I
‘Have mercy!’ shouted the old man angrily, and then there was nothing, not even an echo. The old man sighed and stood up from crouching near the floor. He lifted his helmet a little from his brow and gazed up into the darkness above. It was silent but for a faint soft sub-bass thrumming of distant machines. Not even an echo, he thought to himself. ‘Well, old buddy boy,’ he said with a sigh, ‘you’re just going to have to find yourself another one, but where I don’t know.’
The spanner he had dropped had been old but reliable, solid and well made. The gap into which it had fallen was narrow and dark and bottomless; certainly, for all intents and purposes, it was bottomless. He realised he hadn’t yet heard any sound of the spanner crash-landing, so he quieted his breathing to listen. Nothing. He waited. Nothing again but the soft sub-bass hum. Leaning forward, he adjusted his headlamp to shine on the gap. It lit the metal decking on either side, but the darkness of the gap remained. He peered into it, imagining an endless abyss.
‘Did you say something?’ called a voice.
The old man straightened up and turned to look. A little headlamp in the darkness was bobbing towards him from far out across the deck; a little headlamp bobbing towards him with a little whiteish-pinkish face bobbing underneath.
‘I said, did you say something?’
‘Dropped my spanner,’ said the old man.
‘Is it broken?’ asked the man as he approached.
‘No. It’s gone,’ replied the old man flatly. ‘It was a Tanzat.’
‘I have a spare one, but it’s no Tanzat!’ said the man. ‘Where’d you get a Tanzat from?’
‘Oh, long time ago and elsewhere,’ said the old man. ‘It’s so cold in here my fingers are slow and numb.’
‘Where’d you drop it?’
The old man pointed at the black gap, and the other man bent down and looked.
‘Yep. It’s gone, old fella,’ said the man.
The old man was silent. Again he was aware of the deep sub-bass and the vastness of the space in which they stood. ‘D’y’ever notice there’s no echo in here?’ he asked, pointing upwards. ‘These halls have no echo.’
‘Here. Have a smoke,’ said the man holding out a tube. The old man nodded, took the tube and, with a twist of the end, ignited it before placing it between his lips. The other man lit one up, too, and standing together, they drew and puffed and glanced around themselves at dark nothingness as ghostly tendrils of smoke coiled up through the beams of their headlamps.
II
The cheerful sign above the accommodation block flashed ‘Hive Five Alive!’, but there was little cheerful under it and not much alive. The yellow cells of the hive-block were stained with grimy green lichens, and here and there, throughout the superstructure, dying lights flashed in fitful spasms. Many of the cells were abandoned; in fact, the cells immediately on either side of the old man’s had been empty for years. He didn’t mind. Standing outside his own cell, he placed his hand against a glass plate on the door. It flashed blue, blue, blue, green, and the door clicked open. He stepped in and pushed the door closed behind him.
‘Scan me,’ said the old man letting his bag fall onto the floor and putting things from his pockets onto a table
‘You’ve too much flushmuck in your duodenum-jejunum,’ said the voice of the cell-bot, ‘and you’ve been smoking again. Have a pill.’ Within a small alcove in the wall, a little pill appeared. The old man took it, popped it in his mouth and chewed.
‘You’re supposed to take that with water,’ said the voice. The old man walked to the back of the cell and slumped down into the only chair in the room. He snapped his fingers twice and gave the password, ‘There’s no place like home.’ A gently spinning logo appeared on the wall, underneath which the word ‘connecting’ flashed slowly. The old man looked at the word blankly; then, the wall flooded to life with light and rapid image.
‘Vertigo,’ said the old man, ‘from where I left off last time.’ There was a soft ping, and the wall became a scene from Earth. The old man sat forward in his chair. It was a forest. A dense, dark forest on a cold but sunny day. A man in a hat, and a woman in a long coat, were walking there, wandering slowly. The lady wore her golden hair up in a twist, and the way it caught the light was remarkable. Stopping beside a giant sequoia, felled and lying on its side, she traced the tree rings with her dark-gloved hand. ‘Somewhere in here, I was born, and there I died,’ she said softly. ‘It was only a moment for you, you … you took no notice.’ The man in the hat said nothing.
‘Repeat twenty seconds,’ said the old man and the scene repeated. The old man relaxed back into the chair again, and it sighed pneumatically, adjusting to his shape, as the lady walked off the wall to the left.
III
Asteroid 2791-J7 was airless, shapeless, worthless; devoid of minerals, devoid of colour, pockmarked in no remarkable way by minor meteorites, lifeless inside and out, inert, of no determinable origin and locked in a long fall towards its sun. The inevitable collision, predicted to be about a million years in the future, would, it was calculated, cause little more than a tiny ripple on the fiery surface of the star.
No – it was valueless, save for one fact; the fact of its position in relation to other, actual destinations. It was handy, conveniently placed for the long-voyaging super-cruisers and Titan-Class tankers that coursed through this slice of the galaxy. A place to drop off and to pick up, to empty and to fill and, consequently, a place. For the people living on it, 2791-J7 offered very little; no society and literally no atmosphere. It did, however, offer work, work with very few distractions.
‘You’re kidding!’ said the old man.
‘I said the job’s over, old man,’ said the man seated behind the desk.
‘I know it ain’t over,’ said the old man, ‘and so do you, Jim. So why are you telling me the job’s over?’
Jim shrugged.
The old man rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the floor.
‘You can collect your pay from Doris next door and a little lay-off payment. On behalf of the Marshall Company, thank you for your services. Goodbye.’
‘Jim, you know the job’s not over; come on!’
‘On behalf of the Marshall Company, thank you for your services. Goodbye.’
The old man nodded, turned and left. Just through the door, he paused and thought about slamming it hard, but he didn’t. Later, seated on the Suspensor, heading home to his cell, he wished he had slammed the door. He wished he had picked up the chair and thrown it through the window. He wished he had overturned the desk, and he imagined the noise and the foreman shouting at him. Anger assuaged, he imagined himself walking away with a swagger, like one of those old flickery movie-cowboys in the bright old days.
IV
‘Not me sir! Ha! Belly of laughs; I don’t think so. More like belly of aches is what I think!’
The old man didn’t reply.
‘I’m not working here much longer. No Billy Bud. I’ve got this Scott Company Stage 5 Plan all but signed, and then… pass me a phase 2…’
The old man rummaged in the box at his feet, found a little cylinder with a blue stripe and handed it to the man.
‘They think they can shove me out here at the rim and only pay a shift worker’s, not even a shift and a half? Well, they’re losing people… the fixing cover.’
The old man handed over the fixing cover.
‘Now, don’t want to put you off on your first shift, but how long did you wait for this job anyway?’
‘Only about a day,’ said the old man.
‘See!’ laughed the man. ‘Doesn’t that tell you? People leaving this place faster than the Comets of Hound! They can’t keep the staff. Well, they’re not keeping me!’ and upon this final overstressed utterance, the man slammed shut the cover of the electrical junction they were working on. He printed out a sticker from a device on his belt, slapped it onto the cover, picked up his tool bag and started off along the gantry.
‘No. Not me. I’ve got plans. Big plans. Always had big plans, even when I was a kid. You got plans?’ asked the man without turning round.
‘Well, one or two. I had more when I was younger, but not so many now,’ said the old man.
‘And don’t that just say it all?’ said the man without stopping. ‘No offence, but they’ll take just about anyone to do this job. You’d think this’d be a young man’s job, low pay and high risk, but no no, they’ll take anyone.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘So, what are your plans then?’ he asked.
‘Oh, this and that,’ said the old man. He didn’t like this man’s conversation – a one-way street called Complaint.
‘‘This and that’? Can’t you be more specific?’ asked the man without stopping or looking round.
‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘probably more ‘that’ than ‘this’ if I’m honest.’
The man in front stopped and turned. ‘I like you,’ he said, laughing. ‘Humour. I like it. Ha! ‘Humanity thrives where e’er it do fall!’’
The old man nodded.
‘It does thrive!’ said the man, setting off again at a pace.
V
‘Lights!’ The old man’s hand clutched at his chest. ‘Lights on!’ The cell lights lit up. ‘Scan me.’ There was a soft ping, and then the voice said,
‘Indigestion. Have a pill.’
‘Second opinion,’ said the old man.
‘Indigestion. Have a pill.’
The man inhaled carefully and then took the little pill which had dropped into an alcove next to his bed and popped it in his mouth.
‘You’re supposed to take that with water,’ said the voice.
‘Lights off,’ he said. The lights died down, and he let himself fall back onto the mattress. He still clutched at his chest as he ground little bits of the pill between his teeth. He took another deep breath and found it easier this time. His hand relaxed, and he lay very still. He felt the pain ebbing away, and he seemed to sink more into the bed. He waited but found he wasn’t drowsy and sleep wouldn’t come. So, as was his habit when he couldn’t sleep, he determinedly turned his mind to imagining beaches. In his mind’s eye, there were long strips of white sand and a lazy ocean folding out little frothy waves. Palm trees, anchored precariously, leaned forward above the sand, their messy leaves flapping gently in the soft breeze. Now he imagined a figure walking towards him from far up the beach; a slight figure walking slowly, feet scuffing the sand, arms swinging gently, its form rippling in the heat haze. But the figure hardly came any closer and gained no feature, became no one, so in his mind, he turned to look out over the shimmering sea to the bright horizon instead.
‘Do you require a re-scan?’ asked the cell-bot.
‘No. Emergency only,’ said the old man and there was a soft ping. With his hand still resting on his chest, he turned his head on the pillow. ‘Plans,’ he said to himself and gave a small, wry laugh. Now he was back again at the gap in the floor within the vast Valhalla Hangar, and he was looking down into it, and there was the soft thrumming sub-bass in his head. A white speck appeared in the gap, and it was his Tanzat spanner floating back up again slowly, and he caught it easily in his hand. It felt good in his hand, solid and heavy. He smiled. Then, quietly, sleep did come, and thought and sensation stopped.
VI
‘You’ve got no plans,’ said the old man to himself. His working day was over, and he sat in an empty Suspensor carriage, hurtling back to Hive Five.
‘Your whole life’s going nowhere,’ he said quietly, shaking his head.
‘Next stop, Barnyard Heights,’ said a female voice. The old man stood up. There was the sound of flushing as the Suspensor vented pressure and opened reversers. Smoothly and smartly, the vehicle stopped. The door lifted, but the old man didn’t move. He stood still, looking at his platform two steps away.
‘All aboard,’ said the voice and the door dropped again. There was a soft rumble as the vehicle charged its engines, and then, after a carefully executed acceleration, it was back up to speed. Still, the old man stood. He turned and sat down again and looked out of the window.
‘Heading nowhere,’ he said to himself.
Signs and structures and darknesses and depths flashed past. Suddenly enclosed in tight tubes, then out of the superstructure with no sky above but the blazing black of the cosmos. Silently screaming past empty stations, over factories, under bridges, the train hurtled on. Faster than sparrows, the Suspensor whipped thoughtlessly along its track.
‘Next stop, Lupin Hill,’ said the voice, and the rushing kaleidoscope outside began to slow.
Again the old man stood up. Again the door lifted. Again he looked at the platform, and again he didn’t move. The door closed, and the train hurtled on, and the old man slumped back down in his seat. ‘I’m heading nowhere fast,’ said the old man, ‘and I don’t even know when to get off.’ He chuckled to himself.
‘Attention! Attention!’ said the lady’s voice, ‘Please know that due to an emergency, this service will now terminate at the next station, Paddock Corner.’ The old man felt energy dissipating under deceleration and watched the outside world slowing down. Eventually, the train breathed into the station and then sighed to a stop. As the door in front of him lifted, he stood up and stepped out onto the platform. ‘Well, here I am,’ he said to himself.
After the general hubbub of disembarking passengers, a small number of people were left milling about on the platform. They huddled around screens hoping to add reason to this interruption, but all they saw were adverts. After having watched the half-dozen or so play through three times over, the old man looked around. Part way up the platform, a figure stood in stationmaster uniform; badged cap, half-moon specs, long overcoat over waistcoat above stay-creased trousers. All midnight blue with a constellation of shiny faux-brass buttons. He looked nervous and shifty as the old man approached but kept his hands behind his back and his back straight.
‘Excuse me, please. Any reason why the train stopped? I checked on the screens, but there’s nothing there.’
‘Where are you travelling to?’ asked the stationmaster. The old man shrugged. ‘We can provide onward transport if you require it; we’re just in the process of ordering it.’
‘But why’d it stop?’ asked the old man again. ‘Is one coming the other way?’
‘There are no further trains at this station until further notice. The service is terminated,’ said the stationmaster flatly.
‘I can’t think what’s happened,’ said the old man. ‘I need to get to Barnyard Heights.’
‘Barnyard Heights?’ said the stationmaster, shocked. ‘But that’s way back up the track – you’re past it!’
‘I know,’ said the old man.
VII
‘Master! Yoo-hoo! Master!’ It was a young lady’s voice, and it was accompanied by the sound of running feet; altogether, it was the sound of something hectic moving rapidly towards the old man and the stationmaster, and they both turned to watch. A dishevelled but colourfully dressed young lady was attempting rapid progress across the platform towards them. She arrived.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Are there no trains? I thought I heard there were no trains, but there’s one there.’
‘Yes, madam,’ replied the stationmaster. ‘There is a train there, but it won’t be going anywhere soon.’
‘But why?’ asked the lady showing signs of mild panic.
‘Unforeseen circumstances beyond our control,’ said the stationmaster.
‘What? No! What am I going to do?’
‘We can offer alternative transport, but not immediately,’ the stationmaster said. ‘We’re just in the process of ordering it.’
‘No, I need to go now. It has to be now!’ She did a sort of flapping movement with her right arm, then clasped her hand to her forehead and then turned to look around her with the expression of one suddenly awake, or lost.
‘Is it terrorism or something?’ asked the lady.
‘Madam, all I know is that the Suspensor Service has been suspended. We can arrange alternative transport.’
‘But I need to go now!’ interrupted the young lady. ‘There’s a freighter leaving from Avalon Port, you know – on the other side, and I have a ticket for it, and it’s going soon. There’s no time for this; they won’t wait for me, and I’ve got to be on it.’
‘Madam,’ said the stationmaster again, ‘I only know about the Suspensor Service.’ The young lady glanced around in a daze. She made some noises, shrugged, looked around some more, then moved off further up the platform and slumped down on a bench.
The old man nodded to the stationmaster and turned to walk towards the young lady. She sat motionless, head in hands, elbows on legs, knees together, feet apart. As he got nearer, he could hear her humming a tune to herself faintly. ‘That’s a pretty tune,’ said the old man.
The young lady looked up. She looked back down again, and again rested her head in her hands.
‘Are you giving up?’ asked the old man. ‘Isn’t there another way?’ The young lady shook her head slowly.
‘How about a drink or something?’ said the old man. ‘Can I get you something?’
Suddenly the platform was alive with beams of white light which flashed rapidly around and about the old man and the young lady. He turned to look. A vast vehicle, emanating brilliant light, was roaring through the station behind the stopped train. The old man saw the stationmaster standing silhouetted against the blinding fanfare, then there was the hiss of sound and the air of pull and the light of flashing, and the roaring thing was gone.
‘I guess that’s the repair train,’ said the old man.
‘The freighter is taking off in an hour. I was already running late before I got to the station,’ said the young lady. ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’
‘How about we check on the alternative transport?’ said the old man. ‘It’d be better than just sitting here.’
The young lady shrugged, her gaze still on the ground.
The old man walked over to the stationmaster.
‘Any news on that alternative transport, stationmaster?’ he asked.
‘Just a mo,’ he replied, tapping his ear and listening. ‘Ah, yes. There’s a Floon just available for a hop to Piccadilly Prairie. There you can catch the crossways Suspensor, which is still running.’ He tapped away on his clipboard, and a voice came into the air around the platform; ‘Suspensor Service can pronounce the availability of transfer to Piccadilly Prairie via Floon. Those interrelated in using this freed service, please make themselves known to the station father.’
‘Stupid thing,’ said the stationmaster vigorously rubbing the screen of his clipboard with his sleeve. The old man nodded, smiled, turned and then beckoned to the young lady.
VIII
No one else was in the Floon as it floated up above the asteroid. Where exactly the Suspensor Service had managed to get a Floon from, the old man couldn’t guess. A pleasure vehicle, programmed to bob just within the gravitational field of the asteroid, the Floon was, to travel, more tortoise than hare.
‘At least we’re going somewhere,’ said the old man.
From this height, the edges of the asteroid were clearly visible; an island in space, a pebble falling forever into an indifferent void.
‘The Queen of Hearts baked some tarts,’ sang a soft voice through the audio system, ‘all on a summer’s day. The knave of hearts, he took those tarts and stole them right away.’ A gentle music followed.
‘I don’t know why I’m bothering to go to Piccadilly,’ said the young lady. ‘It makes no difference.’
‘You never know,’ said the old man. The young lady continued to stare out of the window.
‘That’s the Suspensor Line down there,’ said the old man twisting against his harness to get a better view. ‘And there’s the problem,’ he said, spotting the bright lights of the repair train, now stationary. ‘Wonder what went wrong.’
The girl shrugged, and if it could have been seen, a small tear appeared in her left eye. Not wanting it to form fully, she brushed it away with a move of her hand that, to the casual observer, served only to rearrange her fringe.
‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall …’ began a voice within the gentle music.
‘How long will this take?’ asked the young lady.
The old man turned from looking out of the window. ‘I guess we’re about halfway,’ he said. For the remainder of the trip, the only voice in the Floon was the voice in the audio system, softly, gently, soothingly, singing nursery rhymes from another star system altogether.
IX
‘What on earth?’ said the young lady stepping out of the Floon at Piccadilly Prairie. In front of her, writhing forms of jet black coiled around pulsing white orbs whilst quivering humans danced in trances and not much else. Eyes rolled white; tongues sought escape from drooling mouths. Sweat trickled.
‘Where next?’ said the old man. ‘Ticket desk?’
The young lady nodded, and the two made their way confidently and resolutely past the parade.
‘Can you begin again at the beginning, sweetie-pie?’ asked the lady at the ticket desk. She was old, wore her hair in a neat bun and her half-moon specs on the end of her nose.
‘No. I’m too tired,’ said the young lady. ‘I just need somewhere to rest, and I’m trying to get to Avalon Port, and I don’t know whether to give up or go or what to do.’ She clasped her hand to her forehead.
The old lady shot a glance at the old man, then shifted forward in her seat and rested her elbows on the desk. ‘Well, I am sorry, young missy, but the Mallow-Marsh Festival is in full swing, as you can see, and everywhere here is fully booked up. There just aren’t any rooms.’
‘Avalon Port?’ asked the young lady.
The older lady sat back again, her sight glazing over as she consulted the screens in her half-moon specs. ‘Nope,’ she said without un-glazing, ‘last one went. Seems some services have been pulled for the Mallow-Marshing. I swear it gets bigger every cycle.’
‘Have you got cred?’ asked the old man.
‘Yes,’ replied the young lady.
‘At my place there are empty cells either side of my own. You could rest there until you think it through.’
The young lady shrugged, then nodded and picked up her bags.
‘Two tickets, please,’ said the old man to the old woman. She unglazed. ‘Of course, now where to?’ she asked.
X
The old man was agitated; Hive Five seemed to be misbehaving.
‘I do have cred,’ said the young lady. They stood together before an unyielding yellow cell door.
‘Try again,’ said the old man. ‘Try pressing harder maybe.’
The young lady placed her whole hand again on the glass plate. The glass pulsed blue once, twice, thrice and then red. Sighs all round. They walked to the door on the other side of the old man’s cell and tried again. Same result. The old man pressed a comms button on the cell wall, and a small speaker pinged.
‘Aye aye, Captain Cook’s Concierge Collective,’ said a man’s voice.
‘We’ve got a problem here,’ replied the old man. ‘Trying to buy some cell-time, but the screens aren’t taking the cred. Are your systems ok?’
‘Just let me check, buster.’ There was a short pause.
‘Seems all ok,’ said the voice. ‘Try again.’ The young lady tried again – same result again, blue, blue, blue, red.
‘Nope,’ said the old man leaning towards the speaker. ‘Didn’t work. Can you do a check on the actual cells, 19 Zebra Echo and 21 Charlie Hotel?’
‘Zebra Echo… Charlie Hotel… Hive Five.’ said the voice. ‘Hmm… Uh…. Just a… Ok. Seems we’ve got a restricted,’ said the voice. The old man looked at the young lady.
‘A restricted what?’ he asked.
‘Just says restricted, sir,’ replied the voice.
‘The cells are restricted?’ asked the old man.
‘No,’ replied the voice, ‘whoever is trying to pay is restricted. Cells should work just fine.’ The young lady looked at the old man.
‘I don’t know what that means,’ she said, speaking up for the first time.
‘Nor do I, mam,’ said the voice, ‘just says restricted. Says something about a ‘face-palm mismatch’.’
‘Thank you,’ said the old man, ‘we’ll work this out.’
‘You’re welcome,’ chirped the voice, and the speaker clicked to silence.
‘Well, I don’t know what you’re going to do out here without a place to stay,’ the old man said, ‘but I can’t help you.’
The young lady shrugged. ‘I do have credit,’ she said. She glanced around at the darkness. ‘I’ll head back to the station and work something out there.’
The old man smiled. ‘Well, goodnight,’ he said, ‘and good luck.’ He turned, placed his hand on the glass, and the door opened.
‘Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig!’ pipped the cell-bot, and the door closed behind him.
Outside, the young lady lifted her bags.
XI
‘Really?’ said the old man to himself, standing with his back to his door, his thoughts teetering as on the edge of some abyss. ‘Always shutting the door on the problem. Is that what you do? Just shut the door and walk away; is that your big plan?’ He looked up at the ceiling, sighed and then turned back to look at the door. ‘Unlock,’ he said. The door clicked, and he pulled the handle to open it. There, with her back to him, stood the young lady. ‘I thought you were heading back to the station,’ said the old man. The young lady turned round to face him.
‘I’ve lost my way,’ she said.
‘You’ve had a bit of a rough time,’ said the old man. ‘Now, don’t take this as anything it ain’t, but I don’t mind putting you up here till the morning.’
The young lady hesitated.
‘The cell’s not big,’ said the old man, ‘but you can have the bed, and I’ll take the chair; the chair’ll be no inconvenience to me; I fall asleep in it often enough as it is.’ He smiled, and the young lady smiled.
‘Well, if you’re sure,’ she said. The old man took a step back, opened the door wider, and swept his arm out in a welcoming gesture.
‘Terms of your tenure allow multiple occupancy on a ‘friend-pass’ basis for one whole cycle in every six,’ said the cell-bot. ‘Multiple occupancy exceeding this limit will incur …’
‘I know,’ said the old man.
‘You need to say ‘accept’ before I can move on,’ said the voice.
‘Accept,’ said the old man. ‘You can put your bags over here,’ he said to the young lady, ‘and you can freshen up in there if you need to. Do you want something to drink?’
‘Thank you again,’ said the young lady.
The old man smiled and nodded. ‘I’m having a bourbon. Do you want one?’
‘Yes, please,’ said the young lady. ‘I’m Samantha, by the way.’
‘That bourbon isn’t good for you,’ said the cell-bot. ‘There are twenty-three significant effects of alcohol on the body, most notably blood pressure, cognitive function..’
‘Emergency only,’ said the old man. There was a soft ping. ‘I’m Bill,’ he said. ‘How d’you take it?’
‘With just a little water, please,’ said Samantha.
He poured the drinks, and they talked a while – what she was likely to do in the morning, how unreliable the systems were becoming, whether he was sure he’d be ok sleeping on the chair; then they turned in.
It’s true; the bourbon does affect cognitive function, thought the old man to himself as he reclined in the darkness on his pneumatically sensitive chair. His mind felt buoyant, floaty, and visions came easy to his thoughts. His sunny beach mingled with the bright repair train mingled with the black pebble falling in space, mingled with a smile. He sighed and shifted on the chair, which sighed and shifted in response, and then he lay still till morning.
XII
‘Wakey wakey,’ said the cell-bot over the sound of a chiming bell. ‘There’s somebody at the door.’
‘What?’ asked Bill getting to his feet.
‘There’s somebody at the door. They’ve been at the door for over a minute.’
‘Who is it?’ asked Bill.
‘I have no idea,’ said the cell-bot. ‘They’re not in your contacts.’
Ruffling his white hair a little and stepping past the bed where Samantha still slept, he moved, in the dim light, to the door of the cell. ‘Unlock,’ he said. The door clicked, and he pulled the handle to open it. There, facing him, stood Samantha.
‘I believe you have something of mine, old man,’ she said angrily.
Bill gaped. He turned to look behind him, and there was Samantha, asleep in the bed. He turned back again, and there she was, in front of him.
‘I said, I believe you have something of mine, old man.’
West Folio 