EARLY IN THE MORNING the Barset-London express had deposited Dan at the Marylebone Station, which stood in a secure section of the great city. There was a thick gray fog lying over Marylebone Road as he started making his way along it. The half dozen gilded robots, dressed in nineteenth-century costumes and singing Xmas carols in front of a squat brix church, looked insubstantial and sounded faraway.
Dan adjusted his muffler, then took yet another look at the slip of paper Jillian Kearny had given him. He’d consulted a map at one of the village shops and he knew he had to get over to the Edgware Road and then follow Park Lane along the border of Hyde Park. From there he’d have to find a way to slip into the unsecure zone where Nancy had gone.
“At least I think that’s where she must’ve gone.” Dan, hands deep in his trouser pockets, walked determinedly along the quiet, misty streets of early morning London.
He was aware that he was sort of trying to imitate his father, that he was trying to be a detective. Yet he really didn’t have that much confidence in himself. Sure, he’d acted brave and wise in front of Jillian, but he sometimes had doubts that he could handle this.
He wasn’t even certain Nancy was really here in London someplace. If he did find her, he wondered if he would be able to persuade her to come back to Barsetshire with him.
The one thing he was sure of was that he had to try to find her. He had to see her again.
Following him through the blurred morning was the person who’d been tailing him since last night. A person who was betting that Nancy Sands was indeed in London and that Dan Cardigan would lead the way straight to her.
A short distance beyond Hyde Park Dan encountered a weathered barricade built of faded neowood planks and rusted barbed wire. Stenciled on it in shaky white letters were the words gang-zone! keep out! extreme danger! Scanning the barrier, he noticed there’d once been a forcefence in operation here, too, but the projectors for that were broken and corroded.
He was thinking about trying to climb over the five-foot fence, wondering if he could do that without getting all snarled in the spiky wire, when a raspy voice behind him spoke.
“Away from there, m’lad,” it warned, “or it’ll be deep trouble you’ll be getting into.”
Standing nearby, broad gunmetal chest misted by the fog, was a large robot bobby. He had a truncheon built into his right hand and a stunrod in his left.
“I was only looking at it, officer,” Dan told him in a tone he hoped sounded polite. “I’m—you know—a tourist.”
“From America by the sound of you,” said the copbot. “Well, this isn’t a safe place for any tourist. Scoot along home to your hotel—off with you now!”
“Yes, sir. Sorry.” Giving the robot a casual salute, Dan walked away.
As soon as he was out of sight of the mechanical man and shielded by the heavy fog, he began exploring the area. There were barricades blocking all of the streets leading into the zone dominated by the kid gangs. Finally, though, near Belgrave Square, he spotted a narrow lane where the barrier had recently been smashed down.
Dan went darting into the lane, the thick morning fog seeming to close in on him.
In the first block the buildings were gutted and empty. A soft, damp silence filled the street. Though he struggled to fight against it, Dan started shivering as he walked along. He found he was moving more slowly, his head turning from side to side to scan the dead, silent structures that floated in the fog.
He stepped on something, slipping, almost losing his balance.
What he’d put his foot down on was the severed head of a cat. Its dead eyes were open and staring, its teeth were bared in a rigid grimace.
Shaking himself as though he’d suddenly been splashed with something cold, Dan increased his pace.
He began noticing smells now. The pungent reek of potcigs, the strong odor of cooking fat, the smell of rotting flesh. Then he saw a child, a sexless kid of two or three, leaning in the gaping doorway of a ruined apartment house. Staring straight ahead, wide-eyed, with a bloody knife dangling in its pudgy fist.
From some of the buildings came the sounds of squabbling, lovemaking, fighting, laughing.
There were young people lounging on some of the porches, thin kids in their early teens, wearing patchwork outfits that didn’t fit. They showed little interest in Dan’s passing.
He turned another corner, cried out, stopped in his tracks.
There was the body of a naked girl of about sixteen lying in the street. Five large scruffy mongrel dogs were feeding on the corpse.
“Get away, get away!” shouted Dan, charging at them.
He was afraid it was Nancy.
But then he noticed that this girl was dark-haired and thin.
One of the dogs, a one-eyed gray with a bloody muzzle, slowly turned. It began snarling warningly at him.
Dan felt he had to scare the animals off, then see about getting the girl’s body to a safe place.
Another dog noticed him. It didn’t growl or bristle. It simply charged at him, trying to sink its jagged teeth into his leg.
Dan stumbled back, went down on one knee, and then scuttled across the pavement.
The dog, a battered black mutt, missed his leg, wheeled to charge again.
Dan managed to scramble to his feet. He looked around desperately for something to use as a weapon. There was a board lying in the gutter and he snatched it up. Gripping it like a bat, he swung as the dog leaped again for him.
The wood connected with the animal’s skull. There was a loud crackling noise. The dog yelped, whimpered as it fell to the ground. It lay still.
Two more of the wild dogs abandoned the dead girl to turn their attention to Dan.
“Get back!” He swung the board from side to side, causing it to whistle through the misty morning air. “Get back, damn it!”
The snarling animals hesitated, watching him.
Dan took a few slow steps backwards.
The dogs stayed where they were.
He tried a few more steps. Then he spun, started running away from them.
Someone, up in an unseen window, laughed.
Dan emerged from a dirty, twisty alley and into a commotion. Less than a half block away fifteen or more teens were circling a large, slow-moving robot. The bot had originally been enameled white and had the words bureau of welfare statistics lettered on his dented, dirt-smeared chest.
The kids, boys and girls, were whacking at the robot with lengths of hardplaz pipe, wooden clubs, and hunks of metal. That produced echoing bongs and bangs.
The metal man, oblivious, continued on his slow way along the street. “I’m only here to help you hooligans,” he said in his deep, rumbling voice.
“We don’t trust you, Stats!”
“You work for them.”
Dan stopped, watching the fracas and trying to figure out what was going on.
Stats told the group, “All you whelps have to do is answer a few simple questions.”
“Get back to your own zone.”
“Skarf yourself, Stats.”
A long, thin, black girl with orange hair took a swing at the robot with a rusty iron rod. She hit him square in his metal face.
“If you won’t answer questions,” explained the bot patiently, “there’ll be no dole for you.”
Just then the tip of a sharp blade poked into Dan’s back.
“It’d be best, love, if you just come along quiet,” suggested a whispering voice.