BlackEagle Girls
and The Ice-Angel of Death

Chapter 15 - Flying Down to Rio

'When my doggie,
when my doggie barks at me I go to Rio, dee Janeerrooo-oo-ooh!'

'Holy hooley! Spare us the singing Harry and just get oooon withhhhh whoooo!' shouted Priscilla as the BlackEagle shifted from its hovering No-Drive mode into something like full-throttle travelling-speed that was similar to the biggest Theme Park wild rides, only scarier. The last glimpse she had of the glowing interior was of a number of others lying recumbent on couches: Monique, Belinda, Narenda, Tsu and Terrie and the tall figure of Fon Jien, Tsu's Guardian.
Of Harry there was no sight, or at least as Priscilla's eyes were being stretched and squished this way and that forcing them to form wild and exaggerated appraisals of what was or was not taking place, a vague and indistinct form seemed to be somewhere at the last vestige of her vision. It had a black tail, of that she was certain, and yet the rest of the body seemed to waver into something else less certain, some kind of dark conglomeration with weaving extremities and a howling voice.

'Now I'm not the kind of puppy with a passionate persuasion for dancin' or romancin' but my four paws follow the rhythm of my hearrrt! Woh-ho-oh-howllll! When My doggie, when my doggie barks at me...'




'Is it over?' mumbled Priscilla, coming out of the fog that seemed to flow across her prone form and the little motes of flickering detritus falling in slow motion around her that might have really been parts of time re-assembling itself into the present.

'You mean the trip,' said Narenda, sitting up and rubbing her dazed eyes.

'No, the singing,' Priscilla answered, rolling over to find Monique's broad grin confronting her. 'The ride's a breeze, the howling dog's a pain in the... '

'Brazil, beautiful Brazil,' said Harry, hopping up onto Fon Jien's couch, 'I feel like breaking out into song, Braz... '

'Stick it in your family album Harry!' Priscilla protested, covering her ears, 'It must be Sunday morning by now, whatever we're here for we need to get on with it!'

'Saturday evening in fact,' remarked Fon Jien, rising. 'Rio is some thirteen hours behind Melbourne time. This is now around five-thirty on a late but balmy afternoon and we are in Cidade de Deus, The City of God... '

'Sitting in a back alley somewhere around Rocinha Four, I hope,' said Harry, rather uncertainly.

'How really super-spiffing!' cried Belinda, hopping off her couch and catching her breath. 'I just can't get over the way all this works, can you Narenda?'

Narenda, who seemed somewhat dazed, managed to sit up with a little help from Terrie. 'I too still find it amazing,' she managed. 'We seem to have travelled around the world in a matter of moments... '

'Kerrect!' interrupted Harry, jumping down and trotting over to a smoothly opening floor-level portal and peering out. 'Hmm, looks right. What say we go check it out?'

'All of us Monsieur Harry?' said Monique, slightly surprised.

'Sure,' replied Harry, doing a little skip of his back legs as he headed for the exit portal. 'We can control our craft externally by Hand Activator without compromising our situation.'

'I beg you wait a moment Master Harry,' said Fon Jien as the BlackEagle began to coast slowly down the garbage-strewn lane in Avoidance-Mode while half a dozen ragged teenagers shambled their way along it. 'Look there,' Fon Jien pointed his slender arm in the opposite direction as a line of youths swung into view through another open portal. Each wore an identical yellow baseball-style cap, black tee-shirt and tights, red shorts and yellow joggers. They marched in single file, flinging their right arms back and forward so high that their bodies seemed to shift to the left as they strutted along in step. At the other end of the alley the rabble of teenagers suddenly turned and fled while the yellow-caps came fist-swinging down the lane.
In compensation The BlackEagle lifted some distance into the air, allowing the marchers to stride beneath.

'Wow-wow! Those guys look like mean sons of bitch... er, people... I guess they're the registered Top Boyos hereabouts and not to be annoyed,' said Harry as the BlackEagle drifted along the alley and emerged into an open area that, at first, Priscilla took to be a garbage dump but then registered it as some kind of shanty town.

'People actually live in this mess?' she said, aghast.

'People live as they are able,' said Narenda, observing the scene below. 'In my country, such poverty exists in many places. Does it shock you?'

'Well yes, sort of,' Priscilla replied weakly.

'That is because you are fortunate enough to live in a city in a country that has never seen such conditions out in the open,' said Monique. 'You might have been informed about it at home, although it has never been of importance to you because poverty does not directly concern your way of life.'

'Our way of life,' corrected Priscilla.

'My Dearest Friend, said Monique, taking Priscilla's hand, 'Australia has not always been my experience. Africa has more than its share of starving, homeless people. The poor are everywhere in the world, even in Australia, although you may not see them.'

'Excuse me Ladies,' said Fon Jien, who was busily working at a touch screen. 'Master Harry, I do think we are in the vicinity of your target area. But perhaps some avenues to the east?' He indicated a line of derelict buildings that appeared to have been taken over by families of squatters. Momentarily, the portal was clouded with plumes of smoke from cooking fires below and then, as a breeze sprang up, the view cleared to reveal the disturbing vista of make-shift abodes and tumble-down shelters where many people: old men and women and children gathered to enjoy the warmth of the evening before night and the chill of it descended, driving them closer to their oil-drum fires and later to the mildewy mats that were their only bedding.

'See that red blink at the corner of the screen there?' said Harry, coming over to peer up. 'That's our mark.'


A few minutes later the BlackEagle touched down between two looming buildings that might once have been warehouses, but now were only gaunt skeletons, stripped of everything useful but the bare, rusting structural metal that kept them upright.

'Coast along here and turn at the end,' said Harry as the sun slanted its rays through the few open portals of the BlackEagle, casting constantly moving shadows across its soft-glowing floor. By this time all of the girls were agog at the passing vista and apart from their little shrieks and brief comments, the BlackEagle moved in silence.


'Bring us in here,' ordered Harry, so that Fon Jien lightly tapped some commands and their craft drifted around a garbage-strewn corner and up yet another of the darkening alleyways.

'This should be our destination,' Fon Jien murmured, allowing all the BlackEagle vision portals to open, exposing the interior entirely to the last vestiges of sunlight and the beginnings of the creeping shadows of evening.

'Seems cool,' said Harry, again peering into the depths beyond. 'And I think we've got it right this time if our calculations are accurate. Why don't we all venture outside and see? Collect your Hand Activators, Night-Sight goggles and do a toilet check before we go girls. Public toilets aren't in great abundance around this neck of the woods.'



The smell that assailed the occupants of the BlackEagle as they exited the craft and set foot onto the gritty, rubbish-strewn pavement was almost overpowering. It was a combination of raw sewage and rotting garbage complimented by something else that was indefinable but definitely revolting; possibly a mixture of vomit and rotten eggs.

'Guck! Harry cannot we turn off the smell?' asked Terrie, covering her nose with her sleeve.

'Sorry, Hand Activators don't work in reverse,' replied Harry, taking a long sniff of the noxious odours. 'It's not all that bad actually, but then I have a high tolerance to smell and taste, that's why I can handle maggoty meat and buried bones.'

'Errchh, how could you?' said Belinda, pinching her nostrils together and breathing through her mouth.

'Cos he's a dog as well as an Alien,' said Priscilla, gritting her teeth between gulps of air. 'Look, can't we just get on with... '

'Oh,' said Narenda, her hand suddenly grabbing at Tsu's. 'Down there behind your knee on that ledge!'

Turning, the girls saw a pair of beady, pale, unblinking orbs staring back at them only an arm's length from Tsuang Tsu's leg. There was a moment's shocked silence before Harry leaped onto the ledge and challenged the black form. ' Bow-wow-wow! You, you dirty rat! Get outta here! I'll protect you girls, don't worry.'

'Like ta see ya try somethin' wise-guy mutt!' came the unexpected reply.

'Cagney?' said Harry, his front paw lifting uncertainly.

'Zat you Harry? Sure, it's me pal.'

'Aw yep, that figures,' Harry answered cheerfully. 'What ya doing down here in Brazil? Thought you was working out of the States? We expected Manuel or Panchito or Hos... '

'Yeah, yeah, don't gimme the old Hose-A, Hose-B gag or the guff about me and a curpa corffee on fordy-secon' street. Just be glad I'm not some Irish or Polack rat; we got a few recruits in these parts too ya know. Anyways big deal. Can't a law abidin' rat jump a freight an' take a holiday? I'm down here shootin' the breeze, chewin' the fat, checkin' out the food. Now what's ta do?'

'We need a guide around these parts Cagney, someone who knows all the ins and outs of a duck's bum. We have to find a particular drug laboratory,' said Harry, sitting back on his haunches.

'Yeah, and so does half the tourist population in South America kiddo. Take yer pick, there's more than you can shake a stick at in the Favela Rocinhas. Hang on, here's Atouille, he's kinda family ya know, I'm stayin' wid some a' his kin. Gimme a sec.' Cagney turned his slick back and slithered into the shadows, his long black tail snaking out of sight.

'Uggghh!' shivered Priscilla. 'Really he can't be one of... '

'Sure is,' Harry answered before she could complete the question. 'Cagney's one of ours. We come in all shapes and kinds. Part of our disguise. How else would it work? Do you expect us to all walk around with a big Alien sign above our heads? Anyhow I didn't expect him here, just a contact source of some kind, but there we go, life is full of little surprises... ah here he is again.'

Two pairs of gleaming eyes appeared out of the dark along the landing and the girls shuffled back, adjusting their goggles so that they could see the black forms of the rats against the shadowy background.

'O.K. Champ. What ya wanna know?' came Cagney's squeaky voice.

'Umm, well chum, we're looking for a place here in Rocinha Four. The guy that has it set up is a doctor, works a clinic somewhere outside for drug rehabilitation in the daytime and comes down here to experiment and produce at night. Our information is that he's invented a new, wild-card drug that he's started exporting. Got contacts all over the world, down as far as Australia. Its called Angel-Ice. This stuff is unstable and dangerous. Causes hallucinations, visions of superhuman strength, feelings of joy and well-being, immortality. People who take it can kill themselves in all kinds of ways. It's not an overdose drug. It turns humans into suicidal lemmings, they crash cars, jump off bridges or buildings, drown in the ocean, sit in front of trains, walk into oncoming traffic... '

'Doctor huh?' said Cagney. 'Hang in there Harry, Ladies and Gentleman. Just let me converse with my confederat Atouille.'

Priscilla looked at Monique and then at the other girls. All of them were doing their best to breathe through their mouths, avoiding the terrible stench surrounding them. Only Fon Jien seemed unmoved by their situation.

After much chittering between the two black forms, Cagney suddenly looked around at the group and blinked. 'It's always hard ta get info outta these guys. Part of The Code, ya know, "Don't ever rat on anybody, no matter who." Other hassle is Atouille is an actual rat. Hell he can't help that, but it inhibits him like, ya know, makes him less agreeable ta pass on information. Anywho, I got somethin'. There's this Parros guy, Doc Parros, yeah. He comes into the Rocinha often. Atouille will take us there, like to the Doc's dump, ya unnerstand?'



It took almost an hour of travelling through reeking lanes and alleys before the two slithering black forms leading the group halted. By then darkness had fallen and only fitful, spluttering fires in cooking-oil drums or wax candles lighting alcoves where people sheltered or hovered to accost passers-by were left to illuminate the night.
Once, another parade of fist-clenching, arm-swinging Yellow-Caps strode through a winding, over- roofed road, threatening anyone who happened to be in their path.

'Those guys are the "Amarillo Gorra," Yellow Caps,' said Cagney, scuttering along the drain-ways at Harry's side, 'they take anything they can muscle out of everybody down here. They get their caps and gear from sewing-women in a local co-op, an' they don't pay, except by beating up anybody who objects. Nobody argues. These guys make sure of that. Rats down here know about dead bodies, no matter what kind they are.'

The girls shuddered with that single thought as Cagney and Atouille stopped at a black door almost hidden amongst a twisted mass of rusted iron sheeting, shored up by dilapidated timbers.

'This is it,' said Cagney, his sharp rat-nose nudging at the base of the door.

'How do we get in,' said Harry, peering higher up. 'Are you certain this is the place?'

'If Atouille says it's tha place, it's tha place,' affirmed Cagney, sucking his snout out of the crevice, 'besides, even I can pick up on this joint. There's stuff in there alright. Gimme time and me an' him can gnaw our way in... '

'We don't got that sort of time Cagney, ' said Harry, sniffing cautiously at the door. 'What we got here is a whole gang of people waiting to crash this place right now.'

'Allow me Master Harry,' said Fon Jien, gently moving between the five girls and bending to examine the weathered timber. ' There is a hole here, a keyhole? Yes. A keyhole to a lock. It does not appear too complicated. Perhaps a small contrivance will be able to attain entrance swifter than rat-power.' Placing his left hand flat upon the door, Fon Jien reached inside his breast pocket and withdrew a ring holding a number of bent metal pins. 'Primitive but sometimes useful,' he commented, setting to work.

After a few minutes of flexing and manipulating, the lock made a clicking sound. 'That should gain us entry Master Harry,' said Fon Jien, stepping back.

'Rats before Doggies,' said Harry, indicating to Cagney with a nod.

'Why us? How come we're always the fall guys?'

'Rats are everywhere, people are used to rats, rats rule. The worst that can happen is... '

'Sure Harry, rat-trap, clang! Good night! I'll send Atouille ahead. He don't speak English too good,' Cagney answered, and began squeaking out orders.

A moment later Atouille turned and warily entered.

Cagney sat back and began to swipe at his long whiskers with his forepaws. 'We hear nothin, like no sudden squawk followed by dead silence, an' we follow. Give him a coupla secs.'


A minute later, Atouille emerged and after a further squeaking session with Cagney, scurried back inside.

'Says he's found some dried apples, he's happy. First room don't seem like anybody's around. Whole place smells of paraffin. Probably oil lamps, not much in tha way of electricity in the Rocinhas. Candles is big down here. Anyway, if yer up for it, let's go see whut's cookin' '


'Hold on,' said Harry, 'We don't all have to do this. I'll stay here with Terrie, Narenda and Belinda. Got to keep contact with the BlackEagle. Right at the moment it's hovering over this lane, and I need to guide it down closer in case we have to get out of here quickly. Tsu, Priscilla, Monique and Fon Jien, you do the recon.'

'And exactly what is it we are meant to actually do?' asked Priscilla, not wishing to stay outside amongst the putrid reek of the dark lane and not wishing to enter either.

'We're here to find the laboratory that makes Angel Ice. Once we're certain we've found the place we need to get the information to the Authorities, that's where Fon Jien comes in. He has contacts in many places,' Harry replied, his head lifted toward the pale strip of night-sky between the staggered outlines of buildings.

'So what are we all doing here? What are some school kids, a couple of rats, a dog and a grown-up supposed to do?' persisted Priscilla. 'Why all of us? Couldn't you just do it on your own?'

Harry snorted, it was somewhere between a cough and a laugh. 'Where would be the fun in that? Remember, I'm the Alien. I'm here to help and also to teach. This is all about you guys standing on your own feet with a whole new set of learning blocks to play with. Maybe in the future you won't have the luxury of a guide. Stop wasting time and move out.'


'Move in, you mean,' said Priscilla sullenly under her breath, immediately smelling the strong odour of paraffin as she and the others followed Cagney's tail into the darkness.



Perhaps at some time in the past the derelict building may have been a warehouse with offices on the ground floor but even with the use of Night-Sight goggles it was difficult to be certain. Rooms opened into other rooms and corridors seemed to drift off in all directions. Shattered glass littered the floor which was uneven and broken in places.
'Watch where you guys put yer feet, it's tricky along here,' said Cagney, cautiously probing forward, following Atouille.

'At least it only smells of lamp-oil and mildew,' said Monique, holding Priscilla's hand as they crept along. 'That in itself is a relief from outside.'

'Shut it down!' came Cagney's voice from somewhere ahead. 'Atouille an' me are gettin' vibes. We ain't alone. Somebody else is in here somewhere, not sure where yet. Cookin' department is further ahead. How da ya like your Angel-Ice, sunny-side up or over-easy?'


Moments later the group emerged into a larger area filled with the remnants of broken timbers that might have once been work benches, skeletons of mechanical apparatus, blackened and burnt out engines and tractors.

'A factory for farm machinery perhaps?' said Tsu, wandering amongst the dim outline of rows of rusting, gaunt structures.

'Who cares?' squeaked Cagney. 'Me and Atouille are goin' ahead. Ya know, followin' our noses. Stay put fer a while. Anybody comes past, they don't see nuthin.' Keep ya Hand-Activators on. Be cool. Back soon.'



'What did Cagney mean about somebody else being here?'

'It will not be a problem for us Monique,' Tsu answered, staring into the gloom. 'If he is correct, and I suspect it should be so, there will be guards installed to protect this place from any who come here to attempt a raid. Yet we have nothing to fear. We are invisible to all.'

'Yeah, sure, I knew that,' said Priscilla, wandering between mounds of broken-down machinery and piles of papers that once might have been the files recording ventures of some thriving business.
Behind a wall of cabinets and lockers, the drawers and doors hanging open like so many gutted inanimate creatures, she came to another door. A faint light glimmered beneath its lower edge and without thinking Priscilla reached for the handle, opened it and entered. The room beyond was filled with apparatus that seemed to overflow its narrow confines. Acrid smells assailed her nostrils. She noticed a single glowing lamp illuminating several small gas tanks, rubber hoses leading to burners, a shadowy mass of glass vials and receptacles, coils of tubes and metal tanks receding into the depths where they were lit by further lamps.

'Cilla! Cilla! Where are you?' came a sudden strident voice that made her jump. It was Monique, calling on her Activator.

'It's alright Moni, I'm just in a room at the back of a pile of filing cabinets and stuff. This looks like... ' A tiny noise distracted her. It was so slight that she wasn't sure if it had really happened or exactly where and what it might have been. 'Cagney? Is that you? O.K. Cagney. Come on out you dirty ra.. ' She paused in horror. Cagney had said there was somebody else in the building. Moving hesitantly forward, then slowly turning about, Priscilla could see nothing. Shadows cast by the lamplight made the long room waver in slow motion so that she began to feel nauseous. 'Moni? Tsu? Anybody? You guys? Where is everybody?'

A side door was suddenly thrown open and a figure darted in clutching something that looked very much like a hand-gun. 'Where are you! Show yourself pig! I'll kick your butt out of here when I get you. Show yourself now or I will shoot you dead when I have you in front of me!'

Priscilla realised on the instant that this teenager, brandishing a weapon, was one of the Amarillo Gorra even as she saw his yellow cap and red shorts. Stepping back, while he advanced waving the gun randomly back and forward in her direction, she eased up against a pile of folders spilling out of a cabinet and suddenly sensed a presence directly behind her.

It spoke.
'No! Don't shoot friend! I did not mean anything by this! I come here only to find food for my poor family! Do not kill me over this I beg you!' said the quavery voice.

Suddenly Priscilla imagined that she was caught, pinned between the hunter and his quarry. In her panic she froze, forgetting that she was completely invisible to them and could move aside without their knowing.

'You thieving scum! Trespasser! You have no family! Bag of wind! You are just filthy old man. No one will miss you!' sneered the Yellow-Cap, levelling the revolver straight at Priscilla's face and pulling the trigger.
There was the sound of a tremendous explosion in her head. Instantly Priscilla saw a great, bright plume of yellow-orange-red expand from the weapon.
Then came a streak of light and a screaming sound like steel scrying against steel. She opened her eyes to find the back of a clenched fist in front of her face, and flinching, recovering her peripheral vision, discovered that it belonged to Fon Jien about one second before he yanked her out of the way.

'Mother of God!' shouted the intruder behind her, bounding aside and crashing in head-long panic between rows of metal tanks, knocking over all kinds of equipment as he fled.

'Holy Jesus!' exclaimed the Yellow-Cap youth, bewilderedly staring at his weapon for a moment before raising it again and firing off several blasts at the vanishing figure. Only one found a mark, shattering an oil lamp. Fire instantly ignited, following the path of spilling paraffin, and within seconds began to engulf that quarter of the room. The youth let out a yelp of terror and the gun involuntarily exploded again in his twitching fingers, sending a missile ricocheting off metal objects around the room to eventually rupture a large plastic container. Fluid glugged out and merged with the waves of liquid fire, sending sheets of flame high into the ceiling. Screeching in anger and fear, the Yellow-Cap backed away and darted through the side door.

'Miss Priscilla. We must leave now,' said Fon Jien's controlled voice as he drew her away. 'Swiftly, the BlackEagle is waiting for us.'

'But, but, whoo! What? How? How? Ohh! My dream! I got shot in my dream after Annie Sole knocked me unconscious at basketball! How can it be the same... And how did you... What stopped the bullet... Your hand? Fon Jien... Who are... ' Priscilla's legs buckled under her and everything drifted into darkness as the fumes of burning paraffin wafted into her head.




The view from the floor of the BlackEagle, as it lifted into the darkness of Rio's night sky, was spectacular and frightening. A tiny section of Rocinha Four was alight and burning brightly, yellow candles of fire reaching upward, cinders flashing and disintegrating on the breeze.

'What the heck happened down there?' asked Priscilla, slowly coming to her senses and discovering that she was standing, supported on both sides by Monique, Belinda and Tsu.

'Oopps! Somebody got carried away and careless with their shootin' iron,' said Harry, who was standing in front of her, peering down at the growing, fiery destruction below. 'Looks like Fon Jien won't have to waste time speaking to his political contacts and them on to their Brazilian equals before they get motivated and send in the troops. Job's done! One big barbecue. All that blaze is Angel-Ice and who knows whatever else going up in smoke. That will put our Doctor Parros out of action for a while, long enough for the Authorities to check through the ruins and figure that he's been a very naughty boy. Meantime, no more exporting anywhere.'

'But, but...' spluttered Priscilla, 'What happened to the old man that broke into the place and that loony who almost killed me? And how come he didn't? And why were they speaking English? And... and Fon Jien stopped the bullet with his hand, and what about Cagney and his rat pal... and... and... '

'Ah yeah, too bad about Atouille,' squeaked a voice at Priscilla's shoulder so that she jerked around to find Cagney perched on Fon Jien's arm.

'Oh no! You don't mean that he... he... ' Priscilla's eyes rolled as the thought came to her that she was feeling suddenly sorry for the death of a rat.

'Top of tha woild Ma! Top of tha Woild!' said Cagney, uplifting his front paws and rearing on his hind legs. 'I've always wanted ta say that!'

'He crazy or what?' said Priscilla, turning to Monique and the others.

'Na, just Grand-Standing,' answered Harry, trotting over to a drawer and indicating with his fore-paw. 'Atouille's in there and probably won't come out before New Year. Being a conventional rat he's kind of freaked at the moment... '

'Better freaked than fried,' said Cagney. 'Anyways a change of scenery'll be good fer 'im, even if it is in there. After we get you guys delivered home to... where tha hell's that place? Orstralia? Down Under, whatever, we can get Atouille back here to Rio where he belongs. He'll dine out on garbage for years on this story. When that's all done I'm thinkin' about headin' fer home too. Haven't had a doughnut for a week and the thought of gnawin' at Kentucky and a Mac just makes me drool.'

'Sure, on Fordy-secon' street no doubt,' Harry replied, with a curl of his lip. 'Now Miss Priscilla, just getting back to answering all the rest of your questions; we don't know what has happened to the old man that broke in or the Yellow-Cap who tried to shoot him. Hopefully they've both survived the fire. As for the English rendering, the local Brazilian language mostly is Portuguese, but your Hand Activators have a translation facility so that you can broadly understand any language. And as for Fon Jien... '

'Perhaps, Master Harry, I should explain that myself,' said Fon Jien, allowing Cagney to snake up onto his shoulder and beginning to pull back the sleeve of his jacket.
Unbuttoning the linen cuff beneath, Fon Jien exposed his ivory-coloured wrist. 'Now, Young Ladies, you must not allow this to alarm you. As Master Harry is an actual visitor to Planet Earth, so am I.
But I am in fact a Blank. That is to say, an Allocated Blank. I have an allotted Mission-Path and Persona. To put it in simple terms, I am a robot. I am here to serve and obey my Master. In this instance Master Harry.'
As Fon Jien spoke, he began peeling back the skin of his wrist to reveal a series of pulsing modules beneath. Ripples of tiny lights danced along the veins running in and out of them.

'Oh!' exclaimed Narenda, grasping at Terrie Tory-Toth's arm as if she might suddenly faint.

'Wooh!' said Priscilla, feeling none too sure of her own legs.

'But now there are many more questions to be answered,' said Monique in her practical manner. 'Like how could you, Monsieur Fon Jien, stop a bullet with your hand, even if you are a robot, and why did you need to? And why did you mislead us right from the very beginning, you and Tsu? You told us you both came from Tibet.'

'And that's where they both came from,' said Harry. 'Look guys, time is short. Get your heads around this and settle in. We need to make tracks. It's late Sunday, Melbourne time. Questions and answers later. Right now the BlackEagle has to move!'


'Alright, last thing I wanna know is how do you and Cagney travel? Do you both get into the drawer with Atouille?' said Priscilla, feeling the first grip of acceleration while the BlackEagle began to rise.

'What? Me and a couple of rats? Together in a drawer?' said Harry. 'Heck no. Cagney and me will just compare notes together up here on the Flight Deck... '

'Aw get off it Harry, this isn't Starrr Trekkkkk... '



Gravity Forces kicked in as the BlackEagle began the journey back to Australia, and Priscilla's protests were silenced.

Within, all the occupants lay immobile on their couches, except for the dog and the rat.
Together, they lifted their eyes toward the coming of light and a swiftly growing horizon.

 

Chapter 16