Mr. Schock looked puzzled. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well, isn’t it like the world Anita was talking about, potentially our world, in which everything is up for grabs and open to alteration? While she was speaking, I just kept relating it to my master script. In the master script the story keeps changing and evolving and you just keep adjusting stuff so that there are no loose ends…. Do you see? Whereas the backups are snapshots of the story at a certain point, frozen in time so to speak, though all of them could potentially carry on as a separate story—like parallel worlds….”
Mr. Schock shook his head like a wet dog. “Well, if there’s any grain of truth in that analogy, I sure would hate to be the universe’s script editor.”
The sound of distressed barking reached them from the yard.
“Something’s up with Molly,” said Kate, and squeezed past the line of chairs to the back door. It was several minutes before she reappeared in the doorway, very out of breath and holding Molly by the collar. There was blood smeared on her golden fur although there was no visible wound. Molly was trembling and when she staggered forward a few steps it was clear that one of her hind legs was hurt. She sat down heavily on the quarry tiles next to the Wellington boots.
Kate, too, was trembling. She did not want her young brothers and sisters to hear what she had to say, so she motioned to her parents to come closer and then whispered into Inspector Wheeler’s ear: “I found Sergeant Chadwick. He was tied up to a gatepost by the stream, one field up from the farm. His head was drooping forward and …blood was dripping from his nose…. I don’t think he could hear me….”
TWENTY-SIX
TIMEQUAKE
In which Kate and Peter renew an old acquaintance and this story comes to an end
Inspector Wheeler threw down his napkin, shot up from the table, and ran out of the kitchen door. Mrs. Dyer immediately gathered up the little ones and, in a very calm voice, asked Megan and Sam to sort out a cartoon for them to watch in the sitting room. As Megan disappeared, she flashed a questioning look at Kate. But Kate was too disturbed to notice her friend and followed the Marquis de Montfaron and Mr. and Mrs. Schock out into the yard.
“Not you, Kate!” cried Mrs. Dyer. “I have no idea what’s going on, but you’ve been through enough. I want you to stay here.”
“But, Mum!”
“Peter,” said Mrs. Dyer. “Will you stay with Kate?”
“I will if you want me to.”
“Yes. Please. I’d be very grateful. I’ll be back in a minute….”
And Mrs. Dyer disappeared outside too.
Peter and Kate found themselves alone in the kitchen together. Kate sat next to Molly at the foot of the long table, its red-and-white-checked cloth strewn with the wreckage of the celebratory lunch. Kate wiped away the blood from Molly’s golden fur with a dishcloth. All the color had drained from her cheeks.
“Are you okay?” asked Peter.
“It’s not Molly’s blood,” she said. “It must be Sergeant Chadwick’s. She must have been trying to protect him.”
Molly moaned and rested her head on her front paws.
“My poor Molly. I’m going to tuck you in with your blanket. Come on, girl.”
Kate clicked her tongue, and frowning a little, Molly heaved herself up and padded after her.
When Kate returned to the kitchen, Peter was looking out of the back door. “What did you see, Kate? What’s happening for goodness’ sake?” His attention was suddenly taken by the sight of a helicopter disappearing over the brow of the hill at the foot of the valley.
“I’m not sure—” she started but then she stopped.
Peter turned around. Kate was staring into the doorway that led to the hall. She took a step backward and clung on to the back of a dining chair behind. When Peter saw who it was, he gasped too. The Tar Man wore well-cut jeans and a leather jacket and he wasn’t holding his neck to one side, but it was definitely him. Dark hair scraped back. That scar. Those eyes.
The Tar Man walked into the kitchen, dragging Dr. Pirretti alongside him. There was no fight left in her; he was like a big cat with its prey. Her arms were tied behind her back. He held the point of a knife to her throat. He smiled pleasantly at Peter and Kate, revealing surprisingly white teeth.
“Good day to you, Master Schock; good day, Mistress Dyer,” he said in a low voice.
“You!” cried Kate.
“I would ask you to keep your voice down!” hissed the Tar Man. “Although it grieves me to treat a handsome woman with such disrespect, needs must. If you wish Dr. Pirretti to see another dawn I suggest you do not attract attention to yourselves….”
“You know Dr. Pirretti?”
“There is little, you will be sorry to learn, that I do not know, Mistress Dyer….”
From the sitting room across the hall they heard the strains of a Disney cartoon and children’s voices.
Kate looked wildly around the kitchen for something that she could use to alert the grown-ups to what was happening. Perhaps she could wave a candle under the smoke alarm, or …but she knew it was useless. They’d be halfway up the lane by now—and that, she now realized, was precisely what the Tar Man had intended.
Peter, meanwhile, took a step sideways. A month spent in the company of Gideon Seymour meant that at least now he could handle a knife. A serrated bread knife was lying at the other side of the table. He moved as slowly and smoothly as he could, but the Tar Man spotted him at once and made a tutting noise with his tongue. Then, with a delicate flick of his wrist, he made a tiny nick in Dr. Pirretti’s skin which produced a single drop of blood that trickled down her neck. She let out a barely perceptible cry.
“Alas, my conscience is beyond redemption, but I trust that you would not wish this lady’s death on yours.”
Peter and Kate looked first at each other and then at Dr. Pirretti. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead. The look in her eyes was desperate. Peter stepped away from the table.
“Now,” the Tar Man barked, “if you please, you will accompany me to the dairy.”
As the Tar Man closed the back door silently behind them, Megan came out into the kitchen to see what was happening. That’s just great, she thought to herself. They’ve gone off to see what the excitement is all about while me and Sam are left minding the children! She reached over to the table and helped herself to a crispy roast potato before going back, a little out of sorts, to watch Beauty and the Beast.
Kate led the way to the dairy. Peter followed close on her heels and then came the Tar Man, half pushing, half lifting Dr. Pirretti. Seconds later they were all inside, and the Tar Man closed and bolted the heavy door. It should have been locked. Some lengths of orange cord tied into neat figures of eight had been left just inside the door. The Tar Man kicked them into the dark space in front of them. Peter was suddenly conscious of everyone’s breathing. Then the Tar Man switched on the harsh electric light revealing Tim Williamson’s repaired antigravity machine and Russ Merrick’s prototype in the middle of the scrubbed concrete floor. There was a smell of disinfectant and sweet cow’s milk. The Tar Man pushed Dr. Pirretti down onto the small wooden chair Mrs. Dyer sometimes used for hand milking and retied the cord. Soon Dr. Pirretti was so firmly bound to the chair she could barely move. Then it was Peter’s turn. The Tar Man pushed him toward Russ Merrick’s machine and bound his hands behind his back. Then, with another length of cord he bound him tightly to the machine.
Dr. Pirretti summoned up the courage to speak. “Let Peter and Kate go. They are children! Haven’t they been through enough?”
“Madam, flattered though I am, surely you do not mistake me for a compassionate man? If they do as they are bid, I shall release them.”
“Then what,” asked Dr. Pirretti anxiously, “do you want them to do?”
“I desire to return to 1763. I want Mistress Dyer, here, to adjust the machine to its correct setting. It was tampered with, which caused, if I understand correctly, the machine
to travel to the wrong time.”
“You knew that!” cried Dr. Pirretti.
The Tar Man laughed. “There isn’t a word you have uttered these last few days to which I have not been privy. Your performance at dinner was most diverting, madam, although I do not like the sound of its implications. Now, Mistress Dyer. If you please. Show me how to adjust the setting. Do not attempt to deceive me, as I already know the number.”
“I can do that for you! Kate does not have the—”
The Tar Man interrupted Dr. Pirretti. “If I were in your shoes, madam, I might be tempted to do more than make a simple alteration. No. Mistress Dyer will do it. She is too ignorant to be dangerous and is not a natural liar. And she knows the setting.”
Kate was of two minds whether she should feel insulted. “And then will you let us go?” she asked.
“I shall, Mistress Dyer.”
“Surely we can discuss this,” said Dr. Pirretti. “Do you really wish to return to the eighteenth century? Can we not tempt you to stay? Surely you have discovered that life is so much more comfortable now?”
“Perhaps I desire more than a comfortable life, Dr. Pirretti. Mistress Dyer? If you please?”
Kate knelt down, lifted up a small Perspex flap toward the bottom of the machine and pressed a black button which put forward the setting by one hundredth of a megawatt. The Tar Man leaned over her shoulder and observed her carefully. Out of the corner of her eye she could see his thumb slowly stroking the edge of his blade. She lifted off her finger but had already reached six point nine, so she then pressed the other black button to go backward.
“Six point seven seven,” Kate said finally. “That was the setting which took us back to 1763.”
Kate looked at Dr. Pirretti, who nodded resignedly.
“And now you will show me how to set the machine in motion,” ordered the Tar Man.
Kate pointed to a rocker switch to one side of the digital read-out. “But it will only work if—”
“If it is on the level—your Frenchman was very free with his information. Thank you, Mistress Dyer.”
There was silence while the Tar Man now tied Kate’s hands behind her back. Peter struggled to turn his head to watch. When the Tar Man had finished tying Kate’s wrists, Peter saw him push both machines together. Then he took another length of cord and started to walk around both machines, binding them and the children into one big parcel.
“No!” Peter suddenly shouted. “You said you’d let us go! Can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s going to take both machines and us!”
Thwack! The Tar Man delivered a stinging blow to the side of Peter’s head. Then Kate, struggling and wriggling to get free, started to scream and Dr. Pirretti, too, shouted for all she was worth:
“Help! Help! Somebody help us!”
But all their screams fell on deaf ears. Only Molly heard and she could not get out of the back door. The Tar Man decided it was not worth the effort to quiet his prisoners and calmly finished tying the final knot before pressing the switch.
“Please! I’m begging you! You mustn’t take the children! Who knows what traveling through time does to a growing body! Already I see a worrying change in Kate!”
“Alas, madam, I have no option.”
Tim Williamson’s machine started to shimmer and grow indistinct.
“But what possible reason could you have?” cried Dr. Pirretti. “What good will it do you?”
“You talked, not half an hour ago, did you not, about preventing the first time event, as Mistress Dyer so elegantly put it. It seems to me that with neither children nor machines at your disposal, this will be an impossible feat to achieve. You must understand, Madam, that I have in mind a different history for myself, and I shall not be thwarted….”
“You monster!” screamed Dr. Pirretti.
The two machines glowed like liquid amber. Kate and Peter struggled and kicked out, the cords burning into their skin. The shadow of a dark vortex hovered over the dairy.
“I saw you in St. Paul’s Cathedral, did I not?” asked the Tar Man. “It was as if we had met before….”
“Yes, I saw you…. I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I know better now….”
“You won’t win!” shouted Peter. “We won’t let you!”
The Tar Man laughed, and it was his laugh that was the last thing Dr. Pirretti heard. Suddenly she found herself alone in the silent dairy.
“Help!” she sobbed. “Please, someone help me!”
But no one came. Molly scratched and whined at the back door. The grown-ups helped Sergeant Chadwick walk back down the lane with faltering steps. Megan and Sam sat on crowded sofas watching the rest of Beauty and the Beast.
Dr. Pirretti let her head drop down onto her lap. He had taken the children! He had actually taken the children! He had taken both machines. Tears of despair poured down her cheeks. The situation was irretrievable. All was lost. What havoc, she thought, has an eighteenth-century thug just unleashed on the universe?
Larksong. It was the high piping song of a lark hovering in the deep blue sky above her that tugged Kate back into consciousness. Her shoulders ached and she could not feel her arms, for they were still tied and she had been lying on them. She opened her eyes very slowly and glimpsed out at the bright world through her eyelashes. She was lying in bracken. Above her, leaves fluttered; nearby water trickled over stones. After a while she tuned in to another sound. She knew those voices! Kate turned her head. She saw the Tar Man. And he was with Lord Luxon! Kate immediately clamped her eyes shut.
“I have been here three days and nights with only a little bread and spring water to sustain me,” Lord Luxon said. “I all but abandoned the quest….”
Peter groaned a little in his unconscious state. Kate thought he sounded very close.
“And now you arrive with not one but two machines and those confounded children to boot!”
“I was obliged to change my plan, my lord. I brought them by way of precaution, as I explained.”
“If I understand correctly your motives for bringing them here, I suggest you put them out of their misery without more ado. They are made orphans by time, are they not? I predict they will be nothing but a thorn in your side. It would be as well to dispatch them.”
“I am no longer your henchman, my lord.”
“I did not mean to imply that you were, Blueskin.”
The Tar Man was bending over Russ Merrick’s machine. “Damn her eyes,” he exclaimed suddenly.
“Damn whose eyes, pray? Of which lady do you speak?”
“Dr. Pirretti—whose fine features give the lie to a most devious intellect.”
Lord Luxon peered over the Tar Man’s shoulder at a small liquid crystal display. He read: “Enter six-digit code.”
“It happens each time I try to set it in motion. I need the scientists’ secret code, else this device is useless to me.”
“I admire your newfound skill with machines, Blueskin.”
“Ay, well, I do not have the skill to make this new one function.”
Lord Luxon bent down and examined the other antigravity machine.
“Six …seven …seven …So it is this figure, you say, that determines how far backward and forward in time the device will travel? So if I changed it to, say, five four four, it would take me to a different century? Ingenious, truly ingenious! Here, Blueskin, allow me to assist you….”
The Tar Man lifted Russ Merrick’s machine onto the back of the wagon so that he did not have to stoop to examine the control panel.
“You know, Blueskin, you surprise me. In fact, dare I say it, you disappoint me. You have in your possession a machine which will allow you to navigate the seas of time, and what is your ambition? To go back and change the odds in your favor at the beginning of your paltry little race through life. Yes, I have to say you disappoint me, Blueskin. Where, I ask you, is the breadth of your vision?”
The hairs on the back of the Tar Man’s neck bristled. He knew what he
would see even before he turned around. The machine was already liquefying. Lord Luxon was semitransparent and he had his pistol trained on him.
“Give the device to me and what should I do with it? Why, I shall bring people back! I shall bring armies back! He who rules time, what can he not do!”
The Tar Man screamed in anguish.
“I am a fool! A numbskull! You have had this in your mind since the first moment!”
“ ’Tis true. But I shall give you a parting gift, Blueskin, as I am kind. Your suspicions about Mr. Seymour were well-founded. You and Gideon are, indeed, brothers. Alas, I knew it from the start.”
As Lord Luxon disappeared into the ether, the Tar Man let out a terrible roar and kicked out at the wagon wheels in frustration, before leaping onto the wagon and cracking the whip over the horses’ heads. The wheels rumbled over the bracken. Kate watched the wagon moving away. Suddenly it stopped and she heard the Tar Man jump down. Then she felt his shadow fall over her. She held her breath but opened her eyes despite herself. The Tar Man was looking down at her, gripping his knife in his hand. Her heart thumped in her chest and her mouth was dry. He was going to take Lord Luxon’s advice after all! She wanted to scream but felt powerless to move. She waited for the cold metal blade to penetrate her flesh. But then he turned her roughly over so that her face was pressed into the prickly grass and he cut through her bonds.
“Tom told me you showed him kindness,” the Tar Man said, by way of explanation.
By the time Kate had rolled back over and sat herself up, the Tar Man had disappeared behind the trees.
“Tom?” she repeated.
“He might have cut through mine, too!” said Peter.
“Peter! You’re awake!”
“I don’t believe it. Twenty-four hours in the twenty-first century and then we’re back in 1763! We’re a few hundred yards from where we landed in the first place!”
“At least we know we’re not in Australia this time….”