loose.
'I wasn't sure how long the D.O.'d lain there, so I checked that he was okay then went to see if the Ops Room was safe. The place was working as normal… incoming, that is. Several messages, waiting for answers, and situation reports coiling up on the floor. There was some Cosmic Secret stuff that the D.O. must have been processing when Miller attracted his attention. Quite a bit of it had been decoded. Then I remembered how you'd asked for background information on Miller. That was there, too, coming out of the printer even as I got there. But there was stuff that should have been there and wasn't… like a lot of Cosmic Secret stuff from HQ? The printouts had been ripped through and some of the serials were missing. We'll need to get them duplicated, find out what was on them.
'Anyway, I grabbed the stuff on Miller, then began to wake people up. Now they're all awake, though I don't see what they can do to help. Oh yes, and here's all the background information on Miller…' He thrust some sheets of printout at Trask.
But before Trask could even begin reading, Goodly went on: 'Miller isn't as mundane as you think, Ben. But he is an obsessive nut, and the black sheep of the family. His uncle was big in Western Australian politics, got him work as a minor official in a job where he didn't have a lot to do but could indulge his thirst for power — in however small a way. Why else do you suppose he's the guardian of a million square miles of nothing? To keep him out of the way, that's why. Good grief, and we had to get lumbered with him.' Come to think of it, it's likely that that, too, came about as a result of his uncle's influence.
'Okay, his obsessions. Anything…! I mean it: this fellow can get hooked on literally anything! An obsessive personality, it's as simple — or not as simple — as that. But guess what? Back in the late 1970s, early '80s, he saw Close Encounters and E.T. — well, who didn't? But this is Peter Miller we're talking about.' He joined a whacky UFO group, of which he's still a member, and wrote two 'Friendly Aliens Are Here' books that didn't get published. Need I say more? No way you could have convinced this bloke that we were in the right last night, Ben. No way at all…'
'I see,' said Trask. And, after he had given it a moment's thought, 'Do we have any idea how long he's been gone?'
'Judging by the D.O.'s signatures in the message log, maybe three, three and a half hours,' Goodly answered.
Trask nodded. 'Then he could be anywhere by now. Two hundred and more miles away, for all we know.' So no good our trying to chase him. Very well, here are the priorities. I want Lardis and the D.O. taken care of as best possible. And I want a man — you, lan — in the Ops chair sending out wanted notices to all the police authorities in a two hundred miles radius… better make it three hundred miles… or better still, all of Western Australia!' But on second thought: 'No, wait, send out just one, to the Internal Security people in Perth. He's their man, after all, so let them go after him. Oh, and check that they have his profile, too, which ought to scotch any 'wild stories' that Miller may be circulating. And finally, I want to know what was on those missing printouts…'
Trask paused, shrugged, and eventually continued, 'Anyway, there's one good thing come out of all this: I won't be wasting half a. day handing Miller over to the IS people in Perth. And as for right now… I'm hungry.' He headed for the trench with the back-burner, which someone had fired up. Tm going to have breakfast.'
By which time an agent was tending to Lardis, and all over the camp sleepy-looking people were on the move. The jetcopter had landed, and Phillips the pilot was leading a tall, grizzled stranger — strange to Jake, anyway — through the grey predawn light between the trees into the camp's clearing. Trask spotted them as they came striding through thinning ground mist; waving to attract their attention, he diverted his steps in their direction. Jake followed on behind him.
'Grahame,' Trask smiled a greeting. 'If it's no the laird himself. It's been quite a few years now.' But while Jake might wonder at Trask's assumed accent, the stranger's seemed perfectly in keeping and went well with the swing of his kilt:
'Aye, that it has,' he rumbled through the full grey beard that gave him his grizzled aspect, grinning to display a bar of strong square teeth. 'What, twelve years? How goes it with you, Benjamin? You and yere bleddy gadgets!'
They shook hands… but in the next moment the stranger's searching eyes, those oh so dark eyes of his, transferred their gaze to Jake. 'And this'll be the subject, is it no?'
PART TWO
'It is Trask nodded. 'As for the gadgets — like the one that flew you here in a matter of hours — well, they're improving all the time, if that in itself can be considered an improvement.' But to be truthful, which I always am, I find it harder and harder to keep up. Future shock, or something. Anyway, it's not that side of the equation that concerns us, not this time/
'Then if it's no the gadgets, it must be the ghosts/ said the other, still staring at Jake.
And Trask nodded. 'One ghost, anyway/ he said…
The Why Of It
CHAPTER NINE Regression
As they seated themselves at a folding table, to a breakfast of black coffee in plastic mugs and bacon and eggs on paper plates, Trask made belated introductions. 'Jake Cutter, mah guid friend here is Grahame McGilchrist, Laird o' Kinlochry…' But then he ahemmed his embarrassment, and went on, 'Who, despite my atrociously false and corny accent, is the genuine article.'
Shaking hands with the big Scotsman across the table, Jake said, 'A Scottish laird, living on the other side of the world? There has to be something of a story in that.'
'No much o' a one,' the other rumbled. 'It's simply a matter o' choice. See, the McGilchrist estate went broke all o' a hundred years ago. Oh, Ah had mah crumblin' old castle, but in truth Ah wiz a figurehead in the local community, and that wiz a'. But Ah still had mah pride. So, when a cousin o' mine pegged it out here in Oz and left me his wee place in Carnarvon, Ah came out and took over. That was some nine years ago.'
'That 'wee place' Grahame's talking about,' Trask cut in, 'is two and a half thousand acres of well-watered farmland east of Carnarvon. If he wanted to sell up he could go back home and be a proper laird again.'
'But Ah willnae do it,' McGilchrist said. 'Ah have lads tae tend mah land and animals, while Ah have mah own interests.'
'He has a practice in Carnarvon/ Trask explained. 'His own special slant on psychiatry.'
'Aye, and there ye have the other reason why Ah made mahsel scarce frae they so-called 'British' Isles.' McGilchrist cocked his head, frowned at Trask and winked at Jake. 'Tae escape frae these bleddy E-Branch types!'
'He worked for us a while/ Trask said. But Jake had been quick to catch on to something else. 'Psychiatry?' he said, suspiciously. 'And I'm the subject?'
Liz Merrick appeared out of nowhere, looking great in black slacks, cowboy boots and a frilly white blouse. Seating herself beside Jake, she said, 'And a suitable subject at that/'
'Thanks/ Jake told her sourly, while he waited for Trask's or McGilchrist's explanation. And:
'Hypnotic regression/ Trask said without further preamble. 'That's Grahame's speciality. It's not a 'talent' as recognized by E-Branch — that is, it isn't some strange parapsychological ability, though the way it works for Grahame it might well be — but it does come in useful in cases like yours/ 'Cases like mine?' Again Jake waited.
'Where the subject has subconsciously deleted some part of his memory/ Trask said. 'Or something else has
