Despite the weather, and the sense of urgency, they walked up to the cemetery. Their own car would have been an encumbrance, a taxi an embarrassment. They walked quickly and by the time they got there both were slightly out of breath, and very uncomfortable.
The wind had blown a thin drizzle in their faces all the way up the hill. The night was dark and trees in the cemetery wept needlessly over silent graves. No ghost would come haunting. No one was even watching from a window. Lady Maudleigh had already closed her curtains. As for the fox, he was curled up beneath a shrub, licking a small wound he had collected earlier in the day, and feeling bedraggled and forlorn.
Two living beings had the whole of Swains Lane entirely to themselves.
Steven shivered as he took out the ruler and unfolded it with gloved fingers. To get into the ship, out of the rain’s and the wind’s way, would be a welcome transition.
Entry was as smooth as usual.
Steven directed Jacob to the sofa and told him to sit quietly and just observe. ‘This is going to be tricky,’ he said grimly. ‘There are too many things I don’t know, and I am determined to be told.’
Then he moved towards the green cube. On the panel beneath it there was one simple lever. He pulled it sharply to the right, into its loop. Before contact was made, Steven knew that this emergency must be connected with the missing accident victim. What puzzled him was that at no time had he been asked to provide help or protection for anyone in the North of England.
Who was located there?
What was this all about?
Agents never met, of course, but it was part of Steven’s job to know who they were and to be ready to provide remote assistance. He had never heard of any agent living or working in Casselton.
The green cube glowed and swivelled on its axis. Trouble. Great trouble.
‘Yes,’ said Steven tersely. He sat smouldering, waiting for what was coming next.
One of our observers has diminished.
‘We all diminish to enter our spaceships,’ said Steven icily. ‘Diminution is part of our system.’
One of our observers has diminished.
‘Which observer and where?’ said Steven, thinking that this question might work, might spur the sluggish equipment to get on with it.
In Casselton. Vateelin is out of context.
‘I have never heard of an agent called Vateelin,’ said Steven in a voice that threatened subservience. ‘No warning has been given to me of his arrival. I have made no preparations.’
The communicator did not reply. It simply repeated itself. In Casselton. Vateelin is out of context.
Steven gave the communicator a baleful look. It was clearly necessary to try another tack. Query ‘context’? That might work. The communicator generated English that was near perfect. But, unlike the Ormingat agents, it remained a translator and sometimes its translations were less than clear.
Out of context, thought Steven. Yes. This agent must have diminished at the wrong time, in the wrong place. And the wrong place would have to be outside the ship. Outside the ship!
‘How is this agent out of context?’ said Steven, not really expecting a coherent reply. Talking to the communicator could be a very uphill battle.
But he got one.
Vateelin’s Earth body was about to be crushed between two vehicles. We have not encountered this before. It is assumed that when the space between the two vehicles became too small for a human context, his body was informed to diminish.
‘But what was he doing there in the first place?’ said Steven. ‘Where should he have been?’
Vateelin was thrown into the air and landed on the windscreen of a car travelling on the opposite side of the road. We must track him, find him and protect him until the current irregularity can be corrected. That is for you to do.
‘I haven’t a clue whom you’re talking about,’ said Steven. ‘You expect me to go and find someone I don’t know in a location that is unspecified and then do a job that I have never been called upon to do before. No, no, no!’
Yes.
Steven did not speak.
Jacob was on the edge of his seat, waiting for his father to answer. This situation was fantastic, marvellous even. He wanted to know where it would lead. This surely was a very special mission. Yet there was his father, glaring at the cube and not giving an inch. Jacob had to bite his tongue to hold back his own questions.
First to break the silence was the cube. It sounded almost conciliatory. You will be given directions.
‘Directions!’ stormed Steven. ‘I’ll need more than directions. I want to know who this character is and why he is here on my patch without my knowledge. Every agent in Western Europe should be known to me. Intelligence does not operate in a vacuum.’
The cube ignored this outburst completely.
The car is a blue Mercedes. It is now at rest in a town called Morpeth. Full details of its identification, exact location and plate numbers will appear on the screen of the protection module.
Jacob looked at his father doubtfully. The cube was clearly directing their attention to this car, where presumably the hapless victim of the accident was still lodged. To go on saying no was impossible. The Brick was the protection module – he knew that. So they must return to the Brick.
Steven was still enraged, but rapidly coming to the same conclusion. ‘Locating the car does not mean that I can locate the man,’ he said sulkily. ‘I have never had to find a diminished one on this Earth. It might be impossible.’
The communicator ignored this.
Go now.
‘I have the right to know more about Vateelin,’ said Steven in protest. ‘Who is he? What is he doing here?’
Consult archives.
‘Archives?’ said Steven. ‘What is he doing in the archives? How long has this fellow been in my area, for goodness’ sake? Why do I know nothing about him? What sort of skulduggery is this?’
Go now. Time is short.
And so, thought Steven, is your information. And so, thought Steven irreverently, is this fellow Vateelin. Why did he have to go and get himself in such a mess? Could he not have watched where he was going?
Jacob got up and clutched his father’s hand. If time were short, the spaceship would be swift to disgorge them. Just as he was thinking this, the doors opened and he and his father were catapulted out into the stormy night.
They ran all the way home, heedless of the weather. The one was goaded on by irritation; the other was eager to see how the alien called Vateelin might be saved.