It was all very well Alison saying that she would ring the police first thing in the morning. But, when it came to the point, lifting the phone to say, ‘My daughter is missing’ was much more difficult than she had anticipated.
‘Nesta is not missing,’ Matthew pointed out. ‘She has not been abducted, she has not mysteriously vanished, she has run away. The police will want to know why. How will we explain it?’
Alison looked at him, hesitating, with the receiver already in her hand.
‘What use will they be anyway?’ said Matthew. ‘How often I wonder do they find youngsters who have deliberately run off?’
‘They can find them dead,’ said Alison with a shudder.
Then, after a silence, she said, ‘If we report her missing, we shall at least have something to hold on to, some possibility.’
So it went on. There was thought and counter thought as the Gwynns struggled to know what to do for the best.
‘I don’t know what we should do,’ said Matthew at length. ‘We’ve talked round and round in circles. It isn’t becoming any clearer to me. All I hope is that Nesta has found herself somewhere safe to stay and that, as she thinks about it, she’ll realize that her place is here with us. She could walk in the door any time. Then we would be off and away.’
‘Oh, Mattie!’ said Alison. ‘You know she won’t come back in time. She’s made that quite clear. She wants us to stay here and this is her way of making sure that we do. And what happens next? After the ship goes, where does that leave us? Neither of Earth nor of Ormingat? What will we be?’
Alison was on the edge of a great and frightening thought. But no way would this make her consider the possibility of leaving her child behind.
‘How does she know that we won’t go without her?’ said Matthew impatiently, far more aware than his wife of what they were being forced to give up. It was as if he really knew the edge and what was over it. ‘We could. We would have every right to: the stakes are high.’
Alison gave him a look of disbelief.
‘And what would happen to her? Left here on Earth alone?’
‘She would be taken care of,’ said Matthew. ‘If they can take care of a house and a cat, taking care of a child should be no problem. They would create another illusion. We remember Boston, don’t we?’
Alison shuddered.
‘You do see what I mean, don’t you?’ said Matthew.
‘At this moment, Mattie, I see nothing. My eyes are too full of tears. You talk as if Nesta were safe and sound. Other children have been raped and murdered. What makes you think that our child is immune?’
When dusk came again, Alison and Matthew stood together looking from the back window into the garden, across the patio and the lawn to the pond where the frog squatted on its grey stone lily pad.
‘Ask the communicator,’ said Alison. ‘It is all we can do, and we must do something.’
‘I’ve already told you,’ said Matthew, ‘if I enter the spaceship, I will not be allowed to leave.’
‘We’ll drain the pond,’ said Alison. ‘Then we’ll lift the frog. We’ll lift it just so far, and we’ll call down for help without entering the spaceship at all.’
‘That would never work,’ said Matthew, but his tone belied his words. Maybe it would work. Maybe it was worth a try.
‘It’s worth a try,’ said Alison, echoing his thought.
So together in the growing darkness they went to the pond, drained it, and then tugged at the frog till it tilted leaving a gap between itself and the pad.
‘Help us,’ called Matthew, bending low and cupping his hands to call downwards into the deaf ear. ‘We have lost our daughter.’
From the gap came a streak of blue light. Matthew and Alison felt it drawing them like a powerful magnet. As they struggled backwards their clothes clung around them. Alison had to tear her skirt away from the opening that widened like jaws endeavouring to swallow them. Matthew flung himself at the frog and pushed it back into place. The power was muffled now, but still strong, throbbing beneath the stone as if gathering more strength. Matthew grabbed Alison by the hand and ran with her into the house. As if on cue, large drops of rain began to spatter down on them. They locked the door behind them and went straight to the front room out of sight and sound and, hopefully, influence of the communicator’s will.
‘It is only thinking of our own good,’ said Matthew, panting and wiping his brow with his handkerchief. Short as had been their time in the rainstorm, both had wet hair, and shoulders soaked with rain.
‘It is not thinking in that way at all,’ said Alison bitterly. ‘It is not a sentient being. It is an artefact, a thing, a programmed machine. I should have known better. What we have just done is like asking a phone for help with no one at the other end picking up the receiver.’
‘It was your idea,’ said Matthew. ‘Not mine.’
‘I know,’ said Alison wearily, ‘and I know now that I was wrong.’
‘So what do we do?’ said Matthew.
‘Bang our heads against the nearest brick wall,’ said Alison angrily.
‘We can pray, Athelerane,’ said Matthew helplessly. ‘I don’t really know what more we can do.’
‘Prayer is not something I have gone short on, Maffaylie. I won’t sleep, but I must lie down. I feel too weak to go on.’
Her face was white against the darkness of her damp hair. Her eyes were circled with deep shadows.
At three in the morning, the clock radio by their bed began to buzz again. Matthew and Alison were instantly alert. They gazed eagerly at the clock face, waiting for the voice that would surely tell them what to do.
‘Return-to-the-ship,’ it said. ‘Your-return-is-awaited.’
‘But what of our daughter?’ said Alison. ‘What of Nesta?’
‘Return-to-the-ship,’ said the metallic voice. ‘It-is-time-to-return.’
‘I have lost my daughter,’ said Alison angrily, irritated by the automaton. ‘What can I do?’
‘Return-to-the-ship,’ said the voice.
Matthew listened and knew that they must find some other way of asking the question. The machine might know the answer if only they knew the right way to ask.
‘Find our daughter,’ he said.
‘On-Earth,’ said the machine, ‘use-Earth-means.’
‘Tell what Earth means are,’ said Matthew. He and Alison waited anxiously for the reply, which did not come immediately.
‘Ask-Earth-authorities,’ said the voice at last, clearly experiencing some difficulty. Maybe the effort of communicating through this non-standard contraption was just too great.
‘Report her disappearance to the police here in York?’ said Matthew.
The computer groaned, or maybe it was just the clock.
‘Return-to-the-ship,’ it said. ‘Your-return-is-awaited.’
Then the clock fell silent and became itself again.
‘Not a lot of help,’ said Matthew.
‘Enough to give us the next step,’ said Alison firmly. ‘We do ring the police. We tell them that Nesta has not come home. It is surely time we did.’
‘In the morning,’ said Matthew, ‘in daylight. We are so confused now we would not know what we were saying.’
Alison lay back on her pillow, but first she unplugged the clock from the wall socket. A futile gesture maybe, but she was beyond knowing what was futile and what was not. She was worried and miserable and very, very angry.
At first light, Matthew crept out and turned the valve that filled the pond. It would not do to have policemen wondering why it was empty, or getting too close to the frog on the lily pad.