Siding Star

by Christopher Bryan

  “I will,” she said. “But don’t think any of this is going into my report. That’s going to be the facts, man, just the facts. I don’t think the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary is quite ready yet for maledictions.”

  For a few minutes, the four sat in silence. Finally Rosina said, “We’re all ready for sleep. Michael, thank you for bringing Cecilia home. You will of course stay with us. Give me a few minutes to make up the bed in your room.”

  “Much easier with two,” Andrea said. They left together.

  Tocco and Pu followed them.

  Michael, Cecilia, and Figaro were left alone.

  “I could phone someone in London,” Cecilia said, “and

  see if I can find out what happened at the academy. I saw the emergency services coming, so presumably there’s some infor

  mation now.”

  But she did not call. Instead, suddenly, and in Michael’s

  experience quite uncharacteristically, she put her head into her

  hands. Figaro went over to her and lent against her. “What is it?” Michael said softly.

  She sighed and looked up at him.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that…” She began stroking Figaro’s head.

  “Wheatley. He was right. I wasn’t successful, I was lucky. He

  nearly did it. Do you realize? He was just about to fire at Mama

  and Papa. If we’d been even a few seconds later!”

  “I know. But do forgive me—the important thing is, we

  weren’t. The fact is, your mother and father are alive and well.

  And despite what Wheatley says—or what you say—that’s

  in major part thanks to you! No,” he held up his hand as she

  started to protest, “hear me, Cecilia, please! Stammi a sentire, per

  favore!”

  She smiled. Whether because his Italian was so good or

  because it was so bad, he wasn’t sure. Still, he’d made her smile.

  He continued in English.

  “I wouldn’t have noticed Wheatley’s car in the road here

  when we arrived, as you did. And even if I had, I doubt I’d

  have realized what it meant. And even if I’d managed that, at

  best the chances are I’d have got myself shot! You, on the other

  hand, spotted the car, at once realized it meant trouble, and

  then, unarmed yourself, managed to disarm and overpower an

  armed man within seconds and, so far as I could see, without

  even expending much effort!

  “So, let’s face it, yes, you had a bit of luck. But you appear

  to me to have been brilliant in your observation and incredible

  in your reactions. And if you hadn’t been all those things, then

  despite your luck, Wheatley would have got away with it. As it

  is, he didn’t. And as we speak” (a thump came from upstairs)

  “your mother and father are very kindly making up a bed for me. Those are the things that are real. And those are the things

  that matter.”

  Cecilia shook her head. “You’re very kind, but…” “Cecilia, I’m not being kind. I’m telling you what I saw.

  Frankly, you’re so good at what you do I find you terrifying!” She laughed and shook her head and looked not at all

  terrifying.

  “Oh well, thank you! And about the other thing—about concentrating on what is, I know you’re right. I know you are. It’s

  just that… No. You’re right. I mustn’t go there. It’s no good

  thinking about it. Thank you.” Another thump. She got up,

  walked to the door, and called up the stairs.

  “Can I help?”

  “Yes, you can.” A third thump. Rosina’s voice sounded

  somewhat muffled. “You can sit and talk nicely to Michael and

  stop fussing about us.”

  Cecilia laughed and turned back to Michael.

  “Definitely alive and well!” she said.

  Forty-nine

  Cranston College, London. November 1. 5:40 a.m.

  T

  otal blackness.

  But the chairman, his flesh charred and broken, was already blind. The fire had seen to that. An instinct that needed no light had dragged him from the academy agonizing miles across London, avoiding people and prying eyes. It had led him through mean streets and dark alleys, by barren sites and builders’ rubble, past wire fences and careless watchmen, until at last he had plunged into shadow and come to this place.

  Here, eighteen centuries before, iron-hard Roman legionaries had invoked the Light Bringer, consecrating their strength and courage to the best symbol they knew of justice and order. Centuries later, fools calling upon a power they did not understand had dedicated the altar to Darkness. Evil men fought and cursed. And fire gutted the buildings above. Then, for years, the chamber lay silent, hidden and forgotten, waiting.

  Now the chairman had come, contrary to his plans, against his hope. His company was scattered, himself dying. He knew well enough what the fire had done to his flesh and realized how little time even his fanatic will could sustain its failing energies.

  218

  ChristoPher BryAn A way remained.

  He would invoke the Destroyer, calling upon him by his many names: Satan, Set, Shaitan, Iblis—and he would invoke him alone, as had Kakoyannis before him.

  Yet not as Kakoyannis, for unlike Kakoyannis he had no illusions.

  In this place, prepared for so long, what he was about to do would be like a lighted candle held to escaping gas. Undoubtedly he would perish. It did not matter to him. Hell’s yearning is to become incarnate. Its frustration is that the flesh is holy. But where there was willing offering, there the power of destruction could, like a cancer, find something to grasp. Then, like a cancer, destroying what it grasped it could spread. That, for the chairman, would be satisfaction enough.

  The efforts of those who opposed him would have been in vain, for they served a Lord so limited by courtesy as to be bound by laws he himself had made, one who was therefore unwilling to use the powers he undoubtedly possessed, choosing rather to proceed only by plea, stratagem, and grace. He was held to have said, as his enemies persecuted him, “Do you think that I cannot now appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” But what use was that, if he would not appeal? What use to serve a Lord therefore so enfeebled that he could be defeated by his own creature—and would be, even now.

  Even if the Chairman had not been blind, he would have needed no book. So many times he had pored over the rite since Wheatley brought it to him, its rhythms and words were part of him.

  He had neither symbol nor protection. Desire alone must suffice.

  His body screamed in protest, but the will pierced and silenced it, concentrating all on the last preparation.

  The mind cleared.

  The agony itself was caught up and used.

  siding stAr 219 A focused energy, refusing every distraction of joy or love, directing all to its utter resentment.

  Still the sullenness fought to be verbalized. “It was their fault … it was his fault … I never had a chance … it isn’t right….”

  Even that, he denied.

  The very remembrance of words was a tribute to meaning. And meaning also must be rejected. To be perfect, his resentment must be wordless, mindless, and directed everywhere— approaching the Satanic perfection of which Milton spoke:

  that fixt mind

  And high disdain, from sence of injur’d merit. He raised his hand, swayed, and might have fallen, but the altar stayed him. Then, in scarcely a whisper, he again began the rite.

  FiFty

  Exeter Police Station. 5:50 a.m.

  Those on duty, to do them justice, made a serious effort. Wheatley’s cell and his body cavities were checked. His belt, his tie, and his shoes were removed. Nothing visible that could be used for self-destructi
on was left accessible to him, and thereafter he was subject to a suicide watch—which meant in effect that short of manpower though they were, he was never left unobserved.

  So now Wheatley lay on the narrow bed, under the covers. He was not sure of the time, but he knew it could not be long till sunrise. He was indeed a man who never left himself without an avenue of retreat.

  He was under no illusion that his continued existence was of the slightest importance to the power he served or that the purposes of that power would be halted by his death. Yet even now he would retain what control he could. He would not wait for the dawn.

  His jailers had checked his body cavities but not thoroughly enough. As if idly stretching on the bed, he reached down and probed for the tiny crystal cyanide cylinder. Another casual motion, as if stifling an idle yawn, and he raised it to his mouth.

  For the last time a faint smile played about his lips.

  222

  ChristoPher BryAn Then he bit down hard.

  Thus it was that minutes after the chairman began the rite that would have completed Wheatley’s offering, Wheatley completed it for himself. And so hell, as is its preference, received everything and gave nothing in return.

  In the two or three minutes of life remaining to Wheatley after he had crushed the cylinder, there came to him the amazing possibility of another kind of bargain and another kind of universe. Beneath the still eyes of heaven he responded to that possibility.

  FiFty-one

  East London. November 1. 6:50 a.m.

  Slightly over an hour after the chairman began the rite in the darkness beneath Cranston College, and slightly less than an hour after Henry Wheatley took his own life, in a circular area of East London about eight kilometers across with Cranston College at its center, every single source of power failed. Generators died. Underground trains were plunged into darkness and glided to a halt. Traffic and streetlights went out. Tower blocks darkened. Cars, buses, and trucks came to a stop. Everywhere, where there should have been lights and the sounds of the city rousing itself for Saturday, instead there was silence and darkness, punctured here and there by protesting voices, lit candles, and the dogs, as ever, barking defiantly.

  Twenty-four minutes and eleven seconds after that, at the early celebration of All Saints in Saint Dustan’s, Stepney (this morning said by candlelight as it had been when the church was built) the priest completed the Eucharistic prayer, declaring—any appearance to the contrary notwithstanding—that all honor and glory were eternally the Father’s, by, with, and through the Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Three elderly ladies who were the congregation said, “Amen.” And at that exact moment the generators restarted and the lights came on. Minutes later the city returned to life.

  “Damnedest thing I ever saw,” said a chief engineer, standing by a generator that for twenty minutes had baffled his every effort to start it and then appeared to begin running of its own accord. “Damned odd!”

  The East London blackout, though local and brief, had been spectacular, and at another time might have attracted national attention. As it was, the fate of a quarter of a million refugees fleeing civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the final weekend of the American presidential election seemed the more significant events, leaving scant or no coverage for the blackout.

  After all, in the long run no harm appeared to have been done.

  Exeter. 6:55 a.m.

  Cecilia Cavaliere was drinking coffee when they called her with the news of Wheatley’s suicide. “What in God’s name do we train them for?… Of course it wasn’t obvious! My God, it isn’t just they didn’t follow procedure—hasn’t any of them ever read a classic spy story?”

  FiFty-two

  Siding Springs Observatory, New South Wales. November 1. UT1 (GMT) 06:37.

  C

  harlie Brown pushed the hair out of his eyes and straightened up, easing his back. The others were still peering at the plate. They looked tired.

  Wrrrrhhhhmmmff! Mmmmmmmmmmmm…

  Oh God, couldn’t the Aussies do something about that air

  conditioning? Still, there might not be much point in that now. If he were right, it would be akin to the proverbial rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic.

  If he were right.

  But was he?

  He hadn’t said anything yet. He’d wait a minute longer. See

  if they spotted it. Maybe they wouldn’t see it the way he did. Maybe there’d be… what was it the fellow said to his friend in that old Hitchcock movie when they were all being attacked by Nazi storm troopers?—“You know old chap, I’m sure there must be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this!” There must be, so maybe there would be. And in the meantime he’d be resolutely British and sensible, and say nothing. Let them notice the phenomenon and come up with the explanation. The perfectly reasonable explanation.

  But not his explanation.

  Dear God in heaven, not his.

  “It’s a good plate.” That was Tom Daniels. Very Australian.

  And great fun. Like Crocodile Dundee, only real. And sharp, too. Very sharp. But he hadn’t seen it. Not yet. At least, he must have seen it because he was looking at it, but he hadn’t observed, as Sherlock Holmes would say.

  Thaddeus Quinn nodded.

  Zaziwe L’Ouverture looked puzzled.

  “It’s clear enough for what we need,” she said.

  “It is,” Charlie said. “What do you think we’ve got?” She hesitated only a second.

  “A supernova, I suppose.”

  He waited a moment or so, and then almost in spite of himself gave her a little professorial prod. “At the center of the galaxy. Sagittarius A. Does that say anything to you?”

  “It’s got to be somewhere. Why not there?” That was Tom again. All right then, let him have a shot at it. Maybe there was a way out of this.

  “Point taken, Tom. Where would you start?” The Australian gestured at the figures on one of the other monitors. “Well, there’s the redshift. Pretty extreme. Which suggests it’s moving away from us. I guess I agree with Zaziwe. I think we’re looking at a supernova way beyond our galaxy.”

  But Zaziwe was frowning. Zaziwe did not agree with Zaziwe. She wasn’t saying anything but she’d spotted it. Charlie was pretty sure she’d spotted it.

  Another pause. Then— “Maybe the redshift doesn’t mean distancing,” Zaziwe said at last. “It doesn’t have to.”

  She had got it. Before the others, just as he‘d expect. Of course she didn’t want to, any more than he did. But she’d got it.

  “Agreed,” he said. “And in that case?”

  siding stAr 227 “In that case—” She hesitated, visibly seeking to resist the direction of her own logic. “In that case there might not be movement away.”

  “Yes?” he said.

  “It might be moving towards us.”

  “Oh, my God!” Thaddeus and Tom spoke almost simultaneously. “The Seyfert effect!”

  “Yes.” Zaziwe nodded. “Only this time, of course, it would be us.”

  Charlie swallowed. They’d all got there. And he had so hoped that they’d get somewhere else.

  “The Seyfert effect,” he said. “I’m afraid that’s what I think, too.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Then God help us!” Thaddaeus said.

  Charlie sighed. “My thought exactly.”

  If they were right, the nucleus of the galaxy had exploded.

  FiFty-three

  London, November 1. 7:00 a.m.

  W

  hen Katie’s keepers arrived at her enclosure the next morning they found the gate open. “O Lord!” the keeper from Exeter said. “She’s gone AWOL again!”

  But she hadn’t. They found her curled up in a tight ball in her usual place, fast asleep.

  “All right then! Good old Katie!”

  “I guess she knows where she’s well off,” the other keeper said.

  Katie was none the worse for her advent
ure, and once she could be persuaded to wake up (which did take rather longer than usual) she stretched, shook herself, and finally trotted out to the scrubland that formed the back part of her enclosure.

  “Can you smell wood-smoke?” asked the Exeter keeper, who thought he’d caught a whiff as he was rousing Katie.

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” said the other, which was not surprising, since he was recovering from a cold.

  “Oh well, perhaps I was imagining it.” Or it could be coming from across the way, where he’d noticed them yesterday, burning a lot of garden stuff. That was probably it.

  Katie sniffed about, chased a gray squirrel, relieved herself,

  230

  ChristoPher BryAn writhed around on her back in a patch of wintry sun with her legs in the air and a grin on her face (looking remarkably silly), then trotted back to the roofed part of her enclosure. There she ate a hearty breakfast, played with the keepers and her ball for a bit, and finally curled up for her usual post-breakfast and post-game nap.

  Of course the open gate had to be reported, and later that morning a memorandum arrived from administration. Katie’s enclosure was being secured with a chain and padlock and was to remain so secured until the electronic lock could be replaced with something more conventional.

  After all, as administration reflected while preparing the memorandum, conventional locks had worked perfectly well since the London Zoo was founded in 1828. There really did not seem to be any particular reason why they should not go on working for another century or so.

  FiFty-Four

  Exeter. The same day.

  B

  efore Michael went to bed, Rosina had produced a timetable and they’d chosen a suitable train for his journey back to London. Cecilia said she would drive him to the station. When he emerged from the Cavalieres’ front door on the following morning he was met by bright sunshine and clear sky. Birds were singing. Dogs were barking. A man was whistling as he washed his car. Michael smiled. Happy All Saints’ Day!