The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [55]
"I am sure you have a lot of questions," the man said, handing him his tea.
Orphan smelled the tea. It smelled good, an Earl Grey, and when he tasted it warmth spread through his body. "One or two," he said cautiously. Something is wrong, he thought. But I don't know what it is.
The man nodded as if Orphan's reply confirmed some deep point of conversation. "You are wondering who I am." He smiled. His teeth were white and even. "I am, of course, the Bookman." He laughed and shook his head. "I am one of the Bookmen, rather," he said. "I am afraid you were rather misled to think of us as one person. One mysterious and quite nefarious person, no doubt." He sighed and took a sip from his tea. "I am afraid the reality is quite a bit more mundane. Would you like a biscuit?"
"No, thank you," Orphan said. His companion shrugged and helped himself to one, which he bit into with relish. "They're very good," he said.
"I have no doubt on that score," Orphan said. "You were saying?"
"Ah, straight to business. Quite. You see, Orphan, we are not some monstrous and alien entity – though we like people to think that – but rather, we are simple patriots. Men – and women – who have made it their goal to free our homeland from the shackles of oppression." He looked at Orphan with an earnest, searching gaze. "The oppression of Les Lézards."
"By killing innocent people?" Orphan said. He was coming back to himself, a little. "By killing Lucy?" Anger flared and he seized it with gratitude, trying to pull himself out of the spreading numbness.
The man shook his head. His face bore a sad, dignified countenance. "We had no choice," he said. "Though, in the event, we were wrong. Misled."
"Wrong?" Orphan said. "Wrong?"
"Yes," the man – the Bookman – agreed. "You see, our target was, of course, the Martian probe. Yet–"
"Why? Why the probe?" He pushed away his tea. "What harm can it possibly do?"
"Let me riddle you this, Orphan," the Bookman said. "Where do Les Lézards come from?"
"I was told they come from an island whose location is kept secret."
"Come, come," the Bookman said. "You've read Darwin. Surely you realise this idea of parallel evolution, of this other race evolving naturally away from humanity on a small island, surely this idea is preposterous?"
"I had not given it much thought," Orphan said.
There was something about the way the man talked, about the way he moved his head…
Suddenly, it reminded him of the Turk.
"The truth, Orphan." the man leaned forward, and his eyes looked deep into Orphan's with a gaze both trusting and wise. "A truth many men died to obtain proof of, I should tell you –" and here he lay his hand on the table, as if it were a bible and he a witness at a court of law – "the truth is this: the lizards have no earthly origin."
Orphan looked into the Bookman's eyes. There was, he thought, a lack in them, an absence he could not quite describe. Something was missing in the man, some subtle part of a man that simply wasn't there. He said, "I see."
"Do you? Do you, Orphan? Do you comprehend the magnitude of this affront?" The man grasped him by the arm. "They are intruders, invaders, an occupying force from – from beyond. From beyond space. They want nothing else than to rule the whole world – and they are using us, humans, to do this – until the day when they no longer need us…"
"You sound like Jack," Orphan said distractedly. He turned his face away from the man. He couldn't see the lake from where he sat, it was as if he were sitting in an upturned bowl. Beyond the little square, beyond the streetlamp's light, there was nothing.
An absence within an absence, he thought. He said, "Jack was my friend."
"Yes, yes," the man said. "Do try to pay attention."
"You were going to explain to me about the probe,"
Orphan said. Was it really an absence? He looked harder. It seemed to him that there was something out there, on