Michael Moorcock: A Cure for Cancer

'Indeed,' Cornelius replied.

'Beesley — from Birmingham. We met there the Easter before last.'

'I never go to Birmingham if I can help it,' said Jerry fastidiously. 'I haven't been there in four years.'

'Mr Aserinsky.' Bishop Beesley spoke with prim accusation. 'Mr Aserinsky! Come now. Birmingham. The Easter before last.'

'Before last, before last.' Jerry pursed his lips. 'Before last...'

'Aha!' Beesley grinned and patted his forehead with one finger. 'Aha! Memory playing tricks.'

'Certainly not!'

'Can't remember where one was at any particular moment -can one? Eh? Or, might I say, who one was, hm? Ha, ha!'

Cornelius put himself on his guard, ready to drag his vibra- gun from its holster in a split second. But Beesley was leaning forward with a knowing smile. 'Trust me, Mr Aserinsky. We have much in common, you and I.'

'Are you from the organization...' Cornelius said, 'at all?'

'No. Unfortunate. But I understand the aims. And I endorse them, Mr Aserinsky.'

'I'm leaving now.' Jerry put hand to handle.

'I was going to ask you a favour.'

A yellow, single-decker tram went past on the other side of the street. Cornelius watched it from the corner of his eye.

'What was that?'

'I believe you are on your way to Germany. You'll be passing through Aachen?'

'That's for me to say.' Jerry relaxed a little as the tram turned a corner.

'Could you, perhaps, give me a lift? I am only a poor journalist and the rail fares are so dear, as you appreciate, I'm sure.'

'Journalist?'

'Churchman! Unfortunately that profession is a dead one these days. Progress, Mr Aserinsky, has scant sympathy for the redundant... I mean,' the bishop reached into his coat pocket and took out a bar of chocolate which he put into his mouth, 'I mean — one must survive. There was little else I was trained for. Consolation was my trade. I still pursue it as best I can.'

Jerry watched a thin trickle of chocolate leave Bishop Beesley's mouth. It looked rather like blood.

'I don't trust you,' he said.

'Forgive a trace of self-pity.' The bishop spread his hands and shrugged in despair. 'But my appearance is doubtless disturbing to you. Can I help that? My clothes — they are all I have. My poor, coarse body: glands. My method of approach: urgent necessity, if I am to earn the pittance that will support me for another week or two. And there is the plague to consider. Rats have been seen. You, Mr Aserinsky, are well dressed, handsome, rich too...'

'Too rich.' Jerry opened the door and threw his grip into the back of the car and started the engine.

Soon he was driving from Brussels, on the Aachen road.

Not too far behind him, his face set in an expression of moral outrage, came Bishop Beesley, stiff-backed at the wheel of a silver Cadillac, his jaw moving rhythmically and, from time to time, his hand moving to meet it. Beside him on the seat was a large paper bag containing almost a pound of walnut fudge.

Bishop Beesley turned to walnut fudge in moments of crisis.

Jerry passed through Aachen listening to Olivier Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony on his headphones. He frowned self-critically as the seventh movement began. His Ondes Martenot playing was dreadful. He hardly noticed the F111A nose-dive into a nearby field until the sight of the flames made him stop the car and watch as the U.S. Marines arrived in three Shawnee whirlybirds and, automatic weapons at the ready, ringed the wreck. One of the advisors jerked his thumb at Jerry to continue down the road. He waved, wound back to the beginning of the movement and was once again on his way to Nibelburg with a couple of hours to go and by this time aware of the Cadillac on his tail. The bishop was apparently making no attempt to hide the fact that he was pursuing Jerry.

Cornelius waited until the marines were out of sight and then decided to give Bishop Beesley the slip.

At the touch of a button the Phantom VI sprouted stubby wings and tail section, the turbo-jet engine whirled into life and the car took off at great speed from the almost deserted autobahn. It circled the baffled bishop once and then climbed rapidly into the calm, cloudless sky of the autumn afternoon.

A little later Jerry dropped altitude as he made out the impressive steeples of Cologne Cathedral. He checked his map and then began to descend towards the road that would take him to Nibelburg. To the west he thought he could just see the tall, stone tower where Dr Karen von Krupp lived, worked and schemed for the destruction of the organization and all it stood for.

The car touched down on the highway, its wings and tail section were retracted and it whipped along the concrete road until Jerry saw the sign saying he was about to enter Nibelburg.

Nibelburg. was a few two or three storied houses and shops of grey and red brick, a little railway station, a larger police station with a great many motor-bikes parked outside it, and a church which had recently been converted into a dance hall.

Over the tops of the elms and poplars lining the fields be-yond Nibelbuirg. Cornelius made out the tower he had seen from the air. He decelerated, began to whistle the Chant d'amour from the recently finished symphony, and consulted his guide. The tower was readied by an unmade road about half a mile out of Nibelburg.

He stopped just before he came to the road, and he concentrated his attention on his mouth until he had a passable ache in one of his left molars. Feeling unhappy, he restarted the engine and turned into the side road, ignoring the Black Rat sign and bumping along for a quarter of a mile until he stopped outside the seventy-foot tower with its Gothic doorway, windows and battlements high above. The stone, which seemed to date from the earliest Gothic period, was extremely clean, with hardly a trace of a stain of any kind. It was pitted with age, and worn, especially around the lower parts of the wall, but nonetheless it was as well-scrubbed and looked after as a carefully kept tooth. Cornelius wondered if he climbed to the battlements he would find they had been filled with amalgam or even gold.

He parked the car neatly at the side of the tower. Only one other car was there, a Volkswagen sports, which, he gathered, belonged to the doctor.

He walked up the gravel path and raised the heavy iron door-knocker, letting it fall with a thump that fled away into the tower's interior.

The door was opened almost instantly by a beautiful blonde girl of about sixteen. She had blue eyes of a largeness that was accentuated by her use of mascara. There was a smile on her wide, full mouth; her hair was long and straight, covering the back and shoulders of a short-skirted dress of rich white brocade that was probably a Biba copy. She wore matching brocade tights and Granny shoes. Her arms were almost entirely bare and her skin was as sweet and soft as the silk of Jerry's suit, the colour of the first warm streaks of a spring sunrise.