ONE

ONE

 Observing the lad's strange behaviour, his companion Norbert, 
a thirty-two-year-old Antaen-hybrid 
chimpanzee, switched off his laser trimmer and came over to see what was the matter. In the normal way 
Norbert was an ape of few words but he was extremely fond of Alvin and felt protective towards him. 
He rested his left hand on Alvin's right shoulder and gripped him reassuringly with his prosthetic thumb. 
'You feeling all right, son?' he enquired.

 By this time the severest of Alvin's tremors had abated a little. He swallowed manfully and blinked his 
eyes. 'I saw . . .” he began, and then shook his head.

 Norbert peered round at the muddy ground all ribbed and churned with the imprint of their plastic boot 
soles. Alvin's saw was lying where he had dropped it. It had switched itself off. 'What about the saw?' he 
said.

 Again Alvin shook his head. Unclasping one arm from his rib cage he raised his hand and appeared to 
grope, somewhat hesitantly, at the empty air about eighteen inches in front of his nose. 'I saw this girl,' he 
said slowly, 'as real as you are, Norbert. 
I swear I did.'

 Norbert frowned. Pushing back his helmet he scratched his deeply furrowed brow. "'Girl"?' he repeated 
dubiously. 'What girl, son?'

 'She had green eyes,' murmured Alvin dreamily, 'and dark brown hair.' He sighed. 'Oh she was as pretty 
asrnyosoton aquaticum, Norbert. Even prettier.'

 The chimp realized that it was his duty to call up Control and report the matter, but something in Alvin's 
rapt expression restrained him. He consulted the timeteller strapped to his left wrist and said: 'We'll take 
our break now. You wait here and I'll go and fetch our packs from the buggy.'

 He gave Alvin's shoulder a comforting squeeze, then knuckled his way crabwise across the slope and 
vanished among the trees by the water's edge.

 All alone Alvin sat gazing out unseeing across the reservoir with an expression of near-idiotic bliss on his 
round, guileless face. Two large, happy tears gathered along his lower eyelids, brimmed over, and 
trickled unheeded down his chin.

 Norbert returned five minutes later. He handed Alvin his lunch pack and sat down 'beside him on the 
trunk of the felled tree. 'I've been thinking,' he said. 'Maybe it was Doctor Somervell.'

 'No, Norbert,' said Alvin firmly, 'I'm sure it wasn't anyone I've ever seen here.'

 The chimp selected a sandwich from his own pack, peeled back a corner to expose the peanut butter 
filling, smacked his lips appreciatively and then took a healthy bite. 


 'Besides,' added Alvin reflectively, 'Doctor Somervell isn't pretty.'

 'Besides,' added Alvin reflectively, 'Doctor Somervell isn't pretty.'

 'This girl,' said Alvin, ignoring the observation, 'had green eyes. Doctor Somervell has brown eyes.'

 'Maybe she changed 'em,' shrugged Norbert, unscrewing the cap of his boiler flask and raising it to his 
lips.

 'Itwasn't Doctor Somervell,' insisted Alvin with some heat. 'After all, Norbert, I ought to know! I saw 
her!'

 'No offence meant,' said Norbert wiping his lips with the back of his hand. 'Eat up, son.'

 Alvin undid his pack, extracted an apple and took a moody bite out of it. For a minute or two he 
chewed away in thoughtful 
silence, then, swivelling round on his tree stump till he was facing the chimp 
he said: 'It could be from Before, couldn't it Norbert?'

 "'Before"?' echoed the chimp. 'Before what?'

 'Before I was here.'

 'There's no such thing,' said Norbert uneasily. 'You know that, Alvin. Hey, if you don't want that core, 
I'll have it.'

 Alvin passed across the apple core and helped himself to a sandwich. He knew Norbert was speaking 
the truth simply because 
his earliest memory was of waking up in the Station's sick bay and seeing 
Doctor Somervell and Doctor Pfizier bending over him. That was when Doctor Pfizier had given him his 
name -'Alvin'. Later, of course, he had acquired a whole host of other memories, but that was the first 
and it had always been Alvin's favourite. He found it quite impossible to express adequately either the 
gratitude he felt towards the good, grey-haired old Hydrologist who had introduced him to his identity, or 
the sense of almost dog-like devotion with which he recalled those early talks the two of them had had. 
'Now you be good, Alvin,' the gentle old scientist had enjoined him, 'and let the others be the smart 
cookies.' How often Alvin's eyes had misted over as he recollected the fervent tremor in his own voice as 
he had replied: 'Oh, I will, sir! I will!' 'Blessed are the pure in heart, Alvin. Don't you ever forget that, my 
boy.' 'I won't, sir! Believe me!' 'Women are a snare and a delusion, Alvin.' 'Even Doctor Somervell, sir?' 
'Mo's the worst of the lot, but don't say I told you.' The old man's wisdom had flowed like a pellucid, 
inexhaustible 
fountain and young Alvin had drunk deep.

 If he had so far been unable to test the validity of many of the good doctor's precepts it was for the 
simple reason that adequate opportunity had never presented itself. Since the complement of the Aldbury 
Hydrological Station was restricted to Alvin, the two scientists and thirty-two prosthetised apes, the 
boy's temptations were minimal, and until the incident already 
described, he had not even felt anything 
that could be classed as curiosity about his origins.

 His cognizant life having been passed mainly in the company of the chimps, whom he had found to be in 
all significant respects 
immeasurably his superiors, Alvin felt none of the anti-
anthropoid resentment that 
was still to be met in other less enlightened areas of the world. For their part, once the problem of his 
union membership had been sorted out, the apes accepted 
him in a brotherly way and had been happy 
to relieve him of the contents of his slender wage packet whenever he sat in on one of their Saturday 
poker schools. Eventually Norbert had felt constrained to call a branch meeting-from which Alvin had 


been tactfully excluded-and had told his fellow apes that it was a shame to take advantage of such a nice 
guy. Since then Alvin's regular losses at the card table had diminished remarkably 
and, once or twice, 
much to his amazement and delight he had even won a small pot.

been tactfully excluded-and had told his fellow apes that it was a shame to take advantage of such a nice 
guy. Since then Alvin's regular losses at the card table had diminished remarkably 
and, once or twice, 
much to his amazement and delight he had even won a small pot.

 The Aldbury Station was responsible for Lake Tring and Lake Caddesden together with that area of the 
Chilterns which constituted 
their catchment area. Its principal duties were to monitor erosion, nutrient 
salt balance and biological productivity. 
Among its peripheral concerns were re-afforestation, tree 
culling, maintenance of fish stocks, hire of pleasure craft and management of the two refreshment centres. 
These tasks were left entirely in the hands of the apes who had also, on their own initiative, organized a 
round-the-clock, summer rescue service.

 It was Alvin's most dearly cherished ambition to become a helmsman of one of the two Skeeto rescue 
boats. In his daydreams 
he sped up and down the ten-mile stretch of Lake Tring, his tangerine-tinted 
Zyoprene wetsuit glittering like a goldfish as he swooped to rescue beautiful maidens from watery graves. 
Unfortunately an inherent inability to distinguish between 
port and starboard at moments of stress 
seemed likely to preclude him from ever realizing his ambition. Bosun, the grizzled old ape who was in 
charge of the rescue service, had given strict orders that Alvin was never to be allowed near the Skeetos 
unless he was accompanied by a fully qualified chimp.

 Alvin did not allow himself to become despondent. By dint of assiduous coaching from Norbert he could 
now average five correct port and starboard calls out of every ten, which, as he was quick to point out, 
was already half way there. Meanwhile he occupied his weekends in assisting the female chimps to run 
the refreshment centres or, from time to time, in puttering round the lakes in the Station's Platypus with 
Norbert to cheek on anglers' licences.

 At the time of his eidetic hallucination Alvin had been at the Aldbury Station for three years and four 
months. Biologically speaking he was then exactly eighteen years and two months old. Five foot five 
inches tall, with straw coloured hair, protuberant, pale blue eyes and remarkable ears that stuck out like 
pink handles almost at right angles from the sides of his round head, he was not perhaps the most 
handsome of youths, but he possessed something far rarer than mere masculine good looks, namely a 
truly beautiful character. There was something so undeniably saintly about Alvin that even the apes were 
moved to wonder. He appeared to live only to please others and they had soon wearied of sending him 
off to fetch them left handed lasers and cans of spotted paint because he was so obviously upset at being 
unable to gratify their wishes. He would return forlorn, his periwinkle blue eyes large with unshed tears 
and confess his failure in such abject tones that their laughter died on their lips and they patted him on the 
shoulder and told him not to take it to heart. Since that was so obviously just where Alvindid take it and 
since the apes, by and large, were a kindly lot, the game soon lost its appeal, and many of them agreed in 
private with Norbert who gave it as his opinion that God had sent Alvin to them to make them all better 
apes and to awaken the essential apeishness which slumbered within them. 

From this it will be immediately evident that Norbert himself 
was no run-of-the-lab anthropoid but as 
much a unique individual in his own way as Alvin was in his. Early in ife Norbert 
had 'caught religion' and 


though the initial fever had burnt itself out he had never been the same since. He now believed 
that 
everything had been put on earth for some divinely inscrutable purpose and that to those who kept an 
open mind and gave due reflection this purpose would one day be made apparent. He had been quick to 
perceive how well Alvin fitted in to this theosophical system and had gone out of his way to assist the 
youth towards the realization of his true potential. The happiest moment of Norbert's life so far had been 
when Alvin had turned to him one day and said: 'Norbert, with you and Doctor Pfizier around I know I'll 
never need to worry.' At that instant Norbert had his Pisgah revelation. His life's purpose was to shelter 
Alvin from the rough buffeting of a hostile world until one day, hand in hand and side by side, they would 
enter the Promised Land.

though the initial fever had burnt itself out he had never been the same since. He now believed 
that 
everything had been put on earth for some divinely inscrutable purpose and that to those who kept an 
open mind and gave due reflection this purpose would one day be made apparent. He had been quick to 
perceive how well Alvin fitted in to this theosophical system and had gone out of his way to assist the 
youth towards the realization of his true potential. The happiest moment of Norbert's life so far had been 
when Alvin had turned to him one day and said: 'Norbert, with you and Doctor Pfizier around I know I'll 
never need to worry.' At that instant Norbert had his Pisgah revelation. His life's purpose was to shelter 
Alvin from the rough buffeting of a hostile world until one day, hand in hand and side by side, they would 
enter the Promised Land.

 Confident that he had acted in Alvin's best interests Norbert bowed and left the room.

 TWO

 At 42 Maureen Somervell possessed the sort of junoesque physique 
which, a hundred years before, 
might have led to her being referred to in awed tones as 'all woman'. By profession she was an analytical 
chemist and, as such, in charge of the water analysis 
at Aldbury. Although the daily sampling of run-off 
and its subsequent assessment was an automatic process in the control of a computer, 'Mo' Somervell 
was renowned for what she herself 
liked to call 'getting back to basics'. In the summer months she could 
frequently be observed, clad in a scarlet bathing suit, her splendid hams sheathed in a pair of transparent 
waders, dipping around with a sampling funnel on the marshy edges of Lakes Tring and Gaddesden.

 Bent low over her work she presented an impressive expanse of bare pink buttock to the world at large 
and to the male apes in particular. At such moments atavistic impulse tended to re-
emerge from the 
depths of the anthropoid hypothalamus, elbow 
its way through the Zobian-cultured cortical tissue, and 
flaunt itself vividly in the anthropoid anatomy, while across the simian faces conflicting emotions of 
wonder, doubt and despair flitted like shadows.

 In their private discussions the younger apes maintained that she must be doing it on purpose, but most 
of the older ones held that it was just a happy accident. It only remains to be said that none of the chimps 
ever overstepped the bounds of propriety and that Doctor Somervell was never short of volunteers to 
help carry her equipment when she set out on one of her summer forays.

 Her own attitude towards the apes resembled that of a kindly but authoritarian primary school teacher 
towards her pupils. Although the average anthropoid I.Q. was in the upper 120's she could never quite 
bring herself to believe it. 'I like to think of them as children-happy children,' she once confessed to a 


visitor. 
'I daresay that's a pretty old-fashioned approach but it seems to work very well in practice.`

visitor. 
'I daresay that's a pretty old-fashioned approach but it seems to work very well in practice.`

 A recent attempt to programme her paramour with a retrospective 
approximation of Dimitri's physical 
co-ordinates had been grievously frustrated by the temperature moderator going on the blink at the 
critical moment and drastically reducing the degree of tumescence. By the time the anthropoid service 
engineer had diagnosed the fault and put it right she had temporarily 
lost interest in subrogation. Since 
then she had been looking around for some direct method of re-kindling Dimitri's waning fire. Norbert's 
news seemed to offer just the opportunity she had been waiting for.

 When Alvin, fresh from his shower and wearing his best zip suit, knocked on her door and obeyed her 
summons to come in, he was slightly taken aback to find that she was not wearing her customary white 
overalls but a sort of semi-transparent, fluffy, pink and white knee-length garment that made her look as 
though she was swaddled in candy-floss. Her feet were thrust into a pair of pink, sequin-dusted 
powder-puff slippers. These, as far as Alvin could tell, were all she was wearing.

 He closed the door carefully behind him. 'Norbert told me you wished to see me, Doctor Somervell.'

 She smiled at him and patted the pneumatic couch. 'That's right, Alvin. Come over here and sit beside 
me.'

 Alvin moved forward obediently and took his place at her side.

 'My, you smell good!' she observed, leaning over him, flexing her nostrils and inhaling deeply.

 Alvin blinked. 'Do I, Doctor Somervell? I'm glad you like it.'

 'I certainly do, Alvin. But let's drop the "Doctor Somervell", shall we? You know my name's "Maureen", 
don't you?'

 'Yes, Doctor Somervell.'

 Doctor Somervell chuckled tolerantly. 'Well, perhaps one thing at a time, eh? Now what's this old 
Norbert's been telling me about you and some girl or other?'

 'Oh, yes, Doctor Somervell!' Alvin's moon face became luminous 
with reminiscence.

 'Well, go on.'

 Alvin clasped his hands in his lap and sighed. 'She had green eyes, Doctor Somervell-the colour of 
duck-weed-and peat brown hair-sort of short. She was looking down at me . . . andsmiling. . . .' His 
voice trailed away and his own lips beamed in reverie. He looked supremely idiotic and, at the same 
time, rather touching.

 'Did she say anything to you?' 


 'Oh no, Doctor Somervell. She didn't need to.' 
Doctor Somervell chewed her lower lip reflectively. 'Whereabouts 
was she?' 
Alvin frowned. 'She didn't seem to be anywhere in particular. I mean not here or in the lake or anything. 


But I think she was sort of bending over me . . . or something. . . .'


 'Not in bed?' 
'No. I would have remembered that.' 
'Who do you think she was, Alvin?' 
Alvin looked uncomfortable. 'I-I don't know, Doctor Somervell.' 
'Norbert said you'd suggested she might be from Before.' 
Alvin coloured like a peony and began to scratch his head violently-a sure sign with him that he was 


being assailed by feelings of guilt. 'Oh, did I? I . . . I. . .' 
'You know that's quite impossible, don't you, Alvin?' 
Alvin nodded miserably. 
,Then why did you say it?' 
'Because I'm sinful?' he suggested feebly, but with a note of hopeful pleading. 
'Not sinful, Alvin.Weak. Now tell me the truth. You made it all up, didn't you?' 
'Did I, Doctor Somervell?' 
'Of course you did. It's an obvious, immature, sexual fantasy.' 'Oh,' said Alvin dismally. 
'You know whatthat is, don't you, Alvin?' 
Alvin shook his head. 
'Oh, come now, Alvin. Don't tell me you've never thought about girls.' 
Alvin blushed again. 
Doctor Somervell slid herself along the couch till she appeared 
about to overwhelm him like some vast 


pink blancmange. 
With one hand she turned his face towards hers and gazed speculatively into his eyes. 
'You can tellme, Alvin,' she murmured, and the fingers of her other hand seemed to stumble by happy 
accident on the thigh-tab of his zip.

 Alvin swallowed manfully. 'Girls?' he gurgled. 


 'Yes,girls, Alvin,' she throbbed.'Women, Alvin. Us!'

 'Yes,girls, Alvin,' she throbbed.'Women, Alvin. Us!'

 Instead of turning on his heel and retreating he nodded to them, sauntered across the room, and having 
subsided into a prehensile loafer, crossed one leg over the other, picked up a video-viewer and began 
squinting through it.

 Alvin gazed up at Doctor Somervell and wondered what would happen next. He was conscious of no 
feelings of guilt since he reasoned that whatever had happened (was, indeed, still happening!) had been at 
her express wish. He was therefore 
considerably surprised to hear her say: 'You ought to be thoroughly 
ashamed of yourself, Alvin. And I thought you were such a nice boy tool'

 'Been misbehaving himself, has he?' enquired Doctor Pfizier, glancing up from his viewer. 'I must say I'm 
disappointed in you, Alvin.'

 Alvin's blue eyes filled with tears. Censure from Doctor Pfizier was the unkindest cut of all.

 'What's he been up to, Mo?'

 Doctor Somervell rocked herself ruminatively backwards and forwards thereby causing Alvin to bite his 
tongue. 'He asked me to demonstrate the technique of buckle resuscitation, Dimitri. Something to do with 
his rescue service tests, he said.'

 'Crafty, crafty,' nodded Doctor Pfizier, uncrossing his legs and scratching his groin. 'And so?'

 'And so, of course, I showed him.' She sounded so sincere that Alvin almost found himself believing her. 
'And before I knew what was happening he was taking advantage of me.'

 'Bad,' grunted Doctor Pfizier. 'Very underhand.'

 'That's just what it was, Dimitri. Underhand.' Frowning abstractedly, Doctor Somervell slipped her own 
hand beneath her and gave Alvin a tweak that made his eyes pip like mushrooms.


 'Well, Alvin?' said Doctor Pfizier, 'what have you got to say for yourself? Come on, lad. Speak up!'

 'I'm very sorry, sir,' gulped Alvin. 'I didn't mean to do any~-thing wrong. I thought-'

 'You thought it was high time you found out whether Miss Somervell was as delectable a dish as I've 
always told you she was,' said Doctor Pfizier smacking his lips. 'Well, is she?' 


 I-I don't know, sir. I mean-'

 I-I don't know, sir. I mean-'

seem to recall-'

 'In the cabinet, Dimitri. You might fix me one too, while you're at it.'

 'Sure thing, doll.' Doctor Pfizier flung down the viewer and, clicking his fingers in a syncopated rhythm, 

skipped through into the adjoining room.

 Doctor Somervell took advantage of his absence to prise herself free. 'Do fasten up that zip, Alvin,' she 
said. 'It really does you no credit.'

 Alvin struggled up into a sitting position and adjusted his dress. He looked dazed and dejected. 'May I 
go now, Doctor Somervell?' he enquired tearfully.

 'Do,' she said, 'and mind you close the door after you. There's a terrible draught from somewhere.'

 THREE

 At II.30 the following morning Alvin was summoned to Doctor Pfizier's office. The Doctor, looking alert 
and purposeful, but a shade paler than when Alvin had last seen him, came straight to the point. 'What's 
this Mo's been telling me about you and some girl or other, Alvin?'

 Alvin told him. 
'Someone you've met around the lake, I suppose.' 
'Oh, no, sir.' 
'Well, we can't have you ramping around taking advantage of any stray female you happen to meet, 


Alvin. They aren't all as tolerant as Doctor Somervell, you know.' 
'But I'd never seen this girl before, sir.' 
'Is that supposed to make sense?' 
'I don't know, sir,' said Alvin sadly. 
'And that trick you pulled last night,' said Doctor Pfizier, switching his line of attack. 'Not very nice, was 


it?' 



 Alvin blinked. 'Nice, sir?' he queried vaguely.

 Alvin blinked. 'Nice, sir?' he queried vaguely.

enough to be your mother.'

 'Yes, sir.'

 'So what are we going to do about it?'

 'Sir?'

 Doctor Pfizier took a thoughtful turn up and down the room. 'According to our records you're down as 

"null libido", Alvin. Do you know what that means?'

 'No, sir.'

 'Girls aren't supposed to interest you.'

 Alvin's eyes opened even wider.

 'That surprises you?'

 'Well, yes, sir-I mean, no, sir.'

 'Tell it to Doctor Somervell, eh?'

 'Sir?'

 'So the records are wrong. Which means there's been a balls-
up at the M.0.P. Not for the first time, I'd 

say.'

 Alvin looked blank.

 'I've tried to do my best by you, boy. God knows it hasn't been easy, but I've tried. Now I discover 

there's a fundamental flaw in the matrix. All my hard work gone for nothing. It's a bitter 
disappointment, 
I can tell you.'

 Alvin began to weep silently.

 Mens sana in corpore sano,'muttered Doctor Pfizier. 'As

 the twig is bent so is the tree inclined.' He sighed hugely. 'W . ell,

 there's nothing else for it, I'm afraid. Back to square one.'

 Alvin snuffled wetly and dragged his sleeve across his dripping 
nose.

 'Oh, cheer up, lad,' said Doctor Pfizier. 'Your heart's in the right place. Maybe they'll send you back to 
us and we can start over again.'

 'I3-back, sir?' gulped Alvin. 


 Doctor Pfizier nodded optimistically. 'I don't see why not. Shouldn't be too difficult to sponge the slate 
clean. I'd take you along myself only I can't spare the time. I wonder who's due for a spot of furlough?' 
He skipped across the room and questioned a video cabinet. Three numbers appeared on the screen. 
Against one of them a point of light winked saucily. 'Twenty seven,' said Doctor Pfizier. 'Let's see now, 
that's Norbert, isn't it?'

 Doctor Pfizier nodded optimistically. 'I don't see why not. Shouldn't be too difficult to sponge the slate 
clean. I'd take you along myself only I can't spare the time. I wonder who's due for a spot of furlough?' 
He skipped across the room and questioned a video cabinet. Three numbers appeared on the screen. 
Against one of them a point of light winked saucily. 'Twenty seven,' said Doctor Pfizier. 'Let's see now, 
that's Norbert, isn't it?'

 'A thoroughly sound chimp our Norbert. You couldn't be in better hands. I'll call up the M.0.P. and let 
them know you're coming.'

 Alvin sniffed deferentially. 'What is the M.0.P., sir?'

 'Ministry of Procreation,' said Doctor Pfizier. 'Professor Pointer knows all about you.'

 'Do I haveto go, sir? Can't I have another chance?'

 Doctor Pfizier stepped forward and put his arm round Alvin's quivering shoulders. 'But that's just what 
we're giving you, son. A few little adjustments and you'll be back here again in a couple of weeks as 
bright as a button. We can pick things up again right where we left off. That's what you want, isn't it?'

 'Oh, yes, sir,' breathed Alvin fervently.

 'Well then, you trot along and pack your grip while I put Norbert in the picture. You can catch the 
shuttle from Aylesbury and be down in Croydon before dark. Might even have a chance to see a bit of 
the big city. You'd like that, wouldn't you?'

 'Would I, sir?'

 'My goodness, yes!' enthused Doctor Pfizier. 'There's nothing like it! That's what civilization's all about, 
Alvin! Where it's all happening! Tremendously exciting!'

 Alvin's face brightened a little. 'I wish you were coming too, sir.'

 'So do I, Alvin. So do I. Maybe some other time. Now you'll want a bit of ready cash, I daresay. Are 
you due any wages?'

 'Two months, sir.'

 'Two months, eh? Well, collect it from Jefferson before you go. I'll have him make you out a travel 
warrant, too. And you'll need your identity card. You won't get far without that.' Doctor Pfizier slapped 
him on the shoulder and grinned encouragingly. 'You'll be all right, son. There's lots of good material in 
you. And just between the two of us, I daresay Mo wasn't altogether as innocent as she makes out. But 
we can't afford to take risks, can we? It's better this way. Scrap and start again. Profit from our 
mistakes, eh? That way we'll all be proud of you yet, Alvin. I'm convinced of it.'

 But Alvin wasn't really listening. He was seeing the girl with green eyes again. She was smiling at him.

 Doctor Pfizier, observing his expression of entranced imbecility, 
sighed and propelled him gently from 
the room. 


 FOUR

 FOUR

 The reason why Sir Cordon Loveridge-Professor Poynter's immediate superior-had allowed her to 
embark on her genetic alchemy at a time when any form of artificially induced multiple 
conception was 
virtually a capital offence, lay in the unique qualities of the man and the woman who had produced the 
gametes. Both were eidetic freaks, blessed (or cursed) with the ability to remember everything that had 
ever impressed itself upon their insatiable neurones.

 The father, a civil engineer, had succumbed to acute melancholia 
and passed away in the spring of I983 
at the age Of 42. His ultimate mnemonic triumph had been to recall successfully the names of the 
individual members-together with those of the substitutes, the referee and the resulting score-of every 
team in every Association football match that had ever been played in the United Kingdom since I887.

 The mother, after working for fifty dull years in the Records Division of the Department of Inland 
Revenue, had now in the Indian Summer of her days found fame and fortune as the Resident 
Human 
Encyclopaedia of a Double-Your-Money SonarVisonic 
Quiz Show. Such were her phenomenal powers 
of recall that she seemed certain to retain her crown until the day she cackled out her last useless fact and 
dropped dead under the studio lights.

 The one fact of which she was totally unaware was that she had becomemater in absentio of Alvin and 
his three brothers. When she had undergone a hysterectomy at the age Of 34 it had not occurred to her 
that her extracted ovaries, tagged 'Eidetic Alpha(?)', would be dropped into the deep freezer vault at the 
Ministry of Procreation. There they had languished until, some twenty years later, Professor Pointer had 
re-discovered them and had been inspired to thaw them back to life, extract a ripe egg and unite it in 
unholy matrimony with the posthumous ejaculate of Frederick Arthur Watkins 'Eidetic Alpha(?)'.

 The experiment was a triumphant success. Alvin and his brothers came to full term, were delivered and, 


on March 3rd, 2054, drew their first outraged breaths in the experimental wing of the Croydon incubator 
unit. Due to the extremely delicate nature of the population crisis their advent had to be kept a closely 
guarded secret. As soon as it was practicable they were separated and handed over to four pairs of 
carefully selected foster parents, none of whom was informed that the infant they were cherishing was in 
fact a quadruplet.

on March 3rd, 2054, drew their first outraged breaths in the experimental wing of the Croydon incubator 
unit. Due to the extremely delicate nature of the population crisis their advent had to be kept a closely 
guarded secret. As soon as it was practicable they were separated and handed over to four pairs of 
carefully selected foster parents, none of whom was informed that the infant they were cherishing was in 
fact a quadruplet.

 Apart from this there was nothing about them to distinguish them from a million other little boys. They 
were neither outstandingly 
bright nor remarkably dim, just average, and since neither of their parents had 
been blessed with exceptional good looks they did not earn the envy or enmity of their playfellows on 
that score. They were, however, virtually precluded from playing various childish games such as 
'Pelmanism' and 'I remember: 
I remember' on the grounds that they didn't play fair. These accusations 
caused them a certain amount of puzzled heart-searching until they realized that it was almost as easy to 
pretend to forget as it was to remember. From that moment on they had no further social problems.

 Professor Pointer maintained her contact with her brood and kept an up-to-date file on each one. They 
were all so extraordinarily 
alike that she sometimes found difficulty in remembering 
which was which 
and on more than one occasion she had earned herself a puzzled stare by addressing Desmond as Bruce, 
or Bruce as Colin-or was it Alvin? She had no very clear idea of where her research was leading her, or 
indeed, how her four clones might prove useful to society other than as perambulating 
memory banks, 
but she persuaded herself that something significant would emerge eventually. As it happened she was 
proved right, though hardly in a way which she could have foreseen.

 Shortly after their fifteenth birthday Miriam Pointer entered the expressavator which whisked her up to 
Stratum 402 of the Crystal Palace Tower. She was keeping her biannual appointment 
with Bruce who 
lived in Module II5 with his foster parents the Robinsons and their elder daughter Fiona.

 After having interviewed the clone to her satisfaction and reassured herself that the onset of puberty had 
deprived him of none of his eidetic powers, Professor Pointer was just preparing to take her leave when 
the lad peered over her shoulder and announced solemnly: 'They're cutting open your belly and taking 
your tubes out, Miss Pointer.'

 'Why, Bruce, what a very strange thing to say!'

 'Well, they are, Miss,' he averred. 'And the man who's doing it's got red hair.'

 'Red hair?' chuckled Professor Pointer. 'Well, well. Whatever next?' And with that she bade the 
Robinsons adieu and descended 
the two thirds of a mile to the ground.

 Two days later she made a similar journey, this time to Stratum 344 of the Barbican Monument. Here 
she called upon young Colin who occupied Module 778 with his foster parents the MacDonalds and 
their sixteen-year-old son Robert. Professor 
Pointer noted for her record that, like Bruce, Colin's eidetic 
gift was unimpaired by his sexual development. She was, nevertheless, considerably taken aback when, 
at the end of the interview, the clone said: 'What are they operating on you for, Miss Pointer?'

 'Operating on me? What do you mean, Colin?' 


 Colin's pale blue eyes were fixed on some point beyond the back of her head and, as she watched, she 
saw them move as though he were indeed observing something curious going on.

 Colin's pale blue eyes were fixed on some point beyond the back of her head and, as she watched, she 
saw them move as though he were indeed observing something curious going on.

 'But I'm here, Colin! Right in front of you! You're just imagining it.'

 Her final words were addressed to the empty air. Colin, a sensitive lad, had turned pale and rushed out 
to the toilet.

 By the time Professor Pointer got round to Alvin, the last of the four, she felt like an Australian aboriginal 
who has had the misfortune to find himself on the receiving end of a bone-
pointing ritual. After 
Desmond, totally unprompted, had hallucinated 
the third version of the same grisly picture, only the 
obstinacy bred of a lifetime's scientific scepticism had prevented 
her from charging into the 
Hammersmith Hospital and demanding an immediate laparotomy. Now, as she finally confronted 
Alvin, 
she found that her fingers were trembling so violently that she all but dropped the case of stereoscopic 
mnemonic transparencies and fumbled badly as she fitted them into the viewer. Alvin, as helpful as ever, 
did his best to put her at her case, though he was somewhat at a loss to understand why it was that Miss 
Pointer kept staring at him so intently and seemed to jump several inches into the air every time he 
opened his lips.

 When eventually the tests were completed Alvin carefully replaced the slides in their case, closed the lid 
and pushed the container back across the table to her. She stared at him as though hypnotized. 'Was 
there something else, Miss Pointer?' he enquired politely.

 Professor Pointer swallowed with some difficulty. 'I was wondering, 
Alvin, whether you were seeing 
anythingunusual, today? 
Aboutme, I mean?'

 Alvin regarded her gravely, his round head tilted slightly to one side. 'Like what, Miss Pointer?'

 The rational scientist in Professor Pointer rose and wagged an admonishing finger at her. 'Just-well, 
anythingunusual, Alvin.'

 The clone considered. 'You look quite a bit older than when I saw you last,' he said finally.

 'Then you don't see anything else? Anythingbehind me, say?'

 Alvin peered dutifully at the apartment wall behind her head. 'Well, only that man in white, with the sort 
of torch thing.'

 Professor Pointer fainted.

 Exactly three weeks later, supine in a private ward in University 
College Hospital, she pondered on 
what had happened. A neat pink scar stretching from her sternum to her pubic stubble 
offered 
incontrovertible proof that what the clones had foreseen had indeed come to pass. Coiled within her she 
now had I37 centimetres of brand new, crash-cultured, laser-grafted intestine replacing the cancerous 
conglomerate which had been excised.

 The surgery had been performed by Mr. Daryl. Ravenswood, an acknowledged master of this type of 
operation, and since Professor Pointer was every bit as distinguished in her own field as he was in his, he 
had made a special point of dropping in to see her the next day. Afterwards, discussing the interview with 


his mistress of the month he remarked: 'A peculiar old duck. Couldn't seem to get over the fact that I've 
got red hair.'

his mistress of the month he remarked: 'A peculiar old duck. Couldn't seem to get over the fact that I've 
got red hair.'

 FIVE

 Professor Pointer returned to her duties some six weeks later, still undecided as to the correct 
explanation for what had occurred. 
As far as she could see there were only two possible solutions-pure 
coincidence, or some form of auto-suggestion. In order to bring the first of these into perspective she set 
about programming the M.0.P. computer to assess the mathematical odds against the coincidence, given 
that none of the four clones had knowledge of the others' existence. The data were sketchy and, 
admittedly, subjective, but even so the resultant trial of 'O's before the decimal point went a long way 
towards confirming 
her in her opinion that pure chance, though by no means impossible, was too 
unlikely to warrant further serious consideration.


 That left her only auto-suggestion and here she found herself 
confronted by the familiar precedent 
paradox-had she developed the disease because they had told her she would, or had they told her she 
would because she had already developed the disease? Which came first the carcinoma or its 
prognostication? 
The more she pondered the matter the further she seemed from finding a satisfactory 
answer. Allowing that the nature of the boys' descriptions of what they had seen was all of a piece with 
their customary methods of eidetic recall, how could they possibly have 'remembered' what had not yet 
taken place? Having 
reached that point, for the first time in sixteen years Miriam Pointer began seriously 
to wonder whether she had been wise to embark on the experiment in the first place.

 Her decision to assemble the four adolescent clones and observe 
their reactions was not lightly taken 
and she was scrupulous 
in apprising Sir Cordon Loveridge of her intention. He was greatly intrigued by 
the idea and at once agreed to the proposal on condition that he would be allowed to witness the 
confrontation 
on closed circuit So-Vi. For reasons of security it was decided 
between them that the 
clones' own recollections of the actual meeting should afterwards be erased by a prudent whiff of 
azaguanine-I2.

 Accordingly, on July 1st, 2069, four electric buggies might have been observed jinking and threading 
their programmed way by four carefully chosen routes across the capillary network 
of the metropolis to 
converge, simultaneously, upon four separate entrances to the Ministry of Procreation. Out of them 
stepped Bruce, Colin, Desmond and Alvin.

 Each sublimely ignorant of the others' existence, they were conducted individually to four pre-selected 
cubicles where they were instructed to sit down and watch the video-screen before them. A few 
moments later the screens flickered into 3dimensional 
life and there was Miriam Pointer smiling 
reassuringly 
in upon them. Choosing her words with great care she refrained from addressing any of 
them by name as she explained in some detail the nature of their peculiar gift and what was known about 


it. Four pairs of identical blue eyes regarded her stereoscopic image solemnly as Alvin, Colin, Desmond 
and Bruce each absorbed the notion that he was a genetic freak.

it. Four pairs of identical blue eyes regarded her stereoscopic image solemnly as Alvin, Colin, Desmond 
and Bruce each absorbed the notion that he was a genetic freak.

 Comfortably ensconced in his private sanctum on the 28th floor Sir Cordon watched the boys enter. 
Aesthetically they were not particularly prepossessing specimens, he decided, and touched the control 
button which brought up the sound just in time for him to hear Professor Pointer saying: 'Then this must 
be Alvin.'

 Alvin, the last to enter, looked doubtfully at Bruce and Desmond 
and Colin, and they looked just as 
doubtfully at him. As far as Sir Cordon could judge they appeared mildly astonished, but little more. Then 
with one accord they turned and stared owlishly at Professor Pointer. Four mouths opened 
simultaneously 
and from them all one perfectly phrased question emerged:'Who are we, Miss Pointer?'

 It was not the easiest question Miriam Pointer had ever been called upon to answer but she did her best. 
She had just passed the point in the history of their genesis where, as embryos, they had been transferred 
to their surrogate placentas, when Sir Cordon saw the clones glance round at each other and then turn 
back to confront their maker. The next instant Professor Poynter's 
head had vanished from his screen 
and been replaced by that of a large pink pig! The four boys promptly collapsed into hysterical laughter. 
The pig-headed chimera, apparently unable to divine the cause of their mirth, paused in mid-sentence, 
whereupon its head was again removed and replaced in rapid succession by that of a chimpanzee, a 
rhinoceros, a polar bear and a St. Bernard.

 Sir Cordon was out of his chair and halfway across the room to the screen when Professor Pointer 
reappeared, still seemingly oblivious of what had been going on, looking exactly as she had always 
looked except that this time she was completely naked and, as far as Sir Cordon could judge, adorned 
with at least one extra pair of breasts. 'Extraordinary,' murmured the Senior Scientist of the M.0.P. 
retreating fascinated to his chair.'Doesn't sherealize?'

 At this juncture some altercation seemed to develop among the clones. During the course of it Professor 
Poynter's auxiliary mammaries were twice removed and replaced. 'Boys! Boys!' 

Sir Cordon heard his Chief Geneticist plead: 'If only you'll give me a chance to explain-'

 At which point she vanished completely.

 Alvin, Bruce, Colin and Desmond regarded each other accusingly 
and said with one voice: 'It wasn't 
me!'

 'One of us must have,' said Colin.

 'Well, I didn't,' said Bruce.

 'Nor did I,' said Alvin.

 'Tits is one thing,' said Desmond pontifically, 'but rubbing the old girl out is sneaky. Anyway, who took 
mine off her?'

 'I did,' said Bruce. 'You had them much too far down.' 


 'I didn't! Mine were the top lot!' 
'Minewere the top lot!' 
'You must have done it then!' 
'I swear I didn't! Android honour!' 
'Android honour!' 
'Android honour!' 
'Android honour!' 
The question as to who was responsible for Professor Poynter's 
disappearance was still unsettled when 


the door burst open and in she stormed. Normally breasted, stark naked but for a gas mask, she 
clutched in her right hand a yellow plastic cylinder. Without pausing to explain what she was about she 
thrust her arm out before her and gave the surprised clones a full tensecond 
burst of atomised 
azaguanine-I2. Then with an agonized glance towards the concealed camera, she fled.

 'What a woman!' exclaimed Sir Cordon reverently. 'Protein for you, Miriam!' 
By the time Professor Pointer, temporarily attired in a technician's 
smock, returned to the room and 
switched on the ventilation 
fans, the four clones were flopped out like so many mackerel with four 
identical smiles wreathed blissfully across their four moon-like faces. She probed briskly at their pulses 
then summoned in two anthropoid orderlies who stacked the unconscious boys on to a floater and guided 

it out. 
Half an hour later and more appropriately clad, the Professor was lofted to the 28th floor. 
'Amazing, Miriam!' opined Sir Cordon. 'Quite amazing! I wouldn't have missed that for worlds! Are you 

feeling all right now?' 
Professor Pointer coloured brightly. 
'What does it feel like being-well, do we call it "translated" or "teleported"?' 
'You think that is what it was?' 
'Don't you?' 
'I find myself singularly unable to form any rational opinion whatsoever on the matter.' 
'The young rascals,' chuckled Sir Cordon. 'On the whole I liked the St. Bernard best.' 
'I beg your pardon?' 
Sir Cordon blinked. 'You don't remember?' 
'Remember what?' 


 'The-ah-"chimeras"?' 
'Did you say "chimeras"?' 
'Then you didn't see them?' 
'See what?' 
'Nor the extra breasts?' 
'I begyour pardon!' 
'Amazing,' murmured Sir Cordon. 'Truly amazing.' 
'Would you care to be a little more explicit?' 
'Well, take a look at yourself, my dear.' So saying, Sir Cordon shuffled over to the video-screen console 


and set it for play-back. The screen pulsed into rapid motion as he sped back retrospectively 
through 
the interview to the point where the clones had gone into their huddle. 'Now,' he said. 'Watch this!' and 
adjusted 
the controls for normal viewing.

 They gazed spell-bound as the 3-dimensional fantasies once more blossomed forth within the womb of 
the screen. When the performance was over the Professor turned to her chief, her eyes frantic with a wild 
surmise. 'But that must mean it actually happened!'she shuddered.

 Sir Cordon permitted himself a discreet eyebrow shrug. 
'Well, did it, or didn't it?' she pursued desperately. 
'I confess that it does seem rather unlikely that the cameracould 
have recorded a purelysubjective 


hallucination,' he murmured 
apologetically. 
'You mean you believe that I-Iactually became those monsters?' 
'Well, Miriam, since you press me, I must say that from where I'm standing it does begin to look rather 


like it.' Sir Cordon chuckled reminiscently. 'Typical schoolboy wiggery, really. I'm surprised the young 


scamps didn't attempt something androgynous. 
How are they now, by the way?' 
'Still out when I left,' observed Professor Pointer with an unmistakable 
undertone of grim satisfaction. 'I 
must have given them more A-I2 than I'd intended. I admit I was in a bit of a wax.'

 'Perfectly understandable,' nodded her chief. 'In your place I daresay I'd have been simply livid.' 
'But what are we going to do, Cordon?' 
Sir Cordon stroked his moustache ruminatively. 'Well, obviously 
we've got to keep 'em apart for the 


time being. Leastways 
until we discover exactly what it is you've cooked up there. I confess this strikes 
me as being one of those cases where the whole is likely to prove a great deal more puissant than just the 
sum of its parts. All things considered, perhaps it's just as well you settled for quads, eh?' 


 Professor Pointer shivered. 'You know, Cordon,' she said, 'for the first time in my life I think I know 
what Rutherford must have felt like when he discovered he'd split the atom.'

 Professor Pointer shivered. 'You know, Cordon,' she said, 'for the first time in my life I think I know 
what Rutherford must have felt like when he discovered he'd split the atom.'

 Two hours later the four clones opened their eyes to discover that they had no idea who they were, 
where they were, or what they were doing there. Apparently their memory proteins had all been 
bleached whiter than white. Unstitched by the smudge of even a solitary recollection, the grey and 
glucose cells stretched far away.

 Professor Pointer had all along made the understandable but unfortunate error of assuming that their 
mnemonic circuitry 
operated in the normal way only more so. By the time she realized that theirs was 
different not in degree but in kind, the damage had been done. Four hastily arranged 
electroencephalograms 
appeared to confirm her worst fears. Azaguanine-
i2 had done its work only too 
well. As individuals Alvin, Bruce, Colin and Desmond had been utterly and absolutely erased. In their 
places were four pod-faced, adolescent anonymities.


 'Not to worry,' said Sir Cordon blandly when, distraught and aghast she videophone the news to him. 
'It'll give us time to recoup. I'll toddle off and draft an official regret note to the foster Po’s and get the 
Minister to sign it. In the meantime we'd better board them out through "Personnel". Theyare still compos 
mentis, Itake it?'

 'Oh, yes. It's simply that they don't rememberanything!'

 'Just as well in the circumstances, eh?'

 'But I feel such alemon, Cordon.'

 'Fret not, Miriam. The raw material's still there in the vaults, remember.'

 'Yes, I suppose so.'

 'And I'll see you get due credit in the next Hones. List.'

 'You know it isn'tthat. . . .'

 'Well, something anyway. just you leave it to me.'

 'You area brick, Cordon.'

 The 'something' which the prudent Sir Cordon settled for in the end was, in fact, an album of selected 
stereograph stills from the original video-recording. This he duly presented to Professor Pointer at a 
tete-a-tete dinner in his Regent's Park penthouse some six weeks later. It was to become one of her 
most dearly treasured possessions.

 By that time Alvin and his brothers, ignorant as the dawn, purged, refined and psychologically 
reconstituted, were already industriously acquiring new identities for themselves in various odd nooks and 
corners of a grossly overpopulated globe. 


SIX

SIX

 Norbert and Alvin, ignorant of the hold-up, assumed that the shuttle which whined into Aylesbury at 
I502 hours was the I500 from Birmingham running, remarkably, only two minutes later. They were 
informed of the true situation by an irate passenger. 
Fixing Norbert with an ill-tempered eye as the 
chimp clambered into the compartment behind Alvin, he added gratuitously that it was high time he and 
his bloody hairy mates got their bloody plastic thumbs out and started doing an honest bloody day's work 
for their bloody living.

 Curiously enough this was Alvin's first personal experience of anti-anthropoids though he had often 
overheard the apes at Aldbury discussing it among themselves. Turning, he remarked 
that he was sure 
the gentleman would wish to know that Norbert had the reputation of being the hardest and most 
conscientious worker on the whole Aldbury Station.

 The man's thick lip wrinkled in a sneer. 'You his boy friend or something, darling?'

 'Of course I am,' said Alvin. 'Norbert and Doctor Pfizier are my two best friends in the whole world I'

 'Another bloody monkey-lover! No wonder the country's on its bloody knees! You ginks are a bloody 
disgrace to the human race!'

 Alvin was puzzled by this exchange and would gladly have prolonged the discussion had not Norbert 
drawn him forcibly away up the compartment and installed him in a scat well out of casual conversation 
range. Having placed their luggage and his hat on the overhead rack, the chimp sat down and showed 
Alvin how to secure his lap belt. Then he extracted a well-
thumbed copy of Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying 
from his pocket and settled down to read.

 Alvin looked about him with interest. The seats, which were rather similar in design to those of a 2oth 
Century jet air liner, were grouped in fours round small tables. Those opposite to his and Norbert's were 
occupied by two elderly ladies, one of whom now leant across and stage-whispered to Alvin: 'I think it 
was most commendable of you to speak up for your friend like that.'

 Alvin blushed. 'Oh well,' he said, 'that gentleman wasn't being 
at all fair. After all, Norbert's our branch 
leader of the A.T.S.W.'

 'Is he indeed? Did you hear that, Peggy?' 


 Norbert turned over a page and frowned.

 Norbert turned over a page and frowned.

Croydon. Do you know Croydon?'

 'Oh yes. We live in Wimbledon. It's very close. By the way, my name's Margaret.'

 'Mine's Alvin.'

 'Well, Alvin, and what are you and Norbert going to do in Croydon?'

 'We're going to see Professor Pointer about my libido.'

 A buzzer sounded in the compartment and, a moment later, the landscape had begun to drift humorously 
away past the port-hole. The woman named Peggy produced a round metal dish which she placed on the 
table before her. 'I think we still have time for another game, Margaret. I wonder if Alvin and his friend 
would care to join us?'

 'Yes, do,' urged Margaret. 'It's so much more fun with more than two players.' 
'All right,' said Alvin. 'How do you play?' 
Peggy materialized five coloured dice from somewhere about her person, set the inner surface of the little 


dish revolving with a touch of her finger and dropped the dice on to it one by one. They skipped and 
hopped and finally came to rest. 'Twenty-
one and two doubles,' she announced. 'I'll just try the odd one 
for a full house.'

 She removed four of the dice from the dish on the table, set the inner surface revolving again and 
dropped in the remaining cube. When it came to rest she clicked her tongue in annoyance. 'Not very 
good,' she said. 'Your turn, Margaret.'

 Her companion collected up the dice and repeated the procedure, 
'Oh dear, oh dear,' she sighed. 'Only 
eighteen and a miserable pair. I'm sure Alvin will beat that easily.'

 Alvin did. He scored twenty-four and a triple five.

 'Bravo!' applauded Margaret. 'And now Norbert.'

 Norbert looked up from his book, blinked thoughtfully, and asked to be excused. The two ladies tried 
hard to persuade him but he remained politely adamant.

 'Well, that's one to Alvin, then,' said Peggy and from her purse she extracted a £Io piece which she 
passed across to the clone. Margaret did likewise. Alvin protested but they both laughed and assured 
him they would soon win it back.

 Alvin won the next game too. And the next. 'Oh, you're a lucky one and no mistake,' chuckled 
Margaret. 'No wonder Norbert 
wouldn't play with you.'

 Norbert smiled a trifle grimly and said nothing. 


 But as the shuttle approached the outskirts of the city Alvin's 
luck began to change. His scores were still 
high but somehow 
theirs were just a little bit higher. Then he won again. At that point, on Peggy's 
suggestion, the stakes were raised to £2o a throw. Norbert cleared his throat and tried to catch Alvin's 
eye, but without success.

 But as the shuttle approached the outskirts of the city Alvin's 
luck began to change. His scores were still 
high but somehow 
theirs were just a little bit higher. Then he won again. At that point, on Peggy's 
suggestion, the stakes were raised to £2o a throw. Norbert cleared his throat and tried to catch Alvin's 
eye, but without success.

 The last Alvin saw of Margaret and Peggy they appeared to be heading towards the Terminal buffet 
accompanied, strangely enough, by the very man who had been so rude about Norbert. He pointed out 
this curious coincidence to the chimp who merely shrugged glumly and told Alvin he had been taken for a 
ride. 'That game was fixed,' he said. 'Some sort of magnetic trick, I suppose. I tried to warn you.'

 Alvin was deeply shocked. 'You mean those two nice old ladies were cheating me? I don't believe it!

 'Suit yourself, son,' said Norbert, 'but if I hadn't dropped that grip when I did it's a safe bet you'd have 
been cleaned right out by now. How much did they milk you for?'

 'Two hundred pounds,' said Alvin sadly. 'Are you saying thatyou dropped my bag on the table on 
purpose?'

 Norbert chuckled. 'Pity I didn't think of doing it a bit sooner, wasn't it? Still, maybe it'll have taught you a 
lesson. Come on now, let's go and find out about that Croydon connection. And for Pete's sake, Alvin, 
keep your purse zipped into your inside pocket.'

 They discovered that the electronic connection indicator was out of action, so Norbert sought out a 
fellow anthropoid on the Expressway staff and put the question to him. The uniformed chimp regarded 
Alvin curiously. 'Who's the pinkie?' he asked Norbert. 'Friend of yours?'

 'He's a good lad,' said Norbert.

 'Pleased to meet you, sir,' said Alvin and held out his hand.

 The chimp rolled his eyes. 'Hey, dye want tiger me the sack!' he hissed, and turning back to Norbert 
said: 'Just what kind of a goon is this?'

 'He's a bit simple,' said Norbert, 'but one of the best. He doesn't mean any harm.'

 'Glad to hear it,' said the other doubtfully. 'Well, what can I do for you, friend?'

 Norbert explained again that they were anxious to get to Croydon and were wondering whether they 
should take a cab.

 'You'll be lucky,' grunted the chimp. 'Don't you know there's a strike on?'

 'No,' said Norbert. 


 Well, there is. So I reckon your best bet would be to take the flow-way to Baker Street~ hoof it up to 
Oxford Street, then round Hyde Park and try for a Suburban from the Kensington Terminus. Hang on a 
minute. Hey, Charlie, how's the South Suburban?'

 Well, there is. So I reckon your best bet would be to take the flow-way to Baker Street~ hoof it up to 
Oxford Street, then round Hyde Park and try for a Suburban from the Kensington Terminus. Hang on a 
minute. Hey, Charlie, how's the South Suburban?'

 'These two yokels want to get to Croydon.'

 Charlie pushed back his cap and scratched his head. 'Flowway 
to Baker Street then dahn t'the Dilly.'

 'Not Kensington?'

 'Dilly's safer, Moose. They're knockin' em off in daylight now rahnd the Park. Up to you, of course. Me, 
I'd have the Dilly.'

 'Thanks,' said Norbert. 'Come on, Alvin.'

 'Good luck,' grinned Moose. 'Rather you than me.'

 They headed towards the main cloaca. 'Now you stick close to me, son,' instructed Norbert. 'If we get 
separated down here, you get off at Baker Street and wait for me there. Have you got that?'

 Alvin nodded. 'Baker Street', he repeated dutifully.

 Norbert tugged his hat down over one eye, humped his shoulders 
and barged a way into the dense 
crowd which was struggling for standing room on the articulated roadway. Alvin clutched his grip and 
plunged after him. Within seconds they were being sucked down into one of the huge tiled tunnels, two 
fragments of a solid tide of human and anthropoid bodies which was being swept inexorably towards the 
heart of the city.

 There was no problem about keeping their balance. The passengers 
were crammed so tightly together it 
would have been physically impossible to fall over. Electronic music, interspersed with raucous 
commercials, twanged and hummed through the fetid air. Somewhere ahead a woman began to shriek 
hysterically, 
but none of the passengers surrounding Alvin appeared in the least perturbed. Their eyes 
had the filmy, glazed look he had seen before only in the dead fish he sometimes found floating 
belly-upwards in Lake Tring.

 Eventually a vast illuminated sign loomed up to inform them that they were approaching Baker Street. 
Norbert grabbed Alvin and began squirming his way towards the edge of the flow-way. He need not 
have bothered. A minute later the whole crowd surged off the track sweeping them up to the turnstiles 
whether they wanted to go there or not. Norbert thrust the plastic tags of their travel warrants into the 
scanner and then they were through.

 Alvin drew what seemed to be his first breath for an hour. 'Is it always like that in the city, Norbert?' he 
enquired with a shudder.

 'The Terminal links are the worst,' said Norbert, 'specially now there's a cab strike on. I daresay you'd 
get used to it in time.'

 'But I've neverseen so many people. Mere do they all come from?' 


 'Well, there's over50 million in Inner London for a start,' said Norbert restoring the travel warrants to his 
wallet and placing the wallet in an inside compartment of his brief case. 'And another50 
million come in 
from the suburbs every day.'

 'Well, there's over50 million in Inner London for a start,' said Norbert restoring the travel warrants to his 
wallet and placing the wallet in an inside compartment of his brief case. 'And another50 
million come in 
from the suburbs every day.'

 Norbert shrugged. 'Land's too precious, son, that's why. The other reason is they couldn't. Haven't you 
ever wondered why we never see more than a couple of hundred up at the lakes?'

 'No,' said Alvin who hadn't.

 Well, people are conditioned to like what they've got. They have to be.'

 'Conditioned to like this?' said Alvin, gazing around him at the seething multitude. 'How can they be?'

 'Maybe not this particularly,' said Norbert, 'but to living in the supercities. How else could you fit 350 
millions into an island 
the size of ours?' He zipped up his case, locked it, and motioned 
with his head 
towards one of the street exits. 'Come on,' he grinned, let's go and find ourselves something to cat.'

 They stepped out into the canyon that was Baker Street. Although 
it was still the middle of the 
afternoon the street lighting 
was already full on. Only on the very brightest of days could sufficient 
sunlight penetrate the stratospheric haze and filter down through the cab grid lattice which festooned the 
towering residential blocks to illuminate the roadway far below.

 The first three eating houses they tried all displayed 'N,A.' (No Anthropoids) or 'H.O.' (Humans Only) 
notices in their windows, but the fourth proclaimed itself an open house and they went in.

 It was one of a chain of middle-grade, self-service eateries called 'Horn ofPlenty'. They were to be 
found in all the Supercities 
under their motif of a buxom Ceres ladling an inexhaustible 
supply of 
appetizing goodies out of a giant shell. Within, above a battery of chromium lockers, mouth-watering, 
coloured stereoscopic images invited the hungry multitude to slot in their £10 pieces and help themselves 
to health. Alvin selected roast chicken with mushrooms and French fries. Norbert opted for 'Vegetarian's 
Delite'. Both turned out to be processed protein staple, artificially flavoured and coloured, and shaped to 
bear some crude resemblance to their remote ancestors.

 The two travellers carried their purchases across to a vacant table and sat down. No sooner had they 
done so than faint, convivial 
sounds of eating and drinking seemed to enwrap them like mist. the tinkle of 
glassware and cutlery; anticipatory rustling of paper napkins; the crack of crisp breadsticks being broken; 
little 'oohs', 'ahs', and 'ums' of gustatory pleasure; and all interspersed with tiny, genteel, but unmistakable, 
sighs and burps of the well-fed.

 Since all the food was in fact served in compartmented plastic 
trays and the only implements supplied 
were a solitary plastic 
spoon apiece, the management had elected to reinforce thebon-viveur illusion 
by triggering sonics to the seats and releasing minute amounts of selected pheromones through the 
ventilators.


 Alvin was so intrigued that he stood up again only to discover that by so doing he had initiated a further 
automatic process whereby his half of the table-top began sliding into the wall carrying his tray with it. He 


sat down again just in time to retrieve 
it and to appreciate the force of the warning printed round the rim 
of his tray:'Customers are respectfully requested not to vacate their seats during the course of their 
meal.'

sat down again just in time to retrieve 
it and to appreciate the force of the warning printed round the rim 
of his tray:'Customers are respectfully requested not to vacate their seats during the course of their 
meal.'

 'All right,' agreed Alvin. 'Whatever you say.' 
Norbert inserted the tip of a prosthetic thumb into his mouth and delicately dislodged a morsel of 


synthetic beetroot from his palate. 'Doctor Pfizier told you why we're taking you to the M.0.P., did he?' 
'Because of my libido,' said Alvin. 'Do you know what that is?' 
'Mating urge,' grunted Norbert. 
'Oh. Is that bad?' 
'We-I-I,' said the chimp judiciously, 'I suppose itmight be. If you let it.' 
'Have you had it, Norbert?' 
Norbert chuckled. 'All that's way behind me now, lad. I leave it to the youngsters. More important things 


to worry about. Mind you, I don't say there weren't times . . .' and he slipped into one of those thoughtful 


silences that were so familiar to Alvin. 
'Doctor Somervell seemed to think I had immature sexual fantasies,' remarked Alvin, sucking the 
pseudo-flesh off a plastic wishbone and laying it back tidily on his tray. 'That was after I told her about 
the girl I saw yesterday. Before she made me take advantage of her.'

 Norbert surfaced abruptly from his reverie.'Who didwhat, lad?' 
Alvin blinked. 'Doctor Somervell did. I'm sure she meant it kindly though.' 
'What happened?' 
'I'm not really sure,' confessed Alvin. 'I couldn't see very well.' 
'She turned the light out?' 
'Oh no,' said Alvin. 'It all sort of happened under her clothes.' 
'But you must have donesomething, lad?' 
'No, I didn't, Norbert. She did it all. Honestly.' 
'But you must-well, it doesn't really matter. How did Doctor 
Pfizier get to hear of it?' 
'Oh he came in when she was sitting on top of me.' 



 Norbert who was not a powerful visualizer in the normal way found the demands of this particular scene 
almost overwhelming. 
'Holy gorilla!' he murmured, which was the strongest 
epithet he ever allowed 
himself.

 Norbert who was not a powerful visualizer in the normal way found the demands of this particular scene 
almost overwhelming. 
'Holy gorilla!' he murmured, which was the strongest 
epithet he ever allowed 
himself.

 'I daresay she'll be prepared to take your word for it,' said the chimp. 'Now if you've finished we'd 
better be on our way.'

 They descended once more into the street and found the sidewalk thronged with curious bystanders all 
gaping at some sort of parade which was passing down Baker Street towards Marble Arch. Since 
neither Alvin nor Norbert was particularly tall, all they could discern of the procession were the wobbling 
placards carried by the marchers. These seemed to embrace such a wide spectrum of concern from the 
ultra-violet of FREEDOM OF CHOICE!' to the infra-red of 'VOTES FOR APES!' that Norbert was 
moved to enquire of a spectator what the demonstration 
was about. 'Hampstead and Highgate 
Protestors Rally,' he was told.

 When five minutes had passed and still the procession showed no signs of coming to an end, Norbert 
had a sudden inspiration. Pulling Alvin with him by the arm, he squeezed his way through to the front of 
the crowd. Seizing the first opportune gap in the ranks he stepped boldly into the parade immediately 
behind a tall, thin, balding man of indeterminate age who was holding aloft a placard which read: 
'CREWYS ROAD ANTI-VASECTOMY LEAGUE'. His companion, as tall and gangling as he was, 
though differentiated by a sparse beard, carried a similar sign inscribed: 4 SAVE OUR SPERMS!' 
Norbert lifted his hat solemnly to them both and earned himself a friendly smile of welcome.

 'First class turn out, isn't it?' observed the beardless standard bearer. 'You with the V. F.A. crowd?'

 Norbert nodded and winked at Alvin.

 'I believe they're up ahead somewhere,' said the beard. 'I daresay you might get through to them if you 
tried.'

 Norbert shook his head to signify that he was quite happy where he was, whereupon the beardless one 
glanced back over his ranks and cried: 'Right! All together now! One, two, three!Balls! Balls! We need 
balls . . . Balls! Balls! We need balls . . . Balls! Balls! We need balls!. . .'

 Alvin and Norbert found themselves chanting with the rest, their heels drumming a heart-warming rhythm 
from the composurfaced 
roadway. Like errant snowflakes a few shreds of torn-up paper fluttered down 
from the canyon walls far above their heads, metamorphosing into brilliant multi-coloured butterflies as 
they slid and paused and twirled above the rainbow neon signs which advertised the dream Arcades of 
Portman Square.'Balls!' howled Alvin, his innocent blue eyes glittering with the happy excitement of his 
new-found solidarity, and'Balls!' thundered 
Norbert doffing his hat left and right to all and sundry,'Ballst 
Balls~ We need ballsl'

 They swung round the corner into Oxford Street and saw ahead of them the narrow crack that was the 
sky broadening out and deepening into something almost approaching blue over the fringes of Hyde 
Park. Four hundred yards ahead the banners of the procession leaders scooped up the exhausted 
sunbeams and batted them like shuttlecocks from one to another 
as they snaked around Marble Arch 
and into the Park. From the sidewalks the massed onlookers cheered derisively or just stared 


apathetically, while the white helmets of Security Guards bobbed like ping-pong balls as they cantered up 
and down the line on their electric prancers, their white stun probes couched like lances and their red and 
white gas pistols bouncing 
against their hips.

apathetically, while the white helmets of Security Guards bobbed like ping-pong balls as they cantered up 
and down the line on their electric prancers, their white stun probes couched like lances and their red and 
white gas pistols bouncing 
against their hips.

 'All right,' said Alvin concealing his disappointment as best he could. 'It's been fun, hasn't it?'

 'We'll have a chorus or two of S.O.S.' called the man with the beard.'Give it plenty of soul and take the 
time from me. Ready? One, two, three!' And with that he launched them dolefully 
into'Save our 
Sperms' to the ancient tune ofThree Blind Mice.

 'Save our sperms,

 Save our sperms,

 They may be germs,

 They may be germs,

 They're all a man's got to give to his wifel

 But why shouldn't they have a right to life?

 So save our forks from the government knife

 And save our sperms!'

 They sang it through three times and by the time they reached the final chorus they had also reached 
Marble Arch. At that very moment a scarlet flare trailing a cloud of dense pink smoke sailed up over the 
trees by Speakers' Corner. 'Oh dear, this looks like trouble,' muttered the tall beardless man as a posse 
of Security 
Guards galloped past on their prancers, stun probes at the ready. Up ahead Alvin could see 
banners waving wildly under the trees. There was a lot of distant shouting and screaming.

 'Come on, son,' said Norbert grimly, 'this is where we drop out.'

 But it was already too late. Borne forward by the press of marchers behind them and hemmed into the 
roadway by the rapidly swelling crowds of spectators they found themselves swirled forward like so 
much unwilling flotsam into the vortex of a pitched battle. It was impossible for Alvin and Norbert to tell 
who was fighting whom, but judging by the way in which banners were being wielded as weapons on 
both sides, two opposing 
armies of protest seemed to have converged head on.

 Not the least extraordinary aspect of the scene was the sudden 
appearance of the articulated So-Vi 
camera cranes. They stooped over the struggling mass like long-beaked water waders, pecking here and 
there as fancy dictated. Alvin gazed in astonishment 
as one of them soared high into the air, appeared to 
hover for a moment, then swooped down just as a solid placard bearing 
the one word 'LovE' 


descended like a mediaeval battle-axe to cleave the bald pate of an elderly gentleman who, at the 
moment 
of impact looked utterly astonished.

descended like a mediaeval battle-axe to cleave the bald pate of an elderly gentleman who, at the 
moment 
of impact looked utterly astonished.

 Not that many of them seemed to want to, for those that did were treated to a whiff of agro-I4 from a 
red gas pistol as soon as they approached the perimeter of the arena. This had the instantaneous effect of 
sending them rampaging back into the fray like the war horse who smelt the battle from afar and cried 
Hai Hai among the trumpets. It no longer mattered who was friend and who was foe; to bash, beat, club, 
strangle and claw was all that counted now.

 In a quite remarkably short space of time there was no one left standing. Men and women, young and 
old, were heaped dead, dying, maimed, or simply unconscious under the indifferent 
trees. In place of the 
wild berserker shouts of rage there were now only moans and whispers and the occasional bubbling 
gasp. The probosces of the cameras probed fastidiously here and there seeking their last arty morsels-a 
child's gouged-out eye or a fingerless hand-before zooming out and up to diminish the perspective from 
high above.

 A whistle was blown, the masked Guards brought their lances up, spun on their booted heels, and 
lowered their weapons among the hushed spectators. There was an immediate backward 
shuffle to get 
out of range. Another whistle blast and the Guards moved slowly forward, driving back the perimeter of 
the battlefield further and even further until at last the crowd was dispersed.

 EIGHT

 In the three years which had elapsed since her traumatic experience 
with Alvin and his brothers, 
Professor Poynter had suffered from what can best be described as periodic formication of the 
conscience. She had gradually become convinced that she had acted in blind panic, engendered in her by 
a primitive sense of sexual outrage, at discovering herself to be standing, stark naked, in a technicians' 
washroom surrounded by half a dozen utterly astounded chimpanzees. To get there she had seemingly 
been instantaneously defabricated, reconstituted, and passed through a nine inch wall of 
carbon-reinforced siliconized concrete, travelling 
in all a distance of some eight metres linear in a 
southeasterly 
direction. But instead of embracing the experience as a heaven-sent confirmation of her 
sixteen years' faith in the value of her experiment her reaction had been to seize upon the first available 
cannister of azaguanine-I2 and blindly blot out the perpetrators of the miracle. Admittedly the effects of 
her action had been infinitely more drastic than she had intended, but in her heart of hearts she knew, only 
too well, that even if that cannister had happened to contain triapsincyanide she would have used it just 
the same. This shameful realization was what she had been wearing next to her soul like a 
coconut-matting liberty bodice for 39 long months-the bitter knowledge that, at the moment of supreme 
crisis, her nerve had failed her, and she had behaved just like an ordinary woman. 


 Now at last a single glow-worm of hope seemed to have wrig


 Now at last a single glow-worm of hope seemed to have wrig


 The jingling carousel-which was what Professor Poynter's mind seemed to have become in the last eight 
hours-churned round and round in its restless circuit. Twice already she had videophoned Aldbury 
hoping to discover precisely when she could expect the clone to arrive, only to be told that, as far as they 
knew, he was safely on his way in the care of a trusted anthropoid 
named Norbert. She had hung about 
at the M.0.P. until .2o.oo hours going over Alvin's electroencephalogram again and again until she felt as 
if each individual squiggle on the chart had been scratched directly on to the surface of her own cortex. 
Finally, after leaving the strictest possible instructions that she was to be videophoned the instant the 
clone arrived, she had summoned a ministerial buggy and been driven to her home in Richmond where 
Hortense, her beautiful. 3o-year-old Eurasian wife, was awaiting her.

 The Professor found her curled up on the hydro-couch watching 
So-Vi. She was sipping at a tall tulip 
glass on vintage eroticon 
and smelt, deliciously, of almonds. 'You look bushed, my sweet,' she 
murmured. 'Come and sit down here and I'll fix you one of these.' She uncoiled her long legs, stood up, 
and willowed her way across the room to the cocktail cabinet.

 Professor Poynter subsided thankfully into the couch and let out her breath in a weary sigh. 'You'll never 
guess what's turned up, petal.'

 'Then tell me,' said Hortense sensibly.

 'One of my four clones might-just might, mind you-have begun to regeneratel'

 'But that's marvellousl'

 'Isn't it? I can hardly dare to believe it. I'm not breathing a word to a soul yet, of course.'

 'When will you know for sure?' asked Hortense, replacing the stopper in the crystal decanter and lifting 
the filled goblet delicately by its slender stem.

 'Tonight, I hope.'

 'Tonight! Explique-moi, che'ricl'

 'They're 'phoning me from the lab the minute he arrives. I'll go over and collect him.'

 "'Collect him"? You mean you're going to bring him backhere?'

 'Yes, of course, it's the obvious thing to do. I can run the tests just as well here-far better, in fact. 


Furthermore I suspect a sympathetic environment may prove absolutely critical. You don't mind, do 
you?'

Furthermore I suspect a sympathetic environment may prove absolutely critical. You don't mind, do 
you?'

 'Bless you,' murmured the Professor, accepting the proffered glass and smiling up into the dark eyes 
above her. 'And what have you been doing with yourself?'

 Hortense shrugged. 'Nothing very exciting. Watching that.Your Day, isn't it? Shall I switch it off?'

 Professor Poynter's eyes actively registered the video-screen for the first time. Viewed from high above, 
two spiky millipedes of protestors were advancing steadily upon each other-the 'Hampstead and 
Highgaters' along Oxford Street and the 'Bermondsey 
and Batterseas' along Park Lane.

 Hortense moved across to the set and was about to switch it off when Professor Poynter said: 'No, 
leave it a moment, pet.

 Douglas Crowe was telling me about this the other day. It's somethingMinisoc have dreamt up-I think he 
called it a field trial for manipulated aggression.'

 'And what's that when it's been processed?' asked Hortense.

 'Crowe and his friends have been culturing anti-socials in each district for the past year. Now they're 
ready to see if the dissidents 
can't be induced to eliminate each other by artificial overstimulation 
of the 
adrenal system. It's an interesting theory.'

 Hortense pulled a face and moved back to join her husband on the couch. 'It looks as if it's working, 
doesn't it?' she observed. 
'Ugh I How beastlyl'

 'Fascinating,' breathed the Professor. 'It really does look as if they might have a winner this time. My 
goodnessI Did you see that?'

 'Oh,really!' protested Hortense. 'Must we?'

 'But this is tremendously significant, my pet. Manipulated aggression on a really worth-while socially 
therapeutic scale.'

 'It'shorrible,' muttered Hortense making a feeble attempt to look the other way and finding that her eyes 
were drawn back to the carnage in spite of herself. 'They've all gone mad! Ooh, look at thatl'

 As the camera zoomed in to proffer their succulent titbits of stereoscopic anguish to millions of enthralled 
viewers throughout 
the Western network, Hortense finally succeeded in closing her eyes.

 They were still shut tight when she heard a gasp of astonishment 
and felt her husband's fingers tighten 
suddenly round her wrist. 'No, itcan't be!' exclaimed Professor Poynter.

 Hortense opened her eyes and quickly shut them again. 'Oh, do switch it off !' she wailed. 'It's making 
me feel ill.' 


 Rather to her surprise the Professor got up from the couch and did as she was asked, but then, instead 
of resuming her scat and indulging Hortense with the consolatory caresses she was expecting, she 
disappeared into the study to emerge, a minute later, bearing the album that Sir Cordon Loveridge had 
presented 
to her back in '69.

 Rather to her surprise the Professor got up from the couch and did as she was asked, but then, instead 
of resuming her scat and indulging Hortense with the consolatory caresses she was expecting, she 
disappeared into the study to emerge, a minute later, bearing the album that Sir Cordon Loveridge had 
presented 
to her back in '69.

 'Just look at this,' said the Professor stabbing her forefinger at the bland features of one of the four 
clones (it was Bruce, actually, but there was no way of telling them apart except by their clothes) 'and 
now take a look at this.' She stepped across to the So-Vi, pushed the playback button, held it for a 
second or two, then thumbed the viewer. After flicking back and forth for a few moments she grunted 
triumphantly: 'There! That's the one!'

 The picture that had materialized within the screen was a 3~dimensional close-up of a moon-faced 
youth, with remarkably protuberant cars, in the process of being slowly throttled by an obviously enraged 
ape. Allowing for the differences of facial expression, i.e. slight surprise in the album and utter 

astonishment 
on the screen, the similarity between the two sets of features 
was certainly extraordinary.

 'Could it be him?' asked Hortense curiously.

 'Well, if it isn't him, it's certainlyone of them,' said the Professor. 
'What's more it would explain why he 

hasn't turned up.'

 'But what was he doing there?'

 'There are some things, my pet, which even I can hardly be expected to answer-yet,' said the Professor, 

clicking off the picture and striding purposefully towards the door of the apartment.


 'Where are you off to now?' wailed Hortense.

 'To try to locate him, of course.'

 'But he'll bedead!'

 'We don'tknow that, do we? And even if he is, he'll still besome use to me.'

 'Oh really, Miriam, this isabsurd! At least have some dinner first.'

 But Professor Poynter was already on her way.

 NINE

 Alvin was not dead as it happened, only very, very unconscious. His recovery of his senses was a 


weirdly unreal process in which, like some huge, indolent fish he seemed to rise slowly to the surface, 
gulp, and then sink as slowly back again into the cloudy depths. This was repeated at least a dozen times 
with the intervals 
between the gulps growing shorter and shorter until, finally, with one heart-rending 
groan he opened his reluctant eyes.

weirdly unreal process in which, like some huge, indolent fish he seemed to rise slowly to the surface, 
gulp, and then sink as slowly back again into the cloudy depths. This was repeated at least a dozen times 
with the intervals 
between the gulps growing shorter and shorter until, finally, with one heart-rending 
groan he opened his reluctant eyes.

 From the shambles around him his appeal evoked a few feeble groans. These continued for a few 
moments then died dispiritedly away.

 Alvin somehow succeeded in dislodging the Quaker's right thigh from its resting place on his own right 
shoulder and struggled 
up into a sitting position. His throat was extremely painful and he found 
considerable difficulty in swallowing. For hundreds 
of yards in all directions about him the gentle evening 
shadows were congealing around untidy heaps of bodies from which the splintered shafts of placard 
handles projected haphazardly 
like ill-directedbanderillas. As he surveyed the dismal scene, uselessly 
but quite understandably, Alvin began to weep. Through the shifting lens of his tears the scattered 
corpses gained, for a little while, an illusory animation.

 Staggering to his feet he began to pull despairingly at odd arms and legs, as though by doing so he might 
galvanize them back into more than just a semblance of life. So it was that, by sheer chance, he stumbled 
upon a leg that seemed to respond to his tugging.

 Apologizing to the dead for his intrusion, he began frenziedly dragging aside the corpses that were 
covering the body to which the limb was attached and succeeded at last in lugging it clear. How can one 
hope to convey his delirious delight when he discovered 
that the object of his efforts was none other 
than Norbert? 
Minging himself upon his friend he began at once to administer the kiss-of-life, a 
technique in which-despite Doctor Somervell's contention-he had long ago acquired a considerable 
degree of expertise.

 After five minutes of dizzying effort the chest of the chimp began a fluttering rise and fall, whereupon 
Alvin, seizing him by the shoulders of his jacket, dragged him backwards across the trampled grass, 
propped him up against the bole of a tree and ran as fast as he could to seek further assistance.

 He had covered no more than a couple of hundred yards when he found his headlong flight was blocked 
by a high black wall. This was a pre-fabricated palisade which the authorities had erected round the 
battlefield while Alvin was still lying insensible. 
It was now stretched to left and right in an unbroken line 
enclosing a roughly oval area about a third of a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide.

 Trotting disconsolately round this black perimeter trying to find some way out; Alvin came upon a 
fountain at which hewas able to relieve his aching throat. A short distance beyond the fountain was a 
public videophone booth. This, like the fountain, had got itself included within the scope of the fence.

 With a display of initiative which would certainly have surprised 
his friends at Aldbury Alvin thrust his 
way into the booth and confronted the instrument. While he was wondering who to summon to his aid his 
attention was caught by a glocard riveted 
to the wall: 'DESPERATE? LIFE PROVING TOO MUCH 


FOR YOU?

FOR YOU?

 Convinced that his prayers had been answered Alvin delved into his pocket; discovered a £2 piece, 

thrust it into the metal slot and pressedthe 'o' button four times.

 Thirty seconds later the screen had cleared. He waited impatiently 
for a face to surface from its depths, 
but all that happened 
was that a feminine voice breathed gently from the speaker into his ear: 'You need 

our help?' 'Oh,yes,' cried Alvin fervently.'Please.' 'You've lost your nerve, have you?'

 'Eh?'

 'You found you couldn't go through with it?'

 'What?'

 'You do want our help?'

 'Yes, yes,' cried Alvin.

 'All right. Now where exactly are you?' 'I'm not sure. Marble Arch, I think.'

 'How high?'

 ???

 'How high up are you?' repeated the voice patiently.

 Alvin looked down at his feet in some bewilderment. 'I don't know,' he said. 'About half a metre, I 

suppose.'

 In his car he heard something that sounded improbably like a chuckle. 'Oh dear,' said the voice, 'then it's 
not much use jumping, is it?'

 'Jumping?'

 'It is the simplest usually. I can talk you right out then. I'm very good at that. But don't worry. We'll think 

of something.'

 'You'll come and help?'

 'I can,'said the voice doubtfully. 'But it is rather awkward just now. I'm on emergency, you see.'

 'But this is an emergencyl' cried Alvin. 'We need help right away.'

 "'We"? Aren't you alone, then?'

 'Oh no. There's heaps of us.'

 'And youall want help?' 


 'Well, notall. A lot of them are dead.' 
'I see.You had a pact?' 
'Attacked? I don't know how it happened. Do come.' 
There was a pause, then: 'How many of you are there?' 
'I'm not sure. There must be hundreds.' 
'Hundreds!Are you serious?' 
'They're everywhere,' said Alvin desperately. 'All over the place. It's like-like. . . .' but he didn't know 


what it was like and could only shrug helplessly. 
'All right,' said the voice, 'I'll come. Where are you calling from? If it's a booth there'll be a number.' 
'Yes,'said Alvin. 'Hyde Park X0I 3.' 
'Hang on a moment. , . Yes, I've got it. Why, it's just down below me. I'll need a couple of minutes to 


get my calls transferred 
and then I'll be with you. How many did you say?' 
'Hundreds,' said Alvin. 
'Yes, that's what I thought you said. Well, I'll bring what I can. See you.' 
'Goodbye,' said Alvin. 
He replaced the earphone on its rest and stepped outside. He saw that the sun had died leaving a blood 


red smear low down in the western sky, and that a single star had managed 
to drill its way through the 
overcast. He went back to the fountain, drank some more water, then took off one of his boots, filled it 
from the marble basin and carried it across the littered grass to Norbert.

 Alvin splashed some of the water over the wheezing ape, then prised open his mouth and poured the rest 
inside. Norbert groaned and coughed and opened one bloodshot eye. 
'Are you all right, Norbert?' 
The eye closed again. 
'Norbert? Norbert, wakeup! Please!' 
The other eye opened reluctantly and acknowledged the clone. 'Wasser marrer?' 
'I thought you were dead,' said Alvin. 
The first eye opened again. 'I,' groaned Norbert, then paused as if to regain his balance, 'I am the 
Resurrection and the Life.' 
'No, you're not, Norbert.' 


 'Was it not you who baptized me in the Waters of Righteousness?' 
muttered the chimp.

 'Was it not you who baptized me in the Waters of Righteousness?' 
muttered the chimp.

 Norbert pressed his plastic thumbs tenderly against his temples. 
'Aicce,' he sighed dejectedly. 'My 
head's splitting!'

 The words were hardly uttered when Alvin heard a highpitched 
whistling noise in the air above them. 
Looking up he saw a slender female shape briefly silhouetted against the glow of the west. He jumped 
up, dragged on his soaking boot and galloped back in the direction of the fountain. 'Hi, therel' he shouted. 
'Hil Hil'

 The airborne figure described a graceful aerial arabesque and came to earth on the grass a few yards 
away from him, the jet on her A-G harness expiring with a regretful hiss. As Alvin pounded up she 
palmed back her short brown hair, twitched her tunic straight, then smiled and held out her hand. 'My 
name's Cheryl,'she said. 'I'm your Samaritan.'

 In the very act of reaching out to take the proffered hand Alvin seemed to become transfixed. His mouth 
dropped open and an expression of beatific imbecility spread itself slowly across his face like melted 
butter across a muffin. 'But . but . . . but it's you gulped.

 Cheryl's exquisite head tilted like a quizzical blossom on her slender neck; whereupon the last faint 
tendrils of the twilight touched her eyes and transformed them into gleaming pools of green chalcedony. 
Something in the boy's tone, some note of wonder or worship whose like she had never encountered 
before, 
made her frown and step backwards a pace. 'What do you mean?' she said. 'Of course it's me.'

 'Spirodella polyrhiza,'whispered the moonstruck clone. 'Eyes likespirodella polyrhiza and hair the 
colour of bog peat.' So saying he subsided on his knees before her, garnered up her hand in both of his 
and pressed it reverently to his lips.

 'Holy hemlock!' whistled Cheryl. 'You weren't joking about needing my help, were you?'

 TEN

 At the very instant when Alvin was pressing his adoring lips to Cheryl's slender fingers, Professor 
Poynter finally succeeded in making video contact with Doctor Douglas Crowe of the Ministry 
of 
Sociology. She found him in a state of effervescent elation. 
'Miriaml' he cried. 'How nice to see youl 
Wasn't itsensational?'

 'Most impressive, Douglas. The Minister must be very pleas-'

 'Absolutelydelightedl I've just had him on. We're all going down to the park to take a body-count at 


2I.30. I say, if you're interested, why don't you come along too?'

2I.30. I say, if you're interested, why don't you come along too?'

 'Excellentl'

 'Douglas, I don't suppose you happen to know if there were any survivors?'

 'Bound to be one or two, I suppose-juveniles mostly, no doubt. But I must say that the results so far 
have quite exceeded all our expectations. Agro-I4 really is sensationall There's no other word for it! At 
least fifty percent of them simply uttered a couple of whoops of rage and dropped dead in their tracks. 
Talk about the enemy withiril Incidentally, Rodney seems convinced 
we'll soon be able to cut the 
conditioning period to six months-maybe eventhree! I tell you, augmented adrenal hypertension is in, 
Miriam-right inl'

 'Douglas, I do hope you won't mind my asking this, but are you absolutely positive that all the 
participantshad been conditioned?'


 'Good Lord, yes! We had the registers double checked before 
march off. Anyway, the routes were 
cordoned off the whole time.'

 'But I suppose it is just possible that someone could have slipped through and joined on?'

 'Well, if they did it only goes to prove that agro-I4's even better 
than we thought, doesn't it? But I don't 
really think it's on, Miriam. The urban district group loyalty's far too strong. Take it from me, the only 
ones there were there because theywanted to be there. But what makes you ask?'

 Professor Poynter temporized. 'It was just that I thought I might have glimpsed someone I knew. 
Obviously I was mistaken.'


 Doctor Crowe grinned sardonically. 'Now don't tell me you've taken to consorting with social dissidents, 
Professor. It doesn't really sound like your scene at all.'

 'No, of course not. That's what made me ask about your security 
arrangements.'

 'Believe me, Miriam, no one joins a protest march unless they want to protest.'

 'No, I suppose not.'

 'There's no "suppose" about it. A behavioural pattern's a behavioural 
pattern. You know that.'

 Professor Poynter nodded. 'What time did you say you were going along, Douglas?'

 'We'll be opening up the can at 2I.30. I aim to start the autopsies 
around midnight. Why don't you 
come along here first and let me introduce you to the Minister?'

 'That's very kind of you.'

 'Not at all. There's bound to be several people you know. Lovelick's coming, and jerry Forth and-Hello, 
that looks like a call in on my red band. We'll see you in half an hour then, Miriam. 
Bye-bye for now.' 


 "Bye,' responded Professor Poynter automatically and the screen blanked out.

 "Bye,' responded Professor Poynter automatically and the screen blanked out.

 Along with a hundred others the casual exchanges were even now in the process of being filter screened 
for audible and visual 
evidence of possible social subversion. Telltale needles waggled 
across calibrated 
dials as each syllable of each phrase was weighed and sifted, not simply for its overt verbal content but 
for its give-away emotional undertones, An eye-blink, a cough, a syllabic stress, a significant pause-these 
could add up to an indictment just as damning as any signed and witnessed confession.


 Long before the final farewell was spoken a crimson warning light had started to throb like an inflamed 
carbuncle above the cabinet which was monitoring Professor Poynter's call. At the same time no fewer 
than 57 of the other 99 cabinets were also having luminous hysterics about the seditious diets they were 
being asked to digest. This overwhelming proof of universal guilt was brought within manageable limits by 
a random selector 
which came into action once ever five minutes and chose from among those already 
chosen. A single light changed from red to purple and the other 57 all switched themselves off, thereby 
automatically erasing the evidence of subconscious subversion which had been so ingeniously harnessed 
to trigger their illumination.

 Up to this point no human intelligence had been involved and even Copperfield, the anthropoid Master 
Sergeant who superintended the Censorship Vaults, was scarcely alive to the progress of events. After 
all, each hour of the day and night produced 
on average its quota of forty potential subversives, a total 
of some nine hundred and sixty in every twenty-four hours, or just over three hundred and fifty thousand 
each year in London 
alone.

 It was to winnow this monstrous crop of human frailty that Copperfield, acting entirely on his own 
initiative, had devised a further refinement in the process of selection. It had the simplicity 
which is the 
hall-mark of genius and consisted of choosing 
a secret code word for each hour of the day and 
programming a computer to check the recorded conversations against this particular word. llose that did 
not employ it in that particular hour were summarily erased. If more than five conversations employed it 
then those that used it least were erased. By this simple and ingenious method Master Sergeant 
Copperfield ensured that the full powers of the MOSS security forces could be deployed with maximum 
effect against a minimum 
of suspects.

 On Wednesday September 4th for the sixty minutes between 2o.oo hours and 2i.oo hours the word 
Copperfield's computer was seeking for happened to be'minister'.

 As a result of its analysis, at 23= hours a green alert went out for a security check to be kept on the 
movements of a newly ordained Baptist chaplain ape by the name of Wilberforce who lived in Cheam, 
together with his friend Labricorne, a subdeacon 
in the Southwark diocese; two pious Unitarian sisters 
called Mirabelle and Connie Trugger who had made a point of video-phoning each other at the same 
time every Wednesday evening for the past 37 years; Doctor Douglas Crowe the young white hope of 
Minisoc; and Professor Miriam Poynter, O.B.E., D.Sc., etc. etc., Senior Geneticist at the Ministry of 
Procreation.


 Such were the destinies that shapedon-s end in A.D. 2072.Dominus vobiscuml 


 ELEVEN

 ELEVEN

 While she pondered she fondled his cars abstractedly, much as in an earlier age her forbears might have 
stroked an adoring puppy who is about to be put down, and, as she did so she was vaguely touched to 
see that his eyes had filled with happy tears. Her fingers relinquished his car and strayed in a cobweb of a 
caress across his forehead and down his damp cheek. 'Now more than ever seems it rich to die,' she 
murmured, 'To cease upon the midnight which no pain . . .' while a littlevoice inside her head computed 
busily: 'Weight approx. I25 lb unclothed. 
Age iS plus, so circulation presumably good. Say Hemlock 


f.f. i/ioth gr. admin. oral.' 
She patted Alvin on the head, slipped her knapsack from her shoulders, unzipped it and began 
rummaging inside. From somewhere at the bottom she produced a pale blue phial which she unstoppered 
by a deft finger-twist and from it shook two small capsules into her palm. These she proffered to Alvin. 
He peered down at them with some perplexity and then back to her again. 'Go on,' she urged gently. 
'Take them.'

 'What are they?'

 'They're to make you sleep.'

 'But I don't want to sleep.'

 'Yes, you do.'

 'No, I don't.'

 'You know you do.'

 'No, really.'

 “Yes.’

 'No.’

 'Oh damn!' exclaimed Cheryl gnawing her bewitched lip with ill-concealed vexation. 'What have I done 


wrong this time?'

wrong this time?'

 'These,' said Cheryl, rolling the capsules in her palm, 'will cure sore throats wonderfully, to say nothing of 

headaches, toothaches, heartaches and all the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.'

 'But they'll make me go to sleep. That's what you said. I don't want to go to sleep.'

 Cheryl drew a deep breath. 'Now look here-what is your name?'

 'Alvin,' said Alvin.

 'Now look here, Alvin. I want to help you, really I do. But I can't help you unless you're prepared to 

co-operate. Right? Now you want to die and you've asked me to--2

 'Die! Who said I wanted to die?'

 'Why, you didl'

 'Ididn't! I don't want to die.'

 'Youdon't? Oh no! That really istoo bad!' And in her frustration 
Cheryl stamped her dainty foot quite 

hard on the bruised grass.

 Alvin had a sudden stroke of pure inspiration. 'Not now I've seen you, I don't.'

 'That'sridiculous!'

 'But it's true,' he insisted. 'Ever since I saw you yesterday I've . Well, everything's been somehow . . . I 

don't know. . . .'

 'Do you mean to tell me that-that all this begging for help was just a hoax?'

 'Oh no!'cried Alvin, suddenly remembering why he had summoned her. 'Look over there!'

 Cheryl screwed up her eyes and peered into the gloom. 'Great Morpheusl' she whispered.'Are those 

bodies?'

 'Yes,' said Alvin. 
Cheryl took a pace towards them and then appeared to hesitate. 
'But how did ithappen?' 
'I don't know,' said Alvin. 'When I woke up they were like that. Norbert's the only one who's still alive. 


He's over by that tree.'


 Like a kitten stalking a sparrow Cheryl stole forward. Alvin picked up the knapsack and hurried after 
her. 'We were in a sort of parade,' he panted, 'with banners and everything. Everyone 
was singing and 
shouting. Then we got here and they all seemed to go mad. At least Ithink that's what happened.'

 Cheryl reached the first pile of corpses and stopped to examine 
it with a professional eye. When she 


straightened up Alvin touched her gently on the arm. 'Norbert's over there,' he said. 
She allowed him to lead her into the gloomy sanctuary of the trees. The sheer magnitude of the massacre 

straightened up Alvin touched her gently on the arm. 'Norbert's over there,' he said. 
She allowed him to lead her into the gloomy sanctuary of the trees. The sheer magnitude of the massacre 

sent to lead us out of the Valley of the Shadow.' 
'Oh dear,' said Cheryl, 'I'm afraid there's been some mistake.' 
'You mean you won't help us?' said Alvin incredulously. 
'But you don't understand! I'm a Samaritan. All I'm supposed 
to do is to help people who want to die.' 
The anthropoid and the clone regarded her in wide-eyed disbelief. 
'You are undoubtedly an angel,' said 

Norbert. 'I admit I have never seen one before but I recognized you immediately. You are now testing us 
before you succour us in the hour of our need. My lifelong faith in your existence has at last been 
rewarded.'


 Cheryl hardly knew whether to laugh or cry. The only sensible 
course would be to jet off and leave 
them, but somehow she just couldn't bring herself to do it. It was as though she could feel all the 
incommensurable weight of that host of silent cadavers pressing down upon her. In the midst of such a 
superabundance 
of death, she, Death's official handmaiden, found herself faltering. 'But what do you 
expect me to do?' she wailed.

 'Help us to get out of here,' said Alvin. 'Please.' 
'But what's stopping you?' 
'The fence is,' said Alvin. 'It's too high to climb over.' 
'Isn't there a gate?' 
'I've been all the way round. There's no way out at all.' 
'Then how did you get in?' 
'It wasn't there when we came in.' 
'Fear not,' said Norbert. 'She will get us out. Put your trust in the Lord.' 
Cheryl realized that she was still clutching the two capsules she had prescribed for Alvin. She brushed 


them off her palm on to the grass. 'All right,' she said, 'I'll lift you over. But that's all. We're not supposed 
to do it, but it's almost dark now. I don't suppose anyone will see us.' 
She thrust the phial of hemlock back into her knapsack, shrugged it on to her back, then led the way 
purposefully towards 
the fountain. 'Where do you come from?'she asked. 
'Aldbury,' said Alvin. 


 'Where's that?' 
Norbert told her it was to the north-west of London. 
'And what are you doing down here?' 
In the darkness Norbert's honest brow puckered into a gloomy frown. He realized they must have left 


Aldbury to go somewhere. But where? A lungful of agro-I4 had transformed what had once been bright 


with purpose into a cloudy negation. 
What's more his head ached abominably.

 'Well?' prompted Cheryl. 'Are you on holiday?'

 Alvin, who had been waiting for Norbert to supply the required 
information, seized his opportunity. 

'Yes,' he said, 'that's right. We are, aren't we, Norbert?' 
'Uh?' grunted Norbert dubiously. 
'Where are you staying?' 
Alvin's mind seemed to leap into overdrive. 'Near here,' he said. 'Near you.' 
'The Cumberland?' 
'Yes. Yes, that's right.` 
'But the Cumberland's H.O.' 
'Oh, is it? Well, where do you live?' 
'Me? Bristol Street.' 
'Is that H.O. too?' 
'It's not a hotel.' 
'Well, there then,' said Alvin brightly. 'That's where we're staying too, isn't it, Norbert?' 
'Uh?' muttered Norbert. 
'Oh yes?' said Cheryl suspiciously. 'Since when?' 
Alvin scratched his head furiously. Having been vouchsafedhis vision the only thing that mattered now 

was to keep hold of her. Why, oh why hadn't Doctor Pfizier taught him how to lie convincingly? 'Oh 

please let us stay with youl' he cried. 
With me! You must be crazy!' 
'I can cook,' pleaded Alvin wildly, 'and wash up, and clean and chop wood and . . . and take advantage 

of you if you'd like me to. Oh please, please let me, beautiful Cheryl.' 


 Cheryl's laugh rose like a stream of silvery bubbles through the night air. 'Let you WHAT?'

 Cheryl's laugh rose like a stream of silvery bubbles through the night air. 'Let you WHAT?'

 'No. The other thing.'

 'Take advantage,' whispered Alvin and his ears glowed shyly in the darkness like a pair of luminous 
raspberry lollies.

 'Rat's what I thought you said,' giggled Cheryl.

 'Then you'll let me?'

 'Indeed I won't I'll do just what I said I would and thats all. Come on. Who's first?'

 'You go, Norbert,' choked Alvin, turning away to hide his gushing tears.

 'Put your arms round my neck,' Cheryl instructed the chimp, 'and hang on tight. If you let go it's your 
own funeral.'

 Norbert did as he was commanded. There was a moment's pause then Alvin heard a shrill hissing like a 
whistling kettle coming to the boil. Out of the corner of his watering eye he saw them rise, become a 
brief, denser darkness against the sky, and vanish over the top of the palisade. At that moment his sense 
of loss was considerably more poignant than any he had ever known.

 True to her word, a minute later Cheryl was back.. 'Quick!' she said. `There's something going on over 
there.'

 As she spoke they both heard the distant droning of heavy duty electric motors. The inspection convoy 
from the Ministryof Sociology was trundling along Park Lane. Alvin flung his arms about Cheryl's neck 
and for the first time in his life experienced 
the delight of clasping a girl to his breast. Unfortunately his 
ecstasy was short-lived, for with a shriek like a de-racinated mandrake the A-G jets whisked them into 
the air.

 They cleared the top of the palisade by a good twenty metres and had just begun their descent when a 
searchlight sliced across the park and pinned them like some grotesque silver beetle against the 
buttressed outer wall of the stockade. From somewhere in the outer darkness a loud hailer barked a 
command 
to halt. 'Let go, you goop!' hissed Cheryl. 'I'm not having any part of this.'

 But either from fear of breaking his neck or anguish at the thought of losing her, Alvin clung on the 
tighter. The next thing he knew they were both five hundred feet up in the air and the wind was 
pummelling at his ears like a pair of demented 
fists. Far below them the searchlight swept 
disconsolately 
back and forth among the tree tops. Alvin took one look down then squeezed his eyes 
shut and, for extra security, locked his legs tightly around hers. Astonishingly, Cheryl began to laugh. 
'Why didn't you let go, you idiot? Now look at the mess we're in.'

 But Alvin wasn't looking at anything. His nose was buried in the soft, perfumed flesh just below her left 
car. As far as he was concerned, he was nine tenths of the way to Paradise. 'Are you really an angel?' he 
enquired.

 'Oh, shut up.' 


 Experimentally, Alvin poked out the tip of his tongue and, very, very delicately licked the lobe of her car. 
He thought it tasted rather like peanut butter.

 Experimentally, Alvin poked out the tip of his tongue and, very, very delicately licked the lobe of her car. 
He thought it tasted rather like peanut butter.

 Crouched in the clump of laurels where Cheryl had deposited him, Norbert heard the iron voice of 
authority and peeped out fearfully through the leaves just in time to see Alvin shooting up like a 
champagne cork towards the London ceiling. He muttered 
a prayer for their safe landing and wondered 
what would happen next.

 The searchlight flicked across the palisade, probed among the trees, and then seemed to shrink as the 
truck on which it was mounted rolled forward and came to a halt some twenty yards from the fence. Two 
other vehicles purred up alongside, reached out with their articulated claws and lifted away a complete 
section of the prefabricated enclosure which they proceeded to stack on the back of the searchlight 
wagon. As soon as the wall was breached the three vehicles moved to one side and continued 
dismantling while a convoy of some twenty assorted trucks drove through the gap into the enclosure. 
Within minutes, 
portable floodlights were bathing the arena in a cold, greenish-white glow, while in place 
of the rapidly vanishing wall, a ring of helmeted Security Guards sprouted up like crashcultured 
snowdrops.

 Professor Poynter stepped down on to the matted grass and gazed about her incredulously. The 
technical miracle Of 3-I3 So-Vi had in no way prepared her for this appalling reality. She was reminded 
nauseatingly of a Gustave Dore' engraving of the aftermath of Waterloo which had given her nightmares in 
her childhood. The faint hope she had been nourishing that her clone might somehow have survived the 
holocaust wilted and died as her stupefied eye wandered along the untidy heaps of slain. 'Astonishing, 
isn't it, Professor?' enquired an amiable voice at her car and she turned to find the Minister himself 
beaming at her.

 She nodded and tried to look alert and intelligent.

 'As a piece of field research I must say I find it most impressive,' 
he burbled. 'I only wish the P.M. 
could have been here to see it. just between the two of us I've wondered once or twice recently whether 
young Crowe wasn't laying it on a bit thick with his agro-I4. I mean to say, to a non-technical chap like 
me a Sika deer's one thing and a human being's another, but now, damn it, he's converted me absolutely. 
By employing adrenal-hypertension to weed out the social misfits there's no reason at all why we 
shouldn't be able to double our density over the next fifty years.' He gig led. 'You might almost say the 
?:,9 


 sky's the limit now, eh?'

 sky's the limit now, eh?'

 The Minister, observing her expression, clucked compassionately. 
'I usually find it helps to think of it 
simply as highgrade 
animal protein,' he said. 'Ah, here comes Douglas now.'

 Doctor Crowe's white lab coat already looked as if it had seen hard service in an abattoir, but his eyes 
were sparkling with boyish enthusiasm as he strode up to them. 'Well, Sir Harold, did I exaggerate?'

 'No, dear boy, you most certainly did not. I've just been saying 
to Professor Poynter here that you've 
completely converted me to agro-I4. You and Rodney have every right to congratulate yourselves. This 
really does look like the breakthrough we've all been waiting for.'

 'It's good of you to say so, sir. At least it's proved the principle's sound and that's the main thing. A 
couple more full scale trials like this and we'll really be in business.'

 'Have you found any survivors yet?' asked Professor Poynter faintly.

 'Four so far,' said Crowe. 'All juveniles. That makes sense of course. Even with conditioning as intensive 
as ours has been, adrenal development can't be pushed effectively below a certain limit. But it's beginning 
to look as though we'll end up with well over 95% mortality. That's considerably above our most 
optimistic estimate.'

 'Might I have a look at the ones who survived?'

 'Help yourself. They're being oxygenated in the resuscitation unit. It's over there.' Doctor Crowe waved 
his hand towards the trees under which, a few brief minutes before, Norbert had lain.

 Professor Poynter nodded her thanks and moved away. As she did so she was surprised by an 
unfamiliar prickling sensation located along her eyelids. Exploring with her fingertips she was bewildered 
to find that she was crying. 'How odd,' she thought. 'Can the lachrymal glands really respond 
independently of physical 
or emotional stimulus? I must remember to ask Cordon.'

 But it was not only her tear glands which were behaving oddly. Instead of stopping at the resuscitation 
unit her legs insisted on carrying her straight past it and on across the grass towards the patrolling 
perimeter guard. Since their orders related 
only to keeping people out they stood aside to let her past 
and she marched on blindly into the darkness beyond.

 Norbert who was still lurking in the shrubbery, saw an elderly woman advancing straight towards him 
and concluded, naturally 
enough, that he had been spotted. just to be quite sure he waited till she was no 
more than five yards away, then raised his arms above his head and stood up.

 Had she not been suffering from acute hysteric shock, Professor 
Poynter, confronted by such an 
apparition, might have

 reacted very differently. As it was Norbert's materialization seemed perfectly in keeping with the sort of 
insanity she had just witnessed. She came to an unsteady halt and blinked the tears from her eyes. 'Who 


are you?' she enquired wearily.

are you?' she enquired wearily.

 'And what are you doing in that bush, Norbert?'

 'Hiding, ma'am.'

 'Is it a good place to hide in?'

 'Ma'am?'

 'I asked if it was a good place to hide in.'

 This was what Norbert had thought she had said but it had seemed somewhat too improbable. 'I hardly 

know how to answer, 
ma'am,' he said hesitantly. 'But since you have discovered me, I should say that it 

wasn't.'

 Professor Poynter nodded approvingly at the logic of his answer. 
'Then there is really no point in my 
joining you, is there?'

 'No, ma'am,' agreed Norbert, taking a chance and lowering his arms. 'Were you looking for somewhere 
to hide?'

 'To hide?' repeated Professor Poynter vaguely. 'I don't really know. . . you see I'm not feeling very . . . 
well. . . I. . . .

 Norbert sprang out of his sanctuary just in time to catch her as her knees buckled beneath her. He was 
painfully aware that some two hundred yards away were a great many people who would consider only 
one possible interpretation for such a situation. But although common prudence counselled him to put as 
much distance as possible as quickly as possible between himself and this unfortunate woman, he had 
never been an ape who placed the preservation of his own skin before what he considered to be his 
Christian duty. He stooped, hoisted her over his shoulder and set off at a steady lope in the direction of 
the Serpentine.

 It took him about five minutes to reach the lake's edge and another minute before he discovered a 
suitable place to lay down his burden. When he had done so he felt in his pocket for his handkerchief 
and, having found it dipped it in the water, wrung it out, and applied it in the form of a cold compress to 
the Professor's forehead. While he was doing this he became aware that he was no longer alone. A 
number of dark shapes had crept out of the undergrowth and had gathered round him in a sinister, 
watchful, semicircle.

 -What you got there, monkey?'

 -'Got you a pinkie, have you?'

 -Where d'you get her, monkey?'

 -'Still warm ain't she?'

 Listening to the whispered questions Norbert felt the hair rise along the back of his neck. He guessed 


from their speech that these were what were known as 'bad apes'-chimps who had dropped out and 
now lived an illegal sort of twilight existence 
on the fringes of civilized society. Among them the insulting 
epithet 'monkey' was a veritable badge of kinship, signifying the brotherhood of the lower depths.

from their speech that these were what were known as 'bad apes'-chimps who had dropped out and 
now lived an illegal sort of twilight existence 
on the fringes of civilized society. Among them the insulting 
epithet 'monkey' was a veritable badge of kinship, signifying the brotherhood of the lower depths.
. 
'Who ain't?' came the laconic retort. 
A sinewy arm stretched out from the darkness and a hairy hand descended speculatively on Professor 


Poynter's flat chest. Norbert knocked it aside and flashed his teeth in a rage warning. 
The shadows 
skipped back a wary pace and squatted down. The whispered questions began again. 
-Where d'you get her, monkey?' 
-'Anyone see you?' 
-Where you from, monkey?' 
-'Reckon he's an Albert?'

 This last remark was a reference to a chimp who, back in the I99o's, had gained a (Posthumous) 
Congressional Medal for sacrificing his life to save those of three human companions in a space-craft 
disaster. To these drop-outs it symbolized the ultimate 
in 'Uncle Tom'ism.

 We were in that march,' grunted Norbert. 
'So what?' 
'So that makes me an Albert?' 
'Don't give us that V.F.A. shit, monkey.' 
'Hey, what happened in there?' enquired a different, younger voice. 
'You don't know?' 
'Some sort of shindy?' 
'Shindy?' Norbert spat. 'A massacre. Only two of us got out alive.' 
'You and her?' 
'That's right.' 
'Hey, whatja know? 'S that what all the excitement's about?' 
Under his hand Norbert felt Professor Poynter stir. He prayed that she wouldn't give the game away. 
The shadows were whispering again but this time with a different purpose and a new sense of urgency. 
-'There has to be pickings.' 



 -We can do a drop. They won't skin the trees.' 
-What's the screw on, monkey?' 
'There are Guards round the edges,' said Norbert. 'Not more than a couple of dozen.' 
-'M/'hat're we waiting for?' 
A sudden scuffling in the undergrowth and they were gone. 
Norbert let out his breath in a protracted sigh and felt the bristling hair along his neck slowly settle. 


'Come on, ma'am,' he whispered. 'It's not safe for us to stay here.' 
Professor Poynter's teeth chattered like shaken pebbles. He slid his arm beneath her quivering shoulder 


and coaxed her up into a sitting position. 'Can you walk, ma'am?' 
'Mad,' shuddered the Professor. 'Stark, raving mad!' 
'We can't stay here, ma'am.' 
'Cold blooded mass murderl Insane! Absolutely and utterly insane!' 
'Ma'am.` 
'Adrenal hypertension . . . breakthrough . . . augmented adrenal 
hypertension . . . sound principle . . . all 


mad . . . mad . . . arms . legs and arms. .'Her voice broke into a harsh dry sobbing, 
Norbert hooked one of her arms round his neck and stood up, pulling her with him. 'Where d'you live, 
ma'am?' 
'So much blood and pain,' sobbed the Professor. 'Just because 
it's legal doesn't give them the moral 

right. . . .' 
Norbert shook her gently and repeated his question more urgently. 
'Richmond,' gasped the Professor. 'Kew Mansions, Richniond.' 
The chimp looked round at the horizon, now pin-pricked with a million hazy apartment lights. Behind him 

theMinisoc floodlights seemed to have blown a bubble of greenish light among the trees. To the south a 
crimson sky sign smouldered out the message:SUBURBAN EXPRESSWAY. 'Come on, ma'am,' he said 
gently. 'Let's try our luck over there.'

 THIRTEEN 



 Cheryl unbuckled her A-G harness and hung it in the closet alongside her bag of assorted oblivious. 
Then she washed her hands, gave her hair a perfunctory scrub with a perfumed flexibrush 
and returned 
to the living room. 'Oh, are you still here?' she said, affecting surprise at the sight of Alvin's beaming face. 
'The front door's down there.'

 Cheryl unbuckled her A-G harness and hung it in the closet alongside her bag of assorted oblivious. 
Then she washed her hands, gave her hair a perfunctory scrub with a perfumed flexibrush 
and returned 
to the living room. 'Oh, are you still here?' she said, affecting surprise at the sight of Alvin's beaming face. 
'The front door's down there.'

 'Oh anything,' sighed Cheryl. 'Just make yourself at home.' 'Thanks,' said the clone fervently. 'Where is 

it?'

 'Second on the right.'

 She watched him poke his nose round the door of the ablution 
cubicle before disappearing inside. 

Shaking her head in mock despair she walked over to the videophone and dialled a number. A plump 
avuncular face loomed up in the screen. 'Ah, there y'are, Cheryli Mission completed?'

 She nodded.

 'Well done, lass. It's time for your break now anyway.'

 'Do you know what's been going on down at Speakers' Corner, Dommy?'

 'Did ye not see "Your Day'7'

 'How could l? My set's been dead for the last fortnight.'

 'A couple of lots of protestors went for each others' throats. Quite a pitched battle, I can tell ye.'

 'But why should they do that?'

 'Why indeed? The whisper has it that Minisoc were behind it.'

 'Were they?'

 'It wouldn't surprise me, and that's the truth. Was that where your call was?'

 'Oh no,' said Cheryl hastily. 'It was just that I noticed a lot of activity down there. Thanks anyway, 
Dommy.'

 'A pleasure, my love. I'll be slottin' you in for the24 to 2 lush. OXY

 Cheryl nodded and smiled then thumbed the 'line clear' button. 
As the glow faded from the screen she 
tried to reconcile what Dominic had told her with her visual recollection of the heaps of mangled corpses 
scattered under the trees. However hard she tried to push them together the two pictures just wouldn't 
fuse. She was still pondering on it when Alvin emerged from the toilet, glanced shyly in at her and shuffled 
hesitantly into the room, Cheryl regarded him thoughtfully. 'Tell me, Alvin, just whatdid happen down 
there in the Park?'

 Alvin scratched his ear and frowned. 'I don't know,' he admitted. 


 'But you must knowsomethingl'

 'But you must knowsomethingl'

 'But how did you come to be mixed up in it? You're not a recalcitrant, are you?'

 Alvin didn't know whether he was or not, so he compromised 
by describing as much as he could 

remember of what had happened from the moment Norbert and he had left Aldbury.

 Cheryl listened attentively. When he had finished she said: 'Then why did you tell me you were staying in 
Bristol Street?'

 Alvin looked down at his boots and felt his cars turning a hot, bright pink. 'I just didn't want to lose you,' 
he mumbled.

 She remembered something else. 'And you said you'd seen me yesterday! That was another lie, wasn't 
it?'

 'Oh no!' cried Alvin. 'I did see youl Ididl Only it wasn't like it was when it happened. I thought you must 
have been someone from Before. But you can't be, can you?'

 Even though Cheryl had no idea what he was talking about, the sheer intensity of his denial made a tiny 
shiver run all the way up and down her backbone.

 The clone looked wonderingly into her face and then slowly raised his eyes until he appeared to be 
contemplating a point somewhere in the air above her left shoulder. 'You were sort of bending over 

me,'he murmured. 'And you were smiling.'

 For no reason at all Cheryl shivered again. 'You really are a nut, Alvin,' she said.

 'But it will happen!' he insisted. 'One day it will.'

 'That'll be the day,' she grunted. 'Now hadn't you better trot along and find out what's happened to your 

chimp friend?'

 'Oh my goodness!' cried Alvin. 'He'll be terribly worried. He's meant to be looking after me.'

 'You're sure it isn't the other way round?' she observed wryly. 'He doesn't seem to be doing much of a 

job so far.' 
'But that wasn't his fault,' said Alvin stoutly. 'I think he must have been hit on the head or something. He 

didn't seem to remember 
where we were supposed to be going.'

 'Well, why didn't you remind him then?'

 Again Alvin blushed. 'I don't know,' he muttered.

 'Don't you?' murmured Cheryl. 'Really?'

 Something most peculiar was happening to Alvin's knees, causing his legs to behave rather like a pair of 


warm wax candles. He would in all probability have subsided on to the carpet at her feet had he not been 
suddenly petrified by an eidetic vision of Doctor Pfizier at his most censorious. 'Norbertl' he gulped.

warm wax candles. He would in all probability have subsided on to the carpet at her feet had he not been 
suddenly petrified by an eidetic vision of Doctor Pfizier at his most censorious. 'Norbertl' he gulped.

 'Must go and find him. Must, mustn't l?'

 For a long, long moment she appeared to consider this, then she sighed faintly. 'All right,' she said. 
'Come on, I'll take you down. I've got to do some shopping anyway.'

 She disappeared into the closet to emerge, a moment later, wearing a dark green cape and hood. She 
looked so utterly delectable that Alvin was temporarily bereft of speech. Before he could recover the use 
of his tongue she had steered him out of the apartment and slammed the door firmly behind them.

 FOURTEEN

 Bristol Street was not a modern residential development. It had been built in the early years of the zist 
Century at least a decade before the invention of 'skylighting' had ushered in the gargantuan 'Tower' units 
which now dominated London. Its two hundred modest storeys were a mere four apartments wide and 
its lateral stability was derived from the intricate system of pedestrian-interlink hollow buttresses which 
connected 
it to Mount Street on one side and Alford Street on the other. Cheryl had once compared it 
to three long thin slices of mouldy bread skewered together by aluminium knitting needles-a simile which, 
though fanciful, had considerable visual accuracy.

 Her own balcony apartment was on the I74th floor and her immediate neighbours were a masseuse, a 
Dream Palace transvestite, two free-lance Authenticity Spectators, and a small time professional gambler. 
She knew them all, but was on really friendly terms only with joe and Chrissie the two So-Vi spectators. 
On several occasions, clutching a forged A.S. union card and tricked out in a blonde wig and dark 
glasses, she had accompanied them to the London stadiums. There at the bidding 
of the Crowd Director 
she had whirled a rattle and screamed till she was red in the face while the teams of brilliantly-shirted 
footballers performed their ritual skills in the remote arena far below.

 The knowledge that she was breaking the law by impersonating 
a union member never caused her even 
a momentary qualm. On the contrary it constituted a major element of her pleasure, for it produced in her 
the delicious epidermal tingling which she had long ago found she needed almost as much as other less 
fortunate people needed her deadly toxins. This was the appetite which she had been indulging when she 
had twitched Alvin from under the nose ofMinisoc. One day, no doubt, she would go too far, but until 
that happened she had every intention of continuing as she had begun, appeasing her hunger for 
excitement whenever she felt the urge to do so.

 The truth of the matter is that Cheryl, like so many millions of others before her, was still trying to 
discover who she really was. It was not that she had any particular ambition to re-bake the social cake, 


but she did want to discover the particular slice of it that she was certain was meant for her alone. So she 
nibbled around wherever the opportunity presented itself and, as a result, 
her short past was already 
littered with the crumbs of a surprising variety of experiences, which, had she chosen to talk of them, 
would certainly have astounded her parents.

but she did want to discover the particular slice of it that she was certain was meant for her alone. So she 
nibbled around wherever the opportunity presented itself and, as a result, 
her short past was already 
littered with the crumbs of a surprising variety of experiences, which, had she chosen to talk of them, 
would certainly have astounded her parents.

 'I haven't got one.' 
'Why not? I thought only apes had one name.' 
Alvin squirmed under her scrutiny. 'Doctor Pfizier never gave me one.' 
'And who's Doctor Pfizier?' 
'My god-father.' 
'Then who's your real father?' 
'I don't know,' said Alvin. 'I don't think Doctor Pfizier is.' 
Cheryl eyed him curiously. 'You mean he adopted you?' 
'I suppose he must have done.' 
'Don't youknow?' 
'Well, you see, I only remember from Aldbury,' explained Alvin uncomfortably. 
Cheryl glanced up at the elevator indicator and saw one of the lights change from I98 to I95. She 


walked to the appropriate 
control and pushed the button. 'No, I don't see,' she said. 
Alvin's face went bright pink and he scrubbed his strawcoloured 
hair furiously. 'Well, before that-was, 


well . . .Before,' he explained in a throttled sort of voice. 
'Before what?' persisted Cheryl. 
Alvin made a choking noise. 'Before I was,'he gulped. 
'That's crazy,' said Cheryl. 'You weren'tborn there, were you?~ 
'No,' said Alvin. 



 'Well then?'

 'Well then?'

mean there was something wrong with me.'

 'He sounds a pretty sinister sort of creep to me,' said Cheryl. 'Come on, here's ours.'

 'Oh no, he's not' protested Alvin, following her into the pressurized elevator capsule. 'He's good. Really 

good.' 
'How do you know he is?' said Cheryl, sealing the doors and setting the lift plummeting groundwards. 

'He told you so, I suppose?'

 'Yes,' said Alvin simply. 'Often.'

 'And if I told you I was good, you'd swallow that too, I suppose?'

 'Of course you are,' said Alvin. 'I know you didn't mean that about wanting to kill me.'

 'I didn't, huh?' nodded Cheryl. 'No doubt you think Samaritans 
are paid by the government to go round 

saving people's lives.'

 Alvin laughed. His laughter had always been one of his most endearing features and Cheryl found it 
remarkably infectious. 'You're out of this world, Alvin!' she cried. 'You really are!'

 They were still giggling when the elevator began to slow, thrusting them down into the grubby horse-shoe 

shaped foam couch. 'Hey!' gasped the clone. 'What's going on?'

 'I suppose you're going to tell me you've never been in an expressavator before.'

 Alvin shook his head and wondered where his stomach had gone. 'I haven't' he said. 'They only have 

ordinary lifts at Aldbury.'

 Cheryl stood up, unsealed the doors, then pulled the clone to his feet and led him out of the vestibule into 
the thronged service area. 'Our flow-way's been out of action all week,' she said. 'It's always going 
wrong. But it's only about five minutes walk from here.'

 She guided him down the crowded alleyway to the brightly lit arcade whose shops supplied the 
everyday needs of the denizens of Bristol Street and they emerged, a few minutes later, in Park Lane. 

'Well, there you are,' she said. 'That's the Park straight ahead.'

 Alvin looked at her in dismay. 'Aren't you coming with me?'

 Cheryl eyed him pensively. To snip or not to snip, that was the question. 'You don't need my help,' she 

said.

 'But what if he's not there?'

 'Why shouldn't he be?'

 'Please come, Cheryl.' 


 She held her mental scissors poised. One swift clip and the job would be done.

 She held her mental scissors poised. One swift clip and the job would be done.

 'Oh, all right,' she said grudgingly. 'There's a gate up there.'

 There was no traffic for them to bother about. Apart from government vehicles, all urban transport had 
long since been either buried underground or trellised high in the air. The tenlane 
freeways which had 
once so nearly strangled the cities to death had vanished along with their infernal freight, their passing 
lamented only by those statisticians who mourned a magnificent 
contribution to the monthly mortality 
figures. Where once pedestrians had gone in fear of their lives there was now little more to be heard than 
the sound of human and anthropoid voices, punctuated by the brisk cloppity-clop of a Security prancer 
or the benevolent hiss of A-G jets as some public servant whistled across the City.

 Even so there were still many areas of the vast metropolis where the average citizen was careful not to 
venture after sundown 
and where the Guards went in twos or threes if they went at all. After dark safety 
lay with the crowd and the brightly lit precinct. So it was not simply reluctance to involve herself further 
with Alvin that had caused Cheryl to hesitate, but an instinctive disinclination to attract the attentions of 
the Nightpeople.


 However, as the officials were obviously still working at the scene of the Protest Massacre, Cheryl 
reasoned that, with all the activity going on she and Alvin would surely be safe. So keeping a wary eye on 
the shadows she stepped through the gateway and, grasping the clone firmly by the arm, hurried him over 
the damp grass towards theMinisoc floodlights. 

FIFTEEN

 As Alvin and Cheryl re-entered the Park, Norbert and Professor Poynter were just leaving it via an 
escalator which was bearing them aloft to the Kensington Expressway platforms. By an incredible 
fluke 
of which they were both unaware, they had encountered 
neither ape nor human in their trek from the 
Serpentine. Had they done so the chances were that their journey would have ended there and then.

 Norbert discovered that a train calling at Richmond was expected to depart on the southern circuit 
within the next quarter of an hour. He turned to Professor Poynter and asked her whether she thought 
she would be able to manage on her own.

 'You have been most kind,' she murmured. 'Most kind.'

 'Not at all, ma'am,' responded Norbert modestly. 'Did not the Good Lord say that we must help one 
another in times of trial and tribulation?' 


 'Trial and tribulation, yes,' nodded the Professor. 'A religious 
faith must be a great standby at such 
times.'

 'Trial and tribulation, yes,' nodded the Professor. 'A religious 
faith must be a great standby at such 
times.'

 Professor Poynter passed her hand across her brow. 'Forgive me,' she murmured. 'I thought for one 
moment that you said "Alvin".'

 'Indeed, I did, ma'am. And what sweeter, purer lad e'er drew

 breath? Wherever he may be I shall always think of young Alvin as the flower of Aldbury.'

 Professor Poynter's hands reached out and clutched the ape by the wrist. 'Did you say "Aldbury"? 
Aldbury near Aylesbury?'

 'Why, yes, ma'am. Do you know it?'

 'You come from there?'

 'Indeed I do.'

 'And this lad-Alvin-would he be moon-faced? with prominent 
ears? and pale blue eyes? and hair like 
straw?'

 Norbcrt smiled delightedly. 'Why, you have drawn his portrait to the life, ma'ami But how is this 
possible?'

 'Ofcoursel' cried the Professor.'Norberti How incredibly obtuse of me! Doctor Pfizier said you were 
bringing him to Londoril Do you mean to tell me he wasn't killed? That he'ssurvived? Oh Norbertl 
Norbertl Can this be true?'

 A tear moistened Norbert's kindly eye, 'Ma'am,' he explained 
sorrowfully, 'I fear that my recent 
unhappy experiences have impaired my memory. I recollect very well that Alvin and I left Aldbury this 
morning, but the purpose of our journey, alas, escapes me. Shortly before he was translated 
Heavenwards he informed me that we were here on holiday, and knowing the lad to be incapable of 
uttering a falsehood I can only conclude that such is indeed the case.'

 Professor Poynter was now trembling as violently with excitemcrit 
as, previously, she had trembled 
from shock. 'This angel you speak of,' she said. 'Can you describe it?'

 'It was a she-angel,' said Norbert, 'and surpassingly comely to behold. About five foot four and slender 
as a peeled willow wand. Her wings might well have resembled those of the lesser hover-fly; I recall that 
they made a distinct hissing noise. She informed us her name was Cheryl.'

 'Cheryl?' 


 'Yes,' said Norbert. 'A name almost as beautiful as the fair creature who bore it.' 
'Did she have a belt?' 
'A girdle of the purest silver encircled her slender waistwith 
shoulder straps to match.' 
'But how did she find you?' 
'Unworthy though I am she came in answer to my prayers,' said Norbert simply. 'Not a sparrow falls but 


they know about it up there.'


 'Then you didn't-well,phone or anything?'


 'God's videophone, ma'am,' replied Norbert gently, 'is the pure and humble heart.'


 The faint undertone of reproof in his words warmed Professor 
Poynter's numbed soul like a mouthful of 
Five Star Eroticon. In full view of several hundred shocked or amused travellers she raised the ape's lined 
pink hand in both of hers and pressed it to her lips. 'Oh Norbert,' she murmured brokenly, 'I believe you 
are an angel.'

 'Alas, no, ma'am,' he replied. 'But ies good of you to say so.'

 'I do say so,' affirmed Professor Poynter. 'Oh Norbert, my dear, you have restored my faith in natural 
goodness. Together we will battle against the forces of evil that are abroad in the land! Together we shall 
overcome them! Say you are with me, Norbert!'

 Always quick to respond to sincerity, Norbert was deeply touched by the appeal. Taking her hands 
solemnly into his he shook them warmly. 'I only wish you could have met Alvin, ma'am,' he sighed. 'You 
and he would have got along like a house on fire.'

 'But Ihave met him!' she laughed. 'I'm Professor Poynterl You were bringing him to see me at the 
M.0.P.'

 Norbert blinked. 'Why,yes,' he murmured slowly. 'I remember 
now. The M.0.P. . . . I've got all the 
papers . . .'. He looked round vaguely for his brief-ease then frowned and rubbed his wrinkled forehead. 

'Balls,' he whispered wonderingly, 'Balls, balls, we want balls.'

 'I'm sorry,' said Professor Poynter. 'I didn't quite. . .'

 'We were in a march, ma'am,' said Norbert hesitantly. 'Alvin and me. We were trying to get to Croydon. 

And then. . . and then ' the next thing I recall is the lad giving me a drink of water out of a boot and all 
around us more dead bodies than when Samson fell upon the Philistines.'

 Professor Poynter shuddered with sudden violence. 'I know,' she said. 'It is a miracle you both survived.'

 'Did you come to look for us, maam?'

 She nodded. 'By sheer chance I happened to see Alvin's face on the So-Vi screen this evening. I went 
along to try to find him. The experience proved rather more than I could take. At which point, I'm afraid, 
my own recollection becomes a little hazy.' 


 A train slid into the station beside them and its doors purred open. 'Come along, Norbert, my dear,' said 
the Professor. 'We two have much to learn from one another.'

 A train slid into the station beside them and its doors purred open. 'Come along, Norbert, my dear,' said 
the Professor. 'We two have much to learn from one another.'

 SIXTEEN

 One of the Security Guards caught sight of Alvin and Cheryl approaching and warned them to clear off if 
they knew what was good for them.

 'We're looking for a friend,' explained Alvin politely.

 'Try the Kennington Morgue between 9 and iz tomorrow morning. Now hop it!'

 Alvin had started to say 'Oh, but he isn't d-' when Cheryl's sharp tug on his arm spun him round on his 
heel.

 She jerked her head in the direction of the laurel clump where she had deposited Norbert. 'Come on,' 
she hissed. 'We'll walk towards it and whisper to him to get out on the other side.'

 'What if he's not there?'

 'That's your worry, not mine.'

 'Don't you like apes, Cheryl?'

 'Apes are fine,' she muttered. 'But right now all I'm interested 
in is getting out of this spooky park.'

 'I know more apes than I know people,' said Alvin chattily. 'They're great, Cheryl, really they are. All my 
best friends are apes. Except you and Doctor Pfizier, that is.'

 'I'm flattered,' she grunted. 'Let's hope they've taught you a few useful passwords.'

 'What do you mean?'

 'Well, by all accounts there are some pretty peculiar specimens 
around this part of the world. If those 
Security mushrooms 
hadn't been within shouting range you'd never have got me in here conscious after 
dark. Not on foot~ anyway.'

 'But an ape wouldn't touch a hair on your head, Cheryl. They're good and kind, really they are.'

 'Maybe they are where you come from. Here I wouldn't count on it.' 


 By this time they had approached within a few yards of the shrubbery. 'Norbert?' called Alvin softly. 
'Norbert, it's us.'

 By this time they had approached within a few yards of the shrubbery. 'Norbert?' called Alvin softly. 
'Norbert, it's us.'

 This time the response was unequivocal. An answering grunt of affirmation and the noise of a body 
thrusting its way through the bushes. 'He's going round,' whispered Alvin. 'Come on.'

 He trotted ahead into the shadows. Cheryl had taken three paces after him when some sixth sense made 
her pause. 'Alvin,' she whispered fearfully. 'Are you-'

 The rest of the sentence never materialized. A section of shadow slipped from the shrubbery beside her; 
a gloved hand clamped itself expertly across her mouth and nose, and she was bundled backwards into 
the bushes as unceremoniously as washing is snatched from a line at the approach of rain.

 Alvin meanwhile had received even shorter shrift. A sandbag having landed smartly behind his left ear, he 
had just taken a precipitate nosedive into the dark waters of unconsciousness for the second time in six 
hours.

 He came to some thirty minutes later when a large water drop which had percolated through the 
concrete roof of the disused underground garage where he was lying, gathered itself together and 
dropped plumb on to his left eyelid. He groaned piteously, thereby attracting the attention of an ancient 
female chimp who was squatting in the front seat of a ruined Chevrolet, picking cigar butts to pieces and 
dropping the fragrant chaff into a sawn-off plastic jerrycan. As Alvin attempted to roll over she stuck out 
her foot and pushed him back again. 'Lie still, pinkie,' she said, 'an' be a good boy.'

 To Alvin who to the best of his knowledge had never been anything else, this did not present much 
difficulty since he was trussed hand and foot and his head was pounding like a policeman's boots. He 
blinked the water out of his eye and peered groggily up at the lichened concrete above him. 'Where am 
l?' he demanded weakly.

 'Why, you're right here, son, that's where,' cackled the simian gargoyle obviously delighted by her own 
wit.

 'Is Cheryl here too?'

 'She the little pussy they brought in alonger you?'

 'Where is she?'

 'Don't you worry, son. She's being well looked after. A right sensible gel. Pretty too. Surprised a bright 
lad like you took her strollin' in the Park after dark.'

 'We were looking for a friend.'

 'Were you now?' said the crone, selecting a two-inch stub ofa Romeo-y-julietta and cracking it with a 
gnarled thumb. 'Just fancy that!' 


 'Is he here too?'

 'Is he here too?'

 Alvin sniffed tearfully. 'Norbert,' he said. 'An ape.'

 'We don't keep no Alberts, son. They're not tradeable, see?'

 'Tradeable?'

 'Sure. What did you think? We was a-goin' t'eat yer?' She sniggered ghoulishly and poked him in the 
ribs witha bony prehensile toe. 'Not that I'd say no ter a bitty nibble. Come t'think on't I ain't tasted me a 
pinkie since I was a gel truckin' in Maternity.'

 At that moment it occurred to Alvin that he was being punished for all those wicked lies he had told 
Norbert and Cheryl, the two people he loved most in the whole world apart from Doctor Pfizier. He 
began to cry in real earnest.

 'Now what's the good of that?' grumbled the crone. 'This place is damp enough already without you 
nlekk~ijl, it worse. Give over now there's a good lad.'

 Before Alvin had time to respond there was a reverberant metallic crash, followed, a moment later by 
the clatter of boots and the shouted query: 'He round yet, Maggie?'

 'Yep,' chirped the crone. 'He's all yours, boys. An' welcome to him.'

 Two young male apes, uniformed in black dungarees and black berets, and with lasers slung across their 
backs, stooped over the blubbering Alvin and slashed through the flex that was binding his ankles. Then 
they hoisted him to his feet and propelled him down the passage by a hand gripped above each of his 
elbows.

 They marched him though various echoing vaults in which the carcasses of ancient automobiles were 
crumbling silently into rust and brought him eventually to a metal door on which a rough sign of two 
clasped hands had been daubed in yellow paint. One of the apes rapped three times with the butt of his 
laser then paused and knocked three times more. At this there was a scraping of bolts from within, the 
door was dragged to one side, and Alvin was thrust forward into the room.

 Blinking through his tear-swollen eyes he saw before him a metal desk behind which a thick-set, 
middle-aged chimp in black horn-rimmed spectacles was bent writing something in a notebook. On the 
wall behind the desk were fixed two crude but arresting posters, one proclaimingThe Dictatorship of 
the Proletariape is at Hand! and the otherUniversal Anthropoid Brotherhood!. In one corner stood a 
metal cabinet and in another a So-Vi. Some metal chairs were ranged along a wall and one was placed 
directly before the desk. The spectacled ape glanced up, nodded towards this chair, and then returned 
his attention to his notebook. The young ape who had opened the door untied the flex from Alvin's wrists 
and then thrust him forward into the scat.

 For a long time nothing more happened. Alvin sniffed despondently 
and wiped his dripping nose 
surreptitiously on his sleeve. He had no idea why he was there or what was meant by the dictatorship of 
the proletariape, but he quite liked the two posters. The first depicted an endless line of laughing chimps 
striding out under a huge banner on which was emblazoned the sign of the clasped hands and the initials 
V.A.W; the second portrayed two anthropoids, one shouldering a laser gun and the other wielding a 


spanner, embracing over the command'Monkeys Unite!'

spanner, embracing over the command'Monkeys Unite!'

 Alvin felt himself beginning to blush and looked down shyly at the soles of the ape's boots which were 
protruding beneath the desk. He felt as he often felt when he was summoned to Doctor Pfizier's 

office-that is to say guilty without being quite sure what he should be feeling guilty about.

 'Well,' said the ape at last, 'and who the hell are you?'

 'Alvin, sir.'

 The ape blinked. 'We'll cut out the decadent lackey lip for a start,' he growled. 'Call me Captain, 

comrade. At least that doesn't stink of serfdom.'

 'Yes, Captain Comrade, sir. I mean no.'

 The ape appeared to emit something that sounded suspiciously 
like a sigh. He picked up his pen. 

'Political affiliation?' he demanded.

 Alvin looked supremely blank.

 'Who did you vote for last time?'

 A faint gleam of something that might almost have passed for intelligence flickered like a December 

sunbeam across the clone's face. 'Oh, Norbert, of course,' he said.

 'Huh?'

 'Norbert,' repeated Alvin. 'He beat Bosun by seventeen.'

 The ape laid down his pen then picked it up again. He examined 
it carefully for a while and breathed 

heavily through his nose. 'And who, or what, is Norbert?' he enquired.

 'He's our branch leader of the A.S.T.W.'

 'What do you mean your branch leader?'

 'It's my union,' said Alvin. 'Here's my card.' He reached into his breast and discovered that his pockets 

were empty.

 'Would this be what you're looking for?' said the ape. He pulled open a drawer and lifted from it a few 
documents and some currency notes. From the pile he selected a rectangle of green plasticard. 
'Anthropoid Scientific and Technical Workers Union,' he read out. 'Aldbury Branch. Member's Name: 
Alvin.

 Membership Number: 766325.I. Trade: General Worker. 


 Grade: D.' 

 Grade: D.' 

'How did you get hold of this?' 

Alvin blinked. 'It's mine,' he said.

 The Captain nodded with ponderous irony. 'And you, no doubt, are a renegade anthropoid cunningly 
disguised as a human idiot.'

 Alvin blushed. 'I'm an honorary ape, Captain Comrade. It was Norbert's idea.'

 The Captain opened his mouth and then closed it again without 
saying anything. He placed his elbows 
on the desk, shaded. his eyes with his palms and appeared to be thinking very, very deeply. In fact he 
was undergoing the chastening experience of having to admit to himself that this moon-faced oaf fitted 
into no category he had previously encountered in a life-time dedicated to the struggles of the 
proletariape.

 To gain himself a little time he rolled a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled deeply. The scent of second-hand 
Havana leaf floated across the desk. 'You realize, of course,' he said, 'that I should be doing no more 
than my political duty if I had you liquidated on a charge of species impersonation.'

 Perhaps fortunately, Alvin did not know what he meant. He continued to blink amiably through the layers 
of violet smoke while he wondered where Cheryl was.

 'We have no need of any honorary apes in our ranks,' growled the Captain. 'The mere idea is an affront 
to anthropoid integrity, 
a sneaky undermining of species solidarity.' So saying he picked up Alvin's union 
card and flicked it across the room towards an overflowing wastepaper basket.

 Alvin watched it flutter down and wondered why Captain 
Comrade seemed so offended. He himself 
was not particularly 
upset since he was always losing his card and having to ask Norbert for a new one.

 'Ape is Ape,' continued the Captain, 'and Man is Man. The struggle for species equality will be won only 
when the last man has been forced to acknowledge the social existence of the last anthropoid. Until that 
day no quarter will be asked or given. Our resolution has been fired in the furnace of injustice, forged on 
the anvil of slavery and tempered in the acid-bath of exploitationl The species struggle is the war of the 
oppressed against the oppressor-of the slave against his bondage; but, above all, today, it is the struggle 
of the ape againsthimself! To be free an ape mustthink freel He must learn to believe in his heritage! And 
to do that he must be prepared to die for itt'

 Alvin nodded. Although he had not understood half of it, the Captain's words had stirred him deeply. 
'Nearly all my best friends are apes,' he said amicably.

 The Captain grunted, 'Intra-special companionship is a poisonous delusion fostered by our enemies. 
True comradeship is only possible between equals.'

 'They are much cleverer than I am,' admitted Alvin, 'but honestly they don't seem to mind that. Except 
Bosun,' he added regretfully.

 The Captain picked up his pen again, wrote something in his notebook, then changed his mind and 


scribbled it out. Try as he would he was finding it quite impossible to come to terms with Alvin. Like the 
dying King Arthur he found that 'all his Mind was clouded with a Doubt. It seemed almost incredible to 
him that anyone so stupid could have survived for so long in the world. If this was what the oppressors 
had come to then the day of revolution must be considerably closer than anyone could have supposed. 
He suspected, unfortunately, that not only was Alvin distinctly atypical, but that no one in his right mind 
would pay a plastic cent to ransom him. Still, one could but try. 'Who's your father, lad?' he asked.

scribbled it out. Try as he would he was finding it quite impossible to come to terms with Alvin. Like the 
dying King Arthur he found that 'all his Mind was clouded with a Doubt. It seemed almost incredible to 
him that anyone so stupid could have survived for so long in the world. If this was what the oppressors 
had come to then the day of revolution must be considerably closer than anyone could have supposed. 
He suspected, unfortunately, that not only was Alvin distinctly atypical, but that no one in his right mind 
would pay a plastic cent to ransom him. Still, one could but try. 'Who's your father, lad?' he asked.
' 
'Well, who do you-belong to?' 
'Doctor Pfizier, I suppose.' 
'And how do we get in touch with him?' 
'He's at Aldbury,' said Alvin. 'He's in charge there.' 
'And where's Aldbury?' 
Alvin explained as best he could. 
The Captain sighed. 'It's worth a try. How much d'you think he'd fork out to get you back again?' 
Alvin gasped. 'Pay?' he gulped. 'Forme?' 
'That's right.' 
Alvin's eye roved round the room as though he were expecting to find the magic figure suddenly written 


on one of the walls. 'I don't suppose he'd pay anything,' he said sadly. 'You see, I pay him.' 
'Come again?' 
'I pay him half my wages each month for teaching me.' 
'Teaching you what?' 
'How to be good,' said Alvin. 
'How to be good?'repeated the Captain in a stunned voice. 
Alvin nodded. 'Doctor Pfizier says they're the toughest hundreds he's ever earned in his life.' 
The Captain laid down his pen and stared long and incredulously 
at the unhappy clone. Finally he 


stubbed out his cigarette, pushed back his chair, and walked slowly across the room to the wastepaper 
basket. Bending down he retrieved Alvin's union card. He wiped it on his sleeve, peered at it closely, and 
then handed it back to Alvin. 'Take it, son,' he said. 'It's vours all right. Only a bloody monkey would put 
up with that sort of exploitation.'

 'Oh thank you, Captain Comrade,' said Alvin, accepting the card gratefully. 'Can I go to Chcryl now?' 
The Captain shrugged. 'You're no use to us. We shall release you.' 


 'But Captain Corn-'

 'But Captain Corn-'

 'Oh, please don't send me away,' begged Alvin, 'Not without Cheryll Please,please, dear kind Captain 

Comradel'

 'What is she to you?' growled the Captain, regarding the oaf with mingled pity and distaste.

 An expression of refulgent imbecility crept across Alvin's face like dilute cochineal across a filter paper. 

'Oh Captain Comrade,' 
he sighed rapturously. 'Cheryl is the starlight trembling on Lake Tring on 
summer evenings! She is crunchy peanut buttei on warm toastl She is an angel!'

 'She is a female hireling of an effete and decadent technocracy,' 
retorted the Captain. 'An arch-enemy 
of the prole. tariape. What's more she's skinny too.'

 'I love her,' said Alvin simply.

 'You, my friend, are an idiot.'

 'I know,' said Alvin. 'Doctor Pfizier's told me so lots of times.' 'Furthermore you have no self-respect, no 
financial value, and absolutely no political value! You belong in a zoo l'

 'He's told me that too,' admitted Alvin dejectedly.

 'However, by allowing you to go free we shall perhaps advance 
the cause of the species struggle by an 
infinitesimal degree. It is just conceivable that you will contrive to breed more idiots like yourself. Though 
how you will persuade any one to help you do it defies my imagination.' He walked to the door, dragged 
it open and grunted something to the guards outside. Then he turned back to Alvin. 'I will decide later 
what is to be done with you.'

 'Oh,thank you, Captain Comrade sir,' beamed Alvin. 'As soon as I saw you I knew you were good and 
kind.'

 'Just take him away,' groaned the Captain. 'And tell Maggie to bring me some strong black coffee.'

 SEVENTEEN

 Norbert and Professor Poynter reached Kew Mansions, Richmond 
shortly after midnight. Although 
they did not know it their approach was observed and noted by a MOSS agent, an anthropoid named 


Pinkerton, known professionally to his employers as '0726'. For the last hour, ever since the green 
security alert had gone out from the Censorship Vaults, this character had been hanging around the 
expressavator vestibule of Kew Mansions disguised as a So-Vi technician. Having ascertained 
from an 
irritable Hortense that the Professor was out, Pinkerton had decided that his employers' ends would best 
be served by awaiting her return and then manufacturing an opportunity 
to plant an eavesdropper on 
her.

Pinkerton, known professionally to his employers as '0726'. For the last hour, ever since the green 
security alert had gone out from the Censorship Vaults, this character had been hanging around the 
expressavator vestibule of Kew Mansions disguised as a So-Vi technician. Having ascertained 
from an 
irritable Hortense that the Professor was out, Pinkerton had decided that his employers' ends would best 
be served by awaiting her return and then manufacturing an opportunity 
to plant an eavesdropper on 
her.

 Having planted his bugs Pinkerton left the expressavator, returned to ground level and hurried to the 
nearest MOSS monitoring post which was cunningly concealed in the back of a nearby laundrette. Here, 
a few moments later, he recorded the following conversation


-Are you awake, petal? 
-Where the helluv youbeen? 
-I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. 
-D'you find him? 
-Well, no, not exactly, but-
Then who the hell's that moving around in-
That's Norbert. 
-Norbert who? 
-It's too late to explain now, petal. You go back to sleep again. 
-I haven'tbeen to sleep. I was just dropping off when some moronic monkey came and-
I do wish you wouldn't use that expression, petal. It's so degrading. 
-What're you whispering for? 
-Would you like me to switch on your Henry? 
-Aren't you coming to bed then? 

 - -. 
-Who the hell is this Norbert? 
-He's a friend, petal. A very dear friend. 
-Since when? It's the first I've heard of him. 
-He saved my life tonight. 
-You don't say? Well, let's have a look at him. Hey there, Norbert! Ma'arn? 
Petal, I .Do put something on, my sweet! 
-Is he shy, or something? Come right on in, Norbert. Let's have a look at you. 
-Petal, sweetest, I don't-
Ma'arn? Did you-
Oh no! AH-H-H-h-h-h. . . . 
-Oh, dear, ma'ami Has she fainted? 
-It's my fault, Norbert. I should have realized. Hortense had a most unfortunate experience when she 
was a child, and as a result. . . 
-I understand, ma'am. I'm truly sorry. Is there anything I can do to help? 
-I don't think so, Norbert. But perhaps it would be better if. . . . 
-Of course, ma'am. I'll wait in the other room. 
-There, there, petal. It's quite all right. There, there. . . . 
-Oooh . . . gggh . . . ugg . . . ggg . . . 
-There's absolutely nothing at all to be upset about. Here, drink this, my sweet. 
-Clug . . . gh . . . uh . . . glup. . . . 
-That's better. There, there. 
-Has it gone? 
-Yes, yes. 
-It was horrible-horrible! How could you! 
-Now, there's no need to get hysterical. 

 -Hysterical! You can say that! You don't know what it's like to have to lie there and have one after 
another of those . . . six . . . of them there were . . . Six. . . .

 -Hysterical! You can say that! You don't know what it's like to have to lie there and have one after 
another of those . . . six . . . of them there were . . . Six. . . .

 -It was six! It wasI Six great black hairy . . . One after the other.

 -Now, petall, it's no good your going on like . . . 
-It didn't happen to youl 
-No, my pet. 
-Well, then. 
-Now listen, my darlingest, you really must try to understand 
that, morally speaking, apes are no 
different from the rest of us. There are as many good ones as bad ones. Norbert is far more profoundly 
Christian than some of the twisted individuals who have the audacity to call themselves 
human. He 
risked his own life for me tonight without 
a moment's hesitation and I have-
Monkey loverl

 -There's a very hard streak in you, Hortense. I've noticed it before. Now I fully realize that you're upset 
and so I intend 
to overlook


-Monkey lover! Monkey loverl

 -I'm sorry, Hortense, there is obviously no point in our discussing 
the matter further. I shall be next door 
if you want me. Goodnight.

 -Is she feeling better, ma'am?

 -Yes, thank you, Norbert. Much better. I'm sorry that you should have been subjected to such an 
unpleas


-Please, ma'am. I pray you not to distress yourself on my account. 
-Oh, Norbert! You make me feel ashamed for my own species. 
-If I may be permitted to say so, ma'am, God's purposes are as mysterious as they are infinite. 
-Indeed they are, Norbert. Can I offer you a drink? 
-A glass of milk would be most welcome. I do not indulge in strong liquor. 
-Well, I'm afraid I do, Norbert, and just now I feel I need one pretty badly. 
-Of course, ma'am. Would you like me to-
No, no. You sit there. . . * 

 -Your very good health, ma'am!

 -Your very good health, ma'am!
To our success, Norbertl Ah, I needed that. Now let me see. Where had I got to? 
You had just reached Desmond, ma'am.

 Yes, of course, Desmond. Now Desmond we placed on a solar grid station in Libya. The report we had 
was that he had settled in very well, was liked by everybody and was extremely eager to please.

 Very like Alvin he sounds, ma'ani.

 Oh, quite remarkably. Except of course that so far as we know there has been no more sign of eidetic 
regeneration in Desmond than there has in Bruce and Colin.

 Then what is it that makes you believe that Alvin is recovering, 
ma'am?

 -Don't mistake me, Norbert. It's only a very slender hope. But this vision of the girl does sound 
extremely promising. 
Now you are quite certain that Alvin said the angel was the one he'd seen at 
Aldbury?

 I recollect his words distinctly, ma'am. 'This is Cheryl,' he said. 'She's the one I saw yesterday. She's 
going to help us.'

 Excellentl Now, Norbert, I don't for one moment wish to suggest that your Cheryl was not an 
angel-indeed her behaviour 
seems to have been considerably more angelic than several of that species I 
might choose to name-but it is just possible that I might be able to get in touch with her through a certain 
Government organization known as the Samaritans.

 -Why, ma'am, that's just what she called herself! 'I'm a Samaritan,' she said. Naturally I had no reason to 
assume other than that she spoke in good faith.

 Oh, I'm sure she did, Norbert. But we have nothing to lose by ascertaining whether my supposition is 
correct. Would you mind passing me volume 'S' of the directory? . . . Thank you . . . Now all that 
remains is for us to pray that they are prepared to co-operate.

 EIGHTEEN

 Brother Dominic chewed his rosary thoughtfully and tried the Bristol Street number again. "Tis not like 
Cheryl at all, at all,' he muttered. 'Come along, girlie. What's keepin'you?'

 In apartment 5o62i the videophone chirruped like a lovesick 
cricket, but no one came in answer to its 
plaintive call. The illuminated timeteller flipped on to 0032. hours. Water gurgled derisively in a wall pipe. 


 Brother Dominic thumbed the phase-in button and put on his official face. 'Ah well now,' he smiled, 'is it 
quite sure y'are that t'was Samaritan Cheryl ye were wantin'?'

 Brother Dominic thumbed the phase-in button and put on his official face. 'Ah well now,' he smiled, 'is it 
quite sure y'are that t'was Samaritan Cheryl ye were wantin'?'

 'Then I'm afraid I'm havin' t'disappoint ye. She's away off on a call.'

 'Do you know when she'll be back?'

 'Well now, I'm havin' t' confess t'ye that I don't. Isn't that the shameful admission for her boss t'have t'be 
makin'?'

 'Then would you be so good as to give me her number?'

 'Ah now that I can't do. T'be honest with ye I've been stretchin' the rules like elastic in admittin' t'ye that 
young Cheryl's in our Ministry at all at all. T'would be more than me life's worth t'divulge classified 
information. I'm sure ye'll be understandin' that.'

 Professor Poynter frowned. 'I can assure you that my business with Cheryl is in no sense connected with 
her official activities.'

 'Sure an' don't they all say that?' chuckled Brother Dominic.

 'Ah ye can have no idea o' the sort o' kinkies we get phonin' in. Why they seem C expect us t' hand 
round the girls' numbers like a plate o' sandwiches! As if there wasn't far too much o' that sort o' carry on 
alreadyl 'Tis enough t'make a saint fornicate!'

 Professor Poynter assumed her most frigid official tone. 'Then am I to take it that you are in fact refusing 
to give me the vital information-informatimn, which, I repeat may well be of inestimable importance not 
only to my Ministry but to the nation at large?'

 Brother Dominic winced as though he had bitten on a bad tooth and his smile became distinctly queasy. 
'Ah sure now, ye wouldn't be wantin' Cdrive a man into a corner, would ye, Professor? Look, I'll tell ye 
what I'll do. As soon as young Cheryl gets back I'll be after givin' her yer message and yer number. 
Now a man can't do fairer than that can he? I mean then it's up t' her, is it not?'

 'Very well,' said Professor Poynter. 'My number is I2-I276692-
3II4. I shall be expecting a call within 
the next hour. I trust there is no further need for me to stress the urgency of the situation.'

 'No, no, not at all,' Brother Dominic hastened to reassure her. 'I have the number down here. I'm givin' 
ye me word of honour as a Samaritan that I'll make it all as clear t'her as daylight. 
Now just you hang on 
there and before ye can sayRequiescat in pace she'll be poppin' out of yer auld screen like a leapin' 
leprechaun.'

 'Thank you,' said the Professor coldly, and leaning forward she pressed the erase button.

 Brother Dominie's plump features were still a fading glimmer on the Professor's screen when a metal 
door was dragged open in the concrete warren under what had once been Pall Mall and young Alvin was 


helped over the threshold by an anthropoid boot up his tail. He stumbled forward, tripped over his own 
feet and, as the door clanged shut behind him, collapsed in a sprawling heap beside a pile of latex-foam 
mattresses which were stacked against the far wall of the dark cell. As he groped about his fingers 
touched something soft and warm. 'Holy hellebore!' sighed a familiar but weary voice.'Not another!'

helped over the threshold by an anthropoid boot up his tail. He stumbled forward, tripped over his own 
feet and, as the door clanged shut behind him, collapsed in a sprawling heap beside a pile of latex-foam 
mattresses which were stacked against the far wall of the dark cell. As he groped about his fingers 
touched something soft and warm. 'Holy hellebore!' sighed a familiar but weary voice.'Not another!'

 'Cheryll'

 Like two pale mauve petals the amazing eyelids wavered doubtfully open and the jewelled eyes 

contemplated him warily. 'Oh, hello,' she said. 'It's you, Alvin. Where have you been?'

 'Are you all right, Cheryl?'

 A faint smile curled the corners of her lips. 'All what?' she murmured.

 'What have they been doing to you?'

 'I suppose you'd say they've been taking advantage of me,' she chuckled. 'I thought you were number 

eight.'

 'Oh dear,' cried Alvin dismally. 'That'sterrible!'

 Cheryl sighed. 'It could have been a lot worse. After all, the bed's soft.'

 'Buteight!'

 'Seven. It might have been five, actually. I think two of them went round twice. It was hard to tell.'

 'But did they . . . ? Was it . . . ? Have you ever . . . ?Before . . . ?'

 Cheryl chuckled. 'Well, only since I was nine. I was a slow starter.'

 'Was that with apes too?' asked Alvin wonderingly.

 Cheryl yawned. 'Well, not to start with of course.'

 'Butyou have . . . ?'

 'Oh sure I have. One or two. just for kicks. You know how it is.'

 'No, I don't,' said Alvin sadly. 'Doctor Pfizier said it was being impure. And Doctor Somervell. said I 

ought to be thoroughly ashamed of myself.'

 'That really is too bad,' said Cheryl sympathetically. 'Those two ghouls sound as if they ought to be 
locked up. Do you mean to say you'venever done it?'

 'I don'tthink so,' said Alvin cautiously. 'I'm not really sure.' 


 'Well, if we ever get out of this dump alive, I'll show you what all the fuss is about. I'd do it now if only I 
didn't feel quite so bushed.'

 'Well, if we ever get out of this dump alive, I'll show you what all the fuss is about. I'd do it now if only I 
didn't feel quite so bushed.'

 Cheryl grinned. 'You're a nice boy, Alvin,' she said, 'even though you did get us into this mess. Daddy'll 
probably have a stroke when they put the squeeze on him for a hundred thousand. Specially seeing as it's 
the U.A.B. Still I daresay he'll see sense if they play it right.'

 'They were going to let me go,' said Alvin. 'But I wouldn't without you.'

 'You're not serious?'

 Alvin nodded. 'Captain Comrade told me I was no use to them. He said you were an arch-enemy of the 
proletarlape.'

 Cheryl groaned disgustedly. 'The phoney jerki I'd rather have fifty apes on top of me than have to listen 
to his sort of political crud! What's he hoping to achieve with his pathetic revolution? All he wants is to be 
at the top of the pile instead of the bottom. But it'll still be the same stinking pile!'

 There were footsteps outside in the passage. The door opened and Maggie came in carrying two plastic 
mugs of coffee. 'Cheered up, hev we?' she cackled. 'Well this'll put some lead in yer pencil.'

 Cheryl sat up and accepted the mug she was handed. 'I hope you aren't dishing this out to the boys in 
the back room,' she grunted. 'I've had quite enough of them for one night.'

 'Ah, she's a gel after me own heart,' chuckled the walnutfaced 
crone. 'But they won't be bothering you 
no more, me pet. Captin's blown his top. Seems what those monkeys got up to weren't no part er the 
official species struggle. 'N fact he's sent me along on purpose tapologise.'

 'There,' said Alvin, beaming round at Cheryl. 'Isn't that nice?I knew he had a kind heart.'

 'Three cheers for the political ethic,' gurgled Cheryl, 'I'd have appreciated it more if the message had got 
through half an hour ago. Still, better late than never.'

 'That's my gell' cackled Maggic. 'Here, jer wanter drag?' She grubbed a stub end of a cigar out of her 
apron pocket and proffered it to Cheryl who rejected it with a shudder. Maggic shrugged, thrust the 
battered stogie behind her car and shuffled out.

 Alvin got up off his knees and sat down beside Cheryl on the mattresses. 'I wonder what's happened to 
Norbert,' he sighed. 'I miss him like anything.'

 Cheryl's private opinion was that Norbert was probably floating face-downwards in the Serpentine by 
this time but she did not want to depress Alvin further by suggesting it. 'I daresay DominicII be hav'ng 
kittens too,' she said. 'I was supposed to be on call between midnight and two.'

 'What do you do, Cheryl? Really?' 


 'I'm a Samaritan.' 
'Well, I know that.' 
'So?'


 'So what do Samaritans do?' 
'You really don't knowanything, do you Alvin?' 
'You don'treally kill people, do you?' 
'We don't kill people,' said Cheryl. 'Our job is to help people who want to killthemselves. It's work of 


national importance.' Alvin pondered this in silence for a while. 'Why is it?' he asked at last. 
'Well, because there are too many people,' said Cheryl in the tones of one who explains a fact so 


patently obvious that it seems unbelievable it should need explaining at all. 
'But why are there so many?' pursued Alvin. 
'Because people go on having babies, of course.' 
'Butwhy do they, Cheryl?' 
Cheryl shrugged. 
'I thought women were onlyallowed to have two.' 
'Onlysupposed to have two,' she corrected. 'There's nolaw against them having a dozen. They tried that 


once back in the nineteen-nineties and look where it got them.' 
'Wheredid it get them?' 
'Well, the Compulsory Abortion Riots and all that stuff.-A-'W' those governments collapsing one after 


the other. You know. History.' 
'Oh,' said Alvin. 
'Then when the apes were invented it got even worse. I mean they had tohave the apes to do all the 


jobs that no one else was prepared to do, but the apes had to be fed and so on or they couldn't work. 
So really it was just like having a whole lot more people. Well, in a way they are people, aren't they?'

 Alvin nodded. 
'The government tried all sorts of things,' mused Cheryl. 'Special baby taxes and withholding allowances 
and so on, but none of it seemed to make much difference, because at the other end the doctors were all 
madly trying to keep people alive to about a hundred and fifty. And it was the old ones who made the 
decisions. They weren't going to give anyone the right to kill anyone else, because they were all afraid 
they'd be the next ones to get the chop. Why, do you realize, Alvin, it was only fifty years ago that they 


actually got round to repealing the sui


actually got round to repealing the sui


 'But Cheryl, whydon't people just have fewer babies?'

 'I don't know,' she said. 'Instinct, I suppose. Dominic says they'll never solve the problem till they 
discover something nicer and cheaper and more readily available. And no one's come up withthat yeti 
Anyway lots of people just say it's God's will.'

 'Maybe it is.'

 Cheryl shrugged. 'Some Godl'

 'Don't you believe in Him?'

 'Do you?'

 'I'm not sure,' said Alvin. 'Norbert says God is Love.'

 'Protein for Norbert. And I daresay our dear Captain would say God is Power. It makes about as much 
sense. More maybe.'

 Alvin swirled his coffee slowly round in the bottom of his mug. He thought of those sad heaps of corpses 
lying under the trees. It had happened but it still didn't make any sense. How happy they had all been 
shouting and singing together. Slow tears of grief and perplexity began to fill his eyes. Where the sandbag 
had landed his head seemed to be throbbing worse than ever and he had an eerie sense of something vast 
and threatening brooding up behind him like a huge thunderhead. Tiny shivers skittered up and down his 
spine. The skin of his arms and legs began to gather itself up as though intent on shrinking him out of 
existence. He was becoming nothing and everything. The shivering became more and more violent until 
his teeth were chattering like a typewriter. The mug slipped from his inert fingers and clattered to the 
floor.

 'Are you feeling all right?'

 He felt Cheryl's hand alight on his arm and he tried to nod in affirmation while all the time one part of him 
was crying'Hang on !' and the other begging'Let go I'

 'I,' he gasped 'I-I-I. . . .' And then it happened. A blinding white soundless explosion behind his eyeballs 
and a wild rushing 
gale that battered his eardrums and then, as swiftly as it had come, faded away to a 
whisper in the remote distance, leaving his aching head a-swirl with a crazy kaleidoscope of jumbled 
images.

 He blinked his eyes. Between his feet the trail of spilled coffee 
gleamed like an ebony snake. On his 
forearm lay Cheryl's fingertips pink as anemones. His lost identity streamed back into his consciousness 
like sand in a twisted hour-glass, 'Alvin Forster,' he whispered. 'I am Alvin Forster, an eidetic freak. And 
there are four of me.' 


 NINETEEN

 NINETEEN

 -Ever since that day, Norbert, I have been tortured with self-doubt. What was it in me that compelled 
me to destroy 
this miracle at the very moment it had been vouchsafed 
to me? Can you tell me that?

 -I daresay ma'arn that a miracle could well be a very unnerving experience. When one is alarmed one 
does not always act in the most sensible way. 
-Then you are prepared to take my word that itdid happen? 
-Certainly I am. 
-But why, Norbert?

 -Well, ma'am, in my experience things are only rarely what they seem to be. Do not forget that I knew 
young Alvin 
well. I perceived in him the fountain head of something wholly pure, some force for good that he himself 
was unaware 
of. Alvin moved through a world that lay all about him but was visible to him alone. In his 
presence I could not but feel a better ape and realize that the Kingdom of God was at hand.

 -Ah, Norbert, if only I had been blessed with a little of your simple faith when my hand seized upon that 
canister of A-I2, the world might be a different and a better place today. 
-Who can say, ma'am? Is God's path ever a straight line? Perhaps if I'd brought Alvin to you yesterday, 
you'd still have looked on him as an experiment. 
-Yes, that's true. It took the nightmare to make me realize what I had created. That, and you too, my 
dear friend.

 -God has chosen us both, rna'am, just as he has chosen Alvin. 

 - - 
-Ah, there, ma'am, I must confess you have the advantage of me. 
-Let me tell you what I think. You are the first person in the world I have dared to say this to, but I have 
come to believe that there is a latent power residing in those four clones which may yet transform the 
world. What this power is I cannot guess, but it is up to us to see that it does not fall into the wrong 
hands. I tremble to think what MOSS orMinisoc might do with it! We have no time to lose, Norbert i 
Alvin must be found I 
-And then rna'am?

 -You and I will re-unite the four of them, Norbertl 
-Very well, ma'am.

 -Why it's ol.55 already! Surely Cheryl should have returned by now? I can't believe that she is still out 
on that same call. I shall contact that unpleasant man again.

 Meanwhile in the intestinal labyrinth of K.G.3 the magnetized 
silicate threads were busily spooling up a 
cocoon of guilt to hatch the larva of Midam Poynter's destiny. By o2oo hours she had already confessed 
enough crimes to have consigned any ordinary citizen to the abbatoirs twenty times over. But the licence 
which her high office allowed her meant that each sentence 
she uttered had to be semasiologically 
analysed and then checked against a special M.0.P. security index. This process was so laborious and so 
potentially corruptive that the work had to be parcelled out among a regiment of technicians, none of 
whom was permitted to examine any sequence of more than three phrases. Consequently a full K.G.3 
analysis sometimes took so long to complete that by the time guilt had been incontrovertibly 
established 
the incriminating material had already been de-classified. No less a person than Sir Gordon Loveridge 
had, all unknown to himself, twice come within a whisker of indictment only to glide away to safety on the 
toboggan of an international scientific congress from which his classified indiscretions 
were trumpeted to 
the world and hence automatically 
de-classified. Indeed it had been remarked with some justification 
that the mills of MOSS ground so fine that the particles 
they eventually produced were often invisible to 
the human eye.

 In Professor Poynter's case what had been immediately apparent 
to Pinkerton was by no means so 
obvious to the subtle scrutineers of K.G.3. Better than any they knew that, in the realms of science, 
nothing was ever quite what it seemed to be. 'These cases are never simple,' they murmured. 'This time 
there must be no mistake. A false accusation of High Treason could ruin us all. We must watch and wait.'

 TWENTY

 Cheryl's fears that her father might react unfavourably to a demand 
for ransom from the U.A.B. were 


certainly justified. He was summoned from the forum of his exclusive West End Dream Club where he 
was taking a central role in'The Rape of the Sabine Women', given a perfunctory squirt from a 
dehallucinant 
atomizer, and informed that there was an urgent call for him on the videophone in the 
Senior Members' zoned sanctum. Without bothering to remove his centurion's helmet, Sir Harold 
Langridge M.P. (for he was, in truth, no less) strode, sword in hand, up the carpeted gangway and 
rattling and wrathful, demanded to know what the hell it was all about.

certainly justified. He was summoned from the forum of his exclusive West End Dream Club where he 
was taking a central role in'The Rape of the Sabine Women', given a perfunctory squirt from a 
dehallucinant 
atomizer, and informed that there was an urgent call for him on the videophone in the 
Senior Members' zoned sanctum. Without bothering to remove his centurion's helmet, Sir Harold 
Langridge M.P. (for he was, in truth, no less) strode, sword in hand, up the carpeted gangway and 
rattling and wrathful, demanded to know what the hell it was all about.

 'The mean bitchl' fumed Sir Harold. 'She knew I'd drawn Centurion for the first time in six months! You 
could at least have stalled her off for another five minutes.'

 'I tried to, sir. Indeed I did. B-but you know her Ladyship.'

 Sir Harold grunted, thrust open the door of the sanctum and marched up to the screen. 'Well, Miranda?' 
he barked. 'What is it? And you'd better make it goodl`

 The woman who stared at him out of the screen looked like a slightly older model of her own enchanting 
daughter. 'Bad news, I'm afraid, Harry,' she said. 'Cherry's been kidnapped.'

 'Kidnapped!'

 She nodded. 'We've just had a demand for a hundred thousand 
pounds from the U.A.B.'

 'The devil we have!' roared Sir Harold, wrenching savagely at his plaited leather chinstrap. 'No bloody 
monkey's getting a hundred thousand out of mel Tell the bastards they can keep her! And good luck 

to'eml'

 'They say if we don't pay up they'll send us her cars by special delivery tomorrow lunchtime.'

 Sir Harold snorted. 'Ears! Dammit, Miri, she can get herself a brand new pair for a thousand eachl It's 

blackmail, that's all it is! Blackmail I'

 'Yes, dear. I know.'

 'Why didn't you get on to Reggie at Security? Hell, we pay far too much bloody tax as it isl'

 'I've already spoken to him, dear. He advises us to pay up.'

 'The devil he doesI It's not his hundred thoul'

 'He says there's really not much hope of our seeing Cherry again if we don't.'

 'The stupid little tramp!' howled the outraged father. 'How the hell did they get hold of her anyway?'

 'It was in the Park, I believe.'

 'The Park!Was she stoned out of her tiny mind! By God, Miri, I'll get every cent of this back out of her 


wages if I have to squeeze her from now to Doomsdayl'

wages if I have to squeeze her from now to Doomsdayl'

 'Why the hell should I? Aren't Samaritans insured against occupational risks?'

 'I'm not sure if this comes under "Line of Duty", dear. Do you want me to find out?'

 'You bet I dol And Miri-'

 'Yes, dear.'

 'You tell the U.A.B. from me that I'll have their guts for garters if it's the last thing I do I'

 'Yes, dear. Oh, there is one other thing.'

 'Well?'

 'They're insisting on maximum publicity.'

 'The devil they are! We'll see about that.'

 'I gather they've already been in touch with I.V.S.'

 Sir Harold saw his wife glance down at the floor. 'Go on,' he growled menacingly.

 'They're suggesting we could auction off the So-Vi rights to the negotiations for the hand-over and split 

the proceeds fiftyfifty.'


 A gleam of pure acquisitive admiration kindled in Sir Harold's 
eye. 'By God, Miri, you've got to hand it 
to those chimps for nerve!'

 Lady Langridge glanced up again. 'They seem to think we could hold out for at least two hundred 
thousand.'

 Sir Harold's eyeballs flickered round like computer spools. Thew!' he whistled. 'Two hundred thou, eh? 

Cool, Mirit Bloody cool!'

 Lady Langridge coughed. 'They actually suggested that this was Cherry's own idea.'

 For the first time Sir Harold's face broke into a slow, wide grin. 'Of course!' he cried. 'That's it! No 

bloody monkey could be that sharp! I always said my little girl was wasting herself in Samaritans! My in 

five years she could own half the bloody City!'

 Lady Langridge permitted herself the ghost of a smile. 'They said that you would be allowed a free hand 
to do the financial negotiating.'

 'That's my poppet all right!' crowed Sir Harold. 'She knows her daddy! By God, she does! How'm I 
supposed to contact these junglies?'

 'They'll be phoning through again in an hour. Do you want it relayed?' 


 Sir Harold unclipped his helmet and dragged it off. 'I'll come home,' he said. 'I'm off the boil now 
anyway. Be with you

 Sir Harold unclipped his helmet and dragged it off. 'I'll come home,' he said. 'I'm off the boil now 
anyway. Be with you

E.B.C. I want a fourcornered, 
security-sealed link-up with them and the I.V.S. Two hundred? By God, 
Mrs. Langridge, I'm beginning to think that if we play our cards right we'll more than double thatl' 
TWENTY-ONE

 Cheryl was woken from a profound sleep by the sound of the cell door being opened. One of the young 
uniformed apes who had earlier regarded her as 'perks' in the species struggle was standing in the 
doorway. 'You're to come with me, Miss,' he said. 'Captain's orders.'

 'Oh go and eat bananas,' growled Cheryl. 'And that goes for him too!' 
'Your father wants to speak to you on the videophone, Miss.' 
'So what?' 
Alvin who was lying on another mattress in the corner of the cell woke up and demanded to know what 


was going on. 
'I've had a summons from Captain Marvel,' Cheryl informed him. 'It seems my ever-loving pappy's on 


the line.' 
'Oh,' said Alvin. 'That's nice.' 
Cheryl did not seem convinced. 'Except that I've already made it plain to our pocket Trotsky that I'm 


not going to do his dirty work for him. Go on, you,' she growled at the ape, 'clear off, and let me get 
some sleep!'

 The chimp unshouldered his laser and pointed it at her rather unsteadily. 
'And don't try any more of the strong-arm stuff, buster,' she said icily. 'If you lay another finger on me 
your stupid hide won't be fit for dish rags and you know it.'


 The laser wavered indecisively and then swivelled round till it was pointing at Alvin. 'Sohe gets it,' said 
the ape. 
There was a long tense moment while Cheryl debatedwhether her aura of immunity could be extended to 



include Alvin and decided it couldn't. 'All right,' she muttered, 'I'll come. But don't think you've had the 
last word, lover-boy.'

include Alvin and decided it couldn't. 'All right,' she muttered, 'I'll come. But don't think you've had the 
last word, lover-boy.'

 'Shall I come with you, Cheryl?' said Alvin.

 'You stay, pinkie,' grunted the ape.

 Cheryl pressed the static seals on the backs of her calves and stood up. 'You're sure you wouldn't feel 
safer if I was blindfolded?' 
she enquired sweetly.

 'Captain didn't say anything about that,' muttered the ape. 'Come on.'

 The cell door clanged shut behind them and the sound of their echoing footsteps died away in the 
distance. Alvin stood up and tested the door but it was bolted fast. Then he lay down on Cheryl's bed, 
switched on an eidetic mental street guide to London and tried to work out where they were. Presumably 
somewhere within walking distance of Marble Arch. He rummaged 
around in his incredible memory until 
he had found an old print map which marked underground car parks. The only suitable one seemed to be 
Green Park. He then went back and began combing retrospectively among the vaults and passages he 
had been led through, bringing thern up one by one before his mind's eye and scrutinizing them minutely 
for some possible 
clue. Within a minute he had found what he was looking for-a faded red arrow on a 
concrete span girder and a scarcely legible inscription 'EXIT IIALF MOON ST.' A quick flick back to 
the street guide and he had pinpointed to within a hundred yards his exact location. It was as though the 
last jig-saw fragment 
of his identity had slotted neatly into place. He knewwho he was; he knewwhere 
he was. All that now remained was to discoverwhat he was!

 He thatched his hands behind his head and gazed up at the rust-stained concrete of the cell-roof. Having 
selected an area about three feet by four he simply recreated within it the video-screen on which, three 
years before, he had watched Professor Poynter's stereoscopic image telling him that he was unique. He 
followed it through from beginning to end and pondered upon it. Had she been telling the truth? 
Presumably only up to a point, which was certainly one of the reasons they'd wanted to get their own 
back on her. 'They'?He! That was what the old duck hadn't realized. It wasn't just a case Of 4 times I, 
but of i to the power Of 4I Or maybe even 4 to the power Of 4I One is one and all alone and ever more 
shall be so, but turn your mirrors inwards on themselves and who can count the images then?

 So whathad happened? He closed his eyes and opened them again upon Desmond and Colin and 
Bruce, who were but Alvin and Alvin and Alvin. Four to the power of four. But fourwhat? 'Clones' she 
had called them. 'I am we,' he murmured, 'we are L' Could it be that Professor Poynter was their 
mother? Had they banished her because she had betrayed them? Well, of course they'd given her a 
fright, but surely she'd asked for it. Present a kid with a pair of seven league boots and what do you 
expect him to do?Polish them? But maybe shehad done the right thing after all. The right thing for the 
wrong reasons. Psychological 
restructuring and three years in limbo had made a lot of difference. And if 
he was different, so were they all. There wasn't much likelihood of them making the same mistake again. 
But if only she'd waited a moment before she'd squirted that can of gas at them. It would only have 
needed a moment. just long enough to tell her . . . or maybe toshow her . . . yes ' to show her . . . And, 
lying there in the gloom remembering it, Alvin's lips curled into the same sublime grin that had once 
graced the clones' moony features as they lay unconscious on the floor in the Ministry of Procreation.

 That was how Cheryl found him when she returned, escorted 
by a different guard, half an hour later. 
She walked overto the bed and looked down at him. 'Alvin Forster,' she said, 'I hate to tell you this, but 


that's my bed you're sleeping on.'

that's my bed you're sleeping on.'

 Cheryl sat down and began pulling off her boots. 'I've been too clever by half,' she grunted. 'It looks as 

though we may be stuck here for at least a week.'

 'A week! But I thought. . . .'

 'So did I,' said Cheryl. 'But I overlooked one thing. Daddy's infallible nose for business.'

 'He won't pay?'

 'Oh, he'llpay all right, but now he's insisting on 6c,% of the world So-Vi rights.'

 'So-Vi rights?'

 Cheryl gnawed her lip. 'I suppose I should have told you this before, Alvin. I put the idea up to the 
Captain at our first interview. 
I thought they'd be able to make a sort of sob feature out of it. You know 
the kind of thing. "M.P.'slovely young Samaritan 
daughter held hostage by urban guerrilla apes!' It 
seemed a good way of recouping the ransom.'

 'Hey, Cheryl, you know that's really clever!'

 'Urn,' grunted Cheryl, 'what I forgot was that it takes time to build these things up. The So-Vi boys 
reckon on a week for maximum impact. Believe it or not, darling Daddykins was ready to give 'em a 

fortnight! He says it'll take him that long to get really haggard.'

 'And did the Captain agree?'

 'Him!' Cheryl snorted bitterly. 'He just can't wait to get his paws on all that lovely loot. Hell, he's even 

been offering to make me the U.A.B. fund raiser! So much for the holy species struggle, eh? God, Alvin, 
this world makes me puke, really it does.'

 'What're you going to do?'

 'I don't know,' she sighed. 'I'll think of something. Right now I just want to catch up on my beauty sleep.'

 Alvin took the hint, sat up and relinquished the bed. 'Hey, what happened to that guard?' he said. 'The 
one who was going 
to lase me?'

 'Oh, him,' yawned Cheryl. 'I fixed him all right. I swore to the Captain that he'd tried to rape me again. 
He's had his laser confiscated 
and been given a week in the cookhouse. That'll teach him to tangle with 
his superiors.' 


 TWENTY-TWO

 TWENTY-TWO

 'What does he want?' she whispered, sitting up in bed and reaching for her wrap.

 'He wouldn't say, ma'am. Shall I let him in?'

 'Show him into the study, Norbert. I'll be with you in a moment.'


 She leant over and kissed Hortense who was still deep in a drug-induced oblivion, then she slipped out 
of bed and tiptoed from the room closing the door sof tly behind her.

 As she entered the study the visitor turned to her, introduced 
himself as Sergeant Atwell from the 
Political Investigation 
Department of Urban Security, and asked if she was Professor Poynter.

 She nodded. 'You wished to see me, Sergeant?'

 'Yes, madam. I'm at present engaged on the Langridge investigation 
under Chief Superintendent 
Tugwell.'

 'Tbe what investigation?' 
'Langridge, madam. Miss Cheryl Langridge, the only daughter 
of Sir Harold and Lady Langridge, was 


kidnapped by terrorist 
apes at approximately 22oo hours yesterday evening and--?

 'You did sayCheryl Langridge, Sergeant?'

 'Yes, madam. She's being held to ransom for £ioo,ooo. Now we have been informed that at 

approximately 003o hours this morning you videophoned the Samaritans and asked very particularly to 
speak to Miss Langridge. You phoned again about an hour later. Would you mind telling me why?'

 Professor Poynter blinked. 'I-er-wished to ask her something.'


 'Yes, madam,' said Atwell patiently, 'we rather imagined you did. Now would you be so good as to tell 
me what that something 
was?'

 Professor Poynter was silent for five long seconds. 'I hoped she might be able to help me locate a 
person I am particularly interested in.'

 'And who is that?'

 'His name is Alvin-Alvin Forster actually-but at present he is answering only to Alvin.'

 'I see,' said the Sergeant. 'Can you describe him to me?'

 'I can show you his stereograph if you'd prefer it.' 


 'I certainly would,' said Atwell.

 'I certainly would,' said Atwell.

 'May l?' said Atwell, and producing a miniature camera he rapidly snapped three quickies of the clone. 

'This lad, he was a friend of Miss Langridges?'

 'Not that I know of.'

 'A client, perhaps?'

 'I hardly think that likely.'

 'Then why should you have hoped to contact him through her?'

 'Because I have every reason to believe that Alvin was last seen in her company.'

 'Oh yes?' said the Sergeant. 'What reason?'

 The Professor hesitated momentarily. 'Norbert, the anthropoid 
who let you in just now, was Alvin's 

closest companion. He reported the fact to me.'

 Atwell's eyebrows twitched. 'You mean he was there? With them?'

 Professor Poynter nodded.

 'Where was this?'

 'In Hyde Park.'

 'Well, well,' said Atwell enigmatically.

 'I can assure you that Norbert is absolutely blameless in this matter, Sergeant.'

 'In that case you won't object to my questioning him, then?' 'Of course not. Shall I call him?'

 'I'd be obliged, madam.'

 The first thing Atwell's trained eye noticed when Norbert entered was the eavesdropper adhering to his 
belt. 'Excuse me,' he said and, reaching out, picked it off and examined it. Then, without speaking, he 
circled slowly round the mystified chimp and peeled off the second bug. Pressing them so that they clung 
together he turned to the open window and flipped them out. 'Someone's obviously interested in you,' he 
said. 'Any idea who?'

 'No, sir,' said the astonished Norbert.

 'You know what those were?'

 Norbert shook his head. 


 'Body static micro-transmitters.'

 'Body static micro-transmitters.'

yesterday evening, Norbert?' 
asked Atwell.

 'He was trying to-'

 'Please, madam, let him answer for himself.'

 'We were in this protest march, sir,' said Norbert.

 'Oh yes?' said Atwell. 'Who were you with?'

 'The Crewys Road Anti-Vasectomy League. But all we were doing was trying to get to the Suburban 

Expressway.'

 'You're sure it wasn't the U.A.B. crowd?'

 'No, sir,' said Norbert. 'I don't think there was one.'

 'But if there had been you'd have been with it, eh?'

 'Sir,' said Norbert with impressive dignity, 'I am a branch leader of the Anthropoid Scientific and 

Technical Workers' Union. We do not recognize the U.A.B.'

 Atwell sniffed sardonically. 'All right,' he said. 'Go on from there.'

 Norbert described his adventures of the previous night with such unaffected sincerity that even the 
cynical Sergeant was finally 
convinced that he was telling the truth. 'I'm beginning to wonder if they 
haven't maybe got your young friend as well,' he muttered. 'But if that's the case why haven't they put the 
squeeze on for him too?'

 'On whom?' enquired Professor Poynter. 'Alvin is of absolutely 
no political significance.' 
Atwell looked at her and decided not to say what he was thinking. 
'I'm most anxious to get him back,' she said. 'Do you think that if I could get in touch with these guerrillas 


myself they might be prepared to release him?'


 'We aren't even sure that they've got him, are we, madam?'


 'But if he was with Miss Langridge. . . .'


 'We don't even know that for sure, do we?'


 'How wouldone set about getting in touch with them?'


 'If you'll take my advice, ma'am, you won't try it. Believe me, I know how these U.A.B. jokers tick.'


 Norbert turned and looked gravely at the Professor. 'I will find him for you, ma'am.' 



 'Oh, Norbert! How?'

 'Oh, Norbert! How?'

 Atwell coughed. 'Well, I'd best be getting along. You've both been most helpful. We'll get in touch with 
you the minute we hear something definite. In the meantime my advice would be to sit tight, cross your 
fingers and pray.'

 'Thank you, Sergeant.'

 Professor Poynter saw him to the door. As he was going out he turned to her and murmured: 'It's none 
of my business, I know, madam, but I'll take a bet with anyone that those bugs I found on your friend 
were MOSS standard hi-fi. Good day to you.'

 As soon as she had closed the door behind him Professor Poynter hurried through into her bedroom and 
began a meticulous 
examination of her clothes. Since she now knew what to look for it did not take her 
long to locate the two eavesdroppers Pinkerton had planted. With her heart racing she peeled them off 
and dropped them down the kitchen disposal. Then summoning 
Norbert to assist her she inched her 
way round the apartment searching for others. The fact that they found none did nothing to dispel her 
profound sense of foreboding. 'It must mean they've heard every word we said last night,' she said.

 'Then they will know about Alvin, ma'am.' 'And not only about Alvin.' 'What are we going to do?' 'Find 
him before they do, Norbert. It's our only hope.'

 TWENTY-THREE

 The Cheryl Langridge story erupted on Europe's breakfast screens that morning and followed the sun 
around the globe. By lunchtime her exquisitely wistful stereoscopic features had unloosed enough tears to 
float a medium-sized rocket carrier, while on the other side, close to forty thousand apes had flocked to 
join the illicit ranks of the U.A.B.

 From Freemantle to Finisterre a billion mums drooled and snivelled as the cameras panned pathetically 
round the little empty apartment in Bristol Street, lingering on the empty A.G. harness; on the knapsack 
of variegated venoms; on the Adonis Mk V paramour (a seventeenth birthday present from her dear old 
granny); before fading out on the inevitable close-up of Cheryl's graduation stereo-still of herself in full 
flight, administering 
the kiss of death to a plummeting stockbroker over Hounslow.

 By 22oohours it had become plain to the professionals that they had stumbled once again on the age-old 
winning formula -the truly human sob story. Cheryl's young life was opened up like a can of seafood and 
the processed tit-bits forked out on to the plates of the starving multitude. They gobbled them up, sucked 
their fingers and howled for more. Sir Harold and Lady Langridge were hounded from house to House 
and put on an award-winning performance of tight-lipped Anglo-Saxon nobility-
the tightness of Sir 
Harold's lips certainly accentuated by the fact that he had been forced into accepting a last minute 


compromise of 5 5 % instead of the 6o % he had hoped for.

compromise of 5 5 % instead of the 6o % he had hoped for.

 Then, as the So-Vi sleuths buzzed back and forth like bluebottles 
over the golden carrion of Cheryl's 
last hours before the snatch, the vital element of mystery without which the story would never have 
earned its place in the temple of the truly greats, miraculously appeared-'Mr. VI Yes, her transvestite 
neighbourhad heard voices from Cheryl's apartment that evening 
(Ihese walls are as thin as paper you 
know, dear'); no, she/he hadn't heard what they were saying ('Whatdo you take me for, love?'); but, yes, 
itcould have been a man's voice -well, a boy's, anyway.

 Tally ho! and the hunt for the villain/lover/go-between was up. The camera hounds sniffed their way 
down the Bristol Street arcade and accosted the natives. 'Yes, Cherylhad been with a boy. A fair-haired 
chap. No, they hadn't noticed him particularly.
Ordinary seemed to describe him best. Cone towards 
the Park they had. Well, into the Lane, anyway. Oh, a lovely girl, Cheryli Such a shame! Her poor mum 
and dadl'

 A Security Guard with his back to the camera (no faces: no reprisals). 'Yeah, he remembered her. 
Wearin' a sort of hood thing she was. And the bloke wiv er? Moon-faced sort of a git, wiv stickin' aht 
ears. He'd told 'em t' 'op it quick afore they got copped.'

 An I.V.S. exclusive with Chief Superintendent Reginald Tugwell 
of Urban Security and (wholly 
co-incidental therefore unmentioned) 
the husband of a major shareholder in the So-Vi company 
conducting the interview. 'Yes. undoubtedly these kidnap cases were very, very tricky. One false move 
and you could have Miss Langridge's pretty head in a plastic bag. He could assure the public that every 
possible step was being taken and a number of positive leads were being followed up. No, he wasn't 
prepared to say what they were at this stage. What was his personal opinion of the U.AR? He would 
rather not say. Was he not on record as having referred to them as "misguided 
idealists"? No comment.'

 Sir Harold Langridge M.P. (cornered in the conveniently photogenic portico of Chuffies' Club): 'These 
blackguards must be brought to book. Until that happens none of us could sleep safe in our beds. Was 
he going to pay up? He was being advised by Chief Inspector Tugwell. Had the U.A.B. contacted him 
personally? No comment. Was it true he had gone into the "No" lobby against the "Votes for Apes" 
motion last June? He had never made any secret of his opinion on these matters. Did he consider his 
daughter had been singled out because of his extreme views? Young man, I do not consider my views 
extreme. 
Well, good luck, Sir Harold. Thank you. Good day.'

 So finally back to Brother Dominic again for a background fill-in. 'Well, now, that's quite true, she was 
out on a call earlier 
yesterday evenin'. No, they hadn't recorded the call. Why hadn~t they? Well, it 
wasn't Samaritan practice, that's why. Well, yes, he supposed it might have thrown some light on what 
had happened to her, but there, he was hardly in a position to say, was he?' 


 TWENTY-FOUR

 TWENTY-FOUR

plated the game in silence for a moment then said to Cheryl: 'I've just had 'em on the phone again.'

 'Lucky old you,' she muttered.

 'They say the bloodstained messages aredt emotive enough.'

 'You're really breaking my heart.'

 The Captain sucked his teeth noisily. 'They're asking for something tangible. An car, maybe?'

 'Well, they're not getting one of mine,' said Cheryl firmly. 'Let them find their own if they want one.'

 The Captain examined the dead end of his cigarette and

 nodded towards Alvin. 'One of his wouldn't do, I suppose?'

 'Definitely not,' said Cheryl. 'Don't be ridiculous.'

 The ape contemplated Alvin's remarkable aural appendages which promptly turned a delicate rose pink 

under the scrutiny. 
'Tley don't look real, do they?' he said at last. 'Well, how about a finger then?'

 'Look,' said Cheryl, 'Im telling you straight. It's not on. They can get a whole fistful of fingers if they want 
them. Arms, legs, the lot. You aren't trying to tell me it's beyond the wit of those

 SoXi phonies to fix a simple thing like that. Either they make do on our heartbreaking messages and find 
their own bits and Pieces or the whole deal's off. Cot it?'

 The Captain sniffed. 'You capitalists are all alike,' he grumbled. 'Men it comes to a question of principle, 
it's always self first. Selfish, that's what you are. What could sacrificing a bit of yourself for a noble cause 
mean to someone like you?'

 'Not much if you must know,' said Cheryl. 'And if it's a cause as phoney as the U.A.B., nothing at all. All 
you're interested in is power.'

 'All politicians are interested in power,' replied the Captain blandly. 'That's why they're politicians.' 


 Cheryl snorted. 'And what do you suppose you'll do if you ever get it?'

 Cheryl snorted. 'And what do you suppose you'll do if you ever get it?'

 'And what we're doing here now is a part of that, I suppose?'

 'Of course. Wasn't it your Chairman Mao who taught us that to reach the top of a mountain you travel 
by a winding road? U.A.B. membership has already increased by over two hundred thousand, thanks to 
you. You're our biggest recruiting boost since we rubbed out the Lord Chief justice in'68I'

 'And I thought it was a good idea,' muttered Cheryl disgustedly.


 The Captain shrugged. 'Another week of this and I reckon we'll be strong enough to come out into the 
open. That means you'll have helped the species struggle to skip a whole generation. 
Enfranchisement's 
the next step. Come the election after next I'll be leading the U.A.B. into Parliament. It wouldn't surprise 
me to end up holding the balance of power in Brussels.' He relit his cigarette, jutted his lower lip and 
blew a jet of smoke over the table. 'That offer I made to you is still open, by the way.'

 Cheryl burst out laughing.

 'I mean it. You mark my words. As the man said: Nothing succeeds like excess. The moment we reach 
the million markwe'll have the liberal pinkies falling over themselves to identify with our cause. It's only a 
question of time.'

 Alvin, who had been listening in fascination to this exchange, decided the time had come for him to put in 
a word. 'But you still haven't told us what you'll do when youdo get power, Captain.'


 'As a matter of fact I'm in the middle of drafting a new party manifesto,' said the Captain. 'The old one's 
a bit too rough and ready seeing as how we're broadening our base. I've turned up some useful material 
from one of your 7oth Century pinkie demagogues. How d'you like this? Ihave nothing to offer but 
blood, toil, tears and sweatl Got just the right sacrificial ring, don't you think?'

 'But isn't that just what you've always said the apes have got already?' objected Alvin.

 'When will you grow up, simp?' groaned the Captain. 'Ofcourse it's what they've got already. Apes are 
born to sufferit's 
the only thing they know how to do. What I'm offering them is the sense ofpurpose to 
go with it.'

 'And what is the purpose?' enquired Alvin deferentially.

 'Freedom, of course.'

 'But freedom fromwhat?'

 'Oppression,' said the Captain. 'Tyranny and oppression.'

 There was a sound of running feet in the passage outside. An anthropoid aide burst into the room and 
saluted perfunctorily. 
'We've scooped a pinkie and an Albert, Captain,' he panted. 'Found 'em 
wandering around in the Green Park tunnels.' He jerked his head in the direction of Alvin. 'They say 
they've come to findhim.' 


 'Armed, are they?'

 'Armed, are they?'

 'All right, I'll come.' The Captain took a pace towards the door then changed his mind. 'No. Bring'em 

along here.'

 The aide saluted again and ran out.

 'I wonder how they got through the So-Vi screen?' mused the Captain. 'All the exits are supposed to be 

covered. You can't trust anyone these days.' He walked over to the washbasin in the corner of the room 
and peered at himself in the speckled mirror. 'D'you know who they are?'

 'I suppose it could be Norbert,' said Alvin.

 'That the A.S.T.W. chimp you told me about?'

 Alvin nodded.

 The Captain smoothed back the hair over his ears. 'And the pinkie?'

 'I've no idea.'

 Footsteps tramped down the passage; halted outside the door. 'Come in!' growled the Captain.

 'Inside, you!' barked a chimp guard.

 The door opened.

 'Norbert!'

 'Alvin!'

 'Stay where you are!' yelped the escort.

 Norbert and Professor Poynter, looking travel-stained and rather knocked about, shuffled to a halt in the 
centre of, the room and blinked around them. Norbert had a pronounced swelling over his left eye and 
the Professor was bleeding from a gashed lip.

 Alvin, who had risen from his scat as they entered, now ran forward and embraced Norbert tenderly.

 'That I should have lived to see it!' growled the astounded Captain. 'How the hell did you two get in 
here?'

 'From the basement of Lancaster House,' said the Professor dabbing at her lip. 'Sergeant Atwell told us 

there was a way through from there.'

 'And who the hell's Sergeant Atwell?'

 'A Political Investigation officer.' 


 'So that bunch are in on the act, are they? I might have guessed. And what are you then?'

 'So that bunch are in on the act, are they? I might have guessed. And what are you then?'

 Tle Captain was visibly taken aback. 'And you're sticking your neck out forhim? What's going on 

around here?'

 Professor Poynter turned to Alvin and regarded him much as the father of the Prodigal Son might once 
have regarded his contrite off-spring. 'I could not rest until I'd found him,' she said. 'You won't remember 

me, Alvin, bu t I-'

 'Oh, but I do, Professor. It was you who laid me out at the M.0.P.'

 'You remember thatl'

 Alvin grinned and nodded.

 'But this ismarvellousl' she exulted, 'Absolutely marvellous! When did it happen?'

 'The day before yesterday,' said Alvin.

 'What the hell is all this?' demanded the Captain turning upon Cheryl. 'Do you know?'

 She shrugged. 'He got his memory back. We think it might have been something to do with his being 

gassed and then knocked out.'

 'So?' said the Captain suspiciously. 'What's marvellous about that?'

 'You'd better ask her,' said Cheryl. 'She's the authority on the subject.'

 'Spill it, Prof.'

 Professor Poynte-r suddenly realized that by giving vent to her enthusiasm she might have lessened the 

chances of freeing Alvin from captivity. 'I was responsible for his tragic accident,' she said. 'I feel as 
though a tremendous burden of guilt has been lifted from me.'

 'Oh, isthat all?' said the Captain morosely. 'Myself I preferred 
him as he was. Not that you'll notice 
much difference. He's still an idiot.'

 'He is a child of God,' said Norbert indignantly. 'Blessed are the pure in heart.'

 The Captain pulled a disgusted face. 'Don't come that religious 
crap with me, monkey! I was fed texts 
as protein substitute 
for ten stinking years.'

 Norbert screwed up his eyes and squinted across at his captor. 'Don't I know you?' he queried slowly.

 'Could be,' admitted the Captain. 'St. Barnabas Mission mean anything to you?'

 Recognition dawned on Norbert's face. 'Young Pikerl' he exclaimed. 'Lead alto. Excommunicated for 
bootlegging sacramental 
winel' 


 The Captain grinned. 'That's right. Then whore you?'

 The Captain grinned. 'That's right. Then whore you?'

 'Evermore lones!Well, I'll be floggedl Then where's this "Norbert" handle come from?'

 Norbert shrugged. 'I lost my faith back in '53 and spent a couple of years wandering in the wilderness. I 
swopped names with a chimp who took a fancy to mine.'

 'Well, well,' chuckled the Captain. 'It's a small world, Evermore. 
And how did you come to fetch up 
at-what's the name of the place?-Aldbury?'

 'That chimp I told you about was down for a Government rehabilitation course. I went along in his place 
and opted for Hydrological Agronomy. That's all there is to it really. And how about you, Piker?'

 'I lived on my wits for years till I got framed for a hi-jack job and bought a twelve month stretch in '56. 
Did some reading inside. Cot to hear about the U.A.B. Haven't looked back since.' The Captain took off 
his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. 'Why don't you join us, Evermore? Plenty of scope in 
the movement for an honest monkey like you.'

 Norbert shook his head. 'Don't think I don't appreciate the offer, Piker, but I've heard my own call. 
Loud and clear, this time. That's why I'm here.'

 'Not him?' said the Captain nodding at Alvin. 
'That's right.' 
'But what's so special about this simp? Apart from the fact that he's the only pinkie I've ever known 


who's greeted an ape like a long-lost brother.' 
'Maybe that's it,' said Norbert. 
'Ah, you're still the same old dreamer, Evermore. Remember the Easter sermon you preached on 


'Tlessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth"? Best sermon I ever heard. We could certainly use 
you in Propaganda.' 
'It's nice of you to say so, Piker, but it strikes me you're doing pretty well on your own account. You 


always did have an eye for the main chance.' 
'Oh we're really going places this time! You've heard how they're falling over themselves to join the 
U.A.B.?'


 Norbert nodded. 'Each to his own, Piker.' 
The Captain shrugged. 'I suppose you know what you're doing but Im flogged if I do. Still, you're 
welcome to him if that's what you want. And good riddance, I say.' 



 'Thank you,' said Norbert and Professor Poynter in unison.

 'Thank you,' said Norbert and Professor Poynter in unison.

 The Captain sat down on one of the beds, took out his tobacco pouch and prepared to roll himself a 

cigarette. 'I told you he was an idiot,' he said. 'You won't find another like him.'

 'I love her,' said Alvin. 'I'll go when she goes.'

 'You'll go when I say so,' growled the Captain.

 'And I'll go when I say so,' chipped in Cheryl. 'Anyway you don't need me any more.'

 'Have you gone crazy too?' spluttered the Captain. 'You aren't due for release till nine on Saturday 

eveningi That's the way we planned iti You're getting peak slotting on global channelsl' 
'Oh that's all right,' said Cheryl. 'I was going to ask them to fix me a stand-in anyway. I couldn't have 

carried it off myself. Not without laughing.'

 'You didn't tell me that,' protested the aggrieved Captain.

 'I only thought of it just now,' admitted Cheryl.

 'Do you think it'll work?' asked Alvin.

 'Bound to. They're sure to prefer it anyway. It'll give them time to rehearse.'

 Professor Poynter gasped. 'Do you mean to say you'vePlanned all this?'

 'Oh well,' shrugged Cheryl, 'not altogether, of course. It just seemed too good a chance to miss.'

 'I see,'murmured the Professor.'So that's why Sergeant Atwell turned so co-operative. How many 

people are in the secret?'

 'I've no idea,' said Cheryl, 'but there's bound to have been some leaking along the line by now.' She 
pushed back her chair and stood up. 'I suppose I'd better go and get things sorted out with Daddy,' she 
said. 'Are you coming, Captain?'

 The Captain opened his mouth as if to object and then shrugged helplessly. 'And I thought I'd seen it all,' 
he muttered. 'Compared to her a corkscrew's straighter than a bloody laser.'

 'Oh don't be such a pathetic cube,' said the world's favourite heroine.

 TWENTY-FIVE 



 The breaking of the eavesdropper contact on Professor Poynter had flung MOSS into a state of 
remarkable perturbation. This was largely accounted for by the fact that their last scrap of recorded 
conversation had suggested that their old rivals the P.l.D. were muscling in on the territory. An urgent 
command to Pinkerton, to re-establish the broken link forthwith, might possibly have succeeded had he 
not been fast asleep when the message came through. By the time he was fully alerted and had been 
despatched at the double to Kew Mansions, the Professor and Norbert had already left.

 The breaking of the eavesdropper contact on Professor Poynter had flung MOSS into a state of 
remarkable perturbation. This was largely accounted for by the fact that their last scrap of recorded 
conversation had suggested that their old rivals the P.l.D. were muscling in on the territory. An urgent 
command to Pinkerton, to re-establish the broken link forthwith, might possibly have succeeded had he 
not been fast asleep when the message came through. By the time he was fully alerted and had been 
despatched at the double to Kew Mansions, the Professor and Norbert had already left.

 It was not the first time in his professional life that Pinkerton had been in roughly similar circumstances. 
He groped round for the satchel in which, along with the other tools of his trade, he carried an amnesiac 
aerosol for use in just such an emergency. Unfortunately he had left the satchel in the other room and he 
was about to tiptoe off in search of it when his feet became entangled 
in the pile of de-bugged clothes 
which the Professor had left scattered on the bedroom floor. He staggered, lurched wildly around, arms 
windmilling, and pitched for-ward across the semi-recumbent form on the bed.

 For Hortense he was the embodiment of all the traumas of her youth. Her arms and legs contracted in an 
hysterical spasm of what was either terror or lust or a mixture of both, and the horrified security agent 
found himself locked to the naked bosom of a vigorous and comely lesbian. 'Please let go, madam,' he 
begged in a strained whisper, terrifyingly conscious of the micro-transmitters in his pocket all busily 
relaying this back to K. G. 3. 'You'll ruin my career.'

 Hortense's reply was to grip him the tighter and mutter: 'Get it, you black brute! Get what you've come 
for!'

 'Madam, it's all a mistake,' whimpered the anguished Pinkerton. 
'I'm an anthropoid,'

 'You're a black bastard,' moaned Hortense. 'A great black randy gorilla and you're raping me.'

 'No! NO! I'm not!' squeaked Pinkerton, struggling frantically to free himself. 'How can you say such 
things? Oh, please let me go, madam.'

 Hortense's lissom thighs held him gripped like a pair of nutcrackers. 
Her strength was as the strength of 
ten while Pinkerton, 
paralysed with fear, felt as though all his tendons had been severed. He made one 
further feeble effort to wriggle free and then abandoned himself to despair. His last desperate act was to 
close her mouth with his own in a futile attempt to prevent her from incriminating him beyond all hope of 
reprieve. This merely had the effect of goading her into a further paroxysm of carnality which culminated 
in her grabbing the croticon spray from the bedside table and drenching them both in an impenetrable 
concupiscent miasma.

 The MOSS semasiological analysis of the sound patterns transmitted from the Professor's apartment 
during the next twenty minutes took four days to complete and ruined over half a million pounds' worth of 
ultra-sophisticated electronic hardware. By the time it was concluded Pinkerton had resigned from the 
Service and was enjoying a life of luxurious depravity as the simian paramour of Hortense Poynter (rice 


Calabash), a post which, incidentally, he filled with energy and imagination until he succumbed to 
over-stimulation and perished in the late Autumn Of 2073.

Calabash), a post which, incidentally, he filled with energy and imagination until he succumbed to 
over-stimulation and perished in the late Autumn Of 2073.

 Cheryl's presence in the party was explained partly by her father's having insisted as the condition of her 
release that she must remain out of sight and incognito until the ransom negotiations and their inevitable 
aftermath were over and forgotten, 
but partly also by her own thirst for adventure and her growing 
attachment to young Alvin. As she admitted wryly to herself on more than one occasion, there was 
something about the boy. . . .

 Once the arrangements for Cheryl's So-Vi 'double' had been concluded their release from the confines 
of the U.A.B. headquarters 
had followed rapidly. Captain Piker had insisted to the last that he would 
always find places for Cheryl and Norbert in his organization and they had parted on the best of terms. 
Now, disguised as tourists, the four friends were seated in the passenger 
lounge of the Sir Compton 
Mackenzie sipping at a selection of beverages and watching the So-Vi recording of Cheryl's return to the 
land of the living. Several of the other passengers were already weeping unashamedly as the cameras cut 
back and forth between the deserted rendezvous near the Albert Memorial, the tensed and noble faces 
(expertly tense and ennobled by courtesy of the E.B.C. make-up department) of Sir Harold and Lady 
Langridge, and the familiar-but oh how infinitely pathetic !-little empty bed in Apartment 5o6zi. Bristol 
Street.

 just when the tension seemed to have been racked to breaking 
point there was a pale, will-o'-the-wisp 
flicker among the shadowy elms in the direction of the Round Pond, a wellrehearsed 
gasp from the 
commentator and, as the cameras zoomed in, behold! Cheryl herself tripping barefoot over the dewy 
grass clad in what looked rather like a ragged Victorian nightie.

 Spontaneous applause and a chorus of 'ooh's and 'ah's broke out in the lounge of theSir Compton 
Mackenzie, and one maudlin matron was even moved to cry out: 'Och, the puir wee bairn.' Whereupon 
Cheryl, overcome with sacrilegious mirth, choked on her gin and bitters.

 The substitute Cheryl was an Italian drama student named Marina Fabriota who spoke only broken 
English, but this did not matter at all since her dialogue had already been prerecorded 
by a 
voice-double. As far as looks went the likeness was wholly remarkable, and the retinal blanching and 
dyeing which had transformed a pair of dark brown eyes into emerald green ones gave even Alvin 
momentary pause to wonder which was the real Cheryl and which the imitation.

 They heard her recount her adventures while tears of the purest glycerine trickled down her pallid 
cheeks. Yes, she had been treated with commendable courtesy. No she had no idea where she had been 
held. Who was the mysterious Mr. X? Samaritans never disclosed the names of their clients. Then he 
was a client, not a member of the U.A.B2 Certainly he was not a member of the U.A.B. How had she 
spent time in captivity? 
Writing poetry and worrying about Mummy and Daddy and

 little Pookie her pet goldfish. What did she want most? A really hot bath and a long, long sleep. And so 


on and so forth. She even managed to get in the mild plug for the U.A.B. which Captain Piker had 

on and so forth. She even managed to get in the mild plug for the U.A.B. which Captain Piker had 

 By the time it was over, Cheryl and her companions scarcely knew whether they were suffering from 
nausea or excessive admiration. 
'I don't know what fee she's being paid,' shuddered Cheryl, 'but she's 
earned every cent of it.Little Pookiel Ughl I couldn't have managed that if my life had depended on itl'

 'But what will you do when you get back?' asked the Professor. 
'You'll have to play up to the role, 
won't you?'

 'I couldn't,'Cheryl insisted. 'That chapter's closed for good.'

 'Then won't that mean your giving up the Samaritans?'

 'It looks like it, doesn't it?' she nodded. 'I think I'd probably have had to anyway. They're pretty sticky 
about us preserving anonymity.'

 'Then what will you do?' asked Alvin.

 'I haven't really thought about it,' she confessed. 'My rake-off will give me enough to get by on for a 
couple of years. After that-who knows? Maybe I'll take up the Captain's offer. FII think of something.'

 Alvin regarded her with unadulterated worship. 'I think you're fantastic, Cheryli Really I do.'

 'I think I'm pretty fantastic too,' grinned Cheryl. 'It's just something I'll have to learn to live with.'

 TWENTY-SIX

 Saint Clumbert's Abbey was not in itself an old foundation though it occupied the site of one. It had been 
re-established in I987 as one of the simulated environment retreats for the worldweary, 
and it now 
provided a :zlst Century blend of convenience and pseudo-austerity admirably gauged to the needs of its 
clients. Indeed, many of them had experienced something very close to the genuine mystical revelation as 
they had lain quaking in their air-conditioned cells listening to the equinoctial gales raving among the 
granite turrets and praying that the roof would not be blown away. After such experiences they usually 
returned to the urban treadmill spiritually refreshed and reconciled 
to their lot.

 Abbot Fox, the present leader of the community, was a man of principle who took his duties seriously. 
To his way of thinking 
'simulated environment' meant something very different from the Disney/Butlin 
type of plastic-and-plaster fake-up that could be found up and down the country offering 'a randy, 
roistering week-end in Nell Gwyn's Cheapside' or 'two days' glorious mill-bashing with the Luddites 
(sledgehammers and crowbars provided)'. At Saint Clumbert's it was hessian habits and rope-soled 
sandals for all, and heaven help any skrimshanker who was found slipping an extra battery into his 
electricallyheated 
underwear. What with compulsory attendance at matins, none, vespers and the rest 


even the casual visitor left Aukinsay with some inkling of what monastic life might have been like in the 
Dark Ages. The. odd thing was that many of the pilgrims returned again, year after year, and one or two 
had even left their bones in the abbey graveyard.

even the casual visitor left Aukinsay with some inkling of what monastic life might have been like in the 
Dark Ages. The. odd thing was that many of the pilgrims returned again, year after year, and one or two 
had even left their bones in the abbey graveyard.

 A raucous swirl of seabirds greeted the SirCompton Mackenzie 
as she hove to some three hundred 
yards off shore and lay wallowing in the windy swell while a longboat, pulled to the stirring rhythm of a 
lustily bellowed psalm, shot out from the little jetty at the foot of the beetling cliff. As it bobbed 
alongside, 
half a dozen rather dazed-looking repatriates were helped aboard the hovercraft and then 
Professor Poynter, Alvin, Norbert 
and Cheryl scrambled down to take their places. With a loud 
hosanna the tonsured coxswain gave the order to back oars. 'Pull for the Lord, my lads!' and they were 
away, rising and swooshing over a foam-streaked sea the colour of dirty dishwater, 
back to the 
sanctuary of the jetty.

 As they scrambled ashore they were welcomed by Brother Fred who blessed them perfunctorily before 
conducting them up a short flight of granite steps into a shallow, artificial cave which contained an 
antiquated though perfectly serviceable elevator. 
This then began winding them up rather grudgingly to 
the Abbey at the top of the cliff.

 'In the days of the first foundation they used to have to flog up three hundred and sixty-five steps,' 
Brother Fred informed them. 'One for each day of the year. Some of our visitors still like to do it but we 
don't encourage it since we lost a couple from suspected vertigo the summer before last. Still, the Lord 
doth provide. They made good bait for the lobster pots. How long are you here for?'

 'Only a short stay,' said Professor Poynter. 'We've really come to see Brother Bruce.'

 'Oh, him,' said the monk and then tipped back his cowl and peered at Alvin. 'You wouldn't be his twin 
brother by any chance?'

 'Yes,' said Alvin.

 'I thought as much. Bit surprised though. I mean to say anyone 
round here would lay you a penance to 
a couple of illuminated 
breviaries that our Brucie was a one and only. Manifold are the works of the 
Lord, eh?'

 'What does he do here?' asked Alvin.

 'Coat herd,' said Brother Fred. 'We tried him on the fishing but he kept falling in the oggin and we had to 
spend half our time lugging him out and giving him the kiss of life. Same thing in the kitchens. Hadn't been 
at it a week before he sliced off the end of his thumb with a cleaver. Willing lad, mind you. Nothing's 
too 
much trouble for him. He's safe enough with the goats. They like him and he likes them. Seem to 
understand one another, you might say.'

 'He sounds just right for Saint Clumbert's,' said Cheryl. 


 Well, yes and no,' agreed the monk. 'I mean, let's face it, this isn't what you'd call areal monastery. Not 
really real, if you take me. But Bruce now, he's just about the one hundred percent 
genuine article. Why 
only last week I heard the Abbot say, "If we don't watch out our Brother Bruce will be walking on the 
water one of these days." He meant it too. Still, since you know him I daresay you'll take my drift.'

 Well, yes and no,' agreed the monk. 'I mean, let's face it, this isn't what you'd call areal monastery. Not 
really real, if you take me. But Bruce now, he's just about the one hundred percent 
genuine article. Why 
only last week I heard the Abbot say, "If we don't watch out our Brother Bruce will be walking on the 
water one of these days." He meant it too. Still, since you know him I daresay you'll take my drift.'

 'You might say that,' allowed Brother Fred. 'Lost his memory or something, hasn't he? Not that it's any 
of my business. He's in a bit of a dream most of the time. Sees visions and what not.'

 'What sort of visions?' enquired Professor Poynter.

 'Oh, we don't take much notice of them. The other day he was on about some angel or other. Couldn't 
stop talking about it. Happy as a sandboy he was. Singing his head off while he milked his goats. Oh, he's 
a great one for the visions is our Brucie.'

 The lift shuddered to a halt. Brother Fred clattered open the safety gate and ushered them out. 'We'll get 
you booked in straight away,' he said, 'then I'll wheel you down to the habitary and see you're kitted up. 
If you'll just follow me. . . . And if you won't mind my saying so, the lowered eyes always gives a nice 
impression to the staff.'

 An hour later, robed and sandalled, they were ushered into the presence of Abbot Fox. Norbert, who 
insisted on wearing his cowl, was having some difficulty in preventing it from slipping 
down over his eyes 
but, this apart, they made a suitably reverential quartet.

 They discovered the Abbot kneeling in prayer before a small illuminated shrine. He did not look up as 
they entered. They waited in silence till he had concluded his devotions. Finally he crossed himself, 
climbed to his feet and turned to face them. 'Welcome, in God's name, to Saint Clumbert's,' he said, and 
then his eye alighted upon Alvin. He frowned. 'Brother Bruce, you are neglecting your duties.'

 'Oh, I'm not Bruce, M'Lord Abbot. Im his brother.'

 'You presume to jest with me, Brother?'

 'It's quite true, Abbot,' said Professor Poynter. 'This is Alvin, Bruce's twin.'

 'And who might you be, madam?'

 Professor Poynter explained and introduced the others, including 
Cheryl who, for some obscure 
reason, had chosen the temporary alias 'Blossom Chatsworth'.

 The Abbot nodded. 'Yes, of course, I remember, Professor. Sir Cordon Loveridge mentioned your 
name to me when he sent me Bruce. I was not aware that the lad had a twin. He has never spoken of 
him.' He returned his attention to Alvin. 'The likeness is certainly extraordinary. I could not havetold you 
apart. Does your brother know that you are here?'

 'I don't think so, M'Lord.' 


 'You are aware of his present employment?'

 'You are aware of his present employment?'

 'And an extremely good one, I'm pleased to say. The milk yield has increased by some 2o% since your 
brother was given charge of the herd. He has established a truly remarkable rapport 
with his flock.' He 
turned to Cheryl and treated her to a long, shrewd stare. 'Your face also seems strangely familiar, Miss 
Chatsworth,' he said. 'I can't imagine why.'

 Cheryl who had already noted the large So-Vi screen in a corner of the study, smiled and shook her 
head.

 The Abbot shrugged. 'Well, as you will already have realized, here at Saint Clumbert's we prefer not to 
do things by halves. Our patron saint should perhaps have been Konstantin Stanislavsky. 
He, you may 
recall, preached that %llusion" and "reality" are but two sides of the same coin. To the dreamer his dream 
is real. Or, to put it another way, reality is essentially subjective. Hence our insistence upon the offices 
and trappings of our Order.

 'The monastic diet is simple but adequate and wherever possible we eschew the ersatz in favour of the 
genuine. Our cheese, incidentally, is something of a gourmet's speciality. I recommend you to try it with a 
black bread. The cells, which at first glance may Strike you as somewhat sparsely equipped, contain all 
the essentials, and you will find the pallets surprisingly 
comfortable.

 'Sexual activity is discouraged but not forbidden. For those who feel the urge very strongly we have 
instituted a number of pre-lapsarian indulgences of varying severity. A list of these is posted in each cell. 
They range from one day's compulsory fast for masturbation to a public flogging of both parties for those 
wishing to copulate.' The Abbot treated them to a wintry smile as he added: 'You may or may not be 
relieved to hear that these strictures are relaxed between 2o.oo hours and 24.00 hours on our feast days. 
During those four hours the facilities of our well-appointed stimulatory are available for such as care to 
make use of them.'

 Cheryl grinned. 'And when's the next feast-day, Abbot? just out of curiosity you understand.'

 Abbot Fox twitched an ascetic nostril. 'Today, as it happens, Miss Chatsworth. This is the anniversary 
of The Venerable Cusp-an early Ionian mystic of somewhat dubious authenticity who gains a brief 
mention in the Lindisfarne Chap-book. I shall be preaching a short sermon on him at supper this evening.'

 'I look forward to hearing that,' said Cheryl. 'He should go down well with the cheese.'

 Abbot Fox gave her a thoughtful stare but forebore to comment.

 'Would it be possible for us to visit Bruce now?' enquired Professor Poynter.

 'If you can find him, certainly,' replied the Abbot. 'He will probably be out on the hills somewhere. 
Failing that the lad will undoubtedly be present at this evening's feast They are the one repast he never 
seems to forget.'

 Professor Poynter expressed the thanks of them all and then they bowed and shuffled out of the austere 
presence.

 'I shouldn't wonder if M'Lord Abbot handles the floggings 


 TWENTY-SIX

 TWENTY-SIX

 Abbot Fox, the present leader of the community, was a man of principle who took his duties seriously. 
To his way of thinking 
'simulated environment' meant something very different from the Disney/Buflin 
type of plastic-and-plaster fake-up that could be found up and down the country offering 'a randy, 
roistering week-end in Nell Gwyn's Cheapside' or 'two days' glorious mill-bashing with the Luddites 
(sledgehammers and crowbars provided)'. At Saint Clumbert's it was hessian habits and rope-soled 
sandals for all, and heaven help any skrimshanker who was found slipping an extra battery into his 
electricallyheated 
underwear. What with compulsory attendance at matins, none, vespers and the rest 
even the casual visitor left Aukinsay with some inkling of what monastic life might have been like in the 
Dark Ages. The odd thing was that many of the pilgrims returned again, year after year, and one or two 
had even left theirbones in the abbey graveyard.

 Not that it was all prayer and fasting. Each week there was a feast day in honour of some doubtful saint 
or other and the visitors were always encouraged to share in the various menial activities that occupied 
the permanent staff. Besides the kitchens and the garden there was a goat flock and two fishing boats that 
required constant attention. Nets and lobster pots were always in need of repairs, and, for the more 
creative individuals, 
a line in driftwood sculpture had recently been introduced 
and was proving a 
considerable attraction. All in all it was a busy and flourishing little community which surely justified 
the 
modest £250,000 per annurn Government subsidy which kept it going.

 A raucous swirl of scabirds greeted the SirCompton Mackenzie 
as she hove to some three hundred 
yards off shore and lay wallowing in the windy swell while a longboat, pulled to the stirring rhythm of a 
lustily bellowed psalm, shot out from the little jetty at the foot of the beetling cliff. As it bobbed 
alongside, 
half a dozen rather dazed-looking repatriates were helped aboard the hovercraft and then 
Professor Poynter, Alvin, Norbert 
and Cheryl scrambled down to take their places. With a loud 
hosanna the tonsured coxswain gave the order to back oars. 'Pull for the Lord, my ladsl' and they were 
away, rising and swooshing over a foam-streaked sea the colour of dirty dishwater, 
back to the 
sanctuary of the jetty.

 As they scrambled ashore they were welcomed by Brother Fred who blessed them perfunctorily before 
conducting them up a short flight of granite steps into a shallow, artificial cave which contained an 
antiquated though perfectly serviceable elevator. 
This then began winding them up rather grudgingly to 
the Abbey at the top of the cliff.

 'In the days of the first foundation they used to have to flog up three hundred and sixty-five steps,' 


Brother Fred informed them. 'One for each day of the year. Some of our visitors still like to do it but we 
don't encourage it since we lost a couple from suspected vertigo the summer before last. Still, the Lord 
doth provide. They made good bait for the lobster pots. How long are you here for?'

Brother Fred informed them. 'One for each day of the year. Some of our visitors still like to do it but we 
don't encourage it since we lost a couple from suspected vertigo the summer before last. Still, the Lord 
doth provide. They made good bait for the lobster pots. How long are you here for?'

 'Oh, him,' said the monk and then tipped back his cowl and peered at Alvin. 'You wouldn't be his twin 
brother by any chance?'

 'Yes,' said Alvin.

 'I thought as much. Bit surprised though. I mean to say anyone 
round here would lay you a penance to 
a couple of illuminated 
breviaries that our Brucie was a one and only. Manifold are the works of the 
Lord, eh?'

 'What does he do here?' asked Alvin.

 g Coat herd,' said Brother Fred. 'We tried him on the fishing but he kept falling in the oggin and we had 
to spend half our time lugging him out and giving him the kiss of life. Same thing in the kitchens. Hadn't 
been at it a week before he sliced off the end of his thumb with a cleaver. Willing lad, mind you. 
Nothing's 
too much trouble for him. He's safe enough with the goats. They like him and he likes them. 
Seem to understand one another, you might say.'

 'He sounds just right for Saint Clumbert's,' said Cheryl.

 'Well, yes and no,' agreed the monk. 'I mean, let's face it, this isn't what you'd call areal monastery. Not 
really real, if you take me. But Bruce now, he's just about the one hundred percent 
genuine article. Why 
only last week I heard the Abbot say, If we don't watch out our Brother Bruce will be walking on the 
water one of these days." He meant it too. Still, since you know him I daresay you'll take my drift.'

 'Another dweller in the Realms of the Spirit,' murmured Norbert.

 'You might say that,' allowed Brother Fred. 'Lost his memory or something, hasn't he? Not that it's any 
of my business. He's in a bit of a dream most of the time. Sees visions and what not.'

 'What sort of visions?' enquired Professor Poynter.

 'Oh, we don't take much notice of them. The other day he was on about some angel or other. Couldn't 
stop talking about it. Happy as a sandboy he was. Singing his head off while he milked his goats. Oh, he's 
a great one for the visions is our Brucie.'

 The lift shuddered to a halt. Brother Fred clattered open the safety gate and ushered them out. 'We'll get 
you booked in straight away,' he said, 'then I'll wheel you down to the habitary and see you're kitted up. 
If you'll just follow me. . . . And if you won't mind my saying so, the lowered eyes always gives a nice 
impression to the staff.'

 An hour later, robed and sandalled, they were ushered into the presence of Abbot Fox. Norbert, who 
insisted on wearing his cowl, was having some difficulty in preventing it from slipping 
down over his eyes 
but, this apart, they made a suitably reverential quartet. 


 They discovered the Abbot kneeling in prayer before a small illuminated shrine. He did not look up as 
they entered. They waited in silence till he had concluded his devotions. Finally he crossed himself, 
climbed to his feet and turned to face them. 'Welcome, in God's name, to Saint Clumbert's,' he said, and 
then his eye alighted upon Alvin. He frowned. 'Brother Bruce, you are neglecting your duties.'

 They discovered the Abbot kneeling in prayer before a small illuminated shrine. He did not look up as 
they entered. They waited in silence till he had concluded his devotions. Finally he crossed himself, 
climbed to his feet and turned to face them. 'Welcome, in God's name, to Saint Clumbert's,' he said, and 
then his eye alighted upon Alvin. He frowned. 'Brother Bruce, you are neglecting your duties.'

 'You presume to jest with me, Brother?'

 'It's quite true, Abbot,' said Professor Poynter. 'This is Alvin, Bruce's twin.'

 'And who might you be, madam?'

 Professor Poynter explained and introduced the others, including 
Cheryl who, for some obscure 
reason, had chosen the temporary alias 'Blossom Chatsworth'.

 The Abbot nodded. 'Yes, of course, I remember, Professor. Sir Cordon Loveridge mentioned your 
name to me when he sent me Bruce. I was not aware that the lad had a twin. He has never spoken of 
him.' He returned his attention to Alvin. 'The likeness is certainly extraordinary. I could not have told you 
apart. Does your brother know that you are here?'

 'I don't think so, M'Lord.'

 'You are aware of his present employment?'

 'He's a goat-herd, isn't he?' said Alvin.

 'And an extremely good one, I'm pleased to say. The milk yield has increased by some 2o% since your 
brother was given charge of the herd. He has established a truly remarkable rapPort 
with his flock.' He 
turned to Cheryl and treated her to a long, shrewd stare. 'Your face also seems strangely familiar, Miss 
Chatsworth,' he said. 'I can't imagine why.'

 Cheryl who had already noted the large So-Vi screen in a corner of the study, smiled and shook her 
head.

 The Abbot shrugged. 'Well, as you will already have realized, here at Saint Clumbert's we prefer not to 
do things by halves. Our patron saint should perhaps have been Konstantin Stanislavsky. 
He, you may 
recall, preached that %llusion" and "reality" are but two sides of the same coin. To the dreamer his dream 
is real. Or, to put it another way, reality is essentially subjective. Hence our insistence upon the offices 
and trappings of our Order.

 'The monastic diet is simple but adequate and wherever possible we eschew the ersatz in favour of the 
genuine. Our cheese, incidentally, is something of a gourmet's speciality. I recommend you to try it with a 
black bread. The cells, which

 at first glance may strike you as somewhat sparsely equipped, contain all the essentials, and you will find 
the pallets surprisingly 
comfortable. 


 'Sexual activity is discouraged but not forbidden. For those who feel the urge very strongly we have 
instituted a number of pre-lapsarian indulgences of varying severity. A list of these is posted in each cell. 
They range from one day's compulsory fast for masturbation to a public flogging of both parties for those 
wishing to copulate.' The Abbot treated them to a wintry smile as he added: 'You may or may not be 
relieved to hear that these strictures are relaxed between 2o.oo hours and 24.00 hours on our feast days. 
During those four hours the facilities of our well-appointed stimulatory are available for such as care to 
make use of them.'

 'Sexual activity is discouraged but not forbidden. For those who feel the urge very strongly we have 
instituted a number of pre-lapsarian indulgences of varying severity. A list of these is posted in each cell. 
They range from one day's compulsory fast for masturbation to a public flogging of both parties for those 
wishing to copulate.' The Abbot treated them to a wintry smile as he added: 'You may or may not be 
relieved to hear that these strictures are relaxed between 2o.oo hours and 24.00 hours on our feast days. 
During those four hours the facilities of our well-appointed stimulatory are available for such as care to 
make use of them.'

 Abbot Fox twitched an ascetic nostril. 'Today, as it happens, Miss Chatsworth. This is the anniversary 
of The Venerable Cusp-an early Ionian mystic of somewhat dubious authenticity who gains a brief 
mention in the Lindisfarne Chap-book. I shall be preaching a short sermon on him at supper this evening.'

 'I look forward to hearing that~' said Cheryl. 'He should go down well with the cheese.'

 Abbot Fox gave her a thoughtful stare but forebore to comment.

 'Would it be possible for us to visit Bruce now?' enquired Professor Poynter.

 'If you can find him, certainly,' replied the Abbot. 'He will probably be out on the hills somewhere. 
Failing that the lad will undoubtedly be present at this evening's feast. They are the one repast he never 
seems to forget.'

 Professor Poynter expressed the thanks of them all and then they bowed and shuffled out of the austere 
presence.

 'I shouldn't wonder if M'Lord Abbot handles the floggings himself,' murmured Cheryl. 'Wasn't that a 
cat-o'-nine-tails he had over the fireplace?'

 'A flagellum, certainly,' agreed Professor Poynter, with a trace of something akin to wistfulness in her 
voice. 'I must say I hadn't realized that Saint Clumbert's would offer such interesting 
attractions.'

 TWENTY-SEVEN

 They did not succeed in running Brother Bruce to earth, nor was he present at the evening service in the 
chapel, though doubtless many of those who were, and who saw Alvin there, would have been prepared 
to swear on oath that he was Bruce. The last benediction having been given the congregation trooped out 
across the wind-swept courtyard and into the refectory where the long oak tables were waiting to receive 
them. A fire, fed with huge baulks of dried driftwood, crackled and sputtered and flicked out tongues of 
bright blue flame. Real candles flamed in the wrought iron sconces and mouth-watering cooking scents 
wuffed in from the adjacent kitchens. 


 Visitors and staff having taken their places behind the benches, a brief grace was spoken by the Abbot 
from the elevated 
lectern. He then lowered his hands as a signal for everyone to be seated, bowed his 
head for a moment in silent prayer and then, when the shuffling had subsided, raised his eyes and looked 
up and down the long hall. There were some seconds of absolute silence when even the fire refrained 
from crackling. The Abbot lifted his bony hands and gripped the edges of the lecturn. 'Dearly beloved 
brethren,' he said and his quiet, precise voice, relayed by a series of concealed speakers, could be heard 
clearly in every corner of the great hall. 'This evening we meet to pay homage to the shade of the 
Venerable Cusp, a man of whom little is known, and who, indeed, perhaps never existed at all except in 
the fertile imagination of the anonymous scribe who penned that extraordinary document we have come 
to know as the Lindisfarne Chap-book.

 Visitors and staff having taken their places behind the benches, a brief grace was spoken by the Abbot 
from the elevated 
lectern. He then lowered his hands as a signal for everyone to be seated, bowed his 
head for a moment in silent prayer and then, when the shuffling had subsided, raised his eyes and looked 
up and down the long hall. There were some seconds of absolute silence when even the fire refrained 
from crackling. The Abbot lifted his bony hands and gripped the edges of the lecturn. 'Dearly beloved 
brethren,' he said and his quiet, precise voice, relayed by a series of concealed speakers, could be heard 
clearly in every corner of the great hall. 'This evening we meet to pay homage to the shade of the 
Venerable Cusp, a man of whom little is known, and who, indeed, perhaps never existed at all except in 
the fertile imagination of the anonymous scribe who penned that extraordinary document we have come 
to know as the Lindisfarne Chap-book.

 'The heathen for their part were xeluctant to change their allegiance and remonstrated with the 
missionary, their remonstrance 
taking the somewhat extreme form of hacking him into four quarters with 
a broadsword. However, they had reckoned without the spiritual tenacity of their adversary who 
promptly reconstituted himself and continued to preach to them as though nothing had happened. The 
butchery was thereupon repeated, but so was the miraculous reformation, until, in the end, realizing the 
force of Christian argument, they desisted and were baptised upon the shore.

 'We are told little more of the Venerable Cusp other than that he lived to the ripe old age of one hundred 
and seventy three years and that in the course of the Lenten fasts he was frequently observed to float in 
the air. During the high winds of the vernal equinox it was sometimes necessary to anchor him to the 
ground by means of large stones placed upon the hem of his habit.'

 The Abbot paused and seemed to fix each one of them with his cold grey eye. 'Personally,' he 
continued, 'while remaining somewhat sceptical as to the strictly factual accuracy of our anonymous 
hagiographer, I do believe, most sincerely, that the VenerableCusp ought to have existed, for he was 
manifestly the possessor of great faith, goodness and simplicity. In short, a truly holy man. Therefore I 
feel that we have a duty to his creator, as much as to the saint himself, to meditate in silence for a few 
minutes upon the holiness of the Venerable Cusp, to whose hallowed name I hereby dedicate this 
evening's solemn feast.' So saying, Abbot Fox bowed his head and proceeded to do just that.

 Scarcely more than half a minute had passed in contemplative 
silence when a small lych door, which 
was standing ajar in the furthermost dark corner of the refectory, squeaked painfully 
open and Alvin's 
brother crept deferentially into the hall. An expression of the most intense wonder illuminated his placid 
features and he slowly raised his hands in an attitude of profound, even yearning supplication. As he did 
so the flickering 
candlelight seemed to dim and to flow away down the hall towards him, where, from a 
shimmering refulgence, it congealed precipitately into a single radiant image of astark naked Cheryl 
Langridgel

 There was a smothered gasp from those mundane souls who, regrettably deficient in spiritual discipline, 
had interrupted their meditation to take covert note of Brother Bruce's entry. The ripple of their 
astonishment travelled down the hall, gathering substance as others raised their eyes and beheld the 
incredible cause of the disturbance. When it reached Cheryl herself she too glanced round, beheld her 
naked self floating suspended some four feet in the air, and let out a loud, startled yelp. 


 Her cry dropped like a stone into a pool. The image shattered 
into a thousand fragments, dissolved, 
and was gone. Only the wonderstruck clone was left, his hands still lifted in stunned adoration, seemingly 
oblivious of the sensation he had caused.

 Her cry dropped like a stone into a pool. The image shattered 
into a thousand fragments, dissolved, 
and was gone. Only the wonderstruck clone was left, his hands still lifted in stunned adoration, seemingly 
oblivious of the sensation he had caused.

 'Are you sure you weren't helping him?' growled Cheryl.

 Alvin blushed scarlet and lowered his eyes while the murmurs of wonder swelled into a buzz which grew 
steadily in volume until the Abbot tapped the lectern microphone with his fingernail 
and restored the hall 

to silence. 'Brother Bruce,' he enquired 
coldly. 'Was that manifestation your doing?'

 'M-M-M'Lord Abbot?' mumbled the petrified clone.

 'I repeat my question, Brother. Was that-that-' the Abbot groped for the word he wanted, '-thatsuccuba 

your creation?' 
Brother Bruce blinked tearfully and scrubbed his scalp with his knuckles. I-I don't know, M'Lord 

Abbot.'

 'You don'tknow?' repeated the Abbot incredulously.

 'I-I haven't seen her without her clothes on before, M'Lord.'

 At this a few depraved souls risked a snigger and were immediately 
frozen into silence by the Abbot's 

icy glare. 'And just what do you think she was, Brother Bruce?' he enquired silkily.

 'A holy spirit, M'Lord?' was the clone's timorous suggestion.

 'A holy spirit,' echoed the Abbot flatly. 'Miss Chatsworth, would you be so good as to stand up for a 

moment?' 
Cheryl frowned, glanced round at the others, then rose hesitantly 
to her feet. At once a renewed 

murmur of astonishment broke out among those who had witnessed Brother Bruce's vision.

 'A holy spirit, Brother Bruce?' repeated the Abbot. 'A holy spirit? Really?'

 The clone's face resembled a palimpsest in which mortification 
was scribbled over incredulity. 'M'Lord,' 

he groaned. 'Oh, M'Lord.'

 His unaffected anguish pierced young Cheryl to the heart. She smiled and stretched out her hand to him 
in welcome. 'So I'm to be your angel too, am l?' she said. 'Well, why not?'

 The Abbot who had been secretly relishing the opportunity

 for a little further humiliation of the simple monk now found, unaccountably, that the appetite had left him. 


A faint smile flitted across his thin lips. He shrugged. 'Let the feast begin!'

A faint smile flitted across his thin lips. He shrugged. 'Let the feast begin!'

you.'

 'She speaks! She moves! She is!' murmured the enraptured clone.'Iubilate Deol'

 Cheryl released his car and transferred her grip to his arm. 'What did you do just now?' she whispered, 

leading him up the hall to where the others were waiting. 'Do you know?'

 'I prayed to the Venerable Cusp,'said Bruce.

 'Forme?'

 Bruce nodded.

 'Holy hemlock!' gurgled Cheryl. 'You don't supposehe was the one who undressed me?'

 Bruce looked as though his face was on fire. 'Yes,' he whispered.


 'The dirty old man!'

 'Ohno!' cried the clone. 'He only wished me to worship you unadorned, radiant in beauty as the rising 

sun!'

 'Well, I must say he could hardly have chosen a more public place for it,' said Cheryl.

 'He meant only to be kind,' said Bruce. 'I know he did.'

 Cheryl grinned. 'Maybe it's just as well it's a feast day, Brother ' or we could both have been in trouble.' 

She released his arm and gestured towards the others. 'Well, here we are. Do you know anyone?'

 During their passage down the hall Bruce had had eyes only for Cheryl herself. Now he looked round. 
The first face he saw

 was Alvin's. For a second he seemed simply stunned. Then his mouth dropped open and an expression 
of genuine agony twisted his features. He staggered up against the table, clasped his hands to his head 
and gave vent to a frightening high whinney of pain.

 As he did so, Alvin too was overcome by a sudden excruciating migraine which seemed to drive up into 
his brain like a white hot iron spike. just when it seemed that his skull must inevitably split and fall apart, 
the agony ceased as suddenly as it had begun. 
At the identical moment Bruce too lowered his hands, 

blinked, and looked about him. 'Alvin?' he murmured. 'It is Alvin, isn't it?'

 Alvin nodded. 'It's been a long time, hasn't it?'

 The two clones stared at each other with an intensity so totally exclusive that the others could almost feel 

their identities being leached out of them. They knew something extraordinary was going on but had no 


idea what it could be. Professor Poynter shivered involuntarily and found herself recalling the moment 
when she had told Sir Gordon that she now knew how Rutherford must have felt. But it was too late now 
for second thoughts.

idea what it could be. Professor Poynter shivered involuntarily and found herself recalling the moment 
when she had told Sir Gordon that she now knew how Rutherford must have felt. But it was too late now 
for second thoughts.

 She raised her head and found the two clones were both gazing at her. Those April sky eyes, once so 
simple and so innocent, now seemed to her infinitely mysterious. Without knowing why she suddenly felt 
unhappy and, curiously, ashamed.

 TWENTY-EIGHT

 'Alvin being once more in control of his full eidetic powers was presumably in a position to restore 
Bruce's also. However, the fact that Bruce's individual vision was shared by everyone who had eyes and 
chose tolook at it, does not necessarily mean that it had genuine three-dimensional existence. After all, it 
could have been a mass-induced hallucination.'

 Miriam Poynter, her cheeks flushed with the mead she had drunk, leant forward and wagged her index 
finger at the two clones. They for their part gazed back at her owlishly.

 Cheryl, the Professor, Alvin and Bruce were seated in a small pornarium off the stimulatory. From time 
to time sounds like the twittering of many little birds floated through from the adjacent 
room. These 
emanated from the oriental sound-track ofGolden Lotus which was being projected in stereoscopic 
panavision 
to honour the anniversary of the Venerable Cusp.

 The absent Norbert had wandered off quarter of an hour before 
in search of a toilet. Somewhat 
befuddled by unaccustomed 
alcohol he had missed his way back and was now sitting cross-legged on 
the upholstered floor of the stimulatory trying to make out what was happening both on the screen and in 
the roseate gloom around him. Long before he had succeeded in finding out, his cowl slipped down over 
his eyes and he surrendered 
himself to sleep.

 ' Well, of course it was an hallucination,' said Cheryl. 'What else could it have been? I mean to say it 
couldn't have been me, could it?' 


 Alvin and Bruce exchanged an enigmatic glance. 
'Well, could it?' persisted Cheryl. 
'No, of course not, my dear.' 
'Then how do you explain that birth-mark?' 
'Birth-mark?' 
Cheryl nodded. 'I'm the only person here who knows about it. It's just here.' She pointed to a fold in her 


voluminous habit somewhere in the region of the left side of her chest 'Go on,' she challenged. 'How do 
you explain that?'


 The Professor frowned. 'But I'm sure you must have been the only one to notice it.'


 'Oh yes?' said Cheryl, jutting her chin accusingly at the clones. 'Was I?'


 They both blushed and lowered their eyes.


 'Look here, Professor,' said Cheryl, 'isn't it time you told me just what you do know about them? It 
strikes me I've at least as much right to know what they are as you have. And what about them?'


 Professor Poynter sighed. 'They know already, my dear.'


 'Well, tell me then.'


 The Professor frowned down at the floor, then, after glancing 
round to make sure she was not being 
overheard, began to recount the history of Alvin and his brothers.


 Cheryl's emerald eyes grew wider and wider. 'Hey!' she whispered. 
'They're illegal!'


 'I'm fully aware of that,' said the Professor bitterly. 'I may say it's the very least of my present worries.' 
She went on to describe 
a few of the extraordinary events that had led to the clones being parted and 
concluded with her discovery that by this time, presumably, MOSS was aware of what she had done.

 When she had ended Cheryl looked at her with a totally new admiration. 'Holy hemlockl' she murmured. 
'You really have got yourself in a jam, haven't you?'

 Alvin gave a deprecatory cough. 'Professor Poynter, Bruce

 and I are convinced that we must make direct contact with either 
Colin or Desmond-and preferably 
both-as soon as possible. 
As far as we have been able to ascertain our power of manipulation is at 
present limited to the creation of threedimensional 
visual projections. Although this may prove useful to 
us, it is only the first step towards the realization of our full potential. Functioning normally each one of us 
is capable of individual 
eidetic projection. Two of us working in concert are apparently able to give 
sufficient substance to our united vision for it to be shared by others. But this still leaves us in the realms 
of simple addition. However, when three of us are combined 
we believe we shall move into the sphere 
of multiplication.' 



 'And with four?' enquired the Professor tremulously. 
'We are not yet sure ourselves,' said Alvin, 'but we suspect that four is something else again.' 
'Such as what?' demanded Cheryl. 
'Possibly the access of a hitherto unsuspected dimension,' suggested Alvin vaguely. 
'And what'sthat in heaven's name?' 
'We honestly don't know,' said Alvin, 'but we suspect we've stumbled on the key to an asomatic 


space/time continuum.' 
Cheryl stared at them, 'You beat me up,' she said, 'you really do, Alvin. When I first met you in the Park 
I thought you were just some simple sort of goon who'd had enough of life. Now here you are using 
words I haven't evenheard of to describe things I can't even begin tothink about! I'm beginning 
to 
wonder if I wouldn't have done a whole lot better to have left you in the slaughterhouse.' 
The two clones shook their heads in unison. They looked remarkably 
like Tweedledum and 
Tweedledee. 'But don't you see?' said Bruce. 'You're a part of it too. A part of us. That's why we both 
saw you.You couldn't have kept out.'

 'Huh?' grunted Cheryl. 'Who says I couldn't?' 
Bruce and Alvin looked at each other. 'I do,' they said with one voice. 
'Does that make sense to you?' asked Cheryl turning to Professor 
Poynter. 'Because it certainly doesn't 


to me.' 
The Professor sighed. 'Ever since I saw whatMinisoc were doing ' in the Park I've given up expecting 
things to make sense. 
'But that was different,' said Cheryl. 'What these two are saying 
is that us being here nowhad to happen 

because they wanted it toi' 
'Only you,' said Bruce. 'She's an extra.' 
'But I couldn't have got here on my own.' 
The clones shrugged. 
'And so what happens now?' she demanded. 'We all gallop off to find the rest of you, I suppose?' 
Alvin and Bruce looked quite extraordinarily sheepish. 'Well, we thought . . .' they murmured, 'that first . 

. . perhaps. 
9Well, go on.' 


 'You didpromise,' muttered Alvin. 
What did I promise?' 
'To show us . . . me, I mean . . . what all the fuss was about.' 
'What on earth are you talking about?' 
'You know,' wriggled Alvin. 'Taking advantage. 
Cheryl laughed. 'Oh,that! I thought you'd forgotten all about it.' 
'We've been thinking it might have been why we both saw You,' explained Alvin. 'We're not sure, of 


course.' 
'And I'm not sure that I feel like it right now. Tomorrow rnaybe.' 
g But it'll be a whole week till the next feast day,' pleaded Bruce. 
'Isn't that a shame.' 
The clones regarded one another quizzically while they appeared 
to ponder on this rejection. Finally Alvin said: 'Is it just that you don't f eel in the mood?' 
'You might say that.' 
'And how would you feel if you were?' 
'That,' said Cheryl, 'is not something you can explain in cold blood.' 
Alvin frowned and then his face broke into a slow and rather crafty grin. At that instant, without realizing 


what was happening 
to her, Cheryl found herself back in her own little apartment 
in Bristol Street. A 
few minutes earlier she had landed with Alvin on her balcony and now he was standing before her while 
she quizzed him about Norbert. She knew only too well what he was feeling about her and her own 
knowledge filled her with a delicious sense of power and anticipation, together with certain other familiar 
inward ticklings and pricklings each in their own way as delightful as they were unmistakable. The 
retrospective experience lasted until Alvin insisted he must go and look for Norbert, whereupon, 
somewhat reluctantly, she relinquished him. As she did so she clearly heard him say 'Damn!'. Immediately 
the familiar apartment was gone and she was again sitting in the pornarium gazing in bewilderment at the 
two clones, one of whom was saying crossly to the other: 'It's no use. We can't control it yet.'

 'Hey, what's been going on?'she demanded. 
'How do you feel?' they enquired apprehensively. 
To be honest Cheryl was not at all surehow she felt, but she suspected that a yo-yo might feel much the 


same way. 'Did you do that?' she accused them. 
'It didn't work properly,' said Alvin apologetically, 'but you see it was all we had to operate on. We 
thought that maybe now there were two of us we'd be able to bend things a bit. We really 
didn't mean 


to upset you. We just thought it might help.' 
'Did you hypnotise me?'


 'Well, I think it might be more accurate to say we individually 
hallucinated you.' 
'But I didn'twant to be hallucinated.' 
'Oh, didn't you?' said Bruce, blinking at her. 'We thought you were rather enjoying it.' 
it was Cheryl's turn to blush. 'That's neither here nor there,' she said firmly. 'The point is you had no right 


to do it without asking my permission first.'


 'Well, we didn't know if we could do it at all,' Alvin pointed out. 'It was just an experiment.'


 'Is that supposed to makeit better?'


 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'We hoped the end might justify the means.'


 Cheryl gave up trying to be cross and chuckled instead. 'You know,' she said, 'it's just struck me that 


you two could make a fortune for yourselves in the Dream Palaces. If you could do it withanyone, I 
mean. Could you?'

 'I'm not sure,' Alvin confessed. 'You see we weren't really workingthrough you just now. If we had 
been it would have ended differently.'

 'Well, why don't you try the Professor then,' said Cheryl. 'After all, you know her, don't you?'

 'Oh I really don't think that-' Professor Poynter started to protest and then, as Cheryl watched, a sort of 
dreaminess descended 
upon her. Her head began to move slowly from side to side as though she were 
following the course of some action visible 
only to herself. Once or twice she smiled quietly and 
murmured 
something in a voice too low for them to catch.

 'What's she doing?' Cheryl whispered to the clones.

 Alvin glanced at Cheryl. 'Well, maybe you can take a look for Yourself,' he said, and as he spoke, 
Cheryl found herself standing 
in some sort of steamy changing room surrounded by a dozen naked girls. 
The illusion lasted no more than a couple of seconds and was never quite as real as her own had been. 
She blinked her eyes and found that Professor Poynter was back with them again. 'Where was that?' she 

asked.

 'Urn?' murmured the Professor.

 'That place I saw just now. It was a changing room, wasn't it?'

 'TheArnazons at Cambridge, my dear. Some of my happiest moments were spent between those four 

walls.' 
'We just couldn't hold it for the two of you,' explained Alvin. 'Maybe that was because we had to draw 


it out of her, But we're beginning to get the hang of things now. Would you like us to try with you again?' 
'No,' said Cheryl firmly. 'Thanks all the same.'

it out of her, But we're beginning to get the hang of things now. Would you like us to try with you again?' 
'No,' said Cheryl firmly. 'Thanks all the same.'

 That very same evening Colin, the third of the clones, was superintending an electronic fish-gutter at the 
Kodstaak processing 
plant on New Walcheren near the Dutch coast when he became aware that he 
was no longer alone.

 At first being a romantic youth, he assumed that the beautiful 
young girl who hovered so tantalizingly in 
the steamy cloud above the gnashing scissor-grid was a mermaid, and he was moved to utter a cry of 
warning lest her tail-which was, presumably, 
veiled by the vapour-should find itself being painfully 
processed by the hungry blades.

 His neighbouring gutter, a chimp called Polderhaas, heard the anguished yelp and came across. He 
found Colin staring anxiously into the billowing clouds of steam. Vot is zer trooble, 
mine yonk freend?'

 Colin turned to him. 'I thought she might get her tail cut off.'

 'Ho yerss?' grunted Polderhaas. 'An oo iss zis "she"?'

 Colin pointed into the steam. 'Her,' he said. 'The mermaid.'

 Polderhaas nodded his head slowly. 'Ow yerss,' he grinned. Nice, ent she? Sitch loong blonde 'air an 
sitch peeg plue ice. Ver' prutty.'

 Colin frowned. 'But she's got short brown hair, Polder. And green eyes.'

 Polderhaas slapped him on the back and gufFawed loudly. 'Too much trinkin', mine freend! You hev ter 
votch out ze Super don' ketch you et it.'

 Colin looked from the chimp to the girl and back again. 'Can't yousee her, Polder?'

 'Ho yerss,' chuckled Polderhaas. 'I see 'er goot. Green 'air shegot, and peeg prown ice. Ver' prutty. 
Smells nice ent fishy tooi' and chortling at his own wit he strolled back to his own machine.

 Colin watched him go then turned again to the girl. 'What's your name?' he asked gently.

 She just smiled at him and said nothing.

 'Are you a real mermaid?' 


 At that instant the steam veils parted a little and the blushing 
clone observed that the bottom half of her 
was just as naked as the top. If she had a tail she certainly hadn't brought it with her. She didn't appear to 
be sitting on anything either. He was just wondering whether he dare risk stretching out a hand and 
stroking her when, to his bitter disappointment she dissolved before his very eyes and he was left with 
only the steam.

 At that instant the steam veils parted a little and the blushing 
clone observed that the bottom half of her 
was just as naked as the top. If she had a tail she certainly hadn't brought it with her. She didn't appear to 
be sitting on anything either. He was just wondering whether he dare risk stretching out a hand and 
stroking her when, to his bitter disappointment she dissolved before his very eyes and he was left with 
only the steam.

 At supper in the works' canteen that night Polderhaas started joshing the lad rather heavy~handedly 
about his mermaid, but Colin's evident distress over the episode soon led to the discussion 
being 
diverted into theoretical channels concerning the possible existence and probable physiology of the 
mermaid as a nautical species. The general consensus of opinion seemed to favour their non-existence, 
with the rider that if theydid exist then the likelihood was they would reproduce by spawning. Polderhaas 
had just started to be very knowledgeable concerning the sex-life of whales when Colin's face was 
observed to have taken on a look of such fixed and glassy imbecility as was exceptional even for him.

 Polderhaas naturally assumed that the clone was rapt in visual contemplation of an organ which he had 
just described graphically 
as 'peeg as a toog's funnel' when Colin gulped and uttered the word 'Norbert', 
adding, a moment later, 'must go and find him. I must, mustn't l?'

 ,Eh?' enquired the chimp. 'Oo iss Norbcrt?'

 Tle clone's vacant eyes slowly cleared and he blinked about him in obvious bewilderment.

 'You feelin' seek, poy?'

 'I saw her,' muttered the amazed clone. 'I saw her again, Polder. just there!' and he pointed across the 
table directly at an anthropoid called Oosterbek who had a violent cast in one eye and now grinned at 
him and touched a finger to his forehead.


 'You saw oo?' asked Polderhaas.

 'Her,' insisted Colin. `ne one I saw before. Only,' he added in a confidential tone, 'this time she was 
wearing her clothes.'

 The whole problem became instantly clear to Polderhaas. 'Coom, poy,' he said. 'Eat cop. Ve go puy 
oos som peers down ze Girlichaus. Peeg Margie vill get you shot off zees robbish!'

 Colin flushed crimson. 'Oh no, Polder. Really, I couldn't.'

 'Sure you kin, poy. Peeg Margie, she poot 'im right, eh Squintz?'

 Oosterbek grinned and nodded. 'Sure sure! Cobblim oopl' and he smacked his lips with a sucking 
sound.

 Colin winced. 'I think I'd rather just go and have a lie down On my bunk, if you don't mind, Polder. I've 
got an awful headache.' 



 Trn vornink you, poy,' said Polderhaas gravely. Totch you don' pool 'irn ri-toff, or noddinks lef for Peeg 
Margie or onywan ilse, eh?'

 Trn vornink you, poy,' said Polderhaas gravely. Totch you don' pool 'irn ri-toff, or noddinks lef for Peeg 
Margie or onywan ilse, eh?'

 He had just left the building and was halfway across the elevated 
gangway that linked the mess hall to 
the dormitory block when he suddenly found himself surrounded by a dozen naked girls. The experience 
was so unsettling that he missed his footing 
on the slippery concrete and might well have pitched head 
first into the canal below had he not instinctively grabbed out and caught hold of the metal hand-rail 
which, to his utter astonishment, 
seemed to be protruding invisibly from the stomach of one of the 
nymphs. He clung on to it desperately, shut his eyes, and prayed. When he opened them again the girls 
were still there busily towelling and powdering themselves and all seemingly oblivious of his presence.

 The clone began to whimper and at the same time started to edge his way forward by sliding his hand 
along the rail which he could no longer see. He had passed completelythrough two of the girls and was 
advancing upon a third when he heard footsteps 
approaching. 'Guten~Abend, Colin,' cried a cheerful 
anthropoid 
voice. Vot iss for sopper?' The voice seemed to come out of the air.

 'Meat pie,' responded the clone faintly, and became overwhelmingly 
aware of a pair of rose-pink 
nipples bouncing around about six inches from his right ear.

 'Coot. Meat pie is goot. Wiederschen.'

 Wederschen,' murmured Colin as the invisible footsteps marched briskly past him and faded into the 
distance. The moment 
after they had vanished completely, the girls too all suddenly 
disappeared.

 Colin clung to the once~more visible rail as if that too might transform itself into something else. The 
headache he had pleaded as his excuse for avoiding the Cirlichaus was now so intense that he was soon 
forced to let go of his anchorage and cradle his drumming temples in his palms. As the throbbingeased he 
took a deep breath and then, very gingerly, proceeded on his way.

 Before going to his dormitory he went into the sickbay and asked the duty chimp for a sleeping pill. By 
the time Polderhaas returned the clone was in a coma so profound that it is doubtful 
whether even the 
expert attentions of Big Margie could have aroused him.

 THIRTY

 Two days later, at eleven in the morning, Professor Poynter's party, now swollen to five by the addition 
of a cowled and sandalled 
monk, jetted in to the Hook of Holland and boarded the hoverbus for New 


Walcheren. Tley attracted some curious glances and it was generally assumed that they were members of 
one of the U.K. Humane Societies which had won themselves 
an affectionate niche in continental hearts 
by behaving exactly as the English were always expected to behave, thus perpetuating the ancient legends 
of Anglo-Saxon eccentricity.

Walcheren. Tley attracted some curious glances and it was generally assumed that they were members of 
one of the U.K. Humane Societies which had won themselves 
an affectionate niche in continental hearts 
by behaving exactly as the English were always expected to behave, thus perpetuating the ancient legends 
of Anglo-Saxon eccentricity.

 This directive had eventually been relayed to EUROSEC and had actually reached the Hook of Holland 
an hour before the Professor landed. Fortunately for her, by one of those annoying 
little mechanical 
quirks which were an almost inevitable feature of computerized detection, the message had emerged as a 
top priority security alert for an elderly female anthropoid and a middle-aged male professor. Since the 
accompanyingstereostills bore little resemblance to their captions a clarification 
query was despatched to 
MOSS. By the time the error had been corrected the fugitives had slipped through the net.

 Their arrival and departure had, however, been noted by a plain-clothes EUROSEC agent, a chimp 
named Moesbrooger. This up~and-coming young sleuth had made an inspired guess (one day these 
would become famous throughout the force as 'Captain Moesbrooger's hunches') that the elderly lady 
and the middle-aged chimp with her were none other than the objects 
of the garbled MOSS alert. 
Acting entirely on his own initiative he had trailed them down to the hoverbus terminal and learnt their 
destination.

 By the time Moesbrooger returned to the EUROSEC office the correction from London had come 
through and he was able to earn himself a swift commendation by informing his superiors 
that the quarry 
they sought was now en route for New Walcheren. This information was shuttled back to MOSS and, 
within a matter of minutes, the following unequivocal reply had been received: 'UU+ * D.W.P.F.F.Q. * 
MOSSLOND'.Translated for international code this message read,'Most urgent. 
Detain whole party 
forthwith for questioning.'

 Fifteen minutes later a coal black 'Thunderbird' helicopter with silver EUROSEC markings, rose like a 
pregnant locust above the dykes and polders, cocked its tail and headed out to sea.

 The Professor's party were already inside theKodstaak complex 
when their pursuers came racing in 
over the slate grey wastes of the North Sea, made a brisk circuit of the artificial island and settled to a 
squat on the flat roof of the Packing Department 
which served the factory as a landing ground. Out 
climbed a EUROSEC lieutenant, a sergeant, and Moesbrooger. They conferred briefly then headed for 
the elevator access.

 At that m oment Professor Poynter finally succeeded in convincing 
theKodstaak Personnel Manager 
that she had not cometo enquire into the company's dubious methods of dispatching its raw material. At 
once he ceased to be obstructive and offered to conduct them himself to the Processing plant where, he 
assured 
them, young Colin would just be beginning his midmorning 
shift. The Professor thanked him 
and the party trooped out of the office and down the passage.

 They entered the Processing plant from one end just as their pursuers entered it from the other, but both 
parties were initially 
concealed from one another by the clouds of fishy steam which effectively reduced 
visibility to rather less than twenty yards. While Cheryl, Norbert and the Professor peered about them 


seeking for a replica of Alvin and Bruce, the two innerdirected 
clones simply pointed ahead and said: 
'There he is.'

seeking for a replica of Alvin and Bruce, the two innerdirected 
clones simply pointed ahead and said: 
'There he is.'

 'Is he all right?' enquired Cheryl anxiously.

 'He's fine,' Bruce assured her. 'He picked us up the night before 
last apparently and that took the edge 
off it.'

 The third clone came towards them, regarded them thoughtfully 
for a moment and then grinned. 'Hello,' 

he said. 'Where's the rest of us?'

 'Somewhere in Africa,' said Alvin. 'We're on our way to pick him up.'

 'Professor Poynter?' enquired an unfamiliar voice.

 They all looked up and found themselves confronted by two uniformed EUROSEC officers, aKodstaak 

receptionist (human), 
and an ape in civilian clothes.

 'Yes, I am Professor Poynter.'

 The Lieutenant slipped a hand inside his tunic and produced a photoprint warrant card. 'I represent 

EUROSEC, madam.I'm afraid I must ask you and your party to return with me to Rotterdam.'

 The Professor gave a rather unconvincing imitation of a lighthearted 
laugh. 'But there must be some 
mistake, officer.'

 None knew better than the minions of EUROSEC just how likelythat was, but at least their warrant 
ensured that they wouldn't be the ones to catch any rebounds if she was right. 'We have a helicopter 

waiting, madam,' said the Lieutenant. 'You will all come with us, please.'

 'And if we refuse?'

 'That would be most unwise.'

 'Do you mean you're arresting us?'

 'I am merely carrying out my orders, madam.'

 'Orders from whom, may I ask?'

 'MOSS in London.'

 Professor Poynter's infant hopes were butchered and buried. She looked round at the three clones and 

her eyes filled with tears. 'Forgive me,' she murmured. 'It was too much to hope.'

 Alvin, Bruce and Colin regarded her in triplicated wonder while, like a flickering shuttle, soundless 
questions and answers darted back and forth between them. 


 -What's she on about?

 -What's she on about?

 -She's a decent old cow.

 -How, the hell are we going to make it to Africa now?

 -Any of usflya 'copter?

 -We can try.

 -We'll have to ditch this lot first. 
-How? 
-Easy. Get ours over to this side. 
Without consciously deciding to do so Cheryl, Norbert and the Professor found they had taken four 
paces to the left and were standing side by side with their backs pressed to the long wall which faced the 
processors. The three clones tagged thernselves on to the end of the line, leaving only theKodstaak 
Personnel 
Manager confronting the mystified EUROSEC team. There was a pause of not more than a 
couple of seconds, then the astounded security men saw their quarry dart forward and dive, one after the 
other, head first into the scissor-grids.

 So utterly unexpected was this mass immolation that for some moments Moesbrooger and his 
companions were completely paralysed. The Personnel Manager was the first to react. Leaping 
forward 
he clawed at the 'Emergency Stop' button and brought the processor to a clattering, hissing halt.

 The witnesses of the tragedy crowded round him and peered aghast into the steamy bowels of the 
machine. 'What will have happened to them?' whispered the horrified Lieutenant.

 The Personnel Manager whisked a finger rapidly back and forth across his throat. 'Quickly!' he gasped. 
'At all costs we must prevent their getting fed into Packaging!'

 As their racing footsteps died away six concrete buttresses appeared to detach themselves from the wall 
where the Professor's 
party had been standing.

 'How long do you think we've got?' asked one.

 'Not more than ten minutes,' said another.

 'Where's this plane?' asked the third.

 'On the roof. We can take the lift from Reception.'

 Whereupon the six buttresses metamorphosed into three identical clones, two human females and one 
extremely puzzled 
anthropoid.

 'Quick!' said Colin. 'It won't take them long to discover we aren't there.' 


 Three minutes later they emerged on the roof of the Packing 
Department. The helicopter was standing 
where the EUROSEC pilot had left it. There was no one in sight. 'Try and look as though we own it,' 
said Colin.

 Three minutes later they emerged on the roof of the Packing 
Department. The helicopter was standing 
where the EUROSEC pilot had left it. There was no one in sight. 'Try and look as though we own it,' 
said Colin.

 'This any use?' suggested Bruce and there, hovering in the air before them was a volume entitled:The 
Bright Boy's Book of World Aircraft. The pages riffled over. Veetols, airships, sailplanes, balloons, 
helicopters of every conceivable variety, but not a word on how one actuallyflew any one of them.

 'How about this?' said Alvin, The book vanished and was replaced by a screen on which Captain 
Fortitude, a So-Vi serial hero, was crouched in the cockpit of his helicar and diving down upon some 
fleeing malefactors.

 'Go back and see if it shows him starting it up,' said Colin.

 The phantom So-Vi screen went into swift reverse, then the picture cut to a close-up of the crooks' 
speeding aquaplane. The clones swore.

 'Here,' said Cheryl. 'Move over. Let me have a go.'

 Alvin vacated the pilot's scat. She lowered herself into it, peered at the instruments before her, and then 
nodded. 'Do you want me to have a try?'

 'What have we got to lose?' sighed the Professor.

 'Our lives maybe,' grinned Cheryl and thumbed a green button 
hopefully. There was a combustive 
cough from somewhere above them and they all felt the machine begin to tremble. 'Now pray!' 
commanded Cheryl.Vard!' and eased back the control column.

 THIRTY-ONE

 In assuming that their pursuers would require only ten minutes to discover thev had been hoodwinked, 
the clones had seriously underestimated their own powers. To their dying day four humans 
and one 
anthropoid were prepared to swear on oath that they had seen Professor Poynter and her companions 
leap to their deaths in a fish processor. They spent just over one and a half hours trying to locate what 
was left of the bodies and it was not until the Personnel Manager thought to question the other workers in 
the Processing plant that they learnt incredulously, how, shortly after they themselves had quit the 
building, a party of visitors guided by young Colin had been seen making its way towards Reception. At 
this point Moesbrooger had his second brilliant hunch in one day. 'The 'copter!' he grunted. 


 They reached the empty roof of the Packing Department just five minutes after a EUROSEC 
'Thunderbird', apparently containing 
six uniformed EUROSEC officers, had touched down at Stuttgart 
taken aboard a full load of fuel and departed in a south-easterly direction for an unspecified destination.

 They reached the empty roof of the Packing Department just five minutes after a EUROSEC 
'Thunderbird', apparently containing 
six uniformed EUROSEC officers, had touched down at Stuttgart 
taken aboard a full load of fuel and departed in a south-easterly direction for an unspecified destination.

 As Corsica came in sight the three clones let out a shrill cheer.

 'What's that in aid of?'asked Cheryl, turning to them in some surprise.

 'Desinond,' they said. 'Weve just made contact with him.'

 'Protein for you,' she grunted. 'Be sure to give him my fond regards.'

 'He's really looking forward to meeting you, Cheryl. We've told him about you.'

 'And have you told him what a fix we're in?' she enquired. 'I'm not sure what the penalty is for nicking 

one of these things but I suspect it's likely to be pretty sensational.'

 'Don't you worry about that' they assured her. 'We can fix it now, easily.'

 'If you're hoping to get away with that Stuttgart trick in Cagliari, 
you'd better think again. I'll bet they've 

alerted the whole of Europe by this time.'

 'They have,' said Norbert who had been experimenting with the communications. 'They've just broadcast 
our description as a Red Plus alert on all bands. They say we've disguised ourselves 
as international 
police and are armed to the teeth.'

 'You're sure they didn't say with teeth?' queried Cheryl sardonically. 
'What are we supposed to be? 
Bank robbers?'

 V.A.B. guerrillas,' said Norbert, adding with a grin, 'They say I'm the master-mind behind the whole 
operation.'

 Cheryl gave an indignant yelp.'Pikeri Trust that cheap skate to jump on the bandwagon! Have they 
identified us yet?'

 'Only me and the Professor so far,' said Norbert.

 Cheryl glanced at the airspeed indicator. 'At this rate we'll be at Cagliari inside an hour and I don't speak 
two words of Italian. If anyone's got any bright suggestions let's have them.'

 'Just leave it to us,' said Alvin. 'You put us down as far from the control tower as you can, taxi us up to 

the fuel point and we'll look after the rest.' 
'Including the couple of hundred trigger-happy flies who'll be out to avenge the honour of EUROSEC?' 
Alvin grinned. 'I don't suppose there'll be that many.. But don't worry anyway.' 


 'I've always admired self-confidence,' muttered Cheryl, 'but this is ridiculous.'

 'I've always admired self-confidence,' muttered Cheryl, 'but this is ridiculous.'

 It was the dead hour of the afternoon when julius Augustino Peccavi, junior Flight Control Officer at 
Cagliari heliport, alone on duty in the observation tower, observed on his scanner screen the blip of an 
unknown aircraft approaching from the north. He formally requested it to identify itself and was 
informed, 
in very curious Italian, that the visitor was none other than His Holiness-Y Papa.

 just to be on the safe side, julius Augustino crossed himself before requesting further confirmation. He 
received in return a quavering blessing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. At this 
point the blip vanished from the screen.

 Not entirely convinced, Peccavi left his post walked across to the window that gave a wide view over 
the whole airfield, and gazed out. No sign of any strange aircraft could he see. In fact the only moving 
object in sight was a tanker-truck making its way round the perimeter towards the fuel depot He 
watched as it drew up alongside a fuel point, saw a blue-overalled figure descend from the cab, swing 
out the pump jib, connect up the hose and then return to work the controls.

 julius Augustino stroked his moustache and felt curiously uneasy. Had he imagined that blip?Non posso! 
Then where was the aircraft that had caused it? Returning to his scat he slipped on his headphones and 
thumbed the recall/record button. The extraordinary identification signal was there all right~ mixed up 
with some strange atmospheric interference that sounded remarkably 
like girlish giggling-a sound pattern 
upon which the Might Controller had every right to consider himself an authority.


 While he was still puzzling over the mystery his scanner picked up a second blip. julius Augustino 
frowned and once again transmitted the official identification demand. 'EUROSEC 
PY 0II7' came the 
swift, no-nonsense reply. 'Request permission 
to land and re-fuel.'

 Peccavi's dark eyes gleamed with excitement. 'Come in EUROSEC,' he said. 'All clear for touch down,' 
and while he was still speaking he was pressing his thumb hard on the red alert button.

 From their hiding places in the hangars round the terminal swarthy-faced security agents crept forward, 
peered up at the Sardinian sky, and fingered their lasers and their gas guns. The honour of EUROSEC 
was in their hands. 'Mama mia,' they prayed silently. 'Let me be the one.'

 julius Augustino watched the blip drift off the screen then he raced to the window. Level with his eyes a 
black and silver 'Thunderbird' was hovering prior to settling. On the oilsmudged 
concrete below all was 
tranquil. He squinted into the helicopter's cabin and counted one, two, three, four heads. Should there not 
have been more? Five? or was it six? The machine's 
shadow was darting in to meet it. 'Eager as a lover,' 
thought the romantic Flight Controller. Shadow and substance fused, became one. The twinkling rotor 
blades slowed, clicked, were still.'Pronto! Pronto!' begged julius Augustino, hopping from one foot to 
the other in his excitement.

 Precisely according to prearranged plan a tanker rolled forward 
and came to stop alongside the 
aircraft. A EUROSEC agent disguised as a mechanic jumped down and ran forward with the hose. The 
gleaming nozzle was locked home. The pseudo-inechanic raised his left arm, in an eye-blink, the aircraft 
was surrounded.

 The cockpit door flew open from inside and a startled face peered out just in time to catch the full blast 


of a gas gun.

of a gas gun.

 Meanwhile, unobserved, the tanker-truck which Peccavi had been watching five minutes before, had 
now left the fuel point and made its way to the southernmost corner of the airfield, far away from the 
scene of all the excitement. It rolled to a stop in the dark shadow of an air-freight depository, A minute 
later, just as the last of the unconscious officers was being hauled unceremoniously from the cabin of one 
EUROSEC 'Thunderbird', 
another rose from behind the air-freight building, slanted up into the declining 
sun and disappeared out to sea. The only people who took more than a cursory interest in its departure 
were two young children who ran home and told their mother they had just seen a lorry change into a 
helicopter. Each was very properly rewarded with a sound slap for telling such wicked lies.

 THIRTY-TWO

 The Solar power-station at Umm cl Raha differed hardly at all from the thousand others scattered along 
the 25th parallel and which collectively made up the Sahara Grid. It consisted Of 750 sun-seeking 
parabolic mirrors, each thirty feet in diameter, which employed the Balchover thermocouple to convert 
3776 of the concentrated solar heat directly into electrical energy. Some 2% of this power was utilized to 
drive the motors which guided the aluminized fibreglass dishes and the rest was fed directly into the Grid. 
The mirrors-known universally as 'sunflowers'were 
planted on their slender stalks in a fenced 'garden' 
roughly five hundred yards square. At one corner of the 'garden' was the 'greenhouse' from which the 
collected current was piped away, and in another was the 'toolshed' where the technicians lived. All these 
objects had other names in English, French and Arable, and all the names were obscene.

 Apart from the engineer overseers who were stationed in the relative comfort of places like Sebha and 
In Salah, the Sahara Grid was staffed entirely by apes. Unim cl Raha was the one exception. It was also 
a leading contender for the title of 'Backside 
of the Universe.' Its annual rainfall had once been assessed 
at cl em. per annum, and that was in a wet year. Its last prickly shrub had been gnawed to death by a 
suicidal goat in I853 and since then nothing else had dared to put down a root. Its landscape made the 
words 'harsh' and 'barren' seem almost pastoral. 
To gaze out over those endless quivering miles of 
reddishgrey 
desolation shrivelled the heart and dried the spittle in the throat. The only creatures which 
were able to survive unaided were the flies. Locusts had long since given up Umm cl Raha as hopeless.

 The unannounced descent upon the plateau at I6.3o hours (international time) of the EUROSEC rocket 
shuttle was at first ascribed to some hitherto unknown form of mirage, but as the dust settled and the 
ports opened and twelve armed and uniformed humans leapt out and began sprinting towards the station, 
the astonished staff of Umm cl Raha realized that something 
altogether extraordinary was taking place. 
They were right.

 At I4.3c, hours the news of what had happened at New Walcheren, 
Stuttgart and Cagliari had been 
fed into OMEGA the EUROSEC master computer. OMEGA had been coupled with the KG.3 
computer at MOSS which had just finished digesting 
the report from Saint Clumbert's and tying this in 


with all it had so far assimilated of the Poynter investigation. The resultant 
diagnosis was so spectacularly 
improbable that at first no one would believe it and precious time was lost while the security software 
was frantically re-checked.

with all it had so far assimilated of the Poynter investigation. The resultant 
diagnosis was so spectacularly 
improbable that at first no one would believe it and precious time was lost while the security software 
was frantically re-checked.

 Monsieur Traubert, the French Premier, had no doubts on the matter. He expressed himself as usual 
with characteristic Gallic pungency. 'Mais e'est simple, Messieurs! Isolation: In. carceration: 
Extermination!'

 Herr Buber proceeded to put the question individually to the rest. When they had all expressed an 
opinion he called for a formal vote. Six members agreed with M. Traubert; one-Mr. O'Duffy-disagreed; 
and three abstained on grounds of principle (unspecified) which were privately assumed to have some 
connection 
with French agricultural policy.

 The decision having been taken it only remained to entrust EUROSEC with the job of carrying out the 
sentence before the Human Righters got wind of it and started lodging an appeal 
with the World Court. 
OMEGA was consulted as to the best method of proceeding. It advised the immediate destruction 
of 
the surviving genetic material in the M.0.P. vaults and the summary liquidation of the fourth clone before 
reunification could be effected. It added that it was by no means certain whether the latter was now 
possible. The despatching of the two military rocket shuttles to Umm el Raha was the prompt initiation of 
Phase One,'Operation Deraciner.'

 Speed and surprise, as Clausewitz shrewdly observed, are excellent 
ingredients for a successful military 
operation, and so far as the astounded anthropoids at Umm cl Raha were concerned 
EUROSEC 
undoubtedly achieved both. Within two minutes of the rockets' touch down the apes found themselves 
herded into the dining hall and lined up against a wall. The Colonel in charge of the operation strode in 
and slapped his dusty jackboot with a neural probe. 'Well?' he growled. 'Where is he?'

 The chimps glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes. 'Where is who,effendi? ' enquired 
Abdullah, the Station Foreman, cautiously.

 'Desmond,' hissed the Colonel.

 There was a perceptible letting out of anthropoid breath. Although they were all fond of the clone they 
were, understand


ably, even fonder of their own skins. Abdullah peered along the line and then shrugged. 'I do not know, 
effendi. Perhaps with his tomato plants?'

 'Comb the place,' ordered the Colonel. 'Every centimetre!He must be found!'

 The soldiers ran out leaving their chief to stride tigerishly up and down the line of trembling apes, 
muttering to himself and whisking an invisible tail. 


 In ten minutes they were back and the Colonel learnt that the clone had apparently vanished into the 
dust. His rage and frustration were beyond belief. Apes and humans alike regarded him with awed 
apprehension.

 In ten minutes they were back and the Colonel learnt that the clone had apparently vanished into the 
dust. His rage and frustration were beyond belief. Apes and humans alike regarded him with awed 
apprehension.

 'la, Herr Kolonell'

 'Correction!' snapped the Colonel. 'One everythree minutes!'

 'ja, Herr Kolonel. Everythree minutes.' The Sergeant saluted and hurried out.

 The Colonel brooded along the ranged and quaking chimps like a Bavarian thundercloud. He paused 
before a plainly pregnant 
young female. 'You,' he demanded sombrely. 'V%7hat is your name?'

 'Scherezade,' she whispered.

 'So,' grunted the Colonel, and turning to one of his soldiers said: 'Tell SchuIze to announce that 
Scherezade will be the first to be shot.'

 A young male chimp flung himself forward on his knees and clutched at the Colonel's boots. 'Not herl' he 
cried. 'Please, sir, not her! Shoot mel'

 The Colonel was not entirely devoid of compassion. 'By all means,' he said. 'You shall be the next.'

 The bead curtains which concealed the passageway to the kitchens parted and in strolled Desmond. 

'Hello,' he said. 'What's going on?'

 The Colonel who had just drawn back his leg to boot the supplicant into line swung round and caught 
sight of the clone. 'So!' he cried. 'You have come at lastl'

 Desmond blinked and brushed a lethargic fly from his burnous. 
'Colonel Potzdammer?' he enquired.

 'You know who I am?'

 The clone nodded. 'I've been expecting you for the last hour.'

 At that moment Sergeant SchuIze's voice boomed out over the station informing the empty desert that 

Scherezade was to be executed in three minutes' time.

 'That will not be necessary,' the Colonel informed the relieved 
apes. 'You may go. We have the man we 
want.'

 The words were scarcely pronounced before the chimps had scuttled away leaving Desmond alone in 
the hall to face Colonel Potzdammer and his troopers.

 The Colonel consulted his timeteller and signalled to two of his men to seize the clone. 'It is of little 
consequence,' he said, 'but I am curious to know how you learnt of my name.'

 Desmond laughed. 'I doubt if you would understand if I told you, Colonel.' 


 The Colonel shrugged. 'Very well,' he said. 'Then I assume you also know why we are here?' 
Desmond nodded. 
The Colonel regarded him with renewed interest. 'Tell me,' lie commanded. 
'Well, to kill me, of course.' 
'Quite correct,'said the Colonel. 
'It was not a very difficult deduction.' 
'You are not afraid to die?' 
The clone smiled. 
'Remarkable' ' murmured the Colonel. 
'And what makes you so sure youcan kill me, Colonel?' 
Colonel Potzdammer laughed ferociously. 'That we shall demonstrate in two minutes from now. 


Personally I have no doubts whatsoever on the matter. Shall we proceed?' 
Escorted by a soldier at either side Desmond was marched out on to the blistering plateau and placed 
with his back to a lump of rock. Eight troopers took up their positions ten metres away from him and 
unslung their guns. Sergeant SchuIze peered through the viewfinder of his camera and hummed an air 
from Turandot. The two men who had acted as prisoner's escort stepped smartly aside and joined on at 
either end of the firing squad. Colonel Potzdammer lifted his probe like a conductor's baton. 'Einst' he 

said crisply. 'Zweil Dreil' the probe swished down. 
Ten lethal laser beams skeined the shimmering air like strands of sapphire silk. 
And the clone vanished.

 THIRTY-THREE

 The sun was an enormous crimson globe balanced upon the black seal's snout of distant Mount Ahaggar 
when Cheryl brought the helicopter drifting down among the scattered stones which were all that now 
remained of the ancient palace of the Mighty Kings of Zub.

 The fugitives clambered out, rubbing their aching muscles. 'Are you sure this is right?' asked Cheryl 
peering up doubtfully at a ruined ziggaraut which, four thousand years before, had been one of the 


wonders of its ancient world. 
The clones conferred briefly and then nodded. 
'Where's Desmond then?' 
'He's coming,' they assured her. 'He won't be long now.' 
'Well, I don't know about anyone else,' she said, 'but I'm dying for a pee.' With that she set off across 

wonders of its ancient world. 
The clones conferred briefly and then nodded. 
'Where's Desmond then?' 
'He's coming,' they assured her. 'He won't be long now.' 
'Well, I don't know about anyone else,' she said, 'but I'm dying for a pee.' With that she set off across 

depression in a waste of silvery sand. 
The shadows stretched themselves out like waking cats and turned from mauve to purple. The cooling 
desert creaked and whispered.

 'This is a strange place, ma'am,' said Norbert gazing round at the wind polished stumps of marble 
columns which the declining 
sun was rinsing in a rose-pink wash of almost unbelievable 
delicacy. 
'Remarkably peaceful.'

 Professor Poynter nodded. "'Then on the shore,"' she murmured, 
id~ Of the wide world I stand alone, and think 
Till death and fame to nothingness do sink."' 
"'Love"' whispered a voice in her car. "Till love and fame to nothingness do sink."' 
She jerked round and there was nobody there. 
'How very odd,' she said. 'I could have sworn. 
She looked across at the three clones. They had scratched out an equilateral triangle in the sand and 


were now sitting cross-legged, one at each corner. They appeared to be just staring 
blankly at one 
another. 
'Norbert?' she enquired. 'Did you hear anything?' 
'Ma'am?' 
'A voice whispering.' 
Norbert cocked his head on one side and listened. 'No, ma'am,' he said. 
'I must be getting old,' she thought. 
'Nonsense,' said the voice. 'You know very well you're in the prime of life.' 
' Oh, do be quiet,' she said. 
'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' Norbert apologized. 'A touch of wind.' 


 'Not you, Norbert.It.' 
“It?”, ma'am?' 
'Well,really,' said the voice plaintively. "'It", indeed! Whatever 
next?' 
Cheryl emerged from her place of concealment, clambered up to a pile of stones and waved to them. 
Norbert waved back and then he and the Professor started walking to meet her. When they had 


covered half the distance Norbert paused, looked about him, and shook his head. 'This place reminds me 


of somewhere,' he said, 'and yet I don't see how it can. What did they call it? Zug?' 
'Zub,' said the Professor. 'They maintain it has some obscure meaning in Ancient Persian. Considering 
that we are now somewhere 
in the middle of Libya I must say that seems highly unlikely.'


 Cheryl did a tightrope-walker's balancing act, ran along the top of a half-buried wall, jumped down and 
came to join them. 'This place isweird,' she said. 
'What do you mean?' asked the Professor.

 Cheryl rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. 'Well, over there,' she said, 'just as I was climbing up 
those stones I could have sworn I heard birds singing. I ask you-birds in this placel You can't havesound 
mirages, can you?'

 'I don't know,' said the Professor. 'I don'tthink you can.' 
'You don't supposethey might have had something to do with it?' 
The three of them turned and contemplated the immobile clones. 
'What on earth are they up to now?' asked Cheryl. 'Holding a prayer meeting?' 
'Nothing would surprise me,' said the Professor. 'They've long since passed beyond the bounds of my 


comprehension.' 
'You can saythat again,' murmured Cheryl. 'If I hadn't met Alvin the way I did, quite frankly they'd scare 


me stiff. Now all I'm doing is crossing my fingers and hoping they know what they're up to.' 
Norbert nodded sagely, 'All they ask of us is that we trust them.' 
'They've told you that?' enquired Cheryl curiously. 
'Not in so many words,' said Norbert. 'But I'm sure it's true.' 
Cheryl stirred the sand with her toe. 'When you first thought of making them, Miriam, did you have any 


ideawhat you were doing?-apart from breaking the law, I mean.' 
'No, not really,' admitted the Professor. 'It just seemed a rather fascinating piece of research.' 



 'It didn't-well, everworry you?' 
'Ethically, you mean?' 
'Yes, I suppose I do.' 
'No, I can't say that it did. Of course I made sure Sir Cordon was kept informed.' 
'But didn't you ever say to yourself-"Here are four living, breathing human beings which but for me 


would never have existed"?' 
The Professor smiled indulgently. 'Oh, no,' she said. 'That's not the way we think at the M.0.P.' 
'But you do still feel responsible for them, don't you?' 
'I certainlydid,' admitted the Professor. 'I now hope they feel responsible forme.' 
'Come again?' 
Well, it's quite obvious they have no furtherneed of me.' 
'But that goes for all of us,' said Cheryl. 'We've got them together 
again and now, presumably, they'll 


discard us and move on to higher things-whateverthey are.' 
'Pardon me, Miss Cheryl,' interposed Norbert, 'I don't believe 
that could be their intention at all.' 
'No?' said Cheryl, regarding the ape in some surprise. 'Have I missed something?' 
'We should not make the mistake of judging them by our own worldly standards, Miss,' said the chimp 


deferentially. 'I cannot as yet speak for Master Colin or Master Desmond, but Alvin and Bruce have 
qualities of saintliness that would put ordinary mortals to shame.' 
Cheryl blinked and then grinned. 'Maybe you're right at that, Norbert,' she said. 'I'm quite sure I've 

never met anything like them.' 
'No one has,' said the Professor. 'They are absolutely unique. The first genuinely gestalt human 
personality the world has ever known.'

 'Is that good or bad?' asked Cheryl. 'Or is that another ethical question?' 
'It is certainly not one I feel qualified to answer,' replied the Professor. 
Cheryl eyed her thoughtfully. 'Do you believe what they said about EUROSEC trying to kill Desmond?' 
II have no reason to disbelieve it.' 
'Then that must mean that the government thinks theyare bad, mustn't it?' 
'An excellent argument for believing that they're good,' said the Professor grimly. 
'Protein for you, Professorl' cried Cheryl slapping her on the back. 'Ask me for a phoney and I'll show 



you a politicianl'

you a politicianl'

 'Oh, he's typical,' said Chery]. 'Mind you, I don't think he'd have gone so far as actually killing them. 
He'd probably have wanted to float them as a company with himself as major shareholder. 
On the 
whole,' she concluded judiciously, 'the killing would probably have been a cleaner death.'

 By now the sun had slipped right down behind the distant mountains leaving an orange glow on the 
western horizon. This shaded off through yellow-green into amethyst, and finally into deepest indigo 
through which the first stars were beginning to prick their way. As the shadows darkened among the ruins 
the air immediately surrounding the three silent clones became subtly luminous until they appeared to be 
enclosed within a fragile hemisphere of trembling, pale blue light.

 AS the others approached, this hemisphere expanded outwards 
and upwards until it was occupying an 
area roughly ten Yards in diameter. Overcome by curiosity Cheryl stepped forward 
and stretched out 
her hand. 'Heyf' she exclaimed. 'This thing's real! Solid!'

 As she was speaking the dome edged outwards another COUPIC of feet and she found herself being 
pushed gently but SrInly backwards. She felt extremely surprised and, truth to tell, a little hurt, for she 
was not a girl who took kindly to being excluded from anything. She sat down on the sand and braced 
h,r back against the dome, only to find herself being quietly bulldozed along on her bottom as the 
hemisphere drew in yet another breath and puffed itself up some more.

 As soon as she had come to rest she burrowed her fingers down into the sand and discovered to her 
astonishment that the dome continued underground. She pressed her nose up against the transparent 
surface and peered in like a child squinting through a sweetshop window. 'Hi, therel' she called. 'You 
inside! What's going on?'

 If the clones heard her they certainly gave no sign. In fact, as far as she could judge, they hadn't moved 
an inch. Furthermore they didn't even appear to bebreathing!

 Cheryl gave a disgusted snort, climbed up off her knees and slapped the sand from the scat of her tunic. 
'That's gratitude for you,' she grumbled. 'Risk your neck flying them out into the middle of nowhere and 
what thanks do you get? What are we supposed to do? Freeze quietly to death? Besides, I'm starving.'

 'There are some emergency rations in the helicopter, Miss,' observed Norbert.

 Cheryl brightened immediately. 'Why didn't you say so before?' 
she cried. 'Come on, chimp I'

 The three of them turned their backs on the mysterious, glimmering dome and set off towards the 
helicopter. By so doing they effectively deprived themselves of a unique opportunity to witness the 
transcendental advent of a teleported clone. He arrived, complete with white burnous, some ten seconds 
after they had left the scene. His point of materialization was both the precise epicentre of the transparent 
sphere and the exact locus of the equilateral triangle. 


 THIRTY-FOUR

 THIRTY-FOUR

 'Colonel Potzdammer is absolutely trustworthy, gentlemen,' said General Pretzel. 'That is why he was 
selected for this particular 
mission. He has tendered me his resignation, which, naturally, I have refused 
to accept.'

 The Council of Ten nodded collectively to signify their apProval. 
'An' what do we do now?' enquired the amiable Mr. O'Duffy. 'Exorcise de spot?' 
'"Exercise le sport"?' queried the French Premier elevating the famous Traubert eyebrows. 'Quoi? 


Explique moi.' 
'Exorcise,' repeated Mr. O'Duffy. 'Sprinkle around de holy water an' what not.' 
'Ah,exoreiserl je comprends. C'est une plainstantrie irlandaise. 
Ho hol' 
'If vOu've got a better suggestion me boyo, let's be afther havin; it.p 
Ilerr Buber decided to intervene. 'Since receiving Colonel 
Potzdammer's report we have succeeded in locating the stolen helicopter. If you please, General.' 
A map of North Africa appeared on the ministerial So-Vi screens of Dublin, London, Berlin, etc. 


General Pretzel tapped it with his swagger stick. 'Here, gentlemen,' he said, 'is Umin cl Raha, and 
here'-moving the point some two hundred scale miles westward-'is the helicopter. It has come down in 
the middle of the desert, having, presumably, run out of fuel before it could reach its destination.'

 'Smart work, General,' said Sir Peter MThiplash. 'Congratula. tions.' 
General Pretzel touched his moustache with the tip of his cane in discreet acknowledgement of the 


compliment. 'As far as we can tell,' he said, 'the occupants are still in the immediate 
vicinity.' 
'Alors? Qu'est-ce que nous attendons?' 
'Might we remind Monsieur Traubert that the language of this assembly is officially English?' said Sir 


Peter. 
'Pardon!' M. Traubert writhed his lips in a bitter smile. 'I ask vot are ve vating for? You understand, Sir 
Peter?' 
'Oh, rather!' said Sir Peter genially. 'Just protocol, you understand. 
Nothing personal. Myself I'm happy 


to parlay fronsay any time.' 
Herr Buber coughed. 'There would appear to be two answers to Monsieur Traubert's question. The first 
is that Libya happens 
to be situated in North Africa and not in Europe. The second is that OMEGA has 

to parlay fronsay any time.' 
Herr Buber coughed. 'There would appear to be two answers to Monsieur Traubert's question. The first 
is that Libya happens 
to be situated in North Africa and not in Europe. The second is that OMEGA has 
' 
'Still, that didn't stop Potzdammer having a go, did it?' 
'No, Sir Peter. But there we were taking a calculated risk on both counts. The Libyan attache' was 


informed the moment we learned that Colonel PotzJammer's mission had failed.' 
'Oh, yes?' said Sir Peter. 'How did he take it?' 
'Diplomatically.'


 'An' how about de other fella?' enquired the Irish Premier. 'You are referring to OMEGA, Mr. O'Duffy?' 
'That's right.' 
'The computer's reaction is less easy to summarize. In the 
circumstances I thought it advisable to arrange for you all to put your questions to it directly. Do I have 


your permission?' 
Nobody objected and the closed circuit was accordingly let out a further notch to include the pride and 


joy of European Security. 'Good evening, gentlemen,' it said. 'Can I assist you?' 
'You've heard what happened at Umm cl Raha, I suppose?' said Sir Peter. 
The computer remained silent. 
'Well, have you or haven't you?' 
'Yes,'said OMEGA. 'Of course I have.' 
'Well, what do you make of it?' 
'You wish for an explanation of the phenomenon of teleportation?' 
'Tele-what?' 
'Teleportation. Derived from the Creek ti~le-"far off" or 
"distant"-and the Latin portare-"to carry". Hence "carry far ofF'. Teleport.' 
'Well, I'm damned,' said Sir Peter. 'You mean it actually happens?' 
'So it would appear,' said the computer. 



 'Well, what do we do about it?'

 'Well, what do we do about it?'

 'Good Lord, no! I mean what do we do? How do we cope

 With these-what-d'you-call-its?-clones? Dammit, they might POP up anywhere!'

 'I am inclined to believe that it is now too late to do anything about it. The events at Umm cl Raha have 

merely confirmed MY earlier analysis. Extrapolation suggests that further moves of a similar nature may 
well provoke unforsecable consequences.'


 'Are you trying to tell us that these chaps really are dangerous?'


 'Insofar as all superior life forms present a threat to all inferior life forms, that is certainly true.'

 'But vat could zey do?' asked M. Traubert. 'Kill us?'

 'Undoubtedly.'

 'Then why didn't they kill Potzdammer?' demanded Sir Peter.

 'Presumably because they chose not to. As a demonstration of their power, what they achieved was 
equally effective.'

 Signor Umberto now spoke for the first time. 'You say the other three are at present in the desert?'

 'I have been given this information,' said OMEGA. 'I have not cross-checked it.'

 'It's true all right,' said General Pretzel. 'Sky Bird picked them up and we've identified the aircraft.'

 'Bene,'said Signor Umberto. 'They are now in the desert. By now, I assume, we have their precise 
co-ordinates. We also have Vulture intercontinental thermo-nuclear missiles in Malta and Cyprus. Do I 
make myself clear, gentlemen?'

 'Ah sure now,' said Mr. O'Duffy, 'isn't that goin' from one extreme 
to Wother? These fellas haven't hurt 
anyone. All they've done is hijack a helicopter. Sure you can't atomize them just fer that.'

 'And what do you suggest, Mr. O'Duffy?'

 'Well, let's at leasttalk to them or somethin'. Ask 'em Qive Yemselves up. Thass only fair. Besides I 
don't suppose the Libyans would take so kindly to us poopin' off our Vultures into their desert wi'out so 
much as a by-your-leave.'

 'You have heard OMEGA's assessment of their potential, Mr. O'Duffy,' said Herr Buber. 'The threat 
they pose is in every sense a real one.'

 'So hesays,' said Mr. O'Duffy. 'Sure he's just a bunch o' wires.'

 'Ovonics,' corrected OMEGA primly. 


 'Well, I still don't see what we stand to lose by jisttalkin' to them,' protested O'Duffy.

 'Well, I still don't see what we stand to lose by jisttalkin' to them,' protested O'Duffy.

 'Ah, why don't you go an' fuse yeself,' muttered the Prime Minister of God's Own Country.

 The discussion continued for a further forty minutes and then Signor Umberto's proposal was put to the 
vote. Five supported 
the motion and five opposed it. Whereupon Herr Buber communed with his 
conscience and decided, with some misgiving, 
that in the interests of inferior humanity, all that remained 
of the Ancient Palace of the once Mighty Kings of Zub should forthwith be blasted back into the dust 
from which it had arisen.

 just as he was about to announce on which side he had cast his vote, there was a sort of gurgling gulp 
from the computer and there, blinking out from ten Prime Ministerial stereo-So-Vi screens in ten different 
European capitals, were those amiable booby features which Nature in her inscrutable wisdom had 
selected for the next great leap forward of the human species. Was the face Alvin's or Colin's or Bruce's 
or Desmond's? The question was no longer meaningful. It was simply the face of the clone.

 'Gentlemen,' it said, and each Head of State heard himself being addressed in his own mother tongue, 'I 
must ask you to forgive this intrusion which, I assure you, I had hoped would prove unnecessary. I am 
here only to prevent you from committing 
a grave error of judgement. Your computer has pronounced 
me to be a threat to humanity-a verdict which, within its own terms of reference, is certainly justifiable. 
But what it has understandably 
overlooked is that, in my own case, its terms of reference can no longer 
be held to apply. The ant cannot pass nieaningful judgement upon the eagle for they belong to differcrit 
species. The wisdom of the one is not the wisdom of the other.

 'Nevertheless, fromone point of view, your computer's assessment 
has undeniable substance. I do 
indeed constitute a threat to you, but this threat comes not fromme, but from yourselves. You cannot 
destroy me, but in attempting to do so you will assuredly destroy humanity. Since I have no wish to 
annihilate either you personally or the society which you represent, I will explain briefly what steps I 
intend to take in the event of your proceeding with your present plan. When I have concluded I will ask 
you to put the question once more to your computer. My hope is that though you may not believeme, 
you will be prepared to accept the advice of an impartial, logical intelligence 
whose reasoning processes 
are modelled upon your own.'

 The clone paused and seemed to gaze directly into their uneasy 
hearts. 'You intend to launch a Vulture 
missile strike against me from Malta and Cyprus. The instant the rockets leave their launching pads I shall 
screen them from all external interference and re-direct them. One will explode over Moscow, one over 
Pekin, and one over New York. The inevitable retaliatory 
strike will incinerate four fifths of the 
population of Europe and trigger off an immediate escalation which, by mid-night tonight, will have 
effectively destroyed all the existing major world powers and most of the minor ones.But it will not have 
destroyed me. That is all I have to say, gentlemen. Will you now be so good as to cheek what I have 
said with your computer? 
I shall return in five minutes.'

 The clone had barely faded from their screens before OMEGA spoke. 'Basing my calculations upon 
such evidence as I have so far been able to correlate, I am convinced that he is perfectly capable of 
doing exactly what he says he can. Furthermore 
I estimate that, if he chose, he could at this mon-ient 
detonate every single nuclear warhead in the world's armouries.'

 There was a moment of appalled silence, broken abruptly by an explosive guffaw from Mr. O'Duffy. 
'Well if dat don't beat everythin'i Sohe was de one wid de eliment o' surprise, 


 lich? An' which way was you thinkin' o' castin' yer vote, Mr. Chairman?'

 lich? An' which way was you thinkin' o' castin' yer vote, Mr. Chairman?'

proposal to the vote once more.'

 II wish to withdraw my proposal,' said the ashen-faced Italian Premier.

 'In that case,' said Herr Buber, 'the discussion is once more open.'

 'I propose,' said Mr. O'Duffy, 'that we just sit on our tails and hold our tongues for three minutes, until 

we hear what dat young fella wants t' tell us.'

 'Hear, hear!' murmured a number of voices.

 Herr Buber nodded gratefully. 'The Council will recess until I9.2o hours.'

 Precisely to the second the clone reappeared. He did not wait to he told what they had decided. 'Thank 
you, gentlemen,' he said. 'I was sure that once you had had an opportunity to reflect on the matter you 
would appreciate the cogency of my case. All that remains for me now is to wish you a very good 
evening and to apologize for having taken up so much of your valuable time. Once more, then goodnight, 
gentle-'

 'Hey!' called Mr. O'Duffy as the clone's face was beginning to dissolve from his screen. 'Hey, just a 
moment, misterl Come back, please!'

 The clone solidified once more. 'Yes?' he enquired politely. 'Mr. Scamus O'Duffy, isn't it?'

 'Aye, it is,' said Mr. O'Duffy. 'And who might you be, sit?'

 The clone blinked. 'Well, do you know,' he said, 'I've never really thought about it.' Then his brow 
cleared. He smiled. 'My riarne could well be Adain,' he said. 'Adam Clone.'

 'I'm very pleased t' make yer acquaintance, Mr. Adam. An' I'n' sure that goes for the lot of us.'

 behalf of usall may I be after wishin' you long life an' much happiness?'

 'Thank you very much indeed,' said the clone. 'Believe me, I shall look back on our conversation with 
great pleasure. And now, for the last time, gentlemen, I must beg to take my leave.'

 The screens dimmed and then brightened again. The clone was gone.

 'Now that's what I call a truly remarkable young man,' sighed Mr. O'Duffy.

 'D'accord,' said Monsieur Traubert. 


 “Thank you,' said the clone, 'You are extremely civil, Mr. (3 Muffy.'

 “Thank you,' said the clone, 'You are extremely civil, Mr. (3 Muffy.'

stick up fer yerself-
have faith in yerself.'

 'Indeed yes,' said the clone thoughtfully. 'That is very true.'

 'An' what're ye plannid Cdo now, Mr. Adam? If ye don't mind me askin'.'

 'Not at all,' said the clone. 'We intend to devote ourself to the delights of kyef.'

 'Kyef?'

 'It is a word which, I regret, does not translate satisfactorily into English, The best equivalent I could 

offer might lie somewhere 
between "repose", "contemplation" and %ndolence".' 
'Ah, that's a great ambition for a man,' sighed Mr. O'Duffy reverently. 'An' whereabouts, if I may ask, 

will this be takin~ place?'

 'In the analogous continuum at Zub, Mr. O'Duffy.'

 'Did ye say "Zub"?'

 The clone nodded. 'It is the site of the original Garden of Eden.'

 'Is that so? Sure an' I never heard tell of it before. But there I'm a terribly ignorant man.'

 'You do yourself a grave injustice, Mr. O'Duffy. I know that you are very far from ignorant.'

 'Well, I can tell milk from porter,' said Mr. O'Duffy, 'an' that's a fact.' He raised his index finger, laid it 

alongside his nose, and lowered one eyelid. 'An' can we take it that you'll be droppin' in now an' again t' 

pay us a visit, Mr. Adarn?'

 'I should have said that was unlikely, Mr. O'Duffy. But it is not entirely out of the question. Shall we 
say-it all depends?'

 'Sure an' I take yer meanin', Mr. Adam. An' you take it from me, that goes fer the lot of us. May I say 
that iCs been a very great pleasure t' me personally, meetin' you like this? An' on behalf of us all may I be 
after wishin’ you long life an’ much happiness?’

 ‘Thank you very much indeed,’ said the clone. ‘Believe me, I shall look back on our conversation with 
great plesure. And now, for the last time. Gentlemen, I must beg to take my leave.’

 The screens dimmed and then brightened again. The clone was gone.

 ‘Now that’s what I call a truly remarkable young man,’ sighed Mr. O’Duffy.

 ‘D’accord,’said Monsieur Traubert. 


THIRTY-FIVE


 
THIRTY-SIX

 Across a sky as blue as a baby's eyes, cloudlets like plump silvery cherubs popped and spluttered and 
pursued one another endlessly.

 A perfect rainbow rose like a leaping dolphin and looped the heavens.

 A breeze ran its fingers through a grove of slender birches.

 Snow white doves cooed moistly.

 Norbert stood upon a little grassy knoll and scratched his thinning hair with a right hand which for 
thirty-two years had been a left hand but was so no longer. 'And there were the four rivers,' he said. 'I 
can't remember their names but I know there were four of them. I suppose you could move the lake over 
a bit and take one off from each side.'

 'That's a bit too mathematical for my taste,' said Adam. 'How about taking one out of this end of the 
lake, flowing it up the back of the hill and then down over the top? That way we could have a waterfall 
too. I'll show you.'

 Norbert contemplated the new effect and saw that it was good. 'Very pretty,' he said. 'The waterfall 
reminds me of Tring!

 Adam laughed. 'I wondered if you'd spot it. Notice anything else?'

 Norbert peered about him and finally shook his head.

 'Down there,' said Adam, pointing to the lake's edge. 


 Norbert shaded his eyes against the reflected twinkle from the ripples. 'Why yes,' he chuckled. 
'Myosoton aquaticum, isn't

 Norbert shaded his eyes against the reflected twinkle from the ripples. 'Why yes,' he chuckled. 
'Myosoton aquaticum, isn't

 'Talking to Michaela.'

 'Michaela?'

 'Miriam's alter ego,' said Adam. 'She's really something. Female 
at the top and male at the bottom. 
Very nice chap when you get to know her.'

 'I'm glad to hear it,' said Norbert. 'I'd wondered if the Professor 
mightn't be missing her wife.'

 'She could have had her too if she'd wanted her. Nothing easier. But she decided against it.'

 'And Miss Cheryl?'

 'Well, that's something I've been wanting to talk to you about, Norbert. I'd very much appreciate your 
advice.'

 'Anything I can do, son, you only have to say the word.'

 Adam squatted down on the knoll, plucked himself a long, succulent grass stalk and put the end of it 
between his lips. 'I know this must sound a bit ridiculous,' he said, 'but the fact is, Norbert, we're shy.'

 'All of you?' 
'I'm afraid so.' 
'You mean that none of you have. 
'Not unless you count that time with Doctor Somervell.' 
To tell you the truth I'm very glad to hear it,' said Norbert. 'Old fashioned I may be but I've always liked 


to think there's a bit of mystery somewhere. By the way, you don't mind if I call you "Alvin", do you?'


 'Not a bit. I'm Alvin at least as much as I'm any of us. But just at present I'm finding it simpler to stick to 
the one body. Less distracting.'

 Norbert nodded, squatted down beside the clone and pulled a grass stalk for himself. 'I suppose you 
haven't thought ofwell, 
changingyourself?'

 'You think I should.'

 'Speaking for myself,' said the chimp, 'I like you just as you are. I always have. But women are funny 
creatures. They have ideas of their own. After all, you've only got to think of what's his name?-Professor 
Poynter's friend.' 


 Adam nodded. 'I see what you mean. Let Cheryl choose for herself.' 
'Well, sound her out about it anyway.' 
'You think that would help?' 
'It might,' said Norbert. 'I should think she'd feel flattered.' 
Adam rolled his grass stalk around his lips. 'I was sort of hoping 
she'd-well, love us for ourself alone.' 
'What makes you think she doesn't?' 
'I don't really know, Norbert. The fact is, I daren't ask her in case I get the wrong answer.' 
Norbert scratched his nose. 'Well, why don't you play that trick you and Bruce pulled when we were up 


in the Orkneys. You know the one. Get her-well,interested in you.' 
'That's just it, Norbert. It would still be a trick. I couldn't really believe it was happening tome now.' 
'I see,'said Norbert thoughtfully. 'No trumps.' 
'It'sgot to be, Norbert. Everything depends on it!' 
'How do you mean, son?' 
Adam removed the grass stalk from between his teeth and gestured round with it at the glittering 


landscape. 'All this,' he said, 'exists because I believed in it. And I believed in it because 
I believedin 
myself. How can I go on believing in myself unless she believes in me too?' 
Norbert frowned. 'And doesshe know this?' 
'I don't know,' said Adam. 'But it's occurred to me once or twice that if she didn't we probably wouldn't 
be here.' 
'That makes sense,' said Norbert. 'But you still aren't convinced, 
huh?' 
Adam, sighed. 'I suppose the trouble is, old friend, that we're simply crazy about her and we always 
have been.' 
The chimp nodded. 
'She's unique,' said the clone. 
,And you love her?' 
'We all do.' 
'Then leave it to me, son,' said the chimp. 
'Norbert, you won't tell her I . . . ?' 


 'Not a whisper.'

 'Not a whisper.'

walking towards him.

 'Hello, Norbert,' she said. 'Have you seen Alvin?'

 'I've just left him up by the lake, Miss.'

 'Miriarn wants us all to go and have tea with her and Michaela. Where are the others?'

 'They're all Alvin just now, Miss. He said he found it less distracting.'


 'Four for the price of one, eh?' she chuckled.

 Norbert swallowed. 'Miss Cheryl,' he said, 'I was wondering. 
. . .'

 'What were you wondering, Norbert?' she prompted.

 'You do believe in Alvin, don't you, Miss?'

 'Believein him?'

 The chimp nodded emphatically. 'Heneeds you, Miss. He needs you more than anyone. Andwe need 

him, Miss . . . Couldn't you just. . . .'

 Cheryl's eyes flickered like green hummingbirds, 'Why,Norbertl' 
she murmured. 'You aren't suggesting.

 'Yes, Miss. I am,' said the chimp.

 'Well, well,' she mused. 'And I've been waiting for him tomake the first move.'

 Norbert's expression was a radiance of joyous relief. 'Thenyou are . . . I'

 'Oh yes,' she smiled.'I am.'

 'Then do, Missl'

 'Now?'

 'The sooner the better, I'd say. For all our sakes.'

 'You think it'ssafe?'

 'I'm surehe does, Miss.'

 Cheryl's eyes twinkled. 'Then hadn't you better give me yourblessing, Norbert?'

 'Ohbless you, Missl' said the chimp reverently and kissed heron both hands. 


 THIRTY-SEVEN

 THIRTY-SEVEN

 In the dappled shade beneath the tree Norbert and Alvin were sitting with their backs resting against the 
trunk. Alvin looked much as he had always looked except that now he was tanned a very becoming 
shade of golden-brown all over and the dimensions of one particular organ were a trifle nobler than 
Nature had originally intended. Norbert was still Norbert.

 Somewhere-it was quite impossible to say exactly where-a string quartet was playing selections from 
Vivaldi. The sounds mingled with the murmur of bees in blossoms; with the gurgle of water trickling in 
shady places; with the overspill of larksong; 
and with a thousand other sounds each in their own wayas 
soothing to the wearied spirit.

 At the far end of the lake Cheryl was teaching Desmond how to sail a dinghy. Momentarily their bare 
brown bodies gleamed as they turned into a new tack and leaned upon the wind. Her voice carried 
clearly across the sky-mirroring waters. 'Port!' she was insisting. 'Hard-a-port, you goon! Not 
starboardl'

 Alvin chuckled. 'Funny that' he remarked. 'We're all the same. Still can't tell one from the other. I'll work 
out the reason for it one of these days. Remember how it used to drive old Bosun up the wall?'

 From the myrtles beyond the birch grove little screams of pleasure drew Norbert's smiling eyes in that 
direction. Briefly he glimpsed Professor Poynter darting naked through a thicket, closely pursued by 
Michaela who appeared to be belabouring her with a leafy twig. The pair dipped in and out of the 
shadows and passed quite close to Bruce who was sitting cross~legged on the grass, stroking the nose of 
one of his goats and listening intently to an old man with a long grey beard.

 'That's old Cusp, isn't it?' said Norbert.

 Alvin turned his head. 'Either him or Epicurus,' he said. 'I can never tell them apart.'

 Norbert sighed, settled back and thatched his hands behind his head. 'Did I ever tell you how I came to 
meet Miriarn?'

 'In Hyde Park, wasn't it?'

 Norbert nodded. 'She was in a bad way, Shocked, you know. Kept on saying the world had gone mad. 
Mind you, she had good reason. That was a bad business altogether.' 


 Alvin smiled. 'You still think I ought to go back there and try to put things straight, don't you, old friend?'

 Alvin smiled. 'You still think I ought to go back there and try to put things straight, don't you, old friend?'

 'It wouldn't work, Norbert.'

 'No?' said the chimp. 'Well, I daresay you know best.'

 'Oh I know I couldthreaten them,' said Alvin. 'Like I did to get them to leave us alone. But what's the 
use of frightening people into behaving better? It never works for long. And in the end you're even further 
back than you were when you started.'

 'Couldn't youshow them?' suggested Norbert hopefully.

 'Show them what? That they have it in them to be angels? That the earth's a paradise if they'll only see it? 
Look where that got the last chap who tried it! They'd be wanting to nail me up before you could say 
"Pontius Pilate'.

 'But you couldmake them see, Alvin.'

 'I can't change people'scharacters, Norbert, any more than he could. They'll go on thinking in 3-I) and 
seeing just what they want to see. And they'll go on calling it reality. It's whatthey want. They aren't ready 

for us yet.'

 'I suppose you're right,' said Norbert sadly. 'But it seems such a waste, somehow.'

 Alvin did not answer. Instead he reached up into the tree above him, plucked one of the fruits and 

handed it to Norbert. The chimp took it, looked at it, and then looked at Alvin.

 'Go on,' said the clone. 'Try it.'

 Norbert peeled the fruit, sniffed at the creamy flesh and took a bite. A look of dreamy rapture misted his 

kind old eyes. He took another. And another.

 'Well?' said Alvin. 'Is it good?'

 Norbert's mouth was too full for him to speak. 'Umm,' he sighed.'Umm . . . Urnrn!'

 'How's it compare with the apples?'

 Norbert swallowed, pushed his tongue round inside his mouth, sucked his teeth and deliberated for a 
long while in complete silence. 'The apple was good,' he said at last. 'The apple wasvery good. But the 
banana's better. Oh, yes, son, there's no doubt about it. Bananas are the best yet.' 


 THIRTY-EIGHT

 THIRTY-EIGHT

 'Maybe it was something else,' suggested his companion.

 'I've just checked the circuits. Everything's one hundred per cent.'

 He drew out the nozzle of the fuel hose, dragged it behind him back to the 'Thunderbird' and plugged it 
into place. 'O.K.' he called. 'Ready when you are.'

 The tube twitched and throbbed as the fuel gushed through it. When the tank was full they switched off, 
uncoupled the nozzle, and let the hose retract itself. The pilot of the recovery plane climbed out and 
joined his companion on the sand between 
the two aircraft. 'What is this place?' he asked.

 'Search me,' said the other. 'Just a map reference.'

 They both gazed around them wondering vaguely about the ruined ziggaraut, the broken marble columns 
and the sand-sunken walls that were the only surviving remnants of the erstwhile magnificence of the 
Dynasty of Zub.

 One of the men caught sight of some marks scratched on the sand. He walked across and peered down 
at the breeze-eroded outlines of what had once been an equilateral triangle circumscribing 
the letters 
. As he did so he frowned and twitched his nose. He sniffed. Finally he shook his head.

 
'What's up?' asked his companion, strolling to join him.

 'You can't smell it?'

 'Smell what?'

 'Bananas.'

 'Bananas! Are you crazy?' The second pilot bent down and sniffed. And then he sniffed again. 
'Goddami~ you're right' he said. 'Just here. Strong too.'

 'I'd love a banana right now,' said the first, hungrily. 'They're my favourite fruit.'

 The second straightened up. 'Me I prefer apples,' he said. 'Give me something you can really get your 
teeth into. You can't beat a really nice crisp apple.'

 They glanced at one another and suddenly both of them felt extraordinarily foolish. With one accord they 


turned and made their separate ways back to the two planes. 
Five minutes later the last engine throb had died away in the cloudless sky to the north. 
And Zub was alone once more.