* * *
Victor had been pedalling for hours, he reckoned, and he wondered whether he had missed the tunnel. He remembered George had said it was the only turn-off, the tunnel narrowed after that and came to a zigzag, and he certainly hadn’t had to negotiate a zigzag, so he just kept going. By his calculation, the velocipede would help him get down the tunnel at about the same rate as Hugo could run, so he shouldn’t bump into him. The trouble was he had only his theory to work on as to when he would arrive at the other side relative to Hugo. He thought it would be either a few minutes, a few hours or as much as two days after him. He just hoped he hadn’t left again in the meantime.
He was just thinking it was past his breakfast time when the tunnel narrowed and he felt a turning off to the side. He stopped, and carefully parked his velocipede on the far side of the tunnel that turned off. He could see a little ring of lights glowing faintly in the wall. This must be it, he thought. He stood at the edge of the ring, and took a deep breath.
“Geronimo-o-o-o-o!” he said aloud, and took one big step forward. The lights came on, he felt lighter than a feather, and suddenly felt like he was whooshing through the air.
He landed on his feet and carried on walking out of a tunnel into a cloudy morning with a slight chill in the air. He looked around at the sky courtyard and felt slightly attracted to a particular archway, so without pausing to look at the view he went through it and down some steps. After a few moments he stopped, listening. There were footsteps coming towards him, not hurried, and a lot of breathing, as if someone not very fit was coming up the stairs. He suddenly realised he could hardly ask anyone he met “Excuse me, have you seen my father?” so he shrank into a convenient alcove and waited for the owner of the footsteps and the breathing to appear.
Round the corner came an old man, with rather wild hair, that looked rather like a mad scientist.
“Excuse me, young man,” the mad scientist said. “Would you happen to know whether Lord Mariusz is up and about yet?”
Victor shook his head.
“Pity,” sighed the scientist. “I was hoping to talk to him again about the supply of strawberry juice. Have you been in the castle long?”
Victor shook his head again. Definitely not long!
“So you don’t happen to know where he keeps the key to the strawberry juice store.”
Another shake of the head.
“Well, I could do with some help. If you are not on an errand, could you come along with me and we’ll search for it?”
Victor nearly said something about looking for something himself, and then thought he might just as well go along with this gentleman, who was obviously looking for something, and it would be good cover for him, and he could do his own searching at the same time. So he agreed and they set off back up the stairs to the sky courtyard.
“What’s your name, youngster?”
Victor introduced himself and learned he was talking to Saku! He tried not to show how pleased he was to have met someone he’d already heard of. He wondered if he should call him ‘Professor’ or ‘Saku’ if the need arose.
They went up and down a number of stairs, as Saku seemed to be sure that the key was kept in a strong room in a particular side room on the third floor from the top. He just couldn’t find it. They did, however, find the breakfast room. They settled down with a coffee and a twisted grain-cake for Saku, and a plate full of carrot cake and maple syrup and tomatoes and apple and a mint tea for Victor. Saku gazed sadly out of the window in between watching Victor demolish his breakfast.
“Time was I could eat like that,” Saku said, imagining the flavours of the past, “now I just have a little and not often.”
Victor carried on eating but behind him, people came and went, with Saku occasionally nodding at them. One person came in and Saku watched him intently. Victor saw him looking and asked him who he was looking at.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve seen him from time to time, but he reminds me of someone and I can’t remember who.”
Victor turned round to see a person with a fine head of red and black hair helping himself to some fruit from the side table.
“Dad!” he said, standing up.
The person looked at him, astonished, then left his plate and came over to enfold Victor in his arms. “Victor,” he said, “how did you get here and why?”
“It’s a long story - but why not get your breakfast and come and join us.”
Victor’s Dad did just that.
“Saku, this is my father Argon,” Victor said. “He’s who I was looking for.”
“Argon?” said Saku. “I knew an Argon once, a long time ago. But you wouldn’t be him, not so young. My Argon would be about ten years older than you.”
Argon looked from Saku to Victor and back again. “What is the year here, Saku?” he said. “I arrived by accident many months ago, and I never did work out the actual date.”
“Why, its 2021, or is it 2022 now, I forget, never did keep much of an eye on the time.” Saku responded.
Victor whispered at his Dad, “You can’t tell him about the time tunnel.”
“My hearing’s quite good still, young man,” said Saku. “I know all about the time tunnel, I've known about it for years. How do you know about it? Eh?”
“Um, I came through it just now,” Victor said.
“And I came through it last year,” said Argon, “and have been prevented from taking it back again.”
“So, what’s stopping you going back then?” and Saku peered at Argon, firstly through his glasses then he took them off and peered at him even more closely.
“Lord Mariusz, mostly. After he let me out of the dungeon he put me in, he got me to give my word of honour I wouldn’t try to escape.”
“Hmm, word of honour, wouldn’t stop him, I don’t think,” muttered Saku.
“We’ll have to persuade him to let you go then,” said Victor positively. They discussed Argon’s situation for a bit before Saku remembered he was supposed to be looking for the key to the strawberry juice supply.
“Why do you need it?” asked Victor.
“We have to top it up every now and then just to keep the power up. It sort of gets clogged up otherwise,” replied Saku.
“And what happens to the production when that happens?” asked Victor innocently.
Saku looked at him sternly. “I don’t think you need me to answer that young man, you are far too clever for your own good. Nearly as much as young George, but he had better manners.”
Victor looked a bit abashed and decided to tell the truth. “We think we should stop Mariusz exporting Diet Wozna through the time tunnel. In fact, we think he should stop making it completely. How do you think we can get him to do that?”
“When George and I mentioned it the other day he was extremely angry. Extremely,” said Saku, still stern like he was lecturing students.
“We need an alternative for him that will still make him rich,” said Victor.
“There’s more to business than that, m’lad,” said Argon with a shake of his head.
“Not really, Dad. We have to find him a substitute product that will fill the gaps in his production line and income streams.” They both looked at Victor for this long and involved sentence full of business speak. “I’ve been doing a course in business management by correspondence,” he added, sheepishly.
“Hmm,” mused Saku,” You seem to have a good head on your shoulders young Victor. What sort of product do you think would work?”
“If we persuaded him to export just Wozna, then the energy expenditure on Diet would fall but he’d have more Wozna. He could export that and maintain the production.”
“The only problem is, how would he export it?” said Argon.
“Can it be shipped by sea?” asked Victor.
“Maybe, if we could cool the containers for it. But the expense... ” said Saku.
The three of them sa
t in silence, nursing their coffees and teas. Or in Victor’s case, his empty cup, as he had long since finished.
“What if we persuaded Lord Darcy to export Vex to Hattan and on the return trip the ship would carry Mariusz’s exported Wozna?” said Victor suddenly.
The three of them exchanged glances. It seemed an ideal solution. If only they could persuade Mariusz of that.
“Let’s go and see if we can speak to him then,” said Saku.
“Before we do,” said Argon, “I think I’d just better clear something up. Saku, are you my real father?”
A tear came to Saku’s eye. “Yes, I think I might be,” he said. “Especially with a grandson as brilliant as this,” and he put his arm round Victor’s shoulders and they started climbing the stairs back to the sky courtyard.