A Creed for the Third Millennium by Colleen McCullough Read Free Book Online

the Environment
had been built in 2012, replacing the scattered suites of offices it used to
occupy all over town; it was the physically biggest of all the federal
departments, and it alone among them was housed in a comfortable state of energy
conservation. The waste warmth from its computer-filled basement fuelled an
air-conditioning unit that was the envy of State, Justice, Defence and the rest,
trying to achieve the same end result in structures never designed for the
purpose. Environment was white, to obtain maximum illumination from its
lighting; low-ceilinged, to save on space and heat; acoustically perfect, to
reduce noise neurosis; and utterly soulless, to reassure its inhabitants that it
was after all an institution.
    Section Four occupied the whole top floor
along K Street, and incorporated the offices of the Secretary himself. To reach
it Dr Carriol walked easily up seven flights of chill stairs, down many
corridors, and through yet another voice-triggered door.
    'Down to a sunless sea.'
    And open sesame. As usual Section Four
was in full swing when she arrived; Dr Carriol preferred to work at night, so
she rarely appeared before lunch. Those she encountered were respectful but not
familiar in their greetings. As was meet. She was not only extremely senior in
Environment, she was also the head of Section Four, and Section Four was the
Environment think tank. Therefore Dr Judith Carriol was an enormously powerful
woman.
    Her private secretary was a man who had
to endure the most ludicrous misnomer in the whole
Department. John Wayne. Five feet two, eighty pounds, astigmatic myopia and a
mild Klinefelter's syndrome that had prevented his attaining full sexual
maturity, so that he sported no beard and spoke in a childish falsetto. The days
when his name had been a hideous burden to him were long behind him now; he had
long ceased to rail against the fate which had decided that the original owner
of his name should outlast almost all his movie contemporaries to become
something of a modern cult figure.
    He lived for his work and he was a
fantastic secretary, though of course he rarely did any basic secretarial work;
he had his own secretaries for that.
    He followed Dr Carriol into her office
and stood quietly while she divested herself of the cuddly masses of sable
bought at the time of her last promotion and just before she ceased to buy
clothes in order to buy a house. Below the furs she was wearing a plain black
dress unrelieved by jewellery or other ornamentation, and she looked stunning.
Not pretty. Not beautiful. Not attractive in the usual connotation of that word.
She exuded sophistication, calm elegance, a touch-me-not-quality too daunting to
permit of her name's being on the list of Departmental lovelies. A touch-me-not
quality that meant her occasional dates were invariably with men who were
extremely successful, extremely worldly and extremely sure of themselves. She
wore her faintly wavy black hair like Wallis Warfield Simpson, parted in the
middle and drawn softly into a chignon on the nape of her neck. Her eyes were
large, heavy-lidded and an unusual muddy green, her mouth was wide, pink, well
sculpted, and her skin was densely pallid, too opaque to show the veins beneath
and without any bloom of colour anywhere. This interesting paleness against the
black hair, brows and lashes endowed her with an alluring distinction she was
well aware of, and used. The spatulate fingers of her very
long slender white hands were slender also, the nails kept short and
unvarnished, and they moved like a spider's legs; but her body, long in the
trunk and neither hippy nor busty, moved with a sinuous strength and unexpected
celerity that had given her the Departmental nickname of The Snake. Or so people
explained defensively when taxed with reasons why.
    'Today's the day, John.'
    'Yes, ma'am.'
    'Still at the arranged time?'
    'Yes, ma'am. Four, in the executive
conference