Iain Pears - Arcadia

There is no difference between cause and effect. That is an illusion created by belief in time. If I drop a cup, the cup breaks. The dropping is the cause, the breaking is the effect, because one happens after the other. Remove the notion of time and that no longer works. Each is the required condition for the other to take place. As the cup breaks, I am required to drop it. It is like the pair of scales again, where conditions in one pan determine the state of the other one.

Ordinarily, it is relatively simple to calculate such things as there is only one line of existence. However, my experiment had created another one and they were interacting. I could not close Anterwold because Rosie was in it. If she had come back then I might have kept control. But she split in two, because she was wearing rings on her toes.

The same applied to the Devil’s Handwriting. It existed because of actions taken in my future. But those actions equally depended on its existence.

That was it. In my vision, nothing was done by any of the actors on the train. They just watched out of the window. The central actions came from outside, from the man pulling the lever.

It was obviously Oldmanter; I had never met him nor seen a photograph but my unconscious always had a weakness for poor puns. The girl telling him what to do could only be one person. That’s why I was worried. I wasn’t battling Hanslip, or even Oldmanter; I could outthink them easily. I wasn’t certain I could outthink my daughter. I’d seen her file. She was possibly smarter than I was.

From that point it was fairly simple to sketch out a potential chain of events. Chang told me Hanslip knew of the Devil’s Handwriting. Hanslip would assume there was a reason this document was hidden where only a historian would be able to find it. So he sends More to contact Emily. Of course he does.

More goes south. Oldmanter would certainly track that; it was clear from Grange he wanted my project. Emily would be attracted to More — I found him rather handsome and we would have a similar outlook on the subject. Besides, she would be intrigued by the connection to me.

But how does the data get to Oldmanter, and why would he not conduct rigorous checks to ensure it was safe? Here conjecture had to come in, but the only variable I had left was Emily.

I could not see her agreeing to help find the data unless she knew what it was; she would discover it was not only valuable but also dangerous. Of course she would; she would not assist merely so some institute could make money. To get her help, someone like More would have to tell her that finding it was important for the safety of the planet. She would understand immediately that it offered the chance of accomplishing in an instant what she was otherwise prepared to wait for over centuries. As a renegade, she believed the world of science would bring about its own ruin; this would be a spectacular demonstration of that.

Rather than making sure it was never used, she would do her best to ensure it was. But at the cost of her own life, and of those who thought like her? Not if she was like me. How could she possibly accomplish that, though? That I couldn’t figure out. I didn’t have enough information. What was Oldmanter going to do to change the points on the railway line? What form would his intervention take?

I was getting close now, I could feel it, but I would have to test the conclusions thoroughly. What I had was only marginally more likely than many alternatives; it was not solid enough to rely on.

Then that stupid man Wind arrived and interrupted me yet again. Worse still, I was heavily under the influence, so I didn’t make a very good impression.

‘I need some answers,’ he said as he came into Angela’s cell and sat down. ‘Are you all right?’

Angela was sitting on the bench that doubled as a bed. Her eyes were wide and her pupils dilated, and she twitched almost uncontrollably as he spoke to her. She seemed to him as though she was having a panic attack. Guilt? Or just plain fear? he wondered.

‘Perfectly,’ she replied. ‘Fabulous. I am asking myself questions as well, so you can’t bother me at the moment.’

‘I’m afraid I must insist.’

‘On your head be it, then.’

‘Are you ill? You look very odd.’

‘Oh. No. It’s a sort of...’ She waved vaguely at her head. ‘Comes on me, every now and then. Nothing serious. Did you say you wanted something?’

‘I need to ask you about the man who vanished.’

Angela wrinkled her nose in disappointment.

‘Eh? Oh, him. An extraneous factor, doesn’t really affect the outcome. Just a data store, really.’

‘Do you know who he was?’

‘I have never seen him before.’ She giggled. ‘That is the truth, because “before” is such a useful word. Germanic roots, I think.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m so sorry. Mind all over the place today.’

‘I have been going through your files.’

‘I didn’t know I had any.’

‘There is no trace of you whatsoever before 1937. We have been unable to track down your parents, old addresses, anything.’

‘Not very good files, then.’

‘We have established that information you gave when you became a translator in 1940 was false. Schools, addresses and so on: none checked out.’

‘Doesn’t say much for your vetting procedure.’

‘The form was, in fact, filled in for you by Henry Lytten, who also acted as your referee and sponsor.’

‘Because of my languages, you see. There was a war on. All hands to the pump, he said.’

‘We also noted that between 1945 and 1952 you came to England for a brief stay, then went on trips — to Vienna, Berlin on one occasion, Stockholm and Geneva. Why?’

‘Henry asked me to deliver manuscripts for him. He didn’t trust the post and he was keen to rebuild the academic community. I helped out, and always took a little holiday while I was at it.’

‘I see. Let me ask about yesterday. This mysterious stranger. Bringing him to the house was your idea, so the policeman says. Did he say why he was watching Henry’s house?’

‘I didn’t ask him. It was none of my business.’

‘How did he escape?’

‘You were the one guarding the place. Now, are there any more questions? Is that what you came for?’

Angela moved close to him. Her eyes cleared and she held him by the chin as she studied him, then tittered in a high, slightly hysterical laugh. ‘Oh, I see what you are getting at.’ She let him go, then pushed him away and leaned back against the wall. ‘Of course. That’s how it might work. You are such a silly man, Sam Wind. Has anyone ever told you that?’

‘We must go to the circle soon, so that we may welcome the suppliants,’ Henary said to Rosalind the following morning.

‘You said there must be someone to preside. Who will that be?’

‘The spirit of Esilio presides,’ he said with a smile, ‘but as this procedure has not been employed for a very long time, I really do not know how it will work. I have read as much as possible in the last day, but there is little to discover. For Jay even to think of it was very ingenious and unorthodox. I suspect it will take the form of an ordinary trial, which would mean that the spirit will move through the most qualified. I’m afraid that will probably be Gontal, now that I am bound to Pamarchon.’

‘That’s no good,’ Rosalind said.

‘Perhaps it will not be so bad. He has an interest in seeing both of them found guilty. As that is not an option, he will have no choice but to be scrupulously fair. He is not a bad man, really, although he is full of his name and greatly desires power. He is generally saved by his reverence for the Story.’