Falling Sideways (26 page)

‘Ah,' said a familiar voice, proceeding from a familiar face, ‘there you are. We were wondering where on earth you'd got to.'

David studied him like a cat inspecting another cat across a narrow lawn. ‘Do I know you?' he asked.

‘Don't be silly,' the man replied. ‘We were talking to each other just this afternoon. I was telling you about – well, everything, really, and how we've fixed up a nice new life for you in—'

‘British Columbia, yes. So you're him.'

He nodded. ‘And then, when we came to give you a lift to the helicopter pad, you'd wandered off somewhere and we couldn't find you. But not to worry, you're here now. And we can sort out some new arrangements for getting you safely away.'

‘Wonderful,' David said—

Well, it was. That was why he'd come here, to claim his free prize and his Blankety-Blank chequebook and pen for being a good sport. So why did he feel like his ears should be pressed back against the sides of his skull?

‘In fact,' the man went on, ‘this is pretty damn convenient, all things considered, because we can actually send you on your way from here, without having to go trekking about the countryside. Just follow me – well, of course, you know the way, don't you?'

David stayed precisely where he was. ‘From here?' he repeated, thinking of the bag of sugar.

‘Yes, that's right. Bit of a long story to go into, standing on the stairs like this. Let's go up to the flat and talk about it there.'

‘No, thanks. I like discussing things on stairs, it reminds me of when I was at college. Are you sure I'll be going to British Columbia?'

The man looked at him with a disturbingly neutral expression. ‘What a very strange question,' he said. ‘Why, where else were you thinking of? Is there somewhere else you'd rather go?'

David nodded. ‘I think so,' he said. ‘I think I'd like to go somewhere where I don't keep meeting people who look like you. No offence,' he added, ‘but you do seem to make things happen, and I really hate that.'

‘Don't be such an old fusspot,' the man replied icily. ‘And anyway, wherever you go, you'll need money and documents and all sorts of things like that. We've got everything you'll need waiting for you, upstairs. Just come with me, and everything'll be just fine.'

‘No.'

The man was looking at him. He knew that look; it was the old you-don't-want-me-to-have-to-tell-your-father-when-he-gets-home look, the one that's supposed to pin you to the wall like a butterfly. For the first time in his life, it didn't seem to be working.

‘No,' he repeated. ‘Thanks all the same. If you like, I'll wait here while you just nip up and fetch the stuff. That'd be really kind.'

The man shook his head. ‘Don't be so lazy,' he said. ‘You've got younger legs than me. Come upstairs.'

David took a deep breath. ‘I know what you're up to,' he said. ‘I know all about the plain white rooms and the bags of sugar. You're going to send me back to your planet, the one you call Homeworld; and I don't know exactly why you want to do that, but I do know that if you want me to go there, I'm not going.'

The man raised an eyebrow. ‘Other planets,' he said. ‘Bags of sugar. The other part, the bit about plain white rooms, could well be drawn from recent experience, the way you're talking. Plain white rooms with soft walls, maybe.'

David shook his head. ‘Nice try,' he said, ‘won't wash. She told me all about it – you know, the girl . . .' He stopped short; of course, this one wouldn't know anything about
his
Philippa Levens replica; nor was it desirable that he should.

He looked at the man, trying to keep the panic out of his face. By the man's expression, he gathered that he'd failed.

‘I take it you're referring to the flat above yours,' the man was saying, ‘the one I took you up to, when you wanted to borrow some sugar, yes? Nothing sinister about that, I assure you. I think I explained about all that at the time. Didn't I?'

‘Did you?' Damnation, he'd forgotten all about that one. In any event, he'd made yet another mistake and made the wretched man extremely suspicious. Time, he felt, to start running away as fast as possible. ‘Oh, yes, that's right,' he said, backing down the stairs. ‘Sorry, I don't know what could've come over me just then. I really don't rivet rivet rivet—'

CHAPTER TWELVE

N
ot rivet, David shouted to himself, as he hung in mid-air above the stairs, not rivet, not rivet. I am not an amphibian, I am a free man—

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a gnat. His tongue was out and back in his mouth before he even knew what he'd done. Fly; yummy! I mean, yetch.

He tried to jam a wedge under the door of his mind. I know I'm not a frog. I know that they can't really turn people into frogs, they can just make people think people are frogs. I am not a frog. I think, therefore I am not a frog. I think, therefore I don't think I'm a frog. I think, therefore I think I'm not a frog, but so what, there're people out there who think they're Napoleon. I think rivet rivet.

‘Here we are,' said a voice far above his head, a voice that was somehow connected to the unbearable heat of the prehensile pink platform he was slumped on. ‘In you go, there you are. Nice bowl. Nice water.'

Nice water. Not nice water. Can a human being drown in three inches of water? How the hell can I fit inside this football-sized glass bowl? I can't. I can't, therefore I am a frog. I am not a frog, I'm a person thinking he can fit inside a football-sized glass bowl. This is awful. Is this what they call existential angst? God, I could do with another fly. That's midges for you; eat one and ten seconds later you're hungry again.

There was a rock to sit on, and an interestingly tangled sprig of pondweed, and water to submerge himself in right up to the tip of his nose. It was the earthly paradise; even British Columbia couldn't be a patch on this. And of course it meant the police would never be able to find him, since they weren't looking for a frog. Go on, hissed the tempter in his inner ear, just for once, do the sensible thing. Show some gratitude. Be the frog.

It was almost impossible to figure out what was going on outside the bowl. For one thing, the scale was overwhelming; for another, the optical qualities of the water and the bowl itself meant that he was in the mother of all halls of mirrors. He had no neck to crane, and his eyes were working differently, as well as being where his ears should be.

Not that it matters a damn, whispered the tempter, to a frog. A frog's brain can unscramble all these garbled visual signals. You want to see what's going on? Be the frog.

Sure, he could be the frog; and if he did that, what he saw wouldn't bother him, and he'd probably get to live happily ever after, the term ‘ever' in this context being construed in amphibian terms and meaning ‘for at least five seconds'. Well, it was a life. From what he could gather, it was better than working for local government.

He reached a decision.

Another difference between frogs and people, aside from the position of the eyes, is the power of the legs. Of course, since he wasn't really a frog he couldn't instinctively calculate the vast array of variables of velocity and trajectory needed to plot an accurate flight plan, so he'd probably end up either overshooting or crashing into the rim of the bowl. Odds against a perfect and accurate landing: pretty damn vast.

He jumped.

—And landed exactly where he'd been figuring to land; landed what was more, without any jarring or slewing, his balance perfect, his legs already cocked for the next jump. Now that was scary.

The voice above him thundered. More scary; it was getting so the words were blurry and indistinct, and he couldn't seem to remember what the few he could make out actually meant. Rivet, he admitted sourly to himself. Rivet rivet rivet, and even if I managed it, rivet riv— Bugger me, I'm starting to think in frog language now. Didn't I read somewhere that once you start thinking in a foreign language, next thing you know, you've become foreign yourself—

The giant pink platform had become a giant five-tined pink scoop, and it was searching for him, relentlessly. It knew where he was, it was only a matter of—

OK, he said to himself, I'm a frog. But I'm a highly imaginative frog. In fact, I'm so imaginative there's probably something wrong with me; always daydreaming, mooning about the lily pad all day, reading frog science fiction, a frog anorak, a frog geek, a freak – I'm so imaginative (desperate hop to avoid the clasp of the killer pink scoop) I'm so imaginative, I can imagine just what it's like to be a human being, about five eight, right arm about two foot four inches long, a human being punching another human being very hard on the nose—

He imagined doing that, vividly; and a moment later, his nearside front forepaw hurt like hell, the thundering voice above him was yelling in pain, and the pink scoop had gone away. Good frog, he thought, clever frog. Now get the hell out of here before—

Instinctively he skittered sharp left, narrowly avoiding a falling black mountain (not a mountain, it's some guy's boot; in my imagination, of course) and hopped as hard as he could for the nearest cover. In fact, it was the only cover in sight; a squat white pillar with blue markings on the face. Either he misjudged the jump through stress, or he wasn't really a frog; he cannoned into the pillar and it fell over, scattering small, sharp-edged white boulders in every direction.

The voice overhead roared some more; as far as he could tell, not being human himself, the burden of the voice had shifted from pain to a mixture of anger and fear – apparently connected to the white column falling over. In any event, the pink scoop was busy lifting up the pillar and trying to sweep up the small white boulders. A good time for a sensible frog to be hopping along.

Hop, hop, hop. Of course, he hadn't a clue where he was headed, or which direction was most likely to lead to safety. He had a vague memory of being on a staircase, but that related back to before he was a frog. What's a staircase, anyhow? Can you eat it?

The black mountain crashed down again, missing him by less than a paw's breadth (but his superior frog reflexes got him out of trouble once again; that's the joy of being small, you're fast. Who'd be a human, huh?) and he accelerated, heading for a black gap in the whiteness of the horizon. But a noise like the world ending made the floor shake under him, and the gap vanished. He altered course quickly and hurried back the way he'd just come. Every five hops or so the black mountain tried to fall on him, but he didn't have much difficulty in staying clear of it; a mountain is, after all, a clumsy and inefficient weapon to use against a fast, highly manoeuvrable opponent. The word stalemate (or, to be precise, the word
rivet
, in one of its myriad nuances) floated into his mind; he couldn't escape, the human couldn't catch him, it'd come down to who tired out or died first. Hardly an ideal situation, but probably better than holding still.

‘All right.' Quite suddenly, the thunder had resolved itself into words; and he wasn't a frog any more, he was a human being, kneeling on the floor with his bum stuck up in the air. ‘All right,' the voice repeated, ‘that'll do. Be human, see if I care.'

He jumped up (sudden dramatic loss of power to hind legs; he nearly fell over, but fortunately he was close enough to the wall to be able to flop against it and push himself upright) and looked at where the voice was coming from. He saw a human (smaller than he'd expected) with one missing eye and a nosebleed. He was wearing black shoes.

‘You bastard,' David said. ‘You were trying to kill me.'

‘Nonsense.'

‘You bloody well were. You were trying to tread on me.'

‘I was not. I was just trying to catch you and get you back in your nice bowl, before you did yourself an injury.'

‘I don't believe you,' David said.

The man wilted a little. ‘All right,' he said, ‘I lost my temper, I'm sorry. But you'd just knocked over the navigational computer, and you wouldn't keep still—' He shook his head. ‘It was wrong of me, I admit it. I apologise. What more can I say?'

He was, of course, standing between David and the door. ‘How about, “You can go now”?'

The man shook his head. ‘You don't want to do that,' he said. ‘It's dangerous for you out there. Besides, you want to go to British Columbia.' A drop of blood rolled down his chin. ‘We agreed, remember?'

That was before you tried to reduce me to two dimensions. ‘I've changed my mind,' David said. ‘Anyway, I don't think you were ever going to send me there. I think you want to get me into your bloody space-lift and ship me back to your planet.'

‘Ah, yes.' The man's expression changed slightly. ‘I was going to ask you about that. You do realise that that's all nonsense, don't you? There is no other planet. All that stuff about being abducted by aliens and carried off to the Planet of the Amphibians was just to—' He stopped, perhaps conscious of a tact failure. ‘It was all just fun,' he said. ‘A bit of a lark, really.'

David took three steps back, and his heel clinked against something. The goldfish bowl.

‘I see,' he said. ‘And that bag of sugar isn't really the – what did you call it? – navigational computer.'

‘No. Yes. Look—'

David knew he wasn't a frog any more, but he still remembered how to hop. He jumped backwards, clearing the bowl and the bag of sugar, then stooped down and grabbed them both. ‘I'm wondering,' he said, ‘what'd happen if I poured this sugar into this water. Couldn't do any harm, could it?'

The man suddenly went as pale as a black-and-white photograph of Antarctica. ‘Put them down, for God's sake,' he muttered. ‘Carefully.'