CHICHESTER GREENWAY
by Alton Saunders
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Published by Vika Press at Smashwords
Cover by Robert Saunders:
veryrobert.com
Smashwords version ISBN: 978-1-908743-00-8
This book is available
in various formats
Text copyright Alton Saunders 2011
Cover illustration copyright Robert Saunders 2011
The right of Alton Saunders to be identified as the author and Robert Saunders as the cover illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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CONTENTS:
02: Finding Frogs
04: Mrs Warbloff
05: The Pattern
08: The Chase
09: An Earthquake?
10: Or Giddiness?
11: Trench Warfare
12: Out into Space
14: Aliens
18: Where is Vonn?
20: The School of Northern Light
21: The Atoll
22: Below the Waves and Far Above
24: Tommy’s Story
25: Vestre Lillesund
27: The Endlessness beyond Time
28: Farewell
Links: More Books by Alton Saunders
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Chapter 1:
A CITY OF SILVER AND GOLD
The sky was by now the bright green of early afternoon. Vonn and Akkri were playing on the beach. The soft white sand glowed in the golden sunshine. Close by, a cluster of rock pools caught and reflected the sky like emerald mirrors.
They often came here when the morning’s work was done. Although Vonn was nearly fourteen and Akkri just a few weeks younger than her, they still delighted in making sandcastles and barricades, diving down among the fish, and throwing food to make the seabirds swarm.
They were busy digging a pool with their hands, while at the same time trying to keep the sand from sliding back and silting it up. Two small red sea frogs had hopped in and seemed quite unconcerned by their activity.
“First call,” said Vonn. Akkri had felt it, too, the momentary awareness of contact. There was plenty of time, but nevertheless they should soon be on their way.
“One more dive!” Vonn loved to plunge down among the shoals of silver fish, feeling their little bodies touching against hers. She strolled to the water’s edge, swung her arms back and flung herself out over the gentle waves, then deep down amongst the forest of seaweed, her eyes quickly adjusting to underwater focus. There were no shoals of silverinoes to be seen today, but a large orange-coloured fish with thick lips and placid bulging eyes came out from behind a rock to look at her. She swam gently towards it, hoping to touch it, but with a flick of its tail it disappeared into the seaweed fronds.
“Time I went back!” Kicking strongly with her legs, she shot to the surface and up into the sunshine, where she flipped into a back somersault, landing on her side with a great splash and a gurgle of laughter. The water streamed off her tunic as she stood up, and it was already dry by the time she reached their pool. Akkri had made a channel down to the water’s edge so that the frogs could swim back to sea if they preferred that to hopping.
“Shall we go now?” He got up off his knees, stretched, and they set off towards the sand dunes. The path was narrow between the tall, swaying grasses, so Vonn followed along behind, with one glance back at the shining sea. They could come back any time, whenever they wanted to.
At the foot of the sandstone cliff they launched off together and were soon walking along the cliff path, then inland through spicy shrubs and the buzzing of bees, towards the gold and silver sparkle of the city.
They had been work partners from the age of the first sorting, when their mutual curiosity about the why and when of things had become apparent. Their destination right now was Library Seven in the Halls of Knowledge, where a meeting was scheduled in the marble gallery.
“Hello!” The little voice came from somewhere inside a tangled bush with silvery leaves and purple starry flowers. Akkri squatted down and gently parted the twisted grey branches. As he had expected, a lannek was curled up underneath, a dark brown, furry creature, its long tail neatly coiled. It looked at him sleepily with its big blue eyes.
It was one of several lesser species with what was usually described as limited self-awareness. It had a flexible mouth and tongue and could easily imitate human speech, though to what extent it understood what it was saying was never completely clear. Usually the words made sense in their context but were not particularly informative.
“Lannek,” said the lannek.
“Hello, lannek, what are you doing today?”
“Warm,” said the lannek, and closed its eyes. They could be stubborn little creatures and Akkri knew that however hard he tried he would probably not be able to coax it to say any more. Vonn grinned, and they walked on, hand in hand, towards the city.
A broad curve of the river skirted the bluff on which the city was built, and a wide wooden bridge reached out across it. The balustrades were decorated with brightly painted carvings in a variety of styles, many of them produced by children making their first attempts with woodworkers’ tools and paintbrush.
“My cousin Sokat made that one,” said Vonn, pointing to a multi-coloured tree with fish sprouting from the branches instead of leaves.
“Clever Sokat! He’s only eleven, isn’t he?”
“Yes, eleven three weeks ago.”
They stopped for a moment to look at the rapids south of the bridge. High up as they were, they could hear the distant thundering of the waters. “Second call,” said Akkri. There was no urgency in it. They could get there very quickly if necessary. Even if the meeting had already started, any late arrivals would be greeted with a welcoming smile.
The various buildings in the City of Silver and Gold were surrounded by what was really a continuous park, with avenues and lawns and flowerbeds and canals. The sky was beginning to turn yellow as they reached the wide marble steps leading up to the library and it took a moment or two for their eyes to adjust to the gentler light inside the lofty entrance hall. Vonn always glanced up at one section of the murals that covered the walls, a panel depicting a village with white-painted wooden cottages and children carrying spades, and a flock of sheep. It reminded her of the village where her grandmother used to live. In the evening the wall lights would come on, but now the hall was lit from the great windows that looked out towards the mountains beyond.
Akkri and Vonn walked up the marble staircase on the right-hand side of the entrance hall, then turned right at the top into the gallery from which you could look down on the hall below. A polished wooden table with thirteen chairs was set out with notepads and pencils and a small tray of refreshments at each place. A couple of boys were already sitting at the table, one of them folding a sheet from his notepad into a complicated star shape. A lady with grey hair was leaning on the balustrade, looking at the murals on the opposite wall.
“Why, it’s Annilex!” Vonn exclaimed. She was delighted to see her old mentor. Annilex came over from the balustrade and opened her arms wide to give Vonn one of her big, enfolding hugs. The teacher-pupil relationship was often one of the most enduring in one’s life.
“So you’re in this, too,” said Vonn. “What fun! Do you know what ‘this’ is, by the way?”
“I’ve no more idea than you have, but I expect we’ll soon find out. I’ve a feeling it’s something big, though.”
Several more people had come in while they were talking and there was a general move towards the table. Akkri had been standing back so as not to be in the way while Vonn and Annilex were greeting one another. He came forward now and gave Annilex’s hand a friendly squeeze. “Hello, Annilex. Nice to see you again.” Even now, when Akkri and Vonn had been working together for several years, their mentors still put in an occasional appearance for old times’ sake. Akkri had met Annilex on several occasions and Vonn was well acquainted with Akkri’s mentor, Ferdil, too.
He sat down and glanced around the table. Mostly children, two older men, perhaps in their forties, and Annilex, who was sixty four last birthday. One or two places were still empty and a pale-faced girl, about twelve years old he reckoned, was standing back from the table with a thoughtful look on her face.
“I think I’ll take the meeting today, unless anyone else feels it should be them,” she said in her clear young voice, and there was a quiet murmur of approval from everyone present. She sat down, not at the head of the table, but next to Akkri, and the remaining three places were quickly filled: by a woman of about thirty in a green robe, and a couple of boys who looked as if they might be cousins or non-identical twins, one of whom sat down in the last empty chair at the head of the table.
“I’m called Viney,” said the girl. “I know one or two of you by sight, but I’ve never worked with any of you. Let’s all say who we are and what we do, shall we?” One by one they each introduced themselves. Akkri noticed that there was a general interest in the gathering and classifying of knowledge. He felt at home with this newly-formed group already.
“Let’s see if we can find out the purpose of this group of ours.” Although she was only just twelve, Viney seemed to be a natural leader, and everyone was content for her to shape the meeting any way that seemed appropriate to her.
They sat back and relaxed in the comfortably padded chairs, and gradually thoughts and feelings and images began to take shape in their minds.
“I don’t think it’s here on Vika,” said Annilex after a while.
“What do others think about that?” asked Viney.
“No, somewhere far off and very different. Not altogether a comfortable place, I think,” said the cousin called Yask, from the head of the table. They were cousins, not twins, and were thirteen years of age like Akkri and Vonn. The other cousin was called Sumar.
“Maybe we could all see something together,” Vonn suggested.
They pushed their chairs back and stood up. For a while nothing happened, then the polished surface of the table began to take on a milky, translucent appearance. Suddenly it cleared and they were gazing at a ring of planets poised around a central sun. One of the planets, a gleaming sphere of blue and white, became the focus of their attention. It seemed to rush towards them, nearly filling the field of view.
It was tiring work, even with several experts in the field, and by mutual consent they allowed the vision to fade.
“I wonder where that is?” said Sumar.
“A long, long way from here, I’d say,” said Annilex.
“I think we’re all getting rather tired,” said Viney. “How about meeting at the same time tomorrow and perhaps we’ll find we’ve developed a clearer idea of what this is all about.”
Vonn and Akkri walked down the marble stairs together. The light from the great windows had taken on an orange tone. Evening was approaching. Their meeting had taken much longer than it had seemed at the time and, as usual, far more had been going on than any of them had consciously been aware of.
“Do you want to go home yet?” Vonn asked.
“I’m in no hurry. How about having something to eat and then we could go back to the cliff top. I always like the way the sun and the sky are reflected in the water just before the sun goes down.”
“Fine by me. Let’s go to the restaurant by the main canal.”
They walked on through the park, where people were making their way towards one or other of the graceful buildings, while others were strolling by the flowerbeds, enjoying the varied scents of the evening. Lights were beginning to come on as they reached the restaurant and sat down at an outdoor table overlooking the canal. A bunch of children in canoes were splashing one another with their paddles and a gallin was sitting on the bank, barking at them.
“What would you like?” A boy of about their own age had appeared at the table.
“I’d like a cold meal, something with fish in it,” said Akkri.
“Same for me,” said Vonn. “You choose. I like a surprise.”
“Coming soon then,” said the boy, with a friendly smile.
They had some work to discuss while their meal was being prepared. Vonn had been studying records of the early days of their city. She wanted to find out why it had been constructed and the process by which such a large undertaking had been agreed. She loved the city and was eager to find out more about it. Since this was a direction of research which Vonn had initiated, Akkri’s role at present was to be her research assistant. These roles had been reversed several times during their time together as work partners.
Akkri was always pleased when he was able to present Vonn with some extra, unexpected glimpse of the past, something that might give them a new perspective on the knowledge and understanding they had already acquired. They were clear that their work was primarily for their own enjoyment and fulfilment, but it was always fully accessible to anyone else who might be interested, and other avenues of research and discovery might well develop out of their findings.
Their meal arrived: pickled silverinoes in a creamy sauce, crisp brown rolls and a bowl of salad. The boy had also brought a jug of the juice made from the yellow cloudberries that grew in the higher reaches of the forest.
By the time they had finished their meal the sky was a deep red. The sun was still up and there was plenty of light for them to see their way back to the cliff top. Vonn waved to the boy as they got up from the table. “Thanks, that was lovely!” The boy looked pleased. It was one of several jobs he was doing at the moment. He liked food and he felt pleased when others liked it too.
Akkri and Vonn walked back to the bridge and across the moorland to the cliff top. They sat down in the grass, which was leaning back from the cliff in the evening breeze. The sky was gradually turning from red to infra as the sun sank down into the sea. They gazed at it in silence, waiting for the moment when the last gleam of sunshine would disappear below the horizon.
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Chapter 2:
FINDING FROGS
The sky was slate grey and there was a chilly breeze. Andrew and Vicky were playing in the street. Andrew’s feet were hurting. The trainers his mum had found for him at the charity shop were rather tight. He decided not to tell her. She had looked so pleased when she gave them to him.
He had found an old-fashioned pram in a skip. Vicky had helped him to lug it out from under a pile of plasterboard and empty paint tins and they had dragged it home. He had hoped to make a cart, a cart that would glide smoothly down the hill and round the corner, with traffic nowhere to be seen. In fact, as Vicky pointed out, one of the wheels was loose and the front axle was bent. Even Andrew realised that there was no chance of transforming this old wreck into a cart.
They were taking it in turns to spin one of the wheels to see how long it would go on turning. The heavy weight of school was gradually ebbing away.
“Tea’s ready!” It was Andrew’s mum.
“Can I come to tea?”
“I expect so,” said Andrew. Vicky often came home with him after school. Her mum knew that and never seemed to worry about her. She had a dad who lived at home, too.
Vicky knew there would be nicer food at home, but she liked the feeling of it being just the three of them, Andrew and Andrew’s mum and herself. Her own home was crowded and noisy, with Auntie May always playing her music, and Auntie May’s children, Rose and Violet, all over the place. Vicky had to share her room with them. Rose and Violet liked to investigate her belongings, and her schoolwork sometimes got messed up or even lost and then she would get into trouble with Mrs Warbloff, her form teacher. Mrs Warbloff was Andrew’s form teacher, too, and she was a problem for both of them.
When Vicky came home with Andrew, the two of them would get on with their homework together after tea while Andrew’s mum addressed envelopes. Vicky knew that she earned money from this and that the money went into Andrew’s school clothes fund. Even buying the clothes second-hand cost a bomb, and Mrs Canadine tried hard not to get into debt. It was one of her biggest worries.
She also worried about the possibility of Andrew’s dad coming home. It only happened once or twice a year but it was a time of shouting and bitterness and when he left, her carefully hoarded funds would be nearly all gone and she would have to start all over again. It was no use hiding them. He always managed to persuade her to give him “a helping hand,” as he put it, and when he came back from the pub around the corner there would be nothing left of the helping hand. Andrew hated to see her white, tear-stained face when this happened, just as he hated to see his dad’s angry red face and hear his loud angry justifications that went on being loud and angry deep into the night. He almost wished his dad would never come home again. He could be fun, though; he told Andrew jokes and stories, and once he had given him a wristwatch.
“What about the pram?” asked Vicky.
“Just leave it. I expect somebody will take it.”
They went in to tea. There was a smell of toast. The oven was second-hand, like most things in the house, and the grill had never worked. Mrs Canadine was ingenious, though, and she had found that if she balanced the wire tray on top of the largest ring on the top of the oven it would make toast. You could see dark brown rings on the toast, but it was toast all right. Today they were having baked beans on the toast. The beans were a little harder than the baked beans in Vicky’s house, and the tomato sauce was not so thick and tasty, but Vicky was happy to be sitting down at the old kitchen table with Andrew and Andrew’s mum.
The inevitable question came: “How was school today?” An awkward one, as always. Vicky left the answering to Andrew. He knew the sort of things his mum liked to hear. Her own mum was content to let school take care of itself, and never asked questions.
“We did frogs today.” They had copied a picture of a frog into their Science notebooks and had written out the information from the box in the textbook. Andrew did not tell how Mrs Warbloff had torn the page out of his notebook in front of all the other kids because the frog colour was wrong. He knew he sometimes got colours mixed up, and he tried really hard not to. He had no idea that he was quite significantly colour-blind and neither did Mrs Warbloff. She thought that was all nonsense anyway. There had been a colour-blindness test a year ago but Andrew had been in bed with one of his sore throats that day. Sometimes he whispered to one of the kids at his table to get help with his choice of crayons. The spiteful ones would encourage him to make the wrong choices. Vicky would never do a thing like that. She was a good sort. One of the best.
Mrs Canadine liked Vicky, too. She liked her big brown eyes, her curly black hair and her friendly chocolate-brown face that seemed to gleam in the light from the lamp bulb hanging above the kitchen table. It had had a blue lampshade once, but this had got broken on one of Andrew’s dad’s visits and had never been replaced. There were more urgent things needing money than that. She was happy that Andrew had such a nice school friend and although it meant opening another tin of beans or macaroni cheese or whatever else they were having for tea – for Vicky had a powerful appetite – she was glad to do so and would never turn her away. It was strange that Vicky never asked Andrew round to her house, though.
In fact, Vicky would very much have liked to ask Andrew round but she was afraid her mum would say “Why?” in that challenging way she had. And if she said, “Andrew’s my friend,” she was afraid her mum would give her scornful laugh, a type of snort really, that she used in all sorts of situations. Her dad would probably be sympathetic, but it somehow seemed against the rules to ask him instead of Mum.
“Frogs are amphibians,” said Vicky.
“And were you told what that means?” asked Mrs Canadine.
It was nice that Andrew’s mum took an interest in what they were doing. Vicky liked the sound of the word ‘amphibian’ but she had to confess that she did not know what an amphibian was. It had probably been in the information box they copied out, but she had been fully occupied writing out the words, trying hard not to make any mistakes, and so she had not actually taken in what they said.
“Let’s have a look in the dictionary.” Mrs Canadine went up to her bedroom and came down with the battered old volume. “Here, Andrew, you see if you can find it.”
Andrew knew she was doing this to help him in his education. She had often told him that being able to look things up was a useful skill. After a few moments’ fumbling, because it was a big, heavy book and the spine was broken, he found the word.
“Hey, amphibians can live in water as well as on land!” he exclaimed. “I wish I could do that!” He began to think of devices that he might be able to build. Some sort of submarine. One of the books at school had a picture of an early attempt to make a diving suit, a sort of barrel with arms and legs of canvas and a glass window. If he could find the right materials he might be able to build something like that. He could try it out in the canal the other side of the prison. The canal curved round there and there was a little lawn with some benches. He could attach a rope to it and Vicky could hold on to the other end and pull him to the side if he got into any difficulties.
He would have another look in the skip tomorrow and see if there was anything useful for the project. There might have been some old windows behind the paint tins. With a bit of luck one of the panes might not be broken and that could be the window. Maybe he could make the whole thing bigger and then Vicky could come in it with him.
“… shall we?” Andrew realised his mother had been saying something, but she was handing him his plate of beans on toast and it didn’t seem to be something he needed to reply to.
When they had finished their meal, Vicky washed the knives and forks and plates in the sink and Andrew dried them. They took turns at this when Vicky came to tea and they enjoyed doing it together. Mrs Canadine got out her box file and started work on her envelopes and the two children were soon back at the kitchen table with their homework spread out in front of them.
It was maths tonight, just a page of money problems that Andrew could have zoomed through in ten minutes, but he knew Vicky found them hard, so he sat beside her and tried to explain how he got the answers. She really wanted to understand but a kind of fright took over when it came to maths. Her first teacher had spoken very fast and had looked fierce. Right from the start Vicky had been afraid of getting the wrong answer and now she seldom got the right answer. Unfortunately, it was Mrs Warbloff’s belief that children only needed to try harder in order to do well. If their work did not improve, it was obvious that they were stubbornly choosing to be that way.
Vicky did not become tearful when she was doing her maths next to Andrew, with kind Mrs Canadine rustling away with her envelopes at the other end of the table. Sometimes it even seemed possible that she was on the verge of understanding what was going on. At school tomorrow they would probably move on to the next page of the book and it would all get lost again in a blur of numbers and diagrams, and the whole subject would seem as dangerous and puzzling as ever. Just for the moment, though, in the cosy companionship of the kitchen, it seemed safe enough.
Homework over and stowed away, Andrew and Vicky went through to what was called ‘the other room’. It was cold and bare but they could chat for a while until it was time for Vicky to go down the road to the block where her flat was.
“I wish we didn’t have to go to school tomorrow,” said Vicky. She often said this, but Andrew did not mind. He agreed with her. If only there were no school, life would be a lot easier and a lot happier, too.
“What would you do tomorrow if there wasn’t any school?”
Vicky smiled. She enjoyed that sort of question. “I’d go and look for frogs.” Frogs had caught her imagination. She was not at all clear how big they were because she had never actually seen a frog. There were no parks in this part of London. If you went on the bus to the Social Security office you went past a park with iron railings round it. There were a few trees and the rest was worn out grass. In one corner was a slide and some swings, and that was all. She did know that frogs lived in ponds but there was no pond there. She had heard of a pond called the Round Pond, but she did not know where it was. Yes, she would go on an expedition to find the Round Pond and look at the frogs swimming along under the water.
“I’d start making a submarine and then we could look at the frogs properly,” said Andrew.
Mrs Canadine put her head round the door and smiled in at them. “Time for Vicky to go, I’m afraid.” Vicky would have been content to walk home alone but Mrs Canadine always insisted on accompanying her to the corner of her block and watching until she waved down at them from the balcony outside her flat on the third floor. Andrew always came along too and Vicky liked the feeling of being with the two of them a little while longer. Her mum might not even look up from the newspaper when Vicky came through the door. She would be slowly reading her way through it with the television on as well.
Auntie May might shout out a greeting to her, otherwise she would be largely ignored, except by Rose and Violet. They would probably have emptied out her little cupboard and would want her to join in a game with her things. She tried not to get angry with them. They were very young and they didn’t have anything else to do and very few things of their own. She would probably play with them until Auntie May put them to bed in the bunk beds that now blocked out most of the light from her window. Vicky would then have to stay in the kitchen until they were asleep.
The sky was black and it was drizzling as Vicky and Andrew and Mrs Canadine walked down the street. Vicky was not looking forward to the noise and confusion of home. Things would settle down a bit when her dad got home from work, but tomorrow there would be school again and two more days of school after that until the weekend came. Then perhaps there might be a way to find some frogs.
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Chapter 3:
LET'S ASK VORTINN
The cluster of planets around a central sun had been somewhere in Akkri’s dreams during the night and it was the first thing he thought of when he woke up. From the surface of Vika the only celestial body visible was their own sun. Even the two small moons of Vika were obscured by the triple layer of moisture and ice crystals that refracted the sun’s light, producing the changing spectrum of colours in the Vikan sky.
That sky was turning violet as Akkri went out onto the balcony, though the snow on the mountaintops was still tinged with ultra, and a few wispy ultra clouds hung high in the sky. He had an unaccustomed feeling of sadness inside him. He felt as if big changes were on the way and that for a time at least, the satisfying routine of his life was going to be disturbed in ways he could not envisage. His parents were still asleep. He had arranged to meet Vonn early at the restaurant where they had eaten the night before. He decided to leave straight away and have his breakfast there.
The rush of the cool morning air against his fingertips and through his hair was refreshing and exhilarating, and as he step-landed on the terrace he found the heavy mood had gone. Instead there was a sense of adventure. If he was right about their meeting the previous afternoon it could prove to be a more exciting challenge than anything he had ever experienced. A small silver skimmer came into view and drifted down onto the terrace. Vonn stepped out and the skimmer was gone.
“Hi, Vonn! Have you had breakfast?”
“Just a bite, but I could do with some more.”
The morning staff had not yet arrived so they walked through into the kitchen and helped themselves to crusty white rolls, cheese, lettuce, smoked fish and fruit juice. Several other early risers were looking after themselves in the same way. The table they had used last night was occupied so they sat down in the shade of an awning at the other end of the terrace where they could enjoy the fragrance from a bed of white roses.
“What did you make of it, Akkri?” Vonn had stayed up late, making music with some of the other girls in the house they shared, thirty miles or so down the coast – considerably closer than Akkri’s parents’ home in the country. She had not had time to give much thought to yesterday’s meeting but she knew that Akkri would have already given the matter a lot of serious consideration.
“Well, it seems like a visit, don’t you think?”
A visit! It seemed so obvious now that Akkri had said it. A visit to that beautiful planet, blue and white in the blackness of space. Perhaps they would be the first people to make contact with an alien species! Three other inhabited planets had been located, the last less than forty years ago, but none had been found suitable for contact.
“I daresay we will only be taking part in the planning stage, though.”
“Why do you say that, Akkri?”
He could hear the disappointment in her voice. He realised that he, too, very much wanted to go. It was not as if there would be any difficulty in travelling there. Presumably some team of researchers, casting their vision far out into the depths of space, had come upon something of particular interest in that region. That, most probably, meant some form of life, even the possibility of inhabitants with intelligence and self-awareness, and the even more exciting possibility of contact with them.
“I think I just said it in case we are not meant to be part of the actual visit – if it is a visit. It would be the most amazing thing we’ve ever done. I don’t want to hope too much and be disappointed, but I really don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be involved. The group there yesterday seemed ideal. Just think of the variety of talents in the people round that table. And I bet Viney will have something more to tell us this afternoon.”
“I got to bed late last night. I really haven’t thought about it very much. I think you’re right, though. I think it is a visit. Have you met Karwi, by the way?”
Akkri had been to Vonn’s house a number of times but he had not heard of Karwi before.
“She joined us a few months ago. She’s brilliant on guitar. I was playing my flute and Ferroll had her mandolin. We were composing a piece of music together. I think we’ve got the overall structure worked out and we’re going to go on working on it next time we’re together. I played a few notes near the beginning of our session and Karwi wove them into a beautiful melody. It was as if we all recognised it. You must come and hear it when we’ve completed it.”
They had finished eating now, so they took their plates back into the kitchen, then set off along the canal towards Library Four where they were currently working. As they got close to the great golden dome, part of the side melted away, closing behind them as they walked through into the lofty entrance area. A boy had seated himself beside the fountain and was playing a reed pipe, the plashing water his only accompaniment. The delicate sounds followed them as they walked up the white stone stairway to the upper floor.
The room they were using was itself dome-shaped, with a large tilted translucent screen and two comfortable armchairs. The lighting, from the whole inside surface of the dome, followed the colours of the sky outside or could take on various shades of pearly white, whichever they preferred.
They sat down and looked at the screen. A picture gradually took shape, partly forming from impressions in the collective memory of the Vikans and partly from the mental traces of the work they had already done. Any new knowledge they achieved would itself become part of the collective memory, available to everybody.
They arranged their chairs in front of the screen and watched the story unfold. A group of hunters was crossing a river, leaping from rock to rock. Vonn and Akkri had been following their journey for some time and even knew the names of some of them. Men were helping women and children to find the best places to jump. Faint shouts and laughter could be heard above the roar of the river. The bank on the opposite shore was not so high as today, but it was recognisably the same spot where the bridge provided the main way in from the east into the City of Silver and Gold. The group was carrying sacks of food, and sleeping gear. It had been clear for some time that they had not yet reached the stage of all-provision.
Safely on the other side, they sat down by the water’s edge. Soon smoke was rising from a campfire. It seemed they were going to settle down for the night.
“A few days further on, do you think?”
Akkri nodded. There was no need to track every inch of the party’s progress. They had come up the coast from the south, crossed the moorland and, if Vonn’s theory was right, were on the point of forming the first settlement that would eventually become their own City of Silver and Gold.
The screen cleared and the images re-formed. A discussion was taking place on the bluff overlooking the river. The younger children were playing in amongst the circle of adults, or sitting or sleeping in their mothers’ laps. The older children sat and listened. A grey-haired man was talking quietly. He seemed to be explaining some point of view to the others. From time to time he would look round as if to gauge their reaction, but he did not give the impression of someone who wished to bend others to his will.
“It looks as if the feeling of mutual agreement may have already started to appear,” Akkri commented.
“Mmm,” said Vonn. She did not want to leap to conclusions. “Shall we listen to him?”
The man’s face filled the screen. He had a powerful, weather-beaten appearance and a kindly, humorous expression. They could understand the meaning and feeling of what he was saying, though it was strange to have this understanding overlaid by the sound of his archaic language and accent.
“We have done much travelling. We have seen many fine sights. We have encountered many strange beasts and many new fruits. We do not yet know which of them may be eaten, though I hear young Kerri tried a tempting mouthful a few days ago and found it did not agree with him at all.” There was a chuckle from the circle around him. “We could go on travelling, and in many ways that would be no bad thing. We have learnt to rely on one another in all sorts of difficulties. We have learnt to love and trust one another. We could go on travelling and learning together, but my feeling is that it would be good for us to settle down here. Once we are comfortably established we could arrange a further expedition to explore some more of our world if we wished to do so.”
He paused and seemed to be listening to a question. “I agree. We need to make sure that this place really does suit us, but we can only know that if we stay here for some considerable period of time. We may find there are problems we have not envisaged, in which case we can always move on again.”
“Later?” said Akkri.
“Yes. Let’s try a month or so.”
The screen cleared again. They gave a gasp of astonishment. A circle of large domed huts stood close to where the meeting had been. They appeared to be made of close-fitting wood though in places the wood was transparent, reflecting the green sky of early afternoon.
“They’ve got there!” Vonn exclaimed. “They couldn’t possibly have designed and built those domes in just a month!”
This was a major discovery. The process that had led to the development of Vikan civilisation had been an ongoing matter of discussion for centuries. Here, in the original settlement that had eventually become their own city, they might find an answer.
“Back a few days?”
Vonn did not answer. When they were working together their minds were so much in tune that words were not always necessary. A new picture appeared on the screen. A heated discussion seemed to be taking place.
“It’s too far to the forest. It’ll take forever if we’re going to build a settlement here.” The speaker was a young man, his golden skin darkened by the urgency of his convictions. “It takes two days to get to the forest, a day to find enough suitable wood, and another two days to drag it back again. It’s exhausting work, too.”
“But we have water in abundance, fish in the river, and the soil here is good. The seeds I planted are already beginning to sprout,” said an old lady with a wrinkled, kindly face. “Let’s ask Vortinn.”
This suggestion seemed to please everyone. The old lady went over to where the rest of the party was sorting wood into two piles – one for burning, one for building. They listened to what she had to say, left their work and followed her over to the group who had been in discussion together. They seated themselves in a circle as before, and the grey-haired man they had seen previously began to speak:
“It looks as if we have indeed encountered a problem. It seems to me that difficulties are sometimes opportunities in disguise, or perhaps that is always the case. We have our histories which we recite. It appears that our understanding of life is gradually developing. Despite the hardships we have encountered on our journey we have remained friends, indeed our friendship has deepened. We can sit down like this and reach a mutual agreement without it turning to controversy and bitterness. We are discovering that life itself holds the solution to all our problems, though we often waver, and are nervous of trusting life fully.
“It has not always been like this. Our histories tell of disagreements and hostilities, friendships breaking down and families breaking up, but gradually we have matured as a species and such breakdowns of trust are now a rarity. We could allow our present difficulties with the wood supply to drive us apart, forgetting the fine feeling we all had when we set out on our journey more than three years ago. Instead, if I am right about difficulties being opportunities in disguise, we may be on the threshold of a deeper understanding which will be of benefit not just for ourselves but for everyone, for life itself is one. I want to ask you to close your eyes and imagine what our settlement might look like when it is completed.”
The circle of travellers closed their eyes as Vortinn had bidden them.
“Our huts are in a circle, like the circle we are sitting in,” said the old lady. “A bigger circle, though, with plenty of room between each hut.”
“The huts don’t let the rain in at all, or any draught,” said a younger woman who might be her daughter. “The wood is very close fitting.”
“Inside the huts there are comfortable beds,” said the young man who had started the discussion about the wood supply. “And at some places around the walls the wood lets the light in. You can see through it. It’s amazing! It lets the light in and you can see through it, but it’s hard like wood!”
The younger children had fallen silent while this was going on. Suddenly one of them, a little girl who had closed her eyes when the adults did, exclaimed: “The huts are shaped like half an egg!”
Vortinn was himself sitting with closed eyes. “Is that how you would all like our settlement to be?” There were no dissenting voices, just the easy silence of good friends in agreement. Vortinn stood up and opened his eyes. “Then so let it be,” he said quietly.
Akkri and Vonn felt it themselves, a feeling like being lifted by a slow, gentle wave, and the world was changed. The other travellers opened their eyes and strolled back to their dome-shaped huts. It seemed entirely natural to them that they should be there, for as everyone knew, all life was one. When they were in harmonious agreement, their thoughts, their hopes, their imaginations were wholly a part of the oneness of life and were thus a part of the cosmic process of creation, change and development.
What they did not realise was that only a few minutes earlier they had not thought that way at all. Only three people seemed to be aware of the great thing that had happened: a basic shift in the outlook and understanding of the Vikans that would change their destiny from that time onwards. One of the three was Vortinn, long ago, standing on the bluff with tears of joy running down his cheeks. The other two were Akkri and Vonn, who leaned over to each other with tears in their eyes, too, and gave one another a hug expressive of their own joy and amazement.
“I’m hungry,” said Akkri. “Let’s go and have some food. And after that I expect it will be time for us to go off to the meeting.”
* * *
Chapter 4:
MRS WARBLOFF
The broken pram was still there when Andrew left home next morning to go off to school. He trudged past the row of narrow houses. Some of them were boarded up. Some had piles of rubbish in the tiny front gardens. One had a big yellow motorbike chained to the railings. Andrew always stopped for a moment to look at it. It must be marvellous to zoom off down the road on a monster like that. You could go anywhere.
Andrew’s road was called Chichester Greenway. Nobody seemed to know why. Mrs Canadine had tried to find out at the library but had drawn a complete blank. There was certainly nothing green about it, apart from the tops of a couple of trees that grew on the railway embankment behind the high brick wall at the far end. When Andrew looked at them he liked to imagine that there was a vast forest on the other side of the wall, but the rumbling and clanking of the trains gave the game away. Now, with winter coming on, there were no leaves on the trees, anyway. The Chichester part was equally a mystery. Chichester was miles away and did not seem to have anything to do with this part of London.
At the corner he turned left into the main road, and the roar and the smell of the traffic engulfed him. A newspaper shop on the corner; a betting shop with a picture of horses on the big front window, a window that you could not see through; a launderette where Mum took the washing when the washing machine broke down and she was saving up to get it mended; the pub his dad went to when he was staying at home; and then the pedestrian crossing where a small child had been killed just before Christmas last year.
Andrew waited a long time before a taxi stopped to let him cross. He often thought of the little girl who had been killed. He wondered if there had been presents waiting to be given to her at Christmas. He waved a thank you to the taxi driver and crossed the road.
A little further on he crossed the side road that led down to where Vicky’s block was. He looked round to see if there was anyone else about from their school and then he looked down the road to see if Vicky was coming. They had never discussed it, but they both knew it was better not to be seen together. Anything other kids knew about you could be turned into something nasty. Neither of them wanted that to happen to their friendship.
There was no sign of Vicky so he went on down the road, turned right at the next corner and soon came to the high metal fence that ran alongside the school playground. The noise of the traffic from the main road quietened and the screeches and yells and jeers of the playground took over. Andrew braced himself and walked in through the school gates.
He timed his journey to get there just a few minutes before the bell rang for everyone to go to their classrooms. Vicky did the same. The breaks at mid-morning and lunchtime were full of danger and menace but at least they could cut the playground time before school started as short as possible. Two bigger boys crashed into him as he walked across the tarmac surface. He stumbled and almost fell over and a bunch of girls laughed mockingly. He spotted Vicky coming in through the gates and something in him relaxed a bit. Someone he trusted was there even if she could not help him and he could not help her.
The bell rang, loud and harsh and jangling. Although no one was actually looking forward to their lessons there was always a rush through the double doors and you could get knocked and pushed and pummelled. Andrew had quickly learned to let the first surge subside before going in himself. This too required careful timing or he would be yelled at for dawdling. Vicky came up beside him as he walked in and as if by accident he felt her hand press against his. They communicated surreptitious reassurances to one another whenever they could. It helped both of them to get through the ordeal of school a little less jangled than the school bell.
Mrs Warbloff was sitting at her desk as they came into the classroom. She looked hot and angry. Vicky wondered what they had done wrong. It was strange how many things you could do wrong. It was worrying, too. If you said something it was often wrong some way or another and if you said nothing, that was also wrong. Sometimes even the expression on your face was wrong and Mrs Warbloff would be the first to tell you so.
Vicky knew that some of the children simply did not care what Mrs Warbloff thought of them. They even seemed to enjoy it when she got angry. They turned round and raised their eyebrows at one another and rolled their eyes and then Mrs Warbloff would get angrier than ever and Vicky would feel frightened even though she knew there was nothing really bad that Mrs Warbloff could do to them. All her pupils knew that if she really went over the edge and swore at them or hit them, she would lose her job. Some of the nastier ones were actually trying to bring this about, though not one of them could have said why. There were times when Vicky felt sorry for Mrs Warbloff and wished the others would behave better. It might make it easier to understand maths and things, too.
Mrs Warbloff was feeling angry, but not with her pupils. Her anger could boil over and turn against one of them or all of them at any moment, but she never felt pleased with herself when that happened. Years ago she had come into teaching because she wanted to help young people to learn useful skills, but it had gradually become harder and harder to do so. She had good ideas she was not able to use because they were not in the curriculum. She wondered what it would be like if she could arrange her lessons exactly the way she wanted instead of how the government told her to. Perhaps some of the children might even start to enjoy them.
The Head Teacher, Mrs Faighly, had called her into her office ten minutes before lessons were due to start. There was never enough time to discuss anything properly and she had to listen to Mrs Faighly’s version of a parent’s complaint, without any time or opportunity to explain what had really happened in the classroom at 11.30 yesterday morning. She could have told Mrs Faighly in two or three sentences, but a complaint from a parent meant that Mrs Warbloff had to give Mrs Faighly a written report on the incident before the end of school that day. Mrs Warbloff had a meeting to attend at lunchtime and as a colleague was ill she was using her only free period to take one of his lessons. She would have to write the report a bit at a time while lessons were going on, although that was not allowed according to the staff handbook. If she had only known it, she felt rather like Vicky – whatever she did was likely to be wrong.
Tables and chairs crashed and scraped as Mrs Warbloff’s class pushed themselves into the classroom. She started to read out the names on the register to a background of coughs and muttered conversations.
“Be quiet, please!” she bellowed. As so often happened, her voice came out much louder than she had intended. There was a momentary drop in the noise level before it resumed just the same as before. Mrs Warbloff felt her anger rising up in her but she managed to hold it in check. She filled in the register form that had to go immediately to the school office. Two girls came in late and she had to change the details. She glared across at them as they sat down and her eyes happened to encounter Vicky’s. Why did that girl always look as if she thought Mrs Warbloff was nasty or dangerous?
“What’s the matter with you, Vicky?” she barked.
Andrew knew how much Mrs Warbloff frightened Vicky. He understood because he felt that way too. He edged his pencil case off the edge of the table and pencils crashed out across the floor.
“Andrew!” yelled Mrs Warbloff.
“Sorry, Mrs Warbloff,” he said. He felt awful when she shouted like that, but it had diverted her away from Vicky. He kneeled down and started to pick up his pencils. Several were kicked right out of reach by a girl at the next table and he decided to leave them where they were. Perhaps he would be able to retrieve them later. He liked his pencils even if the colours of some of them caused him trouble, and he did not want to lose them. Jonathan, who was sitting just behind him, managed to kick him on the leg before he got up again.
“Andrew and Vicky, I’ll see you at the end of your history lesson. Now get out your maths homework, everyone.”
It was simply not fair, Vicky thought, to the crashes and thumps of maths notebooks being opened. Andrew had only knocked his pencil case off the table. It was so easy to do and he had obviously not meant to. And she had done nothing at all. Janice, who was sitting next to her, was poking her in the ribs to emphasise the fact that Vicky was in trouble. If Vicky yelped she would be in even more trouble. She held her breath and tried to ignore the painful jabbing which seemed to go on and on. Janice never knew when to stop.
Mrs Warbloff was almost at screaming point. The electricity bill had arrived just before she left for school. She had thought of leaving it till she got home, but unwisely she had opened it and it was even bigger than she had feared. She was very careful with the electricity, only having the lights on in the room where she happened to be and putting on an extra jersey instead of turning the heating up higher, but the TV probably used a lot and she had heard that washing machines did, too. She still had to do the normal things other people did, though, even if there was sometimes no money left over at the end of the month.
There was Rupert, her brother, too. People said the state he was in was all his own fault, but she had to try and help him a bit, even if he did waste what little she was able to send him. He had been just thirteen when their father died. She had been sixteen, and she had seen her much-loved little brother change from that time on. Their mother had not coped at all well and had been in and out of hospital for what she called her nerves, and in a few years had become so ill that she had gone permanently into a ward of the same ugly hospital and had died there four years ago.
With an effort she brought her mind back to the classroom and started to go through last night’s sums even though the week’s plan said that they should now be starting the next chapter. She went round the class, one at a time, asking them what answers they had got. She would have to collect all thirty four books at the end of the lesson to get them marked up to date, but this did give her some idea of whether most of them had understood last night’s money problems. Mrs Warbloff had money problems of her own. She wished they could be solved as easily.
Vicky was trembling as her turn drew near. She had worked out that she would be asked the answer to number seventeen and she kept her finger pressed against that sum in her book. Her turn came.
“Ninety six pence, Mrs Warbloff.”
“Next.”
This meant she had got it right. She remembered that Andrew had helped her with that one. Relief swept over her. With a bit of luck she would not be called on to do anything else during the lesson. She waited for Andrew’s turn, and sure enough he got his one right, too.
After Maths came History, and something called the Civil War. Few in the class had any notion of what was involved, when it had happened or why, but it was nice to see Mrs Warbloff leaving the classroom for one of her other lessons, though the few moments before Mr Barling came in were like a miniature break time, with horrible things being shouted out across the classroom, and pokes and pinches and scuffles, and the constant danger of something you needed for your schoolwork being taken or torn or spoiled. You could not tell the teacher what had happened or you would find a crowd waiting for you in the playground and they could be even nastier than the teacher.
Mr Barling, in fact, was quite gentle as teachers went. He had no interest in the subject he was teaching them and did not require them to pretend that they found it interesting either. He was able to tolerate a general buzz of conversation and as a result nothing very bad in the way of behaviour seemed to happen in his lessons. Andrew and Vicky were able to get on with drawing a picture of a soldier in a steel helmet in their notebooks and Andrew knew that Mr Barling would not mind if some of the colours were wrong.
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