negative talent (the fact that his mind couldn't be read), and how he'd been a sleeper until they tried to activate him.
Harry had been their chief interest - though doubtless they would have got around to the rest of E-Branch, too, when they were satisfied that he was no longer a player -and so Wellesley had been feeding them details of his progress. But when it had seemed that Harry might be on the verge of new things, then they'd wanted rid of him. Harry, with his old powers returned to him, or maybe new talents they hadn't even heard of, would be just too dangerous.
Then Darcy had given his men their orders, to take the ex-head of the Branch back to London and hand him over, and finally he'd spent a long session on the telephone talking to the Minister Responsible. One subject had been Nikolai Zharov, Wellesley's Russian contact. He was still loose somewhere, and alas would stay loose for the time being. Diplomatically immune, they couldn't even pick him up. Eventually a protest would be made to the Soviet Embassy, requiring Zharov's expulsion for the usual 'activities inconsistent with...' etc.
By the time Darcy was through, Harry had a lot more coffee inside him and a bite of brunch, and was looking more his usual self. Not doleful, Darcy thought, just sort of placid and not entirely with it. He reminded him of nothing so much as a powerful hand torch minus its batteries. Fully charged he could really shine, but right now there wasn't even a spark.
Or maybe there was.
'When are you going to Rhodes?' Harry asked him.
'Now, as soon as I can get a flight out. I'd be out of here right now but I wanted to be sure you were OK first. I reckoned I owed you that at least, and probably a lot more. But I want to arrange to get Trevor and Ken out of there, if they can be moved. Also, I have to see if I can discover what they came up against. Their Greek liaison man is still out there and might be able to help me on that.' He looked at Harry speculatively. 'And I had hopes that you might be able to help me, too, Harry, what with these... messages you've been getting, and all.'
Harry nodded. 'I have my suspicions,' he said, 'but we'd all better pray I'm wrong! See, I know the dead wouldn't harm me; they wouldn't deliberately risk hurting me. And yet this thing is so important to them, or to me, that it's almost as if they've been tempting me into conversation! But my son did a hell of a good job on me. I don't remember my dreams in any detail - not the ones which they send me, anyway - and I can't try to clarify them. And as for the Möbius Continuum... God, I can't add two and two without it comes out five!'
Darcy Clarke had personal experience of the Möbius Continuum. Harry had taken him there once, taken him through it. From here, this very house, to E-Branch HQ in London over three hundred miles away. And that had been a trip Darcy would never forget and, he hoped, never repeat, all the days of his life. Even now, these years later, it was printed on his memory in vivid detail.
There had been Darkness on the Möbius Strip, the Primal Darkness itself, as it was before the universe began. A place of negativity, yes, where Darkness lay upon the face of the deep. And Darcy had thought that this could well be that region from which God had commanded, Let There Be Light, and caused the physical universe to split off from the metaphysical void.
There had been no air, but neither had there been time, so that Darcy didn't need to breathe. And without time there was likewise no space; both of these essentials of a universe of matter had been absent. But Darcy hadn't ruptured and flown apart, because there'd been nowhere to fly to!
Harry had been Darcy's single anchor on Sanity and Being and Humanity; he couldn't see him for there was no light, but he could feel the pressure of his hand. And perhaps because Darcy was himself psychically endowed, he'd felt he had some small understanding of the place. For instance: he knew it was real because he was here, and with Harry beside him he'd known he need not fear it because his talent hadn't