A Tale of Time City (34 page)

Time City is going to be a terrible place with someone like Mr. Lee in charge, she thought, looking firmly at her own knees. That brought her to the thing she wanted most of all not to think of. Suppose Mr. Lee meant them to stay here while the clock struck and be deaf for the rest of their lives? Try as she would, Vivian kept thinking of that. The myriad glass cogs in front of her kept reminding her of it. The shaking of the tower was causing all sorts of extra glassy noises, jingles and tinks and squeaks, which cut across the regular chiming hum of the works in a way that was urgent and irritating. It got on Vivian’s nerves so, that she just had to switch on her clock-function to see how near it was to midday.

Her wrist lit up, and of course it said ten past six. Their journeys to the Silver Age and then to Twenty Century had put it completely out of step with Time City. There was no knowing how soon the great clock would strike. “Oh
blast
!” Vivian muttered.

As she said it, the glass works dimmed to a yellowish twilight. All three of them looked up. The windows were now covered by panels of the same yellowish translucent stone as the walls. They could hardly tell which was window and which was wall.

“Sealing the tower,” Jonathan said. “I’d heard there were shutters for all the doors and windows, but I don’t think they’ve ever been used. Do you think that means there’s someone outside and the Lees don’t want them to get in?”

They looked at one another with a great deal more hope.

“If you can get in and out of the pillar in the museum-room,” Jonathan said, “mightn’t it work the same here? Do you think there’s a way to get through the works of the clock?”

Sam jumped up. “I’ll try. I’m smallest.”

“But—” said Vivian, thinking of the dead Patroller. Then she decided not to say anything. Sam was already crawling nimbly among the nearest huge saw-edged cogs. He looked as if he would be cut to pieces any second. “Come back!” she said feebly.

“Let him go. He might have a chance,” Jonathan said. “It’s the one good thing left.” He looked up at the high ceiling and more or less howled, “This is all my
fault
! Every time I get an idea I make a complete mess of it! I found them the Silver Casket—and on top of that I went and told Inga Lee where the Lead Casket is!”

“Shut up!” Vivian snapped. She had to look away from Sam among the glimmering machinery. He was trying to squeeze under a glass rod that kept coming downwards at him, while an enormous disc edged up on him from behind. She turned on Jonathan instead. “You’re being as bad as Elio!” she said. “It is
not
your fault! It’s the Lees who’ve done all this! And
no one’s
got the Lead Casket yet! You ought to be thinking where it is, instead of doing a song and dance like a—like a raving android!”

“And the same to you!” Jonathan said. He snatched a look at Sam, who was now edging under a giant elbow of glass, dimly going up and down like a bent piston. In order not to see Sam crushed, he turned to Vivian and said reasonably, “The Lead Casket—all we know is that it must be the small egg-shape, because the Silver one’s big. You could see the size from its packing. And we think we know it’s attracted to the other Caskets.” Here he and Vivian both had
to look at Sam again. He was backing away from a cog like a circular saw and another, even bigger, was coming sideways at him. The sight sent Jonathan angry. “But if you know anything that size that gets attracted to the Caskets,” he snapped, “do please tell me, because
I’ve
never seen it!”

Sam lay down flat on the glass floor and both cogs missed him.

“But we
have
!” Vivian cried out, in a burst of relief. “We all have! The time-egg! The one Elio thought was a dud! It took us after the Iron Casket a whole hundred years—and it didn’t want to take us back to the City.”

Jonathan stared at her an instant. Then he called out, “Sam! Lie there for a moment—it’s important. Can you hear us?”

“Only just,” Sam called back. “It sort of hums. What do you want?”

“An egg-shaped thing,” Jonathan called back, clearly and precisely. “Dark grey, about the size to fit in my hand, that gets attracted by the Caskets.”

Sam’s voice boomed among the chiming machinery. “You mean that old time-lock control? The one that took Elio after the Silver and landed him among the bare ladies?”

Jonathan and Vivian clutched one another. “It
is
!” said Vivian.

“Sam,” Jonathan called carefully, “that egg is the
Lead Casket
. Got that?”

“I can’t hear!” Sam said petulantly. “I thought you said that egg was the Lead Casket.”

“It
is
!” Jonathan and Vivian both called.

There was a short humming, tinkling silence. Then Sam called, “Who do I tell?”

“If you can get out, tell Dr. Wilander,” Jonathan called. He said
to Vivian, “It sounds as if he had an idea what my uncle’s like. Who else, if Sam can’t find him?”

“He oughtn’t to tell anyone Mr. Lee used the Silver on, just in case,” Vivian said. And, being unable to think of anyone else, she called, “Mr. Enkian.”

“Mr. Enkian,” Sam called back: “All right.” He began wriggling on towards the glass pillar, still lying on his back. After about a foot, his way was blocked by a nest of glass rods, where he had to stand up and sidle round them. Beyond that was a flurry of glass shapes, all working very fast, and beyond those was the pillar. Just as Sam sidled behind the nest of rods and his pale mind-suit became very hard to see, the shutter in the archway slid aside. Cousin Vivian came in, holding the Patroller’s gun.

“They want you all downstairs now,” she said. Her skinny arm with its little puffed sleeve looked ridiculous holding the gun, but Vivian and Jonathan had no doubt that she would shoot with it, far more readily and ruthlessly than Leon Hardy. They went slowly towards her. Vivian Lee backed against the side of the arch, so that she could hold the gun steady with both hands and still see the rest of the dim, tinkling room. “Where’s the other one?” she said sharply. “The sticky baby with red hair.”

“Sam’s hiding in the works,” Jonathan said. “If you shoot him, he’ll stop the clock.”

“It’s a suicide mission,” Vivian said, hoping that this was not true.

“Stupid thing!” Cousin Vivian said. “Nothing can stop that clock! Come
out
!” she shouted. “You’ll only get squished!”

Neither Vivian nor Jonathan could help looking at the place
where Sam had last been. And Sam had made it. They saw the faint glimmer of his mind-suit slowly rising through the middle of the pillar.

“Then you can stay there and go deaf when the clock strikes. It’s ten to twelve now!” Cousin Vivian called. She waited a moment in case Sam decided to come out. Vivian and Jonathan looked down at the glass floor in order not to follow the glimmer upwards with their eyes. “Very well. Stay there!” said Cousin Vivian. She beckoned with the gun. “I’ve got the safety off,” she said warningly.

They had to go past her and down the stairs without another look at the pillar. There are stairs all the way down outside, Vivian thought. He can be out long before the clock strikes.

The museum room was almost as dim and yellowish as the room above. All the windows were shuttered except for the one that looked directly out over the Avenue of the Four Ages. There, the museum cases had been pulled aside and Cousin Vivian’s parents were setting up some kind of apparatus in the space. The two Caskets had been put in the niches. Vivian could see them, first dark and distorted by the glass and then clear and in plain view, as the pillar went slowly round—one flattish iron box, a little rusty, and one large silver egg on which pearls and red stones gleamed from whorled settings.

“I only got two,” Cousin Vivian said. “The other one got in the clock.”

Inga Lee turned round. “The small one—he could be small enough to get to the pillar,” she said nervously.

Without bothering to turn round, Mr. Lee said, “It won’t make
any difference if he does. I put the shutters down in the bell pagoda. All he’ll get is a bad attack of deafness. Nobody’s going in or out of this tower—and we won’t need Sam until later. Bring those two over here, Vivvie. I need them now.”

“Why do you need us?” said Jonathan.

“Shut up,” said Mr. Lee. He said it as if he meant it. Vivian and Jonathan went over to the window without daring to say anything else. “Stand there,” Mr. Lee said, shoving them to one side of it. “And remember—the only use you are to me is as hostages. So keep quiet until the clock strikes and the Gold Casket gets here. I may let you go then.”

“Why do you need Sam later?” Jonathan said.

Mr. Lee laughed. “To continue the Lee line,” he said. “You won’t mind a deaf husband, will you, Vivvie?”

Vivian could not see Cousin Vivian’s face from where she stood backed against the bay of the window, so there was no way of telling what she thought. Beside her, Jonathan was chewing the end of his pigtail. Vivian was sure he was thinking about Sam, waiting beside a dead Patroller to be deafened. There was no way out of the Pagoda except by the outside stairs and, from what Mr. Lee said, it seemed as if there was a shutter between Sam and the stairs.

“Ah! Here they come!” said Mr. Lee. “The fools have smelt a rat at last.”

Vivian craned across Jonathan. A group of Patrollers and other people were hurrying up the zig-zag steps to the Gnomon. Mr. Donegal was bounding up in front. Vivian saw Sempitern Walker near the back beside Dr. Leonov, the High Scientist, and the great
purple figure of Dr. Wilander towering in the middle. Scattered people were hurrying behind, trying to catch up, Patrollers and Annuate Guards mostly, but one of them was Petula and another looked like Ramona. And a long way in the rear, rushing down the middle of the Avenue of the Four Ages, was Mr. Enkian with his robes flying.

“That android’s with them—beside Wilander,” Inga Lee said. “I thought we’d made them lock it up.”

“It must have got loose and alerted the rest,” said Mr. Lee. “Well, they’re not much of a threat. I must say, I expected them to be better organized than this!”

Vivian suspected that Mr. Donegal was better organized than Mr. Lee thought. There were movements in among the bushes beyond the stairs that looked like more people keeping out of sight while they got Endless Hill surrounded. While she was trying to see if they were indeed Patroller uniforms creeping through the shrub, she heard a faint scuttering. It was outside the tower, from above somewhere. Jonathan’s head moved slightly and then stopped, stiffly, showing he had heard it too. It
couldn’t
be a trailing shoelace! Vivian thought. Sam’s feet had been enclosed in that mind-suit. But it did sound very much like one. And the scuttering was coming round the wall and getting lower, where the Lees might hear it at any moment.

She looked at Mr. Lee. He was smiling and holding a small round piece of metal to his mouth. He spoke into it. “
Stop!
” his voice blared from outside the tower. “
None of you come any nearer. This is Viv Lee speaking, Abdul
.”

The people coming up the stairs faltered. Their faces turned up to the window, but none of them quite stopped climbing.

“
I told you to stop
,” Mr. Lee’s voice blared. “
We have taken possession of the Gnomon and we have two of the so-called polarities of Time City up here with us. We will not hesitate to turn the force of the polarities on anyone who comes any nearer. Get off the steps
!”

The group on the stairs stopped. They did not seem to be quite as well organized as Vivian hoped. They were turning to one another, asking one another for something. She listened hard in the silence, but she could not hear the scuttering any more. Then a Patroller climbed over the stone balustrade beside Mr. Donegal and put something into his hand. They heard his voice, as if he were speaking from right beside them.

“Viv, you’re mad! What are you trying to do up there?”

“
I’m taking over Time City
,” Mr. Lee blared. “
It will come to a halt at the end of time in six minutes from now. When it does, the Gold Casket and the Lead Casket will be brought to the Gnomon. I warn you not to interfere with those Caskets in any way. Get off the steps
.”

“Viv, I think we should talk about this,” Mr. Donegal’s voice suggested quietly from beside Mr. Lee’s shoulder.

“
Do as I tell you!
” Mr. Lee blared. “
I have hostages here. I shall start by shooting one of them to show I mean business
.” He nodded to his daughter. She prodded the gun into Vivian’s arm and then Jonathan’s and pushed them out in front of the window, where the group of upturned faces could clearly see them. Mr. Lee took the gun from his daughter and waved it so that they could see that too. Vivian felt unreal. It was like that first night in Patrol Building. She
felt as if she was in a film. And perhaps that’s merciful, she thought. “
Do you see them?
” Mr. Lee blared. “
Do I shoot
one?
”

There was more confusion among the group. Heads turned. Arms waved, beckoning to the stragglers hurrying up the flight of steps below. Mr. Donegal’s voice said irritably, “I
know
he’s violent! And that wife of his—” and this was followed by a click as he turned his loud-speaker off and waved everyone towards the side of the steps. In an untidy sort of stampede, everyone hurried to the balustrade and bundled themselves and one another over it into the bushes. Jonathan’s teeth crunched on his pigtail. Elio was still standing there, a small pale figure in his mind-suit. The two Guardians were advancing down the steps towards him, one a long silver glitter and the other tall and dull brown, casting dim, not-quite-real shadows across Elio and dwarfing him completely.

“Inga!” snapped Mr. Lee. “Get what those things are saying to one another. Quickly!” He held the gun against Jonathan’s head and neither Jonathan nor Vivian dared to move. Their eyes turned sideways to watch Inga Lee fiddling with knobs on top of her apparatus.

There was a noise like an army marching through tinfoil. Out of it, Elio’s voice said faintly, “The Lead Casket.” As soon as he said it, Elio turned and leapt over the side of the steps into the bushes. The two Guardians glimmered out of sight, leaving two long faint eye-blots on the stairs.