But Blondel wasn't listening. He was very gingerly lifting the bar on the bulkhead door. Before Giovanni could stop him, he'd opened it. There was a sudden deafening roar of voices, and then the door slammed again, with Blondel on the other side of it.

'Hey ...' Iachimo had come round just in time to see. He tried to get to the door before it shut, but he was too late.

'Forget it,' Giovanni said. He was very white in the face, and shaking slightly.

'Giovanni,' Iachimo said, 'did you just see that? He deliberately -'

'I said,' Giovanni interrupted, 'forget about it.'

'Yes, but -'

Giovanni slapped his brother across the face. It worked; Iachimo calmed down a little. 'He's had it, too,' Giovanni said. 'Pity, after all that trouble we've been to, but there it is. Gone. That's it. No more Blondel.'

The three brothers sat there for some time, not saying a word, until at last Giovanni got to his feet and pulled the others to theirs.

'Come on,' he said, 'we've got work to do.'

'Work?' Iachimo looked at him with empty eyes. 'Giovanni, it was horrible, he just -'

'Work,' Giovanni repeated. 'Now.' His mouth quivered slightly. 'Or had you forgotten?'

'Forgotten what?'

Giovanni was grinning now. 'Forgotten that we've insured the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's life for fifty billion livres. Come on, let's find a notary.

They got up and walked slowly down the tunnel. After a while, they all started whistling.

La Beale Isoud, having washed her hair and done her nails, wandered down into the Great Hall of the Chastel de Nesle and plugged in the hyperfax.

There have been many inventions that might have revolutionised the world if only someone had had the vision to invest in them at the crucial moment; one thinks automatically of the frictionless wheel, the solar-powered night storage heater (stores up warm summer evenings for winter use) and the Wilkinson-Geary hingeless door. The hyperfax was no less remarkable, technologically speaking, than any of these; but it differed from them in never having had a chance to be neglected. The prototype and all the blueprints and design specifications had vanished mysteriously from an office in the Central Technology Department of the Oceanian Ministry of Science back in 2987, and the design team were so dispirited by this setback that they forgot all about the project and went back to designing sentient sleeping policemen for the Road Traffic Department. The only working hyperfaxes now in existence are the original prototype, installed in the Chastel de Nesle, and the Mark IIb. n.o.body has ever been able to find out what happened to the Mark IIb.

La Beale Isoud sat down and pressed the necessary keys. The screen flickered for a few moments and bleeped. The word

READY?.

appeared. La Beale Isoud rubbed her palms together and nodded.

CAN WE START NOW?.

La Beale Isoud shook her head. 'Let me just have a think, will you?' she said. 'I'm not sure what I want to send yet.'

YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE.

'Oh, nuts to you,' replied La Beale Isoud. 'Don't fl.u.s.ter me, or I'll never be ready. If you want something to keep you busy, you can print me out all the towns in Europe with a population of over ten thousand.'

There was a high-pitched screaming noise, and a stream of paper flew out of the side of the machine. It took about three seconds.

FINISHED.

It is impossible for eight illuminated green letters to look smug, but somehow the word FINISHED managed it. The hyperfax was, after all, very good at faffing about with the laws of possibility.

'In alphabetical order?' Isoud asked sweetly.

NATURALLY.

'Oh.' Isoud frowned slightly. 'Well done. Now do me the same for every year between 1066 and 2065.

The machine beeped, and then started screaming again. Meanwhile, Isoud scratched her nose and tried to think of something that would be fun to do, but which wouldn't irritate the machine, which was inclined to be touchy.

FINISHED AGAIN.

'Well aren't you clever!' Isoud said. 'Right, I'm all ready to start. Receive mode, please. Bring me ...' She made a random sweep of her subconscious mind '... a tail-feather from the Golden Phoenix of the Caucasus Moun -'

A bell rang, and a silver plate popped out of a door in the front of the machine. On it was a single green feather.

'Oh,' said Isoud. 'You might let me finish my sentence.'

SORRY, I'M SURE.

Isoud picked up the feather, looked at it closely, sniffed it, sneezed and asked, 'Are you sure this is from -' The machine beeped at her. 'Sorry,' she said, 'sorry. It's just it's not, well, very special looking, is it?'

TOUGH.

'I didn't mean to imply -'

DIDN'T YOU, THOUGH?.

'No,' Isoud said patiently, 'I didn't. I just thought...'