He came out from behind the desk and put a hand on her shoulder.
‘Hope is a lovely word,’ he said. ‘A relic from another time, but it’s not practical, Letta, and it sends out the wrong message. Here in Ark, we don’t hope. We do.’
Letta nodded. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t understand. I have wasted your time.’ She bowed her head, hoping she looked suitably humble.
John Noa patted her shoulder. ‘You did not waste my time, Letta. You are the wordsmith now. You have things to learn and I am happy to teach you. You are always welcome here.’
‘Thank you,’ Letta said.
‘I will see you out,’ Noa said. ‘I have a meeting and –’
‘No, please,’ Letta protested. ‘I know the way and I have taken enough of your time.’
John Noa nodded. ‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘If you are sure?’
‘Perfectly,’ Letta replied and turned quickly, heading for the door.
She walked down the corridor, not looking back. There was no-one about, though she could hear voices coming from somewhere above her. The second door she passed was open. Letta stopped and looked inside. She looked over her shoulder and then into the room again. A laboratory, she thought, slipping inside and closing the door behind her. The walls were dyed white and the room had only one window, a narrow opening with a wide sill on the inside. One wall of the room was lined with capacious tin vats. Letta approached the nearest one cautiously. The vat was full of water, and in the water she could see pulped paper, thick and stodgy, congealing in clumps. Curious now, she fished some of it out. She held the sodden paper for a moment and she could see that it had once been written on and still had streaks of red ink running through it. And then she saw it. A piece of paper still intact clinging to the side of the vat. Carefully she peeled it off. The letters were already blurred but Letta knew what it said.
Future: A time yet to
‘Come,’ Letta said softly. ‘A time yet to come.’
With a rush she understood what was happening here in this sterile room. Noa was destroying words, recycling the small cards, pulping them to make new paper. The words that Benjamin had collected. The words that Letta had transcribed. Tears pricked her eyes. Why? Why had he charged them with the task of finding every remaining word if he had always intended to destroy them?
Nothing wasted, nothing lost. That was what Noa preached. And she had believed him.
She felt as though all the air had been sucked from the room. They had not been saving words for a time when man could be trusted with them. They had been destroying what was left of language.
She got up and went back to the door, opening it slightly. She felt less trapped with the door open. The walls were closing in on her. She had to forget what she had just seen and concentrate instead on her mission.
Someone was coming. She pressed her body against the wall. She could make out John Noa’s voice and one other, also male. She held her breath as they passed within inches of her.
‘That is your responsibility then,’ Noa said.
‘Yes, sir,’ the other man replied, and they were gone.
Letta waited until the sound of their footsteps had totally disappeared. She counted to ten in her head and then another ten. She peeped through the crack in the door. All seemed quiet. She opened the door and surveyed the corridor. There was no sign of Noa or anyone else.
As quickly as she could, she scampered out the door and back to Noa’s office, all the time waiting for the voice that would halt her in her tracks. The door to the office was closed. She grasped the cool metal handle and turned it. The door opened. The office was empty. Now! The voice in her head screamed. She crossed the floor quickly and stood behind the desk. There was only one pile of papers. She flitted through them, trying to ignore the shake in her hand. Orders for the harvesting of wheat. Results from the laboratory. A list of names. She scanned it quickly. No sign of Benjamin’s name. She had reached the end of the pile when she heard the approaching voices. Two of them. Both men. Noa almost certainly. Letta looked around the room, trying to subdue the wave of panic rising in her chest. Under the desk. It was her only hope. The desk was old-fashioned, closed on three sides, made of heavy, dark wood. She threw herself to the ground, pushing her body into the farthest recess of the desk, arms wrapped around her knees. Then she heard the door open.
‘Well done, Len. That was a job well done.’
Noa.
She heard the footsteps crossing the floor, the chair being pulled out, and then his feet were inches from her body. She tried to make herself smaller, straining away from him. Her heart was beating so loudly she couldn’t understand why he couldn’t hear it.
Noa sighed. ‘I am glad you have decided to come with us, Len. The scientists are convinced it will work – and it is both quick and painless. Nonetheless, we will need good men, like yourself, to make sure it all runs smoothly.
‘Yes, sir,’ the other man said. Letta didn’t recognise the voice. There was silence for a moment.
‘I wish it could have been otherwise.’ Noa’s voice again. ‘But man is a parasite now, nothing more. We have to deal with the situation we find ourselves in. And I have found a solution. Many favour extinction, but I do not think that is the answer, my friend. Nature abhors a vacuum.’
The other man coughed, a small apologetic cough as though he only spoke with great reluctance.
‘About the wordsmith, sir –’
Letta felt the blood of her body go cold. Noa was talking. She forced herself to concentrate.
‘Benjamin and I go back a long way. I never thought he would betray me.’
The other man muttered something Letta didn’t catch.
Noa stretched his legs under the desk. Letta cowered away from them. Please. Don’t touch me. His shoes almost brushed her leg. She could feel the heat from his body, smell his sweat. She heard the other man’s chair scrape on the floor as he stood up.
‘I’ll leave the orders for you to sign, sir.’
‘Yes,’ Noa said. ‘Thank you.’
Letta heard the second man walk across the floor. The door opened and closed. Noa pulled his feet back in. Letta breathed a little easier. She didn’t know how long he sat there, but to her it seemed like hours. Her right foot had fallen asleep and she couldn’t feel it at all. She wanted to massage it but was afraid to move. It reminded her of the cave she used to play in as a child. A small cramped space that smelt of moss and wild flowers. She closed her eyes and tried to stay in that place, to distract herself from the terror she was feeling. If Noa found her, she knew there would be no hope of mercy. As the minutes ticked by, she tried to hold the image of the cave in her head. She remembered the sound of the small stream that flowed past it on its way to the sea. These were the days when she had learnt the names of the wild flowers. Maybe if she concentrated she could still remember them. Noa coughed.
Bluebell, crocus, primrose, cowslip …
She pulled her knees closer to her chest.
Dandelion, mouse-ear, angelica, nettle …
Noa stood up. She heard him cross the floor. The door opened and closed. Letta was too afraid to move. What if it was a trick? She chided herself for being ridiculous. If he knew she was there he would have confronted her. She rubbed her foot and felt shoots of pain as the blood started to flow again.
Then she crawled out. She put her feet under her, but she had to cling to the desk in order to stand. She was alone. She almost cried with relief. Then she remembered.
I’ll leave the orders for you to sign.
She saw at once that there was a new stack of papers on the desk. The first page had to do with food supplies. The next was a register from Mrs Truckle, listing all of her new pupils. And then she saw it. Benjamin Lazlo. She held her breath, scanning it as quickly as she could.
This evening, midnight, South Gate.
Her heart soared. She knew where they would leave from. Underneath that was details of the men who wou
ld guard him.
Timilty, Rudder.
Finally, she saw the word Banish.
She replaced the page carefully.
She had to get out of here. She had two choices. The window or the door. She hurried to the window. Outside was a sheer drop. Not an option. It had to be the door. She pressed her ear against it and listened. She couldn’t hear anything.
Maybe she could go back to the laboratory. Anywhere would be safer than here. She opened the door carefully. A woman’s voice sounded somewhere down the corridor.
‘Bring down here! Come now.’
Letta closed the door, her heart thumping. She could hear the women drawing nearer. Then the voices disappeared. They had obviously gone into a room. Letta bit her lip. She had to get out of this office. She opened the door again.
She stepped out onto the corridor and started to walk. It felt like she was walking on a tightrope, waiting for the moment when she would lose her balance and fall. She hurried on. She could see the front door. Just a few more strides. She turned the heavy knob and pulled. The door fell open. She hurried out, pulling it closed behind her, and headed for the gate. She looked over her shoulder. Still nothing. Quickly she found the steps and started her descent. It wasn’t as easy as the last time she had climbed down. Darkness had fallen and the wind had risen again, howling about her, blowing her hair into her eyes.
The South Gate.
Midnight.
That gave them a real chance. Once more, hope swelled in her heart. She would see Benjamin tonight. No matter how badly injured he was, she would nurse him back to health. Despite the cold she felt a faint glow of happiness. When she finally got off the stone steps she walked as quickly as she could towards home, conscious of time slipping by.
She had to talk to Finn. They had to get ready for the night ahead.
He couldn’t settle. His limbs felt like they had a life of their own. He had told Amelia that he needed air but it was silence he craved.
He stood on the beach looking out at the sea. Benjamin haunted him at every turn. They had been such good friends. Neither one of them was a scientist, but they had been passionate about the environment. They had both been laughed at, ridiculed for their doom-laden prophecies, but they had stood together, shoulder to shoulder.
Benjamin had written stirring articles, using his mastery of words to try to wake people from their fug of complacency. It was Benjamin who had led the final campaign against the oil companies, when they rushed to grab the oil and precious minerals from the Polar caps after the ice had melted and left them vulnerable to an attack from man.
And yet.
Even Benjamin would not see things through. He would not cross the final hurdle with him. He did not see that man had no further use as he was presently constructed. Language was what made him different. Language was also what made him arrogant. Man, after all, was only a newcomer here on Earth. He would soon be forgotten, though it would take thousands of years to repair the damage he had caused. What was thousands of years to the universe? Nothing. It would pass like seconds. Nature would shake herself and get ready for the next species to gain dominance. Like the dinosaur, man would be as nothing. Unlike the dinosaur, he would still exist, wordless, tame and in harmony with his fellow creatures. Without words, he would never again be dominant. Nothing wasted, nothing lost.
If only Benjamin could have understood that. The cold crept into his bones. He was lonely. So many of his friends were gone. He still had Amelia, though. She was his soul mate, the one he turned to when he couldn’t bear his life a second longer.
A wave washed in near his feet, wetting his shoe, then slouched away again. He had met her on a beach, her and her sisters, on a bright summer day before he had understood how bad things would get. She had been so young, so innocent, and he had fallen in love. He had been in love ever since.
He sighed and turned away from the sea and headed home. He would talk it through with her again, the entire plan, though he was sure he was doing the right thing. Amelia was logical, she would point out any flaws. He couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong. Amelia would help him. She was the only one who truly understood him. She was the only one who would stand by him until the end. Of that he was certain.
CHAPTER 14
#284
Melting
(1) Heat making liquid
(2) Time after ice melted
LETTA heard the eleven bells ring as she looked on to the darkening street.
‘The South Gate at midnight,’ Finn said, frowning thoughtfully. ‘On foot, with only three of us, we couldn’t hope to keep track of it. And there isn’t time to put our people in place. We have to think of some other way to track it.’
There was silence for a second as they all listened to the wind outside, moaning in its mad flight through the town.
‘I had a dream last night,’ Marlo said, his voice tight and stretched. ‘I saw a trail of blood on the forest floor.’
Letta shivered. A trail of blood. Then her eyes fell on the row of red inkbottles. Ink? Ink would stain the grass, like blood. Her heart started to beat faster. If they could attach a bottle …
‘What is it?’ Marlo asked.
Letta ignored him and hurried out to the corridor behind the shop, where Benjamin stored bottles. She pulled out the boxes that held the smaller, glass vessels. They rattled as she pushed those boxes out of her way. In behind, against the wall, she found what she was looking for. A large plastic bottle, a relic from one of Benjamin’s trips. It was the length of her arm and as round again. She picked it up and carried it back to Marlo and Finn.
‘What’s this?’ Finn said.
She placed the bottle carefully on the floor. ‘This is how we will know where the cart went. Help me fill it.’
‘With what?’ Marlo asked, his head on one side, eyebrows raised.
Finn slapped his knee and laughed. ‘Ink!’ he said, before Letta got a chance to answer. ‘Ink! That’s genius, Letta! Come on, hurry. We don’t have much time.’
One by one, they emptied the small bottles of ink into the large container. Letta watched the red dye climb up the side of the bottle and in her mind she saw again the pulped paper in that room at Noa’s house. What fools he had made of them! Everything he had told them, everything they had believed and built their lives on – all of it false. The thought scalded her.
Marlo touched her arm. ‘We’ll need to puncture it,’ he said. ‘One hole should be enough. Not so small that it gets clogged straight away. Not so big that the ink runs out too quickly.’
Letta nodded, keeping her eye on the ink as it poured from the bottle in her hand.
‘Then we need to attach it to the cart.’
‘Thin string would be best,’ Finn said. ‘Do you have any?’
Letta knew she had seen some, but where? Then she remembered: ‘Benjamin’s office. He uses it to tie up word boxes.’
Letta felt she was drowning in questions. ‘We’ll need to stop the cart and attach the bottle without them seeing us,’ Letta said, while Marlo was fetching the string from the office. ‘How can we do that?’
‘Distraction,’ Finn said with a smile. ‘We cause a distraction. We could have Marlo lie on the street in front of the cart. You could pretend to be his sister. You stop them, say your brother is ill. While all that’s happening I will be attaching the bottle and –’
‘No!’ Letta felt the word burst from her. ‘This is my plan. My risk. You and Marlo create the distraction. I attach the bottle. Besides, I’m smaller than you. I can get under the cart without them noticing.’
Finn shook his head. ‘You have no experience in these matters, Letta. Leave it to me.’
Letta grabbed his arm. ‘No, Finn. I have to do it. If they catch you, they will kill you. I am the wordsmith and for some reason Noa likes me. He will at least give me a hearing.’
‘Will this do?’ Marlo came in holding a few strides of twine wrapped about a piece of wood.
Finn took it f
rom him. ‘Yes,’ he said, pulling the string, testing it between his hands. ‘I think it will.’
Marlo looked from Finn to Letta.
‘Do we have a plan?’
‘I think so,’ Letta said. ‘What do you say, Finn?’
‘All right,’ Finn said. ‘We’ll give it a try and may the Goddess help us this night. We’ll wait at the dry-stone bridge on this side of the South Gate. When the cart comes, Marlo will lie on the road. I will stop them and say that my son has fallen ill with fever. That’ll be your chance, Letta. Get under the cart and attach the bottle. You will have about thirty seconds. If I put up too much of a fight they might arrest me. Once the bottle is in place, we can do no more. We’ll wait till first light and follow the ink.’
Letta nodded. She could see it all in her head.
‘I think it will work,’ she said.
‘Time we were leaving,’ Finn said. ‘Have you a spike and a hammer, Letta, to puncture the bottle?’
Letta went to Benjamin’s tool kit and took out the sharp stone spike he had there and the hammer with the smooth wooden handle. She could almost feel his hand on hers as she stroked the cool wood. Please let him be still alive. Please.
The plastic punctured easily enough. Finn had made a very small hole. He held the bottle up and nothing happened.
‘Too small,’ he muttered and Letta held her breath. He inserted the spike and hit it one more time, gently, with the hammer. A drop of red fell on his great paw. He smiled and put his finger against the hole.
‘Now all we need is a stopper.’
‘A piece of cork?’ Letta suggested.
‘Try it,’ Finn said.
Letta took one of the little stoppers they used for the ink bottles and with a small sharp knife started to whittle it away until there was nothing left but a sliver.
‘That should do,’ she said.
‘Give it here,’ Marlo said.
Finn removed his finger and Marlo jammed the cork in place. Finn held the bottle up. The cork held.
The Wordsmith Page 13