‘What other one?’ Jay asked. ‘There isn’t anyone else. I’m quite alone. I left my servant by our camp, outside the domain. You may not touch him.’
‘Quiet. You two’ — he gestured at the two soldiers who had appeared behind Jay — ‘back to your places. Whistle when you hear something.’
Ten minutes later, the whistle floated softly through the trees.
16
A day after Angela’s disappearance, Hanslip’s various damage limitation committees presented their findings. Some progress had been made in wiping out all suggestions that the damaging power surge had originated with them. None, however, had been made in analysing Angela’s machine and establishing if it had been used in earnest.
‘Why the hell not?’ Hanslip snapped. The strain of the last day was beginning to take a toll. It was so rare for him to display any emotion that the unfortunate target of his frustration fell silent.
‘That was the point of the surge,’ another said tentatively. The electricity had coursed through their systems, burnt through their defences and not only erased all the data but also wiped out any trace of whether the machine had been used. Before it could actually damage the machine itself, it had been diverted into the outside world, where it had caused havoc.
‘There is one other thing,’ this second man said. ‘I spent half a day checking the records in the computing department. It seems that all the data was copied out at noon the previous lunchtime. So presumably a copy of it does still exist somewhere.’
‘Why would she do that? She had the information in her head already.’
There was no answer. Hanslip turned away from them in disgust. ‘So now we know what we are dealing with. This is terrorism on a huge scale. Perhaps someone here has something helpful to say? Mr More? Have you found her?’
‘I am limited by the fact that you do not wish anyone to know we are looking,’ Jack replied. ‘Unless you change your orders, I cannot put out a general alert, or search records to see if she checked in anywhere or bought anything. I can’t examine surveillance material. If I could do that...’
‘No. The fewer people who know the better.’
‘Then I will have to go the slow way round. I intend to travel south, so I can contact old friends in security and make unofficial enquiries. I plan to leave as soon as possible.’
Hanslip nodded. At least someone was taking the initiative. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes,’ Jack said, handing over the piece of paper Angela’s assistant had pushed into his hand as he was heading for the meeting. ‘I was asked to give you this by Mr Chang. He was unable to make an appointment, as he is insufficiently senior to talk to you directly.’
Hanslip looked curiously at him, then unfolded it.
1960, it said.
Hanslip summoned Chang the moment the meeting broke up; he had to wait outside until everyone else had gone and only Jack More remained. The director waved the piece of paper at him: ‘Well? What does this mean?’
‘There is a trace in the historical records for 1960 which matches Angela Meerson. So I thought it important to tell you.’ He had the tone of a man who thought he was perhaps making an enormous mistake. In truth, he was somewhat overawed by being in the same room as the man he had only ever seen before from a distance.
‘Did anyone ask you to make such a search?’
Chang blushed a little. ‘Mr More here asked me to see if I could think of anything. Data analysis is my speciality, you see, and the techniques are as easily applied to historical records as anything else. So I thought...’
‘I see. How did you come to this conclusion?’
‘Conclusion might be too strong,’ he replied. ‘I was just experimenting. I know of the theories — her theories, if you see what I mean — and just wanted to check. You know, see if she really had gone to a parallel universe. If she turned up somewhere I could find her, then obviously she hadn’t.’
‘And?’
‘Well, I began by assuming that she does not change her name; I had to start somewhere. So I ran a search for every record with someone of that name in the period after 1700.’
‘Why then?’
‘It’s when the records became good enough. I identified 1,639 individuals. After 2034, when global biological identification became compulsory, it was easy enough to prove that no one recorded was her. I eliminated all those who died before the age of twenty-five, as well as women who had children, as this was a capability she had removed eighteen years ago, and finally took out those who died of a communicable disease she could not have contracted, and I was left with twenty-one people.
‘One of these stands out. In 1960, there is a footnote in an article which states simply, ‘My thanks, as usual, to Angela Meerson for her help with translations.’ That is all, but the languages referred to are Serbo-Croat, Finnish and Sinhalese, which is a very unusual combination. Angela took a full language suite with her, including those three.
‘Significantly, in my opinion, there is no other trace of this individual. There is no birth or death certificate. No parents or siblings. She never fell ill. Never went to school, never paid tax. She may have changed her name to keep out of sight, but there is no trace of her marrying — women then used to adopt their husband’s name.’
‘Why?’
‘No idea. The point is that there ought to be abundant traces. Now, it seems that some personal papers of the man who referred to her still exist, so I would recommend examining them. I haven’t had the time to be completely certain.’
‘I don’t have time either,’ Hanslip interrupted. ‘This is nonsense. You are peddling this rubbish about time travel that she was obsessing about. You know full well that Angela is not to be listened to when she is in one of her states. Did she tell you to undermine me and sow doubt? Is that what’s going on here?’
‘Of course not.’
Hanslip glared at him, then relaxed. ‘I will consider what you say,’ he said in a more even tone. ‘Come to my office in an hour.’
More was waiting in the corridor when a very frightened Chang presented himself as instructed. He was not pleased. It was obvious to him that efforts to cover up the debacle of Angela’s disappearance were becoming increasingly illegal and risky. He did not greatly appreciate being drawn into other people’s disasters.
‘A second-grade security officer and a junior researcher with a blot on his file,’ Chang observed. ‘Things must be bad.’
‘If anything goes wrong, then it will be useful to blame people like us. How do you fancy global notoriety as a terrorist ringleader?’
‘That makes me feel better.’
‘It is amazing how the heresy of individualism resurfaces when there is a jail sentence in prospect.’
‘Don’t worry, gentlemen.’ Hanslip’s voice echoed around them as the man himself came strolling down the corridor. ‘You are both much too useful to be thrown away at the moment. You may have to fill that role eventually, but not yet.’
He led the way into his office and asked them to sit. ‘Thank you for your efforts, both of you. I’m afraid I do not know you very well, Mr Chang,’ he continued, as though this was somehow the researcher’s fault. ‘You have been here for about a year, is that correct?’
‘Yes. I was a...’
‘Just answer the questions. In your time as a renegade you spent long periods cut off from all electronic assistance?’
‘Yes. It was very strange, to start off with.’
‘You experienced no unfortunate consequences? No insanity, no delirium? No mental instability?’
‘I was certainly disoriented. It’s a most peculiar feeling to be without the chatter in your head, to sleep without adverts popping up in your dreams all the time. Once you get used to it, it can be quite pleasant.’