by Tom Holt
“A sock?”
“Yes,” said Vanderdecker. “One of the socks he was wearing. Threatened to take it off and put it inside the fellow’s gas mask. After that he was extremely co-operative. Look, I’ve got to see Montalban.”
“But how did you know where to come?” Jane demanded.
“Simple,” said Vanderdecker, “I phoned Directory Enquiries. Isn’t that what you did?”
“I think he’s in his study,” Jane said. “Follow me.”
THIRTEEN
Oh,” Montalban said. “Oh, that is most unfortunate. Would you care for some more tea?”
“Not just now, thanks,” said the Flying Dutchman. “Have you got official notice yet?”
“Let me see.” The Professor stood up and walked over to an elegant Jacobean chair in the corner of the room. He pressed a knob on the carved side, and a telex printer appeared through the seat.
“Ah yes,” said the Professor. “It’s just come through this minute. You were right. Dear me, this is most regrettable.”
“Regrettable!” Jane said. “Isn’t that putting it rather mildly? I mean, the Dounreay nuclear power station is about to blow up and take half of Northern Europe with it, and you say…”
“Extremely regrettable, yes,” said the Professor. “Unfortunately, the telex doesn’t give details. Perhaps I should telephone somebody.”
“Good idea,” said Vanderdecker. “You go and do that.” The Professor wandered away, and Jane turned to Vanderdecker. Her face was white.
“It was lucky we were there,” Vanderdecker said. “We were just sailing along the Bristol Channel, minding our own business, when we happened to bump into the Erdkrieger again—you remember, that nuclear protest ship I told you about, with all those terribly earnest young people on it. They’d just come from Dounreay, and they were seriously worried. They’d seen this sort of glow on the water, and they didn’t like it one little bit. They’d tried to radio in to warn everyone, but of course nobody believes a word they say on that particular subject. So I asked them exactly what they’d seen, and when they explained I guessed that there’d been some awful accident. And then we saw the destroyer, which was following the Erdkrieger, and the rest you know.”
“But…” Jane started to say. “Sorry?”
“I mean,” Jane said, “no offence, but what can you do?”
Vanderdecker raised an eyebrow. “I would have thought that was obvious,” he said. “After all, we are the only people in the world who can do anything—that’s if anything can be done, that is. But the Professor can tell us that.”
“You mean because you can’t be killed?”
“Exactly,” Vanderdecker said. “Everything always comes in handy sometime, as my grandmother used to say when she stored away little bits of string, and in our case, it’s invulnerability. Well, so far as we know we’re invulnerable, but I don’t remember the elixir coming with label saying “Invulnerability or your money back; this does not affect your statutory rights.” Remains to be seen, really, now doesn’t it? That’s why I brought Sebastian with me.”
“But you mustn’t,” Jane burst out. “Not if it’s dangerous.”
Vanderdecker stared at her, and then began to laugh. He laughed for a very long time, although he seemed to realise that it wasn’t going down well with Jane; he couldn’t seem to help it. He was still laughing when the Professor came back in.
“Most regrettable,” said Montalban gravely. “I blame myself, of course.”
Jane scowled at him. “You mean it’s your fault?” she snapped.
“I suppose so,” said the Professor. “If I had never developed nuclear fission, this could never have happened. Ah well.”
“What’s happening?” Vanderdecker asked. “Was I right?”
“Absolutely,” said the Professor. “You were entirely correct in your diagnosis. I never knew you were a scientist.”
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Vanderdecker replied. “And you never wrote. But what are they doing?”
“They’ve evacuated the area,” said the Professor, “and they’re clearing the north of Scotland. But I don’t think there will be time. And ideally, one would prefer to evacuate Europe, if one wanted to be on the safe side.”
“Would one really?” said Jane. “How regrettable!”
“You shut up,” said Vanderdecker, “you aren’t helping. Look, Montalban, is there still time to do anything? Has the situation become critical?”
“I’m afraid so,” said the Professor. In his hand, entirely forgotten, was a stone cold crumpet. He had been carrying it about with him for at least twenty minutes, and the once-molten butter had solidified into a translucent yellow film.
“Although in theory the fire in the main chamber could still be controlled, no human being could survive in there for more than five minutes, even with protective clothing. You see, my latest modifications…”
“But the fire could still be put out?” Vanderdecker said. “How?”
“Indeed,” said the Professor, “how? No fire-fighting equipment could be taken in there; it would simply melt.”
Vanderdecker smiled. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Very probably,” said the Professor. “What?”
“I’ll give you three guesses,” Vanderdecker replied. “What’s the one thing in the whole world that cannot be destroyed?”
The Professor thought for a moment, remembered the crumpet, and took a dainty bite off the rim of it; there was a crunching sound, as if he was eating a clay pigeon. Then he suddenly beamed. “My dear fellow,” he said, “you are of course perfectly correct. How remarkably intelligent of you! But,” he added, “there would be a certain amount of risk. For all I know…”
“Yes, well,” Vanderdecker said. “Anyway, don’t you think we ought to be going?”
“Of course,” said the Professor. “Yes. Shall we take your helicopter or mine?”
“Whichever you prefer,” said Vanderdecker. “Look, I hate to hurry you, but…”
“Of course. I’ll just get a few things. My instruments, and perhaps a flask of coffee…”
“No coffee,” said the Flying Dutchman. “No rich tea biscuits, no drop scones, no Dundee cake. Let’s just get a move on, and then we can all have tea.” The Professor, slightly startled, hurried away.
“We’ll drop by the ship and pick up the rest of the crew,” Vanderdecker way saying. “I hope his helicopter’s big enough.”
“Just what are you going to do?” Jane demanded.
“Put the fire out,” Vanderdecker replied, “what do you think? I’m not going all that way to a blazing nuclear reactor just to roast jacket potatoes.”
“But you can’t,” Jane said.
“Very probably,” Vanderdecker said—how could he be so calm about it all?—“but it’s worth a go, and I’ve got nothing else planned.”
“You bloody fool,” Jane screamed, “you’ll get killed!”
“Now then,” said the Flying Dutchman, “don’t let Sebastian hear you talking like that. I don’t want to raise the poor lad’s hopes.”
“I don’t believe it,” Jane said, and realised that she was getting over-excited. An over-excited accountant, like the University of Hull, is a contradiction in terms. Nevertheless. “You actually want to get killed, don’t you?” she exclaimed, and then was silent, mainly because she had unexpectedly run out of breath.
Vanderdecker grinned at her. “Yes,” he said, “more than anything else in the whole world. In my position, wouldn’t you?”
His eyes met hers, and she seemed to see four hundred years of pointless, agonising existence staring out at her; four hundred years of weeks without weekends, without Bank Holidays, without two weeks in the summer in Tuscany, without Christmas, without birthdays, without even coming home in the evening and kicking off your shoes and watching a good film, just millions of identical days full of nothing at all. She sat down and said nothing else, until long after the helicopter had roared away into the di
stance. The she started to cry, messily, until her mascara ran down all over her cheeks.
♦
Vanderdecker was not usually given to counting his blessings—not because he was an unusually gloomy person; it was just that he had tried it once, and it had taken him precisely two seconds.
However, he said to himself as the helicopter whirred through a cloud-cluttered sky towards Scotland, there is undoubtedly one thing I can be grateful for; I haven’t had to spend the last four hundred odd years in one of these horrible things. Compared to this airborne food processor, the Verdomde is entirely first-class accommodation.
The journey had not been devoid of incident. For example, he had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed Sebastian sneakily opening the door and jumping out as they soared over the Lake District; in fact, had he not yelled out “Geronimo!” as he launched himself into the air, they probably wouldn’t have noticed his departure, and it would have taken even longer to find him than it did. When at last they managed to locate him, after several tedious fly-pasts of Lake Coniston, he was lodged head-first in the trunk of a hollow tree, and they had to use axes to get him loose.
There was also the smell. Although they were high up in the sky, their passing gave rise to a wave of seething discomfort and discontent on the ground below, and they had had to skirt round the edges of large towns and cities to avoid mass panic. Even then, an RAF Hercules with which they had briefly shared a few hundred thousand cubic feet of airspace had nearly flown into the Pennines.
But none of these trivial excitements was sufficient to keep the Flying Dutchman from brooding. He was faced, he realised, with a dilemma, a conflict of interests. On the one hand, there was a possibility that his wearisome and unduly extended lifespan would soon be terminated, and although he prided himself on being, in the circumstances, a reasonably well-balanced and sane individual, that would unquestionably be no bad thing. Life had become one long sherry-party, and it was high time he made his excuses and left. But, the problem was the great problem of tedious sherry parties. Just as you can see a way of getting out without actually having to knot tablecloths together and scramble out of a window, you meet someone you actually wouldn’t mind talking to—and then, just as you’re getting to know them and they’re telling you all about whatever it is, it’s time to leave and the hostess is coming round prising glasses out of people’s hands and switching off the music.
The problem with human life, when it goes on for rather longer than it should do, is boredom. When it’s boring and there’s nothing to do, it’s no fun. Just now, however, Vanderdecker had an uneasy feeling that his life was rather less boring than it had been for quite a number of centuries, and he could fairly certainly attribute the lack of tedium to the influence of that confounded accountant.
He looked out of the helicopter window at Stirling Castle—he had left a hat there in 1742, but they had probably disposed of it by now—and tried to marshal his thoughts. Love? Love was a concept with which he was no longer comfortable. At his age, it did not do to take anything too seriously, and the depressing thing about love was the seriousness which had to go with it, just as these days you couldn’t seem to get jumbo sausage and chips in a pub without a salad being thrown in as well. Supposing that a closer acquaintance with Jane Doland could make his life tolerable—that was by no means definitely established, and required the further presupposition that Jane Doland was interested in making his life tolerable, which was as certain as the total abolition of income tax—supposing all that, it remained to be said that Jane Doland would die in sixty-odd years time (a mere Sunday afternoon in Vanderdecker’s personal timescale) and then he would be right back where he was, sailing round the world, very smelly, with Johannes and Sebastian and Wilhelmus and the lads. Bugger that for a game of soldiers.
That reminded him: the smell. Even if, by some unaccountable perversity in her nature, Jane were to wish to keep him company, what with the smell and all, that could only be done on board ship, and it surely wasn’t reasonable to expect Jane to come and live on the Verdomde for the rest of her life. And even if she did, would even her unusually stimulating presence be enough to make life on board that floating tomb anything but insufferable? Be realistic, Vanderdecker. Of course not.
Then hey ho for death by radiation. But try as he might, he could not persuade his intransigent and pig-headed soul to accept the force of these arguments. He needed some final compelling reason, and try as he might, finding one proved to be as difficult as recovering something he had put in a safe place so as not to lose it five years ago. The idea that he was doing all this to save the population of Northern Europe from certain death was a pretty one to bounce about in the abandoned ball-park of his mind, but he had to admit that he couldn’t find it in him to regard the Big Sleep with quite the same degree of naked hostility as most of his fellow-creatures. There was also the horrid possibility—quite a strong one, if one calculated the mathematical probability of it—that as soon as he and his fellow non-scientists started fooling about with the works of a nuclear reactor, the whole thing would go off pop, drawing a line under Northern Europe but leaving him and his colleagues with no worse effects than profound guilt. That wouldn’t solve anything, now, would it?
The Professor had spent most of the journey with a calculator and a small portable Yamaha organ (to him, interchangeable), fussing over some ingenious calculations or other. Now he had put them away and was nibbling at a rock-cake. It was hard to know whether he was frightened, vacant or just hungry. Vanderdecker caught his eye, and over the roar of the rotor-blades, they had their first sustained conversation for many centuries.
“Well then, Montalban,” said Vanderdecker, with as much good fellowship as he could muster, “what have you been getting up to since I saw you last?”
The Professor looked at him. “My work…” he said.
“Yes,” Vanderdecker replied, “but apart from that.”
“Apart from my work?”
“Yes,” Vanderdecker said. “In your spare time, I mean. Hobbies, interesting people, good films, that sort of thing.”
“I’m afraid I’ve always been too busy to spare any time for amusements,” said the Professor, and his tone of voice made it clear that he didn’t really understand the concepts that Vanderdecker was proposing to discuss, rather as Vanderdecker himself would have felt if someone had buttonholed him for a serious discussion about the forthcoming world tiddlywinks championship.
“You mean you’ve been too busy?”
“Yes.”
“Working?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” Vanderdecker didn’t see at all. For all his sufferings, he had at least had a couple of days off every seven years. He wondered if there was any point in continuing with this conversation, since despite a vague foundation of shared experience he doubted whether he had much in common with his old acquaintance.
“I suppose,” the Professor said uneasily, “I owe you and your crew an apology.”
Vanderdecker sighed and shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “Two hundred years ago, I might have wanted to break your silly neck for you, but even grudges wear out in time, like Swiss watches. Besides, it was my fault as much as yours.”
“That’s very gentlemanly of you,” said the Professor. “I don’t suppose I would have taken such a reasonable view had I been in your position.”
“Think nothing of it,” Vanderdecker said. “Besides, you are in our position. Well, sort of.” He turned his head and looked out of the window. Sheep. Not exactly enthralling.
“Actually,” the Professor continued, “there was one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Your life insurance policy,” he—said nervously. “have you considered…?”
“Oh yes,” Vanderdecker remembered, “that. What about it?”
“Well,” said the Professor, “as you may be aware. I happen to own the bank that has the risk, and it occurred to me…If anything—
well, unfortunate, should happen at the power station…”
“I see,” Vanderdecker said, trying to keep himself from grinning. “Yes, of course, there’d have to be a pay-out, wouldn’t there? A bit awkward for you, I suppose. Still, that’s the insurance business for you.”
“What I was wandering,” said the Professor, “was who would be entitled to the proceeds? I don’t suppose you’ve made a will, by any chance.”
“No,” said Vanderdecker with restraint. “I haven’t. Rather irresponsible of me, I know, but it really did seem a trifle unnecessary. Well, it’s a bit late now, isn’t it? Besides, I never could be doing with lawyers. Did you ever meet a lawyer whose life you would willingly have saved in the event of fire? Not me.”
“In which case,” went on the Professor, “since you have no next of kin and no testamentary heirs, your estate will presumably revert to the public treasury of whichever country you happen to be a citizen of. Would that be Holland, do you know?”
“Search me,” Vanderdecker confessed. “I’d leave that to the experts, if I were you. I see what you mean about making a will, actually, although I still maintain that forty quid spent on deciding what’s going to happen after you’re dead is a waste of good beer money. Still, it’s not really any of my business, now is it? I mean, I’m not going to be here to see the fun, so what the hell do I care whether the Dutch government or the Lombard government…”
“There isn’t a Lombard government any more,” said the Professor.
“Isn’t there?” Vanderdecker said. “Oh. Don’t mind me, I only read the sports pages. The Italian government, then, who gives a damn? Jolly good luck to them, and I hope they don’t fritter it all away on battleships.”
“If you really don’t care,” said the Professor cautiously, “then might I suggest that you assign the policy back to the bank? It would save a lot of difficulties, you know. With the economy of the world and everything.”
“Can I do that?” Vanderdecker asked curiously. “Just say who I want to have it?”
