11

21st Side: Per Gaw Hyemma

The taxi pulled up at the gate of Dilsmead Hall, and the green-uniformed security guard came out of his hut. Andrea wound down her window to show her pass. “I’ve got two guests with me. We’re all expected.”

The guard nodded and, taking her pass, went back into his hut to phone reception.

“This might be your last chance, Joe,” Andrea said.

“I’m sticking,” Joe said. He wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. He suspected that he was making a bloody fool of himself, but between curiosity and the hope of gain, he was stuck. Besides, Per, though leaning over the driver’s shoulder and examining the steering wheel and gear stick with interest, was keeping a grip on Joe’s hand that was likely to leave bruises. Joe doubted if Per would allow him to leave.

The barrier across the drive lifted, and the security guard stepped out of his hut, returning Andrea’s pass with a smile and a touch to his peaked cap. The taxi moved forward into the long driveway. “Here we go!” Andrea said, and crossed her fingers.

It hadn’t been too difficult for her to convince Joe that they stood a better chance of reaching the Time Tube with her assistance, especially when she’d shown him her pass. Joe understood how security worked. It had been harder to persuade Per, and to her vexation, Joe’s words had counted more with him than hers. If Joe thought they should go with her, he eventually conceded, then so be it, but Joe was to lead the way, not Andrea. Per feared an ambush.

“You know the office for that taxi company that’s just along here?” Andrea had said to Joe. “Just take us there.” Going around the ring road would mean they avoided the city center, keeping Per away from the old buildings that he might recognize. She couldn’t see that it would be helpful, at that moment, to puzzle and confuse him any more than he was already.

Joe had led the way around the ring road, and Per had gone happily with him, holding his hand. The noise and rush of Elf-Carts so close beside them was still fearful, but Per took courage from Joe, who’d been in Elf-Land longer, and had obviously learned what should and shouldn’t be feared. Joe didn’t seem bothered by the Elf-Carts at all, so Per ignored them as much as he could. His hopes of reaching home rose, and still holding Joe’s hand, he turned and offered his other hand to Andrea. She’d taken it, smiling.

At the taxi office, the woman controller had invited them all inside, to sit on a broken sofa, among piles of old magazines. She’d offered them cigarettes and either didn’t notice that Per was barefoot, and holding hands with Joe, or didn’t care. When Andrea asked if she could use the phone, the woman waved her hand, puffed on her cigarette and said, “Knock yourself out!”

Andrea dialed reception at Dilsmead Hall, and confirmed that she was coming in for three sharp. She’d be bringing a couple of guests with her. “It’s all arranged. I’ll be signing them in.” She held her breath, but reception just said, “Very well, Miss Mitchell, that’s noted.”

When the taxi arrived, getting Per into it was a small problem. He went out to it calmly enough, hand in hand with Joe and Andrea, but when Joe opened the back door, Per pulled back and let go of Joe’s hand. He stooped, peering into the car’s small interior. The idea of getting into an Elf-Cart and riding away in it was thrilling, but actually climbing into that tiny space and being enclosed, trapped, by the magic was something else altogether.

Andrea’s reassurances had been soothing; it was good to feel that she cared about him. But however much she cared, she was an Elf, bound to an Elf-Master.

Joe had climbed into the car and beckoned to Per from inside, repeating, “Air rikti, air rikti.” It’s all right. Joe was picking up words from Per pretty quickly.

Per didn’t wish to appear afraid in front of Joe, and if Joe thought the cart was safe, then it must be. Folding himself up far more than was necessary, Per climbed into the backseat. Andrea quickly shut the door and got in beside the driver. She wondered if without Joe she could have persuaded Per to get in at all.

After telling the driver where to go, she’d turned around to watch Per, and reached between the seats to offer him her hand. For the first few moments after the car pulled away, he’d looked terrified, but after that, realizing that they were still alive and in one piece, he’d begun to grin and to look through the windows, even kneeling on the seat to watch the road and the cars behind. At all times he kept hold of Joe’s or Andrea’s hand, or both.

Now the taxi was crawling up the long graveled drive to Dilsmead Hall itself. The house hadn’t existed in Per’s time. Per ducked to peer at it through the windshield, and was obviously impressed by its size, its marble pillars, and marble steps leading up to the door—another Elf-Palace. At the last curve of the drive before the house a big flower bed was planted on a sloping bank. Blue lobelias made the letters FUP against a background of white alyssum. Per pointed and exclaimed, recognizing FUP’s logo from the 16th-side office.

The taxi rounded the drive’s final bend and drew up at the door. Andrea paid the driver and they got out, Per seeming as reluctant to leave the Elf-Cart as he’d been to get into it.

“Listen,” Andrea said, as they stood at the foot of the marble steps. “Per, lutta. There’ll be guards inside. I think some of them have guns. Pistols, Per, Elf-Pistols. Do nothing to alarm them. Do no even look at them funny. Per, art thou listening? This be important. If thou wants to gan through Elf-Gate, you must do as I say. Joe, tell him to do what I say.”

Joe pointed at her and said to Per, “Air rikti.”

Per nodded. He understood that if they could reach the Elf-Gate and go through it without having to fight, that was much the preferable choice, especially as his leg and his head both hurt. But no matter what anyone said, it might still come to a fight. He knew that he would have to keep careful watch about him as they went into the Elves’ den. He would have to listen to the voices, even though he couldn’t understand the words they spoke. He would have to watch the faces and the movements of all those in sight. He would have to watch, and listen, for the approach of others. His hands would have to be kept free, ready to fight, so there could be no more holding hands. “Yi forstaw.” I understand.

“Joe?” Andrea turned toward him. “I can’t stop you, but do you really want to do this? If we don’t make it through here, you’re going to end up in jail; you might get hurt. If we do make it through—Joe, you’d better be really sure this is worth it.”

Joe’s heart beat quicker. He felt slightly sick. She spoke so seriously that she convinced him all over again, just when he’d begun telling himself that this was all a hoax, being filmed for some TV program. Run away, he thought; it’s always safer. Yeah, run back to sleeping in a cardboard box and eating out of rubbish bins. He gestured toward the steps. “After you.”

Andrea shrugged and led the way into the reception area of Dilsmead Hall. Per and Joe followed.

They pushed through the double doors at the entrance and came into a cool, shadowed hallway. The floor underfoot was mosaic. Couches and soft chairs were arranged around low tables and screened from the door by racks of potted plants. On the far side of the room a receptionist sat behind a curved wooden desk furnished with a computer and several telephones. A security guard in a green uniform leaned against the desk, chatting to her. Doors led from the hall on either side and at the rear of the room, next to the desk

Andrea said, “Keep by me and keep calm, whatever happens. Don’t run, don’t fight.” Rapidly, she repeated it for Per. Then they were at the desk, and the receptionist and the guard were looking at them. Perhaps they’d noticed that Per had no shoes or socks on his feet, and that Joe had slept in his clothes.

“Afternoon,” Andrea said, and showed her pass. “I’m Andrea Mitchell, and these are my two guests.”

The receptionist picked up a clipboard and looked through the papers on it. The guard studied them with what Andrea felt to be suspicion, though he didn’t say anything. “I did phone …” she said nervously, when the receptionist seemed to be taking a long time.

The woman looked up, smiling. “That’s fine. If your guests can just fill out these badges …” She pushed the sheet of security badges across the desk, together with a pen, while she prepared the clear plastic holders and clips.

Joe and Andrea glanced at each other, and then Joe moved forward and picked up the pen. Andrea, feeling her chest tighten and her mouth turning dry, said, “Oh! This is embarrassing. Um. I’m afraid Mr.— Armstrong”—she nodded toward Per, who was standing silently at her side without any understanding of what was going on—“Mr. Armstrong is—sort of—dyslexic. You know? Would it be all right if I filled in his badge for him?”

The woman looked at her blankly.

Leaning forward, Andrea said, “He can’t read or write.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said, looking aside, embarrassed. “Of course. Yes. That would be all right.”

“Thank you.”

Joe was finishing filling out his badge. He’d given his real name. Why not? With any luck, he wasn’t going to be around after today. Against “Company/Institution,” he filled in the name of the last construction company he’d worked for; it sounded official, and hopefully no one would check on it in the next hour or so.

Per had been looking at the receptionist and wondering at her extraordinary, uncanny Elvish beauty—her hair, her lips and the skin around her eyes such strange colors! He was distracted when Joe began to write and watched him with admiration. Joe must have been a man of some standing before he’d been taken into Elf-Land, if he could read and write. Maybe that was why the Elves had taken him.

While the receptionist folded Joe’s badge and fitted it into its plastic holder, Andrea filled out the badge for Per, giving “Peter Armstrong” as his name, and “Bedesdale Holdings” as his company. As she watched the receptionist tear off the badge and fold it, she thought: We’re getting away with it; we’re getting away!

She glanced at her watch. It was five to three.

The meeting was the usual séance, where idiots who couldn’t string two words together, and idiots who could drivel on for hours without ever making a point, competed to see which could render Windsor comatose sooner. He could see Bryce, sitting on the other side of the circle of easy chairs with a dreamy expression that proved he hadn’t heard a word that had been said for the last twenty minutes. It was understandable. Accounts had fielded one of each kind of bore, to try and prove that the 16th Project wasn’t viable.

Windsor bided his time, knowing that as soon as his chance to speak came, he could sway the rest onto his side. He looked at his watch. Just after two. If he was going to check up on Andrea Mitchell, he’d better make his move.

The next time the driveler from accounts paused for breath, Windsor rattled his own notes and said, “Could I put in a word? Thank you, Martin.” He saw relief on several faces around the circle, and Bryce brightened and sat up in his chair. “We needed to hear that, but time marches on, and I’m sure we’ve all grasped accounts’ view of things.”

There was some laughter. Martin from accounts subsided.

“If I could just hit you with some other figures that you might find of interest …” Briefly, in a way he knew to be accomplished, Windsor went through some figures he’d obtained for the South American Project, where FUP was already bringing through hardwood and plant samples. “I know that with my present audience, I don’t have to mention the price we could charge for mahogany if the market’s managed properly.”

There was more laughter, a further perking up of interest, and knowing looks from one to another. Bryce looked around at the other people in the room with him. He didn’t know how much could be charged for mahogany, and was suddenly keenly aware of how he was regarded by his present company: the stupid security man, all brawn, no brain.

“Furthermore,” Windsor said, “the science boys are confident that, in the next few years, the plant samples we’re bringing back are going to yield a cancer vaccine. I’ll just mention two facts, gentlemen. One, a cancer vaccine will be more profitable even than mahogany.” A burst of laughter recognized that. “And two, many of these plants are extinct here, 21st side, where we haven’t, let’s face it, always taken the greatest care of our natural assets. Now, it’s true we aren’t going to get any mahogany from the 16th Project, and probably no cancer vaccine either, but we don’t know what other vastly profitable folk medicines we might be overlooking. And we know for certain that, 16th side, we have gold, we have oil, we have natural gas, just for starters. And yet, because of a few teething problems and a few unexpected expenses, accounts wants us to abandon the project. Gentlemen, this would be throwing away a million to save a fiver. Let me—let me just tell you something about what we’ve got 16th side. I have an advantage over accounts—instead of reading columns of figures, I’ve actually been there.”

This produced a buzz of interest and made the faces of the men from accounts go hard.

Windsor launched into a description of the 16th. Bryce, listening, noted that he mentioned not a word about the problems that had actually taken him through the Tube. Instead he spoke confidently about the beauty of the place, the colors, the freshness, the clean air, the peace, until several people at the table looked as if they might inquire about package tours. Then he made them laugh by describing the Sterkarms’ charming but pressing hospitality and contrasting it with the discomfort of their home and the vileness of their food.

“They live in this paradise, and they don’t have the slightest appreciation of it! Really, we’ll be doing them a favor by taking it over and showing them what it can be!”

There was more laughter. Bryce looked from face to face and concluded that none of them had stopped to consider what “taking it over” from the Sterkarms would really—really—entail. Perhaps they thought the Sterkarms would hand over their land with a smile.

“Ah, coffee!” Windsor said, as the urn was wheeled in on a cart. Shall we adjourn for a few minutes? After that, I’m sure marketing will be glad to enthrall us.”

The people were glad to rise, to stretch, to gather around the coffee urn and chat and laugh over what Windsor had said. Windsor quietly left the room. Just time to nip over to the Tube and check on whether Mitchell had reported, as instructed. If she had, his checking up in person would impress everyone. If she hadn’t, he could make a note to have her guts for garters sometime in the immediate future, and that would make everybody else pull their socks up.

Slipping along the corridor, he took the stairs that would lead him down to reception. From there he could cut back through the house, and leave it by a back door almost directly opposite the Time Tube itself.

Andrea took the name badge from the receptionist and tried to clip it to Per’s jakke. It was difficult, as the leather of the jakke, even where it wasn’t full of old iron, was too thick for the little jaws of the grip to bite on. She was fiddling with it when a voice demanded, “What the hell is going on here?”

She jumped and almost dropped the badge. Windsor had just emerged from a hidden stair at the side of the reception hall. He stood there, very tall, the expanses of suiting across his chest and shoulders glowing with the dark, smooth beauty of the cloth, his dark hair brushed up into a peak above his forehead.

Annoyed as Windsor was, it was gratifying to see the way they all turned toward him with their mouths open—Andrea, young Sterkarm and the tramp they’d somehow acquired. Alarm and dismay: that was what he liked to see.

“What is he doing here?” Windsor demanded, waving toward young Sterkarm. He looked at Joe. “And who’s he? Call security.”

“No, don’t!” Andrea said. “Mr. Windsor, please don’t call security.”

“Call security,” Windsor repeated. He pointed to the tramp. “I want this person removed now. How the hell has he been let in here in the first place?” He glowered at the receptionist, who began trying to explain. “Save it. Tell them at the Job Center.” Windsor beckoned to young Sterkarm. “You come with me.” Windsor didn’t know what he was going to do with Per if he came, but certainly he had to be separated from his girlfriend. “Come. With. Me. Miss Mitchell, will you tell him, please?”

Double doors crashed open on the other side of the reception hall. Two security guards in green uniforms came through. Joe moved away from them, and backed toward Per. “Come on,” one of the guards said to Joe. “Time to leave. Easier if you just go quietly.”

“Vah sayer han?” Per asked. He was standing with his back against the reception desk, trying to look in all directions at once.

Andrea said, “I think we’d better give up, Per. There are too many of them.”

“Come on now,” one of the guards said, beckoning to Joe invitingly. They seemed wary of actually starting a fight.

Per looked at the nervous guards, at Joe, and at the Elf-Laird, Windsor, who stood back, very sure of himself. One thing was clear in Per’s mind: He wasn’t going back to the Elves’ sick house. That was a fact as simple and unchangeable as the stone floor under his feet. He wasn’t leaving this building except through the Elf-Gate.

It was easy to see in the Elf-Laird’s face what pleasure he had in having them cornered. Per remembered how the Windsor had spoken to Andrea, ordering her about. It made him want to turn things around, so that the Elf-Laird was the cornered one. It would make sense. Without needing to understand what was being said, he had no doubt that Elf-Windsor was the kingpin here. Remove him, and all the rest would fall.

As the green-coated guards edged a little closer, Per raised both his hands, palms outward and, looking across at Elf-Windsor, catching his eyes, said, “Stay an eye’s blink, stay.”

No one except Andrea understood. Joe’s eyes flickered nervously between Per and the guards. The guards looked to Windsor for instructions. Windsor said, “What’s he say?”

Joe was thinking: I put my hands between your hands and my foot under your foot—I could end up in the cells for this. I’ll guard you and guard yours until the day I die—for a house and land.

Keeping his hands raised, Per came forward a little from the desk, placing himself between Joe and the guards. Looking into Elf-Windsor’s eyes, he said, “Be so kind, Master Elf, forgive me. I made Entraya bring me here, it be no fault—”

“Make no excuses for me!” Andrea said.

His hands still raised, Per turned to her, his eyes giving that silver flash of anger. “Tell him what I say!”

“Mister Windsor,” Andrea said, “Per asks you to forgive him.” She looked at Per sidelong, wondering why on earth he was saying this. They were caught, fair and square, in the act of defying Windsor, and it wasn’t like Per to humbly beg for forgiveness.

The security guards had stopped their advance on Joe, hanging back until this conversation with their boss might be finished.

That was all Per wanted for the moment. Looking at Windsor, he said, “Be no angry with Entraya. It was my wrong, and I am sad for it.” He took another step forward, but his whole stance was so unthreatening that the security guards tensed only slightly, and Windsor merely folded his arms and stood watching. “Tell him, Entraya!”

Andrea began to speak. Per, though he averted his face slightly and looked up from the corners of his eyes, watched Windsor and knew by the man’s reaction that Andrea was passing on his words. He let his head hang down, as if too shamed to look Windsor in the face.

Windsor wasn’t sure what all this was about but didn’t care much. If young Sterkarm thought he could make bargains, let him. It made it easier to string him along. Meanwhile, it was undeniably sweet to see this spoiled and arrogant sprig of an arrogant family hang his head and beg for forgiveness.

“Tell him,” Windsor said, “to come along with me now, and I’ll consider how much you were to blame later.” He smiled at Andrea. The woman was a bigger fool even than he took her for, if she thought she had a job with FUP after this.

Per took the baseball cap from his head, scrunching it in his hands as he took another couple of steps toward Windsor. One of the guards even moved backward slightly, to make room for him. Per’s hands were occupied by the harmless cap, his head hung meekly down, and he was going over to Windsor, as Windsor had ordered him to do. “I’ve no been a good guest, Master Elf, and I be sad for it.” He glanced up at Windsor, took another step closer, and hung his head again. “Be so kind, Master Elf, forgive me.” Sincere apologies were the only kind that gave Per trouble.

As Andrea translated, she saw Joe cast her a bemused look that asked: What’s going on? In reply, she rolled her eyes and shrugged.

Windsor’s smile was smug. A Sterkarm, one of the crew that carried severed heads at their saddlebows, was admitting that Windsor had beaten him. “Tell him that when he’s back in the hospital, where he should be, then we’ll think about forgiveness.”

Per paused while he listened to Andrea’s translation, and then gave a small shrug, admitting his helplessness. “Yi kommer.” I’ll come. Another couple of steps brought him to Windsor, and he turned to stand beside him with lowered head. The guards saw a boy, unarmed and humbled, trying hard to ingratiate himself with their boss by good behavior. Their attention shifted once more to Joe.

Per dropped the baseball cap and drew the dagger from his sleeve. He locked his right arm around Windsor’s neck and, with his left hand, set the point of his dagger beneath Windsor’s jaw. He jerked Windsor backward, choking him and dragging him farther from the guards.

The guards did a double take, their attention swinging between Joe and the scuffle. Joe said, “Bloody hell!” and seemed to dance in place, not knowing where to run. Andrea realized that she’d just seen the Sterkarm handshake in action, and felt simultaneously honored and horrified. You had to wonder about someone who could deceive that well.

Per took a deep breath, his chest swelling and his heart beating against Windsor’s back. While he had Elf-Windsor, he was in charge—but the big Elf outweighed him, and his leg ached, his head ached and he could feel his own weakness in his grip on Windsor and his grip on the dagger. But now he’d drawn his dagger, he had to win or he was dead. His voice shook as he said, “Naw, yi gaw hyemma, ya?” Now I go home, yes?

Windsor gripped the arm that was choking him and pulled at it. Not right! To be grabbed and manhandled like this, to feel Per’s body and legs against him—it was humiliation, insult! Holding Per’s arm, he bent forward, even though he was choked, trying to wrestle free.

Per was lifted by Windsor’s back and felt his feet leaving the floor. Desperate not to lose, he heaved back on his arm and jabbed at Windsor’s neck with the knife.

“Mr. Windsor, keep still, please!” Andrea shouted. “He’s got a knife—you’re bleeding!”

Windsor hadn’t seen the knife; it had been drawn behind his back, and he’d been most conscious of the hard bar of Per’s arm across his throat. Now he squinted down at himself. He couldn’t see much except Per’s arm, but from the corner of his eye he glimpsed something of Per’s other hand, blurred, clenched in a fist, holding something. Then the pricking pain at his neck, and the warmth there, made sense. A knife. Oh God. He was bleeding. A cold, like cold water, rushed over his scalp, ruffling through his hair. He caught his breath, his heart swelled, his belly and buttocks clenched, and he saw, in his mind, a clear image of the severed head, all stained with blood. Panic began to mix with his anger. “For God’s sake!” he said.

Blood trickled down Windsor’s neck through the dark stubble, staining the collar of his shirt. The security guards looked at each other. They knew they ought to rush Per and disarm him—but how, exactly, without getting Windsor killed? They hadn’t been trained to deal with knifemen. They weren’t paid to deal with knifemen.

Per, his feet back on the ground, shouted, “Yett!” The Gate!

The question Andrea asked herself was: Would Per really hurt Windsor? The answer, little though she liked it, was: In this mood, yes. She darted over to the doors at the back of the reception hall and pushed them open. “Through here!”

Joe went over to her and took the door, holding it open. “Go on!” he said to her. She went through the door into the corridor beyond.

Per dragged Windsor backward toward the door, keeping the point of the dagger at his neck. The one security guard in his way, finding Per’s eyes fixed on him, got out of the way.

Windsor’s feet stammered at the floor as he stumbled backward, his legs bumping into Per’s, while Per’s arm dragged at his throat. Ridiculously, even as he worried about what would happen with the knife if he tripped, he found himself trying to help Per by keeping up with him. At the same time he was thinking about grabbing Per’s knife hand and twisting it, about using his greater weight to slam the boy back into a wall, about— But all these plans ended with the thought that if he didn’t quite get it right, he’d have a knife through the neck

Per dragged Windsor backward through the door, and Joe quickly followed, pulling the door so it swung shut, hiding the reception hall and the staring guards from sight. He ran down the corridor, passing Per and Windsor and joining Andrea. He was aware that he might have just made the worst decision of his whole life.

Per was finding it awkward to go backward down the corridor while keeping a tight hold on Windsor and pointing the dagger at his neck. He wasn’t trembling yet, but he could feel the weakness in his muscles that would soon become trembling. He had to keep glancing backward over his shoulder to see where he was going, and he was afraid that while he was turning to look, Windsor would break free. Then Joe came close and set his hand on Per’s back, guiding him, so that Per no longer had to look behind.

The doors from reception opened and the security guards came through, speaking into radios. Slowly, they followed them into the corridor.

“Those things they’re talking to,” Andrea said, “they’re like far-speaks, Per. They’re going to tell people to lay for us.” She was thinking, I should do something before someone gets hurt. Or say something. But she couldn’t think of anything she could say that Per would listen to, or of anything she could do that would stop him.

The corridor divided into three, going straight ahead, to the left and to the right. As they arrived at the junction, security guards arrived at the ends of the side corridors almost at the same time.

“We go straight ahead anyway!” Andrea said. Joe pulled at Per’s shoulder to urge him on, Per dragged at Windsor and, together, a six-legged monster, they lurched across the junction of the corridors.

With a clatter of boots, another couple of security guards appeared at the end of the corridor they were following, blocking it. Joe came to a halt, stopping Per, who jolted Windsor and jabbed his neck with the dagger. Andrea looked around wildly, wiping hair from her eyes.

One of the security guards said, “Come on now. Stop playing games.”

“Stilla!” Quiet! Per said.

Andrea made little “keep it down” gestures with her hands and said, “I think it’d be best—”

Per pulled Windsor back harder, choking him. “Yi skyera han nakka!”

“He says he’ll shear—I mean”—Andrea clutched at her own head—“cut—he says he’ll cut his neck—throat! Please be careful!”

All the guards kept still. Windsor’s eyes rolled, white edged, in his red face.

Per breathed fast, excitedly. He was winning and alive, but knew how quickly both states could end. “Tell them all to gan their ways!”

Try to be calm, Andrea thought. And calming. For Per to be so excited was probably not a good thing. “Yi skal, Per, yi skal.” Raising her voice, she called, “You’d better let us through. Just go away and let us through!”

Per tightened his arm around Windsor’s neck, using his knee in the man’s back to pull him backward and jabbing the dagger into his neck. “Tell them to go! Tell them!”

He’s going to kill him, Joe thought, and looked around for somewhere to run. Unless he ran over to the security guards and allowed himself to be arrested, there was nowhere. God help me if he kills him and I’m here! He looked at Per and wondered if he could overpower him—but he’d sworn to guard him and anyway, if he tried, he’d probably only make sure that Windsor was killed. So he just stood there, sweating and feeling like an idiot.

Windsor choked and gagged and gasped for breath. His heart hammered in fear and the blood swelled in his temples, half blinding him. He was in the hands of a barbarian. Through all the panic, he reached out for calm. Keep calm or end up dead. Gripping Per’s arm to ease the choke hold, he tried to speak. Per relaxed a little, to let him speak, but Windsor could feel the tension throughout Per’s body. He could feel the dagger’s point at his neck.

Windsor couldn’t see Andrea, but knew she was close by somewhere. Breathlessly, he said, “Cut my throat and, and”—he didn’t think threatening Per with a custodial sentence, with time off for good behavior, would have much effect—“and they’ll kill you. So you can’t win, can you? We can talk about this. If you give up—”

“Stilla!” Per said. “Entraya! What says he?”

Andrea was taken aback by Windsor’s courage. In his position, she was sure, she wouldn’t have dared to say anything like that. She wasn’t sure it was wise to translate, but what excuse could she give for refusing? She hadn’t time to think of one. While she translated Windsor’s words, she watched the security guards and noted that her mind was working smoothly and quickly while she and everything around her seemed to have slipped into some other dimension of craziness.

Per’s eyes widened when he understood what Windsor had said. He shifted the point of his dagger, setting it behind Windsor’s ear. With a flick of his hand he snicked the earlobe from Windsor’s head, releasing a copious flow of blood down Windsor’s neck. Windsor cried out and struggled, and Per rode him and choked him, setting the point of the dagger back at his neck. Windsor and the guards—who had taken a step forward—froze again.

Per’s voice, broken with breathlessness, shook with both fear and the excitement of being prepared to do anything to win. “Will no cut his throat. I’ll cut off his ear. Then his nose. Carve off his cheek like a pig’s! I’ll take out his eye. Tell them to gan their ways!”

Joe, catching some of this, said, “Bloody hell!” He looked around again, for an escape. Following Per had been a mistake.

Andrea was sickened. She was too close to what the words meant to feel at all casual about them. She didn’t even want them in her mouth.

Per looked at her. She saw by the glitter in his eyes that he was very scared. It was clear to her then that whatever he said he would do, he would do. She hurried to tell Windsor what he’d said, to let him know the danger he was in. All the time she spoke, she was thinking: I should be doing something to stop this.

Windsor hadn’t understood Per’s words, but he’d understood the tone and the shaking in the voice, the tension in the body that held him. When Andrea told him what the words meant, the severed head floated in the air before his open eyes, so vividly did he remember it. The panicky, rackety mixture of anger and fear he’d felt before took a sideways lurch into a colder, slower kind of fear altogether.

“Go away!” he said. It came out in a croak. He dragged in as much breath as he could with Per hanging around his throat, and yelled, “Get out of their way! Let them through! Move!”

Joe and Andrea looked this way and that, to see what the guards would do. The men looked at each other, shifted from foot to foot—and backed off. What could they do? They were merely strong-arm men, poorly paid and not trained at all. They didn’t know what to do. The guards blocking their way to the Tube fell back down the corridor and vanished through a pair of fire doors.

“They be gone!” Andrea said to Per. Her heart was beating so fast and hard, she felt sick. Especially when she thought that they had to follow the guards through those fire doors, and the men might be waiting on the other side.

“Kom!” Per said, and dragged Windsor on again, choking him. He swung Windsor around and made him walk in front of him, so that Per could look over his shoulder and see where they were going. With the length of that dagger at his neck, Windsor cooperated. To Joe, Per said, “Watch our backs!”

“I’ll watch!” Andrea said, seeing Joe look puzzled. “All’s clear.”

Per’s heart raced, his breath came fast, and he felt giddy, exhilarated, tall and very strong and very weak at the same time. He was going home. Nothing was going to stop him. He knew that with great conviction and simplicity.

Leadership, Andrea thought, as she and Joe scuttled after Per, was mostly knowing your own singleminded mind. When you did, other less singleminded people followed you, even though they might be brighter than you, even though they had serious doubts about what you were doing.

Per stopped before they reached the fire doors. “See what lies behind there,” he said to Joe.

Joe understood enough, together with Per’s intent stare at the doors, to know what was wanted. He wasn’t happy about going near the doors. He pictured big security men lurking behind them, with clubs. Going closer, craning his neck, he tried to peer through the windows—but the men might be crouching down. Standing back, he booted one door open hard, and it swung back enough for them to see that there was no one behind it. Joe kicked the other. “All clear!”

“Klahr?” Per said.

Joe held the door open and Per hustled Windsor through, Andrea following. She was sick with fear that this was going to end with Windsor being murdered by Per and she would have to see it done. She hadn’t meant it to happen this way. Where were the police? Surely they should be here by now and doing something?

It seemed to take forever, and they had to go through another pair of fire doors, but they came in view of the doors that would bring them outside and close to the Time Tube. Per was out of breath from the effort of holding on to Windsor, half supporting his weight and shoving him along with knee and hip. Per could feel his grip loosening, and found every step a greater effort. He was wet with sweat and closer than ever to trembling. Windsor shifted within his hold, and Per called out, “Tell him I’ll cut him into collops!” He pressed the edge of his long blade against Windsor’s cheek, let him feel its sharpness. “I’ll burst his eye!”

Andrea couldn’t say it.

Joe pushed open the doors, letting in brighter light. He peered out onto a graveled path, and looked across the path to a portable office on the other side, with a strange round tube thing stuck at one end. With a shock—he actually felt his hair rise—he realized that was it. That was the Tube. If he was going to change his mind, it was going to have to be soon.

Some security guards were standing near the Tube, at the foot of a ramp leading up to it, but they didn’t look like men who were ready to do anything. Joe waved to Per and Andrea to come on.

Per dragged Windsor out onto the path, stumbling on the step, their feet crunching in the gravel. Per ignored the pain to his bare feet. Windsor was sweating, almost purple in the face, spluttering and gasping. His tie and hair were awry, his shirt pulled open to show the black hair on his chest.

Per looked left and right, noting the guards. The little prefabricated office and the Tube beside it he saw with relief, recognizing them from the similar office in his own world. As Andrea followed them out onto the path, he shouted at her, “Tell them to gan their way!”

Andrea began to shout and wave at the guards. Windsor, who had heard the shake in Per’s voice, shouted too. “Let them through!” he yelled. “God’s sake, get—” His voice choked off as Per’s arm tightened across his throat. Windsor’s heart lurched as he felt the point of the long dagger sting his neck. But then the guards shuffled back from the ramp, leaving it clear, and Per relaxed.

They crossed the gravel to the foot of the ramp. Andrea saw faces at the window of the control room, peering at them. This is when they’re going to try and stop us, she thought. This is where they have to stop us.

Per went sidelong up the ramp, holding on to Windsor and holding the knife at his neck, so that Windsor scrambled to keep up with him. Andrea followed, and Joe dropped back into last place, pushing Andrea on ahead of him and watching the guards, who were slowly coming nearer again.

On the platform at the top of the ramp, Per hesitated, made uncertain by the rustling strips of plastic that hung down to screen the Tube’s mouth. Andrea went over to them, gathered several strips together in her hands, and lifted them, so they could see into the Tube itself.

Per froze. There it was—the Elf-Gate. Its great round mouth gaped. His eyes roamed around the curve of the opening, and around the curves of the tiled inner sides. He had no memory of ever being so close to it before, and it was frighteningly strange to him, even smelling strange. It was supposed to be a gate, but he couldn’t see his own world at its other end—only a smaller circle and another hanging screen of strips. His hold on Windsor relaxed, and the dagger wavered in his hand.

Joe, seeing Per falter, and also aware of the guards coming up the ramp behind them and the people gathering at the door of the adjoining control room, stuck his finger in Windsor’s face and said, “Don’t move!” He clenched his fist in Windsor’s face and said to Andrea, “What do we do now?”

“It’s shut down,” she said. The lights at the side of the Tube told her so. Beyond the screening at the other end of the Tube was the rest of the 21st: the Tube was “at home.”

“Boot it up!” Joe yelled at the people gathered in the control-­room door. He’d never seen a Time Tube before and had no idea how one worked, but he was used to machinery. Since Per was still nonplussed, Joe grabbed Windsor by his lapels and hauled at him, dragging him closer to the Tube’s opening. Per was dragged along with him, his hand holding the dagger jolting against Windsor’s shoulder.

“The knife!” Windsor said breathlessly. “The knife!” The long blade was waving wildly in front of and beside his face.

“Shut up!” Joe shook him, hoping Windsor took him for some terrifying, half crazed brute from the gutter. “Tell ’em to start it up, or I’ll kick your effing head in.”

With the head-hunting young thug behind him, and this fierce, stocky, bearded yob spitting in his face, Windsor knew he’d be a fool to do anything but play along. He drew a breath but could hear his voice shaking as he spoke to the people in the control-room doorway. “Boot it up. Do as they say. Do it now.”

Some of the people turned and struggled to get back into the control room. Within a minute or so of their going, a humming, whining noise began to come from the Tube. Per started.

Andrea came close to him, pressed herself against his back. “It’ll make a lot of noise. It will be deafening. But it be all right, all right. It be Elf-Work.”

The humming rapidly increased to a roar that made Per duck his head and twist it from side to side, trying to avoid the noise. The noise rose to a jagged scream that beat about their heads, and then abruptly stopped as the sound passed beyond hearing. The lights at the side of the Tube changed, flashing from red to green.

“Gan!” Andrea shouted. “Joe, go! Go!”

Per gave her a shove that sent her staggering into the Tube. “Gaw!” He thumped Joe and yelled at him. “Gaw!”

Joe, startled, looked over his shoulder at the guards and the technicians, and then ran into the Tube, not really knowing what he was doing. Andrea, seeing Joe run, ran because he was running.

Per shoved Windsor hard, pitching him across the platform toward the ramp. Turning, Per took a jump into the Tube and raced for the other end, catching at Andrea’s arm as he overtook her and pulling her along with him.

They burst through the screening covering the other end of the Tube, running onto the platform and pelting willy-nilly down the ramp. Before them was the trodden, worn grass of the compound, startled guards, the steel fence, smoking fires, and the great wide open bowl of the surrounding hills.

Joe stumbled to a halt at the foot of the ramp and raised his eyes to the hills’ peaks and then on up, into the deeps of the gray skies above. A wind came and ruffled his hair and beard, traveling from God knew how many miles away. A minute ago he’d been in a city, hearing the ever-present rumble of traffic, with telephone wires overhead, brick buildings and tarmacked roads pressing all around, bringing sight up short. And now silence, acres of silence, echoed and reechoed, and he looked clear across a wide valley to tiny black sheep moving on the farther hill, following silent, drifting cloud shadows. The air he breathed was damp, chill and almost searing in its clarity. It stunned him.

Per felt the damp wind touch his face and smelled the rich smell of the wet grass and earth, and his eyes filled with tears. He could have wept with thankfulness if he’d had time. Already guards were coming toward them. “Careful!” Andrea said to both him and them. These guards, 16th side, carried pistols in holsters on their hips. One was fumbling to open the flap on his holster. Andrea remembered more than one guard grumbling to her that their pistols were nothing more than ornaments; they hadn’t been trained to use them or issued with more than one bullet each. But, just at that moment, it was hard to be comforted.

Per scanned the chain-link fence that surrounded the compound and saw what he looked for. The smoke that rose just beyond the fence came from the fires of a Sterkarm encampment. He could see men standing, peering through the mesh of the fence. Seizing Joe’s arm and shaking him, Per filled his lungs and, in something between a bellow and a shriek, yelled, “Sterkarm! Sterkarm!”

The guards patrolling the compound whipped around in alarm. Outside the fence, more Sterkarms started to their feet, then snatched up bows, quivers, axes. They knew the shout was a call for help, and they answered it.

With a crash of iron, a man climbed the fence. A guard fumbled at his holster, thought better of it and looked around at his companions to see what they thought he should do. Longbows were drawn and arrows pointed at the guards. Men ran, shouting, toward the office, carrying spears, long knives, axes, swords. Per ran to meet them, and when Sweet Milk suddenly appeared, he threw his arms around him and hugged him as if he were home itself.

Sweet Milk hardly had time to recover from surprise, hardly had time to recognize Per, before Per had him by the hand and was dragging him across the compound, back toward the ramp. At the bottom of the ramp, looking scared, were a thickset strong-looking man in Elvish clothes—but, unlike an Elf, bearded and shaggy-haired—and Andrea.

Per leaned around Joe to take Andrea by the arm and pull her forward, shoving her at Sweet Milk. “Take care of her—and him. He be a friend.” He dragged at Joe’s hand. “Away from here!” Andrea opened her mouth and Per said, “Gan—gan o!” He leaned close and gave her a quick kiss before turning and running away toward the Elf-House.

Several other men, yelling, running, all armed, were heading for the hut. Joe glimpsed a green-uniformed security guard turning to face them and reaching for the holster at his hip. A Sterkarm, behind him, felled him with a blow to the head from an axe. The guard’s peaked cap was no protection. He went down, and Joe saw the axe raised again.

He turned back toward Andrea and the big man in the helmet. He didn’t know if Andrea had seen the guard struck down, but judging by her face, he thought she had. The big man had her by the arm and was pulling her away, and she was reaching out for Joe. He grabbed at her hand and was towed after her. From behind came a sound of smashing glass and a wild, panicked yell. Looking back, Joe saw a green-coated man running to the top of the ramp and diving through the door into the office.

Sweet Milk dragged them across the compound, through the opened gate and onto the open hillside, where small, smoking fires of heather and dung burned bright against the chill gray of the day. Stocky little horses grazed, hobbled or tethered at a distance, while around the fires were saddles and blankets and abandoned food. Lances, eight feet long, stood up from the ground.

“Stay here,” Sweet Milk said, gesturing with the axe in his hand. The wooden haft was thick, and the axe-head, thick and heavy, narrowed to a sharp edge, its gray surface pitted with black hollows. It seemed less a cutting tool than a bludgeon, especially as it was hefted in the big-knuckled, big-veined hand that held it. “Stay,” Sweet Milk repeated, retreating a few steps. He gave Joe a glower of pure suspicion from under his helmet, turned and ran back through the gate and across the compound toward the shouting, running men about the Elf-House.

“Can you see Per?” Andrea said. “Where is he?”

“I wouldn’t look,” Joe said. “Don’t look.”

“We should stop it,” Andrea said. “We should find Per and—”

She actually moved toward the gate. Joe yanked her back angrily. “Don’t be a bloody idiot. There’s nothing you can do.”

“But they’ll—”

“What’s going on in there”—more yells drifted back to them, sounds of chopping and smashing glass—“you’re well out of. Well out of. There’s nothing you can do, believe me. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

A shout rose, pealing above the other yells, and Joe felt Andrea stiffen as he held her arm. Her head lifted. It was Per’s voice, raised jubilantly, trumpet-shouting to reach across the valley.

“Brenna day! Brenna day!”

“Oh, nigh,” she said. “Nigh,” and tugged forward against Joe’s hold.

“What?”

“Hura han nigh? Han kaller, brenna day!”