On Monday, the fifteenth of February, Steven and Jacob set off on their trip to the North. It was a sensible, properly arranged holiday, father and son off together to visit a computer show in York and then on to another one in Sunderland. That was not even a lie. There really were computer shows scheduled for those venues, and Steven really did intend to look in on them. Lydia was used to her husband’s work taking him away from time to time. It now seemed very natural that Jacob should follow in his father’s footsteps.
The train left King’s Cross Station at ten-thirty in the morning. Father and son settled down in the seats reserved for them. Today they were travelling as far as York. Steven had decided not to go by car. He had no intention of buying anything: the computer shows were no more than a useful pretext.
‘The show’s on Wednesday,’ said Steven, ‘and we’ll head for Casselton straight afterwards. The Sunderland show is on Friday. We’ll look in on that on the way home.’
‘And in York today,’ said Jacob, ‘we’ll get to see the Gwynns.’
‘You’re looking forward to that, aren’t you?’ said his father.
‘Yes,’ said Jacob, ‘I am. You do realize that I have seen what you have never seen?’
‘Oh?’
‘I have seen another Ormingatrig face to face, here on Earth, and not just on a screen.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it that way,’ said Steven. ‘It will be strange talking to them. Till now, it has been strictly against the rules.’
The day was cold but bright. For a while, Jacob looked out of the window at the passing fields whilst Steven read the newspaper. Silence eventually gave birth to thought. Jacob asked again the question his father had failed to answer.
‘The communicator said your work had to be finished by the first of March. I asked you why. You never gave me an answer.’
Steven folded the newspaper and tucked it into the netting on the seat in front. ‘I suppose I’d better tell you now,’ he said. ‘You have a right to know.’
‘Well?’
‘Remember how I altered the dock on the Gwynns’ spaceship?’
‘Yes.’
‘I had to do the same with ours. It was an order and I was inside the ship. Even if I had wanted to disobey I was in no position to do so. You must understand that.’
‘Dad,’ said Jacob irritably, ‘so far, I understand nothing, though I’m beginning to guess.’
‘Well, then, to cut a long story short, if that’s what you want, our own spaceship is now scheduled to take off on the first of March at two o’clock in the morning.’
At first Jacob could not quite grasp what this implied. ‘Where is the ship meant to be going? How long will it be away?’
He had already seen one short trip, when Patrick Derwent was flown from Edinburgh to Casselton. All sorts of trips were surely possible? Especially for his father, the facilitator, the custodian of the Brick, the manipulator of shields.
‘Are you being deliberately stupid?’ said Steven with a flash of anger. ‘I – and you – we are meant to be going to Ormingat. There is no return ticket.’
Jacob felt breathless and sat back just staring down the carriage but not really seeing anything.
‘Say something,’ said Steven. ‘You know it now. So what do you say?’
‘I can’t say anything,’ said Jacob. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Will it help if I tell you that we aren’t going?’ said his father with a smile that was more sad than happy. ‘We can stay here on Earth and let the ship go without us.’
‘Another ship going into space without passengers?’ said Jacob. ‘That doesn’t seem right or fair.’
Steven was pensive. Jacob seemed wise beyond his years. Steven felt compelled to be totally honest with him and to try, somehow, to convey some of his own deeper thoughts.
‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘In fact, I know better than you what a failure this is. For two hundred and fifty years, spaceships have travelled to Earth and back. Never till now has a ship returned without its passengers. And now there has been one and there will be two. The Ormingat in me, kept secret but powerful and pulling at my heartstrings, can only see it as dire failure. The system that brought us here is breaking down. Maybe it started with the crash on Walgate Hill. Perhaps it goes further back than that – when Kraylin broke the STI and no means was found to mend it. But I can’t be responsible for anybody else. My own failure is my own – just that. I am not part of a pattern.’
Jacob saw with alarm that his father’s eyes were brimming with tears. ‘Well, go,’ he said. ‘If it is so important, we can both go. I too am Ormingatrig.’
‘You too are Lydia’s son,’ said Steven. ‘Would you break her heart?’
Jacob was fourteen and could already see that the world was bigger than Heath Lane. It was even bigger than London.
‘I will be leaving some day,’ he said. ‘I love my mother, I love her very much, but if necessity says leave, then perhaps I could. And if you must go, then surely I should. It’s not easy to think about.’
‘It is,’ said Steven grimly. ‘It is very easy. I have been dishonest with myself till now. There is no way in this universe that I could ever leave your mother. She needs me.’
‘She might not,’ said Jacob. ‘What would happen if you died? She would have to manage without you then.’
‘If I died,’ said his father, ‘then she would not be my responsibility. But whilst I live and breathe I must look after her.’
‘She’s not a child.’
‘No,’ said Steven, ‘but her whole life revolves around her home and her family. I can’t destroy her happiness. She is my waif-soul. She is my Match Girl standing out in the snow. Don’t ask me again what that means. I don’t choose to tell you.’ He squeezed his eyelids together to force back his tears.
Jacob linked his arm through his father’s and leant briefly against his shoulder. ‘So the ship will go home empty?’ he said.
‘Unless I can find some other passengers to take our place,’ said Steven in a voice that was deliberately flippant.
‘Ormingatriga?’
‘They could hardly be anything else!’
The train drew into York Station, on time for once, and Jacob and Steven descended in silence. Hardly a word passed between them as they checked into the hotel where they would be staying for two nights before travelling further north.
In silence they made their way to the bus stop outside the Museum Gardens. It was the second time Jacob had made this trip. He had been looking forward to showing his father the way, to being his guide on a real bus to a real house in a real street. But now much of the exhilaration had gone. Why did life have to be so serious?
Steven put an arm round his shoulders. ‘It’s not all that bad, you know,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Even if the ship has to return empty. I’ll guide it on its way. I expect they’ll even want me to go on working for them. It’ll be harder without the communicator. But I can do wonders with the Brick. You know I can. You’ve seen me.’