“Barely enough to make a wreath.”
“A wreath?” Ambrose looked puzzled.
“The Avernians are going to die, aren’t they?”
Ambrose lowered his voice in warning. “Don’t get personally involved, Gil—it’s asking for trouble.”
The irony of hearing his own life-long creed from the lips of a stranger—and in circumstances which had so fully demonstrated its value—appealed to Snook. He gave a dry laugh, pretended not to notice Ambrose’s worried stare, and walked towards the gate. As he had expected, two jeeps were parked in the lee of the gatehouse, but there had been a change of crews and .the group passed without any reaction. They were almost out of sight, around a corner of the building, when an empty bottle shattered on the ground behind them, sending transparent fragments scuttling through the dust like glassy insects. A soldier in one of the jeeps gave a derisive hyena call.
“Don’t worry—I’m making a note of all these incidents,” Ambrose said. “A few of these gorillas are going to feel sorry for themselves.”
They went out through the gates, Murphy doing the obligatory talking with the security guards, and turned left up the slight incline which led to Snook’s bungalow. The wooden dwellings and stores of the small mining community were deceptively quiet, but there were too many men standing at the street corners. Some of them called greetings to Snook and Murphy as the group went by, but their very cheerfulness was an indication of the tension which was gathering in the air.
Snook moved in beside Murphy and said, “I’m surprised so many people are still here.”
“They haven’t much choice,” Murphy replied. “The Leopards are patrolling all the exit roads.”
At the bungalow Snook went ahead, key in hand, but the front door was opened before he could reach it and Prudence came out, looking cool, stylish and inhumanly perfect. She was wearing an abbreviated blouse held together by a single knot in the material, and murmured past Snook—in a flurry of silk-slung breasts, blonde hair and expensive perfume—to meet Ambrose. Snook watched jealously as they kissed, keeping his face impassive, and decided not to pass any comment.
“Touching reunion,” he heard himself saying, intellectual strategies thrown to the winds. “We must have been away all of two hours.” The only discernible effect of his words was that Prudence seemed to press herself more closely to Ambrose’s tall frame.
“I’ve been lonely,” she whispered to Ambrose, “and I’m hungry. Let’s have breakfast at the hotel.”
Ambrose looked uncomfortable. “I was planning to stay here, Prue. There’s so much work to be done.”
“Can’t you do it at the hotel?”
“Not unless Gil goes as well. He’s the star of the show now.”
“Really?” Prudence looked disbelievingly at Snook. “Well, perhaps…”
“I wouldn’t dream of going into Kisumu looking like this,” he said, touching the black bristles of his crew-cut. Murphy, Quig and Culver exchanged smiles.
“We can eat later,” Ambrose said hastily, drawing Prudence into the house. “In fact, a celebration is called for—we made scientific history a little while ago. Just wait till you hear this…” Still talking enthusiastically he led Prudence into the living room.
Snook went into the kitchen, switched on the coffee machine and splashed his face with cold water at the sink. The homely domesticity of the place made the hopeless grey world of Avernus retreat a little further from his thoughts. He carried a cup of black coffee into the room where the others were discussing the success of the experiment. Culver and Quig were draped across armchairs, in extravagant postures of relaxation, talking about methods of analysing the few Avernian-originated sounds they had recorded. Murphy was standing at a window, chewing thoughtfully and looking out towards the mine.
“We’ve got coffee or gin,” Snook announced. “Help yourselves.”
“Nothing for me,” Ambrose said. “There’s so much to do here that I don’t know where to start, but let’s try running over Gil’s tape.” He took off his wrist recorder, adjusted its controls and set the tiny machine inside its amplifier unit.
“Now, Gil, listen carefully and see if this triggers off any other memories. We’re dealing with a new form of communication here and we don’t know yet how to make the best use of it. I still think pulse code modulation is the best avenue of approach for general communication with the Avernians, but with your help we may be able to learn their language in days instead of weeks or months.” He set the machine going and Snook’s recorded voice filled the room.
“Deep peace of the running wave.”
Prudence, who was sitting on the arm of Ambrose’s chair, burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but this is ridiculous. It’s just too much.”
Ambrose silenced the machine and looked up at her in startled reproach. “Please, Prue—this is important.”
She shook her head and dabbed her eyes. “I know, and I’m sorry, but all you seem to have proved is that the Avernians are Celts. And it’s so silly.”
“What do you mean?”
“ “Deep peace of the running wave”—it’s the first line of a traditional Celtic blessing.”
“Are you certain?”
“Positive. My room-mate at college had it pinned to her wardrobe door. “Deep peace of the running wave to you; Deep peace of the flowing air to you; Deep peace of…” I used to know the whole thing by heart.” Prudence gave Snook a confident, challenging smile.
“I never heard it before,” he said.
“I can’t understand this.” Ambrose narrowed his eyes at Snook. “Though I suppose it’s possible you did hear those words somewhere, long ago, and that they were lying in your subconscious.”
“So what? I told you Felleth and I didn’t have a conversation. I got ideas from him—and that’s the way the first one came over to me.”
“It’s odd, the coincidence of wording, but there must be an explanation.”
“I’ll give you one,” Prudence said. “Mister Snook found himself with no job, and—being a resourceful sort of a person—he created another one.”
Ambrose shook his head. “That isn’t fair, Prue.”
“Perhaps not, but you’re a scientist, Boyce. What real evidence have you got that this wonderful telepathic experience was genuine?”
“There’s enough internal evidence in Gil’s story to satisfy me.”
“I don’t give a damn whether anybody believes me or not,” Snook cut in, “but I repeat that I didn’t have an ordinary conversation with Felleth. Some of it came through in words, otherwise I wouldn’t have a name for him, but a lot of it was in ideas and feelings and pictures. Avernus is mostly water. There’s water right round it, and there’s a steady wind, and the Avernians seem to like the idea of waves going continuously round the planet. It seems to signify contentment, or peace, or something like that for them.”
Ambrose made a note on a pad. “You didn’t mention that before. Not in so much detail, anyway.”
“That’s the way it works. I might talk for a month and still be remembering extra bits at the end of that time. A while ago I just remembered what their houses look like—not the house we saw a part of, but a general impression of all their houses.”
“Go on, Gil.”
“They’re made of brown stone, and they have long slanted roofs…”
“They sound remarkably like ordinary houses to me,” Prudence said, smiling again, the slight inward slope of her teeth contriving to make her appear more scornful and aristocratic than ever.