Doughnut - By Tom Holt Page 0,101

Agreed?”

Pieter slit the foil, drove in the corkscrew, wound it and pulled. There was a soft pop. Nothing happened. They looked at each other, then Pieter bent over the bottle and stared down into the neck. “Shit,” he said, “it’s just wi—”

Somewhere, far away down the beach, a radio was playing. The tune was familiar, but the words were slightly different:

Now everybody’s got an ocean

Across the USA

Because of global warming,

The floods are here to stay.

They went and melted both the ice caps;

Stupid USA.

Oh, Theo thought. Not promising.

For some reason, Pieter seemed to have got there earlier; he was sitting in a striped blue and white canvas chair under a huge red umbrella, sipping a margarita. He was tanned, with blobs of white zinc cream on his nose and chin, and his feet were bare. He looked up, scowled and shouted, “Theo? Where the hell did you get to?”

“I just got here. Where is this?”

Pieter’s wrath evaporated instantly. “Minneapolis,” he replied. “Merry Christmas, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“It’s 25 December,” Pieter said. “You’re just in time for the hog roast.”

“Minneapolis?”

Pieter nodded. Above his head, the sun was a white disc in a kingfisher-blue sky. Theo felt a drop of sweat roll down his nose, and wiped his forehead. “Ah,” he said.

“Exactly. Christmas Day in Minneapolis, and it’s ninety-two in the shade on the beach. Give you three guesses what’s different about this reality.”

“You sure it’s not just the future?”

Pieter shook his head. “Time travel is impossible,” he said confidently. “Trust me, I’m a physicist. Not here, though. Here, I’m Honest Pete Tomasek, joint owner of the Minneapolis Yacht Marina and Country Club.” He frowned again. “You’re my business partner. Which reminds me: there’s a raft of cheques and stuff for you to sign. You’d better see to it ASAP.”

“What the hell,” Theo demanded, “are we doing in Minneapolis?”

Pieter yawned, twiddled the little wooden stick in his drink, drew it out and licked it. “You were right about the bottles in the Vatican cellar being single-use spatio-temporal dislocation modules. God only knows how you knew, but you knew. Where you went wrong was your choice of vintage. Still, on balance, this is better than where we just came from.”

Little wheels were turning in Theo’s head. “How long have you been here?”

“Three weeks,” Pieter replied. “Just long enough to settle in and learn the ropes. I like it here.”

“Three weeks. Shouldn’t you be cream-of-physicist soup by now?”

Pieter beamed at him. “Yes. And I’m not. Which suggests there’s something about this place that counteracts the degradation effect. Personally, I’m guessing it’s to do with the damage to the ozone layer. Massive exposure to unfiltered UV light.” He shrugged. “It’d probably be a good idea if I steered clear of Kryptonite while I’m here, but otherwise I can’t really see a problem. Hence,” he added, “the cheerful outlook and jovial demeanour. Have a drink. They mix the sneakiest margarita.”

“Pieter,” Theo glanced up at the sky. “We can’t stay here. It’s a dying planet.”

For that he got a don’t-be-a-fusspot gesture. “It’s not that bad. They’ve got at least ninety years before the ambient radiation quotient reaches lethal. Also,” he added cheerfully, “they’ve got me. If I invent some brilliant fix for the climate change thing, I can save the planet and really clean up financially. Or I could just sit here and veg out in peace. Don’t you love it when you’ve got options?”

Theo looked at him. I’m not the only one who’s changed, he thought. Or maybe it’s just that rose-tinted spectacles don’t work properly in an atmosphere saturated with the wrong kind of light. “Pieter.”

“Hmm?”

“When I was your student,” he said, “I looked up to you. I admired what you’d achieved. I respected you as a scientist and a human being. And now you’re saying you don’t give a damn, not unless you can make a lot of money out of global catastrophe.”

Pieter gave him a sour look. “Blow it out your ear, Grasshopper,” he said. “Don’t you get it? We’re stuck here. We tried your million-to-one long shot, and, guess what, it didn’t work. No wine cellar, I checked. And there’s no way your lunatic sister can call us, because that’s impossible. We’re stranded on, as you so rightly point out, a dying planet. The moral high ground’s a bit different when there’s self-induced floodwater lapping round the foot of it. There’s nothing left to do here, Theo, it’s too late. So.” He sipped his drink and smiled. “The hell with it. Eat, drink and