CHILDREN OF THE THUNDER

by John Brunner

“In Italian?” Harry grunted. But he slowed the car.

  A portly middle-aged man was snipping off dead flowerheads in what must once have been a splendid formal garden with fountains, steps, and marble urns. Now the urns and steps were cracked, and none of the fountains played.

  “Buon giorno!” David shouted, having remembered in time to turn the handle that rolled down the car window. (In the Rolls, of course, one pressed a switch.) “Il signor Tessolari?”

  A vigorous headshake.

  “Per favore, dov’é il signore?”

  Which was about the point at which David’s command of Italian ran out. Before leaving home he had reviewed a supposed “instant course” on videodisc, but even though he had only arrived in the country a few hours before he had already discovered its limitations.

  However, a stroke of luck followed.

  In English, the portly man said, “Are you American?”

  “No, British!”

  “Hmm! What business do you have with Renato?”

  That, David recalled, was the name of GianMarco’s “father.” He debated with himself a moment, then settled for an empty phrase.

  “We have a personal matter to discuss.”

  There was a pause. Eventually the man sighed.

  “Very well, but you will have to wait. I am Fabio Bonni, GianMarco’s uncle, and also his tutor.” He hesitated, then gave a sudden, rather unpleasant laugh. “That is, I am supposed to be his tutor. I cannot make him express a simple sentence in either French or English. Yet he is not stupid. Already, at his age, he is more in control of the family’s affairs than is Renato… Oh, park your car and get out. I don’t know how long before they return, but we can take refreshment on the terrace. You are British, so you will want tea, of course. Well, we can still afford tea.”

  There was mockery in his tone and his expression. The hairs on David’s nape prickled and he wished himself a thousand miles away.

  I’ve seen people like this before. Only when I had done with them!

  The possibility that GianMarco might be a rival such as he had never yet faced began to frighten him. Yet in the upshot, surely, with his experience in California he must be better informed, better adapted, stronger than someone living in a more-or-less peasant community in the Mezzogiorno…

  The man who had identified himself as Fabio Bonni was shouting for a servant as he led them around the house to the promised terrace, overlooking dry pools and withering shrubs. The servant appeared, an elderly short-sighted woman, curtseying on sight of the visitors.

  “Tea!” Fabio commanded. “In the English style!”

  And when it came it was revolting…

  I shouldn’t have done this! Why am I here? I’ve dug a pitfall and I’m trapped in it!

  They had to make forced conversation for nearly an hour. Fabio proved to be an archetypal whenzie. He complained endlessly about the state of Italy, the arrogance of the peasants, the local priest who sided with them as though he were a communist instead of a Christian, and the declining fortunes of the old landed families, including his.

  David thought he might have gone on till midnight but the sound of an approaching car interrupted him. He tried to relax, forget his nervousness… but it was hard.

  The first glimpse he had of GianMarco convinced him, on grounds of appearance alone, that here was yet another of his siblings, and after the first few politenesses had been exchanged he was satisfied on another, rather peculiar, score. He was certain Renato Tessolari believed the boy to be his own child, whereas his mother and uncle were under no such misapprehension.

  Odd! But maybe, if necessary, I can play that card…

  He cancelled the notion at once as dismal visions filled his head: the gradual establishment of intimate acquaintance, many exchanges of letters—it was unlikely that the Tessolaris possessed email facilities—in short, a slow and painstaking siege…

  But there isn’t time for all that mucking about!

  Yet it was already clear that, whether he suspected what he owed it to or not, GianMarco was in full command of his talent, and enjoying his position of precocious power too much to want to give it up on the say-so of a stranger. He spoke no English, as his uncle had warned, but the latter acted as interpreter while he recited a lively account of the way in which he and his parents had just sorted out a recalcitrant tenant-farmer, who to his own amazement had this afternoon agreed to leave, along with his family, and take his chances in the north.

  “So we can put in someone who isn’t infected with these radical left-wing ideas, but shows proper respect for his superiors!” Fabio wound up. David’s knowledge of Italian was too limited for him to be sure whether this was something GianMarco himself had said, or Renato, or just a footnote expressing Fabio’s own opinion.

  Then, of course, there had to be an explanation for the foreigners’ visit, unheralded as it was. And this was where David had made his worst mistake. So sure had he been that when he arrived he would be able to persuade the other boy to come to Britain, and his family to let him go—for it had been so easy in so many previous cases, and he had grown so used to Harry and Alice bending to his every whim—he hadn’t bothered to work out a credible story.

  And Harry was no help. Extremely tired, perhaps suffering from the same digestive upset, he only muttered, “My son wanted to come here, so I brought him.”

  At that GianMarco stiffened in his chair and gave a nod.

  He’s caught on, David realized sickly. And he’s well, and speaking his own language, and I’m ill and having to rely on an interpreter. This mess is getting worse by the minute.

  So, even as the thought passed through his mind, did the griping in his belly. He rose, wondering how to ask for a toilet, and didn’t have to. As though reading his mind across the barrier of language, GianMarco called the maid.

  He stayed out of sight for what felt like ages, striving to conjure up a credible reason for the visit, and failing. When at length he dared not remain in hiding any longer, he returned sullenly to the company… only to discover that the necessary story had been invented in his absence. He knew it, the moment GianMarco rose to clasp his hand and express, in the slow and well-articulated tones of one who feels he has to contend with a simpleton, the hope that his malattia was not too severe.

  What’s happened? Why is everyone smiling—Renato and his wife, Fabio, even Harry?

  He had been outsmarted. For the first time he had met his match, and more than his match. GianMarco was indeed one of his siblings, and for whatever reason he had attained greater control, if not a fuller understanding, of his powers.

  “Well, we must be on our way!” Harry said heartily. “If you’re okay again, son?”

  God, how I hate it when he calls me “son”!

  But David forced a smile, and uttered a few words of thanks in his rudimentary Italian. They had such impact that GianMarco’s mother Constanza embraced him, kissing him on both cheeks.

  And, before he fully realized what was happening, they were back in the Alfa and he was cradling in his lap a bag containing bottles of wine made on the Tessolari estate.

  “Remarkable boy, that GianMarco,” Harry said as he dexterously negotiated bends and potholes on the way to the autostrada that would lead them back to Foggia and the airport. “Come to that, you’re pretty remarkable yourself.”

  What? Abruptly David was alert. And Harry was continuing:

  “I’d never have thought of importing wine guaranteed to be produced by chemical-free methods! But it’s an obvious winner, isn’t it? I only wish you’d told me beforehand. I literally didn’t realize what was going through your head until GianMarco spelt it out. Next time, do me the favor of remembering that your old man can’t read your mind!”

  He waved at the surrounding vineyards and olive groves.

  “It’s not exactly my regular line, but with the contacts I have, not to mention the spare capital, I can just see it working. Yes, I can see it very well… Are you okay?”

>   “Frankly, no,” David gritted.

  “Then I’ll stop hurrying. We don’t have to fly home tonight. I’ll call the airline and change our booking to the morning. Look, there’s an albergo sign. I don’t suppose it will be luxy accommodation, but if at least the beds are clean and the food fit to eat…”

  David uttered a moan, at which Harry looked alarmed.

  “Maybe I should get them to call a doctor—”

  “No, no!” The boy forced himself to calm. “I’ll be fine in the morning. But… Well, damn all bocky airline food!”

  “I’m sorry.” Harry sounded concerned. “It used to be okay in first-class. Nowadays, I suppose, what with the chemicals that have contaminated so much agricultural land… Next time we’ll bring a packed lunch, hm?”

  He clapped his “son” on the shoulder and turned the car off the road, under a red neon sign.

  Behaving more like a father than at any time David could recall, Harry marched him into the hotel and, using a mix of bastard Spanish, half-remembered French and vigorous gestures, secured a twin room with its own bath and toilet. He insisted on David getting into bed at once, and arranged for a plain, easily digestible meal: boiled pasta with scrambled egg instead of a sauce. When he saw it David thought it was sure to make him gag, but for once he let Harry override his own opinion, and in fact he managed to eat almost all of it.

  Much relieved, Harry went downstairs for his own meal. When he returned, David was dozing, but Harry roused him, proffering a glass that held a syrupy green liquid.

  “The people here say this is what you need. It’s a liqueur called Centerba, ‘hundred herbs.’ I tried a drop. Watch out—it’s pretty strong. But it seems to help. If it does nothing else, it ought to give you a night’s rest.”

  Too weak and weary to resist, David swallowed it like unwelcome medicine. It exploded in his guts like a fireball, but in a little while he felt a sense of warmth and comfort. Leaning back, he closed his eyes. Harry, who had been sitting anxiously on the other bed, smiled and rose.

  “Looks as though they were right! I’ll return your dinner tray. In case you drop off before I get back—sleep well!”

  Which David did. But, before he fell asleep, one thought came to dominate his mind.

  Grief! What power that GianMarco has! Not just to have explained away our arrival on the spur of the moment—to have wrought such a change in Harry!

  Something must be done about GianMarco…

  And blackout.

  The opportunity to “do something” about GianMarco arose fortuitously the next morning.

  David, feeling much better after nine hours’ sleep, was breakfasting with Harry in the bar, off excellent coffee and rather disappointing bread and jam, when a police patrol car drew up. At some stage in yesterday’s conversation with the Tessolaris it had been mentioned that they were on intimate terms with the local Maresciallo, and David felt a spasm of alarm. But it proved to be unwarranted; the driver and his companion merely ordered two espressos and stood at the counter drinking them.

  Harry, who was still clearly taken by the idea of wine-importing (yet more testimony to GianMarco’s power!), was enthusiastically outlining what he planned to do about it. Overhearing, the junior policeman, who carried a carbine on a sling, approached to inquire whether they were British or American, and what brought them to the area. Again David grew uneasy, but the man seemed merely curious, and eager to practice his English.

  Harry said, shrugging, “We visited Signor Tessolari. We had a business deal to discuss.”

  At the mention of that name, the policeman’s face darkened. Glancing around to make sure his superior was not listening—he wasn’t, being engaged in chat with the proprietor’s wife—he leaned forward and spoke in a low and confidential tone.

  “You don’t trust him, sir. He is very bad man. He is murderer.”

  “What?” Harry blinked in astonishment.

  “Yes, sir. I swear. He killed my cousin with a—a…” At a loss for the word he touched his carbine, and David, suddenly all ears, supplied the word “gun.”

  “Gun, yes! But he is rich and powersome, and was our mayor. He lied to say it was one of the people that live on his land, and paid him money to go to the north and hide in a big city with a different name.”

  Miracles will never cease.

  David seized his opportunity. He could feel that his talent was back to normal. Hoping against hope that he would have sufficient time to exploit it, he caught the policeman’s hand, leaning close.

  “This is terrible! Was he never arrested? No? But it’s a scandal that such people should go free when people who commit much lesser crimes are sent to jail! Such villains are unfit to live—don’t you agree?”

  For another two or three minutes he continued in the same persuasive strain. By the time the senior policeman called his subordinate back to the car, he was virtually certain he had planted seeds for action in the young man’s mind. Into the bargain, when Harry inquired with puzzlement what all that had been about, he was able to brush the matter aside with a request that it not be mentioned again.

  At the very least, he thought grimly, I’ve wished a major headache on GianMarco—enough to stop him meddling in my affairs until I’ve had time to make plans! And if I could deal with a tearaway like Gui, I ought to be able to cope with a boy my own age!

  Owing to a computer failure at the Rome air traffic control center their flight was delayed for ten hours. Fuming, Harry tried to charter a private plane, but failed; all non-scheduled flights were grounded until the computer was repaired. He tried to switch to Alitalia, the national airline being the only one still operating, but there were no vacant seats. Losing his temper, he demanded of David why he was so unconcerned.

  But the boy only smiled.

  On their return home, David claimed the bottles of wine not to drink but to analyze. Meantime he set one of his computers to monitor the news-services out of Southern Italy, keyed to the name Tessolari. The following morning his search was rewarded. Even his rudimentary knowledge of the language sufficed to inform him that Signor Renato Tessolari, together with his wife Constanza, brother-in-law Fabio Bonni, son GianMarco and an unnamed servant, had died in a fire that broke out at their home during the small hours.

  He printed out the data, ripped the paper from the machine and bore it to the dining room where Harry, Alice and the other children were assembling for breakfast.

  “You can forget about that wine-importing deal,” he grunted as he dropped into his chair and helped himself to cornflakes.

  Harry read the printout with dismay, and swore under his breath.

  “Don’t worry,” David sighed. “ ‘Chemical-free wine’! It contained the maximum allowed under EEC law of just about every additive you can name. Bunch of puky liars, the Tessolaris. And if that policeman was to be believed, they only got what was coming to them… Will you canks stop hogging the milk and sugar? Alice, where’s my tea?”

  Even as he stirred it, though, he shivered to think how close his project had trespassed toward the verge of disaster.

  You’re watching TV Plus. Now for Newsframe.

  Allegations that the disastrous flooding of the Norfolk Broads during the past week might be due to subsidence of the bed of the North Sea following the extraction of so much oil and gas were officially dismissed as “unfounded” this morning. Police have been called out to control refugees swelling the ranks of farmers quitting the so-called East Anglian dustbowl, now a sea of mud after heavy rain. More in a moment.

  A group of self-styled “Throwers” today threatened to close down TV Plus, if necessary by force. Contacted at home, the general dissociated himself from what he termed “such precipitate action,” but added that he fully supports the official ban on “anti-patriotic” news…

  At last Peter had had a breakthrough, and he owed it to Ellen. The revelation that their beloved cats and dogs were dying en masse of premature cancer had stirred the normally cowed and docile
British public in a way that scarcely anything else could. When he was able to prove that several of the royal racehorses had gone the same way, not only the Comet but even TV Plus remembered him and sent him off on a joint fact-finding mission.

  Bernie’s withdrawal from the search for Louis Parker had seemed like a stop sign, and with Claudia still convalescing from her illness (which was, as Bernie had predicted, not after all due to codworm, the X-rays supposed to be hers having been “mixed up” with someone else’s), he had given little thought recently to the criminal-children story.

  Nonetheless, he remembered to mention it when Jake rang up to confirm his assignment, though he was not at all surprised by the disillusioned answer:

  “What you’ve given me so far won’t make page ten, let alone page one!”

  Curiously, however, it still engaged Ellen’s interest. Peter had let himself be cajoled into explaining what few details she didn’t yet know on the way back from visiting Claudia in hospital, and since then she had taken over what inquiries could be made using the equipment they had at home. So far she had reported little or no progress (was it surprising, given that Bernie the expert hacker had run into a dead end?) but at least it kept her occupied. The mood of the country was darkening as autumn dragged on, rainy and misty and cold, and the news that did not reach the papers or TV—the news that Peter had access to as a journalist—was full of racial attacks, unsolved arson and random violence in the streets. Even when those of her schoolfriends’ families who were standing out against the pervading atmosphere invited Ellen to tea or to attend a birthday party, she declined, and none of her former boyfriends had taken her out in weeks.

  What sort of a life is that for a teenage kid? I wish I knew what to do… but I can’t abandon her to “her own kind,” as so many pundits tell me I should. What is her own kind? Isn’t she as British as I am?

  For a while he compromised, increasing her pocket-money and buying her presents he could ill afford. After a week or two, however, he noticed she was simply putting them away in a cupboard, so that wasn’t the right approach. The only positive step open to him lay in spending more time with her. But if he was to keep up his payments on their home, he must accept any job going, no matter how long it took or how often he was obliged to break the promise he had made to himself about not leaving her alone overnight.