Thief of Time

He went outside, into the crowded street, all alone.

Tick

The stick swooped down towards the plains, and levelled off a few hundred feet above the ground.

“We're on our way now!” shouted Lu-Tze, pointing ahead. Lobsang looked down at a slim wooden tower hung with complicated boxes. There was another one in the far distance, a toothpick in the morning mist.

“Semaphore towers!” Lu-Tze shouted. “Ever seen them?”

“Only in the city!” Lobsang shouted above the slipstream.

“It's the Grand Trunk!” the sweeper shouted back. “Runs like an arrow all the way to the city! All we have to do is follow it!”

Lobsang clung on. There was no snow beneath them and it looked as though spring was well advanced. And therefore it was unfair that here, that much nearer the sun, the air was frigid and was being driven into his flesh by the wind of their travel.

“It's very cold up here!”

“Yes! Did I tell you about the double-knit combinations?”

“Yes!”

“I've got a spare pair in my sack. You can have them when we stop!”

“Your own personal pair?”

“Yes! Second-best but well darned!”

“No, thank you!”

“They've been washed!”

“Lu-Tze?”

“Yes?”

“Why can't we slice when we're on this thing?”

The tower was well past them. The next one was pencil-sized already. The black-and-white shutters on the boxes were twinkling in the sunlight.

“Do you know what happens if you slice time on a magically powered vehicle travelling at more than seventy miles an hour?”

“No!”

“Me neither! And I don't want to find out!”

Tick

Igor opened the door before the second knock. An Igor might be filling coffins with earth in the cellar, or up on the roof adjusting the lightning conductor, but a caller never had to knock twice.

“Ladythip,” he muttered, nodding his head. He looked blankly at the six figures behind her.

“We have called to inspect progress,” said Lady LeJean.

“And thethe ladieth and gentlemen, ladythip?”

“My associates,” said her ladyship, matching Igor's blank stare.

“If you will be tho kind ath to thtep inthide, I will thee if the marthter ith in,” said Igor, observing the convention that a true butler never knows the whereabouts of anyone in the house until they decide they want it to be known.

He backed through the door into the workshop and then lurched into the kitchen, where Jeremy was calmly pouring a spoonful of medicine down the sink.

“That woman ith here,” he said, “and thee hath brought lawyerth.”

Jeremy held out a hand, palm downwards, and examined it critically.

“You see, Igor?” he said. “Here we are, almost at the completion of our great work, and I remain absolutely calm. You could build a house on my hand, it is so steady.”

“Lawyerth, thur,” said Igor, giving the word some extra spin.

“And?”

“Well, we have had a lot of money,” said Igor, with the conviction of a man who has informally secreted a small but sensible amount of gold in his own bag.

“And we have finished the clock,” said Jeremy, still watching his hand.

“We've been nearly finithed for dayth,” said Igor darkly. “If it wathn't for her, I reckon we could've caught that thunderthtorm two dayth ago.”

“When's the next one?”

Igor screwed up his face and banged his temple a couple of times with the palm of his hand.

“Unthettled conditionth with a low approaching from the Rim,” he said. “Can't promith anything with the thloppy weather you get here. Hah, back home the thunderthtormth come running ath thoon ath they thee you put up the iron pole. Tho what do you want me to do about the lawyerth?”

“Show them in, of course. We have nothing to hide.”

“Are you thure, thur?” said Igor, whose carpet bag could not in fact be lifted with one hand.

“Please do it, Igor.”

Jeremy smoothed down his hair while the grumbling Igor disappeared into the shop and returned with the guests.

“Lady LeJean, thur. And thome other… people,” said Igor.

“It's good to see you, your ladyship,” said Jeremy, smiling glassily. He vaguely remembered something he had read. “Won't you introduce me to your friends?”

Lady LeJean gave him a nervous look. Oh, yes… humans always needed to know names. And he was smiling again. It made it so hard to think.

“Mr Jeremy, these are my… associates,” she said. “Mr Black. Mr Green. Miss Brown. Miss White. Miss… Yellow. And Mr Blue.”

Jeremy held out his hand. “I am pleased to meet you,” he said.

Six pairs of eyes looked uncomprehendingly at the hand.

“The custom here is to shake hands,” said her ladyship.

In unison, the Auditors extended a hand and wiggled it slowly in the air.

“The hand of the other person,” said her ladyship. She gave Jeremy a thin-lipped smile. “They are foreigners,” she said.

And she recognized the panic in their eyes, even if they didn't. We can count the number and types of atom in this room, they were thinking. How can there be anything in here we cannot understand?

Jeremy managed to catch one wavering hand in his. “And you are Mr—?”

The Auditor turned worried eyes on Lady LeJean.

“Mr Black,” she said.

“I understood that we were Mr Black,” said another male-shaped Auditor.