Carson went off to form his own group and soon had a healthy following who shared the Hollow Earth belief with him. Sarah continued to go with her father to his meetings (she knew he had a weak heart and also acted, sometimes, as his chauffeur).
Then Carson formed the impression that Ryan was an enemy.
Sarah told Ryan this.
'It's the old story—if you're not with me, you're against me.
He's getting a bit funny lately ' she said. 'I'm worried about his heart.' She stroked Ryan's chest as they lay together in the hotel bed. 'He's told me to stop seeing you, darling.'
'Are you going to?'
'I think so.'
'Just to humour him? He's eligible for a nut-house now, you know. Even the bloody Patriot fanatics think he's barmy.'
'He's my old dad,' she said. 'I love him.'
'You're hung up on him, if you ask me.'
'Darling, I wouldn't have gone for you if I didn't have a hefty father complex, would I?'
Ryan felt anger. Stupid old fool, Carson! And now his daughter trying to put him down.
'That was clever,' he said bitterly. 'I didn't know you had such sharp knives in your arsenal.'
'Come off it, darling. You brought it up. Anyway, I was only joking. You're not at all bad for your age.'
'Thanks.'
He got up, scowling.
He put a glass under the tap in the wash-basin and filled it with water. He sipped the water gingerly and then threw it down the sink. 'Christ. I'm sure they're putting something in the water, these days.'
'Haven't you heard?' She stretched out in the bed. Her body was near-perfect. She seemed to be taunting him with it. "There's everything in the water—LSD, cyanide, stuff to rot your brain— you name it!'
He grunted. 'Sure. I think it's probably just dead rats...' He got his shirt and began to put it on. 'It's time we were going. It's nine o'clock. The curfew starts at ten.'
'You don't want one last fuck. For old time's sake?'
'You mean it then. About not seeing each other again.'
'I mean it, darling. Make no mistake. The condition he's in, it would kill him...'
'He'd be better off dead;'
'That's as may be.' She swung her long legs off the bed and began to dress. 'Will you give me a lift home?'
'For old time's sake...'
The mixture of rage and depression was getting on top of him.
He tried to shrug it off, but it got worse. With all his business worries—production falling, custom declining, debts unpaid— he didn't need this. He knew there was no chance of her changing her mind. She was a direct girl. Her pass at him had been direct.
Now the brush-off was direct. He hadn't realised how much she had been bolstering his ego. It was ridiculous to rely on something like that. But he had been. His feelings now told him so.
They left the hotel. The sun was red in the sky. His car was in the street outside. The curfew seemed pretty pointless, for there was hardly anyone in Oxford Street at all.
Ryan stood by the car looking at the ruins of the burnt-out department stores, the gutted office blocks, mementos of the Winter Riots.
Sarah Carson looked out of the window. 'Admiring the view,' she said. 'You're a bit of a romantic on the quiet, aren't you?'
'I suppose I am,' he said as he climbed into the car and started the engine. 'Though I've always considered myself a realist.'
'Just a selfish romantic.'
'You're making it harder than you need to,' he said as he took the car down the street.
'Sorry. I'm not much of a sentimentalist. You can't afford to be, these days.'
'You want me to take you all the way back to Croydon?'
'You don't expect me to walk through the Antifem zone, do you?'
'Zone? Have they got control of a whole area now?'
'All but. They're trying to set up their own little state in Balham —allowing no women in at all. Any woman they catch, they kill.
Lovely.'
Ryan sniffed. They might have the right bloody attitude.'
'Don't get morbid, sweetie. Can we go round Balham?'
'It's the quickest route since the Brighton Road got blown to bits in Brixton.'
'Try going round the other side, then.'
'I'll see.'
They drove for a while in silence.
London was bleak, blackened and broken.
'Ever thought of getting out?' Sarah said as he drove down Vauxhall Bridge Road, trying to avoid the potholes. He had begun to feel slightly sick. Partly her, he thought, and partly the damned agoraphobia.
'Where is there to go?' he said. 'The rest of the world seems to be worse off than England.'
'Sure.'
'And you need money to live abroad,' he said. 'Since nobody recognises anyone else's currency any more, what would I live on?'
'You think people are going to buy a lot of toys this Christmas?'
She was looking at the completely flattened houses on the right.
His depression and his anger grew. He shrugged. He knew she was right.
'You and my old dad are in the wrong business,' she said cheerfully. 'At least he had the sense to go into politics. That's a bit more secure—for a while, at any rate.'
'Maybe.' He drove over the bridge. It shook as he crossed.
'A strong wind'll finish that,' she said.
'Shut up, Sarah.' He gripped the wheel hard.
'Oh God. Try to finish this thing off gracefully, darling. I thought you were such a good business man. Such a cunning bastard. Such a cool bird, working out all the odds. That's what you told me.'
'No need to throw it in my face. I've got plans, my love, that you haven't an inkling of.'
'Not the spaceship idea!' She laughed.
'How—?'
'You didn't tell me darling. I went through your briefcase a couple of weeks ago. Are you really serious? You're not going to take thirteen people to Siberia and steal that U. N. spaceship that's been standing idle for the last year.'
'It's ready to go.'
'They're still bickering over who owns what bit of it and whose nationals have got a right to go in it. It'll never take off.'
Ryan smiled secretly.
'You're nuttier than my old man, sweetie!'
Ryan scowled.
'Wait till I tell my friends,' she said. 'I'll be dining out on it for weeks.'
'You'd better not tell anyone, my love,' He spoke through his teeth. 'I mean it.'
'Come on, darling. We all have our illusions, but this is ridiculous. How would you fly one of those things?'
'It's fully automatic,' he said. 'It's the most sophisticated piece of machinery ever invented.'
'And you think they're going to let you pinch it?'
'We're already in touch with the people at the station,' he said.
They seem to agree we can do it.'
'How are you in touch with them?'
'It's not hard, Sarah. Old-fashioned radio. For some time a few scientifically minded pragmatists like myself have been working towards a way of getting out of this mess, since it seems impossible to save the human race from sinking back to the Dark Ages...'
'You could have saved it once,' Sarah said, turning to look directly at him. 'If you hadn't been so bloody careful. So bloody selfish!'
'It wasn't as simple as that.'
'Your generation and the generation before that could have done something. The seeds of all this ridiculous paranoia and xenophobia were there then. God—such a waste! This century could have been a century of Utopia. You and your mothers and fathers turned it into Hell.'
'It might look like that...'
'Darling, it was like that.'
He shrugged.
'And now you're getting out,' she said. 'Leaving the mess behind.
Your talk of "pragmatism" is so much bloody balls! You're as much an escaper as my poor daft old dad! Maybe more of one— and less pleasant, for that—because you might fucking succeed!'
/>
They were driving through Stockwell. The sun was setting but no street lighting came on.
'You feel guilty because you're letting me down, don't you?' he said. 'That's what all this display is about, isn't it?'
'No. You're a good fuck. But I never cared much for your character, darling.'
'You'll have to go a long way to find a better one in these dark days.' He tried to say it as a joke, but it was evident he believed it.
'Selfish and opinionated,' she said. 'Pragmatism. Ugh!'
'I'll drop you off here then, shall I?'
He stopped the car. It sank on its cushion of air.
She peered out into the darkness.'Where's "here"?'
'Balham,' he said.
'Don't play games, darling. Let's get this over with. You were taking me all the way to Croydon, remember.'
'I'm a bit tired of your small-talk—darling.'
'All right.' She leaned back. 'I'll button my lip, I promise. I'll say nothing until we get to Croydon and then I'll give you a sweet "thank you".'
But he had made his decision. It wasn't malice. It was selfpreservation. It was for Josephine and the boys, and for the group.
He wasn't enjoying what he was doing.
'Get out of the car, Sarah.'
'You take me bloody home the way you said you would!'
'Out.'
She looked into his eyes. 'My God, Ryan...'
'Go on.' He pushed her shoulder, leaned over her and opened the door. 'Go on.'
'Jesus Christ. All right.' She picked up her handbag from the seat and got out of the car. 'It's something of a classic situation. But a bit too classic really. The sex war's hotted up in this part of the world.'
'That's your problem,' he said.
'I'm not likely to get out of this alive, Ryan.'
That's your problem.'
She took a deep breath. 'I won't tell anyone about your stupid spaceship idea, if that's what's worrying you. Who'd believe me, anyway?'
'I've got a family and friends to worry about, Sarah. They believe me.'
'You dirty shit.' She walked off into the darkness.
They must have been waiting for her all the time because she screamed—a high-pitched, ugly scream—she cried out for him to help her. Her second scream was cut short.
Ryan closed the door of the car and locked it. He started the engine and switched on the headlights.
He saw her face in the lights. It stuck out above the black mass of Antifems in their monklike robes.
It was only her face.
Her body lay on the ground, still clasping her handbag.
Her head was on the end of the pole.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ryan lies in his bunk with his log-book and his stylus. He has been there for two days now. John comes in occasionally, but doesn't bother him, realising that he does not want to be disturbed. He lets Ryan get his own food when he wants to and looks after the running of the ship. To make sure that Ryan rests, he has even turned off the console in Ryan's cabin.
Ryan spends most of his time with the log-book. He removed it from the desk originally to make sure that John didn't come across it.
He reads over the first entry he made when he brought it back to the cabin.
What I did to Sarah can be justified, of course, in that she could have ruined this project. I had to be sure nothing wrecked it. The fact that we are all safe and aboard is evidence that I took the right precautions—trusting no one outside the group—making sure that everything was done with the utmost secrecy. We kept contact only with the Russian group—about the last outpost of rational humanity that we knew about.
Would I have done it in that way if she had not turned me down in such an unpleasant manner? I don't know. Considering the state of things at the time, I behaved no worse, no less humanely, than anyone else. You had to fight fire with fire. And if it—and certain other things—is on my conscience, at least it isn't on anyone else's conscience. The boys are clean. So is Josephine. So are most of the others...
He sighs as he reads the entry over. He shifts his body in the bunk.
'All right, old chap?'
John has come, as silently as ever, into the cabin. He looks a trifle tired himself.
'I'm fine.' Ryan closes the book quickly. 'Fine. Are you all right?'
'I'm coping very well. I'll let you know if anything crops up.'
'Thanks.'
John leaves. Ryan returns his attention to the log, turning the pages until he comes to a fresh one.
He continues writing: There is no doubt about it. I have blood on my hands. That's probably the reason I've been having bad dreams. Any normal, half-way decent man would. I took it on myself to do, at least. I didn't involve anyone else.
When we hijacked the Albion transport, I had hoped there would be no trouble. Neither would there have been, I think, if the crew had been all English. Incredible! I always knew the Irish were excitable, but that stupid fellow who tried to get the gun from me in mid-air deserved all he got. He must have been Irish. There's no other explanation. I was never a racialist, but one had to admit that there were certain virtues the English have which other races don't share. I suppose that is racialism of a sort. But not the unhealthy sort. I was horrified when I heard that the foreigners in the camps were being starved to death. I would have done something about it if I could. But by that time it had gone too far. Maybe Sarah was right.
Maybe I could have stopped it if I hadn't been so selfish. I always considered myself to be an enlightened man—a liberal man. I was known for it.
He stops again, staring at the wall.
The rot had set in before my day. H-bombs, nuclear radiation, chemical poisoning, insufficient birth control, mismanaged economics, misguided political theories. And then—panic.
And no room for error. Throw a spanner in the works of a society as sophisticated and highly tuned as ours was and—that's it.
Chaos.
They tried to bring simple answers to complicated problems. They looked for messiahs when they should have been looking at the problems. Humanity's old trouble. But this time humanity did for itself.
Absolutely.
It is odd, he thinks, that I will never know how it all turned out.
Just as well, of course, from the point of view of our kids. We left just in time. They were bombing each other to smithereens...
Another few days, he writes, and we wouldn't have made it. I timed it pretty well, all things considered.
*
Ryan had led the party out to London Airport where the big Albion transport was preparing to take off on its bombing mission over Dublin. They were all in military kit for Ryan was posing as a general with his staff.
They had driven straight out on to the runway and were up the steps and into the plane before anyone knew what had happened.
At gunpoint Ryan had told the pilot to take off.
Within quarter of an hour they were heading for Russia...
It had been over the landing strip on the bleak Siberian Plain that the Irishman—he must have been an Irishman—had panicked. How an Irishman had managed to remain under cover without revealing his evident racial characteristics, Ryan would never know.
For two hours Ryan had sat in the co-pilot's seat with his Purdy automatic trained on the pilot while Henry and Masterson looked after the rest of the crew and John Ryan and Uncle Sidney stayed with the families.
Ryan was tired. He felt drained of energy. His body ached and the butt of the gun was slippery with the sweat from his hands. He felt filthy and his flesh was cold. As the Albion came down through the clouds he saw the huge spaceship standing on the launching field. It was surrounded by webs of gantries, like a caged bird of prey, like Prometheus bound.
His attention was on the ship when the Irish pilot leapt from his seat.
'You damned traitor! You disgusting renegade...' The pilot lunged for the gun, screaming at the top of his voice, his face writhing with his hatre
d and his insanity.
Ryan fell back, pressing the trigger. The Purdy muttered and a stream of tiny explosive bullets hit the pilot all over bit chest and face and his bloody body collapsed on top of Ryan.
Pilotless, the big transport began to shake.
Ryan pushed the body off him and reached up to throw the lever that would put the plane automatically on Emergency Landing Procedure. The plane's rockets fired and the transport juddered as its trajectory was arrested. It began to go down vertically on its rockets.
Ryan wiped the sweat from his lip and then retched. He had smeared the pilot's blood all over his mouth. He cleaned his face with his sleeve, watching as the plane neared the ground, screaming towards the overgrown airstrip to the north of the launching field.
John Ryan put his head into the cabin 'My God! What happened?'
'The pilot just went mad,' Ryan said hoarsely. 'You'd better check everyone's got their safety belts on, John. We're going to make a heavy landing.'
The Albion was close to the ground now, its rockets burning the concrete strip. Ryan buckled his own safety belt.
Five feet above the ground the rockets cut out and the plane belly-flopped on to the concrete.
Shaken, Ryan got out of his seat and stumbled into the crew section. Alexander was crying and Tracey Masterson was screaming and Ida Henry was moaning, but the rest were very quiet.
'John,' Ryan said. 'Get the doors open and get everybody out of the plane as soon as possible will you?' He still held the Purdy.
John Ryan nodded and Ryan went aft to where Masterson and Henry were covering the rest of the crew.
'What was all that about?' James Henry said suspiciously. 'You trying to kill us all, Ryan?'
The pilot lost his head. We had to make an emergency rocketpowered landing—vertical.' Ryan looked over the rest of the crew—four boys and a woman of about thirty. They all looked scared. 'Did you know your captain was Irish?' Ryan asked them. 'And you were going to bomb Dublin? You can bet your life he was going to try and make a landing.'
The crew stared at him incredulously.
'Well, it was true,' Ryan said. 'But don't worry. I've dealt with him.'
The woman said: 'You murdered him. Is that what you did?'
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