A Plague of Hearts by Patrick Whittaker (best large ereader .TXT) 📖

has been set for tomorrow.’
‘Morning or afternoon?’ Nurse Jane demanded, anxiously.
‘Afternoon.’
‘Oh good. I’ll still have time to give him a few more enemas.’
The Knave hid his head beneath the covers and groaned.


13. The Flying Man

When the Hatter got restless, he was inclined to take to his penny-farthing. The simple act of mounting this archaic bicycle invariably resulted in a change of perspective; his view of the world would become transformed by the simplest of all machines.
The Mad Hatter loved his penny-farthing. It was one of the few things in his life that made sense.
As the first shades of evening drew themselves together, he navigated through narrow and twisting lanes, pedaling furiously in an attempt to get everywhere and nowhere at once. On this occasion, he rode in his shirt sleeves and his finest black bowler, discarding the elegance of his topper in favour of reduced wind resistance.
Past Hangman’s Drive, a farm labourer looked up from his toils to be startled by the sight of a man apparently flying. He could not know that it was the Mad Hatter; it had grown dark and a large hedgerow hid the bike from him. Nor could he know that the Hatter’s curious expression was a mixture of carefree abandonment and total absorption.
Wiping his hands on the seat of his trousers, the labourer did not bother to search for a rational explanation. Here he was, witnessing a man rushing by at great speed - a man whose feet could not possibly be touching the ground. It had to be magic. What else could it be?
The labourer licked his dry lips and pictured himself in the local inn, telling his fellow rustics of the Flying Man of Hangman’s Drive. They would, of course, laugh and sneer, tease him and call him mad, and he would smile back at them, the noble stoic beset by fools. And then one day, maybe years hence, someone else more respectable than he - perhaps a magistrate or a local squire - would come rushing into the inn to report that they too had observed the exact same phenomenon. From that moment on, skepticism would turn to respect, and every scoff and jibe could be returned in full. Maybe his picture would appear in the local paper...
Unaware that he was destined to be the catalyst for a long-running controversy, the Mad Hatter rode on, caught in a high that was part adrenaline, part exhilaration; a high that was better than any drug.
Up ahead, the Tired River cut across the landscape. It gleamed in the twilight like a vein of silver.
The Hatter ceased pedaling, let momentum carry him forward. He steered the bike onto the footpath that followed the river. The stony, uneven surface made speed both hazardous and uncomfortable, so the Hatter brought the machine to a halt and dismounted with practiced ease.
Leaving the bicycle against a tree, he sat by the Tired River and watched its denizens perform their evening rituals.
A pageant of swans drifted by. They looked neither left nor right; they did not wonder about their place in the scheme of things. They did not ask if life served any purpose. They had their river; they had each other. And for them, that was enough.
A dragonfly hovered briefly above the Mad Hatter, and then darted away into the darkness. Elsewhere, bullfrogs called to each other. Crickets sang.
There’s a pattern here, the Hatter told himself. The Red King dreams an ordered dream. But where do I fit in? What instrument am I meant to be playing in the Red King’s Orchestra? Am I a virtuoso or just a penny-whistle player with dreams of one day making it into the strings section?
With a sigh, he turned to his penny-farthing and patted its over-sized front wheel. ‘It’s a weird and wonderful world,’ he announced. ‘And a fine life if you can work out how to live it.’
The bullfrogs and crickets echoed his sentiments.
*
In a miserably cramped laboratory, Doctor Ormus contemplated a different sort of order. It had been a long day, not made any easier by being surrounded by buzzniks.
As he’d expected, Peregrine Smith’s old secret lab had needed a lot of work to make it usable. The room had been full of dusty equipment, most of it rusted or broken beyond any hope of repair. At his direction, the room had been emptied. The tunnel outside was now lined with a bewildering array of technology, a monument to the warped genius of an alien geriatric.
‘I wish I knew what half of it is for,’ he told Julie. She had just returned from carrying out a sack of mouldy blueprints - the last of Smith’s junk.
‘Half of what?’ she asked.
‘That stuff outside,’ he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the door. They were alone now. Just the two of them and Shadrack, who was lying unconscious in a long, metal tank. ‘I worked with Smith for nearly five years, but I got nowhere near understanding most of the gadgets he used. Much as I hate Smith, I have a grudging respect for the man. If I had his intellect - ’
‘You do,’ said Julie, simply. She peered down at Shadrack, wondering at the change in him. His face was still disfigured, but his expression no longer seemed so tortured. Earlier, she had peeked beneath his bandages and found pink scar tissue where earlier there had been only bone. She wondered if he was dreaming. ‘You just don’t have his training.’
‘So you say. But who’s to say what training he’s had? Maybe even on his own world, he was ahead of his time. I must have known him better than anyone, but I hardly knew him at all. He was just so alien.’
‘Like me?’
‘No. He’s not like you at all.’
‘He’s from the same planet.’
‘A different time.’
‘We’re the same race of people.’
‘But not the same type of people. You’re almost like one of us.’
‘Let’s face it, Doc. I’m a stranger in a land I’m never going to get used to. I’m no less lost now than I was when Smith first brought me here.’
Gingerly, Ormus sat down on the edge of the dynamo unit. There were no chairs in the lab, nothing that could offer comfort. With Smith’s equipment removed, the room looked scarcely bigger than before. The small amount of space that had been regained was largely taken up by the dynamo and the two units of the orgone generator - the generator itself and the tank in which Shadrack lay.
‘Of course,’ said Ormus, ‘we could be completely wasting our time here. I’ve never used this equipment before. The only thing that tells me it’s working is that red light on it.’
‘It’s working,’ said Julie. She stood up and began to unbutton her blouse.
‘What are you doing?’
‘You’re feeling depressed, and I’m feeling homesick. What we both need right now is physical contact.’
‘I’m tired. I don’t think I could.’
The blouse was discarded. It lay on the newly-swept floor, an electric blue invitation to a moment’s pleasure. The Doctor’s gaze shifted from the blouse to Julie’s breasts. A sudden longing washed over him. It wasn’t sexual. It was a need to be touched and comforted, to be told that he wasn’t alone or unwanted.
The red light on the generator went out. Ormus got to his feet, all thoughts of Julie forgotten. Peering into the casket, he watched as Shadrack’s one good eye opened.
‘Well?’ said Julie. She had picked up her blouse and was holding it over her breasts.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ormus. ‘With all those dressings, it’s hard to tell.’
Shadrack gazed up at them. He was stepping out of a dream, returning from a phantom zone in which he was neither alive nor dead. He recalled the napalm raining from the sky, a great wash of fire that clung to him, scorched his body and soul. A few fleeting moments that had rolled on and on forever, until the heat had sucked the air from his lungs and pain and terror had given way to darkness. And there were other, hazier memories. He had seen Lisa crying. The March Hare had led him across green fields. And he had gazed up at the moon.
‘Where,’ he asked, ‘am I?’
‘Somewhere you don’t know about,’ said Doctor Ormus, who felt relief wash through him like cold water on a hot day. The treatment had been successful. ‘Somewhere safe. The Panda won’t find you here.’
‘Is it all right for me to sit up?’
‘That depends. Do you feel up to it?’
‘I feel fine. I must have been asleep for quite some time.’
‘Yes,’ said Julie. She was suddenly conscious of not being fully dressed, but it seemed petty for her to do anything about it. Like Lazarus, Shadrack had risen from the dead. What did it matter if he caught a glimpse of her breasts? ‘You’ve had one hell of a sleep.’
‘And I’m hungry,’ said Shadrack, sitting up. He yawned and started to rub the sleep from his eyes, then stopped when he realised that something was not quite right. Instead of flesh, his fingers brushed against bandages. He was blind in one eye, and that eye was covered by some sort of patch. ‘So I didn’t dream it after all? There really was a napalm attack?’
Julie turned away. She felt Shadrack’s anguish and confusion as if it were her own. Behind her, Ormus began explaining in quiet tones all that had happened to Shadrack since the moment of his death. It was disconcerting to hear someone being told that they were alive after being dead, that they had not reached the after-life. It was a religious revelation in reverse.
Have we done the right thing? she wondered. Maybe we’ve committed a blasphemy. The finality of death is a law of nature. Now that we’ve broken it, will we be punished?
Morosely, she put her blouse back on and buttoned it up. ‘I’ve given you as much orgone as I can for now,’ Ormus was saying. ‘It will take a while to get the equipment recharged and ready again. We’ll come back tomorrow night and repeat the treatment. I’m not sure, but I think I can restore your face within a couple of days. Meanwhile, if you feel up to it, we can head back to the surface and find you a bed for the night. The Duchess has had a room prepared for you.’
‘No,’ said Shadrack. His voice sounded strained. ‘Lisa will be there. It’s not the right time for us to meet again.’
‘Lisa’s in the Chapel tonight. She promised the buzzniks a mass in return for sorting this place out. She won’t be home until the morning.’
‘All the same, I’d rather stay here. Alone.’
‘That’s not a good idea. We don’t know if the treatment’s going to have any side-effects. It would be far better for you to be near friends.’
‘I want some time to myself,’ Shadrack insisted. ‘It’s not every day that a man finds himself resurrected, and there are a lot of things I need to think about.’
‘Of course,’ said Julie. She turned to Ormus. ‘I don’t know why, but I think it best to do as he asks. He’s a free agent. What’s the point of giving a man his life if you take away his right to decide?’