"More," he whispered, his shirt wet and cold under his arms.
"No more," she said quietly but firmly. She was watching Basalt closely. He suddenly had the image of himself as a boy, burning beetles with the sun through a magnifying gla.s.s, guessing which way they would try to turn.
It had been a slow drag on the freeway down south. Now Basalt was swinging the Porsche round the last half-dozen B-roads to reach the warehouse.
The sun was glowering through dark clouds as he pulled up at his offices, part of a long-abandoned industrial unit that sat between the River Colne and an overgrown stretch of the Grand Union Ca.n.a.l. But it was a useful and isolated venue for conducting business. Chong"s rusting white van was already parked by the entrance.
The door was slightly ajar. Chong, perhaps bored with waiting, had broken into the building.
Basalt stormed up to the entrance and kicked the door wide open. The warehouse was dark and shadowy. "Chong." he called, hitting the lights. An age seemed to pa.s.s as they buzzed in the blackness, warming up. "Where are you?"
"Basalt." It was Chong"s voice, hoa.r.s.e and oddly m.u.f.fled.
Then the lights snapped on at last.
Basalt blinked in disbelief.
Two men in ape suits stood about ten paces away, pointing guns at him, each sporting an old-fashioned, braided military jacket. No. Those weren"t ape suits. He caught their animal stench, could see the dark intelligence in their b.e.s.t.i.a.l eyes. The apes were for real.
"What in the name of Christ is this?" Basalt nearly choked. "Chong?"
"It"s not the work of your Mr Chong, I can a.s.sure you." The loud, authoritative voice rolled round the warehouse walls, and a well-built man in a greatcoat stepped out from the shadows that cloaked the back of the building. He held Chong as easily as the freak girl held her little doll, twisting his arm up behind his back.
"He broke in," gasped Chong, clearly in pain. "Says he"s taking over from here."
The huge man laughed. "He"s right, I"m afraid. But please don"t shoot the messenger. That"s our job."
Chong was thrown to the dusty floor. One of the apes turned and fired. Chong screamed as his knee was scattered bloodily over the grimy floor, stared in panic at the debris, and apparently fainted dead away.
"By way of demonstration." The big man strolled towards Basalt. "I trust you appreciate now we mean serious business?"
Basalt pulled at his stiff shirt collar and glanced back at the master light switch. "And just what is your business, Mr...?"
"My name is Sabbath. And please, don"t imagine that turning out the lights will help you escape. There"s the most atrocious stench about you, Mr Basalt. My apes will find and kill you just as easily in the dark."
"Is that so?"
"Listen to me, Mr Basalt. You"re meeting shortly a man called Erasmus and his ward, a child named Chloe. Am I right?"
Basalt said nothing. Sabbath removed a pistol from a shoulder holster under his coat and took over-elaborate aim at Basalt"s groin.
"Tomorrow morning," he said.
Sabbath smiled. "I should very much like to attend."
Basalt eyed him coldly. "Trying to take over what I"ve set up, is that it?"
"My dear Mr Basalt," said Sabbath, "I"m not interested in taking over anything. As a business, I fear Timeless literally has nowhere to go."
"So why are you here?"
"Simply to sequester its a.s.sets."
"By what right?"
Sabbath smiled almost sadly at the pistol pinched in his huge hand. "The only right that matters, Mr Basalt: I"m holding the gun."
Twenty-one Things change Around lunchtime, Chloe wants to go back to the start of the universe. She thinks this might cheer up Jamais who is still not himself.
The two of them sit slumped against the mountain of diamonds in Chloe"s special room. Jamais"s nose is hot and dry and crusty. Chloe licks her finger and wipes it against the shiny skin but it does no good. His eyes look gla.s.sy and clouded. Like the mist in his belly is finding its way out.
"Oh, Jamais," Chloe whispers helplessly. "Tell me you"ll be all right."
Jamais says nothing, of course, but bravely presses his smooth head against her hand.
"If only we could find your home," she sighs. "Find others like you, who might know what to do. But your home"s gone, like mine. Like Erasmus"s." Like so many homes have gone, she thinks. The myriad rivers they used to cross have run dry. Maybe Jamais is sick because the voids he has crossed so many times are collapsing down, dwindling out. How can he exercise, how can he run, if he has nowhere to go but this tiny universe? He will get fat. She thinks of him as a big fat lump and smiles. Jamais tries to smile too, seeing that she is happy.
"I wish Mum was here," whispers Chloe.
Jamais closes his eyes and seems to nod. It"s like someone invisible is stroking him, soothing him. Easing his pain.
She thinks of the book. This morning she saw a picture of someone who looks a little like D"Amantine, the thief from St Raphael. She knows who that is. But beyond that point, the page won"t turn. She knows there is something marked there that doesn"t want to be read.
She can"t help but picture the design on the front of the book: an arrangement of interlocking triangles. The pattern glows and burns red in her mind. Its sharp points want to poke out her strange eyes.
"Let"s go back to the start," Chloe whispers, with a shiver. "Where no one can find us."
Her heart sinks as she sees Jamais struggle up arthritically, readying himself to go back. Normally he would be bounding playfully about, but not now. Chloe wishes her friend were well again.
For her, he rallies.
Jamais breathes in and out, slowly at first then in swift, panting breaths; his body is an engine, the ancient molecules of the air all around his fuel. She grips his collar and laughs wildly as she feels him go. This is the old Jamais, who"s always young and full of fun and who can devour the distances of deep time like snack-treats.
And they get there, at the start of the universe, but it"s been too much. Jamais coughs and his dark, glossy legs splay beneath him. As Chloe hovers in the void Jamais closes his eyes and floats slowly up and past her, a big black balloon. She tugs him by his tail, his eyes open and he stares around as if not recognising where he is or who holds him.
Then he sees it"s her. He drops obediently to lie at her feet, tummy grumbling, head pushing about on the end of his long neck.
It seems no fun here any more.
Darker, like the light they"ve brought with them has lost its value and dimmed.
Colder, like all the heat is slipping away from Jamais.
Scarier. Like something knows they come here and is following close behind. Antic.i.p.ating their actions.
And Chloe sees that bright speck that waits and waits for nothing to end and birth to begin, and she can"t help but feel guilt at their silly jokes, their teasing and toying with creation. There"s a feeling she has that none of their stunts will work on the giant atom this time. That it"s waiting for something real.
"Can you take us away, again?" Chloe asks Jamais, suddenly scared.
Jamais takes a deep breath and chokes on it.
They"re back in an instant. Home, in the ship. But Jamais looks different. Chloe sees the grizzled white bits round his dark muzzle and the cataracts conspiring over his eyes, sees the mute incomprehension in his gentle face. He knows time, of course, like he knows hunger and love and scratches on the head. But he knows nothing of age.
"It"s going to be all right, Jamais," she whispers, being extra-brave. But she thinks of the book again, of what might be waiting over the page and she"s so scared she wants to be dead.
She runs to tell Erasmus. He doesn"t want to come. But Chloe knows how to pester and at last he agrees to look.
"Oh dear," he says. "If the animal dies it will spoil everything."
Chloe says nothing, she"s busy not crying.
"We can"t get another like Jamais. His world is lost, in all the universes." He pauses. "There"re so few universes left now."
Chloe nods, fiddles with the locket around her neck.
Erasmus crouches beside Jamais and pats his flank. "Perhaps he will feel better in the morning when we all go to see your Uncle Daniel."
She realises she"s pulling so hard on the silver chain it might break, and lets go. Erasmus stares suddenly at the locket, as if seeing it for the first time.
"What"s that?"
"A gift," she says defensively. "I"ve had it ages."
She has never told Erasmus about the diamond she keeps in the locket: Sabbath"s diamond, with its funny light and tingling feeling. It"s special, her very favourite the only one that belongs just to her, not kept as a keepsake of a grateful life. Jamais was so clever to steal it. She"s happy they stole something from Sabbath. He"s taken so much from others. So much from her life.
A Tsar"s daughter gave the locket to Chloe as a gift a hundred years ago, and Chloe has worn it with the diamond pressed inside for a hundred years. Why should Erasmus choose this moment to notice it? He"s not generally observant; he didn"t even notice a difference when the book twisted round her eyes to teach her a lesson. He looked at her just the same, like her eyes had always been that way.
And Chloe knows suddenly with a sick certainty that this is one more sign that things are wrong and will never be right again.
Twenty-two Accidental tourists Anji found it a bit weird, travelling to Florence by TARDIS. Alien planets and alternative dimensions, fine but as she and the Doctor pushed their way through the swarm of tourists and locals crowding the Ponte Vecchio, she couldn"t help thinking she should"ve endured a train trip to Gatwick, empty hours spent wandering packed airports, the crowded intolerance of a jumbo jet and at least a couple of surly taxi drivers before being here. Just hopping in the TARDIS and arriving in the sultry peacefulness of a sun-drenched square felt oddly like cheating. And it made her realise that exploring distant worlds throughout the cosmos was fine, but it meant so much more if you were poking about on your own doorstep. She wished she"d taken Fitz"s camcorder from the TARDIS.
The Doctor paused, staring out over the dark waters of the Arno, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand. He cut a dashing, romantic figure in his shirtsleeves, standing as still as one of the city"s many statues. He would fit in well with the nymphs and satyrs and saints and martyrs that proliferated the city, lording it over their admiring visitors, mindless of the heat, beatific and cool.
"He should pa.s.s through here on his way back from his gallery," said the Doctor. Discreetly he flashed to her the small metallic device concealed in his palm. He pressed gently on one end and a short needle stuck out from the other. "A single bead of blood in here and we"ll know the truth about Signor Nencini."
Anji nodded. She looked round at the crowds surging past the dark wood facades of the jewellers" stores and felt suddenly conspicuous. Cameras clicked and flashbulbs whined. Trendy people swanned by, babbling into microscopic mobile phones. Tourists cooed and pointed at gold. And she and the Doctor were lying in wait for a man they didn"t know, someone the Doctor thought could be not only a possible party to conspiracy to murder, but part of a threat to the entire universe.
"Why"d you send Trix off with Fitz for all that time?" Anji wondered.
"She has agendas of her own in wanting to travel with us," the Doctor answered. "I wanted to see if her patience would last on a job for me and not to please herself."
"A test?"
The Doctor nodded. There was something of Michelangelo"s David about the haughty smugness that sometimes took his face.
"And she pa.s.sed," Anji said regretfully. "She got what you needed."
"As a task she seemed well suited to it, and she did very well," said the Doctor with unseemly enthusiasm. "With Fitz"s help, of course."
"Mmm." Anji felt a pang of idiot jealousy. "They seemed to get on, didn"t they?"
"Here he comes," hissed the Doctor abruptly.
Anji peered into the crowd. "You see him?"
"No. But my eyes are misting over." He was blinking furiously, and his eyes were watering. "He"s close by. Get ready."
Anji nodded. "You"re right. Here he comes." She recognised Nencini from Trix"s photo, saw his grey, distinguished head bobbing through the crowds that thronged the old bridge. She pulled a guidebook from her bag, and before he could pa.s.s she stepped out in front of him.
"Scusi, per favore," she said, and waved a picture of the Academia in Nencini"s face. He recoiled in surprise, raised his arms.
The Doctor, eyes red and weeping, managed to stick him with the little needle. Nencini swore and s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away, glared angrily at the Doctor who gestured helplessly at the view across the bridge.
"It"s all so beautiful," he said, with a noisy sniff.
Nencini looked at them both, quite baffled. Then he turned, and went on his determined way, sucking at the spot of blood on his hand.
"That was subtle," observed Anji dryly.
"I could barely see what I was aiming for," muttered the Doctor, rubbing his shirtsleeve against his eyes. "Whatever"s trying to communicate with me, it seems to be growing weaker. Unable to get through."
"That"s a good thing, right?"
"Depends," said the Doctor, "on what it"s trying to say." The little device in his palm gave a pointed beep. "All finished."
Anji waited impatiently as he peered at the tiny display screen on the device. The sky overhead was a beautiful dark blue. She wanted to just walk away and melt into the warm crowds, enjoy a summer"s day without skulking about like a spy, without knowing that the fate of the whole universe could rest on your tense, could-use-a-ma.s.sage shoulders. She thought again of the camcorder, compiling a series of gorgeous views in her mind... real life swarming over a real Earth. A happy ending to all those burnt-out worlds they"d seen trying to get back home.
"So it"s true," the Doctor announced, dragging back her reluctant attention. "DNA cross-referencing proves that on a genetic level the Nencini we just waylaid is identical to the Nencini back in Streatham."
"Clones?" wondered Anji.
"No," said the Doctor. "One of them I think was born here, belongs here. The other I think was collected from another universe."
"Collected?" Anji stared blankly at him. "You mean someone"s been travelling through those parallel universes just as we did? Except they took people across from one to another."
He nodded. "To replace them. To take up residence in ready-made lives."
"And to create perfect murder victims. No one would miss the deceased because they"d still be walking round same as always." Anji frowned. "But then why not just b.u.mp off the other one straight away? Why send the other Nencini over to England to rot in a council flat before they have the poor sod murdered?"