Children of the Gates Read online

  “Bait?” Nick did not like the sound of that.

  Again Stroud gave his crow of laughter. “Bait, yes. You’ll learn, m’ lad, you’ll learn. This way now, an’ mind the bushes . . .”

  He pushed ahead and they followed in a way which to Nick’s eyes used all available cover. But if there was such a need to hide, why then did they allow smoke to rise like a banner in the air? Only a moment later, he realized that they were not heading toward the site of that fire, but well to the left of it.

  Linda must have made the same discovery, for now she asked:

  “Aren’t we going to your camp?”

  “Right ahead—” Stroud’s deep voice reached them. “Mind this vine, enough to trip a man up it is.”

  Nick had to mind the vine, a tough cover on the ground, with attention. It caught at the bike, as well as at his feet, with such persistence one could almost believe it a set trap. Twice he had to stop and untangle it, so that Stroud and Linda had disappeared and he had only the marks of their passing to guide him on a trail that took them farther and farther from the site of the fire and then curved again toward the Run.

  He came out at last in a clearing walled by what seemed a solid siding of thick brush. And there he found Stroud, Linda, and three others. Two were men, the third a woman. They had been facing Linda, but, as Nick pushed his way through with a crackling of brush, they turned almost as one to stare at him.

  The men were in contrast to each other as well as to Stroud. One was elderly, very tall and gaunt, his white hair in a fluff about his head as if it were too fine to be controlled. He had a great forward hook of a nose that was matched by the firmness of the jaw beneath. But his eyes, under the shadow of bushy brows, did not have the fierce hawk glare Nick expected. They were intelligent and full of interest, but they also held an acceptance of others, not the need for dominance that the rest of his face suggested.

  He wore a dark gray suit, much the worse for hard usage, and a sweater underneath its coat that did not come high enough to hide a clergyman’s roundabout collar. On his feet were rough hide moccasins, which were in strange contrast to the rest of his clothing, shabby as that was.

  The younger man was an inch or two taller than Nick and, like Stroud, he was in uniform, but not that of a warden. His blue tunic was much worn, but there were wings on its breast, and he had pushed to the back of his blond head a pilot’s cap.

  Their feminine companion was almost as tall as the pilot and she, too, was in uniform, with badges Nick did not recognize on the shoulder. A helmet like the Warden’s crowned a mass of unruly dark hair. Her figure was almost as lean as that of the clergyman, and her face, weathered and brown, made no pretense to good looks. Yet there was an air of competence and authority about her that was impressive.

  “Americans,” she commented. “Then,” she spoke to the clergyman, “you were entirely right in your surmise, Adrian. We did travel farther than we thought in that cage.”

  The blond pilot also fingered a slingshot. “We’d better shove off.” His eyes had gone from Nick to the brush. He had the attitude of one listening. “No use watching the trap any longer—”

  “Barry is correct,” the clergyman nodded. “We may not have had the kind of success we hoped to obtain. But by attracting our young friends here we have excellent results.”

  “Better introduce ourselves,” the woman said briskly. “Adrian Hadlett, Vicar of Minton Parva.” The clergyman gave an old-fashioned and rather majestic inclination of his head. “Pilot Officer Barry Crocker, and I’m Diana Ramsay—”

  “Lady Diana Ramsay,” Stroud growled as if that was important.

  She made an impatient gesture with one hand. The other, Nick noted, held a third slingshot.

  “There’re a couple more of us,” she continued. “You’ll meet them at the camp.”

  Once more, this time with Nick and Linda in the midst of this energetic group, they pushed on, to come out on the bank of the Run. And not too much farther on was their camp.

  Logs had been rolled into place and reinforced with rocks, forming what was half-hut, half-cave. Lung set to barking as a huge, gray-furred shape, which had been sunning by the entrance, reared back and showed a brush of tail. With ears flattened to its skull, the cat faced the excited Peke with a warning hiss that deepened into a growl. Linda dropped her bag to catch up the willing warrior, holding him despite his struggles.

  “Now then, Jeremiah, m’dear, that be no proper way to say good day, not at all it ben’t.”

  From the door issued a small woman to catch up the cat, a hefty armload, and soothe him gently with hands crook-jointed by arthritis, patched with the brown spots of age. Her hair, as white as the Vicar’s, was twisted into a tight little bun above a round face with a mere knob of a nose that gave very precarious perch room to a pair of metal-framed glasses.

  She lisped a little as she spoke, perhaps because her teeth seemed uncertainly anchored in her mouth, but there was a bright and interested welcome in the way she regarded the newcomers. Her dress was covered in part by an apron of sacking and an old mackintosh which swung cloak wise from her shoulders. On her feet were the same kind of crude moccasins as the Vicar wore.

  “Jean,” she called back over her shoulder. “We’ve got company.”

  The girl who came at the summons was perhaps only a little older than Linda herself. She also wore a dark blue uniform, though over it she had pinned apronlike a piece of dingy cloth, as if she hoped so to protect the only clothing she had. Her hair was brown and sprang in waves about her tanned face, a face that was pretty enough to make a man look a second time, Nick thought.

  “Americans.” Lady Diana again carried through the ritual of introductions. “Linda Durant, Nicholas Shaw. And this is Mrs. Maude Clapp and Jean Richards, who is a WREN.”

  “WREN?” repeated Nick, a little bewildered.

  The girl smiled. “Women’s Royal Naval Service—I believe you call yours WAVES.”

  “Well now, didn’t I tell you that the dream I had me last night was a true one?” Mrs. Clapp’s voice was cheery with open friendliness. “Company comin’, that it was. An’ we’ve fish all ready to fry out nice’n crisp. Couldn’t have been luckier, now, could it?” she asked of the company at large, but not as if she expected any real answer. “Jeremiah here, he won’t take at your little dog, Miss, if the dog don’t take at him. Jeremiah, he ain’t a quarrelsome beast.”

  “I hope Lung isn’t.” In Linda’s hold the Peke had become quiet. Now she swung him up so she could view him eye to eye. “Lung, friend, friend!” She spoke with emphasis, then turned the dog around to face the big cat whom Mrs. Clapp had put on the ground once more. “Friend, Lung!”

  The Peke flashed his tongue across his own nose. But when Linda set him down he settled by her feet, quiet, as if he had not been only moments earlier in a frenzy against a tribal enemy.

  Nick offered his own supplies.

  “Bread!” Mrs. Clapp opened the bag and sniffed ecstatically at its contents. “Fresh bread! Lands, I almost forgot what it smells like, let alone tastes.”

  Nick had grounded the bike. Now he stood a little to one side glancing from the pilot Crocker to the girl Jean, then on to Stroud in his warden’s uniform. Crocker, unless Nick was a very poor judge of ages, was in his early twenties, Jean even younger. They could not be as old as Stroud’s uniform suggested. But—

  “Something bothers you, my boy?” It was the Vicar. And without thinking Nick asked his question baldly:

  “Do you mind telling me, sir—how long have you been here?”

  The Vicar smiled wearily. “That—that may be impossible. We tried to keep a record in the beginning, but after they captured us and brought us here—” He shrugged. “By a matter of seasons, I should judge about four years. The raid hit Minton Parva the evening of July 24, 1942. I think we all have reason to remember that. We were in the crypt shelter of the church. Mrs. Clapp is, was, my housekeeper. Lady Diana had come to see me about the hos
pital fund. Jean and Barry were on their way down to the station to take the train back, they were both returning from leave. And Stroud had come to check up on our supplies—when the alert sounded and we all went into the crypt. There was a sound—frankly, Shaw, we all believed it was the end. And then—somehow we were out of the church, out of even the England that we knew . . .”

  He hesitated. Those tired but very keen eyes had been watching Nick’s face. Now the Vicar’s expression changed.

  “You know something, don’t you, my boy? Something that is disturbing you. What is it?”

  “Time, sir. You say you think you have been here about four years. But today is—was—July 21, 1985.”

  He expected the Vicar to challenge him on that. It was not believable, not if Hadlett had been speaking the truth. And Nick was sure he had.

  “July 21, 1985,” repeated the Vicar slowly. “No, I do not doubt you, my boy, as I think you are expecting. It is too apt, it bears out all the old tales. But—1985—forty-three years—What happened there—forty years back?”

  “Forty years what? . . .” Crocker lounged over to them. He had been more intent on the motorbike than he had on their conversation, but now he looked at Hadlett alertly. “What is this about forty years?”

  “Tell him your date,” the Vicar said to Nick as if his saying it would make the deeper impression.

  “The date today—it’s July 21, 1985,” Nick returned. Hadlett had accepted that without question, but would the others?

  “Nineteen eighty-five,” repeated the pilot blankly. “But—it’s impossible—Padre, it’s about 1946, unless we counted wrong, and a man can’t tick off forty years that way without knowing it!”

  It was Lady Diana who had listened this time. “Adrian, then you were right. It’s like the old tales, isn’t it? Over forty—” She looked beyond them to where the water curled around the stones in the even flowing Run. “Ninety-eight—but I’m not, Adrian, I’m no older—”

  “That, too, was part of those same old tales, Diana,” he said.

  “No!” Crocker protested. “This kid has it all wrong, he’s one of Them maybe. How do we know—” He was backing away from Nick, the sling again in his hand. “He’s working for Them, sent to break us down with a story like that!”

  “Here—what’s goin’ on?” Stroud bore down on them. “What’s this talk about Them?”

  Crocker burst out with his accusation. And there was open anger in his voice as he turned on the Warden. “We brought these two here—next They will be coming! Tell us that we’ve been here forty-plus years! That’s a lie no one’s going to believe.”

  “Now, then.” Stroud’s hand was on Crocker’s shoulder. “Take a reef on that there tongue of yours, Barry. These don’t smell like the Herald do they? An’ when did the flying devils use bait? They zooms right in an’ takes what they wants, no frills about it. All right, you say it’s 1985 back there—what happened to the war?”

  Stroud’s rumble had drawn them all. They made a semicircle, looking at Nick, some with speculative, Crocker with accusing, eyes.

  “That ended in ‘45.” Nick searched memory for an account of the conflict that had ended long before he was born, but that to this handful was still vividly a threat.

  “Who won?” demanded Crocker angrily, as if by his answer Nick would be judged.

  “We did—the allies. We invaded and took Germany from one side, the Russians came in from the other—they got Berlin. Hitler killed himself before they got to him. And we dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—then the Japanese surrendered that same year.”

  “Atom bomb?” Crocker no longer sounded angry, but rather dazed.

  “Yes. Wiped out both cities.” Nick remembered the accounts of that and hoped he would not have to go into details.

  “And now—?” the Vicar asked after a pause, while his companions stared at Nick as if he were speaking a foreign language.

  “Well, there’s still trouble. There was the Korean War and the one in Vietnam, and now there’s trouble in South America. China has gone Communist, and Russia still has half of Germany under control—the eastern part. But we’ve made manned landings on the Moon.” He tried to think of what had been progress and not just dreary wrangling. “And now we are planning to put a permanent station into space—besides Skylab. But—I can’t tell you everything that happened. England—they’ve given up the Empire, and they had a Labor government for a long time—it’s been tough over there—awfully high taxes and slipping back—”

  “Forty years, yes, a lot can happen.” The Vicar nodded. “And still wars—”

  “Please.” Linda broke into the quiet that followed his comment. “If you came here from England and we from Ohio—Did you get across the ocean some way? Or is this all just one country?”

  The Vicar shook his head. “No, the general contours of this world seem geographically aligned to those of our own. This continent and England appear much as they must have in a very remote past before men began to tame the land. We were brought to this continent as prisoners. Only by the grace of God were we able to escape. Since then we have been trying to devise a way to return. Only I fear that this world has no ships to offer us. But ours is a very long and complicated story and I would suggest we tell it by degrees, perhaps over some of Mrs. Clapp’s excellently cooked fish. Shall we?”

  Perhaps it was the return to tasks they all knew and had shared for some time that relieved the tension. They got ready for the meal. And passing around the bread Nick had brought apparently made this a feast.

  Hadlett turned a roll about in his fingers. “You never know how much you miss the small things of life”—he used a cliché to express the truth—“until they are taken from you. Bread we cannot produce here. Though Mrs. Clapp has experimented with ground nuts and seeds from a wild grass not unlike oats. It is good to eat bread again.”

  “You said you were brought here as prisoners.” Nick wanted to know the worst of what might now menace them.

  “Ah, yes. It is best that you be warned.” The Vicar swallowed a bite of roll. “This is a very strange world and, though it has not been for want of trying, we have not penetrated very far into its secrets. But we believe that it is somehow parallel with our own, though obviously different. Sometime in the past, we do not know how far past, there was apparently a force set into being that could reach into our own world at special places and draw out people. There are many stories in our own world of mysterious disappearances.”

  Nick nodded. “More and more of those have been collected recently into books. We came from a place that has such a reputation—many disappearances over the years.”

  “Just so. And our church at Minton Parva was situated near a fairy mound—”

  “Fairy mound?” Nick was startled. What was the meaning of that?

  “No, I am not trying in any fashion to be amusing, my boy. In Britain we have a very long history—considered today to be legend—of disappearances near such sites. People ‘fairy taken,’ who sometimes reappeared years, even generations, after their disappearances, with an explanation of spending a day, or a month, or a year in another world, these are common in our folklore.”

  “Then,” Linda broke in, “we can go back!” She had been holding Lung, and perhaps her hands closed too tightly on the small dog, for he gave a whine of protest.

  “That,” the Vicar told her gravely, “we do not know. But our own efforts have failed. And—we have seen enough here during our wanderings to suggest that such escapes, or returns, must be very exceptional.”

  Linda, still holding Lung in her arms, was on her feet. She stood so for a moment, her glance sweeping from face to face, ending with Nick. And it was to him that she spoke directly, as if she was prepared to believe him over whatever the others might say.

  “Do you think we can get back?”

  He had the choice of lying, of trying to be easy with her. But somehow he could not do it.

  “No one ever went bac
k through the Cut-Off that we knew of.” In his own ears his voice sounded harsh.

  Her face was blank of expression. She turned abruptly and began to walk away, her walk becoming swifter as she went. Nick got up to start after her.

  “No.” She did not turn to look at him, but it was as if she knew he would follow. “Let me alone—just let me alone for a while!”

  And such was the force of the way she spoke that he stopped, uncertain as to whether he should force his company on her or not.

  “Jean.” It was Hadlett who spoke. “See that she is safe, but let her be. We must all face our truths as best we can.”

  The English girl passed Nick. He turned to the others.

  “See that she is safe?” he repeated. “And you were prisoners. Who and what do you have to fear? Let’s have it straight!”

  “Good enough.” Stroud had been eating stolidly. Now he leaned back against one of the logs helping to form their shelter. “We’re not alone here, you must have guessed that. And as far as we’ve been able to find out there’s three kinds of people—or things—or whatever you want to name ’em.

  “There’s some like us who have been caught. We tried to make talk with a couple of crowds like ours—or we think they’re like us. But they don’t understand. The last time it was soldiers, an’ we got shot at. Not our soldiers—they looked Chinese.

  “Then there’s the Herald an’ those who listen to him an’ change—” He spat out that last word as if it were some obscenity. “The Herald—he may always have been here, native to this world. He has the cities an’ the People with him. He wants us. Soon as he finds out about you two he will come snoopin’. All we know is if you take what he has to offer, then you change. After that you’re not a man or a woman anymore, you’re something different. We aren’t havin’ any of that. You won’t either, if you have sense.

  “Third—there’s the flyer hunters. They ain’t o’ this world any more than we are. Only in their flyers they can get in an’ out. One of their planes winks into the air an’, ’fore you know it, they have you netted. I don’t know what they do with the poor devils they catch, outside of shut ’em up in cages like we was. But we were lucky. The ship that caged us, it got something wrong. Made a crash landin’ here an’ we escaped ’cause the crew were wiped out. That’s when we found out they’d brought us out of England.”