‘I wish you to take me to see Toolust right away. We will drive in the car.’ He had a sudden memory, quickly suppressed, of the adventure stories of his boyhood, with the hero saying to the skull-sucking Martians, ‘Take me to your leader.’
All Hippo said was, ‘Toolust is his pen name. It sounds less roman than his real name, which is Toolrust.’
He walked toward the door and Birdlip followed. Only for a moment was the latter tempted to call Freddie Freud and get him to come along; a feeling that he was on the brink of a great discovery assailed him. He had no intention of giving Freud the chance to steal the glory.
As they passed through the entrance hall, a book lying near their feet began to cry out about the Turkish annexation of the Suezzeus Canal on Mars. Tidy-minded as ever, Birdlip picked it up and put it in a cubbyhole, and they moved into the quiet street.
A cleaner was rolling by, a big eight-wheel independent-axle robot. It came to a car parked in its path and instead of skirting it as usual made clumsy attempts to climb it.
With a cry, Birdlip ran around the corner to his own car. Romen, owing to stabilisation difficulties, can quicken their pace but cannot run; Hippo rounded the corner in time to find his lord and master invoking the deity in unpleasantly personal terms.
The cleaner, besides flattening Birdlip’s car, had scratched most of the beautiful oak veneer off it with its rotating bristles, and had flooded the interior with cleaning fluid.
‘The world’s slowly going to pieces,’ Birdlip said, calming at last. ‘This would never have happened a few years ago.’ The truth of his own remarks bearing in upon him, he fell silent.
‘We could walk to Paddington in only ten minutes,’ Hippo said.
Squaring his chin again, Birdlip said, ‘Take me to your leader.’
‘To lead a quiet life here is impossible,’ Freud said, dropping the leather whip. ‘What’s that shouting downstairs?’
Because Bucket’s hide still echoed, he went to his office door and opened it.
‘… the Suezzeus Canal …’ roared a voice from downstairs. Freud was in time to see his partner pick up the offending volume and then walk out with Hippo.
Rolling down his sleeves, Freud said, ‘Off out with a roman at this time of day! Where does he think he’s going?’
‘Where does he think he’s going?’ Captain Pavment asked, floating high above the city and peering into his little screen.
‘He has not properly finished beating Bucket,’ said Toggle. ‘Could we not report him for insanity?’
‘We could, but it would do no good. The authorities these days are no more interested in the individual, it seems, than the individual is in authority.’
He bent gloomily back over the tiny screen, where a tiny Freud hurried downstairs, followed by a tiny Bucket. And again the captain muttered, enjoying his tiny mystery, ‘Where does he think he’s going?’
The going got worse. Only a few main routes through the city were maintained. Between them lay huge areas that year by year bore a closer resemblance to rockeries.
It made for a striking and new urban landscape. Birdlip and Hippo passed inhabited buildings that lined the thoroughfares. These were always sleek, low, and well-maintained. Often their facades were covered with bright mosaics in the modern manner, designed to soften their outlines. Over their flat roofs copters hovered.
Behind them, around them, stood the slices of ruin or half ruin: hideous Nineteenth Century warehouses, ghastly Twentieth Century office blocks, revolting Twenty-First Century academies, all transmuted by the hand of decay. Over their rotting roofs pigeons wheeled. Plants, even trees, flourished in their areas and broken gutters.
Birdlip picked his way through grass, looking out for ruts in the old road. They had to make a detour to get around a railway bridge that had collapsed, leaving the rails to writhe through the air alone. Several times, animals vanished into the rubble at their coming and birds signalled their approach. On one corner an old man sat, not lifting his eyes to regard them.
Over Birdlip settled the conviction that he had left the present – neither for past nor future but for another dimension. He asked himself, Why am I following a roman? It’s never been done before. And his thoughts answered him, How do you know? How many men may not have walked this way ahead of me?
A large part of his own motive in coming here was plain to him: he was at least partially convinced by the arguments in Toolrust’s book; he had a fever to publish it.
‘We are nearly there, sir,’ said Hippo.
His warning was hardly necessary, for now several romen, mainly older models, were to be seen, humming gently as they moved along.
‘Why aren’t these romen at work?’ Birdlip said.
‘Often their employers die and they come here before they are switched off or because they are forgotten – or if not here they go to one of the other refuges somewhere else. Men bother very little about romen, sir.’
A heavily built roman streaked with pigeon droppings lumbered forward and asked them their business. Hippo answered him shortly; they moved around a corner, and there was their destination, tucked snugly away from the outside world.
An entire square had been cleared of debris. Though many windows were broken, though the Victorian railings reeled and cringed with age, the impression was not one of dereliction. A rocab stood in the middle of the square; several romen unloaded boxes from it. Romen walked in and out of the houses.
Somehow Birdlip did not find the scene unattractive. Analysing his reaction, he thought, ‘Yes, it’s the sanitariness of romen I like; the sewage system in these parts must have collapsed long ago – if these were all men and women living here, the place would stink.’ Then he dismissed the thought on a charge of treason.
Hippo trudged over to one of the houses, the door of which sagged forward on its hinges. Punching it open, Hippo walked in and called, ‘Toolrust!’
A figure appeared on the upper landing and looked down at them. It was a woman.
‘Toolrust is resting. Who is it?’
Even before she spoke, Birdlip knew her. Those eyes, that nose, the mouth – and the inflexions of the voice confirmed it!
‘Maureen Freud? May I come in? I am January Birdlip, your brother’s partner,’ he said.
‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ said Freud. ‘Why should I die for my partner? Let me rest a moment, Bucket. Bucket, are you sure he came this way?’
‘Quite certain,’ said Bucket without inflexion.
Untiringly he led his master over the debris of an old railway bridge that had collapsed, leaving its rails to writhe through the air alone.
‘Hurry up, sir, or we shall never catch Mr Birdlip.’
‘Mr Birdlip, come up,’ the woman said.
Birdlip climbed the rickety stair until he was facing her. Although he regarded her without curiosity – for after all whatever she did was her own concern – he noticed that she was still a fine-looking woman. Either an elusive expression on her face or the soft towelling gown she wore about her gave her an air of motherliness. Courteously, Birdlip held out his hand.
‘Mr Birdlip knows about Toolrust and has read his book,’ Hippo said from behind.
‘It was good of you to come,’ Maureen Freud said. ‘Were you not afraid to visit Tintown, though? Steel is so much stronger than flesh.’
‘I’m not a brave man, but I’m a publisher,’ Birdlip explained. ‘I think the world should read Toolrust’s book; it will make men examine themselves anew.’
‘And have you