye. It makes the world look a very different place, but it is hard to describe exactly how; things look rather like those strange Kirlian photographs one sees in Unscientific American and other journals written for the mad scientist market.

After about an hour, Saimmi opened her eyes and asked for the map and a compass. She had a rough fix on something strange that might be the Fragment, she says - though warned that the island is full of very strange things, and rather thanjust looking for a needle in a haystack it is like looking for the needle when there is a hundredweight of assorted scrap scattered around it. She drew a line to the far side of the island away from the volcanic section to the worn-down smoother hills; it still covers a large swathe of territory but at least gives us a starting point without having to quarter the whole area.

A surprisingly restful night followed and by dawn we were moving along at the edge of the jungle, heading out along the beach. I think Molly was regretting carrying the T-Gew well before lunchtime; a forty-pound cannon that is seven feet long plus the bayonet is no easy load in the jungle. Even Maria was gladly handing it back to her after a half-hour stint of that. Our regular loads of food and such would have been heavy enough in all conscience; Helen explains why they call their Infantry "grunts." It is not just having poor communication skills that kept them out of other jobs, she says - hauling half one's body weight and more around the rugged landscape, one cannot help but grunt a lot.

It got even worse in the afternoon, when we left the sandy part of the coast and slogged our way into a marshy estuary. The trees looked like I have seen films of Mangroves, but there was something very odd about them. For one thing, even Spontoon is too far North for mangroves to thrive and Cranium is two hundred miles further than that, plus it is out of the Nimitz warm current according to the shipping charts. At least we persuaded Molly to take off the saw-backed bayonet, as she is a major hazard swinging that around the place.

Saimmi was looking rather strained, and although she is as fit as most Spontoonies she has not had the hard training the rest of us had. But that was not the problem, as she explained: the plants here are all wrong, and the whole area is bathed in a sort of inner corruption. She admitted not being able to pin it down, until Helen suggested it was being carried down in the river from further inland - which is where we are going tomorrow. Not an encouraging prospect.

We were lucky to get out of the swamps before dark, having done about half an exhausting mile an hour and ending up covered in mud to our snouts. Luckily we know how to cope with that; on all our rifle muzzles we had what the Songmark equipment list still calls a "emergency water container, elastic" though back on Casino Island Molly had some curious looks trying to find one big enough to fit the muzzle brake of my rifle.

Anyway - we can risk a fire tonight, having found some sheltering rocks to hide the light and a good supply of really dry driftwood that should burn without too much smoke.

On the open side of the island we had a decent view ahead, and Helen took first watch on top of the rocks with a jolly fine spotting scope that came with the rifle set Molly received so mysteriously. She scrambled down at the end of her shift and told us there are signs of life about a mile away, with someone else having a fairly well hidden fire. Indeed, with the angle of the hill it is only our camp outcrop one could see the light from, and whoever is there probably thinks they are quite safe. She also saw scattered electric lights off in the distance on the hilltops, but it is too dark to get more than a rough bearing to check tomorrow.

Saimmi has Helen, Saffina and myself busily practicing our protective rituals, which she says are already important this far in - she drew a large circle on the ground and scattered some of the herbs that we know at carefully spaced intervals, explaining that we must sleep inside the circle and if any of us roll away in the night whoever is on watch must wake them immediately. Molly and Maria were much amused, thankfully in a good-humoured way. Still, I pointed out to Maria that school science and Religious Education lessons these days cover the theory and use of Electric Pentacles, so the idea is quite well thought-of. My own Uncle is a modern forward-thinking Padre and blesses his tanks in a ritual circle before exercises as prescribed by Archbishop Crowley, getting the Regiment a several percent performance boost on both accuracy of fire and cross-country performance.

It was extremely dark with no moon and low cloud, once the mists closed in. My watch was from midnight to three, along with Saffina. There were very odd sounds and cries off in the far distance that were quite impossible to make out. I rather disliked the sound of them without being able to say exactly why. Saffina's ears were right down and she fingered the good-luck charm she carried (as well as checking the machete; she is a very practical girl.) She has told me some fascinating folk tales of her native land, which has its own share of very odd buildings that no archaeologists have been able to agree on, and unfortunate things happen to those who investigate too closely. The Hollywood films tend to show Natives as being easily spooked by strange things and run for the Witch Doctor; Saffina actually is one and says there is a lot that happens which one would be very unwise to capture on film.

Still, nothing came very close to us and we all survived despite a rather poor night's sleep. I wonder what a modern alienist would think of six people all having the same dream the same night? Most odd.


Monday August 13th, 1936

(Written in haste.)
We are not the only Adventurers on the island! This morning we headed towards where we had seen the campfire; the ashes had been buried but we found the evidence all right. Helen looked out with the spotter scope and saw movement about a mile and a half away. There were five figures, one of which she recognised from the fully illustrated report in the Daily Elele which our reporter chum Missy Aha says had been "subsidised" by the interviewee. Kansas Smith is always hungry for publicity by all accounts.

We held a hurried council of war, and decided to press on with our plan. We were going to bounce in and out as fast as possible, now having a rival we have even more reason to hurry. Treating this as a reconnaissance mission and returning later in the month is no longer an option, with a world-class treasure-hunter on the scene. The good thing is, we saw them before they saw us, so we have a chance at keeping out of their way.

From what Helen could see, there is Kansas Smith recognisable by her brown leather jacket and bush hat, and another lady adventuress of about the same species, very visibly a lady. The others were gentlemen, two canines and a small pig who seemed to be leading the way.

Molly's eyes lit up, and as we walked told us what she knows of Kansas Smith from Film Frolics and such. Her Mother is a pure mink, once a film star and now a mature beauty who appears in sophisticated theatrical productions. There are two older half-sisters who are pure mink beauties born from unadvertised dalliances and are "doing the rounds in Hollywood" as Molly says, and Kansas herself who is half stoat and carries the family name. The mixture seems to have been unfortunate somewhere, as we have seen her photo and certainly she did not inherit star looks. She seems to take after her father who was not a star but a film director; Molly says marrying for money and influence is a bad move when something like the Wall Street Crash comes along and folk lose both. *

Further, Molly remembers the Island Bird-Watcher article mentioning Mrs. Smith being listed as one of the party arriving on Spontoon - it must be a strain going on Adventures bringing one's equally famous and far prettier mother along for the ride.

Having seen which valley the Smith Party were exploring, we chose another one heading off at a Northerly angle along the boundary between the two oddly different sides of the island. We had been scrambling over recognisable volcanic hills, basalt sills and such, but once we had crossed to the far side of the valley everything changed. It somehow seemed quieter - not just as a drop in sound being produced by the wind through the rocks, but as if there were invisible heavy curtains hanging in the air deadening all noise.

We had seen from the photographs how the Northern part of the island was very different, but not until our boots trod on it did we really get the full impact. The jungles were all behind us and ahead was an uneasy tilted landscape of obscurely shaped and rounded hills whose occasional greasy rock exposures seemed to be more like glittering obsidian than any plain natural stone; I found myself wondering just how that could weather into soil that a plant could live in. The vegetation was certainly odd, in ways it was hard to describe. When I went down to the Gilbert and Sullivan isles near the Equator the plants were different from Spontoon, but one could understand that. They made perfect sense being where they were. However rare they may be, one does not expect any garden to wish to grow the plants that straggle over these hillsides, although the worst thing is there is nothing that one can really put words to and explain why not.

Saimmi looked as if she had a sick headache and motioned for us to keep together and closer to her, explaining that the tensions around us were getting very bad. It is far, far worse than she feared possible, she says - and confides there are other things here besides the Fragment. Perhaps bringing that here was like lighting a bonfire on a coal seam: in Australia and places there are smouldering seams that undermine the whole landscape and defy all attempts to extinguish them. These hills seem unaccountably old somehow, as if they were a landscape that had already seen too much in the deeps of time and vanished beneath the mercifully concealing waters, only to be resurrected unfathomed aeons later by the new surge of volcanoes that pushed it back into the sight of the sun. The pages of "Weird Tails" are full of this sort of thing, and according to them it happens all the time.

Even Molly and Maria were looking definitely alarmed, with Molly having moved out to the front and put her ear protectors handy on her head ready to nod on at a second's notice. She had the bipod clipped into place and moved everything hard from her front pouches to her back ones; diving forward onto one's water-bottle hurts and really the only way of using that cannon at short notice is to throw oneself down and fire it from the bipod. The T-Gew has a total muzzle energy of a quarter of a tonne and anyone caught without ear protection within ten feet of the muzzle brake risks permanent hearing damage.

And yet, there was really nothing to be seen. Saffina had her charms handy in her pocket; she comes from a tradition that knew when to fight and when to flee long before the first stones of ancient Zimbabwe were raised to the gibbous African moon, which archaeologists say far-flung colonists of Egypt planned although Professor Schiller says is ten times older than the first pyramids. There was an odd haze in the air, more like bronze dust than anything I have seen before, that tinged the light and made it hard to see true colours.

For six hours we slogged across that landscape, Saimmi warning us not to try and use some of the skills she has taught us except the protections: she says there are things that we would not like to see here, and other things that we should not attract the attention of. By the time the sun was setting we were mercifully over the worst of it, and just before dark we found an old lava shelf that had flowed over from the saner side of the isle that Saimmi said would be relatively safe to sleep on. Even so, three people on guard and triple protective circles tonight!

* Editor's note: in the margin is scribbled in clear text - "Molly says they divorced with her citing Incompatibility. When he lost all his income she lost all her pattability."


Tuesday August 14th, 1936

This island is not as empty as it looks. We kept finding traces of tracks all day; it is hard to say exactly what of, though. The clearest patch was at a stream crossing; it was the sort of blurred track one might get if one filled a balloon envelope with footballs and rolled it across the landscape. There are some very disturbing scents at these places, which are mercifully unlike anything we have ever scented before. Saffina seemed definitely worried and said they fitted rather suggestively with some of her tribe's oldest legends, which are whispered only amongst the witch-doctors to avoid needless panic.

All morning we kept to the edge of the lava field, which gave us an impression as if it was a causeway through some awful morass worse in its way than the one that cost us so dearly on Albert Island. I recall Father's tales of the end of the Great War when his engineering companies had to put roads through what had been the scenes of bitterest fighting for four years, with the earth churned into a poisonous slurry of mud, decay and lingering mustard gas. He had to gather the rubble of whole smashed villages and simply pile it into a causeway, a clean stone and brick walkway that was the only safe passage through the sheer awfulness. And yet there is really nothing to see; if we took photographs they would only look like rolling worn-down hills with odd rock formations here and there on their summits.

Maria seems to have it worst; she has her crucifix in her paw and is muttering constantly in Italian, though it does not seem to be helping. I recall her telling me she had the cross specially blessed by Father Dominicus before heading out; he has freshly stamped papers with the Papal seal, and presumably carries extra effect. Her own remote ancestry has several Papal Bulls amongst it; I think she mentioned a Pope Sixtus the Fifth or possibly the other way around.

Saimmi says we are getting nearer now; in the oddly hazed distance we can see a volcanic crater that is on the right bearing and we cannot be far now from the opposite shore. Distances seem distorted somehow, it is taking much longer than it should and we ought to have crossed from one side of the island to the other by now. Still, we are going cautiously and keeping to cover; our Tutors have taught us how Not To Be Seen and we are doing our best to combine that with making reasonable speed. Even so, we are not making much better mileage over these ambiguous hills than we did through the jungle.

There is no sign of Kansas Smith and party, but if they carried on up that river valley it curves round and has its headwaters on the side of the volcano we are aiming for. Still - seeing paw-prints made by things that really are paws would be a welcome sight right now, even if they are of our rivals. The weather is stifling, a sort of breathlessness more like a stuffy, dusty room than the cheerful summer heat of Spontoon. Above the haze the sky is darkly solid purple like the arch of a great bell-jar trapping us, and we are all heartily sick of the place already. Those scientists must really be mad to volunteer to live here.

It is the strain on Saimmi that worries me; several times she has called on us to halt and get close to her for a few minutes while she intones rituals in a very old form of Spontoonie, possibly one of the original Polynesian languages. Molly was inclined to turn her snout up at it the first few occasions but her snout is definitely shut now and she seems to have decided to suspend disbelief  "for the duration." Maria is looking at the rest of us rather differently; although we have often told her the basics of what we do on our Sundays she has thought of it only in terms of quaint folk rituals and customs like our Dance classes. Seeing Saimmi in action and getting tangible results is giving her cause to think again and it is anyone's guess which direction that will take.

(Later) We have made camp on the lower slopes of the volcano, rather earlier in the day than usual but everything above us is more exposed and we found a lava tube that gives as much shelter as we can hope for. Of course we made very sure to examine the insides very carefully, nobody likes the idea of sleeping in an open tunnel in a place like this with an unknown passageway going into the darkness. The tube is blocked completely ten yards inside, with a choke of great boulders a howitzer shell would not shift. All in all, as good a campsite as one could expect in such a place.


Wednesday August 15th, 1935

Dear Diary. It has been one of those days that make me wish I was at a Finishing School. I was on the first watch with Saimmi, who is looking quite haggard as if she had had nothing to eat and no sleep since we arrived. Actually she has had our usual rations, but sleep is a bad idea here as the dreams are simply awful. An eleven forty I changed over with Molly and Maria who were watching till half past three, and my last sight of them before turning in was seeing their silhouettes against the gibbous moon at the entrance to our lava tube.

I was just about asleep when all of us were jolted awake by the loudest and most urgent alarm call there is - the ear-shattering crash of an anti-tank rifle fired again and again as fast as Molly could work the bolt! In the ten seconds it took to throw off my bedroll and scramble up to the entrance in the dark she had reloaded and fired four times, something I still can hardly believe anyone could do with a hand-loaded T-Gew. The last shot was different; I was the first one out of the tunnel as the landscape was bathed in a searing burst of white light and I knew Molly had fired one of those illicitly obtained magnesium jacketed rounds she must have "saved for Sunday" and thrown it into the breech in the darkness.

I must write down very carefully what I did and did not see, and try not to be influenced by what happened after. When Molly fired the magnesium round I was just about out in the open and on the hillside, but the rocks under my paws were uneven and I was looking down for paw-holds when that lightning-brief burst showed everything around us. Helen was right behind me but mercifully saw nothing.

If I did see anything it must have been out of the corner of my eye as my head was jerking up - even so I saw quite enough. Something was there, possibly that which had made the tracks in the stream beds - it was huge and towered above Molly like a great glutinous wave completely unaffected by three point-blank hits from the armour-killing rifle. But it did not like the light - for by the time my eyes were focused that direction a split second later, it had gone. It did not leap away, or fly, or disintegrate - but it was no longer there. Molly was there with the stock of the T-Gew braced against a boulder, her body locked absolutely rigid except for her paws that unerringly cycled the bolt and grabbed another ten-ounce round from her pouch. Of Maria there was no sign.

For a second I just stood there, my eyes half blinded by the flash - and found myself oddly thinking calmly that if Molly had missed I should be able to see the fading streak of tracer as a white line punching across the night. There was nothing like that. The stars seemed oddly bright and near all of a sudden, as if that oppressive lid over us had been lifted - or as if this mountain was one of those in some high remote plateau on the roof of the world with very little between us and the cold scrutiny of starlight and the endless night beyond.

By the time I had got my night vision back Helen, Saimmi and Saffina were fanning out and looking for Maria. Molly was staring almost sightlessly, locked rigid still like one of her ancestral relatives caught in a searchlight - Saimmi was examining her, and her face was grim. In a minute Saffina came up with something held in her paw - and I felt my stomach lurch within me as I recognised Maria's crucifix, oddly buckled as if it had been turned to wax for an instant and carelessly squeezed. Its ivory inlay had not cracked or discoloured, which is impossible to explain as neither heat or any mechanical pressure could do that.

The landscape around us was quite bare and empty under the pale moon, with very little cover for hundreds of yards and no sign of any living thing. Anyone moving would have been spotted immediately.

We got Molly down into the cave where Saimmi and Saffina could take a look at her - as far as I could see there was not a scratch on her, at least physically. Saimmi shook her head and muttered she should never have let the two unprepared ones take watch alone - but she would do what she could. She asked me to stand watch outside; I managed to get the giant Mauser out of Molly's rigid grasp and found in the breech another of those magnesium rounds that Lars had provided. Of course, anyone for miles around would have heard the shots and I am sure the last one would have been visible anywhere on this side of the island. We could hardly have said, "Here we are" any better with a pack full of maroons and signal flares.

For about ten minutes I scanned the landscape with the help of Molly's spotting scope; certainly I am proud of my feline ancestry and in the middle of the night it often comes in very handy. Then in the far distance I saw something beginning to move towards us. Even now I cannot exactly describe it, it was like a flurry of wind picking up dust and vegetation and whirling it high; indeed that is all I can truthfully say I saw. But it was far more coherent than any normal piece of weather except a tornado, and Helen has said they need thick clouds and storm winds to form. If anything I would have said they settled into formation, which is a rather odd thing for a piece of weather to do.

I was just about to call down to Saimmi when she appeared at the entrance to the lava tube, already looking straight at that piece of horizon. She asked if I had used any of the methods she had taught to look at the approaching phenomenon; when I shook my head she seemed grimly pleased and advised me not to, on any account. Pointing up the rough slope, she told me the lava tube would not save us now, but we had just a chance further up the volcano.

In a minute we were all out on the open hillside in the harsh starlight, ash and scoria rolling under our boots. Molly was moving like a sleepwalker; Saimmi whispered that with this and what happened to her on the tramp steamer, Molly had taken two severe blows to her sanity inside the year. I imagine being faced with something that is wholly immune to violence must be a shattering revelation to her, and I suspect that one of those fifteen-inch shells Lars smuggled would have not done any better.

For half an hour it was hard slogging up the ash slopes until eventually Saimmi called a breather. Below us the strange features were advancing across the landscape like the tide, but our Priestess called for us to sit on a small ledge around her, and we ran through the ritual she had shown us on top of Mount Tomboabo. Immediately, I felt totally drained - but Saimmi sprang to her feet and pointed up the hill. Maria was alive, she told us - and we were not the only ones on this mountain.

Immediately we were off again - and as we went over a ridge we saw that she was perfectly right. Above the piled rubble of the ash cone the volcano is solid rock - or rather it had been solid before someone had got very busy re-working it. I shuddered to think of the sort of mind that would pick the biggest dormant volcano in sight as their safe haven.

Saffina gave a quiet hiss of alarm and pointed ahead at what looked like a line of huge figures waiting for us ahead. We stopped and I took a look through the spotting scope - folk must have thought the madness was contagious here as I helplessly laughed out loud at the sight. Tikis! The whole upper part of the hill is ringed in Tiki statues, staring out over the barren lands below. We made top speed over the three hundred yards towards them, with Saimmi looking slightly less grim and Molly still staggering along rather disconcertingly puppet-like. I was definitely grateful that Saimmi had been able to aid her, though from what she has said such protections do not last long.

When we got there, we stopped and Saimmi went forwards on her own. The statues were carved in the solid rock, and around them the black rock was levelled into a shelf cut into the hillside. As we approached I noticed the shelf looked very clean, amazingly so, and about as flat and level as an ice-rink.

Looking at the Tikis my tail certainly bristled. They were Spontoonie work, I had no doubt about it - they looked rather like some of the oldest ones on Main Island and yet there were certain very disturbing differences. A year ago I might have spotted that they were different without being to explain exactly why. Certain styles and meaningful symbols had progressed beyond anything surviving on the Spontoon Isles themselves, although there were hints about it in the hidden carvings under the walkways of Casino Island that had been made in the final years before the Great Ritual that had gone so awfully wrong. If those normal statues had been cosy hearth-fires, these were blast furnaces of huge capacity; if the Main Island statues were decorative garden fencings these were something like the fully developed Western Front with tangled concertinas of booby-trapped wire and a mile of defence in depth with aircraft and artillery on call. Definitely they were built with more than domestic protection in mind.

Saimmi pressed her paw to the nearest one, and shuddered as if she was holding onto a low-voltage cable, painful but not enough to throw one back. She gestured and pointed at a spot to her right - we hurried across the oddly smooth boundary, feeling a most peculiar sensation as we did so. Suddenly, it was as if we had stepped back onto a normal island, where no sinister starlight leered down on sights best left unseen.

It felt altogether cleaner here, and indeed we were breathing easier than we had since first arriving on the beach. Still, there was nothing for it but to press on half an hour later after a drink of water and a bar of tropical chocolate apiece; above us we could see lights shining as if the top of the volcanic cone had become a great fortress or tower. Saimmi explained that the Tiki statues had been made to trap something inside their circle, but they were now keeping things out. They are of a certain very specific type that she says were never made on Spontoon, or at any rate were only produced in the final months and were destroyed in the cataclysm or what the first returning priestesses had to do to make the islands safe in the 1850's. Although very few of the High Priestesses that had been involved in the Great Ritual had survived, there were things which they had told their juniors who had been away from the islands at the time, that had been passed down to the modern priestesses.

As I stood there with Helen and Saffina I could not help but think just how fragile this whole tradition of knowledge is; Saimmi says she still has much to learn from Huakava, who is ancient indeed and not up to this sort of strain. In fact, unless there are a lot more people involved with the upper levels of the local religion that I suspect, we are more or less IT in terms of doing this job. If we fail to return it might be years before anyone else could be found, and neither Huakava nor Saimmi would be there to train them. There were more qualified Priestesses fifty years ago despite the Missionary presence; just because folk are free to practice their Traditions on Spontoon does not mean there will be suitably qualified and interested people born to take up that challenge.

With the spiritual strain lessened, our "ordinary" training kicked back in and we trusted Molly with the T-Gew again, Saffina having carried it up the hill for her (it is something of a strain even for Saffina, mostly lioness though she is.) Helen was her usual practical self, muttering about the bad planning of us four all having different ammunition types - she stopped, her ears drooping when she realised she had automatically listed Maria as being with us still.

As we climbed, I looked over at the horizon and spotted the first glimmering of light in the east, the stars just starting to fade. Being caught out here in the open by day might only expose us to a different set of dangers; the local inhabitants are not reputed to appreciate company dropping in uninvited.

One thing that struck me was the definite lack of any obvious road going into or out of the place. Our aerial photographs were not brilliant or quite up-to-date, but to build a complex as big as this one appears to be takes more than a footpath and construction roads would show up on the photos we have. Furthermore, the inhabitants must need supplies, as I have not spotted anything growing on this side of the island one would like to eat.

We circled round the flank of the volcano, rather marvelling that anyone would actually choose this as a safe place to set up in. Just then Helen spotted a cave mouth or entrance above us, and we made for that. Dawn was fast approaching and we were feeling very exposed out on the open hillside with the towering final summit cone pierced with electrically lighted windows. Any sort of searchlight from there would have picked us out like mice on an open kitchen floor.

Ten minutes later we were all drawing breath in the shelter of the entrance, a round passageway about eight feet across that looks as if it was melted rather than quarried out of the rocks. It went straight into the mountainside: we had Molly go in ten yards and listen carefully while the rest of us held out breath outside, but she said she heard nothing but the sound of the wind inside. Looking out of the cave mouth it was quite a view across the island in the growing light and indeed we must be five thousand feet above the beach, giving us ten minutes earlier sunrise than anyone on the distant beach still away in shadows.

Suddenly things changed rapidly. The cavern was flooded with light from concealed bulbs in the ceiling, and an amplified voice boomed out "Welcome to the Mansions of Doctor Blum!"

Getting spotted this early was not in the plan. But we kknew we would have to meet upwith the residents sooner or later, and with our rifles carried at the port we slowly moved into the corridor. As we went along the corridor became more finished with smooth metal-clad walls and more visible lighting, until we found a bend which led to a double set of sliding doors about ten feet apart, the nearest one of which was wide open.

As I reminded the party, walking in there trustingly all together would be a rather poor plan, the sort of thing our Tutors would have us peeling taro root and gutting fish in the kitchens all week for suggesting. Helen and I went in first while Molly covered us, her T-Gew ready for surprises (Saffina and Saimmi retreated back up the corridor, having no earplugs and knowing just how loud that tank-killer is even in the open air.)

Just then things went horribly wrong. There was a distant electrical buzzing and the lights dimmed slightly - and an invisible force grabbed us and dashed us against the wall! My pistol almost broke my fingers as it was wrenched out of my grasp and crashed against the side of the chamber. My belt buckle, pocketknife and a lot of small kit nearly tore out of my clothing, pulling me fast against the metal wall. Someone had lined the corridor right back from the door with electromagnets as powerful as the one in Superior Engineering they use to pluck marine diesels out of engine-rooms with! A second later what looked like a metal mesh supporting the far wall came free and leaped across the corridor like a net as the designers of the trap took no chances with folk who might have come in armed with bone spears and flint knives. The designers had definitely put some brains into this one; Molly might be a predictably equipped Adventuress but Saimmi is not, and from her surprised yelp around the corner it got her too.

For a second or two I was just winded, and odd thoughts flashed through my brain about redesigning all our equipment in bronze and other non-ferrous metals for next time. I was mostly pinned by the mesh but managed to wriggle out of the shoulder straps of my knapsack and had started struggling with my belt buckle (a cargo strap belt of forged steel linked to the climbing loops sewn securely into my shorts, worse luck!) when the door in front of us opened and four rather neatly dressed figures strolled in, all wearing grey jackets of a peculiar linoleum-like material with high circular collars almost like that of a diver's suit. All were armed, not with any "Buck Rogers" lightning cannon as we almost expected but with plain and very serviceable-looking bronze automatics which they covered us with while two of them rolled the clinging steel mesh off us like a heavy carpet.

Three of the local gentlemen were bears but their leader was a Ratel girl of about our age, who seemed very happy to see us as she ordered us "not to try any funny stuff". Her accent was North American not unlike like Liberty Morgenstern or Ada Cronstein; East coast I should think though I am no expert.

Well, that was embarrassing. It was hard to say what else we might have done but go into the tunnel or run away, but this is not the sort of thing that ought to happen to a Songmark girl. In five minutes we were searched down to our pockets; folk even found the fishhooks hidden in my head fur (not hard to do as they were sticking to the wall) and the steel string draw-cords in our jackets (ditto.) We were marched down the corridor, one of the bear gentlemen being told off to stay and gather up our equipment and follow after as soon as the electromagnet was turned off. From the bronze sheen of our captor's handguns, it looked as if they had thought this one through in some detail.

Molly asked which of them was Doctor Blum - the Ratel just laughed and said the Doctor would see us when he was ready. One never sees the position of "henchman" advertised as such in the "Situations Vacant" columns of the papers, and despite our own situation I found myself wondering just how employers manage to recruit staff in these places. Perhaps they advertise in the back pages of magazines we do not read, such as "Amateur Vivisectionist Weekly."

The corridor was about fifty yards long and then through another door we had another surprise - when we came out into the open again, in what looked almost like a jungle! The inside of the volcano had been quarried and terraced to provide farming land (volcanic ash soil is famously fertile) and there was a stepped crater easily two hundred yards across heading down to what looked like a well shaft ten yards across some distance below us. From the air it looks just as if the crater is filled with natural vegetation, as the steps are covered with climbing greenery and it is hard to tell a wild tree from a fruit tree from a thousand feet.

That certainly explains the food supply; although most of the plants were in raised stone beds and planters they were vibrantly green and the place was a tangle of climbing beans and vines. Some of the plants I could not identify at all; they were not exactly rooted in the soil but stood on the ends of the rows, almost like sentinels. It was rather odd; one could swear their branches were moving even though there was very little wind down in the crater.

We were hurried across to the far side of the crater where another tunnel bored into the steep wall, and thrust into a plain rock-hewn chamber about twelve feet square, with not only a complex lock (with no inside keyhole) but a heavy bar on the outside of the door.

Oh dear.

After a few minutes we pulled ourselves together, Molly seeming almost cheerful; I suppose it is some sort of an improvement to be in a situation she can understand, however tight a spot we are in. Even if we had kept our lock-picks there is no way to get to the lock from here, and unlike in the films there is no key conveniently left in the lock for us to improvise grapples against. This place may be run by mad scientists, but certainly not by stupid ones.

For an hour or so (we had been relieved of our watches) there was nothing to do but cool our bare heels (we had been relieved of our feature-packed and steel lined boots too) and try to rest awhile without pacing around burning up energy. Fortunately our captors had not removed everything from our pockets, and we had our aluminium waterbottles and our tropical chocolate still in our pockets to console us. This seemed a good omen - though Helen commented wryly it saved them the expense of feeding us. She might have spared us the thought that only giving us their own food suggested they plan to keep us alive.

Saimmi spent the time in prayer and concentration, and at the end of it announced that we were very close indeed to the Fragment - it being no more than "the length of a village" away from us. But there is something very strange, she says - though she definitely has the "feel" of it, she is not picking up any fraction of the power that is saturating the island outside.

Helen asked about Maria and Saimmi went into a trance for a few minutes before announcing she is here alive, and quite close. She might have been able to say more if it was someone who had studied with her, she says - but it is part of the reason that Maria was taken in that she had no way to shield herself from what is here. I did not like to explain to Molly that Saffina's homemade "Voudon" charms from Ubangi-Chari are a better self-defence around here than our T-Gew.

Saffina was holding up very well, certainly for a first-year she should get full marks should we get out of this (and it was not her plan that got us into it but mine.) As I write, things look rather bleak - but we have been in scrapes before and always got out. At least it is less spirit-crushingly oppressive inside the mountain than outside so Saimmi says it should be safe to dream if we can get the chance to sleep - we can thank the Tiki gods for small mercies!


Friday August 17th, 1936

Dear Diary - it has been a definitely shocking two days. I now know how islands get their reputation; if anyone asks I will tell them to never, ever go anywhere near Cranium Island, though refuse to elaborate on why.

We had been locked up for about six hours and even got some fitful sleep. After all, the last few nights had been draining enough and we were in no more or less danger locked inside a shielded room than out on the open island. Then the door opened and a different four armed locals looked around the room - three dark-furred canines, Dobermans I think, and a small and studious-looking rabbit male wearing what looked like industrial goggles pushed up over his forehead. He looked round and smiled, saying the Doctor would see all of us in turn. He pointed at Saffina and the rest of them kept us covered with their automatics - there was nothing to be done except grit our teeth and let them take her off, the door closing and the sound of the bar going into place outside.

Saimmi immediately went into a trance, and announced to our relief that Maria is still alive and well - and she should be able to keep a far better track on Saffina for obvious reasons. The fear we had was that whatever this Doctor Blum has going on is fatal to the folk being used for "experiments." Helen and I agreed that there was little anyone could do while inside the room and the only thing was to make the most of one's chances as soon as we are taken out.

We managed some more sleep and finished the last of the water before the door was opened again and this time it was the Ratel girl, who pointed at me. With a sinking sensation I waved farewell to Helen, Molly and Saimmi and followed her out, blinking in the late afternoon sun that shone through the crater making it a rather pleasant scene with the virulently fertile growths everywhere - not that I could really appreciate the view.

Our party was heading down towards the deep well-like shaft when there came the sound of a large gong from the distance. The Ratel looked annoyed, and announced we were going up to see the Doctor right away. This time we went back upwards to the highest levels, where carefully shielded windows look into the crater greenery, all of them with inward angled glass so they cast no reflection a passing aircraft could possibly see.

Towards the top of the crater the rock is solid pyroclastic lava, a foamy rock that one can tunnel through as easily as chalk - at least, from the corridor I could see a small window in the outer wall showing the crater rim is less than fifty yards thick here. The place was Spartan in the extreme as regards décor but well equipped with lights and electricity, indeed when we passed some of the rooms our fur stood quite on end with some huge static charge that must have been close by.

I was pushed into a large, dome-roofed chamber easily twenty yards across. At the back on a sort of dais surrounded by equipment (I was eerily reminded of V-Gerat and their Theremin array) was a large raven gentleman, dressed in a very elaborate version of the linoleum-like suits my "escort" was wearing. Doctor Blum, I presumed. But it was the three other folk in the room, obviously relaxed and at ease as guests rather than prisoners that made me gasp - two mustelid ladies and a short pig that I recognised as Kansas Smith and her party!

My guess seemed to be correct, when the full Mink (Mrs. Smith, or Lola Vavavoom as Hollywood once knew her) looked at me and laughed, commenting that the "Dear Doctor" had certainly pulled in some healthy specimens for his fun. She looked very healthy herself; in her mid forties I should guess but still with a face and figure that would draw all eyes (and twitch most tails) on the beach.

There followed a lively conversation where Kansas Smith and Doctor Blum haggled over a price - to my horror I realised that I was one of the pieces of merchandise! It seemed her party had lost the two canine gentlemen to the hazards of the island, and Kansas wanted some assistance with carrying equipment ("and to go in front in case there's any more like the thing that got Louie" as she rather dismissively said.) They settled on a price for two of us - and the Doctor chose me and Saimmi, or at least described her as the Medic; she was unarmed and carrying the first-aid kit, which made it a fair guess on his part.

Well! I confess my fur was rather bristling as folk talked about us as if we were items of kit on a shelf to be issued for the trip - Kansas looked over at me and laughed, her tail swishing as she very "generously" offered two of us the chance to get away, at least as far as their ship, after which we were free to go where on the island we liked.

Once out of this fortress, I knew we were in with a chance - so with my ears right down I accepted her terms. We got in before, and once free of our captors Saimmi and I could try to rescue the rest of the party.

Mrs. Smith looked down at me through her rather long-lashed eyes and smilingly remarked that I was not to worry about my friends - they would be well looked after, and she has enjoyed trying some of the experiments herself, up to a point. Kansas sighed and rolled her eyes - she may be a world-famous treasure-seeker but hardly seems to have a contented family life. Perhaps the two are related.

I was "escorted" out again, and did my best to talk to the junior Henchgirl, who seemed quite unconcerned about what happens to us. She laughed when I offered her money to let me escape (Songmark might possibly ransom us, and at any rate it is worth a try) as she says she is not in this for money - she is one of five interns currently working with the Doctor for free, just for the chance to learn from such a great man.

!

Much to my dismay I was not put back in with Helen and the rest, but locked in a small room which at least had an open grating facing the inner gardens. There was food (fresh fruit and vegetables) and water, a sleeping mat and other facilities, so things could have been worse. In the films one sees prisoners signalling each other by tapping on the radiator pipes - alas, like most things here the radiator is electric, and the power to the room is shut off. Evidently mad scientists are fully aware of the potentials of giving prisoners electricity to play with, or I would have practiced one of Beryl's practical jokes and wired the door handle to the mains.

There was little else to do but eat the food and try to rest, and not worry about things I could not help at the moment. I fear I did not do so well on that. I did get some sleep, but was awakened by a sudden shadow falling across me. I looked and saw a mass of greenery pressed outside the window and heard a peculiar scratching noise outside. It was very odd - I assumed that one of the vines had come loose in the wind and fallen in front of the door, but when I next looked out a minute later I could see nothing of the sort anywhere near, nor could I scent any recognisable fur, only the vegetation. Very odd.

The next day dawned after a disturbed night, and several times in the darkness there seemed to be a greater darkness pressing against my cell door. I heard recognisable pawsteps passing a few times but that was at different times, almost as if it was something different entirely. The sun was not even over the crater wall when my door was unlocked and swung open, and the Ratel girl with three guards was outside. To my delight Saimmi was with them, held at pistol point it is true but carrying all her equipment except the machete, including the big first-aid kit. It looks as if we really were to be taking a walk outside the fortress; happily our boots were returned to us.

Our captor grinned and gestured towards the base of the terraced crater, where a vertical shaft yawned big enough to fly an autogiro down. We went down level after level of terraces until finding the lowest one had a spiral staircase cut in the natural rock, which led easily a hundred feet down before emerging into a great arched chamber.

Oh my. When the volcano last erupted, it must have formed the main crater before the lava drained away somewhere else, leaving a flat-bottomed chamber far below when the remaining lava solidified. Saimmi gasped at what was lying out in the very centre of the lava plain, something no Spontoonie had seen for five centuries and lived to tell.

We had heard everything the Priestesses had gathered about the Fragments and knew the ones taken off Main Island were small; indeed this one was small enough to fit in a knapsack. This is the one that was "buried in fire" - but when the fire cooled to earth, the earth rejected it and cast it up like a champagne cork launched underwater.

The Ratel grinned and pointed towards it, telling me to go and get it; she added conversationally that she had bets running with Izzy and Bernie the other interns about what would happen when I touched it. There seemed no hurry, so I took a deep breath and ran through the protective prayers Saimmi had taught me; though I heard nothing I could see her lips were moving and feel she was helping too. It was only about forty yards out along the flat surface of the cooled lava but I took a minute to make the walk, guessing nobody was too keen to come after me. There were small fragments of ancient bones lying around in the rubble, some of them blasted as if by lightning and I used the "seeing through fire" trick as I stood over it, feeling rather like one of Father's sappers finding an unexploded bomb of unknown design, concentrating all my senses on seeing exactly what was there.

The Fragment was empty. That is, it was a solid piece of material but it was like a flat battery, just as heavy but drained of its power. I suddenly had an idea what had happened to the rest of the island; possibly for generations scientists and "wonder-workers" had been coming to this place and using its powers, accidentally or otherwise transforming the ancient landscape into what it is now. Everything that should have faded away in remote ages and now been harmless was now re-vitalised; shadows walk in broad daylight and take on sudden strength in the dark.

Professor Schiller had dropped hints about the hideous dangers of disturbing this sort of thing; apparently his "Ahnenerbe" has suffered major casualties in bringing that odd collection of antiques back for their Chancellor's private collection and in discovering just how they work. But I had no choice: I bent down and picked the thing up, noticing to my surprise it was quite loose and not welded down by what had been lava before it cooled; the earth seemed almost glad to be rid of the burden. In fact, the earth had "rejected" it so thoroughly that it looked as if it had not touched it at all, having floated on the rock like a soap bubble on water.

The Fragment weighed about ten pounds and was ... unpleasant to carry. It was not unlike trying to hold onto a sparking magneto, but different in a way very hard to describe. I got it into my knapsack and rejoined the rest of the group, the interns looking quite open-mouthed in shocked surprise. Apparently things used to Happen to folk who touched it.

As I rejoined the group Kansas Smith and the Chinese boy arrived, both dressed for travel. She addressed him as Half Ration (a most peculiar name) and asked him if it was clear outside. A very strange thing happened to him - for a minute I was sure he was going into an epileptic fit as his eyes rolled back, he started to jerk and fell to the ground twitching and drooling, while Kansas looked on quite unconcerned as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Then he started to speak, in a deep ringing voice quite unlike he had used before - indeed I would have thought it impossible for him to make that sort of sound. I did not recognise the language but Kansas evidently did, for she nodded calmly and told the locals that if that was true we had better get going. She mentioned having a private collector lined up who had big plans for the artefact, and referred to having a pilot waiting at the coast.

Ten minutes later we found out why there is no obvious sign of traffic on the aerial photographs. There is a long tunnel to the outside of the volcano, which comes out in a road dug into the side of a canyon! The canyon floor is rough and choked with boulders anyway, and folk could dispose of any amount of excavation rubble without attracting attention. The "gateway" was a solid metal door big enough to drive a small lorry through, and as we were pushed through it my ears and tail sank. Leaving Molly, Maria, Helen and Saffina behind is not something that I can forgive myself for, but with Kansas and Half Ration carrying pistols in paw making us lead the way five paces in front, I really could not see any alternative at the time. They seem to have done this kind of thing before, having weighed us down with the packs so we cannot run and keeping a good distance from us so we cannot turn and grab them. Having seen what this island is like, our chances of running into even more local trouble seemed rather high.

It was a dismal hour stumbling down the mountainside weighed under our packs and being shepherded by the half-stoat and the impassive pig. The coast was in sight about two miles away through the haze when we turned the corner of the canyon; although she had said she would let us go when we reached it I had my doubts. Kansas Smith is known for being unscrupulous, and neither she nor Doctor Blum would probably want witnesses. We know just where the Doctor's lair is now, which he has taken great pains to conceal from anyone liable to spill the secret.

Just then, everything changed. We had left the shelf cut in the canyon side and were passing under a steep cliff scored with gulleys when a few pebbles hit the road around us - then a second later about a tonne of loose rock and ash roared down between us and Kansas, hiding us in a dust cloud! The slope below the road was almost vertical, but I grabbed Saimmi and we plunged down it into the canyon, bouncing painfully off the walls but mercifully slowed by the debris cone at the bottom some fifty feet below. I looked up and saw not two but three figures on the slopes above the road for an instant - the rock-fall had been no accident and someone up there likes us!

Three pistol shots rang out from above us but we tore back up the canyon, still carrying our loads and were soon in cover pressing close to the bottom of the cliff. There was no sound of Kansas following us down, and indeed she would have to be willing to risk broken bones to try it. We dumped the packs full of Kansas's spare clothing, keeping only the food and water; not surprisingly she had not put any weapons in the packs she gave us. The Fragment was rather a burden but we could not abandon it; as we made best speed back uphill Saimmi gasped that someone who knew how could restore it to power. Having that sort of thing doing what it did to this island amongst the crowded East Coast of America would be a world disaster.

It took two hours to get back up to the entrance. I looked up when I could but there was no pursuit visible; of course Kansas and party could move along the road a lot faster and more quietly than we could over the rocks, especially if they knew we were heading uphill rather than down to the coast. All the time the thought of my friends captured still by Doctor Blum was spurring me on, and I was exceedingly glad of the Songmark levels of fitness training. Saimmi is fit but she was panting for breath by the time I stopped at the base of the cliff and looked up to the almost invisible ledge where the road ran. There was no handy gulley here, but the rock looked firm enough and I was soon climbing it, thankful again for my lessons! A rope would have been good to have, to help Saimmi join me - but Priestesses are not trained for this, and she volunteered to stay with the Artefact.

Two minutes hard climb brought me up to the road and I cautiously poked my head above the edge, almost expecting to see Kansas coolly sitting there with her pistol waiting to use my snout for target practice. There was someone there all right, but about the last person I had expected to see - Professor Schiller, standing there with G-U-U all clad in full tropical adventuring kit, solar topees and all!

I knew Molly had opened her snout too wide and told him about our trip, and he seemed quite unsurprised to see us - tipping his solar topee politely, and giving me a paw up. It seems he had been watching this volcano site for days, and spotted Saimmi and me being led away - indeed he was very interested in what I had to say about what was inside the crater. Gunter produced a rope and tied a neat sling seat on the end: with the three stalwart wolves hauling Saimmi was soon pulled up to join us.

It was a very strange meeting. All three of G-U-U twitched their whiskers as soon as Saimmi came up with the haversack, and Uwe whispered something in German to the Prof. His ears went right up - and he congratulated us on having got what we had come for. How they knew what and where it was, I have no idea - except he has referred to G-U-U as being as much a prototype as any Schneider Trophy entrant. Very odd indeed.

My own ears rose in shock when he put a proposition to us - if he rescues our friends, the price would be the Artefact, as he called it. I retreated round the corner and asked Saimmi what to do. Her own ears and tail were right down - she admitted the Fragment was currently almost harmless, but its empty form could tell the right (or wrong) people much about what it had been and how it was made. But she agreed that our chances of getting Molly, Maria, Saffina and Helen out on our own were not at all hopeful, and reluctantly accepted the deal so long as the Prof agreed to take it well away from the Nimitz Sea and never bring it back.

She added that a Knight of the Great Worm seems to have many powers that Euros generally do not possess these days. He is far nearer a Spontoonie priest than any Euro priest is in ability if not outlook, and the three youngsters are a tool for him, "forged as steel is forged."

Well, whatever gets our friends out sounded good to me. It was definitely getting to be a strange struggle, now a four-sided affair with ourselves and the Prof against Kansas Smith and Doctor Blum! And there is strange talent on both sides; that young pig "Half Ration" must have some sort of real ability or I cannot see Kansas keeping him handy for his looks or strength, and we have Saffina plus whatever G-U-U can do.

We shook hands on the deal, and I took the post of "wicket-keeper" near the gate with Saimmi to raise the alarm in case Kansas came tearing up the road ready to call out the guards on us. Happily Kansas did not have a radio set with her - Treasure Hunters travel light on the outward trip hoping to return laden with loot, and she seems to subscribe to the "travel light travel far" principle.

When I turned round again the Prof and G-U-U were simply gone. It almost reminded me of the way the Wild Priest had appeared and disappeared without trace. Saimmi took the haversack containing the Fragment and started intoning a long and complex ritual over it, while I watched for any signs of movement in the empty landscape.

I can only say the wait was long, as we had not had our watches returned. In fact the sun was getting low when there was a sudden fury of noise from the doorway - and it burst open, with the Prof and our friends suddenly pouring out with clouds of smoke billowing after them! Molly had her T-Gew back but that was all she carried - and the ten-ounce rounds are not something one keeps clips of in one's back pocket. Saffina likewise had the cased Mauser rifle kit slung across her back and all had their boots on but little other equipment. Helen gave a yelp of joy at seeing us and we slid on down to the road to join them at a brisk trot heading towards the coast. Helen was urging Molly to throw the T-Gew away as it is useless without ammunition and an awful load to run with, but Molly was sticking to her guns.

As we ran, Helen panted that the Prof had been incredible - he had broken Maria out of the laboratory, found some of our equipment and then liberated them all - plus facing down Doctor Blum himself. Doctor Blum had one of his assistants with him, a star-nosed mole (and we all know what their talent is) and was about to fatally electrify the whole corridor when he seemed to get the idea the Prof was a fellow researcher. From what Helen said he was given one chance to tell the truth on an innovative (mad, she said) theory, and he came up with a very strange one involving everything being based on fire and ice, with something about the moon being ice and previous ones crashing to earth on a fairly regular basis. Somehow the star-nosed mole was fooled into thinking he really believed in that - and Doctor Blum seemed suddenly less annoyed to lose his captives to another completely mad scientist.

Molly and Maria seem to be in fair shape physically, though G-U-U have wounds rather like claw marks. I asked what animal had made those, and Ulric mysteriously replied that it was not an animal at all. Still we managed to get down the valley to the spot where Kansas had been ambushed without any particular problems or indeed any trace of her. The Prof said she had been seen heading for the coast the last time he saw her.

The sun was setting by the time we reached the coast, and the Prof headed towards a rock outcrop on the beach where he revealed a cached radio. With a few curt words he called in his transport, and then we settled down to wait.

About twenty minutes later Molly's ears went up and she announced a large aircraft was approaching. She was absolutely right - my tail fluffed out in delight as I spotted the unmistakable shape of a Horten design, the tailless aircraft looking almost boomerang-shaped as it swooped in towards the beach. Definitely there is an aircraft we would give out tails to fly.

Saimmi took off the knapsack she had been carrying and withh a slight smile took out the Fragment, explaining it had lost a lot of its power over the years. She was about to hand it over when it was snatched from her grasp by a snaking whip that appeared as if from nowhere - and we found out what had happened to Kansas Smith!

Kansas was there, the setting sun behind her as she stood in her trademark bush hat and leather jacket, swinging her rhino-hide whip. She grinned and waved forwards six hefty canines who must have been part of her treasure-hunting team. Holding up the Fragment, she gloated that it was worth "half a million simoleons" to her, and we were not getting away with it.

Just as she held it up, the tables were turned. Molly had retrieved some of her equipment, and with a pistol-like crack her Vostok steel knout snapped out, grabbing the Fragment back and tossing it to Saimmi who elegantly fielded it and relayed it to the Prof with a grateful nod. The black Horten had landed on the firm beach, its four pusher engines blowing up a dust storm as it began to taxi towards us.


Molly and Kansas faced each other about six yards apart, both swinging their weapons. Kansas raised hers in a swirling move and struck, only Molly's lightning reflexes getting her out of the way in time. She swung the knout, not quite cracking it but slicing a piece out of Kansas' leather sleeve. Definitely that is something that would seriously annoy the Treasure Hunter, as we know full well the outfit is brand new and barely paid for!

For about half a minute they circled warily, then both went into a frenzied blur of action. Kansas got in two painful blows, but Molly got in three and her knout is over two pounds of steel cable, with a solid steel tip. It tangled with her opponent's whip and Molly jumped back, using all her weight to jerk Kansas' weapon out of her paw. As Kansas dived to retrieve it Molly planted a steel-lined boot in a full-strength Jude-Jitsu strike, and Kansas was instantly flat in more than one way.

With their leader unconscious and Molly looking on gleefully as she swung the knout experimentally, the rest of her team rather lost heart. They looked very much as if they were muscle hired for the occasion, and having one's paymaster taken out of the battle is generally discouraging for such folk. Looking down the barrel of an anti-tank rifle may have helped persuade them, as they probably assumed when Molly cycled the bolt that it was loaded.

The Prof tipped his hat again and shouted above the engine noise that there was regrettably no room for all of us onboard - as he had a long voyage Southwards to make and he wished us well of our homeward trip. G-U-U waved and followed him up the ladder into the cavernous belly of the Horten - which turned round and in five minutes was a dot vanishing Southwards into the darkening sky. Heading to the naval base and year-round winter sporting wonderland of New South Thule, or I miss my guess.

We put a few miles between us and Kansas Smith before it became too dark to see, played our usual paper-scissors-rock to choose first on watch and slept out in the sand dunes, having a mercifully undisturbed night. What a day!

(Regular diary entries recommence)