here? Give us the lowdown.’
‘Hunky dory,’ Soares told him unexpectedly. ‘All plumbing throughout by courtesy of José Soares and his company. All business here, my business.’
A palace guard entered and spoke briefly in Goyese to Soares.
‘Now is time for my auditorium,’ Soares said. ‘Gentlemen, we are bounders to meet again.’ Bowing, smiling, nodding, wagging one finger above his head, he left with the guard.
Half an hour later, the same guard appeared and beckoned to the two Englishmen. As they left, Soames glanced back at the other occupant of the waiting room. He was an ancient, white-haired negro with a battered cardboard box on his knee. Not once had he stirred since Soames had been there. Perhaps, like the 1955 Radio Times, he went with the room.
Soames hurried to catch up with Timpleton, who was slicking back his hair with a pocket comb preparatory to his audience with President Landor.
President Landor was worrying his hair with a pocket comb preparatory to his audience with the Englishmen when they arrived and bowed to him. He was a tall and splendid man just beginning to run to fat. His face creased into a broad smile when Soames and Timpleton entered, and he came across the room with outstretched hand, leaving the comb hidden in his crinkly hair.
‘The geniuses from Unilateral Company, the splendid survivors of the air crash, the rescuers of my son Deal Jimpo,’ he said easily, speaking in French. ‘I regret that I have no English. Queen Louise, whom you will certainly meet, speaks it fluently, but not I, alas; a deplorable omission. I trust you both have command of French?’
Soames had, Timpleton had not.
‘We shall get on splendidly,’ the President said to Soames. ‘You must tell your friend what I am saying. Sit down here and try with me some of this Canadian rye whisky which the all-too-capable Señor Soares has just left as a token of his esteem.’
They settled themselves in wicker chairs while an attendant filled their glasses and the President spread himself comfortably and looked them over. He wore Indian chaplis, white starched shorts and a white shirt over which latter was an unbuttoned brocade waistcoat, the magnificence of which robbed it of any incongruity it might otherwise have had.
‘You do not mind to sit with me?’ he asked.
‘No. I’m sorry – should we – of course, we should have remained standing,’ Soames said.
‘No, no. That was not my point. I wondered if you subscribed to this popular thing, the colour bar.’
‘The colour bar – is not reasonable,’ Soames said.
‘Possibly so. That does not prevent many millions of people being swayed by it.’
‘Unfortunately people in the mass are swayed most easily by the unreasonable,’ Soames replied, colouring slightly.
‘You should have been a politician.’
‘In England now, to be a politician one must also be photogenic, in order to appear on TV. My nose is too irregular for affairs of state, Mr President.’
‘Just call me “President” – or “King” if you like it better, for I am both President of Goya and crowned King of my territories.’
‘How unusual,’ Soames said, smiling, for the President was also smiling. ‘A surprising mixture of the American and British constitutions.’
‘We try to retain here the best features of both great democracies,’ the President said.
‘What are you two on about?’ Timpleton asked. He had finished his drink far ahead of the others. ‘What’s he doing about our rooms?’
‘I’m just getting to that, Ted,’ Soames said and then, tactfully, to President Landor, ‘My friend is enquiring after the health of your son, Deal Jimpo.’
‘His leg will mend. The witch doctor, Dumayami, has seen it and proclaimed the omens right. Jimpo is out now with the palace lorry and a host of porters supervising the transportation here of the all-important cargo of your plane.’
‘My clean clothes,’ exclaimed Soames gratefully.
‘The computing machinery,’ added the President gently.
He then pressed them for particulars. Timpleton agreed that when all the parts of the Apostle Mk II were brought to the palace he should be able to assemble them in three days, provided the parts had not been damaged in the crash. (Under the original contract, with the Birmingham man and Brewer to help, this process was only to have taken a day.) Two further days would then be needed to install the generator, which had also been flown in, and to carry out extensive tests, etc.
‘Then I commence work,’ Soames said. ‘I will train the local man you have selected to operate the Apostle. There may be some difficulty in interpreting the results the machine gives, just at first. I shall be at hand to explain. These machines operate normally on the binary system, producing answers which only skilled mathematicians can comprehend. On your model, Unilateral have greatly modified input and output circuits, with the result that problems can now be typed out on an ordinary typewriter keyboard, whence they feed automatically into the machine on a roll of paper like pianola music; similarly, the machine’s answers will be ejected, typed in English, from a slot on another piece of paper.’
‘In English?’ repeated the President.
‘Yes, I hope that is what you wished? Your son, Deal Jimpo, was firm on the point in his contract.’
‘Quite correct. Too many sons of guns, including myself, speak French here. But English, correctly spoken, is managed by but a very few. Therefore a mystery is created, and my people respect a mystery. Or rather – they fear enlightenment.’
‘It is the same with the masses in England,’ Soames said with unconscious priggishness.
‘Ah, but their feeling is to be respected,’ said the President, catching the note of condemnation in Soames’ voice. ‘Enlightenment is like a tearing down of old familiar rooms when we are left to squat in a desert of disbelief. What has education to offer but the truth of man’s smallness and beastliness? What is knowledge but the gift of danger? – Did not one of your poets say that?’
‘Pope said that a little learning was a dangerous thing.’
‘Well? All learning is little, a block and tackle job of dismantling the gods.’
‘Yours sounds a very disillusioned philosophy, President,’ Soames remarked.
‘Yes, it goes badly with this excellent rye whisky, eh? By tomorrow I shall probably have thought of a totally different set of things to say, thank God.’
‘What the hell are you two jabbering about, Soames?’ Timpleton asked.
‘Be quiet,’ Soames said.
‘What I was going to say was to warn you,’ the President told Soames. ‘You more than your friend, for he is the hard worker and you are the talker on this job. Therefore my people will instinctively hold you responsible for any changes the machine introduces; they know – forgive me, but I am also in your category
