Iain Pears - Arcadia

For the first time, Angela frightened her. She had always seemed so competent. Now she looked defeated.

‘I can’t do much about Henry; even looking after myself will be hard. If I stay here then Sam Wind will lock me up as well. I’d be stymied in a prison cell.’

‘How much time do you need?’

‘A decade at least, but even if I don’t spend it in prison, we are likely to have a holocaust before I can figure out a new approach.’

‘Why?’

‘Probability. The probability that the Devil’s Handwriting survives, that it falls into the wrong hands and that it is used to clear the world for colonisation. They think they are going to let off a bomb in an alternative past. In fact it will be this one, and perhaps soon.’

‘Surely—’

‘It’s simple, I think. What will happen if a nuclear bomb goes off in Berlin? The Russians will know they didn’t do it, the Americans will know they didn’t either. Each will assume the other is starting hostilities and let rip with everything they have. They want an empty world to colonise and this is the easiest way to get one. Cheap, simple and efficient.’

‘That’s what’s going to happen?’

Angela nodded. ‘I think so. I’ve been going about it the wrong way, you see. Anterwold isn’t just the cause of a war, it’s the consequence of it as well. I can’t shut down Anterwold unless I shut down the ultimate causes of its existence.’

‘You created it.’

‘We are all creatures of history.’

‘How long do we have?’

‘I would guess any time in the next seventy-five years. More or less. I can’t say more precisely than that.’

‘Could you stop it? If you had time?’

‘Where there’s life, there’s hope.’

‘Then you must go into Anterwold. You’d have all the time you need.’

‘I can’t. I can’t influence my future from a different one. I have to be on the same line. As this is the last moment which is connected to both, I will have to stay here. I’ll go back to France and lie low. I’ll have Chang to help, of course, and that will be useful. Assuming he survives, poor fellow.’

‘He’ll be fine. I rang the hospital. What about me?’

Angela smiled thoughtfully. ‘You want to help?’

Rosie hesitated, then nodded.

‘For some reason that makes me very happy.’ She paused, then became practical once more. ‘If I understand your peculiar educational system here, you can leave school next year?’

‘Yes.’

‘If John Kennedy wins the election next month, we have at least until October 1962, I think. That’s the Cuban missile crisis. If we get through that then we might well be safe until 1976. If Nixon wins, then everything becomes unpredictable, but at least I will be sure that history is changing seriously. Assuming all goes well, though, then in nine months’ time you can leave school, pack your bags and come and live with me in the South of France. How about that? I’ve got plenty of money and Chang’s perfectly pleasant once you get to know him.’

‘That sounds lovely.’

‘It will be. Unless we fail, in which case it won’t be lovely at all. But then we can gather as many people as possible and head off into Anterwold. I should add that I can’t think of any reason why you shouldn’t go now, if you really wanted to.’

Rosie shook her head. ‘No. I’ve thought about that. A lot. But as you keep on telling me, I’m there already. One’s company.’

‘Two’s a crowd?’

Rosie smiled. ‘A complication. The other me will be happy because I am here with my parents. Someone will have to look after Jenkins if Professor Lytten is in jail. I have a life here. It’s not brilliant, I sometimes think, but, you know...’

‘In that case, we had better succeed,’ Angela said. ‘Come on. I’ll walk you home. There’s nothing more to do here tonight, and I must get out of the country as quickly as possible. I need to pack and find my passport.’

A few minutes later the two left the house, and Angela locked the door carefully. ‘Quite a day,’ she said. ‘Let’s see how tomorrow entertains us.’

Jack was shocked at the state of the island when the helicopters flew over it before settling dustily onto the landing site. Big black holes had been blown into what once had been gleaming white roofs covering the main part of the institute; the wreckage of the defensive outposts still smouldered in the light breeze, on the far side of the island a fire still burned and half a dozen of the small ferries half poked above the water, bombed and sunk as they were, tied up to the quayside. Oldmanter’s military had done a thorough, rapid job of it.

Already the repairs were under way. As they landed, he saw other large machines bringing in the equipment needed to patch holes, get power working again. Supplies of all sorts were stacked in neat piles everywhere. His experienced eye scanned the site as they came lower, but he could see no pens for prisoners, no marks of freshly dug graves.

Some had already returned to work under their new master; others had left to fend for themselves as best they could. The place was half empty, quiet, gloomy with lack of purpose. The few dozen people brought up from the Retreats were under guard.

Jack managed to get permission to see Emily, for he was restored to his previous position, awaiting transfer to another part of Oldmanter’s vast empire. He had been offered promotion, everything he might need. Oldmanter was a generous man.

‘He is going to keep his word,’ he said to her. ‘The preparations are being made. You still have time to change your mind, though.’

‘Why would I want to do that?’

‘It’s dangerous.’

‘It is hardly safe for people like us here, either.’

‘How did Oldmanter know where I was? How did he find me so quickly?’

‘Simple enough. I told him. It was obvious he was going to win. You would have died, and so would we. This seemed a good way of saving something from the wreckage.’

‘You told me the document was old, and told him that it was a fake.’

‘That’s the sort of imprecision you get from people who do not have a thorough scientific training, I suppose.’

‘Hanslip says it is dangerous.’

‘But to whom, do you think? What about Hanslip?’

‘I have permission to see him tomorrow.’

‘I liked him. Tell him I know what I am doing.’

‘I will try to get your conditions improved before I leave,’ Jack began when he came into Hanslip’s cell the next day and looked around at the damp walls and filthy floor with distaste. ‘There is no reason for you to be treated like this.’

‘Have I disappeared?’ Hanslip’s voice was surprisingly clear and strong for someone who had evidently suffered very bad treatment. Jack looked at the bruises, the black eye, the bandages over his hands. Primitive. He hated that.

‘I’m afraid so. The electricity surge has been officially attributed to terrorists and the authorities are responding with mass arrests. The institute never existed, nor did you.’

Hanslip nodded to show he had understood.

‘And you?’

‘Oldmanter offered me a job. I had little choice, so I accepted it. He has also agreed to send the renegades to their own world in exchange for Emily Strang’s cooperation. It will be a reservation, in effect, where they will live undisturbed.’

He considered this. ‘I see. Why have you come today?’

‘To say goodbye, I’m afraid. You are to be shot. And I wish to apologise to you. One of Emily’s conditions was that you should be offered the chance of going with the renegades. Oldmanter agreed, but he has changed his mind. I have been instructed to tell Emily that you refused the offer.’