“Possibly it’s the only way he can convince himself to talk about them,” the Prat says fair-mindedly. “They must have some kind of effect on him. He said ‘value’, after all, even if he puts it in terms of money. It may be quite hard for him to talk in public about things that strike him as strange or wonderful. He may be afraid people will think he’s soft.”
“He should try,” I said. “And you said you didn’t want to defend him.”
“I know,” he said. “But there’s this – I know that in my work, I don’t get very far forward unless there comes a moment when everything suddenly rushes together in an exciting sort of explosion in my mind. Then it all seems wonderful and ideas just pour in. Your uncle and the others – they must have times like that, or they couldn’t do what they do. But it’s awfully hard to describe. So they fake it, and say what they think people want to hear.”
“Nice try,” I said. “But describing things is what they’re supposed to be good at. They fell down on the job, in my opinion. “What work do you do?”
“Oh, I – er – design computer games,” he said.
“What? Killing aliens? Pzzwat, pzzwat?” I said. “I like shooting aliens.”
“I thought you might,” he says. “You get to do a lot of other things too, with mine. They’re fairly sophisticated. It’s an odd thought that quite a few of them are based on books that are on sale here in the Dealers Room, so I’m told, and I haven’t actually read one of them.”
“Then you should have read them!” I said. I was quite scandalised. He protested that he just worked on specs from the distributors and I told him that that just wouldn’t do. As soon as we’d finished the coffee, I took him along to the Dealers Room. I’d not dared to do more than drool in the doorway before this. I knew if I wanted to eat anything apart from the free breakfast, I shouldn’t get in among all those books. But it was all right if somebody else was buying them – it took the fever off me, so that I didn’t need to buy any myself. Well, almost. I made him buy all the basics (believe it or not, he hasn’t even read I, Robot or The Lord of the Rings!) and one or two of my special favourites, including the latest by three or four writers I really like. I intend to borrow those off him. We also looked at jewellery and dragons and comics (they had an old Sandman I hadn’t got, but the price was horrible) and then a stall of painted things. Zinka Fearon was selling some beautiful stuff, but there was another stall full of glass aliens that were yurk!
“Reminds me of your aunt’s jumper,” says the Prat. “She is your aunt, isn’t she? The one with the custard on her shoulder.”
“I thought it was an egg,” I said. “Yes, that’s our Janine.” That reminded me of breakfast, and I tried to get out of him why he had looked that way at the crazy Croatian who thought Uncle Ted wrote about King Arthur. But I had forgotten what a cool customer he is.
He said, “Poor fellow. I suddenly saw what war can do to people.”
“I knew that wasn’t the truth, but that was all he’d say. Strange. I can’t help connecting the way he looked at that Croatian with what Nick says he saw last night.
Anyway, we went on to the Art Show after that. By this time I was thinking that, if anyone had told me yesterday that I’d be standing in front of pictures chatting amiably with the Prat, I would have blacked their eye and called them a liar. I
t must be something in the air of this con, I think. And there were some very naughty paintings by Zinka Fearon we were just discussing, when Dutch Case comes zooming through the Art Room. The Prat takes after him at the double, grabs him by the arm and says, “Found you at last!” he says. “Care to come and have lunch with us?”
With us? I thought. No way, not with Case – quite apart from the fact that the Prat has money and will go and expect me to buy lunch in that expensive dining room. And I went off in the opposite direction, fast.
I ran into Nick near the lifts. Nick was looking like the cat that had the cream. “They loved Bristolia!” he proclaimed. “And my new Wantchester game! I’d got some twists on both of them that no one had come across before. They’re saying I ought to get them made into proper computer games. Only I don’t know who to ask about it.”
“I do. Start talking to the Prat,” I said. Nick stared at me. “Honestly,” I said. “He’s just been telling me he designs the software. He seems to know most of the distributors and manufacturers.”
“Wow!” says Master Nick. “Let me at him!”
[2]
From the account of Rupert
Venables
I find that the notes I made at the time scarcely mention the hour or so I spent with Maree. I seem just to have jotted down Bought an unconscionable number of books, followed by Mallory uncomfortably shrewd, by which I certainly didn’t mean her uncle. I have seldom heard such drivel as he talked on that panel. What I meant was the awkward moment Maree gave me in front of Zinka’s paintings. Zinka does exquisite, delicate portrayals of humans copulating with various kinds of ribby-winged beings. Mostly they are the people you find in increasing numbers as you go Ayewards from the Empire. Though I have never myself met the horned men she had painted, I’ve met quite a few of the other winged ones in the pictures – but clearly not as intimately as Zinka has.
Maree said, staring, the sob growing in her voice, “You’d really think these were painted from life!”
I tried not to jump. “Zinka has quite an imagination,” I said. At this, Maree pushed her spectacles up her nose and looked at me. She seems to have an instinct for when I’m covering something up. Shortly after, she disappeared while I was flagging down Kornelius Punt, and I hardly knew whether I was relieved or aggrieved. Possibly she didn’t like Punt. I don’t exactly blame her.
I didn’t dislike him, or like him either. This is not a consideration for a new Magid anyway. What I was looking for were certain qualities that are necessary. Kees, as he told me he liked to be called, certainly had some of them. He had the brains. The travelling scholarship he had won was for outstanding achievement at university, and he told me he had been selected from thousands, all over Holland. But it was a while before I could get him to talk about this. He was incredibly hyped – I think it was contact-high from the convention – and would keep making inane jokes.
“You must give me a Dutch treat,” was the first thing he said. “I have no money.”
“That means we both pay half,” I said.
“And so we will!” he said, his voice going up into a delighted shriek. “You will contribute the money and I will give the pleasure of my company.”
“Fine by me,” I said. So he proceeded to order the most expensive things on the menu, while I tried to get him to talk sense.
When the food came, he said, gobbling up the scampi, “I have decided it is a fine joke to be in love with Maree Mallory. They say she has a broken heart, so there is no danger to me.”