Only Human Read online

  ‘Um, right, yes, hello,’ Artofel replied. ‘Actually, I’ve not come in to buy anything, it was the, er.’

  ‘Of course, sir. If you’ll just wait there, I’ll see if there’s anyone free.’

  Next they tried newspaper offices, radio and TV stations, constituency party headquarters, town halls; all the places where evil is actually produced, packaged and distributed. Unfortunately, for some weird reason, nobody ever came; leaving the Topsiders to draw the startling conclusion that humans don’t actually know where the stuff really comes from. So, everything back into tea-chests and cardboard boxes, and off we go again. It was getting to the point where most of each year’s budget was going on relocation allowances, with nothing left over for buying souls or stoking the furnaces. There were economy drives, with slogans like Is Your Torment Really Necessary? and Share a Pit of Burning Sulphur With a Friend, but it was obvious that the problem wasn’t just going to go away. The situation was going from bad to good, and something had to be done.

  A door at the back of the shop opened, and Artofel’s sensitive nose caught a tiny, almost unbearably nostalgic whiff of brimstone. He closed his eyes for a moment, realised he was wasting time, and headed for the door, passing the neat displays of cookers, radiators, boilers and associated wares; not to mention the shop’s principal stock in trade . . .

  ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ he said.

  ‘We like it,’ the embassy spokesman replied. ‘Come on through.’

  It was at the last moment, when Flipside had been within an inch of closing the whole network and putting the whole system out to franchise, that the gas companies started using the neat, effective slogan:COME HOME TO A REAL FIRE

  at which point bells rang, pennies dropped and the Head of Department said, ‘Why didn’t we think of that before?’ It would be, he said, a sort of logo, like the Lloyds Bank black horse or the Esso tiger.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said the official. ‘Now then, what’s the problem?’

  Artofel took a deep breath. ‘This is going to sound a bit strange,’ he warned.

  ‘Good,’ the official replied. ‘Make a nice change from all the pillocks who’ve lost their passports and expect us to fly them home free of charge. Fire away.’

  Artofel glanced round at his surroundings. Pretty well what you’d expect: the usual set of Hieronymus Bosch prints, the little wire rack of tourist information stuff, the goat’s skull hat-stand, even the same standard-issue wire trays, Dictaphone and stapler, identical with the ones on his desk back at his office—

  His office.

  He swallowed hard. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I’m not actually human. I know I look like a human, a vicar even, but I’m not.’

  ‘I see,’ said the official; and at the extreme edges of his inflection there was a faint smear of the Gordon-Bennett-not-another-one voice that everyone who sits across a desk from the general public tends to use from time to time. ‘Do please continue.’

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ Artofel sighed. ‘You think I’m just another loony. Right?’

  The official leaned back in his chair, fidgeting with a pencil. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘No offence intended. And I am doing my level best to keep an open mind. It’s just, you are the seventh one today, and all the others . . .’

  Artofel shook his head. ‘I’m not saying I’m possessed by devils,’ he replied impatiently. ‘I am one. And I can prove it, too.’

  ‘You can?’ The official looked nervous, as if reliving some bad experience or other. Artofel couldn’t help feeling a tiny pang of sympathy. Must be a rotten job, this.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I can, I can give you my computer access code, my screen number, my personnel file number, my security clearance code, the names and extension numbers of my five immediate superiors, the combination on my locker in the staff room and the serial number of the key to the seventh-floor executive loo. I can tell you which day in the month the canteen always does kedgeree, how many sugars the odd-job fiend on Floor Six has in his tea and which drawer of the third filing cabinet from the left in the Chief ’s office sticks unless you push it in the right way. In fact, if you give me your name and number I can probably tell you how much you get paid and how many days’ holiday you’ve got left this year. Will that do?’

  The expression on the official’s face was hard to describe; it was a bit like that of a man who’s just seen incontrovertible proof that his electric kettle is in fact the head of MI5. As Artofel reeled off the numbers, and the same numbers flashed up on the screen in front of him, he had the strange feeling that somewhere, probably in a parallel universe, it was April the First and he’d just put his foot in a shoe full of custard.

  ‘All right,’ he said eventually, ‘you’ve made your point. So what are you doing wandering around down here dressed as a parson? On your way to a fancy-dress party or something?’

  ‘I can also,’ Artofel replied unpleasantly, ‘give you the name of a very good friend of mine in the Personnel department who’d only have to say the word to get a smart-alec embassy clerk transferred to mucking out the Great Horseshit Lake in Circle Four so fast his hooves wouldn’t touch. Understood?’

  The official gulped and nodded. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  Artofel allowed him a thin, tight smile. ‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘Just doing your job, I know. Now, from what I can gather, there’s been some sort of abysmal cock-up, and somehow I’ve exchanged bodies with this human vicar. Don’t ask me how,’ he added, raising a hand, ‘because I really have no idea. Logically, I’ve got to assume that the body sitting behind my desk at this very moment contains a mild-mannered Church of England minister who smokes a pipe and spends his free time train-spotting.You don’t need me to tell you why that’s the biggest security headache we’ve had since Doctor Faustus. Agreed?’

  ‘Quite,’ the official replied, his eyes suddenly round and wide. ‘I think the best thing I can do is put a call through to Head Office straight away. What do you think? Sir?’ he added.

  ‘You do that,’ Artofel sighed, putting his feet up on the desk and (obeying instincts that were not his own, but so what?) reaching in his pocket for his tobacco-pouch and matches. ‘Carry on. I’m not going anywhere.’

  It took the official an awfully long time to get through; he was, after all, only a clerical grade, ranking somewhere in the hierarchy between a deputy pitchfork operative and the bloke whose job it was to follow round after the Great Beast with a dustpan and a shovel. In fact, he’d need to be promoted seven grades and go on a year’s residential course just to be completely insignificant. Nevertheless, he was persistent; with the result that, after an hour and a half mostly spent listening to the Hold music, he put the phone back, turned to Artofel and grinned feebly.

  ‘What you just told me,’ he said, ‘about your friend in the Personnel department.’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Does it have to be the Great Horseshit Lake?’ he pleaded. ‘I mean, couldn’t it be something equally degrading and horrid but not involving horses? It’s just I have this thing about . . .’

  Artofel frowned. ‘I take it,’ he said, ‘it’s not good news.’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Not the Great Horseshit Lake. I promise.’

  ‘No,’ the official said, breathing out, ‘it’s not good news. I told them who you are and what you said to tell them, and they agree you’re a very important person and it was all a complete accident and not your fault at all, they were quite categorical about that, no blame to you, none whatsoever. But—’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘There’s nothing they can do,’ the official said, looking away. ‘Not without - and this is them talking, not me - not without causing far more trouble than you’re worth, and they agree there’s a slight security problem with having a vicar doing your job, but not, and remember I’m just passing on what they said to me, not enough to risk a major doctrinal incident just for the sake of some button-pusher. So I said—’

&nbs
p; Artofel’s eyes narrowed. ‘They’re leaving me here, then. Abandoning me. Is that it?’

  The official nodded. ‘I said, could I speak to the deputy assistant controller, and the bloke said, already you’re talking to the assistant deputy suffragan vice-principal, don’t push your luck. So I thought . . .’

  ‘Dumped me,’ Artofel said. ‘Just like that. After I’ve given them the worst years of my life, worked my talons to the bone . . .’ He stopped, scowling, and looked up sharply. ‘They’re burying me,’ he said. ‘Because of the cock-up. Whatever it is, it’s so big and smelly they’re having to cover it up. Whitewash job. Get rid of the witnesses. Meaning me.’

  ‘They wouldn’t do a thing like that, surely,’ the official stuttered. ‘Not to one of us. Their own people. It’s unthinkable.’

  Artofel shrugged. ‘A week ago I’d have agreed with you,’ he replied. ‘All my working life, wherever you go in this business, ask anybody if there’s one organisation who plays it straight down the middle, always tries to do the right thing, no funny stuff; they’d tell you Flipside, no question, straight as a die. You know,’ he added, with a catch in his voice, ‘all these years, I believed in Flipside. I thought we stood for something, you know? I mean, if you can’t trust Hell to abide by the rules, then who in blazes can you trust? And now this.’ He sagged back in his chair like a disillusioned kipper and buried his head in his hands.

  ‘That’s terrible,’ muttered the official, horrified. ‘It’s the one thing they always say, the Devil looks after his own. I still can’t bring myself to believe it.’

  ‘Try harder,’ Artofel growled from behind his hands. ‘And besides,’ he went on, ‘you’re not the one who’s being dumped on. From a great depth,’ he added with feeling. ‘Or at least, not yet.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Think about it.’ Artofel leaned forward and grinned. ‘How many people do you think know about this? Apart from the ones doing the whitewash, I mean?’

  ‘Well, you, obviously,’ the official said. ‘And . . . Oh my Go—Thingy. You don’t think . . .?’

  ‘Whyever not?’ Artofel shrugged his shoulders. ‘If they can maroon a Duke of Hell without a second’s hesitation, do you really believe they’d think twice about zapping some poxy little clerk in the Away service? Probably claim you’d defected, gone over to the Other Lot. Anything to whiten your name; makes it easier.’

  The official sat very still. ‘How long do you think it’ll be,’ he whispered, ‘before they . . .?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ said Artofel. ‘Look, son, I’m sorry I got you into this, but I’ve got enough to worry about on my own account without you as well. If I were you, I’d grab my coat and hat and get out of here, quick sharp, PDQ.’

  ‘You’re right.’ The official was on his feet, scrabbling in his desk drawer and stuffing things into his pockets. ‘Oh, why did it have to happen to me? It’s not fair, really it isn’t.’

  Artofel smiled sadly. ‘Never heard it was supposed to be,’ he said. ‘Oh, and a word of advice. If you were thinking of taking a taxi, don’t. A bus’d probably be all right, but keep your eyes open.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ The official was struggling into his coat. ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘What’re you going to . . .?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Artofel interrupted. ‘After all, what you don’t know, they can’t beat out of you with rubber hoses. Mind how you go.’

  ‘I will.’

  The door closed behind him. Artrofel counted to twenty, stood up and walked round the desk until he was facing the computer screen. He sat down and flexed his fingers. There was a chance they hadn’t cancelled all his codes yet; not the special ones he’d put in there, just for emergencies. That was one advantage of being overworked, taken for granted and indispensable; there were whole continents of the wages department network where nobody but Artofel ever went from one accounting period’s end to the next, simply because everybody else went home bang on knocking-off time and left him to do all the clearing-up.

  Well, it was his system, and it was about time it did him a favour for a change. Better the devil you know, and all that.

  The code he used was a simple one, something he’d put in to make it possible for him to short-cut the tedious entry routines for when Management was screaming for the latest figures, on my desk in five minutes or there’ll be the devil to pay, and he didn’t have time to mess about. It worked very well for that purpose; it could also take him straight in through the side door, and nobody who wasn’t looking at that precise spot would even know he was there. Just the ticket, he reassured himself. Here goes, and the Company Secretary take the hindmost.

  >ACCESS CODE RECOGNISED.

  Artofel punched the air, muttered ‘Yes!’ under his breath and thought hard. It was all very well sneaking into the haystack without setting off the alarms; now all he had to do was find the long, non-metallic, straw-coloured needle.

  ‘This way,’ said the rat’s voice, some way up the bag-dark tunnel. ‘Mind your head.’

  ‘What did you—?’ Dermot Fraud ducked, a fraction of a second too late. ‘Ouch,’ he said. He reached up to rub the back of his head, discovered that he couldn’t, and fell over.

  Of course. Four legs. Bugger.

  ‘Hurry up,’ the rat called out. ‘Haven’t got all day, you know.’

  Fraud picked himself up, a complicated business for someone who’d been used to having prehensile hands. ‘I’m coming as fast as I can,’ he yelled back. ‘What are all these things in the way?’

  ‘Grass roots. Look, if you’re going to dawdle . . .’

  ‘Hold on, will you?’ Grass roots; a phrase he used about twenty times a day, and never once stopped to think what it might possibly signify. Odd that it should turn out to mean tough, springy things like tree-branches that kept getting in your way and hitting you. Certainly not what he’d had in mind. Where he came from, the word for awkward obstructions you have to squirm past and duck under was manifesto promises.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said the rat, in the distance. ‘Left at the next T-junction, then just follow your nose.’

  It was, Fraud reflected, a nose long enough to be worth following; if he squinted, he could see right up the side of it and through the whiskers. He located the T-junction by the simple expedient of carrying on in the pitch darkness until he walked into a wall, got up again and turned left. A few more bangs and bashes brought him round a sharp turn and out into—

  Daylight?

  Presumably; it was bright enough, after two hours without any illumination at all. Hey, he reflected, so this is what the light at the end of the tunnel really looks like. Wish they’d turn it down a bit.

  ‘Where you been?’ squeaked a shrill voice somewhere to his right. ‘I been worried sick. Thought the cat’d got you.’

  ‘We got a visitor,’ the rat replied. ‘Lemming, this is my wife Bag. Bag, this is Lemming. I, er, rescued him.’

  Fraud pulled himself together, looked round and saw a large rat. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said. ‘My name’s Dermot, um, Lemming.’

  ‘There was a big bang,’ the rat went on. ‘Building fell down. This one nearly got squished and I pulled him out.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Bag. ‘Welcome to our humble abode, Mister Lemming,’ she added, and twitched her nose. ‘Our hole is your hole, all that sort of thing. Well, don’t just stand there, Arsed, you useless article. Get our guest something to eat.’

  Bag? Arsed? Odd names these rats had. On the other hand, he reflected, as the male rat pawed him a chunk of stale bread and a split pea, they seem friendly enough. And I won’t be staying long. Ten minutes at the most, and then surely someone’ll come and rescue me.

  Surely . . .

  ‘So?’ said Bag. ‘What d’you get?’

  ‘Him.’

  ‘To eat, fool. Don’t say you didn’t get anything.’

  Arsed shrugged, necessarily in duplicate. ‘Got sidetracked, didn’t I? I’ll go out again tomorrow, see if
there’s anything round the bins.’

  After all, Fraud assured himself, it’s been hours since the bomb, they must be combing the area looking for me. Or at least, I think it’s been hours; could be longer for all I know. Might even be a completely different timescale for rodents.

  Rodents . . .

  Aagh!

  Because of course, the fools, they’d be looking for a human being, not a small rodent with pale-fawn fur and brown spots. No wonder they were taking so long. Oh, if only . . .

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, interrupting a lively discussion between his hosts on the subject of which of them was the most useless. ‘I wonder if I might use your phone.’

  Arsed stared at him, and blinked. ‘Our what?’ he said.

  ‘Telephone,’ Fraud said. ‘I just need to - you haven’t got one, have you?’

  Bag shook her head. ‘Silly bloody things, they are,’ she said. ‘I know there’s some as likes to nibble the cables, but all you get’s wind and a nasty shock if you go too deep. I had an aunt had a litter of seventeen once in a junction box, but it wasn’t through choice.’

  ‘Quite,’ Fraud said. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know where I might find a telephone, do you? Sorry to be a nuisance, but it’s really quite important.’

  The two rats looked at him as if he’d just hijacked a scheduled flight from Paris to London and demanded to be flown to Heathrow. ‘Is it?’ said Arsed. ‘Oh, right then. There’s one in a big red box round the back of here. Not far.’

  Fraud relaxed a little. ‘That’s good,’ he said.

  ‘Not far at all,’ Bag confirmed. ‘Two days’ walk, three at the outside.’

  ‘Three days—’ Fraud checked himself and remembered; four little stumpy legs, having to move slowly in the open, stopping every yard or so to look out for cats. ‘You’re right,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Not far at all. Er - could you possibly—?’