Overtime. Part 24

He walked on for a while, thinking deeply. It was logical, after all, that by stepping out into a timeslip as he had done, he would be swept into the Archives; presumably Guy was down here too somewhere, although quite possibly not in the same Archive. For all he knew, the poor chap was swanning around somewhere in the Trojan War, shooting the hats off Greek heroes. Blondel groaned; the last thing he needed was somebody else to look for. How, Blondel now asked himself, am I going to get out of here?

For a while he gave that some serious thought, but nothing brilliant occurred to him, and he decided not to let it worry him. At least he knew where he was, and he always found that that was the main thing. Once you'd got that sussed, in his experience, everything else fell into place somehow or another. He remembered the time he'd accidentally come up on the wrong side of the Day of Judgement. That had been a bit hairy, for a while, but he'd got away without any difficulty in the end, with the aid of a sheepskin rug and a great deal of charm. Whatever else he was, Blondel wasn't a worrier.

Far away in the distance he saw a light, and he started to walk towards it. As he approached it, the non-existent waves under his feet became clammy and smelt unpleasantly of chemicals. Strange.

He walked on, squelching now, and quite soon came to another notice. Whoever set up this Archive had been pretty conscientious about keeping people informed.

EXTREME DANGER.

it said, and a little bit further down, in tiny little letters:

MEN AT WORK.

Well indeed. Blondel stopped and scratched his head. Logic told him that it was highly unlikely that anyone could be bothered to do anything in an Archive; once you were here you were here, and either you found a way Out or you got used to it. Anything in the way of industrial activity was counter-intuitive, to say the least. However, in the circ.u.mstances EXTREME DANGER probably wasn't to be taken at face value. When you have just been edited out of history and thus caused to cease to have existed, it's hard to think of anything that could actually make things worse.

About a hundred yards further on, he came to another notice. This one said:

HARD HAT AREA: NO ADMITTANCE.

Blondel grinned; then he took off his belt and wrapped it round his right hand. When people didn't want you to go in somewhere, it usually meant there was something worth taking a look at.

He stepped forward, stopped suddenly, and rubbed his nose. He'd b.u.mped into an invisible brick wall. More promising still.

Very cautiously, he felt his way along the wall until his sense of touch suggested that he'd come to a gateway; then he crouched down and waited. About a quarter of an hour later, a door opened and a man in a boiler-suit and a yellow hard hat came out and started to light a cigarette. Whatever it was they did in there, they weren't allowed to smoke while they were doing it.

Something dropped into place in Blondel's mind. He edged forward, tapped the smoker gently on the shoulder, and punched him.

Fortunately, the man's clothes fitted Blondel pretty well. He carefully stubbed out the cigarette, opened the door and walked in.

Inside, things were very different. There was light, for one thing; lots of it, coming from a battery of big white arc-lamps on a scaffolding tower, which loomed over a collection of huts and big machines. There was also a tall flame, rather like the flare from an oil well, rising up from a hole in what one could probably call the ground, although Flaubert would have found a more apt word for it. An illicit drilling station, of the sort that was causing all those headaches in the Time Warden's department. How very convenient.

There were a lot of men in boiler-suits and yellow hats scurrying about, and Blondel found no difficulty in blending in. He found a clipboard and wandered around for a while pretending to be bored. After the first half-hour, he didn't have to pretend very hard.

It was the tannoy that put the idea into his head; and once it was there it made quite a nuisance of itself. Left to himself, Blondel would have bided his time, slipped aboard the bus or whatever it was that took the workers back Topside when their s.h.i.+ft was over, and gone on his way singing. As it was, the Idea insisted that he locate the site office, find the man with the microphone who worked the tannoy, stun him with the fire extinguisher and start singing L'Amours Dont Sui Epris into the PA system. And, under normal circ.u.mstances, he'd probably have found a way of getting away with it. He'd been in worse sc.r.a.pes than this before now and still been back home in time for Cagney and Lacey.

As it was, something happened which he hadn't bargained for.

Someone began to sing the second verse.

'Thank you,' Guy said.

'Milk?'

Guy nodded. La Beale Isoud picked up a little bone-china jug and fiddled about with it.

'Sugar?'

'Thanks, yes. Look...'

'How many?'

'I'm sorry?'

'How many lumps? One? Two?'

Guy wrenched his mind back to where it should be. 'Two,' he said, 'thanks. Look, I hate to be a nuisance, but...'

Isoud looked at him, and he realised that she was going to offer him something to eat. If he refused the biscuits she would offer him cake. Best not to fight it, said his discretion, just get it over with.

'Would you like a biscuit?' said La Beale Isoud. Guy nodded, and was issued with a rather hard ginger-nut. That seemed to be that.

'The weather,' La Beale Isoud said, 'continues to improve.'

'Good,' said Guy. He noticed that he was sitting in a low, straight-backed chair and wondered how the h.e.l.l he'd got there. Instinct, probably.

'Are you interested in gardens, Mr Goodlet?' enquired La Beale Isoud. Guy shook his head. 'A pity,' La Beale Isoud went on. 'We have rather a nice show of chrysanthemums this year.

'What's happening?' Guy asked.

'We're having tea,' Isoud replied. 'Please do not make any sudden movements.'

'Oh, quite,' Guy said quickly, 'certainly not. My mother likes chrysanthemums,' he added. It was a lie, of course, but with luck she wouldn't notice.

'Another biscuit?'

'Yes, thank you.' Guy leaned slowly forward, picked up a ginger-nut and put it on his knee with the other one. He hadn't eaten anything for a very long time, he remembered. He fiddled with his teacup.

'I don't know how long my brother is likely to be,' said La Beale Isoud. 'He's terribly unpunctual, I'm afraid. Still, he's usually back around this time, if you'd care to wait a little longer.'

'If you don't mind,' Guy said. 'How did I get here?'

'I don't know,' said La Beale Isoud politely. 'I thought you might be able to tell me that.'

'Ah.' Guy stirred his tea for a moment and then raised the cup to his lips, without actually going so far as to drink anything. 'I fell over,' he said.

'Did you really, Mr Goodlet? How intriguing.'

'In a tunnel,' Guy went on. 'I was running away from a lot of voices which kept trying to ask me things about income tax, and I must have tripped over my feet and fallen over. And the next thing I knew, I was here. Something seemed to pick me up and ...'

'I see,' Isoud said. 'In that case, the fax must have brought you. What a curious coincidence, don't you think?'

'Er,' said Guy. He looked up over his teacup and smiled. La Beale Isoud pursed her lips, as if trying to reach a decision, and then smiled back.