The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [47]
‘Sarah!’
‘Coming, Doctor,’ she called sweetly; and went.
It was designed to be a torture chamber, there was no question about it. Looming out of the darkness, there were all the old-fashioned instruments of torture – the rack, the iron maiden, the manacles to suspend you from the wall and so on – that Jeremy had seen so often in films and cartoons.
He could only suppose that the more sophisticated equipment (for electric shocks and stuff) would be wheeled in later.
Someone was coming!
Jeremy dived into the corner behind the rack and crouched down, eyes screwed tight shut, arms over his head, 166
making himself as small and inconspicuous as possible. But then, the impossible: a hand had reached out from nowhere and was shaking his shoulder. He let out an inarticulate noise, a sort of woofing grunt.
'Jeremy! Be quiet! It's me, Maggie!'
He opened his eyes - and woke up. He was in the chain lockeragain. How had he got there? His last memory was ...
But his mind turned resolutely away from the pain of remembering.
Maggie was untying his hands and hissing at him to keep silent. He sat up and started to peel off the tape gag, but the pain of his split lip was unendurable.
'There's only one way, sugar,' whispered Maggie. 'Hold onto your socks!' She took hold of the loose corner and with one quick tug, yanked the whole thing off. Jeremy thought he was going to scream, but mnaged to confine himself to a strangulated gasp.
Out on the deck, he took deep breaths of the cool night air, thankful to be rid of the foetid stench of rotten seaweed that filled the chain locker. He could see by the light of the myriad stars and the crescent of the moon that the yacht was now in the middle of the harbour moored to a buoyor anchored or something.
Where was Maggie going? Flattening herself against the side of the deckhouse, she was edging down the side deck 167
towards the staircase thingy which led down to the water.
He followed suit.
'Sssh!'
She stopped by a door, lifting a warning hand; the quiet sound of voices coming from aft and getting nearer. Maggie dived across the deck and under the lifeboat hanging from its davits just opposite. She beckoned frantically to him. He glanced towards the rear of the yacht. Yes, he could hear them coming. Taking a deep breath, he shot after her.
Maggie clutched at him and held him still. He could still feel his bare arm pressed into her softness. It almost made it worthwhile being so scared.
The voices were quite close now. Two sets of legs appeared and sropped by the door opposite. The murmuring continued. But at last -
' Buona notte.'
' Ciao.'
One of the pairs of legs turned and vanished through the door, the other continued towards the bow. Moments later, they heard the footsteps going down the forward hatchway.
At the bottom of the stairs there was a smallish motor boat tied up. Maggie motioned to him to get in, untied the rope and climbed in herself. She gave a push, and, as the boat drifted away across the flt calm water (Jeremy couldn't help noticing that you could see as many stars in the water 168
as you could in the sky), she ferreted under the front deck and pulled out apaddle - no two. Like sort of Indian canoe paddle, thought Jeremy, taking one.
He soon got the idea. Sitting one on each side, they gently paddled the boat towards the harbour enterance and out into the gentle swell of the open sea.
Now what? They could hardly paddle all the way to the other island. But that wasn't Maggie's idea at all. Putting her paddle on the bottom of the boat, she put her hand into her pocket and produced a bunch of keys. 'Here,' she said, holding them out to him.
'I don't know how to work it,' he said, in a panic.
'Well, I sure as hell don't,' said Maggie. 'It's just like driving an automobile, isn't it?'
'Can you drive?'
'No. Can't you.'
'I had one lesson, but I drove the car into a ditch and they said I was a menace and