Summerland

  Even if what he offered was genuine, she could not accept it. It meant getting too close.

  ‘I appreciate it, Roger, I really do. I understand that you want to climb up a spirit spy’s trouser leg, and I wish you all the best. I just can’t help you get any higher. I’m sorry.’

  Roger frowned and stood up abruptly. ‘I think you are making a mistake.’ He sounded hurt.

  ‘I have been making mistakes all my life, Roger.’ She sighed. ‘For what it’s worth, I will miss you after you are gone.’

  ‘All right, old girl,’ Roger said. He suppressed a cough with his sleeve. ‘I guess this is a goodbye, then.’

  ‘Goodbye, Roger.’

  * * *

  Max Chevalier leaned closer to the birdcage and peered at the finches. The female was morose and sat in a corner, all fluffed up, while the male jumped up and down and pecked at seeds as heartily as ever.

  ‘The females are a bit more fragile, I’m afraid. You have to watch out for tumours, the swollen belly may be a sign of that.’

  ‘Can we get to the matter at hand?’ Rachel asked. Although the bird did look unwell.

  ‘Tut,’ Max said. ‘Priorities, Mrs White. Living birds trump dead spies.’

  ‘Maybe this is all for nothing. Maybe Bloom was simply being polite.’ Her mood had not substantially improved in the past day. Joe had slept in the guest bedroom, blaming chilly sensations again.

  Max had scheduled their meeting at Sloane Square that Saturday before a social outing. He wore Henry’s body and evening wear. His hair was waxed and he smelled of strong cologne. If not for the slackness of his face and dead eyes, he would have been one of the most handsome men Rachel had ever met, but on the whole, she preferred the Edison doll.

  ‘Poor wee beastie,’ Joan said. ‘I wonder if it has a soul.’

  She was one of Max’s agents, a blonde, birdlike woman with a faint Scottish accent who was, based on the looks she gave Max, at least a little in love with the dead spymaster. The other agent present, Helen, a surprisingly senior lady with a cockney accent and a fearsome, feathered hat, sipped tea and fed sugar cubes to the foul-mouthed Amazon parrot on its perch. Max had sworn over everything he held holy that both of them, as well as Henry, could be absolutely trusted, but the two ladies still made Rachel a little uncomfortable.

  She gave Joan a pointed look. ‘I am more concerned with espionage than eschatological ornithology right now,’ she said. ‘How long should we wait?’

  ‘Why the hurry, Mrs White?’ Max asked. ‘Softly, softly, catchee monkey.’

  ‘Roger Hollis, my former secretary, came to see me yesterday. He claimed to be investigating the mole as well, on behalf of a patron in the Summer Court. He wanted me to help him.’

  ‘Isn’t that interesting?’ Max said. ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I said I did not know anything. I believe he had … ulterior motives for offering his help and is not serious about the investigation.’

  Helen let out a bright giggle. ‘Oo-er,’ she said. ‘Somebody after the old slithery?’

  Rachel blushed. ‘Either that, or he is simply courting favour with Bloom’s protectors.’

  She had been surprised to learn that Helen had infiltrated a Luddite group run by a Soviet agent and was a safe house and logistics expert. Joan had been the key witness in the famous Russian Tea Room Case a few years ago. A keen automobile enthusiast, she was to be their driver. At the Winter Court, Max had preferred such part-time agents over professionals, praising their dedication and lack of careerism.

  It all seemed jolly and eccentric, but Rachel remembered the story about the fox that Max had shot. She had no doubt that, if necessary, he would treat his agents with the same combination of tenderness and ruthlessness.

  ‘Very well,’ Max said. ‘We shall watch out for Mr Hollis. As for Mr Bloom contacting you, no need to fret. I suspect he is going to follow the pattern of classic asset development—which is not dissimilar to seduction, incidentally. I could practically write you a script, if it wasn’t for the soul-reading.’

  Rachel blinked.

  ‘Ah yes, Mrs White. Like all of us post-mortals, he can see into your head. That is what makes this interesting.’

  ‘All right,’ Rachel said testily. ‘So how am I going to stop him from seeing my deepest and darkest secrets?’

  ‘Well, soul-reading is not thought-reading. A spirit can see the aetheric shape of your soul, and that is a very transient thing, not verbal at all, more like a Cubist painting that moves. Even with just a little training, most emotions can be identified. That makes the Spooks very good at talent-spotting and asset development. However, there are counter-techniques related to Stanislavski’s acting method: using your memories to create powerful emotions to fool the observer. Let us try a little experiment.’

  He touched a switch on the spirit crown. Henry stiffened, and then his face returned to normal.

  ‘Just wait a minute, my dear boy,’ Max’s voice echoed from the Edison doll. The medium sighed and leaned back. On the few occasions when Max was not inhabiting him, the young man said as little as possible.

  ‘Now, think of something happy, please.’

  Rachel stared at the doll blankly. Happy. Childhood memories flashed in her mind. Listening to her ayah’s stories. Tending the garden with her mother. Joe’s proposal on the Atlantic Coast in France. The images felt cold and distant. Her eyes burned all of a sudden, and she had to squeeze them shut to keep from tearing up.

  Rachel stood, embarrassed.

  ‘I don’t think I am naturally a happy person,’ she said in a choked voice.

  ‘I should say so.’ Max’s voice was soft. ‘Whatever that was, I wouldn’t use it.’

  ‘There, there,’ Helen said. ‘It’s all right, dearie-dove. Sit down. You’re amongst friends here.’

  Looking at her beaming, ruddy face, Rachel was suddenly glad that Max had not recruited traditional Court hard men.

  ‘Obviously, we have our work cut out here,’ Max said. ‘I may have to cancel my dinner. Oh well. We might try anger instead. Or, better yet, guilt. Guilt is always reliable.’

  11

  AN AFFAIR IN THE REGISTRY, 14TH NOVEMBER 1938

  Peter Bloom entered the Reading Room of the Summer Court Registry to look for the file on the last battle.

  Only a handful of the thirty ink-spattered desks were occupied. There were four archivists’ counters and a small break area. It could have been a library in any civil service building of the living, unless one looked to ana or kata. Even rudimentary hypersight revealed the endless spiralling stacks with their labyrinth of secrets. Peter liked the Registry; it reminded him of the college library in Trinity, although it lacked the smell of paper and dust.

  Ostensibly, he was here to compile material for the briefing on Spain for the Winter Court. C had been furious after Peter reported the outcome of his private session with West. The old man sealed himself into his office for two days, refusing to see anyone except the stone-faced Hill. The Special Committee was due to meet in another week, November 21st, and Peter suspected the Chief was girding himself for another confrontation with Sir Stewart. His absence left Peter to deal with the details of transferring the operation over to the Winter Court. A young officer called Hollis kept bombarding him with requests for information. Dutifully, Peter was in the process of preparing an information package—which would also be delivered to Otto and Nora via the Listener.

  But the real reason he was in the Registry was the word West had spoken: Camlann.

  Camlann was the battlefield where King Arthur and evil Mordred perished by each other’s hand, ending the golden age of Camelot. Was West haunted by the possibility of a world war precipitated by conflict between the Soviet Union and Britain? Did the image represent the Presence invading the Summer City?

  Yet that did not explain the guilt West felt. Camlann—or CAMLANN—had the ring of a code name for an operation or an asset. Arthurian code names had been a fad in the ear
ly days of the SIS.

  If there was an SIS file documenting plans of a war with the Soviet Union, obtaining it was of paramount importance—especially if there was a risk that the fire burning in Spain would spread to the rest of the world, and Summerland itself.

  It had to be worth the price he was going to pay for it.

  Peter went up to one of the archivists, Astrid, a young woman who had gone through a premature Fading during her time at the Registry. When he joined the Court, she had been pretty, with auburn hair, a prim figure and legs with the perfect geometry of sharpened pencils. She still wore white blouses and short skirts, but her hair was now colourless and her face had become a translucent oval, illuminated from within by the faint prismatic glow of her luz stone.

  ‘Mr Bloom,’ Astrid whispered. Her voice was nearly gone as well, a barely audible vibration in the aether. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Too busy to see you, I’m afraid. Visiting the living.’

  ‘No wonder you look pale.’ In spite of her condition, Astrid was sharp as a tack, and even liked to joke about it.

  ‘Merely looking forward to forgetting our first meeting so I can experience meeting you again.’

  Astrid laughed, a gentle, tickling sensation in the aether, like leaves brushing Peter’s face.

  ‘And here I thought today might finally be the day.’

  Fading affected everyone differently, and even a regular intake of vim did not necessarily protect you from it in the long run. Before Tickets, it happened very quickly, and it was no wonder that early mediums were accused of being charlatans when the spirits they channelled could only recall fragments of their past lives. Sometimes Peter wondered what it had been like for his father, and what was the last thing that had remained with Mr Bloom at the very end.

  Peter sighed. ‘I’m afraid not. I need a couple of files.’

  ‘I heard you were moving up in the world.’

  ‘I wish. If I make a mess of this one, C will have my head.’

  ‘Only your head? He is getting soft in his dotage.’

  Peter grinned and took a request slip from Astrid’s desk. He scribbled keywords and an operation code on it and signed it with his luz. It was for an early report from BRIAR.

  Astrid glanced at the slip briefly and stood still for a moment. The memories she had lost via Fading had largely been replaced by the vast and complex index of the Registry.

  She conjured a Hinton Cube from the aether, a flowing, shifting crystal the size of a small die. It represented a unique four-dimensional address that one could thought-travel to, just like the Tickets and ectophone beacons.

  Peter made a show of frowning at the Cube. ‘You know, Astrid, I am not feeling terribly well. I had a bad connection with a medium, gave us both a headache the size of Gibraltar. Would you mind helping me with this?’

  ‘Of course,’ Astrid said. She leaned closer. ‘It would be my pleasure.’

  Peter winked at her. You could find a flaw in any system, no matter how carefully constructed. That was what the philosopher Ludwig Unschlicht had taught him.

  * * *

  It was seven years ago, during Peter’s second year in Cambridge.

  The lecture had been strange from the start. Dr Unschlicht walked into the seminar room at Trinity, pushed a chair to the centre of the small space and sat down. He sat quietly for a while, face tense in extreme concentration. The German philosopher was almost fifty but could have passed for thirty. He had an aquiline profile and a mass of brown curly hair atop a high forehead.

  Finally, he began chopping the air with his right hand.

  ‘I shall try and try again to show that what is called a mathematical discovery had much better be called a mathematical invention.’

  That made Peter grip his exercise book and fountain pen with anger. Of course mathematics was discovered, not invented! Invention was a degrading word, better suited for engineers. Mathematics was about how things were, in every possible world. He looked around at the handful of other students and fellows in the room and was disappointed when he did not see other expressions of outrage.

  Still, Dr Unschlicht’s presentation was as compelling as it was strange. He had no notes; he simply talked. Every now and then he stopped and muttered briefly to himself, brow furrowed as he attempted to pull a thought from some unseen well with the sheer force of his will. When he spoke again, his next statement was perfectly coherent, logical—and to Peter’s ears, blasphemous.

  ‘Think of the case of the Liar’s Paradox,’ Unschlicht said. ‘It is very queer in a way that this should have puzzled anyone, because the thing works like this: if a man says I am lying, we say that it follows that he is not lying, from which it follows that he is lying and so on. Well, so what? You can go on like that until you are blue in the face. Why not? It doesn’t matter. It is just a useless language game. Why should anyone be excited?’

  ‘Because it’s a contradiction!’ Peter shouted, unable to contain himself. ‘If mathematics allows statements that can be both true and false, it all falls apart!’

  Unschlicht looked at him, eyes blazing. His thin-lipped mouth curled into a smile.

  ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why does everything fall apart? Nothing has been done wrong. Why is this young man so afraid of contradictions?’

  Peter blushed. ‘Well, if you can’t build mathematics on logic, then what is it built upon?’ he asked. ‘Russell and Moore showed that—’

  ‘I am very familiar with their work. But you haven’t answered my question. What harm is there in a contradiction?’

  ‘What about a situation where you are building a bridge?’ a new voice said, high and full of enthusiasm.

  The owner of the voice was one of the first New Dead Peter had seen. He, or his medium, wore full spirit armour, a bulky contraption like a diving suit covered in wires and coils. A faint smell of burning dust emanated from it.

  ‘If you want to build a bridge,’ the armoured stranger continued, ‘you want to make sure your calculations are correct. And how can you make sure it won’t fall down if there is a contradiction in your calculus?’

  ‘Doctor Morcom,’ Unschlicht said, ‘don’t you give a class on this very topic? Perhaps you would like me to enrol.’

  Peter recognised the name. Dr Christopher Morcom was a mathematical prodigy who had passed over at a young age but continued his work in Summerland and even obtained a posthumous fellowship at Trinity.

  ‘I am indeed teaching a class on the foundations of mathematics,’ Dr Morcom said. ‘But I was intensely curious about your approach.’

  ‘You can educate me in turn, then! Has a bridge ever fallen down because of the Liar’s Paradox?’

  ‘Of course not. But mathematics and physical reality are intimately linked. At the end of the last century, we saw the Scottish mathematician Tait’s perfect correspondence between the classification of knots and the Periodic Table of elements. In Summerland, we are discovering even deeper links between geometry and the nature of souls. How can we continue this journey if our entire edifice of logic rests on a shaky foundation?’

  ‘Your argument is irrelevant. The process of mathematics is agnostic to its material or aetheric nature. It is a language game, nothing more than a matter of grammar, social conventions and practical demands. Doctor Morcom, you will have to agree with me that our bridges stand. If they fall, it is not due to a flaw in the foundations of calculus. Find me a perfect bridge made of mathematics in your Summerland that collapses under your weight. Then I may look at things differently.’

  ‘Let us hope our aetheric bridges continue to carry us, then,’ Morcom said.

  He sat down, conceding a stalemate. Unschlicht followed suit, brow furrowed, and continued his lecture.

  Afterwards, Peter followed him across the verdant expanse of Trinity’s grand quad.

  ‘Doctor Unschlicht.’

  The philosopher turned around, head cocked to one side like a puzzled bird of prey.

  ‘I didn’t under
stand the point you were trying to make,’ Peter said. ‘Are you saying that mathematics is true, or that it isn’t?’

  ‘My point is that there is no point. I won’t say anything which anyone can dispute. Or if anyone does dispute it, I will let that point drop and pass on to say something else. Learn to embrace contradictions, young man. Once you do, perhaps we can have a serious discussion, hmm?’

  He walked away and left Peter standing there, unmoored and lost, like a kite whose string had been cut.

  * * *

  Seven years later, Peter walked in the midst of mathematics made solid, in the heart of the Registry.

  Astrid guided them to the first file with blinding speed, holding his hand in a featherlike grip. Their thought-travel blurred the colours of the files into a fuzzy grey which then resolved into a cubical space surrounded by shelves on all sides and illuminated only by amber hyperlight. The angles and the corners twisted whenever Peter turned his head. They were inside one of the countless interconnected tesseracts that made up the stacks. It was hard to believe that as little as thirty years ago, the Service had got by with a small building on Charing Cross Road.

  Astrid floated up to a high shelf close to the ceiling and pulled out a thick file. She handed it to Peter.

  ‘There you go, Mr Bloom.’ Her blank face glowed with rosy light. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’

  Peter let the file drop and drew Astrid to him. He kissed her mouthless face. Her skin felt like a soap bubble, slippery and yielding against his lips. He licked the nub of her luz and she moaned softly.

  Peter had not taken many lovers in Summerland. Privately, he considered the Victorian morals that discouraged pleasures of aetheric flesh ridiculous. Except in Summerland, nakedness would have meant literally baring his soul, and his secrets with it. And so, even now, his self-image stayed clothed and distinct. He pushed his own luz deep into Astrid’s aetheric flesh, but only caressed her soul-stone without letting it in.