Hexwood

“I have said it many times,” said Yam. “The Bannus cannot tamper with my memory. I know that we four have discussed the Bannus, here and in other places, twenty times now. It may well continue to make us do so until it arrives at the best possible conclusion.”

“I don’t believe it!” said Ann. But the trouble was, she did.

Mordion rolled away from Yam’s leg and pushed up his goggles. Like Ann, in spite of not wanting to believe Yam, he had a strong sense of having done this before. The feel of the tiny tool in his hand, the piercing scent of the pine tree overhead and the harsh whisper of its needles overlaying the sound of the river below, were uncomfortably and hauntingly familiar. “What conclusion do you think the machine is trying to make us arrive at?”

“I have no idea,” said Yam. “It could be that the people deciding are not us. We are possibly only actors in someone else’s scenes.”

“Not me,” said Ann. “I’m important. I’m me.”

“I’m very important,” Hume announced.

“Besides,” Ann went on, giving Hume a pat to show she knew he was important too, “I object to being pushed around by this machine. If you’re right, it’s made me do twenty things I don’t want to do.”

“Not really,” said Yam. “Nothing can make either a person or a machine do things which it is not in their natures to do.”

Mordion had gone back to work on Yam’s leg. He knew he was not in the least important It was a weight off his mind, somehow, that Yam thought they were only actors in someone else’s scene. But when Yam said this about one not being made to act against one’s nature, he found he was quivering so with guilt and uneasiness that he had to stop work again for fear of doing Yam damage.

Ann was thinking about this too. She said, “But machines can be adapted. You’ve been adapted, Yam. And people have all sorts of queer bits in their natures that the Bannus could work on.”

That was why he felt so guilty, Mordion realised with relief. He went back to making painstaking, microscopic adjustments on Yam’s leg. This machine, this Bannus, had taken advantage of some very queer and unsavoury corner of his nature when it caused him to create Hume. And the reason for his guilt was that, when the Bannus decided the correct conclusion had been reached, it would surely shut down its field. Hume would cease to exist then. Just like that What a thing to have done! Mordion went on working, but he was cold and appalled.

Meanwhile, Ann was looking at her watch and saying firmly that she had to go now. She had had enough of this Bannus. As she got up and started down the steep rocks, Mordion left Yam with a driver sticking out of his leg and hastened after her. “Ann!”

“Yes?” Ann stopped and looked up at him. She was still not feeling very friendly towards Mordion – particularly now that it seemed she had been shoved into scene after scene with him.

“Keep coming here,” Mordion said. “Of your own free will, if possible. You do me good as well as Hume. You keep pointing out the truth.”

“Yam can do that now,” Ann said coldly.

“Not really.” Mordion tried to explain, before she climbed down by the river where she could not hear him. “Yam knows facts. You have insights.”

“I do?” Ann was gratified, enough to pause on one foot halfway down to the river.

Mordion could not help smiling. “Yes, mostly when you’re angry.”

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Ann did wish Mordion had not smiled. It was that smile that had entranced her – she was sure of it – into coming back this afternoon. She had never met a smile like it.

“He thinks I’m funny” she snorted to herself as she made her way home. “He thinks I eat out of his hand when he smiles. It’s humiliating!”

She arrived home in a pale, shaken sort of state because of it. Or maybe it was being chased by men in armour – at least they hadn’t followed them down to the river. Or the Bannus hadn’t let them follow. Or maybe it’s everything! she thought.

Dad looked up at her from where he was relaxing in front of the news. “You’ve been overdoing it, my girl, haven’t you? You look all in.”

“I’m not all in – I’m angry!” Ann retorted. Then, realising that she would never get a plain-minded person like Dad to believe in the Bannus, or theta-space, let alone a boy created out of blood, she was forced to add, “Angry at being tired, I mean.”

“This is it, isn’t it?” said Dad. “You get out of bed just this morning, and off you go – vanish for the whole day – without a thought! You’ll be back in bed with that virus again tomorrow. Are you going to be well enough to go to school at all this term? Or not?”

“Monday,” said Mum. “We want you well and back in school on Monday.”

“There’s only two more days of school left,” Martin put in from the corner where he was colouring a map labelled ‘Caves of the Future’. “It’s not worth going back for two days.” Ann shot him a grateful look.

“Yes it is worth it,” said Mum. “I just wish I’d paid more attention when I was at school.”

“Oh, don’t bore on about that!” Martin muttered.

“What did you say?” Mum asked him. But Dad cut across her, saying, “Well if it is only the two days, there’s no point making her go, is there? She might as well stay at home and get thoroughly well again.”

Ann let them argue about it. Mum seemed to be winning, but Ann did not mind much. Two days wouldn’t kill anyone. And that would be two days in which the Bannus couldn’t use her as an extra in somebody else’s decisions. It was good – no, more, a real relief to be back at home with a normal decision being argued about in the normal way. Ann sat down on the sofa with a great, relaxing sigh.

Martin looked across at her. “There’s Alien on the late film tonight,” he said, underneath the argument.

“Oh good!” Ann stretched both arms over her head and decided, there and then, that she would not go near Banners Wood again.

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Ann kept to her decision next morning. Yam’s looking after Hume now, she told herself. He was obviously the non-real person she had asked the field to provide for Hume, when Mordion could not seem to be bothered. But the Bannus had done a lot of fancy hocus-pocus to make Ann believe it was the year two thousand and something, and then more fancy work with the men in armour. It seemed to enjoy making people frightened and uncomfortable.

“I have had enough of that machine.” Ann told her bedroom mirror. The fact that she could see the grey car in the mirror over her left shoulder, still parked in the bay, only underlined her decision.

Anyway, it was Saturday and she and Martin both had particular duties on a Saturday. Martin had to go with Dad in the van, first to the suppliers and then to deliver fruit and vegetables to the motel. Ann had to do the shopping. Feeling very virtuous and decided, Ann dug the old brown shopping bag out of the kitchen cupboard and went dutifully into the shop to collect money and a shopping list from Mum. Mum gave her the usual string of instructions, interrupted by customers coming in. It always took a long time. While Ann was standing by the counter waiting for Mum’s next sentence, Martin shot through on his way to meet Mrs Price’s Jim.