‘Anyway, this planet rotates westward very slowly, and its poles are not quite lined up on the sun. So it’s like the planet has a wobble. The sun is seen to revolve west to east – anti-clockwise, if you like – in a slow, small circle. Now, I’m not an astronomer or a space scientist of any sort so don’t ask me the whys and wherefores, but how it works out is like this:
‘On Sunside we get a “morning” of about twenty-five hours’ duration, a “day” of maybe seventy-five hours’ duration, an “evening” of twenty-five hours and a “night” of about forty. Midday or thereabouts is sunup, and all of the night is sundown.’
Jazz looked up again, saw the moon halved now by the sharp rim of the mountains. Even as he watched its glow lessened as it prepared to slip from sight. ‘I’m no astronomer either,’ he said, ‘but still it’s very plain we have something of a fast-moving moon up there!’
“That’s right,’ she answered. ‘It has a rapid spin, too, and unlike the old moon shows both its face and its backside.’
Jazz nodded. ‘Not shy, eh?’
She snorted. ‘In some ways you remind me of another Englishman I once knew,’ she said. ‘He seemed sort of naive, too, and yet in reality he was anything but naive!’
‘Oh?’ Jazz looked at her. ‘Who was this lucky man?’
‘He wasn’t that lucky,’ she said, tilting her head a little.
Jazz looked at her in profile in the last rays of moonlight, decided he liked her. A lot.
‘So who was he?’ he asked again.
‘He was a member – maybe even the head – of your British E-Branch,’ she answered. ‘His name was Harry Keogh. And he had a special talent. I have a talent, too, but his was . . . different. I don’t even know if you could call it ESP. That’s how different it was.’
Jazz remembered what Khuv had told him about her. That sort of stuff was so much baloney as far as he was concerned, but best not to let her see his scepticism. ‘Oh, yes, that’s right,’ he said. ‘You’re a mentalist, right? You read minds. So what was this Keogh’s talent, eh?’
‘He was a Necroscope,’ she said, her voice suddenly cold.
‘A what?’
‘He could talk to the dead!’ she said; and coming to a sudden, angry halt, she drew apart from Jazz.
He looked at her stubborn, bad-tempered stance, and at the great wolf standing between them, staring yellow-eyed from one to the other. ‘Did I do something?’
‘You thought something!’ she snapped. ‘You thought, “what a load of-“‘
‘Christ!’ said Jazz. Because that was exactly what he’d thought.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Do you know how many years I’ve been hiding the truth of my telepathy? Knowing I was better than anything else they had but not wanting to work for them? Not daring to work for them, because I knew if I did then sooner or later I’d come up against Harry Keogh again? I’ve suffered for my telepathy, Jazz, and yet now – here where it doesn’t matter much any more – the moment I admit the truth of it . . .’
‘Show me!’ he said, cutting her off. ‘OK, I can see how we won’t get anywhere if we’ve no faith in each other.
But we won’t get far by lying or misleading each other either. If you say you can do it I have to accept it, right -certainly I know there are those who do believe you have this talent. But isn’t there any way you can show me? You have to admit, Zek, it would have been easy just now to take a guess at what I was thinking. Not only about your telepathy but also about this Keogh bloke – about what you say he can do! Don’t tell me you haven’t met up with scepticism before, not with a gift most people would consider supernatural!’
‘You’re tempting me?’ her eyes flashed fire. ‘Humouring me? Taunting me? Get thee behind me, Satan!’
‘Oh, it’s godlike, this talent of yours, is it?’ Jazz couldn’t quite conceal his sneer. ‘Well, if you’re that good, how come you didn’t know who it was coming up the pass? if telepathy and ESP in general are real, why didn’t Khuv know I’d hidden away a magazine for my SMG, which is how I came to get the chance to drag that goon Vyotsky in here with me?’