“Fantastic.”
Evans’ reaction had not been what The Planner expected, and so he changed his approach. “Is that how you see yourself, Larry? The Private of the Buffs?”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“But the parallels are so obvious,” The Planner insisted. “The situation is virtually identical.”
“No. There’s one very big difference.”
“And that is…?”
“In the poem, at the private’s first refusal to perform the Kotow the Chinese warlord had him killed. You see, the warlord was sure of himself—it wasn’t all that important to him whether the private of the Buffs yielded or not.” Evans smiled, revealing teeth which were beginning to show signs of dietary deficiencies.
“But you wouldn’t kill me, would you?”
For perhaps the hundredth time, The Planner opened the tiny, leather-covered box and examined its contents. Two small glassy sticks glowed at him from their nests of velvet. They were slightly domed, shining with every colour of life, like cabochons of some exquisite precious stone.
These arrived just in time, he thought closing the box again. After six years, The Private’s health has almost been destroyed.
He took a deep breath and entered the discreetly positioned hospital room to which the prisoner had been transferred. Doctor Sing and two white-coated orderlies were standing by the bed. Evans was lying perfectly still, staring at the high ceiling, his wasted body covered to the chin.
“Is that you, Lap?” he said weakly. “Got something good for me this time?”
“Something very special this time, Larry.” The Planner opened his little box again and held it close to Evans’ face.
Evans narrowed his eyes. “Jewels?”
“Retardite. Slow glass. You’re familiar with the material?”
“Oh, that stuff.” Evans lowered his head back on to the pillow. “They were making jewellery out of it when I was…” His voice faded away uncertainly.
“It has much more important uses now, Larry. Techniques have been developed for controlling the emission of stored light. It is possible to see everything a piece of slow glass has seen, exactly when you want to see it.” The Planner made sure his voice revealed none of the excitement and hunger and fear which pounded within him.
“What has that to do with me?”
“Look at the box again, Larry. Look at the shapes. What do they remind you of?”
Evans raised his head with obvious effort. “Two little domes of glass. They’re like contact lenses. For me?”
The Planner nodded. “Very good, Larry. You’re going on a trip.”
“Where to?” Evans’ voice was guarded now.
“Have you heard of a Vietnamese village called My Lai?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Your memory will be refreshed. Your journey will take you to My Lai and a hundred other similar places. In some cases what you see will obviously be filmed material, but as you get more up to date you will be looking through slow glass which was at the actual scenes. You’ll be there, Larry. As far as the evidence of your eyes is concerned, you will really be present at all these places. Even when you’re asleep you’ll still be there, watching and watching and…”
“What sort of places are you talking about?”
“You’ll see. You’re going on a conducted tour of those areas of the world which your country has liberated with the aid of napalm and cluster bombs. You’re going to see yourself as others have seen you.”
“You…You can’t make me look at anything I don’t want to see.”
“No?” The Planner nodded, and the two watchful orderlies threw straps across the bed, buckling them down tightly over Evans’ chest, hips and legs. Evans responded by rolling his eyes frantically to prevent them being worked upon. Doctor Sing picked up a gleaming hypodermic gun from his instrument tray and fired a tiny cloud of a highly specialized anaesthetic into Evans’ temple. The rapid eye movements ceased almost at once and Evans’ jaw sagged. Using an object like a small, chromium-plated shoehorn, Doctor Sing expertly turned the prisoner’s eyes in their sockets until they were staring directly ahead.
The Planner handed him the leather-covered box. “You’re sure he’s conscious?”
“He is fully conscious,” Sing replied. “We have merely deprived him of the control of certain delicate muscles.” Squeezing a drop of clear fluid on to each of Evans’ eyes, he picked up the slow glass discs with a suction tube and placed them on the immobilized eyeballs. He made certain the discs were properly orientated by checking that the red dot on the edge of each was in the twelve o’clock position, and stepped back from the bed. Evans now had brilliantly-glowing multi-coloured discs in place of eyes. Sing picked up an object like a black flashlight, moved its slide and pointed it briefly at the prisoner’s face.
The jewels came to life, swirling with microscopic movement.
The Planner waited until his prisoner had been touring Atrocityville for a full twelve hours, then he returned to the bedside. He gazed down at the bearded El Greco face for a long moment with a mixture of pity and contempt. Evans’ mouth was open, his lips drawn back from the blackened ruins of his teeth, and a fine thread of saliva glinted on his cheek. The Planner sat down and put his mouth close to Evans’ ear.
“Larry,” he said gently. “I’m still your friend, and I’m sorry we had to force the truth on you in this way. I want to bring you back from wherever you are right now—all you have to do is sign the confession. What’s your answer, Larry?”
He peered into Evans’ face, and into the eyes which were orange ports of hell. The Planner’s own eyes widened with shock. He stood up and backed away from the bed, his fingers fluttering nervously to his mouth.
“There’s something wrong,” he mumbled. “The Private is smiling.”
“Doctor Sing spoke emotionlessly behind him. “I warned you this might happen, comrade. Your prisoner has escaped you.”
In the end, Evans was able to make the transition to psychosis smoothly. There had been a long journey, filled with pain and horror, but all that was behind him now. He was back in England, Queen Victoria was secure on her throne, and soon he would be home. There was only a short distance to walk.
Far Kentish hop-fields round him seem’d,
Like dreams, to come and go;
Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleam’d
,
One sheet of living snow;
The smoke above his father’s door,
In grey soft eddyings hung…
Brushing the dust from his torn khaki uniform, Private Evans slung his rifle over his shoulder, and strode gratefully into the sunlight of a bygone century.
Chapter Eight
The news that Esther was to see again—but in a uniquely unnatural manner—came when Garrod was tied up with a series of appointments.
Earliest in the morning was a meeting with Charles Manston to discuss “broad matters of public relations policy“. Manston was a tall, lean man with aquiline features and floppy black hair. He affected a very British style of dress, including dark blue cravats with white spots, and spoke with what Garrod thought of as a mid-Atlantic accent; but he had been a top-flight journalist and now was a perceptive and efficient PR man.
“I’ve been watching it happen for the past year or more,” he said, puffing a gold-tipped cigarette into life. “The whole tide of public opinion is turning against our products.”