Douglas Adams. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
страница №8
...ck work, young MacDuff, well done. My dear fellow, howvery excellent to see you, how good of you to come."
He wiped his hands on a tea towel he was canying and
humied over to shake hands.
"My dear Svlad."
"Dirk, please, if you would," said Dirk, grasping his hand
warmly, "I prefer it. It has more of a sort of Scottish dagger
feel to it, I think. Dirk Gently is the name under which I now
trade. There are certain events in the past, I'm afraid, from
which I would wish to disassociate myself."
"Absolutely, I know how you feel. Most of the fourteenth
century, for instance, was pretty grim," agreed Reg earnestly.
Dirk was about to correct the misapprehension, but thought
that it might be somewhat of a long trek and left it.
"So how have you heen, then, my dear Professor?" he said
instead, decorously placing his hat and scarf upon the arm of
the sofa.
"Well," said Reg, "it's been an interesting time recently,
or rather, a dull time. But dull for interesting reasons. Now,
sit down again, warm yourselves by the fire, and I will get the
tea and endeavour to explain." He bustled out again, humming
busily, and left them to settle themselves in front of the
fire.
Richard leant over to Dirk. "I had no idea you knew him so
well," he said with a nod in the direction of the kitchen.
"I don't," said Dirk instantly. "We met once by chance at
some dinner, but there was an immediate sympathy and rapport."
"So how come you never met again?"
"He studiously avoided me, of course. Close rapports with
people are dangerous if you have a secret to hide. And as
secrets go, I fancy that this is somewhat of a biggie. If there
is a bigger secret anywhere in the world I would very much
care," he said quietly, "to know what it is."
He gave Richard a significant look and held his hands out
to the fire. Since Richard had tried before without success to
draw him out on exactly what the secret was, he refused to rise
to the bait on this occasion, but sat back in his armchair and
looked about him.
"Did I ask you," said Reg, returning at that moment, "if
you wanted any tea?"
"Er, yes," said Richard, "we spoke about it at length. I
think we agreed in the end that we would, didn't we?"
"Good," said Reg, vaguely, "by a happy chance there seems
to be some ready in the kitchen. You'll have to forgive me. I
have a memory like a... like a... what are those things you
drain rice in? What am I talking about?"
With a puzzled look he turned smartly roound and
disappeared once more into the kitchen.
"Very interesting," said Dirk quietly, "I wondered if his
memory might be poor."
He stood, suddenly, and prowled around the room. His eyes
fell on the abacus which stood on the only clear space on the
large mahogany table.
"Is this the table," he asked Richard in a Iow voice,
"where you found the note about the salt cellar?"
"Yes," said Richard, standing, and coming over, "tucked
into this book." He picked up the guide to the Greek islands
and flipped through it.
"Yes, yes, of course," said Dirk, impatiently. "We know
about all that. I'm just interested that this was the table."
He ran his fingers along its edge, curiously.
"If you think it was some sort of prior collaboration
between Reg and the girl," Richard said, "then I must say that
I don't think it possibly can have been."
"Of course it wasn't," said Dirk testily, "I would have
thought that was perfectly clear."
Richard shrugged in an effort not to get angry and put the
book back down again.
"Well, it's an odd coincidence that the book should have
been..."
"Odd coincidence!" snorted Dirk. "Ha! We shall see how
much of a coincidence. We shall see exactly how odd it was. I
would like you, Richard, to ask our friend how he performed the
trick."
"I thought you said you knew already."
"I do," said Dirk airily. "I would like to hear it
confirmed."
"Oh, I see," said Richard, "yes, that's rather easy, isn't
it? Get him to explain it, and then say, `Yes, that's exactly
what I thought it was!' Very good, Dirk. Have we come all the
way up here in order to have him explain how he did a conjuring
trick? I think I must be mad."
Dirk bridled at this.
"Please do as I ask," he snapped angrily. "You saw him do
the trick, you must ask how he did it. Believe me, there is an
astounding secret hidden within it. I know it, but I want you
to hear it from him."
He spun round as Reg re-cntered, bearing a tray, which he
camed round the sofa and put on to the low coffee table that
sat in front of the fire.
"Professor Chronotis. . . " said Dirk.
"Reg," said Reg; "please."
"Very, well," said Dirk, "Reg. . ."
"Sieve!" exclaimed Reg.
"What?"
"Thing you drain rice in. A sieve. I was trying to
remember the word, though I forget now the reason why. No
matter. Dirk, dear fellow, you look as if you are about to
explode about something. Why don't you sit down and make
yourself comfortable?"
"Thank you, no, I would rather feel free to pace up and
down fretfully if I may. Reg. . . "
He turned to face him square on, and raised a single
finger.
"I must tell you," he said, "that I know your secret."
"Ah, yes, er - do you indeed?" mumbled Reg, looking down
awkwardly and fiddling with the cups and teapot. "I see."
The cups rattled violently as he moved them. "Yes, I was
afraid of that."
"And there are some questions that we would like to ask
you. I must tell you that I await the answers with the very
greatest apprehension."
"Indeed, indeed," Reg muttered. "Well, perhaps it is at
last time. I hardly know myself what to make of recent events
and am ... fearful myself. Very well. Ask what you will." He
looked up sharply, his eyes glittering.
Dirk nodded curtly at Richard, turned, and started to
pace, glaring at the floor.
"Er," said Richard, "well. I'd be. . . interested to know
how you did the conjuring trick with the salt cellar last
night."
Reg seemed surprised and rather confused by the question.
"The conjuring trick?" he said.
"Er, yes," said Richard, "the conjuring trick."
"Oh," said Reg, taken aback, "well, the conjuring part of
it, I'm not sure I should - Magic Circle rules, you know, very
strict about revealing these secrets. Very strict. Impressive
trick, though, don't you think?" he added slyly.
"Well, yes," said Richard, "it seemed very natural at the
time, but now that I... think about it, I have to admit that it
was a bit dumbfounding."
"Ah, well," said Reg, "it's skill. you see. Practice. Make
it look natural."
"It did look very natural." continued Richard, feeling his
way, "I was quite taken in."
"You liked it?"
"It was very impressive."
Dirk was getting a little impatient. He shot a look to
that effect at Richard.
"And I can quite see," said Richard firmly, "why it's
impossible for you to tell me. I was just interested, that's
all. Sorry I asked."
"Well," said Reg in a sudden seizure of doubt, "I suppose.
. well, so long as you absolutely promise not to tell anyone
else." he carried on, "I suppose you can probably work out for
yourself that I used two of the salt cellars on the table. No
one was going to notice the difference between one and another.
The quickness of the hand, you know, deceives the eye,
particularly some of the eyes around that table. While I was
fiddling with my woolly hat, giving, though l say so myself, a
very cunning simulation of clumsiness and muddle, I simply
slipped the salt cellar down my sleeve. You see?"
His earlier agitation had been swept away completely by
his pleasure in showing off his craft.
"It's the oldest trick in the world, in fact," he
continued, "but nevertheless takes a great deal of skill and
deftness. Then a little later, of course, I returned it to the
table with the appearance of simply passing it to someone else.
Takes years of practice, of course, to make it look natural,
but I much prefer it to simply slipping the thing down to the
floor. Amateur stuff that. You can't pick it up, and the
cleaners never notice it for at least a fortnight. l once had a
dead thrush under my seat for a month. No trick involved there,
of course. Cat killed it."
Reg beamed.
Richard felt he had done his bit, but hadn't the faintest
idea where it was supposed to have got them. He glanced at
Dirk, who gave him no help whatsoever, so he plunged on
blindly.
"Yes," he said, "yes, I understand that that can be done
by sleight of hand. What I don't understand is how the salt
cellar got embedded in the pot."
Reg looked puzzled once again, as if they were all talking
at cross purposes. He looked at Dirk, who stopped pacing and
stared at him with bright, expectant eyes.
"Well, that's... perfectly straightforward," said Reg,
"didn't take any conjuring skill at all. I nipped out for my
hat, you remember?"
"Yes," said Richard, doubtfully.
"Well," said Reg, "while I was out of the room I went to
find the man who made the pot. Took some time, of course. About
three weeks of detective work to track him down and another
couple of days to sober him up, and then with a little
difficulty I persuaded him to bake the salt cellar into the pot
for me. After that I briefly stopped off somewhere to find
some, er, powder to disguise the suntan, and of course I had to
time the return a little carefully so as to make it all look
natural. I bumped into myseIf in the ante-room, which I always
find embarrassing, I never know where to look, but, er. . .
well, there you have it."
He smiled a rather bleak and nervous smile.
Richard tried to nod, but eventually gave up.
"What on earth are you talking about?" he said.
Reg looked at him in surprise.
"I thought you said you knew my secret," he said.
"I do," said Dirk, with a beam of triumph. "He, as yet,
does not, though he furnished all the information I needed to
discover it. Let me," he added, "fill in a couple of little
blanks. In order to help disguise the fact that you had in fact
been away for weeks when as far as anyone sitting at the table
was concerned you had only popped out of the door for a couple
of seconds, you had to write down for your own reference the
last thing you said, in order that you could pick up the thread
of conversation again as naturally as possible. An important
detail if your memory is not what it once was. Yes?"
"What it once was," said Reg, slowly shaking his white
head, "I can hardly remember what it once was. But yes, you are
very sharp to pick up such a detail."
"And then there is the little matter," continued Dirk, "of
the questions that George III asked. Asked you."
This seemed to catch Reg quite by surprise.
"He asked you," continued Dirk, consulting a small
notebook he had pulled from his pocket,"if there was any
particular reason why one thing happened after another and if
there was any way of stopping it. Did he not also ask you, and
ask youfirst, if it was possible to move backwards in time, or
something of that kind?" . Reg gave Dirk a long and appraising
look.
"I was right about you," he said, "you have a very
remarkable mind, young man." He walked slowly over to the
window that looked out on to Second Court. He watched the odd
figures scuttling through it hugging themselves in the drizzle
or pointing at things.
"Yes," said Reg at last in a subdued voice, "that is
precisely what he said."
"Good," said Dirk, snapping shut his notebook with a tight
little smile which said that he lived for such praise. "then
that explains why the answers were yes, no and maybe - in that
order. Now. Where is it?"
"Where is what?"
"The time machine."
"You're standing in it." said Reg.
Chapter Twenty-six...
A party of noisy people spilled into the train at Bishop's
Stortford. Some were wearing morning suits with carnations
looking a little battered by a day's festivity. The women of
the party were in smart dresses and hats, chattering excitedly
about how preny Julia had looked in all that silk taffeta, how
Ralph still looked like a smug oaf even done up in all his
finery, and generally giving the whole thing about two weeks.
One of the men stuck his head out of the window and hailed
a passing railway employee just to check that this was the
right train and was stopping at Cambridge. The porter confirmed
that of course it bloody was. The young man said that they
didn't all want to find they were going off in the wrong
direction, did they, and made a sound a little like that of a
fish barking, as if to indicate that this was a pricelessly
funny remark, and then pulled his head back in, banging it on
the way.
The alcohol content of the atmosphere in the carriage rose
sharply.
There seemed to be a general feeling in the air that the
best way of getting themselves in the right mood for the
post-wedding reception party that evening was to make a foray
to the bar so that any members of the party who were not
already completely drunk could finish the task. Rowdy shouts of
acclamation greeted this notion, the train restarted with a
jolt and a lot of those still standing fell over.
Three young men dropped into the three empty seats round
one table, of which the fourth was already taken by a sleekly
overweight man in an old-fashioned suit. He had a lugubrious
face and his large, wet, cowlike eyes gazed into some unknown
distance.
Very slowly his eyes began to refocus all the way from
infinity and gradually to home in on his more immediate
surroundings, his new and intrusive companions. There was a
need he felt, as he had felt before.
The three men were discussing loudly whether they would
all go to the bar, whether some of them would go to the bar and
bring back drinks for the others, whether the ones who went to
the bar would get so excited by all the drinks there that they
would stay put and forget to bring any back for the others who
would be sitting here anxiously awaiting their return, and
whether even if they did remember to come back immediately with
the drinks they would actually be capable of carrying them and
wouldn't simply throw them all over the carriage on the way
back, incommoding other passengers.
Some sort of consensus seemed to be reached, but almost
immediately none of them could remember what it was. Two of
them got up, then sat down again as the third one got up. Then
he sat down. The two other ones stood up again, expressing the
idea that it might be simpler if they just bought the entire
bar.
The third was about to get up again and follow them, when
slowly, but with unstoppable purpose, the cow-eyed man sitting
opposite him leant across, and gripped him firmly by the
forearm.
The young man in his morning suit looked up as sharply as
his somewhat bubbly brain would allow and, startled, said,
"What do you want?"
Michael Wenton-Weakes gazed into his eyes with terrible
intensity, and said, in a low voice, "I was on a ship. . . "
"What?"
"A ship. . " said Michael.
"What ship, what are you talking about? Get off me. Let
go!"
"We came," continued Michael, in a quiet, almost
inaudible, but compelling voice, "a monstrous distance. We came
to build a paradise. A paradise. Here."
His eyes swam briefly round the carriage, and then gazed
briefly out through the spattered windows at the gathering
gloom of a drizzly East Anglian evening. He gazed with evident
Ioathing. His grip on the other's forearm tightened.
"Look, I'm going for a drink," said the wedding guest,
though feebly, because he clearly wasn't.
"We left behind those who would destroy themselves with
war," murmured Michael. "Ours was to be a world of peace, of
music, of art, of enlightenment. All that was petty, all that
was mundane, all that was contemptible would have no place in
our world. . . "
The stilled reveller looked at Michael wonderingly. He
didn't look like an old hippy. Of course, you never could tell.
His own elder brother had once spent a couple of years living
in a Druidic commune, eating LSD doughnuts and thinking he was
a tree, since when he had gone on to become a director of a
merchant bank. The difference, of course, was that he hardly
ever still thought he was a tree, except just occasionally, and
he had long ago learnt to avoid the particular claret which
sometimes triggered off that flashback.
"There were those who said we would fail," continued
Michael in his low tone that carried clearly under the
boisterous noise that filled the camage, "who prophesied that
we too carried in us the seed of war, but it was our high
resolve and purpose that only art and beauty should flourish,
the highest art, the highest beauty= music. We took with us
only those who believed, who wished it to be true."
"But what are you talking about?" asked the wedding guest
though not challengingly, for he had fallen under Michael's
mesmeric spell. "When was this? Where was this?"
Michael breathed hard. "Before you were born " he said at
last, "be still, and I will tell you."
Chapter Twenty-seven...
There was a long startled silence during which the evening
gloom outside seemed to darken appreciably and gather the room
into its grip. A trick of the light wreathed Reg in shadows.
Dirk was, for one of the few times in a life of
exuberantly prolific loquacity, wordless. His eyes shone with a
child's wonder as they passed anew over the dull and shabby
furniture of the room, the panelled walls, the threadbare
carpets. His hands were trembling.
Richard frowned faintly to himself for a moment as if he
was trying to work out the square root of something in his
head, and then looked back directly at Reg.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I have absolutely no idea," said Reg brightly, "much of
my memory's gone completely. I am very old, you see.
Startlingly old. Yes, I think if I were to tell you how old I
was it would be fair to say that you would be startled. Odds
are that so would I, because I can't remember. I've seen an
awful lot, you know. Forgotten most of it, thank God. Trouble
is, when you start getting to my age, which, as I think I
mentioned earlier, is a somewhat startling one - did I say
that?"
"Yes, you did mention it."
"Good. I'd forgotten whether I had or not. The thing is
that your memory doesn't actually get any bigger, and a lot of
stuff just falls out. So you see, the major difference between
someone of my age and someone of yours is not how much I know,
but how much I've forgotten. And after a while you even forget
what it is you've forgotten, and after that you even forget
that there was something to remember. Then you tend to forget,
er, what it was you were talking about."
He stared helplessly at the teapot.
"Things you remember... " prompted Richard gently.
"Smells and earrings."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Those are things that linger for some reason," said Reg,
shaking his head in a puzzled way. He sat down suddenly. "The
earrings that Queen Victoria wore on her Silver Jubilee. Quite
startling objects. Toned down in the pictures of the period, of
course. The smell of the streets before there were cars in
them. Hard to say which was worse. That's why Cleopatra remains
so vividly in the memory, of course. A quite devastating
combination of earrings and smell. I think that will probably
be the last thing that remains when all else has finally fled.
I shall sit alone in a darkened room, sans teeth,
sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything but
a little grey old head, and in that little grey old head a
peculiar vision of hideous blue and gold dangling things
flashing in the light, and the smell of sweat, catfood and
death. I wonder what I shall make of it..."
Dirk was scarcely breathing as he began to move slowly
round the room, gently brushing his fingertips over the walls,
the sofa, the table.
"How long," he said, "has this been- "
"Here?" said Reg. "Just about two hundred years. Ever
sinee I retired."
"Retired from what?"
"Search me. Must have been something pretty good, though,
what do you think?"
"You mean you've been in this same set of rooms here
for... two hundred years?" murmured Richard. "You'd think
someone would notice, or think it was odd."
"Oh, that's one of the delights of the older Cambridge
colleges," said Reg, "everyone is so discreet. If we all went
around mentioning what was odd about each other we'd be here
till Christmas. Svlad, er - Dirk, my dear fellow, please don't
touch that just at the moment."
Dirk's hand was reaching out to touch the abacus standing
on its own on the only clear spot on the big table.
"What is it?" said Dirk sharply.
"It's just what it looks like, an old wooden abacus," said
Reg. "I'll show you in a moment, but first I must congratulate
you on your powers of perception. May I ask how you arrived at
the solution?
"I have to admit," said Dirk with rare humility, "that I
did not. In the end I asked a child. I told him the story of
the trick and asked him how he thought it had been done, and he
said and I quote, `It's bleedin' obvious, innit, he must've 'ad
a bleedin' time machine.' I thanked the little fellow and gave
him a shilling for his trouble. He kicked me rather sharply on
the shin and went about his business. But he was the one who
solved it. My only contribution to the matter was to see that
he must be right. He had even saved me the bother of
kicking myself."
"But you had the perception to think of asking a child,"
said Reg. "Well then; I congratulate you on that instead."
Dirk was still eyeing the abacus suspiciously.
"How... does it work?" he said, trying to make it sound
like a casual enquiry.
"Well, it's really terribly simple," said Reg, "it works
any way you want it to. You see, the computer that runs it is a
rather advanced one. In fact it is more powerful than the sum
total of all the computers on this planet including - and this
is the tricky part
- including itself. Never really understood that bit myself, to
be honest with you. But over ninety-five per cent of that power
is used in simply understanding what it is you want it to do. I
simply plonk my abacus down there and it understands the way I
use it. I think I must have been brought up to use an abacus
when I was a... well, a child, I suppose.
"Richard, for instance, would probably want to use his own
personal computer. If you put it down there, where the abacus
is the machine's computer would simple take charge of it and
offer you lots of nice user-friendly time-travel applications
complete with pull-down menus and desk accessories if you like.
Except that you point to 1066 on the screen and you've got the
Battle of Hastings going on outside your door, er, if that's
the sort of thing you're interested in."
Reg's tone of voice suggested that his own interests lay
in other areas.
"It's, er, really quite fun in its way," he concluded.
"Certainly better than television and a great deal easier to
use than a video recorder. If I miss a programme I just pop
back in time and watch it. I'm hopeless fiddling with all those
buttons."
Dirk reacted to this revelation with horror.
"You have a time machine and you use it for... watching
television?"
"Well, I wouldn't use it at all if I could ge1 the hang of
the video recorder. It's a very delicate business. time travel,
you know. Full of appalling traps and dangers, if you should
change the wrong thing in the past, you could entirely disrupt
the course of history.
"Plus, of course, it mucks up the telephone. I'm sorry,"
he said to Richard a little sheepishly, "that you were unable
to phone your young lady last night. There seems to be
something fundamentally inexplicable about the British
telephone system, and my time machine doesn't like it. There's
never any problem with the plumbing, the electricity, or even
the gas. The connection interfaces are taken care of at some
quantum level I don't entirely understand, and it's never been
a problem.
"The phone on the other hand is definitely a problem.
Every time I use the time machine, which is, of course, hardly
at all, partly because of this very problem with the phone, the
phone goes haywire and I have to get some lout from the phone
company to come and fix it, and he starts asking stupid
questions the answers to which he has no hope of understanding.
"Anyway. the point is that I have a very strict rule that
I must not change anything in the past at all " Reg sighed -
"whatever the temptation."
"What temptation?" said Dirk, sharply.
"Oh, it's just a little, er, thing I'm interested in,"
said Reg, vaguely, "it is perfectly harmless because I stick
very strictly to the rule. It makes me sad, though."
"But you broke your own rule!" insisted Dirk. "Last night!
You changed something in the past- "
"Well, yes," said Reg, a little uncomfortably, "but that
was different. Very different. If you had seen the look on the
poor child's face. So miserable. She thought the world should
be a marvellous place, and all those appalling old dons were
pouring their withering scorn on her just because it wasn't
marvellous for them anymore.
"I mean," he added, appealing to Richard, "remember
Cawley. What a bloodless old goat. Someone should get some
humanity into him even if they have to knock it in with a
brick. No, that was perfectly justifiable. Otherwise, I make it
a very strict rule "
Richard looked at him with dawning recognition of
something.
"Reg," he said politely, "may I give you a little advice?"
"Of course you may, my dear fellow, I should adore you
to," said Reg.
"If our mutual friend here offers to take you for a stroll
along the banks of the River Cam, don't go."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"He means," said Dirk earnestly, "that he thinks there may
be something a little disproportionate between what you
actually did, and your stated reasons for doing it."
"Oh. Well, odd way of saying it-"
"Well, he's a very odd fellow. But you see, there
sometimes may be other reasons for things you do which you are
not necessarily aware of. As in the case of post-hypnotic
suggestion= or possession."
Reg turned very pale.
"Possession-" he said.
"Professor -Reg- I believe there was some reason you
wanted to see me. What exactly was it?"
"Cambridge! this is... Cambridge!" came the lilting squawk
of the station public address system.
Crowds of noisy revellers spewed out on to the platform
barking and honking at each other.
"Where's Rodney?" said one, who had clambered with
difficulty from the carriage in which the bar was situated. He
and his companion looked up and down the platform, totteringly.
The large figure of Michael Wenton-Weakes loomed silently past
them and out to the exit.
They jostled their way down the side of the train, looking
in through the dirty carriage windows. They suddenly saw their
missing companion still sitting, trance-like, in his seat in
the now almost empty compartment. They banged on the window and
hooted at him. For a moment or two he didn't react, and when he
did he woke suddenly in a puzzled way as if seeming not to know
where he was.
"He's pie-eyed!" his companions bawled happily, bundling
themselves on to the train again and bundling Rodney back off.
He stood woozily on the platform and shook his head. Then
glancing up he saw through the railings the large bulk of
Michael Wenton-Weakes heaving himself and a large heavy bag
into a taxi= cab, and he stood for a moment transfixed.
"Straordinary thing," he said, "that man. Telling me a
long story about some kind of shipwreck."
"Har har," gurgled one of his two companions, "get any
money off you?"
"What?" said Rodney, puzzled. "No. No, I don't think so.
Except it wasn't a shipwreck, more an accident, an explosion -?
He seems to think he caused it in some way. Or rather there was
an accident, and he caused an explosion trying to put it right
and killed everybody. Then he said there was an awful lot of
rotting mud for years and years, and then slimy things with
legs. lt was all a bit peculiar."
"Trust Rodney! Trust Rodney to pick a madman!"
"I think he must have been mad. He suddenly went off on a
tangent about some bird. He said the bit about the bird was all
nonsense. He wished he could get rid of the bit about the bird.
But then he said it would be put right. It would all be put
right. For some reason I didn't like it when he said that."
"Should have come along to the bar with us. Terribly
funny, we-"
"I also didn't like the way he said goodbye. I didn't like
that at all."
Chapter Twenty-eight...
"You remember," said Reg, "when you arrived this afternoon
I said that times recently had been dull, but for...
interesting reasons?"
"I remember it vividly," said Dirk, "it happened a mere
ten minutes ago. You were standing exactly there as I recall.
Indeed you were wearing the very clothes with which you are
currently apparelled, and-"
"Shut up, Dirk," said Richard, "let the poor man talk,
will you?"
Dirk made a slight, apologetic bow.
"Quite so," said Reg. "Well, the truth is that for many
weeks, months even, I have not used the time machine at all,
because I had the oddest feeling that someone or something was
trying to make me do it. It started as the very faintest urge,
and then it seemed to come at me in stronger and stronger
waves. It was extremely disturbing. I had to fight it very hard
indeed because it was trying to make me do something I actually
wanted to do. I don't think I would have realised that it was
something outside of me creating this pressure and not just my
own wishes asserting themselves if it wasn't for the fact that
I was so wary of allowing myself to do any such thing. As soon
as I began to realise that it was something else trying to
invade me things got really bad and the furniture began to fly
about. Quite damaged my little Georgian writing desk. Look at
the marks on the- "
"Is that what you were afraid of last night, upstairs?"
asked Richard.
"Oh yes," said Reg in a hushed voice, "most terribly
afraid. But it was only that rather nice horse, so that was all
right. I expect it just wandered in when I was out getting some
powder to cover up my suntan."
"Oh?" said Dirk, "And where did you go for that?" he
asked. "I can't think of many chemists that a horse would be
likely to visit."
"Oh, there's a planet off in what's known here as the
Pleiades where the dust is exactly the right-"
"You went," said Dirk in a whisper, "to another planet? To
get face powder?"
"Oh, it's no distance," said Reg cheerfully. "You see, the
actual distance between two points in the whole of the
space/time continuum is almost infinitely smaller than the
apparent distance between adjacent orbits of an electron.
Really, it's a lot less far than the chemist, and there's no
waiting about at the till. I never have the right change, do
you? Go for the quantum jump is always my preference. Except of
course that you then get all the trouble with the telephone.
Nothing's ever that easy, is it?"
He looked bothered for a moment.
"I think you may be right in what I think you're thinking,
though," he added quietly.
"Which is?"
"That I went through a rather elaborate bit of business to
achieve a very small result. Cheering up a little girl,
charming, delightful and sad though she was, doesn't seem to be
enough explanation for - well, it was a fairly major operation
in time= engineering, now that I come to face up to it. There's
no doubt that it would have been simpler to compliment her on
her dress. Maybe the... ghost - we are talking of a ghost here,
aren't we?"
"I think we are, yes," said Dirk slowly.
"A ghost?" said Richard, "Now come on- "
"Wait!" said Dirk, abruptly. "Please continue," he said to
Reg.
"It's possible that the... ghost caught me off my guard. I
was fighting so strenuously against doing one thing that it
easily tripped me into another-"
"And now?"
"Oh, it's gone completely. The ghost left me last night."
"And where, we wonder," said Dirk, turning his gaze on
Richard, "did it go?"
"No, please," said Richard, "not this. I'm not even sure
I've agreed we're talking about time machines yet, and now
suddenly it's ghosts?"
"So what was it," hissed Dirk, "that got into you to make
you climb the wall?"
"Well, you suggested that I was under post-hypnotic
suggestion from someone-"
"I did not! I demonstrated the power of post-hypnotic
suggestion to you. But I believe that hypnosis and possession
work in very, very similar ways. You can be made to do all
kinds of absurd things, and will then cheerfully invent the
most transparent rationalisations to explain them to yourself.
But - you cannot be made to do something that runs against the
fundamental grain of your character. You will fight. You will
resist!"
Richard remembered then the sense of relief with which he
had impulsively replaced the tape in Susan's machine last
night. It had been the end of a struggle which he had suddenly
won. With the sense of another struggle that he was now losing
he sighed and related this to the others.
"Exactly!" exclaimed Dirk. "You wouldn't do it! Now we're
getting somewhere! You see, hypnosis works best when the
subject has some fundamental sympathy with what he or she is
being asked to do. Find the right subject for your task and the
hypnosis can take a very, very deep hold indeed. And I believe
the same to be true of possession. So. What do we have?
"We have a ghost that wants something done and is looking
for the right person to take possession of to do that for him.
Professor-"
"Reg-" said Reg.
"Reg - may I ask you something that may be terribly
personal? I will understand perfectly ifyou don't want to
answer, but I will just keep pestering you until you do. Just
my methods, you see. You said there was something that yoЇ
found to be a terrible temptation to you. That you wanted to do
but would not allow yourself, and that the ghost was trying to
make you do? Please. This may be difficult for you, but I think
it would be very helpful if you would tell us what it is."
"I will not tell you."
"You must understand how important- "
"I'll show you instead," said Reg.
Silhouetted in the gates of St Cedd's stood a large figure
carrying a large heavy black nylon bag. The figure was that of
Michael Wenton-Weakes, the voice that asked the porter if
Professor Chronotis was currently in his room was that of
Michael Wenton= Weakes, the ears that heard the porter say he
was buggered if he knew because the phone seemed to be on the
blink again was that of Michael Wenton-Weakes, but the spirit
that gazed out of his eyes was his no longer.
He had surrendered himself completely. AIl doubt,
disparity and confusion had ceased.
A new mind had him in full possession.
The spirit that was not Michael Wenton-Weakes surveyed the
college which lay before it, to which it had grown accustomed
in the last few frustrating, infuriating weeks.
Weeks! Mere microsecond blinks.
Although the spirit - the ghost - that now inhabited
Michael Wenton-Weakes' body had known long periods of near
oblivion, sometimes even for centuries at a stretch, the time
for which it had wandered the earth was such that it seemed
only minutes ago that the creatures which had erected these
walls had arrived. Most of his personal eternity - not really
eternity, but a few billion years could easily seem like it -
had been spent wandering across interminable mud, wading
through ceaseless seas, watching with stunned horror when the
slimy things with legs suddenly had begun to crawl from those
rotting seas - and here they were, suddenly walking around as
if they owned the place and complaining about the phones.
Deep in a dark and silent part of himself he knew that he
was now mad, had been driven mad almost immediately after the
accident by the knowledge of what he had done and of the
existence he faced, by the memories of his fellows who had died
and who for a while had haunted him even as he had haunted the
Earth.
He knew that what he now had been driven to would have
revolted the self he only infinitesimally remembered, but that
it was the only way for him to end the ceaseless nightmare in
which each second of billions of years had been worse than the
previous one.
He hefted the bag and started to walk.
Chapter Twenty-nine...
Deep in the rain forest it was doing what it usually does
in rain forzsts, which was raining: hence the name.
It was a gentle, persistent rain, not the heavy slashing
which would come later in the year, in the hot season. It
formed a fine dripping mist through which the occasional shaft
of sunlight would break, be softened and pass through on its
way towards the wet bark of a calvaria tree on which it would
settle and glisten. Sometimes it would do this next to a
butterfly or a tiny motionless sparkling lizard, and then the
effect would be almost unbearable.
Away up in the high canopy of the trees an utterly
extraordinary thought would suddenly strike a bird, and it
would go flapping wildly through the branches and settle at
last in a different and altogether better tree where it would
sit and consider things again more calmly until the same
thought came along and struck it again, or it was time to eat.
The air was full of scents - the light fragrance of
flowers, and the heavy odour of the sodden mulch with which the
floor of the forest was carpeted.
Confusions of roots tangled through the mulch, moss grew
on them, insects crawled.
In a space in the forest, on an empty patch of wet ground
between a circle of craning trees, appeared quietly and without
fuss a plain white door. After a few seconds it opened a little
way with a slight squeak. A tall thin man looked out, looked
around, blinked in surprise, and quietly pulled the door closed
again.
A few seconds later the door opened again and Reg looked
out.
"It's real," he said, "I promise you. Come out and see for
yourself." Walking out into the forest, he turned and beckoned
the other two to follow him.
Dirk stepped boldly through, seemed disconcerted for about
the length of time it takes to blink twice, and then announced
that he saw exactly how it worked, that it was obviously to do
with the unreal numbers that lay between minimum quantum
distances and defined the fractal contours of the enfolded
Universe and he was only astonished at himself for not having
thought of it himself.
"Like the catflap," said Richard from the doorway behind
him.
"Er, yes, quite so," said Dirk, taking off his spectacles
and leaning against a tree wiping them, "you spotted of course
that I was lying. A perfectly natural reflex in the
circumstances as I think you'll agree. Perfectly natural." He
squinted slightly and put his spectacles back on. They began to
mist up again almost immediately.
"Astounding," he admitted.
Richard stepped through more hesitantly and stood rocking
for a moment with one foot still on the floor in Reg's room and
the other on the wet earth of the forest. Then he stepped
forward and committed himself fully.
His lungs instantly filled with the heady vapours and his
mind with the wonder of the place. He turned and looked at the
doorway through which he had walked. It was stiIl a perfectly
ordinary door frame with a perfectly ordinary little white door
swinging open in it, but it was standing free in the open
forest, and through it could clearly he seen the room he had
just stepped out of.
He walked wonderingly round the back of the door, testing
each foot on the muddy ground, not so much for fear of slipping
as for fear that it might simply not be there. From behind it
was just a perfectly ordinary open door frame, such as you
might fail to find in any perfectly ordinary rain forest. He
walked through the door from behind, and looking back again
could once more see, as if he had just stepped out of them
again, the college rooms of Professor Urban Chronotis of St
Cedd's College, Cambridge, which must be thousands of miles
away. Thousands? Where were they?
He peered off through the trees and thought he caught a
slight shimmer in the distance, between the trees.
"Is that the sea?" he asked.
"You can see it a little more clearly from up here,"
called Reg, who had walked on a little way up a slippery
incline and was now leaning, puffing, against a tree. He
pointed.
The other two followed him up, pulling themselves noisily
through the branches and causing a lot of cawing and
complaining from unseen birds high above.
"The Pacific?" asked Dirk.
"The Indian Ocean," said Reg.
Dirk wiped his glasses again and had another look.
"Ah, yes, of course," he said.
"Not Madagascar?" said Richard. "I've been there-"
"Have you?" said Reg. "One of the most beautiful and
astonishing places on Earth, and one that is also full of the
most appalling... temptations for me. No."
His voice trembled slightly, and he cleared his throat.
"No," he continued, "Madagascar is - let me see, which
direction are we - where's the sun? Yes. That way. Westish.
Madagascar is about five hundred miles roughly west of here.
The island of Rиunion lies roughly in-between."
"Er, what's the place called?" said Dirk suddenly, rapping
his knuckles on the tree and frightening a lizard. "Place where
that stamp comes from, er - Mauritius."
"Stamp?" said Reg.
"Yes, you must know," said Dirk, "very famous stamp. Can't
remember anything about it, but it comes from here. Mauritius.
Famous for its very remarkable stamp, all brown and smudged and
you could buy Blenheim Palace with it. Or am I thinking of
British Guiana?"
"Only you," said Richard, "know what you are thinking of."
"Is it Mauritius?"
"It is," said Reg, "it is Mauritius."
"But you don't collect stamps?"
"No."
"What on earth's that?" said Richard suddenly, but
Dirk carried on with his thought to Reg, "Pity, you could get
some nice first-day covers, couldn't you?"
Reg shrugged. "Not really interested," he said.
Richard slithered back down the slope behind them.
"So what's the great attraction here?" said Dirk. "It's
not, I have to confess, what I was expecting. Very nice in its
way, of course, all this nature, but I'm a city boy myself, I'm
afraid." He cleaned his glasses once again and pushed them back
up his nose.
He started backwards at what he saw, and heard a strange
little chuckle from Reg. Just in front of the door back into
Reg's room, the most extraordinary confrontation was taking
place.
A large cross bird was looking at Richard and Richard was
looking at a large cross bird. Richard was looking at the bird
as if it was the most extraordinary thing he had ever seen in
his life, and the bird was looking at Richard as if defying him
to find its beak even remotely funny.
Once it had satisfied itself that Richard did not intend
to laugh, the bird regarded him instead with a sort of grim
irritable tolerance and wondered if he was just going to stand
there or actually do something useful and feed it. It padded a
couple of steps back and a couple of steps to the side and then
just a single step forward again, on great waddling yellow
feet. It then looked at him again, impatiently, and squarked an
impatient squark.
The bird then bent forward and scraped its great absurd
red beak across the ground as if to give Richard the idea that
this might be a good area to look for things to give it to eat.
"It eats the nuts of the calvaria tree," called out Reg to
Richard.
The big bird looked sharply up at Reg in annoyance, as if
to say that it was perfectly clear to any idiot what it ate. It
then looked back at Richard oce more and stuck its head
on one side as if it had suddenly been struck by the thought
that perhaps it was an idiot it had to deal with, and that it
might need to reconsider its strategy accordingly.
"There are one or two on the ground behind you," called
Reg softly.
In a trance of astonishment Richard turned awkwardly and
saw one or two large nuts lying on the ground. He bent and
picked one up, glancing up at Reg, who gave him a reassuring
nod.
Tentatively Richard held the thing out to the bird, which
leant forward and pecked it sharply from between his fingers.
Then, because Richard's hand was still stretched out, the bird
knocked it irritably aside with its beak.
Once Richard had withdrawn to a respectful distance, it
stretched its neck up, closed its large yellow eyes and seemed
to gargle gracelessly as it shook the nut down its neck into
its maw.
It appeared then to be at least partially satisfied.
Whereas befone it had been a cross dodo, it was at least now a
cross, fed dodo, which was probably about as much as it could
hope for in this life.
It made a slow, waddling, on-the-spot turn and padded back
into the forest whence it had come, as if defying RicharМ to
find the little tuft of curly feathers stuck up on top of its
backside even remotely funny.
"I only come to look," said Reg in a small voice, and
glancing at him Dirk was discomfited to see that the old man's
eyes were brimming with tears which he quickly brushed away.
"Really, it is not for me to interfere-"
Richard came scurrying breathlessly up to them.
"Was that a dodo?" he exclaimed.
"Yes," said Reg, "one of only three left at this time. The
year is
1676. They will all be dead within four years, and after that no
one will ever see them again. Come," he said, "let us go."
Behind the stoutly locked outer door in the corner
staircase in the Second Court of St Cedd's College, where only
a millisecond earlier there had been a slight flicker as the
inner door departed, there was another slight flicker as the
inner door now returned.
Walking through the dark evening towards it the large
figure of Michael Wenton-Weakes looked up at the corner
windows. If any slight flicker had been visible, it would have
gone unnoticed in the dim dancing firelight that spilled from
the window.
The figure then looked up into the darkness of the sky,
looking for what it knew to be there though there was not the
slightest chance of seeing it, even on a clear night which this
was not. The orbits of Earth were now so cluttered with pieces
of junk and debris that one more item among them - even such a
large one as this was - would pass perpetually unnoticed.
Indeed, it had done so, though its influence had from time to
time exerted itself. From time to time. When the waves had been
strong. Not for nearly two hundred years had they been so
strong as now they were again.
And all at last was now in place. The perfect carrier had
been found.
The perfect carrier moved his footsteps onwards through
the court.
The Professor himself had seemed the perfect choice at
first, but that attempt had ended in frustration, fury, and
then= inspiration! Bring a Monk to Earth! They were designed to
believe anything, to be completely malleable. It could be
suborned to undertake the task with the greatest of ease.
Unfortunately, however, this one had proved to be
completely hopeless. Getting it to believe something was very
easy. Getting it to continue to believe the same thing for more
than five minutes at a time had proved to be an even more
impossible task than that of getting the Professor to do what
he fundamentally wanted to do but wouldn't allow himself.
Then another failure and then, miraculously, the perfect
carrier had come at last.
The perfect carrier had already proved that it would have
no compunction in doing what would have to be done.
Damply, clogged in mist, the moon struggled in a corner of
the sky to rise. At the window, a shadow moved.
Chapter Thirty...
From the window overlooking Second Court Dirk watched the
moon. "We shall not," he said, "have long to wait."
"To wait for what?" said Richard.
Dirk turned.
"For the ghost," he said, "to return to us. Professor -,"
he added to Reg, who was sitting anxiously by the fire, "do you
have ny brandy, French cigarettes or worry beads in your
rooms?"
"No," said Reg.
"Then I shall have to fret unaided," said Dirk and
returned to staring out of the window.
"I have yet to be convinced," said Richard, "that there is
not some other explanation than that of... ghosts to-"
"Just as you required actually to see a time machine in
operation before you could accept it," returned Dirk. "Richard,
I commend you on your scepticism, but even the sceptical mind
must be prepared to accept the unacceptable when there is no
alternative. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck,
we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a
small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands."
"Th...
