The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [63]
“Or so that you can pinch books of American presidential quotations from thirty years hence, so you can sound erudite and wise,” John said, winking.
“Will you let that go?” said Bert irritably. “I tell you, if Milton had heard Kennedy speak, he’d have swiped it himself.”
“What do you mean by ‘immediate future’?” asked Charles.
“No more than a century or two,” said Bert, “but that’s one of the reasons we do use the knowledge. My own chronicle warned of that.”
“The Shape of Things to Come” said John. “I read it, but it came out in the thirties and was written by our Wells, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Bert. “It was based on my own version, but with two major differences. While both predicted World War II, and both saw it as lasting for two decades and ending with a plague that nearly destroys the world, his ends with an eventual utopian society, and mine does not.”
“What’s the other difference?”
“His was fiction,” said Bert, “and mine is not; it is occurring as we speak.”
“So the Winter King is trying to create the Winterland,” said Jack.
“That’s why we hoped to start our countermeasures in 1943,” said Bert. “I fear he already has.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Adversary
The night passed quickly, and when the Caretakers all gathered again in the conservatory for breakfast, the sun was still low on the horizon.
“The Caretakers keep Oxford hours, it seems,” Jack said, yawning. “Early to bed, early to rise. I can’t believe we’re the last ones awake.”
“I don’t think they have to sleep when they’re in the paintings,” said Charles. “Or if they do, it’s not because of exhaustion.”
“Maybe we’ll be paintings here someday,” said John. “Won’t that be a nice thing to look forward to in our old age? The chance to do it all again?”
Jack started to respond, but Charles scowled and walked away, waving a hand in greeting at some of the other Caretakers.
“What’s gotten under his hat?” said John.
“I think he’s just worried,” Jack replied. “There’s a lot to process, even for someone of Charles’s perception.”
The Feast Beasts had once again served an extraordinary repast. Fresh fruit, of varieties both identified and not; vegetables of unusual shapes and colors, which nevertheless exuded fantastically saliva-inducing aromas; eggs Benedict; milk from eight kinds of cows, three kinds of goats, and one more animal—the pitcher of which no one would touch. There were green eggs and ham, hashed brown potatoes, and country-style omelets.
Three . . . glided close, then landed smoothly on the
deck.
“I’m normally as carnivorous as the next man,” Jack said to Bert, “but we have lots of friends here in the Archipelago who are talking animals, and there are at least three dishes on the table featuring ham. It’s making me a little uncomfortable.”
“Worry not,” Bert said as he sat at the table and tucked a napkin into his collar. “For one thing, there are certain dishes, such as my beloved eggs Benedict, that just aren’t the same without meat. And for another thing, it’s no one you know.”
“Very comforting,” said Jack.
The Caretakers were just finishing up the breakfast feast when Charles, Jack, and John pulled Bert into the corridor for a word in private.
“I hesitate to bring this up too loudly,” Charles said, looking around almost guiltily, “but you’ll understand, considering the reaction everyone had when Kipling couldn’t produce a pocket watch.”
Bert grinned. “You’re worried because you and Jack don’t have watches.”
“Precisely.”
“Understandable, my boy, totally understandable,” said Bert. “But you needn’t have worried. For one thing, you are current Caretakers. If we didn’t trust you, you would not have kept the job this long, especially given some of the, ah, hiccups of your tenure.