Vail by Trevor Hoyle Page A

dose.’
    He shrugged. ‘A guy’s gotta live.’ He grinned with his melyn teeth. ‘I’ve got something else you need even more if you’re travelling past Watford Gap.’
    â€˜What’s down there?’
    â€˜Trouble.’
    â€˜In the form of, – ?’
    â€˜You’ll see.’ He pulled out a foil strip enclosing tablets or capsules in individual blisters on which the brand name
Temporal
in tiny letters was overprinted a hundred times. ‘This does the trick. Take one each an hour before you hit the Gap and you won’t feel a thing.’ He aquaplaned his flat hand up into the air like a jet taking off. ‘Like sliding on cream.’
    â€˜What does it do?’ The mêlée in the entrance hall had spilled onto the forecourt. People beaten and trampled. Some blood too. Few curdling screams.
    â€˜Operates like the fast-forward on a video recorder,’ the boy or youth said, holding up the foil strip enticingly between thumb and forefinger. ‘Shrinks time subjectively from two hours into five minutes. On this stuff you could be in London in less than twenty minutes, half-an-hour at most.’
    â€˜Subjectively.’
    â€˜Yep.’
    â€˜Where would I be objectively?’
    â€˜Same place, buddy-boy. The Smoke.’
    I wasn’t sure I was following this. I asked, ‘And how exactly is it going to keep us out of trouble at Watford Gap?’
    â€˜You’ll go past it like
that
.’ He snapped his fingers, pitifully frail.
    â€˜In no time at all.’
    â€˜Ri-i-ight!
In no time at all
. You said it.’
    â€˜I don’t …’ I frowned.
    â€˜Never heard of Einstein? Everything is subjectively relative. Five minutes in a dentist’s waiting-room seems like three hours. This stuff operates in reverse. If you lived on
Temporal
every day of your life you’d die of old age within a week. You want some, don’t you?’ he grinned knowingly.
    â€˜Not if it’s the same deal as before.’ I put the can of petrol down, which was getting heavy. The sun was low in the sky, striking pointed shadows across the asphalt. A tremor of unease shook me as I thought about the impending curfew. What would it be like to be stopped by the police while flying on
Temporal?
Perhaps they’d be talking to someone who’d already gone.
    â€˜I’ll make you another proposition,’ the boy or youth said. ‘Contact a friend of mine in London called Fully Olbin. He’ll ask you to do him a favour. Do the favour in exchange for the
Temporal
.’
    â€˜Sounds reasonable.’ I didn’t smile. ‘How do I meet him?’
    â€˜You’ll meet him, don’t worry.’
    â€˜How will you know I’ve kept to my side of the bargain?’
    â€˜You’ll have used the
Temporal
.’
    â€˜But suppose I change my mind when I get to London?’
    â€˜You won’t have used the
Temporal
.’
    â€˜I will if I’ve used it already.’
    â€˜You won’t have used it if you don’t follow through with the favour,’ the boy or youth said.
    â€˜You mean if I do the favour I’ll have used the
Temporal
and if Idecide not to do the favour I won’t have used the
Temporal
.’
    â€˜Got it in one,’ he smiled yellowly.
    â€˜But the favour follows the
Temporal
,’ I said, ‘not the other way round. You give me the
Temporal
now and you won’t know whether I follow through with the favour in London till later.’
    The boy or youth sighed wearily. ‘Where have you been living? Never heard of Heisenberg?’
    â€˜A new Bavarian lager?’
    â€˜Cause can precede effect and effect can precede cause at one and the same time. What you do later affects what you do now, – it’s all the same.’
    â€˜Not in my world,’ I said, shifting feet.
    â€˜Sure. Remember what Max Born said: ‘I am now convinced that