There were a number of important questions that we needed to get answers to. We stopped somewhere outside Banbury and Lyra took out the alethiometer from its velvet travelling pouch. The car turned its lights on, and we clustered round the instrument.
Question one – How many travellers from Lyra and Peter's world are now in this one?
Answer – Three. That was a relief, because it answered two questions in one. Were there any Boreal people in this world? No, so Miss Morley hadn't got back here and she didn't have any Boreal agents here. Latrom people were a different matter. We could not be sure that they had not been told about us and were maybe following us now.
The other point was this: Mary said that, if she were Miss Morley, she would set up another intercisor in this world, and carry one or more children and their daemons here from mine, just in case, as Mary put it, she needed to "recharge" the car with Dust. Children in this world wouldn't have daemons that could be separated by intercison, so she would have to bring one or two with her. Of course, they'd die after a year or two even if they weren't used, so she'd have to bring more over as time passed.
I'm glad I can't think up ideas like that.
Question two – is the Boreal car the only means that is presently available for crossing physically between the worlds?
Answer – Yes. That was another relief. Miss Morley was still trapped in our world, then.
The next question was not put to the alethiometer.
Question three – what shall we do with Miss Morley's gun?
There was no simple answer to that. Mary had a close look at it. 'It's an energy weapon, but that's all I can tell by just looking. I don't want to try dismantling it – it might be booby-trapped.
'It's certainly not come from Lyra's world; it's much too technically advanced for that. For a start, the casing is made of plastic, and there's no such thing as plastic where you three come from. So; it's either from here, or possibly it's a leftover from the War in Heaven and not from this world at all.
'Either way, I don't think you should take it back with you. It's a twonky. It doesn't belong in your world.
That was a great relief to me. I hated the thing. I hated its random power; the way it amplified Miss Morley's hatred into an irresistible evil force.
'I says we takes it.' That was Arthur.
'Why?'
'Because when we gets back I want to cut that car into as many pieces as we can. We can destroy the gun afterwards.'
Lyra spoke. 'I agree. Then we must bury it, or throw it in the canal.'
'I don't like it. These sorts of things have the nasty habit of not staying lost.'
'I trust Arthur in this.' So it was agreed.
The car drove off again. Cropredy was only a few minutes away.
Will's car stopped in the road and we all climbed down the hill into the wood where he had dumped the Boreal's vehicle two days ago.
We had a big problem with that car. How could we be sure that we would come out in the right place in our world? Not underground, or a hundred feet in the air? In the end we decided to tow it to the canal side and travel to our world from there. It wasn't certain that even that would be safe, but it was the nearest thing to a fixed reference point we had.
Actually, that wasn't the only problem. Remember the crashing sound when we landed in Will's world? That was the Rusakov Accumulator smashing, that was.
Mary looked grimly at the broken glass in the boot. At least half the cylinders were broken, and none of the intact ones contained the slightest trace of Dust.
'It's likely that Miss Morley would've charged it up with enough Dust to carry her here and still leave enough power left over to take her back to your world,' she said, looking at Lyra. 'Otherwise she'd have had to wait until another vehicle was built in your world and sent here before she could get back there. As she was probably intending to use the car to escape from the gyptian attack, (I'd forgotten about that. What was the state of affairs at home? Had our assault succeeded?) we can assume that she had either charged it up fully or was going to sacrifice another child before she left.
'Either way, we've got a problem.' She pointed the portable light she was holding at the far end of the luggage compartment. 'I think there are enough unbroken cells that I can reassemble the Accumulator. Half of it, anyway, so there'll be enough capacity to take you home, I hope. It's simple enough – just a question of reconnecting the intact cylinders.
'But that's no good without the Dust to make it work.'
She looked around us. 'Sorry. I don't do miracles. I'm only a scientist.'
We fell silent. Ask the alethiometer, I thought, but Lyra made no move. The trees clustered around us like the bars of a prison. Would we have to stay here for ever? Live here, as non-people, with no DNA and no phones and no money? Die here, only two years from now?
All these thoughts were whizzing about inside my head. I looked to Lyra to see if she had any ideas, but she was standing next to Will and looking at him, not me.
After an eternity, Arthur spoke. 'There's six of us here. There might be a chance.'
'A chance of what?'
'A chance that we can, between us, gather together enough Dust to make this thing work.' He pointed to the car.
'Gather?' That was Lyra.
'No. Not gather. We doesn't mean that. What we means is that if each of us gives up some of the Dust that… that makes us people, not things, we might be able to collect enough to make this car go, so it can take us home; and do it without killing us, or making us like those Bolvangar kids.'
Will: 'You mean – give our own Dust?'
'Yes.'
'Then there're only five of us, not six. I'm not letting John do this. It's much too dangerous.'
'Dad!'
'I mean it, John.'
'No! You can't stop me. What if five of us isn't enough? What if five is enough, but only if some of us die? You've got to let me help!'
They argued fiercely for some minutes, while the rest of us looked away. It wasn't our fight. But, eventually…
'His grandfather was just the same. You couldn't make him see sense – he'd always do what he thought was right, whatever it cost him.' Will smiled ruefully.
'Jopari was a great man. He saved our lives so often. Him, and Lee…' Lyra's voice trailed away, and I could see the glint of tears on her cheek.
We decided not to try to move the car after all. It was too risky; we might break more of the cylinders, or dislodge them. We'd have to take our chances here in the wood.
John took out a small canvas bag from the back of his father's car and gave it to me. 'There are a few things in there you might like. Aunt Mary'd call them twonkies, so you'd better not let her, or anyone else, see them until you get home.
'Good luck, Peter.'
'Thanks, John. Gosh, I wish you were coming with us! There's so much I'd like to show you.'
'I wish I was coming. Dad's told me lots about your world, but I'd love to see it all for myself.' John thumped my shoulder and I belted him one back.
Damn it. I wish we'd had the time to become proper mates.
We formed a broken circle, around the back of the Boreal's car. John first; standing next to the car's left side (Arthur called it the Port side), then me, then Lyra, then Will, then Mary and last Arthur by the other side of the vehicle. Our daemons made up another circle in the middle, each touching the one next to him or her, just as we humans were. It was a shock when Arthur told us we had to let them do this, as I'm sure you can imagine, Jim. It should have been wrong, immoral, but it wasn't. Not then, or there. It was in another world, you see, so when Viola came into contact with Pantalaimon, what would – if it had happened at home – have been a declaration of love, became a gesture of friendship and hope instead.
Mary had rebuilt the Accumulator as best she could ('it's a ramshackle thing!') and connected it into the car. We had to hope that nothing else had been damaged in its fall.
We held hands in our circle and waited. Arthur stood stock-still, his eyes catching the light from Mary's torch and reflecting deep sapphire-blue back to us. He entered a deep trance, which as the seconds and minutes passed, spread out to us, casting a feeling of calm peace over us all. Slowly, I became aware that the torch was becoming dimmer, fading as its power ran down.
Or was it? Or was it the yellow-gold glow that was settling on us, like snow on the gardens and rooftops of home, and drowning out the gleam of the torch in its own hazy radiance? I couldn't move my head – I don't know how it was that I could still breathe – so I don't know whether the sparkling streamers of golden mist that swirled around Mary and Arthur were also attracted to, or given off by, me and John as well. I hope so. Arthur told me later that Will and Lyra had blazed with a greater luminosity than he would have thought possible. 'We didn't believe it, Peter. They could have done it by themselves – just the two of them. That much energy! It would have killed the likes of you and us.'
Our daemons were also shining more and more brightly as the timeless minutes passed and the dome of yellow light in which we were standing grew and expanded about our heads. Greater and greater, brighter and brighter, until Arthur lifted both his hands above his head and, with a clearly audible swoosh the Dust-cloud in which we were standing was gathered up into a swirling tornado of light which suddenly inverted itself and poured into the glass cylinders in the boot of the Boreal car, flooding them with glowing motes of living light.
Arthur leaned forward and shut the boot lid. Then he collapsed onto the ground. Lyra and Mary rushed to his side, looking worried. How they were able to move so quickly, I don't know. I felt utterly exhausted and drained of all my strength.
Mary fanned Arthur's face with her hand and Lyra lifted his head. Sal lay on her side on the ground, with rigid unmoving wings. I watched her in agony, waiting for her to flicker and disappear in death. It had crept up on me without my realising it – I had become very fond indeed of this harsh and battered, kind and loving, dark little man.
Arthur shook his head and his eyes opened slowly. 'Bugger me! That's the last time we tries channelling that much Dust!' He grinned. 'It worked, didn't it?'
'Yes, Arthur, it worked.'
'Told you it would.' We helped him into the front passenger seat of the Boreal's car. Its broken springs creaked as he sat down and it slipped a little further down the slope, wedging itself solidly against a birch tree.
'This is it, then.'
'Yes. This is it. Again.'
'I'll see you in my dreams.'
'Don't you dare be late.'
I don't think any of us had meant to be there when Lyra and Will parted, but we were and they couldn't very well tell us to go away and leave them in peace, and so they had to make do with a tender kiss and a hand on each other's arm for a brief moment before Lyra got into the back of the car. Her eyes never left his face; I saw that.
'Goodbye, Will. Goodbye, Mary. Goodbye, John.'
'Goodbye, Peter.'
I slipped into the driver's seat. I'd got us here, with my meddling. It was only fair that I should take us back again.
'All daemons aboard and safe?' Just like an autobus driver!
'Safe!'
'Safe!'
'I'm here, Peter.'
There was no point in checking the meters and gauges on the dashboard. The car was either going to work or it wasn't.
I'd pulled on the brass lever to bring us here. So this time I pushed it.
