Part 26 (1/2)

'Of course. Best of them so far according to Mr Udentkista.' Sidney shrugged a lump out of his arm and it formed a large hat with corks hanging from it. 'Best play the tourist for now, Mr Tim.' The hat darkened until it was jet-black and Tim tugged it off Sidney's arm.

'Doesn't hurt, Miss Wright,' Sidney said, clearly seeing Polly's look of astonishment in the mirror.

'No. No, I'm sure it doesn't,' she breathed. 'Sorry, I'm not following all this. Is this a car or not?'

'Yes,' said Tim.

'No,' said Sidney.

'Thank you both,' said Polly.

'Well, all right, I suppose it isn't,' agreed Tim. 'I mean it looks like a car, behaves like a car and feels like a car. It just isn't really.'

'It's better for the environment than a car. No fuel needed.

Just this.' Sidney tapped the dashboard and pointed at a speaker grill where the annoying humming and chanting came from.

Tim nodded. 'He always was an improviser.'

'Look, I know I'm a bit dim but would someone mind explaining things to me?' Polly stared at Sidney's reflected eyes and forced a lopsided grin. 'I'm from 1966.'

'Ah. You're the Doctor's friend. Tarwildbaning mentioned him. And you.'

'Oh. Good. I think.'

Tim turned to face her and left Sidney to navigate the Sydney traffic as he bypa.s.sed the city centre (no tour of the Opera House, Polly decided) and pa.s.sed under a series of 203 bridges to emerge in the bizarrely named Ultimo, following signs for Chatswood, and the North Sh.o.r.e for Newcastle.

'Sidney's not real. Not like you or me. He and this car are sonic constructs, sung into existence by Dent, as you know him.'

Polly frowned. 'If I remember my Aboriginal legends correctly, aren't the Songlines here meant to represent pathways where everything was sung into existence?'

'Their fault,' said Sidney. 'Him and Tarwildbaning showed my ancestors how to do it, so the legends say.'

'Which legends?' asked Tim.

Sidney laughed. 'Tarwildbaning and Udentkista of course.

Living legends!'

'Surprise me further,' muttered Tim.

'OK.' Sidney pa.s.sed through Chatswood and out past some huge red and white s.p.a.ce dishes. 'Television aerials,'

Sidney explained. They did not look like any television aerials Polly had ever seen. By now they had reached Wahroonga. 'By the way,' continued Sidney, 'Thorgarsuunela's dead.'

Polly was surprised to see this did not phase Tim. 'I thought as much. I felt something just before the house in c.u.mbria was destroyed.'

The house in . . . Why did that mean something to Polly?

She tried to remember the significance of it, but she could not concentrate because Tim was whistling at her. She wanted him to stop so that she could concentrate on. . . on. .

. now what was she thinking about? Oh yes, Fraulein Thorsuun was dead. Tim was not upset. Funny that. Neither was she.

'How?'

Sidney shrugged. 'No one's too sure. One minute she was there. The next, albeit briefly, there were two of her. Then both vanished within a minute of each other. Tarwildbaning can't trace her at all. She must be dead.'

Tim smiled. 'No loss. Where are Tarwildbaning and Udentkista now?'

204.

Sidney swerved around a large truck pulling out of a road to the left. Polly saw that a sign was pointing them to the M3. Presumably not the same one that linked London with Winchester or Winchester with Bournemouth. It flashed through her mind that by now the link between the two must have been completed, making London to Bournemouth available to all traffic. So much must have happened . . .

'. . . trying to get into the garden.'

'She's created a garden? Here? Why?'

'Same reason as always,' said Sidney giving a finger to a driver pa.s.sing dangerously close. Polly did not want to ask what the finger represented; somehow she could guess.

Sidney carried on talking as if nothing had happened.

'They're in the nexus area, waiting to get in and then on to her. They've got two loonies who've been in but got out again. They're not sure how.'

'Who?' asked Tim. 'The loonies or Tarwildbaning and Udentkista?'

'Don't know.' Sidney turned on to the M3, a ma.s.sive six-lane motorway leading to Newcastle.

'Can one of you explain what you lot mean by a ”garden”? I take it it's not full of trees and shrubs.'

'Actually, Polly,' replied Tim, 'it is. Exactly that. It's a sort of a dumping ground. It's like the human brain has a repository for things it doesn't need - a mental warehouse if you like. You know, you know things but you tuck them away until you need them?'

Polly frowned. Warehouse? House? Things tucked away in the memory? 'Yes?' she prompted.

'Well, my people created physical warehouses, places to put things that we don't want or need to deal with. But rather than pa.s.sing thoughts, this is where we store real things, physical things. We create it to look like a garden simply because it's attractive. It'll keep the things happy until they're retrieved.'

'These things,' said Polly, 'd'you mean people?'

'Oh yes,' said Tim. 'Frequently when we'd have aliens volunteer to come with us to broaden their minds, we'd put 205 them in a specially created garden until we found what we wanted to show them. They don't need feeding or monitoring there.'

Sidney joined in. 'Sort of cryogenically storing them without actually putting them to sleep. Like a video on pause.'

'A video?'

Tim looked at Sidney. '1966 not '86.'

'Oh. Sorry, Miss Wright.'

Polly decided she could not hope to follow all this. 'Where are we going, Sidney?'

'Good question,' said Tim.