Ogg

  Chapter 22

  She was back home. Perg had dropped her off at her house, apologising yet again for himself and his father. Now it was late in the evening and still no sign of Ogg. She had had an idea, she really wanted to talk to him and she was in a vile mood. She had done her homework, but it had involved stomping around her room and throwing books about so noisily that her mother had gone up to see if she was all right. Then she had phoned Perg, and had been so short with him that she had had to call back and apologise. One of the annoying things about having a Great Being as your friend and helper is that they have no phone number or email address, so you just have to wait until they contact you. Normally waiting wasn’t a problem for Antonia, but she had just had a great idea that might be the answer they were seeking, and she really wanted to tell Ogg about it. It seemed to her that he had never gone for so long before without checking in, just to see how she was and if she had anything new. She began to feel that he was deliberately avoiding her, moving no doubt in one of his mysterious ways. Maybe had had used his special powers to check her thoughts out and decided he had more important things to do, but she was so sure she had the right answer that she couldn’t convince herself of this. So, what was keeping him? Suddenly he materialised before her, and Antonia didn’t even give him time to say hello.

  “Ogg, I’ve just thought of something you’ve obviously missed.”

  Ogg smiled. He didn’t really believe he could have missed anything, so the smile had a bitter touch of condescendence, but Antonia didn’t notice. Having a good idea often serves to obscure what is happening around you.

  “If you have been using time as often as you wish,” Antonia began, “and for different purposes each time, then there must be several versions of history. But, when we went back in time, we only saw one version. The answer we are seeking may lie in another history, in one of those we haven’t seen yet. Maybe we need to keep going back until we find the right version of history, the one which will tell us the secret of the future.”

  “Your logic is perfectly correct, Ant, and we could indeed do that. But it would take an awful long time.”

  She gave him a long cool disapproving stare. How many times had they discussed how meaningless the idea of time was when you had Ogg’s time travelling abilities. It was insulting really, Ogg. If you want to use an excuse rather than a reason for something, at least come up with a credible one.

  “Not that time matters, of course, Ant.” Ogg replied hurriedly. “But we might make quicker progress by taking a trip together to the last day of the future.”

  “Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”

  “Why?’

  “The last day of the future has already moved closer once. What if it moves again, while we’re there? We could be stranded for ever on the wrong side of eternity.”

  “Worth the risk, don’t you think, Ant? With the future of mankind at stake?”

  “Just the two of us? You’re not thinking of taking Perg?” Antonia asked. She was worried, she was sure the idea was very dangerous.

  “I don’t think we need him this time, and no point in putting more people at risk than absolutely necessary.”

  It obviously was dangerous. No use Ogg trying to make light of it! It was a big decision for Antonia. She had to go, of course. Too much at stake not to.

  “Well, OK Ogg. But I need to make a phone call first.”

  “Go ahead!”

  “A private phone call!”

  “Ant, this is me, your Ogg. You know all my powers. You can’t have any secrets from me.”

  “Yes, I do know that,” she snapped. “But just go away for a minute, so that I can at least feel I have some privacy.”

  Ogg obligingly disappeared. Antonia dialled Perg’s number.

  “Perg, it’s me.”

  “Hi!”

  “I’m going on a mission with Ogg and I just wanted to say goodbye.”

  “You’re nor coming back?”

  “I hope so, but who can tell the future?”

  “It’s dangerous, isn’t it? I’ll come too.”

  “No, it’s a two person job, and Ogg is working on a need–to-go basis.”

  “In that case I’ll go instead of you.”

  “Perg, you know it doesn’t work like that. If Ogg asked me, it’s because he needs me, and not you.”

  Neither of them spoke for a few minutes.

  “Well, be careful, Ant.”

  “I will, Perg.”

  She cut off her phone quickly. Ogg appeared immediately and Ant knew he must have been listening in. Didn’t Great Beings know that some things just were none of their business.

  “Ready, Ant?”

  She nodded, and Ogg, with his usual lack of ceremony, projected them forward to the very last day of absolutely everything.

  This was Antonia’s first trip forward in time, and it seemed to take longer than the other trips. . All her other time travels had been to the past. The past was fact, she could read about it in books; but the future was mystery and speculation, and curiosity may be mankind’s strongest instinct. As they travelled, Antonia had time to let the anticipation of what was waiting for her push the danger the back of her mind. Her expectations were so high. But, as is often the case, reality failed to live up to her expectations.

  “The future looks pretty much the same as the present to me,” she remarked.

  “It doesn’t look at all the same from where I’m standing,” a voice at her feet barked. She looked down to see that Ogg had for some inexplicable reason decided to change himself into a small and not entirely handsome dog.

  “So how does the future look to you?” she asked.

  “It’s not so much how it looks, it’s how it sounds. Everything is so deathly quiet.”

  It was anything but quiet to Antonia. They were in the middle of a crowded shopping mall. Background music was seeping out of several shops, an amorphous cacophony of styles and genres. Shopping trolleys were squeaking, cash points were clanging, shoes were slapping on polished floors. People were prattling in various languages, some of which she understood, most of which she didn’t. To her it was an overwhelming wall of sound, and Ogg had the additional burden of hearing people think.

  “Can’t you hear all the music, all those machines?” she asked him.

  “I can only hear humans.”

  “What about all those people talking and shouting?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Their most secret and innermost thoughts?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You mean that all of those people, every single one of them in fact, is a non-human?”

  Ogg just looked up at her with sad doggy eyes and hung his head. Antonia took a fresh look at her surroundings. She listened more closely to the clamour and clatter which was almost deafening her. The noise seemed like the internal workings of a large and complicated machine. The little barbs of conversation she could discern above the general background hum seemed like senseless, mechanical phrases – ‘hello, goodbye, how much, where to, thank you, ‘scuse me’. She couldn’t be sure – the people weren’t speaking English. Bodies were being transported on conveyor belts from one level to another. People were parading in orderly files through doors which flew open to let them pass. Shoppers filed in front of check-outs, stacks of purchasers waiting to be processed. Grey figures in grey clothes marched everywhere, expressionless eyes staring out of colourless faces from which all signs of active biological processes had disappeared. Was this the end of mankind? Had we all been replaced by unthinking robots in some great self-perpetuating economic contraption?

  “I think you should get down to some work now,” Ogg said to Antonia. She had no idea what kind of work he was talking about. This is exactly the kind of problem that many of Ogg’s friends come across every day. They want to do Ogg’s work. Indee
d some of his most assiduous followers consider that it is their duty to do Ogg’s work. But how do they find out what this work is? Certainly not from Ogg, who observes a strict policy of letting his friends find out everything for themselves, with the inevitable consequence that a lot of strange and inappropriate things are done in Ogg’s name.

  But in this case Ogg had provided Antonia with a bit of a clue to the task he had in mind, because she suddenly realised she was holding a clip-board and a bundle of questionnaires Inspecting herself further, she found that Ogg had dressed her in a rather smart plain blue suit with a neat businesslike straight skirt

  “I supposed you expect me to stop people and ask them all these questions?” she asked, with that arrogant teenage aggressiveness which so infuriates most adults. “I’ve no idea where we are, and I can’t understand a word of this language.”

  “Don’t be such a baby, Ant. I’m always here to keep an eye on you. You can trust me”

  Antonia was just on the verge of becoming a great thinker, and if there’s one thing a great thinker needs more than anything else, it’s a healthy dose of scepticism about everything and everyone, Oggs included. She was having severe misgivings about the whole situation, and not without cause.

  The first sign of trouble was a loud unintelligible voice shouting angrily at them. The voice was emanating from a neatly-pressed grey uniform topped by an officious peaked cap, and it was obviously not in a good mood. It was speaking in that mysterious foreign language, but Antonia found that she knew exactly what it was saying. She could even discern an accent.

  “Oi’, you! There ain’t no dogs allowed in ‘ere. Get ‘im out, quick!”

  “Why on earth did you choose to be a dog this time, Ogg? He’s going to throw us out.”

  “Ignore him!” Ogg replied, puffing out his chest.

  The angry voice had a uniform and official status. It was not to be ignored.

  “C’mon miss, take your dog outside! This ain’t no place for a dog.”

  “He’s not my dog,” Antonia found herself saying, without meaning to. She supposed that Ogg had momentarily borrowed her vocal equipment.

  At this point the canine Ogg appeared to go completely mad. He rushed at the feet of the oncoming uniform, barking in a pathetic but effective series of staccato squeaks, almost knocking his victim off balance. The guard lunged at him, and Ogg fled. The uniform gave chase. The automatic doors flew open in front of him, but Ogg was in one of his mischievous moods and scorned such an easy escape. Instead he bounded up a down-escalator, turning at the top to mock the sweating and grunting security man who had tried to follow him. He was puffing and panting as he tried to go up while the grim mechanical determination of the machine was taking him back down. When his pursuer at last reached the top, Ogg fled along the passage and down the up-escalator at the opposite end of the building, stopping again to taunt the exhausted security man. Ogg completed his torture with a disdainful canter to safety through the automatic doors. The security guard, breathless, dishevelled and devoid of all dignity, clung desperately to an internal pillar and shook his fist weakly through the smoked glass.

  Antonia was beginning to get really annoyed with Ogg. She disliked puffed-up little men in uniforms as much as anyone, but in their situation wasn’t it a bit stupid to make enemies unnecessarily? She had no idea where she was, she understood nothing anyone said and the world was due to come to an end any second. And apparently all that Ogg could think of was to pretend to be a mad puppy and play stupid games with security men. She had been relying on him, and he had failed to come up to expectations. Well, she would just have to get on with the task of saving mankind entirely by herself.