Something Rotten (Thursday Next 4)

Neanderthal Nation

NEANDERTHALS 'OF USE' AT POLITICIANS' TRAINING COLLEGE

Neanderthals, the re-engineered property of the Goliath Corporation, found unexpected employment at the Chipping Sodbury College for Politicians yesterday when four selected individuals were inducted as part of the 'Public Office Veracity Economies' class. Neanderthals, whose high facial acuity skills make them predisposed to noticing an untruth, are used by students to hone their lying skills — something that trainee politicians might find useful once in office. 'Man, those Thals can spot everything!' declared Mr Richard Dixon. a first-year student. 'Nothing gets past them — even a mild embellishment or a tactical omission!' The lecturers at the college declared themselves wholly pleased with the Neanderthals and privately admitted that: 'If the proletariat were even half as good at spotting lies, we'd really be in the soup!"

Article in The Toad (political section). 4 July 1988

The hunt for At Long Last Lust had been going on all morning but with little success. Kaine had almost two years' head start on us. Of the one hundred copies in the print run, sixty-two had changed hands within the past eighteen months. Initially they had been for modest sums of a thousand pounds or so, but there is nothing like a mystery buyer with deep pockets to push up the price and the last copy sold was for £720,000 at Agatha's Auction House - an unprecedented sum, even for a pre-war Farquitt.

The likelihood of finding a copy of Lust was looking increasingly slim. I called Farquitt's agent, who said that the author's entire library had been confiscated and the septuagenarian author questioned at length about pro-Danish political activism before being released. Even a visit to the Library of Farquitt in Didcot didn't bear any fruit - their original manuscript of At Long Last Lust and a signed copy had both been seized by 'government agents' nearly eighteen months before. The librarian met us in the sculpted marble hall and, after telling us not to talk so loudly, reported that representative copies of all Farquitt's works were packed and ready for removal 'as soon as we wanted'. Bowden responded that we'd be heading towards the border just as soon as we finalised the details. He didn't look at me as he said it but I knew what he was thinking - I still needed to figure out a way to get us across the border.

We drove back to the LiteraTecs' office in silence, and as soon as we got in I called Landen. My wedding ring, which had been appearing and disappearing all morning, had been solid for a good twenty minutes.

'Yo, Thursday!' he said enthusiastically. 'What happened to you yesterday? We were talking and you just went quiet.'

'Something came up.'

'Why don't you come round for lunch? I've got fish fingers, beans and peas - with mashed banana and cream for pudding.'

'Have you been discussing the menu with Friday?'

'Whatever made you think that?'

'I'd love to, Land. But you're still a bit existentially unstable at the moment, so I'd only end up embarrassing myself in front of your parents again - and I've got to go and meet someone to talk about Shakespeares.'

'Anyone I know?'

'Bartholomew Stiggins.'

'The Neanderthal?'

'Yes.'

'Hope you like beetles. Call me when I exist next. I lo—'

The line went dead. My wedding ring had gone again too.

I listened to the dial tone for a moment, tapping the receiver thoughtfully on my forehead.

'I love you too, Land,' I said softly.

'Your Welsh contact?' asked Bowden, walking up with a fax from the Karen Blixen Appreciation Society.

'Not exactly.'

'New players for the Superhoop, then?'

'If only. Goliath and Kaine have frightened every player in the country except Penelope Hrah, who'll play for food and doesn't care what anyone says, thinks or does.'

'Didn't she have a leg torn off during the Newport Strikers versus Dartmoor Wanderers semi-final a few years back?'

'I'm in no position to be choosy, Bowd. If I put her on back-hoop defence she can just growl at anyone who comes close. Ready for lunch?'

The Neanderthal population of Swindon numbered about three hundred and they all lived in a small village to the west known as 'The Nation'. Because of their tool-using prowe

ss, they were just given six acres of land, water and sewage points and told to get on with it, as if they needed to be asked, which they didn't.

The Neanderthals were not human nor descendants of ours, but cousins. They had evolved at the same time as us, then been forced into extinction when they failed to compete successfully with the more aggressive human. Brought back to life by Goliath Bioengineering in the late thirties and early forties, they were as much a part of modern life as dodos or mammoths. And since they had been sequenced by Goliath, each individual was actually owned by the corporation. A less than generous 'buy-back' scheme to be able to purchase oneself hadn't been well received.