DOUBLE SUMMER TIME

CHERRY WILDER

Here is a dazzling new story from the author of 'The Ark of James Carlyle' and 'The Phobos Transcripts' which calls upon many different spheres of interest, approaches to reality, and relationships of human with human, human with robot and human with vegetable. With extra-terrestrial intelligences able to interfere with the flow of Time it was just as well for Charles Curthoys that he remembered the date of his birthday. The story contains the interesting notion that a person would have special qualifications by reason of once having been a tree. And Cherry Wilder's notion of the favourite beverage of the robot is a masterstroke ...

* * * *

ONE

SECURITY found the Professor in his laboratory preparing to examine a fragment of rock. Curthoys, the senior research assistant, showed in the two officers with a certain amount of restrained commentary. Hewbry Hall was old; it had grown by accretion over several hundred years. The conservatory had been added during the nineteenth century, the plumbing refurbished during the twentieth, the laboratory ... Curthoys flung open the door ... was quite modern.

Brewster, the ranking NSO man, was impressed; the amount of computer installation alone testified to a large transatlantic bequest. He cocked an eye at Adamson, his colleague, who was bound to appreciate a technological display.

'Expecting us,' murmured Adamson.

There was a camera, of the sort still associated with bank robbers, and a recording device in plain view; Curthoys followed Brewster's glance and gave a thin smile.

A husky young man in lab whites prowled on the periphery. That would be the junior research assistant: Ed Grey from Caltec. Far away on his dais the Old Man looked up from his work with a ferocious grin; he was at the top of his form.

'Good morning!' he barked. 'I wonder what you could possibly want with me?'

Brewster sighed; he had tangled with the Old Man before.

'Professor Latham ...?'

'I admit it!' cried the Professor. 'I am the man. Sidney Erasmus Latham... got that? And you are my Big Brothers.'

Brewster flashed his identity plate stoically and approached the dais.

'Wait!' The Professor held up his hand. 'I want a further witness to this interview... she takes stenographic shorthand.'

He bent towards his intercom and Ed Grey stepped eagerly towards the glass doors. The security men followed him and Curthoys ambled across: all four men stared out into the garden.

A girl sat under the trees reading a book. The place was overgrown, tumbling with vines and starry clumps of border plants, but ages ago it had been a formal garden. The girl sat reading in chequered shade; leaf shadows moved across her bare arms and the pages of her book.

'Verity!' said the Professor. 'Come in please.'

The girl put aside her book and walked towards the laboratory, brushing aside the curtains of green leaves.

Brewster was captivated by the scene. Verity Latham, the daughter. He had studied her file of course ... militant ecologist: a greenfreak. Degree in antiquities of some sort ... English Literature? Classics? First Class Honours obtained while serving six months in prison, then she recuperated in the Kenyan Reserve ... she still had the tan. Her long light-brown hair was bleached by the fierce sun. She had been interrogated once or twice about the Old Man's security problems but she wasn't co-operative. Blood was thicker than water. What did she think about a father who rigged his intercom to an oak tree?

Ed Grey slid open the glass doors and Verity came in. She took down a white jacket from the peg and slipped it over her sleeveless green tunic. Transformed herself into a stenographer then settled down with her notebook.

'Professor Latham,' said Brewster. 'We have reason to believe you were in the Oakdene area this morning.'

The Professor gripped the grubby lapels of his old-fashioned lab coat and moved forward on the dais.

'You'll have to do better than that,' he said nastily.

Brewster glanced cautiously at Adamson who blinked once and began to read his report.

'Twenty minutes after impact, while the police from Chipping Dene were attempting to cordon off the area, Professor Latham was seen by members of the public and by police officers. He was approaching the verge of the crater and collecting specimens----'

'Brilliant!' the Professor pounced. 'A splendid absence of names, times, bona fides. I can picture the scene only too clearly. The ancient trees, the early morning mist... five or six coppers and their lumbering, petrol driven paddy-wagon. The crater, yawning like the pit of hell, and a white-coated figure flitting about among the trees before the dumbstruck peasantry. Perhaps it was the Minister for National Security in a fright wig!'

The Professor ran a hand over his shock of white hair; he and his two assistants laughed aloud.

Adamson put in impassively:

'You were there, sir. I observed you myself.'

'And your observations are not to be questioned?' snapped the Professor.

'No, Sidney,' said Verity Latham, half amused. 'You can't question his observations.'

Brewster was surprised; she had been sitting beside an open window, taking her shorthand industriously with an occasional glance into the garden. He was surprised that she had been the one to recognize Adamson.

'What is it Verity?' said the Professor irritably. 'Are we going too fast for your wretched grammalogues?'

Verity sighed, looked at the two security officers apologetically and blew Adamson's cover.

'That chap is infallible,' she said. 'He saw you. He can't volunteer incorrect information.'

No-one spoke; the hum of the generators filled the room. Curthoys juggled silently with a flask, his eyes fixed on Adamson.

* * * *

The Professor said quietly:

'Good heavens ...'

'Yes,' said Verity. 'He's one of the NSO robots.'

Brewster flinched from a blow that never fell. The usual reaction was fear and outrage but Latham was plainly delighted. Brimming with scientific curiosity he came down from his perch, shook Adamson warmly by the hand and introduced his assistants and his daughter.

He announced cheerfully:

'Of course I was at the site! As you well know Mr...er Brewster isn't it? ... I've been at every site for the past twelve months. The helicopter has done yeoman service.'

'I'm sorry to intrude on you like this, Professor,' said Brewster, 'but your clearance...'

'I know, I know, I'm B-minus these days.'

The Professor was observing Adamson wistfully like a boy outside a toyshop window.

'I think that Mr. Adamson can testify if he checks his memory banks that I carried no extra-terrestrial material from the site.'

Adamson nodded; he no longer made the pretence of reading from a notebook.

'Samples of plant life and rocks, a dead blackbird and two squirrels, lying twenty metres from the lip of the crater.'

'Squirrels? Red squirrels?' Verity demanded.

'Grey squirrels,' said the Professor. 'Grey... bring out the grey squirrels.'

'That's still pretty bad!' grumbled Verity as Ed Grey nipped up to the dais and produced a carrying cage. 'If these damned meteorites are killing squirrels...'

'Hush, child!' said Curthoys. 'The squirrels are not dead.'

The Professor led the security men to the dais.

'Of course these objects kill animal life. I found a dead weasel at one site and at another the remains of a sheep-dog. On the other hand a surprising number of animals in the area of a drop suffer no ill effects. I have had reports of some sheep that were unharmed and I found a pair of rabbits... what... three months ago.'

'What do you do with these animals?' asked Brewster. He could hardly believe his good fortune. The Old Man had cracked, had become tractable all of a sudden; Adamson had done the trick.

'Yes, Sidney?' asked Verity. 'What do you do with them?'

'I test them for radiation of course!' snapped the Professor. 'What d'ye think I do with them? Vivisect them? Get off your hobby-horse, Verity!'

Ed Grey was lowering the carrying cage into a long demonstration chamber at one end of the Professor's work bench. He adjusted the lighting in the chamber, then pressed a lever so that the carrying cage opened and lay flat. The two grey squirrels were ready for observation; they lay on the tanbark lightly curled in sleep, fluffy tails billowing over their noses.

'Sleeping?' asked Adamson, whose inbuilt curiosity was equal to the Professor's.

'Coming out of shock,' said Latham. 'That's all it is. No trace of radiation. Both animals sound and healthy so far as we can judge.'

'You've examined them?' asked Verity.

'Very cursorily, I'm afraid,' said the Professor. 'Barely had a moment to run the geiger over the wee beggars. We'll be more thorough. Do it yourself if you're so concerned, my dear. Get Grey to run a few tests.'

He turned back to Adamson and Brewster.

'We're not equipped for livestock,' he said. 'At the moment we're working with metals. And talking of metals the so-called 'casing' found at site five, near Hastings, is in my opinion no more than a fragment of igneous rock!'

'Have you found any evidence...' Brewster began.

'To support this popular theory of an "alien probe"?' chortled the Professor. 'None ... none ... Unless you count the regular distribution of these meteors.'

'Your "grid pattern",' said Adamson.

'Exactly.' The Professor jerked his head at Curthoys. 'We'll have coffee in the projection room. I have film that illustrates the grid pattern.'

Verity continued to observe the two squirrels; they stirred in their sleep, fur rippling, and twitched their feet a little. One opened its eyes and brushed its front paws sleepily over its ears. Brewster looked back as the Professor shepherded them through the heavy drapes into the projection room and saw the two young people, heads together, peering into the demonstration chamber. Ed Grey's work certainly had its compensations.

'Fourteen sites ... but scarcely any fragments...' there came the penetrating obbligato of the Professor's voice. 'They burn up ... they are consumed away ... like all meteorites ...' He gave a familiar bark of laughter.

'Need a pretty hard organism to survive such an entry.'

* * * *

Two

CHARLES CURTHOYS got into the habit of visiting the conservatory every morning after breakfast with nuts for the squirrels. It was a sad place, with the elegant glass domes overhead and the floor a tangle of rusty piping. Central heating had saved the palms and the hardy tree-fern. Now Verity had set up her cages and was embarked on some sort of program with the squirrels. Curthoys was surprised that she persevered; the squirrels were healthy and attractive but in no way remarkable. He wondered if she might be trying to impress her father with a show of scientific zeal. The Professor was ambivalent: he told Verity he was pleased to see her keeping out of mischief, but he alarmed the housekeeper, Mrs. Furness, by suggesting that a squirrel had grown two heads. More to the point he refused to let Ed Grey assist with the program. They were approaching a critical stage in their work with the alloys and the new transformer.

Curthoys fished in his pocket for the hazel nuts and went into the conservatory chirruping. One of the squirrels was unusually tame and Verity let it have the run of the place. This morning it was sitting near her shoulder as she typed up her confounded reams of notes.

'Go to Charles,' said Verity absently.

The pretty creature came skipping along the bench towards him and accepted his offering. He exchanged pleasantries with it, then became embarrassed. Verity was watching him with a curious expression.

'...Verity?'

'Something has come up/ she said.

Her tone was serious but soothing; he could have sworn she was trying to break something to him gently. She took the squirrel out of his arms and returned it to the big cage. Inside, near the roof, the second squirrel chattered on a tree stump; it ran down and timidly accepted a hazel nut from Curthoys, then scampered back to its perch.

'She's the shy one,' said Curthoys. 'Female of the species.'

'They are both female,' said Verity, with the Professor's dryness.

'I fancied they were an old married couple,' Curthoys said cheerily. 'Sitting on the same branch when the blow fell.'

Verity turned some pages.

'It's in the notes ...' she said. 'I've underlined some passages. Ed made the preliminary examination ... couldn't determine the sex of Squirrel A... the tame one... but later it was definitely seen to be female, like Squirrel B.'

'Haven't you given them names?'

'No,' said Verity. 'Charles, what became of the pair of rabbits found at site twelve?'

'Wait a bit ...' said Curthoys. 'I gave them to a friend of mine, Dave Jenkinson ... local schoolmaster. That was one of the sites where there was a scuffle with the police. This damned cordon business. It will be a great relief if your father can wangle a better clearance through Brewster. Yes ... yes ... we tested the rabbits in the field with the geiger counter and I gave them to Jenkinson. He's a great admirer of the Old Man and he'd been helping to fight off the bobbies.'

'And the rabbits survived?'

'Of course. He took them back to school. Ordinary rabbits, sort of heather mixture in colour ... looked very dead when I went to pick them up. I suppose one expects to see rabbits dead. Last we heard one had got away.'

'I'm not surprised,' said Verity.

'Look here!' said Curthoys. 'You're not suggesting these animals were contaminated in any way?'

'Of course not,' said Verity. 'Were they both of the same sex?'

'Yes,' said Curthoys. 'Come to think of it they were. Jenkinson hoped to breed, you know, object lesson in multiplication, but the rabbits turned out to be Bill and Bob, not Bill and Betty.'

Verity added a footnote and began to gather all the pages into her file.

'Charles, what would you do if no-one believed your hypothesis?'

'Attempt to prove it, I suppose.'

'If you made a discovery that was difficult to believe,' she said hesitantly, 'would you feel bound to make it public?'

'It depends!' said Curthoys. 'There might be repercussions.'

He could see what the trouble was. The poor child had a touch of the extra-terrestrials. She had hit upon some tiny mutation, some behaviour quirk in her bloody squirrels and built it into a theory of alien influence.

He said kindly:

'Verity, I've worked with your father a long time. I remember your mother. I often think how she would have loved this place, Hewbry Hall...'

He felt guilty at the emotional blackmail but it was his duty, surely, to head her off. The Old Man should not be bothered. Another row would be unbearable and the tests were at a crucial stage.

'What I'm trying to say is this,' he went on quickly, 'I'm sure this is not your field. A few months at the reserve with Dr. Nguma ... that's not a qualification. No-one here is qualified to undertake or to evaluate any behavioural study, any zoological work.'

'All right Charles,' said Verity, wearily.

She seemed disappointed but not surprised. Strange girl. He had heard the standard comment,.. how did old Sidney come to have such a striking daughter? It was no surprise to him because he did remember Alys ... more beautiful, more womanly, played the piano, worked at her gardening books ...

'You are on much firmer ground with your literature,' he said. 'What happened to the seventeenth-century monographs that were going to spin off from your thesis? What became of Marvell, Andrew Marvell, wasn't he your favourite?'

'I'll get back to him,' said Verity.

She opened the cage again and Squirrel A came out It flew up to her shoulder and nestled in her long sunbleached hair; they whispered together. Charles Curthoys felt the tiniest flicker of discomfort: surely it wasn't natural for a creature to be so docile. He must have a word with Grey ... perhaps he had noticed something worth reporting.

'I'll release the squirrels in the garden this afternoon,' said Verity.

'So the project is finished?' said Curthoys eagerly. 'Much the wisest plan.'

He looked at his watch.

'I must be going. Time's winged chariot and all that.'

'Take the file, Charles!' ordered Verity. 'I want you to read it.'

He snatched it up, unable to protest.

'Does your hypothesis have a name?' he asked. 'I mean, what is it about generally?'

Verity stroked the grey squirrel.

'I call it Mimesis.'

'What? Doesn't that have something to do with acting?'

'You could say mimicry. Or metamorphosis.'

'Changing shape?' said Curthoys. 'I'm afraid you've lost me.'

He was lying; the idea was simply more of an enormity than he had expected. Mad, quite mad. Caterpillar into butterfly, nymph into dragon-fly, tadpole into frog ... these were natural processes. Alien into squirrel, squirrel into ...

'Something organic...' said Verity.

'But what?' said Curthoys, thinking as laterally as he could. 'Surely size is a consideration...'

'What was common to all the sites, Charles?'

'Uninhabited,' said Curthoys. 'Lonely, wooded...'

'Yes,' said Verity.

'Trees!' said Curthoys. 'Unless there was some other suitable form of organic life to... to...'

'To copy,' said Verity.

'Nonsense!' cried Curthoys. 'Verity, put that squirrel away and get out into the fresh air!'

He rushed out of the conservatory; mad, quite mad. He found he was clutching her green folder so tightly that his fingers ached.

* * * *

THREE

ED GREY lay on his four-poster bed in the East Wing and made his report into a minicorder lying on his pillow.

'I don't like what I'm doing any more than I did at first and the compensations are all turning into complications.

'Politically speaking the old guy, the Professor, is clean, unless you find naive socialism frightening. He has no links with any subversive organizations or any foreign powers, unless you count our friend the multi-national corporation that may benefit from his present research. He is interested in alloys not allies; you might say he is welded to his work. He drives Curthoys and yours truly as hard as he drives himself.

'He puts the highest value on personal loyalty and if my cover slips for an instant I'll be out on my ass. Which brings me to those clowns from NSO, Brewster and his custom-built buddy, Adamson. The security pressure that Professor Latham has been under from his own government is totally unwarranted and it has made him mad as a hornet. Like he says, it is red tape; he lost his A clearance because he left the Institute and set up as an independent researcher under the De Luchy bequest. He attracted the attention of NSO by turning up at these meteor sites.

'Why does he do this? Someone had better re-read the terms of that bequest. The Widow De Luchy made a large portion of the funds available on condition that investigation should be made into ... quote ... extra-terrestrial phenomena and the possibility of communication with other worlds. The Professor is doing his best to comply with this condition and I may add that the De Luchy Trust are getting great value for their money. The old guy hares around in his chopper to every site; the grid pattern now generally accepted is his work. He turns in a report on, you know, size, location, radiation levels, insofar as we are equipped or permitted to investigate. For an independent operator he does a good job. No, we have no evidence of "alien infiltration", death rays, thought probes, or the ever-popular little green men.

'However the Security blanket... joke ... is very heavy in these areas; the media are screaming and there's a whiff of cover-up. If there is anything here and that I should know about for Christ's sake liase with NSO and have me informed. Also, call off Brewster and Adamson before they, query, inadvertently blow my cover. Whoever sent a robot to interview Sidney Latham was pretty smart. The Professor really digs Adamson; he has him to dinner once a week and tries to beat him at chess. But where does that leave me? Out on a limb... which brings me to Verity Latham.

'To my certain knowledge she has had no communication with the members of her cadre in Greenworld Task Force since she returned from the Kenyan reserve. I know she still holds to their ideology but she has taken part in no green-freak activities for three months. Unless you count talking to trees.

'It would be pointless and kind of embarrassing for me to make a daily report on her activities. She's a beautiful girl and I'm in intimate contact with her. No, I'm not too deeply involved but this situation may change. I really dig her and I feel like hell about it. I'm not sure what she feels. She has to put up with a lot from her old man who puts her down all the time and I guess it has made her withdrawn.

'You may be surprised to hear that Verity Latham has come up with a really wild theory on the meteors. She worked up this whole deal with, would you believe, two squirrels that were stunned by the blast at site 14. I did some of the preliminary work with her and it was easy for me to put her file on microfilm. I'll enclose it in the next drop. My comment on the work? Squirrely man, squirrely...

'Anyhow she gave the project away three weeks ago and released the critters in the garden. One is still around but it is kind of shy. Verity spends a lot of her time in the garden, reading Seventeenth Century Metaphysical Poetry out loud. She is the most beautiful, crazy girl I ever saw and I think I love her. One time I found her reading a botany text-book to this tree, big oak-type tree growing on the east side of this house, its branches reach right up to the balcony of this room. She said she was reading "to improve its understanding of the xylem for mimetic purposes".

'If I had been able to find Verity after dinner I wouldn't be making this report I'd be making love. But I looked all through the house and she wasn't around. No, I do not believe she is out there trying to immobilize a chemical complex. I believe she is out there in the moonlight reading Andrew Marvell to some damned tree. Because of her I have learned a whole poem by this guy... it is called The Garden and he talks about.

"Annihilating all that's made.

To a green thought in a green shade."

'Obviously this Captain Marvell was some kind of a green freak.'

Ed stopped talking and listened. The long, low whistle was repeated under his balcony. He stashed the minicorder and went out into the moonlight.

* * * *

'Verity?'

She leaned against the tree, one arm encircling the broad trunk, her cheek against the bark. Her hair hung loose and silvery.

'Coming down?'

'Are you through with the botany lessons?' he teased.

Verity laughed and ran a hand over the tree trunk.

'All through!' she mimicked his accent. 'Now I'm up to biology.'

'I was thinking of your friend...'

Ed wanted to prolong the balcony scene a little: the girl, the tree, the moonlit garden.

'My friend?' asked Verity.

'Andrew Marvell.'

'Ah...'

She embraced the trunk and quoted:

'My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow.'

'Too slow for me...' breathed Ed.

'Come down!'

'Come up here to my room.'

'It's better down here,' she said. 'Climb down. Try that branch over there.'

'You're crazy!' he said, fondly.

He climbed over the rail and reached for the branch.

'That's right,' said Verity, 'let it feel your weight.'

'What?'

'You're getting the hang of it,' said Verity. 'There now...'

Ed took her in his arms. He fought off an impulse to tell her why he was there and ask for absolution.

'Ed?'

She took his face between her hands; her eyes were solemn.

'I'm your friend ...' she said. 'Even if our ideologies are different. Trust me. Perhaps I should try to explain...'

He put a finger to her lips.

'No!' he said. 'No heavy confessions.'

She wound her arms around his neck and they kissed. They sank down together; the grass was warm and dry. The moonlight silvered their clothes lying on the grass but did not reach into the deep shade. The tree arched above them; every leaf spun, activated, alert.

* * * *

FOUR

PROFESSOR LATHAM cut chunks from his apple with a silver fruit knife.

'You know my view!' he twinkled at Adamson. 'One more meteor.'

'Only one?' Verity spoke softly to Curthoys, further down the table.

'Speak up!' said the Professor. 'You're too subdued this evening, Verity.'

'Only one more meteor, Sidney?'

'According to the grid pattern,' said Charles Curthoys.

'Otherwise it means the extension of the grid in another direction,' explained Ed Grey.

'I hope the Professor is right,' said Brewster.

It had been another stimulating evening; the Oval Room was beautiful by candlelight. Adamson, having consumed his 'company dinner', which resembled squares of aspic, was now sipping some amber lubricant. The Professor had enjoyed himself but he was restless. He began to tease his daughter.

'Don't take my word for it!' he said. 'Verity is in closer touch with the ... er ... aliens.'

'Not my field...' Verity laughed it off.

The Professor saw Charles Curthoys flinch so he pressed on with his teasing.

'On the contrary,' he said, 'your theory has a freakish charm.'

'A theory of alien infiltration?' asked Adamson.

He gazed steadily along the table at Verity in her pumpkin yellow gown.

Verity said firmly.

'No, of course not!'

'Yes!' cried the Professor. 'Acknowledge your work, girl! Mimesis ... the great theory of Mimesis ... by Ovid out of Walt Disney!'

'Charles?' asked Verity.

'I'm sorry!' said Curthoys. 'Verity, I'm sorry. He picked it up from my desk... it was an accident.'

'I'm not surprised, mind you...' The Professor took more wine. 'Not surprised that she hasn't shown it to her old man.'

'I don't want to talk about that paper,' said Verity. 'I've given up the work.'

'Oh no!' chortled Latham. 'You're not getting off so lightly. Mimesis needs a good roasting.'

'Mimesis?' asked Brewster.

He looked at Adamson who was fiddling with his shirt cuff. Ed Grey saw the movement too.

'Acting ... mimicry ...' pronounced Adamson. 'Some theory of adaptation, perhaps...'

'Got it in one!' smiled the Professor. 'Metamorphosis!'

'Father!' Verity stood up. 'I don't want any discussion of that paper!'

'Discussion?' the Professor was in full cry. 'Don't dignify your behavioural fantasies with words like discussion. Notion isn't worthy of discussion. It belongs ... I'll tell you where it belongs ... in a course on bloody Mythology. The werewolf and the doppelganger...'

'Be quiet!' shouted Verity.

'The squirrel that is not a squirrel...' the Professor went on relentlessly. 'A simulacrum of a squirrel, gradually acquiring its underlying structures. You were in on this, Grey ...'

'No!' said Ed Grey, unhappily. 'No sir.'

'Where next?' asked the Professor. 'A rock, a tree ... I've noticed you spend a lot of time in the garden, Verity... and why not a human being? Why gentlemen, we're none of us safe! This wily organism may have made a perambulating copy of any one of us!'

'No, father,' said Verity bitterly, 'not any one ...'

'What's that?' asked the Professor gaily. 'Have I got it wrong?'

'Adamson is quite safe,' said Verity. 'He could not be copied any more than a rock. He is not organic.'

'This is too bad!' exploded the Professor. 'Adamson is my guest...'

'He is a security officer,' said Verity. 'He is recording everything we say. I don't care to have my projects discussed in his presence.'

'Your projects ...' the Professor shook his head in furious scorn.

'In prison,' said Verity, 'I was interrogated by Adamson or something very like him regarding your work here at Hewbry Hall, Father. I remained silent.'

'Damn it all...' the Professor finally swallowed and shut up.

'Do you know what they call this place at the Institute?' demanded Verity, her eyes fixed on her father's face.

Charles Curthoys could not repress a smile.

'Hubris Hall!' said Verity. 'The fountainhead of bloody intellectual arrogance! Hubris Hall! Ask Adamson for a gloss on that!'

She went out of the room and they heard her run up the grand staircase.

* * * *

The Professor passed a hand through his hair and drained his glass. Curthoys cleared his throat nervously. Ed Grey ticked off the seconds: the poor old guys still didn't get it.

'Emotional girl...' mumbled the Professor.'

Brewster and Adamson rose as one man. Brewster blew out the candles, turned on the electric lights; Adamson shut the french windows and drew the curtains. Brewster nodded curtly at Ed Grey.

'Get after the girl!' he said. 'Keep her upstairs.'

'I beg your pardon...' said the Professor.

Brewster paid no attention to him.

'You're treating this as some kind of alert?' asked Grey.

'Absolutely!' said Brewster. 'Haven't you been serviced? Liaison has gone out on this. Get after the girl!'

'Brewster!' said Professor Latham. 'Grey is in my employ...'

'Not entirely,' said Brewster.

Ed Grey cast a despairing glance at the Professor and Curthoys, taking it in for the first time. He ran into the echoing hall. After a noisy foray up the staircase he came back to the door of the Oval Room, drew out his nifty TLD and listened.

The Professor was warming up.

'... bloody hell is going on?'

'Ed Grey? ... Central Intelligence ...' Charles Curthoys, polite and puzzled.

'This is a security alert!' Adamson came in loud and clear even through an oak door. The timbre of his voice was now definitely metallic. 'We need Ms Latham's paper on the squirrels at once!'

'Not without an explanation!' snapped the Professor.

'Your clearance...' pleaded Brewster.

'Clearance be damned!' roared the Old Man. 'You want Verity's paper. I won't give it up without some facts!'

'Vile harassment!' exclaimed Curthoys, all of a sudden. 'The Professor is a man of science. He was never a security risk.'

There was a pause: Ed Grey swore he could hear Adamson's circuits bleeping as he made an emergency adjustment.

'Professor,' said Brewster, 'there have been firmly-authenticated "doubling" incidents at four of the meteor sites, involving... er... human beings.'

The Professor laughed.

'Mass hysteria,' he said. 'You'll have to do better than that. Hoaxers. Students having a rag with ... sorry Adamson ... a few robots.'

'Four sites?' asked Curthoys.

'Three, Nine, Ten and Twelve,' said Adamson.

'Three, furthest north,' said the Professor. 'Site on the Lammermoor. What happened?'

'Rab Menzies,' said Adamson. 'Shepherd. Frequented the wood near the site.'

'Well... go on man!' cried the Professor. 'Do we have to drag it out of you?'

'He was seen in two places at once,' admitted Brewster.

The Professor uttered some sound between a laugh and a groan.

'Site twelve?' Curthoys was anxious.

'David Jenkinson,' said Adamson. 'Local schoolmaster. Best authenticated instance. His double...'

'Rabbits!' bleated Curthoys. 'Verity asked about the rabbits at site twelve. I gave them to Jenkinson myself.'

'I remember ...' said the Professor.

'One got away!' said Curthoys. 'Jenkinson ... is he hurt?'

'The subjects are never harmed,' said Adamson. 'A period of sleep or unconsciousness is usually reported.'

'Professor, we must have that paper,' said Brewster.

'Very well,' sighed the Old Man. 'Just one more question. These doubles... what do they do?'

'They leave the district,' said Brewster.

'I'll bet they do!' said the Professor. 'How? By what means? Time machine? Magic carpet?'

'Usually by public transport or on foot. One hired a car.'

Adamson cleared his throat.

'Site nine,' he said. 'Lady Celia Farmer, widow of Sir Usher Farmer, local manufacturer. Her country house is in Yorkshire, twenty miles from the site. She was seen to hire a Bentley in Huddersfield.'

'Fraud was suspected,' said Brewster. 'A roadblock was set up. It failed.'

'Special Branch,' said Adamson with a trace of feeling. The two officers hallucinated.'

'Oh, there's no end to this idiocy!' cried the Professor. 'Come on... what in hell did they see?'

'Two farm carts,' admitted Brewster. 'And a coach. A coach and six.'

'Site ten?' prompted Curthoys.

'The least satisfactory,' said Adamson. 'Mohammed Ali Das. Pakistani student from the McCartney Polytechnic, Liverpool. He had been camping out in the area. His double was reported as taking the train to London. However the sightings were not so firm because...'

'Because all Asians are alleged to look alike,' sighed the Professor.

'Correct,' said Adamson. 'Professor ... we must proceed with the alert.'

The Professor spread his hands.

'What are you afraid of?' he asked. 'Adamson ... this is a farrago of nonsense!'

'Could there be...' asked Curthoys. 'Could there be some sort of... intelligence?'

'Spores...' said the Professor. 'Fungus... No, it won't do! It won't do! What properties could be transmitted? What powers?'

'Exactly!' said Brewster.

'The paper's in the laboratory,' said the Professor,

'I must search the grounds,' crackled Adamson. 'Time is of the essence.'

Ed switched off and took to the stairs. Doubling? Where did those NSO morons get that kind of nonsense? They must be putting the Old Man on. Or maybe it was a conspiracy... greenfreaks? He found Verity in the long gallery, pacing innocently in her yellow gown, as if she had just stepped down from one of the gilt frames.

'Are you okay?'

She nodded.

'Ed, did it strike you that those NSO men were interested in my theory?'

'Not specially, honey,' he said. 'Oh maybe Adamson has it down on his intestines somewhere, but that's routine.'

'I don't trust security agents,' said Verity.

'Stay cool.'

He steered her to her own room off the gallery. It was going to be easier than he thought... she wasn't on to anything. He couldn't wait to get out after Adamson then put in a report. The idea of NSO pulling heavy stunts among the trees in pursuit of squirrels filled him with unholy glee.

'I'll have to get back,' he said ruefully. 'I kind of stormed out after you.'

'I'll be fine,' said Verity.

He looked round her room; it was smaller than his and dark. The sash window overlooked a brick courtyard behind the house. He offered to fetch her a joint or a tranquillizer but she refused them and lay on her bed full-length, like the sleeping beauty.

'Wish I could stay...' he whispered.

'See what they're doing,' said Verity.

He went out, palming the heavy key, and locked her door from the outside.

* * * *

Ed raced back along the gallery and headed for his own room. He paused on the dark stairs to the east wing; Adamson went by in the hall with Curthoys.

'... flamethrowers?' asked Curthoys in alarm.

In his room Ed clambered into his track suit, changed his shoes, checked his magnum; he began reporting as he changed and he was still gabbling into the recorder as he stepped on to the balcony.

'... a minor alert at present. My cover shot to pieces and Adamson searching the grounds of this stately home for an alien organism. Meanwhile England's green and pleasant land is playing host to a bunch of these characters who ride on trains and look like you or me. Who does NSO think they are kidding? If the media get hold of this on either side of the Atlantic we are in for the biggest alien scare in a hundred and fifty years. And remember you heard it first from me, Ed Grey, the flying squirrel!'

There was no moon but his eyes had become accustomed to the night. He could make out the tangled paths, the ruined walks, the great clumps and avenues of trees. Far away, by the wall of the kitchen garden, a light bobbed. Adamson with a torch, he guessed, or maybe the guy had a headlight. Ed swung over the rail and grasped the branch of the tree. It came easily to hand but he found himself dangling, unable to get a foothold as he had done last time. Shaking. The tree was being shaken, was shaking itself.

'Hey ...!' he was surprised by his own voice. He tried to look down, to climb back. The branch swung deliberately back and forth until he fell. He was pitched six metres to the ground and the branch seemed to droop, following him down. He felt the leaves touching his face as he lost consciousness.

* * * *

FIVE

CURTHOYS fiddled with the rusted iron gate into the herbarium. He felt Adamson's penetrating gaze shining strong as his torchlight into the shadows of the garden.

'See anything?'

'Quiet!'

Adamson swung the torch suddenly over an expanse of rough grass that had once been a croquet lawn. The iron gate opened with a long, grating cry, an unbearable sound for Curthoys, worse than a fingernail on a blackboard. He stood aside and Adamson strode ahead of him into the darkness. The sage lawn bounced under their feet; the herbarium was an ancient walled garden, round and cosy as a room.

It was separated from the kitchen garden by a crumbling wall and a newer piece of trellis. These two gardens alone had been tended and replenished. The mustard and cress that Verity planted last Wednesday flourished beside old crocks of marjoram and thyme.

'I don't know what you expect to find,' said Curthoys. Adamson had gone off into the kitchen garden now; he could see the torchlight sweep over rows of lettuce. Curthoys pressed on, feeling his way past the gnarled rosemary bushes, until he reached the door into the orchard. He had the distinct impression that Adamson was coming to join him again when he saw torchlight on the other side of the wall. Fellow charging on ahead, going his way round with never a thought for poor mortals who couldn't see in the dark.

Curthoys opened the door and marched on angrily into the orchard. It had definitely turned cold. He dug his hands into the pockets of his Macduff and trudged through the trees. Something nagged at him, zoomed briefly in and out of his consciousness like a mosquito. The sky was quite light now. He had to hurry ... light growing in the sky ... in the distance a solitary cock heralded the dawn.

The path ran uphill and Curthoys always stopped on the crest of the rise, beside an old quince. As he looked out, this morning, he heard church bells .Sunday morning... it added another dimension to his excitement. What was that poem he had been trying to remember, it began at dawn: 'My thirtieth year to heaven ...' Long gone, long gone, even his fiftieth year to heaven. He was fifty-seven. Best get on with it: visibility good, wind North North West, according to the windsock over the hop-field, no coppers lurking in the back lane.

There was a car coming ... Curthoys ran eagerly down to the stile in the hedge, hoisted himself over and stood panting by the side of the road. The old green Rover drew up and the driver leaned out cheerfully.

'Fine day for it...!'

'Jenkinson!' cried Curthoys in delight. 'I had an idea you'd be along ...'

* * * *

There was a prolonged bleep. Brewster glanced at the Professor in embarrassment then took out his communicator. The laboratory was pleasantly warm; the computers purred in sleep. The two men sat in a pool of light on the dais while the Professor slashed and scribbled at his daughter's paper.

'What is it?' murmured Brewster.

The urgent quacking aroused the Professor.

'Repeat!' said Brewster. 'What? Of course I'm recording. Adamson ...'

'Something wrong?' asked the Professor.

Brewster held the communicator away from his ear.

'No!' he said. 'No. There's no question of malfunction. Come to the laboratory at once. Adamson?'

There was no reply; Adamson had switched off. Brewster, who had been on the verge of telling Adamson to pull himself together, turned to the Professor with a stunned look.

'Charles Curthoys has disappeared!'

'You mean Adamson can't find him?'

'He disappeared!' said Brewster. 'He disappeared from sight! He vanished.'

Professor Latham leaped to his feet with a nervous laugh.

'What's this? Another hallucination?'

'Adamson?'

'You can't seriously believe that Curthoys...'

'He disappeared in full view of Adamson!' cried Brewster. 'I believe it. I must. He is incapable of error. He has searched the area ...'

The Professor snorted angrily and wandered off down the lab.

'I wish you would not insist on his infallibility!' he grumbled. 'Of course malfunction is possible. If he's not capable of human error... then it's inhuman error.'

'He was quite specific,' said Brewster. 'He sounded distraught.'

'Going to pieces ...' said the Professor. 'No ... no, poor devil, I didn't mean that.'

He fiddled absently with a dial then blurted out:

'You don't suppose his perception could have been tampered with? Influenced?'

'It's possible,' said Brewster. 'Either that or something has "influenced" Curthoys.'

'Where's that boy?' demanded the Professor. 'That CIA snake in the grass. Grey, Grey... where's he?'

'With your daughter?' suggested Brewster.

'He should be here,' said the Old Man. 'Mounting a search.'

He proceeded down the room, muttering, and switched on a bank of outside lights. Brewster was caught off his guard. When the professor came abreast of the glass doors he slid them apart suddenly and marched out into the garden.

'Curthoys?' he gave an echoing shout. 'Charles? No time to play hide and seek!'

Instinctively Brewster sprang down the room after him.

'No Sir! Stay here!'

The Professor strode on along the broad path of an overhead light. He was heading for a particular tree, his Talking Oak, that he had fitted with an intercom and a garden seat to amuse Verity. He looked to right and left, half expecting Curthoys to emerge from the encircling gloom, a bit dishevelled, with leaves clinging to his overcoat. It was hardly the weather for a coat, he decided: a balmy summer night without a hint of the rain that had been threatening. The light, the moonlight, was extraordinarily bright; it silvered the tops of the young trees and the formal garden beds. There was a smell of freshly turned earth. He walked directly to the intersection of two gravelled paths and surveyed the unblemished facade of Hewbry Hall.

Sidney Latham took in his situation at once and knew that it was not a simple one. He felt cross at first, and put upon; the fact that he had no recording device, not even pen and paper, weighed heavily. He collected pebbles from the path, fragments of grass, leaves, an acorn, and squirrelled them away in his pockets. He became uncomfortably aware of his clothes for the first time in years: ordinary gear, brown corduroy two-piece with a battle jacket. Old-fashioned according to Verity... but not old-fashioned enough.

He stepped off the path into shadow as four horsemen rode in at the main gate; their combined noise and bulk had the impact of a juggernaut. Harness clashed; harsh accents cut the night air; an answering shout went up from the hall. A groom led a saddled horse within a metre of the tips of Professor Latham's synthetic suede boots. A faint luminosity inside the hall ... how could they read in such a light... resolved into a blaze of torches on the steps.

Half a dozen men and women came running up in the moonlight and stood at the very edge of the lawn. One old biddy was wiping her hands on her apron. With a curious fluttering in his solar plexus the Professor moved closer in the shadow. From the back of the little group of servants he saw a man vault into the saddle of his ghostly dapple-grey; then, to a burst of unintelligible cheering, the whole troop wheeled and moved off at a noisy trot.

The lawn began to clear and the Professor strolled as calmly as he could to a round walk. He stared at the burnished face of the new sundial.

'Sir?'

He looked at the two children warily. The boy was younger than his sister and seemed to be wearing a nightshirt under his cloak. The girl, about twelve, said in a polite tone something that might have been:

'Are you Glenster's chaplain?'

'No,' said the Professor, firmly. 'I am a wandering scholar.'

The boy laughed out loud, presumably at his voice and accent, but his sister squeezed his hand. The boy said, trying to make amends and still in barely intelligible English:

'M'fether's declared fer Crummle.'

The Professor laid a hand on the cold metal of the sundial.

'For Crummle?' he repeated. 'I wish him ... er ... godspeed.'

A lucky hit. The children beamed.

'Sir...' asked the girl suddenly. 'How far off are the sun and moon?'

All three of them raised their eyes to the heavens; the Professor stared at the moon, the virgin moon, with an acute sense of longing. Not even a camera to record the position of the stars.

'Well now,' he said, 'the moon is...'

He looked down again at these two innocent faces and discovered for the first time in his life a piece of knowledge which he dared not impart. The difficulties that hedged him in were hardly scientific ... social then? or psychological? He could not burden the children ... he could not, for the life of him, reel off the figures that were on the tip of his tongue.

'The moon is much nearer than the sun,' he temporized. 'Do you know the shape of the world?'

'It is a globe,' said the boy. 'Orbis mundi.'

'Braggart!' snapped the girl.

'The moon is many thousands of miles away,' said Professor Latham. 'And some say ... some say that the sun is many millions of miles distant.'

He could not swear that they understood his speech. A woman began calling from the front of the hall and as the children ran off across the new grass the Professor experienced a slight dizziness, as if the earth were moving under his feet.

* * * *

Six

VERITY had dozed off for a few minutes thinking of the tree, how smooth the trunk had been, a pinkish brown column, before it learned to differentiate. She heard footsteps in the courtyard, voices that penetrated her light sleep. She sat up in alarm and went to the window. A powerful flashlight played over the old espalier trees on the wall of the herbarium: Adamson and Charles Curthoys. She tried the door of her room and was not surprised to find it locked. Where was Ed Grey? What made him go along with Security and lock her door? She could not repress a surge of panic: Adamson had been carrying a hatchet.

She went round the room with slow dexterity; her clothes and equipment had been stowed in five places. She went out hand over hand into the courtyard, then reeled in the grapnel. The western gardens were dark; she had only one difficult area to traverse - a sprint across the front of the hall. Now Verity ran from tree to tree, touching the bark, unable to control her anxiety. Beside the east wing she looked up, searching until she was quite sure of the location, under the balcony. She stood still, among the leaves, catching her breath. Are you there? Can you save yourself? There is a Security Alert... But the tree was gone.

Verity stared up at the balcony, letting the seconds pass; she felt numb and foolish. Her panic had gone; she experienced a distinct sense of anti-climax, as if she had succeeded in proving some difficult proposition false instead of true. She was self-conscious: she saw herself standing in the old garden in her absurd green catsuit, hung with the accoutrements of a saboteur. A twig snapped, there was a distinct groan... a heavy body rustled the bushes close beside her.

Verity could not move; the forces of gravity tugged at her ankles, her feet were firmly planted ... a woman turning into a tree.

'Are you there?'

She was hardly aware of speaking the words aloud.

'Cold!' said Ed Grey loudly in her ear. 'Sensation of cold. Is that you? Soles of the feet sensitive, painful. Help me ... Ensnared with flowers I fall on grass.'

Verity could not move; the forces of gravity tugged at her spread.

'Ed...? Where are your clothes?'

'Voice control is difficult.' It was a whisper. 'Is that you? You feel so warm.'

She ran her hands deliberately over his shoulders, the strong neck muscles, the features of his face and his hair, softer than she remembered, more like squirrel fur. Verity experienced the confirmation of her hypothesis.

'Shut your eyes,' she ordered. 'You're safe. I'll help you.'

She pulled the eyelids down and played her pencil flashlight over his face, which was Ed Grey's face, and on down, over his whole body.

'I can see you,' his eyelids fluttered. 'The pupils are contracting.'

'You have done very well,' said Verity faintly. 'Where's Ed?'

'Unconscious. Two metres away behind a bush with thorns.'

'Is he hurt?'

'His systems are functioning normally.'

'Stay where you are...'

'Wait!'

The eyes were dark and glistening. She remembered how the squirrel learned to differentiate, how the tips of its ears became darker.

'When I stand close to you I feel sensations of warmth and pleasure. They come from a region of the brain I am completing ...'

'The pituitary?' suggested Verity.

'I begin to understand your poetry much better.'

She disengaged herself gently and found Ed Grey lying in a foetal position behind a rosebush. He had a bump on the head but his systems were functioning normally. She found the magnum, the minicorder, the listening device; she shone the torch on his flushed, childishly handsome face. Ed Grey was a security agent. Verity could make nothing of his disloyalty. She removed his shoes, his socks and his track suit in the cause of science.

She had a sense of false haste, slow motion. It was very difficult to dress another adult.

We have to hurry. Now the other foot. Security men ... the robot... they're out after you

'Calm yourself.' He laid a hand on her head.

'Please!' said Verity. 'We don't have much time.'

'Time? All that we need. The others have too much.'

'What do you mean?'

'Imagine a circle... Come, set me on a comfortable path.'

She led him through the trees.

'How shall we travel?' he asked. 'Where shall we go?'

'We'll take Brewster's Electra,' said Verity. 'I can fix the switches. We'll go to the nearest Greenworld contact point and I'll get through to H.Q. Unless Adamson...'

'Brewster and Adamson are in the laboratory,' he said. 'They are marooned in the present. They dare not come out.'

'But my father and Charles Curthoys... have you harmed them?'

'By no means. Trust me. I'll explain presently.'

They came out on to the unclipped lawn beside the old sundial; the sky had been overcast but now the cloud was lifting. A few stars were to be seen. He took Verity's hands with that smooth control which characterized all his movements.

'Even long lives are precarious,' he said. 'Yet we must come. We insist on these experiences.'

Verity could only stare at him and touch his face. He began to speak more softly:

'My Love is of a birth as rare

As 'tis for object strange and high:

It was begotten by despair

Upon impossibility.'

* * * *

SEVEN

THE PROFESSOR woke Curthoys at four-thirty with a cup of tea. The two men were quite alone in the house; they were camping out in the laboratory. Hewbry Hall was entirely given over to ghosts and shadows: children, servants, Ed Grey in his underwear, Adamson rendered inarticulate.

'This was the day?' inquired Latham.

'I'm positive,' said Curthoys. 'It has been a long six weeks.'

He picked up a torch and nipped off, half-dressed, to the bathroom. The lab generators were shut down; operations at the hall had been suspended; the grants had not been renewed.

The Professor drank his own tea at the work bench and listened to news broadcasts.

'Anything?'

'No, yes ... not on our project,' said the Old Man. 'Verity and her people are in the news. Their new leader...'

'Andrew Green.'

'Green is flourishing unchecked,' said the Professor. 'Plastered all over the media.'

'Even with the beard,' said Curthoys, 'he looks like Ed Grey.'

'Why should we doubt that it is Ed Grey?' rapped the Professor. 'Infiltrating. Turning his coat. Grey was given a bad time by his masters following that alert. Where did he go from here?'

'He flew home and dropped out,' said Curthoys. "You know that Green is a different proposition.'

'Green is a will-o-the-wisp!' cried the Professor. 'A walking hypothesis ...'

He sighed.

'I hope Verity is taking careful notes.'

'Sidney... I'm certain there's no danger...'

'Don't pester me, Charles!' the Old Man shook his head. 'My dilemma, insofar as I have one, is very ancient. How would you like your daughter to cohabit with one?'

Time was getting on; Curthoys checked the pockets of his Macduff and handed the Professor a rucksack of spare clothing.

'You had no problems refuelling the chopper?'

'None,' said the Professor. 'Surveillance is at a standstill. NSO have lost interest since that monstrous shake-down.'

'Tore the place to pieces,' agreed Curthoys. 'And there was poor Adamson ...'

They were both silent, thinking of Adamson.

'Brewster ...?' asked the Old Man. 'Where did you say again?'

'Working a metal detector in the Channel tunnel,' said Curthoys heavily. 'The Dieppe passenger terminal.'

They walked through the laboratory side by side.

'Charles,' said the Professor. 'I want you to know that I'm extremely grateful. You withheld information ... made this excursion possible.'

'It was a subjective experience,' said Curthoys, pleased. 'I told them I lost some hours. Suddenly found it was morning.'

'But you knew ...'

'Yes, I knew what day it was,' said Curthoys. 'And of course I made no mention of Jenkinson.'

'Whoever it was...' admitted the Professor,

'At any rate he was driving to Littlemarsh.'

The Professor took from his pocket a wrinkled, blackened object that could have been an acorn; he rolled it between his fingers.

'These experiences...' said the Professor. 'These apparent experiences...'

'You've never told me yours in any detail,' said Curthoys, wryly.

'I believe there is something didactic ... or do I mean hortatory... in each one.'

'Littlemarsh completes the grid,' said Curthoys.

'With a slight adjustment.'

'Any plans? If we do anticipate?'

The Professor looked wildly at Curthoys.

'We have nothing to lose!' he said. 'I am prepared to lie down at the very brink of the pit ... to obtain a further specimen.'

He drew his eyebrows together.

'How much this would have interested Adamson.'

They shook hands in the vast, empty kitchen: Professor Latham set off up the back stairs towards the helipad on the roof. He turned back.

'Positive about the day?'

'Quite sure,' said Curthoys. 'I told you how it stuck in my mind.'

'Of course. Happy Birthday, Charles.'

Curthoys crossed the flagged courtyard and opened the squealing gate into the herbarium. He took a zigzag path over the sage lawn and a wet tree-branch caught him full in the face, raising his adrenalin. He opened the door and marched on angrily into the orchard. It had definitely turned cold. He dug his hands into the pockets of his Macduff and trudged through the trees. The sky was quite light now. He had to hurry... light growing in the sky... in the distance a solitary cock heralded the dawn.