LITMIR.BIZ

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He ran lightly across the two fields which separated his house from the river and from the dense shadow of the Workhouse. Its crumbling brickwork and dark, empty windows were forbidding enough to send a shiver down his spine. Owen remembered being inside and seeing cold, ghostly shapes moving through the field as the Harsh attacked. He remembered Johnston’s men attacking the Workhouse defences.

      When he reached the riverbank he leaped lightly on to the fallen tree. He ran across and jumped down on the other side. It was darker here and hard to see where he was going. He should have brought a torch.

      “Cati?” he called out, his voice sounding a bit weak and scared in the darkness. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Cati?” In the darkness something rustled. He ran to the Workhouse door.

      “Cati,” he hissed, “is that you?” There was a scrabbling sound from inside, like stones and rubble falling. In the darkness he could see the staircase, almost blocked with rocks, then a small figure dashed around the bend in the stairs carrying a strangely-shaped magno gun in one hand.

      She slid to the ground in front of Owen. “I nearly shot your silly head off,” she said, starting to brush dust off her trousers.

      “I wouldn’t have put it up if I’d known you were armed,” he said. “What’s going on anyway?”

      “I don’t know,” she said, looking troubled. “If only the Sub-Commandant was here …”

      But Owen knew that the Sub-Commandant, Cati’s father, would never be there again. In the final battle with the Harsh, he had been sucked into the time vortex they called the Puissance and been lost, leaving Cati to inherit his role as Watcher.

      Cati turned her face aside and passed her sleeve over her eyes. “You miss him too?” she said, her voice almost pleading. Owen nodded. The small, stern man had believed in Owen when everyone else seemed against him.

      “Anyway,” Cati said with an effort, “let’s get inside somewhere where we can talk.”

      “What about the Den?”

      “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

      They walked along the riverbank, then dived through the bushes into the Den. Inside Owen took the piece of magno from its box and placed it on the table. The blue light illuminated the room.

      Cati threw herself wearily down on the old sofa. Owen went to the little box where he kept food and took out teabags and a packet of biscuits. He had added a camping stove to the Den and Cati watched with interest as he lit it. Owen made the tea and waited until she had drunk half of it before he spoke.

      “So what is it, Cati?” he said. “Why did you come looking for me?”

      She rubbed a hand wearily over her face and he saw the dark shadows under her eyes. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said slowly. Then she told him about the flight of geese and how they had turned into skeletons and then dust.

      “That’s like what happened to me!” Owen said. “A girl in school. Freya Revell. I was talking to her and for a moment she turned really old. I mean, her face looked ancient.”

      “So I didn’t dream it!” Cati exclaimed. “It must have happened!”

      “I think so,” Owen said. “It sounds as if it’s something to do with time going wrong. You should wake the others …”

      Cati shook her head. “I tried, but I can’t. There’s something wrong.”

      Owen’s heart went out to his tired-looking friend. “Maybe I can …” he began. Cati looked up at him hopefully. He knew that he possessed a strange power to awake those who were in the long sleep, although he didn’t understand it.

      Cati nodded. “That is why I called you. I don’t know if it’s wrong or not. There may be consequences. But when I couldn’t wake them I didn’t know what else to do.”

      “You did the right thing,” Owen said, hoping it was true.

      “Do you think you can wake them?” Cati asked eagerly.

      “I can try,” Owen said, frowning. He had awakened people before, but it had felt like an accident. He didn’t know if he could wake the whole Starry.

      “Come on then,” Cati said, jumping to her feet, her tiredness forgotten.

      Owen barely had time to put the cup back on the table before she had hauled him through the gap in the bushes and out on to the path. Within minutes they were standing before a wall of rock. Cati put her hands against it and the outline of a massive door appeared, delicately carved with small, ancient looking figures and decorations. Cati produced a tiny key and inserted it into an almost invisible lock. Silently, the massive door swung open.

      Owen stared at the sleeping people. Part of him thought of the Resisters as a dream, but now he saw them, memories came flooding back.

      “Come on,” Cati said. “We’ll try to wake Dr Diamond.”

      Owen nodded approvingly. If anyone would know what to do, then it would be the scientist and philosopher. They slipped between the rows of sleeping people and he recognised many of them. Here and there, one of the simple beds was empty. Defending time was a dangerous business.

      Finally they came to Dr Diamond’s bed. The scientist’s chest rose and fell gently as he slept, and there was an expression on his face somewhere between a smile and a frown, as though he was on the verge of solving a particularly tricky problem that had cropped up in a dream. The pockets of his faded blue overalls bulged with mysterious objects.

      “Will you try?” Cati whispered. Owen nodded.

      He gently placed his hand on the man’s forehead. There was a faint tingling in Owen’s fingers, but nothing more. He straightened up. A simple touch had worked before, even when he didn’t know he had the power. He tried again, with the same result.

      “Call him,” Cati said. “Call out his name in your mind.”

      Owen bent forward again. This time he put both hands on the man’s forehead and closed his eyes. “Dr Diamond,” he whispered, then formed the words in his mind. Dr Diamond, Dr Diamond. Suddenly he felt as if he was sinking in a deep well, going down into the darkness.

      “Dr Diamond,” he whispered again. Something was wrong. He felt staleness in the air around him and in the spaces his mind reached out to. The Starry felt airless and Owen found himself gasping. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. He tried to detach his mind. Then, in the distance, he felt another presence. A warm presence, calling his name, groping its way towards him in the darkness.

      Owen had the feeling that another mind gripped his like two strong hands and propelled him upwards, out of the darkness and into the light.

      “Owen! Owen!” It was Cati’s voice. Owen came to and found himself on the floor of the Starry. He sat up and shook his head, feeling groggy and disoriented. Cati’s face swam into focus. She looked both anxious and relieved.

      “What happened?” he asked. “I was calling Dr Diamond …”

      “And I heard you,” a voice said.

      Owen looked up. Dr Diamond was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking down at him. There was a half-smile on his face.

      “Then that was you …?” Owen said.

      “Who came and joined my mind to yours? Yes, indeed. I don’t think either of us could have awoken on our own.”

      “We’d better get out of here,” Cati said, her eyes heavy. “Before the Starry sends us all to sleep.”

      “Yes,” agreed the doctor, stretching. “It gets very musty in here after a year or so.”

      More than musty this time, Owen thought. He watched Dr Diamond looking carefully around the Starry, as though there was something wrong that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He was definitely

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