The tip of the ruler barely touched the soil. That was enough. The ship’s sensors detected it and knew who was holding it. With the speed of lightning, the man and the boy rapidly diminished until they were invisible to the human eye.
Jacob felt the weird sensation of somehow being pulled from without and from within. A great dizziness overcame him and he closed his eyes. When next he opened them he was seated on a sofa in a very strange room.
‘We’ve arrived, Javayl ban,’ said his father, taking the boy by both hands now and trying to project reassurance. ‘Now is the time for me to explain.’
Jacob looked around the room. Half of it was an ordinary living room, comfortable and neat, but with books scattered here and there, and a lived-in look about it. The other half was impossible to understand; its proportions were all wrong, as if its ‘half’ were somehow infinitely bigger.
‘That is what I call the laboratory,’ said Steven, nodding towards it.
High up on one side of this space, under the slope of the dome, was a green, opalescent cube. On the floor of the ‘laboratory’, deep down, ticking softly with the rhythm of a clock, was a huge disc covered in stars. Its face was dark blue velvet. Points of jewel-like light spun across it. A wand three-quarters full of gleaming lights turned as on a pivot around the disc’s equator. It was the most wonderful, mystical thing that Jacob had ever seen.
‘Where are we?’ he said, turning to his father. ‘Where are we, and how did we get here?’
‘See my hands?’ said Steven, cupping his hands together as if holding a ball.
‘Yes,’ said Jacob doubtfully.
‘We are inside a ball that in the outside world I could hold like this in the palms of my hands. That ball is the spaceship that brought me here.’
Jacob gave him a look of disbelief.
‘Outside view! Action replay!’ snapped Steven, flicking his fingers at the cube. It turned from green to silver and then gave a complete re-run of what had happened just seconds before. The man held the steel rule; the boy held the man’s hand. Then man and boy and rule seemed to dissolve into nothingness.
‘We disappeared?’ said Jacob, recognizing himself and his father and the very street where they had stood.
‘No,’ said Steven. ‘We simply diminished and became the size required for these surroundings. And, before you ask, no, I am not a magician. This is pure science – Ormingat science, Javayl ban.’
The cube, which had turned to green again, selected this moment to speak.
It was time to bring the boy. How much has he been told?
The voice spoke in English, but its tone and accent were not of this world.
Jacob felt a shiver run down his spine at the sudden sound of this robotic voice. He stared first at the cube and then at his father. What was coming next? What could come next?
‘Till this evening,’ said Steven to the cube, ‘he knew nothing, except perhaps in his deepest soul. Today is my son’s thirteenth birthday, by Earth reckoning. It was time to make him acquainted with his origins.’
How much has he been told?
‘He knows he is Javayl and that he is very special.’
Take time. Tell him more. Tell him all he needs to know.
The cube then went totally blank, its surfaces an oily, phlegmish grey.
Steven knew what that meant: he was to be left alone with his explanations. So, in as few words as possible, he told Jacob of his own journey from Ormingat, a faraway planet in a different solar system.
‘. . . And I landed in Highgate Cemetery, just inside the wall. It was not exactly where I was meant to land, but near enough for me to find my way. My preparation was superb. I had the speech of this land and the map of this location firmly in my brain. I was Steven Bradwell, a young man with a whole Earth background etched in around him. But the true me is Sterekanda and I remain an alien on this planet.’
‘And I am half alien?’ said Jacob, ever quick in his deductions.
‘No,’ said his father. ‘You remain your mother’s son, of course, but you are totally alien: that is what happened when you were entwined with your name.’
‘So that is why I have always felt so set apart?’
The cube glowed green again. It had detected a truth about the boy. Javayl appeared to be standing in the faintest of shadows.
Not so. Ormingatriga are not necessarily isolated. You were overprotected. Mistakes can be made. Sterekanda made one in ordering your life so.
Steven looked puzzled and then annoyed.
‘I had to protect him,’ he protested. ‘No one must ever hurt him.’
It is you who have hurt him. You put such a cloak of protection between him and the world that he escaped not just harm but all possibility of happiness.
Jacob turned on his father and his look demanded an explanation before he could even put a question into words.
‘What was the cloak of protection? What did you do to me?’
‘I surrounded you with love,’ said his father helplessly. ‘We were so near to losing you.’
Tell him the truth.
‘That is the truth,’ said Steven. ‘I never lie.’
It is not whole truth.
‘So what is the whole truth, Dad? What are you keeping back from me?’
He surrounded you with science.
That didn’t make sense either. Steven’s office at the top of the house was full of computer equipment, not to be touched by the family. That was the nearest they came to anything that could be called ‘science’.
‘Well?’ said Jacob, giving his father a harsh look.
‘At home,’ said Steven, ‘among my earthly computer stuff, there is the item we always call “the Brick”. Remember?’
‘Yes,’ said Jacob. ‘It is orange and shiny and has buttons set in its faces, but it does look a bit like a builder’s brick. That’s why we gave it the name.’
‘It is not Earth equipment. It came with me from the faraway planet. It is my responsibility and the source of my power.’
‘Power to do what?’ said Jacob suspiciously.
‘Power to direct attention away from anyone or anything that needs such protection. It is highly specialized and very sophisticated. That, I suppose, is why it was such fun to call it a brick!’
Steven smiled, but Jacob was not smiling.
‘You directed attention away from me!’ he said, outraged. ‘You made sure that I would never be noticed.’
‘No one ever hurt you,’ said Steven defensively. ‘No one ever teased or bullied you.’
‘No one ever knew me,’ said his son, and for the first time since infancy he began to cry, letting out tears that had been held back for years.
You have much to make up, Sterekanda.
‘I will,’ said Steven, grasping the boy’s hands in his. ‘I truly will.’
To withdraw the shield will not do. You have left it too late for that.
Steven shivered. ‘What can I do then?’ he asked, with unusual humility.
Give him a full part to play in your life. Let him share in the work of Ormingat. Whenever you come to the ship, make sure that he comes too.
‘I will,’ said Steven. Then he said, in self-defence, ‘His sisters know him and love him. His mother dotes on him. There has been no shield within the family home.’
There could not have been even had you so desired.
As they walked home, Jacob was lost in bewildered thought. It was all so impossible. What had just happened to his own body filled him with a sense of unreality. Because, throughout his short life, he had been so little recognized or accepted by the outside world, his home and his family were all and everything to him. Now that safe little boat had been well and truly rocked.
‘What about Mum?’ he asked. ‘How much does she know?’
They were at the corner of Chester Road, making ready to cross. A cyclist came out of Holly Village just as Jacob spoke. Steven gripped his son’s arm and they both stood back. He did not speak until the rider was well past. That gave him time to consider what to say.
‘Your mother is so important a part of my life,’ he said eventually, ‘that sometimes I think she must really know everything.’
‘What have you told her?’ said Jacob, knowing that he could not take these words at face value.
‘Nothing,’ said Steven.
‘Then she knows nothing,’ said Jacob sternly.
Steven smiled wanly. In all the years of his married life he had never been tempted to tell Lydia anything about his other self. The rules of Ormingat would have forbidden it, naturally, but Steven had little respect for the rules. He had great love for Lydia and a fear of saying or doing anything that might destroy her fragile happiness.
‘There are levels of knowledge,’ he said to Jacob, avoiding a straightforward discussion. ‘Words are not everything. Your mother knows me as I am. She is a very special person.’
No one will ever know me, thought Jacob bitterly. That is something you have made sure of. He clenched his fists and his eyes stung with tears.
Steven put an arm around his shoulders, uncertain how to comfort him.
‘You’ll be my helper now,’ he said. ‘This has brought you closer to me. There is a lot to learn and I want to teach you. Take it all slowly. It will come right, Javayl ban.’
‘Will it? Will it, Sterekanda?’
He could have said Sterekanda mesht, but preferred to leave off the endearment. The omission was not lost on his father.