He looked out of the helicopter window at Stirling Castle—he had left a hat there in 1742, but they had probably disposed of it by now—and tried to marshal his thoughts. Love? Love was a concept with which he was no longer comfortable. At his age, it did not do to take anything too seriously, and the depressing thing about love was the seriousness which had to go with it, just as these days you couldn’t seem to get jumbo sausage and chips in a pub without a salad being thrown in as well. Supposing that a closer acquaintance with Jane Doland could make his life tolerable—that was by no means definitely established, and required the further presupposition that Jane Doland was interested in making his life tolerable, which was as certain as the total abolition of income tax—supposing all that, it remained to be said that Jane Doland would die in sixty-odd years time (a mere Sunday afternoon in Vanderdecker’s personal timescale) and then he would be right back where he was, sailing round the world, very smelly, with Johannes and Sebastian and Wilhelmus and the lads. Bugger that for a game of soldiers.
That reminded him: the smell. Even if, by some unaccountable perversity in her nature, Jane were to wish to keep him company, what with the smell and all, that could only be done on board ship, and it surely wasn’t reasonable to expect Jane to come and live on the
Then hey ho for death by radiation. But try as he might, he could not persuade his intransigent and pig-headed soul to accept the force of these arguments. He needed some final compelling reason, and try as he might, finding one proved to be as difficult as recovering something he had put in a safe place so as not to lose it five years ago. The idea that he was doing all this to save the population of Northern Europe from certain death was a pretty one to bounce about in the abandoned ball-park of his mind, but he had to admit that he couldn’t find it in him to regard the Big Sleep with quite the same degree of naked hostility as most of his fellow-creatures. There was also the horrid possibility—quite a strong one, if one calculated the mathematical probability of it—that as soon as he and his fellow non-scientists started fooling about with the works of a nuclear reactor, the whole thing would go off pop, drawing a line under Northern Europe but leaving him and his colleagues with no worse effects than profound guilt. That wouldn’t solve anything, now, would it?
The Professor had spent most of the journey with a calculator and a small portable Yamaha organ (to him, interchangeable), fussing over some ingenious calculations or other. Now he had put them away and was nibbling at a rock-cake. It was hard to know whether he was frightened, vacant or just hungry. Vanderdecker caught his eye, and over the roar of the rotor-blades, they had their first sustained conversation for many centuries.
“Well then, Montalban,” said Vanderdecker, with as much good fellowship as he could muster, “what have you been getting up to since I saw you last?”
The Professor looked at him. “My work…” he said.
“Yes,” Vanderdecker replied, “but apart from that.”
“Apart from my work?”
“Yes,” Vanderdecker said. “In your spare time, I mean. Hobbies, interesting people, good films, that sort of thing.”
“I’m afraid I’ve always been too busy to spare any time for amusements,” said the Professor, and his tone of voice made it clear that he didn’t really understand the concepts that Vanderdecker was proposing to discuss, rather as Vanderdecker himself would have felt if someone had buttonholed him for a serious discussion about the forthcoming world tiddlywinks championship.
“You mean you’ve been too busy?”
“Yes.”
“Working?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” Vanderdecker didn’t see at all. For all his sufferings, he had at least had a couple of days off every seven years. He wondered if there was any point in continuing with this conversation, since despite a vague foundation of shared experience he doubted whether he had much in common with his old acquaintance.
“I suppose,” the Professor said uneasily, “I owe you and your crew an apology.”
Vanderdecker sighed and shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “Two hundred years ago, I might have wanted to break your silly neck for you, but even grudges wear out in time, like Swiss watches. Besides, it was my fault as much as yours.”
“That’s very gentlemanly of you,” said the Professor. “I don’t suppose I would have taken such a reasonable view had I been in your position.”
“Think nothing of it,” Vanderdecker said. “Besides, you are in our position. Well, sort of.” He turned his head and looked out of the window. Sheep. Not exactly enthralling.
“Actually,” the Professor continued, “there was one thing.”
“Yes?”
