Who Goes Home? Read online

  ‘So is our clock set too?’ asked Jacob, the thought taking shape before Steven had time to fence it. ‘Then you will have to go? And what about me?’

  ‘It’s set for years from now,’ said his father with a conviction he did not really feel. ‘We don’t even need to think about it.’

  They walked on for a while in silence.

  ‘And will you be able to alter the clock in York?’ said Jacob. He looked at his own watch. It was ten minutes to eight.

  ‘I might,’ said Steven, looking sour. ‘I probably will. But why can’t they let me alone? I am supposed to deflect attention. I do that remarkably well.’

  ‘You do everything well, Dad,’ said Jacob.

  ‘I probably do,’ said Steven, as stating a simple fact. ‘More’s the pity! A willing horse gets all the work.’

  Jacob laughed, releasing nervous energy. ‘I’d hardly call you that!’ he said.

  ‘It depends on what you mean by “willing”,’ said Steven, grinning. ‘I didn’t say I was happy about it!’

  CHAPTER 13

  * * *

  A Monumental Mistake

  Late that night, after the rest of the family were in bed asleep, Jacob went to the computer room to find his father already seated before the Brick, calling up the map of York. Silently he sat on the stool beside him.

  Onto the screen above the Brick came the outline of the Minster, casting a shadow over the street map. Steven manipulated the keys on the Brick till the image moved to the north, to the houses in Linden Drive, to the back garden of Number 8, and then – Jacob gasped as he saw it – right to the bulbous eyes of an enormous stone frog.

  ‘There,’ said Steven, holding the image and sitting back for a moment to contemplate.

  ‘What now?’ said Jacob.

  ‘Now,’ said Steven ruefully, ‘I must get a probe to penetrate right through that monster so that I can see inside their spaceship and tamper with the clock. Heaven alone knows if I’ll be able to manage it.’

  At that moment he was concentrating his mind on how the clock, with no override, could be changed. He did not realize that there was another serious obstacle to be overcome before he could begin.

  He leant forward to the Brick and began skilfully to create a laser-like probe and direct it very precisely at the centre of the frog’s head, between those two protruding eyes.

  Then . . . Go!

  Then . . . Go! Go!

  But the probe went no further than the surface of the frog.

  Steven increased the power as far as he could.

  Go! Go! Go!

  He sat back and exhaled loudly.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Jacob.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong,’ said his father crossly. ‘That big, ugly monstrosity of a beast squatting in that little pond’s what’s wrong!’

  Jacob stared at the screen where the frog sat immutable, surrounded by a narrow moat of water.

  Steven sighed.

  ‘It seemed such a good idea at the time, a good place to conceal the spaceship. Mind you, I remember thinking, They’ve got a hope! Do you know how many times a ship lands spot on target? No more than twice in a hundred years! And here we were hoping that this one would set down plumb in the middle of a little pond behind a very ordinary suburban house in York!’

  ‘But what about the frog, Dad?’ asked Jacob, trying to make sense of what was being said.

  ‘The frog was already there in the back garden. The previous owner of the house was a sculptor with crazy ideas about size. That was something we clearly sympathized with! Our people acquired it, complete with frog, and thought what a good housing the pond would make for our craft. So the pond was drained and the frog was rolled back on to the lawn, ready for the ship to land spot in the centre like an arrow hitting a target. From all that distance! I remember thinking it was laughable. But it made it. I was really thrilled when it did – and not just because it saved me the job of guiding its passengers to their new home and checking that the landing site was viable.’

  ‘You watched them arrive?’ said Jacob, encouraging his father to tell more.

  ‘I watched it. You were still a baby and the twins hadn’t been thought of yet. I even remember when their child was born, a little girl they called Nesta – Neshayla at her entwining. She’s a year younger than you. It was a totally unexpected event, as you can imagine, but there was no problem with her entwining, both parents being Ormingatriga.’

  Jacob winced, but Steven did not notice it.

  ‘A smug little family, I always thought,’ he went on. ‘Sitting pretty in that house in York, doing their bit of research, reporting home once a year with all their findings. Nice work if you can get it, as the saying goes. And here am I slogging away year after year, keeping them all out of trouble. Then there are observers like Elgarith who have to live by their wits from day to day and need constant watching. The Gwynns don’t know they’re born!’

  But now Steven had had his pause. He bent over the Brick again and made one more futile effort to penetrate the skull of the frog.

  ‘It just can’t be done,’ he said, sitting back and looking at Jacob almost hopefully, as if his son could come up with an answer. ‘Clearly situating the ship beneath that – that object was a monumental mistake.’

  Jacob suppressed a grin at his father’s unwitting pun. ‘Can you not move the frog somehow?’ he said. ‘I mean push it to one side for the probe to enter?’

  ‘Telekinesis?’ said his father. ‘Not a hope. The Brick is fine-tuned, a subtle object, not designed to work by brute force. Kraylin had the earthmover – the super telekinesis instrument – but it broke down five years ago, just before Kraylin was due to return to Ormingat. He has never been replaced – and neither has the STI!’

  Father and son looked blankly at the screen as if trying to outstare the frog.

  ‘There is one way,’ said Steven meditatively. ‘If I could go up there, trowel out a small hole, and insert a tube diagonally into the soil outside the pond, the ship would soon draw it in to make contact as soon as it identified its source. We are incredibly clever, you know, even if we aren’t perfect!’

  ‘So you’ll go to York tomorrow?’ said Jacob. ‘Can I come with you?’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said Steven. ‘I can’t be in two places at once and if it is going to work I have to be here to manage the Brick.’

  ‘I could do that,’ said Jacob. ‘At least I think I could.’

  ‘You couldn’t, Javayl ban,’ said Steven, ‘not to the level that is needed. It is not just a matter of pressing a few buttons.’

  He bit his lip as he pondered his next suggestion.

  ‘You could go to York,’ he said. ‘I would watch you every step of the way and my protection would be all around you. Nothing could go wrong. Nothing could possibly harm you.’

  ‘What if it draws me in? Our ship does. Will I be able to get out again?’

  Steven smiled. ‘Nothing more simple,’ he said. ‘It’s my job, after all! You shall be totally protected, even from the Gwynn spaceship. It will draw in the probe, just far enough, nothing else. I shall be completely in control.’

  Then Jacob thought of another, more mundane problem. ‘Tomorrow’s Tuesday,’ he said. ‘I have to go to school. What would Mum say?’

  ‘I’ll see to that,’ said Steven eagerly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll see to everything.’

  At breakfast, after the twins had gone to catch their bus, Steven said to Lydia, ‘Jacob won’t be going to school today.’

  Jacob, at a nod from his father, got up and left the room.

  ‘Well,’ said Lydia calmly, ‘and what is Jacob doing today?’

  ‘He is going to help me. This afternoon he has to go to York on an errand for me. I know it’s unusual and that he ought to be in school, but I think we can waive the rules for once in a while, don’t you?’ He smiled at Lydia, the buccaneer smile.

  Lydia looked doubtful. ‘It seems an odd thing to do,�
�� she said, ‘at such short notice.’

  Steven took her hand in his. Their eyes met in what could have passed for frankness.

  ‘It’s to do with my work,’ he said softly. ‘I need Jacob to be in a place some miles away to test communications on my latest system. He’ll be perfectly safe. He’s fourteen and he is clever and resourceful. So let’s give him the chance. He’ll be home again early this evening. It’s really no more than a flying visit. And he knows exactly what he has to do.’

  ‘Is there nothing I can do?’ said Lydia. ‘Should I go with him?’

  ‘He’d be insulted,’ said Steven, looking appalled. ‘He’d think you thought he couldn’t manage on his own. And we both know that he can.’

  Lydia had to agree but she looked disappointed: she would not have minded joining in the trip to York! The twins were at school and Steven’s presence made sure that they would not be returning to an empty house.

  Steven saw her faltering and said sweetly, ‘You can run him to the station, if you like. That would be a real help.’

  CHAPTER 14

  * * *

  Jacob in York

  Lydia drove her son to King’s Cross. It was a cold morning. While they waited for the train, she took Jacob into the snack bar where they had a pot of tea – ‘to warm you up’. It was not her way to fuss, but she was pleased when Jacob zipped up his jacket and put on his woollen gloves as they went out on to the platform. He had no case with him, just the sports bag he usually took to school. It did not look very full or very heavy. Presumably- there was equipment inside for whatever experiment it was they were engaged in.

  ‘Take care,’ she said, as he boarded the train. ‘And get home as quickly as you can.’

  In the car she had asked no questions about Jacob’s errand. He had volunteered the information that his father wanted him in York for something to do with ‘transmission’. It made it sound as if Steven were engaged in some scientific experiment, like a latter-day Marconi or Logie Baird.

  ‘As soon as I’ve made contact, I just come back home,’ said Jacob. ‘It’s not much of a job really.’

  Why York?

  Why anywhere? York made as much sense as any other location would have done. They must be using a vantage point there, she supposed. The Minster? Clifford’s Tower? Lydia made a point of not being inquisitive. The whole family had been to the city just two years ago on a visit to the Jorvik Centre. So to choose York for this experiment was not so very strange.

  Just after four o’clock Jacob got off the bus at the corner of Linden Drive in a suburban estate to the north of York. It had not been difficult to get there: his father’s directions were very precise, down to a graphic description of the bus route from the stop outside the station to the stop nearest the home of the Gwynn family.

  It was dusk on a dull afternoon. The dark would not be long in coming. For Jacob, of course, neither the dark nor the light was unsafe. No one would observe him, night or day. No one would molest him, whether to rob or to terrorize. The shield about him left him visible but unnoticed. In London, his father was watching him every step of the way on the screen above the Brick.

  Two people, clearly mother and daughter, got off the bus at the same stop as he did. Jacob found himself following them into Linden Drive and overhearing their conversation. They sounded faintly American.

  ‘Is it all right if I go shopping with Amy on Saturday?’ said the girl. ‘She needs a new pair of hockey boots.’

  ‘Sure,’ said her mother. ‘Only don’t stop out too late. It gets dark so early. And you never know who’s prowling about these days.’

  ‘Oh, Mom!’ said the girl. ‘Do you think I can’t take care of myself?’

  For some reason that neither Jacob nor the girl could appreciate, that remark made the mother put an arm round her daughter’s shoulder and give her a hug.

  Overprotected, thought Jacob. Then another, rueful thought came to him. He grinned self-mockingly. But not as overprotected as I am! Nobody could be!

  The couple reached the gateway to Number 8 and went in. It was only then that Jacob knew they were the Gwynns. He shivered as he realized that there were things he knew about their destiny that they could not even suspect. Jacob was here on their home territory to do a job that would take the Gwynn family right out of this solar system within a matter of days. Perhaps the mother sensed something; maybe that was why she had given her daughter that impulsive hug.

  Jacob dawdled till the Gwynns had gone into the house and shut the door behind them. Theoretically, he could have followed them into the drive, even into the house and they would have ignored him. But it seemed prudent not to push protection too far.

  After the Gwynns were out of sight, there was no one else in the street either to notice or not to notice him. It was beginning to rain, a cold, misty drizzle. Jacob opened the gate, went in, and closed it behind him. He took the path to the side of the house, which was skirted by a high, thick hedge that separated the Gwynns’ garden from the one next door. When he reached the back garden, the first thing he saw was the frog, sitting there, squat and monstrous on its lily-pad in a disproportionately small pond.

  He went up close to it and sat down on the grass, taking his bag from his shoulder and unzipping it.

  From the bag he took out three pieces of equipment, none of them extraterrestrial, all very common. There was a telescopic tube, ‘borrowed’ from the handle of the carpet sweeper; a small trowel; and his father’s mobile phone.

  ‘Dad,’ said Jacob into the phone that he was not normally allowed to use (the Bradwells were not keen on their children using mobiles), ‘I’m here in the back garden.’

  ‘I see you, son,’ said Steven. ‘You have nothing to worry about. Don’t use the phone again till I ring you. Now do exactly as we arranged.’

  Jacob walked up to the pond and circled it, gauging the direction till he was sure he was on the southern side of it. Then he squatted down and with the trowel he made an indentation in the soil. It was hardly big enough for a game of marbles. The ground was hard. The rain was now falling more heavily on Jacob’s head and shoulders. He found himself wishing, grumpily – like father like son! – that the shield could offer protection against the weather.

  The mobile went: Diddley-dom. Diddley-dom.

  There was a text message: ‘USE YOUR FINGERS.’

  Jacob looked down at his gloves doubtfully and then, with reluctance, began to push crumbs of soil out of the hole he was trying to make. The gloves were soon soggy and the hole was not much bigger.

  Diddley-dom. Diddley-dom.

  Another text message: ‘TAKE YOUR GLOVES OFF. USE YOUR FINGERNAILS.’

  Thank you, Dad, said Jacob inside his head. Thank you very much.

  He glared in the direction he had established as south, removed the gloves and, distastefully, dug his nails into the ground. The area he could cover this way was clearly limited, but within this area he made progress. A hole the size of three fingers was dug down to a depth of six inches, give or take a centimetre.

  Biddley, biddley, biddley. Biddley, biddley, bi-id-

  Jacob took the mobile from his pocket again and put it to his ear.

  ‘You’re doing fine,’ said his father’s voice. ‘Couldn’t have done better myself. Now all you need to do is pull out the tube, probe it into the hole you’ve made and bang hard on it with the trowel. I wish I’d thought to give you a hammer.’

  Jacob did not deign to reply. He doggedly assembled the sweeper handle, pushed it into the hole and banged vigorously on the end of it. The noise of clashing metal on metal should have drawn the attention of the lady in the house next door to the Gwynns’, who was making one of her regular surveys of the territory. But Mrs Jolly was totally unaware of Jacob. The shield was truly a powerful force.

  Then, wonder of wonders, the hammering worked. The probe began to enter the soil. Just an inch or two at a time, or maybe a couple of centimetres. Then, whoosh! contact was established with the ship it
self and it anxiously swallowed the whole handle till only a small shoot was left visible above ground.

  I hope I can get it out again, thought Jacob anxiously. Mum is sure to want to know where her sweeper handle’s gone!

  CHAPTER 15

  * * *

  Jacob’s Decision

  Back in the computer room, Steven whistled his relief. He saw the probe sucked into the soil and then bent eagerly over his keyboard. Visible on the screen above the Brick was the hollow end of the sweeper rod projecting out of the ground. Gently steering, Steven made the beam enter its shaft and go down, down, down, until he had a view of the interior of the Gwynns’ spaceship. That was still not close enough. He did not need to see their living quarters, their laboratory, or even the cuboid communicator. He manoeuvred and manipulated till he had a view of the inner workings of the clock. It filled the screen with the image of artificial stars in a swirling galaxy.

  This, he thought, will take hours, maybe days. I can’t leave Jacob there in the garden much longer. He will have to come home.

  ‘And leave the sweeper handle here in the garden?’ said Jacob, aghast, when his father spoke to him again on the mobile. ‘I can’t do that. Mum needs it. She’ll want to know where it is. Try hard, Dad. I’ll wait here till I can pull it out and fetch it home with me.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Steven impatiently. ‘I’ll tell your mother a story. I’ll tell her I broke it. I’ll buy her another one. Come on, Jacob. Get out of there and catch the bus back to the station. It is already five-fifteen. Your mother will be more worried about you being late than about a sweeper handle. You must know that.’

  ‘Give it another hour, Dad,’ said Jacob. ‘I don’t know what you told Mum about me coming here, but tell her not to worry and that I’ll be on the seven o’clock train. Changing a clock shouldn’t take that long, surely?’