The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

“Hold it! A real Earthcrosser would have logged the closest first!”

Victor sighed as Bowden reversed the order over the airwaves.

“Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon.”

The two men looked at Victor, nodded and then stepped back to let him pass, their manner changed abruptly to acute politeness.

“Thank you, sir. Sorry about that but, as I’m sure you realize, there are very many people who would like to see us stopped. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course, and may I congratulate you on your thoroughness, gentlemen. Good-day.”

As Victor walked by they stopped him again.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, sir?”

Victor turned. I had wondered about some sort of password, and if that was what they wanted now we were sunk. He decided to let them lead the situation.

“Leave it in the car, sir?” asked the first man after a pause. “Here, borrow mine.”

The security man reached inside his jacket and pulled out, not a gun as Victor expected, but a baseball catcher’s glove. He smiled and handed it over.

“I dare say I won’t make it up there today.”

Victor slapped his own forehead with the ball of his hand.

“Mind like a string bag. I must have left it at home. Imagine, coming to an Earthcrossers meet and forgetting my catcher’s glove!”

They all laughed with him dutifully; the first guard said:

“Have a good time, sir. Earthstrike is at 14:32.”

He thanked them both and hopped into the waiting Land Rover before they changed their minds. He looked at the catcher’s glove uneasily. What on earth were they up to?

The Land Rover dropped him at the east entrance to the hill-fort. He could see about fifty people milling around, all wearing steel helmets. A large tent had been set up in the center of the fo

rt and it bristled with aerials and a large satellite dish. Farther up the hill was a radar scanner that revolved slowly. He had expected to see a large telescope or something, but no such apparatus seemed to have been set up.

“Name?”

Victor turned to see a small man staring up at him. He was holding a clipboard and wearing a steel helmet and seemed to be taking full advantage of his limited authority.

Victor attempted a bluff.

“That’s me there,” he said, pointing at a name at the bottom of the list.

“Mr. Continued Overleaf, are you?”

“Above that,” Victor countered hurriedly.

“Mrs. Trotswell?”

“Oh, er, no. Ceres. Augustus Ceres.”

The small man consulted his list carefully, running a steel ballpoint pen down the row of names.

“No one of that name here,” he said slowly, looking at Victor suspiciously.

“I’m from Berwick-upon-Tweed,” explained Victor. “Late entry. I don’t suppose the news filtered through. Dr. Müller said I could drop in any time.”