by Tom Holt
There is nothing on Earth quite so disconcerting as the perfectly normal, out of context. It was as if they’d been tele-ported aboard an alien spaceship and held for hours in a transdimensional stasis beam that transcended every preconception they’d ever had about the nature of existence, only to be confronted by some guy in a white suit carrying a big red book, informing them that This Was Their Lives.
‘Actually,’ Neville said, ‘I’d love a nice strong cup of tea.’
Mr Harrison smiled. ‘That could probably be arranged,’ he said. ‘Milk and sugar?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘How many sugars?’
‘Two.’
Mr Harrison nodded, then turned to Gordon. ‘And you,’ he went on, ‘would probably like to know where you are and what’s going on. Am I right?’
Gordon nodded cautiously. ‘I’m eccentric that way,’ he said. ‘Humour me.’
‘I’d have said it was perfectly natural,’ Mr Harrison replied. ‘Just bear with me a moment, would you? Three teas,’ he muttered into some kind of device strapped to his wrist. ‘One with milk and two sugars. Mr Smelt?’ he added, looking up again.
‘No sugar,’ Gordon heard himself say.
Mr Harrison nodded. ‘Like I was saying,’ he went on, ‘it’s entirely understandable that you two would want to know where you are, who I am, and what’s going to happen to you. Now I’m afraid I can’t tell you as much as I’d like to, because as you’ll appreciate there are a number of security issues here, which means the best I’ll be able to do is mark the dots and leave it to you to join them up for yourselves. But let’s start with what I can tell you. I’m a perfectly ordinary civil servant, and you’re both guests of Her Majesty’s government.’
‘Ah,’ Gordon said. ‘That was something I’d more or less worked out for myself.’
‘Of course,’ Mr Harrison replied, with a slight nod of the head. ‘No great leaps of intuition required, I don’t suppose. Where was I? Oh yes. My official job description is High Archimandrite and Keeper of the High Altar. To a large extent, though,’ he added, as Gordon’s jaw dropped like the second-hand value of a four-year-old computer, ‘it’s really just an honorary title.’
‘Right,’ Gordon said.
‘Oh yes.’ Mr Harrison smiled. ‘It’s not as if I change the flowers and polish the brassware; we’ve got outside contractors who do that sort of thing. I prefer to think of myself as nothing more than a run-of-the-mill High Priest.’
‘I see,’ Gordon said, after a very long time. ‘Excuse me for asking, but high priest of what?’
‘Of the State religion,’ Mr Harrison replied, with just the suggestion of a frown. ‘As I told you, I’m merely a humble servant of Her Majesty.’
‘Ah.’
‘In her fourfold aspect as maiden, warrior, mother and crone,’ Mr Harrison went on, as a hatch opened in the wall and a kind of dumb-waiter arrangement slid a tray with three teacups on it onto the floor. ‘I imagine yours is the one with the spoon in the saucer,’ he added, giving Neville a pleasant smile.
‘Hold on,’ Gordon said, raising a hand. ‘What was that last bit again?’
‘About the tea?’
‘No. Before that. The fourfold-aspect bit.’
Mr Harrison nodded patiently. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s probably my fault for not explaining properly. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? I represent the established State religion of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - not the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, obviously, they come under a different jurisdiction. We worship Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second.’ He paused, and frowned. ‘You know,’ he added. ‘The Queen.’
‘I have heard of her, yes.’
‘Splendid.’
Gordon waited for a moment, but Mr Harrison didn’t seem inclined to add anything. ‘You worship the Queen,’ he repeated.
‘Yes.’
‘As if she was well, you know, a goddess?’
‘The Goddess,’ Mr Harrison corrected him. ‘She has four aspects, but they are indivisibly One, just like the component parts of the United Kingdom. You seem puzzled,’ he added. ‘What else would you expect from a State religion?’
Gordon took a deep breath. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I see.’ He nodded, and surreptitiously nudged Neville on the shin, making him spill his tea. ‘We understand now, don’t we, Neville?’
‘Makes sense to me,’ Neville replied. ‘Defender of the Faith, and all that.’
‘Precisely,’ said Mr Harrison, ‘And of course, that explains what you’re doing here.’
‘It does indeed,’ Gordon said. ‘Well, thank you ever so much for your,time—’
‘I’m delighted to know that you’re both prepared to be so reasonable about it,’ Mr Harrison said. ‘And let me take this opportunity to mention that the procedure is entirely painless. ’
It was unfortunate that Neville was drinking tea at that point. Quite a lot of it turned into fine spray.
‘Painless,’ Gordon repeated.
‘Absolutely,’ Mr Harrison said. ‘Oh, we’ve come a long way since the days of obsidian knives, have no fears on that score. Basically, it’s a highly refined type of lethal injection. I’m told that the actual sensation is quite pleasant, like drifting into a gentle sleep.’
Gordon looked at him for two or three seconds. ‘That’s reassuring,’ he said.
‘Attention to that kind of detail is one of the hallmarks of a compassionate society,’ Mr Harrison replied gravely. ‘After all, when you consider the very real contribution you people make to the well-being of the nation - making sure the rain falls and the crops grow, all that sort of thing the very least we can do is make sure you don’t suffer unduly.’
The dropping of the penny, from a great height, made Gordon stagger slightly. ‘It’s because we’re weathermen,’ he said. ‘Because we make it rain.’
‘Of course,’ Mr Harrison said, frowning again. ‘You don’t think we just scoop people up off the street, do you? Of course not. But weathermen; guardians of the sacred dragon - Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up. There’s nothing worse than talking at cross purposes.’
‘I see,’ Gordon said, feebly.
‘And let me say,’ Mr Harrison went on, ‘this won’t come a moment too soon. We’ve already had to bring in hosepipe bans in parts of East Anglia.’
‘You don’t say.’
Mr Harrison dipped his head in solemn confirmation. ‘And we’ve already announced a programme of even more stringent measures, just in case. Now, though, with any luck we won’t have to go to such extreme lengths. Thanks,’ he added, ‘to you.’
‘Well.’ Gordon swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know what to say, really.’
‘Of course. It must be a rather special moment for both of you.’
Gordon and Neville looked briefly at each other. ‘You could say that,’ Neville mumbled.
Mr Harrison had ever such a nice smile. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it’s thoroughly refreshing to meet a couple of citizens like yourselves who obviously appreciate the importance of what we’re doing here, and are prepared to do their bit for their country. So many of the people who pass through here can’t see beyond their own selfish concerns. It’s really - oh, please excuse me, I don’t usually get all emotional, it’s just that I’m proud of you both. Really.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Gordon said; as his mind ran final checks on a battery of calculations - approach vectors, angles of incidence, degree of force required to render a middle-aged, middle-sized man unconscious with a single blow. ‘It’s the least we can do, I reckon.’
Mr Harrison nodded eagerly. ‘It’s just like the Prime Minister said in his speech to the party conference,’ he said. ‘About how it’s up to all of us to make sacrifices if we want a better world for our children’s children.’
‘Sacrifices,’ Neville repeated. ‘Well, quite.’ He took half a step back, trying to semaphore Well, what the fuck are you waiting for? to
Gordon with his eyebrows.
Gordon got the gist of it, but something held him back; probably the fact that he hadn’t deliberately thumped anybody with intent to cause pain and injury since he was eleven years old, and he hadn’t been terribly good at it then. What deterred him most was the thought of how embarrassing it’d be if he sprang at his opponent with a loud cry and landed a diagonal knife-hand blow to the side of the head that either missed completely or merely caused the man to rub his ear and ask him what the bloody hell he thought he was playing at. It was enough to make him wish he’d gone along too when his second (or was it third?) wife started going to those ninja assassination techniques evening classes down at the leisure centre.
Looking back after the event at what happened next, Gordon came to the conclusion that Neville had got bored with waiting for him to make a move, and had taken the initiative himself. If so, he could say without hesitation that Neville wasn’t nearly as uptight and inhibited about initiating violent action was he was. It was just a shame that he didn’t have a little more science to go with his enthusiasm. If he’d bothered to consult Gordon before leaping in blindly, he’d have realised that Bruce Lee, Master Yoda, Sammo Hung and all those guys spent hours every day practising, in a purpose-built gymnasium, with a sand-filled leather bag to beat up on and a copy of the instruction manual handy, a bus ticket stuck between the pages to mark the place. Expecting to be able to do flying kicks by light of nature was, at best, naive.
But none of that seemed to have occurred to Neville, which might explain why, having uttered a blood-curdling cry of what sounded more like extreme pain than deathless rage, he hurled himself into the air, sailed past Mr Harrison by a comfortably wide margin, and hit the wall like a bug splatting itself on the windscreen of a speeding Volvo.
‘Good Lord,’ said Mr Harrison, hurrying across and bending over him. ‘Are you all right?’
There was an important psychological difference between hitting a man facing you and planting a boot squarely in the middle of a suitably positioned trouser seat. Gordon drew back his right foot, let fly and hoped for the best; he wasn’t disappointed. After a brief but spirited impression of a football, Mr Harrison crashed into the wall and dripped down it like condensation, fast asleep.
‘Finally,’ Neville grunted. ‘What took you so long?’
‘I was waiting for the right moment,’ Gordon replied. ‘Which you did your best to bugger up, I might add. Come on, let’s get out of here before he wakes up.’
Neville hesitated. ‘Aren’t you going to search him first?’ he asked.
‘Certainly not. One, it’s rude. Two, he might wake up while I’m doing it.’
‘But he might have stuff we could use,’ Neville argued. ‘Door keys, security passes, a gun, a remote control for lowering the security net. Ten quid for the bus fare. A packet of Rolos. Maybe even,’ he added poignantly, ‘a pair of socks.’
Gordon shook his head. ‘It’d be stealing,’ he said.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ Neville growled. ‘Look, you just go through his pockets, leave explaining it to St Peter on the Day of Judgement to me.’
‘You’re missing the point,’ Gordon said, trying to damp down his agitation. ‘So far, we haven’t actually done anything wrong; nothing they could arrest us for once we’re out of here. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?’
‘Oh yes?’ Neville nodded toward the body sprawled on the ground ‘What about assault? GBH?’
‘He slipped,’ Gordon replied. ‘Wasn’t looking where he was going. Or maybe he blasphemed against Princess Margaret and got zapped by a thunderbolt. Easier to explain away than getting caught with his wallet in your pocket. Are you really going to stand there all day waffling, or are you just trying to annoy me?’
Neville dipped his head in a slight, sardonic bow. ‘After you,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’
‘Fine.’ Gordon swung round, then noticed that something was missing. The door.
‘I know,’ Neville said. ‘I can’t seem to see it either. I’m prepared to bet he knows where it is, but since you took it upon yourself to knock him out, we can’t really ask him.’ He smiled. ‘I’m really looking forward to your next bright idea,’ he said. ‘I love slapstick humour.’
After ten minutes or so pawing at the wall in the hope of finding a minute crack or a faint tell-tale draught, Gordon gave up, slumped against the brickwork and dumped his chin in his hands. ‘I shouldn’t have to be doing this,’ he complained. ‘I’m a weatherman, not an action hero.’
‘It’s probably just as well we haven’t managed to break out of here,’ Neville replied, sitting down sociably beside him. ‘My guess is that if they’d caught us wandering about in the corridors, they’d be really annoyed with us.’
‘More annoyed than just injecting us with deadly poison, you mean? I guess we had a lucky escape.’
Neville laughed. ‘You don’t believe all of that, do you? Good Lord. A sensible fellow like you; sceptical, in fact, to a fault.’
‘He seemed fairly serious about it.’
‘Him?’ Neville’s smile broadened into a wide, untidy grin. ‘He’s a nutter. A loony. Just like the world-domination bloke we saw earlier. Nobody’s going to sacrifice us to the Queen, just as nobody’s really planning to invade Australia. This is just some old building where they lock up the basket cases. Which,’ he added, his grin destabilising a little, ‘is why we’re here.’
‘That makes sense,’ Gordon replied. ‘After all, you’re as bad as they are.’
‘I wish you’d stop saying things like that,’ Neville replied. ‘It’s a bit hurtful, even though I know you don’t really mean it.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘No, you don’t. You’re just scared and disorientated and lashing out at me because I happen to be the nearest available safe target. Basic psychology, that is.’
‘Basic psychology,’ Gordon repeated. ‘Well, if I were you I’d write to wherever it is you got your course notes from and ask for your twelve pounds fifty back, because you don’t know anything—’
Neville held up his hand for silence. ‘Just a moment,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘There, look.’
Gordon squinted. ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said.
‘That’s because you don’t know what you’re looking for,’ Neville explained, insufferably. ‘That’s because you never bothered to take the time to develop your third eye.’
Gordon made a sad, wailing noise and let his jaw flump back between his hands. ‘Go away,’ he said. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘There you go again.’ Neville was on his feet now, poking at a spot on the wall. ‘Being negative. A right old Doubting Thomas, you are. Well, try this one on for size. If you’re right and I haven’t developed my latent third eye, how come I was able to identify the dragon when I saw him walking down Leatherhead High Street?’
‘You really want me to tell you?’
‘You’ll be sniggering on the other side of your face in a moment,’ Neville said, his attention focused on the wall. ‘Ah, here we are. Right, if you stop being incredibly witty for about thirty seconds, go and rummage about in Thingy’s pockets till you find a small, flat black box, a bit like a pocket calculator.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Don’t you want to get out of here?’
Gordon sighed. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I really ought to stay, just to make sure you don’t get loose. In a way it’s comforting, knowing you’re safely under lock and key where you can’t do any more damage.’
‘Stop babbling and find me that box.’
‘Might as well,’ Gordon sighed. ‘After all, if I’m banged up in here with the loonies, I might just as well go mad myself.’ He stood up and rolled Mr Harrison’s inert body over with his toe. Sure enough, there was a small, flat black box in his top pocket.
‘Is this what you’re after?’ he said.
‘Probably. Open it and see.’
Gordon did as he was told. ‘It’s a pocket calculator,’ he said.
‘Bring it here.’ Neville grabbed it with his left hand, without moving his right from a certain spot on the wall. ‘Yup, this is it,’ he said. ‘Now, take it back and when I give you the word, I want you to key in exactly what I tell you to. Do you think you can manage that?’
‘I’m sure I can. Afterwards, I can roll on my back and make noises like a hyena, if you want me to.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Neville said sternly. ‘OK, here we go. 6-7- 4-1-2—’
Gordon shrugged, and pressed the keys. A long string of numbers later, Neville told him to press ENTER, so he did. The door opened.
‘How the hell did you do that?’ Gordon asked.
‘Simple. Here’s the lock grid, and here’s the access code, written in what I suppose you’d want to call invisible ink, though really it’s as plain as day to anybody with a functional third eye. That’s the key pad you’ve got there; type in the code, press ‘Go’ and what do you get? One open door.’
‘But that’s—’
Neville chuckled. ‘I told you I’d make you believe, sooner or later.’
‘But I don’t,’ Gordon protested. ‘All right, maybe I believe in you having really good eyesight and knowing a thing or two about spook technology. Maybe I might just be able to bring myself to believe in talking goldfish. But—’
‘Are you just going to stand there nattering all day? Come on.’
‘Still doesn’t mean I believe in—’
‘Come on. Or I’ll leave you here.’
Gordon thought about it for a moment. On the one hand, he really didn’t like the thought of getting out of there because Neville had been able to decipher a secret access code using his third eye. On the other hand . . . as the old adage goes, if you’re starving in the desert and a headless skeleton riding a winged fiery camel swoops down out of thin air and hands you a cheeseburger, eat the cheeseburger.
‘Coming,’ he said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Waiting for your enemies to come and find you was all very well, assuming your enemies had the necessary level of competence. If your enemies couldn’t find a haystack in a packet of needles, a somewhat more proactive strategy might be called for.
