Читать книгу 2089 - Группа авторов - Страница 14

A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest, Major Frank Halthrop recalled to himself whilst waiting alone in the lecture theatre.

He insisted they use the old Bristol University building for his Brigade meetings; the blackboards had been in place for more than a hundred years. The chalk sticks had run out even before the Times of Malthus, but it was still possible to use the boards for presentations using some of the soft rocks that had been left as ornamentation in the old churchyard opposite the lecture hall. Plenty of cloth rags lay around the building that could be used to clean the blackboards each time.

Darren and Terry clattered into the room, shoving each other and laughing. They nodded and muttered ‘Frank’ in greeting to their boss.

Halthrop looked at his armulet to see how late they were. In 2089, people lived very much by the rhythms of nature: dawn, dusk, new moon, full moon, and the growing cycles of their crops and livestock. Time had not been forgotten, but there was little incentive or need for people to pay much attention to it. Life was durative, and the very notion of time-linked self-discipline was alien to the youth that joined the Bristol Brigade under Halthrop. Sifter was about the only occupation left that had a timed shift pattern.

It was another ten minutes before Jane entered. She was well turned out in the simple uniform that Halthrop himself had designed. Despite trying twice as hard as the boys to impress him in most areas, she still arrived after them on most occasions. She sat in a seat adjacent to Darren as they all said their greetings to her. Jane’s posture was quite military in its bearing — she copied the pose that Major Frank took in his chair, and her eyes followed him as he stood and stepped centre stage in front of them.

When they settled, Halthrop began. ‘Good evening. Thank you for arriving nearly on time. I am sure that your punctuality will continue to improve as it needs to do.’ The three were from farms around Bristol, which had enough family members that they could be spared to take on some militia work.

Halthrop looked along the line of three. Terry smiled a little. The ruddiness in Darren’s cheeks led down to the corners of his mouth, which was slightly agape in anticipation of the briefing to come. With his bright blue eyes and fine blond hair, Darren had a very healthy appearance. Jane was agog. Her forearm was held in front of her stiff, vertical body, armulet video-recording the entire scene, should she need a reminder of anything that was said.

‘You will have found that your armulets have no infonetwork connection at present. This is the result of an explosion at the Doughnut in Cheltenham. The infotechs there have sent word that the explosion was an act of sabotage by person or persons unknown, a little over eight hours ago. A few aged, rudimentary, but functional electrical communication cables have been returned to temporary service, but to all intents and purposes, the infonetwork connection has been severed throughout the southwest of England. Many Kangaroos have set up local posses to catch the saboteurs.’

Halthrop stopped for a moment to allow this to sink in to his three young soldiers. Nobody spoke, and the major was unconvinced that they fully comprehended the enormity of the situation.

‘For the last fifty years, fugitives for whom a posse was mobilised have been easily caught by following their audiopt feeds. Occasionally, a criminal has thought to destroy the audiopts in order to evade capture, but they have always been caught beforehand because the sifters have spotted their activities in advance. This was not the case here. So, not only are we dealing with an extremely sophisticated saboteur, but we do not have the feeds to use to chase them down.’

Silence ensued again.

Major Halthrop did not elaborate, but continued briefing. ‘In this case, one of the sifters at the Doughnut did not arrive for work today and is not at his home in Cheltenham. He’s currently the main suspect, and so we have been charged with searching for him.

‘Jack Smith is originally from near Highnam. We have no actual images of him, with the infonetwork down, but one of his neighbours has drawn this sketch.’ Halthrop waved at his armulet and a childlike drawing appeared in the air, showing a very white face, inset with dark eyes, dark eyebrows, and short, dark hair.

‘The infotechs reckon they will hopefully have something back up and running in anywhere from forty-eight hours to six days, so the task should become easier then, but of course the closer we get by then, the more chance we have of being the ones to catch him.’ The major let this last point sink in.

All the Kangaroos would have contracted a posse, or organised one themselves, but he did not rate the other militia leaders highly. Those he had met were lazy and ill disciplined, and a posse made from inexperienced villagers would never find a fugitive without their armulets for assistance.

Terry said, ‘So how much will this job be worth?’

Major Halthrop scowled. ‘You know what I keep telling you about questions during briefing, Terry.’

Terry frowned and then raised his arm.

Halthrop shook his head. ‘NO! All questions at the end.’

Terry lowered his arm again at looked at the other two.

‘Now, where was I?’

Jane rewound her recording a few seconds and they all heard the major’s disembodied voice repeating, ‘… chance we have of being the ones to catch him.’

Halthrop scowled at Jane and remained silent.

After an uncomfortable pause, he carried on, ‘You have training in martial arts, so now is the time that you may have to use these. And I mean for real, not just to knock a man down; this could be as much as saving your lives.’ Halthrop paused. Nobody dared to speak, but Darren and Terry looked at each other. ‘There are many militia men and women around the country who will be ill-prepared to take on a dangerous adversary, but I am convinced that you have trained well enough to be able to capture Jack Smith, and any accomplices of his, safely.’

Halthrop and his young novices were being presented with a reality that had only previously existed in the videostories of history.

‘Are there any questions now?’

Terry piped up, ‘You made it sound like we’re competing against other posses to catch this fugitive. Shouldn’t we work with them?’

Halthrop’s lips flickered slightly, almost a small smile, but it was quickly gone. ‘All for the benefit of all?’ Half quoting the Second Covenant, he looked up a little, over them towards the back of the room. ‘Yes indeed you’re right. However, I really do think that we are the best outfit, and that too much collaboration with others will hinder our progress. Especially as the armulets aren’t functioning — the time that we would have to spend liaising in person would be wasted. We aren’t in competition with other groups, but I think it would benefit all for the Bristol Brigade to go for capturing Smith without those distractions.’ Jane nodded vigorously throughout this answer.

The major asked, ‘Anything else?’

‘Where are we going to start? And when?’ Jane was poised to type on her armulet screen.

He nodded and turned to point at the blackboard. It had a chalk map outline of the area from Bristol up to Cheltenham, including Highnam village marked on it. The old road connections and Gloucester were marked, along with some points of particular interest. Using a one-metre wooden ruler that he had found in one of the building’s science laboratories, Halthrop pointed to a star marked near the circle he had drawn to represent the Doughnut then slid the pointer down slightly.

‘We’ll go to his home first, edge of Cheltenham, and see if there are any clues left there. Unfortunately, as there are several posses engaged on this, I suspect at least one of them will get there before us but we don’t have a better starting place. The only other link we have is Highnam itself. He is their sifter, and he grew up in his grandmother’s farmhouse.’ The metre ruler rapped the blackboard at a picture of a house. The three jumped in their seats at the sudden sound.

Darren came to life. ‘I’ve never heard of Highnam, where is it?’

He slid the pointer slightly to the word Highnam and looked at Darren. ‘You can see I’ve marked it on the map here. It’s a farmland Kangaroo to the west of Gloucester. It’s about sixty kilometres from here up the old M5. Population of about four thousand, and pretty fertile land, I believe. If you think back ten days, you may remember that we went there to get that boy to take to prison.’

He looked to Darren for recognition of this memory. The young man’s face was red, but Halthrop could not tell if it was any different from his normal appearance. He was always rosy cheeked and sported a rustic, haymaking countenance. The major hoped Darren was blushing with embarrassment.

‘From Smith’s house, we’ll probably follow the old railway line, which I’ve marked here. The old A40 is shorter, but the floods have washed it away in some places near Cheltenham.’ He waved the ruler along a line drawn with hatch marks to indicate railway line. Darren was looking at the board, eyes flicking back and forth across the symbols, but did not appear to be comprehending.

Jane’s arm was vertical again. ‘When is departure time?’

‘We will meet at 0800, at Brigade HQ, where I will issue kit. You will need to bring your bikes, and your rucksacks, plus a change of clothes. We may be away for several days, so make sure that your families are aware of this. And remind them that communications are currently not functioning, so you will not be able to update them on your expected return date and time.’

‘The reward money must be pretty big for this guy?’ questioned Terry again.

Major Halthrop scrutinised him for several seconds. ‘All for the benefit of all, eh Terry?’ He paused, and his audience shuffled a little in their seats and looked at the ground. ‘We will get paid our normal stipend. We have been contracted by three different Kangaroos though, and they will each pay if we capture Jack Smith. Actually, I should say that they will pay when we capture the actual bomber: at the moment Smith is simply our prime suspect, albeit our only suspect. But also, all acting for the benefit of all means that the other posses will get paid by their contracting Kangaroos whenever the bomber is caught, be it by us or somebody else. As will we.’

‘Very nice,’ Terry commented, and the three junior members looked at each other, nodding and pushing out their bottom lips.