In another staggering display of Danish Cupidity, King Canute of Denmark attempted to use his authority to halt the incoming tide, our reporters have discovered. It didn't, of course, and the Dopey Monarch was soaked Danish authorities were quick to deny the story and rushed with obscene haste to besmirch the excellent and unbiased English press with the following hies: 'For a start it wasn't Canute, it was Cnut,' began the wild and wholly unconvincing tirade from the Danish minister of propaganda. 'You English named him Canute to make it sound less like you were ruled by foreigners for two hundred years. And Cnut didn't try to command the sea — it was to demonstrate to his overly flattering courtiers that the tide wouldn't succumb to his will. And it all happened nine hundred years ago — if it happened at all.' King Canute himself was unavailable for comment.
We told the President that yes, he was right — the whole thing was some sort of motorway services theme park. Dowding and Parks were genuinely pleased to get their President back, and Yorrick Kaine cancelled the vote in Parliament. Instead, he led a silent prayer to thank providence for returning Formby to our midst. As for Spike and me, we were each given a post-dated cheque and told we would be sure to receive the 'Banjulele with Oak Clusters' for our steadfast adherence to duty.
Spike and I parted after the tiring day's work and I returned to the SpecOps office, where I found a slightly annoyed Major Drabb waiting for me near my car.
'No Danish books found again, Agent Next!' he said through clenched teeth, handing me his report. 'More failure and I will have to take the matter to higher authority.'
I glared at him, took a step closer and prodded him angrily in the chest. I needed Flanker off my case until the Superhoop at the very least.
'You blame me for your failings?'
'Well,' he said, faltering slightly and taking a nervous step backward as I moved even closer, 'that is to say—'
'Redouble your efforts, Major Drabb, or I will have you removed from your command. Do you understand?'
I shouted the last bit, which I didn't want to do — but I was getting desperate. I didn't want Flanker on my back in addition to everything else that was going on.
'Of course,' croaked Drabb, 'I take full responsibility for my failure.'
'Good,' I said, straightening up. 'Tomorrow you are to search the Australian Writers' Guild in Wootton Bassett.'
Drabb dabbed his brow and made another salute.
'As you say, Miss Next.'
I tried to drive past the mixed bag of journalists and TV news crews but they were more than insistent so I stopped to say a few words.
'Miss Next,' said a reporter from ToadSports, jostling with the five or six other TV crews trying to get the best angle, 'what is your reaction to the news that five of the Mallets have withdrawn from the side following death threats?'
This was news to me but I didn't show it.
'We are in the process of signing new players to the team—'
'Miss Manager, with only five players in your team, don't you think it better just to withdraw?'
'We'll be playing, I assure you.'
'What is your response to the rumour that the Reading Whackers have signed ace player "Bonecrusher" McSneed to play forward hoop?'
'The same as always — the Superhoop will be a momentous victory for Swindon.'
'And what about the news that you have been declared "unfit to manage" given your highly controversial decision to put Biffo in defence?'
'Positions on the field are yet to be decided and are up to Mr Jambe. Now if you'll excuse me . . .'
I started the engine again and drove away from the SpecOps building, the news crews still shouting questions after me. I was big news again, and I didn't like it.
I arrived home just in time to rescue Mother from having to make more tea for Friday.
'Eight fish fingers!' she muttered, shocked by his greed. 'Eight!'
'That's nothing,' I replied, putting my pay cheque into a novelty teapot and tickling Friday on the ear. 'You wait until you see how many beans he can put away.'
'The phone's been ringing all day. Aubrey somebody or other about death threats or something?'
'I'll call him. How was the zoo?'
'Ooh!' she cooed, touched her hair and tripped out of the kitchen. I waited until she was gone then knelt down close to Friday.
'Did Bismarck and Gran . . . kiss?'
'Tempor incididunt ut labors,' he replied enigmatically, 'et dolore magna aliqua.'
'I hope that's a "definitely not", darling,' I murmured, filling up his beaker. As I did so I caught my wedding ring on the lip of the cup, and I stared at it in a resigned manner. Landen was back again. I clasped it tightly and picked up the phone and dialled.
'Hello?' came Landen's voice.
'It's Thursday.'
'Thursday!' he said with a mixture of relief and alarm. 'What happened to you? I was waiting for you in the bedroom and then I heard the front door close! Did I do something wrong?'
'No, Land, nothing. You were eradicated again.'
'Am I still?'
'Of course not.'
There was a long pause. Too long, in fact. I looked at my hand. My wedding ring had gone again. I sighed, replaced the receiver and went back to Friday, heavy of heart.
I called Aubrey as I was giving Friday his bath and tried to reassure him about the missing players. I told him to keep training and I'd deliver. I wasn't sure how, but I didn't tell him that. I just said it was 'in hand'.
'I have to go,' I told him at last. 'I've got to wash Friday's hair and I can't do it with one hand.'
That evening, as I was reading Pinocchio to Friday, a large tabby cat appeared on the wardrobe in my bedroom. It didn't appear instantly, either — it faded in from the tip of its tail, all the way up to its very large grin. When he first started working in Alice in Wonderland he was known as 'The Cheshire Cat' but the authorities moved the Cheshire county boundaries and he thus became 'The Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat', but that was a bit of a mouthful so he was known more affectionately as 'The Cat Formerly Known as Cheshire' or, more simply, 'The Cat'. His real name was 'Archibald' but that was reserved for his mother when she was cross with him.
He worked very closely with us at Jurisfiction, where he was in charge of the Great Library, a cavernous and almost infinite depository of every book ever written. But to call the Cat a librarian would be an injustice. He was an Uberlibrarian — he knew about all the books in his charge. When they were being read, by whom — everything. Everything, that is, except where Yorrick Kaine was a featured part. Friday giggled and pointed as the Cat stopped appearing and stared at us with a grin etched on his features, eagerly listening to the story.
'Hello!' he said as soon as I had finished, kissed Friday and put out the bedside light. 'I've got some information for you.'
'About?'
'Yorrick Kaine.'
I took the Cat downstairs, where he sat on the microwave as I made some tea.
'So what have you found out?'
'I've found out that an alligator isn't someone who makes allegations — it's a large reptile a bit like a crocodile.'
'I mean about Kaine.'
'Ah. Well, I've had a careful trawl and he doesn't appear anywhere in the character manifests either in the Great Library or the Well of Lost Plots. Wherever he's from, it isn't from published fiction, poetry, jokes, non-fiction or knitting patterns.'
'I don't believe you'd come out here to tell me you've failed, Chesh,' I said. 'What's the good news?'
The Cat's eyes flashed and he twitched his whiskers.
'Vanity publishing!' he announced with a flourish.
It was an inspired guess. I'd never even considered he might be from there. The realm of the self-published book was a bizarre mix of quaint local histories, collections of poetry, magna opera of the truly talentless — and the occasional gem. The thing was, if they became officially published they were welcomed into the Great Library with open arms — and that hadn't happened.
'You're sure?'
The Cat handed me an index card.
'I knew this was important to you so I called in a few favours.'
I read the card aloud.
'At Long Last Lust, 1931. Limited edition run of one hundred. Author: Daphne Farquitt.'
1 looked at the Cat. Daphne Farquitt. Writer of nearly five hundred romantic novels and darling of the Romance genre.
'Before she was famous writing truly awful books she used to write truly awful books that were self-published,' explained the Cat. 'In At Long Last Lust, Yorrick plays a local politician eager for self-advancement. He isn't a major part, either. He's only mentioned twice and doesn't even warrant a description.'
'Can you get me into the vanity publishing library?' I asked.
'There is no vanity library,' the Cat said with a shrug. 'We have figures and short reviews gleaned from vanity publishers' manifests and Earnest Scribbler Monthly, but little else. Still, we need only to find one copy and he's ours.'
He grinned again but I didn't join him.
'Not that easy, Cat. Take a look at this.'
I showed him the latest issue of The Toad. The Cat carefully put on his spectacles and read: 'Danish book-burning frenzy reaches new heights with Copenhagen-born Farquitt's novels due to be consigned to flames.'
'I don't get it,' said the Cat, placing a yearning paw on a Moggilicious Cat Food advert, 'what's he up to burning all her books?'
'Because,' I said, 'he obviously can't find all the original copies of At Long Last Lust and in desperation has whipped up anti-Danish feeling as a cover. With luck his book-burning idiots will do the job for him. I'm a fool not to have realised. After all, where would you hide a stick?'
There was a long pause.
'I give up,' said the Cat, 'where would you hide a stick?'
'In a forest.'
I stared out of the window thoughtfully. At Long Last Lust. I didn't know how many of the hundred copies still remained, but with Farquitt's books still being consigned to the furnaces I figured there had to be at least one. An unpublished Farquitt novel the key to destroying Kaine. I couldn't make this stuff up.
'Why would you hide a stick in a forest?' asked the Cat, who had been pondering this question for some moments in silence.
'It's an analogy,' I explained. 'Kaine needs to get rid of every copy of At Long Last Lust but doesn't want us to get suspicious, so he targets the Danes — the forest - rather than Farquitt — the stick. Get it?'
'Got it.'
'Good.'
'Well, I'd better be off, then,' announced the Cat, and he vanished.
I was not much surprised at this for the Cat usually left in this manner. I poured the tea, added some milk and then put some mugs on a tray. I was just pondering where I might find a copy of At Long Last Lust and, more importantly, thinking of calling Julie again to ask her how long her husband flicked on and off 'like a light bulb' when the Cat reappeared balanced precariously on the Kenwood mixer.
'By the by,' he said, 'the Gryphon tells me that the sentencing for your fiction infraction is due in two weeks' time. Do you want to be present?'
This related to the time I had changed the ending to Jane Eyre. They found me guilty at my trial but the law's delay in the BookWorld just dragged things on and on.
'No,' I said after a pause. 'No, tell him to come and find me and let me know what my sentence will be.'
'I'll tell him. Well, toodle-oo,' said the Cat, and vanished, this time for good.
I pushed open the door of Mycroft's workshop with my toe, held it open for Pickwick to follow me in, then closed it before Alan could join us and placed the tray on a worktop. Mycroft and Polly were staring intently at a small and oddly shaped geometric solid made of brass.
'Thank you, pet,' said Polly. 'How are things with you?'
'Fair to not very good at all, Auntie.'
Polly was Mycroft's wife of some forty-two years and although seemingly in the background was actually almost as brilliant as her husband. She was a bouncy seventy and managed Mycroft's often irascible and forgetful nature with a patience that I found inspiring. 'The trick,' she told me once, 'is to regard him like a five-year-old with an IQ of two hundred and sixty.' She picked up her tea and blew on it.
'Still thinking about whether to put Smudger on defence?'
'I was thinking of Biffo, actually.'
'Smudger and Biffo would both be wasted on defence,' muttered Mycroft, making a fine adjustment on one face of the brass polyhedron with a file. 'You ought to put Snake on defence. He's untried, I admit, but he plays well and has youth on his side.'
'Well, I'm really leaving team strategy to Aubrey.'
'I hope he's up to it. What do you make of this?'
He handed me the solid and I turned the grapefruit-sized object over in my hands. Some of the faces were odd sided and some even sided — and some, strangely enough, appeared to be both. My eyes had trouble making sense of it.
'Very . . . pretty,' I replied. 'What does it do?'
'Do?' Mycroft smiled. 'Put it on the worktop and you'll see what it does!'
I placed it on the surface but the oddly shaped solid, unstable on the face I had placed it upon, tipped on to another. Then, after a moment's pause, it wobbled again and fell on to a third. It carried on in this jerky fashion across the worktop until it fell against a screwdriver, where it stopped.
'I call it a Nextahedron,' announced Mycroft, picking up the solid and placing it on the floor, where it continued its random perambulations, watched by Pickwick, who thought it might be chasing her, and ran away to hide. 'Most irregular solids are only unstable on one or two faces. The Nextahedron is unstable on all its faces — it will continue to fall and tip until a solid object impedes its progress.'
'Fascinating!' I murmured, always surprised by the ingenuity of Mycroft's inventions. 'But what's the point?'
'Well,' explained Mycroft, warming to the subject, 'you know those inertia! generator things that self-wind a wristwatch?'
'Yes?'
'If we have a larger one of those inside a Nextahedron weighing six hundred tons, I calculate we could generate as much as a hundred watts of power.'
'But. . . but that's only enough for a light bulb!'
'Considering the input is nil, I think it's a remarkable achievement,' replied Mycroft somewhat sniffily. 'To generate significant quantities of power we'd have to carve something of considerable mass — Mars, say — into a huge Nextahedron with a flat plate falling around the exterior, held firm by gravity. The power could be transmitted to earth using Tesla beams and . . .'
His voice trailed off as he started to sketch ideas and equations in a small notebook. I watched the Nextahedron fall and rock and jiggle across the floor until it fell against a roll of wire.
'On a more serious note,' confided Polly, putting down her tea, 'you could help us identify some of the devices in the workshop. Since both Mycroft and I have taken the Big Blank you might be able to help.'
'I'll try,' I said, looking around the room at the bizarre devices. 'That one over there guesses how many pips there are in an unopened orange, the one with the horn is an Olfactrograph for measuring smells, and the small box thing there can change gold into lead.'
'What's the point of that?'
'I'm not entirely sure.'
Polly made notes against her inventory and I spent the next ten minutes trying to name as many of Mycroft's inventions as I could. It wasn't easy. He didn't tell me everything.
'I'm not sure what this one is, either,' I said, pointing at a small machine about the size of a telephone directory lying on a workbench.
'Oddly enough,' replied Polly, 'this is one we do have a name for. It's an ovinator.'
'How do you know if you can't remember?'
'Because,' said Mycroft, who had finished his notes and now rejoined us, 'it has "ovinator" engraved on the case just there. We think it's either a device for making eggs without the need of a chicken, or for making chickens without the need of an egg. Or something else entirely. Here, I'll switch it on.'
Mycroft flicked a switch and a small red light came on.
'Is that it?'
'Yes,' replied Polly, staring at the small and very unexciting metallic box thoughtfully.
'No sign of any eggs or chickens,' I observed.
'None at all.' Mycroft sighed. 'It might just be a machine for making a red light come on. Drat my lost memory! Which reminds me: any idea which device actually is the memory eraser?'
We looked around the workshop at the odd-looking and mostly anonymous contraptions. Any one of them may have been used to erase memories, but then any one of them may have been a device for coring apples, too.
We stood in silence for a moment.
'I still think you ought to have Smudger on defence,' said Polly, who was probably the biggest croquet fan in the house.
'You're probably right,' I said, suddenly feeling that it would be easier just to go with the flow. 'Uncle?'
'Polly knows best,' he replied. 'I'm a bit tired. Who wants to watch Name That Fruit on the telly?'
We all agreed that it would be a relaxing way to end the day and I found myself watching the nauseating quiz show for the first time in my life. I realised just how bad it was halfway through, and went to bed, temples aching.
30
The hunt for At Long Last Lust had been going on all morning but with little success. Kaine had almost two years' head start on us. Of the one hundred copies in the print run, sixty-two had changed hands within the past eighteen months. Initially they had been for modest sums of a thousand pounds or so, but there is nothing like a mystery buyer with deep pockets to push up the price and the last copy sold was for £720,000 at Agatha's Auction House — an unprecedented sum, even for a pre-war Farquitt.
The likelihood of finding a copy of Lust was looking increasingly slim. I called Farquitt's agent, who said that the author's entire library had been confiscated and the septuagenarian author questioned at length about pro-Danish political activism before being released. Even a visit to the Library of Farquitt in Didcot didn't bear any fruit — their original manuscript of At Long Last Lust and a signed copy had both been seized by 'government agents' nearly eighteen months before. The librarian met us in the sculpted marble hall and, after telling us not to talk so loudly, reported that representative copies of all Farquitt's works were packed and ready for removal 'as soon as we wanted'. Bowden responded that we'd be heading towards the border just as soon as we finalised the details. He didn't look at me as he said it but I knew what he was thinking — I still needed to figure out a way to get us across the border.
We drove back to the LiteraTecs' office in silence, and as soon as we got in I called Landen. My wedding ring, which had been appearing and disappearing all morning, had been solid for a good twenty minutes.
'Yo, Thursday!' he said enthusiastically. 'What happened to you yesterday? We were talking and you just went quiet.'
'Something came up.'
'Why don't you come round for lunch? I've got fish fingers, beans and peas — with mashed banana and cream for pudding.'
'Have you been discussing the menu with Friday?'
'Whatever made you think that?'
'I'd love to, Land. But you're still a bit existentially unstable at the moment, so I'd only end up embarrassing myself in front of your parents again — and I've got to go and meet someone to talk about Shakespeares.'
'Anyone I know?'
'Bartholomew Stiggins.'
'The Neanderthal?'
'Yes.'
'Hope you like beetles. Call me when I exist next. I lo—'
The line went dead. My wedding ring had gone again too.
I listened to the dial tone for a moment, tapping the receiver thoughtfully on my forehead.
'I love you too, Land,' I said softly.
'Your Welsh contact?' asked Bowden, walking up with a fax from the Karen Blixen Appreciation Society.
'Not exactly.'
'New players for the Superhoop, then?'
'If only. Goliath and Kaine have frightened every player in the country except Penelope Hrah, who'll play for food and doesn't care what anyone says, thinks or does.'
'Didn't she have a leg torn off during the Newport Strikers versus Dartmoor Wanderers semi-final a few years back?'
'I'm in no position to be choosy, Bowd. If I put her on back-hoop defence she can just growl at anyone who comes close. Ready for lunch?'
The Neanderthal population of Swindon numbered about three hundred and they all lived in a small village to the west known as 'The Nation'. Because of their tool-using prowess, they were just given six acres of land, water and sewage points and told to get on with it, as if they needed to be asked, which they didn't.
The Neanderthals were not human nor descendants of ours, but cousins. They had evolved at the same time as us, then been forced into extinction when they failed to compete successfully with the more aggressive human. Brought back to life by Goliath Bioengineering in the late thirties and early forties, they were as much a part of modern life as dodos or mammoths. And since they had been sequenced by Goliath, each individual was actually owned by the corporation. A less than generous 'buy-back' scheme to be able to purchase oneself hadn't been well received.
We parked a little way down from the Nation and got out of the car.
'Can't we just park inside?' asked Bowden.
'They don't like cars,' I explained. 'They don't see the point in travelling any distance. To Neanderthal logic, anywhere that couldn't be reached in a day's walk isn't worth visiting. Our Neanderthal gardener used to walk the four miles to our house every Tuesday, and then walk back again, resisting all offers of a lift. Walking was, he maintained, "the only decent way to travel — if you drive you miss the conversations in the hedgerows".'
'I can see his point,' replied Bowden, 'but when I need to be somewhere in a hurry—'
'That's the difference, Bowd. You've got to get away from the human way of thinking. To Neanderthals, nothing is so urgent that it can't be done another time — or not done at all. By the way, did you remember not to wash this morning?'
He nodded. Because scent is so important to Neanderthal communications, the soapy cleanliness of humans reads more like some form of suspicious subterfuge. Speak to a Neanderthal while wearing scent and they'll instantly think you have something to hide.
We walked through the grassy entrance of the Nation and encountered a lone Neanderthal sitting on a chair in the middle of the path. He was reading the large-print Neanderthal News. He folded up the paper and sniffed the air delicately before staring at us for a moment or two and then asking:
'Who do you wish to visit?'
'Next and Cable. Lunch with Mr Stiggins.'
The Neanderthal stared at us for moment or two, then pointed us towards a house on the other side of a grassed open area that surrounded a totem representing I don't know what. There were five or six Neanderthals playing a game of croquet on the grass area and I watched them intently for a while. They weren't playing in teams, just passing the ball around and hooping where possible. They were excellent, too. I watched one player hoop from at least forty yards away off a roquet. It was a pity Neanderthals were aggressively non-competitive — I could have done with them on the team.
'Notice anything?' I asked as we walked across the grassed area, the croquet players moving past us in a blur of well-coordinated limbs.
'No children?'
'The youngest Neanderthal is fifty-two,' I explained, 'the males are infertile. It's probably their biggest source of disagreement with their owners.'
'I'd be pissed off, too.'
We found Stiggins's house and I opened the door and walked straight in. I knew a bit about Neanderthal customs, and you would never go into a Neanderthal home unless you were expected — in which case you treated it as your own and walked in unannounced. The house was built entirely of scrap wood and recycled rubbish and was circular in shape with a central hearth. It was comfortable and warm and cosy, but not the sort of basic cave I think Bowden expected. There was a TV and proper sofas, chairs and even a hifi. Standing next to the fire was Stiggins, and next to him was a slightly smaller Neanderthal.
'Welcome!' said Stig. 'This is Felicity — we are a partnership.'
His wife walked silently up to us and hugged us both in turn, taking an opportunity to smell us, first in the armpit and then in the hair. I saw Bowden flinch and Stig gave a small grunty cough that was a Neanderthal laugh.
'Mr Cable, you are uncomfortable,' observed Stig.
Bowden shrugged. He was uncomfortable, and he was familiar enough with Neanderthals to know that you can't lie to them.
'I am,' he replied, 'I've never been in a Neanderthal house before.'
'Is it any different to yours?'
'Very,' said Bowden, looking up at the construction of the roof beams, which had been made by gluing oddments of wood together and then planing them into shape.
'Not a single wood screw or bolt, Mr Cable. Have you heard the noise wood makes when you turn a screw into it? Most uncharitable.'
'Is there anything you don't make yourself?'
'Not really. You are insulting the raw material if you do not extract all possible use from it. Any cash we earn has to go to our buy-back scheme. We may be able to afford our ownership papers by the time we are due to leave.'
'Then what, if you'll excuse me, is the point?'
'To die free, Mr Cable. Drink?'
Mrs Stiggins appeared with four glasses that had been cut from the bottom of wine bottles and offered them to us. Stig drank his straight down and I tried to do the same and nearly choked — it was not unlike drinking petrol. Bowden choked and clasped his throat as if it were on fire. Mr and Mrs Stiggms stared at us curiously, then collapsed into an odd series of grunty coughs.
'I'm not sure I see the joke,' said Bowden, eyes streaming.
'It is the Neanderthal custom to humiliate guests,' announced Stig, taking our glasses from us. 'Yours was potato gin — ours was merely water. Life is good. Have a seat.'
We sat down on the sofa and Stig poked at the embers in the fire. There was a rabbit on a stick and I gave a deep sigh of relief — it wasn't going to be beetles for lunch.
'Those croquet players outside,' I began, 'do you suppose anything could induce them to play for the Swindon Mallets?'
'No. Only humans define themselves by conflict with other humans. Winning and losing have no meaning to us. Things just are as they are meant to be."
I thought about offering some money. After all, a month's salary for an averagely rated player would easily cover a thousand buy-back schemes. But Neanderthals are funny about money — especially money that they don't think they've earned. I kept quiet.
'Have you had any more thoughts about the cloned Shakespeares? asked Bowden.
Stig thought for a moment, twitched his nose, turned the rabbit, and then went to a large rolltop bureau and returned with a buff file — the genome report he had got from Mr Rumplunkett.
'Definitely clones,' he said, 'and whoever built them covered their tracks — the serial numbers are scrubbed from the cells and the manufacturer's information is missing from the DNA. On a molecular level they might have been built anywhere.'
'Stig,' I said, thinking of Hamlet, 'I can't stress how important it is that I find a Will clone — and soon.'
'We haven't finished, Miss Next. See this?'
He handed me a spectroscopic evaluation of Mr Shaxtper's teeth and I looked at the zigzag graph uncomprehendingly.
'We do this test to monitor long-term health patterns. By taking a cross-section of Shaxtper's teeth we can trace the original manufacturing area solely from the hardness of the water.'
'I see,' said Bowden. 'So where do we find this sort of water?'
'Simple: Birmingham.'
Bowden clapped his hands happily.
'You mean to tell me there's a secret bioengineering lab in the Birmingham area? We'll find it in a jiffy!'
'The lab isn't in Birmingham,' said Stig.
'But you said—?'
I knew exactly what he was driving at.
'Birmingham imports its water,' I said in a low voice, 'from the Elan valley — in the Socialist Republic of Wales.'
The job had just got that much harder. Goliath's biggest biotech facility used to be on the banks of the Craig Goch reservoir deep in the Elan before they moved to the Presellis. They had built across the border owing to the lax bioengineering regulations; they shut down as soon as the Welsh Parliament caught up. The lab in the Presellis did only legitimate work.
'Impossible!' scoffed Bowden. 'They closed down decades ago!'
'And yet,' retorted Stig slowly, 'your Shakespeares were built there. Mr Cable, you are not a natural friend to the Neanderthal and you do not have the strength of spirit of Miss Next, yet you are impassioned.'
Bowden was unconvinced by Stig's precis.
'How can you know me that well?'
There was silence for a moment as Stig turned the rabbit on the spit.
'You live with a woman whom you don't truly love but need for stability. You are suspicious that she is seeing someone else and that anger and suspicion hang heavily on your shoulders. You feel passed over for promotion and the one woman whom you truly love is inaccessible to you—'
'All right, all right,' Bowden said sullenly, 'I get the picture.'
'You humans radiate emotions like a roaring fire, Mr Cable — we are astounded at how you are able to deceive each other so easily. We see all deception so have evolved to have no need for it.'
'These labs,' I began, eager to change the subject, 'you are sure?'
'We are sure,' affirmed Stig, 'and not only Shakespeares were built there. All Neanderthals up to Version 2.3.5, too. We wish to return. We have an urgent need for that which we have been denied.'
'And that is?' asked Bowden.
'Children,' breathed Stig. 'We have planned for just such an expedition and your sapien characteristics will be useful. You have an impetuosity that we can never have. A Neanderthal considers each move before taking it and is genetically predisposed towards caution. We need someone like you, Miss Next — a human with drive, a propensity towards violence and the ability to take command — yet someone governed by what is right.'
I sighed.
'We're not going to get into the Socialist Republic,' I said. 'We have no jurisdiction and if we're caught there will be hell to pay.'
'What about your plan to take all those books across, Thursday?' asked Bowden in a quiet voice.
'There is no plan, Bowd. I'm sorry. And I can't risk being banged up in some Welsh slammer during the Superhoop. I have to make sure the Mallets win. I have to be there.'
Stig frowned at me.
'Strange!' he said at last. 'You do not want to win out of a deluded sense of home-town pride — we see a greater purpose.'
'I can't tell you, Stig, but what you read is true. It is vital to all of us that Swindon win the Superhoop.'
Stig looked across at Mrs Stiggms and the two of them held a conversation for a good five minutes — using only facial expressions and the odd grunt. After they had finished Stig said:
'It is agreed. You, Mr Cable, and ourself will break into the abandoned Goliath re-engineering labs. You to find your Shakespeares, we to find a way to seed our females.'
'I can't—'
'Even if we fail,' continued Stig, 'the Neanderthal Nation will field five players to help you win your Superhoop. There can be no payment and no glory. Is this the deal?'
I stared at his small brown eyes. Judging by the quality of the players I had seen outside and my knowledge of Neanderthals in general, we would be in with a chance — even with me locked up in a Welsh jail.
I shook his outstretched hand.
'This is the deal.'
'Then we must eat. Do you like rabbit?'
We both nodded.
'Good. This is a speciality of ours. In Neanderlese it is called Rabite'n'bitels.'
'Sounds excellent,' replied Bowden. 'What's it served with?'
'Potatoes and a ... tangy greeny-brown crunchy sauce.'
I can't be sure but I think Stig winked at me. I needn't have worried. The meal was excellent and Neanderthals are quite correct — beetles are severely underrated.
31
'So what do you know about the Elan?' asked Bowden as we drove back into town.
'Not much,' I replied, looking at the charts of Mr Shaxtper's teeth. Stig reckoned he had lived in the Elan for a lot longer than the others — perhaps until only a few years ago. If he had survived that long, why not some of the others? I wasn't going to raise any false hopes quite yet, but at least it seemed possible we could save Hamlet after all.
'Were you serious about not being able to think of a way in?'
'I'm afraid so. But we could always pretend to be Brummie water officials or something.'
'Why would water officials have ten truckloads of banned Danish books?' asked Bowden, not unreasonably.
'Something to read while doing water officially things?'
'If we don't get these books to safety they'll be burned, Thursday — we've got to find a way into the republic.'
'I'll think of something.'
I spent the rest of the afternoon fielding calls from numerous sports reporters, eager to get a story and find out who would be playing in what position on the field. I called Aubrey and told him that he would have five new players — but I didn't tell him they'd be Neanderthals. I couldn't risk the press finding out.
By the time I returned to Mum's house my wedding ring was firmly back on my finger again. I pushed Friday around to Landen's house and, noticing that everything seemed to be back to normal, knocked twice. There was an excited scrabble from within and Landen opened the door.
'There you are!' he said happily. 'When you hung up on me I got kinda worried.'
'I didn't hang up, Land.'
'I was eradicated again?'
'I'm afraid so.'
'Will I be again''
'I'm hoping not. Can I come in?'
I put Friday on the floor; he immediately started to try and climb the stairs.
'Bedtime already, is it, young man?' asked Landen, following him as he clambered all the way up. I noticed that in the spare room there were two as yet unpacked stair gates, which put my mind at rest. He had bought a cot, too, and several toys.
'I bought some clothes.'
He opened a drawer. It was stuffed with all kinds of clothes for the little chap, and although some looked a bit small, I didn't say anything. We took him downstairs and Landen made some supper.
'So you knew I was coming back?' I asked as he cut up some broccoli.
'Oh, yes,' he replied, 'as soon as you got all that eradication nonsense sorted out. Make us a cup of tea, would you?'
I walked over to the sink and filled the kettle.
'Any closer with a plan for dealing with Kaine?' asked Landen.
'No,' I admitted, 'I'm really banking on Zvlkx's seventh Revealment coming true.'
'What I don't understand,' said Landen, chopping some carrots, 'is why everyone except Formby seems to agree with everything Kaine says. Bloody sheep, the lot of them.'
'I must say I'm surprised by the lack of opposition to Kaine's plans,' 1 agreed, staring absently out of the kitchen window. I frowned as the germ of an idea started to ferment in my mind. 'Land?'
'Yuh?'
'When was the last time Formby went anywhere near Kaine?'
'Never. He avoids him like the plague. Kaine wants to meet him face to face but the President won't have anything to do with him.'
'That's it!' I exclaimed, suddenly having a flash of inspiration.
'What's it?'
'Well—'
I stopped because something at the bottom of the garden had caught my eye.
'Do you have nosy neighbours, Land?'
'Not really.'
'It's probably my stalker, then.'
'You have a stalker?'
I pointed.
'Sure. Just there, in the laurels, beckoning to me.'
'Do you want me to do the strong male thing and chase him off with a stick?'
'No. I've got a better idea.'
'Hello, Millon. How's the stalking going? I brought you a cup of tea and a bun.'
'Pretty well,' he said, marking down in his notebook the time I had stopped to talk to him and budging aside to make room for me in the laurel bush. 'How are things with you?'
'They're mostly good. What were you waving at me for?'
'Ah!' he said. 'We were going to run a feature about thirteenth-century seers in Conspiracy Theorist magazine and I wanted to ask you a few questions.'
'Go ahead.'
'Do you think it's odd that no fewer than twenty-eight Dark Age saints have chosen this year for their second coming?'
'I'd not really given it that much thought.'
'O-kay. Do you not also find it strange that of these twenty-eight supposed seers only two of them — St Zvlkx and Sister Bettina of Stroud — have actually made any prophecies that have come remotely true?'
'What are you saying?'
'That St Zvlkx might not be a thirteenth-century saint at all, but some sort of time-travelling criminal. He takes an illicit journey to the Dark Ages, writes up what he can remember of history and then at the appropriate time he is catapulted forward to see his last "Revealment" come true.'
'Why?' I asked. 'If the ChronoGuard get wind of what he's up to he's never been born — literally. Why risk non-existence for at most a few years' fame as a washed-up visitor from the thirteenth century with a host of unpleasant skin complaints?'
Millon shrugged.
'I don't know. 1 thought you might be able to help me.'
He lapsed into silence.
'Tell me, Millon — is there any connection between Kaine and the ovinator?'
'Of course! You should read Conspiracy Theorist magazine more often. Although most of our links between secret technology and those in power are about as tenuous as mist, this one really is concrete: his personal assistant, Stricknene, used to work with Schitt-Hawse at the Goliath tech division. If Goliath have an ovinator, then Kaine might very well have one too. Do you know what it does, then?'
I laughed. This was exactly the news I wanted to hear.
'You'll see. Tell me,' I added, my hopes rising by the second, 'what do you know about the old Goliath bioengineering labs?'
'Hoooh!' he said, making a noise like any enthusiast invited to comment on their particular field of interest. 'Now you're talking! The old Goliath labs are still standing in what we call "Area 21" — the empty quarter in mid-Wales, the Elan.'
'Empty metaphorically or empty literally?'
'Empty as in no one goes there except water officials — and we have wholly uncorroborated evidence which we peddle as fact that an unspecified number of officials have vanished without trace. In any event it's all off limits to everyone, surrounded by an electrified fence.'
'To keep people out?'
'No,' said Millon slowly, 'to keep whatever genetic experiments Goliath were working on in. The whole of Area 21 is infested with chimeras. I've got files and files of dubious stories about people breaking in, allegedly never to be seen again. What's your interest in the Elan plant anyway?'
'Illegal genetic experiments on humans undertaken covertly by an apparently innocent multinational.'
Millon nearly passed out with conspiracy overload. When he had recovered he asked how he could help.
'I need you to find any pictures, plans, layout drawings, anything that might be of use for a visit.'
Millon opened his eyes wide and scribbled on his notepad.
'You're going to go into Area 21?'
'No.' I replied, 'we both are. Tomorrow. Leaving here at seven in the morning, sharp. Can you find what I asked for?'
He narrowed his eyes.
'I can get you your information, Miss Next,' he said slowly and with a gleam in his eye, 'but it will cost. Let me be your official biographer.'
I put out a hand and he shook it gratefully.
'Deal.'
I walked back inside to find Landen talking to a man dressed in slightly punky clothes, brightly coloured spectacle frames, bleached blond hair and an infinitesimally small goatee firmly planted just under his lower lip.
'Darling,' he said, grasping the hand that I had just rested on his shoulder, 'this is my very good friend Handley Paige.'
I shook his hand. He seemed pretty much the same as any other SF writers I had ever met. Slightly geeky but pleasant enough.
'You write the Emperor Zhark books,' I observed.
He winced slightly.
'No one ever talks about the decent stuff I write,' he moaned, 'they just ask me for more and more Zhark stuff. I did it as a joke — a pastiche of bad science fiction, and blow me down if it isn't the most popular thing I've ever done.'
I remembered what Emperor Zhark had told me.
'You're going to kill him off, aren't you?'
Handley started.
'How did you know that?'
'She works for SO-27,' explained Landen, 'they know everything.'
'I thought you guys were more hooked on the classics?'
'We deal with all genres,' I explained. 'For reasons that I can't reveal, I advise you to maroon Zhark on an uninhabited planet rather than submit him to the humiliation of a public execution.'
Article in The Toad, 18 July 1988
We told the President that yes, he was right — the whole thing was some sort of motorway services theme park. Dowding and Parks were genuinely pleased to get their President back, and Yorrick Kaine cancelled the vote in Parliament. Instead, he led a silent prayer to thank providence for returning Formby to our midst. As for Spike and me, we were each given a post-dated cheque and told we would be sure to receive the 'Banjulele with Oak Clusters' for our steadfast adherence to duty.
Spike and I parted after the tiring day's work and I returned to the SpecOps office, where I found a slightly annoyed Major Drabb waiting for me near my car.
'No Danish books found again, Agent Next!' he said through clenched teeth, handing me his report. 'More failure and I will have to take the matter to higher authority.'
I glared at him, took a step closer and prodded him angrily in the chest. I needed Flanker off my case until the Superhoop at the very least.
'You blame me for your failings?'
'Well,' he said, faltering slightly and taking a nervous step backward as I moved even closer, 'that is to say—'
'Redouble your efforts, Major Drabb, or I will have you removed from your command. Do you understand?'
I shouted the last bit, which I didn't want to do — but I was getting desperate. I didn't want Flanker on my back in addition to everything else that was going on.
'Of course,' croaked Drabb, 'I take full responsibility for my failure.'
'Good,' I said, straightening up. 'Tomorrow you are to search the Australian Writers' Guild in Wootton Bassett.'
Drabb dabbed his brow and made another salute.
'As you say, Miss Next.'
I tried to drive past the mixed bag of journalists and TV news crews but they were more than insistent so I stopped to say a few words.
'Miss Next,' said a reporter from ToadSports, jostling with the five or six other TV crews trying to get the best angle, 'what is your reaction to the news that five of the Mallets have withdrawn from the side following death threats?'
This was news to me but I didn't show it.
'We are in the process of signing new players to the team—'
'Miss Manager, with only five players in your team, don't you think it better just to withdraw?'
'We'll be playing, I assure you.'
'What is your response to the rumour that the Reading Whackers have signed ace player "Bonecrusher" McSneed to play forward hoop?'
'The same as always — the Superhoop will be a momentous victory for Swindon.'
'And what about the news that you have been declared "unfit to manage" given your highly controversial decision to put Biffo in defence?'
'Positions on the field are yet to be decided and are up to Mr Jambe. Now if you'll excuse me . . .'
I started the engine again and drove away from the SpecOps building, the news crews still shouting questions after me. I was big news again, and I didn't like it.
I arrived home just in time to rescue Mother from having to make more tea for Friday.
'Eight fish fingers!' she muttered, shocked by his greed. 'Eight!'
'That's nothing,' I replied, putting my pay cheque into a novelty teapot and tickling Friday on the ear. 'You wait until you see how many beans he can put away.'
'The phone's been ringing all day. Aubrey somebody or other about death threats or something?'
'I'll call him. How was the zoo?'
'Ooh!' she cooed, touched her hair and tripped out of the kitchen. I waited until she was gone then knelt down close to Friday.
'Did Bismarck and Gran . . . kiss?'
'Tempor incididunt ut labors,' he replied enigmatically, 'et dolore magna aliqua.'
'I hope that's a "definitely not", darling,' I murmured, filling up his beaker. As I did so I caught my wedding ring on the lip of the cup, and I stared at it in a resigned manner. Landen was back again. I clasped it tightly and picked up the phone and dialled.
'Hello?' came Landen's voice.
'It's Thursday.'
'Thursday!' he said with a mixture of relief and alarm. 'What happened to you? I was waiting for you in the bedroom and then I heard the front door close! Did I do something wrong?'
'No, Land, nothing. You were eradicated again.'
'Am I still?'
'Of course not.'
There was a long pause. Too long, in fact. I looked at my hand. My wedding ring had gone again. I sighed, replaced the receiver and went back to Friday, heavy of heart.
I called Aubrey as I was giving Friday his bath and tried to reassure him about the missing players. I told him to keep training and I'd deliver. I wasn't sure how, but I didn't tell him that. I just said it was 'in hand'.
'I have to go,' I told him at last. 'I've got to wash Friday's hair and I can't do it with one hand.'
That evening, as I was reading Pinocchio to Friday, a large tabby cat appeared on the wardrobe in my bedroom. It didn't appear instantly, either — it faded in from the tip of its tail, all the way up to its very large grin. When he first started working in Alice in Wonderland he was known as 'The Cheshire Cat' but the authorities moved the Cheshire county boundaries and he thus became 'The Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat', but that was a bit of a mouthful so he was known more affectionately as 'The Cat Formerly Known as Cheshire' or, more simply, 'The Cat'. His real name was 'Archibald' but that was reserved for his mother when she was cross with him.
He worked very closely with us at Jurisfiction, where he was in charge of the Great Library, a cavernous and almost infinite depository of every book ever written. But to call the Cat a librarian would be an injustice. He was an Uberlibrarian — he knew about all the books in his charge. When they were being read, by whom — everything. Everything, that is, except where Yorrick Kaine was a featured part. Friday giggled and pointed as the Cat stopped appearing and stared at us with a grin etched on his features, eagerly listening to the story.
'Hello!' he said as soon as I had finished, kissed Friday and put out the bedside light. 'I've got some information for you.'
'About?'
'Yorrick Kaine.'
I took the Cat downstairs, where he sat on the microwave as I made some tea.
'So what have you found out?'
'I've found out that an alligator isn't someone who makes allegations — it's a large reptile a bit like a crocodile.'
'I mean about Kaine.'
'Ah. Well, I've had a careful trawl and he doesn't appear anywhere in the character manifests either in the Great Library or the Well of Lost Plots. Wherever he's from, it isn't from published fiction, poetry, jokes, non-fiction or knitting patterns.'
'I don't believe you'd come out here to tell me you've failed, Chesh,' I said. 'What's the good news?'
The Cat's eyes flashed and he twitched his whiskers.
'Vanity publishing!' he announced with a flourish.
It was an inspired guess. I'd never even considered he might be from there. The realm of the self-published book was a bizarre mix of quaint local histories, collections of poetry, magna opera of the truly talentless — and the occasional gem. The thing was, if they became officially published they were welcomed into the Great Library with open arms — and that hadn't happened.
'You're sure?'
The Cat handed me an index card.
'I knew this was important to you so I called in a few favours.'
I read the card aloud.
'At Long Last Lust, 1931. Limited edition run of one hundred. Author: Daphne Farquitt.'
1 looked at the Cat. Daphne Farquitt. Writer of nearly five hundred romantic novels and darling of the Romance genre.
'Before she was famous writing truly awful books she used to write truly awful books that were self-published,' explained the Cat. 'In At Long Last Lust, Yorrick plays a local politician eager for self-advancement. He isn't a major part, either. He's only mentioned twice and doesn't even warrant a description.'
'Can you get me into the vanity publishing library?' I asked.
'There is no vanity library,' the Cat said with a shrug. 'We have figures and short reviews gleaned from vanity publishers' manifests and Earnest Scribbler Monthly, but little else. Still, we need only to find one copy and he's ours.'
He grinned again but I didn't join him.
'Not that easy, Cat. Take a look at this.'
I showed him the latest issue of The Toad. The Cat carefully put on his spectacles and read: 'Danish book-burning frenzy reaches new heights with Copenhagen-born Farquitt's novels due to be consigned to flames.'
'I don't get it,' said the Cat, placing a yearning paw on a Moggilicious Cat Food advert, 'what's he up to burning all her books?'
'Because,' I said, 'he obviously can't find all the original copies of At Long Last Lust and in desperation has whipped up anti-Danish feeling as a cover. With luck his book-burning idiots will do the job for him. I'm a fool not to have realised. After all, where would you hide a stick?'
There was a long pause.
'I give up,' said the Cat, 'where would you hide a stick?'
'In a forest.'
I stared out of the window thoughtfully. At Long Last Lust. I didn't know how many of the hundred copies still remained, but with Farquitt's books still being consigned to the furnaces I figured there had to be at least one. An unpublished Farquitt novel the key to destroying Kaine. I couldn't make this stuff up.
'Why would you hide a stick in a forest?' asked the Cat, who had been pondering this question for some moments in silence.
'It's an analogy,' I explained. 'Kaine needs to get rid of every copy of At Long Last Lust but doesn't want us to get suspicious, so he targets the Danes — the forest - rather than Farquitt — the stick. Get it?'
'Got it.'
'Good.'
'Well, I'd better be off, then,' announced the Cat, and he vanished.
I was not much surprised at this for the Cat usually left in this manner. I poured the tea, added some milk and then put some mugs on a tray. I was just pondering where I might find a copy of At Long Last Lust and, more importantly, thinking of calling Julie again to ask her how long her husband flicked on and off 'like a light bulb' when the Cat reappeared balanced precariously on the Kenwood mixer.
'By the by,' he said, 'the Gryphon tells me that the sentencing for your fiction infraction is due in two weeks' time. Do you want to be present?'
This related to the time I had changed the ending to Jane Eyre. They found me guilty at my trial but the law's delay in the BookWorld just dragged things on and on.
'No,' I said after a pause. 'No, tell him to come and find me and let me know what my sentence will be.'
'I'll tell him. Well, toodle-oo,' said the Cat, and vanished, this time for good.
I pushed open the door of Mycroft's workshop with my toe, held it open for Pickwick to follow me in, then closed it before Alan could join us and placed the tray on a worktop. Mycroft and Polly were staring intently at a small and oddly shaped geometric solid made of brass.
'Thank you, pet,' said Polly. 'How are things with you?'
'Fair to not very good at all, Auntie.'
Polly was Mycroft's wife of some forty-two years and although seemingly in the background was actually almost as brilliant as her husband. She was a bouncy seventy and managed Mycroft's often irascible and forgetful nature with a patience that I found inspiring. 'The trick,' she told me once, 'is to regard him like a five-year-old with an IQ of two hundred and sixty.' She picked up her tea and blew on it.
'Still thinking about whether to put Smudger on defence?'
'I was thinking of Biffo, actually.'
'Smudger and Biffo would both be wasted on defence,' muttered Mycroft, making a fine adjustment on one face of the brass polyhedron with a file. 'You ought to put Snake on defence. He's untried, I admit, but he plays well and has youth on his side.'
'Well, I'm really leaving team strategy to Aubrey.'
'I hope he's up to it. What do you make of this?'
He handed me the solid and I turned the grapefruit-sized object over in my hands. Some of the faces were odd sided and some even sided — and some, strangely enough, appeared to be both. My eyes had trouble making sense of it.
'Very . . . pretty,' I replied. 'What does it do?'
'Do?' Mycroft smiled. 'Put it on the worktop and you'll see what it does!'
I placed it on the surface but the oddly shaped solid, unstable on the face I had placed it upon, tipped on to another. Then, after a moment's pause, it wobbled again and fell on to a third. It carried on in this jerky fashion across the worktop until it fell against a screwdriver, where it stopped.
'I call it a Nextahedron,' announced Mycroft, picking up the solid and placing it on the floor, where it continued its random perambulations, watched by Pickwick, who thought it might be chasing her, and ran away to hide. 'Most irregular solids are only unstable on one or two faces. The Nextahedron is unstable on all its faces — it will continue to fall and tip until a solid object impedes its progress.'
'Fascinating!' I murmured, always surprised by the ingenuity of Mycroft's inventions. 'But what's the point?'
'Well,' explained Mycroft, warming to the subject, 'you know those inertia! generator things that self-wind a wristwatch?'
'Yes?'
'If we have a larger one of those inside a Nextahedron weighing six hundred tons, I calculate we could generate as much as a hundred watts of power.'
'But. . . but that's only enough for a light bulb!'
'Considering the input is nil, I think it's a remarkable achievement,' replied Mycroft somewhat sniffily. 'To generate significant quantities of power we'd have to carve something of considerable mass — Mars, say — into a huge Nextahedron with a flat plate falling around the exterior, held firm by gravity. The power could be transmitted to earth using Tesla beams and . . .'
His voice trailed off as he started to sketch ideas and equations in a small notebook. I watched the Nextahedron fall and rock and jiggle across the floor until it fell against a roll of wire.
'On a more serious note,' confided Polly, putting down her tea, 'you could help us identify some of the devices in the workshop. Since both Mycroft and I have taken the Big Blank you might be able to help.'
'I'll try,' I said, looking around the room at the bizarre devices. 'That one over there guesses how many pips there are in an unopened orange, the one with the horn is an Olfactrograph for measuring smells, and the small box thing there can change gold into lead.'
'What's the point of that?'
'I'm not entirely sure.'
Polly made notes against her inventory and I spent the next ten minutes trying to name as many of Mycroft's inventions as I could. It wasn't easy. He didn't tell me everything.
'I'm not sure what this one is, either,' I said, pointing at a small machine about the size of a telephone directory lying on a workbench.
'Oddly enough,' replied Polly, 'this is one we do have a name for. It's an ovinator.'
'How do you know if you can't remember?'
'Because,' said Mycroft, who had finished his notes and now rejoined us, 'it has "ovinator" engraved on the case just there. We think it's either a device for making eggs without the need of a chicken, or for making chickens without the need of an egg. Or something else entirely. Here, I'll switch it on.'
Mycroft flicked a switch and a small red light came on.
'Is that it?'
'Yes,' replied Polly, staring at the small and very unexciting metallic box thoughtfully.
'No sign of any eggs or chickens,' I observed.
'None at all.' Mycroft sighed. 'It might just be a machine for making a red light come on. Drat my lost memory! Which reminds me: any idea which device actually is the memory eraser?'
We looked around the workshop at the odd-looking and mostly anonymous contraptions. Any one of them may have been used to erase memories, but then any one of them may have been a device for coring apples, too.
We stood in silence for a moment.
'I still think you ought to have Smudger on defence,' said Polly, who was probably the biggest croquet fan in the house.
'You're probably right,' I said, suddenly feeling that it would be easier just to go with the flow. 'Uncle?'
'Polly knows best,' he replied. 'I'm a bit tired. Who wants to watch Name That Fruit on the telly?'
We all agreed that it would be a relaxing way to end the day and I found myself watching the nauseating quiz show for the first time in my life. I realised just how bad it was halfway through, and went to bed, temples aching.
30
Neanderthal Nation
NEANDERTHALS 'OF USE' AT POLITICIANS' TRAINING COLLEGE
Neanderthals, the re-engineered property of the Goliath Corporation, found unexpected employment at the Chipping Sodbury College for Politicians yesterday when four selected individuals were inducted as part of the 'Public Office Veracity Economies' class. Neanderthals, whose high facial acuity skills make them predisposed to noticing an untruth, are used by students to hone their lying skills — something that trainee politicians might find useful once in office. 'Man, those Thals can spot everything!' declared Mr Richard Dixon. a first-year student. 'Nothing gets past them — even a mild embellishment or a tactical omission!' The lecturers at the college declared themselves wholly pleased with the Neanderthals and privately admitted that: 'If the proletariat were even half as good at spotting lies, we'd really be in the soup!"
Article in The Toad (political section). 4 July 1988
The hunt for At Long Last Lust had been going on all morning but with little success. Kaine had almost two years' head start on us. Of the one hundred copies in the print run, sixty-two had changed hands within the past eighteen months. Initially they had been for modest sums of a thousand pounds or so, but there is nothing like a mystery buyer with deep pockets to push up the price and the last copy sold was for £720,000 at Agatha's Auction House — an unprecedented sum, even for a pre-war Farquitt.
The likelihood of finding a copy of Lust was looking increasingly slim. I called Farquitt's agent, who said that the author's entire library had been confiscated and the septuagenarian author questioned at length about pro-Danish political activism before being released. Even a visit to the Library of Farquitt in Didcot didn't bear any fruit — their original manuscript of At Long Last Lust and a signed copy had both been seized by 'government agents' nearly eighteen months before. The librarian met us in the sculpted marble hall and, after telling us not to talk so loudly, reported that representative copies of all Farquitt's works were packed and ready for removal 'as soon as we wanted'. Bowden responded that we'd be heading towards the border just as soon as we finalised the details. He didn't look at me as he said it but I knew what he was thinking — I still needed to figure out a way to get us across the border.
We drove back to the LiteraTecs' office in silence, and as soon as we got in I called Landen. My wedding ring, which had been appearing and disappearing all morning, had been solid for a good twenty minutes.
'Yo, Thursday!' he said enthusiastically. 'What happened to you yesterday? We were talking and you just went quiet.'
'Something came up.'
'Why don't you come round for lunch? I've got fish fingers, beans and peas — with mashed banana and cream for pudding.'
'Have you been discussing the menu with Friday?'
'Whatever made you think that?'
'I'd love to, Land. But you're still a bit existentially unstable at the moment, so I'd only end up embarrassing myself in front of your parents again — and I've got to go and meet someone to talk about Shakespeares.'
'Anyone I know?'
'Bartholomew Stiggins.'
'The Neanderthal?'
'Yes.'
'Hope you like beetles. Call me when I exist next. I lo—'
The line went dead. My wedding ring had gone again too.
I listened to the dial tone for a moment, tapping the receiver thoughtfully on my forehead.
'I love you too, Land,' I said softly.
'Your Welsh contact?' asked Bowden, walking up with a fax from the Karen Blixen Appreciation Society.
'Not exactly.'
'New players for the Superhoop, then?'
'If only. Goliath and Kaine have frightened every player in the country except Penelope Hrah, who'll play for food and doesn't care what anyone says, thinks or does.'
'Didn't she have a leg torn off during the Newport Strikers versus Dartmoor Wanderers semi-final a few years back?'
'I'm in no position to be choosy, Bowd. If I put her on back-hoop defence she can just growl at anyone who comes close. Ready for lunch?'
The Neanderthal population of Swindon numbered about three hundred and they all lived in a small village to the west known as 'The Nation'. Because of their tool-using prowess, they were just given six acres of land, water and sewage points and told to get on with it, as if they needed to be asked, which they didn't.
The Neanderthals were not human nor descendants of ours, but cousins. They had evolved at the same time as us, then been forced into extinction when they failed to compete successfully with the more aggressive human. Brought back to life by Goliath Bioengineering in the late thirties and early forties, they were as much a part of modern life as dodos or mammoths. And since they had been sequenced by Goliath, each individual was actually owned by the corporation. A less than generous 'buy-back' scheme to be able to purchase oneself hadn't been well received.
We parked a little way down from the Nation and got out of the car.
'Can't we just park inside?' asked Bowden.
'They don't like cars,' I explained. 'They don't see the point in travelling any distance. To Neanderthal logic, anywhere that couldn't be reached in a day's walk isn't worth visiting. Our Neanderthal gardener used to walk the four miles to our house every Tuesday, and then walk back again, resisting all offers of a lift. Walking was, he maintained, "the only decent way to travel — if you drive you miss the conversations in the hedgerows".'
'I can see his point,' replied Bowden, 'but when I need to be somewhere in a hurry—'
'That's the difference, Bowd. You've got to get away from the human way of thinking. To Neanderthals, nothing is so urgent that it can't be done another time — or not done at all. By the way, did you remember not to wash this morning?'
He nodded. Because scent is so important to Neanderthal communications, the soapy cleanliness of humans reads more like some form of suspicious subterfuge. Speak to a Neanderthal while wearing scent and they'll instantly think you have something to hide.
We walked through the grassy entrance of the Nation and encountered a lone Neanderthal sitting on a chair in the middle of the path. He was reading the large-print Neanderthal News. He folded up the paper and sniffed the air delicately before staring at us for a moment or two and then asking:
'Who do you wish to visit?'
'Next and Cable. Lunch with Mr Stiggins.'
The Neanderthal stared at us for moment or two, then pointed us towards a house on the other side of a grassed open area that surrounded a totem representing I don't know what. There were five or six Neanderthals playing a game of croquet on the grass area and I watched them intently for a while. They weren't playing in teams, just passing the ball around and hooping where possible. They were excellent, too. I watched one player hoop from at least forty yards away off a roquet. It was a pity Neanderthals were aggressively non-competitive — I could have done with them on the team.
'Notice anything?' I asked as we walked across the grassed area, the croquet players moving past us in a blur of well-coordinated limbs.
'No children?'
'The youngest Neanderthal is fifty-two,' I explained, 'the males are infertile. It's probably their biggest source of disagreement with their owners.'
'I'd be pissed off, too.'
We found Stiggins's house and I opened the door and walked straight in. I knew a bit about Neanderthal customs, and you would never go into a Neanderthal home unless you were expected — in which case you treated it as your own and walked in unannounced. The house was built entirely of scrap wood and recycled rubbish and was circular in shape with a central hearth. It was comfortable and warm and cosy, but not the sort of basic cave I think Bowden expected. There was a TV and proper sofas, chairs and even a hifi. Standing next to the fire was Stiggins, and next to him was a slightly smaller Neanderthal.
'Welcome!' said Stig. 'This is Felicity — we are a partnership.'
His wife walked silently up to us and hugged us both in turn, taking an opportunity to smell us, first in the armpit and then in the hair. I saw Bowden flinch and Stig gave a small grunty cough that was a Neanderthal laugh.
'Mr Cable, you are uncomfortable,' observed Stig.
Bowden shrugged. He was uncomfortable, and he was familiar enough with Neanderthals to know that you can't lie to them.
'I am,' he replied, 'I've never been in a Neanderthal house before.'
'Is it any different to yours?'
'Very,' said Bowden, looking up at the construction of the roof beams, which had been made by gluing oddments of wood together and then planing them into shape.
'Not a single wood screw or bolt, Mr Cable. Have you heard the noise wood makes when you turn a screw into it? Most uncharitable.'
'Is there anything you don't make yourself?'
'Not really. You are insulting the raw material if you do not extract all possible use from it. Any cash we earn has to go to our buy-back scheme. We may be able to afford our ownership papers by the time we are due to leave.'
'Then what, if you'll excuse me, is the point?'
'To die free, Mr Cable. Drink?'
Mrs Stiggins appeared with four glasses that had been cut from the bottom of wine bottles and offered them to us. Stig drank his straight down and I tried to do the same and nearly choked — it was not unlike drinking petrol. Bowden choked and clasped his throat as if it were on fire. Mr and Mrs Stiggms stared at us curiously, then collapsed into an odd series of grunty coughs.
'I'm not sure I see the joke,' said Bowden, eyes streaming.
'It is the Neanderthal custom to humiliate guests,' announced Stig, taking our glasses from us. 'Yours was potato gin — ours was merely water. Life is good. Have a seat.'
We sat down on the sofa and Stig poked at the embers in the fire. There was a rabbit on a stick and I gave a deep sigh of relief — it wasn't going to be beetles for lunch.
'Those croquet players outside,' I began, 'do you suppose anything could induce them to play for the Swindon Mallets?'
'No. Only humans define themselves by conflict with other humans. Winning and losing have no meaning to us. Things just are as they are meant to be."
I thought about offering some money. After all, a month's salary for an averagely rated player would easily cover a thousand buy-back schemes. But Neanderthals are funny about money — especially money that they don't think they've earned. I kept quiet.
'Have you had any more thoughts about the cloned Shakespeares? asked Bowden.
Stig thought for a moment, twitched his nose, turned the rabbit, and then went to a large rolltop bureau and returned with a buff file — the genome report he had got from Mr Rumplunkett.
'Definitely clones,' he said, 'and whoever built them covered their tracks — the serial numbers are scrubbed from the cells and the manufacturer's information is missing from the DNA. On a molecular level they might have been built anywhere.'
'Stig,' I said, thinking of Hamlet, 'I can't stress how important it is that I find a Will clone — and soon.'
'We haven't finished, Miss Next. See this?'
He handed me a spectroscopic evaluation of Mr Shaxtper's teeth and I looked at the zigzag graph uncomprehendingly.
'We do this test to monitor long-term health patterns. By taking a cross-section of Shaxtper's teeth we can trace the original manufacturing area solely from the hardness of the water.'
'I see,' said Bowden. 'So where do we find this sort of water?'
'Simple: Birmingham.'
Bowden clapped his hands happily.
'You mean to tell me there's a secret bioengineering lab in the Birmingham area? We'll find it in a jiffy!'
'The lab isn't in Birmingham,' said Stig.
'But you said—?'
I knew exactly what he was driving at.
'Birmingham imports its water,' I said in a low voice, 'from the Elan valley — in the Socialist Republic of Wales.'
The job had just got that much harder. Goliath's biggest biotech facility used to be on the banks of the Craig Goch reservoir deep in the Elan before they moved to the Presellis. They had built across the border owing to the lax bioengineering regulations; they shut down as soon as the Welsh Parliament caught up. The lab in the Presellis did only legitimate work.
'Impossible!' scoffed Bowden. 'They closed down decades ago!'
'And yet,' retorted Stig slowly, 'your Shakespeares were built there. Mr Cable, you are not a natural friend to the Neanderthal and you do not have the strength of spirit of Miss Next, yet you are impassioned.'
Bowden was unconvinced by Stig's precis.
'How can you know me that well?'
There was silence for a moment as Stig turned the rabbit on the spit.
'You live with a woman whom you don't truly love but need for stability. You are suspicious that she is seeing someone else and that anger and suspicion hang heavily on your shoulders. You feel passed over for promotion and the one woman whom you truly love is inaccessible to you—'
'All right, all right,' Bowden said sullenly, 'I get the picture.'
'You humans radiate emotions like a roaring fire, Mr Cable — we are astounded at how you are able to deceive each other so easily. We see all deception so have evolved to have no need for it.'
'These labs,' I began, eager to change the subject, 'you are sure?'
'We are sure,' affirmed Stig, 'and not only Shakespeares were built there. All Neanderthals up to Version 2.3.5, too. We wish to return. We have an urgent need for that which we have been denied.'
'And that is?' asked Bowden.
'Children,' breathed Stig. 'We have planned for just such an expedition and your sapien characteristics will be useful. You have an impetuosity that we can never have. A Neanderthal considers each move before taking it and is genetically predisposed towards caution. We need someone like you, Miss Next — a human with drive, a propensity towards violence and the ability to take command — yet someone governed by what is right.'
I sighed.
'We're not going to get into the Socialist Republic,' I said. 'We have no jurisdiction and if we're caught there will be hell to pay.'
'What about your plan to take all those books across, Thursday?' asked Bowden in a quiet voice.
'There is no plan, Bowd. I'm sorry. And I can't risk being banged up in some Welsh slammer during the Superhoop. I have to make sure the Mallets win. I have to be there.'
Stig frowned at me.
'Strange!' he said at last. 'You do not want to win out of a deluded sense of home-town pride — we see a greater purpose.'
'I can't tell you, Stig, but what you read is true. It is vital to all of us that Swindon win the Superhoop.'
Stig looked across at Mrs Stiggms and the two of them held a conversation for a good five minutes — using only facial expressions and the odd grunt. After they had finished Stig said:
'It is agreed. You, Mr Cable, and ourself will break into the abandoned Goliath re-engineering labs. You to find your Shakespeares, we to find a way to seed our females.'
'I can't—'
'Even if we fail,' continued Stig, 'the Neanderthal Nation will field five players to help you win your Superhoop. There can be no payment and no glory. Is this the deal?'
I stared at his small brown eyes. Judging by the quality of the players I had seen outside and my knowledge of Neanderthals in general, we would be in with a chance — even with me locked up in a Welsh jail.
I shook his outstretched hand.
'This is the deal.'
'Then we must eat. Do you like rabbit?'
We both nodded.
'Good. This is a speciality of ours. In Neanderlese it is called Rabite'n'bitels.'
'Sounds excellent,' replied Bowden. 'What's it served with?'
'Potatoes and a ... tangy greeny-brown crunchy sauce.'
I can't be sure but I think Stig winked at me. I needn't have worried. The meal was excellent and Neanderthals are quite correct — beetles are severely underrated.
31
Planning Meeting
COMMON CORMORANT NUMBERS DECLINE
A leading ornithologist claimed yesterday that bear/bird incompatibility is to blame for the cormorant decline in recent years. 'We have known for many years that cormorants lay eggs in paper bags to keep the lightning out,' explained Mr Daniel Chough, 'but the reintroduction of bears to England has placed an intolerable strain on the bird's breeding habits. Even though bears and birds rarely compete for food and resources, it seems that wandering bears with buns steal the cormorant's paper bags in order, according to preliminary research, to hold the crumbs.' Reports that the bears are of Danish origin is suspected but not yet substantiated.
Article in Flap! magazine, 20 July 1988
'So what do you know about the Elan?' asked Bowden as we drove back into town.
'Not much,' I replied, looking at the charts of Mr Shaxtper's teeth. Stig reckoned he had lived in the Elan for a lot longer than the others — perhaps until only a few years ago. If he had survived that long, why not some of the others? I wasn't going to raise any false hopes quite yet, but at least it seemed possible we could save Hamlet after all.
'Were you serious about not being able to think of a way in?'
'I'm afraid so. But we could always pretend to be Brummie water officials or something.'
'Why would water officials have ten truckloads of banned Danish books?' asked Bowden, not unreasonably.
'Something to read while doing water officially things?'
'If we don't get these books to safety they'll be burned, Thursday — we've got to find a way into the republic.'
'I'll think of something.'
I spent the rest of the afternoon fielding calls from numerous sports reporters, eager to get a story and find out who would be playing in what position on the field. I called Aubrey and told him that he would have five new players — but I didn't tell him they'd be Neanderthals. I couldn't risk the press finding out.
By the time I returned to Mum's house my wedding ring was firmly back on my finger again. I pushed Friday around to Landen's house and, noticing that everything seemed to be back to normal, knocked twice. There was an excited scrabble from within and Landen opened the door.
'There you are!' he said happily. 'When you hung up on me I got kinda worried.'
'I didn't hang up, Land.'
'I was eradicated again?'
'I'm afraid so.'
'Will I be again''
'I'm hoping not. Can I come in?'
I put Friday on the floor; he immediately started to try and climb the stairs.
'Bedtime already, is it, young man?' asked Landen, following him as he clambered all the way up. I noticed that in the spare room there were two as yet unpacked stair gates, which put my mind at rest. He had bought a cot, too, and several toys.
'I bought some clothes.'
He opened a drawer. It was stuffed with all kinds of clothes for the little chap, and although some looked a bit small, I didn't say anything. We took him downstairs and Landen made some supper.
'So you knew I was coming back?' I asked as he cut up some broccoli.
'Oh, yes,' he replied, 'as soon as you got all that eradication nonsense sorted out. Make us a cup of tea, would you?'
I walked over to the sink and filled the kettle.
'Any closer with a plan for dealing with Kaine?' asked Landen.
'No,' I admitted, 'I'm really banking on Zvlkx's seventh Revealment coming true.'
'What I don't understand,' said Landen, chopping some carrots, 'is why everyone except Formby seems to agree with everything Kaine says. Bloody sheep, the lot of them.'
'I must say I'm surprised by the lack of opposition to Kaine's plans,' 1 agreed, staring absently out of the kitchen window. I frowned as the germ of an idea started to ferment in my mind. 'Land?'
'Yuh?'
'When was the last time Formby went anywhere near Kaine?'
'Never. He avoids him like the plague. Kaine wants to meet him face to face but the President won't have anything to do with him.'
'That's it!' I exclaimed, suddenly having a flash of inspiration.
'What's it?'
'Well—'
I stopped because something at the bottom of the garden had caught my eye.
'Do you have nosy neighbours, Land?'
'Not really.'
'It's probably my stalker, then.'
'You have a stalker?'
I pointed.
'Sure. Just there, in the laurels, beckoning to me.'
'Do you want me to do the strong male thing and chase him off with a stick?'
'No. I've got a better idea.'
'Hello, Millon. How's the stalking going? I brought you a cup of tea and a bun.'
'Pretty well,' he said, marking down in his notebook the time I had stopped to talk to him and budging aside to make room for me in the laurel bush. 'How are things with you?'
'They're mostly good. What were you waving at me for?'
'Ah!' he said. 'We were going to run a feature about thirteenth-century seers in Conspiracy Theorist magazine and I wanted to ask you a few questions.'
'Go ahead.'
'Do you think it's odd that no fewer than twenty-eight Dark Age saints have chosen this year for their second coming?'
'I'd not really given it that much thought.'
'O-kay. Do you not also find it strange that of these twenty-eight supposed seers only two of them — St Zvlkx and Sister Bettina of Stroud — have actually made any prophecies that have come remotely true?'
'What are you saying?'
'That St Zvlkx might not be a thirteenth-century saint at all, but some sort of time-travelling criminal. He takes an illicit journey to the Dark Ages, writes up what he can remember of history and then at the appropriate time he is catapulted forward to see his last "Revealment" come true.'
'Why?' I asked. 'If the ChronoGuard get wind of what he's up to he's never been born — literally. Why risk non-existence for at most a few years' fame as a washed-up visitor from the thirteenth century with a host of unpleasant skin complaints?'
Millon shrugged.
'I don't know. 1 thought you might be able to help me.'
He lapsed into silence.
'Tell me, Millon — is there any connection between Kaine and the ovinator?'
'Of course! You should read Conspiracy Theorist magazine more often. Although most of our links between secret technology and those in power are about as tenuous as mist, this one really is concrete: his personal assistant, Stricknene, used to work with Schitt-Hawse at the Goliath tech division. If Goliath have an ovinator, then Kaine might very well have one too. Do you know what it does, then?'
I laughed. This was exactly the news I wanted to hear.
'You'll see. Tell me,' I added, my hopes rising by the second, 'what do you know about the old Goliath bioengineering labs?'
'Hoooh!' he said, making a noise like any enthusiast invited to comment on their particular field of interest. 'Now you're talking! The old Goliath labs are still standing in what we call "Area 21" — the empty quarter in mid-Wales, the Elan.'
'Empty metaphorically or empty literally?'
'Empty as in no one goes there except water officials — and we have wholly uncorroborated evidence which we peddle as fact that an unspecified number of officials have vanished without trace. In any event it's all off limits to everyone, surrounded by an electrified fence.'
'To keep people out?'
'No,' said Millon slowly, 'to keep whatever genetic experiments Goliath were working on in. The whole of Area 21 is infested with chimeras. I've got files and files of dubious stories about people breaking in, allegedly never to be seen again. What's your interest in the Elan plant anyway?'
'Illegal genetic experiments on humans undertaken covertly by an apparently innocent multinational.'
Millon nearly passed out with conspiracy overload. When he had recovered he asked how he could help.
'I need you to find any pictures, plans, layout drawings, anything that might be of use for a visit.'
Millon opened his eyes wide and scribbled on his notepad.
'You're going to go into Area 21?'
'No.' I replied, 'we both are. Tomorrow. Leaving here at seven in the morning, sharp. Can you find what I asked for?'
He narrowed his eyes.
'I can get you your information, Miss Next,' he said slowly and with a gleam in his eye, 'but it will cost. Let me be your official biographer.'
I put out a hand and he shook it gratefully.
'Deal.'
I walked back inside to find Landen talking to a man dressed in slightly punky clothes, brightly coloured spectacle frames, bleached blond hair and an infinitesimally small goatee firmly planted just under his lower lip.
'Darling,' he said, grasping the hand that I had just rested on his shoulder, 'this is my very good friend Handley Paige.'
I shook his hand. He seemed pretty much the same as any other SF writers I had ever met. Slightly geeky but pleasant enough.
'You write the Emperor Zhark books,' I observed.
He winced slightly.
'No one ever talks about the decent stuff I write,' he moaned, 'they just ask me for more and more Zhark stuff. I did it as a joke — a pastiche of bad science fiction, and blow me down if it isn't the most popular thing I've ever done.'
I remembered what Emperor Zhark had told me.
'You're going to kill him off, aren't you?'
Handley started.
'How did you know that?'
'She works for SO-27,' explained Landen, 'they know everything.'
'I thought you guys were more hooked on the classics?'
'We deal with all genres,' I explained. 'For reasons that I can't reveal, I advise you to maroon Zhark on an uninhabited planet rather than submit him to the humiliation of a public execution.'