A Tale of Time City (26 page)

Elio’s last question pounced on something they had not even noticed. He said, “How did Master Hardy discover the whereabouts of the Golden Casket?”

“From the records,” said Jonathan. “Why?”

“He lied,” said Elio. “It is something even I do not know, I have looked in the records, in Perpetuum, Continuum, and Erstwhile, and then in Millennium and Whilom Tower and all the other places I could think of, over many years. I found much written of polarities, and some old accounts which tell of Caskets, but nowhere is there any mention of their hiding places. Yet Master Hardy found out in half a day. It is clear he had some other source of information, which he used to get you to fetch him the Golden Casket—or, if that failed, to get Miss Vivian to identify Laununsun for him.”

“And he used that hologram to get me interested,” Jonathan said mournfully. “It was so real, too! I suppose we can’t believe a word it said.”

“Ah no, the being you spoke to was real,” Elio said. He was frowning slightly, with most of his huge mind on something else. “When the hologram appeared a second time, I took care to go out and walk through it, and it had no solidity at all. Even Sixty-six Century art cannot make an image solid. This simply proves that Master Hardy’s employers must have taken him to the First Unstable Era, perhaps to interview the real Guardian. But that is a side issue. The main thing that perturbs me is that I did not guess that the Lead Casket is in Time City—though now you point it out, I naturally see how the Caskets work. I should have seen before. It makes me feel very unintelligent.”

“I feel stupid then,” Sam said. “How
do
they work?”

“Like magnets on the face of a clock, naturally.” Elio said. “I will find a chart of history and show you.” He sped about the room, searching, upending sofas, opening cupboards and lifting huge piles of clutter. Finally, he lay flat on his face and looked under all the furniture. The chart was rolled up under the automat. He pulled it out and spread it open on the floor.

Vivian saw the horseshoe of known time, very familiar by now, with
Stone Age
near the beginning on the left and
Depopulation
at the end on the right. Elio put his finger on the gap at the top, right in the middle of it.

“Time City starts here,” he said. “Like the hour hand of a clock at midday. And, like the hand of a clock, it moves from right to left,
in the opposite direction to history. It has to do this in order not to mingle with normal time. But it needs something to push it round the circle. So it is provided with a powerful motor. That is the Lead Casket. But the Lead Casket, like all motors, needs fuel on which to move, for it is highly unnatural to go backwards through time. So the other Caskets are placed regularly round history to catch the City as it comes and fling it onwards. The Gold comes first—a little before three o’clock, as it were—and that is the most powerful because the City has not long been moving and there is much temporal inertia to overcome. It attracts the Lead and flings it onwards to Silver—placed around six-thirty—which in turn flings it on to Iron. Iron is weakest, for it is obvious to me now that the City was intended to slow down and stop when it gets back to the end of time, at midday again.”

“Why is that?” Jonathan said indignantly. “I thought it went on for ever!”

“I conjecture that the Caskets need to be recharged and placed out again,” Elio said. “Or maybe the small area of time which contains the City has to be replaced by a fresh area. Those are both things which I stupidly do not know yet. However, what
is
clear to me is that the whole system is in danger now that the Iron Casket has been stolen. We must think what to do about it.”

They sat staring at him trying to absorb the picture of Time City stopped like a broken clock, unable to start again. All those people and buildings! Vivian thought. What happens to Jonathan and Sam and Elio and Jenny? And she remembered the frantic time-ghosts beating at the locks down the river. They were trying to get away!
she thought, and it was too late because the City had broken down! That made it certain that the City was indeed going to break down. And there was nothing they could do about it.

“The City is an Unstable Era,” Elio pointed out, seeing their faces. “Our future is not fixed. So it follows that there is something we can do. First, we must locate the Lead Casket and ensure its safety. We must also discover how it works. There are Scientists and Historians here who can do that—or I can do it myself. But I should need to examine one of the other Caskets to find out how they interact. The only one which seems within our reach is the Silver.”

Jonathan scrambled to his feet. “Let’s go at once. If we get there before the thief does—”

Elio shook his head. “Master Jonathan,” he said, “you are not fit. You have been at death’s door, and I should not have kept you talking. We can go at any moment and still arrive before the thief. And there are two days before the City reaches its beginnings. Much can be done in two days. You must go to bed.”

Now Elio pointed it out, Jonathan clearly felt fainter than ever. He clutched at the back of a sofa. “But—”

“But nothing,” said Vivian. “You look awful.”

“But I’ve still got this,” Jonathan said, holding up the egg. “I ought to put it back.”

“That would be most unwise,” Elio said. “Were someone else to find that lock and use it, the thing might malfunction more seriously yet and strand that person in history. Let us put it where it will do no harm.” He took the egg from Jonathan’s fingers and
buried it in the golden hat on the cakestand, among the marbles and the padlocks. “There—we will keep it for use in an emergency,” he said. Then he took Jonathan’s arm and marched him from the room, much more gently than he had marched Leon to the time-lock, but quite as irresistibly. “We will see you to bed,” he said, “and I will inform Madam Sempitern that you have a slight fever.”

Jonathan protested all the way to his room. Sam followed, protesting too. “I’m coming too when you get the Silver! You’ve no right to leave me behind!”

“You shall go,” Elio promised. “But first give me time to prepare. The Silver Age is at least as dangerous as the Gold.”

If Elio hoped to put Sam off by saying that, he made a mistake. Sam insisted he was not afraid, and went on insisting while Vivian was helping Elio bundle Jonathan into his bed. A look of great relief came over Jonathan as soon as he was lying floating under his cover. “Great Time! This feels good!” he said, “I feel as if I’ve been on the go for a week!”

“A night’s sleep will restore you,” Elio said and he left to tell Jenny that Jonathan had a fever.

Sam, to Vivian’s secret delight, doubled up in the empty-frame chair. “I feel awful too,” he complained. “My stomach’s all green obscene.”

“Serve you right,” Jonathan said, turning over with his back to them both. “Go away to bed and leave me in peace.”

Sam sighed and got up. Now for it! Vivian thought. “Oh, Sam,” she said sweetly. “Before you go, can you work Jonathan’s automat for me? I want a butter-pie and I don’t know how to get one.”

Sam saw nothing peculiar in this. He trudged to the automat and banged away at its pipes and kicked its brass twiddles, until the flap finally came up to show the usual flowerpot with the stick in it. “There you are,” he said.

“Don’t you want one?” Vivian asked, picking up the flowerpot.

Sam, to her great pleasure, actually shuddered. “Not till tomorrow,” he said.

“Then,” said Vivian, “you are going to eat this one. Now. As a punishment for stealing all my money.” She grabbed Sam by the back of his head before he could move and forced the butter-pie against his mouth. Sam bawled and kicked and struggled. But he was smaller than Vivian and she held on to him almost as easily as Elio had held Leon. Every time he yelled, she got butter-pie into his mouth. If he shut his mouth, she stuffed it down his neck. Jonathan rolled over under his cover and laughed till his eyes ran.

“That’s made me feel better!” he said, when Vivian decided Sam had had about one hundred creditsworth and let go of him at last.

“It’s made me feel worse,” Sam said glumly. “I think you’ve put me off butter-pies for life.”

Vivian was glad to see from this that she had got Sam’s character right. Sam knew a fair punishment when he met one. He was not going to try for another revenge.

V
ivian went to her own room feeling almost as exhausted as Jonathan. That was the real disadvantage of time-travel. She and Jonathan had come back only five minutes or so after they left Time City, but in between they had spent half a day in the Age of Gold and had some frightening experiences there. And there were still hours of the day left in the City. Vivian let her door slide shut, very thankful that Dr. Wilander had not been able to set her any more brain damaging tasks.

Elio’s voice spoke out of the bedside Deck. “Miss Vivian, I have ordered a selection of my favourite films to be relayed to your room. Just press the white button on your Deck and the first one will start to play.”

“Thanks, Elio. You’re an angel,” Vivian said.

“My pleasure,” said Elio’s voice.

Vivian sat on the floating cover of her bed. It made a great difference to have someone as efficient as Elio helping them. All the same, she had a suspicion that Elio was thinking of it all as an adventure, just the way she had herself. She knew it was serious now.
She could still see Jonathan half-sitting in that bush if she closed her eyes. And there was another serious thought. If Time City broke down entirely, it could damage the rest of history horribly. In which case, what would become of Mum and Dad? I
have
to stay here now, Vivian thought, and do my best to put it right. Nobody else here cares about history except me.

Then she pressed the white button and forgot her worries. She had a film orgy. She saw films that were made before she was born and films that would not be made until long after her lifetime was over. She would have forgotten to go down to supper if Petula had not come along to remind her. As it was, she forgot that Jonathan would not be there. She went down with her head in the clouds and came out of them with a bump when she found that the only other people there were Jenny and Sempitern Walker. They seemed rather tired too after the Founding Ceremony that afternoon.

“I looked in on Jonathan, but he was asleep,” Jenny said anxiously. “Did he seem very ill to you?”

Vivian found that she had perfected the art of lying by telling the truth. She did not even have to think. “He was quite bad to begin with, but he got better soon after that,” she said sedately. “He felt a lot better as soon as he was in bed. He laughed.”

“Oh good. Then he can’t be too bad,” Jenny said.

Sempitern Walker did not speak to Vivian, but he kept shooting her strange anguished looks. Oh dear! Vivian thought. He’s not forgiven me for laughing at him yesterday. She sat and listened to the two of them talking. It seemed that the Iron Guardian had joined in the procession again. Poor thing! This time, however, Mr.
Enkian had seen it. He was so angry that he had refused even to come to dinner and let himself be soothed.

“I feel quite grateful to whichever student it was,” said Jenny. “Enkian in that mood is dreadfully hard work.”

But it wasn’t a student! Vivian thought. Leon Hardy was in long ago Italy long before the ceremony stopped, so he couldn’t have been working his gramophone. That proves Elio’s right. It
is
the real Guardian.

“I always hope,” Sempitern Walker said wistfully, “that some day Wilander will break Enkian’s neck. It’s a long thin neck, perfect for breaking. I’d break it myself if I had the strength.” And he shot Vivian another anguished glare. Vivian looked hurriedly down at her plate in order not to laugh.

Towards the end of dinner, Jenny said, “By the way, Vivian, did Jonathan tell you there’s no school tomorrow morning or the day after?”

“He forgot,” said Vivian. “Why isn’t there?”

“It’s so the children can come and watch the ceremonies,” Jenny explained. “Everybody comes to the last ones. Time City simply grinds to a halt for these two days.” This turn of phrase gave Vivian an uncomfortable jolt. Nor did she feel much better when Jenny added, “But Dr. Wilander asked me to tell you to come to him in the afternoons as usual.”

Vivian realised that they would have the whole morning in which to look for the Lead Casket in the Gnomon Tower. She got up early the next day and went to Jonathan’s room to see if he was well enough to come with her. Jonathan was not there. Nor was he
downstairs in the matutinal or anywhere else Vivian looked. She could not understand it at first. Then the Palace began to resound with running footsteps and shouting.

“Oh no!” Vivian exclaimed. “He
has
started early!”

“He has indeed, miss,” Elio said, rushing past with a heavy pleated coat. “The ceremony does not begin until ten-thirty.”

Jonathan must have an instinct! Vivian thought, watching Elio race away along the hall. Elio was not running anything like as fast as she now knew he could. He was humouring the Sempitern. But she had no doubt that if Sempitern Walker did seem likely to be late, Elio would start moving with blurred speed and get the Sempitern there in time.

She turned to go back to the matutinal and almost ran into Sempitern Walker charging the other way. He was wearing nothing but pale green underwear and a red scarf. His hair had come out of its topknot and was hanging down over one ear. Vivian found herself starting to laugh. She tried to dodge round him in order to go away quickly, but Sempitern Walker reeled backwards as if she had almost knocked him down and pointed at her accusingly.

“You,” he said. “Find me my Semiotic Slippers—quickly!”

“What—what do they look like?” Vivian quavered, biting the insides of her cheeks.

“Black with twisted toes and platinum embroidery,” said the Sempitern. “They must be upstairs somewhere. They’re not down here anywhere. Hurry up, girl!” He rushed past her and raced away up the stairs in a patter of long bare feet.