`Actually,' he said, `I expect you're all quite busy, really. Perhaps it'd be easier all round if you just showed me the way - draw a map or something - and then you lot could get on with whatever it is you're supposed to be doing. I mean, there's no point all of us trooping around, is there?'
The clerks looked at each other.
`Sounds all right to me,' one of them said.
`Great.'
`Fine.'
`Thank you.' Bedevere reached down and pulled Turquine by the ear.
`Go 'way,' Turquine growled. "Nother ten minutes.' He lolled forward and began to snore.
`Turkey!' Bedevere shouted. `Wake up!' He turned round. `Sorry about this,' he said.
`Quite all right.'
`Don't mention it.'
Bedevere nodded amiably and kicked Turquine hard on the knee.
Ten minutes or so later, they were sitting in an office.
Quite a nice office, if you like them tidy, with snatching matt-black in-tray, out-tray, anglepoise lamp and desk tidy. The chairs were comfortable, at any rate.
`Pleased to meet you,' Bedevere said.
`Likewise.'
The Atlantean was different, somehow. He was tall, young, with short hair and big ears. He looked at home in his surroundings; in fact, you could well believe that he was chosen to go with the decor.
`Allow me to introduce myself,' he said. 'Diomedes, Chief Assistant Technical Officer, at your service.'
`Thank you,' Bedevere replied, and gave Turquine a savage nudge in the ribs. Turquine simply nodded and went back to sleep. Diomedes smiled.
`Don't worry about it,' he said. `It takes some people like that, being put on deposit. Especially if you're not used to it.'
'Um...,
'Exactly. And now,' Diomedes went on, `I expect you'd like to know what Atlantis is all about, wouldn't you?'
`Yes,' Bedevere lied. `Absolutely.'
`Right.' Diomedes nodded, and pulled a jar of paperclips towards him. As he spoke, he linked them up to form a chain.
`In a sense,' he said, `Atlantis is a bank.'
He stopped speaking, and gave Bedevere a keen look. Oh hell, thought the knight, he wants me to say something intelligent. `In a sense,' he hazarded.
`Spot on,' Diomedes replied, nodding vigorously. `That is, in the same way Mussolini did his bit for the Italian railways, and Jesus Christ had his City and Guilds in carpentry, Atlantis is a bank. It's also something else, something rather special.' Diomedes smiled, catlike, and folded his fingers, by way of saying, Wow, this is going to curdle your brains.
Bedevere was uncomfortably aware that his right leg had gone to sleep.
`Atlantis,' Diomedes said, `is a repository for money.'
`Right.'
`Precisely.' The smile widened, until it was in danger of losing itself behind Diomedes' ears. `You're starting to get the point now, aren't you?'
At this point, Turquine woke up.
He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and then leant forward.
`Hello, Trev,' he said. `What are you doing here?'
Diplomats must feel this way, Bedevere thought. You spend hours in airplanes, hotel rooms, bloody uncomfortable conference rooms with hard seats and nowhere to stretch your legs out; and just when you think you've got something lashed together that might just possibly work, some idiot of a basketball player defects and you might as well have stayed in bed.
Leave them to it, he said to himself.
`It is Trev, isn't it?' Turquine was saying. `Trev Hastings, used to be behind the counter at the Global Equitable in Perry Bar? You remember me, I used to deliver pizzas. Yours was always ... Hold it, I never forget a pizza. Double pepperoni and-'
`That,' said Diomedes coldly, `was a long time ago.'
In retrospect, Bedevere couldn't remember actually moving from his seat, but he would have sworn blind he jumped about a mile in the air.
'Perry Bar?' he said.
`We have many offices,' Diomedes said. `It's a big orga.nisation.' Something about the juxtaposition of his eyebrows and the bridge of his nose passed messages to Turquine's brain.
`Anyway,' said Turquine, `long time no see. Sorry, you were saying?'
Diomedes relaxed his eyebrows. `Money,' he said. 'What is money?'
Before Turquine could reply, Bedevere gave him a smart tap on the shins with his toe. Then he lifted an eyebrow and said, `Ah!'
It was the right thing to do. `I mean,' Diomedes went on, `we all know what it does. Great. So the Son of Man was quite capable of knocking you up a perfectly decent Welsh dresser.
But that's not what he was all about, is it?'
Turquine, to Bedevere's great relief, seemed to have got into the swing of it, because he scratched his ear, nodded and said, `Precisely.' He spoilt it rather by winking at Bedevere immediately afterwards; luckily, though, Diomedes didn't notice.
`Gold 337,' Diomedes said. He reached across the desk and caught hold of one of those Newton's cradle things. `This continent is built on it. It's anti-magnetic. Anti-magnetism makes the world turn. Okay so far?'
Bedevere nodded. `Sure,' he said. He shrugged nonchalantly. `Everyone knows that. Tell me something I couldn't get from the Sunday supplements.'
`Right,' said Diomedes, and just then, Bedevere realised that yes, this man could be called Trevor. In fact, he probably was. `So gold is money, okay?'
`Okay.'
`And money is magic.'
In another part of the building, the bell rang for the afternoon history lesson.
Two junior Atlanteans took their place at the back of the class. One of them had a mouse in his pocket. Just as some flowers did manage to grow between the trenches in Flanders, so the schoolchildren in Atlantis do have mice.
They catch them. They build little hutches for them out of shoe-boxes. They feed them on breadcrumbs and bits of apple-core. Then they sell them.
By the time their reach the sixth form, some Atlanteans have already made their first million just from dealing in mouse futures.
The teacher, a tall lady with deceptively thin arms, rapped on her desk.
`Good morning, children,' she said.
`Good morning, teacher.'
`Open your history books,' said the teacher, `and turn to page 58.'
She took a deep breath, and hesitated for a moment. She'd been teaching for twenty years, and this bit still gave her the willies.
`Now then,' she said. `Which of you can tell me what money is?'
The usual bewildered silence. The usual rustle at the back of the class as a mouse changed hands under the desk. The usual blank faces.
`Well?'
`Please, miss.'
Isocrates Minor, the teacher noticed. Ten arid a half years old, and already he's got a cellular phone strapped to the handlebars of his bike. The teacher nodded approvingly and made a mental note to ask him about moving heavily into short-dated gilts after the lesson.
`Please, miss,' said Isocrates Minor, `money is magic, miss.'
`Well done, Isocrates Minor. Now then . . .'
`Miss.'
The teacher frowned. There is such a thing as showing off. `All right,' she said. `Questions later.'
`Yes, but miss...'
`Later! Now then, money is magic. What does magic do, anyone?'
`Miss!'
`No, someone else this time. Diogenes, let's hear from you for a change.'
A small face crumpled at the back of the room, as a daydream of a nationwide chain of mousebroking offices faded away and was replaced by panic.
`Don't know, miss.'
`Anyone else? Laodicea?'
A small girl stood up and smirked. `Magic,' she recited, `is the name commonly given to the technology based on the exploitation of the remarkable properties of the gold isotope Gold 337. Gold 337 was discovered by Simon Magus..,'
`Yes, thank you, dear.'
`... in the year 4000BC,' continued Laodicea, `when he was hoeing his turnip field. He quickly grasped the immense potential o
f-'
`Thank you, dear,' said the teacher. `Now, as soon as the early Atlanteans realised how special gold was, they started digging it up and making magical things out of it. Now, can anyone give me an example of the sort of things ... yes, Lycophron?'
The small boy blushed under his freckles. `Buttons, miss?' he suggested.
The teacher sighed. `No, not buttons.'
`Waste-paper baskets.'
`Catapults.'
`Space rockets.'
`My uncle's got gold buttons, miss, on his blazer. He showed me...'
`The ancient Atlanteans,' said the teacher magisterially, `made coins out of the gold they found in the earth. When they'd got lots of these coins, they put them in a bank...'
A hand shot up. `Please, miss.'
`Yes, Nicomedes?'
`Why, miss?'
The teacher braced herself. `To keep them safe, of course. Now. . .'
`Why didn't they put them under the bed, miss?'
`That's not terribly safe, is it, dear? Now. . .'
`My dad keeps all his money under the bed, miss.'
The teacher felt her knuckles tightening up. `Well, I don't think that's a very sensible thing to do, dear. Now...'
`My dad says he doesn't trust banks. He says if he put his money in the bank, Mummy would see the statements and know how much money he's got. What's a statement, miss?'
`A bank,' said the teacher firmly. `And then the bank would lend money to people so that they could start up businesses, and so the money was all put to work, and the country prospered. But then something very peculiar started to happen. Now, does anyone know what that was?'
Silence again. This time, the teacher decided, just tell them. Then we'll all be home in time for tea.
`What happened,' she said, therefore, `was that all the magic in the coins in the bank started leaking out - ' She said it well. Several of the more nervous and imaginative children went quite pale. `- leaking all over the place. It got so bad that the rooms in the bank where they kept all the coins stopped being square and became round.'
Several hands shot up, but she ignored them. She didn't want to explain; it wasn't very nice to think about. When she'd been a student, she'd had to read the description of it by a clerk who'd got trapped in the vault overnight. The bit where he described what the gold ingots did to each other when they thought nobody was looking still made her feel ill to this day.
`Quite round,' she said. `And that wasn't all, not by a long way. So the wise elders of Atlantis decided that they'd have to do something about it. Now, does anyone . . .?'
A mistake. But it was too late by then.
`Please, miss.'
`Yes, Hippolyta.'
Hippolyta cleared her throat. `The Atlanteans founded the Central Research Institute (AD477), whose principal objects were research into the relationship between the gold's powerful anti-magnetic field and the rest of the world, which is of course attuned to positive magnetism, miss. Their researches revealed that if too much anti-magnetic material was released into the outside world, it would have drastic effects on the stability of the planet, miss. They...'
My God, thought the teacher, that girl will probably 6e Chief Cashier one day. She shuddered.
`Very good, Hippolyta,' she said. `In other words, if array more gold left Atlantis, it would be very bad indeed. So the gold had to stay where it was, buried underground, and all the gold they'd dug up and made into coins had to be put back. Alcibiades, what are you doing with that mouse, bring it here immediately!'
The mouse safely locked in her desk, the teacher pulled herself together and hurried through the rest of the lesson . . .
How the Atlanteans realised that the unique relationship between their gold deposit and the similar deposit on the moon would be jeopardised by further gold exports . . .
How this was a problem, because the entire civilization of Atlantis was now based on the exploitation of money. How the Atlanteans thought about it, and came up with a way of trading in money which didn't actually involve the money ever leaving the earth's crust; a way of getting lots of money in but never paying any money out . . .
How they renamed the gold `capital' and invented financial services...
`Now then,' said the teacher, and looked at her watch. In exactly five seconds, the bell would go, the children would run out into the playground to play football, swing on the swings and form mouse-holding syndicates, and she would retreat to the Common Room for a cigarette and a large sherry.
`Any questions?' she said.
For maybe twenty seconds, which is a long time, nobody said anything. Eventually, Turquine closed his eyes, shook his head and laughed.
`Come on,' he said, `this is a wind-up, isn't it? You always were a bloody comedian, Trev, like the time you got that girl on your reception to swear blind you'd ordered a deep pan Cheese Banquet with double pepperoni and...'
It was Diomedes' turn to look bewildered. He frowned, as if someone had just suggested to him that the sun was a huge practical joke.
`Are you saying you think I've made all that up?' he asked.
`Well,' said Turquine, still smiling jovially, `you have, haven't you? All that cod about the moon being made out of gold. . .'
`It is not,' said Diomedes coldly, `cod.'
`I mean,' Turquine went on, oblivious to the danger signals, `if you'd said made of silver, or maybe if you'd said it was the sun that's made of gold, yes, you might have had me going there for a minute. But...'
Turquine's voice did roughly the same thing as a pint of water might do if spilt in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. `Trev?' he asked.
`I must ask you,' said Diomedes, `not to call me Trev.'
Turquine bristled. `Why not?' he demanded. 'It's your name, isn't it?'
`Was.'
`Bloody good name, too,' Turquine went on. `If ever I saw a born Trev, that's you. All young men with big noses and ties like road accidents who work in building societies are called Trev; it's a well-known fact. Like all dogs are called Rover,' he added sagely.
`Please ...' said Diomedes. Tiny red spots appeared behind the lines of his mouth, and Bedevere came to the conclusion that it was time he intervened. Idiots are all very well in their place, but one mustn't let things get out of hand.
`We're just a little - well, taken aback,' he therefore said. `I mean, it's a bit of a shock, finding out all of a sudden that the world revolves because of money on the moon, and ...' Something occurred to him. `Mind you, it explains things, though, doesn't it? Are interest rates linked to the tides, or something? And what about inflation?'
Diomedes sighed. `Look . . .' he said.
He got no further; because Bedevere, having drawn him oil` guard with his questions, now chose what was, after all, the perfect moment to hit him very hard with the base of the anglepoise lamp. Diomedes made a little gurgling noise, and fell forward across the desk.
`You see,' Bedevere said calmly, standing up and reaching across the table for a bunch of keys he'd spotted some time earlier, `it's all a matter of finesse. Sure, we thump the bastards. But we use our heads, too.'
Turquine grunted. `Speak for yourself,' he replied. `Tried it a couple of times, had a headache for weeks, cut my forehead. Look, you can still see the scar.' He pointed. `Mind you,' he conceded, `one of the little perishers was wearing a helmet at the time.' He pushed the stunned Atlantean away from the desk, rolling his swivel chair aside, and started to go through the desk drawers.
`Calculator,' he said, `another calculator, another calculator . . . Hey, what's this?'
`What?' Bedevere was looking through Diomedes' briefcase. `Oh, that. It's a small solar-powered calculator that looks like a credit card.' He frowned. `Hold on, you don't even know what we're looking for yet.'
`Yes I do,' replied Turquine. `We're looking for the Personal Organiser of-'
`It's not going to be here, is it?' said Bedevere impatiently.
Turquine scowled at him. `And why not?' he said. `It's
in Atlantis, young Snotty said as much. This is Atlantis. Ergo . . .'
Bedevere was surprised. `Where d'you learn expressions like ergo, Turkey?' he asked.
`There was a radio in the van,' Turquine replied. `What are we looking for, then?'
`Food,' Bedevere replied. `I'm starving.'
When they got out into the corridor, unfed and disguised as dangerous fugitive knights, they heard the PA yelling, `Warning! Warning! Unauthorised intruders! Accept no cheques without a banker's card!' This worried them until they found that the noise stopped if you ripped the speakers off the wall and jumped on them.
Actually, that was Turquine's idea. One of his better efforts.
`We're not really making ourselves popular around here, are we?' Bedevere muttered, as they ran along yet another identical passageway.
`Bloody touchy, this lot,' Turquine agreed. `You were right saying we should try the softly-softly approach.'
He paused to bang together the heads of two passing actuaries, and then added, `Mind you, it doesn't seem to be working.'
`True,' Bedevere replied, and he kicked a third actuary in the groin. `You know, I have this feeling we're going about this in the wrong way.'
Bedevere nodded. `I vote we-'
But he was interrupted. A hidden door opened in the wall, and a face materialised and grinned at them.
`This way,' it said. `Quick.'
Turquine hesitated for a split second. `Why?' he said.
`Why not?' the face replied. `Come on.'
The two knights looked at each other.
`That's the best reason I've heard for anything since we got here,' said Bedevere. `After you.'
It was dark, and cold. The walls were bare stone. In the shadows, water dripped and a rat scuttled.
`This is more like it,' said Turquine enthusiastically. `You know, that place was starting to give me the creeps. All that carpet...'
The owner of the face beckoned, and they followed.
`Really bad for the nerves,' Turquine went on, `all that carpet. You get to thinking, My God, if all the sheep that got sheared just to make this lot were lined up nose to tail, they'd probably reach from' - he made a wide gesture with his arms - `Paddington to Euston. But this, it's more like, well, homely.' He stopped to admire a skeleton hanging from chains on the wall. `My Dad had one of those,' he said. `Bought it at a wagon boot sale. Said it made him feel all baronial.'
Grailblazers Tom Holt Page 13