Overtime Tom Holt

by Overtime (lit)

  'Go back down the corridor,' La Beale Isoud replied coldly, 'the way you came. It leads straight out into the wings. I suggest you wait for him to come off stage at the end of the first half.'

  'What a truly brilliant plan,' Guy said. 'All right, what's the message?'

  'Come on,' said Isoud, 'Follow me, and I'll tell you as we walk. But for heaven's sake don't dawdle.'

  She turned and trotted briskly away. After a moment's instinctive thought, Guy ran after her and caught her up.

  'I was sitting at home,' said La Beale Isoud, 'looking at the hyperfax -'

  'What's a

  'When the message came through which I couldn't make out. It said, Beware the one-armed man. Now even you'll agree that that's a very unusual message to get out of the blue like that.'

  Guy ignored the even-you bit. 'Odd,' he agreed politely. 'Perhaps it was an advertisement for something.'

  'Please, Mr Goodlet,' Isoud said, 'don't interrupt. Your untimely flippancy is quite probably your most disagreeable characteristic. I was wondering what on earth this message could possibly mean when - Mr Goodlet, is that gentleman a friend of yours?'

  Guy looked up, blinked twice and reached for where his revolver ought to be. Of course, it wasn't there any more.

  'Looking for this?' Pursuivant said. He waggled the revolver tauntingly. Probably out of sheer spite, it went off.

  'Eeek!' said La Beale Isoud, and for the first time Guy noticed that she was wearing - had been wearing - one of those tall and picturesque pointed female headdresses that one sees in illuminated manuscripts. He suppressed a snigger, jumped on Pursuivant, and banged his head hard on the ground.

  'Here we go again,' Pursuivant sighed, and died.

  Guy looked down. 'Damn,' he said, 'I've killed him. Oh well, can't be helped.' He prised his revolver out of Pursuivant's fingers and slipped it back in its holster. 'Sorry,' he said, 'you were saying?'

  But La Beale Isoud didn't reply. She was staring at him; no, not so much staring as looking.

  'Mr Goodlet!' she said.

  Guy frowned in puzzlement for a moment, and then a light bulb went on inside his head. He got up, retrieved Isoud's perforated headdress and handed it to her.

  'All in a day's work,' he said, smiling.

  'That was very -' Isoud said.

  'Brave?'

  'Yes,' replied La Beale Isoud, with just a touch of irritation. 'That was very brave of you, Mr Goodlet. You saw that I was in danger and you unhesitatingly ...

  'Yes,' Guy replied, 'I know. It's not every chap who'd do that, you know. Anyway, there you were, pondering this message.'

  'Oh yes. I was just wondering what on earth it could mean when another message came over the hyperfax. And do you know what it said?'

  'No.'

  'It said, Beware the one-legged man, Mr Goodlet. Well of course, that started me thinking, as you can imagine.'

  'Did it?'

  'And I was just beginning to get an inkling of an idea when a third message came through. Beware the one-eyed man. So of course I came here as fast as I could.'

  'You did?'

  'Naturally.'

  'Have a sausage roll?'

  'No, thank you, I had tea before I came out. The question is, Mr Goodlet, will we be in time?'

  'Who can say?' Guy replied. 'In time for what?'

  He got the feeling that under normal circumstances, La Beale Isoud would have said something less than complimentary. She didn't, however. How nice.

  In front of them was a door marked Stage Door; No Entry. On the other side of it, Blondel's voice stopped singing, there was a moment of complete silence, and then a deafening outburst of applause.

  'It's the interval,' Isoud cried. 'Come on, quickly!'

  She pushed the door and, before Guy could stop her, walked through.

  'Isoud!' Guy shouted, but it was too late. Too late to point out what was written on the door.

  He hesitated, just for a moment. It wasn't, he told himself, just the fact that he would be delighted to be rid of her; there was also the question of this cryptic message and the mysterious man who, despite his apparently overwhelming disabilities, was perceived to be so dangerous. On the other hand ...

  'Sod it,' he said, and followed.

  It wasn't a big apple; but to a man with a bad head, brought on by drinking slightly too much mulled ale in the Three Pilgrims the night before, it was plenty big enough.

  'Ouch!' said Sir Isaac Newton. He stood up, winced, and looked round for the gardener.

  'George!' he yelled. 'Come here this instant.'

  The gardener, an elderly man with a face that seemed to indicate feeble-minded dishonesty, waddled across from the asparagus bed. He was hiding something behind his back, as usual.

  'Look, George,' said Sir Isaac, 'didn't I tell you to get those damned apples picked last week, before they fell off the tree and spoiled?'

  George looked blank. Everyone, after all, is good at something.

  'Why haven't you picked the apples, George?'

  'Dunno, Master Isaac.'

  'Well,' said Sir Isaac, 'bloody well pick them now, all right? Before they do somebody a serious injury.'

  'Yes, Master Isaac.'

  'And if anybody wants me, I'll be in my study.'

  'Yes, Master Isaac.'

  As soon as Sir Isaac was safely out of sight, George took the bundle out from behind his back, unwrapped it carefully, and looked at it with pleasure.

  It was a pigeon. Very dead. Dead for some time. Still, a poor man has to eat, and on the wages Master Newton paid, a pigeon was a pigeon and to hell with minor decomposition. George grinned.

  Then the small gate in the wall opened and a young lady came bursting through. She was wearing funny, old-fashioned clothes, like someone out of one of those old stained-glass windows George had helped smash up during the Civil Wars, and she wore a sort of white witch's hat with a hole in it. George frowned, puzzled.

  The lady came to a sudden halt and stared at him.

  'Excuse me,' she said. George nodded vigorously. It was just possible that she hadn't noticed the pigeon.

  'Excuse me,' the lady repeated. 'Where

  'In the study, miss,' George replied. 'That way.' He pointed with his left hand.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'In the study, miss,' George said. 'Just this minute gone in, miss.

  The door flew open again, and this time it was a man.

  'Come on,' the man said to the lady, 'we'd better get back.'

  The lady turned. 'Mr Goodlet,' she said, 'what's going on?'

  'The door,' said the man. 'It had No Entry on it. Didn't you see?'

  The lady looked puzzled. 'What do you mean? Oh,' she added. 'It was one of those doors, was it?'

  George coughed deferentially. 'He's in the study, sir,' he said.

  'Exactly,' said the man to the lady, ignoring George. 'So here we are. We'd better find a town hall or something quick. With luck, we might just be able to find our way back to precisely the right moment. Have you got one of those maps?'

  'What maps?'

  'Ah,' the man said, 'that means you probably haven't. Never mind.' He turned and faced George. 'Excuse me,' he said.

  'He's in the -'

  'Which way to the town hall?' the man asked.

  George frowned. 'What town hall, sir?' he asked.

  'All right then,' said the man, 'what about a police station. Army barracks. Magistrate's court. Something like that.'

  George couldn't help shuddering. In court, at his age, and all for one lousy pigeon. He started to whimper.

  The noise had obviously reached the study, because Sir Isaac came out. He was holding a cold towel to his head, and he wasn't looking happy.

  'Will you please,' he said, 'keep the noise down?'

  'Sorry,' the man said. 'I wonder if you could help us. We're looking for a public building.'

  Sir Isaac gave them a look, as if trying to work out what on earth they were on about. A thought occu
rred to him, painfully. 'If you're desperate,' he said, 'you can use the one at the bottom of the kitchen garden.'

  'No, thank you,' the man replied, 'a public building. Like a corn exchange or a guildhall or something like that. Something with No Entry on the door.'

  'I ...' Sir Isaac said. 'Look, I don't want to seem inhospitable, but if this is some sort of a joke ...'

  'Really,' the man replied, 'this is an emergency, so if you could just ...'

  Sir Isaac closed his eyes. He had known it help sometimes. 'George,' he said, 'escort these people to the Municipal Hall.'

  'Yes, Sir Isaac.'

  The man was staring; looking at Sir Isaac's clothes and his periwig, apparently making some connection in his mind.

  'Sir Isaac?' he said.

  'Yes,' said Sir Isaac, 'that's right. Now if you'll just -'

  'Sir Isaac Newton?'

  'That's right. Do I know you?'

  The man was looking at him with something resembling awe. 'The Sir Isaac Newton? The Sir Isaac Newton who discovered gravity?'

  'I beg your ...' Sir Isaac stopped suddenly. In his ale-clogged mind, something suddenly clicked into place. 'Gravity!' he exclaimed. 'Yes, of course, that's it! Gravity!'

  The man was looking sheepish. 'Whoops,' he said, 'there I go again, putting my foot in it.'

  Sir Isaac's face was alight with joy. 'My dear sir,' he said, 'how can I ever ..

  But the man and the woman had gone.

  In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

  And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And God saw that it had potential, if it was handled properly.

  Originally, he had in mind a three-tiered development programme, with a residential area of high-quality executive starter-homes, a business and light industrial park and a spacious, purpose-built shopping precinct, all centred round a general amenity area and linked with a grid-pattern road layout. It was good; and maybe it wouldn't have won any design awards, but it would have done the job and returned something like 400 per cent on the initial outlay.

  The problem was the Eden (Phase II) Area Plan, and it was the same old story all over again. You hire an architect, he draws the plans, the quantity surveyor does the costings, the contractor does the schedules, everything's ready to roll and some shiny-trousered bureaucrat refuses to grant planning permission. And there you are, with a thousand billion acre site, eighty billion supernatural brickies, forty million miles of scaffolding, nine hundred thousand JCBs (all balanced on the head of a pin) and terminal planning blight.

  God, however, has patience. With a shrug of his shoulders, he walked away from the whole mess and occupied himself with a forty billion acre office development on Alpha Centauri. By the time he'd finished that, plus a little infilling in Orion's Belt and a couple of nice barn conversions in the Pleiades, there had been a number of changes in the political makeup of Eden County Hall. At long last, there Were people in charge there whom he could do business with.

  Of course, there had to be a public enquiry; there always is. But the problem was that, since the earth was still without form and void, there were no human beings, therefore no public, therefore there could be no enquiry and the previous decision would have to stand. Deadlock.

  It was then that the venture capital consortium funding the project, Beaumont Street Retrospective Developments Inc., took a hand. The three members of the consortium were admittedly domiciled millions of years in the future, but they were all bona fide human beings, and they would be delighted to hold an enquiry. No problem.

  The result of their deliberation was that the whole purpose of planning controls is to preserve the environment; but no development can actually damage the environment in the long term, because eventually, in the fullness of time, the physical laws of entropy will have effect, the world will come to an end, the Void will creep back, matter will implode into nothingness, and everything will be exactly the same as it originally was. The proposed development was, therefore, strictly temporary, and planning consent was not required for temporary structures.

  In the end, they did a deal: God was granted a ten billion year lease, the paperwork was tidied up, bulldozers rolled, and the rest is theology. Almost.

  It was, of course, the lawyers who cocked it up. When they sublet the development to the human race, there was some sort of snarl-up in the small print, and when the Antichrist turned up in AD 1000 to serve notice to quit, the human race grinned smugly, pointed to the appropriate page and refused to budge.

  The various flies on the wall of God's office that afternoon of 31st December AD 1000 all agree that the ensuing meeting was stormy. There was a free and frank exchange of views, which resulted in the Antichrist being turned into a skeleton and split down the middle (or as we would say nowadays, promoted sideways); the upshot was that the Antichrist was sent off to find a loophole in the lease, which he did.

  One of the conditions of the lease was that Mankind was obliged to worship the Landlord regularly and according to the forms prescribed by Mother Church. The Antichrist therefore immediately founded a rival church, presided over by Anti-Popes, with the aim of subverting religion, destroying faith, and nipping in to get the locks changed and the suitcases out on the street before 1690. It worked well to begin with, and eviction proceedings were actually under way when a minor human potentate called Richard Coeur de Lion started in motion a chain of events which would inevitably lead to universal peace, a return to the True Faith, and the building of the New Jerusalem. And there was absolutely nothing that anybody could do about it.

  Until, that is, the Antichrist overheard a minor Chastel des Larmes Chaudes functionary by the name of Pursuivant remarking that it would have been better all round if Richard had never been born. Something fell into place in the Antichrist's mind, and the result was the concept of time revision, editing and the Archives. All they had to do was edit Richard out of history, and they could have Mankind out of there in a hundred years flat, with a massive bill for dilapidations thrown in.

  It would have worked, if it hadn't been for one Blondel, a courtier, who inconveniently refused to accept that Richard had never existed, and started looking for him everywhere. As long as Blondel knew Richard had existed, Richard would have to continue to exist. The man was, to put it mildly, a menace.

  Somehow, all the efforts of the Chastel staff to find Blondel failed - remarkable enough in itself, since he spent a material amount of his time appearing at well-publicised concerts -until the day when the Antichrist received two tickets for the biggest Blondel gig of all; according to the pre-concert hype, the very last Blondel gig of all.

  Well yes, the Antichrist said to himself, the very last. The very last ever.

  'Do come in,' Blondel said. 'Would you like a drink? Do please sit down.'

  The Antichrist found no difficulty in walking, despite the lack of one leg; he walked perfectly naturally, as if he refused to believe that the other leg wasn't there. He could even stroll, trot and run if he saw fit. Just now, he was swaggering.

  'Thanks,' he said. 'I'll have a dry martini.'

  Blondel nodded and fiddled with the bottles on the drinks tray. 'What about you, Your Excellencies?'

  The two Popes Julian - or, to be exact, Pope and Anti-Pope - shook their heads. 'Not while they're on duty,' the Antichrist explained.

  'I thought that was only policemen.'

  'And Popes,' he replied, 'but only when they're being simultaneous.'

  'Ah yes,' Blondel said, handing the Antichrist his drink. 'I meant to ask you about that. They don't mind being discussed like this, do they?'

  'Not at all,' the Antichrist said. 'Since they can't speak, I do the talking for them. Not that they matter a damn, anyway, since I'm here. I only brought them in case they wanted to see the show.'

  'Thank you,' Blondel said, accepting the compliment. 'I gather that you're a fan, too.'

  'Absolutely,' the Antichrist replied. 'I've got a comple
te set. In fact, quite soon I shall have the only complete set in existence. It'll be a nuisance having to go down to the Archives every time I want to hear it, but never mind.'

  Blondel raised an eyebrow. 'The Archives?' he said. 'How do you mean?'

  'Now then,' the Antichrist said, 'don't be obtuse. You're coming with me, Blondel, whether you like it or not. You've had your bit of fun, but it's all over. You do understand that, don't you?'

  'Have an olive,' Blondel replied. 'They're quite good, actually.'

  'Thank you.'

  'Enjoying the show?'

  'Yes. Very much.'

  Blondel sat down and put his hands behind his head. 'Pity you won't hear the second half, then.'

  The Antichrist shrugged. 'That's how it is,' he said. 'Why did you do it, Blondel? Have you just got tired of running? Or have you finally seen how much damage you've been doing all these years?'

  'You mean,' Blondel replied, 'why did I invite you to my concert?'

  'That's right.'

  Blondel leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands. 'Simple,' he said. 'I'd have invited you to all my concerts, but I've only just found out your address. Or at least your telephone and fax numbers. I've wanted to get in touch with you for a very long time.'

  The Antichrist grinned. 'I'll bet,' he said. 'But why didn't you just go along with Pursuivant and Clarenceaux? I sent them to fetch you, hundreds of times.'

  'And it was very kind of you,' Blondel said. 'To be absolutely frank - another olive? - I don't feel entirely comfortable with Clarenceaux and Pursuivant and that lot. If I'd gone with them when you so kindly sent them to fetch me, I'd have felt - how shall I put it?'

  'Captured?'

  'Yes, that'll do. Captured. How is Richard, by the way?'

  The Antichrist smiled. 'I don't know,' he said. 'I gather he's still down there, somewhere. Can't be very comfortable for him, what with the rats and the complete isolation and the darkness and the damp and everything, but until you've been sorted out, we can't send him on to his Archive. Pity, really; it s a nice Archive. He'll like it. And so will you.'

  'No doubt.' Blondel sat on the arm of the sofa and looked at his watch. 'Look, I hate to rush you, but I've got to be back on stage in five minutes, and I want to have a word with the idiot in charge of the lights. Don't you think it's time we did a deal?'