A Tale of Time City Read Online Free PDF

Leonov admit that. So that was where V.S. comes in.”
    “Who
is
she?” said Vivian.
    “The Time Lady,” said Sam. “She’s on the rampage.”
    “Yes, but we had to work that out,” said Jonathan, “by putting the talk in the Chronologue together with what the stories say. Chronologue was being very scientific, talking about someone coming up through the First Unstable Era in a wave of temporonsand chronons, causing wars and changes everywhere. But I guessed it had to be the Time Lady. The story says that Faber John and his wife quarrelled about the way to rule Time City, and she tricked him into going down under the City and falling asleep there. They say he’s still there, and as long as he sleeps, the City is safe. But if it’s in danger he’ll wake up and come to our rescue. We’re going by the stories. We know you—the Time Lady hates Faber John and the City, because he saw how she’d tricked him at the last minute and threw her out into history. We think she’s trying to get back and destroy the City now it’s nearly worn out.”
    “That’s the bit I didn’t understand,” Sam said. He was cross-legged on the floor, licking the stick of his butter-pie.
    “It
is
a bit puzzling,” Jonathan said. Vivian could see he was very pleased with himself for working it out. “Chronologue seemed to be sure that the Time Lady would be quite reasonable when they found her and explained about the crisis. I think the quarrel she had with Faber John must have been political in some way.”
    He looked questioningly at Vivian. Vivian caught the flicker of his flickering eyes and began to wonder if Jonathan did believe she was just a normal person from the Twentieth Century after all. But at that moment she bit through into the middle of the butter-pie. And it was hot. Runny, syrupy hot.
    “It’s
goluptuous
when you get to the warm part, isn’t it?” Sam said, watching her with keen attention. “You want to let it trickle into the cold.”
    Vivian did so and found Sam’s advice was excellent. The two parts mixed were even better than the cold part alone. It sent herrather dreamy again. When Sam grinned at her, a wide cheeky grin with two big teeth in the middle of it, she found herself thinking that Sam was not so bad after all. But she did her best to keep to the subject.
    “I still don’t understand what made you think the Time Lady was
me
,” she said.
    Jonathan started to say something. Then he changed his mind and said something else. “Because of the name, you see. Faber John’s wife was called Vivian. Everyone knows that. And Faber really means Smith. So when I heard Chronologue say that you—she was on that evacuee train, I worked out that she must be posing as a girl called Vivian Smith.”
    “And we said V.S. when we talked about her so that nobody would guess our plan,” Sam put in. “We started planning two days ago after they met the train and couldn’t find her.”
    “Two days ago!” Vivian exclaimed. “But I was there
today
, and so were you!”
    “Yes, but you can get to any time you want through a time–lock,” Jonathan said, waving that puzzle away in his most lordly manner. “My father went there and Sam’s father, and so did the Head Librarian and the High Scientist, but they all came back saying she’d slipped through them somehow. That was when I thought we had a chance of getting you—her ourselves. Only you’re the wrong Vivian Smith for some reason—and I
still
can’t understand it! Sam, we’ve got to think what to do with her.”
    “Send her to the Stone Age,” said Sam. “You wouldn’t mind that, would you?” he asked Vivian.
    “Mind? I’d go crazy!” said Vivian. “There are spiders in caves. Why can’t you send me home?”
    “I told you why we can’t,” Jonathan said. “Besides, it’s an Unstable Era and it’s even more unsettled than usual at the moment. Suppose we put you back and that mucked up the whole of history. They’d find out at once!