A Blink of the Screen

stockade gateway, with the rifle raised. There was blood on her face.
    Linsay tried to calculate how many shots would be left. Maybe only one.
    ‘Touch the pistol and I’ll blow your head off,’ she said, and the words croaked through a tortured throat. ‘I came the long way round. Did you know the gap is only one world wide? I had to cross it twice.’
    Beyond the gate the long yellow grass swayed gently. Big Yin’s muzzle rose like the dawn of man.
    Linsay’s face must have shown it, because Shea’s gaze flickered uncertainly , but the moment of hesitation was too long because the baboon was already out and leaping. She turned then, but he was inside the rifle’s radius, paws open to tear and rip. Linsay swept the pistol up and sighted carefully, ignoring the dual screaming. The red jumpsuit and the dusty grey shape danced in front of his sight, but he didn’t squeeze the trigger until he was certain.
    As the echo died away he thought:
If I have any influence back there, like he says, if the people think they owe me anything, then I’ll have this world declared off limits. Let the baboons try
.
    It was moonlight. The camp was long deserted, but the fire was still burning and threw a circle of light around the open stockade. Grey bodies huddled as far from it as they could, afraid to go any closer despite the growls of their leader.
    He sat near it, watching, and the light in his eyes was a tiny circle of firelight.

TWENTY PENCE, WITH ENVELOPE AND SEASONAL GREETING

    T IME O UT
, 16 D ECEMBER 1987
    I remember reading long ago that the vision of a ‘typical’ English Christmas owed a lot to the fact that, in his boyhood, Charles Dickens lived through seven of the worst Christmases of the nineteenth century – and so they became, under his influential pen, what Christmas ‘ought’ to be. As a former journalist, I think that’s far too good a story to check
.
    This was written for the magazine
Time Out
for Christmas 1987. I wanted to write a kind of Victorian horror story in which the covers of a row of Christmas cards come to life. And what better starting point than the jolly mail coach which is so, so traditional on the really cheap cards … and what would the passengers think of Christmas cards to come? We don’t see Snoopy cards much now. But there are plenty that are worse
.
    From the
Bath and Wiltshire Herald
, 24 December 1843:
    CALNE – Singular Mystery surrounds the disappearance of the London Mail Coach on Tues. last in a snowstorm of considerable magnitude, the like of which has not been seen in the memory of the oldest now living. It is thought that the coachman, missing his way in the driving blizzard at Silbury, took the horses off the road, perhaps to seek the shelter of a Hedge or Rick, and became overwhelmed in the drifting. Search parties have been sent out and the coachman, who was found wandering in a state of severe anxiety in the snow, has been brought back to Bath …
    From the journal of Thos Lunn, Doctor, of Chippenham, Wilts:
    The world is but a tissue spread over the depths of Chaos. That which we call sanity is but a circle of firelight, and when I spoke to that poor mazed man downstairs he was several logs off a full blaze.
    Even now, with my own more Natural fire drawn up and the study curtains shut against the Christmas chill, I shudder at the visions he imparted. Were it not for the solid evidence, which I have before me as I write, and which catches the firelight and sparkles so prettily, I could dismiss it as the mere ravings of a deranged mind. We have made him as comfortable as the ropes allow in my front room, but his cries punctuate this Christmas Eve like skulls in a flowerbed.
    ‘
Is Father Christmas Coming/Or Is He Just Breathing Heavily? Lots of Stuffing This Christmas!!! Snugglebottom Ex Ex Ex!
’
    There is a sound outside. Carol singers! Do they not realize the terrible, terrible risk? Yet if I were to throw open the window and warn them to quit the streets, how could I answer their most obvious question? For if I attempted to, I too would be thought mad also … But I must set down what he told me, in his moments of clear thought, before insanity claimed him for its own.
    Let my readers make of them what they may.
    His eyes were the eyes of a man who had looked into Hell and had left behind something of himself. At times he was perfectly lucid, and complained about the ropes the searcher had put him in for fear that in his ravings he would hurt