Siding Star

by Christopher Bryan

  “Must what?” he wanted to scream. But he was feeble, a shade, a ghost. He couldn’t even whisper.

  He woke up.

  The bedclothes were the usual tangle and his pajamas as ever wet with perspiration. But at least he was awake and the Dream was gone.

  Except that now there was that thing he didn’t want to remember… what was it? Oh yes: Mickey the cat was dead, and he still missed his old friend terribly.

  But it was all right to grieve for him.

  Wait a minute, though. Now there was yet another thing. The world was going to end.

  And it was all right to grieve for that, too.

  FiFty-eight

  A small hotel in London. Sunday, November 2.

  Maria Coleman sat in her hotel room on the edge of the bed and considered the contents of the black briefcase. In it, essentially, was the alternative identity she had created for herself over the last four years. There was her Argentinean passport, in the name of Maria del Carmen Rodriquez—all perfectly legal and genuinely hers, for Maria del Carmen Rodriquez was the ten-year-old girl (then speaking no English) who’d come to Britain with her mother thirty years ago, subsequently becoming Maria Rogers as her mother assimilated, and later becoming Maria Carnell and finally Maria Coleman through two marriages.

  There, too, were details of Argentinean bank accounts to which she had over the last four years transferred sufficient funds, all in untraceable bonds, sufficient to keep Maria del Carmen Rodriquez if not in fabulous luxury at least in perfect comfort for as long as she chose. There was the key to the tiny but elegant apartment in Buenos Aires she had rented in the name of Maria del Carmen Rodriquez two summers back and kept ever since. There was an Argentinean credit card in her new-old name. And, finally, there were more than enough pounds and euros in used currency to cover her immediate needs.

  One detail would need further attention. The woman in the Argentinean passport was dark—her natural color—and no one in Britain had seen Maria as anything but a blonde for twenty-five years.

  But still, the briefcase contained the keys to a new life, if she chose to use them. And there would surely never be a better time to do it, for those from the academy who would normally have pursued her for revenge or spite were themselves either dead or in disarray.

  And there was another factor.

  On the night of the ceremony, once she found herself clear of the temple and still in one piece, she had simply walked, driven by fear—but also, as she now realized, by an instinct wiser than her wisest calculations might have been. Finding herself on the Bayswater Road, she’d turned towards Lancaster Gate, then down Gloucester Terrace, right at the Craven Road, and so to Paddington Station.

  The key to her deposit box had been, as always, on a chain around her neck. She removed the brief case and furnished herself with money from it. Then she hailed a taxi, told the driver that she found herself unexpectedly in London without luggage, and asked him to take her to a small, respectable hotel where she could await its arrival. At the hotel, she explained her situation in the same terms, booked a room for two nights, paid cash in advance, and went to bed.

  Throughout the following day, which was a Saturday, she made discreet purchases—some clothes and other personal items and a small lightweight suitcase of good quality. Everywhere she paid cash.

  She also watched television. And scanned the newspapers.

  A fire at an educational institute might not have been a national story, but a Member of Parliament and a prominent

  siding stAr 249 trade unionist among its victims made it news. What mattered to Maria, however, was that evidently nobody knew what had happened to her. Pictures of Maria Coleman leaving the academy did not appear until the evening newscasts, but when they did, they gave her a fright. Whoever took them evidently knew what they were doing. They were night shots, but they were quite good. And of course the police were appealing for witnesses. Surely it was possible that someone here at the hotel would recognize her and notify them?

  So here was her choice.

  On the one hand, she loathed and feared most of her colleagues at the academy. And even to think about that final cer- emony still terrified her. She remembered very well what she’d said as she ran down the stairs: “Oh God, if I get out of here I’ll never come back!”

  And she had got out.

  Such were the arguments for disappearing.

  On the other hand most if not all of those she feared at the academy appeared to be dead or to have disappeared. And although the fire had interrupted the academy’s plans, it would by no means put a stop to them. If she chose to share in the harvest she would have to be there to reap it. No doubt she’d have to explain herself, to answer questions, but she had, after all, committed no crime. She’d panicked at the fire and gone to ground in a small hotel for a few days. People might call her foolish or hysterical, but it was hard to see what other accusations they might make.

  That, then, was the argument for going back.

  She sat for some time.

  At last she nodded.

  “Ya sè lo que voi a hacer,” she said aloud. It was time to take a shower and wash her hair.

  *** At ten’ o’clock that Sunday morning the quiet woman, who had arrived at the hotel in the middle of the night with a black briefcase but no luggage, checked out.

  She had two strokes of luck.

  The first was that the young man who booked her in and was the only member of the staff to get a good look at her never watched anything on television except sports.

  The second was that when she came to pay her bill, he wasn’t on duty. She was now wearing a coat and a crimson silk headscarf. The receptionist, who thought her rather attractive, happened to notice a dark curl that escaped from the headscarf. The young man, had he been on duty, might well have remembered that the woman who had arrived coatless, scarfless, and hatless, had been a blonde.

  FiFty-nine

  New York. Wednesday, November 5.

  Charlie Brown started to look at his watch for the fourth time in five minutes and just managed to stop himself. He knew perfectly well what time it was. Well after midnight by his inner clock, and in view of tomorrow’s meeting he ought to be in bed. Instead, he was standing in the middle of a roomful of people he didn’t know, behaving—and feeling—like a nervous adolescent. Well, he was nervous. To his soul he was an academic, never happier than when at his studies or in the throes of scholarly debate, but the discovery at Siding Spring Observatory had landed him in a world as alien to him as it was unexpected. No. “Landed” was hardly the word. It was more that he’d been plunged into it and was now being swept along by it like a twig in a torrent.

  Within hours of their original discovery he, Zaziwe, and Thaddeus had been summoned to the British High Commission in Canberra, there to sign the Official Secrets Act in the presence of the high commissioner himself. The Australians involved— Tom Daniels and the rest—had, he gathered, received similar instructions from their own government. Zaziwe and Thaddeus and Tom then returned at the joint request of the British and Australian governments to continue monitoring events with the Australians at Siding Springs. The observatory itself, to the evident irritation of everyone involved, had already become a restricted site—which meant that no one could get in or out without permission of the Australian military.

  Charlie might have accepted this regimen without complaint. Those inside were, after all, fed and warm and free to get on with their work. But for him there was no such peace. As the senior British scientist involved, he had to be heard and seen by various powers-that-be, and that meant no-notice flights from Canberra to London, then to Brussels, then Washington, and now New York. True, he was given first-class seats on the flights and admission to VIP lounges that had never been open to him as a mere academic. But still it made his head spin.

  So here he was in Manhattan, appointed by her majesty’s government to observe and evaluate a United Nations committee meeting scheduled for the fo
llowing day. In the meantime he was attending a diplomatic reception. Quite why he was attending was unclear to him, save that two young men from the British Foreign Office who had apparently been assigned to run this part of his life evidently thought he should. Absurd. He was here because he and his colleagues had persuaded the powers-that-be that they were facing a crisis without parallel. So what did they ask him to do? Stand around and chat, drink in hand, as if nothing were happening!

  He stepped back to avoid a harassed-looking waiter who was trying to pass him with a tray—and bumped into something soft. That was another thing. There were far too many people here. He turned to face whoever he’d all but knocked down.

  Large brown eyes under long lashes. Fine, tawny hair. Tiptilted nose. Small, slender, and elegant.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. She smiled.

  “You’re welcome!” Voice low and pleasant. American. From the look of her he’d thought somehow she’d be European. Perhaps French.

  siding stAr 253 “Er—I’m Charlie Brown,” he said. “As in Peanuts.” Why was he babbling? It must be jet lag.

  “And I’m Natalie Lawrence.” Again she smiled. “Lawrence as in ‘of Arabia.’”

  He grinned back. She was nice enough to treat his daft remark as if it deserved a response and quick enough to cap it.

  Conversation prospered for several minutes. He learned that she was a consultant translator for the US government at the UN and told her he was an astronomer working on a project for the British government.

  “Doesn’t the UN have translators of its own?” he said.

  “Of course they do—good ones! But we’re Americans. We don’t like to think anyone else can do anything as we can, so we have our own. Me! And Erich over there”—she nodded towards a man at the other side of the room—“and a few more. Just to keep the others honest. At least, that’s what we think.”

  “So you’re fluent in dozens of languages?”

  “Well, I only do the European stuff. I’m quite good at French, I suppose. And my Italian and my Spanish are decent. German’s a bit weak but I cope.”

  “What she means”—this from a willowy, rather beautiful young man with long blond hair and a slight accent that was probably Russian—“is that Mademoiselle Natalie Delage D’Amblimont Sumter Lawrence speaks French so perfectly that she is regularly taken by the French to be a contesse—and indeed she really is a descendant of Capetian kings. Her Italian and her Spanish are somewhat marred by the fact that she speaks them with a slight and, in the opinion of many, rather charming French accent. And as for her German!—that, I fear, is so poor that when excited she’s occasionally been known to make a tiny grammatical error. In other words our Natalie is not only beautiful but a genius. Thank God she never studied Russian or I’d be out of a job. Try the canapes with the green things on top, lovely lady. They’re delicious.”

  The willowy young man passed on his way.

  “Sounds like an admirer,” Charlie said.

  She grinned. “Not a very dangerous one. Boris is gay.”

  “And is all that really you? I mean, you do have a wonderful name! And wonderful ancestors!”

  “Yes, I do, don’t I? The result of a long and complicated family history in South Carolina and three continents. But don’t even try to remember it! Natalie Lawrence is what everyone calls me. It just that Boris is Russian, so of course he loves long names nobody can remember. And he loves the fact that lots of my name is French. I sometimes think all cultured Russians really want to live in Paris.”

  He laughed. “Quite a lot of them do.”

  Then came the man he understood to be their host, dragging them both away to people they “must” meet. Hers was an American industrialist. His was a German scientist.

  Natalie Lawrence found herself listening for what seemed an age to the industrialist, who was hot on the subject of a new soft drink from which the world in general and his company in particular would greatly benefit.

  “What about the problems with the economy?” she said when at last there was a break in his flow. “Isn’t this quite a dif- ficult time to launch a new product nation-wide?”

  “You’re talking nonsense, honey. Everyone knows there are no real problems with the economy. It’ll swing up in the next few weeks, well before RockPop is on the market.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I do so enjoy it when my contribution to a conversation is dismissed as not even worth discussion.”

  “You’re welcome, honey. No, what’s important, what you need to understand, is marketing.”

  Amazing.

  “Never touch anything, honey, unless you’re sure of the marketing. But this’ll be a big one. Even Coke and Pepsi. You watch. They’re going to suffer.”

  “Amazing,” she said, when he paused for breath, “Simply amazing,” and excused herself.

  And now, just for a minute, she would stand by herself in this corner, sip her wine, and recover.

  “Hiram J. Cornelius, ma’am. Admiral, United States Navy.”

  “Hello, I’m Natalie Lawrence.”

  “Delighted to make your acquaintance, ma’am. Of course, I’m retired now, just an old sea dog. Went through the whole of World War II in the Pacific, though.”

  “Really!”

  “Yes ma’am. Midway, Guadalcanal, the Philippines. Just about every significant action, Hiram J. Cornelius was there. It’s quite a story.”

  Oh Lord, he was going to tell it.

  He was.

  He was a very old man—indeed, if what he said was true, though still hale, he had to be in his nineties or at the very least his late eighties. And he had been a hero. So, being of a kind heart (she hoped), she would listen as best she could. And indeed the war in the Pacific was more interesting than RockPop.

  Finally, having arrived at Japanese surrender and the USS Missouri, she felt able to excuse herself without being ungracious—only to be engulfed by two large young men from Yale who began without apology to describe for her their roles in the Yale eight, of which one was stroke and the other bow.

  At this point it occurred to her that she had certainly drunk all the wine she needed and perhaps rather more (her glass had been regularly replenished throughout the sailor’s narrative, and she, now she came to think about it, had not been especially cautious in emptying it) and so now she was entirely ready to go home.

  Carefully she put down her glass, waved away the waiter who immediately approached to refill it, and waited.

  “Excuse me,” she said when one of the young men finally paused for breath, “I think I ought to tell you something.” She had their attention. In fact they were staring at her.

  “Unlike you,” she said, “I am not a great athlete. Nor a war hero, nor an industrialist about to make millions for … well, for anyone. I do, however, do something, and I’m very proud of it.”

  “Of course,” said the taller of the two young men. “What is it?”

  “Well, now, I’m so glad you asked me. I was beginning to think you never would. I am…” She stood up very straight. “A translator. If you’re negotiating an international treaty, everybody’d better know what everybody else is talking about. So translators are extraordinarily important. And I happen to be an extraordinarily good one. In fact, I’m brilliant. Everyone says so. Everyone. Without exception. Including Boris, who is tall and beautiful and extraordinarily good at Russian. In fact it’s his native tongue. And now would you please go and find me a taxi?”

  The two young men stopped staring at her, looked at each other and then, without a word, obeyed.

  Charlie had glimpsed her twice. Once being chatted up by an old fellow with gray hair and once with two strapping young men. He didn’t like the look of the young men at all. They oozed virility.

  Now he looked for her in all the public rooms, twice in each, and she was nowhere to be seen. Obviously she had left. His only consolation was that the two strapping young men were still very much in evidence, so at least she hadn’t
left with them.

  Still he was annoyed, and even though the young men were still around, he found himself imagining all the other smooth, sophisticated blokes she might have left with—leaving him, naturally, the idiot knight, alone and palely loitering.

  He must be jet-lagged.

  Or losing his mind.

  He’d been sent here in a situation of extreme urgency to discuss what might be done about the probable destruction of all life on earth, indeed, the likely end of the solar system.

  And here he was having fantasies about a woman he’d just met.

  Didn’t he just possibly have anything more important that he ought to be thinking about?

  Resolutely, he determined to banish Mademoiselle Natalie Delage D’Amblimont Sumter Lawrence from his thoughts. He also determined to tell his Foreign Office minders, whom he could see propping up the bar, that he needed to leave. It was late, and presumably they’d like him to have such wits as he had about him for the UN meeting tomorrow morning.

  It was interesting, though, that he‘d remembered the whole of Natalie Lawrence’s name, having heard it only once. Funny what tricks the mind will play when it ought to be concentrating on something else.

  And end of the planet or not, nothing could alter the fact that in his opinion Mademoiselle Natalie Delage D’Amblimont Sumter Lawrence was absolutely bloody gorgeous.

  That was not negotiable.

  sixty

  Exeter. Joseph Stirrup’s apartment. Thursday, November 6. 12:03 a.m.

  “I

  ’ve got to get to the bottom of it if it takes me the rest of the year. It happened on my watch and it’ll drive me crazy till I can sort it.” Joseph was on the phone. He’d shared his hopes over the computer break-in with Alan Sanders, a young Jamaican now working for the FBI in Washington who also specialized in computing. Alan listened as a friend should and made sympathetic noises. Then he went further.

  “Joseph,” he said, “I think we just may be able to help. No promises, but let me make some calls and then get back to you in a half-hour or so.”