Fractions (56 page)

Confined, they were barely even an object of curiosity. Wilde stayed where he was for a minute as the crowd dispersed somewhat. Then he walked back the way he'd come. As he sidled past the two men he gave them about three metres clearance. They glared at him.

‘Who sent you?' he asked.

‘Fuck off,' one of them said.

‘Give Reid my regards,' Wilde said.

At this the other man made an attempt to burst his bonds, but the multi-armed machine only tightened in response. Wilde continued along to the alley-mouth, and on his way passed two young men, guiding or herding the now empty and damaged platform in the opposite direction.

‘'Scuse me' Wilde said. ‘See what happened to the other robot? The one this thing grabbed?'

‘Scrammed,' he was told.

He thanked them, and checked for himself. The most anyone could tell him was that the construction-machine had fled down the alleyway. Wilde took a look along it, shook his head and muttered something to himself, and trudged back to the bridge. He arrived in time to see the two young men departing with the platform, which now had his attackers securely held by its remaining functional crane-arm. The other machine was still there, once more in its spiky-ball form. It rolled over to him like a tumbleweed.

‘Good morning,' it said. The buzzing voice seemed to be generated by the vibration of some of its stalks. ‘You called for help, within the domain of Invisible Hand Legal Services. I intervened in response.'

‘Thank you,' Wilde said.

‘Although no binding contract has been entered into, it would be a matter of courtesy to make a payment to Invisible Hand. As a reciprocal courtesy, Invisible Hand would like to offer you a ten-week defence policy, with that payment written off against your first bill if you choose to pay in advance.'

Wilde looked down at the eager machine with amusement.

‘How much?'

‘Twenty grams gold or equivalent.'

‘Very reasonable,' Wilde said. ‘Do you take cards?'

‘Follow me,' said the machine.

Wilde slid his card down the slot of the rusty mainframe box. The machine that had come to his aid had led him here and left him.

‘Thank you,' Invisible Hand said. ‘You have identified yourself as Jonathan Wilde. Your account is that opened originally by the machine known as Jay-Dub, aka Jonathan Wilde, and endorsed in your behalf at Stras Cobol Mutual Bank last night.'

‘Correct,' said Wilde.

‘I have on my files a case against you,' the machine said. ‘Do you wish to hear the details at present?'

Wilde looked around.

‘Go ahead.'

Reid's face appeared in ruddy hologram monochrome behind the machine's screen.

‘I, David Reid, wish to lay a charge against one Jonathan Wilde, of no fixed abode, namely this: that a robot known as Jay-Dub, property of the same Jonathan Wilde, was used to corrupt the control systems of a Model D gynoid, known as Dee Model, property of myself. If Jonathan Wilde wishes to defend himself legally against this charge, no further attempts will be made by me or my agents or allies to arrest him or to impound his machine. If he does not so wish, or refuses a mutually acceptable court, those attempts will continue. I end this statement this Sic'day morning, fifty-seventh day of the year one hundred and two, Ship time.'

Wilde watched the image dwindle to a ruby bead.

He sighed. ‘How did Reid know I'd be registered with you?'

‘He did not,' said the mainframe. ‘This message was released to all defence agencies. I have conveyed to the others that it has been delivered. They have no further interest in it, unless of course you choose to have it defended by one of them.'

‘No,' said Wilde.

‘Very well,' said the machine. ‘Do you wish to defend yourself legally against the charge?'

Wilde thought about this.

‘Yes,' he said.

Shadows and lights moved behind the screen.

‘I have a suggestion to make,' said the machine. ‘There is another case in progress, between Reid and another party, in the matter of Dee Model. Dee Model is also a client of mine. You might wish to consider combining your defences.'

‘I might indeed,' said Wilde.

‘Wait here,' said the machine. ‘…You may smoke.'

An aeroplane or a helicopter comes towards you on a rising note that climaxes, then dies away; but when you hear the sound of an aero-engine and it maintains the same flat tone for minutes on end, you look up, irritated by that anomalously steady buzz, and see an airship.

I stood on Waverley Bridge in the cool dusk and looked up and saw an airship, low in the sky, creeping up behind me like a shiver on my neck, a blue blimp with ‘MAZDA' in white capitals on the side. It was the same airship as I'd seen two hours or so earlier, in Glasgow. Almost weirder than a UFO, something that shouldn't be there, a machine from an alternate reality where the
Hindenburg
or the Dow Jones hadn't crashed or the Germans had won the Great War. As I watched it move away like a cloud with an outboard motor, I had a momentary sense of dissociation, as if I shouldn't be there either. What was I doing here, watching an airship from a windy bridge when I could be on a train to London?

It must have been the heat. The heat in London that summer had been like nothing since the summer of '76, when I'd spent weeks going from interview to interview, crashing out with pals or in my parents' home, worrying about the rash of hateful Union Jack stickers plastered everywhere by the National Front. (And meanwhile, in another hot city, Polish workers pulled up railway lines and pulled down meat prices, and almost the state, almost…) And coming back to Glasgow and a drier heat, grateful, walking into Annette's lab where dissected locusts were pinned in foil dishes of black wax and the smell of evaporating ethanol rushed to my sinuses as I grabbed her and said, ‘I got a job!'

Nineteen years later and still the same job. Different employers, a different college, the students ever younger and more unsure about their presence, let alone their futures. But at least now I had a business on the side, which in good months brought in as much as or more than the job. My polemics in obscure newsletters and journals, and later on obscure Internet newsgroups as well, had – according to my plan, but still to my surprise – resulted in some mainstream attention. A few think-tank commissions, one or two academic journal articles, a chapter in a forthcoming intermediate economics textbook…Annette and Eleanor had, or at least showed, more confidence in my eventually hitting the big time than I did. Sometimes I felt guilty about that.

I'd been online at my desk at home, setting up Web pages for the business, when Reid had called the previous week. After we'd exchanged pleasantries he'd said, ‘You coming up to this science fiction convention thingie in Glasgow?'

‘Yes! I've booked a stall there. Space Merchants. You coming?'

‘'Fraid not,' he'd said regretfully. ‘Can't manage the time off work. But – I'd like to meet you after it, in Edinburgh.'

‘That's a nice idea, but…'

‘No, no, wait. It's not just to see you socially. I've got a…a business proposition for you. Something you might be really interested in.'

‘Oh well, that's different. What is it?'

‘Um, I'd rather not say at the moment. Sorry to be so cagey, but honestly this is serious and it could be well worth your while. We'll just go out for a few drinks and talk it over. You can crash out with me, or in a hotel if you like – I can pick up the tab, and the fares –'

‘No, there's no need –'

‘Really. You'll understand when we've talked about it, OK?'

Intrigued at the thought of him offering me a job in insurance, I agreed to meet him. It must have been the heat.

 

Reid sauntered up from the Princes Street end of the bridge, for some reason the opposite direction from the one I'd expected him to.

‘Hi man, glad you made it.'

‘Good to see ya.'

His hair had grown long again. His clothes were casual but refined: soft black chinos, blue button-down shirt, silk tie, dark linen jacket. I felt a bit of a scruff in my denims and trainers and astronaut cut.

‘You're looking smart.'

‘Thanks.' We'd started walking in the same direction Reid had been taking, towards the Rock. ‘You're looking…well.'

We both laughed.

‘It's an illusion,' I said. ‘Actually I feel a bit wrecked. Too many hangovers in the past four days.'

‘Ah, you'll soon drink it off,' he said. ‘But first – have you eaten?'

My stomach sharply confirmed that I hadn't. ‘Not for ages,' I said. We paused at a junction where the traffic came four ways. Reid glanced around, and behind him.

‘OK,' he said, ‘Viva Mexico!' This turned out to be a Mexican restaurant halfway up Cockburn Street and down some steps. It was quiet. Reid nodded at the waiter. ‘Table for three, please.'

The waiter guided us to a table well clear of anyone else and we sat down. Reid ordered three tall lagers. I looked around while he studied the menu. The faces of men with wide hats and long rifles glowered back at me from brown-and-white photographs of executions, funerals, weddings, train wrecks…I was scanning the wall idly for any photos of heavily armed christenings or graduations when the lagers arrived and Reid looked up.

‘How did the Worldcon go?'

‘Brilliant,' I said. ‘So I'm told. I was in the dealers' room most of the time. Space Merchants did well, though.'

‘That's your business?'

‘Yes.' I took out my wallet and passed him one of my remaining cards, with email address, Web site, phone number and PO Box. ‘A coupla years ago I was looking for space memorabilia, videos of Earth from orbit, stuff like that, and I was surprised how hard it was to find. Especially all in one place. So I thought, hey, business opportunity! Started with mail order ads in SF magazines, then hawking stuff around conventions. Seems to have taken off now.'

Reid smiled. ‘Lifted off! Good. Cheers.'

‘Slainte.'

I glanced at the third glass fizzing quietly by itself.

‘Who's your absent friend?'

‘Along any minute. Relax. Still smoking?'

‘Back on them, I'm afraid.' Thanks to you, I didn't say.

He passed me a cigarette.

‘How's Annette?'

‘Fine. Sends her love.' He didn't blink.

‘And Eleanor?'

I couldn't help grinning all over my face. ‘Oh, she's great. Sulks in her room listening to CDs and reading trash, most of the time, but basically she's a fine young lass.'

‘Didn't she want to go to the convention?'

‘I'm not sure,' I said. ‘She sort of shrugged when I asked her. Annette wanted to save up holiday time for later in the year, and I think in the end Eleanor preferred to stay with her Mum. I didn't want to risk taking her along and finding she didn't really want to go and put her off for life.'

‘Like those demos, eh?' Reid indulged a reminiscent smile.

I grimaced. ‘Tell me about it…Annette and her “peace-fighting”! When Eleanor was thirteen she tried to join the friggin' Air Cadets!'

‘What stopped her?'

‘Not us,' I assured him. ‘Defence cuts.'

The chair to our left was suddenly occupied by a slim middle-aged man, dressed similarly to Reid, with thinning black hair combed back. He briskly picked up the menu and nodded to us both. The contact-lenses in his brown eyes made him blink a lot, as if the air were smoky. I stubbed out my cigarette.

‘Evening, gentlemen.' He raised his pint and sipped.

‘This is Ian Cochrane,' Reid said. ‘Works in our legal department. Ian, this is Jonathan Wilde.'

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Wilde.' His grip was clammy, perhaps from the condensation on the glass, but his thumb pressure was firm.

‘Jon,' I said, nodding and wondering abstractedly if the handshake I'd just received was Masonic.

‘I've heard a good deal about you, Jon,' said Cochrane. ‘Most impressed by your article on Brent Spar.' He caught a waiter's eye. ‘Shall we order?'

His accent and manner had that Scottish upper-middle-class tone which sounds more British than the English. He ate selectively and talked trivially while Reid and I satisfied our hunger. His second drink was mineral water. At that point his talk ceased to be trivial.

‘“It's time somebody hammered home to people the difference between the bottom of the North Sea and the bottom of the North Atlantic,”' he began, quoting my article – a short column in a Sunday paper's ‘Dissenting Voices' corner – from memory. ‘“One's the floor of a seriously polluted larder, which should be cleaned up. The other's Davy Jones' Locker…” But nobody's hammering it home, that's your point, eh?'

‘Yup,' I said, scooping up guacamole with a taco fragment. ‘So Greenpeace gets away with murder.'

‘Murder indeed,' said Cochrane. ‘But who's going to take the word of an oil company against a bunch of selfless idealists?'

‘Me,' Reid said.

‘Ah, but you're not typical, you see,' Cochrane reminded him. He turned and blinked thoughtfully at me. ‘David, as you probably know, is our IT manager.' I nodded; I hadn't known. ‘He attended a meeting of a policy committee where these matters were addressed. We weren't involved in this Shell fiasco, thank God, but as an insurance company we're potentially rather exposed to similar situations. One of our senior managers remarked, in passing, that it would be very…conducive to a balanced public debate, if there were a grassroots organisation campaigning
for
industrial development, instead of against – “A Greenpeace for the good guys”, I think he called it. And the possibility was raised of, ah, materially encouraging an initiative in this direction.'

Reid leaned forward. ‘Hope you don't mind, Jon, but I said I knew just the man for the job.' He leaned back. ‘You.'

‘To start an anti-environmentalist organisation?' I shook my head. ‘They have 'em in the States. “Wise use” and all that. They're seen as mouthpieces for big business. Sorry, chaps. Not interested.'

Reid's face showed nothing but polite curiosity.

‘Why not?' he asked.

‘Ruin my street-cred.'

‘We wouldn't want you to say anything different from what you've said already,' Cochrane interjected.

‘That's not the point,' I said. ‘You could get all the independent scientists you want, even relatively sane environmentalists on board. All that anyone would have to do to discredit it is remind people where the money was coming from.' I checked that we'd all abandoned our plates, and lit a cigarette. ‘Look at FOREST.'

The skin around Cochrane's eyes creased and he nodded, as if to hold the place. He gestured to the waiter and ordered coffee and cigarillos. I tried to decline the cigarillo, but he insisted that I at least keep it for later. He stripped the cellophane from his own, lit up, and savoured his first few puffs with a lot more apparent appreciation than I did.

‘The Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco,' he said, ‘has a good deal more media-credibility than the Tobacco Advisory Council. We've checked. They're quite up-front about where they get a lot of their money from. They don't dispute the health risks, just the use of them to justify all kinds of intrusive restrictions and invasive propaganda. That doesn't strike me as a bad example.'

He stubbed out his cigarillo and fanned away the vile clouds with his hand. ‘Feelthy habit,' he remarked, blinking furiously. ‘Matter of principle.'

I shrugged. ‘OK, if that's how you see it go ahead. But you won't do much to change public opinion, at least in the present climate.'

‘
Mister
Wilde,' Cochrane said in a disappointed tone, ‘We aren't talking about the
present climate.
We're talking about changing the climate.'

‘You want to take the rap for global warming?'

Cochrane indulged a brief laugh. ‘Touché…but seriously, we stand to lose a great deal if the dire predictions turn out to be true, so no, we have no interest in minimising that. We'd like a clearer public perception of the issues, that's all. As to the climate of opinion…North British Mutual Assurance has existed in one form or another since before the Revolution.' (Before the
what
?) ‘If truth be told, its predecessor companies had not a little to do with the fact that the Revolution was Peaceful, and Glorious, and all those other fine words that history has applied to the distinctly businesslike takeover of 1688.' (At this point my brain caught up with him.) ‘So let me put a proposition to you, on the basis that – should the lady at the nearest table happen to be, let's say, a journalist for
The Scotsman
– this conversation will have undeniably happened, and otherwise…perhaps not.'

He chuckled darkly, and despite misgivings I felt drawn in, part of his plot.

‘As insurers,' he went on, in a lower voice, ‘we have no interest whatsoever in backing polluters, because – as the asbestos companies have shown – they're a bad risk. We most emphatically
do
have an interest in prosperity, and growth, and clients who pay in their premiums through long and healthy lives. So if someone were to set up an organisation such as we've discussed, our interest could be quite open, and quite defensible by both sides.'

‘If presented in the right way,' Reid said. ‘I think it's within your capabilities.'

‘Thank you,' I said. ‘It could look no more sinister than giving money to the Tory Party. Probably less.'

Cochrane coughed. ‘As it happens, our political donations this year –'

He was interupted by the cynical cackles of Reid and myself. After a moment he joined in.

‘Yes, well, we
are
in the business of spreading the risk!'

‘It's quite something,' I said, ‘to see the smart money changing sides, almost before your very eyes.'

‘Indeed,' Cochrane said. ‘And you could look on our proposal as something similar, if on a longer time-scale.'