The Subtle Knife (22 page)

Lyra was crouching paralyzed against the wall, but Will still had the knife in his hand. He scrambled over to the opening in the floor and reached down and sliced through the iron of the top step as if it were paper. With nothing to hold it up, the staircase began to bend under the weight of the children crowding on it, and then it swung down and fell with a huge crash. More screams, more confusion; and again the gun went off, but this time by accident, it seemed. Someone had been hit, and the scream was of pain this time, and Will looked down to see a tangle of writhing bodies covered in plaster and dust and blood.

They weren’t individual children: they were a single mass, like a tide. They surged below him and leaped up in fury, snatching, threatening, screaming, spitting, but they couldn’t reach.

Then someone called, and they looked to the door, and those who could move surged toward it, leaving several pinned beneath the iron stairs or dazed and struggling to get up from the rubble-strewn floor.

Will soon realized why they’d run out. There was a scrabbling sound from the roof outside the arches, and he ran to the windowsill to see the first pair of hands grasping the edge of the pantiles and pulling up. Someone was pushing from behind, and then came another head and another pair of hands, as they clambered over the shoulders and backs of those below and swarmed up onto the roof like ants.

But the pantiled ridges were hard to walk on, and the first ones scrambled up on hands and knees, their wild eyes never leaving Will’s face. Lyra had joined him, and Pantalaimon was snarling as a leopard, paws on the sill, making the first children hesitate. But still they came on, more and more of them.

Someone was shouting “Kill! Kill! Kill!” and then others joined in, louder and louder, and those on the roof began to stamp and thump the tiles in rhythm, but they didn’t quite dare come closer, faced by the snarling dæmon. Then a tile broke, and the boy standing on it slipped and fell, but the one beside him picked up the broken piece and hurled it at Lyra.

She ducked, and it shattered on the column beside her, showering her with broken pieces. Will had noticed the rail around the edge of the opening in the floor, and cut two sword-length pieces of it, and he handed one to Lyra now; and she swung it around as hard as she could and into the side of the first boy’s head. He fell at once, but then came another, and it was Angelica, red-haired, white-faced, crazy-eyed. She scrambled up onto the sill, but Lyra jabbed the length of rail at her fiercely, and she fell back again.

Will was doing the same. The knife was in its sheath at his waist, and he struck and swung and jabbed with the iron rail, and while several children fell back, others kept replacing them, and more and more were clambering up onto the roof from below.

Then the boy in the striped T-shirt appeared, but he’d lost the pistol, or perhaps it was empty. However, his eyes and Will’s locked together, and each of them knew what was going to happen: they were going to fight, and it was going to be brutal and deadly.

“Come on,” said Will, passionate for the battle. “Come on, then . . . ”

Another second, and they would have fought.

But then the strangest thing appeared: a great white snow goose swooping low, his wings spread wide, calling and calling so loudly that even the children on the roof heard through their savagery and turned to see.

“Kaisa!” cried Lyra joyfully, for it was Serafina Pekkala’s dæmon.

The snow goose called again, a piercing whoop that filled the sky, and then wheeled and turned an inch away from the boy in the striped T-shirt. The boy fell back in fear and slid down and over the edge, and then others began to cry in alarm too, because there was something else in the sky. As Lyra saw the little black shapes sweeping out of the blue, she cheered and shouted with glee.

“Serafina Pekkala! Here! Help us! Here we are! In the temple—”

And with a hiss and rush of air, a dozen arrows, and then another dozen swiftly after, and then another dozen—loosed so quickly that they were all in the air at once—shot at the temple roof above the gallery and landed with a thunder of hammer blows. Astonished and bewildered, the children on the roof felt all the aggression leave them in a moment, and horrible fear rushed in to take its place. What were these black-garbed women rushing at them in the air? How could it happen? Were they ghosts? Were they a new kind of Specter?

And whimpering and crying, they jumped off the roof, some of them falling clumsily and dragging themselves away limping and others rolling down the slope and dashing for safety, but a mob no longer—just a lot of frightened, shame-faced children. A minute after the snow goose had appeared, the last of the children left the temple, and the only sound was the rush of air in the branches of the circling witches above.

Will looked up in wonder, too amazed to speak, but Lyra was leaping and calling with delight, “Serafina Pekkala! How did you find us? Thank you, thank you! They was going to kill us! Come down and land.”

But Serafina and the others shook their heads and flew up again, to circle high above. The snow goose dæmon wheeled and flew down toward the roof, beating his great wings inward to help him slow down, and landed with a clatter on the pantiles below the sill.

“Greetings, Lyra,” he said. “Serafina Pekkala can’t come to the ground, nor can the others. The place is full of Specters—a hundred or more surrounding the building, and more drifting up over the grass. Can’t you see them?”

“No! We can’t see ’em at all!”

“Already we’ve lost one witch. We can’t risk any more. Can you get down from this building?”

“If we jump off the roof like they done. But how did you find us? And where—”

“Enough now. There’s more trouble coming, and bigger. Get down as best you can and then make for the trees.”

They climbed over the sill and moved sideways down through the broken tiles to the gutter. It wasn’t high, and below it was grass, with a gentle slope away from the building. First Lyra jumped and then Will followed, rolling over and trying to protect his hand, which was bleeding freely again and hurting badly. His sling had come loose and trailed behind him, and as he tried to roll it up, the snow goose landed on the grass at his side.

“Lyra, who is this?” Kaisa said.

“It’s Will. He’s coming with us—”

“Why are the Specters avoiding you?” The goose dæmon was speaking directly to Will.

By this time Will was hardly surprised by anything, and he said, “I don’t know. We can’t see them. No, wait!” And he stood up, struck by a thought. “Where are they now?” he said. “Where’s the nearest one?”

“Ten paces away, down the slope,” said the dæmon. “They don’t want to come any closer, that’s obvious.”

Will took out the knife and looked in that direction, and he heard the dæmon hiss with surprise.

But Will couldn’t do what he intended, because at the same moment a witch landed her branch on the grass beside him. He was taken aback not so much by her flying as by her astounding gracefulness, the fierce, cold, lovely clarity of her gaze, and by the pale bare limbs, so youthful, and yet so far from being young.

“Your name is Will?” she said.

“Yes, but—”

“Why are the Specters afraid of you?”

“Because of the knife. Where’s the nearest one? Tell me! I want to kill it!”

But Lyra came running before the witch could answer.

“Serafina Pekkala!” she cried, and she threw her arms around the witch and hugged her so tightly that the witch laughed out loud, and kissed the top of her head. “Oh, Serafina, where did you come from like that? We were—those kids—they were
kids,
and they were going to kill us—did you see them? We thought we were going to die and—oh, I’m so glad you came! I thought I’d never see you again!”

Serafina Pekkala looked over Lyra’s head to where the Specters were obviously clustering a little way off, and then looked at Will.

“Now listen,” she said. “There’s a cave in these woods not far away. Head up the slope and then along the ridge to the left. The Specters won’t follow—they don’t see us while we’re in the air, and they’re afraid of you. We’ll meet you there. It’s a half-hour’s walk.”

And she leaped into the air again. Will shaded his eyes to watch her and the other ragged, elegant figures wheel in the air and dart up over the trees.

“Oh, Will, we’ll be safe now! It’ll be all right now that Serafina Pekkala’s here!” said Lyra. “I never thought I’d see her again. She came just at the right time, didn’t she? Just like before, at Bolvangar . . . . ”

Chattering happily, as if she’d already forgotten the fight, she led the way up the slope toward the forest. Will followed in silence. His hand was throbbing badly, and with each throb a little more blood was leaving him. He held it up across his chest and tried not to think about it.

It took not half an hour but an hour and three quarters, because Will had to stop and rest several times. When they reached the cave, they found a fire, a rabbit roasting, and Serafina Pekkala stirring something in a small iron pot.

“Let me see your wound” was the first thing she said to Will, and he dumbly held out his hand.

Pantalaimon, cat-formed, watched curiously, but Will looked away. He didn’t like the sight of his mutilated fingers.

The witches spoke softly to each other, and then Serafina Pekkala said, “What weapon made this wound?”

Will reached for the knife and handed it to her silently. Her companions looked at it with wonder and suspicion, for they had never seen such a blade before, with such an edge on it.

“This will need more than herbs to heal. It will need a spell,” said Serafina Pekkala. “Very well, we’ll prepare one. It will be ready when the moon rises. In the meantime, you shall sleep.”

She gave him a little horn cup containing a hot potion whose bitterness was moderated by honey, and presently he lay back and fell deeply asleep. The witch covered him with leaves and turned to Lyra, who was still gnawing the rabbit.

“Now, Lyra,” she said. “Tell me who this boy is, and what you know about this world, and about this knife of his.”

So Lyra took a deep breath and began.

TWELVE

SCREEN LANGUAGE

“Tell me again,” said Dr. Oliver Payne, in the little laboratory overlooking the park. “Either I didn’t hear you, or you’re talking nonsense. A child from another world?”

“That’s what she said. All right, it’s nonsense, but
listen
to it, Oliver, will you?” said Dr. Mary Malone. “She knew about Shadows. She calls them—it—she calls it Dust, but it’s the same thing. It’s our shadow particles. And I’m telling you, when she was wearing the electrodes linking her to the Cave, there was the most extraordinary display on the screen: pictures, symbols . . . . She had an instrument too, a sort of compass thing made of gold, with different symbols all around the rim. And she said she could read that in the same way, and she knew about the state of mind, too—she knew it intimately.”

It was midmorning. Lyra’s Scholar, Dr. Malone, was red-eyed from lack of sleep, and her colleague, who’d just returned from Geneva, was impatient to hear more, and skeptical, and preoccupied.

“And the point was, Oliver, she was communicating with them. They
are
conscious. And they can respond. And you remember your skulls? Well, she told me about some skulls in the Pitt-Rivers Museum. She’d found out with her compass thing that they were much older than the museum said, and there were Shadows—”

“Wait a minute. Give me some sort of
structure
here. What are you saying? You saying she’s confirmed what we know already, or that she’s telling us something new?”

“Both. I don’t know. But suppose something happened thirty, forty thousand years ago. There were shadow particles around before then, obviously—they’ve been around since the Big Bang—but there was no physical way of amplifying their effects at
our
level, the anthropic level. The level of human beings. And then something happened, I can’t imagine what, but it involved evolution. Hence your skulls—remember? No Shadows before that time, lots afterward? And the skulls the child found in the museum, that she tested with her compass thing. She told me the same thing. What I’m saying is that around that time, the human brain became the ideal vehicle for this amplification process. Suddenly we became conscious.”

Dr. Payne tilted his plastic mug and drank the last of his coffee.

“Why should it happen particularly at that time?” he said. “Why suddenly thirty-five thousand years ago?”

“Oh, who can say? We’re not paleontologists. I don’t know, Oliver, I’m just speculating. Don’t you think it’s at least possible?”

“And this policeman. Tell me about him.”

Dr. Malone rubbed her eyes. “His name is Walters,” she said. “He said he was from the Special Branch. I thought that was politics or something?”

“Terrorism, subversion, intelligence . . . all that. Go on. What did he want? Why did he come here?”

“Because of the girl. He said he was looking for a boy of about the same age—he didn’t tell me why—and this boy had been seen in the company of the girl who came here. But he had something else in mind as well, Oliver. He
knew
about the research. He even asked—”

The telephone rang. She broke off, shrugging, and Dr. Payne answered it. He spoke briefly, put it down, and said, “We’ve got a visitor.”

“Who?”

“Not a name I know. Sir Somebody Something. Listen, Mary, I’m off, you realize that, don’t you?”

“They offered you the job.”

“Yes. I’ve got to take it. You must see that.”

“Well, that’s the end of this, then.”

He spread his hands helplessly, and said, “To be frank . . . I can’t see any point in the sort of stuff you’ve just been talking about. Children from another world and fossil Shadows . . . . It’s all too crazy. I just can’t get involved. I’ve got a career, Mary.”

“What about the skulls you tested? What about the Shadows around the ivory figurine?”

He shook his head and turned his back. Before he could answer, there came a tap at the door, and he opened it almost with relief.

Sir Charles said, “Good day to you. Dr. Payne? Dr. Malone? My name is Charles Latrom. It’s very good of you to see me without any notice.”

“Come in,” said Dr. Malone, weary but puzzled. “Did Oliver say
Sir
Charles? What can we do for you?”

“It may be what I can do for
you,
” he said. “I understand you’re waiting for the results of your funding application.”

“How do you know that?” said Dr. Payne.

“I used to be a civil servant. As a matter of fact, I was concerned with directing scientific policy. I still have a number of contacts in the field, and I heard . . . May I sit down?”

“Oh, please,” said Dr. Malone. She pulled out a chair, and he sat down as if he were in charge of a meeting.

“Thank you. I heard through a friend—I’d better not mention his name; the Official Secrets Act covers all sorts of silly things—I heard that your application was being considered, and what I heard about it intrigued me so much that I must confess I asked to see some of your work. I know I had no business to, except that I still act as a sort of unofficial adviser, so I used that as an excuse. And really, what I saw was quite fascinating.”

“Does that mean you think we’ll be successful?” said Dr. Malone, leaning forward, eager to believe him.

“Unfortunately, no. I must be blunt. They’re not minded to renew your grant.”

Dr. Malone’s shoulders slumped. Dr. Payne was watching the old man with cautious curiosity.

“Why have you come here now, then?” he said.

“Well, you see, they haven’t officially made the decision yet. It doesn’t look promising, and I’m being frank with you; they see no prospect of funding work of this sort in the future. However, it might be that if you had someone to argue the case for you, they would see it differently.”

“An advocate? You mean yourself? I didn’t think it worked like that,” said Dr. Malone, sitting up. “I thought they went on peer review and so on.”

“It does in principle, of course,” said Sir Charles. “But it also helps to know how these committees work in practice. And to know who’s on them. Well, here I am. I’m intensely interested in your work; I think it might be very valuable, and it certainly ought to continue. Would you let me make informal representations on your behalf?”

Dr. Malone felt like a drowning sailor being thrown a life belt. “Why . . . well, yes! Good grief, of course! And thank you . . . . I mean, do you really think it’ll make a difference? I don’t mean to suggest that . . . I don’t know what I mean. Yes, of course!”

“What would we have to do?” said Dr. Payne.

Dr. Malone looked at him in surprise. Hadn’t Oliver just said he was going to work in Geneva? But he seemed to be understanding Sir Charles better than she was, for a flicker of complicity was passing between them, and Oliver came to sit down, too.

“I’m glad you take my point,” said the old man. “You’re quite right. There is a direction I’d be especially glad to see you taking. And provided we could agree, I might even be able to find you some extra money from another source altogether.”

“Wait, wait,” said Dr. Malone. “Wait a minute. The course of this research is a matter for
us.
I’m perfectly willing to discuss the results, but not the direction. Surely you see—”

Sir Charles spread his hands in a gesture of regret and got to his feet. Oliver Payne stood too, anxious.

“No, please, Sir Charles,” he said. “I’m sure Dr. Malone will hear you out. Mary, there’s no harm in listening, for goodness’ sake. And it might make all the difference.”

“I thought you were going to Geneva?” she said.

“Geneva?” said Sir Charles. “Excellent place. Lot of scope there. Lot of money, too. Don’t let me hold you back.”

“No, no, it’s not settled yet,” said Dr. Payne hastily. “There’s a lot to discuss—it’s all still very fluid. Sir Charles, please sit down. Can I get you some coffee?”

“That would be very kind,” said Sir Charles, and sat again, with the air of a satisfied cat.

Dr. Malone looked at him clearly for the first time. She saw a man in his late sixties, prosperous, confident, beautifully dressed, used to the very best of everything, used to moving among powerful people and whispering in important ears. Oliver was right: he did want something. And they wouldn’t get his support unless they satisfied him.

She folded her arms.

Dr. Payne handed him a mug, saying, “Sorry it’s rather primitive . . . . ”

“Not at all. Shall I go on with what I was saying?”

“Do, please,” said Dr. Payne.

“Well, I understand that you’ve made some fascinating discoveries in the field of consciousness. Yes, I know, you haven’t published anything yet, and it’s a long way—seemingly—from the apparent subject of your research. Nevertheless, word gets around. And I’m especially interested in that. I would be very pleased if, for example, you were to concentrate your research on the manipulation of consciousness. Second, the many-worlds hypothesis—Everett, you remember, 1957 or thereabouts—I believe you’re on the track of something that could take that theory a good deal further. And that line of research might even attract defense funding, which as you may know is still plentiful, even today, and certainly isn’t subject to these wearisome application processes.

“Don’t expect me to reveal my sources,” he went on, holding up his hand as Dr. Malone sat forward and tried to speak. “I mentioned the Official Secrets Act; a tedious piece of legislation, but we mustn’t be naughty about it. I confidently expect some advances in the many-worlds area. I think you are the people to do it. And third, there is a particular matter connected with an individual. A child.”

He paused there, and sipped the coffee. Dr. Malone couldn’t speak. She’d gone pale, though she couldn’t know that, but she did know that she felt faint.

“For various reasons,” Sir Charles went on, “I am in contact with the intelligence services. They are interested in a child, a girl, who has an unusual piece of equipment—an antique scientific instrument, certainly stolen, which should be in safer hands than hers. There is also a boy of roughly the same age—twelve or so—who is wanted in connection with a murder. It’s a moot point whether a child of that age is capable of murder, of course, but he has certainly killed someone. And he has been seen with the girl.

“Now, Dr. Malone, it may be that you have come across one or the other of these children. And it may be that you are quite properly inclined to tell the police about what you know. But you would be doing a greater service if you were to let me know privately. I can make sure the proper authorities deal with it efficiently and quickly and with no stupid tabloid publicity. I know that Inspector Walters came to see you yesterday, and I know that the girl turned up. You see, I do know what I’m talking about. I would know, for instance, if you saw her again, and if you didn’t tell me, I would know that too. You’d be very wise to think hard about that, and to clarify your recollections of what she said and did when she was here. This is a matter of national security. You understand me.

“Well, there I’ll stop. Here’s my card so you can get in touch. I shouldn’t leave it too long; the funding committee meets tomorrow, as you know. But you can reach me at this number at any time.”

He gave a card to Oliver Payne, and seeing Dr. Malone with her arms still folded, laid one on the bench for her. Dr. Payne held the door for him. Sir Charles set his Panama hat on his head, patted it gently, beamed at both of them, and left.

When he’d shut the door again, Dr. Payne said, “Mary, are you mad? Where’s the sense in behaving like that?”

“I beg your pardon? You’re not taken in by that old creep, are you?”

“You can’t turn down offers like that! Do you want this project to survive or not?”

“It wasn’t an offer,” she said hotly. “It was an ultimatum. Do as he says, or close down. And, Oliver, for God’s sake, all those not-so-subtle threats and hints about national security and so on—can’t you see where that would lead?”

“Well, I think I can see it more clearly than you can. If you said no, they wouldn’t close this place down. They’d take it over. If they’re as interested as he says, they’ll want it to carry on. But only on their terms.”

“But their terms would be . . . I mean,
defense,
for God’s sake. They want to find new ways of killing people. And you heard what he said about consciousness: he wants to
manipulate
it. I’m not going to get mixed up in that, Oliver, never.”

“They’ll do it anyway, and you’ll be out of a job. If you stay, you might be able to influence it in a better direction. And you’d still have your hands on the work! You’d still be involved!”

“But what does it matter to you, anyway?” she said. “I thought Geneva was all settled?”

He ran his hands through his hair and said, “Well, not settled. Nothing’s signed. And it would be a different angle altogether, and I’d be sorry to leave here now that I think we’re really on to something.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying—”

“You’re hinting. What are you getting at?”

“Well . . . ” He walked around the laboratory, spreading his hands, shrugging, shaking his head. “Well, if you don’t get in touch with him, I will,” he said finally.

She was silent. Then she said, “Oh, I see.”

“Mary, I’ve got to think of—”

“Of course you have.”

“It’s not that—”

“No, no.”

“You don’t understand—”

“Yes, I do. It’s very simple. You promise to do as he says, you get the funding, I leave, you take over as Director. It’s not hard to understand. You’d have a bigger budget. Lots of nice new machines. Half a dozen more Ph.D.s under you. Good idea. You do it, Oliver. You go ahead. But that’s it for me. I’m off. It stinks.”

“You haven’t . . . ”

But her expression silenced him. She took off her white coat and hung it on the door, gathered a few papers into a bag, and left without a word. As soon as she’d gone, he took Sir Charles’s card and picked up the phone.

Several hours later, just before midnight in fact, Dr. Malone parked her car outside the science building and let herself in at the side entrance. But just as she turned to climb the stairs, a man came out of another corridor, startling her so much she nearly dropped her briefcase. He was wearing a uniform.