The Silent Vulcan

by James Follett

  The small crowd watched in fascination as Charlie reversed the showman's engine onto the bed of pine logs. The huge rear wheels, taller than a man, graunched the heavy timbers into the ground as the monstrous machine settled into its new permanent home. Once in position, Charlie opened valves to allow the steam to escape, and wound the handwheel that clamped the brake shoes against the wheels. Carl, his eldest son, jumped down and helped Selby's men to drag old railway sleepers into place as chocks.

  Eventually most of the onlookers got bored, but Faraday remained to record the hot ashes in the machine's firebox being dumped and quenched with water. A hose was played on the firebox to cool it and the Selby team set to work to bolt into place the methane adaptor that they had made.

  Faraday's final shot was to roam the camcorder over the entire scene, taking in the methane well head, now protected by a sturdy fence, the concrete section garage that served as a control room, the Centrax generator, and the new line of pine poles leading to the town that engineers were rigging with insulators and cables. He zoomed the camcorder on the two morris police on guard duty. They were armed with shotguns. The switch-on ceremony of the town's street lighting was planned for coming Saturday evening carnival in Market Square.

  Chapter 23.

  THE CHILDREN'S WALKIE-TALKIE was under Ellen Duncan's pillow so she didn't hear its call tones. Nor did she hear David Weir's voice.

  "Ellen! This is David. Do you copy?"

  But Claire Lake heard something. Her camp bed creaked as she propped herself on one elbow, brushing her long blonde hair away from her ears while listening intently.

  The cave was illuminated by the glow from the tiny ten-watt light bulb powered by a truck battery which the cave's three occupants kept on during their sleep time. Day and night had no meaning in the cave but Ellen had wisely insisted that their sanity depended on their observation of clock time and the maintenance of their eating and sleep patterns.

  "Ellen. Can you hear me?"

  Claire slipped quietly from her bed. Her shadow flitted like a black cloud across the palaeolithic hunting scenes that decorated the walls of the cave.

  She glanced at Vikki Taylor. The teenager had taken to sleeping naked. The fingers of her left hand, as always, were slightly clenched. The floor's rough, ill-fitting flat stones that had been laid 40,000 years ago, were a welcome coolness beneath Claire's feet as she crossed to Ellen and gently shook the older woman awake. Not without some trepidation because Ellen's temper was becoming even more uncertain of late. The seemingly unending long days of boredom and deprivation of natural light were getting to all of them. They had been incarcerated a month in the cave.

  "Ellen..."

  "Piss off."

  "Ellen -- I think it's David Weir calling you."

  Ellen was immediately wide awake. She sat up, her dark, matted tresses falling about her shoulders. "What?"

  "The radio. I thought I heard David Weir's voice."

  Ellen snatched the tiny transceiver from under her pillow, raised it to her lips, and squeezed the press-to-talk button. "David?"

  "Thank God. I thought the bloody thing was broken. I've bought you fresh supplies. I'm coming in. Don't answer."

  Outside the cave, David Weir turned the radio off without waiting for a reply. The output power of the pair of children's walkie-talkies was only a few milliwatts, their range a mere 200 metres, but Adrian Roscoe's accursed Bodian sentinels had radios. Mike Malone had warned that their sets were tunable to the family radio frequencies used by the kids' walkie-talkies.

  There was a waning half-quarter moon that bathed the harsh outlines of the sandstone scarp of the Temple of the Winds in a strange, ethereal light. David didn't need his torch to see what he was doing other than for a quick inspection of the turf around the hidden entrance to Ellen's cave. Some of the more inquisitive of his southdown sheep gathered around to see what he was doing. He made no attempt to shoo them away; if there were prying eyes in the shadows, he was a good farmer checking the welfare of his flock.

  Before setting out from Temple Farm with a wagon loaded with supplies for the three women, he had taken every possible precaution to ensure that he wasn't followed. He had even spent three hours before darkness fell repairing gates and fences. Hopefully any watchers would get as bored as quickly as Titan did. The big shire horse was happy hauling a heavy coulter plough but loathed being between the hafts of a wagon.

  David Weir was alarmed when he studied the steep bank where the turf concealed the entrance to Ellen's cave. He passed it often enough in daytime while looking after his sheep but had always avoided as much as a casual glance at it. Roscoe's spies were everywhere. Easing the turf away confirmed his suspicions. Not only were the turfs incorrectly positioned, but they came away too easily -- after a month in the good, humid growing conditions they should have knitted together more than they had done so. Midges swarmed around him as he used a trowel to clear away the soil.

  The stink from the nearby ginkgo tree that Ellen had planted to deter deer from her terracing in which had grown her crops was overpowering.

  It took only a few minutes to clear the soil yet he was drenched with sweat by the time he reached into the narrow opening to pull the piece of supporting hurdle clear. It came away unexpectedly easily because Ellen was pushing it from inside.

  "David!" Ellen scrambled out of the opening and threw her arms around his neck. "Bloody hell," she said. "I never thought I'd would ever be so pleased to see your ugly face. I thought we'd been abandoned."

  "Let's get inside, m'dear," said David curtly, pushing Ellen away. "That nightie's like a bloody beacon."

  "Wonderful," said Claire, poking her head and shoulders out of the opening and inhaling. "Is that what fresh air smells like?" She withdrew hurriedly as David bundled Ellen unceremoniously into the entrance.

  Vikki had pulled on a night dress and was sitting on her camp bed by the time David, Ellen and Claire entered the main cave. Ellen switched on the main lights and turned to confront David. She was on the point of berating him for his cavalier behaviour but checked herself when she saw his grave expression.

  "David? What's the matter?"

  "Someone knows about this place. The turfs have been disturbed."

  "But that's impossible," said Ellen. "There's only you and Mike Malone that know about it. And he would never tell anyone."

  "Has he been here?"

  "No. Of course not."

  David glanced around the cave. The shock effect of seeing those extraordinary hunting scenes would never wear off.

  David explained to the three women what he had found outside.

  "Perhaps it was a fox or rabbits?" Claire suggested.

  "Foxes and rabbits may dig holes," said David, "but they don't put the turf back."

  "Maybe you're mistaken," said Vikki, speaking for the first time.

  David shook his head. "I know exactly how I packed that turf."

  Ellen looked at Claire. "Do you know anything about this?"

  Claire shook her head.

  "Vikki?"

  The 16-year-old avoided Ellen's eye. "What?"

  "Don't what me, young lady. Do you know anything about the entrance being disturbed?"

  "No." Ellen knew Vikki well. The teenager had worked Saturday mornings in her herbal shop and they had been imprisoned together in Pentworth House to await being burned at the stake as witches. She knew that Vikki was not given to lying. The slight hesitation before the teenager replied, and that she was avoided eye contact was all Ellen needed. She stood over the girl.

  "Look at me."

  Vikki's gaze remained on the floor.

  "I said, look at me!"

  Vikki looked up, and flinched away from Ellen's hard stare.

  "Do you know about the entrance?"

  Silence.

  Ellen's stinging slap across Vikki's cheek knocked the girl's head back.

  "I don't think that will achieve--"

  "Stay out of this, David," said Ell
en quietly. She saw a tear roll down Vikki's cheek and knelt to put an arm around the trembling girl. "You do know, don't you, Vikki?"

  The young girl gave a little shuddering gulp and nodded. "I'm sorry, Ellen. Really I am. But I couldn't help it."

  "Start at the beginning, Vikki. You've been out while we've been asleep, haven't you?"

  "Yes." Vikki whispered.

  "When?"

  "The night of the coup."

  "Why?"

  "They called me..."

  "Who?"

  "The... The Visitors... They spoke to me. Called me. They said I was to go to the lake..."

  Claire and David stared wide-eyed at the teenager.

  "How did they call you?"

  Vikki looked up at Claire and David. She touched her forehead with her left hand and jerked it away as if the recently regrown fingers were traitors.

  Ellen took the hand in her own and held it tightly. "You're saying that you heard words in your head?"

  Vikki didn't reply. Ellen realised that the girl was probably intimidated by having three people gathered around her. She said to David, "Wouldn't it be a good idea if you and Claire brought the supplies in?"

  "Oh, for God's sake," Claire snapped in frustration. "Surely it's safe for us to leave this place now? What have we to fear now from Roscoe and his gang?"

  "You've been listening to the radio?" David asked.

  "Of course. What else is there to do?"

  "Then you know about the conditional amnesty that Bob Harding granted Roscoe and the others?"

  Claire grimaced. "Seems like a cop out to me. He tries to murder Vikky and Ellen, and now it looks like he's getting away with it."

  "If it's any consolation," said David. "Bob Harding isn't too happy about it. The trouble is that Adrian Roscoe has the best part of a hundred and fifty followers in Pentworth House and probably three times as many supporters in the community. Also he has control of the grain silos and most of our methane production." He looked speculatively at Claire. "You were one of the Bodian Brethren. You were the only one with the guts to run away." "You know the reason for that," Claire retorted. "I don't want my baby born in that place."

  "So how loyal do you think the others are?"

  Claire thought about the question and admitted that maybe David had a point. She added, "But there'll be a confrontation sooner or later. All the amnesty does is buy us time."

  "That's exactly what I said to Bob Harding. He replied that time was the one that was needed. Maybe the Visitors will suddenly upsticks and go tomorrow. We simply don't know. Meanwhile all three of you are safe here until we can be one hundred per cent certain that Adrian Roscoe and his followers won't do anything stupid." He grinned at Claire. "I like that nightie but it's best you get changed into something dark and let's get the wagon unloaded before Titan takes it into his head to go back to Temple Farm without me. Sometimes I feel like shooting that damned horse if he wasn't so valuable."

  Vikki smiled. She knew that the others would eventually learn that she had left the cave and had been dreading the moment. Now she was relieved that it had come. David gave her a friendly squeeze. "Not to worry, Viks. No harm done. You tell Ellen all about it."

  Ellen sat beside Vikki on the camp bed. "So how did all this happen, Vikki?"

  "It was the night of the coup. I didn't know that at the time, of course. I just heard this voice in my head..."

  Chapter 24.

  VIKKI... VIKKI...

  Vikki was dreaming. It was her going to sleep dream that she always used since her imprisonment. It started with her concentrating on being in her little bedroom that her father had worked so hard to make perfect for her when she had only one hand. Electric curtains, wardrobe doors and drawers that opened at a touch. She imagined herself curled up, with her arm around Benji, a threadbare bear that had shared her childhood for as far back as she could remember. As sleep came, so the dream continued as a gentle diffusing from harsh reality into another world that ushered in Dario -- the name she had given to the magnificent Zulu warrior in full impi regalia depicted in a life-size poster on her bedroom wall.

  Dario was always there. Safe, reliable, beautiful Dario. Those strong arms around her, holding her against his powerful body, protecting her from the terrors of the night. The most potent aspect of her fantasy was that she had only to reach down to take hold of him for that wonderful body to be hers to command.

  Beloved, sweet Dario.

  Vikki...

  The dream was gone in a cruel instant. Vikki's eyes snapped open. She stared up at the roof of the cave, lit softly by the low-wattage bedside lights that Ellen and Claire were reading by.

  Vikki. Can you hear us?

  It was the same voice in her head that she had heard before when it had summonsed her from her bedroom to Pentworth Lake. But it was stronger -- the concepts that formed in her mind as words were much sharper. But Pentworth Lake was not so far from the cave as her bedroom.

  "Yes." She said it as an almost mute whisper.

  Come to us, Vikki.

  "I can't."

  The girl was aware of a sensation of puzzlement until she concentrated on her surroundings.

  You are trapped?

  "In a way -- yes."

  Vikki turned and looked at her companions. Ellen was already dozing off. She switched off her bedside light and muttered a general goodnight. Claire did the same and Vikki was left in the feeble glow of the low-wattage night lamp that provided just enough light for toilet visits and to relieve the frightening totality of the darkness that would otherwise prevail in the cave. It would be at least ten minutes or more before her companions were sound asleep.

  We understand. But you will come to us. He is ready.

  "Yes," Vikki whispered to the darkness. "I will come."

  The minutes slipped by. Vikki dozed off despite her trepidation about the strange voice in her head.

  Vikki...

  The tip of Dario's tongue was making rings of searing ecstacy around her nipples. She woke with a start. She hadn't meant to doze. She listened intently. Claire and Ellen and switched off their reading lights so that the cave was lit only by the solitary night lamp. The women's regular breathing told Vikki that her companions were asleep. Come to us, Vikki.

  "I'm coming!" her lips mimed in reply.

  The glow of the night lamp enabled Vikki to dress in jeans and a T-shirt, and push her feet into her trainers without knocking anything over. Lacing the trainers could wait; the voice urging her to go to Pentworth Lake was an insistent clarion call of such intensity that she was sure her Ellen and Claire would hear it.

  But they didn't stir as Vikki arranged her pillows so that it looked as though she were asleep under the sheet. She took Ellen's penlight torch and a bread knife, and ducked into the narrow passage that led to the blocked entrance. David Weir and Malone had sealed the cave's entrance so that it could be opened from inside in an emergency. Sometimes, when her longing to be free became a torment, she would often come and sit close to the hurdle that retained the turf covering and listen to the sound of birdsong. Sometimes she had heard people passing by, talking. On one terrifying occasion she had sat in petrified silence as she listened to a group of voices discussing which farmhouse they would be raiding next in their search for the fugitives. They were so close that they must have been sitting on the grass outside the cave entrance.

  She listened carefully now in case lovers were nearby or a morris patrol was in the vicinity, enforcing the curfew for under 18-year-olds. A barn owl hooted mournfully but there were no other sounds so she carefully sprung inwards the hazel wands that held the hurdle in place. Using the bread knife to cut a hole through the turf large enough for her to wriggle through was easier than she expected.

  A breeze kept the smell of Ellen's ginkgo tree at bay so that the draughts of night air she breathed seemed to sting with their purity after two weeks shut up in the cave. The sweet air and the realization that she was now free for the first time sinc
e Nelson Faraday had arrested her in Ellen's herbal remedy shop was a heady brew, quickly displaced by the summonsing voice that told her that she wasn't free. Not yet.

  She reached through the opening to reposition the hurdle, clenching the penlight torch between her teeth. The turf had to be packed into place in exactly the right position. To be doubly sure that she left no traces she even brushed the grass upright around the cave entrance. A sudden movement out of the corner of her eye gave her a scare until she realized that it was a group of David's southdown sheep that had strayed from the main flock.

  Vikki. Come to us.

  "Yes," she answered. "I'm coming."

  She set off towards Pentworth Lake. Her progress startled small creatures of the night, that bolted into the darkness at her approach.

  She was within 200 metres of Pentworth Lake when she heard the microlight passing overhead. She paused to stare up at the black sky. There was nothing to see. Only the angry buzz of the little air-cooled engine to mark the aircraft's passage. She knew nothing of the planned coup that was about to wrest power from Asquith Prescott or why Harvey Evans was flying his microlight at night. The tiny aircraft was armed with nautical distress rockets and heading towards Government House. Mike Malone's scheme was that the exploding rockets would create a diversion that would distract the armed guards around Government House long enough for him to arrest Adrian Roscoe, Asquith Prescott, and all those who had usurped Pentworth's democratic government for their own purposes. All Vikki knew was that the sound seemed to be heading towards the faint lights of Pentworth. She felt a sense of foreboding and shivered.

  Vikki!

  "Yes -- I'm coming."

  She resumed her journey but her pace lost its certainty. Why was she here? What could she do? Her footsteps faltered when the grass gave way to sand. She could hear the gentle lapping of the breeze-stirred lake.

  She concentrated on the words, "I'm here."

  No answer.

  "I'm here!" Was it possible to think louder?

  The sharp yap of a vixen answered as though it had read her thoughts. She flashed the feeble beam of her torch along the black line of the water's edge. Doubts assailed her. Perhaps she had dreamed that she had been summonsed to the lake? She would have to return to the cave and face Ellen and Claire in the knowledge that she had compromised their safety by venturing out. The darkness was almost total and she suddenly felt very alone and afraid. Her torch dimmed. Shaking it caused it to brighten for a few seconds, and then it went out for good.