by Iain Pears
Henry Lytten, the man who dutifully taught his students and whose reputation, such as it was, centred on a deep knowledge of Elizabethan pastoral, had once had a more turbulent life. He was, after all, one of those rare people with a facility for languages and the analysis of texts. He had mastered French and Italian with ease at an early age; another accomplishment of his months in bed as a child was a decent knowledge of German, which he taught himself with only a dictionary, a grammar and his father’s copy of Schiller to practise on.
School taught him little except the art of survival, but an encouraging father sent him off regularly as he approached manhood to travel through Europe. There his conversational skills were honed and he learned much about the people whose languages he was coming to know perfectly.
Such abilities were rare, and in 1939 they saved Lytten from some of the more obvious miseries of war. They were too valuable to be shot at; once he was called up he was rapidly transferred to intelligence – something of a misnomer at the start of hostilities – where initially he spent his time interpreting intercepted communications which flooded in over the airwaves. Eventually he began to do more, and was sent to France, parachuting into the Corrèze to liaise with the scattered Resistance movements. Then, his work done there, he was attached once more to the army as it moved into Germany itself, and stayed there for several years.
He left all of this as soon as he could; what he saw and did in those years confirmed his disenchantment with reality, and he escaped back to his books the moment he was allowed to do so. But he was too valuable to be let go entirely. Not only did he know many people who remained in the Service, he retained also a quite extraordinary instinct for documents – what they said, what they meant, and what they implied about their authors and recipients. It was part of his past, and so remained part of his present. Several times he had decided to have no more of it; every time he would be summoned by Portmore, now the head of the Service. ‘We need you still, Henry,’ he’d say in that regretful way he had. ‘Your duty.’
He could never refuse. Portmore was one of those people whose patriotism and self-sacrifice was so exceptional everyone else seemed slightly mean in comparison. He had taken on the most dangerous of missions in the war, been wounded, captured, tortured, and come back for more. He couldn’t understand anyone who would not want to give their entire life to their country, who did not relish the game of cat-and-mouse with worthy adversaries, be they German, Russian or – as he saw it – American. Portmore had recruited Lytten in the first place, trained, advised, guided and protected him. He was a father figure, a model and an inspiration. The only person Henry was in awe of, but he was at least in good company. The man was accepted by all as the Service’s greatest asset, able to operate with the same skill and success in Whitehall as in the Balkans; the only worry was what would happen when he finally retired and left them all leaderless. He knew from old contacts that others were wondering the same thing, and discreetly positioning themselves accordingly.
So Henry never refused a request, always obliged; Portmore had this strange ability to make everyone feel indispensable, as though the future of the Empire – what was left of it – depended on them alone. Every now and then someone would show up at his door, or the telephone would ring and a familiar voice would summon him to lunch in London. ‘Just a small job, if you could see your way to helping us out …’
Lytten would reluctantly put aside his life, vowing it would be for the last time. Every now and then he would, also, suggest to a promising student that they have a little chat with a friend of his who worked for the government. He never really understood why he offered up sacrifices of young men to a life which he had so hated himself.
He never talked of this to anyone, of course. Of the three regular drinking companions who still remained to meet in the pub, all had had what was termed ‘a war’; that is, they had done and seen things which would traumatise most generations of men. They had done their best to pack the experience away in a corner of their memory and forget it. It had no importance for their lives now and, besides, these were people brought up to control their emotions, not to explore them. Lytten had gone into the war cheerful, extroverted, optimistic. He came out of it locked in himself. Only a few people noticed, and they never mentioned it. It was not their business.
The past can be hidden, but never entirely forgotten, Lytten knew this too. Indeed, his story as it evolved depended on it. ‘We are our past,’ so he had said to Rosie. Sooner or later it returns. That was why the only unexpected thing about the ring at the doorbell at ten in the evening a few days after that conversation was its timing. Certainly, Lytten gave no sign of surprise when he opened the door and saw the heavily muffled figure, covered in a dark overcoat with a hat pulled down over his face in the gloomy light of the porch.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Dinner at high table. I couldn’t stand the prospect of pudding, so I thought I’d just drop in. Catch up with an old friend, you know. I hope you weren’t off to bed?’
‘That is just where I was about to go,’ Lytten said. ‘Go away.’
‘Good. I’d hate to disturb you. I’m soaking and cold. Do you have any brandy?’
Sam Wind took off his coat, folded it over Lytten’s arm as though he were a coat rack and walked briskly through to the little table by the fire in the study, on which stood two glass decanters.
He poured himself a generous measure, swept Lytten’s unmarked essays from the spare armchair and sat down on it with a sigh, stretching his long legs towards the fire and twiddling his toes to warm them up. He was an angular man with a mop of greying hair and a melancholic face that these days was set in a permanent expression of disappointment. He had delicate hands with bony fingers which he cracked alarmingly when he made a point, and his clothes were expensive but scruffy, with hand-made shoes that hadn’t been polished in weeks.
‘It’s bloody awful out there,’ he remarked. ‘It’s not meant to be winter yet. I hate this country.’
‘I thought you were in the business of loving it, reverencing it and defending it with all your heart and soul?’
‘Only between the hours of nine and five, Monday to Friday. Rest of the time I am free to detest the grubby little dump.’
‘It is good to see you, Sam,’ Lytten said, ‘but I really was going to bed.’
‘I’m sure you were. But you know me well enough to realise I do not walk a mile on a cold night just to visit you.’
He picked up the battered brown briefcase he’d put beside the armchair, pulled out a sealed envelope and tossed it over.
‘What’s this?’
‘How should I know? That’s your job, it seems. Orders from on high, from God himself. I’m just the messenger boy.’
‘How is Portmore these days?’
‘Flourishing, flourishing. How he does it, I do not know. He has this annoying habit of seeming to get younger and more vigorous as the years go by, unlike the rest of us. He sends his best and requests that you do yours. Read, figure it all out, tell us what you think.’
‘What if I don’t want to?’
Sam looked at him doubtfully. ‘Next week some time would be appreciated.’
‘Very well, Sam. As you command.’
13
Going outside with Hanslip and heading to the thin sliver of sand that separated the island of Mull from the sea was not a sign of intimacy or favour. Reality was very different from the balmy scene projected inside the building. It was freezing cold, for one thing, which was why Jack More normally took exercise only when it was warmer and when the wind had thinned the thick smog which habitually covered the globe. Even he felt cold as they walked along; Hanslip, who started shivering within minutes despite being encased in protective gear, was clearly not there for the pleasure of it. At least it wasn’t wet, though; he had seen from the news reports that it had been raining without a break for the past three weeks, and the ground – those bits which hadn’t been cov
ered in protective concrete – was sodden and muddy, giving off a foul smell of rotting vegetation.
‘This is one of the few places where I can be sure I will not be overheard,’ Hanslip said as they left the double gateway and stepped into the air. ‘It’s the wind, mainly, but also a strange effect of the chemicals coming off the sea which disrupts the circuitry. We must put up with the unpleasantness.’
‘Being inside all the time makes me feel ill.’
‘So I gather. I suppose that’s a result of your energetic past.’
‘Probably.’
‘You never felt like having it fixed? Why is that?’
‘I suppose I assume that sooner or later I will leave here and go back to a normal life. What I think of as normal, anyway. I don’t want to have it fixed.’
The remarks exhausted Hanslip’s interest in the subject. They walked silently for a while, Jack looking at the sea and Hanslip studiously ignoring it, until the older man decided they had gone far enough.
‘What do you know about us?’
Jack tried to formulate a sensible reply. ‘I know this institute is of middling stature, that it is financially fairly secure, and that it employs a disproportionate number of people of doubtful quality.’
‘Doubtful quality? What do you mean by that?’
‘Some have been tagged as uncooperative and a few as borderline renegade. They are not the people a top-rank operation, or one engaged in sensitive research, would employ.’
‘We must be insignificant as we get the dregs no one else wants, is that what you mean?’
‘Well …’
‘Of course it is. You are quite right. A very second-rate organisation we are.’ Hanslip smiled. ‘Stuck on this revolting island on the fringes of nowhere. Nobody thinks we’re of the slightest importance and nobody pays much attention to what we are doing. Which is why it is so very annoying that this has happened.’
‘Then what are you doing?’
‘We are unlocking the deepest mysteries of the universe. Gaining access to worlds beyond the imagination, even beyond the power of science itself. We are conquering what does not exist.’
Jack considered this portentous remark. ‘Would you care to tell me what that means?’
‘Yes, although I must remind you of the need for secrecy. If you are to look for Angela Meerson, you need to know, if only to give you a sense of how important this is, and how urgent it is that you find her.’
Hanslip skirted round a solitary pile of seaweed, giving it a glance of distaste.
‘You know as well as I do that my contract here requires the highest level of discretion and loyalty. It is what you pay me for.’
‘Indeed. We have discovered a means of accessing parallel universes. Only one, at the moment, but once we understand the process properly, then potentially an infinite number. The space and resources that might become available to humanity would be stunning. It is also, of course, a scientific discovery of extraordinary importance.’
There didn’t seem much to say to this, so Jack contented himself with: ‘Really?’
‘Is that the best you can do?’
‘Congratulations, then.’
‘Officially, as you say, we are a minor little operation trying to eke out a few efficiencies in power transmission. In the last few years we have been quietly devoting ourselves to this other project. Angela noted a strange anomaly while running an experiment. We kept on getting more energy out than we were putting in. On its own it is a fabulous discovery: with the right equipment, a single watt of electricity could in theory power an entire city of millions. Since then we have refined the technology and discovered that if we do this in a tightly controlled space, then we can actually shift physical objects.’
‘How do you get from there to assuming the existence of parallel universes?’
‘That’s probably beyond your ability to understand,’ Hanslip replied in a slightly superior tone. ‘We transmit the matter – we began with electrons and have built up to more complex objects – then recover it. Analysis proves it has been gone for longer than it has been gone, if you see what I mean. The only scientifically valid explanation is that the matter has existed in a different state of reality. Another universe, in effect.’
‘Can you get to it, though? Electrons are one thing, but …’
‘We can. We have. There are now three machines. The first has been operational for four years and is capable of dealing with little more than molecules. The second was completed six months ago and can take up to two hundred kilograms; this has provided all the confirmation we need.’
‘What about the third?’
‘Still under development. It will take up to fifteen tonnes. It is designed to be able to move metal. Its power consumption will be colossal, though; far more than we can afford at the moment, and even more than Angela used up. ‘
Jack could see what the man meant by a discovery of extraordinary importance. He remained sceptical, however. What were the chances of a small, unimportant organisation making such a gigantic leap forward when others hadn’t even come near?
‘I hope you’re not suggesting that this mathematician of yours might have decided, in a carefree way, to go off and hide in a different universe? That would be suicidal lunacy, wouldn’t it?’
‘Quite. And although Angela is a lunatic, she is not suicidal. That’s why I am sure she has done nothing of the sort.’
‘So …?’
‘Angela is a psychomathematician,’ Hanslip said. ‘She works by harnessing emotions to power her calculations, and further enhancing these through the use of powerful stimulants. It is a highly specialised technique, but people established centuries ago that many people could do maths by associating complex calculations with things like shapes or colours. It is a sort of controlled insanity and in the right hands it can outperform any computer in intuition. Angela’s intuitions then have to be converted into orthodox calculations, of course, but she has done extraordinary work. Unfortunately, the process makes her emotionally unstable. In the last few months she was obsessively advancing a theory so outlandish it could not possibly be true, and fell in love with it to the point that she became capable of irrational actions to defend it.’
‘She is nuts, then?’
‘Sometimes. Her response to her calculations is like a mother defending a child, literally so. When she is in one of these states she would die, or kill, to protect whatever she is working on. She had come up with a new idea and wanted to stop the entire programme to explore it. She would not take no for an answer, and was incapable of listening to reason.’
‘Why does she work like that?’
Hanslip considered how to answer, coughing occasionally from the pollution in the air. ‘She was always exceptionally talented, but to enhance this she was subjected to a procedure some eighteen years ago. That is, she was put into an artificial coma, and a pregnancy was induced. The complex emotional responses were then captured and harnessed.’
‘How revolting. Was it voluntary?’
‘No,’ Hanslip said flatly, ‘and it was nothing to do with me. It was years before she came to work here. The procedure worked in that it greatly augmented her abilities, but it also made her so wayward that she became almost unemployable.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You’ve got to find her, and you’ll need to take account of her unpredictability. Besides, one of the people involved in that experiment arrived here yesterday. It may be that he triggered some response and sent her into a panic.’
‘It couldn’t just be that she is suicidal?’
‘I doubt that. She would not risk depriving humanity of anything as important as herself.’
‘She’s that vain?’
Hanslip nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Personally I always thought it the best proof of the existence of multiple universes. One isn’t nearly big enough to contain her vanity.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Perhaps. I refused to reconf
igure the experiment as she wished, but she went ahead and did it anyway. She began diverting time and resources away from the official programme to her own activities.’
‘Was that why you suspended her?’
‘I had no choice, but for Angela it may have been like having a newborn infant ripped from her arms. I had to ensure she could do no damage, either to the experiment or to herself. You must understand that this programme is way beyond our resources. Potentially it could be the largest research project ever undertaken. It is now getting to the stage where we need a more formal arrangement with a better resourced partner.’
‘Who?’
‘Oldmanter.’
Jack whistled.
‘Zoffany Oldmanter controls the most important and powerful institutions on the planet. He has the resources to develop this properly, in a way we could not. It is a sensible and necessary move. The negotiations were going very well indeed, until I found out that Angela had been misappropriating resources. I knew she would be likely to spread false rumours about the project in order to destroy any possibility of a partnership.’
‘I see. Did she know of this?’
‘It might help explain her actions. The point is that we must find her. For all her difficulties, she is exceptionally able and the only person who truly understands the deep science behind this. I do not want her going off to a rival, and I don’t want her scaring people with half-baked theories. Also …’ He paused with evident reluctance at having to admit the scale of the disaster the woman had unleashed. ‘Also, she seems to have erased all the data before she left.’
‘What data?’
‘Everything concerning the project, going back six years. All the prime documentation, all the copies, backups. Unless we retrieve it, it will set us back a decade or more, perhaps even kill the project altogether. The machine can be used twice more. Then it will need to be recalibrated, which we cannot now do.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s very sensitive. A prototype which requires constant maintenance, otherwise it becomes dangerously unreliable. Angela was working on how to stabilise it, but that is information that disappeared with her. So unless we get the data back, or Angela back, then it is dead.’