Wicca

by James Follett

  Chapter 14.

  MOST OF PRESCOTT'S SUPPORTERS melted away when they received news of the vote. There were only a handful left by the time Ellen and David emerged from Government House, and many of the morris police had been stood down. Ellen was in a jubilant mood.

  `Three votes! Three! For the first time that bastard has been stopped in his tracks.'

  David put his arm around her as they went down the steps. `Don't forget that moving the radio station to Government House gives him effective control of it,' he warned.

  `Bob Harding was complaining about the room it took up in his workshop.'

  `True,' David admitted. `But it should be fully independent, which it can't be if it's in easy meddling distance of Prescott. And he's got that damned enabling vote through to bring back old laws.'

  `Where they're appropriate, David.'

  `And who decides what's appropriate? The council, or Prescott acting on behalf of the council?'

  They strolled across the square to where Malone was sitting outside the Crown.

  `You're right,' said Ellen. `I've let a relatively minor victory overshadow everything else. The main problem is that Prescott has legally taken over as executive officer. His idea of having an office in Government House was neat. He's not actually usurped Diana Sheldon as town clerk, but she dare not do anything off her own bat -- not with Prescott in the building.'

  There was a burst of cheering behind just as Malone rose to greet them. Suddenly his expression changed. `Stop him!' he roared.

  Before Ellen and David had a chance to react, Malone had leapt clean over his table and was streaking across the square to intercept Brad Jackson. The delinquent had an upraised kitchen knife in his hand and was racing towards Prescott who had just left Government House. Malone's second bellowed warning spurred the nearest blackshirt into action. He thrust Prescott aside just as Malone threw himself at Brad Jackson to bring him down.

  `Die, you bastard! Die!' screamed Brad Jackson.

  Malone's action was partially successful; the knife was sweeping down in a lightning arc that had been aimed at Prescott but the force of Malone cannoning into the assailant spun him around so that the long blade plunged into the blackshirt's chest.

  There was a near panic and screams as Malone and the would-be assassin rolled down the steps. By the time the police officer had pinioned Brad Jackson to the ground and secured his wrists behind his back with a cable tie, several blackshirts had poured from the building and bundled Prescott inside. Nelson Faraday was yelling into a radio. Millicent Vaughan had hurried from the building and was on her knees, cutting away the injured guard's shirt from around the jutting knife before she risked withdrawing it. She knew from the murderous blade's length, angle and position that it had penetrated deep into the man's heart.

  `Jesus Christ,' David whispered as he and Ellen stood transfixed. The entire incident had happened in less than five seconds. `He had to die!' Brad Jackson sobbed as Malone dragged him to his feet. `Him and everything he stood for!'

  Malone's caution was ignored; his prisoner kept repeating that Prescott had to die.

  `Except that your victim wasn't Mr Prescott,' Malone observed, handing him over to three morris police. He helped clear a path for an ambulance that spirited the injured man and Millicent Vaughan to the hospital. Prescott emerged from Government House flanked by two blackshirts. The attack had shaken him badly.

  `Mr Malone...'

  `Mr Chairman?'

  `Thank you. Your prompt action saved my life.'

  `Not prompt enough, sir. That man looked badly injured. If you will excuse me. I'd better collect a few statements while events are still fresh.'

  Prescott nodded and returned to the security of Government House.

  Malone tore sheets from a large notebook he had taken to carrying and took statements from several witnesses at his table outside the Crown, leaving David and Ellen until last. His witnesses moved to other tables to listen to the Radio Pentworth news bulletins from an outside speaker.

  When Malone was through, he stacked the sheaf of statements and placed them inside his notebook before turning his attention to the beer that David had bought for him. He drained the glass in one long swallow. `Christ -- I needed that. Thanks, David.'

  `My pleasure. Another?'

  `Better not. I've got a mountain of paperwork to get through as a result of this little episode.'

  `Surely it'll be an open and shut case?' Ellen queried.

  Malone shook his head. `Open and shut cases don't reduce the paperwork -- just the detection process. The real problem is going to be Brad Jackson's inevitable sentence. Pentworth is hardly geared for coping with long term prisoners.'

  `Prescott said much the same thing to me the other day,' said Ellen.

  The music playing over the speaker faded. The presenter adopted a sombre note to report that Robert Vincent, the Government House security officer injured in the stabbing incident earlier in Market Square, had died in hospital. `We will observe a three-minute silence as a mark of respect,' the presenter concluded.

  The radio fell silent.

  `Well,' said Malone laconically. `There's one thing about the Wall -- it simplifies filling-in the witness availability forms. The new hair style suits you, Ellen.'

  Ellen looked taken back for a moment before she realized what Malone was referring to. `Oh -- I'd forgotten it.' She removed her hair slide, slipped her hand under her hair to her right ear, and glanced around the square. No one was watching. She seemed to remove an earring.

  `I found this, Mike. I think it must be police property.'

  Malone deftly palmed the object with its attached microphone and slipped it into his pocket. `So it worked?' he asked.

  Ellen nodded. `Like a charm. It was my naming of all Prescott's rentamob cronies that swung the vote.'

  Malone gave a faint smile. `So you had an accomplice?'

  `I rather think I did. I ought to thank him.' `Using police radio equipment for unauthorized purposes is an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act.'

  `I think I'm missing out on something,' David observed, but not missing that Ellen had used Malone's Christian name.

  `An earpiece radio transceiver,' said Malone drolly. `A nifty little surveillance tool. It's good of Ellen to hand it in.'

  David grinned when he realized what had happened. `No wonder Prescott looked so stunned. And to think I put your little recital down to a brilliant memory.'

  `So Operation High Hopes is going ahead?' asked Malone.

  David looked puzzled.

  `The operation to breach the Wall,' Malone explained.

  Ellen thought she saw Malone give a conspiratorial wink and couldn't help smiling.

  `In a week's time,' said David, feeling that he was still missing something. That's how long Charlie Crittenden needs to get my showman's engine running.' He frowned. `Why Operation High Hopes?'

  `An old Frank Sinatra song,' said Ellen, smiling broadly. `About a ram that kept butting a dam. No one could make that ram scram; he kept butting that dam.'

  `Memorable lyrics,' said Malone drily. `But the ram did succeed.'

  Chapter 15.

  THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE library in the morning was different. Dennis Davies' staff were too shocked by the previous evening's killing to concentrate on their work. They all knew the blackshirt security man personally and would have started a collection for his family had it not been Farside. The other topic was general disbelief that anyone should want to kill Prescott after all he was doing for the community.

  `He's working 15 hours a day,' Dennis growled, breaking up a gathering around the drinking water dispenser. `Which is a damn sight more than you're all doing.'

  `Keeping them hard at it, Mr Davies?' asked Diana Sheldon.

  `Good morning, Miss Sheldon,' said Dennis, turning around and giving Diana a warm smile. That she was a frequent visitor to the 2nd floor to check on progress added to his self-esteem. He had spent several weeks nerving himself to ask
her to have a lunchtime drink with him and would probably spend several more weeks doing the same.

  Diana took the librarian aside. `I've come to ask a big favour, Mr Davies. I appreciate that you're having to catalogue the books on an as-they-come basis otherwise you're forever having to shift crates around, but could you concentrate on getting all the law books indexed and shelved please.'

  `Well, of course. We've got all the original books from the old library shelved.'

  `I was thinking in particular of Judge Hooper's donation of his library. The judge has just had a meeting with Mr Prescott. They are most anxious that all his law books should be available to the court.'

  `Court?'

  `I'm sorry -- I should've explained. We're going to use the new council chamber downstairs as a crown court for the trial of Brad Jackson.'

  `Ah -- yes -- of course. I quite understand, Miss Sheldon. I'll make an immediate start.'

  Diana thanked him and looked at her watch as she turned to leave. `Your new assistant is starting today. I told her to be here at 11 o'clock.'

  `I'll need all the extra help I can get,' said Dennis. `What is that young villain to be tried for? Manslaughter?'

  `Murder,' Diana replied. `Murder and treason.'

  Dennis returned to his desk and wondered what his new assistant would be like. Perhaps after a year or so they'd let him take part in the interviews. His present team was willing enough, but none were capable of using their initiative. The Wall had certainly stimulated the desire for books but the trouble was that it had also bought full employment; well-educated personnel were at a premium.

  The Wall had also led to the abolition of political correctness in the work place. The sudden chorus of wolf-whistles and catcalls made Dennis look up. The carpenters had stopped work and were treating the woman approaching Dennis' desk to a barrage of appreciation -- their principal gesture being a hand clamped over the biceps of a raised forearm.

  Cathy Price deigned to ignore them. She stood before Dennis' desk and flashed him a warm smile that had his virginity yearning to self-destruct. She was dressed in a white pleated skirt, a white sleeveless T-shirt, and looked game for tennis --or anything. `Hallo, Mr Davies -- I'm Cathy Price -- your new assistant librarian.'

  The only way Cathy could get a job in Government House was to settle for the lousy pay working in the library. She had been hooped through two interviews the previous day and had to have her picture taken in the Photo-Me booth that had once stood in Woolworths. The work, which Dennis showed her once he had introduced her to her new colleagues, was writing out catalogue index cards.

  `Boring but essential work,' said Dennis when he had shown Cathy her desk. He stood over her, his eyeballs falling down her T-shirt and burning up like re-entering satellites. `And rewarding.' He nodded to the long rows of wooden filing cabinets with their rows of miniature drawers. `We've forgotten just how efficient card indexes are.'

  Cathy smiled. `Oh, definitely. Multiple-user access, updating is dead easy with hardly any training required, and they possess unlimited non-volatile random access memory that doesn't need as much as a milliwatt of power to maintain it. Best of all, card indexes never crash and they don't get bad sectors or read/write errors.'

  `Quite so,' said Dennis, wondering what on earth she was talking about.

  `Oh. Does Mike Malone work here?' Cathy had spotted the police officer emerge from behind his screen. She caught his eye and exchanged a friendly wave.

  `Mr Malone does a lot of research here and is not to be disturbed,' Dennis warned.

  The moment she was alone Cathy examined her clip-on identity badge and was convinced that it had been produced by the inexpert use of her scanner and laminating machine. It meant that they had got the Mac working and she suffered a misery of embarrassment at the thought that someone might have found her shameful pictures. Her hope lay in the fact that she had not linked the pictures directly to the viewer software for automatic display; a lot of tedious mouse-clicking was necessary to view the files.

  She had no clear plan in mind as to how she would set about searching for the Mac, but at least she was in the same building with it.

  Chapter 16.

  BOB HARDING WAS IN his workshop putting the finishing touches to his plan to breach the Wall when the intercom buzzed.

  `Young lady to see you,' said Suzi tartly. `Vikki Taylor. A schoolgirl. Country. She works in Ellen Duncan's shop in her spare time.'

  `Yes -- I know Vikki. What does she want?'

  `She has some questions on astronomy.'

  `What's wrong with the library?'

  `They haven't put all the books on the shelves. A homework project I suppose.'

  `You'd better show her through.'

  `I think a chaperon might be a good idea.'

  `Nonsense. I'm sure Vikki will be very well-behaved.'

  Despite his impatience to finish his plan, Harding gave Vikki a warm welcome when she entered his workshop. `Come in, Vikki. Come in. Sorry about the mess. Find a seat.' He looked closely at her. A long, pretty print dress that suited her with matching cotton gloves. An incredibly pretty girl.

  She looked around the workshop. `I thought the radio station was here, Mr Harding?'

  `It's been moved to Government House. New studio on the top floor. Don't you listen to the news?'

  `Sorry, Mr Harding.'

  `Did you come alone, Vikki?'

  `Yes, Mr Harding. Why shouldn't I?'

  `It's just that some country folk come in for abuse in the town. But mostly those bringing in food supplies.'

  `A carter delivering blocks of ice shouted something but I didn't take any notice.'

  `Good for you. How are your parents?'

  `Mum's fine. Dad's Farside.'

  `Yes -- I'd forgotten. I'm sorry.'

  Vikki shrugged. She perched on the edge of a chair. Her gaze kept returning to Harding's homemade Newtonian telescope, staring through the opening in the roof. The scientist usually cranked the sliding panels open in the evening when the sun was low.

  `Now then,' he said affably, not showing how much his visitor's luminous green eyes disconcerted him. `How can I help you?'

  `It's very kind of you to see me, Mr Harding.' She came straight to the point. `I need to know about Sirius.'

  `A school project?'

  `A project,' said Vikki. She hated lying.

  Harding smiled. `Perhaps we'd better start by your telling me what you know about it.'

  `Only that it's a star like our sun, and that it's called the Dog Star.'

  `Nothing else?'

  `No.'

  `Actually it's two stars, Vikki. There's Canis Major -- the Larger Dog, and Canis Minor -- the Smaller Dog. Sirius is the brightest star in the sky. With all this humidity, it's just about the only star we can ever see these days. It gets its name from Sirius, a dog that belonged to Orion -- the Greek god of hunting.' He broke off. `Aren't you going to make notes?'

  `I can remember everything.' Harding wagged an admonitory finger. `Always make notes when undertaking research, Vikki. Anyway, Sirius was held in high esteem by the ancient Egyptians. Its appearance just before sunrise marked the annual flooding of the Nile.'

  `How far is it?'

  `Roughly 10 light-years. Quite close in celestial distance terms, which is why it's so bright. Light travels at 300,000 kilometres per second, so you'll need a long piece of paper to write down all the zeros.'

  `Would it be possible for me to look at it through your telescope please?'

  Harding glanced at his watch. `We might just catch it before it sets.' He quickly adjusted the telescope's azimuth and elevation handwheels, fitted a deep field eyepiece and sighted on Sirius. He sat Vikki in his seat and showed her how to operate the controls. She stared without speaking at the disappointing, fuzzy point of light while working the handwheels to keep the star centred in the field of view as it sank towards the rooftops.

  `Why is it moving so fast?' she asked at length.

  `I
t's not -- what you're seeing is the earth's rotation.'

  `Does it have planets, Mr Harding?'

  `It's part of a binary system with a white dwarf, but if you mean Earth-type planets -- we don't know with absolute certainty if any stars have planets like those in our solar system. We know from the perturbations of many stars that they have invisible companions, so it may be that solar systems like ours are common. But we don't know what sort of planets they are.' He paused and added, `If you were an astronomer on a planet of Sirius with our biggest and best telescope, you'd be able to see the effect of Jupiter on the sun's motion, but that would be all. You wouldn't be able to see Jupiter, and certainly not the Earth.'

  `It's gone,' said Vikki abruptly.

  `You were just in time to catch it. Within a couple of weeks it'll be rising and setting with the sun, so it won't be possible to see it at all. You've heard of the dog days of summer?'

  Vikki looked up from the telescope and nodded. `July and August. The hottest months of the year.'

  `That's right. The ancients believed that the combined strength of the sun and Sirius produced madness in dogs and people. The so-called dog days. The days of summer madness.'

  Chapter 17.

  SUMMER MADNESS, THOUGHT MALONE.

  He had been tasked with drawing up the police duty rosters for the assault on the Wall and therefore his dubbing of the enterprise as Operation High Hopes stuck.

  As a keen student of human folly, he watched the final preparations with amusement tempered by depression. His capacity for logical thought, by which he set such store, told him that the scheme to breach the Wall would not succeed; if the outside world, the real world -- not Farside, with all its resources, couldn't break in through the Wall to end Pentworth's isolation, what chance did Pentworth, with its limited resources, have of breaking out?

  The police officer was sitting on a stile on Duncton Rise, wearing white shorts, and wishing that he'd thought to bring a hat or sunshade for it was blisteringly hot. His location was nearly the highest point within the Wall and one which afforded him an excellent view of the activity in the field below -- a meadow bisected by the Wall -- where there were 20 cars and a few light trucks in the field, strung out in a line with their front bumpers nearly touching the Wall. There were about 100 people sitting about in family groups or stretched out on the grass. Children were taking part in games organized by an impromptu play leader, and the catering volunteers were tending a large charcoal barbecue. The tea urns contained a share out authorised by Government House of Pentworth's precious supply of tea bags. This was deemed a special occasion. There were the usual food inspector present to ensure that the chicken quarters were properly cooked. For this special day food rationing had been suspended.