第27話: ポルテがオライオンの暗い秘密を明かし、脱走囚人たちが海岸に近づいてくる。

27

Kaoru finds the escape pod from the Orion washed up on the shore, and brings the occupant - an old man - to the rest of the children. When the old man wakes, he hurriedly puts out their signal fire, telling them the people on the ship are escaped prisoners. They'd hijacked the ship and killed the rest of the crew, only to be sucked through a gravity storm, finding themselves near the planet, where they picked up Shingo's signal. The old man, named Porte, was the ship's mechanic - he sabotaged the ship as it came in to land, stealing the spare gravity control device before escaping. He also realizes he knows who the children are - their disappearance was big news throughout known space, and Howard's father had offered a large reward for their safe return. The children take Porte to the ruins - leaving Kaoru behind to watch for the prisoners - but Porte, Shingo and Chako find it difficult to interface the Orion's gravity control device with the system in the ruins. Meanwhile, the storm clears and the three prisoners, Brindo, Zilba and Bob, emerge from the ship. They board their ship's life-raft, using Bob's cyborg arm as an outboard motor, and come to shore - on the way, Brindo kills the snake monster with a laser gun. On the beach, they investigate the remains of the children's shuttle, and realize the gyrostabilizer they need must be somewhere else. The trio goes to Everyone's House, while Kaoru returns to the ruins to relay the results of his reconnaissance. They discover, however, that Howard is missing. (Source: Wikipedia)