There Ain't Gonna Be
No World War Three
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Kaffee und Kuchen ................................................................................................. 2
Throwing Stones at Cars....................................................................................... 14
The British are Coming ........................................................................................ 27
The Wheels on the Bus Go Round And Round .................................................... 39
The Walls Are Made Of Poo ................................................................................ 54
Does Your Cow Give Fresh Milk? ....................................................................... 70
Writing in the Snow .............................................................................................. 82
New German Happiness ....................................................................................... 94
Children Can Be Killed Easily With Fire ........................................................... 111
The Way Out to the Spectacular View ........................................................... 140
Scorched Earth ................................................................................................ 155
Jagdkameraden ................................................................................................ 170
Sibling Rivalry ................................................................................................ 184
The Resurrection of Charity............................................................................ 191
Give Her Another Half Minute on Defrost ..................................................... 203
Bring Drain Cleaner and Guns ........................................................................ 219
The Curious Incident of the Plaster Dog......................................................... 231
Bumbly Wumbly Jumbly Gumbly .................................................................. 250
Betrayed by Mr. Jackson................................................................................. 262
Halt Befehl ...................................................................................................... 278
Always An Honour, Ma'am ............................................................................ 300
1.
Kaffee und Kuchen
"I am so glad", said Cleo, "that we are not going to Germany. It took a week to talk
the agèd parents out of it. It is a ghastly country full of fat men in leather trousers and
enormous sausage factories stretching away to the horizon."
The coffee shop was part of the United Friendly Reformed Charismatic Church of
Christ King, which three months ago had been the Ecumenical Rainbow Faith Church
of The Army Of Jesus. Cleo and Ant had chosen it because their regular coffee shop
was almost certainly filled with government listening devices. They had made sure of
this by sitting at the same table week after week, giving ample opportunity to anyone
who wanted to place a listening device in it. The clientèle of the Charismatic Church
of Christ King's coffee morning were very different from the people who frequented
the Caffè Hyperactivo. Many of them were very close to God indeed. Some of them
seemed only minutes away from meeting him in person. Anyone hurrying out from
the Caffè Hyperactivo to sit close enough to listen in on Ant and Cleo's conversation
would be recognized easily due to being under the age of seventy.
The coffee in the Church of Christ King was also a good deal cheaper, though it tasted
vile, despite being served with Malted Milk biscuits. But that didn't matter. Today
there was a reason for being in a room where nobody could listen. Today, they had a
message from the Mail Drop.
"Erm", said Ant.
"Well, don't keep me in suspense", said Cleo. "What was in the Mail Drop? You
know, I think I hate everything about Germany. I hate their lousy language full of Z's
and K's and W's, I hate their frankly unimaginative flag, and I hate their rich national
history that Fräulein Meinck keeps reminding me about, though her history lessons
always seem to stop around 1914 for some reason. And the fact", she said, waving
her arms desperately, "that they're so infuriatingly good at everything. Apart from
reggae. German reggae is a thing that has to be heard to be believed."
"Erm", said Ant. "My Nan says Germany is very clean."
"Anyway", said Cleo, blowing on her scalding hot cup of Instant, "what was in the
Mail Drop?"
"They want us to go on the school trip to Germany", said Ant.
Cleo turned an unhealthy khaki. Normally she was a rich Jamaican brown. "They
want us to do what?"
"That's what it said in the Mail Drop message. Gondolin were very excited that the
school trip was going to Spitzenburg. They seem to think it's very important that we
go there."
Cleo was now passing through khaki and into tan. "Why? What's so important about
a small town in Bavaria? I've got fifty uniforms ready to collect on Thursday." Ant
was amazed. He had difficulty darning his own socks - which he now had to do since
his mum and dad had split up. For Cleo to have managed to run off fifty military
uniforms in the space of a few short months was unbelievable. Truly women were
amazing and incredible creatures.
"Fifty?" He said. "I didn't think you'd manage five. How did you do it?"
Cleo shrugged. "I got someone else to do it."
"Who?"
Cleo touched the side of her nose. "It's a military secret. Why do Gondolin want us
to go to Germany?"
"I have no idea, and I can't exactly ask them. It's not as if they're on the phone. They
say they'll give us more instructions when we get there."
Gondolin was, it was true, out of range of normal telephone networks for two reasons
- firstly, it was almost certainly light years away from Earth, and secondly, neither
Ant nor Cleo really had any idea where it was. Gondolin was the thirteenth colony of
the United States of the Zodiac, a secret set of settlements in space founded by Britain
and the United States of America. Those colonies had decided they no longer wanted
to be governed by Washington and Westminster, and Washington and Westminster
were not happy about the arrangement.
Cleo's hands tightened on the new, pink mobile phone she'd had since the
summer. "That's right", she said. "The US Zed aren't on the phone."
"Anyway", said Ant, "I knew we were going somewhere different today, but this
place is downmarket even for me."
Cleo's confidence deflated. She gripped the phone even tighter, as if trying to squeeze
the SIM card out of it. "Ant, my dad's been put under investigation by the
Union. They say he's been taking bribes from businessmen and politicians. He's been
suspended without pay."
Ant's jaw dropped in shock. His skin had just grown cold enough to match the frost
outside. "Has he? I mean, been taking bribes? I have to say, he drives round in a
really big car for a union rep."
Cleo grimaced. "He is president of the National Union of Wheeltappers, Ant. He
says not. He was arguing with my mum last night. It was very loud. They normally
never argue. It was not good."
Ant shook his head. "No. No, forget I said it. Your dad couldn't do that. That's the
sort of thing my dad does. Cleo, that doesn't make sense."
Cleo ran her thumb up and down the buttons on the mobile phone like a washboard
player. "No. No, it makes no sense at all."
"So you don't have any money today, and that's why I'm drinking cheap coffee?"
Cleo nodded miserably. "The money I had left in my purse was just enough to pay
for one coffee." She looked at Ant's Danish pastry hungrily. Ant, without hesitating,
pushed it over the table to her.
"That's not fair", said Cleo. "Now you haven't got one."
Ant shrugged. "I can get another. Dad won big at the casino last night. So instead of
paying off our latest CCJ, he's splashing the cash."
"Ant! Your dad's got County Court Judgements against him?"
"Oh god yes. We have CCJ's like other houses have junk mail -"
The door of the coffee shop opened; Ant and Cleo froze. An incredibly old lady
tottered in at an incredibly slow speed. She had wispy white hair confined by a bright
blue hairnet, spectacles thick as ice cubes, and an enormous hearing aid.
"I think she was probably in her teens when she originally left the house", said Ant.
"Bless her", said Cleo. "So. Spitzenburg."
The little old lady lowered herself at the speed of a falling feather into one of the
plastic chairs.
"I can't afford to go to Germany", said Ant. "And neither can you."
"We can both afford to go if I knock a few uniforms off the last batch of the order",
shrugged Cleo nonchalantly. "I reckon I still have over ten thousand pounds in cash
in a suitcase under my bed. If the Gondoliers want us to go, they can pay for us to
go."
Cleo had been given the money - a colossal amount of cash in various currencies - by
the Gondolin government in exchange for outfitting its entire very small military.
"But as far as my dad knows, I can't afford to go. And as far as your mum and dad
know, you can't either. Aren't they going to get suspicious if we suddenly pay for a
holiday with our own money? I mean, I've got a paper round, but even my dad's
credulity has limits. Besides, aren't your mum and dad beginning to wonder what that
suitcase has in it?"
Cleo shook her head, avoiding Ant's gaze and frowning. "No. They know why I'm so
secretive about it."
"Why is that?"
"It's full of love letters from you." Ant's teeth locked in a grimace. "Don't be like
that, Ant, it was the only explanation I could think of at the time, and it worked. After
all, as far as they know, we did go on holiday together last year, and as far as they
know that was because we love each other deeply."
Ant warmed his hands on his coffee. The church tea room was not well heated. "But
that means they're going to be expecting all sorts of things. Kissing. Valentine cards.
Long irritating phone calls where you keep saying "You hang up. No, you hang up."
Cleo was startled at the wealth of detail. "You seem to know a lot about this, Ant."
"My mother does it", said Ant in desolation, "with her boyfriend. His name is Ian",
he added, as if being called Ian was the most shameful thing imaginable.
"We don't have to do that, Ant", said Cleo - and then, laying her hand on top of his,
said: "Not if you don't want to." She sniggered as Ant snatched his hand away as if
hers was electrified. "But we're going to have to explain how we're paying for the
trip. We just have to make sure the wrinklies don't get to meet up and exchange
notes. What did you tell your dad about last summer again?"
"I told him I'd gone with you and your family on a Christian Retreat."
"Ant, just because we're Christians doesn't mean we live a life of monastic isolation
out in the desert somewhere."
"Well, what did you tell your mum and dad?"
"That I'd gone with you and your dad to the Isle of Grain. So we're already in nostrildeep do-do if they talk to each other and find out we were on a world orbiting Ross
248 for most of that week."
Ant nodded. "My mum yells at my dad if he takes me on holiday in an aeroplane."
"Well, my dad usually spends way too much time away from home, but it's looking
like he's going to be spending a lot more time with his family. And you know what
he's like. He loves your dad. He thinks he's the salt of the earth, the common
working man."
"Oh, my dad's a salt all right", said Ant. "I'm thinking ammonium nitrate, or maybe
monosodium glutamate."
"Oooh. Who's been doing their chemistry homework."
Ant frowned and nodded. "I've been doing a lot more. I just want to understand what
everyone on Gondolin's talking about when they use those really big words that hurt
my tiny mind. I never thought I'd need all of that school stuff. I thought I'd just end
up a welder or a shelf stacker or a truck driver, never amount to anything, just like my
family always have. But now...now things are different."
Cleo looked back at Ant severely. "Ant. My dad was a welder."
"But he isn't a welder any more."
"He'd say that's all he's ever wanted to be. My mum says that's the best thing about
him. He drives round in the big cars and gets to meet politicians and company
directors, but he still carries a card that says LEONARD SHAKESPEARE :
WELDER. He never shows it to anyone. But he keeps it in his wallet to remind
himself that that's who he is."
Ant sipped his coffee grumpily. "Me, I can remember who I am unassisted, most
mornings. I just don't like being able to."
He took another sip of coffee, turned his nose up at it, and set the cup down.
"Come on. We're going to the Caffè Hyperactivo. My treat."
"Ant. You never buy me coffee."
"Today I can afford to buy you coffee. My treat."
***
As they walked out of the church café into the cold, Cleo's shiny pink phone
rang. The ringtone was the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars.
Cleo unwrapped several layers of beige felt from around the phone and held it to her
ear. "Hello?"
"I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong number."
"What was that?" said Ant.
"Someone who thinks I'm someone else", said Cleo. "I think he must have this
number by mistake. He keeps phoning up and making threats."
"Threats about what?"
"Threatening my family."
Ant's mouth flapped open in shock. "What are you going to do about it?"
Cleo grinned. "Tell him where Tamora goes to school. She's been particularly
annoying this month. She texted my bra size to all her horrible little prepubescent
friends. Apparently one of the more retro-evolved Year Eights is paying well for the
information. He claims to be building a cup size database." She began winding the
felt round the phone again.
"Why do you wrap that stuff round your phone?"
"The ringtone's too loud. I go this from a shop in town. It's soundproofing."
Ant was puzzled. "Why don't you just, er, turn the ringtone down?"
"You might well think that a mobe this expensive would have an option to turn the
ringtone down, but no."
"I've never seen a phone like that. Where did you get it?"
"You know, um, I really don't know? It was a birthday present."
"Your birthday was in October. And I saw you with it in August. Look, Cleo, we're
not really going out." Ant squirmed with the whole horrific awkwardness of the
thing. "If, erm, another boy bought it for you, er, that's no problem."
"I know."
As they crossed the road to cut through an alleyway into the main shopping street, a
gigantic, gleaming Mercedes crackled away from the kerb ten metres behind them,
like a big dog growling deep in its throat.
"That's them", said Ant. "Special Operations. Government men. You'd think they'd
be less obvious."
"That's the ones they don't mind you seeing", said Cleo. "It's the ones you don't see
you have to worry about."
She put the mobile back in her handbag and closed the zip with finality.
***
"Kein Grund, bis sechs offen zu bleiben. There's not much point staying open till six",
said Jochen's grandfather. "You can start bringing in the tables. Only a lunatic is
going to be sitting outside today in any case."
The fabric on the umbrellas was whipping in a stiff breeze blowing in from the East,
out of an inky blackness beyond which lay two countries' worth of high mountains
and a thousand miles of steppe. Up here, on the parapet, the wind had a force not felt
in the streets of the town below.
Jochen was reluctant to give in. "But Opa, someone might come. What if they're
expecting us to be open?"
Herr Von und zu Spitzenburg nodded. "It is the classic taxi driver's dilemma. If there
are no customers, does the cabbie wait around in case anyone else turns up, or does he
go home? We café proprietors are in exactly the same predicament."
Jochen stood shivering in the breeze, his apron flapping. "I can stay open the extra
half hour. I'll clear up at six."
"No! The answer to the dilemma is that when there are customers, the cabbie stays in
his cab the entire evening, and longer if necessary. When there are fares to transport,
he works every hour he can, because every hour is paying him money. But on days
when there are no fares, he goes home, puts his feet up and has a beer, which,
Kumpel, is what we are going to do." A gnarled finger wagged at Jochen. Der Alter,
the old man, was not a man to be disobeyed. There were tales that he had had men
shot for far lesser crimes than failing to clear away café umbrellas.
"But what happens", said Jochen, "if there are never any customers?"
Herr Von und zu Spitzenburg drew in a long, dispirited breath.
"Well, then", he said, looking across the empty, ice-rimed tables, "the cabbie might
have to concede that parking his taxi at the top of a mountain in the middle of
nowhere was a really bad idea."
Stiff-backed as if he were still under inspection in the Army, he moved to dismantle
one of the sun umbrellas. The sun umbrellas were lightly dusted with snow. It was
not advisable to sit on the terraces at the Märchenschloß in midwinter.
Then Jochen called out: "Opa! Taschenlampen! We have customers!"
Herr Von und zu Spitzenburg looked down the castle's winding driveway with
momentary venom, then regained his composure and began re-erecting the sun
umbrella.
"Also, Kamerad. We have visitors. Let us put on our best waiters' smiles."
***
It was odd for customers to walk up to the Märchenschloß café at this time in the
evening. Admittedly, fewer people were prepared to drive either in this weather; the
road up from the town was a kilometre-long glissade of compacted snow and ice.
These visitors were well wrapped up against the cold. Oddly for customers of the
café, they were all men - businessmen by the look of them. The majority of the
customers - besides retired folk from the town and school or coach parties -were men
and women enjoying a romantic meal on the castle terrace. Occasionally, they might
even be men and men or women and women enjoying a romantic evening, at which
Herr Von und zu Spitzenburg did not bat an eyelid. These men did not look
romantically inclined, however. Wearing heavy coats and gloves against the cold,
and dressed in business suits and ties beneath that, they moved silently towards the
café across the courtyard, as if on a job of work rather than an evening out.
Jochen's blood ran cold. Schuldkollektoren - debt collectors. His grandfather hated
them, and spoke of them only in heated arguments with Jochen's mother. Jochen had
never seen any such men, knowing of them only by reputation. He had been under
the impression that his grandfather was managing to keep up his payments to the
bank, but the café had been doing badly lately as its older, loyal customers died off
one by one - and it always did worse in winter.
Still, these might be valid customers. They might really be businessmen looking for a
quiet place to do a shady deal over a coffee. It was best to be polite.
"Guten Abend, geehrte Herren", said Jochen with his best artificial smile. "Inside or
out?"
The men looked out at the snowbound night and back at Jochen again as if he were
mad.
"Weg mit dir, Idiot", said the tallest of the four. "We are here to talk to the
owner. Where is he?"
Frozen simultaneously with rage, fear, and, it had to be said, actual cold, Jochen
turned and pointed wordlessly at his grandfather inside the café. The collectors - he
was sure they were collections men now - marched into the café without knocking the
snow off their boots, four sets of broad shoulders on backs as solid as bronze
statues. But they were stopped in their tracks by Jochen's grandfather. Even at his
age, der Alter could immobilize a man with a glance. He was not a large man, but
had the the same dangerous intensity common to many German men of a certain age that look that said, I may be old, but be warned, I have killed men in my time, and you
have not.
Jochen heard nothing of the conversation beyond his grandfather's first words before
the café door closed: "Also, was willst denn du?" Du was a word used only with
people you knew very well - and, the way his grandfather was using it, people you did
not like very much at all. He doubted der Alter had ever hung around with debt
collectors.
Two of the men were dark-haired, one blond, and one iron-grey. They were all
significantly younger than his grandfather - after all, most people were. But they
stood in a way men did not stand nowadays, chest out, back ramrod-straight, hands
clasped behind their backs.
Who were they?
Der Alter was angry, shouting at them at the top of his voice as if they were junior
officers and he was back in the Service, shaking his finger at them as if it were a Field
Marshal's baton. And then he stopped shouting, and sagged forward onto the café
floor. The blond Schuldkollektor had one gigantic hand clamped around the finger,
bending it back toward the wrist. Grandfather's face, through the window, was agony
made flesh. But his teeth were gritted hard. He was trying trying not to cry out,
trying to preserve his honour, and Jochen knew him well enough to know honour was
more important to him than life. Jochen had never heard his grandfather cry out in his
life, not even when he'd struck his thumb with a hammer and split the nail.
Jochen pulled the mobile phone from his pocket, unlocked it, flicked the Contacts list
down to Notruf Polizei, and clicked the CALL button. A female voice came on the
line instantly.
"Spitzenburg police. Where are you, and what has happened?"
"At the Café Märchenschloß", said Jochen. "Someone is about to be shot."
***
The back way in to the café was through the kitchen door. The kitchen door was one
courtyard further round than the café terrace. Jochen slipped and skinned his knees
on the cobbles as he ran, using words his grandfather would have thoroughly
disapproved of. The kitchen door was still ajar. Prima!
Inside the kitchen, he could still hear the visitors' voices in the café beyond.
"Where is it?"
He heard his grandfather's voice. "If you think I would tell you - give you the only
good card left to us -"
"I grow impatient, old man. If not to save yourself pain, perhaps to save your
daughter-in-law, your son, your employees? Perhaps the eyes or fingernails of that
young man we encountered outside?"
As his grandfather talked, Jochen moved to the dumbwaiter in the kitchen. The room
was huge and cold. In the days when der Alter had been young, it had served as the
kitchen for the entire castle. The dumbwaiter had delivered food upstairs to palatial
rooms inhabited by the resident nobility and their guests. Now it was padlocked, no
longer used.
Jochen pulled the hasp out of the lock; grandfather never turned the key when he
closed it. Gently, he eased open the dumbwaiter door and slid out what he found
inside.
"I an old man." Der Alter cackled so hard he coughed, despite the pain. "You have a
sense of humour, Herr Kolonel."
"Go fetch the boy", said a voice which Jochen could only assume was Herr Kolonel's.
"Sofort." Jochen was sure he actually heard heels click in the café. Did anyone click
their heels in the military nowadays? It was an old-fashioned Prussian thing to
do. He searched frantically for the other component of what he'd found in the
dumbwaiter. Where did his grandfather keep it?
While searching, his hand hit the steam tap on the coffee machine. It hissed like a
wounded serpent. Jochen froze.
"...If you had only seen what I have, you would understand", the visitor was
saying. "If you had only been where I have been!"
"You've been inside the Venusberg, Kurt, like Tannhäuser. You may not have grown
old. But like Tannhäuser, your life has been wasted."
"Times have changed. I can take you there tonight. And return you again in a week,
one good old-fashioned week older. Would that satisfy you?"
"I have no idea of the location of what you seek. What, do you think I'd hide such a
thing in the second drawer down in the kitchen?"
Understanding instantly, Jochen grabbed for the second drawer down, forced himself
to ease it open gently. There it was, hidden under an immaculately-folded pile of
towels. It still felt full - after all, it was hardly likely der Alter would go out hunting
rabbits with it. He slid it into the receiver as his grandfather had once shown him. It
connected with a satisfying < c l i c k >.
A cold breeze blew through from the café, blowing the calendar on the wall about.
Someone had opened the door to the terrace.
"He's not there, sir. He's gone."
The voice of the visitor rose sharply. "He's in the kitchen, then. I heard noises. He
must have walked around. Fetch him -"
Jochen stepped out of the kitchen, holding der Alter's war souvenir. He was holding
it aimed directly at the Kolonel's chest.
"Off my grandfather's property", he said. "RAUS! BEWEGT EUCH!"
The Kolonel looked into the barrel of the MP40. The gun had scratches deeply and
deliberately carved into the side of its stock. Opa von und zu Spitzenburg had never
said as much, but Jochen knew this meant it had killed before.
"Gentlemen", said der Alter with intense pride, "may I introduce my grandson, Jochen
von und zu Spitzenburg."
"Someone in the family is still a warrior, at least", said the Kolonel. But fear flickered
in his eyes. Jochen drew back the bolt on the gun. The Kolonel stiffened as if to
receive a blow.
Police sirens wailed mournfully from the town below.
"Kriminalpolizei", said one of the Kolonel's accomplices. "How did they get here so
quickly? He couldn't have contacted them. There is no telephone outside, and we
heard no voices in the kitchen."
"They have wireless telephones here now", said the Kolonel. He nodded at
Jochen. "He probably has one."
"We should go", said another of the Schuldkollektoren. The Kolonel nodded. "Unless
he is going to shoot us. Are you going to shoot us?"
"You should leave", said Jochen, "or we are both going to find out."
The Kolonel smiled. He had a scar down one cheek, exactly where a downward blow
from a sabre would have contacted. "Weak, after all. Weak like your grandfather."
He turned and walked away into the night, accompanied by his entourage. The café
door banged shut after them.
"You'd better put that away", said Herr von und zu Spitzenburg. "It's a good thing
you didn't fire it, or there'd be hell to pay."
"Who were they?" said Jochen.
Der Alter settled down into a café chair, his hands shaking now the need for iron self
control had been removed. "Men who wanted a thing I couldn't give them."
"They knew you."
The control was returning. Herr von und zu Spitzenburg held his temples with one
hand as if trying to force self-assurance on himself. He nodded. "Very well. A long
time ago, some of those men were my friends. Yes. Friends would be the word."
"And Kurt?"
The blue eyes narrowed. "No. I cannot say Kurt was ever my friend. We will tell the
police they left because they heard the police sirens. It would not be good to mention
the fact that you threatened them with a Second World War machine pistol. The
police would probably arrest you, and search for them to see if they wanted to make a
complaint. Besides, it could have blown up in your face, you know that? What were
you thinking?"
Police headlights were coming up the single-track road from the town now, winding
back and forth. They were making slow headway, however - the road up was steep
and sheer as glass.
"The police will catch them", said Jochen. "If they have a car, there's no way out but
down the drive."
Der Alter shook his head. "The police will find those gentlemen have vanished into
thin air. They are long gone by now, trust me."
"In the snow? They were wearing town shoes! And it takes me half an hour to get
down to town, in boots! And their tracks will show up in the snow! And the police
will have dogs -"
"I am telling you, the police will find nothing. Now, make yourself useful and start
bringing in the tables from outside. I think I need to sit down a moment."
Jochen shook with frustration. Herr von und zu Spitzenburg looked up at him.
"You did well", he said. "It is not true what Kurt said. You are not weak. It is not
weakness to fail to kill people. You must believe this."
"Opa", said Jochen, "who is Kurt?"
Herr von und zu Spitzenburg’s lips curled up around his perfect row of plastic teeth.
"Well...the people at the bank and the credit card company and the Inkassobüro, so I
hear, are fond of calling me der Alter. Kurt...Kurt could be described as der Älter."
This meant nothing. Jochen turned and ran through the café door, the gun still in his
hand. He was still wearing the leather shoes his grandfather insisted he wear in the
café, and his feet slipped on the snow. He put the safety on the gun. He was not sure
what he would do if he actually found anyone to shoot with it.
Four sets of footprints led out of the castle gate; four sets of footprints led in. They
didn't follow the road up from the town, though, but immediately diverted from it,
into the woods. The woods were like one long barcode, an endless zebra-stripe of
black and white. A running or walking man would show up against them like an
elephant in a living room. The tracks continued and did not deviate, both the
incoming and outgoing trails following the same path.
He followed the tracks. The trees opened out into high meadows. At the edge of the
trees, the massive expanse of concrete that had once been the Vogelkäfig, the Bird
Cage, was now visible only as a broad unnatural flatness in the snow. Once, chains
had fed into recesses here, rolling off drums far beneath the surface, reeling out,
reeling in, maintaining tension in the line, keeping something that jerked and jumped
frantically, trying to escape the chains, moored steadily to the ground. Now, all that
was here were memories that the town of Spitzenburg would rather not have.
Memories that made middle-aged men ashamed of their parents, and that made old
men whimper in their sleep at night.
The tracks ran out into pure virgin snow, a fresh blanket laid by this morning's
snowstorm.
And petered out into nothing.
He whirled round; no tracks led away in any direction.
He looked up. Something dark was moving off up into the sky, eclipsing the stars.
2.
Throwing Stones at Cars
"- next you, Anthony - don't crowd him on the board, Jake -"
Ant bounced once on the board, rolled in mid-air, and arrowed straight down into the
pool, vanishing from sight almost instantly. Miss Facemire, who was not allowed in
the pool due to grommets, contact lenses, and a rumoured colostomy, squinted
minutely at her stopwatch. The seconds ticked by.
"Ant's looking a lot fitter these days", said Tamora from the next row of seats down.
"Since he started the running and the swimming, I mean. I could go out with him
myself. That is, if you weren't going out with him. Which of course you are."
Ant's head broke water; he was holding up two objects, a ring made of rubber, and a
brick apparently made of brick. Miss Facemire applauded, unaccompanied by anyone
else in the pool. "Well done, Anthony. Though we only really needed you to retrieve
the ring."
"Stevens picks up all sorts of trash, miss", said a voice from the diving ladder.
"Just like his mum", said another voice.
There was general sniggering. Ant turned and looked meaningfully up at the diving
board. There would have been a time when such a comment would have sent him
into a spitting rage. Jake Moss mock-glared back, crossed his eyes, and stuck out his
tongue.
"Mind you, Jake has the body of a Greek god."
"Tamora", said Cleo, looking up from her copy of Orbital Mechanics for Dummies,
"you are two years younger than Jake."
"Mum's two years younger than dad. Jake’s dreamy. And my name's not Tamora,
Cleopatra."
Tamora had somehow contrived to appear not be be sitting near Cleo, whilst at the
same time being directly in front of her in the middle of her Year Seven friends. Cleo
removed and folded up her reading glasses, and rolled them into her swimming towel,
before turning her attention back to her younger sister.
"Tamora Athena, you know perfectly well that Mr. Fulcher, your first year maths
teacher, also has the body of a Greek god. He has the body of Dionysus."
Tamora's little friends squawked with glee.
"Cleopatra, you are such a freak."
"Tazza, how can you be related to this humanoid?"
Cleo smiled sweetly. "None of you have the slightest idea who Dionysus is, do you?"
She looked Tamora's friends over critically. She believed they were called Keesha,
Aleesha and Ayesha.
"Do you have any friends who don't look like slightly uglier versions of yourself,
Tazza?"
Tamora coloured. "Are you saying I don't go round with white people?"
This immediately became fact.
"Bitch! I'm part white, man!"
"Are you calling Tazza a racist, right?"
"If I'm part white then that would mean I'd be racist against myself, and like, that
could so not happen, because I quite like myself actually, innit."
"What are you doing with a white boyfriend anyway? Race traitor, man!"
After posing for some seconds on the diving board, Jake bounced up into a double
somersault and struck down into the pool. Miss Facemire applauded even more
enthusiastically. Ant, who was not Cleo's boyfriend, but was being forced to pretend
to be by circumstance, flopped down on the plastic seat next to Cleo.
"I seem to have this brick", he said.
"Someone must have left it from Gold Lifesaving earlier", said Cleo, returning to her
book. "Do you know the difference between a Hohmann Transfer Orbit and a BiElliptic?"
Ant shook his head.
"I can't find it in the index", tutted Cleo. "You're going to have to know it sooner or
later if you want to fly a Harridan."
Ant sat silent, communing with his brick. Then he said:
"I never said I wanted to fly a Harridan."
"You've memorized every line and piece of punctuation in that manual Richard
Turpin gave you 'to photocopy'. You want to fly a Harridan so badly it might as well
be tattooed on your forehead."
Ant rubbed his forehead absent-mindedly.
"Hello, Anthony", said Tamora.
"Hello Tamora", said Ant.
"Her name's Tazza now, apparently", said Cleo, without looking up from her book. "I
can't wait to tell Mum and Dad."
"You never used to be any good at swimming, Anthony", said Tamora.
"I never want", said Ant, "to be swept away helplessly by a three-moon spring tide
ever again."
Ant put his brick down and began to fold and unfold his towel
elaborately. Eventually, he found a way of folding it that he seemed to be satisfied
with, and put it down on the floor in front of him next to his brick.
"They're up there", he said to Cleo, without looking round.
Cleo did not look away from her book. "I know. And they've been outside school all
day. Same big black Mercedes."
"And they're just the ones we know about", said Ant.
Tamora looked up at the spectators' gallery, which was full of the usual mixture of
admiring parents and slightly suspect-looking middle-aged men. "Why? Who's up
there?"
"Ssssh", said Ant. "We're being followed."
"Anthony", said Tamora, craning her neck, "you are a numb-nutted dimboid from
Poohead Town. There's no-one up there but everyone's mums and dads, Creepy Kev,
Pervy Pete, Long Lens Camera Man and three respectable looking gentlemen in long
macs and glasses, who I can only assume are talent scouts for an international water
polo team."
"That'll be them", said Ant, nodding. Cleo nodded and turned the page to chapter
seven, Lagrange Points in a Two-Body System.
"Look at that old dear up there knitting, innit", said Keesha.
"She probably comes here to watch her granddaughter, right", said Aleesha.
"If we find out who her granddaughter is, man is she for it man", said Ayeesha.
The Old Dear smiled sweetly and waved at Ayeesha. She had pure white hair so
rigidly permed it could have doubled as a crash helmet, gigantic winged spectacles,
and a pink flesh-coloured hearing aid. Ayeesha dropped behind her plastic seat in
embarrassment. Tamora, Aleesha and Keesha looked questioningly at Ayeesha.
"She is NOTHING", said Ayeesha, "to do with ME, man. She's just looking at me."
"I can't pay for the German trip", said Ant suddenly.
"Don't worry", said Cleo. "I've got that covered."
"They're trying to find out where the Mail Drop is", said Ant. "They want to know
how Gondolin's passing messages to us."
"They almost certainly have microphones planted on us at this very moment", said
Cleo.
"Testing, testing", said Ant. "One, two, three."
"You two are Olympic standard freakazoids", said Tamora. "What is this, some game
of Let's Pretend? Is Ant your Dungeon Master? Is he, like, three hundredth level or
something?" She got to her feet and waved at the men. "COOEEE, WANDERING
MONSTERS!" One of them waved back.
"TAMORA!" squeaked Miss Facemire from across the pool. "Please SIT down and
be QUIET."
"Sorry Miss Facemiiiiire", said Tamora in a sing-song voice that Aleesha, Ayesha and
Keesha found the funniest thing ever.
"I should think so. Now, line up everyone for synchronized swimming. Emily, start
the beatbox. This time around, I want the girls to be the big bad bumblebees, and the
boys to be the delicate flowers."
***
Outside the public baths, a long line of gabbling Lea Way pupils stood waiting for the
school coach to finish reversing painstakingly into the car park.
The men from the Big Black Car were also in the car park, sitting wreathed in woolly
scarves in their Mercedes with the engine on. The Old Dear was getting into her own
car, her arms full of multicoloured bundles of wool. She saw Ayeesha and smiled
sweetly at her. Ayeesha stuck her tongue out back. Tamora, Aleesha and Keesha
giggled.
"It is NOT FUNNY. She is NOTHING TO DO WITH ME", protested Ayeesha.
"She is WHITE, man."
"You could have been adopted", said Tamora.
"Black man, white woman, black baby", said Keesha. "Innit", she added.
"They do have a black Mercedes, right", said Aleesha. "Look."
Ant and Cleo were standing at the head of the queue. Jake Moss was standing behind
them doing impressions of Ant's parents living in a gypsy caravan. Ant was not
responding in any way.
"That is actually well scary, man", said Ayeesha.
One of the men in the car began a conversation with his coat lapel.
"Oh my god, he is so actually talking into a concealed microphone, right?" aid
Aleesha.
"I'm like, we better go tell Cleopatra, man", said Ayeesha.
"That is bare wrong", nodded Keesha.
Tamora's three-inch heels clicked up the tarmac towards Cleo.
"Yes, Tazza?"
"White flag of truce, sister", said Tamora. She turned and pointed towards the
Mercedes, where the man was still talking into his raincoat. "That man there is
following you around. Why is he following you around?"
Cleo peered at the man. "I have no idea." She brightened suddenly. "Hey, Ant! It's
Mr. Karg!" She stood on tiptoe and waved. "HI, MR. KARG!"
"That figures", said Ant sourly. "He's probably still working for Alastair."
Mr. Karg smiled weakly and waved back whilst continuing to talk to his own
clothing.
"Who's Mr. Karg?" said Tamora.
"He used to be a policeman", said Cleo. "Then he was a private investigator."
"You are not going to tell me, are you?" said Tamora. "After I walked a whole ten
yards over here to warn you of your dire peril."
"Yeah, after all she's done for you, man", said Ayeesha.
Cleo shrugged. "They've been following us around all week. I imagine they're
probably doing a feature on incredibly talented, beautiful, thin people for Vogue."
"Who you calling fat, innit", said Keesha defensively.
"Keesha is so not fat, she is her ideal body weight for her age height and waist
measurement right, actually", said Aleesha.
"That is weight fascism, man", said Ayeesha.
"Ant", muttered Cleo, "this is getting out of hand."
"Hey, Stevens, is your mum having you followed again?" yelled Jake Moss from the
front of the queue, which was beginning to file into the coach. There was more
laughter. Jake was, after all, a comic genius.
Ant mulled this over for a second.
Then, he strolled over to the Mercedes. Mr. Karg's face grew pale. He turned to the
door panel beside him, clearly looking for the lock. The driver of the car found it for
him; the central locking came on with an audible CLICK. Ant tried to wrench open
the passenger-side door without success, then stood in impotent fury glaring in at Mr.
Karg through the windscreen. Jake Moss and his entourage collapsed in hysterics.
Ant walked over to the wall around the car park. It was an old wall, poorly made, and
it had many loose bricks. He tugged one free.
The driver of the Mercedes started the car very, very quickly.
"LEAVE - my FAMILY - ALONE", said Ant, and threw the brick. It starred the
windscreen, completely ruining it, bounced off and left a trail of dents and brick dust
down the incredibly expensive bonnet. Jake Moss actually fell over with the hilarity
of it all.
"SteVEEEENS!!!" yelled Mr. Gormley, the P.E. teacher.
"Oh my God", said Tamora. "You utter juvenile delinquent."
Ant walked back into line. As he passed Cleo he said quietly: "Sorted."
"Anthony, you have severe anger management problems, man."
"You need to imagine you're lying on cool wet grass, right."
"And looking up at all the fluffy white clouds, innit."
"STEVENS", roared Mr. Gormley, approaching like the inescapable hand of
Fate. "WHAT the BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? You will
APOLOGIZE TO THAT GENTLEMAN AND I HOPE YOU CAN GET A PAPER
ROUND TO PAY FOR THE -"
He turned to point sternly at the damaged windscreen, but the car was already
reversing at full speed and being expertly manoeuvred out of the car park as if the car
park were rigged to explode. Once it reached the road, the car screeched through one
hundred and eighty degrees on lightly smoking tyres, then tore off for the horizon.
"Somehow", said Ant, "I don't think they're likely to complain about the damage."
"Alastair really won't like that", said Cleo.
"Good", said Ant. "His Special Operations goons can be less bloody obvious from
now on."
Mr. Gormley towered over Ant. He had been known to consider the laws against the
corporal punishment of children as more of a guideline.
"I do not know what just went on there, Stevens", he said, "and I hope for your sake
you're right. You probably just did that car around a thousand pounds of
damage. Now, you know and I know I can't let you get out of this without a week's
detention and very possibly another interview with Mrs. Holroyd."
Ant nodded bleakly. If there was one thing his academic career didn't need, it was
another interview with Mrs. Holroyd.
"Thanks, Ant", said Cleo. In the crowd, unseen by anyone, she squeezed his hand.
***
The Shakespeare family were seated round the breakfast bar. Mrs. Shakespeare,
dressed like the first ever Afro-Caribbean cover girl for Country Life, was sitting at
the opposite end of the bar from Mr. Shakespeare, who was dressed pathetically in a T
shirt and jeans. The T shirt was faded and far too small for him, and said HEY! I'VE
JUST BECOME A DAD! This was the first time in years that Cleo had seen her
father dressed in anything other than a suit on a weekday. Between Mr. and Mrs.
Shakespeare sat Cleo and Tamora, trying hard not to get caught in the crossfire.
Cleo was wearing a turquoise tracksuit, a pink belt, and a diamanté scrunchie.
Tamora, meanwhile, was wearing a lime-green tracksuit, a pink belt, and a diamanté
scrunchie.
"That's sweet", said Mr. Shakespeare. "My little girls want to look like each other."
"Would that this were true", said Cleo, stirring her muesli with feeling. "However,
my dear little sister only wears exactly the same clothes as I do because she knows it
annoys the hell out of me."
"I am not wearing the same clothes you are. You are wearing the same clothes I am. I
am a trend setter, not a follower."
Cleo continued to stir her breakfast. "I like to imagine that this bowl is Tamora's
head, and that I have flipped open her skull and am spooning out the brainy
goodness."
"CLEO!"
"Sorry mother."
"Cleo has been measuring the bathroom again", said Tamora, stirring her porridge
angrily.
"For heaven's sake, Tamora Jane, if Cleo wants to measure the bathroom then let her",
said Mrs. Shakespeare.
"She does it with a tape measure", said Tamora. "When you and Dad are downstairs
and when she thinks I'm not watching. But I am watching."
"I have no idea what Tamora is talking about", said Cleo serenely.
"I suspect she is making a scale model of the bathroom for some bad purpose", said
Tamora.
"You go on thinking that", said Cleo.
"So you're not going out today", said Mrs. Shakespeare, looking at Mr. Shakespeare's
T shirt in disdain.
"I don't have any meetings with the Union today", said Mr. Shakespeare
miserably. "They're still conferring, examining the evidence."
"How can they have evidence?" said Mrs. Shakespeare acidly. "You're not guilty!"
Mr. Shakespeare shrugged. "I said it was evidence. I didn't say it was good
evidence."
"Then if it's not good evidence, why can't they just dismiss the whole thing?"
"The committee have to give it due consideration, poppet sweetheart. Justice has to
be seen to be done."
"And in the meantime, we can't even afford to send Cleopatra on her school trip."
Cleo seized her chance. "Um. That might not be as much of a problem as before."
With the speed of a casino croupier, she reached into her school satchel and dealt out
eight gorgeous blood-red fifty pound notes onto the breakfast bar under her mother
and father's astonished gazes.
"All with watermarks", she said, trying hard to avoid her mother's x-ray eyes, "all
genuine non-forgeries."
Mr. Shakespeare fought to put his eyes back in his head. "Have you knocked over a
bank, daughter?" he said.
"Where did you get this money, Cleopatra?"
Cleo shrugged and tried to smile winningly. "Dougie. Ant's dad. He won big on the
horses, and he kind of insisted I go on the school trip to Spitzenburg with Ant."
Cleo's mum stared down hard as flint, but her dad, who believed Dougie Stevens to be
the salt of the earth, the backbone of the nation and the bedrock on which Western
civilization rested, was clearly touched.
"Well, god bless Dougie's polyester socks. But he should be thinking of himself and
Anthony, not wasting money on us. We can afford this sort of thing ourselves -"
Cleo's mum shot a sharp glance at Cleo's dad.
"- well, maybe not right now we can't. But I thought you didn't want to go in any
case?"
Cleo grinned foolishly. "I, uh, sort of said that because I knew we couldn't afford it."
"You were very convincing, sweetheart angel pie."
"Dougie said I was to say I found the money on the street", said Cleo. "He thought
you'd be too proud to accept it if I said it came from him."
"He's a good man", said Mr. Shakespeare.
"The best", echoed Cleo. "Apart from my dad, that is."
Mr. Shakespeare beamed helplessly as Cleo hugged away his ability to object. Mrs.
Shakespeare, meanwhile, reserved her judgement, frowning into her low-calorie
friendly bacterial breakfast yoghurt with an expression that could strip wallpaper.
She clearly knew something was wrong, but could not quite put her finger on it.
When she finally did, however, Cleo's lifespan would be measured by how quickly
she could run.
"We'll make it up to Dougie", said Mr. Shakespeare, "when we can. For the time
being, daughter, you'd best go fetch your passport and sharpen up your sausage-eating
skills."
***
"You are a big fat lying toad, Cleopatra Shakespeare."
Cleo stopped in the doorway of her room; she had gone upstairs to make routine
unscheduled last minute adjustments to her hair. Her room, however, was occupied
by Tamora, who was sitting on the beside table holding her father's incredibly ancient
Reader's Digest Guide to Britain.
"I have no idea what you are talking about, sister of mine. Please move aside from
my reflection. I wish to gaze adoringly at it."
"In a moment." Tamora flipped the Guide to Britain open and dropped Cleo's father's
reading glasses over her eyes. "Page thirty-six, The Isle of Grain. A well thumbed
page, this one. Someone has been reading it really carefully. Now, tell me, sister, as
a starter for ten - what is the most striking feature of the Isle of Grain, where you went
on holiday with Anthony for an entire week in August?"
Cleo stared coldly at her sister. "The windswept desolate emptiness, stretching away
to the sea. The enormous variety of bird and sea life."
"WrONGGGG!" sang Tamora. "The most immediately striking feature of the Isle of
Grain nowadays would be, in my opinion, the several thousand new cars parked all
over it. I saw it on Jeannette Krankie's History of the British Isles. It's Britain's
holding area for new cars arriving from overseas. Oh, I'm sure there is bird and sea
life. I imagine the birds nest in the radiators and the fish just swim around all that
engine oil. The fact is, sister, you have no more been to the Isle of Grain than you
have been to Alpha Centauri."
"It is true", said Cleo with perfect truth, "that I have never been to Alpha Centauri."
"Also", said Tamora, "strange men are following you. Strange men who are more
afraid of being asked what they're doing parked outside the local swimming baths
than they are of having to pay for the windscreen on their car."
"Now we're moving into the realms of whimsy", said Cleo. "Remember what the nice
psychiatrist said about the realms of whimsy, sister?"
"And finally", said Tamora, "there is this."
She reached out with a foot and hooked it into the handle of the suitcase under Cleo's
bed. The suitcase slid out. Its locks were popped open.
Cleo stared in horror. "You've -"
"Never set the combination of your suitcase to your birthday, your mum or dad's
birthday, or the birthday of your pet's favourite television actor, sister."
"Kevin Whately?" Tailrings, Cleo’s cat, always screeched loudly at the television
during Peak Practice. It was accepted Shakespeare family gospel that Kevin Whately
was the cat's favourite TV star. Tailrings himself, who had entered the room silently
behind Cleo, sat looking gruff and annoyed on the dresser, washing his enormous
Mandarin moustaches.
Tamora eased the suitcase open a crack with her toe. Banknotes caught the
light. Many, many banknotes, of many many denominations, arranged in rows by
country and bound with elastic bands.
"It's drugs, isn't it", said Tamora.
"It is not drugs", said Cleo. "That money has been given me for safekeeping by, by,
by people who do not have bank accounts."
"It's drugs", nodded Tamora. She peered deep into Cleo's eyes, examined her nose,
and then apparently fell to counting her teeth.
"Lawks a lordy, Tammie, I'm not on drugs -"
"Are you experiencing any aggressive tendencies?"
"Yes."
"Any sudden mood swings?"
"FOR THE LAST TIME, TAMORA, I AM NOT -" Cleo suddenly noticed Tailrings
nuzzling up against her on the bed - "hooza oogy boogy woo woo."
"Repetitive or obsessive behaviour?"
"Mummy loves the fluffy puggy wumfkin, yes she does. Yes she does. Yes she
does. Yes she does."
"Short term memory loss?"
"What? Tamora, what are you going on about? OOOH look, there's a fluffy puggy
wumfkin here! Mummy loves him, yes she does! Yes she does! Yes she does -"
Tamora shook her head. "Sister, I believe you to be on PGP, grass, weed, spliff and
hash, as well as whizz, zap, buzz, zing, bing, bong, vim and lignocaine. I suspect you
may also be taking the dreaded Patagonian Black."
"Tamora, I am on no drug more potent than custard powder. And Vim is a floor
cleaner, whilst PGP is an internet encryption protocol and lignocaine is what dentists
use to anaesthetize your teeth."
"It's all right, sister, you might not even know you've taken it. Many highdenomination banknotes are covered with a light dusting of cocaine."
"What do you think I've been doing, eating them? I've been doing what normal
people do with them - using them to pay for things."
"Like holidays", said Tamora in triumph.
Cleo clamped her jaw shut in frustration. She could think of nothing to say.
Tamora could, however.
"I want to go to Germany too", she said. "Otherwise I won't get a holiday at all this
year."
She looked at the case of banknotes meaningfully.
Cleo stared at Tamora in homicidal horror. Grudgingly, feeling as if somebody else
was doing the nodding for her, she nodded.
"YOUR MAJESTIES!" came a voice from downstairs. "YOUR TAXI AWAITS!"
Still glaring at Tamora, Cleo shouldered her schoolbag and made for the stairs.
***
"You want to go where? They bombed our country!"
"Fifty years ago, dad. Forgive and forget."
"They killed your Great Uncle Norman!"
"You drove your truck there last month."
"That was business. They blew up the North Bank Terrace at Highbury!"
"Dad, the Germans are our friends now! They're in NATO and Europe and
everything!"
"They shot at your grandad! Luckily unsuccessfully!"
"Dad, Cleo's going. I want to go with Cleo. And Cleo's dad said he'd give us the
money."
Mr. Stevens hauled the truck round in a circle, making the gravel outside the Super
Sausage snap, crackle and pop like breakfast cereal. His artic, fifty feet long, slid into
place between two others as smoothly as a CD into a rack. "Aha, why didn't you say
so! You young lovers, eh? And Len's paying for all of this, you say?"
"All of it. He was quite insistent. He said if Cleo was the one who was going to
begin with and I was just going because Cleo was going, then Cleo's family should
pay for it."
"Triffic." Ant's dad tugged hard on the handbrake and opened the driver side
door. Ice splintered under Ant's shoes as he stepped down to the ground. The gravel
was frozen together in clumps.
Mr. Stevens pushed open the door of the Super Sausage. A warm cloud of Full
English Breakfast smell wafted out of the café like a friendly amoeba.
"When do they want you to go?"
"Erm", said Ant. "Monday."
Mr. Stevens turned and looked at Ant. For several seconds, there was no sound but
that of bacon frying.
"I've got a current passport and everything", said Ant. "I checked."
"I'll square things with your mum", said Ant's dad. That, Ant knew, would involve a
full two hours of bickering, slammed down phones, continuation via text message and
threats of legal action. At that single moment, Ant's dad was the greatest hero in the
world.
The inside of the café was plastic-topped tables, handwritten menus, and cigarette
smoke. Men who had already eaten far too many Full English Breakfasts were grimly
tucking in to more. A radio was blaring out a song that began 'Oooh girl...' and went
downhill from there. Nobody was listening to it, but they would complain if it were
turned off.
Dougie Stevens relaxed, like a fish back in its heavily polluted home waters.
"Come on, then", said Mr. Stevens. "You'd best get your molars round the last proper
breakfast you're likely to get for a while. TWO FULL ENGLISH PLEASE, AND
HEAVY ON THE INCREASED RISK OF HEART DISEASE."
3.
The British are Coming
"YOU GOT EVERYTHING?" yelled a voice from high above Ant's head.
"THINK SO", yelled Ant without checking.
"RIGHTO". The truck's brakes hissed like snakes, and monster wheels turned. A
reeking cloud of black diesel fumes blew out of the back of the truck's tractor unit as
it pulled away, sending a crowd of Year Seven girls shrieking to the far side of the
pavement. The hundred-metre queue of gleaming four-by-fours that had formed up
behind the truck stopped honking their horns and started rolling up to the school gates
to deposit their own children in turn. The idea of letting their children get out and
walk an extra hundred metres to school while they'd been waiting for the truck to
move didn't seem to have occurred to them.
Angry women scowled at Ant as they drove off. One of them drove off to the end of
the road, parked, got out and walked back into her house.
"Om gunna send your dad my cleanin bill, Stevens", said one girl, scrubbing furiously
at her brilliant white lapel.
"Look at this! Ruined!" wailed another, pointing out dirt spots only she could see.
"Om gooin to get beat off me mum", complained a third.
"Still making friends wherever you go", said Cleo. Ant turned. The Shakespeares'
Jaguar was pulling away. Mr. Shakespeare waved at Ant. For some reason, he was
wearing a T shirt that said he was a New Dad.
"Hello, Anthony", said Tamora. "I'm going to Germany with you."
"Hello Tamora", said Ant.
"I tried to talk her out of it", said Cleo. "She doesn't even speak German."
" Fräulein Meinck said anyone who was thinking of starting German next year could
go", said Tamora.
"She said everyone who was thinking of starting German next year would be
considered", said Cleo. "And Mum and Dad were supposed to tell the school we
were going in writing four weeks ago."
"I've got a note", said Tamora gleefully, waving it like a banner. "It's from Mum and
Dad. It's in writing."
"You have less than zero interest in German. You told me you wanted to do Italian
because all Italian men looked like Al Pacino and rode motor scooters."
"I want to go on holiday", said Tamora crossly. "Is that a crime? I mean, a crime on
the same sort of level as concealing hundreds of pounds in assorted currencies, just to
pull an example wildly out of the air."
Cleo went deathly pale. All her blood was draining from her skin and concentrating
in those parts of her which would be most useful in killing Tamora.
"No surprise from you, I see", continued Tamora to Ant. "So you're in it as well. I
might have known. Violent mood swings and criminal parentage."
"I am proud", said Ant, "of my criminal parentage."
"Ant's dad isn't a criminal and you know it", said Cleo. "He just drives trucks
backward and forward between here and the Continent, and occasionally he happens
to take extra parcels for people, like whisky and perfume -"
"Entire trucks full of whisky and perfume, Cleo", said Ant uneasily.
"And Chinese people", said Tamora. "Don't forget the Chinese people. The ones who
nearly suffocated."
"That wasn't his fault", said Ant. "They started smoking all the cigarettes inside the
container and used up all the oxygen."
"Whatever", said Tamora. "In any case, I am going on holiday and that is final."
"It's not a holiday", said Cleo haughtily. "It's a serious study opportunity."
"Oh yes", said Tamora, unfolding a programme. "On day one, we're going to be, let's
see, 'sampling the delights of German cake'. That sounds very strenuous to me.
Some of those German cakes have very long names. And then on day two we're
making a visit to a fairytale castle. On day three, though, it gets harder still, we're
going to have to 'visit a sanctuary for rescued zoo animals', and those baby koala
bears are so dreary. On day four, though, we get a reward for all our hard work when
we finally get to go round the Spitzenburg Steam Tram Museum -"
Cleo snatched back the programme from Tamora. "The steam tram museum will be
very valuable. We will get to learn many useful steam-related words."
"Hey, look!" said Tamora. "It's your friends in their big car." She waved frantically
at a massive Mercedes - now sporting a newly replaced gleaming windscreen - on the
other side of the street. "COOOEEEE! DETECTIVE INSPECTOR! OVER HERE!"
The driver of the Mercedes, looking warily over his shoulder, rolled the car twenty
metres further forward, putting himself out of range of Ant's throwing arm.
"Detective Inspector?" said Ant, nonplussed.
"THEY'RE OVER HERE", said Tamora, pointing out Ant and Cleo. "IT'S A FAIR
COP AND THEY WANT TO GIVE THEMSELVES UP. THEY WOULD LIKE
AN INSTANCE OF SNIFFING PERMANENT MARKERS DURING ART CLASS
TO BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION."
"Be quiet", muttered Cleo, looking round the pavement at the hordes of pupils
streaming into school.
"It's perfectly true, and you had two indelible black rings round your nostrils to prove
it", said Tamora serenely. "Now, unless you decide to tell me what's really going on
here -"
Cleo turned and looked at the car.
"Hang on", she said, and clicked across the road on her heels, putting on a big smile
and waving at the car. "HI!!!"
The car didn't pull away. The driver of the car was clearly not scared of Cleo.
"Cleo", called Ant. "Come back. HEY! YOU'RE CONSORTING WITH THE
ENEMY!"
Cleo, however, walked right up to the car and knocked on the passenger side window.
After a brief pause, the window wound down. Cleo leaned on the door sill and
appeared to carry on a very pleasant conversation with Hammond Karg while Ant
stood fuming on the other side of the road. At one point, Cleo reached into the car
and seemed to be straightening Mr. Karg's tie. Then she clicked back across to Ant.
"Mr. Karg's getting terrible back trouble being driven around surveilling us", she said.
"He gave me a barley sugar." She looked the barley sugar over sadly. "It probably
has a microphone in it. I will feed it to next door's dog later." She noticed Ant's
murderous expression. "What?"
"Why did you just do that?"
"Do I need a reason to be civil, Anthony? It is possible to deal with other human
beings without throwing masonry at them, you know."
Cleo's mobile phone rang in her pocket. The ringtone was the Darth Vader theme
from Star Wars. Cleo went rigid.
"Aha, the mystery mobile phone", said Tamora. "The one given you by a mystery
admirer. I'm betting that will be Mr. Big phoning about his stash, am I right?"
"Tamora, you know perfectly well your mum and dad bought her that phone", said
Ant.
There was a brief pause.
Tamora looked at Ant and Cleo in sudden quivering fury.
"They always buy you things and not me", she said. "Just because you're the oldest."
She stamped her foot and stomped away.
"Wow", said Ant.
Her hand shaking, Cleo put the phone to her ear.
"Can you talk?"
"Not right now. I'm kind of surrounded by hundreds of people?"
"I'm aware of that. I thought your conversation had reached a point where it might
be politic of me to interrupt. Yesterday, you received a message from Commodore
Drummond and Captain Yancy. You are going to Spitzenburg in Germany."
"I might be", said Cleo, checking her clothes for listening devices angrily.
"Cleopatra, if you continue to play this tiresome game of never-tell, your father will
end his career at the trade union in disgrace. Your family will be forced into penury.
Council houses. No fine clothes. No holidays. No motor car when you reach the age
of seventeen. No college. Did I mention I can stop you getting into college as well?"
"I have very good friends", said Cleo, glancing at Ant, "who cope with that situation
very well."
"We need to know where Gondolin is."
"I don't have that information. You know I don't."
"You can find out. Commodore Drummond and Captain Yancy know. Wheedle it out
of them. You're good at wheedling. You will also tell us where your mail drop is,
please."
"You're breaking up, Grandma", said Cleo. "I think your train might be going into a
tunnel. Cccccchsxctpvw -"
She took out a battered scrap of tinfoil from her purse and began wrapping the phone
in it.
"I can only stand so much of my grandma", she said to Ant.
"Your grandma's dead", said Ant.
"On my mother's side", said Cleo.
"So your parents didn't give you that phone after all."
"My, uh, grandma did. So I could talk to her. So I could talk to her all the time."
Cleo stared at the phone in undisguised hatred. "It's, er, really embarrassing. Which
is why I said my parents bought it."
"Is there a reason why you're wrapping it in Bacofoil?"
"The Off switch doesn't work. This does."
Ant looked at the phone in disquiet. "Remind me not to buy one of those."
***
"So you vant to go now."
"Yes, Fräulein. And my sister Tamora would like to go as well."
Fräulein Meinck's steel-rimmed spectacles drilled into Cleo's brain, exposing the
deceit within. Fräulein Meinck was wearing stout, hardwearing tweed, as she always
did, and two lapel badges, one in the shape of the German flag, one in the shape of the
Union Jack, as she always did. Crowds of pupils moving between classrooms swirled
around Fräulein Meinck and Cleo in the corridor. Cleo had been lucky to catch her
between classes.
"You said you didn't vant to go last veek, Cleöpätra."
"I know, Fräulein. I didn't have the money last week."
"But you häff the money now."
"I do."
Fräulein Meinck sucked in her breath at great length.
Finally, she said:
"You are very lucky, Cleöpätra. Two people who vere goink to be goink on ze trip
häff fallen ill viz a mysteriöus illness. A mysteriöus häppy illness zat involves
smilink and laughink all ze time, and pointink at sings and sayink 'Haha, look at zät
funny sing over zere'."
"That doesn't sound like an illness", said Cleo.
"Ze doctors sink", said Fräulein Meinck, "zey might be on Drugs. I häff not said zät,
you understand, neizer häff you heard it." She looked over her shoulder, as if Drugs
might be creeping up on her.
"When did it happen?" said Cleo.
"Fife minutes ago." Fräulein Meinck held up her mobile phone. "Ze Head häss
texted me to say zät Tscheremy and Tschäke Moss vill not be comink to Spitzenburg.
Zey are viz ze School Nurse, and she häss telephoned for an ämbulance."
"Jeremy and Jake Moss", said Cleo. "That's terrible. Are they in any pain at all?"
"No. Alzough zey should be. Poor Tschäke voss srowing a smaller boy into ze
stingink nettles in front of ze Chemistry Block ät ze time, and suddenly begän
laughink and srowink himself into zem over and over again."
Cleo was alarmed. "Jake Moss threw himself into the stinging nettles?"
"Zät iss vhat I said. He iss covered all över ze body viz nettle stinks. His great friend
Anthony Stevens helped to dräg him aväy from zem, özzervize he could häff been
vone big stink from head to foot."
A huge smile began to creep over Cleo's face.
"It iss not goot, Cleöpätra", said Fräulein Meinck sternly, "to take pleasure in ze pain
off özzers."
Cleo's grin almost split her face in half. "Uh, I'm just ecstatically happy to be able to
go to Spitzenburg, Fräulein. With my baby little sister, whom I love dearly, of
course."
"Also gut", said Fräulein Meinck. "It iss an Ill Vind zät iss blowink no-vone any goot,
oder?"
"I'm sure you're right, Fräulein", said Cleo.
"Now run along to ze Bursar's office änd giff your mözzer and fazer's tscheque to
Mrs. Tschenninks, or ve vill be two people schort off ze money for ze trip."
"My cheque", said Cleo, blinking stupidly. "Mrs. Jennings. Oh yes. Yes. That
cheque. Erm - Fräulein?"
"Vhat iss it now?"
"Do you think Mrs. Jennings will take cash in very large denominations, some of
them extremely foreign?"
The corridor was now almost empty. Only a few stragglers remained, most of them
emerging from toilets - girls with their skirts tucked into their pants, boys wiping their
hands on their trousers. The bell clanged deafeningly for the start of the next period.
"Ze bell, alväys viz ze bell", said Fräulein Meinck, holding her temples dramatically.
"My nerves are in tätters. I am sure Mrs. Tschenninks vill täke vhatever you giff her
as long as it iss not pöker chips or car vash tokens."
"Thanks Miss", said Cleo. "Auf Wiedersehen."
Fräulein Meinck smiled happily. "Auf Wiedersehen, Cleöpätra."
***
Cleo slid soundlessly into place in class beside Ant. Crazy Ivan Maplethorpe, the
maths master, appeared not to have even noticed she was missing. Crazy Ivan had
been named for his habit of turning round suddenly without warning, in the manner of
a Russian submarin commander, to look behind him. This was not to check for
American submarines sneaking up on his stern, however, but to look for Year Nines
attempting to stick Post-It notes to him. He suffered from tunnel vision, was
incapable of seeing anything that wasn't directly ahead of him, and was still happily
explaining what a Surd was to a beaming front row of boys. He seemed not to have
realized that, when said quickly, 'Surd' sounded like something browner and far less
mathematical, but was happy that his class was taking an unprecedented interest in the
notation of roots.
"You", said Cleo quietly, "have been holding out on me."
Ant's eyes swivelled rightwards without giving any impression his attention was not
still fixed on Mr. Maplethorpe. "In what way?"
"Before you left Gondolin, Lieutenant Turpin gave you a Personal Orgonizer."
Ant reddened guiltily. "It's a Mark Two. It works on the whole range of human
emotions. It does happy, sad, angry, frightened, and it has one setting here", he said,
tapping the top of a smooth metallic object in his schoolbag, "which is described only
as SEXY."
"You used it on Jake Moss", accused Cleo.
A hand shot up at the front of the class. "SO, SIR, IF YOU WERE A SQUARE, I
COULD GET A SURD OUT OF YOU."
The front row of the class sat in that silent, breathless state human beings sit in when
attempting so hard not to laugh that it could cause physical injury.
Ant nodded a millimetre. "I used the HAPPY setting on him. I have also used the
other settings, but not on human beings. I have been practising on squirrels."
Mr. Maplethorpe blinked in shock. His imagined world where students were truly
interested in cube roots was collapsing. He turned round suddenly, looking to left and
right, but no-one was creeping up armed with a Post-It. Outside in the trees, squirrels
scampered past the window chattering angrily, out for blood and nuts.
"Demonstrate", said Cleo, eyes fixed forwards on Mr. Maplethorpe.
Ant nodded almost imperceptibly again, and snuck his hand down into his schoolbag.
Cleo saw the dial turn to ANGRY. Ant's hand curled around the trigger...
"WELL, BROADLY SPEAKING, RYAN, THAT IS TRUE -"
A bright burst of light came from Ant's school bag, unseen by anyone not in the back
row of the class. Mr. Maplethorpe quivered and tottered on his feet. His eyes rolled
in his head. Then, suddenly, he leapt on Ryan Scrivener, grabbed him by the lapels
and attempted to stuff his head into the FRACTALS ARE FUN display.
"IDIOT BOY! I TRY TO CRAM THE BEAUTY, THE TIMELESS MAJESTY OF
EUCLID AND MANDELBROT INTO YOUR CRETINOUS HEAD, AND YOU
ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN PLAYING GAMES? LET ME SEE IF I CAN
STUFF YOUR CRETINOUS HEAD INSIDE MANDELBROT!"
Ryan Scrivener yelped as his head popped out of the other side of a giant cardboard
fractal.
"I figured you might need some help getting us on the German trip", said Ant out of
the corner of his mouth, "so I got rid of a couple of people who were already on it."
Cleo nodded. "Best return the poor man to normal. Otherwise he could lose his job."
Ant shook his head, watching Mr. Maplethorpe spank Ryan Scrivener soundly with a
triangular prism from the KNOW YOUR SOLIDS table. "Sadly, there is no
NORMAL setting. I will report it as an operational shortcoming. I think I can make
sure Ivan just gets suspended pending psychiatric evaluation, though." He turned the
switch on top of the weapon.
"Not SEXY", warned Cleo.
"The world is not ready", agreed Ant, "for a sexy Mr. Maplethorpe." Ant's schoolbag
flared brilliant green and purple once again; Mr. Maplethorpe stood rigid with Ryan
Scrivener in his hands, and the teeth ground in his head like badly changed gears on a
car. He dropped Scrivener, fell to one knee, and began singing 'The Sun Has Got His
Hat On' in a rich, hearty baritone.
"Fascinating", said Cleo.
"An unexpected side effect", nodded Ant.
"If he goes on to the highly dodgy third verse about Making Negroes Down In
Timbuctoo, I'll have to point out the shocking inaccuracies in his negro-related
assumptions", said Cleo. "Us negroes are made in hospitals like everyone else.
Except my sister Tamora. I suspect she was made in a vat."
"Oh no", said Ant, looking round at Cleo suddenly.
"Oh yes. Tazza is coming too."
***
Schorsch's juice bar in town was like the café at the Märchenschloß, but had the
advantage that Jochen didn't have to work in it. On Saturdays, he would finish work
at the Schloß, jump on his bike, pedal hard almost vertically downhill through the
woods to the stile through the wall on the main road, lift his bike over the stile, and
carry on pedalling hard till he reached Schorsch's in the town square with fifteen
minutes to spare till closing time. The money from the tipping dish in the café was
enough to pay for one of Schorsch's Super Eighteen-Fruit High Octane Big C
Smoothies. These were half a litre in size, contained enough vitamin C to blow the
head off a laboratory mouse, and most importantly, contained no caffeine whatsoever.
After eight hours at the Märchenschloß, caffeine soaked in through the pores. Even if
you hadn't drunk any of what you were making for the customers, simply standing
behind the counter all day could keep you awake all night.
He was ten minutes late today. In ankle-deep snow, it had been necessary to brake
occasionally. Schorsch was already polishing glasses and watching the street outside
anxiously when Jochen finally skidded to a halt outside the shop.
He didn't bother locking the bike up. He wouldn't be inside long enough.
When he walked in, a barrage of sniggers broke out from the window seats.
"Tag Jochi! You're in a hurry!"
"He wants to know what it's like to have someone else make him a drink!"
"Have you saved up all your tips for the week?"
As he had done just that and therefore technically been caught bang to rights, it was
difficult not to glow a brilliant incandescent red, particularly after having cycled here
at full pelt from the castle. Sepp, Girgl, and Wastl, who ranked among Jochen's least
favourite people in the entire world, began warming their hands on him. Sepp, Girgl
and Wastl were lucky enough to have parents who didn't live in a mediaeval castle
owned by a bank. They lived in a house, a flat, and in Girgl's case, a mobile home in
the front garden because Girgl's mother was too psychotic to allow anyone in the
house except on special occasions, but Jochen would have changed houses with any
of them any day of the week.
Schorsch looked relieved that Jochen had finally arrived. He already had the fruit
lined up and chopped on the counter, and began shovelling it into the smoothie
machine, which throbbed, gurgled and attempted to vibrate its way to freedom across
the counter when he turned it on. Schorsch was so laid back people had been known
to check him carefully to make sure he was breathing. He was rumoured to have
worked with Greenpeace, saving whales, until he had presumably decided enough
whales had been saved and come ashore to live in a commune in California, though
some rumours said Goa, some Scotland and some Outer Mongolia. Finally, he had
returned to Germany to look after his sick mother. The juice bar, which Schorsch had
never been able to work himself up to naming, was decorated with pictures of
rainbows, dolphins, killer whales somehow occupying the same sea as the dolphins
without eating them, red indians, lotus blossoms, and men with too many arms and
elephants' heads.
"Hey, Schorsch! Don't put your finger in there by mistake! Jochi doesn't want a
special strawberry surprise!"
Schorsch looked up at Wastl as if to make clear that he had already made Wastl a very
special strawberry surprise on numerous occasions without his knowledge, and
opened the tap at the business end of the machine. Jochen's smoothie glass began
filling with a semi-liquid bright orange elixir.
"You have an admirer today", said Schorsch. Jochen was stunned. Schorsch seldom
spoke. It was hard for a human voice to escape from the mass of hair and beard that
constituted Schorsch. But Jochen didn't have time to have admirers, never would
have time. He would work like a fool at the Märchenschloß on every Saturday and
some Sundays until he was old enough to legally leave school, then he would take
over the business of being a full time slave to the bank from his grandfather; then,
after forty or fifty years of that, he might actually own himself the castle his
grandfather had owned before he was born.
He followed Schorsch's eyes to the back of the shop. There was a girl there. A
blonde girl, quite pretty. Erm. Actually, very pretty. Her hair was a little oldfashioned and looked as if it had been bludgeoned into submission with a hairbrush
before being brutally restrained with an Alice band, but there were some girls who
would look beautiful even if they were dressed in a sack, and this was one.
She wasn't quite dressed in a sack. She was wearing a blouse, a tweed skirt, and
stockings, but the blouse had a jaunty sort of ribbon on the front. She looked as if she
had been dressed well-meaningly by her great grandmother.
"Good morning", she said. Her German was perfect, but accented. It was definitely
foreign, but from somewhere he could not place. What she had actually said had been
"Grüß Gott". Only hardcore Bavarians and Austrians ever said "Grüß Gott". It was
old-fashioned, regional dialect. A foreigner would surely have said "Guten Morgen."
"Do I know you?" said Jochen. Behind him, he heard a chorus of wolf whistles and
yells of encouragement from the window seats.
"No", smiled the girl. "I don't come from round here." She peered at him closely.
"You are Jochen von Spitzenburg, aren't you?"
Jochen nodded, and slurped at the straw of his smoothie as Schorsch passed it to him.
The girl smiled at him again, as if everything Jochen did was fascinating.
"I have friends", said the girl, "who are concerned about you."
"Why?" said Jochen. He noticed that the girl was drinking an espresso. Jochen was
always very suspicious about customers who drank espresso. It tasted like diesel oil,
took five seconds to drink, and made people who drank it bounce off the ceiling.
"Your grandfather has been visited by people who made threats", said the girl. "We
know about this. It is our business to know."
Jochen leaned on the table next door to hers. He was not yet ready to sit down. "Who
are we?" he said.
"Let us say we are a government organization", said the girl. "We are interested in
your wellbeing. These gentlemen who have visited you. What were they looking for?
Do you know?"
Jochen slurped hard on his straw. It rasped like a drain emptying. "First of all", he
said, "how do you know we were visited, as you say?"
"These gentlemen are not as clever as they think they are. They are under
surveillance. We need to know who they are and what they want."
Jochen was confused. "But why don't you know that already? You must have a
reason for watching them. Otherwise they might have been coming around to talk
about, I don't know, the plumbing, and why would you have someone under
surveillance for that?"
The girl gripped the edges of the café table. Her knuckles were whitening; her smile
was faltering. "Because they are known to be very dangerous men."
"I thought you didn't know who they were", said Jochen. "You wanted me to find that
out, remember?"
The smile flickered like a candle in danger of going out. She tapped a massive ice
cream sundae on the table next to her. It was one of Schorsch's Megatonbombe
specials. Two straws were stuck in it. "Would you like to share an ice cream with
me?"
This was all very sudden. Jochen looked at the Megatonbombe as if it might indeed
explode and shower him with creamy goodness.
"I'm sorry", he said. "Some other time, maybe."
"I won't bite", said the girl; but behind the smile now, he caught a quite different
emotion. He realized suddenly that she was terrified. Terrified of Jochen? Hardly
likely. Jochen was painfully aware that he had the muscles of a windowdresser.
"Tell whoever you work for", said Jochen, "that I'm not that predictable."
He stood up and backed away from the table, bowing as his grandfather would have
done. He drained his smoothie - the smoothie that should have taken him half an hour
to drink, reading from newspapers while Schorsch was closing up shop and upturning
chairs around him.
"I'm that predictable!" yelled Girgl plaintively across the room. "My behaviour
patterns are drearily familiar!"
"I'm more predictable than he is!" said Wastl. "Come and talk to me!"
The girl smiled with evident effort. She raised her voice and called out to Wastl with
a smile and a darting glance at Jochen. "Maybe I should talk to you. Maybe you're
the interesting one."
"And I'm not that predictable either", said Jochen. "You don't get to me like that."
The girl scowled. Oddly, it made her look much prettier. Jochen put down the
smoothie, laid Schorsch's money on the counter, and left. She followed him out of the
bar; he was glad he hadn't locked his bicycle. One jump, and he was on the saddle,
away and beyond pursuit.
He stopped the bike around the next corner and sat on the saddle in the middle of the
street, breathing hard.
"What the hell did you do that for?" he said to himself. "She was gorgeous."
But there had been something wrong about the whole thing. Something very wrong.
Grandfather always said, look into a man's eyes once, when you first meet him. In
that moment you will know him - whether he is good or bad, right or wrong. No
further conversation is necessary.
The girl's eyes had been just a little bit too blue.
He leaned on the pedals and wobbled slowly in the direction of home.
4.
The Wheels on the Bus Go Round And Round
The coach looked like most coaches hired by the school; cramped, with only one
easily blocked chemical toilet, down by the emergency door on the right hand side,
and beautiful blue-and-orange tartan upholstery. Cleo had every confidence that the
seats would itch like wire brushes after only a mile, and that the air conditioning
system would reek of molten plastic. The coach would be their prison for the next ten
hours.
"You're - OOF - absolutely sure we're - OOF - stopping at South Mims", she said to
the driver as she struggled up the steps with two enormous suitcases.
"That's the third time I've told you now", said the driver. "What's so special about
South Mims?"
"I like South Mims. It is the queen of service stations. My grandfather designed it.
He is buried on the premises."
"Well, you can't take two suitcases full of luggage in here. You'll need to put one in
the baggage compartment."
Cleo looked blankly at the driver. "I've only got one suitcase full of luggage. I've had
to be very strict with myself. It has been very harrowing."
The driver looked meaningfully at the one suitcase, then at the other.
"Oh, luggage!" Cleo's eyes boggled desperately. "This suitcase! Yes! This isn't
luggage as such, no. It's more, more..."
She gestured with a hand to give a clear and accurate picture of what might be in the
suitcase.
"...more?" said the driver.
"OKAY, IT'S SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS IN ILLEGAL CASH, ARE YOU
HAPPY NOW???"
The driver looked coolly back at Cleo.
"If French customs get on board at Calais, my duck", he said, "do us a favour and
don't try that one on them, there's a love. Now if you could just take one of those two
cases back down the steps, everyone else will be able to get back on."
"Yeah", came a voice from the long line of pupils behind Cleo. "We all got our cases
loaded already."
Cleo threw a haughty glance at the driver, then tossed her head in disgust and
struggled back down the steps with both suitcases. Herr Riemann, the German
assistant, scuttled forward to take them and transfer them to the baggage space. Herr
Riemann was a sad, depressed-looking young man who had had the prospect of a
happy teaching career in England shattered by the fact that his name, when read out to
English schoolchildren, sounded like 'Hairy Man'. Cleo let Herr Riemann have one
suitcase. She held on to the other as if it contained her mother's ashes. Herr
Riemann, wisely, let her keep it.
"Very well done, sister", said Tamora from behind her. "You concealed your awful
secret really well back there."
"Silence, vermin", said Cleo. "Now I have to get back into the queue. Rats, and
worse than rats."
"If you didn't continually insult those around you, they might save you places in
queues", said Tamora from her place in the queue.
"Over here", said Ant.
"Hey", objected a pair of Year Nines from behind Ant. Cleo ignored them. She had
been attacked by hostile mind-controlling amoebas besides which Year Nines
presented a significantly less impressive threat. She slid into place behind Ant, as
smoothly as a donkey walking backwards. Knees were bumped by her enormous
suitcase, which had no smooth child-safe corners.
"Why are you so interested in South Mims?" said Ant.
"Watch and learn", said Cleo. "You're going to have to lift this up into the overhead
rack for me. My arms are too slender and beautiful to contain muscles. All those
American Gold Eagle coins are simply - OOF - too heavy to lift." She hefted the
suitcase one pace into the bus, resting its weight on the bottom step.
"What's a Gold Eagle coin?" said Ant.
"I've made far more money out of all this than those fools on Gondolin suspected OOF. They've been hoarding this money for a long time. Some of it's really rare.
Look at this -" she held up a large green banknote with a portrait of a woman looking
very much like the Queen, only younger.
"What is it?" said Ant.
"It's a 1970 pound note, stupid. And this is a German Ostmark, pre-unification, a very
rare 1964 print - OOF - where Karl Marx was accidentally given red staring demon
eyes. I believe the printer was sent to Siberia. And this is a South Vietnamese Dong "
"You seem to know a lot about this."
"I've been reading up on it. There's a potential goldmine up there for a discerning
numismatist." Cleo pushed the case another step up into the coach, up to the driver.
"OOF. Okay, Mr. Bus Driver, can I come on board now?"
***
South Mims was a car park filled with screaming children and bordered by massive
blocks of stone to stop gypsies parking on the grass. It had toilets. But the toilets
only had so many cubicles, and the coach's in-flight chemical toilet had already been
blocked by the school's least sane Year Eleven, Armand Jeffries, who had expressed a
desire to his classmates to "see the aisle run yeller wiv a river of wee". There were
long lines for both the girls' and boys' toilets. As Ant walked out, Fräulein Meinck
was standing next to the door ticking off names on a register. She was tapping her
pen against her clipboard, watching the girls' toilet entrance like a hawk.
"Häff you seen Cleopätra, Änthöny? I äm missink her on my list."
"No", said Ant. "She did get off the coach", he added. "I saw her go into the café."
Fräulein Meinck pulled a mobile phone from her sleeve where it was jammed in
among handkerchiefs, speed-dialled a number, and spoke rapidly into the phone.
"Im Café. Ja. Einer von den Jungen hat sie gesehen."
Ant hurried away. The coach was beginning to fill up with pupils again - mostly
boys, as the girls' toilets were still jammed solid with girls doing whatever girls did in
toilets. Ant, in a momentary flash of panic, scanned the car park for familiar vehicles,
and immediately saw, right next to the exit, a large black Mercedes, the driver looking
straight back at him. The driver grinned and winked.
Ant whirled round and ran to the café. He spent over a minute scanning every face in
it - red-faced screeching toddlers, long-suffering mums, tired-looking pensioners, wetlooking motorcyclists. But no Cleo. He ran in and up to the girl on the checkout,
elbowing past a soaking wet lady motorcyclist and an old lady who was mumbling
absent-mindedly to herself whilst choosing a cake with more care than many voters
chose governments. The old lady had dirty grey hair scrunched up into a hat that
resembled a church hassock, almond-shaped spectacles, and a trouser suit that had
been in fashion for several minutes one afternoon in the summer of 1965.
"Have you seen a black girl, just a little bit shorter than me? Did she come in here?"
The checkout girl shook her head blankly, as checkout girls did. The lady biker,
however, said: "A black girl did come in here a couple of minutes back. She was
quite pretty, lugging a really big suitcase, was that her?"
Ant considered the subject of Cleo being pretty, and shrugged.
"Well, she sort of hid behind that pillar there, then went out again. As fast as the
suitcase would let her. She looked like she was waving to someone outside."
Ant ran out, just as Herr Riemann ran in, talking excitedly on his mobile phone in
German. "Ich denke, sie sei nicht hier, aber ich suche -" The old lady, who seemed
to have lost interest in cake, was nearly bowled over by him as she drifted out of the
café as aimlessly as thistledown in a blizzard.
Fräulein Meinck blew her whistle; Ant saw Herr Riemann recoil from his phone in
shock as the sound of it hurt his ear. The whistle was the signal for the girls to stop
swapping lipstick in the toilets and move back to the bus.
"Qvickly please efferybody. For you, ze pit stop iss över." She ticked several more
names off on her clipboard and looked across at Ant. "Änthöny, I am still vone
Cleopätra schort off a full load."
Ant's mobile phone rang. He ripped it out of his pocket.
"Hello?"
"This will be a very short telephone call. You must tell Fräulein Meinck that I have
met up with a friend and will rejoin the coach at Dover."
"You'll do WHAT? The coach is going straight there -"
"The coach will stop at least twice more for toilet breaks, and is being driven at a
pathetic seventy miles per hour -"
"Seventy miles per hour is the national speed limit, Cleo."
"I, meanwhile, am being driven in the fastest vehicle on the British road."
Ant's imagination ran riot. "A Lamborghini Murcielago?"
"No. A small white van being driven by a Polish plumber."
A voice yelled in the background. "HELLO ANTHONY MY FRIEND!" Ant heard a
horn and a squeal of brakes. "YOU GET OUT OF SLOW LANE, YOU HOG OF
ROAD!"
Comprehension dawned painfully. "Prawo Jazdy?"
"Yes. He gave us his business card, remember? But only I had the forethought to
hold on to it. Prawo is taking me to a location which must remain secret, in return
for a very reasonable sum of money. And now, because I'm absolutely sure Alastair
will be trying to trace this call, I must ring off."
The line went dead. Fräulein Meinck was frantically counting and recounting the
heads in the bus through the windows. Being German, and despite the fact that she
was looking for Cleo, she was being very careful to pay no attention whatsoever to the
colour of the students. This made the job very hard for her, as she was having to
count sixty black, white, yellow and brown heads rather than simply count the number
of black faces on the bus, which was ten.
Ant put his hand up, slowly and without really wanting to.
"Ah... Fräulein? I think I have something to tell you."
***
"She said she was going to do WHAT?"
" - was going to London to see a friend." Ant was glad a hundred kilometres of
England currently separated him from Mrs. Shakespeare, who was in a rage fit to
shatter concrete. He held his mobile phone a full arm's length away for the duration
of her next sentence.
"Änthöny, I äm very disappointed. I hope you did not häff änythink to do viz ziss?"
Ant was standing outside the service station in the rain, with his mobile phone
shrieking into one ear, and Fräulein Meinck clucking disapprovingly into the other.
An entire coach full of disgruntled, disapproving faces was staring down at him.
"What friend? Who was she going to see? Anthony, don't you have any sense of
responsibility at all?"
"She said she was going to rejoin the coach at Dover", said Ant, in an effort to avoid
lying.
"It iss time", said Fräulein Meinck gravely, "to alert ze Police."
"Cleo has never been in trouble with the police", said Mrs. Shakespeare, apparently
attempting to talk to someone who could not possibly hear her. "And don't you dare
suggest she could be."
"I'm really sorry about this, Mrs. Shakespeare", said Ant. "I honestly had no idea she
was going to do it."
"Who has she gone off with?"
"I don't know. At least, I'm not sure how to spell his name. He installs kitchens and
bathrooms at very reasonable prices. I'm almost certain he's from some country or
other in Eastern Europe."
"You don't even know what COUNTRY he's from???"
"Letitia, Cleo only phoned me up and told me about this five minutes ago." To Ant's
left, Fräulein Meinck had taken out her own mobile phone and was dialling a
suspiciously short number.
"Don't Letitia me, Anthony, I consider you personally responsible for this. You paid
for her to go on this holiday with you -"
"HALLO, POLIZEI BITTE - I mean, I vould like ze police, please."
"I'm telling you, this wasn't part of the plan. Look, this is Cleo we're talking about.
I'm sure there will be a reasonable yet suspiciously complex explanation."
There was a long silence at the other end of the phone. Then Mrs. Shakespeare
sighed.
"Actually, Anthony, I ought to be more sympathetic. It's quite obvious to me what's
happened here, and I think you really do too on some level. Cleo has a boyfriend.
Another boyfriend, I mean. One a little older than you are. I'm sorry to have to
break the news, but it seems more or less clear to me."
Ant's heart leapt - he now had a way out of Letitia's line of fire - which made it all the
more difficult to sound devastated.
"...oh no." The word 'no' seemed to be working, so he repeated it a few more times
for effect. "No, no, no." He pounded the phone against his own head for added
drama.
"The boyfriend is often the last to realize, Anthony. I'm terribly sorry Cleo has
behaved so badly."
Ant put his fingers in his mouth in grief. He had seen people do this on television.
"You must promise to call me if Cleo calls you again", said Mrs. Shakespeare.
"Yes", he said. "But you'll have to get off the line now." He attempted to sound as if
talking was becoming difficult for him. "My...my battery's running low. And there's
no charger on the coach." He choked off these last words with a sob.
It was a stroke of brilliance. Mrs. Shakespeare now had no option but to get off the
phone and leave him alone - otherwise, Cleo might ring again while his battery was
exhausted, and he'd be unable to take the call.
He could almost hear Mrs. Shakespeare fighting the logic of it at the other end of the
phone.
"All right", she said finally. "But give me the number of that German lady first. She
seems like the sort of person who keeps her batteries fully charged at all times."
***
"You told my PARENTS???"
"I had to! Fräulein Meinck phoned them as soon as you went missing!"
Ant was sitting in the middle of a circle of absolute silence, as every Year Seven on
the coach strained his or her ears to listen to Ant's private conversation. The
deafening volume of Ant's phone speaker meant that they could almost certainly hear
Cleo's voice just as well as they could Ant's.
"Ant, my parents will do terrible things to me! They will send me to Christian Retreat
until small birds approach me without fear and stigmata appear in my hands and feet!
Where are you right now?"
Ant looked up and down the motorway. Looking down into the fast lane, he locked
eyes instantly with Hammond Karg, the government agent, who was sitting in the
front passenger seat of the black Mercedes. Mr. Karg gave Ant an embarrassed halfsmile and made a little wave with his fingers.
Other passengers had also noticed the Mercedes.
"Hey, that's your mum's private eye, Stevens."
"Shouldn't he be taking photos of your Dad when he's out nicking? What's he doing
here?"
"No he isn't. He's there to make sure little Anthony goes to bed at the right time and
never listens to the Devil's music."
Two of the Year Sevens appeared to have replaced Jake Moss as class comedians.
Ant marked their names down for later. Sometimes bullying his smaller and weaker
classmates was a grim necessity.
"I dunno where we are", said Ant. "Oh, hang on. I can see oast houses. We're in
Kent."
"Can you be more specific? Ordinary people use large blue things called road
signs."
"Look, we came down off the Dartford Bridge and took a left. We're in Kent. Where
are you?"
Cleo's voice, on the other end of the line, could only be heard over the sound of a
small diesel engine shrieking in pain. Her voice grew fainter. "Uh - Mr. Jazdy where are we now, exactly?"
"WE STILL IN ENGLAND BUT ONLY JUST. I HAVE TO BRAKE HARD SOON OR
END UP IN HOW YOU SAY ENGLISH CHANNEL."
Cleo returned to the phone. "I think we're in Dover."
"DOVER??? I HAVE THOUGHT YOU HAVE SAID FOLKESTONE!!!" There was a
sound of tyres squealing as a small diesel vehicle skidded through one hundred and
eighty degrees accompanied by a fanfare of horns.
"Tell me you are not on a motorway", said Ant.
"Uh, it's all right", said Cleo, sounding confused and seasick. "It's just a dual
carriageway."
"SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL. I GET YOU TO DOVER QUICKER THAN
NEW BALL VALVE CAN BE INSTALLED BY TRAINED OPERATOR! YOU PASS
NEARSIDE TO NEARSIDE, LUNATIC IDIOT KAMIKAZE MAN! YOU PUT
HEAD IN BACK PART OF PIG AND SAY 'HELLO, BACK PART OF PIG, I
COSY AND TICKETTY-BOO IN HERE, I STAY HERE TILL CHRISTMAS -!'"
"Cleo, listen carefully. You've got to get Prawo to stop his van well short of the ferry
terminal. The police will be looking for him. And don't go into Dover on any of the
main roads."
"No need to worry", said Cleo, who appeared to be talking through gritted teeth, "I
don't think we'll actually live that long."
The phone went dead.
Tamora leaned over the back of the seat, grinning like a medicated beaver.
"That was excellent", she said. "Are you going to phone mum and tell her everything
you just said, or shall I?"
***
The coach rumbled down the empty dual carriageway leading to the ferry terminal. It
was still an hour before dawn. The streets were deserted. High above the town, the
castle loomed, illuminated for the benefit of tourists, asylum seekers, and economic
migrants. Far in the distance, the ferries themselves, gigantic white shapes the size of
Revere class cruisers, lay at anchor, waiting to gobble up cars and coaches. The sea
was showing its teeth, white daggers of foam on the tops of the waves, even in the
relatively enclosed waters of the harbour. Ant could see no sign of Prawo Jazdy's
van. That was either very, very good, or very, very bad. It either meant Cleo had
taken Ant's advice and ditched the van, or that Cleo had been arrested by Special
Operations, Alastair Drague's security force who, in terms of the unacceptable use of
extreme violence, were rumoured to be to the police what the police were to lollipop
ladies.
In the absence of Cleo, Ant was sitting next to Glynn. This was because nobody else
wanted to sit next to Glynn. Glynn often wore the same shirt several days running,
and picked his nose while talking to others. Oddly, he didn't seem to pick his nose
while he wasn't talking. Glynn was very interested in tabletop wargaming with lead
figurines, and had already informed Ant of the fearsome capabilities of his army of
Chaos Elves. "They're like Death Elves", he'd confided, "only more chaotic."
Apparently Death Elves were capable of maintaining skirmish formation even over
rough ground.
Behind the coach, well out of throwing range, cruised the Special Operations
Mercedes, like a giant pilot fish following a shark. Hammond Karg was dozing in the
front passenger seat.
Glynn was also reading a horror novel entitled WORM!, which had a picture of a
human skull with worms crawling out of the eyesockets on the front cover. A review
of WORM! on the back of the book read: "Squirming intestinal horror...TIMES
LITERARY SUPPLEMENT."
"Where is Cleo, Ant?" said Tamora from the seat behind as the coach cruised through
the service buildings at the terminal's outskirts. "This is not funny, Ant. What have
you done with my beautiful sister?"
"I haven't done anything with your beautiful sister", said Ant, and this was perhaps
even truer than Tamora realized. "I swear that I did not know this would happen
before today."
"He swears that he did not know this would happen before today", relayed Tamora
faithfully into her own mobile phone. "Yes. Yes, he does look worried." She leaned
over the seat again to Ant. "My mum says you should look worried, Ant. She is
trying to contact your dad."
"Good luck with that", said Ant. His father, he knew, was on his way to Boulogne
with a cargo of French cheeses that had been made in Gloucestershire.
"My mum wants to know how you know this man Prawo", said Tamora. "She is
talking to a police sergeant as we speak. He suspects Cleo might have been
kidnapped by white slavers."
"I'm pretty sure they'd realize their mistake quite quickly", said Ant.
"Ant, you are being deliberately obtuse and quite possibly racist. My sister could be
in great danger."
A smile began to spread across Ant's face. His eyes were no longer on Tamora.
"You're right. She could. If she looks any more pleased with herself, that smile could
go all the way round her and her head will fall off."
On the stern of the ferry nearest them - the very ferry for which their coach was now
patiently queueing - stood Cleo, wearing a hoodie that said GOOD GIRLS GO TO
HEAVEN - BAD GIRLS GO TO LONDON, and grinning down at the coach like an
angry baboon.
"Oh my god", said Tamora. She turned to her mobile phone. "Mum! Mum! The lost
sheep has returned to the fold! Repeat: The prodigal daughter has returned! One of
our aircraft is no longer missing! The chicken has come home to roost!"
The coach rumbled on to the ramp leading into the ferry; almost immediately, it began
to rock up and down unsettlingly on its axles. Cleo moved back from the rail on the
upper deck, out of sight.
"No mum, I mean Cleo is back."
***
The ferry was pounding up and down in the grey Channel swell like a bad
headache. Occasionally, plates clattered off shelves in the galley and the canteen staff
began arguing with one another as if this was the first time such a thing had ever
happened on a moving ship.
Ant was sitting at a canteen table. He was sitting opposite Glynn. Glynn was
explaining, with the help of M&M's and Polo mints, how a determined unit of Chaos
Elves could thwart even a headlong charge by Ninja Were-Bears.
"It's all in the morale bonus", said Glynn. "You get a plus three for standing in close
formation." He ate three of the Polo mints to illustrate his point. "Shee how it
worksh?"
"Brilliant", said Ant.
"Of course", warned Glynn, "this only works if the Ninja Were-Bears aren't in bear
form."
For some reason, this irritated Ant. "Hang on", he said. "What's the point of having a
Were-Bear that isn't in bear form? Otherwise it'd just be, you know, a man."
"A ninja man", cautioned Glenn.
Someone tapped Ant on the shoulder. Without turning round, he said:
"I was wondering when you'd turn up. Your mother is going spare."
Cleo slid onto the bench opposite, as if Glynn did not exist. Glynn, who was used to
girls acting as if he didn't exist, simply shrugged nonchalantly, budged up a space on
the bench and began to eat the remaining M&M's and Polos.
"I couldn't show my face before you'd all gone through Customs", said Cleo. "They
might have stopped me going through altogether and sent me back home. In any case,
all the Mother trouble will be sorted out by the end of this short sea voyage." She
picked up an orange M&M and ate it.
"You just ate Elf Lord Magnolion", said Ant. "His troops will be at a minus one
morale bonus for the next three rounds."
"Life's hard for an elf", shrugged Cleo.
"You cannot possibly sort out the level of Mother trouble you are in", said Ant. "You
are in thermonuclear Mother trouble. You are in so much Mother trouble it may well
spill over to me and become Father trouble."
"Luckily", said Cleo, "I am vulnerable only to green kryptonite and milk chocolate."
She looked at the bar of French chocolate Ant had just bought in the canteen, which
was sitting on the table in front of them. "That is milk chocolate, isn't it?"
Ant inspected the label. "It claims to be."
Cleo seemed to not so much eat as breathe in the chocolate, somehow arranging for
the wrapper to remove itself on the way in to her mouth. "Omigog. Omigog, gat'sh
betcher."
"I imagine so."
"I hagn't hag anyfing to ee'all gay."
"How interesting. Tell me more."
"Where are we ngow?"
"I went out on deck a few minutes back. I think we're close to Calais."
"I gon't gnow why we can'go froo ge Channel Chunnel."
"I think it was more expensive."
"And the school would have had to hire coaches at both ends", said Glynn. "You
can't put a coach on the Eurostar."
"You're dribbling chocolate, Cleo."
"I gnow. I gneeg a shergiette." Cleo stood up unsteadily on the rocking deck and
moved toward the condiments and cutlery.
"Do you know what a shergiette is?" said Glynn.
Ant shook his head.
From the other side of the canteen Fräulein Meinck strutted in like an angry
cassowary, lip quivering, fury in her half-moon spectacles, her knuckles white on her
handbag strap.
"But I know trouble when I see it", added Ant.
As Fräulein Meinck laid into Cleo in a mixture of English and Westphalian, Ant
turned his attention to the table.
"So", he said, "run that elven shield tortoise strategy past me again."
Wordlessly, Glynn shook out another tube of M&M's onto the tabletop.
***
The weather was getting worse. Snow was beginning to drift down out of an icy sky.
Despite this, and despite the face-battering wind, Fräulein Meinck had chosen to draw
the entire coach party up in lines in the desolate ferry terminal car park. Everyone
had their hands in their pockets and their arms drawn up tight against their bodies to
resist the cold. Four Year Thirteens, looking very grumpy in three cases and very,
very smug in the remaining one, had been selected as Team Leaders. Each one was
standing out in front of his or her group as Fräulein Meinck delivered a speech with
her whistle held ominously in hand. By now, everyone dreaded the whistle. It was so
loud and shrill that Ant was certain it was making some part of the inside of his head
bleed.
"PÄY ATTENTION ALL OFF YOU. Now, you vill häff noticed already zät certain
off us häff a problem viz followink simple grount rules. I häd expected goot
behäfiour from intelligent indifiduals. But instead ve häff seen people who do not
cäre who zey make Vörry and Väit. For zis reason, ve now häff Team Leaders. Zese
leaders are responsible for your behäfiour. If your behäfiour is bäd, zey vill be
punished äs harshly äs you. For zis reason, I häff giffen zem ze power to punish you
viz up to vone hundred press-ups or fife hundred vörds on a subject of zeir choosink.
Zey are Justin, Serafina, Harjit, and Nigel -"
Nigel, whose hair was very well brushed and centre parted, was the one team leader
who was smiling. He was in charge of Ant's and Glynn's team. Ant had a horrible
sinking feeling.
"One hundred press-ups?" whispered Cleo. "I can't do one."
"I can, just", whispered Ant. "Do one, I mean."
"Venn ve reach ze place vhere ve vill be stäyink ät, each Team Leader vill be in
charge of a dormitöry. Ze dormitöries vill be kept CLEAN. Zey vill be kept TIDY,
änd FREE FROM ALL FORBIDDEN MATERIALS. A list of forbidden materials
häss been provided to each Team Leader. Zere vill be a röll call at öh-seffen-hundred
hours each mornink, anözzer at eighteen hundred hours each efenink, änd özzers ät
rändom interfals vhen I feel like zem. Zät iss all. Your Team Leaders vill now
distribute ze däily fäct sheets you vill be expected to complete in order to properly
enjoy your holidäy, vhich iss NOT A HOLIDÄY BUT A FÄLUABLE LEARNING
OPPORTUNITY."
Cleo looked at her watch again. It was a very cheap watch.
"Why do you keep looking at the time?" said Ant.
Cleo did not reply.
The wind howled in from Siberia. Ant felt the intense disappointment he always felt
in Calais - that Calais only looked like a slightly Frencher version of Dover. To Ant's
mind, foreign countries ought to look different. The sun should have switched off,
and a sexier French one switched on, as soon as they'd crossed the border. But Calais
was just like Dover - all corrugated metal warehouses, supermarkets and trucks.
"It iss snöwink in Baväria", said Fräulein Meinck with great satisfaction. "Ve shäll be
Valkink in a Vinter Vönderländ. Onto ze cöach now, spit spot." Everyone in every
team cringed against the aural impact as she blew the whistle a final time.
Cleo's mobile phone rang. Cleo grinned and, without bothering to ask Fräulein
Meinck, answered it.
"Oh, hello mum.
"Yes, was it a nice surprise?
"Yes, I'm sorry I had to go to London to get it. Mr. Jazdy had to take me. I had to
pick the colours.
"Yes, I'm sorry, it won't happen again. Do you like the colours? When did Mr. Jazdy
turn up?
"I love you too mum.
"Bye."
Cleo clicked the phone shut and smiled angelically up at Fräulein Meinck.
"Sorry Fräulein. Please continue."
***
The coach was now approaching Belgium. Belgium looked similar to France. It was
flat and green and Belgian. Two seats along, Glynn was busily explaining how an
Orcish Banzai Doom Charge worked to Tamora.
"All right", said Ant, his gaze fixed solidly ahead. "I give up. How did you do it?"
Cleo smiled secretively.
"If the words 'wouldn't you like to know' pass your lips, I will pinch you", said
Ant. "We are in an enclosed space and there is no escape."
"Money can accomplish everything, Anthony", said Cleo. "I paid Prawo Jazdy to take
me to London, then to Dover, then to go back up to Northampton to install a new
bathroom for my mum. She'd been wanting one since before Dad came under
investigation from the Union, and she's been impossible to live with since Dad told
her she had to wait for one because we didn't have any money. So I bought her one."
Ant was indignant. "You used the Gondoliers' money to buy your parents a
bathroom?"
"I used the spare money left over to buy a bathroom, Ant. I told Prawo Jazdy to tell
her it was a special free demonstration offer I'd arranged with the showroom. I had to
make a sacrifice to please the Mother Goddess, or her wrath would have been terrible
to behold. What I really went to London for was to make a cash payment to a
bespoke tailor. Gondolin's uniforms will be delivered to a specified location to be
picked up by Lieutenant Turpin in a week's time."
"In a week? How can they do that?"
"All the measurements were sent by email weeks ago. I just needed to pay for the
order. You will notice I no longer have a suitcase stuffed with foreign cash."
"Ah." Ant was crestfallen. "So you don't have a vast amount of money any more."
"I have some", said Cleo. "Enough to feed you chocolate on a regular basis."
"Ah." Ant brightened. "What colour is the bathroom?"
"Aha, that's the thing. I got to choose for a change. It's bright Barbie pink. Dad hates
it."
Snow swooped in from the white sky to die against the heated windows. Behind them
in the left hand lane, the Mercedes was still following.
"Mr. Karg's still asleep", said Ant.
"Bless him. The other three look nastier pieces of work. We'll have to lose them once
we get to Spitzenburg."
"That one on the left smirked when you said 'nastier pieces of work'."
"And he's not smirking now. That means he can hear what we're saying. One of us is
bugged, Ant, and I'm afraid it's you, because you're a boy."
Ant blinked. "Come again?"
"Because they need to make sure that whatever they put the bug in doesn't ever get
taken off. And you're a boy. At least three of the things you wear on any one day you
wore yesterday too, and you have only one pair of shoes." She leaned far forward,
took out a small electronic device with attached headphones from her bag, turned it
on, and pressed the headphones against each of Ant's trainers in turn. "Bingo."
The Mercedes began to swerve violently from side to side. One of the men in the
back seat, who also had headphones, appeared to be trying to tear them off.
"Your left shoe", said Cleo. "The heel, I think. They've put something in there."
"That's amazing", said Ant.
"No", said Cleo. "That's electronic feedback. I got this widget from Soldier of Death
on Kettering Road. The man tried to sell me a hundred pound crossbow and a
cruciform bayonet at the same time, but I declined." She moved the headphones all
over the rest of Ant, watching the man in the Mercedes as she did so.
"Crossbow wasn't pink, I suppose", said Ant.
"Don't be facetious, Ant. The rest of you is clean, at least in the electronic
surveillance sense of the word."
Unfolding a penknife, Ant levered a small electronic device, only slightly larger than
one of his more impressive bogeys, out of the heel of his trainer.
"Give me that. We might need it later." Cleo took out her mysterious mobile phone,
tore off some of the Bacofoil from it, and wrapped up the bug in the Bacofoil.
"Why are we keeping it?"
"While it's in tinfoil it can't transmit anything. But if we unwrap it again, we can tell
them things we want them to hear."
"But they know we've found the bug now."
"It's always nice to have people you can talk to, Anthony", said Cleo, putting the
mysterious mobile phone away.
The coach was now approaching a range of hills. Snow was on their tops. Cars
coming from the hills still had thick slabs of snow on their roofs and bonnets. The
cars had earlier mostly been Peugeots, Renaults and Citroëns. Now there was a
scattering of BMWs, Volkswagens and Mercedeses.
"We're getting closer to Germany", said Ant.
Almost immediately, a sign flashed past saying:
A4
AACHEN / AIX-LA-CHAPELLE 1 KM
KÖLN / COLOGNE 63 KM
DŰSSELDORF 78 KM
FRANKFURT 253 KM
"That's spooky, Ant", said Cleo. "You have some weird sort of extra sensory
perception."
"What?" said Ant. "Is Frankfurt in Germany?"
"Yes, Ant. Frankfurt is in Germany."
"It sounds like it should be in France."
"If you say so."
5.
The Walls Are Made Of Poo
"This is the police dog coming through now. He's a good lad, so I'm told. One of
their best."
The dog was an Alsatian, large, shaggy and enthusiastic. Once his handler gave him
the rag to sniff and let him go, he padded round in a circle hoovering up dust with his
nose. Finally, he moved off in a not quite entirely straight course across the waste
ground, still sniffing the ground urgently.
"He's picked up the scent", said the younger man happily. He was a black man, short
and slight, wearing combat fatigues and a black T shirt. He was also wearing a heavy
pistol in a shoulder holster. Unlike most pistols, this one had two rows of circular
perforations down both sides of its barrel. "He's doing well." He looked down at a
stopwatch in his hand. "Only five seconds so far."
The dog spotted the first obstacle - the wall. He followed the scent, with delicate
precision, up to the wall's edge, then backed up, took a run at the wall and struggled
over it, getting his front legs over and then pushing his back ones after.
"I couldn't jump a wall that high", said the young man, shaking his head admiringly.
"Some of us couldn't even climb a wall that high", scowled the older man. "Be
thankful for small mercies, Corporal."
The next obstacle was a raised pipe, ten metres above the ground. The dog ran along
it diligently, still sniffing with his nose. The trail led on through a length of the same
gauge pipe, built through a brick wall too high to jump. The dog squirmed through
the pipe, then finally, victoriously charged at a leather dummy at the far end. The
dummy held a replica service revolver in one hand. The dog went for the gun hand,
bearing the dummy down to the ground and knocking it off its armature. A siren
sounded; the dog's handler, who had been watching from the sidelines, ran in and
made a fuss of it. The dog bounced around happily.
"Amazing what they can do, these police dogs", said the younger man.
"Bring our man on", said the older man.
The younger man waved his hand. A second handler appeared; the siren sounded
again. The dog was, again, an Alsatian, equally shaggy, though less playful and
boisterous than the first. No affection was evident between the dog and its handler.
This dog seemed to be looking at everything around it with cold, dispassionate
alertness. It also, unmistakeably, dipped its head down occasionally to crop the grass.
"We've not been able to stop them doing the grass thing", said the younger man
apologetically.
The dog was released, and ran round in a circle weaving its head, less like a dog than
a shark. Very quickly, it picked up the scent and moved off on the same course as the
first dog.
"Six seconds", said the younger man. "Not as quick with the old nose as a real dog,
even with the new fuzzy logic module."
The dog ran up to the wall, and without breaking stride, sailed over it without
touching the capstones. The impact it made on the other side sounded like a truck
hitting a kerb at speed. It left four small craters in the earth.
"Let's handicap it a little", said the older man. "Hand me your sidearm."
"Sir?"
"Let's test it to destruction. Your gun, Corporal."
Reluctantly, the younger man handed over his weapon. Clearly, the older man was
not expecting the great weight of the gun; his hand dropped as he accepted it.
"Loaded?" he said.
"Always", said the Corporal.
"I've never been able to get the hang of these new rocket models." The older man
sighted up on the dog as it trotted out along the first pipe. He looked back at the
corporal. "You're absolutely sure this is our dog."
The corporal nodded. "Number six, sir. Larry."
The older man turned back to the dog and squeezed the trigger. Every single one of
the circular perforations burned with flame; the gun barely kicked in his hand. A
blinding, instantaneous flash hissed from the gun muzzle, and the dog was knocked
sideways by it, almost losing its balance on the pipe. It did not, however curl up and
die, limp, or even whimper. Instead, it looked over its shoulder at the older man,
almost contemptuously, and continued to trot onward, nose to the ground,
occasionally stopping to nibble on a thistle.
"Why did it look back at me?" said the older man.
"Fixing your position as a possible future target, sir", said the corporal. "Don't worry,
he'll continue to ignore you. He hasn't any instructions to defend himself at this
aggression level."
"The new urban camouflage is convincing."
"Thank you, sir. We couldn't very well have had sheep running around down a
German high street, could we, sir."
"Indubitably not, Corporal. Aha, he's coming up to the crawl. Is he still behind the
police dog?"
"He's actually two seconds ahead now, sir."
"Excellent. Let's slow him down a little further." The older man sighted up again on
the dog and fired twice more, causing Larry to deviate slightly from his path each
time, returning back to the same course almost instantly. Larry bounced up to the
unjumpable wall containing the pipe, appraised it for only a fraction of a second, then
butted through it like a battering ram. Bricks buckled under the impact; what came
out of the other side of the wall was no Alsatian. Bits of fake fur and skin hung off it
in tatters, and what was left underneath glinted like bones and flesh should not.
Bones and flesh, after all, seldom had manufacturers' serial numbers.
"That was a trifle unorthodox, Corporal."
"Sorry, sir. They're still thinking Sheep. The heavy head shielding, you see."
"But they have been modified to attack like dogs?"
"Oh yes, sir. You'll see the new jaw in action in just a second."
Larry galloped out of the ruins of the wall towards the leather dummy, which had
been propped up again and given its replica firearm back. The dummy had a big
friendly face which someone had drawn on with a magic marker. Larry leapt on the
dummy and tore it to ribbons. Leather, gun, and the steel skeleton the dummy had
been built on flew free right and left as Larry's jaws locked around the dummy's throat
and shook, again, like a shark. Within seconds, the dummy was in more pieces than
would have been safe for a human being.
"We're very satisfied with the new jaw assembly, sir."
"I can see why. How many seconds?"
"Five seconds on the police dog now, sir."
"How quickly can you get the Mark Four D to Germany?"
"We can have it shipped in to Grafenwöhr in the next two hours, sir. It won't go
through customs. Grafenwöhr is a US military base."
"Tomorrow morning is adequate. They won't be there for quite some hours yet. And
the mobile controller?"
"Will go with it, sir. We couldn't allow a dangerous piece of hardware like Larry to
wander around without technical support."
"Thank you, Corporal. I have to say, I am very excited at the possibilities of this new
technology. The Shadow Ministry were obviously appalled at the human cost of what
happened the last time a Mark Four was deployed, but also very impressed by its
capabilities."
"What happened in Bedfordshire was an accident, sir."
"I wish it were, Corporal. Unfortunately, human beings were involved. Enemy
human beings. Traitors to the Queen. You have been given a valuable second
chance. You and Lance Corporal Jennings. Do not waste that chance. Alpha Four is
a very unpleasant place."
The younger man blanched and nodded his head almost firmly enough to stop himself
shaking visibly. "Yes. Yes, Mr. Drague. Thank you, sir."
"Carry on, Corporal Wise. I am impressed with what I have seen today."
The Corporal saluted, turned on his heel and left.
***
The outside world had turned invisible. The windows of the coach had fogged up,
and had to be wiped to see out. The coach seemed to have left the road, and was
rumbling along what sounded like a gravel surface. Making a hole in the steam with
his hand, Ant could see, in the headlights, a sign saying:
EVANGELISCHES FREIZEITHEIM MARTIN LUTHER
KEINE LAUTE MUSIK
KEINE UNTERHALTUNG NACH 2200 UHR
KEIN ALKOHOL
"That's nice", said one of the girls. "They named it after that black guy who got shot."
"I thought Martin Luther was Superman's arch enemy", said one of the boys.
"That's Martin Luther King", said Tamora. "I'm black so I know actually. He
challenged the power of the Pope and reformed the church in Germany and allowed
black people to travel on buses with white people before he got shot."
"What does 'EVANGELISCHES FREIZEITHEIM' mean?"
"Protestant youth hostel", translated Cleo.
"What does 'KEINE LAUTE MUSIK' mean?"
"No loud music."
"What does 'KEINE UNTERHALTUNG NACH 2200 UHR' mean?"
"No talking after 10 p.m."
"What does 'KEIN ALKOHOL' mean - hang on, actually, I think I can work that one
out."
Cleo looked up at the forbidding concrete structure. "The basic theme of the place
seems to be 'KEIN'."
The Evangelisches Freizeitheim was surrounded by what was probably, under a carpet
of snow, extensive lawns. All of them were brilliantly floodlit. The windows, even
on the first floor, were barred. The grounds were bordered by a wire fence, on which
icicles sparkled.
The coach came to a shuddering halt in the frozen gravel outside the front of the
building. Lights began flicking on inside it. Immediately, Nigel Devonport clapped
his hands loudly, rose to his feet and strode commandingly up the coach.
"To me, Team Three! Let's get ourselves de-coached and into the dormitory with a
minimum of fuss!"
Ant groaned.
"How did he get to be a Team Leader?" whispered one of the Year Sevens.
"He volunteered", said another.
From the front of the coach, Ant heard Fräulein Meinck's whistle.
"WIR SIND JETZT IN DEUTSCHLAND UND DESHALB SPRECHEN WIR VON
NUN AN NUR DEUTSCH MITEINANDER", shrilled Fräulein Meinck's voice.
Ant looked at Cleo questioningly.
"From now on we will only be speaking German", translated Cleo. "Don't make a
face, Ant. It's only a language. It can't hurt you."
"It's spiky. It's full of Z's and K's and V's and W's. I would hate to collide with it at
speed."
"We are on a mission, Ant. Please try to concentrate."
Ant dragged his rucksack out of the luggage rack with a heavy heart.
***
"Now, what's this we have here?" said Nigel, looking sternly down at a miniscule gift
bottle full of whisky he had found in one of the Year Sevens' suitcases.
"...it's a bottle of whisky, Nigel."
"And whisky's against school rules, isn't it, Ryan?"
"...yes Nigel."
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate this and give it to Fräulein Meinck."
"Meinck'll drink it", said a voice from the top bunk. There was guilty sniggering.
Nigel strode sternly up the dormitory. The dormitories were tiny exercises in how to
squeeze in as many bunks as possible into as small a space as possible. The bunk
beds were stacked two high, and there were individual fitted cupboards in the walls.
The cupboards did not have locks. Ant had already decided that none of his own
personal possessions would be occupying his own personal cupboard.
"Who said that?"
"I did."
Nigel's eyes travelled up the bunks.
"We haven't allocated the bunks yet. Get down from there."
"I call top bunk. Make me."
Nigel's eyes narrowed, though they had been small and mean and rather too close
together to begin with.
"You're Armand Jeffries, aren't you?"
Armand Jeffries was a coloured boy, tall for his age though wiry, with hardly a scrap
of fat on him. He wore an Arsenal shirt and a baseball cap, and horrible polyester
Kappa trousers. He was lying on the bunk directly above Ant's, looking through a
magazine which had a picture of a lady in a very tight swimsuit, standing in the door
of a caravan, on the cover. He had the magazine open at the centre pages, and had
turned it through ninety degrees, apparently to look at it better.
"Jeffries", said Nigel sternly, "that is very much against school rules."
"Cor", said Armand Jeffries to himself and to the general audience, "look at the shock
absorbers on that."
Nigel reached out and snatched the magazine. He closed it and looked at the
cover. The title of the magazine was WHAT CARAVAN MONTHLY.
"Crikey, Nigel", said Armand Jeffries. "If you wanted to borrow it, you only had to
arsk. I never knew you were the caravannin type."
Nigel leafed through the magazine furiously, finding nothing but pictures of caravans
parked on wild, desolate hillsides.
"There's a really good two-man job on page fourteen", said Jeffries helpfully.
The dormitory exploded with snickering disrespect. Nigel, his ears cerise, turned and
walked out with his head held high and his shoulders back. He collided with one of
the bunks on the way out but said nothing, stoically absorbing the pain.
Armand Jeffries cackled and farted extravagantly, causing further riotous laughter
among those members of the dormitory who didn't want to be his next target.
"Hey, Stevens!" said Jeffries. "Your mum's private eyes en't turned up yet."
Ant had been laughing along with the others; his expression now soured into a frown.
He looked up at the bunk above him, reached into his rucksack, turned a dial to FEAR
and waited.
"Hey, Stevens! Just because Jake Moss en't here dun't mean you're gettin it easy.
Your girlfriend Cleopatra paid me to block up the toilets onna bus."
"I know", said Ant.
"I fink she's fit", said Jeffries.
"I imagine so", said Ant.
"I fink she paid me cause she finks O'm fit", said Jeffries. "She needs some lovin
from the J Man."
"That's nice", said Ant, lying back on the bed, his hand still in the rucksack.
"Are you jealous, Stevens? Would you like some lovin from the J Man?"
Ant grimaced silently and moved his finger onto a trigger.
"Hey, Stevens -"
Ant squeezed the trigger. The inside of the rucksack briefly flared a brilliant green
and purple. There was a brief moment of silence, broken only by the soft sound of
hands clutching feverishly at bedlinen.
On top of the top bunk, a scream rose like a siren.
"...aaaAAA MUMMY DON'T LEAVE ME! I EN'T GOT NO PANTS ON!"
A Kappa-coloured flash dropped past Ant onto the dormitory floor and tore out of the
room down the top floor corridor. Ant heard a distant shriek of "MUMMY!
ARMAND NEED PANTS!"
"What got into him?" said one of the Year Sevens.
"Obviously a deep-seated childhood trauma", said Ant, and turned over to sleep, his
arms clasped around the rucksack.
***
"NOW LISTEN TO ME CAREFULLY, PRINCESSES. I am just like your wicked
stepmother in a fairytale, in that I am NOT YOUR MUM. Your mum will pull your
head out of the toilet just BEFORE the point of drowning. I will hold it in there and
flush the chain again. I am not a teacher. I am not a policeman. I am under eighteen
years old and if I kill you I will be tried as a minor. DO NOT MESS WITH ME.
There will be no noise after lights out. There will be no snacking, no smoking, no
drinking, no boys in the girls' dorms, no girls in the boys', no nicking other people's
stuff and most of all, NO SPENDING HALF AN HOUR IN THE TOILET. Apart
from those simple rules, we will be the very best of friends and you will remember me
in coming years with fond appreciation as your Auntie Harjit and be inspired to send
me cards at Christmas for the rest of your natural lives. IS THAT CLEAR. Say YES,
HARJIT."
The dormitory responded sullenly: "YES, HARJIT."
"Good. Heart-to-heart over. I call top bunk."
Harjit Kaur was dumpy, squat and uninspiring to look at, and shorter, in fact, than
Cleo, but had a voice fit to crack concrete. Two of the girls in Cleo's dormitory,
Narinder and Sukhbir, were her sisters. Cleo had an uncomfortable feeling that she
had temporarily become part of Harjit's extended family.
Harjit flopped onto the top bunk and began fluffing out the pillows.
"Hey, Shakespeare", she said, without looking down.
"Yes?" said Cleo.
"You thinking of taking any more road trips while we're out here?"
"That was a one-off", said Cleo. "I was sorting out a bathroom for my mum. I won't
be needing to do that again."
"Yes. Well. Don't." Harjit cracked her knuckles, unfolded a lurid set of pink
pyjamas and carefully positioned a pair of teddy bears at the foot of her bed.
"Which are they?" said Narinder.
"Angad and Gobind", said Harjit. "Nanak came to Aviemore with us. He's already
been on holiday this year."
Narinder turned round and looked critically at the angle between the bunk and the
dormitory's one tiny window, which was half closed by snow. "I don't think Gobind
can see out of the window."
"Move him, then."
Narinder corrected the positioning of one of the teddy bears with exquisite care. Two
of the Year Sevens, who were watching, looked at one another above mouths that
were quivering into mocking smiles. Harjit looked up briefly with a glare like lava
glow from the mouth of a volcano. The smiles vanished instantly and did not return.
Harjit began setting an alarm clock. "Narinder, how does this work? Meri smajhich
nahi aanda. "
Narinder frowned. "Kaahli agge toye."
"Don't be cheeky. Wait a minute, I think I've got it -"
At that point, the corridor outside was filled with human howling.
"MUMMY! ARMAND GOT NO PANTS ON HIM BOTTOM!"
Teachers' voices, and the voices of the Freizeitheim staff, could be heard shouting in
both English and German. Doors could be heard opening. Feet could be heard on the
stairs.
"Fear setting", said Cleo with total lack of surprise. "Ant, you really need to get
yourself some self control."
Without saying anything more, she opened her personal cupboard on the wall, slid her
suitcase into it, and began unpacking. One of the other girls looked into the case.
"Cleo, are you sure you really need all that climbing equipment?"
***
"Where's breakfast?" said a Year Seven at Cleo's left elbow.
"Downstairs, I think", said another from her right. "In a room called the Ebzymer."
"Eßzimmer", corrected Cleo, and was answered with imitating cries of
"EEUUWwwww! Essimer!" from the Year Sevens, who were trying to overtake her
down a spiral staircase.
"That would be more impressive", said Cleo, "if you weren't still mispronouncing it.
The 's' is followed by a 'z', which is pronounced like the 'ts' in 'flats', actually."
"EEUUWwww! Like the 'TS' in 'FLATS', actually!"
"Are you going to repeat everything I say in a sing-song voice, or do you actually
have minds of your own?"
"EEUUWWwww -"
Cleo and her Year Sevens came out into a massive, clinically clean, tiled space mostly
filled with benches and dining tables. The remainder was filled with what should
have been a canteen counter, and instead was a long, low table covered in bread rolls,
cheese, cold meat, a selection of marmalades, and breakfast muesli.
"Oh my god", said one of the Year Sevens. "Where is the egg? Where is the bacon?"
"Where is the milky chocolatey goodness of Dr. Vom's Honey Minty Fudge
Nuggets?" said the other.
"EEUUWWw", said Cleo. "Where is the egg? Where is the bacon?" She began
ladling muesli into a bowl. "This is muesli. It almost certainly means 'small cow' in
German. It is good for you." She passed the bowl of muesli to a Year Seven, who
looked at it as if it were a dead rat.
"Did they wrangle Jeffries back into his cage last night?" asked Cleo, settling onto a
bench.
"Apparently he got all the way out the front door and almost all the way to the wire
before one of the security staff brought him down", said the second Year Seven. "I'm
Natalie, by the way."
"Brought him down?" said Cleo, pouring milk onto her muesli.
"Oh yes. They took him to the nurse's station and strapped him down for an hour
before he calmed down. They're going through all the boys' bags looking for drugs.
They think he must have taken something."
"Really?" said Cleo, accepting a gun-shaped object passed to her surreptitiously over
her shoulder and slipping it into her bag. "Morning Ant. Sleep well?"
"Morning Cleo. Very well, thanks."
"I am glad you slept well. We did not sleep well. We were bothered by some
inconsiderate person who caused a great deal of screaming, running back and forth. I
wish people like that would think before they act, don't you?"
"I certainly do. Do any of you know where breakfast is?"
Cleo looked meaningfully down at her muesli. Ant stared in horror.
"No." The sheer low-calorie terror of the situation froze Ant in place, staring fixedly
at the breakfast counter.
"But yes", replied Cleo. "Even the milk is semi-skimmed. You are going to be so
healthy, Ant."
"Your belt doesn't go with your jacket", said Ant, sitting down grumpily.
Cleo was wearing a turquoise scrunchie, a pink tracksuit, and a magenta belt. "Your
pants don't go with your T shirt", she said, without looking up.
"You can't see my pants."
"You are wearing the same pair of blue pants you always do, because you only own
one pair of pants, which are blue." Cleo pulled out the day's itinerary from her bag
and spread it out on the table.
Ant hung his head, chastened.
"URRRRR!" said Natalie. "You never wash your pants!"
"I do so wash my pants", said Ant defensively. "When they're in the wash I wear no
pants at all."
"URRRRRR!"
"What are we doing today?" said Ant, looking out of the cafeteria windows. Outside,
snow still glared in as if the whole world were one huge white-tiled bathroom suite
"Whatever it is, I hope it's indoors."
"We are taking in the delights of the German sausage market", said Cleo with a
shudder. "'The Lumpenburger Würstenmarkt has sold Blutwurst, Bratwurst and
Leberkäse here on the banks of the Ober-Infarkt for generations'," she quoted from
the itinerary. She held up the itinerary and showed Ant a picture of a smiling German
man in national costume selling a sausage to another smiling German man, also in
national costume.
"What's a Lumpenburger?" said Ant. "I'm not sure I want one."
"Someone from Lumpenburg", said Cleo. "Sesame seed buns are not involved. Put
dill pickles from your mind."
"What's Blutwurst?" said Natalie.
"Blood sausage", said Cleo darkly.
"What's Leberkäse?" said Natalie's friend.
"It should be Liver Cheese", said Cleo, pulling an enormous German dictionary from
her bag and leafing through an it. Natalie and Natalie's friend made faces at each
other.
"Do they have a German salad market at all?"
"Regrettably not", said Cleo. "Aha! Here it is! Meat loaf!"
"Why do they call it liver cheese, then?" said Ant.
"Because they're foreign and don't know any better.” Cleo lowered her voice and
leaned closer to Ant. “Ant - today's fun-packed schedule is not going to work for us.
We are going to have to bust out and do our own thang."
"That's going to be difficult", said Ant. "Lumpenburg is forty kilometres from
Spitzenburg."
Cleo looked at Ant oddly. "How do you know that?"
"I looked it up in one of my dad's road maps. Forty kilometres is twenty-five miles."
"Ant. You read an actual book?"
"It was a road map", said Ant uncomfortably. "It doesn't count as a book."
Cleo patted Ant's hand. "Ant, there's no shame in reading."
"There is in our house. I used to deliberately get caught reading books by my dad so
he'd get all worried, buy me a new football and take me out to watch horror movies.
He didn't want me to grow into some book-reading nancy boy. I've read the first
chapters of Tom Sawyer, A Brief History of Time, Lord of the Rings, and Isaac
Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica."
"Didn't you ever wonder what happened at the end of Lord of the Rings?"
Ant shrugged. "All stories are pretty much the same. I'd imagine they think they've
killed Sauron the Dark Lord, but then they look out the window and his body's gone
because he's not really dead and will return in Lord of the Rings 2."
Cleo shook her head. "No, that's The Silmarillion and The Hobbit. In any case, how
are we going to get away from Fräulein Meinck and Herr Riemann? I'm afraid my
team leader is very on the ball."
"So is mine", said Ant dejectedly.
"I can get rid of your team leader", said Cleo. "I'll just pay Armand Jeffries to do
something bizarre."
"I can get him to do something bizarre for free", said Ant.
"I noticed", said Cleo. "I'll be holding on to your toy from now on. You are not
responsible enough to use it wisely."
"CLEO -"
"Now, what I need is someone who looks exactly like me to walk round with my
Team Leader for the afternoon while you and I get on a bus to Spitzenburg. A papier
mâché dummy of me, if you will."
"MORNING LOSERS", said Tamora breezily, sitting down in between Ant and Cleo
and squirming them aside with her buttocks. "Are we ready for the day's sausage
fest?"
Cleo turned and looked at Tamora with the intensity of a serpent sliding towards prey.
Tamora was wearing a magenta scrunchie, a pink tracksuit, and a turquoise belt.
"Little sister", said Cleo, "have I ever told you how much I love you?"
***
Lumpenburg was beautiful.
In Britain, a single half-timbered house constituted a tourist attraction, appeared
widely in brochures, and was visited and photographed by disappointed-looking
German tourists. The reason for the Germans' disappointment was now clear.
Lumpenburg, Spitzenburg and half the German towns they'd driven past so far were
filled with half-timbered buildings. The Lumpenburg town square was a mass of
ancient, smoke-blackened upper storeys projecting out like the prows of ships above
crowds of German shoppers going about their business below, apparently oblivious to
the fact that the town they lived in was breathtaking. Mediaeval crests and coats of
arms were nailed above every window, and the rooftops above the windows were
groaning under a heavy load of snow, which had drooped down into icicles from the
overhanging timbers. A massive bronze statue of a man with many muscles and far
too few clothes stood leaning on a spear taller than he was in the centre of the square,
surrounded by fountains. People's breaths were puffing out into the frigid air like
kettle steam.
"VE ARE NOW STÄNDINK IN ZE HISTORIC TOWN SQVÄRE", said Fräulein
Meinck, whose voice was by now beginning to grate on Ant's soul. "IT ISS ALL
FACHWERK, VHICH IN ENGLISH IS KNOWN ÄSS HALF-TIMBER OR VATTLE
ÄND DAUB. ZESE VALLS ARE MADE OF INTERVÖVEN STICKS -"
A hand shot up.
"YES, ARMAND?"
Armand Jeffries had suffered a severe loss of credibility after running around the
youth hostel screaming that he had no pants. He was now making up for lost time.
"WHAT WAS THAT LARST WORD, MISS?"
"INTERVÖVEN. VÖVEN TOGEZZER. ZE INTERVÖVEN STICKS ARE ZEN
COVERED VIZ A PÄSTE MÄDE OFF CLAY AND CÄTTLE EXCREMENT -"
"URRR! MISS! THE WALLS ARE MADE OF POO?"
Fräulein Meinck nodded long-sufferingly. "YES, ARMAND. ZE VALLS ARE
MÄDE OFF POO. ZE TOWN SQVÄRE OFF LUMPENBURG DÄTES BÄCK TO
ZE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, ALZOUGH ZE SMALL CHURCH IN ZE CENTRE
ISS ROMAN ÄND VAS BUILT TO COMMEMÖRÄTE ZE GREAT
TSCHERMAN-ROMAN VICTORY AT HUNNENFELD IN 450 A.D. -"
Ant felt a chill travel down his spine.
He raised a hand.
"Er - Miss?"
"YES, ÄNTHONY?"
"What was the name of that place again?"
"HUNNENFELD, ÄNTHONY. ZE 'FIELD OF ZE HUNS'."
At the mention of the word 'Huns', the merest whisper of a giggle rippled through all
four teams as they stood shivering on the cold cobbles. Fräulein Meinck's eyes
narrowed.
"VE HÄFF BEEN SROUGH ZISS BEFORE, PEOPLE. ZE HUNS VERE A
NOMÄDIC HORSE-RIDINK PEOPLE FROM CENTRAL ÄSIA, AND VERE
VHAT ELSE?"
When no-one replied immediately, Fräulein Meinck reached for her whistle.
"NOTHING TO DO WITH GERMANS", parroted the teams sullenly before the
whistle could be blown. Fräulein Meinck smiled in satisfaction.
"IN ACTUAL FÄCT, ZE HUNS ÄND ZE TSCHERMANS VERE DEADLY
ENEMIES. AT HUNNENFELD, ZE ROMANS ÄND ZE TSCHERMANS, ALSO
DEADLY ENEMIES, NEVERZELESS GÄZZERED TOGEZZER -"
"CAN YOU REPEAT THAT LAST BIT, MISS?"
"- NEVERZELESS GÄZZERED TOGEZZER AS ÄLLIES TO DEFEAT AN ARMY
LED BY DENGIZICH, ZE SECOND SON OFF ATTILA ZE HUN, VHICH VAS
SO LARGE ZÄT ZE GROUNT SHOOK AS IT MARCHED AND ZE RIVER RÄN
YELLOW VHEN IT VENT TO ZE TOILET."
"Andwhere is Hunnenfeld, Miss?" said Ant. "Just curious."
"OUTSIDE SPITZENBURG, FORTY KILOMETRES FROM HERE. NOW, YOU
ALL HÄFF DETAILED THIRTEEN-PÄGE VÖRKBOOKS CONTAININK
QVESTIONS IN TSCHERMAN ZE ANSWERS TO VHICH YOU MUST OBTAIN
BY INTERROGÄTINK ZE ORDINARY TSCHERMANS HERE IN ZE TOWN
SQVÄRE. YOU MUST RECORD ZE ANSWERS." Fräulein Meinck raised a
warning finger. "I MUST CAUTION YOU - SOME OF ZE TSCHERMANS IN ZE
SQVÄRE ARE NOT AS ZEY MAY SEEM. ZEY ARE MEMBERS OFF ZE
FREIZEITHEIM STAFF ÄND HÄFF BEEN INSTRUCTED TO PROVIDE VERY
PARTICULAR ANSWERS. I VILL BE TSCHECKING ZOSE ANSWERS VERY
THOROUGHLY. ANYVONE ATTEMPTING TO LEAF ZE SQVÄRE VILL BE
LOCÄTED AND PUNISHED. ALSO LOS!"
Fräulein Meinck blew her whistle. Grumpily, the teams moved off into the crowds.
Nigel turned to Team Three and clapped his hands loudly.
"NOW, PAY ATTENTION, TEAM - Jeffries, what are you doing?"
Armand Jeffries had separated from his team already and located an old lady
inspecting mysterious German vegetables at a market stall, and was reading loudly at
her from his list of questions. The old lady had a brown headscarf, a brown handbag,
and a brown coat with matching brown accessories.
"ENTSCHULDIGUNG - TRÄGT GNÄDIGE FRAU UNTERWÄSCHE?"
The old lady looked up at Armand Jeffries and swung at him viciously with her
handbag. Jeffries yelped and defended himself with his thirteen-page workbook. The
man behind the stall was also yelling at him loudly in Bavarian. In order to improve
the situation, Nigel strode boldly forwards and began yelling at Armand in English.
Ant looked across the square at Cleo, who made an OK signal with her thumb and
forefinger. While all four teams were watching Armand Jeffries being beaten and
yelled at in two languages, Cleo took two steps sideways into Team Four, and Tamora
took two steps sideways into Team Two. Money changed hands as Cleo and Tamora
passed each other. Scrunchies were also exchanged, so that in a matter of seconds,
Cleo was wearing Tamora's scrunchie, and Tamora was now wearing Cleo's.
"All right, all right", said Serafina, the head of Team Four, waving her hand vaguely.
"Do the asky-questiony thing, guys. I'll be over there with those rather hunky-looking
Bavarian skateboarders." In Team Two, Harjit was already pointing out the specific
Germans she wanted her own team to talk to.
"What if we want to talk to different Germans, Harjit?"
"Do it on your own time, individuality girl. If you spent as long doing it as you did
complaining about it, it'd be done by now. Go forth and do. Are you feeling like a
flight risk today, Shakespeare?"
"No", said Tamora, without having to lie in any way.
"Good", said Harjit. "I am so glad we are one big happy family."
Ant met Cleo at one of the exits from the square. The cobbles were slimy with ice,
and he had to mind his footing. He could still hear Nigel, the stallkeeper, the old lady,
and Fräulein Meinck yelling at Armand Jeffries.
"What did you tell him to say?" said Ant.
"I told him to ask her if she was wearing underwear", said Cleo. "Don't worry. He's
being paid well enough for it."
"You do know he's only doing it because he thinks you fancy him", said Ant.
"Armand Jeffries thinks a girl fancies him if she makes eye contact with him for more
than half a second", said Cleo dismissively. "He's got a severe case of testosterone
poisoning."
"So - where do we go now?" said Ant.
Cleo pointed. "The station is that way. Once we're in Spitzenburg we can walk back
to the Freizeitheim. But we'll have to get at least one bus. There is no direct
connection. We will also have to interrogate Germans on the way to fill up our
workbooks."
"I was afraid you were going to say that", said Ant. "Can't we just not bother -"
"HAAAAALT!"
One of the townspeople in the square had suddenly cried out and pointed in their
direction. He had been bimbling quietly around the Town Hall, setting up a set of
easels as a pavement artist, but now Ant could see clearly that his massive artist's
beard was false and had the face of one of the Freizeitheim canteen staff behind it.
"ENTFLIEHER! ENTFLIEHER!" yelled the Freizeitheim man. "ALAAARM!!!"
"Oh my god", said Ant. "I thought she was bluffing."
Cleo looked up briefly and, with a monumental lack of concern, pointed her handbag
at the pavement artist. The inside of the handbag flared green and purple. The
pavement artist threw his hands in the air and ran away in terror.
"MUTTI! MUTTI! ICH HAB'KEINE UNTERWÄSCHE! MUTTI!"
Ant looked at Cleo sternly. "That's using the Orgonizer responsibly, is it?"
Cleo sniffed haughtily. "We were in dire need. Now let's get out of here. I don't
think anyone noticed. We have a whole load of trains and buses to catch. And a
black Mercedes", she said, looking across the street warily, "to lose."
6.
Does Your Cow Give Fresh Milk?
"We are now going to conduct", said Cleo as they walked hurriedly down a street
calling itself Bahnhofstraße, "an experiment. To allay my wildest fears."
Ant looked behind them. The black Mercedes was still keeping pace with them with
almost comical faithfulness, crawling slowly down the other side of the street.
"But first", said Cleo, "we have to lose that car. Into this shop, quick."
The shop was called KAUFPALAST LUMPENBURG. Huge red stickers on its
windows promised MONSTERPREISENSCHNITTEN!, whatever
Monsterpreisenschnitten were. From the display windows looking out onto the street,
they seemed to be tangerine bikinis.
"NOW", said Cleo loudly. "STRAIGHT ACROSS THE SHOP TO THE OTHER
SIDE OF THE BUILDING."
"There's no need to shout", said Ant. However, instead of walking towards the line of
glass doors on the north side of the shop, Cleo grabbed Ant's elbow, put a finger to his
lips and hustled him up an elevator.
As the elevator went upwards, it played a happy tune, and a friendly voice spoke to
them in German about all the wonderful things they might like to buy. Or it might
have been suggesting invading Czechoslovakia. Ant had no idea. Eventually, the
elevator came out on the first floor, which was confusingly labelled 2. Cleo tugged
Ant away through the shop café until they found a set of fake half-timbered windows
overlooking the north side of the building.
The Mercedes was sitting outside waiting for them.
"How did they -" said Ant, before Cleo clapped a hand over his mouth and pulled out
her headphone device. Turning it on, she swiftly moved it over Ant, and then herself,
whilst looking out of the window towards the car. When the headphones were
positioned directly over Cleo's scrunchie, one of the men in the back seat yelped
soundlessly in pain and tried to tear off the headphones he was wearing.
"Bingo!"
Cleo looked at the scrunchie for a long, long time. Then, she began wrapping it
carefully in Bacofoil. Old ladies sitting eating cake in the café looked at her oddly.
"Betrayed", said Cleo, shaking her head sadly, "by one of my own sister’s
accessories."
"I can't get over how you've become an electronic surveillance expert all of a sudden",
said Ant.
"I talked to the man in the shop in Kettering Road", said Cleo. "It's all very simple."
"But you've got that, that", Ant waved at Cleo's device, "bug location device."
"It's not a bug location device", said Cleo. "It's just a set of headphones and a radio,
for listening in to bugs."
"But you found the bug with it."
Cleo nodded. "Only because I could see the man who was listening in on us. I could
see him react to hearing the feedback in his headphones. Do you know what feedback
is?"
Ant shrugged dumbly. "I know it sounds bad."
"Well, it happens when you have a microphone recording a sound, and you connect it
up to a speaker to play that sound, and the microphone can hear the speaker. The
same sound chases its tail round the circuit, causing a godawful racket. So what do
you think happens if I hold a speaker next to one of Mr. Karg's bugs and play the
sound that bug is recording to it?"
Ant was still lost. "How could you do that?"
"Because", gloated Cleo, "I have a bug in Mr. Karg's car."
"No!"
"Yes. When I walked up to the car that time outside school and spoke to him, I
leaned in and put a stupidly large microphone under his passenger seat. So all I have
to do is move this set of headphones over whatever I'm searching for bugs until I get
feedback."
"Wow", said Ant. "That's brilliant."
"Not really. The only reason it's working is because they never expected to get
bugged by a fourteen-year-old girl."
Ant considered the implications. "That means you can hear what they're saying inside
the car."
"Yes", said Cleo. "I used to listen to it for hours. Then the novelty wore off. Half the
time all they talk about is football, or whose breath smells because there's four of
them in the car together, or whose turn it is to drive, or why they're not being paid
enough for this. Considering they've been listening to me twenty four hours a day,
and considering how much of the day I spend singing to the cat, I feel quite sorry for
them. Come on - we need to leave."
Cleo unwrapped the scrunchie and slipped it quietly into the handbag of a German
lady who was standing browsing through a selection of lycra
Monsterpreisenschnitten. Then she moved back to the café window and watched the
street outside. Sure enough, eventually, the lady at the till walked over to the
escalator, down to the ground floor, and out of the shop. The Mercedes stayed put.
However, the men in it were clearly arguing.
"They can hear street noises from the microphone now", said Cleo, with one ear to her
headphones. "Because of that, the three other men in the car with Mr. Karg - Dave
and Andy and Ryan - think we're outside. Any minute now they'll drive round to the
other side of the building to see if we're there."
The Mercedes pulled away and turned the corner.
"I can hear that dog barking", said Cleo, pointing to the street below, where the
German woman was walking past a dog. "They must have the bug on loudspeaker in
the car. Any minute now, they're going to realize they heard that same dog barking
five seconds back and turn the car around."
The Mercedes shot back around the corner towards the barking dog.
"That should confuse them for a while", said Cleo. "But we now have a
transportation problem ahead of us. We can't travel by train. They already know we
have plans that way; they've been listening to us talking. They'll head us off at the
railway station. Probably the bus station too."
"We still have access to Lieutenant Turpin's Universal Earth Transportation System",
said Ant.
"I am not hitch hiking all the way to Spitzenburg, Ant", said Cleo.
"We don't need to hitch hike all the way to Spitzenburg. We need to hitch hike all the
way to the next town that has a railway station."
"Ant, that will take hours. Nobody picks up hitch hikers."
Ant grinned. "Happy people pick up hitch hikers."
Cleo's hand moved automatically to the Personal Orgonizer in her handbag, then drew
back from it. "No. Ant, that's hideous Orwellian mind control."
"What's wrong with making people happy?"
Cleo clutched her handbag to her. "No, Anthony. I won't. It is unprincipled and
morally wrong."
Thick snowflakes big as Christmas baubles brushed against the window. In the street
below, German women with large expensive hairdos began running for cover holding
whatever came to hand over their heads. Ant looked at Cleo meaningfully.
"All right", said Cleo, pulling out the Orgonizer and looking at it as if at a fearful
temptation. "Just this once."
***
"NEVER", said Cleo, "EVER. AGAIN."
They were sitting in Spitzenburg, in the snow. The ornamental fountain they were
sitting on was frozen solid. In the main pool of the fountain, small fish flicked about
dolefully beneath the ice. Above their heads, jets of ice spouted from the mouths of
stone dolphins. A few disconsolate magpies were wandering around a deserted public
park. On one side of the park were tall, high-gabled houses. Outside every house was
parked a German car. On the other side of the park, the main road in from
Lumpenburg was flanked by banks of dirty snow. On the other side of that road was a
massive, ancient gateway guarded by stone eagles, and a sign saying MAGISCHES
MÄRCHENSCHLOß SPITZENBURG KAFFEE u. KUCHEN HOTEL
RESTAURANT HÜGELGIPFEL 1 KM.
It did not seem to be market day in Spitzenburg. From the tiny size of the town,
cowering beneath the massive brooding castle high above, Ant wondered whether it
ever was.
"We got here, didn't we?" said Ant.
"The first driver", said Cleo, "was so happy when you shot him with the Personal
Orgonizer that he was going to take both of us to Disneyland. He was halfway to
Munich airport before I realized that was what he was saying."
"Gosh," said Ant. "Was that really what he meant?"
"Yes, Ant. The German for Disneyland, oddly enough, is Disneyland. The second
driver, meanwhile, was so happy that he took us home to meet his family, and I had to
shoot them all as well. And then they were so happy they insisted on showing us a
precisely-cross-referenced list of slides from fifteen separate holidays they'd spent in
the same hotel in Majorca."
"They had a nice big dog, though", said Ant.
"He is STILL HERE, Ant", said Cleo sternly, trying to stop the enormous white
Pyrenean from licking her face. "DOWN, HASSELHOFF. He seems to find me
fascinating. And I didn't even have to shoot him with the Orgonizer."
"You don't have to shoot dogs with it", said Ant. "They're naturally happy." He
reached out and scratched the massive dog behind the ears. "It's a good job the third
driver liked dogs."
"Ant, you shot him seven times. By the time you were through shooting him, he liked
everything. He decided he liked driving off the road just as much as he liked driving
on it. He was even happy when he ran his car into a tree. He was hugging the tree
when we ran away."
"We only had to walk the last ten kilometres", said Ant.
"I am FREEZING, Ant." Cleo hugged herself tight, rubbing her own shoulders. "My
hair extensions have frostbite. They will fall off and I will look like Skin out of
Skunk Anansie and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT. And now you seem to be
suggesting we take a healthy hike into the icebound northern wastes."
"Cleo, we are two hundred kilometres further south than Cornwall. We are in no way
'northern'. Germany is only cold in winter because it has a continental climate..."
Ant took a small metal box out of his inside pocket. The box had been decorated by
Ant with Letraset transfers saying IDIOT DETECTOR. Underneath this were smaller
transfers saying INFALLIBLY DETECTS IDIOTS. The Idiot Detector had a single
red button, and a single red light. Next to the red light was a label: IDIOT LIGHT.
Ant moved the Detector round himself in a circle, keeping the button pressed.
"...and because a lot of Germany is high above sea level, of course. Which is why I
think I'm getting no signal on this thing. The mountains are blocking it out. Gondolin
told us they'd get in touch once we were in Spitzenburg." Ant cast a hand around the
deserted snowbound park. "And here we are. But I think they're waiting for us to tell
them we're in Spitzenburg. I think we need to get to higher ground."
Cleo looked at the box. "Do you really think Alastair's men would be fooled by all
those stickers you've put on it?"
Ant looked at the box. "Why not? It looks like every cheap Christmas present I've
ever had. It's particularly convincing in that, as an Idiot Detector, it doesn't work,
especially once I remove the batteries and hide them. Yes, I do think it fools them. It
fools them a lot. They search my house a lot."
A knot formed in Cleo's throat. "They do what? How do you know?"
Ant shrugged. "Things move about when I've done nothing to move them. My dad
isn't around a lot of the time, you know. That's why Mum hires private investigators,
to catch him leaving me home alone and prove he's a bad father. That means I'm the
only one in the house. So I know when things move about for no reason. They come
into our house maybe once or twice a week. Probably into yours too."
Cleo shuddered, and not just from the cold. Hasselhoff licked her to warm her up.
Ant looked out across the park.
"Cleo, doesn't 'KAFFEE u. KUCHEN' mean 'Coffee and Cake'?"
"You have my interest."
"And doesn't 'MAGISCHES MÄRCHENSCHLOß' mean 'Magical Fairytale Castle'?"
"Yes."
"'HÜGELGIPFEL 1 KM?'"
"'Top of the hill 1 kilometre'. Do you want to know what 'RESTAURANT HOTEL'
means?"
"I think I can work that one out. And I think I have an idea."
***
Cleo's breath was puffing out healthily now as they climbed the icy drive. She had
stopped shivering. She also appeared brighter, as her immediate future now contained
cake. As a further proof that her condition was improving, she was complaining.
"The castle is at the TOP OF THE HILL, Ant. Could we not have found a café we
could walk DOWNHILL to?"
Ant blew on his fingers to unfreeze them. "We have to be high up, remember?
Whatever ship Gondolin has sent will be up in space right now, most likely in a
geostationary orbit, an orbit that keeps pace with the Earth's rotation, directly over the
equator. If we're surrounded by mountains, we won't have a direct line of sight to it.
But if we're on top of a mountain..."
The woods surrounding them were silent in that way in which snow muffled sound.
Occasionally, a heavy load of snow slid off a tree, causing Cleo to jump and grab Ant
by the elbow. At Ant's other elbow trotted Hasselhoff, attempting to sniff the entire
landscape one tree at a time.
"This hill is VERY STEEP, Ant. I can scarcely keep my footing on it -" Cleo
promptly lost her footing and had to grab at Ant's shoulder. Her street shoes had
leather soles shiny as mirrors, and the road up to the castle was a junior glacier.
"Stick to the snow, it'll be easier."
"I will get SOAKED. My FEET will be FROZEN."
Up above, the castle was vast. Whoever had built it here had been very single-minded
- dragging such immensities of rock so far up a nearly vertical slope would have been
difficult even with modern equipment. Then Ant realized that whoever had built the
castle had not needed modern equipment. They'd had peasants.
The castle had three outer turrets he could see, one of which seemed to contain a
gatehouse. The central structure, inside the curtain walls, was taller, but appeared to
have been converted into a house. He could see windows which would surely have
been too large to be practical in mediaeval siege warfare. Clusters of pointy-topped
turrets that looked just as ornamental as the windows finished off the north and south
sides. They seemed to belong more in Disneyland than the Middle Ages. The first
driver who had picked Ant and Cleo up would probably have liked them.
Far beneath them on the main road, Ant could see two elderly German women staring
goggle-eyed at something approaching from the direction of Lumpenburg.
"MEINE FREUNDE! MEINE LIEBE FREUNDE! LIEBE DAMEN!"
Cleo's eyes widened.
"Isn't that Herr Niggemann? The man who crashed his car into the tree?"
One of the old ladies covered the eyes of the other. "ELISABETH! GUCK NICHT,
IN GOTTES NAMEN! AUGEN ZU!"
Ant peered through the trees, and could see a pink and wobbling shadow.
"He isn't wearing any clothes", said Cleo. "He'll catch his death."
"WIR BRAUCHEN KEINE KLEIDER!" said Herr Niggemann. "WIR SIND ALLE
KLEINE KINDER DER NATUR!" He wobbled towards the old ladies, who
retreated in fear.
"Well, I'm glad", said Ant, "that someone's happy."
***
Jochen was polishing glasses in the café when the two visitors wandered in up the
drive. One was a boy of Jochen's own age, the other a very pretty black girl. They
were well dressed against the weather, but both looked soaked to the skin. They were
speaking English to each other, too rapidly for him to understand. The boy was
gesturing with what looked like a toy raygun. The gun had a dial on top of it. The
dial appeared to be set to HAPPY. The girl was using two English words a great deal.
One was 'irresponsible', and the other was 'ant'. They appeared to be arguing about
insects. They also had a gigantic dog as white as the snow that lay unmelted on his
thick furry coat.
Eventually, realizing that Jochen was listening, the girl said: "Stumm, stumm", and
pointed furiously toward Jochen. The boy looked up and said to the girl: "It's all
right, he probably doesn't understand us anyway." The girl replied that he could not
assume that ant. This, to Jochen's mind, was not a correct English sentence.
"Good morning", said the girl in very good German. "Is this the Magic Fairytale
Castle Café?"
Jochen nodded.
"We demand coffee and cake", said the boy.
"The cakes are in the cabinet", said Jochen, pointing. "Do you want a latte, an
espresso, or a cappuccino?"
The boy looked blankly at the girl.
"Latte, espresso and cappuccino mean exactly the same things in German ant", said
the girl in English.
The boy nodded and turned back to Jochen.
"I demand a latte, please." He fiddled with his wallet. "How much for a one way
ticket to Hamburg?"
"Pardon?" said Jochen, completely thrown.
"You just asked him for a one way ticket to Hamburg", said the girl in English. "I
think you need to be a couple of lines further down on your list of handy German
phrases."
"Ah", said the boy. His eyes defocussed as if mentally searching just such an invisible
list. "Erm - does your cow give fresh milk?"
"Not that far", said the girl. "That's chapter four, On The Farm. You want Chapter
Two, How Much Does It Cost?"
"Aha!" said the boy triumphantly. He looked up at Jochen and breathed in, preparing
to say:
"How much does it cost?" said Jochen, and added, in English: "You pay afterwards.
When you leave."
"He speaks English", said the boy, turning to the girl in amazement.
"Many Germans do", said the girl. "They have schools where English is taught to
them."
"The cunning devils", said the boy. "Your English is very good", he said to Jochen.
"Not really", said Jochen. "English speakers come in all the time and say 'How much
does it cost?' and I have to explain to them that in Germany, you pay when you leave.
It is my best English sentence."
"Gosh", said the boy, struggling to get his mind round the concept. "So, you hand
over the goods, and they pay you later?"
"That's the idea."
"Do any English customers actually pay up?"
"Many of them remember to. And I can run very fast if they don't. Also, my
grandfather has a gun."
The dog shook the snow off himself enthusiastically. A furry avalanche exploded in
all directions, sending lumps of hairy snow up to two metres up the café walls.
"Eurgh!" said the girl. "Make him stop! Why is he doing that?"
"He's a dog", explained the boy, which was true.
"Sorry", said the girl to Jochen in German.
Jochen looked down at the dog. The dog looked up at Jochen. Jochen was the dog's
best friend in the whole world.
"I should not allow you to bring your dog in here", said Jochen severely.
"That's all right", said the boy. "He's not our dog."
"But there will probably not be any other customers in this weather", continued
Jochen. "And it is very cold outside. Would he like some water, do you think?"
The dog's tongue was lolling happily from his mouth. He was having the best day
ever. He walked around the back of the gigantic porcelain Labrador that Jochen's
grandfather steadfastly refused to remove from the café, attempting to sniff its glazed
pottery bottom.
"I think he would like some water", said Jochen. "I will get him some."
He turned and walked back into the kitchen.
***
The café had been decorated by someone who had clearly wanted to produce an air of
sophisticated modern comfort. There were leather armchairs. There were low coffee
tables. There were newspapers and downlighters. Unfortunately, the café was still
inside a German castle, and there were also rusted iron rings set in the walls, the
stuffed head of a wild boar, and a great deal of bare stonework. The overall effect
was one of a Starbuck's franchise set inside a mediaeval torture chamber, with a giant
porcelain labrador in one corner.
Over the counter, above an espresso machine that looked only marginally younger
than the castle, was a black-and-white photo clearly taken on the café terrace in
happier times. A group of smiling young men in old-fashioned clothes and very short
haircuts were posing for the camera.
"It's snowing harder out there now", said Ant. "It'll be harder going down."
Cleo put her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes. "You are ruining my moment
of caky goodness, Ant. I am fully aware the future contains icy unpleasantness. Let
me concentrate on the here and now, which is warm and dry and, oh gosh, Black
Forest flavoured." She bent down to give the cake cabinet the attention it deserved.
The door to the terrace outside opened; snow swirled in in spirals. A new customer
had entered. He was tall, well protected against the snow in gloves, scarf and an
overcoat. He was also wearing a hat. He seemed to be having difficulty closing the
café door, as if the mechanism of a door swinging on a hinge was new to him.
Ant moved to help him, pushing the door shut gently. The newcomer did not thank
Ant, but merely nodded curtly to him, turned and crossed the café with an odd,
unsteady walk, leaving puddles of liquid on the laminate floor. When he reached the
counter he stopped, rocking backwards and forwards slightly as if drunk.
Hasselhoff began to growl low in his throat. From an animal who, up till now, had
behaved like a seventy-kilogramme comfort cushion, this was disconcerting. Ant
suddenly became aware of how scarily immense Hasselhoff was, and of how big the
bone-crushing teeth at the back of his jaw - which became visible when he was
panting contentedly - really were.
The German boy emerged from the kitchen and looked the newcomer over. "Eine
Minute und ich bin dabei -"
The newcomer spoke from behind his scarf. The voice sounded like German, but did
not sound human. It was like wind whistling in a cave.
Cleo looked at Ant warningly, and they both took a step back from the counter.
The German boy stared at the customer.
"Wer sind Sie?"
Cleo opened her mouth to speak; Ant held his hand up to stop her.
"I understood that, thanks", he said. "He's asking him who he is."
The newcomer's eyes were startlingly, brilliantly blue. They were, in fact, a
disturbingly familiar shade of it. The blue extended all the way from the pupils to the
eyelids, without whites.
"Dies ist die zweite Mal, daß wir die Frage stellen", said the newcomer. "Wir fragen
höflich: Wo ist es?"
"Ant", said Cleo. "He's -"
Ant nodded. "I know."
The German boy was reaching behind the espresso machine, lifting out something
heavy. The newcomer smiled, a quivering smile that seemed to require great effort.
"Kugeln werden dir nicht helfen", he said.
Cleo looked down at the puddles of liquid the customer had left on the floor. They
were not pools of meltwater. They were bright blue, and they were now moving
under their own power toward the chair and table legs.
Cleo shook her head at the boy as he drew back the cocking mechanism on the
gigantic, antiquated World War Two machine gun he was holding.
"He's right", she said. "Bullets won't help you. Not against him."
The newcomer turned and cocked his head at her, like a dog hearing a sound it could
not explain. He slammed his hands down onto the counter top. Bright turquoise goop
poured from his sleeves and spread out across the counter.
"Hold Hasselhoff", said Ant. "Don't let him go for him. That will do us no good at
all."
"HOLD him? If a hippo had fur it'd be smaller!"
Ant's hand came out of his pocket holding a Stanley knife.
"Ant", said Cleo, "what are you -"
Ant reached behind him to a standard lamp plugged into the wall, switched it off at
the socket, ripped the wire out of the lamp, went to work on it with the knife, spread
the blue and brown wires out wide, then turned the wall socket on again. The German
boy raised the weapon into the middle of the newcomer's chest.
"No, DON'T!" yelled Cleo, hanging on to the now frantic Hasselhoff. "You'll just
spread little bits of it round the café, and each little bit is as dangerous as one big one "
Ant lunged forward and stabbed the wire down onto the counter top. There was a
bang and a spark, and the entire surface of the goop on the countertop rippled like
dried paint. Smoke rose from the counter, along with an acrid smell of burnt plastic.
All the lights went out. The newcomer toppled backward onto the floor with a
horrible SPLAT as his head hit the laminate, and trails of blue goop shot out across
the floor away from it.
"DON'T PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN!" yelled Cleo urgently. "THERE'S BITS OF IT
ALL OVER THE FLOOR!" She hopped from chair to chair and ducked down behind
the counter. "Where do you keep your cleaning solvents?"
"What?" said the German boy.
"This'll do", said Cleo, turning a plastic bottle round in her hand to read it. "It
contains hypochlorite." She tossed the bottle to Ant, who rapidly unscrewed it and
began applying it to the floor. Cleo looked up at the German boy.
"Fuses. Where are the fuses? Im Keller?"
The boy looked blankly back at her.
"The fuse box!" Cleo tapped the plug on the coffee machine. "Get the lights back on,
before any bit of it finds a place to escape to!" She gestured at the lights. "Die
Lichter! Schalte die Lichter schon wieder an!"
The boy gaped at her a second more, then seemed to understand, nodded and ran from
the room.
"Try to make a circle of hypochlorite round it on the floor", said Cleo to Ant. "Then it
can't escape."
The lights came back on. Ant had corralled all the remaining globs of blueness, and
was pouring drain cleaner on them.
"What are you doing?" The boy had appeared at the kitchen door again. "That floor
was expensive!" The laminate crisped under the vile chemicals Ant was sloshing all
over it; the smell was diabolical.
"Trust me", said Cleo, "if you don't want a little globule of that stuff crawling up your
nostril while you sleep and invading your brain, this is the only way."
"Who was that man?" The boy revisited his sentence. "What was that man?"
Cleo looked at Ant. Ant shrugged. Cleo looked back.
"How long have you got?"
7.
Writing in the Snow
Gigantic mugs of steaming latte stood on the table. Each one bore the message EIN
GESCHENK AUS FERNEM MÄRCHENLAND. Ant had no idea what this meant,
but strongly suspected that fairytale castles would somehow be involved. Cleo's
hands were coiled round her mug like a python round an antelope. Outside, the air
seemed to be mostly snow. The terrace chairs and tables were almost buried in it.
Inside, it was warm and dry.
"My name is Jochen", said Jochen. "My grandfather is Hermann Friedrich von und zu
Spitzenburg. He is a very old and proud man. My family are the owners of this castle
for a very long time, since the Mittelalter, you know, the Middle Ages? They were
knights of the Deutschem Orden, and fought in the Crusades. They fought the Turks,
and the Mongols, and the Protestants. And each other. Later on they fought
Napoleon, and the British, and the Russians."
"We have also fought the Russians", said Ant.
"Though some of them are jolly nice chaps", added Cleo.
Jochen looked at both of them as if they were certifiably insane, then looked at the
man on the floor and appeared to revise his opinion. "My father, meanwhile...he is
not here any more."
"I'm sorry to hear that", said Cleo.
"It must be terrible", said Ant.
"No, no, no." Jochen waved his hands for calm. "My father is alive...that is, we
believe he is alive. My grandfather, he retired many years ago, and gave the hotel and
the café to my father. My father liked women and -" he made a dice-shaking
movement with his hands.
"Gambling", said Ant.
"Yes. He liked those things very much. He gave the Märchenschloß terrible debts.
And then one day he just disappeared. A lot of very angry people want to know
where he is."
"I'm sorry to hear that", said Cleo. "Did you lose the castle?"
Jochen shook his head. "Although my father still owns it, I am afraid. My
grandfather and grandmother worked very hard to make money from it, and they
made many agreements with the banks. Grandfather has sold all his medals, and he
was very proud of his medals. My grandmother has sold her jewels. We wait now for
my father to become officially dead; that will happen in two years' time, and then",
Jochen concluded wearily, "Spitzenburg castle is mine. Some people get a new car as
a seventeenth birthday gift. I get a million Euro of debt."
He looked down at the corpse on the floor again.
"So", he said. "This man. He was not human."
"Technically he might not even have been alive", said Cleo. "But he was human
once."
"He was probably quite a good man", said Ant. "It's only the good men who need to
be controlled like that, like a puppet. The bad ones, the ones who let the parasite in
voluntarily, can harbour it in their brains and still look perfectly normal."
"You seem to know a lot about this", said Jochen.
"It's not an exact science", said Cleo. "We've only had a few examples to go on so
far."
"Luckily", said Ant.
"And this...blue stuff...it comes from up there." He pointed outside at the sky, though
there was nothing in the sky but snow.
"We honestly have no idea", said Ant. "It's been encountered on two worlds, both a
long way from Earth. In both places, the colony had been wiped out. Not just killed annihilated. Not one body was found."
"No survivors?" said Jochen.
Cleo grinned. "You're looking at them. We and one other person are the sole
survivors of the attack on New Dixie, orbiting Barnard's Star. And we only survived
by not being in the main colony when the attack happened."
Jochen's brows lowered. "It is not possible to travel between stars", he said. "It
would take hundreds of years. Because it is not possible to travel faster than the
speed of light."
"Not in Euclidean space", corrected Ant. "Erm. Imagine an onion."
"Oh my god", said Cleo. "Ant - I suspect that when Glenn Bob explained Euclidean
space to you, you did not fully understand the concept."
"I so did too. Jochen - there is this onion, right? And we live on the outside of the
onion. And for us, it takes a really long time to travel from one side of the onion to
the other."
"No it does not", said Jochen. "Onions are very small."
"Look", said Ant, evidently at the end of his tether, "it's a very big onion, right? Now,
imagine that on the inside of this very big onion, is a very small onion."
Comprehension began to dawn on Jochen. "Ah! You are talking about Riemann
space."
Fear crept across Ant. "I am?"
"Yes. Topologically, the big onion and the small onion map onto one another, yes?"
"The answer is yes, Ant", said Cleo. Ant looked vengefully back at her.
"Look, the important thing to realize", he said, "is that however far from anywhere
you are in normal space, you can nip into hyperspace and be there in a couple of hours
-"
Cleo drew in her breath in shock.
"Cleo?" said Ant.
"Are you all right?" said Jochen. "Would you like a glass of water?"
Cleo's eyes were still clearly seeing things Ant and Jochen could not. She put her
hands on the café table, as if needing to steady herself.
"BLOODY HELL", she said. "It was so OBVIOUS. It was STARING ME IN THE
FACE."
"Is the coffee too hot?" said Jochen.
"No", said Cleo. She blinked, and appeared to be back in Euclidean space. "No, the
coffee's fine, thank you. Ant - remind me, I have something to tell you later.
Something very important. Anyway, panic over. I'm quite all right."
Ant shrugged.
Cleo looked the body on the café floor over. "He's in his twenties by the look of
him...that's a military haircut if ever I saw one."
"The goop can crawl into your brain through any break in the skin", said Ant to
Jochen. "Ears, nose, throat, open wounds, and all the holes you have in you south of
the equator. Once in the brain, it can either take over your mind if you cooperate, or
kill you if you don't and use you as a human puppet. But it seems to need a lot of
itself to do the puppet thing, and the amount of control it gets is a lot smaller."
"It took over one of our military commanders", said Cleo. "More of them may be
infected. Our people are trying to get them all to submit to a medical exam. But that
may be difficult. We're talking about some pretty high-ranking officers."
"In this...United States of the Zodiac", said Jochen.
"Yes. But also in the Royal and US AeroSpace Navies. Who are the bad guys."
"Though some of them are good guys", said Ant.
"It's complicated", said Cleo.
"The United States of the Zodiac are the rebel colonies", said Jochen. "They have
declared...independence. Unabhängingkeit."
"Bless you", said Ant.
"And the blue goo, or the controllers of the blue goo, they are trying to start a war
between the United States of the Zodiac and the British and the Americans?"
"And the Russians", said Cleo. "There are Russians in space too."
"This man was probably on one of the ships that were attacked by the goop too", Ant
said. "The Xenophon or the Spotsylvania."
Jochen shook his head. "I don't think so. He was speaking German." He poked the
corpse's arm with a toe, and recoiled as the arm fell to one side, exposing its inner
surface.
"Teufel!"
"What is it?"
"Guck mal." The man's arm bore a fresh black tattoo, a string of numbers.
"Gosh", said Ant. "They showed us this on the History channel at school. That
should mean he was in a Nazi concentration camp, shouldn’t it?" He looked up at
Jochen in huge embarrassment. "Erm. Sorry to mention the whole Nazi
concentration camp thing."
"That's all right", said Jochen. "He is much too young to be a concentration camp
survivor. And anyway, this tattoo is letters, not numbers. Concentration camp
victims had numbers."
"Those are letters?" said Ant.
"German script", said Jochen. "Very old, not often used nowadays. Those are the
letters 'AB'."
"Maybe AB is his girlfriend", suggested Cleo.
There was the sound of an engine outside.
"Customers?" said Cleo.
Jochen shook his head. "That is an air-cooled Volkswagen motor. Can't you hear it?
There is only one man in Spitzenburg who will drive a Volkswagen Beetle to
Spitzenburg castle when it is snowing."
"Who is that?"
Jochen shrugged. "The man who drives a Volkswagen Beetle and lives in
Spitzenburg castle. My grandfather. He has taken Tante Ilse to the town this
morning."
A car door slammed outside.
"Tante Ilse?" said the girl, who asked far too many questions, without answering
nearly enough.
"Grandfather calls all his cars Tante Ilse", explained Jochen.
"Why?" said the boy.
Jochen shrugged. "Who knows why the geese do not wear shoes?"
Ant looked at Cleo for a translation into English; Cleo shrugged in turn.
Ant felt nervously for the Orgonizer in his coat pocket. Heavy steps were crunching
on the snow outside. "Hadn't we better do something about, you know, the dead guy
in the middle of the café floor?"
"He is my grandfather, not a Health and Safety Inspector."
A shadow fell across the tables outside. The café door opened. A small, hard-faced
man entered. Despite frost-white hair and a face heavily attacked by time, his back
was ramrod-straight, and he moved with relative ease, if a little slowly and
deliberately. Cold blue eyes took in Jochen, Ant and Cleo.
"Kunden?" he said to Jochen. Jochen's face was a picture of guilt. Ant and Cleo had
not paid for their coffees.
"We pay when we leave, I think?" said Cleo, producing Euros from her purse and
smiling.
Grudgingly, the old man nodded.
"You are English?" he said.
"Yes", said Cleo.
"Touristen", he growled to himself. Then he turned and saw the body. His eyes
widened.
"Ach Horst", he said. He crossed himself. He turned to Jochen. "Hast du ihn
geschossen, oder?"
Jochen shook his head.
"He was dead before he came here", said Cleo. "There was no need to shoot him."
The old man turned to look at her, as if, if he stared hard enough, he would be able to
figure out what she was.
"Wer bist du?" he said.
"We're here to help", said Cleo.
"Weg mit euch!" He waved her away with a leathery hand. "You do not know what
happens here."
"I think I know what is happening here rather better than you do", said Cleo. "We are
here to help."
He stared at Cleo again. Cleo continued to fail to turn into anything he recognized.
"You are not here to help", he said. "You are here to take. If you understand what he
is", he said, stabbing a finger at the body, "where he is coming from, you are only
here to take. You will go now. The coffee is on the house. Jochen - diese sind keine
Kunden. Sie sind nicht mehr hier willkommen."
Jochen was struck dumb. Cleo rose warily from her seat. The old man looked hard at
Ant, who was still seated looking transfixed up at the wall above the coffee machine.
"Ant", said Cleo. "We are leaving. He wants us to leave. Leaving is what we are
about to do."
Ant nodded slowly, not taking his eyes from the wall. He rose slowly to his feet,
picking up his rucksack, putting on his cap.
"Danke schön", said Cleo to Jochen as they left.
"Bitte schön", said Jochen automatically, inclining his head. It was more of a bow
than a nod.
The door shut behind them. It was cold. It was snowing.
***
"What was he saying in German?" said Ant.
"Nothing much. Are we customers, we are tourists, did Jochen shoot him, who are
we, out with us, we aren't customers, we aren't welcome."
"He said 'horst'," said Ant. "In geology, a horst is an uplifted area of rock."
"If you'd been listening in your German classes instead of in Geology", said Cleo,
"you'd know Horst is also a German name. He knew who the dead man was. He
knew his name was Horst."
Ant shook his head. "No, the dead guy just looked like someone the old man knew.
He was the spitting image of one of the guys in the photograph. The one behind the
counter."
Cleo shrugged her shoulders against the cold, stamped her feet, and zipped her coat up
to a point where she could bite the zipper. "Jochen's grandad was in the picture?"
"Yes. Didn't you recognize him? He was the short guy in the middle with his arm
round the tall one with the scar. What does the word 'Jagged Kameraden' mean?"
Cleo thought about it. "I think you mean 'Jagdkameraden'. It would mean something
like 'hunting comrades'. Why?"
"It was the title of the picture. It was written underneath it in that old German script.
The same as the stuff on the dead man's arm."
Hasselhoff padded behind them, sniffing the snow. This was far and away the
greatest time he had ever had, even better than the time he had found all that pig dung
and rolled in it.
"I hate to say this", said Ant, "but we still need to try to contact Gondolin from the
high ground."
Cleo retreated miserably even further into her cavernous raincoat. "Go on, then."
"There's a high meadow next to the castle. We could try there."
The air was crystallizing into visibility. It was possible to see a long way through the
trees.
"Go ahead."
Beyond the gatehouse, the woods were thick with snow; Ant's trainers were soon
soaked again. He was sure trainers had been invented by shoe manufacturers purely
because they got manky and needed to be replaced every time they got wet.
The meadow was a couple of hundred metres through the woods. It was broad, flat,
white and featureless under the snow. To Hasselhoff, it was a fascinating canvas
holding a detailed picture of everyone else who lived here, lovingly painted in dog
urine. His nose was to the ground; he was sniffing contentedly.
The edge of the meadow was unnaturally flat, and had no grass stalks poking out of it.
Ant swiped at it with his foot.
"I think this is concrete", he said.
Cleo shrugged. "Maybe it was a car park or a bandstand or something."
"A car park? We're on top of a mountain! How would you get a car up here?"
The flat terrace went on for long enough to land a light aircraft, then sloped away
gently into the grass. All around it in the snow were mouldering red-painted signs
saying ACHTUNG!
"Nazis", said Ant, revealing his deep knowledge of the German language, "say
Achtung."
"So do Health and Safety notices", said Cleo. "It means Look out! Oi! Careful!
Easy there!"
"I wonder why they're saying it", said Ant, walking toward the nearest sign.
"Er, probably because the area around that sign is dangerous and you really shouldn't
be going near it?"
"AIEEE!" said Ant, and disappeared into the snow up to his waist.
"Told you so", said Cleo. "Are you all right?"
"...I think so", said Ant, feeling the snow around him with his hands.
"Don't move", said Cleo. "You could work yourself in further. Give me your hand."
She helped him up out of the hole, and dusted the snow off him.
"What do you think it was?" said Ant.
Cleo felt around the hole. "The edges are square...it goes down at a slant. It's too
small to be an entrance. I think something big slotted into here once." She looked up
at the circle of signs. "If all these other signs have the same holes beneath them, there
was a circle of mountings for something. Something big."
“Well, we can’t waste time worrying about that now. We’ve stuff to do.” Ant held
up the Idiot Detector to the sky and pressed its one red button. The one red light lit
up.
"An idiot has been detected", said Cleo sourly.
Ant ignored this. "Now we wait", he said.
They waited. Cleo jumped up and down unhappily. Hasselhoff chased a squirrel into
a tree and barked at it. It was the best squirrel he had ever barked at.
"We should do something to pass the time", said Ant, shivering inside his coat, which
was not as warm as Cleo's.
"How long should it take for them to get to us?" said Cleo.
"At the delta vee a Harridan is capable of, it should be minutes."
"Ooooo! Delta vee! Look who's swallowed an astrodynamics textbook! When you
say minutes, do you mean minutes as in less than hours?"
"It should be less than half an hour. Of course", said Ant uncomfortably, "they don't
know we're waiting for them in the snow."
Cleo trudged miserably off across the meadow. A few flakes of snow drifted
threateningly down from the sky.
Suddenly, she stopped dead, rooted to the spot.
"Ant."
"What?"
"Come here, I've found something."
Ant ran over, as quickly as the snow allowed. Cleo was standing in front of three
broad indents in the snow. The indents were rectangular, arranged in an isosceles
triangle, and the size of an A4 sheet.
"What does that look like to you?"
"Landing skids. Someone landed here earlier."
Cleo looked out across the snow. "We should have been looking for this. There's the
footprints of the man who walked into the café, look, going the opposite way to our
prints. They start there", she said, pointing down at the snow immediately in front of
them, "and the first print is deeper than the rest. That's where he - it - jumped down
from the ship. There's only one set of prints...that means nobody else got out. We're
on our own down here. That's something, at least."
Ant looked at the indents. "It wasn't a Hawker Harridan. Harridan landing skids are
longer and narrower."
"And it wasn't a Fantasm or an Astromoke. Astromoke skids are cross-shaped, and
this arrangement's too short and fat for a Fantasm."
"I'm pretty sure from talking to Richard Turpin that the standard American space
fighter, the Aurora, has wheels rather than skids."
"So there's an unidentified ship", said Cleo, "somewhere up above us, right now."
Ant did not like the way this was going. "And the last time we ran into an
unidentified ship, it was very unfriendly and needed two fighters and a cruiser to kill
it..."
"And there's a Gondolin ship on its way down to us, right now..."
Ant looked at Cleo, whiter than the snow around him. "Cleo, we can't cancel the
signal. We've no way of warning them."
Cleo thought briefly.
"Yes we have", she said. "It's primitive, but it might work."
She bent down and began scraping at the snow with her hands.
"What are you doing?" said Ant. "Digging for a radio transmitter?"
"There has to be grass down here somewhere - aha!"
The grass was surprisingly deeply buried. Having located the grass, she began
tunnelling north, uncovering more of it.
"It's grass, Cleo."
Cleo looked up with a face that indicated Ant could be out-thought by an amoeba.
"It's darker than the snow, Ant."
A lightbulb went on in Ant's head.
"What do we want to draw?" he said. "You're trying to draw a message in the snow,
right?"
Cleo thought briefly about it (which clearly indicated she hadn't thought about it
before she'd started digging). "How about FOR THE ATTENTION OF UNITED
STATES OF THE ZODIAC PERSONNEL ONLY! HOSTILE ACTIVITY IN THIS
AREA! DO NOT LAND! REPEAT, DO NOT LAND!"
Ant considered this. "How about just DON'T LAND on its own?"
"Ant, that clearly does not convey a clear picture of the situation on the ground. Just
because it will not take as long to draw doesn't mean that we -"
"Cleo, we haven't got long. Besides, it could take a long time anyway, because we're
going to have to make it BIG. Big enough to be seen from one mile up."
Cleo blinked at him for a couple of moments, then nodded and began scraping at the
snow like a demon.
***
"Got the T finished!"
"That does not look like a T! It looks like an I!"
"It so does not!"
"The crossbar isn't big enough!" Cleo began furiously enlarging the crossbar. "Ant,
stop standing in the middle of the D! You're making it look like a B!"
A sound of searing, tearing air could now be heard, miles of atmosphere being barged
out of the way as the USZ ship dropped towards them out of space. Ant fancied he
could see, through the clearing cloud, the dimmest of glints in the south west; that was
the direction, due to orbital mechanics, that the ship had to come from. He realized he
had his fingers crossed. He did not uncross them.
"That's them, isn't it?" said Cleo.
There was a vapour trail now. The ship was low enough to leave one, its hull red hot,
slowing itself down on the atmosphere.
"They're late", said Ant.
"Maybe the other ship's not up there any more", said Cleo. "Maybe it got bored and
went away."
Ant shook his head. "It's up there."
"How do you know?"
"Because God really, really hates me."
The entire sky was roaring now, the contrail a smoky arrow pointing directly at them.
Then the contrail fired out an incandescent pseudopod, appearing to bend back on
itself. The ship had changed direction.
"They saw it!" said Cleo. "They saw it and changed course!"
A second contrail appeared directly above the first. It matched its speed and
direction. Tiny festive sparkles appeared at the end of the first contrail.
"Omigod", said Cleo.
"It's got their range", said Ant.
"They have to know they're being fired at", said Cleo. "They have to notice."
Ant had begun counting under his breath.
"Ant", said Cleo. "You're counting, and I don't know why you are counting. I fear
things I do not understand. Stop it."
Thunder suddenly filled the sky, like a set of kettle drums falling downstairs. Cleo
jumped.
"Thirty miles", said Ant. "They're thirty miles away. The time difference between
seeing the shots and hearing them is one hundred and fifty seconds. Sound travels at
about a fifth of a mile per second. One hundred and fifty seconds is thirty miles."
The contrail suddenly veered vertically downwards into heavy cloud.
"It hit them", said Cleo tearfully. "It hit them, and they went out of control."
"Out of control ships don't change direction", said Ant. "They tumble. They weren't
hit. They took evasive action."
"Then why didn't the enemy follow?" said Cleo. Up above them, the second contrail
streaked towards the sky, giving up on the chase.
"I don't know", said Ant. "But we haven't heard any explosion, any sound of impact.
Maybe they're all right."
He realized his fingers were wearing a groove in each other.
"They were a long way south west", said Cleo. "What's south west of here?"
"A city", said Ant, "called Regensburg. If they came down, we should see it on TV.
The British and Americans won't be able to hush up a crashed space ship completely.
This isn't even their own turf, after all."
"What do we do now", said Cleo, "without instructions?"
"I've got a feeling we're already in the right place. The old man and the blue goo guy
kept talking about 'it'. What Gondolin want us to do, I think, is figure out what 'it' is,
and get the old man to give it to us."
"Or make sure the other side don't get it."
"Whoever the other side are. Can we get to the Freizeitheim from here?"
"Jochen said it was at the other end of the valley. We'll need to go back down to the
road."
Ant sighed in resignation, and began trudging back towards the trees.
"MR. STEVENS! MISS SHAKESPEARE! IF I MAY PREVAIL UPON YOU TO
STAY EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE."
Ant looked back at Cleo. Wearily, she said:
"Alastair."
8.
New German Happiness
Alastair Drague, still wearing a very nice suit, but with a heavy coat on top of it out of
deference to the snow, was standing alone at the treeline, green eyes gleaming like
verdigris from underneath wrinkled cowls of eyelids. Cleo tramped up to him, hands
thrust crossly into her pockets.
"Good afternoon, Cleopatra. You will please refrain from attempting to damage me
with anything you may have in your pockets."
"I haven't got anything in my pockets", said Cleo. "My hands are in my pockets
because they are cold. Will this take long?"
"That very much depends on you."
Behind Cleo, Hasselhoff was growling softly.
"I advise you to keep hold of your dog", said Alastair.
"He's not our dog", said Ant automatically.
"If you look behind you to your left, you will see Larry", said Alastair. "He is
currently on Aggression Level Four. Please don't make me put him up to Five."
Ant and Cleo turned. To their left padded a gigantic alsatian, which had somehow
managed to approach them over thirty feet of virgin snow without being detected.
Ant realized in shame that he'd heard every footstep, but had assumed from the four
feet that it was Hasselhoff. The dog's eyes did not look quite right, as if, behind them,
tiny iris shutters were opening and closing.
"Oh my god", said Ant. "It's -"
"BAAAAAAA", said the dog menacingly.
"- a Sheep Dog", finished Cleo.
"A Vickers Ferguson Mark Four D Robosheep dog, to be precise", gloated Alastair.
"We removed the sheepy bits, added doggy ones, and did some reprogramming. The
basic chassis and brain haven't changed."
Larry's head dipped down to the meadow and grazed it for precisely five seconds,
jaws closing on nothing but snow, before looking up again with eyes full of
cybernetic malice.
"The last time we saw those things", said Cleo, "they had gone crazy sheep bonkers
on their own operators."
"A minor technical error", said Alastair, "committed by you personally, if you
remember. Those teething troubles have now been ironed out. Larry's aggression
matrix can now only be raised to six, and if an operator attempts to do so, VF-SOS
will return a message asking 'ARE YOU SURE, AND HAVE YOU TAKEN
COVER?'"
"VF-SOS?" said Ant.
"I'm told it stands for 'Vickers Ferguson Sheep Operating System'."
Artificial rubber jowls curled back quiveringly from Larry's enormous pointy teeth.
"As you can see", said Alastair, "I am perfectly safe, despite there being three of you
and only one of me."
"Where are the operators?" said Cleo.
"Larry does have a small technical ground crew", said Drague. "In fact, I believe you
may have met and shot two of them last year. But his control unit is here." He
produced a device about the size of a mobile phone. "This is the Moutonotron-9001.
Amazing what miniaturization can do nowadays."
Cleo was impressed despite herself. "The Moutonotron-9000 was the size of a sofa."
"And it comes with this handy tracker ball. It's a far more effective sheep-controlling
machine." Mr. Drague rolled the ball forward with his thumb; Larry took two steps
forward towards Ant. "Steady on there, Larry old chap; these people are our friends."
He stopped rolling his thumb; Larry stopped moving, one paw raised like a living
statue.
"What do you want?" said Cleo.
"You are here for some purpose of Gondolin's, otherwise you wouldn't have taken
such pains to evade my agents. That's what my agents are there for, you see. When
they phone me up and bleat 'Mr. Drague, we're ever so sorry, we've lost them again', I
know that you are up to no good and it is time to come looking for you in earnest."
"How did you find us?"
"Cleopatra, my dear, you habitually leave a trail of mayhem and destruction without
ever seeming to mean to. It's really rather sweet. I simply listened in to German
police radio, heard that a naked incoherent man had been found wandering near the
wreck of his car in the vicinity of Spitzenburg, and put two and two together. Do you
know, Larry here managed to track you over ten kilometres of heavy snow?"
"You speak German", accused Cleo, as if, by doing so, Alastair was somehow
cheating.
"Aber natürlich", said Alastair, smiling broadly. "Now, to business. You did
something in London, and now you're up to something in Germany. You just called
down a USZ ship from orbit, which seems to have been shot down before it could get
to you. I have to say I had no idea any British or American interceptors were in this
airspace. It was none of my doing. My commiserations; I do hope it was nobody you
knew."
"There are no British or American interceptors in this airspace", said Cleo firmly.
"My dear girl, the American Aurora fighter is invisible to radar. There is no way your
friends could possibly have known an Aurora was here until it was on them."
Cleo's mouth snapped shut.
"Invisible to radar", repeated Ant.
"Yes", said Alastair. "Just like the ship that fired on HMSS Black Prince out near
Ross 248. So you see, there is no need for the mysterious alien enemy you're so keen
on. There was simply an American carrier lurking somewhere in the Ross 248 star
system, that's all. Maybe investigating the distress call from the Russian colony at
Krasnaya 3, just like Black Prince was."
"What about the blue goo?" said Cleo. "That was on Krasnaya 3 too."
Alastair shrugged. "A new Russian weapon under test, perhaps. Maybe the test went
awry, maybe not. They're not above testing weapons on their own citizens."
"An American weapon", said Ant, shaking his head. "It was used on the Americans'
colony at New Dixie first, remember, before it was ever used on the Russians at
Krasnaya 3."
"But the Americans are Britain's allies", said Cleo. "You'd know if the Americans
had a weapon like that."
Alastair shrugged unhappily. "Britain has a very special relationship with America,
as you know. I'm afraid I must admit that I have no more knowledge of the current
cutting edge of American weapons research than I do of what the President had for
breakfast this morning."
Ant had been silent, remembering a drab day in a country park just off the M1, when
he'd suddenly been catapulted into the sky in an unfamiliar alien machine which had
contained a viewfinder which had shown blue dots closing...
"The USZ can detect the Aurora", he said suddenly.
Alastair's eyebrow rose. "Can they? How interesting." He took out a notebook from
his breast pocket and made notes with an expensive-looking biro.
"Ant", groaned Cleo. "You idiot. That was probably a USZ military secret."
Ant went white. His throat locked up, unable to speak, several seconds too late.
"That's the way Alastair works", said Cleo. "Never, ever trust anything he says. And
always check everything you say to him before you open your mouth. You end up
saying more than you realize."
She looked back at Drague. "We know even less than you do about why we're here.
We were told to come here and await further instructions, and our further instructions
seem to have just been shot down. I mean, what are we doing in Germany? The
Germans don't have spaceflight. They don't even build rockets."
"They used to", said Ant suddenly. "Once. The V-2 rockets that were used to attack
London. They were made in Germany."
"Ant, shut UP. If Commodore Drummond told you that, it could be another USZ
secret -"
"In World War Two, Cleo. Ordinary people know this. The Russians and Americans
took all Germany's military secrets after the Second World War and used them to
make the rockets that fired Yuri Gagarin into orbit and launched the first moon
landings." He hung his head in shame. "I read about it. In the, uh, Eye Spy Book of
Spacecraft."
Alastair's face remained utterly benevolent, as if all astronauts read the Eye Spy Book
of Spacecraft after they'd finished with their big boring old flight manuals. Cleo,
meanwhile, narrowed her eyes to machine-gun slits. "Did Lieutenant Turpin give you
this Eye Spy Book of Spacecraft, Anthony?"
"For Christ's sake, it's in the public library. It's not about anything complicated, it's
just, you know, rocket science." He turned the idea over in his head. "But all the
German rocket bases were in the north of the country, so they'd be within striking
range of England. And we're in the south here."
"Don't mind me", interrupted Alastair. "I'm just threatening you with an incredibly
dangerous armoured killing machine here." He pushed a few buttons on his keyboard
idly. Larry gnashed his mechanical-shovel-like jaws. Metal hissed against metal, as
if giant shears were opening and closing.
"Yes, but once the Germans started making space ships here", said Cleo, ignoring
Alastair, "they didn't need rockets any more."
Alastair looked up in alarm. Ant looked at Cleo as if she, too, had been welded
together by Vickers Ferguson.
"I knew we should never have let the USZ in on that piece of information", said
Alastair, clicking his pen open again like a cat unsheathing its claws, preparing to
write.
"You didn't let them in on it", said Cleo defiantly. "They have sources closer to you
than you think. Did you really think anyone would ever believe that rubbish about a
UFO crashing at Roswell? The Americans putting the wreckage back together bit by
bit till they could build their own first starships?"
"Well", said Alastair with a great deal of wounded pride, "we believed it the first time
the Americans told it to us."
Cleo nodded. "I suppose so. After all, it wasn't too different from the real story. The
UFO really landed here, Ant - in Germany. In Spitzenburg. In the last years of World
War Two. The Germans, of course, must have thought it was Christmas. Put their
very best scientists on to trying to figure out how the crashed ship had worked, so
they could use the same technology on the Allies."
Alastair's eyes bounced open in shock; then, he nodded. "And that, ironically, was the
worst thing they could have done."
Cleo nodded back. "After they captured the facility here at Spitzenburg, it took the
Americans, the most powerful nation on Earth, six years of peacetime research before
they could launch their first interstellar ship. The Germans were fighting a war, and
they didn't have six years. Didn't even have six months, in fact. The Hunnenfeld
research may actually have lost them the war."
Alastair pursed his lips and frowned. "Arguably true. Konrad Belzer, for example,
one of the Germans' very best scientists, was assigned to Spitzenburg. If he hadn't
been working here, he could have been with Von Braun on the V-2 programme, or
maybe even building Hitler an atomic bomb."
"Instead", said Cleo, "Belzer was wasted for the rest of the war."
Alastair nodded, turned, and looked out across the concrete. "At the end, we suspect,
the Nazis murdered Belzer rather than let him fall into Allied hands. There is a great
deal of history here. And a great amount of evil." He scuffed at the snow with a foot,
working down till he struck concrete. "In order to build this platform, around one
thousand men were worked to death, wearing not much more than stripy pyjamas, in
weather very like this. Jews, gypsies, captured French resistance fighters..."
"Sounds a little like Alpha Four", said Cleo.
Drague looked up sharply. "It is nothing like Alpha Four. You have never been to
Alpha Four - and neither, for that matter, have I."
"It's a prison planet where you work political dissidents to death. What's the
difference? Oh, sorry. My mistake. It's an American colony, so Alpha Four probably
has a McDonald's."
"They were housed", said Alastair icily, "in stone cells, with unglazed windows.
They slept on wooden beds without mattresses, and with only one blanket. If they
didn't make their work quota for the day, the blanket was removed. Every night they
faced a choice between rolling their clothes up into a bundle and using them as a
pillow, which was more comfortable, or sleeping in their clothes, which was
warmer...the guards, you see, had removed the pillows that had originally been issued,
as they found it amusing to see what the prisoners would do."
Ant finally found his voice.
"Cleo", he said, "how do you know all this?"
"I didn't know it", said Cleo, a cool smile spreading across her face. "Until thirty
seconds ago. I've just been making wild guesses all this time, and Alastair's been
confirming them. Congratulations, Alastair. You've been Alastaired."
Alastair's face softened in shock.
"Brilliant", he muttered. "Absolutely brilliant. You wouldn't like a job, would you?"
"On a sunny day in Bognor Regis", said Cleo contemptuously.
"Alas. Well, in any case, I'm afraid I bring bad news. The investigation against your
father has gathered pace. Documents have come to light indicating that two hundred
thousand pounds entered his bank account during the Wheeltappers' Strike in 1998,
and were wired almost immediately to an account in the Cayman Islands. This has
led to suggestions that he was taking bribes to end the strike. The Inland Revenue
want to talk to him now too, apparently. It's really looking quite bad. Your poor dear
mother is quite distraught. She's phoning you right now."
Cleo's mobile phone went off in her bag like a grenade. Hand shaking, she reached
gingerly into the bag, picked up the phone, and held it up to her ear.
"H-hello?"
She stood listening for several seconds. Her legs began to shake as well.
"I see.
"No mum, it's all right, I've got plenty of money." She looked up at Ant. "Ant's
subbing me. Dougie won big on the horses, remember?
"All right mum. Chin up. Don't cry.
"See you later. Bye."
She clicked the phone off, and stared up at Alastair as if imagining him turning on a
skewer over an open flame.
"You're sure about that job, now", said Alastair.
"On a sunny day", Cleo said, "in Eastbourne."
Alastair affected a wounded expression. "Bognor Regis was cold", he said, "but
Eastbourne is below the belt."
"We know nothing", said Cleo, "as I told you before."
"And I guarantee, if you set your dogbot on us", said Ant, his hand on the Orgonizer,
"that, although you won't die, you will have one of the very worst days of your life."
"I see. How fascinating. You have a non-lethal weapon of some description in your
left hand jacket pocket. It wouldn't make men run around naked hugging trees by any
chance, would it?"
"We had nothing to do with that", said Ant.
"That man", lied Cleo, "was naked before we met him."
"He was German", explained Ant.
"They do that sort of thing", said Cleo.
"I see. Well, I won't detain you any further." Alastair nodded pleasantly, slid his
dogbot controller back into his pocket, and strode off through the trees.
"Alastair", called Cleo.
Alastair stopped, and looked back over his shoulder. "Yes?"
"What did the President of the United States have for breakfast this morning?"
Alastair grinned. "Hash browns, fried mushrooms, two eggs over easy. Have a nice
day."
Alastair left. Ant's hand relaxed on the trigger of the Orgonizer.
Larry trotted past Cleo, close enough for him to shed snow crystals from his fur.
Hasselhoff tried to follow him. Cleo grabbed Hasselhoff by the collar.
"Whoah there, stupidhound. He has a tailpipe, not a bottom, and you won't enjoy
sniffing it."
Hasselhoff sat down in the snow, panting happily. There could not possibly ever be a
better day than this. Unless - joy of joys - the sun rose again tomorrow.
"We really have to get rid of this dog", said Cleo.
"I suppose so", said Ant grudgingly.
Hasselhoff licked Cleo's hand and beamed up at her in silent adoration.
***
"So let me get this straight", said Ant. "There never was a crash at Roswell."
Cleo looked both ways down the completely deserted, snowbound highway before
crossing. Crash barriers of snow were piled high on either side. "There may have
been. Maybe an American test flight went wrong. But whatever they built at Roswell
was just a copy of a German prototype they found here, in Spitzenburg. That concrete
platform at the top of the hill would have served well as a landing pad...That old lady
said the Freizeitheim was up this road here, didn't she?"
Ant looked up the road; the onion dome of the church was still directly in front of
them, as the old lady had promised.
"It should be this way...so the Saucerer ship, the alien ship, actually crashed in
Spitzenburg?"
"Or was shot down, on Hunnenfeld, above the castle. Remember, it came down in the
middle of a world war. The Germans would have fired on anything that didn't have
German markings immediately. Or maybe they dug it up. Maybe it'd been in
Germany all the time, crashed hundreds of years before Christ, and a bomb blast
uncovered it. Who knows?"
Ant's breath puffed out of him like thistledown and drifted away on the wind. "So if
the Germans had had just had a few months more to work on it, they could have won
World War Two."
Cleo looked up at the massive sign for the Freizeitheim, with its long list of KEINs.
"Ah, Heim sweet Heim...Yes, if they'd perfected it and mass produced it, almost
certainly." She kicked at a clump of dirty snow. "Jochen seemed nice."
"Yeah", said Ant. "And his grandad is old enough to have been a nazi."
Cleo's throat strangled shut. It was obvious the idea had not occurred to her.
"You saw how quickly he got rid of us", said Ant. "Didn't want his grandson mixing
with Unterwäsche", he said grimly.
"I think you mean Untermenschen, Ant. Unterwäsche would be underwear. But you
may be right. A nazi would consider me to be less than human, on account of my
blackness."
"Well, maybe he doesn't want Jochen mixing with underwear either. Maybe proper
nazis go commando."
"Maybe you should go back up there on your own. You're not an Untermensch.
You're white. Grandpa von Spitzenburg might talk to you."
"I don't know", said Ant. "He probably thinks I've got black lurgi or something now,
because I've been rubbing up against you. That's what the nazis were all about." He
thought a moment. "It might not be you. He might not have noticed you were black.
He might have thought I looked Jewish. Do I look Jewish?"
Cleo punched him on the shoulder; he laughed.
"Maybe that's what the Blue Men are trying to get out of Jochen's grandfather", said
Ant, trying to walk tightrope along a rare patch of visible kerb, and failing. "You've
got to admit, he is old enough to have been in the War. Maybe he was here when the
research was being done."
"Stop thinking of them as men, Ant. They aren't men. They're blue blobs controlling
men, riding their brains like, like, like brain riders."
"I know, I know, I know. But if the Americans and Russians cleared the place out at
the end of the war, shouldn't the Blue Men be looking in Roswell, or in Russia?"
Cleo shrugged. "Maybe they know there's something here the Russians and
Americans didn't find."
"But the Blue Men already have space travel. We've seen blue goo on three worlds
now. Richard Turpin shot down one of their ships. And they attacked the Xenophon,
the Old Spot, and the Yezhov in open space. So what would they want with a sixtyyear-old prototype spaceship?"
"What was it Jochen said his grandad said to them the first time they visited?" said
Cleo.
"That he didn't want to give away the only good card we had", said Ant. His breath
had stopped puffing out; he had stopped dead in the snow.
"Cleo, what if the Blue Men don't want whatever It is, whatever the Good Card is, for
themselves? What if it's a piece of technology, a weapon, maybe, that the Nazis
managed to hide from the Russians and Americans? What if the Blue Men already
have that technology, and just want to stop us, mankind, from having it? Because
they're planning for an invasion?"
Cleo was looking up at the face of the church. "The Barry Cross...Ant, do you
remember, when Richard Turpin shot down that enemy ship, he said he'd seen an
insignia on a piece of debris that came flying back at him?"
Ant looked up at the massive steel cross bolted to the outside of the church, looking
no more spiritual than a lightning conductor.
"I remember."
"Well, what do you get if you draw bars on a cross?"
Ant would not have believed it was possible to feel any colder, but his blood had now
reached freezing point.
"No", he said. "He would have known. He would have realized."
"Richard Turpin was brought up on Gondolin, Ant. He didn't get lessons in European
history."
"But how is that possible?" said Ant. "They've been gone, defeated, for over half a
century."
"Maybe some of them went somewhere else."
"But why now? If they developed that technology well enough to use it, why didn't
they use it back then during the war?"
"Maybe they only had one ship back then. Maybe now they have a thousand."
"But...fifty years, Cleo. It's a long time for a bunch of criminal psychopaths to wait.
Criminal psychopaths don't normally have that much iron self-control."
The sky suddenly filled with white noise like paper tearing, and three swept-winged
aircraft streaked overhead, roundels on their fuselages identifying them as Royal Air
Force jets.
"Tornados", said Ant.
"Patrolling the area", said Cleo unhappily. "Preventing anyone from flying down to
pick up the USZ pilot. Whoever he or she is."
"Cheer up", said Ant. "That must mean they think the pilot's still alive. Though", he
added, "the pilot'll probably wish he wasn't if Alastair gets his hands on him."
"Or her", said Cleo.
Hasselhoff slid alongside Cleo and leaned on her until she gave in, bent over and
rubbed his stomach. He wagged his tail in ecstasy.
"There has to be an answer", said Cleo. "Right now we have more immediate
problems." She looked up at the coach parked outside the Freizeitheim, snow still
melting around its exhaust. "Escaping out was easy enough. Now we have to escape
back in."
"It might be easy", said Ant. "They might not even know we've gone."
***
"Entschuldigung", said Cleo to the stern-faced man at the reception desk, "aber wir
haben diesen Hund gefunden."
Hasselhoff sat back on his haunches and gave the receptionist his most intelligent
expression, which was several degrees less cunning than many protozoa. His long
pink tongue drooped half the way to the floor. It was clear that in Hasselhoff's
estimation, the receptionist was the most wonderful man in the world.
"I call ze police", said the receptionist in English. He had long, lank black hair and a
stud in his left ear, which looked infected.
"Was machen die Polizei mit dem Hund?" asked Cleo.
The receptionist shrugged. "Zey keep ze dog for a däy or two däys. Zen if zey cännot
find out who iss beink his owner", he put a finger to his ear and cocked a thumb,
"BANG."
Hasselhoff wagged his tail excitedly.
"SIE WERDEN IHN TOT SCHIEßEN?"
"Oh yes", said the receptionist. "Qvite dead. On ze continent", he explained, "ve häff
räbies."
"Gosh", said Ant. "You look all right to me."
The man looked askance at Ant. He raised an accusing finger at Ant's sodden
trousers. "You häff been outside ze Freizeitheim. Zät is forbidden."
"Is it?" said Cleo sweetly.
The man pointed to a sign with letters the size of babies' heads, which said: GÄSTE
WERDEN GEBETEN, DAS FREIZEITHEIM NICHT ZU VERLASSEN.
Cleo squinted at the sign. "What does 'Gäste' mean?"
"It means 'Guests'."
"And 'werden gebeten'?"
"'Are reqvested'."
"And 'nicht zu verlassen'?"
"'Not to leave'", said the man.
Cleo opened her mouth to speak again. The receptionist beat her to it. "'Das' means,
as you säy in English, 'the'", he said.
"Thank you", said Cleo. "That clears up my questions for the time being. In any
case, we're back now. We've had an invigorating stroll around the building."
"You häff not", said the man. "You häff been to Spitzenburg Castle."
"We so have not", said Ant.
The receptionist looked at Ant's rucksack with an air of sneering triumph. Cleo
followed his gaze.
"Oh, Ant", said Cleo.
"It's not my fault", complained Ant. "Jochen gave it to me."
Pinned to the rucksack was a large white badge saying I'VE BEEN TO
SPITZENBURG CASTLE.
"Ze police also häff been lookink for you", said the receptionist.
"You can't possibly know that", said Cleo.
Silently, the receptionist pointed at a TV screen behind the counter. The screen
showed serious-faced German policemen with small blond moustaches. Beneath the
policemen, a caption said: FEHLENDE ENGLISCHE SCHÜLER - MORD
GEFÜRCHTET.
"Uh - Cleo - what does ' FEHLENDE ENGLISCHE SCHÜLER - MORD
GEFÜRCHTET' mean?" said Ant.
"It means", said the receptionist, "zät you are, äs you säy in England, 'busted'."
"We don't say that", said Ant. "It's only Americans who say that."
"Oh", said the receptionist, evidently disappointed. "Vhat do you säy instead?"
"We say", said Cleo with a heavy heart, "that we are up to our nostrils in it."
***
Jochen's grandfather had provided no explanation for the incident in the café, and had
tried to continue life as normal, though he broke a plate in the kitchen that same
afternoon, which he never did, and scraped the car on the wall on the way out of the
courtyard, which he never did. He had also argued with Jochen's mother loud and
long in the old dining room in the one tiny corner of the castle the von-und-zuSpitzenburgs continued to inhabit. The rest of the castle - the massive master
bedroom, the cavernous prospect chamber, the games room, an entire wing of guest
bedrooms, a labyrinth of boot rooms and store rooms even grandfather had had to
explore himself once the servants had vacated the premises in the 1940's - was empty,
inhabited only by ghosts.
Jochen liked to tell himself that the ghosts with the worst axes to grind would have
forgiven his side of the family. Besides, hadn't the majority of them died outside the
castle, in the snow, or shivering in cold cells underground?
Jochen's part of the castle had housed servants. The von-und-zu-Spitzenburgs'
servants had all been ethnic Germans, had all served the family loyally for
generations, and still tipped their caps to der Alter in the town square. Their part of
the castle would hold no ghosts. The rest of the building, though, was only to be
explored in very broad daylight, and even then in the company of friends from the
town - friends with a morbid curiosity about their town's unpleasant past.
"Was it here where the Americans accepted the surrender of the Volkssturm?"
"Was it from this tower that the guards used to shoot prisoners for fun?"
"Is it from here that the tunnel leads down to you know what?"
It was odd, then for his grandfather to suddenly take him by the arm and steer him
upstairs to the old dining room and the locked steel anti-squatter door leading into the
prospect chamber. Producing a massive three-lobed key and twisting it in the heavy
lock. Walking the door open.
The prospect chamber was huge. Grandmother and grandfather had photographs of
the way it had been in its heyday, in the nineteenth century, all massive, long, handcarved tables, luminous oil paintings, and bullet-ridden suits of armour. Now most of
all that, what grandfather always referred to as the 'Schminke' - the make-up, the
greasepaint - was gone, sold, sitting in somebody else's prospect chamber in Japan,
Saudi Arabia or New York. Only the most important things remained.
Two of the most important things were nailed up over a fireplace big enough for
parachuting ninja dwarfs to easily gain access to the castle. Not nailed up so high that
it wasn't possible to unhook them with a finger, though - Jochen had had friends in
this room before who had been very interested in them, as boys about to become men
were when suddenly introduced to killing weapons.
"Put that DOWN! It's SHARP!"
"Scared, Kleines? Pick up the other one! En garde!"
"Not likely! You want a fencing scar like my great uncle had?"
Der Alter pressed one of the Important Things into Jochen’s hand.
"This is a fencing sabre - feel the weight. Springy and resilient, but light. A toy. Not
very sharp either, even at the tip."
Jochen turned the handle round in his hand. The sword did not feel light. "Why are
you showing me this, Opa?"
"Pay attention." The old man's hands were shaking as he pressed a second weapon
into Jochen's left hand. "This is a cavalry sabre. One of the last military fighting
swords ever made in this country. Your great-great-grandfather wore it at the
Kaiserschlacht. Of course, it did him very little good there. The enemy had machine
guns on that occasion. Feel the weight."
As the old man let go, Jochen's left arm plummeted like a stone towards the floor. He
nearly dropped the sword on the stone flags. The old man grinned and winked.
"Heavy, oder? Also sharp, the whole length of the blade. I defended myself with this
sword at Kursk, had to draw it and use it to beat the Bolsheviks back from Tante Ilse's
turret. They'd run out of ammunition; we'd run out of ammunition. In the twentieth
century!" He removed the fencing sword from Jochen's right hand. "You keep the
proper sword; I'll take this horrible thing."
He separated from Jochen with frightening speed; his sword rose to eye height. "Put
your sword up, so; this is the sixte, upwards to your right. Upwards to the left is
quarte, downwards to the right octave, downwards to the left septime. Your opponent
will, unless he is left-handed, also start from the sixte. With a sabre, he may cut as
well as thrust." The training sabre whipped to right and left, making a hissing sound
as if it was unzipping the air, then stabbed forward juddering with a sound like an
elevator cable pulling taut. "Typically, he will attack the face, as he is unimaginative
and is aware from all the previous fights he has had, which have been conducted with
his fists, that a blow to the head finishes an opponent quickly. There is also a very
short travel between the sword arm and the face, and it takes longer to reach the legs
and body. For that reason, expect an attack against the face, and launch your own
attack upon the legs." He stepped forward and whipped the blade across Jochen's
knees, missing them by millimetres.
"But Opa", said Jochen, "aren't the legs an illegal target for a sabre?"
Der Alter nodded. "In fencing, yes. But I am not teaching you to fence. I am not
teaching you to play a game. I am teaching you how to kill a man. Coup droit!" He
lunged forward suddenly; Jochen knocked the blade away, though it had slowed while
already centimetres from his throat.
"Good but slow", said the old man. "Because you were holding the sword too close to
you, because your arm is tiring. You must learn to move from your legs and waist,
not your arm. Then your arm will not tire. Hold the sword with a nearly straight arm;
then you will be forced to use your legs. Coup double!" He moved in again; Jochen
flicked the attack away more easily, though the sword felt like a leaden weight on the
end of his arm, and his grandfather's blade simply rose back to his throat each time as
though magnetized.
"Opa", said Jochen, "I am not so sure learning to kill a man with a sword will protect
me."
"Achtung!" The sword darted in again, levered Jochen's parry expertly aside; the
blade jumped out of Jochen's fingers and clattered to the floor. Jochen's grandfather's
blade rose again to Jochen's throat.
"Really?" said the old man, looking Jochen in the eyes with the coldness of a Russian
winter. "And why would you think that?"
"Because", said Jochen defiantly, daring to look Sturmbannführer von und zu
Spitzenburg directly in the eye, "I am afraid that, on this occasion, the enemy may
have a machine gun."
Der Alter's face stiffened; then, just as abruptly, it relaxed. The sword dropped.
"Perhaps you are right", sighed the old man. "I believe we have a machine gun of our
own. Perhaps you should go and fetch it."
***
"Cleopätra, I äm very disappointed." Fräulein Meinck pulled a handkerchief from her
sleeve and blew her nose to hide the fact that she was wiping away tears. "You häff
lied to me, änd it iss ze lyink I cännot ständ." Next to her, Herr Riemann, incapable
of complex communication, stood looking down at Ant and Cleo like a pit bull on a
short leash, just begging for its owner to let it go.
"You and I, Anthony", said Nigel, “are going to have a conversation on the subject of
trust." Nigel had his arms folded to make himself more grown-up and severe.
"Later, Shakespeare", said Harjit. This, to Cleo, was a far more terrifying prospect.
Nigel and Harjit, being team leaders, had been allowed to stand in the
Geschäftsführer's office with Fräulein Meinck and Herr Riemann while Ant and Cleo
were, in Fräulein Meinck's words, 'severely reprimänded'.
The Geschäftsführer, Herr Hornig, was apparently the boss of the Freizeitheim, and
had beamed happily throughout the reprimand process. The walls of his offices were
covered in music magazine pictures and framed vinyl records. The fact that the vinyl
records were framed seemed to ensure that they would never again be played. One of
them was called 'DA DA DA', and was by someone called TRIO. Herr Hornig was
wearing a T shirt which said: NEUE DEUTSCHE FRÖHLICHKEIT. This, as far as
Cleo could make out, meant NEW GERMAN HAPPINESS. Herr Hornig was short,
bald and fat, wore bifocal glasses, and looked like the sort of kindly uncle who put on
a frozen smile and called you a young scamp, then threw a hissy fit and started
shrieking grown-up swear words when you spilt your coffee on his best Ikea rug. His
hands were steepled precisely in front of him.
The entire room was looking at him now, waiting for his opinion.
Herr Hornig's fingers unsteepled.
"Ve häff here", he said, "a liddle problem off ze boundaries. You, Änthony, änd you,
Cleopätra, you like our Tscherman countryside so much zät you vant to valk around it
yourselves, on your own time. You vant to do your own Sing", he said, clicking his
fingers like some sort of horrible hep cat jazz daddy, "yes?"
"I'm sorry", said Cleo, "I don't understand the question."
"To do your own sing! To be yourselves, to go vhere ze music täkes you, vhere ze
rhyzm makes you, to go vhere you vanna go, do vhat you vanna, vanna do, äss if you
vere on some sort off lovely holidäy, yes?" He grinned at Cleo.
"Well", said Cleo nervously, "yes, I suppose -"
Geschäftsführer Hornig's hand slammed down on the table repeatedly. "YOU - ARE
- NOT - ON - HOLIDÄY! ZISS ISS NOT A HOLIDÄY CÄMP! YOU ARE HERE
TO LEARN! YOU - ARE HERE - TO BE EDUCÄTED!"
Almost immediately, his expression became calm and serene again, as if the outburst
had never happened. This, if anything, was more disturbing than the outburst itself
had been.
"Now vhat äm I to do in such a situätion? I vant to let you gö off on your öwn, like a
Rölling Stöne, but I HÄFF A BUSINESS TO RUN -" the stationery on his desk
bounced as he pounded the formica again with a pudgy fist - "änd I simply cännot
allow zät. Cän you see? Cän you valk a mile in my moccasins? Cän you feel my
päin?"
His smile had returned. The only sign that he had ever flown into a violent rage was a
slight disarray of his Kraftwerk paperweights.
"Häff a sveet", beamed Herr Schieß, rattling a dish of gummi bears on his desk. "I
häff täken out ze green vones."
"Why?" said Cleo.
"Because ze green vones are MINE ÄND MINE ÄLÖNE", snapped Herr Schieß, then
instantly lapsed back into placid amiability. He extended the dish and shook it,
smiling. Cleo and Ant took one each, very carefully.
"Ve häff sought", said Herr Riemann maliciously, "zät zey vere smugglink drugs."
"You häff found drugs?" said Herr Hornig, alarmed.
"No", said Herr Riemann regretfully. "Ve häff searched zem werry soröughly. Ve
häff found nossink. It iss werry suspicious."
Cleo's expression darkened.
"Now just a minute here. I have nothing to do with drugs. My mind is perfectly well
expanded and my consciousness does not require enhancement, thank you." She
narrowed her eyes at Herr Schieß. "You do know green gummi bears contain a food
colouring which has been known to cause tentacles to grow on laboratory mice, I
assume."
Herr Schieß stared at Cleo for a moment. He opened his desk drawer absentmindedly. The entire drawer was filled with green gummi bears. He selected one,
moved it up to his mouth, and bit its head off slowly and deliberately.
"Ve vould normally", said Herr Schieß, gesturing with the remains of the gummi bear,
"be sendink you bäck to Greät Britain after such bäd, bäd behäfiöur. But I häff
received a TELEPHÖNE CALL", he held up the phone on his desk as if in triumph
that he possessed one, "from a very important tschentleman in England who häss
asked me - me, Helmut Schieß - to do a very greät fävöur to your Qveen änd Country
by ällowink you to remäin here. He säys it iss very important for you to learn äss
much äss you cän by beink here in Spitzenburg. Hiss näme iss -"
"Alastair Drague", finished Cleo coldly.
"He iss a very nice män", said Herr Schieß. "You should be very gräteful zät you häff
such nice friends. You mäy stäy here. Änd ve häff not yet", he added slyly,
"informed your parents. Herr Drägue believes ziss vill not be necessäry, äs you vill
bose be behäfink yourselves beautifully from now on."
Ant and Cleo behaved themselves beautifully.
"But be varned", continued Schieß, "vhile you are here, ZERE VILL BE NO GÖINK
OUT OFF BOUNDS! ZERE VILL BE NO GÖINK OFF ON YOUR ÖWN ÄND
FOLLÖWINK YOUR ÖWN STAR! I, ZE GESCHÄFTSFÜHRER, HÄFF
SPÖKEN!" The paperweights danced on his desk again as he pounded the woodeffect plastic.
"I understand your point of view", said Cleo.
"Good", beamed Herr Schieß. "I feel ve vill now be ze best off friends." He looked
up at Herr Riemann and Fräulein Meinck. "You mäy now return zem to zeir sleepink
qvarters. Tomorröw, zey häff a mägical däy ahead of zem. Zey are göink to a
Fäirytäle Castle."
Ant exchanged glances with Cleo.
"Look! Guck mal! Already viz ze Fäirytäle Castle ve häff aväkened ze tschildish joy
in zeir tender liddle hearts!" He looked down at his paperweights in consternation, as
if he couldn't quite remember how they had gotten out of order. "You mäy gö now. I
must rearränge my desk späce."
Cleo's phone rang in her bag. As the ring was Nokia standard, half the people in the
room also grabbed for their own handsets, then scowled at Cleo for daring to share
ringtones with them. Cleo pulled the phone out, looked uncomprehendingly at the
number on the screen, held it to her ear.
"Hello?"
Her expression settled into a grimace. She looked up at the others in the room.
"I think I really need to take this", she said. "Would you please excuse me?"
9.
Children Can Be Killed Easily With Fire
"Right, Stevens." Nigel's arms were grimly folded, and his expression severe. "I am
very disappointed. Do you know why I'm disappointed?"
Ant genuinely considered the question. "Because you've suddenly realized the utter
pointlessness of your existence?"
The dormitory around Ant and Nigel rustled with semi-suppressed sniggering.
Nigel's ears reddened, but his face remained deathly white. "I am authorized to
punish you, Stevens. I do hope you realize that."
Having been in a car crash earlier that day, dealt with a hostile alien life form later in
the afternoon, and been threatened by a robotic killing machine only an hour ago, Ant
was unimpressed. He flopped onto his bunk. "Hurt me, big boy."
Nigel's lip quivered. "Very well. You'll complete five hundred words for me on the
subject of Personal Responsibility by nine a.m. tomorrow."
"No", said Ant, "I won't."
Nigel's face was blending in with his ears now. "I'll escalate the matter to Fräulein
Meinck", he said, using his nuclear weapon of threats.
"Escalate away." Ant was fairly sure that, now Alastair Drague was weighing in to
keep them in the Freizeitheim, neither he nor Cleo would be sent home, no matter
how badly they behaved.
Nigel's lower lip was quivering uncontrollably now.
"Right", he said - as if the statement contained an unspoken, now you've done it! I
shall unleash the Sword of Power! - and left.
A coffee-coloured hand reached down from the bunk above Ant. It contained a
cigarette.
Ant had absolutely no idea what to do with a cigarette. He knew the theory - that
whole putting it in the mouth and setting fire to it thing. His dad had also told him
that it would kill him and turn him into a bloated, stinking sac of pasty white flesh just
like his dad. He even knew what the inside of his body would look like after he had
smoked it, thanks to helpful pictures from Her Majesty's Government.
He took the cigarette.
"Thanks."
He sat there on the bed with the cigarette for several seconds.
"Er -"
A coffee-coloured hand reached down from the bunk above Ant. It contained a
cigarette lighter.
"Thanks."
"That was bare cool, Stevens", said Armand Jeffries from the top bunk. "Bare cool."
***
The ladies' toilets looked deserted. No-one was standing out by the sinks, and all the
cubicle doors were ajar.
"Okay, so you have my personal mobile number too."
She transferred the phone to her left ear as she washed her hands in the sink. "Stop
being polite to me, Alastair, you're threatening my family, remember?"
She wiped her hands on the towel roll. "Well, today's your lucky day. I'll do it."
Her hand shook on the handset as she listened. "You heard. Whatever information I
get is yours. Just lay off my family, and I want them laid off of by the end of today,
you understand? I want a joyful phone call from my mum telling me all charges have
been dropped and that my dad is completely exonerated. But you're going to have to
level with me. I don't even know what I'm looking for, what everyone's looking for.
"I hope you realize I'm betraying every friend I have, Alastair.
"Just promise me one thing - no-one goes to Alpha Four. Dartmoor, Parkhurst, some
specially-built hell-hole in British Antarctic Territory, but not Alpha Four. And Ant
goes free.
"Ant goes free or it's no deal, Alastair.
"Okay. Now tell me what it is we're looking for."
She sat back against the metal sink, supporting the elbow of her phone arm with the
other.
"I see. No wonder you want it. And of course, you want to make sure the Americans
don't get it either.
"I know you of old, Alastair. Whatever bargaining chip you have, you hold on to."
Cleo clicked the phone off, exhaled at great length, and sagged against the washbasin.
Then, the middle toilet cubicle creaked slowly open; Cleo looked up in shock. Harjit
Kaur was perched on the toilet smoking a cigarette. She blew out a smoke ring at
Cleo.
"Shakespeare", said Harjit, "we really need to talk."
***
A fire was sniffling in the hearth, trying unsuccessfully to push back the cold.
Spitzenburg Castle had never had central heating - the old, cold stone would swallow
heat and money like an open air sauna. Winter beat hellishly on the windows,
pushing the snow up into driftlets on the outside of each pane. The worst draughts
had been plugged with rolled-up socks and dishcloths.
Jochen sat opposite his grandfather on the only end of the massive kitchen table that
the family ever used. The table was big enough to make dinner for an entire castle only a quarter of it was ever needed for meals for Jochen, his mother, and his
grandfather. Der Alter's head was bowed under a heavy weight of years. At the other
end of the room, out of earshot, Jochen's mother sat doing the café takings in a small
pool of warmth created by a portable electric fire.
"That", said der Alter, "was how it happened."
"Why weren't you shot for treason?" said Jochen.
"Because I wasn't a traitor! I still believed, God help me, in much of what we had
been fighting for. I thought that what had happened here at Spitzenburg was an
isolated incident, that nothing so bad could possibly be happening elsewhere in the
Reich. You must remember, I had just come from the Ostfront, where we had faced
the Russians. American and British soldiers, when they finally turned up, were
almost a polite cocktail party by comparison." Der Alter shuddered, only partly from
the cold in the kitchen. "The Bolsheviks, the Russians, would come at us in waves,
dense green waves, without thought or strategy, running onto our machine guns. Only
half of them with any bullets in their weapons. Screaming "ZA STALINA!" even
though every one of them knew Stalin was a monster, and would admit it the moment
they were captured."
"That must have been terrifying."
"Not really. They were just as eager to retreat. You see, behind their lines were
political commissars - not proper soldiers, cinema commissionaires in green uniforms,
horrible little excuses for human beings. It was the commissars' job to look round
every time a political announcement was made, watching to see who stopped
applauding Comrade Stalin first. Those commissars would shoot the last man to
attack and the first man to retreat right enough, but they would also take the names of
any Russian soldiers who became trapped behind German lines and managed to fight
their way back."
Jochen could see no logic here. "Why?"
"Because they had obviously been captured and turned into traitors by the Germans,
of course. Soviet thought is a wonderful thing. And any man whose name was taken
would end up, in nothing but the clothes he stood up in, locked in a compartment with
sixty other men on a train bound for Siberia. Yes, I had been through an antechamber
of Hell by the time I arrived back here. The horrible thing about Hell, boy, is that it is
exactly the same colour as Christmas. Red, green, and white - red and green for the
Bolsheviks' uniforms, white for the snow. Imagine how I felt when I got back here,
hardly able to walk, with the Soviet bullet they'd taken out of my side in my pocket as
a souvenir. Unfit for duty. Convalescent. Having to be helped off the train by a
couple of boys. Fit only to command a local Volkssturm unit - old men and teenagers
with no more bullets in their guns than the Bolsheviks. And then to find that we had
been doing exactly the same things to our own people as the Russians had been doing
to theirs...!"
The fire crackled softly, like the purring of a gigantic ginger cat, as the old man
covered his face with his hands.
"On my own land", his voice came from between his hands. "In my own home.
Commandeered and commanded by my own brother. Who had had every legal right
to do so, being his father's eldest, favourite son. The heir to the castle.
"As soon as I knew what had been going on, I marched my Volkssturm unit to the
castle and took charge of it. My old men and boys facing down trained SS men. I
was prouder of them on that day than of any men I ever commanded. And we put the
entire staff of the Spitzenburg concentration camp under arrest."
"The only concentration camp ever to be liberated by Germans", said Jochen.
"Yes. But you must understand, we knew that the work being done at the camp was
very important, vital to the war effort. I did not believe in slave labour, but I knew
that the work being done by the scientist, by Belzer, was on miraculous new weapons
that could win us the war. Not on rockets, or peroxide submarines, or jet aircraft, but
on devices on the edge of magic. So I organized labour from the town. Women and
children volunteered to help. We were going to complete Belzer's weapon, his
Raumschiffprojekt, and hurl the British and American bombers from our skies, avenge
Dresden, wrestle the Bolshevik menace out of Europe. But then, as you know", he
waved his hand in the air, "alles ist gleichzeitig schief gegangen."
Jochen nodded. He looked out at the night.
"Cold out there", he said.
Der Alter shivered, despite having his back to the fire.
"Not half as cold as it is on a midwinter night on the Dnieper."
He moved over to the windows, and raised his voice. "I will shut the curtains here.
Anyone can see in."
Jochen's mother heard this, and looked up as if der Alter was mad. "Anyone hovering
half a kilometre up in the sky."
Der Alter turned and shot a painful smile at Jochen, and shut the curtains.
***
Harjit was leaning on the metal towel roller, fixing Cleo with a piercing stare.
"All right", said Harjit. "Let us assume that I believe this line of mental floss you are
throwing me. Or rather, let's assume that I believe you believe it. What's to stop you
being someone who belongs in a place that has really comfy walls? How do I know,
in short, that you aren't Bananas In Pyjamas Coming Down The Stairs?"
Cleo threw Harjit her beautiful pink mobile phone; Harjit caught it reflexively.
"Make a call."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Phone anyone in the contacts list. Anyone but BEST FRIEND."
Harjit held the phone to her ear; then she took it away again and examined the screen
carefully. She shook the phone experimentaly, as if batteries might be loose inside it.
"Says there's no signal", she said.
"Try another number on the list. Try any of them."
Harjit shrugged and tried another. After twenty seconds of holding the phone to her
ear, she clicked it shut again and said:
"No signal again. So the mobile coverage is bad in this area. I can't get a signal on
my mobe either. Neither can Narinder or Sukhbir, and they're on different networks.
So what? We're at the bottom of a valley in the mountains."
"Try BEST FRIEND", said Cleo. "I guarantee it will work."
Looking watchfully at Cleo, Harjit selected the contact and held the phone up gingerly
to her ear.
BEEP BEEP. BEEP BEEP. BEEP "Hello?" said the phone.
"Hello?" said Harjit.
"Is this Cleopatra Shakespeare?" said the phone.
Harjit jerked her ear away from the phone as if scalded. She handed it to Cleo.
"It's for you", she said.
Cleo took the phone. "Hello, Alastair", she said. "I'm sorry to bother you. I imagine
you were busy chaining someone to a table or something."
She held the phone at arm's length between finger and thumb. Very angry noises
came from it. Eventually, she put it back to her ear. "I'm going to have to stop you
there, Alastair. I'm sorry I phoned you. It was a slip of the finger. It won't happen
again."
She clicked the phone closed and began wrapping it carefully in tinfoil.
"Why are you doing that?"
"So the phone can't make any outgoing calls", she said. "It tends to do so otherwise.
And it'll get a signal anywhere on the surface of this planet, on the dark side of the
Moon, and on certain worlds of the Alpha Centauri system. I have personally got a
signal with it even on a small red planet orbiting Ross 248, which is a small red star
you've probably never heard of. I'm not sure whether I'd get a signal at the bottom of
a coalmine, but I'm prepared to bet on it."
Harjit looked at Cleo as steadily and unblinkingly as a snake that intended to swallow
her head. "You're saying your mobile phone makes outgoing calls without your
knowledge."
Cleo nodded. "To people who want to know what I'm up to. I really don't care
whether you believe me or not, but please consider this. One of those worlds in the
Centauri system is a place called Alpha Four, which used to be a happy American
colony. It rebelled. It wanted independence. The Americans took it back. There was
fighting. And then they took everyone who had been involved in the rebellion and
took them to a desert in the middle of Alpha Four's largest continent, and put them to
work, men, women and children, digging uraninite ore without protective clothing. I
looked it up. Uraninite gives off radon gas. You know, that stuff your parents worry
about if they find it in your cellar? You work with uraninite, you breathe it in in high
concentrations, all day, every day. You get something called small cell carcinoma,
usually in your lungs. You die. If you choose to believe me, that could happen to
you." She smiled weakly. "I'm not selling this very well, am I?"
Harjit's expression still didn't change. "Maybe you're selling it better than you think."
She had pulled out her own mobile phone, and was trying to get a connection on it.
She held it up and shook it at Cleo. "But if I get a line on this, you're going to wish I
hadn't, Shakespeare."
Cleo shrugged. "I've been tortured before." The matter-of-factness of it seemed to
unsettle Harjit. Eventually, she snapped her own phone shut and looked up at Cleo.
"I'm going to need proof."
"You'll have more proof than you'll ever want or need."
Harjit extended a hand. Cleo took the hand and shook it.
"If this is a wind-up, I'm warning you, you are going to suffer like Jesus."
***
The firebell seemed to be ringing inside Ant's actual brain. His eyelids were vibrating
in time with it. He was aware that he was dreaming. If he woke up, the firebell
would stop.
He opened his eyes. He was still wearing his day clothes. His day clothes were
soaking wet from the knees down. The firebell was still ringing.
"Wakey wakey Stevens, you en't been in bed ten seconds." Armand Jeffries was
shaking his legs. "Get that fag out your mouth, we got to bail out. The buildin's on
fire an", Jeffries wondered at the miracle of this, "it weren't me what set light to it.
You stick close to yer Uncle Armand."
Bleary-eyed, Ant pulled himself upright and stumbled out of the dormitory. A tide of
bodies was pouring downstairs, out through the big double doors into the snow
outside. It was already dark outside, though the sun was still loitering furtively on the
horizon with intent to set.
In the freezing cold, people were being herded into lines by the Freizeitheim staff.
Anton, the receptionist, grabbed a Year Ten by the shoulder and wrestled her away
from her little sister onto the end of a line. Some people had already been in slippers
or bare feet and were now standing melting footprints into the snow. In front of it all
stood the Geschäftsführer, Herr Schieß, his eyes on his wristwatch, his glasses
reflecting the sunset, hiding his eyes.
The last girl out of the building, a very small Year Seven who had gone back in to get
her teddy bear, was steered brutally into line by one of Herr Schieß's minions. Herr
Schieß, still looking at his watch, raised his right hand gradually, as if supporting an
invisible tray of drinks above his shoulder - then, he cut downwards with his hand at
exactly the same moment the fire alarm stopped.
Herr Schieß looked up at the lines of children and beamed. He raised a small
megaphone to his lips.
"VERY GOOT, MY LIDDLE FRIENDS, ZE NEXT TSCHENERATION OFF OUR
GREAT CONTINENT OFF EUROPA. BUT IN ZE EVENT OF A REAL FIRE,
YOU VILL HÄFF TO BE QVICKER! FIRE ÄLARMS ARE TESTED ÄT
IRREGULAR INTERVALS ÄT ZE FREIZEITHEIM TO MÄINTÄIN ÄLERTNESS
ÄT ALL TIMES. TSCHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE, BUT TSCHILDREN CÄN
BE KILLED EASILY VIZ FIRE." He patted one of the shivering Year Sevens on the
head, then raised his hand so quickly, chopping the air with it to illustrate his point,
that the boy cringed in fear. "FIRE MÄY STRIKE ÄT ÄNY TIME! YOU ARE ZE
MÖST IMPORDANT LIDDLE PERSONS TO US, ZE BRIGHT NEW HÖPE OFF
A NEW TOMORRÖW, ZE NEW KIDS ON ZE BLOCK IN AMERICA WHO ARE
ALL RIGHT. BUT YOU MUST OBEY ZE INSTRUCTCHIONS OFF ZE FIRE
MARSHALS ÄT ALL TIMES! FOR YOUR SÄFETY ZEY ARE AUSORIZED TO
USE PHYSICAL FORCE!"
Behind Schieß, Anton glared at Ant and cracked his knuckles meaningfully.
"IN ZE INTERESTS OFF SÄFETY YOU VILL ÄBIDE BY ZE FOLLOWINK
RULES. YOU VILL NOT! LEAVE! ZE FREIZEITHEIM! PARTS OFF ZE
GROUNDS ARE HEAVILY COMBUSTIBLE! YOU VILL NOT! TALK! AFTER
ELEVEN P.M.! IF ZERE ISS TALKINK, VE MIGHT NOT HEAR A FIRE! BOYS
VILL NOT! GO! INTO ZE GIRLS' QVARTERS! IN ZE GIRLS' QVARTERS ZERE
ISS VONE BUNK FOR EVERY GIRL! ZERE ARE ZEREFORE NOT ENOUGH
BUNKS FOR ÄDDITIONAL PERSONNEL! EXTRA BOYS OR GIRLS VILL
ZEREFORE HÄFF TO OCCUPY FLOOR SPÄCE ÄND CONSTITUTE Ä TRIPPING
HÄZARD!"
A coffee-coloured hand went up in the third row back.
"YES?"
"So - we can smoke, then?"
The entire crowd held its breath. Herr Schieß breathed in, his eyes flickering, for
several seconds.
Then, he exhaled.
"ÄBSOLUTELY UNDER NO CIRCUMSTÄNCES MÄY YOU SMÖKE!"
"Oh", said Armand Jeffries. "I'll put this wun out then."
In the dark, a cigarette end could clearly be seen arcing to the ground, and heard
sizzling in the snow.
The crowd rustled with furtive laughter.
"Tscheffries", warned Fräulein Meinck.
"Sorry miss", said Jeffries grudgingly.
"I HÄTE TO CRÄMP YOUR STYLE AND PUT ZE FRIGHTENERS ON YOUR
VIBE", said the Geschäftsführer, "I DO NOT VISH TO BE KNÖWN ÄSS GRÄND
DÄDDY BUZZ KILL. LET US BE ÖNLY ZE VERY BEST OFF FRIENDS. IN
ORDER FOR US TO BE FRIENDS, PLEASE REMEMBER ZÄT ZERE VILL BE
NO LEAVING ZE FREIZEITHEIM UNESCORTED! ZERE ISS ÖNLY VONE VÄY
OUT OFF HERE! ÄND ZÄT ISS IN AN ÄIR CONDITIONED CÖACH!"
He took out a handkerchief and mopped the sweat from his head. He was breathing
heavily. Anton and another member of the Freizeitheim staff supported him,
preventing him from falling.
"...I häff been öwercome viz emötion", said Herr Schieß, sobbing as he lowered his
megaphone. His staff bustled him indoors.
Fräulein Meinck, who was now dressed in a very fetching pink flanelette dressing
gown with pictures of cats and teddy bears, stepped forward clutching a hot water
bottle cosy in the shape of a cow.
"Ahem. Ah - sank you for your cöoperation viz ze fire drill, everybody. You mäy all
now return to your rooms."
She did not blow her whistle, though she did blow her nose. Evidently she was
coming down with something. Before she left to go back into the building, Ant heard
Herr Riemann say to her:
"Dies wird alles ein bißchen zu Befehl-ist-Befehl."
Fräulein Meinck nodded grimly. "Dies ist warum ich in England wohne."
At the door, Stefan, one of the Freizeitheim staff who had been in plain clothes on the
square in Spitzenburg, was counting heads back indoors.
"This is it", said a voice from the dark beside Ant.
"Eh?" said Ant.
"We've both still got our day clothes on", said Jeffries' voice. "We could be over dat
wall and gone." Beside Ant, Jeffries was breathing heavily with anticipation.
Ant could not see the logical pot of gold at the end of Jeffries' argumentative rainbow.
"But there'd be no reason to run away from the Freizeitheim", he pointed out.
Jeffries was dumbstruck.
"You ad a reason?"
As they filed back into the building, Ant saw Cleo - who had already changed into a
complete new set of colour-coordinated clothes - in the crowd.
"Cleo, what does -" began Ant.
"Herr Riemann said 'This is all getting a little bit too Orders-are-Orders'," said Cleo.
"Then Fräulein Meinck said 'This is why I live in England'."
"My god", said Ant. "Fräulein Meinck and Herr Riemann are human? I thought they
were German."
"Germans can be humans too, Ant." Cleo stood behind her team leader, Harjit Kaur,
who was striding with her hands clasped behind her like a battlefield commander.
Harjit nodded curtly at Ant, as one soldier to another.
"Stevens", she said.
"Oh my god", said Ant to Cleo. "You told her. You told her everything."
"Told er what?" said Armand Jeffries, who was still behind Ant.
"We need allies", said Cleo, "not enemies."
Harjit folded her arms in satisfaction. "And when we tell the others later on, you're
going to have all the allies anyone could need."
"You're going to tell MORE people? Cleo, the prevention of interstellar war depends
on people not knowing this stuff!"
Cleo shrugged helplessly, as if secrets just leaked out of her like wee did out of old
people.
"Don't worry your frankly unattractive little head, my duck", said Harjit to Ant. "My
girls can keep their mouths shut."
"If they can", said Ant, looking at Cleo in fury, "it'll be the first time in history."
"She hasn't told me everything", said Harjit. "Just given me a general feel for the
whole we-are-fighting-aliens-from-another-planet, the-aliens-are-inside-Germans,
some-of-the-Germans-are-all-right-but-we-don't-know-which-ones side of things. I'm
still working up to the big explanation of how flying-saucers-have-landed-but-it'sokay-because-some-of-them-are-ours."
"And you believed her?" said Ant. "I wouldn't have believed her."
"Some of the aliens are insoide Germans?" said Jeffries, looking at Stefan as if
figuring out how to open him and find out. "Cool."
"Oh, I don't believe her", said Harjit. "I am treating all of this as a fascinating
intellectual exercise, up to the point where I am forced to go Gor Blimey Crikey
O'Reilly, It's Actually True. Cleopatra here is going to prove it is true to me
tomorrow by showing me an actual alien in a real live flying saucer actually
attempting to destroy the Earth with death rays coming out of an actual antenna in its
actual head", she said, "aren't you, Shakespeare." Harjit's breath was coming out in
great silvery visible gasps now in the cold.
Cleo sighed and nodded.
"Vhy are you talkink?" said Stefan. "You should not be talkink. You should be reenterink ze buildink." He held the door open helpfully for them.
"Stumm, stumm", said Ant. "Later."
"Stumm is German, Ant", muttered Cleo. "Being German, I imagine he is likely to
understand it."
"I underständ all", confirmed Stefan, his glittering eyes reflecting the emergency
lights on the side of the building.
"Later, Stevens", said Harjit.
"Later", said Ant.
"Später", said Stefan, and closed the door behind them, sealing them in a building full
of potentially dangerous foreigners.
***
"So the Germans are really aliens in disguise", said Armand, sending a ping pong ball
over the net at Ant. The ping pong table was the Freizeitheim's idea of entertainment.
It sat in a room which contained neither television nor Playstation nor Megadrive. On
one wall was a colossal faded poster showing happy christian children playing
football on a sunny meadow with a football far bigger and pinker than any real
football should ever have been. The poster said: SPORT MACHT FREI.
"Not all the Germans", said Ant. "And you'd only ever really be able to tell which
ones for sure by holding all of them down and pouring drain cleaner down them, and,
erm, we don't really want to do that, do we?"
Armand shrugged and batted the ball back over the table, though it was plain he
disagreed.
"So what's the plan now?" he said.
Ant kept his eye on the ball. "As Alastair has been aware for a whole day now that
we're here in the Freizeitheim", said Ant, "there will already be listening devices in
every bunk and toilet. So I can't tell you what the plan is. Not here. Not yet." Erm.
Because there isn't one yet.
Armand chipped the ball unexpectedly high; Ant knocked it back gently. "When can
you tell me, then?"
The ball shot back and forth in a one-snowflake blizzard of furious swiping.
"Tomorrow. Tomorrow we are going out on a Mission. I, uh, can't tell you anything
about it, apart from that Spitzenburg Castle is involved."
Armand frowned. "I knew there was summin. Like, I had this supernatural
experience larst night, right? More of a round trip on the appy overcraft to la-la land,
actually, you might have noticed. Someone was messin wiv me ead, see. Aliens",
said Armand darkly, "was messin with my ead. And", he said, nodding with an
expression of grim certainty, "it weren't the first time neither. When I find out what
German's the alien done that to me, om gunna wear is green scaly skin as
Lederhosen." He snapped the ball back at Ant like a bullet; Ant only barely parried it.
"When I went Honey Nut Loopy yesterday, everyone said it was drugs, but I was
clean. I always am clean, I mean, I can guarantee om cleaner than you. Fostermummy and foster-daddy search my bedroom for drugs every night to make sure I am
a clean and healthy little boy." He sent back a fierce swipe that Ant only just
managed to bounce back over the net.
"Why do they do that?" said Ant, glad to be off the subject of who had made Armand
go bananas the previous night.
"Because my dad died of a eroin overdose", said Armand, dropping this into the
conversation as if mentioning that his cat had fleas. "I magine they think it's
ereditary. An addictive personality. Was in one o them books foster-mummy Denise
was reading larst week. She fell asleep an left it open at that page by accident, loike.
She'd underloined the sentence in pink. She loikes pink, does foster-mummy Denise."
The ping pong ball pinged past Ant and ponged off the far wall. Ant's bat hand was
paralyzed.
"Aha, the old tell-em-yer-dad-died-of-eroin strategy", said Armand. "Works every
toime."
"Was it true?" said Ant. If what Armand had just said had been a lie told just to win a
round of ping pong, he would have sunk lower than the carpet in Ant's estimation.
"For shizzle", said Armand ruefully. Ant believed this was Urban for 'yes'.
"Are you addicted to anything?"
"Cigarettes", said Armand. "Diamond White. Openin me mouth when other folks
think I should be, you know, not openin it."
"We all do that", said Ant.
"Yeah, but you ent got an addictive personality", said Armand. The ball whacked
back and forth with the speed of a photon. "You know what I done to get sent on this
trip?"
"You did something to get sent here? This is a punishment?"
"Oh yeah, man! This is Germany, not bleedin Ibiza! You think I went downstairs all
big-eyed one mornin an said Please, foster daddy Ron and foster mummy Denise, may
I go somewhere even colder than England an learn a language with way too many Z's
in it? I was sent on oliday by the Social. They thought I needed to be given an
opportunity to unfold my personality like a beautiful flower, on account of I keep
beatin up on people."
"Who did you beat up on?"
"That little waste of skin Jake Moss. E found out my mum left me butt naked in a bus
station when I was a baby arfter my dad died. Started on me about it. Wunt shut up
about it. Er. Well, e mentioned it at least wunce. To someone. Oo told someone.
Oo told me."
Ant grinned despite himself. "And I suppose they sent you on the German trip at the
last minute because Jake and Jeremy Moss couldn't go."
"Yeah. Yeah, that were funny, that." Armand's face grew thoughtful. "They went
bananas at school, chucked emselves in the nettles. Almost loike I did last noight."
Ant hastily changed the subject. "So what did you do to Jake?"
Armand grinned back. "I reckon I got is ead about alfway round the U-bend before
they pulled me off. Man, they ad to pull im out the bowl with surgical forceps, it
musta bin like being born again out the wrong passage. E ad all sorts of fierce bad
stuff in is air. Them Mutant Ninja Turtles what live inna sewers musta gone toilet on
is ead." He glanced up at Ant. "Does that make me a psycho?"
Ant bounced the ball back at Armand. "Armand, from where I'm standing, it makes
you a ruddy hero."
***
The girls' toilet now contained a semicircle of goggle-eyed Year Nines, Tens and
Elevens, with Cleo standing in the centre giving a stilted history of man's secret
exploration of space since the year 1945. Harjit's sisters, Narinder and Sukhbir, were
there, and so was Tamora. There had to be over ten girls in here. This was getting
out of hand. Tamora, in particular, was listening without seeming to take any of it in,
her eyes growing ever wider and less comprehending.
A hand went up at the back.
"Er - Cleo?"
"Yes?"
"If the Americans already ad interstellar spacefloight what they got off them Nazis ere
in Spitzenburg, why did they build all them moon rockets?"
"For the look of the thing. Because the Russians had built rockets to launch Sputnik
1, the first satellite. The Americans had to be seen to be building some rockets of
their own. The Russians didn't know about saucer drive back then. It was a big shock
for them to find out that when they'd thought they'd been the first in outer space, the
Americans had already put colonies in the Alpha Centauri system."
Another hand went up from one of the girls from Weston Favell. "What's an Alpha
Centauri?"
"My dad's got an Alfa Romeo", said one of the other girls from Weston Favell.
"So - er - why did the Americans build all them moon rockets?"
Cleo waved her arms in exasperation. "I explained all of this! Because President
Kennedy was the first President who hadn't been told America had colonies in space!
He believed America had been humiliated when the Russians put up Sputnik and
Vostok. He couldn't see why America wasn't fighting back. So he put billions of
dollars into a totally unnecessary rocket programme to put an American on the
moon."
She stopped and looked round the room cautiously. "Are you sure everyone in here
can be trusted?"
"With their own lives, Shakespeare", said Harjit, "which will be forfeit if any of them
breathe a word of it to anyone." She swept a stare round the room like a battleship's
searchlight. Nobody met it. "Here you got Narinder, you got Sukhbir - we are
family, I got all my sisters with me, and so forth. You got Tamora, who is your own
sister, and if you can't trust your own sister, who can you trust? You got Porsche,
spelt P-O-R-S-C-H-E - named after the Shakespearean character -"
"But the Shakespearean character's spelt P-O-R-T -"
" - named after the Shakespearean character - and Cubic Zirconia from the Weston
Favell Massive. Porsh can be one hundred per cent trusted on account of we know
she stuffs her bra and she don't want anyone else to know it, and Cubic Zirc on
account of how we know she's got a crush on Mizz Termagant, the PE teacher."
Cubic Zirc coloured like a chameleon trying to hide on a pillarbox. She had the sort
of incredibly pale skin that showed her emotions as clearly as a TV picture.
Unfortunately, she also had a body that was as blocky and cumbersome as a TV.
"Between us, we got all sorts of skills. Porsh’s main skill is that she can be sick
anywhere, any time, on cue." Porsh, who was dangerously thin, blushed prettily at the
mention, then coughed pathetically, possibly because blushing was drawing on her
already depleted blood reserves. "Zirc is our computer expert, got herself a CLAIT in
spreadsheets and databases and everything, Sukhbir and Narinder can speak Punjabi
fluently, and Tamora informs me she can make balloon animals. I, meanwhile, have a
bronze badge from British Gymnastics and a silver lifesaving certificate. We are a
highly trained elite crack unit. We are such a special force that we go on a special bus
to a special school. We are here to solve your problems, whether or not you knew
those problems existed previously. If you've got a job, we are here to do it. There is
no mountain we cannot climb, there is no depth we cannot sink to."
"What appened about President Kennedy?" said Porsh.
"He were shot dead", said Zirc. "By Marilyn Monroe", she added.
Cleo paced back and forth mentally, searching for a way out. There was none.
"Eventually", she said, "he did find out about saucer drive, and he was furious. I
mean, he'd wasted all that money. He wanted to go public with it. So they had him
assassinated."
"Oo's they?"
"In America, an organization calling itself Majestic. In Britain, another one calling
itself the Shadow Ministry. They are listening to us right now."
The girls looked round the room in alarm.
"They wouldn't bug a toilet", said one of the girls from Weston Favell, as if toilets
were sacred to her religion.
"This is a man called Alastair Drague we're talking about, and I know him personally.
He would bug a tampon if he thought he'd get useful information out of it."
One of the other girls from Weston Favell took out a packet of tampons and shook it
nervously, listening for the sound of it listening back.
"So whatever we decide to do", said Cleo, "we can't decide to do it now. The enemy
are listening. And I'm afraid that, because you're now all on tape, you also all have
files with the Shadow Ministry."
The girls looked at each other in dismay.
One of the Weston Favell girls put up her hand.
"Will this affect me gettin on to Fashion Design an Couture at the University of
Middle England?"
"It could do far worse than that", said Cleo.
The girl's jaw dropped.
"Om not gunna get my GCSE in Nail Care?" She was furious. "That were my wun
GCSE, that were. I were gunna ace it."
"I think we're agreed", said Harjit, "that the Enemy are despicable. Of course, all of
this sounds crazy ape fruit loop megabrush-mad, and I think everyone here will agree
with me when I say that we need proof."
Heads were nodding all around the room. This seemed to be the first thing anyone
could agree on.
"Until that point, we will treat Shakespeare as a harmless lunatic whose crazy theories
pose no threat to anyone. But luckily she's going to prove all of it to us tomorrow
morning. Aren't you, Shakespeare."
Cleo felt her face redden. There were sniggers from the audience.
"Yes", she said. "I certainly am."
10. Team Salami
"Cleo?"
The whispering came from the bunk above.
"Yes?"
"All this stuff. Aliens. Flying saucer drive. Alpha Centauri. You can prove it
tomorrow, can't you?"
"Erm. Yes. Sure I can. Sure as eggs is, you know, the egg thing."
"Fine. Only, you know, if you can't, it'll be all round school that my sister's a fruit
loop. And as the sister of a fruit loop, I will be, you know, loopy by association."
"I can prove it. Something weird and intergalactic will happen. It always does."
"Fine then...Cleo?"
"What is it now?"
"Why did you tell Harjit all this, and not me? I'm your sister."
And there you have it, sister. "I didn't exactly tell her. She was in the toilet when I
was talking to Alastair Drague on my mobile phone."
"You were talking to the ENEMY? What were you talking about?"
"...stuff."
"What sort of stuff?"
"If-I-don't-work-for-Alastair-Drague-my-entire-family's-going-to-be-penniless-mydad-will-be-in-prison-and-my-little-sister-will-never-get-to-be-an-airline-pilot sort of
stuff."
"WHAT? YOU MEAN THEY DID THE WHOLE -"
"Keep your voice down! Yes, they did the whole! Dad being accused of taking bribes
and everything!"
"I hate them!" The voice was small, but contained concentrated fury. "I want to kill
them! How can I kill them, Cleo?"
"No-one's going to be killed, Tamora."
"DON'T CALL ME TAMORA."
"Sorry. Tazza."
"Taz. Taz sounds better. Taz is what Dad used to call me when we were little, after
the Tasmanian Devil in the cartoon, when I used to drop stuff out the first floor
window to hear what sound it made."
"Yeah, I remember. You had a sheet of A4 paper with SOUND DROP EXPERIMENT
written at the top. Mum stopped you just before you dropped Tailrings."
"He was only a kitten."
"You wouldn't get away with that nowadays. You'd get a Mogging With Violence."
"Cleo?"
"Yes?"
"You wouldn't have really screwed your friends over just so I could become an airline
pilot, would you?"
"I was going to. Harjit stopped me. I still haven't decided whether to go through with
it or not."
"Well...thanks."
"Don't mention it. You're my sister. Go to sleep."
"YES. GO TO BLOODY SLEEP."
"I'LL SECOND THAT."
"WE'RE GUNNA PASTE YOU INNA MORNIN IF WE FIND OUT YOU'RE NOT
ONNA LEVEL, SHAKESPEARE."
Cleo pulled the thin polyester covers over her and shuddered.
***
The springs of the mattress above Ant ground flat with a sound like a hand
compressing a snowball. Ant's eyes flickered open.
The door to the dormitory was open. Light was coming in from the hall.
"STEVENS." The whisper was loud as a snake's hiss. Ant tumbled out of bed,
fumbling blearily for the Orgonizer, finding nothing, of course. The night he needed
it would have to be the night he'd cleverly hidden it.
Armand was sitting bolt upright in bed, like a zombie risen from the tomb. He was
staring into the dark.
"SOMEONE WAS ERE", said Armand. He sniffed the air. "A GIRL. OR A
WOMAN."
Not really wanting to know how Armand was able to smell whether someone was
female, Ant held on to the bunk and struggled upright. Something fell from his chest
and fluttered to the ground. A piece of notepaper.
He unfolded it. It was written on Freizeitheim notepaper, from the pad next to the
public telephone in the hall. It had not been written using the proper English alphabet
Ant's dad had proudly told him had been invented by William Shakespeare. It read:
"What you got there, Stevens?" said Armand.
Ant passed him the note. "Someone put it on me while I was asleep. Someone not
entirely unfriendly, I suppose."
"Owjoo know that?"
"Otherwise I'd be dead", said Ant. "Looks like Russian to me. I'll find a cybercafé
and run it through Babelfish tomorrow. When I go to town."
"We're not going town tomorrow, Stevens. We're going to a Mediaeval Carstle. It
moight have dungeons an oles for pourin boilin oil."
"You might be going to a Mediaeval Castle", said Ant, relaxing back on the bunk,
hands behind his head. "I'm going places I shouldn't."
"Bare cool! What time do we start?"
Ant kicked himself; but the damage couldn't be undone now.
"Early", he said, winging it.
The seconds ticked by.
"Armand?"
"Yes, Stevens?"
"How could you smell it was a woman?"
"Hypnotic Poison", said Armand with absolute sincerity. "Oigh clarss scent, that;
Christian Dior. Unmistakeable."
The springs twanged as Armand rolled over to get some sleep in preparation for
getting up Early. Ant's eyes, meanwhile, stayed open staring dumbstruck at the dark.
***
Tamora woke up. It was cold.
"Bloody ell! Om freezin. Oo turna radiator off?"
A hand snaked out from under covers, felt the top of the radiator.
"This wun's on."
Tamora's teeth were chattering under the nylon sheet, which seemed thinner than
mosquito netting. The sheets had been uncomfortable last night - too tight and
insubstantial after years of sleeping under duvets. Now they were glacial.
"This wun's on too. Iss boilin. But iss colder than a snowman with is scarf off in
ere."
She eased herself out of bed. It was almost too cold to move. Outside, through the
window, the world was white.
"There's a draught", complained one of the Year Nines.
"There en't no draught. The window's shut. Iss double glazed."
"Maybe", said Sukhbir Kaur with a wide-eyed glance at Cleo, "it's a supernatural
entity soaking up all the available energy before manifesting."
"Shut UP", said Harjit. "Supernatural entities are ghosts and werewolves and
vampires, whereas we are clearly on Alien Robot Monsters. Right, Shakespeare?"
Cleo slid her feet out of bed, looking blearily down at the room as if seeing it for the
very first time. Harjit shook her shoulder.
"Right, Shakespeare?"
Cleo looked up at Harjit, rubbed her eyes, and nodded.
"Right."
"Alien Robot Monsters?" said the Year Nine. She was not one of the Highly Trained
Elite Crack Squad.
"Haha", said Harjit. "Alien robot monsters, what am I like, just my little joke."
"Yeah", said Tamora. "She meant to say Blue Alien Mind Control Amoebas."
The Year Nine stood looking at Tamora for even longer than the time it took for a
Year Nine to really really know a boy was in love with her forever.
"You're tapped", she said, and went off to tell her Year Nine friends about how tapped
Cleo was. Tamora could hear them whispering at the other end of the dormitory,
looking in her direction and pointing.
"Up bright and early, eh, Shakespeare?" said Harjit. "You can prove everything you
were saying yesterday."
Cleo nodded dully and slid her feet into her slippers. She did not shiver as she rose
out of bed and took her place in the queue for the washstand.
Tamora's breath was almost crystallizing in the frigid air. Outside the window, an
oak, its boughs groaning under great baskets of mistletoe, dripped icicles like a
weeping willow. Tamora fought her way to the washstand and managed to pull a
brush across her teeth before someone else took her place. The toothpaste was the
bargain basement Tesco mouth sludge Mum had been buying ever since Dad had
been having to pay expensive lawyers. It tasted vile, and Tamora suspected it had
been made from ground-up dead people. Because it was Bargain Basement Tesco,
she had hoped it would have blue and white stripes, but it was plain white, as
suspiciously plain white as old people insisted dog do had been in the nineteen
seventies.
She had a mouthful of economy value vileness, and had not had time to spit it out.
She had to rejoin the queue for the washstand at the back, fighting the urge to heave,
until the last person finished at the sink and she was able to spit out the goop and
sluice out her mouth with water. The water was German water. It tasted wrong.
Everyone else had already left to bag a place in the showers. There were over twenty
girls, and there were only five showers. At least one of those showers would be taken
up for an entire half hour by the repulsive Serafina from Team Four. Serafina had the
face of an angel, but seemed to think it required to be winched painstakingly into
position every morning over a period of at least sixty minutes. Tamora would have to
hurry, or she wouldn't shower at all before breakfast.
It was still cold in the dorm, and there was a draught. Now that the air was still, now
that there was nobody else in the room, she could feel it too. Where was it coming
from?
She walked across the room, turning to left and right to feel the cold breeze on her
skin. The wind outside picked up, sweeping icicles off the branches, and she actually
heard it make a noise like a kid blowing on a bottleneck, very close by.
She moved right up to the window. The double-glazed window. It had a perfect
circular hole bored straight through both layers, letting in the winter from outside.
Rendering the double glazing totally useless.
Why would anyone do such a thing?
Baffled, she picked up her towel and moved off towards the showers.
***
The canteen was quiet, full of the CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH of English
teenagers eating continental breakfast in the same way prisoners faced their first bowl
of porridge.
Team Two's girls were sitting mixed in with Team Three's boys, despite Nigel
complaining that He Was In Charge And Would Be Obeyed, and Team Three Were
To Return To Their Table Now. Ant now had, by his own count, five hundred words
on the subject of Personal Responsibility, five thousand on the subject of Thinking Of
Others Before He Thought Of Himself, ten thousand on Why It Was Unacceptable To
Use Bad Language To Describe His Team Leader, and twenty thousand on Theft Of
All Nigel's Underpants And Why This Was A Sin Before God.
Nigel was still bleating urgently at Ant and Armand to return to their team table. It
was only a matter of time before Fräulein Meinck got involved. They had limited
time.
"I hereby", said Ant, "call this morning's meeting of the Escape Committee to order."
He banged on the table with a pepperpot. Cleo blinked at the pepperpot in faint
curiosity. The girls continued gabbling about girl stuff on either side.
"ORDER", said Harjit once, and the girl stuff ceased.
"Tell us what the plan is, Stevens", said Harjit.
"Bearing in mind", said Ant, "that our voices are almost certainly being recorded right
now, and that what I can say is limited - we are only allowed out of this place of
imprisonment once per day, and that under strict supervision, in work gangs. We are
taken to a place of forced labour, given handouts to fill in, and ordered to wander
around the town square locating Chancellor Bismarck's statue and finding out
Admiral Krummwurst's birthday. That is where the enemy are weakest; that is where
we must strike."
"Yeah", said Armand enthusiastically. "Take 'em all out!" A chunk of garlic sausage
fell out of his mouth as he punched the air. "Yeah!"
"No-one is going to be taken out", said Ant, "unless it's to a candlelit dinner at a really
nice restaurant, because the object of the exercise is?"
"Oo!" Armand held his head hard to keep the thoughts in. "We did this! I know it I
know it I know it -"
"Is to locate it", said Harjit. "It being somewhere in the area around Spitzenburg
Castle."
"I knew that", said Armand.
"Unfortunately", said Ant, "we do not know what it is. First step, therefore, is to get
more information on it. Our contacts from", he coughed in embarrassment, "outer
space, will be able to supply this. Unfortunately, they were shot down before they
could land. They are thought to be somewhere in Regensburg, a city thirty miles from
here."
"What makes you think that?" said Tamora.
Ant looked up over Tamora's shoulder. Turning, Tamora did the same.
"Oh", she said.
On the TV screen was the word REGENSBURG, and a TV picture of men in Hi-Vis
jackets moving sightseers away from an unrecognizable splat of smoking metal
strewn among leafless trees. At the bottom of the screen, a news ticker read:
AMERIKANISCHER TOP-SECRET-DÜSENJET IN FLUGUNFALL.
Emergency vehicles were visible to one side of the picture.
"I think 'TOP-SECRET' may be German for 'Top Secret' said Ant.
"One of those loan words, huh", said Harjit.
"It means 'Top Secret US Jet in Air Accident'", said Cleo boredly, munching at a slice
of garlic sausage.
"A cover story", said Ant. "That's the wreckage of a Hawker Harridan. Even I can
tell that. Look, you can see the edge of the Forellen Turbine."
Harjit squinted bravely. "No", she said. "No, I really can't. I'll have to take your
word for it."
"It was shot down by the Enemy over Spitzenburg Castle. Whoever was flying that
ship was one of ours, and they have no more understanding of life on Earth than you
or I do of the dark side of the Moon. They're on their own on an alien planet. They
could be killed strolling across the rails at a train station, and if they get picked up by
the Other Side before that happens they'll wish it had. It is our duty to help them."
Tamora, meanwhile, was staring at Cleo in horror. Cleo looked up at her sister,
sausage meat hanging from her mouth in rags. "What?" she said.
"Cleo...you're eating dead fluffy animal."
Cleo looked down at what she was doing, held her hands over her mouth, and ran
from the room, knocking her chair over. The door to the girls' toilets banged open
and shut.
Tamora was dumbfounded. "She was enjoying it."
"Can'g shee wha' all de fuzz izz abou'", said Armand, bits of dead fluffy animal
hanging out of his own mouth like a red greasy beard.
Harjit's gaze lingered on the toilet door for a long, long time.
"OK Stevens", she said, "back to the plan."
Ant put down a salt pot on the table. "This, ladies and", he nodded at Armand,
"gentleman, is our primary objective. Armand and myself will be visiting the
secondary objective", he moved another piece of tableware, "thirty miles away."
Cubic Zirc's bushy eyebrows lowered in incomprehension. "Our secondary objective
is a spoon?"
"The spoon represents the secondary objective", said Ant impatiently, pointing hard
at the TV screen, which still said FLUGUNFALL REGENSBURG.
"Oh, Regensburg", said Cubic Zirc out louder-than-loud.
"SSSSSH", hissed Tamora.
"Don't shush me", said Cubic Zirc.
"Now, there will be considerable opposition to us going to Regensburg", said Ant,
"which is where Operation, Operation um, er, Spoon comes in."
"You just made that up", accused Cubic Zirc.
"Of course I did. If I don't make things up on the spur of the moment, the enemy will
guess our every move. Operation Spoon is complex and requires careful execution."
He passed over a folded, grubby scrap of paper to Harjit.
"I thought the spoon was our secondary objective, not an operation", said Sukhbir.
Ant hastily replaced the secondary objective with a fork.
"It will be Team Salami's job to execute Operation Spoon", he said, reaching across
the table and placing Team Salami next to the salt pot that represented Spitzenburg
Castle.
"Hey! That was my salami!"
"I'll give it back. Operation Spoon will ensure that Herr Riemann and Fräulein
Meinck never suspect Armand and myself are at the secondary objective. It is a
cunning and foolproof plan."
Harjit looked up from the unfolded sheet of paper Ant had passed her. "Stevens, I
have just read it, and it so is not."
Cubic Zirc put up a chubby hand. "I'm confused. Is Regensburg the secondary
objective, or isn't it?"
"ZIRC", warned Harjit. Zirc fell silent; her hand went down.
"I take it we are Team Salami", said Harjit.
Ant nodded.
"Are you, perhaps, implying something porky about my bountiful and generous figure
here, Stevens?"
"Absolutely not", said Ant, with a face so poker fireplaces could have been stoked
with it.
"Are you, perhaps, Team Muesli? Team Croissant, perhaps? Team Toastrack?"
"Team Leaping Thunder", said Armand firmly.
"HARJIT! HARJIT! PORSH'S SHAKING THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OVER
HER BOILED EGG!"
Out of the corner of his eye, Ant could now see Nigel Devonport complaining
urgently to Fräulein Meinck. As she listened, Fräulein Meinck's whistle was creeping
towards her mouth.
"She's gunna blow it", said Armand in horrible anticipation.
"Do you know where his pants are?" said Ant.
Armand threw up up his hands in frustration. "Why is it always ME? Why,
whenever pants get id, roight, does it always have to be ME?"
"It wasn't you?" said Ant.
Armand seemed equally puzzled that it hadn't been him. "No. No, it weren't. Dun't
think so, anyway. Ooever it were, though, blessins upon em an their troibe, loike."
Nigel was scratching himself intimately, as if his polyester trousers were itching in
some very special places. His lips formed the shape of the the word underwear
several times as he spoke to Fräulein Meinck. The lips of people like Nigel never
formed the shape of words like pants.
"We'd better get back to our table. Harjit", said Ant, looking toward the toilet door,
"you're in charge if Cleo's ill."
Harjit looked up at Ant.
"What's this if Cleo is ill, Stevens?"
She reached across the table with a fork and quite deliberately ate Team Salami.
“Come on, Team!” Nigel clapped his hands to emphasize his authority. “Departure
for Spitzenburg Castle in ten minutes! All kit must be packed, everyone must have
their passports on them at all times, all personal belongings to be stowed away
securely in lockers. Stevens, I want another ten thousand words from you by
tomorrow on the subject of Obeying Instructions Given You By Your Team Leader
At The Breakfast Table –“
He stopped dead at the entrance to the dormitory. Herr Schieß was standing in the
centre of the room, his glasses reflecting the light from the hall, holding a tiny
electronic device on the end of a pencil. Behind him, suitcases, bags and lockers were
open, their contents strewn all over floors, bunks and tables, being combed through by
two members of the Freizeitheim staff.
“Hey!” yelled one of the Year Eights. “That’s my stuff!” A hand in the chest stopped
him from entering the dormitory.
“Ve häff found zese”, said the other Freizeitheim goon darkly, holding up a packet of
cigarette papers. “Cigarettes cän be now viz zem”, he added.
“Oh, man”, said the Year Eight.
“Häff you found smökink
evident disappointment.
nown c?” said Herr Schieß. The man shook his head in
“I was using them as Post-It notes”, said the Year Eight unconvincingly. “Really
small ones. I have really small friends I need to write messages to.”
One of the Freizeitheim staff held up a miniscule box and shook it in his fingers.
“Ve häff also found zese”, he said. “Chocolates. Liqueur chocolates. Zey
alcohol. Ve must nown cate zem”, he said, licking his lips. “It iss
nown cate .”
nown c
“Why are you going through our stuff?” said Ant.
“You häff been behäfink”, said Herr Schieß, opening a tub of athlete’s foot
powder,sticking in a finger and licking it, “oddly. It häss been suggested zät you are
Smugglink Trucks.”
“Trucks?” said Ant, for whom the only real trucks had eighteen wheels.
“Cläss Ä Hard Trucks”, said Herr Schieß knowledgeably, reading from a list he’d
fished from his pocket, “such äss Smäck, Röach, Spliff and Bong. I häff been around.
I know all ze nown off all your English Trucks.” Rather disappointedly, he said:
“But ve häff fount no Trucks.”
“However”, glowered one of the Freizeitheim searchers, “sings now gone missink
from ze Freizeitheim stores. From ze Creätive Educätion cupboard. Glue. Päper.
Mäsking now. Red änd vhite paint. Scissors.” His face took on a confused
expression. “Balloons.”
“Ah yes”, said Ant. “Very useful to your modern drug smuggler, paper and
balloons.”
“Ze Trucks are put inside ze balloon”, said the searcher, who Ant believed was called
Rolf, “and zen ze balloon iss svallowed.”
“Why?” said Ant.
“I do not know”, said Rolf. “It iss just vone of zese sings Truck Äddicts do.”
“And the paper?” said Ant.
“Ze Trucks gö on ze inside off ze
Truck Cigarette.”
nown”, said Rolf, “vhich iss zen
nown
up in a
“And the glue?”
Rolf looked at Ant contemptuously. This one was easy. “Ze glue iss sniffed inside a
nown c bäg”, he said, “or”, he continued triumphantly, as if the idea had only just
occurred to him, “ä balloon, zereby destroyink ze mind off ze nown cate Truck
User.”
“And the ladies’ knicker elastic?”
Rolf thought hard. “Ze ladies’ knicker nown c iss used to tie round ze arm before
injectink ze Hart Trucks into ze Vein viz a Syrintsche.”
“And have you lost any ladies’ knicker elastic?”
Rolf glowered at Ant as if Ant was cheating.
More angry than he would have thought possible, Ant picked up a pair of pants from
one of the bunks. “Care to tell me how I can get high from a pair of pants? Socks,
maybe? Possibly the bedspread?”
“Erm”, said Nigel, “Herr Schieß, you haven’t found any of my pants, have you?”
“Calm please, younk persons”, said Herr Schieß. “Ve häff nown adwäntage off ze
now zät you vere all at breakfast to search your rooms for nown cate. I äm
nown to säy zät werry liddle nown cate häss been fount. Howefer, it häss been
unexpectedly interestink.” He smiled and held the device on the end of his pencil up
to the light. “Ziss iss a listenink dewice. You vere nown c plännink to listen to
me? I äm not wery interestink to listen to.” He put the device calmly down on the
carpet and ground it under his foot. “See how I häff crushed it like a tiny insect
benease my heel.” He put his hand on a Year Eight’s head and ruffled his hair
affectionately. “You mischievous urchins, vhat vill you get up to next.”
“Hey!” Armand nudged Ant in the ribs. “That’s a listenin device! That means the
Enemy ent listenin to us no more!”
Ant shook his head. “That’s the easy one. The one we’re supposed to find. There
will be others. The, uh, Enemy aren’t that stupid.” He crossed his fingers nervously
as one of the Freizeitheim goons undid the straps on his own bag.
Don’t find it don’t find it don’t find it –
“AHA!”
Ant’s heart sank. The goon was holding up exactly what he had feared. Herr Schieß
accepted it gloatingly as it was passed to him. He opened the flap on the box, pulled
out the bottle inside. He read what was written on the outside of the bottle.
“TEDDY BYES: Ä goot night’s sleep for Tiny Tots.”
“My dad made me bring it”, said Ant miserably. “I don’t sleep well when I’m not in
my own bed. Apparently.”
Herr Schieß noticed the rows of beaming faces and realized he had an audience.
“It häss a picture of a dear liddle Teddy Beär on ze front”, he said, holding the bottle
up so everyone could see. He opened the bottle, sniffed its contents, wrinkled up his
nose.
“It’s strawberry flavour”, said Ant.
Herr Schieß read the list of ingredients.
“It
nown ca alcohol”, he said severely.
“It’s over ninety per cent alcohol”, said Ant. “I am reliably informed it has been
banned in Britain since 1969. It does give toddlers a restful sleep”, he added.
“Ve vill nown cate ziss”, said Herr Schieß gravely. “If you need to get to sleep, I
vill get Rolf to come up änd sink you to sleep viz his Acoustic Guitar änd giant Teddy
Beär suit.” Rolf scowled. Predictably, there was laughter.
“Teddy Byes.” Armand nudged Ant in the ribs again gleefully. Ant was painfully
aware that he was now Teddy Byes for life.
“Ve häff nown zät you vere hidink somesink”, said Herr Schieß loftily. “VE
ALVÄYS KNÖW.” He held up a stern finger and departed.
“Come on, Ted”, grinned Armand. “Iss time to get ready for the big day ahead.”
***
"Oh, SHUT UP ABOUT THE BLOODY SALAMI. I'll buy you a bloody salami
sandwich in the bloody Castle."
The teams were assembling outside the Freizeitheim, prior to being fed into the bus.
Overnight, the snow had piled into drifts. Harjit, in between shouting about salami at
Team Salami, was shepherding it into the bus. Fräulein Meinck had not needed to
blow her whistle at all so far. She was watching Cleo, however, like a hawk, and Herr
Riemann was doing the same with Ant. Nobody was going anywhere but on the bus
today.
"Armand", whispered Ant through the corner of his mouth, "Plan Cornflakes."
Armand, standing beside Ant in the cold, nodded a millimetre. Ant had only just
realized Armand was not wearing a coat. What sort of foster-parents sent their fosterkid out without a coat?
Maybe Armand had sold the coat to buy cigarettes. That would be Armand all over.
In any case, the lack of a coat explained Armand's need to jump about constantly out
of doors. If he didn't keep moving in these temperatures, he'd freeze.
Right now, he was walking out of Nigel's line, out across the white unblemished lawn,
hands held in front of him like a comedy zombie.
"I'VE AD ENOUGH!" he yelled. "BEIN KEPT BEHIND WIRE LIKE A BALLY
ANIMAL! BEIN FED GARLIC SAUSAGE BY MEN OO LISTEN TO EIGHTIES
ELECTROPOP! JERRY'S NOT HAVING ARMAND JEFFRIES' SOUL!
CHOCKS AWAY, OM GOOIN BACK TO BLIGHTY!"
Fräulein Meinck was blowing her whistle frantically. Herr Riemann was already
running towards Armand, together with two other Freizeitheim staff. Ant,
meanwhile, had backed up one step, into a snowdrift out of which a single Schloß
Spitzenburg coffee stirrer was sticking up like a beacon. Dipping down with one hand
into the snow, he found what he was looking for and tucked it quickly into his coat.
***
"You got the Essential Mission Equipment, Ted?"
Armand was bruised, but happy. He had led Herr Riemann, Anton and Stefan a merry
dance round the grounds before finally being brought down underneath all three men
outside the Freizeitheim Peace Garden, Herr Riemann and Stefan holding his legs and
Anton sitting on his head.
Ant nodded. "You feeling all right?"
"Yeah. Snow's soft, an them Germans dun't know ow to rugby tackle. Whatever the
Essential Mission Equipment is, I ope it's worth it."
"It's, er, very boring. But it mustn't be allowed to fall into enemy hands." The coach
was making heavy headway between giant banks of snow. Every time the wheels hit
a bank, they span faster. Once the Freizeitheim buildings had been left behind,
travelling in the coach was like being in a boat on a frozen sea. Out of the right hand
window, Spitzenburg was like a Venice of the frozen north, surrounded by
crystallized waves of snowdrifts.
"You know", said Armand, looking out through the window, "Manchester is the
Venice of the North?"
"Who told you that?"
"The Manchester Tourist Authority. I mean, I always wanted to goo to Venice, but if
iss just like Manchester, I mean, whass the point? Might as well go to Manchester."
At the back of the coach, Cleo was still gripping her seat with a face worse than death.
Managing somehow to watch Herr Riemann, Fräulein Meinck and Nigel Devonport
all at the same time, Ant jumped out of his seat and backed down the coach, dropping
down into a crouch next to Cleo's seat.
"Hello Stevens", said Harjit, who was sitting next to Cleo.
"How are you feeling?" said Ant to Cleo.
"Very well thank you", said Harjit. "Shakespeare has yet to prove the existence of
aliens to us, but we live in hope."
Ant ignored Harjit. "You look ill. Do you want to go through with the plan for
today?"
"I'm all right", said Cleo through gritted teeth. "Give us a kiss."
"What?" said Ant, as if his grandmother had asked him the same thing.
"You're supposed to be my boyfriend", said Cleo. "Give us a kiss, you hunky
beefcake."
Several rows behind Ant and Cleo, on the back seat, the dreadful Justin and Serafina
were snogging as if their lives depended on it, firmly planted in each other's tonsils
like mating snails. Ant looked back at them nervously as if imagining his own fate.
"I'll get back to you on that", he said, and waddled back down the centre aisle of the
coach, not wanting to bob up into the driver's rear view mirror. He bounced back into
his own seat.
"Lucky escape there", he said to Armand.
"Enemy nearly get you?" said Armand.
"Erm", said Ant, "I'm not really sure."
10. The Way Out to the Spectacular View
In one of the rear seats, now that the coach was slowing down for Spitzenburg Castle,
Ant could see two of the components of Operation Spoon being hoisted into place.
He and Armand slid down their seats accordingly, so that their heads were not visible
from the front of the coach.
The coach wheezed to a halt in the layby opposite the castle entrance. The doors at
the front opened, and cold air flooded in like water into a submarine. Girls shivered.
Boys attempted to stoically ignore it.
Fräulein Meinck raised the whistle to let everyone know it was there and could be
blown at any time. “COME NOW, TSCHILDREN. VE HÄFF Ä TREAT FOR YOU
ZISS MORNINK.”
”Sure you do”, grumbled Ant. “A half mile walk through the freezing cold.”
Everybody filed out of the bus – everyone, that was, apart from Ant and Armand, who
remained hunkered down behind the backs of their seats. Every single Year Nine
who filed past saw them, but every single Year Nine, at the sight of Armand urgently
holding his finger to his lips, said nothing in accordance with the Schoolboys’
Unwritten Code of Not Saying Anything If Someone Holds a Finger To His Lips. At
the front of the coach, Herr Riemann and Fräulein Meinck were counting heads. They
were distracted by Cubic Zirc loudly complaining that Someone Had Stole Her
Tampons, which made Herr Riemann’s cheeks shine like iron in a furnace. They
were also interrupted by Porsh vomiting violently and extravagantly over three of the
Year Eights; then, they lost count when Narinder lost her belly ring under one of the
front seats. By the time Sukhbir was insisting it was time to get out her mat and pray
to Allah, Fräulein Meinck had begun to get suspicious.
“How mäny off zem häff left ze cöach?” she said to the driver.
“Me an Herr Riemann’ve counted out the full thirty”, said the driver. Herr Riemann
nodded in confirmation.
“Vhere are Cleöpätra Schäkespeare änd Änthony Stevens?”
“Complainy Luggage Girl’s over there with Team Three, an I can just see Anthony on
the edge of Team One over there”, said the driver. “Know is dad. Eats down the
Super Sausage. Drives an HGV."
"Also gut", said Fräulein Meinck. "COME NOW, TSCHILDREN! FOLLOW ME!
CÄRE IN CROSSINK ZE RÖAT!"
As Fräulein Meinck stepped down from the bus, Ant and Armand poked their heads
back up over the back of the seat. The driver was already sitting reading a novel at
the front of the bus. The novel was entitled TOM CLANCY'S SILENT DEATH
NINJA. A Country and Western CD was in the player, singing about a man who had
a Burning Ring Of Fire.
"What now, Teds?" said Armand.
"Now we go out the side exit", said Ant. "By the toilet."
Surprisingly, Armand shook his head. "Soide exit sets off an alarm", he said. "Wakes
up the droiver."
Sighing, Ant pulled out the thing he'd hoped he wouldn't have to use.
"WOW", said Armand. "It's a, it's a, it's a GUN."
"It's the Essential Mission Equipment", said Ant. While Armand hadn't been looking,
he had wound masking tape round the dial that read HAPPY SAD ANGRY FRIT
SEXY, hoping that this would prevent Armand from realizing he'd been shot on FRIT
earlier. Unfortunately, this also meant that Ant was not sure what setting the
Orgonizer was currently on.
"But that en't borin. It's a GUN. A really big GUN." Armand's eyes were gleaming.
He wanted the gun. He wanted it more than anything else in the world.
"It's er, really boring as guns go. A sort of Star Trek phaser set on permanent stun."
"Ken I use it? Ken I ken I ken I?"
Ant could see the future in horrible detail, but realized he had little choice. "Careful.
Don't use it more than once, the, er, battery runs down. Our lives may depend on it
later." He handed Armand the Orgonizer. "This is the safety catch, this is the trigger.
When it's in this position, it's armed. It's safe now. When you arm it, be careful, the
trigger is sensitive."
Armand saluted, took the gun, and set off down the centre aisle of the coach on all
fours like a Red Indian sneaking up on a buffalo. Every time the driver looked up at
the road, Armand froze, one hand in mid-air like a stalking cat. It seemed to take him
an eternity to get right up to the driver's seat, where he stood up, pointed the gun
directly at the driver's head and pulled the trigger to no effect whatsoever. The driver
continued to read his novel, oblivious.
"Try the safety catch", said Ant.
Armand swore and fell to examining the gun. The driver turned another page in his
book, still unaware of Armand standing right behind him.
"On the back of the handle", hissed Ant.
Armand located the safety catch, took it off, made a thumbs-up to Ant, and with his
tongue in the centre of his mouth, sighted up on the driver's head again and squeezed
the trigger three times in rapid succession. The gun flared green and purple. The
driver sat bolt upright in his seat.
"MINT", said Armand.
The driver's entire body was shivering if he'd been standing too close to a lightning
conductor. Armand shot him five more times to make sure.
Zombie-like, the driver began removing his seatbelt; then, he staggered down from his
seat onto the pavement. A broad grin had spread across his face, and drool was
leaking from it. He had loosened his tie. He was spitting into his hand to smooth
down his little remaining hair. He was looking at a group of little old German ladies
across the road in a way that was both meaningful and unsettling.
"I only used it wunce, loike", said Armand, watching eagerly, "loike you said. But e
dun't stun easy."
"He looks pretty stunned to me", said Ant. "Erm - would you say he's looking Happy
right now, or Sexy?"
***
"Oh, no", said Armand, looking out of the window without really wanting to. "Oh,
man, that's wrong."
From outside the coach came sounds of German outrage and handbag slapping.
"Never mind that", said Ant. "We've a long hard day ahead of us. We've got to get to
Regensburg, and that means hitch hiking."
Armand looked out of the massive front window at the open road. "But we got a bus
ere. Why dun't we use that?"
Ant looked the controls over. He wiggled the gear lever experimentally. The keys
were still in the ignition.
It wasn't too different from his dad's truck. It wouldn't bend properly in the middle he'd have to watch out for that. But on the plus side, no need to worry about
jackknifing...
But stealing buses was the sort of thing kids like - well, Armand did.
The steering wheel was the size of a sofa seat. The driver's seat was surrounded by
rows of important-looking lights and buttons, just like on a Hawker Harridan A1.
He bit his lip.
"I dunno", he said.
***
"ÄND ZISS ISS ZE BEAUTIFUL SPITZENBURG CÄSTLE, PARTS OFF VHICH
DÄTE BÄCK TO ZE DARK ÄGES -" Fräulein Meinck was strutting around the
castle courtyard, quoting bits from the guidebook. Tamora, Porsh, Cubic Zirc,
Sukhbir, Narinder and Harjit, meanwhile, were scanning the grey, forbidding
windows for extraterrestrials they had no idea how to identify. Oddly, Cleo seemed to
have woken up, and was standing in front of a stone arch that had been blocked off,
stroking the brickwork, deep in thought.
"Is the castle Roman, Miss?" said Glynn, putting up a hand.
"Nö, Glynn, it is Tscherman", said Fräulein Meinck firmly. "But ze Tschermans
learned how to build cästles from ze Romans, änd ziss cästle voss built by ä
Tscherman varlord, Wolfram von Spitzenburg, who defeated ze Huns at ze Bättle off
Hunnenfeld. Ze cästle voss originälly mäde off vood. It iss säid zät Wolfram häd a
mägical shield zät mäde him Invincible in Bättle."
"It says here he had a few thousand other Germans with him, mind, miss", said Harjit,
reading her guidebook.
"That's got to have helped ", agreed Tamora.
"That's useful, that, bein invincible in battle", said Porsh.
"Yeah, no-one'd be able to see yer", said Cubic Zirc.
Spitzenburg castle was not beautiful. It was grey. Made of massive stone blocks that
sucked heat from a hand placed on them, its walls towered so high above its courtyard
that they strangled the light. In more recent years, someone seemed to have tried to
turn the massive central keep into a house by adding extra storeys and sinking in
larger windows, but this had only succeeded in turning the building into a slightly
friendlier version of Castle Frankenstein.
"Er - which particular fairytale was this castle in, miss?" said someone.
High above, crumbling towers closed off by signs saying VORSICHT!
LEBENSGEFAHR! guarded the walls.
"What does VORSICHT! LEBENSGEFAHR! mean?" said Sukhbir.
"Well, VORSICHT is something to do with looking out", said Harjit knowledgeably,
"and an Ausfahrt is an exit road, so I'd imagine that's the way out to the spectacular
view."
"It's got an exclamation mark after it", said Narinder nervously.
"Everything's got an exclamation mark after it in German", said Harjit. "That's the
way German works."
"Why don't you go up there and find the spectacular view?" said Cleo pleasantly.
"Welcome to the land of the living, Stevens", said Harjit. "Where are all the flying
saucers?"
"I imagine they're off mutilating the local cattle", smiled Cleo.
"Cleo", said Tamora, "cattle are warm and fuzzy and you're a vegetarian."
"Hitler", said Cleo, "was also a vegetarian. How many team members do we have?"
"Seven including you. Now what about that proof you were talking about?"
"You'll see proof. I can promise you you'll see proof. Now", Cleo held up her hands
and spread them thirty centimetres apart , "we're looking for a thing about yay big,
circular, nonmetallic, more like a sort of ceramic. It has a spiral patterned surface,
like an ammonite. It may be worked into the boss of a mediaeval shield, or it may
have been removed from it."
"Would that be a shield", said Tamora, "that makes you invincible?"
"Smart girl. Are you sure we're not related? Two of us will distract the old man and
his grandson in the café - the best-looking ones, which will be Porsh and myself..."
"Now just a minute -" said Tamora angrily.
"- whilst five of us, meanwhile, break in via the door to the servants' quarters over
yonder. It hasn't been replaced in sixty years - it will kick in easily. Then they will
spread out, one in the guest bedrooms, one in the servants', one in the library, one in
the cellars -"
Narinder's eyebrows rose. "One in the cellars?"
"Don't worry, the rats are very friendly. You will communicate with me by text; I
will coordinate your activity. It is imperative we find the device before anyone else
does. If you find the device you will inform me immediately. Any questions?"
"I'm not searching any grotty old cellar", said Narinder, wrinkling her nose.
"Then you will take the library, and Tamora will take the cellar."
"I WILL NOT -"
"Do as you are told, sister. I will be in the café if you need me, eating cake."
Tamora was left speechless in the middle of the courtyard as Cleo swept off towards
the café with the main group. Fräulein Meinck was telling everyone how Spitzenburg
castle had been besieged by the Swedes, Spaniards, Saxons, Hessians,
Transylvanians, Prussians and Bavarians during the Thirty Years' War.
"Something is very wrong", said Tamora to Harjit.
Harjit nodded, looking darkly at Cleo's retreating back. "I think I will be one of the
good looking girls today. I ought to know what it feels like once in my life. Porsh -
to me. Put your stoopid face on, but stay smart under it. Shakespeare Minor - you're
in charge till we get back from the caff."
Harjit and Porsh moved in the direction of the café, after Cleo. Tamora turned to
what remained of Team Salami.
"Are we really believing this?" said Sukhbir.
"I mean, it's burglary", said Narinder. "Actual breaking and entering."
"She's getting us to take risks while she don’t take any", said Sukhbir.
"Yeah, an she moight just be a fruit loop", said Cubic Zirc, folding her doughy arms
defiantly.
Tamora sighed. Her sister was, as always, difficult to defend.
***
"BLOODY HELL, he turned into that street ROIGHT ACROSS US -"
The coach's brakes worked, but were alarmingly slow to do so. So far Ant had stalled
the engine twelve times, ten times because Germans kept turning left into side streets
across his path, as if they expected him to notice them doing it and slow down.
Turning into side streets himself was a terrifying manoeuvre which involved
occupying the entire road and chipping bits off buildings.
"I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew", admitted Ant. His hands were
shaking on the wheel.
"D'you want me to droive?" said Armand eagerly.
"Erm. Maybe I'll carry on driving for a bit", said Ant, with horrific visions of the sort
of road carnage Armand would cause in control of an intercity coach. A junction
loomed up. "What's the right road for Regensburg?"
Armand flipped through the driver's AA Big European Book Of The Road madly.
"Whass Germany look loike?"
Ant went the wrong way round a roundabout. Drivers hooted angrily at him. Oops!
He would have to watch that. Luckily the roundabout was a large one and he was still
able to leave it on a road marked REGENSBURG with a minimum of pavementmounting.
"Germany", said Ant, "looks like a big square blob with another square blob missing
on one corner. The missing blob is called The Czech Republic."
"I got a big square country ere on page twenny-noine", said Armand, showing Ant as
helpfully as possible by holding the atlas directly in front of Ant's face while he was
trying to drive.
"That's Spain", said Ant, ducking the atlas. "You want the country where all the place
names end in BURG, STEIN and AMMERGAU."
"I got wun ere on page foive where everythin ends in AU."
"That's Wales", said Ant.
"St. Petersburg!" said Armand triumphantly.
"Russia", said Ant. "What do all these signs with yellow diamonds on mean, I
wonder? Make that policeman sexy, Armand, he's flashing his lights at us."
Armand drew the Orgonizer with what was, by now, almost bored automatic ease and
fired over his shoulder at the police car. Policemen were still able to drive when sexy,
it seemed, but immediately lost interest in fourteen-year-olds driving coaches. The
highway patrolman did a handbrake turn in the road just after an attractive blonde,
and was lost in their rear view mirrors.
Ant made a turning off a roundabout down a gentle onramp onto a dual carriageway.
"There, that should do it. The compass says we're going exactly towards Regensburg.
I wonder what VERBOT DER EINFAHRT means?"
***
An old man was polishing glasses behind the counter in the café when the school
crowd poured in. He looked at Cleo sternly through half-moon spectacles, as if he
already knew her. Harjit and Porsh, meanwhile, might as well not have existed for
him.
Fräulein Meinck took a deep breath, then exhaled: "ZISS ISS ZE CÄFÉ, VHICH
VOSS NOT A CÄFÉ IN MEDIAEVAL TIMES, VHEN IT VOSS A STÄBLE -"
"Actually", said the old man without looking up, "it was a hayloft. The stable is on
the other side of the castle." He swatted at a spider with his polishing cloth.
"You speak English very well", said Fräulein Meinck, taken aback.
"I read Philosophy at Oxford", said the old man without smiling. "My father was
fond of England. He wanted both his sons to grow up as perfect English gentlemen."
He started polishing the counter top, which did not need polishing.
"Did your brother go to Oxford too?" said Fräulein Meinck.
The old man shook his head. "I had the best of both worlds. I went to school in my
own country, and then spent my time at Oxford punting and reading poetry on the
lawn. My brother, meanwhile, was the only German boy at an English public school Hey, Fritz, Hey, Sausage Eater, Hey, Dummkopf and so forth - and then went on to a
Burschenschaft at the University of Heidelberg where students passed the time
slashing at each other's faces with fencing sabres."
"Oh je". Fräulein Meinck made a face.
"Quite. But today, he is doing far better than I. He has aged very well by
comparison. Would you like a coffee?"
"Bitte", said Fräulein Meinck.
The old man nodded. "Sie sind'ne Schwäbin, oder?"
Fräulein Meinck nodded. "Böblingen."
"Schöne Panzerkaserne in Böblingen. War da unterrichtet - hallo!"
Herr Riemann had burst into the café, red-faced with anger, dragging two bundles of
rags duct-taped to floormops. The floormops had been taped into crosses, like
scarecrows, and were wearing coats, mittens and hats. The hats had been taped to
papier-mâché heads of the sort primary school kids made by covering balloons with
paper and glue and then collapsing the balloon. One of the shells had been painted a
lurid fleshy pink; the other was slightly more suntanned. Behind Herr Riemann, two
Year Nines, who had been told to hold the scarecrows at the back of the crowd while
Herr Riemann counted heads, stood looking very, very guilty.
"I believe I recognize the pink one", said the old man, peering at the papier-mâché.
"He came in yesterday. That other fellow I do not know."
"Two off our students", said Herr Riemann, "are missink."
***
The coach veered sharply off the autobahn, and Ant breathed a sigh of relief.
"So many of em", said Armand in indignant disbelief. "Dunt they know what soide to
droive on? They just kept comin at us, tootin their orns, flashin their loights." He
tapped the stereo, which he'd accidentally tuned to a German channel in search of
what he'd referred to as bangin choons. "An wot does Geisterfahrer mean? They was
sayin it a lot onna radio."
Ant gulped down five minutes of sheer terror with difficulty. In the rear view mirror,
his face was the same colour as his knuckles on the wheel.
"I think it may mean 'person who is driving eight kilometres down a motorway in the
wrong direction'. Possibly", he added, "in a coach." At the top of the offramp - which
was, Ant was acutely aware, actually an onramp - the roundabout was thankfully
deserted.
"We've got to ditch the coach", said Ant.
"Smart", said Armand. "We gunna set foire to it?"
"NO WE ARE NOT GOING TO SET FIRE TO IT. We are borrowing it. Not
destroying it."
"No, you godda set foire to it, Ted", said Armand. "To get rid of fingerprints."
It had never occurred to Ant that this might be the reason why joyriders set fire to
cars.
"We could just wipe the fingerprints off", he suggested.
Armand looked hugely disappointed. "Yeah", he sulked. "We could do that. I spose.
But our prints're all over the back of the coach", he said.
"They're supposed to be all over the back of the coach. They belong all over the back
of the coach. They just don't belong on the gearstick and the steering wheel."
"I spose. We only need to woipe the flat parts, moind. SOCO kent get fingerprints off
this leatherette stuff."
Not really wanting to know how Armand knew what a police Scene of Crime Officer
could and couldn't get fingerprints off, Ant pulled the coach gently to a halt by the
side of the road and opened the doors. He liked opening the doors. There was a
button to make them open.
"We've only got another twenty kilometres to go", he said. "We can hitch hike." He
had had enough of driving a wall of steel only half a metre narrower than the road.
Armand sauntered up the road and stuck out his thumb - Ant pulled his arm down and
shook his head.
"We've got to get away from the coach first. It'll look suspicious."
There was one advantage to driving five miles the wrong way up a motorway - no-one
had been fool enough to follow them. Ant hadn't seen the car containing Mr. Karg
and his friends anywhere in his rear view mirrors. In fact, he hadn't seen anything in
his rear view mirrors that hadn't been travelling in the opposite direction sounding its
horn loudly. Or its siren. Three of the cars that had come past had had
written on them, and even Ant knew
meant
-
Whoah there.
"Just a moment." Ant fished frantically in his pocket and unfolded the scrap of paper
that had been left on his chest that morning. He stood close up to one of the coach's
huge wing mirrors and held the paper out to one side of his head.
"Oh wow", he said.
"What is it?" Armand was at his side instantly.
"Gibberish", said Ant, disappointed.
He had thought the scribble was English written backwards, but in a mirror, it was
still just scribble. It now said:
"Dat en't English", said Armand disapprovingly.
"It en't Russian either", said Ant.
"Praps it's German", said Armand. "Dem, dat's a German word."
"Cleo might know what it is", said Ant.
"Let's geddit over to her." Bizarrely, Armand produced a brand new Blackberry
pager.
"Armand", said Ant, "you've got one of those, but you've not got a coat."
"Gotta prioritize", said Armand. "Look arfter the important things in loife. Put the
big rocks in first. Thass wot my child psychologist used to say."
"And was he right?"
Armand grinned. "Dunno. I it im wiv a big rock."
Ant grinned despite himself and held up the paper. "Copy that onto a text."
"Okay, old still. Wot's er number?"
Ant knew perfectly well that, if Cleo ever found out he'd given Armand Jeffries her
phone number, his days would be numbered with a zero and a decimal point in front
of them. He reeled off a number, hoping it was right.
I am going to be in so much trouble when we get back to the Heim.
A car was approaching down the road from Regensburg. It was black and white, and
moving very slowly.
"We need to get off the road", said Ant.
Armand shook his head. "They've made us."
"They might not have done."
"They're droivin sloweren an Eastbourne fooneral procession. Course they've made
us. Toime to make them. Sexy, I mean." He drew the Orgonizer slowly. As he did,
the flap of masking tape tore away softly from the top of the weapon, exposing the
wheel that read HAPPY SAD ANGRY FRIT SEXY.
He looked down at the wheel. The wheel that had four settings other than SEXY.
One of which was FRIT.
"Armand", began Ant, "I'm really, really sorry -"
Behind Armand, two German men were approaching from the police car. Both of
them had small sandy-coloured moustaches.
"Grüß Gott, Jungens. Habt ihr den Führer dieses Buses gesehen -"
Armand slid the wheel to HAPPY, turned and shot the nearest policeman.
"- wie eine schöne kleine Pistole. Darf ich eine haben?" The nearest policeman's
face beamed so widely Ant was afraid the corners of his face would split. The second
policeman's hand whipped down to his holster, far too slowly. Armand turned the
wheel to SAD and shot the second policeman, who collapsed sobbing in a heap.
"Ach, es ist alles so sinnlos..."
Armand turned the wheel again and shot the first policeman, who stormed at Armand,
whooping like a red indian and drooling. Armand turned the wheel again and shot
him again. The policeman stopped short of Armand and began to circle him warily,
grinning with bared teeth, trying to work his way round behind him.
"Stop shooting him", said Ant. "You'll kill him."
Armand looked round at Ant as if surprised he was still there.
"The machine that gun was adapted from was designed to kill farmyard animals
painlessly", said Ant. "It will kill him if you keep shooting him with it."
Armand shrugged and changed the setting on the gun a final time.
"ARMAND -"
"Well, we got trarnsport now, Ted", said Armand, looking at the police car. "Real
farst trarnsport."
Without looking, he lined the gun up on Ant and squeezed the trigger.
***
"We en't bustin no doors in", said Cubic Zirc, "an that's foinal."
Tamora's first field command was disintegrating around her. It was particularly
difficult to object to what Zirc was saying about her sister because she wasn't sure she
disagreed with it. Cleo had been behaving very oddly all morning. She had hardly
spoken except to give Harjit orders, a thing she wouldn't have dared do, Tamora was
certain, the day before - and she never, ever asked Ant to kiss her. Tamora had long
suspected Ant and Cleo were pretending to be an item for some reason known only to
themselves. Maybe Ant had asked Cleo to be his fake girlfriend to avoid peer
pressure from the other boys. Maybe Ant just wasn't interested in girls.
Suddenly, her mobile phone went off with the factory standard ringtone - always
suspicious. She didn't recognize the number.
It was a text in capitals, with an addendum in lower case. The lower case text said:
sum 1 left this msg on stevens bed larst nite may be u cn make mor snse of it
thn wot we cn luv rmnd (the a dog)
She looked at the text in capitals. Her eyes widened.
"Oh my god", she said.
Cubic Zirc sensed something was horribly wrong with the world.
"Them aliens is comin for us”, she said. “To eat our faces an that.”
"Worse", said Tamora. "We have to talk to Harjit right away."
***
"I häff nötified Herr Schieß", said Herr Riemann, "zät two off ze boys are äbsent. He
häss ordered a full search off ze Grounts."
"The Grounts", repeated Sukhbir.
"Ze Grounts of the Freizeitheim!" said Herr Riemann in annoyance. "He vas möst
concerned. It vas necessary for Stefan to giff him a Soozing Bäck Mässage.
Howeffer, I suspect zät ze boys are nö longer ät ze Freizeitheim."
"Why?" said Harjit.
"I häff been down to ze main röat. Ze police are zere. Ze cöach iss gone. Ze driver
häss been täken to hospital viz full-body händbäg injuries.
"What happened to him?" said Porsh, wide-eyed.
"He made ädwances off an improper chäracter to ä group off Fränciscan nuns", said
Fräulein Meinck.
"Those ladies down on the main road were nuns?" said Harjit. "I thought nuns, you
know, went in for the Free Willy look."
"Zey vere in pläin clöthes", said Fräulein Meinck severely. "I imägine it voss zeir däy
off."
"What, Sunday?" said Harjit.
"I ÄM FINISHED VIZ ZE PUSSYFOOTINK AROUNT ZE SUBJECT. Zere vill be
NO MORE MIZZ NICE TEACHER. VHAT ISS GÖINK ON HERE? I äm
VÄITINK FOR ÄN EXPLÄNÄTION." Fräulein Meinck stamped her foot and
clasped her hand ominously around her whistle.
Eventually, the pressure was too much for Porsh. She shot up a hand.
"Please, Miss, Cleopatra's a fruit loop wot believes aliens've com down to get us,
Miss."
Fräulein Meinck stood flabbergasted. Drugs she had been prepared for. Teenage
pregnancies she had been prepared for. Interstellar invasion she had not.
"Porsche, you must stop tellink me zese ridiculous lies."
"It's Cleo, Miss! It's Cleo wot's lyin. An it's Porsh", said Porsh. "Loike the car."
Cleo looked up at Fräulein Meinck and shrugged as if to indicate that Porsh had gone
several grades of fruit further than bananas.
"Ant an Armand's gone to the Proimary Objective", said Porsh, "wot is a salt pot. An
also a town wot begins wiv an R."
"Regensburg?" said the old man helpfully.
"Yeah, that wun. Reggensborough. They probly alf-inched the coach, you know,
blagged it. Nicked it."
"Stole it?" said the old man.
"Porsh", hissed Harjit, "you are so dead."
"Arjit's in it an all", said Porsh. "They are all mentalists dedicated to the purpose of
mentalism."
"Zey stöle ze cöach?" said Fräulein Meinck.
"That Armand'd nick is gran's teeth", said Porsh. "If e knew oo is gran were, which e
dun't."
"I äm callink ze police", announced Fräulein Meinck. She pulled out a mobile phone.
"Not so fast", said the old man, raising a hand. "I am sure all this is just a
misunderstanding. I am sure no blagging or nicking has taken place. I am sure a nice
hot cup of coffee and a black forest gâteau will resolve the entire situation." He
reached for a bell on the counter, lifted it by its handle, and tinkled it briefly.
Fräulein Meinck looked up from her phone call.
"Ze police are all busy", she said. "Ä cöach driven by two teenäge boys is beink hotly
pursued by four separäte police cars, all off whose drivers are missink." She sat down
heavily on one of the café seats.
A middle-aged lady came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands, looking questioningly
at the old man.
"Kannstu hier fortfahren eine Weile?" said the old man. He scribbled on a piece of
notepaper, folded it up, and handed it to her. "Gib dies dem Jungen, wenn er heim
kommt. Ich hab' was zu tun."
The lady nodded and replaced the old man behind the counter. The old man left
quickly.
"Now", said the lady brightly, "who vants vhat?"
Cleo raised her voice unexpectedly. "I'd like a cake for everyone in here, please. I'll
pay. Ich bezahle."
Harjit blinked across the table at Cleo. "Where you getting that sort of money,
Shakespeare?"
"I went to sleep with my head under the pillow and woke up with a mouthful of
sixpences. Ein Portion Schwarzwälder für alle", she said to the lady behind the
counter, who nodded and began cutting up an enormous Black Forest gâteau.
Suddenly, the door to the courtyard banged open, revealing a breathless Tamora, her
finger stabbing shakily across the café at Cleo. Cleo looked back at her in dreamy
unconcern.
"Hello sister", said Cleo.
"Oh, Cleopätra", sobbed Fräulein Meinck, "you sink you cän bribe me viz Bläck
Forest gâteau, vhen all you häff säid änd done for ziss entire holidäy häss been lies,
lies, all lies!"
Herr Riemann held Fräulein Meinck's hand tenderly and glared at Cleo.
"That ent a Black Forest gâteau", observed Cubic Zirc. "It ent got no glacé cherries
in."
"Yes", said Nigel Devonport, "there are going to be some hard questions for messrs
Stevens and Jeffries when they get back from their little jaunt."
"Oh, shut up, Nigel", said Fräulein Meinck.
"It ent that bad, Frowline", said Cubic Zirc, holding Fräulein Meinck's other hand.
"There's fluffy bunnies in the world an that."
Tamora, meanwhile, with hawklike intensity, was watching the Black Forest gâteau
being cut. There were ten students in the café. The massive cake was sliced expertly
into ten. Ten small plates were laid out - each one received a slice of cake.
Cleo rose and walked across the room. "Who wants to be first?" she said. She picked
up the first of the plates, and picked up the slice that rested on it with her other hand.
"I'll be Mother. Zirc?" She bent to put the crumbly, almost liquid cake, laden with
cherries, smelling of chocolate and maraschino and creamy loveliness, to Cubic Zirc's
lips. Tamora saw all three of Zirc's chins tremble in anticipation.
"You touched that with your ands", said Zirc; but Tamora knew Zirc would not
consider this an insurmountable obstacle. She darted forward, snatched the cake slice
out of Cleo's hand and, trying to touch it as little as possible, flew across the room,
flung it into the ancient microwave and turned it on.
"Tamora", said Cleo, her mouth open in a barely maintained smile, "what the devil -?"
"That were my cake, that were", complained Zirc.
Tamora stared at the microwave, where the cake was dimly illuminated by the tiny
bulb inside. She saw the cake deform, burst open, and spew out a rivulet of bright
blue sludge onto the turntable. The blueness seemed to quiver and strain towards the
edge of the turntable, exactly as if it were alive. As if it were attempting to escape.
Tamora, never one to let a living thing suffer, fought the urge to push the OPEN
button and let it out.
Then it began to steam, and shrivel, and finally blacken. The cake around it was
completely unaffected.
"I thought you might like your cake warm", said Tamora, opening the oven, removing
the turntable and showing it to Zirc. "One alien brain amoeba, deep fried."
Zirc was horrified. "That were gunna goo in my mouth."
"And in your brain shortly afterwards", said Tamora. She looked right and left.
"Where's Cleo?" she said.
11. Scorched Earth
There was an alien in Ant's brain, and he had to do what it said. The alien was telling
him to kiss Cleopatra, so it could ooze its way out of him and into her. If he didn't do
it, it was saying, it would ooze out of him in a way he wouldn't survive, leaving him
dead on the pavement in a pool of blood and blueness. The alien was only the visible
part of the bigger alien, however, which was lurking beneath the speeding car, which
was actually a motorboat, opening its one huge eye to look at him through the car's
glass bottom - a New Dixie kraken, bigger than a suburb of Atlantis, washed inland
by tidal storms and run aground on a reef. Tentacles and protuberances of it were
waving all about the car, protruding above water level. The water was green and
looked like grass. The tentacles looked like trees, but Ant knew they were really the
carnivorous treeoids of Krasnaya Zvezda Three, that at any moment they could pull
their giant stinging abdomens out of the ground and come for him, ingest him, turn
him into more silent, sterile forest like themselves "Hey, Stevens! STEVENS! Wakey wakey, Teddy Byes!"
Sheep were grazing around the trees' bases, but he knew they were robots only
pretending to be sheep.
He shook himself awake. "Wha? Whereami?"
"You've ad an interestin life so far, Stevens. You bin talkin in your sleep. Suffice it
to say you ent on New Dixie, an you ent on Krasnaya Three, nor Alpha Four. An I
thought I ad stuff I was frit of."
Ant's memory was coming back. "You shot me. Why did you shoot me?"
Armand's hands tightened round the steering wheel. "To let you know what it's loike.
When you shot me, I went straight back to bein foive year old. You ave any idea
what it's loike to ave your mum leave you when you're foive year old?"
"I know what it's like to have your mum leave you when you're ten", said Ant.
Armand seemed to soften slightly. But only slightly. "Not even close", he said. "But
everythin you come out with when I shot you sounds like it appened to you in the larst
year. An if what's bin appenin to you for the larst year is that bad, then om on your
soide. No wun should ave things loike that appen to em. No wun."
Ant was astonished.
"Noice car, this, by the way. Foive series. The four litre."
Ant realized Armand was driving the police car. He was wearing a German police
uniform. Ant looked down. He was also wearing a German police uniform. It did
not fit.
"Er", said Ant. "Are we going to a party?"
"You crack me up, Stevens. No, I figured we'd stand more charnce of gettin away
with, you know, stuff, if we looked like the enemy."
"The police aren't the enemy", said Ant.
"Everyone", said Armand, "is the Enemy. Certainly roight now. Now, we're in the
middle of Reggensborough. Iss quite noice. Iss got carstles an cathedrals an that.
But we're gunna after ditch the car pretty soon. People've started noticin that I'm the
only fifteen-year-old black policeman in Germany, loike. So I need to know - where
are we gooin? Where did your spaceship crash?"
Ant shook his head clear of krakens and walking stinging shrubs. He looked about
him. The car was travelling, bizarrely, through the middle of a mediaeval city.
Buildings had turrets as well as roofs. The turrets had clock towers and onion domes.
The roofs of the buildings were far pointier than would be allowed in England.
Health and Safety would have complained. "Uh - the TV news said Botanischer
Garten, Universität Regensburg. I think that means the botanical garden at the
university."
"Smart", said Armand. "Dunt know where the university is by any charnce, do ya?"
"Drive", said Ant. "Drive round in circles. When you see a whole sector of the city
that's blocked off by huge military vehicles and police cars, that'll be it. The nice
thing about Special Operations is that they can be relied on not to do things by
halves."
Armand squinted into his rear view mirror. "What about elicopters? You reckon
there'll be elicopters, like, overin overead?"
"Almost certainly. Green military ones."
"Roight." Armand did a half doughnut in the middle of a bridge over a river. Despite
the sudden manoeuvre, nobody sounded their horn. Ant wondered why, until he
realized they were in a police car. You didn't sound your horn at police cars.
For good measure, Armand put the siren on.
"Ad it on most of the way ere", he said. "Got into it arfter a whoile, loike." He began
to move his body rhythmically back and forth in tune with the police siren. Ant
hoped he was not serious.
In the distance, he could now indeed see olive drab helicopters, buzzing around
something in the distance like gigantic greenbottles. On the sides of the helicopters
was stencilled: U S ARMY.
***
"Hey! Stop! Eintritt verboten! You are not allowed to go!"
The café lady spoke far worse English than the old man had. Tamora was already
inside the café kitchen, looking for things Cleo might be hiding underneath, inside, or
behind. There was a door at the other end of the kitchen that could not lead anywhere
but further into the castle. "We are going to need drain cleaner", she said. "Do you
have any drain cleaner?"
Behind her, Fräulein Meinck was also on her tail with missile lock. "Tämora! Get
out off zere at vunce! Zät iss ä priväte kitschen!"
Tamora turned round, unperturbed. "That blue substance that came out of the cake",
she said to the café lady. "Do you know where it came from?"
"Zere iss no blue substänce in my cäke", said the lady, folding her arms proudly and
firmly.
"It came from Cleo. The girl you gave the cake to. My sister."
Fräulein Meinck was clearly attempting valiantly to understand. "How? Vhy vould
Cleo poison a cäke?"
"Because that is not my sister", said Tamora. "She has not been herself all morning.
She has been polite. She has been quiet and kept herself to herself. She told me I
looked nice when I went out to the coach, and I so do not look nice, I cannot do
anything with my hair today. And she has been eating meat. And Cleo would rather
eat poison than meat." Actually, Tamora suspected that, if it came down to a meat /
poison choice, Cleo would go for the meat, but it had the desired effect.
"You are säying that Cleo is..."
"An alien, yes", nodded Tamora. Fräulein Meinck remained mystified. "Zirc will
explain it all to you", said Tamora. Cubic Zirc, who was at Fräulein Meinck's elbow,
inhaled ready for a long conversation. Tamora felt very, very sorry for Fräulein
Meinck, particularly since Herr Riemann still had a hold of her left hand. He
appeared to care deeply about her.
"The rest of Team Salami", she said, "with me."
The café kitchen filled with a push of bodies, some of them in Team Salami, some
just along for the ride. Harjit was left behind in the café, standing looking sternly at
Porsh.
"I coulden elp it, Arjit", said Porsh, trembling.
"Porsche Red Chardonnay Essence de Femme Catchpole", said Harjit, "your ass is
mine." She jerked a thumb in the direction of the chaos in the kitchen. "Them
buggers are going to make so much noise, Cleo'll hear 'em coming a mile off. Two of
us, on the other hand..."
Porsh was clearly petrified. "But she's a Nalien, Arjit. She'll get inside my brain."
"Don't worry, Porsh. There's plenty of room in there for you and her both. Now,
have I ever let you down? Not even on the bra-stuffing? Nor about that little shrine
to Lucy Lawless you've got in your locker?"
Porsh looked at the laminate floor. "...no, Arjit."
"Then let's lock and load. Er, that's a metaphor. It means, let's find us something
caustic we can sprinkle all over Cleo." She began searching in the cupboards behind
the café bar, unregarded by the café lady, who was still trying to stop everyone in the
whole world from piling into her castle.
"But what if she's Yuman arfter all?"
"Then she'll be glad of the fact we dissolved her face with bleach to prove it once and
for all, hey."
Harjit came out from behind the bar with a massive bottle labelled ROHRREINIGER
NATRIUMHYPOCHLORIT. It had a picture of a man pouring the contents of the
bottle into a toilet, which was steaming. It had skulls and crossbones and red crosses
on it, and had GEFÄHRLICH! printed on it in huge red letters. "This looks like the
stuff."
"What's GEFÄHRLICH mean?"
Harjit screwed open the top of the bottle and sniffed it. "Poo - based on a nostril full
of that, I'd definitely say it means 'DO NOT MAKE JELLIES OUT OF THIS STUFF
AND HAND 'EM OUT AT CHILDREN'S PARTIES."
"...om not sure about this Arjit."
"That's why I'm the Mad Scientist, and you're the Henchwoman", said Harjit. "Now,
there's got to be another entrance to this place somewhere..."
***
The whole road was blocked off. The area cordoned off by security forces had grown
since the morning - tapes saying POLIZEIABSPERRUNG, one of the largest and
most impressive German words Ant had ever seen, crossed the road. There were
police cars, and cones, and many, many large military vehicles. Some of the military
vehicles were German, some were American, and some were British. The men from
the military and police vehicles were arguing with each other.
"What are they arguin about?" said Armand.
"The German police are asking the German soldiers why the the British and American
soldiers have blocked off part of Germany. The British and American soldies are
getting even angrier because they've been told to block off part of Germany, but they
don't really know why either. Basically, phone calls have been made to their bosses'
bosses' bosses, and all they know is that whatever is in that parkland has to be got out
of it double quick before the Press take any more photos of it."
"Why're they so scared of the Press?" said Armand.
"Because what's in the park is a crashed example of a working flying saucer, and noone on Earth is supposed to know flying saucers exist. I think we should get this car
out of here and round the corner. Those policemen are starting to take an interest in
us."
Armand quietly put the car into reverse, and expertly took it back round the corner
onto the grass verge. There were police here too, directing traffic away from the
street that had been blocked off, putting up signs and cones. They were about a
hundred metres away, too far to see that Ant and Armand resembled German police
officers the way dishwashers resembled spaghetti. One of them looked up at the car
in mild curiosity. Ant, however, knew that mild curiosity could become hot pursuit
very, very quickly.
"We got to ditch these uniforms", said Armand.
"You kept our proper clothes, right", said Ant. "Tell me you kept our proper clothes."
"Er", said Armand.
A hand fell on Ant's shoulder through the open car window. Ant froze, petrified.
"Big Ups to the Planet Earth Posse", said a low, deep voice in Ant's ear.
"ARMAND, PUT THE GUN DOWN, PUT THE GUN DOWN, HE'S A FRIEND,
HE'S A FRIEND, HE'S A FRIEND."
"Sorry", said Armand, who had already had the gun set to FRIT, aimed and ready.
"Richard!" said Ant. "We've come here to, er, save you"
"Great!" said Richard Turpin, wearing jeans and a T shirt rather than his usual USZ
flight suit. The jeans did not fit. The T shirt had a Nazi flag on it. Underneath the
Nazi flag, it said: REDEFREIHEIT FÜR ALLE IN DEUTSCHLAND?
Ant stared. He was acutely aware that, ten metres behind him, a massive line of
German car drivers, stopped in traffic, were also staring out of their side windows,
looking murderously at Turpin.
"Richard", said Ant, "where did you get that shirt?"
"A nice man with a very short haircut gave it to me", said Turpin. "He was trying to
sell them at the railway station, but nobody would buy them and the police kept
moving him on. I felt ever so sorry for him."
"E's a Nazi, Teds", said Armand warningly, his hand clicking nervously on the wheel
of the Orgonizer.
"He is not a Nazi", said Ant. "Richard, you need to take that shirt off and turn it
inside out."
"What's a Nazi?" said Turpin.
"That T shirt says you're a Nazi", said Ant. "And it's illegal to be a Nazi around
here."
"It's a free country", said Turpin.
"Not if the Nazis come to power it won't be. Take it off and turn it inside out now, or
we aren't rescuing you."
"I had to buy the shirt really, just to show you, because it's a really funny thing, but
the symbol on the front of it looks exactly the same as the one on the wreckage from
the -"
"We know", said Ant. "Welcome to the land of You've Caught Up Now."
Turpin shrugged. "Anything to be helpful." He began to struggle out of the shirt. As
he reversed the shirt and put it back on again, so that the swastika wasn't visible,
Germans in the nearby cars began clapping. Turpin, imagining the clapping was for
him, bowed extravagantly. Someone threw a Coke can at him. Turpin stared at the
man who'd thrown the can, evidently mortally offended.
"Leave it, Richard", said Ant. "You were in the wrong. You have no idea how much
in the wrong you were."
"You'd better come to my van", said Turpin, "so you can rescue me."
Ant looked at Turpin in incomprehension.
"You've got a van?"
***
The room smelled like the bottom of a compost heap after cold rain. Icicles had
formed on the ceiling, indoors, reaching down out of the winter like pick blades,
biting into the stonework, doing damage. Stonework two metres thick did not usually
fear frost damage, but the building could not take this lack of maintenance forever.
The only light came from a single halogen lamp the old man carried with him. He
shone it carefully into corners as he walked. He had seen horrors most young men of
today could only imagine, but there were things even he was scared of. In his hands
he carried a sledgehammer, a metre long, with three kilos of steel at the business end.
The cellars had originally been a proper mediaeval undercastle. A mediaeval castle
was a stone box with very thick walls and a very high entrance. The high entrance
ensured that whoever tried to break in would have to climb uphill while the defenders
rained rocks, arrows and boiling oil on them. The high entrance also, however, meant
that the ground floor of the castle was a windowless space below entrance level - the
undercastle. Commonly, undercastles had been used for storage, and often they
would contain wells, dug very deeply into the rock, to keep the castle supplied with
water during a siege. The undercastle for Schloß Spitzenburg had been no exception.
In the Middle Ages, it would have contained salt pork and firewood, arrows, and, in
one corner, a dungeon. In the early twentieth century, it had contained tanks of diesel
oil, heating boilers, electrical generators, and massive industrial-sized refrigerators big
enough to feed a castle full of aristocrats and their very fine guests. Now the
generators were rusting in one corner, the refrigerators had been sold and shipped out,
and the diesel tanks were almost empty. Only a few centimetres of oil were dribbled
into them once a year, to light the boilers and check that the flames still burned blue,
not yellow; that the air vent to the outside of the castle wall was unblocked and that
the cellars were not filling with deadly carbon monoxide every minute the fire stayed
lit. That much was required by Federal law. Apart from that, all that remained were
the descendants of the original spiders, huge, brown and businesslike, lurking in their
ragged webs. Not even rats lived here any longer. What would they live on?
The old man descended a staircase, taking him below ground level. The stonework all
around him was now wet with condensation. It was always wet, even in the depth of
winter, the temperature always just a hair's breadth above freezing. He measured his
paces out along the wall, until he came to a part of the wall that was not stone. Here,
clearly visible in the light from the lamp, was a doorway in the wall that had been
filled with brick.
He spat on his hands, took up the sledgehammer and swung.
***
"GOOD MORNING", said man's voice, pointedly loud.
Harjit and Porsh swung round, instantly guilty. They had been walking round the
perimeter of the castle, Porsh keeping watch every time Harjit tried a door. So far no
doors had been open.
The man was standing in the centre of the courtyard, wearing a very nice suit. Next to
him stood two enormous dogs. The larger of the two, a massive Pyrenean, was less
unsettling than the smaller, which was growling low in its throat, whilst every few
seconds attempting to graze the cobbles for some reason. The noise it was making
also actually sounded less like a growl than a horribly aggressive bleat.
"This on my left is Larry", said the man, “and on my right is, I believe, Hasselhoff.
Both these dogs are highly trained killing machines -"
Hasselhoff sat up on his haunches, scratched his ear and panted happily.
"- at least one of these dogs", recovered the man with a sour glance at Hasselhoff, "is
a highly trained killing machine. The other is a bit of a waste of hair, it has to be
admitted. Larry, however, can and will kill you on my command. You appear to be
attempting to burgle this establishment. You will please stay absolutely still."
The man had his hands in his pockets. He was not especially large or imposing - it
was his eyes that had stopped Harjit dead. They were green as polar ice, sunken back
into his head, suggesting cold depths and deadly sharpnesses lying beneath the
surface. He was middle-aged, and age had not been kind to him - his skin hung
sparely on his bones. There were also two men behind him in identical civilian ski
parkas. The fact that the parkas were identical made Harjit certain that the men were
not entirely civilian.
"Alastair Drague", said Harjit. "Born Islington, 1945. Educated Winchester School,
1957 to 1963. History scholar, Balliol College, Oxford, 1963 to 1966. Drives a
Lagonda Three-Litre", she said, and added. "Black."
The mass of wrinkles above the eyes contracted into a frown. The eyes continued to
stare into Harjit's for several seconds.
"I must say, you appear to have the advantage over me", he said. "But no matter; I
shall make it my duty to acquaint myself with you more fully. You are?"
Harjit reached behind herself for the wrought iron handle on the great front door to
the castle. Incredibly, it turned.
"Running away", she said.
"I think not", said Alastair. He clicked his fingers; the two men in parkas moved
forwards. One of them took hold of Porsh's arm.
"Porsh", said Harjit. "Now."
Obligingly, Porsh began to quiver and spasm in the man's hand; her face turned pale.
A second later, the man leapt back holding his hand out from his body and staring
down in horror at his lovely formerly green parka.
"Oh my GOD -"
"Smart", said Harjit, threw open the door, pulled Porsh inside it, and rammed the bolt
she found on the other side home. The bolt looked as if it had been designed to stop
heavy siege equipment during the Middle Ages. It was as thick as a man's arm.
There was a locking assembly on this side of the door that looked as if it might be
able to pull back the bolt from outside, but a key would be needed for that...
They were now in a cold, huge, completely empty space with a vaulted stone ceiling.
Doorways opened off it into rooms to right and left, and a large wooden staircase was
visible ahead. Next to Harjit, breathing heavily in the dark, Porsh was wiping fresh
vomit from her mouth.
"That's a heavily underestimated talent you got there, Porsh, my girl", said Harjit.
"Cor", said Porsh, looking up and around herself. "Ooever built this place, they dint
goo in for wallpaper an carpets an soft furnishins an that a nole bundle, hey."
Outside the door, a younger man's voice, less aristocratic than Drague's, was saying:
"Should we send the dog in through the door, sir?"
Harjit stood back from the door, alarmed. The door had been hard to close. It was
probably not much thinner than the trees it had been made of. Through the door?
"No", said Drague. "We don't want to attract attention, and grand entrances through
the front door are not our forte in any case . There has to be another door here
somewhere. Find it."
"Sir."
"Time to make ourselves scarcer than the tiger", said Harjit. "Now, let's see Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare -"
She flicked down a list of numbers on her mobile phone, found the one she was
looking for, and pressed CALL.
Somewhere in the maze of cavernous echoing rooms, a Nokia ringtone sounded.
Harjit smirked and clapped Porsh on the shoulder.
"Come on, my trusty non-Indian companion."
***
Jochen sat rigid at the desk, listening to Frau Männlicher telling him about the former
iron-and-steel-producing areas of central Belgium. The most important former-ironand-steel-producing area of central Belgium, it seemed, was Lüttich (Liège), where
newer, less specialized industries had developed to fill the gap left by iron and steel.
These new industries included textiles, chocolate manufacture, and saxophone
assembly. The classroom was overheated, as it always was in water. People's heads
were drooping with dull inevitability towards their desks.
Someone was throwing paper pellets at the back of his head.
His grandfather had told him to go to school as normal; everything would be fine. He,
der Alter, would fix things. If they came again during the day, while Jochen was in
school, he knew a thing or two. And Jochen's mother would be safe; he would keep
her out of it.
The saxophone parts, Frau Männlicher was telling him, were produced in China, then
shipped to Belgium for assembly under such trade names as The Genuine Belgian
Saxophone Co, As Invented By Adolphe Sachs, The Famous Belgian. The saxophone
industry now employed fifty per cent of the population of Liège.
Another paper pellet hit the back of his head. He turned to see Sepp, Girgl and Wastl,
sitting bolt upright in their seats, hands in their laps, like choirboys.
What were they, the blue men, looking for? Der Alter thought it was better Jochen
did not know. But they would not get their hands on it. "Scorched earth", he had
said, as they parted company, as if this explained everything. "scorched earth."
He shot his hand up suddenly. "Frau Männlicher, what does 'scorched earth' mean?"
Frau Männlicher stopped in the middle of a discussion of fascinating parallels with
the American sousaphone industry. "This is a geography lesson, Jochen, not history."
"It's very important, miss."
Frau Männlicher's eyes narrowed; after several seconds of staring Jochen down, she
seemed to conclude that he was genuine.
"Scorched earth", she said, "was the policy used by the Russian Army during World
War Two, when they destroyed everything on their own land as they retreated from
the Wehrmacht, so that capturing the land would be of no benefit to the Germans. Is
that enough of an explanation?"
"Yes miss. Thank you miss."
Destroying everything on their own land Another pellet hit his head. He reached carefully into his schoolbook, selected a
fountain pen - a refillable one, its rubber bulb plump and full of ink as he unscrewed
it. Then he turned in his seat and squeezed the bulb hard with his thumb, shooting a
jet of Prussian Blue directly at Girgl's white T-shirt.
Girgl looked down in horror; Jochen grinned in glee.
"Psychopath", muttered Girgl. "He's a psychopath." He turned to the rest of the class.
"A new shirt", he said, tugging at the shirt to show how new it was. "A new shirt."
"JOCHEN", said Frau Männlicher severely. "This is UNACCEPTABLE
BEHAVIOUR. You will GO AND EXPLAIN YOURSELF TO THE PRINCIPAL."
"Yes miss", said Jochen. "Thank you miss."
He picked up his bag and coat and excused himself from the classroom. The
principal's office was left; Jochen went right. Running down the corridor, he almost
barged straight into a middle-aged lady. She had obviously dyed auburn hair, horrible
chunky plastic sunglasses, and an enormous coat with a ghastly brown floral design.
"You should watch where you're going, young man", she said.
"Sorry", said Jochen, gathered his bag up under his arm, and continued running.
***
Turpin did indeed have a van. It was a white VW Multivan, parked on the grass verge
near a set of buildings having signs that said they belonged to Regensburg University.
It had clearly been driven onto the grass. There were tyre tracks.
"Richard. This is a van. Vans need to be driven."
"I know", said Turpin, smiling happily.
"You can't drive, Richard", said Ant. "You turn into a trembling quivering wreck
every time you get into a car."
"I have a driver", said Turpin proudly. The driver waved out of the open window of
the Multivan. "Anthony Stevens - George Quantrill."
"Pleased to meet you", said George Quantrill, extending a hand. He was a ruddyfaced, middle-aged man with sandy blond hair and a cheerful smile. Numb with
shock, Ant shook the hand.
"But you're -" said Ant.
"Dead, yes", grinned Quantrill. "Oh so horribly dead. But here I am, moving around
and stuff. I can only put it down to good diet and exercise." Ant looked nervously
back down the road behind the van. "Shall we get going? I don't want to be any more
dead than I am already."
Turpin opened the side door to the van.
"This is Armand", said Ant. "He's, er. He's not dead."
"Only between the ears", said Armand, climbing in. "Are you guys, loike, from
Space?"
"No", said Turpin. "We come from planets, both of us. Lalande 21185 Two,
specifically. And you?"
"Northampton", said Armand. "Issa town", he nodded, "not a planet."
The van grumbled into motion; no-one appeared to be following them at Quantrill
nosed out onto a main road.
"What does Polly Zie mean?" said Turpin, looking at their uniforms.
"Police", said Ant. "It's a long story. We need some more clothes."
"I see. And where can we get those?"
"A place called the Evangelisches Freizeitheim Spitzenburg."
"Gosh", said Turpin. "I don't speak German."
"That makes two of us", said Ant. "Uh - George - weren't you - not to put too fine a
point on it - captured, by Special Operations?"
Quantrill shook his head. "They nearly had me. Gave em the slip. They followed
our van up the M1 to where Richard had parked the ship. When we stopped the van
and started unloading, then they moved in."
Ant nodded. "You were smuggling. Things needed on Gondolin that couldn't be
manufactured there. Microchips, precision instruments", he said. "Monster Munch."
Turpin hung his head guiltily at the Monster Munch.
"So how did you escape?" said Ant.
"Idiots left the door unlocked on the van", said Quantrill. "They'd cuffed my hands
with cable tie, but I was able to kick the door catch and jump out. Right over a
railway bridge, with a slow freight train passing underneath it. I spent a nasty few
minutes sharing a car with a half tonne of coal, but as soon as I was clear of the road, I
was off the train and running. That wasn't the end of it either. They had unmarked
cars and helicopters out looking for me. I hid in someone's garage for two days. It
was a week before I got back to the safe house in London."
"The safe house", said Ant.
"We haven't dared use it since we thought George had been captured", said Turpin.
"It's in Enfield. Belongs to George's uncle."
"I've been lying low there for over a year", said Quantrill. "WHO TAUGHT YOU
TO DRIVE, YOU - what do those yellow diamonds on the road signs mean?"
"So...how did you get here?" said Ant.
"I figured out eventually that Richard wouldn't be coming anywhere near the safe
house ever again", said Quantrill, "because he'd seen me bundled into the Special Ops
van. So I lay low, and I thought things out. Became more of an Earthling every day.
You know those big steel cubicles all around Earth towns are not actually men's walkin toilets? They're actually communication devices. They contain telephones."
Ant wrinkled his nose in distaste. Quantrill saw the distaste and exclaimed
indignantly: "Well, the first time I ever saw someone use one, that was what he used it
for."
"Saturday night, was it?" said Ant.
"What's that go to do with it?"
Ant grimaced knowingly. "Go on. You were at the part where you were becoming
more like an Earthling every day."
"Well, there were a few places I figured the Commodore might be interested in, so I
kept an eye on them. Weaponization in Bedfordshire, that was one. Dudleytown,
Connecticut, where they make hulls for starships, that was another. And this place
was another. So when I saw on the telly that a top secret jet had crashed in a park
only a few miles away from Spitzenburg, and I saw from the telly that it wasn't a jet
but a Harridan A1..."
"You could see the Forellen Turbine", agreed Ant.
"...I got in the van and drove straight here", said Quantrill. "Six hundred miles plus.
Non stop." Triumphantly, he tapped a long line of Pro-Plus packets and scrunched up
styrofoam coffee cups on the dashboard.
"That's nothing", said Ant. "My dad did Northampton to Warsaw once in one go."
"Oh", said Quantrill, looking rather disappointed.
"Mind you, he did come off the road and drive across a ploughed field halfway
through Belgium", said Ant. "But it was the middle of the night, and nobody noticed.
And hey, it's only Belgium."
"Did you know people don't drive on the right side of the road here?" said Quantrill.
"I mean to say, they do drive on the right side of the road. I mean, left should be
right. Right is wrong. What do you think?"
"I think you've had far too much Pro-Plus", said Ant. "We need the B85."
"What's the B85?" said Quantrill suspiciously. "A device that counteracts the effects
of caffeine? Does it hurt? Does it need to break the skin?"
"It's a road", said Ant. "We need to be on it. Turn right now."
The van turned right on screeching plumes of blue vapourized rubber. Ant's teeth
clamped together; he held on to his seat for dear life.
"I nearly failed my driving test", said Quantrill apologetically. "These things just
don't handle like space fighters. I kept saying to the instructor, Why don't we just fly
over the bus?"
"I can see how that would have been a problem."
***
Jochen's bike had given up on the iced-up road which led up to the castle; the road
was now bendy and slimy as an eel. He had left the bike in the snow, and was
running flat out, out of breath, cutting across the zig-zags of the road. He flailed his
arms at a passing Volkswagen, begging for a lift, but it didn't stop. Someone who
wasn't his grandfather, driving up to the castle in this weather? He would almost
certainly get to the top before they did. They might not get to the top at all.
His clothes were soaked with sweat inside his coat. He dreaded the thought of what
he would smell like when he took the coat off. Things were hurting in his chest. His
knees and hands were skinned from falling over and hitting the gravel.
The courtyard, eventually, came into sight. He had not stopped running since he
ditched the bike, not even when he'd thought he would die.
The courtyard now contained two Volkswagens - Tante Ilse, his grandfather's ancient
1978 Beetle, and a more modern Jetta. The Jetta was very poorly parked, slewed
across the courtyard entrance, as if it had been abandoned. Across the courtyard, the
café door was half open. Neither his grandmother nor his mother would have let heat
seep out in such a manner.
There were also three men here, and two dogs. The men were attempting to open the
lock on one of the side doors to the castle. One of the men, who wore a very
expensive-looking suit, looked round with eyes green as malachite. He held
something rather like a television remote control in his hand. As the remote moved,
one of the two dogs, a large Alsatian, seemed to swivel with it, fixating on Jochen like
a snake on a startled rabbit. Jochen recognized the other dog, a huge white waste of
fur which was nibbling its own backside happily in another corner of the courtyard.
"Alastair Drague", said Jochen. "You drive a Lagonda Three-Litre", he added.
"Good grief", said Drague. "Does everybody here know my entire life history?"
"I have been comprehensively briefed", said Jochen, "by Cleopatra."
"I see", said Drague. "You wouldn't know Cleopatra's current whereabouts, by any
chance?"
"By the rules of the Geneva Convention, I only have to give you my name, rank and
number", said Jochen. "Cleopatra said to mention the Geneva Convention to you.
She said it annoys you. Your German is very good, by the way", he said.
"Thank you", said Drague. "I served for some time in Berlin in the nineteen sixties.
You must tell me everything you know about where Cleopatra's current plans and
location. Otherwise, she could be in terrible danger." He looked past Jochen out of
the castle gate. "Very terrible danger."
"Jochen von und zu Spitzenburg, Untersekunda, identity card serial number
1220001518."
"I see", said Drague. "We're having terrible trouble with this lock, by the way. We're
rather used to breaking into locks that were designed in the nineteenth century or
after. You wouldn't by any chance...?"
"You should go now", said Jochen, "or I'm afraid I will have to call the police."
"I don't think so. I'm afraid that you really won't be able to make it to a telephone
inside the castle now."
"Why?" Jochen looked at the dog, which was moving very, very slowly towards him,
its eyes wide like glowing coals. "Are you going to have your dog attack me?"
"No." Drague looked pointedly over Jochen's left shoulder. "I'm afraid the situation
is rather more complicated than you think. Depressing though this may be, we, you
see, Jochen, are the good guys."
Jochen turned round. The bad guys were standing right behind him.
12. Jagdkameraden
"So you see, Saucer Drive wasn't developed by the Americans after discovering a
crashed alien spacecraft at Roswell, it was developed by the Americans after copying
a German spacecraft which had been copied from a destroyed alien spacecraft at
Spitzenburg -"
Ant nodded. "We know all that, Richard. It came down on the Hunnenfeld, above
Spitzenburg castle."
"What? How?" Turpin was incensed. "Now just hang on a minute, I didn't know
this!"
"Cleo worked it out."
The van was speeding down two wheel trenches cut into snow which had become ice.
The rest of the road was snow frozen solid as rock - if the van ploughed into it, Ant
was convinced, paint would strip, and steel would buckle.
"Oh", said Turpin, hugely disappointed that this most precious of USZ state secrets
had been worked out in advance by fifteen-year-olds. "Well, in any case, apparently
there were suspicions the Germans had held something back when they handed over
the Spitzenburg research to the Americans. In particular, there were stories about
something called Wolfram's Shield. Once the wreckage of the Hunnenfeld ship was
put back together, there was a circular cavity about the size of a dinnerplate that had
clearly once contained something - there were connectors leading to a component that
was missing. The Yankees suspected that Wolfram's Shield was the most important
part of the design. Or the part of the design that the Germans had been closest to
duplicating."
"Wolfram's Shield is a legend associated with Spitzenburg Castle", mused Ant. "It
was supposed to make you undefeatable in battle."
"Gosh", said Turpin. "How old is this legend? More than fifty years?"
"More like a few hundred. It dates back to the wars with the Huns. The Germans
probably just gave it that codename because of the legend. The codename meant
something, allowed the enemy to guess what the thing was from the name.
Codenames shouldn't mean anything." He shook his head violently. "Ye gods, I'm
beginning to think like Alastair Drague."
"Drague's here?" said Turpin, alarmed.
"Oh yes. Stuck to me like bear poo to a rabbit. We managed to give him and his
goons the slip today, but he'll be on to us again before long. And he's, uh, got a
robosheep with him."
"Robosheep", said Turpin. He was growing paler than the snow.
"Made up to look like a dog. I don't want to know how they did that. Probably
stretched a dogskin over a robosheep chassis, knowing Drague. It can track you over
the snow. We're going to need to get you to a safe place."
"The safe house in Enfield'll do fine", said Quantrill. "Don't worry, Richard's in safe
hands." He took his hands off the steering wheel for a second; the van wallowed
instantly, and rasping sounds came from the van's onside wing. Quantrill grinned at
them with wild eyes big as saucers. "Only kidding."
"Richard needs to get back in orbit", said Ant. "Get back to Gondolin."
"No can do", said Quantrill, shaking his head very quickly and repetitively. "He has
to accomplish his mission Find Wolfram's Shield before Drague does."
"Drague isn't the only one who's looking for it", said Ant. "The blue goo, the men it's
taken over. One of them came to visit the café, and we had to shock him, shock it to
death with electricity. The old man who ran the café, the owner of Spitzenburg
Castle, he seemed to recognized the man it...had been. And there was a young guy
who looked very like the dead guy on a photo on the wall. A very old photo on the
wall. From, like the Second World War, or maybe even earlier. And other men the
old guy had known by name had been around the café earlier on."
"You think this man was a relative of someone the old man had known years earlier",
said Turpin.
"Nice deduction, Einstein", guffawed Quantrill.
Ant's blood ran colder than the snow outside.
"Einstein", he said. "Oh my god. Einsteinian relativity. That's it."
"What's it, Ted?" said Armand. "Share it with the class. I ope you brung enough for
everywun."
"He wasn't a descendant of one of the guys from the picture. He was one of the guys
from the picture. Richard, when the Americans first started experimenting with
Saucer Drive, they spent quite a few years trying to get the C Plus system to work.
Before that all they could get ships to do was travel really really fast, but they couldn't
break lightspeed, right? They couldn't make the transition into hyperspace."
Turpin's eyes narrowed. "You've been reading flight manuals. That is considered
cheating in polite circles."
"Richard, all they could do for those first few years was get ships to zip along at point
nine C, nought point nine times the speed of light. Or point nine nine C, or point nine
nine nine. And when you go that close to lightspeed, time slows down. A man could
make a hundred year journey at point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine C and
come back as if only a year had gone by and shake hands with his own greatgrandchildren."
"Sure", said Turpin. "One of the Americans' test flights they thought they'd lost came
back in 1970. The test pilot jumped down from the cockpit, told one of the
technicians at the field she had nice pins, and asked her whether she'd like to go out to
the pictures to see James Stewart in Harvey."
"What if the Germans hadn’t managed to perfect the C Plus system either? What if,
in their prototypes, they’d also only perfected a method of travelling very, very close
to lightspeed? And what if their commander realized the Allies were closing in on
Spitzenburg, that Germany was defeated, and he decided to escape to somewhere
else? Travelling at less than the speed of light, it might take him years to get to
another star, but Richard, if his crew travelled fast enough, they wouldn't age. A
journey of fifty light years might only have taken them six months. And what if they
found something else, out there in the stars? What if something found them? And
they agreed to some sort of...alliance with it? To defeat their old enemies. To come
back to Earth and be the Master Race. To fight the same war over again, with better
weapons, and win this time?"
Armand's hands tightened on the rail he was holding so hard that the metal creaked.
"World War Two, you mean, Teds?"
Ant nodded.
"My grandad were in World War Two", said Armand. "He were at Arras. His
platoon got bombed. Stukas blew up their truck. He got them from Arras to
Dunkirk", he said proudly. "He stole a car."
Ant nodded. It was plain that patterns of learned behaviour existed in Armand's
family.
"There ent gunna be no World War Three", said Armand. "Om with you, Teds."
"There ain't gonna be no World War Three", repeated Ant. He turned to Turpin. "Oh,
Cleo's an alien, by the way."
"WHAT?"
***
Jochen looked up at the classically handsome face, the face that had been deliberately
wrecked by dragging a fencing sabre across it. To make it look more dangerous.
More dashing. More of a warrior. On either side of that face were other faces only
ever seen in black and white up to now, faces from an old and yellowing photograph
taken in a time when all the surrounding country had belonged to the men who owned
this castle. When the vast green forests of Germany had existed only for them to hunt
in. Jagdkameraden. A face ten years older than Jochen's, and at the same time
seventy years older.
"Great uncle Kurt, I believe", said Jochen.
"You are a smart boy", said Great Uncle Kurt. "I wish my little brother were as
clever. How did you know?"
"Your little brother may outsmart you yet, uncle”, said Jochen. “It was the tattoo on
the inside of Horst's arm. 'AB' was his blood type. It isn't a concentration camp tattoo
- quite the opposite. Waffen SS troops had their blood type tattooed on the insides of
their arms. Grandfather, of course, knew where you'd been and what you were.
Otherwise he wouldn't have said what he did about the Venusberg."
"Tannhäuser", said Alastair Drague from behind Jochen. "One of Wagner's best
operas, which isn't saying much in my opinion, but...I believe that, in the opera, the
Venusberg is a cavern inside a mountain, the secret home of the goddess Venus."
Jochen nodded. "It is a very old German legend. There are many different versions
of it. It is rather like your English Tam Lin. Tannhäuser is a minstrel who sings so
sweetly that he becomes a companion of Venus, and is kept as her prisoner, until one
day he happens to mention the name of the Mother Mary. When he does this, the
spell is broken and he finds himself on a hillside below Wartburg Castle. When he
enters the castle, he finds the love of his life, Elisabeth, who has been waiting for him
all this time."
Drague shook his head. "I seem to remember an unnecessarily unhappy ending in the
Wagner."
"And in the Spitzenburg version as well. In our local version, every day spent in the
Venusberg is a hundred years outside. When Tannhäuser returns to the outside world,
Elisabeth is long dead."
Great Uncle Kurt nodded sadly. "The Venusberg was the name of our ship."
"And the love of your life, great uncle? Is she long dead?"
"The love of my life", said Kurt carefully, "was named Ilse."
Jochen felt as if someone had tickled his spine with cold broken glass. "Ilse", he said,
"was the name of my grandmother."
"Very convenient", said Kurt, "for Hermann. The fact that I had to leave. It left the
field free for him. The life I could have had with Ilse was now his."
"My grandfather", said Jochen, feeling himself tremble, telling himself that it was in
rage rather than fear, "made you leave, because of what you were doing to people. To
human beings."
"Your grandfather marched his little army of old men and boys up the hill the night
after we left, youngster. And he knew we'd gone. He saw the light in the sky, the
light of the ship rising. And he never saw it return. So he knew it was safe to make
himself a hero in the eyes of Germany's new masters. He was a coward then, as he
has always been. He had got himself sent home with a minor wound rather than face
the Bolsheviks on the Ostfront, and then he turned on his own side to curry favour
with the Allies."
"My grandfather", said Jochen, absolutely sure it was rage now, "is one of the bravest
men I have ever known."
Kurt looked down his perfect, aristocratic nose in contempt. "And what proof do you
have of that? Has he killed many Russians while I was away?"
"He has turned up to work, every day, knowing his home might be taken away from
him at any moment", said Jochen. "Since the castle has fallen into debt, he has
swallowed his pride, his aristocratic pride, and put on a suit and gone cap in hand to
visit bank managers descended from people whose ancestors used to work for his. He
has worked like a skivvy, fetching and carrying for visitors, making them tea and
coffee, smiling through gritted teeth at English and American customers he knows are
insulting him in a language he speaks perfectly well. You do not have to kill Russians
to be a hero, Kurt. And if you were old enough to be my uncle rather than just a
pompous little Junker cretin, you'd known that."
Jochen knew at that moment that he had gone too far. He was not speaking to a
twenty-first-century German, to a man who might lose his temper, shout, scream,
maybe even lash out with his fists, but go no further. He was talking to a man who
was used to being obeyed, respected, kowtowed to. And he was absolutely certain
that he was talking to a man who had killed other men. Who had felt able to do so
very easily, because he had not considered them to be men.
"What about you, Kurt?" he said, backing away. The door of the café was directly
behind him. He could reach it at a run. "Have you done anything heroic recently?
Have you shot any half-dead helpless prisoners in the back of the head?"
Unsettlingly, this did not send Kurt into a rage. Instead, his cold eyes remained
perfectly calm, though they were now fixed on Jochen like telescopic sights. "Not
recently", he said. "The prisoners were useless, I have to say - human garbage. None
of them had done a day's hard labour in his or her life. Soft-handed lawyers, doctors,
bankers. We should have shot them all on the first day and drafted in some good
Soviet animals - dumb as oxen, but the other camps all used to say, a Russian peasant
can be worked for a hundred days on nothing but bread before he dies. I have to say,
I haven't been keeping my hand in recently with the prisoner-shooting, grand-nephew
- though I'm sure I could make an exception in your case for old time's sake."
"I feel I really should interrupt at this point", said Drague.
Kurt's head swivelled round to point at Drague like a tank turret.
"Are you still here?" he said.
"I'm afraid so", said Drague. He turned to Jochen, keeping one eye on Kurt. "You
see, Herr von und zu, I rather think I have a duty to tell you how I really came to be in
this line of work. Jobs like mine are not advertised for in newspapers, you
understand. They are handed out to people who the establishment already know can
be trusted. People who already have a connection to events."
Drague almost looked embarrassed. He also looked as if he was just as angry as
Jochen. Cleo had said quite clearly that Alastair Drague never became angry, and
never showed emotion. Maybe this was a subterfuge.
"Most of the human garbage you kept in your concentration camp at Spitzenburg",
said Drague, "were Jews and gypsies and so forth, of course. However, some of them
were Allied prisoners of war who the Nazis had considered to be outside the bounds
of the Geneva Convention. Commandos, paratroopers, special forces men and
women. One of them was a young Englishman", he said, "who had been dropped into
occupied France in 1944 to help the French resistance. He was captured when a
collaborator betrayed his team to the Gestapo, and spent the next twelve months in
concentration camps. He lost fingers to frostbite, and had a number of teeth knocked
out by SS guards after making two attempts at escape. After his second attempt he
was scheduled to be shot in the camp courtyard in front of the other prisoners, and it
was only the intervention of a young SS lieutenant, who had been horrified by what
was going on in Spitzenburg and marched his Home Guard unit up from the town to
arrest the camp staff, that saved the Englishman's life."
"I remember the man", nodded Kurt. He looked almost bored. "I should have shot
him myself while I had the time."
Drague nodded emphatically. "You should indeed, Herr von und zu. That was, in
fact, one of the worst mistakes you ever made. That man's name was William Arthur
Drague, and he was my father."
Kurt looked at Drague dumbfounded for a moment. Then, his dumbfoundment split
into a grin. He threw back his head and laughed, loud and long.
"Der kleine Engländer! What a turn up for the books! So he lived to the end of the
war! He deserved everything he got, you know - he was a spy, dropped behind our
lines out of British uniform, and the Geneva Convention does not apply to spies.
Well, little Englander, mark two - why exactly have I made such a big mistake? What
is it that you propose to do to stop me from marching into my own home and claiming
it as my legal right?"
Drague's two minders had already drawn guns, and were levelling them at Kurt and
his associates. Unsettlingly, this did not appear to have worried Kurt in the slightest.
"You have no legal right to these premises", said Drague. "You are a war criminal.
And out of your own mouth, you have just condemned yourselves. I believe you
consider yourselves to be at war with all of Earth, and I do not see a uniform on any
of you."
"Then come on", said Kurt, throwing his arms wide, moving towards Drague, his
mouth wide in a brilliant grin. "Arrest me. Shoot me, even." He looked up the
barrels of the pistols being held on him by Drague's grim-faced assistants.
"Herr Drague", said Jochen to Drague in English, "guns are useless against them."
"Quite, quite useless", grinned Kurt, his smile now dangerously wide, like a dog's
grimace. "We are, you see, now more than simply men. We have entered into a
symbiosis with the incredible creatures we encountered far, far out on the cold edges
of nothing, in that dark place to which Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt exiled us.
Those beings are intelligent and strong, and they are generous - they are willing to
share their strength with others. With them inside us, we live longer. Wounds we
would formerly have considered life-threatening knit back together. A shattered leg, a
broken arm, will still continue to operate. In partnership with them, we are a
community that acts as one, the perfect efficiency of the hive."
Drague nodded. "And without your bodies to live in, they are shapeless blobs of blue
protoplasm."
Kurt's eyes flashed blue. Jochen wondered if a headful of blue goo could affect the
colour of the eyes. "Do not presume to criticize what you cannot possibly
understand."
"Where did you find them?" said Drague. "In puddles on the ground is where I'm
betting, because of course, they didn't have much choice in that respect, did they? Of
course, the first men who found them were probably uncooperative. They were
members of the Master Race, of course, stepping down your ship's boarding ladder in
their Mark One Wehrmacht space suits. They were in space to conquer it, not to have
their minds invaded by things that couldn't even manage growing arms and legs and
skin. They died, didn't they? Only the more tractable members of the crew survived.
The ones who could come to an agreement with what was now inside their heads. A
true superhuman would never have done that, Freiherr von und zu. He would have
died first. You are not only a nazi; you are a coward and a hypocrite." At his side, his
gigantic alsatian's hackles had raised like iron filings seeking a magnet, its jowls were
drawn back and vibrating, and its armoury of yellow teeth were showing in grim
detail as it growled low in its throat. On Drague’s other side, he was holding back his
equally massive Pyrenean, which also had its teeth bared, with a hand in its collar.
Kurt's fists were balling, his knuckles whitening, and behind him, his companions
were doing likewise. In seconds, Jochen knew, they would be at Drague's throat. "On
the contrary; I and my companions are the dream of National Socialism made flesh.
We are true superhumans. A thousand men like us could take this entire planet."
"Herr Drague", said Jochen urgently, "if you let go of that dog, you will only be
killing it. At one single touch, they can stick to the skin of any living creature, and
make their way to the brain."
"I am fully aware of that, thank you", said Drague. "That would tend to imply you
have less than a thousand men, of course", he said to Kurt. "Your sort conquer
everything you think you can conquer, and the last time I looked, this planet belonged
to humankind."
"Not for long", said Kurt. "You see before us this world's future. You had better hold
your other dog as well. I am fond of dogs. I would not like to see him injured
unnecessarily."
"Yes, regarding that other dog", said Drague. "I'm afraid you're about to get
something of a shock."
He held out his remote control, and pressed a big red button.
The alsatian leapt forward.
***
The flight of steps was long, wet and dripping with the condensation of decades.
Occasional tungsten bulbs were fixed to the roof, glowing dimly. The majority of
them had blown out over the years, and never been replaced. Only a few remained,
well beyond the service lives their makers had designed them for. They had probably
not been live since 1945. The old man going down the steps felt just like one of those
incandescent bulbs.
Occasionally, picking his way downwards in the dark, he would cast a cautious glance
up the tunnel behind him; nothing could be seen back up there in the intermittent
patches of electric light, nothing at any rate that could be seen with human eyes.
At the base of the steps was a door. The door was massive, made of steel, like the
door of a very old refrigerator. A blast door. The walls of the tunnel were now made,
not of mediaeval masonry, but of concrete. This was where the fortress built to
defend against black powder cannon stopped, and the fortress built to defend against
air-dropped bombs began. The old man removed a key, an incredibly long key with
three lobes to it, from his pocket, inserted it into the rust, and turned. The lock turned
with it. The door shrieked open like a scalded cat being dragged down a blackboard.
The old man put the key back into his pocket and stepped through the door, making
sure he propped it open behind him with a loose stone. Further up the steps, the
figure that had been standing in the dark space between two working electric lights
moved forward into a pool of light to follow.
***
Drague and his men stood back, keeping a respectable distance, as blue blood
spattered stonework and gigantic yellow teeth shook human limbs with a sound of
joints dislocating, bones breaking. Larry was tearing round the yard like a scalded,
forty-kilogramme cat, striking sparks off the brickwork, corralling Kurt's men in a
bleeding huddle in the centre of the courtyard.
"BAAAAAAA!!!"
"He's", said Jochen, casting about for the expression, "rounding them up. Like a - like
a -"
"Sheep Dog", said Drague.
Jochen was now standing with Drague and his men. "Isn't that sort of, erm, contrary
to his programming?"
"He's not a sheep", said Drague, "and he's not a dog. He's a forty-kilogramme
antipersonnel combat chassis. Can you get us into that side door?"
"Hasn't your Sheep Dog got the situation under control?"
"For now", said Drague. "But I would still rather put a wall between myself and
them."
He pointed at Kurt and his companions. The massive, ragged wounds Larry was
ripping in the men's flesh were oozing blue fluid that brought both halves of each
injury back together again like an aquamarine muscle. Larry, meanwhile, was
covered in blots of moving Royal Blue, crawling over his fur, causing it to lie down
and bristle by turns. Parts of his fur were peeling back from his endoskeleton.
"You were right. Whatever damage he's doing to them, it isn't permanent. Their
symbiotes are constantly repairing them. And he", said Drague, indicating Kurt, who
was speaking into a metal strap on his wrist, "is communicating with somebody,
which worries me."
"Should I shoot, sir?" said the black man in English.
"Yes", said Drague. "I'd like to see what effect it has."
Grimly, Wise sighted up at Kurt and fired one, twice, three times. Kurt jerked and
swore in German as the bullets tore through him. Then he looked up at Wise again.
"You", he said, "are going to regret that."
"Not much, it seems", said Drague.
"Do you believe in them now?" said Jochen. "Cleo said you refused to."
"My dear fellow, I always have believed in them. I merely disagreed with Cleopatra
on where they came from. It seems I was mistaken."
Jochen stooped down, lifted a loose snow-covered brick on the ground next to the
door, picked up a long brass key, inserted it carefully in the door, and turned it. The
door swung open.
"Good grief", said Drague. "The places I forget to look. Inside, gentlemen, quickly."
"Couldn't that blue stuff follow us under the door?"
"Of course. But from that point onwards, it would be just that - blue stuff. Slowmoving and not particularly dangerous unless you encounter lakes of it. Without a
human being to hide inside, it's slow-moving. But not stupid", he added. "Stick by
me, and you'll be OK."
Snow shook off the battlements of the castle high above their heads, like cake
frosting. Iron drainpipes were rattling on the wall. The empty-branched trees around
the castle were shivering like concentration camp inmates. Drague looked up.
"Oh dear...I was afraid of that. They had to get here in something, of course."
A shadow had moved across the sun. A grey-and-black-blotched dart-shape was
hanging in the sky above the courtyard. Jochen felt like a minnow that had suddenly
been cruised over by a Great White shark. A black swastika clung round one side of
the starship's fuselage like an arthritic spider.
A turret like a soup tureen turned in the device's underside and spat flame once; Larry
collapsed in a tangle of limbs and wires, like a swatted spider.
The blue men looked back to Jochen, Drague, and Drague's bodyguards. Some of
them spat out teeth before baring the ones that still remained to them.
"Into the castle", said Drague.
Jochen slammed the door just as someone hurled themself against it. He jerked back
from the wood, fearing blue goo might bubble from it.
"The next target that ship fires at will be this door", said Drague. "Get away from it."
"I'm afraid I really do not know where Cleo is", said Jochen.
"How tiresome." Drague was pulling a mobile phone from his coat. "I wonder..." He
tapped a sequence of keys.
Deep in the bowels of the castle, the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars sounded.
"Ah, Cleopatra", said Drague in satisfaction. "You cannot help leaving a trail of
breadcrumbs. Gentlemen - with me, quickly."
He moved off down the entrance corridor, following the faint sound of John Williams.
"That's coming from the cellars", said Jochen.
"It appears to be", agreed Drague, listening to the echo coming from an archway at
the end of the hall.
"They'll only follow us down there once they destroy the door", said Jochen.
"You have an alternative plan, perhaps? A way of dealing with men who are immune
to gunfire?"
"As a matter of fact", said Jochen, "I do. Are any of you gentlemen carrying
matches?"
***
Tamora and the remains of Team Salami were making their way through a gigantic
kitchen, one-eighth of which was set for a dinner that looked like being Heinz beans
on toast - hardly aristocratic food in Tamora's opinion. There were three plates.
There were not many Heinz beans, and they were in a dish in the microwave. The
toast was currently bread, in the toaster.
"Maybe this is where the servants eat", said Narinder over Tamora's shoulder.
"Ihr seid NICHT ERLAUBT hier", said the café lady. "NOT ALLOWED."
"This isn't German food", said Narinder. "It's beans."
"It is so German", said Sukhbir. "It's Heinz beans. Heinz is, like, a German name?
So they're, like his beans."
"You are such a gadha, Sukhbir."
The kitchen was filled with places where Cleo, and an entire troupe of performing
dwarves, might hide. It also, however, had a massive stone arch which held a massive
steel door. The door could be seen to be as thick as a man's finger. This could be
seen because it was hanging open - a heavy chain that had been wrapped around the
handles was swinging loose without a padlock. Beyond, a cold stone-floored corridor
led into a huge, stone-floored chamber.
The café lady was clearly surprised. Apparently the door was not supposed to be
open.
"She's through here", said Tamora. "He came through here, and Cleo followed.
Whatever he was doing in there, she wanted to be right behind him."
"Oh my god", said Sukhbir. "She's after it. Tamora - it's it she's after. It. You know.
That thing we don't know what it is."
"Maybe that's what she wants us to think, though", said Narinder. "Maybe she's
hiding in here right under our noses." She peered into a cupboard, and her hand was
slapped away by the café lady. "Waiting for us to clear out so she can carry on, you
know, going after it."
Tamora considered this. She knew her sister's mind. Although warm and fluffy and
substantially transparent, it was also very complex, with wheels within wheels, not
unlike a very large set of Rotastak hamster housing.
"You're right", she said. "She might be. It's just what she would do. Spread out.
Search the room before we go on."
She leaned back against the table, sighing, as cupboard doors banged open and shut,
the café lady carried on bleating in German, and the kitchen was searched. Faintly
and distantly, she could hear brakes squealing. Someone had dared to drive up to the
castle in the snow. The police, maybe. They had finally closed in.
Tamora suddenly heard a Nokia ringtone, louder than it should in the depths of the
castle, through the open steel door.
"Cleo's got a Nokia", she said.
"And, loike, arf all the folk in the world", reminded Cubic Zirc gently. "My mum's
got wun. I don't think that's my mum", she added.
"She's in there somewhere", said Tamora. "Unless she's managed to crawl up this
chimney somehow."
"Owjoo know there was summat wrong with er, anyway?" said Cubic Zirc.
Tamora held up her mobile phone. It was still displaying the text Armand had sent.
"Someone left this as a message on Ant Stevens' bed this morning."
"Oh", nodded Zirc. After a second, she said: "What's it say?"
"It's Jamaican patois", said Tamora. "There's no reason why you should understand it.
But I understand it, because my family's Jamaican. 'De Haliens benwen get de a me
head' means 'the aliens have got into my head.' 'Me fi go now' means 'I've got to go
now'. 'Dem kom op ya' means 'they're coming'."
"So...oo wrote it, then?"
"I think Cleo did", said Tamora wearily. "I think she's been taken over by the Blue
Goo, but maybe there are some times of the day when the Blue Goo sleeps, or when
it's not paying as much attention as it should. Maybe it's like having a split
personality. Maybe Cleo still gets to take over every once in a while." She squeezed
the mobile phone hard in her fist. "She should have left it on my bed! Why didn't she
trust me? I'm her sister!"
"But why did she write that in patois?" said Sukhbir.
"I think the Blue Goo's never taken over a Jamaican before. I think it could read her
thoughts when she was thinking in English, but it was having trouble with Jamaican.
After all, it's not been in control of her long. She's only been acting funny for the last
few hours, after..." she nodded with grim certainty ...."after that little hole appeared in
the dormitory window last night. That must be how it got in. It must only need the
tiniest of cracks."
A hand landed on Tamora's shoulder. It was not a large hand, nor did it feel like a
particularly strong one. However, it tangled itself instantly in the polyester of
Tamora's raincoat, and she was horribly aware that it was not ever going to let go, not
even if she bit it till her teeth met.
She turned to see Fräulein Meinck, who was clicking her mobile phone shut in her
other hand.
"The Frowline's bin makin phone calls", said Zirc. "I did arsk her not to. Om every
so sorry, Tazza."
Behind Fräulein Meinck, Herr Riemann, Herr Schieß, Anton and Stefan from the
Freizeitheim clattered up out of the tower staircase leading in from the café. They
were out of breath, and flakes of snow were melting on their jackets.
"Now, Zircönia", said Fräulein Meinck, "please tell Herr Schieß and the Freizeitheim
staff vhat you häff just töld me."
Cubic Zirc blushed as red as a Communist fire engine. "Er."
"Half of outer space is Communist", summarized Tamora. "Half of it is American.
The half that is neither American nor Communist falls into the category of 'The Good
Guys'. Space travel was actually invented in 1951, after the Americans spent five
years copying and perfecting Nazi designs. The Nazis, in turn, copied it off a flying
saucer that crash-landed here in Spitzenburg during World War Two. Somehow,
some of those Nazis seem to have survived the war - I'm presuming they grew false
moustaches and took a U-boat to somewhere that digs the small men in big uniforms
thing, like Spain or Italy - and have sent their goons back here to get hold of flying
saucer technology. And they have blue alien mind control amoebas on their side as
well. Any questions?"
"Thanks Tazza", said Zirc, giving a thumbs up.
Herr Schieß was staring at Tamora with an expression of murderous intensity.
"Häff you säid Nazis?" he said.
"I'm afraid I did", said Tamora. "I also said blue alien mind control amoebas, but you
seem to be more bothered about the Nazis thing."
His face grim, Herr Schieß looked around the kitchen till he found a mop, whose head
he removed. He began whacking the broom handle into his palm experimentally.
"Also, Jungens", he growled to Anton, Stefan and Herr Riemann, "bewaffnet euch."
Anton nodded, opened a drawer, and began rifling through it for meat skewers and
carving knives. "Nie mehr."
"Bis zum bitteren Ende", muttered Stefan, shaking his greasy hair out of his eyes as he
located a seven-foot window-closer with a metal hook at its end. Even Herr Riemann
took up a rolling pin.
"What are they saying?" whispered Cleo to Fräulein Meinck, who was clearly
swelling with national pride.
"Arm yourselves lads; never again; to the bitter end", said Fräulein Meinck. She
herself picked up a fire extinguisher, and seemed to have every intention of using it.
"Also", said Herr Schieß, still making practice thwacks with his broom handle,
“vhere are your Nazis?"
"Erm", said Tamora, pointing through the open steel door. "We think they might be
in there. In the castle. Erm. They may be armed. And one of them may be my
sister."
Herr Schieß's eyes narrowed. "I äm önly mäkink än ässumption here bäsed on ze
ewidence immediately aväilable, but I vould guess your sister iss bläck, yes?"
"You are correct in your assumption", said Tamora.
"A bläck Nazi", said Herr Schieß.
"She's not been herself lately", explained Tamora.
"Off course. How foolish off me. Zät expläins everysink. Vorwärts!"
Herr Schieß led his improvised army into the castle.
13. Sibling Rivalry
"WAS im NAMEN des TEUFELS -"
The old man stopped, turned, and looked back up the steps into the dark. He was
standing, now, in an empty vaulted concrete space, big as the hangar deck of an
aircraft carrier.
"I knew there was someone up there. Come down. Show yourself."
A figure was dimly visible, struggling with a mobile phone, trying to make the Darth
Vader ringtone stop whilst not quite knowing what button to press.
"It is the girl from the café, is it not? Jochen's friend, the pretty black girl."
The music stopped. Bright eyes flashed down out of the dark.
"You find blacks attractive now, Hermann? Hardly surprising, I suppose. Though
you snapped up my Ilse quickly enough."
The old man's eyes acquired even more wrinkles than normal. He peered into the
blackness.
"Kurt", he said. "I don't know how that can be you, Kurt, but it is you. Ilse was never
yours. That was all in your mind."
"Yes, of course", said the girl's voice out of the dark. A smile opened in the blackness
beneath the eyes. "You named your tank after her. How romantic. What girl could
refuse such a gesture?"
"She married me, Kurt. She did not marry you."
A fist smashed into a wall. "BECAUSE I WAS NOT HERE! Because I was forced
to leave my homeland, my birthright! A birthright you stole!"
"I stole nothing. You forfeited the right to it by being a criminal and a coward. If you
smash that girl's hand into the wall like that, you'll hurt her. I don't suppose you care.
You never have cared about that sort of thing, have you? How do you have control of
her?"
"We met with friends out there in the dark, Hermann. Friends who allowed us to
share the power they have. What I feel, my brothers feel. What I think, they think.
We move as one, we act as one. This girl is now one of us, and so I can see through
her eyes, and so can all my brothers. I know where you are, Hermann. The best thing
for you to do would be to sit still and wait for us to come and get you. If you're very,
very good, little brother, I might allow you to share in our good fortune."
The old man grunted contemptuously. "Little brother? I have lived, Kurt. I lived
through the lean times after the war, when we had nothing, when we had to rebuild.
And we made this country strong again, Kurt. We made it the powerhouse of the
West. Having to walk past armed Americans every day, having to wallpaper our
houses with newspaper, never having enough to eat, powdered egg, Eichelkaffee!
From that, we got to a point where the presidents of all the world's nations drove
Mercedes. And then when the Bolsheviks were finally defeated - when their own
people threw them out in Moscow - and Prussia was finally given back to us, we were
so glad that we gave away all our riches, everything we had built, to our poor
relations. Our prodigal sons from the East. And we were glad to do it. I have seen
my son grow up, Kurt, and my grandson. What have you done, big brother?"
The girl moved off the steps into the light. She was moving differently, carrying
herself more stiffly, head high.
"You still walk like a Hitlerjugend popinjay, Kurt."
The girl's foot fell on something that yielded and scraped on the concrete. She looked
down.
"Why, brother. How thoughtful. Just like old times."
"It's yours, brother. Your old Korbschläger. The one you used to lay open Willi
Krauß's face in the Mensur. Pick it up."
"Willi was a good man. He stood and took his punishment. That is the point of the
Mensur. It is not a duel. You stand so close you can smell each other's breath, then
hack at each other's faces, and are not allowed to flinch. The object of the exercise is
to face danger with courage."
"The object of the exercise is to get scars! Fashionable scars, that make you look
handsome and dashing. But do you know what, Kurt? Girls don't like them. You're
inside a girl right now, Kurt. Look inside her mind; you'll see it's true. So who were
you looking handsome and dashing for?" The old man cackled. "Surely it wasn't all
to impress your men friends in the SS?"
"You have scars, brother."
"Mine are all on the inside. Or concealed under my clothing."
"Poor baby. I'll give you some on the outside", said the girl, stooping to pick up the
sword. It was a heavy weapon with a basket hilt. She whipped it from side to side
with some difficulty. "Christ in heaven, I can scarcely lift it. This nege is weak."
"I am also weak. I am an old, old man."
"Then we are even."
"Hardly. If you kill me, I die. If I kill you, I only kill this poor young girl, and you
will still be alive and loathsome somewhere."
"What are you going to use?"
The old man reached into the dark behind him, and produced a long, curved blade.
"Grandfather's cavalry sabre."
"That old thing? It must be rusted to hell by now."
"Blood does not rust swords, brother, nor do tears." The old man whipped the blade
up in front of his face. "Moriturus te salutat."
The girl's sword whipped up in front of her own face. "Prête. Allons"
The old man's sword flickered viciously at the side of the girl's head; it was deflected
effortlessly downwards, sprang back up to hack upwards, was swept down again,
sprang back like a blade of grass in the wind, was beaten down again; the girl took a
half step forwards and swiped suddenly at the old man's face; he was forced to retreat.
"You weren't ready for a determined attack, brother", gasped the girl.
"And you weren't ready to press your attack. You put yourself off balance - jumping
forwards", puffed the old man. "You were always - too eager, Kurt."
The two circled one another, short of breath.
"This girl is terrible. The most awful material I've had to work with for a long time."
"I", grinned the old man, "am the most awful material I've had to work with for
years."
"Am I stressing your old heart, little brother?"
"You wish." The old man lunged again; the girl dashed the blade aside, hacked at it
as if beating it flat against an anvil, and when it was no longer between them, leapt
desperately forward and swiped at where the old man had just been. The old man had
stepped aside, frantically jerking his weapon up to protect himself; he pushed himself
off the girl's blade to stumble several steps backwards across the chamber, falling
heavily onto one hand. Across the chamber, the girl had also fallen.
The old man raised himself to his feet with difficulty, dusting himself off.
"If you keep striking this girl's hands against the stone", said the girl, smiling evilly,
"you'll hurt her. I don't suppose you care."
"You're all strength and desperation, Kurt", said the old man. "Always were. I
imagine I could even stand to face you in the body God gave you. Why don't you
stop sending little girls against me, find some courage and come at me in a form I can
kill?"
"I might even do that", said the girl. "I am on my way to you right now, in fact."
Then the chamber rang to a desperate shout:
"GRANDFATHER!"
The old man turned. Jochen was standing in the entrance, his face panic-stricken.
"Go back upstairs, boy. You are not needed here." The old man coughed, then bent
double as the coughing took hold of him completely for several seconds. "I have
everything under control."
"Are you sure?" said the girl mockingly.
"Cleopatra", said Jochen, "what are you doing? My grandfather is a good man. He
will not hurt you."
"Your grandfather", said the old man contemptuously, "will stab this girl clean
through the heart if he can, boy. Because this girl is not Cleopatra. If indeed she
ever was. May I introduce you to your great uncle Kurt."
"We've met", said the girl. "It took you some time to get down here, great-nephew,
but as you can see, I was here before you. Are you out of condition? Remember, all
of us can see through the eyes of any other. We are a perfect military unit. A perfect
fighting machine."
Jochen stared at the girl, unable to form any expression but horror.
Baron von und zu Spitzenburg looked Jochen directly in the eye.
"They are looking for the Shield", said the Baron. "They must not have it, but they
will kill for it, of that you may be certain. It would be good if they do not kill you."
He pointed away into the dark. "There is another exit in that direction. It leads up to
the surface outside the castle. Go find your mother and our faithful guard dog and get
out of here."
"Would that be your faithful guard dog?" said the girl, looking across the chamber at
the massive white hound being held back by Alastair Drague and his two assistants,
Jennings and Wise, who were emerging from the stairs down into the chamber.
Jennings and Wise were only preventing the dog from springing at her by holding it
hard by the collar.
The old man looked at the dog for several seconds.
"Yes", he said. To Jochen, he said:
"Go. That is an order, soldier. Befehl ist Befehl."
Drague's two soldiers, both armed, hesitated, struggling with Hasselhoff as he
growled and strained at the leash.
"Go, gentlemen", said Drague to his men in English. "Take the dog and the boy with
you."
"We can't leave you and the old guy alone with her. She'll kill you", protested Wise.
"If she's under control of the blue organism", said Drague, "almost certainly. I would
point out, though, that your guns will have very little effect on her either. There is
very little we can do."
Jochen, tears streaming down his face, shook his head. "We must go. He has given
us an order." He looked one last time into the Baron's eyes.
And the Baron winked.
Jochen nodded.
"And I am also giving you an order, gentlemen. Go", said Drague. "If you want to
live." This last point seemed to convince the two soldiers, and they saluted and
followed Jochen, dragging the dog along with them.
Baron von und zu Spitzenburg, the girl, and Drague were left standing alone in the
chamber.
"It is good to see you again", said the old man to Drague.
Drague bowed curtly. His heels clicked together as he did so. "Freiherr von und zu
Spitzenburg. I only wish it had been under better circumstances."
"This creature", said the girl, "is the son of the little Englishman I wanted to shoot,
little brother. See how he has grown. He looks almost as old as you do."
"I have met Mr. Drague many times", said the old man. "In short trousers, to begin
with, when his father visited us as the official emissary of Her Majesty's Government.
And then in rather longer trousers, when he took his father's place."
"Official emissary. I see. And his job would be to make sure Her Majesty's
Government was the only one that benefited from the research that took place here at
Spitzenburg, I imagine."
"Quite the reverse", said Drague. "My job was to attempt to get Her Majesty's
government some benefit from your research after the American government had
already taken everything from the castle including the wallpaper."
"It's true", said the old man sadly. "They did remove a great deal of wallpaper. They
said we might have hidden microdots on it."
The girl's fists tightened around the hilt of her sword. "And these are the people you
handed the keys to the castle to?"
"I handed nothing to anyone! They marched out of here with enough to build
starships, it is true. But the greatest secret - the one that would most allow nation to
make war against nation - I hid from them. I had seen too much war in a life that, at
that time, was still very short. I was determined that they would not have it."
"What secret was that exactly, my lord?" said Drague.
The old man cackled. "Alastair, Alastair, you never change. I came down here not
just to defend the secret. I came to destroy it. Nobody shall have it. Not even you."
He pointed at the girl with trembling fingers. "And certainly not him."
The girl's mouth split open like a ripe pea pod in a massive toothy grin. "Oh, brother,
brother, brother. We already have it. We have had it for quite some time. All I came
here to do was to make sure nobody else had it but us."
The old man's eyes froze, no longer taking in his surroundings.
"That, I suspect", said Drague, "puts a rather different perspective on matters. We
appear to be delaying the important business of trying to kill each other, gentlemen.
Shall we get to it? I'm sure Herr von und zu Spitzenburg senior is eager for his
reinforcements to arrive, but right now he is outnumbered. The advantage is ours."
"You sound rather more confident", gloated the girl, "than you did a few seconds
ago."
"As it happens, I am", said Drague. " He removed a small electrical device from an
inside pocket and flipped a cover off a button on top of it. "Some while ago, I found
myself trapped, with a handful of friends, on a world where the blue organism had
taken root. I believe the Soviet navy has since subjected that world to an intensive
nuclear bombardment, but in the short term, I found that an effective means of
defence was to subject the organism to a powerful electric shock."
"As you did Horst?" said the girl. "Yes, that was effective. I felt that part of us die.
But as there would not appear to be a readily available source of electric current down
here, I do not think -"
Drague sighted up on the girl with the device and fired. There was a crackling sound
like frying bacon. The girl collapsed like a rag doll, jerking slightly as if under
someone else's control; then she drooped into total immobility.
Drague stepped forward and poked her with a shoe.
"Hmm. You know, I really wasn't sure that would work. Hence my eagerness to get
your grandson out of the way." He held the device up to the light. "I didn't choose
the colour. It came in vibrant pink - selling to the female market, I imagine. It's
called a taser. The American police swear by them." He looked up at the baron. "I
was telling the truth, by the way; Kurt and his minions are on their way here, I'm
afraid. It will take them a little longer than they think. They are too arrogant not to
have taken the most direct route down here, and we left a little surprise for them, but
that might only slow them down." He held up the taser. "This is only a single shot
weapon. I can reset it, but it'll only take down one of them at a time, unless it's
pressed right up against them."
"They cannot hear us now?" said the baron.
"I don't believe so", said Drague. "But who can tell?"
"Then listen. This is very important." The old man looked around him at the concrete
floor of the chamber, as if still seeing prisoners laid out on it, sleeping curled up and
shivering without pillows or bedclothes. "What I told Kurt is not true. Wolfram's
Shield is not here. My grandson knows where it is. I just told him. He is on his way
to get it now."
"I know. That much was obvious. There was no reason for you to have been so
careful to mention your - 'faithful guard dog', was it? Luckily Kurt seems not to have
realized."
The baron nodded. "Kurt never was that bright. But if the things that are controlling
him already have the Shield, then you must have it too. Everyone must have it. You
hear me, Alastair? Everyone. That includes the Americans", he said, breathing
heavily as he added, "and the Russians."
"You don't feel as if you're betraying your country in any way?"
The baron shook his head emphatically. "My country is mankind. And Kurt is, by his
own admission, no longer mankind. And Kurt and the likes of Kurt do not represent
Germany, Alastair. Not my Germany. They never have. And they never will.
Besides", he said, thumping his chest. "I am not a German first and foremost. I am a
Bavarian."
Drague nodded. "I should really have known that without asking." He knelt down by
the side of the girl. "I wonder whether I've killed it, or merely slowed it down."
Picking up the girl's hand and looking at it from all angles, he assured himself it was
safe and put his finger to the inside of her wrist. "She's still alive."
"Whatever is inside her might still be alive too."
"I will take that chance", said Drague. He gathered the girl into his arms, and
struggled to his feet. "They are not having Cleopatra Shakespeare." He nodded at the
Taser now lying discarded on the concrete. "The weapon will only work once.
Freiherr von und zu Spitzenburg - it has been an honour. For me, and for my father."
The baron bowed. "And for me. Viel Glück!"
Drague nodded once again, and walked slowly, each step faltering and difficult, out of
the chamber.
"Good lord. What has she been eating."
14. The Resurrection of Charity
The castle, so far, had been embarrassingly nazi-free. Having started on the third
floor where the door from the servants' quarters connected, they had been working
their way down to ground level floor by floor. Tamora had expected long, redcarpeted halls with massive Hammer Horror curtains edged with gold braid and rows
of silent, immaculately-polished suits of armour which might or might not conceal
lurking alien nazis. Instead, every room was empty, and draughty, and free of even
the most basic fittings, apart from the occasional smoke alarm and fire extinguisher.
"You häff säid", commented Herr Schieß, "zät zere vere nazis hidink in ze castle."
"There are", said Tamora. "There so are."
"Zey are hidink extremely well."
Sukhbir, meanwhile, was rubbing her shoulders, grimacing. "It's cold in here."
"Did Winston Churchill say oo, it's a bit cold in here when he jumped onto the beach
at D-Day?" said Tamora. "Did he say, golly, the nazis have hidden extremely well,
maybe I should go home?"
"No, she iss right", said the café lady. "It iss werry cöld in here. Too cold." She
walked cautiously to a doorway, clutching a rolling pin anxiously as she peered round
a corner into the next corridor.
"Ze front door", she said. "Ze front door iss...vergangen."
"Whass that sound?" said Cubic Zirc.
"Sounds like a really old TV on in an empty room", said Narinder. "You know, like,
how you can hear if an old TV set is on in the dark, even if you can't see it?"
"Yeah, because it's saying, like, Hello, welcome to Britain's Funniest Accidental
Deaths at three in the morning", complained Sukhbir, "because it's the one in your
room, next door to my room, while I'm trying to sleep."
"No, I mean, even with the sound turned down. It's, like, ultrasonic. Can't you hear
it? It's really loud."
"I can hear it", said Tamora. She poked her face out round the same corner the café
lady had been looking round. "Cor blimey O'Reilly. She's right."
She walked out into the corridor. It was the main entrance hall of the castle. It had
once had a big, imposing-looking, very very thick timber door, thick as the tree trunks
that had produced the wood for it. She had seen the door from the outside. It had
been studded with iron bolts as big as cats' heads. Now, it was lying in smoking
pieces all over the hallway, some of it matchwood, some of it charcoal. The doorstep
had vanished with the door, and had been replaced by a crater bordered by cracked
flagstones. Snow was drifting into the hallway.
"My nazis", said Tamora with grim certainty, "must have come this way." She was
oddly happy to have been proven right.
"Änd zey vent zät väy", said the café lady, nodding at a set of muddy and bloody boot
prints coming in through the shattered doorway and pouring into a cellar entrance
further down the hallway.
"Zät door", said the café lady, "voss two hundred years öld." Her hands gripped the
rolling pin so hard that it squeaked. Tamora was certain that any nazi caught
underneath it would be mercilessly flattened, and then possibly pressed into mince pie
cases and microwaved.
"I cän smell somesink", said the lady. "I häff not smelt it for a wery lonk time."
"Since nineteen forty-five?" said Tamora in fear.
The woman narrowed her eyes at Tamora. "I äm not sö öld as ziss. Nö. Since
Octöber I häff not heard it. Octöber, ziss iss vhen ve test ze boilers for heatink ze old
castle. Ve do not use zem, but every year ze insurance cömpany, zey tell us to svitch
zem on, vone time önly in ze year, to proof zey are not dängerous vhen zey vörk. But
now", she said, "it iss Jänuary."
"Maybe them insurance people come early this year", suggested Zirc.
"Änd ze äir from downstäirs", said the lady. "It iss werry varm. Too varm."
Standing next to the cellar entrance, Tamora could indeed feel hot air belching from
it, as if the cellar contained a private entrance to Hell.
"There's a man down there", she said, squinting into the dark. "Lying on the steps.
His face is bright red. Like he's been burned. I'm going down to take a look."
Herr Schieß put a hand on her shoulder. "I do not sink sö, young lädy. Not if you do
not vant to look just like him."
As the man had a moustache, Tamora stopped in her tracks.
"Why?" she said.
"Kohlenmonoxid", said Herr Schieß.
"Nein", said the café lady in disbelief.
Herr Schieß shrugged. He produced a matchbox, struck a match, and tossed it down
the cellar steps. It bounced from step to step, burning with a yellow flame. As it
bounced lower, the yellow flame turned blue, but continued to burn.
"Carbon monoxide", said Herr Schieß, "burns viz a blue fläme. Ze män häss died off
carbon monoxide poisoning, vhich turns ze blood bright red. Someone häss lit ze
boiler vhen ze äir vent häss been blocked. Ze cellar häss filled viz poison gäs."
"Why would someone do that?" said Tamora.
"I häff no idea."
"Is it safe to go down there?"
"If you hölt your breath."
Tamora was still staring at the dead man. His eyes were wide open, and he had a look
of total astonishment, as if he could not believe something had proved capable of
killing him.
"Omigod", she said. "Look underneath him."
Under the man's body, a thick blue blot of goop was spread out on the flagstones.
"Vhat äm I looking at?" said Herr Schieß.
"It's, like, left him", said Tamora. "Because he's, like, no use for living in any more.
Because he's dead."
"You häff säid", said Herr Schieß weakly, "blue älien mind contröl amoebas, I sink."
"That's wun roight there", said Zirc, staring at it venomously. "A Nazi Amoeba."
The blue alien mind control amoeba was trying to slither uphill. It was having
difficulty. It was vibrating like a plate of jelly on a washing machine. It looked ill.
"Carbon monoxide kills it", said Tamora. "Just like it does us. Someone set a trap for
it, for all of them, down there. Lit the boiler and blocked up the air vent.
Deliberately."
"Hermann", said the woman. Her face was ashen. She turned to Herr Schieß. "Es
hat ihn sein müssen. Er könnte noch dort unten sein -"
"Ruhe, ruhe", said Herr Schieß, patting her shoulder. "I äm göing down to turn off ze
boiler", he announced, breathed in at great length, lit a match, held both the match and
his breath, and walked off down the stairs.
"Stop him!" said Sukhbir.
"The goop'll get him!" said Zirc.
They waited, not daring to breathe.
Eventually, they heard a shout from below:
"ALLES AUS!"
Red-faced, with his lips clamped tightly together, Herr Schieß plodded back up the
steps, stopped to check the soles of his shoes for goop, and finally took a long and
shuddering breath.
"I häff alsö öpened a couple of vindöws. It vill be säfe to gö down soon. Ve should
väit."
"Hermann?" said the woman.
Herr Schieß shook his head. "He voss not down zere", he said. "But zere vere mäny
özzer men. All dead."
"And blue amoebas?" said Tamora.
"Greät big pools off blue amoebas", nodded Herr Schieß. "All...shiverink, like ze
vone down zere." He shuddered as unhappily as one of the amoebas he was
describing as he pointed down the stairs.
"We have to get down there and kill them", said Sukhbir.
"Wiv bleach an electric", nodded Cubic Zirc.
"Zey might be intelligent", said Herr Schieß.
"Who iss to say ve häff ze right to kill anozzer living creature?" agonized Stefan.
"They are intelligent", said Tamora. "And they're also nazis."
Herr Schieß looked at Anton and Stefan. He looked back at Tamora.
"OK, zey are töast."
"You häff talked me into it", said Stefan.
"Vhere iss ze junction box?" said Anton.
At the other end of the hallway, Narinder screamed. A brilliant fountain of sparks
shot across the flagstones. Narinder, who only a second ago had been looking out
through the ruins of the front door into the courtyard, was now cowering down
halfway across the entrance passage, hands over her head.
"There's something out there", said Narinder. "Hovering over the castle! It shot at
me!" She looked out at a fresh glowing hole in the stones of the entrance passage. "It
won't let us leave! It's got us pinned down! We're trapped!"
***
"What is it, Arjit?"
Porsh was staring out of the tower window with eyes even bigger than Sukhbir's when
faced with a spider in her bathtub. The spider was hovering outside, balancing on thin
air, a bungalow-sized torpedo of mottled black-and-grey camouflage colours that
seemed to ooze and flow across its surface, making distinguishing fine detail
impossible. Two things were clear, however. Firstly, it did not belong here - not in
the air above this castle, and not even on this world. Secondly, the only clearly
defined marking on its skin, crawling across a fin on its dorsal surface, was a big,
black swastika.
Harjit was sneaking across the empty tower room towards the device, across creaking
floorboards that were all the room contained. Porsh hung back in the doorway, hiding
behind the jamb.
"Careful, Arjit - they moight ear ya."
Tongue in the corner of her mouth, Harjit was crawling towards the window like a
commando. Under one arm, she had the red steel tube of a fire extinguisher. In her
teeth, she had the seven-foot wooden pole of the window-opener.
"Wot you doin, Arjit? You dun't wanna make that thing mad, I mean, it's firin stuff at
the carstle."
"Vat", said Harjit past the window-opener, "ish preshishely why I am going to make
vish fing mag."
"I dun't understand you, Arjit. You oughta take that window-opener outa your
mouth."
Harjit took the window-opener out of her mouth and reached up delicately to hook
open the window.
"Thass better. Now you come back over ere an we'll goo round the other soide of the
carstle an foind a window to jump out of - ARJIT!"
Harjit had leaned out of the window, had taken hold of the window-opener with both
hands, and was using it to whack the butt end of the UFO.
"THAT'S IT, YOU UGLY PUDDU! I'M OVER HERE! TURN AROUND! LET
ME SEE YOUR IMPORTANT LITTLE PLACES!"
Horribly, the torpedo had begun to swing around in the air, as if Harjit had attracted
its attention. It was also starting to rise.
"THAT'S GOOD! THAT'S GOOD! KEEP TURNING! YOU'RE A BIG FAT
PIECE OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY, AREN'T YOU? GOT A BIG OLD POWER
PLANT INSIDE YOU! AND THAT NOISE COMING FROM SOMEWHERE IN
YOUR MANGY INNARDS IS EITHER AIR COMING IN OR AIR COMING
OUT! WHILE YOU'RE DOWN HERE ON EARTH, YOU'RE USING OUR
ATMOSPHERE TO COOL YOURSELF!"
The ship had now almost completely swung round to cover the tower window. It was
a stubby cigar shape, with three fins as thick as submarine conning towers. The
topmost fin had what looked like a cockpit in its base.
"AND THAT MEANS THE AIR HAS TO BE GOING IN TO ONE OF THOSE BIG
BLACK HOLES IN YOUR NOSE! AND IF THE AIR CAN GO INTO IT - THIS
CAN GO INTO IT! BREATHE IN!"
The fire extinguisher was balanced on her shoulder like a shot putt. Harjit pivoted,
shrieking horribly, as the cylinder flew out into the black air intakes currently pointing
directly at her like gun barrels. The cylinder rattled into the intake; the barely audible
ultrasonic whine of the vehicle rose to an unhealthy shriek. Harjit flattened herself
against the floor. The ship began to turn faster in the air, turning rapidly as if
preparing to leave in haste.
Then one side of it exploded.
Harjit punched the air. "POWDER EXTINGUISHER! DRY POWDER, YOU SOOR!
AND THE THING ABOUT POWDER IS, IT ABSORBS HEAT REALLY, REALLY
QUICKLY!"
The ship was heavily damaged on one side. The camouflage patterns around the
damaged area were rippling like water around a thrown stone. Inside it, damaged
electrical connections were fizzing like a living thing.
The ship was still rising. Rising so that the pot belly turret underneath it could turn
and direct an innocuous-looking black pinhole directly at the tower window.
There was an unbearably bright light. The window exploded. Masonry crashed
down. Harjit covered her head. The ship was still turning, but the turret continued to
turn with it, and continued to fire, focussing on the castle. A cloud of brick dust and
wood splinters filled the tower room. Porsh cringed behind the doorway and
screamed.
When she dared to poke her head round the door again, half the tower room was not
there, and neither was Harjit.
***
The van wallowed to a halt at the base of the zig-zag track clinging to the edge of the
near-sheer escarpment that led up to the castle.
"Why have we stopped?" said Turpin.
"You see this stuff?" said Quantrill, pointing to the world outside the van. "This is
called ice. It is like water, only harder."
"I know what ice is", said Turpin indignantly.
"Get out and take a walk around on it, then", said Quantrill.
Turpin looked at Quantrill oddly, but shrugged, unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the
passenger side door, stepped out and slipped flat on his face.
"Do you take my point?" said Quantrill.
A feeble thumbs-up rose into the air next to the van.
"I am not driving this van", said Quantrill, "up that hill. It will not go up that hill."
"I could try it", said Armand gamely.
"We could just walk it", said Ant. He threw back the side door and slipped down into
the road, trying to tread on uncompacted snow rather than ice. "It's not far, just up at
the top of that rise. Look - you can see the walls from here -"
"ANTHONY."
Ant turned back. Turpin had climbed up onto his elbows onto his ice, and was staring
up at a perfectly cloudless sky, as if the sky had things even worse than clouds in it.
"What?"
"Don't go any further." He looked up at George Quantrill. "You hear that?"
Quantrill nodded. "I can hear it." He squinted up into the towering trees. "But I can't
see it."
Ant strained to hear.
"Saucer drive?" he said. It was almost a physical sensation rather than a sound,
hovering on the very edge of hearing. Across the road, a little old lady had stopped
on the pavement and was tapping her ear, presumably because she'd assumed her
hearing aid was malfunctioning. She had hair scraped into a purple hairnet, thick
bifocal spectacles, and a shiny brown handbag the colour of dog poo. Ant prayed she
would carry on blaming the hearing aid.
Turpin nodded. "Somewhere close by. Has to be hovering; the drive note's constant.
Don't recognize it. I'd know a Fantasm or an Aurora."
Quantrill shook his head. "It's not one of ours. We should be careful."
"You have no idea." Turpin drew a Mark One Orgonizer from his own tunic. "If it's
what I'm hoping it isn't, I put half a thousand rounds into one of those things out near
Krasnaya Three last year and barely tickled it. It took cruiser-power guns from a
Revere to finish it off. If one of those things is hovering somewhere above us right
now, we need to worry."
"We should get into the trees", said Quantrill.
"Sure. Those very cold trees with no leaves on them. If that ship up there has infrared sensors, we'll stick out like, you know, you and me would in a crowd of normal
earth people."
"Have you got any other suggestions?"
Turpin tried to think of some. He grimaced and shrugged. "The trees it is."
They began slipping and sliding up the slope. Ant showed Turpin how to grab tree
trunks and travel from one to the other uphill, hand over hand. Quantrill was making
better time than Turpin. He had been living with Earth gravity for longer. Armand,
meanwhile, was nearly at the top of the hill already.
"He's moving faster than all of us", gasped Turpin.
"He's dafter than all of us", said Quantrill contemptuously. "Let him go. If he's daft
enough to stick his head out of the woods first and get it spread round the landscape,
at least he'll give us some advance warning of what's up there."
Ant gawped at Quantrill, unable to believe he was listening to a man from Gondolin.
He looked at Turpin. Turpin was looking thoughtfully at Quantrill's back, but
otherwise didn't react. High above, Armand was still scrambling higher, dutifully
doing what he'd been told to, without any sign of fear, closer and closer to the castle
walls Alarmed, Ant hissed: "ARMAND!"
Armand stopped, and turned round. "What is it, Teds?"
"Er." Ant looked up at the empty grey battlements, at the gently rustling forest. "It's
dangerous up there, that's all. Keep your head down and your eyes up. If anything
hits us it'll come from overhead."
"Hello", said a voice from uphill. "Who are you? Why are you carrying that big
hairdryer?"
Armand turned his attention back uphill. "Airdroyer?"
"That thing you've got in your hand."
The girl had stepped out from behind a tree. She was blonde, and very pretty, dressed
in a blouse, a tweed skirt, stockings, and a coat. She was also wearing a hat. The hat
had a veil. Armand looked at her in alarm.
"You goin to a fooneral?" he said.
She laughed tinklingly. "No, silly. Of course not. Whose funeral would I be going
to?"
Further down the slope, Turpin and Quantrill had stopped dead. Turpin's face was
now a perfect colour for camouflage against the snow.
"What's wrong?" whispered Ant.
Turpin looked at Quantrill; silently, the two of them crouched down behind the snowladen bushes. Turpin looked up at Ant.
"While we're on the subject of funerals", said Turpin, "we went to hers."
***
Far above, hinges shrieked under the weight of half a tonne of door, and something
heavy fell through that opened door and tumbled down step after step after step.
Eventually, it showed itself at the foot of the stairs, where it lay gasping in precious
breathable air.
"Back again, brother", said the Baron.
Kurt von und zu Spitzenburg dragged himself up onto his elbows, and spat out a
mouthful of blue goop. Then he glared up at the Baron.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?"
"I didn't do anything, Kurt. I'm not sure what was done, but whatever it was, my
grandson did it." The Baron watched Kurt vomit up great gouts of viscous blue goop,
elastic as egg white. "I'm not an expert on your current physiology, Kurt. Is what
you're doing right now a good thing, or a bad one? I'm guessing bad."
Kurt stared at the glutinous mucus oozing from him. "It's dead", he said. "Something
killed it."
"But didn't kill you. Unfortunate, I'd say."
Something clattered across the concrete floor towards him, raising sparks. Long,
glittering, metallic. Kurt looked down at it.
"You can't be serious."
"Deadly."
"It was just the girl before, brother. If you'd killed her, you'd just have killed a Neger,
no loss to the world, right? This is me. If you kill me -"
"You die."
Kurt blinked for a moment in shock. Then he spat out the last remnants of the blue
goop, rose slowly to his feet, and picked up the sword.
"All right, brother. If that's the way you want it. I have over fifty years on you. This
will not take long."
Without warning, he threw himself up and at the Baron, whipping the blade up
towards his face. The Baron stepped back and flicked Kurt's sword aside; somehow,
in the eyeblink when the parry happened, a gash an inch long opened in Kurt's hand.
Kurt swore, and held up the wound indignantly. "Foul shot, brother. Cutting at my
hand!"
He looked at his hand, turning it round, inspecting the injury.
"We're not fighting for points any more, Kurt. And are you expecting something to
happen to that wound? You're spending an inordinate amount of time staring at a tiny
little shaving cut."
The tiny little shaving cut wept blood. "It's not closing", said Kurt in disbelief.
"Ah", said the Baron. "I see. I thought you were being abnormally courageous. I
knew there had to be a reason for it."
With a despairing howl, Kurt leapt forward and hacked at the Baron's head. The
Baron sidestepped and brought Kurt's sword down in a circle of steel. At the end of
the parry, Kurt yelped and jumped back, slapping his hand over his leg.
"Foul!" complained Kurt. "If you can't kill me cleanly according to the rules, don't
kill me at all!"
"RULES?" hissed the Baron. "Rules? What rules were you following when you
dragged civilians in off the streets, men, women and children, and sent them off in
cattle cars? What rules were you following when you allowed the animals you were
commanding to take away prisoners' bedding, shoes, and clothing in the middle of
winter? While you were doing that, I was out on the Ostfront, fighting for my life!
You disgraced the family name, Kurt! You disgraced the name of Germany! Though
God knows I am as guilty as you - I saw people spitting on Jews in the streets, I saw
them smashing panes of glass in shop fronts, and did nothing. I should have known
what was happening out in the countryside, in the special camps people never talked
about. I should have known the evil we see in the surface is only ever the tip of the
iceberg. Don't tell me about rules, Kurt. You never used any in your whole miserable
existence."
Kurt stabbed at the scar on his face with a finger. "I used rules when I got this,
brother! I had the courage to stand and face my enemy, within sword length!"
"You were wearing a mail shirt and goggles! You were a little boy at a rich man's
college, playing at soldiers! That is the only wound you ever got in six years of
fighting!"
Kurt licked his lips, darting an eye at his brother's legs. "There is a wound far deeper
than any you have ever received, brother, and that one was given me treacherously by
you."
The Baron's brows furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"You stole my Ilse!" blurted Kurt. "She was mine and you knew it! She would have
waited for me for a lifetime! And you stole my inheritance! My title!"
The Baron's sword dropped. He stepped back.
"If Ilse had waited for you for a lifetime, Kurt", he said, "what reward would she have
got for her patience? She would have grown old, grown grey, while you were out
among the stars. You knew where you were going, Kurt; and you knew how long you
would be away. And would you have embraced that eighty-year-old woman when
you came back? Would you have rewarded her fidelity? I think not.
"As for the title and castle, you can have them, for all they're worth. I here and now
yield you the title of Baron von und zu Spitzenburg, as is only legally right and
proper."
Kurt's own sword drooped to the floor.
"You'd do that?"
"I have just done that. The castle is mortgaged to the hilt, and the title means
nothing."
"Thank you, brother", said Kurt. "I appreciate that."
With that, he darted his sword forward without warning. The Baron sidestepped just a
fraction; sword clanged off sword.
Kurt stared into his brother's eyes, mouth open in shock, close enough to taste his
breath.
Then, he collapsed onto the concrete, several inches of sabre protruding from his
back.
"And with that, I am the Baron again", said the Baron. "Thank you, brother."
Kurt's eyes were motionless, goggling at the ceiling.
The Baron was breathing heavily. More clumsily than he had before, he set his boot
in Kurt's stomach, and pulled his sabre out, nearly falling over as he did so. He
winced at a sharp pain in the centre of his chest.
"Feels almost as if you did manage to run me through, Kurt", he said, wheezing.
"Well, this old bag of bones lasted just long enough." He fell forward as far as the
wall, putting a hand on it to remain upright. "Who knows, maybe it will last another
minute or so. Let us see. Let us see."
Feeling his way along the wall, he tottered towards the exit to the outside world.
15. Give Her Another Half Minute on Defrost
"Are you going to introduce me to your friends?" said the girl. Her skin was white as
milk; her hair was like spun gold. "They're hiding down there in the trees. I can see
them."
Armand turned to look down the slope. Only Ant's face was visible.
"Er - hi", said Ant.
"Do you have a hairdryer as well?" said the girl. Her eyes were like stars, and not the
universe's most common stars, dim red dwarfs. They were as big and blue as B
spectrum supergiants.
"Yes", said Ant. "Armand is a keen stylist and hair technician."
"I am?" said Armand.
"Yes", said Ant. Out of the side of his mouth, he said to the bush right next to him:
"Who am I looking at?"
"Commodore Drummond's office", hissed Turpin from behind the bush. "The picture
on the desk."
"Your hairdryer looks fascinating", said the girl. "Can I have a look at it?"
Horribly, Ant could see Armand's chest swelling, and felt he could sense Armand's
unmistakeable absolute confidence that another weak female heart had fallen to the
irresistible charm of the A Dog.
"Sure", he said.
She stepped towards Armand.
"Oh my god", said Ant out loud. "Charity Drummond."
The girl looked up at Ant as if he'd slapped her in the face.
"You can have a real close look at my hairdryer", smiled Armand, and fired.
The girl's face broke into a grin. Her teeth were, of course, like pearls. They were
like the sort of pearls that might be found at great blue depths, at the limit of a pearl
diver's endurance, where he might put his hand into a clam and find himself unable to
pull it out with only a few seconds of air remaining.
"Wow", said the girl. "What was that."
"Uh", called Armand uneasily. "TEDS. IT ENT WORKIN. TEDS?"
"I thoroughly approve of these emotional responses you bipeds go in for. Most
stimulating! How did you do that? The models I've been occupying can't."
She continued to move towards Armand.
"Give her FRIT", suggested Ant. Armand spun the wheel and fired again. The girl's
eyes widened. "Wahnsinn! This must be what you call fear. I'm actually having
difficulty controlling my host. Fear and ecstasy, bittersweet, like iced coffee!"
"Your host", repeated Ant.
"Should I try ANGRY, Teds?" said Armand.
"Oh, please do", said Charity Drummond, shivering deliciously.
Although his heart wasn't in it, Armand sighted up on her and pulled the trigger again.
Her eyes burned as if he'd lit a fire behind them. The teeth bared in something
halfway between a smile and a snarl.
"Oh, that was so good. Anger, I take it. Though I've felt this one a good deal; my
group of bipeds are so, so angry. They've been away from home a long time, and
they've come back to find other men's boots and coats in their hallways. Do you have
any other settings on your little wheel?"
"Er. I've got SAD", said Armand.
"Hit me", said the girl, composing herself.
"It's not having any effect", said Ant.
"HIT ME", snapped the girl. Blue rivulets of goop were snaking down her arms like
varicose veins.
"Armand", said Ant. "Get ready to run."
"Oh, yes", said the girl, smiling serenely with her eyes closed. "Do."
Armand raised the Orgonizer again.
"CHARITY", said Turpin suddenly, rising from behind his bush.
The girl swayed on her feet, as if hit by something far deeper than the Orgonizer
could deliver. When she spoke again, it was in a voice without the full, rich adult
confidence it had had only seconds before.
"...Uncle Richard?"
"You were very small when I saw you last", said Turpin.
"My", said the girl. "How I've grown."
"Your father still has your picture on his desk", said Turpin.
The girl writhed, as if a hot iron had been held to her.
"Keep doin it", said Armand. "Whatever it is you're doin, iss workin."
"You were a very small girl", said Turpin. "I saw you off at the field. You and Hope
and Faith always used to stow away on ships to see the universe, and I used to pack
you back on board them home to Gondolin. I walked you up the ramp onto the ship.
The Elysian Queen."
"You pretended to be a horrid dinosaur", said the girl, a tear shivering down her
cheek.
"I had to get you on board somehow. You wouldn't get on the ship. You said it
looked scary."
"It was scary", she said quietly. "You have no idea how scary."
"I know", said Turpin. "The ship never came back. We never even found wreckage.
Your mother cried and cried. But it doesn't have to be scary any more."
The girl turned her face full on to him, a new light in her eyes. She began laughing,
so hard that she threw her head back like a wolf baying at the moon.
"Charity's gone", said Ant. "The other one's back."
Quantrill rose from behind his bush. "Get away from her. Give me a clear field of
fire." In his hands, he held a rocket pistol.
The girl looked up the barrel of the gun as if Quantrill had been threatening her with a
lollipop. She giggled.
Quantrill shifted the aim up straight between her eyes. "Laugh all you want. I'm
pretty sure this'll hurt."
"It might even kill her, Mr. Quantrill", said Ant. "But I get the feeling what's inside
her doesn't really care."
"It's Charity, George", said Turpin. "Charity is still in there somewhere."
"But that's how they win, Richard", said Ant. "That's how they took the Xenophon,
and New Dixie, and the Russian colony on Krasnaya 3. They rely on the fact that
human beings won't kill their own loved ones. That's why they sent her. They knew
people who knew her well might be here. Shoot her. It's the best thing you can do."
"If you shoot her", said Turpin, "whatever's inside her will slither out and be loose on
Earth, and then we'll need to shoot every new person it goes into." He looked up at
the castle walls. "And George - that drive note's changed."
Quantrill ducked back behind his tree in fear, looking up at the sky. "It's taking off."
The girl, oddly enough, also turned to look at the sky.
"No", she said. "Idiots! They should never have come so close to the ground!"
The drive note became a shriek; then there was a colossal BANG. Bright plumes of
debris shot over the castle walls. A mottled, indistinct shape like a three-vaned dart
rose from inside the courtyard, trailing a plume of smoke and sparks. Swastikas
decorated all three lobes of the dart.
"Is that - ?" said Ant.
Turpin nodded. "What I saw out at Krasnaya 3. That'll only be a fighter or a light
transport, though. There'll be at least one other ship, if your friend Jochen is to be
believed. If there are that many of them."
The fighter hesitated tremulously in the air above the castle for a second, and then,
instantly, was gone. It was gone so quickly that the sound of air rushing in to fill the
gap where it had been made a sound like a colossal balloon bursting.
There was a yell and a sound of splintering softwood. Something was falling through
the branches of a tall pine standing next to the castle gate. It was letting out a new
yell with every fresh branch it hit. Finally, it ran out of branches altogether and
crashed to the ground in a snowdrift underneath the tree.
Groaning, it dragged itself up onto all fours, spitting blood out onto the snow.
"That is the LAST TIME", it complained to itself, "that I SAVE THE WORLD from
NAZIS. Oh my aching everything."
Ant ran forward through the trees, stopping just short of the gate. "...Harjit?"
The thing looked up. It was bruised and battered. "Stevens?" The thing squinted into
the trees behind Ant. "There's a lady with a bad case of the Blues coming up behind
you, Stevens."
Ant could hear a gentle pitter-patter of feet through the underbrush behind him. He
turned just as Charity came to a halt ten metres from him, planted both feet together
as if anchoring herself securely, convulsed, and vomited blue goop at him, aiming her
mouth like the muzzle of a cannon. He jerked sideways behind a tree trunk in shock;
the spot where he had been standing was spattered in blue gobbets which coalesced
into a moving mass, already turning to ooze out arms of itself in his direction.
"I didn't know they could do that", said Harjit.
"Neither did I", said Ant.
Harjit was on her feet now. "Did she hit you?"
"I don't know", he said, patting his clothes and backing away. "I don't think so."
Charity was moving forward again now, blue fluid dripping from her mouth, no
longer angelic or beautiful in any way. "I hope not, or I'm dead. I'll kill myself
before one of those things gets control of me."
"It doesn't matter whether she hit you or not", said Harjit. "Trust me. Get into the
courtyard, back towards the café. And get her to follow you. I've a theory that needs
testing." She raised her voice at George Quantrill. "HEY, YOU THERE WITH THE
GUN. COULD YOU POSSIBLY SEE YOUR WAY TO SHOOTING THIS NICE
LADY IN THE BACK, PLEASE?"
"It won't do any good", said Ant.
"It might bloody slow her down." Harjit waved her arms at Charity. "HEY, YOU!
THAT SPACESHIP OF YOURS, THAT JUST GOT BLOWN AWAY? THAT
WAS ME! ALL ME! YOU WANT YOUR REVENGE? COME GET ME!"
Moving with just as much difficulty as Charity, she backed away through the castle
gate across the courtyard, which was now covered in bits of alien spacecraft and
castle rubble. Tamora, Cubic Zirc, Sukhbir and Narinder were poking their heads out
of the shattered castle entrance, looking wide-eyed at Charity, who followed Harjit,
still grinning more broadly than a human being should. Blood was coming from
Charity's mouth along with the blueness.
"Tamora, Zirconia, Sukhbir, Narinder", said Ant. "Hi. This is our friend Charity.
She's a dangerous alien."
"That's right, that's right", said Harjit, still backing away and beckoning with her
hands. "Just a little further. I promise you can have a piece of me once we're in the
café. What can little me do to big old you? STEVENS, CHECK THE INSIDE OF
THAT CAFÉ OUT, I DON'T WANT ANY SURPRISES." Charity planted both
boots in the snow again; her entire body flicked like a cobra's, and a ribbon of blue
goo flew out of her mouth, narrowly missing Harjit and Ant, who skipped away.
The café was deserted, flakes of snow drifting in through its still open door. No-one
and nothing appeared to be hiding behind the bar, under the furniture or behind the
giant plaster Labrador.
"Come on, now", said Harjit, backing away into the café as Charity advanced, picking
up a table and holding it in front of her as a goop shield. "Keep coming. Keep
coming. Stevens, get ready to grab her."
"GRAB HER? Are you INSANE?"
"I am not quite sure right now, Stevens. You take the left arm, I'll take the right."
Charity's feet came together again; her stomach muscles began to tighten. Rather than
backing away this time, however, Harjit darted forward, grabbed Charity's arm and
twisted it, propelling her forward toward the bar.
"GRAB HOLD! GET HER HEAD IN THERE!"
Reluctantly, Ant took hold; Charity was hurled headlong into the open door of the
unsafe microwave oven on the bar top, and Harjit reached out with her free hand,
switched the oven to HIGH and dialed five minutes on the timer. The light went on;
Charity thrashed around inside the machine. There was a horrible, inhuman howling
that was coming from Charity's throat, but which Ant somehow knew was not coming
from Charity. Ant watched the timer turn, all the time aware that he was holding
another human being's head inside something which could make an egg explode
inside a minute.
"Harjit, we've got to get her out of there."
Harjit shook her head. "It took at least ten seconds to kill the one inside the Black
Forest gâteau."
Ant was not sure how to take this, but decided to continue to hold on. Eventually,
Harjit nodded at him, and they pulled Charity back out of the microwave, sitting her
down in one of the café sofas. She was breathing heavily. The blue goop round her
mouth had crisped and blackened. Ant was impressed.
"How do you feel?" said Harjit.
Charity gasped up at Harjit as if she were mad.
"Do you feel like vomiting Brain Control Amoeba into my open mouth at all?"
continued Harjit.
Charity shook her head at Harjit.
"She might be lying", said Ant.
"Maybe we better give her another half minute on Defrost", said Harjit.
Quantrill burst into the room, holding the rocket pistol on the back of Charity's head.
"NO, NO, DON'T", said Ant, holding up a hand.
Quantrill didn't. However, he clearly wanted to. The gun remained trained on
Charity.
"Give me the gun", said Ant, holding out a hand.
Quantrill looked at Ant in clear and certain knowledge that Ant was an entire picnic
short of a picnic.
"Give me the gun", said Ant again. "Armand, if he doesn't give me the gun, make
him a very happy man. Mr. Quantrill, I am going to do something useful with the
gun. You should trust me. Why won't you trust me?"
Quantrill turned and looked into the business end of the Orgonizer. It had Armand
behind it. Armand made a convincing face at Quantrill.
With a sour face, Quantrill handed over the rocket pistol to Ant. Ant handed the
rocket pistol to Charity.
"Shoot me", he said, "if you want to."
Charity looked at the pistol. Then she turned the pistol round, and pointed it at her
own head. Ant and Harjit grabbed for it desperately, Ant managing to slide his own
finger in between the trigger and the receiver. The gun did not go off. Charity
collapsed sobbing.
"It's all right", said Ant. "It's dead. It's dead. We killed it. We killed it with
microwaves. It's over."
"It's still inside me", sobbed Charity. "It's still in there, still in there, still there, still
there, still there. It never goes away, you think it goes away, but it comes back."
"It's gone", said Ant. "And, and, if it isn't gone, we can make it go away. All we have
to go is put your head back in the, the", he searched for a phrase, pointing at the
microwave, "the magical mind control helmet, and leave it in for longer." He looked
up at Harjit. "If this works, this means we can do Cleo too. Doesn't it."
Harjit nodded. "It had crossed my mind, Stevens. It had also crossed my mind that I
might need it myself if one of those little blue globs crawls in my ear while I'm
sleeping." She looked round the café. "Makes you think, after all, there could be any
number of the things oozing around in here."
Quantrill, who had relaxed on a café seat, jumped up in sudden alarm.
"They live a long way away", said Charity. "They were alone out there so long,
without shape or form."
"And darkness moved upon the face of the deep?", said Ant, quoting the Bible
without thinking. Charity looked up at him without having appeared to find what he
had said amusing in any way.
"They have no shape without a form to live in", she said. "They had lived in other
forms, other creatures quite unlike human beings, long ago, so long ago that they can
hardly remember how they first infected those creatures...and those creatures had
taken them from star to star in ships. But one of their ships crashed far from
anywhere, and they had no way of getting back to the other creatures they'd infected.
After only a short time, the creatures that had piloted their ship died out, being
vulnerable to heat and cold and hunger...they were more resilient, but they were
reduced to lying in pools like common bacteria. Then, suddenly, after so long, so
incredibly long, other creatures arrived...suitable creatures, with ships - primitive
ships, it was true, but ships oddly similar to the same basic design as the ones flown
by the things they had originally inhabited. What luck! They inhabited these new
host bodies eagerly, and they, and they", she rocked backward and forward on her
chair, tears streaming down her face, "they began to search space for more..."
Harjit put an arm round Charity, clasping her hand hard. "Erm. Come on, now. Chin
up. Your brain's all shiny and new now, we've, er, washed it - "
Charity burst into tears, and any further attempt of Harjit's at cheering her up was
interrupted by a sound like the sky tearing as black shadows flicked overhead with the
speed of propeller blades. Snow shook from the trees, and compression waves
swirled in the air. A window on one corner of the castle shattered.
Ant ran back out into the courtyard. Turpin was standing with one hand shading his
eyes, looking up into the air.
"It's a -"
"Hawker Harridan A1", said Ant, following the sharp-nosed saucer as it back-flipped
across the brow of the mountain. "It's Penelope, isn't it."
"Penelope Farthing?" said Quantrill, walking out onto the terrace, re-holstering his
pistol.
Turpin nodded, not daring to take his eyes off the sky. His face was a solid mass of
worry. "My glorious commanding officer, George. She must have been circling up
there the whole time."
"With her fire control radar turned off", said Ant, "so they couldn't see her, same as
you did at Krasnaya. Waiting for them to put a foot wrong. And now one of them's
taken off with a bloody great hole in its side."
"She's smelt blood", said Turpin. "And she's going in for the kill. But there might be
more than one of them up there. We were lucky at Krasnaya. They were
overconfident. They only sent one ship. This time..." He waved his hands around
helplessly. "Even one of those ships, badly damaged, might be a match for a
Harridan. But more than one...she's taking an awful risk, Anthony."
"She's seen the enemy, she knows the enemy ship was attacking a surface position,
and she knows we might be in that surface position, so she's engaging. She's doing
what you would in the same circumstances."
For all the trail of smoke it was leaving, the mottled dart was flicking back and forth
across the valley with unearthly speed and agility, being tailed quick as a fish by the
Ace-of-Spades shape of the Harridan. The two ships bounced vertically upwards into
a bank of cloud, and were lost to sight. Turpin licked his lips.
"We've got to do something", he said.
"We can't do anything", said Ant. "All we can do is wait. Now you know how we
feel when you do this sort of thing."
Turpin looked down at Ant as if this had never occurred to him.
"I suppose you're right", he said. "Let's just hope there's only one ship up there. And
hope that ship is damaged badly enough for Pen to keep hammering bigger holes in
it." He frowned in deep concern. "She's flying in pure pursuit, with her nose locked
straight on his tail. That won't work. It's a missile tactic, and she won't get a missile
lock on him, those ships don't have a radar signature. She has to use guns. She needs
to fly lead pursuit, with her nose ahead of him. To be quite honest, Pen has never
really cut it as a combat pilot -"
There was a terrific detonation from the sky, and the entire bank of cloud glowed
brighter than sunshine. A lump of debris that had once been a starfighter, bent
ironically into the shape of a swastika, pinwheeled out of the cloud, spitting sparks,
and tore into the hillside on the opposite side of the valley. There was a second
explosion so bright it hurt Ant's retinas; the silhouettes of pine trees between him and
the blast were etched onto his eyes.
The Ace of Spades shot out of the cloud, perfectly unharmed.
"She seemed to be doing all right just then", said Ant.
The Harridan drifted overhead, blown like a bungalow-sized leaf on an impossible
hurricane, and settled down into the courtyard, landing struts reaching out for the
snow. It was sleek and streamlined. It was armed and dangerous. It was being flown
by an outstandingly beautiful woman. It was half the size of the courtyard.
"Roll me in bamboo shoots and throw me to the pandas", breathed Armand.
"Is that, loike, a Nunidentified Floyin Object?" said Zirc.
"I dunno", said Porsh.
"Cos if, loike, I know it is", said Zirc, "that means it ent, cos, loike, I can identify it."
"Your brain's overheating again, Zirc", said Harjit. "Think warm puppy thoughts."
"Warm puppy thoughts", repeated Zirc quietly to herself. "Warm puppy thoughts."
Penelope Farthing, now wearing the pips of a USZ Captain, jumped down from her
cockpit ladder into the snow.
"Think I got that one", she said. She was breathing heavily.
"I think you probably did", said Turpin. "Unless he's really resistant to hitting
hillsides at twice the speed of sound."
"I've come to rescue you", said Penelope.
"My heroine", said Turpin woodenly. "I, uh, bumped into someone." He moved
aside, letting Penelope see George Quantrill, who raised a hand and waved in clear
embarrassment.
Penelope stared.
"George? I thought you were...that is, we all thought you were..."
Quantrill nodded wearily. "Yeah, I thought I was too, for a while. You get that way,
living in Enfield."
Boots crunched on snow and debris from the direction of the gate. Turpin and
Farthing turned to see Wise and Jennings, rocket pistols at the ready, picking their
way cautiously into the courtyward past the Harridan. Jennings, Wise, Farthing and
Turpin locked gazes. Their gazes did not unlock. Wise's and Jennings' gun hands
began to rise.
"GENTLEMEN", said Ant. "You are soldiers in the British Armed Forces."
Wise and Jennings looked at one another, as if wondering whether this was a trick
question.
"Soldiers in the British Armed Forces", continued Ant, "are supposed to be the good
guys. That means they don't fire unless fired upon."
"You wish", said Wise contemptuously. He cocked his pistol.
"I would also draw your attention", said Ant, "to the three gentlemen behind you with
rolling pins and baseball bats, who have been creeping up on you while you've been
good enough to listen to me."
Wise and Jennings turned around slowly. Anton, Stefan and Herr Schieß bared their
teeth at them happily.
"Made you look, made you stare", said Ant. "And looking back this way for a
moment, I would draw your attention to the three people now pointing handguns at
you."
Wise and Jennings turned round again to look up the barrels of three Personal
Orgonizers in the hands of Turpin, Armand and Farthing.
"You've seen these weapons work before", said Ant. "You know what they do."
Wise looked at the Orgonizers and bit his lip nervously.
"Yeah", he said. "It was actually quite nice."
"We've changed the technology. Imagine something as nasty as that was nice."
Jennings breathed in for a long time. Then, he raised his hands, finger hooked into
the trigger guard of his gun. "Hey, okay, okay. Truce, truce. We came up here from
the cellars. There's some really bad stuff going down down there. Sort of blue nazi
stuff. Like your normal nazi stuff, but, you know, bluer."
"We know", said Ant. "We've been trying to convince Mr. Drague of it for a very
long time. We have a girl in there", he said, pointing back into the café, "who knows
where these things come from. Knows where we can find them. If you can tell us
where Mr. Drague is..."
Wise and Jennings looked at each other.
"Er", said Wise.
"Mr. Drague's still down there", said Jennings.
"You left your commanding officer downstairs", said Ant in undisguised contempt,
"with some Really Bad Stuff."
"He gave us a direct order", said Jennings defensively. "Told us to get up here with
the boy."
"The boy", said Ant.
Wise turned round and pointed. "Yeah, this -"
He gawped at an empty courtyard.
"There was a boy", he said.
"He vent srough zere", said Herr Schieß, pointing in through the main door to the
castle.
Jennings swore. "The Shield", he said. "He's gone to get the bloody Shield." He
turned to look at Ant, and shook a quivering index finger at him. "The Shield's what
you're here for as well. Don't try to deny it."
There was a tinkling sound of pottery shattering from inside the café.
"EXCUSE ME", said Harjit. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"This is my house", said Jochen's voice. "I am doing what I please with my property."
Ant met Jennings' gaze one last time, then sidestepped off toward the café, at first
trying half-heartedly to keep his Orgonizer trained on Jennings, then turning and
running. Jennings and Wise followed, along with Turpin and Farthing.
Inside the café, the floor was littered with fragments of garishly-glazed porcelain, the
remnants of the life-sized labrador dog that had stood in one corner. Jochen was
standing over the shards, holding something in his hand. It was circular, about the
size of a dinnerplate, though rather thicker, and looked like a more stylized version of
a fossil ammonite, a segmented spiral with occasional studs on its surface that might
have been controls.
Jennings raised his gun again instantly. "THAT IS THE PROPERTY OF HER
MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND AND YOU
WILL HAND IT OVER NOW!" Spittle was flying out of his mouth onto the
laminate flooring.
Jochen shook his head. "I don't think so. I don't even think it ever really belonged to
us either. The people who made it, you see, they came back to get it."
"What do you mean?" said Ant.
Jochen turned the device over in his hands, feeling the studs with his fingers. He
looked up at Charity. "This has been in my family a very long time, I think."
Charity, who was looking at the device like a priest at the bones of Jesus, nodded
slowly. "Your ancestor, Wolfram, found it. It was the only working fragment of the
first ship that crashed."
"The first ship?" Ant was getting horribly confused. "How many crashes have there
been?"
"Only two", said Jochen. "And I think we made the second ship crash ourselves. Am
I right?"
"Yes. The first ship crashed over fifteen hundred years ago. A German tribesman
named Wolfram found the wreckage."
"Then where is the wreckage?" said Ant. "Surely archaeologists would have found
it."
Charity shook her head. "Could I have a drink of water, please? My throat hurts."
Ant nodded to Harjit, who moved to the sink and filled a glass of water. Charity
accepted the water gratefully, swallowed with evident pain, and said:
"Wolfram was a very intelligent man, rather like his descendants. That's a
compliment, by the way", she said, looking up at Jochen. "I was supposed to bowl
you over with my irresistible feminine charm."
"You have only failed because I know nothing that good ever happens to me", said
Jochen gallantly.
Charity smiled. "Wolfram pulled that device out of the wreckage. It was the only
component he could make work. That component, however, immediately made him
headman of his tribe, a man to be feared. It won him great success on the battlefield his men continued to fight when they would have left any other leader, believing him
to be filled with the power of Odin. Under Wolfram, the Thuringii and Alamanni, the
two most powerful local German tribes, drove back the Huns from Spitzenburg at the
battle of Hunnenfeld. Fearing, though, that other parts of the wreckage might bring
other people equal power, Wolfram ordered the rest of the ship buried, and kept the
Shield with him at all times. The knowledge of what the Shield was and what it did
was passed on from father to son, a family secret."
"Until great-grandfather Otto passed it on to Kurt", said Jochen. "And it was no
longer a secret."
"Yes. It was now the twentieth century. Men now worshipped science, not pagan
gods. Kurt believed what his family possessed was not a magic talisman, but a
technological artefact made by supermen from another world. Kurt was, you see, an
out-and-out nazi. He believed that, if superior intelligence existed on another world,
it would be bipedal and blond.
"All of this was then passed on to a fussy little Jewish gentleman the nazis had
imprisoned but not dared kill, because they knew he could build them weapons more
terrible than any they could dream up themselves - Konrad Belzer. Using threats and
promises, the SS were able to get Belzer to work on the Shield, and on the other
components of the ship they were able to excavate from beneath Spitzenburg castle.
Belzer came to believe that the Shield was not only useful as a weapon - he thought
that when in operation, it would light up like a beacon, giving away its position across
light years to anyone who might be watching and possessed the same technology.
And the SS absorbed this, and made their own plans.
"They turned the Shield on for four years solid underneath Spitzenburg. The Shield
was still the only component they had been able to get to work, and they knew they
needed more. And they got it. At the end of the fourth year, an alien ship arrived, no
doubt to answer what its crew probably saw as a distress call. It settled down to land
on the Hunnenfeld, and was greeted by little blonde girls bearing garlands of flowers
and the heads of the local SS and Hitler Youth, all smiles. Earth's friendly greeting
committee."
"The only trouble was", said Jochen, "what came out of the ship was not blond."
"No. Nor, indeed, human. The creatures looked quite unlike humanity. The nazis
were distraught. All this implied, after all, that they themselves might not be the high
point of human evolution. They carried on greeting the newcomers with smiles and
their Sunday best and the very finest china for another two days, and then lured them
into the castle cellars and massacred them with machine gun bullets. Some of them
they kept alive for study, interrogation...dissection. Some of them were dissected
while still alive. One of them, who they nicknamed Langer Hans, survived right to
the end of 1944, but most of them wasted away rapidly - their bodies needed amino
acids that weren't produced by any organisms on Earth.
"Now they had a working ship, albeit one with a few machine gun holes in it, and
from that ship, they were able to start putting together the bits they'd dug up from
under the castle..."
"To make a second ship", said Ant. "That ship was what the Americans found when
they took the castle. It wasn't a proper working model. That was why it took them so
long to figure out."
Charity nodded slowly. Nodding quickly seemed to be too much effort for her right
now. "Hermann knew Kurt had betrayed the family secret. He took the Shield from
the ship, and hid it deep in the castle." She looked across the café floor. "Inside a
rather horrible plaster dog, as it happens."
"He is a model of grandmother Ilse's dog", said Jochen. "He was shot by an
American soldier, quite by accident. She was very upset."
"All very interesting", said Jennings. "That still doesn't change the fact that you are
going to hand that device over to me right now."
"Easy, Pete", said Wise at Jennings' elbow. "We don't have to hand it over to Drague.
Drague might be dead. We could make a pretty penny out of this."
Another action clicked behind Ant's head, always a bad place to hear an action
clicking. He turned around slowly. George Quantrill was pointing his own pistol at
Jochen.
"I'm afraid I'm taking that thing myself", he said. "Hand it over, son."
"George", said Turpin, horrified.
"Mr. Quantrill", said Ant. "I don't think you heard what I just said about us being the
good guys?"
"It's them or us", said Quantrill. "Either we take it off him, or they will."
"There is", said Jochen, "a third alternative."
His hands moved on three of the control studs on the ammonite. Immediately, a
shimmering sphere of green light surrounded him - soundless as a soap bubble, with
emerald crackles of silent lightning linking the surface of the sphere to the ammonite.
"Also gut", said Jochen. "Feuer doch, Herren."
Jennings fired. The bullet he fired splashed into nothingness on the soap bubble.
Jennings fired again, repeatedly. He was pointing the gun directly at Jochen's head,
but each bullet was somehow missing its mark. Ant saw a spray of molten leaden
droplets spatter the plaster on the ceiling where they had been deflected from their
target.
"This is what has made my ancestors invincible in battle", said Jochen. His voice
sounded markedly lower than it had been before the Shield had been turned on, as if
something was distorting the soundwaves. "It looks as if it works, don't you think?"
Quantrill, his eyes round, put up his gun.
"The Shield, you see, is quite impenetrable. It is not possible to fire into it." Jochen
crossed the room, the sphere of light around him crossing chairs and tables and the
edge of the bar. "Now", he said, putting the Shield down on the cake counter and
fishing a massive metal shape from under the bar top, "let us see whether it is possible
to fire out of it..."
The metal shape was a weapon, and not any mere pistol either. It was huge, and
glittering, and had a long magazine that promised to hold many, many bullets. Jochen
polished its handgrip fastidiously with one of the cloths on the bar top. "One has to
keep one's weapon clean..."
While Jochen's back was turned, Jennings began backing away hurriedly towards the
door. Quantrill began sidestepping in that direction to join him.
Jochen turned round - and the green fire died.
He looked up in confusion into the face of Alastair Drague, whose fingers were on the
control studs for the ammonite. Eyes as green as impenetrable shields looked back at
him.
"How - ?"
Drague snorted scornfully. "Good grief, young man. You were able to walk across
the room! Tables and chairs were passing through your shield quite easily. I deduced
from this that, while bullets and, presumably, Hunnish arrows, wouldn't pass through
the shield, very slow-moving objects such as unhealthy middle-aged men would."
Drague picked up the ammonite and tossed it in his hand. "So this is it. So much
trouble for a thing so small. You can put down that gun now. It was made in the
1940s. If you fire it it will probably explode."
"Drague", said Penelope, "you must know that we can't just let you walk out of here
with that."
"How do you know", said Drague, "that I haven't already summoned a squadron of
Auroras that might be hovering over the castle right at this very moment?"
"Because if you could have", said Penelope, "you already would have. You're here on
your own. You can't call up a wing of fighters, because you're doing all this on the
quiet. Because you thought you'd sneak down here, find out where Wolfram's Shield
was, take it back to Britain and then let your American allies beg for it. So you came
up here without backup, with only a few goons, a robosheep and the gift of sarcasm.
And now you're outnumbered."
"Ah, but numbers mean little." Drague was breathing heavily, as if he had been
working physically hard. The legs of his trousers were soaking wet. He grinned and
held up the Shield. "You can't shoot me now, after all."
Penelope walked up to Drague, very slowly, and looked down at him from a
threatening height from a distance of several inches.
"I must concede that you have a point", said Drague wearily. "However, physical
violence would be very impolite, as I've also brought you a present. One Cleopatra
Shakespeare. She does not appear to be herself right now, however. I've left her on
the floor in the kitchen -"
Ant ran from the room without further prompting. Harjit followed him.
Drague lurched toward a chair, and his legs seemed to suddenly collapse underneath
him. He looked like an old, old man.
16. Bring Drain Cleaner and Guns
Zirc ran up behind Tamora, a clear sign that this was very urgent. Zirc did not
normally run.
"Tazza! There's a big floyin saucer thing come down in the courtyard! An a woman
come out of it!"
"Saw it", said Tamora. "It had a United States of the Zodiac logo on it; it's friendly.
Anything friendly we can ignore."
She stared into the trees. There were still things out there it was not possible to
ignore.
"What you doin out ere, Tazza? Everywun's gone indoors, loike. Iss cold out ere."
"Dead cold", agreed Tamora.
All the spots where Charity had spat blue goop on the snow were pooling into one
common rivulet and trickling downhill.
"Now, where do you think that's going?" said Tamora.
"Dunno", said Zirc. "Dunt care neither", she added.
"I think we ought to find out." Being careful not to step on any goop, Tamora moved
down the hill, following the blue trickle. "Go back and fetch Harjit; tell her it's
important. You'll be able to see where I've gone by my footprints in the snow."
"I can see where a lot of folks has gone by their footprints in the snow", said Zirc
warningly, nodding at the ground. It was true; looking down, Tamora could plainly
see that a lot of large, booted feet had walked up the hill, up the path the rivulet was
now trickling down.
"They came up this way to get to the castle", said Tamora. "Now the goop's trying to
go back the same way. Zirc - I think it's trying to get back to their ship."
"An that means you wanna follow it why, exactly?"
Tamora stared hard at the goop, willing it to be less terrifying. "Because it's what
Cleo would do. If she were alive."
Zirc put a reassuring hand on Tamora's shoulder. "But Cleo is aloive, Tazza. I know
she's got a Nalien in er an everythin, but nowadays they can do wonders with
lotobomy an mind control an that."
"No she is not alive", said Tamora. "Something else is walking around in her skin,
that's all."
Shaking Zirc off, she sidled off down the path, following the route the goop was
taking.
"GO GET HARJIT", she shouted. "AND ANTHONY. AND LIEUTENANT
TURPIN. AND ANYONE ELSE YOU CAN THINK OF. AND TELL THEM TO
BRING DRAIN CLEANER, AND GUNS."
***
"Urrrh" grimaced Cleo deliriously. "I ate meat."
"And you had an alien mind control amoeba in your head", reminded Ant.
"Remember that part."
"And you tried to kill a nice old German gentleman with a sword", reminded Drague.
"That would be the bad memory that would occur first to me."
Cleo, her head now removed from the microwave, was sprawled in on of the café
sofas. Ant was holding one of her arms, Harjit the other, just in case.
"But I ate meat", moaned Cleo, her eyes fixed on a horrible vision of bacon only she
could see. "It was disgusting."
"You also, at one point", said Ant, "referred to me as a Hunky Beefcake."
Cleo nodded, her mouth drawn open wide in a desolate grimace that meant she had a
memory in her mind she desperately wanted to forget.
She looked up at Ant, her head lolling. "Don't worry", she said. "I didn't mean it."
"Clever idea, though", said Ant. "About the message in patois."
"They were talking to me in German in my head", said Cleo. "They hardly seemed to
understand English."
"They didn't when they took me either", said Charity. She was still sitting bolt
upright in her own chair, evidently waiting for the horrible, inevitable moment when
They would come back.
Cleo nodded sleepily. "I figured if they didn't understand English, they certainly
weren't going to understand someone jabbering away in creole. So I left you the note,
while they were asleep. They like sleep. They don't get to do it while they're, you
know, puddles of blue snot."
"Where do they come from?" said Ant.
Cleo shrugged and looked drunkenly across at Charity; Charity shook her head.
"They don't know", said Charity. "They have no idea. I mean, do human beings have
any idea where we came from?"
"Africa", said Ant.
"But they've spent an eternity living in the bodies of other races", said Charity. "Once
they wear out one species, they move on to another. They never really age, not as we
would imagine it. They are one big blue organism. But they can only really have
memories if they're occupying a mind capable of having them. They borrow
everything - thought, memory, movement - from their hosts. Without us, they are
more primitive than you can imagine."
Cleo nodded slowly and mechanically. "Weston Favell does not cover it."
Charity looked at her hand in wonder, turning it over, looking at the knuckles. "They
have no natural shape...they are slime. I never thought I would see another uninfected
human being again."
"I was so scared", said Cleo quietly. "I've never been that scared, Ant. There is
nothing more scary than having an enemy inside your own head."
Armand, sitting sprawled across the back of a chair opposite, nodded sadly, staring
into the distance, even though no-one had asked him. He was still holding the Mark
Two Orgonizer, idly fiddling with its fire selector. No-one had attempted to take it
off him. He had earned ownership of it.
A Year Seven walked up to Armand from the terrace.
"Armand", he said, "d'you want this coat back now? The weather's brightening up. I,
uh, don't think I'll need it any more."
"Nah", said Armand, smiling. "You keep it. I got me a big ole layer of insulatin
blubber."
"Cheers", said the Year Seven. "You're a mate."
He wandered off, letting the café door bang, letting in a burst of cold air. Armand
shivered involuntarily, then regained control of himself and slouched back into
immobility.
Ant looked up at Armand, stunned.
"You had a coat", he said. "You had one all the time. You gave it to someone else."
Armand shrugged. "Foster-mummy Denise and Foster-daddy Derek earn a lot of
money. They can get me another coat." He looked out of the window at the Year
Seven. "E ent lucky enough to be an orphan. E's got a proper mum and dad. Proper
as in proper bloody awful, that is. E earns money from a paper round, an is dad nicks
it to put it on the orses."
"You're full of surprises, Armand", said Ant.
"You've got a few up your sleeve yourself, Teds", said Armand.
Ant stretched out a hand; Armand took it and shook it.
"I could cut me palm an make us blood brothers if you like", said Armand
enthusiastically. "It's all roight an everythin, I ent HIV positive or nothin." He felt in
his back pockets. "I got a knoife."
"Let's do that some other time", said Ant. "You know, I don't think you have an
addictive personality."
"I do", said Armand. He pointed to the Orgonizer in his hand. "That's why I want
you to take this bloody thing as far away from me as possible. I've bin thinkin about
shootin meself with it on APPY for the larst gawd knows ow many ours."
"Maybe the fact that you realize there might be a problem is what's likely to save you
from it", suggested Ant.
"That's deep, Teds", said Armand. "Way too deep for me."
Outside, Turpin and Farthing were examining the damage to the Harridan. Small
pieces of debris from the exploding enemy fighter had punched holes in its hull.
Inside, Sukhbir and Narinder were helping Jochen and Jochen's mother, whose name
was apparently Sibylle, to serve cakes to everyone. Each cake was being microwaved
carefully to eliminate any possible traces of alien brain amoeba.
"I will never eat anything that hasn't been in for at least thirty seconds on HIGH
again", said Cleo, watching the cake turning in the oven.
"It is quite easy to disable the safety circuit on a microwave oven", said Jochen. "I
know, because I have tried to repair the safety circuit on this one so many times, and
disabling is so much easier than repairing. I will teach you all, if you like, how to
make your ovens at home just as unsafe as this one."
"Gosh! You're really practical", said Sukhbir, who appeared to have taken a liking to
Jochen. "Our dad never makes anything round the house unsafe."
"Yeah", sighed Narinder, who seemed to be competing for Jochen's attentions, "he's
pretty useless."
Armand, Quantrill and Ant were sitting in the café to guard the Shield, which was
sitting on a Bavarian plate of honour in the middle of one of the tables. Alastair was
also sitting watching the Shield, thoughtfully tucking in to what looked like a vanilla
slice.
"Ach, Frau von und zu, dieser Bienenstich ist bloß unglaublich!" said Alastair. Frau
von und zu Spitzenburg glowed in embarrassment and pride. Alastair continued to
talk to Jochen's mother rapidly in German, and she replied happily.
"What are they talking about?" said Quantrill, who was also sitting watching the
Shield like a hawk.
Jochen listened and translated as he polished a glass. "It seems Mr. Drague was here
in Spitzenburg when he was a very small child, and there was a bakery in the town
where just this sort of Bienenstich, this Bee Sting Cake, was made, and he never
thought he would taste it ever again. Well, the bakery in town was owned by my
grandmother on my mother's side. It is the same recipe."
Ant rose in his seat to peer out of the window, and whispered to Armand and
Quantrill: "Alastair's two goons aren't anywhere near, are they?"
Armand spun the wheel on the Orgonizer. "I've got all the Year Sevens out lookin for
em", he said. "They kent get back in to the carstle wivout comin through the gate or
the cellar, an we got Year Sevens on both."
"Good", said Ant in a low voice. "It's bad enough with just Alastair in here. He's
going to make a move sooner or later, and he's cunning as a greased stoat."
"Wunderschön", finished Alastair, beaming at Frau von und zu Spitzenburg, "daß ich
erlaubt bin, dieses Ambrosia schon wieder zu schmecken, madame." He turned back
to Ant. "Greased stoat, eh? Not a metaphor I'm familiar with, but thank you. I do
hate to disappoint, so..." He wiped Bienenstich crumbs from his face with a paper
towel bearing a picture of Neuschwanstein Castle. "Stick 'em up, Mr. Stevens. You
too, Mr. Jeffries."
"Uh, Alastair", said Ant, "Armand's got an Orgonizer, and you haven't."
"True, true", said Alastair. "But I have a rocket pistol, and Armand doesn't." He still
had both hands on the paper towel; he clearly so did not have a rocket pistol, and Ant
was about to say as much when he heard a gentle <c l i c k> behind his head.
He turned around very slowly. Behind him, George Quantrill had the barrel of his
rocket pistol resting against Armand's skull below the ear.
"I must caution everyone in here to keep very quiet and still", said Alastair, "and not
to alert anyone in the courtyard. Mr. Quantrill here has a notoriously itchy trigger
finger. We are going to leave now, and we are going to take Wolfram's Shield with
us."
Cleo's face went sour.
"You really are depressingly predictable, Alastair", she said.
Alastair shrugged in embarrassment. "What can I say? I'm the bad guy."
"I could rush im", suggested Armand.
"That's a Gyrojet Rocketeer", said Ant. "Point five one calibre. It'll smart some. Put
the gun down, Armand."
Armand ground his teeth with the indignity as Quantrill took his Orgonizer off him.
"So you never managed to escape", said Ant. "All that heroic jumping-off-a-bridgeonto-a-train stuff, that was all made up."
Quantrill nodded. "Surprised you believed that guff. Richard I wasn't surprised by,
mind - he's a Gondolier, those poor idiots on Gondolin'll swallow anything."
"So they broke you", said Ant. "They turned you."
Quantrill smiled a small, pained smile. "Sounds so easy, don't it? They broke you.
After they pulled me off the street, they had me in a concrete cellar a hundred metres
underneath London for twenty-four hours. Oh, and boy, they broke me all right.
They broke me in places I'd never thought a human body could be broke."
"Though actually, he managed to withstand all that", said Alastair. "People can, you
see. The men who had him weren't the most intelligent of sorts - that sort of
treatment, the indiscriminate administration of pain, seldom gets results. But when I
took over", he said, smiling happily, "things took a turn for the better."
Quantrill's face screwed up so hard Ant thought he might be about to burst into tears.
"You're not to blame, Mr. Quantrill", said Cleo. She was talking with difficulty; her
breathing was laboured. She propped herself up on her elbows to be able to speak
more easily. "I was working for him too. And he only had me under interrogation for
an hour or so."
Ant looked at Cleo in amazement; Cleo nodded sadly. She held up the mobile phone
wrapped in bacofoil.
"Alastair threatened my family, Ant", said Cleo. "He said he'd ruin my father, make
sure he never worked for the union again."
"The court case", breathed Ant.
"So I understand", continued Cleo, "how easy it is for Alastair to get to you. How he
finds people who mean a lot to you, and doesn't exactly physically hurt them as such,
but...you know how it works."
"You don't understand", said Quantrill, his hand shaking dangerously on the Gyrojet.
"This isn't the first time I've done this."
"Er, I understand you're getting a mite emotional, George", said Ant, "but could you
do it with the gun not pointing at Armand's head?"
"They pulled me off the street a year before they nearly got Richard", said Quantrill,
actually sounding as if he was in pain. "I'd been sending people down on a wholesale
basis for months. Every time a USZ operative landed on Earth, they'd disappear.
USZ intelligence thought it was because they found it so hard to blend in with normal
Earth folks, because our guys would stop their cars when they got a chipped
windscreen and start applying meteor patches to it - headquarters were getting real
paranoid about us sticking out in a crowd towards the end. But it was me. It was me
every time." He looked at Drague bitterly. "He told me to only ever shop my
contacts outside the UK, make it look as if there was no problem on my patch. Make
them think sending ships down to England was the nice safe option. Until the biggest
prize of all fell into his lap. Alastair wanted the Highwayman so bad, he saw him
every time he shut his eyes. He was prepared to sacrifice me, his best and biggest and
dirtiest double agent, to get at Richard Turpin. But it didn't work out. One of his
snatch team opened fire way too early, while their van was still a hundred metres off.
Actually shot me, the idiot, and wounded Richard in the hand." He looked out of the
window at Turpin, frowning nervously. "Richard took off into the woods, and I had
no idea where in those woods he'd parked the ship. By the time we closed in on him "
"- he'd bumped into us, forced us to load his ship up for him, and taken off bound for
Barnard's Star", finished Ant.
"I had hoped", said Cleo, "that you were beginning to trust us, Alastair."
"Oh, I am, I am", said Alastair, picking up the Shield from the table. "I have the
greatest trust in you, Cleopatra. It's just that you should never trust me, that's all. If it
helps, I will be making a full report to my superiors that the Blue Goo is a real and
genuine threat, and one which does not originate with the United States of the Zodiac.
But I have a job to do; and my father tore this place apart fifty years ago looking for
Wolfram's Shield. It was the one missing piece in the jigsaw of his life." He picked
up the Shield and held it high. "Because of this horrible piece of alien junk, he died
unhappy. Now I have been able to find it. I might even tell the Shadow Ministry I
was unable to locate it, and just leave it on his grave in Highgate." He lowered the
Shield again. "Mr. Quantrill - heel."
Quantrill crossed the room to Alastair's side obediently.
"Thank you - I'll take that", said Alastair, relieving Quantrill of the Orgonizer. "A
fascinating trinket that I'd love our scientists to take a look at - I would actually much
rather defend myself without killing anyone, regardless of all the bad things Cleopatra
says about me. So much more civilized." He nodded to Quantrill as he inspected the
Orgonizer. "You may put your pistol on safety now."
"Who of yours did Alastair threaten to hurt?" said Cleo to Quantrill. "Your mother,
maybe? Or was it a brother or a sister?"
Quantrill glowered at Cleo.
"I took him out of the cell they had him in", said Alastair, "and I took him up Lambeth
High Street and promised him a shiny red sports car in a showroom window. You
really should stop judging people by your own yardstick, Cleopatra."
Quantrill looked as if he would die of embarrassment. Cleo glared at him as if she
hoped he would.
"You won't get out of the castle", said Ant. "We have the gate and cellar entrance
closed off."
"Actually I don't need to", said Alastair. "Watch and learn, Anthony." He held up
Wolfram's Shield. "This projects an impenetrable force field - I would like to you to
remember that." He walked out onto the terrace and, still holding the Shield, strolled
up a set of steps onto the castle battlements.
"YOU CAN'T LEAVE THAT WAY", shouted Jochen. "IT IS A FIFTEEN METRE
DROP TO THE FOREST."
Alastair waved to Turpin and Farthing on the other side of the courtyard. They waved
back.
"Idiots", muttered Cleo.
Then, moving his hands experimentally over the control studs on the ammonite,
Alastair activated a bubble of green impenetrability around himself. This attracted
Turpin and Farthing's attention. Penelope began scrambling for the Harridan's
cockpit; Richard fumbled for his Orgonizer. It was, however, already far too late.
Alastair turned, drew his hand back, and hurled the device out into the forest.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING -" yelled Ant. Alastair craned his neck over the
battlements. There was a terrific CRASH from far below.
"Oh my", said Alastair. "That has left a hole in the road." He turned back to Ant.
"Don't forget the words 'impenetrable force field', now."
"You threw it over the castle wall", said Cleo, nodding long-sufferingly. "And when
it hits the ground, the ground won't be able to pass through the shield - it'll be
travelling too fast. It'll splash out around it, as if the shield were a cannonball going
into custard."
"Exactly right", said Alastair, squinting down through the trees. "Karg is in the
bottom of the crater picking it up now. The soles of his shoes seem to be melting.
My word, look at him jumping about! Good man, Karg. He'll surprise you."
"But Lieutenant Turpin and Lieutenant Farthing have a ship", began Ant. "They'll
follow Mr. Karg's car. They'll blow it to micro-smithereens from the air."
"I would like you to remember, one more time", said Alastair smugly, "the phrase
'impenetrable force field'."
"Rats", said Ant, shaking with frustration. "Rats and worse than rats."
Cleo's mobile phone - the phone that hadn't been given her by Drague - went off, to
the tune of We Are Family by Sister Sledge. She stared at it as if trying to remember
what its function was. Idly, she answered it.
"Hello", she said. "I'm afraid I'm rather busy right now."
"Come, Mr. Quantrill", said Alastair. "We are leaving."
"Really" said Cleo to her mobile. She looked up at Alastair. "That is so interesting."
"Teenage girls", said Alastair, "and their mobile telephones." He smiled indulgently
at Cleo and departed.
Alastair and Quantrill crossed the courtyard, Quantrill still holding the Gyrojet, but
with the muzzle pointing low, towards the ground. Silently, they passed Turpin and
Farthing. Turpin spoke to Quantrill; Quantrill did not reply, keeping his eyes on
Turpin and Farthing without actually making eye contact with them, as if expecting
either of them to pull a weapon on him; his face was was utterly desolate.
Ant watched them go, fists balled in frustration.
"That's it, then", he said. "We've lost it. We've lost the Shield. We've failed our
mission."
Cleo clicked her phone closed.
"Oh, I don't think so", she said. "I may have found us another."
Ant, Harjit, and everyone else in the room turned as one and stared at her.
"I presume", said Ant, "you've got access to some strange alien technology detection
device that we don't."
"I", said Cleo in measureless pride, settling back in her sofa luxuriously, "have a
sister."
***
The rivulet of goop trickled down the path, coherent as a blob of blue mercury. It
reached the point where the path left the trees, and then it began running uphill.
Taking great care to keep her eyes on the stream and not assume it was unaware of
her, Tamora skirted round it and followed it up the hill, onto a flat plain on the top of
the hill. Up here, she could imagine a horde of Hunnish horse archers sweeping
mercilessly out of the snow, tearing towards a line of German warriors huddled
behind their shields, desperate for anything that would make them believe they could
stand against that terrifying, half-human enemy. Desperate for anything that would
make them think they could win.
Tamora knew how they felt.
Parked here on the plain as arrogantly as a stretch limousine on a double yellow line,
was the Enemy. This time, not a foreign enemy, but a German one. A German one
here to conquer Germany.
The ship was larger than the stubby dart shape she had seen hovering above the castle
- it was three-lobed, like the dart, but much, much longer and pencil-slim, ending in
three blunt fins at one end, and three glazed blisters at the front. Its skin, like that of
the dart, was blotchy with snow camouflage, but a camouflage that crawled across it
as if it was snowing inside the metal.
If it was metal. It was probably some advanced alien stuff, superior to metal. The
only part of the metal that was not covered in living camouflage was a black swastika
standing huge and shameless on the largest fin. The blue gunk was oozing painfully
towards the vessel's gangplank. The gangplank was down. The hatchway it fed was
open. There were lights on in the inside, though not comforting, cheerful lights that
might guide you home to a warm house on a snowy evening. These lights were dim,
and winked violet in the dark.
"Quite impressive, is it not?" said a voice behind her. "German engineering."
She whirled, expecting her brain to be invaded, but no-one was moving to attack her.
Instead, the elderly man from the café sat slumped at the base of a tree, one hand on
the hilt of a sword spiked down into the snow.
He was watching the blue rivulet trickle past.
"Careful, child", he said. "It knows you are here."
She looked down at the blue goo. It had changed direction towards her, almost
imperceptibly widening the arc of its flow. She could imagine how easy it would be
for it to catch someone unawares. She took two steps further away.
"It isn't coming for me", said the old man wearily. "It isn't interested in dead meat. It
knows that if it tried to live in here" - he thumped his own chest weakly - "it wouldn't
be living there long. You, on the other hand, are young and strong. You would make
an ideal target."
"Are you Jochen's grandfather?" said Tamora. "Cleo told me about you."
The old man smiled. His breathing was laboured. He was having difficulty speaking.
She wondered whether he was sitting because he could not stand. "Cleo. Yes. She is
a very pretty girl, just like you...how stupid of me, you are sisters, yes? Yes, I am
Jochen's grandfather. I am the Freiherr von und zu Spitzenburg, master of this castle
and protector of this valley. But I will not be so for much longer." He gripped the
pommel of the sword. "Can you do something for me, sister of Cleo?"
"Tamora", said Tamora. "My name is Tamora."
"Please take this sword, Tamora, and present it to my grandson. It is not such a very
old sword, but it has done much in its time. Inform him that I hereby disinherit my
useless son, and that he is henceforth the rightful Baron of Spitzenburg, keeper of the
Shield." He looked across at the ship parked on the snow with sudden venom. "And
get that heap of alien rubbish off my land. This is Hunnenfeld, where the devils were
first thrown back...it is sacred..."
He winced, as if something inside him was hurting him very very much.
"Ilse", he whispered. "Bin bald dabei. Ich habe so lange gewartet..."
A single tear trickled down the many furrows in his face and crystallized on the snow.
He said nothing more.
"Mr. Baron?" said Tamora. She rocked his shoulder; he fell sideways onto the
ground. No breath was moving in his chest.
She drew her mobile phone and dialled.
"Harjit? I have a medical emergency. Just outside the castle. Through the wood.
The old geezer from the café. He's not going to be winning the hundred metre
freestyle breathing contest any time soon.
"I don't know how to do cardiac massage. I'm not sure which parts you push and
which parts you breathe into. You need to get me some help. Two people capable of
lifting and carrying a geezer."
She listened to the phone for a couple of seconds more, nodded, and bent to take the
geezer's pulse. Or would have done, if there had been one.
She closed his eyes. She had seen people do it in movies, and knew it was respectful.
"No", she told the phone, "nothing. Listen, I've got other news. I've found something
important. Really important. And I feel you, as the leader of Team Salami, should be
in on it.
"Harjit, we have been through this, and you are so the leader of Team Salami. Cleo is
no longer Cleo, and so -"
She stopped, listening intently for several seconds.
"She's alive? Are you sure she's Cleo? Have you tried tempting her with blood
sausage?
"Of course. Thank you. Thank you, Harjit."
She closed the call. Immediately, she made another.
"Cleopatra", she said. "I believe you are alive. Congratulations on your continued
life.
"Hush and listen carefully. I have found a ship. A big, shiny old space nazi ship.
Parked on the other side of the wood. And sister of mine - I don't think there is
anyone in it. It is ours for the taking."
17. The Curious Incident of the Plaster Dog
"Come on now, tschildren. Ve must get you all indoors. Zere iss dänger." Fräulein
Meinck was herding teams One, Two, Three and Four urgently into a low, domeroofed stone hut which opened off the castle courtyard. "Zis room voss originally an
ice house. Ze castle authorities häff ässured me zät it häss very sick valls."
"Whass wrong with the walls, Miss? Are they feelin a bit peaky, loike?"
"Ze valls are över vone metre sick, Armand."
"Wow, Miss. That sure is a lot of sick."
"Why we got to go in ere, Miss? There ent no winders."
Fräulein Meinck waved her whistle hand in frustration; everyone's eyes followed it
like a dog's following a stick. "Zät iss ze whöle point, Ryan. If zere are no vindows,
zen ze bät people outside cännot see you to dämage you."
Ryan looked around the courtyard in frustration. "Bat people, Miss?"
"Very bät people. Now get into ze room, sofort! You vill be säfe if I häff to use
physical violence."
"Cleo ent comin in with us, Miss."
"Yeah, why's Cleo talkin to the man from the aeroplane, Miss?"
Across the courtyard, a spaceship was still parked on the cobbles, and Penelope
Farthing, now wearing her flight helmet, was hurriedly running around it doing
whatever it was that needed to be done to spaceships before they took off, trying to
ignore the fact that an entire coachful of English schoolchildren was goggling at her.
"So George Quantrill", said Penelope, "was a traitor ."
"And then some", said Ant. "With added treachery."
Turpin frowned and said nothing. He was sweeping up mechanical and electronic
parts he'd found fetched up against a tree with a dustpan and brush.
Penelope looked at Turpin oddly. "Richard, what are you doing?"
Turpin emptied the dustpan into a big plastic bag. "Reckon I've got all the bits for our
own robosheep in here, along with the bits of the chassis I've already put in the
Harridan. We can rebuild it. We can produce our own sheepy legion. No-one in the
universe will be able to stand against us."
Penelope shivered. "Let's hope we can control it better than they were able to control
their robosheep in Cardington last year. Those things almost wiped out the base they
were set to guard."
"New technology always has teething troubles", said Turpin, picking up a gigantic set
of steel teeth.
"It's quite reasonable that no-one suspected Mr. Quantrill", said Ant, hoping to make
Turpin feel better. "And he didn't have much choice. They tortured him, by all
accounts."
"By his own account only. And he sent people to Alpha Four", said Penelope.
"That's where they all end up, you know. There are three camps on Alpha Four, with
lovely happy-sounding codenames - House Beautiful, Plain Ease, and Celestial City spaced out around the Sunset Desert. People get sent in. No-one ever comes out -"
The ice house door, thick as a tank's hull, finally banged shut, and Jochen turned the
key in the lock. Fräulein Meinck sank back onto a mounting block next to the door
and breathed a sigh of relief. She held up a thumb to Armand, who was still outside
in the courtyard, and shakily pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Armand looked at the
cigarette hungrily. Fräulein Meinck saw the look, shrugged, took out a cigarette for
Armand, and lit it in turn.
"Du hast sie verdient", she said.
"I don't understand", said the woman Turpin had said was Charity Drummond, who
had been sitting on a café chair Jochen had provided with her head bowed. "You have
another Shield, but you are not prepared to give it to us." At the us, Ant saw Penelope
and Turpin exchange harsh glances. Neither of them, it seemed, was quite prepared
just yet to consider Charity as One Of Us.
Beyond the window, the sound of police radios could now be heard drifting up from
the castle courtyard. The sun was weak and low over the western hills. Night had
already come to the valley below.
"I do", said Cleo. "But I am not offering it to you for free."
Penelope looked up from inspecting what looked like a near miss from an enemy gun
on her portside fuselage. "Cleopatra, I was under the impression you were on our
side."
"So did I", said Cleo. "But when Ant asked if he could come and live on Gondolin,
only last year, the Commodore said no."
Penelope frowned as she discovered she was able to poke a gloved finger clean
through her own hull. "That was the Commodore's decision."
"I have suffered for the USZ this year", said Cleo. "My family has suffered. Alastair
Drague has made threats against them. I was forced to work for him." She looked up
at a table full of aghast faces, and nodded. "Yes, it's true." She unwrapped the pink
mobile phone Alastair had given her, and set it down on the café table next to her. "I
was given that to communicate with him. Among other things, I was supposed to find
out the location of Gondolin. He still hasn't figured out where it is, you see. Maybe
he isn't as crafty as the Commodore gives him credit for being, because I worked that
out a long time ago."
Penelope's eyes went hard and glassy as gunsights. Cleo remembered that, last year, a
USZ cruiser had been debating whether to open fire on Drague's ship without warning
just because Drague might have figured out the location of Gondolin. The cruiser's
commander, Commodore Drummond, had held his fire, insisting that the USZ had to
be gentlemanly to its enemies.
"In any case", said Cleo, "I couldn't carry on. I was going the way of Mr. Quantrill.
And I am not prepared to have that happen any more. It has got to end. All of this has
got to end. And you are going to make that happen."
Penelope climbed up into her cockpit. "Cleo, it's hardly going to be possible for us to
make Alastair Drague stop harassing your family on Earth. We have no influence
here." She began picking at the cockpit controls. Sounds of imminent antigravity
began humming in the hull.
"I didn't suggest it was. In any case, you won't need to worry about Alastair shortly.
We are going to need his help, in order to convince the Shadow Ministry and the
Americans that we have a common enemy. We need to gain his trust, and I think I
know exactly how to do that." She coughed violently into her palm, knowing that
everyone in the kitchen was watching fearfully to see whether blood and blueness
appeared in it. Nothing, however, did. "Mind you, even with Alastair out of the way
as an enemy, there will be others to take his place. Others, I suspect, far worse than
he is. Far less intelligent, far less scrupulous. But there are other things that can be
done." Cleo pointed at Jochen. "Baron von und zu Spitzenburg here needs a home,
and so does Frau von und zu. He can't stay here. The Goo will be back, and even if it
doesn't understand revenge itself, the human minds it has infested do. You know it
isn't actually evil? Not as we understand it."
Charity Drummond spoke up again.
"It relishes the emotions of the human minds it inhabits. It finds human emotions
such as hate and fear...exhilarating. It particularly liked the taste of Kurt and his
comrades. Kurt genuinely believed the - goop, did you call it? - had made him a
superman. The goop let him carry on believing it. It relished the sensation of him
believing it."
"But Gondolin needs everyone it can recruit here on Earth", said Penelope.
"Only if their covers aren't blown", said Cleo, "and Jochen's has been blown quite
comprehensively. You have to take him with you."
Harjit interrupted. "Besides", she said, "you have a ready-made private army here on
Earth now. We are Team Salami. We are your Ground Crew, and no pilot can fly
without us."
She looked around the courtyard at Sukhbir, Narinder, Armand, Porsh, and Zirc, all
standing shivering in the snow. Zirc shouldered her industrial-sized bottle of drain
cleaner and saluted.
Cleo looked round the room at the Ground Crew. Tears were forming in her eyes.
"But...you can't do that", she said. "Your cover's been blown before you've even
started. You don't know what they'll do. They'll ruin your lives. They'll stop you
succeeding at everything you ever work hard to achieve -"
Armand, Porsh and Cubic Zirc exchanged wry glances. Cleo had never before
considered underachievement to be an advantage. She learned something new every
day.
"- all right, all right, but they won't just do stuff to you, they'll do it to your families -"
Armand looked Cleo in the eye sardonically.
"OK, OK, point taken. But, I mean, some of you have, might have, got families who
mean a great deal to you. You can't -"
"Just you try an stop us", said Zirc.
"- I mean, you've seen what they did to me and Tamora -"
"An we'll beat the flippin eck out of you", continued Zirc. "Cause we're your friends",
she added.
Cleo sighed.
"You're right", she said. "You are that."
"We godda go elp Tazza in a minute, Arjit", reminded Zirc.
"Go", said Harjit. Zirc saluted hurriedly and left at a run with Porsh, Narinder and
Sukhbir, carrying enough drain cleaner to unblock Godzilla's waste disposal.
Cleo looked at Penelope again. "Captain Farthing, do we have a deal? And don't give
me any of that 'I can't speak for my commanding officer' guff, or your Shield stays
exactly where it currently is."
Penelope was quiet for a minute in which the only sound was the gentle impact of
snow falling on whatever it was flying saucers were made of.
"All right", said Penelope. "You have a deal."
"Your Shield is currently a hundred yards outside the castle", said Cleo, yawning and
collapsing back into her café chair. "Still in the spaceship it came in. I have no idea
why you didn't see it when you landed."
Penelope's face creased in anger. "You tricked me!"
"I did nothing of the sort", said Cleo. "You believed what you wanted to believe.
And I'm not just giving you a Wolfram's Shield, I'm giving you a whole working
spaceship. You're getting more out of the deal than you thought you were, and you
should thank me."
Penelope fell silent, fuming, but unable to think of a reply.
"Let's just hope it takes Drague as long to figure out how the Wolfram's Shield works
as it did the Americans to work out Saucer Drive", said Charity.
Turpin smiled humourlessly. "No need to worry about that. Drague's not going to
have his own Shield for long."
"How so?" said Penelope, blinking in shock.
"Remember that neat little device we have on our flight suits, that allows Control to
locate us if we're shot down behind enemy lines? I cut mine out and popped it into
the lining of George's jacket. All you need to do is turn on the Pilot Finder in your
Harridan cockpit, and it'll lead us straight to him." Turpin noticed Ant's blank look of
amazement. "I didn't believe that rubbish about jumping off bridges onto trains any
more than you did."
Ant was about to say Actually, I did believe it, but thought better of it.
"So where is he now?"
"I took a look a couple of minutes ago. By my calculations, and according to Jochen's
road map of Germany, he's in a service station somewhere on the A3 between
Regensburg and Nürnberg. Westbound for the Dutch border."
"That doesn't mean the Shield is with him", said Cleo quickly.
"No. But it's a fair bet. I really should take off some time in the next few minutes."
"You should take off?" said Penelope. "May I remind you who is in command here?"
"Okay, you really should command me to take off some time in the next few
minutes."
Ant looked anxiously at the ice house door, which was now banging on its hinges as
teenagers hammered to be let out. "You'd best do that anyway. Fräulein Meinck can
only keep everyone in our school party locked up For Their Own Safety for so long.
You'd best take off over the woods, away from the town. See those blue flashing
lights down there on the road? That's police. Those are fire engines. The only thing
stopping them from getting up here is probably the fact that they have rear-engined
cars and they'll skid on the ice. Someone's called the emergency services. The whole
town probably knows there's trouble up here by now."
Turpin squinted at the distant lights and nodded sagely to Penelope. "Aha, blue lights
mean police. This is the sort of local knowledge we recruited Anthony and Cleopatra
for."
Fräulein Meinck raised her hand to speak.
"I do not underständ", she said, "vhy it iss so important zät a scientific discovery
vhich voss mäde in Tschermany by Tschermans must be kept secret sö zät only ze
British änd Americans knöw it."
"Because there are twelve worlds up there in space right now", said Cleo, "who are
fighting for their independence against the British and Americans, and who are
currently outnumbered ten to one. The Americans have already successfully taken
back the most heavily populated of all the USZ colonies, Alpha Four, with thousands
of civilian casualties. The only thing stopping them from doing the same with the
remaining twelve is the Morgan Doctrine."
"Vhich is?"
"A threat issued by the first USZ president, Levi Morgan. If they attack the USZ
again, the USZ lands a flying saucer in Times Square and spills the beans on their
whole operation. But this threat only works if no-one on Earth knows flying saucers
exist. If there are beans to spill. That's why we have to ask you to keep the secret,
Fräulein. All of you."
Fräulein Meinck looked to Herr Riemann and Herr Schieß.
"Zese...creatures", said Herr Schieß.
"The blue space nazis", nodded Cleo. "We now know what they are and far more
importantly, where they live. They were in my head for a good few hours, remember,
and a nasty side-effect of taking over other people's brains and having a hive mind is
that no-one can keep secrets from anyone. And once I get a chance to talk their
location over with an astronavigator, USZ military command will get their exact
coordinates, and so will Alastair Drague."
"Cleo", said Penelope, "I'm not entirely sure it would be good to pass that information
on to -"
"It will be passed on to Alastair", said Cleo vehemently. "And the Americans. And
the Russians. And those things will be hunted down. And destroyed."
"Good", said Herr Schieß. "Zen I am viz you änd vill keep your secrets. Ve will all
keep your secrets", he said, looking round ominously at Herr Riemann and Fräulein
Meinck, who nodded reluctantly.
"Harjit, take Captain Farthing out and show her where the other ship is", said Cleo.
"Then she can make good on her bargain, which will also involve doing me another
small favour. A very important one. Come back to me once you've shown her the
ship, and I'll explain."
She coughed again, and clasped her temples with her fingers.
"Oh my giddy aunt", she said, "having an entire Einsatzgruppe of nazis running
around in your head all morning doesn't half take it out of you. You have no idea
what those men think about."
"What do they think about?" said Jochen.
"Tanks, mostly", said Cleo. "And guns. Sometimes tanks and guns."
All the boys and men in the courtyard looked at each other in a sort of shared
brotherhood. Evidently, it was perfectly acceptable to think about tanks and guns.
"In äny cäse", said Fräulein Meinck, "ze police vill be arrivink very shortly. Ze hill
up to ze castle iss slightly slippery, but zät vill not stop even a policeman forever.
Zey vill be vanting to talk to us in only a few minutes time, änd Penelope and Chärity
do not häff pässports."
"There is a back door to the castle", said Jochen. "A postern gate, I think you call it in
English. It is normally locked. Anyone who needs to leave without a conversation
with the police, they can leave by that gate."
Cleo looked up at Jochen's mother.
"Frau von-und-zu - wissen Sie, was ich meine, wenn ich auf Englisch 'meringue'
sage?"
Jochen's mother thought carefully, then nodded. "Man sagt 'Baiser' auf Deutsch."
"Können Sie vielleicht für mich ein Baiser machen? Es muß ein ganz besonderes
Form nehmen. Dies ist sehr wichtig."
"What are they saying?" said Penelope suspiciously.
Jochen looked at both Cleo and his mother oddly. "I can honestly say I have no idea."
***
"LET US OUT! LET US OUT!"
"We can't breave in ere!"
"OM AGORAPHOBIC MISS! OM FROIGHTENED OF FIELDS!"
"This is cruel an unusual, miss!"
"BITTE UNS FREILASSEN -"
The ice house door swung rapidly open, depriving everyone inside of a surface to
hammer on. They fell forwards into the eye-burning daylight.
Outside, among piles of horribly reflective snow, stood Fräulein Meinck, the key of
the ice house in her hand.
"Zät is better", said Fräulein Meinck. "You häff said it in Tscherman."
High in the sky above the castle, two tiny dots shrank into invisibility against the
setting sun. Among the students stumbling out into the brightness, Glynn chewed his
apple cheeks in consternation, squinting round the frozen courtyard.
"Where has it gone?" he said. "The flying saucer?"
"Flying saucer", said Fräulein Meinck, as if Glynn were a special new kind of lunatic.
"It were a flyin saucer, Miss", agreed Ryan Pearcey, one of the Year Sevens. "You
seen it too."
"Oh zät sing", said Fräulein Meinck, smiling happily and nodding. "It voss in fäct ä
top secret NÄTÖ vertical täkeoff and länding fighter. Zät iss vot ze man who voss
flying it häss töld us änd vhy should he lie?"
Glynn turned round, looking at the empty walls in frustration. "Why would he say
that?" he said. His eyes burned with suspicion.
"He's right, Miss", said Nigel Devonport. "Why would he tell us the fighter was a
fighter if it was disguised as a UFO so no-one would think it was a fighter? There's
nothing for him in this scenario."
"Clearly he voss not an älien, but a män", said Fräulein Meinck. "Änd do men fly
flyink saucers? I do not sink so. Äss it iss so wery wery clear zät men do not fly
flyink saucers, he knew hiss cover voss blöwn. He häss töld us zät nö-vone voss
going to beliefe in a two-armed, vone-headed älien viz a side parting änd a British
äccent. He säid he voss göing to häff to put us on our honour not to säy änysing about
him not being an älien to ze Russians änd ze internätional press."
"There were aliens in Star Trek who looked just like human beings", said Serafina
doubtfully. She was standing in the ice house doorway, apparently parasitically
attached to Justin.
"They did have Cornish pasties on their foreheads, Seffie", cautioned Justin. "So you
could tell they were aliens."
Fräulein Meinck thought about this. "Sometimes also zöse ridges, too, zät you see on
bendy straws, on ze bridges off zeir nöses."
"Antennae", nodded Justin.
"Ears", said Ryan Pearcey.
Glynn was silent for a very long time. He reached down to the rucksack beside him
and pulled out an almost completely flat packet of crisps, sealed with sellotape.
"Eurgh!", said Serafina. "You've crushed it to bits."
"Can fit more crisp packets into the same bag that way", explained Glynn. "No air."
Unpeeling the sellotape, he tilted his head back and poured the contents of the crisp
packet down his throat. Serafina could not turn her head away, but watched,
horrified, half hiding behind Justin's shoulder in case Glynn's crisp-eating habits
might somehow be contagious.
"So why", said Glynn, wiping tiny crisp flecks from his mouth, "did one of those top
secret NATO fighters have Nazi swastikas all over it?"
Fräulein Meinck and Herr Riemann exchanged pained glances. They had hoped noone had been in a position to see the swastikas.
"Äh, possibly", said Herr Riemann with a flash of inspiration, "because a reporter
from a newspäper might believe somevone who told him zey häd seen a flying saucer,
but not a Nazi flying saucer?"
"They're Nazis", said Ryan Pearcey, backing away, pointing a finger. "They're all
Nazis! We've discovered their orrible secret!"
"Ve are not Nazis, Ryan", said Fräulein Meinck, shaking her head firmly.
"If you ask me", said Serafina, displaying an uncharacteristically rapid grasp of
events, "when we get back home to England, we should go to the papers and sell to
the highest bidder."
"I know just the paper", said Glynn with an air of vast authority. "They specialize in
stories like this."
"Do not be ridiculous, Glynn", said Fräulein Meinck.
"Why was there a smashed china dog in the café?" said Serafina suddenly.
"The castle öwners vere transporting ze dog vhen the NÄTÖ aircraft flew öfer", said
Fräulein Meinck. "The män hölding the dog häss dropped it in schock."
"That's right", nodded a little old lady standing so closely behind Glynn that he
jumped in shock. "That's what happened, I seen it. In he come, that young man, e
picked up the dog, and then e dropped it when the haircraft come over. It were loike
in the War, loike, when the German bombers an them V Wuns, them
Vergeltunswaffen, come over."
"And who is she?" said Glynn. "She sounds like she comes from two miles outside
Northampton."
The little old lady had dyed oily black hair, a green woollen bonnet, and tiny pebblelensed glasses like twin gunsights. Fräulein Meinck had never noticed her before,
though despite this, she seemed oddly familiar.
"I were visiting the carstle, just loike you were", said the little old lady, apparently
hugely offended. "Your teacher said it’d be safe innat little room there."
"You don't sound German", said Glynn suspiciously.
"Om from two moile outside Northampton", said the old lady.
"What are you doing in Germany?" said Glynn.
"What are you doing in Germany?" said the old lady.
"I think you been outwitted there, Glynno", said Ryan Pearcey.
"Why was there a hammer on the floor next to the dog?" said Glynn with unnerving
perceptiveness.
Fräulein Meinck shrugged. "I häff no idea. Mäybe it voss hänging on ze vall viz all
the özzer mediaeval torture implements."
"It wasn't", said Glynn. "And it had a sticker on it saying ALDI SUPER SPAR
PREIS."
"Maybe that means summat in mediaeval German", said Ryan Pearcey.
"It does. It means ALDI SUPER SAVER PRICE."
Herr Riemann threw his arms wide. "Who knöws? Maybe zey just do not like china
dogs around here."
"An apparently insignificant detail", said Glynn, wagging a pudgy finger, "that may
well provide the key to solving this whole conundrum."
"Oh no", said the little old lady. "The ammer dropped out the young un's pocket
when e dropped is dog. An did you notice that little tiny Stars an Stripes on the side
of the hairoplane?"
"I saw a big, black swastika on the side of the aeroplane", said Glynn stubbornly.
"Yeah", said Ryan Pearcey. "I saw that as well."
"Me too."
"Too right. Nazis, in this day an age."
The little old lady patted Glynn's hand. "I thought that too. But then I looked arder,
an I saw it was just the way the sun caught the hair intakes on wun soide of the
haircraft. The other wun, the wun what landed, it looked loike the other wun, but
there weren't no swastika on that wun."
"Thass roight", said the voice from the next table.
"Second wun didn' ave no swastika on it", agreed a second voice.
"Must have bin a Noptical Illusion", agreed a third.
"I seen the American flag on the first wun", said a fourth.
Glynn looked round himself in disgust. "You people!" he said. "You believe the last
thing anyone says to you! You repeat it like parrots!" he flung a pudgy hand out at
the old lady. "What if she's a, she's a, she's an Alien Agent?"
There was a pause.
"She dun't look like an alien agent, Glynno", said Ryan Pearcey.
"Vhere vere all off you vhen all off ziss häss häppened?" said Fräulein Meinck. "Häff
you häd a good view off it? Voss it fuzzy or indistinct ät all?"
"We were in one of the upstairs bedrooms", said Justin smugly.
"No we weren't", said Serafina, reddening.
"We got in through a side door", said Justin, glassy-eyed, still replaying the event in
his mind. "It was fantastic."
"I was examining the murder holes in the north parapet", said Glynn. "They're clearly
fake", he sniffed. "Eighteenth century brick. I doubt they were ever used to murder
anyone."
"We was up on the south walls", said one table of Year Sevens, who had clearly been
told not to go up on the south walls. "It was well cool. We saw the Experimental
Fighters fly over an land an everythin."
"We was tryin to stuff Kelvin's ead down the Mediaeval Privy."
Kelvin, a short, unpopular boy, glowered.
"You are so gettin bad beats when I grow up to be an international hired assassin,
Ryan Pearcey."
"We was up on the north wall, where we was sposed to be", said a third table
consisting entirely of girls. "We was lookin for them morons an ambrosias, loike it
said on them sheets the Frownline give us."
"I think you mean", said Glynn with immense scorn, "merlons and embrasures. And
Fräulein."
"Oh, shut up, Glynn, you spanner."
"Yeah, numbnuts. Whaddya you know."
"Wazzock."
Glynn's fists clenched and unclenched in fury. He unwrapped a Lion bar and ate it to
calm down. The rest of the trip sniggered. But fire glowed in Glynn's eyes. It was
plain he would be getting to the bottom of this.
Fräulein Meinck clapped her hands for attention, whilst making it plain that the use of
her whistle was still an option. "Tschildren, you vill please move in an orderly
fäshion down tovards ze cöach, it iss time for us to be leavink! Ät ze Freizeitheim
Herr Schieß häss arränged for us a beautiful impromptu repast off mustard änd
sausages."
"We dun't wanna go back to the Frizzytime, Miss. The food there's all European."
"Yeah, it's got all vitamins in it an that."
"YOU VILL EAT VITAMINS ÄND LIKE ZEM. Ve vill return to ze Freizeitheim
vhere ve vill cläp händs änd sink häppy sonks! Mäny of zem", she added, ominously,
"in Tscherman." Her hand moved towards her whistle.
Dispiritedly, everyone began trudging towards the castle gate.
“Miss! Cleo ent ere!"
"Yeah miss! Neither's Tamora!"
"Cleo ent comin with us in the coach. Why ent she coming with us in the coach,
Miss?”
Fräulein Meinck drew her breath in painfully through her teeth. Only Herr Riemann
and Herr Schieß could see that, behind her back, her fingers were crossed.
“Cleopätra iss not feelink vell”, said Fräulein Meinck. “Tämora iss also feelink a
liddle bit under ze vezzer", she continued, her eyeballs swelling with the enormity of
her own lie, "äs are Hartschit, Sukhbir, Narinder, Armand, Zircönia, and Porsche."
"But Cleo was looking right as rain earlier on, Miss -"
"You, on ze özzer hand, Glynn, are feelink perfectly all right. Zerefore you vill report
to ze cöach along viz eferyone else, right ät ziss moment.”
His entire face one mistrustful scowl, Glynn hoisted his rucksack onto his shoulder
and stalked away under Fräulein Meinck's laser glare. Other members of the school
trip followed suit; soon the courtyard was deserted apart from Fräulein Meinck, Herr
Schieß, Herr Riemann, Anton, Stefan, and the little old lady. Fräulein Meinck
exhaled in grateful relief and sagged till she was shorter by several inches.
She turned and looked directly at the little old lady who came from a mile outside
Northampton.
"It iss an amäzing cöincidence", said Fräulein Meinck, "how somevone who häss än
äccent zät everyvone trusts, who iss looking just like everyvone's fävourite
grändmozzer, turns up right ät the moment vhen she iss möst needed."
"Praps I just melted into the background", said the little old lady. "No wun notices a
little old lady."
"Although, now zät I think about it", continued Fräulein Meinck, "I remember
somevone who might häff been your sister ät ze svimming bath in England, in ä
service station on ze M25, and in ze town ät Lumpenburg. You häff vorn different
vigs, different glasses, änd different äccessories, but it voss alväys still ze säme liddle
old you."
"Oh, fiddlesticks", said the little old lady. "Alastair did say you'd be a tough
one." She appeared to grow several inches as she said it, uncurving her spine, and her
voice was now that of a Englishwoman twenty years younger who appeared to have
gone to a very expensive finishing school. "What was it that gave me away?"
Fräulein Meinck thought about this. "Probably ze fäct that, although you vere not äble
to speak your öwn länguage properly, you häff pronounced ze Tscherman vörd
Vergeltungswaffen perfectly."
"Of course", nodded the little old lady sadly. "A schoolgirl error. I do apologize."
"You häff been very convincing up to zät point", said Fräulein Meinck. "Your
employer should give you ä raise."
"He certainly should", said the old lady, laying her spectacles down on the table,
pulling off her hair and shaking out a silvery brunette bob. "Even audiences that
moronic are difficult to convince that they've seen nothing when you not only blow up
a Nazi flying saucer right over their heads, but also land a ruddy UFO right in front of
their faces."
"Es tut mir leid dafür", said Fräulein Meinck.
"Alastair isn't as bad as all that, you know. I've worked with him for years. He cried
like a baby when his cat died." She craned her neck to look out into the castle
courtyard. "Where is Anthony, by the way? I don't believe I saw him in that lot."
"Änthony iss in ä better pläce", said Fräulein Meinck.
The old lady frowned. "I'm terribly sorry to hear that."
"He iss in Holland."
The old lady stayed silent, her eyes fastened on Fräulein Meinck's; then she said "You
horrible German woman", whipped out her mobile phone, furiously tapped down a
list of contacts, pressed SEND, and clapped the phone to her ear saying "Pick up, pick
up, pick UP!"
***
The rain on the windscreen clicked like drumming fingernails. Only a few metres
away, headlights howled past, bound for England, France, and Belgium, with trucks
and cars and motorcycles behind them. The names of towns and cities on the
roadsigns had begun to appear in two, or even three languages, rather than just in
German. The snow on the ground looked as if it had acne. The first rain after the
snow had already gone to work on it, dissolving it. Soon only a few stray lumps
would remain, hiding in shadows and ditches, slowly melting.
Hammond Karg tipped his head back and let an entire tube full of breath mints slide
into his mouth.
A disparaging voice came from the back of the car. "You great big greasebucket,
Karg."
"They're sugar free", said Karg defensively.
"They'll make you go to the toilet like anything. Those things have got Sorbitol in
them."
"How exactly", said Karg prissily, "does one Go To The Toilet Like Anything? How
does Anything go to the toilet?"
A voice came, in stereo, from the Hands Free speakers on the dashboard.
"Gentlemen, you will please refrain from lowering each other's morale and do your
jobs. We are carrying a very valuable cargo, you are still on duty, and I need your
eyes on the area around this vehicle at all times.."
Karg and his fellow passenger looked darkly forwards to the huge black bulk of the
Lagonda. Neither dared say anything in reply.
"How long is Phillips going to be in there, anyway? How much did he have to drink
back at Nürnberg?"
Karg cleared his throat. "Uh, he had an Apocalyptico Latte, sir. It was quite large."
"How large?"
"Slightly smaller than his head, sir. Said he needed the caffeine to stay awake till
Calais, sir."
"Why am I surrounded by idiots? Doesn't he know that'll mean we have to stop for
toilet breaks five times between here and the ferry? Next time, Karg, you will devise
some means of changing drivers and taking toilet breaks out of the window whilst the
car is still moving."
"I'll get right on it, sir."
A Heavy Goods Vehicle turned into the parking area, dazzling Karg with its
headlights. The lights seemed, briefly, to flare green and purple.
"We need to get the contents of this vehicle to Warminster Research Laboratory as
soon as possible, and then stored securely at least half a kilometre underground."
"Hurr", said the man behind Karg, looking up at the HGV. "Those lights are pretty."
"Karg."
"Sir?"
"Did Johnson just say 'hurr, those lights are pretty'?"
"I believe he did, sir."
"Johnson? Are you feeling all right?"
"Hurr", said Johnson.
"Karg. Listen to me. Get out of that car straight away. You are under attack."
"Attack by what, sir?" said Karg.
"That is on a need-to-know basis. Suffice it to say Johnson has been shot with a
device known as an Orgonizer. Run. Now."
There was a brief pause.
"Hurr", said the Hands Free set. "I love you, Mr. Drague. You are my very special
friend."
"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, CORPORAL WISE, STOP HUGGING ME."
"COURTNEY, WHAT'S GOT INTO YOU, STOP HUGGING MR. DRAGUE -"
Another brilliant green-and-violet light flared around Drague's Lagonda.
"HURR, COURTNEY. YOU'RE MY BEST MATE, YOU ARE."
"Hurr", said Johnson. "He's hugging Mr. Drague. He's going to be for it when he gets
back home. That's funny. I should laugh. Hurr. Hurr. Hurr."
"SNAP OUT OF IT, MAN! I AM IN NO WAY YOUR FRIEND, SPECIAL OR
OTHERWISE! I AM YOUR TYRANNICAL EMPLOYER!"
"You're lovely, Mr. Drague. You're like a big cuddly fluffy bunny puppy."
The door of the Lagonda was opened by a tall dark figure holding a device that looked
very much like a gun, without actually being one.
"Mr. Drague", said the Hands Free set.
"Mr. Turpin", said Mr. Drague's voice, with venom.
"Hurr! It's the Enemy! I should shoot yer, you're the Enemy! Wait a sec, I got a gun
here somewhere -"
"The Shield, please, Mr. Drague", said the Hands Free set. "And the Mark Two
Orgonizer you took off Armand Jeffries. Or its fluffy bunny puppy time for you."
Karg saw something pass from the man inside the Lagonda to the man outside it.
From the shadows close by the Mercedes, he saw a shorter figure wave at him. He
raised a hand and waved back.
"Hang on, hang on, I got the gun - let me just look down the barrel to check it's
loaded, hurr hurr - whoops, blimmin safety catches -"
"Goodbye, Mr. Drague", said the tall figure, and backed away into the landscaped
bushes.
He looked to his right - the shorter figure had also gone.
There was a brief, ominous pause.
"Karg?" said the Hands Free set. "KARG!"
Karg breathed in, and carefully considered his options. He leaned forward to the
microphone.
"I THINK YOU'RE LOVELY, MR. DRAGUE", he said.
***
Through the picture window, blue flashing lights of police cars snaked up the zig-zag
to Spitzenburg Castle across the valley. Herr Schieß, Anton, Stefan, and Fräulein
Meinck were sitting in the Freizeitheim canteen, the doors out to the kitchen and
hallway guarded by armed policemen. Another armed Schutzpolizei officer faced
them over the table. English schoolchildren surrounded them, sitting on canteen
benches.
"So when you went down into the cellar", said the policeman, "all the men who had
gone down there were dead."
"Carbon monoxide poisoning, I imagine", said Herr Schieß. "It's a good thing I
noticed the first man's red face before any of us went down the steps."
"The floor around the bodies seems to have been cleaned", said the policeman
suspiciously. "With some sort of heavy duty solvent."
"Sodium hypochlorite bleach", said Herr Schieß. "I'm sorry - we just didn't think.
Frau von und zu Spitzenburg was adamant that the floor should be cleaned. She was
very upset."
"I'm not surprised. We just found the body of her father-in-law further down the hill.
Some of the bodies were splashed with it too. How did that happen?"
"Some of it may have got on the bodies. Like I say. We just didn't think."
"Have you ever seen any of the gentlemen in the cellar before?"
"No. I don't think Frau von und zu Spitzenburg had either."
"I see", said the policeman. "And where is Frau von und und zu Spitzenburg?"
"We have no idea", said Herr Schieß. "Her or her son. Or a number of the children
we brought here. It is most distressing."
"This boy", said the policeman, pointing to the tall, unhealthy-looking child who
called himself Nigel, "says that you herded all the children indoors, into a store room
with no windows, while a strange flying machine took off from the courtyard.
Another flying machine, he says, attacked the castle and caused all that damage to the
front gate. Several of the other children corroborate his story."
"The woman in the flying machine had a British accent", said Fräulein Meinck, "if
that helps."
"The flying machine must have taken off and landed vertically. Was it a helicopter?"
"Possibly. We did not see it too clearly. We were concerned for the welfare of the
children. That is why we took them indoors."
"The boy says you locked them in."
"For their own safety."
"He says you seemed to be obeying the instructions of one Tamora Shakespeare, one
of the girls in the party."
"Nigel does not know what he's saying. He certainly doesn't know what we were
saying. Despite my best efforts, he hardly speaks a word of German."
"What is she saying?" said Nigel to the policeman in English. "She put us in danger.
We are her pupils. She had a duty of care towards us."
The policeman ignored Nigel. "He also says that you talked a great deal about aliens
and Nazis, indeed ran round the house for quite some time armed with fire
extinguishers and kitchen implements looking for them, before the main building of
the castle was attacked by one of the flying machines. He says that one of the English
girls, one Harjit Kaur, leapt out of one of the upper storey windows and attacked it
with a fire extinguisher. He says that the flying machine then exploded, and that
Harjit Kaur has not been seen since."
Herr Schieß opened his mouth to speak; Fräulein Meinck raised a hand to stop him.
She pulled a mobile phone from her coat pocket, flipped it open, and tabbed down the
list of names to a number, which she then dialled. She held the phone to her ear.
"Hello", she said in English. "Hello, Harjit?
"I am sorry, but I have a gentleman here who needs to speak to you. You should not
be unduly worried, but the gentleman is a Schutzpolizei officer, a German policeman.
I need to assure him that you are safe. Can I pass you on to him?
"Thank you." Fräulein Meinck passed the phone on to the policeman, who put it to
his own ear.
"Hello?" said the policeman. He listened for several seconds, and then said:
"And you are Harjit Kaur."
He nodded, and then said: "And where are you now?
"I see.
"Thank you very much. Could you please ask your parents to telephone me and to
confirm this?
"Thank you, Miss Kaur."
He closed the call and handed back the phone.
"I could hear motors in the background", he said. "As if she was in some sort of
machine."
"She should be above the Channel by now", said Fräulein Meinck. "A number of the
children had to go home to England early, accompanied by my assistant, Bernd
Riemann. We had a number of cases of poor discipline."
The policeman nodded. "English children."
Herr Schieß grimaced distastefully. "Two World Wars and One World Cup, DooDah, Doo-Dah. You know the sort of thing."
"Nigel has a very active imagination", said Fräulein Meinck. "He gets excited if he
does not take his medication."
She tapped her head meaningfully. The policeman looked up at Nigel, sighed and
nodded. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"My superior, Polizeirat Bosch, has received a very peculiar telephone call. A call
from a member of the Bundesregierung, no less. A junior minister. Explaining that
our NATO allies have experienced yet another top secret aircraft malfunction in this
area, very similar to the recent incident at Regensburg. Explaining that every scrap of
metal and microchip needs to be collected from these hillsides by men who will be
arriving very shortly in clean suits and very fast helicopters, bringing metal detectors,
fine-toothed combs and toothbrushes. And that I must pull my men back and only
poke my nose in again when the helicopters take off and disappear once more into the
night."
Fräulein Meinck raised her eyebrows.
"If that is the case", she said, "then believe me, it makes me no happier than it does
you. It makes one suspect that one is a second-class citizen in one's own country."
The policeman stared angrily out at the gently snowing night.
"Yes it does", he said. "Yes it does."
18. Bumbly Wumbly Jumbly Gumbly
The air smelled of wet earth, as it always did on wet winter days when there was
wind. There was no snow, as there so often wasn't in Middle England, even at
midwinter. This wasn't countryside that went out of its way to look like it belonged in
fairy tales.
"I'm going to miss this", said Cleo.
"You are?" Harjit looked around herself. She sniffed the air. "Can you smell that?
The wind is blowing from Billing Sewage Works."
"I am even going to miss", said Cleo, "Billing Sewage Works. I'm going to miss the
way people on the footpath downwind from it make the same face one by one when
the wind changes direction. My dad used to stop his car and watch it happen through
binoculars. And I will miss you. Though I will be back to visit."
"You had better, Shakespeare", said Harjit, wiping her eyes. "Now go on, before I get
all Theme-From-Titanic on your ass."
"Bye Teds", said Armand. He extended a hand. Ant was about to shake it, then
clapped Armand round the shoulder and hugged him in as manly a way as he could
manage.
"You look after yourselves", said Ant. "And look after each other."
"The ladies'll be safe with me, Teds", said Armand, tapping his nose. "Specially the
fat wuns. I go for fat wuns." He winked at Harjit.
Harjit looked up at Armand. "Don't worry", she said to Cleo in a deafening stage
whisper. "I'll make sure he's OK."
"Shame about that Mark Two Orgonizer", said Armand. "It were fun, that."
"It was an experimental model", said Ant. "There was only one. They need it back to
mass-produce it."
"An they ent gunna trust it to no illiterate numbnuts oo moight ave an Addictive
Personality, hey", grinned Armand.
Ant grinned back. "We understand each other so well. We'll be back. Watch the
skies."
He undid the latch on Cleo's back garden gate, and walked in up the path. A patch of
fur containing two glittering eyes detached itself from a patch of shadow down one
side of the garden shed and rubbed itself up against his legs. He bent down to stroke
it.
"Well", said Armand to Harjit. "Om filled with confidence."
A bundle of nylon hit Armand in the small of the back. He turned and bent down to
pick it up.
"Wossis, Teds?"
"I won't be needing it. It's warm where I'm going."
"You never told me you was goin to Torremolinos, Teds. Fly the Flag."
Ant laughed and walked on up the path.
Armand unfolded the coat, held it up in the dim light from Cleo's parents' house.
"Issa noice coat, this", he said.
"Don't be giving this one to any Year Sevens", said Harjit.
"Wait up - there's summat in the pocket." Armand tugged at something heavy and
shiny jammed into the lining. It slid out, sleek and glittering. It had a heavy wheel on
its back. The wheel had four settings - HAPPY, SAD, FRIT and ANGRY.
"Oh, Teds", sighed Armand gleefully. "You shouldn't ave."
"Now, you be careful with that", said Harjit.
"Wanna be really appy?" said Armand, spinning the wheel like a man playing Russian
Roulette.
"I like my emotions home-grown, thank you", said Harjit.
"Owjoo know till you've tried it, eh?" Armand held up the Orgonizer. "Goo on. It
dunt urt none."
Harjit squeaked. "Armand Jeffries, you dare -"
***
Ant turned to see darkened figures running around on the playing field behind Ant's
parents' garden. There was a brief, bright green-and-violet flash, and then a voice
yelled: "WOOHOO!"
"NOW DO ME! GOO ON, TAKE IT! DO ME, DO ME, DO ME!"
Ant smirked and turned to Cleo's parents' patio doors, which were sliding open to
reveal Mr. Shakespeare, dressed in a diamond-patterned sweater that wouldn't have
looked out of place on a fashion-blind Japanese businessman on a golfing holiday.
"Cleopatra...?" Mr. Shakespeare looked past Cleo to Ant. "And Anthony...? But
you're supposed to be in..."
"You are wearing your very best sweater", said Cleo rapidly, "because you believe
you have a job again. Because they phoned you up a couple of days ago to tell you
that the court case was off. You haven't been phoned back up again to tell you the
court case is on again yet because even Alastair doesn't work that quickly."
"Alastair?" Mr. Shakespeare scratched his woolly head. "Who in the name of God's
Alastair?"
Behind him, on the side, the phone began to ring.
"That", said Cleo, "is Alastair. Or rather, someone phoning up to tell you what
Alastair has just done. Alastair has just found out I've taken away something really
valuable from him. Which means he's going to want to hurt me. He's going to want
to hurt me really, really badly. And he's going to be doing it through you. Hi mum."
"What is all of this?" said Mrs. Shakespeare, rising up from the sofa behind her
husband. She was wearing a white flannel bathrobe, holding it shut against the cold
blowing in through the open patio door. "Hello Anthony. Cleopatra, you are not
supposed to be back from Germany yet. Don't tell me you've been sent back early
because of any further misbehaviour, young lady, because if you have, no number of
fitted kitchens -" She crossed the room to pick up the telephone.
"DON'T ANSWER THAT", said Cleo.
Cleo's mother stopped in the act of picking up the receiver.
"What has gotten into you, Cleopatra. And Tamora - letting your sister set you a bad
example yet again."
"When you pick up that telephone", said Cleo, "it is going to be someone telling you
Dad is now in trouble with the union again. Some new evidence will have come to
light. Someone new will be prepared to testify against him. He will be on suspension
again. Go on, pick up the phone and listen."
Cleo's mother picked up the phone. "Hello?
"Oh, hello David.
"Yes, Leonard is here. Why?"
She held the phone a good few inches from her ear, and looked at it as if it were a
particularly large and hairy type of arachnid. She looked up at Cleo.
She put her ear to the phone again.
"Yes. Yes, I'll tell him to phone you right away."
She put the phone down. She was breathing heavily.
"How did you know that, Cleopatra?"
"Pay attention. We do not have much time. I need you to get everything out of the
house, and I mean everything, that you do not want to lose forever. You are going to
carry it down to the bottom of the garden, where a number of very nice men will help
you put it into a waiting vehicle. You do not have time to change. You do not have
time to do your hair. You do not have time to complain in a screechy Jamaican
accent. I will explain to you as we go. I promise there will be an explanation, and
that it will be backed up with facts, but if you do not move and move now, you and I
and a whole lot of other people I care about a great deal may end up vitally
challenged. Start with the DVD player. They don't have them where we're going.
And bring the refrigerator, and the washing machine. Do not, under any
circumstances, forget the cat."
Mr. Shakespeare had a hand held up. "Er - daughter?"
"Yes?"
"Vitally challenged?"
"Dead."
Mrs. Shakespeare folded her arms. "Does this have to do with drugs, young lady?"
"No it doesn't, and that is the last explanation I am giving before you start moving
your big fat butt. Sergeant Falconer - if my mother doesn't move her big fat butt,
shoot her."
"Right you are, ma'am." Three men in what looked like military uniform had just
come in through the patio doors. They wore holsters which contained what looked
unsettlingly like weapons. The man Cleo had addressed as Sergeant Falconer was
undoing the flaps on his holster.
"It's all right, ma'am, this isn't a gun, more of a sort of Happy Pistol, it won't hurt a bit.
We get shot with 'em in training all the time, partly so's we know what it feels like and
to tell you the truth, partly cause we like it." He took out his gun and began to fiddle
with the settings on it. "Where would you like to get shot? The head's good, for
preference."
"Leave my wife alone!" yelled Mr. Shakespeare.
"It's all right, dad, it really won't hurt, it'll just make her grin like grandma does in
church for a while." Cleo waved her arms at two men carrying a sideboard. "EASY
with that, it has PLATES in it. Plates are made from PORCELAIN on this planet."
"On this PLANET?"
Irritably, Cleo picked up a DVD rack. "Make yourself useful. Go down to the bottom
of the garden, give this to the first man you see, and do me a favour - look up."
Mr. Shakespeare dumbfoundedly accepted the rack.
"It's all right, Len", said Ant. "It'll all be all right."
Mr. Shakespeare nodded and walked meekly out of the living room.
"Now just you wait a minute, young lady!" yelled Mrs. Shakespeare. "
Mr. Shakespeare glanced back up the path. Sergeant Falconer looked questioningly at
him. Mr. Shakespeare frowned and nodded.
Sergeant Falconer took aim, and fired.
"When we get home", said Mrs. Shakespeare, "Mummy and Daddy are going to make
us all pink jelly for tea with all bananas stuck in it, and there are going to be fluffy
pink pussy cats that fly on little angel wings and are called bumbly wumbly jumbly
gumbly."
She smiled at Tamora and drooled.
"I think I prefer her like that", said Cleo. "HEY! YOU! DON'T PICK UP THAT
DRESSER WITHOUT TAKING MY MOTHER'S CAPODIMONTE FROG
COLLECTION OUT OF IT FIRST!"
Mr. Shakespeare's face appeared again at the door. It was whiter than a zombie's in a
bad horror movie.
"Ah", said Cleo. "You looked up."
"In the sky", he said, turning round and pointing up at the sky in case Cleo had
forgotten where it was. "There's a - there's a -"
"Revere-class cruiser", said Ant.
"- hovering over -"
"Flying saucers exist", said Cleo, handing an oil painting to a crewman. "The
Americans have been building them since the 1940s. The British and Russians have
been building them since the 1950s."
"A Revere-class cruiser..." said Mr. Shakespeare.
"Is a really big flying saucer." Cleo gathered up a bundle of coats from the hallway
and threw them at Sergeant Major McNaught, who saluted and departed at a run. "It
was built in Connecticut."
"I've got to go now", said Ant. "I have to be somewhere really really fast."
A voice called from further into the house. "DO YOU NEED THE KITCHEN SINK,
MISS?"
"No, leave that. But take the dishwasher. You'll need two men to lift it." She turned
back to her father. "The American and British colonies in space revolted in the early
1970s. The Americans and British are doing bad things - brutal things - to put down
the revolt. One of those brutal things was arranging for people to give false evidence
against you. In order to put pressure on me. Because I'm a revolutionary, and you're
my father."
Mr. Shakespeare screwed up his face. "Cleopatra, you have to learn that not
everything revolves around you -"
"Did you do any of those things they accused you of?"
"Wha? - well, no. Of course not."
"Then why would anyone accuse you of them, then?" She picked up a massive
bundle of fur, which yowled complainingly, and passed it to her father. "Make sure
he goes in and doesn't come out."
"In what?"
"Remember that big ship in the sky? It's coming down. And we're going into it. All
of us. And dad - we're not coming back. Not ever."
Mr. Shakespeare rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know, Princess Angel Cake.
This is all very sudden."
"Dad. We do not have time for this. This house probably has more microphones in it
than a film set. Every word we are saying is being listened to. That means people are
coming to this house right now. And dad - they are coming to kill us."
Mr. Shakespeare considered this. Then he shook himself alert.
"Letitia's jewellery", he said. "And our wedding photos, and your baby photos. Go
upstairs and get them. Everything else", he said, "can rot as far as I'm concerned.
Where are we going, daughter?"
"Somewhere good", said Cleo. "But bring some tinned food from the pantry. Unless
you really, really like lichees. And I mean really like. In a way that's, you know,
medically inadvisable."
Mr. Shakespeare nodded in a strange, serene way that indicated he was complying
with what logic clearly told him was insanity, and moved off to the kitchen.
***
Ant's house was dark. Despite this, he could see the multicoloured light of a
television blaring in one corner of the living room, visible through the dust-covered
Venetian blind.
He left the two Shadow Ministry men who had been watching the house happily
talking to each other about how nice each other's shoes were, tucked the Orgonizer
back into his belt, and rang the bell. He had to ring it three times and knock on the
front window - the TV was turned up very, very loud.
The front door was open.
"Ant", said his dad, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He had fallen asleep watching the
television again. Ant could hear the sound of Space Above Beyond Behind and
Between, a serial his father had claimed he would rather die by torture than watch,
playing in the background.
"Dad", said Ant, "I have fallen in with revolutionaries from Outer Space. Britain and
America are attempting to put down a rebellion on planets orbiting other stars.
Because of this, we have to go now, because shadowy government agents are coming
here to kill us. Follow me and I will take you to a waiting spaceship."
Ant's dad looked at him for a very long time.
"I always thought it would be something like that", he said. "I'll get my coat."
***
"I hope you all realize that all this is very irregular."
Commodore Drummond, Mayor of Gondolin and Representative in the USZ Senate,
was wearing his very best walking legs, a polished brass pair with patriotic USZ
roundels on the knees. Jervis Bay was leaving Earth orbit; beneath her, winter lay
spread out over the Northern Hemisphere like an immense sugary cake frosting.
"Don't gripe, Commodore, you now have two devices on board, one which makes this
ship virtually invulnerable to harm and one which makes it invisible to radar. In my
opinion you've got yourself a very good deal."
Cleo was sitting on the chart table, which had been covered with hastily-packed
ammunition crates scribbled BOOKS ON EMPLOYMENT LAW, CAPO DI
MONTY, and TINNED FOOD in permanent marker. In front of her, Mr.
Shakespeare, Mr. Stevens and Jochen were gawping at the planet below them, clearly
visible through the bow windows. Mrs. Shakespeare was beaming rather than
gawping; the effects of the Orgonizer had still not worn off.
"Guck mal, Mutti", said Jochen. "Das große Licht da unten - das ist München."
"Änd I should be impressed?" said Frau von-und-zu. "I do not need to see Munich
from orbit. I häff seen it right clöse up."
"It's true that you have done us a very good turn", grumbled Drummond. "If that
weren't true, you wouldn't be here to begin with. Particularly because that device has
just allowed us to fly a ten-thousand-tonne cruiser right into the sky above England
undetected - a most amazing test of its capabilities. And we still have no idea where
in the Saucerer ship the device that does all of this is - all we did was keep all systems
in the ship turned on. The stealth effect seems to have worked for the Jervis Bay with
the Saucerer vessel coupled to it just as well as it did for the ship itself. And to do
you credit, Miss Shakespeare, you did capture an alien with one of those creatures still
in her living brain", he added, "to wit, yourself. You will be comprehensively
debriefed on the blue goop and its capabilities as soon as we return to Gondolin. I
believe you have worked out where Gondolin is located."
"Oh yes", said Cleo. "It was quite easy really. When we were travelling from Earth
to Ross 248, Captain Farthing said we were closer to Gondolin than we thought. But
Gondolin can also easily be reached easily from Groombridge 34A and Barnard's
Star, which shouldn't be possible - Barnard's and Ross 248 are in different
constellations. Barnard's is in Ophiuchus, and Ross 248 is in Andromeda, and those
constellations are in opposite parts of the sky."
"So Anthony thought Gondolin must be in the Solar System", said Drummond.
Ant nodded. "The Sun lies right between the two. And", he said wretchedly, "I
thought Gondolin looked a little bit like Jupiter's moon Io does from space. I sort of
thought Gondolin might be Io."
The Commodore's face lit up. "But bless you, lad, Io's only a few thousand
kilometres across! It has virtually no atmosphere, it's covered by a thin coating of
sulphur, and has a surface temperature well below the freezing point of water. It is
covered in more volcanoes than a teenager has spots, all of them filled with black
molten sulphur and orthopyroxene - some of those volcanoes have been photographed
erupting at the same time at different ends of the planet. No, goodness gracious me,
that wouldn't be a place I'd choose to live."
"Yes, well, of course", said Ant, his ears burning, "I know that now."
"Jolly good, jolly good. And this is Cleopatra's charming mother, I believe. And
your father." The Commodore shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Shakespeare. Mrs.
Shakespeare beamed at the Commodore like a proud mother on Speech Day. "You
really have brought up a capital gel here, I do congratulate you. And this must be Mr.
Stevens, Anthony's father. Anthony has told me so much about you. Will your
mother be joining us?"
Ant's dad, who evidently hadn't thought about this, looked at Ant in shock. Ant shook
his head. Ant's dad exhaled in obvious relief.
"Now, to the business of what you're all going to do for a living on Gondolin."
"Do?" said Ant's dad in fear. The possibility of work being involved had evidently
not occurred to him.
"Yes. Do any of you have any...skills at all?"
Cleo's dad frowned. He sucked in his cheeks. He looked at the big, heavy box
marked BOOKS ON EMPLOYMENT LAW.
"I can weld", he said.
"Splendid, splendid", said the Commodore. "Always have need of a good welder.
And what about you, Mr. Stevens?"
"I can drive stuff", said Ant's dad. "Stuff that's, you know, got wheels. Eighteen of
them, for preference"
The Commodore maintained his smile. "Well", he said, "maybe Mr. Shakespeare
here can teach you welding."
"What about us?" said Ant. "Er, sir", he added.
Drummond looked narrowly at Ant. "Cleopatra and yourself will be inducted into the
Gondolin pilot cadet school. That is what you wanted, isn't it?"
"Erm. Yes", said Ant. "Very much so."
"Excellent. I do so love to give people exactly what they want."
"Erm", said Cleo. Her eyes were trying to escape from their sockets. "Erm."
Drummond turned back to Cleo. "You had something to add?"
"Erm", said Cleo. "Pilot?"
"All young people on Gondolin", said Drummond, "are taught to fly a starship. It is
essential training out here."
Cleo swallowed what she had been going to say.
"In any case", said Drummond, "due to your efforts, we now have not one, but two
Wolfram's Shields, and the Anglo-Americans have none." He reached out with his
baton and rapped the pizza box balanced on one of the consoles. "That means we can
use one of them in Jervis Bay while our boffins figure out how the other one works."
He flipped open the pizza box and examined its contents. "Doesn't look much." He
reached into the box and lifted out the ammonite. "Wouldn't think it was capable of -"
The ammonite turned to sugary dust in his hands.
He frowned. He rubbed the remaining flakes of ammonite between his fingers. He
brought the fingers to his lips, and tasted the dust.
"A meringue", he said. He smacked his lips, looked at the ceiling, and said:
"Cinnamon-flavoured, I believe." He looked sternly at Cleo.
"Oh dear", said Cleo. "Looks like we've been outwitted by Alastair yet again. Maybe
we only have one Wolfram's Shield after all."
Jochen's mother met Cleo's eyes briefly; then she gawped fixedly at the highly
interesting lights of Munich visible from orbit through the viewport.
"Uh sir", said Captain Farthing. "Apologies for interrupting, but we came back with
one more extra passenger."
"Another mouth to feed?" The Commodore was beside himself. "The piggeries and
nettle-and-lichee farms are overstretched as it is. What are you trying to do, evacuate
the entire population of England by stealth?"
"This isn't a new mouth, sir. It's more of an old mouth come back to us."
Farthing stood aside to reveal a young woman dressed in a tweed coat and polka-dot
blouse.
"Who is this?" said the Commodore angrily. "Every new face on Gondolin is a
potential security risk. I explicitly...told..."
Everyone on the bridge, who had been informed by Captain Farthing well in advance,
was grinning like an idiot. Some burly astronavigators were even wiping away tears
of joy.
"Hello daddy", said Charity.
"Oh my", said the Commodore. "Oh my word. Oh sweet merciful heaven."
He sat down heavily on the charting table in shock. His legs, no longer supported,
clattered to the floor.
"If it's any consolation, I never thought I'd ever come home either", said Charity.
"She was, um, infected with the Blue Goo", said Cleo. "But she got better. We have
a process now for curing it."
***
An owl hooted in among the trees. Far away, on the main road, a lone car growled
past, carrying some lunatic or other who felt like driving around at three in the
morning. It was difficult for Karg to believe he was in the middle of one of the
largest cities on Earth. The road was visible as a line of lights, but all around him was
impenetrable blackness. The black of deep space. A black he'd hoped he'd never see
again.
Anything could be creeping up on him in the dark. If this had only been a public
park, there would have been streetlights, and he would have been able to see where he
was going without bumping into slabs of granite every ten paces. Admittedly, they
would have been sodium lights, and they wouldn't have shown the all-important
bright blue colour of something nasty oozing out of a bush and up his trouser leg, but
-
"Mr. Karg, stop imagining vampires coming out of the undergrowth and come here.
If fifteen armed men and a wing of Harridan A3s circling overhead won't secure our
perimeter, I don't know what will."
Half of the problem was the fact that there were so many men standing around, trying
to look as inconspicuous as possible. He hadn't tried counting any of them. Were
there just fifteen, or had a sixteenth crept in without his knowledge? Did he, despite
the infra-red goggles strapped to his forehead, have any realistic way of knowing?
It wasn't a public park. It was a private cemetery. One of the largest private
cemeteries in London. And it was reputed to have its own vampire. Having seen
worse than vampires in his time, Karg's hand was firmly on the trigger of the Gyrojet
in his breast pocket. The one that fired the newly developed sodium hypochlorite
bullets.
"You wanted to see me, sir?" Drague's figure was visible now Karg had his goggles
on; he was shining an infra-red torchlight on a large marble slab. The torch beam
would have been invisible to anyone not wearing the same goggles Karg and Drague
were wearing. To anyone outside the cemetery, it would look like there was no-one
here.
The slab had text chiselled into it which began SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF.
Karg felt able to guess the rest.
"Yes. Yes, just you. You, somewhat bizarrely, I feel I can trust." Drague's torch
beam moved down the grave. "We are not here on a wild goose chase, after all. The
telephone call was genuine. Someone has left a wreath, it seems."
Karg looked at the wreath, and the torch beam attached to his own goggles tracked
across it as he looked. It was a stone wreath - a spiral stone wreath. It resembled
nothing so much as a stone ammonite resting on a piece of paper. The piece of paper
said, in hastily scribbled permanent marker:
YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO START
TRUSTING US SOME TIME, ALASTAIR, AND WE
ARE BOTH GOING TO NEED THESE THINGS - A
STORM IS COMING, AND IT WILL BLOW ON
EARTH AND GONDOLIN ALIKE. MAY YOUR
FATHER REST IN PEACE. CLEO X
"Bless, as they say", said Drague, "her little cotton socks." He lifted up the
ammonite. Under the beam of his torch, the rest of the chiselled text on the slab read:
W. A. DRAGUE DSO CdG
1918 - 1983
LOVING FATHER
DEVOTED HUSBAND
SERVANT OF HIS COUNTRY
Underneath that, it continued:
TWO MEN LOOK OUT OF THE SAME PRISON BARS
ONE SEES MUD AND THE OTHER STARS
Karg turned his goggles to look at Drague. In the dark, unseen by any other man,
possibly not even imagining he could be seen by Karg, Alastair Drague was crying
real, genuine, honest-to-goodness tears. Karg felt like bottling them and seeing what
price they'd fetch on the open market.
"We have what we came for, it seems", said Drague. "Come. We have a great deal to
do. Things have been set in motion, and I do not believe I can stop them. But I feel
obliged to try."
He produced a cigarette lighter as they walked back toward the streetlights of the land
of the living. As they walked, a torch beam - a visible-light torch beam, blindingly
bright - stabbed out of the dark and played across their faces.
"Have you finished in there yet, sir?"
Drague shaded his eyes against the glare. "Quite finished, thank you, Norman. Sorry
about the lateness of the hour."
"That's quite all right, Mr. Drague. Anything for a relative of one of our most
distinguished residents. Did you and your men find what you was looking for? I
think it might have been left by a young girl, a black girl, quite pretty. She knocked
on my door about two hours ago. Was wanting to find your dad's grave. It was after
hours and everything and it's against the rules, but for some reason, I really wanted to
help her find it. I might even say I got a warm and happy glow out of the whole
process. I am not sure why."
Drague smiled thinly. "You got a warm and happy glow, Norman, because she was
an angel from heaven. You get ready to turn in - my men will be out of here in ten
minutes."
"Good night, Mr. Drague, sir."
"Good night, Norman. Sleep tight." Drague turned to Karg, who already had his
short-wave radio out.
"On it, sir."
As Karg radioed the men on the perimeter instructing them to stand down, Drague
held the flame of his cigarette lighter to one corner of the note from Cleo, and held
the note by another corner as it burned away thoroughly and entirely.
19. Betrayed by Mr. Jackson
The rusting arc of Jervis Bay's hull eclipsed Gondolin's sun, allowing Cleo to see out
across a green and pleasant plain. Mr. Shakespeare and Dougie Stevens were now
varying their routine of gawping out of Jervis Bay's portholes at outer space by going
outside the ship and gawping at Gondolin. Shakespeare possessions - standard lamps,
African tribal masks, raffia laundry baskets - were coming interminably down the
gangplank, being carried by bemused crewmen. One of them was twiddling the knob
on the front of a microwave oven, apparently attempting to get BBC2. The crewmen
were, however, not transferring the Shakespeares' property below ground, but putting
it all into neat piles on the grass outside the hidden entry hatches that led into the
main Gondolin settlement. They were also enclosing each pile in a square of tape.
The tape had been made on Earth. Ant could tell, because it had CRIME SCENE DO
NOT ENTER written on it.
"Why are they doing that?" said Ant to Sergeant Major McNaught.
"Quarantine", said McNaught. "Could be all manner of orrible beasts in that lot."
He shrank back in fear as Tailrings, Cleo's Persian, bolted from the nearest pile,
making straight for Ant and extending his claws to climb up him like a human ladder.
"Is it poisonous?" said McNaught.
"Hardly. He's a cat, Jock."
"A cat?" McNaught removed his uniform cap and scratched his close-shaven skull.
"I thought cats was smaller and less airy."
"That's because you've only got one cat on Gondolin, Jock, and she belongs to the
Commodore. Mollymog is going to have to learn to share the planet with another of
her own kind. I think the planet may not be big enough for the both of them."
Tailrings walked across Ant's head, alternately purring at Ant and hissing at
McNaught.
"It's issin", said McNaught. Drawing from his vast knowledge of terrestrial wildlife,
he added: "Snakes iss."
"He's not a snake, Jock. The legs are a dead giveaway."
"Legs?" McNaught examined the spherical mass of stripy ginger fur more closely.
"It's got legs?"
Nearby, Mr. Shakespeare was allowing Mrs. Shakespeare to cry into his shoulder.
Ant supposed it was because they were leaving Earth behind.
Dougie sat on one of Jervis Bay's landing feet, staring out at the blue-and-green
horizon.
"You okay?" said Ant.
Dougie did not turn, but sighed and slumped his shoulders. "Can't do anything here,
can I? All I'm good for is driving artics."
Ant sat down on the landing foot next to Dougie. "Dad, I have never said this to you
before, but driving artics is really, really difficult. I mean, those things are thirty feet
long. The way you can reverse one into a yard right up to the loading bays is...well,
I'm not sure I could do it."
Dougie shrugged, but the shrug was, for Dougie, the equivalent of a warm fuzzy
glow. "You get used to it."
"The point is, if you can do that, you can do anything. And the folks here on
Gondolin'll teach you. They've got plenty of work to be done. And if there's no work
here, there are other planets. There's King, and Novaya Alyaska, and New Salem,
and Elysium, and Laputa. And wherever you decide to go, I'll go there with you."
Dougie looked up at Ant. "You'd do that? I mean, you seem to be, you know...well
settled down here. I mean, there's Cleo and all these other people and that."
Ant patted his father on the back. "Course I would." And I'd feel like hell if I had to.
But let's leave that for a time when I actually have to do it.
The Commodore was sitting on one of Leonard Shakespeare's many BOOKS ON
EMPLOYMENT LAW boxes, leafing through a copy of THE DISABILITY
DISCRIMINATION ACT 1995.
"This almost makes me want to live on Earth, Miss Shakespeare", he said. "If I lived
in London today, my employer would all but have to pick me up at my doorstep and
carry me to my desk."
"It's for the very best reasons", said Cleo.
The Commodore's face wrinkled in disgust; he put the book down as if it were
poisonous. "Ramps in every shop and lifts in every public building! Where's the
challenge in that? Takes all the fun out of being disabled."
"It's fun", said Cleo, "to be disabled?"
"Oh my word yes. The look on people's faces when they find out you can do a back
flip."
"You can do a back flip", said Cleo.
"Not as such", beamed the Commodore. "But the look on your face! Now, I have
been thinking, young lady, about your recent realization of where Gondolin is. When
exactly did you have this Eureka moment? I'd particularly like to know, you see,
whether it was while you had an unwelcome guest in your midbrain."
Cleo gulped. "Er", she said.
"I'll take it that's a yes", said the Commodore. "And I believe these creatures have a
form of group-mind, each one being aware of the thoughts of all the
others...following on from which, we can expect a visit from the Caerulean
Amorphoids at some point."
"Caerulean Amorphoids?" said Cleo.
"Sounds so much better than Blue Goo, don't you think? That's their official USZ
Threat Designation. Major Yancy came up with it. In any case, that's bad
news...they're probably still not confident they can take us head-on, or they would
have struck Earth or Gondolin in force by now. We will need to strengthen our
defences."
"You haven't got any defences", said Cleo.
"We have Jervis Bay", said the Commodore, evidently hugely hurt.
"Jervis bay is a single Revere class cruiser", said Cleo. "She was built in the 1960s."
"Quite so, quite so", said the Commodore. "But she has a lot of fight in her yet. So I
take it you've known where we were for quite a while."
"Oh yes", said Cleo. "I've known since Ant was describing how faster-than-light
flight works to Jochen. He used an onion", she said.
"Ah, the old onion technique", said the Commodore. "Tried and tested."
"And when he was pointing out to Jochen that the small onion inside the big onion
was smaller than the big onion -"
"Hardly worth explaining, in my opinion", nodded the Commodore, "but please
continue."
"- I knew where Gondolin was. The big onion was normal space. The little onion
was hyperspace. Hyperspace is close to everything. That's the point of hyperspace.
It's a smaller universe than the normal universe. Smaller and hotter. More mass and
energy crammed into much less space. And whenever a ship enters our corner of
hyperspace, it passes the same yellow hyper-sun. It is always the same sun, isn't it?"
"It is", said Drummond, nodding.
"And that sun is always surrounded by a mass of debris, boulders the size of Greater
London looking to turn your ship into a ghastly splat of debris on them like just so
much Tower Hamlets. Ships always turn away from that sun as soon as they enter
hyperspace, to avoid a collision hazard. But what if there's a way through that
boulder field? What if there's a circle of calm inside it, like Cassini's Division in the
rings of Saturn?"
"Then a planet could fit inside that gap", finished Drummond.
"A planet that had swept that area free of boulders", said Cleo. "A planet that had had
a very violent history. That had had everything in the sky thrown at it. A planet like
that might be covered with craters." She looked up at the impenetrable blue of the
sky. "Gondolin is covered with craters."
"It is indeed", said Drummond.
"And someone who found a habitable planet in hyperspace, and could defend it
against all comers, would control space."
"I would imagine they would", said Drummond. "The sticking point being your last
statement. I -"
He was interrupted by a fresh bawl from Mrs. Shakespeare, who burrowed her face
deep into her husband's shoulder.
"Dad", said Cleo. "What is she crying about? We did bring Grandma, after all." As
she said so, a couple of Jervis Bay crewmen came past with a wheelchair containing a
fiercely glowering old Jamaican lady, laying about herself with a walking stick and
cursing in patois.
"It's this", said Mr. Shakespeare guiltily. He held up a green fragment of porcelain.
The fragment had eyes. Green frog eyes.
"Ah", said Cleo. "Mr. Jackson."
"I take it", said the Commodore, "that Mr. Jackson was her favourite."
"Mr. Jackson is the one who -"
"Never wipes his feet, yes", said the Commodore. "And lives in a drain below the
hedge, in a very dirty wet ditch. Tiddly, widdly, widdly, Mrs. Tittlemouse, and so
forth. I am a learned man; I am familiar with the works of Beatrix Potter. He appears
to have lost his head in transit. Careless of him."
This threw Mrs. Shakespeare into another torrent of sobbing. The Commodore took
hold of the fragment of frog-head. "May I?"
Mr. Shakespeare handed over the remains of Mr. Jackson. The Commodore took out
a jeweller's eye-glass, breathed on it to polish it, and stuck it in his eye; then he turned
the frog over in his hand beneath the eye-glass.
"Do you think you can fix it?" said Mr. Shakespeare.
"Oh, good gracious, no", said the Commodore. "It's quite, quite damaged beyond
repair."
"Oh", said Mr. Shakespeare. "I...you know, though you might have some sort of
magic space glue, or something."
The Commodore ignored Mr. Shakespeare. "The first thing that jumps out at one", he
continued, "is that Mr. Jackson appears to be wearing a wire."
Cleo's blood stopped in her veins.
"Omigod", she said.
"Omigod indeed", said the Commodore. He looked at the Shakespeares' private
belongings. "Were you aware that some of these items might be bugged?"
"Er", said Cleo. "But that won't matter, will it? We're on Gondolin now. We're
miles from Earth."
"And in hyperspace", said the Commodore. "Which as you know, is in everyone's
back yard."
"But surely", said Cleo, "Alastair has no listening stations in hyperspace -"
She stopped dead. Alastair, she knew perfectly well, had listening stations
everywhere. The mobile phone he'd given her had been guaranteed to work on Earth,
Alpha Four, the American colonies, and a surprising number of the Russian ones.
And if there, why not hyperspace as well?
"A radio transceiver the size of an alarm clock can send and receive signals to and
from ships entering hyperspace anywhere inside a hundred light years", said the
Commodore, eyeing an alarm clock in the Shakespeares' belongings suspiciously.
"Military vessels preserve radio silence in hyperspace whenever they possibly can for
just such a reason. I think Alastair is very unlikely to fail to take advantage of such
an opportunity."
"You mean", said Cleo, "that Alastair could have heard everything we just said."
The Commodore nodded. "Everything."
Her stomach was in knots - complex ones that might have been tied by pale, thin boy
scouts who didn't get out much. "I've just given him the location of Gondolin."
"Very possibly." The Commodore eased himself off the crate he had been sitting on
onto his walking legs. "Not to worry. Can't be helped."
"Not to WORRY? There might be an invasion fleet on its way here right this
minute!"
"No sense in crying over the spilt stuff", said the Commodore. "It has a name. You
have it on Earth. You squeeze cows and out it comes." He clicked his fingers
irritably, searching for the word. He turned to McNaught and nodded. McNaught
saluted and ran off towards a nearby hatchway.
"Milk."
"Yes, yes, that's right." His lower lip ramped up over his top one. "Though there
may be more spilt than milk by the end of today."
He turned, swivelling robotically on his kneeless walking legs, and stomped off
towards the nearest hatchway. Cleo collapsed into the turf and caught her head in her
hands before it hit the ground.
Ant jumped up from the Jervis Bay's landing foot. "Cleo? What is it? What's
wrong?"
Cleo looked down at the piece of cracked porcelain lying in the grass.
"Mr. Jackson's head's come off", she said simply.
***
"Okay. The camera's rolling...Experimental Weapons System X-3 test firing, number
one hundred and twenty-three, setting on nine hundred and ninety-nine megahertz."
The voice came from behind the heavy glass screen at one end of the room. Glenn
Bob sat nervously in the seat, his hands and feet secured by leather straps.
Experimental Weapon X-3 was pointing directly at him from the mounting in the
ceiling. Its massive selector wheel clicked, as the voice spoke, onto setting 999.
"Are you okay in there? Do you need a drink of water?"
"No", said Glenn Bob, licking his lips nervously. "Let's get this over with."
"Activating weapon...NOW."
The bulb of the device flared brilliant green and purple. Glenn Bob convulsed in the
seat, his wrists and ankles straining involuntarily against the straps.
"Are you okay?"
Glenn Bob's breath heaved in and out. "Reckon so."
"How would you describe that one?"
Glenn Bob thought carefully. "It was a sorta...fin-de-siècle ennui. Git me outa these
straps now. Word is Anthony and Cleo's just got back here on the Jervis Bay there."
Behind the impenetrable glass screen, Richard Gould, his tongue jammed into the
corner of his mouth, wrote in his experimental log. "Fin...de...siècle...ennui...that's a
pretty complex description, are you sure?"
"I try to speak 'em as I feel 'em."
"Well, that's the last test firing for today. Tomorrow we move on into the gigahertz
range. Steve, could you undo Glenn Bob's straps?"
The safety door from the other half of the weapons lab opened, and Steven Dawkins
entered, put down a small aluminium foil package on a table, and began undoing the
restraints.
Glenn Bob looked at the package. "That your lunch there?"
"Oh no." Dawkins looked at the package. "It's a surveillance microphone, very
powerful, which is why I've Faraday-caged it. One of the Shadow Ministry's very
latest and best. It's housed inside an Earth standard mobile telephone. They gave it
to Cleopatra to try to find out where Gondolin was. The CO wanted me to take it
apart, find out how it worked."
Glenn Bob shook his head. "She's got more ridin on her than all of us figured,
specially her. Does she know yet?"
"No. But the Commodore's pretty certain the Ministry know our location now. There
were other microphones planted in her parents' belongings."
Glenn Bob shook his head. "Cleo's strongern steel. I'da snapped years back." He
rubbed his aching wrists as Dawkins released them. "That little micro-doodad there
is a telephone?"
"Yes, isn't it amazing? They have new things on Earth called transistors and
semiconductors." Dawkins unfolded the bacofoil, taking out the tiny pink device.
The tiny pink device began ringing. It rang only once. It rang with the Darth Vader
theme tune from Star Wars.
"I done seen that movie", said Glenn Bob. "It was all baloney."
"With you on that one", said Dawkins, picking up the phone and peering at its screen.
"I've never seen quite so many spaceships that weren't a proper saucery shape."
"Return of the Jedi, mind", said Glenn Bob, "was pin-sharp in its documentary
accuracy. I could actually believe I was living in outer space there."
"You do live in outer space", said Dawkins absently, trying to work out how the
phone's control panel operated.
"I so do not too. Them Earth folks lives in outer space. I live here at home. Aintcha
goin to answer that there phone call?"
"It is not a phone call", said Dawkins. "It is what I believe is called, on Earth, a text
message."
He read the text message. His face turned pale.
"What does it say?" said Glenn Bob.
"We have to get this to the Commodore right away."
***
The room was quite large - large enough, perhaps, for step aerobics. Basketball
would have been out of the question. The ceiling was too low for a slam dunk.
Chairs and tables had been cleared away to the edges of the space, and Gondolier
workmen were bolting holes in the ceiling and clipping sheets of heavy canvas to
them.
"Uh - daughter? What's happening to our furniture?" said Mr. Shakespeare, watching
it vanishing down a side passage, being wrapped in what looked very like Bacofoil.
"It's being debugged", said Cleo, looking round the room dolefully. A Gondolin
citizen walked up behind her, clapped a hand on her shoulder and said:
"It's all right, Cleopatra, don't fret. We don't mind what you did. We still remember
all the good things you did."
Cleo's bottom lip trembled as the woman smiled ever so nicely and walked away.
"Are these our quarters?" said Mr. Shakespeare, looking around himself nervously.
"They're a bit large. And there are all these entrances. It's hardly private."
"Where's the toilet?" said Mrs. Shakespeare.
"Our quarters", said Cleo, "will be built when the Gondolin town council have time to
drill out a new family-size living space. I brought us here before anyone had any
chance to make us anywhere to live. This", she said, looking at the walls, "is the
Gondolin PT area. Or Town Hall. Or canteen. Depending on what time of day it is.
And until we get assigned permanent living quarters, this is where we'll be living."
"You mean", said Mrs. Shakespeare in horror, "that we've got to live here?"
Cleo fixed her mother with a needle-sharp stare. "Dad was correct", she said, "in
observing that this is the largest room in the Gondolin settlement. While we are
living here, no-one on Gondolin will be able to eat outside their own rooms. Or
exercise. Or vote. They're being very, very nice to you, mum. Particularly since
your daughter has just given away their position to a hostile invasion force."
She smiled weakly at Father Serafino, Gondolin's one and only holy man, who had
waved to her across the chamber.
"Hi Cleo", said Father Serafino. "Tough luck about the whole hostile invasion force
thing. I just want you to know - nobody blames you."
"That's great", said Cleo. "That's just great. I really appreciate that."
"I'll see you in church, mind", grinned Father Serafino. "All of you. I have to go
now. I have a gunnery station to man." He waved again and left.
"Do we have to go to church?" said Tamora.
"We haven't any choice", said Cleo, looking round at the four walls again. "Where do
you think they hold their church services?"
"Where are the beds?" said Mrs. Shakespeare. "Surely they could have left us our
beds."
"The beds", said Cleo, "are hanging from the roof above your head."
Mrs. Shakespeare looked up.
"Hammocks?" she said.
"You'll find they're very comfortable", said Cleo. "Particularly since gravity is only
point eight Earth normal here. These nice gentlemen have hung them up for you.
They have worked very hard for you. Thank them."
Mrs. Shakespeare looked around at the two gentlemen, who stood waiting to be
thanked. Her face screwed up in exceptionally ugly fury.
"Thanks, lads", said Mr. Shakespeare. "I really appreciate it. And so does my wife",
he added pointedly. The men smiled good-naturedly at Cleo and Mr. Shakespeare
and left.
"Those men", snapped Mrs. Shakespeare, "abducted us. They took us from our
home."
"If they hadn't done that", said Cleo, "you would be dead now."
"We only have your word for that, Cleopatra."
Crewmen ran past pushing trolleys laden with fire control equipment, coil gun
ammunition and medical supplies. They were wearing pressure suits, despite the fact
that Gondolin had a breathable atmosphere.
"If you want proof, climb back out onto the surface in a few hours' time", said Cleo
sadly. "There'll be proof flying about like leaves in autumn."
Mr. Shakespeare cleared his throat. "Ah - angel pumpkin - did you say one of my
daughters had given away our position to the enemy?"
"Well, don't look at me", said Tamora, looking at Cleo indignantly.
"It was me", said Cleo. "Remember all those microphones I said our house was
riddled with? I forgot they'd also work in hyperspace. I brought them here with us.
Even if he couldn't guess where Gondolin is by listening to idiots like me talking,
Alastair Drague could almost certainly track the signals here. And this place's
location is supposed to be the most closely guarded secret in USZ space. Feel free to
call me stuff."
"And they", continued Mr. Shakespeare gently, "is the United Kingdom. And the
United States of America."
"Not exactly. I'm not even sure the government of the U.K. knows colonies exist in
space. In Britain, you're talking about something called the Shadow Ministry. In the
States, you're talking about a group called Majestic, about which the President knows
nothing. They are very, very bad people. They have vested interests in the
colonization of other worlds. Little private empires. And they are not about to give
those empires up to the United States of the Zodiac."
"Why did the United States of the Zodiac rebel?" said Mr. Shakespeare.
"Civil rights", said Cleo. "They wanted some of the same freedom Americans were
getting back on Earth. Majestic and the Shadow Ministry weren't prepared to let
them have it, not in any way apart from straight between the eyes."
"And any one of the things we brought with us could contain more bugs", said Mr.
Shakespeare thoughtfully.
"Sure could", said Cleo.
"Right." Mr. Shakespeare walked across the room to where a couple of crewmen
were manhandling a clothing rail filled with his suits. Many of the suits, Cleo knew,
were made-to-measure. They had cost hundreds and hundreds of pounds. "Excuse
me! Those suits. You don't need to bring them in."
"Sir?" One of the crewmen pulled off his cap and scratched his head in confusion.
"If we don't bring them in, sir, they might get damaged. It, er", he added, looking at
Mrs. Shakespeare, and evidently choosing his words carefully, "it looks like rain out
there right now. If you catch my drift."
"Burn them", said Mr. Shakespeare. "All of them."
The crewman was dumbfounded. "Say again, sir?"
"You heard. They're a threat to the security of this settlement. Burn them. I won't be
needing them again. Seven good T shirts and a good pair of pants and I'll be fine."
"DAD!"
"All right, all right", said Mr. Shakespeare, waving his hands in reckless
extravagance. "Two pairs of pants." His smile was as massive as the White Cliffs of
Dover. "And trousers, of course. Never forgetting the trousers. Maybe even a pair
of shoes. And stop calling me sir."
"Yes, sir. Of course, sir."
"It's not as if I've done anything big or impressive around here."
"Well - yes, sir, but..." The two crewmen looked at one another. "It's just..."
"You're Cleopatra Shakespeare's father, sir", blurted the other crewman, darting a
glance at Cleo as if afraid she might notice him doing it.
Mr. Shakespeare was taken aback. "My daughter's famous?"
"Brought back the Highwayman two years back, sir. Brought back a latest-generation
Russian fighter for our boffins to study."
"Showed us all what we was up against last year, sir. With the Blue Goo, and all."
"Brought back the Wolfram's Shield this year. And the Bavarian Cloaking Device."
"Bavarian Cloaking Device", repeated Tamora.
"Well", explained the crewman, "it cloaks things. And it came from Bavaria."
"Anyone who's Cleopatra Shakespeare's father is both big and impressive on
Gondolin, sir", finished the second crewman. He extended a hand for Mr.
Shakespeare to shake. Mr. Shakespeare took it and shook it, as if in a dream.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir", said the crewman. "We'll begin burning your
clothes right away."
"And Cleo shouldn't worry about betraying Gondolin's position", said the second
crewman. "These things happen."
The men began wheeling the clothing rail out of the canteen again.
"How long have you been mucking about in Outer Space exactly, daughter?" said Mr.
Shakespeare.
"Er. Probably I should have mentioned it earlier", said Cleo.
"We will discuss this later. Right now I'm going to find the room where they're
keeping the rest of our furniture. We don't need half of it. We don't need most of it.
People are spending valuable time hunting for miniature microphones in my legal
library when they should be burning it."
He stormed out of the room. As he stormed out, a group of men wearing Red Cross
armbands stormed in wheeling trolleys laden with medical equipment. One of them
saluted Cleo.
"Erm", said the man who had saluted. "We need to take up some of the space,
Cleopatra."
"Of our bedroom?" said Mrs. Shakespeare.
"Er, yes, ma'am."
"Of the only room we have to sleep in? Of the only private area my family can still
call its own?"
The medical officer scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment.
"Uh, yes, ma'am. We need a triage and treatment area. We're expecting battle
casualties very shortly."
More men were arriving now, pushing more trolleys holding more blood bags and
more portable defibrillators.
Mrs. Shakespeare's mouth dropped open.
"Battle casualties."
"Yes, mum", said Cleo. "It's real. And it's all my fault." She raised a finger at the
medical officer, who had already begun to open his mouth. "It so is. People are
going to die because of me, so don't you dare try to stop me from taking
responsibility -"
"CLEOPATRA."
Cleo whirled. The Commodore was standing in the main entrance. He had changed
his walking legs. They were now titanium. Battle legs.
"I think it is time", said the Commodore, "that you and I had a little chat. You and I
and Anthony, of course. Mrs. Shakespeare, would you mind awfully if I borrowed
your daughter for a while? Cleopatra, I don't believe I've ever shown you our nettle
fields. They really are quite beautiful at this time of year, though frightfully
dangerous, of course. Being such a terrible invalid, I would appreciate the assistance
of an able-bodied person to guide me down their deadly avenues. May I?"
He extended an arm. Not knowing quite how to take this, Cleo took it.
***
"MR. STEVENS!" The Commodore shouted down the gravel path between massive
nettle trees. Each palm-sized leaf on every towering shrub dripped with poison spines
thick as hypodermic syringe needles. It was difficult to believe these were plants
whose ancestors had been ordinary stinging nettles back on Earth. Here on Gondolin,
for some reason, they grew differently. Unfortunately, they were among the only
plants that would grow on Gondolin at all. They were one of the settlement's few
food crops.
At the end of the row of trees, Ant was walking with Glenn Bob and Jochen.
"Erm, sir", said Cleo, "a surprise attack might be due on Gondolin at any moment. If
a blast wave hit this field, we would be nettle sting pincushions."
"Oh yes, that would be quite fatal", said the Commodore. "Not to worry, though.
The surprise attack isn't due to start for another hour."
"Er", said Cleo.
He pulled out the pink mobile phone and handed it to Cleo.
"This came through fifteen minutes ago", he said.
Cleo pressed the READ button. The screen said:
CLEO TELL BENTLEY BAD THINGS COMING HIS WAY 1 ARGUS 2
DREADNOUGHT 2 REVERE 3 CONGREVE ETA 75 MINS GMT SO
MUST EVACUATE SOONEST DONT EXPECT HIM TO BELIEVE ME
TELL HIM I SWEAR ITS TRUE BY THE BEARD OF CROM CRUACH
HAVE RECEIVED YOUR PRESENT MUCH APPRECIATED WILL
SAVE LIVES.
"Do you understand that?" said Drummond.
"Well", said Cleo, "from the Know Your Enemy charts in your office, an Argus is a
heavy Alpha carrier, a Dreadnought is a heavy Alpha cruiser...a Revere is a light
Alpha cruiser, like Jervis Bay, of course...a Congreve is a light Beta frigate. All
classes used by the British. Looks like the entire British fleet. And against all that,
you have one Revere-class cruiser. That's some heavy-duty annihilation right there,
sir. And Alastair, erm, claims to have received something from me, I'm not quite sure
what. Uh, I'm also not quite sure I understand the bit about Crom Cruach."
"Very serious stuff, that", said Drummond. "Very serious stuff." Having accelerated
to maximum walking pace up the avenue, he began to slow down. "Crom Cruach,
you see, is a sort of god. Specifically, he's a god none of the chaps in my dorm
believed in."
"Still not understanding, sir", said Cleo.
"When we were at public school", said the Commodore, "we told lies to each other
the whole time. Boyish practical jokes, high spirits, pempe ton moron proteron, you
know the sort of things."
"Oh yeah", said Cleo sarcastically. "That Twenty Ton Moron thing, we did that all
the time in Year Seven."
"In order to survive the boyish practical jokes", said Drummond, "some of which
could border on the fatal, we decided we had to have people we could trust. One of
the Upper Sixth had left a book behind in our dorm at the end of the year. A dorm
was a sort of room that we lived in, you see."
"A dormitory", nodded Cleo. "I'm not that dense."
"Jolly good, jolly good. The book was called Conan the Barbarian. Conan the
Barbarian was a sort of mightily-thewed chap who wandered around reaving and
slaying and so forth, you see, and he had a god, and this god's name was Crom
Cruach. At the end of my Shell Form - which I believe is the same as your Earth
Year Seven - I and the rest of my dorm made an agreement, a gentlemen's agreement,
that we would never again be lying to one another whenever we swore by the name of
Crom Cruach. And", he said, looking at his metal legs in intense embarrassment, "I'm
very much afraid Alastair was one of my dorm. Spotty little oick. Very bad at
rugger. Unpopular."
Cleo's jaw dropped. "You're going to believe something told you by Alastair
Drague?"
"We have to start trusting one another some time, Cleopatra."
As Cleo and the Commodore approached, Glenn Bob's heels slammed together and
his hand snapped to his forehead in a salute.
"At ease, Cadet", said the Commodore. "It has come to my attention that certain of
you chaps are down in the dumps and grizzly grumblepussses. There is a British
carrier, two cruisers, two destroyers, and three frigates heading this way, by the way."
Ant looked at Glenn Bob, who nodded in confirmation.
"This is supposed to make us feel good?" said Ant.
"Oh yes", said the Commodore. "Oh yes. Walk with me." Swinging his hips
vigorously, hands clasped behind him, he changed direction and set off for the far
corner of the field at a speed difficult to keep pace with at a walk. "You see,
Gondolin's location has always been a secret we guard very closely from our enemies,
rather like the secret of flying saucer propulsion that the Germans hid from the British
and Americans and Russians, and that the Americans then hid from the British and
Russians once they'd learned it from the Germans. Do you see a pattern developing
here at all?"
"Uh - that people naturally hide secrets from each other?" said Ant.
The Commodore looked at his watch. "Pay attention! That much is obvious. Look
for the hidden subtext!"
Ant and Cleo looked at one another blankly, and shrugged.
"That the Germans, Americans, British and Russians all know how to build saucer
drive ships today! That no matter how hard you try to find a secret, somebody will
find that secret out!" said the Commodore. "No secret can stay hidden forever! So
what do we do with our secrets, given that we cannot keep them permanently?"
"I really have no idea", said Cleo.
"We take advantage of the fact that the enemy is trying so hard to discover them",
said the Commodore proudly, wagging a finger at Cleo. "And you have very nearly
been the end of us, Cleopatra."
"Look, I'm really really sorry, all right?" said Cleo hotly. "If you want me to throw
myself in the bushes, I'll do it." Tears were rolling down her cheeks.
"You misunderstand, my dear." The Commandant looked at his watch again. "You
were far, far stronger than we ever imagined you would be. We thought Alastair
would break you inside a year, as he breaks everyone. As he broke George Quantrill.
You know I once considered George to be one of our very finest? We were lucky
there. Lucky that George was from Lalande 21185 and had never been to Gondolin,
had no idea Gondolin was in hyperspace. But we knew that sort of luck couldn't hold
out forever. That someone would find out where we were sooner or later. So we
thought we'd take advantage of what they would do when that happened."
Cleo's expression was frozen. "And what would that be, sir?"
"Attack us immediately, of course, in the same way the Americans did Alpha.
Particularly if they thought", said the Commodore, still striding determinedly towards
the massive nettle tree at the end of the field, "that we were defenceless. That we
were a tiny little outpost. That we only had one poor little Revere-class cruiser
stationed here."
"And that's not true?” said Cleo.
The Commodore stopped, with his back to Cleo. He straightened.
"Not entirely", he said.
He turned, walking himself around jerkily on his battle legs. He was smiling; it was
not an entirely nice smile. He looked at Ant; he looked at Cleo. His eyes were
shining with a dangerous light. A hard, radioactive light, such as might come from a
very rare, very dense metal forged in the heart of a star. He no longer looked like
anyone's kindly old uncle. He had the appearance of a predator.
He looked at his watch. He looked up again.
A ship the size of a city swept over the tree behind him. It filled the sky. The air
shrieked over the turrets and ports and antennae on its underside; running lights
twinkled down from it like constellations. And on its underside, describing a circle
large enough to enclose a Greek amphitheatre, was the zodiac wheel of the USZ.
Behind it in the sky, above and to the side, were two more vessels like it. Beyond
them, others. Beyond those, still more. A sky full of moving hardware.
"Gondolin", said the Commodore, "is far from being a minor outpost. You said it
yourself, Cleopatra; whoever can build an outpost in hyperspace and defend it,
controls space. The Gondolin we have allowed you to see so far is a minor outpost.
The civilian colony.
"Gondolin is USZ military headquarters."
20. Halt Befehl
"Uh, it's true there", said Glenn Bob. "I done found that out in my first week here.
There's a whole bunch of military tunnels goin north under the lichee fields, an
whenever you guys ain't here, big ships take off an land like it's Discount Big Ship
Landin Day. Though we couldn't tell you nothin. Alastair Drague had to think you
thought Gondolin was only defended by the one cruiser there."
"The ships I saw on the way back from New Salem last year", said Ant.
"Yeah", smirked Glenn Bob. "I heard a Laputan Super Skunk Force Commander
caught a whuppin for that one."
"You used us", said Cleo. "That's why you wouldn't let Ant stay on Gondolin when
he asked you last year. You needed us on Earth. You knew I'd find out where
Gondolin was, and you expected me to go to Alastair with the information as soon as
I had it."
"Not true", said the Commodore. "I expected you to go through any agony of
indecision. I expected Alastair to need to turn the screws on your loved ones. I
expected, in short, that you would put on a very good and satisfying performance.
What went wrong was that you were far stronger than I anticipated. I virtually had to
stand next to all of Alastair's microphones and talk you through giving away our
position."
"And you let me think I'd done that", said Cleo. "You let me think I'd betrayed
everyone on Gondolin."
"I had to. Alastair was certain to have a voice stress analyzer plugged in to the
conversation. He would have spotted a lie."
"Alastair", said Cleo, "doesn't need a voice stress analyzer to spot a lie. He is a
human voice stress analyzer."
The clouds still howled with hurtling firepower. Saucers as large as any vessel Ant or
Cleo had ever seen in space, ships so big that low-lying cumulus wasn't big enough to
hide them.
"That there's a Morgan class flag carrier", said Glenn Bob. "Matter of fact, I think it's
the old Levi herself. And that's a Zapata class escort carrier right there...four
Reveres...four Thermopylae class strike ships...hey, ain't that the old Uriel come all
the way from New Salem?"
"From anywhere in the USZ", said the Commodore, "ships can be called to defend
Gondolin and get here within the day."
The entire planet, from horizon to horizon, was rumbling with the impact of the USZ
fleet's passage.
"The British fleet", said Cleo. "It's going to be annihilated. People are going to die.
Commodore, Alastair's report listed two Revere class cruisers. One of them could be
Black Prince. Jervis Bay's sister ship."
The Commodore frowned sourly. "Not could be, in fact. Is. The British fleet only
runs to two Revere class cruisers. The Black Prince and the Iron Duke."
"The men on board that ship saved Richard Turpin's life, sir."
"And now they're coming here to kill us. Men who speak our language and laugh at
the same jokes we do. And if we don't kill them first, they will be successful. Such is
war, Cleopatra. A pointless, idiotic, horrible thing. But they have their orders, and
we have ours."
Cleo, her face quivering with rage, turned on the spot and stomped back off down the
gravel path, her hands bunched into fists.
"I'm only glad that the Shadow Ministry were obviously so eager to pounce on
Gondolin themselves and make sure the Americans didn't get their hands on it that
they sent their fleet out here alone without backup", continued the Commodore. "If
the Americans had sent a fleet as well we'd have been outclassed completely. As it is,
the positions are reversed. The sad thing is", he said, looking down at the mobile
phone screen sadly, "that the man who warned us of the attack is almost certainly on
one of those vessels, or we'd never have received this signal. He thought he was
warning us so we could cut and run. He probably never imagined he was warning a
fleet larger than his own that was lying in wait for him. Poor, poor Alastair."
Ant looked long and hard at the Commodore. "If that's true, he risked his life to get
us the message, sir."
The Commodore looked away, up to the skyful of naval superiority floating high
above them. He seemed to find it comforting.
"Could be a trick there", said Glenn Bob.
"I doubt it", said the Commodore. "An immediate attack is exactly the way the
Ministry would react. It fits all our predictions."
"There is a thing called mercy, sir", said Ant.
The Commodore looked long and hard back at Ant. "Hitler showed mercy at
Dunkirk", he said. "For twenty-four hours he halted his troops outside the town,
while the British evacuated. Hitler's famous Order to Halt; the Halt Befehl. And
where did that get him? Defeated by the British five years later. When your enemy
turns his back to run, you strike him, and strike him hard. That is the way, young
man, that battles are won."
"And I thought", said Ant, shaking with emotion, "that we were going to win this war
because we were gentlemen."
"Wenigstens, bessere gentlemen als Hitler", said Jochen darkly.
The Commandant scowled, turned, and stomped off in the opposite direction to the
one Cleo had taken.
"You need to get below ground", he said over his shoulder. "It may be about to get
thermonuclear. Mr. Linklater - show these gentlemen down the tunnels to central
control. They deserve to see this from ringside seats."
***
Central Control contained bank upon bank upon bank of workstations bearing
massive keyboards that in no way resembled 104-key Windows standard. Each
keyboard had a tiny, tiny black-and-green screen. Ant, despite having tried extra
specially hard in IT this year on the assumption that being good with computers
might make him better with spaceships, was lost. There was not a window, a button
or an optical mouse in sight. A matrix of teeny tiny television screens was mounted
in the middle of the wall. Some showed starship bridges, with men in USZ flight
suits doing USZ flighty things. Some showed fuzzy, distant images of ships seen
against black space. In front of the television screens was a holotank the size of Ant's
grandad's greenhouse. The holotank showed Gondolin as a dull grey threedimensional blur, and two clusters of blue dots bracketing it. The flight suits the
crewmen were wearing were made of heavy, ribbed rubber, with massive, pressurised
helmets. The visors of the helmets were open.
"They're wearing suits", said Ant. "Inside their ships. But there's air inside the ships.
Are they going outside the ships?"
The Control crewmen all wore massive headphones the size of rubber-flanged
landmines. Each man and woman spoke into a silver microphone projecting from his
or her desk. They were talking gibberish.
"Lichee carrier Demeter, this is Gondolin control; you're straying off glide path,
could you go back on beam."
"Personal transport Pegasus, please maintain parking orbit and await instructions to
burn."
"Domestic waste tender Hephaestus, you're coming in hot. Please slow your orbital
velocity by point ten klicks per second or you'll undershoot."
Every time they talked gibberish into their microphones, they listened to their
headphones briefly, flicked through a massive book on their desktop, and read
through the page they arrived at very carefully.
"None of those ships is personal transports", said Glenn Bob, looking at the bank of
screens. "They're all cruisers and carriers."
"Lichee carrier Demeter is the Levi Morgan", whispered a crewman. "It's all in code.
Keep your voices down."
Ant bent down to the crewman's desk and lowered his voice. "Why aren't you using
encryption? Haven't you guys heard of scramblers?"
"We're using a code we know the enemy's broken", hissed the crewman. "So they
think they're listening in on us, when we're actually feeding them a false impression
that they're heading into a big swarm of heavy civilian transports. Now be quiet!"
Approaching it from trailing orbit was a third cluster of dots. This one was red. It
represented the enemy.
"The redcoats are coming", breathed Ant.
"Jesus H. Willickers", muttered Glenn Bob. "Those British ships is stickin their
heads in Hell's mouth an ringin the dinner bell." He looked at his feet. "An the head
weren't the first body part I thought of there."
"Our ships are forming up at the Lagrange points", said Ant. "Usually you can't
maintain a formation of ships in orbit, unless your formation is a line of ships
travelling round the planet. But at the Lagrange points -"
Glenn Bob nodded. "The Lagrange points is the only points on an orbit where you
can put stuff down and it stays put. Where the gravitational fields balance. And
Gondolin's Lagrange 1 and Lagrange 2 points are just inside and outside Gondolin's
orbit, on either side of the planet. And that British fleet is coming at us almost dead
on our orbit, between Lagrange 1 and 2. Which means it's put itself in a crossfire."
"Their commander has to be a world class idiot."
"Oh, he is", said Drummond's voice. Ant, Glenn Bob and Jochen turned.
Commodore Drummond was still wearing his USZ Commodore's uniform, but
seemed to have put on a special Christmas jumper for the occasion. "The Right
Honourable Sir Oswulf Jasper, K.C.M.G. Promoted to Admiral largely because his
uncle is First Shadow Lord. Not officer material." He leaned in close to Ant and
whispered one single word:
"Eton."
As if this explained all Admiral Jasper's shortcomings, he wandered off on his battle
legs, softly so as not to disturb the command room crew. Ant noticed that his legs
appeared to have been furnished with crepe-soled feet specially for the occasion.
A woman in a major's uniform walked up to Drummond. She asked a question, most
of which was said in too low a voice for Ant to hear. The Commodore shook his
head and muttered:
"I am not countenancing Plan Cherry Blossom. Things are not that desperate. That
is final."
The woman clearly didn't like the answer, but couldn't argue; she turned on her heel
and left. The Gondolier sitting in the end desk turned to Drummond and mouthed a
question at him. Drummond nodded.
The Gondolier turned back to his microphone.
"Ahhh...unidentified vessel closing on our trailing vector...your IFF transponder
seems to be damaged, you're only showing on target acquisition radar. Please
identify yourself soonest."
He sat and waited. The red swarm continued to advance.
The Gondolier left his microphone open on TRANSMIT, turned to an invisible man
next to him and murmured loudly:
"I've got more than one of them closing. And they're not responding to hailing. Oh,
whoops." He closed the TRANSMIT button again.
Then the firing began. It could be seen in the holotank, as spheres of expanding
debris started to spread out around the red dots.
"We opened fire first", said Ant.
"Of course we did", said Drummond proudly. "'Oh whoops' was our code to attack.
What", he said, sensing Ant's disapproval, "you want us to wait till the heavily-armed
force of unidentified vessels opens fire on us? You can't possibly be feeling bad
about us taking them by surprise? What did you think they were planning to do to
us?"
Ant felt foolish, and at the same time hopeful that none of the expanding red dots
were the Black Prince. "I suppose not."
The firing could be seen on the TV screens now. One of the USZ ships had exploded
and was turning in space, venting gas. Her bridge, or what Ant assumed to be her
bridge, still looked as if it was functioning. Her crew were still sitting at their
workstations. The only differences were that the visors on their helmets were now
closed, and that an irregular silvery line was now dividing their TV screen in two.
"They're sittin in vacuum", said Glenn Bob. "Explosive decompression done cracked
the camera lens."
"That's why they were wearing suits indoors", said Ant.
"An if they hadn't bin wearin seat restraints, they'd have bin sucked out into the big
black, most likely", said Glenn Bob.
"We're winning", said Ant. More of the red dots in the holotank were surrounded by
halos of debris than were the blue ones. Many of the red dots were moving
erratically. As Ant watched, one popped like a soap bubble, and was there no longer.
"Ooh, that's going to hurt", said the Commodore. "That was the Warspite. Loss of
coolant, at a guess; serious in a starship. In a ground-based nuclear power station, if
the reactor melts down, it burns through the base of the power station and into the
ground, and dissipates, and cools, causing wildlife to grow a few extra legs and eyes,
and possibly grow to gigantic size and attack Tokyo. In a spaceship, though, the
molten mass just stays in place until it goes critical."
"You have to stop this, Commodore", said Ant.
Drummond turned a blistering glare on Ant.
"They're beaten. They know they are." It was impossible not to look at the holotank
now; the red dots were scattering, trying to get away, being corralled by the blue dots
like a sphere of fish being gathered into a bait ball by merciless predators, falsely
believing that by packing themselves in ever more tightly and hurtling ever more
quickly they would be stronger. "This isn't a battle. It's a massacre."
"They would have massacred us." Drummond, however, did not sound quite so
drunk on victory now.
"The men on Black Prince wouldn't. And we're going to need them, Commodore.
We're going to need all of them. We have other enemies out there now. All of us."
Drummond stared into the holotank for a long, long time, like a gypsy woman trying
to divine the future through tea leaves.
Then, almost silently, he said, under his breath:"Halt Befehl."
- like a beaten man.
Aloud, he said: "ALL UNITS BREAK OFF. REPEAT, ALL UNITS BREAK OFF
AND REGROUP. OPEN ME A BROADCAST CHANNEL, IN THE CLEAR,
WITH VIDEO."
Men at the telemetry stations turned to look at him, startled.
"YOU HEARD ME", he snapped. "JUMP TO IT."
Drummond walked up to a TV eye mounted in the wall. Almost immediately, his
face blinked into existence on the entire bank of TV screens.
"ATTENTION, BRITISH FLEET", said Drummond's face. "THIS IS BREVET
ADMIRAL BENTLEY DRUMMOND OF THE USZ NAVY. YOU HAVE BEEN
ENGAGED AND BEATEN, AND WE HAVE DESTROYED ONE OF YOUR
WARSHIPS WITH QUITE TERRIBLE LOSS OF LIFE. WE HAVE NO DESIRE
FOR FURTHER BLOODSHED. LEAVE THIS PLACE, AND NEVER COME
BACK, UNLESS IT IS IN PEACE. YOU HAVE MY WORD THAT WE WILL
ATTEMPT TO RECOVER ALL WRECKAGE, SAVE ANY LIVES THAT CAN
BE SAVED, AND RETURN ALL PRISONERS OF WAR. I AM DELIVERING
THIS MESSAGE OUT OF A CONVICTION THAT WE MAY SOON NEED ONE
ANOTHER AS ALLIES, RATHER THAN ENEMIES. RECENT
DEVELOPMENTS IN INTELLIGENCE STRONGLY INDICATE THIS."
An appalled crewmember stood up in his seat and hissed: "You can't do that, sir -"
"- we've got 'em on the run -"
"- we got to press our advantage -"
"IF YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS, PLEASE REPLY", continued Admiral
Drummond, casting a warning eye over the complainants, "AND YOU HAVE MY
WORD THAT ANY MAN BREAKING THE CEASEFIRE WILL BE SUBJECT
TO ADMINISTRATIVE PUNISHMENT. IF YOU DO NOT REPLY, I'M AFRAID
WE WILL HAVE TO CONTINUE OUR ATTACK, AND THAT WOULD BE
SOMETHING I WOULD DEEPLY REGRET."
Ant looked at Glenn Bob in amazement. "Commodore Drummond's in charge?"
Glenn Bob nodded. "Right here and now he is. He's in command of this temporary
flotilla we got together here. He's got hisself given a temporary brevet field
promotion to Admiral there."
One of the crewmen at the desks clapped his hand to his ear. "Sir, we're getting a
response through from one of the enemy cruisers."
Drummond nodded. "Put it on the screens."
The TV screens changed. Every screen now showed the same burned and blackened
face of the same man standing in the same wrecked control room, looking out of a
cracked suit visor. A cracked suit visor, Ant knew, would mean death in the event of
decompression. Maybe there was air in the bridge of that other ship; maybe there was
not.
The worst thing of all was the fact that he recognized the face of the other man.
"TH-THIS IS C-CAPTAIN JENKINS OF HER MAJESTY'S DEEP SPACE CCRUISER BLACK PRINCE. OUR FLAGSHIP D-DREADNOUGHT HAS BEEN SSLIGHTLY DAMAGED, AND HER C-COMMUNICATIONS SEEM TO HAVE BEEN
D-DISABLED. I AM ACCORDINGLY T-TAKING IT UPON MYSELF TO RRESPOND."
Members of the control room crew were sniggering at Jenkins' stutter; Ant felt like
walking up to them and banging their heads together. Jenkins was a good man, a
capable captain; Ant had known him since he had been a lieutenant. His fleet had
been led into a trap by a fool of an admiral, and he was now doing the excruciating,
humiliating only thing possible to ensure he and his crew and the crews of the other
vessels in his fleet came back alive. In the background, Ant could see two space-
suited crewmen carrying a third. The third crewman looked like Godrevy, Black
Prince's helmsman. Ant could not see whether he was alive or dead.
"I S-SEE NO ALTERNATIVE B-BUT TO TAKE YOU UP ON YOUR G-GENEROUS
OFFER, ADMIRAL. WE WILL BE L-LEAVING UNDER A F-FLAG OF TRUCE."
The Gondolin control room filled with cheers. Ant felt like he had his head stuck in a
church bell on Christmas morning. All around the room, crewmen were slapping one
another on the back. All Ant could see, however, was the bare fizzing wires and
smashed TV screens on the bridge of the Black Prince. A Revere class cruiser, sister
ship to the Jervis Bay. Ant might as well have been looking at Jervis Bay's own
control room. And behind all the wreckage and chaos, a fifth face, staring
venomously out of another space suit visor at the camera. Alastair Drague.
Drummond leaned forward to the microphone.
"GET THE OLD GIRL HOME, MR. JENKINS. GOD SPEED TO ALL OF YOU."
He turned away from the TV screen, and clasped his hands behind him. He looked up
at Ant.
Jenkins' face disappeared from the screen. Other faces began flickering back onto it the faces of angry grey-haired men in USZ officers' uniforms, all talking at once.
"Now", said Drummond to Ant, "the recriminations begin."
"You probably just saved the lives of over a thousand men, sir", said Ant. "On our
side and theirs."
Drummond nodded. "I will be able to sleep soundly, I think."
In the background, over the intercom, Ant could hear captains' and commodores'
voices gabbling over one another.
"- had them! We had them, and he let them go!"
"- could have wiped out their entire fleet -"
"- had a Battle of Cannae situation in the palm of his hand, and he lost it -"
"- if that limey ain't capable of firing on an enemy just because they know the rules of
cricket -"
" - cowardice in the face of the enemy -"
"- unfit to command -"
"The Battle of Cannae", sighed Drummond. "Always, in the military, it comes down
to the Battle of Cannae." He turned to Glenn Bob. "What do you know about the
Battle of Cannae, Mr. Linklater?"
Glenn Bob snapped to attention. "SIR! Confrontation between superior Roman force
of legionaries and inferior force of Carthaginians, two hundred sixteen Before Christ,
SIR. Carthaginians under Hannibal invade Italy on elephants there sir, and are
opposed by Romans. Romans advance on a deliberately weakened Carthaginian line,
which folds in around em an envelopes em on all sides there sir. Romans cannot
escape."
"Casualties?" said Drummond.
"Over half the Roman army SIR."
"Almost wiping them out. Destroying them as a credible military force. Leaving
Hannibal unopposed in Italy", said Drummond, tightening his grip behind him so
hard that the skin on his hands squeaked. "And what happened in two hundred and
two B.C., cadet?"
Glenn Bob blinked. He stood dumb for several seconds.
"Uh - cadet does not know, sir."
"That's all right, cadet. At ease. They always teach Cannae to cadets, you see,
because they believe destroying the enemy utterly is the goal of all military
endeavour. But you see, it so is not." He looked at Jochen. "Do you know what the
Romans did after they lost their army at Cannae, Herr von Spitzenburg?"
Surprised by the sudden attention, Jochen shook his head.
"Most of the south of Italy fell to the Carthaginians. Macedonia and Syracuse also
scented blood and joined in the fight against Rome. But Cannae had been such a
bloody battle that the Carthaginian army was also badly weakened - Hannibal actually
sent representatives to Rome to negotiate a peace treaty. The Romans, meanwhile,
prohibited any public mention of the word 'Peace', forbade any of their women to
weep in public over their dead soldiers, and mobilized another army composed of
peasants and slaves, who had formerly not been part of the army. They began to
listen more to their old, wise general, Fabius Maximus, who advised them not to fight
Hannibal out in the open in big, set-piece battles, but to wear him down by striking
him in a hundred small engagements, harassing his supply lines. And fourteen years
later, another Roman general, Scipio Africanus, pushed Hannibal all the way back to
Africa and defeated him at the battle of Zama. And what does this teach us, cadet?"
"Er - what goes around comes around?" said Ant.
"Indeed. And that if your final goal is not to make peace, there is no point in making
war. A very wise old Chinese gentleman named Sun Tzu once wrote a book called
The Art of War. In it, he said that, in order to win a battle, you should always leave a
way for your enemy to escape. Never, ever surround an enemy and give him no
choice but to stand and fight to the death, because then he will fight like a cornered
rat, and I have never seen a cornered rat, but I am informed that they fight like lions,
which I believe are considerably bigger than rats. Mr. Stevens, can you confirm my
suspicions on the relative sizes of lions vis-à-vis rats?"
"I can confirm", said Ant solemnly, "that lions are larger than rats."
"Excellent. Excellent. This is the sort of information we employ local sources of
intelligence for. Battles are won, you see, when one side realizes it is beaten and
flees the field before the enemy can totally destroy it. Always try to gain ground
without having to kill any of the enemy, because for every one of the enemy you kill,
the chances are you will also lose one of your own. A very, very capable team of
military experts taught me this, and I was fortunate enough to learn it just before I
could do irreparable harm to the men and women under my command."
"Who taught it to you, sir?" said Ant.
"Their names were Anthony Stevens, Cleopatra Shakespeare, Jochen von
Spitzenburg, and Glenn Bob Linklater", smiled the Commodore sadly. "Now, if
you'll excuse me, I have to face the music; and given that that music is coming from
USZ military headquarters, it may well be Smooth Jazz, which will require earplugs."
He strode forward to the TV camera again, and, in his ship-commanding voice, said:
"ON SCREEN."
"I think we'd better leave", said Ant. "This isn't a fight we can help the Commodore
with."
"I wish that we could", said Jochen feelingly.
"But we kin't", agreed Glenn Bob. He punched Ant in the shoulder. "Hey, come on
there, I got your trainin ship to show you to."
***
The training ship was barely the size of a car, and resembled a squashed and bug-eyed
version of a Hawker Harridan hiding under larger, more important vessels in a corner
of the vast military hangar, but to Ant, it was the most beautiful piece of hardware he
had ever seen.
"That's your Miles Magus M.106 right there", said Glenn Bob. "Sloweren death by
starvation an handles like a thing that don't handle none too good, but she's a ship an
she flies. You do forty hours in that nasty-assed vinyl toilet seat an then you kin
move on to Harridans."
"She's gorgeous", said Ant, running his hand over the rough, ray-scored metal. The
little ship had been repaired many, many times. Her outer hull seemed to be made
more of patches than of original skin.
The hangar was filled with battle-damaged fighters, mostly of a type Ant had never
seen before - slender and spearhead-shaped, marked with Zodiac wheels, terminating
in twin spikes at the bow. Like all USZ fighters, they had double cockpits, one for
the pilot, one for the navigator.
"Lockheed Super Skunks", said Glenn Bob. "D variant of. Copies of an American
design made by Ecliptic Interstellar, the USZ's one and only spaceship factory. USZ
call em the Gladiator, on account of how gladiators was slaves as rose up agin their
tyrannical Roman overlords."
"Wow", said Ant. The lines of fighters stretched away far into the distance.
Technicians were swarming around the more mangled ones.
"An American Aurora would've took em to pieces", said Glenn Bob, not without a
hint of misplaced national pride. "These designs dates back to the Sixties. It's only
cause the British are still usin the old Harridan A3 that these old birds ever stood a
chance. If the USA gets involved in the fight, we're toast an waffles with hominy
grits. An they will get involved. It's only a matter of time for the US Zee."
"So why do you stick around here?" said Ant.
"Find my folks", said Glenn Bob. "The Commodore believes in the Blue Goop, noone in the British or American command does. The Blue Goop took my parents off
of New Dixie, an you done proven that folks who's bin taken by the Goop can be
cured with microwaves. I fight with the Commodore, Anthony."
A small line of fighters were Harridan A1s, stubbier and smaller, marked with the
Zodiac wheel and tiny Union Jack that identified Gondolin ships. Several were
damaged. One was damaged so badly that its canopy was completely missing. A
stencil on the discoloured paintwork could just be read: PENNY FARTHING.
"My god. That's Lieutenant Farthing's ship. She's -"
"A-OK", said Glenn Bob. "Canopy come clean off, but she was suited up. Coulda
been worse", he said. "If the Commodore hadn't stopped the fight."
Ant stared up at the ship. The whole of its dorsal surface was blackened and scarred
by debris.
"How can a ship take that much damage", he said, "and still move?"
"Good ole bus, the Harridan A1", said Glenn Bob. "That much damage woulda split
a Super Skunk clean down the middle. Harridans is sloweren Auroras an Fantasms,
but by Jesus lord do they take punishment. Like some big ole dumb prizefighter just
standin there askin the other guy if that was supposed to hurt."
"People you know", said Ant. "Brings it home to you."
"Sure does right enough. You got yourself a call sign yet?"
Ant was wrong-footed. He hadn't thought of it.
"Have I got to have a call sign?" he said.
"Sure do. It's traditional."
Ant's imagination ran riot. "How about", he thought, "DEATHLORD. No", he said,
trying to concentrate on the creative process, "THUNDERSTRIKE. No, no, no STEELTIGER. SHARKWEASEL. DAGGERWOLF. STARSQUID.
VIPERTHRUST -"
Glenn Bob had taken out a small printed booklet and was thumbing through it, the
stub of a pencil in his other hand. "Reckon a lotta those are already taken", he said.
"I already have mine", said Jochen.
Ant and Glenn turned to look at Jochen.
"I am going to be in flying training too, yes?" said Jochen.
Ant looked at Glenn Bob, who shrugged. "All Gondoliers gotta know how to fly sure
enough. You wanna tell me what your call sign is, an I'll check it?"
Jochen took Glenn Bob's pencil and scribbled in the margin of the booklet. Glenn
Bob's eyebrows raised, but he said nothing apart from:
"Don't reckon we got that one in the fleet yet."
He looked up at Ant. "You decided?"
Ant frowned. "No", he said. "No, I can't make up my mind."
"Tell me before tomorrow. Cleo too. We got to get your name stencilled on the side
of your ride."
"What's that ship over there?" said Ant.
"What ship", said Glenn Bob, "over where?"
"The one under that blanket there, with the armed guard standing next to it."
"There ain't no such ship", said Glenn Bob sharply. "You got yourself an eye
malfunction there, cadet."
"But I can see it too", said Jochen. "It is just covered by a big sheet."
"It's covered by a big TOP SECRET sheet labelled TOP SECRET", said Glenn Bob.
"Cause it's TOP SECRET", he added.
"I can keep a secret", said Ant.
"You remember that Russkie fighter we brung back home with Lootenant Turpin in it
two years back?" said Glenn Bob happily, now that the matter of top secrecy had all
been cleared up. "You didn't imagine the US Zee was gonna to do nothin with it, did
you?"
Ant's heart began beating faster. "It's a new fighter design", he said. "A copy of the
Fantasm."
"The United States of the Zodiac Navy does not copy", said Glenn Bob, evidently
enormously miffed. "It adapts an reverse engineers. They bin makin some last
minute adjustments to it too", said Glenn Bob, "since you guys done brung back that
Nazi cigar there."
"It does look a lot like a Fantasm's Forellen turbine assembly shoved inside a Super
Skunk hull, though", said Ant.
"Take another look", said Glenn Bob. "Where she's piled up round the aft fin."
Ant squinted at the shape under the sheet. His eyes widened.
"It's a Harridan", he said. "They used a Harridan."
"Skunk body weren't robust enough to take the bigger turbine", gloated Glenn Bob
nodded. "They had to requisition theirselves one of our A1's. Got a Skunk tail fin
and avionics nose on her, though. The Fantasm weren't such an all-fired new design
after all - all the Soviets done was to take the bigger size of Forellen turbine that we
use in Astromokes, the Gamma size, an build a fighter round it."
Jochen looked meekly at Ant, seeking help.
"The Forellen turbine is the part of a ship that allows it to fly faster than light",
explained Ant. "It's directly connected to the Spatchcock Flange. There are a limited
number of types of Forellen turbine, and no-one's quite sure why, because no-one
quite knows how they really work. Don't forget, the very first ones were all exact
copies of the one from the ship that first crashed at Hunnenfeld. Engineers have tried
many times to create new designs, but it's still all basically trial and error. Ninetynine times out of a hundred, the new design shivers itself into ten-dimensional dust as
soon as power's put through it. There are still only five stable designs we know of.
The first is called Alpha; it's used in big ships, cruiser size and up. Then you have
Beta, used for corvettes, frigates and small transports; Gamma, used for the smallest
types of ship that can go faster than light; and Delta, used for fighters that can't travel
faster than light."
"Is there anything bigger than Alpha?" said Jochen.
"The Americans an Soviets got a drive size they call Omega", said Glenn Bob. "They
use it on their real big stuff, the super heavy carriers and cruisers. But we don't got
no specifications for buildin it, so all our ships got to be small."
Jochen thought quietly for several seconds. Then he opened his mouth to speak.
"You was gonna say the Soviets was tryin to build theirselves a fasteren light fighter
when they made the Fantasm", said Glenn Bob, interrupting Jochen. "We done
thought that too. That was what you was gonna say, weren't it?"
"More or less", said Jochen.
"The Fantasm won't go FTL, no matter how hard Lootenant Turpin pushes it", said
Glenn Bob. "It's fastern lightnin with a firecracker up its butt there, but lightnin's still
way sublight. But we figure that's what the Soviets was fixin to do when they
designed it. A fighter that could break lightspeed. It wouldn't need no carrier vessel.
It could go anywhere."
He looked at the ship under the sheet, breathing heavily, misty-eyed.
Comprehension crept into Ant's brain.
"Oh my god", he said. "You don't mean to say we've built one."
Glenn Bob threw his hands up in anguish. "HECK DANG IT! You wasn't sposed to
KNOW!"
"I didn't", said Ant. "Not till you just confirmed it. I suspect you may just have been
Alastaired", he added.
"I don't know for sure that's what it can do", said Glenn Bob, "on account of it bein
Top Secret. But that's what everyone says it can."
The lights on the klaxon speakers on every wall were flashing, indicating that
someone was trying to speak through them. As usual on Gondolin, it was difficult to
make out what that someone was trying to say through the speaker static.
"- cccccchTENTION ALL HANDSccccccch C-IN-C ON DECKwheeeoooooh -"
"What's a C-in-C?" said Ant in confusion.
Glenn Bob's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
"Uh, that's a Commander In Chief there", he said.
"I thought Commodore Drummond was the Commander in Chief", said Ant.
"Uh, no", said Glenn Bob. "The C-in-C is the President."
"I see", said Ant, watching the lines of ground crewmen and pilots lining up, sticking
their chests out and throwing their shoulders back proudly, on the other side of the
hangar. Hoping against hope, he said: "Randolph Lefkowitz?"
Glenn Bob shook his head. "Elizabeth Ortega."
Ant made a face. It was not a nice face.
"Is Elizabeth Ortega bad?" said Jochen.
"Elizabeth Ortega", said Ant, trying to come up with the worst word he could think
of, "is a politician."
"And Randolph Lefkowitz is not a politician."
"More of one of your highly educated idiots there", said Glenn Bob.
"He would have been a better president than Elizabeth Ortega", said Ant.
"Uh, that's an affirmative", said Glenn Bob. "President Ortega's an idiot that ain't had
no education at all. News feeds say she kin't even hardly master non-Euclidean
geometry."
"Haha", said Ant. "What a fool she must be. Non-Euclidean geometry, we start off
with that in Year One, right after Rocket Science."
"Rocket Science", repeated Glenn Bob. "Must be nice to get to learn dead subjects
there. Anyways, spit on your hands smooth down your hair and be on your best there
boys, she's comin."
Elizabeth Ortega somehow managed to click into the hangar on three-inch heels as if
she were floating on a cushion of air. She had a smile like the chrome grille of a
Cadillac, and was managing to wear a business suit as if she were walking down a
runway. Crewmen wolf-whistled and cameras flashed as she walked into the hangar.
The camera flashes were coming from a crowd of her own staff, who were making
sure the president's visit to her troops was recorded. Other members of her own staff,
big and ugly, were pointedly standing between her and any members of the USZ navy
who might actually want to touch her.
Men all around the hangar were cheering in their battle-blackened jumpsuits.
President Ortega was basking in the glow of her public's love, clenched fists raised
above her head in triumph.
"Just a goddamned minute here", said Ant hotly, aware that only Glenn Bob and
Jochen could hear him. "Who's just been risking their life out there so who can slink
about in a posh frock for the news cameras? She should be cheering them!"
"Reckon you got that one just about on the nail there", said Glenn Bob sadly.
"She's going to be untouchable now", said Ant. "The public's going to think she won
a war all by herself. She'll be president till she's dead. Possibly even after."
"I done seen her makin speeches on the newsfeeds", said Glenn Bob. "I think she
might have died from the neck up some time back."
President Ortega clicked across the hangar, waving at people she knew, and possibly,
Ant suspected, at the occasional person she didn't.
"Oh my god", he said. "There's a podium. There's a microphone." There were also
film cameras - massive, heavy USZ film cameras, moving around on their own
electric motors, and fed by power cables thicker than Ant's arm.
President Ortega dipped her glittering lipsticked mouth down towards the
microphone.
"HELLO GONDOLIN!!! I DO BELIEVE GONDOLIN IS MY FAVOURITE
PLACE IN THE WHOLE US OF ZEE!!!!"
That got her even more cheers, despite the fact that Ant knew Elizabeth Ortega had
received a lower vote on Gondolin than on any world in the USZ apart from New
Salem and Novaya Alyaska. Ant had played a personal part in the New Salem vote.
"I WANT YOU ALL TO KNOW THAT GONDOLIN IS AT THE TOP OF MY
AGENDA!! A STRONG DEFENCE OF THIS GREAT NATION OF OURS
REQUIRES US TO MAINTAIN THIS STRATEGICALLY VITAL LYNCHPIN IN
OUR TACTICAL SUPERIORITY OVER OUR ENEMIES! I AM AWARE OF
YOUR FLUSH TOILET SHORTAGE AND WILL BE TAKING STEPS TO
CORRECT IT IN MY VERY NEXT BUDGET!!"
"I bet her ship's got a flush toilet there", said Glenn Bob feelingly. "We still all got to
use M382118 Personal Evacuation Cubicles, an they ain't much better than death
traps for the ass."
Ant patted Glenn Bob on the shoulder with comradely fellow feeling. Cleo had had
personal experience of the M382117, a shipboard model prone to sucking an unwary
crewmember's intestines out into space without warning. The M382118 was unlikely
to be much better.
"THE US ZEE HAS WON ITSELF A GREAT VICTORY TODAY OVER THE
EVIL COLONIALIST MINIONS OF PLANET EARTH! THE BRITISH AND US
AEROSPACE NAVIES HAVE BEEN FINALLY AND IRREVOCABLY
DEFEATED! THEY WILL NEVER DARE VIOLATE OUR SPACE AGAIN!"
Glenn Bob's eyes blazed in outrage. "There weren't no American ships in the attack!
Iffen there had been, there wouldn't have been a US Zee ship left in the sky!"
"And it wasn't final", said Ant. "They'll be back, and in greater numbers. If she had
half a brain she'd know that."
But the men were still cheering, and the cameras were still rolling. They were
actually lifting her up onto their charred and bloodstained shoulders.
"Why are they doing that", said Jochen, "if she was nothing to do with the victory?"
"Because she takes a good picture", said Ant sourly. "Let's get out of here. This is
leaving a bad taste in my mouth."
As he turned to leave, part of the tarpaulin covering the new experimental fighter that
didn't exist was thrown back, and a head poked through. The head had jet-black,
floppy hair and a grin whose teeth were slightly out of alignment.
"Is that Anthony Stevens?" said a voice coming out of the head. "It IS! Anthony, it's
so good to see you!"
"Did you say Anthony Stevens?" said another voice from inside the tarpaulin. "I can't
get this cockpit coaming unbolted for the life of me - OW!"
"Hit his thumb again", said the head. "He's always doing that."
"Steve Dawkins", said Ant. "Is that Rich Gould inside the canvas?"
"Certainly is", said the canvas. "Ooh, my poor thummy-wummy. In the absence of
my mummy, I will have to kiss it better myself." There was a sound of smooching
from under the tarpaulin.
The head became all of Steven Dawkins, hung with so many bandoliers of tools that
he looked like a Mexican guerilla. There were screwdrivers, pliers, soldering irons,
and bizarre clawed things that Ant would have been frightened of if they'd been
shown him by a torturer. Dawkins extended a grimy hand. Ant shook it.
"Do you like our top secret device?" said Dawkins. "It doesn't exist, you know. I'm
going to have to kill you now. How would you prefer to be killed?"
Knowing that Gould and Dawkins had invented the Orgonizer, which on maximum
setting could kill a man with sheer physical ecstasy, Ant said: "Painfully."
"That's the spirit. Would you like a look at her? I won't be breaking any rules, you
see, because she doesn't actually exist." He threw back one corner of the tarpaulin.
"RICHARD, ANTHONY WANTS A LOOK AT THE ORTEGA."
"If he wanted a look at that, he should have been looking across the hangar a couple
of minutes back", grumbled the canvas.
"NO, I DON'T MEAN THE HIDEOUS OLD BARGE, I MEAN THE THING OF
BEAUTY THAT WE HAVE MADE TOGETHER." He lowered his voice again to a
stage whisper as Gould, bearded and blond, struggled out from under the covering.
"He wants a look at the highly classified space fighter."
"The Ortega?" said Ant in horror.
Dawkins nodded in dismay. "Yes, I'm afraid they do plan to name it after our
beloved El Presidente. I believe a bunch of Ortega toadies up at Void Command
came up with the idea, and nobody could think of a reason for disagreeing with them.
After all, most of the other suggestions weren't much better. All based on it being a
sort of cross between a Super Skunk / Gladiator and a Fantasm, you see. Skunktasm,
Fantasmiator and so forth." He pulled back the tarpaulin, exposing the nose of the
vessel, and tutted. "Actually, I think we have made quite an ugly baby, Richard."
"Speak for yourself. I rather feel the parts I made have the grace and beauty of a
bounding gazelle."
"Well, you did the avionics and the bow guns, so it's got your nose."
The nose sloped down into two wedge-shaped leading edges, resembling the spikes
on the nose of a Super Skunk, but clearly different. It reminded Ant of something,
but he couldn't quite put his finger on what.
A small group of naval officers was approaching from the hubbub of applause and
cheering surrounding President Ortega. One man, punting himself from artificial foot
to artificial foot, was clearly Commodore Drummond. Ant also instantly recognized
a second man, tall and black and wearing the uniform of a Major.
"Major Yancy", said Ant. He stood to attention and saluted. To his great satisfaction,
Yancy returned the salute.
"At ease, cadet", said Yancy. "I see you're getting a good look at what you
shouldn't." He turned a sharp expression on Gould and Dawkins, who rapidly found
far more interesting things to look at than Major Yancy.
"It's a beautiful ship", said Ant.
"Shame about the name", added Glenn Bob.
Major Yancy dropped into a squat next to the Ortega. He extended a hand to touch
the metal. "Yeah. Shame about that. I would have wanted to call her after an
animal, you know? Something stealthy that attacks without warning. Beautiful but
deadly with it. Like, you know...Jaguar, or Eagle, or Goat."
Ant thought back several minutes. "I think those names have already been taken", he
said.
"Goats also do not attack without warning", said Jochen helpfully.
"Oh?" said Major Yancy. "I thought a goat was a sort of huge thing with the ass end
of a whale that lived in the depths of the ocean."
"I feel you may be thinking of the astrological symbol for Capricorn, Ben", said
Drummond. "As I recall, goats are quite small and live in fields."
"Well, you know", shrugged Major Yancy. "Jaguar, or Eagle."
"Or Aboriginal Megafauna", suggested Glenn Bob.
"Or Gladiasm", said Dawkins.
Ant frowned at the twin chisels sticking out of the front end of the fighter.
"Or rat", he said. "It should have been called the Rat." He looked up at Commodore
Drummond. "The Cornered Rat." He slapped the ship's bow. "Don't these pieces
here look like a rat's teeth?"
"Wow", said Major Yancy, whistling. "Are rats' teeth really that big?"
"Rats are really quite small", said Ant. "But they fight like devils when cornered.
Just like the US Zed."
"The Cornered Rat." Ant had lit a fire in Yancy's eyes. "I like that. It's kind of
catchy."
"But of course, we are under orders to use the name Ortega", put in Steven Dawkins.
"Of course", nodded Yancy vigorously.
"It would be terribly wrong of us to give a ship a name we thought of ourselves, when
it already has an official one", agreed Commodore Drummond.
"So it's settled, then", said Yancy.
"We won't do anything about it", said Drummond. "It's as if the matter never came
up."
"We'll stay with the official name", said Yancy.
"Skunktasmiator", nodded Dawkins solemnly.
"Sir, if you don't mind me saying", said Gould, wiping grease off his hands with a
rag, "the two of you look a bit out of sorts. Is anything wrong?"
Yancy looked sidelong at Drummond; Drummond nodded.
"Bentley here has just not been busted to Commodore", growled Major Yancy.
"It has been explained very politely and at great length by the Chief of Operations
that I was only ever made an admiral temporarily", said Drummond. "Out of courtesy
towards Gondolin, as the enemy fleet was attacking this planet."
"I was in the room at the time. Admiral Spoonbender congratulated Bentley for a
masterly victory achieved with minimal losses to both our own side and the enemy's",
said Major Yancy. "The sarcasm was so thick you could have spread it on toast."
Glenn Bob was outraged. "They done demoted you back to Commodore, sir?"
"I am quite happy being a Commodore, Mr. Linklater. You may have no concerns in
that regard. No, my primary concern", said Drummond, looking around himself and
lowering his voice, "is that control of the defence of Gondolin no longer comes under
me. A new High Void Command has been formed, reporting directly to the
President, and consisting only of five senior admirals from the big worlds - Laputa,
Zion, Arcadia, Elysium, and King. All military units stationed on this planet now
come under Admiral Schweinwerfer, who just so happens to be Elizabeth Ortega's
brother-in-law."
Ant's jaw dropped. "But what about Jervis Bay?"
"I have just received notification that, as of tomorrow, Jervis Bay is to be taken off
the active list. The President believes she is too old to maintain effectively. The new
generation of Elizabeth class light cruisers, designed for simplicity and cheapness of
maintenance, will fulfil the same function, and those will be coming into service in
the next five years."
"The next five years?" Ant was spitting blood. "But the US and British navies might
be here inside a month!"
"You know that. I know that. Our President, meanwhile, informs us that they have
received a jolly good punch on the nose here today and will not dare try to invade us
again." The Commodore looked across the hangar at the President, still being held
aloft in a disco strobe of flash bulbs. "So it now seems that I, rather like the
commander of the Uriel, no longer have a command."
"She scrapped the Uriel as well?"
Drummond nodded. "Uriel has also gone off the active list. Another ship due to be
replaced by one of the Elizabeth class, to be built in five years, six years, ten? We all
know how military shipbuilding programmes stretch out. And another ship that
defended a world that didn't vote for Mizz Ortega. The message to our voting public
seems to be clear. Vote for Ortega or leave your home planet defenceless."
Yancy frowned. "Come on, Bentley, it's not that bad. Gondolin has the whole fleet
defending it."
Drummond scowled at Yancy. "Gondolin only had one ship defending it against
Elizabeth Ortega. We were an independent world, and Jervis Bay was our guarantee
of independence. Now we'll have to go cap in hand to this new High Void Command
every time we want to patrol our own space."
"You've still got Gondolin's flight of Harridans."
"And its flight of Maguses", said Ant quickly.
Drummond peered curiously at Ant, as if seeing him for the first time. "Quite so, Mr.
Stevens. Quite so. The cadet flight. One should always count one's many blessings."
He clapped Ant on the shoulder. "Capital fellow, Stevens. Capital fellow. Though
strictly speaking, the plural of Magus is Magi. Second declension, you know."
"We're your men, Commodore Drummond, sir", said Glenn Bob loyally. "Cept for
those of us as are women there. Lootenant Farthing is a woman", he explained. "An
Cadet Shakespeare will be pretty soon", he added.
"As ever, you are a mine of information, Mr. Linklater. I genuinely have no idea
what I would do without you."
"You've got two Cadet Shakespeares", said a voice from behind Glenn Bob. He
whirled, caught completely unawares, and blinked at the new arrival in shock.
"It's - it's like Cleo", he said. "But - like - not Cleo."
"I'm Tamora", said Tamora. She was already wearing a battered Gondolin flight
jacket that didn't fit properly. "Cleo's sister." She looked Glenn Bob up and down.
"And you'll be Glenn Bob Linklater, I think."
Glenn Bob went crimson. "Cleo told you bout me?"
Tamora nodded. "She says you're really good at geometry."
"Gee H. Willickers." Glenn Bob's face went beyond crimson and into the deep
infrared; Ant could have warmed his hands on it. "She said that?"
Ant put a hand on Glenn Bob's shoulder. "Easy, tiger. Our Earth mating rituals are
different from yours."
Glenn Bob was breathing heavily. "Sure. Sure. I knew that." He patted Ant's
shoulder in return. "I'll be fine there. Just gimme a minute." He pulled out his
clipboard and looked up at Tamora. "Uh, you got a call sign for your ride there,
cadet?"
Tamora thought one half second, then said:
“Aunt Nancy.”
"Uh, that's real good there", said Glenn Bob, positioning his pen but suddenly
realizing he had no idea what he was going to write. “How you spellin that now?”
“Aunt Nancy is a goddess of my people”, said Tamora.
“Tamora”, said Ant. “You come from the East Midlands.”
“Aunt Nancy is cunning”, said Tamora. “She is a trickster. She may appear as a
spider, as a man, or as a woman. At times she has stored up all the world’s wisdom
in one pot. It is from Aunt Nancy that all the world’s stories come. In Africa she was
called Anansi, in Jamaica Annancy, and in Carolina, Aunt Nancy. She is the daughter
of the sky.”
“Gosh”, said Glenn Bob.
Tamora turned to Commodore Drummond. "On behalf of my sister, who is still
being a prize dingus, I would like to tell you that our entire family are one hundred
per cent behind you, sir."
"A dingus", said Drummond. "Goodness gracious me."
"Yes. At first she was refusing to talk to you on account of you being the physical
embodiment of all the evil in the entire universe. Now that you let all those British
ships escape, she's changed her opinion and now believes that she is the physicalembodiment-of-evil thing, and is refusing to see anybody at all. Probably in case she,
you know, infects them. With evil."
"I see", said Drummond. "And the rest of your family?"
"My father is already helping weld one of your damaged fighters back together", said
Tamora. "I have never seen him so happy. And my mother has been holding a tray
of scalpels in the emergency surgery for the last two hours. Her hand is shaking a bit,
and she's looking in the wrong direction with her eyes shut most of the time, but she
hasn't dropped so much as a forcep since she started."
Drummond beamed. "Splendid. Splendid. Knew you all had it in you. I do hope
you will be joining us for tomorrow's official unveiling of Special Prototype X-1."
He rolled his eyes mysteriously towards the tarpaulin covering the new space fighter.
"What, the Ortega?" said Tamora. "It sounds really exciting. Everyone's talking
about it."
Major Yancy sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
21. Always An Honour, Ma'am
Ant's new uniform itched. It didn't fit him perfectly. He had been assured that it had
only belonged to one cadet before him. The name tape sewn into the collar said
QUANTRILL. One of the pockets had had a ball of a half-eaten substance in it. Ant
hoped it had originally been food.
He was one of a long line of cadets, some of them better dressed than others; he took
fierce second-hand pride in the fact that Gondolin's cadets were among the best
dressed in the hangar. Behind him was a long line of Gladiators, with equipment
placed strategically in front of them to hide battle damage from the news cameras.
Directly in front of him was the same podium the President had mounted yesterday to
deliver her historic victory speech. Behind the podium was Special Prototype X-1,
still covered by a white cloth as if it had been a relic in a church.
All around the chamber, USZ crewmen were standing to attention. Gondolin's
crewmen looked smarter than average here too - it might have been an illusion, but
they even seemed to be standing taller, heads held proudly high. Lieutenant Singh,
by special dispensation, was wearing a jet-black turban; his head was held even
higher.
Ant’s uniform was in every respect the same as those of those of the qualified
Harridan and Gladiator pilots standing all around him in the hangar, save for a patch
at one shoulder with the word CADET, and another on the other side with room for
three sets of wings which would indicate numbers of years served in the Gondolin
flight academy. The only thing the uniform lacked to make it operational was a
helmet. Everyone else in the room but the new cadets had a helmet tucked under
their arm. In front of Ant, on the podium, was a table bearing a mass of burnished
alloy helmets, each with a new cadet’s call sign stencilled above the visor, looking
like a clutch of metal eggs. Ant had never desired anything as much in his whole life.
Beside the table stood a man wearing a black uniform dripping with silver braid.
Nobody else in the hangar was wearing anything remotely as magnificent. At his left
breast, he wore a massive braid medallion in the shape of a Zodiac wheel. His hair
was thinning, his cheeks were hollow, and his lips had been eroded away by age until
his mouth was a mere straight line, but his uniform was standing him up under its
own power, making him look every centimetre a soldier.
"NORMALLY", said the elderly man into the microphone, "NEW CADETS ARE
RECEIVED INTO THE SERVICE BY WHICHEVER ADMIRAL HAPPENS TO
GET HIS ARM TWISTED INTO ATTENDING THE CEREMONY." He did not
smile; everyone assumed it was a joke and laughed anyway. Ant wondered if he had
actually been serious.
"TODAY, HOWEVER", he said, "WE ARE INORDINATELY FORTUNATE IN
HAVING SOMEONE RATHER MORE HIGH-RANKING - AND ALMOST
CERTAINLY BETTER-LOOKING - HERE TO PRESENT OUR CADETS WITH
THEIR FLIGHT HELMETS." He looked to his right. "LADIES AND
GENTLEMEN, I PRESENT TO YOU OUR PRESIDENT, ELIZABETH ORTEGA."
The shining faces of the crewmen, cadets, and cadets' parents, as they raised their
hands high in applause for their beloved leader, were nauseating. Ant kept his hands
at waist height and fanned them gently against each other to look as if he was
clapping along.
Elizabeth Ortega, wearing a completely new frock, clicked up to the microphone and
told a hangar full of crewmen, half of whom didn't come from Gondolin, that
Gondolin was her favourite place in the whole US Zee. A storm of cameras flashed.
People were whistling and punching the air.
"THANK YOU, ADMIRAL SPOONBENDER", said Ortega. "I AM DOUBLY
HONOURED TO BE HERE ON THE FIRST DAY OF A NEW GOLDEN AGE OF
PEACE FOR OUR GLORIOUS NATION! THANKS TO THESE BOLD YOUNG
WOMEN AND MEN, OUR ENEMIES WILL NEVER AGAIN DARE DARKEN
OUR SKIES! AND THANKS TO THIS TIP TOP SECRET NEW
THINGAMAJIGGER BEHIND ME, SO I'M TOLD, IT'LL BE THEM THAT
FEARS THE US ZEE, RATHER THAN THE OTHER WAY ROUND!"
She shook her fist at an invisible Earth. There were even more cheers.
And then, Ant saw Richard Turpin, standing in the Gondolin line next to Lieutenant
Singh. Turpin was not applauding President Ortega. Instead, he had his hands firmly
in the pockets of his flight jacket. He also appeared to be chewing gum. Next to him,
Penelope Farthing, her head in a neck brace, was hissing urgently at him out of the
corner of her mouth. Turpin turned to her, beamed, and cupped a hand to his ear, as if
to say Speak up, Pen, it's awfully noisy in here, you're breaking up say again
ccccccch, despite the fact that Ant could clearly hear, even over the applause,
Penelope saying:
"Richard! Take your hands out of your pockets! This is the voice of your
commanding officer!"
Eventually, Farthing despaired of Turpin, looked round at Ortega, scowled, shrugged,
and jammed her own hands into her pockets. Ant saw Turpin pass her a piece of
chewing gum, which she accepted and chewed with her mouth open as she glared up
at the president.
"OF COURSE, THIS THING IS FAR TOO SECRET TO BE TRUSTED TO A
MERE PRESIDENT, SO I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS. BUT NOW I GET TO
TAKE THE COVER OFF IT! IT'S GOING TO BE JUST LIKE CHRISTMAS!"
Ortega turned round to the line of cadets in front of her. Her eyes moved along the
line. When they hit Cadet G1702, who was standing pointedly apart from Ant,
Jochen, and Tamora, her breath quivered in her nostrils in surprise. But she
recovered instantly.
"BUT FIRST, GONDOLIN'S NEXT GENERATION OF YOUNG WARRIORS!
MY, AREN'T YOU ALL LOOKING WELL TURNED OUT TODAY! SEEMS
COMMODORE DRUMMOND'S BEEN SPENDING ALL OUR TAXES ON
SMART NEW UNIFORMS!" She moved her eyes back to Cadet G1702, and then
onward to Ant. "OF COURSE, THERE DO SEEM TO BE A FEW EXCEPTIONS
THAT PROVE THE RULE."
Ant held her gaze, glaring back at her out of his tattered flight jacket. After several
seconds of trying to meet his eyes, she smiled as if she had won the contest, tossed
her hair, and looked away.
"IT IS MY PLEASURE AND PRIVILEGE TO RECEIVE YOU INTO THE
SERVICE. THIS TAKES ME BACK TO WHEN I, TOO, WAS A CADET JUST
LIKE YOU, AND SPENT SEVERAL CHALLENGING YEARS ATTACHED TO
THE SPECIAL TROPICAL WATER SKI WARFARE TRAINING SQUADRON
ON ARCADIA. PLEASE COME FORWARD AND ACCEPT YOUR PATCHES."
The line of cadets shuffled obediently towards Ortega. She turned a dazzling smile
on each one; boys and girls alike smiled back bashfully as they accepted their
helmets. Ant wondered how the corners of Ortega's mouth didn't ache with the
pressure. Maybe she had had surgery.
Jochen marched up, arms swinging, and shook the President’s hand; she handed him
a helmet, which he took under his right arm. Then he saluted stiffly, about faced, and
stepped back into line. Somehow his face managed to be at the same time totally
expressionless and immensely proud. Ant squinted at the call sign on the helmet. On
the metal, over the scrubbed-out identity of a previous cadet, were stencilled the
words TANTE ILSE.
Finally, it was Ant's turn. "It's such a pleasure to see you again", said Ortega, shaking
Ant's hand and handing over his helmet. Across the hangar, he could see his father,
still dressed in the shirt he'd come here from Earth in, standing up in his chair, tears in
his eyes, applauding furiously. Ant looked his father in the eye and turned the helmet
round to face him. Above the visor, the call sign read: EIGHTEEN WHEELER.
"I never forget a face”, said President Ortega pleasantly. “Please remember that."
Ant moved on, wiping the patch on his jacket to rid it of President-stink. He heard
cadet G1702 move up into position, two further down the line from him.
"Cleopatra", smiled President Ortega. "My dear, something seems to have happened
to your uniform."
The response was frosty silence. Ortega's smile grew wider and whiter, and the
applause became thunderous. Ant felt hot, stifled, suffocating in a room the size of a
cathedral. He wanted to be back home sitting in a living room full of stacked-up
Chinese takeaway cartons in Northampton with his father, drowsily watching When
Dinosaurs Attack Earthmoving Equipment Episode 15: T Rex Versus Terex Titan.
Eventually, the President handed over the helmet. Cleo turned it round and held it up,
looking at her own father in turn. The helmet read: WELDER’S DAUGHTER. Mrs.
Shakespeare, next to her frantically clapping, massively grinning husband, dabbed at
her eyes with a handkerchief.
"AND NOW", said the President, taking advantage of Cleo’s applause, "THE
MOMENT WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR - ARE YOU AS EXCITED AS I
AM, GUYS? THREE - TWO - ONE - "
She pulled the ceremonial string attached to the ceremonial drape which had replaced
the earlier, shabbier tarpaulin; the nose of the fighter was revealed, while technicians
positioned behind it helped clear the cloth from the wings and tail. The rats' teeth of
the nose stabbed out towards Ant out of a slab of canopy glass. The Spatchcock
Flange, just as it did on a Fantasm, encircled the ship; anhedral wing surfaces rose
from either side of the flange, and a dihedral tail dipped down at the rear. Ant knew
what dihedral and anhedral meant. He had been reading books on the subject. Above
all, the new fighter was big - almost as big as Richard Turpin's Fantasm, and Turpin's
ship was a three-man trainer, larger than an ordinary Russian service fighter.
"OH MY", gasped the President, as if transfixed with shock. "OH MY. I AM SO
HONOURED." She had hardly glanced at the ship; she had to have known what was
stencilled down one side of the cockpit in advance. In slanty space-age high-velocity
letters, it still said, of course, ORTEGA.
"I AM OVERWHELMED. OF COURSE I HAD NO IDEA. THIS IS A GESTURE
I HAVE TO SAY I DO NOT DESERVE." She bowed her head in humility for not
quite long enough for anyone to jump up and say Oh - all right, we'll spray it out and
call the ship something else, then, and added: "BUT I CAN SEE YOU WON'T
TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER, AND I SUPPOSE I SHOULD HUMBLY ACCEPT
-"
She stopped in mid-sentence. Something was wrong. There was no applause. There
was no whistling. No-one was punching the air.
Next to the ORTEGA on the bow of the fighter, someone had airbrushed a beautiful,
gigantic, stylized black rat. It was larger than any rat had a right to be. It had a long,
entirely hairless tail. It had small circular rat ears. It had long rat whiskers. Next to
the rat, and directly between the rat and the word ORTEGA, was a vivid red arrow,
evidently intended to point to something important on the outside of the fighter so
that technicians could find it to maintain it. There were even tiny letters above the
arrow to tell the technician what the arrow was pointing to. Unfortunately, the letters
were so tiny, and the arrow so large, that the arrow looked, purely by coincidence, as
if it were pointing from the ORTEGA to the picture of the rat.
Everyone in the hangar held their breath. Many people in the crowd knew what Earth
rats looked like, and those that didn't were being rapidly, gleefully informed in
whispers by those who did. Everyone had been happy to applaud the President, but
this was far and away the most entertaining thing ever. All around the room, eyes
were shining. They wanted to see what the President would do next.
She did nothing. The smile had been wiped from her face and replaced by a look of
blank horror. She evidently knew what Earth rats looked like too.
Ant began clapping, slowly at first, and then more rapidly to cover his own
embarrassment. Slowly, other people began to join in. After only ten seconds or so,
it actually began to sound like normal applause. President Ortega's smile reappeared
as if it had never left. Her eyes, however, as they found Ant and Cleo in the crowd,
sparkled like drillbits.
"THANK YOU SO MUCH!" she said. "THANK YOU SO MUCH! YOU ARE MY
FAVOURITE PEOPLE! YOU ARE MY HEROES! HOW CAN I EVER REPAY
YOU!"
Waving furiously and blowing kisses, she retreated from the podium, to be swallowed
by her own security team, who surrounded her and hustled her away in a flurry of
camera flashes.
Up among the senior officers seated to one side of Special Prototype X-1, Ant saw
Commodore Drummond and Major Yancy examining their fingernails and the ceiling
intently, trying hard to look as if they knew absolutely nothing about the painting of
rats on the side of fighters. Among the crewmen standing to attention, he saw
Richard Gould and Steven Dawkins. Steven Dawkins looked momentarily down at
Ant, winked at him, and stood rigidly to attention again. Sitting in the same group of
staff officers as Commodore Drummond, Admiral Spoonbender and a number of
other white-haired gentlemen were glaring at Dawkins and Gould.
Ant turned and saw Cleo grinning back at him, despite the fact that she was clearly
trying not to.
"Glad to have you back", he said.
She smiled, and bit her lip to stop herself shaking with laughter. "I was never away."
"You so were. You were at the border crossing between the land of Everyone Hates
Cleo and the land of Cleo Hates Everyone Back."
She looked around herself - at the Zodiac wheel banners, at the rows of neatly-parked
Gladiators, at the legions of Gondoliers wearing what were, essentially, her uniforms,
hand-made by Mr. Chan of Jermyn Street.
"I think I'm where I belong now. Maybe for the first time ever, in fact."
"I'm glad you think so", said Ant. He raised a hand and clicked his fingers.
Immediately, every Gondolier in the line turned their faces towards Cleo, grinning
wickedly.
"Oh no", said Cleo, backing away. "Anthony Stevens, no. My vengeance will be
protracted and implacable -"
Ten crewmen converged on Cleo as she shrieked in delight, hoisting her onto their
shoulders, higher than any president. There were whistles. There were shouts. In
particular, there was a continuous shout of
"CLE - O!
CLE - O!
CLE - O!"
People were punching the air again. And this time, Ant didn't care.