A Tale of Time City (31 page)

“This is it,” one of the warriors said. “We’ve got the disturbance all right. Take them in.”

Elio looked round and saw there were too many warriors to fight. He put his hands in the air.

“That’s right. That’s sensible,” a warrior said in a woman’s voice. “Hands in the air, all of you.”

The filmy warriors closed in. Vivian’s upheld arms were seized. She lost sight of the others as she was hustled towards one of the trenches. But she had three separate glimpses of warriors grabbing for the Silver Keeper, and then grabbing again, and each time the Silver Keeper, in his untouchable way, went sliding out from between the grabbing hands.

“Something queer about that one!” Vivian heard a warrior say breathlessly as she was hurried along among a mass of filmy bodies. “Can’t keep hold of it—have to let it go!”

“It seems to be coming along anyway,” another warrior said. “Don’t take your eyes off it.”

Something was queer, Vivian thought, being dragged headlong towards a trench. Something queer about those boots. I’ve seen something like those boots before! Then the boots jumped with her into the trench and she had a moment of sheer terror when the trench was suddenly not there any more.

V
ivian’s feet and the boots around her landed with a
clang
on metal floor. She was pulled briskly forward on to a floor which was a hard greyish-white, into light that was much easier on the eyes than the glare of the Age of Silver. The floor seemed to be marble and it was shaking. But she could not see much more because her eyes were burning and watering from the brightness of the Baltic Plain. Mostly she noticed the warmth. Sweat broke out on her, and then she started to shiver, as if her body had only just noticed how cold it had been.

“Expedition Three reporting back from Sixty-four Century Baltic, sir,” said one of the mind-suited people ahead of her. “We found the disturbance. I’m afraid you’re not going to like this, sir.”

A hand expertly twitched at the film over Vivian’s face. She blinked hard as her suit there ripped away. The blurry place around her cleared into the great front hall of Time Patrol Building. There were the stone stairs softly rumbling up and down. There was the circular kiosk in the middle, with a curving row of busy time
-booths beyond. There was an identical curve of shiny booths behind her too, and a row of men and women dressed in Golden Age armour were filing into one over to the left. Through the great glass doors, she could see Aeon Square and a rank of brightly robed people carrying banners. Evidently there was a ceremony going on, in what looked like early morning light. And, as if that was not enough to make Vivian’s heart go thumping down into her stomach, Mr. Donegal was standing in front of her, looking very grim indeed.

“I don’t know what you lot thought you were doing,” he said, looking from her, to Elio, to Jonathan, and on to Sam. “You realise you’ve broken half the laws there are
and
sent history into convulsions, do you? It won’t be only a hiding this time!” he said to Sam. Sam stared at his father out of red-rimmed runny eyes and plainly could not think of a word to say. Mr. Donegal turned to Elio. “I’m not only surprised at you,” he said. “I’m astonished, Elio! I thought you had more sense than the rest of Time City put together, and now here you are gadding about in an Unstable Era and leading a parcel of children astray with you.”

Elio’s eyes were red from the Baltic glare too. He was pale with his despair. “I beg your forgiveness,” he said stiffly. “We had evidence that thieves were stealing the City’s polarities and we were trying to prevent them. We failed. This is the reason for the convulsions in history. Two polarities are now missing.”

Mr. Donegal did not believe a word of this. “Then why didn’t you report it to Time Patrol?” he said over his shoulder as he turned to Jonathan. “As for you, Jonathan,” he said, “I don’t know what
your father’s going to say to you! Do you
know
you’ve been missing since yesterday afternoon? Jenny and Ramona have been worried sick!”

“No I didn’t know!” Jonathan said, blinking under his eye-flicker. His eyes were not as red as Sam’s or Elio’s, which made him look much calmer than he really was. “If we
have
been missing, then it’s Time Patrol’s fault. Your people brought us back to
now
. If they’d left us alone, we’d have been back yesterday.”

“That’s enough!” Mr. Donegal said. “You don’t stand there and cheek me, son, not after all the trouble you’ve caused!” He turned to one of the Patrollers who had brought them back. “Go and tell the Sempitern we’ve found them,” he said. To the rest of the squad he said, “You two take this lot over by the kiosk out of the way. Make sure they don’t stir a foot until I’ve time to deal with them. All the rest of you get out of mind-suits and into Thirty-eight Century gas-coats. We’ve six Observers stuck in a war in Paris then.” He turned and glared at Elio. “I’m having to recall every single Observer because of you! I hope Chronologue orders you all shot!” With that, he swung away and went off towards the moving stairs at a rolling run.

“Come along,” said a Patroller next to Vivian. She and Elio were pushed through the busy crowd to the kiosk. Jonathan and Sam were brought there by another Patroller. The others, in a great clatter of boots, raced off towards the back of the building.

Ow! Vivian thought. We
are
in trouble! She watched the shiny mind-suit of the Patroller who had been sent to tell the Sempitern. He was forcing his way among other Patrollers in every imaginable
kind of costume and he was almost at the door. Vivian just could not think what Sempitern Walker was going to say. And I’ve caused Jenny such worry, and now she’s going to find out I’m not even her niece! she thought.

As the mind-suited messenger reached the glass door, it wafted open in front of him. The messenger dodged. A long-legged figure in a floppy hat pranced past him into the building.

“Not again!” said one of the Patrollers guarding them. “That thing’s been in and out of here half the night.”

“And all this morning,” said the other Patroller. “It’s only some student’s idea of a joke. Take no notice.”

The two of them turned their backs and watched Elio sternly. Vivian, Sam, and Jonathan watched the Iron Guardian. He was prancing questingly this way and that among people who were all firmly ignoring him, until he suddenly halted and seemed to listen. A huge smile spread on his face and he bounded unerringly for a clear space near the doors. The Silver Keeper appeared there out of nowhere. The two flung their arms round one another. Then they stepped back and stared at one another. The Iron Guardian shook his head sadly. The Silver Keeper, even more sadly, shook his. And both of them slowly faded out of sight, leaving two long thin eye-blots in the space near the door.

“Poor things,” said Vivian. “Neither of them knows what to do.”

“They aren’t the only ones,” said Jonathan.

Outside, the ceremony was still going on. It was clear that Sempitern Walker was not going to arrive until it was over. There was no sign of Mr. Donegal either. They stood for some time, deserted
and guilty, with the two Patrollers looming beside them, watching time-locks open and shut almost continuously and listening to the operators in the kiosk handle emergency after emergency.

“Ten-oh-two morning, Time Patrol here,” said the lady operator nearest to Vivian. “I have you located, Observer, in AD 79. Volcano in violent eruption above Pompeii. Use breathing apparatus and insulated clothing, Observer, and I’ll get someone to you as soon as possible.”

Almost at the same time, the man next to her was saying, “Yes, I locate you, Observer. Year Ninety-eight-ninety-two. Woman crossing forest with child in Sixty Century clothing. Can you hold the bandits off long enough to make a further report? This could be serious. No? Then I’ll reroute the squad in Ninety-three to come to your aid right away.”

Meanwhile Patrollers streamed down the stairs wearing wetsuits, kilts, loose robes, ponchos, trousers with hoops in the legs, in brief shorts or in so many clothes they could hardly be seen, and in a hundred other costumes. They hurried to time-booths, went in, and seemed to come back the next second looking tired out, helping other people in the same kind of clothes. Some of the people they helped were in a bad way. They were muddy, their clothes were torn, some had a wild look, and others were bleeding. A man in hooped trousers was streaming blood from a cut on his head. These people were handed over to a medical squad waiting to take care of them, while the Patrollers joined a draggled line of costumed figures going up the ascending half of the stone stairs.

“They really are recalling all the Observers,” Sam said, watching
the man with the bleeding head being helped on to a floating stretcher.

“Dug in beside the French rocket station,” the lady in the kiosk was now saying, “Patrol is on its way, Observer. Use ultra-violet flares to identify yourself.”

“Have you a cell to yourself in the prison?” asked an operator on the other side of her.

“Unforeseen revolution in Canada,” said another. “Control yourself, Observer. Someone can still get to you even if the time-booth in Montreal
is
being bombed.”

“Ship on fire attacked by Dutch aircraft,” said another voice.

“Posing as a refugee,” said the nearest man. “That should enable you to get through the Icelandic battle line, Observer, and someone will meet you outside Tübingen.”

“Patrol Medical now thinks the plague is being carried by horses,” said someone further off, and her voice was drowned by a nearer one saying loudly, “Yes, Observer, but all history has gone critical. If the riots have not yet reached Cardiff, you will have to wait an hour or so.”

Elio hung his head wretchedly. “This is all my fault,” he said, “for allowing that woman to dupe me.”

“It’s my fault just as much,” said Jonathan. “I messed things up twice in Twenty Century. If only I could go back and put things
right
!”

“I wish you could too,” Vivian said. “I might have a chance of going home then.”

They stood for a while in silence except for Sam’s breathing, listening to the Patrollers in the kiosk dealing with a rescue team
attacked by germ bombs in Forty-two Century, a flood in Eighty Century Africa, wars in every era, and an Observer trapped on a hijacked spaceship in 12648. This Observer caught the attention of the two Patrollers guarding them. He or she was obviously a friend of theirs. Both of them put their elbows on the ledge of the kiosk to listen to what the lady inside was saying.

“It’s not so easy to get a team into space,” one said.

“Too right,” said the other. “Kim Yo may be stuck there.”

Sam’s eyes swivelled towards them. When he realised they were not paying attention to him, he whispered breathily to Jonathan, “We
could
put it right. If we went back to that station, we can catch the thief when he goes up to that warty woman. Then we could bring him back here and show my dad.”

“You know, we
could
!” Vivian whispered.

Elio ripped back the mind-suit from his hand and slipped the egg-control into Jonathan’s. “This works in a modern time-lock,” he murmured. “Get into one that is open and use it, while I make a diversion.”

“You come too, V.S.,” Jonathan whispered. “It’ll take two to hold him.”

“
And
ME!” Sam said, in such a fierce breathy whisper that both Patrollers turned round to look at him. “I’m hungry too,” Sam said hastily.

They were not quite fooled. “Too bad, son,” one of them said, and neither of them turned back to the kiosk. Everyone stood helplessly. Jonathan tried to hold the egg-control out of sight beside his leg.

“Observer Kim Yo,” the lady said in the kiosk, “are you receiving
us? Good. Operations has come up with a plan for you to overpower the hijackers.” The Patrollers heard her. Both of them turned eagerly back to the kiosk.

Elio instantly went berserk.

One moment he was standing beside the kiosk. The next, he was a blur in a mind-suit, zig-zagging among the people in the hall. “
Shoot me
!” his voice rang out. “
Shoot me! I am a failure
!” He was going so fast that his voice seemed to come from several places at once. As Vivian raced for the semi-circle of time-booths, she could see at least two Patrollers with raised guns, uncertainly trying to aim where they thought Elio was going to be next. “
I DESERVE to be shot
!” Elio shouted. He leapt on to the moving stairs and raced up the half that was moving downwards, weaving round startled people in costumes, who were all far too surprised even to try to stop him. “
Shoot me!
” he yelled.

“Elio, don’t be a fool!” Mr Donegal shouted from somewhere in the middle of the hall. “You’re much too valuable to shoot!”

This was the last Vivian saw of the diversion, because someone behind her shouted too and she had a glimpse of a crowd of Patrollers running after her, hard. By this time, Jonathan had nearly reached the time-booths. Vivian set her teeth and pelted to catch him up. Home! she thought. If they don’t catch me, I shall be home!

Sam was somehow keeping up with her, though his face was purple and he was puffing like a train. A time-booth chanced to open just as Jonathan reached the semicircle. They charged into it. The three Observers who were in it hastily bundled themselves and
their baggage clear. Vivian supposed that they bundled themselves out of the booth, since they did not get carried into 1939 when Jonathan used the control. Jonathan just kept running and shouted to the time-egg as he ran. And all three of them were suddenly running along an empty platform in a station that seemed to be deserted.

Vivian’s first thought was, How dingy and dirty it is—and how it smells! Then, as she slowed down, her second thought was: where
is
everybody? Beside her, Sam crouched down, coughing for breath, and Jonathan stood and stared. There were no adults waiting to meet the train, no sign of Cousin Marty, no evacuees, and no train either.

“What’s wrong?” said Vivian.