order you to lie to your grandmother!” snapped the Prime Minister in a loud whisper.
Al looked at the Prime Minister like he had no idea what he was getting into.
Finn took the phone and accidentally pressed the ‘speaker’ button on the touchscreen so that everybody got the benefit of – “Grandma?”
“Do you need me to come back? I’ve unpacked but we’re still in port…” came her voice.
“No, no, I’m fine, everything’s fine.”
“What a lot of nonsense about the canteen! Tell him to take you straight back right now!”
“We’re going! We’re just getting in the car.”
“He will starve you to death! Neglect… Did he do any vegetables?”
“What…? Yes.”
The watching experts and world leaders – who had grandmothers of their own – were nodding him along.
“Exactly which vegetables?”
Finn’s mind went blank. There was a terrible, panicked silence.
“Broccoli?” mouthed the US President.
“Broccoli! And… just broccoli. What’s your food like? What’s the ship like?”
“Food is tepid, the cabin is cramped and I have to share a bathroom, but there’s a lovely woman from Godalming on our corridor who, would you believe it, went to the same boarding school as Jennifer – second cousin Jennifer not Jennifer from the Hartford Pottery who I don’t think you know her grandson wants to be a solicitor it’s good to have ambitions but as I told her not a solicitor Jennifer not at twelve… anyway I—”
“Grandma, I think we’d better go or we’ll be late.”
“Oh… all right, dear. Please don’t trust Al, he’s already missed one call.”
“OK, Grandma, love you, bye!”
“And keep safe!”
Finn killed the call and everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief.
The Prime Minister gave an order to someone off-screen. “Get on to the Norwegians. Upgrade Mrs Allenby’s cabin and get her, and the woman from Godalming who knows Jennifer, on to the Captain’s table. Now.”
“Would someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?” said the US President.
DAY ONE 14:13 (BST). Siberia
Deep in the Siberian permafrost, 2,546 miles away, east by northeast, Kaparis watched the scene via his agent’s spectacles.
Everything was going according to plan. They were falling into his trap.
1 The beast was at large.
2 The ‘pheromone hypothesis’ had been successfully introduced by his agent at the meeting.
3 Boldklub had been established as the only viable response.
Kaparis was where he liked to be: in control. And yet… he was overwhelmed.
The boy.
Kaparis stared.
“My goodness, he looks like his father.”
The lung breathed in. The lung breathed out. And for a moment his heart swelled with nostalgia as he was transported back nearly twenty years to a Cambridge University of scarves and bicycles, lectures and tutorials, girls to fall in love with and limitless early promise… before, inevitably, his mind went to his moment of glory.
Why Does Grass Grow In Clumps?
A General Theory on the Development of Super-organisms
A lecture by D.A.P. Kaparis
St Stephen’s Hall, 10am, Wed 4th May 1993
And to how it was stolen from him.
In front of everybody.
In front of her.
And, as quickly as it had swollen, Kaparis’s heart emptied of blood and once more beat acid revenge.
“Our proposal,” said King, “is this – one: shrink a tracking device and fit it to the American Scarlatti and release it to find its missing clone.
“Two: shrink an attack helicopter and its crew…”
Eyes popped around the world.
“…all their equipment, including all tracking, transport, communications and weaponry…”
“Woah! Shrink people! Weapons?”
“…to the scale 150 to 1…” continued King.
“One hundred and fifty times!?”
“…and three…”
“Hang fire! Why not just shrink the tracking device and track the thing? Why shrink people?” asked General Jackman.
“Without going into too much classified detail,” said Al, “it’s to do with changes in waveform when you collapse the electromagnetic spectrum. A nano-transmitter produces a nano-signal that can only be picked up on a nano-receiver with a very limited range, perhaps 800 metres at the most. You can’t just amplify the signal in the normal sense. That’s why we’ll need a hunter crew at nano-level as well. Their transport can be fitted with a tiny ‘full-scale’ radio for communication, although again it will have a very limited range and we can’t bank on constant contact.”
The General looked like his brain ached.
King continued. “And three: the crew are to pursue the second Scarlatti to the first, then destroy both adults and any eggs or nymphs they find.”
“Whatever else it is, this whole scheme is crazy! At the very least untested. The risks to any participants must surely be suicidal,” said the American Chief Scientist, shaking her head.
“We have to measure the risks against what’s at stake, and against the only viable alternative,” said King.
“Which is?” asked the German Chancellor.
“Go nuclear. Displace a million people. Lay waste to part of London for generations to come.”
There
