Overtime. Part 45

'You do?' Guy asked, bewildered.

'Oh yes.'

'Oh.'

They sat together for a while in silence. If it wasn't so dark, Guy would have been able to see that Isoud was looking at him with something approaching affection. It was probably just as well that it was so dark.

'Mr Goodlet.'

'Call me Guy,' Guy said wearily. 'If it's all the same to you, I mean.'

'Thank you, Guy,' Isoud replied. 'And you can call me Isoud, if you like.'

'Thank you, Isoud, that's a great weight off my mind.'

Isoud either didn't hear that or else she ignored it. 'Guy,' she went on, 'I've been thinking.'

'Oh yes?'

'Would it help,' said Isoud, 'if we had a map?'

Women, thought Guy darkly. 'Probably,' he said. 'But we don't.'

'No,' Isoud agreed. 'But perhaps we could get hold of one.'

'Oh yes? How do we manage that?'

Isoud was fumbling in her handbag. It was the first time that Guy had noticed she'd got one with her; but women's handbags aren't things one tends to notice, not consciously at any rate. One a.s.sumes that they have them without looking, just as one a.s.sumes that they have feet.

'We could try the hyperfax,' she said.

'You mean,' Guy said, as sweetly as he could manage, 'that you've had that ... that thing with you all this time and you haven't seen fit to -'

'Sorry,' Isoud said, girlishly. 'Have I been very silly?'

On balance, Guy said to himself, I think I preferred her when she was being unpleasant. 'No,' he said, 'not at all. You have got the wretched thing?'

'Here,' Isoud replied. She took a tiny metal cube from her bag and handed it to him.

'This is it, is it?'

'It folds away,' La Beale Isoud replied. 'I'd forgotten all about it until

'That's fine,' Guy said. 'Now, just show me how it works, and we can be getting on.'

Isoud reached across and pressed a tiny little k.n.o.b on one side of the cube. At once it opened up into a miniature replica of itself. 'Now all we have to do is plug it in,' Isoud said.

'Plug it in?'

'Yes.'

'Plug it into what?'

'Oh.'

Guy made a tiny, thin noise like linen tearing. 'Oh, for crying out -'

'Sorry,' Isoud said, and snuffled indistinctly.

Very much against his better nature, Guy reached out a tentative hand and patted Isoud on the shoulder. Under normal circ.u.mstances it was the very last thing he would have done, but if the b.l.o.o.d.y woman started crying on him he doubted whether he'd be able to cope. There are limits.

'There there,' he said stiffly, like a bank manager addressing a small, overdrawn child, 'it doesn't matter. And it was a very clever idea, really. Just a shame there isn't -'

To his horror, Guy felt a small, warm hand slip into his. His mouth went dry and he felt like a fish who has realised, too late, that if earthworms suddenly appear out of thin water and hover invitingly above one's head, there is probably a catch in it somewhere. Numbly, he gave the hand a little squeeze. One must, after all, be civil.

'Anyway,' he said in a strained voice, 'we mustn't sit about here all day, must we? Let's be getting along.'

'Yes, Guy,' said Isoud, meekly. 'Shall I put the hyperfax away again?'

'Yes,' Guy replied. 'Or rather, no. I've just had an idea.'

Which was actually true.

The President of Oceania was sweating.

What he wanted to do most of all was get out his handkerchief and wipe his forehead; but if he did that, the Chairman of the Eurasian People's Republic would see him do it on her Visiphone monitor, and might take it as a sign of weakness. And that would never do.

'Is that your last word, Madam Chairman?' he said.

'It is.'

Despite the flickering screen he could see that her face was set in an expression of monolithic determination. b.l.o.o.d.y woman.

'In that case,' he said, 'I fear that the United States of Oceania has no alternative but to consider itself at war with the Eurasian People's Republic. Madam Chairman, we have switched out a light that shall not be relit within our...'

Hold on, thought the President, somebody has switched out the light. 'Are you still there, Madam Chairman?' he asked. But the screen had gone blank.

'Hey,' said the President angrily, 'what the h.e.l.l is going on around here?'

From a corner of the darkened room a voice said, 'Sorry.'

The President wheeled round in his swivel chair. 'Who is that?' he demanded.

'It's all right,' said the voice, 'won't keep you a minute. Just borrowing your plug.'

The President groped for the security buzzer under his desk, and then realised that that wouldn't work either. All the electrics in the room were fed off just the one plug. d.a.m.n fool of an electrician had said it would be cheaper that way.

'Who are you?' said the President. 'And what do you want?'