CHILDREN OF THE THUNDER

by John Brunner

  Reaching for his credit cards, Peter proposed at the top of his voice that they adjourn to a nearby pub. For a few seconds he thought she was inclining to agree.

  Then, however, she checked her watch and shook her head.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “I have to go. My hosts are due back around now. Thanks for the meal, anyway.”

  “Wait! You can’t just—”

  “Leave you in the lurch?” A repeat of her quirky smile. “Sorry again. I shouldn’t have said as much as I did. I only just arrived in Europe, remember. Give me time to convince myself that I can trust my judgment.”

  Is this going to be yet another case where because I do the “gentlemanly thing” I lose out on a major story?

  In a flash of insight, Peter realized this was the main reason why he was still living on his own in a cramped top-floor apartment. Someone with the killer instinct…

  But he didn’t possess it. He found it repugnant. He was operating on reflexes, pocketing his organizer, proffering his business card, saying, “When you feel sufficiently relaxed to talk this through with somebody, or need some information I might find for you…”

  “Yes. Yes. I’ll bear that in mind. Thank you again. I can find my own way home. I’ve stayed at The Wansdyke before. Good night.”

  She turned away, momentarily forgetting the release that he had signed for her, swinging back to reclaim it a heartbeat before he could remind her, thus depriving him of one more chance to reinforce the favorable impression he was striving to make.

  The waiter seized his credit card and wiped it through the reader on the till as though afraid Peter intended to leave before paying. Fuming, he made a mental resolution to pursue this one, even if it meant pestering Claudia until she lost her temper. He felt rather as though he had been brought to the brink of orgasm, and then let down.

  In an alleyway beside the restaurant, where dustbins stood, a frightened kitchen-hand had been cornered by half a dozen dismerables on his way to dump what they regarded as precious food. Just as Peter passed, he flung his burden at them and disappeared. They fell on the mess as though it were manna, cursing and beating one another.

  Peter ignored them and trudged on homeward, wind-blown litter assailing his legs.

  London approaching the 21st century…

  Noise, dark wet night, many of the streetlights broken, dismerables trudging from dustbin to overflowing dustbin in search of anything to eat or wear or sell; those luckier, with homes to go to, glancing anxiously over-shoulder as though afraid the buildings might sprout mobile pylon legs and trample them; riders in the scarce cars and buses eager to be anywhere but here… In other words:

  The city the humming the thrumming the drumming the city the bumming the summing it up as a MINUS—!

  That, echoing between her ears from her headset stereo (the shout at the climax weakened as the batteries weakened—buy more tomorrow, if any were to be had), furnished a running commentary on what Crystal Knight could see at this much-too-ordinary moment: black sky, drifting rain, unhappy people, a few bright but hideous illuminated signs, most of the vehicles stinking on their way to a breakdown because so few could afford to keep their suit of wheels in legal repair and new ones were so scarce now Britain was excluded from the Japanese economic sphere… The buses stank the worst and broke down the most often. (The rich, naturally, shunned areas like this, convinced they might catch AIDS by drawing breath. Elsewhere, as for instance in Parliament, they didn’t seem nearly so anxious to keep their mouths shut.)

  But the normal grumble of traffic had just changed to a howl. Here came the Old Bill, and in a hurry.

  On what kind of business? Obviously they weren’t just hauling in beggars to keep up the arrest rate.

  Crystal switched off the bad-rap tape she was allowing to occupy her mind until another customer happened along. Aside from the stereo, she was wearing what was likeliest to turn her punters on because they were mostly middle-aged whenzies and what they chiefly wanted was to screw their teener daughters in the guise their girlfriends had worn at the same age. She knew enough psychology to suspect that that sort of urge underlay the stringent discipline imposed by the uncle who had grudgingly taken her in after her parents died and from whom she had ultimately fled: the endless petty put-downs, the harsh beatings for even minor offenses, and the final insult, his dismissal of her as unfit to keep company with his own children because she was a literal bastard. For him to have implied that about her mother…!

  She no longer recalled her parents very clearly because they had died when she was five—in that epidemic of meningitis which, so some people still claimed, had escaped from a research laboratory, only the charge had never been proved, or even investigated—but she was sure they had been loving and affectionate, and she knew they must have had something her aunt and uncle lacked: a sense of humor. If not, why had a couple whose names were Jem and Beryl decided to name their daughter Crystal?

  Of course, it did mean people tended to address her as Crissie, which she hated. But they generally didn’t do it twice.

  In full Sixties fig—minidress and high leather boots, plus false eyelashes and an idiotic bouffant wig of the same color as her own dark hair—she was at her hard-won evening post in a shop doorway opposite St. Pancras Station. It was a featly patch, particularly since they had refurbished the huge Victorian hotel across the way. Deprived of much of their former custom—late-arriving rail travelers and those whose trains had been cancelled without warning—the smaller hotels in the area had opened up for prostitution. Yes, all things considered a very good patch, because the staff didn’t mind what age their clients were, nor which sex, either. Not so long as they carried a certificate of vaccination against AIDS.

  Of course, the vaccine cost a bomb. So there was a thriving trade in forgeries.

  Crystal was thirteen, and she didn’t mind saying so to her punters. Sometimes she even said twelve, because the younger she claimed to be the more she turned most of them on, and the sooner she got them de-spunked the sooner she could turn another trick. To the Bill, of course, she always indignantly declared that she was sixteen—legal age… But then added “and a half” with a disarming giggle.

  What am I going to do when I really reach sixteen?

  At the moment, however, she had something else to worry about. The police car had passed without stopping, but a two-member serial was working this side of the street on foot—armored, of course, as always nowadays in the rougher districts. One could only guess by their respective heights which was the man and which the woman, for they were identically clad from their heavy black boots to their round black visored helmets. Inside the latter, radios relayed everything they said, everything they heard, to the tireless computers at Scotland Yard, on alert the clock around for any programmed keyword that might indicate more trouble than two constables on foot could cope with.

  A patrol like that usually posed considerable problems, though never anything Crystal couldn’t handle. As she had discovered, she could handle anything—most days of the month. It might, however, mean a waste of precious working time…

  As it turned out, luck tonight was on her side.

  At this most opportune juncture, she spotted a man she had a score to settle with: directly across the street, keeping his back turned, hat pulled down, coat collar up in hopes the police wouldn’t look his way. Thus far they hadn’t. But there was no chance of him escaping Crystal’s notice. She would have known him at ten times the distance.

  “Winston Farmer,” she said under her breath. “Is your shit ever going to hit the fan…!” And, in a vigorous stage whisper: “Officer!”

  The constables glanced around.

  “Come this way. Don’t worry. Pretend you’re checking my certificate.”

  Puzzled, wary of a trap, yet nonetheless tilting back his visor so she could see his face, the man approached while his companion stood aloof, poised to signal for help.

  “What do you want?” he demanded,
obviously surprised at being addressed by someone who would normally do her utmost to steer clear of the law.

  “Got something for you. See that growser across the way, trying so hard not to attract attention? He’s Winston Farmer. Name mean anything?”

  The policeman frowned, then suddenly nodded. “Dealer?”

  “And ponce. Manages three girls. Crackers.” Crystal wasn’t referring to their looks or their sanity, but to their drug habit. “Once a week he makes a trip north—to Liverpool, I think, though I’m not sure. They say that’s when he picks up his supplies. A car will be here to collect him any moment, a Jaguar. It’s usually on time. Nick him now and I’m pretty sure you’ll find he’s holding.”

  She was trying to speak in a controlled tone, but her utmost efforts couldn’t keep the venom out of her voice.

  The woman constable had drawn closer in time to hear the last few words. She said, “That sounds personal. What have you got against him?”

  “He tried to slip me a horn of crack. Wanted to get me angled and force me to work for him. One of the girls who does used to be my best friend. She’s likely to be dead before she’s twenty.”

  There wasn’t going to be any argument. Crystal knew that already. For some reason she couldn’t fathom, she had grown very good at persuading people to do as she wanted. Not long after she embarked on her career she’d even talked a drunk sadistic punter out of slashing her with a knife… and into turning it against himself. For the rest of her life she would be able to close her eyes and visualize again that squalid room, that rumpled bed, liter after liter of blood spewing out so red, so red—! She’d thrown up at the sight of it, right there on his dying body! But though they arrested her, claiming she had murdered him, when she was brought to court she made even the judge believe her story. That had been the second time she ever felt the way she did now: angry, but utterly clear-headed, with a sense of inexplicable power. The moment she saved herself from her knife-wielding client was the first.

  Of course, when it turned out he was one of the soldiers set to guard radioactive waste on the Isle of Jura, shunned by the natives for fear of contamination, cursed and spat at by the local girls when he and his mates passed along the street, that did rather contribute to her defense…

  She had been so afraid her aunt and uncle would learn about the case, but luckily, because she was a minor, the media were forbidden to mention her name or show a picture of her. So, no doubt, they still didn’t know.

  If they ever did find out—!

  “Bock!” she added, staring past the police. “There’s the car now. It looks like the same as usual—yes, it is. In which case I know the number. You better call it in.”

  The woman constable was already reciting, “Dark blue Jaguar proceeding east along Euston Road, two men aboard, stop and search for illegal drugs, possibly crack…” Then to Crystal: “What was that number again?”

  Crystal repeated it, and added, “Better include ‘armed and dangerous’—isn’t that the way you phrase it?”

  “Gun?” the man demanded.

  “I don’t think so. But I’ve seen him threaten his girls with a shiv.”

  The woman listened to her radio a moment, then gave a satisfied nod.

  “There are two patrol cars in the area. One or both of them should catch him. Any idea where he might be heading for if he manages to slip past?”

  “He lives in Docklands. I’m not sure exactly where.”

  “Hmm!” The man cocked an eyebrow. “And he owns a new Jaguar, and has someone to drive it. I’m surprised he goes by train, even though it has become a classy habit now the fares are so high. I’d have expected him to fly.”

  “Don’t they sometimes search people at airports?” Crystal countered. “That’s the last thing he’d want.”

  “Yes, of course.” The man bit his lip and glanced at his companion. “Well, I suppose all we can do now is say thanks.”

  “Exactly. And good night!”

  They took the hint and moved away at regulation pace.

  During the last few minutes another train had discharged its passengers, and forty or fifty people were waiting for a chance to cross the road. Crystal’s practiced eye identified some of them as servicemen on leave, always promising targets—and safe, too, apart from the occasional nutter like the one she had run into before, because they received free AIDS vaccinations. Despite the rain, she moved into plain sight and donned her professional smile. She had had few reasons for smiling since her parents’ death, but her expression was more sincere than usual after her success in shopping Winston Farmer.

  She only wished she could find a way to do the same to her aunt and uncle and all the canks like them who must have wanted this kind of world, because they had worked so hard to put and keep in power the government that made it possible.

  You’re watching TV Plus. Time for Newsframe.

  The increasing scarcity, and the high cost, of potatoes has been officially attributed to a virus that entered Britain with imports from the Middle East, most likely from Cyprus or Egypt. Local varieties in those countries are resistant, while those grown in Britain are not. Many farmers are predicting that their land will have to be cleared and sterilized, and are demanding EEC aid on the same scale as the French sugar-beet producers whose crops were ruined by blight last year. More in a moment.

  General Sir Hampton Thrower, at a rally of several thousand supporters in Birmingham, has repeated his proposal that patriots “make their views known,” this time suggesting that they wear red-white-and-blue ribands…

  Immediately on returning home Peter recorded, as nearly verbatim as he could, the tantalizing—the infuriating—snippets Claudia had let escape. It would have been infinitely better for his peace of mind if, for instance, she had flatly stated that she didn’t want to be bothered right now, because she intended a vacation before starting work. (In passing: she had, he remembered, specified that it was a thesis she planned, not another book.)

  Instead…

  And for a moment, both her voice and her expression had betrayed—he was certain of it—real fear.

  Having read and re-read his notes, he leafed through her book to refresh his memory, but gleaned no clues. Her reasoning, though in his view less than conclusive, was nonetheless well documented, and it was plain that at the time of writing she had believed completely in what she had to say. What, then, could have changed her mind to the point where she now suspected she’d been wrong?

  Perhaps her more recent publications might offer enlightenment. Heedless of the cost, he set about interrogating the relevant data-base. They all proved to be brief papers in journals of sociology and sociobiology, and all dealt with aspects of her original argument, qualifying or enlarging it or offering fresh supporting evidence. The latest had appeared only last year, so her new discovery, if that was what it was—

  Just a moment!

  He checked the date of receipt. It had been submitted seven months before it eventually appeared. Computerized publication might be fast; peer-review still took time. Not quite so up-to-date, then. But there was nothing more recent, not even an informal communication to establish priority, not even a letter in response to one of the many colleagues who disagreed with her.

  Blank wall.

  Growing more and more frustrated, he considered phoning contacts in America who might have spoken with her lately. He dismissed the idea at once; he was already spending more than he could justify. Tomorrow, though, in between drafting those pieces about the alternative therapy center he must find time to ring her publishers. Claudia might not care for publicity, but they ought to be able to talk her round. He wished he knew the name of the person who had tried to phone her, so he could ask for him directly. Also there was a growser called Jim Spurman, an ex-probation officer now lecturing at one of the northern universities. He had been among the first people in Britain to promote Claudia’s ideas, by publishing an article about her in Society Now. Perhaps he might be of help. />
  Having made a list of all the things he wanted to do but couldn’t because it was nearly midnight, Peter went to bed, where he lay awake for over an hour. When he did doze off he had uneasy dreams.

  Below the shoulder of a peak half green with summer grass, half gray with rocky outcrops, slashed across by drystone walls and a tumbling beck and speckled toward its summit with a flock of sheep, stood a farmhouse built of that same stone and roofed with slates—but some were missing, and had been replaced with plastic sheet. Its window frames needed repainting, and sundry panes were blind with plywood… or possibly cardboard. Behind it, like the petrified skeleton of a giant ostrich, lurched the frame of an abandoned windmill. Alongside was a barn in even worse repair, patched with rusty corrugated iron.

  And, just discernible against the dazzle of sunshine on the beck: could that be intended for a watermill?

  If so, it wasn’t turning.

  Glad of her seat belt as the rusty Mini in which she was a passenger jounced along an ill-made lane, Miss Fisher was attempting to assess this place the way she would an actual school. She was an education inspector. Some said she had an ideal cast of mind for the job.

  As though needing to swot up for an exam, she considered putting the same questions as before to her companion and driver, Mr. Youngman. (Miss Fisher was not the sort of person who progressed rapidly to first-name terms.) But he was biting his lip with concentration as he negotiated bumps and ruts, and she was obliged to content herself by reviewing what he had already told her. After all, he had been courteous enough to offer her a ride up here, rather than simply giving directions and leaving her to find the way by herself.