Omega (29 page)

‘I
don't know the rules of your Church,' Dan said. 'But couldn't you have gone to the archbishop?'

Father Byrne shook his head. 'Whether I could or not hardly matters. The man I'd refused to absolve told the whole story, in public, from a Crusader platform. The audience went straight to the presbytery and smashed up all my belongings. They left the curate's alone.
...
I was out at the time, fortunately, perhaps. When I came home and saw what had happened, I went into my church and prayed for guidance. And the mountains called me - by God's will,

I humbly believe. . . . Th
at was two nights ago. And here
I am, my Samaritan friends.'
'Le cuidiu De,'
Peter said quietly.
'Failte romhat’
The old man's eyes lit up.
'An bhfuil tu o Eireann

freisin?'

'taim’

‘
Holy Mother, it seems a thousand years since I heard my native language! ... Kerry, I'd say?'

'Right, father. I was born in Kenmare. And I recognized your Galway accent as soon as I met you.'

'And if that's not a fitting-exit-line,' Eileen laughed, 'I don't know what is. Take him off to bed, Peter. Nurse's orders.'

Moira and Dan sat in their tent-mouth in the moonlight, long after everyone else was asleep. Neither of them had spoken for quite a while when Dan asked: 'What on earth
are
we gathering together here, darling missus?'

'The Goddess alone knows,' Moira answered him. 'And that's not being pious. I mean it.'

13

‘F
or God's sake, Harley,' Jennings said, 'Beehive Red will be any day now. Which means your experts believe the big quake is any day after
that.
And the big quake means the Dust...'

‘
We don't know that, Sir Walter,' Harley told him. 'The Dust may have been an isolated phenomenon. Several of those same experts believe it was.'

'Isolated? In twenty or thirty places all over Europe, rather more in the States and Canada and however many in Russian and China?'

'So it is suggested. That the Dust was released by the first, untypical, disturbances of the Earth's crust, under pressures which were thus dissipated. Further disturbances will not release more, because although they are expected to be more violent, the pockets of Dust have already been breached.'

'Bullshit. A more violent quake might breach deeper and bigger pockets.'

'Are you a geologist, Sir Walter?'

'No, I'm bloody not. But I know bluff and floundering when I see it. And your e
xperts are guessing-. God knows
what the next quake may let loose - because I'm sure they don't. Nor you.'

'I will admit that we are having to work on probabilities. And that involves taking calculated risks.'

‘
With other people's lives? Millions of
my
members -or had you forgotten I'm General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, in this cosy little power-drunk cabal we've got down here?'

Harley paled with anger. Jennings was notoriously blunt, but 'power-dru
nk' was overstepping the mark. ‘I
have not forgotten,' he said icily. 'The Beehive administration -the effective Government of United Kingdom - is the guardian of the
long-term
interests of the people. And they include your members.'

'When men like you start talking about "the people",' Sir Walter snorted, 'I don't know whether to laugh or throw up. I'm cynical enough, God knows, or I wouldn't be
in
your bloody cabal. But you, Harley - you take the cake
...
I wouldn't have reached General Secretary and a flipping knighthood if I hadn't known from way back that people have to be manipulated. But manipulation's one thing - and gambling on their lives is another.'

'I don't see...'

'Come off it, of cour
se you see. If your experts are
wrong and the Dust gets loos
e on a big scale - tens of mil
lions of your "people"
could go incurably mad, and all
because you wouldn't
make an announcement about the
vinegar masks Long-term interests, eh?'

'Really, my dear chap - you're talking wildly. "Tens of millions!" The total of incurable inmates of the Emergency Units, since the Midsummer tremors, has been one hundred and three.'

'The total of
inmates.
They're all incurable.'

'Still only a hundred and three. All located, rounded up and isolated, with remarkable efficiency. And next time, even if there should be another Dust outbreak - which, as I said, is regarded as unlikely - our people will be prepared and will isolate the victims with even greater speed. . . . In the present crisis, Sir Walter, we must face the hard fact that the possibility of two or three hundred Dust casualties is less important than the panic and disruption that could be caused by the announcement you ask for.'

'If it
is
only two or three hundred.'

'The considered opinion of my experts - who are not so stupid as you appear to think - is that there will be fewer than that and probably none at all.'

'A moment ago,' Sir Walter pointed out, 'you said "several" of your experts held that view. Are you now saying it's all of them?'

'The ones I find most convincing.'

'But they could be wrong.'

'I repeat - we are having to work on probabilities.'

The TUC man was on his feet now, pacing about Harley's office. 'And
you
have the final decision on those probabilities?
...
Two or three months ago, you seemed to regard the four of us - you, me, Stayne, and General Milliard - as the power behind the throne, the real deciders. 'The key minds in the key positions", I think your phrase was. Is it now reduced to
you’

'By no means. But somebody has to make the on-the-spot judgements.'

Involving millions of people?
...
All right, I'm on the spot too, right now. Where are Stayne and the General? What do they think about it?'

'Lord Stayne is at the Glasgow Beehive, conferring with his shipyard people. The General is fully occupied with the Army's preparations for Beehive Red.'

‘I
repeat - what do they think about delaying the announcement on vinegar masks?'

'In a day or two, they should both be available for a meeting. You can ask them then.'

'Unless Beehive Red intervenes, when they'll be too busy.'

Harley shrugged without speaking. Sir Walter leaned his knuckles on the front of Harley's desk and stared at him with the eyes that had quelled more than one rebellious Congress.

'Do you know what, Reggie boy? I think you regard us as useful yes-men - just like our precious Prime Minister. Well, watch it. I'll work with you, because I think your original idea about "key minds" was a sound one. But
minds,
not bloody string-puppets. You're not God, you know. And I can still pull a few strings myself.'

With that, he left the office. Harley sat for several minutes, his lips pursed. 'Reggie boy', indeed!
...
He had a prudent respect for ability and a shrewd gift for recruiting and exploiting it, but buried deeper within him was an ancestral contempt for the common herd - and Jennings was of that herd, for all his brilliance, his success, his knighthood. It only took one phrase of calculated
disrespect to trigger off Harle
y's atavistic hatred in full flood. He allowed himself to wallow in it for a while and then took himself in hand. This would not do, he could not afford emotional reactions. He would have to watch himself.

And watch Sir Walter Jennings, even more carefully.

If Philip had not noticed the bruises, he doubted whether Betty would have told him. Last night she had (he now realized) deliberately dimmed the light before they went to bed and had undressed and climbed in beside him without turning her back. He had been very tired after a long and physically active day's work and must have fallen asleep at once, but he had wakened briefly once or twice during the night to find her restless, wriggling and rearranging herself as she sometimes did when she had indigestion. He had asked her if she was all right but she had only murmured wordlessly as though she were still asleep.

This morning, when the alarm clock buzzed, she was still heavily unconscious. Philip got up and made tea, dressing while the kettle boiled and then took a cup to her; she liked to be wakened for her tea if she had outslept him. He put the cup beside the bed and, as his habit was, pulled back the covers to wake her by kissing her between the shoulder-blades.

It was then he saw the marks.

With an involuntary gasp, he pulled the bedclothes down further. From shoulders to buttocks, she was marked with blue-black stripes as though she had been thrashed with a heavy cane.

She awoke and turned quickly to face him.

'Who did it?' he demanded. 'Who did that to you?'

'Oh, darling - I hoped you wouldn't see. . . .'

'Of course I'd see! Those bruises'll last for days. Who did it?'

She sat up in bed and reached for her cup of tea. 'I don't know, Phil. I could make a few guesses but what's the point? It doesn't matter who the actual ones were.'

'It damn well matters to
me
!'

'I know, darling. Of course it does. But if you went to Security and complained, what would it achieve? I couldn't
prove
who did it and I'd only be drawing more attention to myself for nothing. Security don't like witch-lovers any better than the ones who beat me up do.'

'Is that what they called you?'

'That's what they called me.
...
It was my own fault, really. I was in the Mess for morning coffee and all the wives' gang were there - about a dozen of them, gloating over the papers, talking their usual nonsense. They'd almost stopped picking on me about the witches recently but this time a couple of them kept goading me. And in the end I'm afraid I lost my temper and told them what mugs they were being, how I thought the whole campaign had been deliberately whipped up and so on. I know - it was simply asking for trouble. . . . Anyway, I walked out and went to the shops. I was carrying a couple of full bags when I came out, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to jump me so easily.
...
It was in that corridor by the baggage store - they must have known that was the quietest place-on my way home. . . . Anyhow, they pounced on me out of a doorway and one of them had a gag stuffed in my mouth before I could yell out. There were four of them and they all had scarves over their faces - not that I had time to look at them properly, they shoved a bag or something over my head and dragged me inside the door. . . . Then three of them held me while the other beat me - it felt like a whippy sort of rod or something. . . . They kept saying "witch-lover" at me, sort of croaking as though they were disguising their voices.' Betty g
ave a strained little laugh. 'All
rather melodramatic, really - almost silly, except that they bloody well hurt. I think I almost fainted. . . . Then all of a sudden they dropped me on the floor and ran off.
...
I pulled myself together and came home. I was glad, for once, you didn't come back for lunch.'

'Christ, darling - you
must
know who they were! Tell me and I'll find a way, without Security...'

'You will
not,
darling man. It's over - and I'll just make sure I don't go down empty corridors in future. Now - out of the way and I'll get breakfast. I'm hungry if you're not.'

Philip was silent while she set the table and put slices in the toaster. He took a longer time than usual to shave, struggling to control his anger and think calmly. When he had finished Betty was already seated. He came and sat opposite her, taking both her hands in his.

Involuntarily, he dropped his voice to the whisper they were accustomed to use on their pillow.

'Betty, my love - we're getting out of here.'

She simply said 'Yes' and the matter was settled.

Arranging their escape was less easy than deciding upon it. Philip could get a Surface pass at any time; he had merely to claim that a ventilation intake needed inspection and his chief, the Director of Structural Services, would sign a pass for him. But a pass for Betty was another matter. Beehive personnel who had no official reason for going to Surface were not allowed to leave except in special circumstances - the dangerous illness of an immediate relative, for example - and then only with a Security escort.