Here Comes the Sun (18 page)

‘My name is Jane,' Jane replied. ‘I've only been in this office a week and I haven't the faintest idea what I'm supposed to be doing or what's going on. If you would care to explain exactly what it is that you want me to do, I'll get on to it as soon as I possibly can. Thank you.'

Ten little piggy eyes stared at her in complete bewilderment. The other two narrowed slightly.

‘You're new to this work, aren't you?' said their owner quietly.

‘No,' Jane said, ‘I've done something similar before.'

‘Is that so?' The man maintained his expression, giving Jane the feeling of being under a powerful X-ray that could see what she'd eaten for the last six days. Then one of the ends of his mouth flicked up a little. ‘You like this sort of work?'

‘No,' Jane replied.

‘Not good enough for you, huh?' Again, Jane felt she was in the presence of a genuine enquiry.

‘Let's say it doesn't tax me to the limits of my capacity,' she said. ‘In fact,' she added carefully, ‘it wasn't my idea in the first place.'

‘No,' the man said. ‘I guess not.' He widened the smile a micron or so. ‘I'll say this for you, kid, you've got guts.'

‘So have you,' Jane replied involuntarily. ‘Lots and lots of them.'

The man didn't seem to mind; and Jane slowly became aware of a feeling she didn't like. Either the man was
getting bigger, or she was getting smaller, or both. She broke off eye contact, and looked at the one piece of bread remaining in the basket.

‘So what kind of work are you looking for?' the man said. ‘Not office work, I guess.'

‘I've done that,' Jane said quietly. ‘Not really me, somehow.'

‘I guess not.' Suddenly he chuckled. It was rather an attractive sound. ‘Maybe you should try your hand at a few things, you know, look around a bit till you find something that suits you.'

‘Thanks,' Jane said. ‘I'll remember that.'

‘Like I said,' the man repeated, ‘you've got guts. Just don't make a pain of yourself in anybody else's if you can help it, okay?'

Jane mumbled something. Just now, she was thinking how nice it would be to get back to her desk and talk to somebody on the telephone. More her sort of level, somehow.

‘Now,' the man said, ‘let me tell you something.'

He half stood up, and began whispering in Jane's ear. It was rather like having your ears syringed by a blind octopus, but the words that she was hearing took her mind off that aspect of it.

‘Thank you,' she said. ‘You've been most helpful.'

The man smiled, widely this time. ‘You're welcome,' he said. ‘Oh, and kid—'

‘Yes?'

‘Before you go, tell Rosa this veal needs warming through,' the man said. ‘Now get outa here.'

 

Jane pushed the door of Number Six. This time, she didn't bother to knock first.

The occupant of Number Six was not a human being, nor even vaguely anthropomorphous. What Jane found
sitting in the expensive-looking leather swivel chair was a chipmunk.

‘Excuse me,' Jane said.

The chipmunk looked up from the pile of papers in front of it and wiggled its nose. ‘Well?' it said.

For a split second, something shorted in Jane's mind, and she couldn't think of anything to say. Anything, that is, apart from ‘You're a chipmunk', which probably didn't need saying right now.

‘Correct,' said the chipmunk. ‘Did you come in here to tell me that?'

The short cleared. ‘Not you as well,' Jane replied testily. ‘Can everybody in this place read minds?'

The chipmunk's whiskers quivered slightly. ‘I can't,' he said. ‘It's just a ninety-nine per cent certainty I know what you're thinking. And before you waste your effort wondering, I can take any shape I like. I use this one for people who come barging in here without an appointment, ' he added, ‘because it disconcerts them.'

‘Fine,' Jane replied. ‘I want to talk to you about how this department is run.'

‘I know you do,' replied the chipmunk. ‘Now get out.'

By way of a reply, Jane sat down and folded her arms. The chipmunk sighed and nibbled a small area of veneer off the edge of its desk.

‘I can give you five minutes,' it said.

‘Thank you.' Jane smiled, opened her handbag and produced a notebook. ‘I'll come straight to the point, then, shall I? This entire department is superfluous.'

The chipmunk stood up in its chair and waggled its forepaws briskly; then it sat down again, turned round three times, and crouched with its ears back. ‘Rubbish,' it said.

‘Fact,' Jane replied. ‘The alleged purpose of this department is general administration for the whole operation.
It's superfluous because it doesn't administer anything. And the reason for that is that the system broke down 107 years ago.'

The chipmunk disappeared. In its place, there appeared a long, green snake with diamond markings. ‘Really,' it observed.

‘Really,' Jane replied. ‘Take it from me. Ever since then, the input's been continuing to flow in, but the output's ground to a complete halt. Such administration as actually takes place is entirely spontaneous and
ad hoc
. I think that's the expression I want,' Jane added.

‘It'll do,' the snake said. ‘Where does your information come from, by the way?'

‘A man in a restaurant told me,' Jane replied. ‘For instance, this department is supposed to channel funds from the Treasurer's office to the Destiny department, via a system of requisitions and pink chits. In practice, Destiny keeps its money in a cocoa tin behind the clock in the machine shed. When there's nothing left in the tin, the duty supervisor sneaks into the social club while the barman's having his lunch, using the duplicate key belonging to the captain of the bowling team, and takes the change from the till. The barman in turn writes it off against breakages. Correct?'

The snake darted a fine tongue at her and hissed. Jane nodded and went on.

‘This department,' she said, ‘is also nominally responsible for the allocation of staff to, among others, the Perjury department, the main job of which is to strike perjurers with lightning. Perjury has a staff of seventy operatives and six supervisors, all on full pay, but nobody gets hit by lightning because the post of departmental head has been vacant for over 300 years. The net result is that, although perjury among mortals is regularly detected and noted in the Records, perjurers aren't being
zapped at because thunderbolts can't be drawn from the stores without a green chit signed by the departmental head. All that the operatives can do, therefore, is stick their tongues out at the perjurers and shout rude words at them; and since all Perjury staff are required by the rules to be invisible and imperceptible to mankind . . .'

There was a soft rustling noise as the snake wound itself round the arm of its chair. ‘Go on,' it said.

‘Need I?' Jane replied. ‘If you want me to, I will. I can tell you about how the staff pension fund never reaches the pensioners, not because the money isn't there, but because Gary in Pensions is waiting for the 1897 returns and can't issue a mauve chit without them; so everybody puts five kreuzers a week into the Solstice Club at the newsagents' round the corner from the Earthquakes building, which does the job perfectly well. Or there's stationery; shall I tell you about how the unissued stock of paperclips recently broke away under the force of its own mass and is now the centre of a whole new planetary system out the other side of Orion's Belt?' Jane paused for breath, and because she had run out of examples. The snake looked at her.

‘So,' it said at last. ‘There are hiccups here and there. Big deal.'

Jane bit her lip; was it her imagination, or could she hear the faint clunk of a called bluff? ‘Hiccups,' she repeated. ‘The sort of hiccup they had in San Francisco in 1906.'

The snake lifted its head, wondered what to do with it, and threaded it through the handle of its briefcase. ‘We'll give what you say very serious thought,' it replied. ‘In the meantime, perhaps you feel you ought to be seconded to some other department.'

Anger is a curious thing, with a behaviour pattern rather like that of a Honda CX550 motorcycle. Sometimes you
can give the throttle just the slightest of tweaks, and the next thing you're aware of is the ambulancemen picking bits of hedge out of your lower abdomen. Sometimes you stamp the gear lever down into fourth and twist the throttle right round, and the beast just looks up at you out of its cow-like instrument panel and slows down to a gentle stroll. The only thing you can rely on is its habit of running out of petrol exactly halfway between filling stations.

Jane's anger, to continue the simile, had just boiled dry; and, as she looked the snake in the eyes and tried to think what to say next, something told her that it was going to be a long, hard push home.

‘Perhaps that'd be best,' she said softly. ‘Thank you for your time.' She got up, collected her handbag, and left the office.

As she was clearing her desk, the phone rang.

‘You shouldn't have done that,' said Ganger's voice. It sounded cheerful. ‘Not at all wise.'

‘I expect you're right,' Jane replied. ‘Who was that man in the restaurant?'

The line seemed to go numb. ‘That was Rocky,' said Ganger, and his voice sounded as if he was speaking through two pillow-cases and a sock. ‘You weren't supposed to meet him, either.'

‘He seemed to be expecting to meet me,' Jane said.

‘I know. Anyway, there we are. Come and see me at half nine tomorrow, and we'll talk. Oh, and by the way.'

‘Yes?'

‘You're doing just fine. Trust me.' Ganger smiled into Jane's ear, and hung up.

 

 

 

 

T
he sky is very high here.

In most places, the sky is just, well, high; a sort of blue tent that keeps the stars out and the air in. Here, it's different. Here, it's so high above sea-level that the existence of the ground is little more than an unsubstantiated rumour. There is also a castle.

A big, frilly, no-expense-spared, Ludwig of Bavaria special. And it's bobbing and floating about, like a balloon that's been at the sherry on an empty stomach, with nothing holding it up apart from the thought of the quite appalling effect it would have on the ground if it ever stopped floating.

When it comes to a bare-knuckle fight between gravity and social conscience, gravity loses.

As you approach, picking your way cautiously through the thermals and taking care not to tread on the heads of any high-flying birds, you can hear snatches of a strange and bewildering noise, wafted at you by the semi-feral winds that hide out in the major altitudes. From this distance, and bearing in mind the uncanny distortions of wind and the Doppler effect, you could almost believe
that you were listening to several thousand people whistling - flat, off-key - the disjointed scraps of a half-familiar tune.

Welcome to the Castle in the Air, headquarters of the Department of Omens and Auspices. The men standing in inch-perfect rows in the courtyard are trainee Messengers. Once they graduate, they will spend their working lives delivering dreams, uncanny flashbacks, moments of déjà vu, and other similar communications. At the moment, they are being taught the extremely tricky art of making the unique noise known as the postman's whistle.

Now, supposing you look very carefully, you'll notice one small figure in the Departmental blue-and-gold uniform, whose hair is rather longer than the rest. If you can somehow force your ears to blot out the general cacophony, you'll notice that this one individual is defiantly whistling, in tune and without sudden disconcerting pauses, a tune which is unmistakably ‘Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'.

Guess who.

 

‘You mustn't think of it in those terms,' Ganger had said, as they trudged up the Castle's drive. ‘That's negative.'

‘Really,' Jane replied. She would have expressed herself more fully, but the gradient was steep, and her knees were beginning to feel as if some joker had whipped the sinews out of them while she wasn't looking.

‘Believe me,' Ganger said. ‘Even if we were trying to keep you out of the way for a while, which we aren't, we wouldn't do it by putting you in the Messenger service. It's far too high profile for that.'

‘High,' said Jane, breathlessly sardonic (try it for yourself), ‘profile. Running errands. Delivering messages.'

‘Yeah.' Ganger stopped for a moment, ran his finger
round the inside of the button-down collar of his Abercrombie and Fitch pink shirt, and breathed in. ‘Hardly hidden away in some out-of-the-way back office, is it?'

Jane wiped sweat out of her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. ‘Not exactly challenging, though. Not precisely demanding the highest levels of executive performance. I thought you said I was a high-flyer.'

Ganger started to look down, then checked himself quickly. ‘You want to go any higher than this, you can find your own way.'

Jane kept her face straight, just. ‘You're not afraid of heights, are you?' she said.

‘I'm bloody terrified of heights,' Ganger replied. ‘Think about it, will you? My natural environment isn't high up on top of things; in fact, it's the exact opposite. I get vertigo standing on thick pile carpet sometimes. And,' he added, ‘if you think that's so terribly amusing, we'll pay a visit to my departmental HQ one of these days, and we'll see how you like that.'