The Portal (12 page)

‘Daniel knows more about the wildlife around here than the rest of you put together, doesn't he?' General Ghool's eyes glinted under his shaggy eyebrows. ‘Now… how could you put a skill like that to use?'

The next morning, William called a family meeting in the kitchen. Daniel and Amy sat on one side of the table, William and Mrs Duggan on the other, and William began by saying that he was going to tell them the truth about Mr and Mrs Seward. They stared at him, wide-eyed, as he told them about the Portal – Uncle Larry had agreed that Amy should be told as well as Daniel, as long as they had a mind-lock – and then took them down in the lift to see it for themselves.

Their eyes widened even more as he took them on a brief tour of the station before walking them through to the sitting room and explaining, as simply as he could, what had happened. He told them how Uncle Larry had gone searching up and down the Portal corridor, how he and Brin had searched the station, how Federal Security had searched the farm and the surrounding area and how, despite it all, nobody knew where Mr and Mrs Seward were.

‘So where have they gone?' asked Daniel when he'd finished.

‘We don't know,' said William.

‘They could have been murdered,' suggested Amy.

‘They could…' William did his best to sound calm and unworried. ‘But Uncle Larry thinks if they'd been hurt in some way there'd be evidence of… something. The fact is we don't know what's happened to them, but we do know what we have to do while they're gone.' He looked across at their faces. ‘We have to keep this place going. We have to keep the farm running, and the house, and the station, so that it's all still here when they get back. And it's going to take all of us to do that.'

‘So far, Mrs Duggan and me have done all the jobs round the house, but it can't go on like that. Mrs Duggan's got enough to do running the farm, I'm busy with the station… so I've drawn up a list.' William produced a piece of paper. ‘These are the jobs we need you to do.'

Amy and Daniel studied the list. There were a lot of things on it. Several chores for each day.

‘Well?' said William.

‘We have to do all this?' said Daniel.

‘Yes,' said William. ‘It's the only way it's going to work.'

‘I don't want to do the hoovering,' said Daniel. ‘I don't like hoovering.' He turned to Amy. ‘If you do the hoovering, I'll do the washing-up and the chickens.'

‘OK,' said Amy.

And that was when William thought they might be in with a chance.

You could feel the change almost at once. It was as if some pressure had been lifted. Something that had blocked the life flow of the family had been swept away and… well, it wasn't quite like the old days but it was certainly better than it had been.

What astonished William was how willingly his brother did everything on the list. Daniel had never done anything without complaining, but now he would bustle around as if his life depended on it. All the old resentment seemed to have disappeared overnight. He was back to laughing and joking and, best of all, Mrs Duggan wasn't the enemy any more. She was just prickly old Mrs Duggan and if she snapped at him, Daniel didn't snap back, but punched her on the arm and asked for something to eat.

And when William put the second part of the General's plan into effect, it got even better.

‘The passengers sometimes like to go outside
for a walk,' he told Daniel one morning. ‘It used to be Mum who took them, because she knew the names of all the plants and birds and things. I've got someone special coming today, and wondered if you'd do it.'

The special passenger who arrived that afternoon was Mrs Hepworth, the woman who had been rather offended when William had told her she was not allowed outside. She was on her way back to her home world near Deneb.

‘I'm sorry about last time,' he said as he escorted her from the Portal to her room. ‘I made a mistake. If you want to go outside at all today, my brother's all set to take you wherever you like.'

Mrs Hepworth was delighted. William had already put out some clothes for her and, as soon as she was changed, he took her upstairs. Daniel was waiting for them at the back door, with a pair of binoculars round his neck, several reference books in a pack on his back and a serious look on his face.

‘I'm Daniel,' he said, holding out a hand, ‘and I'm your guide for this afternoon. Is there anything in particular you wanted to see?'

‘Well…' said Mrs Hepworth, ‘if it's convenient, I'm particularly interested in birds. I've been told you have some species that not only fly but… go under water?'

‘Yes, we do,' said Daniel. ‘I can show you some of those.'

Mrs Hepworth beamed down at him. ‘In that case, lead the way young man! Lead the way!'

Daniel led their visitor crawling through mud along the side of the river bank to show her a kingfisher. He made her wade through waist-deep water to look at a coot's nest, and then made her hide in a patch of nettles to see a heron spear a fish with its beak then carry it back to its young.

Mrs Hepworth came back to the farm nearly three hours later, covered in scratches, soaked to the skin, with mud all over her face and clothes, and a swelling on her right arm where she had been stung by a wasp.

And William had never seen anyone look so happy.

When Uncle Larry called in at the end of the week he said that Mrs Hepworth had been so impressed by the way she had been looked after that she had sent him a special message of thanks.

‘So congratulations!' he said, as he sat with William on a couple of sun-loungers on the patio, looking out over the valley. ‘And how are things going apart from the station? Is it any better between Daniel and Mrs Duggan yet?'

‘They're fine now,' said William. ‘It's been brilliant. They get on really well.'

‘You're quite sure about that?' said Uncle Larry. ‘I only ask, because they seem to be trying to kill each other at the moment.'

William looked over towards the barn, where Daniel and Amy were trying to force Mrs Duggan to the ground. Amy had flung herself round her mother's neck and Daniel had his arms wrapped tightly round her ankles.

‘Do you think one of us should go over and stop them?'

‘It's all right,' said William. ‘They're only playing.'

The arms round the feet finally took effect and Mrs Duggan toppled like a great tree to the ground. With a whoop of triumph, Daniel and Amy sat on her back and began punching her.

‘Playing?' said Uncle Larry doubtfully.

‘Oh, yes!' William smiled. You couldn't help but admire the woman. The play fights were just what the children needed, and she was brilliant at it.

‘Aren't they hurting her?' Uncle Larry winced as Amy jumped up and down on Mrs Duggan's stomach.

‘They're just working off a bit of energy,' said William. ‘It was another of General Ghool's ideas.'

‘Ah!' Uncle Larry relaxed. ‘Well, if he suggested it, I suppose it's all right. It's what he does for a living, after all.'

‘Is it?'

‘Oh, yes,' said Uncle Larry. ‘You get a quarrel breaking out between two countries, and General Ghool's the man they send in to sort it out. One of the Federation's top troubleshooters. And I suppose sorting out a family's just the same thing on a smaller scale.'

He gazed out over the valley for a moment before continuing. ‘I must say I'm impressed. Station running smoothly. Delighted passengers. Everything working the way it should.' He reached across and patted William's knee. ‘All we need now is some good news about your parents, eh?'

Unfortunately, when the news came, it was not good. A message from Prince Helmut arrived a little before two o'clock the next morning, and William and Uncle Larry watched it together in the station kitchen.

‘Greetings, William!' said the hologram of the Prince. ‘Sorry not to have been in touch before, but you wouldn't believe how busy it's been! I've been working non-stop setting up this Trust thing – which has been
very
successful by the way. We've raised millions of credits and I've had thousands of letters of support, all very flattering! Anyway…' Prince Helmut paused briefly to gather his thoughts, ‘…you may remember I promised to ask the Guardian here what had happened to your parents and I have – but I'm afraid I didn't get
much of an answer. The Guardian tells me his Touchstone has no idea what happened to your mother and father and… what?'

There was the murmur of another voice from somewhere to the Prince's side and he listened for a moment before turning back to William.

‘He says his exact words are that he “cannot access the information you require”, but he wants me to tell you there's no evidence of anyone, anywhere, wanting to do your parents harm. I don't know if that's any help but… well, it's all he has to say.' Prince Helmut looked briefly to his right to check this was the case before continuing. ‘I hope you find out what happened to them at some point. I must go. Big charity dinner tonight! Good luck!'

‘I thought,' William turned to Uncle Larry, ‘that a Guardian with a Touchstone knew everything.'

‘They do… mostly.' Uncle Larry frowned. ‘But there is one limitation. They can only access an event from the Great Memory if that event has been held in the mind of at least two conscious entities. Otherwise it's too small to retrieve.'

William wasn't quite sure what this meant.

‘It means,' said Uncle Larry, ‘that whatever happened to your mother and father, there are no two people who know what it was.' He began pacing up and down, his forehead wrinkled in a
deep frown. ‘Which I suppose is helpful in a way.'

‘Is it?'

‘Well, it means we can rule out certain things.' Uncle Larry ticked the items off on his fingers. ‘We know now that your parents didn't go off anywhere together. We know they can't have been kidnapped and we also know that whatever happened to one of them must have happened without the other one knowing. Because any of those things would involve two people knowing about what happened, and if two people knew, the Guardian would have been able to tell us about it. On the same logic, we also know that no one has seen your parents or spoken to them since the day they disappeared.'

‘But that's not possible, is it?' asked William.

‘No,' said Uncle Larry, ‘it's not.' He paused. ‘Except that it seems to be what's happened.'

The news was rather discouraging, and William wondered whether he should tell the others, until he remembered what the General had said about not hiding bad news from the troops. He told them at breakfast, explaining as well as he could what Uncle Larry had said about the Guardians and Touchstones, and was surprised how well they took it.

‘Have to manage on our own a bit longer then,' said Mrs Duggan when he'd finished, ‘but I reckon
we can do that. Done it before, do it again.' She looked down at Daniel and Amy sitting either side of her and the children nodded their agreement. ‘So let's get on with it, eh?'

Amy set about clearing up breakfast, Daniel went outside to do the chickens and Timber started loading washing from the basket into the machine. It was only later that morning that Daniel expressed any visible anxiety. He came into the office, where William was working out Mrs Duggan's money, and asked, ‘You don't think they're dead, do you?'

‘No, I don't,' said William. ‘I don't know why, but… I don't.'

‘No. Me neither.' Daniel stared out of the window for a moment and then asked if he and Amy could dig out a swimming pool behind the barn.

‘Only with shovels and spades,' William told him. ‘No jack hammers and no digging under buildings. Remember what happened to the outhouse wall.'

For the next week, things went fairly smoothly. The bricks came and went. There were three passengers through the Portal – none of whom caused any difficulties – and when Brin arrived on Saturday to check how things were going he
said he couldn't have run the place better himself. In fact, things were going so smoothly that William had time to take up a new hobby.

It started with a passenger called Porlock who, like Hippo White, had left something for William's father to repair and asked, soon after he arrived, if it was ready to collect yet.

‘I don't want to be a nuisance,' he said, ‘but I was hoping to give it to my son for his birthday.'

William said he didn't know if the repairs had been completed, but offered to take Porlock down to the workshop and check. They found the object – it was a small, brightly coloured cube – but according to the workbook, although William's father had found the fault – a burnt-out circuit board – and even made a replacement, it had not yet been fitted.

William picked up the cube, and asked what it was.

‘It's a toy,' said Porlock. ‘It makes this
zzzip
when it moves and
bop
when it stops. and then
whirrrrrs
when it stands still. My father gave it to me when I was little and… and I was very fond of it.'

He looked, William saw, extremely disappointed and later that morning, while Porlock was out with Daniel, it occurred to William to ask Emma if fitting the new circuit board would be a complicated or
difficult business. The station computer told him that it wasn't.

‘Do you think I could do it?' William asked. ‘I mean, I don't want to damage it or anything.'

‘The task is not complicated,' said Emma. ‘I estimate you could complete it in ten minutes.'

With Emma telling him what to do, the repair actually took less than five. It was a simple matter of removing the outer casing – held in place by magnets rather than screws – sliding the new circuit board into position and then putting the whole thing together. He gave the finished item to Porlock when he returned from his walk and his face lit up with delight.