Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [87]
“Isn’t it?” Mr. Powys was, as ever, a trifle uncertain. “They’ll be anchored here waiting for us, will they?”
“We thought that was best, you know. Actually, coastguard patrols aren’t seen about as often as they were. We won’t need to worry too much.”
Miss Brunner pointed at the village near the Cornelius mansion. “What about this?”
“An advance force of five men will isolate the village communications-wise. They’ll be able to see something of what will be going on, of course, but we don’t anticipate any bother from them. All outgoing radio and telephone calls will be scrambled.”
Miss Brunner looked up at Jerry Cornelius. “Do you expect any trouble before we get into this cliff-opening place, Mr. Cornelius?”
Jerry nodded.
“Boats about as big as your hoverlaunch, plus my own, are almost bound to be spotted. They’ve got radar. My guess is that my brother will still rely mainly on the traps in the maze and so on. But the house will have some other surprises. As I told you, we’ll have to get to the main control room as soon as we can. That’s in the centre of the house. Once there, we can shut it down, and it will be straight fighting until we have Frank. I estimate that if you keep him off his junk for a couple of hours, he’ll tell you exactly where the microfilm is.”
Miss Brunner said quietly, “So we must preserve Frank at all costs.”
“Until you have your information, yes. Then I’ll deal with him.”
“You do sound vengeful, Mr. Cornelius.” Miss Brunner smiled at him. Jerry shrugged and turned to the window again.
“There seems little else to discuss.” Mr. Smiles offered them all his cigarettes. “We have an hour or two to kill.”
“Nearly three hours to kill, if we’re leaving at five,” said Miss Brunner.
“Is it three hours?” Mr. Powys glanced about.
“Three hours,” said Mr. Crookshank, nodding and looking at his watch. “Almost.”
“What’s the exact time?” Mr. Smiles asked. “My watch seems to have stopped.”
“I see that lire are thirty cents a million.” Mr. Crookshank lit Miss Brunner’s cigarette with a large gold gas lighter.
“They should never have backed out of the Common Market,” Miss Brunner said pitilessly.
“What else could they do?”
“The mark’s still strong,” said Mr. Powys.
“Ah, the Russo-American mark. They can’t go on supporting it at this rate.” Mr. Smiles smiled a satisfied smile. “No, indeed.”
“I’m still not sure that we were in the right.” Mr. Powys sounded as if he were still not sure of anything. He glanced enquiringly towards the Scotch on the sideboard. Mr. Smiles waved a hostly hand towards it. Mr. Powys got up and poured himself a stiff one. “Refusing to pay back all those European loans, I mean. I think.”
“It wasn’t exactly a refusal,” Dimitri reminded him. “You just asked for an indefinite time limit. Britain certainly is the black sheep of the family today, isn’t she?”
“It can’t be helped, and if we’re lucky tonight, it will all be to our advantage in the long run.” Mr. Smiles rubbed his beard and walked to the sideboard. “Would anyone like a drink?”
“Yes, please,” said Mr. Powys.
The rest accepted, too, except for Jerry, who continued to look out of the window.
“Mr. Cornelius?”
“What?” Dimitri glanced up. “Sorry.” Mr. Powys gave him a baffled look. He held a glass of Scotch in each hand. Miss Brunner glared at Dimitri.
“I’ll have a small one.” Jerry appeared not to have noticed Dimitri’s mistake, though, as he took the glass from Mr. Smiles, he grinned broadly for a moment.
“Oh, we are living in an odd kind of limbo, aren’t we?” Ever since the weary lemming image had occurred to him, Mr. Crookshank had retained his philosophical mood. “Society hovers on the point of collapse, eh? Chaos threatens!”
Mr. Powys had begun trying to pour one full glass of Scotch into the other. Whisky ran onto the carpet.
Cornelius felt that Mr. Powys was overdoing it a bit. He smiled a little as he sat down on the arm of Miss Brunner’s chair. Miss Brunner shifted in the chair, trying to face him and failing.
“Maybe the West has got to the quasar stage—you know, 3C286 or whatever it is.” Miss