Horatio surveyed the body almost calmly. He looked at the black, perforated plate set deep between the shoulders, its holes corresponding to the pattern of pins in the plate at the base of the neck.
“So that is how they are joined together,” said Horatio. “What do you think we would find if we opened up the body—lots of little motors and wires and valves, like in an old radio?”
“I don’t know,” said Michael. “But we are not going to find out. There isn’t time, and you have done quite enough damage for one night. You had better tell me what happened, and then we will have to decide what to do about—about the pieces.”
Horatio did not seem to hear him. He was studying Aldous Huxley’s head and the bent pins in the black plate. “Michael, look at this. I have just had an idea. Wouldn’t it be possible for one drybone to have several different heads—or for one drybone head to have several different bodies? The skin is torn because—because of what I did. But there must be a way of sealing and unsealing it.”
“Horatio, we can’t consider all the implications now. There will be plenty of time to think about them later—if we can successfully get ourselves out of this mess.”
Again Horatio appeared not to have heard him. “That would explain how the drybones at school tried to keep pace with our growing,” he said excitedly. “I’ve noticed them very carefully. They don’t grow evenly as we do. They seem to stay the same size for a long time, then suddenly shoot up an inch or so overnight.” He laughed, and the edge of hysteria was still evident in his voice. “Of course. They do it by changing their bodies. I must explore Ellen Terry’s body very thoroughly next time I see her, to make sure she isn’t wearing a boy’s body by mistake.”
The laughter became higher in pitch. Michael took hold of Horatio and shook him hard. But that didn’t stop it. So Michael slapped him hard, very hard. And the pain brought him back to his senses.
“I’m sorry, Michael…. I’ve made a hell of a mess of it, haven’t I? Now there is going to be real trouble.”
“Listen,” said Michael fiercely. “There isn’t time to be sorry. There isn’t time to speculate on the nature of drybones. There probably isn’t even time enough to get us out of this jam. But we have to try to do something constructive about it. And the first thing is that you must tell me as quickly as possible what has happened.”
Horatio pulled himself together and gave his account. After he had first discovered the underground passage, he had become convinced that it would lead out of London; and he determined to explore it as soon as he had an opportunity. He said nothing to Michael and Ernest because they had seemed engrossed in their wretched books, and he had sensed that they would probably want to delay exploration for a while until they found out what, if anything, the books revealed.
“Also,” confessed Horatio disarmingly, “I wanted to do something on my own…. I’m not very good at being told what to do, Michael. You must have realized that. Besides, I wanted to be able to find out something useful and then come to you and say: ‘Look! Surprise, surprise!’”
“Well, you did that.” Michael’s voice was grim. “You did exactly that.”
Horatio had risked coming to the library in midafternoon. He had with him his iron bar and an electric torch with new batteries. He walked round Apollo Twelve Square twice before he entered the library, trying to make sure that he was not followed. Horatio was certain, in fact, that he had not been followed and that Aldous Huxley must have already been in the library when he arrived.
“If there had been any sign of a drybone anywhere, I would have abandoned the stunt. But the situation seemed absolutely perfect.”
“Too perfect,” observed Michael. He glanced at what was left of Aldous Huxley. “We can only hope that this one was here casually…. Which of the passageways did you take—the one we found you in last time?”
“Yes. I knew it was going to be a long job because of last time. I thought I’d save the other one until you and Ernest were present…. I waited in the library for a while before I went down the stairs, just listening to make sure I was alone. But there wasn’t the slightest sound. The whole place was dead.”
Michael sighed. “Which leads to the nasty thought that if Aldous Huxley was already present, he was hiding. And if he was hiding, he was doing it for a purpose.”
“But he couldn’t have known that we had found the library.”
“Possibly. But he could have known that some fragiles had found the library.”
Horatio had gone down the stairs, switched his torch on and had begun to walk along his chosen passage as fast as possible. He wanted to get to the end of it quickly not just because he was impatient to discover where it led but also because he wanted to return home before his absence excited too much interest.
The corridor was long and slightly curved. It also seemed to be sloping downward. The walls, roof and floor were monotonously smooth and were rather damp in places. Horatio noticed that his footsteps echoed. After a time he alternated periods of walking with periods of running. He had just finished one period of sustained running and was taking a short rest when he became aware that the echoes of his footsteps were apparently continuing. Oddly, it did not occur to him at that point that anyone else could be in the corridor. He simply concluded that it must be so long that the sound of his footsteps was reverberating along it.
However, some time later he took another rest and listened once more to the apparent echoes. That was when he noticed that the rhythm was different from the rhythm of his own footsteps.
“I didn’t panic, Michael. At first I thought it might be you or Ernest, having had the same idea that I had. But I thought the best thing to do would be to press on and reach the end of the passage. I imagined it might be possible to conceal myself somewhere; and if whoever was behind me turned out to be you, we could have a laugh about frightening each other because you—or he—must have been hearing my footsteps, too…. If it was a drybone, then I’d just keep out of the way and try to see who it was. That was the theory.”
“The practice?”
Horatio shuddered. “The practice was different… I don’t know what I thought would be at the end of the passage. I don’t know what I thought it would be like outside London. I suppose I imagined fields and villages and hills and woods—that kind of thing…. It had been a long journey. I—I came to the door and—” Horatio stopped, obviously agitated by the memory and obviously trying to control himself. “And—and I just wasn’t prepared for it…. I’m sorry, Michael. That was when I really panicked.”
Michael put a hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, Horatio. You have had a bad time. Nobody doubts your courage.”
“It was just an ordinary door…. Just an ordinary door. Unlocked. I—I turned the handle and opened it….” Horatio put his hand to his forehead and pressed hard, as if he were trying to press back nightmares, phantoms. “There were rocks, great rocks and a roaring of water. And there were these things—I was too shaken to see what they were at first—these huge lizards…. And there was one very near. It turned its head and looked at me…. I think I must have screamed, because they all looked. Then I slammed the door and I ran. God, how I ran! I think I was still screaming. Then I heard the footsteps coming toward me. And somebody was calling. And then I ran into the drybone. …. I—I went to pieces. I thought he was going to kill me or drive me back to the lizards. So I knocked him down and hit him as hard as I could. But he managed to get up somehow, and I chased him all the way back. I had to smash him then—for a different reason. He would tell the others, and then you and Ernest might be drawn in… and… and… Michael, I had to smash something!”