The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 19

'No, you're one of those dropouts. Had a place at Manchester University, but left after a term. Couldn't hack the accents oop North?'

'The band was taking off. All our gigs are in London.'

'Don't have to justify your life choices to us, mate. Except one.'

Fred wasn't being quite so jokey.

'I think you should listen,' said Vanessa, close to his ear. 'The world really does need saving.'

Jamie knew as much from Heather Wilding. She'd been more businesslike, drenched in Charlie, her cream suit almost-invisibly damp under the arms, two blouse buttons deliberately left unfastened to show an armoured white lace foundation garment.

'The other lot offered a retainer,' he said. 'Enough for a new amp.'

'We heard you'd been approached,' said Vanessa. 'And were reluctant. Very wise.'

Wilding hinted Transhumance might be signed to a Derek Leech label. They didn't only put out moaning hippie box sets and collected bubblegum hits.

'You won't need an amp in the ice age,' said Fred. 'They'll be burning pop groups to keep going for a few more days.'

'Yeah, I'm already shivering,' said Jamie, unpicking wet cotton from his breastbone. 'Chills up my spine.'

'All this heat is a sign of the cold, they say.'

'You what?'

Fred cracked a laugh. 'Trust us, there could be a cold spell coming.'

'Roll on winter, mate.'

'Careful what you wish for, Jamie,' said Vanessa.

She found his Dad's goggles in a box of eight-track tapes, and slipped them over his head. He saw clearly through the old, tinted glass.

'Saddle up and ride, cowboy,' she said. 'We're putting together a posse. Just for this round-up. No long- term contract involved.'

'Why do you need me?' he asked.

'We need everybody,' said Fred, laying a palm on the van and wincing — it was like touching a griddle. 'Especially you, shadow-boy. You've got a licence to drive and your own transport. Besides standing on the front lines for democracy and decent grub, you can give some of your new comrades a lift to the front. And I don't mean Brighton.'

Jamie didn't like the sound of this. 'What?' he protested.

'Congratulations, Junior Shade. You've got a new backing group. Are you ready to rock and — indeed — roll?'

Jamie felt that a trap had snapped around him. He was going into the family business after all.

He was going to be a doctor.

III

Inside the research station, crystals crunched underfoot and granulated on every surface. White stalactites hung from doorframes and the ceiling. Windows were iced over and stunted pot-plants frostbitten solid. Even light bulbs had petals of ice.

Powdery banks of frost (indoor rime? snow, even?) drifted against cabinets of computers. Trudged pathways of clear, deep footprints ran close to the walls, and they kept to them — leaving most of the soft, white, glistening carpet untouched. Richard saw little trails had been blazed into the rooms, keeping mainly to the edges and corners with rare, nimbler tracks to desks or workbenches. The prints had been used over again, as if their maker (Professor Cleaver?) were leery of trampling virgin white and trod carefully on the paths he had made when the cold first set in.

The Professor led them through the cafeteria, where trestle tables and chairs were folded and stacked away to clear the greatest space possible. Here, someone had been playing — making snow-angels, by lying down on the thick frost and moving their arms to make wing-shapes. Richard admired the care that had been taken. The silhouettes — three of them, with different wings, as if writing something in semaphore — matched Cleaver's tubby frame, but Richard couldn't imagine why he had worked so hard on something so childish. Leech had said he didn't employ frivolous people.

If anything, it was colder indoors than out. Richard felt sharp little chest-pains when he inhaled as if he were flash-freezing his alveoli. His exposed face was numb. He worried that if he were to touch his moustache, half would snap off.

They were admitted to the main laboratory. A coffee percolator was frosted up, its jug full of frothy brown solid. On a shelf stood a goldfish bowl, ice bulging over the rim. A startled fish was trapped in the miniature arctic. Richard wondered if it was still alive — like those dinosaurs they found in the 1950s. Here, the floor had been walked over many times, turned to orange slush and frozen again, giving it a rough moon-surface texture. Evidently, this was where the Professor lived.

Richard idly fumbled open a ringbinder that lay on a desk, and pressed his mitten to brittle blue paper.

'Paws off,' snapped Cleaver, snatching the file away and hugging it. 'That's tip-top secwet.'

'Not from me,' insisted Leech, holding out his hand. 'I sign the cheques, remember. You work for me.'

If Derek Leech signed his own cheques, Richard would be surprised.

'My letter of wesignation is in the post,' said Cleaver. He blinked furiously when he spoke, as if simultaneously translating in Morse. Rhotacism made him sound childish. How cruel was it to give a speech impediment a technical name that sufferers couldn't properly pronounce? 'I handed it to the postman personally. I think he twied to deliver it to you outside. Vewy dedicated, the Post Office. Not snow, nor hail, and so on and so forth.'

Leech looked sternly at the babbling little man.

'In that case, you'd better hand over all your materials and leave this facility. Under the circumstances, the severance package will not be generous.'

Cleaver wagged a shaking hand at his former employer, not looking him in the eye. His blinks and twitches shook his whole body. He was laughing.

'In my letter,' he continued, 'I explain fully that this facility has declared independence from your organization. Indeed, fwom all Earthly authowity. There are pwecedents. I've also witten to the Pwime Minister and the Met Office.'

Leech wasn't used to this sort of talk from minions. Normally, Richard would have relished the Great Enchanter's discomfort. But it wasn't clear where his own — or, indeed, anybody's — best interests were in Ice Station Sutton Mallet.

'Mr Leech, I know,' said Cleaver, 'not that we've ever met. I imagine you thought you had more important things to be bothewing with than poor old Clever Dick Cleaver's weather wesearch. Jive music and porn and so forth. I hear you've started a holiday company. Fun in the sun and all that. Jolly good show. Soon you'll be able to open bobsled runs on the Costa Bwava. I'm not surprised you've shown your face now. I expected it and I'm glad you're here. You, I had planned for. No, the face I don't know… don't know at all… is yours.'

Cleaver turned to Richard.

'Richard Jeperson,' he introduced himself. 'I'm from…'

'… the Diogenes Club!' said Cleaver, viciously. 'Yes, yes, yes, of course. I see the gleam. The wighteous gleam. Know it of old. The insuffewability. Is that fwightful Miss Cathewina Kaye still alive?'

'Catriona,' corrected Richard. 'Yes.'

Currently, Catriona Kaye was Acting Chairman of the Ruling Cabal of the Diogenes Club. She had not sought the position. After the death of Edwin Winthrop, her partner in many things, no one else had been qualified.