thousand people, farmers and herders. They have a peaceful culture They worship gods of crop and sun and water and air. They are highly organized, cooperative people. They are on average four inches taller than adults in Europe.”
The pictures fading into one another mesmerized Minogue. He managed to glance at the others. Even Higgins looked lost in his gaze at the screen. The changed tone in the narration brought him back to the screen now.
“They will continue to live here for another fifteen centuries,” the voice announced, “living in peace and then becoming a forgotten people at around the same time as Babylon falls. The Valley of the Kings will be abandoned to the desert and the Romans will dominate half the known world. Greek civilization will flourish and then fade, as will Rome’s. The Middle Ages will dawn and then fade. The first planes will pass over the west coast of Ireland before the world will know the Carra Fields again.”
Images began to fade and arrive faster now. Long, walled fields, loose-stone dwellings, kilted and breeched ancients laboring happily among crops, sounds of cattle lowing. Who are these forgotten people? the narrator asks An intricate pattern of stones made into a wall formed the rest of a burial chamber. A fire burning in an open field at night. The narration gave way to music again.
Higgins hit some keys and the screen returned to a map of Ireland. He rolled away again and folded his arms. Minogue looked around the room. A half dozen computers, several high-tech mystery boxes, lots of wires, cluttered desks, shelves overflowing.
“Deadlines,” said Garland. “History doesn’t wait for anyone now.”
“Is this part of Ms. Hartnett’s project?”
“She’s the coordinator,” said Higgins. “She set up the project and sorts out who and when and that.”
Garland turned to Minogue. He nodded at the screen.
“Dermot is bringing us into the modern age. We’re set to launch a CD-ROM in, when is it?”
“Five weeks,” said Higgins. “That is the plan.”
“This’ll be a first,” said Garland. “You can put any language to it.”
“Great,” said Minogue. Garland shifted his weight.
“Sure there’s no word from Aoife, Dermot?” he asked. “A card, maybe?”
“Well I haven’t seen one yet. Sure she’s only gone awhile. Ask the others, but I’m pretty sure.”
“Does Aoife know the ins and outs of this stuff here?”
Higgins looked up at Minogue and scratched at the stubble on his cheeks.
“Well not the technical end really. The putting together of it. She knows how to run it, the software, I mean. She’s in on the testing and all. It’s a team thing, you see, it’s not just computers. We have a graphic artist and a programmer too.”
“Do you get a lot of visitors here?” Minogue asked.
“With Aoife, like‘”
“With or without.”
Higgins looked over at Garland before he spoke.
“There’d be people coming by fairly regularly though, I suppose. Sponsors, computing people. I don’t be here in the mornings, so I don’t know.”
“Dermot’s in Trinity College,” said Garland. “The multimedia center there. The greenhouse-looking place by the train station. The Oh Really, they call it.”
Minogue said, “You mentioned sponsors.”
“Oh yes indeed,” said Garland. “One of the banks, Bord Failte, Apple. There’s the European heritage money too of course.”
Minogue gazed at the screen with the map of Ireland and glowing buttons.
“It’s really something,” said Garland. “Isn’t it? No matter where you are in the world you can travel through Irish history — without leaving your chair ”
Minogue looked at his watch.
“Tommy, will you follow along with Mr. Garland there? I’ll be along in a few moments. Let me just look at this stuff a minute.”
Higgins opened a can of Pepsi and rolled back to the computer. There was a stack of empty lemonade cans built on a ledge by the door. Minogue watched the mouse cursor flick about the screen, pages and pictures and boxes, folders opening and closing.
“A lot of pressure on deadlines, is there?”
Higgins didn’t answer for a moment.
“As much as you’d want,” he said.
“Part of the job, is it?”
“Yeah. No big deal though.”
Higgins sipped Pepsi and looked back at the screen.
“It’s an appliance,” he said. He began clicking again. “That’s all. Think of a telly. A car. A cooker. A stereo. You know?”
Minogue watched the erupting pages of words and colors, the dancing icons.
“What’s the end result going to be again?”
“A CD-ROM.”
A small window with an image of a sunset picture over a Celtic cross sprang up on the screen. The blurriness was intentional, Minogue realized. Higgins clicked a button under the cross. Minogue shifted his lean to his other foot. A film, by God.
A box of words appeared beside the film window. Lines rolled by themselves.
“Memory’s cheap now,” Higgins murmured.
“Memory?”
Higgins glanced up.
“To run the thing, sorry.”
“RAM, is it?”
“Are you into computing?”
“No.”
“Use them at work?”
“My colleagues do. I know how to run a search, a database.”
“Ever see your photofit crowd in action?” Higgins asked. “The composites?”
“A few times.”
“Impressed?”
“I certainly was,” said Minogue.
The window disappeared, the mouse tugged at another, widening it.
“You can never have too much memory. To run the software, like.”
“A lot of this can go on the Web site,” Higgins went on. “Ovation.”
A type of chocolate, Minogue thought. There was that subdued, almost dismissive tone to Higgins’s voice now, a mixture of ardor and indifference that was familiar to Minogue. He had heard it off Murtagh, the voice trailing off as he lost himself in some tricky bit of computing.
“Ovation?” he tried.
“Online Visitor Information. Doesn’t really fit, but.”
“Did you make it?”
“No. I put things together behind the scenes. Are you a superintendent?”
“Inspector.”
A window opened on the screen. Something called Director flashed on.
“What’s Aoife done?”
“Nothing that I know of. Do you know different?”
“I work with her. Aoife’s the real thing. We’d be nowhere without her.”
“Nowhere?”
“With this. That’s her voice I used in the commentary, you know.”
The screen went dark. The bodhrans began, and the screen began to fade into a map of Europe. A plaintive tinwhistle. God, not another one, Minogue thought: when could we drop the sorrow and moaning, the suffering
