by John Booth
Mike and Mel had been waiting patiently for the two of them to come out of the bedroom. Mel kissed her son lightly on the forehead and rushed off to make another cup of tea. Peter found the thought of a warming cup of tea resting in his hands comforting and waited patiently for her.
“You do realise what this means?” Mike Conner said when they were all sitting again.
“That the Commandant was a bastard of the first order?” Sal cut in before anybody else could speak. Peter snorted a bark of a laugh that almost became a giggle.
“No, young lady,” Mike said severely. “It means, Peter, that we would like to welcome you back into the community. You and your mother can come back home. You can finish your education.”
“Just as if nothing happened,” Peter said.
“Exactly, Peter,” Mike replied, missing or choosing to ignore Peter’s tone of voice. “So many people have been asking me when you’re coming back. Mrs Hawkins asked me to tell you she never wanted you to go in the first place. You have many friends back in the village.”
“I’m afraid I can’t go back,” Peter reached for Sal’s arm and pulled her close to him. “I’ve far too many commitments here.”
“Peter, we don’t have to go back straight away,” Mel broke in quickly, before Mike could speak. “You have things to finish here first and that might take some time. Saloni can come with us, of course. Her father seems to have disappeared, so she’ll need a home.”
“We shall have to see how things work out, Mum. I certainly don’t want to hold you here, living in this hovel. I think you should go back to the village while I finish what I’ve started.”
“I’m not leaving here without you,” Mel said indignantly. “You’re my son.”
“Tell me, Mum. Did you discover what Han No is looking for?” It was such an abrupt change of subject Mel looked put out.
“Yes, but it doesn’t help, because it makes no sense,” she said when she got over her surprise.
“Let me guess, Mum. Would it be carved stone eggs by any chance?”
“Someone must have told you.”
“I didn’t know, Mum. I suspected that was what it would be. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Do you know how many of them he’s found?”
“Peter, how can you say it makes sense? He has hundreds of agents searching the world for stone eggs about the size of a tennis ball. We think he has found hundreds over the years. They’re nothing but solid stone, I can assure you of that.”
“No doubt you have tested them to destruction in an Establishment facility,” Peter said. “Go home, Mum. Your mission’s finished and the Establishment is probably finding life difficult without its best analyst.”
Mel’s face flushed red and then white as she worked out the implication of her son’s words. Lacking anything to say in mitigation, she sat down looking as though she was about to cry.
“Peter!” Mike shouted. “You shouldn’t talk to your mother like that, and there are rules about what you can say in front of…” he indicated Sal with a nod of his head.
“I’m tired of being played by everybody and his dog,” Peter said wearily. “I have a task for you, Mike Conner, a task for you and the Establishment.”
“I’m just a gym teacher, son. I can’t authorise anything.” Mike sat down on Mel’s chair arm and put a hand on Mel’s shoulder.
“A four hour a week gym teacher who looked after, what, fifty students in total?” Peter said with contempt. “One thing about going away from a place is you get to see it with fresh eyes. There were so many gym teachers handing out personal training to so few. But if you want to carry on pretending you are a gym teacher, be my guest.”
Mike shrugged as Mel began to cry.
“I’ve a small task for the Establishment. If you can’t manage it, don’t come looking for me. I need you to get the authorities to harass Han No. Raid his clubs, especially The Bird Cage. Take his girls into custody for a week or so. Send the tax and customs people over to Hellogon Imports and get them to stop the movement of their goods. Let Han No know I arranged these things.”
“Peter, we can’t do any of that,” Mike protested, “You know we’re forbidden to operate in the UK.”
“The Establishment’s never played by the rules, especially its own. Find a way to do it. Mike. I’d remind you, you’ve had my mother working undercover and, last time I looked, this city is part of the United Kingdom.”
“Peter, it wasn’t like that.” Mel said.
Sal looked on bemused, but Peter’s training course had taught her to look for patterns. She wondered why Han No wanted to collect stone eggs. Sal was certain Peter wouldn’t tell her. Well, she thought to herself, two can play at that game.
“Is that all you want, Peter?” Mike asked in a stony voice.
Peter instructed Mike in the tone of voice a teacher might talk to a recalcitrant child. “I want you to pull everyone off Han No when I tell you to. Just as quickly and completely as you put them on.”
“It will take a couple of days to organise. Can we rely on you?”
“You can rely on me to do the best I can. If you can’t live with that, then you should stay out of the affairs of Hellogon.”
Peter got up from the sofa and offered a helping hand to Sal. He looked at his Mother who was still crying into balled up fists.
“Mum, go back to the Village. I’ll come back here on the occasional Sunday, so get the Establishment to keep the rent up on the flat. If you want, you can visit here and see if I turn up. If not, I’ll leave messages for you.”
“Peter, I’m sorry. We’ve only done what we thought was for the best for everyone. You have to believe me, Peter.”
“Mum, I have only one question.”
Mel fought back her sobs and looked into her son’s eyes. “If I can answer your question, I will.”
“If Jeremy hadn’t conveniently killed himself, how would you have got us to the city?”
Mel turned to Mike and put her arms around him. Mike held her tight and glared at Peter.
“If you can’t take the heat…” Peter said quietly. He took Sal by the hand and walked out of the room, the flat, the building and planet Earth.
Chapter Twenty Four
Progress
When they got back to the safety of their room within Castle Cragus, Peter started to shiver uncontrollably. Sal stripped him of his clothes and put him to bed cuddling up to him. It never seemed to be cold in Hellogon but, even so, Peter shivered for a long time.
A few hours later, Peter appeared to have recovered and Sal felt it was time to ask him the questions that were driving her crazy. Peter lay on his back with Sal leaning against him. Sal started with the one she thought he was most likely to answer.
“Peter, why did your Mum start crying? I don’t understand what you accused her of.”
“I told her I knew she was still working for the Establishment and this whole thing was a set up.” As Peter talked, the fingers on Sal’s right hand walked down his chest heading for places pleasurable. As his words ceased so her fingers stopped moving, just above his belly button.
“You think they arranged Jeremy’s suicide to get you here?”
Peter laughed. “I’m not that paranoid. Besides, they would’ve stopped Jeremy killing himself if they’d known. He was far too valuable an asset to be thrown away so cheaply.” Sal’s fingers gently stroked him. Peter turned towards her so he could put his hands on her breasts, but she pushed him back.
“You only get to play if you talk to me, Peter Craig,” she said severely.
“I’m not sure this form of interrogation is allowed under the Geneva Convention.”
“Then it’s lucky I never signed it, isn’t it? I thought your Establishment would throw Jeremy out for being gay.”
“Not a chance, silly.” Peter gasped as his last word brought a warning squeeze from Sal. “Being gay would’ve made him more valuable. He was always in the top three students in the year. It was the Commandant who
had the problem and from Jeremy’s letter it would appear the Commandant was a repressed homosexual.”
“How did your mum arrange for you to come here then?”
“They used Jeremy’s death as an excuse. I’d bet they carried out an autopsy on him in spite of what the Commandant wanted and knew Jeremy killed himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d found and copied his suicide letter as well. I think the Establishment always planned I should come to the city for my eighteenth birthday.” Peter caught his breath as Sal stopped again. He was close to a kind of explosion.
“Explain it to me!” Sal demanded and she gave him another warning squeeze.
“Ahh! All those embarrassing things Mum said the first time you met her. That wasn’t like her at all. It was just to keep me off balance so I wouldn’t ask the obvious question.” Peter squirmed as Sal speeded up, “When she told me she knew about Hellogon, the question was did the Establishment know about it too? The question after that would be what did they plan to do about it? Sal, for God’s sake, either do that faster or stop doing it, you’re killing me…”
Sal smirked at Peter. “I thought this Commandant bastard was head of the Establishment. Now you’re making it sound like someone else is running the place.”
“There are, oh… that’s good… When I was a little kid the Commandant of the Establishment ran everything. But, after my father died, the Establishment reorganised and the Commandant lost his operational role and ended up controlling the village and the school.”
“Operations is run by some people who never revealed who they were. I think our part time gym teachers, including Mike Conner, run operations. The gym stuff would give them a chance to assess future agents and guide their development. Mike was at the flat to talk to Mum about much more than the Commandant. Mum was being debriefed when we walked in. I…” Peter stopped talking as nature finally took its course. Sal snuggled closer to him.
“Carry on…” she ordered when Peter showed no signs of continuing his explanation.
Peter smiled. “I’ve run completely out of incentive. As an interrogator I think you’ve just blown it.”
“Firstly, you should be so lucky. Secondly, you can’t get the people to torture you used to. My latest one has no stamina.” Sal leaned forward and kissed Peter on the cheek. “How about continuing just because you love me?”
“Just this once, but I’ll never train you to be an effective torturer at this rate. Ummpphhh!” Peter convulsed in pain as Sal squeezed a couple of objects a little lower down Peter’s body. “I just got incentivised to apply those forty-six things I owe you young lady, and I shall do it very hard.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Sal told him primly. “Well, maybe later…, but only if you do it gently…” she added as an afterthought.
“I should’ve known Mum wasn’t just a housewife. She must have been advising on strategy all my life. It never occurred to me to question when she said she was just off to help out with a bit of secretarial work. It was never likely the Establishment would waste one of their finest strategists to bring me up.”
“She must have told them about Hellogon years ago. I don’t think she would’ve betrayed Dad’s trust, so I’m sure it would’ve been after he died.”
“I’m surprised they believed her.” Sal moved and brought her body over Peter so she straddled him.
“They would have checked it out. There’s plenty of evidence if you knew what to look for. Don’t be surprised to find out you’ve been on camera every time you travelled through the Sunner Gate. Dad would’ve explained to Mum what was going to happen to me when I reached eighteen.”
“The Establishment must have decided they wanted me in Hellogon. There’s no way Han No or Solly could’ve got to me if I’d stayed in the Village. That place is sealed airtight.”
“What did they expect you to do when you got here?” Sal said a little distractedly. Peter used his index fingers to run little featherlike circles around Sal’s nipples. Both of them stood up to attention like tiny soldiers and she knew her own physical desires were soon going to overpower her attempt to extract answers.
“They’d expect me to do exactly what I’ve done. We’re trained to build up economic systems or to tear them down. Hellogon’s in such a mess, the only sensible direction is up. Besides, all the people on Hellogon are my family. The Establishment knows my psych profile backwards and they’d be sure I’d try and fix things.”
Peter cupped Sal’s breasts in his hands and used his thumbs to caress her nipples. She began to move her body up and down on top of him and it was getting more and more difficult to think.
“Why did Mike suggest you should go back to the village?” Sal tried desperately to stay focussed.
“Simply a ploy to keep me onside. They’d always have extended that offer to me. I’m sure Jeremy’s death was his own doing, but I couldn’t swear the same about the Commandant’s death. It was far too convenient, timing-wise, and Jeremy hinted about secrets in the Commandant’s safe. I’d bet money Mike or one of his minions searched the Commandant’s house for Jeremy’s suicide letter. Once they read the letter they’d have gone back for the rest to find out what he was talking about.”
Sal was beyond asking questions. Peter slipped his hand between her thighs while she rocked up and down, and his fingers began to work on her with surprising delicacy. At first, Sal was just aware of his hand’s presence on her and then it was as if a tiny gentle little bird fluttered its feathery wings against her most sensitive places. All thoughts of further questions fled from her mind as waves of pleasure spread through her body and brought her to a shuddering climax.
Peter had fully recovered from Sal’s earlier ministrations and over the next few minutes he showed her that though he might be quick by her standards, he could still be effective.
* * *
The next week was a blur to Peter. Jeremy’s letter energised him and made him desperate to make progress. In a strange way, he thought that what he was doing was for Jeremy, to show everybody Jeremy’s life hadn’t been wasted. He’d been Peter’s friend and he shaped Peter for better or for worse. Peter would have been a completely different person if Jeremy hadn’t existed.
Peter walked the corridors of Castle Cragus whenever he got the chance. In the past he walked by others in the corridors ignoring them, now he stopped to talk to all he saw. He found out the names and jobs of every person in the castle. Peter had an excellent memory for names and faces.
Talking to the inhabitants of the castle revealed an immense number of minor gripes and a few significant problems with structure of the castle. Lady Ilarna found her life getting difficult as Peter set her to solve the problems he found. The castle was soon awash with tradesmen from Earth. Polish plumbers and Lithuanian brick layers began repairing the cracks and leaks that had built up in the castle over the years.
The builders were kept well away from the Vampire Lords. Peter didn’t want anybody getting killed if he could avoid it. Lady Ilarna chose the people who came over to Hellogon with great care. Where she could, she picked illegal immigrants who would be unlikely to mention Hellogon to the UK authorities, especially as Lady Ilarna paid them very well. Where such things were impossible, usually for the highly skilled jobs, she made sure the workers employed never found out where the portals to Hellogon were.
Lady Ilarna very much doubted the English police or social services would take a foreigner seriously who claimed he had been working on another planet, but she took no chances.
Peter talked to everybody he found, including the human slaves. He found most of the slaves were born in Hellogon and were inculcated with its mores and beliefs. If he took any of them back to Earth, they would have drowned in confusion, like fish out of water.
For the slaves kidnapped from Earth he was in a dilemma over what to do. In theory, the answer was to return them to Earth. For many of the slaves, this was their most ardent desire. However, it was clear Hellogon’s existence would be r
evealed if he returned them. On top of that, they were acclimatised to Hellogon in a different way to Peter and Sal.
When Peter and Sal travelled to Hellogon their bodies changed so they were completely adapted to Hellogon. When they travelled back to Earth, they changed back to become human. The humans who travelled through the portals didn’t change and their bodies had adapted to perpetual warmth and low levels of light. It might take weeks or months for the slaves’ eyes to adjust to the brightness and white light of Earth if they returned.
Peter concluded that when he finally got to abolish slavery on Hellogon, he needed to create a new economy for the native born slaves who wanted to stay. For those who wished to return to Earth he would have to create a rehabilitation centre on Earth where they could acclimatise. It was all going to be very difficult to achieve.
However, all that was a long way in the future as currently he had token control over the Vampires and no control over the Grimms, Warlocks or Dragons. Unless he could force Han No to the negotiating table, he was bound to lose.
Peter was secretly delighted when Solly arrived in the castle at the end of the week in an incandescent rage.
“Han No’s ready to kill you!” Solly shouted as Peter walked into the meeting room.
“And why’s that? Is it because I keep my promises?” Peter asked calmly as he poured his friend a large drink.
“All his fish and chip shops are closed for trumped up health and safety reasons. One official told his cook that frying food in oil was too dangerous!”
“I always knew the European Union would go too far in interfering with our lives,” Peter said sympathetically as he handed Solly a drink.
“Don’t try pulling that one on me. Every attack on Han No’s businesses has come with your name attached. Officials have been tripping over themselves in their eagerness to tell him the orders came from you.”
“Tut, tut. You mean it isn’t only the food businesses in trouble?”