Nature's Shift by Brian Stableford Read Free Book Online

was no one more committed than they were to the cause. The old norms still apply—and so they should, since we had to fight so hard to preserve them. Rowland should have been here.”
    Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who felt resentful that my hopes and expectations had been dashed. I’d moved on from there, though. The fact that my hopes of seeing Rowland had been relegated to the dead past was now a mere matter of circumstance. What was occupying my mind at present was the fact that Rosalind wanted to see me. She had fixed a rendezvous for four o’clock, at the Pyramid—although she naturally reserved the right to be late, if more pressing matters of duty intervened.
    She undoubtedly wanted to ask me about Rowland—and I didn’t have anything to tell her. If there was one prospect in the world more terrifying than being summoned into the imperial presence to bear witness, it was that of being summoned into the presence knowing in advance that I was not in a position to satisfy her desire. I had nothing to tell her, and I knew that telling her nothing, however honest and accurate it might be, was not going to satisfy her.
    â€œI wish I could keep you company,” Professor Crowthorne said, perhaps sincerely. “I’d quite like to take a look around the Palaces, and I’m sure that you could give me the next best thing to a family-guided tour, but I’m at the mercy of the train timetable, and I have to get back to the Great Wen tonight. I’ll have to walk to the station—there’s no prospect of a taxi, given the size of the crowd.”
    I wondered whether he knew where the custom of referring to London as “the Great Wen” had originated, but I wasn’t about to ask him, or attempt any kind of discussion about the Romantic response to the Industrial Revolution, and I certainly wasn’t about to make any observation about Hell being a city much like London. He was right about the impossibility of getting a cab, though. There was already a considerable outflow through the gate, and the vehicles lying in wait had already been commandeered. We were in rural Devon, after all—the local taxi, while not exactly an endangered species, was something of a rara avis . At least half of the invitees were evidently familiar with Eden, and had no need to take advantage of Rosalind’s invitation to look around, so there was something of a mass exodus in progress..
    â€œThat’s all right,” I said. “I’ll walk with you, if you like—I’ll have plenty of time to get back here again before four, even if your train’s late.”
    I meant no more than I said, but my mind was still a little numb. Was I secretly harboring an intention to hop on the London train with him, in order to pick up a northbound connection from Bristol before nightfall?—so secretly that I dared not even confess it to myself. Perhaps. After all, I had the same excuse as he did. By the time I had seen Rosalind at four, it wouldn’t be possible for me to get all the way back to Lancaster by train; I’d have to stay overnight, in Bristol or Birmingham if not in Exeter. I too was at the mercy of the timetable—but there had been no possibility of saying that to Rosalind’s face while I was in a handshaking queue, so the only possibility I had of acting on temptation was to slip away quietly, and simply not turn up to the abruptly-scheduled meeting. Rosalind could hardly deem that a terrible sin, given that her own son had failed to turn up to his twin sister’s funeral, of which he must have been given adequate notice.
    The professor was obviously not averse to the idea having company on the walk, we set off together—but as we approached the gate, I saw the security men exchange glances. They were inside the gates, now, bidding polite farewells to the exiting crowd. In imitation of their employer, they did indeed bid Professor