The Portable Door (1987)

by Tom Holt

  If he saw the look of cold, steely hatred that Sophie shot in his direction after he said that, he gave no sign of it. “Right,” he said, “that’s about it from me. I think Ricky Wurmtoter wants a quick word with you, so I’ll leave you to it.” He swept up his papers, rose out of his chair like a god-emperor-in-a-box, and strode out of the room without looking round.

  Mr Wurmtoter waited till he was out of the room before opening his mouth or even moving. Then he sort of flowed across the room and perched on the corner of the table.

  “Hi,” he said, and smiled in a manner that could have sold a huge amount of toothpaste. “Paul, how’s things?”

  “Sophie, I don’t think we’ve met since your interview; I’m Rick Wurmtoter, I look after pest control and stuff like that.” He reached out a large, beautiful hand, and Sophie was apparently so taken aback that she shook it, and even almost smiled.

  “I don’t want to hold you up,” Mr Wurmtoter went on, “and I’m sure you’re dying to get back to your Mortensen Counter charts, but I thought it was about time—” He stopped, and looked at Paul. “Sorry,” he said, “was there something?”

  Paul hadn’t made a sound that he’d been aware of; but this was too good an opportunity to let pass. “Sorry,” he said. “Mortensen Counter?”

  Mr Wurmtoter grinned, in the process proving beyond question that he wasn’t related to Mr Tanner. “Those incredibly boring spreadsheet things you’ve been archiving for us,” he said. “It’s a really rotten job, which is why you got lumbered with it, but the Mortensens are absolutely fundamental to everything we do.” He hesitated, frowned a little. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “No,” Sophie said.

  “Ah. Fine. That’s standard JWW operating procedure, what we refer to as the photographic approach to in-service training—keep you completely in the dark, and wait to see what develops. There’s another version of that one involving mushrooms, but you’ve probably heard it before and besides, it’s rather vulgar.” He clasped his hands round his right knee and leaned back a little. “The Mortensen Counter,” he went on, “is a bit like a Geiger counter, and a bit like the gadgets the earthquake people—seismologists, that’s the word—a bit like what they use for measuring earth tremors on the Richter scale. Surprise surprise, it was invented by a certain professor Olaf Mortensen—actually, he was a partner in JWW about sixty years ago, but he fell down a Probability Well in 1946, and the chances of him ever coming back are getting slenderer by the minute. Anyhow, Mortensen Counters basically record supernatural activity worldwide—we have Counters set up right across the world, and about half a dozen in planetary orbit, not forgetting Wellsco One parked up there in the middle of the Sea of Tranquillity, though between you and me it looks depressingly like it’s bust, because we haven’t heard a peep out of it since 1931.”

  (Nineteen thirty-one, Paul thought; and although he couldn’t remember offhand when the first Sputnik was launched, he was nevertheless impressed, even though it was just a tad disconcerting to think that this collection of weirdos had already been leaving their clutter where no man had gone before while Neil Armstrong was still in rompers.)

  Mr Wurmtoter took a small gold box out of his pocket, flipped it open, took out something that looked like a wine gum, and swallowed it. “The loathsome little bits of paper you’ve been shuffling,” he went on, “are the transcripts of the readings from each counter. Yes, as you’ve probably noticed by now, they’re just jumbles of apparently meaningless numbers; actually, the Counters record data in digital form, like radio telescopes, and by examining the printouts we can get all sorts of information that we need in order to be able to do our job. As far as we’re concerned, they’re the shipping forecast and the FT Index and the lottery numbers and the All-England Law Reports and the runners and riders at Sandown Park all rolled into one; and the real pain of it is, most of the Counters transmit their data outside office hours, and the go—” He stopped short, then grinned. “Sorry. Mr Tanner’s sisters and his cousins and his aunts can’t resist scooping them up straight off the machines and playing with them. Which means,” he added with a sigh, “when we come in every morning, instead of a neatly stacked pile of reports waiting for us, there’s a dreadful mess all over the Mortensen Room floor and we’ve got to pick them up—apart from the ones Mr Tanner’s family have eaten or used as toilet paper—and hand them over to some poor devil to sort out. For which,” he added, “we’re profoundly grateful, though apparently nobody’s taken the time to say so. Anyhow,” he said, “we are, so there.”

  Complete silence. Paul’s mind’s eye was filled with a ghastly tableau of Mr Tanner in a space-suit planting a flag with the J.W. Wells logo on it, while various goblins floated past him throwing moon-rocks at each other. What Sophie thought of it all he couldn’t say, but he doubted whether she was impressed.

  “But that,” Mr Wurmtoter said, “wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. Instead,” he continued, “I wanted to give you the Deadly Perils spiel. Really, you should’ve had it on Day One, but since our office culture actually manages to achieve the level of secrecy and obfuscation that MI5 struggles so endearingly to attain, it’s had to wait till now. Silly, if you ask me, but there you are.”

  Sophie, who’d been watching Mr Wurmtoter with the rapt attention of a snake-charmer’s snake, seemed to wake up suddenly. “What deadly perils?” she asked.

  “Ah,” Mr Wurmtoter said. “I was coming to that. Actually, you’ve already sort of blundered into Item One, which should have been, “For crying out loud, make sure you’re out of the door by five-thirty.” No lasting harm done, thankfully, so we’ll go on to Item Two. Now, then. Have either of you two had occasion to use the lavatory on the third floor?”

  Paul and Sophie shook their heads.

  “Good,” Mr Wurmtoter replied. “Don’t. I’d rather not go into details, since I’ve got an early start in the morning and I’d like to get some sleep tonight, which I won’t if I start thinking about it. Just don’t, is all. Item Three: ambient and residual fallout. Actually, this is really bad news. Long story short, we do an awful lot of magic around here, and—well, if you think industrial waste in the chemicals industry is a major problem, you really don’t want to know about what we’re pumping into the environment three-sixty-five days a year. But that’s all right, because we’re caring, responsible employers and you’re no earthly use to us if we come in one morning and find you hopping round the office going rivet-rivet; so please wear these—” he reached in his other pocket and produced two shining gold rings—“at all times. Here, try them on, they’re one-size-fits-all, and they’re fairly harmless, won’t make you disappear or start craving for fish and calling yourself Precious. Actually, you’re lucky: these are the Mark 6—I’ve only got the Mark 5.”

  Reluctantly, Paul pushed the ring on his finger. At first it was far too small, but it expanded like rubber. He could feel his skin tingling where the metal touched it.

  “Of course,” Mr Wurmtoter went on, “these little honeys won’t protect you against everything that’s out there. In fact, to be savagely honest, they’re roughly the magical equivalent of an Anderson shelter, though at the same time a vast improvement on the alternative, which is nothing at all. Remember: don’t take them off, not even for a second, because Humph Wells and Countess Judy have got better things to do than waste time kissing junior trainees. Item Four.”

  Mr Wurmtoter stood up, and reached his hand out over the table. There was something in it; something alive, and wriggly. He opened his fingers a little, and a mouse’s head appeared between them. With his other hand, very delicately, he slipped a finely woven silver collar and lead over the mouse’s neck, then put the animal down on the table.

  “This,” said Mr Wurmtoter, “is Kurt. Actually, that’s Mr Lundqvist to you, since in theory he’s still a partner in the firm, though for fairly obvious reasons he hasn’t been taking much part in day-to-day business for a while. Mr Lundqvist�
��wave to the nice trainees, Kurt.” (The mouse stood on its hind paws and waved.) “Mr Lundqvist used to have my job, popping dragons and generally chivvying wildlife, until one day he put his foot in a Consequence Mine. Well, being out of the office a lot and being out of touch for weeks on end pretty much goes with the territory in Kurt’s and my line of work, so it was a while before anybody noticed he hadn’t been around much lately and came looking; and by then, I’m afraid, the effects were more or less irreversible, and now Kurt’s stuck like it, just like his mum warned him he would.” The mouse reared up and tried to bite Mr Wurmtoter’s hand. “Just kidding, Kurt,” Mr Wurmtoter said, getting his hand well out of the way. “The point is this. Consequence Mines, Probability Wells, Xavier Distortions, Groundhog-Day Loops, you name it, they’re out there. This is a pretty cut-throat business we’re in, and I’m afraid that at various points along the way you risk ticking people off, sometimes quite severely. And sometimes, for a whole variety of reasons, they try and do nasty things to you. In Kurt’s case, he was tracking down a thoroughly unpleasant character who was in the business of turning dead people into zombies and setting them to work manning late-night Internet helplines. This bad guy simply wouldn’t come out to play, kept ducking and running whenever Kurt got within a mile of him, until finally Kurt got a bit upset and sent him an e–mail asking whether he was a man or a mouse. Actually,” Mr Wurmtoter added, “Consequence Mines are really nasty, because not only do they kill you or disfigure you in horrible ways, they’re also designed to make you look a complete and utter prawn into the bargain. Anyhow,” he added, as the mouse made a determined but futile leap after the tip of his little finger, “there’s not a lot we can do about them, except, obviously, be careful—and that’s a really useless piece of advice if ever there was one—and also to wear one of these at all times.” From his inside pocket he produced two little enamel badges, marked PREFECT. “Sorry about the lettering,” Mr Wurmtoter said. “If you like, you can wear it inside your clothes someplace, where nobody can see. I do. The point of these is, as soon as something horrid happens to you, these things send a coded signal to Wellsco Three, which in turn triggers an alarm, and one of us comes and fetches you a.s.a.p., and if there’s anything we can do—well, anyway. Kurt here was a silly boy and forgot to put his on, so let that be a lesson to both of you.” The mouse suddenly made a determined attempt to escape, nearly yanking the end of his lead out from between Mr Wurmtoter’s fingers. “One last thing,” Mr Wurmtoter added, “I’d like you to take a careful look at Kurt here, and then, just for the hell of it, take a gander at his reflection in the tabletop.”

  Paul did as he was told; and, upside down under the mouse’s paws, he saw the image of a tiny man in combat fatigues and top-of-the-range Ray-Bans, a minuscule one-thirty-second scale Kalashnikov slung across his back, scrabbling vainly at the polished wood with hands and feet.

  “In the trade,” Mr Wurmtoter said, “we call them imp-reflecting mirrors. It’s a Chinese invention, extremely useful; anything that’s changed its shape or been transformed by magic shows up in one of these as what it really is. You can stick ‘em to anything, within reason; we’ve got one on our boardroom table because when you’re face to face with the other side’s crack negotiating team, it does no harm at all to know precisely what you’re really up against. The ones you really want to watch out for, of course, are the ones who don’t show up at all. If ever you get one of them, I suggest you run away very fast indeed.” He hauled the mouse up into the air by its collar and tucked it away in another inside pocket. “Anyhow,” he said, “that’s quite enough of that to be going on with. The main thing is, of course, not to panic or get unduly worried, because although it’s pretty dangerous out there it’s not as bad as all that, and indeed several of our partners have lived long, rich lives and died in their beds, or at least in beds. And if all else fails, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear that your employee remuneration package includes specialist health-care insurance, as well as a generous death-in-service lump sum and an even more generous undeath-in-service annuity, index-linked to keep your dependants in luxury and you in coffins and AB negative for the rest of time; which is a tremendous comfort, I’m sure you’ll agree.” Mr Wurmtoter glanced down at his watch. “Well,” he said, “I could carry on for hours warning you about this and that, but it’s twenty-five past and you’d better be getting your coats. One last last thing, though.” He looked at them both, then turned to face the curtained window, almost as if he was embarrassed or something. “Personal relationships,” he said. “Now I know it’s absolutely none of our business what or who you get up to or with in your spare time, and if anybody said to me what I’m about to say to you I’d probably bust his nose for him; but—well, number one, look before you leap, all that glitters isn’t necessarily the real deal, and there’s absolutely nothing worse than waking up in the morning, flashing your imp-reflecting mirror over the tousled head on the pillow next to you, and then having to rush to the bathroom and throw up. So, if you don’t know where it’s been, don’t play with it. Number two, in our line of work the expression ‘safe sex’ is a bit like saying ‘safe hand grenades’, so if in doubt, leave the pin in or, at the very least, get rid of it quick. Finally, number three: to paraphrase the King James version, better a dinner of herbs with a face like a prune but at least you know what species you’re dealing with than a stalled ox that makes the earth move but can’t necessarily be relied on to put it back again afterwards.” He pulled a sad face and added: “I’m probably not putting this as well as humanly possible, but I’m sure you get the general idea. Anyhow, you’re grownups, basically it’s up to you, but use your common sense and if you possibly can find an excuse for keeping that prefect’s badge on at all times, then if something does go wrong, you do stand a better chance of us finding you while there’s still enough of you left to find. All right, you’d best be going before the door’s locked.”

  Long, chilly silence. Then Sophie said, “Can we go now, please?” and Paul didn’t need scrying stones or imp-revealing mirrors or not-chocolate-covered dragon-droppings to know that she was on her way to meet the performance potter; furthermore, he suspected that if Mr Wurmtoter knew a tenth as much about people as he presumably did about dragons, he’d have taken one look at the cold glare in her eye and jumped out of the window. Paul let her go first, and took care to stay several paces behind her all the way back to their office.

  §

  Paul had believed in the existence of six a.m. for many years, just as he’d always believed in the yeti and the Loch Ness monster; in the same way, he’d always devoutly hoped that he’d never have to confront any of them face to face. But, somehow or other, he made it to the office door on time, to find Sophie already waiting. She was wearing a suit that had probably belonged to her grandmother, who’d presumably kept it for funerals.

  “Hello,” she muttered in her best doomed voice.

  “Hello,” he replied, hoping the door would open. It didn’t.

  “Well,” Sophie went on, making a mime routine out of consulting her watch, “we’re here on time.”

  Paul nodded. “He did say six o’clock, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thought so. Of course, he could have meant six o’clock in the evening.”

  “No. He said morning.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought he said.”

  There were rather more people about in the streets than Paul had expected, and quite a few of them turned to look at Sophie. None of them laughed out loud, which was something. Nevertheless, he could feel the tension building up, and decided that he’d better defuse it by saying something before there was any bloodshed. “How’s things?” he asked awkwardly.

  She looked at him. “How do you mean?”

  “Oh, generally.”

  “All right,” she replied. A long silence, definitely a moment, possibly even a moment and a quarter. Then she scowled and said, “I thought you weren’t talking t
o me.”

  “What?” Paul felt himself panicking. Not a good idea; today was likely to be a long day, quite difficult enough as it was without atmospheres and melodrama. “No,” he said. “I mean, aren’t I? I thought I was.”

  “Really. You haven’t said a word to me for weeks, apart from: “Pass the stapler’ and:’Have you finished with the Sellotape?””

  “Oh,” Paul said. “I mean, I hadn’t realised. No offence. I guess I’ve been, I mean, my mind’s been on other things, I suppose.”

  She gave him a look you could have kebabed sliced lamb on. “So you aren’t angry with me or anything?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Fine.” She shrugged slightly, body language for You lying bastard. “That’s all right, then. This is stupid.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Making us get here at the crack of dawn and then keeping us hanging about on the doorstep.”

  “Yes,” Paul said.

  Moments were coming as thick as flies on a cow-pat. “So,” she said, “how about you?”

  “Me? Oh, I’m fine.”

  “You said you’d been worried about something.”

  He made a show of frowning. “No, nothing in particular.”

  “You said your mind’s been on other things.”

  “Oh, right, yes.” He nodded one time too many. “Just things in general, really. You know—goblins and magic and stuff.”

  She sighed. “What do you make of it all?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “I mean, it’s all weird and horrible, but we’re sort of stuck, aren’t we?”

  “Are we?”

  “I reckon so. I mean, if we stay away from the office, Mr Tanner’ll have us doing revolting things in the street.”