The navigator (15 page)

It was almost half an hour before Owen recovered enough to tell Dr. Diamond what he had seen. Dr. Diamond looked troubled.

"It seems that you were in the car with your father, being pursued. In great danger, if I'm not mistaken."

Owen could almost still feel the hands thrusting him through the broken window of the car. "The hands seemed huge," he said. "Far bigger than normal."

"That is because you were a small child, Owen. A man's hands seem vast to a very small child. Somehow the car crashed into water, and your father saved you by breaking a window and pushing you through it."

"But my father was never found. He just disappeared. Would they not have ... ?"

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"Would they not have known where to look for the car and found his body when they found you? Is that what you are thinking? But perhaps you weren't found at that spot, or some other factor came into play. We don't know what happened."

"But I do know what happened," another voice intervened. Owen looked around, startled. The Sub-Commandant was standing right behind him. Owen had not heard him enter, but Dr. Diamond seemed to know that he was there.

"Then tell us, please, Sub-Commandant."

The little man cleared away a mess of soldering irons and circuit boards and motorcycle workshop manuals and sat down.

"You know, Owen, that I am the Watcher?" Owen nodded. "When the Resisters go to sleep, I fade so that ordinary people going about their business cannot see me. I step back into the shadows of time, if you like. But there is a little time when I am in both worlds. I was down at the harbor that day. The world had woken up around me. There were cars and people everywhere-- what you call normal life, Owen."

"Could people see you?" Owen asked.

"Yes, and touch if they wanted. But I tried to stay out of their way. And this is the point, Owen. I could still touch people in your time. And on my journey back I found a baby, soaking wet but fast asleep, at the edge of the harbor. Listening to what you have just said about the car going into the water, I know now that the baby was you."

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"What did you do?" Dr. Diamond asked.

"There was little time," the Sub-Commandant said. "I was fading fast. I dried the child as best I could and carried him to the little shop near your house."

"Mary White's!" Owen said.

"Yes. An old woman, but she sees a lot. In fact, I think she saw me leave the child at her back door, but she made no move to talk to me. Perhaps she thought I was a ghost, for I was fading fast into the shadows of time."

"You didn't see what happened?" Dr. Diamond asked anxiously.

"No, but it must have had something to do with the Mortmain," the Sub-Commandant said.

"It must have," agreed Dr. Diamond. The two men fell into an anxious silence.

"Come on," the Sub-Commandant said at last, getting to his feet. "I'll take you home." Owen noticed for the first time that the man was limping and there was a smear of dried blood on his cheek.

Dr. Diamond said goodnight and they climbed down the stairway in silence. And in silence they walked along the path toward the Den. Miraculously, the area around the path seemed to have remained untouched and Owen welcomed the familiar shadow of the trees.

The Sub-Commandant stopped at the entrance to the Den with a further thank-you for his swift thinking in thwarting the Harsh.

"Did it ... did it kill them?" Owen asked.

"I don't think so. I don't think they can be killed. But

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I suspect you sent them fleeing north in disarray--I cannot sense their presence anymore. It is a long time since anyone did even that much. Goodnight, young Owen, and sleep free of fear."

"Wait ... wait a minute, please," Owen said. "Nobody said what happened to him. My father ... Did you see?"

"I don't know," the small man said gently, "but it would seem that he did not get out of the car."

"They never found the body."

"I cannot say for certain, but if I answer truthfully, then I believe that he drowned." He watched Owen carefully, but the boy only felt numb. "Do you want me to come in with you?" he asked. Owen shook his head.

He watched the Sub-Commandant walk off deep in thought. He suspected he knew what was on the man's mind. The one thing the two men had not mentioned in his story. The dull glint of metal thrown from the car. The Mortmain, he thought. It had to be.

As he entered the Den a shape moved in the dark. He leapt forward and tussled with it, but a swift kick to his shins sent him hopping about in agony. His lamp came on. It was Cati.

"Sorry about the shin," she said, "but I thought you were going to strangle me."

"Why didn't you put the light on?"

"I didn't want my father to find me. He would have taken me back to the Workhouse for the night and I wanted to know what had happened to you."

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Tired as he was, Owen took Cati through the events of the day. She gasped at his account of the Harsh and what Owen had done with the mirror. She told him that the Planemen had come back to attack the warehouses. They had been driven off, but many children had been injured. Owen went on to tell her about the Skyward and how he had seen his father.

"Your father's a hero," Cati said indignantly. "He saved your life."

"I suppose so." Owen didn't sound convinced. He yawned. "I have to get some sleep," he said. "You'd better stay here tonight. It's not safe to walk back on your own. There's spare blankets over there."

Owen fell onto the old sofa fully dressed and pulled up his sleeping bag. Cati made a nest out of her blankets and crawled into it. The fire had not been lit and it was cold, but Cati had enough blankets and the little Den was safe and she soon felt sleep stealing over her. For one moment she thought she heard a stifled sob from the old sofa. She listened but did not hear the noise again, and in a few minutes she was fast asleep.

They had just woken the next morning when an unwelcome visitor arrived. Owen had lit the fire and there were oatcakes cooking on an old pan, and water boiling.

"This is all very domestic," an unpleasant, drawling voice said. Owen looked up to see Samual in the doorway. Samual took in the Den, the old sofa, the broken

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wing mirror on the wall, the old boat propeller, and the empty space where the dressing table had been.

"What do you want?" said Cati.

"Just being neighborly," said Samual. "I wanted to see how our hero was doing this morning." There was a sneer in his voice.

"We're just having breakfast," Owen said, not looking at Samual.

"Ah yes, got to keep our strength up. Particularly for the Convoke this morning." The man stepped further into the Den. Cati glared and Owen stood up. "Do you think that this is the end of the Harsh? Do you not think that Johnston is gathering his men to crush us? And do you realize that we are helpless? That without the Mortmain we cannot defeat them?" He was face to face with Owen now and the boy could see the hatred in Samual's eyes.

"It's not Owen's fault that the Mortmain is missing," snapped Cati.

"No?" the man said silkily, his eyes not leaving Owen's for a moment. "But when the father is treacherous, does not the stench of treachery linger around the son?"

Cati, furious, grabbed a branch from the pile of firewood and drew back as if to hit Samual. But before she could swing at him, Owen grabbed the branch from behind. Samual laughed.

"Get out," Owen said in a low voice. "You aren't welcome here."

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"You can say that again," said Cati, struggling to tug the branch out of Owen's grip.

"I have things to do," Samual said, "but just remember: some people may think you are a hero, but there are many who can see beneath the skin." With one final contemptuous look at Cati, he turned and was gone. Owen released the branch.

"Why didn't you let me at him?" Cati demanded.

"I nearly did, but the thing is, he's right, Cati. My father did take the Mortmain. Even Dr. Diamond thinks so. He was trying to say stuff about my father having had good reasons for doing it, but I knew what he meant."

"Your father saved you," said Cati angrily, "and he's not here to speak for himself. He needs you to defend him."

"I wish I could," Owen said quietly.

"I can't believe you're talking like this!" Cati's eyes were fiery and bright spots of red glowed on her cheeks. "When you needed him he was there. And now he needs you and you're coming out with all this 'I don't know if I can trust him' stuff. Well, if you can't trust him, then you can't trust me either and I can't be your friend."

Cati stormed out. Owen sat down on the sofa. He felt tears pricking his eyes. He didn't know what to think. He went back over what he had seen in the Skyward. The hands working frantically at the steering wheel. The dull golden object thrown from the speeding car. It had to be the Mortmain. If only he knew where it had fallen.

Suddenly he knew what had to be done. He stood up

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and scattered earth over the remains of the fire. He stuffed the oatcakes into his pocket and set out toward the Workhouse.

Preparations for the Convoke were well under way. He saw Contessa going in, and Chancellor, and Rutgar. To his satisfaction he saw Dr. Diamond coming down from the Nab, taking the steps two at a time. Owen ducked as the man passed him. He seemed to be reciting mathematical formulas to himself. Owen didn't know much about mathematical formulas, but they sounded suspiciously backward. When Dr. Diamond was out of sight, Owen sprang onto the steps and ran up them.

Trying to stay low so that he wouldn't be seen, he ran up and up, onto the roof and then onto the swaying pillar of the Nab itself. He was out of breath and his legs ached, but he forced himself upward until he had reached the walkway surrounding the polished cylinder of the Skyward. He was afraid that Dr. Diamond might have locked it, but he need not have worried. When the two doors had aligned, he dived through them and fell onto the other side.

The place hadn't been left entirely unguarded. As Owen picked himself up, a hatch in the ceiling fell open on what sounded like rusty hinges. An ancient-looking Polaroid camera on a broom handle dropped down, turning this way and that like an owl woken from sleep. The broom handle fell further down until the camera was in his face. The flash went off right in his eyes, blinding him. Owen made a swipe for the camera, but as he did so

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it shot back up into the ceiling, the hatch door banging shut after it with what sounded like an alarmed squawk.

Dr. Diamond would know that he had been there, Owen thought, but it couldn't be helped. He seated himself in the leather seat and looked at the levers. He had watched carefully as Dr. Diamond had manipulated them, and he thought he could make them work. But there might be things that he had not seen. There might be dangers that he had not heard of. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the first lever forward and then the second.

For a moment nothing happened and then, slowly at first, the Skyward began to rotate. He pushed the levers further forward and the Skyward moved faster and faster. He pushed them to their limit and the outside quickly became a blur. There were five other levers. Three went forward and one back and the last one brought the periscope down. Owen looked at them. What if he couldn't stop the machine? What if he got stranded somewhere in time? But he had to go back to the time he had seen before. He had to find out what had happened to the Mortmain. Quickly, before he had time to change his mind, he manipulated the first four levers, then pressed the last one. The periscope began to descend from the ceiling. When it got to him, he folded out the handles. Gulping a little, he put his face to the eyepiece.

For a moment there was the same nothingness Owen had seen before. Then his mother's face appeared; not the sad, worn face that he had seen so often in the past

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few years, but a face in which a secret smile still lingered. She was looking at something that he could not see, but he was sure it was his father. Other images floated in as he turned the handles--his school, a toy car lying in the yard. His thoughts were drifting when suddenly an image of a man came into view--a man holding a knife, his face covered in blood and a look of terror on his face as he backed away from an unknown enemy. Quickly Owen spun the handles and the man faded away. Concentrate, he thought. That was what Dr. Diamond had said.

He tried to summon the image of the dull golden object spinning away from the car. He turned the handles slowly and a landscape of scrubby trees came into view. There were old tires and broken windscreens and bits of engine scattered among the trees. He concentrated again, willing the picture to open out. He saw wrecked boats, piles of rusty scrap, and oil cans. There was something familiar about it. ... Then it came to him. It was Johnston's yard! And just as this realization sprang into his mind a car appeared; a silver Alfa Romeo, his father's car, the passenger door flapping open, speeding toward the yard gate, and behind it Johnston aiming a rifle and squeezing off shots. The car had almost reached the gate; it only had to turn sharply left to avoid an old truck chassis. But as Owen's father turned the wheel the passenger door was thrown violently open and something dull and golden slid off the seat, through the open door, and bounced off into the piles of scrap.

The Mortmain! Owen thought.