That would do it every time.
– – -
The quarry was the calm center of a stormy world.
Thunder didn't just rumble overhead, it tore the air in half.
"I've got some more friends coming," Adam repeated. "They'll be here soon, and then we can really get started."
Dog started to howl. It was no longer the siren howl of alone wolf, but the weird oscillations of a small dog in deep trouble.
Pepper had been sitting staring at her knees.
There seemed to be something on her mind.
Finally she looked up and stared Adam in the blank gray eyes.
"What bit're you going to have, Adam?" she said.
The storm was replaced by a sudden, ringing silence.
"What?" said Adam.
"Well, you divided up the world, right, and we've all of us got to have a bit‑what bit're you going to have?"
The silence sang like a harp, high and thin.
"Yeah," said Brian. "You never told us what bit you're having."
"Pepper's right," said Wensleydale. "Don't seem to me there's much left, if we've got to have all these countries."
Adam's mouth opened and shut.
"What?" he said.
"What bit's yours, Adam?" said Pepper.
Adam stared at her. Dog had stopped howling and had fixed his master with an intent, thoughtful mongrel stare.
"M‑me?" he said.
The silence went on and on, one note that could drown out the noises of the world.
"But I'll have Tadfield," said Adam.
They stared at him.
"An', an' Lower Tadfield, and Norton, and Norton Woods‑"
They still stared.
Adam's gaze dragged itself across their faces.
"They're all I've ever wanted," he said.
They shook their heads.
"I can have 'em if I want," said Adam, his voice tinged with sullen defiance and his defiance edged with sudden doubt. "I can make them better, too. Better trees to climb, better ponds, better . . ."
His voice trailed off.
"You can't," said Wensleydale flatly. "They're not like America and those places. They're really real. Anyway, they belong to all of us. They're ours."
"And you couldn't make 'em better," said Brian.
"Anyway, even if you did we'd all know," said Pepper.
"Oh, if that's all that's worryin' you, don't you worry," said Adam airily, "'cos I could make you all just do whatever I wanted‑"
He stopped, his ears listening in horror to the words his mouth was speaking. The Them were backing away.
Dog put his paws over his head.
Adam's face looked like an impersonation of the collapse of empire.
"No," he said hoarsely. "No. Come back! I command you!"
They froze in mid‑dash.
Adam stared.
"No, I dint mean it‑" he began. "You're my friends‑"
His body jerked. His head was thrown back. He raised his arms and pounded the sky with his fists.
His face twisted. The chalk floor cracked under his sneakers.
Adam opened his mouth and screamed. It was a sound that a merely mortal throat should not have been able to utter; it wound out of the quarry, mingled with the storm, caused the clouds to curdle into new and unpleasant shapes.
It went on and on.
It resounded around the universe, which is a good deal smaller than physicists would believe. It rattled the celestial spheres.
It spoke of loss, and it did not stop for a very long time.
And then it did.
Something drained away.
Adam's head tilted down again. His eyes opened.
Whatever had been standing in the old quarry before, Adam Young was standing there now. A more knowledgeable Adam Young, but Adam Young nevertheless. Possibly more of Adam Young than there had ever been before.
The ghastly silence in the quarry was replaced by a more familiar, comfortable silence, the mere and simple absence of noise.
The freed Them cowered against the chalk cliff, their eyes fixed on him.
"It's all right," said Adam quietly. "Pepper? Wensley? Brian? Come back here. It's all right. It's all right. I know everything now. And you've got to help me. Otherwise it's all goin' to happen. It's really all goin' to happen. It's all goin' to happen, if we don't do somethin'."
– – -
The plumbing in Jasmine Cottage heaved and rattled and showered Newt with water that was slightly khaki in color. But it was cold. It was probably the coldest cold shower Newt had ever had in his life.
It didn't do any good.
"There's a red sky," he said, when he came back. He was feeling slightly manic. "At half past four in the afternoon. In August. What does that mean? In terms of delighted nautical operatives, would you say? I mean, if it takes a red sky at night to delight a sailor, what does it take to amuse the man who operates the computers on a supertanker? Or is it shepherds who are delighted at night? I can never remember."
Anathema eyed the plaster in his hair. The shower hadn't got rid of it; it had merely dampened it down and spread it out, so that Newt looked as though he was wearing a white hat with hair in it.
"You must have got quite a bump," she said.
"No, that was when I hit my head on the wall. You know, when you‑"
"Yes." Anathema looked quizzically out of the broken window. "Would you say it's blood‑colored?" she said. "It's very important."
"I wouldn't say that," said Newt, his train of thought temporarily derailed. "Not actual blood. More pinkish. Probably the storm put a lot of dust in the air."
Anathema was rummaging through The Nice and Accurate Prophecies
"What are you doing?" he said.
"Trying to cross‑reference. I still can't be‑"
"I don't think you need to bother," said Newt. "I know what the rest of 3477 means. It came to me when I‑"
"What do you mean, you know what it means?"
"I saw it on my way down here. And don't snap like that. My head aches. I mean I saw it. They've got it written down outside that air base of yours. It's got nothing to do with peas. It's 'Peace Is Our Profession.' It's the kind of thing they put up on boards outside air bases. You know: SAC 8657745th Wing, The Screaming Blue Demons, Peace Is Our Profession. That sort of thing." Newt clutched his head. The euphoria was definitely fading. "If Agnes is right, then there's probably some madman in there right now winding up all the missiles and cranking open the launch windows. Or whatever they are."
"No, there isn't," said Anathema firmly.
"Oh, Yes? I've seen films! Name me one good reason why you can be so sure."
"There aren't any bombs there. Or missiles. Everyone round here knows that."
"But it's an air base! It's got runways!"
"That's just for transport planes and things. All they've got up there is communications gear. Radios and stuff. Nothing explosive at all."
Newt stared at her.
* * * * *
Look at Crowley, doing 110 mph on the M40 heading toward Oxfordshire. Even the most resolutely casual observer would notice a number of strange things about him. The clenched teeth, for example, or the dull red glow coming from behind his sunglasses. And the car. The car was a definite hint.
Crowley had started the journey in his Bentley, and he was damned if he wasn't going to finish it in the Bentley as well. Not that even the kind of car buff who owns his own pair of motoring goggles would have been able to tell it was a vintage Bentley. Not any more. They wouldn't have been able to tell that it was a Bentley. They would only offer fifty‑fifty that it had ever even been a car.
There was no paint left on it, for a start. It might still have been black, where it wasn't a rusty, smudged reddish‑brown, but this was a dull charcoal black. It traveled in its own ball of flame, like a space capsule making a particularly difficult re‑entry.
There was a thin skin of crusted, melted rubber left
around the metal wheel rims, but seeing that the wheel rims were still somehow riding an inch above the road surface this didn't seem to make an awful lot of difference to the suspension.
It should have fallen apart miles back.
It was the effort of holding it together that was causing Crowley to grit his teeth, and the biospatial feedback that was causing the bright red eyes. That and the effort of having to remember not to start breathing.
He hadn't felt like this since the fourteenth century.
– – -
The atmosphere in the quarry was friendlier now, but still intense.
"You've got to help me sort it out," said Adam. "People've been tryin' to sort it out for thousands of years, but we've got to sort it out now."
They nodded helpfully.
"You see, the thing is," said Adam, "this thing is, it's like‑well, you know Greasy Johnson."
The Them nodded. They all knew Greasy Johnson and the members of the other gang in Lower Tadfield. They were older and not very pleasant. Hardly a week went by without a skirmish.
"Well, " said Adam, "We always win, right?"
"Nearly always," said Wensleydale.
"Nearly always," said Adam, "An'‑"
"More than half, anyway," said Pepper. "'Cos, you remember, when there was all that fuss over the ole folks' party in the village hall when we‑"
"That doesn't count," said Adam. "They got told off just as much as us. Anyway, old folks are s'pposed to like listenin' to the sound of children playin', I read that somewhere, I don't see why we should get told off 'cos we've got the wrong kind of old folks‑" He paused. "Anyway . . . we're better'n them."
"Oh, we're better'n them," said Pepper. "You're right about that. We're better'n them all right. We jus' don't always win."
"Just suppose," said Adam, slowly, "that we could beat 'em properly. Get‑get them sent away or somethin'. Jus' make sure there's no more ole gangs in Lower Tadfield apart from us. What do you think about that?"
"What, you mean he'd be . . . dead?" said Brian.
"No. Jus'‑jus' gone away."
The Them thought about this. Greasy Johnson had been a fact of life ever since they'd been old enough to hit one another with a toy railway engine. They tried to get their minds around the concept of a world with a Johnson‑shaped hole in it.
Brian scratched his nose. "I reckon it'd be brilliant without Greasy Johnson," he said. "Remember what he did at my birthday party? And I got into trouble about it."
"I dunno," said Pepper. "I mean, it wouldn't be so interesting without ole Greasy Johnson and his gang. When you think about it. We've had a lot of fun with ole Greasy Johnson and the Johnsonites. We'd probably have to find some other gang or something."
"Seems to me," said Wensleydale, "that if you asked people in Lower Tadfield, they'd say they'd be better off without the Johnsonites or the Them."
Even Adam looked shocked at this. Wensleydale went on stoically: "The old folks' club would. An' Picky. An'‑"
"But we're the good ones . . ." Brian began. He hesitated. "Well, all right," he said, "but I bet they'd think it'd be a jolly sight less interestin' if we all weren't here."
"Yes," said Wensleydale. "That's what I mean."
"People round here don't want us or the Johnsonites," he went on morosely, "the way they're always goin' on about us just riding our bikes or skateboarding on their pavements and making too much noise and stuff. It's like the man said in the history books. A plaque on both your houses."
This met with silence.
"One of those blue ones," said Brian, eventually, "saying 'Adam Young Lived Here,' or somethin'?"
Normally an opening like this could lead to five minutes' rambling discussion when the Them were in the mood, but Adam felt that this was not the time.
"What you're all sayin'," he summed up, in his best chairman tones, "is that it wouldn't be any good at all if the Greasy Johnsonites beat the Them or the other way round?"
"That's right," said Pepper. "Because," she added, "if we beat them, we'd have to be our own deadly enemies. It'd be me an' Adam against Brian an' Wensley," She sat back. "Everyone needs a Greasy Johnson," she said.
"Yeah," said Adam. "That's what I thought. It's no good anyone winning. That's what I thought." He stared at Dog, or through Dog.
"Seems simple enough to me," said Wensleydale, sitting back. "I don't see why it's taken thousands of years to sort out."
"That's because the people trying to sort it out were men," said Pepper, meaningfully.
"Don't see why you have to take sides," said Wensleydale.
"Of course I have to take sides," said Pepper. "Everyone has to take sides in something."
Adam appeared to reach a decision.
"Yes. But I reckon you can make your own side. I think you'd better go and get your bikes," he said quietly. "I think we'd better sort of go and talk to some people."
– – -
Putputputputputput, went Madame Tracy's motor scooter down Crouch End High Street. It was the only vehicle moving on a suburban London street jammed with immobile cars and taxis and red London buses.
"I've never seen a traffic jam like it," said Madame Tracy. "I wonder if there's been an accident."
"Quite possibly, " said Aziraphale. And then, "Mr. Shadwell, unless you put your arms round me you're going to fall off. This thing wasn't built for two people, you know."
"Three," muttered Shadwell, gripping the seat with one whiteknuckled hand, and his Thundergun with the other.
"Mr. Shadwell, I won't tell you again."
"Ye'll have ter stop, then, so as I can adjust me weapon," sighed Shadwell.
Madame Tracy giggled dutifully, but she pulled over to the curb, and stopped the motor scooter.
Shadwell sorted himself out, and put two grudging arms around Madame Tracy, while the Thundergun stuck up between them like a chaperon.
They rode through the rain without talking for another ten minutes, putputputputput, as Madame Tracy carefully negotiated her way around the cars and the buses.
Madame Tracy found her eyes being moved down to the speedometer‑rather foolishly, she thought, since it hadn't worked since 1974, and it hadn't worked very well before that.
"Dear lady, how fast would you say we were going?" asked Aziraphale.
"Why?"
"Because it seems to me that we would go slightly faster walking."
"Well, with just me on, the top speed is about fifteen miles an hour, but with Mr. Shadwell as well, it must be, ooh, about
"Four or five miles per hour," she interrupted.
"I suppose so," she agreed.
There was a cough from behind her. "Can ye no slow down this hellish machine, wumman?" asked an ashen voice. In the infernal pantheon, which it goes without saying Shadwell hated uniformly and correctly, Shadwell reserved a special loathing for speed demons.
"In which case," said Aziraphale, "eve will get to Tadfield in something less than ten hours"
There was a pause from Madame Tracy, then, "How far away is this Tadfield, anyway?"
"About forty miles."
"Um," said Madame Tracy, who had once driven the scooter the few miles to nearby Finchley to visit her niece, but had taken the bus since, because of the funny noises the scooter had started making on the way back.
". . . we should really be going at about seventy, if we're going to get there in time," said Aziraphale. "Hmm. Sergeant Shadwell? Hold on very tightly now."
Putputputputput and a blue nimbus began to outline the scooter and its occupants with a gentle sort of a glow, like an afterimage, all around them.
Putputputputputput and the scooter lifted awkwardly off the ground with no visible means of support, jerking slightly, until it reached a height of five feet, more or less.
"Don't look down, Sergeant Shadwell, " advised Aziraphale.
". . ." said Shadwell, eyes screwed tightly shut, gray forehead beaded with sweat, not looking down, not looking
anywhere.
"And off we go, then. "
In every big‑budget science fiction movie there's the moment when a spaceship as large as New York suddenly goes to light speed. A twanging noise like a wooden ruler being plucked over the edge of a desk, a dazzling refraction of light, and suddenly the stars have all been stretched out thin and it's gone. This was exactly like that, except that instead of a gleaming twelve‑mile‑long spaceship, it was an off‑white twenty‑year‑old motor scooter. And you didn't have the special rainbow effects. And it probably wasn't going at more than two hundred miles an hour. And instead of a pulsing whine sliding up the octaves, it just went putputputputput . . .
VROOOOSH.
But it was exactly like that anyway.
– – -
Where the M25, now a screaming frozen circle, intersects with the M40 to Oxfordshire, police were clustered around in ever‑increasing quantities. Since Crowley crossed the divide, half an hour earlier, their number had doubled. On the M40 side, anyway. No one in London was getting out.
In addition to the police there were also approximately two hundred others standing around, and inspecting the M25 through binoculars. They included representatives from her Majesty's Army, the Bomb Disposal Squad, M 15, M 16, the Special Branch, and the CIA. There was also a man selling hot dogs.
Everybody was cold and wet, and puzzled, and irritable, with the exception of one police officer, who was cold, wet, puzzled, irritable, and exasperated.
"Look. I don't care if you believe me or not," he sighed, "all I'm telling you is what I saw. It was an old car, a Rolls, or a Bentley, one of those flash vintage jobs, and it made it over the bridge."
One of the senior army technicians interrupted. "It can't have done. According to our instruments the temperature above the M25 is somewhere in excess of seven hundred degrees centigrade."
"Or a hundred and forty degrees below," added his assistant.
". . . or a hundred and forty degrees below zero," agreed the senior technician. "There does appear to be some confusion on that score, although I think we can safely attribute it to mechanical error of some kind,[49] but the fact remains that we can't even get a helicopter directly over the M25 without winding up with Helicopter McNuggets. How on earth can you tell me that a vintage car drove over it unharmed?"
Good Omens Page 27
