by Tom Holt
As he slid back in the seat, it so happened that his elbow banged against the control panel, and something got switched on.
‘. . . THE BUGGERY DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, YOU DOZY YOUNG BUGGER, PULL THE BLOODY STICK BACK AND OPEN YOUR SODDING FLAPS!’
Ah, said Wayne to himself, that must have been the radio. Now perhaps we’re getting somewhere.
‘Here,’ he shouted. ‘Can you hear me?’
The voice from the radio, which he assumed was that of the man in the moon, didn’t answer his question in so many words, but the impression he got was that yes, they had established radio contact. He took a deep breath.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘How do you fly this poxy thing?’
There was a moment of stunned silence.
‘You mean you don’t know?’
Wayne scowled. ‘Course I don’t bloody know.You think if I knew I’d be flying it upside down straight at the bloody ground?’
The moon wobbled on its course. ‘Didn’t anyone, like, tell you before they let you take her up?’
‘No,’ Wayne replied. ‘Look . . .’
‘All right,’ said the man in the moon, quickly, ‘keep your head, there’s nothing to it really. You see that stick thing in front of you?’
Wayne looked down. ‘Yup,’ he said. ‘I tried that.’
‘Shut up and listen. That’s your joystick, right? Now to the left of the joystick there’s some levers. That’s your flaps. Now, ease the stick back with your right hand, lift the flaps with your left. Easy does it. I said easy! Gently!’
Amazingly, Wayne could feel the sun responding; levelling out, slowing down. He gripped the stick hard. The voice over the radio sounded quiet and reassuring with just a soupçon of blind terror.
‘Now then,’ said the voice, ‘just by your left foot there’s a pedal. That’s the brake. You got that?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Gently mind, that’s it. Not too hard, mind, or you’ll stall her. Now then, ease forward on the stick, that’s it, lovely job, and open the throttle just a crack . . .’
‘Which one’s the throttle?’
‘Right foot. No, no, that’s the clutch, that’s it. Just a crack, mind, or first thing you know you’ll be up the back of the Crab Nebula. Come on now, son, just a little bit more, you’ve got it. Now hold it like that.’
‘Like this?’
‘NO!’
There was radio silence for a moment as sun and moon took evasive action. By rights, the violent jinking of the moon should have whipped up a tsunami that would have gone over North America like a carpet-sweeper and given Japan a spring-clean it would never have forgotten. As it happened, however, they were hopelessly under-manned at Tides, owing to the secondment of key personnel to other departments, and everything stayed exactly as it was.
‘USE YOUR BLOODY STICK!’
‘Like that?’
‘Yes. More so. Put your back into it.’
‘Like this?’
‘Yes.’
The sun seemed to hover for a moment; then it seemed to drop like a stone, just for a fraction of a second; then it caught itself, wobbled heart-stoppingly, and pulled away, flying straight and level. The moon closed in and followed it cautiously.
‘Nice work,’ said the man in the moon, with a trace of admiration cutting the fear and the relief. ‘Just one more thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Switch the bloody flasher off, will you? You’re giving me a headache.’
Wayne crunched his eyebrows together. ‘Flasher?’ he said. ‘What’s that?’
‘The flasher. The emergency warning lights. You’ve been flashing on and off, didn’t you . . . ? By your left hand, it’s a little blue button with an arrow on it . . . That’s it. You’re doing just fine.’
In the cockpit of the moon, George let out a long sigh and wiped half a pint of sweat off the bald dome of his head with the back of his hand. Bloody short retirement it had turned out to be, after all. Still, he said to himself, the lad looks like he’s got the hang of it, amazingly quickly as well; a natural, obviously. Just as well, too.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘All we’ve got to do now is to turn it round.’
SIX
High above the peaks of the Blue Mountains, the sun, under escort, completed its banking manoeuvre, straightened out, and began to head East. On the ground, all the villagers except one threw their hats in the air and cheered.
‘Well, well,’ said old Ari, the blacksmith. ‘It’s not every day you see something like that.’
The other villagers were silent for a while. Even by their standards of simple-hearted straightforwardness, old Ari did come out with some pretty asinine comments from time to time. Still, he made a cracking good horseshoe, so nobody really minded.
‘There’s something to tell the grandchildren about, eh, Bjorn?’ remarked Gustav, lowering the shard of smoked glass through which he had prudently watched the whole thing. ‘Remarkable.’
Bjorn said nothing. He was fitting a new handle to his axe, having broken the old one when he lost his temper earlier on. Bjorn got through more axe handles than the rest of the community put together.
‘I never cease to wonder,’ Gustav went on, knocking out his simple corn-cob pipe on the sole of his boot and stuffing tobacco into the bowl, ‘at the infinite variety of Providence and her astounding . . .’
‘I don’t,’ said Bjorn. ‘If you’ve got nothing better to do than stand there yakking, you could pass me that rasp. Poxy bloody cross-grained stuff, hickory.’
Gustav passed him the rasp. ‘I mean,’ he went on, ‘sixtyseven years I’ve been alive, and I’ve never seen the like. Never in all my born . . .’
‘I have.’
Gustav’s merry, weather-beaten old face contracted into an unaccustomed frown. ‘You have?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes. More times than you’ve had hot dinners. Give me the wedge. No, not that one, the small one.’
‘That’s very remarkable, neighbour Bjorn,’ said Gustav, with a voice entirely devoid of disbelief. ‘I haven’t, and I’m much older than you.’
Bjorn stood up and banged the axe head three times on the ground to seat it in the handle. At the third blow, a long crack appeared in the handle. He swore, broke the handle over his knee, and reached for the auger.
‘You should be more careful,’ Gustav said. ‘You could hurt your knee, doing something like that.’ Bjorn laughed unpleasantly.
‘Fat chance.’
This was, Gustav couldn’t help feeling, a typical sort of conversation with young Bjorn. Strange, he looked a pleasant enough sort of fellow. Perhaps he had had an unhappy life before he came to the village.
‘Are you sure you’ve seen things like . . . ?’ Gustav pointed at the sun. Bjorn nodded.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I used to work for them, didn’t I?’
Jane looked suddenly round, the toothbrush still in her mouth.
‘Look . . .’ she started to say. The man made an apologetic gesture.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise. I can come back later if . . .’
Jane looked at him.Yes, there was something about him that told her that he was another one of Them. What was it, now?
‘You’re a different one, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘I mean, you’re not the same one who came before, are you? Or are you him with a different body on?’
‘No,’ the man replied, ‘I’m a different one. My name is Staff.’
‘Staff?’
The man shrugged slightly. ‘It’s not my actual name,’ he said, ‘but it’s what everybody’s called me for longer than I can remember. It’s short for Chief of Staff.’
‘Ah.’ Jane extracted the toothbrush and laid it down on the soap-dish. ‘I wish you lot wouldn’t keep creeping up on me like this.’
‘I didn’t mean to creep,’ Staff said. ‘I just . . .’
But Jane wasn’t going to be conciliated that easily. ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘there I am, brushing my teeth,
and suddenly there’s this face over my shoulder. Did you ever work for a man called Hitchcock by any chance? Fat bloke, big nose.’
The man looked puzzled. ‘Not that I can remember,’ he said.
Jane smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Human joke. I don’t suppose you devils know much about the movies.’
The man looked hurt. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I’m not a devil. Not at all.’
‘Sorry,’ Jane said, ‘I meant to say dæmon, it just slipped out.’
‘I’m not a dæmon, either,’ the man replied. ‘I’m a . . .’ He paused, and blushed. ‘Well, I’m not a dæmon. Different department.’
Jane thought for a moment, and then a slow grin spread over her toothpaste-flecked face. ‘I’ve got it,’ she said. ‘You’re an angel.’
‘Please,’ said the man, ‘I really would prefer it if we didn’t use that word. It’s so . . .’ He waved his arms helplessly.
‘Well,’ said Jane. ‘What word should I use?’
‘Public servant,’ said the man, firmly. ‘I think it’s a much better word, really, don’t you?’
Jane nodded, and looked at the man carefully. Tall, grey-haired, thinning a little on top and thickening out a bit round the middle, with a lot of hair on the backs of his hands and wearing a suit with rather shiny cuffs. Public servant did seem to fit the bill rather better than angel. ‘Quite right,’ she said. ‘Look, can we get out of the bathroom, please?’
‘Yes, of course.’The man moved awkwardly and opened the door for her. Jane tried not to mind.
‘Coffee?’ she said.
‘Yes, er, thank you.’ The man sat down on a straight-backed chair and folded his arms. He looked embarrassed.
‘I’ve put the kettle on,’ Jane said. ‘Now, is all this connected with what happened to the sun just now?’
The man nodded. ‘You’re very observant,’ he said.
‘Not very,’ Jane replied, wrinkling her nose. ‘I mean, look at it sequentially. The sun goes haywire, supernatural beings start following me about, you don’t have to be Aleister Crowley to get the idea that there may be a common factor . . . Sorry, did I say something wrong?’
‘No,’ said the man, ‘or at least, you weren’t to know.
It’s just that we don’t mention that person in the Department.’
‘Person? Oh!’
‘Exactly,’ said the man. ‘You may remember Peter Wright; you know, Spycatcher? Well, think on, as we used to say when I was a boy.’
‘Oh.’ Jane bit her lip. ‘Look, can we get to the point? What do you lot want with me? The other one - the, er, dæmon - said something about a job, but I . . .’
She tailed off. The man was nodding his head.
‘A job?’ she repeated. ‘You can’t be serious, surely.’
The man stood up and walked to the window. ‘Well,’ he said, drawing the curtains slightly, ‘you saw all that today, I take it? The sun and everything?’
‘Yes indeed.’
The man cringed slightly. ‘Wasn’t very impressive, was it?’
Jane shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Was it supposed to be? I mean, I’m not really up on portents and things like that. I thought that sort of thing only happened when people like Julius Caesar got stabbed, and there isn’t anybody like Julius Caesar about much these days. I mean, you’ve got to be realistic, haven’t you? The whole lot of them aren’t worth a light shower between them.’
‘It wasn’t a portent,’ said the man quietly. ‘You’d guessed, hadn’t you?’
Jane nodded. ‘Have you got my mind bugged, or something? Because if you have . . .’
The man shook his head firmly. ‘Nothing of the sort, please believe me,’ he said. ‘But we at the Department . . . well, you had guessed, hadn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Jane said. ‘If you mean that business with the sun was a cock-up, then yes.’
‘It was,’ said the man, and shuddered. ‘Staff shortages.’
Jane raised an eyebrow. ‘Staff shortages?’
The man nodded. ‘It’s a nightmare,’ he said. ‘An absolute bloody nightmare. Honestly, I haven’t the faintest idea where it’s all going to end.’
From the kitchen, Jane heard the click of the kettle switching itself off. She decided to ignore it.
‘But how can you have staff shortages?’ she asked, bewildered. ‘I mean, I thought the whole point of you . . . you public servants was, you go on for ever. Immortal, you know.’
‘Immortal,’ said the man quietly, ‘doesn’t mean you go on working for ever, it just means that you have a very long retirement. Which means,’ he added, ‘that with each year that passes, paying the pensions takes up more and more of the available budget. At the moment, pensions account for ninety-nine-point-nine-seven-two of our available revenue. Think about it.’
Jane thought about it. ‘I see,’ she said.
‘Exactly,’ said the man. ‘And that’s only part of it. Put bluntly, we’re running out of manpower. You see, every time a public servant retires, there’s a vacancy, right?’
‘I suppose so,’ Jane said. ‘I hadn’t thought.’
‘Take it from me,’ said the man. ‘There is. Now, the number of . . . I don’t know how to put this.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No,’ said the man, shaking his head. ‘It’s delicate. Um.
Where do you suppose angels - public servants - come from?’
Jane felt her tongue go dry with embarrassment. ‘Er, mummy public servants and daddy public servants?’
The man scowled. ‘Certainly not,’ he said. ‘It’s a metaphysical impossibility. No, the stork brings them, of course. And do you know what’s happened to the natural habitat of storks in the last fifty years?’
‘Um.’
‘Well,’ said the man, ‘I think you can see what I’m getting at. The storks are dying out, so we’re . . . well, it makes recruitment a problem. A bloody great big problem. And that’s where you come in,’ he added.
Jane felt herself going red all over. ‘Now look,’ she said.
‘No, no,’ said the man quickly, ‘not like that. I mean, we’ve decided, or at least Mr Ganger and I have decided . . .’
‘Mr Ganger?’
‘You’ve met him,’ said the man.
‘Oh.’
‘We’ve decided,’ the man continued, ‘that the only way out is to start recruiting mortals - suitable mortals, obviously - and, well . . .’
‘Well, what?’ said Jane. Her voice, incidentally, would have frozen oxygen. The man swallowed hard, and then made a show of noticing his watch.
‘Good lord,’ he said, ‘is that the time? Anyway, you’ll think about it, won’t you? I mean, you’ll be, like, the guinea . . . I mean, a pioneer. That’s right, a pioneer. The whole success of the programme . . .’
‘No.’
‘And if it works,’ the man said quickly, standing up and knocking over a small pile of tapes on the floor, ‘it’ll mean that we can start replacing key staff, reorganising the whole running of the department, and . . .’
‘No.’
‘So you’ll think about it. Good. Well, I’ll be saying . . .’
‘No.’
‘We’ll be in . . .’ The man suddenly became translucent, ‘touch. Please give it very serious . . .’ Then transparent, ‘thought.’ Then invisible. ‘Thank you.’
‘No,’ Jane said. ‘Absolutely not. No way.’
She stopped. She suddenly had the feeling that she was talking to herself.
‘Honestly!’ she said.
SEVEN
Look in Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica and you will learn all about gravity.
Gravity, according to Sir Isaac, is a natural phenomenon, as immutable as it is impersonal. Because of gravity, objects stay attached to the surface of the planet instead of flying off into the void. There’s nothing mystical or even intentional about it; it just happens, because that’s how the great machine works.
In
all fundamentally important respects, Sir Isaac was right. Gravity is, as he observed, a physical force resulting from the interaction of bodies possessing mass upon each other. It is not dependent upon the whim of any deity or supernatural entity. It can, in other words, be relied on; provided, of course, that somebody remembers to grease the main drive-shaft once in a while.
‘It’s not my job,’ complained the Head Technician loudly, above the ear-splitting scream of grinding diamonds. ‘By rights, it’s down to Maintenance to . . .’
The Technical Supervisor snarled at him. ‘Well,’ he observed superfluously, ‘whoever was supposed to look after the sodding thing, it’s seized. The gearbox’s completely stuffed. Look out!’ he added, as a chunk of diamond shrapnel flew past his ear. ‘Bugger me, Fred, the whole bloody thing’s breaking up. We’d better get it switched off quick.’
The Head Technician stared at him. ‘You can’t do that, you lunatic,’ he said. ‘Switch this lot off, you’ll get people drifting off into space, we’ll be lynched.’
‘Look,’ replied the supervisor, ‘either we switch the bugger off or it’ll switch itself off. Something’s got to be done, right?’
For the next second and a half, speech was impossible, as the bearing manifold suddenly shattered, spraying egg-sized diamonds about like birdshot. The Head Technician dived behind a flywheel and put his head between his knees.
‘Come out of there, you coward!’ yelled the supervisor.
‘Not my problem,’ the Head Technician shrieked back. ‘You look in the files, chum, you’ll see. I wrote a memo about it five years back. I warned you lot that if the whole gearbox wasn’t renewed . . .’
‘Shut up,’ the supervisor observed, ‘and bring me a spanner. All we’ve got to do is slip the clutch and let it freewheel while we bodge up the transmission. Its own momentum’ll keep it turning for hours.’
The Head Technician considered this for a moment. ‘Bollocks,’ he opined. ‘It’ll just grind to a halt, and then you’ll have all the mortals floating upwards yelling at us. You may not give a toss about your pension, chum, but . . .’