Grailblazers. Part 14

One of the clerks pointed to Turquine. 'What about him?' he said to his comrades.

'He looks so peaceful just sitting there.'

'It seems a pity to wake him, doesn't it?'

'No law against sleeping.'

'Doesn't look dangerous to me. Does he look dangerous to v_ you, George?'

Oh for crying out loud, Bedevere thought. 'Please,' he said abruptly, 'can we make a start, if it's all the same to you? Only-'

'Cool it, all right?' snapped a small clerk, and then ducked behind the shoulder of the man next to him. Bedevere came to a decision.

'Actually,' he said, 'I expect you're all quite busy, really. Perhaps it'd be easier all round if you just showed me the way - draw a map or something - and then you lot could get on with whatever it is you're supposed to be doing. I mean, there's no point all of us trooping around, is there?'

The clerks looked at each other.

'Sounds all right to me,' one of them said.

'Great.'

'Fine.'

'Thank you.' Bedevere reached down and pulled Turquine by the ear.

'Go 'way,' Turquine growled. "Nother ten minutes.' He lolled forward and began to snore.

'Turkey!' Bedevere shouted. 'Wake up!' He turned round. 'Sorry about this,' he said.

'Quite all right.'

'Don't mention it.'

Bedevere nodded amiably and kicked Turquine hard on the knee.

Ten minutes or so later, they were sitting in an office.

Quite a nice office, if you like them tidy, with s.n.a.t.c.hing matt-black in-tray, out-tray, anglepoise lamp and desk tidy. The chairs were comfortable, at any rate.

'Pleased to meet you,' Bedevere said.

'Likewise.'

The Atlantean was different, somehow. He was tall, young, with short hair and big ears. He looked at home in his surroundings; in fact, you could well believe that he was chosen to go with the decor.

'Allow me to introduce myself,' he said. 'Diomedes, Chief a.s.sistant Technical Officer, at your service.'

'Thank you,' Bedevere replied, and gave Turquine a savage nudge in the ribs. Turquine simply nodded and went back to sleep. Diomedes smiled.

'Don't worry about it,' he said. 'It takes some people like that, being put on deposit. Especially if you're not used to it.'

'Um..., 'Exactly. And now,' Diomedes went on, 'I expect you'd like to know what Atlantis is all about, wouldn't you?'

'Yes,' Bedevere lied. 'Absolutely.'

'Right.' Diomedes nodded, and pulled a jar of paperclips towards him. As he spoke, he linked them up to form a chain.

'In a sense,' he said, 'Atlantis is a bank.'

He stopped speaking, and gave Bedevere a keen look. Oh h.e.l.l, thought the knight, he wants me to say something intelligent. 'In a sense,' he hazarded.

'Spot on,' Diomedes replied, nodding vigorously. 'That is, in the same way Mussolini did his bit for the Italian railways, and Jesus Christ had his City and Guilds in carpentry, Atlantis is a bank. It's also something else, something rather special.' Diomedes smiled, catlike, and folded his fingers, by way of saying, Wow, this is going to curdle your brains.

Bedevere was uncomfortably aware that his right leg had gone to sleep.

'Atlantis,' Diomedes said, 'is a repository for money.'

'Right.'

'Precisely.' The smile widened, until it was in danger of losing itself behind Diomedes' ears. 'You're starting to get the point now, aren't you?'

At this point, Turquine woke up.

He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and then leant forward.

'h.e.l.lo, Trev,' he said. 'What are you doing here?'

Diplomats must feel this way, Bedevere thought. You spend hours in airplanes, hotel rooms, b.l.o.o.d.y uncomfortable conference rooms with hard seats and nowhere to stretch your legs out; and just when you think you've got something lashed together that might just possibly work, some idiot of a basketball player defects and you might as well have stayed in bed.

Leave them to it, he said to himself.

'It is Trev, isn't it?' Turquine was saying. 'Trev Hastings, used to be behind the counter at the Global Equitable in Perry Bar? You remember me, I used to deliver pizzas. Yours was always ... Hold it, I never forget a pizza. Double pepperoni and-'

'That,' said Diomedes coldly, 'was a long time ago.'

In retrospect, Bedevere couldn't remember actually moving from his seat, but he would have sworn blind he jumped about a mile in the air.

'Perry Bar?' he said.

'We have many offices,' Diomedes said. 'It's a big orga.nisation.' Something about the juxtaposition of his eyebrows and the bridge of his nose pa.s.sed messages to Turquine's brain.

'Anyway,' said Turquine, 'long time no see. Sorry, you were saying?'

Diomedes relaxed his eyebrows. 'Money,' he said. 'What is money?'

Before Turquine could reply, Bedevere gave him a smart tap on the s.h.i.+ns with his toe. Then he lifted an eyebrow and said, 'Ah!'

It was the right thing to do. 'I mean,' Diomedes went on, 'we all know what it does. Great. So the Son of Man was quite capable of knocking you up a perfectly decent Welsh dresser.

But that's not what he was all about, is it?'

Turquine, to Bedevere's great relief, seemed to have got into the swing of it, because he scratched his ear, nodded and said, 'Precisely.' He spoilt it rather by winking at Bedevere immediately afterwards; luckily, though, Diomedes didn't notice.

'Gold 337,' Diomedes said. He reached across the desk and caught hold of one of those Newton's cradle things. 'This continent is built on it. It's anti-magnetic. Anti-magnetism makes the world turn. Okay so far?'

Bedevere nodded. 'Sure,' he said. He shrugged nonchalantly. 'Everyone knows that. Tell me something I couldn't get from the Sunday supplements.'

'Right,' said Diomedes, and just then, Bedevere realised that yes, this man could be called Trevor. In fact, he probably was. 'So gold is money, okay?'

'Okay.'

'And money is magic.'

In another part of the building, the bell rang for the afternoon history lesson.

Two junior Atlanteans took their place at the back of the cla.s.s. One of them had a mouse in his pocket. Just as some flowers did manage to grow between the trenches in Flanders, so the schoolchildren in Atlantis do have mice.

They catch them. They build little hutches for them out of shoe-boxes. They feed them on breadcrumbs and bits of apple-core. Then they sell them.

By the time their reach the sixth form, some Atlanteans have already made their first million just from dealing in mouse futures.

The teacher, a tall lady with deceptively thin arms, rapped on her desk.

'Good morning, children,' she said.

'Good morning, teacher.'

'Open your history books,' said the teacher, 'and turn to page 58.'

She took a deep breath, and hesitated for a moment. She'd been teaching for twenty years, and this bit still gave her the w.i.l.l.i.e.s.

'Now then,' she said. 'Which of you can tell me what money is?'

The usual bewildered silence. The usual rustle at the back of the cla.s.s as a mouse changed hands under the desk. The usual blank faces.

'Well?'

'Please, miss.'

Isocrates Minor, the teacher noticed. Ten arid a half years old, and already he's got a cellular phone strapped to the handlebars of his bike. The teacher nodded approvingly and made a mental note to ask him about moving heavily into short-dated gilts after the lesson.

'Please, miss,' said Isocrates Minor, 'money is magic, miss.'

'Well done, Isocrates Minor. Now then . . .'

'Miss.'

The teacher frowned. There is such a thing as showing off. 'All right,' she said. 'Questions later.'

'Yes, but miss...'

'Later! Now then, money is magic. What does magic do, anyone?'

'Miss!'

'No, someone else this time. Diogenes, let's hear from you for a change.'

A small face crumpled at the back of the room, as a daydream of a nationwide chain of mousebroking offices faded away and was replaced by panic.

'Don't know, miss.'

'Anyone else? Laodicea?'

A small girl stood up and smirked. 'Magic,' she recited, 'is the name commonly given to the technology based on the exploitation of the remarkable properties of the gold isotope Gold 337. Gold 337 was discovered by Simon Magus..,'

'Yes, thank you, dear.'

'... in the year 4000BC,' continued Laodicea, 'when he was hoeing his turnip field. He quickly grasped the immense potential of-'

'Thank you, dear,' said the teacher. 'Now, as soon as the early Atlanteans realised how special gold was, they started digging it up and making magical things out of it. Now, can anyone give me an example of the sort of things ... yes, Lycophron?'

The small boy blushed under his freckles. 'b.u.t.tons, miss?' he suggested.

The teacher sighed. 'No, not b.u.t.tons.'

'Waste-paper baskets.'

'Catapults.'

's.p.a.ce rockets.'

'My uncle's got gold b.u.t.tons, miss, on his blazer. He showed me...'

'The ancient Atlanteans,' said the teacher magisterially, 'made coins out of the gold they found in the earth. When they'd got lots of these coins, they put them in a bank...'

A hand shot up. 'Please, miss.'

'Yes, Nicomedes?'

'Why, miss?'

The teacher braced herself. 'To keep them safe, of course. Now. . .'

'Why didn't they put them under the bed, miss?'

'That's not terribly safe, is it, dear? Now. . .'

'My dad keeps all his money under the bed, miss.'