Moving pictures

'I know,' said Victor, grimly.

'-the seats, they're still?'

'I know.'

'-occupied.'

'I know.'

All these people ? these things who had been people - sitting in rows. It's as though they were watching a click.

He'd almost reached it now. It shimmied above him, a rectangle with length and height but no thickness.

Just in front of it, almost underneath the silver screen, a smaller flight of steps led him down into a circular pit half filled with debris. By climbing on to it he could see behind the screen, to where the light was.

It was Ginger. She was standing with one hand held above her head. The torch in it burned like phosphorus.

She was staring up at a body on a slab. It was a giant. Or, at least, something like a giant. It might just have been a suit of armour with a sword laid on top of it, half buried in dust and sand.

'It's the thing from the book!' he hissed. 'Ye gods, what does she think she's doing?'

'I don't think she's thinkin' anythin',' said Gaspode.

Ginger half turned and Victor saw her face. She was smiling.

Behind the slab Victor could make out some kind of big, corroded disc. At least it was hanging from the ceiling by proper chains, and not defying gravity in such a disconcerting way.

'Right,' he said, 'I'm going to put a stop to this right now. Ginger!'

His voice boomed back at him from the distant walls. He could hear it bouncing away along caverns and corridors er, er, er. There was a thud of falling rock somewhere far behind him.

'Keep it quiet!' said Gaspode. 'You'll have the whole place down on us!'

'Ginger!' Victor hissed. 'It's me!'

She turned and looked at him, or through him, or into him.

'Victor,' she said sweetly. 'Go away. Far away. Go away now or great harm will befall.'

'Great harm will befall,' muttered Gaspode. 'That's boding talk, that is.'

'You don't know what you're doing,' said Victor. 'You asked me to stop you! Come back. Come back with me now.'

He tried to climb up . . .

. . . and something sank under his foot. There was a faraway gurgling noise, a metallic clonk, and then one watery musical note billowed up around him and echoed around the cavern. He moved his foot hurriedly, but only on to another part of the ledge which sank like the first, producing a different note.

Now there was a scraping sound as well. Victor had been standing in a small sunken pit. Now to his horror he realized that it was rising slowly, to the accompaniment of blaring notes and the whirr and wheeze of ancient machinery. He thrust out his hands and hit a corroded lever, which produced a different chord and then snapped off. Laddie was howling. Victor saw Ginger drop her torch and clap her hands over her ears.

A block of masonry leaned slowly out of the wall and smashed on the seats. Fragments of rock pattered down, and a rumbling counterpoint to the blare suggested that the noise was rearranging the shape of the whole cavern.

And then it died, with a long strangulated gurgle and a final gasp. A series of jerks and creaks indicated that whatever prehistoric machinery had been activated by Victor had given of its all before