Cornelius strode quickly past the security guard in the lobby, giving him a perfunctory nod. Standing in front of the lift he pressed the up arrow and then began to drum a little tattoo with his fingers on the bound red file he was carrying. As he stared impatiently at the little lit numbers that indicated the slow progress of the lift downwards, he wondered whether the guard had really taken in whom it was arriving so late.

Eventually the lift arrived, Cornelius stepped in, and rose within it to the ninth floor. The building was unwelcoming and almost dark. On the ninth floor, the only light available filtered in through the slats of the vast Venetian blinds that covered all the windows. Terminal screens that had been left powered up, shed an eerie green glow for only a few feet around them. The place was almost completely silent; completely different to the workday melee of clacking keyboards, the clink-clonk of the desktop printers, and the chat and laughter of the people who worked there. During the day, Cornelius could never have worked had he not been given a separate office to himself. It was to this that he inserted his key and, unlocking it quietly, slipped inside, like a burglar stepping through some unfortunate’s French windows.

The first thing he did was pull the blind cords so as to avoid the chance of anyone in the street below noticing a singleton office light above. Then he turned his desktop lamp on, sat down in front of his workstation, and edged the mouse slightly across its pad. The screen of the device sprang into light and colour. In one window a beautiful portion of the Mandelbrot set in full colour was still being calculated. As the program iterated silently in the machine, it popped up the occasional new point in one of a possible three hundred colours. Whorls, spirals and deep black filaments seem to plunge into the depth of the screen’s window; intense golden asymmetric shapes repeated themselves along the edges of each filament. It was like the detail from some massive, intricately tooled and filigreed brooch: breathtakingly beautiful and probably astonishingly expensive. Cornelius gazed at it a while, then, by clicking with the mouse on the window border, made it shrink and almost vanish to the bottom of the screen.

Another window on the screen was showing an animated bar chart of the time various computing tasks were taking on the workstation. Cornelius clicked this away, too. He then popped up a new window on the screen. This was a terminal window, one Cornelius could use to type commands to the operating system. Typing quickly, he issued a command to connect to a remote computer, a computer much bigger and more powerful than his workstation. A welcome message appeared in the window: "Welcome to the NUB Central VAX Cluster", and a few blank lines below: "Authorized Use Only. Access only with Smart Card." These bitter-sweet lines were followed by the prompt string: "Username: ", after which a little block cursor blinked invitingly, waiting for Cornelius to type. Cornelius fished in his inside jacket pocket, and drew out his wallet, and then from this a small credit card sized object that looked rather like a calculator, but which had no keys. Instead, the display showed a ten digit number, which changed as Cornelius squinted at it. He typed his username, pressed the carriage return key, and at the "Password: " prompt entered the new number that had just appeared on the Smart Card.

Several screens of information messages flashed up in the window, telling Cornelius that, amongst other things, the system had had to be re-booted on Monday to cure a persistent problem with one of the many disks attached to the machine. It also told him that thirty users were already logged in to the machine. Cornelius quickly examined who they were, and from where they were logged in. Most of them were working remotely from the head office in New York. For them it was early afternoon. Each would be tapping away at their respective keyboards, the keystrokes giving rise to strings of "bits", which were being electronically pushed along a route that would take them out of the back of the machine, onto the local network cable, through several small computers designed to route them onto new cables going to the right place, and then on to a gateway computer. Here they would be transformed into signals to be beamed to a satellite far above the Earth’s surface, a satellite dedicated to receiving and transmitting such signals for the NUB worldwide banking centres. At the satellite they would again be transformed back into electronic strings of "bits", their destination identified, and then sent once again on their way by the selected transmitter on the satellite. High above Cornelius, on the roof of the building he was in, a satellite dish, pointing at the NUB satellite, was capturing the signals and pushing them once again down wires, and so eventually to their destination computer. A mis-typed key in New York had a long way to travel before it was rejected!

There was one local user on the machine: the operator. Although NUB employed operators to work on shift, Cornelius expected he was probably reading the newspaper, or maybe watching the late night movie, and was therefore unlikely to notice any other locally connected users amongst the remotes.

He started work by changing to the operating system library directory. To do anything there he needed system privileges, which he set. He made a copy of the NUB data dictionary compiler, and invoked the text editor to enable him to change the contents of the copied file. The data dictionary compiler was used by NUB to convert a description of the financial objects dealt with by the bank (such as shares, currencies, bonds and so on), into a useful packed format which could then be used by the whole of the NUB analysis software. When a new analysis programme was written, it was simply compiled, and then linked with the compiled data dictionary. This produced a programme that could be executed on the machine. Such a programme would usually perform tasks like moving funds from one location to another, analyse trends in the various markets NUB dealt in, and warn when, for example, a particular stock price was approaching its safe minimum, or when it was over performing. One subtlety of the data dictionary compiler was that it was used to compile itself. To make a new version of the compiler, one had to link the newly compiled code with the old.

What Cornelius now did was very simple. He added a new stock type, and associated with it an action string. The action string would be treated by the operating system as a command, whenever that particular stock type was encountered in an executing programme. With the new stock type, Cornelius specified a default stock name, which he chose carefully. This was because, for the scheme Cornelius had in mind to work successfully, the name itself should not arouse any suspicion. But it had to be sufficiently unusual that the chance of any real stock appearing on the market with the same name was absolutely minimal. Most of the programmes that NUB ran to analyse share movements ran at a highly privileged mode in the host machine, usually because they needed access to confidential databases, or to increase their priority in the system to ensure timely completion. Thus any code executed in the context of one of these share movement analysis programmes was automatically run with the full system privileges of the parent programme. So the action string Cornelius had associated with the new stock type would be invoked at full privilege whenever his default stock name appeared in the NUB share database. The satisfaction Cornelius gained from inserting this Trojan Horse into the very heart of the NUB software environment was immense. The form of the action string itself improved the elegance of the deceit; it would give no clue whatsoever as to who had placed it in the compiler.

Having finished his work in the editor, Cornelius exited from it, and compiled the result using the current version of the dictionary compiler. He then linked the resulting file of object code, so producing a new version of the compiler. This he then checked for correct operation. Having satisfied himself that the new version worked correctly, he copied it to its new home in the correct place in the system directory, and deleted the various work files he had created since logging in. He purged the old compiler away, and re-set the date on the new one to be exactly that of the old copy. Fortunately its size had not increased, so that it would have to be an extremely suspicious and persistent system manager to notice any change to the internal structure of the file. Now Cornelius turned his attention to the accounting files on the system, which he proceeded to check for any records of his current session. He found several, and removed them. Next, he typed the command that showed him the list of currently logged in users, and saw that no new ones had arrived. Finally, he terminated his session using the "stop/id=0" command, that would ensure no end of session record was written to the accounting file. He was now out of the central NUB machine; his work was done.

He got up, switched off the desk lamp, and left.

PACworld

There was no doubting the quality of the hotel. One could tell from the enormity of the lounge, the vast expanse of marble at the check-in desk, the spotless windows and the uniforms of the staff, which were copiously embellished with little brass buttons, braid, and the like. Crowds of business men stood in huddles around the reception area, talking and laughing noisily, each trying to outdo the other with a funnier story or more outrageous remark. Occasionally, one of the staff would appear at one end of the lounge and, with long-handled brush and pan, move across it, conscientiously collecting up discarded airline tags and glossy excursion brochures that somehow seemed to have collected there since the last time.

Cornelius disliked it. He disliked the insipid plasticity of it, the throat-drying breeze from the overblown air conditioning units, and the fake servility of the check in clerk. He felt out of his milieu, in a world where the gold credit card ruled, where a tie had to be silk, and every man sported a severe parting in his perfectly combed hair. After all, Cornelius was still fresh out of University, out of that curious mixture of stale academia and ultra street-credible so-called intelligentsia. The world of business travel and smart hotels was as alien to him as a word processor would be to his old Aunt Edna. As he stood in line waiting to check in he pondered this, and what the next few days might be like.

He knew, for example, from the few times he’d been obliged to wear them, that he didn’t care much for suits; they seemed incredibly uncomfortable and inconvenient. Every tentative location for a casual elbow had to be carefully inspected lest one departed with stains down an arm. Worse still, places to sit carried suit-ruining risks of protruding nails, ejected chewing gum, and so on. And having to hitch each trouser leg before sitting, to avoid stretching the cloth around the knee. This in itself was an art if it was to be done single-handedly.

But, whether he liked it or not, Cornelius was going to have to lump it for this trip at least. The instructions that had been circulated by PAC, for its PACworld exhibition staff, had specifically stated that "business attire at the show" was required. Even that very evening, there was a reception cocktail organised in the Jefferson Suite, at which PAC would be hosting its customers. These were a selected bunch. Only CEOs (Chief Executive Officers, as Cornelius had surreptitiously found out before leaving from one of the girls in the typing pool), and CSOs (Cornelius had extrapolated the S to be for Scientific), were deemed to be of the right calibre to merit the opportunity of visiting the show. Maybe this was because they were at the right level in their respective companies to actually sign major purchase orders for PAC’s products. He stood and waited ...

A bit later, sitting in his room on the nineteenth floor of the hotel, with a freshly brewed cup of what had said coffee on the packet, gazing out at the endlessly jolting traffic in the Boston streets, he was, in fact, glad to be there, despite his misgivings about what lay ahead. He felt honoured, in a humble sort of way, that the powers that be at PAC had thought it worthwhile to actually pay for him to come on a trip such as this, to an event that was evidently of such prestige to the company. In particular, it was very gratifying after such a short time with the company. It had only been the year before that the advert in a national daily had caught his eye: "Power Architecture Computers - We’re Going Places You Only Dream About", which had sounded to him more like an advert for a travel agency, and therefore linked it with exotic locations and a lazy lifestyle in his mind. There had been an unusually enticing job description, backed up by allusion to a rather juicy salary.

And, so far, he hadn’t been disappointed with PAC. He’d been placed in the Computing and Networks Division, which was populated almost exclusively by a band of enthusiastic hardware and software engineers. There was a strong sense of academic competition about the place, which Cornelius took to immediately, and the atmosphere often seemed to be charged with inventive industry. It was rare, for example, to observe any reluctance to leave the coffee lounge after coffee itself was drunk. There was no stampede for the doors at five thirty. Indeed, on Friday evenings it was not uncommon to find people working until seven, eight, and even nine o’clock. Holiday entitlement was generous, to say the least, but allocations were rarely used up, except by the typing pool and the other non-technical staff.

What Cornelius had noticed, though, after some time at PAC, was what seemed to be a lack of planning or strategic analysis in the Division. There were around twenty different projects that people were beavering away on in the group to which he was assigned, but no apparent connection between them. They each looked like good ideas, but they lacked a common goal despite their promise. With what was, looking back on it, some temerity, he’d mentioned this to the head of Department, Jack Quincy, one lunchtime at an opportune and quiet moment. His impressions had been well received, and Quincy had asked him to his office on several subsequent occasions, where he’d allowed Cornelius to give free rein to his ideas about where he, Cornelius, felt the department should be strengthening and consolidating its effort, and where it should be "right sizing", as he believed the corporate slang was for it. To Cornelius’ surprise and pleasure, Quincy had clearly enjoyed these meetings, and even seemed to think they had some real chance of instigating some shake up in the way he and his group leaders ran the place.

So, pondering all this, and grimacing as he finished up his now cold coffee, Cornelius realised that it must have been on Quincy’s recommendation that his name had been put forward for the team to be sent to PACworld. Getting up, he eyed his suit, already hung up in the wardrobe after its crease-inducing journey in the bottom of his suitcase. It would do - in fact it already seemed to be reviving itself. Showering quickly, he donned a fresh shirt, tied a neat, small knot in his new (silk) tie, selected a suitably coloured pair of socks, and with a long face of disapproval to himself in a nearby mirror, stole himself to the double-breasted five-hundred Swiss Francs worth of cloth. It looked good: not too showy, but not overtly sober. It fitted like a glove, as well it might at that price, he told himself. Quite suddenly, he felt supremely confident, and began to look forward to the evening ahead. The suit seemed to have some magical power on him.

Down in the Jefferson Suite there was a lot of activity. Along one whole length of the room a table seemed to be gasping under the combined weight of about twenty silver salvers containing what was perhaps the most delicious assortment of nibbles and Cornelius had ever seen. There was lobster, crab, prawns, beef slices, pork slices, little lamb chops, arrangements of dainty Chinese spring rolls, salads of every type, mounds of fresh fruit, about ten different types of bread roll, and a prodigious selection of cheeses. All along, people were helping themselves to what they fancied, and this seemed to be the majority of it as their plates, like the table, could easily have been groaning under the weight. In the rest of the room some people were seated at the round tables, which were tastefully decorated with small flower arrangements, little gold-embossed name tags, and carefully folded pink cloth napkins. Just next to the door, where Cornelius was standing, a smartly turned out waiter was administering drinks from a portable bar. There was a pleasing low-level buzz of conversation in the room, coupled with the sound of cutlery on china plate.

Unfortunately, Cornelius could see no one he knew. He scanned as carefully as possible up and down the food table, and around the eating tables, and began to wonder whether it was the Jefferson Suite he was supposed to be in, after all. But he’d seen the PACworld notice on the door as he came in, so it must be right. What if he was obliged to introduce himself to one of PAC’s guests? All his self-confidence seemed to evaporate. Now he stared across the room in a different mood; a feeling of desolate loneliness sweeping across him, out of all proportion to the reality of his situation. His stare was like the beam of a powerful torch that, pointing directly up at the night sky, can never fall on any object. He saw the room like the brightly lit set of a play, as if from way back in the stalls. All around him, but just out of vision, the darkness of the theatre pressed on him, and he dared not turn away, a horrifying chasm of indescribable depth, from which no light could escape. A hand touched his shoulder.

"Bill, I’d like you to meet Frank Cornelius, one of our bright new boys. Frank, this is Bill Soames, from NUB." It was Jack Quincy, and he was proffering Cornelius a flute of Champagne.

Bill Soames was fat. He was so fat that he had to come through the door sideways. But he did it in a sort of sprightly fashion, as if to indicate that, despite his size he was really quite fit. He was one of those people whose lower garments seemed to defy gravity. Cornelius found himself staring at Soames smart trousers and wondering how they could possibly find a lodging point beneath his enormous stomach, which at every motion seemed to quiver and wobble in an effort to divest itself of its covering. The belt on his trousers seemed far too thin to cope with what were obviously very powerful forces. But if the belt was under strain, then the buttons on his shirt were definitely just about to give way. The cotton loops through each of the buttonholes had a gargantuan task asked of them; the shirt material was stretched and distended where they held the two halves of the shirt in delicate contact. If Soames’ clothes had had mouths, they would have been shrieking in agony at the merciless stresses they were being subjected to. Soames himself, however, was, as most large people seem to be, rather jolly, and apparently oblivious to the possibly imminent embarrassment of everything splitting asunder and falling to the floor, leaving him like some mountainous walrus on a high sea rock, a still from the "Benny Hill Show". Cornelius, whose mouth was gaping, came to, and shook the clammy hand of Soames.

The three of them sat down at one of the tables, Soames again showing a surprising agility as he delicately parked his posterior. Cornelius heard tell later that Soames’ office usually contained at least four swivel chairs; the one he sat on, two broken ones awaiting repairs, and a fourth in case the current one should give way. Soames had started to explain the rationale behind his bank’s latest purchase of computing equipment from PAC. Cornelius listened intently, partly because this was the first opportunity he had had to hear first hand how one of PAC’s major customers justified what appeared to Cornelius to be apparently bizarre decisions on computing strategy. But mainly it was because Soames was an extremely entertaining talker.

What could easily have been a very boring subject somehow came to life at Soames’ lips; his description of the interminable series of meetings NUB’s computing department had been through were coloured by impromptu anecdotes about each of the key players. He painted a picture of long-winded but careful decision-making, of chairmen skilled in turning the meeting towards the decision they had already secretly taken, of presentations by bright young "whippersnappers", who thought they knew it all, but who were uncompromisingly torn to pieces. And then there was the budget for the equipment, which Soames himself managed. On this subject Soames really came into his own, describing how he had created a set of performance, cost and revenue graphs that he could variously use to satisfy any particular scheme he wanted to. The point was that, as always, there were lies, damned lies, and Soames’ graphs. He was a master of the unanottated y-axis, the axis that was numbered not from zero, but from some convenient other number, the logarithmic scale and the stacked bar chart in confusing colours. He could show a three dimensional scatter plot of three completely unrelated variables, and nearly always draw some unforeseen, but convenient, conclusion. His masterpiece was the projection of a computer chip power versus cost graph into a hyperspace where all the points, coloured according to the year, lay on a circle. Soames said he used this to either argue for buying now, and not waiting until the next year for the next generation of chips, or for drawing diameters across the circle from the current year to some year in the future, and arguing for a wait until then. Very few people, he said, ever dared to question the sense of these mathematical devices, and Soames confessed he would be hard pushed himself to prove their merit or otherwise.

As Soames went on, other people came and sat at their table, ate a while, sniggered at Soames’ stories, or talked amongst themselves before getting up and leaving for other tables, doing their social duty. Soames himself seemed to feel no need to talk to anyone else but Cornelius, and only got up when he needed to refill his plate, which was quite often. Cornelius had long ago finished his dessert of profiteroles, which he had smothered in a luxuriant coating of rich chocolate sauce. With constant refills of Champagne, and a stomach full of good food, Cornelius was beginning to enjoy the evening more than he had possibly imagined.

It was at one of Soames re-fuelling stops at the food tables, that the evening took a dizzy downward turn. Soames was, while spooning yet another slice of salmon onto his overflowing plate, explaining how the "Big Bopper", as he called the Swiss CEO at NUB, was flying in from Geneva that night, and how he’d be delighted to introduce Cornelius to him. Other Soames’ shoulder, Cornelius became aware that there was some sort of problem near the entrance; several people were looking urgently around the room, and a woman, she seemed to be a hotel employee judging from her attire, was pointing at a sheet of paper she was holding. Jack Quincy was next to here, and peering at the paper. Then, Quincy looked up and saw Cornelius. There was a disturbing mixture of urgency and sorrow in his look, and Cornelius felt something like a pang of fear ripple through his chest. Quincy and the woman started to walk across the room towards them. Soames stopped spooning and turned around.

"Something wrong ?", he asked.

"I .... I’m not sure," said Cornelius, aware that his voice sounded strangely modulated.

"Jack, there’s a telephone call for you." Quincy said as he joined them. "It’s rather urgent, you’d better go and see."

"Who is it?"

"It’s your mother. Look you’d better go, it’s from Switzerland."

"Please, come with me Dr.Cornelius." The woman was beckoning to him. Cornelius started off following her.

"Can I take it at the booth just here ?" he asked, as they emerged from the Jefferson Suite.

"It’s probably better to come to the Manager’s office, it’s only a short way away."

Cornelius didn’t argue. He felt like a four-year-old being taken to a school he didn’t want to go to. He feared what was there, but knew he had to go. He wanted to ask what it was all about, what was written on the piece of paper, what notes had been jotted down by someone listening to his mother.

Presently, they reached the Manager’s office, which was empty except for a large desk, a telephone, and a comfortable-looking leather swivel chair. Cornelius was invited to sit down, and press the red button when he wanted to speak, which was immediately.

"Hello ?" There was some crackling and buzzing on the line.

"Hello, Jack ?" He could hear his mother’s voice sounding oddly metallic.

"Hello, yes, it’s me. What’s wrong ?" Talking was difficult; there seemed to be a slight echo to each word, that could easily be the other person trying to break in.

"Jack, there’s been ..." Her voice trailed off, and he could hear some strange noise, not electronic; she was sobbing.

"Hey, come on, it can’t be that bad. What’s happened, tell me."

"There’s been an accident. I’m at the hospital now. I’m going to run out of money in a moment."

"What number are you there?" Cornelius tried to remain rational.

"I have to go back to him anyway. Jack, it’s terrible, he’s not breathing, can you come? Now? Can you come?"

"Okay. I’m coming. I’ll get back as soon as I can. Now give me your number, so I can ..." He never finished, as the dial tone cut brutally in on him. He sat, motionless, in the swivel chair, for what seemed like hours, the handset lightly resting in his outstretched hand, the other clasping his forehead lest it should burst asunder with despair.

Fashing Week

It was Fashing week in Great Ormsby, and the village women were busy preparing themselves for the afternoon’s exertions. Cornelius could see them gathered on the marked out village green in the distance. Even where he stood, high on the hill that sloped down towards the tiny hamlet, the smell of the Fash cakes lay heavy and sweet on the air. There was no wind, and the lazy palls of smoke from the griddle basins wafted slowly upwards, until finally they were dispersed by what air currents there were. The musky heat and humidity of the summer day made Cornelius feel more tired than he should have been, after walking the short way down the lane from the main road.

Loosening his collar, Cornelius continued slowly down the incline. By the time he passed the village shop, and came in sight of the green, the Fashing had begun. A great whooping and whistling had gone up from the assembled men-folk and children. The women, of all ages, shapes and sizes, had started off around the marked course. Cornelius hurried to get closer to best observe the action. Already there was a pair of women on the ground, just nearby, each grunting with the effort of trying to extricate the Fash cake from the other’s apron pouch. Just then another woman joined the fray, and with vicious swipes managed to grab one woman’s cake, tearing it asunder in the process. This enraged the other two, who jumped on the newcomer, screaming and pulling at her hair. The trio rolled and kicked until they were little more than a couple of feet from where Cornelius stood. Finally, two of the woman broke away with the two remaining intact cakes, leaving the third panting hard, face down in the grass. Farther off, some of the women were reaching the end of the course, the Fashing Hole, and the cheering from the crowd rose higher. Cornelius could see the ancient Hole, fashioned from an oak that had, so local legend had it, been struck by lightning on this very same day one year at the time of Cromwell. As was the custom, it was nailed to the top of a tall poll, probably forty feet off the ground. As Cornelius watched, the first Fash cake hit the base of the hole and smashed into a thousand crumbs, which showered over the huddle of woman below. The crowd jeered. A second Fash cake from the same hand went soaring over the top of the pole, and landed some way away. Again the crowd jeered and then groaned. Another woman, older than the first, wheezed dangerously as she propelled her rather large cake towards the hole, which it missed entirely and landed with an alarming thud on an old man’s head. He dropped gracefully to the ground, still clutching a small glass of beer, stunned and probably, for all Cornelius knew, unconscious.

Unkind laughter broke out around the green, and a smile crept to Cornelius’ lips.

Nearby, the woman who had lost her cake looked up from the grass, across towards the Fash Hole, then around to where Cornelius was standing. But the smile on Cornelius face was now strangely forced, and he was walking away, towards the other side of the green. The woman raised the string of bunting that marked that part of the course, stepped under it, and followed him. When Cornelius reached the wheelchair he stooped down, putting his head very close to the ear of the boy who sat there.

"Simon, my angel," he said.

The woman reached them, and kissed Cornelius lightly on the cheek.

A Case of Security

"Come in, Carter, and take a pew." Olof-Browne motioned Jed to the straight-backed chair in front of his desk. While doing, he jabbed keys on his desktop PC with a forefinger, occasionally pausing to make a difficult one-handed double key press. Jed sat down, and began to sort the case notes on his knee. The room was smoky: a marble ashtray piled with butt ends told why. Olof-Browne’s current cigarette was doomed to join the rest, but for the moment it hung precariously between his lips. It seemed to have been there for some time.

When the ash finally fell on the keyboard, Olof-Browne blew it off, and lent back in his chair.

"Don’t worry, I’m not going to bring up that embarrassing little incident in The Anchor!" Olof-Browne smiled. Jed had guessed he wasn’t going to bring it up, but was relieved anyway. A Tequila Sunrise he’d been carrying had somehow ended up soaking Olof-Browne’s secretary at the weekly group lunch. Before he could think of a suitable reply, Olof-Browne continued.

"Something came up yesterday afternoon. I was called over to the main branch of National United, straight up to the boardroom with the big boppers, in fact. Seems they’ve got a job for us, rather along the lines of what you were doing for RBC. I brought the dossier back with me." He pulled a drawer and fished out a sealed yellow envelope, throwing it onto the desk in the direction of Carter.

"Normal rules, Carter. No copies. Now I told them I’d put my best chap on it, and normally I would. But you know Philips is on his annual binge in Washington, and Stephanie has her plate full. So I’m giving it to you. It’s a tricky one, and quite a challenge. What do you think?"

Jed tried to emulate an expression of quiet confidence. "Well of course I’d like to read the case up first, Sir. Is there anything particularly unusual about it? The Royal job was rather straightforward."

"That’s what I thought. It’s an excellent opportunity for you to make a name for yourself in net security consulting. National always foot a meaty expenses bill anyway, and you’ll probably have to do some travelling. Read it over, and let me know. If you don’t take it on, I’ll probably do it myself, so there’s no problem there. By tomorrow, please". With this, Olof-Browne inserted a fresh cigarette in his mouth, lit it, and returned to his tapping.

The Parasite Box

When Jed woke, the InterCity express was pulling into Manchester Piccadilly station thirty minutes late. As it lurched to a standstill his unfinished coffee slid across the table and emptied into the lap of the denim-clad chap opposite. Apologising profusely, as befitted the situation, Jed hurried off the carriage leaving the other occupants to admire and wonder at the prodigious variety of expletives that filled the air.

A fine but persistent drizzle blew around him as he strode, umbrella-less, towards the taxi rank. The drizzle brought strangely happy memories of similar dampness in his undergraduate days, and he smiled at the thought of meeting his old friend Oenal again.

"The Computer Science Department on Oxford Road, please." he said, climbing into the first taxi in the rank.

"You a student?" grunted the driver, without turning round. "I don’t take students any more. Had a bunch last week, pissed all over the floor. Dirty buggers. Can’t be doing with students."

"Actually, I’m a Eurobond dealer up from the Smoke" said Jed, flinching at the possibility that this might be even less acceptable to the driver than a student. The car pulled away, indicating otherwise, and Jed settled back.

"Never!" the driver exclaimed, " my boy’s with Arthur Amundsen."

"Arthur Anderson?" Jed queried, hardly believing the ill-fortune of finding a professional match between his random choice and the driver’s son’s.

"No, not them buggers! Goes abroad a lot. Last week he was in New York. I said to the wife, shame he can’t send a bit of the loot up here ...."

Jed powered down his aural circuitry, and looked out of the window at the dreary Manchester streets. There was the Old Boot, where he’d lost many a game of pool after too many pints. And there was the Manchester Odeon. How many hours had he spent queuing there to see hyped and mediocre "big screen" films? And, over there, on the other side, shambling along in the same Macintosh he’d always worn five years ago, wasn’t that old Professor Chyles, he of the booming voice and permanently exposed underpants waist-band? It was. Jed marveled at the timelessness of the place.

Until the car stopped. Instead of the old Victorian monstrosity of a building that had housed the Computer Science Department, here was a massive concrete edifice completely windowed in dark glass.

".... lost fifty thousand in one hour. I said to the wife, shame he couldn’t have lost forty and sent us the difference. Computer Science. That’s nine seventy, please sir."

"Take ten, thanks a lot." Jed scrambled out of the car, and hurried across to the entrance, narrowly missing a kagoul-clad cyclist travelling along the pavement at a rather dangerous speed.

Inside the building, the hiss of the air-conditioning was the only sound. Jed scanned the board showing the list of floors and their occupants. Oelan wasn’t there, so Jed made to the glass cubicle marked "Reception".

"I have a meeting with Dr. Oelan at three thirty." said Jed, "But I can’t find his name on the board."

After spelling the name, the receptionist found it in the book.

"He’s in the other building, in the basement. B 12. I’ll tell him you’re here. Straight along, first left, down the stairs, through the door, across the car park and in at the first door you see. You’ll have to take the elevator down from there. Take this." Jed was proffered a plastic clip badge with "VISITOR" marked in large letters. He clipped it to his jacket and strode off.

Half an hour later, Jed found the elevator. But it had no buttons anywhere near it. Jed wondered how he was supposed to call it. Just then, a metallic voice issued from the ceiling above him.

"Insert your access card in the slot, please." Jed saw the slot, and, unclipping his plastic card, slipped it in.

"Thankyou. The lift will be here in a moment. Have a nice day."

Jed cringed at the awfulness of the repartee. Clearly an American voice chip, he thought. This reminded him of the Japanese voice chips back at the Department, the ones that couldn’t pronounce r’s. When the lift door opened into the basement, the smell of chips and vinegar was overpowering. Jed had expected to come out in a corridor, but instead he stepped directly into Oelan’s lab. Oelan himself was hunched over a terminal in the far corner, his nose almost touching the screen. Next to him, the pen of a pen plotter thumped rhythmically on a half-completed plot. On the plotter itself, but further down the page, a large piece of newspaper held a steaming pile of cod and chips. As the pen moved dangerously close to a particularly soggy looking chip, Oelan reached out and, shifting his late lunch further down the page, looked up.

"Oooo, yeh, cor." he said, by way of a greeting.

Carter explained why this wasn’t just a social visit etc etc....

A few weeks later, Carter was sitting at home reading the latest issue of "The Gramophone". The wick was turned high on his Japanese high-end amplifier, and his special "audiophile" issue Richter Scale Eights were thumping and blasting to the sounds. Out of the corner of his eye, Carter spotted the postman, rather than heard him, banging on the window pane.

He looked rather annoyed, so Carter turned everything off and rushed to the door.

"I’ve been ringing this bell for the last ten minutes!" the postman fumed as it opened. He dumped a bound cardboard box just inside the door, and proffered a grubby slip of paper, which Carter signed.

Carter took the box back into the sitting room, and placed it on the coffee table. It was quite heavy, and postmarked in Manchester. He realised that it must be the device Oenal had spoken of. Indeed, when he had untied the string and ripped open the top of the carton, he could see that it was. There was a cover letter from Oenal together with the instrument itself, which Carter examined with some interest. It looked innocuous enough: about the size of a shoebox, finished in matte black brushed aluminium. The top was fixed in position with countersunk screws, the heads of which lay perfectly flush with the surface. On the front face, and again flush with the surface, were two small holes containing the tips of light emitting diodes, one of which glowed green. On the underside were fixed two strong cable ties, clearly intended for securing the device on a fixture such as a pipe. The rear of the box had a recess in which Carter could see a short coil of coaxial cable, terminated with a curious-looking connector.

Carter turned his attention to Oenal’s letter. "Dear Jed," it began, " this is the sniffer device I told you about. I call it the Parasite Box. Please be careful with it, it is the only one I’ve had time to make up. It seems to work n the Ethernet segment in the office here, but you’ll have to try it before you can be really sure it’ll do what you want. I already put some batteries in, so it should arrive in a working state. If not, drop me a line. You’ll see that it’s rather heavy. This is because I’ve used a couple of hefty electrolytic capacitors to give some extra use after the batteries run down. I could do that because the current consumption is so low. The connector at the back is special: I had three made by the workshop here. The idea is that you tee into the Ethernet simply by clamping the connector to the cable and screwing in the pin. Rather like a plumbing job! In principle, then, attaching the box should be undetectable because you don’t have to break the segment. I’ve used an Ethernet address that seems to be in an unallocated range - AA-1F-B7-00-12-12. You’ll need that when you want to get access to the memory contents. Use the standard access protocol, but begin the access packet data with the code I gave you."

They don’t take bribes in Switzerland. That’s what Cornelius had been told, and that’s what he didn’t believe. He assumed that what was meant was that they don’t take small bribes in Switzerland. And what he had in used Swiss Franc notes in his briefcase could in no way be mistaken for a small bribe. Stepping into the elevator, he pressed the button for the sixth floor, and adjusted his cravat in the mirror.

"Monsieur Cornelius. J’ai un rendez-vous avec Monsieur le Directeur."

"Yes, you’re expected, Sir," said the receptionist "please sign the book. Your passport, please."

Cornelius handed her his passport, suppressing his inclination to ask why the bloody hell she needed it at all.

"Take a seat please, the Director will be with you in a moment." The statutory Swiss waiting time of fifteen minutes having passed (this would have been waived had Cornelius himself been spot on time), the Director’s door opened, and a small wiry man with glasses beckoned him over. Cornelius followed him into the office, and sat down in an exceptionally comfortable swivel chair. The office contained sufficient tropical plants to respectably stock the interior of a new glass house at Kew Gardens. In one corner, a bubbling tropical fish tank sported luridly coloured examples of anemone, and several motionless crayfish. In another corner, and most remarkably, a gilded cage swayed silently to the peckings of a beautiful parrot.

"Being director of the Geneva PTT does bring with it some advantages." The Director seemed well pleased with this little homily, and, it was clear to Cornelius, considered it sufficient introductory chat. For he continued: "Your request for an unaccounted line to our central exchange is irregular, to say the least, completely unthinkable in Swiss law, and also according to our own regulations. It would not even be considered for a Swiss national. We have no means of disabling our accounting procedures in any case. I’m afraid, Mr. Cornelius, that your journey has been rather wasted. Will you, in any case, drink a cup of coffee?"

It was already late when Jed returned from the Department. The nights were colder now, and this one seemed particularly bitter. An icy wind gusted petulantly at his coat, slicing through the fur lining and straight into his jumper. He was shivering, and walking very quickly. Despite the cold and his discomfort, Jed was not relishing returning to Cruck House. If he was frank with himself, and he didn’t want to be on a spooky night like this, the place gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. That feeling was an irrational fear. It was irrational for now, at least. He couldn’t help but imagine, as he rounded the last street corner, a ghostly face staring, sadly, blankly, from the uppermost window. He knew he’d have to avoid looking anywhere other than at the front door when he arrived. He knew he’d just have to open it as quickly as he possibly could, make as much noise with the keys and dropping his case in the hall consistent with someone completely unconcerned about the menace of a large, old and empty house.

Bloody hell! He cursed himself for not taking at least one lodger. What he would give for the muffled sound of heavy metal music, the gravitational pull of the sounds of a party, to be heard from the house. He’d had plenty of enquiries, too. Anyway, he couldn’t afford the risk of someone living in. Anyone with an ounce of grey matter would start to suspect, after a while of living there. He couldn’t afford the risk, let alone the emotional strain, of having to explain both his strange hours, and the large quantities of the Department’s gear in the basement. No, he was better off alone.

He arrived at the door, sheltered from the wind by the porch, and completely unseen from that upstairs window. He rummaged for the keys, and after trying several until he found the right one, opened the door, leapt inside, and threw his case on the hall table. He whistled a tune with a pathetic attempt at nonchalance, as he stepped two paces down the hallway and flicked the light switch.

Nothing happened. The light didn’t come on, and he stopped whistling. The power was off; he could tell that it had been off for a while because the hallway was cold. Colder than outside. The sickly feeling in the pit of his stomach changed to a hollow gnawing sensation, and he was quite suddenly gripped with a naked fear. The house was too cold, it was too dark. Now he couldn’t even see the front door. Surely he should have been able to make out some light from the street. And upstairs was black too. As the hall was too cold, so the upper floors looked too black.

Jed fumbled at the catch on the entrance to the basement. Flinging the door open, he then scrabbled wildly for the torch he’d bought and hung inside for such emergencies. Finding it, he flicked the switch and directed the beam at the panel of circuit-breakers mounted on the wall. They were all in the "make" position, but the thermal switch which controlled the power to the whole house had tripped. Jed wondered whether he’d manually moved the switch to that position in a half-awake doze before leaving the house that morning. Either that, or there had been a general excess of current used sometime during the day. All the electric radiators coming on at the same time, for example, could only explain that. Jed opted for that hypothesis, particularly in view of the temperature in the house. He moved the switch back on.

The lights came on and instantly everything felt all right. But moving down the stairway to the basement Jed could hear a loud buzzing in addition to the familiar hum of the computer kit he had installed down there. At the bottom of the stairs the source of the buzz could be seen. Pages upon pages of printout were scattered around the Teletype, which was clearly in a sorry state. Even as he looked at it, it started to smoke slightly from the rear.

On inspection, the printhead had clearly given up the ghost. In a few hours the printer must have printed more paper than it had probably printed in the last five years. It stuttered and buzzed; jammed hard over to the right hand side of the last paper roll it would ever mark. Jed turned it off, and started to collect the mounds of paper around about, cursing the programming error he had clearly made the night before.

He had been working then on perfecting an automatic trap for Cornelius. His workstation would keep a link open to the NUB central VAX, running a simple program that periodically sent a small electronic message back to the workstation. This ensured that the network connection to NUB was not "timed-out" due to inactivity. A second program, this time running on Jed’s workstation and therefore invisible to anyone logged in on the NUB machine, was looking for Cornelius. Jed knew that Cornelius could obtain full system privilege on the NUB machine, and could thus look at, and get suspicious about, any program Jed ran there. Not that Cornelius knew about Jed in particular (the Department had insisted that its investigation of NUB be known only to the Technical Director), but he was clearly someone who took no chances when it came to concealing his actions. So Jed had had to devise a scheme whereby he could remotely monitor activity on the NUB system, whilst running an innocuous-looking program there. The second program used the existing link to NUB to "hop" to the Parasite Box and see what its log showed.

It was this log that Jed’s printer had been gnashing on until it’s grisly end. And it was this log that Jed folded carefully and took upstairs with him to peruse with a cup of coffee.

It was with a determination to lose that Carter stepped up to the first tee at Royal Bonmont and faced his opponent for the day’s golf. The sky looked mean, with billowing grey clouds scudding across it, propelled by a gusting wind that would pay no respect to the proper flight of a golf ball. Back in the clubhouse, in the snug of the member’s bar, and warmed by the jolly site of their colleagues freezing outside, were the remaining tee-off pairs. They stood expectantly at the window, with expressions on their faces that illuminated the sweet mixture of pleasure and compassion that waiting golfers feel for others on the first tee.

Carter felt their gazes on his back as he pulled a long driver from his bag and swished it back and forth, feeling the whippy strength of it through his forearms. It was a beautiful persimmon wood, hand-crafted by his grandfather in the days when making golf clubs had been an art, rather than the science it was today. Carter had screamed some balls away from the turf with that club. He had grunted and even shouted at the crack from the head as it sent those dimpled objects to hell and back. It was his favourite club, but today it would be giving him problems. Those problems would manifest themselves as slicing and hooking and scuffing and topping the ball. They would cause him to try other, less trusted, woods. It would be to no avail. His tee shots would leave him in trouble, inextricable trouble, and Carter would lose the match. That, at least was his plan. Yet the club felt warm and useful in his palms...

"Hello there! I’m Frank Cornelius, you must be Carter?"

Carter turned round and saw Cornelius approaching from the caddie hut. He had never seen him look so happy, his whole demeanour so different from what Carter had imagined. How could this man, who had spent the last five years of his life embroiled in the most cunning and corrupt activity conceivable in his metier, look so nonchalant? As if to answer this silent question, Cornelius said simply,

"I love a game of golf, don’t you?"

"Hello, yes I do and pleased to meet you. Played here before?" asked Carter.

"Once, years ago. It got the better of me, I’m afraid. Can we go?"

They both peered down the fairway at the receding backs of the pair in front.

"Looks like it. Your honour I think." Carter said, proffering his card in exchange for that of Cornelius.

The game began. Cornelius played well; a safe game with most tee-shots straight down the fairway, followed by solid chipping on to the greens. Although Cornelius could handle his putter quite expertly, it seemed to Carter to be the weak point in his game. As for Carter himself, he was playing not only against the course and "old man Par", but against himself as well. Every shot he made that turned out the way he’d expected, reminded him that he intended to lose the match, not win it. This caused his following shot to be so obviously intentionally bad, that Carter feared Cornelius might smell a rat!

By the ninth green, Carter judged that he must be sufficiently behind that he could then afford to play his usual game, and instantly became more relaxed. In fact, Cornelius was four holes up at the turn, and seemed to be well pleased with his performance. They sat for while chatting at the side of the tenth tee, each drinking a can of beer that Cornelius had thoughtfully provided. At this point, they were far from the clubhouse, and quite elevated compared with the rest of the course. In the distance, Carter could just make out the unmistakable figure of Olof-Browne raking sand in a bunker on the fifteenth. The day had taken an unexpected turn for the better; the sun had come out and the wind had dropped. Carter took off his sweater and, after stowing it in his bag, picked a fresh new ball and tee from the bag’s top pocket to start the second half with.

The tenth was a short par three, slightly downhill from the tee, the green being surrounded on the one side by deep bunkers, and on the other by a dense packet of fir trees. The most difficult feature of the hole was the green itself, which was shaped rather like an upturned saucer, with the flag at the highest point. This made it particularly difficult to make a shot from the tee hold anywhere near the flag, and the more likely to end up rolling into the trees, or, worse still, into one of the deep bunkers.

Cornelius topped his tee shot quite badly, but it rolled quite a way down the slope to leave him a simple pitch and run to the flag. Carter took a seven iron and, with a carefree and relaxed swing lifted a beautiful looking shot into the air that rose and dipped magically towards the flag. The ball landed on the green with a satisfying thud and, due to the backspin imparted to it by the club face, moved hardly forward from its point of impact, about six feet from the hole.

"Oh good shot, Carter!", exclaimed Cornelius. It was indeed quite the best shot they had seen that day.

Cornelius being the further from the pin, he made his pitch and run shot first. This was a delicate affair; a little too much power, and the ball could scoot off the back of the green into trouble. Too light a stroke would leave the ball short, with a difficult put to make par. Adding to the problem of the shot was that to give Cornelius a chance of halving the hole, he would have to leave the ball very close to the hole, since Carter would be sure to drop his ball within two putts.

Cornelius judged the strength of his stroke nicely, but its direction was slightly wrong. The cruel borrow of the green accentuated the error, and the ball came to rest just short of the skirt, leaving Cornelius a twenty foot putt to the pin. Putting carefully, he gently rolled the ball to within six inches, and marked it, before withdrawing to watch Carter putt for a birdie.

Carter took some time weighing up the borrow of the green between his ball and the hole. He paced to the opposite side, squinted through one eye whilst down on his haunches, returned to the other side, did the same, hung his putter delicately between thumb and forefinger, like the pendulum of some bizarre clock, to get a line, then stepped up to the ball. The ball looked good as it came away from Carter’s putter head. It shot across the turf, inspiring confidence as it neared the hole. If it hadn’t been heading for the hole, it was going so briskly it would surely have rolled a way off the green. But it sank with a satisfying rattle in the cup, and Carter was now only three down.

At the eleventh, Cornelius hooked his ball wildly into the wood. They looked at one another as it rattled between the trees. Carter’s shot wasn’t good either; it landed just behind a greensman’s hut, and out of sight of the green itself. The two parted halfway down the fairway, Cornelius disappearing amongst the trees, Carter to ponder how best to play his second. It was a difficult lie, and he spent some time weighing up the pros and cons of various possible shots.

After a while he became aware that there was no sign of Cornelius. He was clearly having problems finding his ball. Carter mooched across the fairway to lend a hand. But Cornelius was nowhere to be seen, and, although it was quiet in the trees, no sound to be heard. Carter re-emerged from the trees and considered what to do. The pair behind was now on the eleventh tee, and gesticulating wildly that they would like to play through. It had been a good ten minutes since he had last seen Cornelius. Carter had lost his ball many times playing golf. This was the first time he’d lost his partner.

Beckoning the golfers behind to come on, Carter returned to the trees, and resumed his search. Suddenly he heard a hiss. It was Cornelius, crouching in the undergrowth, with one finger to his lips. Carter moved closer, and followed with his eyes the direction Cornelius was pointing in. There, a short distance away, and wedged between two branches of a tree, was a nest. In the nest sat a rather large, frightened bird. And under the bird, just visible, were a set of eggs, each a light shade of blue, and slightly speckled. Except for one, which had quite a different sort of marking. It said "Dunlop 65".

"That," said Cornelius, "is my ball, which I hereby declare lost. I’ll give you this hole."

They both laughed, and then started to make their way back to the course. Carter followed Cornelius, picking his way through the dense mat of brambles that covered the ground. Then, as they both emerged from the trees, he heard Cornelius cry out, then fall to the ground, clutching his side. Carter rushed across, the surge of adrenaline propelling him forward. Cornelius’ face was contorted with pain, and he seemed to be having difficulty breathing.

"What the hell happened?" Carter asked.

"A golf ball just hit me. Those bastards behind. Christ, it hurts."

Carter realised that he had called the pair behind through. They must have been teeing off just as Cornelius came out of the trees, and the errant shot had found an unexpected mark. Indeed, the ball lay near Cornelius. Carter could see both men running towards them.

"Is he alright?" he heard one cry.

Carter looked back down at Cornelius. The poor man had begun to look exceedingly ill, and his breathing was becoming shallower.

"We’ll have to get an ambulance. You stay with him, and I’ll run for it!" he shouted back. With that he got up and started off in the direction he thought the clubhouse must be.

One of the men stopped him.

"Wait," he bellowed, "I’ve got a portable ‘phone in the bag. Hang on!"

With this, he turned and began running back towards the tee. The other man had reached Cornelius. It was Potter, from Accounts.

"You bloody fool," said Carter, "didn’t you look?"

"But you called us through! He just walked straight into it. My driving’s been rotten today."

"I don’t give a fuck about your bloody driving," said Carter, " you could have killed him. What are we going to do?"

Cornelius was now shivering. Carter took off his sweater and laid it over the old man’s chest. It was clear they needed help, and quickly. A couple of minutes later the second man returned, clutching his portable ‘phone.

"There’s an ambulance coming. I told them where we are." He bent over Cornelius. "It’s Frank Cornelius!" he exclaimed. Carter ignored him, and the three of them sat waiting for what seemed an eternity. As they waited, other golfers passed then joined them, until in the end there was quite a cluster around the prone Cornelius.

Eventually, someone shouted "There it is!", and they all looked over to see an ambulance bobbing across the course towards them, swerving to avoid the bunkers and obstacles on its way. It skidded to a halt, and two ambulancemen jumped out, opened the rear doors, and pulled a stretcher from the back.

"Sorry we took so long," panted one of them, " we’ve been up and down the seventh a few times."

"Where are you taking him?" asked Carter.

"St.Mary’s. You coming?"

"Yes." said Carter. He told Potter to take care of Cornelius and his clubs.

"It’s the least I can do." Potter said gloomily.

In the back of the ambulance, as it bounced away across the turf, Cornelius turned his head painfully to where Carter sat. He rested his hand on Carter’s arm, and started mumbling, burbling like a small child. Carter bent his head forward, nearer Cornelius, the jolting of the vehicle and noise of the siren frustratingly preventing him from hearing him better. Cornelius was now very pale, and his eyes were brimming with tears. Carter finally moved his ear right next to Cornelius’s mouth.

"I guess that was my last round" Cornelius barely whispered, the minutest twitch at the corners of his mouth. Then he closed his eyes.

He heard the sound of the outside door on the floor below shutting, and the chalet was once again in silence. Cornelius sat in the main room, his knees covered by a tartan blanket, staring out across the valley. Just down the mountainside, a cluster of wooden buildings, their roofs still heavy with snow, bathed in the cold bright sunlight of the May morning. Further away, the little hamlet of Vercorin could be seen, and in between its buildings, the occasional brightly clothed skier walking the circuitous route to the tows. Further away still, and right at the bottom of the valley, the main road could be seen, like a great grey snake. On it, small specks of traffic seemed to crawl along. In the grey blue distance, at the end of the valley, a tall thin plume of white smoke rose from a barely distinguishable factory chimney. Strands of white cloud striated the intense blue of the sky from afar.

Cornelius gazed at the mountains all around. There was no escaping looking at them. They soared majestically and uncompromisingly all about, and dominated everything else. They roe with dizzy abruptness from the valley floor, and stood out sharp and metallic against the sky. Above a certain height there were no trees on them, no roads, no chalets, in short no blemishes. It was as if they were in the process of shaking off unwanted parasites, starting from the top downwards. Far, far away into the distance their serrated peaks tore at the skyline. It seemed entirely plausible that only the impact of vast masses of land could have created such objects; how else might the energy to push them up have been derived? What power the combined ingenuity of mankind could drum up in the form of nuclear bombs was a mere trifle in comparison. Man was a weedy, pompous, ineffectual being by the side (or at the bottom of) these objects. On a timescale of millions of years the future of mankind was, at wildly optimistic best, uncertain; that of these icy peaks as solid as their own fabric.

The heavy drips of the melting snow marked time monotonously. Every now and then Cornelius watched as branches of pines shed their weight of snow, springing slightly as they did so. Then he noticed his reflection in one of the small panes of glass that made up the casement window. It was indistinct and unnerving, for it didn’t look really anything like him at all. It was the face of an old man, of an infirm old man. It didn’t look at all like the face he remembered last seeing in the bathroom mirror that morning. He moved his hand to his chin, and stroked it. The reflection did the same. Outside, the dripping continued. The sensitive mouth and pointed chin were certainly his. His fingers were trembling slightly, probably due to the medication he had been prescribed. He stroked his forehead, feeling the wispy white hairs at the sides of his head. He moved his head from side to side, aware of the dull ache in his back as he did so. The wheelchair he was sitting in rocked slightly as he shifted his position in it.

There was a smell of coffee from the adjoining kitchen. The visiting nurse must have left it on for him. He started to wheel himself slowly across the wooden floorboards, until he reached the door into the kitchen. The smell of coffee was stronger. Straining at the wheels, he tried once, twice, three times to make the chair rise up the slightly raised strip that interfaced the floors of the two rooms. On a fourth attempt he made it, rolling rather exhilaratingly quickly into the room. Sure enough, there was the coffee machine, sitting on the draining board, making little clicking noises as the thermostat helped keep the coffee warm. Next to the sink, the door to the balcony outside stood slightly ajar, a slight breeze coming through it. The belt of his old dressing gown, hanging from the coat stand nearby, swayed in the draught. Cornelius was cold, and wheeled himself nearer, so that he could unhook it to put it about his shoulders.

Again he saw his reflection, this time in the mirror that was a built in to the coat stand. Again, there was the feeble old man. Again, Cornelius trembled at the sight of the alien in his body. But this time he was angry. He was angry with himself; how could he let himself become an old decrepit weakling like this?

He lifted himself from the chair, allowing the tartan blanket to drop to the floor, took a small cup from the cupboard, and filled it with the coffee. He gulped it down. Then he reached to the coat stand again, and took his overcoat.

Outside, he started off up the winding road. It was icy and slippery, and he made slow progress. He felt slightly elated, as the thin air of the mountains seemed to enter and permeate his whole body. Up and up he trudged, never poising, the only sounds the scrunch of crumbling ice underfoot and his own wheezy breathing.

Some minutes later he reached the tree line, a vast expanse of snow stretching away above him. He stood awhile, squinting against the brightness of the scene, looking up towards the peak of the mountain. Then he realised he was very tired, very tired indeed. So he sat down against the trunk of the nearest pine.

A minute later, he was asleep.