Omega

'Oh, my God,' Miss Smith said.

'I might just be able to ride it out,' Eileen went on, 'if I thought that it… Angie, I discovered something two days ago, by accident. One of the doctors let it drop without realizing what he'd said. He'd only just joined us, and he was discussing a symptom with another doctor – and he said "We found at Corwen it only occurs in the women". He'd forgotten I was in the room and I slipped out… You see what it means? Corwen's in North Wales, isn't it?

– and that was on the tremor line. So this isn't the only place… Angie, what the hell are we sitting on top of? And what happens if that little earthquake was only a starter?'

Miss Smith thought for a moment, and then asked: 'Eileen, are you being useful there? In any way, as a nurse?'

'In no way. My job could be done far better by an all-in wrestler.'

'Are you prepared to desert, then?'

'What?'

'Drive away with me. Now.' 'Angie, I'm a nurse’

'Precisely. And in normal times that means taking orders – though even then, you can give notice. I'm just asking you to leave without notice, because the way things are developing, I think your knowledge is going to be valuable to real people not wild animals beyond help. And I think you may find yourself having to use it on your own initiative without a nation-wide organization to work in and take orders from… I was a public servant, too. But I smelt the way the wind was blowing and prepared accordingly. This caravan's a carefully planned survival base, if that doesn't sound too melodramatic… I'm not on holiday,

Eileen. I walked out last week, without telling anybody. That's why I came looking for you; I'm all the family you've got, for what I'm worth, so I thought you'd a right to know what I was up to… I made my decision but since I started out I've wondered sometimes if I was over-dramatizing. Not any more, I don't. Not since I heard your story… There's room for you.' She waved at the two bunks behind them.

'But, Angie – we'd never get away with it. Did you say you were my cousin, at the hospital?'

'Yes.'

'Then if I disappear, the same day, from a top-secret place… By this time tomorrow all the police in Britain would be on the look-out for this caravan.'

'I said the caravan was planned. I have back there the number plates, registration book, and tax disc to next March of a bashed-in van of the same make which I bought for £50 in notes from a scrap dealer. I didn't give my name and he didn't ask for it. It would just go, and I drove it on to the Corporation dump of a borough which I happen to know doesn't bother to check up on dumped wrecks. There are some advantages to being a well-informed Council employee… We'll change the plates and disc today, and we'll be OK for anything short of a chassis number examination. And by this time tomorrow we could be in the Lake District or somewhere.'

'Angie, you're an old crook.' Miss Smith could see that her cousin was brightening already.

'A survivor has to be, within reason. And I blush to admit to one more James Bond touch; I've got a couple of wigs in one of those drawers, and your head's about the same size as mine. How d'you fancy yourself as a blonde?… I'd better find it for you right away. And a sweater and slacks, though you'll have to pull the waist in a few inches. Have to get you out of that uniform now.'

"You've made up your mind about it, haven't you?'

‘Yes.'

Eileen said: 'I can change on the floor while you drive. Let's get moving.'

They found a wood a few miles away towards Chew Magna where they changed the plates, and Eileen made a slightly more satisfactory job of re-clothing herself by moving the buttons on a wrap-around skirt of Miss Smiths. By mid-afternoon they were in Cheltenham, where Miss Smith insisted that Eileen bought herself some clothes in her own size ('Get a bikini and some shorts and a couple of sun-tops too, love – we ought to look and behave like holidaymakers'), and by taking it in turns to drive, before sunset they reached a quiet river-bank in Northamptonshire where they settled to cook a meal and spend the night.

Over a tin of pineapple (and how long would they be available?) Miss Smith casually switched to BBC 1on the little television. The chronically surprised face of Paul Grant was asking: 'But are you seriously suggesting, Mr Stoddart, that the earth tremors were an expression of the wrath of God against resurgent paganism?'

Ben Stoddart's voice was as charming and reasonable as his smile. 'I wouldn't dream of suggesting any such thing. God works in mysterious ways and it's not for me to attempt to oversimplify them.'

'Isn't your slogan "Goddess worship is Satan worship" an oversimplification?'

'Essentially, no; it puts truth in a nutshell – and it concerns human activity, not Divine. One may – indeed one should – be categorical about human error. But one must bow to the mystery of God's intervention and accept that it is a mystery.'

'A mystery which may, or may not, include earth tremors to punish witches – and to punish the rest of us for tolerating them?'

'Let us put it this way, Paul. Andrea Sutton's last words, before she was martyred on Bell Beacon – or worse than martyred, if the blood sacrifice account by two independent witnesses is substantiated…'

'That is sub judice, so we can't discuss it,' Grant interrupted.

'Of course, of course. Please ignore my remark about blood sacrifice. But our dear friend Andrea's last words were: "It's the wrath of God, smiting the witches!" Now whatever the geologists may say (and heaven knows they say little that is comprehensible), it may be that millions of people will feel that, in extremis, Andrea expressed a profound spiritual truth. And millions may wonder if those words should go unheeded…'

Miss Smith reached out and turned him off. 'I can't stand that man,' she told Eileen. ‘Unctuous, dangerous bastard. They're the worst rabble-rousers, the smooth and reasonable ones.'

'Are you a witch, Angie?'

'Me? I'm nothing in particular. Agnostic, I suppose. I just loath heresy-hunters. And at a time like this, they're dynamite.'

'Or a damp squib. He'll be forgotten in a week.' 'Maybe… Are you a witch?'

'I went to one of their festivals once, at Glastonbury -a friend invited me.' She laughed. 'I took off my clothes and danced round the bonfire with the rest. Tell you the truth, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Not just the dancing – the ritual too. I think they've got something.… I've been

meaning to look into it a bit more but I've been too busy yet.'

They took their cups of tea and sat on the river-bank as the stars came out. Eileen leaned back against a tree-trunk and sighed happily.

'Thank you for bringing me with you, Angie. I couldn't have taken that much longer.'

'Quite right too… Glad to have you along, love. So's Ginger Lad – look.'

Ginger Lad had strolled across from the van to butt his head against Eileen's hand, demanding to be stroked. She laughed and rubbed behind his ears while he snaked his neck ecstatically.

‘Where shall we find ourselves tomorrow, Ginger Lad?'

6

Philip Summers had always loved his wife, but in the first week or two after Beehive Amber he found himself falling in love with-her. The experience took him completely by surprise – or rather, Betty's changed persona did, illuminating the busy bewilderment of their new existence. He was almost afraid to tell her, lest the spell be broken.

Most people would have described Betty Summers at thirty-one as a typical middle-class suburban housewife. Philip's mother, who was a self-conscious aesthete, did in fact call her that, though only to her husband ('I ask you, Charles – ducks on the wall!') and to chosen intimates, for she had given up Philip as lost when he insisted on studying engineering instead of the sculpture for which he had some limited talent. To be fair to Philip's mother, Betty had looked the part. Neat but unexciting figure, neat but unexciting clothes, soft mouse-coloured hair and regular features in an unmcmorable face. Still, Philip had seemed contented in their neat but unexciting home, and at least Betty had the saving grace that she was studying with the televised Open University – though a geography degree was hardly an 'in* ambition. Philip's mother had shrugged and left them to it.