There’s conscience, and there’s brotherly love, and there’s getting your head blown off. Sorry, Max, he said to himself, and slowly raised his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. All it took was a slight tilt of the wrist to bring the doughnut into line. Through the hole in the middle he saw an elephant bank into an Immelman turn, and then –
Part Four
Doughnut Go Gentle Into That Good Night
As he fell out of nowhere, his head hit the side of the desk, which meant that the crucial quarter-second during which he’d have had the element of surprise was wasted in suffering pain and feeling dizzy. By the time all that stuff had run its course, it was too late. Oh well.“Hi,” she said. “Well?”
He looked up at her. No doubt about it, she was a beautiful woman, with captivating eyes and a lovely smile. A pity she was going to die so young. “You—”
She wasn’t listening, or even looking at him. She was waiting for something; something that hadn’t happened. Suddenly, Theo knew what it was.
“He’s not coming,” he said.
“What?”
“Max. He’s not coming.”
Actually, it was far better than merely killing her. The look of pain on her face would’ve touched a heart of stone, provided that it hadn’t just escaped by the skin of its teeth from a posse of blood-crazed Disney folk. “What? He’s not—”
For a moment he was tempted; but he was a scientist, devoted to the truth. “He’s not dead, if that’s what you mean. He’s still there. I got out, he didn’t.”
“You left him there.” She was very beautiful when she was angry, but beauty isn’t everything. “Your own brother.”
“I tried,” Theo said. “But I got ambushed by the bad guys. I nearly didn’t make it.”
She didn’t seem all that interested. “You left him there,” she repeated. “Oh, swell.”
Slowly and painfully he picked himself up off the floor and leaned against the desk. All the unaccustomed running about had taken its toll. At least he had proper clothes again. “So,” he said, “you and Max. I should’ve guessed.”
She dropped into the chair and buried her face in her hands. “I should’ve known better than to rely on you,” she said. “A perfectly simple, straightforward little job.”
Somehow, though, he found he couldn’t be angry, not now that he knew. Women under the influence of Max, he was aware from long experience, weren’t responsible for their actions. Still, there was one point he felt he had to clear up. “You kissed me,” he said.
“Yes. Well?”
“You kissed me,” he repeated, “to get a sample of my DNA, so you could get past the security lockout on the powder compact. That’s how you were able to send the message in the bottle, and the doughnut. Well? Yes or no.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re Max’s—”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” Which, he realised as soon as he’d said it, wasn’t true at all. It wasn’t fine, not by a long chalk. But, by the same token, it wasn’t her fault. You could no more blame girls for catching a dose of Max than you could find fault with trees for squashing houses when blown down by a high wind. “Well, I’ll be going now, then.”
Her head shot up like the price of gold in a recession. “You what?”
“I’m leaving. Well, you don’t need me any more, do you? You can get into the powder compact, which means you can read the YouSpace manual, which means you can figure out how to make it work, which means you can go and rescue Max yourself, which means—”
“You can’t just leave,” she said.
“Why not?”
“We need you. You’re the only one who can understand all this shit.”
Theo smiled at her. “By all this shit, presumably you mean Pieter van Goyen’s epoch-making advances in quantum physics?”
“Yes.”
“I’m leaving,” he repeated. “I think I’ll give the animal slaughtering business another try. You meet a better class of people.”
“Uncle Bill won’t let you. He knows people.”
Theo nodded. “So do I,” he said. “I know you, and your uncle Bill, and my brother Max. That’s why I’m leaving. I thought I knew Pieter, but nobody’s right all the time. Have a nice day.”
He’d got as far as the door; he’d put his hand on the doorknob. “Please don’t go.”
She was good. Not quite in Max’s class when it came to pathetic wheedling, but you couldn’t blame her for that. She was good enough, which was all that mattered.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “I’ll help you rescue my worthless jerk of a brother, and