no. Apart from the fact that once a boy who was staying in the house went out of his head in the middle of the night and tried to walk off the top of the roof into midair. But they called us up at once, and—” Redvers shrugged. “That’s the trouble with a bloody ‘free country’! You can’t do things to people for their own good! I hate to think what’s becoming of the kids who are roosting there, in that high-pressure environment full of mystical nonsense, but there isn’t a thing I can do to make them go home to their parents.”
“Are there a lot of stardropper communes?”
“Dozens. Maybe hundreds by this time.”
“And are all the people in them young?”
“Nope. I know one, so help me, which is full of lapsed Benedictine monks—broke with their Order and set up house in a derelict railway station which they bought on a mortgage. Most of them are as old as I am. But the one you’re going to this afternoon is run by a fellow of—oh—twenty-four, twenty-five, name of Nicholas Carlton. Comes of a very good family. Ex-public-school prefect, captain of games, that sort of thing. Married. Wife lives there too and acts as housekeeper. There’s a floating population of around a dozen, I think. But he runs it very efficiently, no doubt of that. Don’t go expecting to find a kind of flophouse.”
“That’s interesting,” Dan nodded.
“Interesting!” Redvers snorted. “I could think of another word. Carlton has intelligence and talent, and he ought to put his gifts to better use. But I’ll let you form your own judgment; that’s what you’re here for, after all.” He hesitated.
“Come to think of it,” he went on, “it’s a long time since I checked that place out. Must be three months at least. Do me a favor: when you leave, call me at the Yard and tell me what things are like there now.”
Dan nodded. It didn’t seem like too much to ask.
Glancing at the clock on the dash, Redvers said, “I’d take you to lunch out of public funds if I could, but I’m afraid I simply can’t spare the time. I’ve been working a twelve-hour day as a matter of course recently, and I’m only scheduled for eight-plus-two. And once or twice it’s gone up to fifteen.”
“Don’t expect me to burst out crying,” Dan said wryly.
“Sorry. I deserved that. You Agency chaps are on permanent standby, aren’t you?”
“Every day of the year, every hour of the day. I sometimes wonder what would happen if the world suddenly came to the boil all at once. My estimate is that I’d be working a forty-eight-hour day.”
Redvers chuckled without humor. “That’s an alien skill,” he commented. “And if we already have people who can pull that sort of trick, why the hell anyone should bother going hunting for anything even more extraordinary beats me. … Well, we’re getting into the middle of town. Where’s the best place for me to drop you off?”
VII
Paying off his cab outside the address Lilith had given him, Dan glanced up at the house he’d been brought to. It was large, probably Victorian, in a district which he guessed would have been developed for the aspiring middle class—prosperous tradesmen and people of that kind. The tall, five-story brick buildings had mainly been subdivided, at least judging by the number of cars crammed into what had once been the front gardens but were now uniformly concrete parking areas.
This one, in particular, was very well kept, the window-frames recently painted white, the brickwork carefully repointed. At one of the upper windows he caught a flash of movement, and thought he recognized Lilith; she must have been watching out for him.
He walked up the path to the front door, having to thread his way between a couple of small Morrises so close together it was a wonder the driver of the second one to arrive had been able to get out when he stopped. His ringing of the bell was answered almost instantly, by a girl of twenty-five or so, not very pretty but
“Are there a lot of stardropper communes?”
“Dozens. Maybe hundreds by this time.”
“And are all the people in them young?”
“Nope. I know one, so help me, which is full of lapsed Benedictine monks—broke with their Order and set up house in a derelict railway station which they bought on a mortgage. Most of them are as old as I am. But the one you’re going to this afternoon is run by a fellow of—oh—twenty-four, twenty-five, name of Nicholas Carlton. Comes of a very good family. Ex-public-school prefect, captain of games, that sort of thing. Married. Wife lives there too and acts as housekeeper. There’s a floating population of around a dozen, I think. But he runs it very efficiently, no doubt of that. Don’t go expecting to find a kind of flophouse.”
“That’s interesting,” Dan nodded.
“Interesting!” Redvers snorted. “I could think of another word. Carlton has intelligence and talent, and he ought to put his gifts to better use. But I’ll let you form your own judgment; that’s what you’re here for, after all.” He hesitated.
“Come to think of it,” he went on, “it’s a long time since I checked that place out. Must be three months at least. Do me a favor: when you leave, call me at the Yard and tell me what things are like there now.”
Dan nodded. It didn’t seem like too much to ask.
Glancing at the clock on the dash, Redvers said, “I’d take you to lunch out of public funds if I could, but I’m afraid I simply can’t spare the time. I’ve been working a twelve-hour day as a matter of course recently, and I’m only scheduled for eight-plus-two. And once or twice it’s gone up to fifteen.”
“Don’t expect me to burst out crying,” Dan said wryly.
“Sorry. I deserved that. You Agency chaps are on permanent standby, aren’t you?”
“Every day of the year, every hour of the day. I sometimes wonder what would happen if the world suddenly came to the boil all at once. My estimate is that I’d be working a forty-eight-hour day.”
Redvers chuckled without humor. “That’s an alien skill,” he commented. “And if we already have people who can pull that sort of trick, why the hell anyone should bother going hunting for anything even more extraordinary beats me. … Well, we’re getting into the middle of town. Where’s the best place for me to drop you off?”
VII
Paying off his cab outside the address Lilith had given him, Dan glanced up at the house he’d been brought to. It was large, probably Victorian, in a district which he guessed would have been developed for the aspiring middle class—prosperous tradesmen and people of that kind. The tall, five-story brick buildings had mainly been subdivided, at least judging by the number of cars crammed into what had once been the front gardens but were now uniformly concrete parking areas.
This one, in particular, was very well kept, the window-frames recently painted white, the brickwork carefully repointed. At one of the upper windows he caught a flash of movement, and thought he recognized Lilith; she must have been watching out for him.
He walked up the path to the front door, having to thread his way between a couple of small Morrises so close together it was a wonder the driver of the second one to arrive had been able to get out when he stopped. His ringing of the bell was answered almost instantly, by a girl of twenty-five or so, not very pretty but
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