Heaven forbid!
‘We’ve missed today’s tide,’ said Bob Simkins. ‘We couldn’t get over the reef at the moment. If we don’t want to sail in the middle of the night, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.’
Did Dame Hilda look worried for a moment? No, no. He’d imagined it.
As the two figures in their white robes, who seemed to complement the scene so perfectly, turned to go, the Brigadier noticed that Sarah, now even more agitated than before, was about to speak. No! He wouldn’t have it!
But instead, it was Pete Andrews who stepped forward.
‘Excuse me, Mother Hilda. Before you go, I wonder if you’d satisfy a sailor’s curiosity?’
‘Of course.’
‘Where is your ship, the
Skang
? Is there another anchorage apart from the part of the lagoon where we are?’
She looked surprised. ‘No, no. She isn’t here. The Captain had to go to Mauritius to refuel and so on. It’s a long way, but it seems it’s the nearest place.’
So that was what Sarah had been on about. Well, no harm done. But he’d have to have a word with the girl. Point out that she was only here on sufferance.
‘I’m sorry, Brigadier, but I’m not daft!’ Was he plain stupid?
What was the matter with the man? She’d seen him dig his heels in before, but this was beyond reason.
‘Now look here, Miss Smith...’
‘Of course he was speaking the truth. You should have seen how worried he was when he realised he’d let it out.
They’ve scuttled it, I tell you!’
‘But why on earth would they want to do a thing like that?’
said Pete Andrews, mildly. ‘One of the most beautiful craft I’ve ever set eyes on?’
Bob Simkins joined in. ‘If you ask me, she
has
gone to Mauritius, just as Mother Hilda said.’
‘Without the First Officer? Come off it!’ Her earlier euphoria was fading fast. She turned in exasperation to the Doctor.
‘You haven’t said anything. What do you think?’
The Doctor tilted his head and stroked his chin with the back of his forefinger, which he often did when he wasn’t quite sure. ‘Mm. I must admit that I’d expected something of the sort. It bears out my conviction that these poor benighted youngsters aren’t intended to return. On the other hand, it seems a crass thing to do if they knew we were going to turn up.’
The argument had broken out halfway down the marble staircase, when Sarah could contain herself no longer and blurted out what Jeremy had said, not giving a damn whether Mother Hilda and her satellite were still within earshot or not.
‘Now, that’s ridiculous. No way could they have known we were coming,’ said the Brigadier.
‘Oh, but they did. Jeremy told me that too.’
He looked at her with an infuriating smile. ‘Of course he did, Miss Smith. And the place is swarming with your mysterious bug-eyed monsters from outer space. Good Lord! Look!
There’s half a dozen of them over there, swinging through the palm trees!’ He set off down the stairs, laughing merrily, followed by the two officers, both trying not to grin.
Sarcasm always got under her skin. She opened her mouth, looking for a withering retort - something to the effect that he’d better be careful not to trip - ‘the thicker they come the harder they fall’ - when she noticed that the Doctor had his fingers to his lips, and was shaking his head at her again.
The message was different but just as plain: ‘Cool it!’
So she shut up. She felt that there was a fair chance that she might burst, but she took a deep breath and kept quiet; and followed the Doctor as he went after the others.
Hilda thoroughly disliked the term ‘clairvoyance’ because of its connotations of self-deceiving mediums giving dodgy demonstrations - ‘Does the name Eric mean anything to you?’ - or, even worse, private ‘readings’ at an exorbitant cost. ‘Far-seeing’ was much to be preferred, with its plain Anglo-Saxon etymology; and it certainly expressed with far more accuracy the faculty she and the others had developed since becoming Skang teachers - or perhaps the word should be adepts’? (Neither was entirely accurate. There was really no way of expressing a relationship that was unique in human experience.)
Hilda was sitting deep in concentration in her elegantly plain room off the temple, watching - in her mind’s eye -
Brother Alex climbing the long staircase. Was he coming to see her?
As she relinquished the image, she noticed again the regret, almost irritation, which she had so often felt before. If only far-hearing had developed along with far-seeing! Or even better, some form of simple telepathy. No matter how hard she tried, or what techniques she used, she’d found that they were limited to seeing - and even that was rudimentary, requiring total absorption for a very simple sighting.
When Will had first picked up the approach of the Royal Navy ship during a routine scan of the surrounding area, he had reported that Alex was on board, apparently ill, and most distressed. But had Alex betrayed them? There was no question that the Doctor and the companion whom he addressed as Brigadier’ were highly suspicious; why else should they have come? For that matter, the very fact that they had been prepared to mount an armed attack was evidence enough.
Being forewarned, she had managed to deal with the immediate situation. But she still had no idea whether she could now trust Alex. Whether or no, maybe it would be safer to allow him to rejoin, so that she could keep an eye on him during the next critical twenty-four hours.
It was too much for her to decide alone. She would have to refer the matter to the inner council.
‘Mother Hilda...’
She opened her eyes. Alex was standing in the open doorway.
That was it, thought Sarah. They were all stoned out of their skulls on Jeremy’s thingy juice, or one of its variants.
You’d have thought they were as squiffy as if they’d just been turned out of the pub and were on their way to the curry house, if it wasn’t for the way they climbed into the boats for the trip back. It was starting to get dark, but nobody fell in; nobody even staggered or lost their balance.
Nor was anybody looking for a quarrel. But their laughter, their shouting, their uninhibited behaviour would surely have earned them a reprimand at the very least if the Cox’n hadn’t been in much the same state.
Even the Brigadier and the two officers had reverted to party mood, chatting volubly and guffawing like schoolboys.
Telling dirty jokes, probably.
As they approached the mist surrounding the ship, which had thinned considerably by this time, she looked over at the Doctor, who was near the Brig at the other end of the launch.
He was sitting as quietly and soberly as she was herself.
She’d tried to get near him, so that they could talk and compare notes, but he seemed to have deliberately kept away from her.
He was the only one who had believed her when she’d told them that the
Skang
was lying hundreds of feet under the sea. But after that, he’d ignored her. In the past he’d treated her like a trusted friend, so what was going on?
It wasn’t until they were safely back on board, with the two launches secured alongside the ship, ready to act as ferries again if needed, that she cheered up a bit. As her feet touched the deck, she found herself taking a deep breath and relaxing as the tension went from her muscles. The smell of the mist... Violets? It felt like coming home.
A touch on her shoulder. It was the Doctor.
‘You feel it too, don’t you?’ he murmured. ‘Incredibly powerful stuff.’
What was he on about? The juice? But they hadn’t had any.
‘We can’t talk now,’ he went on in the same quiet voice, as the crew noisily thronged past them.
‘Hey, Dusty!’ came a voice from the crowd. The dishy steward turned.
‘What?’
‘As good as Kowloon Katie, was she?’
Dusty grinned and gave a two-fingered answer.
A cheerful shout: ‘Doctor? Where’ve you gone?’ It was the Brigadier, somewhere in the milling crowd.
The Doctor took her arm and drew her into the corner behind a ventilator. ‘Just hang on tight. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Blighter’s disappeared... Doctor! It’s well gone six o’clock.
Time for a burra peg!’
He took her hand and pressed something into it, and was gone.
‘Ah, there you are, Doctor.’
‘So I am,’ came his voice, receding into the general hubbub.
A folded piece of paper.
Be ready at 5am. Bring your camera - that Polaroid of yours.
Don’t let it take you over!
It?
Again the faint whiff of violets...
Of course! It was after the mist had so strangely descended on the
Hallaton
that the others all began to behave so oddly.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t been exactly normal herself.
It must have been one of the effects of the stuff itself that had stopped her realising before. With every breath, they’d been absorbing a smaller dose of the very same drug that was in the drink.
She made her way to her cabin in a warm glow of relief.
Everything was falling into place.
Now then, the camera...
Ah, there it was. Why didn’t she think of taking it with her before? Why did he want the Polaroid?. Not that she had any choice. She’d lost her lovely little Olympus when she’d fallen into the drink.
Fancy her believing that the Doctor had turned against her!
He must mean to go ashore at first light, and do a proper recce. And she’d be able to get some ace shots, and they’d be able to prove once and for all that the Brig was right, and that the Skang lot were just a bunch of harmless nuts. And all that nonsense about their sinking the ship! After all...
With a shock that almost made her jump, she seemed to come to, as if she was waking up from a dream. This was what he’d meant. It was taking her over.
Hang on tight, he’d said.
It was going to be a difficult night.
‘I freely admit that I was wrong. I failed in my duty as the senior Skang representative in the region by allowing my own ideas to take precedence over the decisions that had been made, and by risking the security of the whole in allowing my emotions to be the motivation for my actions. I humbly beg that the inner council will recommend to my brothers and sisters...’
Drop the head, as though overcome. A little pause.
Careful... Not too much...
‘... recommend that my excision should be reversed, and that I should be allowed to enjoy once more... the fullness of the unity of the Skang.’ Alex kept his eyes cast down. The little tremor in his voice on the last word might just swing it, he thought.
He knew quite well that his wretched appearance spoke for him. The sallow skin of his face, hollow on the cheeks, and sagging like that of an old man; the rawness of his eyes; the drooping of his shoulders - all bore witness to his desperation.
Hilda was sitting in a marble chair slightly to one side of the great icon of the Skang, like a bishop in a cathedral, with the massive Will Cabot at her shoulder. The remainder of the inner council were grouped around her on the raised platform, while Alex stood facing them, humbly alone.
He risked a quick glance. He knew three of them: Shunryu from Tokyo, who wouldn’t catch his eye; Joseph Moskowicz from Warsaw, who had listened to him in Rome when he’d first mooted the possibility of a change of leadership; Sister Juanita from Brazil, who always sat on the fence. But the black man with one gold earring, and the woman with the mass of ginger hair who looked like a refugee from a Pre-Raphaelite painting were strangers to him.
It was difficult to tell what they were all thinking, as they murmured to each other. But then his heart leapt, as he saw Hilda’s expression. She was a different matter. Hilda was sorry for him, no question.
Will Cabot caught his eye. ‘Tell me, Whitbread...’
He didn’t call him Brother. Or even Alex. Not a good sign.
‘...why did you bring the Doctor and the Brigadier here?
And the journalist girl? Why did you tell them where we had gone?’
Injured innocence, that was best. ‘Me? How can you...? I would never have done such a thing! They already knew. I promise you. One of the crew of the
Skang
must have let it out. I expect the whole of Bombay knows.’
‘Mm. You’re probably right about the last bit,’ said Cabot, who showed no sign of believing anything else he’d said.
Alex shook his head gently, as if saddened that one of his brothers could be so untrusting.
Joseph Moskowicz seemed to agree with him. He’d been frowning as Will spoke, and as he spoke to Alex, his face softened. ‘Though I have to say that the way you behaved fully merited the punishment the council decreed, I consider that you have suffered enough.’
Will started to interrupt, but Brother Joseph put up his hand to stop him. ‘In my opinion,’ he went on, ‘if a man of Brother Alex’s standing is as willing to humble himself as he has shown himself to be, then it would be against all that we stand for, for us to deny him.’