CHAPTER FIVE: AIRMAIL PAPER-2
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Will set off at ooward the sound, and Lyra followed behind as he plunged down a narrow alley shadowed from the moonlight. After several twists and turns they came out into the square in front of the 藏书网stoower theyd seen that m.Twenty or so children were fag inward in a semicircle at the base of the tower, and some of them had sticks in their hands, and some were throwing sto whatever they had trapped against the wall. At first Lyra thought it was another child, but ing from ihe semicircle
was a horrible high wailing that wasnt human at all. And the children were screaming too, in fear as well as hatred.
Will ran up to the children and pulled the first one back. It was a boy of about his own age, a boy in a striped T-shirt. As he turned Lyra saw the wild white rims around his pupils, and theher children realized what was happening and stopped to look. Angelid her little brother were there too, stones in hand, and all the childrens eyes glittered fiercely in the moonlight.
They fell silent. Only the high wailing tinued, and then both Will and Lyra saw what it was: a tabby cat, c against the wall of the tower, its ear torn and its tail bent. It was the cat Will had seen in Sunderland Avehe one like Moxie, the ohat had led him to the window.
As soon as he saw her, he flung aside the boy he was holding. The boy fell to the ground and in a moment, furious, but the others held him back. Will was already kneeling by the cat.
And then she was in his arms. She fled to his breast and he cradled her close and stood to face the children, and Lyra thought for a crazy sed that his daemon had appeared at last.
"What are you hurting this cat for?" he demanded, and they couldnt ahey stood trembling at Wills anger, breathing heavily, clutg their sticks and their stones, and they couldnt speak.
But then Angelicas voice came clearly: "You ain from here! You ain from Cigazze! You didn know about Specters, you don know about cats either. You ain like us!"
The boy iriped T-shirt whom Will had thrown down was trembling to fight, and if it hadnt been for the cat in Wills arms, he would have flown at Will with fists ah a, and Will would have gladly joined battle. There was a current of electric hatred betweewo of them that only violence could ground. But the boy was afraid of the cat.<s></s>
"Where you e from?" he said ptuously.
"Doesnt matter where we e from. If youre scared of this cat, Ill take her away from you. If shes bad luck to you, shell be good luck for us. Now get out of the way."
For a moment Will thought their hatred would overe their fear, and he reparing to put the cat down and fight, but then came a low thunderous growl from behind the children, and they turo see Lyra standing with her hand on the shoulders of a great spotted leopard whose teeth shone white as he snarled. Even Will, whnized Pantalaimon, was frightened for a sed.
Its effe the children was dramatic: they turned and fled at once. A few seds later the square was empty.
But before they left, Lyra looked up at the tower. A growl from Pantalaimon prompted her, and just briefly she saw someohere on the very top, looking dowhe battle-mented rim, and not a child either, but a young man, with curly hair.
Half an hour later they were in the flat above the cafe. Will had found a tin of densed milk, and the cat had lapped it hungrily and then begun to lick her wounds. Pantalaimon had bee cat-formed out of curiosity, and at first the tabby cat had bristled with suspi, but she soon realized that whatever Pantalaimon was, he was her a true or a threat, and proceeded to ignore him.
Lyra watched Will tending this oh fasation. The only animals she had been close to in her world (apart from the armored bears) were w animals of one sort or another. Cats were for keeping Jordan College clear of miot for makis of.
"I thiails broken," Will said. "I dont know what to do about that. Maybe itll heal by itself.
Ill put some honey on her ear. I read about that somewhere; its aic...."
It was messy, but at least it kept her occupied lig it off, and the wound was getting er all the time.
"You sure this is the one you saw?" she said.
"Oh, yes. And if theyre all shtened of cats, there wouldnt be many in this world anyway. She probably couldnt find her way back."
"They were just crazy," Lyra said. "They would have killed her. I never seen kids being like that."
"I have," said Will.
But his face had closed; he didnt want to talk about it, and she knew better than to ask. She knew she wouldnt even ask the alethiometer.
She was very tired, so presently she went to bed and slept at once.
A little later, whe had curled up to sleep, Will took a cup of coffee and the greeher writing case, and sat on the baly. There was enough light ing through the window for him to read by, and he wao look at the papers.
There werent many. As hed thought, they were letters, written on airmail paper in blak.
These very marks were made by the hand of the man he wanted so much to find; he moved his fingers over and over them, and pressed them to his face, trying to get closer to the essence of his father. Thearted to read.
Fairbanks, Alaska Wednesday, 19 June 1985 My darling—the usual mixture of effid chaos— all the stores are here but the physicist, a genial dimwit called Nelson, hasn t made any arras for carrying his damn balloons up into the mountains—having to twiddle our thumbs while he scrabbles around for transport. But it means I had a ce to talk to an old boy I met last time, a gold miner called Jake Petersen.
Tracked him down to a dingy bar and uhe sound of the baseball game oV I asked him about the anomaly. He wouldn t talk there—took me back to his apartment. With the help of a bottle of Jack Daniels he talked for a long time—hadn t seen it himself, but he d met an Eskimo who had, and this chap said it was a doorway into the spirit world. They d known about it for turies; pan of the initiation of a medie man involved going through and bringing back a trophy of some kind—though some never came back. However, old Jake did have a map of the area, and he d marked on it where his pal had told him the thing was. (Just in case: its at 69°0211" N, 157°1219" ur of Looke a mile or two north of the Colville River.) We then got on to other Arctic legends—the Nian ship thats been drifting unmanned for sixty years, stuff like that. The archaeologists are a det crew, keen to get to work, taining their impatieh Nelson and his balloons. None of them has ever heard of the anomaly, and believe me Im going to keep it like that. My fo love to you both. Johnny.
Umiat, Alaska Saturday, 22 June 1985 My darling—-so much for what did<q>?</q> I call him, a genial dimwit—the physicist Nelson is nothing of the sort, and if Im not mistaken hes actually looking for the anomaly himself. The holdup in Fairbanks was orchestrated by him, would you believe? Knowing that the rest of the team wouldnt want to wait for anythihan an unarguable reason like no transport, he personally sent ahead and celed the vehicles that had been ordered. I found this out by act, and I was going to ask him what the hell he laying at when I overheard him
talking on the radio to someone—describing the anomaly, no less, except he didn t know the location. Later on I bought him a drink, played the bluff soldier, old Arctid, "more things in heaven ah " line. Preteo tease him with the limitations of sce—bet you t explain Bigfoot, etc.—wat<cite>藏书网</cite>g him closely. Then sprung the anomaly on him—Eskimo legend of a doorway into spirit world—invisible—somewhere near Looke, would you believe, where were heading for, fancy that. And you know he was jolted rigid. He kly what I meant. I pretended not to notid went on to witchcraft, told him the Zaire leopard story.
So I hope hes got me down as a superstitious military blockhead. But Im right, Elaine— hes looking for it too. The question is, do I tell him or not? Got to work out what his game is.
Fo love to both— Johnny.
Colville Bar, Alaska Monday, 24 June 1985 Darling—I wo a ce to post another letter for a while—this is the last town before we take to the hills, the Broe. The archaeologists are fizzing to get 99ｌｉb?up there. One chap is vinced hell find evidenuch earlier habitation than anyone suspected. I said how much earlier, and why was he vinced. He told me of some narwhal-ivory carvings hed found on a previous dig—carbon 14-dated to some incredible age, way outside the range of what reviously assumed; anomalous, in fact. Wouldnt it be strange if they d e through my anomaly, from some other world? Talking of which, the physicist Nelson is my closest buddy now— kids me along, drops hints to imply that he knows that I know that he knows, etd I pretend to be bluff Major Parry, stout fellow in a crisis but not too much between the ears, what. But I know hes after it. For ohing, although hes a bona fide academic his funding actually es from the Ministry of Defense—I know the financial codes they use. And for another his so-called weather balloons are nothing of the sort. I looked in the crate—a radiation suit if ever Ive seen one. A rum do, my darling. I shall stiy plan: take the archaeologists to their spot and go off by my self for a few days to look for the anomaly. If I bump into Nelson wandering about on Looke, Ill play it by ear.
Later. A real bit of luck. I met Jake Petersen s pal the Eskimo, Matt Kigalik. Jake had told me where to find him, but I hadn t dared to hope he d be there. He told me the Soviets had been looking for the anomaly too; hed e across a man earlier this year high up in the range and watched him for a couple of days without being seen, because he guessed what he was doing, and he was right, and the man turned out to be Russian, a spy. He didn t tell me more than that; I got the impression he bumped him off. But he described the thing to me. Its like a gap in the air, a sort of window. You look through it and you see another world. But its not easy to find because that part of the other world looks just like this—rocks and moss and so forth. Its on the north side of a small creek fifty paces or so to the west of a tall rock shaped like a standing bear, and the position Jake gave me is not quite right—its nearer 12" N than 11.
Wish me luck, my darling. Ill bring you back a trophy from the spirit world. I love you forever— kiss the boy for me—Johnny.
Will found his head ringing.
His father was describily what he himself had found uhe horrees. He, too, had found a window—he evehe same word for it! So Will must be on the right track. And this knowledge was what the men had been searg for... So it was dangerous, too.
Will had been just a baby when that letter was written. Seven years after that had e the m in the supermarket when he realized his mother was in terrible danger, and he had to protect her; and then slowly in the months that followed came his growing realization that the danger was in her mind, and he had to protect her all the more.
And then, brutally, the revelation that not all the danger had been in her mind after all. There really was someoer her—after these letters, this information.
He had no idea what it meant. But he felt deeply happy that he had something so important to share with his father; that John Parry and his son Will had each, separately, discovered this extraordinary thing. When they met, they could talk about it, and his father would be proud that Will had followed in his footsteps.
The night was quiet and the sea was still. He folded the letters away and fell asleep.
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