‘In pursuit of suspects in aeroplane heading, er, east, I think,’ yelled Bowden into the police wireless. An aircraft was the one thing none of us had thought of. Although a police airship was in the area it would be too slow to be able to cut off the plane’s escape.
   We carried on down a shallow slope, dodging heifers and making for the far end of the field, where a farmer in his Land Rover was just closing the gate. He looked perplexed as he saw the mud-spattered sports car fast approaching him but opened the gate anyway. I yanked the wheel hard over, turned right and slewed broadside down the road with one rear wheel in the ditch before I recovered and accelerated rapidly, now at right angles to where we wanted to go. The next turning on the left was into a farm, so in we went, scattering frightened chickens in all directions as we searched for a way out into the fields beyond. The aircraft was still visible, but detours like this only increased the distance between us.
   ‘Hollycroft farm!’ Bowden shouted into the wireless as he tried to keep anyone who might be interested informed of our progress. I found my way past the farmyard and out through the orchard by way of a barbed-wire fence that put five deep horizontal scratches along the paintwork of the car. We drove faster across the grass, bumping heavily over hardened ruts made the previous winter. Twice the car bottomed out, but at last we were making headway. As we pulled up beneath the plane, it abruptly banked left. I did likewise and entered a forest on a logging track. We could just see the aircraft above us through the foliage that flicked and rushed above our heads.
   ‘Thursday—!’ shouted Bowden against the rasp of the engine.
   ‘What?’
   ‘Road.’
   ‘Road?’
   ‘Road.’
   We hit the road at full speed and were lifted off the ground by the camber. The car flew through the air, landed slightly askew and skidded sideways into a bramble thicket. The engine stalled but I quickly restarted it and headed off in the direction taken by the aeroplane. I accelerated up the road and emerged clear of the forest; the aircraft was ahead of us by only a hundred yards. I pressed the accelerator again and the car surged forward. We turned right into another field and tore across the grass, gaining on the plane, which was still flying into the headwind.
   ‘Thursday!’
   ‘What is it now?’
   ‘We’re coming to a river!’
   It was true. To left and right of us and not more than half a mile distant, the broad expanse of the Severn blocked our route. Acheron was heading off to Wales and the Marches and there didn’t seem to be anything we could do about it.
   ‘Hold the wheel!’ I yelled as we drew closer behind and beneath the aircraft. Bowden eyed the approaching riverbank nervously. We were doing almost seventy across the flat grassland, and it wouldn’t be long before we passed the point of no return. I took careful aim with both hands and fired into the aeroplane. It jinked and banked violently. For a moment I thought I had hit the pilot but the plane quickly changed direction; it had merely gone into a dive to gain speed.
   I swore, stamped on the brake and pulled the wheel around. The car skittered on the grass and drifted sideways through another fence before sliding down a bank and coming to rest at the water’s edge with a front wheel in the river. I jumped out and fired at the retreating aircraft in a futile gesture until my gun was empty, half expecting Acheron to turn about and make a low pass, but he never did. The aircraft, with Hades, a forged Gainsborough and ten million pounds in dud notes, droned away into the distance.
   We got out and looked at the damaged car.
   ‘A write-off,’ murmured Bowden after making a last position report over the wireless. ‘It won’t be long before Hades realises that the money we have given him is not of the highest quality.’
   I stared at the aircraft, which was now a small dot on the horizon.
   ‘Heading into the Republic?’ suggested Bowden.
   ‘Could be,’ I replied, wondering how we should ever get to him if he took refuge in Wales. Extradition agreements did exist but Anglo-Welsh relations were not good and the Politburo tended to regard any enemy of the English as a friend.
   ‘What now?’ asked Bowden.
   ‘I’m not sure,’ I replied slowly, ‘but I think that if you’ve never read Martin Chuzzlewit you should do so as soon as possible. I’ve a feeling that as soon as Acheron finds he’s been hoodwinked Martin will be the first for the chop.’
   Hades’ plane vanished into the distance. All was quiet except for the gentle lap of the river. I lay down on the grass and closed my eyes, attempting to get a few moments of peace before we were thrown back into the maelstrom of Goliath, Hades, Chuzzlewit and all the rest. It was a calm moment—the eye of the hurricane. But I wasn’t thinking about any of them. I was still thinking about Daisy Mutlar. The news about her and Landen was both expected and unexpected at the same time; he might have mentioned it, of course, but then, after a ten-year absence, he was under no obligation to do so. I found myself wondering what it would be like to have children and then wondering what it would be like never to know.
   Bowden joined me on the grass. He took a shoe off and emptied out some gravel.
   ‘That post I was talking about in Ohio, you remember?’
   ‘Yes?’
   ‘They confirmed the appointment this morning.’
   ‘Terrific! When do you start?’
   Bowden looked down. ‘I haven’t agreed to it yet.’
   ‘Why not?’
   ‘Have you ever—um—been to Ohio?’ he asked in an innocent tone of voice.
   ‘No; I’ve been to New York several times, though.’
   ‘It’s very beautiful, I am told.’
   ‘A lot of America is.’
   ‘They are offering me twice Victor’s pay.’
   ‘Good deal.’
   ‘And they said I could bring someone with me.’
   ‘Who do you have in mind?’
   ‘You.’

   I looked at him, and his urgent and hopeful expression said it all. I hadn’t thought of him as a permanent boss or partner. I supposed that working with him might be like working under Boswell again. A workaholic who expected much the same from his charges.
   ‘That’s a very generous offer, Bowden.’
   ‘Then you’ll consider it?’
   I shrugged. ‘I can’t think of anything beyond Hades. After living with him all day I had hoped that I would be spared his presence at night, but he is there too, leering at me in my dreams.’
   Bowden had had no such dreams, but then he hadn’t seen as much of Hades as I had. We both lapsed into silence and stayed that way for an hour, watching the river flow languidly past until the tow truck arrived.
   I stretched out in my mother’s huge iron bathtub and took a swig from the large G&T I had smuggled in with me. The garage had said they would have been happier to scrap the Speedster, but I told them to get it back on the road no matter what, as it still had important work to do. As I was drifting off to sleep in the warm pine-smelling waters there was a knock at the door. It was Landen.
   ‘Holy shit, Landen! Can’t a girl have a bath in peace?’
   ‘Sorry, Thurs.’
   ‘How did you get into the house?’
   ‘Your mother let me in.’
   ‘Did she now. What do you want?’
   ‘Can I come in?’
   ‘No.’
   ‘You spoke to Daisy.’
   ‘Yes I did. Are you really going to marry that cow?’
   ‘I understand you’re angry, Thursday. I didn’t want you to find out this way. I was going to tell you myself but you kind of dashed off the last time we were together.’
   There was an awkward silence. I stared at the taps.
   ‘I’m getting on,’ said Landen finally. ‘I’ll be forty-one next June and I want a family.’
   ‘And Daisy will give you that?’
   ‘Sure; she’s a great girl, Thursday. She’s not you, of course, but she’s a great girl; very
   ‘Dependable?’
   ‘Solid, perhaps. Not exciting, but reliable.’
   ‘Do you love her?’
   ‘Of course.’
   ‘Then there seems little to talk about. What do you want from me?’
   Landen hesitated.
   ‘I just wanted to know that I was making the right decision.’
   ‘You said you loved her.’
   ‘I do.’
   ‘And she will give you the children you want.’
   ‘That too.’
   ‘Then I think you should marry her.’
   Landen hesitated slightly. ‘So that’s okay with you?’
   ‘You don’t need my permission.’
   ‘That’s not what I meant. I just wanted to ask if you think this could all have had some other outcome?’
   I placed a flannel over my face and groaned silently. It wasn’t something I wanted to deal with right now.
   ‘No. Landen, you must marry her. You promised her and besides—‘ I thought quickly. ‘—I have a job in Ohio.’
   ‘Ohio?’
   ‘As a LiteraTec. One of my colleagues at work offered it to me.’
   ‘Who?’
   ‘A guy named Cable. Great fellow he is, too.’
   Landen gave up, sighed, thanked me and promised to send me an invitation. He left the house quietly—when I came downstairs ten minutes later, my mother was still wearing a forlorn ‘I wish he were my son-in-law’ sort of look.

24. Martin Chuzzlewit is reprieved

   ‘My chief interest in all the work that I have conducted over the past forty or so years has been concerned with the elasticity of bodies. One tends to think only of substances such as rubber in this category but almost everything one can think of can be bent and stretched. I include, of course, space, time, distance and reality…”

Professor Myceoft Next


   ‘Crofty—!’
   ‘Polly—!’
   They met at the shores of the lake, next to the swathe of daffodils that rocked gently in the warm breeze. The sun shone brightly, throwing a dappled light upon the grassy bank on which they found themselves. All about them the heavy scent of summer lay upon the land, bringing with it a feeling of calm and serenity that hushed the senses and relaxed the soul. A little way down the water’s edge an old man in a black cape was seated upon a stone, idly throwing pebbles into the crystal water. It might have been almost perfect, in fact, apart from the presence of Felix8, his face not yet healed, standing on the daffodils and keeping a careful eye on his charges. Worried about Mycroft’s commitment to his plan, Acheron had allowed him back into ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ to see his wife.
   ‘Have you been well, my love?’ asked Mycroft.
   She pointed surreptitiously in the direction of the caped figure.
   ‘I’ve been fine, although Mr W over there seems to think that he’s God’s gift to women. He invited me to join him in a few unpublished works. A few flowery phrases and he thinks I’m his.’
   ‘The cad!’ exclaimed Mycroft, getting up. ‘I think I might just punch him on the nose!’
   Polly pulled his sleeve and made him sit down. She was flushed and excited at the idea of her septuagenarian husband and Wordsworth getting into a fight over her—it would have been quite a boast at the Women’s Federation meeting.
   ‘Well, really—!’ said Mycroft. ‘These poets are terrible philanderers.’ He paused. ‘You said no, of course?’
   ‘Well, yes, naturally.’
   She looked at Mycroft with her sweetest smile, but he had moved on.
   ‘Don’t leave “Daffodils” otherwise I won’t know where to find you.’
   He held her hand and together they looked out across the lake. There was no opposite shore, and the pebbles that Wordsworth flicked into the water popped back out after a moment or two and landed back on the foreshore. Aside from that, the countryside was indistinguishable from reality.
   ‘I did something a bit silly,’ announced Mycroft quite suddenly, looking down and smoothing the soft grass with his palm.
   ‘How silly?’ asked Polly, mindful of the precariousness of the situation.
   ‘I burned the Chuzzlewit manuscript.’
   ‘You did what?’
   ‘I said—‘
   ‘I heard. Such an original manuscript is almost beyond value. Whatever made you do a thing like that?’
   Mycroft sighed. It was not an action he had taken upon himself lightly.
   ‘Without the original manuscript,’ he explained, ‘major disruption of the work is impossible. I told you that maniac removed Mr. Quaverley and had him killed. I didn’t think he’d stop there. Who would be next? Mrs. Gamp? Mr. Pecksniff? Martin Chuzzlewit himself? I rather think I might have been doing the world a favour.’
   ‘And destroying the manuscript stops this, does it?’
   ‘Of course; no original manuscript, no mass disruption.’
   She held his hand tightly as a shadow fell across them both. ‘Time’s up,’ said Felix8.

   I had been right and wrong over my predictions regarding Acheron’s actions. As Mycroft told me later, Hades had been furious when he discovered that no one had taken him seriously, but Mycroft’s action in destroying Chuzzlewit simply made him laugh. For a man unused to being hoodwinked, he enjoyed the experience. Instead of tearing him limb from limb as Mycroft had suspected, he merely shook him by the hand.
   ‘Congratulations, Mr Next.’ He smiled. ‘Your act was brave and ingenious. Brave, ingenious but sadly self-defeating. I didn’t choose Chuzzlewit by chance, you know.’
   ‘No?’ retorted Mycroft.
   ‘No. I was made to study the book at O-level and really got to hate the smug little shit. All that moralising and endless harking on about the theme of selfishness. I find Chuzzlewit only marginally less tedious than Our Mutual Friend. Even if they had paid the ransom I would have killed him anyway and enjoyed the experience tremendously.’
   He stopped talking, smiled at Mycroft and continued:
   ‘Your intervention has allowed Martin Chuzzlewit to continue his adventures. Todger’s boarding house will not be torched and they can continue their unamusing little lives unperturbed.’
   ‘I am glad of that,’ replied Mycroft.
   ‘Save your sentiments, Mr Next, I haven’t finished. In view of your actions I will have to find an alternative. A book which unlike Chuzzlewit has genuine literary merits.’
   ‘Not Great Expectations’?’
   Acheron looked at him sadly.
   ‘We’re beyond Dickens now, Mr Next. I would have liked to have gone into Hamlet and throttled that insufferably gloomy Dane, or even skipped into Romeo and Juliet and snuffed out that little twerp Romeo.’ He sighed before continuing. ‘Sadly, none of the Bard’s original manuscripts survive.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps the Bennett family could do with some thinning…’
   ‘Pride and Prejudice!?’ yelled Mycroft. ‘You heartless monster!’
   ‘Flattery will not help you now, Mycroft. Pride and Prejudice without Elizabeth or Darcy would be a trifle lame, don’t you think? But perhaps not Austen. Why not Trollope? A well-placed nail-bomb in Barchester might be an amusing distraction. I’m sure the loss of Mr Crawley would cause a few feathers to fly. So you see, my dear Mycroft, saving Mr Chuzzlewit might have been a very foolish act indeed.’
   He smiled again and spoke to Felix8.

   ‘My friend, why don’t you make some enquiries and find out the extent of original manuscripts and their whereabouts?’
   Felix8 looked at Acheron coldly.
   ‘I’m not a clerk, sir. I think Mr Hobbes would be eminently more suitable for that task.’
   Acheron frowned. Of all the Felixes only Felix3 had ever contradicted a direct order. The hapless Felix3 was liquidated following a very disappointing performance when he hesitated during a robbery. It had been Acheron’s own fault, of course; he had tried to endow Felix3 with slightly more personality at the expense of allowing him a pinch of morality. Ever since then he had given up on the Felixes as anything but loyal servants; Hobbes and Dr Mьller had to be his company these days.
   ‘Hobbes!’ shouted Hades at the top of his voice. The unemployed actor scuttled in from the direction of the kitchens holding a large wooden spoon.
   ‘Yes, sire?’
   Acheron repeated the order to Hobbes, who bowed and withdrew.
   ‘Felix8!’
   ‘Sir?’
   ‘If it’s not too much trouble, lock Mycroft in his room. I dare say we will have no need of him for a couple of weeks. Give him no water for two days and no food for five. That should be punishment enough for disposing of the manuscript.’
   Felix8 nodded and removed Mycroft from the hotel’s old lounge. He took him out into the lobby and up the broad marble staircase. They were the only ones in the mouldering hotel; the large front door was locked and bolted.
   Mycroft stopped by the window and looked out. He had once visited the Welsh capital as a guest of the Republic to give a talk on synthesising oil from coal. He had been put up in this very hotel, met anyone who was anyone and even had a rare audience with the highly revered Brodyr Ulyanov, octogenarian father of the modern Welsh Republic. It would have been nearly thirty years ago, and the low-lying city had not changed much. The signs of heavy industry still dominated the landscape and the odour of ironworks hung in the air. Although many of the mines had closed in recent years, the winding gears had not been removed; they punctuated the landscape like sentinels, rising darkly above the squat slate-roofed houses. Above the city on Morlais hill the massive limestone statue of John Frost looked down upon the Republic he had founded; there had been talk of moving the capital away from the industrialised South but Merthyr was as much a spiritual centre as anything else.
   They walked on and presently came to Mycroft’s cell, a windowless room with only the barest furniture. As he was locked in and left alone, Mycroft’s thoughts turned to that which troubled him most: Polly. He had always thought she was a bit of a flirt but nothing more; and Mr Wordsworth’s continued interest in her caused him no small amount of jealous anxiety.

25. Time enough for contemplation

   ‘I hadn’t thought that Chuzzlewit was a popular book, but I was wrong. Not one of us expected the public outcry and media attention that his murder provoked. Mr Quaverley’s autopsy was a matter of public record; his burial was attended by 150,000 Dickens fans from around the globe. Braxton Hicks told us to say nothing about the LiteraTec involvement, but news soon leaked out.’

Bowden Cable, speaking to The Owl newspaper


   Commander Braxton Hicks threw the newspaper on the desk in front of us. He paced around for a bit before collapsing heavily into his chair.
   ‘I want to know who told the press,’ he announced. Jack Schitt was leaning on the window frame and watching us all while smoking a rather small arid foul-smelling Turkish cigarette. The headline was unequivocal:
   Chuzzlewit death: SpecOps blamed It went on to outline specifically how ‘unnamed sources’ within Swindon SpecOps had intimated that a botched ransom payment had been the cause of Quaverley’s death. It was arse about face but the basic facts were correct. It had placed Hicks under a lot of pressure and caused him to overspend his precious budget by a phenomenal amount to try to discover Hades’ whereabouts. The spotter plane that Bowden and I had pursued had been found a burned-out wreck in a field on the English side of Hay-on-Wye. The Gladstone full of the counterfeit money was close by along with the ersatz Gainsborough. It hadn’t fooled Acheron for one second. We were all convinced that Hades was in Wales but even political intervention at the highest level had drawn a blank—the Welsh Home Secretary himself had sworn that they would not knowingly stoop to harbour such a notorious criminal. With no jurisdiction on the Welsh side of the border, our searches had centred around the Marches—to no avail.
   ‘If the press found out, it wasn’t from us,’ said Victor. ‘We have nothing to gain from press coverage and everything to lose.’ He glanced over at Jack Schitt, who shrugged.
   ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Schitt non-committally, ‘I’m just an observer, here at the behest of Goliath.’
   Braxton got up and paced the room. Bowden, Victor and I watched him in silence. We felt sorry for him; he wasn’t a bad man, just weak. The whole affair was a poisoned chalice, and if he wasn’t removed by the regional SpecOps commander, Goliath would as likely as not do the job themselves.
   ‘Does anyone have any ideas?’
   We all looked at him. We had a few ideas, but nothing that could be said in front of Schitt; since he was so willing to let us be killed that evening at Archer’s place, not one of us would have given Goliath so much as the time of day.
   ‘Has Mrs Delamare been traced?’
   ‘We found her okay,’ I replied. ‘She was delighted to discover that she had a motorway services named after her. She hasn’t seen her son for five years but is under surveillance in case he tries to make contact.’
   ‘Good,’ murmured Braxton. ‘What else?’
   Victor spoke.
   ‘We understand Felix has been replaced. A young man named Danny Chance went missing from Reading; his face was found in a waste basket on the third floor of the multistorey. We’ve distributed the morgue photos of Felix; they should match the new Felix.’
   ‘Are you sure Archer didn’t say anything but “Felix” before you killed him?’ asked Hicks.
   ‘Positive,’ assured Bowden in his best lying voice.
   We returned to the LiteraTec office in a glum mood. Braxton’s removal might provoke a dangerous shake-up in the department, and I had Mycroft and Polly to think of. Victor hung up his coat and called across to Finisterre, asking him if there had been any change. Finisterre looked up from a much-thumbed copy of Chuzzlewit. He, Bailey and Herr Bight had been rereading it on a twenty-four-hour relay basis since Acheron’s escape. Nothing seemed to have changed. It was slightly perplexing. The Forty brothers had been working on the only piece of information we had that SO-5 or Goliath didn’t. Sturmey Archer had made a reference to a Dr Mьller before expiring and that had been the subject of a rigorous search on SpecOps and police databases. A rigorous yet secretive search; that was what had taken the time.
   ‘Anything, Jeff?’ asked Victor, rolling up his shirtsleeves.
   Jeff coughed.
   ‘There are no Dr Mьllers registered in England or on the Continent, either in medicine or philosophy–‘
   ‘So it’s a false name.’
   ‘—who are alive.’ Jeff smiled. ‘However, there was a Dr Mьller in attendance at Parkhurst prison in 1972.’
   ‘I’m listening.’
   ‘It was at the same time that Delamare was banged up for fraud.’
   This is getting better.’
   ‘And Delamare had a cellmate named Felix Tabularasa.’
   ‘There’s a face that fits,’ murmured Bowden.
   ‘Right. Dr Mьller was already under investigation for selling donor kidneys. He committed suicide in ‘74 shortly before the hearing. Swam into the sea after leaving a note. His body was never recovered.’
   Victor rubbed his hands together happily.
   ‘Sounds like a faked death. How do we go about hunting down a dead man?’
   Jeff held up a fax.
   ‘I’ve had to use up a lot of favours at the English Medical Council; they don’t like giving out personal files whether the subject is alive or dead, but here it is.’
   Victor took the fax and read out the pertinent points.
   ‘Theodore Mьller. Majored in physics before pursuing a career in medicine. Struck off in ‘74 for gross professional misconduct. He was a fine tenor, a good Hamlet at Cambridge, Brother of the Most Worshipful Order of the Wombat, keen train-spotter and a founder member of the Earthcrossers.’
   ‘Hmm,’ I murmured. ‘It’s a good bet that he might continue to indulge himself in old hobbies even if he was living under an assumed name.’
   ‘What do you suggest?’ asked Victor. ‘Wait until the next steam train extravaganza? I understand the Mallard is defending her speed record next month.’
   ‘Not soon enough.’
   ‘The Wombats never disclose membership,’ observed Bowden.
   Victor nodded. ‘Well, that’s that, then.’
   ‘Not exactly,’ I said slowly.

   ‘Go on.’
   ‘I was thinking more about someone infiltrating the next Earthcrossers meeting.’
   ‘Earthcrossers?’ said Victor with more than his fair share of incredulity. ‘You’ve got no chance, Thursday. Weird lunatics doing strange things privately on deserted hillsides? Do you know what you have to go through to be admitted to their exclusive club?’
   I smiled.
   ‘It’s mostly distinguished and respected professional people of mature years.’
   Victor looked at Bowden and myself in turn.
   ‘I don’t like that look you’re giving me.’
   Bowden quickly scoured a copy of the current Astronomer’s Almanac.
   ‘Bingo. It says here that they meet on Liddington Hill at two p.m. the day after tomorrow. That gives us fifty-five hours to prepare.’
   ‘No way,’ said Victor indignantly. ‘There is no way, I repeat, no way on God’s own earth that you are going to get me to pose as an Earthcrosser.’

26. The Earthcrossers

   ‘An asteroid can be any size from a man’s fist to a mountain. They are the detritus of the solar system, the rubbish left over after the workmen have been and gone. Most of the asteroids around today occupy a space between Mars and Jupiter. There are millions of them, yet their combined mass is a fraction of the Earth’s. Every now and then an asteroid’s orbit coincides with that of Earth. An Earthcrosser. To the Earthcrossers Society the arrival of an asteroid at a planet is the return of a lost orphan, a prodigal son. It is a matter of some consequence.’

Mr. S.A. Orbiter. The Earthcrossers


   Liddington Hill overlooks the RAF and later Luftwaffe airfield of Wroughton. The low hill is also home to an Iron Age fort, one of several that ring the Marlborough and Lambourn downs. The antiquity of the site, however, was not what attracted the Earthcrossers. They had gathered in almost every country of the globe, following the peculiar predictions of their calling in an apparently random fashion. They always observed the same routine: name the site, do a very good deal with the owners for exclusivity, then move in the month before using either local security or more junior members of the group to ensure that no infiltrators find their way in. It was perhaps due to this extreme secrecy that the militant astronomical group managed to keep what they did absolutely quiet. It seemed an almost perfect hiding place for Dr Mьller, who co-devised the society in the early fifties with Samuel Orbiter, a notable television astronomer of the time. Victor parked his car and walked nonchalantly up to two huge gorilla-sized men who were standing next to a Land Rover. Victor looked to the left and right. Every three hundred yards was a group of armed security men with walkie-talkies and dogs, keeping an eye out for trespassers. There was no way on earth that anyone could slip by unseen. The best means of entering anywhere you aren’t allowed to go is to walk in the front door as though you own the place.
   ‘Afternoon,’ said Victor, attempting to walk past. One of the gorillas stepped into his way and put a huge hand on his shoulder.
   ‘Good afternoon, sir. Fine day. May I see your pass?’
   ‘Of course,’ said Victor, fumbling in his pocket. He produced the pass inserted behind the worn plastic window of his wallet. If the gorillas took it out and saw that it was a photocopy, then all would be lost.
   ‘I haven’t seen you around before, sir,’ said one of the men suspiciously.
   ‘No,’ replied Victor evenly, ‘you’ll see from my card that I belong to the Berwick-upon-Tweed spiral arm.’
   The first man passed the wallet to his comrade.
   ‘We’ve been having problems with infiltrators, isn’t that so, Mr Europa?’
   The second man grunted and passed the wallet back to Victor.
   ‘Name?’ asked the first, holding up a clipboard.
   ‘I probably won’t be on the list,’ said Victor slowly. ‘I’m a latecomer. I called Dr Mьller last night.’
   ‘I don’t know of any Dr Mьller,’ said the first, sucking in air through his teeth as he looked at Victor with narrowed eyes, ‘but if you are an Earthcrosser you will have no problem telling me which of the planets has the highest density.’
   Victor looked from one to the other and laughed. They laughed with him.
   ‘Of course not.’
   He took a step forward but the smile on the men’s faces dropped. One of them put out another massive hand to stop him.
   ‘Well?’
   ‘This is preposterous,’ said Victor indignantly. ‘I’ve been an Earthcrosser for thirty years and I’ve never had this sort of treatment before.’
   ‘We don’t like infiltrators,’ said the first man again. ‘They try to give us a bad name. Do you want to know what we do to bogus members? Now. Again. Which of the planets has the highest density?’
   Victor looked at the two men, who looked back at him menacingly.
   ‘It’s Earth. The lowest is Pluto, okay?’
   The two security men were not yet convinced.
   ‘Kindergarten stuff, mister. How long is a weekend on Saturn?’
   Two miles away in Bowden’s car, Bowden and I were frantically calculating the answer and transmitting it down the line to the earpiece that Victor was wearing. The car was stuffed with all sorts of reference books on astronomy; all that we could hope was that none of the questions would be too obscure.
   ‘Twenty hours,’ said Bowden down the line to Victor.
   ‘About twenty hours,’ said Victor to the two men.
   ‘Orbital velocity of Mercury?’
   ‘Would that be aphelion or perihelion?’
   ‘Don’t get smart, pal. Average will do.’
   ‘Let me see now. Add the two together and—Ah, good Lord, is that a ringed chaffinch?’
   The two men didn’t turn to look.
   ‘Well?’
   ‘It’s, um, 106,000 miles per hour.’
   ‘Uranus’s moons?’
   ‘Uranus?’ replied Victor, stalling for time. ‘Don’t you think it’s amusing that they changed the pronunciation?’
   ‘The moons, sir.’
   ‘Of course. Oberon, Titania, Umb—‘
   ‘Hold it! A real Earthcrosser would have logged the closest first!’
   Victor sighed as Bowden reversed the order over the airwaves.
   ‘Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon.’
   The two men looked at Victor, nodded and then stepped back to let him pass, their manner changed abruptly to acute politeness.
   ‘Thank you, sir. Sorry about that but, as I’m sure you realise, there are very many people who would like to see us stopped. I’m sure you understand.’
   ‘Of course, and may I congratulate you on your thoroughness, gentlemen. Good-day.’
   As Victor walked by they stopped him again.
   ‘Aren’t you forgetting something, sir?’
   Victor turned. I had wondered about some sort of password, and if that was what they wanted now we were sunk. He decided to let them lead the situation.
   ‘Leave it in the car, sir?’ asked the first man after a pause. ‘Here, borrow mine.’
   The security man reached inside his jacket and pulled out, not a gun as Victor expected, but a baseball catcher’s glove. He smiled and handed it over.
   ‘I dare say I won’t make it up there today.’
   Victor slapped his own forehead with the ball of his hand.
   ‘Mind like a string bag. I must have left it at home. Imagine, coming to an Earthcrossers meet and forgetting my catcher’s glove!’
   They all laughed with him dutifully; the first guard said:
   ‘Have a good time, sir. Earthstrike is at 14:32.’
   He thanked them both and hopped into the waiting Land Rover before they changed their minds. He looked at the catcher’s glove uneasily. What on earth were they up to?

   The Land Rover dropped him at the east entrance to the hill-fort. He could see about fifty people milling around, all wearing steel helmets. A large tent had been set up in the centre of the fort and it bristled with aerials and a large satellite dish. Farther up the hill was a radar scanner that revolved slowly. He had expected to see a large telescope or something, but no such apparatus seemed to have been set up.
   ‘Name?’
   Victor turned to see a small man staring up at him. He was holding a clipboard and wearing a steel helmet and seemed to be taking full advantage of his limited authority.
   Victor attempted a bluff.
   That’s me there,’ he said, pointing at a name at the bottom of the list.
   ‘Mr Continued Overleaf, are you?’
   ‘Above that,’ Victor countered hurriedly.
   ‘Mrs Trotswell?’
   ‘Oh, er, no. Ceres. Augustus Ceres.’
   The small man consulted his list carefully, running a steel ballpoint pen down the row of names.
   ‘No one of that name here,’ he said slowly, looking at Victor suspiciously.
   ‘I’m from Berwick-upon-Tweed,’ explained Victor. ‘Late entry. I don’t suppose the news filtered through. Dr Mьller said I could drop in any time.’
   The small man jumped.
   ‘Mьller? There’s no one here of that name. You must mean Dr Cassiopeia.’ He winked and smiled broadly. ‘Okay. Now,’ he added, consulting his list and looking round the fort, ‘we’re a bit thin on the outer perimeter. You can take station 63. Do you have a glove? Good. What about a helmet? Never mind. Here, take mine; I’ll get another from stores. Earthstrike at 14:32. Good-day.’
   Victor took the helmet and wandered off in the direction that the small man had indicated.
   ‘Hear that, Thursday?’ he hissed. ‘Dr Cassiopeia.’
   ‘I heard it,’ I replied. ‘We’re seeing what we’ve got on him.’
   Bowden was already contacting Finisterre, who was waiting back at the LiteraTec office for just such a call.
   Victor filled his briar pipe and was walking towards station 63 when a man in a Barbour jacket nearly marched straight into him. He recognised Dr Mьller’s face from the mugshot immediately. Victor raised his hat, apologised and walked on.
   ‘Wait!’ yelled Mьller. Victor turned. Mьller raised an eyebrow and stared at him.
   ‘Haven’t I seen your face somewhere else?’
   ‘No, it’s always been right here on the front of my head,’ replied Victor, attempting to make light of the situation. Mьller simply stared at him with a blank expression as Victor carried on filling his pipe.
   ‘I’ve seen you somewhere before,’ continued Mьller, but Victor was not so easily shaken.
   ‘I don’t think so,’ he announced, offering his hand. ‘Ceres,’ he added. ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed spiral arm.’
   ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed, eh?’ said Mьller. ‘Then you know my good friend and colleague Professor Barnes?’
   ‘Never heard of him,’ announced Victor, guessing that Mьller was suspicious. Mьller smiled and looked at his watch. ‘Earthstrike in seven minutes, Mr Ceres. Perhaps you’d better take your station.’
   Victor lit his pipe, smiled and walked off in the direction he had been given earlier. There was a stake in the ground marked 63, and he stood around feeling slightly stupid. All the other Earthcrossers had donned their helmets and were scanning the sky to the west. Victor looked around and caught the eye of an attractive woman of about his own age a half-dozen paces away at 62.
   ‘Hello!’ he said cheerfully, tipping his helmet.
   The woman fluttered her eyelashes demurely.
   ‘All well?’ she asked.
   ‘Top hole!’ returned Victor elegantly, then added quickly: ‘Actually, not. This is my first time.’
   The lady smiled at him and waved her catcher’s glove.
   ‘Nothing to it. Catch away from the body and keep your eyes sharp. We may get a lot or none at all, and if you do catch one, be sure to put it down on the grass straight away. After deaccelerating through the earth’s atmosphere, they tend to be a trifle hot.’
   Victor stared at her.
   ‘You mean, we aim to catch meteors?’
   The lady laughed a delicious laugh.
   ‘No, no, silly—! They’re called meteorites. Meteors are things that burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. I’ve been to seventeen of these suspected Earthstrikes since ‘64. I once nearly caught one in Tierra del Fuego in ‘71. Of course,’ she added more slowly, ‘that was when dear George was still alive
   She caught his eye and smiled. Victor smiled back. She carried on: ‘If we witness an Earthstrike today, it will be the first predicted strike in Europe to be successful. Imagine catching a meteorite! The rubble made during the creation of the universe over four and a half billion years ago! It’s like an orphan finally coming home!’
   ‘Very… poetic,’ responded Victor slowly as I started talking in his ear by way of the wire.
   ‘There’s no one listed anywhere by the name of Dr Cassiopeia,’ I told him. ‘For goodness’ sake don’t let him out of your sight!’
   ‘I won’t,’ replied Victor, looking around for Mьller.
   ‘Pardon?’ asked the lady at 62, who had being eyeing him up and not staring at the sky at all.
   ‘I won’t, er, drop one if I catch one,’ he replied hurriedly.
   The Tannoy announced the Earthstrike in two minutes. There was a murmur from the expectant crowd.
   ‘Good luck!’ said the lady, giving him a broad wink and staring up into the cloudless sky.
   There was a voice from close behind Victor.
   ‘I do remember you.’
   He turned to see the very unwelcome face of Dr Mьller staring at him. A little farther on stood a burly security guard, hand at the ready in his breast pocket.
   ‘You’re SpecOps. LiteraTec. Victor Analogy, isn’t it?’
   ‘No, the name’s Dr Augustus Ceres, Berwick-upon-Tweed.’ Victor laughed nervously and added: ‘What sort of a name is Victor Analogy?’
   Mьller beckoned to the henchman, who advanced on Victor drawing his automatic. He looked like the sort of person who was itching to use it.
   ‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ said Mьller kindly, ‘but that’s not really good enough. If you are Analogy, you’re clearly meddling. If, however, you turn out to be Dr Ceres from Berwick-upon-Tweed, then you have my sincerest apologies.’
   ‘Now wait a moment—‘ began Victor, but Mьller interrupted.
   ‘I’ll let your family know where to find the body,’ he said magnanimously.
   Victor glanced around for possible help but all the other Earthcrossers were staring at the sky.
   ‘Shoot him.’

   The henchman smiled, his finger tightening on the trigger. Victor winced as a high-pitched scream filled the air and a fortuitous incoming meteorite shattered on the henchman’s helmet.
   He collapsed like a sack of potatoes. The gun went off and put a neat hole in Victor’s baseball glove. Suddenly, the air was full of red-hot meteorites screaming to earth in a localised shower. The assembled Earthcrossers were thrown into confusion by the sudden violence and couldn’t quite make up their minds whether to avoid the meteorites or try to catch them. Mьller fumbled in his jacket pocket for his own pistol as someone yelled ‘Yours!’ close at hand. They both turned, but it was Victor who caught the small meteorite. It was about the size of a cricket ball and was still glowing red hot; he tossed it to Mьller, who instinctively caught it. Sadly, he did not have a catcher’s glove. There was a hiss and a yelp as he dropped it, then a cry of pain as Victor took the opportunity to thump him on the jaw with a speed that belied his seventy-five years. Mьller went down like a ninepin and Victor leaped on the dropped gun. He thrust it against Mullet’s neck, dragged him to his feet and started to march him out of the hill-fort. The meteorite shower was easing up as he backed out, my voice in his earpiece telling him to go easy.
   ‘It is Analogy, isn’t it?’ said Mьller.
   ‘It is. SpecOps 27 and you’re under arrest.’
   Victor, Bowden and I had got Mьller as far as Interview Room 3 before Braxton and Schitt realised who we had captured. Victor had barely asked Mьller to confirm his name before the interview room door burst open. It was Schitt flanked by two SO-9 operatives. None of them looked like they had a sense of humour.
   ‘My prisoner, Analogy.’
   ‘My prisoner, Mr Schitt, I think,’ replied Victor firmly. ‘My collar, my jurisdiction; I am interviewing Dr Mьller about the Chuzzlewit theft.’
   Jack Schitt looked at Commander Hicks, who was standing behind him. The commander sighed and cleared his throat.
   ‘I’m sorry to say this, Victor, but the Goliath Corporation and their representative have been granted jurisdiction over SO-27 and SO-9 in Swindon. Withholding material from Acting SpecOps Commander Schitt may result in criminal proceedings for concealment of vital information pertinent to an on-going inquiry. Do you understand what this means?’
   ‘It means Schitt does what he pleases,’ returned Victor.
   ‘Relinquish your prisoner, Victor. The Goliath Corporation takes precedence.’
   Victor stared at him hotly, then pushed his way out of the interview room.
   ‘I’d like to stay,’ I requested.
   ‘No chance,’ said Schitt. ‘An SO-27 security clearance is not permissible.’
   ‘It’s as well, then,’ I replied, ‘that I still hold an SO-5 badge.’
   Jack Schitt cursed but said nothing more. Bowden was ordered out and the two SO-9 operatives stood either side of the door; Schitt and Hicks sat down at the table behind which Mьller nonchalantly smoked a cigarette. I leaned against the wall and impassively watched the proceedings.
   ‘He’ll get me out, you know,’ Mьller said slowly as he smiled a rare smile.
   ‘I don’t think so,’ remarked Schitt. ‘Swindon SpecOps is currently surrounded by more SO-9 operatives and SWAT men than you can count in a month. Not even that madman Hades would try and get in here.’
   The smile dropped from Mьller’s lips.
   ‘SO-9 is the finest antiterrorist squad on the planet,’ continued Schitt. ‘We’ll get him, you know. It’s only a question of when. And if you help us, things might not look so bad in court for you.’
   Mьller wasn’t impressed.
   ‘If your SO-9 operatives are the best on the planet, how come it takes a seventy-five-year-old LiteraTec to arrest me?’
   Jack Schitt couldn’t think of an answer to this. Mьller turned to me.
   ‘And if SO-9 are so shit hot, why does this young lady have the best luck cornering Hades?’
   ‘I got lucky,’ I replied, adding: ‘Why hasn’t Martin Chuzzlewit been killed? It’s not like Acheron to make idle threats.’
   ‘No indeed,’ replied Mьller. ‘No indeed.’
   ‘Answer the question, Mьller,’ said Schitt pointedly. ‘I can make things very uncomfortable for you.’
   Mьller smiled at him.
   ‘Not half as uncomfortable as Acheron could. He lists slow murder, torture and flower arranging as his hobbies in Which Criminal.’
   ‘So you want to do some serious time?’ asked Hicks, who wasn’t going to be left out of the interview. ‘The way I see it you’re looking at quintuple life. Or you could walk free in a couple of minutes. What’s it to be?’
   ‘Do as you will, Officers. You’ll get nothing out of me. No matter what, Hades will get me out.’
   Mьller folded his arms and leaned back in the chair. There was a pause. Schitt bent forward and switched off the tape recorder. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and draped it across the video camera in the corner of the interview room. Hicks and I looked at one another nervously. Mьller watched the proceedings but didn’t seem unduly alarmed.
   ‘Let’s try it again,’ said Schitt, pulling out his automatic and pointing it at Mьller’s shoulder. ‘Where is Hades?’
   Mьller looked at him.
   ‘You can kill me now or Hades kills me later when he finds I’ve talked. I’m dead either way and your death is probably a great deal less painful than Acheron’s. I’ve seen him at work. You wouldn’t believe what he is capable of.’
   ‘I would,’ I said slowly.
   Schitt released the safety on his automatic. ‘I’ll count to three.’
   ‘I can’t tell you—!’
   ‘One.’
   ‘He’d kill me.’
   ‘Two.’
   I took my cue. ‘We can offer you protective custody.’
   ‘From him?’ demanded Mьller. ‘Are you completely nuts?’
   ‘Three!’
   Mьller closed his eyes and started to shake. Schitt put the gun down. This wasn’t going to work. Suddenly, I had a thought.
   ‘He doesn’t have the manuscript any more, does he?’
   Mьller opened an eye and looked at me. It was the sign I’d been looking for.
   ‘Mycroft destroyed it, didn’t he?’ I continued, reasoning as my uncle might have—and did.
   ‘Is that what happened?’ asked Jack Schitt. Mьller said nothing.
   ‘He’ll be wanting to find an alternative,’ observed Hicks.

   ‘There must be thousands of original manuscripts out there,’ murmured Schitt. ‘We can’t cover them all. Which one is he after?’
   ‘I can’t tell you,’ stuttered Mьller, his resolve beginning to leave him. ‘He’d kill me.’
   ‘He’ll kill you when he finds out you told us that Mycroft destroyed the Chuzzlewit manuscript,’ I responded evenly.
   ‘But I didn’t—!’
   ‘He’s not to know. We can protect you, Mьller, but we need to capture Hades. Where is he?’
   Mьller looked at us one by one.
   ‘Protective custody?’ he stammered. ‘It’ll need a small army.’
   ‘I can supply that,’ asserted Schitt, using the truth with an economy for which he had become famous. ‘The Goliath Corporation is prepared to be generous in this matter.’
   ‘Okay… I’ll tell you.’
   He looked at us all and wiped his brow, which had suddenly started to glisten.
   ‘Isn’t it a bit hot in here?’ he asked.
   ‘No,’ replied Schitt. ‘Where’s Hades?’
   ‘Well, he’s at… the…’
   He suddenly stopped talking. His face contorted with fear as a violent spasm of pain hit his lower back and he cried out in agony.
   ‘Tell us quick!’ shouted Schitt, leaping to his feet and grabbing the stricken man’s lapels.
   ‘Pen-deryn—!’ he screamed. ‘He’s at—!’
   ‘Tell us more!’ roared Schitt. ‘There must be a thousand Penderyns.’
   ‘Guess!’ screamed Mьller. ‘G-weuess… ahhh!’
   ‘I’ll not play your games!’ yelled Schitt, shaking the man vigorously. ‘Tell me or I’ll kill you with my bare hands right now!’
   But Mьller was now beyond rational thought or Schitt’s threats. He squirmed and fell to the floor, writhing in agony.
   ‘Medic!’ I screamed, dropping to the floor next to the convulsing Mьller, whose open mouth screamed a silent scream as his eyes rolled up into his head. The smell of scorched clothes reached my nostrils. I leaped back as a bright orange flame shot out of Mьller’s back. It ignited the rest of him and we all had to beat a hasty retreat as the intense heat reduced Mьller to ash in under ten minutes.
   ‘Damn!’ muttered Schitt when the acrid smoke had cleared. Mьller was a heap of cinders on the floor. There wouldn’t even be enough to identify him.
   ‘Hades,’ I murmured. ‘Some sort of built-in safety device. As soon as Mьller starts to blab… up he goes. Very neat.’
   ‘You sound as if you almost respect him, Miss Next,’ observed Schitt.
   ‘I can’t help it.’ I shrugged. ‘Like the shark, Acheron has evolved into the almost perfect predator. I’ve never hunted big game and never would, but I can understand the appeal. The first thing,’ I went on, ignoring the smoking pile of ash that had recently been Mьller, ‘is to treble the guards on any places where original manuscripts are held. After that we want to start looking at anywhere called Penderyn.’
   ‘I’ll get on to it,’ said Hicks, who had been looking for a reason to go for some time.
   Schitt and I were left looking at one another.
   ‘Looks like we’re on the same side, Miss Next.’
   ‘Sadly,’ I replied disdainfully. ‘You want the Prose Portal. I want my uncle back. Acheron has to be destroyed before either of us gets what we want. Until then we’ll work together.’
   ‘A useful and happy union,’ replied Schitt with anything but happiness on his mind.
   I pressed a finger to his tie.
   ‘Understand this, Mr Schitt. You may have might in your back pocket but I have right in mine. Believe me when I say I will do anything to protect my family. Do you understand?’
   Schitt looked at me coldly.
   ‘Don’t try to threaten me, Miss Next. I could have you posted to the Lerwick LiteraTec office quicker than you can say “Swift”. Remember that. You’re here because you’re good at what you do. Same reason as me. We are more alike than you think. Good-day, Miss Next.’
   A quick search revealed eighty-four towns and villages in Wales named Penderyn. There were twice as many streets and the same number again of pubs, clubs and associations. It wasn’t surprising there were so many; Die Penderyn had been executed in 1831 for wounding a soldier during the Merthyr riots—he was innocent and so became the first martyr of the Welsh rising and something of a figurehead for the republican struggle. Even if Goliath could infiltrate Wales, they wouldn’t know which Penderyn to start with. Clearly, this was going to take some time.
   Tired, I left to go home. I picked up my car from the garage, where they had managed to replace the front axle, shoehorn in a new engine and repair the bullet holes, some of which had come perilously close. I rolled up at the Finis Hotel as a Clipper-class airship droned slowly overhead. Dusk was just settling and the navigation lights on either side of the huge airship blinked languidly in the evening sky. It was an elegant sight, the ten propellers beating the air with a rhythmic hum; during the day an airship could eclipse the sun. I stepped inside the hotel. The Milton conference was over and Liz welcomed me now as a friend rather than as a guest.
   ‘Good evening, Miss Next. All well?’
   ‘Not really.’ I smiled. ‘But thanks for asking.’
   ‘Your dodo arrived this evening,’ announced Liz. ‘He’s in Kennel five. News travels fast; the Swindon Dodo Fanciers have been up already. They said he was a very rare Version one or something—they want you to call them.’
   ‘He’s a 1.2,’ I murmured absently. Dodos weren’t high on my list of priorities right now. I paused for a moment. Liz sensed my indecision.
   ‘Can I get you anything?’
   ‘Has, er, Mr Parke-Laine called?’
   ‘No. Were you expecting him to?’
   ‘No—not really. If he calls, I’m in the Cheshire Cat if not my room. If you can’t find me, can you ask him to call again in half an hour?’
   ‘Why don’t I just send a car to fetch him?’
   ‘Oh God, is it that obvious?’
   Liz nodded her head.
   ‘He’s getting married.’
   ‘But not to you?’
   ‘No.’
   ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
   ‘Me too. Has anyone ever asked you to marry them?’
   ‘Sure.’
   ‘What did you say?’
   ‘I said: “Ask me again when you get out.”‘
   ‘Did he?’
   ‘No.’
   I checked in with Pickwick, who seemed to have settled in well. He made excited plock plock noises when he saw me. Contradicting the theories of experts, dodos had turned out to be surprisingly intelligent and quite agile—the ungainly bird of common legend was quite wrong. I gave him some peanuts and smuggled him up to my room under a coat. It wasn’t that the kennels were dirty or anything; I just didn’t want him to be alone. I put his favourite rug in the bath to give him somewhere to roost and laid out some paper. I told him I’d move him to my mother’s the following day, then left him staring out of the window at the cars in the carpark.
   ‘Good evening, miss,’ said the barman in the Cheshire Cat. ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’
   ‘Because there is a “B” in “both”?’
   ‘Very good. Half of Vorpal’s special, was it?’
   ‘You must be kidding. Gin and tonic. A double.’
   He smiled and turned to the optics.
   ‘Police?’