by Guy Adams
"Fine," Hawkins replied, angry at his own newfound disability, "just hurt my damned arm that's all."
"All clear?" Jonah shouted.
"Aye," Hawkins said, letting Ryan take the torch and help him to his feet even though he found himself momentarily infuriated that the boy had thought to offer.
They moved further down the pipe. Hawkins' trousers clung to him, slick with the seawater, and rubbing between his thighs. This is no way for a ship captain to be, he thought, broken arm and soggy arse, crawling along the sewers like a damned rat.
Jonah appeared behind them, as devil-may-care as usual. "Could have been worse," he said. "What's next?"
"Let's find out," said Ryan, dashing ahead with the torch. "Looks like we have a choice," he announced, "the pipe splits both ways."
"Go left," said Hawkins instantly.
"Wow," Ryan replied, "how can you tell?"
"I can't," Hawkins admitted, "so go left, it makes little difference."
They went left. After a few minutes a clicking noise made Hawkins call a halt. "What the hell is that?" he said. Thinking: Should have gone right… "Jonah?"
"Couldn't say for sure Cap'n," he replied, "though it sure as hell sounds like…"
"Crabs!" Ryan shouted. In the flickering light of the torch, a curved pennant of crabs was curving towards them through the pipe. They weren't large, the size of a drink's coaster, little claws waving in the air as if performing a Mexican wave. Ryan began skipping around as they gripped at the hems of his trousers and scuttled up him. "Urgh!" he shouted, beating at himself with the torch.
"Change of plan, we go right," said Hawkins, "and stop messing about with those things Ryan, you'll burn yourself to a crisp."
They moved swiftly – Ryan in particular, jumping up and down, convinced that he had crustaceans in his underwear – looping around into the alternative tunnel and hoping the crabs wouldn't follow. They didn't, moving in a militaristic line back the way the crew had come.
"Anyone else on the menu?" asked Ryan, still tugging at his clothes. "Please tell me I'm not the only one with bits missing?"
"That's what happens when you're stupid enough to be eager," said Barnabas. "Stick your nose out enough and you'll lose it in the end."
"Thanks for the inspirational thought," said Hawkins, "you certainly know how to get the best out of a crew."
The pipe was beginning to get narrower. The thin trickle of seawater beneath their feet also dwindled and then dried out to nothing.
"The pipe's changing shape too," said Maggie, "losing the curve and getting edges."
"We're obviously passing into a different area," said Hawkins, "let's just hope there's a way out of here and into somewhere a little more comfortable."
Soon it was too narrow to walk standing up. "What if this just keeps getting narrower until we can't fit anymore?" asked Barnabas.
"Then we turn around and go back the other way," said Hawkins. "What else?"
"I don't mind checking it out," said Ryan. "I could scoot ahead quicker on my own and see if there's a way out?"
"Be my guest," said Hawkins, knowing full well the kid would go with or without his approval. There was a time, he thought, when I could have sworn this crew did what I told them…
They gave him the torch and Ryan dropped into a crouch, moving ahead in a bizarre shuffle. After a couple of minutes the going was too tight even for that and he had to drop to his hands and knees. The pipe had well and truly flattened out now, becoming a rectangle rather than a tube. The surface wasn't the heavy ceramic it had been either, it had turned into a rough metal, popping and squealing as he worked his way along it. Ahead he heard a riotous clatter as if someone were having a fit in the darkness ahead, the sides of the vent banging and echoing back to him. Mindful of the crabs earlier he grew nervous. The last thing he wanted was to come face to face with something terrible when he had little way of defending himself bar biting the hell out of it.
He kept moving anyway, damned if he was going to turn around and go running back just because he'd heard a noise that had scared him.
Soon he had to drop to his belly and it was impossible to move any other way but slowly and awkwardly, still holding that torch out in front. The heat from its flames was cooking the air in the enclosed space, making his face tingle in the heat. Sooner or later he was going to have to give up on this and work his way back – the thought of doing that was grim, scooting backwards using one hand… it would take him hours and he knew it. Then he heard a noise that pushed him harder: a woman screaming. That proved there was something ahead beyond this damned vent, though whether it would be an improvement was hard to be sure. A little further and he heard another sound, a man's voice… a voice he recognised too, though he would have been lying if he'd said he'd expected to hear it again. He was sure the sound was coming from below and a little further ahead, it had none of the echo he would expect were they stuck here in the vent with him, they must be on the outside. A little further and he realised that there was light creeping in. He moved faster and faster, bashing his head and knees over and over again in his enthusiasm to reach the light. The sound of voices continued below him as he reached the hole in the vent and lowered his head into the bright light of the station. And there he was, the owner of that voice…
"Avast ye!" Ryan shouted with a grin, "Alan ahoy!"
5.
Alan and Penelope constructed a pyramid out of the tables. Starting with a base of six, then four, then two… it was just about high enough – and solid enough – for Ryan to climb out and get down. While they worked, the boy shuffled back until he was close enough to the rest of his party to shout and be heard. This wasn't difficult, Ryan had never been a quiet lad. The rest of the Intrepid crew made their way along the vent and dropped down into the champagne bar.
"Who would have thought I'd clap eyes on you again?" said Hawkins, patting Alan on the back. "Where's Sophie?"
"She's okay," Alan replied. "I think so anyway… look, there's a hell of a lot to explain to you so why don't we get out of here?" he gestured to the dead pigeons that still littered the floor. "Find somewhere a bit more comfortable to catch up?"
At which point, all the information stands buzzed into life, the face of the Grumpy Controller appearing across the whole upper level. "Sophie needs to go to the library now!" he shouted before promptly switching off.
"Or perhaps we could talk on the way?" said Penelope.
PART FIVE
The Old Man and the Sea
1.
Lying on his back, his old bones just as stiff as the sea-lacquered belly of the boat, Ashe dreamed of blue skies and calm waves. If dreams had weight the storm above him should have whimpered into silence, the rain dried out and the wind calmed to a soft, warm breeze to dry his soaked body. This did not happen. The sea continued to throw him from side to side. A child tossing a baseball from one hand to another, practicing his catch. His head was bleeding. Even in the rain he could tell that the warm wetness that pooled around the nape of his neck had come from within rather than without. He tried to remember what had happened, to own the memory of being cast off the Intrepid to float toward shore. It felt loose and just out of reach. A story he had been told rather than something he had experienced. His head felt as if it were speared on a rusty nail. A sharp sense of pain at the heart of a wider numb malaise. The storm, he thought, did I hit my head in the storm?
That storm continued in affirmation, even as he slipped out of understanding and towards sleep.
2.
He had left Tibet with a dry taste in his mouth and a sickness in his belly. Returning to the station he had meant to check on Sophie, knock a few of the more unsavoury thoughts away with a little human company. He thought a few hours with Penelope might just do the trick. It was hard to become too self-reflective in her company. They weren't there. He had walked both levels of the station, mindlessly pushing through the ghostly passengers as they moved between shops. They were already on their
way to the library then. He sat down in the cafe, feeling utterly exhausted. He had barely started and he was almost at his wits end.
3.
The storm blew itself out at dawn. Even in his semidelirious state Ashe could tell this. The thunder grew more distant, the lightning cutting its way across the horizon. It was information he felt right on the edge of awareness, like the sound of a telephone intruding onto the shallow edge of dreaming. He had shown the man how to leave the station hadn't he? Yes, that was a wild card, an unpredictable event that might change things… Perhaps he had been stupid, better to leave everything as he knew it should be. Getting too used to this playing God, he thought… swinging back and forth in the boat like a man on a swing seat. He reached one weary hand toward the lightening sky and extended a finger. I command you, wind, he thought, to take me to shore. And with that he fell unconscious.
4.
Returning to the Barlow Shed he looked up at the trains and thought ahead.
Ideally he would have taken a trip to his old apartment in Kissimmee, picked up all his old notes and research. But that was now impossible. These trains, as miraculous as they were, would show a very different world to the one Alan Arthur had once known. Traveling before 1976 was fine enough, no change there, but anything after… well Ashe knew that world well enough and there was nothing of any use to him in it. Really? A voice asked in his head, are you sure? Wouldn't you like to check up on them? Make sure they're okay?
No. No he wouldn't. No more distractions.
He could remember his notes well enough to have a vague timeline of the box. He knew that it had left Tibet, picked up by one of the soldiers who would carry it with him for a few years until – irritated by its refusal to open – he sold it to a market trader in Madras. He could remember the trader's name, Yoosuf, and that was all. He would just have to hope that the train took him where he needed to go. It was clear to him that the House was as motivated in this as he was. It didn't want to die. Whether it was a piece of Sophie's consciousness or something more rudimentary, a sentient flicker within the House itself, he couldn't be sure. Whichever, it knew the world beyond its walls, understood the patterns of it all better than any of them.
He remembered floating in that dangerous sea while on the Intrepid. The feeling he had experienced was one of universal contact, becoming the water and feeling every single tile that surrounded it. The water had known its environment, had felt the ship floating on it, the House that embraced it. This was just the same. The House was connected to everything and everyone, it knew the shape of events in the real world just as a sea feels the contours of the beaches that lead into it. It would let him find Yoosuf, Ashe was sure of it.
One other piece of business occurred to him. He had managed to gather a fair quantity of cash from the others in the house – Carruthers in particular held a varied store of notes and coins hidden away in a concealed pocket inside his jacket. It wouldn't last forever though. He decided to go shopping.
He entered the closest store, a small gift place, filled with jewellery and the sort of purses that looked like they were made from icing not leather. Edible fashions. He checked the till but wasn't surprised to find it empty. This wasn't the real thing, a good representation perhaps but once you scratched the surface the illusion was revealed. Would the same be the case for the stock? He loaded his pockets with jewellery, anything that carried a stone or might be made from gold. Anything in fact that might turn a greedy man's head. He moved from shop to shop doing the same thing, eventually grabbing a satchel so that he could carry more. Watches, rings, brooches, nothing too big. By the time he was done his bag was heavy with the best the shops had to offer.
Ordering his tickets from that irritating face of the House, the Grumpy Controller, Ashe made his way to his train and sailed out of this world and back into his own.
5.
During a brief moment of lucidity Ashe became aware that he was no longer alone in the lifeboat. Opening eyes that had been glued shut with dried salt baked in the sun, he saw the profile of a gull on the stern. It was looking out across the water – as far as he could tell, anyway, that fat, black eye could be looking anywhere – perhaps searching for food raised by the storm. A brittle notion crumbled in Ashe's head, not quite strong enough for him to fix on as he dropped back into sleep, perhaps it's just found all the food it needs.
6.
The market cooked like a stew in the heavy Madras air. The scents of sweat, produce and spice surrounded Ashe as he pushed his way between the crowded stalls. A five dollar note – not due to be printed for another ten years but the first that had come to hand – had bought him directions from a street beggar on the outskirts. The beggar had grinned at the sign of foldable money and vanished it into his clothes swiftly so that he didn't mark himself out as rich pickings for anyone else on the street. Ashe knew that when the man came to spend the money his enthusiasm would swiftly falter but for a couple of minutes he had his own personal guide, willing to show the white stranger anything he might desire. When Ashe made it clear that he desired nothing more exotic than the market stall of Yoosuf, his guide had seemed disappointed in him. No doubt the beggar had imagined what delights he would take from the city were he lucky enough to have pockets filled with American dollars and browsing the market was not one of them. Nonetheless he performed his duty admirably, leading him to the shadowy entrance of a stall built into the side of a building.
Amongst the voluminous silk drapes and crammed displays, Ashe found his man. A small fellow sipping at a glass of tea so sweet it poured like syrup past the few remaining teeth in the man's mouth. Yoosuf hid his enthusiasm at the chance of earning some dollars better than the beggar. Ashe suspected this was because he had a fair few of them already. He caught the glint of a wristwatch beneath the man's sleeve. There was a signet ring embedded in the thick hairs above the knuckle of the fourth finger on his right hand. The glass he drank from was thin and well-crafted, decorated with a spider's web of metal that might even have been silver. Yes, Ashe suspected Yoosuf was not as impoverished as those who surrounded him. Whether this would make negotiations any more difficult had yet to be seen. He wasn't naïve enough to mention the box straightaway, certainly… let them build up to that. To begin with, all Yoosuf needed to know is that he had an American on hand who wanted to buy.
They moved through several items in Yoosuf's stock, everything from statuettes to embroidered handkerchiefs. Yoosuf proffered a rather grotesque brooch fashioned from a scarab beetle, then a wooden mask, its bright pink tongue curled lasciviously, eager to take your coat. Ashe wanted none of these things but he bought them. He would soon be playing the part of archeologist, booking space on the Intrepid to transport items back to the States. None of those items mattered but one, they would all be window dressing. Eventually, seeing a small ivory box on one of the man's shelves Ashe commented that his grandchild liked decorative boxes, did Yoosuf perhaps have something more along those lines?
The vendor spread his arms wide, but of course he did… Yoosuf had everything.
Within five minutes Ashe had reclaimed the box – and purchased enough rubbish to fill a single packing crate. Now came the bartering. He offloaded his satchel onto the man's small counter, counting out the items one at a time to the increased enthusiasm of Yoosuf. The man tried to conceal it of course, no vendor worth his salt lets his tongue hang out at the first glimpse of shiny things, but Ashe knew that he had a buyer. There was too much interest before the casting down of the items in feigned dismissal, a second too long rubbing his thumbs across the cut surface of the jewels or the highly-polished metal. Ashe realised that the magic of the House had in fact done him a favour. These items may be imaginary but that only emphasised their glister. These were the sparkling fantasies of thousands of dreamers and they shone with every drop of avarice and desire those dreamers could muster. Certainly they were making Yoosuf salivate, however much he may try and pretend otherwise.
Ashe named
a figure, as large and insulting as he dared. The trader was visibly stunned and Ashe began to replace the shining treasure back into his satchel, slowly… letting each item offer one final sparkle before it dropped back into the bag. Yoosuf paid half of the original price quoted in cash and gave Ashe the rest of his shopping list for free.
Not a bad bit of business, all in all, Ashe thought and made arrangements for his case of belongings – minus the box, that he slipped into his pocket – to be delivered to the nearest reputable hotel.
7.
The gull gave a cry that cut through Ashe's delirium. He came awake to find the bird on his chest. Its large yellow beak turned from one side to the other as if it was wondering how best to open the shell on this particularly large catch. Ashe only managed to raise one arm, his limbs so stiff that even that effort shot a bolt of pain into his shoulder and nudged him into unconsciousness again. It was enough, the gull retreated, returning to the stern of the boat where it was happy to wait.
