by Sylvia Waugh
As she talked, she warmed to them and felt that they were all on the same side.
‘You’d better come right in and sit down,’ she said. ‘I’ll make tea and we can talk.’
Steven smiled as they followed her into the living room. The hardest thing had been achieved: they had acquired her trust. The rest should be easy.
‘Now,’ said Stella as they sat by her fireside, ‘what have you to tell me? Where are Thomas and Patrick now?’
The fire, as usual in this cold season, was burning brightly in the hearth.
‘They are miles and miles above the Earth, on their way to the home planet,’ said Steven. ‘They are perfectly safe. It is a journey that has been accomplished many times before.’
‘Many times?’
‘By different travellers over the past three centuries.’
Jacob looked startled. Why was his father telling this Earthling so much?
There followed a long and very deliberate silence. Stella was trapped in it.
‘Look at the logs burning in the fire,’ said Steven softly when he could see that she was calmly waiting for him to speak. ‘Look at them, Stella. See how the flames lick the wood. See the sparks and listen to the crackling of the wood.’
Stella gazed obediently into the fire, her hands folded in her lap.
‘Look at the logs burning in the fire, the logs in the fire burning,’ said Steven, his voice growing ever softer. It was not straightforward earthly hypnotic suggestion. The power behind it was much stronger.
‘Your memories of Patrick and Thomas are fading,’ Steven murmured. ‘You knew them, you loved them and they moved away. Keep the love, but lose the knowledge that should never have been yours.’
It did not sound like a voice speaking. There was an abstracted, alien ring to it that made it somehow inescapable.
The words were intended for the heart rather than the head. Jacob could not make them out at all. They were not meant for him. But he guessed what was happening. So that was how Stella Dalrymple would be ‘dealt with’ – the dangerous knowledge was being cauterized from her memory.
‘When we leave, you will forget that we have ever been here. Seconds after we have closed the door, it will be as if we had never crossed your threshold at all.’
Stella turned away from the fire. She shook her head sharply as if to clear it.
‘You can’t do this to me,’ she said, looking Steven straight in the eye. ‘There is no way on this earth that you can deprive me of my memories. I won’t let you.’
It was Steven’s turn to look startled. He had used the power of Ormingat, power of great potency, and it had not worked. He had risked giving Stella more details because he had been so sure he could erase everything.
‘I am not a good hypnotic subject,’ said Stella icily.
‘I – I am not using hypnosis, not Earth hypnosis,’ stumbled Steven. ‘All I am doing is restoring your memory to full normality. You are meant to remember only those things you know to be possible.’
‘Thank you, but no thank you,’ said Stella indignantly. ‘What will you do if I won’t forget?’
Jacob wondered about this. The hypnosis, or whatever it was, had seemed a promising, kindly way of tackling the problem. It had not worked. Now he was afraid that something sinister was about to happen. Surely that was not the way of Ormingat, the peaceful planet? He looked expectantly at his father.
Steven was totally nonplussed.
He had done much harder things than this. It amazed him that it had not worked. There had been a hypnotic element to the treatment, but he had used mind-fencing to induce a sense of irrelevancy. It had been effective on so many other occasions. The subject neither forgot nor remembered forbidden facts – he or she simply ignored them. So why did it not work on Stella?
Not for a moment did Stella fear Steven. ‘My mind belongs to me,’ she said, when he was clearly at a loss for words. ‘Whilst I live, whatever is in my memory stays there, or is displaced because something more important comes along. Could there be anything more important than my love for Thomas and his father? Could there be anything more memorable than our meeting here today?’
‘So what shall I do?’ said Steven helplessly. ‘I am meant to protect my planet from discovery.’
‘Learn what your planet’s people have clearly failed to learn so far,’ said Stella.
‘Which is?’
‘That there are on this Earth people worthy of trust. When I said those stupid words to that reporter, I didn’t realize I was betraying anybody. Now I know better. The secret of Ormingat is under lock and key in my heart. I will never, ever betray you.’
‘That means you become the protector,’ said Steven tentatively.
‘And you must be the one to forget,’ said Stella in a firm voice. ‘When you leave my house today, you must forget all about me. Go back to your home on Earth – for I take it you have one – and never give me another thought. When you return to Ormingat, make no mention of me there.’
‘I’m not returning to Ormingat,’ said Steven, drawn to confide in Stella. ‘My wife is an Earthling. My children were born here. I could choose to leave them – others must have so chosen in our long history – but I will not make that choice.’
It was Stella who noticed the woebegone expression on Jacob’s face. She leant towards him and held his hand. ‘That makes you sad?’ she said.
She looked into his dark eyes and saw the depth of his misery.
‘I want to keep our spaceship,’ said Jacob. ‘I want to be who I am when I am there. It is so much less lonely.’
Stella could not quite follow the words, but she understood the sentiment. Someone with less sensitivity might have tried to probe the loneliness. Not Stella. She turned his hand palm upwards as if she could tell his fortune. Then she said gently, ‘It is hard to be lonely. I do understand.’
She walked with them to the bus stop and stood till the bus came down from Medfield, on its way to the station. It was mid-afternoon and there were no other passengers either boarding or alighting. That at least was a relief.
‘Take care,’ said Stella as her visitors got on the bus, ‘and remember what I said about forgetting!’
‘We can’t just forget though, can we?’ said Jacob when they were seated on the bus. ‘We have to report back.’
Steven smiled enigmatically. ‘I don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘There are details we might just fail to remember. There is no need to report at all before the first of March.’
‘But-’ said Jacob, beginning to protest.
‘Say no more,’ said his father. ‘Let’s just enjoy the rest of the holiday. We’ve done all we can for Ormingat.’
CHAPTER 36
* * *
At Home
‘Did you see anything interesting?’ said Lydia.
Steven and Jacob had just sat down in the kitchen after arriving back from their ‘holiday’. Their bags were still in the hall; their coats draped over the banister. Tidiness would take a little longer . . .
At first, Steven was not sure what Lydia meant, such is the power of a guilty conscience, and then he remembered the computer shows they were supposed to have attended.
‘We didn’t go to the shows,’ said Steven with complete honesty. ‘We just rambled around sightseeing instead.’
‘Good,’ said Lydia. ‘You needed a rest from computers. I hoped it wouldn’t just be a busman’s holiday.’
‘But I had better check the system, now we are back,’ said Steven hastily.
It was now two o’clock in the afternoon. ‘Tea first? Something to eat?’ said Lydia.
‘Tea later,’ said Steven with a smile.
Lydia shook her head in mock despair. There was never any point in arguing.
Jacob, as ever, followed his father out of the room.
They ascended the two flights of stairs to the computer room almost at a run. When they got inside, they were rewarded by the sight of the purple button on the lower right
-hand corner of the Brick flashing like fury.
‘I’m needed,’ said Steven. ‘Urgently!’
He sat down quickly at his desk and unfurled the screen above the Brick. There in front of him was not a message but a picture. On a mountainside a woman climber was swinging dizzily out into space from a rope that was so frayed that any second it would break.
‘Tollemeek!’ said Steven. ‘In trouble again!’
This time his exasperation was friendly, not the usual bear-with-a-sore-head variety. Truth to tell, he felt pleased to be wanted.
Then suddenly on screen a shield of blue light surrounded the climber and the frayed rope was replaited in an instant.
‘I didn’t do that!’ said Steven, baffled.
Jacob was sitting beside him, watching everything. ‘Maybe they’re training someone else to do your job,’ he said. ‘Maybe there’s already another Brick somewhere.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Steven crossly. ‘It will simply be emergency cover. They knew I was away and they did not know exactly when I would be back.’
‘But that still means that someone has another Brick somewhere.’
‘Of course they have,’ said Steven. ‘I am not responsible for the whole world. I don’t do Greece, for example. Probably my Greek counterpart has been called in.’
The screen blanked out. Steven waited for a message but none came. Thoughts of being made redundant before his projected return to Ormingat began to trouble him.
‘I’ll have to check on them all,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to see what has been happening in my absence.’
‘All?’
‘All thirty,’ Steven snapped, not looking at his son but keeping his eyes fixed on the screen and his fingers playing nervously across the keyboard. ‘I am responsible for thirty Ormingatriga in countries from Spain to Lapland. Now leave me alone to get on with my work.’
‘But-’ Jacob began.
‘No buts,’ said Steven, raising his voice. ‘Get out of my room and let me get on with my job. This is important.’
Jacob could not believe his ears. Never, ever had he been spoken to like this. He got up from the stool and walked very stiffly to the door, his head held high. His father did not even notice him opening the door and closing it behind him. Steven’s eyes were fixed on the machine, his own special machine in which he was surely the ultimate expert.
Jacob ran down the stairs, grabbed his coat from the newel post, and left the house. Lydia heard the door crash and hurried to see who was coming or going. She opened the door but by that time Jacob had turned the corner and was out of sight.
It was not until an hour later that Steven came down from the computer room. Eleven of his subjects had received help of varying degrees within the past few days. The other Brick, wherever it was, had been spectacularly active. Steven felt he had cause to worry. He gave no thought to Jacob till he came face to face with Lydia.
‘Someone went out,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t the twins – they’re out already. I thought it might be you.’
Steven flushed. He took his own coat from the banister, preparing to hang it in its proper place when he realized that Jacob’s coat was not there beside it.
‘It must have been Jacob going out,’ he said apprehensively.
‘But he’s had nothing to eat yet,’ said Lydia. ‘And where would he be going?’
Steven looked even more uncomfortable. He found it hard to look Lydia in the eye. She could be so uncannily perceptive.
‘Maybe he went for a walk,’ he said. ‘Maybe he wanted to clear his head.’
‘I didn’t know his head was unclear,’ said Lydia suspiciously.
‘We had a bit of an argument,’ Steven confessed. ‘I must have been abrupt with him. I’d better go after him.’
‘You won’t know where to go. You don’t know what direction he’s gone in.’
‘I think I might,’ said Steven. ‘I’ll give it a try anyway. If he gets back before I do, don’t let him come out looking for me.’
He pulled on his coat and hurried out into the street.
CHAPTER 37
* * *
Highgate Cemetery on Saturday Afternoon
When Jacob left the house he turned straight in the direction of the cemetery. There was not much he could do there but draw near to what he now felt was his second home. It would be impossible on a bright Saturday afternoon to contemplate entering the spaceship, but he could at least be near to where it was. He could stand by the railings and talk to it.
He hurried along Chester Road. It was not as busy as a city street, but there were a few people coming and going on the pavements. Cars passed up and down the road. He even saw a couple of boys he knew from school, but they did not notice him, of course. If he had wanted to speak to, say, Jimmy Pullman, who was in his class at school and whom he saw dragging a skinny dog along on a lead, he would have had to go up to him and deliberately attract his attention. Then Jimmy would have had a word or two with him before moving on. Jacob was not invisible. He was just so unimportant that nobody wanted to know him. That was what years of being shielded had done for him.
The school stood stern and silent as he passed it. On the other side of the road the lower cemetery gates, as always, were locked. A man with a sack on his back paused beside Holly Village to take out a sheaf of leaflets. Jacob passed him and crossed over into Swains Lane.
Here it was even quieter. The street by the cemetery was still bathed in sunlight, but it felt much colder. Jacob walked up the hill, not stopping till he reached the obelisk. He held on to the rusty railings with both hands and peered through at ‘The grave of William Friese-Greene, the inventor of Kinematography’. From a short distance, an angel on another grave appeared to be watching over it. The whole place held a feeling of solidarity. In the cemetery that housed Karl Marx, the dead seemed appropriately united.
This was the way to the spaceship. It would have been possible to approach the grave from inside the cemetery, but at dusk the upper gates were also locked. So an approach through the cemetery had never been practical. Besides, the Friese-Greene obelisk was much nearer this railing than it was to any gate.
All Jacob needed was some way to make contact with the ground at the base of the obelisk. He found himself idly thinking of how he would manage it. A broken coat hanger should do: untwist it and turn it into a length of wire long enough to reach the soil. Then, when that contact was made, there would be a rush of air and the Ormingatrig, whose vibrations must be recognized by the ship’s sensors, would be drawn down into what to humans would seem to be an inconceivable underworld.
After all, his father’s folding ruler was just such another improvisation. A coat hanger would be easier to get hold of than another old-fashioned ruler. He felt sure it would work. He would like to have entered the ship alone and put his case directly for changing the leaving plan. But it would have to be after dark – it had always been after dark – and that would present problems. Neither his father nor his mother would let him leave the house without at least asking where he was going and when he expected to be back.
Jacob went on looking at the spot where the spaceship was hidden. He thought of the Cube that at times was so demanding, but at other times could seem so sympathetic. He looked round to check that no one was near enough to overhear him, then leant closer to the railings so that the rusty metal was touching his cheek. If this was the best he could do, then he must do it.
‘Please do not let me lose you,’ he whispered. ‘Please ask them to let you stay.’
He had no idea who ‘they’ might be, except that his intellect told him that somewhere beyond this Earth there must be those in charge of all the expeditions who might be able to give, or rescind, the orders.
A few weeds were caught by a light breeze, something scuttled through the undergrowth, but otherwise there was nothing that could be interpreted as an answer. Jacob felt the need to put his case more strongly. He held on to the railings tightly and whispered down int
o the earth, ‘I have been so unhappy till now, always feeling left out and unwanted. Please want me. Please stay here for my sake.’
He must have stood in the same position for nearly an hour, unnoticed by passers-by, of whom, in any case, there were not too many at this spot.
Then he gave a jump as a hand gripped his shoulder.
‘I am sorry, Javayl ban, truly sorry.’
Jacob turned round to see his father standing there.
‘I should not have been so rude to you,’ said Steven. ‘It was very wrong of me and I am sorry.’
‘And I shouldn’t have run off like that,’ said Jacob, appreciating the apology. ‘I got upset too easily. I know you were worried. I know you didn’t mean it.’
‘So, friends again?’ said Steven, proffering an open palm.
‘Friends again,’ said Jacob putting out his own palm to meet his father’s. A passer-by saw the gesture and recognized a family reconciliation. She smiled at them benignly. Steven had no cloak around him and could be seen clearly. The woman who smiled wondered where she had seen him before. Was he a TV star, perhaps, or a footballer?
‘I think we had better be on our way now,’ said Steven. ‘Your mother will be worried.’
On the way home, Steven explained what he had been doing and told Jacob of his findings. It seemed the best way to make up for his earlier sharpness.
‘So,’ he finished, ‘you were right. There is another Brick, and it looks as if they are grooming someone else to take my place. In due course, they will find out how hard that is!’
‘Well, what do we do now?’ said Jacob.
‘We just wait,’ said his father. ‘There is nothing else we can do.’
CHAPTER 38
* * *
Like a Great Voice Calling
It is not the loudness of the voice. Voices can speak in a faint whisper and still insist upon being heard.