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’From the dead? Harry, there’s not one of us who doesn’t want to help Believe me, if Brenda and little Harry werewith us, you’d be the first to know of it Wherever they are, they’re alive, son You can rely on that’
He frowned and tiredly rubbed at his forehead ’You know, Ma, I can’t figure it out If anyone could find them it has to be me And I haven’t even found a trace of theot those people at E-Branch on it They couldn’t find them A couple of them even approached me cautiously with the idea - and with a little sensitivity, you understand - that maybe Brenda and the baby were dead By the time I handed the job over to Darcy Clarke six months later, everyone seemed sure they were dead
’Now E-Branch has people who could find anybody anywhere - spotters who can pick up psychic emanations on the other side of the world - but they couldn’t find reater thanabout the Great Majority, the countless dead) ’they say they’re alive, that they have to be alive because they don’t nust the dead And I know that none of you would ever lie to me So I think to myself: if they’re not dead, and they’re not here where I can find the away at me’
He could sense her nod, feel how sad she was for him ’I know, son, I know’
’And as for physically searching for them - ’ he went on, as if he hadn’t heard her, ’ - is there anywhere in this world where I didn’t look? But if E-Branch couldn’t find them, what chance did I stand?’
Harry’s mother had heard all of this before It was his obsession now, his one passion in life He was like a gambler hooked on roulette, whose one dream is to find ’the system’ where none exists He’d spent al the various stages of the search To no avail She had tried to help hi, bitterly disappointing road
Harry stood up, dusted a little soil fro back to the house now, Ma I’ ti rest So about them, anyway’
She knehat he meant: that he’d reached the end of the road, that there was nowhere else he could look
That’s right,’ he said, turning away from the riverbank, ’nowhere else to look, and notany more’
Head down, he bumped into someone who at once took his arnize the nition quickly followed ’Darcy? Darcy Clarke?’ Harry began to s sour on his face ’Oh, yes - Darcy Clarke,’ he said, more slowly this time ’And you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want soht I’d already h with all of that’
Clarke studied his face, a face he’d knoell froed to someone else There weremore of character Not that Alec Kyle had been without character, but Harry’s had gradually imprinted itself on the flesh Also, there eariness in that face, and signs that there’d been a lot of pain, too
’Harry,’ Clarke said, ’did I hear you telling yourself just now that there’s no purpose to anything? Is that how you’re feeling?’
Harry glanced at hi onthere by the wall,’ he said ’I wasn’t spying, Harry ButI didn’t want to disturb you, that’s all I mean,’ he nodded toward the river, ’this is where your mother is, isn’t it?’
Harry suddenly felt defensive He looked away, then looked back and nodded He had nothing to fear from this man ’Yes,’ he said, ’she’s here It was lanced quickly all about ’You were talking to - ?’ Then he looked once ed In a lowered voice, he said: ’Of course, I’d alotten’
’Had you?’ Harry was quick off the mark ’You mean that isn’t what you came to see me about?’ Then he relented a little ’OK, coo’
As they orse and wild bramble, Clarke unobtrusively studied the Necroscope Not only did Harry seeeneral seegy grey pullover, thin grey trousers, scuffed shoes on his feet It was the attire of someone who didn’t much care ’You’ll catch your death of cold,’ Clarke told hienuine concern The E-Branch head forced a smile ’Didn’t anyone tell you? We’ll soon be into Novee Victorian house brooding there behind its high stone garden wall The house had once belonged to Harry’s mother, then to his stepfather, and now it had co I worry about a lot,’ Harry eventually answered ’When I feel it’s getting colder I’ll put more clothes on’
’But it doesn’t ht?’ said Clarke ’There doesn’t see Which means you haven’t found them yet I’m sorry, Harry’
Noas Harry’s turn to study Clarke
The head of E-Branch had been chosen for that job because after Harry he was the obvious candidate Clarke’s talent guaranteed continuity He hat they called a ’deflector’, the opposite of accident-prone He could walk through a minefield and come out of it unscathed And if he did step on one it would turn out to be a dud His talent protected him, and that was all it did
But it would ensure that he’d always be there, that nothing and no one would ever take him out, as two heads before him had been taken out Darcy Clarke would die one day for sure - all ot hi thisno one would ever have guessed he was in charge of anything, and certainly not the ht: he’s probably the ht or -nine), ht stoop and a tiny paunch, but not overweight either: he was just about e in every way And in another five or six years he’d be just about ed, too!
Pale hazel eyes stared back at Harry frohter, which Harry suspected hadn’t laughed for quite some little time Despite the fact that Clarke rapped-up in duffle-coat and scarf, still he looked cold But not so ht,’ the Necroscope finally answered ’I haven’t found them, and that’s sort of killed off my drive Is that why you’re here, Darcy? To supplylike that,’ Clarke nodded ’I certainly hope so, anyway’
They passed through a door in the wall into Harry’s unkeables and dorh s looked down like frowning eyes in a haughty face Everything had been running wild in that garden for years; bra the path, so that the twoto a cobbled patio area, beyond which sliding glass doors stood open on Harry’s study
The roo: Clarke found hi on the threshold
’Enter of your own free will, Darcy,’ said Harry - and Clarke cast hilance Clarke’s talent, however, told hi to drive hiency to depart The Necroscope smiled, if wanly ’A joke,’ he said Tastes are like attitudes, given a different perspective they change’
Clarke stepped inside ’Ho the doors shut in their frames ’Don’t you think it suits ht: well, your taste was never what I would have called flamboyant Certainly the place suits your talent!
Harry waved Clarke into a cane chair, seated hie Clarke looked all about and tried to draw the rooloom was unnatural; the room wasout lass doors Finally Clarke could keep it back no longer ’A bit funereal, isn’t it?’ he said
Harry nodded his agreement ’It was my stepfather’s roo bastard! He tried to kill me, you know? He was a spotter, but different to the others He didn’t just smell espers out, he hated them! Indeed, he wished he couldn’t smell them out! The very feel of thee Drove hio at me’
Clarke nodded ’I know as much about you as any man, Harry He’s in the river, isn’t he? Shukshin? So if it bothers you, why the hell do you go on living here?’
Harry looked away for a moment ’Yes, he’s in the river,’ he said, ’where he tried to put me An eye for an eye And the fact that he lived here doesn’t bother me My mother’s here, too, re the dead; the rest of theood friends They don’t make any demands, the dead’ He fell silent for a moment, then continued: ’Anyway, Shukshin served his purpose: if it hadn’t been for hihtn’t be here now, talking to you Ithe stories of dead men’
Clarke, like Harry’s loomy introspection ’You don’t write any more?’
’They weren’telse, they were a means to an end No, I don’t write any ed the subject:
’I don’t love her, you know’ ’Eh?’
’Brenda,’ Harry shrugged ’Maybe I love the little fellow, but not his mother See, I remember what it was like when I did love her - of course I do, because I haven’t changed - but the physical me is different I’ve a new chemistry entirely It would never have worked, Brenda andwithwhere they are Knowing that they’re there but not knohere That’s what does it There were enough changes inoff, too Especially him And you know, for a while I was part of hily? - I taught hiot it from my mind, and I’m interested to knohat use he’s made of it But at the saone, she and I would have been finished long ago anyway Even if she’d recovered fully And soo away, and not only for her sake but his, too’
All of this had flooded out of Harry, poured out of hili that so, too ’Without knohere he’d gone, you thoughtfor hihter, and when he spoke his voice was cold again ’What would his life have been like with E-Branch?’ he said ’What would he be doing now, aged nine years old, eh? Little Harry Keogh Jnr: Necroscope and explorer of the Mobius Continuum?’
’Is that what you think?’ Clarke kept his voice even ’What you think of us?’ It could be that Harry was right, but Clarke liked to see it differently ’He’d have led whatever life he wanted to lead,’ he said This isn’t the USSR, Harry He wouldn’t have been forced to do anything Have we tried to tie you down? Have you been coerced, threatened, made to work for us? There’s no doubt about it but that you’d be our h is enough did we try to stop you fro? We asked you to stay, that’s all No one applied any pressure’
’But he would have grown up with you,’ Harry had thought it all out many, many times before ’He’d have been i and just wanted his freedoed off the un to impose upon hiot Harry Keogh talking about his problereater problems - and one in particular ’Harry,’ he said, very deliberately, ’we stopped looking for Brenda and the child six years ago We’d have stopped even sooner, except we believed we had a duty to you - even though you’d er had one to us The fact is that we really believed they were dead, othere’d have been able to find theed’
Things had changed? Slowly Clarke’s words sank in Harry felt the blood drain froled They had believed they were dead, but things had changed Harry leaned forward across the desk, al at him from eyes which had opened very wide ’You’ve found so hands, i ’We may have stumbled across a parallel case - ’ he said, ’ - or itelse entirely You see, we don’t have the means to check it out Only you can do that, Harry’
Harry’s eyes narrowed He felt he was being led on, that he was a donkey who’d been shown a carrot, but he didn’t let it anger hi even a carrot would be better than the weeds he’d been chewing on He stood up, ca the floor At last he stood still, faced Clarke where he sat Then you’d better tellanything’
Clarke nodded ’Neither alanced with disapproval all about the rooht in here, and so!’
Again Harry frowned Had Clarke got the upper hand as quickly and as easily as that? But he opened the glass doors and threw back the curtains anyway Then: Talk,’ he said, sitting down carefully again behind his desk
The roohter now and Clarke felt he could breathe He filled his lungs, leaned back and put his hands on his knees There’s a place in the Ural Mountains called Perchorsk,’ he said That’s where it all started’