The Portal (16 page)

In the Portal room, the stretcher lowered them to the floor and Brin slid it out from beneath them. There was something behind his back, William could feel, to stop him falling over and he sat there, wondering how long he would have to wait.

Brin gave him a reassuring smile. ‘Everyone's waiting for you at the other end, but we're going to leave it as long as possible before we go, so there's time for a word with your brother – if you think you can manage it?'

Slowly, William managed to open his mouth and speak. ‘Why?'

‘He's worried about you,' said Mrs Duggan.

‘He knows something's up,' said Brin, ‘and
although we keep telling him you're all right, he thinks you're going to disappear like your parents did. If you could tell him that's not going to happen?'

William wondered how reassuring it would be to see your brother on a stretcher holding hands with someone who was dead, but then remembered this was Daniel. Someone dead would probably just make it more interesting. He nodded again and Mrs Duggan said she would go and get him.

‘Here.' Brin was holding out a glass of something with a straw. ‘Have a drink of this.'

William wasn't sure what the drink was but it helped. Almost immediately, he felt the energy coming back into his body. He felt more solid, more real, and by the time Mrs Duggan returned with Daniel and Amy he was able to turn his head and give them what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

Daniel stared at him, white-faced and worried. ‘Is she really dead?'

‘Only a bit,' said William. ‘And no, you can't have the skull.'

Daniel grinned. ‘You look really weird!'

‘I feel a bit odd,' William admitted. ‘Try not to burn the house down while I'm gone.'

‘OK!'

William looked at Amy. ‘Nice outfit.'

‘Thank you!' Amy smiled happily. ‘It's a puff-skirt. I think they're making a comeback because –'

‘Tell him later,' Mrs Duggan interrupted. ‘Lad needs to save his strength.'

It was true that William needed all his strength over the next hour. Twice Brin gave him a drink from the mug with the straw, but it seemed to have slightly less effect each time and William was quietly relieved when he heard Emma announce from the ceiling that it was time to go.

A moment later he was falling through the Portal, falling and falling and… not falling at all, but rising, travelling up and up until he was back in the same room only it wasn't the same room because Brin and Mrs Duggan weren't there and this room was filled with people and they were reaching forward and one of them was undoing the bandage that tied his hands to Lady Dubb's, and another woman with long, dark hair was lifting the silver box from round his neck and smiling and telling him it was OK, and suddenly Lady Dubb wasn't there on the edges of his mind any more and he could move and talk quite normally again.

At least he could have done if he had wanted, but he was so tired that he had no inclination to do any of those things, and the woman with the
long hair was smiling at him again and telling him it was all right, that everything was all right… and he could sleep.

William wasn't quite sure how long he slept, but when he woke he was extremely hungry.

‘Giving half your life energy to someone else can take it out of you,' said Uncle Larry as he bustled in with a breakfast tray and placed it on William's bed. ‘You'll feel better once you've got this inside you.'

From the shape of the room, and the strange design of the furniture, William guessed he must be in one of the passenger suites on the Q'Vaar station, but the breakfast on the tray looked reassuringly normal. There was a bowl of porridge, a plate of what looked like bacon and eggs, and a very large pile of toast.

‘I tried to choose food that was close to what
you're used to,' said Uncle Larry. ‘The bread's not as good as yours but this stuff,' he pointed to the bacon, ‘is amazing.'

‘Is Lady Dubb all right?' asked William .

‘She most certainly is!' Uncle Larry helped himself to one of the pieces of toast. ‘New heart, new set of arteries, and looking forward to thanking you.' He took two bits of the bacon and folded them inside the bread. ‘Because if you hadn't done what you did, she'd have died.'

‘I thought she had,' said William.

‘I mean it would have been too late to revive her,' said Uncle Larry. ‘If you leave it too long, even with Life Support, there's nobody left inside to bring back.' He took a bite of his sandwich. ‘As I'm sure you knew.'

‘No,' said William. ‘No, I didn't.'

‘Oh… Well, it's simple enough.' Uncle Larry took another bite. ‘Your soul leaves your body when you die, but there's still a connection for ten or fifteen minutes, so if you do a quick enough repair, it can come back. What Life Support does is give you another hour or so, but after that the soul moves on anyway, and whatever you do to the body, you'll never get back the person who was in it.'

Uncle Larry patted William's arm, leaving a slight stain of grease on his sleeve. ‘You did exactly
the right thing! In fact, you did the
only
thing that could have saved her and we're all very proud of you! Now…' He stood up. ‘I'll let you concentrate on your breakfast, but when you've finished there's a lot of people want to see you.' He walked to the door. ‘Get Betty to show you the news feature while you're eating. You'll enjoy that!'

Betty turned out to be the Q'Vaar station computer. She had a voice exactly like Emma's and she showed William the news item in a hologram that appeared at the end of his bed while he ate his porridge.

The report began with images of William and Lady Dubb arriving through the Portal, while a voice-over explained how Lady Dubb, ‘famous lone survivor of the
Corinthian
', had had a heart attack and been given Life Support by ‘plucky young William Seward', the manager of the Earth Portal.

As Lady Dubb was swept away by the medical team and William was placed on a stretcher, the reporter explained how William, who had recently taken over the station after the ‘mysterious disappearance' of his parents, had ‘without hesitation and with no regard for his own personal safety' courageously used his life energy to keep her alive for the hour it took to get her to Q'Vaar.

After that, there was an interview with Lady
Dubb, sitting up in bed at the medical centre, saying what a remarkable young man William was and how she looked forward to seeing him and thanking him for what he had done. Finally, there was an interview with Uncle Larry who said that he was delighted that everything had turned out so well, though he did want to point out that all his staff were carefully trained to cope with exactly this sort of emergency.

When the report was finished, Betty asked if he wanted to see any of his messages, and it was these that made William realize that the news report must have been shown, quite literally, around the galaxy. There were hundreds of them, and more coming in, Betty told him, with every brick.

A few of the messages were from people he knew. There was a cheery greeting saying well done from Hippo White, a kind note of congratulations from General Ghool, and a rather nice hologram from Aventa which said simply, ‘You toerag! How come you treat old ladies better than you did me?'

But most of the messages were from men and women living on planets light years from Earth, whom William had never met. Some wanted to say how brave they thought he had been. Some wanted to say they had been in similar situations
themselves and knew how he must have felt, and some just wanted to say that Lady Dubb was a very special person and anyone who kept her alive and kicking deserved a seriously big thank you. They all had their own reasons for writing but a large number of them, William noticed, were from people who had known his father.

Somewhere in their letters, after they'd congratulated him on ignoring the risks involved in giving anyone Life Support, they would mention that they had met William's father while travelling through the Portals – sometimes years before – and remembered the kindness he had shown in looking after them. It was the first most of them had heard of Mr and Mrs Seward's disappearance, and they would go on to say that they hoped there would soon be news of their safe return.

A message from a man called Napier, on a world even closer to the Rim than Earth, was fairly typical. The hologram showed a man sitting at a desk with a tantalizing glimpse of an alien landscape partly visible through the window behind him.

‘Hi William,' the message began. ‘You don't know me but I just wanted to say how moved I was to hear what you did for Lady Dubb. The Federation needs people like her, particularly in these troubled times, so… well done. We all know how dangerous giving Life Support can be,
but you went straight in there. Good for you!'

Uncle Larry came back in at that point, and William was about to turn the message off when Uncle Larry waved for him to carry on, pulling up a chair to sit by the bed and watch.

‘The news report said,' the figure in the hologram continued, ‘that your parents had “mysteriously disappeared”. I'm not sure what that means but I hope they're all right. Your father and I saw quite a bit of each other back in the sixties. I was doing a lot of travelling then and I remember how I always looked forward to calling in at the Earth station. It didn't matter what time you got there, your father would be waiting, ready to greet you, and however tired and grouchy you were when you arrived, a few hours with your dad and you'd be thinking maybe things weren't quite so bad after all. He could do that, your dad! I never knew how. Anyway, I hope he gets back all right – and your mother – and when they do, give them my best wishes, will you?'

The hologram flicked out.

‘There's a lot of them like that,' said William. ‘From people who knew Dad.'

‘I'm not surprised,' said Uncle Larry. ‘Very popular man your father. Twenty years in the business. He made a lot of friends. Are you going to have that last bit of bacon?'

William shook his head, and Uncle Larry took the bacon and a piece of toast and made himself another sandwich. He chewed thoughtfully for a minute and, when he finally spoke, it was in a quieter, gentler voice than the one he normally used.

‘Did I ever tell you why I chose your dad to be station manager?' he asked.

‘No,' said William.

‘Well, when old Donald Peterson finally decided to retire and I had to find a replacement,' Uncle Larry said, settling back in his chair, ‘I knew I needed someone who was honest, reliable, trustworthy and so on – but there was one other quality I was looking for that was at least as important as any of those.'

Uncle Larry's sandwich was dripping butter on to the floor, and William put a plate under it.

‘A lot of people think managing a station is just a matter of pouring out drinks and making sure there's clean sheets on the bed, but it's a lot more than that – at least it is if you're doing it right. We get some very important people coming through the Portals – planetary ambassadors, captains of industry, government officials – the sort of people who have to make big decisions, and it matters if they come out at the end of a journey feeling tired and bad-tempered. They need looking after.'

‘A good manager is someone who knows what a passenger needs almost before they've said it. He has this knack of making things easier for the people around him, he can get them to relax, he can make things…
comfortable
. Your dad could do it brilliantly. That's why people liked him. That's why they liked calling in at the Earth station, and that's why they wrote all those letters when they heard he'd disappeared.'

‘I think it's a gift some people are born with.' Uncle Larry had noticed the butter on the floor and bent down to wipe it up with the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Like some people are good at sports or music, some people are born good at… at people. They know how to look after them. They seem to know… how they
work
. And in case you hadn't noticed,' Uncle Larry reached out and touched William lightly on the arm, ‘it's a gift you have yourself.'

‘Me?'

‘I can't tell you how worried I was at the thought of leaving you alone with your brother and Mrs Duggan and Amy!' Uncle Larry chuckled. ‘I mean, no offence, but what a combination! Mrs Duggan is totally dysfunctional, your brother's mad as a brush, and Amy is downright scary –'

‘They're not
that
bad,' said William.

‘Oh, yes they are!' Uncle Larry disagreed
cheerfully. ‘I told Brin I thought you'd all be killing each other inside a week, but you weren't, were you? Things were a bit iffy for a while, but then you… you worked something out.'

‘And your family was only the start of it! I was here on Q'Vaar when Mr Forrester came through the other day. That man is the grumpiest individual in the quadrant but I watched him come up through the Portal, grinning like he'd won the lottery! I've had a dozen letters in the last month from passengers saying how much they enjoyed going through the Earth station, and I shouldn't be surprised, should I? Because that's what people like you can do. Even when you shoot them, passengers go home to their parents and say it was their own fault.' There was a slight pause before Uncle Larry continued. ‘Which is why I'm hoping you'll take the job.'

‘Job?' said William. ‘What job?'

‘Station manager, of course!' Uncle Larry's eyes peered at William over the top of his glasses. ‘I mean, you've been doing it for the last six weeks anyway, so we all know you can. And you seem to enjoy it. So… what do you say?'

‘I… I…' William was almost too surprised to answer. It might be true that he enjoyed looking after the passengers and the Portal, but… but he could never be station manager.