Here Be Monsters

because they meant battle-cruisers - too big to fight, and too fast to out-run - I'm sure you remember that, Miss Loftus.'

Elizabeth did remember that, from Father's cold comparison of the customs of naval warfare in the good old days of wooden ships, when a man could surrender to superior force without losing his honour, and the rules of the supposedly more civilized twentieth century, in which no quarter was asked or granted - 'the logical requirement of democratic warfare, which was of course conducted not for vulgar profit, but for noble causes.'

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'I see.' And on a quite juvenile level she could see that James had warned Paul not to tangle with Mrs Harlin, who certainly had tripod masts. But, on a more serious level, Paul had seen the masts, yet had stayed to fight. 'So what is it that you have to tell me, that's so important it can't wait?'

'Okay.' While she had been thinking, so had he been. 'I think we have all the ingredients of a panic. And, as we don't have them very often here, they always scare the pants off me.'

'What sort of panic?' The why could come later.

'I don't know, exactly. But all the signs are there.'

Better to let him have his way. She must be late already, but she could handle the Deputy-Director, at a pinch. 'What signs?'

'We've all been taken off what we were doing. And I know what I was doing - and what you were doing, close enough. And I know what Major Turnbull was doing, for other reasons, which I don't intend to bore you with . . . And I've a pretty damn good idea what old James was up to, come to that.'

As usual, he knew too much for his own good.

'All right.' He misread her silence and her expression, nevertheless: with people, and perhaps with her in particular, he was fallible. 'They took me off. And they took David Audley off. And they took you off. Which I know because I have this access to the computer, to pick its brains, and they haven't cancelled it. So I tried to pick yours a couple of days ago. And you just weren't available. See?'

Even with her limited experience, Elizabeth saw. Anyone armed with those rights of access and his knowledge of how the department worked (never mind his insatiable curiosity) could probably elicit a great deal of information. For a start it might be mostly negative, but he would surely have more sophisticated methods than counting the cars in the car park to find out more.

The very thought made her cautious. 'And what did you conclude from that, Dr Mitchell?'

'It didn't start with you.' He shook his head. 'I was engaged in something quite interesting, not to say important.' The shake became almost an apologetic shrug. 'I thought maybe I could find a substitute.'

Again, Elizabeth saw - and saw also how he had reached this pass: he had cast around for someone else to do the job he'd been given - someone engaged on less important matters -

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before making a fuss. And, naturally enough, he'd tried to hang the albatross on her neck first - the most junior, if not the newest, recruit.

Oh, typical Paul! 'And came up with a dusty answer?'

The corridor door behind them swished and she saw his eyes flick past her, and then come back to her almost pleadingly.

'Miss Loftus - ' She just caught the last of Mrs Harlin's frown at Paul as she turned ' - the Deputy-Director has asked for you again. I cannot reasonably invent another excuse, unless you actually wish to be indisposed. At the moment he insists that either you are here, or you aren't.' She gave Elizabeth the benefit of the doubt, just. 'I do think you ought to come now.'

Tripod masts! thought Elizabeth. Or, to get away from their ridiculous naval code, from a past which she preferred to forget, here was a snake or a ladder, and she could choose whether to go up or down.

Thank you, Mrs Harlin. Please tell the Deputy-Director that I'll be with him as soon as I'm free.'

Mrs Harlin very nearly replied. But then she didn't, and Elizabeth watched the door swish, and lock.

'This had better be good, Paul - Dr Mitchell.' That he was regarding her with that ridiculous expression only irritated her more, sharpening her voice: on his face it was a positively unnatural look, quite alien to his character. 'And it had better be quick, too.'

'Oh - it's good.' Far too late, he erased the expression. 'That is, it's good intelligence. But it's bad news for you. Because I think Fatso is going to send you into the field.'

'Why - ' She just caught the wrong question in time -the Why do you think that's bad news?

question. ' How d'you know I'm going into the field?' Besides, damn it, it wasn't bad news at all - it was good news!

'Because Jim Cable is taking your job, as of now. And you've got an appointment with Fatso in minus five minutes. And because I can read the signs when they're in big flashing neon lights.'

He knew more than he was saying. All that stuff about using his SG rights might be true, but that also was window-dressing, concealing some other source of information which he was not about to reveal. So she must push him.

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'You haven't really told me anything I couldn't deduce from the cars down below.' She gave him Admiral Varney's down-the-nose look.

'Is that so?' She got a Mitchell-ancestor look in return - maybe from his 1918 grandfather, of whom he was so inordinately proud, who had died on the far side of the Hindenburg Line.

'And you counted David Audley's car too, did you? And that didn't worry you, then?'

'Why should that worry me?' But it did now, all the same.