Lie of the Land (34 page)

With the older boy in tow, she climbed the roadside fence and ran off down the field of thistles and reeds to join their friends, past the quarry. Oblivious to Gary and his pals, Carl looked along the stretch of road to where it curved round a long sloping outcrop of rock and grass, before vanishing inland among the hills. Gary and the other kids, jumping and running in the sand dunes, were at least 500 metres inside the redzone.

Carl stood, motionless and quiet, and looked down the road.

‘What's wrong?'

It took him a few moments to register that Isaac was still beside him. ‘In you get,' he said quietly.

There was not a flicker on the deltameter, right through the sinusoidal spectrum. If it had been Pulse Day, the signal would be back to full strength by now. But there was no sign of it. He licked his trembling lips.

‘What's wrong?'

Carl put the car in gear and drove, taking it slow, doing 20mph, checking the deltameter as he went. At 30mph he reached the curve in the road; he checked the mileometer. A mile. Around the curve and on and down through a long dip and across a short bridge by more pine trees and then uphill again.

He stopped the car.

Two miles. Nothing. They were a lot closer to the Russian capsule now. The thick silver torpedo had not moved from its spot on the hillside for over two years, though the parachute had long been shredded by the wind. But that was a good half-mile away from the road. The capsule would keep. There was another village, he remembered, a few miles away.

Carl smiled, though tears were welling in his eyes. He coughed, blinked, his voice hoarse and uncertain. Solid plates were shifting
again, as they always must, grinding towards a new alignment. Change was here. The wall of silence had opened, by how much it was hard to say.

With his left hand he reached over and grabbed the passenger seat belt, swept it around Isaac, and clicked it into place.

‘What's that for?'

‘So you don't get hurt.'

‘Where are we going?'

‘I don't know,' whispered Carl. He put the car into gear again and drove on, his hands shaking. ‘We'll find something useful, and bring it back.'

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Joan Michael, David Robinson, Jan Rutherford, Alison Rae and Neville Moir. You all played your part in making this possible. I am grateful.

M.F.R.