Transit

FOUR

She was blonde and in her mid-twenties. At least, thought Avery, she looked as if she might be in her midtwenties; for she had the sort of vaguely attractive and subtly ageless face that might belong to a mature teenager or a youngish woman of forty.

She wore a red silk shirt and a pair of tight black slacks—and enough make-up for a party. Avery was sadly aware that the top two buttons of his shirt were undone—he only wore a tie when absolutely necessary— and his trousers displayed unmistakable signs of having been slept in.

All this passed through his mind—this ridiculous adding up of unimportant details—in the couple of seconds it took for the barrier of silence, surprise and immobility to crumble.

She was the first to move. She was the first to speak.

She came running towards him as if she were making a practised entrance.

‘Oh thank God! Thank God! I don’t know who you are or why we’re here…. But at least you’re human. I was beginning to think I might never see another human face again.’

Her voice was pleasant, her delivery was excellent. And when she had finished, she burst into tears. Before he really knew what was happening, Avery found that he had put his arms around her and that she was clinging to him tightly.

This, too, was so improbable that it could easily be part of a dream.

‘Take it easy,’ he heard himself murmuring. ‘Take it easy.’ Then, idiotically: ‘Neither of us are dead yet.’

She broke away. ‘Hell, I’m ruining my make-up…

What’s your name?’

‘Richard Avery. What’s yours?’

She smiled archly: ‘Don’t you ever watch TV? No, that’s stupid. You can’t watch TV here, of course.’

Recognition dawned. ‘I used to watch quite a lot. The only thing I ever conscientiously tried to avoid was that endless hospital series. You’re Barbara Miles, of course.’

‘In the flesh,’ she said.

Avery smiled. ‘Not necessarily. I have a theory I may be dreaming.’

‘The nightmare is mutual,’ she retorted. ‘What in heaven’s name is it all about?’

‘Damned if I know. Have you any idea how you got here?’

She shook her head. ‘The last thing I remember was this wretched diamond. I thought it might have fallen out of somebody’s ring—though goodness knows it looked too big for that. I remember bending down to pick it up. Then lights out.’

The information gave Avery a jolt. He remembered about the crystal instantly, and saw it once more in his mind’s eye—cold and lustrous and blinding.

‘Well, say something,’ she said nervously. ‘I didn’t make it all up.’

Avery looked at her and noticed the lines of tension at the comers of her eyes. The nightmare was decidedly mutual.

‘This diamond,’ he said, ‘it wouldn’t have been in Kensington Gardens by any chance?’

She stared at him. ‘Hyde Park, as it happens—but how would you know?’

‘The dividing line between Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens is more or less imaginary,’ he said without humour. ‘Mine was in Kensington Gardens. Not a diamond—at least, I think not. Just a crystal.’

There was a pause while each of them considered possibilities—and got nowhere.

‘I need a cigarette,’ she said at length.

He gave her one and then took one himself.

She inhaled deeply. ‘What did you say your name was? It just shows what a state I’m in. Can’t even remember a name.’

‘Richard Avery.’

She laughed shrilly. ‘Pleased to meet you, Richard. And welcome to the club.’

‘I’m more than glad to meet you,’ he retorted with conviction. ‘I was rather afraid the membership was restricted to one.’

‘Say my name,’ she said. ‘Please.’

‘Barbara.’

‘Say it again.’

‘Barbara.’

She sighed. ‘It doesn’t sound too bad I’m sorry.

You must think I’m going round the bend. I probably am. For a while—in fact until that wall disappeared—I

was beginning to think I might not be me Sorry again. That doesn’t make much sense, does it?’

‘It makes a lot of sense.’

‘In fact,’ confided Barbara, ‘I wasn’t really sure I was me until I saw you. Then for some damn silly reason there didn’t seem to be any doubt about it.’

A thought suddenly struck Avery. ‘Before we start nursing each other—no, I don’t mean that nastily—we’d better pool our information, such as it is. God knows how long it will be before the Goons put the wall back or get up to some other dodge. We may have another ten minutes or we may have all day—I mean several hours, anyway. So let’s make the most of it.’

‘Nothing to report, sergeant,’ said Barbara. ‘Except that I feel a bit better.’

‘Have you seen anything of them?’

‘Who, the mad scientists?’

‘Is that your theory?’

‘It’s as good as any…. No I haven’t seen a damn thing…. To tell the truth,’ she added hesitantly, ‘I had an idea they might be watching. I got so neurotic and bored that I took all my clothes off and lay down in the classical position for rape.’ She giggled. ‘Nothing happened. Either they weren’t watching or they weren’t interested—or both…. I’m beginning to think I really may be going round the bend after all.’

Avery pushed the disturbingly vivid picture to the back of his mind. ‘Have you any idea how long you have been here?’ he asked.

‘That’s an easy one,’ said Barbara. She glanced at her watch. ‘Not quite forty-eight hours. I’m keeping a careful tally—just in case I begin to think it’s years.’

‘Did you have anything with you when you woke up—I mean personal possessions.’

‘No. But I found a whole heap of stuff in a trunk under the bed. I don’t know how they managed to get hold of it, because I share—correction, shared—a flat with three other girls.’

‘You communicate by that teletype thing, I suppose.’

‘Four-letter words now,’ said Barbara. ‘I’m trying to find out what happens if I’m not ladylike…. Incidentally, they had me doing a stack of fool questions. Said I’d be rewarded.’ She grinned. ‘I suppose you are the reward.’

‘So far,’ said Avery, ‘our experiences are pretty identical. Except that I didn’t manage to keep a time check.’

‘Then what have we learned?’

He shrugged. ‘Nothing much. Except that we aren’t alone.’

‘But when you come to think of it,’ said Barbara seriously, ‘that’s a pretty big something.’

At that moment Avery’s typewriter started typing. He and Barbara peered at the message.

In ten minutes it will be necessary for you to occupy your separate rooms.

‘Hell! ’ exploded Barbara. ‘Hell and damnation! ’ Avery typed back: We wish to remain together.

The response came immediately. You will not be separated for long, providing you each answer the next series of questions as accurately as possible.

We do not wish to be separated at all, and neither do we wish to answer any more questions.

No comment. You have nine minutes left.

‘Here,’ said Barbara, ‘let me tell ’em.’ She typed: Get knotted.

Avery was amused. He was beginning to like Barbara. She had quite a personality. He wondered if the machine would print out a reply, but it maintained a dignified silence.

‘So,’ said Barbara angrily, ‘the mad scientists are feeling playful again.’

Avery gave her a thin smile. ‘The question is: do we behave like obedient dogs or do we provoke them?’

‘Don’t call me a dog, please. I’m just a common or garden bitch…. Dammit, you’re the man. You’ll have to decide. That’s what men are for—and other things.’

‘You don’t want to be emancipated about it?’

‘I don’t want to be emancipated about anything,’ she replied firmly. ‘I can usually get what I want without resorting to equal votes.’

Avery thought for a moment. ‘Then we’ll play it the hard way,’ he decided, ‘and see what happens. Meanwhile, let’s put our heads together and see if we can’t come up with a lead.’

‘They are probably listening,’ she warned.

‘I’m sure they are. I think it’s all part of the treatment —especially bringing us together.’

For a while, they talked round the problem; but since they had so little to go on, there was precious litde that could be deduced. So far, neither of them had suffered physically—apart from being ‘anaesthetized’—and it seemed reasonable to assume that their captors did not intend to use more violence than was strictly necessary for whatever purpose they had in mind.

But what that purpose was—well, that was the big question. In desperation, Avery and Barbara tried random suggestions. Bearing in mind how little they actually knew, it seemed as good a way as any of trying to hit on the truth.

Barbara suggested plain, good, old-fashioned kidnapping. But Avery pointed out that conventional kidnappers did not usually ply their victims with intelligence tests. Besides, the resources of the prison seemed rather beyond either the ability or the imagination of the normally abnormal criminal mind. Added to which, the contents of both trunks indicated that they were in for quite a long stay—and not all of it would be spent in prison, evidently.

The mad-scientist notion also was dismissed. Apart from any other considerations, it was too trite, too wildly implausible. However, Barbara wanted to stick to the idea of madness at least, because it seemed to be an essential ingredient of the whole operation; but Avery was not so sure.

‘So far the purpose and the technique are pretty well outside our terms of reference,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we can apply any conventional criteria.’

‘Stop talking like something that just crawled out of Cambridge,’ said Barbara drily. ‘All you mean is that we haven’t got a single clue.’

‘No, I mean just the opposite. I have a feeling that the clue lies in the incomprehensibility of the whole thing. It’s as if the mind or minds behind this business just don’t operate on our level. There’s an alien factor, an otherness about all that’s happened to us.’

Suddenly, the typewriter woke up again. Please return to your separate accommodation.

‘Now for the fireworks,’ said Barbara. She sat down and typed back. No thank you. We just got married.

The machine was not amused. It is necessary for you to answer further questions, it sent back primly. Your cooperation will be appreciated.

Barbara was about to punch out a further message of defiance, but Avery said: ‘Let it play by itself. I think the general idea has got across.’

Barbara sighed. ‘You’re the captain. But I like being childish. It improves my morale.’

There was a few seconds of silence, during which they both gazed about them apprehensively as if retaliation might leap out at them from the walls or from the illuminated ceiling. But nothing happened, and they were left with a feeling of anticlimax.

‘It looks as if they’re thinking it over,’ suggested Avery. ‘Normally they seem to respond pretty quickly.’

‘Maybe they haven’t had a case like this before.’ Barbara sounded more flippant than she felt.

‘Well, let’s try to forget about them for a bit, otherwise the waiting will get on our nerves…. Now where was I?’

‘Otherness—that’s where you were.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘otherness is the right word, I think.

We don’t belong, the situation doesn’t belong—it’s unreal, somehow not properly human.’

‘Inhuman?’

‘Perhaps, but not in the ordinary sense. Non-human is better. For example, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we were using that thing,’ he gestured to the teletypewriter, ‘to communicate with a computer. And a not very flexible computer at that.’

‘I have an odd conviction that it wasn’t a computer that snatched me out of Hyde Park,’ objected Barbara.

‘Maybe, but ’ Avery got no further.

At that moment the wall panel slid back. Instinctively, they both looked to see what the recess contained. Their attention was immediately drawn to one tiny object.

It was a crystal, flawless and beautiful, brilliant and blinding. It was a crystal of pure light containing the mystery of absolute darkness.