Reviews
for The Watcher.
A delightfully witty story
blending farce, black humour, a strong thoughtful plot and rich characterisation
into a gourmet novel. Star Dancer has a draining presence and, to the
inhabitants of the planet Ojal, this is a life threatening situation. Earth is
identified as the planet from which Star Dancer comes. The Ojaliens, with
expert help, produce an android, Kybion, and send it into the past to wait for
the rise of Star Dancer and prevent it from draining Ojal’s power. Excellent.
Refreshingly devoid of any
serious social, moral, human or extra-terrestrial issue, Jane Palmer’s The
Watcher (Women’s Press, £2.50) flips lightly around the adventures of an Asian
teenage girl with no nerves, helped along by a Benson-from-Soap character and
an ugly baddie who gets fried by the power source he is trying to steal. If the
baddies succeed then an entire planet of one-parent families with wings will
perish; but, fear not, most of the action takes place in English villages by
the sea. It has the tone of early Eric Frank Russell and a style reminiscent of
Enid Blyton.
Josephine
Saxton New Statesman
…Jane Palmer’s The Watcher turns some of these
clichés around and her cast list features a middle-aged black android who falls
in love with a middle-aged female humanoid. The watcher of the title is a
benevolent 17-year-old young woman, which knocks your aging male warlords into
the box marked ‘disposable’, methinks.
Adele Saleem 7 Days
First published in
by The Women’s Press 1986
As The Watcher
This edition by Dodo Books 2008
Copyright © Jane Palmer 2008
All rights reserved. This is a
work of fiction and
any resemblance to persons
living or dead is
purely coincidental.
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as
the author of this work.
ISBN 978-1-906442-17-0
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Other science fiction books by this author
THE PLANET DWELLER
NIGHTINGALE
THE ATON BIRD
MOVING MOOSEVAN
First published in 1986
by The Women’s Press as
THE WATCHER
The stars sparkled through the dense atmosphere as the
yellow sun set. It would be a few moments before the other sun appeared above
the horizon. Controller Opu shut down the refractor that had been concentrating
the nutritional radiation into the energy pool below. The rising sun’s pink
light had no nourishment value. Its luminosity was just as great, bathing
everything in a pretty pallor, yet it was the yellow binary star that had given
the ancient races the energy they needed to evolve and create their
civilisation.
The
first refractor able to collect and store the sun’s energy had been built three
million years ago; or so it was believed, because any trace of it had vanished
long ago. Since then the efficiency of these technological temples had
increased a thousandfold. Unfortunately, Ojalie ambition had not. To them, the
greatest delight of these gigantic silver domes was the way in which they
spangled the planet like a pomander studded with pearls.
Opu tucked her wings comfortably by her
sides. Looking over her blunt beak that ran seamlessly down from her cranium,
she pondered on the glinting shields that were slowly closing as the pink sun
rose above the horizon. She wondered where the Ojalie would be now without the
light energy from those massive pools to bathe in when they needed the
occasional boost. Perhaps soaring above the cloudbanks to collect their
nourishment on the wing when the yellow sun disappeared behind them, or maybe
chewing different plants to see if they could digest them. That would have been
pretty pointless. The Ojalie had never developed the bowels to cope with solid
food. Intestines and other internal organs would just increase the weight this
species had to get airborne. The only other nutrition their digestive tracts
required was a mineral-rich fluid that bubbled from the crust of their planet,
though over the millennia some other potions had been invented. These were
responsible for more mid-air collisions than freak air currents.
Most of the space inside the short,
wide-hipped bodies of the Ojalie was to allow their large-skulled offspring to
grow. Their pelvic girdles were so wide they were unable to walk very well, but
their huge wings more than compensated for this until the last stages of
pregnancy when they were grounded. It had never occurred to anyone that there
was pleasure in walking very far anyway. As the Ojalie were hermaphrodite, this
shape was pretty standard, even between different racial types that hadn’t
interbred. Without that exchange of genes, and the ability to both inseminate and
give birth, they would have probably evolved back into the pigeon like creature
found in ancient fossils.
Opu looked down at the chattering
bundle of uncoordinated wings, arms, and legs tumbling about the floor beneath
everyone’s feet, and wondered what pitch of evolution she represented. Her
child had just managed to escape from the play-pen that was supposed to be
child-proof for the fifth time, and was about to bite the leg of another
controller to discover the different things a beak could be used for. If Opu
had known how lively Opuna was going to be, and how many friends she was going
to alienate, she would have thought twice about having her.
Her gene partner, Anapa, had not so
long ago looked thoughtfully at the antics of the bundle of disruption and
observed, ‘How does she manage to be so active? Mine hardly moves about at
all.’
‘Swap?’ Opu had suggested hopefully.
‘Not now I’ve got my home just how I
like it,’ was the prompt reply. ‘I might let you visit us when she runs out of
energy and has more control over her hands and beak’
‘A fine parent you are.’
‘Maybe, but I’m sure she has more of
your genes than mine.’
Anapa’s disposition was about as
vivacious as the grey-skinned, fungus eating slow-worm, so Opu had to agree.
The unfortunate controller let out a
shriek as the monster child’s beak found her leg and she turned, only to find
an innocent Opu looking in amazement at her child’s behaviour.
Finishing the shift under the frosty
disapproval of her colleagues, Opu tucked her squawking offspring beneath her
short arm and leisurely flew back to the devastation of her own home. As things
would immediately be dislodged and flung about as soon as they had been tidied
up, she had long since stopped bothering and only invited in the most
broad-minded of her friends. She had thought about cutting down the amount of
light nourishment Opuna received. Many, who claimed to be more responsible, had
frowned severely at the idea. All growing children needed at least five meals
every sun. Without it they would shrivel up to nothing as their ancestors, so
deprived, had done. Or just fall to pieces, like the pioneering astronauts when
they had travelled too far from the sun. The Ojalie were one of those species
dependent, like most vegetation, on their sun. They had given up trying to
leave their planet, but the old stories of what had happened to the early
astronauts still made Opu shudder.
Perhaps her offspring wouldn’t be a pest
forever. A long walk to try and tire Opuna into flying only exhausted her and
left the brat as ebullient as ever. They watched a golden backed reptile
disembowel an unsuspecting mollusc, and then spit out its shell. Opu felt ill,
while Opuna pondered the need to fly when such wonders could be seen on the
ground.
Opu asked herself what she had been like
at that age, and had to believe the horror stories her parent had told about
her juvenile behaviour.
They next came upon an automatic
cleanser scraping up the remains of some poor pulverised creature that had
fallen from the sky. Opu decided Opuna’s flying lesson had lasted long enough.
She scooped the brat up and flew back home where she placed the child in the
cubicle to be bathed in the life-giving sun’s light, while she sprawled out and
fanned herself with a wing. The one positive thing about having a monster for
an offspring was that it took her mind off other problems.
As Opu fanned her cares away she
recalled the wispy shape that had hovered over the refractor two shifts ago.
She had put it down to the exhaustion brought on by parenthood. That was it!
She could make a reasonable request for a temporary parental swap. Anapa had
been avoiding it for ages, now she could face a fine if she refused.
So Anapa was compelled to ensure the
rigors of Opuna’s delinquency while Opu took the other child of the union,
Anop. At last there was an offspring she could place in the control room
playpen without having to worry about what disaster she was about to engineer.
Opu felt relaxed. Her colleagues began to speak to her again, and she was no
longer tired.
Then the energy level indicator dived
for a second. She glanced out at the open shields and saw a menacing shape
hovering over the refractor. This time it was blazing intensely, like a small
sun. Inside the flaming shell a shape slowly revolved, growing brighter and
brighter with the power it consumed from the energy pool.
One of the controllers jumped in alarm.
‘Vian Solran! Star Dancer!’
Opu instinctively hit the lever that
opened the power bank to the other stations dotted about the planet before the
level could fall dangerously low.
The usually laid-back Ojalie were
thrown into a panic that made worldwide gossip. The controllers would have
liked to blame Opu for the power drain, but on this occasion her conduct was
too efficient to fault. However despicable her brat, she was the only one with
the know-how and presence of mind when it was needed.
‘Vian Solran, Star Dancer,’ Opu mused to
herself when the emergency was over. It was strange how such ancient race
memories could surface when someone was under stress. Given the circumstances,
it was probably the most logical thing anyone could say about the energy
vampire. For all their knowledge and expertise, it might as well have been that
star-devouring deity.
Legend had it that Vian Solran was a
born from a quasar at the centre of the Galaxy when it was young, and developed
the rapacious appetite of a collapsar. It was believed the entity could appear
anywhere in space and perform a deadly dance from one star to the next,
devouring each in turn.
That was the first visit of the energy
vampire to Ojal. As yet, it hadn’t become as dangerous as Vian Solran, but the
unspoken fear that it was only a matter of time grew. Long before the Star
Dancer turned its attention to their suns, the planet’s energy pools would be
bled dry and the Ojalie doomed. Despite their technical competence, no one had
yet dared put that fear into words. Like a blip on the solar scan, or disease
in the digestive tracts of the perverse creatures that decided to survive off
vegetation, it first had to be investigated.
The controllers had been so stunned by
the sighting they weren’t able to describe it when making out a report. Even
the children watching from their playpen couldn’t invent words to express what
they had seen, though Opu didn’t doubt for one moment that Opuna would have
found several.
When she returned for the next shift, inventive
suggestions from every source had been pouring in to explain the apparition
seen by the staff of Main Base Station 93 - usually such a lucid bunch. No
convincing explanation could be found amongst them. On Ojal, monsters were
things of the remote past. They knew of no hostile civilisations wanting to
attack their planet, yet the Star Dancer must have been alien.
The only good thing to come of the
traumatic event for Opu was that Anapa now had to look after both children
while she waited with the other controllers for the Star Dancer to appear
again. Even a small drain on an energy pool caused a planet wide imbalance, and
there was a limit to how much the other stations could compensate for it.
As though it knew they were waiting,
the Star Dancer’s next appearance was at a refractor on the other side of Ojal.
Although the staff had been prepared for a drain on the energy pool, they were
watching for something terrifying, not beautiful. To their amazement a huge
ghostly butterfly floated over their open shields, sucking power from the
energy pool like nectar from a blossom. This time the power drain was serious.
From then on the lives of Opu and her
gene partner became even more complicated. Anapa’s, because she was obliged to
look after both children, monstrous and docile, indefinitely, and Opu’s because
the computer, which took no account of anyone’s delinquency, decided that she
was the best controller to take charge of the situation. A sudden promotion her
easy-going nature could have done without.
Space travel might have been
biologically impossible for the Ojalie; transmitting signals at tachyon frequencies
was not. Unable to visually observe the sky because their suns permanently lit
the planet, they had designed spacecraft that could carry satellites far beyond
Ojal to orbit with the comets. They achieved this not long after constructing
the first refractors about three million years ago. Since then they had
developed the technology to see and track anything within the known Galaxy.
Something many species accomplished at space travel weren’t able to do. This
Ojalie expertise, and a willingness to share it, had made them popular with
other civilisations, which was just as well. They were going to need help as
the Star Dancer’s visits increased and their life giving power was drained
away.
Opu, as new controller-in-charge, was still unable to
make sense of the multi-form Star Dancer after its sixteenth visit. She
decided, because it was energy, they would be able to pinpoint its origin. By
the time a way was devised of attaching a tracking signal to the tail of the
marauding manifestation, the situation had become critical. When the
opportunity to use it arose, the signal only managed to follow the apparition
as far as the edge of the binary star system, and then the entity accelerated
beyond the speed of light and shook it off. No one had been expecting this.
Though the Ojalie could talk to the other side of the Galaxy in real time, not
many manifestations with mass were known to travel at the speed of thought.
Opu was beginning to feel like a
wrung-out beak warmer. She sent a message around the planet to rally the
technicians to generate enough power to create a tachyon “tag” that could
pursue the Star Dancer at the speed of thought. If it travelled any faster than
that she resolved to give it in her notice and fade away with everyone else.
As Opu waited, it didn’t help to
receive a hysterical message from Anapa. Opuna had succeeded in alienating most
of her friends, and sent the remainder into a near frenzy as they tried to
relieve her of the menace for a few hours. The controller-in-charge had other
things on her mind, though.
Opu felt a relieving numbness creep
over her as they waited for the thirsty apparition’s next visit. At least it
made the waiting easier. She checked that every available satellite was
programmed to track the tachyon tag, across the Universe if need be. It would
have been pointless to ask assistance of any world until they knew where it led
them. All they could do was wait.
Without warning, the Star Dancer was there,
hovering above Station 30 at the planet’s equator. This time it was shaped like
a long-legged insect draped in swirling robes. While the controllers topped up
the energy pool from other stations, Opu transmitted the tag. It tracked the
intruder as it rapidly retreated into space. To her relief, it worked this
time.
By the time the Star Dancer had reached
the other side of the Galaxy, snippets of information began to filter in. There
was no sensible time sequence to their arrival and the jumble was fed into the
computer to unscramble: it produced data measuring a planet’s location,
density, size, and atmosphere. More data produced images, some easy to
comprehend, and others that had to be electronically translated before they
made sense. At least they could be sure that the Star Dancer came from another
world and wasn’t an emanation from some freak star - the name stuck anyway. Now
it was possible to contact the planets in that region and glean more specific
information about the solar system.
As they could make instantaneous
contact across light years with anyone who had receivers capable of picking up
their signal, the Ojalie had given up using electromagnetic radiation waves
for communication millennia ago. Opu soon learnt that their quarry inhabited
the third planet of a yellow sun that appeared to have a small, dim red
companion. The world’s landmass was verdant, and filled with a multitude of
life forms.
An aquatic species on Taigal Rax, in a
neighbouring solar system, had long been interested in the Star Dancer’s world.
Taigalians were more concerned about the large body of water that covered most
of the planet, which they had named Perimeter 84926, than the creatures that
had managed to crawl out of it. As they believed the oceans of the Star
Dancer’s home would eventually cover the remaining landmasses, just as they had
done on Taigal Rax, their priority was to learn more about the evolving species
in the water than the eventually-to-be-drowned ones out of it. They did send
Opu some useful data, however.
A precocious land animal had rapidly
evolved to become reasonably intelligent. Unlike the Ojalie, who had six limbs,
this animal and other larger life forms had only four and there, mostly,
appeared to be two sexes. On the verge of space exploration, this planet had
launched a vehicle carrying odd information about their world and a small
plaque representing one of the larger sex making a sign of some sort with an
upper limb. The creature was known to have a fear/aggression response, and to
be terrified of anything out of its immediate experience.
Opu groaned. ‘Very helpful. Contacting
them is definitely out.’
‘No chance they could be sending the
creature deliberately, if they are aggressive?’ somebody suggested.
‘With their backward technology?’ Opu
didn’t even bother to turn and see who had spoken.
She sat back and thought. Their only
chance lay with the aquatic species on Taigal Rax. They may have been more
interested in this planet’s oceans, but knew about the terrestrial creatures
inhabiting Perimeter 84926, and were closer to it than any comparably advanced
civilisation. They even had laboratories deep in the planet’s crust and could
activate slumbering service robots at the bottom of its oceans.
Hardly aware that she had come to a
decision, Opu transmitted a detailed summary of their predicament to Taigal
Rax. She next sent out for engineers to design an android to track the Star
Dancer on its own planet.
As soon as the others knew what she was
about to do, the chorus of controllers, who secretly believed they could do the
job better, arose. ‘There isn’t time for that.’
‘There will be.’ Opu didn’t have the
patience to elaborate. ‘Somebody find me Technician Controller Annac.’
‘She’s dead - or retired.’
Unable to breathe in the hothouse of
objections generated by little more than controlled hysteria, Opu stepped out
onto the balcony, unfurled her wings, and took off into the cool pink sky
without a word of explanation or apology.
Below, amongst the spacious gardens,
rambling, twisting homes punctuated the skyline in a haphazard fashion. The
older Ojalies lived here, out of the flight paths of the younger more reckless
fliers, and whiled away their time doing anything that age, advanced technology
and their fancy allowed.
Opu’s purple-scaled tunic was
impossible to miss as she hovered over the flat roof of one home, catching the
attention of the figure seated on it.
Controller Annac glanced up as though
not really amazed at the visit from the senior controller who held the fate of
the planet in her hands. ‘Thought it about time you retired too, young Opu?’
Opu touched down beside Annac. ‘I’m
tired of promotion, children, and monstrous apparitions that drop in from the
other side of the Galaxy.’
‘So you should retire. Though I thought
you went in for a youngster? What’s she like?’
‘A brat.’
‘Oh. Some are you know.’
‘Problem with retiring, though, is
that...’ Opu took a deep breath, and stopped.
‘Is that?’
‘Is that nobody else will be living to
retirement age if you can’t help me with a small problem,’ Opu managed to say
without sounding too overcome at the thought of it herself.
Annac put aside the plan of the force field bubble she
had been working on. It looked as though sending goods by sunbeams would have
to wait. ‘I wouldn’t call that a small problem. What do you want me to do?’
‘A long while ago you devised a system
for transmitting matter from one place to another. It could be sent faster than
light without the need for a receiver.’
Annac gave her a long, hard look with her large orange
eyes. ‘You mean the one that used the Kybini particle?’
‘That’s it. The elementary particle
without any mass.’
‘I withdrew the proposal for the Kybini
System.’
‘I know,’ said Opu.
‘Then you know why.’
‘I do. But it’s not my intention to
transmit people with it.’
‘Even if I’m sure you won’t, how can I
be sure no one else will? Mineral matter was what it was intended for, not us.’
‘We’ve run out of options. Delicate
sensibilities are for the unthreatened and comfortable. The Ojalie have never
confronted extinction. The Star Dancer isn’t a comet we can deflect.’
Opu’s tone had enough gravity to make
Annac bend her moral stance.
‘Is it really that bad?’
‘A few more energy drains and the whole
system will bleed to death. We’re all three million years too evolved to go
back to basking in the sun. Come and see for yourself if you don’t believe me.’
Annac sighed. So much for a peaceful
retirement. ‘All right. But if you want to reach the source of this thing on
the other side of the Galaxy with my system, you’re not going to have much
success. It’s only effective under distances of two hundred light years. Over
that, it’s impossible to select the time matter arrives. It could take ages.’
‘Our computer signal doesn’t though,’
Opu hinted. She could see Annac would remain unconvinced until she explained
her plan.
The controllers weren’t surprised to
see Opu and Annac stroll in from the balcony and go to the plans the android
engineers had produced.
‘We’ve got enough data to make a
transmitter. We’ll use its energy imprint to create a signal that will attract
the Star Dancer on its own planet. The data can be sent with the components for
an android.’
Annac pointed to the blueprint. ‘What’s
this machine going to look like then?’ There was something aesthetically
unpleasant about it. ‘There’s no outer casing,’ she complained,
‘Doesn’t matter. Will its components
transmit on your system?’
‘Of course, but not at this range.’
‘Good.’ Opu smiled beneath her blunt
beak. ‘Let’s hope that any favours Ojal has done in the past were appreciated.
The Taigalians have already promised to help.’
‘How far away from this Perimeter 84926
are they?’
‘One hundred and fifty light years.’
‘Then if they transmit the android,
it’ll arrive far too soon, even with compensations for different space time.’
‘Over one of Perimeter 84926’s
centuries before it actually happens here,’ Opu explained, ‘This will give the
android time to orientate itself and be established when the energy source
manifests itself there - I hope.’
‘You’ll have no control over the
machine,’ Annac warned. ‘We can only transmit it back into their past because
the signal will bisect the time curve Perimeter 84926 has travelled through.’
‘Of course we won’t have any control
over it. The first thing we’ll know about it intercepting the Star Dancer is
when it stops appearing here.’
‘And how will that pile of metal and
crystal manage to do that?’
‘We intend our aquatic friends to build
into this expensive pile of metal and crystal a sense of what the creatures on
Perimeter 84926 look like, and then use your Kybini system to transmit it. They
can supply it with power units and any data needed about the planet. The
android will be able to change its appearance whenever it needs… and develop
living tissue if necessary.’
The other controllers froze in horror.
‘Living tissue!’ Annac blurted out. ‘If
you’re sending something like that back into anyone’s history without any
control over it, you’d better pray the Watchers never find out.’
‘We’ll double-check it, and Taigal Rax
shall do the same. It’ll only activate the biological process if they instruct
it. We have to take the risk. We’ve got everything to lose if we don’t.’
However tedious she found retirement,
Annac knew she had no right to obstruct other Ojalies from having a future. ‘So
we’ll only know whether it has been successful when the entity stops attacking
the energy pools?’
‘Assuming I start transmitting the data
before things get out of hand here, just so.’ Opu started to transmit the
program to Taigal Rax.
Annac cursed as her old wings fluttered
her unsurely home into the pink sunrise. ‘What a way to spend retirement.’
A heavy mist rolled across the inky sea washing
against the treacherous rocks. The moon lit the grey chalk cliffs where the
breeze had pushed the mist back, and they glowed like a sinister silver ribbon.
Above the fuming waves an eerie, swishing noise echoed
about the top of the cliffs. It was followed by an unlikely tinkling sound as
something hit the ground. A couple of seconds passed. Another swishing was
followed by the tinkling sound. Then again and again until there was an untidy
heap of diamond-metal, crystal, and gold tendons on a cushion of sea thrift and
twitch-grass.
Delivery complete, the glinting components
began to arrange themselves. Some stood erect as though trying to take their
bearings and others rolled towards their adjoining members. Each piece knew
where it should fit, like a mechanical chromosome. Clicking and whirring, they
assembled themselves into a glittering, faceless machine. It sat twinkling on
top of the cliff for several moments, checking its components and circuits,
then lifted itself erect on two stick-like legs in imitation of a human frame.
It picked its way unsurely over the
unfamiliar ground towards the edge of the cliff and sent out signals in every
direction to make take its bearings, then stood pondering for a few seconds.
Satisfied, it sprang forward and
plunged into the dark churning sea below.
***
An ominous rumble echoed from the bowels of the ironclad
ship as its cargo slid across the hold. The vessel tilted so far over the deck
was partly submerged. The sails and the steam-driven paddles of the merchantman
were useless in the teeth of the storm that was trying to capsize it. The crew
were well rehearsed for such a disaster. They had been expecting something like
it for their last eight voyages. They didn’t begrudge the owners their
insurance money, but they were damned if they were going to drown for it.
Before the order to abandon ship could be given, the lifeboats were launched
and passengers and crew loaded into them. When someone yelled across the bows
to ask the inebriated captain if he was going down with his ship, he sobered up
with remarkable alacrity and slid across the deck to join his first mate in the
nearest boat.
‘Sheer off! Sheer off!’ he yelled.
‘Sheer off or we’ll all be sucked down with her!’ as though that hadn’t already
occurred to the sailors battling with oars.
‘My cargo! My cargo!’ rang out a
despairing cry from one of the smaller boats being rowed away from the mêlée
towards the cliffs looming out of the spray.
‘Better to be alive and have the
insurance,’ a young man hauling at an oar tried to reassure Mr Humbert.
‘I don’t need your insolence, you young
pup!’
‘Well shut up then you old fool, and
sit down,’ snapped an older woman. ‘If you can’t help row the boat you might
stop rocking it.’
Mr Humbert was obviously not used to
being spoken to in such a manner and would have stood resolutely at the bows
glowering if a wave hadn’t thrown him down to the bottom of the boat.
The young woman pulling at the other
oar snatched a glance over her shoulder. ‘We’re heading straight for the
cliffs, Toby! We should have taken a sailor on board with us.’
‘You’re right, Tasmin!’ The young man
was exhausted and panicking. ‘We’re being dragged towards them! I’m more used
to holding a pen than an oar.’
At that the older woman placed herself
between the struggling younger couple and, seizing the end of each oar, tried
to add her weight to their efforts. Humbert meanwhile sat facing them, staring
stonily at their exertion as though his Victorian affluence had given him some
immunity against drowning.
Soon all the other lifeboats with
sailors on board were out of sight and in safer waters. As much as the three
battled with the waves, the cliffs were soon towering above them and the boat
was sucked towards their craggy walls.
One of the oars snapped against the
jagged rocks. ‘Get down!’ yelled the older woman. ‘Lie flat!’
All four clung to the slats in the
bottom of the flooded boat as it banged against one rock after another. At any
moment they expected it to disintegrate and pitch them into the swirling water.
Then the hammering suddenly stopped.
The roaring torrent was left behind and they were swept into a world of muffled
darkness. Ahead was the gushing of water being forced into a large chamber. For
a few seconds they were spun round, and then the boat travelled along a
straight channel.
‘We’re in a tunnel,’ the older woman
eventually murmured.
‘I’m scared, Mrs Angel,’ whispered
Toby. ‘Are you all right, Tasmin?’
‘I’d rather be in here than outside.’
Tasmin rose from the bottom of the boat to see if she could glimpse anything
through the pitch-blackness and banged her head on the cave roof.
‘Be careful,’ Mrs Angel warned. ‘We
could be travelling into a dead end.’
‘What can we do?’ asked Toby
helplessly.
‘It depends on how narrow the tunnel
is. We may be able to wall-walk our way out once this storm has abated.’
‘You mean like the canal bargees?’
‘Yes, like the canal bargees.’
‘Goodness. My legs would never be long
enough.’
‘You’re an inadequate sort of creature
aren’t you? What made you think you would be a suitable husband for my
assistant?’
‘Please, Mrs Angel, it’s hardly the
time and place to discuss that,’ remonstrated Tasmin.
‘This is the sort of situation that
will prove how worthy he really is.’
‘But you can’t expect Toby to be the
one to rescue us.’
‘Then you might have at least
considered a more suitable specimen to break your vestal vow for, young lady -
a ledger clerk indeed!’
‘How can I keep that vow forever?’
‘You will for as long as I employ you.
Our class of clientele will not want to listen to their departed loved ones
through the mouth of a housewife or scarlet woman.’
‘I’m sure I wouldn’t do anything to
dishonour Tasmin, Mrs Angel,’ protested Toby.
‘Fortunately, so am I.’
The argument would have continued if an
eerily glimmering light hadn’t appeared ahead of them. They were swept out of
the tunnel into a large dimly lit cave. At the far end was a wide platform. The
boat came alongside it and was nudged to a stop.
Gratefully, the sodden passengers
clambered out. Before them was a wall studded with small lights and knobs. Some
of the rock was transparent and inside it were cavities holding strange
machines, spinning, and clicking in time to some tuneless rhythm.
Astonished at what they had accidentally
transgressed into, no one spoke. They gingerly examined their surroundings,
careful not to touch anything. The thought crossed their minds that they could
be trapped here for a long time.
A sickly light appeared in the water
lapping the platform. A shape was walking towards them from its depths.
Although the creature carried itself like a human being, its movements were
mechanical. As it rose from the water the travellers shrank to the far end of
the platform. The entity wore a long shroud, like a monk’s habit, which
instantly dried when the air touched it as it walked up some rough steps and
onto the platform, cutting off their only chance of escaping in the boat.
Even the indomitable Mrs Angel was
daunted by the strange hooded figure. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded tremulously.
‘Who are you?’ the figure asked
in a metallic, clicking voice.
‘I am Mrs Angel.’ Despite her
apprehension, she formally introduced the others in turn as though she were at
a dinner party, ‘This is Tasmin, and Mr Humbert. And we call this fair-haired
young man Toby. He’s only a ledger clerk.’ She turned back to the figure. ‘Now,
what is your name?’
‘I am the Kybion,’ it replied.
‘Rum sort of name,’ muttered Toby.
Only one thing concerned the entity.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Why ask that?’ snapped Mrs Angel. ‘You
must already know.’ She wasn’t sure what made her say it.
‘You are right, Mrs Angel,’ the voice
clicked in what might have been surprise. ‘You are perceptive.’
‘I am a medium.’
The Kybion didn’t seem to register the
meaning of the word, so she explained, ‘I can see into the future and contact
spirits from the world of the dead.’
As that revelation met with stony
silence, Tasmin added, ‘Mrs Angel and I were coming back from
‘Wretched ironclads,’ snorted Mr
Humbert. ‘How can anything stay afloat with all that metal riveted to it?’
‘Remember the insurance, Mr Humbert,’
Toby dared to remind him, and received a hefty clip round the ear for his
advice.
Before real violence could break out,
the Kybion’s voice resonated about the cave. ‘You should all be dead.’
‘Probably so,’ agreed Mrs Angel. ‘But
the Good Lord in his infinite mercy spared us.’
‘Your “Good Lord” had nothing to do
with the matter, Mrs Angel. I made the inlet you were swept into. It was pure
chance your boat found it. You should have all been killed on the cliff-face.
Events cannot be moved out of time sequence.’
‘What do you mean, sir?’ Humbert strode
towards the mysterious gowned figure. ‘Do you know who I am?’
‘You should be dead, Mr Humbert,’ was
the clinical reply.
At that, Humbert’s heavily-jowled face
glowed red with fury. ‘Now let’s see who you are, sir! This mumbo jumbo has
gone far enough!’ He reached out and snatched off the Kybion’s hood. Its habit
fell open.
Mr Humbert reeled back in terror and
toppled from the platform.
The other three looked on in horrified
disbelief, ignoring Humbert’s calls for help as he splashed about in the
shallow water. Standing before them was a faceless jumble of tangled wire
tendons, and winking crystal arteries. The creature was a metal skeleton entwined
with gold nerves, and supported by clear muscles filled with fluorescing fluid.
Not even Mrs Angel could think of anything to say to that.
‘I am the Kybion,’ the machine
announced. ‘I am not yet whole.’
‘You’re really going to kill us, aren’t
you?’ said Tasmin as the trembling Toby wrapped his short arms protectively
about her.
‘The fault that you did not die is
mine.’
‘We don’t mind - really we don’t,’
blurted out Toby.
‘I am from a future time. I cannot
interfere with the history of this planet, even to let you live.’
‘You are a scoundrel, sir!’ spluttered
Humbert, dragging himself back onto the platform. ‘Not only a scoundrel, but as
twisted a piece of machinery as is ever liable to be assembled by a madman.’
‘And no one can travel from the future,’ snapped Mrs
Angel. ‘It would be ungodlike if they could.’
‘I am the Kybion. I have no gods. This God of yours is
part of your own inadequacy in working out existence for yourself. Many stars
away, people can achieve what you call miracles. They do not need gods. I come
from them.’
Tasmin disengaged herself from Toby to square up to
the machine. ‘Why?’
‘I was sent to stop a creature they call Star Dancer
from sucking the life energy from another planet. At some time in the future it
will originate from this world. I am here to wait for it.’
‘Why not let us help you instead of
killing us?’ pleaded Toby. ‘What possible harm could we do to the future if you
were to let us live?’
The Kybion hesitated. ‘If I were to let
you help me, I would have to prolong your lives for longer than is natural to
your species. How can I be sure you would not try to disrupt the future of this
world if I did that?’
‘We could only give you our word,’
Tasmin reluctantly admitted.
‘On this cross,’ Mrs Angel pulled a
large crucifix from her sodden blouse.
‘Yes, yes,’ begged Humbert. ‘We
couldn’t do any more than that.’
Toby was silent. He wanted to live more
than anything else, but knew Mrs Angel and Humbert were lying. He wasn’t sure
whether the Kybion knew it.
Without warning, it jabbed a spiked
finger at Toby. ‘I will select you. I shall administer a longevity process that
will increase your life span. The others will die.’
‘No!’ Toby found himself protesting
against his better judgement. ‘How could you expect me to help you if you kill
the others?’
The Kybion hadn’t taken that into
consideration and was silent for a few seconds.
‘At least let them live their natural
life spans,’ Toby suggested.
‘No,’ gambled Mrs Angel. ‘You cannot
half trust us. We would know the clerk has longevity. There is no reason why we
should not be treated in the same way.’
The Kybion sensed the deceit in the
older woman and man but, despite its threat, was not programmed to take life.
‘I won’t help you unless Tasmin is able
to live for as long as I do,’ insisted Toby. ‘I don’t care how powerful you
are.’ Realising his mistake before he had finished speaking, he added, ‘And Mrs
Angel and Mr Humbert as well.’
‘Very well,’ the Kybion said
eventually. ‘I will administer a treatment that will slow down your ageing
process. You will grow older, but at a much slower rate than is natural. You
will not be able to carry on your normal lives. Those who know you must believe
that you are dead.’ Humbert winced at the thought of having to give up his
insurance money, and was soon plotting some way round it. ‘I will be watching
you.’
‘What is it you want me to do?’ Toby
inquired, half afraid of the answer.
‘You shall carry a small transmitter
that will draw the Star Dancer to you. The planet it threatens recorded its
energy pattern and they devised a signal to attract it. The transmitter was
going to be installed in a fixed position but, over the passing years, the
human species could dig up the unit or build over it. I cannot carry the device
because the power in my circuits would disrupt its signal.’ The Kybion detected
that Toby was having severe doubts. ‘It will not harm you, and it is unlikely
the Star Dancer would. If you do this, you will save a whole species of
creatures like yourself from extinction.’
‘I suppose if I should be dead anyway...
I’ve nothing to lose.’ Toby was no longer sure which was the better
arrangement. ‘What will happen when I do meet this “Star Dancer”?’
‘Do not worry. I will be here.’ The
Kybion turned to the others. ‘I will always be here. You three will carry
markers; ones that will let me know where you are at all times to ensure that
you do nothing to subvert future events. Your lives must now be spent
unobtrusively, for neither power, nor gain.’
Toby’s conscience overwhelmed his
terror, and he gave in. ‘All right. I’ll do it. Where will I carry this
trans... mitter then? How big is it? What happens when I’m not wearing
pockets?’
‘You will not need pockets. There are
many cavities inside your body into which it will fit quite easily.’
Toby almost fainted. The Kybion was
unaware of the fear any surgical procedure held for a Victorian, otherwise it
might have explained it would be totally painless.
The others certainly showed no signs of
discomfort when it gave them their longevity treatment that consisted of
nothing more than impregnating the skin with a needle. The process was quick.
To Toby it felt like hours. The machine may have been incomplete, yet had sense
enough not to let the three realise how it had fitted the tracking devices. Each
marker was minute and would cling to their skeletons for as long as they lived
- and after.
Tasmin, Mrs Angel, and Mr Humbert were
completely re-costumed from a wardrobe in a cavity behind one of the chamber
walls. At any other time it would have seemed a strange facility for a machine
to have, but even Mr Humbert no longer felt inclined to question the Kybion
about its odd behaviour in case it changed its metal mind. They were also
handed enough to cash and bonds to ensure they could invest well and idle the
years away in luxury. The Kybion’s more comprehensive understanding of human
nature would come later - when it was too late.
‘Be brave, Toby. I’m sure we’ll meet
again,’ Tasmin told him.
Even that affectionate reassurance
couldn’t revive his good humour. The clerk’s life, prospects, and worldview
were about to change forever.
‘Take care of him,’ Mrs Angel told the
Kybion imperiously, having to acknowledge that the ledger clerk had saved their
lives. ‘Remember that his intelligence is no more than matches his station.’
The machine hadn’t a clue what she
meant, so Tasmin added, ‘Don’t hurt him.’
‘Let us out of here,’ Mr Humbert
demanded impatiently.
Toby found the presence of mind to give
Tasmin a self-conscious hug.
Mrs Angel quickly parted them. ‘Remember
your vow, my girl,’ she chided with consummate bad timing.
‘There is a tunnel running under these
cliffs. It leads to the nearest town,’ said the Kybion. ‘Remember, wherever you
are, I will always know.’
With that warning ringing in their
ears, they hastened away to freedom and new lives.
Apparently unconcerned whether they
reached the other end of the dimly lit tunnel or not, the Kybion returned to
the trembling Toby who was desperately wishing he had been able to go with
them. The ledger clerk couldn’t believe what was happening to him. The more he
thought about it, the more his senses became numbed, until the clammy air and
prospect of what was about to occur made him faint away.
The urban brick and Tarmac receded and the train sped
through the June countryside of velvet-green fields rippling with new corn.
Gabrielle gave a deep sigh of relief. She felt better already. The bright
lights and candyfloss company of her student friends would have just made her
worse, and probably diabetic. Too many exams and too much study and had frayed
her usually resilient composure.
Out here it was possible to see things
with a clear perspective that would enable her to unwind. Gabrielle was
confident of passes for every paper she had sat over the last two months, and
probably wouldn’t have worried too much if she weren’t. Not many orphans had
her assured future. Not many children grew up to retain the intense confidence
of adolescence once they learnt what life was really like. There was something
else making the teenager restless.
Gabrielle was a strong, healthy girl,
and had overcome the severe injuries from the car crash that had killed her
parents when she was four. No next of kin could be found, even in
Smuggler’s Halt, the small community
that had built up around the railway station, was just remote enough, without a
road on the way to anywhere interesting.
As Gabrielle walked down the path to
Smuggler’s Row, the terrace of cottages where her foster father’s sister lived,
she watched the swifts and seagulls circling over the cliffs. The air carried
the smell of seaweed and fumes of a bonfire.
Gabrielle was fond of her foster Aunt,
Penny, and her ten-year-old daughter Paula, and almost regretted that they
would be taking a morning train to go on a holiday of their own. Everyone she
knew thought the student had been mad to want to live in her aunt’s cottage
without company for over three weeks. Gabrielle had never seen the place
before, yet inexplicably knew that this was where she needed to be. The door
opened as she entered the front garden and the pixie like face of Paula beamed
a mischievous welcome.
‘It is remote here,’ Penny told her as
she poured the tea with one hand and rapped Paula’s knuckles with the other
when she tried to sneak another piece of fruitcake. ‘But with the train and the
occasional bus you can get almost anywhere. Even walk to the village if you
want. It’s not far up the coast path.’
Gabrielle yawned. ‘I just want to rest.
Doing all the things adolescent girls should do must be tiring enough. Trying
to avoid doing all the things adolescent girls are expected to do is
even more tiring.’
Her aunt smiled. ‘Don’t waste your life
away. You’re no adolescent and will be old soon enough.’ Penny was in her
forties, and still attractive, so the advice didn’t ring true.
‘Is there a library in the village?’
Gabrielle asked suddenly, as though remembering the reason she was there.
Penny wondered if her foster niece had
really turned into the swot her brother and his wife proudly claimed. ‘A small
one. The main library is in town. I’ve got tickets for both.’ She went to her
handbag and pulled two cards from her purse and handed them to Gabrielle. Why
shouldn’t the girl study? If Penny had possessed half her brains she would have
probably done the same when she had the chance.
‘Thanks a lot. I might take a walk into
the village tomorrow.’
‘Good idea. We’ll need to be off early,
so you’ll have all of the day to yourself.’
Gabrielle spent that night in fitful
sleep and was visited by the turbulent dreams that had haunted her for as long
as she could remember. They had become worse with the exams. She had hoped they
would subside with some peace and quiet.
The next morning Gabrielle saw Penny
and Paula onto the train then returned to the cottage to unpack a pair of stout
walking shoes from her suitcase.
It was threatening rain as she strode
out over the glistening shingle, untouched by holidaymakers’ feet. Walking on
the pebbles was tiring, so she climbed some crumbling steps braced by railway
sleepers and continued along the top of the cliff. The only other people she
saw were a plump woman being taken for a walk by her dog, and the motionless
figure of a fair-haired man watching her intently from a distance.
‘Good morning,’ said the dog owner.
It took Gabrielle a moment to realise
that people out here were more relaxed about talking to strangers. ‘Good
morning. Looks like rain.’
‘At least there’s no wind. Even the
seagulls hide when it blows through Wrecker’s Cove.’
Gabrielle indicated the man watching
them. ‘He’ll get soaked without a coat.’
The woman laughed. ‘Oh him. He’s always
out here watching for something. It’s about time he found what he was looking
for after all these years.’
In the village library, Gabrielle found
a volume on 18th century politics. It was in good condition, and
last withdrawn by a researcher nine months ago. The librarian cast her a glance
of admiration as she checked it out.
The student’s striking looks and
billowing black hair soon caught the attention of the locals, as though an
Indian girl in mackintosh and walking brogues was a novelty in those parts.
Curious to know more about her, some people went out of their way to be
friendly, while others kept their distance. This was a world away from the
brash melting pot of college campus and home.
Not wanting to appear stand-offish,
Gabrielle managed to supply them with enough information about her to satisfy
their curiosity and, in an attempt to show interest in their small world,
enquired about the man who spent so much time standing on top of the cliff. Two
older women she had struck up a conversation with smiled, secretly flattered by
the attention of the well-spoken young woman.
‘He’s been looking out for goodness
knows what on top of them cliffs for as long as I can remember,’ one of them
said. ‘And I’m seventy.’
‘He doesn’t look a day over forty-five
though,’ joined in the other. ‘And my old dad said he could remember him too.’
‘Mind you, Dot,’ the other woman
reminded her, ‘your old dad’s brain did go eventually. My Ma reckoned it was
his father he saw.’
‘Might have been, but I don’t remember
his funeral. I’ve been to the funeral of everyone who died around here, and I
can’t remember him ever dying.’
Whatever the vagaries of the two
women’s memories, Gabrielle’s curiosity had been fired. She could picture the
man watching on the cliff above the village as she stood chatting. He hadn’t
appeared to be very old, and she wanted to know how a seventy-year-old could
look no more than forty-five. ‘Why doesn’t somebody ask him?’
‘He never gets near enough to anyone to
let them,’ her companion added. ‘Even his groceries are put on his back
doorstep where he leaves a cheque and list for the next week.’
‘You going to ask him then, dear?’ Dot
suggested, half in humour and half in hope.
‘I could do.’
‘He’ll run off before you can, but I
wouldn’t stop you trying. A sturdy girl like you could probably catch him.’ At
that, Dot and her friend fell about laughing.
Gabrielle took the opportunity to
escape, and made her way to the top of the cliff where her quarry still stood.
Although she hadn’t really intended to, the teenager felt compelled to speak to
the strange figure. Even from fifty yards away, she could feel his pale grey
eyes observing her determined approach. He didn’t run off as the women had
suggested, and remained stock-still.
As she came closer, Gabrielle sensed the coldness of
the man’s penetrating gaze. His hair was fair, nearly white, and his skin wan.
It was difficult to believe this face belonged to a man of forty-five, let
alone seventy. His features were unlined, and a polo-necked sweater concealed
his neck where telltale signs of ageing could usually be found.
‘Good morning,’ Gabrielle said
cheerfully.
The expression in the pale eyes became
suspicious, if not hostile. ‘Go away.’
Despite his frosty response, she
remarked in spite of herself, ‘Why, you’re not that old at all.’
‘Go away,’ he repeated then turned on
his heels and almost ran from the edge of the cliff towards a flat-roofed
bungalow nestling in a gully.
That should have been enough to
convince Gabrielle he didn’t want to hold a conversation. However, there was
something so magnetic about the mysterious stranger she couldn’t resist
following him down the slope. He stood in the porch of the bungalow watching
her approach.
She called out before getting too close
and scaring him inside, ‘What’s the matter? I didn’t mean to alarm you.’
‘You didn’t. Who sent you?’
Encouraged by the odd question,
Gabrielle walked down to him. ‘Why, nobody. I was only trying to be sociable.’
‘No one round here tries to be sociable
with me,’ he retorted flatly. ‘Are you sure no one sent you?’
‘Of course they didn’t. I only arrived
here yesterday. Why should anyone have sent me?’
He replied with a cool, accusing look.
‘The truth is,’ Gabrielle admitted,
‘two women in the village were trying to kid me you were seventy, and I didn’t
believe them.’
‘You are right, I am not seventy.’
‘I can see that now. Don’t you let anyone talk to
you?’
‘Not if I can avoid it. You aren’t English?’
It almost sounded like an accusation.
‘Yes, I am. My parents were Indian, but I was born here. I can’t remember them.
I was brought up in a children’s home. I couldn’t even pronounce my own name
if you were to ask me.’ What on earth made her tell him all that when he would
admit to nothing? She was usually good at mind games. Something else was going
on here.
‘What are you called now?’
‘Gabrielle. What’s your name?’
‘Never you mind,’ he said firmly enough
for her not to ask again.
Gabrielle was unable to make him out. ‘You’re an odd
sort of person. I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.’
The man said nothing. It was obvious
his frosty manner didn’t intimidate the eighteen-year-old as it did other
people. As she walked back to the cliff path, his gaze followed her. There was
a tinge of fear in the tight expression.
That night Gabrielle quickly fell asleep and didn’t
have any dreams vivid enough to disturb her. The next morning she woke early
and lay in bed looking out at the gulls circling over the cliffs. Random
thoughts flowed through her mind.
Still drowsy, Gabrielle noticed the
ghostly figure of a young man standing by the bedroom window. He was slightly
built and had a friendly, mobile expression. Strangest of all, he was wearing
nineteenth-century clothes; a frock coat and trousers that were almost
threadbare and chisel-toed shoes that had all but lost their original shape. By
comparison, his frilled cream shirt, which was set off by a faded maroon
waistcoat, looked quite expensive. He was hatless and his smiling face seemed
to sit on a wide cravat tied with meticulous care.
Gabrielle lay watching the apparition,
wondering what part of her fancy had conjured him up. He pulled a newspaper
called The Daily Bugle from under his arm. When he held it out towards
her, she could see the date. There was something peculiar about it. History was
Gabrielle’s strongest subject; though he was obviously Victorian, the date of
the paper was 1st, April 1917. Her overloaded mind must have been playing
practical jokes. Feeling ridiculous, she sat upright to make sure she had only
been dreaming.
All through breakfast, Gabrielle
couldn’t help smiling to herself about the unlikely visitor and his wrongly
dated newspaper, and then started to wonder whether The Daily Bugle ever
existed. As she showered and idly sorted out what clothes to wear, a forceful
urge to go to the town library and find out struck her. There was a bus in
fifteen minutes. She finished dressing and dashed out, combing her long hair on
the way to the bus stop.
Gabrielle told herself she was mad to
travel eight miles on a silly whim like this; but the buses were infrequent,
and the trains didn’t pass through the town, so she would have had to fight
back her curiosity for two hours before another opportunity arose.
Gabrielle didn’t need to consult her
map. She had been given specific directions to every place of importance by her
fellow bus passengers, happy to encourage visitors to explore the nooks and
crannies of their town. The area had never been a great tourist attraction. It
lacked the places of amusement and architectural splendour other resorts
possessed.
The library was still housed in its
Victorian monument dedicated to the education of the lower orders and, despite
the unobtrusive PC stations and electronic databases, had not allowed its
shelves of books to be decimated to pay for them. This library either had a
private sponsor or managed to vanish from the cost cuts of the county council.
This was Gabrielle’s hands-on sort of place. She preferred the musty smell of
old book to electronically generated pages that stunned the optic nerves and
turned the concentration to mush.
The listed building had the faint aroma
of disinfectant and the austere silence due it. Gabrielle felt her muscles
tense as she noticed for the first time that her new shoes squeaked.
Being able to request a specific paper
with an exact date meant the librarian didn’t have to ask her embarrassing
questions about what she was looking for. This was just as well, because she
wasn’t sure herself. Gabrielle was amazed to learn there was once a local paper
called The Daily Bugle, and not only that, it hadn’t yet been stored in
the vaults of the town hall, also Victorian and already filled to capacity. The
trainee librarian scanning records into electronic format had only got up to The
County News before taking leave to have twins.
The 1st of April 1917 was apparently a
Sunday, so Gabrielle was brought the next day’s edition. Something at the back
of her mind said that a date as ordinary as the 2nd of April would have easily
been forgotten. It seemed that the apparition had an uncanny reasoning about
it. She could feel her hands shaking as she took the newspaper in its Perspex
cover. This was getting too eerie. The student thanked the librarian and
carried it to a stand where she carefully turned the discoloured pages,
scouring every last detail.
Reaching page five, Gabrielle was
unable to believe her eyes and gave a small gasp. The man reading opposite
glanced up to give her a concerned look. Under the heading of ‘Man proves he is
sixty-seven years old. Court upholds decision he is not eligible for
conscription’, was a picture of the subject, who couldn’t have been over
twenty-five. Then the cold, clammy truth dawned. It was, without a doubt, the
face of the stranger she had accosted on the cliffs. His name was Alfred Tobias
Wendle.
Stunned at the discovery, Gabrielle
quickly glanced through the rest of the paper. She had a rational, thorough
mind and would have cursed herself for missing something else of importance.
Then she took the paper to the photocopier to make a record of the front cover and
the article. This was where a little technology would have come in handy. The
machine swallowed four coins before printing anything reasonably like the
original. Gabrielle put its malfunctioning down to the fact it must have been
Victorian as well and didn’t bother to ask for her money to be refunded. She
was in too much of a hurry to catch the bus back to grieve over forty pence.
There had to be an explanation for the
picture. As Dot had suggested, he could have been the man’s father. Gabrielle
doubted it. It was unlikely a face would have inherited the same features so
exactly. There was only one thing for it. She must confront him again. After
yesterday’s encounter it might not have been a very promising idea, but it was
either doing that or forgetting she had ever met him.
As Gabrielle changed into her walking
brogues, she wondered about the ghostly Victorian who had presented the paper
to her. Who on earth was he?
When she reached the cliff top, her
quarry was nowhere to be seen, so she went down to the bungalow and knocked
resolutely on the door, half expecting a bucket of water to be tipped over her
head from the flat roof.
To her surprise, a voice from inside
called out, ‘Come in. The door is open.’
It was his voice all right; cool,
without any trace of cordiality.
She went inside, through a small hall,
and into a large room. Everything was immaculately tidy; even the man in the
polo-neck sweater sitting at the table over a mug of coffee was groomed like a
schoolmaster supervising an exam.
‘Do you take sugar in coffee?’ Wendle
asked.
Gabrielle nodded.
He added a large spoonful to another
steaming mug. ‘You can come in and sit down if you like. Standing around like
that looks untidy.’
‘You like everything tidy?’
‘I have a very tidy mind. The curse of
the Victorian clerk.’
Gabrielle sat in the chair facing him,
clutching the photocopies she had taken that morning. ‘How old are you?’
‘One hundred and twenty-seven,’ he
replied, not moving his gaze to ensure he didn’t miss her reaction.
She half believed him. ‘You’ve worn
well.’
‘It’s not a blessing.’ He paused. ‘How
much are you capable of believing?’
‘How much do you want to tell me?’
‘I cannot tell you part of the truth. I
must tell you everything. I am not good at talking to other people. It is
unlikely they would believe anything I have to say.’
‘People in the village think there’s
something strange about you. Why not confirm their suspicions?’
‘Because people will only believe what
they have been taught is plausible. What is out of their experience becomes
impossible.’
‘I was going to ask you about this.’
Gabrielle put the photocopies on the table. ‘You seem to have anticipated me.’
‘I was a young man once. Quite a lively
good-natured fellow in a naive way. I was an impoverished ledger clerk, and
wore the same suit and shoes for years. The only new garment I was able to
afford for a long while was a frilled cream-coloured shirt.’
‘What was his name?’
‘He was called Toby?’
‘Alfred Tobias Wendle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you are Toby.’
‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t call me
that.’ He rose abruptly and went to the window.
‘Why did you want me to know about this
after you’ve kept everything to yourself for so long?’ Gabrielle enquired
carefully.
Wendle gazed out at the sky. ‘Because you
may be intelligent enough to believe me.’
‘And?’ prompted Gabrielle.
‘Now there is a problem. I believe I
could carry on growing old at this tortuously slow rate if I can’t find someone
to help me.’ Wendle turned and saw her puzzled expression. ‘Longevity is not
the marvellous thing it is made out to be by those who have never known it. It
is a living death. Though your brain hardly ages, it becomes tired of the same
old thoughts. Nature designed the human mind to have a certain span. You have
to sleep for days at a time to escape the boredom of it. Your real self has to
escape from the body for fear of going mad.’
‘So that’s who Toby is?’
‘I hardly know him.’
‘Why aren’t you able to age at the same
rate as everyone else?’
Wendle returned to the table and sat
facing Gabrielle again. He gave her one last long look as though to reassure
himself he wasn’t making a mistake. ‘I made a commitment that I would never
tell this to a living soul. I now believe that the party I made the pledge to
is not keeping to its side of the agreement. If I am right, I must tell
someone.’
Gabrielle listened to his extraordinary
tale in silence, her rational mind astounded at what it heard. It was difficult
to take in. A planet on the other side of the Galaxy, an energy vampire called
the Star Dancer and a faceless robot capable of doubling human life spans? It
was obvious Wendle was no practical joker. Both fascinated and alienated by him
at the same time, Gabrielle was totally convinced of his integrity. Behind his
brittle exterior there was a vulnerable creature she was willing to help.
Perhaps the greatest assistance she could provide, though, was not to think him
mad.
Gabrielle made the formidable mental
leap and decided to believe him. ‘Can I help?’
‘Probably not.’
‘I would if you’d let me.’
‘There is nothing you can do.’
‘Why not?’
‘The other three, Tasmin, Humbert, and
Mrs Angel contacted me recently. They had somehow managed to remove the markers
the Kybion had impregnated them with to keep track of their movements. This enabled
them to amass fortunes; Mr Humbert by collecting ship insurances and Mrs Angel
and Tasmin by setting themselves up as mediums again. I believe Tasmin was
always a genuine physic, yet can no longer be the woman I knew.’
‘You were fond of her?’
Wendle ignored the question. ‘They were
not content with the fortunes the Kybion had enabled them to make, and knew I
was being used to attract an energy source of immense power. What could be more
profitable nowadays, than energy?’
‘But if even you don’t know what form
it takes, how on earth will they manage to control it? If a highly advanced
race on another planet can’t deal with it, how could they hope to?’
‘Greed can make people blind to the
obvious. I am not afraid of losing my life: I am afraid of what they might try
and do if they were ever to meet this Star Dancer. They could well prevent the
Kybion intercepting it, and let it loose on this planet as well.’
‘Then the Kybion must be warned.’
‘If I knew where to find the machine, it would be. It
should have contacted me a long while ago, when the Star Dancer was due to
arrive. I haven’t seen either of them. I’m afraid of being left like this, but
dread what could happen to this other planet. I have only one advantage.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You believe me. Even if you aren’t able to help me
find the Kybion, it’s a relief someone else now knows.’
Gabrielle was puzzled. ‘Why don’t the other three have
the same problem with longevity as you do?’
‘Because they have materialistic minds
and are now able to move about as much as they want. If I were to travel from
this area, the transmitter is bound to encounter interference that would stop
it functioning.’
‘Perhaps that’s happened already, and
is why the Kybion hasn’t been able to contact you.’
‘The Kybion was incomplete when I first
met it. That was long ago. It must have overcome that problem by now. And I
would feel it if the transmitter stopped. If Humbert or the other two were to
try and move me from this place, I don’t know what would happen. I only know it
would not be pleasant.’
‘At least they wouldn’t get the Star
Dancer.’ She could see he wasn’t impressed. ‘Yes. I suppose that could be
pretty disastrous as well.’
‘Especially if they tried to cut the
transmitter out of me. At least, I wouldn’t be very happy about it.’
‘Don’t suppose the police would be any
use?’ Wendle gave her an even cooler look. ‘No, they wouldn’t believe even part
of it. There’s only one thing for it then.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Toby will have to let me know if anything
happens to you.’
‘No!’ Wendle snapped.
‘Why not? The other three aren’t able to conjure up
alter egos in the same way, are they? Even your Tasmin doesn’t have that
ability, does she?’
‘It’s unlikely.’
‘Then they can’t find out what we’re up to, can they?’
‘Not as far as I know. But I did not
intend you to take any risks.’
‘Who says I will?’ Gabrielle replied innocently.
Wendle paused for a moment, and then
seemed satisfied. He poured out two more mugs of coffee. They sat in silence
drinking until the grandfather clock struck. It looked oddly out of place in
the uncluttered room. The hollow chime urged Gabrielle to move. Obediently she
gathered up the photocopies and her shoulder bag, and left with a brief
farewell to the preoccupied Wendle.
That night she slept unusually deeply.
Her subconscious needed time to digest the revelations before the next strange
day arrived.
Wendle remained seated at the table in
his bungalow, not daring to fall asleep. He heard the breeze catch the kitchen
window and blow it open but he was too exhausted to go and close it. If he had
been his usual vigilant self, he would have sensed the figure standing behind
him.
A quick hand pressed a pad over his
nose and mouth. After a brief violent struggle, all the cool breezes of the
Channel couldn’t have roused him.
With a sharp crack, the screen measuring the level in
the energy pool shattered. Opu didn’t turn to see how it had happened. She was
busy keeping the power as constant as possible. It was either that or shutting
down another refractor, and with five other stations out of commission that
wouldn’t have been a good idea. Everyone’s consumption had already been
rationed and the energy giving yellow sun was about to enter its short phase. By
the time it was at its regular meridian again, it could well be shining down on
a world minus intelligent life.
‘Damn evolution,’ swore Opu. ‘Why the
heck can’t we go without perpetual nourishment, like our ancestors?’
There was a familiar voice from the balcony.
‘Can’t invent anything to shift us back in time.’
‘Come inside, Annac. You might as well
be in here as anywhere else when we all drop out like spent meteors, one by
one, round the globe.’
Annac joined the harassed
controller-in-charge. ‘Your little plan not working, eh?’
‘You invented the system. What went
wrong?’
‘Did it arrive there?’
‘So Taigal Rax says.’
‘Then my end went all right. Must have
been your machine or the fancy bits they added to it.’
‘But it must have worked,’ insisted
Opu. ‘It was faultless. It was repeatedly checked.’
‘Has the Kybion contacted them?’ asked
Annac.
‘Not yet. They can’t raise it.’
‘Then they must have given it a mind of
its own. After all, we don’t understand enough about the creatures on the Star
Dancer’s planet to know what idiosyncrasies it needed.’
‘The Kybion may have become faulty.’
‘Don’t let it cross your mind.’
‘The thought has been trampling through
my mind ever since we should have been receiving results.’
‘You need a short break.’
‘You must be joking.’
‘Believe me,’ said Annac, ‘I did a
permanent shift when those solar flares shattered eleven refractors and, if I
hadn’t taken a short break, I wouldn’t have thought my way out of it. Don’t
worry, the problem will still be here when you come back. You could go and see
your youngster if you want.’
‘That I would not survive at the present time.’
‘If you don’t change your mind about
that child soon, it could grow up with a complex.’
‘If that bundle of circuits and
crystals doesn’t do something about this Star Dancer soon, nobody will have the
chance to grow up.’
‘Still, I want you to meet someone.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s not far. Looks as though the Star
Dancer is through with you for this shift anyway.’ She pointed to the remains
of the energy level.
Opu saw that it was still and sighed
with relief. She handed over to another controller and went to the balcony with
Annac.
‘Where to?’ Opu asked.
‘Just follow me.’
‘Well, don’t swerve about, will you. My
reflexes aren’t up to avoiding mid-air collisions.’
‘My wings are as steady as they ever
were,’ Annac assured her with the arrogance of old age, and lurched from the
balcony into the air.
Many near collisions later, Annac and
Opu were circling over an untidy clutter of spherical homes. They had become
stacked, higgledy-piggledy on top of each other over thousands of years and
looked an eyesore from the air. Some were so old no one bothered to demolish
them because they thought it was only a matter of time before they fell down of
their own accord.
Annac spiralled towards one of the lowest in the stack
and Opu followed at a safe distance. Alighting on a narrow balcony and passing
through a curtain of light beams, they found themselves in a large round room
littered with antique apparatus.
‘Hey,’ Annac called to a recess, ‘don’t
you know there’s an emergency on?’
‘Then how did you manage to find time
to come here?’ came back a voice. ‘I always thought your input was so
invaluable - unlike us poor seers.’
‘Because I’ve come to consult a seer,’
Annac shouted back, and in so doing woke a lounging figure who rolled over onto
her back, crumpling a wing. ‘What a way to spend an emergency,’ commented the
old Ojalie contemptuously.
‘I was trying to conserve energy until
you lit in here like a miracle from the moon,’ retorted the recumbent visitor.
‘I’m very energy conscious at the moment.’
‘Aren’t we all,’ agreed Opu wryly.
‘Come on Anaru,’ called Annac. ‘We
haven’t got all this sun. It was your idea after all.’
‘I’ve just finished setting it up,’
Anaru flitted from the alcove. She immediately threw her arms about Opu in
greeting and completely ignored Annac. ‘I’m sure it might help if we give it a
chance,’ she bubbled. ‘Now everyone clear the loop please.’ She ushered her
reclining guest out. ‘We need all the room we can get for this.’
Opu recognised the equipment. ‘But this
is an old-fashioned mental loop.’
‘That’s right! That’s right!’ Anaru
fluttered her wings in excitement. ‘And you’ll never guess who I got through to
only a short while ago?’
‘Who?’ asked Opu, just managing to be
polite.
‘The Water Planet.’
‘She means Taigal Rax,’ Annac
explained.
Opu had already guessed that. ‘We are
able to contact them at the speed of thought, you know,’ Opu reminded her.
‘Ah,’ Anaru lifted a stubby finger,
‘but are you able to contact the planet where the Kybion is?’
‘Of course not. If the android built a
receiver that powerful, it would be more than a little conspicuous. At the
moment the wretched thing won’t even contact Taigal Rax.’
‘But what if you could contact
it?’
‘The Kybion is a machine; it doesn’t
have a mental link you can raise.’
‘But humans have!’
‘Oh no, I’ve got all the problems I
need for one lifetime.’
‘Why not?’ asked Annac, who hadn’t been
known for flights of fancy.
‘This is an evolving species. Even if
we could contact these humans, it’s unlikely they would understand us.’
‘Is that what they call themselves?’
asked Annac.
‘Apparently.’
‘We’re still evolving. Any species that
isn’t is an extinct one.’
‘If we make a bad contact we can easily
break off,’ Anaru insisted. ‘We only have to shut down the power. Let me show
you how it works.’ Opu lowered her beak in disapproval. ‘Please...’
‘Oh, all right,’ Opu said somewhat
disagreeably.
Anaru was already connecting the
equipment before the words were out of her mouth. ‘I’ll just let them know I’m
coming through.’ She dashed into the alcove.
‘Hey,’ called Opu, ‘that’s cheating.’
She turned on Annac. ‘How did she manage to get a link into the computer
signal?’
‘Stop complaining, it doesn’t make any
difference to your transmissions.’
‘Get on with it then,’ Opu snapped as
Anaru reappeared.
‘Now don’t rush me,’ the seer
protested. ‘I must concentrate.’ She sat upright on the floor with her wings
outspread, looking like an ancient statuette. ‘Don’t interrupt, and look at the
screen.’
Annac and Opu joined her on the floor
and did as she said. With a beam of power playing about her broad skull,
Anaru’s thoughts were projected onto the frequency selected on the screen.
Within seconds, an image began to flicker before them. The distinct features of
an aquatic Taigalian appeared.
‘You can speak to her if you become
part of the loop,’ Anaru told Opu. ‘There’ll be no language problem as long as
you don’t move out of it.’
Unexpectedly impressed, Opu moved into
the loop and studied the amphibious features on the screen. They were
shimmering silver and framed with white-edged scales. Double lids protected the
eyes, and a nostril in the centre of the forehead occasionally opened and
closed.
‘My name is Controller Opu,’ she
thought.
The response was immediate. ‘I am
Healphani-Kioyono. I know of you, but am not connected with the transmission of
the Kybion. We hope your problem is resolved soon.’
‘So do I,’ Opu absently thought. It was
instantly transmitted across the Galaxy.
‘Anaru told us she would like to link
with the planet, Perimeter 84926. If you permit it, I can find out the
co-ordinates of the Kybion. She may be able to pick up a human sensitive in its
vicinity.’
‘As long as it doesn’t interfere with
its function, anything’s worth trying.’ Opu was becoming more impressed by the
minute. ‘Though all official contact will be made through my control.’
‘Of course. This is purely experimental.
We could boost Anaru’s signal should she need it.’
‘We must conserve the power now,
Healphani. Reception’s getting erratic,’ Anaru cut in. ‘Many thanks. I’ll be
back to you as soon as I can.’ She slapped the disc that shut down the
equipment.
‘Well?’ said Annac.
It was obvious Opu had changed her mind
about seers. ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘You’re not often wrong.’ Then she turned to
Anaru. ‘Even if you can reach a human on that planet, how will you make them
understand, let alone help us?’
‘We talk through thought, so won’t need
a translator. It’s purely a matter of selecting the right sensitive,’ explained
Anaru.
‘Forgive me,’ Opu said, ‘it’s my job to
be sceptical. I’m not handed prizes for believing in miracles.’
Annac pulled herself up. ‘I’m not
surprised you had a brat for a child,’ she commented dryly. ‘I’ll see you later
Anaru.’
Anaru fidgeted herself out of her
statuesque position. ‘Well, don’t come back and interfere until I tell you.
Your ideas have too many angles to be of any use in here. Goodbye, Opu. I hope
we see each other again.’
‘You’re the seer. You should know
whether that’s going to happen,’ Opu reminded her somewhat unkindly.
Anaru just chuckled and returned to her
alcove.
It was dawn when Gabrielle half woke and turned to see
the familiar figure of Toby standing by the window. He was holding something
out to her; an address written on a sheet of paper. Reaching for the pencil and
notepad she always kept beside her bed, Gabrielle copied the words before he
faded from sight.
As she shook herself awake, Gabrielle realised that
his expression had been tense and unsmiling. Something was wrong. She tumbled
out of bed and went to the bathroom to splash water on her face, then returned
to the bedroom to read the address written on the pad. ‘High Acre Grange,
Haymaker’s Green’ it read. Wondering whether her mind was playing tricks again,
she pulled out her local map. There actually was a place called Haymaker’s
Green.
After what he had told her, it seemed probable that
Wendle had been kidnapped and taken to that address. Gabrielle had no idea what
to do next. Even if she told the police, no one at the Grange was going to
admit it and let them search the place without something better than her
suspicion to go on.
What to do? The address was a good twelve miles away.
Then she remembered Penny’s bike in the backyard. It was under a primitive
lean-to shed, and fortunately not padlocked.
Gabrielle snatched a quick breakfast, showered, and
then dressed in jeans and T-shirt, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.
Armed with her map, she peddled furiously along the path to Wendle’s bungalow.
The door was ajar, and when she entered it was obvious
that a struggle had taken place. She worked out the quickest route to
Haymaker’s Green and jumped back onto Penny’s bike.
Gabrielle cycled non-stop for those twelve miles and
hardly had enough energy left to circle the wide green to find the right
address. When she found it, the sight of the long drive leading to the house
almost filled her with despair. And what was she going to do when she did reach
the door? The only thing she could think of was to apply for a job as a
scullery maid. The place looked as though it needed a large staff to keep it
going. Having the sense not to go to the huge front door at the top of two
flights of wide steps, she peddled over the courtyard of pale, pink granite
chips to the tradesman’s entrance.
Before Gabrielle could dismount, a tall black man who
looked as though he must have been in charge of something crossed her path.
‘Hello,’ she sang out. ‘Friend of mine says you need
someone to work in the kitchen.’
The man’s clean-shaven features were immobile for a
moment as rapid thoughts, and possibly astonishment, passed behind them. Then
his face lit up.
‘No, no - she meant a laundry maid.’
‘Oh.’ Gabrielle was glad it was a cleaner job. ‘Got no
references.’
‘That’s all right. Nobody stops here long anyway. You
probably won’t either. When can you start?’
‘Now if you want,’ she told him like a diffident
teenager, trying not to sound suspiciously enthusiastic.
‘You’re a big girl. Uniform won’t fit. You’ll have to
borrow a black skirt from
‘Cards?’ Gabrielle queried with convincing innocence.
‘Yes, young lady. And P45.’ He was
obviously used to the problem. ‘We have to pay stamps so you can get
tranquillisers on the National Health after working here for a couple of days.’
Her blank expression spoke volumes. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’ll show you how to
apply for them. Stow your bike over there and come inside.’ He bounced into the
staff entrance. It was just as well he never asked for her CV; she hadn’t yet
been to university, and it was already a little too accomplished for a laundry
maid.
The servants’ quarters were impressive and, in the
subdued light, Gabrielle’s escort looked even more imposing, or would have done
if it weren’t for that nonchalant bounce in his step. As he passed the
occasional maid, secretary or thinly disguised guard, he greeted them with the
same quick, insincere grin and flourish of the hand. By the time Gabrielle had
been shown all the rooms she needed to know about, she seriously began to
wonder how anybody, even a crook, could have managed to employ this unlikely,
irreverent man in the patterned, satin waistcoat as a butler. Finally she was
shown to a large bedroom with curtained bed, wall tapestries, and marble
fireplace.
‘Linen in this place will have to be changed every
day,’ her escort announced. ‘Got a special visitor coming tomorrow. Be your
first job.’
‘Oh? Must be a fussy sort of geezer,’ she said,
angling.
‘Well, I suppose surgeons are.’
Gabrielle gulped back an exclamation of horror and
said instead, ‘What’s your name then?’
‘Weatherby. What’s yours?’
‘Jennifer,’ she answered quickly.
Weatherby looked disapprovingly down at her faded
jeans, T-shirt and long, tangled hair, and pondered. ‘No... You couldn’t be a
Jennifer.’
‘No?’ Gabrielle felt a cold sweat round her neck.
‘Scheherazade,’ he decided. ‘Probably wrong continent,
but old man’ll like that better. Might even suit you when you’re tidied up.’
‘Oh...’ Gabrielle sighed with relief,
hoping she wouldn’t have to know a thousand and one tales as well. They’d all
have been about Florence Nightingale, Disraeli, and the Ming Dynasty, if she
did. ‘When do I have to start in the morning then?’
‘Seven thirty.’ Gabrielle grimaced. ‘Or whenever you
like. Could live in if you want. Can’t be too fussy in this place. As long as
things get done we aren’t bothered by anyone. It’s his heavy boys Mr Gunn keeps
tabs on.’
‘Heavy boys?’ Gabrielle exclaimed.
Weatherby grinned cynically. ‘We have
trouble with the mice. They won’t bother you. He keeps them on short leads.’
Gabrielle followed Weatherby back down
the stairs, trying to remember the layout of the mansion.
‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance of
stopping here tonight is there?’ she asked tentatively.
Weatherby threw a quizzical glance back
over his shoulder at her.
‘Only I got trouble at home y’see.
Brother don’t like this boy I’m seeing.’
‘No problem, if that’s what you want.
You’ll have to get your own meal today, though, if you want to eat. The cook’s
going through one of her emotional phases. Mr Gunn’s been playing her up
something awful and she’s a bit sensitive at the moment.’
‘Oh thanks. And I don’t mind where I
sleep.’ But Weatherby had bounced too far ahead to hear.
In the large kitchen Gabrielle was
introduced to the emotional cook. The delicate frills of her blouse sleeves and
collar beneath the white overall, and the heavy mesh stockings clung awkwardly
to the contours of a very solid-boned frame.
‘Call me Alice,’ the cook said in a
husky voice, reaching out to take Gabrielle’s hand.
‘Her real name’s Arthur, but call her
The cook cast him a warning glance.
‘Don’t pay any attention to him, my dear. Because this place finds it difficult
to keep staff it attracts all sorts of riffraff. Though it’s not surprising.
You’ve no idea what a dreadful man Mr Gunn can be.’
‘That’s right,’ said Weatherby, ‘now
she’ll really want to stay.’ He turned to Gabrielle. ‘Just how serious is this
problem with your brother?’
‘I’m paid to. I am the head butler.’
‘Four.’
‘Is Mr Gunn really that bad?’ interrupted
Gabrielle before
‘Only if you meet him,’ Weatherby said
reassuringly.
‘I won’t need to, will I?’
‘Oh, you shouldn’t worry,’
Gabrielle’s eyebrows must have risen sufficiently for
Weatherby to explain, ‘Mr Gunn’s facial attributes are not all that
attractive.’
‘He’s grotesque,’
This certainly sounded like the Mr
Humbert Wendle had described, and the house and guards could have easily
concealed a prisoner without anyone else knowing.
Gabrielle only met two part-time
housekeepers, a handyman, two gardeners, and a kitchen maid, and wondered how
they managed to maintain the place by themselves. She also discovered that Mr
Gunn’s bodyguards were the only ones allowed near him. They even escorted an
older woman and her companion who were visiting Mr Gunn that afternoon.
The next day Gabrielle managed to busy
herself convincingly by running backwards and forwards along the long landing
that overlooked the main hall carrying bundles of laundry. Most of it went into
the huge washing machines and was hung on lines in the back yard. She helped
one of the housekeepers with the ironing then made the beds.
Although quite exhausted by the
evening, Gabrielle had noticed the much used door to a lower floor opening and
closing automatically to let the guards pass through. Because she could only
see the tops of heads from the landing, one of them might have been Mr Gunn for
all she knew. Gabrielle had better sense than to arouse suspicion by asking
what was down there and waited until the place was quite deserted.
Being the new girl, she found it
difficult to break away from the gossip in the kitchen. Inventing an elaborate
family saga to back up the story about her bully of a brother was more taxing
than putting the cover on a king-size duvet. When she eventually managed to
break free, she was at least sure where everyone else was.
Gabrielle knew that there must have
been an easier way to get down to the lower floor than through that automatic
door, and wandered round the pink gravelled backyard looking for an outside
entrance. She carefully picked her way round the house in the slowly descending
summer dusk. As though he had read her thoughts, a familiar shape stood waiting
for her by an ivy-covered alcove beneath some large windows. Toby pointed down.
At first she could only see the blanket of ivy. He remained resolutely where he
was, so she pushed the tangle of leaves with her foot.
There was a door under the ivy. With a
hollow crack, the rotten wood fell from its hinges and crashed down a short
flight of steps. Gabrielle froze at the noise, sure she would be discovered. There
was nothing else for it but to flee down the steps after it. She fought her way
through the ivy, pulled it back after her to cover the entrance, and then
waited a few moments to make sure she hadn’t attracted attention. When nobody
came out to investigate, she groped her away along the rough wall at the bottom
of the steps.
As her eyes became accustomed to the
dark, Gabrielle realised she was in an ancient coal cellar. She didn’t need a
degree in ancient buildings to know that if she reached up she would find the
slanting doors that should have been on the outside of the coal cellar. But
that was wrong. The coal chute should have been on the outside of the house and
the steps on the inside, unless it was constructed by a builder with a grudge
against the owner. On the opposite side of the cellar, Gabrielle found the coal
chute above a pile of ancient coke from a century old delivery. She carefully
climbed on to it in the gloom and gingerly reached up to push the doors open.
It led to a tiled pathway lit by skylights in the top of a wall. The extension
had been built over the demolished remains of another building and part of its
garden. She nearly tripped over stacks of ancient flowerpots that had been left
there.
Although she could now see where she
was going, Gabrielle didn’t know which way to turn. Then Toby reappeared. He
led her along the enclosed tiled garden path until they came to a rusty grating
at a dead end. It was possible to see through into a dimly lit corridor below.
It was long and quite deserted. Not thinking for one moment that she could
wrench the grating out with her bare hands, Gabrielle half-heartedly shook it.
To her amazement it came free. This was too much of a coincidence and she
turned to look accusingly at Toby, but his fancy cream shirt and fading frock
coat were nowhere to be seen.
Things were going too well for
Gabrielle’s rational mind. The very fact that she was able to get this far so
easily made her suspicious when anyone else would have put it down to luck. She
pushed her way through the hole and lowered herself down.
Although it was below ground, the air
felt warm and dry, and there was the faint whirr of an air conditioning fan.
Gabrielle moved cautiously up the corridor. The door at the end of it opened
without difficulty. Someone had very conveniently forgotten to secure the heavy
bolt on the other side. Ahead was the motionless figure of Toby waiting for her
to catch up. He must have been the one making her progress so easy, yet how
could a ghost draw back a bolt or loosen a grating?
Gabrielle hesitated for a moment. Was
someone expecting her? Gunn could only know that Wendle had spoken to her if
he’d told him. It wasn’t possible, she decided, and followed Toby once more. He
stopped by a grille at the bottom of the wall. She looked down into a
white-walled room. Inside were four men. Two were guarding a door, and an obese
figure was standing over someone lying on a table. It was Wendle. From the
grotesque, bloated features of the man by him, it was easy to deduce that this
was Mr Gunn. He was frantically trying to wake Wendle up. Gabrielle noticed
that Toby was getting fainter and fainter. He vanished as Wendle was brought to
his senses by Gunn’s hefty smack to his face.
‘At last,’ Gunn growled. ‘Don’t think
you can get out of this by staying unconscious forever. I’m not going to have
you killed just yet.’
‘Why not?’ murmured Wendle, ‘Haven’t
you taken out any insurance on me?’
Gunn clearly didn’t like this accurate
reference to his method of amassing a fortune, and hit out again. By this time
Wendle was fully conscious and managed to roll from the table before more
damage could be done. He obviously preferred to be asleep, with or without the
aid of chloroform.
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know anything
about this Star Dancer,’ Wendle pleaded. ‘The Kybion didn’t tell me any more
than you already know, I swear.’
‘Of course you know, you lying pup!’
Gunn bellowed. ‘You never did have any respect for me, but I’ve got too much to
lose to put up with your bloody-mindedness now.’
‘What’s the difference if you’re going
to get a surgeon to remove the transmitter anyway?’
‘The difference is whether you get an
anaesthetic or not when he does it.’
Gabrielle could see Wendle stiffen. The
nausea in the pit of her stomach told her she would have to do something before
the surgeon arrived the next morning.
Gunn continued to rail at his victim
like a sadistic toad for as long as his body had the breath, adding a few more
threats worse than the one he had already made. Then he stormed out, leaving
the two guards with Wendle. There was no way to get to him from where she was.
The grille would have needed more than Toby’s supernatural powers to shift it
without alerting the guards. There was nothing Gabrielle could do but return to
the servants’ quarters before she was missed.