City of Time (24 page)

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climbed into the cab of the truck. Rosie started it and turned the heater on. They waited for the ice to clear from the windscreen, then, as quietly as Rosie could, they drove out toward the Museum of Time. The streets were very quiet. Even the hardy souls who lived there had abandoned the braziers and gone indoors. Gusts of frozen snow lashed against the windscreen as they drove along in comfortable silence.

The deserted industrial zone seemed even more sinister. Buildings with empty windows looming up out of the darkness, fences swaying in the freezing wind. Cati looked up at the empty windows of the buildings and shivered at the thought of all the people who had once worked there. They drove down to the end of Desole Row.

The museum was locked up for the night. Rosie drove past slowly. All the lights were out. At the end of the block she turned left and left again.

"That's it," Rosie hissed, pointing to a broken window close to the ground. She stopped the truck and they stepped out into the cold alley. There were piles of rubbish everywhere and water spilled from broken gutters had frozen on the ground. They crept over to the window and crouched down to look in. They saw the Yeati's great eyes gleaming at them from the darkness below.

Rosie climbed into the back of the truck and found a rope. Cati attached it to the tow hook so they could climb down.

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"How are we going to get the Yeati out of the cage?"

In reply Rosie held up a bunch of strangely shaped implements with hooks at the end of them. "Lock picks."

Looking nervously around, Cati helped Rosie through the broken window. In the darkness below the Yeati watched silently. Cati got down first. Rosie slid down the rope faster than she should have and hit the ground with a thump and a curse.

"Are you all right?" Cati asked.

"Course I am. Just got to sort out these picks. There's a double lock on here. Pretty hard."

The Yeati snuffled in the darkness. Cati went over to it. She held its eye as it reached out and placed its good paw on her hair, stroking it gently. Cati could feel thoughts passing between them, a little like the way thoughts passed between the Dogs. But the Yeati's thoughts were stranger than anything she had ever experienced and she could not understand them. It was like thinking words that were as hard and cold and beautiful as diamonds.

"Man who designed this lock was a genius," Rosie said. The wind outside whistled through the window. As if to echo it, the Yeati emitted a low moan.

"All right, all right, I'm going as fast as I can," Rosie muttered. "Keep your hair on."

The whistling was getting louder. And then Cati realized that it wasn't the wind, but whistles in the distance.

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"Rosie," she hissed. "Specials!"

"I'm through the first one," Rosie said. The Yeati moved restlessly. "Pipe down, I'm trying to concentrate."

The whistles were getting louder, closer. The Yeati had started to pace in the cage.

"Got it!" Rosie said. Cati guided the Yeati from the cage, then it allowed her to wrap the rope around its shoulders and knot it. Cati helped Rosie up the rope. She climbed into the cab and began to inch forward. With a sweep of its injured arm, the Yeati lifted Cati off the ground and held her to its side.

From the cab, Rosie could see lights in the distance. She inched forward a little faster and the Yeati's head appeared at the window, followed by Cati. She looked in her mirror. The lights were at the head of the alley, the whistles now joined by shouts. She climbed down from the cab.

The Specials were running toward them, nine or ten of them, shouting and waving cudgels. The Yeati didn't seem to be worried. It stretched and sniffed the air and looked around it.

"Get into the truck," Cati yelled, while Rosie tried to push him. In a leisurely manner he bent down and examined the ground, drew his arm over it, scooping up a sheet of ice. He used his good hand to roll the ice in the crook of his bad arm, forming a hard ball of ice, which he threw, almost casually, toward the Specials. It hit the first one with such force that his feet were lifted from

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the ground and he was thrown back into the two men behind him, sending them tumbling backward.

The Yeati turned away with an air of satisfaction and climbed into the back of the truck. Rosie put the truck in gear and accelerated out of the end of the alley.

Two hours later Mrs. Newell noticed that there was no hot water. She went upstairs, thinking that one of the children had left the hot water running in the bathroom. When she got to the bathroom, there was steam coming from the cracks around the door, and a smell of shampoo and aftershave and various soaps. Mrs. Newell knocked sharply on the door, meaning to tell off whoever had used all the hot water. That was when the door opened and she found herself facing an immaculately clean, well-groomed, and sweet-smelling Yeati.

It took ten minutes and a large glass of brandy to bring Mrs. Newell back to something of her normal self. "Other youngsters bring home stray cats and things," she said. "You two has to go and bring home a ... a Yeati?"

Before Cati and Rosie had a chance to explain, the door flew open and Dr. Diamond burst in. His eyes fell on Cati first and he swept her up into his arms.

"Ouch," she said. The doctor's pockets, full of assorted items, were extremely uncomfortable to be pressed against.

He put her on her feet and looked her up and down.

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"Ouch is better than woof," he said, his eyes shining. "Welcome back, Cati. Well done, Rosie! But I'm afraid there isn't time to chat. We must be going. Things are worse than I thought."

"Going where?" Cati said.

"To rescue Owen. However, to begin, Rosie, would you kindly give me the Yeati paw you took from Mr. Black's museum."

Rosie jumped as if she had been given an electric shock. She looked as if she was about to deny everything, but Mrs. Newell fixed her with a stern look.

"She's got into some bad habits, for all I did in raising her," Mrs. Newell said, and the tone of disappointment in her voice seemed to sting Rosie more than anything. Eyes lowered, Rosie went to her bag and returned with the Yeati paw.

Dr. Diamond examined the paw carefully, in particular the long hard nails. Then, without looking at any of them, he reached out and struck it against the stone fireplace, drawing it downward. They all looked at the fireplace openmouthed. Dr. Diamond's blow had opened a gash a centimeter deep and almost a meter long in the solid stone surround.

"It cut it!" Rosie exclaimed. "It could've taken my hand off and all."

"No," Dr. Diamond said, running his finger down the hard nail. "It isn't particularly sharp. Obviously the Yeati could not cut through the bars of his cage. There

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must be some kind of interaction between the claw and the stone. We may be able to cut through to rescue Owen."

"I don't think you'll need the paw," Cati said. And she took a bemused Dr. Diamond by the hand and led him upstairs.

The doctor's eyes gleamed when he saw the Yeati, who was busy combing the hair on its chest. "If we could speak with him," he said longingly, "what wonders he could tell us."

Dr. Diamond tried a variety of languages, but it didn't seem to understand any of them. The Yeati just continued combing its hair.

"Vain big thing," Cati said with a sniff.

"You'd want a wash too if you'd been locked up in that cage," Rosie said. She noticed that the Yeati had found a bandage and had wrapped his stump in it.

"What's the plan, anyway?" Cati asked Dr. Diamond.

"We have to get Owen out," Dr. Diamond said. "I'm afraid after that I have no idea. We have not yet found any tempods." He sighed.

"How many do we need?" Cati asked.

"One would do, I think."

The Yeati was now sitting on Cati's bed and was amusing itself by sketching pictures of them on the window panes.

"If only he could help us," Dr. Diamond said.

"Course he can help us, poor thing," Cati said, ruffling the Yeati's fur.

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"Cati, a Yeati is a very intelligent being--more intelligent than humans, I suspect--and they are known to be full of ancient wisdom. I'm not sure if petting him like a cat is the best idea."

"We don't even know his name," Rosie said. "Hang on. I've got an idea." She pulled a piece of paper and a pencil stub from her bag. With her tongue in one corner of her mouth, she drew a shaky rose. She gave it to the Yeati, then pointed at herself.

The Yeati looked at it for a moment, then turned and drew rapidly on the windowpane. Rosie peered at the sketch, frowning. "What is it?" she said. The Yeati had drawn a complex series of dots on the window.

Dr. Diamond came over to look. "It's a constellation of stars." The Yeati tapped one of the dots with his claw. "Andromeda--he's pointing to Andromeda!"

"Andromeda it is, then," Rosie said. "Are you going to help us out, Andromeda?"

As if he understood, the Yeati bared a mouthful of extremely sharp and pointed teeth in what looked suspiciously like a grin.

"Let's go, then," Rosie said.

"One minute, young lady," Dr. Diamond said.

"What?"

"Take off your gloves."

One at a time, Rosie peeled off her black gloves. Then she shyly held up her two perfect, pink-skinned hands.

"The Yeati," Rosie said, linking the Yeati's arm and hers affectionately. "The Yeati cured my hands!"

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Dr. Diamond looked at the Yeati. The beast met his eyes. Dr. Diamond took off his flying hat and bowed low to the ground. The Yeati bowed graciously back.

Two hours later Dr. Diamond and Rosie waited inside the abandoned subway station. Andromeda had spent a few minutes brushing his hair, then turned to a wall, where he started to inscribe complicated patterns of planets and nebulae.

"You start to think he's some kind of big stupid bear," Rosie said proudly, "then he does something like that."

Cati had disappeared down into the tunnels. She had been gone for an hour, although sometimes they heard a howling from down below.

"Maybe she's run away with them again," Rosie said. Then they heard the patter of feet and Cati appeared, beckoning. Rosie, Dr. Diamond, and the Yeati followed her.

The Dogs were waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. They ignored Dr. Diamond, but they could not seem to stay away from the Yeati. They followed him around, sniffing. The Yeati didn't look at them, having obviously decided that they were beneath his dignity.

Clancy was moving stiffly and Cati was aware of him wincing with pain every so often. His face was a mass of yellowing bruises and ugly gashes, but when he took off at a trot, the others had difficulty keeping up with him.

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"There's a tunnel that comes out right where we want to be," Cati said, "but the Specials patrol it. We need to get there when they go for their lunch. So get a move on." This last comment was aimed at the Yeati who seemed to be looking askance at the filth in the tunnel.

Onward and upward they ran. Clancy did not flag, despite his injuries. The Dogs ran silently on either side of them. Even on her high heels Rosie kept up with Dr. Diamond, who ran in an odd style with his head thrown back and his knees high.

It got colder as they approached the Terminus, a freezing mist billowing through the tunnel. Dr. Diamond and Cati exchanged glances.

"A Harsh cold?" he said.

"Yes. I can feel it in my bones. And it smells of them as well."

The Yeati raised his head to sniff the air and he also looked concerned. On and on they ran, the mist getting thicker and thicker, until Cati found herself depending on her improved sense of smell to guide her. She took Dr. Diamond's hand. Mo dropped back and took Rosie's hand.

They emerged in a station that Rosie had never seen before. Vast chandeliers hung from the ornate ceiling. The walls and platforms were made of marble, and the handrails of the stairs were gilded.

"The Terminus underground station," Dr. Diamond said, "as described in all the books. They talk about the

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nights here, going to the opera, the way people were dressed--the women in silk organza, the men in top hats...."

"Some of us do our best to keep a bit of glamour going," Rosie said with a sniff.

"So you do, Rosie, so you do," Dr. Diamond said. He looked as if he was about to pat her on the head, but she gave him a warning look and he withdrew his hand.

"Does Andromeda know what we're doing?" Cati said.

"I have a funny feeling he does," Dr. Diamond said, collapsing exhausted onto a red velvet bench, which sent a cloud of dust up to mingle with the freezing vapor in the air.

The Yeati had climbed down onto the track and gone into a tunnel. He started to tap the solid rock wall with a fingernail. Strangely, the rock rang like a bell. He tried several places, walking up and down the tunnel, then he appeared to narrow it down. He tapped several times briskly until the whole wall seemed to ring. With a deft blow from his good arm, he started to cut into the wall. The Dogs watched openmouthed as he cut into the rock so far that he disappeared from view.

"How does he do that?" Mo said.

"It's a molecular process closely allied to structural--" Dr. Diamond began before Rosie cut in.

"Sorry, Doc," she said, "but maybe we should get in that hole after him."

By the time they reached the hole, Andromeda had