‘What?’ said Gabriel, really taken aback. ‘Bedlam?’
‘Not Bedlam or whateva, BETHLEHEM, like in Jesus ’n’ Christmas ’n’ stuff.’
‘It is the same thing,’ said Gabriel, walking ahead and looking fixedly at the hated and fearful place of his nightmares and his father’s nightmares. He thought this place had long since been destroyed.
Silver said, ‘Is this a hospital for sick people, like in England?’
‘Yeah, I guess, and where they screen you when you arrive. We come here to check for diseases. You get wicked food and it’s not like a horrible hospital in London. I was in one once when I broke my leg. It was disgustin’, like slop to eat, and dirty, and everyone yellin’ all hours, days and nights. This is like a hotel.’
‘Can we go in?’ said Silver.
Toby shook his head. ‘No way. This is like free space out here. Like a meeting place. But you can’t go in. Sally and Kelly come here every day, but when we ask what happens they says nothing happens. They just get their DNA mapped – y’know, DNA?’
Silver nodded. The guard was looking at them. Gabriel was conspicuous in his strange clothes. He was agitated and upset too. He clearly wanted them all to move on, but Silver was staring at the gleaming white hospital.
Then Silver saw her, Regalia Mason, coming down the steps of the hospital.
‘Let’s go,’ she said to Toby, already moving away.
It was too late. Regalia Mason had seen Gabriel. In less than a second he was surrounded.
‘Wozappinin?’ said Toby, frightened.
‘Go!’ said Silver. ‘Just go!’
Something in her voice made Toby obey. He whistled at the kids and they vanished like mice. Silver ran straight over to where Gabriel stood surrounded.
‘Let him go!’ she said, trying to pull the huge guards away.
‘No need for violence,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘They won’t hurt him.’
‘It’s me you want, not him,’ said Silver.
Regalia Mason laughed. ‘I only want what is best for both of you. When you disappeared last week, we were naturally very worried about you.’
‘Last week?’
‘Time flies, doesn’t it?’ said Regalia Mason.
‘Tempus Fugit,’ said Silver, before she could stop herself.
‘Yes …’ said Regalia Mason, ‘and that is why we should have a little talk, you and I. Will you come and and sit down with me? I know a very nice cafe nearby.’
‘What about Gabriel?’
‘I will make a deal with you, Silver. If you will come and talk to me, I will make sure that Gabriel is kept safe and not Deported immediately. We will have to pretend to go through the formalities – so he will be taken away – but I promise you he will not be Deported without you. Do you agree?’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Silver.
‘I always tell the truth,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘Gabriel will not be sent back to London without you. I give you my word.’ She motioned to one of the guards.
‘Take this boy away, but treat him as we did Count Palmieri. You understand? Count Palmieri.’
Turning to Silver she said, ‘He was an important Italian aristocrat we wanted to look after, but here, on the Einstein Line, we must obey the rules, or be seen to obey them, at least. Now come along, won’t you?’
Silver ran over to Gabriel. The guards let her, though.
‘It’s just pretend,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll be safe.’
Gabriel smiled and nodded. ‘Don’t fear for me, Silver. Never forget what you must do. Never forget why you are here.’
And the funny thing was that Silver had forgotten. She hadn’t thought of the Timekeeper all day long. She shook herself like someone trying to remember. Regalia Mason’s eyes were watching her.
‘I won’t forget,’ said Silver to Gabriel.
Gabriel watched her walk away with Regalia Mason.
He did not know if he would ever see Silver again.
‘Micah.’ He was sending a Mind Message. ‘Micah …’
The Star Road
The Caffè Ora was behind St Peter’s church.
Silver was hungry and she was glad to eat the toasted ciabatta that Regalia Mason ordered for her. All her life, Silver thought vaguely between bites, she had never had enough to eat.
Regalia Mason was not eating.
‘Why is everybody here so tall?’ asked Silver, looking at the waiter. Like the guards, the waiter was at least eight feet high.
‘The people who live and work on the Einstein Line are known as Les Marginaux. They are outcasts, dropouts, refugees, protesters, and they have been forced to live rough. Living rough in Space is different to living rough on Earth. Earth has gravity, but many of the Space colonies do not. When humans live without gravity for too long, their bodies begin to come apart. They stretch.
‘These are the lucky ones who had medical treatment before they stretched too much. But, as you see, they are still taller than is usual.’
‘Why do they have to live rough?’
‘They don’t. No one does. The Quantum offers everyone a house and a job.’
‘Then why have they run away?’
‘There are always those who don’t know what is best for them. The future has changed a lot of things, Silver, but it hasn’t changed human nature.’
Silver nodded, and thought about human nature; her only examples were her parents and Buddleia – good, and Mrs Rokabye and Abel Darkwater – very bad. And the Throwbacks and Gabriel, but were they human? And Regalia Mason …
Silver looked at her directly, then she asked, ‘Are you going to kill me?’
Regalia Mason laughed, but for the first time in a long time, she felt uncomfortable. ‘Perhaps we should be honest with each other. Shall we?’
Silver nodded.
‘All right. You are here because you are looking for the Timekeeper.’
Silver didn’t answer.
‘But if you find the Timekeeper, what are you going to do with it?’
‘I don’t know, but I don’t want Abel Darkwater to have it.’
‘That is a wise decision. In which case you had better take my advice and go home, because you will lead him to the Timekeeper, whether or not you want to, and he is a very powerful man.’
‘What will happen if he finds it?’
‘He will alter history.’
‘What will happen if you find it?’
‘I do not need it.’
Silver was thinking back to the Maria Prophetessa she had seen in Rome. She had to keep reminding herself that this woman who seemed so reasonable and kind was also the one Micah had called both the phoenix and the serpent. She had a strange feeling of being warm and tired. She didn’t want to think hard at all. She had to think hard. Under the table she pulled Micah’s medallion out of her pocket and rubbed it between her fingers. Her mind cleared again.
‘Then why is it important to you? I know it is important to you …’
Regalia Mason smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
‘It isn’t important to me as long as it stays exactly where it is.’
‘Do you know where it is?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then …’
‘Then all you have to do is go home.’
‘My mum and dad died because of the Timekeeper.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘And it’s something to do with our house, with Tanglewreck, and it’s something to do with me.’
Regalia Mason was watching Silver intently. The child was no fool; and she was better than that, she had something in her that money couldn’t buy and fear couldn’t paralyse. She would grow up. What would she become? Regalia Mason had intended to wipe her memory and have her Deported. That would be enough to thwart Abel Darkwater, but, if this child really was the Child with the Golden Face, might the Quantum find in her an enemy it had never expected? Unlikely, very unlikely. The Quantum was all powerful … but … the future is forked … w
hat might happen … what does happen …
‘Why don’t we go for a walk?’ said Regalia Mason.
They set off together down a long avenue lined with trees. Brightly coloured birds sang in the branches.
‘Will you keep your promise about Gabriel?’ said Silver.
‘I promise I will not kill Gabriel and I promise I will not have him Deported,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘I promise I will tell you the truth.’
Silver nodded. She had put Micah’s medallion away, and the sun was making her warm and sleepy again.
‘The road goes on far and far,’ said Silver.
‘This is the Star Road. Few from your time have seen it.’
Instinctively Silver felt in her pocket for the two pictures Micah had given her. The road winding through the stars – yes, the picture was this road. This road was the picture.
And Regalia Mason began to tell Silver the story of what had happened after the Time Tornadoes in the twenty-first century, and how Time travel began, and how the Star Road was discovered.
‘Go back to the day when you were on Tower Bridge. What did you see?’
‘I saw Roger Rover sailing up the Thames in his treasure ship.’
‘What do you think happened to the hundreds of people walking up and down Shad Thames that day, or driving across the bridge?’
‘I don’t know because I jumped into the Time Tornado as it came towards me. I saw the river rearing up in gold, and I thought, “If I don’t jump now, I’ll be swept away.”’
‘And you jumped.’
‘Yes.’
‘The ones who were swept away were whirled through Time, and they will never be able to return to their own time. Some have already been Atomised. Others will have to adapt to life here on the Einstein Line. We cannot Deport them back to their own time, because their relatives and friends, the British Government, the whole world, knows that Time has begun to destabilise, and any returning refugees would be scanned for information about the future.’
‘But you just said that I can go home!’
‘That is because no one knows you are here, and because once your memory malfunction has been completed by us, you will never remember that you have been here.’ Regalia Mason smiled her cold smile.
‘But you said that people come here from the past anyway,’ argued Silver.
‘There have always been Time travel accidents,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘Perhaps you have heard of the Bermuda Triangle, a strange stretch of water where sailors and their ships have disappeared completely. Or have you heard of a ship called the Marie Celeste, found floating without a sign of passengers or crew? There is a mountain in Australia called Hanging Rock, where a group of school children and their teacher vanished without trace. And there are thousands of men and women and children who have simply walked into a Time Warp, and landed light years away from home.’
‘But now it’s different,’ said Silver.
‘Yes, very different, and that is why I came to London to offer help. At Quanta we have special skills, and in the twenty-first century, we were gradually able to stabilise Time again. Without us, what do you think would have happened?’
Silver didn’t know.
‘Space and Time are connected,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘We can only really talk of Space–Time, not one without the other. If Time had continued to heave, the world itself might have folded up. We might have disappeared again into the tiny point of light that we were when Time began.’
Silver nodded again, even sleepier than before. It all made sense when Regalia explained it. It was only Abel Darkwater who was upsetting everything. Suddenly she heard Micah’s voice, as though he were standing right next to her: ‘Fear her much more than you fear him. She is the phoenix of old, the one who dies and is reborn.’
Silver opened her eyes wide, and looked round. Regalia Mason was watching her closely.
‘What is the matter, Silver?’
‘Oh, nothing. I just heard something, that’s all.’
‘You are tired,’ said Regalia Mason gently, ‘very tired.’ She took Silver’s hand.
Silver and Regalia Mason were walking steadily along the Star Road. All the buildings were far behind. Fields stretched on either side of the road. The air was heavy with the sound of insects. It was like the day in the garden in Rome …
‘Where does this road take us?’
‘This road winds through the past and the future, through worlds dead and new-born. It is a trade road and a traveller’s road, and something else too – it is part of the journey.’
‘What journey is that?’
‘You will discover.’
Silver never wanted to stop walking. She felt light and free under the sky of pale suns and visible stars. She wished she could just walk and walk until she came to the day when she was grown up, and then no one would be able to ask her where she was going, and she would come to the last mile of the Star Road, and disappear.
It didn’t matter about the Timekeeper. Everything would be all right.
Regalia Mason squeezed her hand. Did she read her thoughts?
The road wavered in the sun. A heat haze shimmered up ahead.
‘That’s your wave function that you can see, shimmering there,’ whispered Regalia Mason. ‘You think you are bound by your body, but in reality your body is only an outline. Every sub-atomic particle that you are sends out a wave – through Space and Time. Your wave function is the pattern that you are, spread through the Universe, and if you knew how to do it, you could concentrate yourself in any place and any time.’
Silver had the dissolving feeling she had when she jumped into the Time Tornado. She could feel herself moving away from herself. She wanted to let it happen; it was like drifting off to sleep and beginning to dream.
This time Gabriel’s arms were not there to steady her. This time there was no one to call her name. She had a thought that it was much much easier to dissolve into this wave pattern than it was to re-form as herself, or as any other possibility. It was easier to sleep than to wake, and she was very very tired.
‘Where’s Gabriel?’ she asked suddenly. ‘You promised –’
‘He is where you will never find him.’
Regalia Mason let go of Silver’s hand, and the little girl fell down by the roadside.
Night came. White stars and three moons.
A Black Hole
Gabriel had been driven back to Checkpoint Zero.
The guards had bundled him out of the van and pushed him towards a corrugated iron shed. ‘“Palmieri”, don’t forget,’ said one of the guards, laughing. He shoved a piece of paper in front of Gabriel. ‘This is your pass to get you out of here whenever you want to go. Just like Palmieri. Keep it safe!’ They all burst out laughing again.
‘Do you laugh at me?’ said Gabriel.
There was silence. The guards looked uncomfortable, then angry. They had all been recruited from the Scrappers, and because they had been treated so badly all their lives, all they liked to do was to make other people feel worse than themselves.
‘Beat him up,’ said one of the guards.
‘No, don’t bother,’ said another. ‘He’s free to go whenever he likes, after all.’ There was another burst of laughter. ‘Just get in there, you little weirdo, will you?’
‘What be here?’ asked Gabriel, looking at the shed.
‘Go and see for yerself,’ said the guard, ‘and when you’ve had a good look around, you’re free to go!’
They yanked open the shed door. A terrible searing wind blew out, and the guards had to struggle against it to stand up to it. With all their might, they threw Gabriel into the shed. The shed had no floor. Gabriel fell and fell, falling down the wind, and into a blacked-out world. With a terrible thump he landed on something very soft, something that half choked him as he tried to get up.
‘Who is it come here?’ said a Voice, in a whisper that was sharper and higher than the rush of wind around him.
‘One like us,’
said another Voice. ‘It must be.’
‘Pull him up!’
‘No, let him slip!’
Gabriel had ears that could hear everything; he had been born and bred underground and his ears were keen as an animal’s that lives in a burrow.
He had eyes that could see in the dark too, but in all his life he had never seen darkness like this. It was thick as a hood. He held up his hand in front of his face. Nothing.
He reasoned that whatever lived underground here had ears and no eyes.
Better keep quiet.
‘Does he know what time it is?’ There was the Voice again. ‘I want to know what time it is.’
‘He’s lost his twin. He’ll never see her again. Poor sonny! Ha ha ha.’
Gabriel didn’t like the sound of this. He had to get out. He tried to pull himself up, and found that he couldn’t move. At least, he couldn’t move upwards. He could move down wards, and that was where the force of the wind wanted him to go; downwards.
‘Let’s get him!’
Gabriel panicked, terrified. Memories of being chased, memories of being beaten, memories of running with Goliath through the dark low tunnels, the Devils shouting from behind, their glowing bodies red, their faces blank and cruel. He wouldn’t be sent to Bedlam. He wouldn’t be chained like his father.
Frantically he dug his square spade hands into the soft stuff to try and get a grip, and that is how they found him. Two lassos grasped his hands. Two more lassos grasped his feet, and he was being pulled down, suffocating, into the soft blackness.
‘Gotcha now, sonny! Ha ha ha! Let’s feel what he is.’
There was a horrible wet slithering sound as Gabriel was felt all over.
‘Two arms, yes, two legs, yes, head, hands and feet, and, AND, funny ears. Ha ha ha.’
‘Do you laugh at me?’ said Gabriel.
There was a silence. There was no answer. Gabriel heard rapid whispering. Anger made him bold.
‘You feel what I be, now I feel what you be,’ he said, plunging forward and touching the nearest shape.
It was horrible. The shape was long and thin, but not flat. The shape was round and pulpy, like warm spaghetti, like a fat worm, and its longness and thinness never seemed to end. Gabriel was coiling the body like a rope over his arm.