The Final Nexus
by David Clarke
Chapter 9
Another two weeks went by. By now I was nicely settled at school and actually learning something, too, and in other circumstances I'd have been happy to stay where I was: I had a number of good friends who were fun to be with, a roof over my head and enough to eat and drink. But I was also separated from my boyfriend and under the twin threats of a return to slavery and being forced to make an unhealthy expedition into the Grey world. And the real problem was that there was nothing I could do about it: any attempt to abscond in this world would be almost sure to result in my recapture, and until a suitable world presented itself up at Stonehenge there was nowhere else to go.
Sam was working very hard on his Arvelan, not only at school but with Rob and Erik in the evenings. I spent some of the time in the evenings playing computer games with Godfrey and the others, but sometimes I wasn't really in the mood for that, and on those occasions I took one of my books up into the attic where I could read undisturbed. I'd gone back to From a Dusty Basement: I was about three-quarters of the way through it by now and I wanted to find out how it ended: sub-officer Boskiss might have started out looking into a long-dormant case, but it had now reared back into life with the discovery that the original murderer was still alive - and now he was aware that Boskiss was after him.
I read on for half an hour or so, completely engrossed, and then I came to a passage that made me sit up and stare: the bad guy, whose name was Seevist, was an Arvelan and so was of course implanted with a chip, and now that Boskiss knew who he was his capture seemed certain: all the police had to do was trace the chip. Seevist was still able to travel because he'd killed a man, extracted his chip and was using that to make purchases, which would be safe enough until the body was discovered. But his own chip was still emitting its signals, as all of our chips did, and that meant that they could be picked up by surveillance drones, which could then pinpoint his position.
But Seevist had thought of a way round that: he'd purchased some lead from a scrap metal dealer - for model-making purposes, he had said - and had used this to make a sort of vambrace for his left arm, because - or so the book claimed - surrounding the chip with lead would prevent its signal from getting out. And in the book it worked: Seevist had been able to leave the city using a train ticket purchased online using the dead man's chip, and although there were surveillance probes covering all the stations in the city, they failed to pick up his chip, registering instead only the dead man's chip, which Seevist was carrying in his pocket.
I slammed the book shut, scrambled back down the ladder, ran back to our room and thrust the book into Declan's hands.
"Page 326," I said. "Would that work in real life?"
Declan read the passage quickly.
"Probably," he said. "I'm not sure that I'd want to bet my life on it, but it sounds entirely possible in theory. Of course you'd need to find the lead: I'm not sure where the nearest scrap metal dealer is, or if he'd have lead available if you did find one. But modelling is a good excuse, even more so for boys of your age."
"In my world criminals quite often strip lead from church roofs," I said. "All we'd need for that would be a ladder."
"You'd need some luck, too," he pointed out. "I don't imagine Aarnist would be happy if you got caught."
"Probably not. I'll just have to make sure I don't get caught, won't I?"
I felt uplifted: okay, there were hurdles to overcome, but at least now I had something I could do to improve my situation. And if by chance Dec could 'persuade' the scientists to reopen the portal to my world I might even be able to get home - or to a Channel port - untraced by Aarnist's probes. If the lead worked, of course...
Sam came in and greeted us both in Arvelan. He was still really enjoying life here: there was so many things to learn and so much new technology to discover - he'd spent a part of the previous day examining the engine of the Home manager's car and trying to find out how it worked, and he was still having enormous fun with computers, both the one at school which was teaching him the language and the games console in Godfrey's room.
He had let the matter of us having sex drop since our conversation two weeks previously, but I was fairly sure that I hadn't heard the last of it, and when he suggested that we should go up to the attic for an hour or so after supper I expected the subject to be raised once more: I was quite sure that he hadn't given up on the idea. But to start with all he wanted to do was for us to get undressed and snuggle up under the blankets, and I didn't mind that at all.
"I really like this world," he said. "There's so much amazing stuff here, things that I never dreamed could exist... are we really going to have to go somewhere else?"
"You might not have to," I said. "Provided we can get you fixed up with some papers... though you'd almost certainly need a chip, too, and I don't know how we could fix that. Without one you'll never have any money... maybe Dec can find a way to get you one, but I expect there's a lot of bureaucracy involved."
"I'm sure Dec could do it - he's incredible!"
By now Sam had seen Dec in action: the twins had been unusually mouthy one evening, and they'd made the mistake of doing it when they weren't wearing their metal bands. Dec had responded by making them strip and then spank each other, quite hard, and Sam had stared at this open-mouthed. And then, just to demonstrate that it worked on people from other worlds too, Dec had made Sam and me strip and spank each other as well, though nothing like as hard. And since then Sam had been full of admiration for our room-mate. Of course it helped that he didn't have any other experience of the Konjäauml;ssiem, because it meant that Sam wasn't remotely scared of Dec, who he viewed simply as our friend, and Dec loved having two of us who treated him more or less just like any other boy.
"He does have limits," I warned him. "And there are plenty of adult Konjäauml;ssiem out there, too, and there's no way that Dec could get past them. I really think getting a chip for you could be a problem. Besides, if we do find a way into another world I'd like you to come with us."
"Really? Why?"
"Because you're clever, and you're more of a scientist than either me or Dec, and I think you'd be able to help us if we got into trouble anywhere."
"Oh. Is that the only reason?"
"Well... no, obviously not. You're our friend, Sam, and we both really like you."
"Really? You're not just saying that because you think I might be useful? I mean, I know you'd rather be with your boyfriend than with me..."
"Stefan's not here, so that's hardly an issue, is it?"
"No, he isn't. So why can't we do... you know, what Godfrey and Peter do? It might be years before you see Stefan again..."
"Go, on, Sam, cheer me up, why don't you?" I said.
"Sorry, I didn't mean... but you know it's true, don't you? So why can't we?"
"Well, first because it might not be long at all before I see him again. But also because it would hurt you, Sam, and I don't want to do that. The first time Stefan did it to me it was painful, even though we'd been building up to it for several months. And if you ask Peter I'm sure he'll tell you that the first time Godfrey did it to him it hurt a lot, too. The only reason it doesn't hurt him now is because he's used to it: they do it three or four times a week, so he's adjusted to it. You'd need to get yourself ready over a period of time before doing it for real."
"But if I'd done whatever I need to do to prepare, could we actually do it?"
"Well... maybe. It's difficult, Sam: I love Stefan and I don't want to do anything that could hurt him. But I like you a lot, too, and I suppose it would be nice if we could..."
"Great! Thanks, Jake!" he interrupted, hugging me hard. "So what do I need to do to get ready, then?"
"Well, you need to get used to having things... you know, inside you," I said. "Stefan and I practised with pens and different-sized candles, and sometimes things like carrots...and you need lots of lubricant, too, otherwise even small things hurt. I expect Godfrey has a favourite lubricant - we can find out later. And probably Peter can tell you a bit about what you have to do to help get it in..."
"Terrific! I'll talk to them before we go to bed tonight, then!"
It was hard not to be affected by his enthusiasm, and so when he hugged me again I hugged him back. And I hoped that in any case the preparation would take a number of weeks, and that might give me a chance to find a way back to my world and so to Stefan. And if it didn't, well, would it really be so very bad to do it with someone else, especially if it was someone I liked as much as Sam?
I decided that the best thing to do would be to wait and see what happened and not to worry about it. Maybe our next visit to Stonehenge would be successful...
I didn't see very much of Sam over the course of the next week: when he got home from school he would either continue his Arvelan lessons or would spent time visiting Godfrey and Peter, and I thought it might not only be video games that he was interested it. But he didn't say anything about it and I didn't ask.
The half term holidays were approaching: there would be no school during the week beginning February 21st and we had decided to go back to Stonehenge on the Monday. We hoped that at least one or two more portals might have been opened since our previous visit, and that maybe we would get a chance to slip through one while nobody was looking.
I'd managed to buy some lead. It had been easier than I had expected: there was a scrap metal dealer in Sarutaale, but there was also a shop that dealt in toys and models, and they sold lead precisely for the purpose of making models. It wasn't even all that expensive. I'd bought enough to make vambraces for me and for Declan, but at that point I discovered there was a problem.
"It's metal," Dec pointed out. "If I have that much metal wrapped around my forearm it's going to interfere with my control. Maybe not too much, but it will still get in the way, and I need to be at my best if there are more than three people in the circle when we get there. So I won't be able to put this on until after we're safely through a portal. And it'll have to come off again if we run into trouble on the other side, too."
"Well, okay, but I think you should wear it for as long as possible after we go through. And it will help if we can get well away from the circle before they start sending probes out, too."
"If you insist. But I can almost guarantee it's going to give me a headache."
On the Saturday morning Sam grabbed me after breakfast and took me up to the attic, and today he was carrying a little bag with him. We undressed and lay down on the mattress, and he pulled the blankets over us and wriggled close to me as usual.
"So where have you been all week?" I asked him. "I've hardly seen you. Your Arvelan must be getting really good, the amount of time you're spending on it."
"I'm obviously not doing that well, because last night Erik had to spank me again. Mind you, I think he might have done that just because he enjoys it, not because I was making lots of mistakes. But, to be honest, I haven't just been working on my Arvelan this week: I've spent a while talking to Godfrey and Peter, too, and watching them... you know, doing it. It's strange watching them, because Godfrey teases Peter all the time and bosses him about, too, and Peter never argues - he just does whatever Godfrey tells him to. But it's really obvious how much they like each other. I think if you tried to boss me about like that I'd get really annoyed, but Peter doesn't seem to care at all.
"Anyway, Peter said that you're right about it hurting the first few times, and he thinks it would be sensible to do what you said to get me ready. So I've been collecting candles."
He opened his bag and showed me a collection of candles and a little jar of something that I assumed was the Arvelan equivalent of Vaseline.
"So I thought we could start today," he went on, selecting the smallest candle, which was no more than half an inch across. "Could you do it for me, please?"
So for the next fifteen minutes or so I taught him what I knew about candles and their use in the field of human sexuality, and at the end of that period he got me to lie on my back and then lay on top of me, exactly as we had done on the train.
"Thanks, Jake," he said, kissing me. "That didn't really hurt at all. If we keep doing that for a couple of weeks I should think I'll be ready to try doing it for real."
"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to start by doing it with someone else?" I suggested. "The twins, perhaps - they're smaller than me. Or Peter."
"If Peter did it I wouldn't even feel it," he scoffed. "He's tiny - in fact I think Erik's is bigger, judging by the way his trousers stick out when he spanks me. It's hard to believe that Peter is older than me. Besides, I don't want to do it with anyone else. Like you said, it's special, and you should only do it with someone you really like, even if that means I need to practise for a bit longer with candles first. Actually, waiting a bit longer will make it more special when we finally do it - it'll be like looking forward to getting presents on your Name Day."
"Then perhaps we should wait until your Name Day?" I suggested.
"No, thanks - that's ages! I won't be fourteen until Fruit Eight and we're barely into Wind. It's over five months, and I don't want to wait that long. What about your Name Day? I suppose we could do it then if it's soon."
"My birthday is about three and a half months away," I told him.
"That's too far off, too. Of course, we don't have to wait for a special occasion..."
"Perhaps we can celebrate escaping into another new world," I said. "We're going back to the Circle on Monday. Maybe they'll have found us a nice new world."
"Oh, right." Sam really didn't seem enthusiastic: he was still far too engrossed in the wonders of this world. "Well... if we do go through and the new one isn't as good, we can come back here, can't we?"
"We can, but I really don't want to have to," I said. "I want to be a long way away from here before Gordiss and his friends find the Grey World. After that I'd probably lose you anyway, because I can't imagine for a moment that Aarnist will let either you or Dec come with us. And if I once set foot into the Grey World I'll have to be incredibly lucky to get out alive."
"Then I'll be happy to stay even if the new place isn't as good as this," he said. "I don't want to lose you, Jake, and I definitely don't want you to get hurt."
"Thanks, Sam. But we won't go through at all unless there's a world that looks at least halfway decent, so maybe you'll be able to stay here for a bit longer after all."
On the Monday Sam, Declan and I caught the bus to Stonehenge. This time we were prepared: we'd packed a couple of bags with a change of clothing and a sleeping bag each, together with some food and water, a map of the area and a compass. I'm sure that Stefan would have found room for a lot more equipment, but I didn't want the bags to be too big: it would have looked very suspicious if we'd walked into the circle looking as if we were heading off on an expedition up the Amazon or something. So we hung the larger bag on the back of Declan's chair, where it would be fairly inconspicuous, and I carried the other one, which was small enough not to look too out of place.
Once again we checked that there were no Konjäauml;ssiem in sight before we entered the circle, and once again our luck was in: the scientists were busily setting up a new set of connections, and the slaves were at work shifting one of the smaller lintel stones.
"Morning!" I greeted the scientists. "Got a new one?"
"We hope so," said Gordiss, looking up. "The problem is that at least one of the instruction sheets is missing, so we're having to use guesswork now, and that hasn't been altogether successful lately. We've only managed to open two more portals since your last visit. The one we opened yesterday doesn't look very promising: the landscape is very bleak and the probe hasn't found any people yet - though of course if the world is uninhabited I suppose it'll be a good source of minerals. But really I don't like the look of it. The other one we found seems better: at first we thought it was the same as World Twenty, which is the one with the nomads. But although there don't seem to be a lot of people in it, there are signs of civilisation: there are ruins of quite large settlements, and there was some sort of large vessel crossing the sea when our probe went that way a couple of days ago. That suggests a reasonable level of technology.
"You can come and have a quick look through the portals if you like. The better one is World Eleven, and the nasty-looking one is Twenty-Three. Come and have a look at Eleven first."
He led us over to Arch Eleven and took us through it, and we found ourselves in a lush green field with five connected arches behind us, the fourth of which, counting from the left, was the one we had come through. The air smelled clean and fresh, with no hint of pollution.
"Judging from the ruins, I'd say that this world has been through some major disaster and is now recovering nicely," said Gordiss. "There's no sign of heavy industry, but the ship I told you about suggests that this is more advanced than the nomadic place. All right, now come and see what you think of the one we found yesterday."
He led us back into the interior of Stonehenge and took us across the circle to Arch Twenty-Three.
"This one doesn't look very different," he told us, hesitating on the threshold, "but... well, see what you think."
He stepped through and we followed him. And immediately I noticed a change in the weather: in the world where we were living it was a little chilly, but the sky had been largely free of clouds. In World Eleven it had been warmer, the sun shining brightly on what felt like a fine spring morning. But here the sky was heavily overcast, and there was a cold wind sweeping across the plain. The landscape was bleak: a short distance away we could see a thin belt of small, deformed-looking trees, twisted into weird shapes by the wind, and the grass at our feel looked brown and unhealthy, with white blotches on some of the leaves, and there were strange bald patches where nothing grew at all scattered here and there across the field.
As we watched something skittered into one of these bare patches about twenty yards away from us. It looked most like an albino lobster, though it was larger than any lobster I had ever seen, being close to three feet long. It didn't seem interested in us, instead facing towards the misshapen trees and clicking its left-hand pincher unrhythmically.
There was a sudden break in the clouds, revealing a sky that was the dark hue usually seen around sunrise or sunset, and in the sky was a squashed orb of a deep red colour. It was less than half the size of the moon, but was far too large to be any other celestial body - at least, any that I knew about. The clouds swept back in, hiding it from sight, but that brief glimpse was enough to show us that this world was somewhere far removed from our own.
And then I saw something moving about a hundred yards away, beyond the trees. At first sight it was just a couple of huge bubbles, though they glowed with a pale inner light, and the surface of each seemed to shimmer and swirl. Three or four more appeared, joining together with the two that were already there. The lobster-thing clicked its pinchers once more and then turned and scurried away into the grass, and I didn't blame it: there was something altogether unnatural about the bubbles, and the more I looked at them the more wrong they appeared.
More of them appeared, swirling around the others in intricate patterns. And then one of them seemed to dissolve into what appeared to be a mass of tentacles, and that was more than enough for me.
"Let's go," I gasped, and I fled back to the arch, not even waiting to see if the others were following me. I didn't know what those globes of light were, but I didn't want them anywhere near me: there was something absolutely repellent about them. And clearly the others felt the same way, because as soon as we were back inside the circle Gordiss summoned the slave who drove the fork-lift truck and ordered him to break the circuit that kept the portal to World Twenty-Three open.
"What was that thing?" asked Sam.
"Which?" asked Declan. "The shining globes or the sea-creature?"
"Both," said Sam. "I've never seen anything like either of them. And I don't want to again, either: there was something really nasty about them, especially the light things."
The slave and his colleagues lifted the inner lintel off its uprights and the portal flickered for a moment and then disappeared, and at that I felt a lot better.
"I don't know where that was," I said to Gordiss, "but I'd suggest you don't open that one again."
"I agree with you," said the scientist, looking shaken. "I have never encountered anything like that - it looked harmless enough, but there was a feeling of... this isn't very scientific, but I think I'd use the word 'evil' about it. I imagine Aarnist will at least want another probe or two sent through, but I'll try to persuade him not to send any people through - and I'll get him to close it again as soon as possible, too. Anyway... I imagine you've seen enough for now?"
"Yes, I should think so," I said. "Give us a couple of minutes to recover from that and we'll go. You might as well carry on with whatever you were doing before - thanks for taking the time to show us what you've found. We'll probably come back in another two or three weeks, unless you find the reptiles before then, of course."
Gordiss waited until the lintel was safely on the cradle of the fork-lift truck and so completely disconnected from its uprights and then headed back to the control stone, where his colleagues were still working on the next combination they wanted to try. The slave with the fork-lift trundled after him.
"Come on," said Declan quietly, heading in the general direction of Arch Eleven. "I assume you want us to give this one a try?"
"Yes, I should think so," I said, following him. "If it has a cross-channel ferry service, it's good enough for me."
"Right. Get ready," said Declan. "In a moment they'll be too busy to bother wondering where we went..."
As I watched the fork-lift truck suddenly veered to one side and the lintel-stone slipped from its cradle and crashed onto the trestle-table, scattering papers and metal sheets. The scientists leaped out of the way, and while they were picking themselves up, dusting themselves down and trying to rescue their scattered documents the three of us slipped quietly through Arch Eleven and off to one side, where we were safely out of the line of sight from the control stone. We waited for a moment, but nobody shouted at us and nobody appeared through the portal.
"Nice job, Dec," I said, approvingly.
"Thanks. I only needed to pop into the driver's head for a moment and get him to jerk the steering-wheel... and I also dropped the thought into Gordiss's head that it might be better to close all the portals when they stop work this evening. That wasn't too difficult, either - he was still shaken up by the glowing thing. So hopefully by the time Aarnist realises we've gone missing again he won't know where to start looking. And now I suppose you want me to put that chunk of lead on my arm."
"Yes, I think we should, at least until this evening. If you're right they'll recall the probes before closing the portal, and after that we won't have to worry, but I'd hate to get picked up today. In any case I don't want to wear it for too long - I don't know whether having it against your skin could have an effect, but I do know that lead is poisonous if you swallow it, and I want to get rid of it as soon as we can."
I delved into my bag and produced the two flat sheets of lead I'd prepared, wrapping one around my own left forearm and helping Dec to put the other around his right arm - his chip had been implanted on that side because his left arm was to all intents and purposes useless. And it was damned heavy, too: I hoped I wouldn't have to wear it for too long.
Sam, of course, didn't have a chip, and so he was able to skip along through the grass, whistling cheerfully, his arms unencumbered. On the other hand, it was nice to have a cheerful Sam alongside us: I needed something to brighten me up after that other world.
"What do you suppose had happened in that other place?" I asked Dec. "Could it have been the effects of radiation, or something? I know that's supposed to produce mutant creatures."
"I suppose that could explain the thing with claws," said Declan, "but that other thing was far too weird. Maybe we were hallucinating, or something: maybe there was some sort of poison gas in the air."
"I think the probes would have picked it up if there had been," I said. "They always send probes through first, and if there'd been anything nasty in the air they'd have closed the portal straight away, like they did with the other worlds that didn't look safe. Maybe there was something in the grass that affected us, or perhaps the lobster thing had some sort of defence mechanism - a gas that causes hallucinations or something... anyway, we're not going back there, so there's no need to worry about it. All we have to do is to keep heading south-east until we reach the coast and then follow the shore until we find the ferry-port."
"How far is the sea from here?" asked Sam.
"I'm not sure. I should think it's well over ten miles, and it might be as much as twenty, so we might not get there today. I'm fairly sure it's around eight miles from Stonehenge to Salisbury and then about another ten to Southampton. But with any luck we'll find somewhere to stay before it gets dark, and if all else fails we've got our sleeping-bags - and it doesn't look as if it's going to rain."
We walked onwards, and the further away we got from the monument the happier I felt, even though the lead was making my left arm feel uncomfortable. After we'd been walking for about an hour we stopped in a small wood to have something to eat, and then we set off again. So far we had seen no signs of human life, not even so much as a track through the grass, but that didn't worry me too much: even in my own world there weren't too many people living on Salisbury Plain.
Shortly after we stopped for lunch we came to a river, and this did present us with a problem because there was no way across it other than swimming, an option that clearly wasn't open to Declan. I suppose we could have towed him across, but getting his chair across without shorting out the electrics would be impossible unless we built a proper raft, and I thought it would be better just to follow the river southwards until we came to some sort of habitation, where we should be able to borrow a boat, or where someone would have built a bridge. So we walked on, following the river as it wandered along towards the sea.
I would have to admit that my confidence was slipping a bit by the time we stopped again at five o'clock, because although we'd been walking for around six hours we still hadn't found any signs of human habitation. Okay, we weren't moving all that quickly, but I should think we were doing at least two and a half miles an hour, and that meant that, even allowing for rest breaks, we were now well to the south of where Salisbury stood in our worlds. And it seemed odd that nobody had chosen to settle in a fertile river valley like this.
As it began to get dark we found a patch of woodland to spend the night in, and here Sam demonstrated that we had definitely done the right thing by bringing him with us, because he knew how to make a basic shelter out of interwoven pieces of wood. By the time he'd finished we had something that would give us some protection from any possible wind and rain. We thought we'd be warmer if we zipped the sleeping-bags together, but although it was possible to combine two of them we couldn't connect them to the third one. So in the end we opened the third one out and used it as a groundsheet and the three us squeezed into the double bag which we had arranged on top of it. I didn't think we'd get a lot of sleep, but it was definitely cosy.
And the next thing I knew it was morning, with the sun just starting to filter through the trees.
"Sleep all right?" asked Declan.
"Perfectly. I've no idea how, because we can scarcely move, but I slept like a log."
"Of course you did. I shut you both down as soon as you got halfway comfortable. And once you both stopped wriggling about I slept fairly well myself - though I'd prefer a slightly more comfortable bed next time."
"I'll see what I can do," I said. "We'll reach the coast today, and I'm sure there will be people there - there are always fishing settlements on the coast. And of course we know there's a ferry-port somewhere."
"Actually, we don't," he corrected me. "What Baldy-bonce actually said was that the probe had seen a large vessel crossing the sea. That doesn't mean it's a regular service, just that there was one ship out there somewhere."
"Yes, but a large ship still means civilisation," I pointed out. "It's just a question of finding it. I'm telling you, once we reach the coast it'll be straightforward."
I climbed out of the sleeping bag, got dressed, went for a pee and then checked our food supply, which wasn't quite as extensive as I would have liked it to be. I hoped I was right about there being some sort of settlements on the coast, since otherwise we'd be having to catch our own food within a day or so.
Sam woke up a few minutes later, and once he was dressed we helped Dec to get up and put his clothes on, packed away the sleeping-bags, had a less-than-satisfactory breakfast of a dry roll and some water, and then set out once more. We left the little wood behind and continued to follow the river as it ran on through more open country, though I'd worked out that the New Forest couldn't be too far ahead, assuming that it existed in this world. But before we reached it we ran into civilisation, though not in any form that I had imagined.
We'd been walking for about two hours and were just coming up on a patch of woodland off to our right when a troop of horsemen suddenly appeared around the edge of the wood. They apparently saw us at the same time as we saw them because they came galloping towards us.
"Quick, Jake, get the lead off my arm!" cried Dec, and I rushed to his side, pulled his jacket off and rolled up his sleeve.
"Never mind," he said, in a different tone of voice, and I looked up and saw that the horsemen had almost reached us - and that they were all wearing helmets, which meant that Dec wouldn't be able to do anything to them even if I did remove the lead. The helmets were a strange shape, with red fur around the rim and a spike on the top: they looked more like something from a history book than anything that might be worn by a modern soldier.
The riders were all carrying lances, though they also had rifles tucked into holsters attached to their saddles, so perhaps they weren't as primitive as I had first thought. The leader was a short guy with a brown face, and as he reined in his horse five yards away he addressed us in a language that meant absolutely nothing to me. I replied first in English and then in Arvelan, but both times he shook his head in a clear gesture of incomprehension. So I went through my entire repertoire of languages - French, Kerpian, Elsassisch, Sanöljan and even Grey, but none of them elicited even a flicker of recognition.
The short guy jumped down from his horse, handed his reins to one of his colleagues and came towards us, and now I could see that he was just a kid, probably not a lot older than me. He didn't seem to think we posed any sort of a threat to him, as he just strode past me and started examining Dec's chair. Dec made the chair move forward a foot or so, and the kid jumped back in surprise, and then grinned widely, saying something in his incomprehensible language. Then he made a gesture to Dec that was a clear invitation to repeat the performance, and so Dec rolled the chair forward a bit and then off to one side. The kid positively clapped his hands, beaming at us, and then surprised me again by lifting his left hand to his face, pressing a button and speaking into what was clearly a communication device strapped to his wrist. A voice emerged from it and the kid spoke again, this time quite emphatically. He asked one of his colleagues a question, and the rider consulted a device attached to his horse's saddle and gave an answer, which the kid repeated into his radio. He received a brief reply and lowered his arm, held up a hand to us in a gesture that clearly meant 'Wait'' and got back onto his horse.
Nothing happened for some ten minutes, and then there was a sound from behind the horsemen and a vehicle came into view. It was like an army half-track but without the wheels at the front - or perhaps you could say it was like an open-top tank without a gun. And it was travelling quite fast for a tracked vehicle, at least as fast as the Grey tank Alain had driven during our previous journey.
This drew to a halt beside the horsemen and we were ushered aboard, though before I got on the kid leaned down from his horse and clamped a sort of thick metal bracelet around my upper arm. Sam and I helped Declan into the open area at the back, and then we went back and got his chair aboard. The driver, who was sitting in a separate compartment at the front, turned the vehicle round and headed back the way he had come with the horsemen trotting along behind us.
I suppose that by this point I was so used to being taken prisoner or arrested - by the Greys, by Aarnist's police, by the Marxists - that I was getting almost blasé about it. After all, so far no lasting harm had come to me, and while I had no wish for a return to either shovelling coal or being used for control experiments, somehow this didn't feel quite like that. But my friends hadn't been through this before, and Sam in particular seemed to be on the brink of panic.
"What are we going to do, Jake?" he whispered, his eyes darting about.
"There's not much we can do. What I usually do in this situation is to sit back and see what happens."
"Yes, but what if we're going somewhere bad? Suppose these people have got something to do with those light things from the other world? I don't think I could stand that!"
"I'm sure they haven't. That was a completely different world, Sam."
"Yes, but... they look really primitive. They could be going to do all sorts of bad things with us. Let's run for it!"
"And what about Dec? We can't just leave him."
He bit his lip. "Well, perhaps if I can distract them they'll come after me, and that'll give you a chance to get Dec and his chair out before they come back. Good luck!"
And before I could do anything to stop him he jumped over the side of the vehicle. He fell over as he landed but scrambled to his feet and ran off towards the river, presumably intending to jump in and swim across. But only one horseman went after him, catching up long before he got near the river. The rider jumped down just in front of Sam and hit him, and Sam went down and lay still. The rider knelt down, presumably to make sure Sam was still alive, and then hoisted him across the saddle of his horse and led him back to the vehicle, gesturing for me to come and help get him back aboard.
A minute or so later Sam recovered consciousness and I helped him to sit up. The rider who had recaptured him wagged a finger at him, clearly advising him not to try that again, and then the column moved off once more.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"I think so." He checked that his jaw was still in place. "He could have hit me a lot harder."
"He could have killed you, you idiot! Please don't do that again - we don't want to lose you, Sam."
"All right. I suppose they're not going to kill us, anyway - like you said, he could easily have used his lance..."
And at that point reaction seemed to hit him and he turned and vomited over the side of the vehicle. One of the following horsemen yelled something to the driver and the vehicle stopped. Sam pulled a handkerchief out of his shorts and wiped his mouth, and when the leader trotted alongside to see if he was okay - at least, that's what I thought he was doing - Sam was able to give him a shaky nod of the head. The leader said something to our driver and we set off once more.
I pulled Sam against me, keeping an arm around his shoulders to try to comfort him, and settled back, watching the horsemen as they followed us. I wondered about the strange mix of technologies - cavalry armed with lances on the one hand, radios and vehicles with engines on the other. The boy and his colleagues looked like something from the Middle Ages in their breastplates and strange helmets, but the vehicle we were now in was a modern design. And then we reached our destination and I found myself gawking in amazement.
In front of us was... well, it was clearly a vehicle, because it was moving slowly towards us, but it was huge, about the size of a large cross-Channel ferry. It was silver in colour and curved in shape - I suppose it was a bit like one of those distinctive American caravans made of aluminium, like the ones in the video to Radiohead's Street Spirit, but blown up to the size of a ship and with a flared base. There was a huge Chinese - or possibly Japanese - character painted on the front in red, but otherwise everything about it was silver. As we got closer I could see that it was moving on a large number of caterpillar tracks, like the ones on the vehicle I was riding in but a lot bigger.
As we got closer still I could see that it wasn't quite the perfect silver surface I had thought. Some fairly rough and ready repair jobs had been done in places: there were patches here and there, and dents, and signs of less than perfect riveting jobs. And as we passed around one side of it I could see that there were strange bulges and bumps in places on the hull, as if someone had decided to put in an observation point but hadn't been able to fit it in on the top, or had added the basis for a gun turret but had then discovered that there were no guns available. And the closer we got to it, the less perfect it appeared.
We rode around to the rear, and here there was a ramp leading up inside the machine. Our vehicle went up first and stopped at the far end of what appeared to be a large garage, half of which had been converted into a stable, as the riders followed us in, dismounted and handed over their horses to a gang of stable lads that were ready and waiting to receive them. The boy and his colleagues - and now that they were off their horses I could see than none of them appeared to be an adult - came our way, motioned us to get out of the vehicle and then escorted us through a door, along a corridor, up a flight of narrow stairs (they helped us by carrying Dec's chair) and into a room that looked like... well, a cross between a hospital operating theatre, an electricity sub-station and the Kerpians' language implantation centre. There were a number of what looked like dentists' chairs at one end of the room, and we were installed in these with our arms and legs clamped into place. Next, helmets were brought out, trailing disconcertingly large numbers of cables, and these were put on our heads. Two of the boys clamped metal bands around Declan's and Sam's upper arms - I thought the one who put the band on Sam was the one who had recaptured him when he had tried to run for the river - and then they all trooped out again, leaving just the leader standing next to my chair.
There were some adults bustling about here and there, but they didn't look like doctors because they were wearing a bizarre variety of clothing: woolly trousers tucked into high boots, baggy trousers with soft slippers, big, Cossack-style decorated shirts, something that looked like a Roman toga - and almost all of them had facial hair, huge beards or long drooping moustaches or tiny goatees or big sideburns. And they seemed to be a complete cross-section of races, too, white faces and oriental ones and high-cheeked Slavic ones and the darker South Asian brown of our captor, who was grinning at me again. And the bastard still hadn't taken his helmet off, which meant that there was nothing Declan could do, even though I'd removed his lead arm cover on our way here.
A little bandy-legged guy in a fur hat came across to our boy and spoke to him, and the kid nodded. Fur Hat went over to one of the machines at the side of the room and threw a switch, and I was aware of a tingling in my head. It didn't hurt, but it did feel weird: it was like a tickling inside my head, accompanied by a voice speaking words in several different languages simultaneously. This went on for what seemed an eternity, until suddenly it stopped and was replaced by a low hum with an oscillating tone above it... and then that stopped too. The boy had moved over to the machine and was reading some sort of print-out. He held the paper out to the little guy in the hat and raised his eyebrows, and the man shrugged and nodded.
The kid put down the paper and picked up what was clearly a telephone, hitting a couple of buttons and waiting for a moment. And when he began to speak I found that, although I had no idea what language he was speaking, I could understand him.
"General, it's Xan," he said. "The three I picked up today... we've just run the first test. The older kid and the younger one are both well above average, but the crippled boy is right off the scale, literally. There's enormous potential there... yes, I think so, too.... So, complete reconstruction all round, then? Right. I'll let you know."
He put the phone down and walked over to stand in front of me. I wondered what he meant by 'reconstruction' - it sounded a bit like 're-education', which was what Communist dictators used to do with people who disagreed with them, and from what I could remember from my history books it involved all sorts of unpleasantness. I really didn't want to be on the receiving end of that sort of thing at all.
"Good afternoon," the boy said, grinning at me. "Can you understand me? Yes, I can see that you can. Good. At least that means that your brain is compatible with our machines. I did wonder for a moment... anyway, my name is Xan Temur. Welcome to the Horde of General Lee. Sleep well!"
He made a signal to Fur Hat, who pressed another switch, and everything simply faded away.
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