The Whim was packed with undergraduates. Ian Peterson pushed his way through a crowd near the door and stood for a moment trying to get his bearings. The students near him were passing jugs of beer over each other’s heads and some spilled on him. Peterson took out a handkerchief and wiped it off with distaste. The students had not noticed. It was the end of the academic year and they were in boisterous spirits. A few were already drunk. They were talking loudly in dog Latin, a parody of some official function they had just attended.
“Eduardus, dona mihi plus beerus!” shouted one.
“Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!” the first speaker responded in mock contrition. “But what’s beer in bloody Latin?”
Several voices answered. “Alum!” “Vinum barbaricum!” “Imbibius hopius!” There were shouts of laughter. They thought they were being very witty. One of them, hiccuping, slid gently to the floor and passed out. The second speaker raised his arm above him and solemnly intoned. “Requiescat in pace. Et lux perpetua something or other.”
Peterson moved clear of them. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the comparative gloom after the brightness of Trinity. On the wall a yellowed poster announced that some menu items were discontinued— temporarily, of course. In the center of the pub a large coal range popped and hissed. An harassed cook presided over it, shifting pans from smaller rings to larger ones and back. Whenever he lifted a pan from one of the rings, a glow of light from inside the range momentarily lit his hands and perspiring face, so he abruptly loomed like an earnest, orange ghost. Students at tables around the stove called encouragement to him.
Peterson made his way across the crowded eating section, through blue curls of pipe smoke layering the air. The acrid tang of marijuana reached him, mingled with the odors of tobacco, cooking oil, beer and sweat. Someone called his name. He peered around until he saw Markham in a side booth.
“It’s chancy finding anyone here, isn’t it?” Peterson said as he sat down.
“I was just ordering. Lots of salads, aren’t there? And plates full of crappy carbohydrates. There doesn’t seem to be much worth eating these days.”
Peterson studied the menu. “I think I may have the tongue, though it’s incredibly expensive. Any kind of meat is just impossible.”
“Yes, isn’t it.” He grimaced. “I don’t see how you can eat tongue, knowing it came out of some animal’s mouth.”
“Have an egg, instead?”
Markham laughed. “I suppose there’s no way to turn. But I think I’ll splurge and have the sausages. That should do up my budget pretty nicely.”
The waiter brought Peterson’s ale and Markham’s Mackeson stout. Peterson took a big swallow.
“They allow marijuana here, then?”
Markham looked around arid sniffed the air. “Dope? Sure. All the mild euphorics are legal here, aren’t they?”
“They have been for a year or two. But I thought by social convention, if there’s any of that left, one didn’t smoke it in public places.”
“This is a university town. I expect the students were smoking it in public long before it was legalized. Anyway, if the government wants to distract people from the news, there’s no point in requiring them to do it only at home,” Markham said mildly.
“Ummm,” Peterson murmured.
Markham stopped his Mackeson stout short of his mouth and looked at him. “You’re being noncommittal. I guessed right, then? The government had that in mind?”
“Let’s say it was brought up.”
“What’s the Liberal government going to do about these drugs that increase human intelligence, then?”
“Since I moved up to the Council I haven’t had a great deal of contact with those problems.”
“There’s a rumor the Chinese are way ahead on them.”
“Oh? Well, I can scotch that one. The Council had an intelligence report on precisely that point last month.”
“They gather intelligence on their own members?”
“The Chinese are formal members, but—well, look, the problems of the last few years have been technical. Peking has enough on its hands without meddling into subjects where they have no research capability.”
“I thought they were doing well.”
Peterson shrugged. “As well as anyone can with a billion souls to care for. They’re less concerned with foreign matters these days. They’re trying to slice up precisely equal portions of an ever-diminishing pie.”
“Not so pure. Equal slices keeps down unrest due to inequality. They’re reviving terraced farming, even though it’s labor-intensive, to get food production up. The opiate of the masses in China is groceries. Always has been. They’re stopping use of energy-intensive chemicals in farming, too. I think they’re afraid of side effects.”
“Such as the South American bloom?”
“Dead on.” Peterson grimaced. “Who could’ve foreseen—?”
From the crowd there came a sudden, rattling cry. A woman surged up from a nearby table, clutching at her throat. She was trying to say something. Another woman with her asked, “Elinor, what is it? Your throat? Something caught?”
The woman gasped, a rasping cough. She clutched at a chair. Heads turned. Her hands went to her belly and her face pinched with a rush of pain. “I—it
Peterson had been shocked into immobility, as had Markham. As she fell he leaped to his feet and dashed forward. The crowd muttered and did not move. He leaned over the woman. Her scarf was tangled about her neck. It was twisted and sour with puke. He yanked at it, using both hands. The fabric ripped. The woman gasped. Peterson fanned the air around her, creating a breeze. She sucked in air. Her eyes fluttered. She stared up at him. “It… it hurts… so…”
Peterson scowled up at the surrounding crowd. “Call a doctor, will you? Bloody hell!”
The ambulance had departed. The Whim staff were busy mopping up. Most of the patrons were gone, driven off by the stench. Peterson came back from the ambulance, where he had followed, making sure the attendants had a sample of her food.
“What did they say it was?” Markham asked.
“No idea. I gave them the sausage she’d been eating. The medic said something about food poisoning, but those weren’t any poisoning symptoms I’ve ever heard about.”
“All we’ve been hearing about impurities—”
“Maybe.” Peterson dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “Could be anything, these days.”
Markham sipped meditatively on his stout. A waiter approached bearing their food. “Tongue for you, sir,” he said to Peterson, placing a platter. “And sausage here.”
Both men stared at their meals. “I think…” Markham began slowly.
“I agree,” Peterson followed up briskly. “I believe we’ll be skipping these. Could you fetch me a salad?”
The waiter looked dubiously at the plates. “You ordered this.”
“So we did. Surely you don’t expect us to choke it down after what’s just happened, do you? In a restaurant like this?”
“Well, I dunno, the manager, he says—”
“Tell your manager to watch his raw materials or I’ll bloody well have this place closed down. Follow me?”
“Christ, no reason to—”
