‘Our work is far from theoretical,’ Daniel said. ‘If you care to examine the appendices of our formal report, there are detailed statistical analyses of the spread of selected memes. We have evidence—’
‘I’m sure it’s of interest to a few specialists,’ Mountjoy said. ‘But does it have any actual value in the real world?’
He was speaking for the cameras that were broadcasting the session on one of the parliamentary channels, turning the inquiry into an arena in which he, the plucky English terrier, was nipping at the ankles of the scientific status quo. Standing up for common sense and ordinary hard-working people, accusing Disruption Theory and Ada Morange of meddling in dangerous matters, things mankind was not meant to know kind of thing, of encouraging the delusion that the alien invaders had nothing but good intentions, of colluding with the UN and the EC and other bodies which imposed their laws and regulations on Parliament and the English people. Asking Daniel if he had ever carried out illegal experiments with alien artefacts, reading extracts from interviews that Daniel had given immediately after the appearance of the Jackaroo, questioning him about them, asking him if he still believed that they came in peace, and so on and so forth.
Daniel replied with pained dignity, keeping his answers short, trying his best to counter Mountjoy’s insinuations. But Mountjoy kept at him and at last wore down his patience.
‘Only a fool would try to ignore the Jackaroo,’ he said. ‘They aren’t going away, and people on the fifteen worlds aren’t going to stop discovering Elder Culture technology.’
‘But we can and will protect the British way of life,’ Mountjoy said. ‘Instead of trying to undermine it with airy-fairy nonsense.’
‘The world has changed, is changing, will continue to change. You can’t stop it.’
‘Is that a scientific assessment, Dr Rosenblaum? Or simply your opinion?’
‘It is a plain fact.’
‘It sounds to me like a council of despair,’ Mountjoy said, with a jovial smile, and cut off Daniel’s reply, thanking him for his time, saying they had to move on.
The clerk called out Chloe’s name. As she took her place behind the table, next to Daniel and Helena, she saw that there was a rectangle of slightly brighter blue in the carpet nearby, about the shape and size of a grave. She supposed that the portion where the avatar had fallen and disintegrated had been taken away for trace analysis.
She was sworn in, and the woman MP prompted her to give a brief description of her work. She told the committee that she had been working for Disruption Theory for three years, gave anodyne examples of her work, answered several harmless-seeming questions.
Then Robin Mountjoy said, ‘Perhaps you could tell us about the New Galactic Navy.’
She met his watery blue gaze. ‘It was an unusual case. Quite outside the ordinary work we do.’
Mountjoy led her through it. How the cult had contacted Disruption Theory and Chloe had been sent to give a preliminary interview with its leader, a former accountant and self-styled Grand Admiral who shared a shabby terraced house in Tooting with fifteen followers. The longer interview that Chloe and Frances Colley had conducted, unpicking the cult’s belief that its members had been selected to join a space navy opposed to the Jackaroo, who were suppressing the true ascension of humankind to its rightful place amongst the stars: a blend of sci-fi and occult beliefs involving cosmic minds and a revolutionary leap upwards in the evolution of human consciousness. Their costumes of robes and sashes laden with 3D-printed medals. Their psychic maps of the universe. The rooms painted black, with constellations of glow-in-the-dark stars glued to the ceilings. Glossy printouts from astronomy sites. The bunk beds crowding the bedrooms of the little house, where six weeks later the members of the New Galactic Navy had been found dead, all of them having ingested fatal doses of cyanide-laced orange juice. The message that they had left behind their flesh envelopes to go voyaging as spirits amongst the stars.
Robin Mountjoy said, ‘Is it not true that you were the trigger for these unfortunate deaths?’
Helena objected, pointing out that the cult’s leader had also contacted national newspapers, the BBC, Sky News, and other prominent news outlets, and the police investigation had concluded that Chloe, Frances Colley and Disruption Theory hadn’t had anything to do with the mass suicide, which had been planned long before their interviews. Robin Mountjoy politely accepted that fact. He had made his point, associating the work of Disruption Theory with the deaths of a dozen disturbed and deluded individuals. One of the other MPs, a balding pink-faced man, delivered the coup de grâce. He asked Chloe several questions about her sources of information. She mentioned freelance scouts. She mentioned people who trawled the internet and sent in tips. She mentioned visiting schools to check out the artwork of school children.
He said, ‘I believe you also visit mental institutions.’
Chloe felt a freezing caution. Beside her, Helena wrote two words on her yellow legal pad. Be polite.
‘Very rarely,’ Chloe said.
‘Five times since you began employment with Disruption Theory. Several times before that, when you were working as a freelance scout.’
‘I followed leads to wherever they led. That’s my job.’
The pink-faced MP tilted his head, as if accepting that. Chloe wanted to say more, wanted to qualify her answers, but Robin Mountjoy banged his gavel and called for a two-hour recess, said that he would complete questioning of the rest of Disruption Theory’s staff after lunch.
Outside, in the corridor, the others congratulated Chloe on her performance. Daniel said, ‘That wasn’t so bad.’
‘I’m trying to think how it could have been worse,’ Chloe said. She had sweated through the silk blouse Helena had lent her, was shaking slightly from adrenalin.
‘You did good. And there’ll be a chance for rebuttal later. I’m on the BBC evening news. We’ll line up some longer pieces too. We’ll get through this, Chloe. Mountjoy is a gadfly. Tomorrow he’ll be attacking someone else, and we’ll be forgotten…’
He was still talking, but Chloe wasn’t listening. Chief Inspector Adam Nevers was coming towards them, patting his hands together in mock applause, saying, ‘I’m impressed. Coolness under fire and all that.’
‘I didn’t see you in the committee room,’ Chloe said.
‘I watched it on the CCTV feed.’ Nevers was wearing a shark-grey suit today, a blue tie. He was a head taller than Daniel. He said, ‘We need to talk.’
Daniel said, ‘If you want to interview my employee, Chief Inspector, you should talk to our lawyer first.’
‘Interview her? No, it isn’t anything like that. More in the nature of a friendly chat. Let me show you something,’ Nevers said, and took Chloe’s arm and guided her to the bank of lifts at the end of the corridor.
As they rode down, Chloe said, ‘Are you trying to intimidate me, Chief Inspector?’
Because she definitely felt intimidated, wondering where he was taking her, wondering if he knew about her plans.
‘I really liked how you handled the questions about the New Galactic Navy,’ Nevers said. ‘You stood up for yourself, but you didn’t blame them. Even though they had obviously been driven crazy by alien ghosts.’
‘It was the ordinary kind of crazy, nothing to do with algorithms or eidolons. There were plenty of cults like theirs before the Jackaroo came.’