Part 10 (2/2)

'Nonsense. It's just gone off, or something.'

'Or something. Try another then, 0 doubting Thomas.'

'I will.' Cornelius took down a bottle of Lagavulin.

It wouldn't pour. Nor would the Dalwhinnie. Nor the Johnnie Walker Black Label. Nor even the Bell's Extra Special.

'Don't forget the Jim Beam,' called Tuppe.

Cornelius tried the Jim Beam. Pour it would not.

'Want to try your hand at the pumps?'

'No. No I ...' Cornelius hesitated. His eye had become drawn to a most extraordinary phenomenon.

And it centred about the right hand of Mickey Minns. This hand hovered, immobile, a few inches above an ashtray on the bar counter. It was arrested in the very act of flicking ash from a cigarette. And it was this ash that caught the attention of the tall boy. The ash and the way it hung motionless in the air, halfway between cigarette and ashbowl. Cornelius stared at it in awe. And as he did so, a great and terrible truth came to him. An Ultimate Truth, as his daddy might have described it.

'Oh s.h.i.+t,' said Cornelius. 'Oh s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t.'

'What is all this s.h.i.+tting?' Tuppe asked. 'Are you auditioning for the part of serpent in this new Eden, or what?'

'No.' The eyes of Cornelius Murphy took it all in. All of it. He pointed with a quivery finger. 'Behold the dart,' said he.

Anna and Tuppe turned to behold. The dart hovered in the air, a mere six inches from the double top.

'Cor,' whistled Tuppe. 'That's clever. How does it do that?'

'It doesn't. It just seems to.'

'Very erudite, Cornelius. It doesn't, it just seems to. Would you care to enlarge on that at all?'

'It's us.' Cornelius chewed upon his knuckle. 'It's not them. There's nothing wrong with these people. It's us that's all wrong.'

'Still not following you, I'm afraid.''I am,' Anna smoothed back her hair. 'Think about Rune's car. Sixty-odd years old, but it smells brand new and it starts first time. It's the Zones. Time must be different in there. We went in and we came out and now we re- 'What?' Tuppe shook his head to and fro. 'We're what?'

'We're different. We're moving much too fast. The car is still new because sixty years in there equals about one minute out here. These people aren't really standing still, nor is the dart. We're moving so fast that we can't perceive their movement. We're in a different time frame. That's why the phones wouldn't work, the bottles won't pour. Why we can't feel any heartbeats.'

'This is deep,' said Tuppe. 'Very deep.'

'This is bad,' said Cornelius. 'Very, very bad.'

'Bad for me,' said Tuppe mournfully. 'But not so bad for you, I'm thinking.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Oh come on, Cornelius. This is perfect for you surely. Use your loaf. If we're really moving thousands of times faster than everyone else on earth, think what you can do. Before one second of real time has pa.s.sed, you could open up every Forbidden Zone in London, pull out all the booty, liberate your real daddy, print out the truth on broadsheets and stick one through the letter-box of every influential bod for miles around. And all before anyone can blink an eyelid. You win. You've solved it.'

'And if all that were so, how is it bad for you?'

'I don't get to be the father of the new order any more.

'You never were,' said Anna. 'But you're right on this, isn't he, Cornelius?'

'No,' Cornelius held down his cap and shook his bandaged head. 'Sadly not. Because for one thing we won't be able to get back into the Zones.'

'Why not? You still have the reinvented ocanna. And we know that it works.'

'It works when you play it at a normal speed. But at the speed we're moving? Forget it. We may be invisible to the naked eye, but we are also inaudible to any ear you like. It won't work. We're done for.

Before that dart hits the dartboard, we will probably have died of old age.'

'Depressing thought, isn't it?' said a voice from the door.

It was the voice of Arthur Kobold.

9.

'Well look who it is,' said Cornelius Murphy. 'It's Mr Kobold. Say h.e.l.lo to Mr Kobold, Tuppe.'

'No thanks.' Tuppe had no wish to speak to Mr Kobold. And nor did Anna. She kept very still indeed, hoping not to be noticed. This was not the right place to be, and it was certainly not the right time. All she now wanted was out.

Arthur beamed at the tall boy and took a pace forward. He was dressed, as ever, in his Victorian morning suit. High starched 'throttler' with silk cravat. Diamond stud. Gold watch fob gleaming. Hair combed up above his round flat face. Bigger side whiskers than ever. He was prim and portly. Round and romantic. He was not a nice fellow to know.

'I'll take the ocarina,' said he. 'Very enterprising of you, that. I will also take the route map and Rune's 'I think not,' Cornelius replied.

'And the keys to the water car. We wouldn't want that thing falling into the wrong hands. Can't have mankind getting above itself, can we?'

'Can't we?' Cornelius held the bottle of Jim Beam behind his back His fingers tightened about its neck.

'I wouldn't throw that if I were you,' said Arthur. 'Just hand over all the goodies and go home to bed.

When you wake up in the morning, all this will be a bad dream. Not that you'll remember much of it.

We'll see to that.' -'You see to everything, don't you?'

'Everything important. We let mankind deal with the trivialities. But we control the higher issues.

'Why?' Cornelius asked. 'Tell me why.'

'All right.' Arthur stepped up to the bar and placed his bottom on the stool next to Anna. 'Bottle,'

said he.

Cornelius pa.s.sed him the bottle.

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