chapter EIGHT
Miller, And The Trouble With DreamsIn the helicopter park, voices were raised in anger. One was a rasp: Ben Trask's. And the other was high-pitched, shrill, and threatening. In short, blustering; but the mind behind it held threatening knowledge, certainly.'Try to see sense, man!' Trask was growling, as Jake and Lardis approached the well-lit area where a handful of Branch agents and chopper ground staff stood in a clearing and watched the show.
'Sense? Sense?' Miller was in one of the two helicopters, belted into a passenger seat near the section of aluminium frame that formed both cabin wall-panelling and steps. At present the steps were 'down' and Miller was seated opposite the open door, from where he looked down on Trask outside the aircraft. 'What? Are you telling me my attitude is nonsensical? But I know what I saw tonight, and it wasn't of this Earth. It was intelligent, and alien ... oh, and it was ugly, yes. But I also saw the devastating force that your thugs used against it, which was even more inhuman! So who the hell are you, Mr Trask? Some kind of monster yourself? You and your people: you're not the military, not even Australian. It's obvious to me that you've duped somebody somewhere. As for those poor aliens: whoever they are and wherever they're from, they deserved a lot better welcome than you gave them. This is Earth Year - dedicated to the ecological survival of the planet - and you might well have condemned our world to interplanetary isolation. Worse, we may even find ourselves at war."The precog lan Goodly stepped out of the shadows and spoke to Jake and Lardis. 'This idiot obviously has some kind of bee in his bonnet. "The flying saucers have landed," and all that rot. He seems to think we've been murdering aliens - visitors from another world, that is - out of hand!''Haven't we?' Jake looked at him.'No/ Goodly answered. 'We killed invaders. Visitors don't arrive uninvited, stay, and kill off or enslave the occupiers. But invaders frequently do ... and the Wamphyri always do! Not knowing everything, Miller sees our action tonight as an unprovoked assault, a pre-emptive strike, against "beings" whose intentions hadn't been fully determined. We, on the other hand - knowing the entire story, having been here, or there, before - see it differently. We see tonight's action for what it really was: the only cure for a nightmarish plague that submits to no other antidote.' And meanwhile:'Miller, come down out of there/ Trask was insistent. 'The airplane you're sitting in has been serviced and fuelled for an important mission. You're cutting into a tight schedule/'That's Mr Miller to you!' the other snapped. 'And I'm delighted to be disrupting your vile schedule! What, am I preventing another massacre like the one you organized tonight? Good! My God! How many of these poor people have landed, then?''You see?' Goodly muttered. 'They're "poor people" now. I mean ... is Miller unbalanced or what? He had a ringside seat for tonight's show, yet he's still not convinced!'Lardis had seen and heard more than enough. Freeing himself from Jake's helping hand, he moved up alongside Trask and, in a lowered tone, said, 'Why don't you just drag his arse out of there?'
'I was trying to be diplomatic/ Trask answered under his breath.
'It didn't work/ said Lardis.
Trask nodded and said, 'That's why I sent for you.' Then, turning away, he said, 'Get him out of there. And bring him to the big Ops truck. Maybe his own authorities can convince him, for I certainly can't. Jake, help Lardis after he's got Miller down from there.'
'Why don't I just do it for him?' Jake was surprised. 'The old boy, well... he's old.'
Trask agreed. 'He's full of old ways, too. So don't worry, he'll manage okay, and probably scare Miller half to death into the bargain. Serve the bastard right!' And without another word he went on his way, and lan Goodly went with him.
Meanwhile Lardis had climbed the steps, leaned inside the chopper's open door, and was showing Miller his machete. 'Sharp as a razor/ he said. 'You could shave with this - except you'd get tired holding it up to your face. See these notches in the grip? Twenty-seven of 'em. Twenty-seven exec - er, excecu - er, killings, yes. And all of them were these "people" you seem so fond of. D'you know why I killed 'em?'
'Bloodthirsty old lunatic!' Miller hissed. 'Well, I don't know where you come from - what reservation? - but where I'm from we're educated and civilized. Don't try to threaten me. I don't give a.f*ck for your big knife!' Which was more bluster, for anyone in his right mind would certainly give a f*ck about Lardis's machete. And Miller's language was slipping, too.
In any case it was as if Lardis hadn't even heard him. 'I killed 'em 'cause they eat fat little girls like you/ he said. "Cause they're a contain - er, a contamin - er .. /'Contamination/ said Jake from the foot of the steps.
'Damn right!' Lardis nodded. He put the point of his machete up to Miller's neck inside the nylon seat belt, and continued, 'Now Ben Trask wants you to come down out of there. He was asking you nicely, because he believes in being diplomatic. But me, I don't.'
Miller tried to cringe away from the glittering blade, but his seat belt trapped him in position. 'Are you ... do you dare to threaten me?' he gasped.'Dare to threaten you?' said Lardis, his dark eyes narrowing to slits. 'Hell, no, "Mr" Miller! This isn't a threat but a promise. If you don't move your arse out of there, I'm going to cut your f*cking ears off!' And he made a sudden slicing motion with his machete.Miller screamed aloud, and for a moment Jake thought that Lardis really had cut him. But no, he'd sliced upwards and outwards, and his fine-honed blade had passed with scarcely a hiss through Miller's seat belt above the shoulder. Miller had been straining away from the Old Lidesci; freed from the safety harness, he jerked from his seat in that direction and fell to his hands and knees on the helicopter's floor. Lardis stepped over him, and while the little fat man was still off-balance grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his pants to send him bouncing down the steps. It didn't take too much effort.Miller's blubber saved him from any real hurt, but still he yelped as he hit the dirt; yelped yet again as Jake hoisted him to his feet - only to put him in an arm lock. 'Mr Trask is waiting for you/ Jake told the babbling fat man, as he frogmarched him in the direction of the Operations truck ...
In Ops, Trask stood inside the oval control desk, speaking earnestly into a telephone. 'Yes, I appreciate the lateness of the hour... I understand perfectly, sir, and I agree entirely. But in this case I'm sure that only the highest authority will suffice ... You may believe me when I tell you that this really is as important as your Minister for Internal Security has reported, a matter of the gravest security. I certainly wouldn't have had you brought from your bed for anything less ... He's called Peter Miller, sir - that's "Mr" Miller - our so-called "local liaison". Not very helpful, sir, no. Indeed, completely hysterical, as I've said ... That's what I would suggest, yes, absolutely ... Until we're finished here, yes. That is, of course, if you're in agreement... ? Confinement. I'm
afraid so, yes. Oh, we have the means. But Miller - Mr Miller - is an Australian citizen, sir, and we're not. Which is why I need your ... ?'
Trask looked up, saw Miller's face throbbing with rage and 'righteous' indignation where Jake's hand was clamped over his mouth. The sight of the man, in no way pacified, seemed to convince Trask of the course he must take. And:'Perhaps you'd like to have a word with him in person?' he continued into the phone. 'See for yourself, as it were?' With a nod and a grimace he passed the phone to Miller, at the same time indicating that Jake should release him.Miller shook himself, reeled, and said, 'Eh? What?' Intent on freeing himself from Jake's grasp, he'd taken in very little of Trask's conversation with the unknown other.But now Trask said, It's for you ... someone who wants to know how you're keeping?''Bloody crazy Pommy bastards!' Miller raved. 'And who the hell is this, the Prime-bloody-Minister?' He snatched the telephone from Trask's hand, yelled, 'Whoever you are, the man you were speaking to is not a reasonable human being. He's f*cking British, a f*cking murderer, and I'm a God-fearing, completely innocent f*cking Australian! This is my goddamned country, for Christ's sake, and I demand to speak to the police, to the military, to someone in authority, to ...''... To the Prime-bloody-Minister, perhaps?' said Ben Trask, coolly examining his fingernails. And under his breath, to the others in the trailer: 'Lance Blackmore, whose platform slogan, if I remember correctly, was "Sanity, sobriety, and common decency in speech and spirit." Oh, and something else: he's decidedly pro-British!'Miller's round face was suddenly wobbling, its colour visibly changing, paling. 'Eh?' he gulped. 'Do I what? Your voice? Do I recognize it?' Well, maybe he did ... and maybe not. With his pig-eyes narrowing, he stared suspiciously at the phone - then at Trask - and spat, 'Some lousy f*cking Pommy con man you are! And this is supposed to be Lance bloody Blackmore, right? Oh really? What, at two o'clock in the morning? After what I've seen and been through tonight, you expect me to believe that my own Prime Minister, the Australian Prime-bloody-Minister, would condone ... ?'But the telephone was making loud noises in Miller's ear, and suddenly his face was floppily mobile again. For this time the owner of the now angry voice was fully awake and the voice itself unmistakable. As Miller's flabby mouth fell open, Trask took back the telephone and spoke into it. 'There you have it, Prime Minister. Now you know what we're up against.' And a moment later: 'Yes, certainly, I shall see to it myself. Physical restraint - house arrest, shall we say? - until we're through here? Thank you. And there will be a copy of my report on this phase of the operations on your desk by noon, yes. So far it's -looking good. My pleasure, sir. Thank you once again. And goodnight.' He put the 'phone down.'It was him." Miller gasped, his mouth opening and closing like a stranded fish. 'It really was Lance Blackmoref Clenching his pudgy fists, he glowered at Trask: 'You duped him.' You even duped the Prime Minister.' Who the f*ck are you people?'Trask shook his head in disgust. 'Once your mind's made up it really is made up, isn't it, Miller?' 'That's Mr Miller - ''Oh, shut the f*ck up!' Trask was mad now. He reached over the desk, grabbed the fat man by the front of his sweaty shirt, bunched a fist and drew it back ... then thought better of it. Instead he gave him a shove, sent him reeling back into Jake's arms. And before Miller could start up again:
'You're under arrest. If you protest too loudly I'll have you gagged. If you come on all physical I'll have you bound. If you attempt any interference with the work going on around you, I'll put you under constant surveillance by Lardis Lidesci. And if you're stupid enough to make another run for it, then you'd better be aware I'll deal with you ... far more severely. Have I made myself clear?'
'Why, you ... you!' Miller mouthed, his furious expression speaking volumes more than all of his frothing bluster. And so:'When I turn you over to your Internal Security people in Perth tomorrow,' Trask went on, 'they'll read you the riot act, demand that you sign an Oath of Silence, give you to understand how very much in error you are, and generally threaten you with all sorts of dire things if you so much as mention anything you witnessed as our regional liaison person during this operation. And believe me, Miller, even if they can't make it stick I can. Don't for a moment think I'm going to forget the trouble you've put me to. And something else you should remember: in this modern world of ours distance isn't a problem. I'll be back in the UK shortly - I hope - but I have the longest arms in the world. And if I ever suspect that you're out there somewhere flapping those soft self-righteous lips of yours - 'Trask paused for breath, and Lardis Lidesci said, ' - Then he'll send me to stop you flapping them - perhaps permanently!' The Old Lidesci stood in the narrow doorway, holding his machete to his chest, thumbing its blade and turning it in his hand to make it reflect the Ops Room's lights into the fat man's eyes. 'Twenty-seven notches, remember, Miller? But in your case, I'd just love to make it twenty-eight.'Miller flinched a little but his expression didn't change. And again he blurted, 'You ... you ... you!'
'Obviously I haven't made myself clear,' Trask sighed. And to Jake: 'See if there's a spare bunk room back there, will you? And lock this f*ckhead safely inside it!'
And that was that, for the moment.Finally, they could all get some sleep. To some, a jplessing...But Jake Cutter didn't much care for sleep. For some time now, in fact since his weird escape almost a week ago, sleeping had been a problem. Oh, he could do it, and he could do with it - indeed, his eyes felt heavy from the lack of it - but he didn't want to do it. Because when he went to sleep, that was when the Other woke up. That bloody Other, that one who was there in the back of his mind. And when Jake slept... why, then he couldn't be sure that his dreams were his at all.He hadn't told Ben Trask about it, mainly because he suspected that Trask would be interested. It was the relationship that was developing between them: just as the Head of E-Branch continued to hold things back, so did Jake Cutter. In his book trust was something that could only work if it was mutual.And so he was left to face it on his own, and sleep was a necessity he avoided as best he could while yet recognizing, of course, that it was a necessity. It wouldn't be so bad - or so he told himself - if only he could remember what these troubled dreams of his were about afterwards, when he was awake; or, then again, maybe it would. And maybe that was why he couldn't remember them: because he didn't want to ...Lardis Lidesci sat with Jake a while, heaped a little wood on the dying fire, opened a can of sausages and beans in tomato sauce and ate them cold. The Old Lidesci smacked his lips appreciatively. 'Some of the things in this world ...' he said, then started again, ' - hell no, most of 'em.' - I could do without. But a can-opener and a can of beans ...' he grinned, smacked his lips again, and shook his head. 'Well, these beans and the meat in these sausage things, they're a sight easier on these gnarly old tusks of mine than roasted shad, I can tell you!' 'Shad's a fish,' Jake said, tiredly.
'In this world, sure,' Lardis nodded. 'But the first time I see a fish pull a caravan ... I'll quit drinking plum brandy, and that's a vow/' He held the empty can in one hand, the can-opener in the other, looked at each in turn admiringly, burped and uttered a sigh. 'But since my people don't have cans, what good's a can-opener?' 'You and Trask could drive a man mad,' Jake told him without looking up. 'You come up with this weird stuff right out of the blue, as if I'm supposed to know what the hell you're talking about! I mean, I've seen enough now to know this isn't some gigantic leg-pull, so what the hell is it?'
'Hell's just about right,' Lardis grunted, creaking to his feet. He laid a hand on Jake's shoulder. 'But, son, take my word for it: Ben's not trying to drive you mad, and neither am I. It could be we say these things hoping you'll recognize something, hoping you'll perhaps remember.'There was something in Lardis's gruff old voice that caused Jake finally to look at him. 'But remember what?' he said.And it was as if they stared deep into each other's souls. So that for a moment - just for a moment - it seemed that they had known each other, oh, for quite some time. Then Lardis nodded, and as though he had read Jake's mind said:'Other times, maybe? Other places?''Times and places?' Though Jake tried hard to understand, still it was beyond him. 'Make sense, can't you?' There was no anger now, just a need to know.'A time on Starside, perhaps,' Lardis said, still staring hard at Jake, 'when a man and his changeling son laid waste to the aeries of the Wamphyri? Or a time when the same man lay in the arms of a wonderful woman, whose name was Nana Kiklu. Or a time when we met - met for the last time, that man and I - in the ruins of The Dweller's garden, when it was already far too late for him ...'Lardis's words conjured pictures that came and went. They meant something - Jake knew that much at least - but they were monochrome things; they flickered like the frames of some ancient silent movie ... jerky scenes and twitching puppet figures. And despite that Jake thought he recognized some of them, still it was as if he saw them through someone else's eyes:He looked down on a plain of boulders, lit silver-grey beneath a tumbling moon, where distant spires climbed to a sky of ice-chip stars. And that alien sky was alive with flying beasts whose weird shapes ...! God, those shapes! Designs not of Nature but of Nightmare!As quickly as it had come the scene was gone, disappeared, and another took its place.
A garden - The garden? - where a younger Lardis stood by a wall and gazed upon a scene of desolation. A windmill's crumpled vanes slumped all lopsided atop a skeletal, tottering timber tower; some of the roofs of low stone dwellings hadfalien in; the trout pools were green with algae., and the greenhouses were tangles of shattered frames, leaning or fallen flat, with clumps of bolted vegetation sprouting through their torn plastic sheeting.The pictures continued to flicker and blur, and the oddly young Lardis turned jerkily to stare at Jake ... or at the one gazing back at him through Jake's eyes. But in this not-so-Old Lidesci's eyes there was fear, and in his hands a shotgun that came swinging,frame byjlickeringframe - click, clickety-click - in Jake's direction. And the look in Lardis's eyes was no longer fear, or not entirely, but fear combined with deadly intent! Abruptly, the scene changed:To the straining face of a handsome woman. Handsome, yes, but by no means beautiful - yet beautiful, too, in her way. Her body was beautiful, certainly. And hands (Jake's handsP) on her breasts where they lolled in his face. And her breath.like Jire in his (or some other's?) flared, nostrils, and. the sweat of her passion as slippery and hot on his hands as the wet core of her womanhood where it sheathed his jerking flesh. Nana?'Nana!' Jake exclaimed, as the scene slipped from memory - but his memory? - and he found himself seated by the campfire, his hands before his face, perhaps to fondle (whose? What was her name?) the handsome woman's breasts, anyway, or perhaps to ward off Lardis Lidesci's shotgun. Well, there was the old man, sure enough, but now more surely the 'Old' Lidesci as Jake knew him; and he had no shotgun but a strange satisfied look on his face.'And it's Nana, is it?' Lardis said, with a knowing nod, as Jake's mind swam back into focus and he slowly lowered his trembling hands. 'Took you back a ways, didn't I, my young friend?''What... what did you do to me?' Jake whispered, the words sighing out of him.
'I have an ancestor's seer's blood in me,' Lardis answered. 'It smells things out. And I think that it has smelled you out, too, Jake Cutter. For just as this art of my forebears has been passed down to me, so something has been passed to you. It's in you, man.'
Not in your blood, as it was in Nestor's and Nathan's blood, but buried in your mind and your soul for sure!' And now the look on the Gypsy's face was one of awe as much as anything else.
'It's in me, yes,' Jake agreed, knowing it was so. And then, coming very close to desperation, 'But what is it, Lardis? What is it?'The other shook his head. 'No, no. Ben wouldn't want me to say any more. Indeed, he'd nag that I've already said too much! It will have to take its own good time, that's all. But what's in will out, of that you can be sure. And now, goodnight to you, Jake Cutter.' With which he backed off, and like the wild thing he was faded into the night...Maybe Jake had been too tired to dream, or perhaps he had managed to fight it off this time. Whichever, he had slept deeply, soundly and dreamlessly, and remembered coming awake only once, when he'd thought he'd heard a vehicle's engine starting up. Then he'd eased his cramped body off the chair, zipped himself into a sleeping bag, and curled up right at the edge of the fire's cooling embers - - And now came starting awake as the toe of a boot nudged him and Trask's voice rasped, 'Jake, get up. Have you seen anything of Miller? Obviously not. Well, the fat bastard's run out on us, and in your bloody vehicle! Damn, I thought for a moment you'd gone with him!'Throwing back the mosquito net from his face, Jake unzipped the bag and struggled out of it. Now he remembered the engine starting up, dipped headlamps swinging faint beams out onto the road, and the cautious crunch of tyres on dirt and pebbles. He had thought at the time that someone was being very careful not to awaken the camp ... and he'd been only too right!'My vehicle?' he mumbled, but Trask had already moved on.The entire camp was coming awake, and overhead the shrill, pulsing whistle of a jet-copter cutting its thrusters; the whup - whup - whup of its vanes lowering it down from a sky in which the stars119were only just beginning to fade. And the first faint nimbus of dawn silhouetting the treetops and shining on rising, writhing wisps of mist.'Hell's teeth." Lardis Lidesci groaned where he came stumbling from the direction of the big articulated Ops vehicle. As he came, his trembling right hand gingerly explored a blackened patch of bloodied, matted hair on the left side of his head. It looked ugly, and was made to look worse by a flow of blood that had run down and congealed around his ear. 'Damn the bloody man to hell." he said.Meeting him halfway, Trask grunted: 'Miller?' 'Wouldn't you just know it?' Lardis nodded, then groaned and held his head again. 'I bedded down under the steps at the back of Ops. And I heard something in the dead of night, something breaking. But these damned short nights of yours ... my system's all out of kilter with them ... I'm used to sleeping, not these forty winks that you people take."'You didn't wake up till too late,' Trask grunted. I'm not a damned watchdog!' Lardis snapped. Trask shook his head. Tm not blaming you, Lardis. Hell, I didn't think the crazy bastard had enough guts to make a run for it! So if it's anyone's fault it's mine. I should have posted a guard on him.'lan Goodly came loping, looking more than a little angry with himself. 'The camp's awake,' he said, sourly.Trask looked at him and growled, 'You too? It seems we're each and every one of us blaming himself.''But I'm the precog,' Goodly chewed on his top lip.'Right,' Trask agreed, 'but one man can't foresee it all. And let's face it, if you could anticipate everything that was coming...''... Then I would probably have killed myself a long time ago, yes,' Goodly nodded. 'But damn it, I did see this one!'
'You what?' Jake was wide awake now. 'So why didn't you do something?'
'I saw it in my sleep,' the precog answered. 'Saw it as a dream. Hub! When is a dream not a dream? When it's a glimpse of the future! But even if I'd known what it was, how would I have woken myself up? When you're asleep you're asleep. And the future guards its secrets well.'
'And I thought I was the only one who was having problems with his dreams!' Jake said. At which Trask looked at him very curiously ... but only for a moment. There was too much to do.'Okay,' Trask said, let's forget it. I'm to blame, Lardis is to blame, lan is to blame, and so is Jake - ''Me?' Jake raised an eyebrow.'For leaving the keys in your 'Rover,' Trask nodded. 'Anyway, no one is really to blame. The problem is we've grown too used to dealing with the weird, the abnormal, the monstrous. I mean, if it's mundane we tend to let it slide. And you couldn't ask for anything more mundane than Mr bloody Miller!''I beg to differ,' said Goodly.'Eh?' Trask looked at him.'Can I put you fully in the picture now?' the precog said. And when Trask nodded: 'Miller's a strange one,' Goodly continued. 'When finally I woke up I was worried about my dream. So I went to see if everything was okay. I missed Lardis where Miller must have pushed him back out of sight behind the trailer's steps, but I found the Duty Officer. He's going to be okay, but he, too, had been bashed on the head. He was lying in the corridor outside Miller's bunk with the door on top of him. They're pretty flimsy, those doors. The hinges had been worked loose.'I wasn't sure how long the D.O.'d lain there, so I checked that he was okay then went to see if the Ops Room was safe. The place was working as normal ... incoming, that is. Several messages, waiting for answers, and situation reports coiling up on the floor. There was some Cosmic Secret stuff that the D.O. must have been processing when Miller attracted his attention. Quite a bit of it had been decoded. Then I remembered how you'd asked for background information on Miller. That was there, too, coming out of the printer even as I got there. But there was stuff that should have been there and wasn't ... like a lot of Cosmic Secret stuff from HQ? The printouts had been ripped through and some of the serials were missing. We'll need to get them duplicated, find out what was on them.'Anyway, I grabbed the stuff on Miller, then began to wake people up. Now they're all awake, though I don't see what they can do to help. Oh yes, and here's all the background information on Miller...' He thrust some sheets of printout at Trask.But before Trask could even begin reading, Goodly went on: 'Miller isn't as mundane as you think, Ben. But he is an obsessive nut, and the black sheep of the family. His uncle was big in Western Australian politics, got him work as a minor official in a job where he didn't have a lot to do but could indulge his thirst for power - in however small a way. Why else do you suppose he's the guardian of a million square miles of nothing? To keep him out of the way, that's why. Good grief, and we had to get lumbered with him.' Come to think of it, it's likely that that, too, came about as a result of his uncle's influence.'Okay, his obsessions. Anything...! I mean it: this fellow can get hooked on literally anything! An obsessive personality, it's as simple - or not as simple - as that. But guess what? Back in the late 1970s, early '80s, he saw Close Encounters and E.T. - well, who didn't? But this is Peter Miller we're talking about.' He joined a whacky UFO group, of which he's still a member, and wrote two "Friendly Aliens Are Here" books that didn't get published. Need I say more? No way you could have convinced this bloke that we were in the right last night, Ben. No way at all...''I see,' said Trask. And, after he had given it a moment's thought, 'Do we have any idea how long he's been gone?''Judging by the D.O.'s signatures in the message log, maybe three, three and a half hours,' Goodly answered.
Trask nodded. 'Then he could be anywhere by now. Two hundred and more miles away, for all we know.' So no good our trying to chase him. Very well, here are the priorities. I want Lardis and the D.O. taken care of as best possible. And I want a man - you, lan - in the Ops chair sending out wanted notices to all the police authorities in a two hundred miles radius ... better make it three hundred miles ... or better still, all of Western Australia!' But on second thought: 'No, wait, send out just one, to the Internal Security people in Perth. He's their man, after all, so let them go after him. Oh, and check that they have his profile, too, which ought to scotch any "wild stories" that Miller may be circulating. And finally, I want to know what was on those missing printouts ...'
Trask paused, shrugged, and eventually continued, 'Anyway, there's one good thing come out of all this: I won't be wasting half a. day handing Miller over to the IS people in Perth. And as for right now ... I'm hungry.' He headed for the trench with the back-burner, which someone had fired up. Tm going to have breakfast.'By which time an agent was tending to Lardis, and all over the camp sleepy-looking people were on the move. The jet-copter had landed, and Phillips the pilot was leading a tall, grizzled stranger - strange to Jake, anyway - through the grey predawn light between the trees into the camp's clearing. Trask spotted them as they came striding through thinning ground mist; waving to attract their attention, he diverted his steps in their direction. Jake followed on behind him.'Grahame,' Trask smiled a greeting. 'If it's no the laird himself. It's been quite a few years now.' But while Jake might wonder at Trask's assumed accent, the stranger's seemed perfectly in keeping and went well with the swing of his kilt:'Aye, that it has,' he rumbled through the full grey beard that gave him his grizzled aspect, grinning to display a bar of strong square teeth. 'What, twelve years? How goes it with you, Benjamin? You and yere bleddy gadgets!'They shook hands ... but in the next moment the stranger's searching eyes, those oh so dark eyes of his, transferred their gaze to Jake. 'And this'll be the subject, is it no?'