Freefall

by Roderick Gordon

  Concentrate, she told herself as she read the final paragraph of the statement the police psychologist had helped her to draft.

  “… because somebody must know where they’ve gone or what’s happened to them,” Mrs. Burrows said, letting out a tremulous breath. She stared into the camera lens, as if too upset to go on. “So please, if you know anything, anything at all, you must contact the police. I just want my family back.”

  The red light on the top of the camera went out, and another one blinked on as DI Blakemore took over. He was wearing his best suit, and he’d got a new haircut especially for the occasion. And as he spoke earnestly to the camera, he raised a single eyebrow as if he thought he was James Bond. Mrs. Burrows had never seen him do it before. “We are now treating the circumstances surrounding the disappearances of Dr. Roger Burrows and Will and Rebecca, and Will’s school friend Chester Rawls, as highly suspicious.”

  Mrs. Burrows watched a TV monitor at the side of the camera that showed what was actually being broadcast as DI Blakemore continued to speak. Various photographs she’d provided of her family were flashing up, followed by a recent school picture of Chester in his Highfield High School uniform. Then DI Blakemore was on the screen again. Before he spoke, he paused dramatically, the eyebrow creeping even higher up his forehead, as if it might detach itself altogether. “This is an enhanced still taken from security camera footage.” A grainy black-and-white image came on the screen. “It shows a woman we’d like to talk to in relation to the case. She’s about five foot eight, of slim build, and possibly has dyed brown hair, although her natural color may be blonde or even white. She’s in her early to mid thirties, and may still be in the London area. And here’s an artist’s rendering to give a clearer idea of what she might look like.” Another picture came up on the monitor. “If you have any information in relation to this woman’s present whereabouts, the hotline number is …”

  Mrs. Burrows stopped listening as, through the glare of the studio lights, she spotted Chester’s parents at the edge of the soundstage. Mr. Rawls was supporting Mrs. Rawls — she looked as though she was crying and couldn’t stand by herself.

  Mrs. Burrows said good-bye to DI Blakemore and the other officers. She was walking toward Chester’s parents when Mr. Rawls, his arm still around his wife’s shoulders, simply turned and glared at her, shaking his head. Mrs. Burrows stopped in her tracks. She’d bumped into him once or twice in the Highfield police station, but he had been very stony faced and uncommunicative with her on each occasion. One of the officers on the case had later informed her that Chester’s parents, upon learning she had been zonked out on sleeping pills the evening both boys were discovered missing, were furious. They blamed her for not keeping an eye on them. Mrs. Burrows didn’t accept she was at fault — Will had always gone off to do his own thing. At least it was digging, and not causing trouble down on the outskirts of town with the other kids.

  But now she felt quite shaken by Mr. Rawls’s reaction. By the side of the stage, she spotted a watercooler and went to get herself a drink. As she sipped the water, she heard voices coming from behind a rack of equipment.

  “So you think she did it, then?” a voice asked.

  “Sure. She’s as guilty as sin,” another voice with a Scottish accent replied. “Nine times out of ten, somebody in the family is the killer — you know that. How many sob stories from distraught relatives have we had here in the studio and, Bob’s your auntie, a month later they’re locked up themselves?”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  “Did you take a good look at her? That Burrows woman is a bitter old no-mark and no question. Typical of suburbia — full of repressed rage and fed up to the back teeth with her pointless, phony life. Probably had a little something on the side, and her husband found out, so she topped him. And her kids knew too much, so she did them in, too, while she was at it. Her son’s best mate, Charley or whatever he was called, well — the poor little sod — he got himself caught up in it, too.”

  Mrs. Burrows edged around the equipment so she could see who was talking. One, a squat, portly man with a shaved head and a full beard, was coiling up an electrical cord as he spoke; the other, a skinny individual in a white T-shirt, was drumming his thigh with a microphone as he listened. They were just a couple of studio technicians.

  “Yeah, she looked like she could be a right old dragon,” the skinny one said as he scratched the back of his head with the tip of the microphone.

  The bearded man caught sight of Mrs. Burrows and cleared his throat loudly. “Better check what they want in studio thirteen, Billy,” he said.

  The skinny man slowly lowered the microphone to his side, a confounded expression on his face. “But we don’t have a studio thirteen …,” he said. As he glanced across and saw Mrs. Burrows standing there, he realized what his coworker had been trying to tell him. “I’m on it, Dave, right this moment,” he muttered as they fell over each other in an effort to make their getaway.

  Mrs. Burrows remained where she was, watching them go, the plastic cup crumpled in her hand.

  PART 2

  MARTHA’S SHACK

  7

  IT WAS QUITE astonishing to see how Martha got herself about, propelling herself down the tunnels like a ball bearing hurtling through a length of drainpipe. Contrary to her appearance, she could move with the swiftness of a leopard; it was evident that she’d lived in the low-gravity environment for some time and was completely attuned to it.

  Bartleby was quietly watching her, and tried to follow her example as she rebounded from one side of the tunnel to the other. Time after time, he misjudged how much thrust was needed and hurtled out of control toward the roof or the opposite wall. Will and Chester grew accustomed to the spectacle of the hapless cat cavorting through the air, giving surprised meows as he went.

  The boys were making every effort to keep up with Martha, but Will refused to go too quickly because he was worried about jarring Elliott. As their unlikely savior stopped yet again to allow them to catch up with her, they could hear her babbling to herself. It was difficult to understand what she was saying, and Will realized that she might not even be aware she was doing it.

  “What can we do for the girl?” she murmured in their direction, then swiveled away from them.

  “Well, like I told you, she’s got a broken —” Chester began.

  “What?” Martha interrupted, turning to look at him.

  “You asked about Elliott. She’s got a broken arm.”

  “I didn’t ask you anything, and you’ve already told me that,” Martha said, frowning at Chester as if he was the one who was acting strangely. “Time for another!” she announced abruptly, plucked one of the small sprigs from her belt, held it over her flaming torch until it was smoldering, then flung it to the floor. The pungent smell quickly filled the enclosed space.

  “Phew!” Will said, wrinkling his nose. “That’s pretty powerful. Reminds me of licorice or something!”

  “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? It’s called Aniseed Fire.” Martha gave him a knowing look. “Got the Colonist’s nose, haven’t you, dearie? Sense of smell like a bloodhound?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so,” Will replied. “But why are you burning that stuff? What does it do?” he asked.

  “If you don’t watch it, the spider-monkeys gather in the ceiling vents and suddenly drop on top of you. The fumes from Aniseed Fire keep them away. I grow it in my garden, you know,” she said, launching herself off again down the tunnel.

  “Garden? Your garden?” Chester called after her as she sailed away. The word was so everyday and comforting in this most alien of places. “Did she really say garden?” he quizzed Will.

  “Who knows?” Will whispered, looking cross-eyed at Chester, just in case his friend hadn’t realized that the woman obviously had more than a few screws loose.

  “Watch yourselves through here,” she warned as Will and Chester caught up with her again.

  “The lodge is narrow
and the wind strong.”

  “Lodge?” Chester said.

  “Yes, it’s narrow.”

  “I think she means ledge,” Will suggested to Chester in a whisper.

  They came out onto a fungal ledge barely more than three feet wide, beyond which Will could again make out a gaping void. “The Pore?” he asked himself in a whisper. But something seemed to be different about it. The air was incredibly humid, and instead of the showers of rain he’d seen before, there were clouds of steam rising in the air. And as he looked across to the other side, everything was saturated with an intense red glow — then he felt the heat on his face and knew it couldn’t be the Pore.

  Chester chose that moment to speak up, breaking through Will’s thoughts. “Isn’t that where we just came from?” he asked. “It’s not the Pore again, is it?”

  Martha chuckled. “No, it’s not the Pore — it’s another of the Seven Sisters. We called this one Puffing Mary.” She turned her head aside and the boys heard her mutter, “Didn’t we, Nat?”

  At this, Chester shot an urgent glance at Will, who knew precisely what his friend was thinking. No doubt about it, they were in the hands of a rather confused old woman, who didn’t even seem able to get their names right.

  Keeping close to the wall, they took great care as they made their way along the ledge, which was slick with water. The limited illumination cast by Chester’s light orb and Martha’s burning torch gave Will the impression that this void was on the same scale as the Pore. He kept his eyes away from the darkness beyond the edge of the path, but felt himself being drawn toward it. The urge had come back, the inexplicable urge to step off the ledge that had assailed him before. The voice that wasn’t really a voice but something much more powerful and deep-seated, like an irresistible desire, was trying to take control of him, to make him do it.

  “No,” he mumbled through gritted teeth, “Pull yourself together.” He had Elliott to consider. What was he thinking? What was wrong with him?

  After twenty minutes of slow stepping along the ledge, Will was relieved beyond words as the path swung back into another opening in the wall. As they left the void behind them, Will stumbled a few steps, knocking into his friend.

  “You all right?” Chester asked.

  “Fine — just tripped,” Will told him as he and Chester followed Martha into a long galley, where the ubiquitous fungal growth became patchier and patchier until Will could quite clearly see areas of dark rock around him. Then, after a few more minutes, there seemed to be no more fungus at all. It was quite a novelty to feel the shingle crunch under their feet as they ascended a gentle incline.

  “Here we are,” Martha declared as a large cavern opened out before them. From floor to roof, some sort of curved barricade or bulwark extended a hundred feet down one whole side of it. Martha led the boys halfway along the barricade. Will could see it was formed from many vertical strips of metal, overlapping each other and welded in place. And the metal strips themselves were of varying types: some were dull, others highly polished, and a number were even perforated, with grids of cutout circles or squares along their entire length. A few stood out from the rest because they bore traces of blue or green paint.

  By what appeared to be a door hung a heavy brass bell, suspended on a bracket at about head height. Martha rang the bell twice. The boys waited expectantly as the last echoes of the peal faded, but no one appeared.

  “Old habits,” Martha informed them as she swung open the door.

  “You leave it unlocked?” Will inquired, as Bartleby scampered through the doorway.

  “Yes, dust puppies aren’t that smart,” she replied.

  “Dust whats?” Will said, but Martha had already gone in. As Will and Chester followed her, they were met by a fantastic sight. The incline continued before them, the cavern roof also increasing in height, and about a hundred feet away there was some sort of single-story shack. A path led up to the building, lined by beds of the most wonderful plants. As if they were luminous, the different beds gave off an almost shimmering glow of yellows, purples, blues, and reds, the cumulative light enough to imbue the whole area with their sublime and beautiful radiance.

  “My garden,” Martha announced proudly.

  “Wow!” Chester gasped.

  “Do you like it?” she asked him.

  “Yes, it’s just so cool!” he replied.

  As the woman turned to him, she herself actually seemed to be glowing as a result of his praise. “These plants aren’t just here for their looks, you know.”

  “Like the ones you burn?” Chester inquired.

  “Yes, if I hadn’t found out about Aniseed Fire, I wouldn’t be around to tell you about it.”

  “But where did you get all these from?” Chester asked.

  “Nathaniel collected specimens for me whenever he went on his expeditions. I’ve still got a lot to learn about their properties, but time is one thing I’m not short of.”

  “Who’s Nathaniel?” Will cut in, unable to help himself.

  “My son. He’s on the hill,” Martha replied, with a glance at the top of the incline by the shack. Will tried to see where she’d been looking, filled with hope that there might be someone else a little less peculiar in the place, someone who might be able to help them. “Are we going to meet —?”

  “Let’s get the girl inside, shall we?” Martha interrupted brusquely, closing the door and driving a single bolt home on the inside.

  Chester caught Will’s eye, directing him to the side of the door, where there was a welder’s torch and a pair of gas cylinders on a cart, both of which were covered in some sort of creeper. It was obvious from the plants rambling over the equipment and the rust mottling the tanks that none of it had been touched in a good while. And there was no question that it was Topsoiler welding equipment.

  “Nathaniel … did he make this barrier?” Chester asked tentatively.

  Nodding, Martha turned to lead them up the path bathed in the ethereal glow.

  Midway along, Bartleby skidded to a halt, his large amber eyes fixed on something. As Will stopped behind the cat, he caught the sound of trickling water. “A stream?” he queried.

  Martha stepped to the side of the path. “A freshwater spring flows from behind the shack,” she said as Will located the small clear stream, its swirling current suffused with purple light from overhanging clusters of small blossoms. It looked otherworldly.

  “This place is wild,” Will said.

  “Thank you,” Martha replied. “It’s my little sanctuary. And I reckon the spring is why they chose this spot for the shack in the first place.”

  “Who was that? Who chose it?” Will asked excitedly.

  “They were sailors.”

  “Sailors?”

  “Yes. You’ll see when you get there,” she said.

  At the front of the shack, some steps lead up to a porch. Reaching the top, Will paused to inspect one of the thick beams supporting the awning above it. “Oak,” he said, running a finger over the wood, which was so old it had darkened almost to black, its surface covered in numerous runnels of wormholes. “Very old oak,” he decided as he examined the shack further and saw that its frame was also made from these thick beams, and that its walls were constructed from equally ancient tongue-and-groove planking.

  “So where did all this come from?” Will asked, pushing one of the planks with his foot and causing it to creak. He turned to Martha.

  “We thought the sailors salvaged it from their ship. But there was no one left to ask when we first came here.”

  At one end of the porch a number of kegs and large trunks were stacked, and in front of a window with its shutters closed stood a bench and a couple of chairs.

  The front door to the shack was ajar, and Martha elbowed it open and trundled straight in. Will and Chester didn’t wait to be invited, following across the threshold. At first all they could see in the gloom was a stone hearth in which cinders glowed, and some type of stove built into one side of
it.

  “Put a log on the fire, dearie,” Martha asked Chester. “You can dry yourselves off by it, and I’ll make us a brew in a minute,” she added as she lit two oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. Their yellow light revealed the rest of the room.

  “Yes, of course,” Chester replied, but he didn’t move, captivated by the interior, which was deceptively large.

  “I’ll get a bed ready for the girl,” Martha told Will, slipping away down a corridor. The boys listened as a cacophony of bangs and grunts immediately started up, accompanied by a load of chatter, as if Martha was talking to someone. She was clearly busy.

  “Just look at this place!” Chester exclaimed as he and Will took in what was around them.

  “Map chests,” Will noted, spying three low-slung cupboards with brass corners against one wall. On top of the chests were a row of carved objects — Will could make out a figure with a rifle, and by it a cave cow — one of the large arachnids that lived in the Deeps. As his eyes passed over the rest of the room, he could see that suspended in the corners were all kinds of nautical paraphernalia — harpoons, ropes and pulleys, a small net, and even a ship’s sextant of tarnished brass.

  Then Will spotted several swords with wide, slightly curved blades, also mounted on the wall.

  “Cutlasses! You’ve got to be kidding me!” he exclaimed. “So she’s right. All this looks as though it came from a ship, and an old one at that. A galleon, perhaps?” he said to Chester. “See those beams up there.” He pointed at the ceiling. “They’re superancient, like they could have come from the Tudors’ Mary Rose, five hundred years ago.”