CUTHBERT DECIDED, AT LONG LAST, THAT HE needed to find the otters, before it was too late, before the dream of finding Drystan ended. The sounds and sights of battle were growing around him. He managed to find one of the pedestrian tunnels that led to the northern areas of the zoo. The green painted line went right into the tunnel. Three strips of tiny blue bioluminescent lights dimly lit the way. Cuthbert felt strengthened when he saw the pastiche of Paleolithic cave art that covered the tunnel’s walls. Rusty orange-colored aurochs—a kind of extinct cattle—trotted along with black hooves high, as though eternally jumping something. The zoo fences—that’s what they were jumping, he thought. They were free, these big orange bulls.
If things got very bad, here was a good place to hide, he thought. As he exited, he saw one of the ancient red phone boxes off to the side of the path, and he hesitated.
“OK, Dr. Bajwa,” he said aloud. He went into the box. There were only a few such call boxes left in Britain, and the zoo kept it as a kind of nostalgic throwback for tourists. It was audio-only and featured a real working handset. It offered no WikiNous interface—just direct audio Opticalls to people. The overhead light remained on around the clock. The box was strangely pristine inside—none of the things you could find on the kind of phone box Indigents used for cheap WikiNous interfacing—no stickers or cards for prostitutes, no smell of urine, no chewing gum wads pressed all over the glass panels. It also took coinage, something only older people, like himself, tended to use.
He picked up the handset. It felt strangely big and unwieldy. He dug the ￡1.30 out of his pocket and, unnecessarily, inserted all of it into the Opticall coin slot with a shaking hand. He uncrinkled the piece of paper Dr. Bajwa had given him with his WikiNous cryptograph. He punched it in with shaky hands. The phone rang twice and a woman with a singsongy voice answered, “NHS élite Doctors’ answering service. May I help you?”
“Ar. Tell Dr. Bajwa I’m . . . in the zoo. I’ve come for the otters and all.”
There was a coughing sound, then the woman said, “Excuse me, sir. What’s your name, sir?”
“Cuthbert Handley—savior of animals.”
“Um, well. Handley, is it? Can you spell that, surname first?”
Cuthbert did.
“You’re Dr. Bajwa’s patient?” she said. “This is an emergency? Dr. Sarbjinder Bajwa?”
“Arr, ma’am.” He was slurring again. “Tell him a’m in the zoo right now. Am yow g’ttin’ this?”
“It’s all going down,” said the woman. “I believe the doctor’s down in Kent for the weekend—flying his solarcopter or some sort.”
All at once, Cuthbert fell backward, pulling the bright yellow handset down with him. Such was his weight that the handset, cord and all, detached like an old banana picked off a bunch. The door of the box flung open and he found himself halfway in and half-out on the ground. He felt dizzy. He threw the phone away and got back to his feet, using his big cutters to help himself stand up, like a crutch.
“There,” he said. “It’s done.”
And then he heard them, reminding him of his task—the otters, surely:
Gagoga maga medu, gagoga maga medu,
Remeowbrooow, Cuthber-yeow,
Anglish water ish arg forever groad,
Cuthber-yik-yik-yik-yik, mray for rugrus!
Gagoga maga medu meant what? He did not know, he thought, and he might never know, but the rest he could work out. It meant, in otterspaeke, Remember, Cuthbert, English water is our forever road, St. Cuthbert pray for us! Three separate thoughts, gurgling and ungilled. It was the end of meaning at the moment just before drowning. For Cuthbert if for no one else, the nonsense meant exactly that there was still reason to hope in Britain in 2052.
“Arr, I’m coming,” Cuthbert said aloud. “Sweet, sweet boys, a’m coming at last.” He started walking again.
A police solarcopter’s spotlight found him and trained its shaky beam on his every move, and with the light from the heavens streaming down, Cuthbert reckoned time was running out.
He began to hobble along more quickly, toward the otters, but after a minute of pressing on like this, he found he was lost and out of the spotlight—his normal state, really. The solarcopter’s pilot was inexperienced and applied too much pressure to one of his rudder pedals, and the spotter lost Cuthbert and couldn’t seem to find him again, for now.
“Shit,” Cuthbert said. “Thank god.”
He wished he could find one of the zoo’s map-signs. He did remember that the otters were located at coordinates “2B,” which Cuthbert interpreted as a kind ontological code.
Through shivering lips, he said, “Or not to be—that’s the palaver.”