‘I am equally sure that you do. You will sign whatever agreement I choose to put before you, and you will do it by the time I leave this evening.’ He smiled and stood up. ‘We will proceed with or without your mathematician.’
‘You will find that difficult.’
‘We’ll manage. That is the end of the discussion. I’m afraid you must take it, or take the consequences of refusal. This is a cruel world in which to be without friends, and with powerful enemies.
‘Now,’ he went on brightly, ‘as this Meerson woman is no longer around, I imagine that you are not quite so desperate to keep me out of the laboratory where she worked. So I would like to see this machine of yours. If you will show it to me, then we can sign these papers, and I will be on my way.’
When Hanslip was angry he did not, like Angela, shout, turn red or throw things. Over many years he had learned to focus the anger. He entered a state of calm. As he walked with Lucien Grange to the laboratory, he was very angry indeed.
Grange’s brutal exposition of the facts brought him to the point where he knew he only had two rational choices: submit or resist. He knew, also, that his thinking was far from rational. He was tired, for one thing, and very shaken. He had supported and sustained Angela for years. His reward had been a comprehensive, total betrayal, with Grange now preparing to administer the final blow. Were they in it together? Had Angela been bought by Oldmanter? Was she already setting up her new laboratory in one of his research facilities? Unlikely, but Hanslip was able to consider any possibility now, as long as it was unpleasant.
He could sign or refuse to sign. Or he could behave rather as Angela would in the same position. It was not a reasoned calculation that made him decide, as he opened the doors into the laboratory, to go for the third option. He simply rebelled at the idea of being bullied.
The machine was all fired up, ready for a simulation to try and duplicate what Angela might have done. Hanslip showed Grange around, pointing out the control room and concentrating on the translucent sphere in the middle of the carefully shielded room. He tried to be ingratiating, preserving what little dignity defeat had left him.
‘That’s the actual transmitter. Small, I know, but you can just get a person in it. We have completed a much bigger one, but it is not yet ready to be used. This one isn’t really intended for people, you see. Mainly objects. The new one will have a much greater capacity.’
‘What’s it made of?’
‘It’s just a shape created by magnetic fields. If you get into it and lie flat, you float a few inches above the floor. It gives a very peculiar feeling, almost like weightlessness. We were thinking at one stage that we could market it as a recreational tool of some sort, or maybe a bed. Do try, if you want. It is extraordinarily comfortable and perfectly safe.’
Lucien crawled in and stretched out. ‘Yes,’ he said in a muffled voice, ‘very pleasant.’
‘Some volunteers have found it so calming they drop off to sleep.’
‘How do I get out?’
‘You have to release the fields surrounding you. That can only be done from the outside, or through the power shutting down automatically.’
‘Very interesting and, as you say, quite calming,’ he called out. ‘Still, I’ve had enough, so could you let me out?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Hanslip, Grange noticed by twisting his body round to see more clearly, was now alone in the room with him. The two technicians had vanished. The director squatted down, so that their faces were at the same level.
‘I do not take kindly to being bullied and threatened.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Grange said. ‘Business is business, and you need our protection. Let me out now.’
Hanslip smiled. ‘Very well. Just a moment.’
He left Lucien floating oddly in mid-air in the half-darkened room and strolled next door to the control room. Everything was running; setting up required many people but once all the systems were on automatic they were no longer necessary. He placed the palm of his hand on the matt black surface and felt the information he needed coursing up his nerves and into his brain. With twenty seconds to go he cancelled the original programme; then he summoned up the reserve power he needed and spun the dial to increase massively the scale of the transmission. Then the control panel froze as the automated transmission sequence took over.
A fraction of a second later and it was done. It was always a disappointing moment. Nothing changed, nothing happened. According to Angela, that was because nothing did change. The matter was still in the chamber, sort of. Only when the field dissolved would reality coalesce. Until then the contents were both there and not there. They would remain in a state of latent nonexistence for ever.
Hanslip briefly considered this option, but decided it was a bad idea. It was too extreme. Besides, he needed the machine.
He ran a little routine to erase the records and overlay data to demonstrate that they had merely been testing the equipment. He made sure that it was impossible to unravel what had happened, then summoned the technicians back to wind the operation down.
‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Our visitor has gone off in a state of high excitement. You should have seen the look on his face.’
14
Alex Chang wandered around the streets of Oxford in a reverie of overpowering sensations. He now had only one thing in his head. He needed, wanted, to sleep. He was more tired than he could believe. Whatever had happened to him had been exhausting. Or perhaps he just hadn’t slept for a long time?
Where could he sleep? It was already getting colder, the sky was darkening. What was he to do? He searched in his memory for guidance, but there was nothing. He had to lie down, that was all.
He stumbled around for a few more hours, trying to stimulate some sort of response, but to no avail. Eventually he could do no more. He was going to fall over, hurt himself, or get killed by one of the vehicles that passed by, belching smoke only inches from where unprotected people walked. They seemed used to it; they would just walk out into the path of the oncoming traffic and get to the other side perfectly safely. Their sense of timing was extraordinary. He stood watching this reckless display of skill from young and old, men and women for a long time.
He settled in a doorway down a little alley. It was quiet; the streets were almost deserted, and that solitude was enough to scare him on its own. He had figured out enough to realise that sleeping outside was unusual and possibly dangerous. It required either immense trust or utter desperation. He hid himself as far back as possible, where he hoped he would not be noticed, and drew his knees up to his chest. It was cold and uncomfortable. He’d never manage to fall...
The memories flooded back in his dreams as he slept and the sheer quantity of information that coursed through his head was overwhelming. Too much or too little; it was always the same. Why can’t they ever get the settings right? Who are they, though? He knew enough to realise that he hadn’t pieced everything together yet but when he woke up several hours later — stiff, cold and hungry — he felt at least he was making progress. He knew who he was; he knew where he was. Now he had to establish when he was.
He stood up, stretched and walked from his hiding place into the street. Rubbish of all sorts was thrown onto the ground in this place, or into bins with little thought of the health considerations. Paper was used in vast quantities. He scuffled through one of the bins, unaware of the few passers-by who glanced disapprovingly at him as they passed. He found something of use. A large piece of paper with what he decided was a greasy piece of fried potato stuck to it, and a heavy smell of what he analysed as vinegar. There was writing on it. Daily Herald, it said. Below it a date. October 18th, 1960.