Jasper Fforde - Something rotten

'Notice anything?' I asked as we walked across the grassed area, the croquet players moving past us in a blur of well-coordinated limbs.

'No children?'

'The youngest Neanderthal is fifty-two,' I explained, 'the males are infertile. It's probably their biggest source of disagreement with their owners.'

'I'd be pissed off, too.'

We found Stiggins's house and I opened the door and walked straight in. I knew a bit about Neanderthal customs, and you would never go into a Neanderthal home unless you were expected — in which case you treated it as your own and walked in unannounced. The house was built entirely of scrap wood and recycled rubbish and was circular in shape with a central hearth. It was comfortable and warm and cosy, but not the sort of basic cave I think Bowden expected. There was a TV and proper sofas, chairs and even a hifi. Standing next to the fire was Stiggins, and next to him was a slightly smaller Neanderthal.

'Welcome!' said Stig. 'This is Felicity — we are a partnership.'

His wife walked silently up to us and hugged us both in turn, taking an opportunity to smell us, first in the armpit and then in the hair. I saw Bowden flinch and Stig gave a small grunty cough that was a Neanderthal laugh.

'Mr Cable, you are uncomfortable,' observed Stig.

Bowden shrugged. He was uncomfortable, and he was familiar enough with Neanderthals to know that you can't lie to them.

'I am,' he replied, 'I've never been in a Neanderthal house before.'

'Is it any different to yours?'

'Very,' said Bowden, looking up at the construction of the roof beams, which had been made by gluing oddments of wood together and then planing them into shape.

'Not a single wood screw or bolt, Mr Cable. Have you heard the noise wood makes when you turn a screw into it? Most uncharitable.'

'Is there anything you don't make yourself?'

'Not really. You are insulting the raw material if you do not extract all possible use from it. Any cash we earn has to go to our buy-back scheme. We may be able to afford our ownership papers by the time we are due to leave.'

'Then what, if you'll excuse me, is the point?'

'To die free, Mr Cable. Drink?'

Mrs Stiggins appeared with four glasses that had been cut from the bottom of wine bottles and offered them to us. Stig drank his straight down and I tried to do the same and nearly choked — it was not unlike drinking petrol. Bowden choked and clasped his throat as if it were on fire. Mr and Mrs Stiggms stared at us curiously, then collapsed into an odd series of grunty coughs.

'I'm not sure I see the joke,' said Bowden, eyes streaming.

'It is the Neanderthal custom to humiliate guests,' announced Stig, taking our glasses from us. 'Yours was potato gin — ours was merely water. Life is good. Have a seat.'

We sat down on the sofa and Stig poked at the embers in the fire. There was a rabbit on a stick and I gave a deep sigh of relief — it wasn't going to be beetles for lunch.

'Those croquet players outside,' I began, 'do you suppose anything could induce them to play for the Swindon Mallets?'

'No. Only humans define themselves by conflict with other humans. Winning and losing have no meaning to us. Things just are as they are meant to be."

I thought about offering some money. After all, a month's salary for an averagely rated player would easily cover a thousand buy-back schemes. But Neanderthals are funny about money — especially money that they don't think they've earned. I kept quiet.

'Have you had any more thoughts about the cloned Shakespeares? asked Bowden.

Stig thought for a moment, twitched his nose, turned the rabbit, and then went to a large rolltop bureau and returned with a buff file — the genome report he had got from Mr Rumplunkett.

'Definitely clones,' he said, 'and whoever built them covered their tracks — the serial numbers are scrubbed from the cells and the manufacturer's information is missing from the DNA. On a molecular level they might have been built anywhere.'

'Stig,' I said, thinking of Hamlet , 'I can't stress how important it is that I find a Will clone — and soon.'

'We haven't finished, Miss Next. See this?'

He handed me a spectroscopic evaluation of Mr Shaxtper's teeth and I looked at the zigzag graph uncomprehendingly.

'We do this test to monitor long-term health patterns. By taking a cross-section of Shaxtper's teeth we can trace the original manufacturing area solely from the hardness of the water.'

'I see,' said Bowden. 'So where do we find this sort of water?'

'Simple: Birmingham.'

Bowden clapped his hands happily.

'You mean to tell me there's a secret bioengineering lab in the Birmingham area? We'll find it in a jiffy!'

'The lab isn't in Birmingham,' said Stig.

'But you said—?'

I knew exactly what he was driving at.

'Birmingham imports its water,' I said in a low voice, 'from the Elan valley — in the Socialist Republic of Wales.'

The job had just got that much harder. Goliath's biggest biotech facility used to be on the banks of the Craig Goch reservoir deep in the Elan before they moved to the Presellis. They had built across the border owing to the lax bioengineering regulations; they shut down as soon as the Welsh Parliament caught up. The lab in the Presellis did only legitimate work.

'Impossible!' scoffed Bowden. 'They closed down decades ago!'

'And yet,' retorted Stig slowly, 'your Shakespeares were built there. Mr Cable, you are not a natural friend to the Neanderthal and you do not have the strength of spirit of Miss Next, yet you are impassioned.'

Bowden was unconvinced by Stig's precis.

'How can you know me that well?'

There was silence for a moment as Stig turned the rabbit on the spit.

'You live with a woman whom you don't truly love but need for stability. You are suspicious that she is seeing someone else and that anger and suspicion hang heavily on your shoulders. You feel passed over for promotion and the one woman whom you truly love is inaccessible to you—'

'All right, all right,' Bowden said sullenly, 'I get the picture.'

'You humans radiate emotions like a roaring fire, Mr Cable — we are astounded at how you are able to deceive each other so easily. We see all deception so have evolved to have no need for it.'

'These labs,' I began, eager to change the subject, 'you are sure?'

'We are sure,' affirmed Stig, 'and not only Shakespeares were built there. All Neanderthals up to Version 2.3.5, too. We wish to return. We have an urgent need for that which we have been denied.'

'And that is?' asked Bowden.

'Children,' breathed Stig. 'We have planned for just such an expedition and your sapien characteristics will be useful. You have an impetuosity that we can never have. A Neanderthal considers each move before taking it and is genetically predisposed towards caution. We need someone like you, Miss Next — a human with drive, a propensity towards violence and the ability to take command — yet someone governed by what is right .'

I sighed.

'We're not going to get into the Socialist Republic,' I said. 'We have no jurisdiction and if we're caught there will be hell to pay.'

'What about your plan to take all those books across, Thursday?' asked Bowden in a quiet voice.

'There is no plan, Bowd. I'm sorry. And I can't risk being banged up in some Welsh slammer during the Superhoop. I have to make sure the Mallets win. I have to be there.'

Stig frowned at me.

'Strange!' he said at last. 'You do not want to win out of a deluded sense of home-town pride — we see a greater purpose.'

'I can't tell you, Stig, but what you read is true. It is vital to all of us that Swindon win the Superhoop.'