Lost on Mars (28 page)

I came out of my reverie with a jump, realising that Dean Swiftnick was talking to me. He was leaning earnestly towards me. His voice sounded so kind.

‘There will be consent and copyright forms, of course, and then other things to fill in, to do with insurance and indemnity, liability and so on. Naturally! And then evaluation sheets to complete. But I'm sure that we can cope with all of these in due course. The main, important thing, my dear Lora Robinson is, that you are ready to pass on the tale of your most fascinating and, may I even say, historically significant life?'

I smiled at him. ‘Yes, I am.'

I imagined he would transcribe what I had to say, very carefully. In fact, I had even started rehearsing in my mind how it would be. In my basket I'd brought the sheets of paper with my scribbled-down notes. My writings began with the very day that the storms came to devastate Da's crops in the last year of our Homestead life on the prairie. They told my tale in scattershot fashion all the way up to the night that Al and me had dinner with Tillian Graveley's snooty parents.

I was sure that, no matter how roughly written these notes were, and how ill-educated they showed me to be, they would surely be of interest to the Dean, in whose study I was starting to feel so comfortable.

Once I finished explaining about the notes I'd made, he put down his cup of tea with a loud clunk. ‘Good heavens, no.'

‘No?' I gasped. I put down my own tea that he'd poured for me. It had nasty bits in it.

He chuckled. ‘Do you really think, my dear, that a person such as I have time to go picking through the illiterate, hand-written memoirs of a girl like you? A girl from the wilderness?'

‘B-but,' I said. ‘I thought you were interested in my life?'

‘Indeed I am,' he said, standing up and fiddling with his collar and cravat. ‘As an example, or a type. An historical phenomenon. But that doesn't mean that I would find any great value in your written outpourings and the things you saw fit to scrawl down. Or, God forbid, your
feelings
. Oh no, indeed. I need a much more objective and scientific methodology.'

‘Methodology?' I asked.

The next thing I knew I was being led out of that cosily bookish room, back into the institutional corridor. Shifty-looking academics in gowns and hollow-eyed students slouched about on missions of their own. Each of them acknowledged the Dean respectfully with heads lowered as he bumbled past. He had me by the hand and was digging his ink-stained nails into the flesh of my palm. I was too amazed by everything to protest.

Then we were out of the building and crossing the grassy quad. It was chillier now and pinkish snow was starting to tumble out of the sky.

‘Where are you taking me?'

‘Where all the equipment is kept,' he said, and his voice was a whole lot less genial away from his office. His grip was vice-like.

‘Dean Swiftnick,' said a familiar and very welcome voice. ‘How nice to see you again.'

I looked up in relief to see Peter standing there with Karl in his arms.

‘Do I know you?' snapped the academic, trying to shove past.

‘A few years ago, you had me thrown out of your department,' Peter said. ‘Remember? I was once one of your most promising students.'

The Dean looked up into Peter's handsome face and scowled. ‘Oh yes. Caused quite a disgrace, as I recall. We had to report you to the Authorities.'

‘I was glad to leave this dump. Now I want to know what you're doing to my friend.'

Dean Swiftnick darted a glance at me. ‘You're her friend, are you?'

‘She said you invited her to help with your research.'

He sighed. ‘Well, yes. In a manner of speaking.' He looked about, obviously uncomfortable at being outside, beyond the protection of the departmental security guards. ‘Look, can we have this conversation inside? I'm taking her to the Remembering Room…'

Peter came with us across the quadrangle. ‘Are you OK?' he asked, sidling close. I told him yes, but really I wished that I could change my mind and just leave.

At the glass entrance to the new building Dean Swiftnick turned on Peter. ‘Things have changed since you were here. This is a highly scientific sterile premises.'

Peter shrugged. ‘So?'

‘So you must leave that … animal tied up outside the main entrance. That is the rule.'

Peter hugged Karl to his chest. ‘He's not well.'

‘He's a dog,' snapped the Dean.

‘No, he's not,' said Peter in a reasonable tone. ‘Though he's not a cat either, mind. We aren't exactly sure what Karl is, but I'm all he's got. And I don't think I want to leave him out here.'

‘Suit yourself,' said the Dean. ‘Then the pair of you ambiguous creatures must remain outside whilst I take Lora into the Remembering Room.'

I wasn't at all happy about the way this man was telling us all what to do. I decided to speak up. ‘Look, forget this. I'm going home. I don't even want you to have my story any more…'

His face turned livid and he seized my arm. ‘You will do as you are commanded, young woman!'

‘Oh yeah?' I shouted. ‘How are you gonna make me do that?'

We were drawing the attention of several hungry-looking students.

Dean Swiftnick licked his lips like he could taste something absolutely delicious. ‘I know who has your Servo-Furnishing. Your treasured sunbed. I could make them wipe his memory and identity completely clean…' He snapped his fingers loudly. ‘Just like that.'

‘Who?' I said. ‘Who has him?'

‘We do,' he snarled. ‘This university. We took him away from under your nose. His buried recollections are even more important than your own, young woman.'

‘You've really got Toaster?'

‘Yes,' he said, knowing he had won. ‘And we will drain him of all information and then sell him to the Antique Hunters, if you don't do precisely what I tell you to. Ah, yes. I see you know all about the Antique Hunters. Now, come along, my dear young woman.' He turned to Peter. ‘You may come if you leave your unhygienic mongrel behind. It is up to you.'

The snow was coming down in flurries. Peter looked stricken and torn. Karl let out a pathetic whimper. I decided to make up my friend's mind for him.

‘Peter, it's all right. Just wait out here with Karl, if you would. I'll be OK in there. I promise I will.'

‘Of course no harm will come to this precious lady,' said Dean Swiftnick, chuckling as he led me into the green glass building. We passed through the electric doors and into the sterile atmosphere of what he told me was their new archive centre. He continued chuckling, very pleased with himself. He had a very high-pitched laugh.

Dean Switftnick led me deeper and deeper into the metal-walled corridors of the archive complex. He hung onto my arm, pulling me along almost hungrily and he didn't say much.

At last we came to a kind of operating theatre labelled ‘The Elizabeth Gaskell Memorial Remembering Room'. The old man led me in and told me to lie on a padded couch. All of a sudden I felt incredibly weary. I lay back gratefully and I remembered to ask him how long this would take. I didn't like the thought of Peter and Karl standing out in the weather for too long.

The Dean didn't bother to reply. It was as i
f
I had ceased to be a person to him, now that I was a bona fide object of study. He began untangling yards of wire and attaching electrodes to my arms and head. I couldn't resist. I felt more feeble than I ever had in my life. It came to me that this was why my cup of tea in his office had been gritty. I had been sedated by the Dean. I couldn't cause too much of a fuss because he might harm Toaster. He might siphon his robot mind completely dry and hand him over to those men who would take great pleasure in hunting him across the Martian prairie and blowing him to smithereens…

Now I was drowsy, slipping away…

Dean Swiftnick retreated behind a glass partition where, along with a couple of worried-looking research students, he worked feverishly at a control console. Then his voice came out of a speaker. ‘I'll leave you in the capable hands of my research student assistants. They know what to do with you. I bid you farewell, prairie child. I have a lecture that I must give, and a whole lot of very important things to do …
heee heeeeeee heee
…'

I felt very peculiar. It was as if the metal floor was opening up underneath me. No, not beneath my feet. The floor of my mind was dropping away. I squeezed my eyes tight shut and experienced a horrible sensation of suspension. I was teetering above a dark chasm.

Down there, whole worlds were whirling. They were green and blue and crimson and gold.

Sudden, vivid flashes of light came at me through the dark. I could see Martha and George, the golden-eyed burden beasts as they toiled up a sand dune. I saw all my family out in the fields. There was Hannah, only three, wearing a headscarf, trying to help out. I saw Al. He and I were in Adams' Emporium, breathing in the excitement of stealing exotic goods. I watched his tamed lizard bird wheeling gracefully in the air. I could see Grandma and Aunt Ruby, drunk as Jack Rabbits on prairie wine, laughing together at some old, old joke.

And I saw the wilderness, reaching out for thousands of miles in every direction. Here came the Martian Ghosts dancing after us in their long scarves, pricking the shadows with their spiky limbs. Their purple eyes were swirling, dizzy with greed.

At last I saw Sook, my friend, drifting down through the blue night vapours to meet me in secret…

How long all this went on for I didn't know. I was held wriggling above the abyss and still those brightly coloured worlds spun beneath me. They looked like old Earth and Mars and the crimson globe in the churchy room of the queen of
lizards. The globe that Toaster once believed held the whole of the City Inside…

Soon I was feeling weaker. The worlds below were exerting a dreadful gravity. I was using my willpower to stay afloat, at the top of my mind, still conscious. But at any moment I could drop into that cauldron of noisy memories and flashing pictures.

Then – with a shock – I woke up.

There was a ripping noise and a sudden sharp pain and a smell like burning chops. I felt what must have been a mild electric shock. Awareness of the bright metal room around me returned all at once, in a flash. Peter was standing there. He looked scared, with a tangle of wires and electrodes in both clenched hands.

‘I haven't killed you, have I?'

‘I don't think so,' I grinned.

‘I thought I should disconnect you,' he said, breathing hard. ‘Are you sure you're OK?'

A rush of questions leapt out of me. ‘Where's the Dean? How did you get in here? What have you done? You must have ruined his machine…!'

‘Never mind that,' he said. ‘Do you feel all right?' He helped me off the bench and I swayed dizzily. I suddenly felt sick, deep in my gut, like I used to get if I had to sit in the back of the hovercart for too long.

‘I'm OK. Where's the old man?'

‘You were in here alone. They left you plugged in. You've been in here for over an hour. I came looking and saw you through the window, there.'

‘It was so weird, Peter. Like someone was staring straight into my mind…'

‘Yeah, well. I've put a stop to it.'

I grabbed his arm. ‘Did you leave Karl outside?'

He nodded quickly. ‘We have to get back to him. The snow was really coming down hard.'

One of the Dean's assistants came back in behind the glass partition. She gave a panicked cry when she saw I'd been revived. Next thing, alarms were going off and lights were flashing.

‘We have to run,' Peter said. ‘Are you up to that?'

‘Of course!' I was incredibly grateful to him. God knows what would have become of me, hooked up to that Remembering thing.

Panicked academics or lab assistants tried to get in our way, but we pushed them aside and ran for our lives.

They would have drained my mind away to nothing. Like opening a can or juicing an orange. They'd have squished everything useful out of me and thrown the rubbish away.

Department security almost got us as we hurtled across the foyer of the archive building. A man in body armour even pulled out what looked like a gun. Peter pointed a finger at me and shouted, ‘You hurt her and there'll be hell to pay. She's a valuable specimen. I must take her to the Dean at once – so stand aside!'

I felt like laughing at Peter's commanding tone. The startled guard and the floss-haired receptionist fell back obediently to let us through. It seemed so easy! To answer so-called authority back with a dose of their own bullying.

Peter cackled and bundled me through the glass doors. Now we just had to pick up Karl and untie his leash and…

Peter stood stock still before the spot where his cat-dog had been tethered. We both stared at the rumpled, hairy blanket, which was now almost wholly covered in wet pink snow.