She came to as she heard Aliena saying that it was time to move on, that they had trespassed on his hospitality for long enough. The shepherd was in no rush, though; Rosalind got the feeling that he didn’t have much company, alone in the woods, and was grateful for the diversion.
‘Where are you going?’
‘We don’t really know,’ Aliena said. ‘Into the forest. We need … time. And privacy.’ Here she glanced archly at him.
He nodded knowingly. ‘I understand. I was young myself once. It is natural that you wish to know each other first. But you cannot go into the forest. It is dangerous if you do not know it. A good friend to those it accepts, but not safe for anyone else.’
‘We don’t have much choice.’
‘Have my cottage.’
‘We can’t!’ Rosalind said, and instantly regretted it. The man’s face fell, the disappointment clearly marked.
‘You must forgive him,’ Aliena interrupted quickly. ‘He is a stranger and does not know our ways. He thinks only of the inconvenience to you, and of our unworthiness for such kindness. Not that your cottage is unacceptable to us.’ She gave Rosalind a look.
The man’s face brightened. ‘There is no inconvenience, as today I lead my flock up into the hills to settle them for the summer, and will not return for several weeks. As for your unworthiness, then mine is the greater.’
‘We will not fight over such things,’ Aliena replied. ‘We both accept your kindness with the greatest of pleasure and honour. Don’t we, Ganimed?’
‘Oh … yes. Of course, honoured. Very,’ Rosalind said.
*
For two days and nights, then, Rosalind and Aliena lived in perfect happiness in the cottage, cooking, sleeping and talking. Rosalind was delighted; she had never had a proper girlfriend before, someone to talk to without restraint, to gossip and speculate with. Aliena was like her in one thing: she was still at an age when all is believable, if explained by a friend.
So Rosalind told her of her home and her life. Of the pergola in Lytten’s basement. Of her bemusement and slightly giddy feeling about being in a world which Aliena took for granted.
‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘you call it Anterwold.’
‘That’s its name.’
‘Yes, but it’s so very like what someone told me once. In fact, all of this could almost be his story …’
‘… What’s a school?’ Aliena interrupted. ‘Do you mean a college?’
‘… Hockey?’
‘… A gas cooker?’
Aliena listened, questioned and doubted nothing.
‘I wish I’d brought a record player,’ Rosalind said wistfully. ‘There’s my grandmother’s in the loft. It’s a wind-up one, so it would have worked. We could have given a party, invited everyone.’
She started to sing ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’, and Aliena listened carefully, then, after a couple of verses, joined in. Together the two girls sat on the porch of the shepherd’s cottage, carolling their way through the Broadway classics.
‘Oh, Rambert is going to get such a surprise when he hears me again,’ Aliena said happily. ‘He will disown me, cast me out. He will die of a heart attack from shock and despair. Let’s sing that last one again.’ And they did.
‘Tell me about that boy Jay. Is he married?’
‘I should hope not. That would be very deceitful of him. Why?’
‘Oh, just wondering.’
‘Did you like him?’
‘Of course not.’
Only very slowly did they acknowledge that this blessed interlude was just that – an interlude. They had run off into the forest without much of a thought. Now they had to decide what they were doing there. The second morning, Aliena stood up. ‘We should go and get a little kindling and some fresh water. If you want to eat today, that is. So, come, my strange friend from another world, if that is what you really are, let us walk. I’ll get the water, you get the sticks. Then we must talk about what to do next.’
*
A few hundred yards into the deep forest, the two girls split up, Aliena going to the right towards the stream with two large leather buckets, Rosalind to the left with a canvas bag, open at both ends so that it could store sticks of varying length. She needed dry, short branches but there weren’t many to be found; forests, she was learning, did not just mean close-packed trees.
She walked on, keeping a careful watch, until she saw ahead of her a large, handsome grove, almost perfectly circular, of tall broad oak trees standing isolated amongst low-lying scrub. It seemed almost impenetrable because of the bushes growing all around it, but the next group of trees was some way away and she didn’t feel like carrying heavy wood unnecessarily. So she circled it in the hope that there was some gap or hole she could squeeze through.
On the far side she found one, although it gave her pause when she came to it. It was, quite obviously, deliberately shaped. There was a distinct, clearly maintained hole in the undergrowth, and outside were two stone columns, one on either side. A pathway passed between them and on either side of the track was a large amount of mouldy food, which had been picked at and scattered by birds and wild animals. Although the columns gave it a sort of grandeur, the debris and mess cancelled that out, as it made the area around look more like a rubbish tip. Bones stuck out from rotting meat and the half-chewed carcasses of chickens and small animals. Vegetables and fruit lay in sticky piles, covered in flies and ants.
Rosalind crouched down and peered into the dark hole that led inside, but could see nothing. She was suddenly in a quandary. She wanted wood, and this was the best place to get it. She was curious about all the food scattered around, but she also had a profound sense of apprehension.
There was no sign saying Keep Out, no barrier or fence, but it didn’t seem like a good idea nonetheless. On the other hand, it was just a clump of trees and it would undoubtedly provide the firewood she needed. Besides, monsters didn’t exist.
Rosalind advanced, passed the two columns and listened. Nothing beyond the usual sounds of woodland. She took another few steps and paused again. No tell-tale snaps of twigs as someone followed her. No slithering of snakes. No growls of predators. She relaxed a little, then took a few more steps.
‘Such a silly I am,’ she said to herself. ‘Why shouldn’t I get wood here? There’s no one around. It’s entirely safe.’
She bent down and picked up her first stick, which she put in the shepherd’s pannier, then saw another a few steps ahead and picked up that one as well. It would only take a few minutes and she’d have as much as she could carry. Eyes to the ground, she picked her way forward, deeper into the copse, quite forgetting her nervousness of a few moments ago.
Then she got to a dark clearing in its centre and stepped forward to pick up the last twigs, just perfect for kindling. That done, she straightened up.
And screamed. And screamed and screamed before she dropped her pannier of carefully collected wood and ran, tripping over wood and briars, until she burst sobbing into the outside world again.
38
It occurred to Jack, as he walked along the corridors accompanied by the two men, that if someone like Emily had been there, she might have given him a lengthy lecture on ceremonial through the ages. She could have described the various ways popes, emperors, kings and presidents had used ritual to inspire awe, turn equals into inferiors and the courageous into trembling supplicants. Whether it was a throne room or an oval office, a cavalcade or a motorcade, the object was to win any argument by psychological intimidation before it had even started.
The great elite of science was no different. The entire top floor of the residence had been taken over; security men were placed every few steps; Jack passed through room after room, being examined or merely ignored by ever more important-looking people. Eventually he came to the holy of holies, the inner sanctum, laid out in an old-fashioned style with comfortable chairs and settees and huge windows, the curtains drawn to keep out the light.
&
nbsp; The door shut behind him, leaving Jack in what he at first thought was an empty room. Only as his eyes got accustomed to the dim light did he realise he was wrong. A tiny man, frail and almost elf-like, was perched on a chair. He did not move, but sat with his hands clasped on his lap, looking at him curiously, judging how he reacted to these strange circumstances.
‘Please sit down. You are Dr More, I believe.’ Jack started in surprise; he expected a voice to match the appearance, as thin and wispy as the man’s body, but instead it was a deep baritone, clear and precise.
‘Yes. Who are you?’
He looked mildly puzzled. ‘Did they not say? Oh, they do like their mystery, no? Forgive me. My name is Zoffany Oldmanter. Please sit down. I do not like looking up at people.’
He should have realised. But Oldmanter was so different from anything he might have expected that he sat himself down opposite the man, so fearsome in reputation, so harmless in appearance, and studied him with renewed interest. It was no surprise that he had not recognised him; there were no photographs. Oldmanter never appeared in public; no one outside an inner circle had seen him for years, decades. He was his reputation, and his unimaginable power. He was very old. He had spent a lifetime accumulating his resources of countless companies, huge lands and hundreds of millions of people, all serving his laboratories and controlled with an iron grip. He had never taken his rightful place on any of the governing councils, preferring to get whatever he wanted by informal means – a request here, an attack there. His army was said to be the best equipped in the world, the most ruthless when let loose on anyone who opposed him.
Now he was sitting, alone and unguarded, opposite him. Jack could lean over and break his neck with one simple movement.
‘But you are not going to,’ Oldmanter said, almost apologetically.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Break my neck, or whatever it was passing through your head.’
‘You read minds?’
‘I don’t need to. I suspect it would be very tedious. No; everybody thinks the same when they meet me for the first time.’ He smiled wanly. ‘I used to find it annoying.’
‘What am I doing here?’
‘You did not say how honoured you are to be in my presence,’ he noted.
Jack shrugged.
‘Good. I hate obsequiousness. It is perfectly simple. I want an explanation of the lamentable chaos that seems to be overwhelming Hanslip’s laboratories. Let me list the things that concern me,’ Oldmanter said. ‘One of my advisers has gone missing. Dr Hanslip is refusing to respond to any communications. There was a catastrophic accident last week that resulted in widespread disturbance and Hanslip is ostentatiously trying to blame it all on renegades. He has also, I learn, lost his star mathematician.’
He paused. ‘I do not care too much about any of that, but I am very concerned about the state of Dr Hanslip’s project.’
‘I’m sure that I don’t know …’
‘I am sure that you do.’
‘I am bound by my oath of confidentiality.’
‘I am well aware of where your loyalties lie, and I honour you for that. Nonetheless, circumstances have changed. Hanslip’s operation will soon enough belong to us, as will all the information it owns.’
‘In which case surely it would be better to wait until then?’
‘I would, if I was confident that the situation wasn’t going to degenerate further. What are you looking for?’
Jack hesitated for a moment. ‘Why do you think I am looking for something?’
‘In the middle of a crisis you suddenly leave and travel south. You try to ensure that you cannot be tracked from the moment you get to the mainland to the moment you arrive here. Naturally we have your institute watched. It is standard procedure when we are negotiating to acquire something.’
As the man seemed to know a great deal, there was little to be gained by pretending otherwise. ‘We were subject to attempted sabotage and theft. I was sent to make enquiries. My main task is to track down Angela Meerson, who, as you say, has vanished.’
‘Theft of …?’
‘Some data.’
‘Have you succeeded?’
‘I have scarcely started.’
‘I see. You understand that with the resources I have at my disposal I could track Meerson down very much faster than you could.’
‘I doubt that. You would make a great deal of noise and put her on the alert. She is, as perhaps you know, very intelligent and almost paranoid in her lack of trust in others.’
‘You have a low opinion of our skills.’
‘I do. I have learnt over the years that the bigger the organisation, the clumsier it is. I will find her faster and more efficiently than you can.’
Oldmanter considered this remark for a moment and then said: ‘You are not telling me the entire truth, of course.’
‘Of course not,’ Jack replied with a smile. ‘It is the truth, nonetheless.’
‘Very well. Bear in mind that I wish to secure control of this technology for the good of humanity. Hanslip has neither the vision nor the resources to develop it properly. I do. Your assistance will be valued and rewarded, if and when it is forthcoming.’
‘I have nothing useful to offer you at the moment.’
‘Then I would urge you to remember my words when you do.’
*
Jack moved swiftly when he left Oldmanter’s quarters. The first task was to escape the residence unnoticed. For this he assumed he had an advantage; if Oldmanter truly thought that he was a high-ranking scientist, and the polite way he talked suggested he did, then no one would assume he had the skills necessary to evade them. With luck, he could disappear thoroughly before they even noticed he had gone.
Signing out, he decided, he could do without. Instead, he left through the doors that led to the service area, full of the sort of people that Oldmanter scarcely knew existed, the cooks and cleaners who toiled unseen in the bowels of the building. There he ducked and weaved through the corridors, borrowing at one stage a floor sweeper’s brown coat and cap that he found hanging on a peg by a cupboard. Then he went to the loading bay, where the food came in and the rubbish went out. It was not hard to hitch a lift in one of the trucks, and he was certain he could rely on the suspicion and surliness of such people for protection. Did you see anyone unusual this morning? No. Not a soul … Many a time he had been faced with such obstruction. It was the first and often enough the last response to any question.
He got out at a busy intersection where there were only multiple lanes of transports but no pedestrians. No one paid any attention to him as he slipped out, thanking the driver with a clap on the shoulder as he slid to the ground. The man never even looked at him, just grunted as he slammed the door. Then he spent the next hour criss-crossing the area, a commercial zone full of factories and processing plants, surrounded by massive high-rise blocks for the workers who kept them going, ducking into buildings and out the back, walking, then doubling back. He left his wallet with his money card in it on a bench where he knew it would be found and, inevitably, stolen. Once it was used, his location would be tracked wherever it went, and his followers would go off on a wild goose chase, convinced they knew exactly where he was.
He hadn’t really believed Hanslip when he had told him to be careful just before he left. But if Oldmanter in person was intervening, then it was serious indeed; this was not a man who occupied himself with details. He had tens of thousands of people who could have come and interviewed him. Now he knew the institute was being monitored, and Oldmanter considered Angela’s technology to be so important that it required him to get involved personally. This was no longer tidying up after a security lapse and an embarrassing accident.
He now had the entire night to pass before he could get into the Depository. It was cold, it was wet and he had no money. All of a sudden, life was much less pleasant.
*
The moment he arrived the following morning at the dau
nting steel gates which led to the main entrance, he realised that, if Emily did not show up, there was not a chance he could find anything on his own. It was huge. A vast building, so tall and long that the edges were lost in the fog, the windowless walls in grimy concrete, bleak and unwelcoming, surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. It would be like looking for a piece of paper in a city, even if the place was well organised, and he suspected strongly that it would not be.
That was all he needed. He was cold and miserable from having been on the streets the entire night. There was nowhere to sit by the road, which was covered in rubbish and filth, and nowhere to get anything to eat or drink, even if he had had any money, just a bleak, broad multi-lane highway which led nowhere. He began to feel his spirits sag, and to wonder what he would do if Emily Strang did not turn up. Why should she, after all?
Then there was a shout from behind him. As he turned his heart lightened, and not just because it was now possible that he might succeed in his task. The sight of her walking along, in a thick coat, bag over her shoulder, smiling as she waved, revived his spirits. Still, there was nothing that remarkable about her, he reminded himself. Just a renegade, who showed her nature in the loose way she walked, the ostentatious scruffiness of her clothes.
‘I’m late. Sorry about that,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Dear God! What’s happened to you? You look as though you slept on a bench all night.’
‘I was on a bench, but I didn’t sleep. I had a meeting last night. I thought it would be a good idea to make myself scarce.’
‘Why?’
‘I met the great Zoffany Oldmanter. In the flesh.’
‘Aren’t you important then.’
Even she had heard of him. But of course she had. Oldmanter was the instigator of the current campaign against the renegades.
‘If he finds out I went to your Retreat yesterday, it won’t take long for him to figure out who I came to visit.’