panel of controls beside him and say something back to Harlan. The tech:nician shook his head. He sounded troubled. But Harlan half-raised a hand, clearly indicating that the procedure was not to be halted yet. Strømberg at the same time was pointing to the shimmer, which was bulging as though it was about to split open. Suddenly, a firebird came into the picture. It had flown through the construct that was the laboratory wall and had positioned itself right behind the horseshoe. It wasn’t one that David
recognised, but it had clearly come to do
the same job as before: seal up the shimmer and go. He saw his father leave the observation platform, frantically waving his hands in an effort to stop the bird interrupting. The bird widened its nostrils and produced a jet of fire. An unseen wave of energy was expelled from the shimmer in all directions. The result was dramatic. The firebird and all three
men were catapulted as far from the pulse as the walls of the laboratory would allow. Likewise, the horseshoe and the com:puters controlling it were torn apart or smashed against anything solid. The shimmer disappeared to a fine point, as if it had been sucked into a hole in space. A sec later, the camera flickered and gave out. The film stopped.
But there was something, just before the
end of it, that aroused David’s curiosity and made him call again for a slower replay. He thought he had seen a blemish on the film. A small blip of blackness just before the pulse. A camera glitch perhaps? He asked the com:puter to zoom in and play back the end sequence, showing it in single frames. Over the course of five of those frames he noticed a
strange sequence of events. The firebird’s flame, far from being blown well away from the shimmer, had been sucked right into it and something else had emerged in its place. It looked like a puff of black smoke, nothing more. Further zooming proved no help. And even when David lassoed the ‘smoke’ with a drawing tool, isolated it from its background and asked the com:puter to analyse the structure, the
software had no answers for him.
And yet a possible answer was about to emerge from a most unlikely source. As David swung back in his chair, tapping his toes and pondering what he’d seen, there was a knock at the window. It was Penny, of course. She was cupping her face and trying to stare through the half-open blinds. Not wanting her to see the images he’d found, David thought about blanking the screen, but decided instead to tease her a little by re-imagineering the blinds in a different position. As she moved to try to find a clearer view, he partially frosted the glass.
Her fist came up and she knocked again. In a muffled voice she shouted, “David, come here. I’ve got something to show you.”
“Busy,” he shouted back. He blanked the screen anyway. “Close down,” he said to the com:puter.
“Boon chased a firebird! Look, it dropped this.”
David glanced at the waving hand. In it was a feather. A pure black feather. Puzzled, he rose up and opened the window.
Penny waggled the feather proudly. “Itwas on the fence. Boon jumped for it andit flew away.”
David glanced around the garden. Everything was calm. “A black firebird?”
“Yes!”
“Did you see where it went?”
She shook her head. “It was fast.” Shelet him take the feather. “Good, isn’t it?”
David nodded. “It’s very interesting,
Penny.”
“I’m going to put it under my pillow.”
“Put what under your pillow?” Elizahad just stepped into the gardenaria.
“My feather,” said Penny, taking itback.
Her mother’s face crumpled up in afrown. “Where did you get that?”
“From a firebird, silly,” Penny said alittle rudely, annoyed at having to repeatherself.
“But there are no black firebirds on Co:pern:ica.” Eliza looked blankly at her daughter.
“There are now,” David muttered. And he closed the window.
And Penny shrugged happily and ran to
her room.
8
Although he would have liked to havedwelt a while longer on why a blackfirebird had appeared in the gardenaria (or indeed appeared at all), Davidabandoned the mystery just then in favourof reintroducing himself to some kind ofhome life. He spent the rest of that daywith his mother and Penny, either walkingin the woodland constructs near their pod,or playing with Boon, or looking throughdozens of digi:grafs of himself when hewas Penny’s age (carefully sifted to avoidshots of Harlan). Only when Penny’sbedtime came around did he get thechance to speak to his mother againprivately. And it was she who began the
conversation.
“You’re troubled, aren’t you?”
They were in the gardenaria, under the setting sun, imagineering possibilities for Eliza’s rockery. The horrible
fungus
Aunt Gwyneth had introduced had been not-somysteriously de:constructed. In its place Eliza had tried a variety of rocks, any number of different plants, a few ornaments, and a hanging light, though none of them seemed to fit her overall
concept. Eventually, David solved the conundrum by imagineering a small arched door at the base of the stones, which, he said, would give Boon the impression that something actually lived in the mound. Hours of fun could be had, he suggested, watching Boon waiting for the door to open.
Eliza punched his arm in jest. “You arehorrible to that katt. All the same, it’s asweet idea. Thank you.” She pulled himcloser and kissed his cheek. “You haven’t
answered my question: what’s bothering you?”
“I’ve seen a film that was taken during my time at the therapy centre.”
“Film… ? How?”
“Dad gave me a micro:pen when he was arrested. Don’t worry, it’s in a safe place.”
Eliza nodded. She crouched down and tended the flowers. “What was on this
film?”
“Me, turning into some kind of animal.” He described it for her. “I don’t know what it is or what it means, but there are only two places that might hold the
answers. And as you’ll disapprove of me going to the Dead Lands it will have to be the librarium. I’m going to need to go back there, Mum.”
“So soon?”
David shrugged and ran his hand over Boon (who had just stretched out near therockery door). “In a day or two maybe. Itnever really occurred to me until now that I could use the books as a resource. And Ifeel very bad about walking out on Rosa.”
“The brash girl? Is she still there?”
“Mmm. Not much of a girl any more. She’s very… Well. Grown up, I suppose. When I left the librarium I had to get outquickly and keep my auma detached, incase Aunt Gwyneth found the micro:pen. Icouldn’t tell Rosa. She was pretty hurt, Mum.”
“You like her, don’t you?”
“Hard not to, really. Childhood friends and all that.”
“Will you bring her here?”
David sighed and pulled a flower stalk through his fingers. “She’s not allowed to leave the librarium.”
“Is she going to take over from Mr Henry?”
“I don’t know. She’d be the obvious choice.”
“Hey!” a voice called.
David turned and saw Penny at her
bedroom window.
“Are you coming?” she shouted.
“In a minit,” he shouted back. He rubbed his mother’s arm. “Look, I don’t have to stay away long. I just want to find out what I can about the dream and make
sure Rosa’s all right.”
Eliza gave him a knowing smile. “You’ll stay,” she said. “You miss her already.” She reached over and pushed her hand through his hair, helping it fall towards his shoulder. “You’re everything I ever expected of you, David. If you care for this girl, I’d want you to do your best for her. But be a good brother to Penny as well. She’s going to miss you just as much.”
He took hold of his mother’s hand andkissed it. “I’ll stay until I’ve finished thebook.”
“Books – whatever happened to them?” she mused. “What is it, again, this thing you’re going to read to her?”
He rose up and took a step towards the house. “A story – from Floor 43.”
When he got to the bedroom, Penny wassitting up in bed in her pyjamas, the bookopen in her hands. “I’ve been looking atthe pictures,” she said excitedly. “There’sa girl in it. She looks like me.”
“That’s Alicia. She doesn’t look a bitlike you. She’s got more hair for a start.”
“Mine will
grow
. What’s she wearing? Over her dress?”
David took the book from her andturned it round. “I think it’s called a
pinafore.”
“I like it,” Penny said. “She wears
kicker boots as well.”
“She does,” said David, remembering
someone else who was never seen out of
them. He sat down on the edge of the mattress and turned to the first page of text. “Right. Are you ready?”
“Yes!”
“Chapter one.”
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“Chapter one.”
David flicked his eyes sideways. “Chapter one is the start of the story. Books are split up into chunks, called chapters.”
“Oh. When will I see the pictures in my head?”
“When you stop asking questions, and
listen.”
“OK,” she chirped, and set her shoulders straight.
“‘Chapter one. Alicia was in a bad mood— ’”
“Why?”
David paused and drummed his fingers
over the page. “Well, if she’s anything like me, she gets annoyed at people who interrupt while they’re trying to
read
.”
“Sorry,” Penny whispered, pulling in her lips. “Is someone reading to Alicia, then?”
Stay calm
, thought David.
She’ll get used to it in a minit
. He read on a few lines and summarised the text. “No. She’s
fed up because her sister won’t play a game with her and now she’s wondering whether to chase a white rabbit across a field.”
“What’s a rabbit?”
OK, that is a fair question
, he thought.
He turned the book around and showed
her a black and white illustration of a rabbit in a waistcoat looking at a pocket watch.
“I’ve never seen a rabbit before.”
“No, me neither,” he said.
Were they imagineered?
he wondered.
Or did they actually exist at the time the book was written? If so – what happened to them?
“I like its ears,” said Penny. “What’s it doing?”
“Checking the time.”
“Doesn’t it have a :com?”
David shook his head. “The book isvery old. In those days, people carrieddevices called watches and read the timefrom them.” He remembered Mr Henrydoing just that, and once again thatreminded him, poignantly, of Rosa. Heread a little more. “Odd though it was tosee a rabbit with a timepiece, Aliciadecided that she would give chase. Shedashed across the field and was just in
time to see the rabbit skid to a halt beside two doors in the side of a grassy hill.”
“Show me!” Penny cried.
“There isn’t an illustration for that,” David said. “The idea is you see it in your mind.”
Penny drew her eyes down into a frown.
“I can see it,” he said. “The doors are made of panels, some of which have holes that you can’t quite see through. And they don’t have handles but they do have knockers shaped like… ”
“Like what?” Penny prompted.
Like dragons,
David wanted to say, though there was nothing about them in the book.
“Show me,” Penny said again, sitting forward.
“I just told you, there aren’t any pictures for this.”
“Show me
your
pictures. Mum says you imagineer really well.”
David thought about it. “OK, that could work. But you have to join in.”
Penny sat up, knocking her fists together. “Are we going to commingle?”
“Well, we can try.”
“Brilliant!” She closed her eyes and started to hum.
“Penny, what are you doing?”
“Commingling,” she said.
“You don’t have to hum,” he laughed. “You just need to focus your fain. Watch.” And right before his sister’s eyes, a perfect image of a worried white rabbit floated into view.
“Hhh!” Penny gasped.
“This is what makes reading fun,” said David. “Building pictures in here.” He tapped the side of her head. “You don’t need much fain to keep them there, just patience and the right words to guide you. See if you can imagineer Alicia.”
“OK,” she said. Her eyebrows came together in a knot of concentration.
The result made David smile. Floating beside the rabbit now were a pair of kicker boots, minus a body. The rabbit stared down at them and jumped in surprise. David glanced at the book. That piece of action wasn’t described in the text. Interestingly, his imagineered character was acting on its own behalf.