He came upon proof of this at the end of the hall. Here there was a round antechamber with two vast arched doorways leading off it. On the floor of this round space was a heap of typewritten paper, some of it old and yellow, some of it white and new—a surprisingly small heap. Thirteen times eight thousand words did not make much more than two hundred pages. Venturus must have been using some other way for the first thirteen years, Howard thought, as he stooped unsteadily the long way down and picked up a page at random. He read: “Today all the rabbits started eating meat, a fact which was not noticed straightaway....” So this was where all Quentin’s words ended up. It did not look as if Venturus were doing much with them.
Howard dropped the paper back on the heap and stepped around it to look through the left-hand archway. There was a huge domed marble room beyond, completely empty. Wondering what possible use such a room was to anyone, Howard scuffed past the papers to look through the right-hand arch. The humming seemed to be coming from there. He stopped in the doorway with a gasp of admiration.
It was another domed marble room, but this one had a spaceship in the middle of it. The spaceship was the most elegant thing Howard had ever seen. It had a sheeny surface of some substance Howard did not know. It was like a slender blue bolt, raised on a gantry to point at the domed roof. Howard could see the dome was designed to open and let the ship out, and he could see the ship was designed to take off under its own power, without a rocket to lift it into orbit. So there really must be some form of antigravity, he thought. It made him realize for the first time that he was truly in the future.
The ship was obviously not quite finished. Robots were working on it—not man-shaped robots, but things like elegant little diggers or metal giraffes. They were working as busily as people at all sorts of tasks. Perhaps they were being controlled from some of the banks of installations around the walls of the room. Howard looked around at the readouts, small lights, and ranks of little square buttons. Like the queer robots, they all were strange and compact and most beautifully designed. Venturus had technology here that made Archer’s look like flint axes.
Since none of the robots seemed to notice him, Howard tiptoed wonderingly in to have a closer look at the ship. It made him feel odd to be the only human being in the place.
The nearest robot trundled up to him. Howard froze. But the machine only spoke to him, in a voice like a mouth organ. “Advise not to enter ship,” it said. “Final tests entail vacuum in interior.”
“Is it nearly finished then?” Howard said, almost whispering with wonder.
“Takeoff planned for twenty-one hours tonight,” the machine mouth organed. After that it ducked a metal scoop politely and trundled back to its work.
Then where is Venturus? Howard wondered. He went to look at the nearest control console. Since the robots took no further notice of him, he daringly put out one of his new large hands and pressed a square button that was third in a row of six. A piece of the wall above lit up and formed into a picture of Dillian. She was sitting by an arrangement of flowers near the fountain in her home, and she had her blankest, angriest look. There were earphones over her golden hair with a microphone attached. “Darling,” said her voice, from a grille below the buttons, “must you always contradict me? I tell you that at least two of my family are about to take our organization over, and you just have to move without me. I want this country at least in our hands by tomorrow night.”
Rather shaken, Howard pressed another button and found himself looking at Shine instead. She had a smoking gun in her hands and a black eye as bad as Ginger Hind’s. She turned to look over her shoulder and shouted, “Where’s that boy Hind? I’ll murder him! Why has he got to disappear now, when we’re all ready to go!”
Howard pressed the first button then, sure that he would get Archer. He did. Archer’s face glared out of the screen at him, its eyes like blue holes. He was furiously angry. “Get off my screen!” he shouted. And the screen went blank as if Archer had cut a connection.
Did Archer know me then? Howard wondered, pressing button number 4. Hathaway. The image on the wall this time was misty and remote, as if even Venturus’s technology had found it hard to go back six hundred years or so. Hathaway seemed to be up a tree. Anne and William were balanced on a ladder just below him, and the faces and arms of all the other people in the house were bobbing in and out of view lower down. Everyone was in such fits of laughter that it took Howard a moment to gather that they all were trying to rescue Bess’s kitten from the top of the tree.
I was right about Hathaway, Howard thought. But it gave him an uncomfortable feeling of spying. He hesitated before pressing the fifth button, for Torquil, but he still went ahead and pressed it. Torquil seemed to be in the cathedral. He was dressed as a priest this time, in black robes and a white surplice, and he seemed utterly dejected. He was sitting all alone on the steps of an altar, with his hands clasped around his robed knees, just staring. He clearly thought he was private. Even more uncomfortable, Howard hurriedly pressed the last button, telling himself it really was important to know what Erskine was doing.
The picture showed the rubbish pit, with the incinerator in the distance, but there was no sign of Erskine anywhere in it. Then Shine did shoot him, Howard thought, and he was surprised how upset and guilty this made him feel. He was leaning close to the picture, searching the background, in case Erskine was somewhere in the distance, when he heard, quite unmistakably, the distant sound of the glass door thumping open. Venturus was coming.
Howard stabbed the button to turn off the picture and sped in great strides on his new long legs, out of the doorway, and in a long leap across the antechamber over Quentin’s words, to where he could lean around a pillar and look down the marble hall.
It was Erskine. Erskine was coming up the four steps, lunging up each one, fighting the difficulty, but there was no change in him at all as he came. He was just the same when he reached the top, except that his leather jacket perhaps looked older still. Howard dodged back around the pillar and listened to Erskine striding down the hall toward him, quite unable to think of what to do. If he hid, Erskine would simply stride through the place, the way he had stridden through the Town Hall, until he found Howard. The only comfort Howard could see was that he and Erskine were now more or less the same size.
Erskine came to the anteroom. When he saw the papers, he nodded. They seemed to be what he expected to see. He seemed to expect to see Howard, too. He simply leaned his back against the pillar opposite Howard’s, folded his arms, and looked at Howard.
“Set Shine on me, didn’t you?” he said. “And Torquil.”
“Shine didn’t shoot you?” said Howard.
“Missed,” said Erskine. He added with satisfaction, “Blacked her eye.”
Howard folded his arms and leaned against his pillar, too. “How did you know I was here?”
“Obvious,” said Erskine. “Nobody can get here when you’re not. You finished now? Or do we go around another thirteen years?”
If Erskine had landed out with a great Goon fist and hit Howard in the stomach, he could scarcely have given Howard more of a shock. He clutched the pillar with both hands and stared at Erskine.
“Ah,” said Erskine. “Thought you didn’t know. Tried to find out. Then tried to make you see. Almost worked. You came here.”
“Thought I didn’t know what? What do you mean?” said Howard. He did not want to believe what Erskine seemed to be saying.
“Didn’t know much at first,” Erskine went on remorselessly. “Just knew it had happened before. Outside town in sewage plant. Remembered. Went to see Archer. Archer played all his phone tappings for 1970. Venturus always good at not being bugged. All Archer had was Quentin Sykes saying, ‘Two thousand every quarter day then.’ Came around. Didn’t even know it was words then. Knew you, though, straight off.”
“The others didn’t,” Howard said. “Are you sure?”
“Am sure. Others all grown-up when you were a kid.
” Erskine grinned and corrected himself. “When you were a kid first. Except me and Torquil. Surprised Torquil didn’t remember. I did. Only five years older. Worse kid than Awful, Venturus.”
I’m Venturus! Howard thought. Oh, no. I can’t be! But he knew Erskine was right. There seemed to be a roaring in his mind, bringing with it knowledge and memory that told him that much as he hated the idea, much as he disliked the little he knew of Venturus, Erskine was right. He was Venturus. He hung his head, so that his new longish hair hid his face, and looked down at his spongy shoes, still struggling not to admit it. Almost the only thing he seemed to have in common with Venturus was a passion for spaceships. Yet memory kept coming in, clustering around that spaceship, telling him that the spaceship was the thing that had caused all the trouble. He had wanted a spaceship. He had wanted to go several times better than Archer. For that, he had used his brothers and sisters as a secret weapon, just as Awful used Howard. He had kept them in one spot for twenty-six years. And though that was probably a blessing for the world, Howard—Venturus, that is—knew that he had also made Quentin and Catriona adopt him, not once, but twice, and brought endless difficulties down on them. The reason he did not want to admit it was that it made him so ashamed.
He found himself making a sound that seemed to be a groan.
“Want to explain?” asked Erskine.
Howard—Venturus—looked up to see the Goon face wearing an expression of round-eyed sympathy. That made him ashamed, too. He had not expected sympathy. He deserved that Erskine should go on being angry. He was almost too ashamed to explain, but he admitted wretchedly, “It was my spaceship. I could only get the technology to build it in the future. So I went there. But it was like Hathaway in reverse, and I found out the hard way, like Hathaway did. I stayed a year and a half, setting up the machines and programming them to build it. When I walked out of the door, I must have turned into a baby on the spot—only I didn’t know I had, of course. That was the first time. I didn’t realize what had happened until I was thirteen and my powers had started to come back. I seemed to remember things rather better that time because I walked in here at once and understood straightaway. That was what kept the six of you pinned down, of course.”
Erskine frowned. “Don’t understand.”
The explanation lay a hundred and thirty-odd years back, behind a smear of blinding anger, long before their parents had turned them out. Howard-Venturus sighed. Erskine would not like remembering this. They all had been so angry with their parents. All the same, when you looked at the seven of them, you could hardly blame their parents. And when Venturus, the precious seventh child, who was supposed to have twice the gifts of the others, had grown up to be as bad a lot as the other six, they had had enough and turned them all out.
“Our parents,” he said. “Don’t forget you were all much older than I was and I was their precious seventh child. You all had come into your full powers and could do anything you liked, while I was still just an unprotected child. So they laid it on you: ‘Look after Venturus. Don’t let Venturus go off on his own.’ It was just the same as me and Awful really. Catriona said this afternoon, ‘Don’t go away and leave Awful,’ and I almost understood then, but not quite. But being our parents, they laid it on you really strong. As long as I was a child, without my powers, you couldn’t go away and leave me. I think it was strong enough to come down through Hathaway to Catriona and Quentin. They did adopt me both times.”
Erskine nodded. “Did it for me, too. Forgot.”
“That’s why they all had to help me against you just now,” said Howard-Venturus. “But I really didn’t know.”
Erskine simply nodded again. He did not seem angry about it. And they both went thoughtful for a minute. Howard-Venturus was remembering the way he had indeed been worse than Awful, quite unscrupulously playing on the fact that the others had to look after him, running after them, making them take him anywhere he wanted to go. Erskine and Hathaway had always been surprisingly patient. The others had not.
Presently Erskine reached out a huge boot and stirred the little heap of papers. “What’s all this then? Why the second time around? Any point to it?”
Howard-Venturus felt an Archer-like redness sweeping into his face. “You won’t believe this,” he said. “You probably don’t remember. You and Shine got on to me the last time. It wasn’t as bad as this time, but it scared me stiff. That’s how I started remembering and came back in here. The spaceship should have been ready then. But it wasn’t. It was an utter mess. I’d made a mistake in programming the robots. I had to do it all over again.” He could have cried, even now, when he remembered the twisted heap of metal he had found instead of the beautiful ship he had been expecting. Thirteen years’ work wasted! And his terror when he realized how his brothers and sisters would feel.
“The only thing I could think of was to do the same thing all over again,” he explained. “But this time I planned it. I spent a day reprogramming the robots and arranging to pay Quentin and Catriona back for adopting me the first time.” It had been a frantic day. He remembered how he had bullied Mountjoy and arranged for Quentin not to pay taxes and set things up so that Mountjoy would from time to time hear his voice over the phone. It had seemed a very generous idea.
“Just to pay them back?” Erskine asked unbelievingly.
“Well, I thought it might put the rest of you off the scent,” Howard-Venturus admitted, “if you thought the words were doing it. But I didn’t know they’d adopt me twice. I didn’t know! I really didn’t know that when I went outside and turned into a baby, I was going to take everything back thirteen years with me. I’d no idea! I’d no idea it would be snowing then either. It didn’t work out the way I expected at all.”
The grin on Erskine’s face seemed to say that it served his brother right. Then the grin faded. “Sykes won’t like it,” he said. “Won’t like to think his words don’t do anything. Be mad. Thought he knew. Think he did know last time. Think I told him about you.” He puzzled a little. “Funny,” he said. “Past not the same twice. Remember a bit. Fifi wasn’t there last time. Or Awful.” He sighed. “Pity I sent that letter about taxes. Mad with you. Mad about Fifi.”
“Oh, was that you?” Howard-Venturus almost howled. “Now what shall we do?”
It was Erskine’s turn to look uncomfortable. “Knew it was you keeping us,” he said defensively. “Got mad. Didn’t seem to be able to tear you to bits. Sent the letter, then took you through a sewer to see how you liked it. Didn’t like it, did you?”
“No,” said Howard-Venturus. He stared the long way down to his spongy boots, wondering despairingly what to do about it all. He hated being Venturus again, really hated it! He could always go out and be a baby again, he supposed. On the other hand, there was his spaceship.
“Two things,” said Erskine, “you don’t do. Won’t stand for either. Don’t go off in spaceship. Don’t be a baby again.” Venturus stared at him, wondering if Erskine read minds. “Stick to you. Make sure you don’t,” Erskine assured him rather grimly. “Followed you for that.”
“I see,” said Venturus. “So I just stand here.”
“Got yourself in a mess,” said Erskine. “Want me to get you out of it. As usual.”
This was so like the things Howard said himself to Awful that it made Venturus laugh. “I ought to get out of it myself,” he said. “If only I knew how.”
“Should …” began Erskine. But they were interrupted by an urgent ringing sound, coming from the room where the spaceship was. “What’s that?”
“Someone wants me,” said Venturus.
Three giant strides took him back to the domed room. Three strides took Erskine there, too. Erskine plainly did not mean to let Venturus out of his sight. Erskine’s round eyes went rounder at the sight of the spaceship. While Venturus was searching for the right button—his memory was still hazy—he heard Erskine whistling with amazement at it. Oh, yes. The third red button was flashing. Venturus pressed it, a
nd Dillian’s lovely face looked out the wall at him.
“Oh, thank goodness!” she said. “You and Erskine! Venturus, dear, if you could just be a teeny bit easier to find, we’d all be much happier. And Erskine seems to have caught it lately, too. Now listen. Could you both be sweeties and do something about Archer? He’s in the most frightful rage and threatening to blow up the town. He’s already blown one gas main.”
“Can’t you deal with him?” said Venturus.
“Darling, I never could deal with Archer,” said Dillian. “Besides, I’m awfully busy just now, and you two are the only ones Archer ever listens to. Do go. It’s his worst rage ever.”
Erskine said, “What bit him this time?”
Dillian shrugged. “Oh, Shine’s been naughty and kidnapped Archer’s young woman.”
Venturus and Erskine looked at each other. “Fifi,” said Erskine. “All right. We’ll go.”
“Angels!” Dillian smiled at them and vanished.
Erskine’s great fist thudded into the wall where she had been. “Shine!” he shouted. “Get me Shine! Black her other eye!” Venturus had to reach around Erskine to press the right button. Erskine said, “What’s Dillian doing? Too busy to see Shine.”
“Taking over the country,” Venturus answered. Then, as Shine appeared on the wall, he stood back and thought about what he had just so casually told Erskine. This was how his family was. He did not like it.
“Oh, it’s you again,” Shine said to Erskine. She did not see Venturus. “I’ve had a bellyful of you today. Have you been getting at that boy Hind? I need him.”
“Where’s Fifi?” said Erskine.
“You mean Archer’s girl?” said Shine. “Torquil’s got her. We’re trying to keep Archer quiet while we take over the things we want. Take a tip, Erskine. Grab this chance. It’s Venturus who’s doing this to us. He’s posing as a boy. I should have realized the other night, when I tried to take him over and couldn’t. But it’s just come to me. He’s going to be coming into his powers in a week or so. Be ready to move as soon as he does. I am.”