Nothing But Blue Skies (18 page)

‘Fibber,' the scientist said indulgently, switching the electric current off again. ‘It was a good idea, though - make me believe I couldn't hurt you, so I'd despair of ever getting any answers out of you. It wouldn't have worked, though. We humans have ways of inflicting pain that you people simply couldn't imagine. And yes, I know it sounds corny. The truth often is.'

The dragon growled softly. ‘You'd better carry on, then,' he said. ‘If it comes to a contest between your ability to hand the stuff out and our ability to take it, that might prove interesting. More so than sitting watching the tennis, anyway.'

‘Actually,' the scientist replied, ‘I quite like tennis.'

‘Really? How extraordinary. All right, you can start now. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's being kept waiting.'

The scientist smiled. ‘I haven't told you what I want yet. How can you refuse to talk when you don't even know what it is you aren't going to tell me?'

‘Simple,' the dragon replied. ‘I'm not going to tell you
anything
.'

‘Maybe I wasn't going to ask you anything,' the scientist said. ‘For all you know, I've had you brought here and forcibly restrained just so I can tell you the story of my life.'

The dragon sighed. ‘Oh, I hope not,' he said.

‘How sweet of you to say so.' The scientist thought for a moment. ‘Actually, you've already told me something very useful indeed. Something, as it happens, that I'd never have thought of asking. Don't go away.'

The dragon scowled. It had been much easier to put up with being bored when he'd been a goldfish, because goldfish are designed to withstand tedium loadings that would kill most other life forms. Now he was himself again, he desperately wanted - needed - to be doing something. Dragons aren't your deck-chair-sunblock-and-the-new-Jeffrey-Archer types; it's all to do with being creatures of air and water, light, swift and soaring. It also explains why so few dragons become chartered accountants.

‘Here we go,' the scientist said, returning after what the dragon held was a very long time, her arms full of photograph albums. ‘Now, where shall we start from? The beginning, I guess.' She opened the first album. ‘You know, a lot of these are really embarrassing, at least I think so. Probably everybody gets a bit uncomfortable looking at pictures of themselves as babies.'

‘We don't,' the dragon said.

‘Really?' The scientist didn't sound particularly interested. ‘Now then, here's me at two days old. And another one of me at two days. This is me at two days old with my mother. This is me with my mother and my aunt Christine. This is me, my mother, Auntie Christine and Uncle Joe. This is me, my mother, Auntie Christine, Uncle Joe and old Mrs Tomiska who used to live next door to Auntie Christine and Uncle Joe before they moved to Baltimore. Here's me at three days old, with my mother, cousin Douane—'

The dragon rumbled ominously, like distant thunder.

‘Oh,' the scientist said, ‘that reminds me. In case you were thinking of trying to burn the place down with lightning or flood us out with rain, I don't think that's going to work. I won't bore you with technical stuff - at least, I'll save that for later, in case I really need to get tough with you - but there's this electromagnetic reverse-polarity dampening field surrounding the building: nothing gets out, nothing gets in. You might possibly be able to make it rain in this room, but probably only just enough to fill a kettle. So feel free. I could do with a cup of coffee any time soon.'

‘We'll see about that,' the dragon said, and tried to rain. But he couldn't; it was as if there were clamps on his mind as well. After a tremendous effort that cost him a good deal of pain, he managed a single drop of condensation which fell, mockingly, on the tip of his snout.

‘Told you,' the scientist said. ‘Now then, where were we? Here's me at three weeks no, hang on, we've missed some. Oh well, I guess we'd better go back to the beginning and start again. This is me at two days old—'

The muscles in the dragon's neck stiffened as he drove with all his strength against the clamps. The locking mechanisms that held them in place creaked a little, but held. ‘This isn't going to work,' the dragon said.

‘What isn't?'

‘This. We're just wasting time. Get on with the proper torture and get it over with.'

‘No rush,' the scientist replied. ‘Besides, I'm not sure I'm going to bother with all that now. I mean, we both know that you're incredibly tough and strong-willed, so zapping you with electric shocks and drilling holes in your scales with lasers and burning you with drops of nitric acid - all that'll happen is that you'll just get more and more ornery and I'll have a chewed-up-looking dragon instead of a pristine one. Nah.' She grinned. ‘The hell with it. I'll just tell 'em I tried all that and it didn't work, and now I'm researching another approach to the problem. If I say that, they'll most likely leave me in peace for weeks. Months, even.' She patted the pile of photograph albums. ‘Plenty more where these came from,' she said. ‘And after we've done looking at snapshots, there's all manner of fun things we can do. Building regulations. Daytime TV. Star Trek novelisations. Computer manuals. I might even be able to persuade my sister-in-law's mother-in-law to come in and tell you about the time she went to the Royal Garden Party.'

The dragon squirmed convulsively. ‘It won't work,' he grunted. ‘You'll crack up before I do. After all, you're only human.'

The scientist burst out laughing. ‘I'm sorry,' she said, ‘but that's the funniest thing I've heard in a long while. I'm a scientist, dammit. Trying to bore me to death is like trying to drown a fish in water. Oh, talking of which, I've got a whole sheaf of notes for the paper I'm doing on photoreactive polymers that I could read to you. Shouldn't take more than sixteen hours, that is unless I give you the footnotes as well . . .'

‘I can take it,' the dragon whimpered.

‘Sure you can,' the scientist replied. ‘Right, here we go again. Here's me at two days old. Here's me and my mother—'

How are you feeling?' the angel asked.

‘Bloody terrible,' Gordon replied.

‘It's your own silly fault,' the angel said. ‘What on earth possessed you to go setting fire to a pair of socks in a room with no windows?'

Sadly, Gordon realised that the face leaning over him didn't belong to an angel after all; just a nurse, in the regulation blue uniform. ‘Not my socks,' he croaked, discovering in the process that his throat was unbelievably raw and painful. ‘His.'

‘You were lucky you didn't suffocate,' the nurse went on. ‘If Mr Harrison hadn't come along when he did, you'd have been dead ducks, both of you.'

In spite of the pain and the disappointment resulting from the nurse not being an angel, Gordon frowned. ‘Sprinklers,' he said. ‘Why didn't . . .?'

‘What sprinklers?'

He let his head sink back on the pillow. ‘Forget it,' he said. ‘Not important. Where am I?'

‘That's enough talking for now,' the nurse replied. ‘Now, you're going to be all right, but it'll be a day or so before you're fit to be up and about again. Just lie still and quiet; I'm going to give you something to help you sleep.'

‘Don't want to sl—' He felt the needle slide in and realised that for the first time in his life he was being given an injection without at least three nurses holding him down. That was worrying; if he was so weak that he couldn't even panic at the touch of a needle, he really must be sick.

The next time Gordon came round, he opened his eyes to see a plain grey plasterboard ceiling, brick walls and no nurses, let alone angels, whatsoever. He still felt awful, but he was able to get off the bed and stand up without bursting into tears or falling over. He looked round and saw Neville, still asleep on another bed a yard or so away.

‘Wake up,' he snapped, slapping Neville hard across his bare instep. ‘Rise and shine. What's going on here?'

Neville groaned and twisted round to face him. ‘Oh,' he said. ‘You're still alive, are you?'

‘Apparently. Where the hell are we?'

Neville shrugged. ‘Here,' he replied. ‘About that brilliant idea of yours, starting a fire in a room with no windows . . .'

‘Got us out of there, didn't it?'

‘Yes. Into here. I expect your idea of curing a bad cold is to let it turn into pneumonia.'

‘Don't be so negative. We don't even know where we are yet. Could be somewhere we want to be.'

‘You reckon.'

‘Could be,' Gordon went on, distancing himself from his fellow prisoner and making a show of studying the walls and ceiling, ‘that this one'll turn out to be much easier to break out of. You know, a change is as good as a rest—'

‘As the werewolf said to the fur-fabric salesman. You know, your buoyant optimism is starting to get right up my nose.'

‘Maybe. But at least I'm not the one who believes in dragons. '

Before the discussion could develop further, a door opened in the wall - Gordon had been staring at it only a second or so previously and hadn't seen any sign of a doorway - and a man stepped into the room. He was so nondescript in every respect that, like the door, you'd have had trouble seeing him if he hadn't moved.

‘And how are you two getting on?' he said.

The two weathermen stared at him. ‘Who are you?' Neville asked.

‘My name's Steven Harrison,' the man replied, pleasantly enough. ‘I run this facility. Are they looking after you properly, or is there anything I can get for you?'

There is nothing on Earth quite so disconcerting as the perfectly normal, out of context. It was as if they'd been tele-ported aboard an alien spaceship and held for hours in a transdimensional stasis beam that transcended every preconception they'd ever had about the nature of existence, only to be confronted by some guy in a white suit carrying a big red book, informing them that This Was Their Lives.

‘Actually,' Neville said, ‘I'd love a nice strong cup of tea.'

Mr Harrison smiled. ‘That could probably be arranged,' he said. ‘Milk and sugar?'

‘Yes, please.'

‘How many sugars?'

‘Two.'

Mr Harrison nodded, then turned to Gordon. ‘And you,' he went on, ‘would probably like to know where you are and what's going on. Am I right?'

Gordon nodded cautiously. ‘I'm eccentric that way,' he said. ‘Humour me.'

‘I'd have said it was perfectly natural,' Mr Harrison replied. ‘Just bear with me a moment, would you? Three teas,' he muttered into some kind of device strapped to his wrist. ‘One with milk and two sugars. Mr Smelt?' he added, looking up again.

‘No sugar,' Gordon heard himself say.

Mr Harrison nodded. ‘Like I was saying,' he went on, ‘it's entirely understandable that you two would want to know where you are, who I am, and what's going to happen to you. Now I'm afraid I can't tell you as much as I'd like to, because as you'll appreciate there are a number of security issues here, which means the best I'll be able to do is mark the dots and leave it to you to join them up for yourselves. But let's start with what I can tell you. I'm a perfectly ordinary civil servant, and you're both guests of Her Majesty's government.'

‘Ah,' Gordon said. ‘That was something I'd more or less worked out for myself.'

‘Of course,' Mr Harrison replied, with a slight nod of the head. ‘No great leaps of intuition required, I don't suppose. Where was I? Oh yes. My official job description is High Archimandrite and Keeper of the High Altar. To a large extent, though,' he added, as Gordon's jaw dropped like the second-hand value of a four-year-old computer, ‘it's really just an honorary title.'

‘Right,' Gordon said.

‘Oh yes.' Mr Harrison smiled. ‘It's not as if I change the flowers and polish the brassware; we've got outside contractors who do that sort of thing. I prefer to think of myself as nothing more than a run-of-the-mill High Priest.'

‘I see,' Gordon said, after a very long time. ‘Excuse me for asking, but high priest of what?'

‘Of the State religion,' Mr Harrison replied, with just the suggestion of a frown. ‘As I told you, I'm merely a humble servant of Her Majesty.'

‘Ah.'

‘In her fourfold aspect as maiden, warrior, mother and crone,' Mr Harrison went on, as a hatch opened in the wall and a kind of dumb-waiter arrangement slid a tray with three teacups on it onto the floor. ‘I imagine yours is the one with the spoon in the saucer,' he added, giving Neville a pleasant smile.

‘Hold on,' Gordon said, raising a hand. ‘What was that last bit again?'

‘About the tea?'

‘No. Before that. The fourfold-aspect bit.'

Mr Harrison nodded patiently. ‘Sorry,' he said, ‘it's probably my fault for not explaining properly. Let's start at the beginning, shall we? I represent the established State religion of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - not the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, obviously, they come under a different jurisdiction. We worship Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second.' He paused, and frowned. ‘You know,' he added. ‘The Queen.'

‘I have heard of her, yes.'

‘Splendid.'

Gordon waited for a moment, but Mr Harrison didn't seem inclined to add anything. ‘You worship the Queen,' he repeated.

‘Yes.'