The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [182]
“Miss Next was working for us at SO-13 that morning, Commander,” he said in a low monotone. “Kaylieu had been implicated in neanderthal sedition. It was a secret operation. Thank you, Miss Next, but we will have to tell SO-1 the truth.”
Flanker shot an angry glance at the neanderthal, who stared back at him impassively.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me this, Stiggins?”
“You never asked.”
All Flanker had on me now was a slow watch. He lowered his voice to a growl.
“I’ll see you looped behind the Crunch if your father is up to no good and you didn’t tell us.”
He paused for a moment and jabbed a finger in the direction of Stiggins.
“If you’ve been bearing false witness I’ll have you too. You’re running the thal end of SO-13 for one reason and one reason only—window dressing.”
“How you managed to become the dominant species we will never know,” Stiggins said at last. “So full of hate, anger and vanity.”
“It’s our evolutionary edge, Stiggins. Change and adapt to a hostile environment. We did, you didn’t. QED.”
“Darwin won’t mask your sins, Flanker,” replied Stiggins. “You made our environment hostile. You will fall too. But you won’t fall because of a more dominant life form. You will fall over yourselves.”
“Garbage, Stiggins. You lot had your chance and blew it.”
“We have right to health, freedom and pursuit of happiness, too.”
“Legally speaking you don’t,” replied Flanker evenly. “Those rights belong only to humans. If you want equality, speak to Goliath. They sequenced you. They own you. If you get lucky, perhaps you can be at risk. Beg and we might make you endangered.”
Flanker shut my file with a snap, grabbed his hat, removed both interview tapes and was gone without another word.
As soon as the door closed I breathed a sigh of relief. My heart was going like a trip-hammer but I still had my liberty.
“I’m sorry about Mr. Kaylieu.”
Stiggins shrugged.
“He was not happy, Miss Next. He did not ask to come back.”
“You lied for me,” I added in a disbelieving tone. “I thought neanderthals couldn’t lie.”
He stared at me for a moment or two.
“It’s not that we can’t,” he said at last. “We just have no reason to. We helped because you are a good person. You have sapien aggression, but you have compassion, too. If you need help again, we will be there.”
Stiggins’s normally placid and unmoving face curled up into a grimace that showed two rows of widely gapped teeth. I was fearful for a moment until I realized that what I was witnessing was a neanderthal smile.
“Miss Next—”
“Yes?”
“Our friends call us Stig.”
“Mine call me Thursday.”
He put out a large hand and I shook it gratefully.
“You’re a good man, Stig.”
“Yes,” he replied slowly, “we were sequenced that way.”
He gathered up his notes and left the room.
I left the SpecOps building ten minutes later and looked for Landen in the café opposite. He wasn’t there, so I ordered a coffee and waited twenty minutes. He didn’t turn up, so I left a message with the café owner and drove home, musing that with death-by-coincidence, the world ending in a fortnight, charges in a court for I didn’t know what and a lost play by Shakespeare, things couldn’t get much stranger. But I was wrong. I was very wrong.
9.
The More Things Stay the Same
Minor changes to soft furnishings are the first indications of a sideslip. Curtains, cushion covers and lampshades are all good litmus indicators for a slight diversion in the timestream—the same way as canaries are used down the mines or goldfishes to predict earthquakes. Carpet and wallpaper patterns and changes in paint hues can also be used, but this requires a more practiced eye. If you are within the sideslip then you will notice nothing, but if your pelmets change color for no good reason, your curtains switch from festoon to swish or your antimacassars have a new pattern on them, I should be worried; and if you’re the only one who notices, then worry some more. A great deal more . . .
BENDIX SCINTILLA,
Timestream Navigation for CG Cadets Module IV
LANDEN’S ABSENCE made me feel unsettled. All sorts of reasons