A Tale of Time City (37 page)

“I see you’ve brought in some new blood,” the Time Lady said, nodding at the evacuees.

“Well, not exactly,” said Faber John. “They came of their own accord. But I had an idea that some children would arrive somehow in time for the renewal.”

The Time Lady laughed. Then she did dismount, sliding to the
ground and running to meet Faber John, both of them looking wonderfully glad to see each other. “So you brought it off, you old genius!” she said. “I thought you’d never manage a renewal.”

As soon as she was off it, the horse came clopping over to Jonathan and Vivian and thrust its great pulpy nose into Vivian’s face. Clearly it remembered them too. Vivian did not know what to do about it, but Sam did. He slid down from Elio’s arms and came trotting over with a thousand strips of mind-suit fluttering all over him. “Here. I’ve got a peppermint,” he said, and gave it to the horse.

“What happened to that suit? Did you get caught in the clock?” Jonathan asked.

“No, it was the shutters at the top of the Gnomon,” Sam said. “They were spiky at the bottom, but there was just room for me to squeeze underneath if I wriggled and wriggled.
You
couldn’t have got out. What happened to you?”

“Well,” said Jonathan, “the best part was when V.S. stuffed a butter-pie down V.L.’s neck.”

Sam grinned, a huge two-toothed grin that suddenly faded to wistfulness. “A butter-pie,” he said. “That’s what I need.”

“You!” said Vivian. “I thought I’d cured you of butter-pies!”

“You did,” said Sam. “But it’s come on again.”

The last important event took place in the Chronologue later that day. Vivian was very alarmed by it. For one thing, it was an Enquiry and Court of Law and she was one of the ones on trial. For another, the Chronologue by daylight was even more rich and decorated than she had realised. It awed her. Every scrap of it was painted, or
gilded, or jewelled, from the mosaic of semi-precious stones on the floor to the starry sky painted on the ceiling.

The carved seats were crowded. Jonathan told her that this was most unusual, which made another alarming thing. Everyone Vivian knew was there, from Petula and her helpers to the Patrollers who had arrested her in the Age of Silver. Though at least half the population of Time City had run away into history when houses started falling down, there were enough rescued Observers and tourists, who had been stranded when the locks down the river stopped working at midday, to force Annuate Guard, Patrollers, and important people in robes to stand at the back. There was quite a sprinkling of evacuee children too. They had now been shared out to people who had not left the City and had been brought along by foster parents who were too interested to stay away. They sat looking wide-eyed and sleepy and fingering their Time City pyjamas in a surprised way. Most of them seemed to be getting thoroughly pampered by their new parents. Those who were not clutching new toys were secretly being fed sweets.

Another unusual and alarming thing was that Sempitern Walker, sitting in the Sempitern’s Chair, down to one side, was not wearing ceremonial robes. He was in simple black, which made him look very severe and earnest. Rumour had it that Faber John had said that no one was to wear robes. And Faber John, of course, was the most alarming thing of all. The two great thrones under the canopy at the end, with animal heads on the arms and winged suns blazing on the high backs, which Jonathan said had been left empty for uncounted thousands of years, were now occupied by
Faber John and the Time Lady. And whatever Faber John had said about robes, the Time Lady had somehow managed to get him into a new purple gown. She herself was wearing a dress of deep night blue.

Sempitern Walker opened the Court by knocking for attention. Then he took up the winged sun with the Kohinoor Diamond in it and solemnly walked over to give it to Faber John.

“What’s this?” Faber John rumbled. “Am I expected to fan myself with this thing? Or what?”

The Time Lady nudged him. “You know what it is,” she said.

“The Standard of Office,” said Sempitern Walker. “I assume that you are now ruling as Sempitern of Time City,”

“Not as Sempitern,” Faber John declared. “You’re better at parading in ceremonies and greeting Ambassadors and making speeches than I shall ever be. I need a Sempitern to do that for me. You’re stuck with it, Ranjit. Take your Standard away.”

“But you will of course be wanting to move into the Annuate Palace,” Sempitern Walker said. “If you will give me a day—”

“Not that either,” said Faber John. “The Time Lady and I have always lived in what is known as Lee House. Now it’s empty, we shall go back there. But since you’re all obviously expecting me to do something kingly, I shall make a short speech.”

Sempitern Walker went back to his seat, looking anguished in a way which Vivian could not decide was relieved or disappointed. When he was sitting down, Faber John began.

“Sorry about the inconvenience,” he said. “The time-locks are going to be shut for three days while Time City shakes itself on to a new piece of time. After that, it will start a new circuit of history.
By then history should have shaken itself down too, into new Fixed Eras and new Unstable ones, and we can take a look at the best places to plant the Caskets out when that time comes. But the City will move for quite a while on the full power of the Lead Casket, so I shall be with you for many centuries before I have to divide and go out again—”

The Time Lady said, “Next time it’s my turn to go out and yours to sleep. We’re not going to have another quarrel about that.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” said Faber John. “It’s no fun being divided. What I want to say to everyone is that next time round we’re going to do better. Time City has traded so long with the Fixed Eras that it thought it was fixed itself. We had got very selfish and far too safe. It took someone quite young and from an Unstable Era to point that out. In future, we’re going to be of use to the whole of history. Chronologue is going to study what we can do, and Patrol is going to think of ways to do it. Have you got that, Abdul? You can start your enquiry now.”

Sam’s father stood up. He cleared his throat. He fidgeted. It was clear that he was far happier giving orders than speaking in public. “Two months ago, Ongoing Science drew the attention of Time Patrol to massive anomalies in the First Unstable Era,” he began. “Look, you know all this. You were there when I reported to Chronologue.”

“Yes, but my Time Lady wasn’t,” said Faber John. “She wants to know.”

“Well, Chronologue referred to Ongoing for a full analysis,” said Mr. Donegal. “Dr. Leonov will tell you.” He sat down thankfully.

Dr. Leonov stood up, between an evacuee and a tourist, looking
a little strange because he had obviously not been able to decide whether to wear his robes or not. He had settled for a high white Science hat and black pyjamas. “We made a thorough analysis,” he said. “The Time Lady will appreciate that we have a whole new range of delicate and precise instruments since her day.” The Time Lady gave him a smile and an impatient nod. This was probably intended to make Dr. Leonov speak plainly and quickly. It did not. Dr. Leonov discoursed of temporons and chronons, of socio-economic graphology and day-sampling, of lode-hours and chrono-nexus effects until most of the evacuees fell asleep. Vivian had not been so bored since Sempitern Walker last soothed Mr. Enkian.

“What does all this mean?” the Time Lady asked at last. “In plain words.”

“It means there were two kinds of disturbance, madam,” said Dr. Leonov. “Both contained chronons, which meant they could threaten the City. But one was local, in 1939, and the other spread through the entire era and was far more massively weighted. Chronons of the same massive type were detected in two other Unstable Eras and in Time City itself. The source was eventually pinpointed to September 1939 as a young girl by the name of Vivian Smith.”

Vivian sat up and stared.

Dr. Leonov sat down. Mr. Donegal reluctantly got up. “They gave us the report,” he said, “but of course I had to put it before Chronologue—you were there. I asked permission for Time Patrol to meet the train that the source of trouble was on and remove her to a Fixed Era where her chronon load might be neutralised.”

Mr. Enkian rose from a bench somewhere near the back and
coughed for attention. “I must point out that this scheme struck me as barbarous,” he said. “I argued against it but was voted down, though I was happy to find that, for once, Sempitern Walker agreed with me. We therefore insisted that we be allowed to inspect the foster home Patrol had found the child in Forty-two Century. Which I did, at some personal cost, and when I found it inadequate I personally selected another. After which, the Sempitern and I demanded to be among the party which met the train so that we could explain properly to the child, who would certainly be frightened and confused, why it was we had to take this step. The rest, in a manner of speaking, is history. We failed to find the girl.”

Jonathan’s face had been growing redder and redder while Mr. Enkian spoke. As Mr. Enkian sat down, Jonathan slouched right down in his seat, hoping to escape notice.

“It seems to me,” said Faber John, “that we’d better hear Jonathan Walker’s story now.”

Looking as anguished as his father, Jonathan slowly stood up. “I made a mistake,” he said. “I mean I got the right girl by mistake.”

The Time Lady laughed. “Tell it in order,” she said.

“It began as an adventure,” Jonathan confessed. But he told the story quite clearly and sensibly without trying to excuse himself or blame himself too much. Vivian was impressed. Jonathan’s learning! she thought. I wonder if I am too. She looked to see what the Time Lady thought. She had her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands and she was frowning. Faber John was frowning too. When Jonathan got to the part where Elio rescued them from Leon Hardy, he said, “Sit down for now. Elio can tell the next part.”

Elio sprang up. He came into the space in front of the thrones and once more fell on one knee. “Forgive me, my lord!” he cried. “My lady! I behaved, as I thought, with great cleverness, but I was very unintelligent indeed. I deserve to be punished!”

“Elio,” said Faber John, “if you can’t stop grovelling, I’ll send you back to that factory. I ordered you to be delivered in time for the renewal, partly because I thought you might stop things going wrong, but mostly because I was hoping for intelligent company for the next few hundred years. If you can’t be rational, I’ll get them to send you to Mars as soon as the locks open. Stand up and pretend to be a man at least!”

Elio climbed hastily to his feet. “But I failed to recognise the Lead Casket!” he said.

“It was meant to be hard to recognise,” said Faber John. “We couldn’t have every Tom, Dick, or Harry waving it around. Get on and tell your part in the business.”

So Elio told it, up to when Time Patrol brought them back to the City that morning. Faber John stopped him there. “Does Sam want to say anything?” he asked.

“No!” Sam said fervently.

“Right,” said Faber John. “Then, Time Lady, my wife, regardless of the fact that history was coming apart round their ears, Jonathan led Vivian Smith on another dash to Twenty Century in hopes of catching his cousin disguised as a boy. That of course failed, because history had gone critical and his cousin had already returned to Time City. The only good thing is that they didn’t take the Lead Casket with them that time. What do you think?”

The Time Lady considered, with her chin in her hands. This was the judgement on the Enquiry. Vivian watched the Time Lady frown and felt much as she had when Mr. Lee pointed the gun at her.

“I think,” the Time Lady said slowly, “that I’ll take Jonathan first, because I see you’re going to raise an outcry if I don’t leave you to deal with Elio yourself. Jonathan has broken the law. But he’s a citizen of Time City, which means that he doesn’t carry what Mr. Leonov would call chronons, so he’s going to have to go on trial before Chronologue when it gets back together again.”

Jonathan went white. Vivian stood up, without knowing she had. “That’s not fair!” she found herself saying. “Jonathan was the only one who was really bothered about Time City! And he even started caring about history in the end!”

“It’s perfectly fair,” the Time Lady said in her irritable way. “And I’ve no doubt that Chronologue will take Jonathan’s motives into account. Now I’ll take Sam—”

“Hey!” Sam’s voice boomed out. “You can’t! I’m a hero. I saved Time City.”

“But you broke the law too,” the Time Lady said. “I’m going to ask Chronologue to postpone your trial until you’re older, on condition that you don’t break any more laws until then.” Sam subsided against Ramona, looking stunned. “Now Vivian Smith,” said the Time Lady. “She is in bad trouble.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Vivian said.

“You mean you didn’t mean to,” the Time Lady said tartly. “You still don’t understand, do you? My girl, you came from history,
which means you carry what talkative Mr. Leonov calls temporons anyway, and then you were three times in the same place at the same exact moment. And the second time you took the Lead Casket with you. On top of that, you jumped about history with it. No wonder Ongoing Science spotted you! No wonder Patrol nabbed you quick out of the Age of Silver! You’re absolutely loaded with what Mr. Leonov calls chronons. The way
I
see it is that you’re going to disturb every bit of history you touch for a long time to come. You can’t go home. Twenty Century would just blow up round you. I think we’ll have to send you out to the stars. Would you like that?”

Vivian did not know. She was not really sure a person
could
go to the stars. She stood there thinking of home. But home was a strange place now with bunkers and radio-active trains. She felt lost. There was nowhere to go.

She was only vaguely aware that Sempitern Walker was standing up too, saying something about “an invaluable adjunct to Palace life.” And now Jenny jumped up. Vivian had carefully not looked at Jenny before this, because Jenny had been crying quietly about her brother Viv. But she looked with everyone else when Jenny kicked the carved seat and shouted.