A Tale of Time City (21 page)

“Like a sort of golden drainpipe,” Jenny said over her shoulder as she minced back up the stairs.

Vivian threw herself into the search with a will. It was much more fun than worrying about the Caskets and their Guardians, and it gave her a wonderful opportunity to hunt about in parts of the Palace where she had not yet been. Every so often, as she hunted, the crowd of people rushed past, with Petula in front waving something furry and Elio behind waving the golden vest. Sometimes they were close behind the Sempitern. Sometimes the Sempitern was pelting about on his own, roaring for the Mitre, or the Esemplastic Staff or the ermine buskins. Each time he appeared, a giggle rose into Vivian’s throat and she had to dodge through the nearest door to laugh.

That was how she found the Amporic Mitre in the end. The last
room she dodged into turned out to be a bathroom. At least, Vivian gathered it was a bathroom from the wet prints of the Sempitern’s feet on the cork floor, but she had never, in her part of the Twentieth Century, come across anything like the huge glass bath that stood half-way to the ceiling, full of green water bubbling like a cauldron. Her eye caught something like a golden drainpipe on the other side of the glass bath, and she thought at first that it
was
just a golden drainpipe. Luckily, she was so amazed by the bath that she walked all round it. And there was the hat, lying on the damp floor.

Vivian picked it up and joined in the chase, waving the hat and shouting to Sempitern Walker that she had found it. But he just scudded on in front and took no notice at all. After they had all raced up to the attics and then down once more, and seemed about to set off to the attics again, Vivian had the giggles so badly that she had no breath left at all. So she did the obvious thing and waited in the hall until they all came tearing down again.

Sempitern Walker appeared first, speeding downstairs towards her, with one ermine buskin flapping off his leg and the other in his hand. “Where is that Amporic Mitre?” he roared.

Vivian took a deep breath to stop herself laughing. “
Here!
” she shrieked, and held on to the rest of the breath to keep the giggle down. But it did no good. As she jammed the hat into the Sempitern’s free hand, the laugh came out. She more or less hooted in his face. Then she had to bend over with tears running down her cheeks. “Oh, oh, oh!” she said. “You are so
funny
!”

Sempitern Walker stood completely still and gave her his most anguished look ever. While he stood there, staring, Petula raced
down the stairs and handed him the Esemplastic Staff. Elio burst through the other people straggling downstairs after her and flung the golden vest-thing round his shoulders.

“The Amporic Cope, sir,” he said. He was the only one not out of breath.

Sempitern Walker turned his anguished stare on Elio. Then he gave the rest of the stragglers a deeply hurt look all round and stalked off to his study with his buskin flapping. Everyone soberly followed him, carrying their pieces of regalia. Vivian was left feeling exactly the same as when she had said the wrong thing to the Guardian that morning.

“You shouldn’t have laughed, miss,” Elio explained seriously before he followed the others. “Not to his face, that is. The Sempitern, like all born-humans, needs excitement and his work is very boring. I usually take care to mislay at least one garment before every ceremony.”

Vivian felt more like crying than laughing. “Will he forgive me?”

“I do not know,” said Elio. “No one has dared to laugh at him before.”

Vivian went and sat in the matutinal, feeling ashamed, until the Palace went quiet. Then she went into the hall. Just as she expected, Jonathan was coming carelessly downstairs, looking as if it was the merest accident that he had happened to reappear the moment the fuss was over.

“Let’s go and see the ceremony,” Vivian said to him. She felt she owed it to Sempitern Walker.

“Do you want to?” Jonathan said, much surprised. “It’ll be horribly
boring.” But he obligingly went with her to Aeon Square, where they packed in among rows of tourists near the glass arcade. They were in time to watch a smart squad of Time Patrollers march out of the Patrol Building and take up a position near Faber John’s Stone. People in red robes, and white, and blue filed out of other buildings and archways and stood in position too. Then came processions. Vivian saw Jenny, now wrapped in a wide mauve cloak, among a whole lot of people all walking with small steps because of the tight robe underneath. She saw Mr Enkian marching importantly at the head of a line of blue-robed Librarians. There was a group of students in dusty green gowns. Everybody seemed to be taking part. Even Dr. Wilander was there, bulking in a shabby purple robe. Vivian saw why he spent so much of his time sitting in SELDOM END. He walked with quite a limp.

She watched Jonathan’s father pace slowly past, stately and golden, with the tall pipe-shaped hat towering on his head. “What is this ceremony about?” she asked.

“No idea,” said Jonathan.

“Then you should know,” said a severe man next to them. He was an obvious tourist in respectable blue and yellow check drapes. He folded his Information Sheet over and held it in front of Jonathan. “It’s the first of the Four Ceremonies of the Founding of the City. It’s very old—it goes right back to the beginning and it’s said to mark the first moments when Time City was separated from history. You should be proud to witness it, my boy. We’ve come specially to see it.” He took back the Information Sheet and said anxiously, “And it
says
the forecast rain will hold off until the ceremony’s over. I hope it’s right.”

So the City really had arrived back to the time when it was founded, Vivian thought. She felt unexpectedly anxious. Another procession was winding its way in from Secular Square. This one seemed to be of ordinary people, all dressed in sober pale pyjamas, each with a chain of some kind hung round his or her neck. The sun twinkled on the chains and flashed on the buckles and shiny boots of the Time Patrollers. Jonathan’s father flared gold in the midst of all the bright coloured robes. There seemed no sign of the rain the tourist had talked about, but it was coming, hanging over the ceremony, just like the end of things seemed to be hanging over Time City. What will happen to all these people, Vivian thought, if Time City just collapses?

Jonathan must have been thinking the same thing. “I don’t want all this to go!” he said.

“It won’t. We’re going to do something about it,” Vivian said. “The Guardian called us in.”

But the ceremony did go on rather. Sam found them and stood for five minutes with them, watching, after which he yawned loudly and went away. Vivian felt it would be a bit rude to go away too, after what the tourist had said. So she kept herself amused by pressing the studs of her belt. Time function—they had already been watching for more than an hour—pen-function, weather report—rain due in two minutes—low-weight-function—at which the severe tourist gave her a very reproving look—and finally credit-function. Her palm lit up: 00.00. Vivian stared at it. She pressed the stud again and yet again to bring the numbers back. It still said 00.00.

“Jonathan! What’s wrong? This said one hundred yesterday morning, and I haven’t
spent
anything yet!”

“Ask Elio. It must have a fault,” Jonathan said. “And just look over there!”

Vivian looked where Jonathan nodded; All the important people had formed themselves into a new procession, with Mr. Enkian stalking proudly at its head. Dr. Leonov, the High Scientist, was walking behind Mr. Enkian beside the huge purple bulk of Dr. Wilander. And the poor crazy Iron Guardian had joined the procession too. His floppy hat was bobbing and his face was very serious and he was imitating Mr. Enkian’s important walk exactly. Probably he thought that was the right way to walk. Dr. Leonov glanced at him once, doubtfully, and then seemed to decide he was a time-ghost or another student joke. Dr. Wilander must have decided the same, because he took no notice of the Guardian at all and simply limped grimly on with his eyes fixed on Mr. Enkian’s strutting back. Quite a number of people had seen. A wave of amused murmuring swept down that side of the square. But Mr. Enkian was far too wrapped up in his own importance to notice.

Then the rain came down in white sheets. Vivian was glad of the excuse to go. The severe tourist and his wife raised a small blue and yellow tent above their heads and stayed to watch, but Vivian and Jonathan ran for Time Close, with umbrellas of all possible shapes and sizes going up round them. Elio had been watching the ceremony too. They met him under the archway, while they were pushing through the crowd of damp people sheltering there. By this time, rain was battering on the cobbles of Time Close and gargling in every groove of the buildings. The three of them dashed for the Annuate Palace together.

There, as they stood dripping on the patterned marble floor,
Vivian seized the chance to tell Elio about the credit on her belt. Elio asked to look at it. Vivian took off the heavy wet leather and passed it over. Elio’s straight pale hair dripped on it as he ran the belt between his fingers. He looked annoyed with himself.

“I weighed the odds,” he said, “and decided against having a rain-shield-function on any of our belts. My calculation was that we would be outside in only two percent of the year’s rainfall. What I forgot is that two percent is as wet as any other rain. No, this belt is in perfect working order. The fault must be in the City computer.” He passed Vivian the belt back. “I will check the computer tomorrow,” he said. “Just now I shall be busy. The Sempitern is going to be very wet and very cross when he comes in.”

But Vivian discovered what was wrong with her belt next morning, long before Elio did. It was a moist, blue, after-rain morning. She and Jonathan set off for school and found that Sam was not waiting at the fountain as usual. Vivian thought she saw him lurking under the archway. But Jonathan said quickly, “No, that’ll be Leon. I asked him to meet me there if he’d found out anything. You go over and ask about Sam—it’s that house there—while I talk to Leon.” And he went racing off to the archway, pigtail flying, obviously very excited.

Hm, Vivian thought as she went towards the rosy brick house Jonathan had pointed out, I think Jonathan doesn’t want me to know what he says to Leon Hardy. I wonder why?

She stood and looked at the front door of the Donegals’ house. There was no knocker and no bell. But there must have been some other device. While Vivian was standing there wondering what to do, the door opened and Sam’s father came out, pulling the pyjama
top of his uniform down through his belt, obviously ready to leave for work.

“Morning,” he said. “I waited for you. It’s no good calling for Sam. He won’t get to Duration today. He’s had another butter-pie orgy and made himself sick as a suicide, I’m afraid.”

As soon as Sam’s father said that, Vivian knew what had gone wrong with her belt. “Oh,” she said. “Thank you.” And she turned to go back to the archway. But Mr. Donegal shut his front door and stepped out beside her in the most friendly possible way. This made Vivian feel very awkward. For one thing, she was very angry with Sam. For another, she wanted to hear what Leon Hardy was telling Jonathan. And on top of all this, she found she was rather shy of Sam’s father. He had a fierce, active feel about him, which she had not met in the other people of Time City. She was sure this was the feeling you got from someone with a lot of power, who gave orders and got obeyed, and that was alarming in itself. But she remembered that Mr. Donegal was supposed to be her uncle and did her best to give him a niece-like smile. “I thought Sam didn’t have any credit,” she said.

“He hasn’t. He went into Patrol Building during the ceremony last night and tinkered with my computer outlet,” said Mr. Donegal. “Got it to give him a credit strip from someone else’s account—cunning little devil!” He sounded stern, but Vivian could tell he was secretly rather proud of Sam. “He won’t say whose account it was. Can’t get it out of him.”

But
I
know! Vivian thought. Just because he was annoyed that Jonathan and I are going to go off without him, and we haven’t
even
gone
yet! She was angrier than ever with Sam. But she did not say anything to Mr. Donegal, because she wanted to be revenged on Sam for herself. “How many did he eat?” she asked.

“A hundred units’ worth, would you believe that!” Mr. Donegal said.

Vivian did believe it. It was the final proof. She would have liked to tell Jonathan, who was standing under the archway talking to Leon Hardy. But, frustratingly, both of them looked round, saw Vivian and Mr. Donegal walking across Time Close, and set off out into Aeon Square, talking hard all the time.

“I was wanting to speak to you,” Mr. Donegal said, “about Twenty Century.”

“Yes?” Vivian said nervously.

“It’s gone critical all right,” said Mr. Donegal. “World War One is affected now. It’s run right back into a thing called the Boer War. War Two starts in nineteen-thirty-seven at the moment. It’s getting pretty nasty out there. I won’t lie to you, but I don’t want you to worry either.”

But I
do
! Vivian thought as they went into the shadow of the archway. She forgot about Sam, and about Jonathan and Leon Hardy. All she could think was: what about Mum and Dad?

They came out into the brightness of Aeon Square, where Jonathan and Leon were small shapes out beyond Faber John’s Stone. “Your mother and father are quite safe,” Mr. Donegal said. It was just as if he could read Vivian’s thoughts, except that he was talking about the wrong mother and father. “Observers are given plenty of protection, and Time Patrol keeps going in and checking. I won’t
deny that I was a little annoyed with your father for being so slow to report the deterioration, but that doesn’t mean I’m neglecting him or Inga. I’m putting a Zero Hour request to Chronologue to recall all the Observers from that era. I thought you’d want to know that Chronologue will do it, but they’ll be a bit slow because of all these Foundation Ceremonies. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time for us! But not to worry. You’ll have your father and mother safe back in Time City in three or four days at the most.”