Arcadia (35 page)

‘No. Why are you telling me this?’

‘She works for an institute which operates on an island called Mull in the north-west of Scotland,’ Jack said. ‘You would consider it fairly harmless, I think. Most of its research is on energy transmission. It owns the rights to few people, is largely unarmed. It avoids participation in public affairs and has no position on treatment of renegades such as yourself. I am sure you would not feel comfortable taking my word for it, but I am equally sure you could easily enough confirm what I have said.

‘Your mother seems to have made a discovery of some importance. A few days ago she vanished, destroying all the data on her project before she left. I need to find her before someone else does.

As yet her disappearance is not common knowledge, but when it gets out there are many people who will wish to gain her services and some of them are not pleasant people. I have come partly to obtain your assistance and partly to warn you. If my employer can consider the possibility that the route to Angela might lie through you, then others may do so as well, and they will not be as kindly as us. Have you noticed any sign of increased surveillance in the past couple of days?’

‘No.’

Jack stopped to see how he was doing. It was impossible to say. Neither of the people sitting opposite betrayed the slightest emotion. He rather hoped they would do or say something, anything, so that he could get some clue whether his approach – honesty, if not total openness – was the correct one to take.

‘Thank you for your warning, Dr More,’ Sylvia said. ‘We will take such precautions as we think necessary. Do you have anything else you wish to tell us?’

‘I do. We believe Emily’s mother may have hidden a copy of the data before she vanished. It is possible that she wanted Emily to find it.’

Finally he got a reaction, although only a small one. Emily looked surprised and then sceptical at the very idea.

‘Explain.’

‘We believe it may be hidden in the National Depository.’

‘Why on earth would she hide something there?’

‘Why indeed? If I could find it, or find your mother, I might be able to give you an answer. My employer came up with two possibilities. One is that you are in league with her and that you hid it.’

‘I’ve already told you …’

‘The other is that a person with your skills is one of the few who could find it. I don’t know. It may be a false lead entirely, but it is the only one we have at the moment, and so it is there that I wish to begin my search. Your assistance would be very well rewarded.’

‘Surely you people normally just swoop down with helicopters
and assault troops and take whatever you want?’ Emily’s words were hostile, but her voice was not; it was merely enquiring.

Jack smiled reassuringly. ‘We do not have an army, and the security force is little more than a dozen people.’

‘The police?’

‘Then it becomes public. We prefer to recover this information before anyone even knows it is missing. Someone who knows their way around the place would be a great help.’

‘You are aware that people like us are now banned from the building? I have not been into it for a year.’

‘I have the authority to enter.’

‘So you want to go in, get the documents if they are there and – what then? Anything?’

‘Then I can concentrate on finding your mother.’

‘You must realise,’ Sylvia said, ‘that while people in your world concentrate on numbers and facts, we deal in words and emotions. We are as expert in our field as you are in yours. We listen far more carefully than you do. You are not lying to us, but you leave out far too much for us to trust you at the moment.’

‘I have tried to say all that is relevant.’

‘This is not about making the trains run more efficiently, is it?’

‘No. In the wrong hands this data could be exceptionally dangerous for the entire planet. This is not about making money.’

‘When did Angela Meerson disappear?’

‘About three days ago now.’

‘That was when the power failures killed so many people?’

‘I believe so.’

‘A coincidence, I’m sure, but you will understand our caution. People are already blaming us, trying to pretend it was terrorism rather than incompetence.’

‘I can say nothing useful about that. I have come here with a simple task and a straightforward request. Will you assist me, as I ask?’

‘We will discuss this in private, Dr More, when you have gone.’

‘Does it need discussion?’

‘Here everything needs discussion,’ she replied with a faint smile. ‘Be at the main entrance to the Depository tomorrow at nine. If we will help, then Emily will meet you there. If not …’

‘Yes?’

‘Then she will not meet you there, and we will not wish you to come here again.’

*

That was that. Jack realised he could do nothing now except wait and hope his appeal would have some effect. So he went back to the residence, ordered himself some food and settled down for a quiet night.

His peace did not last very long, however. Less than half an hour after he had arrived, there was a knock on the door. He had taken another indirect route back and arrived tired, and dirty and wet from the grime-filled rain that had been coming down in torrents all day. He wanted a long shower and an even longer sleep. He was annoyed that he had spent so much time on his journey thinking of the girl. Dare he access the files once more to find out about her? Risky. He wanted no direct contact linking him to her, or to her Retreat. But there was no reason he could not send the request through one of his old colleagues to muddy the trail. He had just sent one off when the door lit up to indicate visitors.

He knew exactly who, or rather what, the two men were when he opened the door and saw them standing there. The size, the sureness, the watchful eyes assessing him. The look of faint surprise to see someone who was so unlike most members of the elite they had ever met. More like them, in fact.

‘Dr More?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come with us, please.’

Well – polite, Jack thought, but it would have been interesting to discover how they would respond if he refused. ‘I am just about to get into the shower.’

‘Sorry, sir. Orders.’

‘Under whose authority?’

‘You will be given an explanation in due course. It is a necessary security precaution, I’m afraid.’

Jack liked that ‘I’m afraid’ bit. Conciliatory, regretful, as spoken to a superior. Despite their appearance they weren’t about to beat him up.

‘Oh, very well,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to make your life difficult. Come in though. Give me five minutes. Fix yourselves a drink while I make myself presentable. I’m sure whoever is responsible for all this must be terribly important. I wouldn’t want to appear scruffy.’

Experience. He knew exactly how to make them relax. Cooperate, make their job easy, get something in return. That’s the way it worked. Always had and always would.

‘Hope I’ve not been too long,’ he said when he emerged. ‘Shall we go?’

But they still wouldn’t tell him who he was going to see, or why.

31

When they left Lytten’s house, Rosie and Angela walked for some way along the road together. ‘Where are you heading?’ the older woman asked after a while.

‘I have to go home and face the music, I suppose. My parents won’t let me out again for months. What do you want with me? Why did the Professor agree to do what you asked?’

‘I assume he believes you have been spending the last few days in an orgy of depravity. So, naturally, he wouldn’t want to know anything about it. But mainly because he likes you and trusts me. I thought you might like to have lunch, so we could get to know each other.’

‘I see.’ Rosie reflected; it was strange, she rather liked the idea of being suspected of some terrible vice. What was really strange, though, was that Professor Lytten found it credible.

They walked on a while further before Rosie finally plucked up courage. ‘Jenkins. He looks like that because of that thing in the cellar.’

Angela gave a light laugh. ‘Oh, surely not.’

‘Fiddlesticks. The Professor wasn’t interested, but the moment I mentioned it, you shot off down to the cellar to have a look. Then you started questioning me.’

‘You were very evasive. Not an attractive characteristic in a young woman.’

‘There was a forest behind the curtain. And people, and rivers, and men with swords. And an extraordinary party. And they cut my hair and dressed me up. How do you think I came to look like this?’

‘What an imagination you have.’

Rosie reached into her bag and pulled out a golden wig. She handed it to Angela. Then she sat on the wall of the house they were passing and took off a shoe, showing the three gleaming rings on her middle toes.

‘You know perfectly well it is nothing to do with my imagination.’

There was a pause. ‘You were wearing those rings? When you came back?’

‘So now you believe me?’

‘But not when you went through?’

‘No. What’s the matter?’

‘Are they metal?’

‘Gold and silver, I think. I feel terribly guilty about them.’

‘When you came back, was it the same as the last time?’ Angela’s tone had changed dramatically.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did it feel the same? Happen in the same way?’

‘Oh, I see.’ Rosie thought. ‘No. The first time it was like just stepping through a door. A bit tickly, but nothing much. This time it started off like that but then got harder, like trying to wade through water. As though it was thicker, if you see what I mean.’

‘You didn’t get stuck?’

‘No. It was just much harder. I had this odd feeling for a moment that I got frozen. Not cold, you understand. Just like I stopped for the tiniest moment. Then I came through and everything was just fine. The odd thing was that when I stepped through there was no one near me, but when I looked back I could see someone.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know. It was night. I could just make out a shadow.’

‘Ah,’ said Angela softly. ‘How very interesting.’

‘What is going on? I’ve worried you about something.’

‘That is really very difficult to explain,’ she said. ‘Not least because I doubt you could understand it.’

‘Try.’

‘Listen, will you trust me?’

Rosie laughed. ‘I doubt it.’

*

How does a universe come into existence? An odd question, certainly, and not one which – to my knowledge – anyone has ever answered before. All worlds exist, but only one is actualised at any point; another might take concrete form only if some external force acts upon it. The world projected from Tolkien’s thoughts existed in potential only, and did so before I opened it up. As long as I merely observed through the pergola, only that part of it which came to my view was actualised. When I stepped through, it began to coalesce and immediately came up against its own inherent contradictions. The essential laws of physics took over and it began cancelling itself out, with nearly fatal consequences for me.

Anterwold was more stable, but it was very lucky that this was so, as instead of being realised in slow increments, each small addition tested for stability, it became concrete at a breakneck pace. The fine human detail was generated by Rosie on her two irruptions: whatever she had done, whoever she had seen or talked to, instantly meant that these people, their friends and family, customers, possessions, ancestors – and indeed their descendants – sprang from a latent into an actualised state of existence.

Time started moving. Lytten had sketched out the basics of a functioning alternative society and created something frozen, unchanging and immoveable; I had built in limits so that this state would continue just in case of accidents, but the irruption of Rosie threatened to break through those limits and set everything in motion. From the moment she stepped into Anterwold, both past and future started to adjust to fit.

This could be a serious problem. The experiment was at risk of spinning totally out of control, as I discovered when I tried to shut it down and found it would not respond. In theory, now that
Rosie (and the cat) were out, then it should have been possible. I couldn’t understand it, until I saw those rings on her toes and she mentioned the shadow. I talked to her with one part of my mind, set up a few rapid calculations in the background and, with what little mental space I had left over, I began to worry.

*

Angela led Rosie to the side street where she had parked her car. ‘I’m starving, and we might as well talk over food. Have you ever been to the Randolph?’

Rosie hadn’t. She had, in fact, never been anywhere really, except, of course, to Lytten’s cellar. Angela knew this perfectly well, which was why she made the invitation. She reasoned that the girl would be in a much more pliable state if she formed an attachment, or if she had a couple of drinks inside her. So she drove into the centre of town and led Rosie into the hotel, where she requested a table for two in a corner.

‘I suppose,’ she said once they were sitting comfortably and she had lit her cigarette, ‘I may not offer you a sherry.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Rosie replied, ‘but I would like one.’ She sat perfectly still and glanced around her. ‘It might be good for me. It’s very nice here.’

‘Yes, all appearance and little substance, I’m afraid. The food,’ she confided, ‘is quite dreadful. I would have liked to give you a good meal, but that is not possible in England at the moment. We will have to settle for a charming one instead.’

‘Have you travelled much?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Tell me about it.’

So Angela did, and warmed to the girl as she saw the misty look of longing pass over her eyes while she told of mountains, of little restaurants in village squares, of warmth and sun and blue skies, and of all the sorts of food that were to be had.

‘Ah, that sounds just lovely,’ Rosie said.

‘Have you ever been abroad?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rosie replied cautiously. ‘I suppose that is why we are here. So you can be nice to me until I answer all your questions. Oh, I don’t mean to be rude,’ she added hurriedly when she saw the look of surprise on Angela’s face.