Faust Among Equals (35 page)

Scree-eee-ee-scrinklescrinklescrinkle
.

‘Oh sod!'

The light suddenly vanished, blocked out by the bulk of an enormous machine. Slowly, feeling his intestines practising left-hand clove hitches, George edged round the machine, and suddenly saw . . .

A workbench, illuminated by a low, brilliant lamp, throwing out the special brand of extra white, hard light that you need if you're dealing with tolerances of fractions of a millimetre. Around the bench were racks of tools - George assumed they were tools; most of them he'd never seen anything like before, even in the sort of dreams that would have had Freud under a cold shower in three seconds flat - but he knew they were tools. They had that worn, shiny, reliable look, that says
I know what I'm doing even if you don't
. Mounted in the centre of the bench was this really weird lathe; it wasn't big, but it seemed to ooze power, as if once you'd worked out how to use it you could make absolutely anything at all on it. And, George realised, it was transparent. In fact, that was where the light was coming from, not the poxy 100-watt bulb in the anglepoise. Light was seeping out from it in all directions, as through a window or the crack under a door. Light from where, you really didn't want to know.

Behind the bench was a man; short, round, wearing a brown overall and a cap with a few wisps of untidy grey hair curling out under its brim like Russian vine, his face consisting of a nosetip and a mouth huddled in the shelter of an enormous pair of thick-lensed spectacles. In one hand, he held a Vernier caliper, while with the other he was scratching his neck, just behind the ear.

‘Hullo, George,' the man said. ‘You found your way here all right, then.'

George nodded. Never seen this guy before in my life, he thought. Something funny here.

He glanced down at the lathe. In the jaws of the chuck he could see a tiny, er,
thing
, a component, a bit out of something; minute, hard, shiny with the magnificent hard gleam of newly turned steel, that beautiful clarity of tone that makes polished silver look like fog. Whatever it was, it had been machined to perfection. It seemed to sing in the lathe.

‘Bloody thing,' said the man.

‘Problem?'

The man nodded. ‘Taken too much off, haven't I? Useless. Have to start again.' He opened the chuck, lifted the thing out and tossed it contemptuously into the scrap bucket under the bench. ‘Me own fault,' he said, grinning. ‘In too much of a rush, as per usual.'

‘Been doing it long?'

‘Twenty-three years,' the man replied, ‘not a big job, really.' Already, he had a new blank of material in the jaws and was winding the chuck. ‘Don't suppose it'll take me much longer to turn up another one.'

‘I . . .' George began, and then stopped. ‘What was it?' he asked.

The man looked up from his work. ‘Ratchet collar for the main inner bearing,' he replied. ‘Fits on the main driveshaft, stops the auto-index from getting out of synch.'

‘Ah.'

‘'Cos,' the man went on, smiling, ‘if that gets out of sequence, your whole locator drive's up the spout, and you'll be having Wednesdays for Tuesdays and Sundays midweek.'

‘Ah.'

‘Yeah.' The man nodded. ‘It's a good life if you don't weaken,' he added, and measured something.

‘Sorry,' George said, ‘am I disturbing you, because . . .'

The man shook his head. ‘Glad of the company,' he replied. ‘Gets a bit lonely up here, fiddlearsing about all day long. You getting on all right?'

‘I suppose so. Can I hold anything, or pass you things?'

‘If you like.' The man scribed a line with an invisibly thin scriber. ‘Four hundred yards got to come off that,' he said. ‘Should be all right so long as we go nice and steady.' He stooped down and began rummaging in a box.

‘Four hundred yards.'

The man nodded. ‘I know,' he said. ‘Bloody fine tolerances, bugger all margin of error.'

Something clicked in George's mind. It wasn't Time that was weird here, it was Scale. Everything here was much, much bigger than it looked, but the immensity of the place created its own unique perspectives. He'd probably been standing here for five years already.

‘Look at the bloody mess this place is in,' the man said, waving vaguely. ‘The time I waste, looking for things. Soon as I've done this job, I've got to have a bloody good tidy-up.'

George licked his lips, which were suddenly dry. ‘Excuse me asking,' he said, ‘but who exactly are you?'

The man looked up. ‘Me?' he said. George nodded. With a flick of his finger, the man switched on the lathe. Thousands of feet below, George just knew, the faint, scarcely perceptible noise it made was midsummer thunder.

‘Well,' the man said, ‘the job description is General Operative (Dilapidations).'

‘I see.'

‘Bit of a mouthful,' the man said.

George nodded. ‘Usually abbreviated, I suppose.'

‘That's the idea.'

‘Right.' George took a deep breath. ‘I've been wanting to meet you for a long time,' he said.

General Operative (Dilapidations), better known by the handy acronym.

 

Lundqvist stopped dead in his tracks. He could feel the point needle-sharp against the skin of his neck; that particularly vulnerable spot between the collar bones.

‘G'day,' said the angel.

Lundqvist thought about edging backwards, but knew that the point would follow him. Angel or no angel, this guy knew his trade.

At least, Lundqvist realised, I know where I am now.

‘I thought,' he said, looking down the runway of fine blued steel that ran from his neck to the angel's hand, ‘you people were supposed to be equipped with flaming swords.'

The angel gave him a look. ‘Stone the crows, sport,' he said. ‘What d'you think this is, a flamin' letter opener?'

 

‘Hi, God,' said Lucky George.

‘Could you just pass me that file?' God replied. ‘Not that one, the little Swiss job with the red handle. Ta.'

George looked down the rack, saw something like an extra-thin hair with the appropriate coloured handle, and passed it over. God pushed his glasses back up his nose, closed one eye and swept the file feather-light over the surface of the metal.

‘Bugger,' he said. ‘Pressed too hard. Look, bloody great graunch-marks all over the thing. Have to stone it all off and start again.' He sighed, and reached for an atom-thin whet-stone. ‘I must be having one of those days,' he said.

George replaced the file in the rack. ‘Dilapidations?' he asked.

The man nodded. ‘That means fixing things,' he said. ‘It's what I mostly do these days. You made it, they said to me, you damn well fix it when it plays up. Fair enough, I suppose. Means I can put in a few mods here and there, whenever I see something I can improve.' He pointed at the component in the chuck. ‘Like this, frinstance.'

George smiled weakly. ‘You did say what it was,' he said, ‘but I'm afraid I've forgotten.'

‘Pretty simple, really,' God replied. ‘Time, right? Your basic seven-day week revolves on a central spindle. Each day is indexed into position by a lifting hand driving a ratchet, and then it's locked in place by a spring-loaded pawl locating in a groove, see? Absolutely basic design.'

George nodded helplessly. Somehow or other, he understood, vaguely.

The man shook his head. ‘Bloody awful,' he said. ‘Makes me ashamed every time I think of it. All it needs is for the bearing the cylinder rides on to wear a bit, and the whole thing grinds to a halt.'

‘And has it?'

‘Bound to. This is the third one I've had to make so far, and the bloody thing's scarcely run in.'

George stared. ‘You mean the World?' he said.

‘The Universe,' God replied. ‘Shouldn't have components like this packing up already. Should be good for another forty billion years at least, with a bit of lube and a good clean now and again, before I've got to start replacing the bearings. Must've got it wrong somewhere, don't you think?'

George remained silent. Not for him to say, he reckoned.

‘So,' God continued, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, ‘this time I'm making the bugger out of sixteen-gauge chronium carbide, and I'm going to case-harden it again before it goes back in, making sure there's no soft spots where I've cut too deep. If that doesn't do it, then stuff it.'

He increased the lathe speed slightly and the cutter screee'd across the surface, throwing out tiny specks of swarf-like powdered stars.

‘Leap year,' George said.

‘You got it,' the man replied. ‘That's only when it gets really bad, mind you, when the whole poxy year gets out of sequence. A little bit like that, you see, it can bugger up the whole sodding thing in no time at all.'

‘I suppose so.'

‘No suppose about it.' Screeeee, went the lathe. Tiny flecks of ground material, so small as to float in the air, drifted down, out through the air conditioning system and onwards through the galaxy, tails burning, frightening the living daylights out of superstitious princes. ‘Your Time, see, that's your major motive force. If your Time goes wrong, everything goes wrong. Bits get out of place, components get all graunched and burred up, things fall apart, the centre cannot hold . . .'

‘Entropy,' said George.

‘Poncy name for it, yeah.' God was silent for a moment, brooding. ‘This ought to do the trick. Just have to try it and see, won't we?'

He turned up the lathe speed until the component disappeared in a white blur, and screee'd for a while. From time to time, he stopped, measured, tutted, scratched his ear, started again. The surface of the Thing was so smooth it seemed to evade eyesight, like wet soap in a bath.

‘Well now, George mate,' God said, miking the component up for the tenth or eleventh time, ‘I suppose we ought to be getting you back to the old hot spot in a minute.' He closed one eye and squinted through his right spectacle lens at the micrometer dial. ‘Another gnat's nibble still to go,' he sighed. ‘Always takes longer than you think, this last bit.'

George stayed where he was, immobilised. For the first time in his life, he didn't know what to do. Not a nice feeling, but somehow it didn't hurt. This was because he knew the man would do the right thing.

‘Can't have people breaking out all over the place,' God went on. ‘Shocking. Got to do something about it. Just pass me that small oilcan, the one on your left. No, the other one. Thanks.'

‘So,' George said (and the trumpets all sounded for him on the other side) ‘you're having a problem with Time, are you?'

The man laughed. ‘You can say that again,' he said. ‘Bloody old stuff. Biggest blessed nuisance in the whole set-up. Here, what d'you make that? My eyes are getting so bad, it's terrible sometimes.'

George peered. He could just about make out the dial, but no calibrations whatsoever.

‘I make it point three six four,' said God.

‘Yup.'

‘Ta. I mean,' he went on, ‘this horrible old thing's the easy bit. Take out the knackered part, turn up a new one, slap it in, job done. It's what to do with all the waste stuff that's the problem.'

George nodded. He'd worked that out for himself, although by what logical route he had no idea. ‘Temporal waste,' he said. ‘Nasty.'

‘Diabolical.' God sighed. ‘Twenty-four hours more of it every day, leaking like buggery and stinking the place out. Can't burn it, can't bury it, doesn't dissolve in anything.You're stuck with it.'

‘And,' George interrupted, ‘it's not as if there's an endless supply of it to start with.'

God groaned. ‘Don't remind me,' he said. ‘Daftest thing I ever did, making the thing run on fossil fuel. Should've known better.'

‘Easy mistake to make.'

‘Daft mistake to make.' God switched off the lathe and lifted out the finished part. ‘It's not brilliant,' he said, ‘but it'll have to do. Pass me that duster, will you?'

‘In other words,' George went on, ‘on the one hand you've got too much waste time, and on the other, not enough raw material.' He paused, fully aware of the awesome nature of his position. ‘Doesn't that suggest something to you?' he said quietly.

God looked at him.

‘Like,' he forced himself to continue, ‘recycling?'

God laughed. ‘Sure,' he said. ‘If I could. But I can't, can I?'

This is it, George old son. So go for it. ‘Yes you can,' he heard himself say. ‘No trouble.'

God looked at him again, and Hell was much, much better. In Hell, they only beat you up. Reflected in the lenses of God's spectacles, George could see himself; the truth, the real thing. Could have been worse, he realised, but still not a pleasant thing to happen to anybody, the sum total of your being splashed like a fly on a windscreen.

‘No trouble,' he repeated. ‘It works like this.'