The Curiosity Machine (18 page)

Ursus placed a hand over his heart. ‘I have never worked for Mason Green,' he said.

Gerald's brain spun like a runaway top. ‘If you don't work for Green, who do you work for?'

‘My employer is a very private individual,' Ursus said. ‘I would prefer not to identify him.'

Gerald leaned against the doorjamb, not believing a word that he was hearing.

‘I can understand your confusion,' Ursus continued. ‘Your friends were wary as well, and I don't blame them.'

‘Listen to him, Gerald,' Felicity said. ‘It all makes perfect sense when you hear the full story.'

Gerald pointed the flare gun at Ursus. ‘You,' he said. ‘Talk. And Sam?'

Sam looked up from a half-eaten steak and kidney pie. ‘Yes?'

‘Toss me another sausage roll.'

Gerald ate while Ursus explained. ‘The first thing you need to understand is I have been sent here to protect you.'

‘Protect me from what?' Gerald asked.

‘From Sir Mason Green. That's why I'm surprised you thought I worked for him. Quite the opposite: everything I have been doing over the last few months has been to protect you from him. The whole episode with the crystal pendant in Prague, when I instructed you over
the phone to give it to Tycho Brahe…do you remember?'

Gerald well remembered being dragged behind a speeding motorcycle across a snow-strewn square when he handed the pendant to Brahe. He still had nightmares about it.

‘That was to keep the pendant out of Sir Mason's hands,' Ursus said. ‘If he was able to get it and translate the Voynich manuscript, there's no telling what damage he would do.'

Gerald furrowed his brow. ‘But I spoke on the phone to Green in Prague. And he wanted me to give the pendant to Brahe too.'

Ursus nodded with vigour. ‘Precisely—he planned to steal it from Tycho, together with the manuscript. It was his plan to get the two prizes at once.'

‘But you turned up in that cellar under the farmhouse in Sweden and stole the manuscript and the pendant,' Gerald said.

‘Of course,' Ursus said. ‘Again, to keep it out of Green's hands.'

Gerald was starting to get a headache. ‘But Green told me just the other night that he has the manuscript and that Professor McElderry is helping him decipher it.'

Ursus smiled again. ‘You are such a trusting boy. Sir Mason Green is an accomplished liar, Gerald. You should never believe a word he says. My employer was worried that Green was about to launch an attack on your yacht to steal the plans for the curiosity machine.
That's why I came. To protect you.'

‘How do you know about the plans?' Gerald asked, but Ruby interrupted him. She stood from the table and walked slowly to Gerald, as if every footstep required tremendous concentration. ‘Mr Ursus explained it all when he found us on the other side of the island,' Ruby said, placing a hand on Gerald's shoulder as much for support as for emphasis. ‘All this time we were running away from the people who were trying to keep us safe. Our parents are all fine. They're on the
Archer
continuing on their way to the Caribbean. Mr Fry is on his way in the helicopter now to take us back to them. We didn't need to escape in the submarine at all.'

Gerald was not convinced. ‘What about Felicity's mum and dad?' he asked.

Felicity looked up from the table and sipped from a glass containing a dark liquid. ‘Oh, they're fine,' she said. ‘Just fine. Mr Ursus's people found them on an island someplace and rescued them. It turns out I was mistaken about the whole threat thing. They're just'—she struggled to find the right word—‘fine.' She pressed her fingertips to her lips and belched. ‘And Ruby and I are fine too. Aren't we, Ruby? Everything and everyone is just fine.'

Gerald frowned. ‘How about Sam's eye? He looks like he's been punched in the head. And what about the gunshot that shattered the window on the
Archer
, and the men trying to batter down the door to the submarine room?'

‘A champagne cork broke the window, Gerald,' Ruby said, leaning heavily on his shoulder for support. ‘And those men were worried that we might accidently flood the submarine launch room, which we did. Everything can be explained.' She reached out for the gun and eased it from Gerald's fingers. ‘You don't need this anymore. Horrible bangy thing. Come and have something to eat.'

Sam held up a bottle of the same dark drink that Felicity had in her glass. ‘Try some of this juice,' he said. ‘It's deliciousness.'

Gerald took an uncertain step into the cabin. ‘Well, if you say so.'

Ruby smiled at him and squeezed his arm. ‘That's the way,' she said, waving the gun about in her other hand. She looked at the weapon, as if surprised that it had suddenly appeared in her grasp. ‘I guess we can get rid of this,' she said, and tossed it out the door. The pistol turned through the air and landed with a sharp
clunk
on its butt. A brilliant orange flare burst from the rear deck of the motor yacht and into the night sky. Inside, Felicity and Sam pressed their noses to the window watching the flare as it traced its way across the stars, looping up high above the beach—‘Oooh, fireworks,' Felicity said—then floating peacefully and irresistibly down into the middle of the circle of jet fuel drums.

After that, everything got just a little bit confused. Gerald could remember the flash of light; it burned its image into the back of his eyeballs like the world's largest Polaroid camera. And of course there was the bang. His head still rang to the after effects of that particular punch to the eardrums. The fuel dump had gone up like every New Year's Eve fireworks display in history condensed into a single, spectacular event. The initial explosion sat Gerald down hard on his backside. After he regained some composure, he crawled across the floor to where Felicity and Sam had been thrown by the force of the blast. They were covered in shattered safety glass but did not seem to be hurt. Sam sat with his back to a wall, saying ‘Wow!' over and over.

Ruby stumbled across to them and plopped down next to Gerald, the hair on one side of her face fanned out like a peacock's tail, as if she had been told only half of a scary story. She grinned at Gerald. ‘That was awesome! Can we do it again?'

Gerald blinked to clear his vision and found Ursus had appeared by his side. Gerald went to get up but Ursus placed a hand on his shoulder and pressed him back to the floor. ‘Drink this,' Ursus said to Gerald, handing him a cup. ‘It will settle your nerves.' Gerald stared at the dark contents, not really sure if taking anything from Ursus was a good idea. He sniffed the liquid—it reminded him of burnt caramel—and he took a sip. He licked his lips. ‘Mmm,' he said. ‘That's good.' Then he drained the cup.

Gerald tried to stand, but found that his legs were ignoring him. ‘Come on,' he urged them. ‘We need to get moving.'

Strange
, he thought.
They've always listened to me before
.

Then the notion of sleep seemed to be a tremendous idea. And his eyelids had no hesitation in agreeing to a general shutdown.

The
fwoop-fwoop-fwoop
of helicopter blades slicing the air cut through Gerald's slumber. His eyelids drew back like reluctant curtains. His head rested on someone's shoulder, but without sitting up there was no telling whose it was, and the burning in his brain convinced him that sitting up was the last thing that he wanted to do. He was content to swivel his eyes in their sockets.

Gerald was in the back bench-seat of a helicopter. That much was clear. He looked down and discovered he was not wearing a shirt. It took him a moment to remember he had used it as a wick to drain fuel from the drums near the beach. His eyes rolled towards his feet. Someone had gone to the trouble of putting his runners back on. So that was something. He could see the top of two heads in the front seats. One looked like it could be Mr Fry, wearing his favourite Archer Corporation baseball cap. Gerald couldn't be certain but he was fairly
sure the other head belonged to Ursus. He screwed up his eyes and convinced himself to sit up.

Gerald found he had been sleeping on Sam's shoulder. His friend's lips buzzed in slumber. Next to him, Ruby and Felicity were curled together, also asleep. Gerald looked out the window and saw they were flying over a vast tract of deep blue ocean. There was not a speck of land to be seen.

‘Where are we?' he asked, but neither of the men in the front responded. Gerald reached behind him to pull down a set of headphones, which he clamped over his ears. He positioned the wing microphone in front of his mouth and asked again, ‘Where are we?'

The response to his question was startling. At the sound of Gerald's voice, Ursus spun in his seat and looked back with surprise. A moment of panic flared in the man's eyes, then faded just as fast.

‘I wasn't expecting to hear from you for a while yet,' Ursus said. ‘You were very tired.' Gerald saw a water bottle tucked into the seatback in front of him, and he took a sip. He was slipping the bottle into the backpack at his feet when he had a sudden pang of guilt. ‘Look, about the fuel dump—' he began.

Ursus held up a hand. ‘Think nothing of it,' he said. ‘Luckily no one was hurt, so there was no harm done.'

‘But that explosion was huge,' Gerald said. ‘It must have ripped apart half the beach.'

Ursus smiled thinly. ‘Let's just say that Mr Fry had
no problem finding somewhere to land the helicopter.'

Gerald looked at the back of his butler's head—a view he had become used to over the course of the previous year. ‘How are you, Mr Fry?' Gerald asked. ‘Are my parents freaking out about us?'

The butler stared straight ahead and emitted a low grunt.

The sea air hasn't improved his humour then
, Gerald thought.

‘Your parents are fine,' Ursus said. ‘We'll join them on the
Archer
soon and all will become clear.'

Gerald looked through the window. Ursus was promising a lot of clarity but none seemed to be forthcoming. ‘Why does your boss care so much about me that he would send you to protect us?' Gerald said to Ursus, picking the most obvious question to ask first.

Ursus thought for a long while before answering. ‘My employer wants to protect you because he needs your assistance, Gerald.'

‘Assistance with what?” Gerald asked.

‘The gentleman I represent is very keen to protect the planet,' Ursus said. ‘Your friends told me you came across a nasty patch of rubbish in your submarine. Well, my employer is establishing a global environmental protection foundation. He would like you to contribute to it. He wants to preserve vast areas of natural habitats so native species can regain a foothold. He has already started on a small scale with an island here in the South
Pacific that he is repopulating with endangered flora and fauna.'

Gerald shrugged. ‘Sounds good to me. But he didn't have to go to all this hassle. I would have sent a donation anyway.'

‘Excellent,' Ursus said. ‘You'll like the island when we get there—it is very much as Rudolph II envisioned.'

Gerald tilted his head to the side. ‘What has Rudolph II got to do with anything?' he asked. ‘And why would we go to some island when we're supposed to be going back to the
Archer
?'

Ursus turned and flashed an estate agent's smile. ‘Because the island is where the curiosity machine is being assembled,' he said. ‘And now, thanks to you, we have the final plans so the last details can be completed.'

Gerald nearly wrenched a muscle in his neck at the mention of the curiosity machine. ‘What is it with that contraption?' he asked. ‘What does it even do?'

Ursus leaned an elbow on the back of his seat. ‘It's complex, Gerald. Think of it as a global vacuum cleaner. Once it's up and running the world will be in the best shape it has been for hundreds of years.'

‘That's great, but it doesn't explain why Mason Green would kill to get his hands on it,' Gerald said. ‘He's not exactly the eco-warrior type.' And it certainly didn't explain where Gerald's trillion dollars would be coming from.