Diana Wynne Jones - Hexwood

Hexwood

by

Diana Wynne Jones

3S XHTML edition 1.0

scan notes and proofing history

Contents

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

PART SIX

PART SEVEN

PART EIGHT

PART NINE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

First published in Great Britain in 1993 by Methuen

Children’s Books, an imprint of Reed Consumer Books

Limited.

First published in the United States in 1994 by

Greenwillow Books.

The author asserts the moral right to be identifed as

the author of this work.

reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,

electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval

system, without permission in writing from the

Publisher, Greenwillow Books, a division of William

Morrow & Company, Inc.,

1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.

Printed in the United States of America

First American Edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Pubücation Data

Jones, Diana Wynne.

Hexwood / by Diana Wynne Jones.

p. cm.

Summary: Ann discovers that the wood near her

village is under the control of a Bannus, a machine that

manipulates reality, placed there many years ago by

powerful extraterrestrial beings called Reigners.

ISBN 0-688-12488-7

[1. Science fiction.]

I. Title. PZ7.J684He 1994 |Fic|—dc20 93-18172 CIP

AC

For Neil Gaiman

PART ONE

—1———

The letter was in Earth script, unhandily scrawled in blobby blue

ballpoint. It said:

Hexwood Farm

Tuesday 4 March 1992

Dear Secteor Controller,

We thought we better send to you in Regional straight

off. We got a right problem here. This fool clerk, calls

hisself Harrison Scudamore, he went and started one of

these old machines running, the one with all the Reigner

seals on it, says he overrode the computers to do it. When

we say a few words about that, he turns round and says

he was bored, he only wanted to make the best all time

football team, you know King Arthur in goal, Julius

Ceasar for striker, Napoleon midfield, only this team is

for real, he found out this machine can do that, which it

do. Trouble is we don’t have the tools nor the training to

get the thing turned off, nor we can’t see where the

power’s coming from, the thing’s got a field like you

wouldn’t believe and it won’t let us out of the place. Much

obliged if you could send a trained operative at your

earliest convenience.

Yours truly,

W. Madden

Foreman Rayner Hexwood Maintenance (European

Division)

P.S. He says he’s had it running more than a month

now.

Sector Controller Borasus stared at the letter and wondered if it

was a hoax. W. Madden had not known enough about the Reigner

Organisation to send his letter through the proper channels. Only

the fact that he had marked his little brown envelope “urgent!!!”

had caused it to arrive in the head office of Albion Sector at all. It

was stamped all over with queries from branch offices and had been

at least two weeks on the way.

Controller Borasus shuddered slightly. A machine with Reigner

seals! If this was not a hoax, it was liable to be very bad news. “It

must be someone’s idea of a joke,” he said to his secretary. “Don’t

they have something called April Fools’ Day on Earth?”

“It’s not April there yet,” his secretary pointed out dubiously. “If

you recollect, sir, the date on which you are due to attend their

American conference—tomorrow, sir—is March twentieth.”

“Then maybe the joker mistimed his letter,” Controller Borasus

said hopefully. As a devout man who believed in the Divine Balance

perpetually adjusted by the Reigners, and himself as the Reigners’

vicar on Albion, he had a strong feeling that nothing could possibly

go really wrong. “What is this Hexwood Farm thing of theirs?”

His secretary as usual had all the facts. “A library and reference

complex,” he answered, “concealed beneath a housing estate not far

from London. I have it marked on my screen as one of our older

installations. It’s been there a good twelve hundred years, and

there’s never been any kind of trouble there before, sir.”

Controller Borasus sighed with relief. Libraries were not places of

danger. It had to be a hoax. “Put me through to the place at once.”

His secretary looked up the codes and punched in the symbols.

The controller’s screen lit with a spatter of expanding lights. It was

not unlike what you see when you press your fingers into your eyes.

“Whatever’s that?” said the Controller.

“I don’t know, sir. I’ll try again.” The secretary canceled the call

and punched the code once more. And again after that. Each time

the screen filled with a new flux of expanding shapes. On the

secretary’s third attempt the colored rings began spreading off the

viewscreen and rippling gently outward across the paneled wall of

the office.

Controller Borasus leaned across and broke the connection, fast.

The ripples spread a little more, then faded. The Controller did not

like the look of it at all. With a cold, growing certainty that

everything was not all right after all, he waited until the screen

and the wall at last seemed back to normal and commanded, “Get

me Earth Head Office.” He could hear that his voice was half an

octave higher than usual. He coughed and added, “Runcorn, or

whatever the place is called. Tell them I want an explanation at

once.”

To his relief, things seemed quite normal this time. Runcorn

came up on the screen, looking entirely as it should, in the person of

a junior executive with beautifully groomed hair and a smart suit,

who seemed very startled to see the narrow, august face of the

Sector Controller staring out of the screen at him, and even more

startled when the Controller asked to speak to the Area Director

instantly. “Certainly, Controller. I believe Sir John has just arrived.

I’ll put you through—”

“Before you do,” Controller Borasus interrupted, “tell me what

you know about Hexwood Farm.”

“Hexwood Farm!” The junior executive looked nonplussed.

“Er—you mean— Is this one of our information retrieval centers

you have in mind, Controller? I think one of them is called

something like that.”

“And do you know a Maintenance foreman called W. Madden?”

demanded the Controller.

“Not personally, Controller,” said the junior executive. It was

clear that if anyone else had asked him this question, the junior

executive would have been very disdainful indeed. He said

cautiously, “A fine body of men, Maintenance. They do an excellent

job servicing all our offworld machinery and supplies, but of course,

naturally, Controller, I get into work some hours after they’ve—”

“Put me through to Sir John,” sighed the controller.

Sir John Bedford was as surprised as his junior executive. But

after Controller Borasus had asked only a few questions, a slow

horror began to creep across Sir John’s healthy businessman’s face.

“Hexwood Farm is not considered very important,” he said uneasily.

“It’s all history and archives there. Of course, that does mean that

it holds a number of classified records—it has all the early stuff

about why the Reigner Organization keeps itself secret here on

Earth: how the population of Earth arrived here as deported

convicts and exiled malcontents, and so forth—and I believe there is

a certain amount of obsolete machinery stored there, too, but I can’t

see how our clerk would be able to tamper with any of that. We run

it through just the one clerk, you see, and he’s pretty poor stuff,

only in the Grade K information bracket—”

“And Grade K means?” asked Controller Borasus.

“It means he’ll have been told that Rayner Hexwood

International is actually an intergalactic firm,” Sir John explained,

“but that should be absolutely all he knows—probably less than

Maintenance, who are also Grade K. Maintenance pick up a thing

or two in the course of their work. That’s unavoidable. They visit

every secret installation once a month to make sure everything

stays in working order, and to supply the stass stores with food and

so forth, and I suspect quite a few of them know far more than

they’ve been told, but they’ve been carefully tested for loyalty. None

of them would play a joke like this.”

Sir John, Controller Borasus decided, was trying to talk himself

out of trouble. Just what you would expect from a backward hole

like Earth. “So what do you think is the explanation?”

“I wish I knew,” said the Director of Earth. “Oddly enough, I

have two complaints on my desk just this morning. One is from an

executive in Rayner Hexwood Japan, saying that Hexwood Farm is

not replying to any of his repeated requests for data. The other is

from our Brussels branch, wanting to know why Maintenance has

not yet been to service their power plant.” He stared at the

Controller, who stared back. Each seemed to be waiting for the

other to explain. “That foreman should have reported to me,” Sir

John said at length, rather accusingly.

Controller Borasus sighed. “What is this sealed machine that

seems to have been stored in your retrieval center?”

It took Sir John Bedford five minutes to find out. What a slack

world! Controller Borasus waited, drumming his fingers on the edge

of his console, and his secretary sat not daring to get on with any

other business.

At last Sir John came back on the screen. “Sorry to be so long.

Anything with Reigner seals here is under heavy security coding,

and there turn out to be about forty old machines stored in that

library. We have this one listed simply as ‘One Bannus,’ Controller.

That’s all, but it must be the one. All the other things under

Reigner seals are stass tombs. I imagine there’ll be more about this

Bannus in your own Albion archives, Controller. You have a higher

clearance than—”

“Thank you,” snapped Controller Borasus. He cut the connection

and told his secretary, “Find out, Giraldus.”

His secretary was already trying. His fingers flew. His voice

murmured codes and directives in a continuous stream. Symbols

scrolled, and vanished, and flickered, jumping from screen to

screen, where they clotted with other symbols and jumped back to

enter the main screen from four directions at once. After a mere

minute Giraldus said, “It’s classified maximum security here, too,

sir. The code for your Key comes up on your screen—now.”

“Thank the Balance for some efficiency!” murmured the

Controller. He took up the Key that hung round his neck from his

chain of office and plugged it into the little-used slot at the side of

his console. The code signal vanished from his screen, and words

took its place. The secretary, of course, did not look, but he saw

that there were only a couple of lines on the screen. He saw that

the Controller was reacting with considerable dismay. “Not very

informative,” Borasus murmured. He leaned forward and checked

the line of symbols which came up after the words in the smaller

screen of his manual. “Hm. Giraldus,” he said to his secretary.

“Sir?”

“One of these is a need-to-know. Since I’m going to be away

tomorrow, I’d better tell you what this says. This W. Madden seems

to have his facts right. A Bannus is some sort of archaic decision

maker. It makes use of a field of theta-space to give you live-action

scenarios of any set of facts and people you care to feed into it. Acts

little plays for you, until you find the right one and tell it to stop.”

Giraldus laughed. “You mean the clerk and the Maintenance

team have been playing football all this month?”

“It’s no laughing matter.” Controller Borasus nervously snatched

his Key from its slot. “The second code symbol is the one for

extreme danger.”

“Oh.” Giraldus stopped laughing. “But, sir, I thought

theta-space—”

“Was a new thing the central worlds were playing with?” the

controller finished for him. “So did I. But it looks as if someone

knew about it all along.” He shivered slightly. “If I remember

rightly, the danger with theta-space is that it can expand

indefinitely if it’s not controlled. I’m the Controller,” he added with

a nervous laugh. “I have the Key.” He looked down at the Key,

hanging from its chain. “It’s possible that this is what the Key is

really for.” He pulled himself together and stood up. “I can see it’s

no use trusting that idiot Bedford. It will be extremely

inconvenient, but I had better get to Earth now and turn the

wretched machine off. Notify America, will you? Say I’ll be flying on

from London after I’ve been to Hexwood.”

“Yes, sir.” Giraldus made notes, murmuring, “Official robes, air

tickets, passport, standard Earth documentation pack. Is that why I

need to know, sir?” he asked, turning to flick switches. “So that I

can tell everyone you’ve gone to deal with a classified machine and

may be a little late getting to the conference?”

“No, no!” Borasus said. “Don’t tell anyone. Make some other

excuse. You need to know in case Homeworld gets back to you after

I’ve left. The first symbol means I have to send a report top priority

to the House of Balance.”

Giraldus was a pale and beaky man, but this news made him

turn a curious yellow. “To the Reigners?” he whispered, looking like

an alarmed vulture.

Controller Borasus found himself clutching his Key as if it were

his hope of salvation. “Yes,” he said, trying to sound firm and

confident. “Anything involving this machine has to go straight to

the Reigners themselves. Don’t worry. No one can possibly blame

you.”

But they can blame me, Borasus thought as he used his Key on

the private emergency link to Homeworld, which no Sector

Controller ever used unless he could help it. Whatever this is, it

happened in my sector. The emergency screen blinked and lit with

the symbol of the Balance, showing that his report was now on its

way to the heart of the galaxy, to the almost legendary world that

was supposed to be the original home of the human race, where

even the ordinary inhabitants were said to be gifted in ways that

people in the colony worlds could hardly guess at. It was out of his

hands now.

He swallowed as he turned away. There were supposed to be five

Reigners. Borasus had worried, double thoughts about them. On

one hand, he believed almost mystically in these distant beings who

controlled the Balance and infused order into the Organization. On

the other hand, as he was accustomed to say dryly, to those in the

Organization who doubted that the Reigners existed at all, that

there had to be someone in control of such a vast combine, and

whether there were five, or less, or more, these High Controllers

did not appreciate blunders. He hoped with all his heart that this

business with this Bannus did not strike them as a blunder.

What—he told himself—he emphatically did not believe were all

these tales of the Reigners’ Servant.

When the Reigners were displeased, it was said, they were liable

to dispatch their Servant. The Servant, who had the face of Death

and dressed always in scarlet, came softly stalking down the stars

to deal with the one who was at fault. It was said he could kill with

one touch of his bone-cold finger or at a distance, just with his

mind. It did no good to conceal your fault because the Servant could

read minds, and no matter how far you ran and how many barriers

you put between, the Servant could detect you and come softly

walking through anything you put in his way. You could not kill

him because he deflected all weapons. And the Servant would never

swerve from any task the Reigners appointed him to.

No, Controller Borasus did not believe in the Servant—although,

he had to admit, there were quite frequent dry little reports that

came into Albion Head Office to the effect that such and such an

executive, or director, or subconsul, had terminated from the

Organization. No, that was something different. The Servant was

just folklore.

But I shall take the rap, Borasus thought as he went to get ready

to go to Earth, and he shivered as if a bloodred shadow had walked

softly on bone feet across his grave.

—2———

A boy was walking in a wood. It was a beautiful wood, open and

sunny. All the leaves were small and light green, hardly more than

buds. He was coming down a mud path between sprays of leaves,

with deep grass and bushes on either side.

And that was all he knew.

He had just noticed a small tree ahead that was covered with

airy pink blossoms. He looked at it. He looked beyond it. Though all

the trees were quite small and the wood seemed open, all he could

see was this wood, in all directions. He did not know where he was.

Then he realized that he did not know where else there was to be.

Nor did he know how he had got to the wood in the first place. After

that it dawned on him that he did not know who he was. Or what

he was. Or why he was there.

He looked down at himself. He seemed quite small—smaller than

he expected somehow—and rather skinny. The bits of him he could

see were wearing faded purple-blue. He wondered what the clothes

were made of and what held the shoes on.

“There’s something wrong with this place,” he said. “I’d better go

back and try to find the way out.”

He turned back down the mud path. Sunlight glittered on silver

there. Green reflected crazily on the skin of a tall silver

man-shaped creature pacing slowly toward him. But it was not a

man. Its face was silver, and its hands were silver, too. This was

wrong. The boy took a quick look at his own hands to be sure, and

they were brownish white. This was some kind of monster. Luckily

there was a green spray of leaves between him and the monster’s

reddish eyes. It did not seem to have seen him yet. The boy turned

and ran quietly and lightly, back the way he had been coming from.

He ran hard until the silver thing was out of sight. Then he

stopped, panting, beside a tangled patch of dead briar and whitish

grass, wondering what he had better do. The silver creature walked

as if it were heavy. It probably needed the beaten path to walk on.

So the best idea was to leave the path. Then if it tried to chase

him, it would get its heavy feet tangled.

He stepped off the path into the patch of dried grass. His feet

seemed to cause a lot of rustling in it. He stood still, warily, up to

his ankles in dead stuff, listening to the whole patch rustling and

creaking.

No, it was worse! Some dead brambles near the center were

heaving up. A long, light brown scaly head was sliding forward out

of them. A scaly foreleg with long claws stepped forward in the

grass beside the head, and another leg, on the other side. Now that

the thing was moving slowly and purposefully toward him, the boy

could see it was—crocodile? pale dragon?—nearly twenty feet long,

dragging through the pale grass behind the scaly head. Two small

eyes near the top of that head were fixed upon him. The mouth

opened. It was black inside and jagged with teeth, and the breath

coming out smelled horrible.

The boy did not stop to think. Just beside his feet was a dead

branch, overgrown and half buried in the grass. He bent down and

tore it loose. It came up trailing roots, falling to pieces, smelling of

fungus. He flung it, trailing bits and all, into the animal’s open

mouth. The mouth snapped on it and could only shut halfway. The

boy turned and ran and ran. He hardly knew where he went, except

that he was careful to keep to the mud path.

He pelted round a corner and ran straight into the silver

creature.

Clang.

It swayed and put out a silver hand to fend him off. “Careful!” it

said in a loud, flat voice.

“There’s a crawling thing with a huge mouth back there!” the boy

said frantically.

“Still?” asked the silver creature. “It was killed. But maybe we

have yet to kill it, since I see you are quite small just now.”

This meant nothing to the boy. He took a step back and stared at

the silver being. It seemed to be made of bendable metal over a

man-shaped frame. He could see ridges here and there in the metal

as it moved, as if wires were pulling or stretching. Its face was

made the same way, sort of rippling as it spoke—except for the

eyes, which were fixed and reddish. The voice seemed to come from

a hole under its chin. But now that he looked at it closely, he saw it

was not silver quite all over. There were places where the metal

skin had been patched, and the patches were disguised with long

Diana Wynne Jones - Hexwood

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