Again The Pan’s fear gripped him: he couldn’t tell the truth, he had already betrayed the old man and now he would grass up Big Merv. Worse, Gladys, Ada and Their Trev were surely as deeply involved in the Underground as the old man. They were all in danger and somebody had to warn them, and who else was there? The Pan knew that if he told the truth, he would betray everyone and everything he cared for. Even worse, there would be no more reason for Lord Vernon to keep him alive.
His only chance of survival was to keep schtum. His only way of saving the others was to keep schtum and the only chance of actually keeping schtum was not to be around to do any talking. He must escape. Now. He struggled half-heartedly, enough to confirm he could not wriggle free of the guard’s grip. OK, let’s call that plan A. Time to think of a plan B.
“Hold him still,” said Lord Vernon as he approached. “The serum may be injected into any part of the victim’s body, but I find it concentrates the minds of my interviewees so much more closely when it is delivered just—below—the—eye.” He spoke these last words slowly, giving The Pan plenty of time to appreciate what was about to happen. Lord Vernon put his hand over The Pan’s face, pushing his head back so he couldn’t move it. “I would not like you to miss this,” he said, and as The Pan’s eye instinctively tried to close, he used his thumb and first finger to force it open, forcing him to watch as the needle approached. He was shaking, he couldn’t help it; he knew his teeth were chattering, too.
“You are frightened?”
“Well, duh,” said The Pan. He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his tone. For someone devious, smart, evil and out-and-out vicious enough to beat all other Grongolian comers to the position of Lord Protector of K’Barth, Lord Vernon was being remarkably thick.
“You’re about to stick a needle in my eye! Of course I’m scared.” But the thing that was frightening him most was not the needle, it was that he was about to tell the truth.
“Just below your eye; like this,” said Lord Vernon as he injected half a syringe full of Truth Serum into The Pan’s face. Arnold in the skies that smarted! He screamed in a manner that Big Merv would undoubtedly have termed ‘girlie’, but at least, on the up side, it stopped him from crying.
The pain passed, though, and was quickly replaced by numbness. It spread across his face, round the back of his neck, up over his head and down his back. His chest felt numb, as if his heart had stopped. Pins and needles pulsed down his arms and legs to his feet and hands and then back to his body on an endless cycle, like breathing. Lord Vernon was waving in and out of focus. He tried to concentrate.
Where was he? What was he doing? Not talking, that’s right, he mustn’t talk. What was he doing again, he’d forgotten? Oh yes. He had to stay silent but he knew he couldn’t. Maybe he could sing. Yes, that was it! Get something lodged in his head, a repetitive, annoying song which would drive out everything else. Something to block the honesty, an irritating song. By The Prophet’s eyeballs! Why couldn’t he think of an irritating song when he needed one?
After a few minutes, the pins and needles abated and he was able to focus. Not that he wanted to, since the only thing in his immediate field of vision was Lord Vernon. On the upside, he had finally remembered an annoying nursery rhyme and it was buzzing around his brain like a bluebottle in a jar. He took several deep breaths and waited for the questioning to begin.
“Let us start with something simple,” said Lord Vernon. “What is your name?”
“I’m The Pan of Hamgee,” said The Pan’s mouth before his brain could do anything to shut it up. Oh dear, this was going to be ugly. Concentrate on the rhyme, concentrate on the rhyme.
“Occupation?”
The Pan could feel his mouth forming the words but with an immense effort of self-control, he managed to say nothing. He felt wobbly, as if he was using somebody else’s legs or at the least, borrowed knees.
“Resistance,” murmured Lord Vernon, “from you? I am surprised. Perhaps you are your father’s son after all.” He took the syringe, grabbed The Pan by the face and injected the rest of the liquid just below his other eye.
“What did you do that for?” The Pan tried to say, but since his tongue felt like a large rubber brick, all that came out was incoherent mumbling.
“I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that,” said Lord Vernon. He stood back to admire his handiwork and The Pan watched him muzzily. He was looking at his watch, presumably waiting for the effects of the second dose of Truth Serum to kick in. The Pan concentrated on the nursery rhyme. He could only remember the first line. Never mind, it was annoying enough and it was stuck in his head alright.
After a suitable interval, Lord Vernon started his questioning again, but at the deep end this time.
“You stole to order for an old man who is, undoubtedly, very much alive. You may, or may not, know his name, Robin Get, Sir Robin Get—although naturally, as a GBI, his title is revoked and illegal.”
In spite of, or perhaps because of, the gallons of Truth Serum coursing through his veins, The Pan wanted to laugh. What a great name! It should have been Big Merv’s, since he was far more of a robbin’ get than the old man. With a monumental effort he managed not to smile. Ha, poker face was in position! Or was it merely palsied by too much Truth Serum? Who cared? The issue, now, was to keep it there.
“He shares your inability to conform.” This was not intended as a compliment, but The Pan was flattered. In his view people who refused to conform were the people with enough brains to think about what they were asked to do. “He comes from an old banking family but he rejected their morals and became a Nimmist priest, the High Priest, by the time we purged this nation of religion.”
Interesting. It hadn’t occurred to The Pan that he would learn anything like this from Lord Vernon and he made a mental note to try and remember the old man’s name, at least. If he was really the High Priest, then perhaps The Pan should be a bit more deferential in future, too. If he had one, of course.
“So,” Lord Vernon continued, “your landladies—oh yes, I know about them, too—introduced you to Sir Robin, and he hired the Mervinettes to conduct a robbery. You took a safety deposit box containing the one definitive tool used in the Looking from the world’s most impregnable bank, I must congratulate you on your achievement. What was in that box? What was it that you stole?”
Once again The Pan’s mouth went straight into action. This wasn’t good. He was going to ruin everything. What was it Gladys and the old man had called it? ‘Civilisation as we know it’ – yeh, that was a goner. Then The Pan’s ears, which had been concentrating on other things, caught the tail end of what he’d been saying.
“I asked you what you stole,” said Lord Vernon, his voice soft with evil intent. “I will not do so, politely, again.”
“A box,” said The Pan’s brain, “I’m a little teapot!” said his mouth. It was working! Result! On the downside, he could see it was not the result Lord Vernon was looking for, and in that respect it might be, well ... if not dangerous, then uncomfortable.
He watched as, slowly and deliberately, the Lord High Protector of K’Barth removed his sunglasses, folded them carefully and put them in a pouch on his belt. Then, in a blur of lightning-fast movement, he punched The Pan in the face, the force making his head snap sideways. More pain, more pins and needles, but very little time to acclimatise before an equally hard punch in the stomach. The guard must have let go of him, because he was on the floor now. He felt his body lift with the impact as Lord Vernon kicked him and he rolled himself into a ball, gasping and wheezing.
“I’m a little teapot!” he said. Instead of ‘ouch’.
“Do not play games with me,” shouted Lord Vernon, savagely kicking The Pan again, “you may be a fool, but whatever you told the Resistance, I know you have wits enough not to have thrown the items you stole out of the snurd window! Where is Sir Robin Get? Where are the things you took?”
“I don’t know! In the basement of the Parrot and Screwdriver!” said The Pan’s brain, “I’m a little teapot!” said his mouth. Lord Vernon picked him up by the scruff of the neck and threw him sideways. He was almost winded by the impact as he hit the front of the desk; never mind, at least it was flat – a single leg would have done a lot more damage. He rolled over and tried to get to his feet, but Lord Vernon was too quick. Grabbing him again he hauled him over the top, the blotter and its contents scattering in all directions as he did so, and flung him into the chair.
“Tie him down,” he ordered one guard, and to the other: “Get me more Truth Serum! His resistance is astounding.”
While the guards did as they were told he glared at The Pan, his anger almost tangible, dripping across the space between them like molten lead.
“Clearly, I have underestimated you,” he hissed, “but no-one can resist the Truth Serum for long. One way or another, you will tell me everything I wish to know.”
Nope. Oh ho ho.
“I’m a little teapot?”
Three more syringes-full later, The Pan could say nothing else. He hoped Truth Serum wore off as he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with a four-word vocabulary. Not that it wasn’t convenient right now, or that the rest of his life was likely to extend long enough for it to matter. He had been kicked and beaten – he suspected Denarghi had already broken his nose – and now he also had a black eye, judging by the way it was smarting. Lord Vernon could certainly pack a punch and the ring worn by forty generations of architraves hadn’t helped. The Pan wished, even more keenly than before, that he had never sold the wretched thing.