Thief of Time

who appeared to have survived a very serious accident.

“Er, I'm here to see Mr Jeremy,” he managed.

“Yeth, thir. The marthter ith in, thur.”

“And you, mm, are…?”

“Igor, thur. Mr Jeremy wath kind enough to take me on, thur.”

“You work for him?” said Dr Hopkins, looking Igor up and down.

“Yeth, thur.”

“Mm… Have you been standing too close to some dangerous machinery?”

“No, thur. He ith in the workthop, thur.”

“Mr Igor,” said Dr Hopkins, as he was ushered into the shop, “you do know that Mr Jeremy has to take medicine, don't you?”

“Yeth, thur. He mentionth it often.”

“And he, mm, his general health is…?”

“Good, thur. He ith enthuthiathtic for hith work, thur. Bright-eyed and buthy-tailed.”

“Buthy-tailed, eh?” said Dr Hopkins weakly. “Mm… Mr Jeremy doesn't usually keep servants. I'm afraid he threw a clock at the head of the last assistant he had.”

“Really, thur?”

“Mm, he hasn't thrown a clock at your head, has he?”

“No, thur. He actth quite normally,” said Igor, a man with four thumbs and stitches all around his neck. He opened the door into the workshop. “Dr Hopkinth, Mr Jeremy. I will make thome tea, thur.”

Jeremy was sitting bolt upright at the table, his eyes gleaming.

“Ah, doctor,” he said. “How kind of you to come.”

Dr Hopkins took in the workshop.

There had been changes. Quite a large piece of lath-and-plaster wall, covered in pencilled sketches, had been removed from somewhere and stood on an easel on one side of the room. The benches, usually the resting places of clocks in various stages of assembly, were covered with lumps of crystal and slabs of glass. And there was a strong smell of acid.

“Mm… something new?” Dr Hopkins ventured.

“Yes, doctor. I've been examining the properties of certain superdense crystals,” said Jeremy.

Dr Hopkins took a deep breath of relief. “Ah, geology. A wonderful hobby! I'm so glad. It's not good to think about clocks all the time, you know!” he added, jovially, and with a soupcon of hope.

Jeremy's brow wrinkled, as if the brain behind it was trying to fit around an unfamiliar concept.

“Yes,” he said at last. “Did you know, doctor, that copper octirate vibrates exactly two million, four hundred thousand and seventy-eight times a second?”

“As much as that, eh?” said Dr Hopkins. “My word.”

“Indeed. And light shone through a natural prism of octivium quartz splits into only three colours?”

“Fascinating,” said Dr Hopkins, reflecting that it could be worse. “Mm… is it me, or is there a rather… sharp smell in the air?”

“Drains,” said Jeremy. “We've been cleaning them. With acid. Which is what we needed the acid for. For cleaning the drains.”

“Drains, eh?” Dr Hopkins blinked. He wasn't at home in the world of drains. There was a crackling sound and blue light flickered under the door of the kitchen.

“Your, mm, man Igor,” he said. “All right, is he?”

“Yes, thank you, doctor. He's from Uberwald, you know.”

“Oh. Very… big, Uberwald. Very big country.” That was one of only two things Dr Hopkins knew about Uberwald. He coughed nervously, and mentioned the other one. “People there can be a bit strange, I've heard.”

“Igor says he's never had anything to do with that kind of person,” said Jeremy calmly.

“Good. Good. That is good,” said the doctor. Jeremy's fixed smile was beginning to unnerve him. “He, mm, seems to have a lot of scars and stitches.”

“Yes. It's cultural.”

“Cultural, is it?” Dr Hopkins looked relieved. He was a man who tried to see the best in everybody, but the city had got rather complicated since he was a boy, with dwarfs and trolls and golems and even zombies. He wasn't sure he liked everything that was happening, but a lot of it was “cultural”, apparently, and you couldn't object to that, so he didn't. “Cultural” sort of solved problems by explaining that they weren't really there.

The light under the door went out. A moment later Igor came in with two cups of tea on a tray.

It was good tea, the doctor had to admit, but the acid in the air was making his eyes water.

“So, mm, how is the work on the new navigation tables going?” he said.

“Ginger bithcuit, thur?” said Igor, by his ear.

“Oh, er, yes… Oh, I say, these are rather good, Mr Igor.”

“Take two, thur.”

“Thank you.” Now Dr Hopkins sprayed crumbs as he spoke. “The navigation tables—” he repeated.

“I am afraid I have not been able to make very much progress,” said Jeremy. “I have been engaged on the properties of crystals.”

“Oh. Yes. You said. Well, of course we are very grateful for any time that you feel you can spare,” said Dr Hopkins. “And if I may say so, mm, it is good to see you with a new interest. Too much concentration on one thing is, mm, conducive to ill humours of the brain.”

“I have medicine,” said Jeremy.

“Yes, of course. Er, as a matter of fact, since I happened to be going past the apothecary today…” Dr Hopkins pulled a large, paper-wrapped bottle out of his pocket.

“Thank you.” Jeremy indicated the shelf behind him. “As you can see, I have nearly run out.”

“Yes, I thought you might,” said Dr Hopkins, as if the level of the bottle on Jeremy's shelf wasn't something the clockmakers kept a very careful eye on. “Well, I shall be going, then. Well done with the crystals. I used to collect butterflies when I was a boy. Wonderful things, hobbies. Give me a killing jar and a net and I was as happy as a little lark.”

Jeremy still smiled at him. There was something glassy about the smile.

Dr Hopkins swallowed the remainder of his tea and put the cup back in the saucer.

“And now I really must be on my way,” he mumbled. “So much to do. Don't wish to keep you from your work. Crystals, eh? Wonderful things. So pretty.”

“Are they?” said Jeremy. He hesitated, as though he was trying to solve a minor problem. “Oh, yes. Patterns of light.”

“Twinkly,” said Dr Hopkins.

Igor was waiting by the street door when Dr Hopkins reached it. He nodded.

“Mm… you are sure about the medicine?” the doctor said quietly.

“Oh yeth, thur. Twithe a day I watch him pour out a thpoonful.”

“Oh, good. He can be a little, er… sometimes he doesn't get on well with people.”

“Yeth, thur?”

“Very, um, very particular about accuracy…”

“Yeth, thur.”

“…which is a good thing, of course. Wonderful thing, accuracy,” said Dr Hopkins, and sniffed. “Up to a point, of course. Well, good day to you.”

“Good day, thur.”

When Igor returned to the workshop Jeremy was carefully pouring the blue medicine into a spoon. When the spoon was exactly full, he tipped it into the sink. “They check, you know,” he said. “They think I don't notice.”

“I'm thure they mean well, thur.”

“I'm afraid I can't think so well when I take the medicine,” he said. “In fact I think I'm getting on a lot better without it, don't you? It slows me down.”

Igor took refuge in silence. In his experience, many of the world's greatest discoveries were made by men