synchronization, gradually increased their pendulum swings until they were doing handstands on the pole. The same extraordinary hush remained with the audience, a tribute that wasn’t entirely due to the performance they were witnessing: directly below them as they performed were Neubauer and his twelve Nubian lions, the head of every one of which was turned yearningly upwards.
At the end of the performance the silence in the audience was replaced by a long and far from silent collective sigh of relief, then once again came the same standing ovation, as heartfelt and prolonged as the one that had gone before. Pilgrim said: “I’ve had enough — besides, my nerves can’t take any more. Wrinfield will follow me. If he brushes by you on the way back to his seat that means that Bruno is willing to talk and that you’re to follow him at a discreet distance at the end of the show. Wrinfield, I mean.”
Without making any signs or looking in any particular direction, Pilgrim rose leisurely and left. Almost at once Wrinfield did the same.
A few minutes later the two men were closeted in one of Wrinfield’s offices, a superbly equipped secretary’s dream, albeit somewhat compact. Wrinfield had a much larger if ramshackle office where most of his work was normally carried out just outside the arena itself; but that did not possess a cocktail bar as this one did. On the principle that he forbade anyone to have liquor on the circus site proper, Wrinfield accordingly denied himself the privilege also. The office was but a tiny part of a complex and beautifully organized whole that constituted the mobile home of the circus. Every person in the circus, from Wrinfield downwards, slept aboard this train except for some independent diehards who insisted on dragging their caravans across the vast spaces of the United States and Canada. On tour the train also accommodated every single performing animal in the circus: at the end, just before the brake-van, were four massive flat-cars that accommodated all the bulky equipment, ranging from tractors to cranes that were essential for the smooth operation of the circus. In all, it was a minor miracle in ingenuity, meticulous planning and the maximum utilization of available space. The train itself was a monster, over half a mile in length. Pilgrim accepted a drink and said: “Bruno’s the man I want. You think he will accept? If not, we may as well cancel your European tour.”
“He’ll come, and for three reasons.” Wrinfield’s speech was like the man himself, neat, precise, the words chosen with care. “As you’ve seen, the man doesn’t know what fear is. Like all newly naturalized Americans — all right, all right, he’s been naturalized for over five years but that rates as yesterday — his patriotism towards his adopted country makes yours and mine look just that little shabby. Thirdly, he’s got a very big score to settle with his former homeland.”
“Now?”
“Now. And then we speak to you?”
“I’m the last person you speak to. For both our sakes you want to be seen with me as little as possible. And don’t come within a mile of my office — we have a whole battalion of foreign agents who do nothing but sit in the sun and watch our front door all the time. Colonel Fawcett — he’s the uniformed person who was sitting beside me and the chief of our East European Field Operations — knows a great deal more about it than I do.”
“I didn’t know that you carried uniformed personnel in your organization, Mr Pilgrim.”
“We don’t. That’s his disguise. He wears it so often that he’s more readily recognizable in it than in civilian clothes, which is why nearly everyone calls him ›the Colonel‹. But never underestimate him.”
Fawcett waited until the end of the show, dutifully applauded, turned and left without glancing at Wrinfield: Wrinfield had already given him the signal. Fawcett left the circus and made his way through the darkness and the steadily increasing rain, moving slowly so that Wrinfield might not lose him. Eventually he came to the large, dark limousine in which he and Pilgrim had arrived and climbed into the back seat. A dark figure was pushed up against the far corner, his face as deeply in shadow as possible.
Fawcett said: “Hello. My name’s Fawcett. I hope that no one saw you arrive?”
The driver answered: “No one, sir. I was keeping a pretty close look-out.” He looked out through the rain- spattered windows. “It’s not much of a night for other people to be minding other people’s business.”
“It isn’t.” He turned to the shadowy figure. “A pleasure to meet you.” He sighed. “I have to apologize for all this comic opera cloak and dagger business, but I’m afraid it’s too late now. Gets in our blood, you know. We’re just waiting for a friend of yours — ah, here he comes now.” He opened the door and Wrinfield got in beside them. What little could be seen of his face didn’t display a great deal in the way of carefree rapture.
“Toynton Street, Barker,” Fawcett said.
Barker nodded in silence, and drove off. Nobody spoke. Wrinfield, more than a little unhappy, kept turning restlessly in his seat and finally said: “I think we’re being followed.” Fawcett said: “We’d better be. If not the driver of that car would be out of a job tomorrow. That car’s following us to make sure that no other car follows us. If you follow me, that is.”
“I see.” From the tone of his voice it was questionable whether Wrinfield did. He became increasingly unhappy as the car moved into what was very close to a slum area and unhappier still when it drew up in an ill-lit street outside a sleazy walk-up apartment block. He said, complainingly: “This isn’t a very nice part of town. And this — this looks like a house of ill fame.”
“And a house of ill-fame it is. We own it. Very handy places, these bordellos. Who, for instance, could ever imagine that Tesco Wrinfield would enter one of those places? Come inside.”
2
For such an unsalubrious place in such an unsalubrious area the sitting-room was surprisingly comfortable, although the person who had furnished it would appear to have had a fixation about the colour russet, for the sofa, armchairs, carpet and heavily discreet curtains were all of the same colour or very close to it. A smokeless coal fire — for this was a smokeless area — did its best to burn cheerfully in the hearth. Wrinfield and Bruno occupied an armchair apiece: Fawcett was presiding over a cocktail cabinet, one of the portable kind. Bruno said carefully: “Tell me again, please. About this antimatter or whatever it is you call it.”
Fawcett sighed. “I was afraid you might ask me that. I know I got it right first time, because I’d memorized what I had to say and just repeated it parrot fashion. I had to because I don’t really know what it’s all about myself.” Fawcett handed round drinks — a soda for Bruno — and rubbed his chin. “I’ll try and simplify it this time round. Then maybe I’ll be able to get some inklings of understanding myself.
Matter, we know, is made up of atoms. There are lots of things that go to make up those atoms — scientists, it seems, are becoming increasingly baffled about the ever-increasing complexity of the atom — but all that concerns our simple minds are the two basic constituents of the atom, electrons and protons. On our earth — in the universe, for that matter — electrons are invariably negatively charged and protons positively charged. Unfortunately, life is become increasingly difficult for our scientists and astronomers — for instance, it has been discovered only this year that there are particles, made of God knows what, that travel at many times the speed of light, which is a very upsetting and distressing concept for all those of the scientist community — and that was one hundred per cent — who believe that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. However, that’s by the way.
Some time ago a couple of astronomers — Dicke and Anderson were their names — made the inconvenient discovery, based on theoretical calculations, that there must exist positively charged electrons. Their existence is now universally accepted, and they are referred to today as positrons. Then, to complicate things still further, the existence of anti-protons was discovered — this was in Berkeley — again electrically opposite to our protons. A combination of positrons and anti-protons would give rise to what is now termed ›anti-matter‹. That anti-matter does exist no serious scientists seriously dispute. Nor do they dispute that if an electron or positron or proton and anti-proton collided or both sets collided the results would be disastrous. They would annihilate each other, giving off lethal gamma rays and creating, in the process, a considerable local uproar and a blast of such intense heat that all life within tens or perhaps hundreds of square miles would be instantaneously wiped out. On this scientists are agreed. It is estimated that if only two grams of anti-matter struck our planet on the side out-facing the sun the result would be to send the earth, with all life immediately extinct, spinning into the gravitational orbit of the sun. Provided, of course, it didn’t disintegrate immediately on contact.”
“A delightful prospect,” Wrinfield said. He did not have the look of a convert about him. “No offence, but it sounds like the most idle science-fiction speculation to me.” “Me, too. But I have to accept what I’m told. Anyway,
