The Bone Clocks

For some reason, Mo looks more worried, not less.

“The sonof an old friend, Holly means, of course,” says Marinus. “My mother was a psychiatrist colleague of Holly’s, back in the day.”

Commander Aronsson receives a luckily timed message and turns away, speaking Icelandic into his headset. He checks his watch, signs off, then turns back to us: “The captain of the Sj б lfst жр iwants to depart in forty-five minutes. Not long for a big decision, Lorelei, but we do not wish to attract attention. Please. Discuss matters with your family. We”—he glances at Lieutenant Eriksdottir—“will check you are not disturbed.”

Voles, hens, sparrows, a dog. A garden’s full of eyes.

“You’d better come in,” I tell Harry Marinus Veracruz.

The gate squeaks as he opens it. He crosses the yard. How do you greet a resurrected Atemporal you’ve not seen for twenty years? Hug? A double-sided cheek kiss? Harry Veracruz smiles and the Marinus within subsays, Weird, I know. Welcome to my world. Or welcome back to it, albeit briefly. I stand aside to let him into the cottage, and something occurs to me. “Commander Aronsson? I have one question for you.”

“Ask it,” says Commander Aronsson.

“D’you still have insulin in Iceland?”

The man frowns, but Marinus calls over his shoulder: “It’s the same in Icelandic, Commander. Ins ъ l н n. The drug for diabetes.”

“Ah.” The officer nods. “Yes, we manufacture this drug at a new unit, near the airbase at Keflavнk. Two or three thousand of our citizens require it, including our minister of defense. Why do you ask? Does your granddaughter have diabetes?”

“No,” I reply. “I was just curious.”

BACK IN OUR kitchen, I put on the solar lamp. It flickers like a candle. Dinner is almost ready, but suddenly none of us is hungry. “Gran,” says Lorelei. “I can’t go to Iceland.”

This’ll be one of the hardest sells of my life.

“You’ve gotto, Lol!” says Rafiq, and I bless him. “You’ll have a good life there. Won’t she, Mr. Vera—Verac—”

Marinus is already peering at the books on the shelves. “Those whom I respect I ask to call me ‘Marinus,’ Rafiq, and, yes, your sister will enjoy an incomparably better-nourished, better-educated, and safer life than on Sheep’s Head. As today has proven, I believe.”

“Then, Lol,” Rafiq says for me, “that ship’s your lifeboat.”

“A one-way lifeboat,” Lorelei asks Marinus. “Right?”

The young man frowns. “Lifeboats don’t do return tickets.”

“Then I’m not going to sail off and leave you all here.” Lorelei sounds so like Aoife when she’s making a stand, it wakes up my old grief. “If you were in my shoes, Raf, you wouldn’t go.”

Rafiq takes a deep breath. “If you were in myshoes, you’d be diabetic in a country without insulin. Think about it.”

Lorelei looks away miserably and says nothing.

“I have a question,” Mo says, lowering herself onto a chair at the kitchen table and hooking her stick over its edge. “Three, in fact. Holly knew your mother, Mr. Marinus, which is all well and good, but why should she trust you to do the right thing by Lorelei?”

Marinus puts his hands into his pockets and rocks on his heels, like a young man with supple joints. “Professor, I can’t prove to you that I’m the trustworthy, honorable human being that I claim to be, not in forty minutes. I can only refer you to Holly Sykes.”

“It’s a long, long story,” I tell Mo, “but Marinus—or his mother, I mean, it’s complicated, she saved my life.”

“There’s a Marinus in The Radio People,” says Mo, the careful and retentive reader, “who plays quite a major role. The doctor in Gravesend.” Mo looks at me. “Any relative?”

“Yes,” I admit, badly not wanting to get into Atemporals now.

“That Dr. Marinus was my grandfather,” Marinus only sort of lies, “on my Chinese side. But Holly did a great service to my mother, Iris, and her friends back in the twenties. Which may preempt another of your questions, Professor. I owe Holly Sykes a debt of honor, and giving her granddaughter the chance of a pre-Endarkenment life is one way to repay it.”

Mo nods at Marinus’s correct guess. “And you’re so up to speed with current events on Sheep’s Head because?”

“We hack into spy satellites.”

Mo nods coolly, but the scientist within inquires: “Whose?”

“The Chinese array is the best, and the Russian satellites work well in clear conditions, but we stream our images from the last functioning American Eyesat. The Pentagon’s given up on security.”

Rafiq’s incredulous. “You can see what’s going on on Sheep’s Head, from space? That’s like … being God. That’s like magic.”