‘Supposedly,’ Hanslip added.
‘So what does that mean?’ Jack asked.
‘Well, that is a very good question. What indeed? Either this is genuinely old, or it is an elaborate hoax designed to make us think it is. Another attempt to throw us off the scent, so to speak.’
‘Now I think,’ Chang continued earnestly, ‘that it would surely be better if I concentrated on this, rather than going after Angela Meerson.’
Hanslip peered enquiringly. ‘Go on.’
‘The text says the complete manuscript is in the author’s possession. Henry Lytten, that is. I have discovered that his papers are supposed to be in the National Depository. The obvious thing would be to go and look first of all. Genuine or fake, if this document is there you will be able to recover the data you have lost, and finding Angela Meerson won’t be so important.’
‘Oh, I see! You are trying to disobey my orders,’ Hanslip said theatrically. ‘No chance of that, I’m afraid. I have no doubt that if I let you out, then you would abscond back to the renegades and I’d never see you or the data ever again, even if it exists. Sorry, Mr Chang. You are insufficiently trustworthy for such a task. Mr More here can follow your very useful lead. Your orders stand. Please don’t think I’m not appreciative.’
‘But what am I meant to do?’
‘You will see if you can find Angela, then get her to come back.’
‘How can she do that? She doesn’t have a machine...’
Hanslip peered at him. ‘When you have known her for as long as I have,’ he said, ‘you will know never, ever, to underestimate her. It will be your only route back as well, so you can think of it as an incentive to do as you’re told. Besides, I have given you a message to relay to her.’
‘What is it?’
‘It will come back to you if you meet her.’
Apart from the lab technicians, Jack was the only person to see Chang off when he was helped — rather pale and anxious, but calm because of the sedatives that had been poured in to stop him causing trouble — into the sphere of electricity. He had wished the strange, now rather pathetic man luck. He would, surely, need it.
‘I still don’t know how I’m meant to do this,’ he said as he sat in what they all hoped was period costume in the waiting room next door.
‘Find Angela Meerson, if she is to be found,’ Jack said. ‘Get her to return, if it is possible. Or let us know somehow.’
Chang seemed doubtful. ‘I suppose I could take out an advert in a newspaper that will survive. But that is assuming that she’s right about where I’m going. Make sure you look.’
‘Why did Hanslip get so annoyed by your idea? I thought he’d be pleased she might have been found.’
‘He thinks I’m undermining him. If the standard theory is correct, I am about to go to an alternative universe, and there can be no communication between us and it except by using the machine. If Angela is correct, then the machine may simply move us to a different moment of the same universe. Time travel, in fact. It’s what they were fighting about. He is desperate for Angela to be wrong. If I find her and manage to tell you about it, that means she is right.’
‘I know you scientists get worked up about such things, but...’
‘It’s not abstract,’ Chang said. ‘Hanslip sees himself as a sort of conquistador, finding new worlds to colonise. But if Angela is correct, then the machine would be too dangerous to use, as it would be impossible to control its effects. So Hanslip’s dreams of power and glory would have to be abandoned, or at least they would become prohibitively expensive. More to the point, no one would invest in it. That was Angela’s argument, and Hanslip evidently thought I was taking her side.’
‘Were you?’
‘No. I’m nowhere near good enough to have any opinion.’
‘You seem remarkably relaxed about all this, if I may say so.’
Chang smiled briefly as the technician approached.
‘Ready for you, sir,’ he said.
‘That’s the first time anyone here has ever called me sir,’ Chang said in a weak voice. ‘That’s really worrying.’
Jack reported personally to Hanslip that wherever Chang now was, he wasn’t in the sphere.
Hanslip ignored him until he had finished the report he was reading. ‘Thank you, Mr More.’
‘May I ask what you think his chances of success are?’
Hanslip frowned in puzzlement. ‘None whatsoever,’ he said.
‘So why send him?’
‘What business is that of yours?’
‘It would help to know what exactly I am doing, and why. At the moment I am very confused.’
‘Oh, very well. Mr Chang’s conclusions are undoubtedly as faked as Angela’s disappearance. The way he presented them is proof of that.’
‘How so?’
‘Firstly he made an immensely difficult search through a vast number of records with no experience of how to do it, and produced a result within a few hours, which is extraordinary to the point of being suspicious. Secondly, he claimed to have found a trace of Angela when, in fact, nearly two centuries of scientific work has established that it is impossible. Thirdly, when I said I planned to send him in the machine, he immediately produced yet another piece of evidence designed to make that unnecessary. Angela may have hidden the data amongst old historical documents. You will check, but I am certain that she will be found hiding out amongst the renegades. That’s why your main task will be to seek out her daughter.’
‘Her what?’ Jack asked in genuine astonishment.
‘The procedure to enhance her abilities produced a child as a by-product. A daughter, to be precise, who now goes under the name of Emily Strang. She is highly intelligent as well but proved herself to be unsuited for membership of the elite. She was assigned to the appropriate level of education for her considerable potential, but walked out at the age of fifteen after a long period of being uncooperative and disruptive. Even heavy doses of drugs made no difference to her attitude and eventually the system washed its hands of her. She became a renegade and now lives in a Retreat in the south.’
‘Was there some relationship with Angela?’
‘Not that I know of. Angela knows she exists, but the procedure diverted all her affective abilities onto her work. She doesn’t feel anything for the girl. Or she didn’t. It may be that recent difficulties unbalanced her. If so, there is a possibility that she formed a link between her work and her daughter. At least, that’s what the psychiatrists tell me; I’ve been consulting our in-house specialists. They think that there is a good chance you will find her by going through the child.’
‘What about that document with the Tsou notation that Chang produced?’
‘It is a very small extract of her work,’ Hanslip said.
‘So surely finding the rest should be our main priority?’
‘I suspect that if you find one, you will find the other. Again, the daughter is the key. She is what is termed a historian. They dabble in the occult, these renegades, as I am sure you are aware; they all have some pointless obsession to which they attribute mystical importance. Emily Strang’s is the study of the past. Now, do you not think it a remarkable coincidence that this document is supposed to be hidden in the National Depository, when she is one of the few people who might be able to find it? I do not believe in coincidences, Mr More.’
Hanslip waved a hand to dismiss him. ‘Find out. If the daughter knows anything, have her arrested and brought here.’
Jack stood up to leave.
‘Here,’ Hanslip added. ‘New documentation for you. Until you are done, you are now a scientist, first class. The identity gives you full privileges. You may go anywhere, talk to anyone, without hindrance. You have access to our central funding. You need answer to no one except superiors in rank, and there aren’t many of those.’