Authors: Iain Pears
‘She must have heard you arrive and feared the worst. Not surprisingly, I suppose; she’s already spent much of the day in a cell, and she’s a bit busy at the moment. Her opinion of you will probably never recover.’
‘I will apologise unreservedly when I get the opportunity.’
‘I just hope she doesn’t do anything rash, like disappear for good.’
‘How could she do that?’
‘You’d be surprised. Now I’m stranded. You’ll have to drive me home, Sam. I can’t stay here.’
‘Not immediately. I must see Volkov first, or whatever his name really is. I need a statement from him, and I’ll need one from you as well. That can’t wait. I can get you to a train in the morning.’
‘Very well,’ Lytten replied. ‘I don’t suppose a few hours will make any difference.’
So Sam dispatched his men, while Lytten said goodbye to his aunt and promised that he would come again soon.
‘Bring that nice young girl with you. Very charming, she is.’
‘I will if I can,’ he promised.
Then he and Wind walked out into the evening air.
‘At least it’s not raining,’ Lytten said. ‘Quite a pleasant evening, in fact.’
‘It won’t last,’ Wind grumbled. ‘You’ll see.’
64
As the train lumbered along, I sat in the dimly lit and blessedly empty carriage and reassembled my calculations. The massive run of chance events which both brought the Devil’s Handwriting into existence and stopped it being destroyed made me realise that a simple solution was no longer available. It was not that I would be unable to try again, perhaps, but I calculated that random events would again prevent me from being successful. The chances of everything turning out as it had, I reckoned, were tiny, almost as small as the chances the computer simulation had calculated of avoiding nuclear war. In fact, I realised as we passed through Swindon, it was highly likely that they were identical, that the one was an inverse image of the other, on the microscopic scale.
A surge of excitement ran through me. What an idea that was! Now, if I could only pin it down and produce the maths that would firmly link the two, then I would have a really interesting paper to present to …
Well, to whom, exactly? No one could understand it where I was, and in the not too distant future everyone who might do so was likely to be wiped out. Was I responsible for that? I had to bear my share of blame. But (I reassured myself) I had not brought the Devil’s Handwriting into existence, nor did I ensure its survival, nor did I use it. That strand of things was independent of me. I had established to my satisfaction, after all, that if my creation of Anterwold was generating a nuclear war, the nuclear war was simultaneously generating Anterwold.
I had neither the time nor the energy to do the calculations. Even thinking as much as I did had to be squeezed in between stops at railway halts, where I looked out of the window anxiously
to see if any policemen were standing there, waiting for me.
They weren’t. Even at Oxford there was no one and I walked out of the station a free woman, then took a taxi up to Henry’s house.
I let myself in, drew the curtains, then collapsed in exhaustion on the settee in Henry’s study. I was so tired. I should have done something, but all my spirit had left me.
There was nothing I could do. I heard the sound of footsteps. It had to be one of Wind’s people. I prepared to meet my fate. Accessory to treason or some such?
The door opened and Rosie put her head through. I could have kissed her, I was so relieved.
*
‘So what is going on?’ Rosie asked.
‘Well, Henry has probably been arrested as a spy and I am a fugitive. I don’t have the Devil’s Handwriting, I can’t destroy it and the world is about to descend into nuclear war. Apart from that … How are you?’
‘The Professor has been arrested as a spy? Why would anyone think that?’
‘Maybe he is. How should I know?’
‘Don’t you care?’
‘Not in the slightest. I am a bit worried about what Wind might do to him. I really don’t want him locked up for the next decade. I need his help.’
‘What are you going to do?’
For the first time, Angela frightened her. She had always seemed so competent. Now she looked defeated.
‘I can’t do much about Henry; even looking after myself will be hard. If I stay here then Sam Wind will lock me up as well. I’d be stymied in a prison cell.’
‘How much time do you need?’
‘A decade at least, but even if I don’t spend it in prison, we are
likely to have a holocaust before I can figure out a new approach.’
‘Why?’
‘Probability. The probability that the Devil’s Handwriting survives, that it falls into the wrong hands and that it is used to clear the world for colonisation. They think they are going to let off a bomb in an alternative past. In fact it will be this one, and perhaps soon.’
‘Surely—’
‘It’s simple, I think. What will happen if a nuclear bomb goes off in Berlin? The Russians will know they didn’t do it, the Americans will know they didn’t either. Each will assume the other is starting hostilities and let rip with everything they have. They want an empty world to colonise and this is the easiest way to get one. Cheap, simple and efficient.’
‘That’s what’s going to happen?’
Angela nodded. ‘I think so. I’ve been going about it the wrong way, you see. Anterwold isn’t just the cause of a war, it’s the consequence of it as well. I can’t shut down Anterwold unless I shut down the ultimate causes of its existence.’
‘You created it.’
‘We are all creatures of history.’
‘How long do we have?’
‘I would guess any time in the next seventy-five years. More or less. I can’t say more precisely than that.’
‘Could you stop it? If you had time?’
‘Where there’s life, there’s hope.’
‘Then you must go into Anterwold. You’d have all the time you need.’
‘I can’t. I can’t influence my future from a different one. I have to be on the same line. As this is the last moment which is connected to both, I will have to stay here. I’ll go back to France and lie low. I’ll have Chang to help, of course, and that will be useful. Assuming he survives, poor fellow.’
‘He’ll be fine. I rang the hospital. What about me?’
Angela smiled thoughtfully. ‘You want to help?’
Rosie hesitated, then nodded.
‘For some reason that makes me very happy.’ She paused, then became practical once more. ‘If I understand your peculiar educational system here, you can leave school next year?’
‘Yes.’
‘If John Kennedy wins the election next month, we have at least until October 1962, I think. That’s the Cuban missile crisis. If we get through that then we might well be safe until 1976. If Nixon wins, then everything becomes unpredictable, but at least I will be sure that history is changing seriously. Assuming all goes well, though, then in nine months’ time you can leave school, pack your bags and come and live with me in the South of France. How about that? I’ve got plenty of money and Chang’s perfectly pleasant once you get to know him.’
‘That sounds lovely.’
‘It will be. Unless we fail, in which case it won’t be lovely at all. But then we can gather as many people as possible and head off into Anterwold. I should add that I can’t think of any reason why you shouldn’t go now, if you really wanted to.’
Rosie shook her head. ‘No. I’ve thought about that. A lot. But as you keep on telling me, I’m there already. One’s company.’
‘Two’s a crowd?’
Rosie smiled. ‘A complication. The other me will be happy because I am here with my parents. Someone will have to look after Jenkins if Professor Lytten is in jail. I have a life here. It’s not brilliant, I sometimes think, but, you know …’
‘In that case, we had better succeed,’ Angela said. ‘Come on. I’ll walk you home. There’s nothing more to do here tonight, and I must get out of the country as quickly as possible. I need to pack and find my passport.’
A few minutes later the two left the house, and Angela locked the door carefully. ‘Quite a day,’ she said. ‘Let’s see how tomorrow entertains us.’
65
Jack was shocked at the state of the island when the helicopters flew over it before settling dustily onto the landing site. Big black holes had been blown into what once had been gleaming white roofs covering the main part of the institute; the wreckage of the defensive outposts still smouldered in the light breeze, on the far side of the island a fire still burned and half a dozen of the small ferries half poked above the water, bombed and sunk as they were, tied up to the quayside. Oldmanter’s military had done a thorough, rapid job of it.
Already the repairs were under way. As they landed, he saw other large machines bringing in the equipment needed to patch holes, get power working again. Supplies of all sorts were stacked in neat piles everywhere. His experienced eye scanned the site as they came lower, but he could see no pens for prisoners, no marks of freshly dug graves.
Some had already returned to work under their new master; others had left to fend for themselves as best they could. The place was half empty, quiet, gloomy with lack of purpose. The few dozen people brought up from the Retreats were under guard.
Jack managed to get permission to see Emily, for he was restored to his previous position, awaiting transfer to another part of Oldmanter’s vast empire. He had been offered promotion, everything he might need. Oldmanter was a generous man.
‘He is going to keep his word,’ he said to her. ‘The preparations are being made. You still have time to change your mind, though.’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘It’s dangerous.’
‘It is hardly safe for people like us here, either.’
‘How did Oldmanter know where I was? How did he find me so quickly?’
‘Simple enough. I told him. It was obvious he was going to win. You would have died, and so would we. This seemed a good way of saving something from the wreckage.’
‘You told me the document was old, and told him that it was a fake.’
‘That’s the sort of imprecision you get from people who do not have a thorough scientific training, I suppose.’
‘Hanslip says it is dangerous.’
‘But to whom, do you think? What about Hanslip?’
‘I have permission to see him tomorrow.’
‘I liked him. Tell him I know what I am doing.’
*
‘I will try to get your conditions improved before I leave,’ Jack began when he came into Hanslip’s cell the next day and looked around at the damp walls and filthy floor with distaste. ‘There is no reason for you to be treated like this.’
‘Have I disappeared?’ Hanslip’s voice was surprisingly clear and strong for someone who had evidently suffered very bad treatment. Jack looked at the bruises, the black eye, the bandages over his hands. Primitive. He hated that.
‘I’m afraid so. The electricity surge has been officially attributed to terrorists and the authorities are responding with mass arrests. The institute never existed, nor did you.’
Hanslip nodded to show he had understood.
‘And you?’
‘Oldmanter offered me a job. I had little choice, so I accepted it. He has also agreed to send the renegades to their own world in exchange for Emily Strang’s cooperation. It will be a reservation, in effect, where they will live undisturbed.’
He considered this. ‘I see. Why have you come today?’
‘To say goodbye, I’m afraid. You are to be shot. And I wish to apologise to you. One of Emily’s conditions was that you should be offered the chance of going with the renegades. Oldmanter agreed, but he has changed his mind. I have been instructed to tell Emily that you refused the offer.’
‘Lying for Oldmanter already? Will you do that?’
‘Yes. I must.’
‘Do you realise how dangerous using that machine could be? Does Oldmanter?’
‘I know nothing. You tell me it is dangerous, Oldmanter is sure it is not. As he is the most successful person on the planet, then his opinion is likely to prevail. Emily told me she knows what she’s doing.’
‘Did she indeed?’ Hanslip’s eyes narrowed as he thought. Then his face cleared and became almost contented. He nodded to himself and almost smiled. ‘Yes. Maybe she does. She’s her mother’s daughter, after all. I told you that Angela was a ruthless woman. Would you tell Emily that I understand what she is doing, and wish her luck? Also that she can count on me.’
‘If you wish.’
‘Thank you, Mr More. I appreciate your kindness in coming to visit me. Good luck to you, as well. You will need it more than any of us, I think.’
*
That evening Jack, with three armed soldiers, got Emily from the enclosure once more and walked her along the corridors into the open air. He led her through, then ordered the guards, ‘Keep far away. Within eyesight, as I suppose you must, but in the background, please.’
‘A man of authority,’ she commented as the guards dutifully fell back and allowed them to head down to the shore unaccompanied.
‘That’s me. They’re all right, those three. They don’t really
care what happens as long as they don’t get into trouble.’
‘Like most people.’
‘I suppose.’
They walked along in silence for a while, Emily absorbing the fresh air. ‘It’s empty up here. I like it.’
‘Good. You will be getting to know it quite well.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s your destination,’ he said simply. ‘They’ve decided it is too expensive to move you geographically. So whenever you arrive, it will be exactly at the point where you left. On this island, in fact. You’ll have to make your own way after that.’
‘How many of us will go?’
‘Just you, to start off with. I’m afraid they intend to use you as an experiment, to see if it works. If you think about it, it shows they are taking it seriously. They want to do it properly.’
‘That’s unfortunate. When will the rest follow?’
‘You are asking the wrong person. I am only a security officer, remember.’
‘Then I must hope he will keep his word.’
‘He will, I think. In his odd way it is important to him. But it’s not too late to change your mind if you have any doubts.’