'Where was Miss Vivian when she disappeared?' asked Elio.
'With me!' exploded Jonathan. 'You must have seen us or you wouldn't have known what happened,'
'I did see, I just want to know if you do,'
Jonathan growled and sat staring at his trembling hands. Sam looked at Elio, an expression of hope dawning on his face 'You mean that where she was may have something to do with why she disappeared?' he asked, breathily.
'Possibly not why, but it may have something to do with it,'
Sam screwed his face up while he thought. 'You were both about in the middle of Aeon Square,' he said, addressing his remark to Jonathan. Jonathan didn't look up but his tones were his most sarcastic, 'I could have told you that.' The silence became uncomfortable, until Jonathan spoke again, 'She was crossing Faber John's Stone, I noticed particularly. I was remembering how it broke up when Time City went critical,'
Sam sat bolt upright, his face red, 'Faber John's Stone is a secret time lock!'
'Don't be stupid.'
'No, listen. When Time City was going critical and breaking up the Time Lady came back, didn't she? And where did she appear?'
'Through Faber John's Stone!' Jonathan sat up, hope dawning in his eyes. He turned to Elio, 'Is that what you were driving at, Elio? That Vivian's been kidnapped by accident through a secret time lock?'
'I'm not so sure it was by accident,' replied Elio, 'After all the upheaval had settled down I was given the task of going through all the documents and artefacts in Lee House. I found everything that ought to be there except one thing. A Summoning Belt from Fifty Six Century,'
'What's a one of those?'
'It looks like a silver ribbon with glass beads on it. It works by using power from people or places. The largest bead opens and you fill the gap with something, such as hair or dust, from the person you wish to summon or place you wish to travel to. This enables you to view a person's movements or what is happening in a particular place. If you are near a Summoning Portal or time lock, you can either summon your chosen person to where you are or travel yourself to wherever you want to go. Really it is quite primitive, especially coming from that particular time, but it works. I do believe all except one were destroyed because they were so open to abuse by the wrong people,'
'And that's what happened to Vivian?'
'It's possible, although how anybody outside of Time City has got hold of something of hers is beyond me,'
'But why would anybody want to kidnap Vivian?' asked Jonathan, helplessly, 'and more to the point, how are we going to get her back?'
'We can't exactly go digging up Faber John's Stone in broad daylight,' said Sam, 'everybody would notice.'
'Nobody is going to dig anywhere at any time,' said Elio, 'What we are going to do is to go into Perpetuum and find out as much as we can about Summoning Belts and Portals. That might tell us how we can get Miss Vivian back,'
'Wouldn't the librarians be suspicious if three of us were looking for the same pieces of archaic information?' asked Jonathan.
Elio smiled. 'That's why we're going to do it at night.'
