“You think you can buy me?” he said finally, and left without another word.
“I’ll catch up,” I said as he walked out with Landen.
While the swinging doors shut noisily behind them, Scintilla said to me, “Do I need to emphasize how important it is that Friday joins the ChronoGuard as soon as possible? He should have signed up three years ago and be surfing the timestream by now.”
“You may have to wait a little longer, Bendix.”
“That’s just it,” he replied. “We don’t have much time.”
“I thought you had all the time there was.”
He took me by the arm, and we moved to a corner of the room.
“Thursday—can I call you Thursday?—we’re facing a serious crisis in the time industry, and as far as we know, Friday’s leadership several trillion bang/crunch cycles from now is the only thing that we can depend on—his truculence at this end of time means his desk is empty at the other.”
“But there’s always a crisis in time, Bendix.”
“Not like this. This isn’t a crisis in time—it’s a crisis of time. We’ve been pushing the frontiers of time forward for trillions upon trillions of years, and in a little over four days we’ll have reached the…End of Time.”
“And that’s bad, right?”
Bendix laughed. “Of course not! Time has to end somewhere. But there’s a problem with the very mechanism that controls the way we’ve been scooting around the here and now for most of eternity.”
“And that is?”
He looked left and right and lowered his voice. “Time travel has yet to be invented! And with the entire multiverse one giant hot ball of superheated gas contracting at incalculable speed into a point one trillion-trillionth the size of a neutron, it’s not likely to be.”
“Wait, wait,” I said, trying to get this latest piece of information into my head. “I know that the whole time travel thing makes very little logical sense, but you must have machines that enable you to move through time, right?”
“Of course—but we’ve got no idea how they work, who built them or when. We’ve been running the entire industry on something we call ‘retro-deficit-engineering.’ We use the technology now, safe in the assumption that it will be invented in the future. We did the same with the Gravitube in the fifties and the microchip ten years ago—neither of them actually gets invented for over ten thousand years, but it helps us more to have them now.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said slowly. “You’re using technology you don’t have—like me overspending on my credit card.”
“Right. And we’ve searched every single moment in case it was invented and we hadn’t noticed. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Rien.”
His shoulders slumped, and he ran his fingers through his hair.
“Listen, if Friday doesn’t retake his seat at the head of the ChronoGuard and use his astonishing skills to somehow save us, then everything that we’ve worked toward will be undone as soon as we hit Time Zero.”
“I think I get it. Then why is Friday not following his destined career?”
“I’ve no idea. We always had him down as dynamic and aggressively inquisitive when he was a child—what happened?”
I shrugged. “All kids are like that today. It’s a modern thing, caused by too much TV, video games and other instant-gratification bullshit. Either that—or kids are exactly the same and I’m getting crusty and intolerant in my old age. Listen, I’ll do what I can.”
Scintilla thanked me, and I joined Friday and Landen outside.
“I don’t want to work in the time industry, Mum. I’d only break some dumb rule and end up eradicated.”
“My eradication was pretty painless,” reflected Landen. “In fact, if your mother hadn’t told me about it, I never would have known it happened.”
“That doesn’t help, Dad,” grumbled Friday. “You were reactualized—what about Granddad? No one can say whether he exists or not—not even him.”
I rested my hand on his shoulder. He didn’t pull away this time.
“I know, Sweetpea. And if you don’t want to join, no one’s going to make you.”
He was quiet for a while, then said, “Do you have to call me Sweetpea? I’m sixteen.”
Landen and I looked at each other, and then we took the tram back home. True to his word, Bendix had slipped us back a few minutes to just before we went in, and as we rattled home in silence, we passed ourselves arriving.
“You know that yellow rod Bendix showed us?” said Friday, staring out the window.
“Yes?”
“It was a half second of snooker ball.”
15.
Home Again
Noting with dismay that most cross-religion bickering occurred only because all the major religions were convinced they were the right one and every other religion was the wrong one, the founders of the Global Standard Deity based their fledgling “portmanteau” faith on the premise that most religions want the same thing once all the shameless, manipulative power play had been subtracted: peace, stability, equality and justice—the same as the nonfaiths. As soon as they found that centralizing thread that unites all people and made a dialogue of sorts with a Being of Supreme Moral Authority mostly optional, the GSD flourished.
F riday went to his room in a huff as soon as we got in. Mrs. Berko-Boyler told us that the girls were fine and that she had folded all the washing, cleaned the kitchen, fed Pickwick and made us all cottage pie. This wasn’t unusual for her, and she scoffed at any sort of payment, then shuffled off home, muttering darkly about how if she’d killed her husband when she’d first thought of it, she’d be “out of prison by now.”
“Where’s Jenny?” I asked Landen, having just gone upstairs to check. “She’s not in her room.”
“She was just in the kitchen.”
The phone rang, and I picked it up.
“Hello?”
“It’s Millon,” came a soft voice, “and I’m sorry to call you at home.”
“Where are you?”
“Look out the window.”
I did as he asked and saw him wave from his usual spot between the compost heap and the laurels. Millon de Floss, it should be explained, was my official stalker. Even though I had long ago dropped to the bottom of the Z-class celebrity list, he had insisted on maintaining his benign stalkership because, as he explained it, “we all need a retirement hobby.” Since he had shown considerable fortitude during a sojourn into the Elan back in ’88, I now counted him as a family friend, something that he always denied, when asked. “Friendship,” he intoned soberly, “always damages the pest factor that is the essence of the bond between stalker and stalkee.” None of the kids were bothered by him at all, and his early-warning capabilities were actually very helpful—he’d spotted Felix8, after all. Not that stalking was his sole job, of course. Aside from fencing cheese to the east of Swindon, he edited Conspiracy Theorist magazine and worked on my official biography, something that was taking longer than we had both thought.
“So what’s the problem? You still up for the cheese buy this evening?” I asked him.
“Of course—but you’ve got visitors. A car on the street with two men in it and another man climbing over the back wall.”
I thanked him and put the phone down. I’d made a few enemies in the past, so Landen and I had some prearranged contingency measures.
“Problems?” asked Landen.
“It’s a code yellow.”
Landen understood and without a word dashed off toward the front of the house. I opened the back door and crept out into the garden, took the side passage next to the dustbins and slipped behind the summer house. I didn’t have to wait long, as a man wearing a black coverall and a balaclava helmet came tiptoeing up the path toward where I was hidden. He was carrying a sack and a bag of marshmallows. I didn’t waste any time on pleasantries; I simply whacked him hard on the chin with my fist, and when he staggered, momentarily stunned, I thumped him in the chest, and
he fell over backward with a grunt. I pulled off the balaclava to reveal a man I recognized—it was Arthur Plunkett of the Swindon Dodo Fanciers Guild.
“For GSD’s sake, Arthur,” I said, “how many times do I have to tell you that Pickwick’s not for sale?”
“Uuuuh,” he said, groaning and wheezing as he tried to regain his wind.
“Come on, idiot,” I said as I heaved him up and rested him against the back of the summer house. “You know better than to break into my house—I can be dangerously protective of my family. Why do you think I’m the only one in Swindon able to leave my car unlocked at night?”
“Ooooooh.”
“Wait here,” I said to him, and trotted back indoors. I could be dangerous, but then so could Landen, even with one leg. The front door was open, and I could see him hiding behind the privet hedge. I ran low across the lawn and joined him.
“It’s only dodo fanciers,” I hissed.
“Again?” he replied. “After what happened last time?”
I nodded. Clearly, Pickwick’s Version 1.2 rarity was a prize worth risking a lot for. I looked across the road to where a Buick was parked by the curb. The two men inside were wearing dark glasses and making a lot of effort to be inconspicuous.
“Shall we stop them?”
“No,” giggled Landen. “They won’t get far.”
“What have you done?” I asked in my serious voice.
“You’ll see.”
As we watched, Arthur Plunkett decided to make a run for it—well, a hobble for it, actually—and came out through the gate and limped across the road. The driver of the car started up the engine, waited until Plunkett had thrown himself in the back, then pulled rapidly away from the curb. They got about twenty feet before the cable that Landen had tied around their rear axle whipped tight and, secured to a lamppost at the other end and far too strong to snap, it tore the axle and most of the suspension clear from the back of the car, which then almost pitched up onto its nose before falling with a crunch in the middle of the road. After a short pause, the three men climbed shakily out of the car and then legged it off down the street, Plunkett behind.
“Was that really necessary?” I asked.
“Not at all,” admitted Landen through a series of childish giggles. “But I’d always wanted to try it.”
“I wish you two would grow up.”
We looked up. My brother Joffy and his partner, Miles, were staring at us over the garden gate.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, getting up from where we’d been crouched behind the hedge and giving Landen a heave to get him on his feet. “It’s just a normal evening in Swindon.” I looked around, as the neighbors had come out to gawk at the wreck of the Buick and motioned Joffy and Miles inside. “Come on in for a cup of tea.”
“No tea,” said Joffy as we walked into the house. “We’ve just had a tankerful at Mum’s—can’t you hear me slosh as I walk?”
“And enough Battenberg cake to fill the Grand Canyon,” added Miles in a stuffed-with-cake sort of voice.
“How’s the carpet business, Doofus?” asked Joffy as we stood in the hall.
“Couldn’t be better—how’s the faith-unification business?”
“We’ve nearly got everyone,” said Joffy with a smile. “The atheists came on board last week. Once we’d suggested that ‘god’ could be a set of essentially beneficent physical rules of the cosmos, they were only too happy to join. In fact, apart from a few scattered remnants of faith leaders who can’t quite come to terms with the loss of their power, influence and associated funny hats, it’s all looking pretty good.”
Joffy’s nominal leadership of the British Archipelago Branch of the Global Standard Deity was a matter of considerable import within the Next family. The GSD was proposed by delegates of the 1978 Global Interfaith Symposium and had gathered momentum since then, garnering converts from all the faiths into one diverse religion that was flexible enough to offer something for everyone.
“I’m amazed you managed to convert them all,” I said.
“It wasn’t a conversion,” he replied, “it was a unification.”
“And you are here now because…?”
“Landen said he’d videotape Dr. Who for me, and the Daleks are my favorite.”
“I’m more into the Sontarans myself,” said Miles.
“Humph!” said Joffy. “It’s what I would expect from someone who thinks Jon Pertwee was the best Doctor.”
Landen and I stared at him, unsure of whether we should agree, postulate a different theory—or what.
“It was Tom Baker,” said Joffy, ending the embarrassed silence. Miles made a noise that sounded like “conventionalist,” and Landen went off to fetch the tape.
“Doofus?” whispered Joffy when Landen had gone.
“Yes?”
“Have you told him?”
“No,” I whispered back.
“You can’t not tell him, Thursday—if you don’t tell him the truth about the BookWorld and Acme Carpets, it’s like you’re—I don’t know—lying to him.”
“It’s for his own good,” I hissed. “It’s not like I’m having an affair or something.”
“Are you?”
“No, of course not!”
“It’s still a lie, sister dearest. How would you like it if he lied to you about what he did all day?”
“I daresay I’d not like it. Leave it to me, Joff—I’ll be fine.”
“I hope so. Happy birthday—and in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s some Camembert on fire in the hood of your Acme Carpets van.”
“Some what?”
“Camembert. On fire.”
“Here it is,” said Landen, returning with a video. “‘Remembrance of the Daleks.’ Where did Thursday go?”
“Oh, she just nipped out for something. Well, must be off! People to educate, persuade and unify—hopefully in that order. Ha-ha-ha.”
“Sorry about that,” I said, coming back from outside. “I thought I saw Pickwick make faces at the cat next door—you know how they hate each other.”
“But she’s over there,” said Landen, pointing to where Pickwick was still struggling to look at herself and her blue-and-white stripy sweater in the mirror.
I shrugged. “Must have been another dodo.”
“Is there another bald dodo in the neighborhood with a blue stripy cardigan? And can you smell burning cheese?”
“No,” I said innocently. “What about you, Joff?”
“I’ve got to go,” he repeated, staring at his watch. “Remember what I said, sister dearest!”
And he and Miles walked off toward the crowd that had started to gather around the wrecked car.
“I swear I can smell burning cheese,” said Landen as I shut the front door.
“Probably Mrs. Berko-Boyler cooking next door.”
Outwardly I was worry-free, but inside I was more nervous. A chunk of burning Camembert on your doorstep meant only one thing: a warning from the Swindon Old Town Cheese Mafia—or, as they liked to be known, the Stiltonistas.
16.
Cheese
The controversial Milk Levy from which the unpopular Cheese Duty is derived was imposed in 1970 by the then Whig government, which needed to raise funds for a potential escalation of war in the Crimea. With the duty now running at 1,530 percent on hard and 1,290 percent on smelly, illegal cheese making and smuggling had become a very lucrative business indeed. The Cheese Enforcement Agency was formed not only to supervise the licensing of cheese but also to collect the tax levied on it by an overzealous government. Small wonder that there was a thriving underground cheese market.
T hanks for tipping us the wink about the dodo fanciers,” I said as we drove through the darkened streets of Swindon two hours later. A tow truck had removed the wreckage of the fanciers’ car, and the police had been around to collect statements. Despite its being a busy neighborhood, no one had seen anything. They had, of course, but the Parke-Laine-Nexts were quite popu
lar in the area.
“Are you sure we weren’t followed?” asked Millon as we pulled up outside an empty industrial unit not a stone’s throw from the city’s airship field.
“Positive,” I replied. “Have you got buyers for it?”
“The usual cheeseheads are all champing at the bit, recipes at the ready. The evening air will be rich with the scent of Welsh rarebit tonight.”
A large seventy-seat airship rose slowly into the sky behind the factory units. We watched while its silver flanks caught the colors of the late-evening sun as it turned and, with its four propellers beating the still air with a rhythmic hum, set course for Southampton.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready,” said Millon.
I beeped the horn twice, and the steel shutters were slowly raised on the nearest industrial unit.
“Tell me,” said Millon, “why do you think the Old Town Stiltonistas gave you the flaming Camembert?”
“A warning, perhaps. But we’ve never bothered them, and they’ve never bothered us.”
“Our two territories don’t even overlap,” he observed. “Do you think the Cheese Enforcement Agency is getting bolder?”
“Perhaps.”
“You don’t seem very worried.”
“The CEA is underfunded and knows nothing. Besides, we have customers to attend to—and Acme needs the cash. Think you can liberate five grand by tomorrow morning?”
“Depends what they’ve got,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “If they’re trying to peddle common-or-garden Cheddaresque or that processed crap, then we could be in trouble. But if they’ve got something exotic, then no problem at all.”
The roller shutter was high enough to let us in by now, and we drove inside, the shutter reversing direction to close behind us.
We climbed out of the van. The industrial unit was empty except for a large Welsh-registered Griffin-V8 truck, a long table with leather sample cases lying on it and four men wearing black suits with black ties and sunglasses and looking vaguely menacing. It was all bravado, of course—Scorsese movies were big in the Welsh Republic. I tried to see by the swing of their jackets if any of them were packing heat and guessed that they weren’t. I’d only carried a gun once in the real world since SpecOps was disbanded and hoped I never had to again. Cheese smuggling was still a polite undertaking. As soon as it turned ugly, I was out.