Five to Twelve

by Edmund Cooper

  But even machines are beautiful. And she had been a very beautiful machine.

  He loved her. It was easy to love someone you had never known. Someone with whom you would never make love. Someone whom you could never hate, despise or grow tired of. It was easy—and heartbreaking.

  By the time he got back to the floodlit group of stones, the attack was over, the wounded and the temporarily dead were being treated, and the absolute dead had been removed. Victoria looked very regal—and pleased with herself—in the bandage that covered her broomstick bruise.

  There was no sign of Juno. Dion inspected the party debris, then worked his way through the casualty treatment area and the resuscitation unit that had obviously jetted down only a short time before.

  Still no sign of Juno.

  Not that he was disturbed, of course. By this time, no doubt, like many other Peace Officers who were now jetting back in ones and twos, she had abandoned pursuit of the stragglers and was returning to Stonehenge.

  On the other hand, she might have collected a laser burn for her trouble and homed on the nearest domdoc for a shot or two before returning to get a full fix. Not that he cared… Much…

  Nevertheless, by the time another dozen Peace Officers had touched down, he found himself walking to Reception to collect his jet pack.

  He had Reception put out a call for Juno while he was switching gas tanks. Then, when there was no response, he lifted. Looking for her would be about as easy as looking for a black beetle in the Channel Tunnel. But, Stopes, it was better than fabricating zero.

  Besides, the party was over. And all the remaining marionettes were drunk, dead, wounded or very tired. Apart from the fracas, it hadn’t been much of a party.

  It hadn’t even been much of anything at all, he reflected as he soared above the megaliths and switched his headlight on to full power. The best happenings had happened before the event. He remembered vividly his few frozen minutes on the ceiling when the stars danced and then went dark. He remembered also Juno’s oddly submissive reactions afterwards.

  He savoured the recollections. Then he thrust forward at full power and swept away from Stonehenge, rising slowly in ever-increasing spirals. The night—what was left of it—was still crystal clear. The stars were now dancing a saraband.

  Fifteen

  DION had lost all sense of time. He might have been in the air minutes, hours or since the beginning of the world—if, in fact, there ever had been any world. If it had all not been some grotty fragment of a figment, some loose connection in the solitary nocturnal hysteria of a landlocked, airborne flying fish.

  He tried to remember what he was supposed to be doing. Assuming always that there was something he was supposed to be doing. Which was a big assumption…

  He tried to send himself a message. Finally, he made it. He spoke very quietly and distinctly to his brain; and his brain patiently unscrambled the message, considered it for a while, then reluctantly relayed it to the eye muscles.

  Dion looked at his wrist altimeter. It was a monumental achievement. The wrist altimeter said six thousand feet.

  He was cold and he was short of air, and the combination—after his previous experience—was worse than drinking surgical spirit.

  There was some further debate with his brain. The discussion was a shade metaphysical; but both parties were fairly reasonable. In the end, they decided to issue a joint communiqué. It was directed to Dion’s semi-frozen hands.

  They were rebellious. But, eventually, they acquiesced. Fingers closed stiffly on the jet control. Dion drifted obliquely and crazily down to seven hundred feet.

  And recovered his wits.

  It took time, but he recovered his wits. And while he was recovering them he jetted gently along on a collision course with destiny.

  God, or whatever blank-faced computer runs the fancy fading programme of the cosmos, must have displayed a great sense of humour and/or a total disregard for the laws of probability. Or maybe He/She/It was simply intrigued by Dion Quern.

  At seven hundred feet the English countryside was an almost featureless sea of shadows. Except for one flickering point of light about a mile ahead. Dion gazed at it, fascinated.

  There was nothing else to aim for, and he was automatically homing on the target. He reduced altitude to two hundred feet, and let himself be carried sedately along at a speed no greater than that of a man walking.

  He had time to think. He had time to think about how he disliked everything in this dom-dominated non-world and how, most of all, he disliked Juno Locke. Which, of course, was why he was looking for her. And which, of course, was why he found her.

  She was dancing naked round a bonfire; and the bonfire was consuming what was left of the European Proconsul who, in the finest tradition of English bloody-mindedness, had been burnt at the stake.

  Both the dance and the cremation ceremony were being observed with some enthusiasm by a group of perhaps a dozen sports who, still wearing their dark sky suits, prompted Juno whenever she showed signs of weariness by a non-lethal volley of laser beams.

  Dion was too high to see the burns on her body and too far away to hear the screams of pain. But he was now sober enough to imagine.

  What to do? He had no weapons. There were too many sports—even assuming they were loaded with Happyland. There were far too many sports. And he had no weapons. Except himself.

  At two hundred feet still, he circled wide and thought hard. But thinking was not much use. In fact, it was a definite liability. Meanwhile, the remains of Josephine burned, the remains of Juno danced, new blisters were raised on her body, and the hop-headed sports were risking embolisms with their pseudo-ecstasy.

  Thinking was not much use. So Dion, with a brief apology to his brain, cut it out. He changed his stance. Without thinking.

  He changed his stance from vertical to horizontal. He dropped altitude, kept his finger depressed on the acceleration stud and came in towards the group of sports like a guided missile.

  The air whistled past him. The sports, like a tableau vivanty loomed hypnotically ahead.

  “Ole!” screamed Dion, as he hurled towards them.

  In the first pass, three went down, direct hits—and Juno continued to dance. He caught a split-second image of her anguished face as he hurtled past the bonfire and out into the dark.

  Then he swung in a tight semi-circle and came back. The sports were ready for him this time. He collected laser burns in too many different places. But he didn’t care. He already had nasty impact bruises on his head and shoulders. Laser burns were merely light relief.

  “Ole!” Another four went down. This time his left arm flapped loosely, and he knew that it was broken.

  The right hand still manipulated the jet controls. Past the bonfire once more, he swung again.

  By this time, the sports had spread out a little. They looked vaguely like a firing squad that he had seen in an antique movie. Three of the remaining four had laser pistols, but the fourth had something considerably older and—on this occasion—considerably more effective.

  It was a vintage army revolver, calibre 45. As Dion hurtled in, the laser beams burned part of his sky suit to liquid rubber; but the second bullet from the revolver—to the amazement of all present—passed straight through his heart.

  Dion’s dead body knocked out one more sport before it crashed heavily to earth.

  The survivors, when they had pulled themselves together, looked up at the sky, expecting further intruders.

  They were not disappointed. The headlight beams of Peace Officers making a systematic sweep, swung distantly through the October night like wands of pale fire.

  After hurried consultation, the remaining sports decided to jet. The night’s work had qualified them all for grade ones. But they were in no hurry to collect. They ran for their jet packs and lifted discreetly away from the bonfire.

  Josephine’s charred body sank listlessly into the embers.

  Under the influence of deep narcos
is, and reflexes conditioned by laser beams, Juno continued to dance.

  Somewhere, an owl hooted. And the world was curiously still.

  PART TWO

  The Ten Thousandth Door

  I know Death hath ten thousand several doors

  For men to take their exits.

  JOHN WEBSTER

  One

  ON the sixth day of resurrection, Dion Quern had a visitor. On the third, fourth and fifth days of resurrection he had also had visitors. But they were all the same, and they were all called Juno Locke.

  This one was different. It wasn’t lovesick, it wasn’t full of gratitude, it wasn’t female, and it was called Leander Smith.

  “Greetings,” said Leander. “He who was dead is now living. Unto them that hath shall be given.”

  Dion pressed a button and the bed raised him to semi-recline. “How the Stopes did you know where I was?”

  “Dear fellow, you are too modest by far. Half England knows you are in the London Clinic. And the other half is still quasi-enthralled by your totally out of character derring-do… It is rumoured even that the Queen proposes to knight you. Sir Dion Quern. Superb! What an aura of respectability the very words conjure. I must congratulate you. No one in the Lost Legion has yet achieved such notoriety.”

  “I am no longer in the Lost Legion. I contracted out. If Hallowe’en was anything to go by, you’re just a bunch of hop-happy sados.”

  “Hallowe’en was nothing to go by, Dion, friend of my youth. Also it was not even our party. Also I have your life in my own tremulous hands… So reorientate by all means—and, if I may suggest, with minimal trauma.”

  “I have already reorientated, joker,” said Dion without much conviction. “Delinquency and metaphysics are obsolete. Hedonism is the emperor’s new clothes. I propose to become a useless and extravagant member of this great society. The doms owe me a living.”

  “To say nothing of a rather dazy-crazy dying.”

  “That wasn’t the doms. That was persons allegedly male, unknown—or maybe less unknown than formerly.” He treated Leander to a sardonic gaze.

  “Playback,” retorted Leander calmly. “The Lost Legion was elsewhere, chiefly fertilizing infras at one of the Devon farms, as I recall… But whatever, Dion, dear friend, it matters not. You missed the message. I have your life in my hands.”

  “Words are just words. Decrapulate coherently.”

  “Certainly. You belong to me—or, more improperly, to the Lost Legion. If I say live, you live. If I say die, you die. Elegantly simple. Sad also. And incidentally, quite expensive.”

  “You speak in lost parabolas.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, then,” snapped Dion irritably, “cohere briefly and depart. I have quite a busy morning doing nothing.”

  “So be it. By mere whim—although my whims are never mere—I can execute you. Any time, any place. Let us pray that I never become absent-minded, or homicidally drunk.”

  “How?”

  “Ah, an excellent quaere. Observe.” Leander took a small box, about the size of an eighteenth century snuffbox, from his reticule. He held it up for Dion to see. There was a tiny red button in the centre of the box.

  “Be not sceptical,” went on Leander. “This toy—miniaturized, transistorized and, for all I know, circumcized—contains for you the secret of eternity. All I have to do is press the red button and your tense is past. If I keep it pressed for ten seconds, you die permanently. If I lift my finger before the ten seconds are up, you live again. What could be more simple? And—though you may care to dispute it—elegant.”

  Dion gazed at the box curiously. Then he looked at Leander. The hop-headed coot was smiling. Big joke.

  “Prove it,” said Dion.

  “Certainly. Have you any infamous last words?”

  “Yes. Take a fast jet to Hades, find a snowball and insert.”

  Leander laughed. “A squire of some spirit! But could one have expected less? Be of good cheer, dear prince. Styx and verbal stones are unlikely to break anything permanently. Meanwhile, may angels sing thee to a five-second rest.”

  He pressed the button, and Dion fell back dead.

  Leander counted up to five carefully, then lifted his finger. Dion shuddered, took a deep breath and came back to life.

  He rolled his eyes for a moment or two, licked his lips and sat up once more. “God rot you! What kind of jack lurks in that little box of tricks?”

  “No jack. Simply the ace of spades. I trust you slept well?”

  Dion, considerably shaken, retreated into nonchalance. “That’s the second time I’ve died this week. It is getting a shade monotonous.”

  “The monotony could, of course, be permanent,” warned Leander lightly. “One hopes, naturally, that permanence will be somewhat delayed. But one should never dismiss Finagle’s Second Canon.”

  “How the Stopes did you do it? And why?”

  “Patience, friend of my youth. One at a time—the how taking precedence over the wherefore… You were shot through the heart, were you not?”

  “So?”

  “Therefore you now have an electro-mechanical heart. A micro-pile provides the energy and the whole ensemble is presided over by an electronic timing mechanism. My snuff box merely overrides the timing mechanism. As I remarked, it was somewhat expensive. Surgeons cannot be blackmailed these days, only bribed. I hope you justify the cost. To say nothing of the risk. There are those who could have collected a grade one for this dark gambit.”

  Dion was at a loss for words.

  “I see you are at a loss for words,” went on Leander. “No matter. They will come, I’m sure. Meanwhile you really should register the fact that in the midst of life there is a small red button. Once you have accepted this, you will doubtless enjoy a long and fruitful co-existence.”

  Dion, meanwhile, had found some words. Three of them. “Now the wherefores,” he demanded tensely.

  “Public relations plus pragmatism,” explained Leander. “You are now a character of some status, mon ami. By virtue of the fact that your built-in death-wish compels you to make like a misguided missile when you see Peace Officers prancing naked through the dewy night while the European Proconsul is fried medium rare. So our hero faces fearful odds and virtue triumphs. It was anticipated that the doms would fete you—which they will, given point five of a chance. So, inevitably, the Lost Legion decided to fate you. Nothing personal, you understand. But a boyo who has the entry, for example, to New Buck House is precious beyond synthetic rubies when it comes—and it will—to blowing a few big doms to glory… So there was merely the question of ensuring your loyalty—which, if I may say so, has been accomplished in the most sensible if extravagant way… And how do you like that?”

  “I don’t. What do you want me to do?”

  Leander smiled. “My! What eagerness! What impatience! Nothing at all, dear lad. At least, not yet. The time will come—quite quickly now, I imagine, for life is full of interesting little surprises. But meanwhile, rest, stay tranquil, and meditate upon the infinite splendour of creation. Also do not forget the small red button.”

  “Do me a service,” said Dion bitterly. “Drop from a great altitude.”

  “That would only embarrass you.” Leander turned towards the door. “Relax, Dion. Also get well soon… Incidentally, don’t try to switch to a new tin heart. The one you have is the best available. Furthermore, anticipating such temptation it is triggered to go boom if anyone tries to switch it. So let’s keep our lovely secret. Salaam.”

  “Get scrofula,” advised Dion without much hope.

  Two

  “MILK or lemon?” enquired Victoria. She was pouring from the same tea pot that had been used domestically by the Great Queen at Balmoral some two centuries before.

  “Milk, please,” said Dion.

  “Sugar?”

  “Two lumps.”

  “Dear boy,” said Victoria, handing him the cup. “You have such a pleasant manner, and matching profi
le. Your little Peace Officer must feel frightfully lucky… What about a K.C.E.P.?”

  “Playback?”

  “Sorry, love. But the intimate social occasion has to be polluted slightly by sordid matters of business. I have to do something about you. The vids have been squawking like mad. So, if it is not too wearisome, I thought of making you a Knight Commander of the Order of Emmeline Pank-hurst… That and a bounty of, say, ten thousand lions, of course,”

  Dion grinned. “The one will help me to bear the other.”

  Victoria smiled graciously. “I see our two hearts are beating as one… By the way, how is your new heart? I hope it’s a good one. I gave orders for the Clinic to charge it to Disbursements B.”

  “It literally goes like a bomb,” said Dion drily. “I could go up stairs three at a time—that is, if there were any stairs left that one would want to go up three at a time.”

  “I’m so glad,” said Victoria with a smile. “So terribly, terribly glad… Of course, if you could have saved poor Josephine, I might have been able to give you a duchy, Still, one can’t have everything… They tell me she didn’t suffer too much. The poor child was already clear of the ground before those dreadful peasant fellows lifted her, Even so, her departure has created a delicate diplomatic situation. Understandably, the Federation is not wildly enthusiastic about sending us another Proconsul… What did you think of the party?”

  “Dead,” said Dion.

  “Oh. You didn’t care for it?”

  “It had its moments.”

  “I thought,” said Victoria carefully, “that it warmed up somewhat towards the end… You will, of course, stay here at Buck House for the night?”

  “I have a notion Juno will be waiting for me at London Seven. In fact, I expected her to collect me at the Clinic.”

  “She was required not to,” explained Victoria. “Reasons of State. So you’ll stay the night. That’s already programmed… In view of the fact that your little dom was mildly abused in the course of her duty, she is being awarded a year’s sabbatical. Full emolument, and all that twaddle.”