Savant (28 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“Four, then,” said Branting, turning back to the door he’d come out of only minutes before.

A
TONE WAS
sent to Perrett’s room. It was 13:40 in Mumbai, and she was in a Repast/Recreation cycle. She’d hit her button for Repast only two hours ago, and wasn’t due back on duty for another six hours. She signed in.

“Operator Perrett,” she said.

“Repast cycle terminated, await escort to Service Floor,” said Service.

“What for?”

“Please await your escort.”

Perrett signed out. She cleaned up a little, and changed her robe. If she was being called back into Service, it wasn’t to go back on the Service Floor; the first to be called back in an emergency would be the group completing a Rest cycle. The Global situation might be complicated, but there was no reason for her to be called back to her Workstation. Something else was happening, and Operator Perrett wanted to make sure that she was prepared.

A Police Operator arrived to escort Perrett back to Service.

“Can you tell me what’s going on, Police Operator...?”

“Black,” said the tall, dark female Operator. “I can’t tell you. Apparently this is all ‘need to know’, and the powers that be haven’t deemed it necessary to bring me in on their plans.”

“Oh.”

“I wouldn’t worry. I’m just the escort; I’ve got to hand you off to Ranked Operator Chandar. Do you know him?”

“I know of him,” said Perrett, her small face pinching into a strained expression. “Thanks.”

Black escorted Perrett into the Service building, up to the exterior gallery, via the elevator, and into a small interview room, half a storey below the Service Floor. Perrett had not been in one of the rooms before. It was small and windowless with only one entrance/exit. There was a table in the room, and two chairs, one of which was already occupied by a large, older man with broad white streaks in his dark hair. Perrett didn’t want to assume that the other chair was for her. She turned to Black, but she had already retreated, and the door closed a split second after Perret turned, her mouth half-open to speak to her escort.

“Take a seat,” said the large man, without looking at Perrett.

Perrett pulled the chair out, and smoothed her robe over her behind as she sat down. Stress almost made her appear prim to anyone that didn’t know her, and she hated it.

“What’s happening?” asked Perrett.

“Haven’t a clue,” said the large man, who seemed remarkably unbothered by the whole episode.

“You’re Ranked Operator Chandar?” asked Perrett, tentatively.

“That’s right.”

With that, the vid-con on the wall opposite flickered brightly into life before settling into a drifting snow-scape of white noise. It made Perrett jump.

When the fuzz cleared, the screen blinked into life, showing a small, dark-haired man, sitting in a chair with a pile of documents on a table in front of him. The man appeared to be looking over her left shoulder, and was mouthing words that she couldn’t hear.

The screen blinked again, and this time, she saw a room just like the one she was sitting in, but facing her were two men, one of whom looked ill, and appeared to be being consoled by the other. Again, she couldn’t hear what was being said, but they didn’t appear to be looking at her.

B
RANTING SWITCHED HIS
point of view between the three rooms. He hadn’t introduced himself to Operator Perrett, yet, but he could see her sitting in an interview room with Ranked Operator Chandar. Chandar seemed very relaxed, and Branting made a note to check out his file, in case the man could prove useful in the future, providing, of course, that they had a future.

He then switched to the second interview room at College Ground Zero. The room was empty. The time signature at the top of his vid-con suggested that his third subject was not yet late.

He kept the empty room on screen and waited. As the time signature clicked over to the hour, the door to the empty room opened, and Branting caught his first sight of Metoo. She entered the room alone, as he had requested, and he had three minutes just to look at her, before her escort was due to return. He downloaded those three minutes of her in the room, ready to make the footage available to Goodman and Perrett, if required.

Police Operator Strauss closed the door to the interview room, and stood outside for the allotted three minutes. Then, she tapped lightly on the door, and let herself in.

Metoo appeared to be totally calm. Strauss entered the room, closing the door behind her, and sat down in the vacant chair.

The vid-con blinked and fizzed, and then drifting snow appeared to fill it for three or four seconds. When it had cleared, Metoo could see a small, dark-haired man sitting behind a desk. He smiled out at her.

“Hello, Metoo,” said Branting. “I am Control Operator Branting, and, with your permission, I’ll be interviewing you, today.”

“You’re tired,” said Metoo.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re tired,” said Metoo, looking hard at Branting’s image on the screen. “You’ve been working too hard for too long, and you’re tired.”

Branting sighed. “You’re right, of course, but maybe, if you can see your way clear to helping us out, we can put all this behind us, and I can get some Rest.”

“Maybe,” said Metoo, calm, but still a little wary. “Tell me first, why am I here?”

Branting looked at Metoo, and put down the pieces of paper that he was holding in his hands.

“All right,” he said. “That seems only fair.”

Chapter Forty-Three

M
ASTER
T
OBE AND
Saintout sat on either sides of the kitchen counter. It had taken over an hour, but Tobe had finally indicated that Saintout could sit on Metoo’s stool.

Doctor Wooh sat in the garden room, more than a little frustrated. She kept whispering the first few questions on the test into Saintout’s ear, but he wasn’t responding. To begin with, she thought that perhaps he couldn’t hear her, so she asked him to cough if he was picking her up on his ear-bead. He coughed on cue.

It was almost eleven o’clock before Saintout decided that it was time to ask Master Tobe the first questions and see what happened. He had spent two hours with the Master, more-or-less, and he was already beginning to understand what Metoo went through on a daily basis. He was really beginning to think that the woman must be a saint.

“So, shall we play our little game, then?” asked Saintout.

“What game?” asked Tobe. “Tobe doesn’t like games.”

“Remember the getting to know you game? Come on, it’s easy, and you might have some fun. Ask me anything.”

Tobe looked at Saintout for several seconds without speaking. The silence started to get to Saintout.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll start. What’s your name?”

Tobe looked at Saintout, but the Police Operator still couldn’t read his expression.

“Metoo told you Tobe’s name,” he said. “Tobe knows his name.”

“You should know your name. Silly question really, but I thought we should start with easy stuff. What is your name?”

“Tobe. Master Tobe, the Students say. I call Tobe, Tobe.”

“Now you get to ask me a question,” said Saintout, tapping out a rhythm on the kitchen counter in front of him, unconsciously.

Tobe looked at Saintout, and asked, “Why do you tap?”

Saintout stopped tapping, and thought for a moment. “I don’t know. It’s the William Tell overture... I like it. My turn. What’s your title?”

He already knew the first half-a-dozen questions; Doctor Wooh had been whispering them in his ear for almost two hours. These dull questions had been carefully chosen by a group of mental-health specialists to calibrate something-or-other. Saintout failed to see what good it could do, though, asking this man his name. It was all so undignified.

“Master Tobe, my Students call me,” said Tobe. “I’m their Master, but I’m not your Master.”

“Do you know how clever you are?”

“Yes. That’s two questions. Now I get two questions. Who is ‘William Tell’ and what is ‘Overture’?”

“Music,” said Saintout. He wanted to ask whether Tobe knew anything about music, or even liked it, but Wooh was whispering the next question urgently into his ear.

“How many Students do you have?” asked Saintout.

“Some. Not a lot. Fewer than before. There seem not to be so many. Does Saintout have Students?”

“No. Do you know the names of your Students?”

There was a long pause. Saintout assumed that Tobe was thinking about his answer to the question. He couldn’t read the expression on the Master’s face, and waited for a long time for a reply. He was about to give up, and ask the question again, when Tobe spoke.

“What is the probability that Saintout and Metoo would ask Tobe exactly the same questions?” asked Tobe.

Saintout was unsure what to do. Tobe hadn’t answered his question, but the Police Operator knew enough about what was going on to know that maths was somewhere at the root of it all. Was Tobe giving him some clue about how to approach the global problem? What part did probability play in the crisis? Was maths the problem or the solution?

Doctor Wooh was whispering in his ear again.

“You have to try to ignore what he says and move on to the next question,” she said. “I think you should ask him the question again.” Saintout did nothing for several seconds.

“Ask him, again,” said Wooh.

Saintout reached into his ear, and removed the bead. Tobe watched him. The bead was only a few millimetres across, and Saintout was able to pull it out by the tiny thread that nestled in the crevice above his earlobe, and palm the device without Tobe seeing it. With a bit of luck, Tobe would think that he was simply scratching his ear. He squeezed the ear-bead between his thumb and forefinger, and deposited the useless residue, nonchalantly, in his pocket.

Doctor Wooh could not see what Saintout was doing; she could only watch Tobe, watching Saintout, and his facial expressions weren’t giving anything away.

“What is the probability that Saintout and Metoo would ask Tobe exactly the same questions?” Saintout asked Tobe. “Tell me about probability.”

“Follow me,” said Master Tobe, getting up from his stool, and passing Saintout on the way out of the kitchen. Saintout got up and followed Tobe down the corridor, and in through the door to the Master’s tiny room. Tobe was almost bustling, and seemed, so far as Saintout could tell, to be in his element.

“What does Saintout know about probability?” asked Tobe.

“Nothing, really. I know that it’s a way of working out how likely it is that something will happen.”

“Good,” said Tobe, in a tone that suggested an avuncular teacher. He started to draw a probability tree.

“If I toss a coin, it will land head-up or tail-up,” said Tobe. Saintout wanted to laugh at Tobe’s attempts at the vernacular, but bit his lip, and looked very seriously at the tree diagram. “Obverse or reverse. Each branch represents a toss of the coin, so the first stage is two branches: one for obverse and one for reverse. Each of the two branches has two branches: one each for obverse, one each for reverse. Tobe continued to draw as he explained.

Once he had the basic diagram with four branches, Tobe started to write along the branches.

“What is the chance of getting obverse with the first coin?” asked Tobe.

“It has to be one, or the other,” said Saintout, “so, it’s fifty-fifty.”

“Or a half,” said Tobe, writing 1/2 on the line, and the same for reverse. “So I’ve got an obverse with the first throw, what are the chances of getting an obverse with the second throw?”

“I don’t know,” said Saintout. “Less?”

“Yes, less, but every time the coin is tossed it’s fifty-fifty that it’s obverse.” He wrote 1/2 on the second branch. The chance of getting obverse twice in a row is a half times a half.”

“Which is what? My maths is shocking.”

“Then, Frenchie must be very clever,” said Tobe. “Tobe’s maths is very clever, but it is logical, and not shocking at all.”

Saintout smiled slightly. He tried to hide his responses, because he didn’t want to offend Tobe. He’d completely forgotten that Tobe couldn’t read expressions, and didn’t know how to feel offence. He liked Tobe, and he wanted Tobe to like him.

“A half times a half is a quarter,” said Tobe. “So the chance of getting two in a row of the same, obverse, or reverse is one in four.”

“So the more times you toss a coin the less likely you are to get more heads in a row,” said Saintout. “That’s just common sense, isn’t it?”

“It’s not true.”

“You just showed me that it was true, though.”

“I tried tossing a coin. I tossed it a lot.”

“And, what happened?”

“Fifty-fifty, except not every single time.”

Saintout thought for a moment, more-or-less understanding, but hoping that Master Tobe might continue.

Tobe’s head dropped and he started to giggle into his chest. It wasn’t a man’s laugh, but the noise a clever child might make, or the way a child might laugh at a joke.

“What is it?” asked Saintout, ducking under Tobe’s shoulder height to try to catch his eye.