Here Comes the Sun

by Tom Holt

  ‘Um.’

  ‘The tricky part,’ the Dream-Master went on, ‘is getting out again afterwards.’

  Behind the rail of Number Nine observation tower, Trooper 2314 Starspear identified his target and took careful aim. He sighted along the broad barrel, checked that his feet were braced and his arm was high and rigid, breathed deeply in and smoothly out, and . . .

  ‘Unlucky,’ observed Trooper 8345 Moonblade. He walked over to the board, pulled out the darts, and placed his feet on the chalk line.

  ‘Double six for game,’ he remarked confidently.

  At the bottom of the tower, Bjorn paused and unwound ten feet of washing-line from inside his anorak. It was a long time since he’d done anything like this - in fact, the most recent occasion he could remember was when it was his turn to raid the Canteen at Destiny for digestive biscuits - but there are some things you just don’t forget. He flexed his fingers and deftly attached the grappling-hook to the line with three superimposed granny-knots.

  Far above his head - and below his feet too, for that matter, but let’s not confuse the issue - the stars twinkled. A stray photon or so glanced harmlessly off the tines of the hook as he whirled it three times round his head and let fly.

  There are, of course, other things that you do forget, and the art of throwing grappling-hooks is one of them. After a few minutes of serious thought, Bjorn picked himself up, rubbed the back of his head vigorously, and set about rewinding the rope round his forearm in long, slack loops.

  ‘Double two for game,’ said Trooper 8345 Moonblade grimly. He steadied himself, threw his weight forward on to the front foot in the approved manner, and . . .

  . . . And watched incredulously as a big black hook appeared over the rail of the tower, buried one of its talons in the dartboard, and whisked it off the wall and away into the darkness.

  Far below, he could just hear a soft thud, followed by a faint cry.

  ‘I think we’ll have to call that a draw, Dave,’ said Trooper 2314 Starspear, just managing to force the words out of his mouth before the whoop of triumphant relief beat them to it. Seven kreuzers had been riding on the outcome, and he had been on double one for the last six throws.

  ‘Some bastard nicked our dartboard,’ replied Trooper 8345 Moonblade furiously. ‘Did you see that, Nev? Some bastard just . . .’

  There was a whooshing sound, and the hook reappeared, hovered in the air for, say, a two-fiftieth of a second, and fell on to the rail. As it retreated, one of the tines caught and held firm.

  ‘I think there’s something in the rules about it,’ persevered Trooper 2314 Starspear. ‘I think what it actually says is if the dartboard gets eaten by a passing column of soldier ants, but it’s the same thing really . . .’

  ‘Nev,’ whispered his colleague urgently, ‘there’s someone climbing up the tower.’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘We’re being invaded, Dave,’ said Trooper 2314 Starspear. ‘Look, don’t we have to do something, or . . . ?’

  Trooper 8345 Moonblade gave him a long stare. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘sure we do. We report it.’

  Below them they could hear grunts and soft oaths, such as might be made by (for example) a large man climbing painfully up a thin nylon rope without wearing gloves.

  ‘Report it?’ repeated Trooper 2314 Starspear. ‘You sure? I mean, don’t we just, like . . . ?’ He pointed to his rifle, which was leaning against the corner of the far rail. His colleague shook his head vigorously, dislodging various items.

  ‘Don’t talk bloody soft, Nev, for crying out loud,’ whispered Trooper 8345 Moonblade urgently. ‘For all we know, if we . . . start anything, it could be a thing. You know, diplomatic implement. We could really be in trouble. Just hold your water, wait till they’ve gone and report it, right?’

  ‘But.’ Inside Trooper 2314 Starspear’s head, everyday civilian logic battled with military logic. ‘But what if they, like, attack us, Dave?’

  Trooper 8345 Moonblade stared past him to the rail, where a large hand was reaching up and scrabbling for a hold. He swallowed hard.

  ‘Use your brain, son,’ he hissed. ‘We hide, right?’

  Breathing hard, Bjorn hauled himself up to chin level, swung a leg over the rail, and flopped on to the floor of the tower. He lay for a few moments where he had fallen, catching his breath and swearing. Then he raised himself on his elbows and looked about him.

  Nobody here. Well, he’d guessed that from the fact that he’d got this far without being shot. The odd thing was, though, that the only thing that gave you the impression of the place being deserted was the actual absence of people. Everything else pointed to active occupation; the still-warm mugs of tea, the glowing single-bar electric fire, the two rifles leaning against the rail, the forage caps hung on the radio aerial, the two pairs of shoes visible under the blackout curtain . . .

  Bjorn froze for a moment. Then he grinned.

  With an easy movement, he removed the grappling hook, transferred it to the opposite rail, and cast the line over the side. Then, with a slight wince and a muffled cry of pain, he hoisted himself over the side, slid down the line, and disappeared. A few moments later, the grappling hook wobbled, came loose and disappeared after him. Then silence.

  ‘Oh look,’ said a voice behind the blackout curtain. ‘Here’s the spare dartboard.’

  ‘Dave . . .’

  ‘That’s lucky, isn’t it, Nev? You know, thinking about it, I believe you’re right. Drawn game.’

  ‘Dave . . .’

  ‘Mugs away, right?’ The curtain parted, and Trooper 8345 Moonblade emerged purposefully and hung the dartboard on the hook.

  ‘Dave,’ said Trooper 2314 Starspear, ‘we’d better notify HQ like you said, before he has a chance to get too . . .’

  ‘I said,’ repeated Trooper 8345 Moonblade meaningfully, ‘mugs away.’ He thrust the darts into his colleague’s hands.

  ‘But Dave, there’s only one of him and if they start looking now, they’ll find him and . . .’

  ‘He’ll tell them that two of the Department’s crack special forces hid behind a curtain while he legged it over the side and got away.’ Trooper 8345 gathered an ample handful of the front of his comrade’s battledress lapels and held it for a few significant seconds. ‘Look,’ he said, letting go. ‘You don’t want to go around sending off daft messages like that. For a start, nobody’d believe you.’

  ‘They wouldn’t?’

  Trooper 8345 Moonblade shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he replied. ‘They’d just think you were making things up. Or imagining things, as a result of the nasty blow to your head.’

  ‘But I haven’t had a nasty blow to my head, Dave.’

  ‘These things can be arranged, Nev.’

  The two men exchanged non-verbal communication for two, maybe three seconds. You can say a lot in three seconds if you don’t have to bother with words.

  ‘Right,’ said Trooper 2314 Starspear, placing his left foot carefully alongside the chalk line and taking the first dart in his right hand. ‘Doubles for in.’

  There was, Jane decided, nothing to it.

  She turned and frowned at the window, which obligingly slid down and closed itself noiselessly. A sign with her left hand filled the room with a soft green light, imperceptible except through a Messenger’s specially treated contact lenses, but more than adequately bright to illuminate the simple operation of dream delivery.

  Jane pulled on her rubber gloves; then, with the tip of her extended index finger, she gave the sleeper the very gentlest of prods, just on the point of his shoulder. He made a piggy noise and rolled on to his side, right ear uppermost.

  Piece of cake, muttered Jane under her breath. Too easy, surely.

  From the black canvas holster slung from her belt she took the long black syringe, broke it open and felt in her hip pocket for the sealed foil capsule which contained the dream. Using her teeth as she’d been taught, she tore the capsule open and tipped its contents into the
chamber of the syringe. As they fell through the air into the chamber the green light flashed momentarily on them. Jane nearly dropped the syringe.

  For training, naturally, they’d used blanks. This was the first time she’d seen a live dream, and she didn’t like the look of it one bit. It lay in the chamber, flashing and squirming. She shuddered.

  In the green glow it resembled a transparent sausage, crammed full of little wriggling people and things, coloured lights, explosions and lightning changes of scene. Since the sausage was a mere three inches long, and apparently contained a cast of thousands, the individual items were all rather too small to make out, but the impression they gave in the round, so to speak, wasn’t pleasant at all. She wondered for a moment who the recipient was, and what precisely was going to happen to him.

  None of her business, she decided firmly. With an easy motion she clicked the syringe shut, flicked off the safety and poised it carefully over the sleeper’s ear. Now then, she could feel her lips miming, this isn’t going to hurt . . .

  Quickly and firmly she shot the plunger home and pulled the syringe smoothly away. The sleeper jerked slightly, moaned and turned over on to his other side. Mission accomplished. Goody.

  The sleeper sat bolt upright.

  He was, Jane noticed for the first time, wearing a pair of dark purple satin pyjamas with a monogram on the pocket. Any nascent sympathy she might have had for the sleeper soaked quietly away between the floorboards of her mind. A quick glance reassured her that he was still fast asleep, eyes tightly shut, breathing regular.

  ‘Hey!’ he said.

  Jane blinked. She hadn’t been told about anything like this.

  ‘What the hell do you mean, the ides of March? It’s the middle of September, and what are ides, anyway?’

  ‘Um,’ Jane replied. The sleeper slept on.

  ‘That’s not an answer,’ he said. ‘Look, are you sure you’ve delivered the right message to the right person here?’

  ‘I think so,’ Jane said. ‘I mean, this is 47 Newport Drive, Cardiff, isn’t it?’

  The sleeper nodded. ‘Yes, it is, but this doesn’t make sense. I’m expecting a highly important dream about Marshfield Consolidated 9½% Convertible Unsecured Loan Stock, and you come shoving my ears full of something about bewaring the ides of March. Are you sure you haven’t got your wires crossed somewhere?’

  ‘Hold on,’ Jane said. She was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Let me just check what it says on the wrapper. Here we are,’ she went on, smoothing out the foil and peering at the script. ‘Jeremy Lloyd-Perkins, 47 Newport Drive, Cardiff. That’s you, isn’t it?’

  The sleeper nodded slowly, like a puppet with rusty hinges in its neck. ‘Sure that’s me,’ he said. ‘But that’s not my message. They must have got them muddled up at the depot.’

  Jane wrinkled her nose. ‘You seem to know a lot about this,’ she said. ‘For a human being, I mean.’

  ‘I’ve been a subscriber for five years,’ the sleeper replied, and Jane noticed how little his lips moved when he spoke. ‘I suppose I should be used to it by now. Still, it’s a bit poor, if you ask me. Only last month I was expecting a hot tip on the Beaconsfield International rights issue, and all I got was some load of old tosh about concelling my passage on the Lusitania. I don’t want to be difficult, but it does make it hard to plan your long-term investment strategy when you can’t rely on your supernatural advisers.’

  ‘Um.’

  ‘Look at it from the other guy’s point of view,’ continued the sleeper, swaying slightly backwards and forwards. ‘I mean, there’s some poor sod somewhere who’s going to have to face these ides of March things armed with nothing more relevant than an insight into the FT 100 Share Index for 18th September. He might get into serious trouble, you know?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jane said dispiritedly. ‘It’s not my . . .’

  Without moving a millimetre, the sleeper managed to give a remarkably good impression of an impatient gesture. ‘That’s all very well,’ he said, ‘but it’s not helping me any, and I don’t suppose the unfortunate bastard who sailed on the Lusitania’s going to be feeling much more cheerful about it either. Even though,’ he added, ‘he has the satisfaction of knowing that if only he hadn’t drowned he could have cleaned up something rotten in early trading.’

  Jane shrugged. ‘I’ll mention it to them back at headquarters, ’ she said. ‘But that’s all I can do, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ the sleeper said, and his arm shot out and closed around Jane’s wrist. ‘You’re not going anywhere until I get my dream. And don’t try struggling, or I’ll wake up.’

  Jane felt her jaw drop, but she couldn’t see any point in doing anything about it. When you’re stuffed, you’re stuffed.

  ‘You’re hurting my wrist,’ she pointed out.

  The sleeper sneered. ‘Tell me all about it when I’m awake,’ he replied.

  ‘Be fair,’ she pleaded. ‘How am I supposed to get you your dream if you won’t let me go?’

  The sleeper laughed, through nis nose. ‘Not my problem,’ he said. ‘I’m asleep, remember, I’m not in a position to do your thinking for you. Just get it sorted, or there’ll be trouble.’

  ‘I see,’ Jane replied, and there was an edge to her voice you could have shaved with. ‘In that case, I’ll see what I can do.’

  With her free hand, she fished out another foil packet, chosen at random, tore it open and held the capsule in her teeth while she drew the syringe. She loaded it, noting with a certain grim satisfaction the nature of the contents. ‘You want another dream, Mr Lloyd-Perkins,’ she said. ‘Here you go.’

  Quick as a flash running for a bus, she drove the plunger home, and the transparent sausage sparkled briefly as it travelled through three centimetres of air. The sleeper jerked violently and let go his grip, and Jane dived for the window, remembering just in time to scowl at it. It opened briskly, apologised as she sailed through it, and snapped shut after her. As she landed lightly on the balls of her feet, she could hear Mr Lloyd-Perkins screaming in his sleep. His own silly fault, she told herself as she switched on the ignition of her starcycle, for trying to take it out on an innocent messenger.

  When she was safely clear of Newport Avenue, she pulled up under a street lamp and examined the empty foil packet.

  Nostradamus, it read, Concerning the End of the World, and below that, in smaller type:

  BEST BEFORE: 17th FEBRUARY, 2706

  FOURTEEN

  Part of Staff ’s duties was the inspection, on a more or less regular basis, of some of the outlying departments which had no internal review system of their own. He didn’t enjoy doing it at the best of times, and Complaints was perhaps his least favourite.

  Access to Complaints is, naturally, open to everybody and everything in the universe, regardless of species, metaphysical status or temporal orientation; however, for the sake of internal administrative efficiency, the Department reserves the right only to consider complaints which are submitted in the prescribed form.

  The prescribed form is Form C301, a fifteen-page booklet printed on pages of beaten gold, twelve miles long by five miles wide. Once completed, the form must be submitted in triplicate, and the top copy must be countersigned by an apostle, saint (minor Celtic saints excepted), archangel, Bodhisattva, Taoist patriarch, dæmon of Grade 5 or higher, Elector of the Holy Roman Empire or other person of similar standing in the community.

  ‘Hello,’ Staff called, pushing against the door with all his weight and heaving. ‘Anybody here?’

  The door gave way, and Staff staggered, off balance, into the darkened office. He rummaged in his coat pocket for his flashlight and switched it on. This place always gave him the creeps.

  ‘Over here,’ said a voice, not very helpfully.

  ‘Where’s here?’

  ‘What d’you mean, where’s here? Here.’

  Staff frowned, because the voice was coming from inside his head. ‘Look,’ he said, �
��I’ve warned you about that already.’

  There was a muted plop and Ganger was standing beside him. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘and I’m sorry. It’s just that I had to hitch a ride to get past Security.’

  Staff nodded. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘So what was so important that it couldn’t wait till . . .’ The words evaporated on his lips like rain on a blast-furnace as the beam of his torch licked something huge and shiny in the far corner of the room. A part of his brain - the part where most of his thoughts refused to go, except in pairs in broad daylight - said I know what that is. The rest of his brain pretended it hadn’t heard.

  ‘I know,’ Ganger said. ‘A bit of a turn-up, really. Still, there’s a first time for everything.’

  Staff stopped dead, turned and looked at him.

  ‘You don’t mean to say,’ he said slowly, ‘that somebody has actually . . .’

  ‘Complained, yes.’ Ganger nodded. ‘Fortunately,’ he said, ‘it isn’t valid.’

  The torch-beam flashed on what seemed to be an infinity of gold space, and the photons bounced, and bounced, and bounced. ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ replied Ganger, ‘but I don’t think Colonel Gadaffi falls within the permitted class of counter-signatories. Apart from that, though, it’s all in order and according to Hoyle.’

  Staff scratched his chin. ‘It’s a moot point, actually,’ he said. ‘Anyway, we can leave that to the boys in Legal. Who’s it from?’

  ‘That’s the puzzling thing,’ Ganger replied, fiddling aimlessly with his key-ring. ‘Nobody seems to have heard of him. Let’s go see if the name rings any bells with you.’

  With the help of a turbo-charged golf-buggy which they found in an outhouse, they made the journey across Form C301. Eventually, after taking a wrong turning just after paragraph 658(c)(iv) and running out of petrol on the slopes of the embossed seal, they came to the right place. Ganger put on the handbrake and replaced his sextant in the glove compartment.