by Tom Holt
The policeman didn’t say anything for five, possibly six seconds; then he breathed in through his nose and said ‘Thank you, you’ve been most helpful. Mr . . .?’
‘Willis. Paul Willis. 78A Philby Court, Casement Road.’ He told them his home phone number, too. The policeman wrote it all down in a little book, then turned and looked at Susan. ‘Miss?’ he said.
‘Hm?’
‘Could I have your name and address, please?’
Susan frowned. ‘Why?’
‘We need it for our records.’
‘Why?’
Paul couldn’t do anything except close his eyes. This was terrible. How could Susan be so stupid?
‘In case we need to get in touch with you about anything.’
‘Why would you need to get in touch with me?’ Susan said. ‘He’s told you everything we know.’
Paul opened his eyes. The policeman was trying to read Susan’s mind, but it wasn’t working; he was sure he saw a little flicker of surprise on the man’s face as his scanning beam was bounced back. But, oh God, why did she have to go and make an exhibition of herself like this?
‘All right,’ the policeman replied. ‘That’ll be all for now. Thank you for your help.’
He put enough spin on that last word to invest it with its own gravitational field, but if Susan noticed, she didn’t show any sign of it. ‘That’s all right,’ Paul burbled quickly. ‘Any time.’ But the policeman wasn’t recognising his existence any more. He was concentrating exclusively on Susan. And not getting anywhere. After one last high-voltage stare, he turned round and marched out through the door, followed a moment later by his sidekick.
Almost immediately, reaction set in. Paul sat down where he hoped his chair was - luckily he was more or less on target - and tried not to be too obvious about shaking like a leaf. School was out in his mind, and the reactions came spilling noisily out into the playground - bloody Susan, what the hell did she think she was playing at? My God, Karen’s a thief. Or a terrorist, even. Just goes to show, you never can tell. So that’s what it’s like being grilled by the fuzz. Please, sir, can I be sick now?
‘What on earth,’ Susan was saying, ‘do you think all that was about?’
Paul lifted his head and looked at her. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious.’
‘Not to me.’
‘What possessed you to answer him back like that?’ he demanded. ‘You’re just lucky he didn’t arrest you right there.’
‘What for?’
Paul opened his mouth to reply, because the answer was obvious. Then he closed it again, thought for a moment and said, ‘Obstructing the police. That’s a crime.’
‘Really?’ Susan shrugged. ‘Well, nobody could accuse you of that. You were all over him. I was embarrassed.’
‘You were embarrassed?’
‘Makes me wish I’d had a tape recorder handy,’ she said. ‘Sort of obsessive. Definitely a loner. I was waiting for you to say her eyes were too close together.’
Paul scowled. ‘Well, it’s true,’ he said. ‘Not about the eyes, but the obsessive bit. And the keeping herself to herself—’
‘Dear God,’ Susan sighed. ‘And just half an hour ago you were dying of a broken heart. Men,’ she added.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Susan gave him a contemptuous smile. ‘It’s the old power thing,’ she said. ‘Men worship authority, it makes you go all weak at the knees. Another five minutes and you’d have been trying to lick his ears.’
Paul could feel pinkness spreading rapidly across his face. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, ridiculously. ‘You’re the one who ought to be ashamed of herself, coming over all bolshy like that. I suppose you thought you were being clever.’
Susan shook her head, indicating that the subject was closed. ‘I should have made him tell me why they were looking for her, though,’ she said.
‘He wouldn’t have told you. It’s probably classified.’
Susan giggled. ‘Classified?’
‘Or sub judice, or whatever the word is. They aren’t allowed to go telling people things. Stands to reason.’
‘Does it really? I’ll have to take your word for that.’ She perched on the edge of her desk. ‘So what do you think they’re after her for?’ she said.
Paul shrugged. ‘How should I know?’
‘You think she’s in trouble, don’t you? The Brinks Mat job. The Littlehampton pillar box bombings.’
‘What? I haven’t heard about any—’
‘I just made them up,’ Susan explained. ‘God, you’re so suggestible. My guess is,’ she went on, ‘something’s happened to a close relative - father or mother or something - and they’re looking for her to tell her. But she’d already heard, which is why she went off so suddenly. Doesn’t that make rather more sense than Karen being the Barrow-in-Furness Ripper?’
Paul wilted a little, because of course it did. ‘You could be right,’ he said, ‘how the hell would I know? None of our business, anyway.’
Susan took a deep breath, got up and returned to her chair. Paul didn’t notice the slight frown on her face as she turned her computer monitor back on.
‘Exactly,’ she said.
‘This is going to hurt,’ the scientist said. ‘A lot.’
She wasn’t gloating, exactly; there was no fiendish laughter or twirling of moustaches. On the other hand, she didn’t seem particularly bothered about it, either. Rule 6(b) in the heroes’ basic training manual puts it very succinctly. Mad scientists aren’t usually any bother; it’s the sane ones you want to look out for.
‘You may be thinking,’ she went on, drawing back the plunger and filling the chamber of the syringe with whatever was in that small, unlabelled bottle, ‘that I’m going to have real problems getting you to hold still long enough to stick this in you. But that’s OK. You see this?’ In her left hand she held up another small bottle. This one was blue. ‘Two drops of this shit in there with you and you won’t be able to wiggle so much as a fin. I guess,’ she went on, smiling a little, ‘this is what’s known as the hard way. But as far as I’m concerned it’s going to be very, very easy.’ The dragon backed away until his fin hit the wall of the tank, recognising for the first time in his long, adventurous life that there was absolutely nothing he could do about the wholly superior forces ranged against him. He watched as the first blue drop hit the water, followed by the second, and the third . . .
‘Hello again,’ said a voice beside him. He opened his eyes—
—His eyes, for the first time in ages. All three of them.
‘Don’t try to move,’ the voice advised him. ‘I had these clamps specially made. Chrome molybdenum steel for toughness, case-hardened to eighty points Rockwell in case you were thinking of trying to chew through them. I had your teeth tested while you were under and they’re only sixty-five which isn’t bad, harder than a file-blade, but not good enough in this instance. If you try gnawing on these babies, you’ll regret it.’
Clamps? the dragon wondered, craning his neck. Oh, those clamps; the ones that were pinning him to the hydraulic ramp he was lying on. ‘Thanks for the tip,’ he growled.
‘You’re welcome. I really don’t want you hurting yourself, you know. I mean, if you get damaged, where am I going to get another specimen from?’
The dragon didn’t reply; he was preoccupied with the feel of his own shape, the glorious relief of being his own size again, of having legs and wings and a proper tail instead of the drowned-moth-wing arrangement he’d been starting to get used to. ‘How did you manage it?’ he asked.
‘Getting you back, you mean?’ The scientist smiled. ‘It was pretty straightforward. Not easy, but straightforward. Really, it was just a matter of pumping you full of muscle relaxant and letting your physical memory do the rest. Like letting the air out of a balloon, only the other way round. There was a twenty-three per cent chance the dosage I had to use would kill you, but since you were being so damned uncooperative I
didn’t really have a choice. Headache?’
The dragon shook his head. ‘Dragons don’t feel pain,’ he said. ‘Completely impervious to it, in fact.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes,’ the dragon replied with more than a hint of pride. ‘We deliberately bred it out of our species twelve thousand years ago as a response to - yow!’
‘Fibber,’ the scientist said indulgently, switching the electric current off again. ‘It was a good idea, though - make me believe I couldn’t hurt you, so I’d despair of ever getting any answers out of you. It wouldn’t have worked, though. We humans have ways of inflicting pain that you people simply couldn’t imagine. And yes, I know it sounds corny. The truth often is.’
The dragon growled softly. ‘You’d better carry on, then,’ he said. ‘If it comes to a contest between your ability to hand the stuff out and our ability to take it, that might prove interesting. More so than sitting watching the tennis, anyway.’
‘Actually,’ the scientist replied, ‘I quite like tennis.’
‘Really? How extraordinary. All right, you can start now. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s being kept waiting.’
The scientist smiled. ‘I haven’t told you what I want yet. How can you refuse to talk when you don’t even know what it is you aren’t going to tell me?’
‘Simple,’ the dragon replied. ‘I’m not going to tell you anything .’
‘Maybe I wasn’t going to ask you anything,’ the scientist said. ‘For all you know, I’ve had you brought here and forcibly restrained just so I can tell you the story of my life.’
The dragon sighed. ‘Oh, I hope not,’ he said.
‘How sweet of you to say so.’ The scientist thought for a moment. ‘Actually, you’ve already told me something very useful indeed. Something, as it happens, that I’d never have thought of asking. Don’t go away.’
The dragon scowled. It had been much easier to put up with being bored when he’d been a goldfish, because goldfish are designed to withstand tedium loadings that would kill most other life forms. Now he was himself again, he desperately wanted - needed - to be doing something. Dragons aren’t your deck-chair-sunblock-and-the-new-Jeffrey-Archer types; it’s all to do with being creatures of air and water, light, swift and soaring. It also explains why so few dragons become chartered accountants.
‘Here we go,’ the scientist said, returning after what the dragon held was a very long time, her arms full of photograph albums. ‘Now, where shall we start from? The beginning, I guess.’ She opened the first album. ‘You know, a lot of these are really embarrassing, at least I think so. Probably everybody gets a bit uncomfortable looking at pictures of themselves as babies.’
‘We don’t,’ the dragon said.
‘Really?’ The scientist didn’t sound particularly interested. ‘Now then, here’s me at two days old. And another one of me at two days. This is me at two days old with my mother. This is me with my mother and my aunt Christine. This is me, my mother, Auntie Christine and Uncle Joe. This is me, my mother, Auntie Christine, Uncle Joe and old Mrs Tomiska who used to live next door to Auntie Christine and Uncle Joe before they moved to Baltimore. Here’s me at three days old, with my mother, cousin Douane—’
The dragon rumbled ominously, like distant thunder.
‘Oh,’ the scientist said, ‘that reminds me. In case you were thinking of trying to burn the place down with lightning or flood us out with rain, I don’t think that’s going to work. I won’t bore you with technical stuff - at least, I’ll save that for later, in case I really need to get tough with you - but there’s this electromagnetic reverse-polarity dampening field surrounding the building: nothing gets out, nothing gets in. You might possibly be able to make it rain in this room, but probably only just enough to fill a kettle. So feel free. I could do with a cup of coffee any time soon.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ the dragon said, and tried to rain. But he couldn’t; it was as if there were clamps on his mind as well. After a tremendous effort that cost him a good deal of pain, he managed a single drop of condensation which fell, mockingly, on the tip of his snout.
‘Told you,’ the scientist said. ‘Now then, where were we? Here’s me at three weeks no, hang on, we’ve missed some. Oh well, I guess we’d better go back to the beginning and start again. This is me at two days old—’
The muscles in the dragon’s neck stiffened as he drove with all his strength against the clamps. The locking mechanisms that held them in place creaked a little, but held. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ the dragon said.
‘What isn’t?’
‘This. We’re just wasting time. Get on with the proper torture and get it over with.’
‘No rush,’ the scientist replied. ‘Besides, I’m not sure I’m going to bother with all that now. I mean, we both know that you’re incredibly tough and strong-willed, so zapping you with electric shocks and drilling holes in your scales with lasers and burning you with drops of nitric acid - all that’ll happen is that you’ll just get more and more ornery and I’ll have a chewed-up-looking dragon instead of a pristine one. Nah.’ She grinned. ‘The hell with it. I’ll just tell ’em I tried all that and it didn’t work, and now I’m researching another approach to the problem. If I say that, they’ll most likely leave me in peace for weeks. Months, even.’ She patted the pile of photograph albums. ‘Plenty more where these came from,’ she said. ‘And after we’ve done looking at snapshots, there’s all manner of fun things we can do. Building regulations. Daytime TV. Star Trek novelisations. Computer manuals. I might even be able to persuade my sister-in-law’s mother-in-law to come in and tell you about the time she went to the Royal Garden Party.’
The dragon squirmed convulsively. ‘It won’t work,’ he grunted. ‘You’ll crack up before I do. After all, you’re only human.’
The scientist burst out laughing. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long while. I’m a scientist, dammit. Trying to bore me to death is like trying to drown a fish in water. Oh, talking of which, I’ve got a whole sheaf of notes for the paper I’m doing on photoreactive polymers that I could read to you. Shouldn’t take more than sixteen hours, that is unless I give you the footnotes as well . . .’
‘I can take it,’ the dragon whimpered.
‘Sure you can,’ the scientist replied. ‘Right, here we go again. Here’s me at two days old. Here’s me and my mother—’
How are you feeling?’ the angel asked.
‘Bloody terrible,’ Gordon replied.
‘It’s your own silly fault,’ the angel said. ‘What on earth possessed you to go setting fire to a pair of socks in a room with no windows?’
Sadly, Gordon realised that the face leaning over him didn’t belong to an angel after all; just a nurse, in the regulation blue uniform. ‘Not my socks,’ he croaked, discovering in the process that his throat was unbelievably raw and painful. ‘His.’
‘You were lucky you didn’t suffocate,’ the nurse went on. ‘If Mr Harrison hadn’t come along when he did, you’d have been dead ducks, both of you.’
In spite of the pain and the disappointment resulting from the nurse not being an angel, Gordon frowned. ‘Sprinklers,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t . . .?’
‘What sprinklers?’
He let his head sink back on the pillow. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘Not important. Where am I?’
‘That’s enough talking for now,’ the nurse replied. ‘Now, you’re going to be all right, but it’ll be a day or so before you’re fit to be up and about again. Just lie still and quiet; I’m going to give you something to help you sleep.’
‘Don’t want to sl—’ He felt the needle slide in and realised that for the first time in his life he was being given an injection without at least three nurses holding him down. That was worrying; if he was so weak that he couldn’t even panic at the touch of a needle, he really must be sick.
The next time Gordon came round, he opened his eyes
to see a plain grey plasterboard ceiling, brick walls and no nurses, let alone angels, whatsoever. He still felt awful, but he was able to get off the bed and stand up without bursting into tears or falling over. He looked round and saw Neville, still asleep on another bed a yard or so away.
‘Wake up,’ he snapped, slapping Neville hard across his bare instep. ‘Rise and shine. What’s going on here?’
Neville groaned and twisted round to face him. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You’re still alive, are you?’
‘Apparently. Where the hell are we?’
Neville shrugged. ‘Here,’ he replied. ‘About that brilliant idea of yours, starting a fire in a room with no windows . . .’
‘Got us out of there, didn’t it?’
‘Yes. Into here. I expect your idea of curing a bad cold is to let it turn into pneumonia.’
‘Don’t be so negative. We don’t even know where we are yet. Could be somewhere we want to be.’
‘You reckon.’
‘Could be,’ Gordon went on, distancing himself from his fellow prisoner and making a show of studying the walls and ceiling, ‘that this one’ll turn out to be much easier to break out of. You know, a change is as good as a rest—’
‘As the werewolf said to the fur-fabric salesman. You know, your buoyant optimism is starting to get right up my nose.’
‘Maybe. But at least I’m not the one who believes in dragons. ’
Before the discussion could develop further, a door opened in the wall - Gordon had been staring at it only a second or so previously and hadn’t seen any sign of a doorway - and a man stepped into the room. He was so nondescript in every respect that, like the door, you’d have had trouble seeing him if he hadn’t moved.
‘And how are you two getting on?’ he said.
The two weathermen stared at him. ‘Who are you?’ Neville asked.
‘My name’s Steven Harrison,’ the man replied, pleasantly enough. ‘I run this facility. Are they looking after you properly, or is there anything I can get for you?’