A Sudden Wild Magic

Zillah felt the mounting excitement, although she knew nothing of the details. It’s going to take off at full Moon, she thought, quite calmly, and then I shan’t have this misery anymore. On the rare occasions when she let herself think of those two hairs she had planted in the capsule, it seemed to her that they were designed to carry her unhappiness out of this world with them. In fact, it was as if her misery were already there, installed in those two hairs. She cooked, cleaned Marcus and the house, washed clothes for Amanda and her children, shopped for socks for David, and talked cheerfully with everyone, all without the dark background of misery she had been used to for so long. A sort of death, she thought, by substitute. She felt rather empty.

The night before the launch, those who had built the capsule tested everything carefully and packed up their tools for the last time. Each in his or her way gave it a blessing. Some simply patted the stained metal skin. Some said things like, “You’re awful, but I love you!” or “Hope you make it, bus!” Others were more serious. One prayed. Another poured champagne from a mini bottle. Then they departed, to journey to the various sites of power where they had to be tomorrow.

Amanda kept vigil there, just in case.

In the morning the finally selected team arrived, eighteen of them, very cheerful and healthy, with their bags, lunch packs, woolly hats, and knapsacks. None of them knew quite what to expect. The rumor most of them believed was that they were to storm a monastery in Greece. Most of them were very surprised to see who the others were.

“Well, fancy you as a shock trooper!” Roz Collasso said to Tam Fairbrother.

They were even more surprised when Amanda locked the warehouse door and told them why they were there, adding that none of them were to leave the building from then on. They saw the point of that. It would be fatal if the pirates were to learn of the plan now. Besides, they were all dedicated. Each of them had, at Gladys’s special request, made their wills before they set out. But they still did not quite believe it, and they spent a lot of time laughing. Tam doing his gay walk made them fall about.

Sobriety set in during the early evening when someone suggested that the capsule ought to have a name. Somehow, discussing what name made the whole thing seem more real.

“It used to be a bus.”

“What does that make it? The Magical Mystery Tour Coach? Hold very tight, please, for your tour of the multiverse!”

“Call it Omnibus.”

“Try again!”

“Well, omnibus does mean everything.”

“Sky-High Bus?”

“What about the Flying Coach?”

“I know!” said someone. “The Celestial Omnibus!”

That name pleased them all, so they christened it with coffee, unaware that it had already been done with champagne, and ran through yet again the routine for using the virus-magic when they got to Laputa- Blish.

A little before moonrise a motorcyclist roared up to the warehouse door and, when Amanda opened it, carefully handed her four packages, two blue and two red. Gladys had insisted on there being four. “The two halves have to stay apart until the last minute,” she had said. “It’s too potent to handle any other way. And just two packets is daft. I’m going to send a backup pair.”

Amanda gave a telephone number to the motorcyclist, and he roared away, first to phone through a code word and then to join his own coven. The packages Amanda gave to Helen, Judy, Francine, and Laura, all of whom were stable, proficient adepts who were unlikely to panic. After that, she had to leave herself, locking the door behind her, to fling herself into her car and to drive in a manner not so unlike Zillah’s to a secret site of great power about forty miles away.

Her going was the signal for the storm troopers to climb into the Celestial Omnibus and sit there, tense and ready. Judy and Lynn settled at the controls, and Roz stood by the door to seal it. Tam and Solly tested the oxygen supply yet again and found to their relief that it still worked. After which they only had to wait.

By this time, not only were innumerable apparently unconnected small groups gathering in rooms all over Britain, but dark-clothed persons were assembling in stone circles, woods, and other places of power from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s, whispering and occasionally flashing a flashlight to make sure that things were where they should be. Lights were not supposed to be shown at this stage.