by Sarah Rayne
But he said, quite mildly, ‘It is a believable story, Quilp. And the contents of the Casket appear to be perfectlyy genuine. You may all see them for yourselves. Snizort has them under lock and key in the Mnemosyne. And you must admit that strange things are beginning to happen.’
Quilp said that he was a fair-minded man and would readily admit that strange things were happening. There was something a little out of kilter. Probably it would be no more than an approaching meteor storm and they could deal with it perfectly well if that was so. It might even be that the information Floy had brought to them had a smidgen of truth in it. You had to have a flexible mind, of course, and Quilp would be the first to admit that they did not know all the secrets of the stars. He asked what Floy proposed be done.
‘Whatever we do will be a huge gamble,’ said Floy and grinned suddenly, because he was not averse to a gamble, and surely this would be gambling against the most fantastical odds of all time? ‘It will be a gamble,’ he said, ‘against an unknown opponent, and against the most overwhelming odds ever known.’ His eyes glinted with sudden recklessness. ‘We may lose, gentlemen. We may be soundly beaten — and if that is so, then we shall lose our lives, and Renascia will be lost for all time.’ He leaned forward, his hair tumbling over his brow. ‘But if we win, gentlemen … if we win, then we shall have done something tremendous; something that has never been done before.
‘We shall have done what our ancestors could not.’
There was a silence round the table. Floy thought: I believe I have them. I believe they are with me.
He said, ‘We have not the resources our ancestors had although, at the end, they were not of much help. And so we must keep our battle plan simple.’ He glanced round the table and thought: I believe they rather like ‘battle plan’.
‘I believe we should construct a shelter,’ said Floy. ‘What the Earth-people called a dug-out. We must dig deeply into the ground and make a refuge there. That way, we have a fighting chance.’ He leaned across the table, his eyes glowing with fervour. ‘We must build a haven for our people, a sanctuary, a refuge to which we can go when the disturbances become severe. And we shall have to live underground for a while.’
‘Rather ambitious,’ said Quilp. And then, frowning, ‘And rather extreme, I would have thought.’
Floy brought his clenched fist down on the table angrily. ‘We need to be ambitious!’ he said. ‘We need to be extreme! We have to find a way of protecting our people! If the Golden Tablets are right, then Renascia is in far worse danger than ever Earth was! It is not simply in danger of being blown up, gentlemen, it is in danger of being sucked into a gaping black infinity from which it can never emerge!’
‘I fear,’ said Quilp slowly, ‘that the building of these shelters will be a costly exercise.’ And thought to himself that, provided it was not his money that was at risk, it did not much matter. In fact, he could quite see that it would look rather bad — well, it would look very bad indeed — if the Council were discovered to be doing nothing at all about the threat to Renascia. The building of a shelter of some kind would at least let the people know the Council were anxious for their welfare. They might even be led to think it was all Quilp’s idea, if Quilp could arrange it that way.
Perhaps they ought to go along with Floy’s plans. The Council would agree to do so, because Quilp would tell them to. Most of them would not have been on the Council if they were not Quilp’s staunch supporters anyway: Quilp had actually heard them called toadies and yes-men, but this was nonsense.
But Floy did not need to know about any of the profitable little deals which Quilp had been able to set up for the people who gave him their support; it was not something that anyone needed to know about, other than the people concerned. It was not dishonest dealing, either, merely a question of practicalities. But it meant that when Quilp wanted something doing, or perhaps not doing, they all agreed with him.
Floy was explaining his plans now; he was sketching plans on a sheet of paper, talking not about several small shelters, but one — or perhaps two — immense ones. Properly built and properly strengthened. Equipped with food and water.
‘Sanctuaries,’ said Floy, eagerly. ‘Our only hope for survival.’
One of the Council asked what kind of disturbances they might have to endure and Floy said, ‘I have no idea. But logic suggests that there could be immense tearing winds, violent storms, perhaps volcanic action from the mountains. And certainly the seas would be displaced, so that there would be great tidal waves washing inland.’ He stopped and looked at Borage the Builder.
‘You can help most of all here,’ said Floy. ‘We should be entirely in your hands over the building,’ and Borage, rather pleased at being deferred to in this way, managed not to catch Quilp’s eye and said indeed he could help. For a start, there was that piece of sloping ground on the town’s eastern outskirts, just behind the Wine Shop. It was just the place to dig out exactly such a thing as Floy was talking about. They could tunnel into the hillside and the fold of the hill itself would afford natural extra protection. It would not be difficult to dig quite far down. Thirty feet, perhaps, what did Floy think? And they could shore up the underside with good oak struts and maybe give them a coat or two of bitumen. There was nothing like bitumen for sealing, said Borage frowning delightedly over the severity of it all, sketching out one or two plans on his note-pad.
Quilp, leaning forward, said, ‘Our good Borage is certainly eloquent on the subject. I imagine we shall not expect him to put his men to work for nothing, Floy?’
Floy frowned and said, ‘I hadn’t actually thought about that side of it. I was more concerned about creating a place of safety for everyone.’ He thought, but did not say, that even if they survived the dangers ahead, they would probably emerge to a world so ravaged and depleted that coinage and monetary matters, as they knew them, would have ceased to matter. But since the Council had not yet seen this, he would not stress it to them. He simply said, ‘Borage must be paid from Council Funds,’ and Quilp nodded, well pleased. A proper transferral of money from the Funds would be made, he said, and various people around the table nodded solemnly. Quilp would arrange the transferral, because Quilp always arranged these things. It was better that way. Nobody ever precisely admitted that certain things were recorded in the Council’s dossiers, while other things were not, but everybody, with the exception of Floy of course, knew the plump little deals that went through the Council’s hands, and which resulted in various people being given nice little sums of money or, on occasions, pieces of land for Borage to build on, or sometimes even fully built houses.
In fact, it might be extremely awkward if Floy ever asked to see the Records in their entirety. His father had never done so, of course, and probably Floy would not either. There was not really any cause for the Council to worry.
Floy said, now, ‘I imagine we would be using public money for the shelters would we? That would be the proper source, I think. Marplot, that is your province.’
Marplot said, genially, that a proper orderly arrangement could be made, Floy need not worry over that side of it.
‘Good. Do we need to declare a State of Emergency in order to take the money?’
Quilp, speaking as if he might be selecting his words with great care, said, ‘Could I suggest — most respectfully, of course — that a State of Emergency might cause — ah — panic to everyone. Do we really want that?’ He looked round the table and people shook their heads, and said indeed they did not.
‘No,’ said Floy, thoughtfully, ‘I believe you are right. And yet we have to give some reason for the work that Borage will be carrying out and also for sending the people into the shelters when the time comes.’ He frowned, and then said, ‘Supposing we tell them that there’s to be a meteor shower? Something rather more severe than usual?’ He looked round the table. ‘Would you agree to that?’
‘Your sister knows the truth,’ said Quilp.
‘Yes, but she won’t say any
thing.’
Quilp shook his head and gave a rather sad smile. ‘My dear boy, I fear you have a way to go in your understanding of the ladies,’ he said, and the Council smiled with him.
‘Rubbish,’ said Floy. ‘Fenella will see why the thing must be — ’
‘Suppressed?’
‘Diluted … ’ said Floy. ‘Borage, how quickly could you begin work, do you think?’
Borage, feeling rather as if he was being swept along by a whirlwind, found himself in an awkward situation. He was caught, so to speak, between the gentleman who had been instrumental in providing him with a fat bank balance, and the one who was, when all was said and done, Renascia’s hereditary leader. He floundered and looked first at Quilp, who smiled and shrugged and sat back with his arms folded as if to disassociate himself from the entire proceedings, and then back at Floy.
‘Hadn’t you better start tomorrow?’ said Floy, impatient with this vacillating, and Borage made a show of consulting a small diary, and said, well they could do that, only it would mean abandoning the renovations of the Round House in which they sat that very minute, and whose roof was presently having to be re-tiled on the western side, on account of these strong winds they had been having. ‘The winds are merely a small dose of what will come later,’ said Floy, dismissively.
‘I was brought up never to leave a job unfinished,’ put in one of the Council members, whose name was Prunum.
But Floy was scooping his notes into order, and standing up. ‘I think we are all agreed,’ he said. ‘Borage had better commence work at once, hadn’t he?’ He nodded briefly to the rest, said, ‘Thank you for your time, gentlemen,’ and took his leave.
There was another of the difficult silences, and then Quilp said, in a pained voice, ‘Dear me, he is not in the least like his father.’ And then, with one of the crab-like sideways approaches to the problem, for which he was known, said, ‘I do fear that if we do not handle this correctly, we may find that our people are succumbing to panic.’ He lifted his eyes from the paper he had been studying and looked at them all very directly. ‘And I believe we should avoid a State of Emergency at all costs. Marplot, a word from you, perhaps?’
‘I never heard of vortexes and Chasms,’ said Marplot, a gentleman of scant imagination. ‘Floy’s getting carried away.’ He leaned forward. ‘But I do know,’ he said, ‘that States of Emergencies lead to the — ah — scrutinising of certain Moneyhouse procedures.’
‘Really?’ said Quilp, who had known this all along.
‘Very unwise,’ said Marplot, shaking his head. ‘Very unwelcome.’
Several other people, to whom the scrutinising of the Moneyhouse’s dealing was equally unwelcome, thought that Floy was getting carried away as well. Borage said, rather apologetically, that he would at least have to make a start on the shelters and, anyway, you never knew what mightn’t be going to happen. They were all aware of the strange darkening of the days, he said, and of the sudden sour winds that were sweeping down from the mountains, though doubtless it would turn out to be nothing worse than a meteor storm, and they all knew about those!
‘So long as Floy doesn’t see the ledgers,’ said Marplot, and everyone nodded in agreement.
* * *
The people of Renascia thought they might not know a great deal about governing and democracy and decision making (although they knew in a blink when Quilp and his coterie were up to something). They might not be precisely clever about money and investments and business, they said, solemnly. But when it came to building and digging and the construction of a grand big shelter against a meteor storm, they knew what was needed! A good large dug-out and plenty of stout Renascian timber to support the roof, with maybe a splash or so of bitumen just to seal it. Bitumen was the thing, they said, rolling up their sleeves mentally and literally, preparing to set to under Borage the Builder’s direction. And there’d need to be strong doors against any bit of a storm that might get up as a result of the meteors. You couldn’t be too careful when it came to such things. Good strong doors would be needed, and no question but that they’d need to be iron.
Survival, that was the thing. They might not be facing a disaster on the scale of their Earth-ancestors, they said, beaming at Floy and Fenella, who came to help; they might not be threatened with the ending of their world and the destruction of the entire Human Race. But it was astonishing how much damage a serious fall of meteors could inflict. It was a very good idea to build these shelters and take refuge in them.
They set to with a will, accepting the plans drawn out by Borage and taking themselves off to the site that had been so carefully chosen. There wasn’t any too much time either, they said, importantly. The meteors couldn’t be very far off now. If you listened carefully, you could hear them, nasty spiteful things; you could hear them whistling and moaning somewhere beyond the Twilight Mountains. If you were of an imaginative turn of mind, you could very nearly think that there was some huge creature up there somewhere, something black and hungry, howling for your blood. They glanced over their shoulders uneasily as they said this because, just for a moment, it had seemed rather dreadfully real, that unseen beast. It had been very easy to picture it, inhuman and merciless, ravening for prey, stalking the little planet of Renascia through the heavens …
There was a nasty-smelling wind whistling down from the skies now; you had to wrap up very warmly indeed against it, and there had been one or two outbreaks of sickness. People took to wearing carefully contrived mufflers for face masks, because you did not have to be in the teeth of the wind for more than an hour now before you were feeling queasy to your stomach.
All the same, they found themselves working with a good heart and a cheerful mien. There was an unexpected feeling of kinship with the Earth-people as well, a feeling of closeness to be working like this, in the shadow of the Ark which had come from Earth all those years ago. One or two people (Quilp among them, of course) had questioned Borage’s decision to make the dug-outs just here, but Borage, who did not mind standing up to Quilp when it came to a question of a building or a foundation, had said firmly that here was the place; soft, chalky soil to dig into with ease, and a bit of a fold in the land just above them to give extra protection. They’d burrow directly into the hillside itself, he said.
Snizort, who spent a good deal of time on the Plain, supposedly making notes, thought the hillside was a very good site indeed. He got in rather a lot of people’s way and provoked a few sharp words from people who said that the writing of diaries was all very well, but there were more important things to be doing just now and so would Snizort please move out of the way, because there was a new consignment of oak timbers coming up. They were lining the floors with planks of oak, and it was important to get the lengths exactly right. You could not be doing with diarists and museum-keepers under your feet at such a solemn time.
And while everybody had started off by regarding it all as solemn and grave, after a time the people who were made sick by the sulphurous winds simply took to their beds and stayed there, and the people who were not affected began to get used to the howling, keening sound that raged across the Twilight Mountains. They wore the face masks and donned their warmest clothes for the work, and almost became accustomed to the feeling of a huge, black beast just out of sight and just beyond consciousness, somewhere in the night skies, circling and watching and waiting …
‘Sheer bravado,’ said Snizort, scurrying about everywhere, and listening to the comments which he reported to Fenella and Floy.
‘No, I think they really have come to accept it all,’ said Floy.
‘It’s because it’s becoming an everyday thing,’ said Fenella. ‘You can get used to almost anything if you have to deal with it every day.’
‘They’re beginning to think of it as a holiday,’ said Floy. ‘Snizort, I hope I’ve done right in keeping the truth from them.’
Chapter Four
The danger was getting closer with every hour. Daylight had almost ceased,
except for an occasional sickly streak in the east, and Renascia was living in a perpetual night.
Fenella thought it would have been easier if it had been an ordinary night, the kind of night with velvety blackness stealing in from the Mountains, and the night stocks and the sweet-scented jasmines brought from Earth unfolding and laying their gentle touch on the air.
But the night was dull and angry and swollen, the air stale and thick. If you stayed out in the wind, it was sometimes difficult to breathe, so that you felt as if your lungs were being compressed by iron bands, and your head throbbed. The darkness was tinged with livid crimson, as though the skies were torn and bleeding, and the wind had already torn out saplings and dislodged small sheds. Boats on the lakes had been ripped from their moorings and smashed against the Mountains on the far side.
Fenella, feeling sick from the sour, tainted air, but continuing to help with the work, thought it was as if a vast, ancient tomb was slowly being opened, and great gusts of stale dead air were hurtling out at them. It was, she thought, the stench of dead worlds and forgotten civilisations, of rotting universes. How many worlds had it swallowed, that gaping Black Chasm?
But it was important not to let the Renascians think that there was anything more serious than a meteor bombardment ahead of them, and so Fenella, visiting the dug-outs with Snizort, talked about the history of meteors, even managed to find one or two papers in the Mnemosyne that told about their construction, and how they could spiral through the heavens for centuries before touching a planet. That would be the reason for the strange winds and the sickly stench, she said. And everyone nodded and said, a bit too loudly, that that would be the reason, no question about it. And if people were beginning to look far more worried than a severe meteor bombardment warranted, nobody actually spoke out.
They were all working in what somebody said were called shifts now, relays of them, turn and turn about, five hours digging and constructing, then resting while another batch took over. They worked by the light of flaring torches, burning chunks of oak thrust into the ground. It was becoming quite difficult to keep the torches alight, but Snizort and Snodgrass had fashioned lanterns out of square boxes made of thin, almost-transparent material, into which the torches could be inserted and be free from the winds.
