Warblegrub and the Forbidden Planet Read Online Free

day.”
    To the music of a great multitude of birds, the mountainous landscape began to emerge from the gloom and the sun’s first rays poured through a hollow in the distant hills. Warblegrub glanced round at the company; all were watching, their expressions blissful. He smiled to himself.
    “You must’ve seen it many times,” said 395.
    “More than you can possibly imagine!” replied Warblegrub. He looked at the soldier curiously. “What’s your name?”
    “395. Science Officer 395.”
    “Don’t you have a proper name?”
    “We swore an oath, to renounce our birth names and take new ones only when we had reclaimed our home world.”
    Warblegrub shook his head sadly. “You know you won’t be allowed to do that, don’t you?”
    395 looked round at his comrades ranged about the hilltop, watching the dawn as they breakfasted on their rations, then back at Warblegrub. “Who’s to stop us?”
    Warblegrub shrugged. With his thatch of hair, bushy beard and untidy apparel he was the soldiers’ complete opposite. In the morning light, 395 could see he was younger than he had first thought; his light brown skin was smooth and unblemished, save for a few tiny wrinkles around the eyes.
    “Who are you?”
    “Warblegrub’s the name.”
    “Strange name! What does it mean?”
    “It’s a word I invented. To warble is to sing like a bird, and grub sounds like digging in the dirt – and sometimes I sing while I'm digging!”
    “Good name for a gardener,” 395 concurred, “but what are you doing here?”
    “I told you – cleaning up after you lot.”
    “But who told you to clean up?”
    Warblegrub looked perplexed. “No one told me to; it had to be done.”
    While the next question was formulating in 395’s mind, Warblegrub went and sat among his guards again, who no more noticed his return than they had his departure, and 395 was summoned away before he could press him further.
    The Colonel was standing apart, once again staring intently at the mountain. While waiting for his orders, 395 gazed up at the summit where clouds were gathering and felt relieved they would soon be turning south. He was, however, troubled by the Colonel’s preoccupation.
    “What’s wrong, Sir?” he ventured.
    “Set up the radar, would you?” said the Colonel absently, his eyes still on the mountain.
    395 called the Sergeant over and he produced a small black tube from his backpack and placed it upright on the ground. Three legs sprang out from the base and a paper-thin dish unfurled from the top, the movement of which 395 controlled from the tablet.
    “What’s that?” Warblegrub asked Sarah, who had come to watch the proceedings.
    “Radar,” she explained, “finds things by bouncing radio waves off them.”
    “You mean echolocation, like a bat?”
    “The principle’s the same….” Sarah began, but 749 shook his head and she fell silent.
    The radar revealed an extraordinarily detailed image of the mountainside but they saw nothing more than boulders, stunted trees and bushes. Frustrated, the Colonel grunted irritably and stalked off. Having served with him longer than anyone else except the Sergeant, 395 was shaken; he had never seen him anxious, not even in the thick of battle with desperate odds against them.
    “He’s never failed us,” the Sergeant reminded him quietly.
    395’s eyes followed the Colonel as he toured the company, inspecting the soldiers and the flight crew.
    “I said he’s never failed us.”
    “I know,” replied 395.
    The Sergeant continued to watch the tablet but 395 was soon distracted by the view. Clouds had covered the sun and he could now make out an even greater expanse of the highlands. Mountainous ridges stretched in every direction and in the distance were even greater heights. But as enchanting as the landscape was, the sky was even more luminous and beautiful than legend had claimed.
    “Hard to believe it’s just chemistry,” said 395. “Oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen,