Thacker braced the gun butt against his shoulder and inched forward. He could feel the pressure against the barrel that was turning it away. He pushed back against the force and felt it slip aside the other way.
When he had been a child, he had been fascinated by magnets, especially when he’d try to bring two of the same polarity together. They would squirm in his fingers, resisting all the more the closer they came.
It was like that now. His gun was being repelled by an invisible force. Thacker backed off again, and bent down to scoop up a handful of dusty gravel in his gloved hand.
Then with a high throw, he scattered the dirt into the air, and watched the curtain of debris stick in mid-air and slide gently to the ground.
‘Now how about that,’ he said under his breath. To the soldier charged with carrying the video camera, he called, ‘Did you get that?’
The private stood on his shaking legs and picked up the discarded camera. He was still trying to aim his rifle.
‘Should I do that again?’ asked Thacker.
‘I’d rather you didn’t, sir.’
‘Any change in any of the readings: radiation?’
‘Background only, sir.’
‘Right.’ Thacker would have scrubbed his chin with the fleshy part of his thumb, but he didn’t have access to either. He kicked his heel against the ground, then shot the air in front of him.
The bullet, perfectly formed and still glowing from the propellant, span slowly in the air. He had time to lower his gun and inspect it closely before it started to fall to the ground.
‘The question is, can anything get out?’
His radio squawked, and he turned away to answer it. ‘Thacker. Over.’
‘Dickson. Sorry I’m late. Bloody politicians and all that. You shooting pheasants?’ Pause. ‘Over.’
‘How much of this can you see?’
‘I’ve a very large set of binoculars. I’m also getting a feed from a helicopter outside the perimeter.’
‘Whatever you do, don’t send it in. If it runs into what we’ve just run into, you’ll lose it.’
‘Talk to me, Major. Tell me something I can use.’
‘For the want of a better word, it’s a forcefield. Shape unknown, though it’s probably centred on the house. It deflects metallic and non-metallic objects, and stops a bullet dead in its tracks.’
Dickson digested the news. ‘You’ve got surveying equipment down there, yes? Map the outer edge. There may be a way through.’
Thacker’s small band of soldiers were unconsciously backing away towards the main gate. They were already level with the armoured car. He had to take control, give them something to do rather than contemplate the impossible. Too much thinking was bad for squaddies.
‘I’ll get back to you. Over and out.’
He called them together, close in, like a scrum, their heads almost touching. He told them what he wanted them to do, and told them to go and do it. That bought him some time. When the soldiers had dispersed to their tasks, he hefted the radio again.
‘Dickson?’
‘Loud and clear, Major.’
‘That matter we were talking about last night. Did you get anywhere?’
‘I’m afraid I’ll have to talk in circumlocutions. Careless talk and all that. I mentioned it to my superiors. They are a little, how can I put it, squeamish about the idea.’
‘Why does that not surprise me? Dickson, press them. Press them hard. Tell them I’m crapping in my hermetically-sealed pants out here, and I’d breathe a lot easier if I knew it wasn’t all riding on me.’
‘What happened to the rufty-tufty army boy, Thacker?’
‘This house, this bloody forcefield, the fact that everything here is dead, dead, dead, and we have no explanations for anything. Do it, Dickson. Make them see sense.’
‘I’ll do my best. They, and not us, have command. Unless you’re going to organise a putsch. Tell me about this invisible wall.’
‘I’m hoping that as nothing can get in, nothing can get out. I’d bet a pound to a penny that this is what brought down the plane. But I don’t think the forcefield’s stable. It’s contracting back to its source, somewhere in the main building. It started off at the perimeter, and it’s been retreating ever since. I’ll know for sure when the surveying’s done, and how long we have before the field goes to zero.’
‘What happens then?’
‘Damn you, Dickson. I was hoping you were going to tell me.’
‘We have to know before it happens.’
‘Then tell me how to get through the field. Things inside appear to be able to come out: we’ve dead grass and dead trees to prove that point. But a moving object… I have an idea. Speak to you in five minutes.’
Thacker took a slim gas probe from his sled and advanced on the field. He felt he had taken a step further than he ought to have done. He checked with the first of the surveying poles spiking the ground. It was true. He was a foot closer to the house than previously.
He held out the probe, and tried to slide it through the air in front of him. It stopped, was pushed away. He tried again, slower this time. It was like pushing an elephant with a matchstick. But the probe eased in. When he let go, the probe stayed, suspended, and didn’t fall. He tried to pull it back, and it resolutely refused to come until he exacted the same sort of Zen-like control on his hand as he had when inserting the probe.
He went back to the sled. ‘Dickson.’
‘Here.’
‘I think I can get in. It’s not a question of hitting it so hard that it breaks, it’s going so slowly that it doesn’t think you’re moving at all. There’s some sort of threshold speed, no more than half an inch a second. The field is definitely contracting, so I’m rather assuming that I can get permission to attempt a breach.’
‘What do you need?’
‘Apart from the nerves of steel I haven’t got? A wheeled trolley and precision hydraulic ram. There should be some engineering works in Oxford◦– the Cowley car plant should have what we want.’
‘I’m on to it. Over and out.’
Thacker watched his men slowly return. The grey ash near the forcefield was festooned with red and white surveying poles. They had their readings, and could now make an estimate of how long they had before…
Before what? Ragnorok? Armageddon? Or nothing more than a damp squib of nothing.
Thacker was beyond guessing. He pulled his troops out, the Warrior covering their retreat with its cannon.
Everyone had to go through decontamination, despite the fact that they’d detected nothing. It was good practice, but nothing more. He inspected the men who’d gone in with him, thanked them for their duty, and dismissed them. They wandered away as if shell-shocked.
Thacker could still smell and taste the rubber of his respirator. Rank had its privileges, and he commandeered a cup of tea. He found himself back in the marquee he had used for the briefing. His notes were still at the front, now neatly boxed away in a lockable trunk. He nodded to the guard.
‘Do you want me to wait outside, sir?’
‘I imagine that would probably be best. Get yourself to the mess. I’ll shoot any spies myself.’ He patted his sidearm.
He sat at the trestle table and fished out the key from the string around his neck. The padlock was old and stiff. He ought to oil it, or better still, get a modern strongbox with a modern lock, not a nineteen twenties effort that could be jemmied off in seconds.
He dug out Middleton’s report again, and wondered what he was missing. He’d read it over and over, virtually memorised it verbatim. Yet it gave him no clue as to what had happened to the five miles of countryside around Henbury Hall.
He put the paper to one side and took out the maps, and compared them to the sketches and figures that his detachment had made. The global positioning system had made quick, accurate surveying something so simple that even a private could manage it.