Jerry was in a gallant mood. “Sweden—I thought that was where you had gone.”
“Ha, ha!”
“You’re getting too close.”
“What do you mean?”
Jerry gulped. “It’s time that phrase was melted down for scrap.”
“Jerry, this is Laurence.” She brought the juicy youngster forward. He gave Jerry a juicy smile.
“Hello, Laurence.” Jerry squeezed the youngster’s hand, which immediately began to sweat. “Hmmm, fast reactions.”
“Laurence has been streamlined,” the Swedish girl said mockingly from behind the youngster. “No frontal lobes.”
“That’s the stuff to give ’em. Shall we dance?”
“If you don’t think we’ll look too conspicuous.”
“Heavens to Betsy, what should it matter to us!”
They danced the chaver, a rather formal measure with minuet and frug influences. Jerry thought of Mr Powys’s last moments and felt he could sense the tiny figures of Marek and Miss Brunner having it away in the caverns of his mind. He got out as fast as he could, back to the wide world.
“You dance very gracefully,” she smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Ulla.”
“You’re not chewing gum tonight.”
“Not tonight.”
He began to feel randy. He rolled his eyes. She laughed.
“It’s a big party,” she said. “Why so big?”
“Safety in numbers.”
“Is it all for me?”
“As much as you can take.”
“Aha!”
He began to feel blissful. He closed his eyes. Up and down went his long legs, round went his body, in and out went his hands, and they danced together. He chewed at her flavoured hair and stroked her thighs. They danced apart, pirouetting. He took her hand and twirled her again. Then he led her from the room. They climbed over the people on the stairs, pushed through the throngs on the landing, found the next flight less densely crowded all the way to the top, where there were only a few people holding glasses and talking. In his bedroom there was just enough space for the door to open. The rest of it was taken up by the bed.
He closed the door and threw many bolts. The room was in complete darkness. They fell to biting each other.
“Oho!” she cried as his hand swam up her leg.
“Ha, ha!” he whispered, and he began softly to punch her warm body. They rolled about laughing and groaning. She was a bit of all right. He kissed her cheek. She tickled him on the chest. Then they lay back, exhausted and content.
It was nice in the darkness with the girl beside him. He rolled her a cigarette and lit it for her. He rolled one for himself. He had a flash of memory. “Una?”
When they had finished, he pinched the cigarettes out and put his arm around her, cradling her head. They fell asleep.
But he dreamed of Catherine, of Catherine. He dreamed of Catherine. Cath-er-ine. He merged into her and he was Catherine. Catherine with a dart in her heart. Catherine himself, and when Frank came along, red as a lobster, he arched her body for Frank. When Frank had joined them they walked in a summer garden, the three of them peaceful in her body. And Mum…
“How many can one body take?” He woke up before the dream became too crowded. He began to make love to Ulla. Or was it Una?
* * *
When they arose the following afternoon, they found the party beginning to warm up. They washed in the bathroom adjoining the bedroom, and Jerry left her to unlock his dressing room and put on fresh clothes.
They breakfasted on pâté and rye bread which the caterers had just brought in. Then they parted. Jerry picked up a discarded horror-film magazine and took it into the ground-floor room, where he sat on a cushion and read it. Next to him lay a cold Man with closed eyes. Someone had stepped on The Man’s dropper. Someone else had removed his tights. He looked pretty funny.
When he had finished the magazine, Jerry wandered through the house and found the corpses of two Special Branch men. This intrusion annoyed him, and he kicked at the bodies for a moment. One of them had been garrotted, and the other didn’t have a mark on him. Hans Smith, rather drunk, holding a bottle of wine, pointed at the unmarked Special Branch man. “Shock, old boy, shock. The rate it’s taking them off they ought to set up a British Shock Research Institute, eh?”
“How long have you got, then?” asked Jerry.
“The doctors say a year, but I think less.”
“It’s best to.”
“I don’t think much of your friends, seriously, old boy. I had to ask one or two of them to leave—on your behalf, since I couldn’t find you.”
“Thank you, Mr Smith.”
“Thank you, old boy.”
In a corner the self-pitying albino was talking to Charlie Parker. “I was thinking of changing my name myself,” he was saying. “How would you like to be called Pierro?”
Two of the warlocks had assembled the best part of the comprehensive school teachers, pupils and parents. They wanted a virgin for a symbolic sacrifice. “Only symbolic, you understand.”
The fourteen antique dealers from Portobello Road were enjoying the Polish french-polisher in a gang bang.
The Turkish and Persian lesbians sat straight-backed on cushions and looked on.
The Deep Fix were backing Little Miss Dazzle, and her small, true voice sang “Just What It Is”, the melody weaving round and above the general noise of the party, counterpointing the screams and giggles and grunts and low moans. Jerry paused and listened to her.
She saw him and finished the song.
“This is your house?”
“Yes. That was nice.”
“You’re Mr Cornelius?”
“I am.”
“Mr Cornelius, I believe you know Mr Crookshank, my agent. I haven’t been able to get in touch with him for weeks.”
Jerry felt sorry for Little Miss Dazzle, she looked so upset.
“I haven’t seen him for some time either.”
“Oh, dear. I’ve had offers from other agents, and I’ll need to get someone soon or my career will be finished. But I—well, I got on so well with him. Where on earth is he?”
“The last I saw of him was in France—Normandy—the coast.”
“He’s abroad!”
“You could’ve fooled me.” And, of course, she had. “I’m going out for a ride. Want to come?”
“Well—I came with three men. I met them on Fleet Street.”
“I’m sure they won’t mind if you’re away for a few hours.”
She gave him a sweet smile. “Oh, all right.” She hooked her arm in his and they went out of the back of the house down to the garage. Jerry decided to use the Duesenberg.
In Battersea, as he drove towards the park, Jerry discovered the truth about Little Miss Dazzle. “Oh, well…” he said and put a comforting arm round her shoulders. She cuddled up.
* * *
The months of the party went by and Jerry circulated. The Suffolk fire-eater, who had experience in show business, took Little Miss Dazzle off his hands and became her agent, just in time.
Guests died or left and new ones came. Spring arrived, green and lovely, and the guests oozed into the garden. The catering firm first of all refused to accept a cheque for their monthly account; then they refused paper money, and Jerry had to pay them in sovereigns. He paid them with a secret grin.
The party continued to be catered for. The trucks, Jerry noted, drove through clearer streets, and there didn’t seem to be as many people about as usual.
Jerry went back in one day and checked his calendar. He was puzzled. It wasn’t right. Not yet.
He took the calendar down and tore it across with a frown.
The morose Colonel Pyat was looking at him.
“What’s the trouble?” He spoke moodily.
“Time,” said Jerry. “Something wrong with the time.”
“I don’t follow you.”
/> “It’s moving too fast.”
“I see.”
“Don’t bother,” said Jerry, walking back into the main room, picking his way over the guests.
“I’d like to listen to what you’re getting at.” A psychiatrist followed him. “Honestly I would.”
“Maybe you can tell me why so many people seem to have left London so soon.”
“So soon—were you expecting them to leave?”
“I expected something like it.”
“When?”
“I expected the first signs in a year or so.”
“The first signs of what?”
“The breakup. It was bound to come, but…”
“Not so soon. An interesting idea. I thought we were bound to get straight again. Surely the economic crisis was only temporary. Europe’s resources, manpower, brain power…”
“I was more optimistic.” Jerry turned and grinned at the psychiatrist from Regent’s Park.
“I see you have recovered your self-possession.”
Jerry waved his hand round the room. “I wouldn’t say that. You see most of what I possess.”
The psychiatrist frowned.
“Well, what’s your explanation?” Jerry asked him.
“I thought it was a temporary solution, as I said. This land rush I’ve heard about…”
“What’s that?”
“Apparently there’s been some sort of back-to-the-land movement, you know. From what I hear, the Scottish Highlands are like Blackpool beach in August, with everybody staking a claim. People seem to have lost faith in the pound and the government, such as it is.”
“Very sensible. So the stockbrokers are stockbreeding and raising wheat.”
“That seems to be about the size of it. Not that you can raise much wheat in the Highlands. But the same is true all over rural Britain—more people in the country than in the towns these days.”
“Aha. This shouldn’t have happened yet.”
“Have I been missing out? Did anyone else anticipate this?”
Jerry shrugged.
“Maybe you’ve heard of this atom-bomb rumour?” the psychiatrist plugged on.
“Atom-bomb rumour? No, nothing.” Jerry felt surprised. “Atom bombs?”
“One of the sheets reported a rumour that a maniac was threatening to bomb the European capitals.”
“Go on!” Jerry jeered.
“I know—but these days you just don’t know what to believe.”
“I thought I did,” said Jerry.
* * *
Soon London began to stink. There were power failures and failures of many other kinds. Jerry wasn’t sufficiently concerned to check, but it seemed that the seat of government had been moved to Edinburgh. London, it appeared, had been abandoned. Jerry was prepared for this, and soon his private generators were going—years too soon, in his opinion. When the water was on, he pumped as much as he could into specially prepared rooftop reservoirs. Chemical toilets replaced the others. His guests increased for a few weeks, and then a hard core took up residence. Few left. There were few new arrivals.
What had happened to the country? The coalition government seemed ineffectual, unable to deal with anything at all. For a while it was a talking point, and then the party settled down again until July.
In July, Miss Brunner and Marek turned up at the party. Marek looked much younger and more ingenuous than Jerry remembered. At first he put it down to the Lapland winter and the poor light. But then he realised that Miss Brunner had found Dimitri’s replacement.
“Congratulations,” he said, leading his friends through the hall. It was full of marvellous perfume. “Where have you been all this time? By the look of things, Miss Brunner, you made good use of my father’s secret.”
She laughed. “Full use. The gold I’ve been converting recently. Chaos reigns, Mr Cornelius!”
“Or entropy, is it?” Marek smiled secretly.
“The process is getting going sooner than I thought…” Jerry led them to the second-floor bar and got them drinks.
“It is indeed, Mr Cornelius.” She raised her glass. “And the toast is to Hermaphrodite!”
“Spare one for my father. He was some help to you.”
“To Herr Cornelius the Elder and Hermaphrodite!” She called the toast in perfect Swedish.
10
“And what, for the record, was my father’s powerful secret?”
“Something he learned in the war,” she told him. “As you know, he was a talented man, part of the British scientific team that followed the Allies into Germany. They were very keen to discover just how far certain German scientific projects had got. They were relieved to find they hadn’t got as far as they thought. But your father, with his eye on the main chance, discovered something that none of the others discovered.”
“The underground cave system?” Jerry didn’t know much about the war.
“No—this was much closer to home, although the caves were part of it. The Germans were working on an atomic reactor. At one stage, according to the records, they had been forced to decide whether to aim for an atomic engine or an atomic bomb. They decided on the engine—their resources, particularly the supply of uranium, were much more limited than ours, don’t forget. The reactor was originally located in Berlin, but moved away when things began to get hot. It was captured by the Allies. That is the official story.”
“The unofficial one?”
“There were two reactors, two projects—one for an engine and one for a bomb. They had produced bombs by the end of the war. They had decided on the Lapland caves—discovered by their 1937 expedition—as an ideal site for covering Russia and America. Those ‘gun emplacements’ you didn’t bother to look at were launching pads for twenty A10 rockets fitted with atomic warheads. The microfilm was detailed and proved it. Copies were sent round Europe with a letter. They were authenticated. I was able to blackmail virtually every country in Europe without any of the others knowing.”
“Why not Russia and America?”
“I wasn’t interested in them, and they weren’t psychologically prepared for it the way Europe was. Anyway, Russia captured the other reactor and must have known that there was a launching site somewhere—they might have guessed.”
“Why weren’t the missiles launched?”
“Hitler killed himself and the general in charge got cold feet, pulled out.”
“So you got your hands on a lot of gold.”
“Yes. It’s back in circulation now, of course, but it did its job—and the confusion has precipitated the process.”
“With you owning a lot of power.”
“And a lot of people. I’m over here recruiting scientists, bringing work to hundreds—thousands, what with the industries concerned.”
“You’re building the computer?”
“In the Lapland caves.”
“What about the bombs?”
Miss Brunner laughed. “Apart from the fact that the rocket machinery was corroded, accelerated by the vapour from the hot lake, the uranium in the warheads had been hastily refined—you know the trouble they were having with their heavy-water systems.”
“They wouldn’t go off.”
“They didn’t have a chance to test them, you see.”
Jerry laughed and laughed.
“I see you’ve got a lot of scientists and technicians here,” she said. “Do you mind if I do a bit of quiet recruiting while I’m at it?”
“Help yourself. The party’s all yours. I’ve finished with it now.”
11
ABIOLOGISTS (3), ACAROLOGIST (1), ACOLOGISTS (2), ACROLOGIST (1), ADENOLOGISTS (5), AESTHOPHYSIOLOGISTS (6), AETIOLOGISTS (2), ALETHIOLOGIST (1), ALCHEMIST (1), AMPHIBIOLOGISTS (10), ANATRIPSOLOGIST (1), ANDROLOGISTS (10), ANGIOLOGISTS (4), ANORGANOLOGISTS (3), ANTHROPOLOGISTS (4), ANTHROMORPHOLOGIST (1), ARCHAEOLOGISTS (4), ARCHOLOGISTS (6), AREOLOGISTS (2), ARTHROLOGISTS (4), ASTHENOLOGISTS (2), ASTROLITHOLOGIST (1), ASTROLOGERS (7), ASTROMETEOROLOGIST (1), ATMOLOGISTS
(2), AUDIOLOGIST (1), AUXOLOGISTS (6).
“Your want list.” Jerry studied the pages. There were twenty-six categories, corresponding to the letters of the alphabet.
“I’ve filled most of it,” she said. “I heard of your party through a histologist I hired—one of his colleagues was at it.”
“So you came along to try to complete the list. Some ark you’re building!”
She looked ecstatic. “I’m the ark—I’m the deluge! Within the year! I’ve had the hot lake roofed over, laboratories and plants put up. DUEL is the most marvellous thing you’ve ever seen! Decimal Unit Electronic Linkage. It will fill half the cave system. At this moment it has the capabilities of any machine in existence, except that it’s much faster. We’ll complete the assembly in another year. And that’s when the real work will begin!”
“What’s so different about it?”
Marek grinned at Miss Brunner. “It incorporates a number of unprecedented features,” he said. “To begin with, each of its units, instead of being a simple on/off switch, is capable of ten magnetic states, so that the computer operates on a decimal instead of a binary basis. This is what gives it its already tremendously increased power. In addition to this, it utilises ingenious linkages which apparently,” he chuckled, “not even the designer of the human brain thought of! This can open up an entirely new investigation of the material world. Hints of all kinds of unexpected relationships are appearing from the computer’s calculations. Ultimately DUEL will probe beyond the root of matter itself. Miss Brunner has forged—”
“A scientific tool—not a glorified abacus!” Miss Brunner folded her want list. “DUEL is much more than a computer, Mr Cornelius.”
“Yes indeed, Miss Brunner,” said Marek.
“I couldn’t contribute.” Jerry winked at her.
“Couldn’t you?”
“You’re at it again!”
“Would you have it any other way?”
“All other ways. You want more than information from DUEL, Miss Brunner.”
“I don’t want information from DUEL—not ultimately. It is DUEL who wants information. I want—a result. Conclusive data, and more.”
“You are ambitious.”
Marek’s eyes shone. “But what an ambition, Herr Cornelius!”