by Martin Dukes
Alex tried not to give consideration to what Glenda had just said. There were other priorities.
“I’d really rather not,” said Alex doggedly, sticking firmly to his undertaking to support Ganymede.
“I see,” said Glenda, pursing her lips and regarding Alex stonily. Alex’s eyes cast about for something to distract them, but there were no windows in the office and only one framed print on the wall, this showing a herd of white horses splashing across a river.
“I understand that a friend of yours is dead, that her Interstician existence is likely to be cut short by Atropos in the near future. What would you say if I told you that I may be able to prevent that?”
“What do you mean?” asked Alex warily, his interest fully engaged now.
“I’m sure you are aware that all mortals are distinguished from one another by their unique DNA. This is how Atropos locates his….er…targets. There is a device called a DNA mask. It allows an individual to conceal their genetic identity from others. I am informed this would work equally well to frustrate Atropos. I can make such a device available to you if you reconsider your decision. It may make the difference between what you would think of as life and death for your friend. I urge you to think about this…”
“This is a bribe, right?” said Alex cautiously.
Glenda shrugged, almost imperceptibly, and spread her hands a little.
“You’re offering Kelly the chance of life?”
“So it would appear.” She pushed an envelope across the desk towards Alex. “We’ll need a sample of your friend’s DNA. A strand of hair should be sufficient. Then we can tailor the mask to her requirements. You may return it to me before the meeting. Would the arrangement I propose be satisfactory to you? It is a generous offer.”
“I’ll have to think about it,” said Alex slowly, and with more confidence than he felt. He picked up the envelope, his mind in turmoil.
“Very well,” said Glenda, nodding briskly. “But don’t take too long over it. The meeting is at eighteenth tomorrow, by your reckoning. I should like to know your answer by seventeenth at the latest. You can contact me through Malcolm.” She steepled her fingers and regarded Alex stonily over the top of them. “Think well, Mr Trueman. I offer you much.”
A moment later, Alex re-materialised in his bed room. Malcolm was there too, mouthing the words “See you later.” Alex grabbed his sleeve desperately before he could finish moving his hands and disappear himself.
“Hang on a minute,” he hissed. “Don’t you dare leave me now. There’s stuff I need to ask you.”
“Right,” said the angel, looking a little taken aback, but sitting heavily on Alex’s bed nevertheless. “More stuff. Okay. Fire away.”
There were so many questions, Alex hardly knew where to start. He knuckled his forehead and glanced at the door, behind which Paulo’s voice could still be heard. There was Kelly’s too, raised in laughter, quickly smothered.
“What about this DNA mask thing?” he asked Malcolm. “Is Glenda on the level with that? Can I trust her?”
“Of course you can trust her,” said Malcolm simply. “She is an Angel. If she’s offering you something you can be sure it’ll be legit.”
“Okay,” said Alex, thinking hard. “What did you think? She’s just trying to use me against Ganymede isn’t she? What’s to say she won’t drop me as soon as I’ve outlived my usefulness?”
“Hey! What do I know? I’m only a lousy technician,” said Malcolm, spreading his arms wide. “I’m getting sucked into Mike and Tony’s little squabble just as much as you are. First I’ve got Tony bending my ear and then, next minute it’s Glenda, on behalf of Mike. I’m fed up of it, I can tell you. This isn’t even my interstice. I’m covering for Derek whilst he’s off on a course. He must have known it was going to go belly up, crafty b..”
“You never said anything about a DNA mask before,” said Alex, cutting him off.
“I never even heard of one until Glenda raised it with me earlier on. Don’t mean there’s no such thing. I asked my friend Gerald in Technical. He gave me this - owes me a favour, see.” He drew out of his pocket a slender chain, from which hung a small flat triangular amulet. There were three raised discs on its surface. He held it up in a beam of moonlight for Alex to inspect.
“This is the prototype,” Malcolm said. “’Seems Gerald was in on the project. He had this in his desk drawer. It works too. So he says. And it’s universal. It checks out your DNA and masks it straight out. Don’t even need a specialist to make an individual match, see. You just press the three discs, three times each and then once all together. Then I guess you’d be pretty much invisible to Atropos.”
“Wow! Thanks!” said Alex, with feeling.
“Yeah, well,” said Malcolm, raising his hands. “Don’t go over the top. I haven’t finished. There is just one small problem. This sucker’s only the prototype, see. It’ll only work so long as its fuel cell does. Gerald says it should be good for about two minutes. After that you’re back to square one.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought it may buy you a bit of time.”
Alex took the amulet, feeling somewhat deflated. “Yeah, that’s a bit of time alright. I thought you said you can’t cheat death,” he said.
“You can’t,” said Malcolm, “’Course you can’t, but you can sure confuse the hell out of it.” He stood, up stretching and yawning. “I don’t know. It’s not much. I wondered if it might give you an edge sometime, you and your little friend. I’ll have it back if you don’t want it... I take it you’re not going to go for Glenda’s deal then.”
“I don’t know,” said Alex, slipping the amulet in his pocket. “I haven’t decided. I know Kelly can’t keep running for ever when Cactus Jack shows up.” He frowned. “Hey, look. I don’t think you’ve been entirely honest with me.”
“Serious accusation for an Angel,” said Malcolm, crossing his arms and tapping an index finger on his bicep.
“You said mortals can’t travel in time,” said Alex, looking hard at the angel.
Malcolm looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, well. It isn’t permitted. That’s what I meant.”
“But it happens doesn’t it? Whether it’s permitted or not.”
Alex explained about Annie. Malcolm listened, nodding slowly when Alex had finished.
“Well, that explains a lot,” he said. “That’ll be that low level general disruption I was picking up.”
“So what’s to stop Kelly and I going back in time to an earlier instant in Reality?”
“Nothing to do with us” said Malcolm. “Like I said. We angels don’t deal in time travel for mortals. Too many variables involved. You’d have to speak to the snarks. That’d be Ganymede’s province. He’s a big fan.”
“So I gather,” said Alex, thinking of Ganymede’s horror when he heard about Paulo’s snark barbecue.
“I’ll be off then,” said Malcolm, crossing to the window and looking out into the street. “I’ve still got to write up my report. This sector’s a nightmare. Everything goes wrong in it. Ganymede’s manna requisition went astray too. I’ve got to chase that up.”
“Eh? Hang on. What did you just say?” gasped Alex.
“Ganymede’s manna requisition,” repeated Malcolm slowly. “Got lost in the system. Why? What’s the problem? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Ganymede doesn’t make his own manna then?”
“Nooo.” Malcolm laughed. “Not likely. He has it delivered in bulk from Central Resources. What’s he been telling you?”
Alex told him. Malcolm laughed so much he had to sit down.
“The crafty dog. He’s pullin’ your chain. That’s why we got a power drain from his house the other night. He was conjuring up a pretty little fantasy for you. Quarks and mesons my sainted halo! You’ve got to give it to him!” He slapped his thigh in delight. “They come ready baked on big trays and Ganymede just sorts them out into piles the day before he needs them.”
Alex clenched his
fists. “Damn!” he said. So Ganymede had spun him a line. “Just one more thing,” he said to Malcolm. “Please, take me back to Ganymede’s.”
Ganymede was asleep when Alex arrived in his bedroom, not that Alex cared. He grabbed Ganymede’s shoulder and shook him roughly awake.
“Hey! What the…” Ganymede sat up and glared at him furiously. “What is the meaning of this? How dare you!”
“The meaning of this is that you’ve been lying to me,” snapped Alex. “Again! … And I want to know what’s going on.”
He explained everything that had happened to him that night, his encounter with Mad Annie, his meeting with Glenda, the DNA mask. Everything.
“What can I say,” said Ganymede defensively, when his manna trick was brought to light. “I do work like a slave for everyone. I just wanted to drive that point home.” Sitting up in bed he groped for his hat and crammed it down over his unruly grey hair.
“Let me ask you a question,” said Alex coldly. “Do you want to keep this sector?”
“Yes,” said Ganymede softly. “You know I do.”
“Well it’s mine if I want it,” said Alex, finding grim satisfaction in the expression on Ganymede’s face as this sank in. “What do you think of that? And if you want me to turn it down, you’d better help me and Kelly get the hell out of here. Before Cactus Jack comes calling.”
“What exactly do you mean?” asked Ganymede, his eyes glinting from the shadows under his hat.
“You know what I mean. Getting back into Reality. Time travel. It can be done, and the snarks know how to do it. Don’t they? Take me to the snarks, Ganymede. Take me to the snarks. Now.”
Chapter Fifteen
The snarks were on the top of Micklebury Hill, standing in a semi-circle, contemplating the declining moon. Alex was exhausted by the time they reached Micklebury, but Malcolm was long gone, and there was no option but to make the journey on foot. Sleep fogged Alex’s brain, and fatigue clawed at his thighs and calves as he trudged up the steep path that led to the summit. When they were there and clear moonlight picked out the small shapes of twenty or so snarks, he stood for a few moments clutching his sides, trying to bring his breathing under control. Ganymede marched ahead. The snarks turned slowly to face him, long snark shadows reaching across the hard packed earth. Ganymede raised his right hand, but there was no sound, other than the soft sough of the 'Stician breeze through the long grass on the lower slopes of the hill. And then suddenly there was a voice inside his head.
“Greetings Alex,” it said, in clear and mellow tones. “We have been waiting for you.”
“Huh!” said Alex out loud.
“Not much in this Interstice escapes our attention. And you are not like the others. Approach.”
Cautiously Alex stepped forward into the semi-circle of small creatures. He tried to put out of his mind his gruesome recollection of the little blackened body roasting on Paulo’s camp fire.
“Do not let that trouble you,” said the snark voice. They could evidently read his mind. Alex felt more naked, more vulnerable than he had ever felt in his life. “We are one mind with many bodies. We live across many interstices and realities. The loss of the occasional body matters little. Think of us as a colony, like the bees in your Reality. The hive is what counts. Individuals are expendable.”
Tasty too, if Paulo’s to be believed, came blundering into his mind, before he could help himself. He wanted to perform the mental equivalent of putting his hand over his mouth and found himself physically wince, his eyes squeezed tight shut. There was an awkward silence, in his head and on the hill.
“There is something you wish to ask us, is there not?” said the voice again at last. There was no hint of annoyance, or indeed any emotion. Lots of glittering little eyes were regarding him from those strange cat like faces. Suddenly he relaxed, as though a great tension had been released. He felt a curious calmness and peace, the first he had felt for many hours.
“Yes,” he said. “There is. A friend of mine is dead. In Reality that is. She’s still alive here, but Atropos is coming for her. I want to go back in time, into Reality to the moments just before the accident that killed her….I think maybe I can save her,” he finished lamely.
“That would be impossible,” said the snark voice.
“Why not?” asked Alex. “What about Annie? You must know about her. She’s come across more than a century to be here. I only need to go back in time a few seconds.”
“That was a mistake, I’m afraid” said Ganymede’s rough voice. “A catastrophic error. Two interstices folded altogether, taking with them the instant of Reality between them. Ripples are still spreading out across a dozen others. Those disturbances you felt, your falling in and out of Intersticia before your final definitive arrival here. Those were all caused by Annie’s little time trip. Besides, it scrambled her brains. Is that what you want?”
“And the one called Annie,” came the snark voice. “There was another difference. An important one. She travelled along the interstices, without touching upon the instants of Reality that lie between them. By so doing she made no impact on Reality itself. On any Reality. What you ask is different. You ask to travel from Intersticial space into Reality, and to combine this with backward movement in time. What you ask is problematic, although theoretically feasible. But we have only limited ability to effect such a thing and the consequences are somewhat unpredictable.”
“What do you mean, limited ability?” asked Alex.
“It would not be difficult to arrange for your transport to an earlier interstice. As you know Annie managed it for herself, entirely without assistance. She rode a dugong. She climbed the clock tower of the town hall and leapt upon one’s back as it passed beneath her. Likewise we could arrange for your transport to an instant of Reality before this one. But our reach is severely constrained. We could give you only what you might describe as seven tenths of a second. And there are many philosophical implications,” said the snark. “If you return to a previous instant, you theoretically exist twice in the same period of time. One of the few basic laws we understand is the uniqueness of matter. Reality would be forced to resolve that conflict. Our best guess is that the life force you are now would merge with the life force there. For a short time, the interloper would predominate, but the original would quickly reassert itself. What we are saying is this. If you re-enter Reality at an earlier point in time, you would retain your consciousness for only a short time. Within a few moments you would forget…all this, all that has happened to you since entering Intersticia. You would become once more, what you once were. Your life would continue as though this had never happened. Is that acceptable to you?”
Alex shook his head, the cloying tendrils of fatigue clogging his mind. “I don’t know. That’s not enough time, not nearly enough. I’m well away from the road. I’m too far from Kelly to be able to do anything about it in so short a time.”
“Well, who can do something about it?” demanded Ganymede. “Ask yourself that question.”
It was quite clear what Ganymede meant, the answer swam into focus in Alex’s mind.
“Paulo,” he nodded. “Yes. Of course! If I take Paulo with us he might be able to avoid hitting Kelly. It might just give him enough time to swerve.” He turned to Ganymede. “Ask them to do it Ganymede. You want rid of me don’t you? If you can’t fix this for me you could be looking at the next sector head.”
Ganymede frowned and glared at Alex for a few moments. “I’m doing my best aren’t I?” he said. “I brought you here didn’t I?”
“Come on,” urged Alex. “You’ve got to do this for me.”
Ganymede turned to the snarks. He appeared to converse with them, although it must all have been on a purely mental level, because Alex could hear nothing. Sometimes the snarks appeared to shuffle together a little, or twitch their little noses but apart from these small signs there was no sign that anything at all was going on. Ganymede continued to stand stock still, his eyes half
shut, as though in a trance.
“Very well,” said the snark voice at length in Alex’s head. “We will do this thing for Ganymede, that he asks of us. But only once. Ganymede understands that this is a gift that can never be repeated. The consequences may be hard to control, even for us. Ride a manatee tomorrow,” said the snark. “If you wish to persevere with this. We concede it would be...interesting…being in the nature of an unique experiment. As you will have gathered, dugongs and manatees are more than just convenient timekeepers in a world without clocks. They travel backwards and forwards across the interstices. Dugongs travel forward in time, manatees backwards. If you can find a convenient vantage point you may leap upon one’s back. We will be watching.”
“How will I know when to jump off again,” asked Alex, rubbing his eyes, it was so hard to stay awake.
“You will have no problem with that,” said the snark. “Trust us on this.”
When Alex awoke, he was being dumped unceremoniously at his doorstep by Ganymede. Ganymede had carried him part of the way back from Micklebury, draped across his shoulders. The tramp, stretched himself and rubbed sore arms, glancing at the dawn sky.
“Better get some sleep,” he said ruefully. “Big day tomorrow…today.”
Alex staggered to his feet. “Thanks,” he said.
“Big decisions to make,” said Ganymede, turning towards the end of the street. “Sleep on it.”
Once in his own room Alex slept as peacefully as he had ever slept. Perhaps he owed this to the snarks. Their presence had made him feel calm and powerful and confident in a way he had never felt before. He could see why Ganymede was so keen on them. He slept a restful, dreamless sleep and awoke around ninth, to the sound of Kelly and Tanya talking in the upstairs hall outside his door. He lay for a while and took simple pleasure in those sounds, and in the tiny motes of dust dancing in the sunbeams. Today was a day for decisions, as Ganymede had said. He could, should he wish, remain in 'Sticia, take on Ganymede’s role in looking after the poor castaways of this strange world. Kelly would be there too, concealed from Cactus Jack by the angelic DNA mask. In due course Paulo would be sucked back into Reality, one less serpent in paradise. It was a tempting prospect. But then it was something less than life. It was existence, but not exactly life. So much was missing. They would never know rain, or music, or cinema, or even travel beyond the limited confines of the sector. So much was missing. It was less than life. But was it enough?