I have seen a green meadow, backed by wooded hills and a small blue lake. Perhaps Cumbria, perhaps Wales. I have seen a room so dark, it might be underground, and heard singing there, in some tongue I could not identify, and then a figure garbed in some cloak, for an instant, before the void. I have tossed in meticulously weighed samples of minerals, wood, vegetative matter.
All have vanished
None have returned.
I have analyzed the variations in gravity, the harmonics of the mirror’s curve, the strange alterations in its weight and mass.
And today, I shall make my first experiment with a living creature.
The dog is one I picked up from the streets; the alleys of London swarm with such curs. It is of some mongrel variety, terrier-like, with a black ear and a great black blob on its flank.
A trusting creature, it allowed me to scoop it up and bring it back in the carriage; it ate hungrily of a whole plate of beef and then composed itself for sleep. Now it lies snoring and snuffling.
But someone has just knocked on the door.
As I look down from the window, I see it is a man. He looks up. He has dark hair.
He is a stranger.
Jake tasted the vile brew again; this time it was infinitely worse. He put the chipped china cup down politely. “Thanks.”
Moll looked at his face. “Too sour for you?”
“No. It was lovely. Thanks.”
“Eat, then.”
She waved at the selection of faintly rancid pastries, obviously stolen from the bins of some bakery. He picked one up and took a cautious bite. He had no idea what it was, and didn’t want to ask.
They were sitting on the floor of a tiny space that Moll called her “crib”—a heap of dirty blankets and possibly clothes, and they were taking tea. He wasn’t sure if the girl was playing some game of make-believe or was deadly serious; certainly her pride in having him there seemed only too real.
The crib was a small balcony or box, high up on the side of the theater. If he stood up, he would be looking down into where the front rows had once been, but now that space was a makeshift squatter camp of flimsily constructed shelters, tents, even small buildings made of poles and partitions and props and scraps of once bright theater curtain. On the wide stage itself men sat and drank, women roared with laughter, dogs and babies fought. It stank of gin and ordure, the roof greasy with candle soot.
It was a vision from a nightmare.
“Look,” he whispered. “I don’t have much time. These men…”
“Filchers.”
“Okay. These filchers. I need to find them. Fast.” He had sudden fears of the men selling the bracelet in some dingy pawnshop, of it tossed among a heap of useless metal, slithering unnoticed to the bottom of the pile.
“I told you. I know them and I’ll show them.” Infuriatingly complacent, she was eating what might have been half a sausage; she gave a quick sideways jerk of her head. “They’re down there. But wotch they don’t see you.”
He turned and peered down. “On the stage?”
“Wiv the drabs.”
“The what?”
“Drabs. Trulls. The tarts!” She slipped up behind him and jabbed a thin finger, and he saw them.
Two men, one thickset, the other, the one he’d kicked, a skinny ferret-thin man. They were sprawled among a pile of broken scenery drinking; one had his arm around a frowsty-looking woman in a torn red skirt and not much else.
“Right,” Jake said. “I get it. But the stuff they stole—the bracelet—where is it?”
She wriggled next to him and waved the sausage past his nose. “They’ll have the stash up there, where they keep all their stuff. See look, a-hanging.”
He saw. High up, suspended from the rickety walkways above the stage, looped with ropes and pulleys, a leather bag swung high and safe.
“No one can get at it there,” Moll said thoughtfully. “Leastways, they don’t think so.”
Jake frowned. The men were drinking immediately below. “Including me.” He shuffled back and turned around. “But I have to get it back, Moll. I have to.”
She pushed the dirty cup at him. “It’s fine. Don’t fret. Drink yer tea and sleep for a bit. I’ll keep watch, and soon they’ll be snoring. And then, you and me, we can climb up. See? I’ll show you a way. Easy as kiss-me-hand.”
Jake took another absent slurp of the brown liquid.
Below, the raucous shouts of laughter broke out even louder.
Wharton stormed into the kitchen.
Sarah turned. “This is Gideon. A friend.”
The boy’s presence threw Wharton right off track. Who was he? How had he gotten here? He felt for a moment as if the whole tangle was a dream; that he would wake up soon in his narrow bed in the school and see the fresh white Alps behind the pile of books to be marked on the windowsill.
Behind him, Rebecca came in, a little breathless. She stared at Gideon.
Then Wharton said, “Never mind him, Sarah. Who are you?”
“What?” She had that wary, careful glance he was beginning to recognize. “I don’t…”
“You’ve been lying to us since the start. You’re not this escaped patient. I just heard on the radio that that girl’s already been found. That was just some story you used to get in here.”
“What?” Rebecca said.
“It’s true. Look at her face.”
Sarah knew she was pale with dismay and frustration. Rebecca came and stood by Wharton, folding her arms. Gideon perched on the table, feet dangling, watching with interest.
Rebecca said, “Is this true?”
Suddenly she was tired of pretense, of being alone among them. “All right. So what if it is.”
Wharton came up to her and stared in her eyes, and his hurt would have made her ashamed if she had let it, but she had to think about ZEUS now, about the others who were lost, about the black hole Janus would make of the world.
“Is that all?” he said.
She shrugged. “I can’t explain. Not to you. To Venn.”
She expected anger but instead, very gently, he reached out and turned something hanging at her neck, and she realized he had the half coin in his fingers, that it had slipped out of her scarf and that he was staring at it in strange disquiet.
He dropped it and stepped back.
“Lock the door,” he snapped.
Rebecca ran and slipped the bolt, standing with her back to it.
Wharton’s eyes were steely. He faced Sarah without moving. “I want to know exactly who you are, lady. Where you came from, what you want here. No lies, no excuses. And I want to know now.”
18
That a man could grow quietly into so much power. That he could plan and scheme and have his enemies removed one by one, and then his allies, until finally everyone is too terrified to speak out against him. Until he rules with a scepter of steel.
We should have seen this coming. This is history; it has happened again and again. But if he then discovers a weapon that can destroy the world…
We are the first to fight against such a terror.
Illegal ZEUS transmission
“WAKE UP, CULLY. It’s time.”
The small hand was shaking his shoulder; he rolled over and nearly groaned, but the dirty fingers clamped tight on his mouth.
Moll drew back. Her tangled hair had been pushed into a man’s cap; her eyes were lit with excitement.
Jake sat up. He must have slept for a few hours; he was stiff and sore from the hard floor and his mouth was dry. Scratching his hair, he felt fleabites. He whispered, “Water?”
She shook her head.
“Probably just as well. So, where are they?”
In answer she squirmed alongside him, and they both peered cautiously over the balcony.