She had fallen on her left side, with the left arm (she was a left-hander) outstretched, perhaps in an attempt to protect her unborn child. This child, responsible for the pronounced ‘bulge’, would have given her a difficult delivery in any case for its head was very large: its father plainly of Neanderthaloid stock (not the specialised Neanderthal of Europe but the earlier more generalised form with higher vaulting to the skull — its European successor being in this respect a throwback; evolution does not proceed along straight lines).
Apart from the broken arm and neck she was otherwise uninjured. She had frozen rapidly, brain damage being minimal. And she was perfect. And also perfectly whole: lips, tongue, flesh, organs (her digestive ones indeed arrested while at work on the fish) all healthily fresh: quick frozen. There was even saliva in her mouth. Apart from her height she seemed in all respects of absolutely modern type. And yet, in all respects, she was not. Of which, more later.
Now two things must be said. Of all inhabited lands on earth this region, of prehistoric ice, is the only one where such a find could be made. Next, it was made at precisely the moment when use could be made of it — although our operations have been very careful and she is barely blemished. I cannot bring myself to disfigure her.
I look at her often. She is still in my tunnel, serene and detached in time, for ever in her eighteenth year. You will see her. So, the end of one long chain of chance and the beginning of another — this most momentous other, the reason you are here.
I do not doubt, in connection with this, that you will have many things to tell me. Well, I await them.
And now to begin.
One
THE POSTMAN & THE PROFESSOR
1
At ten to nine on a June morning, a shining and brilliant morning that promised a day of great heat, a lady of sixty-three cycled through the streets of Oxford.
She cycled slowly, corpulent and majestic as some former Queen of the Netherlands, sun hat bobbing, flowered dress billowing. Up and around churned the floral thighs until, turning into the High, they were arrested by a slowly changing traffic light. She swooped at once off her saddle and applied the brake — applied it a moment too late so that her broad-sandalled feet went pit-a-pat in small skittering hops as she wrestled with the machine.
Bad co-ordination. Oh, schrecklich, schrecklich. Everything today was frightful, not least her head. She took the opportunity to remove her hat and fan the head, also to pull at a clinging portion of skirt and shake that about too.
Her sister had advised her to stay in bed today. Out of the question. With retirement age three dangerous years behind her, she could not allow a cold in the head to keep her in bed. Her employer would not be staying in bed. And other people were after her job. Miss Sonntag’s colds did not, like other people’s, come in winter; hers came in summer, during heatwaves, with stupefying intensity. When the whole world was full of flowers and delight, she turned into an imbecile. She felt hot and cold by turn now, dazed, unnatural, a lump.
The lights changed and she ascended once more and pedalled regally on. In the city of bicycles there were not today many bicycles. The university was in its long vacation, but her professor was not yet on vacation. Until he went — which would not be before the River Spey showed more salmon — there would be no time off for her. Ach!
Brasenose passed, and Oriel and All Souls. She turned in at the close as the clocks all began chiming nine. The little forecourt was airless and deserted, no bicycles in the bicycle stand. She chained her own and went wearily inside. The caretaker had sorted the post and separated the professor’s with an elastic band. She took her hat off, and sneezed.
The air in her room was stale but chill. She tried to turn the air conditioner off but couldn’t, and opened the window instead. Then she switched the electric kettle on and looked for the post. She could not see any post. But she had somewhere seen some post. Her head was so thick she couldn’t remember where. In the hall, perhaps, where it had arrived? She went out and searched the hall. No post.
The kettle was whistling, so she went back in and made herself a cup of coffee and hung up her hat. Underneath the hat, on the chair, was the post. She gazed dully at it, and blew her nose. Then she drank some coffee and started work, and almost at once was interrupted by the telephone. She answered it, continuing to straighten out letters and toss the envelopes into the bin; and had completed them all before hanging Up. This was when she realised that something else was wrong with the post. There were six foreign envelopes. There were only five foreign letters.
She shuffled the letters blankly about, and then looked on the floor and in the bin. In the bin were the six foreign, envelopes, and ten British ones, all empty. She saw this was going to be a totally bad day. She also saw that her boss had arrived. His long stooping form had tramped past the glass panel of her door. She sat back on her heels and considered her sister’s advice. Then she pulled herself together and in an addled way began matching letters and envelopes to find out which was missing.
There were ten British envelopes and ten British letters; three American envelopes and three American letters; two German envelopes, two German letters; one Swedish envelope, no Swedish letter. She looked at this envelope again. It was a tatty one. The address was written on a slip of tissue paper and stuck on with Sellotape. Nothing was in it. After a while, unable to understand anything any more, she merely took everything in to the professor and told him they were a letter short.
The professor looked up at her, mystified.
‘A letter short, Miss Sonntag?’
This envelope has no letter.’
He had a look at the envelope.
‘Goteborg, Sverige,’ he said. ‘What is there at Goteborg, Sverige?’
‘The university, perhaps?’
‘With absent-minded professors, perhaps?’
This thought occurred to her just as he said it, and she cursed the cold in her head. At another time she would have had the thought first and left the envelope where it was (as, it was later thought, she had probably done at least once before). Thick-headedness had sent her hunting through the accursed bin.
Her head was no less thick but she said stolidly, ‘This does not seem to me a professor’s letter. I mean, naturally there is no letter, but —’
‘That’s all right, Miss Sonntag.’
The professor took his jacket off. His unusual head, large and knobbly and extending in various unexpected directions, was bald as an egg. It was glistening now. ‘It’s awfully hot in here,’ he said. ‘Is the air conditioning going?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Miss Sonntag sneezed defensively into a Kleenex. ‘It is keeping my cold going.’ She watched him wind his glasses round his ears and examine the envelope more closely.
The address was written in ballpoint in shaky block letters:
PROF G F LAZENBY
OXFORD
ENGLAND
Professor Lazenby looked at the back of the envelope and then at the front again. Then he held it up to the light. It was a flimsy airmail envelope and he looked through it. Then he looked inside and after a moment withdrew a tiny strip of tissue paper partially stuck to the bottom.