Curthoys fished in his pocket for the hazel nuts and went into the conservatory chirruping. One of the squirrels was unusually tame and Verity let it have the run of the place. This morning it was sitting near her shoulder as she typed up her confounded reams of notes.
‘Go to Charles,’ said Verity absently.
The pretty creature came skipping along the bench towards him and accepted his offering. He exchanged pleasantries with it, then became embarrassed. Verity was watching him with a curious expression.
‘...Verity?’
‘Something has come up/ she said.
Her tone was serious but soothing; he could have sworn she was trying to break something to him gently. She took the squirrel out of his arms and returned it to the big cage. Inside, near the roof, the second squirrel chattered on a tree stump; it ran down and timidly accepted a hazel nut from Curthoys, then scampered back to its perch.
‘She’s the shy one,’ said Curthoys. ‘Female of the species.’
‘They are both female,’ said Verity, with the Professor’s dryness.
‘I fancied they were an old married couple,’ Curthoys said cheerily. ‘Sitting on the same branch when the blow fell.’
Verity turned some pages.
‘It’s in the notes ...’ she said. ‘I’ve underlined some passages. Ed made the preliminary examination ... couldn’t determine the sex of Squirrel A... the tame one... but later it was definitely seen to be female, like Squirrel B.’
‘Haven’t you given them names?’
‘No,’ said Verity. ‘Charles, what became of the pair of rabbits found at site twelve?’
‘Wait a bit ...’ said Curthoys. ‘I gave them to a friend of mine, Dave Jenkinson ... local schoolmaster. That was one of the sites where there was a scuffle with the police. This damned cordon business. It will be a great relief if your father can wangle a better clearance through Brewster. Yes ... yes ... we tested the rabbits in the field with the geiger counter and I gave them to Jenkinson. He’s a great admirer of the Old Man and he’d been helping to fight off the bobbies.’
‘And the rabbits survived?’
‘Of course. He took them back to school. Ordinary rabbits, sort of heather mixture in colour ... looked very dead when I went to pick them up. I suppose one expects to see rabbits dead. Last we heard one had got away.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Verity.
‘Look here!’ said Curthoys. ‘You’re not suggesting these animals were contaminated in any way?’
‘Of course not,’ said Verity. ‘Were they both of the same sex?’
‘Yes,’ said Curthoys. ‘Come to think of it they were. Jenkinson hoped to breed, you know, object lesson in multiplication, but the rabbits turned out to be Bill and Bob, not Bill and Betty.’
Verity added a footnote and began to gather all the pages into her file.
‘Charles, what would you do if no-one believed your hypothesis?’
‘Attempt to prove it, I suppose.’
‘If you made a discovery that was difficult to believe,’ she said hesitantly, ‘would you feel bound to make it public?’
‘It depends!’ said Curthoys. ‘There might be repercussions.’
He could see what the trouble was. The poor child had a touch of the extra-terrestrials. She had hit upon some tiny mutation, some behaviour quirk in her bloody squirrels and built it into a theory of alien influence.
He said kindly:
‘Verity, I’ve worked with your father a long time. I remember your mother. I often think how she would have loved this place, Hewbry Hall...’
He felt guilty at the emotional blackmail but it was his duty, surely, to head her off. The Old Man should not be bothered. Another row would be unbearable and the tests were at a crucial stage.
‘What I’m trying to say is this,’ he went on quickly, ‘I’m sure this is not your field. A few months at the reserve with Dr. Nguma ... that’s not a qualification. No-one here is qualified to undertake or to evaluate any behavioural study, any zoological work.’
‘All right Charles,’ said Verity, wearily.
She seemed disappointed but not surprised. Strange girl. He had heard the standard comment,.. how did old Sidney come to have such a striking daughter? It was no surprise to him because he did remember Alys ... more beautiful, more womanly, played the piano, worked at her gardening books ...
‘You are on much firmer ground with your literature,’ he said. ‘What happened to the seventeenth-century monographs that were going to spin off from your thesis? What became of Marvell, Andrew Marvell, wasn’t he your favourite?’
‘I’ll get back to him,’ said Verity.
She opened the cage again and Squirrel A came out It flew up to her shoulder and nestled in her long sunbleached hair; they whispered together. Charles Curthoys felt the tiniest flicker of discomfort: surely it wasn’t natural for a creature to be so docile. He must have a word with Grey ... perhaps he had noticed something worth reporting.
‘I’ll release the squirrels in the garden this afternoon,’ said Verity.
‘So the project is finished?’ said Curthoys eagerly. ‘Much the wisest plan.’
He looked at his watch.
‘I must be going. Time’s winged chariot and all that.’
‘Take the file, Charles!’ ordered Verity. ‘I want you to read it.’
He snatched it up, unable to protest.
‘Does your hypothesis have a name?’ he asked. ‘I mean, what is it about generally?’
Verity stroked the grey squirrel.
‘I call it Mimesis.’
‘What? Doesn’t that have something to do with acting?’
‘You could say mimicry. Or metamorphosis.’
‘Changing shape?’ said Curthoys. ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’
He was lying; the idea was simply more of an enormity than he had expected. Mad, quite mad. Caterpillar into butterfly, nymph into dragon-fly, tadpole into frog ... these were natural processes. Alien into squirrel, squirrel into ...
‘Something organic...’ said Verity.
‘But what?’ said Curthoys, thinking as laterally as he could. ‘Surely size is a consideration...’
‘What was common to all the sites, Charles?’
‘Uninhabited,’ said Curthoys. ‘Lonely, wooded...’
‘Yes,’ said Verity.
‘Trees!’ said Curthoys. ‘Unless there was some other suitable form of organic life to... to...’
‘To copy,’ said Verity.
‘Nonsense!’ cried Curthoys. ‘Verity, put that squirrel away and get out into the fresh air!’
He rushed out of the conservatory; mad, quite mad. He found he was clutching her green folder so tightly that his fingers ached.
* * * *
Three
Ed Grey lay on his four-poster bed in the East Wing and made his report into a minicorder lying on his pillow.
‘I don’t like what I’m doing any more than I did at first and the compensations are all turning into complications.
‘Politically speaking the old guy, the Professor, is clean, unless you find naive socialism frightening. He has no links with any subversive organizations or any foreign powers, unless you count our friend the multi-national corporation that may benefit from his present research. He is interested in alloys not allies; you might say he is welded to his work. He drives Curthoys and yours truly as hard as he drives himself.
‘He puts the highest value on personal loyalty and if my cover slips for an instant I’ll be out on my ass. Which brings me to those clowns from NSO, Brewster and his custom-built buddy, Adamson. The security pressure that Professor Latham has been under from his own government is totally unwarranted and it has made him mad as a hornet. Like he says, it is red tape; he lost his A clearance because he left the Institute and set up as an independent researcher under the De Luchy bequest. He attracted the attention of NSO by turning up at these meteor sites.
‘Why does he do this? Someone had b
etter re-read the terms of that bequest. The Widow De Luchy made a large portion of the funds available on condition that investigation should be made into ... quote ... extra-terrestrial phenomena and the possibility of communication with other worlds. The Professor is doing his best to comply with this condition and I may add that the De Luchy Trust are getting great value for their money. The old guy hares around in his chopper to every site; the grid pattern now generally accepted is his work. He turns in a report on, you know, size, location, radiation levels, insofar as we are equipped or permitted to investigate. For an independent operator he does a good job. No, we have no evidence of “alien infiltration”, death rays, thought probes, or the ever-popular little green men.
‘However the Security blanket... joke ... is very heavy in these areas; the media are screaming and there’s a whiff of cover-up. If there is anything here and that I should know about for Christ’s sake liase with NSO and have me informed. Also, call off Brewster and Adamson before they, query, inadvertently blow my cover. Whoever sent a robot to interview Sidney Latham was pretty smart. The Professor really digs Adamson; he has him to dinner once a week and tries to beat him at chess. But where does that leave me? Out on a limb... which brings me to Verity Latham.
‘To my certain knowledge she has had no communication with the members of her cadre in Greenworld Task Force since she returned from the Kenyan reserve. I know she still holds to their ideology but she has taken part in no green-freak activities for three months. Unless you count talking to trees.
‘It would be pointless and kind of embarrassing for me to make a daily report on her activities. She’s a beautiful girl and I’m in intimate contact with her. No, I’m not too deeply involved but this situation may change. I really dig her and I feel like hell about it. I’m not sure what she feels. She has to put up with a lot from her old man who puts her down all the time and I guess it has made her withdrawn.
‘You may be surprised to hear that Verity Latham has come up with a really wild theory on the meteors. She worked up this whole deal with, would you believe, two squirrels that were stunned by the blast at site 14. I did some of the preliminary work with her and it was easy for me to put her file on microfilm. I’ll enclose it in the next drop. My comment on the work? Squirrely man, squirrely...
‘Anyhow she gave the project away three weeks ago and released the critters in the garden. One is still around but it is kind of shy. Verity spends a lot of her time in the garden, reading Seventeenth Century Metaphysical Poetry out loud. She is the most beautiful, crazy girl I ever saw and I think I love her. One time I found her reading a botany text-book to this tree, big oak-type tree growing on the east side of this house, its branches reach right up to the balcony of this room. She said she was reading “to improve its understanding of the xylem for mimetic purposes”.
‘If I had been able to find Verity after dinner I wouldn’t be making this report I’d be making love. But I looked all through the house and she wasn’t around. No, I do not believe she is out there trying to immobilize a chemical complex. I believe she is out there in the moonlight reading Andrew Marvell to some damned tree. Because of her I have learned a whole poem by this guy... it is called The Garden and he talks about.
“Annihilating all that’s made.
To a green thought in a green shade.”
‘Obviously this Captain Marvell was some kind of a green freak.’
Ed stopped talking and listened. The long, low whistle was repeated under his balcony. He stashed the minicorder and went out into the moonlight.
* * * *
‘Verity?’
She leaned against the tree, one arm encircling the broad trunk, her cheek against the bark. Her hair hung loose and silvery.
‘Coming down?’
‘Are you through with the botany lessons?’ he teased.
Verity laughed and ran a hand over the tree trunk.
‘All through!’ she mimicked his accent. ‘Now I’m up to biology.’
‘I was thinking of your friend...’
Ed wanted to prolong the balcony scene a little: the girl, the tree, the moonlit garden.
‘My friend?’ asked Verity.
‘Andrew Marvell.’
‘Ah...’
She embraced the trunk and quoted:
‘My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow.’
‘Too slow for me...’ breathed Ed.
‘Come down!’
‘Come up here to my room.’
‘It’s better down here,’ she said. ‘Climb down. Try that branch over there.’
‘You’re crazy!’ he said, fondly.
He climbed over the rail and reached for the branch.
‘That’s right,’ said Verity, ‘let it feel your weight.’
‘What?’
‘You’re getting the hang of it,’ said Verity. ‘There now...’
Ed took her in his arms. He fought off an impulse to tell her why he was there and ask for absolution.
‘Ed?’
She took his face between her hands; her eyes were solemn.
‘I’m your friend ...’ she said. ‘Even if our ideologies are different. Trust me. Perhaps I should try to explain...’
He put a finger to her lips.
‘No!’ he said. ‘No heavy confessions.’
She wound her arms around his neck and they kissed. They sank down together; the grass was warm and dry. The moonlight silvered their clothes lying on the grass but did not reach into the deep shade. The tree arched above them; every leaf spun, activated, alert.
* * * *
Four
Professor Latham cut chunks from his apple with a silver fruit knife.
‘You know my view!’ he twinkled at Adamson. ‘One more meteor.’
‘Only one?’ Verity spoke softly to Curthoys, further down the table.
‘Speak up!’ said the Professor. ‘You’re too subdued this evening, Verity.’
‘Only one more meteor, Sidney?’
‘According to the grid pattern,’ said Charles Curthoys.
‘Otherwise it means the extension of the grid in another direction,’ explained Ed Grey.
‘I hope the Professor is right,’ said Brewster.
It had been another stimulating evening; the Oval Room was beautiful by candlelight. Adamson, having consumed his ‘company dinner’, which resembled squares of aspic, was now sipping some amber lubricant. The Professor had enjoyed himself but he was restless. He began to tease his daughter.
‘Don’t take my word for it!’ he said. ‘Verity is in closer touch with the ... er ... aliens.’
‘Not my field...’ Verity laughed it off.
The Professor saw Charles Curthoys flinch so he pressed on with his teasing.
‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘your theory has a freakish charm.’
‘A theory of alien infiltration?’ asked Adamson.
He gazed steadily along the table at Verity in her pumpkin yellow gown.
Verity said firmly.
‘No, of course not!’
‘Yes!’ cried the Professor. ‘Acknowledge your work, girl! Mimesis ... the great theory of Mimesis ... by Ovid out of Walt Disney!’
‘Charles?’ asked Verity.
‘I’m sorry!’ said Curthoys. ‘Verity, I’m sorry. He picked it up from my desk... it was an accident.’
‘I’m not surprised, mind you...’ The Professor took more wine. ‘Not surprised that she hasn’t shown it to her old man.’
‘I don’t want to talk about that paper,’ said Verity. ‘I’ve given up the work.’
‘Oh no!’ chortled Latham. ‘You’re not getting off so lightly. Mimesis needs a good roasting.’
‘Mimesis?’ asked Brewster.
He looked at Adamson who was fiddling with his shirt cuff. Ed Grey saw the movement too.
‘Acting ... mimicry ...’ pronounced Adamson. ‘Some theory of adaptation, perhaps...’
‘Got it in one!’
smiled the Professor. ‘Metamorphosis!’
‘Father!’ Verity stood up. ‘I don’t want any discussion of that paper!’
New Writings in SF 29 - [Anthology] Page 2