There were no interesting lit windows other than Pentworth's regular crop of insomniacs. She could see a light from Bob Harding's circular repair workshop-observatory at the back of his High Street shop spilling onto his neat lawn and his not so neat collection of satellite dishes and amateur radio antennae. She knew the scientist-engineer's habits well, particularly since last summer when he had acquired a new wife over half his age. That was when he starting shutting up shop at 4pm instead of 5pm. One hot afternoon, with the Hardings' bedroom lace curtains being whipped open by a breeze, she had caught a number of interesting glimpses that suggested that Bob Harding wasn't all talk when it came to horizontal aerobics.
During the nights he worked on his repairs, every two hours the light would come on in the flat over the shop when he made himself a cup of coffee. She wondered why he didn't fix up a percolator in the workshop to save all that traipsing -- he always had a few on sale in his shop as uncollected repairs.
The workshop light went out. Cathy looked closely and saw a split appear in the workshop's roof. It was a clear night apart from a bank of cloud obscuring the moon, so it looked as though Bob was going to indulge in some star-gazing -- one of his many interests. He had once confided in her that amateur astronomy was an obvious hobby for an insomniac. She had a standing invitation to visit his workshop on a clear night and take a look through his 200 millimetre Newtonian telescope. He had ground the mirrors himself. Bob Harding was 58 -- likeable, tall, stooping, good-looking, and an outrageous flirt that his new wife seemed to accept. Cathy had no doubt that the instrument he was really interested in her getting to grips with didn't have mirrors. It might be an interesting diversion take up his offer some time. She was always in favour of adding new beaus to her string...
Cathy roved the eyepiece. There were a few lights to the south where the police were keeping watch over the old plague swamp where two men had disappeared the previous day, but they were too far away and too indistinct to be of interest.
Mike Malone came into view again. The safety stripes on his tracksuit made him easy to follow, this time with his back to her as he neared the outskirts of the town and the end of the street lighting.
Did anyone ever tell you that you've got a tasty arse, Mike Malone?
She was about to unship the telescope from its mounting socket in the arm of her wheelchair when she saw a sudden blur of movement -- something small and low that seemed to be following the police officer.
A cat?
Unlikely. Apart from their occasional swearing contests, and choir practice sessions, cats were largely secretive creatures that avoided people when going about their mysterious nocturnal affairs.
Careful adjustment of the telescope's knurled focussing wheel failed to sharpen the image; changing to the 9-mill eyepiece would give more magnification but would cost too much in lost light. The deep field wide-angle eyepiece stayed in place as she tracked the curious creature that seemed to be following Malone at a distance of about 20-metres. It had no discernable edges, but she got the distinct impression of a crab or giant spider. The word `Spyder' popped into her mind and lodged there. Certainly it seemed to be spying, and then her suspicions were confirmed.
Malone slowed, and it slowed. He must have heard something because he suddenly stopped and spun around. But the thing was incredibly quick. It seemed to have anticipated his actions such was its speed when it darted under a hedge before he had a chance to complete his turn.
Cathy kept her attention and the telescope focussed very precisely on the exact spot where the spyder had disappeared. She adjusted the instrument's knurled wheel with micrometer precision.
God damn this flare from street lights!
The Vixen's fluorite objective lens was among the best in the world, but it was designed to cope with shining pin points of main sequence stars light-years away -- not 300-watt quartz iodine street lamps right on the periphery of its field. She opened her eye as wide as possible and pressed it even closer to the eyepiece but all she could make out beneath the hedge was a confusing pattern of grey and darker grey streaks and bars. And then her brain flipped as it sometimes does when viewing an optical illusion and she realized that she was actually seeing the spyder. Its outline had hardened now that it was perfectly still.
She counted at least eight legs, possibly more. They had a metallic look about them but she couldn't be certain.
Mike Malone appeared to have seen nothing. After a final glance around he resumed his homeward jog and, once again, the spyder's outline softened to a blur as it followed him. The apparent awkwardness of its articulated leg movements, although its forward motion was smooth enough, confirmed Cathy's hunch that the thing was mechanical.
How big?
Hard to say. About the size of Yorkshire terrier. Maybe a little bigger. Probably some kid having a bit of fun with a radio-controlled toy. Bloody expensive toy, though.
And then the runner and his mysterious follower were lost permanently to sight around a bend in the lane.
6.
CATHY WAS RIGHT AND WRONG about the spyder. It was mechanical but it was no toy. Her choice of a name was excellent because its primary function at the moment was exactly that -- a mobile observation instrument, designed to send information on its surroundings back to the swamp that Pentworth Lake had become.
To minimise the risk of detection the refractive index of its outer skin was close to that of air thus making it difficult to see in the visible light spectrum. That Cathy had seen it was a credit to her eyesight and her telescope's crystal lens, but what she had really seen was mostly the fine film of condensation that the spyder had collected during its foray.
With the telescope unshipped and laid it across a settee, Cathy locked the wheelchair's wheels and used it as a support while she got undressed for bed. She had little trouble standing provided as she had something to hang on to; long practice had made her adept at dressing and undressing with one hand.
Once in her shortie nightie, she adjusted her blonde wig and did her usual abandoned flop onto the bed and into the Quickcam's field of vision. Sometimes the camera caught her in mid-flop and the resulting beaver JPEG image would be echoed around the world on the Internet by jubilant fans.
One of her most dedicated fans was a psychiatrist in California who liked to study Cathy when she was asleep and send her long emails containing an analysis of her changing positions. She owed him a reply to his last outpouring so she grabbed her white comms board and wrote on it in bold Chinagraph letters:
THIS A PICTURE FOR RAFFLES IN CA. BIG SPECIAL KISSES!
The stilted wording was deliberate to perpetuate the widespread belief that "Cathy" was French and that her room was in France.
After that it was only matter of holding the board up with her legs slightly apart and waiting for the Quickcam to click.
Chapter 7.
MIKE MALONE'S TRAINERS were soft and silent, and his hearing good. There it was again: a faint scrabbling noise as though something metallic were following him.
He stopped jogging abruptly and spun around, his eyes probing the shadows along the narrow lane's hedgerows, his breathing shallow to give his ears a chance.
Nothing.
But he knew there was something. It could be an injured animal -- a dog most likely -- and what he had heard was the scratch of its claws on the road.
He called out in a friendly, coaxing voice, but no animal emerged from the shadows.
When he resumed running he heard the strange sound again but maintained his pace because he had a plan. A little way ahead the lane became a narrow cutting with the bank on each side buttressed by steep retaining walls. There was no cover so he stood a good chance of seeing the poor beast and sending in a description. A wandering, injured animal, its senses dulled by pain, was a danger to road-users. He might even be able to catch it if he were quick enough.
He reached the cutting and kept going, his keen ears picked up the curious metallic scratching again. The chang
e of acoustics told him when creature was enclosed by the retaining walls. Good timing was essential, and Malone's was excellent: without giving a warning by slowing down, he suddenly wheeled around and charged.
The spyder's makers had provided their surveillance machine with certain instincts and assigned them priorities. Curiosity was the primary instinct simply because the spyder was an observation instrument although it had other facilities. Indeed, its powers of observation were remarkable. It could it `see' right across the spectrum from radio emissions to visible light and far beyond to the delicate rhythms of organic brains... Such thought patterns could be transmitted or recorded. Provided it was close enough to its quarry.
Self-preservation came second.
But those priorities could be changed according to circumstances. When the spyder saw its quarry spin around and come racing towards it, its self-preservation programming became dominant. To say it was undecided for a few milliseconds would be to give a false impression of its capabilities. The speed at which Malone came at it was not really the problem: the rapidity of the spyder's own cognitive processes were such that it perceived Malone moving towards it as if in slow motion -- a foot lifted and brought down, the slow compression of the trainer's sole and heel as it absorbed Malone's weight...
Several options had to be analyzed. Turning and running was the obvious one but the spyder possessed mass and hence inertia. Although its eight legs equipped it admirably for moving over almost any terrain, it had already noted problems with acceleration and deceleration on this present hard surface which, at this point, continued upwards on either side of it. It performed several hundred calculations which included its probable climbing rate if it attempted to scale the lane's retaining walls.
Now that the being coming towards it was closer, it picked up a confused picture of itself as seen from its quarry's point of view. There were no fantasies for it to mirror back as a distraction. For that system to work, the subject had to be receptive.
The other trainer hit the road...
The spyder measured the acceleration of the being coming towards it against the time it would take to deploy its soft pads. They gave better grip but they reduced its acceleration and ground speed.
In the time it took Malone's muscles to contract for his next great stride, the spyder had analyzed several hundred more options and followed them along as many branching probability paths. They tapered down like an inverted pyramid to one course of action.
The spyder had never been required to use its flight capability. Atmospheric flight meant displacing air and that meant making a considerably amount of noise which conflicted with its primary purpose of observing without being observed. Flight also consumed a great deal of power. The spyder's creators possessed considerable ingenuity, but, like all life throughout the universe, they were bound by the immutable laws of the universe. They could not perform miracles.
But what happened next seemed pretty miraculous to Malone.
His surmise when he saw spyder's ghostly outline more clearly than before coincided with Cathy Price's conclusion: that the thing was a kid's toy of some sort. Well -- it was going to be confiscated and the owner subjected to a stern verballing when he or she tried to reclaim it. A thing like that roaming the countryside could easily frighten people. He was within four strides of the spyder when its upper shell snapped open into four segments like a neatly peeled orange. Three strides to go and the umbrella-like segments started spinning like a helicopter's rotors.
Bloody Hell! This is no toy!
Two strides...
It emitted a shrill whistle as the double, contra-rotating rotor tips reached the speed of sound. In that instant he realized that it was going to escape so he threw himself forward, hands outstretched, in a flying rugby tackle. He fell heavily, bruising his elbows painfully on the hard asphalt, and his clutching fingers closed on
God damn it to hell!
nothing.
The thing had done the impossible in such a short time and leapt straight up into the night sky. Malone felt a powerful downwash from its rotors on his face as he stared up but it climbed so fast that it had vanished by the time he could focus his eyes. He followed its progress with his ears for several seconds as the whine was absorbed into the night. So far as he could judge, it did not change course but continued climbing vertically until it could no longer be heard.
The harsh cry of a nightjar robbed the night of its silence.
Malone climbed to feet, brushed himself down, and stood in the middle of the lane rubbing his elbows. His first thought was to report the incident but stayed his hand when he reached for his mobile telephone.
Report what? That you were chased across West Sussex by a mechanical glass crab that took off like a V2 when you tried to catch it?
Just the sort of thing Sector Inspector Harvey Evans would love him to report.
`A flying crab, Malone? Are you sure one of its pincers wasn't a pink trunk? And maybe two of its legs weren't tusks?'
Christ -- he'd be handing the old bugger a loaded gun.
Malone broke into a slow jog -- he could think more clearly when running. Had he imagined it? Afterall, the crab-like spider thing had been almost impossible to see properly which might suggest that it had been a product of a weary imagination not bothered about details. He weighed up the factors. Firstly, he was tired -- not just tired tired now, but fall-on-the-bed-without-undressing tired; secondly, he had been running, and everyone knew that hallucinations queued up in the wings under such circumstances. And if one was also as hungry as he was, then they queue-jumped.
On the plus side he hadn't been drinking.
His pace slowed.
Or had he?
He decided there and then to find out exactly what Ellen Duncan put in her home made teabags.
Chapter 8.
ELLEN DUNCAN WOKE two hours before dawn with that sudden wide-awake feeling that told her that going back to sleep was unlikely. The sinister graffiti sprayed on her shop window had been an insidious nagging and gnawing when she had finally fallen asleep, and it was there when she woke. The only consolation was that Sergeant Malone had not known the evil meaning of EX2218.
But someone else might so she ought to do something about it before daylight.
She relinquished the portion of her bed that Thomas grudgingly permitted her to occupy, pulled on her dressing gown and rummaged in her junk cupboard under the kitchen sink. The colour of the half empty tin of Woolworths emulsion paint didn't matter. Several brush strokes across the odious message were enough to obliterate it.
Feeling much better, she cleaned up, made herself an ordinary mug of tea, and padded into her tiny living room over the still room at the rear that faced south-east to the downs. There were no curtains because she loved to see down the slopes leading to Pentworth Lake at all times. Often she would sit in her ancient rocking chair facing the lead-latticed window and try to picture the scene as it must have been 40,000 years ago.
The cold, desiccating winds blowing off the huge northern ice sheet had made it impossible for the great pre-ice-age forests of Europe to re-establish during the warming period of 40,000 years ago except in pockets and valleys. But sedges and grasses flourished. Forests are slow-growing -- slow to renew -- their woody product providing little nourishment for wild life. Grasses are fast-growing and, in those prehistoric days, the continent-wide, treeless plains and steppes of Europe supported vast grazing herds of game the like of which the world had never seen before. Bison; antelope; giant reindeer-like megaloceros; woolly rhinoceros; small, fleet-footed horses that were preyed upon by cave lions and sabre-tooth tigers; and, largest of them all: the mighty woolly mammoth -- all following annual migratory patterns, using the short, hot summers to build-up fat that would sustain them through the bitter winters.
Into this harsh yet plentiful world had come a tiny handful of a remarkable people.
Cro-Magnon.
Where they came from was unknown. They were ligh
ter, smaller-boned, and with smaller brains than their more sturdy Neanderthaler contemporaries. They were taller and more slender which meant that their bodies were not so well-adapted as those of the Neanderthalers at conserving heat. To look at their remains one could be forgiven for thinking that the Neanderthalers were better equipped for survival.
But Cro-Magnon Man's brain was more efficient in one vital respect: imagination. When presented with a problem they could see a likely solution in their minds and were prepared to experiment and innovate to solve that problem.
The short, heavy, flint-tipped stabbing spear of the Neanderthalers being a case in point. It was fine for dispatching an animal already brought down by a trap or pitfall, but why not make it smaller and lighter so that it could be thrown, thus saving the labour of digging pitfalls? And there was the huge advantage of not only being able to change tactics if stampeding animals veered away from pitfalls, but being able kill many animals during a stampede and not just one or two per pitfall.
The efficiency of Cro-Magnon hunting techniques was not fully-appreciated until the discovery at Solutre in France of the remains of over 10,000 horses at a single settlement. Their simple method had been to stampede entire herds of onagers over a precipice.
Ellen ached for a time machine to take her back to the ending of the last ice age. She wanted to see those strange but unique men and women at first hand. They were the recent ancestors of modern man -- the throw of the evolutionary dice that had been a triumph after the quarter of a million year failure of the Neanderthalers. Had the Cro-Magnons really hunted the Neanderthalers to extinction or had the older race been doomed by their failure to adapt and innovate?
The Cro-Magnons had learned how to cure skins and had invented thong-stitching so that they could make warm, close-fitting clothes that enabled them to follow the great herds north as the mighty ice-cap retreated. The Neanderthalers, it was thought, had merely wrapped and knotted themselves into furs as best they could. To them the ice was the great enemy whereas the Cro-Magnon had made it their ally.
Temple of the Winds Page 7
