LITMIR.BIZ

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tunnel is open. We will go to Hadima and find a tempod and perhaps set the world to rights. For now.”

      Owen looked away, unable to meet Dr Diamond’s eye.

      “What about the sleepers?” Wesley said.

      “We can do nothing for them until we fix time. You will have to watch the Workhouse, Wesley.”

      “On my own?”

      “Owen will have to wake Pieta,” the doctor decided.

      Owen got wearily to his feet. Since he had wakened Wesley in the Warehouse he had felt tired, almost as if a little of the darkness he’d penetrated to reach Wesley had seeped into his mind. And he knew that Pieta would be harder to wake. Would her mind help him or fight him?

      “Let’s go,” he said. “I can try to wake one more at least.”

      “Go with him, Wesley,” Dr Diamond said. “Cati can help me get ready here.”

      “Get ready?” Cati said.

      “Yes,” Dr Diamond said. “Can you not feel it? Time is exhausted here. If we are going to the City, we must go soon.”

      After Owen and Wesley left, Dr Diamond started to pick out maps and books from the pile on the floor, and pack them into a leather attaché case with his initials on it.

      “Now to be practical, Cati,” he said. “Both ovens are full of fresh bread and cakes for the journey. I want you to pack them into this!” With a triumphant flourish, the doctor produced an ancient rucksack. The canvas was faded and the whole thing smelled of mothballs, but it was enormous.

      Resisting the temptation to hold her nose, Cati took it from him. She put it in the corner, then started taking loaves from the oven, placing them on a rack to cool. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the scientist packing all sorts of strange instruments and devices. She had known Dr Diamond all her life, but there were times, like now, when his strange blue eyes hid more than they revealed.

      A few miles away, Mary White was almost at the end of her strength, but she had called Owen’s mother back and healed her. Martha was sleeping now. Mary unfastened the pin from her hair. Her grey hair cascaded down and in the dimness of the room she saw her reflection in a mirror and recognised the shadow of the long-haired, wild young girl that she had been so many years ago. Despite her weariness, she smiled to herself, then bent and fastened the pin in Martha’s hair. She could do no more.

      Outside, Mary moved slowly down the path. It was dusk now and the white shapes of moths moved in the hedges. She stopped at a field gate and looked down towards the river. A pale mist was covering the fields and when she looked up she saw a full moon low in the sky. She frowned. The full moon was not due for another three weeks.

      Slowly and painfully, she walked on. Turning the last corner, she saw the shop in front of her. She moved forward, and as she did so Johnston stepped out of the shadows, teeth bared in a wolfish grin.

      “Where are you going, Mary White?”

      “I am going home, Mr Johnston,” she said, her own voice sounding faint and faraway.

      “Do you like the moon, Mary?” Johnston said, his grin widening.

      Mary shook her head. She was tired and confused and could no longer see clearly. Johnston watched as Mary pitched forward on to the roadway. Her hands moved for a moment as if to fend something off, and then she was still.

      At the Workhouse, Dr Diamond looked worried. In the Skyward was a model of the solar system which moved in sequence. Powered by magno, there were no strings to keep the planets in the air. Cati and Dr Diamond both heard the clattering noise from it. When they looked at the model, they could see that the motion of the planets was distorted, with the moon in particular swinging in a wild orbit that loomed nearer to the earth.

      “What is it?” Cati asked.

      “Time and the fabric of space are intimately connected,” Dr Diamond said. “When one is out of shape, the other is also affected. Quickly now, get three sleeping bags from the back room and pack them. What is keeping Owen and Wesley?”

      The two boys were at the river. Wesley stood looking across the fields while Owen ducked his head into the cold stream. He felt as if he could lie down and sleep. Waking Pieta had been even harder than he had thought. Wesley had unlocked the concealed stone door of the Starry for him and they had gone in. The Resisters sleeping there did not seem as disturbed as the Raggie children, but Owen could now sense an unease in the air, a feeling that things weren’t quite right.

      They found Pieta slightly apart from the others, sleeping with her two children on either side of her. Her face was stern and beautiful. When Owen bent over to wake her, her mind fought with his and mocked him by slipping off into deeper and darker spaces. Where the others had sought help, Pieta’s sleeping mind twisted away. Only when he was at the absolute limit of his strength did she come towards him.

      When her eyes snapped open, he fell back exhausted. A sardonic smile creased her face and she swung her legs off the bed in an easy cat-like motion, looking first for her weapon of choice – the magno whip which she wielded with such fearsome power.

      “Must be some fighting to be done if you’re waking me first,” she said.

      “Reckon so,” Wesley said.

      “What about the others?” Pieta said, looking at her children.

      “I can’t,” Owen said. “I don’t have enough strength.”

      Pieta looked at him long and hard, then reached out and took his chin in her hand. “Make sure you come back later and wake them then, young Owen. Do you hear me?”

      He nodded dumbly. Pieta bent swiftly and kissed each of her children on the forehead, then turned and strode out of the Starry without looking back.

      Wesley helped Owen to his feet. “Thank you would have been nice,” Owen said, rubbing his back where he had fallen.

      “Not our Pieta’s style,” Wesley said, looking after her admiringly. “But she’s a good one in a fight.”

      Leaning on Wesley’s shoulder, Owen made his way to the door again. He was glad to leave the abnormally stale atmosphere in the Starry and felt nothing but relief when Wesley turned the key in the door. Then he feel guilty when he thought of his friends still sleeping in there – Rutgar and Contessa, even the subtle and dangerous Samual.

      After Owen had ducked his head in the stream, the two boys ran back to the Workhouse. Owen worked hard to keep up with Wesley, who ran lightly in his bare feet, oblivious to the stones and branches which littered the path. They had just reached the Workhouse when what looked like a long coil of blue flame licked the ground just in front of Wesley’s bare toes. Wesley stopped dead and looked up.

      Pieta returned her whip back to her belt and dropped to the ground from the branch she had been sitting on.

      “You want to watch out with that whip,” Wesley said. “I need them toes.”

      “I need to know what’s going on,” Pieta said, “so get talking, fishboy.”

      “There’s not enough time,” Owen said.

      “What?” Pieta’s eyes narrowed.

      “There isn’t enough time left to keep our world going,” Wesley said, “so Dr Diamond says anyway.”

      Pieta moved her head from side to side, sensing the air. “Time doesn’t feel right,” she said.

      “Stale. Is that what you feel?” Owen said.

      “Yes,” she said. “Stale and old and still. This is not something I can fight with my whip, boys. This is beyond Pieta.”

      Owen thought that she sounded worried, even afraid.

      Moonlight streamed in through the windows and woke Owen’s mother where she lay on the sofa. She snapped awake, instinctively

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