I was the first to say it. “Okay, I’m sorry. But I’m really not sure I need advice right now. My family may have been something of a screwup, but there’s nothing I can do to change the past. And now it’s gone — Gina’s fled about as far as she can go — and all I’m left with is …”
“This loose end. Which you can’t resist tugging. Well, I think you should go. Let’s face it, the death of a parent is as big a loss as either of us is ever likely to face. I think you should take some time to get through it. And if this sister thing is an excuse to do that, fine. Go to Rome. Spend some lira.”
“Euros.”
“Whatever.”
“I was sure you’d try to stop me.”
She sighed. “Listening is just one of the skills you never acquired, George.” She touched my hand; her skin was warm and comfortable. “Go. If you need anything just call.”
“Thanks.”
“Now let’s finish this stupid walk.” She marched on.
We passed out of the City area and came down Cooper’s Row, passing under the rail line into the tourist- oriented area close to the river, and the Tower. We passed through the Tower Hill underpass by the Tube station entrance, peered at the ruin of a robust-looking medieval gate, and then walked back through the subway to where a sunken garden at the northeast corner of the underpass contained the statue of an emperor — and, ironically, right at the end of the walk, the best-preserved section of wall we’d seen all day.
We sat on a bench and sipped our water.
“One more tick for your little book,” Linda said, not too unkindly.
“Yep.” It was all of thirty feet high, and the Roman section itself maybe ten feet. The Roman brickwork was neat rows interspersed with red tiles that might have come from my father’s house. The medieval structure above it was much rougher. “If I didn’t know better I’d have said that the Roman stuff was Victorian, or later,” I said. “It’s as if the whole wall has been turned upside down.”
Linda asked, “Civilization really did fall here, didn’t it?”
“It really did.”
“I wonder if she came here. That great-grandmother of yours. Regina.”
“… And I wonder if she knew that it would all disappear, as if a small nuclear bomb had been dropped on the city.”
The third voice made us both jump. I turned to see a bulky, somewhat shambling figure dressed in a coat that looked even heavier than my duffel. Linda flinched away from him, and I felt the tentative mood between us evaporate.
“Peter. What are you doing here?”
Peter McLachlan came around the bench and sat down, with me between him and Linda. “You mentioned doing the walk.” So I had, in an email. “I thought you’d end up here. I waited.”
“How long?”
He checked his watch. “Only about three hours.”
“Three hours?”
I could see Linda’s expression. “Listen, George, it’s been good, but I think—”
“No. Wait, I’m sorry.” I introduced them quickly. “Peter, why did you want to see me?”
“To thank you. And tell you I’m going to be away for a while. I’m off to the States.”
“Visiting the Slan(t)ers?” Linda caught my eye again; I pursed my lips. Don’t ask.
“I feel the need to catch up. Be refreshed.”
“Refreshed with what?”
He shrugged. “The energy. The belief. That’s why I want to thank you. Somehow you have shaken me out of my rut. Your bit of mystery with your sister. Layers upon layers … That and Kuiper, of course.” He leaned past me and thrust his face toward Linda. “Of course you know about the Kuiper Anomaly. Have you seen the latest developments?” He produced his handheld and started thumbing at its tiny controls, and Web pages flashed over its jewel-like screen.
Linda plucked my sleeve. “This guy is seriously weird,” she whispered.
“He’s an old school friend. He helped my dad. And—”
“Oh, come on. Your dad’s buried. He’s followed you to London. And all this spooky stuff — what does it have to do with you and your sister?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look, George, I changed my mind. It’s as if the people around you are parts of your personality. Your family was the clingy, oppressive, Catholic part, and you need to get away from all that, not indulge it. And this guy, he’s like your—”
“My anus.”
That brought a stifled laugh. “George — go back to work. Or paint your house. Get away from memories, George. And get away from this guy, or you’ll end up on a park bench muttering about conspiracies, too …”
“Here.” Peter thrust his handheld before my face; data and diagrams chattered across it. “The Kuiper Belt is a relic of the formation of the solar system. We see similar belts around other stars, like Vega. The outer planets, like Uranus and Neptune, formed from collisions of Kuiper Belt objects. But according to the best theories there should have been many more objects out there — a hundred times the mass we can see now, enough to make another Neptune. And we know that such a swarm should coalesce quickly into a planet.”
“I don’t understand. Peter, I think—”
“ Something disturbed the Kuiper Belt. Something whipped up those ice balls, about the time of the formation of Pluto — so preventing the formation of another Neptune. Since then the Kuiper objects have been broken up by collisions, or have drifted out of the belt.”
“When was this disturbance?”
“It must have been around the time the planets were forming. Maybe four and a half billion years ago.” He peered at me, eyes bright. “You see? Layers of interference. The Anomaly, the Galaxy core explosions, now this tinkering with the very formation of the solar system. This is what we’re going to investigate.”
“We?”
“The Slan(t)ers, in the States. You read my emails.”
“Yes …” I turned. Linda had gone. I stood up, trying to see her, but as the rush hour approached the crowds pouring into the Tube station were already dense.
Peter was still in midflow, sitting on the bench, talking compulsively, bringing up page after page of data. He was hunched forward, his posture intense.
Standing there, I could either go after Linda, or stay with Peter. I felt that somehow I was making a choice that might shape the whole of the rest of my life.
I sat down. “Show me again,” I said.
TWO
Chapter 17
For Lucia it had begun eleven months before the death of George Poole’s father. And it began, not with death, but with stirrings of life.
It came at night, only a few days after her fifteenth birthday. She was woken by a spasm of pain in her belly, and then an ache in her thighs. When she reached down and touched her legs she felt wetness.
At first she felt only hideous embarrassment. She imagined she had wet her bed, as if she were a silly child. She got out of bed and padded down the length of the dormitory, past the bunk beds stacked three high, the hundred girls sleeping in this great room alone, to the bathroom.
And there, in the bathroom’s harsh fluorescent light, she discovered the truth: that the fluid between her legs, and on her fingers and her nightclothes, wasn’t urine at all, but blood — strange blood, bright, thin. She knew what this meant, of course. Her body was changing. But the shame didn’t go away, it only intensified, and was supplemented now by a deep and abiding fear.