Tanglewreck (20 page)

Ora took Silver into a little back room and started to make up a bed for her. The room was mainly a storeroom for the cafe, but Ora said that the Resistance often tried to help out travellers who had nowhere to stay.

‘It’s dangerous to sleep on the roadside – the Van comes along and picks you up, and then you wind up in the hospital for tests. And then – well, who knows?’ She said this in the voice of someone who knows too well.

There was a cat box in the room. It said CAT BOX on it,
but when Silver lifted the lid and looked inside, she saw that the ginger cat was dead. She called to Ora, and hung back, a little bit frightened by the stiff dead body of the warm furry cat that had licked her awake.

Ora laughed. ‘That’s just Dinger. The most famous animal experiment in history. He’s got his own website and fanclub, like Bambi or Shere Khan, or Dumbo, except he’s a real cat and not a cartoon.’

‘But he’s dead!’ said Silver. ‘And he was alive!’

‘He’s dead now, he’ll be alive again later.’

‘How?’

‘He exists in the sum of all possible states. It’s his wave function.’

‘How can a cat be dead and alive at the same time?’

Ora sighed. ‘It’s like this. The wave function of the cat exists in all possible states – dead, alive, eating, sleeping, running, washing. You see, atoms and other small particles, the basic stuff that we are made of, well, that basic stuff can simultaneously exist in more than one state at once – just like when you were dissolving on the Star Road.

‘Only when an observation is made – call it a measurement, or an observation, whatever you like – well, only then do these tiny bits of you and the cat definitely enter one state or another. The cat used to be shut in a closed box and threatened with a vial of poison that would be triggered by the atomic decay of a radioactive substance. Until the box was opened, no one could know whether Dinger was alive or dead – and as the single atom that triggered the poison could
be both decayed and not decayed at the same time, so too could the cat be dead and not dead at the same time. You can’t know till you open the box.’

‘But he’s dead now!’ said Silver.

‘And when you open the box again, he’ll be alive. He’s a quantum cat.’

Silver looked at the dead body. ‘Have I poisoned him?’

‘No! That was all years ago – 1935, actually – when the guy called Schrödinger did the experiment on the cat. Dinger doesn’t have to go through all that any more – but once a quantum cat, always a quantum cat. He just comes and goes through his wave functions.’

‘Where did you get him?’ asked Silver.

‘I bought him from Quantum Pets. It’s a place for collectors. He was very expensive – but he doesn’t eat much.’

‘Well, he won’t if he’s dead,’ said Silver.

Ora was fussing around with the bed. She put the overhead light out, leaving Silver with just a small bedside bulb.

‘You won’t forget about my friend Gabriel, will you?’ asked Silver.

Ora smiled. ‘I know someone who knows someone who will know. That’s how it is here. We’ll find out for you if we can. Now go to sleep.’

Ora went out, leaving Silver with Dinger the cat. Hesitatingly, she touched his fur. His eyes were open and glassy. He was definitely dead.

She closed his box and got into bed.

Thugger and Fisty had crawled bent-double through the low passages that led away from the cellars. Thugger was sure that if they followed the water trail they would reach a culvert somewhere in the grounds of the house, and then they could run as fast as their criminal legs would carry them back to their van.

Fisty was frightened. He had never been good at doing more than one thing at a time, which made him useful for smashing down doors or robbing old ladies, but now he was nothing but fear, and he trembled as he scurried along with dead Elvis in the sack over his shoulder.

‘Come on, come on, think pizza and chips, think “Match of the Day”,’ said Thugger, by way of encouragement.

But Fisty couldn’t think. Not even on a good day could Fisty think, and this wasn’t a good day.

As they continued, Thugger noticed swan’s feathers floating on the water. Swans didn’t live underground, so that must mean that the watercourse ran into a river or a lake somewhere. He picked up a swan’s feather and held it for good luck.

Not long after this, his eyes that had grown used to the
dark noticed a light ahead of them, getting stronger all the time; a bright light, like daylight. He was right! They were going to escape. Dragging Fisty by the sleeve, he stumbled and ran and ran and stumbled, and yes, there they were, in a panelled room with light cascading through the red and green illuminated windows, and a man with a beard was dipping his knife into a spit-cooked swan.

‘Villains!’ shouted the man. ‘What are you doing in my house?’

Thugger thought fast – humility might be better than a fight. The man looked strong and his knife was keen.

‘Beg yer pardon, guvnor, we’s lost. Just show us the way to the door and we’ll be on our way.’

‘There is no door,’ answered the man. ‘The door was sealed long since by my enemies.’

‘Are you the Elf King?’ asked Fisty, shaking so much that he could hardly form the words.

‘I am Lord of this Manor. And who might you be?’

‘Thugger and Fisty,’ answered Thugger.

‘Servants of the Crown?’

‘We’re here on behalf of Abel Darkwater.’

It was the wrong thing to say. The trim man stepped forward, pulled a rapier from above the fireplace, and moved towards them.

‘Darkwater! That gentleman has swindled me out of a clock and deprived me of my liberty. Put up your swords!’

Thugger took out his cosh. With one swift step forward, the neat small red-bearded man had cut it in half. The flexing
point of his sword pinned Thugger to the wall. Fisty whimpered.

‘Answer well and you will be spared. What monarch rules the land?’

Thugger thought he had better answer. ‘Queen Elizabeth.’

Redbeard nodded and seemed pleased. ‘Then not as much time has passed as I feared. I may yet recover my liberty and my property. What is your business from Darkwater?’

‘He wants the clock,’ blurted out Fisty.

‘The knave has the clock! It was my ransom, but my ransom has been paid and still I languish here.’

‘He didn’t say nothing about a ransom, but he don’t have the clock thing and that’s for sure. He sent us here to find it, when everyone had gone out.’

‘Gone out? There are twenty indoor servants and ten members of my household at Tanglewreck, to say nothing of the stable boys and gardeners and water carriers and farm men. Where have they gone out to? Are the wars raging?’

‘Not on this island, sir.’

‘Well, well, and that is good, and your tone is civil wherewithal. Now, tell me all you understand of the whereabouts of your master Darkwater, and let me see if I may not buy your services for a better price.’

‘But are you the Elf King?’ repeated Fisty stubbornly, for, like dead Elvis, he could never let go a bone once he had it between his slow and stupid jaws.

‘What on God’s blood are you talking about, you foolish cowman?’

‘I’m not a cowboy,’ said Fisty. ‘Look, it’s written ’ere, on the way down to your place ’ere. It says ELF KING.’

He lifted the big rusty culvert lid out of his bag. Thugger put his head in his hands.
Once a moron always a moron
, he thought to himself. Now the gent with the red beard was going to get really angry and probably skewer them both like a couple of chicken kebabs.

Redbeard had stepped forward and was looking at the rusty circle of metal. Then he took a napkin and dusted it off and started to laugh and laugh.

‘What’s funny?’ said Fisty, who never got a joke till it had been explained to him fifteen times.

‘I am obliged to you, sir – I have not laughed so much for many a year.’

Thugger got up out of curiosity and went to see for himself. He started to laugh. ‘ELF KING, eh, Fisty? ELF KING?’

The rusty heavy culvert lid said

‘Yeah, well,’ said Fisty. ‘Yeah, well, and I don’t believe in elfs, never did …’

The man with the red beard was wiping his eyes with his napkin. He slapped them both heartily on the back.

‘Sit down, gentlemen both! Sit down! Sir Roger Rover invites you to dine.’

Silver slept long and deeply and she did not dream. She woke at dawn, which here on the Einstein Line was not one dawn, but three, because Philippi had three moons and three suns.

The three suns rose on the three horizons and made a triangle of pink clean light. The Star Road stretched in the distance.

She found her duffle coat and felt in the pockets. The chain-mail gloves were still there, and the little double-headed axe she had stolen from the Tower of London. True, she had lost the diamond pin, but she had Micah’s map, his medallion, and the two pictures from the face of the Timekeeper. She pulled them out of their little jute bag and looked at them. They would help her remember what she had to do.

At the Caffè Ora, the breakfast business was bustling. When Ora saw Silver was awake, she gave her toast and eggs and orange juice. The cat Dinger was sitting up washing his face with his paws.

‘He’s alive!’

‘I told you that last night …’

‘Yes … did you find out anything about my friend Gabriel?’

Ora’s face was grave. She looked away and started stroking the cat. Silver felt her heart beating too fast.

‘What’s happened?’

‘It’s too late, Silver.’

‘What do you mean? Where is he?’

‘He’s lost. There’s a place … oh, it’s not a place as you understand it – it’s more an absence of place, a void.’

‘What place?’

‘It’s hard to explain –’

‘I WANT TO KNOW!’ Silver was shaking with fear and anger. Ora went to touch her, but Silver pulled away. ‘Just explain.’

Ora nodded. ‘All right. Well, our galaxy is called the Milky Way. At the centre of the Milky Way is something called a Black Hole. You can’t see it, because it has no light, but you can sense it, because of the force it exerts. If anyone falls into a Black Hole they don’t come out again.’

‘Why not?’

‘Light travels at 300,000 kilometres a second, yes?’

Silver nodded. She knew that.

‘And nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, you know that?’

Silver nodded again. Ora looked down at her hands and continued.

‘So, a Black Hole is black because even light can’t travel fast enough to escape the force of gravity in there. You need to get some speed up to escape gravity. Even to get out of Earth’s gravity, a rocket needs to travel at 25,000 miles an
hour. Your friend would have to travel faster than light to get himself out of the Hole he’s in.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘No one knows what happens inside a Black Hole.’

‘But we have to find out! We have to help him!’

‘We can’t, Silver. No one can.’

‘Well, where is this Black Hole?’

‘They took him back to Checkpoint Zero. There’s a way into the Hole by the Atomic Fence. Once you are in the Hole, there is no way out.’

Someone shouted for Ora from the bar, and she had to leave Silver on her own. Silver sat down and tried to think clearly.

Gabriel couldn’t be dead – and if he was dead it was her fault. She had brought him on this journey, when he had been happy with his clan and his kind, living underground.

She concentrated hard and tried to send him a Mind Message. She called his name – ‘GABRIEL!’ She felt the thought go out, but into darkness and silence, no, not silence, into a wind. She sent the message again – ‘GABRIEL!’

He couldn’t hear her.

She was filled with anger at Regalia Mason. No, he had not been Deported. No, she personally had not harmed Gabriel, but Gabriel had been harmed. She had told Silver the truth and lied all the way through the truth, like when someone poisons the water supply.

There was a tapping on the window. It was Toby.

‘Found you!! Bin lookin’ for you all places! You disappeared
afta the hospital. You in trouble, yeah? Where’s Gabriel?’

‘He’s in a Black Hole.’

‘Wot?’

‘I don’t know. They took him back to Checkpoint Zero.’

‘We – the kids ’n’ me – all goin’ there today to be scanned ’n’ stuff. We bein’ Deported, yeah.’

‘Today?’

‘Yeah, weird, but after you went off, then some police came and asked about you, but we said we just seen you wanderin’ about. My mum told me never to tell the police nothin’.’

‘When are you leaving, then?’ asked Silver.

‘Dunno – today, that’s all they say.’

‘Can I come with you?’

‘Why?’

‘I have to get back inside Checkpoint Zero.’

Silver felt sure that Gabriel was still alive. She took out the medallion Micah had given her, and closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could.

‘Micah! It’s Silver. If you can hear me, please help Gabriel. I’m coming to find him. Tell him that I’m coming to find him.’

Deep under the earth on Earth, Micah heard Silver as he sat cross-legged in his trance. He tightened his hold on Gabriel; he was using his last strength. They both were.

At Checkpoint Zero Silver and Toby and the kids got out of the van that had picked them all up from the bus, including Silver. They had been sent straight to the guard at the gate. The guard took one look at them, checked his list and waved them through.

‘You’re the kids from the bus, right?’

‘Right,’ said Toby. ‘You all knows us. We’re all here.’

‘I can’t keep up,’ said the guard. ‘This is a crazy day. They’re sending everyone through at double speed. Go down to the white building and get yourself scanned. You’re for Deporting at two o’clock.’

‘How do you send people back to their own time?’ asked Silver innocently.

‘Top secret,’ said the guard, tapping his nose. ‘Now get on with it, and don’t you go near that red building. You just go to the Waiting Room. The white building.’

The Checkpoint was very busy, and the guards were all arguing with at least six people at once – plus there was the Deportation …