The Final Programme by Michael Moorcock

Author:Michael Moorcock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

7

“You know what Jung thought, don’t you?” Jerry tilted the copter up into the clear winter sky. “He reckoned history went in two-thousand-year cycles and that the current cycle started with Christ.”

“Didn’t he work flying-saucer sightings into that theory too?”

“I believe he did.”

“It was all so fuzzy—all that stuff written ten or more years ago.”

“There were a lot of hints.”

“There are more now.”

“And something to do with the zodiacal signs—that thing of Jung’s.”

“Yes. According to him, we were entering a cycle of great physical and psychological upheavals.”

“That isn’t hard to spot.”

“Not with the Bomb already developed.”

The helicopter was nearing the coast, with Holland as the first stop.

“You think it could be as simple as that—the Bomb as the cause?” Miss Brunner looked down at the land and ahead at the sea.

“It could be, after all,” he said. “Why does the Bomb have to be a symptom?”

“I thought we had agreed it was.”

“So we had. I’m afraid my memory isn’t as good as yours, Miss Brunner.”

“I’m not so sure. For the last few weeks I’ve been having hundreds of déjà-vu experiences. What with your ideas on cyclic time—Major Nye…”

“You’ve been reading my books?” He was annoyed.

“No. Only about them. I haven’t been able to get hold of a copy of anything. Privately printed, were they?”

“More or less.”

“Why aren’t there any around?”

“They disintegrated.”

“Shoddy jobs, then.”

“No. Built-in obsolescence.”

“I’m not with you.”

“I’m not with you; that’s more to the point.” He was still brooding about Jenny. He felt a pretty useless knight now.

“You’re talking like that because you don’t understand.”

“You should have gone to bed last night; you’re getting pretty corny.”

“Okay.” She shut up.

He felt like crashing the copter into the sea, but he couldn’t do it. He was afraid of the sea. It was the idea of the Mother Sea that had put him off Celtic mythology as a boy. If only Brother Louis hadn’t brought up the same image, he might still be in the Order.

So Miss Brunner was having déjà-vu hallucinations too. Well, it was that kind of old world, wasn’t it?

He realised he was getting morbid, reached over, switched on his radio and put the bead in his ear. The music cheered him up.

Thirty miles north of Amsterdam they landed in a field close to farm buildings. The farmer was not surprised. He came hurrying out with cans of fuel. Jerry and Miss Brunner got out to stretch their legs, and Jerry helped the farmer, whom he paid well, to fill the tanks.

Five miles east of Uppsala they had to land and carry the fuel themselves from a barn to the copter. The snow, deep and crisp and even, got in their shoes, and Miss Brunner shivered.

“You might have warned me, Mr Cornelius.”

“I’d forgotten. I’ve never been this way in winter, you see.”

“Elementary geography…”

“Which, apparently, neither of us possesses.”

They entered a blizzard after a hundred miles, and Jerry had difficulty controlling the copter. When it was over he said to Miss Brunner, “We can get ourselves killed at this rate. I’m going to put her down.

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