Peter Dickinson: The Poison Oracle

Morris walked on until he was about ten feet from the wing-tip, where he and the girl and her captives formed the points of an equilateral triangle. He took the sweat-towel which the brolly-man carried, folded it and put it on the ground in the shade of the brolly. Thankfully he dumped Dinah on it, then turned and bowed to the captives.

“His Pacific Majesty the Sultan of Q’Kut conveys his greetings,” he said in Japanese. “He is honoured to receive you in Q’Kut.”

The captives stiffened with surprise and hope. Several of them returned his bow. He turned to the girl.

“Is anybody injured?” he said in English.

“No,” she snapped. “Who are you? What powers do you have?”

“My name is Doctor Wesley Morris, and I am Foreign Minister of Q’Kut. I am also in radio contact with His Majesty.”

“Fine,” she said. “You can tell his nibs I . . . we want a new plane, with a pilot, and food and drink. We demand these things in the name of Arab solidarity, for the liberation of Palestine.”

Morris muttered into the walkie-talkie.

“Yes, yes,” answered the Sultan. “A pilot? See if you can find out what happened to the other one. And there ought to be three guerrillas.”

“Get on with it,” snapped the girl.

“Listen, Morris,” said the walkie-talkie, “I’ll have to back these goons up to keep my Arabs quiet, though privately I say pooh to Palestine. But the oil company is run by a rabid bunch of absentee Zionists. I want no part of any of this. They only landed here because some idiots at Karachi tried to shoot their tyres out and got a fuel pipe as well.”

“Get on with it,” said the girl again. “Or I’ll shoot that chimp to show I mean business.”

“His majesty is an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause,” said Morris, “but regrets that he has no plane or pilot available.”

“He can have one flown in,” said the girl. “We’ll get back into the plane and wait—I don’t think it’s going to catch fire after all.”

“In that case you will all die of heat-stroke,” said Morris.

“Don’t give me that,” said the girl. “Come on you lot.”

“This is a comparatively cool day,” said Morris. “To-morrow will probably be twenty degrees hotter.”

He turned to the captives and asked in Japanese whether any of them knew whether the air-conditioning was still working. There was a mutter among the group. A square, blue-suited businessman moved to one side and allowed Morris to see that there were two diminutive air hostesses standing among the men, limp little rag dolls in pretty kimonos.

“We think the air-conditioning is now broken,” said one of them. “We think also the pilots and two of the attackers are dead. One attacker was holding a grenade with the pin drawn, on the flight deck, when we landed, and there was a big explosion before the aeroplane stopped.”

The she-guerrilla’s gun was now wavering vaguely from the captives to Morris and back again. Morris translated quietly into the walkie-talkie and listened to the reply.

“Christ,” he whispered, “that’s a hell of a risk. Are you sure . . .”

“Quite sure, old fellow. I’m enjoying myself.”

Morris licked his lips.

“His Majesty requests you to stand quite still,” he said to the girl. “He is about to shoot out the window by your left hip—for God’s sake don’t move.”

Her mouth opened. None of them heard the crack of the rifle, only the snap and tinkle when the bullet hit the thick glass. The group on the concrete gasped and closed up, but one of the men clapped his hands. Dinah copied him vigorously.

“You see,” said Morris. “I believe your companions are dead, and two first-class shots have you in their sights. Would you please put that gun down?”

She moved a long, fine finger to touch the bullet hole, as if to make sure it was not a trick one from a joke-shop.

“I must point out,” said Morris, “that even by Arab standards Q’Kutis put a low value on human life.”

Suddenly she crouched, put the gun on the wing beside her and covered her eyes with the inside of her wrists. The man in the blue suit stole quietly forward, reached up and took the gun, but she stayed motionless, stuck in her foetal huddle. The walkie-talkie laughed.

“Stow it,” muttered Morris angrily. “And send us a few cars out, mate, and someone to take charge of the girl. You’re not appointing me chief of police.”

“My dear fellow, you’ve done it beautifully. One of those air hostesses doesn’t look a bad bit of skirt either.”

Morris clicked the gadget off. An absolute monarch has many powers, but he can’t gloat at you if you’re out of earshot. Then he walked across to the passengers, leaving the patient brolly-man to shade Dinah.

“His Majesty is delighted to announce that you are now safe,” he said. “He will be sending some cars to take you to the palace, but there will be a few minutes’ wait. I suggest you move into the shade of the aeroplane.”

The man in the blue suit handed him the gun, which he took unwillingly. Dinah started begging to play with it as soon as he reached the shade of the brolly. He switched the walkie-talkie on again.

“How does the safety-catch on this bloody thing work?” he said.

“Ah, you’re back in circulation, old fellow. What model is it?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“Try pointing it at the sand-dune and pulling the trigger. Hold it firm, though.”

Morris did as he was told. Nothing happened.

“Safety-catch on, then,” said the Sultan. “Now listen, Morris. I’m sending Dyal out with the cars—he’ll take charge of the girl. He’s bringing robes and veils for the women—he’ll be there in a couple of minutes. You’ve just got time to go and see whether there’s anyone alive in the plane. OK?”

“I suppose so.”

With extreme reluctance Morris moved towards the wing. Dinah whimpered at him and he turned. More for reassurance in his grisly task than anything else he handed the gun to the brolly-man and allowed Dinah to climb into his arms. As they went up the wing the girl didn’t move.

Inside the plane the plush tunnel reeked of sweat and hot plastic and something else—fear, Morris thought. Animals can smell fear, old wives say. Dinah was certainly very clinging, and it took him some time to persuade her to let go of him and settle into one of the seats. He showed her the tilt button and left her trying to make it produce bananas.

Fear, he thought as he hesitated by the door on to the flight deck. You’d be able to set up an experiment to check whether the old wives’ tale is true—group of animals with strong sense of smell—raccoons?—sever olfactory nerve of half of them—find human volunteers to be frightened—how? How? Why by putting them one side of a metal door, tell them that there may be an armed man, wounded, dangerous, on the other side, and then telling them to open the door—which, they would note, was out of shape and torn in a couple of places by fragments of grenade casing.

There wasn’t a sound in the plane except for Dinah fidgeting with the unproductive button. Morris found it hard to turn the door-handle, slippery with the sweat from his own palm. When he pushed, something resisted on the far side. He pushed harder and the thing gave, reluctantly. New smells came through the crack, a warm, wet odour mixed with the stink of something burnt; but nothing moved. He put his shoulder to the door and felt the resistance slither away. He looked in, swallowing hard to keep the vomit down, and stared at the mess of blood-spattered instruments and broken glass and shabby leather and smashed men. One, two, three, four, five—five heads, anyway, though one had no face—and two of the wrenched torsos wore khaki shirts.