A Box of Nothing by Peter Dickinson Page A

gas it had lost, and was only just buoyant even without its load. On the other side of the vast, shadowy valley the peaks of a mountain glittered in the sunset. At this height the air was biting, so James found a blanket and wrapped it around his anorak. He’d been thrilled to see the Burra again, but now, after the excitement of the escape from the camp, he felt a bit of a let-down. And when the Burra said it hadn’t even been worried! That wasn’t fair. James knew he’d had a perfectly rotten time. The Burra didn’t understand. Losing James was probably only like losing the leg the rat patrol had shot up—too bad, that’s all.
    James was brooding on the unfairness when he felt his blanket stir, rumple itself, and rub gently against his cheek like a purring cat. He realized the Burra did understand a little, in its own way.
    At least it knew what it was like to be scared sick, because of its battle with the biplane.
    â€œWhat about you?” he said. “Are you all right?”
    â€œWe are so-so. It was all something of a shock. We remember very little about it. We were all taken up with hanging together.”
    â€œWas it the computer that did that?”
    â€œOh, no. It was us. All of us.”
    â€œIt practically blew itself up, fighting the biplane. I’m surprised it’s still working.”
    The computer, with the small portable TV that was its display screen now, lay on the ledge with the other oddments from the airship. Its case looked a bit wrecked, not quite straight anywhere any longer, but the “on” light was glowing and the pink heart shone as if it had just been painted.
    â€œWorking?” said the Burra. “Playing, more like it!”
    â€œSpace Invaders, you mean?”
    â€œNot that either. It … what’s up?”
    The screen had lit up with a mass of figures and letters and symbols, line after line of them. The lines began to move, dancing around, and as they danced the figures and symbols changed and vanished, sometimes in pairs, sometimes several at a time, until there was only one line left.
    â€œThat is the computer’s idea of a game,” said the Burra. “It does not mean a thing to the rest of us.”
    â€œNor me, neither,” said James. “But it’s sort of neat, isn’t it?”
    (Maths was the part of school he liked best. Mrs. Last gave him maths problems of his own because he was way ahead of the rest of the class.)
    â€œThe universe came out of an equation like that, you know?” he said. “I saw it on TV, the night before … before all this started. And in the end it will go back into an equation. The universe, I mean.”
    â€œThat does not help us to get our knots retied.”
    â€œAre they bad? Can’t you do it just by guesswork?”
    â€œWe unravelled into some quite big holes. The trouble is that if we get one knot slightly wrong, it puts the others out and the net is the wrong shape. It must be a smooth curve or we will not fly straight. So we keep having to go back and try again. The computer could work it all out for us if it chose to, but it seems to think its game is more important.”
    â€œPerhaps it is, only we don’t know. When you finish mending yourself can we just go?”
    â€œThere are two problems. First, we must find a fresh supply of gas. Second, we will need the gulls’ permission. We are their prisoner, you see. They have not yet worked out that we are all one creature. If we had more gas, the airship could join the rest of us and we might escape by night, but the gulls could easily overtake us the next day. Our force-field modulators are beyond repair, and in any case they depend on the computer to operate them.”
    â€œAm I a prisoner, too, now?”
    â€œWe are afraid so.”
    â€œI don’t think that’s fair, after what I did for them.”
    â€œPerhaps they will take that into account. They seem to