Tom Krossington and family still lived in the eighteenth-century farmhouse purchased by their grandfather Wilson Krossington before the Glorious Resolution. It cost the (as it now seemed) modest sum of about two thousand ounces of gold equivalent in the Sterling paper crap of the time. The style of the house was a timeless simplicity. Only the steeply-pitched roof and thick chimney punching through the exact middle like the handle of a pan dated the house to the pre-industrial era.
The rumble of a motorbike approached through the village. It rolled into the Krossington’s courtyard ridden by TK’s bodyguard Wingfield. He pulled the bike onto its centre stand and switched off the engine.
TK was about to call down a cheery offer of tea from his first-floor office until Wingfield’s stony face deterred him. His bodyguard marched straight in by the back door, calling a gruff hello to the butler. He must now be ascending the wooden stairs, although as usual TK heard nothing until a brisk rap on the door.
TK’s office was no marble-pillared hall of power. It was a corner room with two small, diamond-paned windows, one of which overlooked the courtyard, the other a gable end of one of the barns. The ceiling was low. Steel filing cabinets around the walls added to the congested feeling. TK had no need of any grandiose office here at home.
“You look as if a squadron of seagulls just shat all over your motorbike,” TK said. Wingfield pulled out a chair and wedged himself across from TK, who waited for what was obviously bad news.
“I told you back in the spring I had recruited Donald Aldingford’s chauffeur. The man’s name is Okeke Ortalo,” Wingfield said.
“Yes, I recall.”
“He’s proved to be a good agent, not just for watching Aldingford but as a channel for all sorts of gossip running around the servants of the Central Enclave.”
“Great stuff.”
“He told me something very serious. I had to do some independent checking as this is too important to accept from one source. That’s why I’ve not told you sooner.”
“What’s up?”
“A leading member of the National Party visited Donald Aldingford last Sunday afternoon. She had been loitering about the house for several days asking to speak with Judge Aldingford despite the best efforts of Donald’s staff to shoo her away. She finally caught him arriving home and was persuasive enough to get invited inside. Her name is Sarah-Kelly Newman. She’s a high-caste slummy from a barging family of North Kensington basin. She met with Donald for about twenty minutes. Okeke had the wit to tail her up to Bloomsbury College where she is a student of economics, which explains how she had security clearances for the Central Enclave and Bloomsbury district. She is also a recruiter, lecturer and cell leader for the National Party.”
TK waited for more.
“Is that it?” he said.
“That’s all I have at the moment.”
TK sat thinking for a while. He could see a chain of cause and effect. After being shot down, Donald witnessed the poverty of sovereign natives without understanding why they were so wretched. He saw natives discharged to the public drains without understanding the need to balance land. He could have picked up radical ideas from glory troops in the Lands of Dasti-Jones. Then on getting home he contacted the National Party.
“Let me summarise our situation,” TK said. “When Pezzini’s treachery came out, it was nearly the end of you and I because he was our man. Land Council bayed like mastiffs. Then I championed Donald is the only man for appointed regent. Land Council bayed like mastiffs. I’m convinced the only reason Marcus-John finally agreed is because he’s addicted to stuffing Lavinia. If I go back to Land Council and tell them Donald’s gone radical on us… Then you and I are finished.”
“We are,” Wingfield said.
“So, we aren’t going anywhere near Land Council with this. Let’s get Donald tucked away nice and safe in the Marylebone Suite to do the demographic calculations. We’ll tell him our land records are too sensitive to be kept at Wilson House. Once he’s done the calcs and signed them off, you and I will confront him. My gut feeling is there’s more to this than meets the eye... I hope so for his sake. If not, he’s joining Pezzini in the Value System of Nightminster. Lavinia will marry someone of her own status and everyone else will mind their own damned business.”
Wingfield pulled a face.
“That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?”
TK shook his head.
“I’ve been too nice for too long. People have become insolent—people who should know better.”
*
Two troopers of the Krossington marines escorted Donald into the basement of Wilson House, the Georgian-styled Mayfair palace of the Krossingtons. They unlocked a steel gate of rivetted plates half an inch thick set in granite framing and proceeded into an area of stores and machinery: fresh water tanks, oil tanks, diesel generators and gun rooms. They continued along a short brick corridor to a small room. In the middle of the room was a circular hole like a well surrounded by a guard rail with a gate in it. Through the gate they went and down and down spiral steps they plunged, sinking into deepening silence, the only light being from battery lamps carried by the two marines. The steps ended far under the earth in a narrow passage.
The party then proceeded through a circular hatch about a yard in diameter, the door of which was reinforced concrete two feet thick with steel plate facing.
On the other side, they stood in a much larger tunnel lined with heavy concrete castings obviously of Public Era vintage. There was no floor as such, rather, two raised concrete shelves that ran parallel along the floor of the tunnel. Donald guessed they must be in the Tube, the legendary underground train system of the Public Era. This surprised him, as he had always been told the miles of tunnels had quickly flooded
