The Long and Short of It Read online

  She stuck her head out of the curtains and a second later, we moved up a gear.

  We crossed the Tiber, muddy and swollen with winter rainfall, and finally, two streets away from the pod, we pulled over. We piled out and Peterson dismissed the chairmen. From the speed with which they disappeared, I suspected he’d massively over-tipped them, but should they subsequently be questioned, they could honestly say they dropped us in the middle of nowhere.

  ‘This way,’ said Guthrie, getting his bearings and nudging us down a very unevenly paved street. We concentrated on not turning an ankle and Markham brought up the rear.

  Nearly there.

  * * *

  We were just one hundred yards from the pod. Just one hundred yards, when we heard a shout behind us. Mindful of Major Guthrie’s oft-repeated instructions, we kept going.

  ‘Never mind what’s happening behind you. You’ll find out soon enough if you turn to look.’

  Just about the first thing I learned at St Mary’s.

  We kept our heads. Van Owen and I scooped up our skirts and did the hundred-yard dash, sandals slapping on the uneven cobbles. Peterson ran with us. Markham and Guthrie covered our rear. Really, we’d done this sort of thing so many times we barely even stopped to think about it.

  It would appear we had considerably underestimated Gaius Julius Caesar, conqueror of Gaul, Dictator Perpetuo, etc. etc. He knew very well what his wife had done. He also knew he could not publicly accuse her. He needed scapegoats. His soldiers had followed us at a discreet distance and when it became apparent we weren’t heading for the Street of Six Vines, they’d decided to move in.

  Fat lot of good it would do them. We scrambled into the pod and heaved a sigh of relief. We were safe. They were outside the pod. We could just wait for them to give up and leave and then we could jump back to St Mary’s when it got dark.

  They didn’t give up and they didn’t leave. Of course they didn’t. Roman soldiers were the best in the world, Caesar’s men would be the best of the best, and these would be the handpicked best of the best of the best.

  They pounded on the door, which didn’t do them the slightest bit of good. Nothing short of a thermo-nuclear blast would get through that door if we didn’t want them to. They threw their weight against it and there were some big boys there, but they were wasting their time. After a while, someone turned up with the battering ram.

  An interested crowd began to gather.

  Soon afterwards, reinforcements turned up. You could see they didn’t take it very seriously. The wandered around the pod, kicking the walls and laughing. It was just five fugitives in a small hut, for crying out loud. Come on, centurion, get that door down and we can all go back to the mess.

  The attentive crowd shouted instructions and helpful advice.

  We made some tea and Peterson handed the mugs around. ‘I have to ask,’ he said to Markham. ‘How did you spot what was going on?’

  Markham, unexpectedly, said nothing.

  Guthrie put down his mug. ‘Well, I’ll tell you, since he won’t.’

  I looked from one to the other. What was this all about?

  He continued. ‘It’s what we do. While you’re caught up in the moment – and no criticism; you’re historians and you don’t see the world in the same way as normal people – anyway, while you’re caught up in the moment, we watch what else is going on. We keep you safe. It’s our job. Markham saw a movement where there shouldn’t have been movement and he acted. Because it’s his job and he’s very good at it.’

  I looked at Markham and saw him – small, perpetually grubby, spiky hair, St Mary’s favourite disaster-magnet, but he wasn’t, was he? He was tough, competent, and virtually indestructible. I suddenly realised that if I couldn’t have Guthrie then I’d rather have Markham watching my back than anyone else I knew.

  And what of Guthrie himself? Quiet, assured, solid as a rock. Keeping us all safe.

  I took a breath. ‘We don’t say this anything like often enough – but on behalf of everyone here – good job, guys. Thank you.’

  There was a moment of intense embarrassment, but fortunately the soldiers chose that moment to clamber onto the roof to try and batter their way through, so we were able to keep calm and carry on.

  We drank our tea and laughed at them. Our plan was to wait for them to give up and jump away under cover of darkness.

  We didn’t laugh for long because they didn’t give up.

  Their next idea was to smoke us out. They dragged up great piles of brushwood and timber – God knows where from – doused it with oil, and set it alight.

  Pods are built to withstand a great deal of punishment and I should know. I nearly melted one, once. However, solid and robust as they may be, there’s some delicate stuff inside. I wasn’t sure how it would respond to being engulfed in a fireball. And what on earth would I tell Leon? It’s possible I might have a bit of a reputation for damaging pods and this wouldn’t help.

  The interior of the pod grew very hot. A couple of red lights flickered. I instructed Peterson to shut down non-essential systems.

  We sat in near darkness and listened to them bringing up more firewood. There were five of us in a small space and things began to get stuffy.

  ‘This is no good,’ said Guthrie, grimly. ‘We’re going to have to jump soon.’

  ‘We can’t,’ said Van Owen. ‘They’re too close. This is why everyone stands behind the safety line in Hawking. So we don’t inadvertently suck anyone into the vacuum.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Markham in tones of enlightenment. ‘Is that’s what it’s for? You’d think a far-seeing technical department would have fitted us with something to give the buggers some sort of electric shock, wouldn’t you?’

  There was a thoughtful pause and then Peterson said, ‘Actually…’ and rummaged in a locker. ‘I’ve had a brilliant idea.’

  This was met with caution. Some of our brilliant ideas – aren’t.

  He pulled out a disk.

  ‘Voilà! The Sonic Scream.’

  Van Owen and I stared at each other, baffled. Sweat ran down my back. I wiped my forehead on my palla.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The Sonic Scream. Something Chief Farrell is putting together. Still experimental, of course.’

  Silence.

  ‘Look. You’ve heard of that sonic device? The one that only affects teenagers?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Van Owen. ‘Teenagers are inarticulate, acne-ridden lumps of inert matter. The only way you can ever induce movement is by trying to separate one from its mobile phone. And if you can do that then the only way you can stop it attacking is with rhinoceros tranquiliser.’

  Harsh words from someone who only ceased being a teenager herself a few years ago.

  ‘No, no,’ he said, hastily. ‘You broadcast at low frequency and only they can hear it. Normal people aren’t affected. It induces feelings of discomfort. And they’re teenagers, so they’re pretty uncomfortable already. They don’t like it, so they move on. We have something similar here. Not low frequency, obviously, but the same sort of thing. I think Chief Farrell thought it might be useful for hostile animals and suchlike, but it might shift this lot.’

  I shook my head. ‘I really don’t think broadcasting screams will make this lot go away. Half of Rome will turn up to see what’s going on.’

  ‘No, that’s the beauty of it. Nothing is actually audible. They’ll just feel a bit odd – and then, without knowing why, they’ll just go away.’

  ‘Just like that? These soldiers conquered Gaul. And fought in Egypt. And Spain. You’re saying these battle-scarred veterans will feel a slight headache coming on and just wander off?’

  ‘Pretty much. And it’s painless. Probably. If it works on aurochs and mammoths and ostriches, it’s bound to work on Roman soldiers.’

  ‘Ostriches?’ said Guthrie, incredulously.

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘If you’re going to give it a go,’ interrupted Van O
wen, who hadn’t taken her eyes off the screen, ‘you should get a move on. They’re coming down the street with chains and half a dozen oxen. I think we’re about to be towed.’

  Well, that wasn’t good. Obviously, they were fed up and had decided not to waste any more time. They were just going to drag us away. Pods are tough – and I should know after what historians have done to them over the years – but bumping us up and down the Seven Hills of Rome? We needed to get out of here.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said to Peterson. After all, it probably wouldn’t even work.

  He slapped in the disk and switched to audio.

  It was embarrassing.

  It was a disaster.

  You can add Ancient Rome to the long list of places we can never go back to.

  Inside the pod, of course, nothing happened.

  Outside … Outside…

  Words failed me.

  When oxen stampede, they really don’t mess about. Over the millennia, herds of bison have thundered majestically across the prairies, shaking the ground with the fury of their hooves. Six maddened oxen in a small Roman suburb channelled their ancestors and did even better.

  The first casualty was a fruit and veg barrow. Two seconds later, we had vegetable purée and a lot of firewood. The owner sought refuge in a fig tree. Since he was only about four feet off the ground, it was hard to see what this would achieve, but this was advanced thinking for oxen and they lost interest.

  All the Roman soldiers now scrambled up onto the roof – partly to escape the excited livestock and partly to get a better view. People in the square clutched their heads and then scattered as the oxen broke ranks and embarked on the bovine equivalent of asymmetric warfare.

  Personally, I thought the fleeing hordes did more damage than the bullocks. The soldiers, shouting a variety of conflicting instructions and curses from the safety of the roof, also contributed more than their fair share to the confusion and disorder. Really, none of it was our fault.

  There was only one exit from the square and with the exception of the man up the tree and the soldiers on the roof, everyone and everything headed in that direction. There was a massive bottleneck. Fights broke out. Women screamed. Soldiers shouted. Oxen bellowed.

  We sipped our tea and watched the screen in awe.

  Twenty minutes later, the square was deserted apart from a few disoriented souls who were rebounding from wall to wall as they attempted to find their way home.

  Trampled vegetables lay in the gutters. The remains of market barrows and their goods were scattered over a surprisingly large area. The street was littered with odd sandals, discarded togas, several broken handcarts, abandoned shopping, and surely far more dung than was possible from only six oxen. Every dog in Rome was still howling its head off. The purveyor of quality groceries was still up the tree and had been joined by large numbers of chickens and a stray goat. Markham wanted to go and help him down, but was restrained by Major Guthrie, who was staring at the screen as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  ‘Not our fault,’ I said, defensively.

  He closed his eyes, briefly.

  ‘Relax. No one’s ever going to know,’ said Peterson. Wrongly.

  One by one, the soldiers dropped off the roof.

  ‘It’s raining men,’ said Van Owen, which was something I’d always wanted to say.

  Wrapping their cloaks around their heads, they went for more reinforcements.

  ‘We could sell this device to Asterix,’ said Markham, the only one who appeared unaffected by Sonic Scream Trauma.

  ‘Can we just go?’ said Guthrie, between gritted teeth.

  So we went.

  It was one of Peterson’s better landings. We hardly bumped at all.

  ‘Rather in the manner of a stone skimming effortlessly across a limpid pool,’ he said.

  What anyone would have said to that was never known because at this point it became apparent that our problems were not yet over.

  All around Hawking, orange techies began to drop to the ground, arms curled protectively around their heads.

  In the far corners of the hangar, the glass in both the IT and technical offices crazed suddenly, shattered, and fell to the ground.

  ‘Shit!’ said Peterson. ‘Did we do that?’

  ‘You forgot to switch off the bloody Sonic Scream thing,’ I shouted. ‘Quick.’

  Peterson flicked a few switches and although nothing happened inside, outside the pod prone orange figures slowly began to unfurl.

  ‘Like flowers at the beginning of a new day,’ I said, trying to look on the bright side and getting the look from Guthrie that I deserved.

  ‘All this is your fault,’ said Guthrie to Markham. ‘If you’d kept your bosoms where they belonged, none of this would have happened. I hold you entirely responsible.’

  Markham blinked, indignantly. ‘Not my fault if I have unreliable bosoms. I’ve got nice bleached nipples, though. Do you want to see?’

  ‘No!’ shouted four voices, simultaneously.

  Round the hangar, people started to pick themselves up.

  Polly Perkins, head of IT and a sweet girl, was being forcibly restrained by members of her team.

  Dieter, Chief Farrell’s number two and built like a large brick shithouse, picked himself up, staggered a little, and then headed wrathfully for our pod. I had a moment of déjà vu. It was the oxen all over again. He picked up a fire bucket and hurled it with great accuracy and not a little force. It bounced off the pod with a dull thud.

  We all stepped back.

  ‘I don’t actually care if I have to spend the rest of my life in here,’ said Van Owen. ‘I am never leaving this pod again.’

  I heard Leon’s voice over the com link.

  ‘What’s going on in there?’

  ‘I’m carrying out a complete systems check,’ said Peterson, swiftly. ‘Going to be some time, I’m afraid.’

  ‘And I’m checking the inventory,’ I said. ‘Don’t wait up.’

  There was a pause and then he said, ‘You have five seconds. Get your arses out here. Now.’

  We sent Van Owen out first, because she has huge, pansy-purple eyes and you’d have to be a monster to yell at her, closely followed by me because I was covered in snake goo and people might feel sorry for me.

  Dr Bairstow, crunching his way across the glass fragments with magnificent disdain, met us just outside the pod.

  ‘Dr Maxwell. Are you injured?’

  ‘Snake blood, sir. But good news, Cleopatra is still alive.’

  ‘Should she be otherwise?’

  ‘An attempted murder, sir, magnificently foiled by St Mary’s in general and by Major Guthrie and Mr Markham in particular.’

  I beckoned them forwards. They shuffled sideways instead.

  ‘I’m almost certain the assignment was simply to observe and document. I distinctly remember saying so.’

  ‘Indeed you did, sir, but you know us. Always ready to go that extra mile.’

  ‘If you only knew how often I pray that some of you would go those extra miles.’

  I was unsure how to respond to that one and compromised by scrubbing uselessly at my snake goo.

  ‘Good news,’ said Peterson, cheerfully. ‘The Sonic Scream thing seems to work.’

  ‘While I am certain the Technical Section rejoices in that knowledge,’ said Dr Bairstow, ‘I suspect that thought is not uppermost in their minds at this moment. They appear to be anxious to discuss recent events with you. Should any of you survive, I look forward to reading your inadequate excuses for returning from your assignment in such an unexpectedly destructive manner.’

  He turned and limped away.

  The Technical Section closed in for the kill.

  * * *

  ‘I blame Markham,’ said Peterson, much later. We were in the bar, settling our nerves.

  Markham, who had been eyeing Nurse Hunter in his usual besotted fashion, sat up indignantly, although I can’t think why. It can’t have been the first time
he’d heard those words uttered.

  ‘What baffles me,’ I said, in an attempt to head the argument off at the pass, ‘is why no one ever said how ugly she was. Cleopatra, I mean. You could have launched ships off that nose.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Van Owen, ‘they just didn’t want to admit their leading men fell for a woman who looked like a camel.’

  We nodded wisely.

  ‘Am I right in thinking we did A Good Thing there?’ asked Guthrie. ‘I’m assuming no one was supposed to die today. Except us, of course, and that happens so frequently, I’ve stopped worrying about it.’

  We nodded again, each of us running through the implications in our minds. Of course, if it hadn’t been us, someone else might easily have spotted the asps amongst the figs. But if they hadn’t … If one or both of them had died … It really didn’t bear thinking about. Guthrie was right – just for once, we’d done a Really Good Thing today.

  Mrs Partridge appeared in the doorway, an ominously large number of ‘Deductions from Wages for Damages Incurred’ forms in her hand.

  Markham groaned. A doomed attempt to reproduce Native American smoke signals had resulted in an unexpectedly large conflagration, the destruction of a small copse, the incineration of a surprisingly large number of blankets, and a letter of protest from the parish council. These days, very little of his wages remained for damages incurred to be deducted from. Any day now, he would be paying Dr Bairstow.

  And behind Mrs Partridge loomed a very large and still very irate Dieter.

  We resisted the temptation to huddle together for mutual reassurance.

  ‘Well, I’ll be OK,’ I said, reaching for my drink. ‘I’m Chief Operations Officer. I outrank him.’

  ‘And I’m Chief Training Officer,’ said Peterson. ‘No problem here.’

  ‘I’m Head of Security,’ said Guthrie. ‘I’m safe.’

  ‘I’m a girl,’ said Van Owen, fluttering her eyelashes.

  We all stared at Mr Markham.

  ‘You utter bastards,’ he said.

  CHRISTMAS PRESENT

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Again, this story was built around an image. I saw Ian Guthrie walking into a room and Helen Foster saying, ‘Merry Christmas, Ian.’ Why Ian Guthrie, I don’t know. And if it was Dr Foster then it had to be somewhere in Sick Bay. Was he sick? Or someone else? He wasn’t in a relationship – or was he? All right, it had to be someone he cared about. But who? Running through the list of St Mary’s characters, I couldn’t find anyone suitable, so I had to invent someone. And why wasn’t she at St Mary’s any longer?