Lost in a good book (40 page)

The room was quite like Mycroft’s laboratory apart from the fact that the devices seemed to have been built to a much higher degree of quality and had actually cost some money. Where my uncle’s machines were held together with baler twine, cardboard and rubber solution glue, the machines in here had all been crafted from high-quality alloys. All the testing apparatus looked brand-new, and there was not an atom of dust anywhere. It was chaos—but
refined
chaos. There were about a half-dozen technicians, all of whom seemed to have a certain pallid disposition as though they spent most of their life indoors, and they looked at us curiously as we walked in—I don’t suppose they saw many strange faces. In the middle of the room was a doorway a little like a walk-through metal detector; it was tightly wrapped with thousands of yards of fine copper wire. The wire ended in a tight bunch the width of a man’s arm that led away to a large machine that hummed and clicked to itself. As we walked in, a technician pulled a switch, there was a crackle and a puff of smoke, and everything went dead. It
was
a Prose Portal, but more relevant to the purposes of this narrative, it didn’t work.

I pointed to the copper-bound doorway in the middle of the room. It had started to smoke, and the technicians were now trying to put it out with CO
₂
extinguishers.

“Is that
thing
meant to be a Prose Portal?”

“Sadly, yes,” admitted Schitt-Hawse. “As you may or may not know, all we managed to synthesize was a form of curdled stodgy gunge from volumes one to eight of
The World of Cheese.
”

“Jack Schitt said it was cheddar.”

“Jack always tended to exaggerate a little, Miss Next. This way.”

We walked past a large hydraulic press which was rigged in an attempt to open one of the books that I had seen at Mrs. Nakajima’s apartment. The steel press groaned and strained but the book remained firmly shut. Further on a technician was valiantly attempting to burn a hole in another book, with similar poor results, and after that another technician was looking at an X-ray photograph of the book. He was having a little trouble as two or three thousand pages of text and numerous other “enclosures” all sandwiched together didn’t lend themselves to easy examination.

“What do these books do, Next?”

I was in no mood for a show-and-tell; I was here to get Landen back, nothing more.

“Do you want me to get Jack Schitt out or not?”

He stared at me for a moment before dropping the subject and walking on past several other experiments, down a short corridor and through a large steel door to another room that contained a table, chair—and Lavoisier. He was reading the copy of
The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
as we entered. He looked up.

“Monsieur Lavoisier, I understand you already know Miss Next?” asked Schitt-Hawse.

“We did some time together,” I replied slowly, staring at Lavoisier, who seemed a great deal older and distinctly ill at ease with the situation. I got the impression he didn’t like Goliath any more than I did. He didn’t say anything; he just nodded his head in greeting, shut the book and rose to his feet. We stood in silence for a moment.

“So go on,” said Schitt-Hawse finally, “do your booky stuff, and Lavoisier will reactualize your husband as though nothing had happened. No one will ever know he had gone—except you, of course.”

I bit my lip. This was one of the biggest chances I was ever likely to take. I would try and capitalize on Lavoisier’s apparent dislike of Goliath—after all, the ChronoGuard had no interest in Landen or Jack Schitt—and there was more than one way to trap my father. I was going to have to risk it.

“I need more than just your promise, Schitt-Hawse.”

“It’s not
my
promise, Next—it’s a Goliath Guarantee. Believe me, it’s riveted iron.”

“So was the
Titanic,
” I replied. “In my experience a Goliath Guarantee guarantees
nothing.
”

He stared at me and I stared back.

“Then what do you want?” he asked.

“One: I want Landen reactualized as he was. Two: I want my travelbook back and safe conduct from here. Three: I want a signed confession admitting that you employed Lavoisier to eradicate Landen.”

I gazed at him steadily, hoping my audacity would strike a positive nerve.

“One: Agreed. Two: You get the book back
afterwards.
You used it to vanish in Osaka, and I’m not having that again. Three: I can’t do.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Bring Landen back and the confession is irrelevant, because it never happened—but I can use it if you
ever
try anything like this again.”

“Perhaps,” put in Lavoisier, “you would accept this as a token of my intent.”

He handed me a brown hard-back envelope. I opened it and pulled out a picture of Landen and me at our wedding.

“I have nothing to gain from your husband’s eradication and everything to lose, Miss Next. Your father, well, I’ll get to him eventually. But you have the word of a commander in the ChronoGuard—if that’s good enough.”

I looked at Lavoisier, then at Schitt-Hawse, then at the photo. It was the one that used to sit on the mantelpiece at my mother’s house.

“Where did you get this?”

“In another time, another place,” replied Lavoisier. “And at considerable personal risk to myself, I assure you. Landen is nothing to us, Miss Next—I am only here to help Goliath. Once done I can leave them to their nefarious activities—and not before time.”

Schitt-Hawse shuffled slightly and glared at Lavoisier. It was clear they mistrusted each other deeply; it could only work to my advantage.

“Then let’s do it,” I said finally. “But I need a sheet of paper.”

“Why?” asked Schitt-Hawse.

“Because I have to write a detailed description of this charming dungeon to be able to get
back,
that’s why.”

Schitt-Hawse nodded to Chalk, who gave me a pen and paper, and I sat down and wrote the most detailed description that I could. The travelbook said that five hundred words was adequate for a solo jump, a thousand words if you were to bring anyone with you, so I wrote fifteen hundred just in case. Schitt-Hawse looked over my shoulder as I wrote, checking I wasn’t writing another destination.

“I’ll take that back, Next,” said Schitt-Hawse, retrieving the pen as soon as I had finished. “Not that I don’t trust you or anything.”

I took a deep breath, opened the copy of
The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
and read the first verse to myself:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

O’er a plan to venge myself upon that cursed Thursday Next—

This Eyre affair, so surprising, gives my soul such loath despising,

Here I plot my temper rising, rising from my jail of text.

“Get me out!” I said, advising, “Pluck me from this jail of text—

or I swear I’ll wring your neck!”

He was still pissed off, make no mistake about
that.
I read on:

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in my bleak September

when that loathsome SpecOps member tricked me through “The Raven’s” door.

Eagerly I wished the morrow would release me from this sorrow,

then a weapon I will borrow, Sorrow
her
turn to explore—

I declare that obnoxious maiden who is little but a whore—

darkness hers—for evermore!

“Still the same old Jack Schitt,” I murmured.

“I won’t let him lay a finger on you, Miss Next,” assured Schitt-Hawse. “He’ll be arrested before you can say ketchup.”

So, gathering my thoughts, I offered my apologies to Miss Havisham for being an impetuous student, cleared my mind and throat and then read the words out loud, large as life and clear as a bell.

There was a distant rumble of thunder and the flutter of wings close to my face. An inky blackness fell and a wind sprang up and whistled about me, tugging at my clothes and flicking my hair into my eyes. A flash of lightning briefly illuminated the sky about me, and I realized with a start that I was high above the ground, hemmed in by clouds filled with the ugly passion of a tempest in full spate. The rain struck my face with a sudden ferocity, and I saw in the feeble moonlight that I was being swept along close to a large storm cloud, illuminated from within by bolts of lightning. Just when I thought that perhaps I had made a
very
big mistake by attempting this feat without proper instruction, I noticed a small dot of yellow light through the swirling rain. I watched as the dot grew bigger until it wasn’t a dot but an oblong, and presently this oblong became a window, with frames, and glass, and curtains beyond. I flew closer and faster, and just when I thought I must collide with the rain-splashed glass I was
inside,
wet to the skin and quite breathless.

The mantel clock struck midnight in a slow and steady rhythm as I gathered my thoughts and looked around. The furniture was of highly polished dark oak, the drapes a gloomy shade of purple, and the wall coverings, where not obscured by bookshelves or morbid mezzotints, were a dismal brown color. For light there was a solitary oil lamp that flickered and smoked from a poorly trimmed wick. The room was in a mess; the bust of Pallas lay shattered on the floor, and the books that had once graced the shelves were now scattered about the room with their spines broken and pages torn. Worse still, some books had been used to rekindle the fire; a choked profusion of blackened paper had fallen from the grate and now covered the hearth. But to all of this I paid only the merest attention. Before me was the poor narrator of “The Raven” himself, a young man in his mid-twenties seated in a large armchair, bound and gagged. He looked at me imploringly and mumbled something behind the gag as he struggled with his bonds. As I removed the gag the young man burst forth in speech as though his life depended upon it:

“’Tis some visitor,”
he said urgently and rapidly,
“tapping at my chamber door—only this and nothing more!”

And so saying, he disappeared from view into the room next door.

“Damn you, Sebastian!” said a chillingly familiar voice from the adjoining room. “I would pin you to your chair if this poetical coffin had seen so fit as to furnish me with hammer and nails—!”

But the speaker stopped abruptly as he entered the room and saw me. Jack Schitt was in a wretched condition. His previously neat crew cut had been replaced by straggly hair and his thin features were now covered with a scruffy beard; his eyes were wide and haunted and hung with dark circles from lack of sleep. His sharp suit was rumpled and torn, his diamond tiepin lacking in luster. His arrogant and confident manner had given way to a lonely desperation, and as his eyes met mine I saw tears spring up and his lips tremble. It was, to a committed Schitt-hater like myself, a joyous spectacle.

“Thursday!” he croaked in a strangled cry. “Take me back! Don’t let me stay one more second in this vile place! The endless clock striking midnight, the tap-tap-tapping, the raven— oh my good God, the
raven!
”

He fell to his knees and sobbed as the young man bounded happily back into the room and started to tidy up as he muttered:

“ ’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—!”

“I’d be more than happy to leave you here, Mr. Schitt, but I’ve cut a deal. C’mon, we’re going home.”

I grasped the Goliath agent by the lapel and started to read the description of the vault back at Goliath R&D. I felt a tug on my body and another rush of wind, the tapping increased, and I just had time to hear the student say,
“Sir or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore . . .”
when we found ourselves back in the Goliath lab at Aldermaston. I was pleased with this, as I hadn’t thought it would be that easy, but all my feelings of self-satisfaction vanished when, instead of being arrested, Jack was hugged warmly by his half brother.

“Jack—!” said Schitt-Hawse happily. “Welcome back!”

“Thank you, Brik—how’s Mum?”

“She had to have her hip done.”

“Again—?”

“Wait a minute!” I interrupted. “How about
your
part of the deal?”

The two Schitts stopped chattering for a moment.

“All in good time, Miss Next,” murmured Schitt-Hawse with an unpleasant grin. “We need you to do one or two
other
small jobs before your husband is reactualized.”

“The hell I will,” I said angrily, taking a step forward as Chalk put a massive hand on my shoulder. “What happened to the riveted-iron Goliath Guarantee?”

“Goliath don’t do promises,” replied Schitt-Hawse slowly as Jack stood blinking stupidly. “The profit margin is too low. I want you to remain our guest for a while—a woman with your talents is far too useful to lose. You may actually quite like it here.”

“Lavoisier!” I yelled, turning to the Frenchman. “
You
promised! The word of a commander in the ChronoGuard—!”

He stared at me coldly.

“After what you did to me,” he said tersely, “this is the most glorious revenge possible. I hope you rot in hell.”

“What did I ever do to you?”

“Oh, nothing
yet,
” he replied, readying himself to leave, “but you
will.
”

I stared at him coldly. I didn’t know what I was going to do to him, but I hoped it was painful.

“Yes,” I replied in a quieter voice, “you can count on it.”

He walked from the room without looking back.

“Thank you, monsieur!” shouted Schitt-Hawse after him. “The wedding picture was a touch of genius!”