Thief of Time

his back?”

“No. Now it's my turn. Have you got rhythm?”

“What?”

Susan rolled her eyes. “All right. Do you have music?”

“Not on me, no!”

“And you certainly haven't got a girl,” said Susan. “I saw Old Man Trouble go past a few minutes ago. It'd be a good idea if you don't bump into him, then.”

“And is he likely to have taken my friend?”

“I doubt it. And Old Man Trouble is more an ‘it’ than a ‘he’. Anyway, there's far worse than him around right now. Even the bogeymen have gone to ground.”

“Look, time has stopped, right?” said Lobsang.

“Yes.”

“So how can you be here talking to me?”

“I'm not what you might call a creature of time,” said Susan. “I work in it, but I don't have to live there. There are a few of us about.”

“Like this Old Man Trouble you mentioned?”

“Right. And the Hogfather, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, people like that.”

“I thought they were mythical?”

“So?” Susan glanced out of the mouth of the alley again.

“And you're not?”

“I take it you didn't stop the clock,” said Miss Susan, looking up and down the street.

“No. I was… too late. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone back to help Lu-Tze.”

“I'm sorry? You were dashing to prevent the end of the world but you stopped to help some old man? You… hero!”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that I was a—” And then Lobsang stopped. She hadn't said “You hero” in the tone of voice of “You star”; it had been the tone in which people say “You idiot.”

“I see a lot of your sort,” Susan went on. “Heroes have a very strange grasp of elementary maths, you know. If you'd smashed the clock before it struck, everything would have been fine. Now the world has stopped and we've been invaded and we're probably all going to die, just because you stopped to help someone. I mean, very worthy and all that, but very, very… human.”

She used the word as if she meant it to mean “silly”.

“You mean you need cool calculating bastards to save the world, do you?” said Lobsang.

“The cool calculation does help, I must admit,” said Susan. “Now, shall we go and look at this clock?”

“Why? The damage is done now. If we smash it, it'll only make things worse. Besides, uh, the spinner started to run wild and I, er, I felt—”

“Cautious,” said Susan. “Good. Caution is sensible. But there's something I want to check.”

Lobsang tried to pull himself together. This strange woman had the air of someone who knew exactly what she was doing—who knew exactly what everyone was doing—and, besides, what alternative did he have? Then he remembered the yoghurt pot.

“Does this mean anything?” he said. “I'm certain it was dropped in the street after time stopped.”

She took the pot and examined it. “Oh,” she said casually. “Ronnie's been around, has he?”

“Ronnie?”

“Oh, we all know Ronnie.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Let's just say if he found your friend then your friend is going to be okay. Probably okay. More okay than he would be if just about anything else found him, at least. Look, this is not a time when you should be worrying about one person. Cold calculation, right?”

She stepped out into the street. Lobsang followed. Susan walked as if she owned the street. She scanned every alley and doorway, but not like a potential victim apprehensive of attackers. It seemed to Lobsang that she was disappointed to find nothing dangerous in the shadows.

She reached the shop, stepped inside, and paused for a moment to regard the floating flower of broken glass. Her expression suggested that she considered it to be a perfectly normal kind of thing to find, and had seen far more interesting things. Then she walked on and stopped at the inner door. There was still a glow from the crack, but it was dimmer now.

“Settling down,” she said. “Shouldn't be too bad… but there's two people in here.”

“Who?”

“Wait, I'll open the door. And be careful.”

The door moved very slowly. Lobsang stepped into the workshop after the girl. The spinner began to speed up.

The clock glowed in the middle of the floor, painful to look at.

But he stared nevertheless. “It's… it's just as I imagined it,” he said. “It's the way to—”

“Don't go near it,” said Susan. “It's uncertain death, believe me. Do pay attention.”

Lobsang blinked. The last couple of thoughts didn't seem to have belonged to him.

“What did you say?”

“I said it's uncertain death.”

“Is that worse than certain death?”

“Much. Watch.” Susan picked up a hammer that was lying on the floor and poked it gently towards the clock. It vibrated in her hand when she brought it closer, and she swore under her breath as it was dragged from her fingers and vanished. Just before it did there was a brief, contracting ring around the clock that might have been something like a hammer would be if you rolled it very flat and bent it into a circle.

“Have you any idea why that happened?” she said.

“No.”

“Nor have I. Now imagine that you were the hammer. Uncertain death, see?”

Lobsang looked at the two frozen people. One was medium-sized and had all the right number of appendages to qualify as a member of the human race, and so therefore probably had to be given the benefit of the doubt. It was staring at the clock. So was the other figure, which was that of a middle-aged, sheep-faced man still holding a cup of tea and, as far as Lobsang could make out, a biscuit.

“The one who wouldn't win a beauty contest even if he was the only entrant is an Igor,” said Susan. “The other one is Dr Hopkins of the Clockmakers' Guild here.”

“So we know who built the clock, at least,” said Lobsang.

“I don't think so. Mr Hopkins's workshop is several streets away. And he makes novelty watches for a rather strange kind of discerning customer. It's his speciality.”

“Then the… Igor must've built it?”

“Good grief, no! Igors are professional servants. They never work for themselves.”

“You seem to know a lot,” said Lobsang, as Susan circled the clock like a wrestler trying to spy out a hold.

“Yes,” she said, without turning her head. “I do. The first clock broke. This one's holding. Whoever designed it was a genius.”

“An evil genius?”

“It's hard to say. I can't see any signs.”

“What kind of signs?”

“Well, ‘Hahaha!!!!!’ painted on the side would be a definite clue, don't you think?” she said, rolling her eyes.

“I'm in your way, am I?” said Lobsang.

“No, not at all,” said Susan, turning her attention to the workbench. “Well, there's nothing here. I suppose he could have set a timer. A sort of alarm clock—”

She stopped. She picked up a length of rubber hosepipe that was coiled on a hook by the glass jars and looked hard at it. Then she tossed it into a corner and stared at it as if she had never seen anything like it