He was the best historical scholar in the University, and quite possibly in the whole British Isles; and the kindest and most modest man I’d ever met.
“Ah, hello, Clovis,” he boomed. “How good to see you!” He strode up and shook hands. “And who’s your friend?”
“Menial—Dr. Anders Gantry,” I said.
He held her hand and inclined his head over her knuckles. “Charmed.” He looked at her in a vaguely puzzled way for a moment, then turned to me. “Now, colha Gree, what can I do for you?”
Gantry had agreed to supervise my project; it was a persistent irritant to my conscience that I hadn’t seen or written to him all summer.
“Oh, nothing at the moment, Dr. Gantry. I’ve been doing a fair bit of preliminary research up North, and I’ve about finished the standard references.” I rubbed my ear, uneasily remembering the dust on the books. “And I thought I’d take the opportunity of a wee visit to Glasgow to drop by the library.”
“That’s very commendable,” he said. I was unsure of the exact level of irony in his voice, but it was there. “We’ve rather missed you around here.”
“He works very hard,” Menial put in. “The space-launch platform project is on a tight schedule.”
“Oh, so that’s where you are. Kishorn. Hmm. Good money to be made up there, I hear. And you, miss?”
“I have an office job there,” Menial said blandly. She shot me a smile. “That’s how I know he works hard. He’s saving up money to live on next year.”
“Well, I suppose there are ways and ways of preparing for a project,” said Gantry, in a more indulgent tone. “No luck with patronage yet, I take it?”
“None so far, no.”
He clapped me around the shoulders. “Perhaps you should try to extract some research money from the space scientists,” he said. “Our great Deliverer had much to do with spaceflight herself. There might still be lessons in her life story, eh?”
Menial’s face froze and I felt my knees turning to rubber.
“Now that’s a thought,” I said, as calmly as possible.
Gantry guffawed. “Aye, you might even fool them into thinking that!” he said. “Good luck if you do. Now that you’re getting stuck in, Clovis, I have something to show you.” He grinned, revealing his teeth, yellow as a dog’s. “It’s in the library.”
With that he turned away and bounded up the stairs. I followed, mouthing and gesturing helplessness to Menial. To my relief, she seemed more amused than alarmed.
By the time we arrived at the open door of the library he’d vanished into the shadows.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered to Menial.
“If he stays around, you keep him busy,” she said. “I’ll get the goods.”
I was about to tell her how unlikely she was to get away with that when Gantry came puffing up, carrying a load of cardboard folders that reached from his clasped hands at his belt to his uppermost chin.
“Here we are,” he said, lowering the tottering stack on to a table. He sneezed. “Filthy with dust, I’m afraid.” He wiped his nose and hands on an even dirtier handkerchief. “But it’s time you had a look at it: Myra Godwin’s personal archive.”
“That really is amazing,” I said. My voice sounded like a twelve-year-old boy seeing a girl naked for the first time. I picked them up and put them down, one by one. Eight altogether: bulging cardboard wallets ordered by decade, from the 1970s to the 2050s.
I hardly dared to breathe on them as I opened the first one and looked at the document on the top of the pile, a shoddily cyclostyled, rusty-stapled bundle of pages with the odd title Building a revolutionary party in capitalist America. Published as a fraternal courtesy to the cosmic current.
“Why haven’t I seen these before?” I asked.
Gantry shuffled uncomfortably. He glanced at Menial, rubbed his chin and said, “Am I right in thinking you’re a tinker?”
“You’re right, I am that,” Merrial said, without hesitation.
Gantry smiled, looking relieved. “Urn, well. Between ourselves and all that. Scholars and tinkers both know, I’m sure, that we have to be… discreet, about the Deliverer’s… more discreditable deeds and, ah, youthful follies. So, although previous biographers have seen these documents, we don’t tend to show them to undergraduates. What I hope, Clovis, is that you’ll see a way to go beyond the, um, shall we say hagiographic treatments of the past, without…” He paused, sucking at his lower lip. “Ah, well, no need to spell it out.”
“Of course not,” I said.
I looked at the master scholar with what I’m sure must have been an expression of gratifying respect. “Shall we have a look through them now?”
Gantry stepped back and threw up his hands in mock horror. “No, no! Can’t have me looking over your shoulder at the raw material, Clovis. Unaided original work, and all that. This is yours, and there’s a thesis in there if ever I saw one. No, it’s time I was off and left you to it.” He hesitated. “Ah, I shouldn’t need to tell you, colha Gree, but not a word about this, or a single page of it, outside, all right?”
I had a brief, intense tussle with my conscience, which neatly tripped me up and jumped on me. “Nothing for the vulgar, of course,” I said carefully. “But in principle I could, well, show it to or discuss it with other scholars?”
“Goes without saying,” Gantry confirmed jovially. He tapped the side of his nose. “If you can find anyone you’d trust not to claim it as their own.” He winked at Menial. “Untrustworthy bunch, these scholars, I think you’ll find.” He punched me, playfully as he thought, in the ribs. “Confidence, man, confidence! I’m sure you have the wit to understand and explicate this lot yourself, and it’ll make your name, you mark my words!”
“Thank you,” I said, after a painful intake of breath. “Well… I think I’ll make a start right now.”
“Yes, indeed. Splendid idea. Don’t stay up too late.” His complicitous grin made it obvious that he thought it unlikely that we’d stay up too late. “Best be off then,” he said, as though to himself, then backed to the door and turned away.
“Good night to you, sir!” Menial called out after him.
“Good night,” came faintly back from the stairwell.
Menial let out a long breath.
“What a strange little man,” she said, in the manner of someone who has just encountered one of the Wee Folk.
“He’s not entirely typical of scholars,” I said.
“I should hope not,” Menial said. “Wouldn’t want you turning into something like that.”
“Heaven forbid,” I said, adding loyally, “but he’s a fine man for all his funny ways.” I looked down at the stack of folders. “Maybe it would be a good idea,” I said slowly, “if you were to do your thing with the computer, and I could stay here, just in case he comes back.”
“Oh, and leave me to face the deils all on my own?” Merrial mocked, then laughed, relenting. “Aye, that is not a bad idea. If he or anyone else comes in, keep them busy. I’ll not be long, and I’ll be fine.”
“What about this security barrier?”
She waved a hand and made a rude noise. Taugh! This wee gadget here has routines that can roast security barriers over a firewall and eat them for breakfast.”
Considering how she’d had to program something a lot simpler than that to sort out the dates, I doubted her, but supposed that was the black logic for you.
She smiled and slipped away; after an anxious minute of listening, I heard the sound of the inner door being opened and the scrape of a chair being dragged across the floor and propped against it. I relaxed a little and turned again to the files—to the paper files, I mentally corrected myself, for the first time making the connection between “files” in Merrial’s and, I presumed, tinkers’ usage, and my own.