Bête (30 page)

‘Well,’ said Hetheridge, after a moment, ‘
war
is what I understand. And I understand it well enough to know that peace negotiations are also a form
of war. Does that sound paradoxical? It’s not. Most of what happens at negotiations are not to do with the content of discussion. Most is about who sits where; who has the better array of power tells, who dominates. Who bangs his shoe on the table, and who simpers feebly. Who is able to impose his will on the choice of biscuits. Once you’ve done that, you’re in a much better position to steer the
negotiations your way.’

‘You mean you won’t go to the Lamb,’ I said. ‘The Lamb had better come to you.’

‘I mean that me sitting on a chair in the middle of a field chatting with a chunk o’ mutton on four legs would not play,’ Hetheridge said. ‘Not play in whatever the UK equivalent of Peoria is.’

‘Peckham?’

‘I
mean
,’ the Major General said, jabbing his hand down in a karate
motion to emphasize his word. ‘That we are always of course open to the possibilities of peaceful negotiation. But I won’t stroll into the countryside. And I dare say the Lamb won’t come trotting through the streets of Reading. People here are positively ravenous for kebab meat, you know.’

‘He’s here already,’ I said.

‘
Is
he.’

‘I think the bête mentality cares much less than
we do for all that alpha-male dominance-submission status posturing bollocks. I think he’s happy to concede all that. I think he just wants to cut to the chase.’

‘You think that?’ drawled Hetheridge. ‘Then you and I disagree about bêtes, Penny. They’re not just the chips, you know. They’re the chips
plus
the animal’s wetware, and that latter is precisely as obsessed with in-group pecking
orders as us primates. Where is he?’

‘He’s in my pocket.’ I fished out the handkerchief and unwrapped it. ‘Isn’t that an absurd thing to say? But it’s true. He’s literally, not metaphorically, in my pocket.’

‘That’s the Lamb,’ said the Major General.

Preacherman spoke for the first time: ‘Graham!’

‘Jason,’ said Hetheridge, without looking at him. ‘Control yourself.’

‘Tat,’ Jazon said, ‘he didn’t tell me he had the Beast of Revelation in his actual pocket! Gray, you sat opposite me in that pub with the devil
in your pocket
– and you didn’t say anything?’

‘I figured you wouldn’t take it well,’ I said.

‘Oh get thee behind me, Satan!’ Jazon cried, with rather splendidly melodramatic intensity.

‘Jason!’ said Hetheridge sharply. ‘Don’t make
me remove you. So, Mr Penhaligon. That’s actually the Lamb? Or is it some kind of proxy device?’

‘I was there at the, eh, ugh, the extraction. It wasn’t pretty.’

‘And it has come here to talk – to me?’

‘That’s right.’

‘How do you propose we actualize that? Feed it to the regimental goat?’

‘You really have a regimental goat?’

‘Of course,’ said the Major General.
‘And it’s dumb as a stone. But I’m not fetching it from barracks to feed it a chip.’

‘You could just plug it into a laptop,’ I suggested.

‘Ah!’ said the Major General. He pondered for a while. ‘Daisy, can we do that?’

I noticed for the first time that three uniformed military officers were literally standing attendance upon the Major General. One of these – a man, despite the
name used to summon him – stepped forward. ‘We can plug it in, see if it’ll talk. Are we sure it is what it claims it is?’

‘It doesn’t claim anything,’ said Hetheridge. ‘Penny here is doing the claiming. But all right – fetch me a tablet, let’s see what comes out of the speakers. Maybe it can prove itself that way.’

As they were fussing about setting up a machine, Preacher­man sloped
over to me. He was doing his Knight of the Doleful Countenance impression. ‘Graham,’ he said. ‘Mate! Please! We were friends!’

‘Come on, Jaze,’ I said. ‘Don’t use the past tense. You fucking pot-of-toss.’

‘I’m bitterly disappointed.’

‘Bitter as in beer?’

‘This is not a fable,’ he said. ‘The Revelation of Saint John is not some vague gesture in the direction of prophesy
– it’s exact. It’s rather frighteningly specific, actually. You’ve let me down, Gray. You tricked me, Graham.’

‘Let’s say I agreed,’ I told him. I felt oddly awkward sitting down whilst Jazon stood, but the mere thought of getting up made my legs ache. ‘Let’s say you’re right. Can’t we use the long spoon?’

‘Spoon,’ he said. ‘Is that another of your Matrix references?’

‘No, you
fucker. It’s the proverb. Sup with the devil, use a long spoon. But, you know, sup, all the same. Because, you know what’s at stake? You want to see this town destroyed? You want that? We’re still friends, you wanker, and we always will be.’

‘I’m not happy,’ said Preacherman. To show that he, indeed, was not happy he stomped sulkily off to the far side of the room and sat down.

But
he was the only unhappy one. There was a palpable buzz in the room. People were excited. Major General Hetheridge disappeared, and returned five minutes later. ‘I’ve had a chinwag with the Paym,’ he announced. It took me a moment to realise he meant
PM.
‘Full steam, gentlemen, ladies. Let’s see what this beastly diplomat has to say for itself.’

A young man in a blue jacket and jeans took
the Lamb from me, and laid it on the table. He held in his hand what looked like, but presumably was not, a giant cotton bud. With this he combed out some of the silk-thin threads from the central chip against a flat pad that was, in turn, plugged into the machine. There was a hush of excited anticipation.

The screen flickered to life. A screen saver pattern of wiry spirals started writhing,
and the speakers made a series of coughing sounds. ‘How pleasant to have the power of speech again,’ said the laptop.

‘It’s like that scene in
Skyfall
,’ I said absently. My heel was starting to sting, and I leaned forward to rub it.

When I sat upright again there were two rifles pointed directly at my face. ‘The fuck?’ I said, but in a shrunken voice.

‘What did you say?’ snapped
the soldier who had originally escorted me up the stairs.

‘The lieutenant is asking you,’ Major General Hetheridge said sharply, ‘to repeat what you just said.’

‘I said it reminded me of that scene in …’ I looked over to the laptop, and saw that the blue-jacket guy had snatched the chip away from the connection pad. Everybody in the room was looking intently at me.

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Take him downstairs,’ said Hetheridge, in a severe voice.

I was helped to my feet. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I didn’t mean—’ But I was already out of the door. Behind me I heard the Major General’s voice: ‘—connected long enough to do damage?’ And the other man’s reply: ‘With QU, long enough is hardly an issue …’

The door slammed.

Most what I felt was a sense of foolishness as I
was manhandled down the stairs. Two squaddies, one on each side, each had a meaty hand under an armpit, and a third soldier followed behind with a rifle aimed at my head. I almost dropped my stick several times. ‘Steady!’ I said.

We went down past the entrance lobby and into the subterranea of the place. A hefty door was unlocked and I stumbled into a white-tiled room. By the time I turned
about the big door had been slammed. ‘Fuck,’ I said.

The cell was a large, square room with slatted benches along two of the walls. Two men were seated upon these, and both looked up expectantly, although their expression wilted when the door slammed.

‘Evening,’ I offered. Neither replied.

5

Gaol

I had been out of the loop, I know. So the question as to the present-day legal status of bêtes was beyond me. For all I knew, their legal equivalence with humanity had been withdrawn. Revoked. Overturned. The slaves returned to bondage, the cows marched back to the slaughterhouse. But a moment’s thought ought to have made me realize – of course not. A state of war existed
between His Majesty’s government and certain canny animals in the northlands, and one does not legally revoke one’s enemy’s humanity. This is not a matter of fairness, or even of legal or parliamentary principle. This is a simply matter of strategy. You want battlefield superiority because you want to win your war; but you don’t want to blow Bambi up with a cruise missile. If you style your
enemy as too far beneath contempt them people will start to feel sorry for them, because pity is the geological layer directly underneath contempt. And the bêtes were a threat. Admitting that one’s enemies had a certain legal status hadn’t prevented us killing one another for hundreds of thousands of years of almost continual warfare, after all.

I was tired, so I lay out on the bench
and fell asleep. I don’t know for how long I slept; I assume not for long. It was not comfortable, and the light was bright, so neither did I sleep deep. When one of my cellmates leaned over me I was half-conscious of the fact and came up swearing.

‘Wanted to see if you were still breathing,’ the man said, backing rapidly away.

‘He thinks you’re a plant,’ said the other. He frowned.
‘Not vegetable,’ he clarified. ‘I mean, someone put here by the author­ities to spy on us.’ Then he did something odd. He held out his left hand and began twiddling his right hand’s index finger in the palm of it.

‘Are you worth spying on?’ I asked, sitting up.

‘Prisoners of conscience,’ said the first man. ‘Both of us.’

‘Pro-bêtes activists?’

‘Humankind has raped the earth
for thousands and thousands of years,’ said the first man, sitting down again. ‘Not metaphorically raped, but literally raped – dug its collective prick in the earth and violated it.’

‘I do think you do mean metaphorically, though,’ said the second man. ‘Actually.’

‘Bill Hubbard!’ exclaimed the first. ‘I thought you were on my side?’

‘I
am
on your side. God has given the animals
a voice, and we must listen to what they say. But that doesn’t give us the right to misuse “literally”.’

‘You are such a human being, Bill.’

Bill continued paddling in his hand with his finger.

‘What,’ I asked, ‘the fuck are you doing?’

In reply he said: ‘We can say
what the fuck are you doing
but not
what are you the fuck doing?
Although. We can say
absofuckinglutely
,
but not
abfuckingsolutely
. Grammar is a funny old business. Isn’t it?’

‘They took his iTab away,’ explained the first man. ‘It’s a nervous tic. He used it to interact with the world. He’s worried,’ he added, after a pause, ‘that they shot his dog.’

Bill whimpered, and scribbled more furiously on his palm.

‘The problem with dogs,’ the first fellow said, ‘is that their mouths just
aren’t well shaped for languages like English. My ex-girlfriend had a dog that used to communicate with her by barking Morse code. Took ages to say anything. Bill here—’ he nodded ‘—used to chat with Barack Obama via his phone rather than face to. That worked better for him.’

‘The dog?’ I asked. Bill whimpered a second time, and concentrated on staring more forcefully at his own palm.

‘He called the dog after Barack Obama,’ said the first man. ‘The dog didn’t mind. Liked it, even. Obama was the first African American US president.’

‘I know who Obama was,’ I told them.

‘The thing that’s a shame about dogs,’ the first man said, leaning back against the tiled wall behind him, ‘is that otherwise they’re perfectly suited. Brain wise, I mean. You know what I mean?’

‘I don’t even know
that
you mean,’ I replied.

He was unphased. ‘Bung a chip in a bee, or a frog, and you’re basically just talking to the chip. It’s like talking to one of those toy teddy bears they used to sell – before the war.’

‘There hasn’t been a war!’ Bill blurted out. Then he whimpered again and returned the whole of his attention to his invisible iTab.

‘Bill keeps
saying that,’ the first man told me. ‘Because there’s not been an official declaration of war. Legally, I guess he’s right. But I’d say humankind is fighting a war, nonetheless. Where was I?’

‘Lulu-land,’ I said. I had sat up during this rather pointless conversation, but my leg ached and I was as tired as ever I had been. I lay down again and closed my eyes.

‘Yeah – put a chip in
a insect, or a fish, and you’re just talking to the chip. Which isn’t Nature communicating with us, yeah? That’s just computing. But at the other end of the scale, put a chip in a human being, or a gorilla or something, and you cause schizophrenia. The cognitive will of the processor fights the cognitive will of the bearer. It ain’t pretty. You know Manzilla? The film star? That chipped-up grill that
starred in all those movies? The crime hatin’ primate? No? Manzilla the crime hatin’ primate in
Blackmail 5: the Reckonin’
. No?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘encapsulates my entire response to everything you’re saying.’

He carried on, unfazed. ‘Anyway, he went bonkers-in-the-brain. So, yeah. Chip up a human, or a gorilla, or a whale, and the wearer goes mad. Mad. There’s a
sweet spot
, is what I’m
saying. Chip up a middle-range animal, cat, dog, cow, horse – that’s when the magic happens.’

I opened my eyes at this. ‘There’s no fucking magic in any of this,’ I said.

‘You’re wrong, my friend, wrong. The chip melds with the animal mind to create a tertium quid. You know what a tertium quid is? It’s Latin.’

‘
Spero autem et in suffocat et guttur tuum a canibus membra masuclina
,’ I told him.

‘It’s special. It’s a new thing. We’ve always been frightened of what we don’t understand, and now we’re trying to stifle this new voice. Instead of listening to it!’

My bad leg twanging with pain at the motion, I sat up. ‘Why are you in here?’ I asked.

The fellow clammed up at that. For a while there was silence. Then Bill piped up. ‘He tried to lay a bomb.’

I’d never heard this idiom before. ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘Lay a bomb? Like an egg?’

‘It’s a war, Bill Hubbard,’ the man said to the other. ‘Never mind your legal quibbles. You only quibble because you think they won’t shoot Barack Obama until the war is officially declared. I tell you Bill—’ Bill whimpered every time his name was uttered ‘—they’re more likely to shoot him
before
. Most likely
they have already shot him.’ Whimper. ‘To sort it out ahead of time, to have had him pre-shot. They probably didn’t even shoot him – probably chucked him alive into an incinerator.’ Whimper. ‘To destroy the chip, that’s all they care about. But once war is officially declared, then I’ll be a proper POW and even Barack Obama would be a POW and they’d have to treat him legal.’ Bill was scribbling
so rapidly on his invisible iTab now his finger was a blur. ‘Obama’s,’ the other man explained to me, ‘his only friend, really. He’s shy. It’s an affliction.’

’You,’ I said, ‘are cruel.’

‘Me! They’re firebombing herds of cattle in Northumberland and
I’m
the cruel one?’

‘What about you, Bill?’ I asked. ‘Why’ve they banged you up?’

Bill looked quailingly at me, and was (I
thought) about to reply; when the first fellow butted in again.

‘Never you mind about Bill,’ he told me, ‘you leave him be. What are
you
in for, eh? If you’re not a plant?’

I met his gaze. ‘Growing facial hair without a licence.’

He looked at me. Suddenly he grinned. ‘I like you! There’s not many Homo sapiens I can say that of, but I like you.’

‘I can’t begin to say how
delighted that fact makes me,’ I replied, lying down again.

‘There are millions of us!’ Bill blurted out. We both looked at him, and he retreated back into his invisible iTab.

‘My pal overstates,’ said the first man. ‘Tens, probably hundreds of thousands of us. England is a nation of animal lovers. You can’t suddenly tell
us
animals are the enemy. We know better.
We—
’ and he emphasized
his point by drawing an imaginary cross over his heart, with twitchy, emphatic gestures ‘—won’t believe it.’

‘When I consider the nature and future of my homeland,’ I told them both, ‘the words of
Dad’s Army
’s Private Frazer come ringingly into my head.’

‘What? Don’t panic?’

‘No,’ I said, feeling very tired. ‘Not that one.’

With a startling growl the lock unslid and the
door opened. Two soldiers came into the cell, took firm hold of the first man – whose name I had not been vouchsafed – lifted him off the bench and marched him out. The door banged doomily behind them.

I tried to make conversation with Bill, but he only whimpered, and brought his face very close to the palm of his left hand (not, I noticed, the other way around, although that would surely
have been easier). I napped again. Then I sat up. My time in the forest had habituated me with doing nothing, and sitting in the cell didn’t bother me.

At some point they shut off the lights. Night, I supposed. I lay on the floor; for though it was harder and colder than the bench, it was not ridged, and I slept more easily. Bill curled up foetally on his bench, and slept like a dog. Morning
was announced by the sudden snapping on again of lights, and the door opening again. Water, bread and butter was delivered, and the two of us broke our fast without speaking. The tray on which the necessaries were delivered had a chip in it, but it only spoke once: ‘Please don’t put me in the dishwasher, or my laminate will peel!’ The tray was decorated with a repeating tessellated design of
interlocking parrot shapes.

After a while, Bill spoke up. ‘I’ve always been meek,’ he said.

‘And you shall surely inherit the earth,’ I replied, aiming for a kind tone. My instrument isn’t well adapted to kindness, though. I suspect it came out sarcastic and aggressive.

‘Shy,’ he said, not meeting my eye. He brought out his invisible iTab, looked at the imaginary screen for a
few seconds, and then put it away again.

I waited.

‘Always been more comfortable around animals,’ he said eventually. ‘I do not know why. I’ll tell you what: when the first bêtes got citizenship, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. It was like Christmas. Like Christmas is for a kid. Lion, Witch
and
Wardrobe all on one day! It was like a thousand Christmases.’ He stopped, and blushed
port-wine red.

After a long pause, I said: ‘I’m sure your dog is fine, you know.’

He didn’t reply.

I suppose we were there half a day – long enough for me to grow hungry again – before the lock growled once more, and the door once more squeaked open, and soldiers took Bill away. He went out on a long, almost musical stream of whimpers.

I was alone.

I wondered, naturally,
about whether the Lamb had
used
me – tricked me into carrying some unimaginably dangerous
Independence Day
style virus into the firewalled protective space of the military net. But of course maybe not: maybe it was a false alarm. And maybe, even if the system crashed, it wouldn’t inconvenience the army too severely. There was no wireless outside the city anyway, or so I assumed. Could the bêtes
really leverage any military advantage from infecting the in-house system? I didn’t know. I
could
see, mind you, how it looked from the outside. Catweazel walks into your military headquarters, spins you some story about negotiating with the Lamb himself, and the next thing you know the lights are flickering in their casing and all your computer screens show graphics of mockingly laughing skulls.

Or, you know, whatever.

What would they do to me? I said the words, ‘shot at dawn’ aloud, in effect trying them out for size. There’s an old joke. A prisoner is brought out of his cell at dawn, and marched out into the courtyard where he will be blindfolded and shot. The troops are already there, leaning on their rifles. As he starts across the yard it starts to rain. He looks to the
sky. ‘Well,’ he says. ‘This is a
fine
start to the day.’

Perhaps Major General Hetheridge would summon me for a second interview. He would say: ‘After revolving the matter for some time we are disposed to trust you, Graham.’ He would say: ‘A terrorist actively trying to plant a virus in our system would hardly draw attention to him doing that, in the manner you did! After all.’ After all.
But of course, nervy, stressed, that’s precisely what a terrorist might indeed do. Why, after all, had I said what I said? What imp of the perverse grabbed the tendons of my tongue and formed those words? I’m the last person able to tell you that. So maybe the second interview would go a different way. Maybe it would be:
We can’t afford to take any chances, Graham
. Or:
Nothing personal. Graham
. Or:
Drumhead justice, Graham
.
You understand
. I do understand.
We have to shoot you, Graham? Are you cool with that, Graham? Are you like the Fonz in the face of your personal extinction, Graham?

I am cool.

I tried to blank my mind, but my brain kept rolling back into life. The stakes were high. War would not go well for us, if we allowed it to run out of control. But, say we managed
to form an alliance with the bêtes of the south, Major General Hetheridge! Think what tactical advantages that could give us, for the pacification of the north! I was thirsty, but the water jug from the morning yielded up only droplets.

I thought about Anne. I tried to remember exactly what she looked like, but her features evaded my mind’s eye. I thought of her sitting on the back step
of her empty B and B, smoking into the night air, and then very carefully disposing of the ashes as if they were nuclear waste. The friability of my memory of her made my gut tremble, butterfly-afraid in the core of my being. If I never got back to Cincinnatus, if I never sealed the deal I had been sent with, then my own individual memories of her were going to rust over and cease to work. I was going
to lose her again as my mind decayed and I grew older and less capable, and the mere thought of that made me more afraid than I have ever been in my life. Dying at the hands of the Major General’s soldiery was a trivial matter by comparison.