by Bob Shaw
As soon as the job was finished his hunger returned in full strength. He ate his sandwiches quickly, washing them down with mouthfuls of Guinness, and reversed the car up to the road. Resisting the urge to travel faster to make up for lost time, he drove at a conservative speed, never exceeding a hundred kilometers an hour. Villages and towns ghosted past, and by dusk the character of the countryside was changing. The buildings were of darker stone and the vegetation of a deeper green, mistfed, nourished by the soot-ridden atmosphere which had once existed in the industrial north and had left its legacy of enriched soil.
Hutchman began stopping briefly in large towns and mailing bunches of envelopes at central post offices to cut out one stage of the collection process. He reached Stockport early in the eve ning, posted the last of the envelopes — and discovered that the itinerant mission, with its series of short-term goals, had been the only thing that was holding him together. There was nothing for him to do now but wait until it was time to return south to Hastings for his rendezvous with the megalives machine. With the hiatus in the demand for physical activity came a rush of sadness and self-pity. The weather was still cold and dry, so he walked down to the blackly flowing Mersey and tried to arrange his thoughts. Emotional tensions were building up inside him, the sort of tensions which he had always understood could be relieved by crying the way a woman does when a situation becomes too much for her.
Why not do it, then? The thought was strange and repugnant, but he was on his own now, relieved from society’s constraints, and if weeping like a child would ease the strangling torment in his thorax… He sat down guiltily on a wood-slatted seat on the edge of a small green, rested his head on his hands, and tried to cry.
Vicky, he thought, and his mouth slowly dragged itself out of shape. Unrelated image-shards swirled in his mind as his nostalgia for the life he had discarded became unbearable: Vicky’s smile of pleasure as he agreed to make love her way and let her bestride him; the smell of pine needles and mince pies at Christmas; the coolness of a freshly laundered shirt; walking into the toilet immediately after David and finding it not flushed, with his son’s small stools (studded with the chewing gum he insisted on swallowing) floating in the bowl; going shopping for trivia with Vicky on a summer morning and the both of them getting tipsy before lunch without having bought any of the items they went out to get; glowing pictures in the gloom — a line from Sassoon, but relevant enough to be appropriate — and friendly books that hold me late; looking out at his archery butt on a morning when the dew had dulled the grass, making it visually inert, as though seen through polarized glass…
But his mouth remained frozen in the original contortion. His pain grew more intense, yet the tears refused to come.
Finally, swearing bitterly and feeling cheated, Hutchman got to his feet and walked back to his car through black streets which were battlegrounds for tides of cold air. The familiar smell and feel of the car was momentarily comforting. He filled the tank at a self-service station and made a conscious effort to be more constructive in his thinking — the episode by the river had been distressing and futile. The last of the envelopes, including those bound for destinations in Britain, had been mailed and tomorrow they would be read by people in high places. There could be a short delay while qualified men were verifying the pages of maths, and while physicists were confirming that the cestron laser in the specification could be built, but at some time tomorrow the word was going to go out. The message was going to be simple: Find Lucas Hutchman and, if he has a machine, obliterate both the man and his works.
In the few relatively secure hours that were left to him, Hutchman had to find a good hole and crawl into it. A first consideration was that it would be a mistake to remain in Stockport, which was at the warmest end of the postal spoor he had created. The hunters would be informed that an antibomb machine would not be readily portable and could infer that, if it really existed, it was likely to be hidden somewhere in the south and not too far from Hutchman’s home. They could also reason that, having traced a line toward the north of England, their quarry would be likely to double back, both to put them off the scent and to get closer to the hidden machine. That being the case, Hutchman decided on the strength of this pseudo-data, he would continue northward.
He drove up to Manchester, skirted it on the ring road, and went off on a northwesterly tangent with a vague idea of trying to reach the Cumbrian lake district that night. But other considerations began to weigh on his mind. The lake district was a very long way from Hastings and it was the type of area, especially at this time of year, where the authorities would have little difficulty in controlling the exit points. It would be better to lose himself in a population center and — if he did not want to arrive conspicuously in the dead of night — to pick one fairly near at hand. He pulled off the highway and consulted a road map.
The nearest town of any size was Bolton which, to Hutchman’s mind, was the epitome of the traditionally humdrum life of provincial England. Its name produced no overtones, Freudian or otherwise, associated with Crombie-Carson’s “typical spy fantasy”, which made it a good choice from Hutchman’s point of view. And there was the fact that, to the best of his knowledge, not one person he knew lived there — the hunters would be likely to concentrate on areas where Hutchman was known to have friends to which he might turn for help.
With his decision made, he got onto the Salford-Bolton road and drove with the maximum concentration on his surroundings which was becoming a habit. The easiest course would be to check in at a hotel, but presumably that would almost be the most dangerous. He needed to drop completely out of sight. Reaching Bolton, he cruised slowly until he found himself in one of the twilight areas, common to all cities and towns, where large shabby houses fought a losing battle with decay, receiving minimal aid from owners who rented out single rooms. He parked in a street of nervously rustling elms, took his empty suitcase and walked until he saw a house with a card which said “Bed Breakfast” hanging from the catch of a downstairs window.
The woman who answered the doorbell was in her late forties and heavy-bosomed, wearing a pink see-through blouse which covered a complexity of silk straps. Her blonde hair was elaborately piled up above a large-chinned face. A pale-faced boy of seven or eight, wearing striped pajamas, stood close to her with his arms around her thighs.
“Good evening,” Hutchman said uncertainly. “I’m looking for accommodation, and I saw your sign…”
“Oh, yes?” The woman sounded surprised to hear that she had a sign. The boy eyed Hutchman warily from the folds of her skirt.
“Have you any rooms to let?” Hutchman looked beyond her into the dimly-lit hall, with its brown linoleum and dark stairway ascending into alien upper reaches of the house, and wished he could go home.
“We have a room, but my husband usually attends to the letting and he isn’t here right now.”
“That’s all right,” Hutchman said with relief. “I’ll try elsewhere.”
“I think it should be all right, though. Mr. Atwood will be home shortly.” She stood aside and gestured for him to enter. Hutchman went in. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet and there was a strong smell of floral air freshener.
“How long did you want to stay?” Mrs. Atwood asked.
“Until… .” Hutchman checked himself. “A couple of weeks or so.” He went upstairs to view the room which, predictably, was on the top floor. It was small but clean, and the bed had two mattresses, which suggested it could be comfortable if a trifle high. He inquired and found that he could have full board, consisting of three meals a day, and that Mrs. Atwood would take care of his laundry for a small extra charge. “This looks fine,” he said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “I’ll take the room.”
“I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable here.” Mrs. Atwood touched her hair. “All my boys are very comfortable.”
Hutchman smiled. “I’ll bring up my case.”
There was a sound outside on the landing
, and the small boy came into the room carrying Hutchman’s case.
“Geoffrey! You shouldn’t have… .” Mrs. Atwood turned to Hutchman. “He isn’t very well, you know. Asthma.”
“It’s empty,” Geoffrey asserted, nonchalantly swinging the case into the bed. “I can carry an empty case all right, Mum.”
“Ah” Hutchman met Mrs. Atwood’s eyes. “It isn’t completely empty, but most of my stuff is down in the car.”
She nodded. “Do you mind paying something in advance?”
“Of course not.” Hutchman separated three five-pound notes from the roll without taking it out of his pocket and handed them to her. As soon as she had gone he locked the door, noting with surprise that the key was bent. It was a slim, uncomplicated affair with a long shaft which in the region of the bend had a bluish tinge as though the metal had been heated and bent on purpose. Shaking his head in bafflement, Hutchman threw his jacket on the bed and walked around the little room, fighting off the homesickness which had begun to grip him again. He opened the room’s only window with difficulty and put his head out. The night air was raw, making him dizzy, producing a sensation curiously similar to that in a dream of flying. His head seemed to be dissociated from his body, hovering high in the darkness close to unfamiliar arrangements of gutters and pipes, slates and sills. All around and below him lighted windows glowed, some with drawn blinds or curtains, others affording glimpses into appalling, meaningless rooms. This physical situation — his head drifting disembodied and unseen, close to the walls of a canyon of nightmare — was no stranger than the matrix of horror his life had become. He knelt that way for a long time, until the cold had eaten into his bones and he was shivering violently, then closed the window and went to bed.
The room was to be his home for the next week, and already he wondered how he could possibly survive.
CHAPTER 11
Ed Montefiore was young enough to have begun his working life in computers; old enough to have risen to the top of his nameless section of the Ministry of Defence.
The fact that he was known — as far as anybody in his position could be known — as a computer wizard was a matter of economics rather than specialized aptitude. He had an instinct, a talent, a gift which enabled him to fix any kind of machine. It did not matter if the particular design was new to him, it did not even matter if he was unaware of the machine’s purpose — if it was broken, he could lay his hands on it, commune with the ghosts of the men who had built that machine and all the others like it, and discover what was wrong. When Montefiore had found the fault he would correct it easily and quickly if he was in the mood to do so, at other times he would simply explain what needed to be done, then walk away satisfied. He had not been exercising his special ability for very long when he ceased physical repair work altogether. There was more money in finding and diagnosing faults than in putting them right.
And of all the fields in which his talents could be applied the computer business, Montefiore saw, was going to be the most lucrative. He spent several years troubleshooting for major consultancies, jetting across the world at an hour’s notice, curing computers or linked groups of computers of illnesses the resident engineering teams had been unable to deal with, accumulating money, and living like a prince between assignments.
It was just when the life was beginning to pall on him that the Ministry made its first oblique approaches concerning the MENTOR project. As an individual, Montefiore was repelled by the idea of a vast computer complex which held in its multiple-data banks every item of information — military, social, financial, criminal, industrial — which the government needed for the control of the country’s affairs. But as a man with a wild talent which demanded a new dimension of challenge he was able to throw himself into the project without reservation. He had no interest in the design or manufacturing work — MENTOR’s components were relatively conventional and became remarkable only in aggregate — but keeping the huge discrete body in coordinated good health had brought something like fulfilment. It had also brought him promotion, responsibility, and a certain kind of power. No human brain could absorb more than a minute fraction of the data stored by MENTOR but Montefiore was the only man with unlimited access, and he understood how to be selective. He knew everything that was worth knowing.
The item of knowledge uppermost in his mind, as he stood at the window of his office, was that something very big was happening. An hour earlier the Minister’s secretary had phoned in person with a simple message — Montefiore was to remain in his office until further contacted. There was nothing too unusual about the communication itself, but it had come through on the red telephone. Montefiore had once calculated that if his red telephone ever rang the odds would be that ICBMs would soon be climbing through the upper reaches of the atmosphere. McKenzie’s words had put his mind at ease to a certain extent. They had, however, left him with a sense of foreboding.
Montefiore was of medium height, with thick muscular shoulders, and a boyish face. His chin was small, but with a set which denoted determination rather than weakness. He surveyed himself in the mirror above the white-painted fireplace and gloomily resolved to drink less beer for a few weeks, then began to wonder if the ringing of the red telephone had presaged the end of his, and everybody’s, beer-drinking days. He went back to the window and was frowning down at the slow-moving tops of buses when his secretary came through on the intercom and announced that Mr. McKenzie and Brigadier Finch were on their way in. Finch was head of a small group of men whose official title was the Strategic Advisory Committee and who, among other things, were empowered to advise on the pressing of certain buttons. Montefiore was not even supposed to know of Finch’s connection with the SAC, and the pang of dismay the Brigadier’s name inspired made him wish he had preserved his ignorance.
The two men silently entered the room carrying metal-rimmed briefcases, shook hands with minimal formality. Both were “clients” of MENTOR’s unique information service and were well known to Montefiore. They invariably treated him with extreme courtesy but their very correctness always served to remind him that all the magics of his electronic cabal were powerless against the class barrier. He had a lower middle-class background, theirs was upper middle-class, and nothing was changed by the fact that nobody spoke of those things in the Britain of the Cockney emancipation. McKenzie, tall and florid, pointed at the randomizer switch on Montefiore’s desk. Montefiore nodded and moved the switch, activating an electronic device which would prevent even an ordinary telephone from functioning properly within its field. No recordings could be made of anything that was about to be said.
“What’s the problem, Gerard?” Montefiore made a point of using Christian names, and had vowed to himself that if any of his high-level clients objected he would complete the reductio ad absurdum by walking out of the MENTOR project and refusing to return until his right to address Trevor as Trevor was officially ratified.
“A very serious one,” McKenzie said, taking the unusual course of staring Montefiore straight in the eye as he spoke. He opened his case, took out photocopies of some densely written pages and sketches, and set them on the desk. “Read that.”
“All right, Gerard.” Montefiore scanned the sheets with professional speed, and his sense of imminent disaster was replaced by a strange elation. “How much of this do you believe?”
“Believe? Belief doesn’t come into it. The point is that the mathematics on those pages has been checked and verified.”
“Oh? Who by?”
“Sproale.”
Montefiore tapped his teeth thoughtfully. “If Sproale says it’s all right… How about the machine?” He examined the sketches again.
“Both Rawson and Vialls say the machine can be built and will… do what is claimed for it.”
“And the question you want me to answer, Gerard, is — has it been built?”
“We want the man who wrote this letter,” Finch said restlessly. He was a lean man, aggressively athletic for on
e in his fifties, and wore his dark pinstripes like a uniform. He was also, Montefiore knew, the MENTOR client with whom his familiarity rankled most.
“It amounts to the same thing, Roger.” Montefiore gave the most unmilitary salute he could devise. “I imagine that when we find this man he’ll answer all the questions put to him.”
Finch’s eyes went dead. “This is a matter of extreme urgency.”
“I get the hint, Roger.” Montefiore had been adding to his own excitement by avoiding immediate consideration of the problem, but now he began the pleasurable task of establishing parameters. “What information have we on this man? What do we know? First of all, that he is a man — the handwriting makes it clear we aren’t dealing with a woman, unless it’s a woman who is prepared to go a long way to cover up her tracks.”
“What does that mean?” Finch made an irritated movement, as though slapping his thigh with an imaginary cane.
“A woman might have forced a man to write it all out for her, then killed him,” Montefiore said reasonably.