‘Ideally, yes. D’you remember the spell you used in Fisherberg?’
Aubrey would never forget that desperate spell casting. It was a matter of defining a temporal inversion constant that would worm its way back through time and latch itself onto the compression spell, adding a few days to the time of its unleashing. Time enough, then, to dispose of this canister safely. A few hundred miles out to sea, Aubrey hoped, on the fastest ornithopter available.
‘I have it,’ he said.
‘Be my guest.’ Major Morton raised his voice. ‘Maloney, Johnson, Miller, time to move away.’
The operatives in the bottom of the crater looked up, and immediately scrambled out. Aubrey thought they scrambled gratefully, if such a thing were possible.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Major Morton asked Aubrey.
Aubrey shook his head and handed the major his cap. His palms were clammy. Suddenly the crater looked miles deep. The canister was an ominous glint at the faraway bottom. Aubrey shifted his weight from one leg to another, which was enough to set him into motion.
He clambered down the ragged sides of the pit. Loose earth tumbled past him and made his footing uncertain for a moment until he turned and steadied himself with both hands, not caring about how he looked as he slid on his rear. He was prepared to sacrifice dignity for safety, and proceeded to demonstrate that when he reached the bottom by crawling on hands and knees, creeping up on the sinister canister.
He was aware that Major Morton hadn’t withdrawn. His pipe was stuck in the corner of his mouth as he circled the crater, matching Aubrey’s approach. The man had no nerves, Aubrey decided, and he actually thought the major was grinning.
Aubrey pulled back his sleeves absently. It gave him a sense of being workmanlike, and it had a faint but noticeable settling effect as he studied the canister. From a foot or so away, he could see the line of rivets along one side and the solder that sealed the top. Or the bottom, it was hard to tell with the other end buried in the earth. The surface was scuffed and dented, with a long, bright scrape running along its length.
He took a deep breath. Then he extended his magical awareness.
He grunted and rocked on his hands and knees as the canister came alive in the pseudo-sight that his magical awareness lent him. It was a flare, a roiling of spells held in check by a profoundly woven compression spell. Aubrey gritted his teeth and swayed from side to side in an effort to ascertain what was packed into the canister, what exactly was threatening to explode. He could make out the earthquake spell, shivering as it was in anticipation, but he could also detect intensifying spells, and some that he thought would have the effect of channelling or focusing...
Enough, he thought. The nature of the contents of the canister was interesting, but he didn’t have time to explore. He needed to clamp down on the whole package.
Following the method he’d established – by necessity – in the Fisherberg drama, he constructed a neat, terminal phrase to splice onto the end of the compression spell. With no time for experimentation or refinement, he reused the Sumerian version he’d invented in that crisis. He steadied himself, then pronounced the series of crisp, slightly harsh, elements, and it was over in seconds. As soon as he finished, the Sumerian addition inverted itself and disappeared, tracking back through time to when the compression spell was originally set in place.
Satisfied, he let out a deep breath. Subtly, the magical nature of the canister had changed. The enveloping compression spell appeared less ... imminent.
He straightened until he was kneeling. He wiped his hands together.
‘All done?’ the major said cheerily.
‘I’ve added two days to the trigger time,’ Aubrey said and he was quite pleased that his voice neither quavered nor croaked. ‘I’d like to examine it more closely, if I could.’
‘Ah. We’ll have to see about that. My orders are to get it out of here quick smart. The Gallians are understandably nervous about having a couple of bombs in their vicinity.’
Aubrey understood that, if his probing of the canister was accurate, it wouldn’t only have been the Gallian Embassy that would have suffered if the earthquake had been released. It would require more study, but he had an awful suspicion that a way had been found to aim an earthquake’s effects in desired directions – and the Houses of Parliament weren’t that far away.
‘Splendid. I’ll get the others to cart the thing off with the high explosive bomb.’
‘That’s safe, too?’
‘Oh, yes, no worries there. Good work, Fitzwilliam. Glad to have had your help. Don’t forget that we’ll need a full report on your methods, to help disarm the other canisters.’
Aubrey dragged himself out of the crater to see Major Morton had wandered over to the other bomb site, where he was chatting with some more of his people.
He was pleased with himself, but his overwhelming reaction was one of relief. Not simply that he hadn’t been killed, but relief that he hadn’t let anyone down. Commander Craddock and Major Morton had been relying on him in his new status as a Magic Department operative, but he was acutely conscious of the lives of the people in the embassy and the surrounding streets – and the countless others whose lives may have been affected had an unhappy outcome here caused retribution and a more bloody war. Where does responsibility end? he wondered.
He sighed and saw George, walking rather stiffleggedly toward him. ‘Well,’ George announced. ‘That was an experience.’
Aubrey thought it wise not to draw attention to George’s pallor. Normally ruddy-faced, he was definitely pale. ‘Did you learn much?’
‘They let me cut the red wire.’
‘The red wire?’
‘The one that might have set the whole thing off, if it was the wrong one.’
‘And where were they?’
‘They said they were moving to a safe distance. One of them suggested the next county. They wished me luck before they went, though.’
‘And they left you alone? To cut the red wire?’
‘I’m reasonably sure I was alone. Not that I looked around. Or stretched. Or twitched – they emphasised that twitching was a very bad thing to do.’
‘Before they left.’
‘Before they left. I did sweat a little, though.’
‘I imagine you would.’
‘They didn’t say anything about not sweating.’
‘And what happened when you cut the red wire?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? Well, that’s good.’
‘No, I mean nothing happened because they’d disarmed it before I joined them.’
‘Ah.’ Aubrey sought for comforting words. ‘I suppose they were showing you what it was like, without putting you in any real danger.’
George nodded. Very slowly. ‘That must be it. And their laughing, when they came back. That was useful too, I imagine.’
‘Most likely. Instructional laughter, probably.’
‘I tell you what, old man. I’m going to look for a spot of tea. And some scones. A slice or two of cake wouldn’t go astray, either.’ He took off his cap, turned it around in his hands and then replaced it on his head. ‘We’re not messing about here any more, are we?’
‘No, we’re certainly not messing about. We’ve jumped in the deep end.’ Aubrey took a deep breath. ‘Go and get some morning tea, George. I’ll find Elspeth and we’ll join you.’
Aubrey didn’t need any reminder that everything had changed, but the usually sunny George’s understanding underlined the way that the world was different.
Adventuring was well and good, but it had had a touch of the carefree, no matter how dangerous the situation. Now, it was different.
After entering via a small conservatory, redolent with palms and philodendrons, Aubrey went searching for stairs leading downward, reasoning that a cryptography department simply had to be in the basement. He’d turned several corners, perfecting his Gallian ‘excuse me’ and ‘terribly sorry’ as he eased through the crowded corridors, when he realised he’d lost his sense of direction. Was he facing the front of the embassy, or the rear? He was in a nest of activity, an open typing pool surrounded by offices with neat windows for those inside to monitor those at work on the typewriting machines. A dozen young women were hard at work on their machines but, even so, several of them looked up as he passed. He did his best to appear as if he weren’t glancing at the papers they were copying, which made him walk with a rather stiff, chin-up gait.