The navigator by Eoin McNamee Page A

final flurry of defense building by the river and then everything seemed to slow down. Nothing happened for two weeks, or what felt like two weeks, for Owen was increasingly uncertain about time and the way it worked. He decided to draw a rough calendar on the wall of his Den, where he marked in sunrises and sunsets, for at least that happened in the normal way.
    He went up to the Nab to see Dr. Diamond again. The scientist and philosopher showed him the complicated clock with five faces, each one with a single hand, and told him that it was measuring the speed at which time was going backward.
    "The five faces measure the five different kinds of
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    time," Dr. Diamond said. When he saw the look on Owen's face, he went on hastily, "But we only have to concern ourselves with the big face, which is time as we commonly know it."
    Owen could see that the single hand of the clock was going backward, opposite to the normal way. It was also moving very slowly.
    "That's because time is going backward very slowly at the moment. It doesn't always go at the same speed, you see," Dr. Diamond said. "Sometimes even the Harsh have difficulty in keeping the speed up. And sometimes they manipulate the speed to their own purposes."
    "What way does time move at the Workhouse?"
    "That's this clock," Dr. Diamond said, tapping the smallest dial. "We're on what you've heard people call an island in time. Not exactly accurate, but near enough. Most other time flows round us. Kind of sloshes backward and forward, in fact. There are plenty of islands in time, but most are tiny, maybe one or two people on them, being born and living and dying, and an hour is an hour and a minute is a minute the same as it always was, even when they step outside the island."
    "I think I get it," Owen said slowly, "but what I still don't understand is, where are all the people? I mean, the whole town, for all I know the whole country, even the whole world ... where did all the other people go?"
    "That is complicated," Dr. Diamond said. "The Harsh long for emptiness, for cold nothingness. A time before
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    people. Before history. That is the reason they have turned time backward--to get back to that place. It seems that their Great Machine does away not only with time but also with the idea of human life itself."
    "So they've already done away with life?"
    "It seems so. Nobody has died; they have just never been."
    "So they got rid of life and now they're getting rid of time. Kind of a mopping-up operation."
    "I wouldn't have put it like that. But yes, essentially you're correct." Dr. Diamond knelt down in front of Owen, his eyes examining the boy's face. "I know you didn't give the right answer to Samual when he asked you about Gobillard." He put up a hand to stop Owen from speaking. "Your instinct was, I think, correct. There is dangerous knowledge involved, however I--"
    The door opened behind them. It was Samual. His face darkened at the sight of Owen.
    "Time to go, Owen," Dr. Diamond said swiftly, standing up.
    Owen slipped by Samual without meeting his eyes. Whatever Dr. Diamond had to tell him would have to wait.
    The Sub-Commandant and the others were busy and preoccupied, so Owen was grateful for the company of Wesley and Cati. Much of the countryside was wooded now and there were mushrooms to be picked in the
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    morning, and wild berries and fruit, and hazelnuts on the banks. The weather felt like autumn, with dew in the morning and cold, crisp days. There seemed to be a mellowness in the air. Sometimes the wind would blow hard, but it never reached the strength of the storm that had trapped Owen in the warehouses. Wesley brought fish and prawns from the harbor. At night they would build a fire in front of the Den and cook fish or rabbit stew, and eat it with potatoes that grew wild in forest clearings.
    Owen slept deep, dreamless sleeps, and when he woke in the morning the cold nipped at his hands and face until he had lit a fire. He had a good stock of