'Hey, Thursday!' said a familiar male voice. I opened one eye and looked across at the soldier with his face bloodied and less than ten seconds of existence remaining on his slate. But it wasn't Anton – it was another officer, the one I had met earlier and with whom I had become involved.
'Thursday!' said Gran in a loud voice. 'Thursday, wake up!'
I was back in my bed on the Sunderland, drenched in sweat. I wished it had all just been a bad dream; but it was a bad dream and that was the worst of it.
'Anton's not dead,' I gabbled. 'He didn't die in the Crimea it was that other guy and that's the reason he's not here now because he died and I've been telling myself it was because he was eradicated by the ChronoGuard but he wasn't and—'
'Thursday!' snapped Gran. 'Thursday, that is not how it happened. Aornis is trying to fool with your mind. Anton died in the charge.'
'No, it was the other guy—'
'Landen?'
But the name meant little to me. Gran explained about Aornis and Landen and mnemonomorphs and, although I understood what she was saying, I didn't fully believe her. After all, I had seen the Landen fellow die in front of my own eyes, hadn't I?
'Gran,' I said, 'are you having one of your fuzzy moments?'
'No,' she replied, 'far from it.'
But her voice didn't have the same sort of confidence it usually did. She wrote Landen on my hand with a felt pen and I went back to sleep wondering what Anton was up to and thinking about the short and passionate fling I had enjoyed in the Crimea with that lieutenant, the one whose name I couldn't remember – the one who died in the charge.
23
Jurisfiction
session number 40320
* * *
'Snell was buried in the Text Sea. It was invited guests only so although Havisham went, I did not. Both Perkins and Snell's places were to be taken by B-2 Generics who had been playing them for a while in tribute books – the copies you usually find in cheaply printed book-of-the-month choices. As they lowered Snell's body into the sea to be reduced to letters, the Bellman tingled his bell and spoke a short eulogy for both of them. Havisham said it was very moving – but the most ironic part of it was that the entire Perkins & Snell detective series was to be offered as a boxed set, and neither of them would ever know it.'
THURSDAY NEXT The Jurisfiction Chronicles
I felt tired and washed out the following morning Gran was still fast asleep, snoring loudly with Pickwick on her lap, when I got up I made a cup of coffee and was sitting at the kitchen table reading Movable Type and feeling grotty when there was a gentle rap at the door. I looked up too quickly and my head throbbed.
'Yes?' I called
'It's Dr Fnorp. I teach Lola and Randolph.'
I opened the door, checked his ID and let him in. He was a tall man who seemed quite short and was dark haired although on occasion seemed blond. He spoke with a notable accent from nowhere at all, and he had a limp – or perhaps not. He was a Generic's Generic – all things to all people.
'Coffee?'
'Thank you,' he said, adding 'Ah-ha!' when he saw the article I had been reading. 'Every year there are more categories!'
He was referring to the BookWorld Awards which had, I noted earlier, been sponsored by UltraWord™.
' "Dopiest Shakespearean Character,' " he read. 'Othello should win that one hands down. Are you going to the Bookies?'
'I've been asked to present one,' I replied. 'Being the newest Jurisfiction member affords one that privilege, apparently.'
'Oh?' he replied. 'It's the first year all the Generics will be going – we've had to give them a day off college.'
'What can I do for you?'
'Well,' he began, 'Lola has been late every day this week, constantly talks in class, leads the other girls astray, smokes, swears and was caught operating a distillery in the science block. She has little respect for authority and has slept with most of her male classmates.'
'That's terrible!' I said. 'What shall we do?'