by Iain Pears
‘Where might she have gone?’
‘Our predictions are ninety-seven per cent that she has gone into hiding, probably amongst renegades. That, I understand, was your area of expertise before you came here.’
Jack nodded. ‘I was in the Social Protection Service. I monitored the activity of Retreats.’
‘There is a 2.94 per cent chance that she did indeed go off her head and use the machine, in which case she will be beyond our reach. The idea that she may have been converted into a thousand trillion particles scattered across multiple universes is appealing, but not necessarily true just because it would give me pleasure.’
Jack did a quick calculation. ‘What about the remaining 0.06 per cent? What’s that?’
‘A generous overstatement. That is the chance that she is right.’
‘About what?’
Hanslip waved his hand dismissively. ‘She couldn’t be. So go and find her.’
*
Hanslip’s main task was to stem the possibility of any leak and there was one huge, obvious hole in the institute’s defences, wandering around the place with a bland look on his face. This was Lucien Grange, sent by the great Zoffany Oldmanter to negotiate the partnership to exploit Angela’s discovery. Hanslip was uncomfortably aware that the man’s unexpected arrival could well have been what had pushed Angela over the edge. That had badly harmed his negotiating position; thanks to Angela, he no longer had the tight grip on the technology he needed. He had the machine, certainly. But only Angela really understood it.
His first task was to ensure that Grange did not realise this, and that no link could be established between the institute and the cataclysm that had spread over northern Europe. The news kept getting worse; Hanslip stopped looking when the death toll reached nine thousand and the public calls to find the perpetrators became shrill and hysterical. Luckily, everyone’s first instinct was to assume it was the work of terrorists, renegades dedicated to sabotaging the smooth running of society. Punishment was promised, violently backed up by messages from Hanslip, pointing out that the surge had caused considerable damage to delicate instrumentation in his institute and demanding compensation. It would work for a while, but not for long.
He was furious that Grange had shown up now. He had known that Angela would be difficult, but he had been certain that he could bring her round to the idea of collaborating with Oldmanter eventually. Grange’s arrival had been discreet by Oldmanter’s standards – none of the usual helicopters, armed guards, let alone the motorcades that announced the arrival of a scientist of importance – but was still hardly secret. Angela, he knew, was quite likely to have noticed.
The trouble was that she was so impractical. She was into purity, the elegance of the research. She didn’t care that the money was draining away or that it was getting harder and harder to keep supplies flowing in. She wasn’t bothered that in six months’ time they would be out of funds completely. When that happened, he would have no choice but to take whatever terms he could get. So he had delicately courted Oldmanter, tempting him with hints and suggestions, letting him see some of the work, grasp the possibilities. He knew everything – except how it worked.
The worst of it was that Oldmanter was interested and excited, and the greater his interest, the more coy Hanslip had become. He had talked of perhaps not needing a partner. Of talking to others. He had played (in his opinion) a poor hand brilliantly.
His ace was Angela. She alone truly understood the science, and as long as he controlled access to her, he would be indispensable. He had to keep her quiet and out of the way until the deal was done and he had the time to persuade her to accept the situation. Now she had not only ruined his careful plans, she threatened to bring the entire institute down around their heads.
If Grange figured out where the surge had come from, then the security forces would arrive within twenty-four hours. So, first things first. First Grange, then Angela. Then he would have space to manoeuvre.
*
Two hours later, a furious Grange was brought into Hanslip’s office under escort. There were security guards on his door, he said as he sat down. He had not been allowed out, been forbidden to communicate with the outside world. It was an outrage. Was this the way to build the trust necessary for a working relationship?
Hanslip eyed him carefully as he waited for the expressions of indignation to subside. He was no more impressed now than he had been during their meetings of the past few days. The anger seemed artificial and unnatural, an act put on to intimidate.
‘Terrible error,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine what security thought it was doing. Naturally, I offer my full apologies.’
‘You realise what sort of message this could send?’
Hanslip nodded. ‘Of course. We have a crisis here, as you may have noticed, and the security system got a little jumpy. It concluded that there was too close a coincidence between your arrival and the disappearance of Angela Meerson, and so …’
‘I heard about that.’
‘I know. We are investigating the possibility that you were responsible for her flight. Did you have any encounter with her?’
‘A brief one. She sought me out.’
‘So she remembered you?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘You understand why I am asking? She has an inflated view of her own importance. She considers this technology to be her own; she will not allow anyone to take it, and will never leave it. Maternal protectiveness. You should know; you put it there. I have spent years carefully cosseting her, and then you turn up, and within twelve hours she has become unbalanced and disappeared. Naturally, our main concern is that she may seek protection from one of our rivals.’
‘Then perhaps we should move a little faster? If we can finalise an arrangement quickly, then we can take legal ownership before anyone else does. Another organisation might think it could ignore your claims, but I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to take us on.’
‘Legal ownership?’
‘I have come with a draft proposal. We believe it requires much more investment than you suggest. As the funds for this will come from us, we will naturally require a higher stake.’
‘How much higher?’
‘Eighty-five per cent.’
‘We had agreed a fifty–fifty split,’ Hanslip protested.
‘That was last week,’ Grange said with a smile. ‘Before you had a security breach, before you lost your prime researcher, before you killed nearly ten thousand people and caused nearly seventy billion dollars’ worth of damage, and before you engaged in a criminal conspiracy to conceal your involvement.’
‘I’m sure I do not understand what you are talking about.’
‘I am equally sure that you do. You will sign whatever agreement I choose to put before you, and you will do it by the time I leave this evening.’ He smiled and stood up. ‘We will proceed with or without your mathematician.’
‘You will find that difficult.’
‘We’ll manage. That is the end of the discussion. I’m afraid you must take it, or take the consequences of refusal. This is a cruel world in which to be without friends, and with powerful enemies.
‘Now,’ he went on brightly, ‘as this Meerson woman is no longer around, I imagine that you are not quite so desperate to keep me out of the laboratory where she worked. So I would like to see this machine of yours. If you will show it to me, then we can sign these papers, and I will be on my way.’
*
When Hanslip was angry he did not, like Angela, shout, turn red or throw things. Over many years he had learned to focus the anger. He entered a state of calm. As he walked with Lucien Grange to the laboratory, he was very angry indeed.
Grange’s brutal exposition of the facts brought him to the point where he knew he only had two rational choices: submit or resist. He knew, also, that his thinking was far from rational. He was tired, for one thing, and very shaken. He had supported and sustained Angela for years. His reward had been
a comprehensive, total betrayal, with Grange now preparing to administer the final blow. Were they in it together? Had Angela been bought by Oldmanter? Was she already setting up her new laboratory in one of his research facilities? Unlikely, but Hanslip was able to consider any possibility now, as long as it was unpleasant.
He could sign or refuse to sign. Or he could behave rather as Angela would in the same position. It was not a reasoned calculation that made him decide, as he opened the doors into the laboratory, to go for the third option. He simply rebelled at the idea of being bullied.
The machine was all fired up, ready for a simulation to try and duplicate what Angela might have done. Hanslip showed Grange around, pointing out the control room and concentrating on the translucent sphere in the middle of the carefully shielded room. He tried to be ingratiating, preserving what little dignity defeat had left him.
‘That’s the actual transmitter. Small, I know, but you can just get a person in it. We have completed a much bigger one, but it is not yet ready to be used. This one isn’t really intended for people, you see. Mainly objects. The new one will have a much greater capacity.’
‘What’s it made of?’
‘It’s just a shape created by magnetic fields. If you get into it and lie flat, you float a few inches above the floor. It gives a very peculiar feeling, almost like weightlessness. We were thinking at one stage that we could market it as a recreational tool of some sort, or maybe a bed. Do try, if you want. It is extraordinarily comfortable and perfectly safe.’
Lucien crawled in and stretched out. ‘Yes,’ he said in a muffled voice, ‘very pleasant.’
‘Some volunteers have found it so calming they drop off to sleep.’
‘How do I get out?’
‘You have to release the fields surrounding you. That can only be done from the outside, or through the power shutting down automatically.’
‘Very interesting and, as you say, quite calming,’ he called out. ‘Still, I’ve had enough, so could you let me out?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Hanslip, Grange noticed by twisting his body round to see more clearly, was now alone in the room with him. The two technicians had vanished. The director squatted down, so that their faces were at the same level.
‘I do not take kindly to being bullied and threatened.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Grange said. ‘Business is business, and you need our protection. Let me out now.’
Hanslip smiled. ‘Very well. Just a moment.’
He left Lucien floating oddly in mid-air in the half-darkened room and strolled next door to the control room. Everything was running; setting up required many people but once all the systems were on automatic they were no longer necessary. He placed the palm of his hand on the matt black surface and felt the information he needed coursing up his nerves and into his brain. With twenty seconds to go he cancelled the original programme; then he summoned up the reserve power he needed and spun the dial to increase massively the scale of the transmission. Then the control panel froze as the automated transmission sequence took over.
A fraction of a second later and it was done. It was always a disappointing moment. Nothing changed, nothing happened. According to Angela, that was because nothing did change. The matter was still in the chamber, sort of. Only when the field dissolved would reality coalesce. Until then the contents were both there and not there. They would remain in a state of latent nonexistence for ever.
Hanslip briefly considered this option, but decided it was a bad idea. It was too extreme. Besides, he needed the machine.
He ran a little routine to erase the records and overlay data to demonstrate that they had merely been testing the equipment. He made sure that it was impossible to unravel what had happened, then summoned the technicians back to wind the operation down.
‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Our visitor has gone off in a state of high excitement. You should have seen the look on his face.’
14
Alex Chang wandered around the streets of Oxford in a reverie of overpowering sensations. He now had only one thing in his head. He needed, wanted, to sleep. He was more tired than he could believe. Whatever had happened to him had been exhausting. Or perhaps he just hadn’t slept for a long time?
Where could he sleep? It was already getting colder, the sky was darkening. What was he to do? He searched in his memory for guidance, but there was nothing. He had to lie down, that was all.
He stumbled around for a few more hours, trying to stimulate some sort of response, but to no avail. Eventually he could do no more. He was going to fall over, hurt himself, or get killed by one of the vehicles that passed by, belching smoke only inches from where unprotected people walked. They seemed used to it; they would just walk out into the path of the oncoming traffic and get to the other side perfectly safely. Their sense of timing was extraordinary. He stood watching this reckless display of skill from young and old, men and women for a long time.
He settled in a doorway down a little alley. It was quiet; the streets were almost deserted, and that solitude was enough to scare him on its own. He had figured out enough to realise that sleeping outside was unusual and possibly dangerous. It required either immense trust or utter desperation. He hid himself as far back as possible, where he hoped he would not be noticed, and drew his knees up to his chest. It was cold and uncomfortable. He’d never manage to fall …
The memories flooded back in his dreams as he slept and the sheer quantity of information that coursed through his head was overwhelming. Too much or too little; it was always the same. Why can’t they ever get the settings right? Who are they, though? He knew enough to realise that he hadn’t pieced everything together yet but when he woke up several hours later – stiff, cold and hungry – he felt at least he was making progress. He knew who he was; he knew where he was. Now he had to establish when he was.
He stood up, stretched and walked from his hiding place into the street. Rubbish of all sorts was thrown onto the ground in this place, or into bins with little thought of the health considerations. Paper was used in vast quantities. He scuffled through one of the bins, unaware of the few passers-by who glanced disapprovingly at him as they passed. He found something of use. A large piece of paper with what he decided was a greasy piece of fried potato stuck to it, and a heavy smell of what he analysed as vinegar. There was writing on it. Daily Herald, it said. Below it a date. October 18th, 1960.
Instantly, another memory arrived, like some sort of reward. Evidently his memory was working by association. When a new stimulus matched some preordained trigger, the appropriate bit of memory was pulled into his awareness to fill in another gap. ‘If all has gone according to plan,’ came the voice in his head, ‘you are now in Oxford, some time in 1960.’
So it seems, he thought.
There was a flippant tone to it which he found annoying. He wished whoever it was would stick to the facts and cut out the commentary. He wasn’t in the mood for idle chatter.
‘Apart from paranoia and a great deal of fear, it is a time with little to complain about; even the poor are cared for, more or less. In this part of the world, at least, no one has starved to death for some time. The same cannot be said for other parts of the world, but the local population is able to show a remarkable lack of interest in anyone but themselves. They pay for it eventually, but you may be able to avoid the worst …’
Very interesting, he thought. How does that help me get something to eat? I’m starving.
‘Glad you asked. Try a cafe. But you need some money first.’
15
The domain of Willdon lay some three days’ travel to the south and west of Ossenfud, in a series of river valleys noted for their fertility and lushness. A domain was a particular thing; entirely independent, but containing no town or main settlement. Rather, it was a whole series of farms big and small, of villages and hamlets and one great house which gave the entire area its name. All were the possession of the d
omain, and the domain was the possession of one person.
This was Catherine, the widow who had come to her role on the death of her husband, Thenald. Such a thing was unusual; the desire for strict family rights would ordinarily have meant that it would have passed to a member of the family by blood. But one was disqualified by his character, the other by his position. For Thenald had been brutally murdered by his heir, Pamarchon, who had fled and left the scholar Gontal as the next in line.
Nobody, except Gontal, regarded this prospect as anything but a disaster. Joining the wealth of Willdon to the authority of Ossenfud would have unsettled the whole land, creating a power which could not be resisted. Henary had been the one who had deflected the threat.
He had been at Willdon when the catastrophe happened, so naturally his advice had been sought. The death of Thenald, he said, was a monstrosity without parallel. Perhaps it was merely the start. Perhaps at this moment outlaws were gathered in the forest, planning their attack on a leaderless, confused domain. Willdon needed a leader quickly. It had to choose now.
And Gontal? Henary had said what the man should have thought. Gontal was a scholar, he pointed out. Would he give up such honour for mere wealth and power? The people of Willdon had considered his remarks, and an hour later had elected Catherine, who knew the domain, who had run it already and who was, in any case, already more popular than her husband had ever been. They chose well.
Only Gontal was displeased when he arrived, too late, the next day.
‘My dear friend,’ Henary had said, ‘I naturally assumed … Did I do wrong?’
‘Of course not,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Just what I would have said myself.’
*
As she was one of the most powerful people in the land, and both unmarried and childless, it was important to know the state of Lady Catherine’s mind and so scholars were constantly finding reasons to pay her a visit, beyond the usual ones that their duties prescribed. All were after the same information: what would happen to Willdon should she die?